A Village Affair Page 15

  The lane to Dummeridge was lined with May blossom, thickly pink and white. The grass, Anthony noticed, was not only bright green, but shiny, with the deep gloss of health. He drove the last half-mile slowly, looking at the wooded hills on either side, sniffing for a whiff of the sea and feeling an excited curiosity to discover how he would seem to things at home after all these years and, to a lesser extent, how they would seem to him. The hall door was open as he pulled up, and almost at once Dorothy came hurrying out in a flurry of fond pleasure at seeing him again, and told him that Cecily was out in the garden with Mrs Dunne and the children.

  He gave Dorothy a kiss and held her away from him so that he could look at her.

  ‘Totally unchanged.’

  She gave a little squeal.

  ‘Rubbish,’ she said. ‘Nonsense. Cheeky as ever. Go on through, quick. Your mother’s panting for a sight of you—’

  He went through the hall and caught the familiar scent of polish and flowers and age. The garden door was open and through it he could see a strip of bright green lawn on which a small boy was standing, bent double, and watching Anthony through his legs. Anthony did not much like children. They were, he found, too honest on the whole.

  ‘He’s here!’ the little boy shrieked, his voice strangled by being upside down. ‘He’s coming! He’s coming!’

  He stepped out into the sunlight. Cecily came almost running across the grass and flung herself into his arms. He thought she might be crying. She held him in a tremendous embrace, her face pressed fiercely to his.

  ‘Darling. Darling Ant. Oh, how lovely. You can’t think, you simply can’t—’

  A small, plump young woman with red curls held back by a band was watching them from a group of chairs under the willow tree. The little boy who had called out ran over to her and said with piercing distinctness, ‘But you said he was a boy. You said he was Mrs Jordan’s boy. And look, he’s only a man.’

  ‘Just what I feel,’ Juliet Dunne said, laughing and getting up, ‘every time Daddy comes home.’ She came over to Anthony and Cecily, holding out her hand. ‘I’m Juliet. And you are awful Anthony who wouldn’t come home and now you have. I’ve been sort of adopted here, for the summer. Such luck!’

  Cecily put out one arm to encircle Juliet so that they were all three linked.

  ‘Anthony, you must take no notice of her. She has a wicked tongue but I put up with her because she makes me laugh.’ There was a tiny pause. ‘She is a great friend of Alice’s.’

  ‘Alice?’

  Juliet sighed. She was extremely pretty, like a kitten, with little features grouped close together in a creamy freckled face.

  ‘So boring. Allie’s got a new friend and won’t play with any of her old ones just now.’

  Cecily drew them away across the lawn to the willow.

  ‘I’m not awful really,’ Anthony said, ‘I’m just lonely and misunderstood.’

  ‘I expect,’ Juliet said, looking straight at Cecily, ‘you had a simply horrible childhood.’

  Cecily nodded, laughing.

  ‘Horrible.’

  ‘It was,’ Anthony insisted. ‘Martin was the goodie who could do no wrong. I was the baddie.’

  The small boy was trotting beside him. He looked up at disappointing Anthony.

  ‘Mummy likes the baddies on television best.’

  ‘Mummy sounds very promising.’

  They sat down in the cane chairs in the speckled, drifting shade.

  ‘Let me look at you,’ Cecily said to Anthony.

  ‘I shouldn’t. Father didn’t like what he saw.’

  Juliet said, ‘You have bags under your eyes.’

  Anthony turned to his mother.

  ‘Is she always like this?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘I feel I’ve stumbled into a dormitory party—’

  ‘Not quite,’ Juliet said. ‘It’s more like a coven. We’re plotting.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How to get Alice back.’

  Cecily said warningly, ‘Juliet—’

  ‘Oops. Did I say something I shouldn’t have?’

  ‘You might be making too much of too little.’

  Anthony scented intrigue.

  ‘What’s going on? What is Alice up to?’

  ‘She has thrown herself into village life,’ Cecily said. ‘That’s all. So she hasn’t much time for any of us, and we miss her.’

  ‘She used to ring all the time,’ Juliet said. ‘She was the one person I could have a really good complain about Henry to. Your mother’s no good at all because she thinks Henry is a dear. I suppose he is really, in rather the same category as a dear old armchair. Or pair of bedsocks.’ She began to squeal with laughter. ‘You know what’s really the matter. Allie thinks I’m so funny and I’ve got no audience just now. Cecily thinks I’m quite funny but not nearly as much as she ought to. Oh dear. I suppose I ought to be going.’ She looked about her. ‘Do you think my luck has turned and I’ve actually lost two children out of three for good and all?’

  Her son, who was clearly used to this kind of thing, said his brothers were in the stableyard.

  ‘Do go and get them, there’s a little treasure. Isn’t it sad,’ turning to Cecily, ‘how exactly like his father he looks?’

  ‘She worships Henry,’ Cecily said to Anthony.

  ‘I want to know more about Alice.’

  ‘Why do you?’

  ‘I used to fancy Alice—’

  Cecily gave a little sigh.

  ‘I know. I used to worry that you were going to make trouble. To spite Martin.’

  ‘I did try—’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She froze me out.’

  ‘Oh dear. How tiresome virtue is. There it stands, blocking every path to pleasure. Here come my beastly little children.’ She stood up. ‘I shouldn’t be cross about Allie. She looks as beautiful as the day, so clearly good works suit her.’

  Cecily went out to the car and saw Juliet and her boys drive away. When she came back, Anthony was lying in the long cane chair where Alice had lain her first afternoon at Dummeridge, with his eyes shut. He didn’t open them when he heard his mother return, he simply said, ‘What a rattle.’

  ‘She’s sweet.’

  ‘Really. Tell me more about Alice.’

  ‘Why are you so obsessive?’

  ‘I’m not. I’m keenly interested in my brother’s family in a most suitable way.’

  ‘You always have a motive.’

  ‘Not this time.’ He opened his eyes and turned his head towards his mother. ‘Tell.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell,’ Cecily said. ‘It is exactly as I said to you just now. She had a bad post-natal breakdown after the last baby, and then a big house move, and now she has taken on a whole load of village responsibilities. She’s extremely tired, so that she can’t see reason and take a holiday.’

  ‘And her new friend?’

  ‘The youngest daughter of the big house in their village.’

  ‘Isn’t that utterly suitable?’

  Cecily said flatly, ‘Utterly.’ She took a breath. ‘I want to know about you.’

  Anthony shut his eyes again.

  ‘Unemployed.’

  ‘Temporarily?’

  ‘Oh yes. No problem. Quite rich.’

  ‘Also temporarily?’

  ‘Probably. Is Martin rich?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Comfortable?’

  ‘Yes,’ Cecily said doubtfully.

  ‘Rich then. Isn’t he too perfect.’

  Cecily let a little silence fall, then she said, ‘I did rather hope you would bring a wife home with you.’

  Anthony yawned.

  ‘I was besieged. Literally. But I didn’t seem able to fall in love back. I think I’m still carrying a torch for Alice.’

  ‘You haven’t seen Alice for almost ten years. Very useful, supposing yourself to want someone you can’t have, so that you need never commit yourself to anyon
e else.’

  ‘I did want her.’

  ‘Only in the same way that you wanted Martin’s Meccano and Martin’s friend Guy and Martin’s diligence over examinations.’

  ‘That’s not very flattering to Alice.’

  ‘It’s meant,’ Cecily said, ‘to be not very flattering to you.’

  ‘Oh, me. I’ve a hide like a rhino.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘First Father’s unpleasant to me and now you are. I shall go to Pitcombe.’

  ‘No,’ Cecily said suddenly.

  Anthony sat up slowly and put his feet on the grass.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you are a troublemaker.’

  ‘I don’t want to make trouble. I just want someone to be nice to me. Alice will be nice.’

  ‘Alice,’ Cecily said, ‘has enough to cope with, without you,’ and then she gave the game away completely by beginning, with great dignity, to weep.

  Anthony could not remember seeing his mother cry before. Indeed, her self-possession had been one of the chief things that had enraged him, as a teenager – nothing, it seemed, that you could do or say shook her composure. But she was shaken now. He knew she adored Alice. The main reasons for his own desire for Alice long ago were that his mother adored her, his father liked her a great deal and Martin wanted her. And then of course there were the additional, tantalizing reasons of Alice’s personality and her fascinating dislike of him. Perhaps Cecily and Alice had quarrelled. Perhaps Cecily was an interfering grandmother. Perhaps Alice’s youthful infatuation with Cecily had died and there had grown up instead, as there so often did in such cases, a robust dislike of the former idol. Anthony, turning these interesting speculations over in his mind, was rather inclined to the last view. He thought he would spend a few more days at Dummeridge, or as long as it took for the festal return of the Prodigal Son atmosphere to wear off, and he would make a few calls to contacts in the City – he left a Morgan Grenfell telephone number lying about prominently – and then he would invite himself to Pitcombe. So he made himself very charming to Dorothy, and to the two young men in the garden whom his mother was training, and at meals he tried to elicit more information from Cecily about Pitcombe, information which, he was interested to notice, she seemed peculiarly reluctant to give.

  ‘Anthony!’ Alice said into the telephone. She was leaning against the kitchen wall, with Charlie, eating a biscuit, on her hip.

  ‘I want you to ask me to stay.’

  ‘Of course. Where are you?’

  ‘Dummeridge.’

  ‘Oh—’

  ‘Exactly. What have you done to my mother?’

  ‘Absolutely nothing.’

  ‘Sure?’

  Alice smiled at Clodagh across the kitchen.

  ‘Just a teeny bit of independence—’

  Anthony laughed.

  ‘I see. Look. When can I come? Nobody is being very kind to me, which is tough when I’m so vastly improved.’

  Alice said dreamily, her eyes on Clodagh, ‘I’ll be kind. I’m kind to everyone just now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m happy.’

  ‘What, doing the church flowers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Extraordinary. You do, however, sound happy.’

  Clodagh bent over James, who was painting a tiny, neurotic picture of a very neat house in one corner of a large piece of paper. He leaned against her and Alice heard him say, ‘You do it.’ ‘No, Jamie, you.’ ‘Clo-clo do it,’ he said in a loving baby voice, gazing at her.

  ‘Are you listening?’ Anthony demanded down the telephone.

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘If I come on Friday pour le weekend, how would that be? If you’re very kind to me, I might have to stay.’

  ‘Do,’ Alice said, rubbing her cheek on Charlie’s head, ‘whatever you like.’

  ‘Is your house lovely?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Alice said. ‘It’s perfect here. It really is. You’ll see.’

  She put the telephone down.

  ‘Martin’s brother.’

  Natasha, who was importantly doing her homework – this term’s novelty – looked up from an extremely neat English exercise book to say kindly to her brother, ‘Uncle Anthony. Who you have never seen.’

  ‘Nor have you!’

  ‘I nearly did. I was more nearly born in time. More nearly than you.’

  ‘Was she?’ James whispered up into Clodagh’s hair.

  ‘’Fraid so—’

  ‘Won’t I ever be the bigger?’

  Clodagh kissed him.

  ‘In size, you will be.’

  Alice came to the table and sat down with Charlie. She wanted to tell Clodagh about Anthony but Natasha’s beady presence made that impossible just now. So she smiled at Clodagh, and Clodagh came round the table and kissed her, and then Charlie, and then Natasha said, ‘What about a kiss for good little me doing my homework?’

  Clodagh picked her off her chair.

  ‘You’re a little Tashie madam, you are—’

  Natasha put her arms round her neck.

  ‘I’m going to be like you when I grow up.’

  ‘No. You’re going to be like your lovely mother.’

  ‘Can I too?’ James said.

  Clodagh put Natasha back on her chair.

  ‘Look at you,’ she said to Alice.

  ‘Why, what—’

  ‘The cat that got the cream—’

  ‘Oh but I am, I am—’

  ‘You are so bloody beautiful.’

  ‘Dear me,’ Natasha said, ‘in front of James.’

  ‘Bloody,’ James said softly to his picture, ‘bloody, bloody, bloody beautiful.’

  Clodagh leaned towards Alice.

  ‘Beautiful.’

  ‘You too.’

  ‘No. I’m a ratface.’ She put a finger on Charlie’s cheek. ‘And Charlie’s a moonface.’

  ‘And James,’ Natasha said with deadly quietness, ‘is a fishface.’

  James gave a yelp. Then a car came swooping past the house and there was a chorus of ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ and Charlie, who had been dozing against Alice like a human teddy bear, became galvanized by the desire to join in.

  It was exactly the homecoming Martin wanted. It was the best day he had had at work since the day he had been made a junior partner. He had been summoned in by Nigel Gathorne, the senior partner, to be congratulated, personally, on securing the Unwins as clients for the firm, and to be told, quite plainly, that this, particularly if he made a success of it, would contribute materially to Martin’s upward rise. He then gave Martin a glass of fino sherry, a mark of approval all the junior partners recognized as being equivalent to a CBE. He was so genuinely pleased that Martin even managed to put aside all the complications and tribulations that seemed to have dogged his path since his lunch with Henry Dunne at the White Hart. If Nigel Gathorne could offer such warm and professional congratulations, then Martin’s achievement must be real indeed. Coming out of Nigel’s office, he felt he almost owed Clodagh an apology for his petulance over her part in it. Even thinking of her now was possible without an involuntary blush, but of course she had made that easy by being so ordinarily friendly to him and such a help with the children and such a good friend to Alice. He had, in his glow of gratitude and achievement, actually had a preliminary look at the Unwin trust papers at once, and really, it wasn’t, at first glance, going to be too difficult to unscramble. He visualized a business conversation with Clodagh. It was a happy little fantasy in which he retrieved the self-esteem he had lost in that undignified little scene in the kitchen when Alice was away. At twenty past five, Martin left his office and went back to his car past the Victoria Wine Company so that he could buy a bottle of champagne, which luckily they had on a very reasonable offer indeed.

  ‘You’ll be able to handle Georgina,’ Clodagh said, admiring the light through her champagne glass. ‘Easy peasy.’

  They were sitting in the drawing room, to celebrate. />
  ‘Is she like you?’

  Clodagh avoided looking at Alice.

  ‘Georgina is absolutely straight in every way. She’ll be just like Ma, in the end, only quieter. She buys day clothes from Laura Ashley and evening ones from Caroline Charles and shoes from Bally and knickers from M & S. She’s a dear.’

  Alice said, head back against a chair cushion, eyes half-closed, ‘Why don’t you go and see her more?’

  ‘Because, for some reason, I really like being at home just now.’

  ‘Never,’ Alice said, on the edge of laughter. She turned her head towards Martin. ‘Anthony’s coming. On Friday.’

  Martin pulled a slight face.

  ‘Oh well. It had to happen. How long for?’

  ‘Don’t you like him?’ Clodagh said, interested. ‘Why don’t you?’

  Alice began. ‘He’s—’ and Martin, fearing family criticism, said quickly, ‘We fought a bit when we were growing up, that’s all. He’s been in Japan and Hong Kong for almost ten years. He’s probably changed a lot.’

  ‘Didn’t sound it,’ Alice said. ‘Sounded exactly the same.’

  Clodagh stood up.

  ‘I’m going to read to Tashie. And then you can say what you really think about the Unwins in peace.’

  Martin tried not to look priggish.

  ‘I wouldn’t say anything behind your back that I wouldn’t say to your face.’

  ‘I know,’ Clodagh said, and went out of the room, laying a hand lightly on his shoulder, and then on Alice’s, as she went.

  ‘I’m so pleased for you,’ Alice said to him.

  He ducked his head. He looked suddenly as young and vulnerable as James. Alice felt so fond of him. It was only when he wanted to touch her that she . . .