Something in Disguise (3 page)

The church was Victorian neo-gothic: varnished oak, brass plaques and candlesticks, atrocious windows the colours of patent medicines, soup, syrup and Sanatogen foisted upon
the building by families who had feared society considerably more than they can ever have feared God; hassocks like small dark-red ambushes lurked awkwardly on the cold stone floor; battered prayer
books slid about the pew desks, and tired little musty draughts met the guests as they were ushered in. The organ, whose range seemed to be between petulance and exhaustion, kept up the semblance
of holy joy about as much as a businessman wearing a paper hat at a party pretends to be a child. Even the beautiful white lilac and iris could not combat the discomforting ugliness of the place.
‘Poor God,’ thought May. ‘If He is really present here, and many places like this, it must be like being a kind of international M.P. A hideous place with boring people not
meaning what they say, except when they come to some private grievance.’

The organ came to an end, took an audibly bronchial breath and began on what was recognizably some Bach. Alice had entered the church on her father’s arm, followed by Rosemary and
Elizabeth. Heads turned and turned back to the chancel steps where the vicar stood waiting for them. ‘He’s a wonderful looking man,’ thought Gertie Mount wistfully. A kind of
cross between William Powell and Sir Aubrey Smith, she decided, as the colonel glided past her and came to a majestic halt and Leslie materialized out of the gloom beside his bride. Alice handed
her bouquet to Rosemary, who received it with operatic humility, and the marriage service began. Mr Mount, whose clothes seemed to him to be slowly strangling him at all key points, glanced
surreptitiously at the wife. She might start at any moment, but he had a nice big clean one handy: he groped in his right-hand trouser pocket, forgot about his morning coat and dropped his prayer
book. He stooped to retrieve it, but the pews were so narrow that he hit his bottom – a hard but springy blow – on the edge of the seat This had the effect of knocking him forwards, his
jaw came in contact with the pew desk and his false teeth gave an ominous lurch. He now seemed to be wedged, and was only rescued by his teenage daughter, Sandra, who hauled him to his feet and
handed him her prayer book with a minutely crushing smile. She was, in his opinion, well on the way to becoming over-educated, and terrified him. He turned to Gertie for comfort: she’d begun,
and he felt (more warily) for the hanky.

The vicar was asking the couple if they knew any impediment to their marriage. His voice and manner, Oliver thought, gave one the feeling that he could not possibly be real – might at any
moment, in a Lewis Carroll manner, turn into a sheep or a lesser playing card: that would be an impediment, all right. He didn’t believe in marriage himself.

Leslie was looking forward to the bit where he had his say, which he had practised privately on a corner of the golf course at home. So keen was he about getting on with the job that he
interrupted the vicar after the first question and said ‘I will’ with immense resolution, but the vicar was accustomed to amateurs and simply raised his voice a semi-tone.
Leslie’s final asseveration was far more subdued. ‘Will
what
?’ muttered his Great-Aunt Lottie peevishy. She seldom had what Mrs Mount called a grip on things, and Mrs Mount
had been against bringing her all this way, but Mr Mount had said that it would be an outing for her. Gertie felt in her bag for the tin of Allenbury’s Blackcurrant Pastilles, and nearly
ruined her glove getting one out and thrusting it into Auntie’s mumbling hairy jaws.

The colonel waited until the padre had asked the question that usually applied to fathers, nodded briskly and stepped smartly back to the front pew beside May. His actions, to Gertie, showed
that of course he had the proper respect, but he was a plain man with no nonsense about him. She was sure he had a heart of gold.

‘Going, going, gone!’ thought Alice wildly. Leslie’s hand was soft and dry, her own, damp and icy. Enunciating with care, he was plighting his troth: it did not sound like his
usual voice, but then these were not things that people usually said to each other. In a moment it was going to be her turn . . .

‘I
hope
she’s secretly terrifically in love,’ thought Elizabeth hopelessly as she listened to Alice’s clear, unexpectedly childish tones repeating her share of the
phrases after the vicar. But how could you be, with Leslie?

‘With my body I thee worship,’ Sandra repeated derisively to herself: the whole thing was unbelievably old-fashioned.
She
would get married in a registry office or America or
a ship, in white leather, and go away in a helicopter. And she certainly wouldn’t marry anyone as old as Leslie.

Rosemary watched the ring being put on Alice’s finger and felt a lump in her throat: a lot of her men friends had said she was too emotional, but there it was.
She
felt like crying,
and those two, standing there, seemed quite unmoved: that was British phlegm for you. If
she
had been standing where Alice was, her eyes would be full of great, unshed tears.

The vicar, gathering speed, was pronouncing them man and wife. He’s like an old horse, Oliver thought, on the last lap to the stable, or, in this case, the registry. His stomach was
rumbling uncontrollably and he had the nasty feeling that it was just the sort of sound most suited to the acoustics of this church.

End of the first lap, thought the colonel, rising to his feet. He had managed, during the service, to count the guests – roughly, anyway – and on the whole he felt he had been
sensible to put away two of the cold salmon trout that the caterers had been laying out. Those fellows always produced too much food because then they could charge you for it. So he had simply
taken away two of the dishes and put them in the larder . . .

Where Claude, who never had very much to do in the mornings, smelt it. He had known for ages how to open the larder door, but had not advertised the fact, largely because there was hardly ever
anything there worth eating; but he was extremely fond of fish. He inserted a huge capable paw round the lower edge of the door and heaved for several minutes: when the gap was wide enough he
levered it open with his shoulder and part of his head. The fish lay on a silver platter on the marble shelf, skinned and garnished. He knocked pieces of lemon and cucumber contemptuously aside,
settled himself into his best eating position and began to feast. He tried both fish – equally delicious – and when he could eat no more, he jumped heavily off the shelf with a prawn in
his mouth which he took to the scullery for further examination.

Elizabeth, back into her comfortable blue jeans and one of Oliver’s old shirts, had taken the two salmon trout from the larder and laid them on the vast kitchen table.
Her assignment was to patch up one of the fish for supper, so that the colonel need never know of Claude’s depredations. Alice, before she had left, had begged both Elizabeth and May to look
after him; of course they had both promised, and Alice was scarcely out of sight before May discovered the larder crime.

Taking pieces from one fish and transposing them to another was like a frightful jigsaw with none of the pieces ready made. On top of this, the fish had been overcooked so that the flakes broke
whenever she tried to wedge them into position. ‘I’ll have to cover the whole lot with mayonnaise,’ she thought despairingly. Well – at least she knew how to make good
mayonnaise: at
least
she knew that.

‘Isn’t it nasty having the whole house to ourselves?’

It was only Oliver.

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean that anywhere as large and hideous
and
otherwise undistinguished as this is only bearable when it’s heavily populated.’ He sat on the kitchen table. ‘It
must have been built by someone who made a packet out of shells or gas masks in the First World War. Do you know what the first gas masks were made of?’

‘Of course I don’t. What?’

‘Pieces of Harris tweed soaked in something or other, with bits of tape to tie round the back of the head. What fascinates me about that is that it should have been
Harris
tweed: so
hairy – a kind of counter-irritant.’

A minute later, he said,

‘Listen, ducks, what are you going to do?’

Elizabeth had been separating two eggs into pudding basins.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Don’t be so
stupid,
Liz.’

‘I’m
not
being stupid – I just don’t know what you mean.’ She seized a gin bottle filled with olive oil.

‘I said: what are you going to
do
?’

‘Make mayonnaise.’ She selected a fork and began to beat the eggs: her eyes were pricking. ‘That’s one thing I
can
do.’ The feeling that she was dull, and
that Oliver, whom she loved, was brilliant and would therefore suddenly realize this one day and abandon her, recurred for what seemed like the millionth time. How did he
know
about
First-World-War gas masks? she thought. Why didn’t she know anything surprising like that?

‘I’ll pour – you beat.’ She wasn’t very bright, but from her first moments, May had, so to speak, let him in on looking after her. She wasn’t very bright, and
needed him.

‘You’re not stupid,’ he said, taking the oil bottle. ‘Goodness me, how weddings make women cry. Cheer up: think of spending a fortnight in Cornwall with
Leslie.’

She smiled: she would have giggled if she’d felt better.

‘A pink chiffon nightdress and all the lights out and twin beds.’

‘He’s taken his golf clubs,’ she said, entering the game.

‘They can’t talk about what they did last week, because they didn’t have one.’

‘They can discuss the wedding. To tide them over.’

‘He can tell her about his future: and how he can’t stand dishonesty – he’s funny that way – but he’s all for plain speaking. That cuts down nearly
anyone’s conversation.’

‘But on honeymoons,’ said Elizabeth hesitantly, ‘don’t you spend a lot of time making love to the person?’

‘That’s a frightfully old-fashioned way of putting it. Besides, golf takes much longer: if he plays two rounds a day, he won’t have all that time.’

‘Steady: don’t put any more in till I tell you.’

‘What happens if I put in too much?’

‘It separates and I have to start all over again with another yolk.’

‘Listen: what I meant just now was, you don’t want to just stay here, do you?

‘I mean, there’s a serious danger that Daddo will just push you into being another Alice,’ he went on when she didn’t reply.

‘I know.’

‘We can’t have
you
escaping to Southport or Ostend in five years’ time for a gay fortnight with a girl friend and meeting someone like Leslie: if you had to choose
between dog kennels and Daddo or the equivalent of Leslie you might easily choose Leslie. Seriously, Liz, you’d be better off in London.’

‘Where?’

‘With me.’

She flushed with delight. ‘Oh – O
l
iver!’

‘We’ll live on our wits – Edwardian for sharp practice.’

‘How would we?’

‘My wits then,’ he said with careless affection. ‘Awful people are always offering me jobs.’

‘Aren’t you
in
a job?’

‘The accountants’ office? Honestly, Liz, I couldn’t stand it. I left last week.’

‘Does May know?’

‘
She
knows, but
he
doesn’t. We’ve agreed not to tell him. He’d think I was going to the dogs more than ever. It’s funny how keen he is on girls going
to
his
blasted dogs, when he can’t stand young whipper-snappers like
me
going to them.’

‘What are you going to
do
?’

‘I don’t know: that’s what’s so nice. After all those years of educational regimentation I want a breather. I shall probably marry an heiress,’ he added
carelessly.

‘You mightn’t love her. I mean – you couldn’t just marry her because of that.’

‘Oh, couldn’t I! Well – until we find her – we could always advertise as an unmarried couple willing to wash up, or something like that.’

There was a pause while she beat industriously (the sauce was now the colour of Devonshire cream) and wondered what she ought to do. Then she said, ‘It’s all right now: pour a thin,
steady stream.’

He said, ‘I know what’s the trouble. You’re worrying about May.’

She hadn’t been, she’d started to imagine life in London with Oliver: concerts, cinemas, cooking up delicious suppers for his friends, all charming, funny,
brilliant
people
like Oliver – people he’d met at Oxford . . . ‘Don’t go: Elizabeth will you knock up something to eat?’ ‘I say, Elizabeth, is this what you call knocking
something up? It’s fabulous!’ (no, wrong word – a bit cheap and unintellectual) ‘It’s the best pasta I’ve ever eaten in my life’ . . .

But she’d been going to end up thinking about May: May stuck here for the rest of her life, in this awful red-brick fumed-oak stained-glass barracks – every room looking like a Hall
on Speech Day – even the garden filled with the worst things like rhododendrons, laurels, standard roses with grotesque flowers, hedges of cupressus, a copper beech and a monkey puzzle,
cotoneaster and an art nouveau sundial; all this instead of the cosy little house in Lincoln Street where they had lived the moment Great-Aunt Edith had kicked the bucket in Montreal . . . Aloud,
she said, ‘It’s not just the house: it’s
him
.’

‘Daddo?’

She nodded. ‘He gives me the creeps. He ought just to be poor and funny, but he isn’t.’

‘Well he
is
funny: he’s a pompous old fool.’

‘You’re not a woman: you wouldn’t understand.’

There was enough mayonnaise; she seasoned it and began spreading it over the fish with a palette knife.

‘If she’s lonely enough, she might leave him. If you stay here, she never will.’

‘I could come back for week-ends,’ she said anxiously.

He pushed his hand through her silky brown hair.

‘I’m not my sister’s keeper.’