Every Day Is Mother's Day (18 page)

At that moment Frank arrived with the drinks. Gail Colman leaned forward and asked Sylvia pleasantly, “When are you due?”

“July.”

“Oh, the ladies are going to talk about their confinements.” Frank seemed delighted. He pressed a glass into Sylvia’s hand. “Do harrow us, freeze our blood.”

“Well, I know nothing about it,” Elvie said, in the manner of one delivering a crushing snub. “I only left school last year.”

“Thanks,” Sylvia said. “Cheers, everybody.” She sipped her gin. “Oh, it’s very strong,” she said. “Do you have children, Mrs. Toye?”

“I have six.”

Colin turned and regarded the neat little woman with open astonishment.

“My goodness,” Sylvia said. “I expect they keep you busy.”

“They don’t keep me busy,” Mrs. Toye said, a shade reproachfully, “they keep me occupied.”

Sylvia was silent for a moment; all were silent. “Well, Charmaine,” she said at last, “I’m not going to cut any figure beside you. This is my fourth I’m expecting, and I’m quite sure it’ll be my last.”

“Oh, not Charmaine.” Mrs. Toye closed her eyes. “Not as in the popular song.” She sang softly, “‘I wonder why you keep me waiting, Charmaine, my Charmaine.’” Her eyes snapped open again. “Charmian, as in Iras and, A and C. ‘Give me my
robe put on my crown I have immortal longings in me.’ If you find it easier, do call me Mrs. Toye.”

“‘Withered is the garland of the war, the soldier’s pole is fallen,’” Toye remarked. “That of course is a more than faintly ludicrous line. Really, I sometimes wonder if Shakespeare had any sense of the sexually ridiculous.”

Toye had by now taken up his stance before the fireplace, and was toasting his meagre buttocks before the electric logs. “Do go on with what you were saying,” he ordered Frostick. “About the
so
fascinating Road Traffic Acts.”

Stewart Colman leaned forward confidentially. “Between you and me,” he told Colin in a hoarse whisper, “these dinners are a bit pretentious. Frank’s a bit pretentious. I don’t know what they’re talking about half the time. Truth be known, I don’t think they know themselves. Intellectually speaking, it’s a case of fur coat and no knickers.”

Unexpectedly moved by this image, Colin looked at Colman gratefully. He wondered when dinner would appear; he was feeling very hungry. Sylvia edged towards the end of the chaise-longue, away from Charmian, and touched his hand.

“Colin, are they all mad,” she muttered, “or have they had too much to drink? That woman singing…”

“I don’t know. Keep your voice down. Try to take no notice.”

“Can’t we go?”

“Not till after dinner. Have a drink of your gin, and then you’ll feel more into things.”

“Can we go right after the meal?”

“Yes, I don’t think they’ll miss us.”

A gust of Elvie’s piercing chatter blew across them.

“I don’t think they’d miss us if we went now,” Sylvia said.

Frank was moving amongst them, circling the room with a bottle of Gordon’s in one hand and a bottle of Johnnie Walker in the other. He poured a liberal measure of the gin into
Charmian Toye’s glass, a quintuple by Colin’s estimate. Colin could not help but total it up and add in the cost of the whisky Frank slopped into his own glass. Ashamed of himself, he looked at his watch, as a diversion. It was ten-thirty.

“By the way,” Frank said, giving himself a final dash of Scotch, “I’ve invited Yarker to join us for dessert. I didn’t think we wanted Yarker for the whole evening, and yet I did think that at some point Yarker would be necessary.”

“Does he know when to come?” Elvie asked.

“Yarker always knows the moment,” Frank said. “You should know that, Elvie.”

“Christ, yes,” Frostick said, with a smile that showed his gums.

“Do you remember when he put Charmian’s knickers on his head and pelted everybody with sardines? Yarker’s good value.”

Colin’s heart was sinking fast. The present company he could possibly cope with, but this threat of physical extravagances seemed unbearable. Would it be worse in anticipation, or worse in reality? People said that things were never as good as you hoped or as bad as you feared, but then, he thought with a pang, there had been Isabel, and on the other hand there had been the time he had his wisdom tooth out.

“By the way,” Frostick said, “when’s the food, Frank?”

“Oh, stop fussing. Where’s your glass?”

It was another three-quarters of an hour before they were seated at Frank’s elaborately laid table. Sylvia and Colin were at opposite ends, but Elvie and her husband had been seated together, because, Mrs. Toye advised mysteriously, “it was not yet a year.” By now it had become clear to Colin that the Toyes and the Frosticks were at home in the house, because the men had become ruder to Frank, and had started to help themselves to drinks. It seemed also that the two couples knew each other well, even intimately. Colin felt a sense of sinister exclusion. He had hoped to be seated with Gail Colman, but he had
Charmian instead. He thought that with this seating plan the evening had reached its nadir, but he did not know then what would occur over the saltimbocca.

Muriel had decided to go to bed. When she was halfway upstairs, a sharp pain brought her to a dead stop, as if someone had slammed a door in her face. She put a hand to her back and stood where she was, her large feet wedged a little sideways and her hand slapped down on the banister rail, flatly where it had fallen. After a time, when the pain ebbed, she turned gingerly and sat down on the step. She waited, not aware of what she was waiting for, not trying to think about it. Lately the affairs of her body had taken a turn for the worse; here was a turn for the worser. Evelyn had just gone on being the same, except snide and looking sideways and jeering about her misfortunes, and doing a performance she called worrying about the future.

When the pain came back, Muriel leaned forward and dug her fingers into her thighs. The vast bulk before her seemed to pulsate dully, throbbing and jumping like a machine. There was no guarantee that she would not always have to stay like this, her head down, a dry grunt coming from her throat. But after a minute or two the spasm slackened and released her. She took a deep breath, ran her hands along her legs, and stroked her knees. This was a change in her state. This was a process, she thought. There would be something at the end of it.

It was so long since Colin had eaten that he felt slightly nauseated. Frank was an accomplished cook, and he had taken a great deal of trouble. It was obvious that the meal had not been waiting. Did that mean, Colin asked himself, that his lateness had made no difference at all? If he had sat there with the rest of them, consuming Frank’s generous drinks since eight o’clock, he would have been in no state to drive home; and they had
hardly started on the wine that was to accompany their meal. He looked apprehensively around the ring of faces. They looked little different from when he first came in, but different they must be, edging by degrees towards inebriation; he hoped there would be no scenes.

“Insalata di funghi e frutta di mare,”
Frank announced. He tripped slightly, bearing the plates in, but retrieved himself. His glasses were completely steamed up from the heat in the kitchen. But he did not seem to notice. “No squid, of course,” he said gloomily.

“Ah well, Frank,” Mrs. Toye said. “Squid is next to impossible, especially those tender little sea creatures which the Italians, so poetically I always feel, call sea-strawberries.” Mrs. Toye now sat back with a languid air, as if, because of the absence of squid, she could expect to find no further pleasure in the evening.

Colin looked down at his plate, and down the table at Sylvia. She wouldn’t eat raw mushrooms, that was for sure. Oh well, she could blame her pregnancy for anything she couldn’t manage.

“Sidney. I’m speaking to you,” Edmund Toye said. “I say, I understand you are also a schoolmaster.”

“Yes, that’s right. I teach history.”

“Well, you say history, but I wonder what you think history is. Probably a question we would need considerable time to go into. ‘It is a sign of the gods’ especial detestation of a man, when they drive him to the profession of schoolmaster.’ Now which of the ancient writers, I wonder, said that?” Toye did not wait for a reply, but pressed on keenly, thrusting a forkful of salad into his mouth. “Tell me now, what is your preferred form of creativity? Frank of course has written some delightful poetry. As an actor he is extremely skilful. His painting I feel is artificial. Intellectualised.” A stray thought claimed Colin’s wandering attention and involuntarily he raised his eyes to the
deep blue ceiling above the Regency Stripe. Didn’t he remember Frank complaining about the cost of undercoat? No, Toye didn’t mean that, evidently he didn’t mean that.

“Frank,” he was saying, “have you told Colin about your novel?”

“My novel,” Frank said, beaming. “You want to hear about my novel, Colin?”

“That would be very nice,” Colin said. “I had no idea.”

“Well it’s just a germ as yet, you understand.” Frank took off his glasses and polished them vigorously. “It’s all rather circumstantial…as a matter of fact, I had a stroke of luck. Do you remember that bad fog we had, when my car got a bump, and was in the garage?” Frank paused, took a sip of wine, then a gulp. “Robust,” he said. “Here, Colin, let me top you up.” Colin pushed his glass towards Frank. Out of the corner of his eye he checked on Sylvia. She didn’t seem to be making too much of a fool of herself. There was an untouched glass of white wine by her plate, and he knew she had only had two gins.

“Well, the odd thing was,” Frank began.

“Perhaps for brevity I should take the story up,” Toye cut in. “When he got his car back, it came complete with the most extraordinary document. Obviously belonged to somebody else with a car in for repairs, and the garage men had taken it out and then put it back in the wrong car. At least, that’s the explanation we came up with.”

Colin felt uneasy. “What exactly was it?”

“Oh, a most extraordinary thing,” Toye said. “A kind of case file which a set of wretched social workers had been keeping over the years. Really, you cannot imagine the low level of literacy among those people.”

“The entries,” Charmian Toye said slowly, “have given us much innocent pleasure.”

“But look,” Colin’s heart was hammering in his throat.
“Look, Frank, you must give it back at once. It’s the property of the Social Services Department.”

“Oh, knickers to that,” Frank said. His grin was distinctly lopsided, and his eyes behind his spectacles seemed to slip out of focus. “Finders keepers. It’s all about two dotty women. It’s a gift. Grist to the mill. I’m going to turn it into a novel.”

“Frank could never,” Toye said, “have invented such grotesquerie by himself.”

“For goodness’ sake,” Colin said. He was aware that his voice was very loud, and that the Frosticks, man and wife, had turned to stare at him. “Frank, think now, this is confidential information you’re talking about.”

“Then someone should have taken better care of it. Here, Frostick, open another three bottles, will you, I’m talking. You can’t imagine the lives some people lead. I might turn it into a sort of allegory, you see, about the state of our society.”

“But regardless of how it came to be lost…some poor social worker…the consequences could be very serious.”

“Poor social worker be damned,” Frostick said. “I’m not sure that they’re not the villains of the piece. Interfering do-gooders. Caring Society. Huh.” Frostick showed yellow teeth in contempt, and took to grappling with the corkscrew.

“Come on now, Frank, you’ve got to give these papers back.” Colin’s tone was pleading.

“Not a chance. I’ve already written Chapter One. Stranger than fiction. It’s inspired me.” He waved an arm. “It’s all through there, in the study, waiting for me to get back to it tomorrow morning.”

“Really, Frank,” Colin said, “you can’t do this. You’ve lost touch with reality.”

“He has if he thinks he’ll do anything tomorrow morning,” Elvie said. “Except vomit.”

“But these are real people. You can’t make their lives public property.” He turned around on Toye. “You’ve no right to abet
him in this. You know it’s wrong, probably illegal.” Toye stroked his beard, and regarded him sardonically.

“I’ll change their names,” Frank said sulkily. “I wish I’d never told you, Colin. You’re spoiling it.”

“Yes, and I’m right to spoil it. This could have serious consequences, and not just for you. Some client—these clients—may be suffering because the file’s missing. And someone’s job may well be in jeopardy, if things go wrong. Even losing the file is bad enough, but it was obviously pure accident—and some poor young woman—or man,” he added hastily, “won’t be able to do their job properly without it.” He leaned forward, his face reddening. “Give it back, Frank, hand it in, for God’s sake.”

Frank sprawled back in his chair. “Client,” he murmured. “He knows all the jargon.”

Frostick leaned over Colin and refilled his glass. “Calm down,” he said.

“Yes, calm down, Sidney,” said Toye. “You’re spoiling the party.”

“I don’t give a damn about the party.” Colin crashed his fist down on the table. “Give that file to me.”

There was a silence. From the other end of the table Sylvia implored him. “Please, Colin, what does it matter to you?”

“It does matter, because—I happen to know—Oh, Christ.”

“Know what?” Elvie said.

“Frank’s heart’s set on it,” Charmian added sentimentally.

“Never mind,” Colin growled. He dabbed his mouth with his napkin, as if there were blood on his lip. He would, indeed, have liked to lean over the table and punch Frank as hard as he could manage. Frank was what he had always suspected. He was a blind, antisocial egotist, and not fit to have charge of the young. He should have known it was useless to appeal to any residue of morality left in Frank. And no other kind of appeal was open to him, without giving himself away. Was there any possibility that he was mistaken? No, not a chance. That was
Isabel’s file, and Isabel’s error that Frank was hoping to blazon to the world. And of course, Frank would succeed in his project. Frank and the Frosticks and Edmund and Charmian between them could write any number of books. He glared at Elvie Frostick, now glowing like a bulb above her lampshade of a dress. Elvie probably took shorthand.