“I have never been so happy to say goodbye to people,” said Scarlet when at last she and Ian were alone and driving home.
“They’re not so bad,” said Ian smugly. “You must appreciate Candi’s determination to have a good time. Quite the little Cleopatra, isn’t she?”
“Don’t fall,” said Scarlet sharply and her husband answered, “As if I would sink so low! She’s not my class at all.”
How Scarlet wished he’d said, “YOUR class.” Did he even think of his wife as sexy? Desirable? Feminine? HUMAN, any longer? Instead she asked,
“Why on earth did we invite them, then?”
And Ian answered complacently, “Just an experiment to get your rusty skills up to speed. One must make plenty of daring social experiments to test the field.”
Scarlet was struggling with the horror of that comment when just at that moment Nicholas woke up mightily discontented with everything about his life, requiring Scarlet to crawl into the back seat and minister to the one male who indisputably put her first.
On Wednesday, the mail contained two thank you letters – one addressed to each of them. She couldn’t bear waiting – she had to open Ian’s, unfolding a sheet of empty pink letter paper stiff as cardboard and ornamented with a single gold “C” – and a shower of rose petals. Not a word.
Candi hadn’t written a single word! Scarlet was humiliated to have to pick up every damn petal – there were thirty-six of them. She took them into Ian’s office where he was working on his accounts (or, as he called it “cooking the books”. It was only his own father he was fooling.)
“This is yours,” she said, dumping them in his lap. “Sorry. I thought it was for the both of us.” He just laughed.
Scarlet’s letter was more substantial, less suggestive and if that were possible, even more aversive. MORE cards from the Escarpa Gallery, fashion trunk show invitations, fulsomely effusive words about the weekend and an onionskin pattern drawing for a stained-glass window “picking out the colors of your study” – some kind of hunting scene.
Scarlet couldn’t focus on the huntsman picture, she was so appalled by this barrage. She knew Candi wanted her to think Ian had taken her privately up to Scarlet’s study. Damn the woman! And in the guise of offering this idiotic “gift” she was literally daring Scarlet to complain.
“We’ll never invite them back,” Scarlet thought. But did she actually have that much power? She could already hear Ian’s voice insisting they must entertain, make friends, cultivate acquaintanceships with people they didn’t like at all. Why had she done this to herself? She should have realized a castle came with a heavy psychic as well as financial mortgage.
She toyed with the idea of needing to be “in London” on weekends when the unbearable was expected – but didn’t that cede the field to Candi? Wouldn’t she love to play hostess? Back in their London days Scarlet considered their coupledom as a unit, indissoluble, because they loved each other and wanted and valued the same things. It just didn’t feel true anymore. She felt embarrassed and humiliated by the pink honeymoon cloud that once has obscured the entire sky.
She shouldn’t catastrophize. She should play it cleverly. How many women like Candi were there in the world? Couldn’t she figure out some way to keep them at bay? She needed to come up with some clever way to tell Candi she didn’t want this damn “gift.”
Should she say she hated modern glass? Loathed hunting scenes? Something would occur to her but first things first: she must order stationery bearing the name Mrs. Ian Wye. No, no, that wouldn’t do – anyone could be Mrs. Ian Wye. Mrs. Scarlet Wye sounded as if they were already divorced. Ian and Scarlet Wye? That was so American – she could only get away with it if Ian never saw it. Her maiden name was the name she wrote under – Scarlet Stavenger – her “business name” she supposed – but taking away her married name seemed to concede the field. Scarlet Stavenger Wye – that was what was required.
Oakhampton Stationers told her the order couldn’t be ready for two weeks at least, so she sent a telegram to Candi’s gallery.
“No stained glass for me thank you – appreciate the thought.”
They all rose late. David insisted he’d slept “very well” but Ian’s eyes were shuttered against Scarlet’s inquiring look and Candi seemed smugly triumphant. It went against Scarlet’s grain to question them but if you didn’t tell foreign sexual adventuresses that your husband was off limits, how could they be expected to know? Candi’s barbed words – “glad to know another couple with a truly modern relationship” – came back to haunt her like some sly promotion of infidelity as sophisticated, international and superior. Scarlet felt certain husband David wasn’t on board with that.
They drove to Oakhampton after a late and hasty Continental breakfast prepared by Ian, (wonder of wonders) – the “girls” in the back of the estate wagon with Nick in his carrycot between them. Scarlet struggled to find words that would be politic yet reproving, fearing that if she missed her chance, she’d be silenced forever.
But Candi forestalled her.
“You must come up to London soon,” she gushed, “Now that you have a nanny.” Scarlet struggled with the concept of Fern elevated to this pinnacle while Candi hurried on; “So we can have a real heart to heart.”
Which of us is being courted now? Wondered Scarlet. A nightmare world appeared to her inner eye where her personal good fortune; talent, beauty, husband, house, son – laid her open to invasion by this succubus scheming to supplant her.
Candi placed a cold hand with terrifyingly long, red lacquered nails on Scarlet’s hot, stubby, hang-nailed paw.
“I have discounts at all the best places. Now that you have your figure back we must suit you out.” “Lovely,” quivered Scarlet, revolted by virtually everything about this patronizing sentence. She knew immediately that the truth was of no interest to Candi, who sought always to perpetrate a façade, and who took it for granted other people did too. She seemed confident Scarlet would never correct her, never insist that she was large, baggy and leaking milk in all directions. Her presentable caftan at the restaurant for dinner out could be considered “maternity wear.” She would rather die than ever shop with Candi, didn’t want to resemble her and hadn’t planned to buy anything new until Nicholas was weaned.
But she felt a horrid certainty that Ian would side with Candi; that one must always “put on a show”. Was she being penny wise and husband foolish? Something to consider. Perhaps she could spring for one outfit – but certainly not alongside Candi! Tatiana had a pair of velvet toreador pants Scarlet coveted. “Divorce insurance” – distasteful as that might be. And she desperately needed a warm winter coat – something better than this shabby red anorak she wore everywhere.
Breakfast had been so late and Ian’s porridge was so stomach-churning nobody could think of food or even a cup of tea at the café. In desperation, Scarlet suggested visiting the bookshop instead to purchase “something to read on the train” and all agreed with this idea.
The Fruitful Browser was fortunately open Sundays. It might specialize in old, antique and “used” books but there is no such thing as a “used idea”. Francesca even offered a respectable cup of coffee which she called, charmingly, “café americaine.” She gave Scarlet’s guests – and then Scarlet – a look that could only be described as “conspiratorial.” Baby Nicholas cooperated by staying sound asleep locked safely in the car.
“Literature by the yard! I see!” said Candi, who appeared personally insulted by the very concept of used books. “But I suppose if you’ve got shelves to fill” – until Ian commented,
“Here’s a lovely section of pocket Trollopes.”
That’s what Candi was, thought Scarlet. A “pocket trollop!”
Seemingly Candi wanted anything Ian wanted. Her acquisitive eyes lit with lust.
Scarlet left them to it while she and David happily perused the Golden Age of Crime novels – tuppence a copy. David was thrilled to find a series Scarlet had never even heard of.
“Our Miss Clew,” he said, “These are glorious. I think there were only ever a baker’s dozen and I’ve been missing five! Here they all are!” To Scarlet he hissed conspiratorially, “Don’t tell. They could sell the full set for substantially more.”
Scarlet had to assume Francesca knew her business. In any event, she personally dropped a guinea in this store on her every Oakhampton shopping trip. She snapped up the five David didn’t need.
“I see you love Miss Clew,” Francesca remarked, adding up their purchases. “They really must issue reprints – these inexpensive editions – “railway” they called them – fall to tatters far too soon.”
Scarlet could only agree – her copies appeared to be restored with what she, as a new homeowner, recognized as friction tape.
Candi had chosen a first edition of Frank Harris’ Life and Loves which, horribly, Ian insisted on purchasing for her.
“I shall have to think up a really special bread and butter present,” said Candi. “This has been the most wonderful weekend of my life.”
Ian continued to surprise her. He stood looking down on her humorously, but distantly, as if he were visiting from somewhere else. He had a long smooth patter prepared about how he had occupied himself while in London: cultivating television executives, meeting the right people, offering services, making pitches, being…himself.
Scarlet found this naked pursuit of cash so repellant that she asked no questions, accepting it at face value. What else could she do? They needed money to live. She had agreed to live in this house, she had willingly added an extra mouth to feed. He was her husband, the father of her baby and she needed to accept and support his ideas. In aid of this charm offensive, Ian informed her that he had invited weekend guests.
“Show off your accomplishments,” he oozed, “Let them see we’re a package deal.” To Scarlet it seemed strangely as if his sudden need of her hostessing shifted the power balance between them.
Scarlet wished he’d waited for Nicholas to recover from night-screaming colic before entertaining. She also knew he didn’t want her to become the kind of woman who talked endlessly about baby’s digestive and bowel complaints. Ian had planned a life above the muck and so far she had failed him. But muck was artist’s fertilizer! For the first time in her marriage she felt the need to learn negotiation; or at least some basic bargaining skills.
“If I can have some help with the food,” she requested. “I don’t want to be stuck in the kitchen while you entertain the guests.”
He was smart enough to realize that it was his own insistence on keeping the dining room separate from the kitchen had let him in for this so he capitulated almost immediately. “What kind of help?”
“Remember those dreamy trifles Pom served? They were made by Mrs. Ryquist over at the pub.” “I like your cooking,” he complained, his argument weakened by the fact that this was the first she’d heard it. She pushed her advantage.
“I’ll be doing plenty of cooking. Let’s order fill-ins, say, a ham, some soup, a trifle and a cake for starters. Think how helpful that will be.”
Ian knew when he was beaten. “Whatever you want”.
David and Candianna Pourfoyle were the very couple to whom they’d sublet their tiny flat – Scarlet felt at first relieved when Ian mentioned their names. At least it was someone she knew!
“A practice run,” said Ian, “Polishing our routine before inviting The Big Guns.”
The more Scarlet thought about this, the more unsettled she felt. She even had the paranoid thought: What if the subletting happenstance was planned behind her back and not, as she had assumed, random?
Was this sense of having undergone a radical sea-change what being a new young mother was all about? Scarlet shuddered at even trying to find her sea-legs in this new world when she felt so personally raw and physically overwhelmed.
She had met the Pourfoyles only once it and they seemed so nice – he taught literature and she had some kind of art gallery job – a sublet was all they could afford. Newlyweds are foreigners to each other anyway and these two had been born in different countries. The similarities to Scarlet’s and Ian’s background only made them more simpatico.
David was younger than Candianna and Canadian – they’d actually met on an Atlantic crossing – she was from one of those Balkan countries perpetually at war and seemed in need of a safe harbor. David seemed like a sweet, gentle man ready to be a hero – in this case rescuing Candi from a dreadful marriage with a violent man. Candi had actually been married three times previously – Scarlet assumed that to women of Candi’s birth culture marriage was simply an escape.
“Candi” wasn’t even her real name – she had re-named herself but didn’t Americans love re-invention? Scarlet thought she could have picked a better name. But if English wasn’t your first language, wouldn’t you make just that type of error?
Eventually she discovered a way to look forward to the weekend, singing as she planned guest room drapes, cushions and bedcoverings. Deep plum crewel work on a rough, almost canvas backing – courtesy of Tatiana Designs, another little shop she had discovered in Oakhampton. She’d coveted everything there but she couldn’t afford the clothes – the furnishings were being sold off cheap so Tatiana could concentrate on fashion. “We sell direct to Montcalm Clothiers,” Tatiana had bragged.
This emporium seemed good place to guide Ian to when he was looking for a present. He had previously revealed a boring tendency to settle for ho-hum gifts like perfume and necklaces purchased at jewelry stalls. He couldn’t go wrong at Tatiana Designs and even Tatiana herself was interesting, although her Russian accent might be as fake as her Egyptian makeup. But why quibble with poseurs if they made life more fun? They were artists mastering their material.
Candi and David arrived on a Thursday night. They expressed satisfactory appreciation of the house, oohing and aahing at just the right moments and David, thankfully, was a non-smoking light drinker.
“You’re very brave, bringing children into the world, what with the bomb and all,” said Candi. Scarlet, who smiled encouragingly, privately dismissed her as not very bright.
“They’re hard to avoid,” said Ian with unnecessary gloom.
“I’d love having kidlets someday,” David contributed. Poor David. There was something so pathetic about him. Why was Scarlet so certain he never would have kidlets, or really, much of anything at all? He was such a follower.
Scarlet waved a hand at the spiral staircase. “My study’s up there,” she said. An irresistible brag. Candi became goggle-eyed. “I’d love to see it.”
“It’s not fit to be seen.” Truth was, it was just too private. But why did she feel so uncomfortable declaring it off-limits? Because hostesses were obligated to throw open all the doors and welcome anybody in? Scarlet shuddered at the thought of other people’s hands touching sheets of her half-baked ideas – those ideas would be blighted forever. She would never be able to get back to them. It was like people asking you to bathe in front of them. “Don’t mind us!”
“Oh, please,” said Candi and David took her arm restrainingly. Did it come from being foreign, this cluelessness? English as a seventh language?
“At least tell me the color scheme,” said Candi. “I’m psychic about colors.”
“Red and purple,” said Scarlet, suddenly deciding that she really quite disliked this woman. Who wouldn’t be repulsed by her strange trick of bugging out her eyes like a starving Pekingese? It was so corny, so fake, reminiscent of bad hypnotists and unpersuasive stage magic. Did men really fall for this kind of thing? And yet both David and Ian looked at her as a mongoose might gaze at a snake.
“Red for Scarlet,” said Candi. “How unexpected.” Perhaps she wasn’t clueless after all.
A dinner out, a dinner in, two breakfasts, one lunch and another at the station in Oakhampton – Scarlet had never realized how much trouble guests really were. Their small London flat had prevented them from ever having company.
Candi claimed to eat “nothing” yet she was a fount of complaints and requisitions: “China tea, never Indian,” “Can’t abide garlic”; “No tree nuts”; “Cucumbers don’t agree with me” – it would be easier to just show her the kitchen and tell her to forage. Scarlet refrained from pointing out that she must partake occasionally – you didn’t get substantial hips and breasts like those without tucking in. It did turn out that she was very fond of scones with Devonshire clotted cream. Starches and sweets! So that was the secret!
David at least ate heartily, behaving as if he was on a gastronomic vacation, and assisted with the washing up while Ian, who pretended to assist, regaled them with his stories. Candi watched him with overly shiny eyes. She must spruce up her makeup every twenty minutes, thought Scarlet.
The red wine vanished immediately; Scarlet had reason to be grateful for the Grüner Veltliner. She made a mental note to thank Pom again. He would never get any other benefit – Ian accepted all the credit and relished the opportunity to show off his knowledge of Austrian wine.
“I usually buy Traminer but this is drinkable,” he opined. It was all Scarlet could do not to roll her eyes. Fortunately, Candi picked up any and all conversational slack, talking endlessly about her gallery job. She passed around tickets and cards to multiple openings and receptions – painters – all male of course – who seemingly enjoyed picturing women as corpses, robots and birds of prey. Scarlet began to feel the pressure that had triggered some of Pom’s re-envisioning. Moving with the herd was deadly.
On their guests’ last night Scarlet was yawning and ready for bed at eight o’clock. With monumental effort, she held out till eight-thirty.
“I think I’ll feed Nick and turn in myself,” she suggested.
Candi said, “You must be very devoted to risk spoiling your figure.”
“And a lovely figure it is,” David toasted her “To the cook!”
None of it felt complimentary.
Would Ian EVER come to bed? She awoke at two o’clock with a sense of dread. He wasn’t there, and though his side of the comforter seemed disturbed she could have done that herself, tossing and turning while escaping The Dark Tower. At last she rose, donned a pink paisley wrap and drifted downstairs with the excuse of re-filling her hot water bottle.
She could hear whispering but couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. She took advantage of the time the kettle took to boil to wander from room to room and as she moved the whispering stopped. Could it be coming from the undercroft – the “crypt” in Pom’s parlance? But it was so cold and uncomfortable down there. If they were getting wine why didn’t they come back? And who required wine at breakfast? Maybe it was just the wind she was hearing.
But Nick’s cry was unmistakable – she filled her bottle and rushed to feed and change him before he woke the house. As if the house had ever been asleep!
Scarlet was rather hoping Ian would be jealous when he found out about her dinner party, but sadly, she turned out to be the jealous one. She could hear him whistling as he came in the front door and she rushed in to meet him so he wouldn’t wake the baby.
He was waving a thousand pound cheque from his father’s account. Scarlet caught a glimpse of Nicholas’ name in the memo line before Ian whisked it away.
“For the baby?”
“Of course, for the baby!” Ian seemed irked. “Everything’s for the baby, which is to say it’s for us.”
Scarlet hoped Ian’s father wasn’t under the impression that he was starting some special bank fund for Nicholas but feared he probably did. Ian often misled people about the finer points of his spending, implying he was a saver and an investor when he most assuredly was not. However, protecting Ian’s parents could not be her concern when she had too much on her plate already.
At exactly that moment, Ida and Fern – riding with her grandmother today, thank God – showed up and Scarlet made the introduction. An expression of coy simpering Scarlet had previously imagined and dreaded did appear on Fern’s face – reflecting her babysitter’s appraisal that Ian was a fine figure of a man. But even worse from Scarlet’s point of view was the expression on Ian’s face. In spite of the girl’s youth, he paid clear tribute to her beauty.
“Challenging your game,” Ian murmured, digging an elbow into Scarlet’s side. She had to struggle to keep from rolling her eyes. In what universe could she and a rural seventeen-year-old school leaver ever be rivals? She tried telling him about her dinner with Pom but he yawned with boredom. She could only hope he wasn’t as mentally finished with her as he obviously was with Pom. Ian considered a case of wine no more than his due -“He owes us” and when she mentioned the cherry tart he poked her middle and said jestingly, “No more of that for you!”
But he really got under her skin when he called Pom a “poofter.”
“Surely you can tell,” he drawled. No hope making him jealous of Pomeroy Bronfen!
She wanted to argue the point, but realized it made her ridiculous. She honestly DIDN’T know – the only “evidence” she actually had that Pom appreciated ladies was the way he had made her feel – beautiful, interesting and intelligent. She stomped away in a huff which all too obviously gratified Ian.
With Fern present she could at least go to her tower room and write. But she didn’t want to. She needed to get out of this house. She resolved to visit the bookshop Pom had mentioned and locate a copy of Perrault’s fairytales.
“The Fruitful Browser” turned out to be Scarlet’s favorite kind of shop – from the tray of books outside to the shelves inside it was crammed with interesting finds. Not for the first time Scarlet asked herself, ‘Why should I bother to write when there’s so much to read?”
The only thing she didn’t like was that she was alone in the store. Usually bookshops swarmed with incompetent help, though in this case the lone leonine woman behind the desk asked, “Anything I can help you with?”
She looked to be in her 60’s with a big blunt face, broad nose, no makeup, and curly grey streaked hair streaming out around her like a nimbus.
“Perrault’s Fairytales?” Scarlet asked. “In English. Er – adult version.”
The woman tossed up a corner of the countertop and hasted out to shake her hand. “Welcome,” she said. “I’m Francesca Joringel. Follow me.”
Her broad, booted, stumpy body was swathed in shawls. As they walked, Scarlet noticed the shop was carefully arranged and labeled – “Poetry”, “Literature,” “Biography” and some unusual ones: “Bloody Mystery” “Bloodless Mystery” and “American Crime.”
Bet she knows what a paradigm shift is, thought Scarlet.
They had arrived at “Story Therapy.” “Story Therapy?”
Francesca – “Call me Fran” – turned to face her.
“You are perhaps familiar with Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning? No? Oh, every visitor to my shop who’s unfamiliar with that book gets a free copy. This shelf represents all my research for my forthcoming tome; Woman’s Search for Meaning.” She waved a hand. “I use folk-tales to back up my theories.”
“Which is?” questioned Scarlet.
“Frankl’s experience at Auschwitz convinced him that terrible experiences can be borne only when we comprehend the meaning that they have for us. Story therapy builds on that – it isn’t my own idea. Six years ago, I was living in London at the point of despair and I was fortunate to encounter a Hungarian psychoanalyst – she was a Jungian – who believed with stories we can foretell the future.”
Scarlet was feeling a bit overwhelmed by this and found herself suddenly needing to sit down. Luckily benches, stools – and in this case an upright kitchen chair – were sprinkled around the store.
“She taught me to apply these stories to the great question: how shall I live? Psychoanalysis is not only about coming to terms with the past, but planning for the future.” She dimpled unexpectedly. “Enjoy.”
Scarlet was glad she needn’t suffer scrutiny as she opened book after book and studied their contents. She settled on Grimm’s Fairytales – faintly remembered, and a large version of Perrault, heavily illustrated.
Fran was waiting for her at the counter with a threadbare paperback of the Frankl book. “Would you like to be on our mailing list for future events?”
“I certainly would,” said Scarlet, and entered name and address in a ponderous volume. It was a warm comfort knowing that Pom had been there before her.
That night a poem came to her.
Sister Anne in the Dark Tower
How you jumped When I upbraided you! Your sightless spyglass – a Sham panopticon – Can’t answer Spirit’s Questions. Summon the Ouija board and Let’s play cards Toss the dice like lovers; If you win I’ll be Forever celibate; Prisoned in an oculus Heated by Rage and Prophecy.
Pom insisted on bringing dinner from the pub – chicken Kiev, green beans with almonds, cherry tart and a case of Gruner Veltliner. “I remember how much you liked it. And that you have a wine cellar.”
“This will be the first wine in it,” said Scarlet.
He carried the case down himself to what he called “the crypt” and racked the bottles while Scarlet studied his strong arms. You didn’t get arms like that from painting – was he a rower? When he turned unexpectedly she knew she must be blushing violently but prayed he couldn’t see it in the gloaming.
He condescended to take a perfunctory peek at the sleeping baby
“Looks like General Eisenhower,” was his comment.
“He does not! Eisenhower never had that lovely tuft of hair!”
“Babies aren’t my purview,” admitted Pom. “Makes me feel like one of those pygmies who can’t see into photographs.”
“He’s changed so much already,” Scarlet confided as they tiptoed out. “He was so long and stringy when he was born – now he’s all compacted. It’s his greediness – he’s a greedy little piglet.”
“I don’t blame him,” said Pom, obscurely. “Life lies virgin all before him.”
Now THAT was a masculine thing to say. Because they were already upstairs she took him to the Tower room, not admitting it was her first visit since Nick’s birth. Luckily the stairs did not seem so hard to climb. And even luckier, the room appeared invitingly glamorous. Not dusty at all.
“This is astonishing,” said Pom. “You can’t think how you alleviate my guilt over selling you this behemoth. Those stairs are a particularly clever addition.”
“Perhaps it’s a case of win-win,’ she suggested. Pom had to have this very American concept explained to him.
“What a revolutionary notion,” he agreed. “We imperialists take it for granted there must be gluttons and losers in any transaction.”
“It’s not popular,” Scarlet admitted.
Pom started up a new subject, one closer to Scarlet’s heart. “I envy your ability to create with a view like this,” he said. “I couldn’t do it.”
“I haven’t written anything yet,” she confessed at the sight of the immaculate desk and the paperless table. “But now that I’ve acquired a babysitter I swear I’m just about to start.”
But Pom was clearly thinking other thoughts.
But it was the windows that drew Pom. She distinctly heard tears in his throat as he said, “You’ve done it. This was the way it was always meant to be. No longer a widow’s walk – it’s become a panopticon.”
Scarlet was aghast at these comparisons.
“Widow’s walk? Panopticon? Those are horrible examples. I think of it as the eye of the house. The oculus.”
But Pom wasn’t through yet with his horrible examples.
“You can’t see anything through an oculus,” he said mercilessly.
She said, “Then why did I buy it?”
She saw him hesitate before bringing up the unpleasant subject. “You didn’t buy it. The house is in your husband’s name alone.”
He turned as if to deliberately miss her violent blush. “I thought it was strange at the time…for an American wife.”
I must have known this, thought Scarlet. Surely something could be done. After all, I wasn’t there, so my signature was not required. So why am I so upset? Because a stranger pointed it out? Or was it because it was THIS particular stranger?
“I didn’t choose the house,” she agreed, proud that her voice sounded calm. “But I like it.”
He continued looking out the windows. “You weren’t at all what I expected.”
She sat down on the slipper chair, breath suddenly knocked out of her body. “And what did you expect?”
“I suppose an efficient young woman from a cookery advertisement.” “But would Ian marry such a girl?” She smiled.
At last he turned to look at her, and sat down on the desk chair. “I’d like to read your work.”
“Well, you’ve certainly come to the right place.” She rose, laughing, opened a trunk and removed a copy of her poetry chapbook, Thistledom. “Be sure to let me know what you think. Somehow I’m sure you won’t hold back.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “I can tell you like the criticism better than the praise.”
“One learns more,” she agreed.
“You’re so right. My recent show had a reviewer who said my pictures were pretty colors.”
“God!” Her jaw dropped. “What an awful thing to say!”
“It certainly had an effect on me. I’ve worked in black and white ever since. Just last week I began adding a bit of blue.”
She was still standing so he too rose, and looking out the windows said mockingly, “Save me, save me, Sister Anne,” And he pointed down the long stretch of road towards the gate. “Don’t you see her riding?”
“Who?” Scarlet felt a flutter almost of panic. Curiosity or dread or both? Where was that quote coming from? Was he about to reveal some horrible tale about the house they had permanently bankrupted themselves to buy? Hauntings? Murders? Wastings away? If there was such a story, she knew she must hear it, even if it broke her.
He turned his pale-eyed, narrow blond face towards her and she thought for a moment what a type he was. Everyone’s picture of clueless, useless English aristocracy – so unlike her handsome, Northern, rugged husband.
“Bluebeard. The Perrault fairytale. Surely you know it.”
“I guess French fairytales aren’t my purview,” she mocked him, she who had been dragged forwards and back through Norse mythology by her husband and was still feeling somewhat bitter about it.
Pom had the grace to laugh, but then stung her again. “You know Disney, with the singing mice. Oakhampton has a lovely bookshop – the Fruitful Browser, which concentrates on folktales. But here’s the short version – Bluebeard used to kill his wives and lock the corpses in a forbidden room, but his last wife – Barbara, I think her name was – found it. He was going to kill her but her sister Anne rescued her. From the top of the house she summoned Sister Anne and saw her riding in. Do you have a sister?”
Scarlet felt like a ship heaving in a storm but she was determined to remain upright. This man was interesting, but difficult. Definitely interesting. Definitely difficult. Possibly dangerous – was he probing for a weakness?
“India. Older sister. No brothers.”
“As an only child, I envy you,” he said, looking as if he really did not. “Sister India, Sister India” – doesn’t quite have that ring. Pomeroy was my mother’s name – she was an earl’s daughter and so I must blame snobbery. Where did your parents come up with your exotic names?”
After the embarrassment of Disney, she was not going to admit to her mother’s addiction to Gone With the Wind, so she provided a quotation of her own, “Oh, brave new world. Americans like everything fresh. We create ourselves. You know how it is.” “I can only imagine,” he said. “I’m so jealous.”
It was past time to return downstairs. She obscurely felt she’d been put through a wringer but Gruner Veltliner and music were sufficient to transform their rocky start into comfortable relaxation. Death and the Maiden played on the gramophone was a big success. Pom admitted he’d never heard it. “I thought Schubert was a waste of time. It certainly sounds very modern.” They listened while they ate.
“You’re the only girl I know who doesn’t try to fill silences with useless cocktail chatter,” he said. Another backhanded compliment? Another scorched heir! She could have told the truth – that her mouth was too full to speak because she was so greedy for delicious food she hadn’t cooked – except that her mouth was full to explain even that! She decided to focus on the word “girl”. That must be a compliment – in her short experience strange men backed away from mothering females as if fearful of a paternity accusation. Scarlet still qualified as “young”. Even though she was now a mother she planned to be a girl for at least a few more years.
“Lovely food,” she sighed, instead.
Over coffee they relaxed enough to discuss their favorite films and books.
“Oh, Hitchcock,” said Pom. “Hardboiled crime. Because of the paradigm shifts, for me it’s thrillers all the way.”
He was full of surprises.
“What’s a paradigm shift?”
“A dramatic re-visioning. Very applicable to artists. Speaking of what’s fresh, – oh brave new world – artists need to SEE differently, be reborn – at least every other day.”
“Like letting go of color. Yes, it’s also true of poets,” Scarlet added. “You don’t dare to ever be comfortable. Emily Dickinson calls it seeing “aslant.” If poets ignore that they get all stodgy. Like Wordsworth.”
“And naturally society likes things stodgy. Likes and wants. Necessary for pigeonholing.”
“And that’s just what an artist DOESN’T want.” She suddenly had the wild idea to discuss the germination of her possible novel with him, but of course she dared not. Possibly a pigeon hole might result – and if one did, it would prove impossible to rest inside with any comfort. She changed the subject, avoiding the dangerous corner like any good hostess.
“I don’t know much Hitchcock but I enjoyed The Lady Vanishes. My favorite is Iris Murdoch. She’s not that good with the paradigm shifts but she does create believable, interesting universes to lose yourself in. I value particularly the way she meanders on and on. One Murdoch will last me anywhere. She could write a book that never ends and it would be all right with me.”
“What a surrealist and philosopher you are – a book without an end. I’ll have to give her a try. But if you didn’t see Notorious or North By Northwest they’re worth going up to London for – much better than any play.”
“What is it exactly that you like about them? You know already the paradigm shift is coming.” He considered.
“His layers of revelation are so elegantly arranged – like a mille-feuille.”
“Is it the pastry you prefer or the cream?” She felt certain no man would admit to preferring the cream.
“I like the way the each plays off against each other.”
He’s so interesting! she thought appreciatively. How unexpected! Could I have I found a friend? Would Ian be jealous? Is it possible for such an exciting man – who responds to me with such awareness of my femininity – to really be a woman’s friend? Instead she said, “Sounds like Iris Murdoch to me!”
“But not if she takes too long getting around to it. Thrillers have to be constructed like this piece of music – they’ve got somewhere to go and they hurry you along. Is your poetry anything like Murdoch?”
“I doubt you’ll think so. Like you, I was getting into a bit of a rut. That’s why I had a baby,” she teased him, “To improve my verse.”
He laughed and laughed. All in all it was a most successful evening.
Ian had a sweet tooth and so Scarlet suddenly found herself baking sand tarts, apple pies and lemon cake pudding in readiness for Nicholas’ birth. And that turned out to be a lucky thing, because the moment the last pie was set cooling on the wide kitchen windowsill her water broke. Ian rushed to fetch the midwife and at a quarter to midnight on Nov. 10, Nicholas was born.
He was a long, thin, bright red, squally baby. Scarlet was feeling a bit squally herself because the gas had given out at the end, right when things were at their worst and Scarlet’s confidence in the little midwife – who acted surprised at this apparently impossible eventuality – was seriously shaken. It didn’t help that Ian left immediately – saying he would bury the placenta for luck – and then the midwife forbade bathing but gave Scarlet a very unsatisfactory sponge bath.
Scarlet came down with fever and couldn’t nurse Baby Nick for two days. She couldn’t help feeling he acted a bit repulsed by the smallness and shortness of her nipples – not a problem Scarlet had even heard of before – but he did finally seem to “latch” and agree to accept nourishment and stay alive. It wasn’t until the evening of the twelfth, when Nicholas was finally quiet and Scarlet had a proper bath, a piece of pie, a glass of wine, that she was feeling more herself again.
Ian, on the other hand, wore a strangely unfamiliar expression Scarlet couldn’t parse. She chalked it up to a suddenly overwhelming realization of his increased responsibilities, plus that unwelcome existential conundrum: “This baby will bury me.”
When his wife gurgled “Isn’t he sweet?” over the sleeping baby, Ian refused to play along. “I think he’s more like a noisy drunk we can’t get rid of,” said her husband, “Constantly throwing up and needing everything done for him.”
“It’ll get better and better from here on out,” insisted Scarlet, feeling a bit angry that she had to produce all the cheer and positivity for the entire family after what she’d been through. “In a month or two you’ll be glad to have him.”
“Will I?” asked Ian. “When do they talk? Four to five years more likely.”
The doctor came by in the morning to forbid them from sex. No sex for six weeks. Scarlet thought she could live without it – she needed to heal and was grateful not to have stitches – but she didn’t care for Ian’s reaction. It wasn’t long after that he announced a trip to London.
“Should I bring it up?” she wondered. If you outright ASK someone to be faithful, are they more likely to be? Or LESS likely?
“I don’t think I want you gadding around London on your own,” she temporized.
“Oh? You’ve got two babies now? I was running my own life perfectly well a couple days ago.” She reached for his hand.
“I’m worried – I don’t want – it’s just that I’m so desperately hors de combat.”
“Whore what?” he teased. “I can see the way your mind is working.”
She flushed a deep red she was certain was hideously unbecoming. “I can’t love you the way I want to and I don’t want anyone else to try.” And she burst into tears. He kissed her forehead very tenderly.
“Don’t worry,” he told her. “You’ve given me impossibly high standards. I’ll interview nannies, shall I? Then we’ll soon be back to normal. ”
But she did worry. The night before he left for London she did her very best to satisfy him and it seemed like a difficult and endless chore. Things were hardly improved by the stack of pound notes he left on the dresser in the morning – not even ironically!
“Just in case,” he said.
In case of what? In case you never come back? She wondered dispiritedly.
That very evening – the twenty-ninth – she found a witch doll on the hearth. Sooty, as if it had fallen from the chimney.
She asked the midwife about it on her next visit.
“It’s a corn dolly!” said the woman. “Supposed to be lucky! Someone put it up the chimney for good fortune when you moved in. Why didn’t it burn up, I wonder.”
“We haven’t used that fireplace,” Scarlet admitted. But they had used all the others. Who would do such a thing? It didn’t seem like Pom’s kind of idea at all and why would the movers bother? She found herself thinking about it so much she phoned him.
“Sounds like Hedrigger to me,” said Pom. “The estate agent. I know he was desperate for the property to sell. When he took over the job from his late father – the first estate agent that we used – he told me he was willing to try anything.”
“Well, it worked,” said Scarlet and they both had a good laugh over it. When Pom heard she was alone he offered to bring dinner and Scarlet bravely took him up on it.
“Give me a chance to take a gander at the new heir,” suggested Pom.
Why did talking to Pom always make Scarlet feel so relaxed and hopeful? There was something about the way that he treated her that made her feel special and desirable without any concern she’d be forced to repel inappropriate advances. An old-fashioned relationship? Here was a true gallant, a cavalier servant, her father would have said. A gentleman, her mother would correct, because that marital pair always argued and one-upped each other. Sometimes she feared their behavior would curse her into unhappy marriage, despite all her hope and prayer and effort. Could you ever have a happy marriage if you’d never actually seen one?
Frankly she was glad neither parent had been around for Ian to meet. If girls became like their mothers…oh well. Her mother was gone forever, and besides, thought Scarlet, I was a Daddy’s girl anyway.
She mentioned the corn dolly to the cleaner, Ida, when she came in for her half-day. “Oh, I did that,” said Ida casually. “A corn dolly in every chimney for luck. So we’d get nice people. And it worked.” She chucked Nicholas under his chin and he turned blindly towards her hand. Nicholas had no standards. At this stage, he would accept anyone.
“My granddaughter Fern would love caring for a new baby,” Ida offered. “She’s just out of school – they gave her afternoon hours at the library but she wants more. She needs a ride, is all. Frankie from the garage could bring her when he’s free.”
A teenage girl living “out” would be so much cheaper than a nanny! And much less bossy. Scarlet’s American spirit rebelled at the thought of being dominated by some know-it-all woman and her catechism of antique superstitions. She resolved to make an afternoon trip to the library her first foray as a new mum into the outside world.
It wasn’t till the day the spiral stair was installed that Scarlet finally began to feel better. Maybe this was all she’d required: a positive personal accomplishment. Now the Tower was finally accessible! And then there was more. Ian came home whistling, saying, “Wait till you see what I’ve got for you.”
What a wonderful gift, a glorious nineteenth century lady’s desk – a mass of pigeonholes and drawers like a huge jewelry box. “There’s probably a secret drawer but nobody knows where,” said Ian.
The wood was in poor shape – covered with ink stains – but Scarlet was dazzled. “Oh, Ian!” she gasped. “It’s the best present ever!” When she commented on other people’s desks it was always the storage that she envied – give every idea its own resting place. It was a deeply flattering gift. He really had paid attention to her all these years! She hugged him breathlessly.
“Is it possible -?” she wondered, gazing upwards, but Rocco the Enabler was way ahead of her.
“We could winch it up,” he promised and a pulley was installed at the top of the house. The fine new desk, two Windsor chairs, a bookcase and a table were winched up to the tower room. Scarlet made one awkward trip upwards to supervise their installation. The small Tower room had windows on all four sides looking out over every bit of their property.
“Oh, this is beautiful,” agreed Ian and even Rocco seemed impressed. “You could fit a slipper chair right here,” he offered, “A real lady’s chair – they’re selling one down at the church. Do you like purple?”
Scarlet did – especially the chintz pansy print in which that chair was covered. There were other items at the church sale that she coveted – gorgeous copper pieces to cheer the many fireplaces. When the tower room was finished with the addition of a purple rug carried up by Ian himself it seemed a magnificent eyrie and retreat. Not just deep poetry but magnificent plays – possibly even novels – could be written here.
“It’ll be cold,” warned Ian, and that was probably true. But “heat rises” said Scarlet and surely it must. And then she wrote a poem about it – one she could actually share.
Heat rises From our marriage bed Powers up this house Summons up a cradle, fills the Varicolored jars of Seasoned fruit Museums of ripeness Captured – just As we – Fresh from the city were Caught and Prisoned. Belonging – Attempting to foreclose A Future.
Of course there marriage bed was a decidedly less sexy place so long as Scarlet was a pregnant whale. And, It didn’t end right. She knew that, before Ian pointed it out. “You can’t say “prisoned”; he quibbled. “Surely “reveling’s” the word? Isn’t “future” just “the unforeseen”? Scarlet was annoyed – he usually right more than he was wrong, but he was still wrong about many central things. He always accused her of easy sentimentality and so she’d tried for a more evocative, ambiguous even threatening ending –the way Ian ended his own work, yet he still he wasn’t satisfied.
She looked up “sentimental” in the dictionary and saw it described as “an appeal to tender feelings.” It couldn’t be that all “tender feelings” were inherently degrading, could it? But in England, they seemed to be! Scarlet and Ian had a child to raise.
Scarlet wondered if it was even possible to satisfy these fussy men, determinedly hardening in their defenses. Ian was always talking about “toughening up” males – usually while wearing the latest fashion in gents’ bespoke suits – so that said males could “slay the dragon” as if modern educated people were still cave-dwellers. She took another look at her poem and decided “attempting to foreclose a future” was her favorite line.
“Submit it to The Renegade,” suggested Ian, “I’ll write Nigel if you like.”
She prayed she wouldn’t need his help. She wrote to Nigel herself.
Grimly Scarlet launched an enormous push to have everything ready for the baby. The nearest big town – Oakhampton’s – merchants – though pricier than those in London – were willing – thrilled, in fact – to open charge accounts and to deliver. The deliverymen seemed very interested in the ongoing Wyvern House rehabilitation and expected a generous cuppa and a gossip in the kitchen. With Ian sealed off importantly in his “office”, there was no one to gossip with but Scarlet.
“All the latest labor saving conveniences,” said one as he delivered a Bendix washer and drier to a corner of the capacious scullery. “Anybody can tell you’re American.” Scarlet was afraid this meant he thought she was rich but knew it would be insane to actually inform him just how poor they were. “New baby crib – how my missus would envy you. Ours has been passed down for a hundred years at least.”
Scarlet couldn’t think how to warn him that crib slats had to be an exact distance to keep from catching baby’s head. Here in England, Science never had the last word. Next it turned out the spiral stair she’d ordered was four feet too short.
“No problem,” said the washer deliveryman, who’d come upstairs to help, “My mate Rocco can build you a platform.”
When that was undertaken, what with workmen marching in and out over the just-fitted carpet and filling the house with the sound of hammering – it was not at all the atmosphere Scarlet had hoped for in the days approaching the birth of her first child. She wrote a despairing poem “Future Blank” with the chorus “Nowhere to get to” and, ashamed of her own emotions, stored it at the very back of a pile of unsatisfactory work sheets.
Fortunately, the midwife paid a cheering visit. She was revealed as a small, withered-looking Pakistani woman in a sari who promised a tank of “gas” in case the contractions became “too fierce”. Scarlet was grateful for any promise of pain relief; Ian appeared to think all “women’s problems” required was the application of masculine mind over feminine matter but Scarlet felt she couldn’t trust her gravid brain, and she certainly wasn’t going to listen to people telling her to “Buck up.”
Ian himself had suddenly acquired a new passion for old furniture and began haunting estate sales. Soon he was dragging home settles, bureaus and tables. “How are we going to afford all this?” wailed Scarlet.
“My folks have a lot of retirement cash just sitting idle in the bank,” said Ian confidently. “Proceeds from selling the shop. They’ll want to invest it here when they see what a fine place we’re creating.” But wouldn’t they expect income? That was the way things worked in America. “As long as they don’t expect to move in,” sighed Scarlet, but she was too exhausted to argue. Instead she sketched out yet another unsatisfactory poem: this one about how old houses were only walls of corpses holding up the ceilings. This too, must be hidden.
What kind of home was she preparing for this baby? Was she herself putting a curse on the whole enterprise? Was this some grenade from the depths of her subconscious as Ian had always insisted, comparing her lack of a father to the United States’ “lack of history”? She usually fought back with the a fierce explication of the collective European unconscious whose “ancien regime” was obviously rotten with envy over the New World’s youthful potential?
What awful obligations poetry placed on people! Every word, every idea had to be catalogued, organized and defended to the last ditch. Should she give it all up and become an interior designer instead? Why not concentrate on life’s beauties, opportunities and perfections, instead of digging about in universally discarded psychic muck?
But employment required sucking up to people – something she’d never been good at. She felt far too old and tired to start now.
If she died in childbirth Ian would read these abortive poems and draw entirely “the wrong conclusion” – that his wife had been miserable. But she was too committed a poet to destroy them. Poetry ideas – “seeds” – held a sacred, central importance in a poet’s life. You denied them at the peril of losing access to your deepest self. And that would be the worst fate of all.
So she was conflicted. Contrasted with their life in London where they lived in such a small flat they had to take turns at the desk, wasn’t this existence wildly superior? She always felt less grounded when she “gave in” to Ian’s ideas – yet the wife’s job seemed to be all about “giving in”.
Ian always seemed so confident, the opposite of the way she felt. It was what made him so attractive. But something in this new life went against her grain. Was it just the reckless expenditure? Key was her embarrassed silence with her sister India, usually her lifelong confidant. Was it simply embarrassment over confessing indebtedness? Was it disloyalty or pride that kept her from complaining about the man India warned her not to marry?
How about the anguish of being suddenly the underdog when all her life she’d been on top, the prize-winner, the golden girl who could do anything and go anywhere. Both she and India had good brains – but she had looks as well. Here in Britain women were nothing, artists were nothing and Americans were less than nothing. Yet here she was, putting down roots as deep as they could go.
For her letters, she’d have to construct an entirely false self, one she knew wasn’t fooling India at all. She couldn’t risk India despising her brother-in-law.
Ultimately she felt she was producing the kind of nonsense you would send a stranger. She’d finally seized on the difficulties of moving as an excuse to let the whole mess go. How could she ever start the dialogue again? This was the first “secret” they’d ever had. It seemed far too big ever to surmount.
It was their first morning in the house and the moving van was expected by noon. Scarlet was excitedly making measurements and notes about where everything should go.
Lacking a butler, the butler’s pantry became a “buttery” in Ian’s terminology, a “bar” in Scarlet’s. It had such wonderful oak-shuttered pass-throughs on either side. Did she dare set up barstools? She knew she would have to handle Ian tactfully. Their English friends would be appalled. Bringing the pub home would be so “American” – which was their automatic euphemism for “lower class” as Scarlet had sadly discovered.
“Pomeroy Bronfen invited us to dinner,” said Ian. “The unlucky heir. I can call him from town. Is it a yes?”
“It’s a yes,” said Scarlet. “I just hope it won’t go late. You know I pass out at ten.”
“He said six.”
“Better and better.”
“I may have mentioned that you were a prisoner of early nights.”
A prisoner. Scarlet didn’t like that at all. Hadn’t her sister India warned her: “Beware the house in the country. That’s where Englishmen stick the wives and kids so they can lead a bachelor life in town.”
But Ian wouldn’t be like that! Would he?
“Are you going out? Here’s a list of things you ought to get,” said Scarlet, tearing a sheet from her pad.
He took it like a man.
Another man showed at eleven to install the phone.
“That was fast”, said Scarlet. “I’m impressed.” Rumor was, it took simply forever, my dear – to get a telephone installation in the country.
“I heard it’s both a business and a residence,” said the man in a thick country accent. “New businesses get precedence – there’s not much investment hereabouts.”
So that was Ian’s game! Well, Scarlet could play. ““We’ll be needing one phone in the buttery, one in the upstairs hall and a ringer in the garden,” she directed.
He studied his work order. “The mister requested an office phone.”
Scarlet rolled her eyes. “Well, I suppose he must have one then.” She showed him to the library.
Chapter 4. The Battery
What a strange name Pomeroy Bronfen had selected for his new residence, a low mews house located behind the business square – but Pomeroy – “Call me Pom, everyone does” – offered a ready explanation: “This place was first a chicken coop, and then a garage. Part of it is still garage. Battery’s the shared motif.”
The place didn’t resemble either a chicken coop or a garage any longer. A series of low-ceilinged, agreeably furnished rooms rambling around to a picture-window view of rolling hills. The whole town revealed itself as a Potemkin village one-house-deep.
Pom himself was very thin and tall, with prematurely silvered hair. His deep-set eyes and close-cropped hair gave him the look of an overgrown Dickensian orphan. He seemed eerily fine-tuned to Scarlet in a way that unsettled her. He would be a difficult man to think private thoughts around.
Ian’s other friends never guessed what she as thinking; her mind, assured of complete freedom, could range anywhere in their company. By contrast, Pom noticed her eying his trouser stains immediately.
“Battery acid,” he said. “So you see.”
“You seem to have got some there, too,” she gestured at his leather vest. Pom didn’t cock so much as an eyebrow, but regarded the stain thoughtfully. “I’m sorry. I think that might be roofing tar.”
“I can’t figure out why you stay here now that you’re rich and can travel the world,” said Ian, with no apparent realization of the rudeness or even illogic of his statement.
Pom swept the faux pas effortlessly away. “The bank got most of the money,” he said. “This residence at least is still family property.” Ian should understand; the Bronfens once owned everything. Pom smiled at Scarlet as if effortlessly reading her thoughts.
“And one doesn’t need proper clothes but can muck about with cars all day. Drink?”
“Pregnant ladies can’t drink,” said Ian at the same moment that Scarlet answered, “It’s my last trimester, I can have a glass.”
She gave Ian a “married look” which, if he bothered to interpret it, said, “Weren’t you the one begging me to loosen up last night?”
“As long as you’re sure,” said Pom, pouring. “I only have white.”
Scarlet was sorry about that – till she tasted it. Then she was sorry she could only have one glass.
“What flavor!” She gasped. “What do they make it from?”
“Grapes,” said her husband flatly, but Pom replied politely enough.
“Tastes like artichokes, don’t you think? It’s Gruner Veltliner.”
“And peppers,” said Scarlet. “And apricots.” It was simply delicious.
Pom guided them to the terrace where a platter of cheesestraws and apple slices lay underneath a bell jar, like a museum presentation piece.
“Still think I should move?” Pom asked, gesturing toward the seemingly endless swath of green hills. “Selling – if I could even find a buyer – wouldn’t compensate me for losing a view like this.” “I agree that nature is very healing,” said Scarlet. “That’s why we came.”
Ian agreed, “I take it all back. I just thought for an artist, London –“
“I get as much London as I want,” said Pom. “I only want it about once a month.”
Scarlet was thinking that her husband had buried the lead. “You’re an artist?” There wasn’t a single painting in any of his rooms. “Why don’t you display your work?”
“I’m shy,” said Pom, and instantly Scarlet began constructing a mind’s eye version of Pom’s history where this was true, seeing the fair-haired boy with the wide forehead and the olive-green eyes always standing at a cautious distance from his peers.
“Well, I for one would love to see anything you’d like to show,” said Scarlet. “We’re both writers – we need to get out of our heads. We live in the world of ideas.”
“Not perhaps so much while you’re gravid,” offered Ian. What an irritating thing that was for him to say! She refused to breach the uncomfortable silence while Pom regarded Ian with unflattering solicitude.
“I think the life of the mind is even more powerful now,” Scarlet rebutted finally. “I’m living entirely in the future.” Her eyes dared her husband to reveal how little writing time she’d actually managed while packing and moving house.
“It’s the thinking that’s so important I find,” said Pom. “That’s where the work is. It’s really why I became an abstract painter.”
His work wasn’t mentioned for the rest of the evening because Scarlet didn’t want to see it in front of Ian, and Pom, she recognized, didn’t want to show it to him. Instead they discussed London over a delicious platter of rare roast beef and salad, and gushed appreciatively over the individual trifles offered for dessert.
“Mrs. Ryquist’s work from over at the pub,” said Pom, referring to the Cat and Corncrake, centerpiece of town. “She’ll cook anything for you so long as you don’t expect delivery. You take your glasses and she fills them for you.”
The trifles were particularly wonderful and Scarlet most appreciated the enjoyment of penetrating the perfect layers. She thought she tasted limoncello in the ladyfingers and crème de menthe liqueur at the heart, but she chose not to mention it and the others didn’t either. Was that what contributed to her blissful sense of well-being at the conclusion of the meal? Would she suffer for that, later? Or was it the realization, entirely unexpected at the very end of an exhausting nine-month pregnancy – that another man – a nice man – found her attractive and her husband felt it and was jealous? And would she suffer for that, too?
She felt a gush of relief at the first sight of what was to be her new home. Perhaps she could participate in Ian’s fantasy after all. This gate, massive and rusty, had fallen back against its stone surround and was an open invitation to a fairy tale. She saw something she knew Ian could never have resisted: this twisted iron was surmounted by a pair of stone wyverns. Ian had always claimed the wyvern as his “power creature”. Anything for sale in the town of Wyvern-on-Wye would be of interest to Ian. Was the town named after the house or the other way around?
Whichever was true, she knew he’d claim the whole town as his by right. When she gasped out loud at the sight of their new castle Ian rippled with the same lordly pleasure he demonstrated on skillfully dispensing an orgasm. There it was, at the end of a curving drive, Wyvern House, miniature alcazar toppling on its hill, as if the earth itself would sink beneath its weight.
“My goodness,” she muttered, thinking, as she knew he did, how impressed future guests would be, especially if they could clear away the brambles, re-paint the gates and set the slipping wyverns more solidly, less threateningly aloft.
Up close, the “castle” proved considerably less commanding, revealing unpointed brick, mucky stucco, bleeding windows and muddy drive. Over the double front doors was carved a date which threw it completely out of the running for any claim to aristocracy: “1892: Magnus Bronfen”.
“Soap manufacturer,” said Ian. “All soap manufacturers dream of castles, apparently. How else could you get a castle and six acres for nine thousand pounds?”
She shuddered at the sum. Neither his family nor hers had ever seen so much money. In their five years together they had barely cleared a thousand pounds, and owed more than that. If she succumbed to this place what time would be left for working out her complex themes of literature? She had seen nothing encouraging, so far, about the financial viability of her productions in general.
Ian himself was not doing much better with his proposal for a “modern mythology” TV series. They would be thrown back on Ian’s first idea: using his supernatural “imp” to win a football pool. Or her secret, most private fancy; writing an explosive novel that told the truth about women’s experience. The one time she had mentioned it Ian had been very clear that he considered “women’s fiction” a literary disgrace.
“Plus, the novel’s dead. Plays are the thing, Angry Young Men and all that. Look! There is a garden. You could start a market garden. I’ve heard these roses were famed far and wide.”
What had she ever done to make him think she longed to garden? But “rosarian” certainly was a better title than “hausfrau.” Much better. At this time of year, the overgrown garden offered nothing to see, but it was walled; the walls covered with the same brambly vines that were eating up the gate. They should be replaced with, say, espaliered fruit trees. By somebody. Someday.
To her relief, inside she saw an ordinary house without the unlivable discomforts of an actual castle. The front hall was rather splendid with a huge creaky oak staircase that shed sawdust (deathwatch beetle!) when walked upon but the large rooms were blessed with electric light and there were four generous bathrooms: three second floor and one down.
“I don’t think they spent a penny on the place after building it,” said Scarlet.
“I’m sure they didn’t,” Ian agreed. “This Magnus guy died almost immediately. The current heir lives in town – I don’t think he has a sou but what I gave him. He says the place has been for sale – slowly dropping in price — his entire life.”
It always impressed Ian to consult a “magic moment”. He was beginning to think he was a magic moment, himself. A fatalistic man, with a strong sense of “destiny”, he’d carefully consulted his horoscope before marrying Scarlet. The stars, and a general English misapprehension that all Americans were rich, had pushed him over the edge.
“He only has what the bank gave him,” Scarlet longed to correct, but didn’t. Their marriage was the envy of their friends because neither of them – ever gave in to cracks like that. Ian had repeatedly stated his opinion that “money” was an imaginary concept anyway, created in the modern world by mere promises to buy and sell. Failing to leap aboard the mad carousel, you made certain of being left behind.
Sixty-six years without improvements or upkeep should certainly give any buyer pause, thought Scarlet. What Horrible Secret – probably more than one – was this house hiding? Drains? Vermin? As if reading her thoughts – which he probably was, because marriage made a person good at that — Ian continued,
“Apparently the problem is the railways – having to change trains from London only to arrive in the middle of nowhere with eight miles to go. But now that everyone has a car that will change. By road, the distance from London is two hours, tops.”
No one in their London group really “owned” a car, but everyone aspired to, so why point out that the drive had taken them three hours? Ian would only say it as because his pregnant wife needed to pee every five minutes and maybe it had been. Ian had acquired the station wagon (third-hand) because he’d acquired the house, launching them to the summit of their particular clique. As they walked from room to room Scarlet felt herself warming to this unlikely residence – it certainly had potential – and feeling a lot more forgiving towards her improvident spouse.
The rooms were big, well laid out, and the mullioned windows vast and wonderful. There was even a room of empty bookcases clearly meant to be a library – what more could writers ever require? The dining room was a bit dark but the scullery was enormous. “If we updated the appliances we could eat in here,” said Scarlet. “It would be cozy.”
Ian made a moue of disagreement. “Why neglect such a magnificent dining room? I mean, we’ve got one, why waste it?”
“Keep it for special occasions,” Scarlet murmured. Most of the time it would be just the two of them and a baby, because they’d never be able to afford live-in help. Anyway, what couple ever benefited from intrusion on their togetherness? “Pas devant les domestiques” was the English byword.
Three large rooms beside a dining room, scullery and butler’s pantry Scarlet counted, then upstairs were six bedrooms laid out rather unimaginatively around a poorly lit central hall with bathrooms connecting between them. Scarlet suggested they each take for a study the smaller bedrooms. But Ian claimed the library.
“Those are kids’ rooms, don’t you think?” he disparaged.
Scarlet felt a thrill that he even contemplated extra children. He hadn’t seemed the least excited about her pregnancy until his flicker of interest when the doula suggested it might be a boy. She was too well-trained to argue. “If you prefer,” she agreed. “Why don’t you take the library for your office and I’ll take the odd bedroom. For now.” She was determined to have the baby with them in their bedroom for starters, requiring her do up just one guest room. Seemed a good way to keep out an overage of guests.
There was no attic whatsoever and the stairs to the tower were barred with a handwritten “Danger” sign.
“I haven’t been up there,” Ian told her. “Pomeroy the Heir pronounced the stairs unsafe. I think we must assume the whole Tower is a disaster area. He suggested just cutting them out altogether, getting rid of that weak flooring and making it sort of a skylight where you can look up.” Trust a man to come up with such an idiotic idea.
“I’ll investigate spiral metal stairs,” said Scarlet. “They come in modular one piece units and I know where we can get one cheap.”
Ian snorted, “The more fools they, then, lowering the price just because their Tower was a fake.”
Since they couldn’t go up, they went down, down to the “undercroft”, as Ian called it, not a “basement” but a magnificently warm, low-ceilinged room with winking-eye lights to the outdoors, shelves of bottled fruit, an empty wine rack and a huge furnace. Purring away. The furnace clearly was newer than 1892 – and if that was the case, the situation might not be as desperate as Ian had painted it.
“I wonder if any of that fruit is still good,” said Ian.
Scarlet’s spirits lightened. She felt a poem coming on.
Alysse Aallyn 