Victoria Clayton - Moonshine

‘I’d like to get away, right away. Not only from the press. Every night at ten o’clock I plug in the telephone and Burgo rings me from a call-box and we have these dreadful conversations. At first hearing his voice is a huge relief. Then the misery starts. It’s like seeing his shirt-tails and the soles of his shoes forever whisking round a corner. Never his face. Ever since we became lovers I’ve had this feeling that I was hanging on to tiny scraps of him. But I had a foolish hope that one day the crusts would become a feast. Now it’s much worse, of course. We have to be extremely circumspect. Apparently newspapers tap telephone lines routinely. I suppose you knew that.’

‘Not tuppenny-ha’penny papers like the Brixton Mercury . Only dailies with large circulations and big bank accounts.’

‘He says how sorry he is. I say how sorry I am. He asks if I’m OK. I ask him how he is. We try to reassure each other that everything will be all right. He says how much he loves me, how important I am to him. He says he can’t be happy without me. I tell him that he matters more to me than anyone has ever done. And that I never want to hurt him. He tells me to stay calm and be patient, that it will blow over and we’ll be able to be together. I say I want to do what will be best for him. He gets agitated at that. I’m too weak to tell him that it’s over, to refuse to have anything more to do with him. I know that would be the best thing. But I can’t do it. I need to be able to detach myself a bit so I can be strong. I thought of going to stay with a girlfriend who lives in Rome. But I’m really too miserable to make a good guest. And there’s a limit to how long you can park yourself on someone when you haven’t any money. I need to work. Somewhere like Benghazi or Ecuador where they won’t have heard of me.’

‘I wonder …’ Harriet said thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps it’s crazy, but I may know just the place. It’s not as far away as South America, but does that matter? I was reading The Times on the train coming down, hoping to pick up tips on journalistic style, and I happened to see an ad in the personal columns that rather took my fancy: a request for a housekeeper. It had such a strange list of requirements – something about poetry and sausages – it sounded romantic and interesting. What a pity I left the paper on the train.’

‘I’ve got a copy of The Times here.’ I drew it out from behind the bread-bin. ‘I was going to cut out the bits about Burgo and me before my father saw them. He gets furious about the holes in the pages but at least I don’t have to face him knowing he’s read all that stuff about me being an insatiable scrofulous whore.’

Harriet scanned the personal columns. ‘Here we are. Listen to this. Housekeeper wanted, County Galway, Ireland. No previous experience necessary. Applicants must be clean, beardless, love poetry and animals, be able to cook sausages and possess a philosophical temperament . Isn’t it a peculiar list?’

‘It seems rather haughty these days to question other people’s washing habits,’ I said. ‘Still, it’s no good standing on one’s dignity when one’s in a hole. And what about the beard? I believe there are women who have phobias about men with beards. Would many men apply for a job as housekeeper, do you think?’

‘I wondered if it might be a pig farm. The sausages, I mean. I like sausages but I wouldn’t want to eat them all the time. But the poetry sounded promising, I thought.’

I found myself indulging in a brief fantasy. I imagined a neat little house with an elderly couple or more likely a widow. An invalid, possibly, who wanted someone to read poetry to her. Rather particular and old-fashioned, viz. the prejudice against bearded men, but liking plain food. She had a poodle, perhaps, or a Pekinese which had to be taken for walks.

‘I’ve never been to Ireland,’ I said. ‘But it might just be the answer to a prayer.’

‘Now I see,’ said Kit. ‘Harriet sounds like a trouper.’

‘I rang the number straight away. A woman answered.’

‘What did she sound like?’

‘Faint voice, slight Irish accent, younger than I expected. She asked me a few questions: could I drive? Did I mind living in an isolated place? Could I milk a cow?’

‘Can you? Milk a cow, I mean?’

‘No, but it can’t be that difficult.’

‘Mm. I wonder.’

‘Anyway, she said I was the first person to answer the advertisement though she had put it into all the papers she could think of. Their last housekeeper had left suddenly, after a terrible row. They were absolutely desperate. Could I come at once?’

‘Commendable honesty,’ said Kit.

‘I was encouraged to find that my future employer puts truth above self-interest. Also that she was not a fractious invalid. But dis couraged that no one else had even considered the job. Anyway, we agreed I’d be there as soon as public transport allowed. Harriet and I pored over train tables, then she went out to the call-box to book the cheapest available berth on the Swansea to Cork ferry.’

‘Why not cross from Holyhead to Dún Laoghaire? Wouldn’t it have been quicker?’

‘We’d made the call to Galway from the house so in case anyone was tapping the line we thought it might be safer to take a slightly more circuitous route.’

‘Luckily for me.’

‘I’m the one who ought to be grateful. And I am.’

‘Well, that’s better than nothing, I suppose. Go on.’

‘There’s nothing much left to tell. I got Brough to drive me to Blackheath station the next morning. I was lying on the back seat, covered by a rug. The reporters banged on the windows when we got to the gates to get Brough to stop but he just put his foot down. I heard something like a scream as we accelerated away. I suppose if he’d caused serious injury it would’ve been in the papers.’

‘How did your parents take your abrupt departure?’

‘After the first burst of temper, my father seemed surprisingly amenable to my going. I gave him the telephone numbers of a couple of nursing agencies I’d been in touch with before the scandal broke, in the forlorn hope that I’d be able to get back to London. I expected him to kick up about the expense but he suddenly became astonishingly reasonable. He just said I’d better go and pack and he’d see to the business of finding a nurse. The sooner I went, he said, the sooner the lower classes would stop boozing and fornicating at his gates and littering the grounds with beer cans and crisp packets.’

‘Fornicating? The press? Really?’

‘No, of course not. He accuses everyone of alcoholism and lechery. When, in fact, he’s the one the cap fits.’

‘And your mother? What did she say?’

‘She wanted to know who was going to fetch her library books. I assured her that I had made it clear to the agencies that the provision of reading matter was an essential part of the job, on a par with trays and baths. I had to order fresh supplies of nougat and toffee eclairs before I went. I hope Oliver will remember to collect them.’

‘I suppose their indifference was wounding but it made it easier for you to go.’

‘I didn’t mind. I was relieved there wasn’t a fuss. The only person who’s going to miss me is Oliver. When I told him I was going away he said Cutham would be insupportable and – you mustn’t think badly of him, it’s just that he’s exceptionally soft-hearted and affectionate – he wept.’

‘I don’t think the worse of a man for crying. I occasionally do myself.’

‘Do you?’ I smiled. This admission did much more to endear Kit to me than all his compliments. ‘Anyway, I pointed out that he’d already spent seven years at Cutham without me when I was living in London but he said it was different now he was used to me being about the place. Naturally I was pleased to discover that he’s so attached to me but it was an added complication. I do worry about him. He’s so easily depressed. I can tell him to get his manuscript ready to send to you, can’t I? That will cheer him up.’