Joanna Trollope - A Village Affair

'Don't I get any?' Clodagh said.

Martin came slowly out of his trance.

'And after I've ironed seven shirts of yours today and put new slug pellets round the delphiniums and done the school run?'

He put his hand on her shoulder.

'Sorry. Miles away.'

'Are you thinking about my farm?'

Martin was a poor liar. In a kind of shout, he said, 'Yes, actually.'

Clodagh looked briefly at Anthony.

'Martin is our family lawyer now.'

'How deeply respectable.'

Alice said mildly. 'What an old bitch you are.'

'I needn't be.'

Clodagh gave a snort. She got up and cleared away the plates and put a blue china bowl of strawberries in the middle of the table. Anthony watched her. He thought that when he next telephoned his mother, he would tell her that he saw exactly why she had reservations about Clodagh as a. friend for Alice. He turned to look at Alice. He held his wine glass up to her. She must be sorry for Clodagh.

'Here's to you.'

Thank you,' she said. But she said it absently. Taking a bowl of strawberries from Clodagh, she said, 'What is your farm like?'

'Lovely.'

'What kind of lovely?'

'A square flint house with brick chimneys and a wonderful Victorian yard. Six hundred acres-'

'Six hundred and thirty,' Martin said.

'It's grown!'

'No. It just wasn't measured properly. I've had it measured. For valuation.'

'Martin,' Clodagh said, putting an enormous strawberry on top of his helping as a reward, 'you are wonderful.'

Anthony said, 'Why don't you live there?'

Alice held her breath.

'It hasn't been mine. When it is, I might.'

'Do you,' Anthony said, leaning forward, 'live here?'

She looked straight at him.

'I live at home. I spend most days here.'

'Why?' Anthony said.

Alice said, without looking up, 'Because we like her to.'

There was a tiny, highly charged pause.

'I see,' Anthony said.

Clodagh said spitefully, 'Do you know how to like people?'

'I know how not to like them.'

Martin waved his spoon.

'Pax, you two.'

'We might just, you see,' Clodagh said, embarking on the high wire, 'be about to have a most interesting conversation about love.'

'Love?'

Alice looked up. Her eyes were enormous.

'It's the most important thing there is. I always knew it would be.'

Martin, alarmed at this kind of remark being made in public, said quickly, 'Are there any more strawberries?'

It was all the poetry Alice was reading, a sort of sequel to all those novels she used to devour. He shot a glance at her. She was looking at Clodagh but her mind was clearly miles away. Anthony picked up the strawberry bowl.

There's about six. I'll share them with you.'

He put two in Martin's bowl.

'You don't change, do you?'

'What I don't understand,' Anthony said, 'is why everyone expects me to.'

After supper, Alice put a pot of coffee on the table, and then she and Clodagh moved about in the dimness outside the candlelit circle round the table, clearing up. They were talking together softly, and at the table Martin and Anthony were talking about Dummeridge. After a while, Alice and Clodagh said that they were going to tuck the children in and left the kitchen. When he could hear their feet safely on the stairs Anthony said, 'Come on. Tell me about Clodagh. Why is she here?'

Martin poured a spoonful of brown sugar into his coffee.

'We met her up at the Park. She's been an absolute godsend. A sort of unpaid nanny and companion. It's made all the difference in the world to Alice.'

'Maybe,' Anthony said. 'But is she going to stay for ever?'

'Lord no. She had a bit of a crisis of some kind in the States, so she came home. She'll be off to do something else after the summer. She's that land.'

'Do you like her?'

Martin flinched a little.

'Of course-'

'When you were younger, you'd have been scared of a girl like that.'

'Well,' Martin said jauntily, 'I'm older, aren't I?'

'Mother doesn't like her.'

'Mother doesn't have to live with her.'

'Why doesn't she like her?'

Martin shrugged.

'I don't know.'

'You do.'

'Shut up,' Martin said loudly, suddenly angry. 'Shut up, will you?'

'No good losing your temper.'

'I haven't-'

Anthony got up and went over to the open door and lit a cigarette.

This is quite a place.'

'Yes.'

'Three children. Steady progress up career ladder. Well done.'

Martin said nothing. Anthony came back to the table and dropped into his chair again.

'To be quite honest, I envy you. My future is rather bleak.'

'Surely-'

'Surely what?'

'Surely you can get another money job?'

'Oh sure. But it seems a bit pointless. What for? You know.'

Alice and Clodagh were coming back down the stairs. They were laughing.

'I get lonely,' Anthony said, thrusting his face at Martin.

'I'm sorry-'

The kitchen door opened and the women came in. Martin waved the coffee pot in relief.

'Coffee?'

'Lovely,' Alice said, and then to Clodagh, 'It was everything you see, comic and pathetic, I wish you'd-' She stopped. 'Charlie has got out of his cot,' she said to Martin, 'and gone to sleep underneath it.'

'Why didn't you put him back?'

The women looked at one another.

'It seemed pointless,' Alice said. 'And not very kind. We rather admired his enterprise.'

'I won't admire it when he appears in our room at dawn.'

Alice looked deflated.

'I'll put him back then. Later.'

Clodagh picked up a bunch of keys from the dresser.

'I ought to go. The drawbridge goes up at eleven.'

Alice moved across towards her. 'I'll come and see you off.'

Anthony was watching. Clodagh, observing this, said lightly, 'No need.'

'I'd like to. You've worked so hard today. Anyway, I must shut up the hens.'

'No,' Clodagh said, and shook her head. 'I did the hens. Before supper.'

She crossed to the stable door and unlatched it.

'Night everyone-'

Alice was gripping the chair back. She saw Clodagh go every night but tonight it was dreadful, heaven knew why. The door closed. She wanted to rush out through the front door and intercept Clodagh's car and get into it with her and just not be separated, not be made to be apart, again . .. Instead of doing that, however, she sat down slowly and poured herself some coffee and wished that Anthony wouldn't keep looking at her.

'Brandy?' she said to him.

'Love it-'

Martin got up.

'I'll get it.'

He went out to the dining room.

'Pretty good,' Anthony said. 'For my little brother to find himself the Unwin's lawyer.'

'It was Clodagh's idea.'

'Was it now?'

'Her father is thrilled-'

Martin came back with a bottle.

'Only half an inch I'm afraid.'

He poured brandy into Anthony's empty wine glass. For no reason at all, Alice remembered her father asking for brandy when he came to tell her that he had left her mother and that she hadn't had any then, indeed had never been even part owner of a bottle of spirits in her life. She hadn't been near her mother for a year but she would go now. She and Clodagh would take the children to Colchester to see Elizabeth and perhaps - Alice's heart gave a little lurch - stay in an hotel near-by. And they could go to Reading on the way back and see Sam. Sam would love Clodagh. Perhaps - perhaps they could stay away for a few days, free, just roaming with the car...

She said to Martin, 'I can't think why brandy should make me think of my mother, but really I must go and see her.'

'Of course,' Martin said.

'Maybe Clodagh could come and help me with the children-'

'Good idea.'

'Next month-'

Martin stood up, yawning.

'Whenever you like. I'm dropping.' He gestured at Anthony. 'Sleep well. No hurry in the morning.'

'You must feel very proud of him,' Anthony said, when Martin had gone.

'Of course I do.'

'So glad.'

'Anthony,' Alice said, 'enough games for one evening. Time for bed,' and she leaned forward to blow out the candles, and as she did so Anthony found that his long scrutiny of her and of Clodagh had been rewarded and that he had made a most interesting discovery. And so, in order to consider it at leisure, he was quite happy to be shooed upstairs with the remainder of his brandy. The goodnight kiss he gave Alice on the landing was compounded both of admiration and appreciation of the probable complexity of the future.

On fine afternoons, Lettice Deverel carried the parrot in its cage outside and hung it in an apple tree. It liked this and made bubbling noises of deep appreciation. As long as she was in sight, bent over a nearby border in an ancient Italian straw hat, it continued to bubble contentedly, but if she moved too far away it grew agitated and screamed at her that she was a surly bagpiper. Sometimes she wished she had not confined its education solely to literary references to parrots because now it seemed resistant to learning anything new. Peter Morris had attempted to teach it prayers but it became overexcited and shrieked 'Parrot, parrot, parrot' at him and then cackled with ribald laughter.

Margot Unwin, finding no one in Rose Villa, one warm, still, late afternoon, came round the house into the garden, calling for Lettice. Lettice was at that moment tipping a barrowload of weeds on to her compost heap, but the nearest apple tree remarked conversationally in Lettice's voice, 'Well, Polly, as far as one woman can forgive another, I forgive thee.'