O Caledonia

Hector told Vera, untruthfully, that he had spoken to Lila. Vera, hissing with rage, made forays to Lila’s room and, without mentioning anything so crude as factual evidence, informed her that she was a slut, an outcast, an unwelcome parasite who would be moved out at the first opportunity. And she was to keep away from the children: “We both know what I mean.” Her fury fragmented her sentences. Phrases, “abuse of trust,” “disgusting urges,” “flouting of protocol,” winged off her lips and bombed like hornets about the room. Lila refused to speak. She turned her back and drank more whisky. But as the days passed her small reserve of appetite for life began to drain away. She no longer searched for mushrooms, no longer cared to paint her minute, intricate watercolours of mosses and lichens. Her face lost its contours and sagged, her eyeballs were veined in pink and yellow, fluff and dust gathered, unheeded, in her shorn locks. Sometimes at dusk she slipped out among the trees and howled like a wolf. Alone in her room she uttered strange cries and clawed her face into raw furrows so that she seemed to be weeping tears of blood. She played her John McCormack records at full volume to drown her own noise. All this Vera witnessed with grim satisfaction. She flung Lila’s door open, without knocking. “I’ll thank you to turn that noise down. You might show just a little consideration for others.” Lila lay like a basilisk on the sofa; she stared at Vera without expression. Firelight flickered and gleamed on her whisky bottle, glittered across her black eyes.

O love is fair and love is rare,

A little while when love is new,But when it’s old, it waxes coldAnd fades away like morning dew

intoned the gramophone. Vera stalked across to it: “And that record belongs to me.” She switched off the control, wrenched off the record, and slammed from the room.

Early one September morning Vera ascended the stone staircase with her tea tray. She was in good spirits. Her campaign against Lila was going well. Her campaign against the Goblin was proving even more successful. Hector did not enjoy pouring his own tea (albeit four cups) and drinking it in silence while his spouse lay comatose beside him. His enthusiasm for the machine was flagging. Sometimes now he did not even switch it on at night. Her tiresome older children were both far off at their boarding schools; the boys’ term had not yet begun. Life felt almost normal with Rhona, Lulu and Caro, Nanny and the pleasures of the nursery. With persistence one may achieve one’s ends, she thought. She hummed an invigorating hymn tune:

Soldiers of Christ arise,And put your armour on,Strong in the strength which God supplies…

Lila erupted from the shadows by the great stained-glass window. She was swinging a wet towel, twisted into a rope. She walloped Vera across the face. The tray crashed down the stairs. Vera toppled, Lila swung the towel again and knocked her backwards. She rolled down the stairs, pursued by Lila in her flapping black garments. Lila kicked her as she went, lost her footing and fell over too. Horribly entwined they landed on the hall floor. Each sank her nails into the other’s face. Lila suddenly let go. Vera pulled herself free and stood up, shaking. She grabbed the banister and heaved herself painfully up the stairs. Lila lay on the floor staring up at the dying cockatoo. She was laughing; her eyes were alive with merriment.