Vacillations of Poppy Carew

  Nobody could help the dog.

  A few cars patrolled along the sea road. She watched their lights. Her watch had stopped, it must be pretty late. The hotel was silent, almost as though it were empty. She ran water in the bathroom, bathed her face, washed her hands, her hands would not stop shaking. Stupid.

  Better to unpack and go to bed, be asleep when he comes up.

  She heaved her bag on to the bed, picked out the lovely dress, Dad’s present, carried it to the cupboard to put it on a hanger to hang it perhaps outside the cupboard where she could see it, be comforted. She opened the cupboard door, screamed a small controlled choking scream, shut the door in haste, bent to pick up the bedside telephone.

  ‘’Allo?’

  ‘A gentleman in the bar. Please find a gentleman in the bar. Mr Platt, Room Thirty-eight. Get him fast.’

  ‘Comment?’

  ‘Oh—Un monsieur. Il y a un monsieur dans le bar, appellez le vite, s’il vous plaît.’

  She waited taking deep breaths.

  ‘Plat?’ a puzzled voice.

  ‘Yes. Oui. Platt. P – L – A—’

  ‘Pas de messieurs.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No gentleman. Bar empty. Fermé. Chiuso.’

  ‘God!’

  ‘Comment?’

  ‘Send somebody up, Room Thirty-eight. Vite. At once. Subito.’

  ‘Subito.’ The line went dead. This is ridiculous.

  It seemed a long time before there was a knock on the door. Two servants standing, moderately interested.

  Poppy showed them the occupants of the cupboard, a group of very large reddish cockroaches clustered halfway up the cupboard, fidgeting in the electric light, waving long sensitive feelers.

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘I want another room, I can’t sleep here.’

  ‘Comment?’

  ‘Another room. Une autre chambre. Ein anderer—un altro—’

  Confabulation, shrugging of shoulders. One of the men flipped at the cockroaches with a towel from the bathroom.

  ‘No. Non. Nein. Another room—’ She pushed the dress back into the bag, zipped it shut, made herself plain by signs and single words. One man seemed to understand Italian, the man who had flipped with the towel. Now he craftily captured the cockroaches in it, shook them away out of the open window.

  ‘Ecco!’

  ‘I still want to move.’

  ‘E pericoloso sporgersi.’ The man leaned out laughing, demonstrating the insects’ departure, smiling ingratiatingly, expecting to please with his little joke.

  ‘I—’

  The man pointed at the bed. ‘Allora! Dormez bien. Gute Nacht.’

  ‘No. Another room. The bloody things will come back.’ She knew she was being irrational.’ Un altra camera. Ein. Oh God, I can’t speak German. For Christ’s sake move me.’

  ‘Okay.’

  At last another room far down the corridor, the servants anxious to please, by now opening each cupboard door exhibiting its pristine emptiness. The drawers too pulled out, virgin clean, bringing more towels to augment those already in the bathroom, running the water. (See it runs?), testing the lights, the telephone. Everything in order. ‘Alles in Ordnung’. Accepting tips. English money again. Good night. Good night. Poppy locked the door after them, washed her hands again, undressed, got into bed, covered her face with the sheet, prayed for sleep.

  He must have noticed the dog.

  Perhaps he had not noticed the dog.

  Had Victor and Fergus helped Jane Edwardes clear up after the party? Perhaps the girls had helped? The girl with the baby, Mary? Why had she not telephoned from London, she was after all responsible, it was her father’s funeral, asked Mrs Edwardes whether everything was all right, told her that she was letting the house and stables to Fergus. Yes, Mrs E., all those horses, yes, Mrs E., that’s what I said.

  Am I having a nervous breakdown?

  What about her job? Had she or had she not made it clear when she telephoned them about Dad’s death that she was not coming back? What had she said? Had she made herself clear? Memory failed her. Why worry about that now, a bit late surely.

  No, I am not having a breakdown.

  And Edmund? Not in the bar? There were other bars. There were always other bars. She had seen this film before.

  What would Venetia Colyer do under these circumstances? Or Mary with her dyed and spiky hair pomaded into points, tiny upright striking spears?

  Poppy switched on the light, took the dress Dad had given her for her birthday and hung it near her on a chair so that if by some miracle she slept it would be in view when she woke. Then she got back into bed, laid her head on the pillow, switched off the light.

  Neither Venetia nor Mary would have got themselves into a dump like this boiling with cockroaches with a man like Edmund. When they didn’t really want to.

  We have no joint destination, she thought, Edmund and I.

  Somewhere in the night a donkey brayed, expressing, as no other beast can, all the sorrows of the world.

  22

  IN AN EMPTY BAR Edmund sat with Mustafa from the Government Tourist Board, a half-full glass of whisky before him. He was aware that his host barely succeeded in hiding his feeling that it was a long time since he had met the plane, that everything that could be discussed between them that evening had been mulled over multiple times, that it was time to call it a day.

  I have one more thing to say to him, thought Edmund, it is important. Why did I tell him the whole story of my life with Poppy, my love for Poppy? Edmund tried to remember. How did Poppy come into this important thing he had to say, ah of course, got it, here goes.

  ‘I know the car’s well sprung. Trust the Krauts to make a good car,’ he began.

  ‘—?’ Mustafa hummed.

  ‘Yes. That’s what I said. No, not better than a Ro—Ro—What? I said Rolls Royce, didn’t I? Ro Ros are the very best, we all know that. You agree?’

  ‘—’ he sighed politely.

  ‘Of course. Even Arabs—God—I’ve lost the thread. I was saying that we ran over a dog, you must have noticed.’

  Mustafa lit a cigarette, blew smoke towards the ceiling.

  Edmund ploughed on. ‘Poppy noticed. Went stiff as a board with horror.’

  Edmund’s host glanced secretly at his watch, caught the eye of the barman.

  ‘Yes.’ Edmund answered Mustafa’s silence. ‘As I say. Too polite, too tactful to protest of course, but horrified.’

  ‘A stray dog.’ Mustafa drew in a lungful of smoke.

  ‘Grant you, a stray maybe, but your driver ran over it. I felt the bump even though we were in the second best car. I say, that’s funny. Second best.’

  ‘So?’ Mustafa let the smoke drift out of his mouth finishing with a sharp puff.

  ‘He should have stopped.’

  ‘Stopped. Why?’

  ‘For appearance sake. Taken the dog’s number.’

  ‘No use, no point, no number—’

  ‘Of course no use to the dog, it was dead, wasn’t it, but if you want to attract the British tourist you have to stop when you run over a dog, it’s essential.’

  ‘Ha ha ha.’ The marvellously comic Brits.

  ‘No laughing matter. Preferable of course not to run over a dog in the first place. The British tourist doesn’t want to spend his hard earned pounds running over dogs.’

  ‘You say—’

  ‘I’m telling you. I say nothing matters, my precious Poppy says (well she didn’t, too polite wasn’t she, a tactful girl), nothing matters as much as dogs, better a child.’

  ‘A child?’ Mustafa straightened from a lounging position.

  ‘Yup,’ said Edmund wisely. ‘For some reason, yes. Herod is a secret hero with some sects in the UK.’

  ‘Ah?’ He must make enquiries, sects could be a serious cause of disturbances. ‘So?’

  ‘I say. What’s the time? Lord, it’s late. You’ve kept me talking while what I’ve been meaning to do is take my pre
cious Poppy in my arms and tell her how much I love her. I’ve loved her for years.’

  ‘You will marry her?’ Mustafa feigned interest, he was sick of the subject of Poppy.

  ‘Of course. Her father died the other day. Didn’t like me, influenced her against me or tried to. I told you that didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes.’ Twice over, thought Mustafa, in truth, in triplicate. Can’t stand it again.

  ‘Didn’t succeed though, did he? Told you that too. Now then, look here, I can’t sit up all night talking to you when I have to comfort Poppy. Shall I tell you—’

  ‘No.’ Mustafa released a glint of impatience.

  ‘Oh, I see. Okay I won’t, but let me tell you the British won’t stand for killing dogs, it isn’t done.’

  ‘She did not notice,’ unwisely Mustafa answered.

  ‘Of course she bloody noticed. She noticed the dog, the bump, the shit driver laughed. Christ, that laugh could cost you all Thompson’s Tours, much better Herod.’

  ‘Who is this Herod?’

  ‘Wouldn’t go down well here, he was a Jew as far as I can remember.’

  ‘So?’ Bristle concealed by cigarette smoke.

  ‘So,’ said Edmund with a flash of sobriety, ‘I must leave you. Meet you tomorrow in the hotel bar. We can get down to business then.’

  They drove back, conversation exhausted. Edmund knew they had arrived when he smelled wet cement. They said good night. The night was beautiful, moonless. Edmund looked up at the stars. He felt an overwhelming love for Poppy, he wondered as he went up in the lift why he had not insisted ages ago on marrying her. Soon he would be in bed, hold her warm in his arms, too tired tonight for more than that but her warm bottom in the small of his back held familiar allure. He would not wake her, just creep in (ah, here we are), no need to put on the light. He stood to accustom his eyes to the dark, moved forward, arms outstretched. ‘Oh hell, twin beds, creep into this one, tell her in the morning when my head has stopped roaring how much I love her.’ He pulled off his clothes, slipped into bed. He must not take Poppy so much for granted. He lay down, remembered his watch, wound it, put it on the bedside table, laid his head on the pillow. What had he told Mustafa? My love is a fire which inflames my soul. Oh dear God! I’m drunk. The classic way to make a fool of oneself. For some reason it seemed all Poppy’s fault he had made a monumental cock-up of the job, first try.

  23

  WHEN CALYPSO GRANT’S HUSBAND Hector returned from the 1939–45 war he bought land to plant his dream wood, an idea born in the treeless Western Desert which had become an obsession.

  He found his location, a bowl of land with a stream meandering through it dotted with oak and limes. On the side of a hill overlooking the land a tumble-down house. He bought the land, restored the house and spent the rest of his life planting trees.

  By the time Hector had planted wild cherries in a series of loops, circles and curves to spell his wife’s name, Calypso, who had originally scoffed at her husband, became bitten by the bug. Together they planted beech and oak, chestnut, hornbeam, sycamore, pine, larch, rowan, birch and more limes to scent the air. They encouraged an undergrowth of spindleberry, blackthorn, hawthorn, hazel and wild rose. Among the scrub they set honeysuckle to ramp. In open spaces they encouraged gorse. When the wild cherries flowered spelling, as Hector intended, his wife’s name, they had rivalry from hawthorn, rowan and horse chestnut. Between them they had planted clumps of box, philadelphus and lilac, planning that at almost every turn of the year there would be the reassurance of sweet scents. Forty years on, walking through the wood in the evening, Calypso doubted whether anyone flying over the wood would read her name spelled in blossom but there was no part of the wood which did not spell Hector for her.

  To wild anemones, primroses, bluebells and foxgloves they added in open glades drifts of fritillary, spring and autumn cyclamens, windflowers, daffodils and narcissi.

  In the centre of the wood they widened and dammed the stream to make a lake, bordering it with reeds to form a haven for wildfowl and warbler. The wood as it grew was colonised by innumerable birds and wild animals.

  As she walked in the wood the day after Bob Carew’s funeral Calypso thought of her husband, how he would have enjoyed the funeral, especially the tape of birdsong in the church, a dawn chorus comparable to the chorus in the wood which had delighted their springs.

  Pausing by a clump of hazel wound about with honeysuckle, thinking of Hector, she breathed in to catch a last elusive whiff of honey. Instead, sneaking from the far side of the hill on a north-east breeze, she smelled pig.

  Some years before his death, to protect his wood from an encroaching developer, Hector had bought the land over the hill and with it a group of derelict farm buildings. He restored the buildings and leased the land to a dairy farmer. To the dawn chorus was added the comforting sound of lowing cattle.

  The lease expired, the farmer died and Calypso rented the farm to Hector’s nephew Willy Guthrie who had chosen an agricultural career. Tiring of milking cows, Willy switched his attention to pigs and presently prospered, growing what his aunt referred to as Happy Hams, pigs who lived in comfort, lolling at night in deep straw in the barns, roaming freely by day in family or adolescent groups in large paddocks with ample fresh water piped to their troughs.

  In exchange for not losing their tails, having their teeth extracted, sleeping on bare concrete, imprisoned in the sweatbox—conditions of the modern pig—the prospective Hams surrendered their lives after a period of cheerful carefree growth to become sides of bacon and high-class smoked ham similar to Jambon d’Ardennes which Willy smoked himself in a barn converted into a smokery. These hams under the brand name of Guthrie he sold at high prices to upmarket restaurants and delicatessens.

  Calypso, scenting pig, forgot Hector, noted that the wind had swung to the north-east, the only and fortunately rare wind to bring hint of pig, remembered that she had news for Willy garnered from carefully selected telephone calls. She was fond of Willy, who reminded her of her late husband, not so much by physical resemblance but by genetic quirks. Hector had never been as Willy was, gangling as though his limbs were not only loose but double jointed, giving his movements a disconnected quality which some people found irritating but which she found endearing. Where Hector’s eyes had sparkled like jet, Willy’s were brown velvet. It was the intonation when moved, the catch in his voice which made her stop, remember with a pang that she would never hear that voice again.

  With her hand raised to pick the last honeysuckle and hold it to her nose, Calypso hesitated. She left the honeysuckle where it was and set off towards her house to telephone Willy. Her dog, who had been patiently waiting for her to make a move, followed.

  ‘Willy?’

  ‘Yes, Aunt.’

  ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘Just about to stroll round the enterprise, scratch a few backs perhaps.’ His voice was depressed.

  ‘Leave all that and come and see me.’

  ‘Okay I’ll come, love to.’

  ‘Have you had supper?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Come and share mine.’

  ‘Thanks, I’d like that.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I’ll be over as soon as I’ve settled the pigs.’

  ‘Don’t bring Mrs Future.’

  Willy laughed. Mrs Future, a sow of exceptional intelligence and charm, born the runt of the family, was, after being reared on a bottle by Willy, under the impression that she was entitled to accompany him wherever he went, tripping merrily at his heels, raising pleased smiles from the neighbours in her early and adolescent youth but now, a mature sow, her appearance in people’s houses and gardens raised protests, complaints even.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Willy reassured his aunt. ‘She farrowed last night, she can’t leave her piglets.’

  ‘I hesitate to worry you but there was a bit of a whiff when I was walking in the wood just now, of dung.’

  ‘Not to worry, that would b
e Harry Arnold who took a load away to muck spread it, suits his land, the pong is gone.’

  ‘Right.’

  Calypso uncorked a bottle of wine, setting it to breathe in the warmth of the kitchen, debated what to give her nephew to eat, decided on pasta with a garlicky sauce, the aroma of which would stifle any lingering hint of pig Willy might bring with him. In her youth, she thought with amusement, she would have sent him off to bath and change his clothes if he dared bring evidence of the byre with him. In age she was sensitive to young people’s feelings. As she chopped onions and garlic for the sauce she debated whether or not to tell Willy the result of her telephonings. She was still undecided when he arrived, coming in by the kitchen door, stooping to kiss her cheek.

  ‘Smells delicious, brought you a ham. I had a bath after your remarks and changed. Have I kept you waiting?’

  ‘No. Hang it on the hook on the larder beam. You must let me pay you.’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘I insist.’

  ‘No, no, I owe you.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘Taking me to Bob Carew’s funeral.’

  ‘I hope this doesn’t end in tears,’ Calypso exclaimed as she poured the saucepan of pasta to drain in a colander.

  ‘If it did it would be worth it,’ said Willy. His aunt drew in her breath with a hiss, reminded with a fierce pang of Hector. She watched Willy scatter Parmesan on his pasta, twirl it round his fork and eat. She was glad that love had not impaired his appetite. She offered a second helping.

  ‘No, thank you.’ He sipped his wine, stared gloomily at his empty plate then, looking up at her, said bleakly, ‘What am I to do? I can’t find her.’

  ‘Where have you looked?’

  ‘I tried the daily woman, Mrs Edwardes, at her father’s house. Not much joy.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She gave me Poppy’s London address and the address of her work. She’s left her job and her flat is empty. Nobody answers the door and the telephone rings and rings.’

  ‘Sad.’

  ‘It appears that Fergus Furnival and his cousin Victor are trailing her too, no luck for them either.’