Vacillations of Poppy Carew (14 page)

She felt despairing, lethargic. Without the energy to protect herself, she let herself drift as Edmund willed.

Arrived at Luigi’s, she combed her hair and washed her hands in the cloakroom, smoothed her dress. It looked great by electric light, flattering her eyes, making the colour of her hair quite interesting and—the sign of a good dress—it looked as fresh as it had when offered to her by that old woman on its hanger.

Edmund sat waiting at a table in the middle of the room. In the space of a week it had become Venetia’s favourite table, she liked to be in the centre of the restaurant to be viewed from all angles, no back to the wall banquette for her. Poppy joined him without comment. The waiter gave them each a menu.

Edmund ordered smoked eel, fillet steak, chipped potatoes and spinach. He would finish, Poppy knew, if he had a chink left, with Stilton. He must, she thought as she studied the menu, have borrowed the money from Venetia. As ever, his fear of putting on weight was defeated by his love of food.

Poppy ordered a dozen oysters (Edmund’s eyebrows rose), grilled Dover sole, matchstick potatoes and a green salad. ‘Then I’ll have an artichoke with sauce vinaigrette.’

She chose on purpose so that I shall have to order both red and white wine. (Edmund prided himself on his knowledge of wine.) He consulted the wine list, recklessly ordered two bottles, red and white. Damn her eyes. She knows I can’t stand the hours she takes eating an artichoke.

Poppy ate the oysters in slow appreciative silence, enjoying the salty juicy flesh as she bit the poor live creatures. She was beginning to feel rather cheerful, her alcoholic fog lifting. She wondered why she had never before tested the pleasure and power of silence. She watched Edmund tackle his eel, knew he expected her to offer him a glass of her white wine with it, refrained.

She sipped her wine, watched the room full of chattering diners.

Edmund started talking again. Getting on with her meal—the sole was delicious—she listened.

‘This new job of mine means quite a lot of travel.’ He bit his steak, forked up some chips.

What new job? Ah yes, he had this new job in a travel agency, it had thrilled them both in those faraway days—at least two weeks ago—before he had left her for Venetia. He was to earn twice the money he made as a house agent and there were, he had said, excellent perks. Edmund was still speaking. ‘So I thought we’d go as I have the tickets. We fly from Gatwick. It will set you up, you will get over your loss, you can lie in the sun while I do what business I have to do. The climate’s lovely at this time of year, still hot of course. I thought we’d go the day after tomorrow which gives us time to pack. I have to get some decent clothes suitable for the job.’

You’ll like that, commented Poppy in her silence. What marvellous nerve. He plotted this for Venetia, why the switch? Poppy started work on her artichoke, dipping each leaf in the sauce, letting the sauce smear her chin to see whether he would notice.

Edmund averted his eyes and went on talking (a week ago he would have hissed ‘sauce on chin, love, wipe it’), he described the African town they would visit, the sun, the sea, the beach, the food, the trips to visit the Roman antiquities, the Arab cities, the markets. He has done his homework thoroughly, read the brochure, Poppy thought, in her silence stripping off the last artichoke leaf, preparing to savour the last delicious bit, the heart. Edmund’s new job was to plan tours for his new company, undercut, if possible, the opposition.

The waiter took away Edmund’s plate. He had not the heart to order cheese, he crumbled a roll. He had run out of puff.

Poppy sipped her wine, dabbled her fingers in the finger bowl, dried them on her napkin. The oysters had been restorative, the sole delicious, the artichoke fresh and perfect. She felt very well. Glancing at Edmund under her lashes she thought, He doesn’t look too good, he’s got himself into a difficult situation.

Edmund had never before not savoured fillet steak. The last piece had nearly choked him. I should not have brought her to this restaurant full of memories. I should not have sat her at this exposed table where everyone can see us. I must not lose my nerve now. He said, ‘Poppy, listen. I love you. I cannot live without you. I have behaved—’

‘Coffee, madam?’ suggested the waiter. Poppy nodded and smiled at the waiter.

‘I have behaved badly, please forgive me. The Venetia thing was mad, an aberration.’

What nonsense, thought Poppy, how banal.

‘I am very unhappy, quite dreadfully unhappy—’

That’s right, lay it on with a shovel, thought Poppy in robust silence.

‘Please, darling let’s begin again—’

Whatever for? She kept silence.

‘I love you so much, forgive me and—’

The waiter poured coffee, rattled the cups, moving them unnecessarily, lending an ear.

‘I will try and make it up to you, Venetia doesn’t mean a thing. You mean everything to me, you always have. I love you so.’ Edmund stared at Poppy and to his horror, moved by his own eloquence, began to cry.

Raising his eyebrows the waiter moved away.

Across the table Poppy began to cry too. Edmund’s speech was maudlin muck, patently fake, having the tear-jerking quality of massed bands, God Save the Queen or A Hundred and One Dalmatians.

Poppy did not produce the swift gush of tears that were Venetia’s but two slow oily drops which hovered for a second before oozing economically on to her cheek. She wiped them away with her finger.

‘More coffee,’ suggested the waiter, coming back.

‘The bill please,’ said Edmund keeping his voice level with an effort.

‘You had better return Venetia’s car.’ Poppy spoke to him for the first time since the parting.

‘You are quite right. I shall.’ He paid the bill, calculating the tip. I shall not give him extra because he saw my tears. Churchill wept and Wellington, dammit.

They went out to Venetia’s car. He was too cautious to touch her, she might jerk away. They drove to Venetia’s flat in silence then on arrival: ‘Come up and give me a hand with my packing,’ he said from force of habit. ‘It will be quicker,’ he added to placate her. ‘I cannot help my male chauvinist piggery,’ he joked feebly expecting her to contradict him, which she didn’t.

Poppy followed him into the lift thinking he would have stood aside for Venetia, minded his manners.

Edmund let himself in at Venetia’s door, put the key down where she would find it, making sure that Poppy noticed his action, laid the car keys beside it.

In the bedroom on the bed Venetia had stacked Edmund’s clothes: ‘She’s guessed,’ said Edmund, embarrassed. He fetched his suitcase from a cupboard in the hall and prepared to pack.

‘What’s this? What on earth?’ As the full extent of Venetia’s act became clear Poppy, who had up to now felt detached and ambivalent, made up her mind.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll come to Africa.’ Was it possible, she thought, as they went down in the lift, that Edmund qualified as an outsider? That Dad was, as she had always maintained, wrong?

A
NTHONY GREEN HAD NOT
expected to see Fergus again, imagining Poppy’s proposal to rent her house and stables an idea born of the effervescence of champagne, which would subside as fast as the bubbles and, the day after the funeral, be forgotten. He was not pleased when his clerk told him Fergus was in the outer office.

Agreeing to see Fergus, Anthony decided that the quicker he discouraged him the sooner he would be rid of him.

As Poppy’s solicitor, though not the executor of her father’s will, Anthony had anticipated advising her to sell the house and invest the proceeds while she thought through what she wished to do with her life. He had yet to discover whether she wished to marry or start a new career. With capital behind her, her horizon had altered. He would advise her to take time, make no hasty decision. He hoped that with the connivance—though connivance was the wrong word—of Les Poole they should between them steer the proceeds from the sale into gilt edged harbours.

Still in search of a better word than connivance Anthony rose to greet Fergus, standing behind his knee-hole desk in his tweed jacket and corduroy trousers, it being market day in the town and many of his clients farmers or country people. Fergus’s clothes, aged jeans, flannel shirt, none too clean jersey and torn leather jacket strengthened his resolve. They shook hands.

Fergus, with few illusions about the speed with which Anthony would be prepared to work, yet expected to discuss terms of a lease of Poppy’s stables and with luck the house. He was not expecting the whole project to be blocked, which Anthony proceeded to do with a fine example of circumlocution delivered at ponderous pace while he fingered his pen and patted some papers on his blotter as though to say, ‘I have to sign these documents, you are wasting my time, please go away.’

Fergus broke in, cutting him short. ‘Has Poppy changed her mind about renting me the stables? It was her idea, Mr Green. There was mention of the house, too.’

Anthony hesitated. Naturally it was Poppy’s idea, true daughter of Bob Carew. He was here to stop such ideas coming to fruition. He must put a stop to the spirit of Bob Carew living on in his daughter.

‘Why don’t we ring her up, Mr Green, settle it one way or the other? She was perfectly sober when she had the idea, though possibly not when she told you about it. If she has changed her mind there will be no need for me to bother you any more. May I borrow your telephone, her number is—’

‘I know her number, Mr Furnival.’ Anthony failed to conceal his irritation.

‘Well, then.’ Fergus sat back smiling.

‘There are er—’

‘References? You need references?’ Fergus queried.

‘Of course.’ Anthony snatched at the proffered straw. The conversation was taking an annoying turn, but references will slow him down, put a brake on this indecent haste. A person with a mounted undertaker’s business—for some reason he could not define Anthony saw Fergus as mounted on his black horses so irreverently called Dow Jones—no person proposing to run such a business would produce reputable references. Anthony smiled thinly at Fergus across the desk. ‘Of course we shall require references, that goes without saying.’ He let his tone hint at patronage.

Fergus reached a long arm across the desk for the telephone at Anthony’s elbow and dialled Poppy’s number.

‘I say!’ Anthony was beginning to be angry. This young man was impossible.

‘Poppy?’ Fergus was speaking. ‘Did you or did you not offer to rent me your stables and possibly your house?’

‘Of course I did.’ Fergus held the receiver away from his ear so that Anthony could hear Poppy’s voice.

‘What’s the problem?’ asked Poppy.

‘Your solicitor seems to have doubts.’

‘Silly old ass. I’ll talk to him, I can’t write, I haven’t time, I’m going away, you were lucky to catch me, ten minutes more and—’

Fergus said, ‘I’m in his office, speak to him now. I shall give him references and so on.’

‘Don’t bother about references—’

‘I’d rather bother but I am in rather a hurry, winter is nigh.’

‘It’s in my soul.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Business looking up?’

‘You could say that. Here’s Mr Green.’ Fergus surrendered the telephone to its indignant owner and sat back, taking care that Anthony should see that he did not listen.

Anthony listened; he found it hard to get in more than the odd word since Poppy let fly in a voluble rush expressing her ardent definite wish to rent to Fergus, begging him to act fast before the weather closed in, elaborating on the dangers of snowdrifts and the duplicity of Nicholas Mowbray.

Fergus wrote three names, three addresses and telephone numbers on a sheet of paper and waited for Anthony to finish his conversation.

Anthony replaced the receiver rather flushed. How dare the girl who had sat on his knee as a small child (well, if she hadn’t, she could have) be so peremptory. She had brushed aside his rearguard action, almost ordered—‘She seems quite anxious to rent you her premises,’ he said cautiously. Fergus said ‘Good,’ keeping his eyes on his sheet of paper. ‘These are my references.’ He pushed it across the desk.

Anthony, still ruffled by the tone Poppy had seen fit to use, took the paper. The names of Fergus’s references leapt from the page. ‘These are?’ he asked keeping his voice in neutral.

‘My stepfather, my godfather, my uncle. Should you require others—’

‘These will do very well, I dare say.’ On no account, Anthony told himself, admit that you had not guessed Fergus was one of
those
Furnivals. How could one possibly be expected to connect an undertaker with such—well, not to put too fine a point on it—exalted people. God help poor old Brightson’s, he whispered to himself. ‘Well now, suppose I make you a lease for a year and we review it at the end of that time with the prospect of renewal. Would that suit you, Mr Furnival?’

‘Yes,’ said Fergus. ‘Fine. How long will that take?’

‘Let’s say a week since you are in a hurry.’

Fergus extended his hand. ‘Thanks, I’d like to move in pretty soon.’

‘Of course,’ said Anthony, generous in defeat. ‘May I wish you every success in your enterprise. I dare say you will make your fortune—’

Standing up, a head taller than Anthony, Fergus said, ‘Success isn’t just money Mr G. Bob Carew’s funeral meant his daughter felt better because she gave her father something he had wanted. She felt guilty about him. Taking the trouble to have me and my horses goes a little way to assuage the guilt.’

‘Guilt?’ Anthony frowned.

‘Didn’t you feel guilty when your parents died?’

‘No,’ said Anthony, who had never crossed his parents.

‘How unusual, lucky you.’ Fergus looked at him with interest. ‘We could have a fascinating conversation on the subject of guilt but I won’t waste your time. I must be off. Goodbye.’

Watching Fergus go, Anthony thought that after all connivance had been the right word to use in that context; it would have been wrong to manoeuvre Poppy into selling her house. He would see to that lease right away.

He rang for his clerk.