“I’ve got an idea,” she says cheerfully, changing tack.
I open my eyes. Her face is reddened by the drink, her eyes bright with exuberance. She’s standing next to the table, alongside the seasoned bird, and for a moment I’m transported back to a different time: she’s about to pick up the bird and fling it at me, or even to take the edge of the table in both hands and upend it, with everything on it, on top of me. I grip the side nearest me with both hands so that, as she overturns it, I will be able to deflect a little of the weight to save me being crushed.
“I’ve decided I’m going to invite the president of the Royal Entomological Society in Queens Gate”—she pauses—“and also, yes, how about the curator of lepidoptera at the British Museum?” she says, gesturing in the apparent direction of London. “I’ll invite them down here to lunch and they can look at the collections and you can talk about what you’ve been up to all your life,” she finishes grandiosely. “How about it?” she asks flatly, putting her hands on her hips. “What do you think of that?”
I’m dumbfounded by her behavior. It’s exactly at times like this that I find I’m left adrift, without any real understanding of what she’s thinking and why she’s behaving as she is—utterly unpredictably. It can’t be me. I refuse to believe that anyone could decipher Vivien right now.
“Well?” she asks again.
“I don’t really know.”
Only yesterday I would have dismissed the idea out of hand, but meeting Eileen had been much easier than I’d thought, even though we had nothing in common. Besides, I’m still confused if this is Vivien or the drink I’m talking to. I can’t tell whether she’s got to the point I could recognize so easily in Maud when I used to say she’d turned. The last thing I want to do is rile her.
“You don’t know, darling? But, Ginny, they’d think it such an honor to lunch with one of their most famous members. Imagine—they must have been dying to visit. They’ll be full of praise for you and your work throughout lunch and fascinated by everything you have to show them. I doubt you’ve seen them for ages, or shown your face in Queens Gate for a while. Am I right?”
She is. I haven’t been to Queens Gate for a long time and they’re bound to be intrigued by my research. Actually, I can’t think why I’d not thought of it before.
“Okay, if you’re sure they’d like it.”
Vivien picks up the roasting tray with the chicken and carries it to the Rayburn. The more I think about it, the keener I am on the idea. I hadn’t had an awful lot to say to Eileen but it’s a little different when you can talk with colleagues about the topical debates in the entomological world, especially when I haven’t had a chance to get up to London recently. Vivien opens the top right oven and shoves the tray deep inside.
“Have you heard the British Museum has moved its collection out of London?” I say, once she’s banged the oven door shut. “To a new Entomology Museum in Tring, I think. Somewhere in Hertfordshire.”
“Yup.” Vivien sighs. “That was years ago.”
“Shame, really. They asked for some of our collections but it’s not the same, stuck out in the middle of nowhere, whatever anybody says.”
“I remember. It’s what Clive said.” Vivien sits down opposite me and studies me. “Who are they anyway?” she asks.
“Who?” I say, looking at the final pod in my hand.
“Well, if I’m to invite these people down here for lunch, I need to know their names—the president of the society and the curator of the British Museum—who are they?”
“Well, the…” Do you know? For the life of me, I cannot remember their names. It’s ludicrous. I’ve known them for years. There was a new president not so long ago, I remember, but the curator’s definitely been there forever. Goodness me, I must be losing my mind!
Vivien has got up and is wiping the counter in front of the window and next to the sink where I’ve been chopping. She washes the cloth under the tap, spreading it out in the water’s stream like a sail, then slowly squeezing it before she starts to wipe again, round the taps and along the window ledge, carefully lifting the vases and bottles that are kept there. Then she plugs the sink and runs the hot water, squeezing soap into it, until the basin is full and frothy. As she plunges in the first few utensils it occurs to me that I should check all the collections and lay out some of my most significant research in time for their visit.
“When do you think you’ll invite them for?” I ask quickly, a little alarmed by the preparation I’ll need to do.
Vivien stops washing up but doesn’t turn round. Instead she puts both hands on the front of the sink for support, her back towards me.
“Oh,” she says casually, “I don’t know…Tuesday?”
“Tuesday!” I exclaim. “What—this Tuesday? Two-days’-time Tuesday?”
“Well, why not?!” she says in a cavalier manner, but she doesn’t understand the panic that’s brewing in my stomach. That’s not nearly enough time for me to prepare myself, let alone look through all the collections.
Chapter 18
The Bobble-Hat Woman and the Leaflets
I’m in the library when I hear the front-door knocker. For a ludicrous moment I think of the curators and wonder if they’ve arrived already. We finished our lunch an hour and a half ago and since then I’ve been here, picking off the dried mud from my slippers that I wore outside when I followed Vivien to church this morning. She retired to the study to work on a small piece of needlework—a tapestry, I think—but as soon as I hear the knocker bang, her flat rubber soles are squeaking across the hall parquet. I’m in awe of the immediacy of her response, the spontaneity with which she answers the door. There’s not a moment’s hesitation, no fleeting uncertainty. She strides purposefully towards it, her steps strong and insistent. I watch her pass the library door, which I’ve pulled ajar, and I’m still watching as she gets to the front door, her hand up and ready to open it as she arrives—no pause to gather her thoughts or to prepare herself to confront the unknown. I retreat a little so that when the door is opened I can’t be seen.
“Hello. Can I help you?” I hear Vivien ask the unknown.
“Virginia Stone?” It’s a woman’s voice. Who can be wanting me?
“I’m Miss Stone’s sister, Mrs. Morris,” Vivien says curtly. “Can I help you?”
“Hellooo,” the woman says, drawing out the fulsome greeting as if they’d been friends once long ago. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Cynthia from Dorset Social Services….”
Oh my God. I pinch my nose. It’s the bobble-hat woman. Our family has always had an intense distrust, a fear even, of social workers. I heard Maud complain more than once that they were meddlesome people, though I can’t think she had many dealings with them. Maud was one of those people who believed that a community should be able to look after its own, and that state-funded help simply gave one an excuse to avoid one’s responsibility. She was also most vociferously opposed to the new lunatic asylums that were opened in the fifties, which she said social workers had helped fill with misfits just after the war.
“…we’re based in Chard,” Cynthia continues. “Here’s some leaflets I thought might be interesting and this is my card and, well, that’s my name at the top and the address, and there’s the number…and somewhere I’ve got a…Here it is, a leaflet with some background information of what we—”