The Wedding Group (19 page)

She started when Mrs Brindle opened the door suddenly.

‘Baker, madam.’

‘No bread,’ Midge said dully.

On Saturday morning, the telephone rang – the first time for some days. During those days, Midge had sometimes had conversations with herself, on the lines of the correspondence pages in some women’s magazines – the self-pitying letter, and the brisk, abrasive reply. If she could take an interest in other people, she told herself, she might feel a great deal better. Was there not more than enough for a woman in her position to do? Meals on wheels – going round the cottages with hot dinners and a cheery smile for the old souls. But she disliked old people and would never be able to find a cheery smile for them.

Often she felt exhausted, as if at the end of a long and searching interview, the words going on and on in her mind. And even if I fill my days, she thought, the nights remain.

She crossed the hall that Saturday morning and took up the receiver. David said, ‘We’re just going to the pub. Cressy thought you might like to come, too.’

A nice way of putting it, Midge thought. The tactful son. But perhaps it had been that way. ‘She may be missing us,’ Cressy may have said.

‘I’d like nothing more,’ Midge replied, ‘but this morning, I’m afraid I don’t feel up to it.’

David thought that her voice sounded frail and strained. ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked. ‘Are you ill?’

‘Of course not, darling; but just not in a mood for company.’

‘What is it?’ He sounded concerned, she thought.

‘My back’s a bit groggy. Nothing to worry about. It’s come and gone before, heaven knows.’

‘
I
didn’t know.’

‘Anno Domini, old boy. Nothing to worry about,’ she said again.

‘Is there anything I can do?’

‘Of course not, darling. I’m perfectly all right with you just down the road. I know that if I need you, I can give you a ring.’

‘We’ll look in some time.’

‘Well, I’d love to see you, but I’m sure you’ve got plenty to do. Just to know you’re there is enough.’

‘No, of course, we’ll come.’

‘I’ll say good-bye now. Thank you for asking me.’

She hung up the receiver, and went slowly back to the drawingroom, walking stiffly, warily, easing herself into an armchair as if she were an old woman, putting her hand to her forehead, shutting her eyes.

In the Three Horseshoes it was bright and noisy. Wives came in to join their husbands after shopping; dogs sniffed about the floor for bits of potato crisps, and children, in cars outside, were handed out bottles of Coca-Cola and straws. There was great bonhomie in the atmosphere, the relaxation of Saturday morning, and the anticipation of leisure.

‘Well, you’re coming along nicely,’ Father Daughtry said to Cressy, looking her over – as if she were some old peasant woman from the bog, as Alexia said to her brother.

Cressy was already enormous. Her skirt went up in an arc above her knees, dipped at the back, and was fastened at the waist, David knew, by a chain of safety-pins. She had a bag of potato crisps and was shaking salt into it. She never stopped eating. Sometimes in the night he heard her creeping out of bed and downstairs to find herself a piece of cake. She had become completely torpid, and never walked anywhere. Quayne Hill was out of the question. She hadn’t the breath for
it, and her cousin now had to come to see her, if they were to meet at all.

‘Have you done anything about the flat?’ Alexia asked David.

‘I asked Nell to let me know if she hears of anything,’ he said lamely.

Someone, thinking Cressy in an advanced condition, gave her a stool. She sat down thankfully.

‘We have a cousin who is an estate-agent in Hammersmith,’ Alexia said. ‘I’ll give you his address. He might be some use to you. Have you got a pencil?’ She never carried a handbag.

David gave her a pen. He said, ‘I’m really rather worried about Mother. I asked her to come with us this morning, but she’s not well. She sounded terrible on the phone.’

‘I would have thought her awfully strong,’ Alexia said. ‘All that gardening.’

‘Yes, it’s not like her. Perhaps she’s overdone it – us staying there all that time.’

‘Well, I dare say she’ll be better in a day or two. Here, I’ve written on this.’ Alexia handed him a beer mat on which she had scribbled her cousin’s address. ‘I feel sure he might be useful.’

‘That’s awfully kind,’ David said. ‘I’ll get in touch.’ He put the beer mat in his pocket.

‘He won’t get in touch,’ Alexia said later to Toby, while they were having lunch. ‘That woman has them in thrall – especially the girl. She pets her, and spoils her, does all her thinking for her, and stuffs her up like a Strasbourg goose.’

‘I don’t care,’ Toby said.

‘Cressy fought that battle with her grandfather, but this one

she’ll never fight. She doesn’t even know there’s a war.’

Midge, some weeks later, was having Sunday tea at the cottage. The threat had seemed to be shadowing her less of late; for nothing had been said. And David was working in the garden, as if he had half-hearted plans for it.

With Cressy on her own, she had sometimes started conversations which could have led to the subject, but never had; and she thought the girl too simple, and too lazy, to dissemble, or to hide anything.

She was alone in the room for a little while. David was still working in the garden, and Cressy had gone to the kitchen to make the tea. Midge looked about her. On a desk – David’s old desk from his bedroom at home – was a pile of duplicated sheets. She knew at once from their lay-out that they were from an estate-agent. She got up and went to look at them. An estate-agent in Hammersmith. Glancing round her, and out of the window at David in the garden, she quickly went through them. Agencies from Hampstead and Highgate, too. Trembling, she went back to her chair and sat down. She listened in a confused way to Cressy banging about in the kitchen, and presently David came stamping into the house, kicking off his boots in
the hall. He came into the room, looking vaguely about for something to put on his feet, a toe poking out of a hole in his sock.

‘That bloody garden,’ he said. ‘You can’t beat it. The weeds grow three feet as soon as I turn my back.’

She smiled with trembling lips.

‘Are you all right?’ he suddenly asked, staring at her. ‘You’re as white as a sheet.’

‘Of course I’m all right,’ she said, in a neat, bright voice.

‘Well you don’t look it. Is it this back of yours?’

‘It is no one else’s.’ Her tone was flippant.

‘Have you seen Dr Baseden yet? You promised me you would.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen him.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He hasn’t a clue. He implied that backs were beyond him. The one thing he can do nothing about. He just gave me something to help me sleep.’

‘You don’t sleep then?’

She looked at him, said nothing, and looked away.

She had in fact seen Dr Baseden, and had even felt annoyed with him for suggesting no way of curing her, and had resented his questions, which seemed to her to have nothing to do with her physical condition.

‘What a pretty cake,’ she said brightly, changing the subject as Cressy came in with the tray.

‘It’s only a Walnut Tree one,’ Cressy said, as if one of her own making would have been better.

After tea, Midge suggested a walk round the garden. ‘I can’t sit still for long,’ she explained. ‘I get stiff.’ She got up with difficulty, and went outside with David.

‘You see what I mean?’ he asked, looking gloomily at the tangled growth.

She did see, for it would have been too much for
her
, much as she liked gardening, and challenge: but, as usual, she was able to find possibilities, and had all kinds of optimistic suggestions, although she was sympathetic to him about his problems.

‘Well, that’s that,’ he said. ‘Let’s go in and have a drink. You look tired out.’

‘A drink would be lovely.’

Back in the sitting-room she said, ‘I’ve been thinking, David. Cressy. I wonder if you would like me to get some contractors in and get that garden straight once and for all. Then all you’ll have to do is keep it tidy. It’s such a bore for you to have to spend your precious week-ends slaving away at it. It could be your birthday present from me, David. I can ring up some people I know tomorrow, and then it will all be set for the rest of the summer.’

He frowned. He leaned down and tried to pull his sock over the hole in the toe, and then said, ‘It’s very generous of you, Mother. And thoughtful. But please don’t. It might be such a frightful waste of money. You see… I’ve not said anything before, for nothing’s settled… but we may not be here much longer. I’ve thought about it a great deal, and I’m sure I’m right. We’ve decided to go to live in London, if we can find somewhere. I can’t stand much more of living in the country. Nothing seems to go right for us here. And I don’t think I could bear another winter. I only bother about the garden, so that it won’t look too much of a wilderness when I come to sell.’

Midge settled a cushion in the small of her back.

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ she said. ‘I’ve thought of this myself for a long time. But I didn’t want to interfere.’

He stared at her with a look of incredulous relief. Then he said, ‘I’ve only been worried about you. Especially as you’re not well.’

‘Good heavens, why? I can look after myself.’

‘But you’ll be lonely.’

‘I shall miss you, of course; but I can sometimes come to see you in London. Cressy and I can have lunch together; can’t we, darling.’

‘We shall still worry.’

Midge looked thoughtful. ‘The older I grow, the more I realise,’ she said, ‘that one never really knows about other people. What one person must have, another doesn’t need. And, in a way, I don’t need people at all. I’ve never really troubled to make any friends. One had one’s children, but they grow up, and it comes to an end. One knows it’s going to happen, and quite right, too, that it should.’

David got up and refilled her glass. ‘I must confess you’ve taken a load off my mind,’ he said, smiling.

‘And
you’d
take a load off
my
mind if you’d put something on your feet.’

Cressy had been looking nervous during this conversation. ‘Does anyone mind if I have the television on?’ she asked.

‘Well, that’s marvellous,’ Nell said. ‘It’s almost too good to be true. Now you’ll really have to get moving.’ ‘Before Midge changes her mind,’ she meant. She said, ‘You’ve missed too many chances already.’ Why should I care? she wondered.

They were in the city pub at lunchtime.

‘We shan’t be able to leave until after the baby’s born.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘Cressy doesn’t want to. She’s going into the nursing-home at Market Harbury. It was all fixed up months ago.’

‘Well, she could still go there, couldn’t she? It’s not all that far.’

‘She thinks it is. And so does Mother. And I suppose they know more about it than I do. And, after all, we might as well
have the rest of the summer in the country. I don’t mind the drive in the light evenings.’

In fact, he didn’t. He now had his regular stopping-places, where he would call in for a pint of beer and a piece of pie, arriving home late; and Cressy had hardly ever complained.

Nell yawned. ‘I give up,’ she said. ‘It’s not my affair. And now I must go. I’ve got work to do this afternoon.’

That night, Cressy did complain. She had suddenly, about eight o’clock, felt restless. Sitting for so long before the television had given her cramp, and pins-and-needles in her feet. When David arrived, she was woeful.

‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he said, taking her into his arms. ‘I truly thought you didn’t mind. It’s such a long, tedious journey without a break, and I ran into someone I know.’

‘The same old story,’ she said, but she clasped him tightly to her.

‘My dear little fatty,’ he said, stroking her hair. ‘I love you very much. I won’t do it again, I promise. As long as you don’t cry,’ he added hastily. ‘And when we get to London, it will be quite different. I’ll be home by half past six every evening of the week. Is there anything for supper?’

‘Yes, of course.’ She released herself from his arms, and looked about vaguely.

‘Why no telly?’ he asked.

‘Oh, it gets on my nerves. I’ve got a pain here,’ she said, pressing her hand to her side. ‘It’s like toothache in my ribs, and the television only makes it worse.’

‘I think you need a change, and I’ve a good idea. I heard this morning that Jack and I have to go to Normandy for a week – to write up the landing beaches. Why don’t you come too?’

‘Oh, I couldn’t like this,’ she said, looking down at her stomach, like a little girl who is asked to a party and hasn’t a clean dress.

‘Why not?’

‘I look so awful, and I shouldn’t be comfortable sitting in the car.’

‘You could speak your lovely French.’

‘Oh, no, no. It’s not lovely at all.’