‘Well, can I?’ she said, thinking it would be better to be meek and keep the peace. Would Pammy have asked such a question of Harold? Would Harold have ever expected such a question? Ursula wasn’t sure. She realized she knew nothing about marriage. And, of course, Sylvie and Hugh’s alliance remained an ongoing enigma.
She wondered what argument Derek could possibly have against her playing tennis. He seemed to be having the same struggle and eventually said begrudgingly, ‘I suppose so. As long as you still have time to do everything in the house.’ Halfway through their tea – stewed lamb chops and mashed potatoes – he got up abruptly from the table, picked up his plate and threw it across the room and then walked out of the house without saying a word. He didn’t come back until Ursula was getting ready for bed. He still wore the same thrawn expression on his face as when he had left and gave her a brief ‘good night’ that almost choked him as they climbed into bed.
In the middle of the night she was woken by him clambering on top of her and hitching himself wordlessly inside her. Wisteria came to mind.
The thrawn face (‘that look’ was how she thought of it) now made regular appearances and Ursula surprised herself with how far she would go to appease it. But it was hopeless, once he was in this mood she got on his nerves, no matter what she did or said, in fact her attempts to placate him seemed to make the situation worse, if anything.
A visit was arranged to Mrs Oliphant in Barnet, the first since the wedding. They had popped in briefly – tea and a stale scone – to announce their engagement, but hadn’t been back since.
This time round Mrs Oliphant fed them a limp ham salad and some small conversation. She had several odd jobs ‘saved up’ for Derek and he disappeared, tools in hand, leaving his womenfolk to clear up. When the washing-up was done, Ursula said, ‘Shall I make a cup of tea?’ and Mrs Oliphant said, ‘If you like,’ without any great encouragement.
They sat awkwardly in the parlour, sipping their tea. There was a framed photograph hanging on the wall, a studio portrait of Mrs Oliphant and her new husband on their wedding day, looking strait-laced in turn-of-the-century wedding garb. ‘Very nice,’ Ursula said. ‘Do you have any photographs of Derek when he was small? Or of his sister?’ she added because it didn’t seem right to exclude the girl from family history merely on account of her being dead.
‘Sister?’ Mrs Oliphant said, frowning. ‘What sister?’
‘His sister who died,’ Ursula said.
‘Died?’ Mrs Oliphant looked startled.
‘Your daughter,’ Ursula said. ‘She fell in the fire,’ she added, feeling foolish, it was hardly a detail you were likely to forget. She wondered if perhaps Mrs Oliphant was a little simple. Mrs Oliphant herself looked confused, as if she were trying to recollect this forgotten child. ‘I only ever had Derek,’ she concluded firmly.
‘Well, anyway,’ Ursula said, as if this were a trivial subject to be lightly tossed away, ‘you must come and visit us in Wealdstone. Now that we’re settled. We’re very grateful, you know, for the money that Mr Oliphant left.’
‘Left? He left money?’
‘Some shares, I think, in the will,’ Ursula said. Perhaps Mrs Oliphant hadn’t been involved in the probate.
‘Will? He left nothing but debts when he went. He’s not dead,’ she added as if it were Ursula who was the simple one. ‘He’s living in Margate.’
What other lies and half-truths were there, Ursula wondered? Did Derek really nearly drown when he was younger?
‘Drown?’
‘Fall out of a rowing boat and swim to shore?’
‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
‘Now then,’ Derek said, appearing in the doorway and making them both jump, ‘what are you two gossiping about?’
‘You’ve lost weight,’ Pamela said.
‘Yes, I suppose I have. I’ve been playing tennis.’ How normal that made her life sound. She doggedly attended the tennis club, it was the only relief she had from the claustrophobia of life in Masons Avenue, though she had to face a constant inquisition on the subject. Every evening when he came home Derek asked if she had played tennis today, even though she only played two afternoons a week. She was always interrogated about her partner, a dentist’s wife called Phyllis. Derek seemed to despise Phyllis, even though he had never met her.
Pamela had travelled all the way from Finchley. ‘Obviously it was the only way I was ever going to see you. You must like married life. Or Wealdstone,’ she laughed. ‘Mother said that you put her off.’ Ursula had been putting everyone off since the wedding, rebuffing Hugh’s offers to ‘pop in’ for a cup of tea and Sylvie’s hints that perhaps they should be invited to Sunday lunch. Jimmy was away at school and Teddy was in his first year at Oxford but he wrote lovely long letters to her, and Maurice, of course, had no inclination to visit anyone in his family.
‘I’m sure she’s not too bothered about visiting. Wealdstone and so on. Not her cup of tea at all.’
They both laughed. Ursula had almost forgotten what it felt like to laugh. She felt tears start to her eyes and had to turn away and busy herself with the tea things. ‘It’s so nice to see you, Pammy.’
‘Well, you know you’re welcome in Finchley whenever you please. You should get a telephone, and then we could talk all the time.’ Derek thought a telephone was an expensive luxury but Ursula suspected that he simply didn’t want her speaking to anyone. She could hardly voice this suspicion (and to whom – Phyllis? The milkman?) as people would think she was off her head. Ursula had been looking forward to Pamela’s visit the way people looked forward to holidays. On Monday she had said to Derek, ‘Pamela’s coming on Wednesday afternoon,’ and he had said, ‘Oh?’ He seemed indifferent and she was relieved that the thrawn face did not appear.
As soon as they were finished with them Ursula quickly cleared the tea things away, washed and dried them and put them back in their places.
‘Golly,’ Pamela said, ‘when did you become such a neat little Hausfrau?’
‘Tidy house, tidy mind,’ Ursula said.
‘Tidiness is overrated,’ Pamela said. ‘Is anything the matter? You seem awfully down.’
‘Time of the month,’ Ursula said.
‘Oh, rotten luck. I’m going to be free of that problem for a few months. Guess what?’
‘You’re having a baby? Oh, that’s wonderful news!’
‘Yes. Isn’t it? Mother will be a grandmother again.’ (Maurice had already made a start on the next generation of Todds.) ‘Will she like that, do you suppose?’
‘Who knows? She’s rather unpredictable these days.’
‘Did you have a nice visit from your sister?’ Derek asked when he came home that night.
‘Lovely. She’s having a baby.’
‘Oh?’
The next morning her poached eggs were not ‘up to scratch’. Even Ursula had to admit that the egg she presented for Derek’s breakfast was a sad sight, a sickly jellyfish deposited on toast to die. A sly smile appeared on his face, an expression that seemed to indicate a certain triumph in finding fault. A new look. Worse than the old.
‘Do you expect me to eat that?’ he asked.
Several answers to that question passed through Ursula’s mind but she rejected them all as provocative. Instead she said, ‘I can do you another one.’
‘You know,’ he said, ‘I have to work all hours at a job I despise, just to keep you. You don’t have to worry your silly little noggin about anything, do you? You do nothing all day – oh, no, forgive me,’ he said sarcastically, ‘I was forgetting you play tennis – and you can’t even manage to cook me an egg.’