Harnessing Peacocks (4 page)

‘I must marry again,’ she told herself. ‘Have another bash.’ Though the marriage to Edward had left her bruised and there was much to be said for independence, marriage was what Hannah preferred. Hebe seemed to manage her life extraordinarily well for someone whose income of child benefit and single-parent benefit was only augmented by temporary cooking jobs. What did those old women pay? Hannah blew on the varnish, which was dry at last. What did she do about sex? While enjoying her relationship with George, Hannah had yet to decide whether to make it permanent. George’s line in pillow talk was mundane. Dontology does not turn me on, she ruminated. There must be somebody more amusing than George.

Time to see whether Aunt Amy was okay for the night. She looked across at Hebe’s house. There was no light.

Up among the hills Jim Huxtable sat with Bernard Quigley outside his house finishing the claret they had drunk with their supper.

‘I was wondering how you knew that old woman had that collection of paperweights. They are immensely valuable.’

‘What?’ The old man put his hand to his ear.

‘You are not deaf,’ said Jim patiently and waited for an answer.

‘I wanted to know whether, if she still has them, she is prepared to sell,’ said the old man grudgingly.

‘She invited me to come again, she may change her mind.’ Jim looked at his host, sitting with his cat on his knee, stroking it with gnarled fingers. The cat’s purring was loud. The damp air, heavy with the smell of honeysuckle, was counterpointed by Bernard’s dog, Feathers, who lay at his feet. ‘Your dog smells a bit high,’ he remarked.

‘Rolled in a pong. You may bath him tomorrow.’

‘Thanks,’ said Jim, ungrateful at the prospect.

‘She won’t sell,’ said the old man complacently, reverting to the paperweights. ‘She’s too fond of them.’

Jim thought of Bernard’s idiotic trick, making him call from house to house. ‘I don’t buy at the door.’ ‘Nothing to sell here, not even the balls from a brass monkey.’ Rebuffs.

‘If you knew that, why did you suggest that charade?’

The old man did not answer.

‘There was a girl, a few doors up from your friend’s house. A talkative girl, gave me an oeillade.’

Bernard laughed. ‘That’s her niece.’

‘Another girl came up the street, reminded me of someone. Who would she be? Lives opposite your Miss Tremayne, seemed short-sighted. She was carrying her spectacles. You know her, by chance?’

‘I do not know her.’ In the old sense to know a girl was to make love, thought Bernard, as he had made love in the old days, tenderness and laughter mixed with passion. How delightful to have such an experience with Hebe. She was born too late, he thought, jealous of the younger man’s interest. He remembered his dealings with Hebe, taking advantage of her naivety by paying her twice the worth of her mother’s jewels. He took a snuffbox from his waistcoat pocket, measured, inhaled, sneezed. The cat jumped off his knee.

Watching Bernard, Jim thought the light of dusk, usually so kind, made the old man look like a fossilised bird. ‘Why did you never marry?’ he asked.

Bernard sat thinking. ‘Impossible to make up my mind. Wasn’t prepared to give anything up.
Embarras de choix.
What about you? If you are not careful you will end up a bachelor, not that I can’t recommend the state. Got lots of girls, have you?’

‘You could say that.’

‘Don’t want any of them to be permanent?’

Jim did not answer.

‘If you get a chance to buy those paperweights—’

‘Yes?’

‘I am off to bed. See you in the morning before you go.’ Bernard heaved himself out of his chair. Jim stood up. Bernard snapped his fingers at the dog. ‘Come boy, bedtime. You could give them to the girl. She probably carried her spectacles because she did not want to see.’ There was tenderness in the old man’s voice.

‘So you do know her.’ Jim expected no answer. He decided to call on the girl called Hebe and ask whether she had any antiques to sell, see why she was worthy of the paperweights. That way he could get a look at her. He could still get to London by evening if he did not dally on the way.

Also thinking of Hebe, Hannah let herself into Amy Tremayne’s house.

‘It’s me, auntie, how are you?’

‘Still alive.’

‘Can I come in?’

‘You usually do.’

Ignoring this unpromising start, Hannah said, ‘What did you think of the Knocker?’

‘I thought he was rather interesting. Comes from London.’

‘Did you sell him anything?’ Hannah looked round her aunt’s cluttered room, absolute hell to dust.

‘No.’ Amy was grumpy. ‘I saw you talking to him.’

‘Why shouldn’t I? Did you show him your paperweights?’

‘They are in the cupboard.’

‘I know. I put them there. There is such a lot to clean.’

‘Stopped talking to you when he saw Hebe,’ Amy chuckled.

‘Do you think he knew Hebe?’ Hannah quizzed her aunt. ‘He seemed more interested in her than me.’

‘Say anything?’ The old woman looked up suspiciously.

‘He just stared. Perhaps he knew Hebe’s husband.’ Hannah fished.

‘She doesn’t wear a ring.’

‘D’you mean she wasn’t married?’ Hannah seized the chance of discussing Hebe, persuading her aunt to talk.

‘Wouldn’t be strange these days,’ said Amy drily.

‘Oh, auntie!’

‘Oh, auntie,’ mocked the old woman.

‘Perhaps he died before he could marry her, her lover.’

‘Did she tell you that?’ Amy raised an eyebrow.

‘She never tells me anything. I imagined she had a great romance who died soon after they were married or even before they could.’

‘Perhaps she disposed of him like you did poor Krull.’

‘Rich Krull.’ Hannah corrected her aunt, laughing.

‘You girls. Chuck a perfectly good husband. Can’t stick to anything.’

‘If she isn’t married, perhaps Silas is adopted?’ Hannah pressed Amy.

‘With those eyes? Perhaps he’s her brother.’ Amy was heavily humorous. ‘I’m off to bed if that’s all you have of interest.’ She pulled herself up from her chair. The white hair framing her face was thick, her eyes, surrounded by wrinkles, were still beautiful.

‘Like a hot drink? Cocoa? Horlicks?’ suggested Hannah, still hoping for gossip.

‘I’ll have a toddy. Make it strong.’ Amy went up to bed. If Hebe chose to mind her own business, she was not the one to broadcast it. Amy felt contempt for Hannah, who told every Tom and Dick her life story. Stories grew in the telling, it was only sensible not to tell them. Climbing out of her directoire knickers, which were getting difficult to get these days, Amy sighed, wondering whether she had been wise to give Hebe introductions to Lucy Duff, Louisa Fox and at the beginning to that old bastard Bernard. Too late now and the child—she thought of Hebe as a child—had to live. Give him his due, Bernard had not cheated. He had introduced her to the hotel on the cliff and the French chef and she could not approve of that though it had proved useful.

Hannah brought the hot toddy. ‘I made it strong.’

Amy drank, sipping through pleated lips, sitting propped by pillows. Hannah watched with affection.

‘She works to pay for Silas’ school; it must cost a bomb.’

‘If you’d stayed married to Krull your Giles could have gone there too. If you marry again you will lose your alimony.’ Amy grinned over her glass.

‘Who said I wanted to?’ Hannah was on the defensive.

‘It’s on your mind. You weigh the pros and cons. Shall I, shan’t I?’

‘I thought we were talking of Hebe,’ said Hannah huffily.

‘But I was thinking you might marry again. I saw you this afternoon. You can’t sit around for ever taking money from Krull, giving nothing. It’s not right.’

‘You can’t talk,’ shouted Hannah, erupting in anger. ‘You’ve never been married, you’ve always been alone, you don’t know what it’s like.’

The old woman was silent. Then, peering at Hannah, she said softly, ‘None of us should be alone, it’s not natural.’ She looked tiny in her large bed.

‘It’s better than being stuck with someone you don’t want,’ muttered Hannah, not intending her aunt to hear, annoyed that she must defend herself.

‘I heard you. You’re as bad as a tart I heard in Paris, she—’

‘I didn’t know you knew Paris,’ exclaimed Hannah, surprised.

‘This tart’—Amy stressed the word—‘this tart said to another tart about a man who had just paid her off, this tart said,
“Et moi, je soulage moi-même”
. Perhaps you don’t.’ The old woman mocked her niece. ‘How that girl laughed!’

Hannah giggled. ‘I hope Giles isn’t learning that sort of French on his school trip.’

Amy raised an eyebrow. ‘When does he get back?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Send him to see me.’

‘No need. He loves you as much as I do.’

‘Ho.’ Amy switched off her light and lay back on her pillows, not waiting for Hannah to reach the landing.

‘Old bitch.’ Hannah fumbled for the light switch. ‘I might kill myself falling downstairs,’ she called but Amy did not answer. Searching for the switch Hannah thought of Giles growing up so quickly. He would soon be gone.

Courting sleep, Amy considered her afternoon visitor, questioning whether he had come by chance. He had admired her treasures, talked knowledgeably, known their value. Refusing to sell, she had put a tacit invitation in the manner of her refusal. They had talked about France. He had held the paperweights in his long fingers so that their brilliance caught the light. ‘Glass flowers last longer than bouquets,’ he had said.

But are they as sweet? Thinking of her paperweights, she thought of the secret trapped as the flowers were in the glass. Let Hannah pity her as the old spinster aunt who had spent a dreary life. She need never know of the period when she had been
la fille Anglaise.
Later she had had no heart for it, had gone back to work in England, a dully secure secretary.

Amy had watched Hannah waylay Jim Huxtable, watched them talking until, looking down the street, he had seen something which had caught his interest. Maybe, thought Amy, if he comes again I will sell him one. Considering her treasures, her mind went back to the Hôtel d’Angleterre fifty years ago. What fun it had been, waking to light filtering through the red plush curtains, the hugging and kissing, the cosiness before coffee and croissants. The warmth, the laughter, the presents. She was unwilling to think of the presents as payment since she had not in that instance wanted payment. It amused her that Hannah, who longed for romantic love, should think of her as ‘a poor old thing’ whereas Hebe, who thought of love with detachment, as an indulgence for others, should long since have correctly assumed her to be a retired lady of pleasure.

Further up the street Hannah restlessly debated whether she should marry George. She had planned to marry a man who pronounced regatta ‘regattah’. George said ‘regatter’.

M
UNGO DUFF HAD DIFFICULTY
finding a parking space in the multi-storey car park and was infuriated that he had no loose change for the meter. It was a hot day. He was weary of the cathedral crawl Alison had insisted on for her friends the Drews from Santa Barbara, over on a two-week trip. By the time he had found change, tracked back to the ticket machine, stuck the ticket on the windscreen, he was more eager for a drink at the bar of the Clarence than the prospect of trailing round Exeter Cathedral, listening to his knowledgeable wife and her even more knowledgeable guests. However, duty calls, he told himself. Yesterday Winchester, Stonehenge, Salisbury and Sherborne, tomorrow home and put one’s feet up. Crossing the street on the way to the Close he caught sight of swirling skirts. There was something familiar in the swinging stride and lift of buttocks. Searching his mind to fit a face to the buttocks, he joined his wife and guests, who stood in the centre aisle gazing up at the minstrels’ gallery. By tonight Alison would be complaining of a stiff neck and serve her bloody right. Mungo sat down in a chair, stretched his legs and waited. Let Alison do the work, it was she who had angled for an invitation to Santa Barbara, not he. Mungo sincerely hoped the Drews would keep her for a long visit. Why, he mused, could they not be content with Oxford, Cambridge, Anne Hathaway’s cottage and Westminster Abbey, like any other decent Americans? Viewing his wife from behind as she wandered up the aisle, he compared her bottom and her friend Patsy Drew’s with the bottom viewed briefly in the street.

‘Oh, Mungo.’

Damn! Alison had seen him just as memory was about to yield.

‘Yes?’ He went to join his wife.

‘Stay with them, darling. I just want to nip into that shoeshop on the corner, they’ve got a sale,’ murmured Alison.

‘They are your visitors, not mine,’ he hissed.

‘Darling, don’t be mean.’

‘Isn’t it nearly lunchtime?’ he prevaricated.

‘Soon, soon. Be an angel. I won’t be long.’

‘Oh, God!’

‘If you’re not here when I come back I’ll meet you in the bar.’

‘That means you’ll be ages.’

‘No, no.’ She left him, walking swiftly in her expensive sandals to use her eye for a bargain and buy at reduced price a pair, more likely two, of exquisite shoes to flaunt in California. When, years ago, they had been in love, he had jokingly called her a shoe fetishist. Now he called her a shopaholic. He had loved her jaunty walk, comparing her to a Shetland pony, but now, as he watched her go, he wondered whether her legs were not too short and whether in middle age her body, all right at present, would become barrel-shaped. Sulkily he joined their guests.

‘A very lovely cathedral. We were comparing it to Durham and Lincoln.’

Patsy Drew never seemed to feel tired. What did Alison see in her?

‘This is much cosier.’ Mungo made an effort.

‘Cosy?’

‘Friendlier. Smaller. Less far to walk.’

‘Are we tiring you, Mungo?’ Eli was concerned, younger, more spry than Mungo, a lot fitter; all that jogging.

‘Lord, no.’ He rallied his manners.

‘It’s all new to us. You see it all the time.’ Patsy was apologetic.

‘Actually I’ve never been to Exeter before.’

‘You don’t expect us to believe that.’ Must she be arch?