Four Bare Legs In a Bed Read online

  ‘Go away,’ she said, and her new terseness of speech must have affected him more powerfully than her eloquence, for he did as he was told.

  Meanwhile, Isobel was having an altogether homelier conversation with the policeman.

  ‘And how’s your wife’s cystitis?’ she asked chattily. ‘If it was cystitis. You never know what you might catch these days. And the children? Let’s see, five of each, aren’t there?’

  The policeman nodded miserably. One of his hands shot out as if of its own volition and fastened itself to Isobel’s left breast. She detached it and put it back in his lap.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked sweetly. ‘Doesn’t your wife understand you?’

  ‘She’s got ten kids,’ said the policeman at last. ‘You’re the one that doesn’t understand me.’

  ‘Why not try explaining?’

  ‘It’s the facts of life, isn’t it. I’ve always got on well with girls like you. I don’t give them too much trouble. What I say is, girls like you are vital to society.’

  ‘How do you mean? And I wish you wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Sorry. Well, you know what they say. “Sewers are necessary to guarantee the wholesomeness of palaces.” The palaces being lawful marriages, you see,’ he added helpfully.

  ‘I see,’ said Isobel thoughtfully. ‘I must say, I’ve never heard that used as a chat-up line before.’

  ‘How about it, then?’ he asked.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Isobel. ‘I’ve got a headache.’

  ‘Funny. I don’t feel much like it myself now,’ he said glumly.

  In the third cubicle, Jessica was finding it difficult to stay polite towards the old man.

  ‘You’re a nice little girl, aren’t you!’ he said with enthusiasm, pinching her cheek.

  ‘Thank you,’ she answered coldly.

  ‘And what do you want to do when you grow up to be a big lady?’ He brushed his knuckles across her chest with avuncular jocularity. ‘Although that’s a long way off, I can tell.’

  ‘I want to be an astrologer,’ said Jessica, pulling away. ‘And I’m also tempted by certain aspects of moral philosophy.’

  ‘My goodness. Is that so,’ he said, temporarily slowed down.

  ‘It is. I can’t help agreeing with Aristotle who, when questioned as to what could possibly make this life worth living, answered, “For the sake of viewing the heavens and the whole order of the universe.”’

  ‘My, my. All those long words. You mustn’t tire yourself.’ He tugged her over to the couch and pulled her onto his knee. ‘Why don’t you have a little sleep,’ he suggested in an abstracted manner, and his hands began moving with expert energy over her thin body. At this point, Jessica remembered her sisters’ words and, wriggling from his lap, she kicked him as hard as she could exactly where they had told her.

  Mack’s fury was terrible to see.

  ‘Now you’ve really gone and done it!’ he yelled. ‘They’ll tell everybody you’re no good! I could kill you!’

  He picked up the poker and made a run at Isobel, but Beatrice felled him with the kitchen chair.

  While he lay moaning, momentarily stunned, the sisters ran upstairs and barricaded themselves inside their bedroom.

  ‘He’ll have cooled down by tomorrow,’ said Isobel, without much conviction.

  ‘We’re going to starve,’ said Beatrice, who was by now extremely hungry.

  ‘Let’s go to bed,’ suggested Jessica. ‘Things always look better in the morning.’

  ‘What happens to people as they get older?’ mused Isobel as she brushed her hair.

  ‘Try not to think about it,’ shuddered Beatrice.

  They fell asleep to the rhythmic sussuration of the sea.

  It was still very early but already there were shoals of fishermen down on the beach. The uncurtained window showed the December stars fading into yet another Lycian morning.

  All three girls were woken at the same moment by a violent racket from the chimney-breast.

  ‘It’s Father!’ screamed Beatrice. ‘He’s climbed down from the roof and he’s going to kill us!’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Isobel. ‘Some of the bricks must have come loose. Wait till the soot clears.’

  But Jessica had hopped out of bed to investigate.

  ‘Happy Christmas from Nicholas, Bishop of Myra,’ she read aloud from the festive card she found in the grate. Then she discovered that their stockings, which they had hung up to dry as usual the night before, were bulging with gold pieces.

  ‘Your letter to the Bishop!’ breathed Isobel, smiling and running her fingers through the gold.

  ‘We’re saved!’ crowed Beatrice. ‘The man’s a saint!’

  Mack, his forehead embellished with a bump the size of a seagull’s egg, stared stupidly at the bullion.

  ‘It’s mine, of course,’ he said tentatively. ‘I mean, you’re my daughters, so that’s obvious.’ He noticed the expressions on their faces and began to backpedal speedily. ‘But I’ll put most of it towards your dowries,’ he said. ‘The lads down at the Goat in Boots will be pleased to know you’re up for grabs again. Any number of them have said they’d marry you if you only had dowries.’

  ‘Actually, Father,’ said Beatrice carefully, ‘I’d rather put my money into property. I think it’s a better investment. I thought I’d set up a bed and breakfast down by the harbour, a nice orderly house with lights out at eleven and grilled herrings at eight.’

  ‘Don’t you want to get married?’ asked Mack, appalled.

  ‘To be quite honest, I’ve gone off the idea for some reason.’

  ‘I was reading somewhere the other day’, said Jessica, ‘that marriage is only a legalised version of what you had planned for us anyway.’

  ‘You really are a nasty-minded little brat, aren’t you,’ said Mack.

  ‘Don’t say so, Daddy!’ she cried, her eyes filling. ‘I want to make sure you’re all right. I’m going to stay for a while and teach you how to cook and wash for yourself.’

  ‘And then?’ snarled Mack.

  ‘Then I’m going to live with Beatrice. She says I can have a big room with a balcony overlooking the sea. There should be an excellent view of the heavens. I shall buy the biggest, most powerful telescope in the world.’

  ‘Steady on,’ murmured Isobel.

  ‘I suppose you’re off too, then,’ said Mack, rounding on her.

  ‘Correct,’ she said. ‘I’ve always wanted to travel. I’ve got a boyfriend my own age you don’t know about. He hasn’t got any money. We’ve been pipe-dreaming about moving to Persepolis to manage a dance troupe. Now we’ll be able to do it.’

  ‘You’re going abroad with some boy on your own?’ asked Mack, scandalised. ‘I suppose you realise no one will ever marry you if you do that, you stupid strumpet?’

  ‘Listen, Father, I hope I will never be driven to what you were suggesting last night,’ she said severely. ‘And now that I’ve got money, you surely don’t think I’m going to allow a pack of greedy hypocritical men like yourself to lay down the law to me about love?’

  ‘Bravo!’ cried Beatrice, hugging her sister.

  ‘Bravo!’ carolled Jessica, dancing off round the room. ‘Yuletide blessings on us all! And our most cordial compliments of the season to the good Bishop!’

  A Shining Example

  THE TWO WOMEN faced each other across the garden table like rival queens from a pack of playing cards. Mrs Leversage obviously ruled the clubs and spades, with her coal-coloured hair catching rookish blue lights from the sun.

  ‘So that was why I left Fowler and Crabpiece,’ she concluded. ‘The job was simply not creative or fulfilling enough to warrant my staying. You, Jane, of all my friends, would understand that.’

  Jane looked down at her lap in gratification at being so included into the blessed company of Mrs Leversage’s friends. Here was a most unassuming queen of hearts and diamonds. The only rage-red item which qualified this girl for such a title was her hair
, which crackled in a silent blaze around her white cheeks and forehead.

  ‘What exactly did you do at Fowler and Crabpiece?’ she asked in a respectful voice.

  ‘A great deal of liaison work and coordination,’ snapped Mrs Leversage. ‘It’s difficult to describe, but, my God, they certainly squeezed every ounce they could from me. Some nights I was there until seven o’clock. It was exhausting. But I wouldn’t have minded any of that if there had only been more frankness and less jealousy flying around. Certain people simply closed their eyes and refused to recognise my talents. When that happens, it’s time to leave.’

  ‘Do you mean, you wish you could have been more in charge of things?’

  ‘Well, naturally responsibility arrives hand in hand with recognition of one’s talent and value to the company as a whole. But that’s not really the point. I don’t think you’ve quite grasped the issue, Jane.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve never had that sort of job. I don’t really think about my work except as work. It’s just something I have to do for the money and I’m glad when Friday comes. But of course your work isn’t really work.’ She struggled, wrinkling with effort, hurrying on as she saw Mrs Leversage’s face shift into opaque displeasure. ‘I mean, you don’t need the money. You’re doing it for another reason altogether. A creative reason!’

  Mrs Leversage shifted in her chair and searched the girl’s face for satire. She saw nothing but a desire to please. The mention of money had touched her on the raw. Only last night her husband had been twitting her about the expense of the working wardrobe which she had purchased before starting at Fowler and Crabpiece; she had not stayed long enough to recoup even half its cost from her salary.

  ‘Your mind is too full of money,’ she said. ‘There are other things in life.’

  ‘Sorry,’ muttered Jane. She fiddled with the glass ring she was wearing, twisting it so that its refracted lights fell in a shower of arrows onto the darkness of the bay tree by their table.

  ‘What on earth are you wearing on your finger?’

  ‘Only my diamond ring,’ said Jane, with an attempt at playfulness.

  ‘Let me give you a piece of advice,’ said Mrs Leversage. ‘If you can’t have the real thing, go without. Cheap imitations are as bad as lies. I’m surprised at you, quite honestly.’

  ‘But it’s just a joke,’ protested Jane. ‘Jim bought it for me when we were in Brighton last weekend. He sang me that hymn about A man that looks on glass, On it may stay his eye. We pretended it was a diamond, you see.’

  ‘I fail to understand the pleasure to be gained from pretence,’ said Mrs Leversage, increasingly judgmental. She extended one sallow jewel-laden hand to the centre of the table for their mutual examination.

  ‘That is the real thing,’ she said heavily. The diamond above her wedding ring sparkled busily, full of its own expensive inner lights. Jane stared at it obediently. She felt that the morning had gone wrong, but could not tell how or why.

  ‘Are you sure your friend Jim values you at your true worth? Because you’re an unusually beautiful girl, you know. Exquisite. That eggshell complexion with the Titian hair. No need to look so bashful. False modesty is as unattractive as false jewellery. I really must introduce you to my friend in television. He’s in charge of casting the new production of The Haycrofts of Haycroft Hall.’

  ‘Do you know television people?’ breathed Jane.

  ‘Of course I do, my dear,’ said Mrs Leversage with a glittering laugh. ‘You must come along to one of my little parties and I’ll make sure you meet the useful ones. But first, you must promise me not to wear that monstrosity!’ She laughed again, and stood up. ‘Shall we take a turn around the garden?’

  Jane followed the sulky high-heeled figure across the lawn. She herself lived in the basement flat of the house next door, and access to the garden was not one of the landlord’s little generosities. The Leversage’s house, of course, had retained its late eighteenth-century integrity, remaining unpartitioned and unsullied by property developer or tenant. Jane considered the garden to be its greatest glory, so clean and full of birds and rich freshness that it was like Eden after her own daily London scene.

  ‘Oh, you are so lucky,’ she breathed, staring at the drops of taut-skinned rainwater which sat on the glossy leaves. It had rained in the night, and all the plants were still wet and extravagantly green. The lawn glinted like an emerald. Violent sunshine lit the individual delicacies of each grass blade and every leaf in this wealthy frondescence.

  Mrs Leversage had instructed her gardener to plant as many separate varieties of flower and shrub as was humanly possible in the space, and the result was a thickly embroidered spectacle, a mille fleurs tapestry in the medieval manner, an impossibly detailed treasury of newly minted shrubs, saplings, creepers, bracken and enamelled flowerets.

  The two women moved lazily from plant to plant, Mrs Leversage inspecting each one with a beady eye for less than perfect health. Jane traced their outlines with her fingertips and sniffed at them like a blind girl. She had forgotten the sharp conversation and her own unease in a kind of verdurous ecstasy.

  ‘I would never want to go anywhere else if I were you,’ she said. ‘I think I would be perfectly happy.’

  Mrs Leversage paused at a rose bush to snap off a fading crimson head.

  ‘Tell me about your “Jim”,’ she said. ‘What exactly do you see in him? Would I be right in deducing from my own chance observations that he is, if you will excuse the wisecrack, something of a rough diamond?’

  ‘Jim is Jim,’ said Jane stupidly. ‘I don’t know. I don’t seem to think like that.’

  ‘It is never too soon to start asking yourself, what do I want from this relationship? You must say to yourself constantly: Am I getting as much back as I am putting into it?’

  ‘We have quarrels sometimes, if that’s what you mean, but I suppose most people do,’ said Jane, with a cloudy face. ‘I met him at a party. He’d had a bit to drink, and he was singing with his eyes shut. He has a lovely voice. I liked the way he said the words of the song. We moved in together when this flat came up.’

  Mrs Leversage raised her eyebrows and stayed silent.

  They continued their walk to the end of the garden, where pear trees grew in fruit-clustered ladders up the brick wall. This orchard corner also sheltered green peaches, under-ripe damsons, and an apple tree loaded with early burnished fruit. Mrs Leversage raised her arm and plucked down two apples. She polished them graciously against the sleeve of her silk dress, then offered one to Jane. She watched the girl’s teeth broach the fruit’s white sparkle.

  ‘Of course, things are different these days,’ she said deliberately. ‘But I’m not all that much older than you. Maybe ten years. Twelve at most. I would never have agreed to live with a man without at least the offer of marriage. What is there to look forward to otherwise? The woman is always the loser in such a relationship. She leaves the man no incentive. As my mother used to say, “Why buy a cow when you can milk it for nothing?”’

  Jane felt suddenly tired and close to tears. Her pleasure in the garden had evaporated. She could not remember saying anything in particular, but knew she must have made a bad mistake somewhere along the line. She had unintentionally offended Mrs Leversage, who had been so kind in asking her to lunch on her day off. She glanced at her, noticing the discontented fold of her mouth, and the sinuous restlessness of her hands around the apple.

  With a great effort to return to less painful ground, she asked, ‘Is it true that real diamonds will write on glass?’ Mrs Leversage’s face cleared. She even smiled. Jane beamed back in relief.

  ‘Yes, my dear. They are the hardest natural substance known to man. How strange that you should ask that! You’ve reminded me of the first man I nearly married. He was young, he had a brilliant future ahead of him, and he was wild about me. One evening he proposed to me – I remember it was at the Caprice. Do you know it? No. Well. Anyway. He gave me the largest solitaire ring you ever
saw. I wouldn’t say yes or no. The diamond mesmerised me. I hesitated, then accepted. But as the evening wore on, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. To cut a long story short, I made some excuse, slipped away from the table, escaped from the restaurant to where his car was parked a few spaces away, and … Can you guess what I did?’

  ‘No,’ said Jane earnestly.

  ‘On the windscreen in large letters I used the diamond to scratch the words, “Sorry. No go.” And I have never regretted doing that. Because, remember, Jane, it is so important to be true to oneself. I cannot emphasise that enough, my dear.’

  ‘What happened to the diamond?’ breathed Jane.

  ‘I still have it,’ said Mrs Leversage with a misty smile.

  They stood in thoughtful silence for some moments.

  ‘That diamond was the perfect medium for my message,’ mused Mrs Leversage. ‘I have always refused to be forced into compromises. What is it Shakespeare says about integrity? Something to do with a jewel. I’m sure he must have meant a diamond.’

  She gave Jane’s cheek a pinch, then sauntered back towards the house.

  ‘Let’s have some lunch now,’ she called back over her shoulder.

  Jane stayed another moment, lifting her face to the garden-spiced breeze. She snuffed the air like a cat or a dog. Its rich warmth made her wish foolishly for the brine-freshened gales of her last weekend in Brighton. The sun was at its height, pulling all the moisture in the garden back to itself. The heat and dampness produced giddy scents, and insects hummed greedily. A bee boomed like a threat in her ear. She took to her heels, across the lawn, and into the cool house.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind taking pot luck like this,’ said Mrs Leversage as they sat in the sepia shade of the dining room over the remains of last night’s dinner. Jane’s eyes were still dazzled by the garden, and in this interior gloom she could make out little but the sharkish whiteness of Mrs Leversage’s smile.