Mrs Fytton's Country Life (40 page)

'Er - isn't it?' he added, with quiet confidence.

Which, oddly enough, though she did not know her root-stock, touched a part
ot
Binnie that was entirely and absolutely peasant. At the mere thought of some spotty little fuck-wit suggesting that he owned a share in her estate, she went - as she was to tell the counsellor the following day -ape-shit. It occurred to her that the likelihood of herself being a single parent and Tristan growing up without benefit of a loving dad about the place was increasing. Unless she embraced the alternative scenario, which was of Tristan growing up with a loving dad, two adoring half-siblings and a dribbling idiot for a mother.

And so ended Binnie's serious talk, grown-up fashion. With Claire and Andrew shaking their heads at the unbelievable madness of grown-ups and their stepmother in particular - and with Binnie tucking little Tristan up and then going back downstairs and having three vodka slam-mers in a row. Or possibly four, five or six.

By the end, if she could have seen to dial, she would have dialled the number of That Witch. As it was, she had a couple of stabs at it and got a hotel in Bannockburn, followed by the talking clock.

'You know
’
said the counsellor, 'they do not sound so bad. I myself had teenage stepsons wh
o stole from me, set fire to my
car and put a card in a telephone box saying I gave good head
’
'I do not
’
said Binnie, 'pay you to tell me your problems
’
Belinda decided, in that good old-fashioned way, to take

her baby and go back to mother.

27

Candlemas
Eve

Isn't there any other part of the matzo you can eat?

marilyn monroe, on being served matzo ball soup for the third time in a row

Where do you go to get anorexia ?

shelley winters

It was two weeks since the funeral of Mrs Dorothea Tichborne and apart from one particular incident when old Dr Tichborne was found very much the worse for wear outside the vicarage at two in the morning and brought home by the potman from the Black Smock, an incident which the entire community thought quite pardonable, life was calm.

These were the last of the dead days - the last of the silent world of winter before the hints of spring should be seen. Shivering bees buzzed around the Christmas roses and hungry pale-grey pigeons huddled together on rooftops. The mornings were raw and the days were scarcely drawing out again, but they were - and little peepings of green all around made the world that lived above ground renew its hope. It felt like a time to have a celebration, a party, a happy ritual -and all those things were about to take place in St Hilary's and Church Ale House and garden on the following day.

Angela gave the piano tuner a glass of ale which he said was the best thing he had drunk for a long time.

'Seems like you'll be having quite a party,' he said, looking around the parlour. 'Very festive.'

When he drove off he hit the gatepost.

In Tally-Ho Cottage the scent of oil and ginger and cinnamon hung like a warm blanket over the proceedings. In the kitchen Wanda packed the last six of her small bottles into the last of her six wicker baskets and handed them to Dave the Bread. 'Prunes in the High Street will take three
’
she said, 'and two go to my private customers at the Taunton Vale Building Society. And one to the manager of the Co-op. You'll be going in there anyway to get your bread.'

Dave put on his cap, picked up the baskets and shook his head. 'No need
’
he said. 'Biscuits are done. And I should be able to bake before we go.'

Wanda stood up. 'You're never going to risk doing the bread yourself?' she said, in admiration.

'If I get up early enough
’
he said,
‘I
should be able to manage it.'

She removed his silly cap and ran her cinnamon-scented fingers through his hair. 'If you get up early enough tomorrow morning
’
she said, 'there'll be time for more than just baking
...'

Lucy Elliott passed out in her bedroom. Down she went, crump, on to the floor. She was
determined
to get into those leather trousers by tomorrow and had managed to not eat anything for nearly two days. Needs must when the devil drives, she told herself, every time she set down a meal for the children, or cleared away their plates without picking up the scraps and shoving them into her mouth.
(Why?
What was it about cold baked beans and dry toast crusts that compelled one to eat the things instead of tipping them into the rubbish bin?) Anyway, no one had noticed that she had not eaten and now here she was, up in her bedroom, about to try the things on again and then - pouf - her head went all swimmy and she needed to sit down and then everything went all black and
...

Craig Elliott tutted with irritation. He had been struggling with the imagery of Dorothea Tichborne's final moments, as told to him by the Dorkin girl, and the imagery of death is a very delicate thing for a writer, so the last thing he needed was his wife to start moving the furniture around. He had been toying with the idea of renting a little place on a regular basis in London and now he was convinced. Being so near and yet so far in the proximity of Anja was torment for the free artistic spirit in him. And the Fytton woman was entirely busy with her silly party so she no longer had time for him, and as if that were not bad enough, now even his wife could not keep the domestic arrangements quiet. And he had just got to the upturned eyes, the Gothic colours, the stillness and the dribbling too . . . and the sound of the milk going plink, plink, plink. Not easy to construct prose delicately around something like that.

He got up from his desk, strode down the passageway to their bedroom and opened the door. He was about to speak quite curtly when he beheld his wife lying, eyes upturned, greeny-white and still as marble and giving a pretty good impression of the imagery of death upon the floor. The shadow of Dorothea Tichborne's final moments came back to him. A terrible punching sensation hit his solar plexus. Little Lucy - his wife - his helpmeet in all his needs - mother of his children - warmer of his bed - rock upon which everything was built. Was dead. What would he do now? Without her? He fell to his knees, sobbing.

Old Dr Tichborne, coming out of the gate of the Elliotts' house around lunchtime, patted Craig Elliott reassuringly on the arm. 'Better luck next time,' he said.

Which Craig Elliott felt was very peculiar.

'Your wife will need monitoring, but there is nothing wrong with her. Nothing at all. Bit on the thin side, of course. But strong as an ox. Sorry.'

Craig Elliott was not taking any chances. He telephoned a specialist in London. He would take her there next week. He ran back indoors to check that she was still alive.

The doctor himself was feeling a mite less strong than he expected after last night. Last night was supposed to be wonderful. Crispin came around with his guitar and some of his CDs. Old Dr Tichborne set out the chess pieces and banished the Dorkin girl, saying that even he knew how to make an omelette. And the beautiful vicar presented him with a bottle of mulberry wine. Though he would have preferred a nice Chablis, he partook of the gift, blessed as it was by the young god's hand.

It being a cold night, the vicar accepted a glass immediately, saying it was only fruit. And then another. He was, he said, knocked out by it. The vicar then helped himself to a third and started playing his guitar. Very loudly. He then put on one of his CDs and played along with it, even more loudly, had one more ruby glassful and began singing very loudly too. He showed little inclination to eat the omelette, and even less to play chess, since at one point and giving a particularly hearty swing with the guitar he swept most of the pieces off the table and on to the floor. He then looked at them, said, 'Well, isn't that just like life
...'
and burst into a wild rendering of something that sounded like 'Achy-Braky Heart', so that Dr Tichborne retired from the room wounded and had to stand outside the door for some time wondering how to regroup.

As he stood on the wrong side of his sitting-room door and listened to the Reverend Crispin Archer apparently yodelling, he was not sure what to do next. He had lived for many years, more than forty, in a relationship of peace and quiet and harmony. Was he, he wondered, going to give all that up for initiation into the mysteries of physical love with a guitar-twanging, boot-stamping, spurs-jingling, God-bothering cowboy?

Only fruit indeed. In the end he had politely shown the wild-eyed vicar (still beautiful, still beautiful, but Oh So Dangerous
...)
the front door, watched him stagger off, spurs a-jingling, and spent the next hour sitting alone and playing his Ashkenazy Chopin etudes very quietly in order to calm down. And the really frightening thing was that he had seen the beautiful Crispin this morning and the beautiful Crispin was scarcely affected by the excess. A little green about the gills, but upright and functioning. A young liver. Youth. Old Dr Tichborne could never keep up with that. He was torn. Yea, verily, he was torn between the spasm and the what's-it, the bit in between - where the shadow fell . . . Perhaps it would all be revealed to him in due course. But in the meantime - what to do, what to do?

The Rudges left a note for their gardener asking him to tell Mrs Dorkin and Mrs Fytton that they would try to get back for the Sunday celebrations. If their cases moved along quickly they might just do it. Mrs Dorkin and Mrs Fytton doubted this very much.

Meanwhile the gardener set up his machine again, still unclear why the previous saw was so wantonly damaged. He blamed the Travellers, naturally. And now they had gone. So presumably all was safe again. And down came the pollarded tree. Angela Fytton, being a kind woman, and seeing how cold he looked, invited him in for a quick half of warmed ale. Which became two not-so-quick ones. When the gardener went back to the Rudges' garden his machine, inexplicably, would not start. A vital part appeared to be missing from the motor. But then again, he could not be quite sure, since his sight also seemed to be missing a vital part. He went to lie down. And very nearly got hypothermia. The copper beeches remained to tell their tale for yet another week.

Unaware of their gardener's fate, in Bristol Mrs Rudge bought some Sparsofen to sprinkle on the pure, bare soil of the garden. If the slug pellets were the hors-d'oeuvre, the Sparsofen was the dessert. That'd give any hungry, slimy creature a headache if it ventured out for a quick snack in the coming weeks, she thought with satisfaction. She nipped back into court. The case against the great big fast-food chain was going really well.

Mr Rudge was also doing extremely well with the water board. Curiously enough, during the case, he had received his first cheque as a shareholder of the very same company. 'Good', he thought, banking it. For, if asked, he would point out that as in life so in jurisprudence. One is talking about the law, not justice.

The following morning the Dorkin girl stood on the top of the Mump and lifted up her own two mumps to the wintry sun. I am the new goddess, she said to the sky. Which was approximately what the vicar said to her as he fairly pulled her out of her bedroom window last night and bedded her in the straw in the old barn at the back. He smelled of fruit and he intoxicated her. How could she resist? Not that she had the slightest intention of doing so. It was not in her nature to resist. She was a nice, warm, friendly, compliant girl - only just a bit more compliant with some than with others. The vicar was also very compliant and warm and friendly - though perhaps nice was pushing it. 'You are the new goddess,' he said, and he called her his little mulberry as he ripped away at his clothes. But he changed his mind when he ripped away at hers and she lay beneath him in the moonlight. 'Or the devil incarnate.'

Mrs Dorkin, washing the floor of the Black Smock, smiled and sang to herself. Her daughter was a sly one. Slipping off into the night like that. She had seen the low lights behind the drawn curtains of the Tichborne house and heard the soft piano music on the night air. That was where her Sandra had gone. Two in the morning it was. He wouldn't be much trouble to her, being so old. It would be a dream come true. And tomorrow's little effort should just about clinch it. If her favourite film star, Raquel Welch, could do it, so could her Sandra. Even if the weather was a bit cold at this time of year . . . Thus, a little muddled, but
she
knew what she meant, a smiling Mrs Dorkin went on washing floors.

Sammy Lee baked a ham for the proceedings. And wondered whether or not he would need to put his plate in. All depended, he said to the beautiful, succulent pink haunch as he drew it out of the oven. All depended on who was coming to the feast.