Amenable Women Read online

  It was rather unfair to call so early, Flora happily realised, as the door opened slowly and not very wide and Pauline Pike peeked out looking like a mouse caught stealing cheese. She blinked at the sunshine, then at her visitor, after which her eyes opened very wide. There was a momentary silence while her mouth moved into gear, and then she said very brightly, ‘Flora. It’s a bit early isn’t it? Do you want to come in?’ The door did not open much wider; the question was rhetorical.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Flora, and pushed the door slightly. Pauline stepped backwards into the narrow hallway which seemed dark after all that sunshine, and Flora followed her. They were toe to toe. It was a little like doing the tango as they moved their way slowly towards the kitchen.

  Once in the kitchen, which was small and perfectly arranged with little corn dollies on little shelving units and dangling bits and pieces of strangely rural craft matter dotted around the room, Flora saw that Pauline was in her nightgown, a Victorian affair with many a flounce and ruffle and she was making little birdlike movements with her pretty little hands as she plucked at the ruffles. Flora found herself wondering – quite unperturbed – if Edward liked that sort of thing. Very feminine, it was, exuding purity. Absurd, really. If Pauline Pike had reached the middle of her thirties (at a kind guess) as a virgin, Flora would eat her tights. Dangerous such a nightie was, with that long ruffled hem on those steep stairs in the corner of that kitchen especially if one lived alone . . . For one short, sinister moment she dwelled on this – and then moved on. Those steep stairs in the corner of the kitchen, she knew from the Dobsons’ place, led up to the tiny landing with its one bedroom and the bathroom. Pauline was staring at her. Flora said, ‘May I use the – ?’ And pointed ceilingwards. Pauline looked more cheerful. Presumably she thought that this was the reason for the visit. Flora was caught short on her early morning stroll. Older woman, weak bladder.

  ‘Of course,’ said Pauline, relaxing. ‘How are you, dear?’

  It was the dear that did it. ‘Bearing up,’ said Flora stiffly as she ascended the stairs.

  ‘Would you like a coffee?’ Pauline trilled after her. ‘Or something herbal? I’ve got redbush.’

  Have you, by gosh, thought Flora, grim-lipped. It would have been more honest to say that she’d quite like a gin and tonic despite the hour but the news of this would go all round the village and by the time it got back to her she would be yet another certified alcoholic. That’s if Ewan hadn’t told everyone about her already. ‘Thank you,’ Flora called crisply from the landing, ‘Coffee please.’ And then, with steely determination, she pushed open the door of Pauline’s bedroom. It was small and the window was tiny and it looked more like the room of a child. There was the little bedside table with its litter of tissues, clock, magazines, lamp and handcreams – and right in the middle of all the clutter sat – a posy pot. She picked it up. Very sweet, it was, she could see that. White china with very bright pink roses. Pink seemed to be a preponderant colour in this little game. She looked at the unmade bed. Crumpled linen, pink candy stripe. A small double bed. Intimate space for two, luxurious for one. She closed the door.

  Before going back down stairs she went into the rose-budded bathroom and flushed the lavatory. Clever, she told herself. Clever. On the back of the door was a thin sliver of pale orange silk that billowed and let out a flowery scent as she pulled the door closed. Welcome to the house of seduction, she told herself, though the corn dollies and dangling macramé scarcely qualified.

  Back downstairs she sat at Pauline Pike’s small and perfect pine table, on a sweet little wooden chair with a heart cut out of its middle back panel. The last time Flora saw such a chair it was in an impossibly saccharine illustration for the interior furnishings of Heidi and Old Grandfather’s alm hut. Until now it was one of her favourite childhood books. That might change.

  Now, how to conduct a conversation with your dead husband’s lover, the existence of whom may have come as a surprise but whose function in your dead husband’s life did not actually threaten your own relationship with him? She could not quite think how to approach the situation – possibly she should think of Edward and herself as brother and sister and apply the same criteria to the situation as a sister might. There would, at worst, be a sense of betrayal because your brother had not told you about his lover, but in many ways it would not be your business how he conducted that side of his life. She was about to apply this criterion and see how it fitted when a further thought came to her – a blinding realisation – a Damascene moment of shocking intensity as realisation dawned . . . Oh, she thought, Oh my good God – she had been cheated. No – really cheated. For she suddenly and startlingly realised that she had lived that most seductive of things, that most seductive of things that people like Vadim and Bardot, Sartre and de Beauvoir put their names to – she had been living in an Open Marriage. The infuriating aspect of which was that she had not known she was living in one at the time or she might have made better use of it.

  ‘Well, well,’ she said, before she could stop the thought. ‘If I’d only known.’ Pauline had her back to her and was fiddling with the kettle and jug. ‘What?’ she asked, not looking round.

  Flora felt oddly cheered having reached this point of understanding, more like a woman of the world, more like someone a bit sinful. ‘Oh nothing, I just thought of something quite amusing.’ Pauline turned and carried the mugs to the table. ‘It’s good that you can laugh a little,’ said Pauline as she set their drinks down. She looked dramatic and pale and there were shadows beneath her eyes. She also still looked like a nervous mouse, pink eyes and all – though quite a pretty one in a small-featured way. Flora felt a little sorry for her. Pauline pushed a very dainty flowered mug towards her, along with a decorative, dimity sugar bowl. It crossed Flora’s mind to wonder how her husband could possibly have changed his colours so much as to be able to spend happy times in this daft and prissy environment.

  Pauline sat down opposite her. ‘Is it getting any easier?’ she asked. There was something other than grief in the question – a sense – perhaps – of tight-lipped annoyance. Flora had the distinct feeling that the Pink Pike was asking herself why it couldn’t be Flora and not Edward . . .

  ‘It hasn’t been as devastating as I expected,’ said Flora carefully. ‘Though obviously more than thirty years of marriage does not go lightly. I expect the glooms will descend but widowhood is quite a busy business, really. Not much time for grief.’

  ‘Really?’ said Pauline sadly. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘It’ll be more difficult for you,’ said Flora kindly.

  Pauline nodded. And then realised. She looked up at Flora. Flora took the sweet little posy pot from her pocket and put it on the perfectly pristine pine table between them. Well, obviously, at that point, the floodgates opened.

  Later when Flora had mopped away at Pauline for what she felt was quite enough time for a cuckolded wife to administer to the cuckolder, and when fresh coffee had been produced, Flora said, ‘Was he sitting on a stile minding his own business when you seduced him?’ Pink-eyed Pauline blinked – and then a little of what Flora’s mother might call Backbone appeared to surface in her. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Nothing like that. I was worshipping nature in the back garden – au naturelle – and didn’t hear him ring the doorbell and he fought his way through the briars behind the house – you know I’ve left them so I won’t be seen from the rear when I – nature worship –’ (Flora longed to tell her that with that tiny bottom it scarcely mattered if she was seen rearwise or not – but refrained – it would be too hard to remove the sense of envy). Like a prince and Sleeping Beauty, Flora thought, and she could see it would go straight to Edward’s romantic heart. ‘And I had quite forgotten that he was coming to see me with the petition about Tommy Leggatt. You remember Tommy Leggatt.’

  Flora nodded that she did indeed.

  ‘Tommy Leggatt, exactly. Well – suddenly – there he was.’ ‘Tommy Leggatt?’

  ‘No,
Edward,’ Pauline Pike gave a little tinkling laugh which when added to the smallness of her rear – was not to be borne.

  ‘Tommy Leggatt has been dead for two years or more,’ said Flora incredulously.

  ‘Two almost to the day, actually.’

  This did make Flora swallow hard. Blind as a bloody bat, she’d been. Was it any wonder Edward no longer pranced into her bedroom in provocative garments. He was prancing elsewhere. All that protective delicacy regarding the separate sleeping arrangements was unnecessary. He must have welcomed it with open arms. But who could blame him?’ She looked at Pauline and she had to admit two fundamentally unpleasant things. Pauline was prettier than her and she was younger. The fact that she was probably not half so intelligent mattered not. When did it ever? The woman quite obviously adored him. Or made a good fist of seeming to.

  Pauline, nervously spooning away at the sugar and letting it trickle back into the darling, dainty flower-covered sugar pot went on, ‘The petition was about letting Tommy Leggatt continue to live in his cottage despite the fact he was ill. We managed over two hundred signatures. Edward and I were out every night . . . And then he went and died.’

  ‘Edward had a way of doing unexpected things,’ said Flora. ‘No, I mean Tommy. Tommy died.’

  ‘Well, I know he died. I went to the wake. So what did Edward do, then?’

  Pauline sounded surprised. As well she might. ‘He organised the funeral.’

  ‘Well I know he organised the funeral because I helped.’ Pauline blinked.

  ‘Yes. I chose that bit from Wordsworth . . . There is a comfort in the strength of love . . .’

  Pauline’s eyes were disturbingly glassy again.

  ‘From “Michael”,’ said Flora shortly. ‘I’ve always liked it.’ ‘Oh, I thought he chose it.’ Pauline looked sad.

  ‘He never opened a poetry book in his life. Unless I did it for him.’

  The Pike backbone was resurrected. ‘He read it beautifully, Edward.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Flora. ‘And I expect wherever Tommy was he thoroughly enjoyed the attention. But what did Edward do then?’

  ‘Well – he spoke to the vicar and he organised the –’

  ‘No – I mean when he came into your back garden and found you – au naturelle –’

  ‘Well, he apologised. I said it was all right, and we had a cup of tea. And then he said he would help me collect signatures that night, if I liked. And he did – and well –’

  Flora remembered it differently. ‘He said you asked him.’ Pauline’s eyes welled up again, she shook her head and dripped on to the table until Flora absentmindedly wiped at it with a tea towel.

  ‘When you had the cup of tea together were you still au naturelle?’

  ‘No,’ said Pauline with dignity. ‘I put on my robe. Immediately. But it was no good. Once he’d seen me naked he couldn’t think – he said later – about anything else.’

  The robe in question was presumably the sliver of orange silk Flora saw in the bathroom.

  ‘I expect it kept slipping off all over the place,’ said Flora conversationally.

  ‘Well yes it did,’ said Pauline confidentially. ‘It’s silk.’ ‘It would be.’

  Pauline sniffed delicately. ‘I’d always thought of Edward as a little distracted, somehow. Even though he was married. And then poor old Tommy Leggatt was the alibi for what had to be. Maybe God sent him.’

  The woman was obviously touched. ‘Hmm,’ said Flora. ‘I doubt it. God doesn’t take kindly to adulterers. Do you often sunbathe starkers and not hear the doorbell when you are expecting distracted men?’

  Pauline lifted her nose into the air like little lap dog. ‘I can’t help it,’ she said, ‘If love happens.’

  Flora remembered her sister saying something very similar. Quite often. She longed to reply with something tart, something along the lines of love doesn’t just happen, it gets helped on its way – nurtured – quite often by a well-placed flash of a nipple – which is what she should have said to Rosie maybe. But she kept her counsel. She was not sure if this conversation was helping her or not, but it seemed to be helping Pauline – and it was strangely fascinating. Irresistible, in fact.

  ‘Did it happen here?’ Flora gestured with her hands to indicate the cottage.

  Pauline mistook the gesture and looked shocked. ‘In the kitchen? Certainly not.’ Then she went conspiratorial again with an amused little smile – ‘Well, not at first.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Flora, a bit of her spine reasserting itself now. ‘He used to like taking me over the kitchen sink when we were first married. Or the fridge. When we got one.’

  That was cheap, she knew. The sugar scattered and Pauline put the spoon down with a clatter. Then the two women eyed each other. ‘Does anyone know?’ Flora asked. Pauline shook her head. ‘Then let’s leave it like that, shall we?’ Conversation over. Or nearly. ‘As a matter of fact, Pauline, the only thing that makes me cross about it all is that I wasn’t told. If I had been I might have had a stab at a bit of extra-marital myself – I had someone in mind you know.’

  This bit of hubris was silly but she could not stop herself. ‘Really?’ said Pauline. The implication being that it was most unlikely. ‘Yes, really.’

  ‘Who?’

  And the next bit of hubris was even sillier. ‘Oh – someone we all know. A nice man. A good man. A saint of a man really, thinking of what he has to bear with his own wife. A man of standing in the village. A professional man who –’ And then she stopped. Pauline was looking a little too interested. The aspect of sugared mouse around the eyeballs had given way to straightforward interest, even slyness. Enough was enough. ‘Anyway – that’s my business. As this –’ She indicated the posy pot – ‘is yours. And good luck.’

  It was not said nicely, nor received nicely. Flora wished she could retake the high moral ground but she could not. ‘Well, I hope you made each other very happy,’ she said, with dignity. But the hand of friendship was gone. Pauline Pike looked distinctly nettled. Bad mistake.

  Flora stood up. ‘Well – I just wanted to sort that out. No more needs to be said.’ She pushed the dear little posy pot further towards Pauline. ‘Sorry the two of you never made it to Paris. I’m going, though. Today. But at least you’ve got this to remember him by.’

  Pauline then picked up the pot and cradled it to her pert little bosom. Flora felt a bit sick at the sight. She walked up the narrow hallway to the front door with Pauline following. At the open door she turned and asked, ‘What do you think of Anna of Cleves, by the way?’

  ‘Who?’ said Pauline.

  That was satisfactory. It confirmed that Flora was, indeed, much more knowledgeable than the little Pink Pike.

  Halfway up the path and breathing spring’s good air again, feeling the sun on her skin and all’s well with the world, Pauline called out after her, ‘You haven’t seen the video yet, have you?’

  Flora stopped. ‘Not yet.’

  Pauline was smiling, a genuinely happy smile. She really must be quite simple. ‘The first bit is ever so lovely,’ she said. ‘It’s only in the second part where it gets bad.’

  And she closed the door.

  5

  Gay Paree

  Since Edward had lost so much money on the project, First Class on Eurostar seemed a justifiable way to travel. Putting a bit of money back into the family’s pockets, so to speak. Flora negotiated a luxurious deal which included a romantic champagne breakfast. The young woman on the other end of the telephone was perfectly fine until Flora said that she was travelling solo. There then followed an interestingly uncomprehending conversation, viz. the young woman on the other end of the line could not quite get her delicate cerebral matter around the suggestion that Flora would still like the champagne and strawberries and as much of the romance as they could supply. No laughter at this. Not even a giggle. Just a nervous twittering and a request to repeat, several times, that Flora – solo – did – actually and incontrovertibly – requi
re all the trimmings. ‘I think,’ said Flora, ‘it will be very nice to have the strawberries and champagne all to myself.’ She could almost hear the young woman fall to the floor. She waited politely until the young woman spoke. ‘Right,’ she said cautiously. Flora was brisk. ‘Now – would you like my credit card number?’

  Once in situ she sipped her champagne and thought how embarrassed she and Edward would be were they together here, now. They wouldn’t even be able to laugh at themselves. Only lovers and those who care about the sparkle in their partner’s eye would enjoy such a piece of nonsense. It was, she thought, a very great pity that Edward went and died or Edward and his little Pink Pike might have been extremely happy together. If she’d been told she could have pursued her own yearnings, perhaps fruitfully. The whole business had shaken her, definitely shaken her. Her mind kept wandering back to the ruffled nightdress. Flora had never worn ruffles in her life. She fingered her throat as if she might find some there but no – she wore a simple, ordinary, round-necked top. No mystery. Even as a widow she was safe, comfortable and bloody dull. How little she knew about Edward’s needs. And how little, presumably, he knew about hers. How little she knew about hers. What children they were.

  But later she laughed to imagine Edward’s face discovering the little Pink Pike au naturelle among the briars. The Chivalric fantasy – yes indeed – it would wholly enchant him otherwise how could he overcome those corn dollies and crafty mobiles and bloody ruffles? She raised her glass and saluted the clever little Pike. At least she knew what she wanted – and got it. Even if it was Flora’s husband.