The Man Who Understood Women (8 page)

‘We have to go, Drusilla.’

‘The lunch is burning,’ Steven said.

I looked him in the eye. ‘Indeed it is.’

He took my hand, running his thumb along the scar. ‘Goodbye,’ he said, and I knew that this and not the volcanic separation of twenty years ago, was really the parting.

In the crowded room at Drusilla’s I realised the futility of an ageing Ariadne and knew that only Steven’s work had identity and that whatever happened, there would always be a Nadia or a Katya with hair to her waist; there had to be.

We said our goodbyes slowly, gradually making our way to the hall in the now dispersing crowd.

In the car my mind went to the lunch in the oven and the children and the now thinning dream of Steven. I pulled the fine kid gloves on to my carefully manicured hands, obscuring the cicatrice and the odd illusion that my fingers were covered with paint.

When I was settled in my seat I smiled up at Simon who was waiting, as he always did, with infinite patience. He smiled back at me, turning the day once more into an ordinary
Sunday
, and unequivocally shut the door.

Mrs Pettigrew's Cheque

1962

Mrs Pettigrew pulled on her gloves with no enthusiasm and waited for the car. From her window she could see that the lawns had never looked so flawless, or the roses so perfect, but the sight failed to move her. She made a mental note to tell Ackroyd that the far bed was getting perhaps a shade
overcrowded
, and turned, with no joy at all, to check her
appearance
in the mirror.

The reason for this despondency, which frequently
overwhelmed
Mrs Pettigrew but today was particularly bad, stared back uncompromisingly at her from the large expanse of peach-tinted glass. Mrs Pettigrew was fat. She was not only fat, she was extraordinarily ugly.

The gods, who for their sport create us, were certainly
having
a field day when they went to work on Mabel Pettigrew. Her upper arms, emerging from the neat navy-blue print, were of phenomenal circumference, the flesh wobbled as she moved. It was no consolation to Mrs Pettigrew that the skin
that covered them and indeed the rest of her body was of a texture and translucence enviable on less ungainly contours.

As her arms were large and fleshy so too was her body,
losing
its battle with the best in corsetry, and her legs, tree trunks only less graceful, overflowing at their termini her fine-quality shoes.

This mountain, then, this over-liberal dollop of humanity in its faintly ridiculous, unambiguously costly petalled hat, was the image of herself with which Mrs Pettigrew's mirror faithfully presented her. It was also the likeness reflected,
frequently
with derision, in the eyes of those who beheld her.

That it was not the private vision of herself perceived by Mrs Pettigrew's inner eye was beside the point. She was not a stupid woman and she was well aware that if within she felt like ten ballerinas, each more ethereal than the next, and had the beauty of Garbo and Dietrich and Bergman rolled breathtakingly into one, it was of no avail. It was the
outward
appearance that counted and about that she could do nothing.

Not that she hadn't tried. They never told her, of course, with their hands outstretched and their obsequious leers in the slimming clinics and the beauty parlours, at the
hairdressers
and at the spas, that hers was a hopeless case. They were not so foolish, but then neither was Mrs Pettigrew.

On some days it was not so bad. There were times when Mrs Pettigrew was able to console herself with her fabulous house, its priceless treasures and impeccable staff. Times when she listened to the coos of admiration and adulation emitted
by the so-called friends with whom she was surrounded and pretended to herself quite successfully that they meant it. There were days when she found herself quite tolerable to live with. This was not one of them.

A discreet tap on the door of the bedroom was followed by the announcement that the car was ready.

Mrs Pettigrew took a last despairing look in the mirror and with a final adjustment of her mink tie she made her way downstairs noticing with some irritation as she did so, a wilted dahlia and a strand of cotton on the Aubusson about which she would have to speak.

Mills, inclined from the waist, head slightly to one side, held open the door of the car neatly inscribed with the
Pettigrew
crest, and remarked upon the splendour of the day as if she personally were responsible.

Mrs Pettigrew agreed that it was warm again and,
puffing
slightly, sank her own upholstery into that of the car and directed him to the Park Hotel.

Under the competent leather-gloved hands of Mills, the car, whose engine was the quietest in the world, scrunched ever so lightly over the gravel drive and floated like a shiny black swan out into the main road.

Mrs Pettigrew was unimpressed. She looked at the
summer-green
plane trees lining the avenue of houses, each vaster than the next, and thought exactly how it was going to be.

She would arrive on time. She always did. And would be greeted with tremendous effusion by the Functions
Committee
members whose sighs of relief at her appearance would be
almost audible. How nice of her to come, they'd say, how well she looked. One of the more inspired would in all
probability
admire her hat. What else about her was there to admire other, of course, than her chequebook, which they would all be praying she had remembered to bring.

After a glass of indifferent sherry, which always seemed to go directly to her feet increasing their swell, she would, from her seat of honour at the top table, be lunched, wined,
cosseted
, mollycoddled and fawned upon until they were finally forced to leave her in peace in order to listen to the speeches. After the speeches, impassioned, indifferent or downright incompetent, would come the appeal. After the appeal they would turn expectantly, hands outstretched to catch the fruits of their eloquence, to Mrs Pettigrew.

Had they known that Mrs Pettigrew was quite unmoved by their oratory they would have been deeply shocked. Had they in their innocence been present in the Pettigrew dining room at breakfast time they would have been even more horrified. It was not the scene that would have surprised them, the
Pettigrews
were sitting very nicely before their silver-topped jar of Dundee marmalade and their Queen Anne coffee pot, it was the conversation.

On this particular morning Isaiah Pettigrew had been in an exceptionally ‘bonhomous' mood. Not that he was ever
down-hearted
, not for long at any rate. The fact that Pettigrew's plate glass covered the windows of two-thirds of the houses in the country was more than enough to keep him happy. Unlike his wife, the fact that he was fat and not particularly prepossessing
did not bother him in the slightest. But then, of course, he was a man.

‘What is it today, dear?' Isaiah asked from behind the pages of the pink newspaper in whose columns he noted daily and with satisfaction the outward evidence of his many
commercial
successes.

‘The Bancroft Home,' Mabel said, hoping he would not emerge from his paper and notice the quantity of butter she was spreading on her toast.

‘That was poor old Harry's effort, wasn't it?' Isaiah said. ‘What are they: deaf, blind or incurable?'

‘I don't remember,' Mabel said. ‘Pass the marmalade.'

‘Fifty?' Isaiah asked, pushing the jar across the highly
polished
tabletop. ‘Fifty guineas should be more than enough.'

‘As you wish,' Mabel said removing the lid. ‘Did you
remember
to ask Ackroyd about the compost?'

In this way the contribution that the Bancroft Home was that day to receive from the purse of Mrs Pettigrew was
arbitrarily
decided. Lest it be thought that the attitude of either Mabel or her husband to those less fortunate than themselves was one of callousness, it must be remembered that on
practically
every weekday Mrs Pettigrew was ‘guest of honour' at some luncheon or another and she coped uncomplainingly, in addition, with a formidable programme of coffee
mornings
, bring-and-buy sales and bazaars, all of which made deep inroads upon her purse.

Mr Pettigrew himself dealt with an equally full diary of similar but more masculine activities and in this way between
them they disposed philanthropically each year of a large slice of the Pettigrew income. That they were unable to identify themselves personally with each and every cause was hardly surprising. That the extent of their generosity was determined before their attendance at the various functions was only reasonable, too. The Pettigrew Charitable Trust had to be stretched in an infinite number of directions.

Had the Chairman of the Functions Committee of the Friends of the Bancroft Home known all this she would very likely not have been in such a tizzy. As it was she stood in the foyer of the Park Hotel glancing at her watch every few
minutes
, waiting for a glimpse of Mrs Pettigrew's Rolls.

If only she played her cards right, she thought, Mrs
Pettigrew
would be moved to donate an outstanding sum and others at the luncheon, holding tight to their purse strings, would be shamed or inspired into following suit. If only she got on the right side of Mrs Pettigrew her period of office as Chairman of the Functions Committee would go down in history. No one would forget Drusilla Fenwick; her name would be on their lips for years. Had Drusilla Fenwick known Mrs Pettigrew a little more intimately, she could have saved herself much worry and doubt concerning her arrival. If Mrs Pettigrew promised to be at the Park Hotel on a certain day at a certain time, there, in the absence of Riots, Strikes, Civil Commotions, War, Invasion, Acts of Enemy Hostility or any similar upheavals beloved by insurance companies, she would be.

At exactly twelve-fifteen, therefore, on the agreed day, Mrs
Pettigrew was handed into the swing doors of the Park Hotel by Mills and extracted from the scarcely large enough
compartment
, when they had completed their semi-circuit, by Mrs Fenwick.

Mrs Fenwick whose blood pressure dropped slowly but several degrees with relief, led Mrs Pettigrew firmly into the room where the reception was being held and now the
charade
with which Mrs Pettigrew was so familiar began.

Like bees round a honeypot, in their carefully selected headgear, they surrounded her.

How well she looked, the Vice-Chairman said. ‘What a delightful hat,' the Hon. Sec. enthused. ‘Something to drink,' the Treasurer insisted, and ‘How is Mr Pettigrew keeping?' one of the more enterprising Committee members wanted to know.

Mrs Pettigrew smiled, she knew they had their jobs to do, accepted the drink, answered their questions and let it all flow over her head. It was a trick she had acquired early on in her public life and one that was very useful.

Almost before she was aware of it she found herself sitting at the top table in the private room where they were to lunch, between the Chairman and the Vice-Chairman, having been applauded as she entered.

Out of a sea of three hundred faces Mrs Pettigrew was able to distinguish several that she knew. She smiled amicably at those who sought her eye, her mind on other things. Wedged between Mrs Fenwick and her faithful helper, the wedging due rather to Mrs Pettigrew's proportions than those of the
other two ladies, Mrs Pettigrew was plied with lunch. And she was also plied with endless bright chatter, but since she dealt with this with only a small portion of her mind it did not weary her.

After years of practice she was now adept at simulating attention to things that did not interest her. She was even able to interpolate yes and no in exactly the right places in a
conversation
she scarcely heard.

When Mrs Fenwick turned briefly to the representative from the Bancroft Home, who sat on her other side and excused her inattention with the sotto voce confidence that they were working on a whacking cheque from Mrs Pettigrew, Mrs Pettigrew, as if every word had not been audible, applied herself diligently to her dessert. She had no illusions about herself or any of them in their smart hats. There was nothing that she hadn't heard before.

The coffee dispensed – a tiny cup, Mrs Pettigrew could have drunk three – the Chairman rapped importantly upon the table with her gavel and informed the assembled ladies that the time for idle chatter was at an end and the serious part of the luncheon was about to begin.

One thing that Mrs Pettigrew never objected to on this and similar occasions was the speeches. It meant that her
immediate
neighbours would stop talking for a while and leave her in peace. That she was free to doze, provided, of course, that she did so attentively and with her eyes open. To slip off her shoes and to digest her meal.

At every reference to ‘our dear Mrs Pettigrew' or our
Honoured Guest', Mrs Pettigrew smiled and inclined her head in acknowledgement. Her torpor was never deep enough to cause her to miss a cue. She was too old a hand.

By the bursts of enthusiastic applause, in which of course she participated, Mrs Pettigrew was able to pinpoint the beginning and end of every speech and to assess the progress of the luncheon. The function, like most things, had a shape, and with no reference to the diamond-studded watch embedded in her wrist Mrs Pettigrew was able to assess its every contour.

When, out of the mists, she heard the words ‘… and now, ladies, I am sure that not a single one among you can fail to be moved by the splendid work the Bancroft Home is doing …' Mrs Pettigrew knew that it was time to wake up and feel
surreptitiously
beneath the table for her shoes.

In a very few minutes she would be invited to start the ball rolling with her contribution to the Bancroft Home, would whisper ‘fifty guineas' in the ear of the Chairman, the amount agreed by herself and Isaiah at breakfast, would be loudly applauded, thanked publically and finally released.