Читать книгу Good Husband Material - Trisha Ashley - Страница 12

‘Oh, yes?’ I answered politely, in case she should prove to be the local lunatic. ‘What child?’

‘What child! What child!’ uttered the old lady scathingly. ‘Why, the one I hear screaming and crying night and morning! Morning and night! Hark at it now, the poor thing! It’s a disgrace to neglect a child like that – besides going out and leaving it alone in the house, which I seen you do this morning! If it doesn’t stop I’m going to complain to the authorities, and so I warn you!’

My mind swung into gear with an almost audible click as I grasped the truth of the matter, for even now there was a raucous screaming coming from the living room.

And this must be the quiet, sweet little old lady from next door! Hardly what the estate agent led us to expect.

‘It isn’t a child screaming, it’s my parrot,’ I explained. ‘I’m very sorry if it disturbed you.’

She turned on me a look of indescribable contempt. ‘A parrot? The child was screaming and sobbing for its mother!’

‘Where’s Mummy, then? Toby want biccy!’ pleaded the feathered encumbrance from the other room.

‘Parrot, indeed!’

There was nothing for it but to invite her in to view the wretched bird, and of course Toby immediately shut up and eyed us with malevolence through the bars, turning his head doubtfully from side to side. Then he scratched the back of his head with one foot, before excreting copiously with a horrid ‘glop’.

I averted my eyes. He makes me feel quite ill, sometimes.

‘He’s not very big to be making all that noise, is he?’ said my neighbour, unconvinced. ‘I thought parrots were them big, colourful birds with curved beaks.’

‘I expect you mean macaws, but he is a parrot – a South African Grey – and it’s surprising just how much noise he can make. I have to cover him up sometimes, just to get a bit of peace, but I can’t cover him up all the time.’ (Unfortunately.)

‘He’s not saying anything now, is he?’

We both stared at the silent cage, and Toby stared inimically back.

‘But if you really haven’t got a child, I suppose it must be him I heard.’

‘I haven’t got a child hidden away, and I’m really terribly busy just now …’

She gave one last, doubtful look at Toby and turned to go.

‘Shut that bloody door!’ screeched an eldritch voice, and she whirled round as fast as her game leg allowed her.

Toby blinked innocently at her, then gave a fruity chuckle that slowly worked its way up to an evil cackle.

Backing out, still staring, she fell over the chair in the hall. ‘I never would have believed it!’ she muttered, hauling herself up by the chair back. Then she looked down and added absently, ‘Nice commode!’

‘We like it,’ I replied coldly. How on earth did she know? ‘Well, I’m glad to have met you at last, Mrs … er?’

‘Peach.’ And the dumpy figure limped away down the drive without another word.

Feeling even more ruffled than before, I closed the door and discovered a long, thin brown envelope lying by the wall, which must have come earlier. Quite a stiff envelope – probably one of the garage brochures we’d sent for.

Ripping open the end, I pulled out the enclosure – and then, with a sharp ‘twang!’ something brick red sprang out and hit me sharply on the nose. I recoiled backwards onto the commode and wept overwrought tears.

I soon had myself back under control, of course, and discovered that the flying object was a cardboard garage, ingeniously arranged so that it would fold flat to fit in an envelope. Once opened it sprang back into its garage shape by means of a system of elastic bands. The name of the firm was emblazoned on the side.

I put it back in its envelope and went back to the kitchen to label my marmalade and clean up myself and the kitchen, and when James returned home he found me arranging the jars proudly on the dresser, where they glowed like amber.

‘What a terribly domestic scene for a rock star’s ex-girlfriend!’ he sneered, and I was so cross that I handed him the garage envelope, hoping it would hit him on the nose too.

No such luck.

‘What a promotional brain wave!’ he enthused, playing with it.

‘Isn’t it just,’ I said gloomily. ‘But they aren’t such good value as the brochure that came last week. That had a garage with a white finish that would blend with the rest of the house.’

‘Perhaps. Let’s wait for the others to arrive before we decide. There’s the phone – bet it’s your mother.’

With the usual feeling of reluctance – not to mention weariness and a bit of residual stickiness – I picked up the receiver and heard her babbling even before I got it to my ear.

‘… and I simply can’t go on. I just can’t carry on like this! She grows more impossible every day!’

‘Hello, Mother. What can’t you go on with?’

‘Mummy, dear – do call me Mummy! Mother is so ageing. And I’m talking about Granny, of course. I just said. And it’s not as if I ever liked her!’

‘But you asked her to come and stay with you after Grandpa died!’

‘I felt I had to. And she never thought I was good enough for her precious son either. Really, I can’t see why I should have to like someone just because they happen to be my mother-in-law.’

‘No Moth— Mummy.’

‘Of course, you and I have always been more like sisters than mother and daughter, haven’t we, darling? But I was such a young mother – little more than a child.’

‘Yes, Mummy.’ A faint, familiar nausea rose in my throat.

‘And I need a rest from Granny. I said to the doctor, “I need a rest.” And do you know what he said to me? “Don’t we all, Mrs Norwood!” Then I said, “What about admitting her into hospital for a week?” And he said she wasn’t ill, and besides, there was a waiting list stretching right into next year! Not that I believe him, of course – he’s just afraid that I would refuse to have her back again.’

‘And would you?’

The words were out before I could help myself.

‘I hope I know my duty,’ she replied ambiguously after a short pause. ‘If my health was up to it I would, of course, be prepared to have her back whatever the strain.’

‘Why don’t you ask that nice district nurse for her advice when she comes to give Granny her injection? Mrs Durwin, isn’t it?’

There was a snort. ‘I did. I said to her, “I can’t cope any more – it’s too much for me,” and do you know what she said? She said, “Have you tried soap on the stairs, Mrs Norwood?” and then she laughed, positively roared, until the tears ran down her face. And not five minutes later I heard her repeating it to Granny! These West Indians have a strange sense of humour.’

‘So has Granny – that’s why they’re such good friends. And it was just a joke, after all.’

‘I can’t see anything funny in it. I’m at my wits’ end. I need a holiday. Now, if I could just get her off my hands for a week or two I could come and visit your sweet little cottage, couldn’t I? I’m just dying to see it. You have got a spare bedroom for Mummy, haven’t you?’

Panic gripped my heart and gave it a squeeze. ‘Oh, yes – two – but I’m afraid one is completely bare at the moment, and the other is going to be my office.’

‘Ah, yes, for your Writing,’ she said reverently. ‘How is it coming along, dear?’

‘It isn’t, there’s been too much to do. But at least I can have a room to myself here, and I’m about to start the next book.’

‘All my friends are so impressed when I tell them my little girl is a Writer!’

I winced, even though I get this sort of thing all the time. Then I braced myself to ask, ‘You haven’t been – well – drinking again, have you, Mummy?’

‘Oh, there’s the doorbell!’ she said brightly. ‘Must go, darling. I’ll let you know if I can arrange anything for Granny so that I can come and take a little holiday with you. Bye-ee!’ And the line went dead.

I hadn’t heard any doorbell, and I replaced the receiver with a feeling of deep depression. Mother generally has that effect on me.

James was immersed in his paper, oblivious both to me and to Bess, who was staring fixedly at the door. (Normal dogs whine.)

‘Bess wants to go out, James!’ I said loudly, but he pretended not to hear, so with a sigh of resignation I took the lead off the door.

Standing in the icy darkness of the lane waiting for Bess to perform, I thought: What a day!

‘You have remembered that I’ll be late home tonight, haven’t you?’ James said casually about a week later, preparing to dash out after breakfast.

He looked pretty good in his natty dark suiting, but I always think he would look even better striding about the heather in a kilt like his forebears did. He has that sort of look. Rugged. (Which he isn’t, really.)

‘Remember? How can I remember when you never told me in the first place?’ I exclaimed in surprise.

‘I told you days ago.’

‘But what about dinner? Just how late will you be?’

He looked annoyed at my perfectly reasonable question: ‘Don’t wait for me – I’ll pick something up.’

‘Eating junk food on the run isn’t healthy, James.’

‘Then I’ll go and eat at Howard’s afterwards, and stay overnight!’

‘Eating at Howard’s is even more of a health hazard. It’s all takeaways, and too dark to see what’s in them, because the electricity’s always cut off.’

‘I don’t know what you’ve got against Howard!’

‘You mean, apart from him being a drug-crazed, free-loading ageing hippie who’s never worked in his life?’

‘Howard’s all right – we were at school together,’ he protested, as if that qualified Howard as a member of the human race. ‘Anyway, I’ve decided: I’m staying there tonight.’

I didn’t say anything more, because if I hadn’t nagged him about junk food he probably would have come home instead. I don’t think I handled that too well.

After James had gone (with overnight bag, though Flit gun would have been more to the point) I went into the front garden and hammered the spike of the rotary dryer with unnecessary force into the rough grass. I can’t afford to keep using the tumble dryer all the time, although when you hang clothes out in March it’s a toss-up whether they are going to dry or be glazed like mutant frozen prawns.

With the first load of washing churning away I went up to my little writing room. I’d been working on the floorboards, which were not good enough to sand and seal, so I’d painted them cream and stencilled roses round the border.

Piled in one corner were light cardboard boxes filled with some of my varnished leaves. (James says two baskets of dead leaves are more than enough in one sitting room.) I had a brain wave, and soon there were drifts of golden leaves along the walls and piled in the corner opposite the door, where they whispered at the least small draught. It looked lovely, though I am very sure that James will say it is a weird idea. He is so stick-in-the-mud and staid about everything I do, yet he can go off and stay with Horrible Howard who really is weird.

By then the washing was done and, as I was hanging it out, the vicar called: a tall, thin, middle-aged man radiating an air of youthful enthusiasm, and wearing a bright purple T-shirt with his dog collar.

As he shambled up the drive with that strange gait some men have – knees turned out as though they have been kicked in the naughty bits and never recovered – I hastily swivelled the rotating dryer round to hide the more ancient and tatty items of my underwear. (I always put my undies in the middle with the shirts and so on round them, but I’d only just started.) The sooner we’ve tackled the back garden, so that the washing can be hung in decent obscurity, the better! However, the vicar came charging right round, stretching out his hand while still several yards away and, seizing my cold wet one in his, pumped it energetically up and down.

‘Strange lady!’ he exclaimed, excitedly.

‘Oh!’ I said doubtfully, taken aback. But it seemed that this was his name – rather an unfortunate one for a vicar.

‘Strangelady! And very pleased indeed to welcome you to our little parish. Ah! washing day, I see!’ he added, and bestowed a benevolent smile upon my black bra and shabby knickers. I went red as a beetroot.

‘Er … come in, er … Vicar?’ I invited, hastily backing away from the washing and opening the front door. (How do you address a vicar?)

Still, I recovered my equilibrium over coffee and biscuits while he admired a mercifully silent Toby, and The Bitch drooled adoringly over his knee, shedding long white hairs. (‘The Borzoi is devoted to one person, showing only aloof attention to others.’) She placed her paw on his knee whenever he stopped patting her, and assumed her best Starving Russian Aristocrat look at the sight of the biscuit tin.

(Yes, she really is the lost Anastasia.)

The vicar didn’t press me to attend church, which I rather expected, though he left me a copy of the times of the services and said we would be very welcome, and a copy of the parish magazine.

Just as he was about to leave, a florist’s van pulled up and delivered a bunch of cream roses. I didn’t need to read the card to know that it said: ‘To my lovely wife, from James,’ since he always does this when he’s got his own way or upset me. It makes him feel better.

‘Your birthday perhaps? An anniversary?’ hinted the vicar. ‘What lovely roses!’

‘Just a house-warming present,’ I muttered ungraciously, seeing him off. And the sort of gesture we couldn’t afford now – it must have cost a fortune to have them delivered all the way out here, and why cream roses? They would be invisible against all the pale walls.

If he wanted to give me a present I’d have preferred that brass stencil of vine leaves from Homebase.

You know, I used to think James’s profligacy with posies romantic, but really it’s easy enough to phone up a Teleflorist and read your credit card number. Feeling dissatisfied, I rammed the scentless and useless roses into a cream vase and stood them on a cream table against the cream wall, where they vanished.

Fergal: March 1999

‘GONERIL: FAREWELL TO ALL THAT?

Fergal Rocco says his next tour really is his last.’

Trendsetter magazine

Not only me – we’re all saying it, though no one outside the band seems to believe we really mean it. We’re not breaking up, we’ll still record together and do the odd gig, but we all have other parts of our lives we want to develop.

And we’re sick to death of touring.

Mike and Col want to spend more time with their families, Carlo’s getting married, and I want to concentrate on the song-writing and painting for a while.

Funnily enough, it was seeing Tish so suddenly at the gallery that made me really stop and take stock of myself: where I was going with my life. (And where I’d been. When I could remember where I’d been.)

She sparked off a whole new series of songs, too, but that’s by the bye.

She still looked good …

Can I be the only man who finds fiery-haired, militant Pre-Raphaelite angels a big turn on?