The Lotus House (14 page)

“Wasting all that money on a flower,” said her mother.

Of course the pelargonium flourished in superb health; and in the late summer she had taken two cuttings from it and cossetted them through the winter months and now
they were putting forth strong shoots.

Afterwards Janet always felt annoyed that it was Dian and not herself who had first discovered something odd about one of the cuttings. She was showing them off and pointing out that each had two fat buds when Dian said, “I thought they were purple and white.”

“So they are,” said Janet.

“Well, this one’s different,” said Dian, “looks funny to me, a kind of grey, see?”

Janet saw — and it
was
distinctly different from the other cutting, the bud tips of which already showed the correct hue, yet it was just as healthy. Janet gave it a little extra feed and pushed it into the sunniest corner.

On Dian’s next Tuesday she found Janet waiting to waylay her.

“She was really over the moon, she was,” Dian told Luke that evening, “her eyes popping out — well they do pop a bit most times, but this time I thought they was just like my Monday lady’s peke, so I went along with her as quick as I could, though I ought really to have been doing the drawing-room floor. ‘It’s my pel …’ whatever it’s called, she said, ‘it’s going to be a blue one and I don’t believe there’s never been a blue one before.’ Well, it wasn’t what I’d call proper blue, more airforce, if you know what I mean, but you could stretch a point. ‘Oo,’ I says, ‘it might be goin’ to make your fortune, what did your stars say this week, did you look at them?’ But she never does, careless I call it. What d’you think, Luke?”

“I dunno, honey, flowers is your concern, but you tell her to take advice, there’ll be those who’ll know.”

By the time Dian saw Janet again she had already taken the pelargonium to Miss Budgeon to show her the blue flower. Miss Budgeon belonged to the local horticultural society and had tried to get Janet to join. “I don’t join things,” was all the response she had had hitherto. Lately, however, Janet had secretly been weakening. There were
lectures and shows and gardening stock to be had at a discount and it didn’t seem fair to her flowers somehow to keep out of it. Now she felt the need both for information and encouragement. Miss Budgeon, for instance, was full of sympathetic interest in Janet’s blue blossoms.

“You really should join our society, Miss Cook,” she said, “there’s our summer show coming off next month and there’s a special class for last year’s cuttings.”

It’ll
mean
mixing
with
a
lot
of
strangers
, thought Janet dubiously,
still
it
may
be
my
duty
in
a
manner
of
speaking.
Miss Budgeon produced the necessary forms for her to fill up and she decided that, besides entering her pelargonium, she would also compete for the best nosegay of annuals and for the sweetpea section as well. Roses were chancy, if you only had a few bushes, you couldn’t count on any blooms being just at the right stage, whereas her sweetpeas promised very well.

“In for a penny, in for a pound,” said Janet to herself, and it really turned out to be several points on her right side, for her posy of cornflowers and clarkia and larkspur and pansies was awarded a third prize, her sweetpeas a second, and a first with special distinction for her pelargonium, now proudly displaying no less than three blue blooms.

The judge, a BBC personality called Tom Austen, presented the prizes and when it came to Janet’s turn he detained her.

“As a member of the Geranium and Pelargonium Society, Miss Cook, I am very intrigued by your blue flowering plant. You have grown it from a cutting, I see. Have you been experimenting with different varieties long?”

“Oh, no,” said Janet, “I haven’t experimented at all. it just came like that. As a matter of fact, I am not an experienced gardener, I had never grown anything till I retired two years ago.”

“Really!” said Tom Austen. “And you’ve run away with three prizes, quite a record I should think. I congratulate you and if you will allow me, I would very much like to keep in touch on behalf of the society with regard to your interesting sport.”

Janet gave a grudging consent. “Letting a strange man have your name and address like that,” exclaimed her mother.

“You see,” Miss Budgeon had explained afterwards, “they’ll want to find out whether more blue pelargoniums can be grown from yours, and if they can, Miss Cook, you might become quite famous.”

When Janet got home after the show she put all her prize money into the carpet-fund box which had been so neglected and even robbed. It was a kind of placation; she was determined not to spend any more on the garden, just at the present. It was as well not to tempt fortune, there were always snags about. All the same, she felt very proud, it had been an amazing day, perhaps the most exciting she could remember, and even more extraordinary things were to follow.

About two weeks later, her phone rang and a voice, a polite, pleasant, voice enquired if it could speak to Miss Janet Cook.

“Who is it?” asked Janet cautiously.

“My name is Cassie Kay,” said the voice, “I’m from the BBC and I would very much like to speak to Miss Janet Cook.”

“Speaking,” said Janet.

“Oh, good morning, Miss Cook,” said Cassie Kay, “we are doing a short series on BBC1 telivision called “Senior Starters”, aimed as its name implies primarily at the active retired category, but of course we hope of interest to a wider circle. It comes on on Tuesdays at 7.10 p.m. Perhaps you have seen it? No — well, Tom Austen tells us you have taken up gardening since your retirement
and have produced a new species of geranium. It seems to us that you might make a valuable contribution to our series, if you would allow us to make a short film of you in your garden and with your wonderful plant.”

There was a pause.

“Well, I don’t know, I’m sure,” said Janet at last, “I never thought of such a thing.”

This was an understatement. “A bolt from the blue,” she said afterwards, “that’s what it was, a regular bolt from the blue.”

There was another pause, but only a short one this time. “You would like to think it over, of course,” said the beguiling voice of Cassie Kay, “perhaps I could ring you tomorrow. I do so hope you’ll say ‘yes’, Miss Cook. I’ll ring tomorrow evening if that is convenient. Goodbye for the present then.”

Janet was flustered and apprehensive, but beneath this there burned a small flame of glory. She decided to consult Mrs Sanderson. It was right to do so anyway, she couldn’t very well let photographers and who-knows-what descend on the Lotus House unbeknown to its owner.

“But how lovely!” exclaimed Letty. “I do congratulate you. Dian had told me about your geranium and I have been meaning to ask you if I could see it. Now tell me all about it, please, from the beginning.”

“It’s what they call a sport,” said Janet, “the parent plant was purple and white, I got it from Miss Budgeon’s shop.”

“Oh,” said Letty, “that explains it, that shop has always dealt in magic.”’

Janet thought,
How
silly
Mrs
Sanderson
is
sometimes,
but
there,
she’s
getting
on
after
all.

However, the conversation with Letty somehow settled it, and so it came about that one morning what seemed like a perfect army of strangers descended upon Miss Cook at the Lotus House basement flat and took over. It
was this sensation of being taken over that was the strongest impression left with Janet when the day was done. She was posed standing in the middle of her garden, walking up the path, picking flowers and lastly in her sitting room holding her pelargonium.

“A fine house this,” the photographer had commented, “it’s a bonus as a background. May we just trouble you once more, from a little distance this time, so as to concentrate on a good picture of the whole building … That’s splendid, thank you so much, Miss Cook, I think this will make a really rewarding film.”

“I just wish it had been me,” said Dian. “Didn’t it make you feel like the Queen?”

“I don’t know what the Queen feels like,” said Janet tartly. “It made
me
feel silly.”

“What did they say?” enquired Dian. “Some of them interviewers are lovely, but some can be horrible, only Luke says they don’t mean no harm really.”

“This one wasn’t horrible,” admitted Janet, “just stupid.”

“How d’yer mean stupid?” asked Dian, shocked.

“Asking questions nobody could answer like, “How does it feel, Miss Cook, to have made the desert blossom like the rose?’” said Janet in a mincing voice.

“I call that pretty,” said Dian, “like something out of a musical.”

“It’s out of the Bible,” said Janet.

“What did you say?” persisted Dian.

“I said ‘It’s good loam soil, not at all sandy.’ And then they asked me what I was going to call my new wonderful blue variety, and I said it might never do it again and I wasn’t one to count my chickens before they were hatched.”

“Well,” said Dian reproachfully, “you weren’t very kind to the poor chap, was you? He was only trying to get you to talk nice.”

“It can’t be helped now,” said Janet. “I dare say I was a bit short. It’s not what I’m used to, you see.”

Janet was informed that the film would be shown in three weeks’ time. She debated whether to let Henry and Doris know. She hadn’t told them anything at all as yet, not even about the flower show and the pelargonium. She didn’t want Doris interfering and she couldn’t tell how Henry would take it. Finally she decided it would be mean not to say anything. Besides they’d be sure to get to know, though she didn’t think they would look at the programme unless they were told. But people always did get to know things when you didn’t want them to. So she sent them a picture postcard of Westminster Abbey just before the great day and wrote on it: “Don’t miss ‘Senior Starters’ BBC1 Tuesday 7.10, love Janet.”
I
’
m
sure
they’ll
be
too
curious
not
to
look
and
when
they
do
they’ll
get
the
shock
of
their
lives,
she thought with satisfaction as she posted it. She could just see their faces.

Everyone else knew. “I can’t wait!” said Dian. “Mind you come home in time, Luke. You ought to’ve heard her telling off that interviewer, ever so cheeky, she was.”

“I expect they’ll cut it, they mostly cuts half of what they make you say,” said Luke.

“Seems funny when you comes to think of it,” said Dian, “all those people all over, going to hear her and to see her and when I first knows her, there she was darting away behind her door, scared to show herself just to me. Not much of the goldfish left now.”

IT IS A
fact, and not a very admirable one, that a person or a building or a landscape that is familiar to oneself, if it is to be seen in a photograph or on the television screen, takes on a compelling interest. Although probably not one of the inhabitants of the Lotus House would have bothered to look at a travel film that might have enlarged their visual experience and added to their knowledge, all were glued to the box on that summer evening to see Miss Cook, her garden and her plant against the background of their own home, which they could have seen, and indeed did see, any and every day much better in reality.

Letty had thought it might have been pleasant if they could have watched the film together, but Janet Cook had said, “It’s kind of you, Mrs Sanderson, but I don’t fancy seeing myself in public somehow. I mean it’s not natural, is it, if you see what I mean.”

Letty thought she did see and did not press it. Then there was Aubrey Stacey, he too thanked her politely but said that he was afraid he really couldn’t bear colour television — it was an idiosyncrasy for which he apologized, but there it was, and he really would prefer to see the film on his own set as he knew he was in a small minority and couldn’t expect people to turn off their colour for him. After that Letty gave up. She knew the Royces had a bigger and better television than hers.

Janet Cook sat upright on the edge of her grandfather’s chair gripping its arms. She could not have described her state of mind — “queer”, that’s all she could have said, “definitely queer.” Wasn’t there a story about someone meeting himself one day and getting quite a shock? She could believe it. Why had she let herself in for all this?
You’ve
only
yourself
to
blame,
Janet,
but this never made things easier — one could often enjoy blaming others.

Well, now it was time and, pressing her thin little lips even more tightly together, she got up and switched on, and there she was already, coming straight down the garden path right at her, only it wasn’t herself after all, it was her mother. She would have known her anywhere, but of course it couldn’t be, it must be her. She supposed that through the years her own face had become too familiar to be seen any more, and because her hair at least was still black, she hadn’t realized that now she looked quite old, a bit shrunk and bent and decidedly skinny. Why, she was more like her mother than Henry after all, because of course they were both women. But now that other Janet was stopping and looking down at her flowers — this was when they had asked her to pick some. She was stooping down to choose which to take, but you could still see her face, and, staring at it, the one Janet saw the face of the other change, it wasn’t her mother’s face any longer. Who did it remind her of? She couldn’t think at first, then a long buried memory flashed upon her, her father looking down on her, a very little girl and saying: “Coming for a walk with me, little ’un?” “Who’d have thought it?” said Janet aloud to the empty room: “Poor old Dad.”

But now the talking began.
Well,
I’ve
never
heard
that
voice
before
in
all
my
life,
thought Janet indignantly,
they
must
have
done
something
to
it.
She simply couldn’t pay attention to what was being said — the squeaky, jerky
tone of her own speech, like a ventriloquist’s doll, horrified her. Then the scene changed again and there she was holding up her pelargonium in the sitting-room. Well, that at least was all right, splendid it looked, and the last pictures were really pretty. She suddenly decided she would ask Mrs Sanderson to let her have still a bit more ground this autumn — that piece by the garages, she’d plant it out with flowering shrubs to hide them, you could get lovely ones nowadays. And now came the last shot of all, the one taken at a little distance with the whole house in and all her flowers in front. A flood of pride and satisfaction invaded her. Perhaps hundreds and hundreds of people were seeing the garden she had made and were enjoying it. She felt her heart expand to take them all in.

Had it not been for Mrs Sanderson, Aubrey would not have even known about the programme, and but for Dian would probably have forgotten to look at it. Dian had written a note with the red felt pen he used for correcting his school exercise books and had left it for him, propped up by his clock. It said: “Mr Stacey, don’t you forget, 7.10 this evening, Miss Cook on TV as ever is. Dian.”

Dian had adopted a protective attitude towards him lately. “Poor chap,” she had said to Letty, “losing his parents like that. I remember when Mum went, you feels all cold. I went on feeling cold, really, right on till I met my Luke, but it’s sobered him up no end, nothing like the bottles to clear out nowadays. Funny isn’t it? Took my brother Fred right the other way — well, it takes all sorts.”

Aubrey seldom used his television set and had to clear away a pile of books that had accumulated in front of it. He considered watching a waste of time and really thought it so now, for he wasn’t much interested either in flowers or Miss Cook, but he felt it would be discourteous to ignore both Mrs Sanderson and Dian’s recommendation, and also even he was not immune from the strange
fascination of seeing the familiar reproduced by the media. Afterwards he was glad he had done so, for he had noticed something about the house that he had not known was there before. Over his bedroom window was carved a second lotus flower similar to the one above the front entrance. He supposed the bars had obscured the view of it before. He began to wonder why the carvings were there. He had once asked Mrs Sanderson about it, but she could tell him little. She had some vague romantic story of a connection of the house with the East, but she did not seem to want to follow this up or to transform it into anything more substantial. He began to muse over the mythology connected with the Lotus. It seemed, as far as he could make out, ambiguous. There was the classical association through Homer of the sinister compelling magic that had inspired Tennyson’s
Lotus
Eaters
— the false dreams of a hollow land — but the Eastern Lotus of Vishnu and Buddha was life-giving, a vision of creative energy and truth, whose emblem was the white lily rising from the dark waters. Was this the house of fantasy or of vision, or perhaps of both? Aubrey Stacey continued to ponder for some time, then he got out his monograph on old Cotton and started to work on it.

To the Royces, if anyone had been able to trace it, the transition from the one realm to the other was perceptible, if precarious. Harriet had started school again fairly happily at half-term. Andrew and Margot had got married very quietly one weekend. When told of this, Harriet was pleased.

“This makes you a real relation to me, doesn’t it?” she had said to Andrew. “And us into a proper family.” She had confided the news to her mascot which she generally carted around in her pocket.

“I think we ought to have a honeymoon,” Andrew said to Margot, “your trip to Egypt didn’t do you much good, and I’ve still some leave left. Where would you like to go?”

“Switzerland,” said Margot without hesitation.

“We could take Harriet with us as chaperone,” said Andrew, “newly married couples always took a chaperone in Jane Austen’s day.”

“But this isn’t Jane Austen’s day,” said Margot, “it
isn’t,
Andrew.”

“No, perhaps not,” said Andrew, “I’ve always wondered what they did, the chaperones I mean. What can we do about her then?”

“Miss Johnson did say something about a music school away somewhere in Wales in the summer holidays, and would she be fit, did I think?”

“Just the thing,” said Andrew, “she’s really almost as fit as a fiddle now, isn’t she?”

“Switzerland’s expensive,” said Margot, “and the music school won’t be cheap, but we could sell the Crispin Keylock statue, he’s fetching quite high prices now and it would help a bit.”

Andrew had agreed enthusiastically. He had never cared for that annorexic nude, as he called it, and the thought of Crispin helping to pay for their honeymoon pleased him. Now he sat comfortably beside Margot and Harriet on the sofa in preparation for Miss Cook’s programme. Harriet was in what Margot called a tizzy, afraid that they might miss the beginning since Andrew insisted on waiting until the exact time advertised in order not to have to see the preceding item, which he declared would turn his stomach.

“Don’t fuss,” said her mother.

Harriet stole a sidelong look at her. “Well, you fussed yesterday when you thought he would make you lose your train.”

“How right you are, Harriet,” said Andrew, “but then you women always fuss, I suppose you can’t help it.”

Harriet looked quickly at her mother again, but it was all right, she was smiling and the smile was for Harriet and
was almost like a wink. She gave a contented giggle, but she was still anxious. At last Andrew stopped concentrating on the second hand of his watch and switched on just as the programme was being announced, and then they each saw the strip of flower garden and Miss Cook and the house.

Andrew noted once more with affectionate approval its fine proportions and classical grace. He hoped Margot would not want to move again for a long while. He was glad that the Lotus House was their first home as man and wife.

Margot, looking at the bright small image before her, was suddenly reminded of her nightmare in Egypt for, as bright and small had been the vision at the end of that dark avenue. She remembered but no longer felt the horror of her dream. It had been a horror of vacuity. Perhaps this had always haunted her, perhaps she had always been trying to escape from it ever since her empty childhood, and always in vain, for without love there is no identity. Since Harriet’s accident she had sensed this dimly. The quest and the flight (for they were one) still harried her, but there had been that moment of peaceful radiance in the midst of Andrew’s absurd dance, the influence of which had never entirely deserted her. She watched the picture of the Lotus House and garden before her change now to a close-up of Miss Cook holding her pelargonium proudly aloft for all to see. Her hands, clasping the pot, were out of focus and looked too large. They were untended hands with short stubby fingers. Margot looked down involuntarily at her own hands, beautifully smooth, the nails like small very pink shells. Then she glanced at Harriet’s and noticed for the first time, and with surprise, that they were prettily shaped and very like her own. She did not need to look at Andrew’s — those inordinately long, very sensitive fingers — she had an odd sensation that they were as
much a part of her as her own.

“Who are those three little girls on the stairway hiding behind the wisteria?” Harriet was asking.

“I can’t see any little girls,” said Margot.

“It must be the shadows of the leaves,” said Andrew.

“Oh, look!” cried out Harriet excitedly, “There’s Maisie, I’m so glad she’s there, she’s walking all the way down the path. Wasn’t she clever to know about it?”

“I expect they decoyed her with a bit of fish,” said Andrew, “cats are TV personalities, the public loves them.”

Underneath the Royces, Letty sat alone in her beautiful old green and white drawing-room, the least altered room in the house, and the one she liked the best. She regretted that she was alone but knew now it was only to be expected. The crisis of Harriet’s accident had drawn them all together for a short while, but that was an artificial association with no basis of natural growth, and once over, they parted again into their four separate units and really seldom met. It was not at all what Letty had at one time dreamed of, but she had come to accept it almost with amusement. She knew herself to be sentimental, but she was relieved to find she was not a coward. She had come to terms with loneliness, to which after all she was no stranger. Lately a warning physical sympton had taken her to her doctor, who had told her there was no cause for alarm, but that the time had come for her to take care. The care she had taken was for the Lotus House. She had had a session with Mr Donovan.

“I do not want it to become an institution and as far as possible I want to ensure its being looked after properly. I have no close relatives still living,” she said. “What do you advise?”

It was decided that the property should go to a favourite charity on condition that they fulfilled certain obligations as to its upkeep. “But if anything should
happen to me while the present tenants are still in residence, I want their interests safeguarded,” said Letty earnestly, and Mr Donovan said he would prepare the necessary papers. She had gone away satisfied.

It struck her now as she sat there waiting, that it was curious that it should be Cooksie in the basement that was the one who was responsible for setting all this activity in motion, that had brought producer and researcher and cameramen and interviewer and designer, and who knows how many more, into contact with her Lotus House, while she herself remained passive, a mere onlooker. But she had perhaps been more of an onlooker than anything else throughout her life — the child who enjoyed watching the sparrows on the roof more than the game — the one who stood entranced, motionless, before the doll’s house — the dutiful daughter, the useful wife at home. “They also serve who only stand and wait,” she had learned the sonnet at school. Milton however could not have actually done much standing and waiting, she thought, with twelve books of
Paradise
Lost
to be written. Really, the only important action she had ever taken on her own was to buy the Lotus House, and how much that mattered she could not tell. The house kept its secrets. Now she felt her part in its history was over and done with, sealed up in Mr Donovan’s office. She was not needed any longer, even as an onlooker. But why should one always demand of life to be needed? It was not in the bond. She could still love her drawing-room as much as she liked.

Unlike Andrew, Letty had switched on early, but she had been paying no attention to what was going on. How breathless thought was. She had traversed labyrinths of the mind in a few moments, and now she collected her wits together. As “Senior Starters” was announced, her television set gave a flicker. Perhaps after all it was as well that none of her tenants were watching with her, it was an
old set and she knew she ought to replace it.
It
is
typical,
she thought,
that
I
do
nothing
about
it
because
I’
m
used
to
it
and
it
was
a
wedding
present.
Then she caught her breath — what she was looking at was the back view of Selina’s doll’s house, the part that had never been seen before. It was just the right size, only a little brighter, a little further removed from reality. Where, oh where, were the Golightlys? She could not see any of them anywhere, unless that was Cooksie standing among a lot of flowers that were pretty enough but had no business to be outside the kitchen window. No, of course, Selina’s doll’s house was destroyed and that was Miss Janet Cook who rented the basement flat. Well, she couldn’t really be bothered at her age to keep the past and the present separate any more, though she remembered clearly enough now. It was all about a blue pelargonium, but they had liked the house so much, Janet Cook has said, that they had taken a special picture of it at the end to show the whole of it to the best advantage.