Harnessing Peacocks (10 page)

H
AVING WATCHED SILAS TAKE
off in the helicopter Hebe went back to her car to drive to Wiltshire. Silas would slip her from his thoughts until it was time to come home. I will never know what has gone through his mind, she thought. I love him but I seldom know what he is thinking. She wished she possessed the easy relationship some women had with their children. Hannah never bothered about what she said to Giles. Yesterday there had been a row because Giles said he’d been told his father was a bore and Hannah had shouted, ‘He’s all sorts of things I don’t like but he’s not a bore. Can you imagine me marrying a bore?’ making it clear by her denial that it was true. She had taken the suggestion as an insult to her intelligence and Silas, listening and watching, had not asked, as other boys would, ‘Was my father a bore?’ There was no father with whom odiously to compare, for Hannah, when angry with Giles, would often cry, ‘Giles, you are just like your father.’

I should have invented one, Hebe thought, as she drove towards Mrs Fox in her elegant house and lovely garden, but it is now too late. She concentrated her thoughts on Mrs Fox and what meals she would cook during the next two weeks.

In Salisbury she stopped to stretch her legs, parking the car and strolling round the Close to look at the beautiful houses, wondering what sort of people deserved these privileged surroundings. Were they especially virtuous or just very rich? She crossed the grass to the cathedral to sit and rest before the last lap of her journey. She resented having to pay to go in, feeling it made the atmosphere secular. Influenced by the secularity she took biro and paper from her bag and wrote Hippolyte, Mungo, Terry, Louisa, Lucy, Maggie, crossing out Terry and Maggie. The sums represented by the list of clients amply covered the cost of Silas’ education. No need these days of help from Amy or to accept the frequently offered help from Bernard. She let her mind dwell on Bernard, grateful that she could love him without payment. From now on she would be free too of the financial tie to Terry, and Maggie Cook-Popham could be dropped.

On her way back to her car she sighted a hat shop and stopped to stare. Lucy Duff had told her that when young if depressed she would buy a hat to cheer herself up, an infallible cure, advised Mungo’s ma, for the mopes. I’ll give it a try, thought Hebe, joking with herself, and she went into the shop. If tempted she might spend some of Terry’s bonus.

At the sight of her the owner of the shop felt a lift to his despondent heart. What a head to bedeck. Laying down the
New Statesman
he rose from his chair.

‘May I look round?’ Hebe saw a young man carelessly assembled. Short legs, body leant back from the hips, large hands at the end of long arms, receding hair curling at the back, hazel eyes set in a face which resembled a hare with a long indented upper lip.

‘Please look round, yes, do look—’ He stepped back, knocking over a wastepaper basket, sweeping the
New Statesman
off his desk. ‘Do you read this?’ He retrieved the magazine, hoping to engage her in talk.

‘Not very often.’ Hebe looked away. He seemed nervous. She studied the hats, at first glance disappointingly Conservative Fete or Conservative Conference, depending on the season they were destined for. A second look revealed rogues in the gallery, a beret, a red hat with a wide brim. She picked it up.

‘I’m afraid that’s not for—’ The shopkeeper moved forward anxiously. ‘It’s just for—’ He seemed unable to finish his sentences. ‘But if you—’

Hebe put on the hat and studied herself in the glass.

‘You look marvellous in—of course if you’d like to—I mean it’s not for sale because it’s—’ He spoke like what Lucy Duff would call a gentleman, what ‘they’ would call public school, though public school vowels were not always like ‘theirs’ any more. The mirror reflected people passing in the street. Hebe, hands up to tilt the hat, froze. She should have remembered.

‘It’s much best worn straight.’ The young man had got a whole sentence out. ‘It belonged to my great-aunt, she bought it in 1939 at the outbreak of—’

But Hebe was hearing ‘long-haired yobbo,’ ‘dirty feet’, ‘Communist,’ ‘workshy’, ‘whore’, ‘abortion’, ‘black’, ‘who, who?’ Her eyes followed them as they walked down the street, that familiar limp his, the bag carried over her left arm hers, a new younger Labrador at their heels. Her legs crumpled and she was sitting on the floor.

‘I say, just a minute, I’ll—’ The owner of the shop sprang to fan her with the
New Statesman.
‘Here, let me—’ He helped her to her feet. ‘Just sit—’ He sat her in a chair. ‘Half a mo, I’ve got a—’

Hebe put her head between her knees. The hat fell off. ‘So sorry. Stupid. No lunch. I—’ She could not finish her sentence either.

‘Here, have a swallow.’ She felt a glass knock against her teeth, smelled whisky. She sipped, swallowed.

‘So sorry. Have I hurt the hat?’

‘Of course not.’ He fanned with the
New Statesman.
‘I’m not really Left—’ He was staring at her with his hare’s eyes.

‘Left what?’ She clutched at her composure. They hadn’t seen her. They shopped in Salisbury. She felt a fool. It must be Thursday. Their day.

‘Wing.’ He gazed at her; her colour was creeping back. Was she perhaps pregnant, to feel faint? He couldn’t very well ask. ‘Not Left Wing,’ he assured her. ‘It’s just to counter the hats.’

Hebe smiled. ‘How intelligent of you. I’m all right now,’ she said. Better not explain, just be casual.

‘—so very glad.’ He did not seem able to begin a sentence either.

‘I must be on my way.’ She stood up.

‘But you must take the hat,’ he urged.

‘How much is it?’

‘Nothing, it’s just it’s—’ He was putting the hat in a paper bag, striped red, green and white like the Italian flag.

‘But how much—I must—’ This is infectious, she told herself.

‘—part of the decor. It wasn’t for sale. I’d like you to—’ he handed her the bag, ‘have it.’ He smiled triumphantly.

‘I can’t take it,’ she said firmly.

‘You must. You look super in it. My great-aunt would be so—’

‘Is she dead?’

‘No, just old. She gave it me for—’

‘What?’

‘Fun.’ The hare’s eyes lit up. ‘For encouragement.’ He gave Hebe the bag. ‘And now I am—’

‘What?’ She felt a creeping friendship for this young man.

‘Encouraged. You should see what—’ Hebe waited ‘—they buy. Petals, feathers, gauze, but you took the one good hat with unerring eye. Please keep it, it will give me so much—’

‘Pleasure.’ Hebe finished the sentence for him. ‘Thank you very much.’ She accepted the hat.

‘Are you going—’

‘Another ten miles.’

‘So you don’t live—’

‘I’m going to a temporary job.’

‘I see. I hope you enjoy—’

‘I shall. I’ve been there before. Goodbye.’ She held out her hand.

‘Oh.’ He took her hand in a large dry grasp. She would have expected it to be damp.

‘Thank you very much.’

He went to the door and watched her go down the street. She turned, laughing, and shouted, ‘I bet your father was a General.’

‘He was, he—’ She’d gone. He hadn’t asked her name. She would read his on the bag, Rory Grant, Hatter. His Greataunt Calypso had said, ‘Be bold about it, don’t let them put you off, always do what you want to do in life.’

Hebe put the striped bag on the back seat and drove the last ten miles to Louisa Fox. It had done her good to find the hat, done her good to see them walk by. They had not seen her, no harm was done. Her eyes hurt. She looked forward to an early bed and taking out the contact lenses. She exposed her eyes to the world when working, a counterfeit penance, disguising herself at home with her large glasses.

As she drove she puzzled over her grandparents. Why was she still afraid of them, was it habit? Why had she not smelled the smell which usually accompanied the panic? Trying to assemble her thoughts, to sift fact from fiction, what she already suspected became clear. The smell had nothing to do with the two old people walking down the street in Salisbury. She wondered what the dog was called. The old dog’s name had been ‘Smut’.

Hebe drove slowly, feeling safer with every mile. They would have been in Salisbury to have their corns cut, go to the library, prowl in the bookshops without buying, walk back to their car, drive away south to the house on the edge of the New Forest.

They would not go into a hat shop on impulse and allow the hatter to give them a hat. They would walk in the centre of the pavement, unseeing, not noticing their errant granddaughter. There was no room in their lives for frivolous hats, no room for girls who consorted with long-haired, bearded, bare-foot layabouts. It seemed so very long ago, yet nothing about them had changed. Except, thought Hebe in joyous surprise, catching sight in the driving mirror of the striped bag on the back seat, except that I am no longer afraid. Perhaps that will be the last time I hear their voices, the last time I fear them. Her spirits soared as she turned the car off the main road to drive the last miles to Louisa Fox.

She drew up by the front door. Three mongrel dogs rushed, barking, from the house. The door was open; the hall would be cool and smell of roses.

‘Quiet, boys, quiet.’ Louisa Fox came round the house, a slight woman in a cotton dress, wearing a gardening apron. She held up her face to kiss Hebe.

‘I am too dirty to touch you.’ She showed earthy hands. ‘Can you manage your bags? Oh my word, you’ve been to Rory’s shop. How comical. What did you buy?’ She scanned Hebe, the contents of the car, the paper bag, with bright black eyes. ‘Rather a brave man to start a hat shop in Salisbury. His father’s furious. Show me what you bought. I’m surprised you found anything fit.’

Hebe took the red hat from its bag.

‘But that’s one of his antiques. I know it well. A friend of mine gave it to him.’

‘He gave it to me.’

‘I’m glad you accepted. Come in and have a drink and I will tell you about the garden. There’s been a disaster or two since you were last here. Bring your stuff in. Down!’ she shouted at the dogs who were leaping and wagging round Hebe, ‘But there are lots of raspberries and the tobacco flowers smell delicious.’

‘I brought some sauce for pasta which I thought you would like tonight and if you have raspberries—’

‘Don’t start talking of food straight away, have a drink first. I’ve put you in your usual room. What would you like to drink, wine?’

‘Yes please.’

‘There’s a bottle in the fridge. We will have it on the terrace. Come along.’

This is the kind of house I like, thought Hebe, following Louisa through a paved hall where her feet alternately clicked on stone and shuffled on worn rugs. Louisa led her through her drawing-room to the terrace. ‘Sit down. I will fetch the wine.’

‘Can’t I?’

‘No.’ Louisa left her.

Hebe sat on the white iron seat and looked across the garden to the meadow beyond the fence, where cows swished their tails by the chalk stream, bottle green water, trailing weeds and the sharp cry of a coot.

‘Here we are.’ Louisa brought a tray with wine and glasses, the bottle beaded. She poured, tasted. ‘Just right.’ She handed a glass to Hebe. ‘There.’

The dogs lay down sighing, flicking an occasional ear, glancing up to wag a gentle tail, closed their eyes, slept.

Sipping her wine, Louisa watched Hebe. She looked vulnerable and wary.

‘I am glad you have that hat,’ she said. ‘Rory needs encouragement. He makes lovely hats.’

‘I thought they looked rather conservative.’

‘So they pretend, but did you try one on? No? If you had you would have found that each one has some wicked exaggeration. He uses his hats to mock the Establishment. He guys his customers.’

‘Rather cruel.’

‘No, never cruel. His father tried to push him into the Army. He went on strike.’

‘I wondered.’ Hebe laughed. ‘His shop struck me as some sort of protest.’

‘He comes here sometimes to fish the stream. He’s an honorary nephew. I knew his father and grandfather.’

‘Are they dead?’

‘To me.’ Louisa considered Hebe. Would she ever relax completely? It seemed unlikely. ‘Rory’s grandfather was one of my beaux. Or thought he was,’ she amended. ‘It was hard to decide whether he or another man was the most trying. Such a tedious fellow.’

Hebe glanced quickly at her employer. ‘Surely there was no need for you to know bores?’

‘Many eligible men were boring. Rory’s grandfather was one. His older brother, whose widow gave Rory that hat, by the way, was far from being boring. Alas, not a beau of mine. Once I had a date with Rory’s grandfather in the Ritz and at the same time a date with another man in the Berkeley. In those days,’ Louisa grinned at Hebe, ‘the Berkeley was across the street from the Ritz.’

‘I wouldn’t know.’ Hebe was polite.

‘Not your line of country?’

‘Above my station.’

‘Mine too, now. Anyway, both these men wanted to marry me. I told the one I would dine with him at the Ritz and the other—he was called Rutter by the way, might be a relation of yours’—Louisa did not look at Hebe—‘that I would dine with him at the Berkeley. Then, with both tied down, I rendezvous’d with someone else and spent the night with him.’

‘Did you marry that one?’ She is telling me she knows my family. Hebe grew alert.

‘He was not the marrying kind. They were both jealous of the man I did dine with, so I tied them down waiting. Later I married someone else.’

‘Not a bore,’ Hebe grinned.

‘Not at all. Both these bores live within twenty miles of me. I never see them. I forget they exist. It just happens that I like Rory.’

‘Because he annoys his father?’

‘That is probably why.’ Louisa put her empty glass on the table, hoping Hebe would feel a little safer if she knew she would not meet her grandparents, would feel liked, as Rory was liked.

‘What happened to the man you spent the night with?’

‘We talk sometimes on the telephone.’

‘Doesn’t he visit you?’

‘No. Now come, let’s get some punnets and pick raspberries. It is a treat for me,’ said Louisa, leading the way to the fruit cage, ‘not to eat my supper on a tray watching television. Either I can’t eat because there is a nature programme with beautiful beasts eating other beautiful beasts, or our Prime Minister is making a speech which upsets me.’