The Dower House (19 page)

Their meals arrived.

‘What would you like to do at the
BBC
?' Angela asked.

‘I don't know so much about radio – but television when it's truly national . . . that could be very exciting. You remember the way . . .' She suddenly recalled how Felix and Angela had spent the war. ‘Well . . . newsreels – the way they were filmed, the way they did interviews . . . every aspect – they changed enormously between the start of the war and the end. And they're still changing – newsreels and documentaries. And I've often thought it would be wonderful to do that on little screens in people's drawing rooms. Or “lounges” as they probably call them. Making a documentary for four or five people round the fireside would have to be very different from the way we present it to a single audience of several hundred in a cinema. Don't you think? We'd have to invent a new visual language.' She turned to Felix. ‘That's one of the exciting things about what we're doing at Manutius. We're inventing a new graphic language for presenting information in print. On the page. Wouldn't it be exciting to do that same sort of thing in an utterly
new
medium? On that tiny screen?'

‘I can see the logic,' Felix told her. ‘But I still don't get a concrete picture in my mind. What d'you think I will actually
see
on this little screen?'

‘A face, of course – exactly what you'd expect to see around your own fireside. A friendly face. And the friendly face will tell you something . . . and then you can have a bit of the documentary or travelogue or newsreel . . . anything. But it will always come back to the friendly face.'

‘Did you
just
think this up?' Angela asked.

Faith shrugged. ‘Well, it's not new really. I was listening to Christopher Stone the other night, playing those simple melodies on
These You Have Loved
on the wireless, and I suddenly thought, Why are you listening to this . . . this awful kitsch? And it's because he's such a lovely old man with such a mellow voice and so relaxed. And then I started thinking, What sort of man or woman would I choose to play hot jazz records or some heavy classical stuff? And they'd each be different, of course, but they'd each be utterly right for the job. And then, when I started thinking about television, that all came back to me and I thought, I know exactly who should present a television programme on . . . I don't know, “modern housing” or “chaos in the docks” or “the last days of the Music Hall” . . . that sort of thing.'

‘Who?'

‘Oh – I don't know any actual names but I absolutely know the
sort
of person to go looking for. There's only one problem.' She smiled at Angela. ‘D'you think I'm arrogant enough for the job?'

Saturday, 14 June 1947

Willard glanced through the list. ‘See how the civil service is eating into his soul – everything is “possible, provisional, broad . . . suggested”. And when he runs out of those words, he just tacks on a question mark at the end.'

‘Well, he can strike out “suggested” in item seven. We girls have decided already. We shall have one last try for communal meals. Just weekends.' She raised her eyes ecstatically. ‘Oh, and never more shall we eat off plates licked clean by Xupé and Fifi and then washed in half-warm water and called “good enough” by Nicole!'

‘I still don't like this
communal
stuff. Communal . . . commun
ist
 . . .'

‘Nicole shall do all the cooking, which she loves. Sally to do all the marketing, which she's good at. And I to do all the washing-up, which I don't mind.'

Willard shook his head. ‘Tony won't like it.'

‘Nicole will just remind him of the last two meals Sally cooked.'

‘Just those last two? I guess they were pretty spectacular, though. But it's a shame you should get all the coarse work, honey. I thought you liked cooking, too?'

‘I like cooking for you and me – and for our guests when we're ready.'

‘Well, it won't last long. Just wait till we've all got families here. And kids. It'll fall apart.'

That evening Nicole celebrated her new appointment as effective chef de cuisine to the community with a superb ragout of a roadkill pheasant. Their apartment had been greatly improved – in an artistic sense – since the day of the Brandon's first visit. Nicole had acquired a whole parachute from somewhere, an item that most women used for making blouses, knickers, slips, and nighties. But Nicole had turned it into a dramatic feature, with a pre-war tailor's dummy, based on Leslie Howard, and several
objets trouvés
. It broke up the view of the back of the sofa that had so upset Isabella Brandon.

As this was their first, formal Communal Meeting, they opened a couple of bottles of wine, too. But the resulting goodwill did not last ten minutes into item one.

Willard was astounded. The trifling little electricity bill seemed such a cut-and-dried business that he had not even bothered to discuss it with Marianne. Obviously he and she had used the most electricity – with all their power tools. Felix, who only had a few lights and one electric ring, had obviously used the least. Willard therefore proposed a simple division: Johnsons, £5; Wilsons and Palmers, £3 each; the Prentices £1; and Felix the small change. No one else had been there long enough to have used a meaningful amount. Next item.

‘Not so fast please!' Nicole had ideas of her own. ‘I think Johnsons
six
quid, Wilsons and Palmers
two-fifty
.' She turned on Marianne. ‘You have that beeeg American oven. Ours is small.'

Marianne disagreed. ‘But it's summer. I cook very little.'

‘I don't mean only cooking.' Nicole addressed the meeting, ‘She heats the whole upstairs with it.'

‘Not true!' Marianne objected. ‘
Vous n'êtes pas honnête!
I have seen you dry Fifi with
your
oven when her furs get wetted.'

Tony turned aghast to Nicole, who had covered her ears to blot out Marianne. ‘Fifi in the oven?'

‘I open the oven door and hold her over it,' she admitted crossly. ‘But only a few minutes. It's a tiny oven, anyway. Not like that big American—'

‘
And
you heated the bathroom with it. You carried it in there and opened the oven door, too.'

‘Just twice! It's a little portable oven. How much can it use?'

‘Funny – I was only in that part of your flat twice, and both times you had it in the bathroom, open and . . . I could feel the radiation even just walking past.'

‘Anyway,' Felix said, ‘I don't think Faith and I should only pay the loose change. I think we should split it four ways evenly.'

Tony said, ‘I don't think you should pay at all until you've got an oven. They're the big users. But I think perhaps Marianne has a point. I suggest we and the Johnsons go fifty-fifty and leave Felix out this time.'

‘That's so
bloody
patronizing!' Faith blurted out to Felix. She'd already put away a few snifters before they came over for the meal. ‘Are you going to let them patronize you like that? Pay the fucking lot yourself. You can afford it easily. Stuff them!'

‘Faith, dear,' Tony said mildly. ‘There is a matter of principle involved here.'

‘Oh, sod your principles!' she sneered. ‘This bickering is just so petty bourgeois.
I'll
pay it if Felix won't – so there! God – how I
hate
democracy.'

Then everyone began talking at once.

‘For Christ's sake!' Willard shouted above it all. ‘I mean, what the hell are we talking about here? A lousy twelve quid and a few odd pence!'

They fell to silence.

‘Anyway,' Marianne said, ‘we don't know how much should be communal electricity. The hall light often gets left on all night. That's communal.'

‘You mean
I
leave it on?' Nicole accused.

‘It doesn't matter who leaves it on. It's just a fact. The hall light should be communal – paid for communally.'

‘Which brings us on to item two,' Faith said. ‘For Christ's sake let's get on or we'll be up all night.'

‘We must finish item one first,' Tony insisted.

‘
You'll
be up all night anyway,' Nicole sneered at Faith. ‘Your light's always on over there.'

‘I don't believe this,' Willard said. ‘Why don't we draw lots for who pays and how much?'

‘It would be equally as fair as anything else,' Marianne said. ‘How can we know who owes more than anyone another?'

Eric Brandon spoke. ‘I think we should chip in with at least a quid. I know we're not living here full time yet, but we have—'

Marianne interrupted, ‘And besides – Willard has got the front lawn looking like grass again—'

‘So?' Nicole challenged.

‘So – he has done more for this community than
some
other people. No one else bothers.'

‘Did you speak, my darling?' Isabella Brandon asked her husband.

He brought the flat of his hand down on the table and raised it again to reveal a pound note. ‘Actions speak louder than words,' he said.

‘As the Irishman said, “Is this a private fight or can anyone join in?”' Sally asked. ‘I suggest that, as we have the best part of three months until the next meter reading, we use that time to investigate the actual wiring circuits and see if they are sufficiently separate to allow us to install individual private meters to help us divide the
next
bill with less . . . what can I call it?'

‘Democracy?' Faith offered. ‘Communism?'

‘This argument is not about electricity, anyway,' Marianne muttered.

‘What then?' Nicole challenged.

‘We all know what it's really about.'

‘Sit up straight, precious,' Isabella snapped at Eric. ‘No wonder your back hurts – the way you sit.'

‘Ah!' he replied wistfully. ‘I see you have not grasped my purpose, my dear. I was seeking to make myself as small and inconspicuous as possible – just while these torrents of unbridled abuse and contumely pass overhead. You and I are so utterly unused to this bickering sort of atmosphere.'

When the laughter died, neither Marianne nor Nicole could find the way back to the battleground.

‘Item two!' Willard barked at Tony.

Most of the remaining agenda went through smoothly.

A Communal Fund would be levied at the rate of one pound per family per month.

The rewiring done in the days of the evacuated school would probably last another ten years; meanwhile a certain amount of extending and patching was all they need do. And private meters could intercept most if not all of the electricity they used.

Willard would look into restoring the old central-heating system at least to the flats in the main house.

Everyone should look out for a good second-hand Rotavator – to take the pain out of digging the vegetable garden. Also a flame gun to keep down the weeds. And individual families would be responsible for their own barrows, forks, spades, etc.

The Johnsons volunteered to make and fit a broad shelf in the passage, just inside the old Tudor back door, with seven divisions – six for the families and one for A.N. Other – where deliveries of milk, letters, newspapers, etc. should be left.

‘Item seven,' Tony snapped.

‘Eight!' the three women said in unison.

He looked hurt at each in turn; then at Willard, who held up both hands à la Pontius Pilate.

‘The communal meals work very well when Nicole is the chef,' Marianne said. ‘Too badly when I am chef.' [murmurs of dissent] ‘And so-so in-between. So now – until the babies are coming – Nicole is chef, Sally and Faith are shopping ladies. I am washer-upper. And everybody is host and hostess in turn.'

‘Can't
we
contribute more?' May Prentice asked.

‘Somewhere else?' Sally suggested. ‘Sweeping the communal area? Weeding? Pruning? When the babies are coming – as Marianne says – everything will change, anyway.'

Tony conceded with a sigh. ‘Item eight.'

They decided that the vegetable garden was so large that, if they got a good rotary tiller, they could devote half an acre to some communal project – potatoes for sale, say – and in the remaining enclosure people could take as much as they liked for individual vegetable and flower gardens.

Tony reported he had completed only half the structural survey and had found one possible piece of dry rot which the landlord would tackle. Adam had mortared glass telltales into the brickwork over several small cracks, which were probably ancient and harmless.

Nicole said she and Tony were planning a midsummer party – actually on the 21st of June when there was a full moon – to be held on their lawn for ‘some people from the village'. Everyone in the house was welcome, of course. They were so vague as to who these ‘people' might be that Willard's suspicions were alerted at once. The community had no leader, it was true; but he felt that if anyone was to represent it to the wider world, the mantle should fall on him.

When Nicole said she hoped everyone would make a special effort to keep the communal areas clean and tidy for the occasion, Marianne almost had a fit. She wasn't the only one. The stunned silence seemed a good note on which to finish. Tony said, ‘Any Other Business?' in a tone that clearly expected none.