Weldon, Fay - Novel 07 (5 page)

 
          
Liffey’s birthday
was on Christmas Day,
a fact that annoyed Madge, who was a proselytizing atheist.

 
          
They
were to spend Christmas with Richard’s parents. They journeyed down to
Cornwall
on the night of Christmas Eve: there was a
hard frost; the night landscape sparkled under the moon. Richard and Liffey
were drunk with love and Richard’s remorse. The back of the car was piled high
with presents, beautifully wrapped and ribboned. They took with them a thermos
of good real coffee, laced with brandy, and chicken sandwiches. They went by
the A 303, down past Windsor, on to the motorway, leaving at the Hungerford
exit, and down through Berkshire and Wiltshire, crossing Salisbury Plain, where
Stonehenge stood in the moonlight, ominous and amazing, dwarfing its wire
palisade.
Then on into
Somerset
, past Glastonbury Tor,
into
Devon
, and finally over the
Tamar
Bridge
into
Cornwall
.

 
          
Liffey
loved Richard too much to even mention Honeycomb Cottage, although they passed
within five miles of it.

 
          
Christmas
Day was bright, cold and wild. Mr. and Mrs. Lee- Fox’s cottage was set into the
Cornish cliffs. A storm arose and sea spray dashed against the double glazing,
but all was safe and warm and hospitable within. The roast turkey was
magnificent, the Christmas tree charming, and Liffey’s presents proved most
acceptable—two hand-made patchwork quilts, one for each twin bed. Liffey loved
giving. Her mother, Madge, did not. They had once spent Christmas with Madge,
rather than with Richard’s parents, and had had a chilly, bleak time of it.
Madge liked to be working, not rejoicing.

 
          
Mr.
and Mrs. Lee-Fox agreed, under their quilts on Christmas night, that at least
Liffey kept Richard happy and lively, and at least this year had worn a T-shirt
thick enough to hide her nipples.

           
On their way back to
London
they made a detour out of
Glastonbury
and into Crossley, and passed Dick
Hubbard’s estate agency. There was room to park outside, for the Christmas
holiday, stretching further and further forward to grab in the New Year, kept
most of the shops and offices closed. And Dick Hubbard’s door was open. Richard
stopped.

 
          
“Townspeople,”
said Dick Hubbard, looking down from his private office on the first floor.
“Back from the Christmas holidays and looking for a country
cottage to rent for twopence halfpenny a week.
They’re out of luck.”

 
          
He
was a large, fleshy man in his late forties, at home in pubs, virile in bed,
indolent. His wife had died in a riding accident shortly after his liaison with
Carol had begun. Carol was smaller and slighter than her sister Mabs but just
as determined.

 
          
“There’s
Honeycomb Cottage,” said Carol.

 
          
“That’s
for sale, not for rent. I’m holding on until prices stop rising.”

 
          
“Then
you’ll hold on for ever,” said Carol. “And in the meanwhile it will all fall
down. Mabs says it’s already an eyesore. She’s quite put out about it.”

 
          
“Mabs
had better not start interfering,” said Dick, “or she’ll lose her grazing.”
(But no one in Crossley, not even Dick Hubbard, liked to think of Mabs being
put out, and when Richard and Liffey enquired about Honeycomb Cottage, they
were told it was to rent on a full repairing lease for twenty pounds a week.)

 
          
“Done,”
said Richard.

 
          
“Done,”
said Dick Hubbard.

 
          
They
shook hands.

 
          
“In
the country,” said Liffey as they got back into the car, “the word of a
gentleman still means something. People trust one another. You’re going to love
it, Richard.”

 
          
“It’s
certainly easy to do business,” said Richard.

 
          
They
decided to rent the
London
apartment to friends and let the income from one pay for the outgoings
on the other.

 
          
“We
could get thirty a week for the flat,” said Liffey. “And the extra can pay for
your fares.”

           
It was a long time since she had
been anywhere by train. After Richard and Liffey had gone, Dick Hubbard
returned to his interrupted love-making with Carol.

           
“Didn’t they even ask for a lease?”
asked Carol.

           
“No,” said Dick.

           
“You’ll do all right there,” said
Carol.

           
“I know,” said Dick.

 
          
On
the morning
of December 30 Liffey
rang up her friend Helen, who was married to Mory, an architect. The friendship
was not of long standing. Liffey had met Helen in the waiting room of an
employment agency a year before and had struck up an acquaintance.

 
          
After
the manner of young married women, still under the obligation of total loyalty
to a husband, Liffey had cut loose from her school and college friends, as if
fearing that their very existence might merit a rash confidence, a betrayal of
her love for Richard. She made do now with a kind of surface intimacy with this
new acquaintance or that, and since she did not offer any indication of need or
distress, or any real exchange of feeling, the friendships did not ripen.
Liffey did not like to display weakness, and weakness admitted is the very
stuff of good friendship.

 
          
Mory
and Richard had met over a dinner table or so and discussed the black holes of
space, and Richard, less acute in his social relationships than in his business
relationships, thought he recognised a fellow spirit.

 
          
So
now Liffey went to Helen and Mory for help.

           
“Helen? Sorry to ring so early, but.
Helen, we’ve rented a
most darling
cottage in the country, and now all we have to do is find someone for this flat
and we can move out of
London
in a fortnight, and I was wondering if you could help?”

           
There was a pause.

 
          
“How
much?” enquired Helen.

 
          
“Richard
says forty pounds a week, but I think that’s greedy. Twenty would be more like
it.”

 
          
“I
should think so,” said Helen. “If you can’t find anyone, Mory and I could take
it, I suppose, to help you out.”

 
          
“But
that would be wonderful,” cried Liffey. “I’d be so grateful! You’d look after
everything and it would all be safe with you.”

 
          
Liffey
sorted, washed, wrapped, packed and cleaned for two weeks. Friends rather
mysteriously disappeared instead of helping. She had no idea she and Richard
had accumulated so many possessions. She gave away clothes and furniture to
Oxfam. She found old photographs of herself and Richard and laughed and cried
at the absurdity of life. She wrapped her hair in a spotted bandana to keep out
clouds of dust. She wanted everything to be nice for Mory and Helen.
Charming, talented, scatty Helen.
Mory, the
genius architect, temporarily unemployed.
Lovely to be able to help!

 
          
“Friendship,”
Liffey said, “is all about helping.”

 
          
“Urn,”
said Richard. Five years earlier the remark would have enchanted, not
embarrassed him.

 
          
“Don’t
you think so, Bella?” persisted Liffey, not getting the expected response from
Richard.

 
          
“I
daresay,” said Bella politely. Ray was out visiting friends who had a
sixteen-year-old daughter he was helping through a Home Economics examination.
Bella was in a bad, fidgety mood. Richard knew Ray was making her unhappy and,
from charity, had lifted the embargo on the friendship. And Bella was being
very kind—the kindest, in fact, of all their friends— offering packing cases,
time, concern, and showing an interest in the details of the move. Now, on the
eve of their departure for the country, she gave them spaghetti Bolognese. The
sauce came from a can. Richard followed Bella into the kitchen. Liffey had
gone to the bathroom.

 
          
“Liffey’s
a lucky little girl,” said Bella, “Having a husband to indulge her so.”

 
          
Bella
kissed Richard full on the lips, startling him.

           
“If you’re not careful,” said Bella,
“Liffey will still be a little girl when she’s got grey hairs and you’re an
old, old man.”

 
          
She
dabbed his mouth with a tissue.

 
          
“You’re
going to hate the country,” said Bella. “You’re going to be so lonely.”

 
          
“We
have each other,” said Richard.

 
          
Bella
laughed.

 
          
Liffey
came back from the bathroom with a long face.

 
          
“No
baby?” asked Bella.

 
          
“No
baby,” said Liffey. “I’m sorry, Richard. Once we’re in the country, I’m sure it
will happen.”

 
          
The
removal van arrived on the morning of Wednesday, January 7. Liffey’s period was
soon to finish. She was in a progesterone phase.

 
          
Richard
took the day off from work. They followed the furniture van in the car, and
left the key under the mat for Mory and Helen. There was no need of a lease, or
a rent-book, between friends.

 
          
“Goodbye,
you horrible town,” cried Liffey. “Hello, country! Nature, here we come!”
Richard wished she wouldn’t, Bella’s words in his mind. And, he rather feared,
Bella’s lips. He had never thought of her as a sexual entity before.

 
          
Mory
and Helen moved in a couple of hours after Richard and Liffey had left. With
them came Helen’s pregnant sister and her unemployed boyfriend, both of whom
now had the required permanent address from which to claim Social Security
benefits.

 
          
Honeycomb
Cottage in January was perhaps colder and damper than Liffey had expected, and
the rooms smaller, and the banisters had to come down before any furniture
could get in, and Richard sawed the double bed in two to get it into the
bedroom, but Liffey was happy, brave and positive, and by Wednesday evening had
fires lit, decorative branches, however bare, in vases, and a cosy space
cleared amongst chaos for a delicious celebration meal of bottled caviar,
fillet steak (from Harrods), a whole pound of mushrooms between them, and
champagne.

           
“All this,” marvelled Liffey, “and
five
pounds
a week profit!” She’d forgotten how much
she’d asked Helen to pay, in the end.

 
          
“You’re
leaving out the fares,” murmured Richard, but not too loudly, for it was always
unkind to present Liffey with too much reality all at once. Fares would amount
to some thirty pounds a week. Liffey had bought a whole crate of new books
—from thrillers, new novels, to heavy works on sociology and philosophy—which
she intended to dole out to Richard day by day for the improvement of his mind
on the morning journey and his diversion on the evening train, and Richard was
touched.

 
          
“It’s
very quiet,” said Richard, looking out into the blank, bleak, wet night. “I
don’t know what you’re going to do with yourself all day.”

 
          
“I
love the quietness,” said Liffey.
“And the solitude.
Just you and me—oh, we are the most enviable of people! Everyone else just
dreams, but we’ve actually done it.”

 
          
That
night they slept on foam rubber in front of the fire, but did not make love,
for they were exhausted. Richard wondered why someone
so
old and scraggy and cynical as Bella should be so attractive. Perhaps true love
and sexual excitement were mutually exclusive.