A Change of Pace (19 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Wind groaning through summer greenery, black clouds chasing each other across a storm-yellow sky; the day of the fête at last.

‘What a super morning!’ Nell, Mothercare incarnate, bounced into the kitchen where Bet, feeling as if she’d been run through a mincer not once but several times over, crouched over yesterday’s
Guardian
and a cup of black coffee. ‘You could have fooled me.’

‘Oh Mum, do snap out of it, things can’t be that bad. Honestly, I sometimes think you enjoy being miserable. Anyway, here’s some news to cheer you up; Bern and me are friends again — isn’t that great? He says he can’t think what got into him, he says he must have been mad.’ Bet grunted. ‘Do you know, Mum, I really believe it’s worth having a row now and again, it’s so absolutely wonderful when you make it up.

God, the egotism of one’s children. Did they even consider one might have a life outside their petty little orbit? That if one’s silly daughter makes it up with her silly husband it isn’t the be-all and end-all of one’s existence?

‘Morning all.’ Bernie now, more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed than Nell, if that were possible, raining kisses on the back of his wife’s neck. ‘What a super aroma of coffee — I could eat a house.’

Bet fled.

*

‘Now then, everyone, I don’t want to make a speech, but I should just like to say I’m counting on you all to do your bit this afternoon. I’m afraid the weather forecast is not too good, but I’m sure you won’t let that get you down, and they’re always wrong anyway.’ The audience laughed dutifully. This was Pol’s eve-of-fête pep-talk and she was damned well going to make the most of it.

‘I thought she said she wasn’t making a speech,’ Bet whispered to Don Stewart, who happened to be sitting next to her. ‘Splendid stuff though,’ he whispered back, ‘reminds me of my National Service days, we had a C.O. — ’

‘Is that correct, Mr Stewart?’ Don jumped guiltily. ‘You’ve volunteered to fill the fortune-telling slot? I’m afraid I found your writing a little difficult to read.’ Pol held up the questionnaire she’d efficiently issued to all would-be helpers. ‘Er, yes, I studied the subject a little in my army days; tarot cards and so forth, you know the sort of thing.’

‘Shouldn’t a fortune-teller be a lady?’ This from Emmie Stokes in the back row, her remark greeted with a faint titter. Pol sighed. ‘Unfortunately there’ve been no lady volunteers for the job. Now, Mr Stewart,’ she turned briskly to the cringing Don, ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with the old outside loo, there’s no room for a tent.’

‘Won’t it be rather a squash. I mean ... ‘ But Pol had already swept on to more important matters.

‘I’ve had about enough of this,’ Bet whispered, ‘let’s go and make some coffee.’ They crept away.

‘I gather the French piece is doing a belly-dance?’ said Don as they walked across the lawn.

‘Oh really, I wouldn’t know.’

Damn! He’d put his foot in it again. He longed to take her in his arms, kiss her better, find her dog, murder Simon Morris — anything, just to make her smile again. You’ve got it bad, old son, he thought, you’ve got it bad.

‘Come on,’ she said, ‘I’ll show you the outside loo, it’s lucky you’re on the small side.’ Don smiled wryly, then remembered that the bastard Morris was none too tall himself. He tentatively took her hand. ‘Lead on, then, I’d like to know what I’ve let myself in for.’

*

‘Morning, Mrs Brandon, any news of your little dog?’ It was

Mr Bone, outside the village shop. ‘I’m afraid not, we’re beginning to give up hope.’

‘You mustn’t do that, Mrs Brandon, that’s not like you,’ Mr Bone smiled encouragingly and Bet smiled back. ‘How’s the baby?’

‘Oh fine, absolutely fine. She keeps us awake a bit at nights, but they do, don’t they. No, she’s great, ever so pretty.’ Bet, still smiling, said goodbye and turned away. It wouldn’t be too long now before there was a baby at the Rectory; her first grandchild ... A car swept past her, going much too fast down the village street, Simon at the wheel, unsmiling, ignoring her. A gust of wind caught at her hair and blew raindrops in her face. Arrogant bastard! She turned for home.

Back at the Rectory she was greeted by Nell wearing her will-Mummy-bite-me face. ‘Ah, Mum, there you are, I’ve been looking all over for you.’ Oh God, what now? Bet plonked her shopping bag down on the kitchen table. ‘I had to go up to the shop, someone seems to have pinched those sausages I’d earmarked for lunch. I do wish people would tell me when —’

‘Actually, I think that may have been Bernie.’

‘What d’you mean, you think it may have been Bernie —surely you know?’

‘Well, yes it was. When he got back from squash last night he felt like a fry-up.’

‘I see. Well, I don’t want to be difficult, but would he mind awfully in future not —’

   ‘In a way, Mum, that’s what I want to talk to you about.’

‘What, Bernie’s predilection for late-night fry-ups?’ She knew she was being uncooperative, but to be reduced to arguing about sausages at this particular moment seemed somehow more than she could bear. ‘No, of course not!’ Nell, now rather pink in the face, made for the door. ‘Anyway, it can wait, I can see you’re busy and — ’

‘Nell, will you please tell me whatever it is you’ve come to tell me. I’m perfectly able to talk while I’m scrubbing new potatoes, and if you’ve been hunting all over the place for me, it must be important.’

‘Let me help you then.’

‘If you must, but there’s only one brush and —’

‘Mum, Bern and I have been discussing things.’

‘Oh?’

‘About when the baby’s born and I’m at home all day. We were — that is, Bern was, and I agree with him — thinking along the lines of perhaps — subject to your consent, of course — converting this part of the house into two self-contained flats. Bern says there’d be plenty of room to have one on each floor. It might be easier if we had the ground floor and you and Diz the first floor, but of course you can choose. He says as the place is now, there’s an awful lot of wasted space, so it wouldn’t be hard to do, and if you agree, he’d like to start shopping around for estimates as soon as possible. We wouldn’t want to hurry you, but —’

But you’d like it all over and done with before the baby’s born?’ Was this how one felt after being told one’s right arm must come off — nothing? Except perhaps cold fear about what one would feel when one came back to life.

‘Well, yes, that’s the idea. Then you won’t have to go through all the business of coping with a new-born baby again; I mean, I should think you must have had enough of that with Diz and me.’

What you’re really saying is, you don’t want to have me to cope with as well as a new-born baby ... But of course Bet didn’t say that; she might be an idiot, but not that kind of an idiot. Instead she went on scrubbing potatoes, and — trying to keep the tremble out of her voice, and with as much enthusiasm as she could muster — said that to have two separate flats seemed an absolutely splendid idea and the answer to all their problems; indeed, she wondered why no one had thought of it before. There was, as far as she could see, only one possible stumbling block, and that no doubt solvable. How much did Bernie reckon it would all cost?

‘Well,’ and the relief in Nell’s voice was so obvious it was painful, ‘he doesn’t think that’s too much of a problem. If we try and keep the costs down to a minimum, and he does the decorating, he thinks we could probably get away with ... ’

But Bet was no longer listening. She was thinking about Tib.

*

‘You look a little faint, dear, why not sit down for a minute and let Mrs Kettle take over?’

‘I’m perfectly all right, Mrs Snately, just a bit tired, that’s all.’ The fete was in full swing now and it was sweltering in the tea tent, the smell of squashed grass and sweat mingling unpleasantly with frying hamburgers. Bet felt hot and sticky all over.

‘Sugar down the end,’ she shouted above the din, handing three cups of tea to a huge woman in an orange silk dress, ‘spoon on a string by the urn.’

‘Now, dear, I really must insist you take a rest, I can’t have you passing out on me.’

‘Honestly, I’m fine, and it wouldn’t be fair on Mrs Kettle.’

‘Very well then, if you won’t take a break, perhaps you could get some more cups, the washers-up are a bit behind. The caterers left some spares in your kitchen, and a breath of fresh air would do you good.’

Dismissed, Bet gave in.

The atmosphere outside the marquee was little better; it would thunder before the day was out. She’d go the long way round through the vegetable garden, there’d be fewer people about.

‘Bet, where on earth are you off to? I thought you were supposed to be doing your stint in the tea tent.’ Pol, like all good organisers, seemed to be everywhere at once. ‘I’m fetching some cups, if you must know. I think Mrs Snately wanted to get rid of me, she kept telling me I looked ill.’

‘I suppose you know what’s happened?’

‘What?’ Actually, she couldn’t care less if the whole place caught fire and burned down.

‘Pete’s somehow managed to get himself drunk.’

‘So what’s new?’

‘Bet, do pull yourself together, if only for the sake of our reputation in the village —’

Tor heaven’s sake, Pol, you sound like someone out of a Trollope novel ... ’ But Pol wasn’t listening. ‘He’s been judging the home-made wine competition. Of course you’re not supposed to drink the wine, just spit it out, but you know Pete.’ Bet nodded; she knew Pete. ‘Well, he persuaded Bernie to try some, then that wretched Don Stewart turned up, he said he didn’t seem to be getting any customers; frankly, I’m not in the least surprised, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know the first thing about telling fortunes, let alone tarot cards. And now all three of them are behaving like a lot of idiotic schoolboys. You’ll just have to pull yourself together, Bet, and help me, I simply cannot cope with them on my own.’

Back in Pol’s kitchen, Bernie had disappeared, but Pete and Don were leaning against the draining-board gazing owlishly at the row of neatly labelled bottles drawn up in front of them on the kitchen table. ‘Rhubarb and damson, gooseberry and prune,’ intoned Pete in his comic Church-of-England-vicar voice, a glass of greenish liquid trembling in his hand. ‘Date and doughnut, plumbago and pomegranate —’

‘Redford, I don’t think that last one’s quite right.’ Don, minus his spectacles, was holding a half-empty bottle up to the light. ‘Isn’t plumbago some sort of shrub? I’m not sure if you can eat its fruit, I’m not sure if it
has
fruit ... ’

Suddenly, blessedly, a spurt of laughter bubbled up inside Bet. Ratty and Toad! Ratty and Toad from
The
Wind
in
the
Willows
! But if Pete were Toad and Don Ratty, who was Mole? Who indeed?

‘Bet! My poor, sad little Bet! Come here, ducky, come to your Uncle Pete,’ Pete had seen her and lunged forward, arms flailing. ‘Leave me alone, you great idiot!’ Bet, her laughter quickly turning to outrage, wriggled expertly out of Pete’s grasp, at the same time giving him a violent push. The effect of this was rather more than she’d bargained for; he staggered back and then, like some giant ninepin, keeled heavily over on to the floor where he sat, immobilised, his head resting against the back of one of Pol’s spindly chairs, staring glassily in front of him.

There was a horrified silence. This sort of thing simply did not happen to Pete. He got drunk, of course — all the time —but never like this; this was unprecedented. What were they to do with him — what could they do with him? They looked at him helplessly, three acolytes gathered round their tribal deity, waiting, awestruck, for him to speak. Nothing happened. In the end it was Pol who brought them down to earth. ‘I don’t wish to appear ungrateful, Don, but I cannot help thinking that this is your doing.’ That’s right, dear, thought Bet, when in doubt always blame someone else. ‘I left you to keep an eye on my husband for just five minutes, while I organised refreshments for the Morris Dancers, you promised faithfully you’d make him some black coffee and try to get things going again, and this is what happens.’

‘I am most fearfully sorry, Pol. I really did my best, but in mitigation I must say that I do feel something’s gone wrong with that particular wine. I’ve never —’

‘If that’s the case, all I can say is, why were you and Pete drinking it? But there’s no time to go into all that now. As you’re here, perhaps you would be good enough to help clear up some of this mess,’ she pointed angrily to the contents of a bottle of elderberry wine knocked over in Pete’s fall, which was spreading in a sticky crimson tide over the otherwise pristine kitchen floor. ‘We’ll have to leave my husband where he is for the moment, he’s much too heavy to move and I really cannot face another accident.’

‘Of course.’ Don seized a cloth and started scrubbing, his efforts met by an agonised shriek from Pol. ‘
Not
my best glass cloth . !’ Bet decided it was time to leave. In any case, wasn’t she supposed to be collecting some cups? On her way out she took a quick swig of the rhubarb and dandelion; it was, predictably, disgusting.

Arriving in her own kitchen, she found Liza, still in her Egyptian belly-dancer’s outfit, assisted by, of all people, Alfonso — in skin-tight black jeans and a pink shirt —washing up cups. What the hell was Alfonso doing there? Had he been sent by Simon as some kind of peace offering? Was that how the upper classes salved their guilty consciences, by lending out their servants? Come on, Brandon, take a grip on yourself; after all’s said and done, you are the one in charge.