A Surrey State of Affairs (13 page)

Once again, bell ringing drew me out of myself. I was forced to abandon all mournful thoughts of yawning empty marquees and apply myself to ringing. Bell ringing is a far more intricate and demanding activity than people realize. I feel certain that counting out the complex rhythms has helped Miss Hughes maintain her mental sharpness. She was back last night in her usual form, poking Daphne when she mistimed her entry and asking Reginald why he had failed to make sure the floor was swept. I looked at her, and I looked at Gerald, who was sniffing loudly in between rings, and I wondered.

Gerald is fifty-nine, shuffling his way toward retirement from the history department of the boys’ school. He is currently an emotional car wreck, but prior to Rosemary’s departure he was a steady, contented sort of man, who collected and pressed rare wildflowers and would take his children on holiday to Hadrian’s Wall. Happiness to him was a rare orchid, or a well-preserved portcullis.

Miss Hughes, on the other hand, is slightly his senior, retired from a career as a doctor’s receptionist. I believe she used to find happiness in informing patients that there were no available appointments until a week from Thursday. She has substituted this for waving her stick at the village youths for dropping litter. I doubt whether Kindred Spirits would award them a “five heart” compatibility rating, and yet I believe there are reasonable grounds for hope.

Gerald is now meandering hopelessly through life, threadbare, at a loss; his closest relationship is with a four-month-old black
Labrador. Miss Hughes could be just what he needs to whip him back into shape. And Gerald might be just the project she needs now that she has successfully stripped all the ivy from her privet hedge. With this in mind, during our tea break I decided to ask Miss Hughes some questions designed to cast her in a favorable light for Gerald.

“Tell me, Miss Hughes,” I said. “Have you ever been tempted to get yourself a dog to keep you company in the cottage?”

“A dog?” she said, one thin eyebrow arched, before informing us all that the only purpose of dogs was to collect birds that had been shot, and that anything else was just piffle. I watched Gerald closely; rather than attending to Miss Hughes’s words he was staring straight ahead with a distant, dreamy look in his eyes and a piece of lint hovering on his mustache. This may take more work than I had anticipated.

  
THURSDAY, MARCH 6

A horrific thought has occurred to me. I have been dwelling, once again, on Rupert’s failure to bring home a girlfriend, and also on his reluctance to agree to my plan to put his profile on the
Telegraph
’s dating service.

I do not wish to countenance such an idea of my own flesh and blood, whom Jeffrey and I have done our best to raise on the straight and narrow, but I can no longer quell my doubts.

Could Rupert’s preferences and predilections lie in another direction? Could I have been fundamentally mistaken about him all these years?

Could he, in short—I can scarcely bring myself to type it—could he be a closet
Guardian
reader?

I am not sure whether to confront him and demand to know the truth, or whether, in cases such as these, ignorance is bliss.

  
FRIDAY, MARCH 7

A text message from Rupert. It read:
Hi Mum, sorry I hung up. Love Rupert.

Oh, Lord. You know what they say about liberal guilt. Perhaps it is true.

  
SATURDAY, MARCH 8

A strange conversation with Natalia. I suppose, due to her partial grasp of the English language, all conversations with her are strange, but this one was marked by its alarming subject matter as well as its style. I was just taking a stroll in the garden, enjoying the spring sunshine and checking that the new gardener had put enough bulbs down last year, when Natalia appeared. She had been taking sheets down off the line and was carrying them in a big bundle. “Mizziz Harding,” she said. “I want talk to you.” It was like being spoken to by a pillowcase with eyes. I took the laundry hamper from her, and put it on the ground. She looked suddenly exposed, and put one hand in her pocket and used the other to twirl her hair. She said that she had a big, big favor to ask. She said that she had a twin sister, Lydia, who was very sad because her boyfriend was a bad man and he had left her for a blond woman with a job in a bank and a big car. I nodded sympathetically, reflecting on the universal nature of the scoundrel, but wondered when she would get to the point. She said that her sister was studying but had a break for Easter, and that she had saved some money and maybe could buy her Lydia a ticket to come and stay and see some of England and get happy again.

Readers, do not think I have a heart of stone. I was not unmoved by this story of Lithuanian love and loss. In normal circumstances I would have welcomed this suffering twin, despite the many hazards that a double serving of Natalia could produce.
But she wanted her to visit at Easter, the very time that Sophie will be back from her eco lodge, ready perhaps at last for a few nice chats and a shopping trip for a new spring mackintosh. I regret to say that Sophie and Natalia do not get along, Nata-lia resenting Sophie’s mess, Sophie resenting Natalia’s habit of moving her things about, humming loudly, and allegedly once stealing her black-cherry nail polish. An extraneous Lithuanian would put her in a foul mood for the whole week and ruin my plans. It was not to be.

I told Natalia as kindly as I could that Easter week would not be possible, but that Lydia was welcome to visit another time. She stared at me in silence, her heavily made-up eyes narrowing to wavy black lines. Then she picked up the laundry, staggered once under the weight, and walked away.

  
SUNDAY, MARCH 9

Jeffrey surprised me at breakfast. I was calmly decapitating a boiled egg and reading a feature in the newspaper about “trophy wives” when he said that there was something he wanted to talk to me about. I put down my teaspoon. This was a rare event.

“It’s about Natalia,” he said, increasing my surprise. The affairs of our housekeeper are not usually his concern. However, she was apparently so upset by my refusal to allow her twin to visit that she had appealed to his higher authority. “I really think we should let her have her way, old girl,” he said, the prospect of a distraught young girl putting a compassionate gleam in his eye. “What harm could it do?”

I was torn. I am usually happy to follow Jeffrey’s guidance in all matters except for the color of table linen, but on this occasion I felt something within me rebel. I had plans for that weekend involving our daughter. I had already handled the situation with the housekeeper. If I am in charge of domestic affairs, then I am
in charge of domestic affairs, come what may. I told him that I didn’t think it would work and went steadfastly back to reading the newspaper. (I wonder if Tanya counts as a trophy wife? She is certainly much younger than Mark, and very pretty in a soap-opera-star sort of way, but I can’t help but feel that her dark brown roots must rule her out.)

Jeffrey was clearly in a conciliatory mood because he followed me to church without complaining and then listened to Mother tell the same story about how the new foreign nurse had hidden her slippers twice. He must really pity Natalia. Beneath that cool, dignified, English exterior he has a heart that melts like our reduced-salt Lurpak butter.

  
MONDAY, MARCH 10

Where to start? It has taken me six vials of Bach Rescue Remedy, an hour of lying in a darkened room, and the help of a Facebook support network to calm my nerves enough to write this blog.

This morning, Darcy escaped. Darcy, my beloved parrot, my most loyal companion. I have always guarded so carefully against this happening. Every time I let him have a flutter about the conservatory to stretch his majestic wings, I always check and double-check that the windows are shut first. It was Natalia’s doing. It must have been. She has the motive, and the malice.

Today at about 10:00, I let Darcy out of his cage and shut the conservatory door firmly behind me to go and pour myself a cup of coffee in the kitchen. At 10:05 I was gazing out at the lawn and thinking that I must get the new gardener to tackle the moss when I saw something out of the corner of my eye: a glint of emerald plumage rocketing off above the rhododendrons. It took me a moment to understand what I had seen. When I did, I have
to admit that I abandoned my usual notions of feminine restraint and bellowed like a stricken ox.

The next few hours passed in a blur. I ran across the lawn and out onto the street in my bare feet. I ran up the pavement, grit sticking into my soles, and watched as his little silhouette faded away into a heartbreaking nothingness.

I went back to the house. I cried. I summoned Natalia and shouted at her. She shrugged. I phoned Jeffrey’s office and pleaded with his PA to haul him out of a meeting.

And finally, I went back out again, and as I was pacing the streets, squinting at the horizon, Tanya drove past in her big black Toyota four-by-four. She was so kind that I will never again look askance at her hair extensions.

As soon as she understood the situation, she packed some Waitrose organic muesli to use as bait, and drove me around the village green, then Surrey Heath, Richmond Park, and eventually as far as Hampstead Heath. We came across a few clusters of parakeets, each of which made my heart surge, but none contained birds of Darcy’s stature. After four long hours, we had to return empty-handed. My mouth was dry, my stomach cold and tight.