Muriel Pulls It Off (16 page)

Phyllis, Kitty and Kitty’s sisters tripped and trotted with extreme neatness in spite of resentment rankling in Kitty that the rectory crowd should be included on such a day and that Phyllis was still present in their midst.

Princess Roxana of Greece, not entirely unmoved by her husband’s lapse in taste, swallowed her pride and sat enthralled as Dawson described his own method of brewing beer and commented kindly as he propounded the problem of the overspend on the school budget and, in lower voice, told of the head lice alert. A case had been reported in lower primary earlier in the week.

Kitty had done wonders with several chickens (not precisely cooked in coronation style but near enough to earn a beam of satisfaction from Delilah), a floating pudding and, thanks to Marco and treasures from the cellar, the enjoyment of the royal party knew no bounds.

Dawson stood to say grace. The meal was over. A hurdle scaled. Now what? What the hell was Muriel to do with them now?

Mambles suggested that Mummy lie down for an hour and volunteered to care for her if Phyllis would show them to a bedroom.

‘I wanted to bring Farty but she looked so alarmed at the prospect of returning here that I let her off the hook. Poor Farty. Mummy thought of getting Cunty for the day but, sadly, she’s got a gallstone.’

Alastair offered to take the Greek girls for a ramble, to which suggestion their mother agreed, believing it fitting that her girls should stroll with the son of a rector who had said grace at luncheon.

The three spare men, too, decided to take advantage of their summer day in the country and walked away, each keeping pace with the other, in the direction of the stream.

Mambles tended to the needs of Queen Elizabeth as she reposed in Muriel’s guest bedroom and Flavia slipped to her own. Marco ignored her escape and proposed to Prince Alexis and Princess Roxana that a tour of the house, inside and out, might interest them.

Muriel was left with Peter, Dawson and Delilah.

‘Muriel, how can we ever thank you? I shall get Dawson to write a prayer of thanksgiving. What an honour to say grace in the presence of royalty. By the way, was that wine from Jerome’s cellar? How gorgeous that you’ve taken the plunge. He wouldn’t have a bottle touched you know. Sacrosanct. Not that we minded. Plonk is quite good enough for us as you know.’

Dawson said, ‘I wonder what those young ones are up to,’ upon which Delilah lost her lustre and suggested following them, ‘keeping our distance of course,’ to the bushes.

Dawson returned to the project of paying a visit to Jerome and Peter decided that the time had come to reveal to them that they would find but his mortal remains in the hospital bed.

Delilah shouted, ‘How tactful! How very tactful. You were keeping it quiet, I suppose, until royalty returned to London.’

Muriel was grateful to Peter for his common sense for she knew how differently would Delilah have viewed the subterfuge had she and Dawson not played their parts in the action of the day. It was a comfort to her to know that, at the rectory at least, the suppression would be treated with respect.

Jerome was dead. Should she not slip over to the hospital? What of goings-on in the shrubbery and beyond? What of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, asleep on one of her beds?

Peter told her to do nothing; absolutely nothing until the next day. ‘Then,’ he agreed, ‘you must go straight to the nursing home and I, er, or Marco will ring Arthur and the undertaker or whoever.’

Delilah, intoxicated, agreed to everything and Dawson began, as they spoke, to prepare a sermon for the funeral.

‘Saturday today. Normally the funeral would be round about Wednesday. Nothing going on in the church that day as far as I can remember without my diary. I have one or two little anecdotes up my sleeve that might be appropriate.’

Delilah butted in, ‘There goes the fete I’m afraid. I don’t imagine it would be appropriate for you to go ahead as Gypsy Rosalee. It will have to be in the school grounds. Never mind. Next year and, Muriel, I’ve just had a lovely idea. What about getting Her Majesty to come down and open it for us?’

With her reflective faculties at a low ebb, Muriel walked to the window and saw Dulcie, in helmet and leathers, bending fiercely forward as she guided her Suzuki over the gravel. Marco’s fiver had not bought more than a few hours absence.

Expecting Dulcie to steam on in the direction of her caravan, Muriel half turned her head to the remaining band who sat on sofas absorbing the news, but quickly turned it back again for the motorbike stopped with a crunch at the front door.

Within a minute, a wrapped figure; red and black as a spy from the devil, filled the width of the drawing room doorway. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t heard that Mr Atkins is dead. They told me over at the cat sanctuary. One of the girls there has a cousin working at the nursing home.’ She was cock-a-hoop. ‘And what is more she tells me that this house was fully informed at exactly twelve-fifteen. Now what, I would like to know, is a fleet of Daimlers doing outside the front door on the very day that the old man meets his maker?’

This was a long sentence even for Dulcie and, having uttered it, she shrank in her suiting to await results.

Delilah looked at the clock and yelped that, owing to the short notice given for the lunch invitation of the day, she had been unable to cancel
the organist who proposed to bring his mother to tea at the rectory, and cakes were still in the freezer.

‘I’m sorry,’ she squeezed Muriel’s arm, ‘to leave you here with these problems. Don’t pay any attention to Dulcie.’ Here she lowered her voice and, breathing close to Muriel’s ear, whispered, ‘She’s one off you know. A law unto herself. But then, of course, it takes all sorts.’

They took their leave, apologising for failing to take their leave of the distinguished visitors; offering praise and humility as they pushed past Dulcie who still half-blocked the doorway.

Delilah took stock. ‘By the way. Can you send Alistair back as soon as they return from the ramble? And, er, if somebody could keep an eye on them?’

‘I most certainly will,’ offered Dulcie. ‘That boy should not be allowed out of your sight. Not after what he did on public transport.’

Delilah, notwithstanding her uncondemning ways, threw a fearful look at Dulcie betraying that the thrust had detracted from an otherwise unclouded day.

People came and went.

Mambles sent word that she and her mother, due to residual tenderness resulting from the chicken bone so recently lodged in Queen Elizabeth’s oesophagus, intended to spend the rest of the afternoon in the spare room. They simply requested that tea be served to them up there; tea and either jelly or blancmange.

Equerries popped in and out of the house raising praise before paintings and investigative patience before china objects. They talked fluently in quiet tones as they admired all in sight and offered assistance where none was needed.

Alastair and the Greek girls returned, breathless, from the garden before six o’clock. Nobody had looked for or kept an eye on them (other than Dulcie who spied unseen and unseeing - for her eyes were weak - through well-worn field glasses).

All three were in good condition and the girls explained that they had persuaded Alistair to throw in his job at the Bible bookshop and to follow them to Cap Ferrat (where, when not travelling, they lived with their parents in exile). Alistair wriggled in quiet euphoria. Whatever had taken place in the shrubbery had been nothing less than therapeutic and each wore a successful look.

The senior Greeks, upon their return, announced that they had spent a fruitful afternoon under the guidance of Marco. They had visited the church which boasted an interesting marble or two. There was nothing, though, to equal the pleasure when they discovered that their mouse-mute daughters had made successful contact with the rector’s son. What was more they had met him through the auspices of their royal relations and were barely able to express how welcome he was to be made at Cap Ferrat.

Behind this pleasantness and in the company of Peter, Muriel suffered underlying anxiety. Marco and Flavia were clearly at odds. Whatever hollowness invaded their union they had, hitherto, been in it together; had always supported each other in their useless way of life.

Greeks and equerries wished to ‘tidy’ themselves and were shown to bath and washrooms by Kitty’s sisters - for Phyllis busied herself with jellies and blancmanges.

When he and Muriel were alone together, Peter said, ‘I think Flavia’s pregnant. Does she wear that telltale look? That look of being gnawed at from within?’

Muriel said that she hadn’t noticed and that such an eventuality would not, surely, but make Marco more attentive rather than less.

‘Perhaps he’s against it. Perhaps he made it a condition of marriage. People do you know and, to Marco responsibility is a very dirty word. Perhaps he’s not the father. One has to think of everything.’

‘Not Marco’s?’ Something dawned on her.

There had been a suspicious weakness in Marco’s reluctance to let go of Roger - possessing, as he did, the knowledge of his mother’s continuing dismay in her awareness of the intimacy. Marco was feeble. It was likely that Flavia had dominated in determination to include Roger in combined activities. The chance that her grandchild, were there to be one, was sired by Roger came as the final piece of ill fortune before the end of a tiring day.

Then came a glimmer of optimism. Had not Flavia, only the day before, chastised Muriel for introducing them to Roger in the first place? She imparted this splinter of hope to Peter who became pensive and replied slowly. ‘I shouldn’t have put the idea into your head. I daresay it’s all tosh but, in my view, Flavia knows which side her bread is buttered. Not only did she witness Roger flirting with Phyllis but, er, since all this,’ he pointed at the plasterwork ceiling, ‘she may consider Marco to be a better bet than the scribbler.’ Peter disliked speaking Roger’s name.

Guests reassembled and Marco revealed that Flavia had flaked out and sent apologies and, although Muriel doubted the truth of the reported nicety, she was touched by her son’s attempt to cover up for Flavia.

A sense of rebirth controlled the group as Phyllis made known that Mambles and her mother were shortly to appear and that they would both appreciate a vodka cocktail. There was a thrill of oncoming rush and, as each member of the party stiffened, Queen Elizabeth, closely followed by Princess Matilda, entered the room.

Mambles’s face was luminescent. She had monopolised her mother for three whole hours without interference from the Queen or Princess Margaret or indeed from any of the younger generation who pulled the wool over the old lady’s eyes.

Queen Elizabeth carried a large signed photograph of herself which she handed to Muriel and which Muriel recognised as a replica of the one taken to mark her ninetieth birthday; the one that she had seen in a silver frame on top of Mambles’s piano. Muriel thanked her and vowed that she would display it worthily. Mambles, vigilant throughout the transaction, interposed, ‘Mummy doesn’t usually give a photograph unless she’s stayed all night. Still. We were in the spare room for over three hours. I suppose that counts for a bit of a night.’

Queen Elizabeth asked after Muriel’s dog, for Monopoly had stayed upstairs in his basket, and said that she missed her own.

‘Another time,’ she said, ‘I’ll bring Sir Walter Raleigh. Matilda mentioned that you keep cats. Sir Walter enjoys a cat-hunt but seldom gets a chance. My daughter, the Queen, cannot abide cats.’

Muriel asked herself how Sonia would respond to the sight of a
corgi-shaped
Sir Walter Raleigh chasing Kitty or Corin as cheered along by the mother of the Monarch.

Supper was more manageable than lunch. For a start there was less noise without Dawson, Delilah, Alistair or Flavia (not that Flavia had contributed verbally but she had clattered cutlery).

Without Alastair, the Greek Princesses lacked vitality but they did both smile at intervals as they anticipated his arrival at Cap Ferrat in the not-too-distant future.

Marco continued to enchant and Queen Elizabeth, forgetting all painful effects of the rascally chicken bone, told him in confidence that her favourite song was ‘Drink to Me Only’.

When they had all departed and shortly before darkness fell, Muriel’s powers gave out. She sat upon a shallow step of the solidly-built staircase, placed her head between her hands and asked of Peter and Marco who themselves began to think of bed, ‘Tomorrow, when I go to the hospital, will I have to kiss the corpse?’

It seemed to her that she floated from a drifting sea that was never still, onto an alien shore where she knew nobody and where her daily props were to be forever denied her. In this no-man’s-land she found that there was no corner-shop, nowhere to lay her hands on a Mars Bar or a Crunchie; no quick crossword; no battery for her headphones to move for her the pages of a talking book, designed to tether her thoughts during sleepless nights. The list grew longer. No ready-made sandwich, no crisps, no ribbon for her hair.

It hit her fair and square that the remoteness from which she suffered, both in sleep and in waking hours, was one that had dogged Mambles’s childhood and her first trip, oft-described by Cunty, on the underground.

I
t was early when Lizzie rang on Monday morning. Muriel was up and conversing with Monopoly who enjoyed freedom after his banishment of the day before. He promised, with a wag, to keep her company in the car when she visited Jerome’s relics.

‘I’m sorry. It’s a bit much, Muriel. There’s a piece in the
Daily Mail
. It’s just come through my letterbox. Listen. I’ll read it to you.’

Muriel begged her to desist.

‘Please Lizzie. Let me off the hook. Whatever that stupid paper says, do believe me. I had no control.’

‘I’m sorry but it says that your uncle, if he is your uncle, died before you entertained the Queen Mother, Princess Matilda and half the Greek Royal family to lunch in his house. It also says that your caretaker, a Dulcie-something-or-other, aged over eighty, gave an interview from the nursing home, having ridden there on a motorbike after learning that the Queen Mother had put her feet up on your spare room bed.’

‘It is sort of true, I must admit.’

‘So. Why did you get that blind brother-in-law of yours to chuck me?’

Lizzie ranted and Muriel knew that she had been mistaken in bidding Peter to lay her off.

‘Lord protect me from my friends,’ she silently quoted as she did her best to atone with a series of rash promises.

The country was dry and fields almost white after, apart from one brief thunderstorm, weeks of drought. Muriel and Monopoly looked out from their separate windows, aiming to acquaint themselves with landmarks in the locality. They passed cattle, cottages, horses and hedges as
they neared the nursing home. To the side of the road, jutting from a half-hidden entrance, a hand-written sign read ‘Pick your own’ and Muriel thought of Roger.

At the home, a nurse presented Muriel with Jerome’s rank suit and a pair of dusty shoes. She also handed her a gold signet ring rubbed bare of lettering.

‘There’s his overnight bag to follow,’ she informed with a briskness that compounded Muriel’s misery.

‘Would you care to come along?’

Muriel followed her as far as the closed door that barred her from looking into the cubicle where her dead patron lay. There they stopped and the nurse (Muriel supposed her to be the one with connections at the cat-sanctuary) asked if she would care to take a last look. She nodded; sensing such behaviour to be correct.

Jerome lay, clean and cross, no longer senile but forbidding. Muriel wished with vehemence that the nurse had not followed her into the cubicle for she knew that the woman expected her to kiss the blue lips that tugged her eyes towards them.

‘Should I kiss him?’ she asked.

‘Just as you please.’

‘What do people usually do?’

‘It depends. It’s up to you.’

Thus they wrangled as Jerome, all but his face hidden beneath a sheet, lay doornail-dead and powerless to advise.

The curious thing was that, later, Muriel was never able to remember how she had resolved the dilemma. She never knew, even in old age, whether or not she had bent to kiss the lips of Jerome Atkins; deceased.

Slipping the worn ring into a cotton pocket of her frock, Muriel’s mind turned to other gems that might, by chance, be hidden in the house. Aunt Alice, had she possessed any treasures, was unlikely to have bestowed them on Dulcie. Dulcie in a tiara. Was there any limit to the possible depths of her all-probable inheritance? Jerome, most decidedly, had not lasted the seven years that Arthur had recommended to free his heir from death duty. She ruminated on this and other matters as she drove back to Bradstow where, without time to take stock, she found herself incarcerated with an undertaker who waited for her in the hall with a show of limitless patience.

His name was Mr Cabbage. Chuck Cabbage. He was tall and wore a long grey mackintosh suited to the solemnity of his trade. His high, domed head boasted but a few strands of sticky black hair.

With gravelly intonation and infinite understanding, he clasped Muriel’s right hand in both his own.

‘Mrs Cottle. I am grieved Mrs Cottle to hear of your tragic loss. Now, Mrs Cottle, if there is any little thing Mrs Cottle - such as a favourite hymn of the deceased, Mrs Cottle.’ She could not believe her ears. Never, particularly, had she cared for the name that Hugh had landed her with but, until her meeting with Mr Cabbage, had not realised that it was downright absurd.

‘He will be with us by now Mrs Cottle, in our Chapel of Rest. The main question, Mrs Cottle, is whether it’s to be burial or cremation Mrs Cottle.’

They cleared up many points.

It annoyed her that Chuck Cabbage, with his exaggerated use of her name, had succeeded in reminding her of Hugh and it struck her that, were she to divorce Hugh and marry Peter, her name would still be Mrs Cottle. It was hideously unfair.

Ushering Mr Cabbage to the front door, her heart turned over, rendering her giddy - for this was the first time that she had allowed for Peter in her plans. Of all the haunting disturbances that had put paid to her peace of mind of late, this created the greatest havoc and puzzled her (for by nature she was impatient) that Peter’s blindness did not bother her, other than for the uncomplained-of distress that it caused him. He was furnished with his own radar system and seldom broke or bumped or found himself far from his intended spot. Hugh was one to point out faults; specks, untidiness and such like but she shuddered as she weighed Peter’s incapacity as a point in his favour and took mental advantage of it.

After despatching Mr Cabbage to his duties, she found Peter in the hall and palpitated lest he read her mind. He gave no sign of having done so and suggested that the time had come for her to visit Flavia in her bedroom. ‘But,’ he continued, ‘dismiss our irresponsible musings from your mind. Just ask her if she needs anything.’

Marco had not surfaced and, when Muriel knocked on the bedroom door, it was he who grunted out permission to enter. The pair lay entwined as she had seen them there before, putting paid to imaginings.

‘How’s Flavia today?’

‘Don’t know. She hasn’t woken.’

Marco jumped from the bed in creased pyjamas and said, ‘I’ll tell you what Ma. I’ll be down in a jiffy,’ remembering how his mother loved that word. ‘Let’s take Monopoly for a walk.’

As she waited for her son to dress she anticipated confidences and thought to ask Peter if he would join them outside since, with all she had to fathom, the fear of extra burdens loomed intolerably and a third party would undoubtedly keep revelations at bay.

Peter, however, was nowhere to be found and Muriel, Monopoly and Marco made for the rookery beyond the stream.

‘So Ma,’ he said, half addressing the dog, ‘I daresay you’ve guessed. Flavia, I mean. A little one. A baby in time for the New Year.’

‘My darling,’ her voice was forced and fragile. ‘How exciting? Are you pleased?’

‘Sort of,’ he replied, his voice half-drowned by rasping rooks. ‘Flave’s not though. It’s put her in a peculiar mood. It’s going to be a problem, what with me being hopeless, no job and all that.’

‘Perhaps I’ll be able to help. Have it down here or something. You can come at weekends. Kitty might have a sister.’ She was carried away by schemes.

Marco brightened and turned towards her, lines of weariness escaping from his white face. ‘Might you Ma? You must hang on to this place at all costs. I’ll tell Flave. It’ll cheer her up. I’ll try to get myself sorted out - work or whatnot.’

Untroubled by suspicion.

He smiled and said, ‘Good old Gran,’ and stretched himself as though to express a view that problems had been shelved.

They returned to the house where Muriel’s attention was grasped by those who sought instruction.

‘It’s likely to be a large crowd.’ Phyllis used her hands indicating a mob. ‘Mr Atkins was well liked before he went funny. There’s the church group; school managers and the rest. They’re not going to want to miss out.’

The funeral was planned for the following Thursday at midday. Then there was to be a buffet lunch hosted by Muriel for an indefinite number of guests.

Interminable confabulation with Dawson ensued. ‘It’s come at a bad time - what with the fete. Now Delilah. She’s an expert on flower
arrangement as you know. As a matter of fact, she’s known as the Constance Spry of the Midlands around here.’

Peter undertook to sort out the order of service with the help of Kitty and her pencil. Joyce and Eric wheeled in pots and Muriel considered it unseemly that the very same blooms appeared and reappeared with little to show for their journeys but the explosion of the odd extra flower or the removal of the odd piece of fading foliage. It would have been more festive to have shown different displays for different types of occasion.

Dulcie humped logs.

‘He liked a fire at all times as I have previously mentioned.’ Once again the weather was scorchingly hot.

Phyllis came, breathing conscientious effort, to ask if Muriel cared for her to bundle up Jerome’s clothes in time for the fete.

‘Joyce would be pleased to have them. She runs the rummage.’

Whilst assenting, Muriel inspected her image and accepted that there was every chance that criticism would arise. Jerome’s clothes flung from the house to be unravelled upon the village rummage stall within days of his departure from the world.

Flavia kept to her room.

The telephone began to ring in earnest although more often than not the calls were put through by Dawson or Delilah offering suggestions. Muriel realised how little she knew of Jerome and his earlier doings. Had he, for example, ever earned a decoration? OBE or something.

Arthur came in person to the rescue, happy to be of service and exaggeratedly civil in his address to the lady of the house.

On the morning of the day before Jerome’s funeral Muriel paid a visit to the Norman Church of which Dawson was the rector.

Waterproof sheeting, spread to cover the width and half of the aisle, was heaped high with flowers and greenery where three elderly ladies chatted as they sifted and arranged under the directions of Delilah whose hair was gathered in a flimsy net and who called ‘Cooee! I’m in my element. Flowers!’ She pronounced the word ‘flahs’ and pressed her face into the prickle of a rose.

She introduced Muriel to her companions. ‘My team,’ she termed them with pride.

‘Now team. This is Muriel. Muriel Cottle. You’ll find her a tremendous kindred spirit.’

The three elderly women gazed at her in boundless curiosity for there were many reasons to excite their wonder. Not one amongst them was free of the knowledge of wines, chamber pots and royalty, and the affair of Hugh and Miss Ingrid Malone, too, had been doing the rounds. Whatever appeasement offered by Delilah in her assurances that it took all sorts and that Muriel was likely to be a tremendous kindred spirit, they had their doubts.

‘How kind. How very kind. Can I help? A vase or something?’ Muriel tried in the face of scandal.

The women started and stared and one ran to a cupboard that stood in a dark corner behind the organ and beneath bells. Muriel, in the knowledge that she was held in disrespectful awe, was anxious not to make a hash of her flower arrangement. Delilah made almost as free with Muriel’s first name as had Chuck Cabbage with her second. The woman who had run to the cupboard returned with a large glass vase that she handed to Muriel, saying, ‘Let me know if you need any help. Oasis or wire.’

Delilah took charge.

‘What about down there? Just below the pulpit. There. Gorgeous. Make sure that Dawson’s surplice won’t brush it when he passes on his way to deliver the address. Lovely one by the way. A bit above my head, I fear but you’ll appreciate it and, er, some of your London friends. Might any of them be coming?’

She threw a conspiratorial look that radiated upon her fellow florists and sent their colours rising as Muriel filled her vase with a tangle of roses and honeysuckle, squashing them together and tousling them around until they presented a blob of untidy bravura.

Standing back, she stared at them; much pleased to have produced such a delightful effect. Delilah was beside herself; full of praise.

‘I can see that you’re a natural with flahs. But, I’ll tell you what. A little tip.’ She squatted and started to tweak at the masterpiece. Using both hands she twitched at stems to the left and to the right of the vase. As she gave her concentration, the shape of the arrangement altered, becoming flattened and fanned.

‘There. That’s all it needed. It’s a little something I learnt. Women’s Institute as a matter of fact. Might you be persuaded to join? We had a gorgeous girl down. Constance Spry-trained. She passed on the knack.’

Muriel guessed that she was unlikely to be collared as a member of the
Church flower rota and offered thanks and wild appreciation as she left the ladies to fan to their hearts delight and walked back, the length of the village, to resume other duties.

There were those who stared at her as she passed and to each, unseeing, she threw a dazed smile of warmth.

At the house, goings-on had reached a peak. Marco, with unnatural ebullience, raced around with a silver cleaning cloth tucked into the belt of his trousers and Peter continued to make mental notes. There were those, he had been advised, who would expect to be placed in the church; Arthur, gorgeous matron, Delilah and so on. Muriel and Marco (Flavia, too, if she were to attend) must, of course, sit in the front pew, right beside the corpse.

Chuck Cabbage crossed the carpet; unexpectedly, silently and clad in a light grey mac.

‘Last minute details Mrs Cottle. You, Mrs Cottle, as chief mourner, along with your son, Mrs Cottle, if you so wish, will be expected to enter the church behind the coffin. We, Mrs Cottle, that is to say myself and my lads, will bear the body Mrs Cottle. I’ll tip you the wink when we are about to leave. Just outside the porch that will be Mrs Cottle. There was a time, Mrs Cottle, when it would have been our job to carry the body up the church path, Mrs Cottle. The lads today, I’m sorry to say Mrs Cottle, aren’t what they were and, consequently Mrs Cottle, we draw the package as far as the porch, Mrs Cottle, on a truck.’