Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs (22 page)

‘It is true. I have.’ Conrad folded his arms and looked down his nose at us. It was difficult to see the libidinous student in the aloof autocrat of today. ‘And I think it will suit me admirably.’

As soon as I opened the front door I heard sobbing. I waved goodbye to Rafe, then hopped upstairs as fast as my leg permitted. Dimpsie was lying on the bathroom floor, weeping and clutching her hand from which blood dripped. The bath mat was a crimson puddle, and for a dreadful moment I thought she must be haemorrhaging, until I realized it was red wine.

‘I’m sorry,’ she moaned, ‘I tripped on the rug.’

‘Let me look.’ Luckily the cut was shallow. I cleaned it, found a plaster in the bathroom cabinet and picked up pieces of broken glass from the floor. ‘Dimpsie,’ I said, when she was sitting on the bathroom stool, more or less dry-eyed, ‘you can’t go on like this. Supposing you’d cut an artery. No man is worth killing yourself for.’

Dimpsie’s eyes welled again. ‘I heard someone drive up so I went to the window … a sports car … the roof was down. Tom got out to fetch something … she sat in the passenger seat, smoking. Then she looked up. I bobbed down but I think she saw me. She’s frighteningly glamorous … sexy …’

‘She reminds me of Cruella de Vil.’

‘You’ve seen her?’

‘She’s been into the surgery.’

Dimpsie screwed up her face with pain. ‘Vanessa Trumball was just a plaything. I knew he’d get bored with her. This woman is different …’

‘You’ve got to stand up to him. Even if he wasn’t seeing other women, you oughtn’t to put up with being sneered at and trampled on.’ Fine words, I thought, coming from Sebastian’s doxy. But I pressed on. ‘It isn’t doing you any good. If you carry on drinking like this you’ll pickle your liver and be really ill. And it isn’t doing him any good either. It’s corrupting him, making him think he can get away with anything. Okay, that’s not your responsibility, but—’

‘It is, though,’ interrupted Dimpsie. ‘I can’t separate my good from his. I’ve known Tom since I was eighteen. He’s the only man I’ve ever loved. If I try to imagine life without him there’s nothing but howling darkness.’

‘Where’s your courage?’ I asked in rallying tones. ‘Where’s your determination not to be beaten?’

Dimpsie shook her head. ‘Without Tom I’m nothing.’

‘Rubbish! You’ve got brains and talent and a generous spirit and a sense of humour – most of the time – and you’ve got Kate and me.’

‘Kate doesn’t care about me. She’s only interested in acquiring coasters to match her place mats. And you, darling Marigold, my pride and joy, you inhabit another world where I’m nothing but a fond memory. Don’t think I’m blaming you,’ she added as I felt myself blush with guilt. ‘I
want
you to be a success every bit as much as you can possibly want it. I revel in your achievements. Honestly. But as soon as the plaster cast’s off your leg you’ll be – quite rightly – going back to London. And the last thing I want is to be a weight on your conscience.’

I wrestled with myself like that bloke with the serpents – I had seen the famous statue in the Vatican Museum when we were dancing
Romeo and Juliet
at the Teatro Dell’Opera di Roma – and for a while it felt as though I had as little chance of winning. But at last I got the words out. ‘I’m not going back to London until I’m sure that you’ve stopped drinking and you’ve got yourself back on your feet. With or without Tom.’

‘Angel, it’s sweet of you to be so concerned but I couldn’t

accept such a sacrifice—’

‘I’ve made up my mind. You haven’t any choice. I refuse to go until you’re better.’ I looked at her swollen eyelids and shiny pink nose and said in a softer voice, ‘So what’s it to be, old thing? A permanent hangover or my name up in lights?’

I so badly wanted my mother to conquer depression and the bottle that, even if it meant being hit on the head by an iron, I was prepared to pay the price. Unwilling to trust the springs of the ancient Mini to the deeply rutted track, we walked across the field towards the caravans, carrying the best the craft shop could offer in plastic bags. Dimpsie forged ahead, fired with the zeal of doing good.

During the past week we had been to the cinema in Hexham and to Carlisle for a shopping trip. We had visited the oriental stall on the market to stock up on incense and kohl as part of her rehabilitation. Though she had pretended to enjoy herself, her eyes had remained lacklustre and her mouth retained its downward droop. My father, when he came to pick up letters or clothes, was colder than Murmansk, where I had once danced the Sugar Plum Fairy in a vest with chilblains. My feet, not the vest. Dimpsie must have craved the numbing solace of alcohol, but such was her determination not to blight my career that she had abstained heroically. She had not had a drink since our conversation six days before and already her skin was a better colour and her hands were steadier. I had volunteered to accompany her to see the new baby and had been rewarded with the first genuine smile since Brenda had told her of the man-eating insatiability of Marcia Dane.

The nearest caravan was called ‘The Pathfinder’ by its manufacturers. Its pathfinding days were over. It stood on logs instead of wheels, and a section of one side had been replaced by corrugated iron.

‘If yore from the Social ye can bugger off before Ah set the dogs on ye,’ said the woman who had poked a bedraggled head out of the door to see why they were barking. Three of them were tethered by shamefully short pieces of rope to the wheels. ‘And if yore from the animal croolty place, Ah know my rights—’

‘No,’ said Dimpsie, ‘I just wanted to ask you—’

‘If it’s about them lawn mowers we don’t know nothing about them. And if yore from the Jehovah’s Witnesses ye can shove yer blooming
Watchtower
up yer blooming—’

‘It’s about the baby.’

A scared look came into the woman’s face. ‘Yo look here! Lawn mowers is one thin’ but babbies we
don’t
deal in. Ah divvent care what anyone’s telt ye, it’s a filfy lie—’

‘What’s up?’ A fat man, who looked as though the tip of his nose had been stapled to his upper lip, emerged from the caravan. The dogs immediately stopped barking and lay down with cowed whines. ‘What d’yer want?’

‘Ow, Jem,’ said the woman, her voice softening in appeal. ‘They think we’ve took a babby!’ She started to whimper, ‘It’s always the same when owt goes missing and—’

‘Shut it!’ He pushed her roughly inside the caravan and slammed the door. ‘Now then.’ He took out a frightening-looking knife with a long thin blade and began to clean his nails with it. ‘Ye canna coom here making accusations.’

‘I didn’t mean to accuse anyone of anything.’ Dimpsie looked alarmed as the man threw the knife into the air as though tossing a coin. He caught it between dirty hands with scabbed knuckles and his eyes narrowed to wicked gleams. ‘My husband delivered a baby,’ Dimpsie rattled on nervously, ‘I thought the mother might live here … her father said—’

‘Now listen, yo!’ The man’s face became even uglier with
menace. ‘Ah know nowt about any babby. Ah niver laid hands on that little draggle-tail. An’ anyone that tells ye different is a liar, see?’

‘What my mother means,’ I attempted to clarify the situation, ‘is that we’d like to see the baby and we’ve brought it – him – some presents.’

His hand tightened on the handle of the knife, its blade pointing towards my heart. I imagined turning to run, the crutches slipping on the slush of snow and mud, my leg weighing like lead as I tried to escape. I felt the cold burn of steel in my back, the world turning all to white as I began to faint from loss of blood, saw my mother’s anxious face as she bent over me before my vision dimmed for ever …

‘Aal reet. Turn out they bags. Let’s see what ye have.’

‘They’re only things for the baby,’ I protested, but Dimpsie was already fumbling inside the plastic.

She brought out a wool bonnet knitted in a repulsive mixture of beige and teal, followed by a matinee jacket in puce and olive. The man cleared his throat and spat with disgust. One really couldn’t blame him.

‘Let’s look in that bag.’ He pointed to the one Dimpsie had put down.

She disinterred a crocheted cot blanket and a pottery bowl with LAD written on it. Or it might have been DAD, the glaze had run badly. I was made to remove the bag that hung round my neck and show him a stuffed giraffe made from hideous brown chenille and a painting of a kitten. Or it might have been a pig.

‘Yah!’ The man was contemptuous. Undeniably our offerings looked pitiful laid out against a background of grubby snow. ‘Ye can piss off an take yer trash wi’ ye. An if anyone else tries te lay that kid at me door,’ he ran his finger down the edge of the blade, ‘ye can tell them Ah’ll gi’ them a facelift fer free. It wez that gobshite that came here sniffing after her like a dog after a bitch on heat. With a heighty-toity voice an fancy claes.
It wez him, aal reet.’ He threw back his head to laugh, exposing a lack of dentistry and a filthy neck. ‘Cuckoo O’Shaunessy’s got his deserts. Ha, ha, ha! He thinks he’s bloody God Aalmighty but his daughter’s nowt but a whore.’

‘Which is his caravan?’ asked Dimpsie.

‘O’er yon brae.’ He pointed towards a group of trees, tiresomely distant. ‘Now sod off!’ He went back into the caravan and slammed the door.

We set off doggedly towards the horizon. The giraffe and the kitten-pig painting banged against my chest and the crutches dug into my ribs. By the time we reached the trees, our shoulders and spirits were bowed with weariness.

‘That must be it.’ I indicated with my nose a small caravan parked in the shelter of some pines. ‘It’s an awfully long way to run if they attack us. Cuckoo isn’t a very encouraging name, is it? He seemed reasonably sane in the surgery, but perhaps he has bouts of madness at the full moon. Don’t you think we might go home and try again another day?’

‘We’ve come so far. I think we should go on.’

This caravan was called ‘The Intrepid’. A dog barked from inside as we approached.

‘That’s an encouraging sign,’ said Dimpsie. ‘I’ve a good mind to ring the RSPCA when we get home about that other man keeping his dogs tied up outside in weather like this—’ She broke off as the door was opened by a man I recognized as Nan’s father. He seemed to have grown in the last week.

‘Well?’ His hair was grey and long, fastened back in a ponytail, and his eyes were fiery. His cheeks were scored with deep creases, and a long scar ran from his nose to his chin and halfway round his neck, as though someone had tried to hack off his head. Even his ears were ravaged and puckered.

Dimpsie shrank back as he scowled at her. ‘Mr O’Shaunessy?’

‘T’at’s me.’ He glared ferociously. The scars seemed to turn red and ugly. ‘Who’s asking?’

‘How do you do? I’m Dimpsie Savage and this is my daughter,
Marigold. I hope you don’t mind – we’ll go away at once if we’re intruding – we brought a few things for the baby … My husband delivered him—’

‘You,’ he stabbed in my direction a finger the size of those miniature Swiss rolls that come wrapped in silver and red foil, which I’ve always rather liked. ‘I remember ye now. At least I remember t’e leg. Yore the doctor’s girl.’ He nodded and allowed his eyebrows to part company. Dimpsie and I let out our breaths which we had been holding in preparation to making a dash for it. ‘Ye’d better come in.’

He jumped down, making the earth shake – or perhaps that was my imagination – and waved us ceremoniously up the steps. As I was anxious not to provoke a frenzy of murderous fury, I propped the crutches against the side of the caravan and hobbled obediently in. A delicious warmth hit my frozen face. A gas heater was belting out kilowatts, and in front of it a wooden clotheshorse was hung with nappies folded into neat rectangles. With the smell of clean laundry was mingled an appetizing aroma of baking, which reminded me of the inadequacy of that day’s lunch. My father had stopped giving Dimpsie housekeeping money and the craft shop was in arrears with the rent. The cinema tickets, the incense and the kohl had used up a large part of my savings, so we had been living on tins of stuff from the larder. We had got down to the impulse buys, things like chestnut purée and stuffed olives, delicious but not in combination. Fortunately each week Evelyn sent a dozen eggs from her own hens, but there is a limit to how many unaccompanied eggs you can eat.

A black and white dog came over to me, wagging his tail, then lifted a paw in greeting. I shook it and he allowed me to stroke his head. Normally when within reach of a friendly animal, I pursue the acquaintanceship single-mindedly, but on this occasion I was distracted by the caravan’s remarkable interior decoration. On every available inch of wall space hung an elaborately carved, brightly painted cuckoo clock.

‘These are wonderful!’ Dimpsie said admiringly. ‘What superb workmanship! Just look at those squirrels. They look quite real. And I love this one with the cat and the St Bernard.’

‘Ye’d care to see it working perhaps.’ Mr O’Shaunessy seemed to be thawing a little in the warmth of her approval. He set the hands of the clock to twelve and tapped the pendulum into motion.

Not only did a tiny robin on a spring burst out through the doors at the top with each cuckoo, but the cat jumped up and down beneath it and the dog went in and out of his kennel.

‘It’s magnificent!’ Dimpsie was sincere in her appreciation.

For her the excellence of the craftsmanship outweighed any ideas about cuckoo clocks being kitsch. I’m ashamed to confess that my enthusiasm was dampened by the certainty of the disapproval of my chief taste arbiters, Evelyn and Sebastian. When the company had been touring southern Germany, Sebastian became so sensitive to the sight of cuckoo clocks that someone would be sent ahead of him into any restaurant or Bierkeller to request their removal before he could be induced to dine there. This of course gave great offence, but that may have been his purpose. The flavour of the
Schwarzwälder
kirschtorte
, sharply alcoholic and quite different from sickly English versions, came back to me as my insides gnawed with emptiness.

Dimpsie pointed to a workbench on which lay chisels and hammers among curls of wood shavings and said in a voice of awe, ‘You don’t mean to say you’ve made all these marvellous clocks yourself?’

Mr O’Shaunessy looked sternly at her, as though suspecting her of false flattery but Dimpsie’s mild brown eyes as she looked up at him from beneath her crinkled fringe were without guile.

‘Aye. T’is is t’e latest.’ He set it going. A pair of wooden figures came out from a little doorway and travelled along a semicircular gallery followed by two more couples, rotating to the ‘Merry Widow’ waltz.

I was preparing to launch into fulsome praise, when the door opened and in came Nan, muffled up in white fake-fur coat with black spots on it, like a large, damp Dalmatian.

‘Whatever are
you
doin’ here?’ She looked surprised but moderately pleased.

‘Hello, Nan. How are you?’ I gave her my Princess Aurora birthday smile, judging that the radiant Giselle might be a bit much at such close quarters. ‘This is my mother.’ I indicated Dimpsie over my shoulder. ‘She’s mad about babies and wanted to see yours. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Help yerselves.’ Nan shrugged and pointed to a large wooden box, which we had been too engrossed by the clocks to notice.

‘O-o-h!’ cried my mother and rushed over to peer in.

Mr O’Shaunessy joined Dimpsie beside the box, dwarfing her to the size of a child. ‘What d’ye say, Missus? Isn’t me grandson a champion?’

‘He’s absolutely bea-utiful!’ The tremor of genuine emotion in her voice was evidently not lost on the proud grandfather, for his harsh features broke into a smile. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Harrison Ford. Did ye ever see t’e like fre hair? An he’s the appetite of a blacksmit’.’

‘Look at his darling eyelashes.’ Dimpsie straightened up to look at Nan. ‘He’s gorgeous. You must be so proud.’

‘Can’t say I am,’ Nan replied rather grumpily. ‘He’s got the lungs of a blacksmith an’ all. Wah, wah wah! in the middle o’ the night.’

‘Oh dear, yes,’ Dimpsie said sympathetically, ‘I remember how tiring it was constantly having to get up. But it gets better.’

‘As te that,’ said Nan, ‘Dad gets up te him, not me. But however much I stuff me ears wi’ cotton wool, I can hear him greetin’.’

‘What about a cup of tea, ladies?’ said Mr O’Shaunessy.

‘That would be heaven – ee-ow!’ I ducked and put up my hands to protect myself as something gripped the top of my head. I felt feathers.

‘’Tis only Petula,’ said Mr O’Shaunessy. Something sharp
tapped my scalp. ‘Now don’t peck, Pet,’ he commanded. ‘I t’ink tis the colour of yer hair. She isn’t sure what ye are.’

He came over to lift the bird from my head. Petula was a magpie, with iridescent black and white feathers and a bright yellow beak.

‘I found her injured. She couldn’t fly. Magpies are said te be vermin but t’ey’re canny birds. T’ey can’t help but do what t’ey were made for. Pet’s better now, but I reckon she stays cos she’s fond of me. Who’s a bonny lass, then?’ he crooned, stroking the bird’s throat.

‘Pet’s a bonny lass,’ replied the magpie. Her voice sounded croaky, as though coming through an ancient loudspeaker.

‘How clever!’ Dimpsie came over to see. ‘What else can she say?’

‘What does Pet like for tea?’ her master asked.

‘Pet likes cake,’ croaked Petula.

‘T’en Pet shall have some. Sit down, ladies, and I’ll put t’e kettle on.’

Petula hopped onto the table to be admired while we squeezed onto the banquettes that surrounded it on three sides. Nan scowled at the bird and opened the magazine lying in front of her.

‘Bloody nuisance! Always poopin’ everywhere.’

‘I think she’s beautiful.’ Dimpsie stroked her long black tail and Petula pecked her hand hard.

‘Nasty spiteful thing!’ said Nan.