A Village Affair

CHAPTER NINE

In June, Anthony Jordan completed the sale of his luxurious, impersonal flat on Tregunter Path, Hong Kong, cleared his office desk, told the girl who had optimistically hoped for four years that he might marry her that he never would, and took a taxi out to Kai Tak airport with ten years' worth of Far Eastern living packed economically into only three suitcases. He told friends that he was exhausted by the climate and the claustrophobia of Hong Kong and that he wanted to try his hand at something other than corporate finance. He did not say that he would otherwise become lumbered with a largely unwanted wife but everyone knew that that was the case, and took sides in the affair, sides that were very largely weighted against Anthony. Enough people had endured his combination of exploitation and exhibitionism to feel nothing but gratitude towards Cathay Pacific for carrying him firmly homewards. When he had gone, Diana McPherson, who had loved him very much despite her better self, found herself asked out a good deal so that people could tell her that it was better to be an old maid for ever than to be married for five minutes to someone like Anthony Jordan.

His father met him at Heathrow. They had met on Richard's travels about once a year, and Anthony had come on infrequent leave, infrequent because he preferred to go to California than to come home. Anthony thought his father was looking well and fit and distinguished and Richard thought Anthony, despite his expensive clothes, was looking slightly dissolute. They took a taxi into Central London to Richard's tiny flat in Bryanston Street, and then went to the Savoy Grill for dinner. Anthony talked a great deal about why he had left Hong Kong and even more about the extraordinary number of alternatives he now had for a job in the City. He said he thought he would like to work for one of the big accepting houses. Richard listened, noticed that Anthony drank too much and ate not enough and then said, gently, that the City was of course a changed place. Anthony said rudely that his father didn't know a thing about the City and Richard sighed because, even if the City had changed, Anthony plainly hadn't.

Only when they were on the way back to Bryanston Street did Anthony ask about his family.

'You must go and see for yourself.'

'Old Martin,' Anthony said, staring out of the taxi window at the seedy muddle of Piccadilly Circus, 'old Martin seems to have done all right.'

'Certainly.'

'More up your and Mother's street, really, what Martin has done-'

'I can only speak for myself and I wouldn't agree with you. As long as you both do what suits you best in life, insofar as that is ever possible, then that's what I want for you, and I should think what your mother wants, too.'

'Very diplomatic.'

Richard said nothing.

'Nice house,' Anthony said and his voice was faintly sneering. 'Lovely wife. Three children. Solid job. Getting on nicely. Pillar of the community. Good old Martin.'

'Yes,' Richard said, 'all true.'

'And what you wish I'd done-'

'Not at all,' Richard said in the level, patient voice he used a great deal of the time now, to Cecily, 'unless you wish it yourself.'

Anthony gave a little yelp.

'Bloody hell-'

The taxi crossed Oxford Circus and turned left.

'Go and see them,' Richard said again. 'You will really like the children.'

Anthony turned in his seat.

'How would you know? Mother said you hardly ever see them.'

How many middle-class fathers, Richard wondered in a burst of fury, longed passionately sometimes to hit their sons, and envied working-class ones who sensibly just did, and thus avoided sleepless nights of emotional torment and pointless days of fruitless negotiations. He took a deep breath.

'I am lucky,' he said, 'in that I have in my life a few people who recognize that I am a human being. I am unlucky in that my family are on the whole not in that number.'

Anthony burst into an exaggerated, cackling laugh.

'Oh it's good to be back! Oh it is! Some things don't change and paternal pomposity is one-'

The taxi stopped. Richard turned to look at Anthony.

'Are you thirty-six?'

'Yes-'

'Thirty-six.' Richard opened the taxi door and climbed out. Anthony heard him sigh and then say to the cab driver, 'Give me forty pence change, would you?'

On the pavement together, when the cab had driven off, Anthony said, 'Why did you ask?'

'I am not,' Richard said, 'going to give you the satisfaction of an honest answer. Nor of a row your first night home. Come on. Bed.'

In the lift, Anthony said, 'I could do with a nightcap-'

'Help yourself.'

'Join me?'

'No thank you. I have to be up at six.'

Grinning, Anthony began to hum, his eyes on his father, and Richard tried to smile back as if they were sharing a joke rather than a mutual animosity.

After a few days in London, Anthony went down to Dummeridge. It was a rare and perfect June afternoon, with a clear and brilliant light, and Anthony congratulated himself on leaving the breathless mists of Hong Kong for weather which behaved as weather was meant to. He had a lot of presents for Cecily, a length of silk, a magnum of pink champagne, an imitation Gucci handbag and a miniature nineteenth century Korean medicine chest. They had talked every day on the telephone since he had come home, long frivolous conversations that had done much to soothe the soreness in Anthony's heart, a soreness exacerbated by three days in his father's aloof company. Why Richard couldn't unbend was beyond Anthony. He was only an engineer after all, however successful. What gave him the right to judge all the time, as he undoubtedly did, and then make it very plain indeed if and when he found things wanting. The last three evenings in London, they had, by mutual agreement, gone their separate ways, and Anthony had no idea where his father had been. The flat was as tidy as a ship's cabin. Anthony had a good look round it, a good look, in all the cupboards and drawers, and was surprised to find a photograph of Natasha and James and Charlie on Richard's chest of drawers, and one of himself - quite a recent one, taken on a trip to Manila - and a paperback of Sylvia Plath's poetry beside his bed. Otherwise it was a man's functional flat: clothes, coffee, whisky and aspirin. Anthony could see why his mother never came near it. She called it Father's other filing cabinet. She was right. The lane to Dummeridge was lined with May blossom, thickly pink and white. The grass, Anthony noticed, was not only bright green, but shiny, with the deep gloss of health. He drove the last half-mile slowly, looking at the wooded hills on either side, sniffing for a whiff of the sea and feeling an excited curiosity to discover how he would seem to things at home after all these years and, to a lesser extent, how they would seem to him. The hall door was open as he pulled up, and almost at once Dorothy came hurrying out in a flurry of fond pleasure at seeing him again, and told him that Cecily was out in the garden with Mrs Dunne and the children. He gave Dorothy a kiss and held her away from him so that he could look at her.

Totally unchanged.'

She gave a little squeal.

'Rubbish,' she said. 'Nonsense. Cheeky as ever. Go on through, quick. Your mother's panting for a sight of you-'

He went through the hall and caught the familiar scent of polish and flowers and age. The garden door was open and through it he could see a strip of bright green lawn on which a small boy was standing, bent double, and watching Anthony through his legs. Anthony did not much like children. They were, he found, too honest on the whole.

'He's here!' the little boy shrieked, his voice strangled by being upside down. 'He's coming! He's coming!'

He stepped out into the sunlight. Cecily came almost running across the grass and flung herself into his arms. He thought she might be crying. She held him in a tremendous embrace, her face pressed fiercely to his.

'Darling. Darling Ant. Oh, how lovely. You can't think, you simply can't-'

A small, plump young woman with red curls held back by a band was watching them from a group of chairs under the willow tree. The little boy who had called out ran over to her and said with piercing distinctness, 'But you said he was a boy. You said he was Mrs Jordan's boy. And look, he's only a man.'

'Just what I feel,' Juliet Dunne said, laughing and getting up, 'every time Daddy comes home.' She came over to Anthony and Cecily, holding out her hand. 'I'm Juliet. And you are awful Anthony who wouldn't come home and now you have. I've been sort of adopted here, for the summer. Suchluck!'

Cecily put out one arm to encircle Juliet so that they were all three linked.

'Anthony, you must take no notice of her. She has a wicked tongue but I put up with her because she makes me laugh.' There was a tiny pause. 'She is a great friend of Alice's.'

'Alice?'

Juliet sighed. She was extremely pretty, like a kitten, with little features grouped close together in a creamy freckled face.

'So boring. Allie's got a new friend and won't play with any of her old ones just now.'

Cecily drew them away across the lawn to the willow.

'I'm not awful really,' Anthony said, 'I'm just lonely and misunderstood.'

'I expect,' Juliet said, looking straight at Cecily, 'you had a simply horrible childhood.'

Cecily nodded, laughing.

'Horrible.'

'It was,' Anthony insisted. 'Martin was the goodie who could do no wrong. I was the baddie.'

The small boy was trotting beside him. He looked up at disappointing Anthony.

'Mummy likes the baddies on television best.'

'Mummy sounds very promising.'

They sat down in the cane chairs in the speckled, drifting shade.

'Let me look at you,' Cecily said to Anthony.

'I shouldn't. Father didn't like what he saw.'

Juliet said, 'You have bags under your eyes.'

Anthony turned to his mother.

'Is she always like this?'

'I'm afraid so.'

'I feel I've stumbled into a dormitory party-'

'Not quite,' Juliet said. 'It's more like a coven. We're plotting.'

'What?'

'How to get Alice back.'

Cecily said warningly, 'Juliet-'

'Oops. Did I say something I shouldn't have?'

'You might be making too much of too little.'

Anthony scented intrigue.

'What's going on? What is Alice up to?'

'She has thrown herself into village life,' Cecily said. 'That's all. So she hasn't much time for any of us, and we miss her.'

'She used to ring all the time,' Juliet said. 'She was the one person I could have a really good complain about Henry to. Your mother's no good at all because she thinks Henry is a dear. I suppose he is really, in rather the same category as a dear old armchair. Or pair of bedsocks.' She began to squeal with laughter. 'You know what's really the matter. Allie thinks I'm so funny and I've got no audience just now. Cecily thinks I'm quite funny but not nearly as much as she ought to. Oh dear. I suppose I ought to be going.' She looked about her. 'Do you think my luck has turned and I've actually lost two children out of three for good and all?'

Her son, who was clearly used to this kind of thing, said his brothers were in the stableyard.

'Do go and get them, there's a little treasure. Isn't it sad,' turning to Cecily, 'how exactly like his father he looks?'

'She worships Henry,' Cecily said to Anthony.

'I want to know more about Alice.'

'Why do you?'

'I used to fancy Alice-'

Cecily gave a little sigh.

'I know. I used to worry that you were going to make trouble. To spite Martin.'

'I did try-'

'What happened?'

'She froze me out.'

'Oh dear. How tiresome virtue is. There it stands, blocking every path to pleasure. Here come my beastly little children.' She stood up. 'I shouldn't be cross about Allie. She looks as beautiful as the day, so clearly good works suit her.'

Cecily went out to the car and saw Juliet and her boys drive away. When she came back, Anthony was lying in the long cane chair where Alice had lain her first afternoon at Dummeridge, with his eyes shut. He didn't open them when he heard his mother return, he simply said, 'What a rattle.'

'She's sweet.'

'Really. Tell me more about Alice.'

'Why are you so obsessive?'

'I'm not. I'm keenly interested in my brother's family in a most suitable way.'

'You always have a motive.'

'Not this time.' He opened his eyes and turned his head towards his mother. Tell.'

'There's nothing to tell,' Cecily said. 'It is exactly as I said to you just now. She had a bad post-natal breakdown after the last baby, and then a big house move, and now she has taken on a whole load of village responsibilities. She's extremely tired, so that she can't see reason and take a holiday.'

'And her new friend?'

'The youngest daughter of the big house in their village.'

'Isn't that utterly suitable?'

Cecily said flatly, 'Utterly.' She took a breath. 'I want to know about you.'

Anthony shut his eyes again.

'Unemployed.'

Temporarily?'

'Oh yes. No problem. Quite rich.'

'Also temporarily?'

'Probably. Is Martin rich?'

'No.'

'Comfortable?'

'Yes,' Cecily said doubtfully.

'Rich then. Isn't he too perfect.'

Cecily let a little silence fall, then she said, 'I did , rather hope you would bring a wife home with you.'

Anthony yawned.

'I was besieged. Literally. But I didn't seem able to fall in love back. I think I'm still carrying a torch for Alice.'

'You haven't seen Alice for almost ten years. Very useful, supposing yourself to want someone you can't have, so that you need never commit yourself to anyone else.'

'I did want her.'

'Only in the same way that you wanted Martin's Meccano and Martin's friend Guy and Martin's diligence over examinations.'

That's not very flattering to Alice.'

'It's meant,' Cecily said, 'to be not very flattering to you.'

'Oh, me. I've a hide like a rhino.'

'I know.'

'First Father's unpleasant to me and now you are. I shall go to Pitcombe.'

'No,' Cecily said suddenly.

Anthony sat up slowly and put his feet on the grass.

'Why not?'

'Because you are a troublemaker.'

'I don't want to make trouble. I just want someone to be nice to me. Alice will be nice.'

'Alice,' Cecily said, 'has enough to cope with, without you,' and then she gave the game away completely by beginning, with great dignity, to weep.

Anthony could not remember seeing his mother cry before. Indeed, her self-possession had been one of the chief things that had enraged him, as a teenager nothing, it seemed, that you could do or say shook her composure. But she was shaken now. He knew she adored Alice. The main reasons for his own desire for Alice long ago were that his mother adored her, his father liked her a great deal and Martin wanted her. And then of course there were the additional, tantalizing reasons of Alice's personality and her fascinating dislike of him. Perhaps Cecily and Alice had quarrelled. Perhaps Cecily was an interfering grandmother. Perhaps Alice's youthful infatuation with Cecily had died and there had grown up instead, as there so often did in such cases, a robust dislike of the former idol. Anthony, turning these interesting speculations over in his mind, was rather inclined to the last view. He thought he would spend a few more days at Dummeridge, or as long as it took for the festal return of the Prodigal Son atmosphere to wear off, and he would make a few calls to contacts in the City - he left a Morgan Grenfell telephone number lying about prominently - and then he would invite himself to Pitcombe. So he made himself very charming to Dorothy, and to the two young men in the garden whom his mother was training, and at meals he tried to elicit more information from Cecily about Pitcombe, information which, he was interested to notice, she seemed peculiarly reluctant to give.

'Anthony!' Alice said into the telephone. She was leaning against the kitchen wall, with Charlie, eating a biscuit, on her hip.

'I want you to ask me to stay.'

'Of course. Where are you?'

'Dummeridge.'

'Oh-'

'Exactly. What have you done to my mother?'

'Absolutely nothing.'

'Sure?'

Alice smiled at Clodagh across the kitchen.

'Just a teeny bit of independence-'

Anthony laughed.

'I see. Look. When can I come? Nobody is being very kind to me, which is tough when I'm so vastly improved.'

Alice said dreamily, her eyes on Clodagh, 'I'll be kind. I'm kind to everyone just now.'

'Why?'

'Because I'm happy.'

'What, doing the church flowers?'

'Yes.'

'Extraordinary. You do, however, sound happy.'

Clodagh bent over James, who was painting a tiny, neurotic picture of a very neat house in one corner of a large piece of paper. He leaned against her and Alice heard him say, 'You do it.' 'No, Jamie, you.' 'Clo-clo do it,' he said in a loving baby voice, gazing at her.

'Are you listening?' Anthony demanded down the telephone.

'Sort of.'

'If I come on Friday pour le weekend, how would that be ? If you're very kind to me, I might have to stay.'

'Do,' Alice said, rubbing her cheek on Charlie's head, 'whatever you like.'

'Is your house lovely?'

'Oh yes,' Alice said. 'It's perfect here. It really is. You'll see.'

She put the telephone down.

'Martin's brother.'

Natasha, who was importantly doing her homework this term's novelty - looked up from an extremely neat English exercise book to say kindly to her brother, 'Uncle Anthony. Who you have never seen.'

'Nor have you!'

'I nearly did. I was more nearly born in time. More nearly than you.'

'Was she?' James whispered up into Clodagh's hair.

"Fraidso-'

'Won't I ever be the bigger?'

Clodagh kissed him.

'In size, you will be.'

Alice came to the table and sat down with Charlie. She wanted to tell Clodagh about Anthony but Natasha's beady presence made that impossible just now. So she smiled at Clodagh, and Clodagh came round the table and kissed her, and then Charlie, and then Natasha said, 'What about a kiss for good little me doing my homework?'

Clodagh picked her off her chair.

'You're a little Tashie madam, you are-'

Natasha put her arms round her neck.

'I'm going to be like you when I grow up.'

'No. You're going to be like your lovely mother.'

'Can I too?' James said.

Clodagh put Natasha back on her chair.

'Look at you,' she said to Alice.

'Why, what-'

'The cat that got the cream-'

'Oh but I am, lorn-'

'You are so bloody beautiful.'

'Dear me,' Natasha said, 'in front of James.'

'Bloody,' James said softly to his picture, 'bloody, bloody, bloody beautiful.'

Clodagh leaned towards Alice.

'Beautiful.'

'You too.'

'No. I'm a ratface.' She put a finger on Charlie's cheek. 'And Charlie's a moonface.'

'And James,' Natasha said with deadly quietness, 'is a fishface.'

James gave a yelp. Then a car came swooping past the house and there was a chorus of 'Daddy! Daddy!' and Charlie, who had been dozing against Alice like a human teddy bear, became galvanized by the desire to join in.

It was exactly the homecoming Martin wanted. It was the best day he had had at work since the day he had been made a junior partner. He had been summoned in by Nigel Gathorne, the senior partner, to be congratulated, personally, on securing the Unwins as clients for the firm, and to be told, quite plainly, that this, particularly if he made a success of it, would contribute materially to Martin's upward rise. He then gave Martin a glass of fino sherry, a mark of approval all the junior partners recognized as being equivalent to a CBE. He was so genuinely pleased that Martin even managed to put aside all the complications and tribulations that seemed to have dogged his path since his lunch with Henry Dunne at the White Hart. If Nigel Gathorne could offer such warm and professional congratulations, then Martin's achievement must be real indeed. Coming out of Nigel's office, he felt he almost owed Clodagh an apology for his petulance over her part in it. Even thinking of her now was possible without an involuntary blush, but of course she had made that easy by being so ordinarily friendly to him and such a help with the children and such a good friend to Alice. He had, in his glow of gratitude and achievement, actually had a preliminary look at the Unwin trust papers at once, and really, it wasn't, at first glance, going to be too difficult to unscramble. He visualized a business conversation with Clodagh. It was a happy little fantasy in which he retrieved the selfesteem he had lost in that undignified little scene in the kitchen when Alice was away. At twenty past five, Martin left his office and went back to his car past the Victoria Wine Company so that he could buy a bottle of champagne, which luckily they had on a very reasonable offer indeed.

'You'll be able to handle Georgina,' Clodagh said, admiring the light through her champagne glass. 'Easy peasy.'

They were sitting in the drawing room, to celebrate.

'Is she like you?'

Clodagh avoided looking at Alice.

'Georgina is absolutely straight in every way. She'll be just like Ma, in the end, only quieter. She buys day clothes from Laura Ashley and evening ones from Caroline Charles and shoes from Bally and knickers from M & S. She's a dear.'

Alice said, head back against a chair cushion, eyes half-closed, 'Why don't you go and see her more?'

'Because, for some reason, I really like being at home just now.'

'Never,' Alice said, on the edge of laughter. She turned her head towards Martin. 'Anthony's coming. On Friday.'

Martin pulled a slight face.

'Oh well. It had to happen. How long for?'

'Don't you like him?' Clodagh said, interested. 'Why don't you?'

Alice began. 'He's-' and Martin, fearing family criticism, said quickly, 'We fought a bit when we were growing up, that's all. He's been in Japan and Hong Kong for almost ten years. He's probably changed a lot.'

'Didn't sound it,' Alice said. 'Sounded exactly the same.'

Clodagh stood up.

'I'm going to read to Tashie. And then you can say what you really think about the Unwins in peace.'

Martin tried not to look priggish.

'I wouldn't say anything behind your back that I wouldn't say to your face.'

'I know,' Clodagh said, and went out of the room, laying a hand lightly on his shoulder, and then on Alice's, as she went.

'I'm so pleased for you,' Alice said to him.

He ducked his head. He looked suddenly as young and vulnerable as James. Alice felt so fond of him. It was only when he wanted to touch her that she...

'Allie-'

'Yes?'

'Allie, sorry to sort of mess up the mood, but there's something that's rather been on my mind-'

She took a slow swallow of champagne.

Tell me.'

'It's, well, it's about us. I mean, we seem to be fine and everything's going really well and-' He stopped. He loathed this kind of conversation, but a necessity was a necessity. 'Look. It's - about bed. I mean, I may be no great shakes but you don't seem to want me anywhere near you at the moment. I can't remember the last time weeks, months, I don't know.' He looked at Alice pleadingly. 'Is it me?'

She sat up and put her glass on the floor and folded her hands on her lap. She looked straight at him.

'No,' she said. 'It isn't your fault. That is, it isn't anything you do. Or don't do.'

'Then-'

'It's me,' Alice said. 'I just don't want you to make love to me. I don't in the least want to hurt you but I must be truthful because it's kinder, really, in the end.'

There was a silence and then he said, looking down at his crossed arms resting on his knees, 'D'you think we should get some help? I mean, Marriage Guidance or something-'

Alice said gently, 'I don't want to do that. I want to say sorry, but I won't because I don't want to patronize you. But I don't want to talk to anyone.'

'But will you change?'

'I don't know. I can't tell.'

'So you just want me to wait. Grin and bear it-'

'Yes please. Just for now. Yes - please.'

He got up and walked about a bit and went over to a window and fingered the stiff gleaming billow of the curtains.

'Allie. I've got to ask you this.'

He stopped.

'Ask me then-'

'Will you give me a truthful answer? However much you think it'll hurt me?'

Alice's voice had a little quaver.

'I promise.'

Martin came back to his chair and put his hands on its back and looked at her.

'Is there another man?'

Alice raised her chin and looked at him squarely.

'No,' she said. 'There isn't another man.'

And then Martin gave a long, escaping sigh, and grinned at her and said he thought they had better finish the champagne, didn't she?