September (1990) (45 page)

Chapter
8

Wednesday the Fourteenth

Isobel sat at her kitchen table, drank coffee and made lists. She was an inveterate list-maker, and these small inventories of things to be done, food to be bought, meals to be cooked, telephone calls to be made, as well as reminders to herself to split the polyanthus or dig up the gladioli, were constantly pinned to her kitchen notice-board, along with postcards from friends and children, and the address of a man prepared to clean the outside of the windows. At the moment she was working on three lists. Today, tomorrow, and then Friday. With one thing and another, life had suddenly become very complicated*

She wrote: "Dinner Tonight." There were some chicken joints in the deep-freeze. She could grill these or make some sort of a casserole.

She wrote: "Get chicken legs out. Peel potatoes. String beans."

Tomorrow was more complicated, with her house party committed in three different directions. Isobel herself would be at Corriehill for most of the day, helping Verena and her band of ladies to arrange flowers and somehow decorate that enormous marquee.

She wrote: "Secateurs. String. Wire. Wire-cutters. Beech-branches. Rowan-branches. Pick all the dahlias."

But, as well, there was Vi's birthday picnic by the loch to think about, and a day's shooting for Archie
,
because tomorrow they were driving grouse over Creagan Dubh, which meant that he would be joining the other guns.

She wrote: "Baps and cold ham for Archie's piece. Gingerbread. Apples. Hot soup?"

As for Vi's picnic, Lucilla, Jeff, Pandora, and the Sad American would probably want to go to that, which meant a hefty contribution of goodies from Croy.

She wrote: "Sausages for Vi's barbecue. Make some beefburgers. Sliced-tomato salad. French bread. Two bottles wine. Six cans lager."

She poured more coffee, went on to Friday. "Eleven people for dinner," she wrote, and then underlined the words and sat debating over grouse or pheasant. Pheasant Theodora was spectacular, cooked with celery and bacon and served with a sauce of egg yolks and cream. As well as being spectacular, Pheasant Theodora could be concocted in advance, which precluded a lot of last
-
minute labour while the dinner guests were drinking cocktails.

She wrote: "Pheasant Theodora." The door opened and Archie appeared.

Isobel scarcely raised her head. "You like Pheasant Theodora, don't you?"

"Not for breakfast."

"I didn't mean for breakfast, I meant for dinner the night of the party."

"Why can't we have roast grouse?"

"Because it's a fiddle to serve. Little last-minute bits and pieces, like scraps of toast to arrange and gravy to stir."

"Roast pheasant then?"

"Same objections."

"Is Pheasant Theodora the one that looks like sick?"

"It does, a bit, but I can cook it ahead."

"Why don't you just cook a head?"

"Ha ha."

"What's for breakfast?"

"It's in the bottom oven."

Archie went over to the Aga and opened the oven door. "A red-letter day! Bacon, sausages, and tomatoes. What's happened to the porridge and boiled eggs?"

"We have visitors staying. Bacon, sausages, and tomatoes are what we always give visitors." He brought his plate over to the table and settled himself beside her, pouring coffee, reaching for the toast and the butter.

"I thought," he said, "that Agnes Cooper was coming to help on Friday evening."

"So she is."

"Why can't she' roast the pheasant?"

"Because she's not a cook. She's a washer-up."

"You could always ask her to cook."

"All right. I will. And we'll have mince and tatties for dinner because that's all the poor woman's capable of."

She wrote: "Clean silver candlesticks. Buy eight pink candles."

"I just wish Pheasant Theodora didn't look like sick."

"If you say it looks like sick in front of all our guests, I shall cut your throat, there and then, with a fruit knife."

"What are we going to have for starters?"

"Smoked trout?"

Archie put half a sausage into his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. "And pudding?"

"Orange sorbet."

"White or red wine?"

"A couple of bottles of both, I think. Or champagne. We'll be drinking champagne for the rest of the evening. Perhaps we'd better stick to that."

"I haven't got any champagne."

"I shall order a crate today, in Relkirk."

"Are you going to Relkirk?"

"Oh, Archie!" Isobel laid down her Biro and gazed at her husband in hopeless exasperation. "Do yo
u n
ever listen to anything I tell you? And why do you think I'm all dressed up in my posh clothes? Yes, I am going to Relkirk today. With Pandora and Lucilla and Jeff. We're going shopping."

"What are you going to buy?"

"Lots of things for Friday night." She did not say "A new dress," because she still hadn't made up her mind about this extravagance. "And then we're going to lunch in the Wine Bar, and then we're coming home again."

"Will you get me some cartridges?"

"I'll get you anything you need if you'll write me a list."

"So I'm not expected to come." He sounded pleased. He hated shopping.

"You can't come because you've got to be here when the Sad American arrives. He's driving a hired car from Relkirk, and he's due sometime this morning. And, you're not to go wandering off, otherwise he'll be faced by a deserted house and think he's not expected and go away again."

"Might be as well. What shall I give him for lunch?"

"There's soup and pate in the larder."

"Which room's he sleeping in?"

"Pandora's old room."

"What's his name?"

"I can't remember."

"So how am I supposed to greet him? Hail, Sad American." Archie seemed to find this funny. He made his voice enormously deep. "Big Chief Running Nose Speaks with Forked Tongue."

"You've been watching too much television." But luckily she found it funny too. "He'll think he's come to a madhouse."

"Wouldn't be all that far off the mark. What time are you setting off for Relkirk?"

"About half past ten."

"Lucilla and Jeff seem to be on the move, but you'd better prize Pandora out of bed or you'll still be waiting for her at four o'clock in the afternoon."

"I already did," Isobel told him. "Half an hour ago."

"She's probably climbed back into bed and gone to sleep again."

But Pandora had not done this thing. The words were scarcely out of Archie's mouth when they heard the tap of her high heels coming down the passage from the hall. The door opened and she burst into the kitchen, her profusion of hair bright as a flame, and face filled with laughter.

"Good morning, good morning, here I am, and I bet you thought I'd gone back to bed." She kissed the top of Archie's head'and settled herself beside him. She was wearing dark-grey flannel trousers and a pale-grey sweater patterned with pink knitted sheep, and was carrying a magazine. This, it appeared, was the root cause of her amusement. "I'd forgotten this marvellous mag. Papa used to take it every month. The Country Landowner's Journal"

"We still take it. I never got around to cancelling the subscription."

"I found this copy in my bedroom. It's simply fascinating, full of mind-boggling articles about something called Flea-Beetle Dust, and how we've all got to be terribly kind to badgers." She began to riffle through the pages. Isobel poured her a cup of coffee. "Oh, thank you darling, heaven. But the best are the ads at the back. Do listen to this one: Tor Sale. Titled Lady Wishes to Dispose of Underclothes. Peach-Pink Directoire Knickers and Silk Opera-Top Vests. Hardly Worn. Offers.' "

Archie finished munching his bit of toast. "Who d
o w
e write to?"

"Box number. Do you suppose that because she's titled, she's simply stopped wearing underclothes?"

"Perhaps somebody's died," Isobel suggested. "An old aunt. And she's cashing in on the loot."

"Some loot. / think she's having a mid-life crisis and has changed her image. Gone on a diet and lost stones of weight and become all flighty. She's into satin camiknickers now with lace round the legs, and His Lordship doesn't know what's hit him. And here's another marvellous one. Do listen, Archie. 'Work Wanted. Personable Farmer's Son. (Does that mean the farmer's personable or the son is?) Thirty Years Old. Some Experience in Draining. Driver. Fond of Shooting and Fishing.' Just think!" Pandora's eyes became enormous. "He's only thirty and he's able to drive a car. I'm sure he'd be frightfully useful to you, Archie. 'Some Experience in Draining.' He'd be able to take care of all the plumbing. Ballcocks and such. Why don't you drop him a line and offer to take him on?"

"No. I don't think so."

"Why ever not?"

Archie thought about it. "He's over-qualified?"

Simultaneously, their shared sense of the ridiculous bubbled to the surface and brother and sister dissolved into giggles. Isobel, observing them, shaking her head at their idiotic paroxysms of mirth, was nevertheless filled with grateful wonder. Since Pandora's arrival, Archie had been in better spirits than Isobel had seen for years, and now, sitting at her own breakfast table, she recognized once more that attractive and blissfully funny man she had fallen in love with over twenty years ago.

Pandora was not the perfect guest. Domestically speaking, she was a dead loss, and Isobel spent much time clearing up after her-making her bed, cleaning her bath, tidying away her clothes, and doing her laundry. But Isobel would forgive her anything, because she knew that it was his sister who had brought about the miraculous change in Archie, and for this she could be nothing but grateful, for somehow Pandora had rekindled Archie's youth and brought, like a gust of fresh wind, laughter back to Croy.

The shopping party, one by one, mustered. Jeff, having eaten his way through Isobel's enormous breakfast, went to collect Pandora's Mercedes from the garage, and drive it around to the front of the house. Isobel, armed with shopping baskets and the inevitable lists, joined him. Pandora was the next to appear, wearing her mink coat and her dark glasses and reeking of Poison.

It was another windy day with flashes of sunshine, and they all stood around in the breeze and waited for Lucilla. She came at last, shouted for by her father, and then shooed out through the door by him, just as he shooed his dogs. But she turned back to say goodbye, embracing and kissing him as though she were never going to see him again, before running down the steps with her dark hair flying.

"Sorry, I didn't know you were waiting."

Lucilla was dressed in old and faded jeans with slits at the knees that had been ineptly patched with some red-spotted material. With these, she wore a crumpled cotton shirt with much embroidery and drooping sleeves. The tails of this hung down below a very small leather waistcoat, dangling with fringe. She looked, thought her mother, as though she had just been raped by a Sioux.

"Darling, aren't you going to change?"-She spoke rashly.

"Mum, I am changed. These are my best jeans. I bought them in Majorca when I was staying with Pandora."

"Oh, yes, of course." They all got into the car. "I am sorry, Lucilla. How silly of me."

Having reached Relkirk and found a place to park, the shoppers split up, because Lucilla and Jeff wanted to case the antique shops and browse around the famous street market.

"We'll meet you for lunch in the Wine Bar," Isobe
l t
old them. "At one o'clock."

"Have you booked a table?"

"No, but we should get one."

"Right. We'll be off then." They walked away across the cobbled square. As Isobel watched them go, she saw Jeff put his arm around Lucilla's thin shoulders. Which surprised her, because he had struck her as a most undemonstrative young man.

"That's got rid of them," said Pandora, sounding like a wicked child who, having disposed of the grown-ups, was ripe and ready for mischief. "Now, where are all the dress shops?"

"Pandora, I haven't quite made up my mind . . ."

"We're going to get you a dress for the dance, and that's it. And stop looking agonized because it's going to be my present to you. I owe it. I'm paying a debt."

"But . . . shouldn't we do all the important shopping first? The food for Friday, and . . ."

"What could be more important than a new dress? We can leave all the boring stuff until the afternoon. Now, stop standing around and dithering, or we'll waste the day away. Head us in the right direction. . . ."

"Well . . . there's McKay's . . ." said Isobel doubtfully.

"Not a dreary department store. Isn't there somewhere exclusive and expensive?"

"Yes, there is, but I've never been into it."

"Well, now is the time to start. Come on."