When I Was Otherwise (16 page)

As she said this Daisy slipped down from her stool—though somewhat awkwardly; even in the short while she'd been perching there one of her knees had stiffened. Nevertheless she left her stick lying where she had put it, on the tabletop…which afterwards Marsha would need to disinfect of course; particularly the part contaminated by the ferrule.

“We'll just show 'em, dear, shall we? The two of us together? We'll show 'em!”

“Show 'em what, Daisy?”

“That every time it rains, it rains…pennies from heaven.”

For the first half dozen words Marsha, with her attention still directed towards the sink and the draining board, didn't even realize that Daisy was singing. She had missed both the stance—and the tune. Only that well-known phrase alerted her. She turned her head and gave Daisy a brief, apparently encouraging smile, but then continued with her work, hoping that she'd soon stop.

“Don't you know each cloud contains…pennies from heaven?”

Now, along with the familiar melody which had, albeit rather flatly, finally caught up with its lyric, Marsha saw out of the corner of her eye that there was also movement to accompany the words. Good God, she was actually dancing! Or doing what from Daisy's viewpoint must have passed for dancing. Why couldn't she just leave her alone? Marsha felt herself extremely close to tears.

“You'll find your fortune falling…all over town. Be sure that your umbrella…is upside down.”

Now Daisy was nearly at her elbow. Marsha purposely hadn't looked round but she would have sensed it, anyway, even if she hadn't heard.

And then she felt one of her sleeves being tugged—as if by a tiresomely persistent child.

Oh, this was too much. This was just too much.
Really, Daisy
!
Go away
!
Please stop it
!

“Now come on, dear. You've got to sing it too.”

“No, don't be silly. I can't. I don't know the words.”

“Trade them for a package of…sunshine and flowers. If you want the things you love…you must have showers. So when you hear it thunder…don't run under…a tree. There'll be pennies from heaven for you…and…me!”

All the time, the importuning hand remained on Marsha's sleeve—and plucked it, more or less in rhythm to the song. Marsha bit her lip; and felt her lunch gradually turning to lead.

Daisy said, “And it isn't such very bad advice, dear, is it? Now then; your turn. Remember we're in partnership! So every time it rains, it rains…”; a deluge of washing-up water caught her across the lower part of her face and heavily bespattered the front of her blouse.

There was a startled silence. Even a stunned one. Daisy regained her balance, blinked rapidly and rubbed her eyes.

“By Jove!” she cried. “For a moment I thought it really was raining pennies from heaven! But
they
wouldn't taste like soapsuds; at least I expect not, would they? When you do enter into a part, dear, you certainly give it everything you've got! Well done, Mrs Siddons! A very fine achievement.”

Marsha—now thoroughly contrite and appalled—was already busy with a tea towel. Her exasperation had gone. Indeed, because Daisy was chuckling she couldn't help laughing a little herself.

“There! I told you I'd make you laugh.”

“I just can't think how it happened. Somehow my hand must have slipped.”

“Now you mustn't detract from your achievements!” Daisy pretended to be stern. “Anybody else's. Never your own.”

“Oh, I think you've got achievements on the brain, Daisy.”

“Yes, I have! So now tell me what you consider to be
your
greatest achievement. Apart from this.”

Of course, she was quite sure of the answer; and if she hadn't wanted so much to cheer her up—consolidate that progress already made—she would never have put the question. “My children,” Marsha would say. All these fond complacent mothers were exactly the same. As though there was anything to be proud of in doing what the rabbits did oftener and with a good deal less fuss. But Daisy felt in sufficiently high spirits this afternoon to encourage even the smallest display of positivity.

“My greatest achievement?” Marsha scarcely hesitated; three seconds at most. “Snipping the condoms,” she said.

“
What
was that, dear?” Yet this time Daisy actually had heard.

“Yes. Didn't you know? Andrew never wanted a second child. And I was quite determined we should have one. After all, there'd been nothing much else to salvage from the marriage.”

“And so you…?”

“Yes. One day when he was out at work. He had two or three packets in his drawer. I just took my scissors and very carefully—”

Daisy suddenly raised her hands above her head and produced a triumphal clap. “So Malcolm really is your greatest achievement! He really is! Does he know?”

“Of course he does. I thought everybody did. Except—possibly—Andrew.” Here she was alluding to her former husband; not to her son.

But Daisy's amusement was first-time genuine.

“Whatever did he say?” she asked.

“When he discovered I was pregnant?” Marsha's smile was speedily displaced. “Oh, he wasn't pleased at all. No, not at all. His first reaction was—well, hardly that of a gentleman, to say the least.”

“He swore?”

“Yes, but he did a lot more than that.”

“He hit you?”

“No, but he implied—”

“What did he imply, dear?”

“That Malcolm wasn't his baby.”

“Oh! What a brute! How like a man! Always so ready to think he's been deceived. My word, though—he must have worked himself into a real old-fashioned lather!”

“Yes.”

“And you had always known he would. Yes, I'll be jiggered! You obviously had guts.”

Marsha shrugged.

“How lucky that Malcolm proved to be the spit and image.”

“I suppose so.”

“Oh, but what a hoot!” Daisy's enjoyment of the joke was irresistible. Soon the two of them were laughing again. Unrestrainedly. It set them on very good terms with one another; and even as much as two days later Daisy was still intermittently chortling. “Yes, that was
quite
an achievement! I never knew you had it in you. We'll have to christen you Miss Snip—Miss Snip the Barber's Daughter. How do you do, Miss Snip? Well done! I think they'll really have to include you in next year's Honours List. I'll notify the Queen.”

22

“Hello, Andrew. Turned up again like the bad penny, I see. How are you? Where's Myra?”

“Hello, Aunt Daisy. I'm all right.” When she came into the lounge he quickly folded his paper and stood up but seemed uncertain whether just to take her hand or kiss her cheek or do both. In the end he did neither. He merely waited for her to sit down and then did so himself. “Unfortunately, Myra couldn't make it. She's not up to much at the moment.”

“She wasn't up to much last time if I remember rightly. I haven't seen her in donkey's years.”

“Myra's always been a bit on the sickly side.”

“She enjoys bad health—as people used to say. Yes. Poor Myra. She's never been up to much, has she? Where are the boys then? In the garden?”

“No, they haven't come today. You know how it is with young people now—always off somewhere with their friends. Once they've turned sixteen they're very seldom at home. You hardly see them.”

“Nor does their grandmother.”

“Yes, I know. We keep inviting her to come and stay. Always tells us that she can't leave you and Uncle Dan!”

“Hmm. Probably can't see the huge advantage of Harrow over Hendon, more like!
Even
Hendon, perhaps I ought to say. You should take her off to the sea with you for a few days. Must be aeons since she had a break.”

“Well, yes, but unhappily that's easier said than done… Excuse me, Aunt Daisy. Perhaps I'll go and see if she needs some assistance.”

“No, sit down again. Finish your cigarette. And maybe you'd like to offer me one? I seem to have left my own upstairs. No, if I know your mother, the last thing she'll want is for someone to be getting under her feet in the kitchen.” She chuckled. “What's the matter, though? Scared of a few minutes alone with your mad Aunt Daisy—mad, bad, and dangerous to know? You suddenly remind me of your father.”

Andrew, uncertain how to answer this, perhaps wisely didn't try to. He lit her cigarette, passed her an ashtray and then resumed his seat.

“Be brave. Dan will be back quite shortly, I daresay. At least I hope he will! Trust
him
not to have known there wasn't any sherry in the house! I could have told him, if he'd only asked. I don't think, dear, your children are awfully good to their grandmother, if you want the honest truth.”

“She doesn't bother very much with them, either. It's reciprocal.”

“I don't think you're so very marvellous yourself, come to that. And as for Myra…well, she's a complete write-off if ever I saw one. I hope you don't mind my mentioning these things?”

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact. I don't feel it's any of your business.”

“Just whose business is it, would you say?”

“No one's but Mother's and our own.”

“And will you and she be conducting it this afternoon…despite the absence of those other board members? Over lunch would you like me to raise certain items for the agenda and then leave you to discuss them as you do the washing up?”

“No, thank you. And would you mind changing the subject please?”

“Yes, if you like. I suppose you think this Thatcher woman is the bee's knees? I shouldn't be at all surprised.”

“I like Margaret Thatcher, yes. I think she's highly admirable. She'll do a good job.”

“Pish!”

There was a long silence. Daisy drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair.

“You know I had to sell my car, I suppose? That was over a year ago.”

“I did hear something to that effect,” he said.

“You could do with selling your own car if you ask me. Why didn't you walk with Dan to the off-licence?”

“I offered him a lift but he said it wasn't worth it. And as a matter of fact… I had a bit of a stitch for some reason.”

“Ah. I thought so. You're very overweight.”

“What's that book you brought down with you? Is it any good?”

“
Don Quixote
. It's my bible. One of them! How old are you now—forty-five? Not that it matters, of course. Except that it does, you know. In one sense.”

“I happen to have just turned forty-four. Well, no more than a month or two ago,” he amended, defensively.

She received this news with a raising of the eyebrows and a pursing of the lips. She stubbed out her cigarette.

“I thought your birthday was in March. Like Dan's.”

“The very end of it,” he said.

“And with all that flesh you carry…aren't you frightened for your heart?”

“Only when I'm with you.”

She smiled.

“No but seriously,” she said, “the forties are a notoriously dangerous age. I mean—for men. Only the other day I heard of someone who was…well, he was also just forty-four, funnily enough. Enjoyed a good game of tennis in the morning—but he was quite used to playing it, of course—must have been in better shape than you are. In the afternoon he suddenly keeled over. Dead. No warning whatsoever. Bonk! That was a Sunday, too.”

“I'm sorry to hear of it,” said Andrew.

“But the point is, dear: have you decided yet on the things that are really important to you? That's what I'm anxious to find out.”

“Yes. Margaret Thatcher. The winner of the Grand National. The state of the stock market.” He said this with not the glimmer of a smile.

Daisy laughed; and for the time being looked upon him far more kindly. “Yes. You
are
your father's son.” As clearly as his brother was—though in a different way. In actual appearance Andrew looked more like his uncle than he did his father.

“You think so?”

“I hear that you're his favourite, too. His and his new wife's.” (Of thirty-two years' standing.)

“Just as Malcolm is his mother's.”

“Well, yes, there may be something in that, also.”

There was a pause. This moment of better feeling between them was precariously balanced.

Andrew spoke about the weather.

“It looks as though things might be brightening up,” he concluded, conscientiously. “And not before time!”

Daisy nodded her agreement. “What's more, a break by the sea wouldn't do
you
any harm either, I daresay. And as for Myra—well, I should have thought she was positively crying out for one; what with all that poor health which she enjoys.”

“She does
not
enjoy it.”

“Exactly. Which is the very thing I'm saying to you. A holiday would set her up.”

“I think that's Uncle Dan back, isn't it?”

Yet Daisy hadn't heard Dan; nor, indeed, her nephew.

“But…don't you have any discipline at all, then, over those two boys of yours? In my day they wouldn't have been allowed just to go off like that—no, certainly not—not when it was a question of visiting their grandmother. I'll bet they get to see
her
mother a little more often! Any takers I wonder? And did you know she's made you all a lemon meringue pie? Not that I'm advising you, Andrew, to eat more than the merest mouthful. But all the same I think it's very sad. I wonder if you'd like to give me another of those cigarettes, dear? They're rather small ones, aren't they?”

Andrew only said, as he offered her the packet, “Myra's mother died, Aunt Daisy. In 1970 or thereabouts.”

Although his tone was reasonably expressionless something in his eyes indicated that he thought this to be a fair point.