Winter Solstice (3 page)

“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. It’s not very interesting.”

“I find it fascinating.”

“I don’t see why you should. But you’re very kind.” It was dark now. Too dark to see into his face, or read the expression in his hooded eyes.

“I think perhaps it’s time we went back to the others.”

“Of course.”

“I love your garden. Thank you. Sometime I must see it in the daylight.”

That was Thursday. The following Sunday morning, it rained, not a spring shower, but regular rain drumming down against the windows of Elfrida’s cottage and darkening the tiny rooms, so that she was forced to switch on all the lights. After she had put Horace out into the garden for his morning wee, she made a cup of tea and took it back to bed with her, intending to spend the morning warm, comfortable, and idle, reading yesterday’s newspapers and struggling to finish the crossword.

But, just after eleven, she was interrupted by the ringing of the front-door bell, a jangling device operated by a hanging chain. The noise it made was like nothing so much as an emergency fire alarm and Elfrida nearly jumped out of her skin. Horace, lying across the foot of the bed, raised himself into a sitting position and let out a couple of barks. This was as much as he was prepared to do in the cause of protecting his mistress, for he was of a cowardly nature and not in the habit of snarling, nor biting intruders.

Astonished, but not alarmed, Elfrida climbed out of bed, pulled on her dressing-gown, tied the sash, and made her way down the steep and narrow staircase. The stairs descended into her living-room, and the front door opened straight onto the miniature front garden. And there she found a small girl, in jeans and sneakers and a dripping anorak. The anorak had no hood, so the child’s head was wet as the coat of a dog that had just enjoyed a good swim. She had auburn hair, braided into plaits, and her face was freckled and rosy from the chill, damp outdoors.

“Mrs. Phipps?”

There were bands on her teeth, a mouthful of ironmongery.

“Yes.”

“I’m Francesca Blundell. My mother said it’s such an awful day, would you like to come for lunch? We’ve got an enormous bit of beef and there’s heaps-”

“But I’ve only just been to dinner-”

“She said you’d say that.”

“It’s terribly kind. As you can see, I’m not dressed yet. I hadn’t even thought about lunch.”

“She was going to phone, but I said I’d bicycle.”

“You biked?”

“I left it on the pavement. It’s all right.” A douche of water from an overflowing gutter missed her by inches.

“I think,” said Elfrida, “you’d better come in before you drown.”

“Oh, thank you.” Briskly, Francesca accepted the invitation and stepped indoors. Hearing voices, and deciding that it was safe to appear, Horace, with dignity, descended the stairs. Elfrida closed the door.

“This is Horace, my dog.”

“He’s sweet. Hello. Mummy’s Pekes always yap for hours when there’s a visitor. Do you mind if I take off my anorak?”

“No, I think it would be a very good idea.”

This Francesca proceeded to do, unzipping the jacket and draping it over the newel-post at the bottom of the banister, where it dripped onto the floor.

Francesca looked about her. She said, “I always thought these were the dearest little houses, but I’ve never been in side one of them.” Her eyes were very large and grey, fringed with thick lashes.

“When Mummy said you were living here, I couldn’t wait to come and look. That’s why I hiked. Do you mind?”

“Not a bit. It’s all rather cluttered, I’m afraid.”

“I think it’s perfect.”

It wasn’t, of course. It was cramped and shabby, filled with the few personal bits and pieces Elfrida had brought with her from London. The sagging sofa, the little Victorian armchair, the brass fender, the battered desk. Lamps, and worthless pictures, and too many books.

“I was going to lay and light a fire as it’s such a grey day, but I haven’t got around to it yet. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee or something?”

“No, thank you, I’ve just had a Coke. Where does that door go?”

“Into the kitchen. I’ll show you.”

She led the way, opened the wooden door with the latch, and pushed it ajar. Her kitchen was no larger than a boat’s galley. Here a small Rayburn simmered away, keeping the whole of the house warm; a wooden dresser was piled with china; a clay sink stood beneath the window; and a wooden table and two chairs filled the remainder of the space. Alongside the window, a stable door led out into the back garden. The top half of this was glazed in small panes, and through this could be seen the flagged yard and the narrow border, which was as far as Elfrida had got in the way of making a flower-bed. Ferns thrust their way between the flags, and there was a honeysuckle scrambling over the neighbour’s wall.

“It’s not very inviting on a day like this, but there’s just room to sit out in a deck-chair on a summer evening.”

“Oh, but I love it.” Francesca looked about her with a housewifely eye.

“You haven’t got a fridge. And you haven’t got a washing machine. And you haven’t got a freezer.”

“No, I haven’t got a freezer. I have a fridge and a washing machine, but I keep them in the shed at the bottom of the yard. And I do all my dishes in the sink, because there’s no space for a dishwasher.”

“I think Mummy would die if she had to wash dishes.”

“It’s not very arduous when you live on your own.”

“I love all of your china. Blue and White. It’s my favourite.”

“I love it, too. None of it matches, but I buy a bit whenever I find something in a junk-shop. There’s so much now, there’s scarcely space for it.”

“What’s upstairs?”

“The same. Two rooms and a tiny bathroom. The bath is so small I have to hang my legs over the side. And a bedroom for me and a work-room where I do my sewing. If I have a guest, they have to sleep there, along with the sewing-machine and scraps of material and order books.”

“Daddy told me you made cushions. I think it’s all exactly right. For one person. And a dog, of course. Like a doll’s house.”

“Have you got a doll’s house?”

“Yes, but I don’t play with it any more. I’ve got animals. A guinea pig called Happy, but he’s not very well. I think he’ll have to go to the vet. He’s got horrible bare patches all over his fur. And I’ve got rabbits. And a pony.” She wrinkled her nose.

“He’s called Prince but he’s a bit nappy sometimes. I think I’d better go now. Mummy said I had to muck Prince out before lunch, and it takes ages, ‘specially in the rain. Thank you for letting me see your house.”

“A pleasure. Thank you for bringing that kind invitation.”

“You’ll come, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Will you walk?”

“No, I’ll bring my car. Because of the rain. And if you ask me where I keep my car, I’ll tell you. On the road.”

“Is it that old blue Ford Fiesta?”

“It is. And ‘old’ is the operative word. But I don’t mind provided the wheels go round and the engine starts.”

Francesca smiled at this, revealing, unembarrassed, her wired-up teeth. She said, “I’ll see you later then.” She reached for her anorak, still dripping, pulled on the sodden garment, and tossed free her plaits. Elfrida opened the door for her.

“Mummy said, a quarter to one.”

“I’ll be mere, and thank you for coming.”

“I’ll come again,” Francesca promised, and Elfrida watched her go splashing down the path and through the gate. A moment later, she was off, on her bike, with a wave of her hand, pedalling furiously down through the puddles and along the road, out of sight.

Oscar, Gloria, and Francesca were Elfrida’s first friends. Through them, she met others. Not just the McGeareys and the Millses, but the Foubisters, who were old-established and held the annual summer church fete in the park of their rambling Georgian house. And Commander Burton Jones, Royal Navy Retired, a widower and immensely industrious, labouring in his immaculate garden, Chairman of the Public Footpath Association, and principal chorister in the church choir. Commander Burton Jones (Bobby’s the name) threw racy little drinks parties and called his bedroom his cabin. Then there were the Dunns, he an immensely wealthy man who had bought and converted the old Rectory into a marvel of space and convenience, complete with games-room and a covered and heated swimming-pool.

Others, humbler, came into her life one by one, as Elfrida went about her daily business. Mrs. Jennings, who ran the village shop and the post office. Mr. Hodgkins, who did the rounds, once a week, with his butcher’s van, was a reliable source of news and gossip, and held strong political views. Albert Meddows, who answered her advertisement (a postcard stuck up in Mrs. Jennings’s window) for garden help, and tackled, single-handed, the sad disarray and crooked pavings of Elfrida’s back garden. The vicar and his wife invited her to a fork supper, in the course of which he repeated his suggestion that she join the Women’s Institute. Politely declining-she did not enjoy bus trips and had never made a pot of jam in her life-she agreed to involvement with the primary school and ended up producing their annual pantomime at Christmas.

All amiable enough and welcoming, but none of them Elfrida found either as interesting or stimulating as the Blundells. Gloria’s hospitality was without bounds, and scarcely a week went by when Elfrida was not invited to spend time at the Grange, for lavish meals or some outdoor occasion like a tennis party (Elfrida did not play tennis, but was happy to observe) or a picnic. There were other, more far-flung, occasions: the spring point-to-point at a nearby farm, a visit to a National Trust garden, an evening out at the theatre at Chichester. She had spent Christmas with them, and New Year’s Eve, and when she threw her first little party for all her new friends (Albert Meddows having resuscitated her garden, levelled the flagstones, pruned the honeysuckle, and painted the shed), it was Oscar who volunteered to be her barman and Gloria who produced copious eats from her own spacious kitchen.

However, there were limits and reservations. There had to be if Elfrida was not to be absorbed by, and beholden to, the Blundells. From the very first, she had recognized Gloria as a forceful woman-with, possibly, a ruthless streak, so determined was she always that things should go her way-and was more than aware of the dangers of such a situation. She had left London to make a life of her own, and knew that it would be only too easy for a single and fairly impoverished female to be swept along (and possibly drowned) in the churning wake of Gloria’s social energy.

So, from time to time, Elfrida had learned to step back, to keep to herself, to make excuses. A work overload, perhaps, or a prior engagement, which could not possibly be broken, with some imagined acquaintance whom Gloria did not know. Every now and then, she escaped from the confines of Dibton, packing Horace into the passenger seat of her old car and driving far out across country, to some other county where she was not known, and where she and Horace could climb a sheep-grazed hill, or follow the path by some dark flowing stream, and find at the end of it a pub full of strangers, where she could eat a sandwich and drink coffee and relish her precious solitude.

On such occasions, distanced from Dibton, and with her perceptions sharpened by a sense of perspective, it became possible to be analytical about her involvement with the Blundells, and to catalogue her findings, impersonal and detached as a shopping list.

The first was that she liked Oscar immensely; perhaps too much. She was well past the age of romantic love, but companionship was another matter. From their first meeting outside Dibton church, when she had been instantly taken with him, she had come to enjoy his company more and more. Time had not proved that first impression wrong.

But the ice was thin. Elfrida was neither sanctimonious nor a lady with enormously high moral standards; indeed, all the time she lived with him, her dear dead lover had been the husband of another woman. But Elfrida had never met his wife, and the marriage was already on the rocks by the time he and Elfrida found each other, and for this reason she had never been consumed by guilt. On the other hand, there was another and not nearly so harmless scenario, and one which Elfrida had witnessed more than once. That of the single lady, widowed, divorced, or otherwise bereft, being taken under the wing of a loyal girl-friend, only to scarper with the loyal girl-friend’s husband. A reprehensible situation and one of which she strongly disapproved.

But in Elfrida’s case, it was not about to happen. And she knew that her awareness of danger and her own common sense were her greatest strengths.

Second was that Francesca, at twelve years old, was the daughter whom, if she had ever had a child, Elfrida would have liked to call her own. She was independent, open, and totally straightforward, and yet possessed of a sense of the ridiculous that could reduce Elfrida to helpless laughter, and an imagination that was fed by voracious reading of books. Into these, Francesca became so absorbed that one could go into a room, switch on the television, hold loud discussions, and Francesca would not even raise her head from the printed page. During the school holidays, she frequently turned up at Poulton’s Row, to play with Horace or watch Elfrida at her sewing-machine, at the same time asking end less questions about Elfrida’s theatrical past, which she clearly found fascinating.

Her relationship with her father was unusually close and very sweet. He was old enough to be her grandfather, but their delight in each other’s company went far beyond that of the normal parent and child. From behind the closed music-room door could be heard the two of them playing duets on his piano, and fumbling mistakes brought not recrimination, but much laughter. On winter evenings he read aloud to her, the two of them curled up in his huge armchair, and her affection for him was manifested in frequent hugs and. loving physical contact, thin arms wound about his neck and kisses pressed onto the top of his thick white hair.

As for Gloria, Gloria was a man’s woman, and so closer to her grownup and married sons than her lately conceived daughter. Elfrida had met these sons, Giles and Crawford Bellamy, and their pretty, well-dressed wives, when they turned up at the Grange for a weekend, or drove down from London for Sunday lunch. Although not twins, they were strangely similar-conventional and opinionated. Elfrida got the impression that neither of the brothers approved of her, but as she didn’t much like either of them, that was not bothering. Their mother doted on them, which was far more important, and when the time came for them to leave for London or Bristol or wherever they lived, the boots of their expensive cars loaded down with fresh vegetables and fruit from Gloria’s kitchen garden, she would stand, waving them away, like any sentimental mother. It was patently clear that in her eyes neither son could do wrong, and Elfrida was pretty sure that if Gloria had not approved of their chosen brides, then both Daphne and Arabella would have got short shrift.