Vacillations of Poppy Carew

  Her car was in the country, parked where she had left it when Edmund had whisked her away from the wake. She must get down to Berkshire, retrieve the car, bring it to London, load it with Edmund’s leavings, deliver them chez Venetia—hand them to the hall porter. There would be no need to meet Edmund or Venetia—and that would be that. Finis.

  She shrank from the task.

  Hungry, she searched the bread bin, finding half a loaf as hard as a brick, greening with mould. There was no butter, no milk, no sugar. She poured herself more coffee, drinking it bitter and black and thought what she must do. She needed a tonic.

  In childhood should she sniff or grizzle or pretend illness when confronted by boredom, when she exaggerated the pains and inconveniences of her periods, Esmé would look at her with contempt and say, ‘You need a tonic.’

  The tonic was never forthcoming but the word had evolved in her childish mind something other, indeed the opposite of Esmé who damped the spirit. Esmé was not capable of producing a tonic for a tonic meant pleasure.

  Dad’s rare company exuded pleasure; it angered and frustrated Esmé. Since he was so rarely at home the benefit was presumably shared with his friends on the race course, with Life’s Dividends, after she had left home to live with Edmund, in that remarkably comfortable and luxurious bed in the visitors’ room. Poppy thought about the bed and smiled.

  I need pleasure, she thought. A meal of pleasure, a creative bout, a crash course. There had been precious little pleasure of late with Edmund. If she admitted the truth it had always been a bit rare and if there was any going Edmund scoffed it.

  The need was urgent. Drinking her bitter coffee, Poppy composed the prescription for the tonic. Agreeable company, laughter, frivolity, physical pleasure. A light diet and no commitment. A diet I can take for once without giving.

  ‘I am sick of this eternal giving,’ she said out loud, pushing the intrusive vision of Willy to the back of her mind. ‘I want some fun, I want to laugh, I’ve had enough of love.’

  She smacked the coffee cup down on the table, the bitter coffee jumped and spilled. She picked up the coffee pot and, opening the flat door, poured the gritty grounds over Edmund’s things.

  Inspiration brought her to the telephone. She looked Victor up in the book, discovering him among the many other Lucases hopefully awaiting her call. She dialled the number, promptly Victor answered. ‘Hullo?’

  ‘Victor? It’s Poppy Carew, d’you remember me?’

  ‘Of course.’ He sounded drowsy. ‘How are you?’ Less enthusiastic than she expected.

  ‘I’m fine. Sorry if it’s too early, I’ve no idea of the time, I should have—’ Disappointment in her voice.

  ‘What is it? What can I—of course it’s not too early, tell me—’ He sounded now as she remembered him, kind, intelligent, caring.

  ‘I’m interrupting your work.’ (All writers work in the early morning, I’ve put my foot in it.)

  ‘No, no, no I wasn’t working.’ He laughed. ‘What’s up? What can I do for you?’

  She explained her predicament, wondered whether he was free, was doing nothing else, would he drive her to Berkshire to retrieve her car. She had this load of a ‘friend’s’ things cluttering up the landing—actually blocking—she needed the car to transport them, move them away. In spite of herself urgency crept into her voice, in a minute she would be whining.

  ‘Why don’t we load them into my car, drop them round at whoever’s, then we’ll go down and fetch yours. How would that be?’ Victor suggested. ‘Make a day of it, lunch in the country?’

  ‘It’s such a bore for you—’ she demurred.

  ‘Not at all, be round in a flash, ’bye.’ He rang off, cutting short her thanks.

  Poppy’s stomach rumbled with hunger, her insides felt full of gas. She pulled on a sweater, took the few pounds she had left from her bag and ran downstairs. If quick she could run to the corner shop which would be opening at this hour to cherish local Indian and Pakistani neighbours on their way to work or coming off the night shifts, buy milk, bread, fresh coffee, sugar and butter and thus be able, when he arrived, to offer Victor breakfast, repay a little of his kindness in advance, staunch the aching void in her gut. It seemed a good idea. Who knows, she thought as she hurried along, it might be fun to have a whirl with Victor, see whether he lived up to the kiss he had planted at the wake. He might, she thought cheerfully, be even more skilled, more wonderful than Willy. She whistled as she walked in anticipation of Victor. Nice girls don’t think these thoughts. She remembered the days of Esmé, mentally mimicked her. If so what else do they think about?

  She was greeted by the shopkeepers, a Bengali family. Where had she been? Away on holiday? Ill?

  ‘A Moslem country.’

  ‘They did not treat you well.’ Tender glances from under long lashes.

  She made her purchases, paid Mr Bengali while Mrs Bengali packed them with delicate fingers into a carrier bag. Mr Bengali bewailed the passing of the rival shop into the hands of a chain of bookmakers. ‘Temptation, temptation.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Our savings will be tempted.’ Poppy loved to hear about the savings which mounted with steady persistence, an example to all frugal, hardworking families.

  ‘My father made his fortune on the horses. Don’t worry, Mr Bengali, you will not be tempted.’ She counted her change. Mr Bengali liked his customers to count their change. ‘I must fly, see you tomorrow.’ She set off, hurrying up the street. Often and often in the years of jogging with Edmund they had stopped at the shop to buy little cartons of orange juice to sip through straws as they walked the last hundred yards home.

  Oh, Edmund!

  She waited for the familiar pang, took note that it was faint and frail.

  Getting better, nearly well.

  As she reached her door Victor arrived in a smart car, stepped out smiling.

  ‘You have a new car. Your literary success! Congratulations.’ Poppy was delighted to see Victor, it had been an inspiration to phone him.

  ‘It’s mine. He’s still got his old banger, we are going to sell it.’ Penelope eased herself on to the pavement, careful still of her strapped ankle.

  Poppy tried not to gape. What a turn up for the book.

  ‘You haven’t met my wife Penelope.’ Victor happy, smiling.

  ‘His ex-wife. He’s writing a novel about how he murdered me.’ Penelope beaming.

  ‘What have you done to your foot?’ I must say something. Poppy eased her Achilles tendon, still, now she thought of it, rather sore where the man at the hanging had trodden on it. Mercifully the black eye had quite faded.

  ‘Sprained it. This the way up?’ Penelope, using a stick, started up the steps. Even limping she was graceful, no wonder Victor—

  ‘Where’s all the stuff you have to move then?’ Victor, proud of Penelope, bright eyes looking down at Poppy, friendly, brotherly, taking her parcels from her.

  ‘The top floor, I’m afraid. Can you manage or would you like to wait here? I was going to offer you breakfast.’

  ‘We’ve had ours, thanks. I can manage, it’s nothing. Hurt like hell at the time but Victor rescued me, didn’t you, darling?’

  Penelope and Victor climbed the stairs following Poppy. She’s got a neat little bum, thought Victor, but Penelope’s has got more swing to it.

  ‘We live on the top floor, too,’ said Victor. ‘Have you not had breakfast?’

  ‘I can’t remember when I ate last, on the plane, I suppose. I’m starving.’

  ‘Where have you been? Nice holiday?’ Penelope was untroubled by the stairs.

  ‘North Africa. Not exactly a holiday.’ What then? An experience, a nightmare? What?

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Here we are, top floor at last.’ Poppy found she was breathless, rather weak.

  ‘Is this the stuff you have to move? All this?’ Penelope poked with her stick.

  ‘Er—yes.’

  ‘You are throwing a lover out lock, stock—’ Penelope approved. br />
  ‘Er—just a minute, I’ll let us into the flat—Oh God! I’ve locked myself out. Oh Christ, what a fool I am. The key is in my bag.’ She felt she might panic, cry or something. She kicked the door.

  ‘And the bag’s inside the flat?’

  ‘Yes. Oh bugger, my keys, the car keys, my cheque book.’

  Penelope sat on the top step and laughed. Victor laughed too, then controlling himself said, ‘It’s not funny. She’s hungry, poor little thing. I bet she’s not properly up, has yet to clean her teeth and go to the lavatory. We shouldn’t laugh. Who has a spare key?’ he asked.

  ‘Edmund.’

  ‘The owner of all this?’ Victor prodded a sheeted bundle with his toe.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘With Venetia Colyer.’

  ‘Venetia!’ Penelope stopped laughing. ‘Good old Venetia, I know Venetia.’ She did not speak particularly kindly. ‘It’s good riddance for you,’ she said ambiguously. ‘It is, I’m serious. It’s another of Venetia’s good turns.’ Victor, grasping the situation, looked down his nose.

  ‘Victor shall fetch the key, won’t you, darling? Now what’s the address, let me think.’

  ‘Really I don’t know—I can’t—I don’t think—’

  ‘I remember where she lives, that posh block where somebody got raped.’ Penelope told Victor the address. ‘We will wait here, won’t we, Poppy? Buck up love, rush. He might be out.’

  Victor disappeared down the stairs. They heard the door slam and the car start up in the street.

  ‘Don’t look so miserable, this is fun,’ said Penelope cheerfully.

  ‘Not for me.’ (Bang goes that tonic.)

  ‘Serve them bloody right if Victor wakes them up.’ Penelope was enjoying herself.

  ‘He is probably jogging in the park, we always did.’ Poppy momentarily forgot the broken leg.

  ‘That’s one thing you’re spared. Don’t be so woeful.’

  ‘It’s so stupid of me.’

  ‘I think it’s quite funny.’

  ‘I don’t.’ Poppy sat beside Penelope on the top step. ‘Do you mind if I drink some milk, I’m so empty.’

  ‘Feel free. We had breakfast early. Funny that, usually I sleep late but these last few days, since Victor and I got back together, we’ve worked up such an appetite we wake starving. We get up, get breakfast then most times we climb straight back into bed, have a fuck and sleep again. It’s making me feel so healthy!’

  ‘Oh.’ Poppy erased any tentative vision of a whirl with Victor.

  ‘This morning,’ said Penelope, ‘you telephoned at the exact moment. We’d finished eating and not started again.’

  Not finding a suitable reply Poppy opened her carton of milk, drank from it, wolfed some fresh bread.

  ‘That better?’ Penelope watched.

  ‘Yes, thanks.’ Poppy munched. There are lots of other fish, she told herself, the world is full of them; anyway Victor isn’t all that terrific, he’s too thin.

  ‘If we want to pee we can pee on your sod’s things,’ suggested Penelope. ‘I take it he is a sod?’

  ‘I suppose he is—yes, on the whole—I hope it won’t come to that.’ Poppy thought Penelope looked able, indeed capable of carrying out her threat, that she would enjoy—‘How is Victor’s trout?’ she asked.

  ‘You know Victor’s trout?’ Penelope was intrigued. ‘It’s very well, even I have been to see it.’ Penelope minimised the first person, maximised her position as Victor’s girl, his ex- (ludicrous to think of it) wife. ‘Fancy you hearing about Victor’s trout,’ she said.

  ‘I was there making arrangements for my father’s funeral just after Victor had brought it down from London. Fergus and Victor had put it in the stream.’

  ‘It’s thanks to that fish we are together again. Really, to give her her due, it’s thanks to Venetia.’

  ‘How come?’ How could anyone be grateful to Venetia? She was not the kind to inspire gratitude.

  ‘Venetia and I met in the food hall at Harrods. She didn’t mean to do me a good turn, quite the reverse—’ Penelope, with many sidesteps and embellishments regaled Poppy with the histoire fish. She was still talking when the street door opened and they heard men’s voices. Poppy jumped up. ‘I wish I could disappear.’ She was near panic.

  ‘Don’t be silly. You are throwing him out, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but I—’

  ‘He won’t be drunk at this hour.’

  ‘How d’you—’

  ‘I’ve seen him about with you. Sticks out his lip. Warning signal. Venetia will limit his intake, she’s a strong-minded lady. What’s going on, why are they so slow?’ Penelope leaned over the banister, peering down, her dark hair swinging down like seaweed in an ebb tide.

  ‘Edmund has a broken tibia.’ Remembering the circumstances of the break, Poppy broke into a nervous sweat and backed against the door of her flat.

  ‘Here they come. He’s got lovely hair, your discard.’ Penelope looked down. ‘He’s tremendously good-looking, a bit passé perhaps. Struggling up with his crutches. One might get a bit tired of him. Okay, Victor?’ she called.

  ‘We’re on our way,’ shouted Victor from below. ‘We have the key.’

  ‘Why don’t you bring the key up, then Edmund needn’t bother. Poppy says he has a broken tibia.’

  ‘Determined to deliver it himself.’ Victor sounded not far off laughter.

  ‘Oh.’ Penelope drew back from the banister and looked at Poppy. ‘Are you afraid of him?’

  ‘Of course not,’ lied Poppy.

  Disbelieving, Penelope sniffed and went back to watching the slow progress below. ‘One could spit on his head. Stump—hop—stump—hop—there’s no need to make such heavy weather,’ she jeered. ‘I made it with my poor ankle.’

  Edmund’s head came into view as he climbed the last flight, putting his weight on his good leg, clutching the banister with his left hand, hopping with the crutch under his right arm, hopping one step at a time; Victor, following, carried the second crutch. Edmund’s face was flushed with effort, his lower lip thrust out. He reached the landing, stood looking down at Poppy.

  ‘Thanks.’ There was a cold stone in her midriff.

  ‘Here it is,’ said Edmund out of breath.

  Poppy took the key. ‘It’s fortunate Venetia has a lift.’ Don’t soften, don’t look at him.

  ‘Don’t sneer.’

  ‘I’m not sneering, just stating facts.’ Stating facts was a favourite expression of Edmund’s cast in her teeth over the years. Why am I being so utterly horrible? ‘All this stuff is yours, I want to be rid of it.’

  ‘You could have thrown it away, I don’t need it,’ said Edmund offhandedly.

  ‘If I had thrown it away you would have wanted it. I foresaw weeks, months, years when you would come round to fetch it, one bit at a time.’ Why be so bitchy? Edmund flushed angrily.

  ‘Attaboy. Doesn’t she know him well?’ said Penelope in admiration, grinning at Victor.

  ‘Don’t be so militant feminist,’ said Victor good-naturedly. ‘We’d better start carrying it down, come on, darling.’ He hoped to stop Penelope’s mischievous trend, there was no necessity for more trouble. Poppy looked as if she might fall apart.

  ‘Yes, you two do that,’ said Edmund not taking his eyes off Poppy. ‘I have to talk to Poppy.’

  ‘But I don’t want to talk.’ Using the key, Poppy opened the flat door and tried to nip inside.

  Before she could close the door Edmund stuck his plastered leg in it.

  Penelope drew in her breath admiringly. Quite a fellow, clever blackmailer, to use the leg, a crutch, though safer, would not have had the same impact.

  ‘Just a word,’ said Edmund standing on his good leg, ‘it won’t take long.’

  ‘Why doesn’t she kick it?’ Penelope whispered to Victor.

  ‘Come on,’ said Victor picking up the suitcases, ‘come on, Penelope, help.’ He started down the stair
s.

  Penelope looked at Poppy at bay in the doorway. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yes.’ Poppy stood keeping Edmund out, her face very white. She wished the door had a chain.

  Edmund leaned against the door jamb, managing to keep his plastered leg in position.

  Penelope shrugged, heaved up one of the sheeted bundles and dropped it down the stairwell, listening until it plopped in the hall below. So successful was this manoeuvre that she repeated it until the landing was almost clear, Victor arriving back just in time to grab the radio and the last suitcase. ‘Come down and help me load the car,’ he said. ‘You’ve broken quite enough.’

  ‘Should I?’ Penelope looked at Edmund and Poppy shadowed in the doorway.

  ‘Yes, come on.’ Victor pulled her away. ‘Let them get it over with, it’s best.’

  With a last look at Poppy Penelope leaned her stomach across the banister, pushed off and slid away down out of sight. ‘Whoopsie, here I come.’

  ‘Mind your ankle,’ Victor yelled, anxious, but admiring her juvenile behaviour. He hurried after her, jumping down three steps at a time, endangering his spidery legs.

  ‘Poppy.’ Edmund tried to reach her hand. ‘Darling.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Venetia’s gobbling me up, Poppy.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘It’s not good. Save me. I want to come back, it was a terrible mistake.’

  ‘I don’t want you.’

  ‘I love you.’ (I really love her, I love her, I love her.)

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Poppy, trying to sound robust.

  ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, I didn’t know what I was doing—’

  ‘And I did not mean to break your leg. I’m glad it’s better. I apologise. Now please go, Edmund. Down the stairs.’

  ‘You know you love me. You are naturally jealous of Venetia—’

  ‘I’m not actually, that’s all over. I wish her joy. I am grateful to her.’

  ‘I want to marry you. I told you on the plane. You agreed.’ Edmund reached out. Poppy drew back. ‘You must remember.’