Mrs Fytton's Country Life (16 page)

Archie Perry received a letter from A. Bushman. Archie Perry wrote a letter in reply. You might give up the house, he thought, but you never gave up all the land. Not if you can possibly help it.

He then walked down to the letter box by the side of the road and, coming back, rested himself on the five-barred gate, gazing at the pigs. Sam was losing his grip too, then? He had never let his pigs get in such a mess before. Perhaps that old eye of his was roving again, even now. His father had said it to him, and his father before: Never trust a pigman. Should have listened. But she'd be safe with him in the bungalow. At last.

Of Alan Bushman and the lovely Camilla they heard no more. And neither, quite rightly, shall we.

9

June

I love children, especially when they cry, for then someone takes them away.

nancy mitford

Angela sat between two highly articulate furniture removal men as the van rumbled its way down the motorway. Having exhausted the subject of castration for paedophiles and the usefulness of bombing the Chinese in the matter of regaining Hong Kong, they fell to more domestic subjects. 'So
’
said one, 'moving, are you?'

Angela felt the usual female helplessness in the face of such a question. She longed to say, 'No, just fancied a day out in a furniture van.' But instead she said, 'Yes,' and stared fixedly down the road to the west. When you needed the muscle of men, it was no time to start playing around with wit. You bet, she thought, that out there on the savannah,
15,000
years ago, no woman in her right mind would have made anything but humble obeisance until she'd taken delivery of her dripping lump of meat. It was, she supposed, the same oil driving the masculine engine that takes a wench out for dinner, fills and refills her glass, and then nods sagely at her confident pronouncements on the benefits of shooting all cripples on sight until he's successfully got his leg over. She had let the paedophiles and the Chinese go without a murmur. Why object to anything else? So Angela Fytton merely stared on, smiling and silent.

'Wouldn't get me moving down there
’
said one. 'Nor me
’
said the other.

'Country people are nicer than town people
’
she began.

The driver looked at her peevishly.

If she wanted her furniture delivered without incident, she thought, she must stay humble. It's such a lovely day,' she added lamely.

'Very backward they are, in the country,' said the young one.

She closed her eyes and pretended to doze. About her mouth played a little smile of reverie. One might even construe it as
smug.
When in doubt, drift off into a pleasing memory. So she did.

She was smiling and remembering the dinner at which she announced her impending move to Church Ale House to her ex-husband and her children. These latter, bang on developmental target, were currently the wholly self-centred fruits of her womb. She chose the Depot, on the river at Mortlake, useful if it all got too hot and she needed to throw herself in; close enough to home if she was made to walk back. A distinct possibility. For they assembled like three innocent little carefree skittles ready to be bowled over.

Once seated, the first thing Ian said was, 'You've put on weight.' The second thing he said was, 'It suits you.' The thrust of which latter did not ease the delivery of the former. She was riled. But she let them be served. She let those happy skittles chat for a while and eat their first course in peace.

Only when they were halfway through their
confit de canard
did she begin.

‘I
am moving to the country. To Somerset.'

Ian looked unimpressed. Nothing would come of it. Like her notion to go and live on a Greek island, or to move to Venice and write a biography of Tintoretto's wife.

'His
wife?'

'His wife.'

'But why?

'Why not?'

'Because it's the
painter
they'll be interested in!' 'If Virginia Woolf can write about Elizabeth Browning's
dog..
’

Of course she never did. H
is ex-wife was a brilliant prag
matist, not a cultural radical.

He smiled placidly. Dear Angela, what a good wife she had been. He had tried to be as generous as possible in the settlement because he respected how much he owed her. He could not help falling in love elsewhere. And that was, really, that. But he was still fond of her, very fond of her, and she was still the mother of these. He looked at the two great teenagers fondly. They were going to be terrific, terrific. And he got on with them really well. He was looking forward to having more children. Only this weekend, in one of the supplements, he read that he was genetically programmed to do so. And with a younger mate. It was biology. So it was odds on, really, that if Angie didn't want any more he might look elsewhere. Not that it had been conscious at all, but it did help to know that it was in his genes and older than time. It wasn't his fault he couldn't have children himself. He rather envied women. Women really were wonderful. He had always thought so. But it was, still, a man's world. He'd employed enough women and then lost them to their pregnancies to know that. If you wanted continuity in the marketplace, get a man. Once he might have denied this; a few years into his own business and it had dawned. Not everyone was as able as his ex-wife. What a juggler she had been. Frighteningly good at everything. Frighteningly. The new one was very fluffy in comparison. Dear Angela.

Angela returned the smile. 'I really thought I had lost it
’
she said. 'And then - well, it was a miracle. I went down a second time and - hallelujah - it was mine
...'

With, she must confess, a little drop taken, she began telling them all about Church Ale House. It was more than a little drop, she now realized, because she kept referring to her purchase as 'O Lustworthy Place' and squinting suggestively at her ex-husband as if it were a brothel. Smiling placidity gave way to arou
sal. Ian looked - quite satisfy
ingly-alarmed.

Good,
she thought.
Good
...

She watched the waiter clearing away the plates as she told them about that second visit. The drive down had been so mournful, and the day so full of drizzle and grey, that she arrived feeling damp and cold and miserable. The owner opened the door with a smile like the sun and told her that her lovely home, O Lustworthy Place, was back on the market. It was hers if she still wanted it.

'The Gods take care of the good,' she said, fixing Ian with a look.

He continued to watch the waiter.

'Well, I just threw my arms around Mrs Perry's neck and hugged her so tight that she staggered back into the Wellingtons and old newspapers and assorted livestock and nearly fell over them.'

She waited for them to laugh. Nobody did.

'Well, quite frankly, I could have kissed her to death,' said Angela. 'Because she gave me back some happiness.'

The waiter having withdrawn, Ian immediately began studying the menu. The children looked embarrassed. Happiness is a strong word on a parent's lips.

'Ian?' she said. 'What do you think?'

He looked very directly back at her, eyes suspiciously reflecting nothing in the candlelight, refusing to respond, saying instead, and perhaps more belligerently than he meant, 'Well, what was wrong with it then, that the others pulled out?'

Mrs Fytton of Church Ale House would conduct herself as genteely as a daisy.

'Well?'he said. 'What?'

'The pigs
’
said Angela,
‘I
believe.'

That told them.

Her family had never been ones for singing
en troupe,
so it was a miracle of pitch and unity when they all managed to chorus
'The
pigs?'
together.

She very nearly broke into son
g herself with a bit of Gilbert
ian stichomythia:

'The pigs? Yes, the pigs. Not the pigs? Yes, my pigs.

How can you say you own such things when you have never owned such things?

They're my pigs, they're my pigs, they're my PIGS!'

Instead she sat there smiling. The Mona Lisa with a ring of confidence. Ian said, 'Pigs, Angie?'

'Oh, not
my
pigs,' she said. 'I've only got bees and hens and eels on their way to Sargasso.'

'Pigs, Mum?' Claire was trying to be calm.

She looked at her son. Tigs, Andrew,' she said, just so he would not feel left out.

She thought he looked slightly amused. But perhaps it was only a constriction of the lower intestine. He had been like that as a baby - you never knew if he was pleased to see you or had wind. She smiled at him anyway. His face froze again. Why did her children not know how to even
smile
at her?

'Yes
’
she said firmly, 'pigs. Apparently the previous prospective owners couldn't stand the smell. Which is quite ridiculous, because the dear little things are on the top of a hill far enough away and there is only just the very faintest tang on the air. So, thanks to the porkers, it's mine. Anyway, I think it was all meant. The owner was probably a white witch. You know, ancient forces drawing me back to my roots and all that
...'

Ian snorted. 'You were born in Reigate.'

She looked at him superiorly, aware there was a halo around him of some sort. Afterwards she realized this was because she had drunk so much, but at the time she took it as an omen. 'Not that sort of roots
’
she said.
‘I
mean experience and identity.'

Her daughter looked at her blankly. Andrew was staring straight ahead at a very bad painting on the wall. She
thought, Oh, how the longest revolution has failed, remembering her own politicization at that age. Why, when she was first pregnant she had to be sent home from a sit-in because her advanced condition made it just too uncomfortable to sleep on bare floors. Ian had been very supportive over that, taking the remaining women blankets and wine and coffee, shouldering his way past the sneering police. Where did all that go?

To the marketplace, she supposed. Come to that, where did all those women in blankets go? Not to the marketplace? Clinging on to the cliff face of life by their fingertips while the next generation of little blonde plastic persons in power miniskirts hit at their knuckles with a hammer and pinched their husbands
from
the bloody marketplace, she supposed.

Ah, ah. Well, well. Life was like childbirth. If you told women how hard and painful it was really going to be they would never attempt it. So far, for her success in life, she had been served with a pair of children who could scarcely shit unless she both reminded them and paid them to do it (her own fault), and a husband who'd run after a little bit of skirt (whose fault-testosterone's?). Love-forty.

She looked at her family. Somerset, she went on to tell them, is representative of anywhere rural really. Could be Yorkshire, could be Derbyshire, could be Norfolk. Somerset, she went on to tell them, is full of honest, caring folk, real and vibrant nature, past and present history. She was getting back in touch with a time when women had a place very firmly marked out for them - in brewing, in preserving, in dairy-making, in hens and goats and - yes -
pigs.
And they didn't have to bloody do EVERYTHING and still look like a supermodel

'Back to my roots,' she reiterated. She saw Claire's puzzled eyes staring at her hair. 'Not those roots,' she said, exasperated.

'Well,' said Claire, 'they are showing through a bit.'

'The roots of life.
Those honourable, ancient ways.' She looked at her ex-husband in triumph.

He looked back at her. 'Not having a washing machine, then?' he asked.

Andrew smirked. So did Claire. Angela did not respond. Instead she broke into Goldsmith:

'O luxury! thou curs'd by Heaven's decree, How ill exchang'd are things like these for thee!'