Vacillations of Poppy Carew (32 page)

Swinging round to scan the wood towards the farm Calypso remembered with amusement that her son Hamish, summoned from the Highlands, had believed her dying but Willy, smuggling a tiny Mrs Future into the ward under his jacket, had mocked his older cousin saying ‘Death blew her a kiss’, making her laugh before being discovered by a nurse and sent packing.

‘No sign,’ said Calypso to the dog as she adjusted her binoculars to watch Willy’s stockman going about his work with the pigs, ‘no sign yet of the lovers.’ She put away the field glasses, went down through the wood to lie on her garden chair, soak up the last of the sun’s warmth beating up from the stone-flagged terrace, listen to the pigeons and the distant sound of Willy’s bantam cocks crowing from the farm. She was none too pleased when, comfortably settled, eyes closed, face lifted to the sun, she heard a car arrive on the far side of the house.

I shall not answer the bell, she told herself, but the dog, giving her away, rushed barking into the house and out to the front to greet the visitor rapturously.

‘Bloody animal.’ Calypso lay still, hearing the bell ring, keeping her eyes closed, hoping whoever it was, seeing nobody but the dog, would, with luck, go away.

‘Calypso?’ a woman called. ‘Are you there?’

Calypso did not answer.

‘Your dog betrayed you.’ Ros Lawrence came out on to the terrace through the French windows. ‘Am I disturbing you?’

‘Yes,’ said Calypso, ‘you are.’

‘You are not doing anything,’ said Ros, confirming some people’s opinion that she was not all that bright. ‘I’m sorry,’ she pulled up a chair, ‘I have come to you for help. For help,’ she repeated distractedly, ‘help.’

‘You should know that I am the most unhelpful person of your acquaintance.’ Calypso stressed the last word, lay looking up at her visitor who, although seated, gave the uncomfortable impression of hovering above her.

‘And your advice.’ Ros looked down at Calypso, irritatingly reposeful. ‘Your advice.’

‘I never give advice.’

‘I know. Most people volunteer, press it, that’s why I have come to you.’

‘Oh Lord.’ Calypso swung her legs off her long chair. ‘Come indoors.’ She did not wish to share the loveliness of her terrace. Ros followed her into the drawing room. Relieved of her weight, the wicker chair on which she had briefly sat creaked in relief.

‘Sit down if you can find a clean space.’ Calypso waved at chairs and sofa. ‘Dog hairs everywhere, mud, pig mess—’

‘Shall I go away?’ Ros drooped. She looked round Calypso’s beautiful speckless room, no trace of dog hair anywhere. ‘I can see I’m not wanted, not welcome.’ She accepted the hint, refused to take it.

‘I’ll get you a drink, sit down.’

Calypso left the room, followed by the dog. ‘I shall send you to the Lost Dogs Home,’ she hissed at the wagging animal. ‘You may like uninvited guests, casual droppers-in, I don’t. I shall send you back to Hamish, he had no business to give you to me. He knows I don’t like dogs. Why must he interfere? I don’t need guarding, I don’t need protection, you are too soppy anyway. I never had all these people charging in before you came. I lay doggo until they went away.’ Resentfully Calypso put the whisky decanter and glasses on a tray, filled a jug of water, plopped in ice. She carried it back to the drawing room where Ros sat perched on the edge of an armchair in woeful silence.

‘Strong or weak?’ Calypso asked.

‘Strong,’ said Ros, ‘please.’

Calypso poured the drinks, handed Ros hers, sat opposite, sipped, waited. Ros, recently remarried after being widowed, was now presumably regretting it.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me what the matter is?’ Ros spoke with barely suppressed agitation.

‘No,’ said Calypso. ‘You may later regret telling me.’

‘I have to tell someone. Henry won’t listen, he says—’

Calypso sipped her drink. The dog now sat with his back to her, watching Ros with more sympathy than she. She kicked him gently with her toe. There was much to be said for the Catholic Church, a captive priest in a confessional under holy oath of secrecy, she thought, watching the younger woman. If not the new husband what could it be? She was not overly interested.

‘I have made a complete and utter fool of myself and alienated my son,’ cried Ros in violent anguish, ‘my only child.’

‘Easy done.’ (So it’s her son.) Calypso remembered remarks she would have rather left unsaid, made over the years to Hamish. ‘We are all guilty.’

‘He’s my only child, Calypso. It’s Fergus, you know what his father was like, Fergus is very like him.’

‘Of course, Fergus.’ The father had been notoriously irritable but who could blame him, married to Ros. ‘How is he? I went to Bob Carew’s funeral. I have asked Hamish to have him and those super horses for me when it’s my turn. I was impressed, I hope he will be successful. The times call for someone like him.’ Calypso forced herself to be kind. ‘He has style.’

‘Thank you.’ Ros drank her whisky, gazed round the room, jealously admiring the older woman’s possessions, wondered now why she had come, wished she hadn’t. Her pain returned with a rush. ‘What am I to do?’ she shouted, almost choking in agitation. ‘What—am I—to do?’

Calypso raised her eyebrows.

Ros finished her drink, put down the empty glass, half rose to go. ‘I should not have come to bother you.’ She sank back in the chair.

‘No bother,’ Calypso lied politely.

Ros leant towards Calypso. ‘Fergus has a child,’ she enunciated painfully, ‘it’s there in the house he’s rented from the Carew girl. He has the house and the stables, his horses, the hearse of course, and three girl grooms—Henry let him use his name as a reference for the Carews’ lawyer—one of the girls has a baby!’ Ros waited for Calypso to say something. Calypso stayed quiet. Ros continued: ‘It’s beautiful, quite beautiful. The mother is Mary Mowbray, you know who I mean, her father Nicholas used to breed horses.’ Again Ros waited for Calypso to say something. Calypso, no baby lover, made no comment. Ros went on. ‘The child is called Barnaby. He is lovely, Calypso. Fergus refers to him as Jesus, it’s a disgusting joke. You look puzzled?’

‘I am.’

‘Apparently the mother Mary went to Spain and returned with the baby. She had a friend there called Joseph.’

Still Calypso remained silent.

Ros gasped, trying to restrain tears. ‘It’s the spitting image of Fergus at the same age and of his father as a baby. I am not inventing,’ Ros shouted as though Calypso had accused her. Her tears began to fall.

Calypso reached for a box of tissues from the table beside her, handed one to Ros, on second thoughts passed her the box.

‘Thanks.’ Ros wiped her eyes, pulled a bunch of tissues from the box. ‘The thing is, Fergus seemed to have no idea. The girl had not told him. Can you believe it? I feel, oh God, I feel such a fool. I shouted at him, told him the baby is his, bellowed at him about the strength of the Furnival genes—’

Calypso burst out laughing. ‘Sorry.’ She swallowed her laughter. ‘Sorry.’

‘Well may you laugh,’ cried Ros in anguish. ‘I would laugh if this happened to anyone else, but it’s my grandchild. I don’t suppose Fergus will ever speak to me again. Why couldn’t I keep my trap shut?’

Why indeed, thought Calypso, interested in spite of herself.

Still Ros wept. ‘Henry is no help, he says a century ago there might have been dozens of tiny Furnivals scattered round the parish. Thank God for contraception. What am I to
do
?’ Blowing her nose, Ros stared at Calypso.

‘Quite a surprise for Fergus,’ said Calypso dryly.

‘It was, it was. What am I to do?’

‘Oh, don’t ask me,’ said Calypso, bored by the repetitions. ‘I can’t give advice. I try hard not to. I remember how tiresome and interfering my family were when I was young. Unsought advice is against my principles.’

‘I’m seeking it—’

‘Fergus isn’t.’

‘You are
not
helping me,’ cried Ros as though Calypso had offered to. ‘I know I should not have interfered but I did—I did.’

Surreptitiously Calypso looked at her watch. She always meant to time Ros’s stream of complaint. This was a good opportunity. No need to actually listen, just sit and let it flow, she had heard the gist; Ros could only repeat what she had already told with embellishments.

As far as I can remember, Calypso thought, on previous occasions it took a good half hour before she ran out of puff when she was complaining about Fergus’s father, his foul temper and infidelities. One had a certain sympathy for the man. Calypso lowered her eyes, suppressed a smile. Of course this was a little different. The girl Mary was a character worthy of investigation and Fergus must be wonderfully short of vanity not to recognise himself in the child. There were men without vanity; Hector, for instance, had always been a man unaware of his looks. Ah, Hector, Calypso slid into thoughts of Hector. Hector’s lovely voice. Now Ros, pitching into her lament, had a very trying voice. She had had enough of this feast of boredom.

I wish she’d go away, thought Calypso, shrinking from Ros’s dilemma, retreating into her protective thoughts. (We should have planted more sycamores, she thought, they are underestimated trees, they grow fast.) Why should I get involved with Ros’s troubles? I hardly know her. I can’t help her, it’s bad enough to have to have Willy chasing wild goose after Poppy, he may get badly hurt, I shall mind that very much, my equilibrium will be upset. What a bore this woman is. ‘Have some more whisky.’ Grudgingly she remembered her manners.

‘No, no thanks. I must go. You’ve been very kind, I knew you would help.’

‘Not kind at all.’ Nobody ever accused Calypso of lying.

‘I suppose you’re right.’ Ros attributed words to Calypso. ‘I have said too much. I will shut up and not interfere, let them work it out for themselves as you say. You are so right. I knew you would help me. You do though admit it’s hard for me—my first grandchild?’

As far as you know, thought Calypso. ‘Oh, Willy.’ She jumped up as Willy came into the room. ‘When did you get back?’ Her relief at seeing him conjoining with the relief from the embarrassment of Ros showed plainly in her smile.

‘Just arrived,’ said Willy kissing her cheek. ‘May I have a drink? Oh hullo.’ He noticed Ros crouching now like a frightened partridge in the armchair, tissue at the ready. ‘How do you do. Am I interrupting?’

‘I am just leaving.’ Ros sprang hastily up, put aside the box of tissues. ‘I’m on my way.’ She was embarrassed. ‘Thank you, Calypso, for all your help.’

‘It was nothing,’ said Calypso gravely.

‘I’ll see you out.’ Willy walked through the house with Ros, watched her drive away. ‘What was all that about?’ He returned to his aunt.

‘Trouble.’ She put Ros aside. ‘Are you alone?’

‘Alone.’ Willy helped himself to a drink, patted the dog who was craving attention, sat in the chair vacated by Ros, stretched out his long legs, stared into his glass. Neither of them spoke.

The dog lay down with a sigh, laid his nose on his paws, watched.

Calypso waited.

Willy put his drink aside, sat forward with his face in his hands. ‘I had hoped,’ he said presently, ‘to bring her back here. I thought perhaps you would have her to stay, she didn’t seem to have any place she wanted to go. I thought you wouldn’t mind. I thought she’d agree to this—’ He stretched out his hand, stroked the dog’s head. ‘But she changed her mind, decided not to, refused.’

‘M-m-m,’ murmured Calypso, ‘m-m-m.’

‘Well,’ said Willy, jumping up, ‘better see to the Futures,’ false heartiness in his tone.

Calypso winced. ‘Come to supper presently?’ she suggested.

‘Another night, but thank you. I have much to do after being away.’

‘Of course. You must see to the Happy Hams. I haven’t heard of anything going wrong but you must check.’

‘I am poor company.’ Willy apologised.

‘Take the dog. He welcomes uninvited guests. He needs a run, he’s in disgrace.’

Willy bent to kiss her, started to speak, thought better of it, walked away, his shoulders despondent.

‘Go,’ Calypso said to the dog, ‘run after him, you dumb animal, he can do with your company. Go.’

The dog jumped up and ran after Willy, catching up with him on the edge of the wood. Calypso called, ‘Take the dog, keep him for the night.’

Willy looked back across the garden. ‘I remembered Mrs Future’s aunt,’ he shouted across the flower beds, ‘and what happened there.’

Reminded of Mrs Future’s aunt’s malign act, Calypso laughed. ‘So?’

‘So I left her alone. I was afraid of rushing her.’

Willy and the dog disappeared into the wood. Calypso, resuming her place on the terrace, lay listening to the pigeons on the roof, the hum of the bees among the Michaelmas daisies. It was at odd moments like this that she most missed her dead husband whose family genes she thought with amusement seemed stronger in his nephew Willy than in his son Hamish. She had taken it for granted that Willy would find Poppy, hoped he would bring her back with him. She was curious to hear what had happened but too wise to ask. She did not need Ros’s example to stress the inadvisability of family interference, however well meant.

I
N THE TRAIN FROM
Gatwick to Victoria, in the taxi to her flat, Poppy was ashamed of her vacillation. In Algiers she had agreed without reservation to Willy’s suggestion that she should stay with his aunt. Looking out of the taxi window on to the wet streets of London and the umbrella-shuffling crowds, she felt again how easy to do what Willy suggested.

But in the plane things had become different. She had felt she needed to distance herself from him, go back to the flat she now hated, be alone to decide without pressure what, if anything, she wanted next.

In Algiers, wrapped about by the storm, she had jumped headlong into rapturous sexual pleasure.

In the foreign streets she had told Willy more about Edmund than she ever would in England. The circumstances of their meeting, the intimacy born of her injuries, the odd manner of their being together, had made her talk as strangers proverbially do in trains, safe in that there will be no future contact.

The trouble was that Willy had no intention of letting her go, for him their being together was no casual affair. If she only wanted him as a pleasure man he would rather back out than know her on such terms. ‘All or nothing,’ he had said. They had exchanged angry words on the plane sitting with trays of uneaten food in front of them, cocooned by the hum of engines, too close in their seats, unable to move apart, their very proximity a hindrance to calm discussion.