Perfectly Correct (14 page)

‘Toby cooks a lot of lentils,’ Miriam agreed.

Andrew’s eyes widened in silent horror. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I imagine he would.’ He turned and gestured at a field beyond the cows. ‘Here is where we’re going to have the party when I get the hay in.’

‘A party? You mean you really are having the travellers here?’

He looked at her. ‘Why not?’

‘Well, the whole village seems to think that it’s a dreadful thing. Louise had Captain Frome on the telephone twice and then he came out while you were there.’

‘Captain Frome’s not the whole village. Some of them at the Holly Bush are rather looking forward to it.’

‘Looking forward to it?’

‘When the hay is in.’

‘What’s the hay got to do with it?’

Andrew Miles looked at her once more, as if she were pretending to an ignorance which no adult could reasonably have. Then he pointed to the field where the tall grass was speckled with flowers. ‘When that’s cut, and all the other hayfields, you can put wagons on it, or tents, anything you like. It’s just grass. It’ll grow. And when the hay is in there’s
a little break, like, before harvest and shearing. That’s when people always had parties, in the old days. You’ll have heard of haymaking?’

‘In books, yes.’

‘Well, after haymaking, and later again, after the harvest is in, people have their shows and their parties. That’s how it’s always been. So when they telephoned me and asked me if I had a field I said they could come, either after haymaking or after harvest. And they wanted to come soon. I think it’ll be fun.’

Miriam giggled again. ‘They’re going mad about it in the village.’

Andrew Miles shook his head. ‘Not all of them. A few of them, the newcomers, they’re all upset about it. But the other farmers and the lads in the Bush, they’re not worried.’

‘It may be more than a few people in vans,’ Miriam warned him. ‘It’s not so traditional these days. They’ll probably have huge electronic speakers and the music will go on all day and night. And there’s certain to be drugs being sold.’

‘Well,’ Andrew said tolerantly. ‘They’re just kids after all. They deserve a bit of fun.’

Miriam could think of nothing more to say. ‘Thank you for showing me round. I’d better get back now.’

‘D’you know the way?’

‘Yes, I’ll go over the common.’

Andrew touched his finger to the cap he habitually wore. ‘Would you like to come to the party?’ he asked pleasantly. ‘It’ll be next weekend. I’d be very pleased if you would come. I’ve asked Miss Case already.’

Miriam smiled at the thought of this formal invitation to a rave. ‘I should love to come,’ she said. ‘Thank you for asking me.’

Andrew nodded and headed towards the yard, his dog at his heels. At the gate the hand-reared lambs stood and bleated appealingly. He paused and thrust his hands deeper into his pockets to prevent himself caressing them, and then went on to the barns. Miriam turned down the track that led to the common and started to walk back to Louise’s cottage, three miles downhill.

T
OBY PAID ANOTHER VISIT TO THE VAN
on Sunday morning while Louise and Miriam fetched the Sunday papers from Mrs Ford’s shop. As soon as they had turned out of the drive in Louise’s car Toby skipped over the front doorstep carrying a cup of tea, down the garden path, and through the orchard gate. He found Rose prepared to be gracious. She drank it, sitting on the step of her van, watching the sun burn off the early-morning mist. Toby, cramped and chilly sitting on the dewy grass and eyed in a baleful way by her dog, thought that few scholars had endured more in the course of research.

Rose was prepared to be obliging. She brought out the box of newspaper clippings again and showed them, one at a time. They all described raids on empty houses where windows had been smashed or fires laid. From the outraged tone of the newspapers you would have thought that millions of pounds had been lost. But in fact the fires were rather small and easily contained. And the windows were quickly replaced.

‘It wasn’t the amount of damage, or the expense,’ Rose said. ‘It was to give them the sense that we were everywhere. Like the IRA.’

Toby glanced up from a particularly trivial cutting. ‘Hardly like the IRA,’ he objected.

Rose shook her head at his stupidity. ‘The IRA didn’t really care about a telephone box in Milton Keynes,’ she said. ‘The point is to make the population feel that the terrorists can go anywhere they want. That nowhere is sacred. That they have so many members that they extend everywhere. That’s basic terrorist theory. I’d have thought you’d have known that, a bright boy like you.’

Toby shifted a little in the damp grass. The dog sniffed at his ankles as he stretched out and he drew them back up towards him swiftly.

‘Did you say you had some diaries?’ Toby asked.

‘I’ll show you them later.’ Rose was quite absorbed in her bottomless box of little pieces of newspaper. ‘Here, I did this one. It says, “Entrance was effected through a small, unfastened scullery window”, and it says later: “These reckless harpies must be employing children or even trained monkeys for the successful accomplishment of these acts of violence”. That was me!’ she said proudly. ‘Me!’

‘I wonder if I could take the diaries away with me, to read carefully?’ Toby asked.

Rose did not lift her delighted face from her box. ‘Oh no,’ she said.

‘I should be tremendously careful with them. I know how precious they are …’

‘No.’

‘I have to see them, study them, in order to understand them properly,’ Toby said. ‘I have to read them and re-read them or else I can’t do the book at all.’

Rose looked up at him. ‘As you wish,’ she said helpfully. ‘I wanted to write it myself, anyway. I’ll have a bit of a clear
out and burn the stuff that’s no good and then I’ll write the rest.’

‘No!’ Toby yelped. ‘Don’t burn anything.
Please
don’t burn anything until I’ve had a chance to look at it.
Please
, Miss Pankhurst – you don’t know what people might find interesting. All sorts of things which you might think are boring would be very interesting to historians. I’ll read every word, I’ll take tremendous care of them. I’ll bring them back to you the very moment I have read them.’

‘Oh, very well.’ Rose suddenly lost interest. ‘You can take this box now if you like.’

‘I’d like to start with the diaries,’ Toby said hopefully.

‘This box or nothing,’ Rose said, holding it out.

Toby almost snatched it from her. ‘Is it all suffragette clippings?’ he asked, looking at the depth of the box and the cream-coloured drifts of newsprint.

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘I popped all sorts in there over the years. Dress patterns, recipes, stories that I liked the sound of. But you can read it all if you want to, as you say. It will be fascinating to you even though it’s quite boring to everyone else. It’s just a lot of junk to everyone else but, as you say, you’ll be reading every word.’

Toby forced a smile on his face. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring it back the moment I’ve finished.’

‘You needn’t bring it back,’ she said. ‘I was turning it out anyway. You can sort it and keep what you want.’

‘I will,’ Toby promised. ‘And then we’ll look at something else, shall we? The diaries and the photographs?’

Rose nodded. ‘All right.’

‘Could we perhaps have a little glance at the photographs now?’ Toby asked winningly, keeping a firm grip on the box.

‘No,’ Rose said decisively. ‘They’re under a box of hats
that wants turning out. You can see them when you’ve finished with the newspaper clippings. I’ll be ready for you then.’

‘All right,’ Toby agreed. ‘I’ll read them at once and be back soon. Perhaps tomorrow.’

Rose smiled at him, her malicious old-crone smile. ‘You’ll need your eyes tested,’ she said. ‘You’ll need your head tested too.’

Toby managed a pleasant laugh.

‘Which woman is it to be, then?’ Rose demanded suddenly. Toby, struggling to his feet and cautiously putting his weight on the sprained ankle, gave a little whimper of discomfort. ‘What d’you mean, Miss Pankhurst?’

‘Can’t go stringing them both along forever, can you?’

Toby looked at her blankly.

‘Unless you’re more of a man than most you can’t satisfy two women,’ Rose said clearly. ‘It’s a rare man that can satisfy one. So which will you have? Louise or Miriam?’

Toby tried an urbane smile. ‘It’s not quite like that,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Louise is our very good friend, and Miriam is my wife. It’s not a question of choosing between the two. I am married to Miriam and Louise is a dear, dear friend. These days I think everyone accepts that a man and a woman can be friends.’

Rose shook her head. ‘That girl needs a man,’ she declared. ‘A man in her bed and a baby on the way. She needs someone to warm her bed at night, not a quick poke and then an empty house. And Miriam needs some fun. She looks downright miserable. And you’re the one that has brought all this about. So you’d better think carefully what you’re doing, my boy. You’re bringing neither of them any good at all.’

Toby gritted his teeth and kept the smile on his face. ‘I
think these days we don’t really believe that a woman
needs
a man and a baby,’ he said. ‘Of course Louise will make her own choices as an informed adult. She has her own life to live. I think neither you nor I can say what’s best for her, can we, really? And Miriam is absolutely free to live how she wishes. We have an open and adult relationship. I assure you she does the work she wants and she lives as she wants.’

A fugitive memory of Miriam as he had first met her with her curly wild hair and her larky eyes swam up from his past and challenged his view of her as a woman who had fulfilled her potential. Toby put at once from his mind the knowledge that his wife was deeply unhappy.

‘All three of us are very happy in our own ways. Not your ways perhaps, but they do very well for us. You needn’t worry about us, I promise you, Miss Pankhurst.’

‘You’re a selfish little puppy,’ Rose said levelly. ‘You’d better make your mind up, one or the other; or you’ll lose both and serve you right.’

Toby bit back a roar of rage at this old woman daring to lecture him. ‘I’ll think about what you’ve said,’ he replied, smiling till his cheeks ached. ‘I hear what you’re saying. I’ve taken it on board. I thank you for your concern for us, and I promise you I’ll think about it.’

Rose grunted in disdain and stamped into her van and slammed the door behind her. Freed from her presence, the dog came out from under the steps and snarled at Toby’s feet. Toby limped hastily to beyond the garden gate and shut it with a bang. Between the pain in his ankle and the bruising to his ego he felt thoroughly battered. He trailed back to the house with his huge box of newspaper clippings in his arms in an advanced state of sulk. If he had not admired Rose and liked her so very thoroughly – as any
researcher should feel towards his subject – and if he had not been a committed feminist and she a woman, he would have absolutely hated her.

Miriam and Louise bought armfuls of newsprint: the
Sunday Times
, the
Observer
, the
Independent
and the
Sunday Telegraph
. It did not occur to either of them to buy any of the tabloids though they both spent some time reading the lead stories and furtively turning the pages until Mrs Ford’s indignant glare drove them from the little shop. Neither woman had bought a tabloid newspaper for ten years. Tabloids maintained a reprehensibly sexist attitude towards women, and whatever the news they carried neither Miriam nor Louise would ever stoop to support them. Miriam could see the
Daily Mirror
at work since someone in the refuge would always buy it. She would read it, clandestinely, during the morning, and while she was generally outraged by its attitudes she found herself reliably entertained. However she would never have bought it for herself.

In the doorway of the shop they met Captain Frome. ‘It seems we’ve won the first battle,’ he said loudly enough for the other customers in the shop to hear. ‘The police turned a convoy of ten vans – ten, if you please! – back at the roadblock and they’ve gone over the border into Hampshire. We’ve won the first battle, if we remain vigilant we’ll win the war.’

There was a rustle of polite interest in the little shop.

‘We’ll show ’em,’ Mrs Ford said militantly, earning herself a swift approving smile from the Captain.

‘They may try and regroup, of course,’ Captain Frome warned. ‘But I think we’ve got them on the run.’

One of the women in the shop said, ‘Seems a shame,’
under her breath but Captain Frome was too grand to acknowledge such suppressed heckling.

‘Neighbourhood watch meeting, Tuesday night, six thirty sharp,’ he said, handing a poster to Mrs Ford with a commanding nod. ‘Hope you’ll be there, Miss Case?’

Louise glanced uncomfortably at Miriam. ‘Unfortunately I have a meeting at the university on Tuesday,’ she said.

‘Cut it! Send your apologies!’

‘You’re reporting on the Science and Industry Sub-dean’s attitude,’ Miriam reminded her sharply.

‘I really have to be there,’ Louise said weakly. ‘But I’ll telephone you the next day if I may and see what was decided.’

Captain Frome nodded but he was dissatisfied. ‘Do you wish to register a proxy vote, or nominate someone to vote for you?’

‘What would we be voting on?’ Louise asked.

‘Further actions, of course.’

‘Oh, of course,’ Louise said vaguely. ‘Well … would you like to be my proxy, Captain Frome?’

He nodded. ‘Very well. We do need to stick together, I think.’

‘Hounding innocent people from pillar to post,’ a woman murmured quietly behind the rack of groceries. ‘Moved on all the time. Doesn’t seem right. Half of them with kiddies. Where are they supposed to go?’

Captain Frome raised his voice slightly. ‘I think I speak for the whole village when I say that we’re not some kind of Butlins holiday camp for every ne’er do well who can get his hands on a caravan.’

‘Do you know,’ Miriam suddenly interrupted, her voice loud and icy, ‘I’ve never heard anyone say “ne’er do well”
before? I thought it was something people only said in books.’

There was a snort of laughter from behind the groceries. Miriam took the newspapers from Louise and walked past Captain Frome and out of the shop.

‘Oh,’ Louise said feebly. ‘Good day, Captain Frome.’

Miriam was waiting beside Louise’s car in a state of barely repressed rage. ‘What a pompous oaf!’ she spluttered.

‘He represents the village’s feelings,’ Louise said, hastily unlocking the car so that Miriam’s noisy disdain could be shut inside and muffled.

‘No he doesn’t,’ Miriam said abruptly. ‘He represents the propertied classes. All the working people and the farming people are perfectly happy for the travellers to come. Mr Miles is looking forward to the party.’

‘That is absolutely absurd,’ Louise said, starting the car. ‘Mr Miles knows nothing about raves. He’s been conned into providing his land by some sharp operator. He knows nothing about raves or what is going to happen. Everyone in the village is behind Captain Frome, he has organised an enormous protest meeting. I
live
here, Miriam. I know what’s going on.’

‘No, you don’t,’ Miriam argued, as if she had totally forgotten about female consensus and about women’s natural ability to listen and share information. ‘All you know about is what that pompous old windbag says. You should listen to Andrew. He says everyone at the pub is quite happy about it.’

Louise drove too fast up the lane towards her house. ‘I’m not that intimate with him actually. We’ve only ever talked about odd jobs.’

‘Well, he’s a damn sight more interesting than Colonel Blimp,’ Miriam said. ‘He’s a sensible generous warm-hearted
man. Not a stuffed shirt trying to find something to do to fill in his retirement.’

‘Oh, really!’ Louise cried in irritation. ‘You hardly know either of them.’

‘I know a nice man when I see him,’ Miriam said. ‘And I’d put my faith in Andrew Miles any day.’

Louise felt herself gripped with a quite unreasonable fury. If she had believed in the existence of jealousy between feminists she would have recognised this savage rage at Miriam’s sudden intimacy with Andrew Miles. Louise’s whole world was abruptly turned upside down if Miriam should find a man such as Andrew Miles attractive. Miriam who had Toby, who had been the pinnacle of Louise’s desires for nine years. It made no sense at all that Miriam, with Toby as her husband, her intellectual companion and her lover, should find Andrew Miles, an uneducated uncouth farm labourer, so extremely attractive.

Louise drew up in front of her cottage and jerked on the handbrake. ‘I think you go out of your way to be different,’ she said. ‘Andrew Miles has probably never even heard of feminism or activism or the Second Wave. He probably doesn’t have an idea in his head beyond the weather and the price of corn.’

Miriam laughed. ‘All the better for that,’ she said perversely. ‘I’m sick of feminist men.’

Miriam and Toby left at midday after a leisurely breakfast reading the newspapers. Miriam, who knew she had been unreasonable with Louise, cooked eggs and bacon for the three of them and made coffee and toast. Toby, who was anxious to avoid question or challenge about his relationship with Rose or the contents of Rose’s big box, laid himself
out to be entertaining, reading out snippets from the Sunday newspapers and commenting with insight and sarcasm. He could be very amusing when he wished and Miriam and Louise laughed and prompted him to further irony at the expense of the government. Much of what he mocked was funny, but the decline of the pound against other currencies and the steady downward spiral of the recession could only ever be amusing to people, like Louise and Toby, with small mortgages, guaranteed wages, and a contract of employment. Their amusement was founded on the smugness of being politically correct and financially secure. Miriam laughed with them but knew that her work and her salary was more uncertain, and the projects which she espoused – the safety of women – were not dear to this government’s heart.