The Sister

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—”

Vivien interrupts her. “Do you know it’s Sunday afternoon?”

“Sunday? Yes, it’s Sunday.”

“Do you always go round pestering people on a Sunday?”

Her pertness makes me smile with admiration. Between you and me, I can’t believe she said it outright like that.

“Oh, I see…,” Cynthia says slowly, her voice deepening. “Well, the thing is, we’re all volunteers, you see, so we give up our weekends for our volunteer work.”

I glance back to the library window. Although the heavy rain stopped some time ago, it has been drizzling on and off. The low seamless clouds still loom heavily over the valley and I wonder whether Vivien will feel she must invite the bobble-hat woman in if it starts off again.

“What can I do for you?” Vivien asks her.

“Well, now, is your sister in?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” she says, lowering her voice, “the truth is we’ve been finding it extremely difficult to talk to her.” Now she lowers her voice to a near-whisper, but I have particularly acute hearing. “We’ve been visiting, well, trying to visit, to check on your sister but, well, she’s never opened the door to us. Actually, it gave me quite a shock when you did open it,” Cynthia says with an inviting chuckle.

“And why do you want her?” Vivien asks loudly, as if to make clear that she won’t enter into covert whispering with Social Services. I wonder if she knows I’m listening.

“Well, we just wanted to check on her, really. We were particularly worried about her during the winter. Apparently there’s no central heating in the house,” Cynthia says disdainfully, and just then I hear the dripping of rainwater on the hall parquet as it starts to leak through its usual few spots where the ceiling slants low in the corner. The drips will get quicker and quicker until they merge into a steady stream that runs along the ceiling and pours off, like a curtain, onto the floor. “We were worried about her being cold,” she says, as if she needs to explain the function of heating.

“She’s in very good health, thank you.”

“Oh, good.” She pauses. “May I see her, please?”