Penny gazed at the brown-skinned girl and the homosexual, sitting side by side. ‘Very Channel 4,’ she remarked. ‘All we need is somebody who is physically challenged.’ She stopped, and looked down at Buffy. ‘Whoops! Forgot. We’ve got one. In fact, looking back on it, he was frequently physically challenged.’
‘Just what do you mean by that?’ demanded Buffy.
Penny laughed. So, disconcertingly, did some of the other women.
‘Sherry?’ asked Celeste, handing round glasses.
‘I’m dying for a pee,’ said Buffy. ‘I’ve said it about eight times. Will somebody please carry me to the lavatory?’
There was a silence.
‘Come on!’ said Buffy. ‘Who’s going to volunteer?’
‘Not me,’ said Penny. ‘No fear.’
Popsi said: ‘Last time I carried you, remember, when you were drunk? I did me back in. And – well, pet, there’s a bit more of you now, isn’t there?’
Penny looked around. ‘Any offers? Jacquetta?’ But Jacquetta didn’t seem to hear.
‘For God’s sake!’ cried Buffy. ‘After all these years. Is it a lot to ask?’
‘Yes,’ said Penny.
India got up from the floor. ‘We’ll do it. Come on, Celeste.’
All over Britain, families were sitting down to Christmas lunch. In Buffy’s flat, George had found the turkey. The fridge door hadn’t closed properly for months; the dog had simply nudged the door open with his nose and dragged the turkey out. Half-chewed portions of it were strewn over three rooms.
In Celeste’s flat the rabbits had found the vegetables. Bits of carrots and Brussels sprouts lay scattered over the carpet. The rabbits sat there, munching; they vibrated to the trains below and the thumps of the music above.
The fire blazed in the grate. Penny, sipping her sherry, was looking with interest at the other women. ‘Isn’t this fascinating! We’re like a reunion of old girls who’ve been to a particularly ghastly boarding-school.’
‘Thanks!’ said Buffy, who was back in position on the floor.
Popsi laughed her gravelly laugh, and ended up coughing. She was wearing a gold lurex sweater, cut perilously low. She had sprayed glitter onto her hair; she called it her Christmas decorations.
Penny gazed at Popsi. ‘I always wondered what you looked like,’ she said, ‘but you were so much before my time. You were just a lot of crossings-out in Buffy’s address book.’
‘Oh, the places I’ve lived,’ said Popsi. ‘Gypsy isn’t in it. Had two husbands after him, Terence and Ian, but he was the nicest.’ She lifted Buffy’s head and inserted a cigarette between his lips. ‘You were, you know. Course you were slimmer then.’ She lit the cigarette for him. ‘But so was I.’
She sat back in her chair, panting. Whenever she moved, glitter scattered.
Jacquetta waved her hand. ‘All this smoke . . . She vaguely batted it away.
Lorna and Celeste, the hostesses, refilled glasses. ‘Sorry there’s only this,’ said Lorna. ‘I’m sure there’s some Twiglets somewhere. I wasn’t expecting company, you see. I was supposed to be going up to London, with Celeste. After we’d done some planting. We were going to go up to London and give Buffy a surprise.’
‘Oh, you’ve done that all right,’ he said.
‘This is much more fun,’ said Penny, holding out her glass. ‘I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Better than going to visit Colin’s father in Nantwich. I’ve got a feeling he’s just like Colin, only more so.’
It was a crowded little room, even with no people in it. Plants and old sheeps’ skulls crammed the window ledges. Holly had been thrust behind picture frames. The curtains were closed against the cold grey day.
Quentin fingered the fabric. ‘Damask would be super here. Gold and russet, can’t you see it?’ He turned to Lorna. ‘I can get you some with my discount. I work at Harrods.’
‘Harrods?’ replied Lorna. ‘Last time I saw you, you were in your pram. I just sneaked a look. You were a lovely baby.’
‘Wasn’t he just!’ said Popsi. ‘When was that, dear?’
‘I was meeting Russell in a tea shop,’ said Lorna, ‘and he was looking after him.’
Popsi looked down at Buffy. ‘You never looked after Quentin.’
‘Of course I did!’ said Buffy. ‘I looked after him all the bloody time, while you were off with your fancy men. Now who’s re-writing history?’
Nyange ran her finger along a beam. ‘I’ve always dreamed of a place like this. A little cottage. A place with roots. Mum and me, we’ve been all over.’
‘Emotionally rented accommodation.’ said Quentin. ‘Join the club.’
‘Don’t blame me,’ said Buffy. ‘Blame your mothers. There’s two sides to this, you know. You’ve never heard mine.’
‘Yes,’ said Nyange, ‘because you were never there.’
‘Whose fault was that?’ demanded Buffy.
Popsi raised her glass. ‘He’s here now. We all are. Better late than never.’
They drank. Jacquetta gazed around. ‘This house has an incredibly strong sense of history.’
Popsi said: ‘We’re history, aren’t we? All of us.’
‘You’re my history,’ said Buffy.
‘That’s it in a nutshell,’ said Penny, ‘the Russell Buffery World View.’
‘Oh, shut up!’ he said.
‘Did you colour wash these walls?’ asked Jacquetta. ‘I’m thinking of getting the builders back in. I’ve just found a marvellous decorator. He’s called Kevin. I thought I’d get my kitchen done.’
Lorna looked around. ‘That’s not colour wash,’ she said. ‘That’s patches of damp.’
Penny turned to Jacquetta. ‘I had the cottage repainted, after you. I was so jealous.’
‘Really?’ asked Buffy. ‘How gratifying!’
‘Oh, it didn’t last,’ said Penny. She looked at the women. ‘Funny old harem, aren’t we.’
‘A roomful of women, what bliss,’ said Buffy. He tried to raise his head, groaned, and relapsed onto the cushion. ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you all started fighting over me.’
Penny nodded. ‘Like, last one to leave has to take you home.’ She took another sip of her sherry. ‘Three wives, one for each decade. A sixties one, a seventies one and I suppose I was the eighties one.’
‘Don’t you dare write a piece about it, you bloodsucker,’ said Buffy. ‘This is Christmas. A sacred day. A private, family occasion.’
‘Ex-family, thanks very much’ said Penny.
‘Not for me,’ said Buffy. ‘I’ve found a daughter!’
Penny laughed. ‘I know. The way you’ve been going on, anyone would think you’d given birth to her yourself.’
‘It’s a miracle. A miracle birth!’ Weakly, he patted the carpet beside him. ‘Come and sit here, Celeste. Can I call you daughter? Budge up, everybody.’ Celeste sat down beside him, wedged in. ‘Look at this beautiful young woman,’ he said. ‘A new slate, a clean broom. We’re starting today, from scratch.’
‘Yes. And you won’t have to go to all the trouble of traumatising her childhood,’ said Jacquetta. ‘Running off with other women –’
‘Me?’ shouted Buffy. ‘What about you? Rushing off to Tunisia with your art teacher, creeping off to Egypt with that asshole Austin, shagging your shrink when I was paying for the sessions, know how much they cost – ?’
‘Children, children!’ said Popsi. She turned to Lorna. ‘Go on, lovey, show it to us again.’
Lorna had been sitting beside the fire, feeding it with logs. There had never been so many people squashed into this room. She had been turning from one to another, her head swivelling as if she were at some marital Wimbledon, the ball of blame flying to and fro. She felt oddly detached from it all; so used was she to being alone that she needed to be by herself to catch up with it all. Though she had changed into a skirt for these ex-rivals or whatever they were, though she had tidied herself up for the arrival of these various sort-of-siblings of her own
astonishing daughter, she was still wearing a lot of clothes. She reached down inside her sweater, inside the layers of thermal underwear; she rummaged around and pulled out a chain. Hanging from it was a little gold fish; it glinted in the firelight.
‘Pisces,’ said Jacquetta. ‘Mutability and magic.’
‘Your little fish, and her little fish,’ said Popsi. ‘Separated at birth. Go on, tell us again. It makes me cry.’
Lorna smiled. In the firelight she looked younger. For a moment they could glimpse the resemblance between mother and daughter – the wide cheekbones, the tapering face – though the lines of her pointed chin were heavier now. She threw another log on the fire.
‘I was on tour in Greece, playing Juliet, when I found out I was pregnant. At first I just thought my costume had shrunk. Then I realized.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ demanded Buffy.
‘Ssh!’ said Popsi.
‘I knew it was Russell’s, of course. But he was older than me. He was married.’
‘Sort of,’ said Celeste.
Popsi nodded. ‘Sort of.’
Lorna felt she was giving a speech. Until Celeste had knocked on her door, ten days ago, she had never even rehearsed it. Now, however, the words had sorted themselves out into some kind of order. This small segment of history had become solid, by repetition; beyond it lay the unknown years that so far belonged only to Celeste. ‘When I got back to England I didn’t know what to do. It was different in those days, my parents would have been appalled. My father was running the Institute of Statistical Research.’ She turned to Celeste. ‘That’s where you get your head for figures, I forgot to tell you that. He was frightfully old-fashioned. He’d always been against me going on the stage in the first place. And Russell –’
‘I adored you!’ cried Buffy. ‘If I’d known –’
‘I knew it wouldn’t work, honestly,’ she said. ‘Even that young, I could tell. You could tell too, I’m sure you could. We’d had the best of each other. Well, I’d certainly had the best of you –’
‘All three inches of it,’ said Penny.
‘For God’s sake!’ yelled Buffy.
‘She’s only joking, love,’ said Popsi, patting his knee. ‘We all know it’s three and a half.’ She and Penny started giggling.
‘Is this the way women talk when they’re alone?’ asked Buffy.
Celeste turned to Lorna. ‘Go on.’ She nearly added Mum, but she couldn’t quite say it, not in front of everyone. She didn’t know if she quite felt it, yet. Kidderpore was something she would have to get used to. She had already practised it in the mirror, Celeste Kidderpore, Celeste Kidderpore, like a girl does when she is going to get married.
‘Are you sitting comfortably?’ asked Lorna.
‘Not with this great porpoise hogging all the space,’ said Penny. ‘I’ve never known anyone take up so much room.’
‘I’m in pain!’ Buffy cried. His feet were wedged against the fire grate and his chest was sparkling with glitter from where Popsi had been leaning over him.
‘So I didn’t tell anyone,’ said Lorna. ‘When she was born I was offered Electra, in Glasgow. I desperately wanted to do it.’ She gazed into the flames. ‘I was very ambitious then. I suppose you’d say liberated and independent but it all boiled down to egocentricity. Actors are the most ruthless people in the world. They have to be, to do their job. That’s why they make such awful parents.’
‘Hear hear,’ said somebody.
‘Shut up,’ said Buffy.
Lorna turned to Celeste. ‘So I put you up for adoption. They took you away very quickly. All I gave you was the little fish, my other half, because you were Pisces. And I called you Celeste, just because I loved the name. And that was that.’
There was a silence. Outside, dusk was already falling but nobody had noticed. Lunchtime had long since come and gone.
‘Any more of that sherry?’ asked Popsi, the tears sliding down her cheeks.
Celeste emptied the bottle into her glass. There was a silence. Even the boys were listening. They sat hunched beside the fire; in their ears, the rings and studs glinted. Bruno had rolled up some newspaper and shoved it into the flames. All that news, all those words, history now, they burned as brightly as the logs. Old wood and old words, they both gave off heat and brought a flush to people’s cheeks. What did it matter, the cause of the heat, when it was warming them now?
Celeste had heard this story by now, of course – many times, during the past ten days. She had heard a lot more from this woman she was slowly trying to recognize as her mother. The main events were taking on the glazey feel of a fairy story, a myth for others to repeat during the dark winter evenings. Buffy lay on the floor like a silent radio, waiting to be switched on. He would be telling the story soon, embellished with his own indignant and colourful punctuation. With that honeyed voice he would make it history. His voice was so authoritative, it had such power and resonance and seduction in it. It existed independently from his own muddled life, and soon she was to become part of his repertoire. This gave her a warm, swelling feeling of importance.
She drained her sherry. Melton Mowbray was far away now, back in another life. The girl she was then – she could hardly recognize her. Celeste. Her very name had never seemed to fit her, she had never quite fitted in. She has always felt solitary and out of step, though in those days she didn’t have the words to voice this, even to herself. Such thoughts would have seemed alarming and ungrateful. Back home you didn’t think of your parents as not your sort. In London you did, by gosh you did, but not up there. You didn’t blame it on them if you felt somehow amorphous and undefined, like an out-of-focus photograph. If you felt terribly lonely.
Popsi was talking to Lorna. ‘What happened to your career, love?’ she asked. ‘I saw you on the stage once, you weren’t half bad. Course I didn’t like to admit it then, because I was a teeny bit jealous.’
‘Were you?’ asked Buffy hopefully.
‘Not for long. I had my own hands full at the time.’ She turned to Lorna. ‘Course, I might have felt differently if I knew you’d had a child with him. But I didn’t.’
‘Nor did I!’ said Buffy.
‘I carried on for a while,’ said Lorna, ‘but something had withered. Oh, I don’t know. Something died. Like I was a fire without fuel, know the feeling?’
‘I always had too much fuel,’ said Buffy. ‘That was my trouble. So much bloody fuel I couldn’t get the flames to start.’
Penny said: ‘The trouble with you –’
‘Oh, oh, here we go,’ said Buffy. ‘The trouble with me. Why don’t you just record it onto a cassette to save yourself the bother?’
‘The trouble with you is that you were so busy making up your own dramas you didn’t have any left for your work. Like you played this role – old and cuckolded and broke, poor old Buffy. For a start, you’re not even old. You’re only sixty-one!’
‘Sssh, love,’ said Popsi, and turned to Lorna. ‘Go on.’
‘I was just making empty gestures,’ said Lorna. ‘I felt it. I knew I was doing it.’
‘The women I know, they’re always going on about how children ruined their careers,’ said Buffy. ‘Now you’re saying not having one ruined yours. You lot want it both ways.’
‘Do shut up,’ said Penny.
Lorna said: ‘I wanted to be doing it for someone else, and there wasn’t anyone else to be doing it for. From then on I sort of drifted. In and out of things. Jobs, everything. If you don’t have any complications, then you feel quite lost.’
‘Or quite free,’ said Penny. ‘Maybe it’s the same thing.’ She moved Buffy’s leg off her foot. ‘You’re the most liberated of us all. We just got married.’
‘We’ve just seen ourselves in terms of men,’ said Jacquetta.
‘And their bank accounts,’ said Buffy bitterly.
‘Just going to make my camomile tea,’ said Jacquetta, drifting out to the kitchen.
‘That’s what she always
did,’ said Buffy. ‘Make tea.’
‘This is such heaven,’ said Penny. ‘I wish I had my tape recorder.’
‘We’re not a mini-series, dear,’ said Popsi.
‘No, we’re much better.’
Buffy said: ‘You could do us on Penny For Them. Is your family getting hard and stale? Try adding some Celeste and stirring it up!’
Popsi wasn’t listening; she was staring at Penny. ‘You’re Penny Warren?’
Penny nodded.
‘The journalist? I sent you something and you printed it! About how, if you want to get rid of fish smells, you can boil up coffee beans in the saucepan.’
‘Did you?’ said Penny. ‘I’ve forgotten.’
‘For goodness sake!’ said Celeste suddenly. ‘This is my life you’re talking about! It’s not fish smells!’ She sat rigid, staring at them all. ‘Everything – all my past – I grew up thinking that was the truth! My parents, everything. I trusted them all – when you’re a child you trust everyone. Don’t you see – all these years, everybody’s been lying to me!’
‘Join the club,’ said Buffy.
Lorna got up. ‘I think we all need another drink.’ She opened the cupboard. She took out a bottle and peered at the label. ‘Madeira. That’ll have to do.’ She unstoppered the bottle and sniffed it.
Buffy tried to put his arm around Celeste. He fell back, yelping with pain.
‘You’re so cynical!’ Celeste said. ‘All of you. If you knew what you sounded like!’
‘My dear,’ said Buffy. ‘If we’re talking about lying, what’ve you been doing to me these past two months?’
Celeste reddened. There was a silence. Lorna inched her way around the room, filling glasses.
Celeste said: ‘I didn’t lie. I was acting.’
‘Ah, a chip off the old block,’ said Buffy. ‘I don’t mind. Lucky my overpowering sex drive didn’t carry me away.’ Penny hooted with laughter; he ignored her. ‘Else I might’ve done something we would all have regretted.’
Jacquetta wandered in with her cup of camomile tea. ‘That’s what happened with my father, I’m sure of it.’