A Village Affair (14 page)

‘Nothing's
happened.
Before I was twenty I slept with boys and girls – girls first of course because of boarding school – and I liked girls better. Nothing happened to me unless you can call the discovery of preferring girls a happening. I've had two proper affairs, one with a writer in London and then this one, with an American lawyer whom I met through my first lover and some libel action over a book of hers. The first affair was really better because we were more equal and I don't like being dominated. If I did, I'd probably like sex with men more. I got stuck in the New York business. I was very bowled over by all the glamour and Concorde and skiing in Aspen and stuff, and by the time that had worn off I was up to my neck, New York job, amazing apartment and this besotted woman. All her friends said she'd kill herself if I left, so I stayed. And then I realized that if I didn't leave, I'd kill
myself
, so I went. And she did try to kill herself but they got her to hospital in time and pumped her stomach and the lover who'd preceded me in her life and always wanted her back anyway has taken her to Florida.'

Natasha came stumbling up the field to say that James had got river inside his Wellingtons.

‘Tell him to take them off and play in bare feet.' Alice was astonished her voice should sound so ordinary.

‘And Charlie's eating all kinds of things. We thought we saw him eat a ladybird—'

Clodagh laughed.

‘Did he spit it out?'

‘No. He sort of crunched it—' Alice began to get up.

‘Perhaps we should go back—'

‘No,' Natasha pleaded. ‘Please not yet. We're on a voyage.
Please
.'

She went dancing back to the fallen tree. Alice followed her with her eyes, devouringly.

‘Did you love her?'

‘Of course,' Clodagh said. ‘At the beginning. Or at least, I was in love.' She looked at Alice, smiling. ‘Are you suggesting I'm only in it for the sex?'

‘Of
course
not—'

‘Alice,' Clodagh said, and her voice was warmly affectionate, ‘you don't know a thing about a thing, do you?'

Alice said nothing.

‘A husband, three children but you aren't even awake. You haven't one clue about how wonderful you are, nor how to live—'

Alice's voice was choked with angry tears.

‘Don't be
cheap
. Living isn't your jet-setting, sexually indulgent merry-go-round. Living is getting on with things, bearing things, making things work—'

‘Oh my God,' Clodagh said. She put her hands over her face. After a while she took them away again and said, in the gentlest voice, ‘My poor little Alice.'

‘I'm not poor. And don't patronize me.'

‘Believe me,' Clodagh said, ‘that's the last thing I want to do.'

Alice began to rip up single grasses, like tearing hairs out of a head.

‘It's
you
who don't know what life is for. You don't live, you just pass the time. You only want to enjoy yourself—'

‘Ah,' said Clodagh, quite unperturbed, ‘the puritan ethic yet again, I see.' She stretched across and very gently but firmly took hold of Alice's agitated hand. ‘Alice. If I'm so wrong and you are so right, why are you so cross and unhappy?'

‘I'm not—'

‘
Alice.
'

Alice took her hand away and wound her arms round her knees and put her head down on them. She said, muffled, ‘I've tried so hard—'

‘Too hard, perhaps.'

‘You couldn't call my children not living properly—'

‘I don't. But you won't have them for ever and you'll
always
have you.'

‘Sounds to me like the usual live-for-yourself pseudo-psychological American claptrap—'

Clodagh let a little pause fall and then she stood up so that her voice should come down to Alice from a distance.

‘If you aren't happy with yourself, you aren't any use to anyone else. And I should think that should satisfy even your masochistic puritanism.'

And then she went down the slope to the children, who were delighted to see her and let her come on board their ship and sail over the grassy sea. Above them, in a perfect turmoil of fury and relief and misery and excitement, Alice sat where Clodagh had left her and cried copiously into her folded arms.

When they returned to the house at teatime, Clodagh carrying Charlie and Alice the picnic basket, they found Cecily in the drive, in her car, reading a magazine. Natasha and James were entranced at this and rushed forward with pleased screams but Alice felt, for the disconcerting first time, less pleased than she expected to. She said, ‘My mother-in-law,' to Clodagh and went forward behind the children.

Cecily got out of the car all smiles and hugs. She took no notice of Alice's wariness and hugged her too, with her usual warmth, and kissed Charlie and said hello to Clodagh. She had never done this before, never arrived on impulse without warning – it was one of her rules – but then she had never felt so out of touch, so – so
excluded
from Alice's life as she had recently. Even given Alice's precarious state of mind, the telephone had been abnormally silent and when she had, after intense self-examination, tried to ring, there was either no one there or only Gwen who answered the telephone with an affectation that set Cecily's teeth on edge – ‘Mrs Jordan's residence' – and was then elaborately, unnecessarily, discreet about Alice's whereabouts.

‘Darling, I should have rung—'

‘Not at all,' Alice said politely.

Clodagh said, ‘I'll go in and put the kettle on,' and went into the house with Charlie on her hip and the others dancing behind her. Cecily watched her go.

‘Is she an Unwin from the Park?'

‘Yes. The youngest.'

Cecily wanted to say that Clodagh seemed very much at home but stopped herself. She put an arm round Alice.

‘It is lovely to see you. I've been longing to see how you were getting on with the house. And I thought, heavens, the holidays are nearly over—'

‘We've been so busy,' Alice said. ‘I don't know why moving should take up all one's life, but it seems to.'

‘And what about some help?'

‘I'm fine,' Alice said.

‘And a holiday?'

‘Honestly,' Alice said, and there was an edge of impatience to her voice, ‘we don't need one just now.'

‘There's Martin,' Cecily said, dropping her arm and catching Alice's tone, ‘as well as you.'

Alice began to move towards the house.

‘Come in and have tea.'

The kitchen looked undeniably a happy place. There was a blue jug of yellow tulips on the dresser, and on the table James and Natasha were putting out plates and mugs haphazardly on a yellow flowered cloth. Charlie was already in his high chair gnawing on a carrot, and by the window, still in her wizard's cloak, Clodagh was slicing and buttering currant bread. There was a kettle on the Aga and the top half of the stable door was open. In a Windsor armchair by the fire a tabby kitten lay asleep on a blue and white cushion. It was all entirely as it should be and the sight of it caused Cecily's heart to sink like lead.

She had paused, on her way to The Grey House, at the Pitcombe shop and post office. She was not quite sure why she had done this, nor why she had said vivaciously to Mr Finch, ‘I am on my way to The Grey House! I am Mr Jordan's mother, you see.'

Mrs Macaulay had been in the shop at the time and so had Stuart Mott's wife, Sally. Mrs Macaulay had beadily taken in Cecily's clothes – very good but my, wouldn't it be a treat to have that much to spend – and Sally Mott, who was tired of having Stuart out of work and under her feet all the time, came boldly forward and said she wondered if Mr Jordan could do with some gardening help because Stuart could probably spare him a bit of time if . . .

Cecily was delighted. The suggestion suited her every wish to help and it gave her a purpose in arriving at The Grey House unannounced and clearly not just passing. She took Sally's telephone number, bought two tins of dog meat – not the brand, Mrs Macaulay noticed, that her girls favoured – and a box of chocolate buttons, and went out of the shop leaving a breath of ‘Arpège' behind to daze Mr Finch. He took the washing powder and the packet of aspirin that Mrs Macaulay held out to him and heard his mouth say, ‘Will that be all?' While his heart sang Swinburne:

Now, Cecily put the chocolate buttons down on the table beside the milk jug. James's eyes bulged with immediate desire and Charlie, using his carrot as a baton, pointed at them with it and mewed urgently. Clodagh stopped buttering and with a winglike swoop of her cloaked arm vanished the box into her pocket.

‘After tea.'

‘Now, now,
now
,' said James.

‘
After
tea.'

‘
Now
—'

‘
James
,' Alice said, ‘you know the rules perfectly well.'

‘So sorry,' Cecily said stiffly. She looked round the room. ‘You've made this so pretty. And how lovely to have a kitten.'

Natasha slid into a chair next to her grandmother.

‘He's called Balloon because of his tummy. Clodagh says he's a lousy kisser.'

The other side of the table, James began to giggle.

‘Personally,' Natasha said, ‘I don't kiss him a lot because his breath is fishy.'

‘I'm glad to hear it,' Cecily said.

‘There's hens,' James said.

‘Hens, darling?'

Alice said, ‘We've got a dozen pullets. White Leghorn crossed with Light Sussex. Clodagh knows about hens and we are learning.'

‘They can't do eggs yet,' James said, ‘but they can when they're bigger.'

Cecily eyed Clodagh.

‘What a knowledgeable young woman—'

Clodagh put the plate of buttered bread on the table and then went over to the Aga and said something quietly to Alice who was making the tea. Alice laughed and said something inaudible back. They came back to the table together and began in a practised mutual way to give the children their tea, cutting up Charlie's bread into little squares, putting honey on James's, pouring milk into mugs. Alice gave Cecily a cup of tea and sat down beside her.

‘Darling,' Cecily said, ‘I think I've found you a gardener this afternoon. Someone called Stuart Mott—'

‘He's a rogue,' Clodagh said.

‘All gardeners are rogues,' Cecily said, ‘more or less.'

‘This one's more.'

‘But does he know about gardening?'

‘I think he must. He's mad about prizes, marrows like hippos, yard-long runner beans. If you lick off all the butter, Charlie Jordan, you will simply have to eat your bread bare.'

Smiling angelically, Charlie laid the bread on his highchair tray and began, with tiny, neat fingers, to pick out the currants. Alice, Cecily noticed, had hardly spoken.

‘Darling. Mightn't he be worth a try?'

Alice said slowly, ‘I'll suggest it to Martin—'

‘I
long
for you to come down to Dummeridge. The potager is having its first real spring and as you were in at its conception—'

‘Alice,' Clodagh said, ‘are you a
gardener
?'

‘You know I'm not—'

‘Alice painted the most lovely frontispiece for my book. She was a kind of inspiration—'

‘You must beware of my mother,' Clodagh said, stretching over to rescue a sticky knife that had fallen from Natasha's plate. ‘She thinks you are a gardening genius but she's quite unscrupulous in bending people to her will. You'll find yourself talking to the Evergreen Club, none of whom can hear a word you say.'

Cecily turned to Alice who was cradling her cup in both hands and drinking dreamily out of it.

‘When can you come? Come for the night. Bring everyone, before the end of the holidays.'

‘It would be lovely,' Alice said remotely.

‘I've started the recorder,' Natasha said to her grandmother. ‘I can play “London's Burning” after only two lessons. Will you come and hear me?'

‘Yes,' Cecily said unhappily, ‘I should love to.'

She got up. Alice said, ‘Five minutes only, Tashie.'

Natasha took Cecily's hand and led her out of the room. When the door had closed behind them Cecily had a sudden angry, irrational feeling that everyone in the kitchen was bursting with suppressed laughter the other side of it.

‘Do you,' she said to Natasha, despising herself for doing it, ‘do you like Clodagh?'

‘We adore her,' Natasha said, ‘
and
I can play the first two lines of “Frère Jacques” too—'

‘And does she come here a lot?'

‘Oh, every day. And when Mummy was doing the shop she took us on a walk and got us some frog spawn. It is disgusting. Of course, a lot of interesting things
are
disgusting. Aren't they?'

‘Yes, darling,' Cecily said sadly. ‘Yes, I'm afraid that they are.'

When Cecily returned to Dummeridge that night, Richard was at home. She had known he would be and although the knowledge hadn't in any way affected her impulsive drive to Pitcombe, she discovered that she was surprisingly pleased to find him when she got back. He was sitting in the drawing room with an open briefcase and a whisky and soda, and when she stooped to kiss him he said, ‘What's the matter?'