Vacillations of Poppy Carew

‘Strong,’ said Ros, ‘please.’

  Calypso poured the drinks, handed Ros hers, sat opposite, sipped, waited. Ros, recently remarried after being widowed, was now presumably regretting it.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me what the matter is?’ Ros spoke with barely suppressed agitation.

  ‘No,’ said Calypso. ‘You may later regret telling me.’

  ‘I have to tell someone. Henry won’t listen, he says—’

  Calypso sipped her drink. The dog now sat with his back to her, watching Ros with more sympathy than she. She kicked him gently with her toe. There was much to be said for the Catholic Church, a captive priest in a confessional under holy oath of secrecy, she thought, watching the younger woman. If not the new husband what could it be? She was not overly interested.

  ‘I have made a complete and utter fool of myself and alienated my son,’ cried Ros in violent anguish, ‘my only child.’

  ‘Easy done.’ (So it’s her son.) Calypso remembered remarks she would have rather left unsaid, made over the years to Hamish. ‘We are all guilty.’

  ‘He’s my only child, Calypso. It’s Fergus, you know what his father was like, Fergus is very like him.’

  ‘Of course, Fergus.’ The father had been notoriously irritable but who could blame him, married to Ros. ‘How is he? I went to Bob Carew’s funeral. I have asked Hamish to have him and those super horses for me when it’s my turn. I was impressed, I hope he will be successful. The times call for someone like him.’ Calypso forced herself to be kind. ‘He has style.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Ros drank her whisky, gazed round the room, jealously admiring the older woman’s possessions, wondered now why she had come, wished she hadn’t. Her pain returned with a rush. ‘What am I to do?’ she shouted, almost choking in agitation. ‘What—am I—to do?’

  Calypso raised her eyebrows.

  Ros finished her drink, put down the empty glass, half rose to go. ‘I should not have come to bother you.’ She sank back in the chair.

  ‘No bother,’ Calypso lied politely.

  Ros leant towards Calypso. ‘Fergus has a child,’ she enunciated painfully, ‘it’s there in the house he’s rented from the Carew girl. He has the house and the stables, his horses, the hearse of course, and three girl grooms—Henry let him use his name as a reference for the Carews’ lawyer—one of the girls has a baby!’ Ros waited for Calypso to say something. Calypso stayed quiet. Ros continued: ‘It’s beautiful, quite beautiful. The mother is Mary Mowbray, you know who I mean, her father Nicholas used to breed horses.’ Again Ros waited for Calypso to say something. Calypso, no baby lover, made no comment. Ros went on. ‘The child is called Barnaby. He is lovely, Calypso. Fergus refers to him as Jesus, it’s a disgusting joke. You look puzzled?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Apparently the mother Mary went to Spain and returned with the baby. She had a friend there called Joseph.’

  Still Calypso remained silent.

  Ros gasped, trying to restrain tears. ‘It’s the spitting image of Fergus at the same age and of his father as a baby. I am not inventing,’ Ros shouted as though Calypso had accused her. Her tears began to fall.

  Calypso reached for a box of tissues from the table beside her, handed one to Ros, on second thoughts passed her the box.

  ‘Thanks.’ Ros wiped her eyes, pulled a bunch of tissues from the box. ‘The thing is, Fergus seemed to have no idea. The girl had not told him. Can you believe it? I feel, oh God, I feel such a fool. I shouted at him, told him the baby is his, bellowed at him about the strength of the Furnival genes—’

  Calypso burst out laughing. ‘Sorry.’ She swallowed her laughter. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Well may you laugh,’ cried Ros in anguish. ‘I would laugh if this happened to anyone else, but it’s my grandchild. I don’t suppose Fergus will ever speak to me again. Why couldn’t I keep my trap shut?’

  Why indeed, thought Calypso, interested in spite of herself.

  Still Ros wept. ‘Henry is no help, he says a century ago there might have been dozens of tiny Furnivals scattered round the parish. Thank God for contraception. What am I to do?’ Blowing her nose, Ros stared at Calypso.

  ‘Quite a surprise for Fergus,’ said Calypso dryly.

  ‘It was, it was. What am I to do?’

  ‘Oh, don’t ask me,’ said Calypso, bored by the repetitions. ‘I can’t give advice. I try hard not to. I remember how tiresome and interfering my family were when I was young. Unsought advice is against my principles.’

  ‘I’m seeking it—’

  ‘Fergus isn’t.’

  ‘You are not helping me,’ cried Ros as though Calypso had offered to. ‘I know I should not have interfered but I did—I did.’

  Surreptitiously Calypso looked at her watch. She always meant to time Ros’s stream of complaint. This was a good opportunity. No need to actually listen, just sit and let it flow, she had heard the gist; Ros could only repeat what she had already told with embellishments.

  As far as I can remember, Calypso thought, on previous occasions it took a good half hour before she ran out of puff when she was complaining about Fergus’s father, his foul temper and infidelities. One had a certain sympathy for the man. Calypso lowered her eyes, suppressed a smile. Of course this was a little different. The girl Mary was a character worthy of investigation and Fergus must be wonderfully short of vanity not to recognise himself in the child. There were men without vanity; Hector, for instance, had always been a man unaware of his looks. Ah, Hector, Calypso slid into thoughts of Hector. Hector’s lovely voice. Now Ros, pitching into her lament, had a very trying voice. She had had enough of this feast of boredom.

  I wish she’d go away, thought Calypso, shrinking from Ros’s dilemma, retreating into her protective thoughts. (We should have planted more sycamores, she thought, they are underestimated trees, they grow fast.) Why should I get involved with Ros’s troubles? I hardly know her. I can’t help her, it’s bad enough to have to have Willy chasing wild goose after Poppy, he may get badly hurt, I shall mind that very much, my equilibrium will be upset. What a bore this woman is. ‘Have some more whisky.’ Grudgingly she remembered her manners.

  ‘No, no thanks. I must go. You’ve been very kind, I knew you would help.’

  ‘Not kind at all.’ Nobody ever accused Calypso of lying.

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’ Ros attributed words to Calypso. ‘I have said too much. I will shut up and not interfere, let them work it out for themselves as you say. You are so right. I knew you would help me. You do though admit it’s hard for me—my first grandchild?’

  As far as you know, thought Calypso. ‘Oh, Willy.’ She jumped up as Willy came into the room. ‘When did you get back?’ Her relief at seeing him conjoining with the relief from the embarrassment of Ros showed plainly in her smile.

  ‘Just arrived,’ said Willy kissing her cheek. ‘May I have a drink? Oh hullo.’ He noticed Ros crouching now like a frightened partridge in the armchair, tissue at the ready. ‘How do you do. Am I interrupting?’

  ‘I am just leaving.’ Ros sprang hastily up, put aside the box of tissues. ‘I’m on my way.’ She was embarrassed. ‘Thank you, Calypso, for all your help.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ said Calypso gravely.

  ‘I’ll see you out.’ Willy walked through the house with Ros, watched her drive away. ‘What was all that about?’ He returned to his aunt.

  ‘Trouble.’ She put Ros aside. ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘Alone.’ Willy helped himself to a drink, patted the dog who was craving attention, sat in the chair vacated by Ros, stretched out his long legs, stared into his glass. Neither of them spoke.

  The dog lay down with a sigh, laid his nose on his paws, watched.

  Calypso waited.

  Willy put his drink aside, sat forward with his face in his hands. ‘I had hoped,’ he said presently, ‘to bring her back here. I thought perhaps you would have her to stay, she didn’t seem to have any place she wanted to go. I thought you wouldn
’t mind. I thought she’d agree to this—’ He stretched out his hand, stroked the dog’s head. ‘But she changed her mind, decided not to, refused.’

  ‘M-m-m,’ murmured Calypso, ‘m-m-m.’

  ‘Well,’ said Willy, jumping up, ‘better see to the Futures,’ false heartiness in his tone.

  Calypso winced. ‘Come to supper presently?’ she suggested.

  ‘Another night, but thank you. I have much to do after being away.’

  ‘Of course. You must see to the Happy Hams. I haven’t heard of anything going wrong but you must check.’

  ‘I am poor company.’ Willy apologised.

  ‘Take the dog. He welcomes uninvited guests. He needs a run, he’s in disgrace.’

  Willy bent to kiss her, started to speak, thought better of it, walked away, his shoulders despondent.

  ‘Go,’ Calypso said to the dog, ‘run after him, you dumb animal, he can do with your company. Go.’

  The dog jumped up and ran after Willy, catching up with him on the edge of the wood. Calypso called, ‘Take the dog, keep him for the night.’

  Willy looked back across the garden. ‘I remembered Mrs Future’s aunt,’ he shouted across the flower beds, ‘and what happened there.’

  Reminded of Mrs Future’s aunt’s malign act, Calypso laughed. ‘So?’

  ‘So I left her alone. I was afraid of rushing her.’

  Willy and the dog disappeared into the wood. Calypso, resuming her place on the terrace, lay listening to the pigeons on the roof, the hum of the bees among the Michaelmas daisies. It was at odd moments like this that she most missed her dead husband whose family genes she thought with amusement seemed stronger in his nephew Willy than in his son Hamish. She had taken it for granted that Willy would find Poppy, hoped he would bring her back with him. She was curious to hear what had happened but too wise to ask. She did not need Ros’s example to stress the inadvisability of family interference, however well meant.

  44

  IN THE TRAIN FROM Gatwick to Victoria, in the taxi to her flat, Poppy was ashamed of her vacillation. In Algiers she had agreed without reservation to Willy’s suggestion that she should stay with his aunt. Looking out of the taxi window on to the wet streets of London and the umbrella-shuffling crowds, she felt again how easy to do what Willy suggested.

  But in the plane things had become different. She had felt she needed to distance herself from him, go back to the flat she now hated, be alone to decide without pressure what, if anything, she wanted next.

  In Algiers, wrapped about by the storm, she had jumped headlong into rapturous sexual pleasure.

  In the foreign streets she had told Willy more about Edmund than she ever would in England. The circumstances of their meeting, the intimacy born of her injuries, the odd manner of their being together, had made her talk as strangers proverbially do in trains, safe in that there will be no future contact.

  The trouble was that Willy had no intention of letting her go, for him their being together was no casual affair. If she only wanted him as a pleasure man he would rather back out than know her on such terms. ‘All or nothing,’ he had said. They had exchanged angry words on the plane sitting with trays of uneaten food in front of them, cocooned by the hum of engines, too close in their seats, unable to move apart, their very proximity a hindrance to calm discussion.

  He had told her, turning towards her, his long legs cramped in the aircraft seat, his back half turned on a somnolent fellow traveller, that he had decided at her father’s funeral that he loved her, that he must marry her, that this was, for him, final.

  She had said, ‘You did not tell me this in Algiers, it is ridiculous. When you saw me in the church you did not know me, we had not spoken, you could not know you loved me. It was pure imagination.’ She shied away.

  ‘It was and is love,’ he said. ‘A bolt.’

  ‘Just an idea,’ she scoffed.

  ‘A great idea. I would call it inspiration.’

  ‘Absurd,’ she mocked.

  ‘You have not found me absurd these last days and nights.’

  ‘You gave me great pleasure,’ she admitted stiffly.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Pleasure is not love.’

  ‘The two are knit.’

  ‘No.’ She had loved Edmund, hadn’t she? How to tell Willy about life with Edmund without giving herself and, incidentally, Edmund away. She had already said too much.

  ‘You thought you loved that bloody man who beat you. I bet you never shared delight. You just persuaded yourself you loved him. That was imaginary.’

  ‘It was not.’

  ‘You have been happier with me than ever with him.’

  She would not admit this, she was handling this all wrong, planes brought out the worst in her, had she not been sulky with Edmund on the outward flight? ‘I have a lot to sort out, things to do. My father’s business,’ she had excused herself, trying to sound reasonable. ‘I left home in a rush. I need to be alone. Why are you looking at me like that? What’s so funny?’ She was puzzled and irritated that in the midst of a serious desperate discussion Willy should start laughing.

  ‘I may tell you some day. Not now. Okay, go ahead, be alone, sort yourself out, I’ll wait.’

  They had not parted happily.

  The taxi stopped outside the flat. Poppy paid the man, stood with her bags on the wet and greasy pavement, nerved herself to use the key, climb up the steps. Inserting the key in the lock she noticed that a shop on the corner had changed hands in the short time she had been away, changing from a small grocery into a rather brash branch of a well-known bookmaker. Would Dad have called in there, did he place his bets by telephone or did he only bet on the course? As she unlocked the street door she thought she knew Willy better than Dad and damn Willy for laughing, curse his private joke. Resentfully she let the street door slam, crossed the dark and shabby hall to climb the stairs carrying her bag up one flight, up another flight and another to the top. Had he guessed, she wondered as she toiled up out of breath, her arms aching from the heavy bags, had he guessed what a rotten selfish lover Edmund had been, had he guessed from her joyful reaction that she had never known any better?

  There are other fish, Willy Guthrie, she thought, as she searched her bag for the flat key. Where the hell has it got to, not lost, surely? Other fish such as slender intellectual Victor or Fergus, travelled, debonair, kind, enterprising—ah, here’s the key—both of these had looked at her with interest, had shown their inclination and intention in their kiss. What had pig farmer Willy Guthrie got that they hadn’t got? What had he to laugh about? She unlocked the flat door, pushed it rustling across uncollected mail littering the floor, slammed the door shut.

  A dying bluebottle struggled buzzing on its back.

  She had not shut the refrigerator door properly, it hummed as it had all her absent days, ice frosting down on to the tiled floor, a freezing reminder of useless activity during her travels.

  The flat smelled stale and dry. Worse, it was permeated by Edmund.

  Quickly she switched off the refrigerator, ran to open the windows, began feverishly and at once searching the rooms for Edmund’s belongings, throwing books, tapes, clothes, shoes, sports equipment into a heap, rummaging systematically through drawers and cupboards for anything, everything that was his. It was amazing what a lot of unvalued dross he had left, not feeling it worthy of Venetia Colyer. Off the wall came his Hockney print and a picture of the Lakes he had given her. Out of the drawers came clothes, from the kitchen plates, cups, saucepans, dishes he had contributed to their joint living, his tape recorder and radio from the bedroom.

  While she exhausted herself limping about in a frenzy the fridge began to drip. She heated a knife over the gas on the cooker and prized ice from the sides of the cabinet, throwing chunks into the sink. From inside the fridge she snatched a lump of Cheddar cheese Edmund had bought. When? Weeks and weeks ago to make Welsh Rarebit. Threw it among his possessions. Yuk!

  She found suitca
ses that were Edmund’s, packed them with his things, crushed them shut, set them out on the landing. For the rest she heaped it on to his sheets, tying great bundles by the corners, heaving and dragging them out of the flat. Out, out, out.

  She swept up their joint mail from the mat, sorted it, sat at the kitchen table, took pen, readdressed all Edmund’s letters, bills and circulars c/o Venetia Colyer, ran downstairs and along the street to the pillar box and posted it.

  Back in the flat she finished defrosting the fridge, wiped and swept the floors, shut the windows, turned on the bath.

  While the bath filled she undressed, scattered drops of pine essence on the kitchen and bathroom floors, dolloped a generous gush into the bath, stepped in shakily exhausted, lay back in the fragrant delicious water, closed her eyes to appreciate relief and freedom. Opening her eyes minutes later she saw on the shelf above the bath Edmund’s bottle of aftershave, leapt splashing out, snatched the bottle, threw open the window, cast the bottle out, heard it crash distantly in the street and a man shout, ‘Oi!’

  Back in the bath she dipped back so that her head too went under the water and all of Edmund in the flesh in the flat was washed away. But she knew as she dried her body and rubbed her hair dry that it was not so easy. Her eyes were used to the sight of Edmund, her ears attuned to his voice, her body habituated to fit with his.

  The episode, she told herself, the episode with Willy was an episode, no more. Clambering into her lonely bed she felt as miserable and bereft as she had on the night that she heard that her father was dying. Halfway through the night she woke thinking she heard Willy’s laughter and found some comfort in his amusement. Thinking of Willy she ached with desire. Unassuaged she lay awake until a blackbird sang in the dusty little square at the corner of the street.

  45

  ACROSS THE ROOFS THE harvest moon and Orion were bright, there was a touch of frost. Poppy leant out of the window while the kettle boiled for coffee, craning to catch the first hint of sunrise.

  She had slept for two hours.

  Drinking her coffee she was uneasily aware of Edmund’s possessions lurking on the landing as though threatening to re-enter the flat. She would not be truly rid of Edmund until she had removed his things.