The Country Life (29 page)

‘Hello?' I called out imperiously, as if to a stranger caught sneaking about my property.

‘Afternoon,' said Mr Trimmer, drawing to an immediate halt at the sound of my voice and apparently waiting for permission to complete the final two or three yards to where we sat. He raised a hand as if to touch an invisible hat. As he lowered it, his eyes fell upon my exposed legs.

‘Hello, Jack,' said Martin affably, grinning at him in an evil manner. He waved an arm in encouragement. ‘Come on over. Have you come to see Stella?'

There was a considerable pause.

‘I met her,' said Mr Trimmer, planting himself in front of us where we sat, with his eyes averted and his hands clasped before
him, like a man about to sing the national anthem, ‘in the top field.'

‘Ah,' said Martin.

I felt that Mr Trimmer had been intending to enlarge on his description of our meeting, but that Martin's peremptory assent had cut the thread of his discourse. He fell silent, his face working in a peculiar sideways motion, apparently recovering from the interruption. His eyes strayed to my legs and then darted away. Presently he seemed to have gathered his momentum once more, and opened his mouth to speak.

‘She was taken ill,' he said. ‘I came to see if she was better.'

‘I'm much better, thank you,' I said. I found that I too was speaking slowly. My face was burning. I caught Martin looking at me out of the corner of my eye. ‘It was very kind of you to come.'

Despite my lugubrious diction, that fact that I was speaking directly to him seemed to hit Mr Trimmer like a strong jet of water. His face wore a crumpled expression of heroic resistance, as if at any moment he might fall over.

‘I was going to mend that step,' he said. ‘I was on my way to do it when I saw you.'

My complaint had evidently been festering in his thoughts all afternoon; and touched by his avowal, I refrained from enquiring as to how he had thought he would mend the step with a gun rather than a hammer and nails.

‘I realized that you probably were,' I said, anxious that my reply sounded more complex than it actually was. ‘Afterwards. I would have hurt myself if you hadn't stopped me.'

Martin was watching this tortured exchange with unconcealed fascination, an unpleasant smile on his face.

‘Thank you for coming,' I said, nodding enthusiastically in the hope of drawing our interview to a close.

Mr Trimmer stood on, plinthed on the grass by his large, leather-booted feet.

‘Would you consider,' he finally pronounced, while Martin's head wagged up and down below him at every word, ‘coming out with me one evening?'

‘Oh!' I said, horrified. I laughed shrilly. ‘That's very kind of you. I don't know if I can, though. I'm usually quite busy over at the house in the evenings.'

‘No, you're not,' declared Martin. ‘She'd love to come out with you, Jack. She can come tomorrow.'

‘Tomorrow?' said Mr Trimmer to Martin, as if he were responsible for the transaction. Seeming to realize that this was incorrect, he turned back to me. ‘Would that be all right?'

‘I suppose so,' I said, defeated.

‘I'll call here at eight, then.'

‘That would be lovely,' I rallied. ‘I'll see you then. Goodbye.'

Mr Trimmer seemed surprised at being so abruptly dismissed, but he took it well enough, and bidding goodbye to both of us turned and made his way back down the garden, his elbows flying out to either side as if he were in a hurry.

‘Thanks,' I said to Martin.

‘It serves you right.' He raised his glass to his lips. ‘Besides, you said you liked him.'

I lay on my back on the grass. ‘What on earth are we going to talk about for an entire evening? And where will we go?'

Martin did not reply, and when I looked at him I saw that he was watching me with a peculiar expression on his face.

‘You've got nice legs,' he said in a strangled voice.

Some time later, Martin and I moved uncertainly through the penumbral gloom of the garden back to the house. We had drunk the better part of the bottle of gin, the remainder of which I had hidden at the back of one of the kitchen cupboards. My theft of the bottle had seemed more and more extraordinary to me as the evening progressed, particularly under the increasing influence of its contents. Martin's behaviour with Mr Trimmer, and the underhand manner in which he had contrived my assignation with him, as well as the assignation itself, took on similarly absurd proportions. In fact, only my inebriation remained real, along with thoughts of what the Maddens would do if they discovered it.

The effect of the gin on Martin was even more worrying. He had grown boisterous and red-faced, and by the time I had wheeled him to the back door and up the corridor was singing a raucous medley of unidentifiable songs, accompanying himself with writhing motions on an invisible guitar in his lap.

‘Calm down!' I whispered fiercely in his ear as we manoeuvred our way through the annexe and into the hall. ‘You've caused enough trouble.'

‘Oh, Stel-la!' he whined, lolling back in his chair. ‘Don't be so cross all the time. You're
always
…
cross
.'

His head fell forward, as if he were asleep. At this I was genuinely alarmed and I stopped the chair and knelt beside him.

‘Martin? Are you all right?'

His head shot up so suddenly that I leaped back in fright.

‘I'm fine. You're the one that should be worried.'

‘Why?'

‘You look weird.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I dunno. It's your eyes or something. They look weird. And you're still wearing your shorts. My mummy won't like those. Not at dinner.'

Withered by this unexpected blast of acuity, I stood paralysed in the hall. In the evening's confusion, I had entirely forgotten the inappropriateness of my outfit.

‘Stay here,' I said. ‘I'm going to go and change.'

At that moment, Pamela's voice issued faintly from the drawing room.

‘Stella? Martin? Is that you?'

‘Yes!' bellowed Martin.

‘Where've you
beet
? We've been waiting for you for
hours
!'

‘Too late,' he said. ‘Come on, it doesn't matter. They won't even notice.'

Why I accepted this pabulum of reassurance I can't imagine. In the dreaminess of drink I had forgotten the sharp prick of the social misdemeanour; but I felt it in all its steely agony as we entered the drawing room and the assembled company's eyes lighted as one on my cut-off trousers.

‘Good God!' said Pamela, a menacing smile on her face. ‘Those are very saucy!'

‘Wheeew,' whistled Toby, lounging contentedly on a sofà at the far side of the room.

‘Drinks?' said Mr Madden, rising dutifully from his chair.

‘No, thank you,' I said.

‘Yes, please,' said Martin. ‘Leave her alone,' he added, directing his remark at Toby, who was still whistling away on the sofa.

‘It was
intended
as a compliment,' drawled Toby. I realized that only in that moment had the idea of me entered his head; and that he was entertaining it, moreover, idly, for want of anything better to do. The tangled skein of my wasted, thought-racked afternoon rose up before me in all its monstrous fantasy.

‘She doesn't need your compliments,' said Martin haughtily. ‘She's embarrassed, and I don't blame her. Those were the only clean things she had to change into. I assured her that none of you would be rude, and you have been. I'm ashamed of you all.'

This final touch, trespassing as it did into excess, threatened to topple the heroic structure of Martin's speech; but to my surprise it held.

‘Sor-
ry
,' said Toby ironically.

‘I think she looks charming,' added Pamela. ‘Why not, if you've got the figure for it? That's what I say.'

I forgave Martin instantly for the transgressions of the afternoon. Pamela I regarded as having levelled her score. Toby was now reassuringly lodged deep in my contempt; and thus set to rights, I felt rather more in the mood for another drink.

‘Actually, I will have something,' I said confidentially to Mr Madden, as he passed with his tray. He bent his head towards me and I caught a gust of his breath.

‘G-and-T?'

‘Lovely.'

‘We were just talking about Friday,' said Pamela, in her ‘hostess' voice. ‘I think it's going to be a real hoot. Mark and Millie are coming down for the night, and Derek and Caroline, and then there'll be all of us—'

‘What's Friday?' said Martin, wheeling himself towards the fireplace.

‘Honestly, Martin, you are the end,' said Pamela crossly. She looked over her shoulder. Mr Madden was safely from the room. ‘It's your father's birthday, in case you have forgotten. Sometimes I wonder if you ever think about anybody but yourself.'

With my advocate thus cast into disfavour, my cut-off trousers seemed to regain something of their controversy. I sidled to the sofa on which Pamela was sitting and stood behind it.

‘Dad's birthday's on Saturday,' said Martin.

‘I know, but we're
celebrating
it on Friday. Mark and Millie can't make Saturday. They've got to be back in London for something.'

‘Darling!' Mr Madden's voice floated in from the hall. ‘Have we run out of gin?'

‘Of course not!' Pamela shouted back. ‘There's a new bottle in the cupboard in the kitchen.'

‘No there isn't,' said Mr Madden, appearing in the doorway and scratching his head.

‘There must be!' Pamela turned around on the sofà to look at him. ‘I only bought it a couple of days ago. In fact, I saw it there earlier today!'

I tried to catch Martin's eye, but he was watching his parents as they debated the matter with so comically innocent an expression on his face that I prayed they wouldn't look at him. I myself, surprisingly, did not panic. After Mr Madden's first mention of the gin, I had checked internally my capacity to lie, as someone going down a steep hill in a car would check their brakes, and found it to be intact. I had no doubt that if questioned, I would deny all knowledge of the theft. Of my accomplice I was not so sure.

‘Well, it isn't there now,' said Mr Madden.

‘Are you sure you really looked?' persisted Pamela, putting
her hand on the arm of the sofa as though she were about to get up.

‘Of course I did!' said Mr Madden crossly. ‘I'm not an idiot.'

‘Well, you do miss things sometimes, darling,' said Pamela condescendingly. ‘You know what you're like. It was definitely there this morning.'

‘I promise you that it isn't there now.'

There was a moment of silence.

‘Well!
How
peculiar!' said Pamela finally. ‘I wonder what could have happened to it?'

‘Are you sure you bought a new one?' said Martin, to my horror. ‘Perhaps you left it in the shop or something.'

‘Don't be ridiculous,' snapped Pamela. ‘Anyway, as I said, I saw it this morning.'

‘Perhaps you only
thought
you did.'

‘Why on earth would I think a thing like that if it wasn't true?'

‘Well,' said Martin. ‘Let's say you
did
buy a bottle but left it in the shop; your memory of
having bought it
might have created the illusion of it being in the cupboard. You might have created that illusion to reassure yourself that it was there, because subconsciously you remembered leaving it in the shop. Things like that happen all the time,' he added, chewing his finger.

‘Are you sure you didn't leave it in the shop, darling?' echoed Mr Madden, evidently converted to this new theory.

‘Of course I am!' said Pamela. She put a hand to her head. ‘God, I must be going mad.'

‘It's Alzheimer's,' said Toby, sniggering. ‘What's your name, dear?'

‘
Could
I have left it behind?' whispered Pamela, a look of fierce concentration on her face. ‘Let me think. I went to the supermarket—'

‘What's the date?' continued Toby in a loud voice. ‘1967? No, you're a bit out, dear. Try again.'

‘Shush!' cried Pamela, raising a hand to silence him. He
sniggered again. She sat, evidently deep in thought, and finally raised an astonished face to the room. ‘Do you know, I
must
have. How silly of me. I must have left it there. God, do you think I really am going bonkers?'

‘Absent-mindedness is a sign of intelligence,' said Martin. ‘Apparently.'

‘Oh well,' said Mr Madden. ‘We'll have to have something else.'

‘No, no, let's just get on with dinner,' said Pamela distractedly. ‘It's all ready.'

I caught Martin's eye several times as we sat around the dinner table, in the hope of telegraphing to him my approval, but each time he merely looked at me blankly as if he had no idea why I was glancing so significantly at him. I soon, however, forgot about the incident; for with Toby sitting beside me, I found myself once more drawn in to the covert conflict his presence seemed inevitably to set in motion, by which with every proof of stupidity or boorishness issued by his brain the form which enclosed it advanced in loveliness.

It is difficult to explain how it could be that I found myself increasingly attracted to someone of whom my opinion correspondingly descended. I had never experienced such a thing before. It was, I suspected, the very weakness of his personality that gave fatal embellishment to the thought of being physically overpowered by him; for without a rival intelligence to negotiate, without the whole vast and varied territory of taste, intellect and conversation to be explored and cultivated, the sexual domain lay invitingly close by, ripe for momentary plunder. I had no doubt that Toby's charms appeared accessible to everyone he met; but the cheapness of my desire did not make it any less urgent. I wondered that I did not feel more guilty at the thought of Edward, for whom, though I clearly knew him to be the better person, I had not felt this greed; and who, so short a time ago, I had injured so deeply and so wantonly that an entire lifetime of virtue would not have paid
for it. I imagined him looking into my thoughts there at the dinner table, but although I felt ashamed, I could not support the opposition for long. I had freed myself from Edward as one would release the hand of someone dangling over a precipice: because my own survival had depended on it. At least, that was how I had seen it at the time. Increasingly, I was coming to regard my action as less catastrophic for all concerned; in other words, that
I
had been the dangling figure, and had let go merely because it had hurt too much, and seemed too hopeless, to hang on; and that when I had had the good fortune to land on something soft and yielding, I had merely neglected to inform Edward of the fact. He, I didn't doubt, was grieving at my disappearance; but at least he would have the chance to recover. Had I stayed with him longer, his portion of blame would have grown larger and larger, his innocence less. My unhappiness would have infected him; an infection he might have passed on to the next person he loved.