Getting It Right (33 page)

‘It’s a hideous house, you’ll find.’

‘You do make it sound attractive.’

‘But there’ll be a huge lunch,’ she said, as though he hadn’t spoken.

They were driving through quiet suburban roads spasmodically edged by white gates, wrought-iron gates and sometimes just openings to the sort of drives that curved simply for the hell of it.
Glimpses of mansions could be seen and the odd huge, aimless dog. Wing mirrors of motor cars glinted through privet or leylandii hedging. Just as he was wondering whether you could tell more about
the architecture behind the hedge – or the class of people living there by what sort of a hedge it was – it became clear that they were arriving.

The gates had a pair of wrought-iron lanterns attached to their linch-posts; the drive was tarmac, edged with green, well-cut lawns. It curved, and a flurry of evergreens hid the house
temporarily from view. When exposed it proved to be a sprawling, Tudor-type mansion on two floors, networked by silvery bleached beams and with a quantity of mean little leaded windows. Scarlet
geraniums, butcher-blue lobelia and white alyssum were planted in white-painted tubs at very regular intervals. They had the sort of rigid gaiety that he associated with groups of people having
their photograph taken. The front door, heavily studded with iron nails, looked like something from the set of
Fidelio
. It was shut. Minnie brought the car to a sputtering halt immediately
in front of it.

‘Remember – I’m mad about you,’ she rather strangely (he thought) said.

He followed her through a dark hall with a tremendously loud grandfather clock in it into an enormous half-panelled room, with a stone and brick open fireplace, and a highly polished oak floor
with shaggy off-white rugs on it that looked like the cast-offs from several classy polar bears. There were a number of squat sofas and armchairs – all upholstered in powder-blue Dralon
– and the curtains round the formidable bay window were of the same material.

Minnie led him to a powder-blue window seat. ‘If you sit down, I’ll find them.’ And she disappeared through an oak door opposite the fireplace. He didn’t sit, but prowled
cautiously. The walls were regularly hung with large oil paintings in the genre of ‘The Hay Wain’, ‘Fishing Boats off the Dutch Coast’ variety. There were one or two
extremely still lifes of unlikely combinations of fruit and game juxtaposed. There was a coffee table with neatly stacked magazines and newspapers and a brass bowl full of scarlet carnations. He
returned to the window seat in case Minnie came back with one or more parents. The room looked out on to a garden with a lot more neat lawns, beds of standard roses and a rock garden yelping with
aubretia and something that looked like mustard, but couldn’t have been . . . He’d just got as far as noticing the large Monkey Puzzle and some more wrought-iron gates when he heard
sounds of people arriving – footsteps and subdued voices – and hastily sat down.

Sir Gordon and Lady Munday, followed by Minnie, processed into the room. Sir Gordon had Lady Munday by the arm and without taking the slightest notice of Gavin steered her slowly to the largest
Dralon armchair into which she subsided – considering her measured approach – rather suddenly. Minnie stood on one leg with her other foot hooked round the ankle. She had taken off her
shoes. Gavin rose to his feet and waited.

‘There we are, then,’ said Sir Gordon to his wife. The remark, though not the accent, reminded Gavin of his own father. Sir Gordon straightened up and stood looking straight in front
of him. His hair was white and copious, and he had a military moustache.

‘Well, Minerva, you’d better introduce your young friend,’ he said.

‘This is Gavin Lamb – I told you his name, Daddy; come on, Gavin.’

Gavin advanced and, at some point, Sir Gordon held out his hand with a gesture just short of warding him off that turned into a handshake. He wore a blazer with a great many gleaming brass
buttons and a tie with sailing yachts on it. ‘Find your way here all right?’ he said. Gavin said that he’d come by train and that Minnie had met him. (Of course he’d found
his way; otherwise he wouldn’t be here, would he?)

‘And that’s my mother.’

Lady Munday, on closer inspection, looked rather like a raddled version of Claudette Colbert, with a wispy fringe, pencilled eyebrows, a mouth the colour of the carnations beside her, smudged,
but liberal mascara and a chalky face. She was dressed entirely in beige with a double string of pearls. She looked at Gavin without interest and said: ‘What about a drink, Gordon?’ Sir
Gordon turned towards an enormous oak cupboard carved with monks praying. They had pained expressions, probably, Gavin thought, because they had stiff necks as their bodies were in profile and
their heads were facing. The open cupboard doors revealed a battery of bottles and glasses.

‘I’d like my usual, Gordon.’

Sir Gordon took a tumbler which he filled in turns with Rose’s Lime Juice and Gordon’s gin. He gave this mixture a perfunctory stir and then moved slowly towards the armchair.
‘Get your mother a table. Go on, girl, make yourself useful, for once.’

Minnie pulled out the smallest of a nest of tables and carried it over to her mother. The drink was placed on it. Sir Gordon surveyed it for a moment and then turned back to the cupboard. His
movements were measured and ponderous – rather like an elephant’s: it would be a mistake to get in his way once he had embarked upon going anywhere.

‘Now then. Let me see. I suppose you drink, young man?’

‘I do sometimes.’

‘You do sometimes. And I take it that this is one of those times. Eh?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘I don’t imagine you expect us to have got the champagne out for you.’

‘Oh no. A gin and tonic would do nicely.’

‘A gin and tonic would do nicely.’ He unscrewed a bottle of tonic with which he three-quarters filled a tumbler and then added a dash of gin. After contemplating the glass for a
moment, he added another, equal, dash of gin. ‘Minerva! You can give your young friend his drink.

‘And what can I do for you?’ he went on after she had given Gavin his tumbler.

‘A Coke. I’d like a Coke.’

‘Disgusting stuff.’ He produced a tin and a tumbler and handed them to her. Gavin sipped his drink. It tasted as though it had spent the night in the linen cupboard.

Nobody said anything for quite a long time. Lady Munday got a rather long cigarette holder out of her beige bag, fitted a Silk Cut into it, and made several ineffectual attempts to light it with
a gold lighter. Sir Gordon, who had poured himself a half-tumbler of Scotch to which he had added two dashes of water, turned to observe her efforts.

‘Your mother needs a light,’ he said.

Minerva went to the stone fireplace and collected a box of matches which she gave to her mother.

Gavin now noticed that there was not a single book in the room.

Lady Munday, who seemed to have drunk a surprising amount of her drink, said: ‘When’s Sheila coming?’

‘Sheila,’ pronounced Sir Gordon, ‘is in London. She will not be coming to lunch. She is entertaining for her husband. It was not convenient for her.’

‘I didn’t say I
wanted
her to come to lunch. I simply asked.
I
think she’s stuffy. Do you know what I mean by stuffy?’ She turned to Gavin.

‘Pompous?’ he suggested. ‘Boring?’

‘There, you see. I’m not the only one!’

Gavin realized the trap he had fallen into just as he fell into it. Lady Munday drank deeply, put down her empty glass with a flourish and said: ‘
Other
people find Sheila stuffy.
If it was just poor old me, we might take no notice, but it isn’t, is it?’

Gavin said: ‘Um – what I meant, Lady Munday, was that I thought I knew what you meant by stuffy. I – I didn’t mean that your daughter – ’

‘She’s not
my
daughter . . .’ She pointed to Minnie who throughout this time, Gavin noticed, had sat on the arm of a chair scuffing the polar bear rug with her foot.
‘That’s my daughter. She’s pretty awful, but it’s a different kind of awful to Sheila. She may not be spotless as the driven snow, but she isn’t smug. Or bossy,’
she added after thinking about it and holding out her glass for another drink.

Sir Gordon moved over to take the glass. ‘There is nothing wrong with Sheila,’ he pronounced. ‘Sheila is a wonderful girl. Our young friend has not come here to talk about
Sheila. I should prefer the subject of Sheila to be closed . . .’

It was. But no alternative subject was opened up. Gavin tried to catch Minnie’s eye, but she remained wilfully apathetic – staring at her foot. So he took refuge in some futile
remark about the nice garden.

‘And where do you hail from – Mr – Lamb, is it?’

‘Yes. And I live in New Barnet.’

‘
New
Barnet. And do you propose to continue there?’

‘I think so, yes.’

Sir Gordon occupied the next minute by returning a full glass to his wife. ‘I see,’ he finally said, as though Gavin had fallen into some other trap. It was a relief when a subdued
man in a white coat announced that luncheon was served.

It turned out to be impossible to shift Lady Munday until she had finished her second drink. Sir Gordon bent down and got hold of her upper arm, but she twitched him away and settled further
into the armchair, the drink slopping dangerously in her hand.

‘You wish to finish your drink,’ he pronounced.

For an answer, she tipped the glass to her mouth and drank in steady gulps with her eyes fixed upon him like a child drinking milk. They all stood about – waiting, while she did this.
Gavin moved over to the uncharacteristically silent Minnie, who met his eye blankly.

‘All gone!’ Lady Munday announced in nursery tones, whereupon Sir Gordon renewed his attack upon her upper arm and they all processed slowly through yet another door hardly
observable because of the panelling.

The dining room was very full of beams and black, glistening oak. There was a huge silver épergne with carnations and smilax in it, and the chairs were upholstered in tapestry that
reminded Gavin of the Battle of Hastings, since armoured men seemed to be staggering about bristling with arrows, and the chap on his chair actually had one in the eye. The table was long and
rectangular, and their four places were set like points of the compass. They were going to have to shout at one another, Gavin thought, which would make conversation (if there was any) pretty
difficult. Minnie’s parents sat at either end, and he and she faced each other. After a pause, the man in the white coat brought in four plates which he set in front of each of them. There
was a longish pause, and then he returned with a silver dish with what looked like a green and pink blancmange on it. He served Lady Munday and her daughter, and by the time it got to Gavin he
could see it was some kind of mousse. He waited for the others to start eating, which was just as well because they didn’t, just sat in silence until the man re-appeared with a silver tray
and sauce-boat – also handed round. Gavin then picked up his fork and realized too late that he was still premature. The white-coated man went away and returned with a flagon of what turned
out to be a rather nasty white wine. When everybody had been given some of that, he went away again (he must walk
miles
, Gavin thought, like a postman) and they all began to eat. When this
had gone on for a bit, Sir Gordon cleared his throat in a way that made it clear that he was going to speak:

‘My daughter tells me that you er – well, not to put too fine a point on it, that you mess about with people’s hair.’

‘I’m a hairdresser, yes.’

‘Do you own an establishment, or do you merely work in one?’

‘I work in one.’

‘I’m forced to commend your frankness.’

‘There was a gel,’ announced Lady Munday, ‘who went orf with a hairdresser. Once. It was in the papers.’

‘Quite right, Stella. There was. Turned out badly, of course. But what would you expect?’

He turned his pale blue marble eyes on each of them in turn; when they got to Gavin, he said: ‘I don’t know what I’d expect.’

‘You don’t know what you would expect.’

‘Well, not really, no.’

‘We know what
you
mean, Gordon. You mean you think hairdressers are a poovy lot. That’s what
he
thinks,’ she told Gavin.

Minnie suddenly said: ‘But you’d have to go
miles
for a gay seat-belt manufacturer. Daddy’s a seat-belt manufacturer,’ she explained – started to giggle
– and choked.

Both parents looked at her without expression, which, as she went on choking, congealed to a lack of concern that Gavin found rather horrible. He got up and walked round the table to Minnie, to
bang her on the back and get her some water if she wanted any.

There didn’t seem to be any water in sight, so after a few thumps he offered her her wine. When she seemed to be through the worst of it, he went back to his place. The silence round the
table was oppressive, and he realized that the Mundays were both waiting for him to finish what had turned out to be fish mousse. Although she hadn’t said anything, Minnie’s eyes had
brimmed with tears when she nodded to accept the wine. She left her fish.

The second that Gavin put down his fork, Sir Gordon reached under the table and rang a bell. The white-coated man appeared and cleared their plates one by one. He then set fresh ones before
them. During all the time – and there seemed to Gavin to be a hell of a lot of it – that it took him to serve them with a dish of sliced roast lamb, peas, carrots and new potatoes, mint
sauce and redcurrant jelly, and finally red wine in a second glass, silence prevailed. After positively his last appearance, however, everybody started to eat what Gavin recognized as very good
food, although he no longer felt hungry.

‘You must tell us more about yourself,’ Sir Gordon announced, after he had loaded his fork with some of everything on his plate. His tone was not inviting, and it was difficult to
know precisely what he meant.

‘There’s not much to tell, really.’