Hartsend Page 4

  She disposed of the leftovers and the surplus food donated by her neighbours, some into the dustbin and some by flushing it down the toilet, in measured amounts, so as not to block the system. Now she had to try to remember which plates and bowls came from whom.

  The white stoneware casserole was from the Robertsons next door. She would scour it carefully, and leave it on their doorstep, rather than ring the doorbell. Ruby exhausted her. She sucked up information like a vacuum cleaner sucking up dust. She peeked through her net curtains all the time, and chided the postman if he didn’t close the gate after him. She picked up litter from her front garden and threw it back into the street each time she went out. Her husband was always Mr Robertson, never Walter. And the eyebrows! Completely plucked out then painted in blue, they gave her a perpetual look of superiority and astonishment.

  The cornflakes had gone stale, but Lesley ate her way through half the bowl before thinking Why am I doing this? I don’t have to eat these. I can eat, or not eat. No-one is going to ask. The idea rocked her, despite its smallness. She stared at a dribble of milk on the chequered oilcloth.

  Careful, she told herself. This might be all freedom amounted to. Until the lawyer dealt with everything, she didn’t know whether there was money or not. Too soon yet to throw saucepans at walls, or install a shower, or abandon her job and move from perpetual rain to somewhere warm and beautiful. And where would she go? What would she do, a woman her age, alone? It wouldn’t happen. She would go back at work, to the bickering of the other admin staff, and harried teachers’ demands, and pupils requesting the toilet key, and the same old post-Christmas conversations. … love them but it’s wonderful when they leave honestly I think I’ve seen that film five times at least if I never eat a mince pie again it’ll be too soon you’re so lucky Lesley going home to a quiet house and your meal made for you, instead of a husband and children mumphing and complaining …

  No such luck now, if luck it had ever been.

  She took her tea though to the front sitting room to begin clearing out the desk. It seemed as good a place as any.

  The party

  ‘‘I’m so glad you decided to come, Lesley. Oh, thank you, you shouldn’t have.’’

  What Lesley ‘‘shouldn’t have’’ was a box of Arran Aromatics soaps wrapped in flowered paper. She hadn’t in fact bought this – it was one of several she’d found in her mother’s wardrobe, but there was still a recognisable scent of lavender when she sniffed the box. Waste not, want not, she told herself. Duncan, festive in his Crawfurd tartan waistcoat and matching bow tie, was hovering behind his mother, waiting to take her coat and hat.

  ‘‘And how are you, my dear?’’ Mrs Crawfurd was wearing cashmere as always. The shade this year was grey, neck and hem edged with a paler silver grey that toned exactly with her pearls.

  But all was not as always. This was a new thing, being here alone. And the questioning that began in her head, this was brand new. Was this woman really ‘‘glad’’? Was she interested in Lesley’s wellbeing?

  Thank you for asking. Let’s sit down for an hour and I will tell you how I am, or rather I will explore how I feel, because I’m not in the least sure. My heart feels as if it wants to burst. Do you think that’s possible?

  Perhaps Mrs Crawfurd was glad because if people didn’t come she would know she had lost her importance as the prize inhabitant of the village. Perhaps her doubts were already growing. So many new people, so many new houses on all sides encroaching on the old village. Perhaps she was already forgotten. The malice of this thought was so sharp and so satisfying that Lesley felt momentarily dizzy.

  ‘‘I’m quite well, thank you,’’ she said.

  Why had she come? She pulled off her boots, (placing them on the newspapers which had been spread on a tray beside the umbrella stand, in advance, as always) and slipped on her good black patent shoes. They were old but immaculate, rather like Duncan’s bow tie. He only ever wore it at New Year. Was this why she had come, out of cowardice, out of habit?

  Or was being here an act of courage? How much easier it would have been to send a note. I am still too distressed by Mother’s death. I know you will understand. There was distress, true, but it wasn’t her mother’s death that was distressing her.

  It had been hard and weary work at first, going through her mother’s correspondence but without warning it had suddenly become less weary, because, there were, inexplicably, several letters addressed to Miss Lesley Crosthwaite which she had never received or read. A letter from Jennifer, one of her friends at college. A wedding invitation, dated twenty years previously from someone whose name now rang no bell. And a postcard from Canada, from Hector …

  ‘‘Ready? Do come and meet everyone.’’

  The hall through which she followed Mrs Crawfurd was just as she remembered; the nearly black sandalwood chest brought back from the Captain’s youthful years in the Eastern Fleet, the gross and politically incorrect cast-iron money banks sitting on it, ‘‘Dinah’’ and ‘‘The Jolly Nigger’’, waiting to raise pennies to their red-lipped mouths, the elaborately framed still life painted by Mrs Crawfurd’s Victorian grandmother on glass, the lilies on the glass topped table, pouring out their too-lush scent.

  Duncan had disappeared upstairs with the coat. His mother placed a tentative three fingers beneath Lesley’s elbow to usher her forward into the conservatory, with its tall plants and white statuary.

  ‘‘Sherry? Or something soft? Do help yourself. I think you know most people, dear,’’ her hostess added, hastily, for the doorbell was tinkling.

  And of course Lesley did know most of them. Her own GP, the almost completely bald Dr MacKinnon, and his nervous wife, whose fair hair had thinned over the years as if in sympathy. The new young doctor whose name she’d heard, but could not now remember. There was no wife beside him, perhaps there wasn’t one yet, he looked so young, no more than sixteen. Here was Miss Calvert, the energetic headmistress of the primary school, looking incomplete without her bicycle. Standing apart from these, Duncan’s cousins, a couple she recognized but had never spoken to, and the tall bearded man who was something terribly important in the High Court, with his terribly slim wife. The grown-up daughter, not quite so slim, had a man with her this year.

  ‘‘Glad to see you, Lesley,’’ Dr MacKinnon said.

  Since he wasn’t a man famed in the village for his bedside manner, his gladness, Lesley thought, was possibly more sincere than Mrs Crawfurd’s. He was an intelligent man, and thorough, which was what counted.

  She accepted his firm handshake, though even here questions were forming in her mind, because this man had been their family doctor for years and years. Did you know what she was doing? Did you guess? My heart feels as if it would like to burst.

  ‘‘You won’t know Dr Gordon,’’ he nodded at the teenager beside him. ‘‘Just joined us. English, but it’s getting harder to find a man these days, so we took him in.’’

  The young man laughed, but his manner suggested the joke had been told many times. His hair was dark and curly, his skin as smooth and flawless as a baby’s. Surely he wasn’t old enough to command birth and death and the stretch in between?

  ‘‘And what do you do?’’ the young man asked.

  ‘‘I’m a secretary in the High School.’’

  Instantly Lesley knew that she had been boxed and labelled. Spinster. Overweight. Not very bright. She stared fixedly at the wine glasses on the glaring white linen.

  ‘‘So you get all these lovely long holidays.’’

  ‘‘No,’’ she told him, and turning away, took the nearest glass. What was she doing? As a rule when this question was asked, she chattered obligingly about how good that would be, and what a pity the office staff didn’t get the holidays, but it wasn’t so terrible, because the school was quiet without the children etc etc, aligning herself with the other speaker, positioning herself alongside like a friendly little dingy sidling up to a bigger vessel.

  ‘‘You d
o know that’s champagne,’’ a voice said.

  She looked at the glass in her hand, then at Duncan. Dear Duncan. Unchanging as the war memorial. Predictable as winter weather. He was playing with his top waistcoat button. From childhood she had envied those fingers so unlike her little stubby ones. His handwriting had won the class prize year after year. As always, he had written the New Year invitations in immaculate copperplate. Fountain pen, royal blue ink on cream card. And written, no doubt, with his mother at his elbow checking the guest list.

  ‘‘Not that there’s any reason …’’ he began, flushing slightly.

  She ought to have helped him, but in her new perverse mood she found herself saying nothing.

  ‘‘Duncan, dear, can I have a word?’’ his mother said, ushering forward a new arrival, whom Lesley recognised with slight surprise, for neither Duncan nor his mother were regular church goers. She watched Duncan introduce the minister to his cousin. She didn’t want to speak to the minister, didn’t want to speak to anyone. She turned away, walking to the window alcove as if to admire the flower arrangement. This was the difference, she saw now. This was what it meant, this being here by herself. She was expected to speak. It was no longer possible to stand beside Mother and smile and make murmuring sounds. How incredibly stupid not to have thought of it before. Her usual stupidity, of course: the failure to think ahead, to remember that she was always seasick until she was on board and it was too late, or to recall that coconut in a cake or a sweet made her gag till the slice or spoonful was irretrievably in her mouth.

  There was no-one here she wanted to be with, not her hostess, not the relations, and certainly not robust Miss Calvert, the only other single woman present, who had calf muscles like a man and was always eager to pour forth at length on her latest adventure storming the Alps or the Andes.

  ‘‘I expect you know everyone here.’’ The young doctor had followed her.

  If she said nothing he would surely move away. She sipped at her drink.

  How strangely the minister was dressed. Not at all like the man she remembered from the funeral. He wore a checked shirt, with no tie, a brown leather waistcoat, and dark corduroy trousers. He looked like a cowboy. She imagined a horse, tied up to the rhododendrons in the front garden. Duncan had vanished. She assumed he’d taken the minister’s coat away.

  The young doctor was still beside her, waiting for an answer. What question had he asked? She took a large mouthful of the champagne, and felt it trickling down inside her chest, bright and cold but somehow warming at the same time.

  ‘‘Doctor Gordon, have you found somewhere to live yet?’’

  They both turned. Mrs MacKinnon was blinking at them from under her long, sparse fringe. Her dress was a pale lemon colour, with a pattern of daisies and leaves which looked as if they were wilting, as if the material had been made up the wrong way round.

  ‘‘Early days, I suppose, but has anything turned up for you?’’

  ‘‘I’ve been looking at the new builds,’’ he said. ‘‘Over at the site of the old brickworks, is that right?’’

  Mrs MacKinnon frowned. ‘‘But they’re all so squashed together. You could lean out of one window and hand something to your neighbour. And they’re so close to the tinkers’ site …’’

  Travellers, Lesley told her silently. She knew two of the children from the school; identical twins, round-faced, with small eyes and long un-brushed hair. They attended intermittently but caused no trouble.

  ‘‘Yes, well at least you know the price,’’ the young doctor said. ‘‘I tried for a couple on the far side of the river, but the asking price bears no resemblance to what they go for. It’s very different from what I’m used to.’’

  There was a younger child, too young for school, a blond sweet-faced girl, with huge dark brown eyes who had stared back at her from their ramshackle van outside the Post Office, almost as if trying to read her mind.

  Suddenly everyone seemed determined to crowd her into the corner. She tried to move back but there was nowhere to go except into the curtains.

  ‘‘I believe our Scottish system is better, in fact, but everything’s gone crazy these days,’’ Dr MacKinnon rested a large hand on his wife’s shoulder. ‘‘We were lucky, bought our first house at the beginning of the seventies, six thousand it cost us. Four years later we sold it for eleven. Price of oil went up, you see. I dare say we’re sitting on half a million now. ’’

  ‘‘Oh, more than that I think,’’ one of the Crawfurd relations commented. ‘‘Property in the right place is always going to …’’

  Dr McKinnon interrupted, ‘‘Ah, good, smells like the curry’s been brought through. Hope you like a good strong curry, Gordon.’’

  But Mrs McKinnon was troubled. ‘‘I just think it’s all so fast. The village isn’t the close-knit community it used to be. There are all sorts of people here now. I came over to the butcher’s shop last week to collect our turkey and chipolatas, and the place was full, and when I looked round, I didn’t know a single soul. I was the only one served by name, actually. You understand what I mean, don’t you, Lesley? There are so many incomers now.’’

  ‘‘Well, I hope you don’t disapprove of all the incomers, Mrs McKinnon,’’ the young doctor said. There was a pause, then everyone laughed. Lesley smiled with the rest, wishing she had the courage to point out that Mrs MacKinnon and her husband didn’t in fact live in the village any more, but in its much more salubrious neighbour, and that having come originally from an entirely different city on the other side of the country, they were incomers twice over.

  A bell rang. There was a chorus of appreciative murmurs from those guests who recognised what this signified, and the tight little press of bodies around Lesley began to loosen. She knew exactly what would be on the table: a large pale salmon with its parsley and lemon slices, tiny pastry shells filled with paté and sunblush tomatoes, honey garlic chicken on bamboo skewers, the famous Malay curry (the Captain’s secret recipe), with basmati rice, rösti potatoes in the Delft bowl for those who didn’t like rice.

  None of which she wanted. There was a metallic taste in her mouth. Had she been grinding her teeth in the night? She looked at her drink. It was a pretty colour, but tasted no better to her than lemonade, an insipid lemonade at that. Why was such a fuss made over it? There was no alcohol in their own house, a legacy of her grandfather’s steadfast adherence to the principles of the Rechabites. My house, she corrected herself. My house, where all that has been hidden will be laid bare. Was that the Bible or Shakespeare?

  All will be laid bare.

  All? She drank some more, and more again.

  ‘‘Miss Crosthwaite?’’

  It was the minister, gesturing at her, inviting her to come to the table. He really did look like a cowboy without a horse.

  Greetings from Calgary, Hector’s postcard had said on the front in bright yellow letters, with a mounted policeman holding a long lance with a pennant. On the reverse he’d written, Hope you’re not working too hard. Will write again when I’m settled. Best wishes your friend Hector.

  She had tried to think of some explanation, but in the end there was only one. Mother had ruled out forever the mounted policeman, the impossible shininess of his boots, the assured curve of his legs around the horse, the pure and perfect scarlet of his uniform.

  She put down her empty glass, picked up a full one, and went in to the dining room.

  The waistcoat and the prawn

  ‘‘Did you know this was champagne?’’ Lesley asked the minister.

  He nodded. ‘‘And a very fine champagne it is.’’

  She moved, and stumbled a little.

  ‘‘I’m fine, thank you,’’ she said, shrugging off his hand, which for some reason seemed to be attempting to dust her sleeve.

  ‘‘Why don’t you sit here, and let me fill a plate for you.’’

  She sank down into a chair. Above and around her head, people were talking with their mouths full, exclaiming ov
er the food, moving in and out. The minister didn’t come back. So much for good manners. Dark suits and bright dresses blurred and the noise level rose, though no-one bothered to talk to her. She might as well have been a cushion. Finding her glass empty, she placed it very carefully on the arm of the chair, then, feeling that might be too precarious, she picked it up again. Very slowly she leaned forward and managed to place it on the floor where, she realized a moment later, it was just as likely to be knocked over. Really, this was all very difficult. They should have put tables near the chairs.

  Duncan’s mother was coming towards her across the room, a plate in one hand.

  Lesley said, ‘‘Thank you so much. I’m so sorry. I was having such a problem knowing where to put this beautiful glass. Crystal glass. It’s very kind of you. Kind of you.’’ She burped, but only a very small burp, which she managed to turn into a discreet cough.

  Duncan’s mother didn’t answer. She hovered for a moment then for no apparent reason turned away without handing over the plate of food. Puzzled, Lesley watched the immaculate white chignon and its owner disappear into the corridor that led to the kitchen and the pantry. She knew that pantry. At one of Duncan’s childhood parties, playing hide and seek, she and another little girl had hidden there in the dark, and when found, had panicked, bringing down the roller towel and its fittings.

  ‘‘I was so frightened. I thought we had broken it, ruined it for ever,’’ she said.

  The important cousin’s skinny wife looked down at her, eyebrows raised.