Arms and the Women (41 page)

'Indeed,' said Feenie. 'No expense spared. Plants begged, borrowed or stolen from Asia to the Antipodes.'

'You disapprove of that too?'

Feenie shook her head.

'Not at all. Seeds and botanical specimens are the least culpable of cargoes and usually obtained with the minimum of exploitation or despoliation. When I was a child, playing in the garden was like a living geography lesson. I could actually see and smell and touch many plants that other children could only read about in books.'

'Oh, how Patrick would have loved it,' exclaimed Daphne.

'Your husband?'

'Yes. He's a horticulturalist.'

'Is he now? For some reason I thought he must be a stockbroker. Well, well. Look, as you can see, the garden's been allowed to go to rack and ruin, partly because I had better things to do with my money, partly because it hardly seemed worthwhile trimming and spraying and pruning what was eventually going to tumble into the sea. But I do grow increasingly sentimental in age and if any time when your husband is at Nosebleed, he feels like coming out here and helping himself to seeds or cuttings, do feel free. It would be nice to think that the best of this place might survive.'

'How very kind,' said Daphne. 'He would love it, I know.'

This moment of rapprochement might have been hard for such natural combatants to sustain, but at that moment a deep cracked voice said, 'This where you got to then? Nobody tells me owt.'

Standing at the french window, bearing a broad tray with several steaming dishes on it, was the gnarled and wizened figure of Mrs Stonelady.

That's where the stew went! thought Novello.

That's who's in charge of the kitchen! thought Ellie.

Hurriedly, Feenie threw the cloth over the table and began arranging the cutlery and glasses.

'Plates are back there if anyone can walk,' said Mrs Stonelady, setting her tray down.

Novello beat Wendy to it by a short head. When she returned, Feenie was organizing the others into their seats. She set the plates down in front of the old woman, who picked one up and dipped a ladle into the largest dish. But before she could serve, Daphne plucked the plate out of her hand, turned it upside down and examined it closely.

'Unless there has been an amazing coincidence,' she said, 'these are my plates from Nosebleed. And the cutlery too. And the glasses. And, I presume, the stew itself!'

'That's right,' said Feenie, unabashed. 'I got rid of the good stuff from here years ago, and though I'm sure you don't mind roughing it a bit, I didn't think you'd care to eat and drink off the bits and pieces I've kept for everyday. So I asked Mrs Stonelady to help me out. You don't mind, do you? We'll take great care of everything and if you're really worried, you can supervise the washing-up.'

This, thought Ellie, is make or break point.

Daphne shook her head in disbelief, then threw it back and let out a long peal of laughter.

'This beats all,' she said. 'Am I providing the wine as well as the glasses?'

'There's no need to be offensive,' said Feenie huffily. 'There are still a few bottles in my father's cellar. Perhaps you'd care to try this for a start.'

From under the marble bench she drew an opened claret bottle whose label had long since degenerated beyond legibility, but whose quality had Daphne's eyes popping with pleasure.

'My word,' she said. 'I don't know how your father was with pictures, but he knew how to choose wine.'

'He knew how to spend money,' said Feenie dryly. 'You asked experts what was the best and you bought it. Perhaps you'd care to pour the rest of us a little if you feel able to share it. Ellie, is the child of an age where she’d like a taste, or do you subscribe to that strange English custom of postponing the legitimate experience of alcohol even further than the legitimate experience of sex?'

Before Ellie could answer, Rosie, who'd reluctantly allowed herself to be drawn away from the dogs to the table, said, 'Please, Miss Macallum, I have tried it but it tasted sour and it made me silly so may I just have lemonade?'

Feenie said, 'There was a time when children waited till they were addressed before answering, but it wasn't all that good a time, and yours was an excellent answer, so stick with lemonade by all means, but take a care of Mrs Aldermann's fine glass.'

Mrs Stonelady's stew was as delicious as forecast. They mopped up the gravy with hunks of bread too freshly baked to be cut neatly, and when they had eaten their fill, they took a long rest before the promised pudding, leaning back in their dangerous chairs and sipping their wine which had changed in colour and style through at least four bottles, all anonymous, all superb.

Ellie felt as relaxed as she had done in a long time. All the pains of life, pinpricks and bare bodkins alike, seemed dreams in a troubled sleep from which she had at last awoken. She let her gaze drift fondly round the table. What a gamut of company was here! In age, in background, in temperament, in outlook, in profession, what a range of difference, yet what harmony. She experienced a surge of affection which took them all in. Even Novello. If the Ancient Mariner could bless the sea snakes unawares, why should she have a problem with the WDC? She leaned back against her creaking chair and smiled benignly at the universe.

Rosie, ever sensitive to her mother's moods, said if the pudding was going to be much longer coming, would it be all right if she went and played with the dogs?

Ellie said, 'Darling, we're not at home, we're guests of Miss Macallum. This is her table. It's her you should ask if you can get down.'

Rosie looked at the old woman fearfully and repeated her request with no great ring of confidence.

Feenie considered for a moment then her face broke into a wide smile.

'Of course you may, my dear. But don't go out of earshot else you may miss your mother's call when the pudding comes. Mrs Stonelady's doing us her bread-and-butter but in case you don't like that, I've got chocolate ice cream especially for you. Of course, you may have both if you prefer.'

Rosie, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice, said, 'Thank you very much, Miss Macallum,' and made a speedy exit.

Wine-mellow, Ellie said, 'Getting soft in your old age, Feenie?'

Feenie said, 'When you've seen as many sad children as I have, you don't miss chances to bring a smile to a young face. And let us have less of the old age. I hope I am still a long way from the point where my descendants need to book me a place in a Home. In any case, Ellie, be kind to your girl now and when your time comes, at least she'll make it a good Home.'

Like a sudden squall in a blue sky, thoughts of her father darkened Ellie's mind. She raised her glass to her lips to hide her feelings, but Daphne saw and touched her arm comfortingly, and Feenie's sharp eyes caught the interplay.

'Ellie, I believe I've said something crass. I'm sorry. Tell us about it.'

For God's sake, it's the last thing I want to talk about, thought Ellie indignantly. Then realized in fact it wasn't. Haltingly at first, then with increasing openness, she began to talk about her father's decline into Alzheimer’s and her mother's stratagems for dealing with it. Soon they were exchanging reminiscences and analyses of their relationship with their parents, confiding in each other like a group of old and trusted friends. And gradually the discussion widened and lightened and eventually, at whose instigation it was impossible to say, took a distinctly raunchy turn. Maybe it was Feenie opening a bottle of superb champagne that did the trick. Whatever, all of a sudden they were talking noisily about coitus interruptus, not as a primitive method of birth control, but as a source of hilarious anecdote.

Ellie's contribution was a slightly embroidered account of an incident from her student days.

'They had those old double-decker buses on the route back to our hostel,' she said, 'and if you got the very last one it was sort of a convention that couples shot upstairs to get down to some serious necking, and the conductor didn't bother you till you came down to get off at your destination. Well, me and this chap I was dating got on one night and we found for some reason we were the only ones on the upper deck, and we sort of got carried away, and we were going the whole hog, him sitting, me on top, when suddenly I heard footsteps on the stairs and next thing the conductor's head appeared, and he just stood there looking at me, then he said . . .'

Her anticipatory laughter set the others off.

'What? What?' gasped Daphne.

'. . . he said, I just wondered, how far are you going? And I said, all the way!'

What had actually happened had been a lot more embarrassing as well as rather painful and pretty messy, but what the hell, she was a pre-published novelist, wasn't she?

If ends justify means, the hilarity her story provoked made truth a trivial casualty.

Daphne's story, typically, involved an undergraduate cousin going into Holy Orders, the dean of his Oxford college, and a punt on the Cherwell. Shirley Novello told a plain tale of an encounter with a police firearms instructor in which she was so clearly and uninhibitedly in charge that Ellie felt quite envious. Even Wendy, her eyes sparkling, came up with a rather rambling story of an encounter between a pedalo and a lilo on the Costa del Sol, though which was hosting the coitors and which the interruptor wasn't altogether clear.

Feenie had joined wholeheartedly in the laughter and Ellie, while curious to see whether she would also join in the anecdotage, wouldn't have dreamt of pressing her. But Wendy, made bold by her own confession, said, 'What about you, Miss Macallum? I bet sometime in your long life...’

Here her nerve or her command of diplomatic terminology failed her, but the old woman gave her an almost kindly smile and said, 'Can't match you youngsters' tales, of course. We were brought up to be a little more discreet, I suppose. But the war slackened things off a notch or two for most of us. I was a pretty fair linguist and I spent a bit of time liaising with resistance groups in Europe, heady stuff for a young girl, and it was hard to resist some poor chap who stood a fair chance of ending up in front of a firing squad before the year was out. I recall this occasion I was lying on a bed with this fellow on top of me, big brawny chap, he was, but he did seem to be taking an unconscionable time about things. Usually the other way round, isn't it? But I'd certainly had my own little moment of excitement and I was just waiting patiently for him to have his when over his shoulder I saw the door open and a German officer in full Gestapo fig, Luger in hand, stepped in. He was as surprised as I was, I think, and he said something silly like, "Hands up! Stand still!" Counterproductive really, as the shock of hearing his voice brought my friend at last to the conclusion he'd been labouring over for so long!'

This was the first time Ellie had heard a direct reminiscence of Feenie's wartime work, though there'd been hints from other sources. The habit of secrecy must be grained deep, especially when, as the old poster used to say, careless talk cost lives - literally. As she joined in the laughter, the tiny area of her mind untouched by the wine and that delicious sense of relaxation in the company of friends - perhaps the part which might one day make her a novelist - posted its own warning, not that anything she said could cost a life, but that she must be careful not to let slip anything she'd regret WDC Novello knowing in the morning.

Bollocks! some other part of her mind told her angrily. The woman is not your enemy. And aren't moments like this when you feel at one with those around you as real and as important as that other larger existence you are so eager to protect? Or rather, doesn't the one contain the other, and take nourishment from it, and even if there is a price of some small betrayal to be paid in the morning, isn't
that
the false note, not anything that is said or done tonight?

She glanced towards Shirley and would have given her another smile if their gazes had met. But the policewoman's eyes were fixed elsewhere, towards the end of the terrace where the steps ran down to the garden, and on her face the light of pleasure and amusement which still touched the features of the rest of them had died.

Ellie followed her gaze.

Alongside the three-inch mortar stood a figure, a slightly built, sallow-skinned man with a narrow moustache.

Now the others were looking too.

Daphne said indignantly, 'Oh my God, it's
him!'

Feenie said, 'Can I help you?'

Wendy Woolley put her hand to her mouth and her eyes darted here and there around the terrace as if searching desperately for God knows what.

'Please, do not move, ladies,' said the man.

'It's the Gestapo,' gasped Ellie, reluctant to be dragged out of her happiness.

Nobody laughed.

And Shirley Novello was rising to her feet and moving towards the intruder.

'Sit down!' he commanded.

'I'm a police officer,' said Novello.

As she advanced she reached towards the leather holster pouch in which presumably she carried her ID. The soft pad of her trainers on the marble floor was the only sound which broke the silence.

Silence. It hit Ellie that she hadn't heard Rosie's voice for several minutes.

Without thinking, she yelled, 'Rosie!'

The man's head turned towards her in alarm.

Novello undid the stud on her holster with a sharp click.

The man's hand went into his jacket and came out with something in it.