The Importance of Being Seven (20 page)

‘I suppose she’s trying to be modern,’ suggested Angus. ‘It’s like those awful mixed-sex wards in hospitals. The theory was that it was old-fashioned to put men in one ward and women in another.’

‘People hated it,’ said Domenica. ‘I remember going to visit somebody who was utterly miserable. She was in a ward with ten men, and she was the only woman. It was a nightmare.’

‘Antonia might have liked that,’ said Angus.

Domenica laughed. ‘Perhaps. But I’m not sure that she is simply trying to be modern. I think that …’ She paused. Angus was looking away, and she could sense his embarrassment. ‘Well, I’m sorry to have to say this, but she’s ruthless, that woman. She wants
a man and she doesn’t care who it is. It all shows how desperate she is.’

Angus thought about this. Was Domenica implying he was the bottom of the barrel and only a desperate woman would show any interest in him? That was hardly flattering. With his new outfit from Stewart, Christie in Queen Street, and Cyril in his red bandanna, they might look quite the thing – in the right light.

Domenica herself had realised the tactlessness of her remark, and was thinking of ways to repair the damage. Angus was more sensitive than people thought, as men often are, and she would not like him to think that she believed that no reasonable woman would consider him attractive.

‘I mean that she’s generally desperate,’ she said. ‘On all matters – desperate across the board.’

Angus shrugged. It’s all very well having one new outfit, he thought, but I can’t wear that all the time. Should I go back to Stewart, Christie and get some more clothes?

‘Yes,’ said Domenica. ‘Her desperation is quite extraordinary. There is nothing to which she will not stoop. Remember the blue Spode teacup? Remember that business?’

Angus frowned. ‘But I thought that you found your teacup in here – after we had gone in next door to pinch it back.’

Domenica waved a hand airily. ‘Well, another one did indeed turn up. But I’m not sure that it was the same as the one that went missing. I still think it’s likely that the one I saw in Antonia’s flat was mine. After all, she had no other blue Spode – not a scrap. And you don’t have single teacups – you usually have a set.’

‘Well, whatever that was all about, we shall have to watch Antonia very carefully.’

Domenica thought this good advice. ‘And you, Angus, are just going to have to refuse to share a room with her. Be direct. Tell her to her face.’

Angus shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘There must be a more tactful way of dealing with her. Perhaps we could write to one of those social advice columns and ask how to deal with a situation like this.’

‘Those columns are certainly useful,’ she said. ‘I suspect that they would advise you to come up with some reason for wanting to sleep alone. Perhaps you could say that you’re a terrible snorer and nobody could possibly sleep in the same room as you. They’re very good with answers like that, those columns.’

‘I could tell her I was a somnambulist,’ said Angus brightly. ‘I could say that I pose some – not a great deal, but some – danger to those around me when I’m asleep.’

Domenica thought this a very good idea. ‘And perhaps you could pretend to sleepwalk while we’re in the villa. That would confirm what you said.’

‘Cyril suffers from somnambulism,’ said Angus. ‘Not very often, but from time to time.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. He gets up out of his bed and wags his tail. Then he walks off to the cupboard where I keep his lead and he sits outside it. I’ve seen him do it several times. I just gently lead him back to his basket and he lies down again. The vet says that it’s nothing to worry about.’

Domenica glanced at Cyril, who looked back at her and smiled, his gold tooth flashing in a ray of sun. ‘Somnambulism raises some very interesting issues,’ she said. ‘I read somewhere about an experiment which some sleep researchers had conducted in Montreal. They had a woman who suffered from nocturnal somnambulistic snacking.’

‘What?’

‘She sleepwalked at night and raided the refrigerator. She was putting on an awful lot of weight as a result. But she had another problem – she had a phobia for snakes – ophidiophobia, I believe it’s called. So they told her to drape a large rubber snake over the fridge before she went to bed at night.’

‘And that worked? No more nocturnal snacking?’

‘Yes, that worked. But – and this is the interesting part. She forgot to put the snake in position one night, and when she went downstairs the next morning, she had a Mother Hubbard moment – no food. All snacked.’

‘Oh.’

‘Indeed. This shows that while she was asleep she was, at some level, aware of the fact that she had forgotten to put the snake in place. The inhibition against going to the fridge was therefore not operating. So this suggests that …’

Angus waited. He was interested to find out just what the implications of this were.

Domenica looked thoughtful. ‘It means,’ she went on, ‘that we can still be expected to behave ourselves when we are asleep.’

‘Surely not,’ said Angus. ‘If I say something terrible in my sleep, I would hope not to be held accountable. I don’t think—’

‘But it shows what you really want to say,’ interrupted Domenica. ‘It’s rather like drunkenness. Nice people are nice when they’re drunk – nasty people are nasty.’ She paused. ‘Auden said something similar about the weather, if I remember correctly. He said that nice weather is what nasty people are nasty about and the nice take pleasure in observing. Something like that.’

Angus rose to his feet and crossed to the window. ‘I never tire of your view,’ he said. ‘Never.’

‘It’s a great consolation,’ said Domenica. A consolation for … for … Well, it was a consolation for everything, really.

‘And look at that sky,’ said Angus. ‘We’re so fortunate, aren’t we? To live in a country where the sky changes virtually every moment; where its colours, its attenuated blues, its whites, its purples break the heart, and then break it again, afresh, every single day.’

When he saw Elspeth collapse, for a moment Matthew was unable to do anything, experiencing, for the first time in his life, a complete paralysis of disbelief and indecision. Then, once the initial shock had passed, he leaped forward, knocking over a small mahogany
table. The noise of the toppling table, which had supported a glass bowl, now smashed, was drowned by Matthew’s cry of anguish.

The solicitor’s assistant was in the kitchen, where she was absorbed in a copy of
Scottish Interiors
. The feature she was reading was an article on a house in a Fife fishing village that had been restored by a Dundee architect and his wife. Everything was white, as far as she could make out, and minimalist. She held the page away from her to test the perspective. No, definitely too many sharp corners and hard surfaces. Could minimalism not be a bit softer?

Then she heard Matthew. She looked up. It was not the first time that she had heard people exclaim – and very occasionally swear – when looking round a house. These exclamations were often the result of disappointment with the décor – or, on occasion, vociferous disapproval. Then there were arguments, when one member of a couple liked the layout of a house and another did not. That led to tension and, again very occasionally, open arguments. But this was different: something had clearly happened. They’ve broken something, she thought. People will insist on picking things up and then they break them. And then we have to go back to the owner and explain what has happened. Never they, be it noted – we.

She put aside
Scottish Interiors
and made her way into the drawing room. There she saw Matthew bending over Elspeth, who appeared to be half draped over one of the chairs. For a moment she thought that he had knocked her down – that the scream had come from her, not him, and that a disagreement over architecture had taken a rather serious turn. But then Matthew turned to her and shouted that she should call an ambulance.

The assistant took out her mobile phone and dialled the emergency number. A voice answered quickly and took the address. ‘Stay where you are. Somebody will be with you very soon.’

Then Elspeth sat up. Matthew looked at her for a moment in complete astonishment, as if she, a female Lazarus perhaps, was defying death itself.

‘I think I slipped,’ said Elspeth. ‘Sorry.’

‘You didn’t slip,’ said Matthew. ‘You collapsed. Oh, my darling, are you all right?’

‘Of course I’m all right,’ said Elspeth, struggling to get to her feet.

‘You should sit down,’ said the assistant. ‘I’ll make some tea and then the ambulance will arrive.’

Elspeth laughed. ‘I don’t need an ambulance. I slipped, that’s all.’

‘You didn’t,’ said Matthew. ‘You collapsed. Your eyes were closed. You were unconscious.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Elspeth. ‘If I had been unconscious, then I wouldn’t remember what happened. I slipped, on that rug.’

‘Then should I call the ambulance people and cancel?’ asked the assistant.

‘No,’ said Matthew. ‘We must get Elspeth to hospital as soon as possible.’

Elspeth reached out and placed a hand on Matthew’s arm – a calming gesture. ‘Come on, Matthew, let’s not over-dramatise the situation. Maybe I did faint. People faint during pregnancy.’

Matthew frowned. ‘Only if something’s wrong.’

The solicitor’s assistant shook her head. ‘No, I think your wife’s right. I know somebody who fainted quite a few times when she was expecting her first baby. I saw her do it several times. And the doctor explained that it was all to do with inadequate blood supply.’

‘Yes,’ said Elspeth. ‘I’m expecting triplets, you see.’

The solicitor’s assistant gasped. ‘Poor you … I mean, congratulations.’

Elspeth thanked her. ‘It’s exciting,’ she said. ‘For both of us.’

‘Triplets,’ said the assistant. ‘That’s probably why you fainted. Anyway, I’m going to phone the ambulance people and call them off. All right?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Matthew. ‘Although I do wish you’d go and be checked up on. People shouldn’t faint just like that.’

The assistant went back into the kitchen to make the call, leaving Matthew and Elspeth in the drawing room.

‘I’d like to look at the rest of the flat,’ said Elspeth. ‘I really like this place, you know. That lovely garden. This room. Everything, so far.’

Matthew took her arm solicitously. ‘You should hold on to me,’ he said.

‘Oh, Matthew! Don’t be ridiculous. I’m unlikely to faint again. I’m fine.’

He looked doubtful, but relinquished his grip. ‘Please be careful.’

‘I shall.’ She smiled at him. He cared so much for her, and if that meant that he fussed a bit, then that was better than the opposite, an indifferent husband. Would it last forever, she wondered; would he be like this when they were middle-aged, and beyond? She imagined that it would; Matthew was not fickle in any way, she had noticed that.

They heard the solicitor’s assistant on the telephone. ‘No, she’s absolutely fine. It was just a faint. About thirty seconds, I think. Yes, I’ll tell them they should go the health centre. Thank you.’

‘I don’t need to see the doctor,’ said Elspeth. ‘You don’t go to the doctor every time you faint. Victorian and Edwardian women fainted regularly – every day, didn’t they?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Matthew. ‘I don’t see why they should have done that.’

‘Because it was considered ladylike,’ said Elspeth. ‘If you fainted a lot, it showed that you were a person of refined temperament. The world was just all too much, and so you fainted. You fainted if you saw something unpleasant.’

‘Like Aunt Ada,’ said Matthew. ‘Remember? Ada Doom in
Cold Comfort Farm
. She saw something nasty in the woodshed and never recovered.’

Elspeth smiled. ‘I always wondered what it was.’

‘Best not to ask,’ said Matthew. He opened a cupboard on the landing. ‘Nothing nasty inside,’ he said.

They went into the first of the bedrooms.

‘So restful,’ said Elspeth. ‘Look at that lovely wallpaper, Matthew. Chinoiserie.’

Matthew looked at the wall behind the bed. The wallpaper was of a pale green shade; the design, which was Chinese in style, depicted delicately rendered birds perching on twigs and branches;
a tiny bird, one of those birds so small that they would disappear within the clenched fist, balanced upon a wisp of grass.

‘This is where we’ll sleep,’ whispered Elspeth.

He looked at her. She was smiling at him gently, with that smile that made him so proud to be the one she had chosen to be her husband, to be the father of her baby … babies.