go?
As if I had pressed a button marked “Hostess”, Mrs Redmayne sprang at once into life.
“No, no!” she cried, shrill with sudden hospitality: of course we must not go yet; we must stay: we must take pot luck: we must sample her cooking. “Though I’m afraid you’ll think I’m quite a madcap of a cook,” she said, with a coy little giggle. “I just throw anything together, don’t I, Mervyn? But we don’t believe in standing on ceremony. Mervyn’s friends are in and out all the time, aren’t they, dear; all the boys and girls; and we all have a jolly time together. If there are too many for the chairs, why, we sit on cushions, don’t we, Mervyn? We sprawl on the floor. We have such a jolly time.”
Her tinkling laugh went on just a little too long in the silence of the tidy, shining room. I looked at the pale, spotless carpet and the white rugs, and I tried to imagine young people in jeans lounging on that floor, leaning against one another, laughing, drinking red wine and winding spaghetti round their forks. The picture stuck, as it were, half-way, like a lump of meat too big to swallow.
“ Suck jolly times!” she repeated; and I became aware of Mervyn frowning impatiently.
“Well—go on, then, Mother,” he said. “Bring on the food if you want to. But do you think it could be quick this time, rather than jolly?” He glanced at his watch. “It’s after nine already.”
“Oh, we don’t want to worry about the time, dear,” she protested; and then, addressing a gay little giggle to Sarah and me, she went on: “What’s time, anyway, when you’re having fun? That’s what I always say to Mervyn’s friends: ‘My dears,’ I say ‘We’ll eat at midnight if that’s what you’d like! Who wants to be slave to a clock …?’”
“Oh, Mother, please !”The suppressed impatience in her son’s voice sent her scuttling into the kitchen, where a subdued clattering and clinking began, broken only by refusals of mine or Sarah’s offers of help; and, later, by occasional remarks popped round the door to the effect that she couldn’t imagine what we’d think of the dish she was concocting; she had these mad little impulses sometimes,didn’t she, Mervyn, dear. Anyway, it was all going to be madly informal, she didn’t believe in formality among friends, what did we think?
In the end it was scrambled eggs, on neat little squares of toast, served—I suppose in the interests of informality—on cold plates. Far from lounging on the floor to eat it, we sat up at one of the spindly little tables, carefully laid with a lace cloth and mats—and I observed, from the minor commotion about where to place the table, and how to fit the four chairs round it, that meals for even as many as four must be quite a rarity in this pretty room. Still, it seemed ungracious to be thinking on these lines; the scrambled eggs weren’t bad, and, considering the suddenness of our descent, it was nice of her to feed us at all, and to exert herself so much to entertain us.
Actually, I wished she would exert herself less. The gay prattle grew tired every now and then, as though there wasn’t quite enough of it to fill the silence, and she was having to eke it out, spreading it thinly and carefully over the evening like a thrifty housewife with the butter. Yet she did not seem to welcome interruptions; it was as if she was terrified of silence, yet couldn’t trust us to say the right things if she left us too many spaces to fill.
The meal finished, she once again refused offers of help. With strong little white hands, sparkling with rings, she whisked the plates and cutlery onto a tray and darted out into the kitchen, leaving the three of us alone.
Sarah and Mervyn were sitting on the sofa now, very close together, but carefully avoiding any hint of a caress. Their hands were folded neatly in their laps, like a pair of primary school children on their best behaviour, and their eyes looked straight ahead. To give
As if I had pressed a button marked “Hostess”, Mrs Redmayne sprang at once into life.
“No, no!” she cried, shrill with sudden hospitality: of course we must not go yet; we must stay: we must take pot luck: we must sample her cooking. “Though I’m afraid you’ll think I’m quite a madcap of a cook,” she said, with a coy little giggle. “I just throw anything together, don’t I, Mervyn? But we don’t believe in standing on ceremony. Mervyn’s friends are in and out all the time, aren’t they, dear; all the boys and girls; and we all have a jolly time together. If there are too many for the chairs, why, we sit on cushions, don’t we, Mervyn? We sprawl on the floor. We have such a jolly time.”
Her tinkling laugh went on just a little too long in the silence of the tidy, shining room. I looked at the pale, spotless carpet and the white rugs, and I tried to imagine young people in jeans lounging on that floor, leaning against one another, laughing, drinking red wine and winding spaghetti round their forks. The picture stuck, as it were, half-way, like a lump of meat too big to swallow.
“ Suck jolly times!” she repeated; and I became aware of Mervyn frowning impatiently.
“Well—go on, then, Mother,” he said. “Bring on the food if you want to. But do you think it could be quick this time, rather than jolly?” He glanced at his watch. “It’s after nine already.”
“Oh, we don’t want to worry about the time, dear,” she protested; and then, addressing a gay little giggle to Sarah and me, she went on: “What’s time, anyway, when you’re having fun? That’s what I always say to Mervyn’s friends: ‘My dears,’ I say ‘We’ll eat at midnight if that’s what you’d like! Who wants to be slave to a clock …?’”
“Oh, Mother, please !”The suppressed impatience in her son’s voice sent her scuttling into the kitchen, where a subdued clattering and clinking began, broken only by refusals of mine or Sarah’s offers of help; and, later, by occasional remarks popped round the door to the effect that she couldn’t imagine what we’d think of the dish she was concocting; she had these mad little impulses sometimes,didn’t she, Mervyn, dear. Anyway, it was all going to be madly informal, she didn’t believe in formality among friends, what did we think?
In the end it was scrambled eggs, on neat little squares of toast, served—I suppose in the interests of informality—on cold plates. Far from lounging on the floor to eat it, we sat up at one of the spindly little tables, carefully laid with a lace cloth and mats—and I observed, from the minor commotion about where to place the table, and how to fit the four chairs round it, that meals for even as many as four must be quite a rarity in this pretty room. Still, it seemed ungracious to be thinking on these lines; the scrambled eggs weren’t bad, and, considering the suddenness of our descent, it was nice of her to feed us at all, and to exert herself so much to entertain us.
Actually, I wished she would exert herself less. The gay prattle grew tired every now and then, as though there wasn’t quite enough of it to fill the silence, and she was having to eke it out, spreading it thinly and carefully over the evening like a thrifty housewife with the butter. Yet she did not seem to welcome interruptions; it was as if she was terrified of silence, yet couldn’t trust us to say the right things if she left us too many spaces to fill.
The meal finished, she once again refused offers of help. With strong little white hands, sparkling with rings, she whisked the plates and cutlery onto a tray and darted out into the kitchen, leaving the three of us alone.
Sarah and Mervyn were sitting on the sofa now, very close together, but carefully avoiding any hint of a caress. Their hands were folded neatly in their laps, like a pair of primary school children on their best behaviour, and their eyes looked straight ahead. To give
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