Vacillations of Poppy Carew

  ‘Listen to those two. What can they be laughing at?’

  ‘Us, probably,’ said Victor. ‘Where d’you keep the whisky?’

  ‘It’s on the dresser.’ Fergus placed Bolivar in the dog basket. Bolivar shook his paws, sniffed, then started to lick them.

  Victor poured them each a drink. ‘When did you move in here?’

  ‘Few days ago. Mary’s getting us straight. It’s lucky we moved. I’m wonderfully busy. We buried a retired hunt servant today and I’ve got two funerals in the next six days, an industrialist whose widow aspires to be county and a gypsy’s grandmother from near Romsey. Mary’s wonderful on the phone with that voice of hers, she talks posh to some, cosy to others, can’t think how I’d manage without her.’

  ‘What happened to Poppy?’ Victor looked round the kitchen, reminded of her existence.

  ‘No idea.’ Fergus sipped his whisky. ‘Her father’s daily lady doesn’t know either. Isn’t she in London?’

  ‘No,’ said Victor, ‘she isn’t.’

  ‘Oh.’ Fergus looked at his cousin thoughtfully. ‘I thought—’

  ‘What did your mother want, d’you suppose?’ Victor headed Fergus off, not wishing to discuss his intentions vis à vis Poppy with Fergus or to hear Fergus’s plans. If Fergus was busy he would have little time to spare chasing Poppy. His own intentions were ambiguous.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Fergus, reminded of his parent. ‘She doesn’t usually drop in unannounced, she’s supersensitive to interference herself.’

  ‘Happy with your role as undertaker, is she? How does it fit in with the family image?’

  ‘She persuaded my stepfather to give me a reference, it gave Poppy’s solicitor a salutary shock.’

  ‘I should have thought—’

  ‘What?’ asked Fergus suspiciously.

  ‘That he was used to all sorts with Poppy’s father’s friends. What a bouillabaisse at the funeral.’ Victor laughed.

  ‘Not all of them fishy. Didn’t you notice Calypso Grant?’

  ‘Was that who it was? I wonder who spread the treacle. That was a fishy act if ever there was one. Must have been somebody with a grudge.’

  ‘We must ask Poppy when she reappears.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to look for her?’

  ‘How can I?’ said Fergus. ‘I’m up to my eyes with work. Are you going to look for her?’

  ‘I’m pretty busy with this book of mine at the moment.’

  ‘I see,’ said Fergus. ‘And Penelope?’

  ‘Well—’ said Victor. ‘I—’

  The cousins paused like hunting dogs who have temporarily lost the scent.

  ‘What were you doing up at my old place?’ Fergus poured Victor more whisky.

  ‘I was stuck in my work. I went to visit the trout, see whether it was still alive, get a bit of inspiration.’

  ‘And is it?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. I forgot to look.’

  ‘Eh?’ Fergus looked at Victor. ‘And you took Penelope with you?’

  ‘No, I found her there—’

  ‘What was she doing? Why did you push her into the stream? How did she find her way there?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask her. I didn’t push her—’

  From the bathroom above the kitchen there was a shout of feminine laughter, followed by a spate of chatter.

  ‘She seems all right now,’ said Victor dubiously.

  The laughter above them was renewed.

  ‘Hilarious,’ muttered Fergus. ‘I wonder what the joke can be.’

  ‘Us,’ said Victor positively.

  Listening to the laughter the two men felt threatened.

  ‘I wonder what my mother wanted.’ Fergus skated rapidly round his conscience. ‘It’s ages since I heard Mary laugh like that.’

  ‘Ganging up,’ said Victor.

  ‘Pessimist.’ Fergus was robust. ‘Still, I’d better light the fire, as she said.’

  38

  WILLY’S PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF black eyes and bruises was limited to an occasion in adolescence when he had been involved in a car smash. Watching Poppy sleep he tried to remember how long his bruises had taken to fade. He was anxious for Poppy, anxious too to get back to his pigs. All very well to leave Arthur in charge for a few days but the prospect of much longer irked him. He did not like the hotel, inefficient and sloppy with its resentful undertones of past French glories. The atmosphere created by fellow stranded travellers with their hysterical impatience to continue their interrupted tours made him jumpy. He worried about running short of money, and worse; now that he had found Poppy, there was a barrier of silence between them which he resented.

  She was not, he thought, watching her sleep, capable of breaking anybody’s leg. It was at least doubtful. This must be some sort of joke. Not knowing Poppy he could only guess at her idea of humour.

  Since she was, he supposed, in the grip of some sort of trauma, it would do her good to unburden herself, break this stubborn silence, but how to bring this desirable effect about?

  He must not force her.

  Long ago in his early days of farming he had forced Mrs Future’s great-aunt to move from a sty where she was settled and content into another where it was easier, from his point of view, to care for her. Mrs Future’s great-aunt had retaliated by eating her entire litter, presumably acting on the theory that they were safer inside than out.

  It was two days since he had found Poppy. During that time she had volunteered no information, had been politely grateful for his care but most of the time she had slept, shutting herself away out of reach.

  Tired of watching the storm outside, Willy stretched out on his bed and tried to read the only paperback he had with him for the third time. The complexities of Len Deighton bemused him, the book fell forward on his chest, he fell asleep.

  Waking in the dark, Willy listened for the storm; its frenzy seemed a little less. Next he listened for Poppy’s breathing, heard nothing, sat up, reached for the bedside lamp, pressed the switch, it did not work. Cursing, he blundered to the door, tried the switches, none worked. He opened the door into the corridor, that too was inky dark. Below in the hotel there was the confused sound of dismembered voices clamouring up the lift shaft. Back in the room he made for the window, looked out. There were no harbour lights. There was no moon.

  Afraid for Poppy, he felt his way round the room, felt her bed, found it empty. Thinking he might have mistaken Poppy’s bed for his own he searched the second bed. This too was empty.

  Suddenly afraid, Willy shouted, ‘Poppy!’ screaming ‘Poppy!’

  ‘I’m here,’ she called, ‘in the bath. The lights went out.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Getting cold.’

  ‘I thought you’d run away.’ His fear was still with him. ‘I thought you’d gone.’ He felt his way to the bathroom. ‘I thought something had happened to you, I was terrified.’

  ‘I was soaking in that stuff you brought me, it’s delicious, helps a lot. Can you find me a towel? There’s a bathrobe hanging on the door.’

  Feeling for the robe Willy was surprised to find himself shaking. ‘I have it,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks, heave ho, up I come.’ She splashed up out of the bath beside him. ‘Where are you? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Thought you’d gone.’ He felt for her wet body, wrapped her in the bathrobe. ‘God, it’s dark. Am I hurting you?’

  ‘No, it’s all right.’

  ‘Don’t get cold.’ He held her bundled against him, smelling her hair under his chin.

  ‘When the lights come back,’ he said, ‘I’ll tell you I love you.’

  They were pressed against the edge of the bath.

  ‘Perhaps until then we could sit somewhere comfortable.’

  ‘The bed—’

  ‘Yes, okay. Why don’t we get in?’ She was shivering.

  They felt their way to the bed. Willy pulled back the bedclothes. They lay facing each other. Poppy put a hand
over his heart.

  ‘Your poor bruised hands,’ he said.

  ‘They are getting better. Much better.’

  Why did I tell her I love her? Blurt it out like that in a bathroom. Clot. Enough to put any girl off.

  Outside the storm whooped up with renewed vigour. Further along the hotel’s façade a shutter broke loose, clattered in anguish against the wall.

  Should he go down, try to find out why there was no light, when it would come on again, join in the confusion raging in the lobby? He held Poppy damp in the bathrobe. She was speaking, her breath warm against his throat.

  ‘I was awful to Edmund on the plane. I should not have come with him. I did it to spite Venetia. It seemed a good chance when he snatched me away after Dad’s funeral. A surprise, that, because he had left me the week before. He’s in love with Venetia. He wants to marry her. He never wanted to marry me, we just lived together. I suppose he had this impulse—I didn’t like to make a fuss in front of strangers and in a way it was a bit of a joke, a poke in the eye for her. I thought I’d say No in private, No, it’s over, then when I saw what she’d done I was sorry for him and I gave in, came on this journey. It was sheer cussedness and stupidity, crazy, a colossal mistake. But he assumed I loved him, assumed I would marry him, started talking marriage. He must have guessed I have money now, it couldn’t be anything else. It was so crass. There were these insects, awful things, we ran over a dog and then those men I saw. They hanged them, sort of hoisted them up—’ Willy held her, said nothing. She went on—‘He went out for the day, disappeared, came back so pissed he got into the wrong room, no, it was the second night he was pissed, no, both nights. Then in the morning I could see something terrible had happened to him, he was hangdog and hung over, so I said let’s have a lovely day together and we did. We picnicked and swam and drove out to an oasis in the desert and made love. Just like old times. When we got back he started drinking again, he can be awfully disagreeable when he drinks. Well, we had this bust up, this row, he hit me, knocked me down, stamped on my hands—I got frightened.’ Willy held Poppy tight. ‘Then I broke his leg with a chair.’ Still Willy held her, she felt his heart beating under her hand.

  Willy held his breath.

  ‘I swung the chair with both hands. I heard the bone crack.’ She went on, ‘I was glad. I packed my bag, sent a telegram to Venetia and sent for Mustafa to cope, get Edmund to hospital or whatever. (Actually I did that before I packed my bag and alerted Venetia.) Oh, Edmund—’ Poppy paused to feel the familiar pang, felt nothing. ‘Then I got a taxi to the airport and got on to the first plane out. That’s how I landed up here.’ Poppy gave a long tired sigh. ‘Sorry to bother you with all this.’

  Willy held her, said nothing, content to piece the facts into some sort of sense later.

  ‘It’s remarkable,’ said Poppy conversationally, ‘how really nasty I become when I’m unhappy. It’s not only me. Look at Venetia. She would never have done that to Edmund’s clothes if she hadn’t been unhappy. I can’t help admiring her though. (He’s such a beautiful man.) Then there’s Mary, the girl with a baby, she’s miserable, it sharpens her tongue. I dare say Venetia’s happy enough now. Am I boring you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Say if I do. I’d got cold in the bath, the water wasn’t all that hot to start with. I’m nice and warm now.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Are you worrying about your pigs?’

  ‘No,’ said Willy untruthfully.

  ‘I wish the lights would come on.’

  Willy stirred. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Oh.’ She sounded sad, then, ‘It’s true what I told you about Edmund’s leg and the chair, but we did not make much love when we picnicked and it wasn’t such a lovely day. It was a good try, that’s all. I credit myself with trying. To be quite truthful it was one hell of an awful day. What are you doing?’

  ‘Guess,’ said Willy.

  ‘Wow!’ said Poppy presently, ‘that was—Oh, I wish the lights would come on.’

  ‘I can tell you in the dark,’ said Willy.

  ‘No, please don’t. That’s not what I want.’ Poppy took fright, she had no wish to get involved with the pitfalls of love. ‘Edmund never did it like that,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not all that keen on hearing about Edmund’s performance,’ said Willy huffily.

  ‘No, I suppose not, how tactless, it was meant to be a compliment. Tell me about Mrs Future then.’

  ‘You remembered her name.’ He was amused.

  ‘Of course.’ Poppy lay in Willy’s arms enjoying herself. Suppose I take this man on as a pleasure man? It’s ages since I experienced pleasure. I’ve never had this sort of delight. What would it be like with Victor? With Fergus? ‘Oh! Are we doing it again? It’s nice like this in the dark, isn’t it? Do you mind my talking?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I am enjoying this—mm—yes, go on doing that. Yes, yes. If it hadn’t been for the power cut we might not have—Oh!—Yes!—Oh!—Do you suppose there are people stuck in the lift?’

  ‘Oh, oh Poppy—’

  ‘Sorry, I made you laugh at the wrong moment—’

  ‘It’s never the wrong moment.’ He had not heard her laugh before.

  ‘Do you then think laughter and copulation are compatible?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  39

  FRANCES AND ANNIE LEANT against the kitchen door, sharing a packet of crisps, minding their business. This comprised waiting for Frances’s latest man to telephone. Frances called him a man although he was still sixteen. ‘He has the requisite parts,’ she had said when challenged on his tender years by Annie, whose present choice was twenty-three, and dissolved into giggles. Frances was eighteen, Annie eighteen also. They were evolving from horsestruck chrysalises into boystruck girls.

  They had finished work, fed and watered the horses, swept the yard, cleaned the tack, polished the hearse and now anticipated the evening’s entertainment, lolling against the kitchen door, looking out at the yard.

  ‘It’s much better here than up in the hills.’ Frances smoothed the front of her dress. Her new man liked her in skirts.

  Annie wore a kimono bought in a secondhand shop in Pimlico and baggy trousers à la mode from Miss Selfridge. She had slanted her eyes with eyeliner. Both girls’ hair was freshly washed and set to look as though they had been drawn roughly through a hedge backwards.

  ‘How long since Joseph telephoned?’ Annie crushed the empty crisp packet between her hands. The crackle caused several horses to look out of their boxes hoping for lumps of sugar.

  ‘Not since we moved down here.’

  ‘Perhaps she didn’t give him the new telephone number.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s tired of him telephoning.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘You know what I think.’ Frances rolled her eyes.

  ‘Telephone!’ Annie ran to answer it. She came back after a few minutes. ‘It was some woman wanting Fergus, said she is coming round.’

  ‘A client? Did you tell her he is out?’

  ‘She said she’d come and wait for him to get back.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Walking the dogs.’

  ‘Are you two going out?’ Mary called from a window above their heads.

  ‘Yes. Coming with us? D’you think she heard us?’ Frances whispered.

  Annie shook her head.

  ‘No thanks,’ called Mary.

  Bolivar came out of the kitchen swaying his body so that he brushed against the girls’ legs without seeming to pay them attention. Frances bent to stroke his back, letting his upward waving tail run through her fingers. He sauntered on to sit in a patch of setting sun.

  Lowering their voices the girls discussed what Annie thought of Joseph, then, bored by this overworked unrewarding theme, switched to Victor and Penelope.

  ‘I wonder.’ Annie caught Frances’s eye.

  ‘I bet you,’ said Frances.

  ‘But will they a
ctually remarry?’ Annie mused.

  ‘Positive,’ said Frances.

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Annie. ‘You were positive he was keen on Poppy Carew. He once tried to murder Penelope, he might try again.’

  ‘After or before marriage?’

  Lolling in the kitchen doorway the girls gossiped about Penelope and Victor last seen driving off to London in apparent amity. They would come back later to retrieve Victor’s car.

  ‘Nothing like that happens to us, nobody tries to murder me,’ Annie complained.

  ‘Our lives have barely begun.’ Frances was an optimistic girl.

  They stopped chattering to watch Mary, carrying Barnaby across the yard, get in her car and drive away.

  ‘She’s not exactly sociable these days.’

  ‘Never really was.’

  ‘Telephone. I’ll get it.’ Annie ran to answer it. Coming back she said, ‘They are on their way, let’s wait in the porch.’ They moved to sit on the front steps. Annie tore open another packet of crisps. ‘Have one? Who’s this?’ A car drew up by the house. ‘A client, d’you suppose? At this hour?’

  Annie and Frances watched Ros Lawrence get out and walk towards them. They assessed her clothes, her hair, lack of jewellery, excellent skin for her age. They sent out feelers to gauge her mood. Widow? Grieving parent? Friend of the deceased?

  ‘Hullo,’ said Ros. ‘Is Fergus in?’ She was nervous. ‘I’m his mother,’ she introduced herself.

  ‘He’s walking the dogs,’ said Frances.

  ‘Oh,’ said Ros. ‘Oh. I had hoped to see him.’

  ‘He won’t be long. They don’t allow dogs in the pub so he’ll be back. Won’t you come in and wait for him,’ said Annie, politely welcoming. ‘We thought for a moment you might be a client.’

  ‘Not yet.’ Ros smiled, hesitated. ‘I should have telephoned or written perhaps.’ Annie looked at her curiously, recognising the voice on the telephone. I must sound odd, thought Ros, but surely it’s perfectly natural to call on my own son, nothing to be frightened of. (‘Mind your own business,’ her husband had said, ‘don’t interfere, he’s a grown man.’) ‘I just thought I’d like to see him.’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Annie, puzzled.