Voices in the Summer

  Oh, May.

  She closed the book. ‘May?’ Still no reply. A sort of panic filled Eve’s heart. Nowadays, she was always anxious for her, fearing the worst. A heart attack, maybe, or a stroke. She crossed to the bedroom door and looked inside, steeling herself to discover May prostrate on the carpet or dead on the bed. But this room too was empty, neat, and stuffy. A small ticking clock stood on the bedside table, and the bed lay smooth beneath May’s own crocheted counterpane.

  She went downstairs and found May where she had feared to find her, in the kitchen, pottering about, putting things away in the wrong cupboards, boiling up a kettle.…

  May wasn’t meant to work in the kitchen, but she was always sneaking down there when Eve wasn’t looking, in the hope of finding some dishes to wash or potatoes to peel. This was because she wanted to be useful, and Eve understood this and tried to make a point of giving May small harmless chores like shelling peas or ironing napkins, while Eve cooked the dinner.

  But May stumbling around the kitchen on her own was a perpetual anxiety. Her legs had become unsteady, and she was always losing her balance and having to grab onto something to stop herself from falling. As well, her sight was bad and her coordination beginning to fail, so that the most mundane of tasks, like chopping vegetables, making tea, or going up and down stairs, became occupations fraught with danger. This was Eve’s nightmare. That May would cut herself, or scald herself, or break a hip, and the doctor would have to be called, and an ambulance would arrive to wheel May off to hospital. Because in hospital, without doubt, May would be a terror. They would examine her and probably be insulted by her. She would do something mad and irrational, like stealing another patient’s grapes or throwing her dinner out of the window. The authorities would become suspicious and officious and start asking questions. They would put May into a home.

  This was the nub of the nightmare, because Eve knew that May was becoming senile. The Mickey Mouse scrapbook was only one of her disconcerting purchases. About a month ago she had returned from Truro with a child’s woollen hat, which she now wore like a tea cosy, pulled down over her ears, whenever she went out of doors. A letter that Eve had given May to post, she found three days later in the door of the refrigerator. A freshly made casserole May dumped into the pig bucket.

  Eve unloaded her anxieties on to Gerald, and he told her firmly that she was not to start worrying until there was something to worry about. He didn’t care, he assured her, if May was nutty as a fruitcake, she was doing no person any harm, and provided she didn’t set fire to the curtains or scream blue murder in the middle of the night, like poor Mrs Rochester, she could stay at Tremenheere until she turned up her toes and died.

  ‘But what if she has an accident?’

  ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.’

  So far there had been no accident. But, ‘Oh, May darling, what are you up to?’

  ‘Didn’t like the smell of that milk jug. Just going to give it a scald.’

  ‘It’s absolutely clean; it doesn’t need scalding.’

  ‘You don’t scald jugs in this weather, and we’ll all be coming down with diarrhea.’

  She had once been quite round and plump, but now, at nearly eighty years old, had become painfully thin, the joints of her fingers gnarled and twisted as old tree roots, her stockings wrinkled on her legs, her eyes pale and myopic.

  She had been a perfect nanny, loving, patient, and very sensible. But even as a young woman, she had held strong views, attended church each Sunday, and was a passionate believer in strict temperance. Old age had rendered her intolerant to the point of bigotry. When she first came with Eve to live at Tremenheere, she refused to go to the village church, but joined some obscure chapel in the town, a grim edifice in a back street, where the minister preached sermons on the horrors of drink and May, with the rest of the congregation, renewed her pledges and raised her cracked voice in joyless praise.

  The kettle boiled. Eve said, ‘I’ll pour the water into the jug,’ and did so. May’s expression was sour. To placate her, Eve had to think of something for May to do. ‘Oh, May, I wonder if you’d be an angel and fill up the salt cellars for me, and put them on the dining room table. I’ve laid it and done the flowers, but I forgot about the salt.’ She was searching in cupboards. ‘Where’s the big bowl with the blue stripe? I want it for picking raspberries.’

  May, with a certain grim satisfaction, produced it from the shelf where the saucepans lived.

  ‘What time are Mr and Mrs Alec coming?’ she asked, although Eve had already told her twenty times.

  ‘They said they’d be here in time for dinner. But Mrs Marten’s bringing some cuttings for us … she should be here any moment, and she’s going to stay for a drink. If you hear her, tell her the Admiral’s on the terrace. He’ll look after her till I get back.’

  May’s mouth pursed over her dentures, her eyes narrowing. This was her disapproving face, which Eve had expected, because May approved neither of drink nor of Silvia Marten. Although it was never mentioned, everybody—including May—knew that Tom Marten had died of an excess of alcohol. This was part of Silvia’s tragedy and had left her not only widowed but with very little money. It was one of the reasons Eve was so painfully sorry for her and tried so hard to help her and be kind.

  As well, May thought Silvia a flighty piece. ‘Always kissing the Admiral,’ she would mumble complainingly, and it wasn’t any good pointing out that she had known the Admiral for most of her life. May could never be convinced that Silvia did not have ulterior motives.

  ‘It’s nice for her to come here. She must be dreadfully lonely.’

  ‘Hm.’ May remained unconvinced. ‘Lonely. I could tell you some things you wouldn’t like to hear.’

  Eve lost her patience. ‘Well, I don’t want to hear them,’ she said, and put an end to the conversation by turning her back on May and going out through the door. This led directly into the spacious courtyard, sheltered from the winds, and now somnolent with evening sunshine. The four sides of this quadrangle were formed by garages, the old coach house, and a cottage where undergardeners had once lived. Beyond a high wall lay one of the vegetable gardens, and in the centre of the courtyard was a pigeon cote, where a flock of white doves roosted, cooing gently and fluttering about in brief bursts of flight. Strung between the pigeon cote and the garage wall were lines of washing, shining white pillowcases and tea towels, and not-so-shining white nappies, all crisp and dry. All about stood a variety of tubs, planted with geraniums or herbs. There was the spicy scent of rosemary.

  When Gerald retired and returned to Tremenheere to live for good, the coach house and the cottage had long stood empty. Derelict, unused, they had become repositories for broken garden machinery, rotting harnesses, and rusting tools, all of which offended his navy-engrained sense of order. Accordingly he had gone to some trouble and expense to reconstruct and convert them. Furnished and equipped, they were rented out, in short lets, as holiday homes.

  Now, both the houses were occupied, but not by holiday people. Ivan, Eve’s son, had been living in the coach house for nearly a year, paying Gerald a generous rent for this privilege. The undergardener’s cottage was inhabited by the mysterious Drusilla and her fat brown baby Joshua. They were Joshua’s nappies that hung upon the washing line. So far, Drusilla had paid no rent at all.

  Ivan was not at home. His car was gone and his front door, flanked by wooden tubs of pink pelargoniums, closed. This was because early this morning, he and his partner Mathie Thomas had loaded Mathie’s truck with samples of furniture from their little factory at Carnellow and had driven to Bristol, in the hopes of getting regular orders from some of the big stores there. Eve had no idea when they would be back.

  Drusilla’s door, however, stood open. There was no sign of Drusilla or her baby, but as Eve stood there, from inside the little house a sweet piping started up, and the warm, scented evening was filled with the floating strains of music. Eve, listening, charmed, recogn
ized Villa-Lobos.

  Drusilla was practising her flute. Heaven knew what Joshua was doing.

  She sighed.

  I won’t have you exhausting yourself, looking after all your lame ducks.

  So many lame ducks. Silvia and Laura and May and Drusilla and Joshua and …

  Eve pulled her thoughts to a stop. No. Not Ivan. Ivan was not a lame duck. Ivan was a man of thirty-three, a qualified architect, and totally independent. Exasperating, perhaps, and far too attractive for his own good, but still perfectly capable of taking care of himself.

  She would go and pick raspberries. She would not start worrying about Ivan.

  By the time she had finished this, Silvia had arrived. Eve came through the French windows on to the terrace to find her and Gerald sitting there, looking relaxed and civilized and chatting lazily. While Eve picked raspberries, Gerald had stirred himself and arranged a tray of drinks, glasses and bottles, sliced lime, and a bucket of ice, and this stood between them on a low table.

  Silvia looked up, saw Eve, and raised her glass. ‘Here I am, being perfectly looked after!’

  Eve drew up another chair and sat beside her husband.

  ‘What do you want my darling?’

  ‘A Pimms would be delicious.’

  ‘With lime, too, what a treat.…’ Sylvia said. ‘Where do you get limes? I haven’t seen one for years.’

  ‘I found them in the supermarket in the town.’

  ‘I shall have to go and buy some before they all go.’

  ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you came. Did you find Gerald all right?’

  ‘Well, not exactly’—Silvia smiled her small boy’s grin—‘I went into the house and was calling, rather pathetically, because there didn’t seem to be anybody about, and May finally came to my aid and told me Gerald was here. I must say’—Silvia crinkled her nose—‘she didn’t look exactly delighted to see me. But then, come to think of it, she never does.’

  ‘You mustn’t take any notice of May.’

  ‘She is a funny old thing, isn’t she? Do you know I met her in the village the other day, and it was sweltering hot and she was wearing the most extraordinary woollen hat. I couldn’t believe it. She must have been boiling.’

  Eve leaned back in her chair and shook her head, smiling, torn between anxiety and amusement.

  ‘Oh, dear, I know. Isn’t it awful? She bought it in Truro a couple of weeks ago and she’s been wearing it ever since.’ Automatically, she lowered her voice, although it was unlikely that May—wherever she was—would overhear. ‘She bought herself a scrapbook, too, with Mickey Mouse on the cover, and she’s started cutting things out of the paper and sticking them in.’

  ‘There’s nothing very heinous about that,’ Gerald pointed out.

  ‘No. It’s just … unpredictable. Odd. I’ve got to the point when I never quite know what she’s going to do next. I—’ She stopped, realizing that she had already said too much.

  ‘You don’t think she’s going off her head?’ Silvia sounded horrified, and Eve said stoutly, ‘No, of course I don’t.’ She had her own private fears, but no one else was allowed to. ‘She’s just getting old.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, but I think you and Gerald are a pair of saints, looking after the old girl.’

  ‘I’m not a saint. May and I have been together for most of my life. For years she looked after me, and then Ivan. She was always there when things went wrong, like a rock in times of crisis. When Philip was so ill … well, I couldn’t have lasted the course without May. No, I’m not a saint. If anybody’s a saint, Gerald is, taking her on when he married me, and giving her a home.’

  ‘I didn’t have much option,’ Gerald pointed out. ‘I asked Eve to marry me, and she said that if she did, I’d have to marry May as well.’ Having poured his wife’s drink, he now handed it to her. ‘A fairly shaking thing to be told.’

  ‘Didn’t May mind leaving Hampshire and coming to live down here?’

  ‘Oh, no, she took it all in her stride.’

  ‘She was at our wedding,’ Gerald enlarged on this, ‘wearing the most fantastic hat, like a cake tin covered in roses. She looked like a very old, very cross bridesmaid.’

  Silvia laughed, ‘Did she come on your honeymoon as well?’

  ‘No, I put my foot down there. But by the time we got back to Tremenheere she was already installed, with a nice little list compiled of things to complain about.’

  ‘Oh, Gerald, that isn’t fair.…’

  ‘I know. I’m only teasing. Besides, with May here, I get my shirts ironed and my socks darned, despite the fact that they take about an hour to find, because she’s always put them away in the wrong drawer.’

  ‘She does all Ivan’s laundry as well,’ said Eve, ‘and I’m sure she’s longing to get her hands on Joshua’s pale grey nappies and give them a good boil. Actually, I suspect she’s longing to get her hands on Joshua as well, but so far she’s made no move. I expect she’s torn between her nanny instincts and the fact that she hasn’t quite made up her mind yet about Drusilla.’

  ‘Drusilla.’ Silvia repeated the improbable name. ‘When you come to think of it, she couldn’t be called anything but Drusilla, could she? Totally outlandish. How long is she staying here?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Gerald peaceably.

  ‘Isn’t she a bit of a nuisance?’

  ‘No nuisance at all,’ Eve assured her. ‘We see very little of her. She’s really Ivan’s friend. In the evenings they sometimes sit outside her house on kitchen chairs and have a glass of wine. What with the washing line and the doves cooing, and the geraniums, and both of them looking faintly bohemian, Tremenheere suddenly feels like Naples, or one of those little courtyards you unexpectedly come upon in Spain. It’s nice. And then at other times, you can hear her practising her flute. She was playing this evening. It’s rather romantic.’

  ‘Is that what she and Ivan are doing now? Drinking wine beneath the shade of the washing line?’

  ‘No, Ivan and Mathie have been in Bristol all day, trying to drum up some business.’

  ‘How’s the factory going?’

  Gerald answered, ‘All right as far as we know. They don’t seem to be going bankrupt. Silvia, your glass is empty … have another.’

  ‘Well’—she made a show of glancing at her watch—‘won’t Alec and his wife be here in a moment…?’

  ‘They aren’t here yet.’

  ‘I’d love one, then … but after that I must take myself off.’

  ‘I feel awful,’ said Eve, ‘not asking you to stay for dinner, but I think Laura will be feeling exhausted, and we’ll probably have an early meal, so that she can get to bed.’

  ‘I can’t wait to meet her.’

  ‘You must come for dinner another evening, when I know how much social life she can cope with.’

  ‘… and I’d love to see Alec.’

  ‘You can see him when he comes back to fetch her, and take her back to London.’

  ‘The last time he was here Tom was still alive.… Oh, thank you, Gerald. Do you remember? We all went out for dinner at the Lobster Pot.’

  Yes, thought Eve, and Tom got paralytically drunk. She wondered if Silvia remembered this too, and then decided that she didn’t, otherwise she would never have mentioned that occasion in the first place. Perhaps the passing months since Tom’s death were being kind to Silvia, clouding memory over, so that the bad moments were fading and only the happy ones remained. This happened to other people, she knew, but it had never happened to Eve. When Philip died, there had been no bad memories, only the recollection of twenty-five years of good companionship and laughter and love. She had been blessed with so much good fortune; Silvia, it seemed, had had so little. Life, when it came to handing out the goodies, was really dreadfully unfair.

  The sun was now low in the sky. It was cooler, but the midges were beginning to bite. Silvia slapped one away and leaned back in her chair, gazing out over the newly cut lawn.

  She sai
d, ‘Tremenheere always looks so fantastically neat. Not a weed in sight. Not even on the paths. How do you keep them down, Gerald?’

  ‘I’m afraid I spray them with weed killer,’ Gerald admitted.

  ‘Tom used to do that, too, but I just use the hoe. Somehow I think it makes a better job, and at least they don’t all come up again. Talking of which, I got buttonholed by the vicar, and he told me you were running the garden stall for the fête next month. Do you need any plants?’

  ‘I certainly do.’

  ‘I’m sure I can find something in my greenhouse for you.’ Silvia had finished her second drink. Now, she laid down the empty glass and reached for her bag, preparing to depart. ‘I took some cuttings of those little geraniums with the delicious lemon-scented leaves.…’

  Eve stopped listening to them. Out of the silence of the evening, she had heard the soft purr of a car coming up the road from the village. It changed down, came through the gate; there was the scrunch of tyres on gravel. She sprang to her feet. ‘They’re here.’

  The others got up and they all made their way across the lawn and through the escallonia arch to greet the new arrivals. In front of the house, alongside Silvia’s shabby little car, stood parked a beautiful dark red BMW coupé. Alec had already got out of the car and was holding the door open for his wife, a hand under her elbow to help her out.

  Eve’s first impression was of a girl much younger than she had expected. A slender girl, with dark eyes and thick dark hair, loose upon her shoulders. She wore, like a teenager, faded Levis and a loose blue cotton shirt. Her feet were bare in open sandals, and she carried in her arms a small long-haired dachshund (which looked, thought Eve, like a cross between a fox and a squirrel), and the first thing she ever said to Eve was, ‘I am so sorry. I hope you don’t mind having Lucy to stay as well as me.’

  * * *

  Silvia trundled home in her little car. There was a new and unexplained rattle from the engine and the choke didn’t seem to be working properly. Her gate, with the name Roskenwyn painted upon it, stood open. A pretentious name, she always thought, for such a small and ordinary house, but that was what it had been called when she and Tom bought it, and they had never got around to thinking up anything better.