Vivian stood over the saucepan of potatoes, which had begun to boil. Clouds of steam enveloped her head. The lid rattled on top of the pan and the water spilled out in little hissing spurts.
‘I don’t think I can,’ she said.
‘Usually I don’t like to bother you,’ said Audrey. ‘It’s so tiresome when people bother you, isn’t it? I think it must have got lost in the post. I’ve been lying in wait like a panther for the postman all week. When he comes I leap on him.’
‘But I didn’t post it,’ said Vivian.
‘And now I’ve had to come all the way up, and I had a thousand and one things I meant to do today — it was the last thing I wanted to do, to start coming up to Egypt! I always get embroiled when I come up here. Embroilment was not in the plan today. Today I was going to be all efficiency so that I could be carefree tomorrow.’
There was a silence in the kitchen. Audrey stood in an expectant pose, one hand slightly raised, as though to catch something she believed was about to be thrown to her, or as though she were holding a vessel from which she had just poured the last dregs of an important substance.
‘Vivian,’ she said meaningfully, ‘you do see how annoying it is for me to have to come up?’
Vivian said nothing. The baby made a plaintive sound.
‘In the middle of everything I had to start getting in the car and running around! Paul always said I wasn’t to do that, you know,’ Audrey said, to me. ‘Don’t wear yourself out, he said. Women always wear themselves out. By the time they get to fifty they’re like a set of old tyres. They’ve lost their tread.’
The telephone rang in the hall and before Audrey had finished speaking Vivian had darted out of the room to answer it.
‘Has she gone?’ said Audrey smartly, looking around. ‘I didn’t know she could move so fast. It’s because she’s being evasive — she’s moving fast to evade the issue.’
‘She won’t see dad,’ Adam said. ‘I’ve been trying to get her to go in but she won’t. I don’t understand what’s going on. Dad said that none of you have been in. Only Uncle David.’
‘I sent David as a sop,’ said Audrey darkly. ‘I suspected your father of shenanigans, but now I’m not so sure. I think Vivian may be acting alone.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Adam. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, mum.’
‘That was Laura,’ said Vivian abstractedly, coming in again. ‘I thought she was here but then the telephone rang and it was her. She’s in Doniford. I don’t know how she did it. She says she’s got the baby but the three older ones are still here. I haven’t seen them, have you? I don’t know how she did it,’ she said again. She looked around, as though thinking she might find her. ‘I was sure she was here.’
‘I was always good at that,’ said Audrey. ‘I used to leave you everywhere! Once I left Brendon in a shop. I completely forgot about him — he was there all afternoon. He hid like a little marsupial in a rack of clothes.’
‘You’ve had enough, don’t you think?’ said Vivian, looking at Audrey through her fringe. ‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’
‘Had enough of what, darling? I’ve certainly had enough of babies. That one’s lovely but the very sight of her makes me want to run a mile.’
‘She’s really no trouble to you, Audrey,’ said Lisa, who had gone slightly white. She clutched the baby to her chest and jiggled her up and down. ‘I don’t think you can accuse her of having been any trouble.’
‘There has to be a limit,’ said Vivian. ‘It can’t just go on and on. It can’t be like a cow giving milk, on and on.’
‘A cow?’ said Audrey. She looked around at everyone in comic mystification.
‘They call me a cow,’ said Vivian flatly. ‘I heard them in the supermarket. Someone said, where does she get all her money, and they said, don’t you know, she’s got a cash cow.’
‘Who has?’ said Audrey.
‘You. Marjory said I’m your cash cow. I heard her say it. I was in the supermarket last week and I was bending down so they couldn’t see me, because they were in the next aisle, you see, and I heard them.’
‘Darling, it was probably nothing to do with you! They were probably talking about real cows, you know, moo —’
‘They said my name. They were in the next aisle, you see. It was as if they were standing right beside me. They said I was a cash cow.’
‘Well,’ said Audrey lightly, after a pause, ‘people are very silly — you know that, Vivian, as well as I do. The fact is that we have our arrangement and what other people say about it isn’t really the point, is it?’
‘It’s horrible,’ said Vivian.
‘Poor darling. Poor Vivian,’ said Audrey, slightly impatiently.
‘It means that every time you want money you come and milk me. You and Paul pull the udders and the money comes out!’
‘I know what it means,’ said Audrey, tapping her foot on the flagstones.
‘That’s what people say. It means that you exploit me.’
‘Nobody exploits you!’
‘If you keep milking me I’ll run dry, you know. I’ll have nothing left — all the money daddy gave me, and not a penny of it left for Laura and Jilly!’
‘You got plenty for it,’ said Audrey. Her voice was unkind. ‘You got plenty for your damned money. I gave you my house. I gave you my children. I gave you my man. He was my man. Mine!’ She struck her pony-haired chest unexpectedly with her small, pale fist. ‘I left the field. I bowed out gracefully and for that you had to pay.’
‘There was nothing to give, you know,’ said Vivian, to me. ‘All this talk of giving! She didn’t give me the house — I bought it.’
‘That isn’t true,’ said Caris.
‘They cooked it up between them!’ cried Vivian.
‘Mum, that isn’t true,’ said Caris.
Audrey gave a little shrug and turned to the window with her arms folded.
‘Vivian did help daddy out a little with the farm,’ she said. ‘I never knew by how much. I think I can be forgiven for not wanting to know, can’t I?’
‘He got a valuation from that friend of his in town and he said that was what I had to pay — it was far more than it was worth! My husband told me that. He said, get your name on the deeds. Whatever you do, get your name on the deeds.’
Audrey snorted.
‘What would Hippo know about the valuation?’ she said. ‘The submersible was usually submerged in gin by lunchtime.’
‘It didn’t last them long! They ran through it all!’ said Vivian. ‘All of it!’
‘Honestly, Vivian,’ said Audrey, ‘you make it sound as though you were frog-marched into it. The fact is, darling, you went to bed with my husband.’
‘He seduced me, you know,’ said Vivian forlornly, to me.
‘Nobody made you do it,’ said Audrey. ‘Nobody forced you.’
‘He sent me a lamb. It was a little white lamb for the children. We all thought it was terribly sweet but after two months it was enormous. They used to give it all sorts of food, you see, and it got very big and aggressive until in the end it used to run at them and knock them over. It was like a bull — it wasn’t like a sheep at all!’
Audrey laughed. ‘That should have told you everything you needed to know, darling.’
‘Jilly scratched her face until it bled,’ Vivian said, to me. ‘For a whole year she scratched her face. None of the women would speak to me. Then he said we should send them away to school because the house was too crowded. And I said, well, why don’t we send them all away in that case, and he said, no, we can’t do that, it would cost too much to send them all, so mine were sent and his stayed. So I was left looking after three children who weren’t mine, do you see?’