A Change of Pace (8 page)

‘Balls!’ But she took his hand all the same.

Nell Gwynne’s Buttery at The George turned out to be practically empty when they got there. Music of an unidentifiable nature treacled out of the walls, the latter liberally sprinkled with oranges and a mural in which a cloaked figure in a broad-brimmed hat played a guitar to a lady with large bosoms, who hung perilously out of the upper window of a cardboard-looking tower. The air was redolent of fried onions and lunchtime curry. They chose a table as far away from the kitchens as possible and sat down.

Simon looked about him. ‘I remember this place when it was all stained white tablecloths, brown Windsor soup, and big fat ladies in pudding-basin hats tucking into toad-in-the-hole and spotted dick and custard. There used to be two stuffed otters and a water rat in a glass case over there by the window; I’d spend hours looking at those otters when I was a lad. On market days the place was so packed you had to queue. There was a waitress here then called Dawn, with mean eyes and red hair, whom I used to dream about all through the school term. When I came back one holidays, she’d upped and joined the WAAF; it broke my heart. I met her again some years later and she’d turned into a large lady in a pudding-basin hat. Life is sad, Bet Brandon, is it not?’ Bet nodded dreamily. She was beginning to feel like someone in a film — Lauren Bacall, perhaps. Simon was a bit drunk of course, but then so was she ...

‘Hullo, stranger! We don’t often see you here these days. How are they at the Manor — Miss Cyn keeping well?’ The waitress, yet another large lady, but in place of the pudding-basin hat, blue plastic earrings in the shape of miniature elephants and hair like a cone of pink ice-cream. Did Simon know everyone? Bet wondered idly what it would be like to be part of a family who’d lived in the same place for four hundred years.

‘What’s it to be, then?’ Simon said. ‘Frozen scampi with a blob of Thelma’s own special mayonnaise, or the duck a l’orange? I’m chancing my arm with prawn cocktail and the scampi.’

‘I’ll have the same,’ she said, not caring really.

‘Two of both, then, Thelm, and make sure the chips are thawed out, won’t you, I don’t want to be up all night.’ Thelma gave a shriek that rattled the glasses on the empty tables; ‘You don’t change, do you, Simmy!’ She turned to Bet. ‘He used to be a real little devil. I could tell you a few tales. If you want to know what a monkey he is, you ask him about Miss Priddie’s bible class ... ’ More cackles. Simon seemed quite unmoved by the banter, indeed enjoying it, but behind it all Bet noticed that Thelma’s eyes were shrewd and appraising — Our Sim’s got a new lady friend, she’d report later to anyone interested, I wonder how long she’ll last?

When she’d gone (Chef’ll have my guts for garters if I don’t hurry up with the orders, he wants to be off home in time for “Match of the Day”’.) Simon said: ‘You’re very quiet. Sorry you came?’

‘No,’ Bet said, trying to work out the exact colour of his eyes; most of the time they were a sort of chestnut brown, but sometimes much paler than that and sometimes almost black. ‘I was thinking, that’s all.’

‘Poor Bet, is it very lonely?’ Simon reached out his hand across the table.

‘No, no of course it isn’t, I’m far too busy to be lonely.’ But she took the hand, all the same — chewed nails, she noticed, gold signet ring on the little finger. Then suddenly, not knowing why, she gave in. ‘Sometimes it’s hell, actually,’ she said, ‘but then one always assumed it would be.’ (Shouldn’t she take her hand away — could she take her hand away?)

‘Will I make you better?’

She wished she didn’t feel so faint, could think more clearly. His voice was the voice of a tempter, but then almost all of her wanted to be tempted; there was this tiny bit that didn’t, and it would probably be bigger by morning, but tonight ... She swallowed, aware now only of the chemistry between them.

‘Two prawn cocktails coming up and what about some vino?’ Thelma, with a jangle of earrings, plonked a bilious pink mixture in front of her, and Bet, feeling like the lonely prawn adhering to the rim of the glass dish in which the mixture came, snatched her hand away from Simon’s and took a bread roll instead. For a second Simon, whose expression up to now had been that of a rather vulnerable small boy unpacking his first Christmas present, appeared nonplussed, but only for a second. Even before Bet had bitten into her unwanted roll, he’d turned back into the world-weary, slightly saturnine Simon she knew. And by the time Thelma, with a final wiggle of the hips and a shriek like a macaw, had departed for the kitchen, life had returned to normal.

Simon dug a spoon into his prawn cocktail. ‘To take away the taste of this,’ he said, putting the spoon down again and grinning across the table at her, ‘I could, if you like, tell you about old Saltpeter Westover. He was quite an amusing cove actually — about the only Westover who was — and although I says it myself, I’m not a bad hand at telling a story. Or if you prefer something lighter, what about my experiences as a courier in the travel business? The time I lost a party of Ulster Protestants bound for the Costa del Sol at Gatwick and they caught the wrong plane and landed up in Lourdes?’

And Bet, opting for the travel business, listened and laughed until she cried. For Simon Morris could be both funny and charming when he tried, and tonight he was trying his very hardest.

It was past midnight when they left the restaurant. Outside, in the market square, motor-cycles snarled and spiky-haired young erupted from Dirty Dan’s Disco on the corner by the Methodist church. ‘Did you know,’ Simon said, weaving Cyn’s Lancia in and out of the motor-cycles, ‘that a Protestant martyr was burned in this square in 1556? A kind old buffer, people said, greatly skilled in the art of healing. That didn’t save him, however, though they did put green wood on the fire to hasten his end.’

‘Green wood?’

‘You’re asphyxiated by the smoke before the fire gets you.’ ‘Oh.’

They didn’t talk much after that until Simon stopped the car at the Rectory gate. ‘I won’t drive in, Titania, I’ve no desire to rouse your family, and it looks as though they’re back. It’s been a great evening, and thank you for putting up with me.’

So he wasn’t going to try and kiss her. Would she have let him if he had? No need to answer that one, not now anyway. He opened the car door and she scrambled out and stood on the grass verge, looking in through the window. ‘I’ve enjoyed it, too, even the chips and the history.’

‘Am I a bore about history?’ Now he was looking vulnerable again, and Bet was a sucker for vulnerability. ‘No, you’re not a bore about history,’ she said, ‘you’re not a bore about anything — goodnight.’

‘Goodnight, Titania ... and don’t let that family of yours bully you.’ She watched him turn the big car in the narrow lane and went on standing there on the frosty grass until the sound of its engine had died away, then turned and went into the house. Warm, humming darkness enveloped her. She switched on the light and Tib raised a sleepy head in greeting, then sank back into his basket. Thank God, the others must have gone to bed.

*

‘Pete,’ Pol poked her husband in the ribs, ‘I think I heard a car. Go and have a look out of the landing window.’

For God’s sake, ducky, it’s none of our business when Bet gets home.’

‘You’ve simply no feeling for anyone else, have you. Bet could have been raped, or anything. You know what the Normans said about that man and his reputation.’ Pete, however, was asleep again, there would be no further assistance from him; the house could burn down for all he cared! She supposed she’d have to go and see for herself — someone had to.

Throwing a dressing-gown round her shoulders Pol hurried out on to the landing and twitched back the curtain. It was dark outside, the moon eclipsed by scurrying clouds, but through the darkness, light from Bet’s kitchen streamed out across the yard — she was home. Thank God for that! No sound of voices, either, so she couldn’t have asked him in; one must be grateful for small mercies.

Pete was snoring when she got back into bed. It was no good, if he was going to make that sort of noise she’d have to take a sleeping pill ...

Nell also heard the car. She’d like to have woken Bernie to tell him, but unfortunately they weren’t on speaking terms. There had been a slight incident earlier in the evening when, with some abandon, she’d kicked off her shoes and danced with a young man Bernie had described later as a half-witted Hooray Henry, and she’d not unnaturally taken exception. Anyway, what was wrong with being a Hooray Henry — at least this one had nice manners and could dance, which was more than you could say for Bernie ...

Diz heard nothing. He lay on his back, dead to the world, a bowl placed strategically beside his bed, the alcoholic excesses of his evening forgotten in insensibility.

Chapter Seven

‘Stand clear of the gates,’ the familiar robot voice intoned as the lift at Hampstead tube station began its slow, creaking journey to the surface with Bet the only passenger. She felt a little self-conscious, and was glad to escape at the top into the roar of the traffic grinding up Heath Street. It was a bright, windy day nearly two weeks after the Westover party and Bet was on her way to visit Miles’s grave.

Not that he would have approved, he’d always wanted to be cremated. But when the time came she’d pleaded with him to change his mind, unable to bear the thought of his body being hygienically reduced to ashes, and too weak for further argument, he’d given in. Anyway, he’d said, smiling a little at the feeble joke, it would be nice to have Hugh Gaitskell as a neighbour, at least they’d been on the same side.

Turning up Church Street, a gust of wind caught her hair, blowing it across her face so that for a moment she couldn’t see. She shivered, tightly clutching the carefully wrapped spring flowers she had picked from the garden that morning before catching the train. ‘Buy some lucky heather, dearie?’ the gypsy woman at the cemetery gates called after her, ‘you have a lucky face.’ She’d said the same thing, Bet remembered, on the day of Miles’s funeral.

His grave, when she found it, looked just like any other; the headstone was a bit newer, that was all.
Miles
Desmond
Brandon
,
beloved
husband
of
... But of course Miles wasn’t there, was he, he never had been. Feeling self-conscious again, she knelt down on the damp grass, and placing her flowers neatly beside the headstone, closed her eyes. But it was no good, all she could think of was that she was kneeling on something sharp, and that when she got up her skirt would have a damp stain on the front. She shifted uncomfortably and suddenly, inside her head, heard Miles’ voice — the one he used when he was laughing at her. ‘Darling, you’re such an ass sometimes — no need for all this ... ’ She opened her eyes and found a large, hairy, surprised-looking dog squatting on his haunches beside her. ‘Roddy, come here at once!’ A woman’s voice, sharp with embarrassment. ‘Don’t be such a bloody nuisance.’ The dog took one more look at Bet, then bounded away. He was a young dog, joyous, full of life and curiosity. Bet stood up, smiling foolishly to herself, and brushed the grass from her skirt, then turned, and picking her way carefully through the forest of white headstones, slowly retraced her steps to the cemetery gates.

There was nothing for her here.

She didn’t after all go and have a nostalgic look at the house in Thorn Lane; she’d planned to, but somehow now there seemed no point. In a few short months she had become a stranger in a part of London once so utterly familiar that to return to it after an absence was like putting on an old and valued coat, a coat in which every tear in the lining, every hanging thread, every stain, held some sort of memory. Now the coat had gone to the jumble sale and the new one didn’t fit.

Instead she had coffee in a new place on Haverstock Hill, and shocked herself by thinking about Simon Morris. Had Simon been what this trip was all about? A cack-handed attempt at getting rid of her guilt about wanting someone other than Miles? She bit sadly into her too-large Danish pastry — she hadn’t been able to resist it and now didn’t want it — and admitted that it probably was. No wonder Miles had laughed at her, he had every right to, she was behaving like the heroine in a nineteenth-century melodrama.

She took another sip of coffee and wondered for the umpteenth time what had happened to Simon since the night of the party and why he had so obstinately refused to get in touch. Busy, she’d repeatedly told herself, busy; but by now the excuse was wearing thin, and to be honest, he didn’t seem the type to put business before pleasure. Perhaps taking her out to dinner hadn’t been a pleasure? Of course the trouble was, she was quite unused to situations of this sort, it was a very long time since she’d been in one. Certainly, in those dim, distant days before Miles, if someone took her out and looked at her in the way Simon had looked at her, he always made damned sure he tried to take her out again; the only question being whether or not she herself liked him sufficiently to wish to repeat the experience. What a spoilt little bitch she must have been!

To be fair, though, what she was suffering from now wasn’t so much hurt pride because Simon had not found her sufficiently interesting or attractive (it must be said) to press his suit, it was much more a kind of bitter disappointment. The thing was, she’d never encountered anyone quite like Simon before. There was something about that mixture of upper-crust savoir-faire, hopelessness, and the ability to make her laugh until she cried, that she seemed to find totally irresistible. The rather lowering fact that, no temptation having been offered, there was nothing for her to resist, served only to make the whole business more intriguing. And it wasn’t as if her family had helped much, either.

Her family were another reason why Bet had come to London; she had felt she simply had to escape from them, if only for a day. Ever since the Westover party, the atmosphere at the Rectory had simply not been right. Things started to go wrong, in fact, the very morning after the party. Fair enough, everyone, with the exception of Pol and herself, was recovering from a serious hangover. But the trouble was, they had continued to go wrong ever since. Was this the evil power of alcohol, or had they all been bewitched by the Westovers? And yet despite all this, and despite her own bitter disappointment at the subsequent non-appearance of Simon, she felt more alive than she had in years. Perhaps, who knew, this was the root of the trouble?

Bet had woken that Sunday morning after the party with no trace of a hangover, just the expectation of fun to come, like a child on its birthday morning. Bouncing downstairs to get breakfast, she had arrived in the kitchen to be confronted by the pale, sickly and reproachful faces of her son and daughter.

‘Hullo, darlings, had a good evening? Bernie still in bed?’

‘Bernie’s gone to spend the day with his parents,’ Nell said repressively, ‘he thought it was time he paid them a visit.’

‘But why didn’t you go, darling, it’s such a lovely day — ’

‘We don’t have to do everything together, for goodness sake. Anyway, his mother will be delighted, she prefers to have her darling boy on his own, as well you know, Mum.’

Unable to think of a suitable reply to this — it was true, but to admit it was true would surely be a mistake, and in any case Nell, clutching a mug of black coffee to her bosom, had already flounced out of the room — Bet turned her attention to her son. What,’ she asked brightly, did he fancy for his breakfast? Nothing, he said, sipping a fizzing glass of alka seltzer and not looking at her. The last thing he wanted was food, he should have thought that would have been obvious to anyone. He’d only come down to get a drink and was on his way back to bed. Still too pre-occupied with her own thoughts to read the storm cones in the atmosphere, Bet asked him how he’d fared the previous evening. He closed his eyes. He couldn’t remember, he said, it wasn’t that important anyway, but he was fairly sure that Mrs Byngham-Smythe had made a pass at him. ut darling, she
can’t
have done! I mean, she must be old enough to be your grandmother — ’

‘You wouldn’t know, would you. You were too busy getting yourself picked up to have time to think about anyone else.’

‘Diz! I will not let you speak to me like that. Just because your father isn’t here, there’s no need to think you can behave as you like —’

‘Well, if he had been he’d soon have given that Morris guy a punch up the arsehole.’

‘How dare you!’ Bet, seizing the fish-slice, prepared for battle. But Diz had already fled, and by the noise emanating from the downstairs loo, was being sick again.

Then there had been the Redfords.

Peter had bearded her in the garden later on that morning. There had been little point in preparing Sunday lunch with no one to eat it. ‘Ah, here you are, ducky,’ and she’d known at once by the sound of his voice that he’d been sent by Pol to do a bit of fishing.

‘Yes, here I am, Pete, whole and in one piece. And how are you? Feeling a tiny bit under the weather, are we?’ Pete waved an arm about as though swatting an imaginary fly, and stepped heavily on the lupin she’d just that moment planted. ‘Pete, get
off
! Can’t you see you’re standing on the garden —’

‘Never mind the garden, ducky —’

‘What d’you mean, never mind the garden? Don’t you want me to get on with the garden, then? I’ve no doubt you and Pol will be the first to take advantage of it when you bring your posh friends down in the summer.’

Pete put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Calm down, ducky, for goodness sake. I’ve only come to ask if you felt strong enough to pop in for a noggin around twelve-thirty, that’s all.’

‘Of course I feel strong enough — why on earth shouldn’t I?’ Bet said. At that precise moment the phone rang, making her stomach lurch. Simon? ‘Look that’s our phone, Pete, I’d better answer it, no one else is about.’

The phone, as if to defy her, promptly stopped ringing. ‘A bit on the
qui
vive
aren’t we? Waiting for a call from the boyfriend? Apologising for keeping you out so late, no doubt. What time did you get in, by the way? I thought the chap said he wanted an early night.’

Bet swallowed; the call must have been for Nell. Why didn’t everyone leave her alone? ‘Oh go away, Pete, can’t you see I’m busy?’

‘OK, OK, I know when I’m not wanted — ’

‘You could have fooled me.’

‘Now, now, pussy cat,’ Pete bent down and kissed the back of her neck as she crouched crossly at his feet, trowel in hand, ‘no need to show your claws; keep them for Mr Morris — ‘

‘Pete!’ But he’d dodged away before she could get at him, this time flattening the pale green shoots of a young delphinium which, as a result of the vast quantities of loving care, and slug death, expended upon it, had been just on the verge of maturity.

Having decided not to accept the Redfords’ invitation for drinks, Bet accepted it. Of course to do so would be a mistake, she’d known this, but all the same she went. Disapproval still prevailed in her part of the house, and after that first time, the phone had obstinately refused to ring.

Since it was such a lovely day they had their drinks on the verandah. At first everything went surprisingly smoothly and Bet felt herself beginning to relax as she lounged in her bright patio chair, sleepily sipping an ice-cold gin and cin — Pol did these things so well — and watching an early bee crawl industriously in and out of the fat, smoke-blue wisteria buds that dangled from the newly-painted wrought-ironwork above her head.

Then Pol had to go and spoil it all. ‘Now, Bet,’ she said, smiling in a way that had infuriated Bet for as long as she could remember, ‘it really was a good dinner last night, wasn’t it, Pete? Such a pity you and your new friend didn’t come, I’m sure you would have enjoyed it. The Cornwalls say that the Mulberry Bush is by far the best place to eat round here.’

Here we go! Bet took a deep breath and prepared for battle. ‘Well, of course, if the Cornwalls say so, it must be! Anyway, as he told Pete, my so-called ‘new friend’ was more or less dead on his feet. He’d been up most of the previous night at some press do, and the last thing he wanted was to —’

‘Launching a new deodorant for dogs, so I heard. The chap does work for Smike McGregor, doesn’t he?’

‘He’s in advertising, yes. I can’t see that it matters which particular firm — I know he’s one of their top copywriters.’

‘Told you so, did he?’ Pete had not forgotten the look of bored contempt that Simon had treated him to. ‘I should think it does matter, though, ducky, because the buzz is that Smike McGregor are on their way out. Oddly enough, old Dicky Dashwood was only talking about them the other day. It seems that —’

‘Oh shut up, Pete, I’m sure Bet has no desire to listen to City gossip and I’m quite sure I haven’t. Nor is there the slightest need for Bet to jump so valiantly to the defence of her hero. The Cornwalls quite understood. It was palpably obvious to anyone that the man wanted to get her away from us, and knowing Bet’s predilection for Italian males as I do, I’m not in the least surprised he succeeded. I’ll never forget the fuss she kicked up about that awful barman in Capri, Mum and Dad practically had to lock her in her bedroom, she —’

‘If you must bandy insults,’ Bet was getting angry now, ‘you might at least have the guts to address them to me instead of going on as if I wasn’t here.’

‘Steady on, girls, no need to get your knickers in a twist!’ ‘Please don’t interfere, Pete, and you don’t have to get vulgar either.’ Pol held out her glass for a refill.

‘Sorry, I’m sure. I was only trying to — ‘

‘Pete!’

‘Oh, all right then.’ Pete refilled his wife’s glass and passed a dish of salted almonds to his smouldering sister-in-law. ‘But joking apart, Bet,’ (joking?) ‘there is just one small point. If the chap was as fagged out as he said he was, how come he didn’t bring you home until gone midnight?’

‘And how, may one ask, do you know what time he brought me home? You were all in bed.’ Pete cast an agonised eye at his wife. ‘Well, actually ... ’

‘Because the car made such a noise it woke me up.’ Pol, also getting angry, leaped to his rescue. ‘And then of course I couldn’t get to sleep again and had to take a sleeping pill. But surely, Bet, even you aren’t going to blame us for being worried! I should have thought you’d be pleased that somebody cared enough about you to worry when you disappear into the night with a complete stranger.’