Jane Gardam - Last Friends

‘Elsie was Chinese of course. Never saw anyone so beautiful. But she drank.’

‘We knew all that, too.’

‘She was rather after the style of that pink-coat woman at the funeral, Isobel.’

‘Isobel does not drink!’

‘That will do, Susan! Do you know Isobel?’

‘O.K. — keep your hair on. I did once. It can’t be the same one.’

‘ Actually ,’ said Dulcie, spooning rhubarb, ‘there was some link between little Fred Fiscal-Smith and Edward. Something awful. Orphans, of some sort. Well, you don’t ask, do you? Not done.’

‘ I was a Raj Orphan,’ said Susan.

‘Yes. You made a great fuss. I can’t think why. It is such a character-forming thing to be separated from one’s parents. I never saw mine for years. I didn’t miss them at all. Couldn’t remember what they looked like after about a week. But then, I’ve never been very interesting and I’m sure they weren’t.’

‘I missed mine,’ said Susan.

‘Your father, I suppose.’

‘No. I missed you. Dreadfully.’

‘Susan! How lovely! I had no idea! How kind of you to tell me. I did write you thousands of letters—. But—. I think I’ll get up now and write to Fiscal-Smith. I think I was a little hard on him for bringing that overnight-case. He’ll be nearly home by now. I hope there was a dining car on the train. He remembers — and so do I — when railway cups and saucers—.’

‘“Had rosebuds on them”. Yes, we know. And for godsake, Ma, don’t get up until I’ve done down-stairs. The kitchen’s full of damp church vestments.’

‘And after this,’ she said in the kitchen, ‘thank God, we must start packing for America.’

Dulcie, not waiting to dress got out of bed, found some writing paper and sat at her dressing table.

My dear Fiscal-Smith,

I am sorry that we did not say a proper goodbye after our little adventure this morning. I had not expected you to leave immediately and I am very sorry if we seemed to be hurrying you away, Sincerely, your oldest friend, Dulcie.

PS: I don’t seem to be able to get not Old Filth — Eddie — out of my mind, but Veneering . Am I right in thinking that you knew him better than anyone else did? That there are things you never told us? Just a hazy thought. I’ve so often wondered how he got where he did. So flashy and brash (if I dare say so) so brilliant in court, so good at languages, so passionate and so — whatever they say about him with women — so common. But oh so honourable! Don’t forget, I knew Betty very well. But I am saying too much — too much unless it is to a dear last friend which I know it is.

DW.

* * *

And now I am completely restored, she thought the next day, waving Susan and her grandson off in the hired car for the airport, back to Boston, Mass.

Susan had kissed her goodbye. Even Herman had hugged her, if inexpertly. This visit had been a success! Susan talked of returning soon. Even of sending Herman to boarding school here with the boy his own age over in Veneering’s old house, the poet’s son. Well, well! I wish she’d say what’s happened to her husband. An electric fence around her there.

* * *

Today and probably for the next few days Dulcie decided she would do nothing. It was time for her to be quiet and reflect. So idiotic at my age, but I must reflect upon the future. ‘Reflect’, perhaps the wrong word. It has a valedictory connotation. But I am not too old to consider matters of moral behaviour. There is Janice coming to clean on Wednesday and Susan’s already done the sheets. I will not go over to Veneering’s house to see that new family. I mustn’t get dependent on them. I mustn’t become a bore. I shall—. Well I shall read. Go through old letters. Plenty to do. Prayers. Wait for Fiscal-Smith’s reply.

But when this had not arrived by Friday Dulcie began to think again how much he irritated her. She knew she had hurt him by sending him home, but, after all, she had not invited him. It was that supply of clean shirts she’d seen in the case that she couldn’t forget. The image brought others: his ease the night before with her drinks cupboard, his arrogance in the church. How he had criticised the vicar. He knew that the Church of England had to regard their priests as wandering planets now, the current one arrived on a scooter dressed as a hoodie and vanished after the service without a word to anybody; but Fiscal-Smith need not have looked so RC and smug. And disdainful of St. Ague’s.

Of course she knew the village was dead. Dorset was dead. It was gone. Submerged beneath the rich week-enders, who never passed the time of day. Came looking for The Woodlanders of Thomas Hardy and then cut down the trees. The only life-timer in The Donheads was the ancient man in the lanes with the scythe. Willy used to call him the grim reaper. Lived somewhere in a ditch — never talked. Some said he was still here.

There was no-one to talk to. The village Shop, as Fiscal-Smith had said, was dying on its feet. He didn’t have to tell her. She scrapped another letter to him, written this time on an expensive quatre-folded writing paper, thick and creamy, from Smythson’s of Bond Street — which Fiscal-Smith would never have heard of — and set out on foot to the village shop herself.

It was pure patriotism and she hoped that there were some faces behind the beautiful polished windows and luxury blinds of the weekenders in the lanes to see her. She didn’t need anything. Susan had stocked up for her as if for a siege, in the Shaftesbury Co-op. She bought at the little shop a tin of baked beans and listened to Chloe discussing whether Scotts Oats were better than Quaker when making flap-jack. There rose up a vision of golden heaps of sea-wrack, squid, banana fritters, marigolds and the smell of every kind of spice. A tired, dreamy Chinese chef spinning pasta from a lump of dough for the tourists; a stall piled high with cat-fish. Mangoes. Loquats.

On the way home she decided to get eggs from the farm. There was a wooden box hung on a field-gate. It had been there fifty years. You took out the eggs and left the money. Beautiful brown eggs covered in hen-shit to show how fresh they were. Today she opened the flap of the box and there were no eggs and no money but a dirty-looking note saying, ‘Ever Been Had?’

She was all at once desolate. The whole world was corrupt. She was friendless and alone. Like Fiscal-Smith she had outstayed her welcome in the place she felt was home. There was absolutely nothing for her to do now but walk back to empty Privilege Hall.

No she would not! There must be someone. Yes. She would go and call on the two old twins up the lane. The people in the shop had said that there was a new Carer there. Well, there nearly always was a new Carer there. (Oh! When was the last time there was anybody happy? It’s not that I’m really already missing Susan. I wonder if I’d have loved Susan more if she’d been a boy? With a nice wife who would sit and talk and play Bridge?)

She tottered up to the cottage of the two old high-powered (Civil Service) twins and was greeted by a dry young woman with a grey face, smoking a cigarette.

‘Yes?’

‘I am a friend—.’

‘They’re having their rest.’

‘But it’s lunch-time.’

‘They rest early.’

‘I am a very old friend. May I please come in?’

She walked through the nice cottage that seemed to be awash with rubbish awaiting the bin men, and saw Olga and Faery playing a slowish card-game at a table. They raised their eyes sadly.

‘Thank you.’ Dulcie turned to the Carer. ‘That will be all for now. You may take a break. I’m sure you need one. Please take your cigarette into your car.’