Muriel Pulls It Off (18 page)

‘Aha. Yes. Aha. This is Judith. Judith Atkins as a matter of fact.’

Atkins. Atkins. They stood but inches from the dead and buried body of Jerome. Jerome Atkins.

Muriel refused to react to this heinous introduction but muttered, ‘Hot isn’t it?’

She dared not seek the company of Peter for he continued to talk to Hugh as the graveyard group disbanded down the church path, heading
for the house. Delilah was her only hope. Together they walked, clear of the rest, through the village; Delilah jubilant to have carried off such a prize, Muriel praying for Jerome not to be waiting for her, somewhere very near, just around the corner.

After the occasional interruption, (a farmer here, a friendly neighbour there - one keen to earn points for broadmindedness) they arrived hotly at the front door of the house that stood, supposedly, threatened by Miss Judith Atkins.

The party, if such constituted Jerome’s wake, got off to a loud start. People arrived, one on top of the other, none having come but the short distance from the church. The house was, within a short space of time, jammed with darkly-dressed men and women who, in the heat, grabbed gratefully at glasses filled at Muriel’s bidding, and contrived to meet their hostess. Cold luncheon was served in the dining room where guests helped themselves and then wandered to sit with whom they pleased. Muriel left the duties of hospitality to Marco who gained pleasure from bestowing instant commitment with fluency and ease of manner.

She had a double task. It was imperative not to have truck with Hugh until the visitors had departed and it was equally imperative to have none, at any stage during the day, with Roger or Miss Judith Atkins. She knew the executions of these evasions to be unrealistic for, were they not there to confront? What purpose did Roger proffer in the production of this woman?

She flew up the stairway, sledgehammers beating at her head, and hurled herself upon Monopoly who slumbered on her bed. How dare Hugh shock her in this way? She decided, then and there, to hide the dog and looked for cubbyholes. Her main desire was that Hugh and Monopoly should not come face to face. She planned, if necessary, to lie to Hugh and to explain that, in his absence, his pet had died a natural death. Pined.

The end of her world threatened if Monopoly were to change allegiance. Of Peter she was sure there was no likelihood that he would support his brother in favour of herself or encourage her to mend her marriage, but dogs were different and she had never been able to fathom their secrets - for Monopoly was the only dog ever to have held a place in her anti-canine heart.

Exhaustion subdued her spirit as she lay with her head buried in Monopoly’s fur but she knew it was imperative for her to preserve outward composure and to rejoin the wake.

Downstairs, she cold-shouldered Roger, as did Marco - which impressed his mother for, normally, he had no talent for such tactics. Flavia held herself aloof. Phyllis, red and runny, refused to travel in the direction of her seducer as Miss Atkins clung closer and Roger, glued to the female, strove for an interview with Arthur. He recognised the latter from his earlier visit to Bradstow when Arthur had passed him by as he picked his nose in the hall.

Guests ate and drank as Delilah, social predator, contrived to mix with all she met. As befitted her sense of responsibility, she spent a word or two on Phyllis and beamed upon Sonia who sobbed, but her true energy targeted meatier quarry.

Roger, on the point of accosting Arthur, took her attention for he wore the look of one who came from far afield.

She tackled him. ‘I always think it’s permissible to introduce oneself at a funeral don’t you? After all - we do have one thing in common. We are all here because of Jerome. Are you, by any chance, a relative?’

‘Ahem. Not personally, but allow me to present Miss Atkins. Miss Judith Atkins.’

His face was both blanched and livid as he reached for further refreshment from a tray carried by Phyllis, who had no wish to prevent the consequences of such a transaction.

‘Miss Atkins! You must be a relative! Don’t tell me you’re not. Where’s Muriel? She would hate to miss the opportunity of meeting a relative.’

Failing to find Muriel, she plumped for second choice and seized upon Arthur who munched nearby, scattering rice onto his morning suit.

As she performed the niceties, Delilah’s higher ambition was to identify the strange man talking to the blind and puzzling Mr Cottle, Muriel’s brother-in-law.

‘Miss Atkins? May I call you Judith? Christian names only, down here. Rule of the village. This is Mr Stiller. Arthur. He’s a sweetie. Jerome’s solicitor.’

Roger showed signs of becoming the worse for wear and looked hazily on as Jerome’s solicitor, now to all effects Muriel’s, came face to face with Roger’s nominee.

‘Pleased to meet you. Sorry. Can’t shake hands. Always a bit of a problem at these do’s you know. I can’t say that I ever heard Jerome mention any kin; other than Mrs Cottle, that is to say.’

For the first time Miss Judith Atkins spoke. She signalled to Roger for support but without result for he had become bleary.

‘I was not aware that Mrs Cottle was his kin.’

‘Not his own, perhaps, but his wife’s.’

‘Mr Stiller. I plan to spend the night at The Bear at Shifford. I have reason to believe that a meeting between you and I might be beneficial to us both. I am free at any time during the day tomorrow and will presume to ring you at your office in the morning.’

The length and content of her sentence weakened Miss Atkins and she turned to Delilah for reassurance. Delilah, both flabbergasted and uneasy at witnessing such divisive insinuation, commenced, uncharacteristically, to panic. The woman who confronted Arthur was neither young nor old. She was unclassifiable in that respect but, under Delilah’s scrutiny, passed as something near to fifty.

Muriel, having braved her re-entry and expecting Jerome to be lurking just around the corner, came into view and Delilah hailed her, confident that with her royal connections, she was certain to triumph.

Before Delilah could capture her, a vast female face, property of an ageing widow, swam as from an aquarium, to meet Muriel’s own.

‘You won’t know me. Well, how could you? My name is Angela Swann. My late husband, Godfrey, and myself used to enjoy good times here in the old days and we’re all anxious to know if you’re going to make any alterations. A little bird has hinted that you’re planning to call down a London decorator.’ In claustrophobic anxiety, Muriel inched away, creating some space into which a reply might be fitted between their two mouths, but such a reply was not to be allowed for. Another face wedged itself in there and opened its mouth.

‘I can’t help wondering if you received my letter. I’m your local councillor. I wrote several days back, as a matter of fact, concerning a vindictive element in the neighbourhood.’

‘I’m hopeless, I’m afraid. Disappointing everybody. It’s early days. Nothing’s certain.’ As she backed and backed - she backed, as it happened, onto a patch of carpet near to where Roger, slowly and noiselessly, sagged and crumpled to the ground. He had passed out. Delilah sidestepped the body and clove to Muriel who had only guessed at Judith Atkins’s intentions; guessed, too, that Roger would not have selected the gauchely-attired creature for this inappropriate outing other than with nefarious motive.

Half the party ate in the dining room; some in the hall and the remainder, not more than twenty at the most, sat or stood supporting glasses and plates in the drawing room. Among this number sat Hugh and Peter whose heads touched in the bow window. Their conversation, to Muriel as she scanned, gave the impression of earnest compatibility.

Delilah came very close.

‘Muriel I must ask you something. That man talking to your
brother-in
-law. There’s a resemblance. Can you throw any light on his identity?’

‘Him? Hugh. He’s my husband.’

It had to be told.

Arthur, scattering rice, mulled over the words of the half-veiled stranger at whose feet Roger groaned, and agonised as to which side his bread was likely to be buttered.

Delilah, ignited by Muriel’s tidings, wondered who to inform as guests began to leave. Those who had not already collared her sought Muriel with the desire to shake her by the hand and to invest in the future life at Bradstow Manor; royalty and all. She allowed for politeness and willed them with sincerity upon their ways. Then, as though their presence had been but imaginings, they were gone.

Roger lay, secretion oozing from a corner of his mouth, prostrate across the carpet as Judith Atkins looked daggers in his way; her supporter rendered useless by champagne. She had, in fairness, gained permission to put through a call to Arthur in the morning but, at present, failed in further audacity without a hand from her champion.

Arthur left, and those present in the drawing room dwindled to the following figures; Hugh, Peter and Marco in confabulation, the inert Roger, Judith Atkins, Phyllis and Kitty, a brace of Kitty’s sisters clearing plates and glasses, and Dawson and Delilah. Alastair had beaten an early retreat in order to see to his packing for he planned to leave for Cap Ferrat the next day.

Muriel pre-empted Delilah; thanking both her and Dawson for the gorgeousness of the service, the flowers and for their general assistance and saying that, before long, she would arrange a get-together.

With curiosity and reluctance they took their leave and, as they did so, Muriel’s heart failed her. The die was cast and at any second she and Hugh would be tackling immediate plans. Longer ones must be shelved.

T
he confrontation that she had held in trepidation, longed for, dreaded, imagined and rejected was on the point of taking place. Hugh was at her side, smiling and aiming to touch her, absurdly narcissistic in morning suit and with a glass or two of champagne inside him. Marco and Peter remained by the bow window.

‘Muriel, sit down. You must be tired.’ He enraged her. The cheek of it. Feigning to worry on the instant as to whether or not she was tired after months of desertion. She might, during those months, have dropped dead on a million occasions without his footling concern.

He made to avoid the motionless body of Roger that hindered his gallant attempts but the manoeuvre forced him to stumble and trip; to lurch and grasp with one hand at the arm of the sofa and with the other to clutch at the wrist of Miss Judith Atkins. She was not displeased. The reverse, and stated archly as she complained, that she found sequences hard to follow.

‘I’m not thick, though I say so myself. In fact I tend to be an insightful person.’ She smiled contentedly as she helped Hugh to gain his balance and then to sit.

‘I mean - who is who amongst you all?’

‘And who,’ asked Muriel, ‘are you?’

‘I am Judith Atkins. Niece of the deceased. My father, Archie Atkins, was his brother. Two years younger. That is to say, they fell out. The dynamics went wrong in the nursery and they never made it up. My uncle made a posh marriage and believed himself too good for us.’

‘So. You are here as Jerome’s niece. How come you brought Roger along?’

They all looked at the figure on the floor.

‘That is to say he brought me. Had it not been for Roger, who is a new acquaintance,’ here she smirked, ‘I would not have been informed of my uncle’s demise.’

Muriel, wondering where Miss Atkins had picked up the use of such queer language, pressed on, pleased to postpone a set-to with Hugh.

‘Why did Roger think fit to bring you to your own uncle’s funeral? He and Jerome never met.’

Miss Atkins showed signs of anxiety. ‘Well. That is to say, I assumed he knew my uncle. He told me he was well in with you Cottles.’

Hugh jumped at the word ‘Cottle.’ After all, he was one. His hour had come. Clearing his throat as he had done in church when exercising his vocal chords, he decided to take charge.

‘Am I to assume that neither you or, er, Roger have ever met Mr Atkins?’

‘Correct. Have you?’

‘As a matter of fact - no. I didn’t meet him but I am married to Muriel; Muriel Cottle. Mr Atkins’s, well, sort of niece.’

‘Not as much of a niece as I am, I have been led to believe.’

‘Possibly not but, well, now the funeral is over, will you be returning to London? Did you come from London this morning?’ He was muddled, and floundered as he adjusted his position on the sofa.

‘The Bear at Shifford. That is to say that I would have stayed at The Bear at Shifford with Roger.’ Roger showed no sign of life.

‘But, well, perhaps a bed here would be forthcoming? If I could ask for assistance in getting Roger up the stairs, we would not expect a meal.’

Big of you, thought Muriel as she organised their departure in her mind.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘That won’t work. We’ll have to revive him. I’ll send for Dulcie.’

She still entertained the whisper of a wonder that Roger had fathered her forthcoming grandchild. Were that so, he had, at some point, held a carnal position in the lives of most of the women in the house.

After leaving the room, she walked to the kitchen where she asked a gloating Phyllis to fetch Dulcie and to tell her that help was needed for the task of resuscitating the inebriated Roger. Phyllis rallied with twitching zeal. Roger unconscious. Roger about to be banned from the house; Roger’s new lady friend about to be banished alongside him.

Dulcie had removed her suit and tie and made it clear that the summons was welcome.

‘What did I tell you? They are nothing but a bunch of alcoholics.’ She ignored the presence of Muriel. ‘That son of theirs is not much better and, I have been informed, that gentleman in fancy dress is the long-lost husband. Ten to one he’s another alcoholic.’

With relish, she marched into the drawing room, sent Miss Atkins spinning with the slap of a hand and kicked Roger in the buttock. Hugh, who had not yet met Dulcie, sat back in uncertain terror and watched and wondered whether he did, in reality, wish to become a feature of the household.

Muriel watched too, but from the doorway. Peter and Marco had disappeared and Miss Atkins, veil askew since Dulcie’s rap, was the only other observer.

Dulcie bent stiffly and, with a filthy finger, lifted one of Roger’s eyelids. Then, with her sleeve, she wiped away some of the saliva that continued to trickle from his mouth.

‘Water. One of you.? Fetch me some water. Perfectly useless, the lot of you. Totally useless.’

Hugh, in his tails, rose and ran from the room. Miss Atkins cried, ‘You’ll kill him if you’re not careful.’

Dulcie had straightened up and was kicking again.

‘You’ll kill him.’

‘Yes and I’ll kill you too if you don’t stop that snivelling. And what is more I’d like you to remove that silly hat.’

When Hugh returned, gingerly carrying a glass of water, he found that Muriel had deserted her post by the door.

He took the glass to Dulcie and, during a moment when she desisted from administering kicks with her boot, handed it to her before she rounded on him.

‘Are you totally useless? What am I supposed to do with that? It’s a bucket I need. Just you go back to the kitchen and fill me a bucket.’

He returned, collar stiff, to the kitchen where Kitty filled a pail.

As he set off, back towards the drawing room slopping water and sweating badly, he was almost prostrated by his own and his wife’s futility.

He was tired, too, for he had travelled a long way during the past twenty-four hours and the spectacles that had greeted him were a far cry
from those of his imagination. He had accepted that his duties might lie in a certain and not unpleasant direction; that of helping his wife deal with a bunch of hidebound old retainers. A kindly word here and there; a suggestion or two; the easing of an old favourite into retirement.

Carrying a pail of water through a gloomy house for an androgynous maniac to slosh over the face of an inebriated seducer in the presence of a la-di-da claimant to the property he had planned to control, did not encourage him.

Then there was his brother; his poor, blind, dithering brother. He had an eerie instinct that Peter was more intimate with Muriel than was appropriate. During their conversation in the bow window, Peter had given out an unprecedented atmosphere of confidence; acting as one who knew more than he was prepared to share. He thought these thoughts and spared one for the dog as he handed the pail to Dulcie.

Roger had not stirred and Miss Atkins sat blubbing, hatless, and claiming through heaves, ‘I cannot abide to witness physical cruelty. I have always been an insightful person. It’s my profession but it doesn’t pay. It is for that reason that I anticipate a slice.’

Here she broke down and threw the bulk of her body into the armchair.

Dulcie snatched the pail and, holding it in both hands above her head, allowed the cascade to crash over Roger’s face.

She stood back, well satisfied, as Roger opened his eyes, moved his hands and uttered ‘fuck’ several times.

‘I’ll give you fuck. Get up on those two legs of yours; that is to add, if you are capable.’

He was capable but only just. He clutched and grasped and stiffened before rising, swearing as he did so. Hugh held out a hand to him, pining for the duties he had dreamed of.

Dulcie propelled the empty pail towards Miss Atkins and said, ‘When you’ve stopped that idiotic snivelling take this bucket back to the kitchen. Whether or not you can drive a car I don’t know.’ This was put as a question and was answered in a dismal negative.

‘In that case, I’m phoning for a local taxi. You wouldn’t get far with ‘im at the wheel.’

Hugh filled no role.

‘Now.’ Dulcie manhandled Roger, twisting his arms to test flexibility and waving a big finger before his rheumy eyes. ‘Now. We want to get you
as far as the front door and there you will have to wait. As far as your own car goes, and I gather it is no more than hired, you can get another taxi out here tomorrow to fetch it. If you have sufficiently sobered up by then.’

Roger commented on the heat but did not hide confusion as he waited, swaying and wet, for the return to the room of Miss Atkins.

The very fact that her swain was upright brought about a return of her previous liveliness and, addressing Hugh, she made a farewell speech.

‘Tomorrow I am to see Mr Stiller. Well. Phone him that is to say, in the hopes of a powwow. I have a right to improve the quality of my life and I have it on good authority that I might be entitled to a claim over and beyond your wife’s. I was never provided for and, as I said earlier, my work satisfaction doesn’t tally with the pay.’ She lifted the black hat from the chair and placed it on her head.

Single-handed but using both fists, Dulcie orchestrated the departure of Roger and Miss Atkins; filling the driver in with warnings of his passengers’ behavioural problems and pleasing herself with praise for her own capabilities.

It was not long after five o’clock and Hugh, alone, fell to reflection. He was still dressed as he had been for the morning ceremony and the heat was gruelling. Worse than South Africa. There was not, nor had there been since his arrival, any sign of Monopoly. Nobody had shown him to a bedroom. Peter was clearly ensconced in one, as were Marco and Flavia, but none amongst the bevy of helpers had offered any of their help to him - and Muriel had disappeared.

Dulcie blocked his way. ‘Now. If you have nothing better to do you might as well empty that mousetrap in the back passage. There’s a mouse in there. I heard it scratching. What you have to do is this.’ She gave long and complicated instructions. The entire mousetrap had to be taken to the garden and emptied. The mouse then had to be assassinated. Hugh queried the method, pointing out that if the mouse had to be murdered at some stage, wouldn’t it be more labour-saving and humane to use a conventional death trap?

‘You’ll find it gyrating beyond the telephone. It must be a gigantic mouse to get the whole trap bouncing up and down like that. Gigantic.’

Gravely Hugh performed his task, granting that it was imperative for him to act with correctitude. Task over, he asked Kitty to take him to a room where he could change his clothes and eventually sleep. Kitty had
wondered whether Mr Cottle planned to snuggle up with his wife and worried that Muriel seemed to be attached to the four-poster bed; suitable for one occupant.

She showed him to a small room that, in old days, had served as dressing room to the more stately one occupied by Marco and Flavia and one that, he accepted, would have to do for the present.

Muriel, in her room, confronted a crisis in the shape of Monopoly. She knew that she had no right to imprison him indefinitely but rebelled against the risk she courted in allowing him to brush with Hugh. It struck her as ridiculous that it mattered nothing to her that Marco should greet his father in friendly fashion. She had smuggled up provisions but there were other problems. Late that night she and her dog would sneak out together, and hope not to find Sonia weaving spells with her cat by the stream.

Before supper, in the drawing room, Muriel, Hugh, Peter, Marco and Flavia foregathered. In semi-silence they sipped from glasses. In
semi-silence
they ate the first course of supper. In semi-silence they waded through the main course (left over from the funeral lunch) but, during pudding, (also left over from the funeral lunch), Marco burst out, ‘So. Dad. What’s your game? Have you come back for good?’

Hugh, casually dressed with studied precision, gave an artless reply.

‘Well spoken Marco. I wondered when someone was going to break the ice. Your mother, I appreciate, has had plenty on her plate today.’

He looked tenderly at Muriel but the overture was met with no response, whereupon he decided to put his cards on the table for the benefit of the ears of the four who sat around it.

‘When I heard of - all this, I decided to pack in Johannesburg. Mum,’ he spoke through Marco, ‘didn’t want to join me and, well, I missed you all. By the way, Muriel, how and where is Monopoly?’

Whatever the planning that went before, she had never been able to hold facts back.

‘In my bedroom.’

‘Good God. You mean to say that my dog is in this very house and that, as yet, I have seen neither hound nor hair.’ He liked his words and braced himself for action.

‘If I may, I will run upstairs and find him. Muriel - er - where is your bedroom?’

Muriel, provided by nature with tenderness, was not always discriminating in her methods of bestowing it. If the strings of her heart were touched it was in her to extend support in likely directions so, when her time came to be ill used, she had no machinery with which to withhold it. She fought her own causes as fiercely as she fought those of others. It was during one of her bouts of tumbling into this trap that Marco and Flavia had labelled her a ‘whinger’.

She stood tall in her grey cotton dress, unchanged since the funeral, hair bouncing as she raged against her husband across the table.

‘What do you mean by calling Monopoly your dog?’ Her voice was tinny. ‘You left him in the lurch. You knew that I didn’t like him, or any dog. You knew that he could do nothing but complicate my life. I jolly nearly had him put down.’ Here she offended herself and hesitated; it sounded too awful.

Hugh, stunned in his bright blue shirt, interrupted, held up a hand and appealed to his brother.

‘I said she’d had a tiring day but I don’t understand. Has she come round to Monopoly? I hoped she might. Company for her. Perhaps, Peter, you can persuade her to go to bed?’

Muriel still standing but shaking and drawing hungrily on a cigarette, resumed her attack. ‘Why the bloody hell do you treat me as an imbecile? If you wish to talk to me, do so, but don’t carry on as if I were a photograph. Stop addressing me through Peter and Marco.’