Muriel Spark - The Complete Short Stories

After Miss Spigot’s death Winnie struggled on, in deep chaos, burning the food and quite unable to shop and clean. My mother wouldn’t lift a finger beyond picking flowers; she sat calmly with her eternal sewing, which she called ‘my work’, giving orders. Up to then I had been accustomed to go down to spend Sunday and Monday with a few friends to cheer Ma up, and she had always looked forward to these visits. She had outlived her sisters and her friends, and she enjoyed company. My own work, a regular theatre column, prevented me from spending much more time with her. I don’t notice dust but I do notice bad food; I must say Miss Spigot, who was already in her late seventies, had cooked very well. Our rooms had always been ready and bright when we arrived during Miss Spigot’s lifetime. But suddenly all that ended. Winnie was frantic. I could see that my mother would have to move again. I begged her to let me get her a small flat in London. She was very old but by no means infirm, especially of purpose. ‘Winnie can manage alone. I shall have a Word with her,’ said Ma, and went on with her needlepoint or whatever. I could have killed her, but Ma wasn’t the sort of person you could easily be nasty to.

I decided to stop bringing my friends to my mother’s. My own visits were hell. There was a terrible smell everywhere of burnt food, unaired rooms and sheer neglect. My mother’s tastes in food were simple and I dare say so were Winnie’s, but as for me I like my square meals. The dining-room floor was littered with old bits of toast and egg-shells. The table hadn’t been cleared for weeks, the place-mats were greasy. I did my best to help clear up on my miserable Sundays and Mondays. Personally, I’m quite used to shifting for myself in London; in fact, having been brought up with servants, I hate them. Your life’s never your own. In London I always managed with a morning woman.

But I wasn’t up to coping with a vast house like Ma’s. Nothing would disturb Ma’s resolve to put up with it or Winnie’s exasperating loyalty; she took my mother’s part. It went on for a month. I spent all my spare time in employment agencies and on various other means to get someone to replace Miss Spigot, but nothing came of my efforts or those of my friends; nothing. ‘I am going to have a Word with Winnie,’ said Ma.

On the fifth Sunday I drove down to Sussex late intending to cut short the horror of it all. Amazingly, there was no horror. Winnie had become a super-efficient cook-housekeeper all in the course of a week. As I passed the dining-room I could see the table was laid ready, sparkling with silver and glass, and the table-linen was up to Ma’s best standard. The drawing-room was fresh and the windows looked like glass once more.

Ma was knitting. It was almost time to go in to dinner.

‘Have you found someone to help?’ I said. ‘No,’ said Ma.

‘Well, how has Winnie managed all this on her own?’

‘I had a Word with her,’ said my mother.

Winnie served an excellent dinner on the whole; perhaps it wasn’t quite up to the late cook’s quality but certainly ambitious enough to include a rather flat soufflé.

‘It’s her first soufflé,’ said Ma, when Winnie went to get the meat course. If she doesn’t improve I’ll have a Word.’

But now something had happened to Winnie. She was perfectly happy, indeed almost blissful. She went around whispering to herself in a decidedly odd way. She served the vegetables with great care, but whispering, whispering, all the time.

‘What did you say, Winnie?’ I said.

‘The soufflé was flat,’ said Winnie.

‘Turn on the BBC news,’ said my mother.

For the whole of Monday Winnie went round chattering to herself. Breakfast was, however, set out on the table with nothing forgotten. The house was already in good order before half-past eight, the fire new and crackling. And Winnie conversed with herself, merrily, and quite a lot. I supposed that finding herself alone in the kitchen was now showing. However, my mother seemed to have solved her domestic problem which had fast been developing into mine. I didn’t give time to worrying lest Winnie was turning a little funny.

I went back cheerfully to my own bachelor life and regaled my friends with the news of the change that had come over Winnie and of how well she was coping. They were quite eager to come and join me in Sussex again, assuring me they would make their own beds, help with the shopping and generally refrain from giving Winnie a hard time. I thought I’d better wait a few weeks before making up a party as of old. These visitors to my mother’s house were either unmarried and younger colleagues of mine who, like myself, had to work on Saturdays for their newspapers, or middle-aged widows who had nothing to tie them to any day of the week. All were very keen to come, but I waited.

Winnie was even more efficient the next week. I came to the conclusion that it was Winnie who had been the guiding spirit in the kitchen all along; she was a good cook. Ma took no notice of her whatsoever, as was always her way, preferring not to praise or blame, just to give orders. Winnie was an unguessable age between fifty-five and seventy, her face was big with a lot of folds, her body thin and angular, her hair chocolate-rinsed. My mother who long ago had been used to picking and choosing maids ‘of good appearance’ had taken some time to resign herself to uncomely Winnie, and, having done so, she was not now inclined to waste consideration on any further divergence from the norm that Winnie might display.

Winnie in fact could now be heard in the kitchen kicking up a dreadful racket. One evening the noise filled the house for about ten minutes. My bed was turned down neatly. The stair carpets were spotless as of old, and the furniture and banisters shone. Winnie conducted a further brief altercation in the kitchen and then was quiet till tea when my mother went to bed and so did she. I had a comfortable night. In the morning Winnie started fighting with herself again, or so it seemed. On investigation, I found her smiling while she argued. My mother’s breakfast tray was all prepared and Winnie was about to carry it up to Ma’s room. ‘What’s the matter, Winnie?’ I said.

‘Oh, the butter was forgot to be put on the tray. Too old for the job.’

‘Would you like to leave, Winnie?’ I said, somewhat desperately, but feeling that this was Winnie’s way of saying just that.

‘How could I leave your mother?’ said Winnie, marching off with the tray.

Well, my mother, aged ninety-six, died suddenly during the following week. Winnie phoned me quite calmly from Sussex and I went down right away. There was a little quiet funeral. The house was to be sold. Winnie was still having occasional outbreaks against herself, such as ‘The Times didn’t get cancelled at the newsagent like I said,’ and she muttered a bit as she went around. However, I spent a last, comfortable night in the house and after breakfast prepared to settle Winnie’s pay and pension. I believed she would be glad of a rest. She had relations in Yorkshire and I thought she would probably want to return to them.

‘I’m not leaving the family,’ said Winnie.

She didn’t mean her family, she meant me.

‘Well, Winnie, the house will be sold. There’s no family left, is there?’

‘I’m coming with you,’ Winnie said. ‘I’ve no doubt it’s a pigsty but I can live in the basement.’

My pigsty, my paradise. It was a small narrow house in a Hampstead lane, which I had acquired over twelve years ago. I never got round to putting it straight. It was so much my life to be out late at night at the theatre, then usually some sort of supper after the theatre with friends; in the morning doing my notes for the theatre column, shuffling about in my dressing-gown; then after a quick lunch I would work in my study, or maybe go out to a cinema or an art show, or if not attend to something bureaucratic; or I would play some music on the piano. I worked hardest Fridays and Saturdays, for my last show was Friday and the column had to be in on Saturday at three in the afternoon. And since, until Ma died, I would go down to Sussex for Sunday and Monday with my friends, there was no time to put things straight. Sometimes there were people staying at my house and they would try to help. But it was better when they didn’t, for after one of those friendly tidy-ups I couldn’t find anything. Never, on any occasion, did I allow anyone into my little study upstairs. A sullen and lady-like domestic help called Ida came mincing in three mornings a week for a couple of hours, painful all round; that is, to herself, to me and to my cat Francis. Ida took the clean dishes out of the dishwasher and stacked them away; she changed the towels and bedsheets and left them at the laundry. She swept the kitchen floor, making short work of Francis with her broom, and sometimes she dusted the sitting-room and vacuumed the carpet. Francis cowered in the basement three mornings a week till she had gone.