Muriel Pulls It Off (9 page)

‘Phyllis will come in but I think you’ll find she’ll go straight to her room.’

Muriel said ‘yes’ to everything but was too tired to ask advice. She wondered if there was a washing-up machine. No good asking the ne’
er-do
-wells to lend a hand.

‘Sufficient unto the hour…’ She spoke quietly, realising with alarm that in recent days she had taken to talking to herself. From a window she watched Monopoly sniffing at shrubs.

Kitty made matters in the kitchen plain, and together they laid the table in the dining room. There were many questions that Muriel wanted to put to Kitty but weariness suffused her. She clasped her hands behind her back and, cracking at her finger joints in taut snaps, paced the floor and remembered that, as yet, her legs were still long.

A few minutes passed before she found herself followed. The
coin-collector
was at her side, gleefully emptying the contents of a linen pouch onto the surface of a leather-topped drum table.

‘Charles the Second,’ he announced in rapture, as he held up a blackened coin for her inspection. ‘Buckles, pennies, a farthing or two. I have to tell you, my good lady, I’ve seldom indulged in such happy hunting. It’s the history that gets to me. Just think of the people from the past who have wandered on your land. Now I shall go home and polish these bits up. One thing, though, I must mention. I was, I don’t like to say it, treated like a criminal out there by a lady who came to see what I was
doing. Making holes in the grass - she said I was. That’s not true. No. Here I tell a lie. I do have to make a small hole but I always fill it in behind me. Meticulous I am about it. I’m a Christian gentleman as I said. One more thing, my good lady, before I go,’ his voice conspiratorial, ‘I would be grateful if I could reserve the honour for myself.’

Muriel tried to coax a crackle from her finger joints but she had performed the trick too recently for any noise to emerge.

‘I said to her. Said it straight, that you had given me permission and, well, I don’t like to tell you this but, er, well…’ Muriel halted him with her hand.

Through the open door she saw Dawson and Delilah on their return to the rectory. Their heads were close and it was clear that something of importance was under discussion. They were planning one more intense effort to persuade her and her young to socialise. She waved the man and his metal detector away and returned to the looking glass. She wished to take advantage of further investigation to prove that, whatever else, her body stayed stable. As with effort she tightened her belt by one notch, she noticed that a figure stood beside her; reflected in the glass.

She turned round and found herself eyeball to eyeball with Joyce who wore shorts, exposing red legs and a shirt too tightly buttoned. Her face was pinched which was unexpected given that the rest of her was solidly fat; her hair short and greasy and her overall impression most unpleasing. Was she another of Aunt Alice’s recruits? Was a letter of promise lurking in some cranny for her too?

Eyes pink and frenzied, Joyce smashed the silence. ‘I saw that Eric had been here. Had to get his word in first, I suppose. I’ve been allowed to keep my bees down by the greenhouse since heaven knows when. He’s been at them with a stick and now I’ve got two angry hives on my hands. I don’t know if you have any knowledge of bee-keeping?’

‘Not much. I’m Muriel Cottle, by the way.’

‘I assumed as much. Was it you who told that dreadful man he could hunt for coins in the field? Heavens above! We’ll never get rid of him now. He’s no better than he should be.’ Muriel might have perpetrated a massacre judging by the look this woman gave her. ‘We’ve been trying to keep him off the land for donkey’s years. Holes in the field. A sheep could break its leg out there.’

‘Whose sheep?’

Joyce coloured to a sultry mauve from her chin to her hairline. ‘Mine, as a matter of fact. And, in case you didn’t know, I provide this house with free honey.’

Muriel mounted the stairs and made for the bathroom. As she closed the door she heard the telephone trill in the distance. Soon she was shoulder deep in water.

A
irily dressed for dinner, Muriel left a message on her American friend’s answering machine. He was called Jackson and she urged him to join her in time for Mambles’s visit. Then she checked on potions in the drawing room, where coarsely-carved Elizabethan grapes divided the ceiling into moulded panels and where the walls were rough and bumpy and almost entirely obscured by paintings in faded frames. As she counted glasses on a wooden chest behind a sofa, she heard the frantic attempts of Roger as he descended the stairs unattended. What were Marco and Flavia up to? She was doomed to spend time alone with him. His efforts were noisily emphasised and expletives sounded out at every step.

Muriel made no attempt to go to his aid but stood, smoking and looking out of the French window (added, she supposed, by the Victorians in sensible desire to let in light). At one moment she pressed her hot forehead against a domed glass lampshade.

When Roger came into the room, Muriel turned to acknowledge him but uttered not a sound. He was white from head to toe. The plaster that encased the lower part of his left leg was, not surprisingly, chalky in its brightness. But the rest of him! His hair, she saw for the first time, was white - if thick - and not unlike Jerome’s. He wore a white shirt and white shorts. His face, damp, shone a ghostly ivory and only his crutches stood out in fiery hue.

‘Very comfortable bed. Not bad, eh, this place?’

‘No. No. Not bad at all.’

Roger, unnerved by Muriel’s constantly altering manner towards him, folded his crutches and, with maximum manoeuvre placed himself upon
the sofa, still stained with Dulcie’s blood despite vicious scrubbing by Kitty. He shifted and, with both hands, humped the injured leg to a position of better comfort.

Muriel knew, for she had been party to his paltriness, that he was not a man but a machine; an inferior one. Bits of his brain were missing. It shocked her to remember that she had driven a thousand detours immersed in amorous dreams to ease his practical burdens; lifelessly alive, fetching and carrying with tense energy. She had waited long in pubs for his late appearances, preoccupied with passion. He had taken her to the races and told her that she was the ‘tops’.

She handed him a glass of whisky poured from Marco’s bottle, and asked, ‘Are the others awake?’

‘Absolutely. I heard merry prattle coming from the magnificent bathroom.’ He chuckled as, remembering the wine at lunch, it occurred to him that he might do well to re-hook his hostess. Had he not always deserved the prop of a country estate? He would take up shooting, fishing maybe; hunting was not out of the question. Tally-ho.

‘So. Tell me Roger. How did you break your leg?’

‘Thereby hangs a tale.’

Again he chuckled as he picked his nose. It came back to her that he had always been a nose-picker and it vexed her that he should, in the past, have winced when she cracked her knuckles. She had never reprimanded him for his habit; deeming it too grave to be mentioned.

His eyes lit on a copy of
The Sunday Times
that had been set upon a stool near the window. He signalled to his companion, ‘Wonderful woman. The paper please. I left mine on the train. Crutches. Ha. Ha.’

Muriel, interested to note that she supported such a weekly paper, rolled her eyes and took it to him, thinking how incorrigible he was - picking and pleading and sipping in washy white. Although his mannerless scrutiny of the newspaper irritated her, it was better than having to talk.

After twenty minutes spent thus, they were joined by the pair from above. ‘Heavens Ma! Had you forgotten that the fridge is stuffed with champagne for this evening? You’ve started Roger on whisky. Swig it down, old man, then we can get on with more serious matters. Receptacles on the way. Me and Flave’ll go for the nectar.’

They left the room as Dulcie appeared, bent as a croquet hoop, whiskers brushing an array of engraved champagne glasses arranged upon
a tray. She plonked it down, with a series of shuddering tinkles, on a chest where the bottles vied for space. As she did so, and as she straightened up, she chortled, ‘About time too. I’ve always maintained that what this place needed was a bit of appreciation. Now, when Mrs Atkins was alive, - Alice, she was to me - there were regular celebrations. Absolutely regular.’

After a pause she resumed reminiscence. ‘Not with him. He never had the faintest idea. Not the faintest.’

Roger hastened to polish off the whisky in his glass. He flinched to be seen to exude disapproval, to show that he knew how country houses were run. Not in this way. Not with scope for insubordinates in the drawing room. Dulcie went to the window; wishing to witness the subdued popping of corks. The champagne, several bottles, arrived and Dulcie made no move. Roger said, ‘Ahem. Ahem. Muriel,’ and pointed at the onlooker.

Muriel ignored all signals as Marco exclaimed, ‘How about this?’ He reassured the company. ‘Don’t worry about lack of flying corks. This is ancient stuff. Hardly a bubble in it.’

Flavia, glass in hand, made for Muriel. ‘Come on Chick. We’re all on for a piss-up. Don’t be uptight.’

Muriel recognised a distant whiff of old age rising from the orange contents of her glass as Dulcie moved from position of spectator and made for the door. The route she had chosen, a circuitous one, was blocked by Roger’s leg that stuck out before him like a giant slug.

‘If you will kindly move that leg of yours, I’m off to do a mile or two on my exercise bike.’

Roger, who had already absorbed several glasses of champagne following fast on whisky which had followed on a long and drunken sleep, was not alert to the mixture of reactions that romped around him. Most certainly he was not going to inconvenience himself by attempting to provide a passage for this creature.

Yet Marco, it was manifest, had decided to make a feature of Dulcie. Did she not constitute a cabaret? Did not an aristocratic estate, by divine right, possess a jester? A jester was as good as a ghost. He pictured some of his friends in stitches at the sight of the androgynous creature pedalling on her exercise bike.

Roger ordered, ‘Marco. Please can you explain to the good lady that my leg is painful. Ouch. I suggest that she finds an alternative egress.’

‘What the hell is an egress, I’d like to know? I’ve never appreciated fancy words. Now. Let me pass.’

Dulcie moved the leg herself, twisting and contorting it with savagery as Roger winced, swore and sweated. Then she headed, powerful with purpose, for her bike; Doc Martens upon Aubusson; wry smile on her lips.

After Dulcie’s departure, the room, apart from the sounds of constant pouring and clinking, seemed half empty, for those left behind remained consumed with thought.

Roger, irascible and hazy, determined that Muriel pull herself together and eradicate absurdity from the place. He began, even, to imagine that with his support this transformation might come about. He looked shiftily at Marco. But Flavia put her money on Muriel as she considered a rosy future. ‘You know what, Chick. You ought to try corrective green. It’s a sort of face powder. It would make you look a trillion years younger - not that you need to.’

Marco was ebullient. ‘Listen, Ma. Is there a billiard room? And what about a library? Haven’t seen a single book since I crossed the threshold. I’ll get Dulcie to set up a conducted tour tomorrow and I wouldn’t say no to a ride on one of her bikes. Zoom. Zoom.’

He was unsteady on his feet but his words flowed easily as Muriel panicked about dinner. It was after nine o’clock and she thanked her lucky stars that she had opted for cold meat and salad. It was certainly beyond her to set about heating dishes and carrying them around after this painful stretch of the evening.

Soon she must order them all through into the dining room where another empty example of wastage lay ahead. She was scared and ashamed. It was difficult about Dulcie. Half of her agreed with Roger that the woman’s odd presence must be rooted out; but the other half acknowledged that it amused her, and when things were organised perhaps she might make an ally of the old retainer. She wanted to swat Flavia. Grinning and sucking up and calling her Chick and telling her to use corrective green.

She looked at her boy. She loved him and at least he was outgoing. He did not camouflage his thoughts or represent them as other than they were. Once again she picked up scattered pieces of her past. Like
stop-press
news from a remote star, a vision appeared. Marco, twelve years old, picnicking in spring on a southern slope of Monte Albano. Dark watch,
too large for his thin wrist. Stars of Bethlehem grew amongst coarse grass and tall campions stood out, mauve, against white blossom. Marco had tugged her into a roughly-built house, reputed to be Leonardo da Vinci’s birthplace. Her boy had been alive. Now she chided her son vehemently for allowing Roger to be there, drunk and clad in white, when she was all at sea; drowning in complexity.

Supper was, as Muriel feared, a repetition of lunch. Little was spoken and less eaten; plenty drunk. Again she stuffed herself with Kitty’s fare and again she wondered whether or not she kept chickens. Eventually she left them to it with fine wines, and went to her room where she found Monopoly sprawled across the foot of her bed. It was a tonic to see him there but, since the night was hot, and never before had she slept with a dog on her bed, she manoeuvred him cautiously, uttering nonsensical blandishments, into his basket.

She lay down under a light cover and thought of the ordinary things that many mull over before sleep. In the morning she would be downstairs at an early hour; she would beat them all to it and clear away corks from pots, vases and from under chairs. Bottles, too, must be hidden before Phyllis’s acid eye led her to accept that her fears were confirmed.

Then there was the dining room. More corks and bottles and a mountain of food to be concealed. Yet again she longed to know whether or not she kept chickens. If not, she meant to do so. Not long before, she had seen a cluster of Black Silkies when staying with distant cousins in the country. They were small birds and their heads were crested; their feathers a mixture of fur and velvet. Very dark. One of her cousin’s Silkies had won second prize at a Poultry Club show.

Imperceptibly these considerations transformed into grotesque images as in the darkest chapter of a children’s book. The usual tranquillity of her pillow let her down as she tried to recreate her own sanity in the maelstrom of her mind. Her head felt light, as though from the depths of sleep she was entering an unhealthy and dangerous situation.

Roger, wearing an indigenous mask, stood at the bed. A flow of boiling saliva escaped from a corner of his mouth. His eyes were rheumy and his wounded leg stood out in clarity; a traffic signal in the fog.

Without warning his form was replaced by that of Marco, smoking and wearing a dressing gown. He stood beside Muriel in front of a triple mirror and, as each scrutinised the other’s multiple reflections, a sunny,
silver-framed photograph that she always carried with her, of the boy, aged seven or eight, amidst flowers, was reflected, too, in the glass, and took them both wandering back to early days when they had known happiness alone together.

They had headed for Volterra. Muriel at the wheel, they drove past flocks of black sheep; spindly and spare, and through fields of sunflowers; huge heads bowed on leafless stalks like nudists dropping their heads in modesty. The boy smiled and, uncorrected, sucked his thumb. As drought dried the countryside, tractors ploughed the chocolate earth scattering cornflowers and butterflies while men and women toiled across miles of burnt-out hillside. As the car shot forward the climate changed. They crossed a dry river bed, then climbed golden hills; orangey-rust as the champagne from her cellar. Fields rose in ridges beyond clumps of coarse corn, shining ilex and feathery acacia trees. Figs were ripe, splitting open to display the moths of a thousand tiny sharks. They drove into the town through a thick wooden gate, hammered with nails, onto uneven flagstones.

No trace of Hugh.

Out of the blue came the most petrifying insult of all. Marco turned on her. The balding, smoking Marco. He bawled at her for her failure to rear him correctly, for his weaknesses and limitations, adding a torrent of complaint about the collapse of her marriage, her foolish affair with Roger, her futility when it came to the commanding of a household.

As the tableau misted and her gatecrashers dissolved into specks, she turned on the light beside her bed, looked at the clock and waved her legs in the air. Monopoly breathed easily and Muriel slithered out of bed and went to the basket. She laid her head upon the moulting back of the dog where she found reassurance, then returned, with equilibrium, to bed and to practical plans.

She determined that there was to be no false dawn. She fell asleep again.