Tea At Gunter's Page 15

  I listened to it all: but they could as well have been plans for someone else; I supposed that, since she said so, I would go to London, but once arrived what happened to me would be a matter of indifference: time there, was just something to be passed between journeys back up north, when standing on the windy corner near the War Memorial, I would happen – quite by chance – to run into Richard, who surprised, would take me into Fuller’s, or Betty’s for coffee. We’d talk, and then I’d say, casually, ‘I think you know, years and years ago, your mother knew my mother’s family …’ Polite enthusiasm. ‘But that’s jolly interesting!’ A few reminiscences; checking of names, places, then back to Juliet – and the dream would go soggy. ‘Well yes, next month actually. You hadn’t heard? Yes, it’s tremendous – everyone’s terribly pleased. The South of France, we think …’

  From the beginning of term, it had been lovely weather, almost unbroken. Evening after evening I would get off the bus early and walk from the riverside. Outside one of the Georgian houses, there was some purple lilac; once, after it had rained earlier in the day I plunged my face into the still wet flowers, drinking in the sweet smell with a sort of passion, walking along home afterwards headily.

  Then one evening, I came in earlier than usual. I heard my mother talking in the sitting-room: her voice animated, laughing. A moment later, excited, she put her head round the door:

  ‘Hurry up, darling – a surprise for you in here!’

  It was Richard come to see me. I stood quite still, flushed, heart drumming. No time to do anything about my appearance – in the hall glass my face looked back, pouched, startled.

  I went into the room; a wave of ‘Colony’ hit me.

  ‘Here’s Lucy!’ exclaimed my mother, turning towards Juliet: sitting legs crossed on the faded cretonne of my father’s chair. She was very tanned, and her hair cut shorter than ever clung closely to her head. She murmured, ‘Hallo, darling,’ lifting her arm slightly – the bracelets on her arm jangling.

  ‘Juliet’s brought you a present,’ said my mother. Over on the sofa was a bulky package, roughly wrapped in pink paper. I walked over awkwardly and sat down beside it, Pugin asleep on the other side of me. The trolley was standing in the middle of the room. There was an atmosphere of interrupted, satisfactory conversation.

  ‘More tea?’ my mother asked.

  Juliet, passing her cup, said to me:

  ‘I came over, darling, to take some of Papa’s foreign business friends round the Castle – but it proved impossibly wearing. I sent them all back in a taxi. Coming to see you, darling, was a delightful excuse …’ Then as she took back her cup,

  ‘What lovely china!’ she remarked.

  My mother, wearing her expression of contented grande dame, acknowledged the praise, graciously. She didn’t mention that, although she wasn’t above using it when she wished to impress, it was in fact my father’s china, collected over a period of ten or twelve years. (Alan, needless to say, hadn’t drunk from it.)

  ‘When I was a Wren,’ said Juliet, ‘I thought of making a little vow not to drink tea, until I could have it from bone china again. And patterned at that. This is very beautiful –’

  Although dry-mouthed, I hadn’t felt able to pour myself any of the tea yet: imagining already the cups rattling nervously against each other. I hoped just to sit there and not be noticed.

  ‘Utility – the very name,’ my mother was saying. Thick, white. So insensitive.’ She looked over towards the sofa. ‘Pugin is very appreciative of fine china though. Aren’t you, Pugin? With age, however, he’s become rather an untidy drinker.’

  Hearing his name, Pugin stirred; then stretching slowly, yawning, showing his old yellow teeth, he climbed down and padding over to Juliet, rubbed his head against her leg.

  She fondled his ears. ‘I do adore cats.’ Pugin, purring throatily, climbed onto her knee.

  ‘He returns the compliment,’ said my mother, smiling. Juliet – the black cat hairs already shedding on her cream dress – smiled back. Then looking over in my direction, my mother said, a little sharply:

  ‘Aren’t you going to open your present, Lucy?’

  I unwrapped the crumpled paper slowly. Pugin, interested, climbed down stiffly to nose at it as I revealed a handbag: pale, stiff, ornately tooled leather. Touching it sensuously, smelling the rich gamey scent of the calfskin – I began thanking Juliet at once: profusely, repeating the words over and over again, hoping to disguise that I felt no gratitude whatever.

  ‘We stopped over in Florence – just for a few days.’

  My feelings frightened me: I felt unable to look at her, sitting there so smugly, satisfied, careless of her precious possession.

  ‘Such lovely things. Juliet thought of you at once, darling.’ She added, ‘Quentin went a little mad, buying the place up –’

  ‘Quentin?’ queried my mother.

  Juliet explained.

  ‘But of course. How silly of me. I was a little confused as to who was related to whom.’ She put her head on one side, ‘And confused as to who was doing the chaperoning? – but then I come from a very different generation. I was brought up –’

  The back door bell rang sharply, twice.

  ‘How tedious! Lucy – would you answer it?’

  A man had called with a complicated message about some tickets that had, or had not, been paid for. I came back to fetch her.

  Alone with Juliet, I sat down again on the sofa, stiffly, the bag beside me.

  ‘Do you mind if I smoke, darling?’ She reached for her cigarette holder; it was amber, and very long. She lit up and then leaning back, puffed luxuriously.

  ‘Well, darling,’ she said, with a quiet smile, ‘Juliet has come to her senses at last. She’s finished with Richard.’

  ‘Yes?’ I said, in a foolish voice. I was sitting tense on the edge of the sofa.

  ‘I can’t think now, how I put up with it for so long.’ She watched the smoke circles spiralling. ‘Nearly eighteen months, darling, of being worshipped and drooled over. Silly Juliet. She should have said no at once, and meant it – instead of letting him hope.’ She yawned. ‘But then he’s rather sweet, in a boring way. Like a faithful dog.’

  Letting my breath out with a rush I realized I’d been holding it all the time she was talking. I felt a mounting sense of urgency; she was looking now for an ash tray, reaching unhurriedly for one from above the fireplace. Desperate, used always to Elizabeth who needed no encouragement – tell me, tell me, I willed her fiercely. Outside, I could hear my mother’s voice: raised, argumentative.

  Tapping the ash, she pushed the cigarette more firmly into the holder. ‘Richard promised, you know, darling. He promised no proposals – and then what happens? A little moonlight on the Arno, and it’s the ninth – or nineteenth. I lose count, darling.’

  There was a door banging, the sound of my mother stalking past through to the kitchen. I held my breath again.

  ‘Then we were over at Fregene, just for the day – scorching. Quentin and Nell were fooling in the water and Richard and I were lying on the sand. He was leaning on one arm and looking at me in the most tiresome manner – and then I thought, “Juliet, darling, you’re going to pass out with sheer boredom”; so I turned to him and I said, “Darling, I’m very sorry, but I think this will just have to end!”’ She paused, ‘Only he didn’t understand at all – just went on stroking me in the same tiresome way. So that I had to say it again, very clearly. “Darling, Juliet’s bored with you. Bored, darling.”’ She paused again. ‘And then it all became rather messy. He cried. And I –’

  ‘Really!’ exclaimed my mother, flouncing back into the room. ‘He says that I said – and other such nonsense. Thank God I so rarely get involved in anything of this sort.’ She said to Juliet: ‘Is your mother a committee woman?’

  Juliet murmured something. My mother took up the remark. Their voices seemed to be coming from a great distance – to belong to strangers even; inside my head words rose clearly, a wail al
most. Poor Richard! I thought that if I didn’t sit tight, fists clenched, they’d escape my lips. Poor, poor Richard.

  ‘… but at that time, electricity had only just been installed. And of course in a place the size and age of Patmore …’ My mother’s voice flowed on. Juliet, sympathetic, courteous, slightly in charge (after all, she was free to change the topic; my mother wasn’t) asking questions, expressing surprise:

  ‘But what bliss. Unlike this French château I stayed at – in my Swiss-school days…’

  The topic seemed to be baths – How had they arrived there?

  ‘Rather a tin one,’ my mother said, ‘in the warmth of one’s bedroom, than all these modern advances. The poky bathrooms of today! Though of course,’ she was saying as my father walked in, ‘the servants had to work very hard – the bedrooms at Patmore were enormous. Just to keep them supplied with hot water –’

  For a moment, my father stood in the doorway. Then, eyebrows raised, he looked over questioningly at Juliet; I was surprised to see that she had coloured, very slightly. My mother introduced her at once, defensively, haughtily.

  My father not shaking hands, said merely:

  ‘Hirst – of Blackett’s I take it?’

  Juliet nodded; half smiled.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a little business like that,’ he said easily. He crossed to the trolley: he was wearing his blue blazer and suede shoes, an outfit particularly deplored by my mother. ‘I see you’re honoured,’ he said, looking at the china; then lifting the teapot lid: ‘What’s in it? Maiden’s water?’ He pulled a face: ‘Worse, it’s gnat’s piss.’

  ‘Have a drink,’ he said, turning to Juliet. ‘You’ll let me get you a drink?’

  ‘Whisky,’ she said in a little voice. ‘Small. With no water.’

  ‘Winifred and Lucy?’ Without waiting for an answer, ‘My wife has alcohol in her blood, you know,’ he said ambiguously. Juliet gave a little shrug of her shoulders; she was still flushed, I noticed. My mother, ignoring the remark, remained seated very upright, her expression one of remote disapproval. Then, when he’d poured the drinks: ‘What’s this?’ he asked, picking up the handbag.

  I explained. He felt the leather appreciatively, rubbing it between his fingers. ‘Did you say thank you?’ he asked aggressively.

  ‘She’s not a child, Peter,’ said my mother coldly. She turned to me: ‘Wheel the trolley through, would you please, darling?’

  ‘What do you think of the Eyeties then?’ my father was asking Juliet as I went out. She was sitting, legs tucked neatly, sipping the tumbler of whisky. When I came back, a few minutes later, the subject was London pubs.

  They were talking easily. My mother, plainly, wasn’t joining in. She gave me a distant smile as I sat down again on the sofa.

  ‘I lead such a West End life,’ Juliet was saying. ‘Men talk to me about the City – but they never take me there.’

  My father was sitting, legs outstretched, relaxed, his back turned very slightly towards me. Their conversation drifted on. Agitated, my mind in confusion, I only half listened. They had moved on to music-halls now; my mother was visibly impatient; but Juliet, leaning back, sipping occasionally, smoking – my father’s cigarettes now – showed no signs of going. She accepted another drink and my mother, excusing herself, went out; a moment or two later, I followed her.

  She was in the kitchen.

  ‘Nothing’s been done about supper!’ she said angrily, banging about. Pugin had retreated onto his Lloyd Loom chair. She turned out into a casserole two tins of dubious-looking meat, and lit the oven.

  ‘I think your friend is rather overstaying her welcome, Lucy.’ She looked at the clock. ‘Over two and a half hours – for a social call –’

  She went into the larder and came out with another tin; opening it, she said, ‘You’d better go in again, darling. I’ll see to the meal.’

  They were both laughing when I came into the room. ‘And really,’ Juliet was saying, ‘if you can imagine being teased about it in that way. Schoolgirls can be so revolting.’

  My father downed his drink. ‘Let me fill you up,’ he said.

  ‘They sang it whenever poor Juliet did anything the tiniest bit unpopular. So boring, and it’s not as if the firms are serious rivals either – Yorkshire Relish tastes a lot better than Blackett’s. Sauce after all, isn’t our thing.’

  She handed him her glass. ‘You could sing it,’ she said, almost as if daring him.

  He poured the drink, then crossing to the piano, sat down and sang, in his strong, slightly croaky voice:

  ‘… She’s only a factory lass,

  And wears no fancy clothes,

  But I’ve a bit of a Yorkshire relish

  For my little Yorkshire rose …’

  ‘But how dreadfully that brings it back,’ said Juliet. ‘So boring,’ and she smiled contentedly.

  Twenty minutes, and three songs later, she left.

  ‘Naughty Juliet,’ she said, when she saw the time, ‘I must have bored everybody horribly.’

  My mother was back in the room by now:

  ‘Nonsense,’ she said, blinking rapidly, ‘the whole encounter has been delightful.’

  But later, as we were sitting over unappetizing fibrous meat, she said to me – in that tone of voice which showed it was meant for my father:

  ‘I suppose it’s a good thing, when trade mixes with the professions – something must rub off after all – But I’m surprised all the same Alice Ingleson didn’t seem more distressed about this, very probable, match –’

  ‘Juliet?’ said my father, his mouth full. ‘She’s not wedding that do-gooder’s son, is she?’

  At first my mother pretended he hadn’t spoken. Then:

  ‘Probably,’ she said, coldly. ‘In fact – almost certainly.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  The mould of my daydreams had cracked and inside, dazzling and bewildering, ideas could be glimpsed, arranging, rearranging themselves. But the full effect of Juliet’s revelations was a delayed one and when it came it wasn’t hope or ambition I felt at all, but worry: simple, nagging, unceasing worry about Richard. I worried about his feelings; about how he was managing; about the fact that I could be no consolation.

  The last few intense weeks at the White Rose were a helpful distraction. A never-satisfied Miss Metcalfe, her face set in lines of disapproval, her manner icily reproachful, was making the most of her remaining days of tyranny. But the end of the ordeal, when it came, was brisk. One day we were victims; the next, rightful claimants of a diploma. Jennifer and I had both been successful, and weak with relief we giggled our way in and out of a farewell interview: Miss Metcalfe like many larger than life figures seeming to shrink visibly as she lost the power to withhold or bestow favours.

  We’d been asked, for every night of our lives if possible, to read a short passage in shorthand.

  ‘I’ll be reading it on my wedding night, of course,’ said Jennifer, her mouth full of coffee cake, as we celebrated in Fuller’s afterwards.

  The diploma itself was a rather scruffy piece of paper, but it was greeted with delight by my mother. That evening, she insisted on taking me out for a celebration supper.

  ‘Of course the White Rose hasn’t turned out to be, socially speaking, quite the place I’d imagined. And I do despair of your accent, Lucy – but you’ve got a magnificent training.’ Forking up chicken curry, she said, ‘I shall write to tell Gervase first thing tomorrow.’ Thinking of the other letters – never to be posted – I coloured, ashamed still.

  My father was over in Bradford: ‘A good thing,’ said my mother. ‘He would have been so damping.’ Perhaps I might have got some congratulations from him, but my mother, still ebullient the next day, overdid the praising.

  ‘Investing your legacy like that, Winifred,’ he said, ‘no doubt you’ll be hoping to see dividends now?’

  Blinking rapidly, she didn’t answer. He busied himself opening a packet of Gold Flake.

  ‘Well done, th
en,’ he said quickly, without looking at me.

  I was to have a week’s rest before I began to look for a job. On the third morning, I came down early to the kitchen to find Pugin dead in his Lloyd Loom chair; he was already quite stiff.

  My mother, hurrying down in her old dressing-gown, was overcome. While she repeated, ‘He can’t have suffered, Lucy, he can’t have suffered!’ I had to deal with the corpse and later, to remove from the house any reminders of him: throwing in the dustbin a seldom-used catnip mouse, and asking Mrs Pickering if she would like the Lloyd Loom chair. The rest of the day she spent in bed. When I took her up some lunch, she said, ‘This is the second death – in only seven months. And I’d seen 1949 as a year of such hope, Lucy!’

  In the evening, she came downstairs, but when my father, back from spending the weekend in Harrogate, said surprisingly kindly, ‘Sorry about old Pugin, Winifred,’ she only snapped back at him: ‘Perhaps you could have shown him a little love while he was with us, Peter.’

  Three days later, I began the hunt for a job. Jennifer and I had both turned down Miss Metcalfe’s offer to obtain one for us: suspecting (probably quite rightly) that it would be mainly prestige, with a lot of hard work and little money; Jennifer was in any case already fixed up to work at a brewery where her uncle was a director. But after a series of fruitless interviews I began to regret my hastiness. The hard truth dawned on me gradually that what most employers wanted was experience; and my ability, on paper at least, to organize a banquet, arrange my employer’s flowers, keep his books (and his secrets), fix a trip to Brussels at a few hours’ notice – was as nothing compared with the reality, that I had never done a day’s work in an office.

  Nor did the actual diploma seem very magical; often it wasn’t even looked at. Worse still – some people hadn’t even heard of it: