Читать книгу A Girl’s Guide to Kissing Frogs - Victoria Clayton - Страница 10

7

I put my arms round my mother and hugged her, registering the familiar maternal scent of orange blossom, joss sticks and damp from the hall where our coats hung.

‘Hello, Dimpsie darling.’

She did not like to be called Mother, Mum or Ma because it made her feel old. She was forty-six, which is certainly not ancient.

Her eyes glistened with happiness. ‘It’s been such ages.’

I acknowledged to my shame that it had been. Who can put their hand on their heart and say with absolute truth that they have fulfilled the expectations of a fond parent? She examined me by the dim lights of the platform.

‘You look wonderful, poppet, so beautiful and glamorous. But you’re shivering. Let’s run to the car. It’s right outside.’

‘Sorry but I can’t. Run, that is. My leg.’

‘Oh yes, poor sweet! Is it agony?’

‘Not at all.’

She embraced me again. ‘Well, let’s hop then.’

She hopped all the way to the exit, laughing gaily, while the stationmaster brought my case and I followed at a more sedate pace with Siggy. The car, a Mini, painted purple and stencilled with flowers in primary colours, was, as she had said, parked at the station entrance, much to the annoyance of the taxis and the local bus. We jerked away. The car was old, the road was slippery with snow and Dimpsie was a bad driver.

‘I barely slept a wink last night I was so excited you were coming! You’re looking so gorgeous, sweetheart. I can hardly believe you’re my daughter. You take after your father, of course.’

‘Only superficially – look out!’

The car mounted a kerb and rolled off it with a suddenness that made the chassis judder on its springs.

‘Sorry, I can’t see where I’m going. Your case is weighing down the back so the headlights are up in the air. Headlight, I should say. I meant to ask the garage to put in a new bulb.’

I closed my eyes, envying Siggy’s ignorance of the danger he was in. We headed west to Gilsland and then turned north on the snaking road that climbed to Black Knowe and Reeker Pike.

‘How lovely that you’ve got a little holiday, darling. Everyone will be so thrilled to see you. Evelyn rang this morning to ask you to dinner tomorrow night. I don’t suppose you can drive with that leg. I’ll run you across.’

‘With or without the leg. I’ve never taken a driving test.’

‘Goodness, Marigold, haven’t you? Never mind, I’ll take you about whenever I can. The only trouble is I’m standing in at reception for the moment. The last girl had some sort of breakdown, poor lamb. I tried to get her to do some yoga breathing, but if you’re always in tears you can’t control your diaphragm. Boyfriend trouble I think, but she didn’t confide. Tom was furious.’

Tom was my father. I felt the car slithering on bends, imagined it plunging over the precipice, turning over and over before crashing into the river and bursting into flames.

‘How is Evelyn?’

‘Marvellous, as always.’ My mother worshipped Evelyn Preston with the same devotion she had once given to Laetitia Pickford-Norton. ‘She hasn’t changed a bit. I’ve put on weight, my jaw line’s saggy and my neck’s beginning to go, but Evelyn looks marvellous, she hasn’t changed a bit! And she’s ten years older than me.’

I had noticed that my mother was a slightly more generous armful. I felt mean for noticing but I couldn’t help it.

‘She certainly doesn’t look her age. She came to see me in The Firebird. Did you know?’

Several months ago, Evelyn had nobly taken a cab from Brown’s Hotel where she usually stayed when in London, all the way to Hammersmith, to watch me dance in an absurd costume that shed feathers so fast that by the time Prince Ivan had destroyed the egg containing the soul of the magician Kashchei and set the princesses free I was practically naked, but for a tissue-thin flesh-coloured body suit. Evelyn and I had exchanged kisses and congratulations briefly in my dressing room afterwards before she had rushed to catch a plane back to Newcastle.

‘So she did. I’d forgotten. That’s so like her, she’s so loyal to her friends.’

‘What did she say about it?’

‘She said you were brilliant, far better than anyone else.’ This was both kind and untrue. But what Evelyn knew about ballet could be written on a grain of rosin.

‘I suppose Shottestone looks just the same?’

‘It’s looking wonderful. How she does it with only a cook and a butler and two daily helps, I can’t imagine!’

Dimpsie intended no irony. For one thing she was too loyal to be critical of Evelyn, and for another Shottestone Manor was large and ancient and you would have needed a fairy godmother with an inexhaustible wand to run it without staff. One of my earliest memories was of Evelyn’s commanding features bending over my pram. Apparently she had been my first visitor at Gaythwaite Cottage Hospital, my father having been called away elsewhere. She had looked into my cot and said, ‘That baby’s hair is remarkable. You must call her Marigold.’

Dimpsie had at once agreed, though my father, who liked plain names, had intended that I should be called either Jack or Jill. My father’s personality was essentially combative, but I guessed he had given in because Evelyn’s patronage was extremely useful. As well as being chairwoman of the hospital board and a governor of the little school to which they intended to send Kate, she had a finger in all the local pies. Besides, Evelyn was good-looking, and in those days he probably had designs on her.

In the days of my youth I had spent almost every day of the school holidays at Shottestone Manor and Evelyn had treated me like a second daughter, something she was fond of pointing out. There was no denying her generosity – not that I wished to, nor that she had been influential in the course my life had taken. Luckily Dimpsie’s nature was not competitive. She had humbly accepted that Evelyn’s rule was absolute.

‘It will be lovely to see Shottestone again. And I’m dying to see Dumbola Lodge, too, of course.’

‘I’m afraid it’s looking awfully shabby. Tom says we can’t afford to have it redecorated. You’ve got a treat in store, darling. Rafe’s home. You used to admire him so much, remember?’

‘Is he?’ I felt a quickening of interest. Admiration was too temperate a description for the violent infatuation I had entertained for Evelyn’s son. He must have been about seventeen years old and I a passionate child of eight when he had patted me on the head to thank me for fetching his jersey after a tennis match. This insignificant act had been enough to light the fire. The top of my head had tingled for months afterwards whenever I thought of it. He had gone up to Cambridge shortly after that and then into the army. I had not seen him for – I did a quick calculation – nine years. ‘Just for the weekend, you mean?’

‘No. He came home in September to rest his nerves. He was serving in Northern Ireland and the tank he was in was blown up.’

‘How awful! Was he badly hurt?’ I opened my eyes just as we were yawing towards a tree picked out in hideous detail by the single headlight. I screwed up my face and waited for the crunch of metal and the somersaulting of my stomach as we flew into the abyss.

‘Only a few cracked ribs and a broken jaw.’ Dimpsie wrestled with the steering wheel and changed down. The engine screamed in protest but somehow we remained in contact with the road.

‘Only?’

‘Almost everyone else in the tank was killed. Though it might have caught fire at any minute, Rafe waited inside until the rescue team could get to them and made a tourniquet of his socks to stop the other survivor bleeding to death. He was given a medal for conspicuous gallantry.’

I imagined Rafe as a war hero with a troubled mind. It added a piquancy to my idea of him, which until now had been too smooth, too bland, to keep the flame of memory burning.

‘Evelyn’s delighted to have him home, of course. Not only for his own sake – she’s always adored him, as you know, but Kingsley’s become something of a problem.’

Kingsley Preston was much older than his wife. I remembered him as a sort of caricature of a country squire. He had not been much interested in children, preferring horses and dogs. We had had the same conversation each holidays.

‘Hello, Marigold.’ He would smile and shake my hand. ‘It’s good to see you back. How are you?’

‘I’m fine, thank you, sir.’

‘Good, good.’

Then he’d walk quickly away, calling his spaniels to heel. At the end of the holidays, he’d say, ‘Well, well, so you’re off again.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Going to make Margot Fonteyn shake in her shoes, eh?’

Polite laughter from me. ‘Not yet.’

‘Jolly good.’ The smile and handshake again. ‘Keep it up.’

‘What’s the matter with Kingsley?’ I asked.

‘He’s terribly forgetful. He was eighty last birthday, so perhaps it’s not surprising. Evelyn’s marvellous with him, so patient. She never complains, you know how strong she is, but it must get her down all the same.’

It seemed to me a little forgetfulness in an old man was not much to put up with. But then, in my mother’s eyes, everything Evelyn did, from organizing balls to raise funds for more camels in Africa, to getting poor Mrs Stopes into an old people’s home despite her wish to remain independent, were feats of the highest order. My mother kept on her desk a framed photograph of Evelyn in evening dress and tiara, which had appeared fifteen years ago in the Tatler above the caption The Beautiful Mrs Kingsley Preston, Indefatigable Society Hostess of the North. I was pretty sure the rest of Evelyn’s friends had consigned the offending image to the dustbin before returning indoors to dose themselves with bile beans.

‘Could we have the heater on?’

‘Sorry, it’s broken. I keep meaning to get the garage to fix it.’

‘Will Rafe be there tomorrow, do you know?’

‘Yes. And –’ Dimpsie’s voice took on a slightly anxious tone – ‘so will Isobel. She’s come home to be with Rafe, to help him get over it. You know how devoted to him she’s always been. Darling, I do hope you’ll be pleased to see her.’

Isobel. The rush of memories were a welcome distraction from being cold and frightened. From babyhood to the age of ten she had been my best friend. She was a year and a half older than me, a significant age gap then. Probably she would have preferred an older companion but there were no other girls nearby whom Evelyn considered convenable. My family was not well off but my father was a doctor and my mother had been privately educated, which made me acceptable.

Naturally Isobel had been the dominant one. She had taught me how to ride a bicycle and how to swim, how to serve overarm, how to make a camp, how to waltz, tie knots and mix invisible inks. Sometimes she had been friendly, sometimes patronizing and sometimes beastly. There had been spats, naturally but most of the time we accepted that we were yoked together, an ill-matched team, seemingly in perpetuity.

We had started dancing lessons together at Evelyn’s instigation: ‘So good for their deportment, Dimpsie, and the car’s taking Isobel anyway so Marigold may as well go, too.’

We had attended Miss Fisher’s ballet classes in Haltwhistle. I had adored it from the moment my fingers made contact with the barre and my pink leather pumps with the splintery floor. After three terms we took our first ballet exam. When I had been awarded a distinction and Isobel a pass, there had been indignation and tears. Evelyn had been cross with her.

‘You can’t expect to excel in everything, darling. Marigold is so tiny that she can hop about easily. You should be glad for her that she has done so well, even if it is only in dancing.’

When Miss Fisher sent letters home with us to say she thought Isobel was ready for grade two but I was to move up several classes and try for my intermediate certificate, Isobel had wanted to give up ballet altogether. Evelyn had told her not to be silly.

‘You must learn not to make a fuss about trivial things. It’s very nice for Marigold that she has a little accomplishment. It may come in useful later for balls and dances.’

After I had passed my intermediate certificate with the highest possible mark, Miss Fisher asked to see my mother and told her she should think seriously about sending me to ballet school. Dimpsie went to Evelyn for advice. I remember Evelyn’s face became rather long as she read the letter the examiner had sent privately to Miss Fisher, commending my physical attributes and technical promise. She was silent for a while as Dimpsie and I stared anxiously at her pinched nostrils and compressed lips, waiting for the oracle to pronounce. Young and unsophisticated though I was, I dimly understood that, because of the Preston supremacy in birth and upbringing, for a child of Evelyn’s to be surpassed in anything was something of a facer. An inward struggle was evidently taking place as she folded the letter into small sections.

Then her better self got the upper hand. Talent must never be wasted. She had heard of a ballet school in Manchester that had an excellent reputation. She would ring at once and ask them to send a prospectus. She congratulated me very kindly and asked us both to stay to tea. There was no more talk about ‘little accomplishments’ and ‘hopping about’.

When Isobel heard about the letter she went down to the beck that races through the valley of Gaythwaite and threw in her ballet pumps. Then she put a note through our letterbox. Unless I dropped the whole idea of ballet school she would never speak to me again. Furthermore she would put a curse on me so that my nose would be permanently covered with blackheads.

After a terrifying audition at Brackenbury House Ballet School, I was awarded a place for the following term. This meant I had only a few weeks mooning about Dumbola Lodge in a state of excommunication, shut out from the paradisial delights of Shottestone Manor – the pony, the swimming pool, the tennis court, the garden, the dogs and Mrs Capstick’s celebrated orange cake, which, being a greedy child, I regretted perhaps most of all.

The curse had been lifted by Christmas, much to my relief. I had spent anxious moments, in my precious free time at Brackenbury, examining my face for blackheads. Isobel had been sent to a smart boarding school in Berkshire, and she needed an audience during the holidays for tales of her new life and her new friends. It was about then that Isobel began a campaign of pubescent rebellion against her mother and I was drawn in as her sympathizer and support. Fortunately Evelyn was too busy reorganizing Northumberland to take much notice.

Superficially our relationship had survived the storm. But I had learnt to be guarded. I said almost nothing about my life in Manchester. I played the part of Isobel’s admiring friend, conscious that it behoved me to be generous. Together we celebrated her triumphs, when she was made a school monitor and captain of tennis, when she came top in English, when she was given the role of Jo in Little Women. We went shopping for clothes suitable for visiting school friends’ houses, mansions, chateaux, palazzos, once even a yacht. I listened and marvelled and praised without resentment, for I was going to be a dancer and nothing in the world could compare with the glory of that. First Isobel and then I became old enough to go to proper parties and dances. The best bit about these were the post mortems held in her bedroom when we discussed in minute detail and with tremendous scorn the boys we met there.

When Isobel was sixteen she was sent to school in Switzerland. Eighteen months later I moved to London to join the LBC and the friendship lapsed. I had not seen her for six years. ‘What was Isobel doing before she came home?’ I asked.

‘She finished her course in Fine Arts. Did I tell you that? Then she got a job at Sotheby’s. She sent a message to say how much she was looking forward to seeing you.’

‘That was kind of her.’

‘You were good friends once. I know she could be difficult, but you’re both grownup now … sometimes I think the friendship between women is the most sublime that’s possible between two human beings. Oh, I know the Greeks thought the same about men,’ she dismissed Homer and Plato with a wave and the back wheels skewed as they hit the mound of snow in the middle of the road, ‘but men never really talk to each other, do they?’

I felt sure a sweat of terror must be breaking out on my benumbed brow. ‘Being women, can we know that?’

‘What? Oh, I see what you mean. Well, if Tom’s anything to go by, they never admit to anything more self-revealing than their golf handicap or the size of their socks.’

I realized she was being merely illustrative. My father despised golf and had never given a second’s thought to his socks, which my mother always bought for him. ‘The men I know are usually only too ready to invite you into their psyches. But I don’t suppose they’re typical. But neither is Tom, would you say? I’ve often wondered why he chose to do something that requires being nice to people. He’d be much happier locked in a laboratory on his own.’

I was making idle conversation to take my mind off the narrowness of the road and the steepness of the drop as we reached the head of the valley, but I heard a defensiveness in Dimpsie’s reply.

‘That would have been a great loss to the community though, wouldn’t it? I mean, he’s the cleverest doctor for miles around …’

While my mother rambled on in praise of my father’s diagnostic acuity, I indulged in a brief moment of pleasurable nostalgia. This first view of the valley into which we were now descending always moved me by its beauty. At this time of day only the lights of Gaythwaite were visible. Eagleston Crag, the highest point in the circle of hills, was only a darker mass in a sky swollen with inky clouds, but it was so familiar to me that I could have drawn its shape – like a bent old man with a sack on his back – with complete accuracy.

I closed my eyes tightly and tried to think about other things while we whooshed downwards and bounced over the bridge. ‘Nearly there,’ cried Dimpsie, braking hard to negotiate the sharp turn into our drive. What made it dangerous was a sheer drop of twenty feet into the river below the house. I opened my eyes to see the bright lights of another vehicle approaching. We had lost most of our speed by now and just managed to trickle across the path of a large lorry, with inches to spare. Dimpsie accelerated up the steep drive and ran gently into the mattress placed on its side at the back of the garage to act as a buffer.

‘There we are, darling. Home at last!’

Dumbola Lodge was a solid stone house built in the last century. Going into the hall, I was surprised by the vivid familiarity of things not seen or called to mind for several years. The wallpaper with its pattern of ivy leaves had been put up before I was born. The flagstones undulated at thresholds where generations of footsteps, including my own, had worn them away. Opposite the door was a serpentine chest of drawers to which Dimpsie had applied something caustic in the days when stripped pine was all the rage. Evelyn had been cross with her for ruining a good piece of eighteenth-century mahogany. To the right of it was the longcase clock that had belonged to my maternal grandmother.

Throughout my childhood I had held this clock in special affection. Above the dial were painted billowing clouds and gilded stars surrounding a cut-out semicircle in which the moon, the size of an orange, appeared according to its phases. It had small, kite-shaped eyes above fat cheeks, with lips curved up into a smile, but as a child I had discovered that when I was sad the moon’s smile became a grimace of sorrow. On the day the letter came offering me a place at Brackenbury Lodge, his bright little eyes had flashed with triumph. I was too old now to believe in the existence of a secret ally. It was my guilty conscience that made me imagine a hint of reproof in the moon’s expression. I sniffed the instantly recognizable smell of wet plaster, rubber mackintoshes and the fainter scent of medicated soap from the downstairs cloakroom.

‘Let me look at you.’ Dimpsie pulled off her red tam-o’-shanter and slung it in the direction of the hat stand. ‘Fabulous coat, darling. Evelyn’s always said that you had all the beauty in the family.’

‘How unkind of her. Also untrue. You have remarkable eyes.’

They were large, light brown and transparent with good nature.

‘Unkind? Evelyn? Darling, how can you say that when she’s been so good to you?’ My mother looked hurt.

‘Oh well … all I meant was that you’re still attractive.’ I released one of her dangling silver earrings, which had become hooked on a ringlet that had once been brown and was now greyish.

Dimpsie peered into the mirror above the chest of drawers and pulled a face. ‘Evelyn ticked me off the other day for letting myself go. She said she’d pay for me to go to her hairdresser but I don’t know that I ought … she says I should use makeup but mascara always makes my eyes puff up … and who’s going to notice anyway?’

Dimpsie had been my age, twenty-two, when she married my father. He had been in his final year at medical school. Kate’s imminent arrival had been responsible for this catastrophic mistake. The immediate need for money put paid to his plan of specializing in epidemiology. Instead they moved to Northumberland where he went into general practice. My mother suddenly found herself with a hardworking husband, a house and a baby to look after and no idea how to do any of it. In a spirit of noblesse oblige, Evelyn had invited the new GP and his wife to dinner and my mother had wasted no time in pouring out her feelings of loneliness and helplessness.

This much I had been told by Dimpsie. I guessed that Evelyn might also have been lonely. She liked to rule and the women who stood high enough in the world to be Evelyn’s friends for that reason declined to be bossed. Dimpsie’s unbounded admiration for Evelyn’s beauty, style, strength of character and knowledge of the world must have been flattering. She was thrilled to be asked to fill out invitations, lick stamps and make telephone calls. But I knew that Dimpsie was more than an unpaid secretary. That mysterious chemistry which dictates true friendship operated in their case. Dimpsie was incapable of deceit, she always said exactly what she thought, and I guessed that Evelyn enjoyed being able to do the same without fear of competition or criticism.

‘Never mind.’ Dimpsie did some alternate nostril breathing to dispel negative thinking. ‘There are lots of things more important than one’s appearance … being true to one’s inner being … expanding one’s consciousness …’

When Dimpsie was in her early thirties, some hippies had formed a commune in the ruined farm on the hill behind our house. The local people had complained of drugs, loud music, uncontrolled livestock and neglected children. Dimpsie alone had been enchanted by them. While Evelyn was busy sacking headmasters, reprimanding matrons for dusty windowsills and sending wife-beaters to jail, Dimpsie used to go up to the commune and sit on mattresses covered with Indian bedspreads, smoke joints, eat beans, and have long conversations about the significance of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It was a sort of kindergarten, with nothing to do but be self-indulgent, and Dimpsie loved it. For the first time in her life she had found people who accepted her without wanting to change her. The hashish made everyone affectionate and giggly, which must have been in strong contrast to home.

It was a cause of great sadness when the hippies tired of emptying bucket lavatories and collecting firewood to burn under the pots of beans. One by one they drifted away into advertising and accountancy. The ruined farm was untenanted now but for feral kittens, descendants of the original cats brought by the flower children.

‘Oh, blast!’ Dimpsie had picked up the notepad from beside the telephone. ‘Your father’s had to go out on a call. Vanessa Trumball again.’

‘Who’s Vanessa Trumball?’

‘She moved here about a year ago. She lives up at Roughsike Fell. She must be terribly lonely there on her own – her husband’s left her; such a shame. I thought he was a nice man. Your father has to go up there at least twice a week. It’s lucky for her he’s so dedicated to his profession.’

I wanted to ask if she was young and pretty but I was afraid of causing pain.

‘Never mind.’ Dimpsie hung up our coats, then twirled on the spot with her knee bent and her foot stuck out behind her, a characteristic movement which I had forgotten. ‘We won’t wait for him. Let’s have supper.’

‘I must feed Siggy first and let him have a run. He’s been cooped up all day.’

‘Siggy?’ My mother looked vaguely about the hall.

‘My rabbit.’ I indicated the cage on the flagstones.

‘A rabbit? Oh, how sweet!’

‘Don’t do that!’ I cried just in time to prevent bloodshed, as she bent down, finger poised to stroke him through the bars. ‘He has the meanest temper. I’ll take him upstairs and shut him in my room so he can run about.’

‘But what will your father say?’

Tom hated animals.

‘Need he know?’

‘I suppose not. Not telling isn’t the same as lying, is it? Shall I get him some lettuce?’

I understood that she meant Siggy.

‘He’d rather have meat. Preferably raw.’

It took a while to set Siggy up with a bowl of water, some scraps of chicken breast and a litter tray. Because of being incarcerated all day, he refused to have anything to do with me and sulked among my old shoes in the bottom of my wardrobe. By the time I hobbled downstairs to the kitchen my mother had supper on the table.

‘Lentil soup, darling. And homemade bread.’

I remembered the bread. Dimpsie made it herself from wholemeal flour ground by the watermill in the next valley. It required strong teeth and a stalwart colon. It was, in its own way, delicious. I had a second helping of the soup to gratify Dimpsie. My father considered food a boring necessity, which must have been discouraging for an anxious cook.

‘Lovely,’ I said. ‘Just what I needed after such a long journey.’

‘Poor darling.’ She opened the Aga door and brought out a large pie. ‘This’ll set you up. Cabbage and Jerusalem artichokes with a layer of cheesy mashed potato on top.’

‘Oh goodness! I hadn’t realized there’d be anything else. I don’t think I can …’ I saw her face fall. ‘All right, because it looks so tempting, I’d love just a little.’

While my mother spooned the explosive mixture on to my plate, I looked fondly at the kitchen. The walls had been stencilled with vegetables. I knew they were vegetables because I had helped Dimpsie cut them out years ago. We had had much trouble with the bulb of garlic. However we trimmed it and shaped it, it had continued to remind us of the horribly swollen scrotum my father kept in formaldehyde in his study.

‘Now, darling,’ said Dimpsie when I had eaten as much of the vegetable hotpot as I possibly could, ‘I’ll make some coffee and we can have a lovely cosy chat before Tom comes in.’

I answered her questions about my leg with vague reassurances, then I told her about my flat and Giselle and Lizzie and Bella and the other members of the company. Dimpsie rested her cheek on her hand and looked at me with dreaming eyes.

‘It all sounds such heaven. Now tell me about the men in your life.’ A note of wistfulness crept into her voice. ‘I’m in the mood for a little vicarious romance.’

‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but there isn’t anyone particular.’ The decision not to tell her about Sebastian was made in a moment, before I had a chance to reflect. Dimpsie was the most broad-minded mother in the world but suddenly I couldn’t bear even the thought of him. ‘I don’t really have time for men at the moment.’ I yawned extravagantly. ‘I’m shattered. I must go to bed. I’ll see Tom at breakfast.’ I saw the disappointment in her eyes. ‘But before I go up you must tell me about Kate.’

Dimpsie’s face brightened. She poured us both more coffee and popped a piece of halva into her mouth. ‘Well, darling, it’s really rather fascinating … I went to see her just before Christmas. You remember Dougall always made us take our shoes off in the porch? Well, now you have to put on plastic things like bath hats over your feet …’