The Sugar Mother (21 page)

“Good Lord!” Edwin found it easier to sound like Daphne. He put on his little-boy-lost look. “Whatever shall we do?” he said. He had no wish to think of Cecilia's shoes just now. Unwillingly he considered her feet. “How many pairs?” Suddenly he was ashamed of his wife's feet.

“Not to worry,” Leila's mother said. “We can move his lordship around to start off with; it's all one to a baby where he sleeps his first few weeks as long as he's near the pantry. The spare room,” she added, “would make a lovely nursery, would be lovely for a kiddie, specially if you had a little bathroom, nothing fancy, built on.”

“Oh yes, I suppose it would.” Edwin put a quick little kiss, a perfect one, into the side of Leila's soft neck.

“And while you were about it,” Leila's mother continued, “a bathroom for Dr. Sissilly's room would be very nice.”

“It would indeed.” Edwin put another quick little kiss on top of the first.

“Most go in for a convenient bathroom these days.” Leila's mother seemed to disappear into a cupboard. She returned after the second kiss with a tin of biscuits. “Leila'd better have a nice lay-down,” she said, “when she's had her tea. Drink up, Leila pet, there's a good girl. It's getting too tired as brings on the sickness.”

“Oh yes, of course,” Edwin said.

When Leila was on her way to the spare room to have her rest, Edwin waylaid her in the hall.

“Tell Mother,” he said, catching her and holding her close to him, “that you are sleeping in the study tonight. I shall try and get away early. I'll not be late home.”

“All right,” Leila said.

Back in his study with the door closed, Edwin thought he would telephone Cecilia, to get the call out of the way, over and done with, disregarding, as she always did, the time difference. He hesitated; perhaps it would be easier to write after all. In the letter he would describe his need to be looked after, he would speak of Leila's mother as a housekeeper. He would send two letters, one about the housekeeper. Cecilia would be the first to understand his inability to keep house, and yet he had to admit they both knew he had done all this before quite adequately. The second letter would be about their changed lives, his hopes for their future happiness with a complete family. He drew the sheets of paper towards himself. His lecture notes with quotations
…I frequently put myself in the way of conditions likely to induce a certain distress…
fluttered off the desk and lay on the carpet.

The last time he had slept all night with Leila she had described a toy she had seen and was going to buy. Resting in his arms, she explained that it was an educational toy. It could be fastened on the side of the crib and consisted of a panel made of plastic. “That part's white,” she said, “and there's all different things which make funny noises when the little red knobs and handles are pushed and turned.” She said that was the first
thing she was going to buy. There were pictures too, she said, on the panel and a colored ball that turned round and rattled, and there were little bells and chimes. “When the baby wakes up,” she had gone on telling, “he can play with all the different things.”

Edwin wrote last week's date at the top of the page and began to write.
My Darling Cecilia
. He put down his pen. He seemed to see already the nimble feet of his child pushing the red knobs on the white plastic panel as he kicked his sturdy little legs upwards to greet the morning while the household still slept. The child, he thought, would have thick little ankles. Leila's ankles and legs were thick, quite unlike Cecilia's, which were slender like the legs of an ornamental bird. He saw them as if fashioned of colored glass, dark red. He imagined how they would look snapped off. She would not, in those circumstances, need all those shoes.

He stared at the empty page. How could he, if only teasingly, ever have asked Cecilia, “How was it, Cecilia, with you and Vorwickl?” And teasingly, she, tossing her head, “Wouldn't you like to know!” Even the cliché amused him then as he watched her dressing and he would think of other, more daring ways of putting his question. “I mean, darling,
how
did Vorwickl? What did she
do
?”

It was suddenly clear to him that the impossible wish to have children was the reason for stories like “
Thumbelina,” “Snow White” and “The Little Wax Girl
.”

He seemed to hear his mother's voice, at dusk, reading aloud to him. Images, unchanged through the years, the tiny baby girl in a neat little shawl packaged in a cradle no bigger than a walnut shell, came back to him. It was as if the snowbound garden of his childhood were immediately outside the study window, and inside, his mother's gentle fingers turned the pages.

He heard the distant sound of the railway and was reminded of Cecilia saying once that everything was different now back home. The hedges, she said, had been uprooted (she must have been on one of her many study trips) and the fields in England, even in the home counties, were bigger and there were no longer elms in hedgerows.

Could he start his letter with that? Make it into some sort of metaphor? He filled his pen and then fussily filled his other pens; he had three, all good quality, side by side on the desk. All had been presents from Cecilia.

Leila's mother must have put some washing on the clothesline of the house next door. The white sheet pegged on the sagging line, with the dark green foliage above and at the sides of it, seemed to be the most beautiful creation. Gazing through his study window, he felt he was uplifted. It was the green and white, he knew this. He would make a note about the humble sheet on the line having the same effect as the stained glass of the Renaissance, perhaps the Adoration of the Magi in King's College; he could use the idea in his lectures “The Study of Man” and perhaps speak of it to Leila tonight. He would leave early to get back to Leila. The sweetest part of it—he allowed himself to slip into his dream of Leila—was the way he liked to hold her as if he were nursing her in his lap in bed, cupping her soft breasts in his hands.

He looked at his watch. It was time to take a bath and dress for the Fairfax evening. They were having an early start. Last time the Fairfaxes had made basket dinners for everyone. It was a good idea, having an early start; it gave people the chance to leave early.

 

“
M
y earth-shattering news,” Daphne said as Edwin, making his way through the Fairfax party guests, reached her, “is that Miss Hearnsted's broken her leg, her ankle.” Daphne had stationed herself at the side of the massive fireplace. “This dress,” she said, “is so hideous I thought it best to stand here where people will be attracted to the log fire and notice its beauty. My immensity,” she continued, “I hope is somewhat dwarfed by being close to this enormous corner of the mantelpiece. Oh, Teddy, I am so glad to see you, really glad.”

“I'm sorry…” Edwin began the conventional phrases. Daphne did seem to tower at least half a head above the other guests. He wondered why she wore such high heels.

“Oh, there's no need for sorrow,” Daphne said, “no need for pity; the Hatchet's perfectly well and very comfortable. She has her own telephone and receives adoration and cherishing at all hours. Of course she's had a shock. We all have. It was my beloved Fiorella, she of the love poems, an absolute deluge I might add, she took the front-door steps, where the gels are supposed never to be, in one bound just when the Hatchet in a moment of uncertainty was tottering at the top. None of us knew what she was uncertain about—because she had forgotten whether she was coming in or going out.” Daphne sighed. “Fiorella's dreadfully cut up. She's here somewhere. She is at present a bosom friend of one of the daughters. There they all are; aren't they charming!” Edwin followed Daphne's gaze across the room to the pretty little group of Fairfax daughters
and friends. Beyond them he could make out Paulette and Buffy, Spaniards still, using up their costumes. Paulette waved and Edwin waved back.

“The daughters,” Daphne was saying, “seem to manage to look like something out of Jane Austen. It's that white spotted muslin and those little shawls. Lovely! Everything else looks clumsy in comparison.”

“Your dress is very nice, very becoming.” Edwin, blowing a kiss to the distant Paulette, summoned his chivalry to praise the long emerald-green tube.

“It's completely out of date,” Daphne said. “It used to be called a sheath. I feel like some sort of chrysalis. Can you imagine, Teddy darling, how difficult it is to do up the zip on a thing like this? The contortions were frightful. I still feel as if my spine and both arms are dislocated. One of the disadvantages of living alone.” Daphne sighed. “The dinner”—she sighed again—“is a buffet; such a barbaric way to feed.”

The Fairfax daughters and their friends carried plates and handed various dishes to those guests who did not straight away help themselves at the long tables. The amorous Fiorella plied Daphne and, more reluctantly, Edwin with dish after dish.

“Potato salad, Miss Hockley?” Fiorella almost stood on Daphne. “Garden salad, Miss Hockley? And there's a Stilton dressing, Miss Hockley…. Miss Hockley, the melon and pineapple—would you like the melon and pineapple salad, Miss Hockley?…Shall I fetch the garlic bread, Miss Hockley?…Miss Hockley, I'll bring the strawberry and avocado salad, shall I?”

They stood holding crumbed cutlets, partly wrapped in silver foil for convenience, and they gnawed delicately at bits of chicken and pheasant, their fingers curling round the foil-covered bones. The corner of the high mantelpiece became indispensable for all the glasses—for champagne, for chardonnay, for white burgundy and for a particularly pleasant, Edwin thought, verdelho. The conversations hurried on bent legs between the guests.

“I feel we are not mingling very well.” Daphne ate with her fingers shamelessly. “However can we talk,” she said with her mouth full, “manage knife and fork, hold plates and so on?—yes, Fiorella, you can remove these bones—but it's all part of it. In any case,” she added, “I don't think I can sit down in this dress.” Her sun-bronzed smooth shoulders were really fine. Edwin, soothed by the well-chosen wines, wondered if he should pay her the kind of false compliment which flew during the evening, along with the forced jokes about herpes and AIDS. He let his mind dwell on his homecoming. Leila would be curled up asleep in his bed and he would wake her. Since she slept during the day, it would not matter, disturbing her. He longed to kiss her, to wake her with kisses and kiss her back to sleep.

“Fiorella!” Daphne was saying. “I couldn't eat another thing; take that bomb Alaska somewhere and explode it privately…. I've promised her Rosalind,” she explained to Edwin behind the girl's devoted back, “to more or less thank her, wordlessly you understand, for causing the Hatchet to be indisposed for an indefinite period. You can imagine my relief to have her out of the way. We're doing
As You Like It
,” she explained, “for our next production. ‘One of the Great Bard's lighter masterpieces,' as described in the Speech Day program. And I've allowed Fiorella, who is utterly unable to learn anything—let alone by heart—to be Rosalind. It's done now.” Daphne sighed. “I'll have to prompt madly. Naturally Fiorella's mother is delighted and is embroidering a surprise for me as well as cutting out and sewing an enormous costume for Rosalind. As you know, Teddy,” she continued, “no one is interested in who wrote the play; they are only concerned with who's in it. The Hatchet fainted twice last year, she was so annoyed when the juniors messed up their pageant. As for doing Shakespeare, we might as well put on
The Wizard of Oz
for all the parents care!” Daphne hiccupped. “Sorry, Teddy,” she said. “I've nothing against
Wizard
, of course!” She hiccupped again.

Edwin grinned. The wine and the food and the lively fire
and the well-dressed guests and their lighthearted conversations, Daphne's contribution too, were a tremendous consolation. He felt soothed and rested. He glanced round the large room and laughed. Perhaps Cecilia understood him more clearly than he understood himself. Dear Cecilia, making so many thoughtful arrangements to ensure his comfort and well-being. She knew his needs.

The guests, still eating and carrying refreshments, were moving towards the studio, Dippy and Ida having built onto their already large house this additional spaciousness, a studio and a gallery, where culture (with encouragement) could flourish. This was their second event, a book launching. The art from the previous event still hung for inspection and possible purchase. Catalogues were handed prettily by the daughters. Fiorella gave Daphne two. Venetian glass and ceramics, waiting to be unwrapped, were on low display tables. A few guests poked at the straw and the sacking with simulated curiosity.

“Gallery One Two One,” Daphne said, “like Father's paddock at his hobby farm. He had two gates and had a board on one gate, ‘Paddock Number Fourteen' it made us feel wonderfully wealthy!”

The book about to be launched was a local history. Edwin respected the value of such books and looked with admiration at the man who had written it. He noticed that the guests, invited to meet this man, largely ignored him. He was not one of their set. They continued their animated talking and laughing, keeping their eyes deliberately on one another, not allowing their attention to wander, as if for safety, to the paintings, the partly unwrapped exhibition and the well-set-out display of books beside which the historian stood. Edwin did not know the man. The Fairfaxes liked to take up, he knew, the unknown talent and nurture it. If the artists became well known they were no longer of interest.