Not That Sort of Girl (37 page)

‘It’s the mode to be virginal,’ said Laura.

‘Barbara Cartland?’ questioned Emily.

‘AIDS,’ said Laura.

‘In spite of being stuck at the back I quite enjoyed the spectacle,’ said Nicholas and tooted his horn. ‘Don’t know many of the people here, though.’

‘No use hooting, Nicholas, consume your soul in patience like everyone else,’ said Emily.

‘You misquote, Mama; it’s “possess ye your souls …”’

‘Don’t be such a know-all, Laura,
my
soul is consumed.’

Laura raised her eyebrows.

‘There was a fine turnout of elderlies,’ said Nicholas. ‘The finest collection of lines, wrinkles, scraggy necks, crêpey skin, bags, bald heads, dowagers’ humps, arthritic limbs, shuffling, hobbling, rheumy-eyed old crones and cronies I’ve seen in years. A wedding is better than a funeral for a geriatric turnout.’

‘Your generation,’ said Laura caustically.

‘We do not suffer from cachexia,’ snapped her mother.

‘And there are others besides us,’ Nicholas allowed, ‘there’s poor Rose. There were several in the church carrying their years with decorum, not to say panache.’

‘Move on, Nicholas, can’t you see the queue’s moving? Rose was not there.’

‘Of course I can. Shut up.’ Nicholas clunked into gear. ‘I didn’t say she was there; my point was that she has worn remarkably well, as well if not better than us.’

‘Look out, Nicholas, you’ll hit that car …’

‘God! Emily. Must you? Actually the old boy who gave the bride away was pretty trim.’

‘I thought him quite a dish,’ said Laura. ‘That shock of white hair with black eyebrows and eyes is stunning. Marvellous figure, too.’

‘Who was he?’ asked Emily. ‘They should write these things on the hymn sheet. I couldn’t display my ignorance to the people near us, they were all strangers.’

‘No idea,’ said Nicholas. ‘I always think, reverting to Rose, that the reason she looks as she does is that she hasn’t suffered the extremes of joy, grief, or anxiety the rest of us have been through. A few worries over Christopher, nothing desperate, and Ned. Well, let’s face it, Ned wasn’t of the stuff to make any woman’s face sag, was he?’

‘Wasn’t she the lucky one?’ said Laura on the back seat, finding Nicholas’s obsessive interest in Rose Peel entertaining.

‘When Rose eventually shows her age she will look like a fossilised rose in a dead flower arrangement,’ said Emily, ignoring Laura. ‘Faded, yet crisp. Go on, Nicholas, they are moving again.’

‘I can see they are. Would you like me to stop the car, change places and let you drive?’ asked Nicholas nastily.

‘Now, now, you two, don’t squabble,’ said Laura.

‘We are nearly there,’ said Emily, sensing that she had goaded her brother too far. ‘I too need a drink, we all do. All those uplifting hymns and watching that beautiful pair has made me quite thirsty. That girl, the bride, has extraordinary eyes.’

‘They run in the family,’ said Laura.

‘I like the looks of the groom; he’s improved no end since I last saw him. If I’d been twenty years younger I would have been tempted to …’

‘More like forty,’ said Laura on the back seat, ‘or fifty.’

‘What did you say?’ asked Emily sharply. Laura did not reply.

‘All those promises,’ said Emily after a pause, ‘are pretty ridiculous. Who on earth can be expected to cleave—correct me if I’m wrong, Laura—cleave indefinitely? It’s unreasonable.’

‘Cleave will do. Is that the reason neither you nor Nicholas ever ventured into Holy Matrimony?’ Laura asked a question which had rattled around her mind for a lifetime. Neither Nicholas nor Emily answered.

‘Here we are. At last! Now we can get at the booze,’ said Nicholas. ‘There’s nothing to prevent you embracing that mode of life, though I would think you’ve left it a trifle late now you’ve almost reached your half century.’

It was now Laura’s turn not to answer.

‘Fancy having a marquee in winter. I hope we shan’t catch our deaths,’ said Emily. ‘I personally shall go into the house. Come on, buck up, Nicholas, what are you staring at?’

‘I thought I saw Rose Peel’s car up there in the yard.’

‘Don’t be silly, she’s miles away in some luxury hotel; her car’s a mass-produced job, it might be anybody’s. Let’s find the buffet. I say, there’s that old man who—I agree with you, Laura, let’s find out who he is.’

‘She won’t be able to afford luxury hotels for long,’ said Nicholas, parking the car. ‘I only heard this morning what a mingy annuity Ned left her.’

‘Everything’s entailed on Christopher, everybody knows that.’ Emily stretched her leg out of the car. ‘Give me a hand, Laura. Thanks.’

‘Presumably Ned imagined Christopher and Helen would supplement it,’ said Laura. ‘Aren’t you going to lock the car, Nicholas?’

‘Nag, nag, nag,’ said Nicholas, turning back to lock the car. ‘Can you see Rose accepting a penny from Christopher? She
loathes
Helen.’

‘And we all thought she’d be left rich! Well, well, beggars can’t be choosers,’ said Emily. ‘She has her old age pension, hasn’t she?’

‘I can’t see Rose begging,’ said Laura.

‘Well, I can’t help her, can I?’ said Nicholas. ‘You could have,’ he rounded on Emily. ‘You must have known what Ned planned, Ned was in your pocket, you could have pointed out to him the decent thing to do. He may have been stupid but he wasn’t all that mean, look what he did for Laura.’

‘Was Ned my father?’ asked Laura, walking between Nicholas and Emily.

‘Good Lord, no!’ Nicholas burst out laughing.

‘What a suggestion,’ said Emily primly.

‘I thought not,’ said Laura. ‘I did ask Rose once and she said she thought not.’

Watching the Thornbys go into the reception, Rose ducked out of sight. She had not foreseen when, by a series of astute telephone calls, she had discovered where Mylo would be at lunchtime, that there would be a large marquee, a hoard of wedding guests. When she had come upon the house by a back lane she had hoped to catch Mylo coming away from a quiet lunch with friends and possibly speak to him. This half-baked plan flew out of the window when, leaving her car in the stable yard, she had rounded a corner, seen the marquee and been almost instantly swamped by a rush of cars bearing bride and groom, parents, guests and various press and onlookers, and, worst of all, Emily, Nicholas and Laura back from the church.

Crouching down behind the wheel, hiding her face until she judged the Thornbys out of sight, she decided that what she had hoped for was not feasible, she must drive away, escape from this potentially embarrassing situation.

Then she thought with a gasp of relief that she had come to the wrong house, had been misdirected, natural enough in the circumstances of the wedding. She had been stupid, she would return to the village and ask again.

She sat up.

While she had ducked out of sight several cars had parked blocking her way out of the yard; she was, to all intents and purposes, trapped. Cursing her luck, she thought all she need do was wait until the owners of the cars came to remove them. But then, she thought, it will take hours and hours and meanwhile Mylo will finish his lunch at the other house and go. Damn Emily and Nicholas and all these people, she thought. Then she thought, What do I care about Emily and Nicholas? I care nothing, nothing at all, all the ways they can hurt me have been incinerated with Ned. All I need do, she told herself, is to go calmly in to this strange house, interrupt the wedding feast, explain my plight, my silly mistake and ask for whoever owns these cars blocking my escape to come and move them. Easily done. Very easily done. She sat in the car telling herself how easy it would be. So she sat.

She sat in her car telling herself how easy it was to walk in alone to a stranger’s wedding party in a rather grand house, wearing her comfortable old jeans and sweater and muddy shoes, barge into a room where everyone was dressed in their high-heeled best and important jewellery, the men in grey morning suits drinking champagne and making yuppy speeches. But never mind that, it would be perfectly simple to find the bride’s mother or father or the best man or an usher and explain—I got here by mistake, I am really looking for another house where someone called Mylo Cooper is having lunch. You see I
have
to find Mylo Cooper. With her hands over her face she rehearsed this speech, nearly crying with rage and frustration as she muttered out loud …

‘Who are you talking to?’

‘I was rehearsing a speech.’

‘So I heard. Did I hear right? You have to find Mylo Cooper?’

‘Yes.’

‘And then what?’

‘Perhaps,’ she said stiffly—her whole face felt stiff—‘you could help me find the owners of these cars which are blocking me in and then I can get out. I was rehearsing the speech I have to make to someone responsible, the bride’s mother or father or the best man or an usher to ask the owners of …’

‘I heard that bit.’

‘Oh.’

‘Would the bride’s step-grandfather do? I gave her away in the church just now.’

‘Ah.’

‘I just stepped outside to get a breath of air.’

‘You are looking wonderfully well, Mylo Cooper.’

‘You are as lovely as ever, Rose Peel. How did you find me?’

‘I telephoned your publisher who put me on to your agent, who told me the hotel you are staying in, and they told me you had a lunch date here.’

‘Very clever. I saw in
The Times
that Ned is dead.’

‘Yes.’

‘It would be untrue to say I am not delighted.’

‘Ah.’

‘I intended coming straight on from here to Slepe to gather you up and Comrade’s descendants and take you away.’

‘They are dead too, they were run over.’

‘I mind about that very much.’

‘You would not have found me there.’

‘You would have been looking for me?’

‘I can’t deny it.’

‘I am terribly pleased.’

‘Well …’

‘I won’t say I love you as much as I did at the winter tennis party—isn’t it extraordinary that Victoria’s grand-daughter should be marrying one of George Malone’s grandsons? One of the things I love about you is that you don’t answer, “It’s a small world,” that sort of bilge—but I will say that I love you differently and more so, much more so.’

‘Oh. Does she have Victoria’s wonderful eyes?’

‘Yes, she does.’

‘I am glad.’ (His voice had not changed, a little deeper perhaps.)

‘I can’t think what I am doing standing here while you sit in there in the warm. I am too old to hang about growing stiff, risking hypothermia. Open the door, darling, and let me in. I want to hug you.’

She opened the car door, moved over to make room for him beside her. ‘I have our picture in my overnight bag, I did not bring anything else.’

‘Quite right. What else would we need? I say, isn’t this nice, I love kissing you.’

‘Not forgotten how?’

‘If you must know, I’m as hungry as I ever was. I just space the meals out a bit.’

‘Do that again,’ she said. ‘I very nearly did not come to look for you.’

‘Pride, I suppose. Thank the Lord you swallowed it. I would never have forgiven you if you had not.’

‘I might have choked.’

‘In such a good cause.’

‘Do you have to go back in there?’ she asked presently, listening to the distant hubbub of the party. ‘Nicholas and Emily are in there.’

‘So I saw. Pickled in time. Never mind them. I have to say my goodbyes. Then we are off.’

Watching Nicholas and Emily circulating among the crowd, Laura reflected soberly that it would be she who would be driving the car home. Nicholas’s hand reached repeatedly towards the trays of drinks, Emily’s followed suit. They ignored the temptings of vol-au-vents stuffed with shrimps, caviare on strips of toast, and other succulent eats offered by perambulatory waiters. Their tour ended, they rejoined Laura by the buffet. ‘Having fun?’ asked Emily.

‘Bored,’ said Laura, ‘there’s nobody I want to talk to.’

‘And very few we want to talk to either, but it’s not a bad party as parties go.’ Emily’s voice had risen several decibels above her norm. She’s tippled into drunkenness, blast her, thought Laura. ‘Why did none of us marry?’ Emily asked the world at large.
‘We
would have had the most marvellous parties, the best champagne, not this stuff.
You
could have married, Laura. You could have married Christopher Peel. Why did you not marry Christopher, Laura?’

‘I was under the impression he was my brother,’ said Laura tightly.

‘Oooh? Then, when it was too late, you checked with Rose?’ Emily’s once brilliant eyes focused on her daughter’s, still brilliant. ‘You could have had Slepe, couldn’t you? Think on that.’

She’s not quite as drunk as I thought. ‘Stupid old bitch,’ said Laura with wintry intensity.

‘Poor Rose Peel.
I
should have married poor Rose,’ exclaimed Nicholas, ignoring his females.

‘Would she have married you?’ asked Laura tightly.

‘We should have brought her with us today,’ cried Nicholas, ‘jollied her up. We used to be so kind to her when we were all young.’

‘Would she have wanted to come?’ asked Laura.

‘We teased her, admittedly,’ said Emily, reminiscence overriding Laura’s tone, ‘but we were very kind. We took her to the party where she first met Ned.’

‘If I had married her I would have sophisticated her, made much more of her than Ned did.’

‘Jolly nice for Rose,’ said Laura, ‘that would have been.’

‘Poor Rose. Nothing ever happened to her. I hate to think of her holed up in some hotel alone and palely masturbating when she could have married me—if I’d asked her of course … Where’s all the drink gone?’ Nicholas looked around but no waiter passed.

‘You are disgusting drunk and pretty disgusting sober,’ said Laura.

‘Don’t speak to Nicholas like that,’ Emily shouted shrilly.

Laura smiled, mouthed, ‘Don’t speak to your father like that,’ watched Emily look blankly around in pretence to the people near her, that it was not she who had shouted, but somebody else. ‘Why did you never marry, Mother?’ she asked.

‘I could have married, perhaps I should have married,’ Emily answered portentously, ‘but there was such a wide choice, one …’