Old Filth - Jane Gardam [67]
She wrung out the dishcloth (no washing-up machine) and hung up the tea-towel. God, I’m behaving like a daughter-in-law. Oh Lord, here’s Oliver and his Ma and Claire will say, Thank you dear, you shouldn’t.
“Thank you dear, you shouldn’t,” said Claire thinking how fierce and snappish Vanessa looked. She’s like a little black fox, she thought. What has Eddie been saying to her?
“Has it been very dull?” she asked.
“Not at all. I think he’s asleep.”
“Now we must think about supper. We have eight beautiful eggs.”
Oliver saw Vanessa’s face.
“No, Ma. Thanks a lot but Vanessa and I have booked a table at the George. You’ve enough on your hands with Eddie and, anyway, I want to put some flowers on Dad’s grave on the way. OK? We’ll be back after breakfast. I’ll bring us all some lunch.”
“Are you sure?” (Relief!)
“It’s been quite a day for you.”
“I suppose it has.”
“OK, then. Off, Vanessa. Say goodbye to the Great Man for us, Ma, and don’t let him keep you up half the night with sophistry.”
“All he does is sleep,” said Claire. “And I’m glad. It means he feels he knows us well. He just turned up,” she told Vanessa. “After hundreds of years. His wife was a friend from way back. She died less than three weeks ago.”
“Oh, no! Not three weeks!”
“Such a shock. She seemed set to live for ever.”
“Oh, Oliver!”
“What?”
“You should have told me. I’ve been chatting on about— about marriage and how interminable it must seem!”
At the churchyard she was still angry. They walked up the path together, Oliver carrying flowers, Vanessa her laptop.
“Makes me look so gauche,” she said. “So insensitive. You are the strangest family. You tell people nothing. No, I’m not helping to put flowers on your father’s grave, I never met him.”
“Go on into the church then. There’s the famous marble Gibbons.”
“The what? I hate Culture.”
“Three stars in all the guide-books. Known locally as The Four Brass Monkeys.”
“What is it?”
“Memorial to some great family, can’t remember who. Nobody can. Sort of marble pyramid of fruits and flowers and cherubs weeping. Mum knew it when she was a child, too.”
“How ghastly. Why monkeys?”
“Gibbons, sweetie. Surname of Grinling. They think he did the drawings for it. Worth seeing. You can’t help stroking it. Bite the peaches. Pat the bottoms. It’s never been vandalised. It was our job to wash it when we were kids. Get in the cracks. Took hours. Saturday mornings.”
“You had a sensational childhood.”
She pranced into the church through the self-sealing door and Oliver fished about for a green tin vase with a spike that his subconscious remembered would be behind the dead-flower bin near the tap. He pushed the spike into the grass above his father’s head, arranged the flowers, stood up and leaned against the headstone and took note of his father’s name and the space left for Claire’s. He thought how much he’d like to have a talk with his father. On the other hand he knew every word of it.
“How d’you think your mother’s looking?”
“Very well, Pa. You mustn’t worry.”
“Can’t say I think she’s looking well. I led her a dance, you know.”
“I know.”
“Not coming home till dawn. She was always out looking for me. As far as Stamford. Found me once hiding behind some dustbins. I thought she was the police. Old Contemptibles’ Dinner, or something. Not the behaviour for a bank-manager. Marvellous woman.”
“I’ll bet she never cross-questioned?”
“No. Never.”
“Mine grumbles. Cross-questions. Very cross questions!”
“What, this new one?”
“Well—we’ve been together six years. She’s not new.”
“Grumbles all the time, does she?”
“Well, criticises mostly. It’s her job. Analysis of motives, then development and execution.”
“Sounds like Eddie, dry old stick.”
“Yes. A lawyer. And a ‘new woman.’”
“Ah, your mother couldn’t be labelled. Result