Dubious Legacy (14 page)

‘Well, it is,’ said Maisie out loud.

‘What?’ said Peter.

‘Bad form,’ said Maisie.

‘So are red MPs,’ said her husband. ‘Don’t teach your grandmother—’

Henry laughed.

‘I love the way you two squabble in public,’ said Jonathan. ‘It’s refreshing.’

‘Where was I,’ asked Peter, ‘when old stupid here interrupted?’ He sounded quite affectionate.

‘Cost of labour,’ John prompted.

‘Oh yes,’ said Peter, ‘that. Yes. I suppose, when you spend so much on Margaret, you let the rest of the house go hang. Let’s face it, it’s jolly shabby.’

‘Yes,’ said Henry.

‘But your land,’ said Peter, ‘you keep that in good heart, nobody could fault you there. Your farm is terrific’

Henry said, ‘Thanks.’

‘And this party,’ Peter carried on, ‘it’s splendid. You don’t stint your guests. Jolly good food, and the drinks—’

‘He’s been costing them,’ said Maisie.

‘I haven’t,’ said Peter.

‘You always do,’ said Maisie. ‘When we get home you know exactly what the wine has cost. He might be a wine merchant,’ Maisie informed the table at large, ‘so clever.’

They could almost see Peter resist calling her stupid.

She smiled hugely round the table at her fellow guests, proud of her husband. ‘It’s all right if you do it in private,’ she said.

The Jonathans, Calypso and Hector burst out laughing and presently awkwardness evaporated and conversation became general while Ebro and Trask collected the soup plates, replacing them with fresh ones for the salmon, which soon ceased to look pretty and dissipated as they were transferred from their beds of watercress to diverse digestive tracts.

From time to time Henry circled the table, replenishing his guests’ glasses, catching, as he went, snatches of talk. Hector and Trask were deep in forestry, Ebro discussing pop music with Antonia. The Jonathans were instructing Maisie on the novels of Camus which was, he guessed, an affectionate tease, it being common knowledge that Maisie never read a book if she could avoid it. Peter was trying to engage Barbara’s attention without success and Antonia, only sparing half her attention for Ebro, was watching Henry move in and out of the shadows, his presence betrayed by the glint of a candle on the bottle he carried. He refilled her glass and moved on.

Why, thought Antonia, watching Henry, did he never raise his voice? She compared him with Matthew, who was talking embarrassingly loudly to Calypso while ignoring Maisie sitting next to him. How was it Henry looked so elegant in his
outre
clothes? They made Matthew’s excellent dinner jacket look dull. How was it Barbara had managed to sit next to Henry? Why should Barbara sit next to Henry and not she? Antonia pushed back her chair with her neat little bottom and, taking her plate of salmon with her, moved into the empty chair beside Henry.

When Henry resumed his seat he said, ‘That’s nice,’ but Barbara, on his other side, failed to respond.

Maisie, observing the move, and sorry to see Antonia move away, wondered whether this sort of general post was the new mode among the smart set in London, and whether to try it at her next dinner party. But I am not silly enough to suggest it to Peter, she thought. I lack the nerve.

C
ALYPSO WAS THE FIRST
to see Margaret; she nudged Hector, who was turned away from her talking with Trask. It had grown quite dark as they ate their salmon; the candles on the table accentuated the severity of the yew hedge’s dark backdrop. In the flower borders tulips raised their pale faces and Antonia’s lily arrangement on the bar seemed to hover in the gloom.

Amused by the girls’ manoeuvres, Calypso had been watching the head of the table; now she stared at the point where she had seen a movement, a lightness which shifted from Henry to Antonia to Barbara. Perhaps she had been mistaken? Was what she saw a shift in the shadows caused by a flickering candle? The candles flickered again when Peter’s breath gusted in laughter as Maisie began teasing Jonathan and John, reminding them of the days when they had both clung to the same name.

‘You made yourselves ridiculous,’ she said, ‘both called Jonathan. That’s what they did,’ she said to the table at large. ‘Used the same name! It was almost possible when we were all young, but ludicrous when they began living together—’

‘A beginning which has no end—’ Peter’s laugh tinged on the cruel. ‘So far,’ he said.

The shape in the shadows shrank back. ‘We were equally entitled to the name,’ cried the younger man. ‘We were both baptized Jonathan.’

‘It made them look silly,’ persisted Maisie. ‘It made the neighbourhood laugh.’

‘We don’t care about the neighbourhood,’ cried the younger man, ‘never did.’

‘Obviously not.’ Peter backed his wife.

Why are they being so petty? What’s this all about? Antonia wondered, and liked Maisie less than before.

‘Henry’s father was our sponsor, our godparent. He chose the name,’ protested the older man. ‘Who were we to question his choice? Our mothers didn’t.’

‘He wouldn’t have suggested the same name if he’d known what you would turn into—’

‘Steady on, Maisie,’ said Peter.

Henry said, ‘Jonathan was a favourite name of my father’s. It’s all ancient history, Maisie. There was some sort of entertainment value in telephone calls: can I speak to Jonathan? Which Jonathan? Oh, that Jonathan, and so on, but it did pall. It was graceful of the younger to give way and abbreviate to John.’

‘Are you suggesting I am not graceful?’ said Maisie, bristling. ‘That I am insensitive?’

‘Since you ask,’ said Jonathan, answering for Henry, ‘yes! You take a touchy subject and worry it like a terrier. You have no tact; you are almost as insensitive as Margaret, our absent, our quasi-hostess. Where is she, by the way? Weren’t we promised—’

‘Oh!’ Maisie’s cry was full of indignation and hurt. ‘Oh, you old—’

I have not given them the right proportion of alcohol, thought Henry. Perhaps I should top them up? If I defend the Jonathans, who are able to defend themselves, I shall offend poor Maisie, who can’t. He stifled a longing to laugh.

‘Hector,’ said Calypso in a low voice.

‘Yes, darling?’ Hector did not immediately turn to her, allowing Trask to finish a long and convoluted arboreal sentence. ‘They should not tease the boys,’ he said.

Calypso slipped her hand in his. ‘Look who’s here,’ she said quietly.

Hector said, ‘Look? Where? Who?’

‘I thought at first it was a trick of the light, but it’s Margaret. She’s behind Henry, look.’

Hector said, ‘Ah!’ and closed his fingers over his wife’s. ‘I see her,’ he said. ‘What d’you suppose she is up to?’ he said, speaking with his mouth close to her ear. ‘Now she’s gone. No, she’s there, behind Henry. There. Gone again. D’you think he’s aware?’

‘He’s too far away for me to see the hairs rising on his neck. Mine would.’ Calypso glanced over her shoulder.

Peter had taken over from Maisie and was in full cry teasing the Jonathans, listened to with a mixture of surprise and distaste by Matthew and Antonia.

‘Peter Bullivant’s an offensive bastard,’ said Hector quietly. ‘Never heard the word tact.’

‘There she goes again,’ whispered Calypso.

Hector, who assessed his wife’s nerve as normally steely, recognized a tremor of fear and tightened his grip on her hand.

‘Henry may not have noticed,’ he whispered. ‘He’s got to deal with Peter,’ he said as Henry pushed back his chair and stood up.

‘Now then,’ Henry said, ‘would you two girls collect these sordid plates while I circulate the wine and Pilar and Ebro bring the pudding?’ If I top up my foolish guests, he thought, they will swing from the offensive to the sweet—with luck. He advanced on Maisie and Peter armed with a fresh bottle of wine.

Antonia and Barbara jumped up and began collecting plates, and as they moved along the table Hector and Calypso saw Margaret shrink back into the shadows. They strained their eyes, but could not see her. Hector said, ‘Did we imagine her?’

‘I didn’t imagine that.’ Calypso chuckled as Antonia deliberately let a load of dirty plates slide into Peter’s lap. ‘Well done, girl!’

‘Oops,’ said Antonia, mopping with Peter’s napkin. ‘So sorry. I’ve got grease all over your pretty trousers.’

‘You did that on purpose, you are making it worse.’ Maisie snatched the napkin.

‘Oh no!’ said Antonia. ‘Oh dear, I’m sorry.’

‘She should sound sorry,’ said Hector.

‘I think Henry has noticed,’ Calypso said. ‘His shoulders have gone all stiff. But he’s not letting on.’

‘M-m-m,’ said Hector. ‘And what happens now?’ He sat alert, holding his wife’s hand.

It was then that the cockatoo, furtively climbing up by the table-cloth, attained its goal and let out an ear-splitting screech. The diners jumped and there was laughter. The bird, as though acknowledging applause, raised and lowered its crest and began picking its way among the spoons.

‘He is fond of fruit,’ said Henry. ‘Here come the strawberries,’ he said as Pilar and Ebro placed the fruit on the table. ‘Careful, Maisie, he is not so funny drunk.’

But Maisie, unheeding, offered the bird her glass. ‘I don’t suppose he’s got psittacosis,’ she said, watching the bird sip. ‘I’d like to see him pissed.’ She was annoyed with herself for hurting the Jonathans and annoyed with them for being hurt. I always think people should watch their own backs, she thought.

Henry put a hand down to catch the bird but it hopped sideways to the middle of the table, where it stood raising and lowering its crest, ignoring the people who offered fruit, saying, ‘Pretty Polly,’ in dulcet accents.

Trask said, ‘Best leave her be.’

Maisie, feeling at fault, said, ‘Oh, I thought it was a cock, I didn’t know it was a she. How d’you tell the difference?’

‘By looking under its feathers,’ said Trask, ‘as with skirts.’

With Henry moving round the table, and Barbara and Antonia parlour-maiding the plates, there were now three empty chairs at the head of the table. It was a shock to everyone when Margaret materialized seated in the middle chair. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘well,’ sitting with her hands folded. She smiled at the assembled guests. ‘Sorry to be so late,’ she said. ‘Any salmon left for me?’

With her red-gold hair piled high on her head, Margaret looked beautiful. The candles gave a peachy glow to her skin, enlarged her eye sockets, softened her mouth and flattered the cleavage between breasts pouting under the Dior chiffon.

Henry’s guests stared, speechless and gormless. Calypso shook with laughter and Hector chuckled out loud. The cockatoo was forgotten.

Trask said, ‘You had your salmon on your tray hours ago.’

Still smiling, Margaret said, ‘Dear Trask, so I did, but I’d like more.’

‘None left,’ said Henry cheerfully. ‘But you are in time for the pudding, coffee and brandy. Why don’t you move up beside her, Jonathan and John? Take your glasses and take this bottle with you.’

‘Does he not dare go near her?’ murmured Calypso.

‘I wouldn’t in his shoes,’ said Hector. ‘She’s ousted the virgins rather effectively.’

‘I was enjoying the spectacle they made,’ said Calypso, watching the diners rearrange themselves.

‘Dear Jonathan,’ said Margaret as her cavaliers took their seats, ‘and dear John.’

‘You were snooping!’ said John.

‘Listening,’ said Margaret, ‘wondering whether I would be welcome.’ She looked down the table at Henry, who had found a seat next to Calypso previously occupied by Ebro.

‘Quite a turn-up for the book,’ he remarked as he sat down.

‘She is a beautiful woman,’ said Calypso. ‘It’s not only the candle-light.’

‘And she is making herself agreeable to the boys,’ said Hector, surprised.

‘And she has silenced Peter and Maisie,’ said Calypso.

‘She can be agreeable,’ said Henry. ‘It’s been known.’

At the head of the table Margaret was smiling as Jonathan on her right heaped her plate with fruit while John on her left scattered sugar and poured cream.

‘The two girls,’ said Hector, laughing, ‘are looking pretty, too, sitting back with their men. We enjoyed watching them casting themselves at your head.’

‘Net practice,’ said Henry. ‘The slow bowl.’

‘It’s had the desired effect,’ said Calypso. ‘Both James and Matthew look smug and possessive.’

Henry said, ‘Ah, possessive,’ and appraised Antonia and her friend.

‘Hector is possessive,’ said Calypso. ‘I recognize possessiveness when I see it.’

‘She likes it said Hector. ‘Have you ever been possessive, Henry?’

‘Yes.’ Henry frowned. ‘But it was half-hearted, a mistake. I desisted. It was in the nature of a bad taste joke, an act,’ he said, wincing at an unpleasant recollection.

Sensing his hurt and recognizing a private pain, Calypso said, ‘We trip ourselves up when we are bored.’

Gratefully, Henry said, ‘That’s it, yes. I was bored, I wanted something to happen. It backfired,’ and enlightened them no further.

Catching his wife’s eye, and switching the subject back to their fellow guests, Hector said, ‘One wonders whether those two fellows will be sufficiently heavyweight for their girls, whether they will come up to scratch.’

‘Women don’t always want perfect husbands,’ said Calypso. ‘The imperfect allow more scope. I say,’ she said, ‘I think we had better listen to this—’

Others were listening: Maisie open-mouthed, Peter frowning, Antonia and Barbara leaning towards Margaret. A question had been asked by James. Why had Margaret married Henry? He was to excuse himself later, explaining that his hostess had asserted that she had always despised Henry, that he was mean, insensitive and a moral coward. How the subject of Margaret’s union with Henry had arisen nobody afterwards was clear. They all, however, heard Margaret say, ‘I was sorry for him.’

In the ensuing silence Margaret assessed her audience.

Antonia said, ‘Go on.’

Barbara gaped but said nothing.

Matthew said, ‘I think—’

Antonia said, ‘Shush.’

James was mute.

Margaret said, ‘I had been married to a brute. He not only beat me, he subjected me to psychological violence. He spent my money, he flaunted his women, he drank. And worse, he took drugs.’