A Village Affair Read online

  ‘Can’t afford it,’ Sally Mott told her. ‘No one can afford to live here except in a tied cottage. Our Trevor’s had to go to Salisbury when he married, same as our Diana did. Pitcombe’s going to fill up with outsiders now, once the old ones have gone. Dad’s cottage now—’

  ‘I expect we’ll sell it to weekenders,’ Clodagh said, ‘from London. Don’t you think?’

  ‘You can laugh—’

  ‘I’m not laughing, Sally. I’m teasing. Lots of employment for all of you, looking after weekenders, so why should you complain?’

  Sally Mott had learned a great deal about complaining from Rosie Barton. Rosie’s life ran the way Rosie wanted it to and she had been anxious to put some of the village women on their guard about being exploited. Sally was ripe for such views, ripe for grievance. She gave up her job cleaning at the Park soon after Rosie Barton came to the village, and she wasn’t going to start again, scrubbing for weekenders, not for anyone, thank you.

  Lettice Deverel, too, had her views on weekenders. Clodagh took Alice to meet her as well as to drink Nescafé and eat shortbread in the comfortable rectory kitchen. Lettice Deverel said that mud always got the better of phoney weekenders in the end and Peter Morris said they were good for the collection but not really much good for the congregation. When Clodagh and Alice had gone, Peter went up to see Lettice and ask her if she thought Alice wasn’t looking very much happier and very much better. Lettice agreed, but she did not sound particularly pleased.

  ‘Sometimes, you give a very good imitation of being a crabbed old spinster—’

  ‘Clodagh Unwin,’ Lettice said, ‘needs a good hard job. She’s simply avoiding the issue, queening it over that poor girl.’

  ‘Poor Polly,’ said the parrot suddenly. ‘Pretty Polly. Poor Polly is a sad slut.’

  ‘Why poor?’

  Lettice Deverel turned on her kitchen tap and ran water vigorously into a stout black kettle.

  ‘Because two reasons. One, Clodagh is indulging herself. Two, because Alice Jordan is ripe for the picking.’

  Peter Morris began to laugh. After a while, having pondered the joke to itself, the parrot joined him.

  ‘So you disapprove of an excellent friendship?’

  ‘I disapprove of people being made fools of.’

  ‘Fool!’ the parrot cried with energy. ‘Fool! Good morning. Who is a pretty bagpiper, may I ask?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Clodagh said, pushing Charlie up the village street beside Alice, ‘Lettice is disapproving of me again. She does it about every three years and she will never tell me why.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Alice said, ‘she pays you the compliment of thinking you ought to know why.’

  ‘This time I do know. And what’s more, she’s ahead of me—’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  A car drew up beside them and a woman’s voice said clearly, ‘Mrs Jordan?’

  They stopped. The face looking out of the driver’s window was brightly made up under careful hair, and surmounted a blue blouse tied at the neck with a bow. Clodagh, behind Alice, hissed faintly.

  ‘Cathy Fanshawe, Mrs Jordan. I’ve been meaning to come for weeks, but what with one thing and another, I’ve been so rushed I haven’t known whether I’m coming or going. It’s the Conservatives—’

  Alice stooped to the car window.

  ‘Conservatives?’

  ‘My husband is the local chairman. We’re so thrilled you’ve moved in. Geoffrey said—’

  Clodagh gave Alice a sharp dig from behind.

  ‘Mrs Fanshawe, I’m afraid that I’m not really a Conservative—’

  ‘Surely,’ Mrs Fanshawe said, thinking of The Grey House and Martin’s appearance and the school run to Salisbury in unmistakable uniform, ‘you can’t think the Liberals are any kind of alternative just now?’

  ‘No,’ Alice said, ‘I don’t. I—’

  Clodagh came to stoop beside her.

  ‘She’s a babe in arms about politics, I’m afraid. And about most things. Too sad.’

  Mrs Fanshawe looked nervous. A well cared-for hand crept up to adjust the bow on her blouse.

  ‘Perhaps your husband—’

  ‘He,’ said Clodagh firmly, ‘is worse. Much worse. Practically a Communist.’

  Alice began to shake.

  ‘So sorry—’

  ‘Perhaps I might just call one evening? With the forms.’ She looked directly at Alice. ‘We could have a proper chat about it.’

  Helplessly, Alice subsided in silent laughter on the pavement. Charlie watched her gravely from his pushchair.

  ‘You see?’ Clodagh said to Mrs Fanshawe. ‘So sad. Not fit to make an adult decision really. I don’t think the Conservatives could want her. Do you?’

  Pink with indignation, Mrs Fanshawe put her car into gear.

  ‘It’s really,’ Clodagh said gloomily, ‘a hopeless case.’

  Alice gave a little yelp. Mrs Fanshawe wound her window up with great speed and let the clutch out too suddenly in her agitation so that the car leaped forward like a kangaroo. Across the street, old Fred Mott watched them from behind his cactus collection; the jerking car, Alice still sitting giggling and helpless on the ground, Clodagh standing above her in an attitude of the profoundest regret. He began to giggle faintly himself.

  ‘What’s up with you,’ his granddaughter-in-law Sally said, bringing in a bowl of pot noodles from the kitchen.

  ‘Them girls,’ Fred said, wheezing. ‘Them girls there. Them bad girls.’

  Sally looked.

  ‘You don’t want to take no notice of them. That’s just Miss Clodagh, bullyragging again. That’s all.’

  Clodagh put her hand under Alice’s arm.

  ‘Get up, do. Honestly. What will people think? First you upset nice Mrs Fanshawe who utterly worships my mother and then you sit on the ground and giggle like a glue-sniffing schoolkid. Charlie’s quite shocked.’

  ‘Bah,’ Charlie said.

  Alice struggled up, wiping her eyes.

  ‘Clodagh, you are absolutely shameless—’

  ‘On the contrary. I’m trying to get you off the street and into the privacy of your own home before the whole village thinks you are on the bottle.’ She waved across at Fred Mott, chumbling through his pot noodles, and he grinned back and shook his spoon. ‘If Sally Mott has seen us, we might as well be tomorrow’s headline in the Sun.’ She began to push Charlie briskly uphill, talking as she went. Weak with spent laughter, Alice followed.

  ‘Stupid,’ Sally Mott said, resolving to tell Gwen. ‘Too old to behave like kids.’

  ‘I like a bit of fun,’ Fred said, letting the noodles dribble down his chin. He glared at Sally. ‘I like a gay girl, I do.’

  After lunch, Clodagh took Charlie upstairs and put him in his cot and pulled the cord of his musical box so that it began to play ‘Edelweiss’, over and over, luring him into sleep. Charlie liked his cot. He put his first finger into his mouth, turned on his side and gave himself over to the tinny little tune. Clodagh dropped a kiss on his warm round head, drew the curtains and went down to the kitchen where Alice was putting plates into the dishwasher before she went up to the studio to paint until Natasha and James came home. The room was full of contented post-lunch quiet. Alice shut the dishwasher door and straightened up.

  ‘Don’t go,’ Clodagh said.

  She was standing just inside the doorway to the hall, still holding the doorknob in her hand.

  ‘What, not paint? But I thought—’

  ‘I want,’ Clodagh said, ‘to talk to you.’

  Alice found she was holding her breath. She stayed where she was, by the dishwasher, silhouetted against the window. Clodagh went round the table to the two wooden armchairs by the Aga, lifted Balloon off one, and sat down with him on her knee.

  ‘Come here,’ Clodagh said. ‘Come here where I can see you.’

  Alice came, very slowly. She sat opposite Clodagh, upright and on the alert as if bracing herself for a row.

  ‘What�
�’

  ‘Wait,’ Clodagh said, stroking Balloon.

  ‘What do you mean, wait—’

  ‘Wait until you aren’t exuding anxiety and apprehension like a blue flame.’ She looked at Alice. ‘What are you afraid of?’

  ‘I’m not afraid.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Only – excited afraid—’

  ‘That’s all right then.’

  There was a pause. It was a silent pause except for Balloon’s purring and, far away, a distant aeroplane. It’s two o’clock, Alice thought, two o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon . . .

  ‘It’s time,’ Clodagh said. ‘Isn’t it.’

  ‘Time? Time for what—’

  Clodagh sighed gently.

  ‘Time for me to tell you that I love you. Time for us to begin.’

  Alice said nothing. She sat absolutely still and stared at Clodagh. Clodagh picked Balloon off her knee, kissed his nose and put him on the floor. Then she looked back at Alice.

  ‘You know what a spoiled brat I am,’ Clodagh said. ‘You know how I always want what I want right now. Well, by my standards, I’ve waited for you because I knew it was going to be worth it. I’ve waited since I saw your reflection in the mirror when you came into the drawing room at home and I felt my stomach turn over. Love at first sight. Love Alice.’

  She stood up and crossed the few feet between them and knelt in front of Alice.

  ‘What about you?’

  In a slightly strangled voice, Alice said, ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes. You. What do you feel about me?’

  Alice leaned forward and put her hands either side of Clodagh’s face.

  ‘I feel,’ Alice said, ‘that I hate it when you go out of the room.

  ‘More,’ Clodagh said.

  ‘Everything I do with you is more fun, better, than anything I do with anyone else or by myself. I like myself better. I feel more – more able. I’m so happy,’ Alice said, putting her arms round Clodagh’s neck and burying her face in her hair. ‘I’m so happy I feel quite mad.’

  Clodagh undid Alice’s arms so that she could push her away a little.

  ‘Kiss me.’

  Alice bent again.

  ‘No,’ Clodagh said, ‘on second thoughts, I’ll kiss you. I think you need a bit of handling.’

  After a considerable time, watched detachedly by the kitten, Clodagh drew away and said, ‘Wrong again. You don’t need any handling. You just need lots more of the same.’

  She stood up.

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean bed.’

  Alice gave a tiny gasp.

  ‘Bed!’

  Clodagh knelt and undid Alice’s shirt and put her hands inside and then, after a few seconds, her mouth. Alice sat with her eyes closed. Relief flooded slowly, heavily through her, relief and release and a sensation of glorious blossoming, like a Japanese paper flower dropped into water and swelling out to become a huge, rich, beautiful bloom. Clodagh turned her face sideways so that her cheek rested on Alice’s skin.

  ‘Look at you,’ she said, and her voice was as thick as honey, ‘look at you. You’re like all bloody women. You thought, didn’t you, that when two women fall in love, one at least has to have the same sex experience as a man. And that there has to be a woman one, one that behaves as a woman does, with a man. Are you beginning to see? Are you beginning to see that it’s so great for us because we know what the other wants because we want it ourselves?’ She took her face away and looked up. Alice was in a kind of trance. Clodagh stood up and then bent to take Alice’s hands.

  ‘Alice,’ she said, ‘Alice. Come with me.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  In June, Anthony Jordan completed the sale of his luxurious, impersonal flat on Tregunter Path, Hong Kong, cleared his office desk, told the girl who had optimistically hoped for four years that he might marry her that he never would, and took a taxi out to Kai Tak airport with ten years’ worth of Far Eastern living packed economically into only three suitcases. He told friends that he was exhausted by the climate and the claustrophobia of Hong Kong and that he wanted to try his hand at something other than corporate finance. He did not say that he would otherwise become lumbered with a largely unwanted wife but everyone knew that that was the case, and took sides in the affair, sides that were very largely weighted against Anthony. Enough people had endured his combination of exploitation and exhibitionism to feel nothing but gratitude towards Cathay Pacific for carrying him firmly homewards. When he had gone, Diana McPherson, who had loved him very much despite her better self, found herself asked out a good deal so that people could tell her that it was better to be an old maid for ever than to be married for five minutes to someone like Anthony Jordan.

  His father met him at Heathrow. They had met on Richard’s travels about once a year, and Anthony had come on infrequent leave, infrequent because he preferred to go to California than to come home. Anthony thought his father was looking well and fit and distinguished and Richard thought Anthony, despite his expensive clothes, was looking slightly dissolute. They took a taxi into Central London to Richard’s tiny flat in Bryanston Street, and then went to the Savoy Grill for dinner. Anthony talked a great deal about why he had left Hong Kong and even more about the extraordinary number of alternatives he now had for a job in the City. He said he thought he would like to work for one of the big accepting houses. Richard listened, noticed that Anthony drank too much and ate not enough and then said, gently, that the City was of course a changed place. Anthony said rudely that his father didn’t know a thing about the City and Richard sighed because, even if the City had changed, Anthony plainly hadn’t.

  Only when they were on the way back to Bryanston Street did Anthony ask about his family.

  ‘You must go and see for yourself.’

  ‘Old Martin,’ Anthony said, staring out of the taxi window at the seedy muddle of Piccadilly Circus, ‘old Martin seems to have done all right.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘More up your and Mother’s street, really, what Martin has done—’

  ‘I can only speak for myself and I wouldn’t agree with you. As long as you both do what suits you best in life, insofar as that is ever possible, then that’s what I want for you, and I should think what your mother wants, too.’

  ‘Very diplomatic.’

  Richard said nothing.

  ‘Nice house,’ Anthony said and his voice was faintly sneering. ‘Lovely wife. Three children. Solid job. Getting on nicely. Pillar of the community. Good old Martin.’

  ‘Yes,’ Richard said, ‘all true.’

  ‘And what you wish I’d done—’

  ‘Not at all,’ Richard said in the level, patient voice he used a great deal of the time now, to Cecily, ‘unless you wish it yourself.’

  Anthony gave a little yelp.

  ‘Bloody hell—’

  The taxi crossed Oxford Circus and turned left.

  ‘Go and see them,’ Richard said again. ‘You will really like the children.’

  Anthony turned in his seat.

  ‘How would you know? Mother said you hardly ever see them.’

  How many middle-class fathers, Richard wondered in a burst of fury, longed passionately sometimes to hit their sons, and envied working-class ones who sensibly just did, and thus avoided sleepless nights of emotional torment and pointless days of fruitless negotiations. He took a deep breath.

  ‘I am lucky,’ he said, ‘in that I have in my life a few people who recognize that I am a human being. I am unlucky in that my family are on the whole not in that number.’

  Anthony burst into an exaggerated, cackling laugh.

  ‘Oh it’s good to be back! Oh it is! Some things don’t change and paternal pomposity is one—’

  The taxi stopped. Richard turned to look at Anthony.

  ‘Are you thirty-six?’

  ‘Yes—’

  ‘Thirty-six.’ Richard opened the taxi door and climbed out. Anthony hea
rd him sigh and then say to the cab driver, ‘Give me forty pence change, would you?’

  On the pavement together, when the cab had driven off, Anthony said, ‘Why did you ask?’

  ‘I am not,’ Richard said, ‘going to give you the satisfaction of an honest answer. Nor of a row your first night home. Come on. Bed.’

  In the lift, Anthony said, ‘I could do with a nightcap—’

  ‘Help yourself.’

  ‘Join me?’

  ‘No thank you. I have to be up at six.’

  Grinning, Anthony began to hum, his eyes on his father, and Richard tried to smile back as if they were sharing a joke rather than a mutual animosity.

  After a few days in London, Anthony went down to Dummeridge. It was a rare and perfect June afternoon, with a clear and brilliant light, and Anthony congratulated himself on leaving the breathless mists of Hong Kong for weather which behaved as weather was meant to. He had a lot of presents for Cecily, a length of silk, a magnum of pink champagne, an imitation Gucci handbag and a miniature nineteenth century Korean medicine chest. They had talked every day on the telephone since he had come home, long frivolous conversations that had done much to soothe the soreness in Anthony’s heart, a soreness exacerbated by three days in his father’s aloof company. Why Richard couldn’t unbend was beyond Anthony. He was only an engineer after all, however successful. What gave him the right to judge all the time, as he undoubtedly did, and then make it very plain indeed if and when he found things wanting. The last three evenings in London, they had, by mutual agreement, gone their separate ways, and Anthony had no idea where his father had been. The flat was as tidy as a ship’s cabin. Anthony had a good look round it, a good look, in all the cupboards and drawers, and was surprised to find a photograph of Natasha and James and Charlie on Richard’s chest of drawers, and one of himself – quite a recent one, taken on a trip to Manila – and a paperback of Sylvia Plath’s poetry beside his bed. Otherwise it was a man’s functional flat: clothes, coffee, whisky and aspirin. Anthony could see why his mother never came near it. She called it Father’s other filing cabinet. She was right.