Harnessing Peacocks (12 page)

‘What’s your trouble then, Mother?’ If it wasn’t cancer or money what could it be?

‘Not mine, darling, yours, I told you.’

‘What?’

‘Yours.’

‘Explain.’ He gulped scalding coffee. What did she mean? What the hell was she up to? ‘What’s up?’

‘What’s up is that Alison has left you. She asked me to break it to you.’ Lucy’s eyes glinted.

‘I don’t believe it.’ Mungo burst out laughing, delighted that his mother neither had cancer nor was going broke. He was really very fond of her.

‘She has apparently decided to form a
ménage a trois
with those friends of yours in Santa Barbara.’ Lucy watched her son’s face with curiosity. He could be a bit slow in the uptake.

‘Not my friends, they are Alison’s.’ The full impact of his mother’s news was slow to sink in. ‘She met them when she took the boys skiing at Megeve. They have been staying with us.’

‘So I gather.’

‘Do you mean to say she was carrying on with him under my nose?’

‘With them, I told you, it’s a threesome. I wonder what your father would say.’ Poor fellow, thought Lucy. It makes him look so ridiculous. To go off with a man understandable, to go off with a woman quite frequently done, but with a pair, unusually esoteric.

Mungo finished his coffee and sat thinking. Lucy pursed her lips, watching him. Who was it who had said, when she was about to marry Mungo’s father, ‘He’s a delightful fellow but the kind of man who has stupid children’? That dreadful little friend of Louisa’s, Bernard Quigley, who had once made a pass at her, more than a pass if she dared be honest. Lucy blushed in shamed recollection. He’d been rather fun, made one laugh. It had only happened once, in France; she had liked the hotel.

‘Well?’ She broke the silence lying between her and her only child. ‘Well?’

Mungo noticed her raised colour. ‘You may be upset,’ he said, ‘but I think it’s absolutely marvellous.’ He let out a shout of laughter. He saw himself speeding down the motorway, snatching Hebe from Louisa Fox, marriage in a registry office and happy, happy ever after. Lovely, lovely Hebe. Noticing his mother’s expression and unable to fathom it, Mungo stopped laughing and said, ‘I shall divorce her.’

‘What for?’

‘Adultery, of course.’

‘With whom?’

‘Um, both I suppose. Oh, come on, Mother, why not desertion, incompatibility? There are all sorts of causes for divorce these days.’

‘Who will care for the boys?’ A deadly sentence. Mungo felt a shiver of fear. ‘You will help me, Mother?’

‘No.’

‘Good God, Mother, you are their grandmother, you—’

‘I know I am.’

‘So you will—’

‘Won’t.’

‘Mother!’ Mungo was aghast, his joy dissipated, alarm rushing into the vacuum. There was a long pause while mother and son confronted each other. Mungo was the first to look away.

‘Alison is your wife,’ said Lucy. ‘We may neither of us be particularly fond of her—’

‘Mother!’ He was shocked by her honesty. It was all right for him to be disloyal, not for her.

‘After your reaction to my news just now, I think you had better listen. As I was saying, we may not be fond, but my word, dear boy, she is useful. She looks after you and the boys faultlessly. You are fed, exercised, have your holidays arranged, your bills paid. She arranges the servicing of your cars, she plans your social life and that of the boys, she sees that they go to the right schools, spend their holidays with the right people.’

‘She’s a dreadful snob.’

‘So am I, so are you. If that pretty girl who comes to cook for me were not a lady do you suppose you would pursue her so briskly?’

‘How do you know?’ Mungo shouted furiously.

‘Don’t be silly, Mungo. You may think it secret, so perhaps does she. There is such a thing as the grapevine. Maggie Cook-Popham’s boy saw you with her twice.’

‘Does Alison know?’

‘Probably. Anyway it wouldn’t bother her, she would not care.’

‘Oh.’ Mungo felt his mother had kicked him in the teeth. ‘When did all this happen?’ he asked weakly.

‘Quite suddenly. Alison telephoned me. She has also written. She had never been unfaithful to you before, by the way. This is an arrangement arrived at in the ‘plane going over. Alison telephoned me on arrival. Her letter came yesterday, dotting the “i”s. She used the word “finalised”.’ Lucy sniffed.

‘She must have been drunk or drugged.’

‘I gather neither. She has been contemplating some such move for a long time and it happens this American couple are offering her exactly the life she has always longed for.’

‘What utter rubbish.’

‘Read her letter.’ Lucy handed Alison’s letter to her son. A practical, lucid deposition. Alistair and Ian’s holidays over, Mungo was to assume responsibility. Alison would, if necessary, advise from Santa Barbara, otherwise it was up to Mungo. Her lawyer, who was also Eli and Patsy’s lawyer, would be in touch shortly. Lawyer’s address attached.

‘My God, my God!’ Mungo felt like weeping. ‘She cannot know what she is doing. She cannot have made up her mind so quickly.’

‘She went snap when she clapped eyes on you,’ said Lucy drily. ‘Your father said he’d never seen such a fast worker. She saw you and, as I say, went snap.’

‘I thought it was me.’

‘You were supposed to, darling.’

Some people love their mothers, thought Mungo.

‘Are these people, Eli and Patsy, rich?’ asked Lucy.

‘Seem to be rolling.’

‘There you are, then.’

‘I shall have to make the best of it.’ Mungo did a rapid rethink. He would get Jennifer Reeves to help with the boys. She was an able woman with a boy of her own; two more wouldn’t matter one way or the other. He could still marry Hebe, still live happy ever after. His mother was talking. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said we had better get to work at once.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Getting her back of course.’

‘Why, for God’s sake?’

‘For mine if not for yours and the boys. I cannot possibly do without her.’

Mungo stared at his mother. When she spoke in the deadly tone she had just used resistance was sheer waste of breath.

Noticing her son’s alarm, Lucy explained. ‘Dearest, some day I shall get cancer or some such nuisance and need looking after.’ Mungo winced. ‘Who other than Alison do we know capable of coping? Not you, dear boy. Some day I may have a financial worry or two, need to move house, be too old to manage. Who do we know other than Alison capable of taking charge of me?’

Mungo buried his face in his hands. His mother was a horrible old bitch, he loathed her. How could people be so utterly selfish? It was damnable.

‘So what?’ he muttered through clenched teeth. ‘So what or just so.’ That was what Alistair and Ian said when they wished to be annoying. ‘So?’ Never, of course, to Alison; they wouldn’t dare.

‘So we get to work,’ said Lucy calmly. ‘You grovel, I blackmail. We use the telephone and spare no expense. We begin, let’s see—’ she looked at her watch, ‘in half an hour. Catch her asleep. You will talk to Alison and I will talk to this Eli and Patsy.’

‘I thought they were just rather boring Americans who were into intensive sightseeing.’

‘My poor innocent.’ Lucy laughed at Mungo as though he were ten years old. ‘Come now, let us try and enjoy this. Grovel, grovel, grovel, tongue in cheek.’ She was enjoying the situation.

Mungo made a last desperate appeal. ‘Mother, please, there must be some other way.’

‘I am not changing at my age and nor are you at yours. Do you imagine I would ever have had a child if it had not been certain I would have a Nanny who would take charge of you, if you had not been certain to go away to boarding school when you left the nursery?’

‘I was miserable at my prep school,’ Mungo muttered sulkily.

‘I notice you send your boys to the same one. People like us did not put up with the horrors of having children at home, which even quite nice people do these days.’

People like us, nice people, must she? Mungo writhed.

‘And you,’ Lucy fixed Mungo with her clear eyes, ‘are just like me. If you had not had Alison to manage, direct and bring up your boys you would not have embarked on having a family.’

Mungo made a choking sound of protest.

‘I do not mean, darling, that I do not love you. I do very much. I might not if I had had to change your nappies and nurse you through mumps. In principle I also love my grandsons.’

‘I am not sure I do.’

‘Nonsense, of course you do. They have not had mumps yet, have they?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t remember. Alison—’

‘There you are, you don’t know. Measles? Chickenpox? Athlete’s foot? Those little mites that burrow into your—er—your, you know what I mean.’

‘Crabs. Mother, must you?’

‘Are you prepared to tackle all that on your own?’

Mungo was silent, thinking of Hebe. He did not want Hebe tackling the care of Alistair and Ian, dealing with their crabs. He wanted Hebe to himself, her undiluted attention. Tears came to his eyes. He gulped.

Perhaps he loves Alison, thought Lucy. No, he can’t, it’s the shock.

‘When do we start? What do we do?’ Mungo gave in.

S
ILAS, CATCHING A FORESHORTENED
glimpse of his mother from the helicopter as it swung away towards the Scillies, wondered what a Hermaphrodite could be; whether Giles, who liked useless bits of information, had discovered some new religious sect—whether Hermaphrodite was an esoteric dish like Moussaka, or an autonomous republic of the USSR. Giles particularly treasured gems such as ‘It takes three years to digest black pepper’, and had eagerly taken note of Bernard’s information about the pig scratching. Silas promised himself a trip to the Public Library to rummage among the dictionaries.

He settled in his seat to watch Land’s End disappear and peered ahead to catch a glimpse of the islands. He looked forward to meeting Michael and wearing the denim shorts Hebe had bought him. They had never seen one another in anything other than their school uniforms. He wondered what his friend would be wearing. Looking down at the choppy sea, he hoped the weather would clear and that the sun would show more enthusiasm than it had during the last fortnight. His fellow travellers in the helicopter seemed to be prepared for the worst, carrying yellow oilies and rubber boots. Arrived, Silas shook his head to free his ears of the din of the helicopter, followed the other passengers on to the tarmac and looked around for Michael. A female voice hailed him. Mrs Reeves waved. Silas waved back and went to meet her carrying his duffle bag.

‘Hello, Silas.’ She had large teeth and showed her gums when she smiled, which she was doing now. She was tall, with thick fair hair pulled back in a bun, which made the sou’wester she wore look peculiar. Her face was red from the wind, her eyes blue. She wore a yellow oilskin with a velvet collar, an old Guernsey jersey, a denim skirt. Her legs were bare. She wore blue ankle socks and trainers. Her handshake was firm.

‘Nice to see you, Silas.’ She was not as he remembered at the school sports, he must have confused her with some other boy’s mother.

‘How do you do, er, hullo.’ Silas looked around for Michael.

‘They are all sailing. I had some shopping to do in St Mary’s so I said I’d meet you.’ Her voice had carrying quality.

‘Oh, thank you.’

‘They will be back for supper. Come and help me load my stuff in the boat. Alistair and Ian only arrived yesterday and were keen to get cracking. They knew you wouldn’t want them to wait.’

‘Oh, oh no.’ Bugger Michael, thought Silas. It’s not lunch time yet, what am I supposed to do stuck with his mother till supper? ‘Of course not.’

‘D’you know Alistair and Ian, Silas?’

‘No, no, I don’t. Who are—’

‘You wouldn’t, I suppose. They are at a different school. But you might have met them in the holidays.’ She looked brightly enquiring.

‘I don’t think so.’ Where was he supposed to have met them? Silas followed his hostess. Who were they, anyway?

‘Hadn’t you better put on a mac?’

‘Yes, of course.’ He unzipped his duffle bag and found his parka.

‘Does nothing but rain here,’ she said.

She seemed frighteningly competent, guiding him to a mountain of shopping, getting him to stow it in large baskets. ‘There’s a fantastic basket-maker in Totnes who makes these. I can’t stand plastic bags, can you?’

‘Er, no I can’t.’ Silas had never thought about it.

‘D’you know Totnes? Delightful place. These baskets come from there. He makes every conceivable European shape. No Eastern rubbish.’

‘Rather heavy,’ Silas ventured.

‘But last for ever. Their being heavy shouldn’t worry a strong boy like you.’

‘Of course not.’ They had reached the quay.

‘That’s right, stow them. Not like that, not all on the same side, the boat will sink. Here, like this.’ She rearranged the baskets, grouping them in the middle of the boat.

‘Sorry.’ Silas felt foolish.

‘Done a lot of sailing, Silas?’

‘Er, no.’ Ask a silly question.

‘Alistair and Ian make a useful crew, Julian says. Julian is my husband.’

‘Oh.’

‘My name is Jennifer. Call me Jennifer, everybody does.’

‘Thanks.’ I shall call her ‘You’, he mutinied.

She had the boat stowed to her satisfaction. ‘Sit on that thwart.’

What’s a thwart? he asked himself.

‘Cast off, can you?’

Silas managed that.

Jennifer Reeves started the engine and steered the boat into the rain, phut-phutting over the waves. ‘Soon be there.’

Silas kept silent. They were apparently going to another island.

‘When you’ve helped me get all this to the cottage I expect you’d like lunch and then you can explore the island.’

‘Thanks, yes.’

‘Know the islands well?’

‘I’ve never been here.’

‘Goodness, and you live so near.’

‘Well.’ He felt put down.

‘Lots to do on the mainland, of course. Didn’t Michael say you live in the town?’ She sounded unconvinced.

‘Yes.’

‘Oh.’ She savoured this. ‘Like it?’

‘Yes. We live in a street.’

‘Really?’ It sounded ‘reahly’.