Getting It Right (17 page)

‘Yes. Follow me.’

He showed her where the downstairs cloaks was, indicated that she should return to her room after she had used it, and tore silently up to his room for a blanket. When he returned with it he
found that she had made a pillow of her carrier bag and curled up on the sofa. She was still wearing her Aran jersey and he felt touched at her offer to manage without a blanket. Her feet were bare
and rather dirty, the nails painted the same red as her dress. She had long, articulate toes. He wondered whether he could get her to wash her feet before his mother saw them.

‘Will you be all right?’

‘I expect I’ll just go to sleep.’

‘Would you mind just staying in here until I come and fetch you in the morning?’

‘Okay. When will that be?’

‘Quite early.’ He knew his mother did not get up before eight-thirty on Sundays and he planned to be down first in order to tell her. ‘Promise to stay here then?’

She drew her finger across her throat, and then, not looking at him, she said: ‘Thanks for having me.’

‘That’s all right. Hope you sleep.’

‘And you,’ she responded.

He turned off the light and shut the door, turned off the hall light and crept upstairs to the bathroom where he cleaned his teeth. The last time he’d looked in a mirror had been in
Joan’s bathroom before he’d come upon Winthrop and Spiro,
before
he’d encountered her. It seemed weeks ago: anyway, he neither felt nor looked as he had felt and looked
then. Present feelings were far more familiar – how to stop an alarming situation from becoming downright terrifying.
He
hoped he’d sleep, but the prospect of dealing with his
mother before breakfast, followed by breakfast having dealt with her, didn’t make him feel at all relaxed.

In his room, he set his alarm for eight to be on the safe side, and then lay in the dark reflecting that he seemed to spend his life trying to stay on that side, or to get on to it. Safe meant
knowing what was going to happen next: he could only stand adventure when he was entirely alone – when he was what he called to himself ‘wake dreaming’, in charge of the dream.
But those dreams seemed always to gravitate towards his looking for somebody else to share the adventure with him, which argued that he didn’t really like being alone. What on earth was he to
say
to his mother in the morning? One of the worst things about people was how easily they didn’t go together. He became conscious of his head aching, as he thought crossly that he
was the only person he knew who was prepared to get on with anybody as long as he didn’t have to get on with them too much. He got up, put on his lamp and took an aspirin – something he
very rarely did, but he had the feeling that his headache might climb to the proportions of a migraine. He couldn’t cope with his mother or the girl – and Dad at breakfast – if he
had a migraine. He turned off the light again, got into his sleeping position on his side and tried to go back to the previous night – on the sea shore having plunged down to the beautiful,
reassuring girl with red hair . . . It was no good because, the moment he began to see her, he was sitting at the breakfast table with Minerva and his parents, and she was saying: ‘I asked
him if he’d like a friendly little screw as it hadn’t been a very nice party but he didn’t seem to want to,’ and his mother’s face going into a kind of puffed and
silent scream – like a Francis Bacon. Please God let her not say anything like that. Just as he got to the point of wondering why he only asked God for things when he felt extremely uncertain
of getting them by ordinary means, he lapsed into unconsciousness . . .

‘Why are you up so early?’

He muttered something about not sleeping well, and wanting a cup of tea.

‘If you’d lain in bed, you’d have got your Sunday tea – same as usual.’ She wore a crimplene housecoat in traffic warden yellow and a turban over her curlers which
were always kept in until the last possible moment before she went to lunch with Marge. He took his tea to the breakfast table and sat down with it.

‘You don’t look well. Are you sickening for something? You look a funny colour to me.’

‘I was late last night. I told you. I didn’t sleep well.’ This was true: he had slept heavily, but he’d woken feeling even tireder – a bad sleep.

‘How was your party then? I expect the food didn’t agree with you. It’s a wonder what people will give people to eat at parties nowadays,’ she added, as though she had
given them up for this reason.

‘The food was okay. It just went on too long. I had to get a lift back to Harry’s for my bike . . .’

She was separating sausages with the kitchen scissors. He’d got to tell her before she got worked up with cooking.

‘Listen, Mum. I had to bring someone back here last night. It was too late for them to go home, you see. I put them in the front room. Not to wake you up, you see.’

‘In the front room? Who’ve you put in there? What a funny place to put them.’ A thought struck her. ‘You’ve never done that before. Why ever did you do
that?’

‘I told you. Because it was too late for her to get home.’

‘Her! You never told me it was a girl! A
girl
? Whatever are you doing bringing a girl home?’ She began stabbing the sausages with a fork with quick, deadly little movements.
‘This is your
home
, you know. I should have thought you’d have remembered that.’

‘I’m trying to explain, Mum. She couldn’t go home because it was so late.’

‘She should have thought of that before, shouldn’t she? She doesn’t sound a very nice type of girl to me, how long have you known her, what is there to be so secretive
about?’

‘I only met her last night. I’m not being secretive, I’m telling you. She’s just stayed the night – that’s all.’

‘You mean you don’t know anything about her!’ She seized a frying pan and cut a knob of Trex to put in it. ‘Well – I never! She might be – ’ but, here,
either the enormity of her imagination or its sudden absence seized her up, and she pounced upon the sliced loaf and began cutting off the spongy crusts with a knife nearly as long as her forearm.
After a moment she said: ‘Only someone rather common would do a thing like that.’

This gave him the cue to play what he had only a moment before recognized would be his trump card. ‘As a matter of fact she’s not particularly common. Her name’s Lady Minerva
Munday.’

The knife became motionless, poised a moment in the air before she laid it down. ‘You mean she’s got a title? Lady Munday? She’s not a girl at all? Why ever didn’t you
say so before?’ And, before he could speak, she was sweeping the breakfast things off the table on to a tray at such speed that Gavin became quite frightened.

‘She
is
a girl, Mum; she’s only about twenty. She’s a bit eccentric – unusual, if you know what I mean.’

She was tugging open the bottom drawer of the kitchen unit out of which she drew and unfurled a tablecloth painstakingly embroidered with rabbits. Shaking it furiously before throwing it over
the Formica table, she said:

‘I expect she’s just like any other nice girl if you only noticed. There’s no difference between Them and Us, it’s nothing but class distinction. I should have expected a
more modern outlook from you with all your reading, really I should . . .’ Ideas were attacking her from all directions. She was now routing out the best china, white, with silver ferns, last
used, as far as Gavin could remember, when Marge’s in-laws came to tea. ‘And you mean to say you put her in the front lounge? When there’s a perfectly good spare room upstairs?
With a
bed
in it, in case you’ve forgotten. You’re not going to tell me she passed the night on the settee?’

‘I told you, I didn’t want to wake you and Dad. And she’s got her parrot with her.’

She darted him a look of total incredulity, changed her mind and retorted: ‘You needn’t think that surprises me. She’s bound to have
something
with her. She’s
bound to have some different ways. The world,’ she added shakily, ‘would be a funny place if everyone was exactly the same!’

‘Yes, Mum, I know it would. Look, Mum, don’t worry too much. She’s not the Queen, you know.’

‘Gavin, there’s no need to remind me that she is not the Queen. And if Her Majesty
was
coming to breakfast, I should make no difference; I should continue my normal life
just as I am doing now.’ She finished polishing the electroplated cruet and set it on the fern-ridden table. ‘Although I grant you, naturally, I’m familiar with Her Majesty from
the television. That’s one thing I
do
see. What are you
doing
fidgeting about?’

‘I’m making her a cup of tea.’

‘I’m not taking it in to her like this.’ She felt her turban. ‘I shall have to go up anyway and warn your father. What time is she expecting her breakfast then, because I
can’t be in two places at once?’ She seized the kettle and poured water on to a tea bag that was waiting in a cup. ‘That’s for him. You can use one of the cups off of the
table for – what did you say her name was?’

‘Minerva Munday.’

‘Lady Minerva Munday. Sometimes, Gavin, I do wish you’d have a little consideration and not spring things on people.’ She poured milk and put three lumps of sugar into the cup.
‘It’s no good expecting breakfast yet: I’ll let you know when she can come out.’ She ran out of the room and he heard her nipping upstairs.

So far so good. He had known for years that she was fascinated by anything to do with royalty or titles – reading all the bits about them that she could find in newspapers and magazines,
but he hadn’t bargained for quite such a violent reaction. He only hoped that Minerva could live up to it. She had
said
she was a Lady Minerva, and he hadn’t thought about it
since then, but
come
to think about it, he had doubts. He had a feeling she said a variety of things simply to impress him, and that might have been one of them. But what he
couldn’t
have now . . . what she mustn’t do would be to spill the beans – if there were any – at breakfast. He made the tea for her and went to her room.

She was fast asleep, and took a good deal of waking. He had plenty of time to observe her feet again; they looked even dirtier in daylight after he had drawn the curtains. What he could see of
her looked altogether grubby, and her hair wanted a good wash. Just when he thought she was awake, she groaned and turned away from him on the settee, burrowing into the blanket. He put the tea
down and went to the parrot’s cage. Poor thing – he’d probably like to be called. He took off the cloth and there was the parrot, green with a yellowish head, standing on his
perch apparently waiting for him. He turned his head in order that he might observe Gavin with one eye. While he did this, the feathers on his head slowly rose and fell again but he was otherwise
motionless. Gavin said ‘Hullo!’ but there was no answer. He turned back to the girl.

This time he shook her gently until she sat up.

‘I’ve brought you some tea. You’ve got to wake up now.’

‘All right. What kind of milk’s in this tea?’

‘I don’t know. Perfectly ordinary milk.’

‘Oh. That’s what I thought. I’m afraid I only drink skim. Or cream, if I have to.’ She put the cup down.

Suppressing his irritation – he needed her cooperation badly for the next hour or two – he said: ‘Listen. I’ve told my mother you’re here.’

‘How did she take it? Am I supposed to be engaged to you or something?’

‘Nothing like that.’

‘Sorry, you gave me the impression that she was a bit old-fashioned.’

‘She’s – well, anyway. What I told her was that you were a Lady.’

She burst out laughing, and then, seeing his face, put her hand over her mouth.

‘Well – you told me you were one.
I
don’t mind, but it’s the sort of thing that she . . . that she rather – ’

‘You mean she’s hooked on titles and all that jazz?’

‘That’s more or less what I mean.’ He felt slightly ashamed of saying it; a bit disloyal. He loved her and he didn’t want anybody who didn’t to laugh at her.

But she said: ‘That’s all right. You’d be surprised how few people who haven’t got titles haven’t got an attitude about them. Of course, most of them pretend like
mad that they haven’t.’ She swung her legs over the side of the sofa and began rummaging in the carrier bag.

‘So it’s all right, then? You’ll keep it up? Just for breakfast?’ She stopped rummaging and opened her eyes very wide. ‘What do you mean, keep it up? It’s
up.’ She put her hand under her jersey at the neck and began scratching herself vigorously. ‘I must say, this sweater’s no good for sleeping in: I itched all night.’

‘Would you like a bath?’

‘Not much. Baths are what I have the evenings I’m not going out. I hate rushing them. Where was I? Oh yes.’ She dived into the carrier again and pulled out a battered
sponge-bag. ‘I’d better clean my teeth though.’

‘Have you any other clothes?’

‘They’re in the other bag in the car.’

‘I’ll get them. You go and wash. Your shoes are out there somewhere too, aren’t they?’

‘Yes. But I shan’t need them while I’m in the house.’

‘Oh, won’t you?’ Gavin thought as he hurried out to the car. He felt his mother’s illusions were at stake, and, while eccentricity – like the parrot – was
digestible, grubbiness was not. And, even if she took off the Aran sweater, the red cheesecloth was revealing in all sorts of ways that would certainly not prove acceptable. He collected the second
carrier bag and her shoes from the front garden. She had taken off the sweater in order to be able to scratch herself more easily.

‘What other clothes have you got?’

‘A bikini.’

‘Don’t be silly. You can’t have breakfast in a bikini.’

‘And a pair of jeans. Honestly, you’d think I was having breakfast with the Queen.’

‘You’re having breakfast with a nice, lower middle class family: you let yourself in for this, not me, and it was you who started the title lark.’

‘Goodness! I didn’t mean to make you cross. I’ll wear the jeans. I think I’ve got a shirt somewhere. I won’t let you down. Can I go and wash now?’