Jilly Cooper - Prudence

‘Life’s very hard,’ said Rose, patting her curls in my mirror. ‘I thought James and Ace would get on. I expected them to have so many good talks about books.’

‘Ace says Copeland’s knowledge comes more from the beginning of books than the end,’ said Maggie.

‘Ace’s always being cynical and sarcastic,’ said Rose. ‘I expect he’s jealous of James. Oh well, if he doesn’t want to communicate with one of the keenest minds on Western Civilization, good luck to him.’

Good luck was plainly the last thing she wanted Ace to have.

‘Who said James had one of the keenest minds on Western Civilization?’ asked Maggie.

‘James did,’ said Rose simply.

‘Oh come on ,’ said Maggie. ‘Let’s go along to your bedroom and see what you’ve bought.’

‘There’s a very exciting offer for garden furniture in the Mail ,’ said Rose.

‘When is it warm enough here to sit outside?’ said Maggie, as they went towards the door.

God, I felt tired. Without Ace, I was totally defenceless.

‘Hullo,’ came a voice. ‘How’s your Ammonia?’

It was Lucasta.

‘Better,’ I said. ‘I might get up and have a bath soon.’

On one arm she was wearing a fluffy puppet fox, with sleepy eyes disappearing into its fur and a long tail.

‘He’s lovely,’ I said.

‘Ace brought him back from America. He’s called Sylvia; he’s my best toy.’

‘He looks a bit like your father.’

‘Daddy’s gone to see the Burrow engineer about the new house. When he moves in, he wants me to come and live with him.’

‘That’s nice,’ I said. That would finish Maggie off altogether.

‘Can I have an apple?’ she said, making the fox select one from the fruit bowl, and eating on the side of her face to avoid her wobbly tooth.

‘I wish it would snow,’ she said, ‘Every night I pray for snow and it never comes.’

‘What else do you pray for?’

Her blue eyes narrowed. Suddenly her little face looked very hard.

‘That Maggie might go away and Daddy might marry Mummy again.’

‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t do that.’

‘I hate her,’ said Lucasta, ‘and she hates me being here. Every time Daddy takes me out she gets cross.’

After a few bites she got bored with the apple and, going to the cupboard, selected a pair of my black high heels and put them on.

‘I’m on Book Four,’ she said. ‘Shall I go and get it?’ She teetered off out of the room.

A minute later she teetered back, sat on my bed, and read the whole book through in a high sing-song voice without a single mistake.

‘That’s brilliant,’ I said in surprise. I seemed to remember Maggie saying she wasn’t very bright.

Lucasta grinned and shut the book.

‘And I can read it without the book too,’ she said and proceeded to reel the whole thing off from memory.

I was still laughing, when there was yet another knock on the door. This time it was Mrs Braddock.

‘And how are you, love? Feeling better, I hope. Now come along,’ she added to Lucasta, ‘you know Mr Ace said Miss Pru wasn’t to be bothered.’

‘I’m not bothering her,’ answered Lucasta. She turned to me. ‘Do you know, Mrs Braddock can do magic? She did some in the kitchen today…’

Mrs Braddock looked smug and smoothed down her apron, waiting, no doubt, for Lucasta to describe some particularly delicious concoction she’d run up that morning.

‘Well what is it?’ I said.

Lucasta gave a naughty giggle.

‘She can take all her teeth out and put them in again.’

I loved the Mulhollands, I loved them all, but I couldn’t cope with them at the moment. I couldn’t cope with the feverish cross-currents. I felt like the centre court net at the end of Wimbledon fortnight. All I wanted was to go back to the peace of Ace and me being shut up together. ‘It’s because I haven’t been well,’ I kept telling myself.

Mrs Braddock and Lucasta were shortly followed by Jack, back from the Borough engineer. When he’d finished grumbling about the builders and his hangover, he said, ‘Since I’m obviously not allowed to seduce you, or bring you a drink, shall we have a game of chess?’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘That would be fun.’

As we were setting up the board, Maggie wandered in and watched us sourly.

‘You never play with me,’ she said accusingly to Jack.

‘I do,’ protested Jack. ‘I played with you the other day.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Maggie bitterly, ‘but that was chess.’

On Sunday matters came to a head between the two of them. They had been to a drinks party at midday and carried on drinking through lunch, getting more and more stroppy. I wandered downstairs in the afternoon — it was my first time up. I felt dreadful, so exhausted in fact that I had to hang on to bits of furniture. I found Maggie in the drawing-room with the Sunday papers and a bottle. She had that sulky petulant look of a cat huddling on a window ledge to keep out of the rain.

Outside in the garden Wordsworth was chewing on one of the Sunday joint bones, and Coleridge, who’d already buried his, was walking round and round under the weeping ash tree wiping his face on the twigs. Jack, Ace and Lucasta were making a bonfire. Jack was pulling up undergrowth with the exuberance of too much alcohol, and fooling around with Lucasta. Ace was laughing and breaking up sticks. He was wearing a thick black sweater. I thought what a handsome trio they made, then collapsed on to the sofa wondering if it were possible to feel so weak.

‘Have you got Ace’s piece on Venezuela?’ I said.

‘Here,’ said Maggie, throwing the Review Section across to me. ‘It’s the only decent thing in the paper this week.’

They had given him a huge byline, and a picture, taken before he’d grown a moustache. He looked younger and much less sombre. He wrote very well. The prose was spare and economic, but his powers of observation were amazing. It was as though he had a hundred eyes like Argus. You could feel the heat and dust and despair of the rebels. You felt as though you were there.

‘It’s terribly good,’ I said in surprise.

‘I know. And he’s just as good on the box. That’s why he’s being head-hunted so much at the moment. God, I hate the country,’ she went on, refilling her glass. ‘Nothing to do for days on end, no one to drive me to the sea when I want to go to the sea. Nothing round me except sulky faces, and mine is the sulkiest of all. What shall we do now?’

In the end we settled down together to do a huge jigsaw puzzle of the New Avengers. It was all either of us were fit for. It was nearly dusk when Jack came in.

‘Hullo, lovely,’ he said to me. ‘How are you feeling?’

He was about to ruffle my hair; his hands smelt of wood smoke.

‘I wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘Ace won’t let me wash it. It’s coming off my head. I’m sure I’ve got scurf.’

‘I never get scurf,’ said Maggie smugly.

‘You’re too thick-skinned,’ remarked Jack, bending over the puzzle. ‘Bags I put in Joanna Lumley’s crutch. I’ll get it,’ he said as the telephone went.

‘Darling, how are you,’ we could hear him saying from the hall. ‘So sorry I missed you the other day. Why didn’t you pop in?’

‘I think this is a bit of Steed’s bowler hat,’ said Maggie.

‘Who is it?’ I whispered.

‘Well, we know her name’s “Darling”,’ said Maggie.

‘No, she’s being marvellous,’ Jack went on. ‘Kept us all in fits. She’s out with Ace at the moment, flying the kite. He bought her the most fantastic fox puppet back from the States. Yes, he thinks she’s terrific.’

Maggie stiffened, and her hand moved slower and slower over the puzzle, ears on elastic. It must be Fay on the other end.