The Beloveds

  “Sorry, Mother. Alice was slow as a tortoise today.”

  “Sorry, Mother, Alice didn’t want to play with Gloria.”

  “Sorry, Mother, Alice pushed me in, what could I do?”

  When Alice was fourteen, her mother was run down by a tourist coach outside Saint Dubricius, our ancient village church, where she had been arranging the flowers for a local pensioner’s funeral. The gossip was that she had been flattened, roller-pinned thin as pastry by the heavy vehicle. I remember thinking that someone else would need to arrange the flowers for Alice’s mother’s funeral now.

  In his grief, Alice’s father hardly remembered that he had a daughter. She was left to her own devices and latched on to our family with a determination that surprised me. Her grip was firm. She joined us for meals, for the hour of television we were allowed each day, hanging around Mother, her pale eyes begging affection. It was more than annoying.

  Despite my being the elder sister, she ran to Gloria for comfort when I told her I had thought her mother a bit of a whiner, that she would do well enough without her. Gloria, the banner carrier for kindness, and ever the little mother, went to war on Alice’s behalf. She was angry with me at the time, a rare and most enjoyable thing.

  “You were cruel to say it,” she said.

  “Oh, who cares, Miss Goody Two–shoes,” I dismissed her.

  Ever since that day, Alice has taken shelter under Gloria’s wing. She is as eager as a puppy to be included in Mr. and Mrs. Bygone’s starry life. She will drive Gloria to the station, shop for her, house-sit when asked. As if Pipits needed house-sitting, needed someone like Alice in charge.

  These days I live a couple of hours away from Cold-Upton, in London, and it’s convenient for Gloria to have Alice to call on. But I never stay away from my true home for long. I am a child of my enchanting village, and I know every lane, every tree, every shortcut to everywhere in it. I know where the snow bones lie in the fields in winter, I am familiar with every hedge and soft-stone wall. When I think of Pipits, I think of Cold-Upton, bound to it with the tightest of knots. Cold-Upton means more to me than to either my sister or my faithless former friend. How dare they make me feel like an interloper.

  Alice is our local librarian. She drives the mobile library van around the villages like ours that circle Bath, dispensing books and advice. People think her kind, and no doubt she is, but she’s a busybody, too, and a bit of a gossip; she seems to know everything about everybody. She calls it being involved with the community.

  Being plain, she has always attracted the sort of men who are looking for an easy lay, men with no intention of making a commitment. She is overeager, greedy for affection, too quick to let them bed her. I long ago stopped listening to her sob stories.

  “Why do they never stay?” she would weep.

  These days, though, she doesn’t expect them to stay.

  “I like sex,” she says. “No point in depriving myself.”

  She is not, nor will she ever be forgiven for abandoning me, for so easily changing sides. The same goes for Henry. What is to be said for the pair of them other than that they are both fickle, vain people, who have cynically attached themselves to a Beloved. Well, they will pay for it. When the time comes, I will cut deep, straight through the soft tissue, and into the bone.

  “Alice is coming to dinner,” Gloria says, moving heavily around the kitchen. “She’s looking forward to catching up with you.”

  Gloria isn’t showing yet, but she likes to huff and puff just to remind you of her fertility. It’s obvious she is going to be one of those women who enjoy pregnancy.

  “Oh, really,” I say. “That’s a pity. I was thinking of giving dinner a miss. I’m not feeling up to company just yet.”

  “Alice is hardly company, Betty. She’s family, and she loves you. She won’t judge.”

  I wonder. Does Alice love me? I think it’s more that I come with the package that is Gloria and Henry. And of course, however Gloria thinks of her, she isn’t family. There’s not a drop of Stash blood in her.

  “I’m not hungry,” I say. “A cup of tea and a biscuit in my room will be fine.”

  “Sometimes, Betty,” Gloria simpers, and I know what is coming, “you remind me of Mother. So self-sufficient, so independent.” I take it as the put-down she so clearly intends. Gloria can be snarky at times.

  I wish she wouldn’t compare me to Mother. My character is nothing like hers. Gloria understood Mother about as much as she understands me, which is to say hardly at all.

  The only thing I truly shared with Mother was my love of Pipits. Her love for it, though, was a shallow thing compared to mine.

  The mention of Mother has stirred me up somewhat. Gloria says the pain of our loss is halved because we share it. I cannot agree. Her tears have been copious, mine not so. I am happy to allow her the grief. She makes the most of it, after all.

  “Maybe just something light, then, a salad?” she persists.

  She runs her hand through her thick hair with its perfect wave. Now that she is in her thirties, Gloria has reached her luscious peak. Her eyes, her best feature, are pools of the loveliest green, her skin tans evenly to honey. Her mouth is a little too big, her nose, too, but taken as a whole she is what they call a stunner. Everyone says she takes after our father, and the photographs we have of him lend truth to that. He was certainly striking. Since his unreliable heart gave out when I was six and Gloria three, he remains, through legend and photographs, the model of young manhood. I guess I saw a look of him in Henry. Perhaps Gloria did, too. They say girls marry their fathers, don’t they?

  “I’m going up now,” I say with a sigh. I couldn’t be more bored with her. “No salad, and don’t bother with the tea, I’ve changed my mind.”

  At the turn of the stairs on the first-floor landing, the house ticks softly:

  Can you hear me?

  “I hear you,” I say.

  I am flooded with warmth, with pride.

  I spy a photograph of Mother on the bookshelves, a gaudy shot of a full-breasted young woman wearing a kaftan and smiling toward the camera. I have her nose, her straight dark hair. It doesn’t please me to look like her.

  “You better have done the right thing,” I say to her image.

  In my room, I lie on my bed and think of Mother. I hadn’t seen her in the months before her death. Work, and the thought of Henry and Gloria snuggled up so happily in my family home, kept me away. So I wasn’t there when it happened, even though it was a weekend and I had thought of visiting. Gloria was there, of course. The Beloveds are always in the right place; their timing is impeccable.

  2

  WHEN I RETURNED TO Pipits after Mother’s death, I was mortified by Gloria’s almost hysterical grief, her breaking down at every offered sympathy. She has so little dignity and no concept of how a member of the Stash family should behave.

  I experienced a mild sort of surprise at Mother’s absence, and the irritating niggle that, however I succeeded now, she would never come to know that she had favored the wrong daughter. At the very least, I wanted her to know that.

  The secret joy I had that Pipits would soon be mine was marred only by the presence of Gloria and Henry playing the hosts in my old home.

  The day before Mother’s funeral, as I drove to Cold-Upton from London, I nursed my resentment. For the past five years, my sister and her husband had kept up the pretext that they were saving for a house of their own. Mother went along with their story, but I think she knew the truth and was pleased that they had little if any intention of moving out. It was obvious that she loved their company. I will not make so soft a landlord.

  The air-conditioning in my car had broken down, and it was Hades hot. The sky was a field of Titian blue with dollops of cream clouds seeded about. I had pulled off the road onto the hard shoulder alongside an acre of fallow meadow to gather myself for what I knew would be days of dreary reminisces. I took a nip of gin from my flask and saw in my peripheral vision a Meadow P
ipit, a dusty olive-colored creature walking jerkily on the ground.

  I practiced my “good to see you” face in the rear mirror. It came out as a grimace. I took another longer gulp of gin; it swabbed my mouth, hit my throat, purred its way down to my chest, and oiled the dry place inside me.

  Never mind that there is the funeral to be withstood. It is always tough being around Gloria and Henry. They are so obviously in love that it’s an embarrassment. They cannot pass each other without touching; the slightest brush of their hands as they cook together, a waltz-like hug as if they hear music when they meet in the hall.

  Not so for Bert Walker and me. Ours is one of those so-called nurse and purse marriages. I’m wife number two, half his age, and the one who is meant to look after him when he’s really old. In return I am to inherit everything: the apartment, whatever monies are left in the pot and the art gallery where I work, and have my name now alongside Bert’s above the door. Walker and Stash. I like the balance of it. It sounds grassroots and fancy at one and the same time, as classy as Fortnum and Mason. We are just around the corner from that gilded grocery, in a street full of galleries, where one is in need of a trust fund just to shop for dinner, much less a piece of fine art.

  At almost seventy, Bert seems to be thriving, despite the pleasure he takes in eating, in good wine, despite his only exercise being the walk to nearby restaurants for lunch, so things may not work out if the long run is going to be just that, the long run.

  I’ve known for some time that Bert and I are not compatible. Not really. He would never admit it, of course. With one failed marriage behind him, he is keen to make this one a success. He speaks of being fond of me, of how much we like each other; neither of us speak of love. The truth is, though, that my affection for Bert has always been conditional at best. I like that he’s smart, and that he wears his intelligence lightly (I couldn’t bear to live with someone who had too fine a conceit of themselves). I like that he has created such a prestigious gallery, that he is admired by those in his field. But love? No.

  I keep a running balance in my mind of the pros and cons of Bert. He has wit, to be sure. And an inability to lie without coloring up, which I’ve always found a welcome attribute in a man. It’s not easy to make me laugh, but he sometimes manages it, and because he can’t lie, I don’t need to worry about him having secrets. And there’s the fact, minor perhaps, that he calls me Lizzie. I was christened Elizabeth, a name that suits me, I think. But my sister, knowing how to inflict pain even when a baby, lisped Etty from her cot, and in that moment to my family I became Betty.

  “You’ll always be our lovely Betty,” Gloria says now. “Too late to change.”

  As to Bert’s cons, well, it’s mostly all those old-man things: snoring, lethargy, the fear of technology, and the mess that even making a cup of tea entails. And there is the fact that he must always know where I am.

  “Oh, where are you off to?” he will ask. Or, “How long will you be?”

  That’s the thing about marriage, you have to report to each other endlessly, nothing is private. Yes, the ties that bind definitely heads the list in the con column.

  I’ve never known anyone as popular as Bert, not even Gloria. People love him, and he loves the world back. Everyone gets a share of his time. I suspect that’s what made his first wife run. She wanted more of him, a husband to herself, and the kind of togetherness that Gloria and Henry display.

  Bert and I work well together. We drink together, too, not so much that it is a problem, we keep our eye on it. I’m discreet when I wander, which is hardly ever these days. There are rules to cheating, which I stick to. No need to trouble my husband. And, unlike Gloria and Henry, we don’t plan on having children. I’m still in the running, just—but Bert’s not up for it. He says it wouldn’t be fair on a child to have such an elderly father. I let him apologize to me, although I don’t want children, either.

  As well as a good memory, I have an eye for a good painting, and the gallery does well. Whatever that thing is that hits nine times out of ten, I have an instinct for it. It is what attracted Bert to me when I first worked for him, that and my skinniness. He likes the Lowry look in women. I like Lowry’s linear figures, too, although I think his painting somewhat overrated.

  Mother died at the start of a big week for Walker and Stash. We had two Lichtensteins up for sale, large brash canvases that gave the gallery the garish look of a newsagent’s stand. I wonder about Lichtenstein’s work, although I haven’t entirely taken against it. I don’t like the idea of being taken for a fool, but there is definitely something there that is hard to quantify, something that goes beyond the cartoon.

  I advanced the deal, which was quite a coup, so it should have been me taking the credit, but timing as usual barged in. We had just that week lost our one member of staff, and so, with no time to replace him with anyone reliable, Bert had to forgo my mother’s funeral. One of us had to be in the gallery.

  “Everything comes at once,” Bert said regretfully. “I will be thinking of you all.” And he will of course, be thinking of us. It’s not just the words with Bert; his sentiments are heartfelt. Obvious to say that he is as fond of Henry and Gloria as I am not.

  People say that time is their enemy, don’t they? But they just mean that they are busy. When I say it, however, I mean it. Bert would host the gallery show now, bask in the glory, thrill to the sale of the Lichtensteins. No matter what, though, you can’t miss your mother’s funeral.

  Gloria had assured me that “Mummy didn’t suffer.” A massive stroke while she slept in her armchair in front of the fire; so massive, there was no waking from it. She had been baking for one of her charity coffee mornings, and needed a sit-down. She hadn’t complained of feeling ill, only of a sudden wave of tiredness. Mother wasn’t one for complaining; she was more the pull-yourself-together type.

  I pictured her dozing in her chintz-covered chair, a small smile set on a fallen mouth, fronds of her wispy hair damp from her baking fizzing around her face.

  Henry had to phone with the news, Gloria couldn’t speak through her sobs. Tears come easily to my little sister, and they leave in the same way. She is embraced, held up by her happy past, her expectation of a fortunate future.

  Sitting in my hot car, I imagined her sobbing into Henry’s shoulder while he comforted her. His precious Gloria. I took a big glug of gin from my flask, and then another, and another. Friends will come and hug her; she will hug back. She will be Queen Bee holding court.

  I pictured the mourners’ sympathetic faces, the syrup in their voices. “Darling Gloria. Such a loving daughter, so full of goodness.”

  I didn’t doubt her sorrow would be genuine; she loved Mother. But hers would be a short season of grief, and she would be through the worst of it in no time. That is part of the nature of the Beloveds, the will to be joyful, no matter what befalls them. They are childlike. In the knowledge that there will always be good things to come, they let go of bad things with an optimistic heart.

  I ached to be in my room at Pipits, but I was not topped up enough to bear their grating company. So I sat in my stuffy car, sipping more gin and waiting for the anger to drain, waiting until I could gather myself and become their Betty. And slowly, as I drew the thought of the house into me, the calm came. My Pipits, my gem of soft rose bricks, wisteria-fringed sills, perfectly proportioned windows, began to work its magic. I conjured up the land that surrounds the house: two wild meadows at the back margined by woods, six thousand trees, all native species planted out by my grandfather. As I pictured its lawns spotted with daisies and buttercups, and the turkey oak almost as old as the house that sits to one side of the front door, and the huge copper beech that spreads itself luxuriously on the other, I was ready. I started the engine and put the car into gear.

  * * *

  HENRY AND GLORIA GREETED me at the door with red-rimmed eyes, their arms around each other.

  “We’re in shock,” they said in unison.

  “Me to
o,” I said.

  I was shocked, it’s true. Mother’s death had been unexpected, after all, and the timing of it was damned inconvenient. But, there was no point in lying to myself, it would move things on, give me what I have always wanted, long before I thought there would be a chance of it.

  “She was fine that morning,” Henry said. “No indication of anything wrong.”

  “Yes, she was,” Gloria whimpered, nuzzling her head into Henry’s neck. “She was in the kitchen in her blue gingham apron, humming to herself. She had just baked a big batch of fairy cakes, and the whole house smelled of them. That sweet eggy scent. Remember?”

  Of course I remembered. I nodded. My sister makes everything sound like a story from Beatrix Potter: gingham aprons, fairy cakes. She paints such pretty little pictures.

  Gloria described how they came for Mother. An old man in a dark suit, and a younger woman dressed like a bank clerk in a black jacket and white shirt.

  “It was the hardest thing to see her go,” she sobbed.

  She handed me the card they had left on the hall table. It was a horrid plasticky object with a slippery surface. Looked like a visa. “Looton’s Funeral Home,” printed in black on a blue background. “Home!” Such cringing terminology. Home for the dead, the quietest of guests, and no meals required.

  Henry put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. He must go to his studio, he told me, to finish the pot he was making for Mother’s ashes.

  “A tribute to her,” he said.

  “So sweet,” Gloria said.

  “We want to bury her ashes in the garden,” Henry called from the path. “Do you agree, Betty dear?”

  “Is that legal?” I asked.