The House

Day 3. Wednesday

Sometime in the night, a cold, intense drizzle began to blow across the fens. My bedroom window is covered in a fine mist. Where did that change in the weather come from? Yesterday was glorious.

That meant that few visitors would turn out, so they wouldn’t want me in the café – no big deal if Vera paid me – but Sid would be in desperate straits if they sent her home without working a shift. She was, as far as I knew, the only earner in the family.

Now was the time to regret my outburst yesterday, when I more or less told Vera she should stuff the rotten Land Rover where the sun don’t shine. As my Granddad would tell me, should I bump into him, a second-class ride is better than a first class walk, especially in such weather.

I found my screwed-up rain gear in the bottom of the wardrobe, under my muddy boots, so I was guaranteed to look a sight. I could only hope it would rain hard enough to wash the mud off. There was worse to come. My umbrella broke last time out and I had neither thrown it, fixed it nor replaced it. ‘Morgen, Morgen , nur nicht heute, sagen alle faulen Leute,’ was our German teacher’s favourite saying if one asked for a homework deadline extension. How smug the wise can be? Now I would be covered in mud and have to use a brolly with bits of wire pointing at the heavens. In short, it was going to be a scarecrow-day. But I did have a go at translating her rhyming couplet under the shower. ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow, just not today -  that’s what all lazy people say.’ Not bad! Rhymes too!

I was heading toward the front door, when I heard a car horn. I opened the door, and there was Vera, in her Beamer, waving at me to hurry and get in. I gave myself a moment, hidden behind the half-opened door, to slide my muddy rain gear and broken umbrella into my rucksack and only then start off down the front path. I half-expected to hear Vera shout ‘Sultan!’ but she hadn’t spotted the surreptitious rucksack trick. Instead I heard my dad grumble, as he stood in amazement, looking through the parlour window, ‘She’s never taken it out in the rain before. You are honoured!’

I ran down the long garden path and climbed in the car. Before I had chance to even greet her, she set the car in motion as she set the agenda.

‘We need to talk about money.’

‘OK.’

‘Why did you do a shift at the café yesterday?’

‘They were short staffed, and we haven’t agreed terms and remuneration. I have to be careful.’

‘Don’t you trust me?’

I stopped and thought. Then I turned to look at her. She had a fantastic profile. Nose was a tad too large, but that is better than having a visage like an upside-down wall-socket, and her lips, very pronounced and full of expression, but her complexion, in a forty something, was enviable, even for a girl my age.

‘I do, Vera. I was being over-cautious. Sorry I offended you.’

‘Apology accepted. I gave you the day off to do some work for me and you moonlighted.’

‘I’ve written everything up so far and made a list of activities. I worked at it yesterday evening.’

‘Good. Just so you know, I  put you on the staff at the house. I need your bank details, because the café pays you cash I assume. From now on, you’ll be paid at the end of the month, each month that is, assuming we want to keep the arrangement.’

‘Thank you,’ was all I could manage. I wanted to scream ‘How much, Vera?’ but I had a feeling that people like Vera don’t talk about money. ‘Twice my daily rate,’ she had said. Any waitress will tell you that you can’t feed a sparrow on the daily rate. My tips usually exceeded my daily rate, so I could end up out of pocket.

I changed the subject.

‘What happened to my suitcase yesterday?’

‘Good question. It’s probably behind the grizzly bear.’

I didn’t bother to ask why my suitcase would be behind one of the grizzly bears. Obviously, I was supposed to know! The house had a huge reception area, where all the hunting trophies are mounted around the walls. In the far corners are the bears I noticed yesterday. Were they grizzlies? How would I know? If they were grizzlies, then behind one of them, was my suitcase. I decided to retrieve it and not mention the odd location. Vera noticed my hesitation and tried to clarify things.

‘I’ll have it taken up to your room.’

What did that mean? Why did I need a room? Should I have packed some pyjamas? The whole situation was going from bizarre to uncomfortable.

‘Vera, how did you know my case will be behind one of the grizzly bears and why did you have it put there and why do I need a room?’

‘Good lord, girl! Which first?’

She paused and then took them one by one. ‘How did I know? That’s where the servants put cases when I forget to tell them which room. Why? Well, poor souls, they don’t know if I have forgotten to tell them which room or if the visitor isn’t meant to stay overnight and is taking liberties. In which case, said visitor can leave discreetly and take his belongings with a minimum of embarrassment - from behind the grizzly bear. And some distant great uncle - I think he was called Rodney - shot the damn things and had them stuffed and erected, so I searched for a use for them. Clever, don’t you think?’

‘Why do I need a room?’

‘That’s obvious. You need your own space. If I’m tired or busy, you don’t want to hang around like a dog at a wedding. You’ll have somewhere comfortable to go. Sometimes it may get late and you won’t want to walk home. Don’t think the personal pick-up service of today will become a regular feature. I didn’t want you arriving soaked and then dripping all over the carpets.’

She tried to suppress a grin. I wasn’t fooled by her subterfuge.

‘Liar, Liar, Vera’s bum’s on fire. You wanted to prove you are not too snobby to share your car with a spotty tart from the village. The rain was the perfect excuse.’

She turned and looked at me, taking her eyes completely off the road. We were on the front drive by then, so it was her road and she could expect other users to mind out the way. She peered intently at me, school-mistress style, over the tops of her spectacles.

‘You have perfect skin, my dear, and when I was researching, no one mentioned any tart-like behaviour. You’ll have to spill the beans on that one.’

‘What do you mean - researching?’

We drew up to the magnificent front door.

‘I have my secrets too. You tell me your tarty bits and I’ll tell what I found when researching. Sounds like we have decided several discussion topics for future afternoons. Out we get.’

Vera walked at the door as though she were going to walk through it. Solid oak, stood four-hundred years - there could be only one victor, but the door swung open just in time, propelled by the youth who had driven yesterday’s muddy Land Rover. He pulled a serious but disinterested face as Vera swept through the door, but split into an ear to ear grin when I entered.

‘Hi, Millie. Suitcase is behind the grizzly bear,’ he whispered.

‘She knows where the suitcase is,’ Vera boomed, without breaking her stride or looking back. ‘In the blue bedroom if you please Charles.’

That jolted my memory. Charley Starmer. Two years above me. Never anyone called him anything but Charley. What is it with that woman and names?

He snapped to attention like a spanked schoolboy. Why do we fear and revere these people? What have they ever done to earn our respect? And how come she is so short staffed that a worker from the garden must double as the butler?

Vera led me into the first of many reception rooms. She pointed at a bucket in the corner, full of plastic overshoes. I pulled two on, looked at the carpet and wondered what the fuss was.

‘It’s a carpet, Vera, just like the BMW is a car.’

‘Rubbish, Millicent.’ Eighteen thirties. Coat of arms weaved into the pattern. No dyestuff - just natural colours of different sheep. Irreplaceable.’

It was hideous. It would be a mercy if it did wear out. I didn’t say it though.

Vera huffed me.

‘Sultan, Millicent. Your face revealed some naughty thoughts going through your brain. You have to tell me them!’

She’s the boss. Not my fault if I get the sack. Here goes.

‘It’s hideous, Vera. It would be a mercy if it did wear out.’

I waited for the fall-out. I was disappointed.

‘Quite so, Millicent. Of course it’s hideous. Whole place is hideous. Just look at those grizzly bears through there. Who in their right mind needs two stuffed bears, each ten-foot-high, apart from hiding the luggage of unwelcome guests? But it’s what sets us, our tribe if you like, apart. If we didn’t fight for it there would be no point to us being here would there?’

‘Karl, Vera. You’ve just proved the opposite. The very act of having to justify the existence of your tribe has proved there is no point in you being here. Dinosaurs, the lot of you!’

‘You wicked girl!’ Much to my relief she laughed. ‘How dare you finish the British aristocracy with one sweep of your philosopher’s axe? Let’s design this tea kitchen before I sack you.’

We spent the morning looking for a suitable corner for her new tea-kitchen, and then we looked for the furniture.

‘Harrods is always the easiest way to get quality stuff,’ she announced.

‘Do Harrods sell kitchen furniture?’

Was I dumb? Who cares what Harrods sell? I’ve just talked my way out of a trip up to town and see how the other half live. She would have to throw lunch in, too.

‘Good point, Millicent. Where would you search for a kitchen?’

‘IKEA, or B&Q.’

‘Oh goody!’ she squealed. Never been to either, but everyone talks about them. Fix it up for this afternoon.’

‘But that leaves us with the assembly problem. They say flat-pack-furniture is the last great frontier, Vera.’

‘You will look after me. You know how to do it - don’t you?’

Later that day she was studying the comic-style instructions like a kid with a new toy.

‘Try this!’

I handed her an electric screwdriver with a thousand drive bits that I’d picked up at the DIY. We assembled the first two pieces of the pull-out table.

‘Oooo Millie. That screwing thingy has magical properties doesn’t it? Why do I know nothing of these delights?’

I heard nothing from her for the rest of the day, apart from the whirring of the motor. Then came a panicky shriek.

‘What is it?’ I rushed through into her apartment expecting her to be standing in a pool of blood or worse. Instead, I found her holding the screwdriver like a spear.

‘The screw thingy stopped. Just like that!’

‘Battery is probably flat. You’ll have to put it on charge.’

‘Why? Oh! Silly me! Show me. How long will that take?’

Sid came to the point.

‘So, she’d never used an electric screwdriver set before?’

‘Not any screwdriver set apparently.’

‘I suppose the screwdriver was as exciting and novel to her as riding one of her horses would be for me.’

‘Do you want to ride one of her horses?’

‘You bet!’

‘I’ll ask her for you.’

She squealed with delight and kissed me on the lips. Steady, Sid!

I felt it was all a pose. Something was wrong. Why would the village Marxist want to ride one of her Ladyship’s horses? I felt my eyes searching her face for clues. My stare lingered much longer than necessary, and she couldn’t withstand the gaze. Her eyes slid off to look at the fen stretching away behind the church.

‘Are you alright, Sid?’

There were tears in her eyes by the time they returned from the flat reed beds.

‘Sure! Just hormones.’

I told her the story of the grizzly bears as suitcase repositories for unwanted guests. That got a smile from her.

‘She’s got style, I’ll give her that.’

She wiped an unruly rivulet of tears from her cheek, turned and walked away toward the shady damp dell she called home.

I’m still trying to remember if there was any tongue in that kiss. Girls can dwell on the sordid.

And Vera still hasn’t shown me the house.

I borrowed some money for new tights and dry cleaning from Mum, but I knew, once the replacements were bought and my skirt cleaned, I wouldn’t have the nerve to give the receipts to Vera. Why? What might she do that I’m so scared of? Why do these people exert such control, even when they do nothing?

Later that evening I remembered a random quote from a homework exercise from yesteryear. Had it something to do with my tights quandary? I went upstairs to my bedroom and found, deep in a rubbish drawer, a homework notebook from way back. There was the exercise I sought, written in a neat and childish hand and dated five years ago. Wow! Was I just fourteen?

I read what we had copied. I read again.

‘Yet these were the people with money, and to them rather than to others was given the management of the world.’

The second sentence scared me more.

‘Put among them someone more vital, who cared for life or for beauty, and what an agony, what a waste would they inflict on him if he tried to share with them and not to scourge.’

My note at the bottom indicated we had to say what the passage from Virginia Woolf meant and find the meaning of ‘scourge,’ in that context. Such a pity I no longer had my original answer to the exercise.

Was I that more vital person and Vera had deliberately put me among them?

I found my dictionary and looked up ‘scourge’. I only knew the punishment meaning.

There it was. ‘A person who causes great trouble.’

Questions, but no answers.

Were those two carefully chosen sentences a warning to the village children living in the shadow of the aristocracy? Was our teacher trying to tell us back then who the enemy was? Or perhaps I haven’t to this day a clue what Woolf wanted to say? Did she know, or did she merely like the sound of the thought? One never knows with clever people. She was closer to Vera in social class and opportunity, born with the dreaded silver spoon firmly entrenched from day one - and bipolar from her teenage years on. That was a dreadful curse. Happiness was not easy for her to achieve. Bereavements and sexual abuse ruined her youth. I felt there were parallels with Vera’s past, but had no evidence.

The truth – anyone can get money. Happiness is a much finer art, and was what I was born to? We hadn’t two pennies to rub together compared to Vera or Virginia Woolf, but perhaps our life was a breeze of contentment compared to theirs. Why would I understand her meaning? Yet sometimes certainties can revert to randomness in the twinkling of an eye. Our wealth of happiness could be taken from us by an accident, a poor harvest, a storm at just the wrong moment, a vindictive decision by our bank, or a hundred other adversities that we couldn’t plan for.

It felt good to have a wealthy patron – just in case.