The Peacock Emporium(106)

“I suppose you think I was selfish, keeping him alive,” she said afterward, as Vivi poured tea in the drawing room, her ears still pink from the wind.

Vivi placed the cup and saucer on the table beside her, making sure it was close enough for Rosemary to reach it without shifting position in her chair. “No, Rosemary. I think only you could know when he was ready to go.” She wondered whether she should ask Lucy to ring Suzanna. The girls seemed closer than they once had been—it was possible that Suzanna might confide in her.

“That’s the trouble, you see. None of us is.”

Vivi was wrenched from her thoughts.

“He knew he was a pain,” Rosemary began, her face turned to the French windows, “he knew he just got under everybody’s feet, that he made rather a mess. But sometimes it’s very hard . . . to let go of things.”

The teapot was burning Vivi’s hand. She put it carefully on the tray, forgetting to pour herself a cup.

“Rosemary—”

“Just because a thing is old doesn’t make it useless. It probably feels more useless than you know.”

They could hear the faint grinding of tractor gears outside, overlaid inside by the comforting roar of the fire and the regular ticking of the grandfather clock.

“Nobody thought your cat was useless,” Vivi said carefully. “I think . . . we all just liked to remember him when he was fit and happy.”

“Yes. Well.” Rosemary put her cup on the table. “No one ever imagines they will end up like that.”

“No.”

Rosemary lifted her chin. “He bit me, you know, when the needle went in.”

“The vet told me. He said it was quite unusual.”

Rosemary’s quavering voice was defiant: “I was glad he still had the strength—to tell everyone to go to hell. Right to the last minute . . . he still had something inside.” Her rheumy old eyes fixed intently on Vivi’s.

“Do you know what, Rosemary?” Vivi found she was struggling to swallow. “I’m very glad too.”



* * *



—

Rosemary had fallen asleep in her chair. It was probably the emotion of it all, Mrs. Cameron had said sagely. Death could do that to people. When her sister’s poodle had died, it had been all they could do to stop her throwing herself into the grave. But, then, she had always been silly over the dog, had framed pictures of it, and bought it coats and suchlike. Vivi had nodded, then shaken her head, feeling the old lady’s sadness seeping, like the damp weather, into the bones of the house.

She had a dozen things to do, several in town, including an invitation to a meeting of the local charity that administered the town’s almshouses, and for which Douglas had put her forward when they were first married. But, somehow, Vivi was reluctant to leave the room, as if Rosemary’s frailty since the death of her beloved cat had made her fearful for her. She hadn’t said any of this to Mrs. Cameron, but the younger woman had seen something: “Do you want me to do the ironing in here? Keep an eye on things?” she asked tactfully.

It would have seemed silly to explain her anxiety. Vivi had told her, with a determined briskness to her voice, that she thought that was a splendid idea. And, trying to brush off the sense of foreboding, she had gone to the utility room to sort out the apples she had put by for freezing.

She had been there, seated on the old tea chest, dividing the plastic bags of apples into those for cooking and those too rotten to save, for almost twenty minutes, finding comfort in the mindless yearly ritual, when she had heard the doorbell, and Mrs. Cameron whistling as she bustled down the hall to answer it. There had been a brief, muffled exchange, and Vivi, dropping a particular apple into a cardboard box, had wondered whether the lady who left the charity bags for filling had come a day early.

“In here?” She heard the voice, imperious and demanding, on the other side of the door, and Vivi, suddenly upright, flinched.

“Suzanna?”

The door swung open and Suzanna stood there. Her eyes burned dark in a face that was deathly white. There were blue smudges on each side of her nose and her hair was unbrushed, telling of some tumultuous night of lost sleep.

“Darling, are you—”

“Is it true? She ran away from Dad and had a baby?”

“What?” Seeing the scorching knowledge on that face, Vivi felt history leap upward to swamp her, and understood that her previous sense of dread had nothing to do with the cat. She stood and stumbled forward, sending apples spinning across the floor.

“My mother? Was she talking about my mother?”

The two women stood in the little room, which was suffused with the smells of detergent and rotting apples. Vivi heard Rosemary’s voice, unsure whether she was imagining it. “You see?” it said. “She causes trouble even after her death.”

Her hands hanging by her sides, she took a deep breath and made her voice sound steadier than she felt. She had always known this day might come, but she had never anticipated that when it did she might have to meet it alone. “Suzanna, your father and I had wanted to tell you for some time.” She looked for her previous seat. “In fact, we wanted to tell you on Tuesday. Shall I get him? He’s plowing up on Page Hill.”

“No. You tell me.”

Vivi wanted to say that it wasn’t her story to tell, that the weight of it had always been too much for her. And, faced with Suzanna’s feverish, accusatory stare, that she wasn’t to blame. But this was what parenthood was really all about, wasn’t it? The protestations of love, that everybody had meant well, that they thought it was all for the best . . . the knowledge that often love was not enough.