Vacillations of Poppy Carew (3 page)

‘Ah.’

‘You know I killed him,’ she watched the kettle, ‘made him laugh.’

‘Not a bad way to go.’ Anthony found a tray, assembled cups, sugar and milk, showing Poppy that he knew the house as well as she, perhaps better.

‘The hospital seemed to think it reprehensible.’

‘Hospitals.’ Anthony dismissed hospitals. ‘He was on the way out—his heart was a mess.’

‘I am ashamed. I shouted at the sister, she implied Dad’s death was inconvenient. I apologised later. I saw him again when they had …’

They had moved him out of the ward, tidied him up, closed his mouth and eyes. His nose looked as though they had pinched it with a clothes’ peg. She had preferred his expression in death, rather ghastly surprised amusement.

‘Let’s take the tray into the sitting room.’ She poured boiling water into the pot.

They had also shaved him, brushed his hair, given him a parting.

‘You forgot to put any tea in.’

‘Oh God.’ She felt displaced, inadequate.

‘Let me.’

She watched him make the tea, followed him when he carried the tray to the sitting room. ‘I have nothing to offer you to eat.’

‘Not to worry.’ He sat on the sofa, legs apart, watching her. ‘I watch my weight.’

Poppy sat with her back to the light. ‘This won’t take long, will it?’ She wanted to be alone. ‘Dad had nothing much to leave, had he? He wanted me to arrange this funeral, he seems to have set his heart on it. I rang the man. He wanted Furnival’s Rococo Funerals, he …’

‘What?’ Anthony leant forward. ‘Who?’

‘Furnival’s Roco—’

‘I heard you. I’ve heard of Furnival too. What will the neighbours say?’ Anthony, discreet solicitor, was about to say it himself. ‘You can’t …’

‘I’m going over to fix it, it’s what Dad wanted.’

‘So far only a pretty odd pop star and a member, well, it’s said he was a member of the IRA, have used—’

‘Dad wants … wanted …’

‘It costs the earth to …’

‘I expect I can pay by instalments.’

‘You won’t need to do that.’

‘What?’

‘There’s rather a lot you have to know, Poppy.’ Anthony sighed. ‘Shall you pour or shall I?’

‘Sorry.’ Poppy poured, remembering that Anthony liked one lump and a drip of milk.

‘I’ve given up sugar.’

‘Oh.’ Poppy fished hastily with a spoon. ‘Sorry.’ She passed the cup. ‘Dad didn’t even own this house.’

‘That’s right.’ Anthony took a swallow of tea, testing it for sugar. ‘You do; he put it in your name soon after your mother died.’

‘Why? What an extraordinary … he never told me.’

‘He wanted to save death duties. As a matter of …’ Anthony paused, the girl wasn’t listening. What was she thinking? He watched her: she had a curious expression. He opened his briefcase, took out the will.

Laurel wreath, she thought. Why should Dad not have a laurel wreath? He would like it far better than a lot of rotting flowers, it had been a good suggestion from Furnival’s Funerals: it would amuse him. He would have laughed, too, if she had told him Edmund’s new girl was called Venetia Colyer, an upmarket name, far more sophisticated than Poppy. Poppy’s mind wandered to Edmund holding Venetia against him under the bridge over the Serpentine, his face against hers, her naturally yellow hair blown across his eyes. Perhaps she should have pushed them into the water. It was an opportunity missed. His hand had been on what the French call the saddle, pressing her against his genitals.

‘You are not listening, Poppy. I didn’t come here to watch you daydream; pay attention.’

‘I am, I will.’ She sat up straight, fixed her eyes on Anthony. ‘You had got to death duties.’

‘I had got a lot further. I’ll start again.’ Anthony blew out his cheeks. He had finished his tea; he poured himself another cup.

‘Sorry, Anthony. I am all attention.’

‘Right then. It’s all here in legal language.’ He tapped the will.

‘Oh.’

‘I will put it into plain English.’

‘Thank you.’ Poppy assumed a trusting, expectant expression. Anthony wondered if she was as great a ninny as she looked.

‘Your father put this house in your name to save death duties. You got that?’

‘Yes, Anthony. How wonderful of him.’

One had doubted the wonder of it at the time, thought Anthony. However, ‘So, should you want to sell it, you can; straightaway.’ He watched her.

‘Sell Dad’s house?’ The house where she had first made love with Edmund? Not very successfully, they’d been expecting Dad back from a trip to Brighton. Edmund had enjoyed it; he was, she found herself admitting, pretty selfish in bed.

‘That’s something for you to decide later. I only wish to make the point that you may, if you want to sell, sell.’ Anthony suppressed a niggle of irritation.

‘Thank you, Anthony. Point taken.’

‘You will find—I shall explain to you—that you have not only the house and all its contents, but quite a substantial income and considerable capital sums banked in your name.’

‘Gosh. Why?’

‘Presumably your father did not wish to leave you destitute.’ Anthony could be acerbic.

‘I knew nothing about his money …’ Poppy was puzzled. ‘I mean, he never talked, he never …’

‘Your father had a phobia that some man might want to marry you for your money. I used to tell him you had more sense.’

‘Thanks, Anthony.’ Poppy’s mind strayed back to Edmund and Venetia. Venetia had money, Edmund made no bones about it, grant him that, ‘I fancy being kept, Venetia has a safe income.’ Would he be selfish in bed with Venetia, not bother whether she came or not, or would he feel he owed—

‘Poppy!’

‘Sorry, Anthony. I am paying attention, it’s just that I don’t understand. Dad was always rather economical, not mean, just …’

‘Careful,’ said Anthony. ‘Wise in his way.’

‘Yes, yes, I see,’ but she didn’t see. ‘Where did he get it, this money? I always understood my mother bought this house with her bit. I mean, he never earned it, he was always changing jobs; and for years he’s done nothing at all, just travelled about. Where does it come from, this money? Are you his executor?’

‘Well, no. Naturally he asked me—actually the bank is executor. As your father’s friend, as his solicitor, I am here to tell you, to advise …’

‘The bank. Nice and impersonal. Great!’ Anthony compressed his lips. ‘I mean, you won’t be bothered by me and a lot of trivia, that’s all I mean.’

‘A substantial inheritance is not trivia.’ This girl is hopelessly unworldly, thought Anthony, even if she isn’t stupid.

‘No, no, of course it isn’t.’ Poppy drew in her breath, dismissing Edmund and Venetia and their possible orgasms. ‘You haven’t answered my question, Anthony. Where did this money come from? Do you know? I never had an inkling. Was my mother, after all, rich?’

‘Certainly not your mother.’

Why ‘certainly’ in that tone of voice? What had Dad done? Anthony did not approve, whatever it was. ‘Then what?’ asked Poppy, alert. ‘How?’

‘Your father backed horses.’

‘So that’s where he went, he went to the races, he was a betting man.’

‘Not to put too fine a point on it—yes.’

‘Bully for him.’

Anthony frowned. ‘And, ah … he nearly always won, and he—’

‘Spent it on women?’

This girl, his reprehensible old friend’s daughter, was making light of what might so easily have been a disaster. Frivolity was, he supposed, in the blood.

‘Yes. You could say in a way that he did.’

‘But he invested a lot of it?’

‘He invested what he called Life’s Dividends.’ Anthony’s tone was repressive.

‘Sounds like Dad. Where did these dividends come from?’ Poppy fixed Anthony with her dark green eyes.

‘Not to put too fine a point on it’ (why does he keep repeating himself?) ‘these … ah, um … women.’ Anthony dropped his voice, muting his tone.

‘How?’

‘Sums, large sums, left in wills. Quite legitimately, I assure you.’

Poppy let this pass. ‘Had he been their lover?’

Anthony poured himself a third cup of tea, now grown cold. ‘I have no idea,’ he said coldly.

Silly old goat, thought Poppy watching him sip his chilly tea. Perhaps Dad saw to it these ladies who made wills in his favour had delightful, splendid times in bed.

In a way I am glad, thought Anthony eyeing her, that I am not the executor. He cleared his throat. ‘Well, that’s it, then. The bank will give you all the details. I have made an appointment for you with them tomorrow. I have put a notice of your father’s death in
The Times
, and I will contact the undertaker for you.’

‘Furnival’s Funerals?’

‘No, no, my dear. The best round here are Brightson’s. You will find them very efficient and discreet. Most helpful—’

‘He wants—he wanted—Furnival’s Fun—’

‘I know, I know. Trying to keep his spirits up, a sick man’s joke—’

‘Dad’s joke is sacred—’

‘But—’

‘I have a date to see them. More tea?’

‘No, thank you.’ Anthony stood up, pulling his waistcoat downwards.

‘A drink then?’

‘No, no, I must be on my way.’ He made a last appeal: ‘It would be, well, in rather well … rather dubious, er … rather frivolous.’

‘So apparently was Dad.’

Poppy watched Anthony drive away. Viewed through the back window of his sensible car, he looked huffy. He was trying to manipulate me, she thought. It was cheek to put an announcement in the paper without telling me. Cheek to try and thwart Dad’s last wish. He probably wants to buy the house cheap, she thought uncharitably, for a client who has had his eye on it for years. Perhaps he isn’t an executor because he tried to manipulate Dad. ‘It’s okay, Dad, you shall have your wish,’ she addressed the spirit of her progenitor as she went in search of food, suddenly ravenously hungry, not having eaten since that awful catastrophic evening with Edmund. What a remarkably tiring scene, she found herself thinking, as she opened a can of consommé. She felt that, if she cosseted herself, she might just possibly recover, a possibility she had not envisaged since the humiliating parting, the death of the affair. The end, she thought histrionically as she twisted the can-opener, of an era. She reached up to grasp a bottle of sherry from the cupboard, uncorked it and sloshed a liberal dose into the soup.

V
ICTOR LUCAS TORE THE
paper out of his typewriter, crushed it between both hands and threw it violently towards the grate to join a trail of similarly treated first paragraphs of Chapter Five of his fourth novel. Sourly, Victor viewed the mess of wasted paper, wasted effort. It was all too likely, at this rate, that novel four would join novels one two and three in the shredder.

Blocked, stuck, Victor decided to try the trick of studied inattention which, before now, he had found could jostle his lethargic muse into coming up with an idea or two. He would go out, get some exercise, buy something to eat for supper. He snatched up his jacket, pushed his arms into the sleeves, ran downstairs, slammed the street door and set off walking fast along the street towards the shops. As he walked, he considered his ex-girl Julia who had recently, out of the blue, after months of silence, sent him a paperback cookbook,
How to Cheat at Cooking
, by a pretty girl called Delia Smith.

To win her back when the affair was unravelling he had invited her to dinner in his flat. Bloody Julia had not been won back, had not enjoyed the meal he had cooked with such trouble: clear soup, veal in wine and cream sauce, green salad, wild strawberries (costing the earth). ‘Too much Kirsch,’ she had said in that clipped voice, ‘you drowned the taste’, and later adding insult to injury sent the cookbook.

He had hoped, now that they had gone platonic, that Julia would commission a series of amply paid articles for the glossy magazine for which she worked. ‘Not a sausage,’ Victor muttered, walking along, shoulders hunched. ‘Sheer waste of money, waste of time, bloody bitch.’ He headed towards the supermarket where he would buy himself a steak and Sauce Tartare in a bottle, as recommended by Miss Smith (or was she Ms? With a lovely face like that, more likely Mrs) or, considering his present economic state, some sausages.

Striding along, Victor passed the fishmonger where, on marble slabs, lay, on crushed ice and seaweed, oysters backed by black lobsters, claws bound, with tight elastic, Dover sole, halibut, cod, herring, shining mackerel and—‘Oh Christ!’ exclaimed Victor, ‘it’s alive!’ as a fair-sized trout flapped among its supine companions, in a shallow indentation on the fishmonger’s slab.

‘It’s alive,’ Victor cried to the fishmonger, a stem lady in white overall and fur boots. ‘The poor thing’s alive.’

‘Come in fresh from the country,’ said the fish lady complacently, ‘from the fish farms.’

‘But it’s drowning,’ cried Victor, desperate.

The fish lady nonchalantly picked up the fish and slid it on to the scales, which joggled as the fish threshed its tail.

‘No, no, don’t put it in newspaper. Haven’t you a plastic bag and a drop of …’ he fished in his pocket for money; the trout gasped, open-mouthed, ‘water?’

‘Your change,’ said the fish lady.

‘Keep it.’ Victor was racing back to his flat, opening the door, the key shaking between his fingers, tearing up the long flight of stairs, gasping in sympathy with his prize, running the cold tap in the bath, jamming in the plug, gently releasing the trout: watching its extraordinary miraculous revival. ‘How could anyone eat anything so beautiful?’ he crooned to the fish which stationed itself, its head towards the fall of water, idly moving its tail and fins, keeping in position under the cold tap, its pink flanks iridescent.

Victor tried to remember what he knew about trout.

They needed pure running water. At this rate he would flood the house. He reduced the flow of tap water, cautiously let some run down the plughole. Who did he know who lived near, or had, a trout stream? Where could he take his protégé, where it would not be caught by some demon angler?

Presently, leaving the tap dribbling, he was telephoning his friend and cousin (more of late years an acquaintance) Fergus, explaining the trout’s plight, imploring asylum.

‘Well, well. Well, I never,’ said Fergus. ‘Yes, of course, bring it down, no problem. You can stay a night if you want, I’ve got a job for you.’