• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 252 0

something agreeable but appropriately understated for Sunday. Inmates of institutions quickly learn the rules. I was wearing that green dress which you have always disliked, safe in the knowledge that you would not be here to dislike it. Within minutes of Mrs Pusey’s arrival, I could see why you disliked it, and resolved never to wear it again. Monica was particularly put out because although she always looks very beautiful, on this particular evening she had managed not to: perhaps her black dress made her look too thin and also too pale. The shadows cast by the ivory knobs of her cheekbones made her seem ill, doomed. Mme de Bonneuil was also in black, but then she always is; I think she has two or at the most three black dresses of an ageless, shapeless, timeless, and indeed fashionless type into which she changes every evening. I would be quite unable to describe these garments to you in detail, largely because they contain no detail. But I have to say that she always looks entirely correct. She looks as a woman of her age should look, and I dare say the same could be said of Monica and myself.

‘Once these reflections had died down I realized that Jennifer too had made an effort. Indeed it was Monica’s rather too eloquent grimaces that stimulated me into casting a glance in Jennifer’s direction. What I saw was somewhat of an eye-opener, if you will permit the vulgarity. To celebrate her mother’s birthday, Jennifer had attired herself in pink harem pants, teamed, as they say in the fashion mags, with an off the shoulder blouse. She too had been to the hairdresser, who had done her proud; shining blonde waves, redeemed from their earlier artlessness, had been drawn back into a kind of top-knot, leaving two short ringlets bobbing in front of her ears. I had not noticed how plump she was. They both are, really. But they carry it so well that one hardly notices. Anyway, they made a brave sight. Slightly bizarre, perhaps, but that may have been because the rest of us were so subdued. The thought of all the effort they had put into their preparations made me feel quite faint with exhaustion. And they are on holiday! And there was practically nobody there to take any notice of them! Except for us, of course, but we could hardly be thought adequate to the occasion, having no visible passports to this garden of earthly delights. I think there was a moment in which we felt this, and it cast a shadow over the proceedings.

‘But Mrs Pusey, for whom I was beginning to feel something like pity, horror, compassion, is an old hand at this game. Glasses of champagne were delivered to Monica and Mme de Bonneuil and myself, and then we all had to drink her health, and there was a certain amount of bobbing up and down and nods and becks and wreathèd smiles, most of which were cast about by Mrs Pusey herself. Monica and Mme de Bonneuil, more stoical about this sort of celebration than I am, drank stolidly, although Mme de Bonneuil raised her glass in a rather charming slow gesture before draining it. And then, when it seemed as if the entertainment were over, and the event duly noted, Alain and another boy in a white coat wheeled in a trolley on which there reposed a cake of such splendour that even Mme de Bonneuil looked impressed. M. Huber was quite beside himself with pride. Mrs Pusey laughed, and hid her face in her hands, and even applied one of her elaborate lace handkerchiefs to the corner of one eye, as more champagne was poured into her glass. Jennifer expertly supervised the cutting and distribution of the cake, despatching waiters to all our tables with chocolate-laden plates. This time we had to raise forks in acknowledgement. It was absolutely delicious.

‘And of course we could hardly leave Mrs Pusey on her own after dinner. For the first time in living memory, all the guests took their coffee together in the salon. It was not an altogether homogeneous assembly, but Mrs Pusey, her lipstick slightly smudged in the general effervescence, appeared not to mind. Mme de Bonneuil, who could hear nothing, and who was used to doing her