A Tale of Two Families (5 page)

They drank their coffee and ate expensive peppermint creams, radiating love and cherishing inner secrecy. Soon the telephone rang.

Corinna said, ‘
This’ll
be Dickon.’

Dickon was telephoning from his headmaster’s study which could be borrowed in the evenings by pupils who wished to telephone their families. Prudence, perched on the desk, was amusing herself by switching the desk light off and on. When it was off, she could see, through the wide picture-window, the moon rising over Buckinghamshire countryside. When she switched on, the room became cosily intimate. There was a smell of pipe smoke, tweed, and pine soap which Prudence found pleasant. At ten years old she had been in love with Brian Foster. Now, a mature fifteen, she sniffed his room nostalgically.

Dickon, having been assured by Corinna that he and Prue could have the flat for the next night, said, ‘Though if you’d rather not clear out we could all doss down together. You and Prue could share the parents’ bed and Hugh could have your room.’

Corinna said, ‘Thanks, but I’m not wild to share a double bed, even with Prue.’

Prue, her ear now close to the telephone, interpolated loudly, ‘Me, neither. Nasty things, double beds.’

‘The parents have got new twin beds at the Dower House,’ said Corinna.

‘Marriage breaking up, no doubt,’ said Dickon. ‘We must beg them not to make us children of a broken home.’

‘Ha, ha,’ said Corinna satirically. ‘I wonder why so many boys get facetious when they turn fifteen.’

‘Quite true,’ said Dickon. ‘I have a sort of nervous itch to be funny. But I’m on to it.’

‘Good for you. Any exciting school news?’

‘Well, exciting for some. We’re having a tiny sex-wave.’

‘Oh, dear. Does Brian know?’

‘Yes, indeed. He’s torn between notifying parents and doling out contraceptives. Actually, there have only been two cases but it may be catching.’

‘I never heard of anything like that in our time. Just a minute… Hugh says neither did he.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t, either of you. To the pure, all things are pure.’

‘Who are you calling pure?’ said Corinna indignantly.

‘You, love – and Hugh. Ever so, both of you. Well, shall we catch a glimpse of you tomorrow?’

‘I doubt it,’ said Corinna. ‘I’ll leave the key with the Hall Porter. Hope you enjoy the National Theatre.’

‘I shall enjoy it more when you’re its leading lady.’

‘Facetious again,’ said Corinna coldly. ‘Well, goodbye.’

Dickon, hanging up, said, ‘She sounded peeved by my last remark.’

‘I don’t wonder. She thought you were making fun of her.’

‘I suppose I was, really. Well, we both know she can’t act.’

‘We don’t
know
anything of the sort. The fact that she wants to so much may mean something.’

‘Only that she got taken to a good many theatres when she was young and impressionable.’

‘So did you and you don’t want to act.’

‘Ah, but I’m not impressionable,’ said Dickon. ‘Actually, I wouldn’t mind doing something on television, documentaries or the like. I’d try if I had Hugh’s looks.’

Dickon resembled his father, without as yet enough personality to make an ordinary face interesting.

‘I wouldn’t want to act even if I turned into a raving beauty.’

‘Which one doubts if you will,’ said Dickon judicially. ‘But you won’t be too bad when you’ve slimmed down a bit. I don’t actually dislike red hair. We’d better go. Brian, in his new, suspicious mood will think we’re up to something.’

‘Not us, surely. He’s always saying we’re like brother and sister.’

‘He said that about Hugh and Corinna – lulling Mother into a state of false security. Whereas even before they left here they were mooning around looking like star-crossed lovers.’

‘Why star-crossed?’

‘Because they were so good and so beautiful. You know it’s pretty ironic that Mother chose a co-educational school for us four to stop us falling in love with each other. She told me that.’

‘Well, it’s a sound idea on the whole,’ said Prudence. ‘You can’t count Hugh and Corinna, because they’ve loved each other from birth. Oh, I know there are flukes like our mini-sex wave but, for the average child, co-education’s wildly unromantic. I haven’t felt a spasm of attraction for anyone since my first term, and then it was for Brian.’

‘Good God, how repulsive,’ said Dickon. ‘Well, let’s get back to your ex-heart-throb.’

Prudence switched the desk light off and took one last nostalgic sniff at the room. Then they rejoined their Headmaster, who was presiding over a debate on ‘We can preserve law and order while preserving the complete liberty of the individual’. Dickon intended to speak against the motion. Prudence intended to consider Brian carefully, in case any spark lingered in the ashes. She didn’t feel hopeful.

Whenever June looked back on their early days in the country she remembered sunshine, vividly green grass, budding trees, wonderful meals and much laughter – even when things went wrong, they went wrong amusingly. All this, in retrospect, was jumbled together in a vague blur of happiness; she found she could not recall very many actual days, they merged into each other. But there was one day – or rather, night – which she could recapture in detail and often did, thinking of it as a trend-setter for the weeks that followed.

That particular night was their first. She would always remember George and Robert and Baggy coming out of the spring evening into the white panelled hall of the Dower House. George had kissed her and admired her dress, and Robert – not always so tactful – had admired May’s. Then they had all escorted Baggy to see his bed-sitting-room which he had said was very impressive; after which, having taken the cushion-piled divan for a sofa, he had asked where the bed was. May had whipped off the divan cover to show him, and George had bounced on the divan to demonstrate its softness, and then they had left Baggy to have a wash in his very own bathroom, and trooped off to the Long Room.

George had called for champagne which, of course, May had ready. (She’d said to June, ‘He’s sure to want to celebrate – and whether he does or not,
I
do.’) And they had toasted each other and their new homes, and George and Robert had been given a full account of the whole day. Then there had been a telephone call to Hugh and Corinna, followed by conversation about what those two might be up to, the general impression being that they wouldn’t be up to anything, in spite of May’s half-hopes
to the contrary – ‘Well, there’s a
chance
that it might stop them marrying.’ June said she was shocked by May’s attitude and they all discussed present-day permissiveness. June said she was as permissive as anyone about other people’s children but not about her own – ‘or perhaps it’s just that I feel it’s awful to talk about it, somehow it’s an invasion of their privacy’. She was then given more champagne by George who said, ‘I bet the four of us would have been permissive all right, if there had been anything to stop us getting married as soon as we wanted to.’ But it turned out that George was alone in thinking this.

After that, someone had remembered that Baggy was all alone and George went to get him. He drank very little of his champagne and June told May that cocoa was his evening drink. Cocoa was one of the things May had
not
brought with her, but she had some cooking chocolate and was able not only to make Baggy a cup of it but also supply him with a Thermosful to see him through the night. She also cut
foie gras
sandwiches for everyone. June disapproved of these because of the poor tortured geese but, for once, swallowed her scruples along with the
foie gras.

May chivvied them all to bed fairly soon because George would have to catch an early morning train; he had booked the taxi that had brought them from the station. Torches were found – trust May to have a special torch drawer, already equipped – and then George and May insisted on escorting Robert and June through the lilac grove; May had by now learned her way about this. In the torchlight, the grassy paths were brilliantly green, here and there sprinkled with lingering snowdrops. And out on the little lawn in front of the cottage, the daffodil shoots were already thick.

‘How marvellous everything’s going to be,’ said May.

‘How marvellous everything is now,’ said June.

George told Robert he ought to carry June over the threshold of the cottage.

‘What nonsense,’ said June, ‘I weigh a ton.’

‘Let’s see,’ said George, and himself carried her into the little hall.

Much laughter, much kissing goodnight. May kissed June, George kissed June, Robert kissed May – to June’s relief; Robert, unlike George, was not a natural kisser and, though fond of May, did not always pay her as much attention as June felt he should. But tonight he behaved with so much warmth that she almost expected him to kiss George.

Robert hadn’t wished to go over the cottage that night – ‘We should start shifting furniture around’ – so they’d gone straight upstairs; from the landing window they’d seen flashes of light where May and George were making their way back through the lilac grove. June was glad that the beds were made up and turned down invitingly, and she had put out Robert’s pyjamas and dressing gown.

He said, ‘How good of you to find time to unpack for me.’

‘I’m afraid I didn’t have time to unpack
all
our clothes.’

‘Plenty of time for that tomorrow. Plenty of time for everything.’

‘Bliss, sheer bliss. Oh, Robert!’ In sudden exuberance she flung herself on him.

He was welcoming, if slightly astonished. ‘Are you sure you’re not too tired?’

‘Oh, I wasn’t really making overtures. But I can’t say I
am
tired.’

‘I can’t imagine ever being tired again.’

Somehow the fact that they were all on their own in this tiny house and the tiny house was all on its own in the countryside – not cheek by jowl with neighbouring houses (and no Baggy in the next room) – seemed to June both romantic and sexually exciting – ‘It’s like being on our honeymoon.’

‘It’s not, thank God,’ said Robert, and reminded her of various ludicrous aspects of their honeymoon including the uncomfortable hotel bed and the drunk gentleman who had thumped on their door, at the most tactless of moments, wanting to know
why
this room wasn’t his. They exchanged memories while they undressed and learned their way round the bathroom – June said, ‘There ought to be a law that the hot taps are always on the same side.’ (Not that, as yet, the hot water came out hot; but Robert surprised himself by finding out how to put on the heater.) Then, with the light out, they stood at the window to take a last look at the night.

‘No moon,’ said June, with slight complaint.

‘There was one but it’s clouded over. Anyway, a moon would really be too much.’

In the early days of marriage June, after reading that some women, while being made love to by their husbands, thought of some other man, had – while responding enthusiastically to Robert’s love-making – allowed herself to think of George. The experiment had not been a success. She had ended by feeling she was insulting both Robert and George and, for once in her life, had had no fun whatever. She was, on the whole, pleased about this because it proved to her that she loved Robert in every way and nothing she felt for George menaced Robert’s happiness. She was just a wonderfully lucky woman who could find complete satisfaction in her marriage plus a little extra satisfaction (known to nobody but herself) outside it.
Nothing
to worry about.

And that first night at the cottage, lying awake after Robert was asleep, but not lying awake through any lack of satisfaction, she allowed herself the extra satisfaction of recalling her feelings when George had carried her over the threshold of the cottage. ‘Mrs Have-it-both-ways,’ she told herself. ‘Well, lucky old me.’

The next morning the sun shone and the honeymoon period for both households was well and truly underway. June and Robert slept until May thumped on the front door and shouted an invitation to breakfast with her. She had already been up for well over an hour, given George breakfast and seen him off in a taxi, taken Baggy breakfast in bed – ‘Though he insisted on getting out of bed to eat it’ – and made her plans for the day. Foremost of these was the discovery of some domestic help.

And by lunchtime, after an almost house-to-house enquiry in the village, she had unearthed a thin, wiry Mrs Matson who never had but thought she might. And it was to turn out that Mrs Matson was really three helps, not one. On the slightest provocation her aged mother-in-law and fifteen-year-old daughter would come up and lend a hand. Only one Matson was officially employed. The others were merely rewarded by free meals. But the official Mrs Matson’s wages were (unofficially) larger when Mrs Matson, senior, say, cleaned the silver or Miss Matson, say, did a bit of weeding. It was all probably illegal but it worked splendidly.

May also unearthed, only a few days later, an excellent carpenter who put up two magnificent cupboards on a landing – ‘Such bliss to be able to hang up all one’s summer dresses in winter and all one’s winter dresses in summer, instead of putting them away in cardboard boxes – and however much tissue paper one uses the creases never really come out until the clothes are cleaned, and one had them cleaned before they were put away.’ June’s summer and winter clothes shared a wardrobe with Robert’s suits and only got cleaned when they were dirty, but she admired May’s summer and winter cupboards and assisted with the painting of wild roses on one and snowdrops on the other. May then decided that these looked ‘amateur’ and painted them out – ‘After all, I can remember which cupboard is which.’

June eventually came to the conclusion that May was invincible as regards laying hands on any kind of help she might conceivably need – ‘If you wanted to have the Crown Jewels repaired you’d find someone to do it.’

‘Well, Tom tells me there
is
a particularly good little working jeweller, two villages away. I did think I might have one or two things reset.’

Tom was the taxi driver who had first brought them to the Dower House. May came to use him much as if he were her chauffeur and his taxi her private car. ‘Well, it’s cheaper than buying an extra car – and I’d have to learn to drive it. And Tom’s so helpful.’

June was roped in for all May’s outings and always given a share of May’s discoveries. (Mrs Matson,
mère et fille
, spent a good bit of time cleaning at the cottage, and the carpenter put up shelves wherever the cottage could find room for them.) The sisters were always happy in each other’s company. ‘Really,’ May pointed out after a few weeks, ‘we’ve spent more time together than in all the years since we’ve been married. Oh, June darling, it
is
working out, isn’t it? And the boys like it.’

The boys undoubtedly did. Robert, now, even enjoyed his critical work and his one day a week in London. And he would have started his novel at once had he not been put off by too much help from May. She persuaded Sarah Strange to show him over part of the Hall and he even had a brief meeting with Sarah’s grandfather who, if vague, was civil. Unfortunately Robert found both the old man and his house disillusioning. They weren’t Gothic, they were decayed Edwardian, quite unlike the Hall’s Palladian exterior and Robert’s mental picture of crumbling glories within. He must return to the Hall of his imagination. It would come back in time. Meanwhile, he would relax and enjoy the swiftly unfolding spring.

What George enjoyed as much as anything – to his surprise – was getting up early; well, not the actual getting up, but being up, being given breakfast by May, driving himself to the station through the fresh early morning, then the hour’s journey on the train when he almost always had a First Class carriage to himself and could put in uninterrupted work on the day ahead. The return journey was as convivial as the journey to town was solitary. The train was usually full and he was soon on chatting terms with any number of cheerful men commuting to their country homes. George liked men
en masse
– but not women; women needed to be known individually. Not that, for the present, he felt any need to know any women in any way, apart from May and June.

He found his evenings delightful. May always gave him an admirable dinner, and if, as occasionally, she had some job to finish afterwards, he would stroll over to see Robert and June. There was nearly always something he wanted to discuss and often some present he wanted to take. George particularly liked bringing presents home for the two households; food, books, gramophone records, absurd puzzles. Baggy would spend hours over the puzzles.

The dear old man was generally believed to be both comfortable and happy – and so he was, he frequently told himself, once he’d got used (well, more or less) to his room. (Never would he forget that first night. When he closed his heavy curtains – you had to pull complicated strings – he felt claustrophobic, but with the curtains unclosed he seemed to be sleeping in the front garden;
not
normal to sleep in a ground-floor room. He’d been thankful for May’s Thermos of hot chocolate. He had that every night and it was an improvement on just one cup of cocoa; not that he lay awake much now he’d got quite to like his squashy bed.)
He felt sure his daily walks in the country air were healthy – if none too safe: no pavements, and cars came so quickly and rarely sounded their horns; also he could have done with more houses. On London walks he had found it interesting to notice when house property changed hands and to investigate, when possible, what price had been paid. But what really counted now was the pleasure of seeing George every evening. And May’s cooking was splendid – though he wasn’t nowadays particularly interested in food; old age, no doubt. Probably old age, too, accounted for his aversion to his bathroom. Baths had become a duty rather than a pleasure. Well, wisest to take each day as it came along – which, anyway, one had to.

Hugh and Corinna, on their first weekend, approved of everything but with less exuberance than their parents could have wished. Hugh realised that a little more excitement would be welcome and gave Corinna the hint. ‘We must churn it up a bit – and tell Prue and Dickon to, when they come at Easter.’

‘I doubt if they’ll oblige,’ said Corinna. ‘Were we as superior as they are, when we were their age?’

‘I fear we’re still pretty superior, from our youthful parents’ point of view. Let’s show some bright-eyed enthusiasm.’

On their second weekend Hugh and Corinna were there when the Vicar called. May, at first, had feared an influx of callers but Sarah Strange had reassured her. ‘There’s no one in the village who’s likely to call except the Vicar – and he’s a very harmless old bachelor.’

Harmless or not, May decided he must be made to understand that none of them were churchgoers. She had just broken this news to him – after a compensating good tea – when Hugh, feeling sorry for the deflated old gentleman, said he would come to church on Easter Sunday. May was not pleased.