The Shell Seekers

  “I’m…” Her voice came out on a croak. She cleared her throat and tried again. “As a matter of fact, I’m forty-three.”

  “Is that all? Oh, I’d have put you down as fifty any day.”

  Nancy gave a little laugh, trying to make a joke of it, for what else was there to do? “That’s not very flattering, Mrs. Croftway.”

  “It’s your weight. That’s what it is. Nothing so aging as letting your figure go. You ought to go on a diet … it’s bad for you, being overweight. Next thing we know”—she gave a cackle of laughter—“it’s you that’ll be having a heart attack.”

  I hate you, Mrs. Croftway. I hate you.

  “There’s ever such a good diet in Woman’s Own this week.… You have a grapefruit one day, and a yoghurt the next. Or maybe it’s the other way around … I could cut it out and bring it along, if you like.”

  “Oh … how kind. Maybe. Yes.” She sounded flustered, her voice shaking. Pulling herself together, Nancy squared her shoulders and, with some effort, took charge of the deteriorating situation. “But, Mrs. Croftway, what I really wanted to talk about was tomorrow. I’m catching the nine-fifteen, so I shan’t have much time to tidy up before I go, so I’m afraid you’ll have to do what you can … and would you be very kind and feed the dogs for me?… I’ll leave their dinners ready in their bowls, and then perhaps you could take them for a little run around the garden … and,…” She went on quickly before Mrs. Croftway could start objecting to these suggestions. “Perhaps you could give Croftway a message for me, and ask him to take Lightning to the blacksmith … he’s due to be shod and I don’t want to have to put it off.”

  “Ooh,” said Mrs. Croftway doubtfully. “I don’t know if he’ll be able to manage boxing that animal on his own.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he can, he’s done it before … and then tomorrow evening, when I get back, perhaps we could have a bit of lamb for dinner. Or a chop or something … and some of Croftway’s delicious Brussels sprouts…”

  * * *

  It was not until after dinner that she had the opportunity to speak to George. What with getting the children to do their homework, finding Melanie’s ballet shoes, eating dinner and clearing it away, ringing the vicar’s wife to tell her that Nancy would not be at the Women’s Guild meeting the following evening, and generally organizing her life, there scarcely seemed time to exchange a word with her husband, who did not get home until seven in the evening, and then wanted to do nothing but sit in front of the fire with a glass of whisky and the newspaper.

  But at last all was accomplished and Nancy was able to join George in the library. She closed the door firmly behind her, expecting him to look up, but he did not stir from behind The Times, so she crossed to the drink table that stood by the window, poured herself a whisky, and then went and sat down in the armchair and faced him across the hearthrug. She knew that very soon he would reach out a hand and turn on the television in order to watch the news.

  She said, “George.”

  “Um?”

  “George, do listen a moment.”

  He finished the sentence he was reading and then reluctantly lowered the newspaper, revealing himself as a man in his middle fifties but looking a good deal older, with thinning grey hair, rimless glasses, and the dark suit and sober tie of an elderly gentleman. George was a solicitor, and perhaps imagined that this carefully contrived appearance—as though dressed for the part in some play—would inspire confidence in potential clients, but Nancy sometimes suspected that if he would only buck himself up a bit, wear a nice tweed suit and buy a pair of hornrims, then perhaps his business would perk up a bit, too. For this part of the world, since the opening of the motorway from London, had fast become enormously fashionable. New and wealthy residents moved in, forms changed hands at staggering sums; the most decrepit of cottages were snapped up and transformed, at enormous expense, into weekend hideaways. Estate agents and building societies blossomed and prospered; exclusive shops opened in the most unlikely little towns, and it was beyond Nancy’s powers of comprehension why Chamberlain, Plantwell and Richards had not climbed onto this bandwagon of prosperity and reaped some of the rewards that were surely just there for the taking. But George was old-fashioned, sticking to the traditional ways and terrified of change. He was also a cautious man, and a cagey one.

  Now, “What have I got to listen to?” he asked her.

  “I’m going to London tomorrow to have lunch with Olivia. We’ve got to talk about Mother.”

  “What’s the problem now?”

  “Oh, George, you know the problem. I told you, I had a word with Mother’s doctor, and he says she really mustn’t live alone any longer.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Well … we’ll have to find a housekeeper for her. Or a companion.”

  “She won’t like that,” George pointed out.

  “And even if we find somebody … can Mother afford to pay her? A good woman would cost forty to fifty pounds a week. I know she got that enormous sum for the house in Oakley Street, and she’s not spent a brass farthing on Podmore’s Thatch except to build that ridiculous conservatory, but that money’s capital, isn’t it? Can she afford all this expense?”

  George shifted in his chair, reaching for his whisky glass.

  He said, “I’ve no idea.”

  Nancy sighed. “She’s so secretive, so damned independent. She makes herself impossible to help. If only she’d take us into her confidence, give you some power of attorney, it would make life so much easier for me. After all, I am the eldest child, and it’s not as though Olivia or Noel ever raise a finger to help.”

  George had heard all this before. “What about her daily lady … Mrs. What’s-it?”

  “Mrs. Plackett. She only comes in three mornings a week to clean and she’s got a house and a family of her own to look after.”

  George set down his glass and sat, his face turned to the fire, his hands arranged like a little tent, fingertip to fingertip.

  After a bit, he said, “I cannot quite fathom what it is you are getting in such a state about.” He sounded as though he were speaking to some particularly dim-witted client, and Nancy was hurt.

  “I am not in a state.”

  He ignored this. “Is it just the money? Or is it the possibility that you may be unable to find any woman saintly enough to agree to live with your mother?”

  “Both, I suppose,” Nancy admitted.

  “And what do you imagine Olivia is going to contribute to the conundrum?”

  “She can at least discuss it with me. After all, she’s never in her life done a single thing for Mother … or for any of us, for that matter,” she added bitterly, recalling past hurts. “When Mother decided to sell Oakley Street and announced that she was going back to Cornwall to live in Porthkerris, it was I who had the most dreadful time persuading her that it would be madness to take such a step. And she still might have gone if you hadn’t found her Podmore’s Thatch, where at least she’s within twenty miles of us and we’re able to keep an eye on her. Supposing she was in Porthkerris now, miles away, with a groggy heart and none of us knowing what on earth was going on?”

  “Let us try to keep to the point,” begged George, at his most maddening.

  Nancy ignored this. The whisky had warmed her, and kindled old resentments as well.

  “And as for Noel, he’s practically abandoned Mother, ever since she sold Oakley Street and he had to move out. That was a blow to him. Twenty-three he was and he’d never paid a penny’s worth of rent to her, ate her food and drank her gin and lived totally scot-free. It was a shock to Noel, I can tell you, when he finally had to start paying his way.”

  George sighed deeply. He had no higher opinion of Noel than he had of Olivia. And his mother-in-law, Penelope Keeling, had always been a total enigma to him. The constant astonishment was that any woman as normal as Nancy should have sprung from the loins of such an extraordinary family.

  He finished h
is drink, got up from his chair, threw another log on the fire, and went to replenish his glass. From the other side of the room he said, above the small sounds of clinking glass, “Let us suppose that the worst happens. Let us suppose that your mother cannot afford a housekeeper.” He returned to his chair and settled himself once more opposite his wife. “Let us suppose that you can find nobody to take on the arduous task of keeping her company. What happens then? Will you suggest that she comes to live with us?”

  Nancy thought of Mrs. Croftway, perpetually in a state of umbrage. The children, noisily complaining about Granny Pen’s endless strictures. She thought of Mrs. Croftway’s mother, with her wedding ring cut off, lying in bed and banging on the floor with a stick.…

  She said, sounding desperate, “I don’t think I could bear it.”

  “I don’t think I could bear it either,” George admitted.

  “Perhaps Olivia…”

  “Olivia?” George’s voice rose in disbelief. “Olivia let any person intrude on that private life of hers? You have to be pulling my leg.”

  “Well, Noel’s out of the question.”

  “It seems,” said George, “that everything is out of the question.” He surreptitiously pushed up his cuff and looked at his watch. He did not want to miss the news. “And I don’t see that I can make any constructive suggestions until after you have had it out with Olivia.”

  Nancy was offended. True, she and Olivia had never been the best of friends … they had, after all, nothing in common … but she resented the words “having it out,” as though they never did anything but argue. She was about to point this out to George but he forestalled her by switching on the television and putting an end to the conversation. It was exactly nine o’clock, and he settled contentedly to his daily ration of strikes, bombs, murders, and financial disaster, topped off by the information that the next day was going to start very cold, and that during the course of the afternoon rain would slowly cover the entire country.

  After a bit, Nancy, depressed beyond words, got up out of her chair. George, she suspected, did not even realize that she had moved. She went to the drink table, replenished her whisky with a lavish hand, and went out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her. She climbed the stairs and went into her bedroom and through to her bathroom. She put in the bath plug, turned the taps on, and poured in scented bath oil with the same lavishness that she had employed with the whisky bottle. Five minutes later she was indulging in the most comfortable occupation she knew, which was to lie in a hot bath and drink cold whisky at the same time.

  Wallowing, enveloped in bubbles and steam, she allowed herself to dissolve into an orgy of self-pity. Being a wife and mother, she told herself, was a thankless task. One devoted oneself to husband and children, was considerate to one’s staff, cared for one’s animals, kept the house, bought the food, washed the clothes, and what thanks did one get? What appreciation?

  None.

  Tears began to well in her eyes, mingling with the general moisture of bath-water and steam. She longed for appreciation, for love, for affectionate physical contact, for someone to hug her and tell her she was marvellous, that she was doing a wonderful job.

  For Nancy, there was only one person who had never let her down. Daddy had been a darling, of course, while he lasted, but it was his mother, Dolly Keeling, who had consistently shored up Nancy’s confidence and taken her side.

  Dolly Keeling had never got on with her daughter-in-law, had no time for Olivia, and was always wary of Noel, but Nancy was her pet, spoiled and adored. It was Granny Keeling who had bought her the puff-sleeved, smocked dresses when Penelope would have sent her eldest child to the party in some antique inherited garment of threadbare lawn. It was Granny Keeling who told her she was pretty and took her on treats like tea in Harrods and visits to the pantomime.

  When Nancy became engaged to George, there were terrible rows. By now her father had departed, and her mother could not be made to understand why it was so important to Nancy that she should have a traditional white wedding with bridesmaids and the men in morning coats and a proper reception. Apparently it seemed to Penelope an idiotic way to waste money. Why not a simple family service with perhaps a lunch party afterwards, at the great scrubbed table in the basement kitchen at Oakley Street? Or a party in the garden? The garden was huge, masses of room for everybody, and the roses would be out.…

  Nancy wept, slammed doors, and said that nobody understood her, nobody ever had. She finally collapsed into a sulk that might have continued forever had not darling Granny Keeling intervened. All responsibility was removed from Penelope, who was delighted to be shed of it, and everything arranged by Granny. No bride could have asked for more. Holy Trinity, a white dress with a train, bridesmaids in pink, and a reception afterwards at Twenty-Three Knightsbridge with a Master of Ceremonies in a red coat and a number of enormous, top-heavy flower arrangements. And darling Daddy, prompted by his mother, had turned up looking divine in a morning coat, to stand by Nancy and give her away, and even Penelope’s appearance, hatless and majestic in layers of ancient brocade and velvet, could do nothing to mar the perfection of the day.

  Oh, for Granny Keeling now. Lying in the bath, a great grown woman of forty-three, Nancy wept for Granny Keeling. To have her there, for sympathy and comfort and admiration. Oh my darling, you are quite marvellous, you do so much for your family and your mother and they all take it quite for granted.

  She could still hear the loved voice, but it was in her own imagination, for Dolly Keeling was dead. Last year, at the age of eighty-seven, that gallant little lady with her rouged cheeks and her painted nails and her mauve cardigan suits had passed on in her sleep. This sad event took place in the small Kensington private hotel where she had elected, along with a number of other incredibly elderly people, to spend her twilight years, and she was duly wheeled away by the undertaker with whom the Hotel Management, with some foresight, had a standing arrangement.

  * * *

  The next morning was as bad as Nancy had feared. The whisky had left her with a headache, it was colder than ever and pitch-dark when, at seven-thirty in the morning, she hoisted herself out of bed. She dressed, and was mortified to discover that the waistband of her best skirt would not meet and had to be fastened with a safety pin. She pulled on the lamb’s-wool sweater which exactly matched the skirt, and averted her eyes from the rolls of fat that bulged over the armour of her formidable brassière. She put on nylons, but as she usually wore thick woollen stockings, these felt dreadfully inadequate, so she decided to wear her long boots, and then could scarcely do up the zip-fastener.

  Downstairs, things did not improve. One of the dogs had been sick, the Aga was lukewarm, and there were only three eggs in the larder. She put the dogs out, cleaned up the sick, and filled the Aga with its own special, enormously expensive fuel, praying meanwhile it would not go out altogether, thus providing Mrs. Croftway with good cause for complaint. She shouted for the children, telling them to hurry, boiled kettles, boiled the three eggs, made toast, set the table. Rupert and Melanie appeared, more or less correctly dressed, but quarrelling because Rupert said that Melanie had lost his geography book, and Melanie said that she’d never had it in the first place and he was a stupid liar, and Mummy, she needed twenty-five pence for Mrs. Leeper’s leaving present.

  Nancy had never heard of Mrs. Leeper.

  George did nothing to help. He simply appeared, sometime during all this commotion, ate his boiled egg, drank a cup of tea, and went. She heard the Rover going down the drive as she frantically stacked dishes on the draining board, ready for Mrs. Croftway to deal with at her own pleasure.

  “Well, if you didn’t have my geography book…”

  Outside the door, the dogs howled. She let them in, and this reminded her of their dinners, so she filled their bowls with biscuits and opened a tin of Bonzo and, in her agitation, cut her thumb on the raw edge of the lid.

  “Gosh, you’re clumsy,” Rupert told her.
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  Nancy turned her back on him and ran the cold tap over her thumb until it had stopped bleeding.

  “If I don’t have that twenty-five pence, Miss Rawlings is going to be furious.…”

  She ran upstairs to put on her face. There was no time for gently blending rouge or outlining her eyebrows, and the finished result was far from satisfactory, but it couldn’t be helped. There wasn’t time. From her wardrobe she pulled her fur coat, the fur hat that matched it She found gloves, her Mappin and Webb lizardskin handbag. Into this she emptied the contents of her everyday bag, and then, of course, it wouldn’t close. No matter. It couldn’t be helped. There wasn’t time.

  She rushed downstairs again, calling for the children. By some miracle, they appeared, gathering up their school-bags, Melanie jamming on her unbecoming hat. Out of the back-door and around to the garage they trooped, into the car—thank God the engine started first go—and they were off.

  She drove the children to their separate schools, dumping them out at the gates with scarcely time to say goodbye before she was off again, speeding for Cheltenham. It was ten minutes past nine when she parked the car in the station car-park and twelve minutes past when she bought her cheap day return. At the bookstall, she jumped the queue with what she hoped was a charming smile, and bought herself a Daily Telegraph, and—wild extravagance—a copy of Harpers and Queen. After she had paid for it, she saw that it was out of date—last month’s edition, in fact—but there was no time to point this out and get her money back. Besides, it didn’t really matter being out of date; glossy and shiny, it would still be a marvellous treat. Telling herself this, she emerged onto the platform just as the London train drew in. She opened a door, any door, got in and found a seat. She was breathless, her heart fluttering. She closed her eyes. This, she told herself, must be how it feels when you have just escaped from fire.

  After a bit, after a few deep breaths and a little reassuring chat to herself, she felt stronger. The train, mercifully, was very warm. She opened her eyes and loosened the fastenings of her fur. Arranging herself more comfortably, she looked out of the window at the iron-hard winter landscape that flew by, and allowed her frayed nerves to be lulled by the rhythm of the train. She enjoyed train journeys. The telephone could not ring, you could sit down, you didn’t have to think.