Harnessing Peacocks (6 page)

‘I’d get on all right.’ He was serious.

‘They always pay twice as much.’ She hardly believed it was herself speaking. Would it be good for him to find out what it’s like to be alone? ‘You’d be alone,’ she said, expecting him to protest.

‘I’d get meals off Hannah or Amy if I needed to.’ Silas mocked her, thinking that being alone would be wonderful, very different from the loneliness of school.

Nearing the steep street, Hebe feared she would never really know Silas. Then she remembered the nightmare of the day before and realised, as she stopped at her door, that she seldom experienced her panic when away working. She thought with amusement of her meeting with Mungo and was laughing as she drew up at her door, enjoying her fondness for Mungo.

‘Here we are, my old Miracle,’ and Silas too laughed, delighted to be back, glad that his mother was apparently unhurt.

‘I’ll change my clothes,’ he said as they carried his luggage upstairs, ‘then find Giles.’ He was anxious to slot back into his home environment.

‘I will get tea.’ Hebe wished she was not shy with Silas, that he did not keep her at arm’s length. He has inherited my secrecy and reticence, she thought. Then, remembering her unfortunate rencontre with Mungo, she wished it were possible to share the joke.

Silas came down wearing jeans and a T-shirt. ‘D’you mind if I go and find Giles now?’

‘There’s a letter for you on the mantelshelf.’

Silas opened the letter. ‘Oh, great!’ he exclaimed. ‘Magic! Michael Reeves’ mother is asking me to stay. How brilliant!’

‘Who is Michael Reeves?’ Hebe felt a chill.

‘A boy at school. They’ve taken a cottage on the Scilly Isles. They sail. You won’t mind, will you? It’s only for three weeks.’

‘Three weeks?’ She tried to keep her voice level. ‘When?’

‘That’ll be terrific’ Silas was overjoyed. ‘Three weeks’ sailing. Just imagine, I’ve never sailed.’

‘When?’ She felt cold, he was sure he was going.

‘She says to say what date suits you. She’s quite nice. She came to the sports at half-term.’

‘I was working and couldn’t get away.’ Hebe avoided school functions.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’ Silas looked anxious. ‘It’s the boy who offered me a lift down.’

‘I see.’ She was stunned by disappointment.

‘Sure you don’t mind?’ Silas assumed he would go, did not question.

‘Of course I don’t. It’s very kind of Mrs Reeves.’ I must not cling, she told herself. ‘I must write to her. It will be fun for you.’

‘Can’t we telephone?’ Silas was in a rush to fix a date, seize the opportunity, pin it down.

‘Yes, love, we will telephone tonight.’ She surrendered.

‘Good. I’ll be off now and find Giles.’ Silas left the house, leaving all the doors open as he ran, hungry for life.

For several minutes Hebe was in misery. Then she made her decision. She would work. Not Mungo, that would be too soon, he would think he’d won a point. Mrs Fox would do, no complications there and quite good money. She was smiling when Silas came back, bringing Giles with him.

‘And how was Paris?’

‘Wonderful.’ Giles was a masculine version of Hannah.

‘Tea?’

‘I’ve had mine.’ Giles smiled, showing crooked teeth. Would George Scoop fix these for free if Hannah married him?

‘Have another.’

‘Thanks.’ Giles was fond of his friend’s mother, considered him lucky. ‘I wish my mother was a cook.’

‘It’s a useful trade.’ Hebe offered Giles cake. ‘I shall go to Mrs Fox in Wiltshire while you are in the Scillies,’ she said to Silas.

‘Who is Mrs Fox?’

‘One of the old ladies who can afford a cook now and then to jolly her up.’

‘Will you be back when I come back from the Scillies?’

‘I will be back,’ she said. ‘Of course I will.’

M
UNGO DUFF QUARRELLED WITH
Alison when Eli and Patsy left, perversely accusing her of selfishness in planning to leave him alone. While he was anxious that she should go to Santa Barbara he did not wish her to enjoy herself, though he hoped she would deceive him with Eli. She must go, feel grateful to him for parting with her, and return to cherish him with a guilty conscience. If he could find Hebe he would welcome Alison home with open arms; if he failed he would be in a strong position to play the injured husband. He hoped Eli would disappoint her in bed. Alistair and Ian were to visit friends, another source of recrimination. Alison had arranged their holiday without consulting him.

‘They will grow up without knowing their parents,’ he had protested. ‘We might as well be divorced.’

‘I often think,’ Alison had answered, ‘that children of the divorced see more of their parents than those of the undivorced, but is it a good thing? I can’t see what benefit they would derive from you in your present mood. It is important,’ she had added purposefully, aggravating, ‘that they should make useful friends, then they will meet the right kind of girl. They can’t start soon enough.’

‘All right, go off, enjoy yourself. Leave me on my own.’

‘You were invited too.’ She had said this before.

‘You know perfectly well I can’t leave the office just now.’

‘I do not. You often leave the office and pop down to London. Your office manages all right then.’

‘I keep in touch. I am on business, anyway.’ Mungo thought of how little business he did when he ‘popped’, as Alison called it, down to London: a token telephone call, a business lunch, the rest of the time spent with Hebe. He cursed Hebe’s fiendish one-way system, her casual telephone call suggesting a date. Why did he put up with it, he asked himself, not bothering to answer, for if one thing was sure Hebe called the tune. ‘And I pay,’ he groaned.

Alison took him up. ‘You know perfectly well I am paying for myself.’

‘I didn’t mean in money terms. I meant I pay in loneliness.’

‘Go and see your mother, she’s lonely, if anyone is.’ Alison was unsympathetic. ‘She’ll probably have that woman she gets to cook for her.’

‘I don’t suppose so.’ Mungo had already checked with his mother that Hebe was not coming until the autumn. ‘No, dearest,’ his mother had answered his next question, ‘I don’t know where she lives. Miss Thomson writes to a forwarding address in London. She comes three times a year, as you know, so that Miss Thomson can have time off.’

‘Miss Thomson,’ said Mungo to Alison, ‘isn’t due for a holiday.’

‘Why can’t you go when Miss Thomson is there?’

‘Visitors are too much for her.’

‘I don’t believe that. She is always very welcoming to me.’

‘And I don’t believe that.’ Mungo was determined to be disagreeable.

‘Believe what you like. I am not going to let you spoil my trip.’

In bed Mungo lay thinking of Hebe. What had she been doing in Exeter? Had she not said, the year before, when, after her stint cooking for his mother she had let him take her for a week to Devonshire, that she had never been there? Had she not exclaimed with delight as he drove her through lanes frothy with cow parsley, bright with campion and bluebells? Had she been putting on an act? What had she been doing in the Clarence? Was she staying there with another man? Mungo groaned, remembering Hebe’s long arms and legs wrapped round him in her lovely but casual embrace.

‘Got a stomach ache?’ Alison, half asleep in the next bed, roused herself.

‘No, no.’

‘Let a woman sleep, then. You drank too much at lunch yesterday. It always upsets you.’

‘I can’t wait for you to go to America,’ Mungo shouted.

‘All right, all right—’ Feeling herself valued, Alison stretched in her bed, thinking it would do Mungo good to be without her. She was glad he minded her leaving him alone. She was unaware that for years Mungo had spent six weeks a year with Hebe, weeks when he was supposed to be on business in London. She had heard from friends that he was seen about with a girl, but since he came home sweet-tempered she had long since decided that London was good for him. Whoever he saw there presented no threat. She herself, when Mungo was absent, either had a room in the house decorated or went abroad with a friend to look at pictures and cathedrals. It was high time she altered the pattern. If Mungo could step out so could she.

While Alison slept Mungo searched his mind for ways to find Hebe, momentarily considering employing a private detective, deciding against as too embarrassing. Hebe had not wronged him, all that was wrong was her bloody mysterious way of conducting their affair. Unable to sleep, he thought back to his first encounter with her years before. As he savoured the memory, Alison in the next bed snorted, turning away from him. It was thanks to Alison he had met Hebe and, oh God, Mungo groaned, having to be grateful to Alison was hard, for Alison was a good wife, albeit bossy. A wonderful manager, a good mother, a particularly good daughter-in-law, and this, combined with her bossiness, had brought Hebe into his life. His father, long dead, would have been amused, thought Mungo. His father who, satisfied with his own marriage, never strayed, had found the straits his friends got themselves into vastly amusing, recounting unfortunate incidents, illegitimate children to be provided for, abortions arranged, risky ailments—he always referred to venereal disease as a risky ailment—the expensive upkeep of mistresses hilariously funny. Mungo’s father had strayed, thought Mungo, into sudden death, leaving his mother rich and lonely in their large house which he would in due course inherit and, the taxman permitting, pass on to his two sons at present at preparatory school, heading for Eton, Alison not considering his old school good enough.

Mungo lay listening to his wife breathing and thought of the time of his father’s death, when Alison had taken charge, arranged the funeral, not bothering to make it look as though Mungo had arranged it, had written and answered letters, had comforted and consoled effortlessly, found a cook-housekeeper to run the large house, live-in with colour TV, her own car, regular days out and long holidays, for a modest salary. It was the holidays—a fortnight three times a year—which did the trick of keeping Miss Thomson happy, Alison emphasised, when describing her mother-in-law’s arrangements. Then, Alison would explain to incompetent daughters-in-law, then the splendid extravagance of a temporary cook during Miss Thomson’s absence, so that Lucy could entertain all the people she wished without annoying Miss Thomson, who liked a quiet routine. ‘And here,’ Alison would say, ‘here I was in for a stroke of luck. I was recommended a woman. She comes when Miss Thomson goes away and everybody’s happy.’

‘Is it expensive?’ Alison would be asked.

‘Well worth it,’ Alison would reply, not divulging the cook’s salary. ‘One is sometimes very lucky,’ Alison would say in a satisfied voice which made Mungo choke, for Alison’s good luck was also his. When seven years ago he had visited his mother without warning, she had said, ‘Darling, how lovely to see you. Go and tell the cook you will be here for dinner. Miss Thomson is on holiday.’

Mungo had been bemused. ‘Do we have cooks in this day and age?’

‘Didn’t Alison tell you? You will find her in the kitchen; tell her you are here.’

And there in the kitchen had been Hebe. The only bloody nuisance, thought Mungo, listening to Alison in the next bed, was that Hebe only appeared when Miss Thomson went away, not when Alison decided to go to Santa Barbara, thus giving him a gorgeous opportunity of seeing her, a golden chance he looked like missing. Mungo wondered whether his mother did, possibly, have an address other than the forwarding address he had himself. He could say he had a friend who had a mother in similar circumstances who needed a temporary cook. He could, perhaps, extract Hebe’s address in some other crafty way. It did seem so stupid not to know where she lived. Unable to sleep, he remembered Hebe as he had first seen her.

He had gone into the kitchen expecting a middle-aged frump and found Hebe rolling pastry, intent. She had not heard him. He had time to take in the sight of a tall girl in a pink striped dress and white apron, a parody of a cook. She had glossy dark hair cut shoulder length and a full mouth. She had the largest, darkest eyes he had ever seen. She smiled and he quite simply fell in love and determined to seduce her.

This had not proved immediately easy. To start with, Mungo questioned his mother after dinner—the best dinner he had ever eaten under her roof—as to where she had found so excellent a cook. He had been surprised that she was Alison’s discovery, though not surprised that he had not been told about it.

‘Dear Alison,’ said Mungo’s mother. ‘She took so much trouble. She interviewed at least six people. This girl was the only one who would agree to fit in with Miss Thomson. Miss Thomson plans to go away in spring, summer and autumn. Apparently her plans suit Hebe. Alison took a lot of trouble. Now she does not have to trouble any more.’

Mungo noted the repetition of the word ‘trouble’ and wondered if his mother was as fond of Alison as she professed.

‘So all Miss Thomson has to do is make her own arrangements.’

‘I should think she’d do that anyway.’

‘Yes, dear.’ Mrs Duff did not rise further than a slight swirl in the conversational pool.

‘Where does she come from?’

‘I have not asked. I do not believe in prying.’

‘Did she have references?’

‘I believe Alison found she was connected in some way with a woman who worked for your father, all very respectable. She is obviously—’

‘Obviously what?’ Mungo knew what his mother hesitated to say. He wanted to see whether she would describe Hebe as one of us, a lady, or some similar euphemism such as a nice girl.

‘Well, darling, educated.’

‘Lots of girls are educated.’

‘You know quite well what I mean.’

‘Even servants.’

‘She isn’t a servant,’ Mrs Duff protested.

‘Then what is she?’

‘Darling, don’t be boring.’ Lucy Duff had changed the subject.

During the two days he spent with his mother Mungo made frequent attempts at conversation with Hebe. She was polite but busy. She did not eat with his mother as Miss Thomson did and when not at work vanished in her car. Mungo ran out of excuses to visit the kitchen and left after two days determined to put the girl out of his mind. She remained in it and a week later he came back to see his mother using the excuse of a hiccup in her income tax. Lucy Duff was not deceived and secretly wished him joy. While taking advantage of Alison’s bossiness and capability, she did not like her any the better for it. Let Mungo have some fun.