A Surrey State of Affairs (14 page)

And then…well. We got home. Tanya hugged me, then I got out of the car and walked slowly up the drive. I went inside. Everything looked as it did before—Jeffrey’s golfing umbrella leaning against the hat stand, a vase of lilies starting to drop pollen on the oak table—but the feel of the house was empty, desolate. I went through to the kitchen and looked out the window at the lawn, the last place I had seen my poor parrot. I looked, and looked again. Dear readers, there he was! Perched blithely in the apple tree in the middle of the grass, his branch bobbing in the breeze, staring right at me, I am sure, with a sharp and mischievous look. A few enticing words and Brazil nuts later,
and he was back in his cage. My heart sang, even if the first word he uttered was Lithuanian.

I took a padlock from Jeffrey’s shed, locked his cage, and threaded the key onto my white gold necklace next to Mother’s locket. I lay down to calm myself, then went on Facebook and told Paratweets all about my ordeal. They were the only ones who could understand.
OMG pour you. Thats worse than the day my daughter hid in the laundry cupboard for 2hrs,
said one. After Googling
OMG,
I smiled sadly in agreement.

Although the knot in my stomach started to loosen and the thumping in my head started to fade, one problem remained: Natalia. She has shown me what she is capable of if I refuse to allow her sister to stay. I changed my status to:
Do I capitulate to domestic terrorism?

  
TUESDAY, MARCH 11

I am weak. I have given in. Lydia is coming.

Do not, however, think it is all my doing: I was tempted to pack Natalia off back home, clutching her Big Ben tea bag box and other pathetic memorabilia, after yesterday’s act of treachery. But once again, Jeffrey has intervened. Last night over dinner I told him all about Darcy’s disappearing act, almost choking on my salmon en croute as I explained that the whole dreadful affair was almost certainly Natalia’s fault. I suggested it might be time for a new housekeeper, mentioning too her slovenly dusting and her habit of leaving her tarty underwear lying about. This did not have the effect I had expected. Jeffrey looked distant for a moment, before flicking into his lawyer mode (I can tell when he does this because his chest sticks out and the frown line deepens between his eyes) and intoning gravely on the principle of innocent until proven guilty. Apparently, there was no prima facie evidence to prove beyond all reasonable doubt to a fair-minded group of
people that Natalia had indeed released a parrot named Darcy. There were no fingerprints, no DNA evidence, nothing beyond assumptions and suspicion. This young girl, who had an unblemished record and her whole life in front of her, could well have been framed.

Sometimes I think Jeffrey is wasted on tax. Once he had finished, he took a long swig of his wine, and said, in a normal, quieter, voice, “Besides, the economy’s buggered, my pension’s on thin ice, and she’s cheap.”

He’s right, of course, although I find it hard not to feel rather distant from the swirling waters of financial Armageddon. The letters offering me platinum credit cards continue to arrive on the doormat, albeit a little less frequently, and only last Sunday, I learned from the
Sunday Telegraph
magazine that there is a six-month waiting list for a Mulberry handbag—named after some upstart fashion model barely Sophie’s age—which costs twelve hundred pounds. As long as it is so easy to borrow money to buy unaffordable things, I’m sure the economy will perk up soon.

And yet Jeffrey would not budge. Natalia stays, and if I am not to walk around in a constant state of fear it means that Lydia will be coming to stay too. She will have to sleep in Rupert’s old room, and I’ll be damned if I’m moving his collection of old comics and computer manuals to make space for her cheap eastern European cosmetics.

  
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12

Bell ringing provided a more sympathetic audience last night than Jeffrey did. I told them all about Darcy before we started ringing. Miss Hughes said it just shows that these eastern Europeans would sell their own grandmothers for a pair of gold earrings; Reginald said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first
stone,” and looked confused; Gerald touched my shoulder and said, “Poor you. I know what it feels like to be abandoned.”

Even though I was preoccupied with the trauma of Darcy’s escape, I did not forget my other business at bell ringing: Gerald. Trying to gauge Miss Hughes’s tastes, I asked her whether she liked Reginald’s new rust-colored pullover, and if she thought men should experiment with color. She wrinkled her nose. “That color reminds me of a septic tank,” she said. “But I do like a man who can carry off a nice bit of purple.” I repeated this loudly—that men looked nice in purple—so that Gerald could hear. Then I hurried home to check on Darcy.

  
THURSDAY, MARCH 13

Today I baked a walnut cake and took it to Tanya to thank her for her help. She didn’t look her usual self when she answered the door. I told her she seemed pale and asked if she was feeling okay, but she laughed and said she was just trying to save money by skimping on the fake tan. Apparently Jeffrey is not the only one to notice that there is something amiss with the economy: Mark, her husband, is so worried that he has fired the cleaner and capped Tanya’s allowance. As she opened the fridge door to get milk for our coffee, standing in front of the luminescent shelves of out-of-season strawberries and blueberries, Marks & Spencer ready meals and macrobiotic yogurts, she told me she didn’t know what else she could cut back on. I said that at least they had the house, and she smiled thinly. I think she looks better without the tan anyway; more fragile, the first fine worry lines tracing out from her eyes, but prettier. I kept that to myself.

Then it was off to Church Flowers, where everyone kept staring at me in sympathetic silence, no doubt distracting themselves from the azaleas with thoughts of my son’s leprous lesions, then
home. I went on Facebook and found I had friend requests pending from two classmates, one of whom looked old, the other fat. I changed my status to
is suddenly feeling more cheerful.

Although not as cheerful as Natalia, who, since the news of her sister, has been going about the house singing with a louder monotone drone than usual. She even made me a coffee with a squirt of whipped cream and half a crumbled chocolate biscuit on top, which I presume was meant to be a treat. Not wanting to dampen her all-too-rare good spirits, I waited until she wasn’t looking to spoon the top off into the bin.

  
FRIDAY, MARCH 14

Sophie flies home in less than a week. I had offered to get Jeffrey’s PA to organize a train trip back, given her environmental zeal, but she said that an eight-hour journey would make her “go mental.” I sent her the following e-mail (which, after one eleven-minute phone conversation to Rupert for instructions, I have now successfully managed to “copy and paste”):

I struggled to recall her ever mentioning a Zac. I wrote back:

She replied:

So not only do I have a supernumerary Lithuanian to contend with, but also an unknown man who seems likely to im-pede both shopping trips and tête-á-têtes. What’s worse is that I have no idea what his relationship with Sophie is. What are his intentions? Are they indeed just friends, or might he be a “soulm8”?

  
SATURDAY, MARCH 15

Today, I finally summoned the courage to call Rupert. If he is indeed a
Guardian
reader, the best hope of a cure will be to treat him kindly and expose him to a more sensible point of view, or simply wait ten years for him to grow out of it. I may send him the
Spectator
once Jeffrey has finished with it to hasten the process. In any case, I felt it was time to mend fences (locally sourced and sustainable ones, no doubt) and ask if he would come over
and help me check out Zac. He was his usual polite self on the phone, if a little quieter than usual, but agreed that he would be there for a nice leg of lamb next Sunday. At least he hasn’t turned vegetarian.

  
MONDAY, MARCH 17