Carlisle twins would lower herself to a Pony Club hop. ‘When can we get my pony?’
‘Well, I rang the twins as you suggested. They’re in Argentina, but their groom put me on to a man outside Rutminster, who’s got a bay mare. If you like her, subject to a vet’s certificate, you should be able to have her right away, although Daddy may think you should wait till Christmas Day.’
‘That’s stupid. Christmas isn’t for ten days. I could be schooling or even hunting her by then. How much are you prepared to pay?’
‘I can’t see Daddy going much above ?500.’
‘You won’t get a three-legged donkey for that,’ snapped Perdita, stubbing out her cigarette and lighting another one.
‘The move’s been dreadfully expensive,’ began Daisy hopefully. ‘Perhaps if your report’s good . . .’
‘Don’t be fatuous. Daddy doesn’t give a shit about my reports! Now if it were Violet or Eddie . . .’
‘That’s not true,’ protested Daisy, knowing it was.
‘When’s Granny Macleod arriving?’
‘Twenty-third,’ said Daisy gloomily.
‘That’s all we need. Now she’s a widow, she’ll be more ghastly and self-obsessed than ever.’
Daisy knew she ought to reprove Perdita, but she had never got on with her mother-in-law herself and was dreading having her for Christmas. Bridget Macleod, in her turn, had never forgiven her daughter-in-law for having what she referred to as ‘a past’.
Nearly sixteen years ago, when she was only seventeen, Daisy had become pregnant while she was at art college. Her parents were so appalled when they learned the circumstances in which the baby was conceived that they threw Daisy out. Eventually Daisy gave birth to a daughter, and called her Perdita – ‘the lost one’ – because she knew she couldn’t afford to keep her. In utter despair, while going through the legal process of adoption, Daisy had met a trainee barrister, Hamish Macleod. Hamish was one of those stolid young men who grew a beard and had a flickering of social conscience during the sixties, which was firmly doused by the economic gloom of the seventies.
Moved by Daisy’s plight, rendered sleepless by her beauty, Hamish asked her to marry him so that she could keep the baby. Daisy had accepted with passionate gratitude. Hamish was good-looking and seemed kind; she was sure she could grow to love him – anything to keep Perdita. Hamish’s family – particularly his mother, Bridget – were appalled. Scottish, lower-middle class, rigidly respectable, they branded Daisy a whore who had blighted their only son’s dazzling career at the Bar. They had threatened to black the wedding unless Daisy put on a wedding ring and pretended that she was a young widow whose husband had been killed in a car crash.
Daisy, after fifteen years of marriage, still looked absurdly young. Kind, sympathetic, dreamy, hopelessly disorganized, she had become increasingly insecure, because Hamish, who had now left the Bar and become a successful television producer, never stopped putting her down and complaining about her ineptitude as a mother, her lack of domesticity and her lousy dress sense. Subconsciously, he’d never forgiven her for having Perdita illegitimately and hit the roof if she looked at other men at parties. He also ruthlessly discouraged her considerable gifts as a painter, because they reminded him of her rackety art-student past and because he considered there was no money in it.
Nor could he ever forgive Perdita for her strange beauty, her bolshiness and her dazzling athletic ability. Throughout the marriage he had pointedly lavished affection on the two children, Violet and Eddie, now aged thirteen and eight, whom he and Daisy had had subsequently. Less glamorous than Perdita, they were sweeter- tempered and better-adjusted.
Daisy’s fatal weakness was a reluctance to hurt anyone. She had tried and tried to screw up the courage to tell Perdita the truth about her birth, but, terrified of the tantrums this would trigger off, she had funked it, feeding her the official line that her father had been killed in a car crash. ‘We were so in love, darling, but he never knew I was pregnant.’
Daisy dreaded the day when Perdita might want to know the name of her real father. At least her blinkered obsession with polo and ponies had some advantages. Aware, however, that Hamish didn’t love her, Perdita tried to trigger off a response by behaving atrociously. Matters weren’t helped by Bridget Macleod’s ability to beam simultaneously at Hamish, Violet and Eddie, and freeze out Daisy and Perdita. This reduced Daisy to gibbering sycophancy and Perdita to utter outrageousness.
Dark thoughts about her mother-in-law’s impending visit occupied Daisy until darkness fell, by which time they had reached the village of Appleford where several cottages in the High Street already sported holly rings and the village shop window was bright with crackers and Christmas puddings. Brock House lay a quarter of a mile on, its gates flanked by pillars topped by stone badgers. Bumping down the pitted drive Daisy reached a fork. To the left, past vast unkept rose bushes and a dovecote, lay farm buildings which had been converted into garages, stables and a tackroom with paddocks behind. To the right, flowerbeds edged with box and a paved terrace led down stone steps to the back of Brock House. Shaggy with creepers, long and low, with its little lit-up windows, the house had a secretive air. On the far side, beyond a large lawn edged with herbaceous borders, the land dropped sharply into the Appleford Valley, thickly wooded with oaks and larches, and famous for its badger sets.
Inside was chaos. Daisy had made heroic attempts to get straight after moving, but now the children had come home bringing their own brand of mess. Violet and Eddie were in the kitchen, and greeted their elder sister guardedly.
‘What’s for supper?’ asked Eddie, who was circling advertisements in
‘Chicken casserole and chocolate mousse to celebrate Perdita’s first night home,’ said Daisy.
‘There was,’ said Violet. ‘You left the larder door open and Gainsborough got at the chicken. Then he was sick. I cleared it up, and I got some sausages from the village shop.’
Thank God for Violet, thought Daisy. Violet Macleod had inherited Daisy’s sweet nature and round face and Hamish’s solid figure, freckles and curly, dark-red hair, which clashed with her high colour when she blushed. She also had beautifully turned-down amethyst eyes, which, she pointed out ruefully, matched her plump purple legs. Less bright than Perdita, she did much better at school because she was hard-working and methodical and because she knew you needed straight ‘A’s to become a vet. Violet spent much of her time sticking up for her father and grandmother and protecting her mother from Perdita’s tantrums. She was now combing the recently sick, long- haired ginger tomcat, Gainsborough, who was mewing horribly.
‘Stop it,’ said Violet firmly. ‘You know fur balls make you sick.’
Eddie, at eight, looked not unlike a bouncer in a night-club. Slightly dyslexic, hugely entertaining, he was interested in making a fast buck and enjoying himself. He had already found another prep schoolboy across the valley with whom to spend his time. His current ambition was to have a gun for Christmas. Daisy was dragging her feet because she felt Eddie might easily murder his elder sister.
‘Give us a fag, Perdita,’ said Eddie as Perdita got out a packet of Silk Cut.
‘Eddie!’ said Violet, shocked. ‘You are much too young.’
‘Want us to show you round?’ asked Eddie.
Unloading the car, listening to the thundering feet and yells of excitement as the children raced along the passages, Daisy prayed that in this house they would at last be a really happy family.
‘The stables are fantastic,’ said Perdita with rare enthusiasm when she returned twenty minutes later with the others.
When the telephone rang, Daisy answered. From the way their mother stiffened and her voice became nervous and conciliatory, the children knew it was their father. Now she was apologizing for forgetting to get his suit back from the cleaners.
‘I’ll pick it up first thing in the morning. Perdita’s home. Would you like a word?’ For a second Perdita’s normally dead-pan face was vulnerable and hopeful.
‘Well, you’ll see her later. Oh, I see, you must be frantic. See you tomorrow night then. He’s not coming home,’ explained Daisy, putting down the receiver.
‘Because he knows I’m back,’ said Perdita flatly.
‘Nonsense,’ blustered Daisy. ‘He sent tons of love.’
All three children knew she was lying.
‘He’s only got love for Eddie,’ sneered Perdita, ‘and not-so-shrinking Violet. Can I have a vodka and tonic? I am fifteen now.’
