In the Fold (21 page)

Brendon looked around at everybody with an expression of astonishment.

‘See?’ said Adam triumphantly. ‘It was worse for him.’

‘I couldn’t stop him,’ said Vivian. ‘He did it in his sleep, you see. I used to make him go to bed wearing a hat.’

Brendon laughed loudly.

‘The things that went on!’ marvelled Audrey, drawing her coat tighter around herself. ‘It’s a good thing I wasn’t here to see it all. I don’t think I could have borne it! You see, they used to be like puppies,’ she added, to me. ‘They tumbled around together like lion cubs. Then they started to develop human characteristics – that was where the problems began, with the human characteristics. Now they’re like those countries that are always at war. They’re dug in, if you see what I mean.’

‘I’m not at
war
,’ Caris said.

‘When you were puppies I could resolve your disputes, darling. It was all about who had whose thing. I was rather good at that. Whoever could hang on to it could keep it as far as I was concerned. It was when the human characteristics came along that I got out of my depth. I remember I started to think about shoes. I used to lie there at night and think about the silliest, most impractical shoes I could imagine. It was the only way I kept my sanity while all of you were at each other’s throats. The problem with shoes was that I could never wear them up here. I had to move to Doniford. I exchanged human characteristics for shoes,’ she said, to me. ‘It was the most enormous relief.’

‘You make it sound as though you planned it,’ said Caris, with a smile.

‘There’s no harm in a little planning,’ said Audrey. ‘A little planning goes a long way in human affairs. The people with characteristics don’t see it like that, though. They don’t like it
when you’ve got characteristics of your own. Your father used to say that you were predators. They’ll take it all, he said, if you let them. They’ll rip your heart out and eat it if they have to.’

Adam, Caris and Brendon did not, it had to be admitted, look particularly capable of this gruesome feat. Adam still held the dogs awkwardly by their collars. Lisa stood next to him with the baby on her hip. I looked at the baby’s rubescent, startled face, which shone blankly like a little sun in the gloomy room, and at her plump, soft body, possessed by incomprehension. Beside Lisa, Caris looked black and monumental and unkempt. Her arms were folded and her face looked stormy and disordered, as though it had been taken apart and wrongly reassembled. Brendon sat blanched and prostrate in his chair. The air was charged with their mother’s force of will: next to her they seemed anomalous. Behind them Vivian haunted the cooker: she hovered, dark and frayed and threadlike. Audrey, compact, scented, her face blazing in its make-up, presented herself as an advertisement for the virtues of self-preservation.

‘Audrey,’ said Lisa, ‘I’m sure Paul didn’t actually mean that.’

‘That’s sweet of you,’ said Audrey vaguely. ‘But I think he probably did. Look at you all!’ she burst out with a gay laugh. ‘You look like a queue of dissatisfied customers! I think I’d better slip away, before I have to start apologising. You don’t ever want to apologise,’ she said, to me. ‘That’s how you give people the idea that you’ve done something wrong. Vivian darling, I just came up for that cheque. I think the postman must have pocketed it. It was due last week. It doesn’t matter, if you can just write me another now.’

Vivian stood over the saucepan of potatoes, which had begun to boil. Clouds of steam enveloped her head. The lid rattled on top of the pan and the water spilled out in little hissing spurts.

‘I don’t think I can,’ she said.

‘Usually I don’t like to bother you,’ said Audrey. ‘It’s so tiresome when people bother you, isn’t it? I think it must have got lost in the post. I’ve been lying in wait like a panther for the postman all week. When he comes I leap on him.’

‘But I didn’t post it,’ said Vivian.

‘And now I’ve had to come all the way up, and I had a thousand and one things I meant to do today – it was the last thing I wanted to do, to start coming up to Egypt! I always get embroiled when I come up here. Embroilment was not in the plan today. Today I was going to be all efficiency so that I could be carefree tomorrow.’

There was a silence in the kitchen. Audrey stood in an expectant pose, one hand slightly raised, as though to catch something she believed was about to be thrown to her, or as though she were holding a vessel from which she had just poured the last dregs of an important substance.

‘Vivian,’ she said meaningfully, ‘you do see how annoying it is for me to have to come up?’

Vivian said nothing. The baby made a plaintive sound.

‘In the middle of everything I had to start getting in the car and running around! Paul always said I wasn’t to do that, you know,’ Audrey said, to me. ‘Don’t wear yourself out, he said. Women always wear themselves out. By the time they get to fifty they’re like a set of old tyres. They’ve lost their tread.’

The telephone rang in the hall and before Audrey had finished speaking Vivian had darted out of the room to answer it.

‘Has she gone?’ said Audrey smartly, looking around. ‘I didn’t know she could move so fast. It’s because she’s being evasive – she’s moving fast to evade the issue.’

‘She won’t see dad,’ Adam said. ‘I’ve been trying to get her to go in but she won’t. I don’t understand what’s going on. Dad said that none of you have been in. Only Uncle David.’

‘I sent David as a sop,’ said Audrey darkly. ‘I suspected your father of shenanigans, but now I’m not so sure. I think Vivian may be acting alone.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Adam. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, mum.’

‘That was Laura,’ said Vivian abstractedly, coming in again. ‘I thought she was here but then the telephone rang and it was her. She’s in Doniford. I don’t know how she did it. She says she’s got the baby but the three older ones are still here. I haven’t seen them, have you? I don’t know how she did it,’ she said again. She looked around, as though thinking she might find her. ‘I was sure she was here.’

‘I was always good at that,’ said Audrey. ‘I used to leave you everywhere! Once I left Brendon in a shop. I completely forgot about him – he was there all afternoon. He hid like a little marsupial in a rack of clothes.’

‘You’ve had enough, don’t you think?’ said Vivian, looking at Audrey through her fringe. ‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’

‘Had enough of what, darling? I’ve certainly had enough of babies. That one’s lovely but the very sight of her makes me want to run a mile.’

‘She’s really no trouble to you, Audrey,’ said Lisa, who had gone slightly white. She clutched the baby to her chest and jiggled her up and down. ‘I don’t think you can accuse her of having been any trouble.’

‘There has to be a limit,’ said Vivian. ‘It can’t just go on and on. It can’t be like a cow giving milk, on and on.’

‘A cow?’ said Audrey. She looked around at everyone in comic mystification.

‘They call me a cow,’ said Vivian flatly. ‘I heard them in the supermarket. Someone said, where does she get all her money, and they said, don’t you know, she’s got a cash cow.’

‘Who has?’ said Audrey.

‘You. Marjory said I’m your cash cow. I heard her say it. I was in the supermarket last week and I was bending down so they couldn’t see me, because they were in the next aisle, you see, and I heard them.’

‘Darling, it was probably nothing to
do
with you! They
were probably talking about
real
cows, you know, moo –’

‘They said my name. They were in the next aisle, you see. It was as if they were standing right beside me. They said I was a cash cow.’

‘Well,’ said Audrey lightly, after a pause, ‘people are very silly – you know that, Vivian, as well as I do. The fact is that we have our arrangement and what other people say about it isn’t really the point, is it?’

‘It’s horrible,’ said Vivian.

‘Poor darling. Poor Vivian,’ said Audrey, slightly impatiently.

‘It means that every time you want money you come and milk me. You and Paul pull the udders and the money comes out!’

‘I know what it means,’ said Audrey, tapping her foot on the flagstones.

‘That’s what people say. It means that you exploit me.’

‘Nobody exploits you!’

‘If you keep milking me I’ll run dry, you know. I’ll have nothing left – all the money daddy gave me, and not a penny of it left for Laura and Jilly!’

‘You got plenty for it,’ said Audrey. Her voice was unkind. ‘You got plenty for your damned money. I gave you my house. I gave you my children. I gave you my man. He was my man. Mine!’ She struck her pony-haired chest unexpectedly with her small, pale fist. ‘I left the field. I bowed out gracefully and for that you had to pay.’

‘There was nothing to give, you know,’ said Vivian, to me. ‘All this talk of giving! She didn’t give me the house – I bought it.’

‘That isn’t true,’ said Caris.

‘They cooked it up between them!’ cried Vivian.

‘Mum, that isn’t true,’ said Caris.

Audrey gave a little shrug and turned to the window with her arms folded.

‘Vivian did help daddy out a little with the farm,’ she said.
‘I never knew by how much. I think I can be forgiven for not wanting to know, can’t I?’

‘He got a valuation from that friend of his in town and he said that was what I had to pay – it was far more than it was worth! My husband told me that. He said, get your name on the deeds. Whatever you do, get your name on the deeds.’

Audrey snorted.

‘What would Hippo know about the valuation?’ she said. ‘The submersible was usually submerged in gin by lunchtime.’

‘It didn’t last them long! They ran through it all!’ said Vivian. ‘All of it!’

‘Honestly, Vivian,’ said Audrey, ‘you make it sound as though you were frog-marched into it. The fact is, darling, you went to bed with my husband.’

‘He seduced me, you know,’ said Vivian forlornly, to me.

‘Nobody made you do it,’ said Audrey. ‘Nobody forced you.’

‘He sent me a lamb. It was a little white lamb for the children. We all thought it was terribly sweet but after two months it was enormous. They used to give it all sorts of food, you see, and it got very big and aggressive until in the end it used to run at them and knock them over. It was like a bull – it wasn’t like a sheep at all!’

Audrey laughed. ‘That should have told you everything you needed to know, darling.’

‘Jilly scratched her face until it bled,’ Vivian said, to me. ‘For a whole year she scratched her face. None of the women would speak to me. Then he said we should send them away to school because the house was too crowded. And I said, well, why don’t we send them all away in that case, and he said, no, we can’t do that, it would cost too much to send them all, so mine were sent and his stayed. So I was left looking after three children who weren’t mine, do you see?’

‘You didn’t have to do it,’ said Audrey.

‘I suppose I wanted him to love me,’ said Vivian. ‘Sometimes you do things you oughtn’t to, don’t you? You can be quite outside yourself.’

‘You’re very sweet to talk about love,’ said Audrey.

‘Is it Vivian’s name that’s on the deeds?’ said Adam.

‘Of course it’s not!’ scoffed Audrey. ‘Do you really think your father would do that, after everything we went through? That was definitely not part of the deal.’

‘What deal?’ said Caris.

‘The arrangement, then. Everyone makes arrangements, darling.’

‘Every month I pay her,’ said Vivian. ‘They won’t talk to me until I do.’

‘That’s my alimony!’ said Audrey. ‘That’s the least you owe me!’

‘You always get alimony, Vivian,’ said Lisa, ‘in a case like this.’

‘But it’s rather a lot,’ said Vivian. ‘It’s an awful lot, you know. It’s a bit much, isn’t it, when you think about it.’

‘Have you got anything actually written down?’ said Adam.

‘Especially since I pay for the house separately and everything separately, do you see what I mean?’

‘Why couldn’t dad pay it?’ said Caris. She seemed perplexed. ‘He’s got plenty of money. He’s always had money.’

‘He hasn’t, actually,’ said Adam, after a pause.

‘Of course he has!’ said Caris.

‘He hasn’t. I saw the accounts. He’s been running the farm at a loss.’

‘They haven’t got a penny between them, you know – that’s why they got their cash cow. They came and found me!’ said Vivian, her hands gyrating at her sides. ‘They hunted me down, both of them! Don’t you think I don’t know what you did!’ she said, to Audrey. ‘I know! Everybody knows!’ She turned to me. ‘They cooked it up between them!’ she cried. ‘Ask anyone – they’ll tell you!’

She buried her fists in her black mop of hair and looked at us all wildly. A sort of electricity seemed to be coursing through her body: her eyes were alarmed and her face wore a strange grimace, and where her hands were clutching her hair it stood on end.

‘Everybody just did what they wanted!’ she said.

‘Including you,’ said Audrey. ‘You did what you wanted. In fact, you had a high old time.’

‘They call it living in sin, you know,’ she said, to me. ‘It’s rather a good expression for it, don’t you think?’

‘Oh stop it!’ said Caris. ‘I won’t listen to it any more! All this talk about sin – if you want sin, don’t look for it here! Look for it outside in the world, because there’s plenty of it, Vivian! There are places that are drowning in it! It’s feelings that matter,’ she concluded, clutching at her heart.

‘She didn’t want them, that was part of it,’ said Vivian, to me. ‘Her own children! That was the part that was really beyond belief.’

‘I won’t hear you!’ cried Caris. ‘I won’t, I won’t!’

She put her hands over her ears. Her expression was triumphant.

‘Personally,’ Adam said presently, in a statesmanlike tone, ‘I respect mum for it. You can’t put a price on Egypt, Vivian. Our family belongs here. It wasn’t that she didn’t want us. She did it
for
us. There’s a bit of a difference, don’t you think?’

Audrey was looking at her son with an interested expression, her finger resting on her chin.

‘The thing is,’ said Vivian, ‘it was only because my husband told me. I wouldn’t have known otherwise. I wouldn’t have known to ask. But he said, whatever you do, stick to it. Stick to it or they’ll have you lock, stock and barrel. It’s awful in a way, when you think of how we treated him. He got nothing out of it himself, you know. He lives in a flat. Laura says it’s awfully modest. I paid far too much for it, of course. They ran through it in a year!’