Simply Heaven (33 page)

Eventually I track the phone down by the green light on top. Notice that the time display reads 06:24 before I answer.

It’s Mum.

‘Hi,’ I say.

‘Sorry. You’re going to have to come and get me.’

‘Where are you?’

‘I haven’t the foggiest. I came out looking for the dunny an hour ago and now I’m lost.’

‘But it’s only one door down from your room.’

‘Someone must’ve moved the doors,’ she says firmly.

My husband sighs in his sleep, mutters something about pheasants and buries his face in the pillow.

I sigh myself. ‘Tell me where you are.’

‘Well, if I knew that,’ she tells me with faultless logic, ‘I’d be able to find my way back, wouldn’t I?’

I manage to hold back a second sigh. ‘Look around you, and tell me what you see.’

‘Oh. OK. Well, I’m in a room …’

I wait.

‘It’s … I dunno. Looks pretty much like all the rooms I’ve been in. Covered in dust, wallpaper hanging off, cobwebs in the corners, little piles of plaster flakes, drapes haven’t been cleaned in years …’

‘Is there anything at all that’s different from the other rooms? Have you got any idea which floor you’re on?’

‘None at all.’

‘Well, look around you, Ma. There must be something you can give me a clue with.’

‘I don’t know. Oh, yeah, OK: there’s a couple of statues.’

‘What do they look like?’

‘Naked chicks.’

Plenty of those about.

‘What are they doing?’

‘I dunno. Washing, I guess. That or stripping’

‘Does one of them have eight arms?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘OK. I’ll come and get you.’

She’s somehow found her way to the Indian gallery, two floors and a wing-and-a-half away from their quarters. I turn on the lamp to find some clothes – I’m not walking those dark and haunted corridors in just a nightie; I’ve seen
Friday the 13th
– and Rufus, disturbed, opens his eyes.

‘Hi. What’s up?’

I explain.

‘What time is it?’

‘Half six, quarter to seven.’

‘Ugh. God, I hate these dark mornings. Suppose I might as well get up now I’m awake.’

‘Naah. Stay in bed for a bit, doll. Place won’t fall down without you.’

My husband rubs his face, sleepily. ‘Wouldn’t be so sure of that.’

‘Mind if I take this sweater with me? She’s probably halfway to hypothermia by now.’

He raises the counterpane, sends Buster tumbling over on to my side of the bed. The dog barely reacts, just rearranges himself, smacks his chops and resumes his snoring. ‘Sure. Can I have my morning kiss, please?’

‘I’ve not brushed my teeth yet.’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

This is the stuff about marriage: the stuff I find surprising, the stuff that delights me. This intimacy, this no-need-to-impress, these small rituals that keep you warm on chilly mornings. I go to him and hold him as he comes awake. Stroke his hair and feel the comfort of his arms round my waist, the flex of his shoulders under my forearms. Rufus smells of bonfires and toffee this morning. I will never let him go.

‘Where did she say she was?’

‘Sounded like the Indian gallery.’

‘Oh, OK. Know the quickest way to get there?’

‘Down to the hall and back up the Broad Oak Stair, eh?’

He shakes his head, grazes my neck with his night-beard. ‘No, darling. You just turn left out of here and go down to the end of the corridor. It’s the other side of the door there.’

‘I thought that was a wall?’

‘No. We don’t use the door much, so it seemed like a sensible place to hang the tapestry when the water got into the Henry the Second room.’

I shake my head back at him. ‘I’m never going to get it, am I?’

‘’S’all right, baby. Give it another twenty years or so.’

‘Funny fellah.’

‘Funny ha-ha.’

‘Funny bloody weird as hell. I’d better go.’

‘Mmm. I love you, you know.’

‘I know. I do too. I love you.’

‘Good.’

He lets me go, lies backs on the pillows and smiles.

I don’t see her when I first enter the gallery, because she’s sitting in an old howdah, shrouded by curtains. Eventually I track her down by the smell of cigarette smoke.

‘Christ,’ I say, ‘it’s not even seven. Couldn’t you at least wait until after breakfast?’

‘It’s four thirty in the afternoon as far as I’m concerned,’ she says reasonably. ‘And I’ve been up since half three anyway. Had to do something to fill the time.’

‘You took your cigs to the loo?’

‘Didn’t want to disturb your father.’

‘And your phone?’

‘Took my bag for luck. Bloody glad I did.’

‘So did you manage to find one?’

She harrumphs. ‘No.’

‘You must be busting.’

She laughs. ‘You can say that again. If you’d been five minutes longer you’d’ve found me squatted over one of those pots over there.’

‘Come on.’

‘Hold up. Let me finish my cig first.’

Mum takes three huge lungfuls off the end of her butt. ‘Where can I stub this out?’

‘Well, I dunno. You should have thought about that before you lit it.’

‘Yep, that’s what I came for,’ she says dismissively, ‘to be brought up by my own daughter. Ah, look. This’ll do.’ She lifts the lid of a pot set into one of the howdah’s upright posts, daintily crushes out the cigarette inside.

‘Mum!’ I am scandalised. ‘You can’t do that!’

‘Just did,’ she points out. ‘And besides, what is it if it ain’t an incense holder? It’s just another sort of ash.’

‘But it’s probably hundreds of years old!’

Mum does one of her sniffs. ‘I dare say it hasn’t been opened in all that time, neither. By the time it gets opened my butt will just be another historical artefact. Anyway, let’s get to that bathroom, eh?’

I’m not so good on the geography of the Georgian wing. I decide to get her down to the ground floor so that at least she can orientate herself enough to navigate her way back to their bedroom, which is in the Edwardian section.

‘So you haven’t had a lot of sleep, then,’ I say as I lead her out to the Tollbooth stair.

‘No. Bloody jet lag. Tell you what, Melody. This house is weird.’

‘You don’t say?’

She misses the irony in my tone. ‘I mean, I must’ve opened forty doors, and not a single one of them a khazi. What is it with these people? They think it’s common to wash, or something?’

‘I think some of them have their bladders taken out at birth.’

‘Christ. I’d heard about the chinectomies, but I didn’t know about that.’

‘It’s in case they meet the Queen. They’re not allowed to go to the loo till she does, or something, so they have to get into practice.’

‘I’ll tell you, I almost got spooked wandering around in the dark. Half the light switches don’t work and even when they do, mostly all you see is junk.’

‘That’s heirlooms, Mother.’

‘Nonsense. Heirlooms is stuff you care about and treat with love. This is room after room of discarded second-hand furniture. Covered in dust. I gave my pillow a bit of a punch before I lay down last night and we couldn’t see anything for half an hour.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t talk about Dad like that.’

‘Oh, ha bloody ha.’

I get her to the door of a bathroom at last. Stand outside as I hear her settle on the throne, sigh with relief. Through the door, her voice carries, muffled.

‘And another thing. It wasn’t just the jet lag that woke me.’

‘No?’

‘No. I don’t know. Maybe it was a nightmare. But I don’t think it was, because it seemed to go on after I woke up. Are you sure this place is stable? Only I could swear the whole house was shaking.’

‘Oh, yeah. It does that.’ I can’t believe I’m so blasé about it already.

‘It does that?’

‘Mmm hmm. Rufus says it’s because it’s so old.’

Mum shifts behind the door. ‘Come on, love. There’s more to it than that. God, it was like being in the middle of an earthquake.’

‘I know. That’s what I thought the first time. But you get used to it. It happens all the time. I don’t even remember it waking me tonight.’

‘Well, it did me. Didn’t wake your father, of course.’

‘He wouldn’t hear it over his snoring, anyway.’

‘Too true. By the way, who was that ancient old baggage I saw staring at me from an upstairs window when we came in? Looked like someone had stood her too close to a heater?’

‘Oh, that’s Beatrice,’ I say. ‘Edmund’s mother. A treat in store.’

‘Looked like it. Looked like she’d lost a quid and found a button.’

‘Yeah, she does rather, doesn’t she?’

The thunderous flush of hundred-year-old plumbing and she emerges, tugging her top down over her waistband.

‘And who’s the pregnant one?’

‘That’s Tilly. She’s Rufus’s sister.’

‘Oh, right. Doesn’t look much like him.’

‘No, I suppose not. She looks a bit like Edmund, though.’

‘I guess so. Suppose that’s something. She seems nice enough. At least she hasn’t got a stick up her backside like her old girl. Where’s the babyfather?’

‘Done a bunk. They don’t talk about it, though. They say he’s in Burundi.’

‘Gone to Burundi. I like it. Nice euphemism. Like having the painters and decorators in.’

‘Hugo Hunstanton.’

‘Oh, well, there you go. Stands to reason he’d do a bunk with a name like that. How come’s they’re not going after him with the shotgun?’

I puff from inflated cheeks. ‘God knows, Ma. I think Edmund might, if he ever noticed, but he’s had the wobbly boot on for years and nothing much impinges on his consciousness. Mary just seems to want to blame Tilly and all of them want to keep it from Beatrice.’

‘Poor kid,’ she says.

‘I know.’

She makes use of her talent for dropping subjects when she’s done with them. ‘What do you think the chances are of a bit of brekkie now I’m up?’

‘Let’s go and see what we can find.’

We pass through the hall and start down the kitchen stairs. ‘How’s Costa?’ I ask.

‘He’s good. He sends his love. He’ll try and come next year. Had to stay back and keep an eye on things, you know?’

‘Yes. Is everything OK?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ she shrugs. ‘’course it is. You know how it is, though. Can’t turn your back for a second or someone’ll be in there trying to take over. Jesus, Melody, you’re not telling me people actually make food down here, are you?’

Fifi and Django have got down from the couch to greet us. Fifi stands up on his hind legs and gazes longingly up at my mother. He looks – I’ve got to say it – adorable. What’s happened to me? Since when did I think bulldogs looked adorable? I even found myself dropping a kiss on the head of Roly’s dog Perkins the other day. But he looks so – big and cute and cuddly, and I find myself forced to bend down and catch him up in a big bear hug. He wriggles his backside and rolls his strangulated eyes. Makes for my mouth with a long schlumphy tongue. Mum makes a noise of combined disgust and contempt.

‘You mean they leave the dogs in here all night?’

‘Some of the time, but …’ I suddenly think better of telling her about where they spend their nights if they’re not in the kitchen. ‘No. Not always. What would you like to eat?’

She pulls out one of the wooden chairs that sit round the table, checks it for stains and lowers herself on to the seat. ‘I don’t know. Everything. I feel like I haven’t eaten in a decade.’

‘Well, you didn’t make much of a go of last night’s dinner, that’s for sure.’

‘Yes. What was that?’

‘Toad in the hole.’

‘Oh my God. You’re not telling me those snags were made of toad?’

I laugh. ‘Just you wait. They have something called spotted dick.’

Mum lights a cigarette. ‘I will personally,’ she says, ‘garrotte anyone who tries to feed me something called spotted dick.’

A voice from behind me: ‘I’ll thank you not to smoke in my kitchen.’ We whirl round to find the happy smiling face of Mrs Roberts mooning at us from the back door. ‘It’s unhygienic,’ she adds.

Fifi squirms his way towards her using only his front paws, dragging his backside along the floorboards. She bends down and rubs the top of his head, accepts a good licking and advances into the kitchen. Puts a plastic bag down on the table and folds her arms.

‘Can I help you with something?’

‘Hi, Mrs Roberts,’ I say. ‘How are you this morning? This is my mother. They arrived from Brisbane yesterday.’

‘Nobody told
me
,’ she says suspiciously.

Mum sticks out a hand for shaking. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Roberts. We sprung a bit of a surprise. Didn’t tell anyone we were coming.’

‘I hope there’s enough to go around.’ Mrs Roberts ignores my mother’s hand.

‘Actually, she’s pretty much starving,’ I tell her, ‘after the journey and all. We were sort of hoping …’

‘Breakfast is at nine,’ she says firmly. Opens her plastic bag and starts digging within.

‘Well, maybe we could make ourselves some coffee and some toast or something …’ I can’t believe how tentative I sound.

‘Breakfast is at nine,’ she repeats. I sort of feel sorry for Mrs Roberts, in a way. It must have been bad for her, missing her calling as a seaside landlady and all.

‘But if we—’

‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she says, ‘I must get on.’

‘Don’t mind us,’ says Mum. ‘We’ll be out of your hair in no time.’

Mrs Roberts doesn’t respond. Pulls a bag of what looks like bacon rashers out of her bag and slaps it down on the tabletop. Crosses the floor and gets herself a large knife from the block by the sink.

Mum gets to her feet and makes for the kettle.

Mrs Roberts stabs the knife into the table-top.

We freeze.

‘Mrs Roberts—’ I begin.

‘Breakfast,’ she says, ‘is at nine.’

‘But we—’ I begin.

‘Lady Mary likes her meal-times regular. Mrs Wattestone liked them regular before her. When Lady Mary says it’s all right for all and sundry to come in here and help theirselves, and smoke all over the food, then they can do as they like. But in the meantime, I’d be grateful if you would let the running of the house go on as it always has,’ she says.

‘Christ,’ says Mum, ‘what do you
sound
like?’