Peacock Emporium Page 5

  ‘You need to knock some sense into her,’ said Colonel Forster.

  Douglas’s head jolted backwards.

  ‘Anthony.’ Justine Forster pursed her lips. She opened her compact and examined her eye makeup. ‘She . . . It’s just that she can be a bit of a handful.’

  ‘I like her like that.’ Douglas’s tone was one of contented belligerence.

  She had dragged him to dance halls run by black people in some of the less savoury parts of London, chiding him if he expressed niggling anxieties, exhorting him instead to dance with her, to join her in drinking, laughing, living. And because she seemed perfectly at ease in those places, his worst fears rarely materialised, and he was forced to confront his own conceptions of poor people, or black people or, at any rate, people unlike himself. Along with his fears, he had made himself shed a few inhibitions, smoked and drunk dark rum, and when they were alone allowed himself to approach Athene sexually in a way that he had been brought up to think of as not just daring but probably illegal.

  Because she didn’t mind. She didn’t care about shopping, or fashion, or furnishings, or the things that had bored him about so many of the girls he knew. If anything she was careless with her possessions – at the end of a dance she would remove her shoes, complaining that they were a bore, then fail to bring them home. Afterwards, when her lack of footwear was pointed out, she showed none of the tearful sense of loss that another girl might have displayed or, indeed, any anxiety about how she was going to get home, just shrugged her shoulders and laughed. There would always be another pair of shoes, that laugh said. Worrying about things was such a bore.

  ‘Yes. Well, dear, don’t say we didn’t warn you.’ Justine Forster was eyeing a piece of wedding cake as if it might spring up and bite her.

  ‘Very silly girl,’ said Colonel Forster, lighting his pipe.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Our daughter. No point beating around the bush. She’s jolly lucky to have married at all.’

  ‘Anthony.’ Mrs Forster glanced at Douglas fearfully, as if afraid her husband’s damning commentary might prompt her new son-in-law suddenly to announce a change of heart.

  ‘Oh, come on, Justine. She’s surrounded by feckless young people, and it’s made her feckless. Ungrateful and feckless and silly.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s feckless.’ Douglas, who would have been appalled to think his own parents might discuss him in this way, felt the need to defend his bride. ‘I think she’s brave, and original, and beautiful.’

  Athene’s father regarded him as if he’d just admitted to being a pinko. ‘Yes. Well, you don’t want to go saying all that to her. Don’t know where it might lead. Just see if you can settle her down a bit. Otherwise she’ll end up as no use to anyone.’

  ‘He doesn’t mean it, Douglas, dear. He just means that we – we’ve probably been a little lax with her at times.’

  ‘Lax with who?’ Athene appeared at Douglas’s shoulder. He smelt Joy and cigarette smoke, and his innards clenched. Her father grunted and turned away. ‘Are you talking about me?’

  ‘We were just saying that we’re very glad you’re settling down.’ Justine Forster’s tones were emollient; a wave of her hand suggested she would like the conversation closed.

  ‘Who says we’re settling down?’

  ‘Don’t be obtuse, dear. You know what I mean.’

  ‘No, I don’t. Douglas and I have no intention of settling down, do we, darling?’ Douglas felt her cool hand on the back of his neck. ‘Not if it means ending up like you.’

  ‘I’m not going to talk to you, Athene, if you’re going to be deliberately rude.’

  ‘I’m not being deliberately rude, Mother. Not as rude as you were evidently being about me in my absence.’

  ‘Very silly girl,’ muttered her father.

  Douglas was feeling extremely uncomfortable. ‘I think you’re being rather unfair on Athene,’ he ventured.

  ‘Douglas, dear, well-meaning as you are, you have no conception of what Athene has put us through.’

  Athene leant down and picked up his brandy, as if unconcernedly to examine its contents, then swallowed the amber liquid in one gulp. ‘Oh, Douglas, don’t listen to them,’ she said, replacing the glass and pulling at his arm. ‘They’re such bores. This is our day, after all.’

  Within minutes of their being on the dance floor he had almost forgotten the exchange, lost in his own private appreciation of her silk-clad curves, the scent of her hair, the light feel of her hands on his back. When she looked up at him, her eyes were deliquescent, glittering with tears.

  ‘We don’t have to see them now we’re married.’ It wasn’t a question, but she appeared to demand some kind of reassurance. ‘We don’t have to spend half our time as stuffed shirts, sitting in horrid old family gatherings.’

  ‘We can do whatever we want, my darling,’ he whispered into her neck. ‘It’s just us now. We can do whatever we want.’ He enjoyed the sound of his own voice, the authority and comfort it promised.

  She had held him tighter then, a surprisingly strong grasp, her face buried in his shoulder. Over the sound of the music, he had been unable to make out her reply.

  ‘Won’t be a minute,’ said the girl in the cloakroom. ‘Some of the tickets have got separated from the coats. We’ll just need a minute to sort them all out.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Vivi, her foot tapping with impatience to be gone. The sounds of the reception were dulled now, muffled by the expanse of carpet that lined the hallways and stairs. Past her, elderly dowagers were helped to powder rooms, and small shoeless children skidded up and down under the quietly outraged gaze of rigid, uniformed staff. She wouldn’t return home until Christmas. It was likely that Douglas and that woman – she still could not bring herself to say her name, worse still to describe her as ‘his wife’ – would be away for Christmas. His family had always been big on skiing, after all.

  It might be easier, now that it was clear her mother understood. And if her longing for her parents became too much, she could always invite them up to London, persuade her father to make a weekend of it. She could show them the antiques market behind Lisson Grove, take them to the zoo, hail a taxi to the Viennese tea rooms in St John’s Wood and feed them frothy coffee and spiced pastries. By then she might not think about Douglas at all. She might feel nothing like a physical pain.

  Her coat was taking an age. Beside her, she noticed, two men were smoking, deep in conversation, their own tickets held loosely in their hands.

  ‘And Alfie made the point that he’ll be away for Wimbledon. Still, you’ve got to admit, he’s done all right for himself. I mean, if you’re going to get marched down the aisle by anyone . . .’

  She didn’t even flinch now. Vivi pretended to be absorbed by a carved engraving on the wall, wondering again how much longer it would be before this outward stillness was echoed internally.

  Almost twenty minutes later, her mother stood in front of her, in her good wool bouclé suit, her clutch bag held in front of her like a shield. ‘I know it hasn’t been easy,’ she was saying, ‘but I just don’t think you should run away today. Come home with me and Daddy.’

  ‘I have told you—’

  ‘Don’t let them keep you away from your home. The car’s gone. And they’ll be away for at least two weeks.’

  ‘It’s really not that, Mummy.’

  ‘I’m saying no more, Vivi. I just couldn’t let you leave without talking to you properly. Just don’t keep staying away. I don’t like to think of you alone in London. You’re still so young. And, besides, we miss you, Daddy and I. Have you lost your ticket?’

  Vivi was staring, unseeing, at her empty hand in front of her.

  ‘I thought you’d gone. I’m pretty sure we know which your coat is, anyway.’

  Vivi shook her head dully. ‘Sorry. Had to – had to spend a penny.’

  ‘Daddy really wants to see you. He wants you to help us choose a dog. He’s finally agreed to having one, you se
e, but he thinks it would be nice for the two of you to do it together.’ Her mother’s expression was hopeful, as if childish pleasures could still cancel out adult pain. ‘A spaniel, perhaps? I know you’ve always liked spaniels.’

  ‘Is it green?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  The attendant tried to hide her exasperation under a smile. ‘Is your coat the green one? Big buttons?’

  She was pointing to a row behind her. Vivi glimpsed the familiar bottle colour. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘Oh, Vivi, darling, believe me, I do understand.’

  Mrs Newton’s eyes were dark with sympathy. She smelt of the scents of Vivi’s childhood, and Vivi fought an urge to hurl herself into her mother’s arms, and allow herself to be comforted. But now there was no comfort to be had.

  ‘I know how much you felt for Douglas. But Douglas . . . well, that’s that now, he’s found his – his path in life, and you just have to get on with things. Put it behind you.’

  Vivi’s voice was unnaturally stiff. ‘I have put it behind me, Mother.’

  ‘I hate to see you like this. So sad . . . and . . . well, I just want you to know . . . even if you don’t want to talk to me . . . and I know girls don’t always want to confide in their mothers . . . that I do understand.’ She reached out and stroked Vivi’s hair, smoothing it away from her face, an unthinking maternal gesture.

  No, Mummy, you don’t understand, Vivi thought, her hands still trembling, her face still whitened by what she had heard. Because this pain did not stem from the origins her mother assumed. That pain had been almost easy. For some kind of equanimity had been possible while she could at least comfort herself with the thought that he’d be happy. Because that was it, loving someone, wasn’t it? The knowledge that, if nothing else, you wanted them to be happy.

  While her mother might have had some comprehension of her pain, her longing, her sense of grief at losing him, she would not have understood the conversation Vivi had just been forced to overhear. Or why Vivi knew already, with a pain that was searing her core, that she would never repeat it to anyone.

  ‘Still, you’ve got to admit, he’s done all right for himself,’ the man had said. ‘I mean, if you’re going to get marched down the aisle by anyone . . .’

  ‘True. But . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Let’s face it, he’s going to need to keep an eye out, isn’t he?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come on . . . Girl’s a little tart.’

  Vivi had stood very still. The man’s voice had lowered to a murmur, as if he had turned away to speak. ‘Tony Warrington saw her on Tuesday. A drink for “old times”, she told him. They used to walk out together, back when he lived in Windsor. Except her idea of old times was a bit too closely related to good times, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘Not a week before the wedding. Tony said he hadn’t even wanted to. Bad form and all that. But she was all over him like a rash.’

  Vivi’s ears had started to ring. She put out a hand to steady herself.

  ‘Bloody hell’

  ‘Exactly. But keep it to yourself, old boy. No point ruining the day. Still . . . you’ve got to feel rather sorry for poor old Fairley-Hulme.’

  Four

  Douglas leant back in his chair, sucked ruminatively at the end of his ballpoint pen and gazed at the densely covered pages of plans in front of him. It had taken him several weeks, working long into the evening, but he was pretty sure he’d got them right.

  He had based his ideas partially on a mixture of the ideals of the great social reformers, a kind of utilitarian blueprint for living, and something in America he’d read about – a more communal way of doing things. It was pretty radical, admittedly, but he thought it might work out rather well. No, he corrected himself, he knew it would work out well. And it would change fundamentally the face of the estate.

  Instead of the huge herd of Friesians – the rules and regulations about which, since the introduction of the Common Agricultural Policy, his father had repeatedly complained could turn a sane man into a raving imbecile – a hundred acres would be turned over to a self-supporting community. The participants could live in the derelict tied cottages, doing them up themselves with timber from the Mistley wood. There was a water source near there, along with old barns that could be used for small numbers of livestock. If they got in craftsmen, artisans, they could even start a studio down there, sell their pottery or whatever, perhaps giving back a small percentage of the profits in return.

  Meanwhile the four fields on Page Hill, the ones currently turned over to sugarbeet, could be divided into smallholdings to allow local people to grow their own vegetables. There was a growing market for home-produced food, an increasing number of people who wanted to ‘get back to nature’. The Fairley-Hulmes would charge a minimal rent, and take food as partial payment. It would be like a return to the tenanted farm, a return to the ancestral ways of the family but without the feudal attitude. And the scheme would be self-supporting. Perhaps even profitable. If it worked really well, the surplus money could be ploughed into some other project, perhaps an educational programme. Like one that taught the delinquents in town something productive, perhaps about land management.

  The estate was too big for one man to manage. He had heard his father say so a million times, as if Douglas himself were not quite man enough to be included in this. There was the estate manager, of course, the head herdsman and the farmhands, the gamekeeper and the odd-job man, but ultimate responsibility for what went on belonged with Cyril Fairley-Hulme, a responsibility he had held now for almost forty years. And this responsibility no longer simply meant the running of the land, it meant complex calculations involving subsidies, which had meant more machinery, less diversification, more chemical weedkillers and fertilisers. All of which had left his father muttering unhappily that if he had to grub up any more hedgerows he might as well sell the animals, turn the estate into one of those American-style arable farms and be done with it, while his older men, those who had learnt to plough with horses, speculated that, forget animals, at this rate there’d be no need for humans.

  The brief period of self-examination that had followed his meeting Athene had made Douglas realise he had never felt truly comfortable with the idea of inheriting the Dereward estate. It didn’t feel earned somehow: in an age when nepotism and feudalism were dying a slow death, it didn’t seem right that he should take on this self-aggrandising mantle, that he, not yet out of his twenties, should assume a right to the estate and responsibility for the lives of all who depended on it.

  The first time he had broached this with his father, the older man had looked at him as if he were a Commie. He might even have used the word. And Douglas, who was astute enough to understand that his father was not likely to take seriously a plan that was half thought-out, had swallowed his words and gone off to oversee the disinfecting of the milking parlour.

  But now he had a concrete set of proposals, which even his father would have to admit was likely to take the estate forward into the future, make it a model not just for agricultural excellence but for social change. He could follow in the tradition of those great reformers: Rowntree and Cadbury, those who had thought that making money was an insufficient aim unless it led to social and environmental betterment. He conjured up images of contented workers eating home-produced food and studying to better themselves instead of liquefying their weekly wages down at the White Hart. It was 1965. Things were changing fast, even if the inhabitants of Dere Hampton were unwilling to acknowledge it.

  He placed the pages neatly together, laid them reverently in a card wallet and tucked it under his arm. He did his best to ignore the pile of letters to which he had yet to reply. He had spent much of the last month fending off complaints from ramblers and dog-walkers over the fact that he had erected a post-and-rail fence along the middle of the thirty-acre fields that led down to the wood to let the two sides for she
ep grazing. (He had always fancied sheep. He still remembered fondly a youthful stay with a Cumbrian sheep farmer who counted his animals using an ancient and incomprehensible dialect: Yan, tan, tethera, pethera, pimp, sethera, lethera, hovera, covera, dik . . . That the villagers could still walk down the field had not pacified them: they didn’t like, they said, being ‘penned in’. Douglas had been tempted to retort that they were lucky to have access to it at all, and that if the estate wasn’t made financially secure by such measures it would be sold off in parcels for development, like the once-grand Rampton estate four miles away. And see how they would like that.

  But conscious that, as a Fairley-Hulme, he had at least to pay lip service to villagers’ opinions, he had suggested they write their complaints in letter form and he would do his best to address them.

  He glanced at his watch, then tapped his fingers on the side of the desk, a mixture of nervousness and excitement. His mother should be preparing lunch. When his father retreated into his office for his usual half-hour of ‘paperwork’ (often involving the brief closure of his eyes – just for resting purposes, you understand), he would present his ideas. And perhaps make his own, more contemporary mark on the Dereward estate.