A Rival Creation Page 4

  ‘In all my years as a naturalist,’ Evelyn said, ‘I’ve always found English perfectly satisfactory for my needs.’

  There was a stubborn streak in Liberty. They had bullied her into starting this story, now they would have to listen until she’d finished. ‘Be that as it may,’ she said, ‘but there I was, shaking the rain from my umbrella before leaving it in a corner of the room. Moments later one of the boys, a rather fat one, got up and began to scramble across the outstretched legs of the others. He tripped and fell, landing on top of Cissy, my father’s beagle. I dived forward, hand outstretched, to help the boy up. Arrgh! Cissy, startled by having a fat boy land on top of her when she was fast asleep, sprang up, the whites of her eyes showing. Crunch! Her teeth clamped onto my cheek and then my finger as I put up my hand to protect myself. Whack! My father hit Cissy across the back with my umbrella and Yelp! she let go.’ Liberty looked round the table and smiled sweetly. ‘I sank to the floor and, holding out my bleeding hand to my father, I quoted: “Thou rascal beagle hold thy bloody hand.” Then I fainted, for once fitting my father’s idea of the perfect woman: educated but feminine.’

  There was quite a long silence after that.

  Someone spoke at last. ‘Mrs Turner used to be a writer.’ The middle-aged woman, whom Liberty did not know, volunteered the information like an apology on Liberty’s behalf. Liberty gave her a pained glance.

  ‘It’s beadle not beagle,’ Evelyn said. ‘“Thou rascal beadle—”’

  ‘You’re absolutely right,’ Liberty agreed. ‘But Cissy is a beagle.’

  ‘Beagles don’t bite,’ Neville said.

  Oscar Brooke seemed to have cheered up. ‘I rather think we should have had that story in the Tribune,’ he said, smiling across the table at Liberty.

  ‘Well now you’ve had your little bit of fun,’ Nancy’s smile, on the other hand, was as tight as if it had shrunk in the wash. ‘I can see you’re not going to tell us what happened. Of course that’s your prerogative.’ She turned round in her chair. ‘And look, what have we here? Pat’s special Harvest Pud, how lovely!’

  As the apple crumble and vanilla ice-cream were passed round, Liberty turned round with a grin and whispered to Evelyn, ‘Every child knows that if you want to be believed, the last thing you should do is tell the truth.’

  ‘Mrs Sanderson,’ Victoria spoke across the table in that sweet, thick voice that fused the words together like toffee.

  Nancy turned round, her face softening. ‘Do call me Nancy.’

  ‘I’ve experienced the most wonderful sense of community in some of the most deprived inner city areas,’ Ted said suddenly on Liberty’s right.

  ‘Nancy then,’ Victoria smiled. ‘Jenny Haville-Jones told me you have the yummiest recipe for crab-apple jelly and I wondered if I could pop over and copy it down. I’ve been searching for a really good one for absolutely ages, haven’t I, darling?’ She turned her smile on Oscar who nodded, but without much enthusiasm.

  Ted Brain pushed his chair back and cleared his throat. ‘So another Harvest Festival draws to a close. I’m grateful to all of you who made it to today’s festivities and of course especially those of you,’ he nodded towards Nancy and Pat, ‘who have worked so hard preparing this meal, and decorating the hall to make this such a pleasant occasion.’ The vicar paused for a moment, looking down at his hands. ‘Still, I must say that I find myself disappointed to note that the circle of friends assembled here today is not much different to that which I would find at any village drinks party. The church and our festivals must not come across like an exclusive club. Somehow we must find ways of reaching out to our neighbours and drawing them into our circle.’ Ted folded his napkin lengthwise, then across, as mouths were opened; but nothing came forth but offended silence.

  Some minutes later, when Liberty began the two mile walk back home, a car pulled up alongside her, and Evelyn, seated in the front passenger seat next to her nephew, wound down her window and offered her a lift.

  ‘You went off in a hurry. We’re going back to my place. Come and join us for some decent coffee.’

  Liberty said she needed the walk but she might drop in later. As the car drove off again, Evelyn popped her head out of the window once more. ‘Suicide is so frightfully middle class,’ she hissed. ‘Don’t do it.’ Off they went, with the gorgeous Victoria giving a little wave from the back. She is like a young queen, so beautiful and young and adored, Liberty thought as she walked on in the misty autumn afternoon that was so silent and solid in its gloom, it was as if the world was wrapped in a grey blanket. She stopped on the bridge and, leaning over the railings, she gazed down into the shallow water that looked as if it had just rinsed over a pair of muddy boots.

  ‘Suicide is so frightfully middle class,’ she heard Evelyn’s words.

  ‘But I am middle class,’ she moaned as she stood on tip-toe, leaning over the railing.

  Oh what was the point? You would have to be unconscious first to drown in that trickle. She wondered if the recent drought and accompanying low water levels had had a corresponding effect on the suicide statistics. There could be yet another gripe at the water privatisation in it. ‘It’s diabolical! Since the water was taken away from the people and put into the hands of the bosses you can’t even get enough for a decent suicide.’ Giving the river a last glance, she began the last half mile of the walk back home.

  The house needed airing, and on the kitchen table the bottle of sleeping pills waited like a long-suffering housewife with the dinner in the oven. ‘Hang on,’ Liberty said. ‘I’ve got Friday’s episode of Home and Away to watch first.’ She made herself a cup of tea and sat down in front of the video. She was half-way through the episode when the door bell went. Sighing, she pressed the pause button and got up to answer. It was Oscar.

  ‘Evelyn sent me,’ he said. ‘She was most insistent you come over and, as you probably know, she never gives up.’ He smiled at her. ‘She has absolutely no concept of what is known as personal space, either. When she stayed in my flat in London she was quite capable of coming into the bathroom whilst you were bathing, or even on the loo, if she wanted to speak to you.’

  ‘Didn’t you have a lock?’ Liberty stood back to let Oscar in.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘An old Australian tradition.’

  ‘You’re not Australian are you?’ Liberty said, her voice gaining a little colour. ‘My son is about to go to Australia.’

  ‘No, no I’m not.’ Oscar smiled again. Liberty opened her mouth to speak but Oscar added quickly, ‘You look a little tired, if I may say so. Are you all right?’ He looked at her through his round glasses, his blue eyes remote but kindly.

  Spectacles on Oscar Brooke, Liberty thought, were rather like hairpins holding up the locks of a gorgeous brunette; you found yourself imagining taking them off. ‘Oh I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’ve just had a couple of bad days.’

  What stupid things one says: ‘Oh it’s nothing, I’ve just lost my job,’ or, ‘I’m very well thank you, riddled with cancer but otherwise on top of the world.’ Ridiculous. But she put her coat on obediently and followed Oscar the few yards along the lane to Evelyn’s place.

  Glebe House was an Elizabethan farmhouse which had managed through the centuries to remain so. ‘Narrowly avoided having a Georgian front slapped on it on at least two occasions,’ Evelyn said. She was also fond of complaining, ‘If I have to hear the words Desirable Property once more from some spotty-faced yappy or whatever they are called, I will sue for verbal battery.’

  Evelyn had inherited the house from her parents, and she had made few changes in her childhood home. Once, when Liberty was admiring the blue embroidered curtains in the sitting-room, Evelyn had thanked her for the compliment. ‘They are pretty aren’t they. I believe Mother hung them in 1939. I remember her saying if there was going to be a war, at least she could have some good curtains to look at. Though I don’t know that they were of much comfort to her when poor Herbert got injured.’

  ‘Of
course, you’re Herbert’s son,’ Liberty said now to Oscar as they arrived at Evelyn’s front door. Thinking of her own mother she asked, ‘Did you ever meet him?’

  ‘No.’ Oscar held the door open for her, then followed her inside. ‘No I didn’t. He died in May 1948, two months before I was born. His ship was torpedoed during the Battle of the Atlantic. It took him five years to die.’

  Liberty sighed. ‘How sad.’ She paused for a moment before adding, ‘But at least it wasn’t you who killed him. You must be thankful for that.’

  At this Oscar looked surprised, but before he had time to answer Evelyn called out to them, ‘Hot or cold milk in your coffee?’

  Liberty wandered through to the kitchen across the worn, pale green carpet. ‘Hot, please.’

  Evelyn stood, surrounded by gadgets, in the large kitchen with its dark oak beams and old blue painted wooden cupboards. Liberty always wondered why, in this house where new possessions were so scarce, the kitchen looked like an electricity show-room: microwaves and processors, juice machines, icecream and yoghurt makers, electric whisks and mincers, even an electric wok.

  Heating milk on a ceramic hob, Evelyn said, ‘So you didn’t kill yourself. Good.’ The milk boiled over, frying itself brown on the red-hot hob. ‘Blast! I hate cooking.’

  ‘So why do you spend all that money on kitchen gadgets?’ Liberty grabbed a cloth and began wiping the spills.

  Evelyn piled cups and saucers, made of china so fine you could see your fingers outlined through it, onto the tray. ‘I told you,’ she said, ‘I hate cooking. Now you go on in, I’ll be with you in a minute.’

  In the sitting-room, water-colours by talented amateurs mingled with oil-paintings of surprising boldness and quality, books spilt from the bookcase onto the carpet, where they were stacked in dusty heaps, and the many little tables positioned round the room were barely visible beneath seed trays and potted plants. Evelyn was a well-respected expert on natural pest control. This room and the converted garage were her offices, the garden running down to the river was her laboratory; an acre and a half of theories put into practice.

  Victoria joined Liberty by the french windows. ‘I think being busy with her garden keeps Evelyn young, you know,’ she said with the air of one conveying new and startling information.

  ‘Yes, absolutely,’ Liberty agreed.

  ‘I think any interest like that helps keep the years at bay,’ Victoria added.

  ‘True, true,’ Liberty nodded, but Victoria’s huge dark eyes fixed on her made her feel that something more was expected of her. ‘The devil soon finds work for idle hands,’ she tried.

  ‘It’s so peaceful in the country,’ Victoria said. Again they both stared out across the garden.

  If you stepped out from the french windows you could walk dry-footed on the York stone terrace until the lawns took over, running down to the riverbank. Even now, the evergreens planted along the walls broke up the grey dusk: Daphne Odorata, Sarcococca with its scented white winter flowers, Lavender lanata, box, lemon verbena. Liberty knew them all, and in the summer their scents mingled with those of the roses and floated inside on the warm breeze. Yes, it did seem peaceful and it certainly was beautiful, but amongst the trees and shrubs and the grass that was green and tall even now, things were going on that would make downtown LA seem cosy. In Evelyn’s garden every bug, it seemed, was someone else’s meal.

  Behind them there was a clinking of cups as Evelyn slammed the tray down on the low table in front of the sofa.

  ‘Ah coffee,’ Liberty said, gesticulating vaguely in Evelyn’s direction.

  ‘I had another offensive letter from that so-called farmer down the road,’ Evelyn said as they all settled down. ‘Have you met him, Oscar? Tim Haville-Jones.’ She splashed some warm milk into a cup of coffee and handed it to Liberty. ‘The sort of man who feels the addition of a second surname is an achievement.’

  ‘They have got the most gorgeous family, though,’ Victoria said, turning her long eyes on Evelyn. ‘His wife and I had a little bump in our cars on that really narrow bit of road by the bridge. No-one was hurt or anything, but we had a really nice chat.’

  ‘In my days it was visiting cards,’ Evelyn muttered, pouring herself some coffee.

  Victoria ignored her. ‘The twins are adorable. I don’t know where Jenny gets their clothes, but they were wearing the sweetest little outfits, and their shoes were like little tiny riding boots with—’

  Oscar didn’t wait for Victoria to finish. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Oak,’ Evelyn said making her mouth into a disapproving line. Like one of those you draw in the sand, Liberty thought, and you cross at your peril.

  ‘Oak?’ Oscar found a space on the table for his cup and saucer between the tray of cuttings and the black notebooks.

  ‘The oak in the field, silly.’ Evelyn pointed towards the field beyond the river.

  ‘Oh that oak,’ Liberty said. ‘I thought I heard something about it being cut down.’

  ‘Yes, well that’s exactly it.’ Evelyn spoke with the sort of stretched-to-snapping-point patience one usually reserves for querulous toddlers. ‘And I’m not going to allow him to do it, and that’s why he is writing rude letters.’

  ‘I wrote a story about a tree. An old tree that had seen lovers come and go through the ages. I couldn’t believe it, but when I sent it into a competition run by our local bookshop, I got a highly commended. It was published in this writers’ magazine,’ Victoria said in that sweet voice that would have made Liberty listen even if she had not said something so startling.

  ‘You write?’

  The magnolia face creased in a smile. ‘No, not really. I just feel a story coming on now and then. And then Oscar said, “Why don’t you send that one in?” I got this really nice letter back saying that I must carry on, because my writing showed real promise. That’s why I thought I’d like to go to your class. Just for fun really. I want to be a full-time home-maker now. I know that’s not fashionable, but I’ve never followed the herd, have I, Oscar?’

  ‘No. No I suppose you haven’t.’ Oscar uncrossed his long legs and picked up his cup, drinking the hot coffee in big gulps before putting it back, a little too hard, on to the table.

  Liberty’s cup had rattled to the edge of the saucer. ‘Just like that, was it? You thought you’d like to write a story, so you did, and it was accepted for publication?’ The words came out of her throat carefully, one by one as if they had explosives strapped to their backs. ‘That’s simply wonderful.’ But inside she raged. It just was not fair. Like giving the pretty doll with the blonde corkscrew curls and the pink smocked dress the teddy bear’s growl as well: de trop, unnecessary, unfair.

  ‘Maybe you should employ your wife to write in to that wretched Village Diary Neville was carrying on about,’ Evelyn suggested.

  Oscar stirred in his chair, a sullen expression on his face.

  Liberty dropped her jealousy for just long enough to say, ‘Yes, why don’t you?’

  Victoria was leafing through a copy of The Field and she said without looking up, ‘No, I don’t think so, it’s not really me. I like making up stories if I’m going to write at all – you know, fiction. Didn’t you Liberty, when you wrote?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Liberty nodded. ‘Absolutely.’

  A little later she went back home, having refused an offer from Oscar to walk her back. ‘I’ve got a torch. Honestly, it’s only a few yards.’

  She paused in her hall, looking at the aspidistra that looked droopy all of a sudden, as if the atmosphere around the house in the last few days had sucked the very life from its stems. Liberty went up close to it, taking one of the fleshy leaves in her hand. ‘Don’t you die on me,’ she said, ‘do you hear? Any dying round here comes strictly from me.’

  She sat down in the darkened sitting-room, her coat still on, and switched the video back on. The characters from Home and Away sprang to life, a small square of colour and some noise to break the silence of the hous
e.

  Village Diary

  Extract from the Tribune

  Tollymead: The village celebrated Harvest with a gourmet lunch served in the village hall. As usual, this popular annual event brought together people of all ages and occupations in this spread-out but friendly village. Closing the proceedings, the Vicar of Tollymead, the Reverend Ted Brain, said he looked forward to an ever wider circle of villagers joining in future events. Mr Brain, who is well known for his active social concern and support for the less fortunate in our society, was particularly pleased with the many splendid gifts that will be distributed to the elderly and house-bound in the area.

  Three

  Nancy Sanderson had returned from a busy day on the Bench in Winchester. Having made sure that her husband had eaten the lunch she had prepared for him (cottage pie and mushy peas; ‘nothing fancy, I’m a simple man’), she settled down in her favourite armchair by the window in the sitting-room, with a cup of tea and a chocolate Hobnob. With a little sigh of contentment she opened that week’s copy of the Tribune. Some moments later she called out to her husband,

  ‘Andrew dear, have you read the Tribune today?’

  From his next-door study, Andrew shouted back, ‘No, of course not. I have such a thing as a business to run you know!’

  Chastised, Nancy got up and, putting her bony, high-arched feet back into the brown lace-ups, tip-toed into the study.

  ‘Of course dear.’ She was using a voice reserved for her husband, a coaxing, softer voice, as though she had been polishing her normal tones with superfine sandpaper before letting them spring from her throat, a voice that would have surprised the young man she had just jailed for driving when over the limit. ‘It’s just that there’s a big Diary entry for Tollymead this week, about the Harvest Festival. I can’t think who it would be writing in, but—’

  ‘But what Nancy? I’m trying to work.’

  Nancy winced at the impatience in his voice and wished that just for once he’d leave it behind when he spoke to her. ‘Oh nothing dear. I’ll let you get on.’ Having placed a reverential kiss on the top of his balding head, she tip-toed away.