Vacillations of Poppy Carew

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Like a glass now?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Great. Got anything to put round your shoulders when you sit up?’ (Cover that bruise at least.)

  ‘No, no—I—’

  ‘Try this.’ Willy fetched a cardigan given the previous Christmas by Calypso.

  ‘Soft.’ Poppy fingered the material. ‘Cashmere.’

  ‘My aunt gave it to me. I’ll open the bottle.’

  ‘The one with the coat?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  While Poppy got her arms into the cardigan, wincing as she moved, Willy clinked glasses, uncorked champagne in the anteroom. He came back to hand her a glass, sat distancing himself from the bed so that she would not feel threatened.

  Poppy sipped in silence.

  ‘This storm has got itself into the newspapers.’ Willy broke what threatened to be too long a pause.

  ‘That doesn’t make it any better.’ She swallowed.

  Willy refilled her glass. ‘You have one hell of a shiner.’ He took the bull by the horns. ‘Was it an accident?’ (Of course it was no accident.)

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘A fight, actually.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘He’s got a broken leg.’ Poppy sipped her champagne, not looking at Willy, remembering the scene in that other hotel bedroom when Edmund—‘He’s in hospital,’ she said.

  ‘I was planning to garrot him.’

  Poppy laughed. ‘That’s sweet of you.’ Laughing hurt.

  ‘But since somebody’s broken his leg—’

  ‘I broke it.’

  ‘Bully for you.’

  ‘With a chair.’

  So with a vinous half truth Poppy joined the legendary figures of Victor, famous for drowning his wife, and Mary, known to all as the girl who had a child by a wog, to become celebrated as the girl who broke her lover’s leg with a chair.

  36

  IT BEGAN TO RAIN as Penelope bumped up the track and a nasty little wind got up as she reached the group of buildings which had been the headquarters of Furnival’s Funerals. She was tempted to turn round and drive back from whence she came. Only the memory of Mary’s jeering voice and Venetia’s fluting in Harrods prodded her on.

  She switched off the engine, reached for her coat and got bravely out of the car.

  Pushing open the yard door she found herself among empty loose-boxes where bits of straw shuffled into corners. An empty Coca-Cola tin rattled along the gutter; the doors of the boxes creaked.

  She walked across the yard past the empty stables, sniffing the stale scent of horse. She kicked the Cola can which shot away rattling noisily, coming to rest against the water trough. The wind dropped, she listened. Nothing.

  Leaving the yard Penelope shouldered open the doors of the coach house, walked boldly across its darkness and out into the garden, sighted the cottage, strode up the neglected path, seized the knocker, knocked.

  Getting no answer, she knocked again. Above the door a window rattled on a loose latch. Penelope shielded her eyes, peered through the window into the kitchen trying to make out signs of occupation. Then she tried the door, found it locked. Exasperated she walked round the cottage peering in at the windows, unable to decide whether or not there was anybody living here.

  I could write a note, she thought. Who to, she answered herself? You don’t know who the woman is, who to address your note to.

  The rain, up to now light, renewed its energies, slanting unpleasantly down from the top of the valley. She left the exposed doorstep, ran across to the coach house. As she pushed open the door there was a clatter and a crash, an ominous growl. Penelope’s heart jumped into her throat. Something pushed against her legs, she shrieked.

  ‘Oh God!’ She was furious. ‘Fergus’s bloody cat. I am supposed to catch you.’

  Bolivar pressed his bulk against her legs, purring throatily.

  Penelope thought of all the trashy stories she had read where stupid girls were frightened by cats in empty buildings.

  ‘Get off.’ She kicked at Bolivar. ‘Stop doing that. I hate cats. Follow me to the car and I’ll give you your bloody sardines, then you can sit in the back and I’ll drive you back to Fergus and that horrible girl. He should give me a reward for this,’ she said, opening the coach-house door, slamming it shut, crossing the yard to her car.

  Bolivar ran ahead of Penelope, his ringed tail in the air, exposing a tender triangle of gingery fur round his anus, jauntily displaying his balls.

  ‘Here you are, you beastly animal.’ Penelope took the tin of sardines from the car seat, laid it on the ground.

  Purring loudly, Bolivar set himself to eat.

  Penelope got into the car out of the rain and sat waiting for the cat to finish its meal. As Bolivar ate slowly after the first gulp she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel impatient to be off.

  ‘Hurry up, for Christ’s sake. I’ve had enough of this place, there’s nobody here.’

  Bolivar paused in his eating to lick his chops, shake the rain off his coat, stare around. ‘If there is anybody here she must be out. I’m not going to wait.’ For some reason she felt very nervous.

  Bolivar resumed his meal, crouching intent and thoughtful over the sardines.

  ‘Buck up,’ ordered Penelope. Bolivar rasped his tongue round the tin, sucking up the last drop of delicious oil then sat back and began his toilet.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, you can do that in the car, jump in.’ Penelope opened the car door.

  Bolivar moved away.

  ‘Come on, get in, I’m not going to pick you up.’ Penelope made to shoo Bolivar into the car.

  Bolivar stepped aside.

  ‘Blast you, get in I said.’ Penelope reached down to pick Bolivar up. Bolivar scratched her.

  ‘Bloody fucking beast.’ Penelope lunged to grab Bolivar. Bolivar skipped aside. Penelope gave chase.

  Bolivar ran ahead, enjoying the game, cantering tail up, as before, beautiful tabby flanks gleaming in the rain. Had Penelope been a cat lover she would have appreciated that here in Bolivar was a truly beautiful specimen of domestic cat.

  Penelope stopped running, altered tack. ‘Puss, puss, puss,’ she called in her sexiest voice.

  Bolivar sauntered down a grassy slope to the stream, crouched like a tiger to drink, his pink tongue lapping the clear water, the tip of his tail twitching in rhythm with his tongue.

  The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. Bolivar sat on a flat stone and resumed his interrupted toilet.

  ‘Bugger you,’ Penelope cooed between clenched teeth. ‘Come on, pretty puss. Puss, puss, puss.’ She approached the cat slowly.

  Bolivar ignored her.

  Holding her breath Penelope crept closer. Two feet from Bolivar she pounced. Her outstretched hands gripped empty air. The grassy bank overhanging the stream gave way. She crashed into the water, twisting her ankle in an agonising wrench, banging her knee on a stone, bruising it badly.

  Stunned by the pain, Penelope hauled herself out of the water, sat on the bank, took off her shoe, watched her ankle swell and blood seep from her knee.

  ‘Oh God, oh God, that woman will come back and find me like this,’ Penelope moaned, ‘I must get away.’ She snatched up a stone and threw it at the cat. Bolivar did not flinch, he watched, sitting still again, whiskers fanning outward. Now in her wretchedness Penelope remembered Mary giving her the sardines. ‘Lure him into the car,’ she had said, ‘lure him in.’ Not put the fucking tin down in the open.

  Bolivar moved, he nudged up against Penelope weaving a sinuous caress. ‘Fuck off, piss off,’ said Penelope gritting her teeth, close to tears.

  Bolivar repeated his gesture, catching Penelope’s eye, pressing his arched back against her side.

  Penelope ignored him. The pain in her ankle was growing worse, it was beginning to throb quite horribly. She dipped her foot, ankle and all, into the icy stream. ‘Oops!’ Courageously she kept it
there. She splashed water over her bruised knee. Bolivar was interested.

  Holding her foot in the water, trying to keep still, breathing in shuddering gasps, Penelope felt disgusted respect for the cat who now sat out of reach on his stone, gazing down into the water trickling over a pretty little waterfall into the pool. From time to time Bolivar licked his lips.

  Following Bolivar’s intent scrutiny Penelope saw a fish idling in the current, lazily steering with its semi-transparent tail and fins. The water was so clear she was able to count its spots, view its pink-tinged flanks. Watching the fish, keeping her foot in the pool, she became aware of mud seeping through her clothes to chill her bottom and thighs, oozing icily through her skirt.

  ‘I have to get away.’ Penelope withdrew her foot from the pool, tried to stand. Impossible, she crumpled, the pain was awful. She went down on hands and knees and began to crawl back to her car.

  Bolivar, interested, kept pace.

  Penelope had managed twenty painful yards when she heard a car coming up the track. Her first reaction was to shout ‘Help!’ Then, no, oh no—that woman—I can’t—won’t. Penelope lay flat out of sight of the track. I’ll get away when she’s gone into the house, she thought, I can’t possibly confront her like this. Conscious of her muddy and dishevelled appearance, painful ankle, bruised knee, Penelope lay face down on the wet grass.

  ‘What on earth?’ cried Victor, running down the slope to visit his trout. ‘I say! Oh God, it’s you, darling. I thought the car looked familiar. What are you doing here? You are hurt. What happened? Who did this to you? Let me see. Oh my love, my poor, poor love, don’t cry. It’s all right, I’m here now. Here, use my handkerchief. Oh, my darling. Put your arms round me. That’s right. I’ll get you to a doctor. Gosh, you are soaking, you’ll catch pneumonia. Your poor ankle, look at that knee. Jesus, it’s swollen. How on earth—I say, what’s Bolivar doing here—trying to catch my trout, the old faker. Don’t cry, darling, it’s all right now, I’m here.’

  ‘The cat did it,’ said Penelope viciously.

  37

  VICTOR HELPED PENELOPE INTO her car. ‘You’d better let me drive.’ He took off his jacket, rolled it into a ball. ‘Cushion your foot on that, then it won’t get jarred going over the bumps.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Gingerly she eased herself into the seat.

  ‘If you came to fetch Bolivar,’ Victor went on, ‘we’d better drop him off at Fergus’s new place on our way to a doctor. Fergus will be able to recommend one. Bolivar can sit in the back, he’ll be all right there.’

  Penelope, so lately rescued, felt it unpolitic to say ‘Just try and catch him’. Remarks of that ilk had sparked off many a row in the past.

  Victor bent down, picked Bolivar up. Bolivar pressed a sheathed paw against Victor’s cheek, chucked him under the chin with his head. ‘Gorgeous animal,’ said Victor, ‘how come you got left behind in the move? You must have been out hunting or after the girls, you old rogue.’ He put Bolivar on the back seat. ‘Better wind the windows up in case he takes it into his head to leap out.’

  Penelope wound up her window, Victor closed his.

  ‘Perhaps he doesn’t like cars,’ Penelope ventured.

  ‘Nonsense, I bet he drives everywhere with Fergus.’

  ‘What about your car?’ asked Penelope.

  ‘I’ll come back for it.’

  ‘Are you leaving the keys in the ignition?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Victor, who had forgotten them. ‘Why are you always right?’ he asked bitterly.

  Penelope sniffed danger.

  ‘Nobody comes up here,’ Victor justified himself. ‘Right, let’s be off.’ He started the engine, turned the car.

  In the back Bolivar began to scream.

  ‘I don’t suppose he’s ever been in a car,’ Penelope shouted.

  Victor yelled, ‘The poor fellow’s frightened, he’ll settle down in a minute.’

  Penelope’s answer, if she made one, was drowned.

  Bolivar bounded caterwauling from side to side of the back seat. Penelope shielded her head with her hands in case he took it into his demented head to leap over into the front of the car.

  Victor laughed. ‘At least we can’t have a row with this racket going on,’ he bellowed.

  Penelope stopped her ears with her fingers.

  For the ten miles to Fergus’s new establishment in Poppy Carew’s house and stables Bolivar kept up an ear-piercing, growling, panic-stricken yowl. The only thing which prevented Victor from stopping the car and letting Bolivar out was the thought of the many, many times in the future when, supposing they were re-united, Penelope would say ‘I told you so’.

  At last reaching Poppy’s house, Victor stopped the car, switched off the engine and sat still, his ears tingling in the sudden silence. Penelope kept her ears blocked and her eyes shut.

  On the back seat Bolivar now sat quiet and wary, his eyes brilliant with suspicion, his tail lashing.

  ‘How clever you’ve been. I never thought you’d catch him. Sardines did the trick, did they?’ Mary ran to greet them. ‘Hullo, Victor, what are you doing here?’ she shouted through the closed window, cheerful and pleased.

  ‘Went to visit my trout,’ shouted Victor, beginning to wind down the window.

  ‘Don’t do that! He might run away, he’s never been here, he might be frightened. Keep it shut,’ shouted Mary. ‘Wait while I fetch Fergus, he’s just got back.’ She disappeared into the house. They heard her voice still, ‘It was a very successful funeral, went without a hitch. Fergus, Bolivar’s arrived!’

  ‘Am I in Hell?’ muttered Penelope.

  ‘That was Byron on his wedding night—’ Victor, not one of those men who fancy themselves in Byron’s shoes, waiting obediently for Fergus to appear, wished that there might be a time when he was not in perpetual disagreement with his ex-wife then, feeling an unwonted rush of affection for her, leant across and kissed her cheek.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ Penelope took her hands from her ears.

  ‘Love,’ said Victor.

  Penelope said nothing. In addition to the throb of her twisted ankle and her bruised knee she was trying to assimilate the revelation she had just been posed by Mary. Then: ‘I feel such an utter and complete fool,’ she whispered.

  ‘Why?’ Half expecting her to snatch it away, Victor took her hand.

  ‘I say! Clever girl, found and caught my Bolivar.’ Fergus came out of the house, bounding down the steps, putting paid to any explanation Penelope might see fit to make. ‘Thought you didn’t care for cats, Penelope. Here, just let me get at him. Come along, my treasure, you’ve no idea how worried I’ve been.’ Opening the car door, Fergus gathered Bolivar tenderly into his arms. ‘There, there, what a dreadful time you’ve had. Never mind, it’s all over now.’

  Penelope and Victor exchanged glances.

  Moaning with joy, Bolivar nestled against Fergus, pressing his furry bulk against his chest, his purr rumbling fit to choke in his throat.

  ‘It’s Penelope who’s had a dreadful time,’ Victor yelled in exasperation. ‘There’s nothing wrong with your bloody cat. Penelope’s hurt, I must get her to a doctor.’

  ‘Really? Why?’ asked Fergus, distracted from Bolivar, sighting Penelope. ‘What on earth have you been up to, you do look a mess. Did Victor get around to trying to murder you again?’

  ‘One of these days your jokes will get you into serious trouble.’ Mary pushed Fergus aside. ‘Shut Bolivar up somewhere until he’s calmed down, butter his paws. You come with me,’ she said to Penelope, ‘you don’t need a doctor. I’ll fix your wounds. Help me get her up to the bathroom, Victor.’

  ‘Bossy boots.’ Fergus stood aside.

  ‘And when you’ve shut the cat up, tell one of the girls to make a pot of tea. Come on, Victor. Lean on both of us,’ she said to Penelope. ‘Get cracking, Fergus, light the fire in the sitting room while you are about it and find the whisky. Keep an eye on Barnaby while I’m busy.’

  ‘
Christ!’ Fergus, hugging Bolivar, watched Mary and Victor help Penelope into the house and up the stairs.

  ‘And tell Frances and Annie they can’t go out tonight, there’s far too much to do,’ Mary called from the stairs.

  Fergus gaped. ‘What’s got into her?’

  ‘Your mother came to see you this afternoon,’ Mary called from the landing.

  ‘My ma? What did she want?’

  Mary did not apparently hear. ‘Leave her with me,’ she said to Victor as Penelope sank on to the bathroom chair. ‘I can cope better without you.’

  ‘I—’ said Victor.

  ‘Go on, you’re only in the way.’

  Victor looked at Penelope’s face smeared with mud and tears. She made a tentative movement. Victor bent down, she put her hands on his shoulders. They kissed carefully, neither spoke. ‘Okay, see you later.’ Victor straightened up and left the room.

  ‘Cry into this.’ Mary handed Penelope a roll of lavatory paper. ‘I honestly think you’d do best by getting into a hot bath, you’re soaked. Let me help you out of your clothes. I’ll lend you some of mine.’

  ‘You’re kind.’

  ‘Just interested in the boomerang effect of whatever it was Venetia started—’ Mary turned on the taps, helped Penelope undress. ‘Have a good soak while I find a bandage to strap up that ankle. I’m sure she didn’t intend you to meet Victor.’

  ‘It was a ploy, probably directed against Poppy Carew. Oh, that’s lovely.’ Penelope lay back in the bath. ‘Didn’t you say when I was here earlier on that both Fergus and Victor are interested in Poppy?’

  ‘Exactly. Quite funny as things—’ Mary began to laugh.

  Penelope joined in.

  Fergus in the kitchen buttering Bolivar’s paws, looked up nervously.