Vacillations of Poppy Carew (18 page)

W
HEN CALYPSO GRANT’S HUSBAND
Hector returned from the 1939–45 war he bought land to plant his dream wood, an idea born in the treeless Western Desert which had become an obsession.

He found his location, a bowl of land with a stream meandering through it dotted with oak and limes. On the side of a hill overlooking the land a tumble-down house. He bought the land, restored the house and spent the rest of his life planting trees.

By the time Hector had planted wild cherries in a series of loops, circles and curves to spell his wife’s name, Calypso, who had originally scoffed at her husband, became bitten by the bug. Together they planted beech and oak, chestnut, hornbeam, sycamore, pine, larch, rowan, birch and more limes to scent the air. They encouraged an undergrowth of spindleberry, blackthorn, hawthorn, hazel and wild rose. Among the scrub they set honeysuckle to ramp. In open spaces they encouraged gorse. When the wild cherries flowered spelling, as Hector intended, his wife’s name, they had rivalry from hawthorn, rowan and horse chestnut. Between them they had planted clumps of box, philadelphus and lilac, planning that at almost every turn of the year there would be the reassurance of sweet scents. Forty years on, walking through the wood in the evening, Calypso doubted whether anyone flying over the wood would read her name spelled in blossom but there was no part of the wood which did not spell Hector for her.

To wild anemones, primroses, bluebells and foxgloves they added in open glades drifts of fritillary, spring and autumn cyclamens, windflowers, daffodils and narcissi.

In the centre of the wood they widened and dammed the stream to make a lake, bordering it with reeds to form a haven for wildfowl and warbler. The wood as it grew was colonised by innumerable birds and wild animals.

As she walked in the wood the day after Bob Carew’s funeral Calypso thought of her husband, how he would have enjoyed the funeral, especially the tape of birdsong in the church, a dawn chorus comparable to the chorus in the wood which had delighted their springs.

Pausing by a clump of hazel wound about with honeysuckle, thinking of Hector, she breathed in to catch a last elusive whiff of honey. Instead, sneaking from the far side of the hill on a north-east breeze, she smelled pig.

Some years before his death, to protect his wood from an encroaching developer, Hector had bought the land over the hill and with it a group of derelict farm buildings. He restored the buildings and leased the land to a dairy farmer. To the dawn chorus was added the comforting sound of lowing cattle.

The lease expired, the farmer died and Calypso rented the farm to Hector’s nephew Willy Guthrie who had chosen an agricultural career. Tiring of milking cows, Willy switched his attention to pigs and presently prospered, growing what his aunt referred to as Happy Hams, pigs who lived in comfort, lolling at night in deep straw in the barns, roaming freely by day in family or adolescent groups in large paddocks with ample fresh water piped to their troughs.

In exchange for not losing their tails, having their teeth extracted, sleeping on bare concrete, imprisoned in the sweatbox—conditions of the modern pig—the prospective Hams surrendered their lives after a period of cheerful carefree growth to become sides of bacon and high-class smoked ham similar to Jambon d’Ardennes which Willy smoked himself in a barn converted into a smokery. These hams under the brand name of Guthrie he sold at high prices to upmarket restaurants and delicatessens.

Calypso, scenting pig, forgot Hector, noted that the wind had swung to the north-east, the only and fortunately rare wind to bring hint of pig, remembered that she had news for Willy garnered from carefully selected telephone calls. She was fond of Willy, who reminded her of her late husband, not so much by physical resemblance but by genetic quirks. Hector had never been as Willy was, gangling as though his limbs were not only loose but double jointed, giving his movements a disconnected quality which some people found irritating but which she found endearing. Where Hector’s eyes had sparkled like jet, Willy’s were brown velvet. It was the intonation when moved, the catch in his voice which made her stop, remember with a pang that she would never hear that voice again.

With her hand raised to pick the last honeysuckle and hold it to her nose, Calypso hesitated. She left the honeysuckle where it was and set off towards her house to telephone Willy. Her dog, who had been patiently waiting for her to make a move, followed.

‘Willy?’

‘Yes, Aunt.’

‘What are you up to?’

‘Just about to stroll round the enterprise, scratch a few backs perhaps.’ His voice was depressed.

‘Leave all that and come and see me.’

‘Okay I’ll come, love to.’

‘Have you had supper?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Come and share mine.’

‘Thanks, I’d like that.’

‘Good.’

‘I’ll be over as soon as I’ve settled the pigs.’

‘Don’t bring Mrs Future.’

Willy laughed. Mrs Future, a sow of exceptional intelligence and charm, born the runt of the family, was, after being reared on a bottle by Willy, under the impression that she was entitled to accompany him wherever he went, tripping merrily at his heels, raising pleased smiles from the neighbours in her early and adolescent youth but now, a mature sow, her appearance in people’s houses and gardens raised protests, complaints even.

‘It’s okay,’ Willy reassured his aunt. ‘She farrowed last night, she can’t leave her piglets.’

‘I hesitate to worry you but there was a bit of a whiff when I was walking in the wood just now, of dung.’

‘Not to worry, that would be Harry Arnold who took a load away to muck spread it, suits his land, the pong is gone.’

‘Right.’

Calypso uncorked a bottle of wine, setting it to breathe in the warmth of the kitchen, debated what to give her nephew to eat, decided on pasta with a garlicky sauce, the aroma of which would stifle any lingering hint of pig Willy might bring with him. In her youth, she thought with amusement, she would have sent him off to bath and change his clothes if he dared bring evidence of the byre with him. In age she was sensitive to young people’s feelings. As she chopped onions and garlic for the sauce she debated whether or not to tell Willy the result of her telephonings. She was still undecided when he arrived, coming in by the kitchen door, stooping to kiss her cheek.

‘Smells delicious, brought you a ham. I had a bath after your remarks and changed. Have I kept you waiting?’

‘No. Hang it on the hook on the larder beam. You must let me pay you.’

‘No, no.’

‘I insist.’

‘No, no, I owe you.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘Taking me to Bob Carew’s funeral.’

‘I hope this doesn’t end in tears,’ Calypso exclaimed as she poured the saucepan of pasta to drain in a colander.

‘If it did it would be worth it,’ said Willy. His aunt drew in her breath with a hiss, reminded with a fierce pang of Hector. She watched Willy scatter Parmesan on his pasta, twirl it round his fork and eat. She was glad that love had not impaired his appetite. She offered a second helping.

‘No, thank you.’ He sipped his wine, stared gloomily at his empty plate then, looking up at her, said bleakly, ‘What am I to do? I can’t find her.’

‘Where have you looked?’

‘I tried the daily woman, Mrs Edwardes, at her father’s house. Not much joy.’

‘And?’

‘She gave me Poppy’s London address and the address of her work. She’s left her job and her flat is empty. Nobody answers the door and the telephone rings and rings.’

‘Sad.’

‘It appears that Fergus Furnival and his cousin Victor are trailing her too, no luck for them either.’

‘Ah.’

‘And Poppy’s solicitor who is arranging the lease for Fergus—he’s renting her house and stables by the way—’

‘Swift work.’

‘Yes, very. Well, the solicitor hasn’t got her address, bit annoyed about it Mrs Edwardes says, complains of being rushed.’

‘It’s good for solicitors to be rushed.’ Calypso offered fruit.

‘No thanks.’ His appetite blunted, Willy sat looking glum.

Thoughtfully Calypso peeled a peach.

Willy burst out. ‘I must find her. I’ve got to. Please don’t laugh.’

‘I am not laughing,’ said Calypso as sharply as she could with a mouthful of peach. She swallowed. ‘It’s not funny.’ It’s quite possibly sad, she thought. He sits there reminding me of Hector behaving in this painfully old-fashioned way. Why me, why must he drag me into this? I am old, I manage to keep my equilibrium. Why should I be bothered with Willy in love?

‘What about the man who swept her off, her lover?’ she asked, conscious of her brutality.

‘I don’t think he matters,’ said Willy.

‘She went away with him, you told me. You told me he burst in on the party and dragged her away.’

‘I don’t think she went willingly.’

‘If she did not want to go she could have called for help, made a scene.’

‘Perhaps she felt embarrassed—’

‘Come off it, Willy.’

‘There may have been a reason for going with him. I’m sure she didn’t want to.’

‘What makes you think that? You weren’t there.’

‘A gut feeling.’

‘Now we have guts. Extra-sensory perception next.’

‘Look, Aunt, if I had been there I would have stopped her. Victor and Fergus who could have stopped her were otherwise occupied, the one coping with the solicitor the other with a publisher—he’s written a novel, I gather—it all happened very fast. If I had been there—’ Willy looked distraught.

‘So now you blame me for making you drive me home when you wanted to stay—’

‘Not that. You needed to get home. You sent me back. I was too late, that’s all, but I feel there was a reason to make her go with him.’

‘I can only think of one reason if she is not in love with him,’ said Calypso laughing. ‘She went with him to prevent another girl getting him.’

‘Aunt!’ Willy was shocked.

‘It doesn’t mean she has feet of clay, it would be a very normal reaction, the sort of thing I’d have done at her age.’ Calypso chuckled.

‘Oh.’ Willy was thoughtful, not sure he wanted Poppy to resemble his aunt when young.

‘Coffee?’ suggested Calypso.

‘Please.’

They were silent while Calypso made coffee. She was surprised to find herself anxious for her nephew, Hector’s nephew, she corrected herself, it being her habit, of which she was proud, of letting others, particularly the young, make their own mess without interference. ‘How sure are you,’ she asked quietly, ‘that it’s love?’

‘As certain as I could ever be about anything.’

‘But you don’t know her.’

‘Did you know much about Hector? Did he know you?’

‘What has that got to do with it?’

‘Just that I want to spend the rest of my life with Poppy. Uncle Hector must have felt the same about you.’

‘I didn’t realise it at the time.’

‘But you did later. You said you did. Poppy can’t realise it either. We haven’t even spoken to each other or rather I said something about taking your coat back and she smiled. I didn’t hear what she said.’

Calypso stared at Willy whose voice as he spoke of Poppy waxed lyrical.

‘She isn’t a virgin; I was,’ she said, hoping to bring him to earth.

‘You may have been a virgin but—’ Willy flushed, hesitated, fell silent.

‘But what?’

‘Oh you know, the catty things people say about you being a—er—man eater. All those old women and—’

‘The old men?’

Willy laughed. ‘The old men all wish they’d been in my uncle’s shoes.’ He watched his aunt, they regarded each other smiling.

‘So you are certain?’

‘Yes.’

‘Very well. I think I can find out where she’s gone.’

‘You can?’ Willy’s voice whooped up exultant.

‘Not that it matters.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you will be lying in wait for her when she comes back.’

‘Oh no I won’t. Wherever she is I shall go and find her.’

‘Oh my!’ Calypso admired his spirit, refrained from asking whether this was wise.

‘So how can you find out where she is?’ To Willy it seemed wildly improbable that his old aunt could help him.

‘By talking to the girl Poppy snitched him from.’

Willy gaped.

‘She was in the church with Edmund, she’s called Venetia Colyer.’

W
HEN EDMUND FOUND POPPY
on the terrace overlooking the swimming pool she had finished her breakfast and sat talking to Mustafa who was making himself agreeable.

Edmund felt at a gross disadvantage as they turned towards him, eyeing him through their dark glasses. Taking his own sunglasses from his shirt pocket, blotting out his hungover eyes, Edmund regretted encouraging Poppy to buy such dark ones, he could not see her eyes, her mouth gave nothing away.

Mustafa called out ‘Hi’, smiling and, ‘Have you had breakfast?’ snapping his fingers at a hovering waiter. ‘Refresh the tray.’

‘Just coffee please.’ Edmund sat beside Poppy. ‘Black.’

‘Delicious figs,’ said Poppy in neutral tone, pointing to bits of bruised fruit skin on her plate, bearing, Edmund saw with a pang, the marks of her teeth.

Mustafa called out ‘Coffee’ and something in Arabic.

Edmund wondered whether Mustafa knew they had slept in separate rooms, did he perhaps know where Poppy had spent the night, there had been neither hide nor hair of her when he had surfaced. He was not going to ask Poppy where the hell she had been or what she thought she was up to, in front of Mustafa. He felt betrayed and bitterly resentful, he had had a terrible fright waking to find her gone, she might at least have left a note. He felt choked with whisky-fumed self-pity and love.

‘I was suggesting Miss Poppy might like an expedition to the Roman amphitheatre while we do business today. There will be parties going in buses from the other hotels, easy to arrange. The amphitheatre and the theatre are interesting if you like that sort of thing.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ said Poppy politely.

‘The archaeologists who worked for our government were partially British.’

‘How partial?’ asked Poppy gravely.