The Ice House
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Synopsis
'A darkly comedic tale of adultery that features a dangerously "good" and disciplined heroine' KIRKUS REVIEWS
'Throughout her career Bawden has concentrated on the careful depiction of character, feelings and behaviour' GUARDIAN
At fifteen, Daisy, confident and cherished, is appalled to hear that Ruth's father locked her in the old garden ice house as a childhood punishment: no wonder her friend shelters in make believe. The revelation of that primitive cruelty cements a friendship in which protection plays no small part. Years later, middle aged, they remain close friends and live on the same street. So when Daisy's husband dies suddenly, Ruth's discovery that the marriage was unhappy is the first stage in the unravelling of the certainties she has wrapped around her adult life.
Friendship, love, marriage and above all, the scorching effects of adultery, come under the microscope in this dextrous novel. Journeying from a terrifying suburban household to its unexpected conclusion in the Egyptian Pharaoh's tombs, The Ice House is startling, tragic and humorous by turns.
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Print pages: 240
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The Ice House
Nina Bawden
of adventure. The invitation, shyly offered, oddly phrased – ‘My father says you may come to tea, Saturday’, Ruth had said
– was unique. No one that Daisy knew had ever been asked to the Perkin house. And although Ruth had been to tea with Daisy,
her visits had been arranged more formally than the free and easy Brown household was used to: telephone calls at least a
week in advance between the two mothers, the exact time of Ruth’s arrival, the exact time she was expected home, always stated
and rigidly kept to. Ruth was not allowed out later than seven o’clock summer evenings, six o’clock in the winter.
‘Nervous, poor soul, a hen with one chick,’ Mrs Brown said of Mrs Perkin, sympathetically dismissing this extraordinary tyranny
as acute maternal anxiety. Daisy, accustomed to coming and going as the fancy took her, found Ruth’s situation more intriguing.
Daisy was popular, she had plenty of friends that she made use of in a casual way, but the restraints imposed on this particular
friendship made her value it more. Ruth never complained. Once, perhaps as an excuse, or an explanation, she said, ‘My father
was a Japanese prisoner during the war. He worked on the railway.’ And another time, more mysteriously, ‘My mother is always
polishing under the mats in the hall.’ Otherwise she seldom mentioned her home or her parents, keeping silent when other girls
spoke of theirs, and, if they grumbled, smiled in a composed and secretive way that excited Daisy to romantic conjecture of an innocently snobbish
and commonplace kind.
Captain and Mrs Perkin, Daisy assumed, must be very superior – ‘posh’ was the word she used in her mind – to be so oddly reclusive,
so ‘stuffy’ and ‘fussy’. And rich, of course. Walking Ruth home from school, looking through the tall gates elaborately decorated
with iron roses and pineapples, at the hideous, turreted, mock-baronial mansion, Daisy’s inward eye furnished it with thick
carpets and heavy mahogany tables covered with glossy magazines, like the waiting room of the expensive London dentist she
and her brother, Bob, attended twice a year. Everything would be highly polished. A polished hall, a gleaming stairway, and
perhaps (thinking now of the photographs of stately homes inside the dentist’s magazines), a stag’s head with glass eyes among
the ancient portraits on the walls.
Expecting this institutional grandeur, Daisy was temporarily discomfited to find the interior of the Perkin house shabbier
and less cared for than her own. The entrance hall, gloomily panelled in dark wood, had no pictures or ornaments to catch
the eye, and the scuffed, parquet floor showed no sign of the obsessional polishing that Ruth had spoken of. And little Mrs
Perkin, hovering behind her daughter – hiding, was Daisy’s first impression – did not seem at all posh or superior. More like a nervous maid or housekeeper than the mistress
of the house. Daisy said, in an encouraging voice, copying her kindly mother’s manner with shy people, ‘I’m pleased to meet
you, Mrs Perkin. How nice of you to let me come.’ When Mrs Perkin weakly smiled and held out her hand, Daisy felt it flutter
like a frightened bird inside her own, much larger, paw.
Captain Perkin’s greeting was heartier. Standing before the empty grate in the large, high-ceilinged dining room (only marginally
lighter than the hall, and chilly, even though it was a warm June day) he said, ‘Well, it’s good to see one of Ruth’s young friends at last’ – as if Ruth had been deliberately
denying him this opportunity for years. ‘I’d have come before if I’d been asked,’ Daisy said, smiling her bold and cheerful
smile, and heard Ruth, behind her, give a little sigh.
Tea was already laid; a white cloth on the table, plates of bread and butter, cakes and biscuits, two big glass bowls of strawberries,
a jug of cream. Daisy tucked in. Her appetite was good, her confidence, in spite of her burgeoning maturity, that of a happy,
egocentric child. She was only distantly aware that neither Ruth nor Mrs Perkin seemed as comfortably at ease. Mrs Perkin
had spoken once, in a low, apologetic voice, to ask if Daisy liked milk in her tea, and Ruth did not speak at all. But Ruth
was often silent in company, so her silence now was not remarkable, and Daisy was content to bear the social burden. Unasked,
but assuming interest, she told Captain Perkin that she and Ruth were the greatest friends at school, even though Ruth was
the cleverest girl in the class and she was such a duffer, unlike her brother Bob, who was going up to Cambridge, and that
her father, who had been in the RAF during the war, a bomber pilot, was training to be an Air Traffic Controller and thinking
of buying a new car. There was a waiting list for the model that he wanted, but he had put down a deposit. (Whether he would
be able to afford the balance was another matter; his children’s Harley Street dentist, their riding and tennis lessons, and
Mr Brown’s extramarital expenses made it unlikely, but even if Daisy had been aware of these difficulties she would have discounted
them. She was merely anxious to establish what she considered social status.) She finished her plate, the last of the succulent
fruit mashed pinkly into cream and castor sugar, and said, ‘Gosh! What lovely strawberries!’
Captain Perkin passed the bowl. ‘Sweets to the sweet,’ he said. ‘Daisy, the Fair.’ His brown eyes, smoothly shiny as conkers, rested on her with the greedy look that she was used to from old men, the fathers of her friends, but there was another
element in Captain Perkin’s gaze, a bright, brooding intensity, that made her uneasy. Captain Perkin said, ‘I daresay you
have lots of boy friends, Daisy,’ and she was conscious that her last year’s summer dress was too tight across the chest.
Blushing slightly, she owned to ‘quite a few’, adding, ‘My mother says there is safety in numbers.’ She rolled her eyes flirtatiously
at Captain Perkin. She couldn’t help it. Flirting was as natural to Daisy as breathing.
‘I hope your mother knows what she is doing,’ Captain Perkin said. ‘I am careful with Ruth. But I have seen a bit of the world,
you understand. I know what men are, with ripe young girls.’ He spluttered as he laughed, as if his mouth was full of juice.
And, with a gloating emphasis, ‘I know what girls are, come to that!’ His eyes were on her breasts.
Daisy hunched her shoulders forward to give her dress more fullness in the front. She glanced at Mrs Perkin, expecting her
to intervene and rescue her as her own mother would have done. But Mrs Perkin sat with downbent head, the delicate fingers
of one tiny hand pleating the edge of the table cloth. And Ruth was silent still.
Daisy said – she could think of nothing else to say – ‘These really are the best strawberries I’ve ever tasted, Captain Perkin.
Did you grow them?’
‘The gardener did,’ he said – rebuking her, she thought, for suggesting he would soil his hands with menial work. But she
was unimpressed. Though the Browns could not afford it, plenty of houses in this leafy suburb employed jobbing gardeners by
the hour. Daisy said, ‘We haven’t had our own strawberries this year but my father grows most of our vegetables. It’s good
exercise for him, my mother says, and there’s nothing like things straight from the garden. And we have a friend who has a
farm and we get fresh eggs from him. Cream, too. Even bacon, sometimes, when he’s killed a pig. That’s a great help now the bacon ration has gone down.’
‘Cream,’ Captain Perkin repeated thoughtfully. He smiled at Daisy foxily. He was like a fox, she thought – or a sharp-nosed
terrier, rather. He had that kind of skinny, bony strength, that alert and waggish air. She didn’t answer his smile for fear
of provoking more embarrassing remarks but his next words were harmless. ‘Then I should think your mother might appreciate
some strawberries to go with it. Ruth, if you have finished tea, you may pick some strawberries for Daisy’s mother.’
Ruth folded her napkin and rose at once. Her mother also rose and took a glass bowl from the sideboard. She gave it to Ruth
and whispered something that Daisy couldn’t hear. Ruth nodded. As Daisy followed her into the hall, she closed the door behind
them. She said, whispering like her mother, ‘Would you like to use the bathroom? It’s first on the left at the top of the
stairs. I’ll wait for you down here.’
‘Aren’t you coming?’ Daisy asked, surprised. Though she didn’t need the lavatory, she was eager to look round the house. When
Ruth came to tea with her, they always retreated to Daisy’s bedroom once the family meal was over, played the gramophone,
giggled, fixed each other’s hair. Daisy said, ‘I’d like to see your room.’
A little colour came and went in Ruth’s pale face. ‘I have to pick the strawberries. Besides, it’s nicer out of doors. We
can go to my work shop. It’s only a sort of garden shed, but it’s much more private there.’
Daisy shrugged. ‘Okay, let’s go. I don’t really want to pee.’
She said this rather loudly and Ruth’s eyes – nut brown like her father’s – widened anxiously.
‘Sorry,’ Daisy said. ‘Excuse my French. I don’t really want to go to the bathroom. But honestly, you know, I don’t think your Mum or Dad could hear.’
She felt put down, quite hurt, in fact. After Captain Perkin’s crude suggestiveness at tea, it was mean of Ruth to make her
feel that she had been indelicate. She jerked her chin indignantly, tossing back her long, fair hair, freshly washed and ironed for this
visit, and said, ‘Miss Prissy Perkin.’
This time Ruth’s colour mounted from her slender neck and stayed; a painful, burning blush. ‘I’m sorry, Daisy. I was silly. Of course it doesn’t matter what you call it. Piss, shit, crap…’ She brought out these shocking words defiantly, filling Daisy with alarm. ‘Shut up, you dope,’ she muttered, glancing towards
the dining room. Although Ruth hadn’t shouted, she hadn’t whispered, either.
Ruth smiled, a sudden, open, wicked grin, but her breath was coming fast. She gave a furtive giggle, like a naughty child,
and ran to the front door.
It was pleasant out, a soft and scented day. Ruth led the way round the back of the house to a walled garden where an elderly
man was weeding a line of vegetables. Ruth said, ‘Hallo, Jessup. I’ve come to pick some strawberries.’
The strawberries were netted close to the ground. They would have to crawl beneath the nets to pick them, Daisy saw with some
dismay, and was relieved when Mr Jessup straightened his old back and held his hand out for the bowl. ‘I’ll get them for you,
Ruthie. You’ll spoil your pretty dress. Get your hair all tangled up.’
Ruth shook her head. ‘Thank you, Jessup, but my father told me to. He wouldn’t like it if I didn’t do it.’
‘The Captain wouldn’t like it, either, if you tear them nets. A fine old mess you’d make.’
‘We’ll be careful.’
The old man laughed, showing brown and crooked teeth. ‘Get on with you. I’ve nothing much to do this afternoon. You’ve got your friend. Run along, enjoy yourself.’
But Ruth still hesitated. A frown, a quite deep furrow, appeared between her brows. Daisy said, ‘It’s very kind of him to
offer, Ruth.’
Ruth sighed and yielded up the bowl. She was silent as they left the kitchen garden and crossed a shaven lawn. Beyond it,
a small, wooded hill rose up, a wild thicket of old trees with saplings and dog roses growing round their roots. Like other
gardens in this neighbourhood, the Perkin garden had once been part of a large gentleman’s estate, sold off and broken up
between the wars and developed by a builder who had a more sensitive feeling for landscape than he had for architecture. His
houses were uncomfortable to live in and ugly to look at, mock-Tudor grand or quaintly cottagey, but he had designed the grounds
around them carefully, sparing the best trees, making a feature of an ornamental pond, a flight of steps, a Victorian folly.
As Daisy followed Ruth along a narrow path around the hill she saw a curious, domed structure on her left, half hidden in
the trees some way above, and scrambled up to look. The building was twice her height; she looked through the high, open doorway
at the arched brick roof above and the dark drop beneath. ‘An air raid shelter,’ Daisy said. But it was too old for that.
‘An ice house,’ Ruth said, standing below her, on the path. ‘An old ice house.’
‘What’s that when it’s at home? What ice?’
‘There isn’t any now,’ Ruth said. ‘Not for years and years, of course. It was before they had refrigerators. People used it
for keeping meat and game. They chopped the ice off ponds in winter, packed it tight on top of stones, and it stayed frozen
all the summer. There’s nothing to see now. Come and see my workshop. It’s much more interesting.’
‘I think this is interesting,’ Daisy said. ‘It’s really huge. Did they hang the meat, or what? I can’t see any beams.’ She held on to the bricks at the side of the entrance and peered in. ‘I’m not sure that I can see the bottom, either. It’s so dark.’
‘It’s about twelve feet down, I think,’ Ruth said. ‘Be careful.’ She had climbed up now but seemed reluctant to stand as close
as Daisy to the drop. ‘There used to be a ladder once. But I suppose it rotted.’
‘There ought to be a door,’ Daisy said. ‘It’s dangerous. If you fell in, how would you get out again? You could yell and yell,
no one would hear you unless they were quite close. Do you know what I think?’ She giggled, shedding half a dozen years, retreating
to a ghoulish infancy. ‘I bet, if we went down there, we’d find a pile of human bones.’
‘Only dead birds and squirrels,’ Ruth said. ‘My father shoots them and throws their bodies in. Otherwise there’s nothing there
but stones and dirt. I know, because when I was little, before the war, my father used to put me there when I was in a rage.
To cool me off.’ Like Daisy she giggled, but on a wilder note.
Daisy wasn’t sure that she believed this. She said, with some reserve, ‘How beastly.’
‘Oh, I used to have a dreadful temper,’ Ruth said. ‘I suppose it cured me.’
She sounded calm. Daisy, recognising that she spoke the truth, felt chilled. She said, uncertainly, ‘Bob once locked me in
a cupboard. When I broke his train set. That was bad enough.’
‘Much worse,’ Ruth said. ‘I mean, if you’re down there, you can see the daylight above you, but a cupboard would be absolutely
dark. I think I used to be afraid there would be ice and I would freeze to death, I didn’t understand why it was called an
ice house then, you see I was so small, but of course there wasn’t. So I wasn’t cold.’
Daisy shivered. ‘I’d have died of fright.’
‘No you wouldn’t. I didn’t, did I? Obviously.’
Ruth smiled, her pinched and secret smile and Daisy watched her curiously. She had always known that Ruth was ‘different’
but although she usually admired her cool composure she found it uncomfortably disturbing now. She yawned and hugged her arms
across her breasts, finding comfort in their soft and bouncy warmth, and said, ‘Well, if you want to know, I think this is
a dreary, squalid place. Gives me the creeps.’
‘You wanted to look at it,’ Ruth pointed out. ‘I wanted to show you where I work.’
‘So you did. My fault. I grovel. Mea culpa, as the Romans say!’ Daisy was glad to see Ruth smile more openly. She laughed
herself and smote her brow theatrically. ‘Lead on, Macduff!’
The shed, a weathered, wooden summer house, was tucked into the far side of the hill, its windowless back to the wooded slope,
its glass door facing south down a long grass walk beside the hedge that marked the Perkin boundary. The hedge, grown tall
and straggly, full of cottony tufts of old man’s beard, hid the neighbouring garden and provided a greenly shaded privacy
lit by shifting gleams of gold where the westering sun shone through it. Inside the shed, dust motes danced and sparkled in
the air but the wooden floor was swept, the sofa had recently been covered in red hessian, and there was a tall vase of fresh
cut roses beside it, on a stool. ‘My private workroom,’ Ruth announced with sudden animation, pointing to an old-fashioned
treadle sewing machine, a long mirror on a stand, and a dressmaker’s dummy, a headless, canvas body with a grey flannel skirt,
neatly chalk-marked down the seams, fastened round its waist. ‘That’s for my mother,’ Ruth explained. ‘I’m afraid it’s dull,
but at least it’ll fit her when it’s finished. Most of her clothes are terrible, bunching and drooping everywhere. I’ve got
much nicer things to show you. The sofa sags a bit, but it’s quite comfortable.’
‘You’re not going to give me a sewing lesson, are you?’ Daisy said.
Ruth looked amused. ‘Don’t sound so horrified.’
‘I mean, my fingers are all thumbs, it would just be a waste of time,’ Daisy muttered, feeling that she had been rude. She
sat on the sofa that twanged beneath her weight, making her feel fat as well. She looked on gloomily (she really should not
have eaten that enormous tea) while Ruth opened the lids of two oak chests and began to pull out lengths of materials, silks
and satins, velvets, chiffons, holding some up for Daisy’s somewhat bored inspection, throwing others upon the floor. Most
were remnants, Ruth explained, odds and ends, but all were long enough to make at least a blouse or skirt. There were old
dresses, too. ‘This belonged to my grandmother,’ Ruth said, unwrapping a brown paper package and shaking out a full skirted
gown of dark green, watered silk. ‘It was made before the First World War, by a dress designer called Lucille. It’s miles
too big for me, but it would fit you, Daisy, if I altered it.’ She measured Daisy’s body with her eyes. ‘In fact, you could
almost wear it as it is, if you were going somewhere grand. Though it might be better if I cut some of the flounces off. They
make it a bit fussy for a girl your age, you need a simpler line.’
Although the idea of wearing other people’s cast off clothes did not appeal to Daisy, it was clear no other entertainment
was likely to be offered and so she stood up good humouredly, holding the green dress against her while Ruth pressed the stiff
silk against her waist with one hand and held the skirt out with the other. ‘Look,’ she said, smiling at Daisy in the glass,
but Daisy looked with more interest at Ruth’s face than at her own reflection. She had never seen Ruth look so eager and absorbed.
Her closed and wary look was gone, her eyes were bright, her cheeks were flushed. ‘Of course you’ve got to use your imagination,
Daisy,’ she said earnestly. ‘Think of it fitting you properly and nicely pressed, and with your hair up, perhaps, and wearing different shoes.’
Daisy made an effort, but it remained an old green dress to her, an unlucky colour, a peculiar shape, and probably, after
all these years, not very clean. Why didn’t Ruth wear it herself if she thought it was so marvellous? She put this more politely.
‘It’s pretty, Ruth, but if you’re going to cut it about, why don’t you make it over for yourself?’
‘When would I wear it? I don’t go to parties, do I?’
Ruth sat back on her heels, the rich stuff tumbled on her lap. She looked up at Daisy, eyes narrowed speculatively. ‘If you
don’t like the colour, there’s a Poiret, but it would be harder to adapt, all beads and things. Or a Schiaparelli that my
mother had when she was young. I don’t know, though. The skirt’s cut on the cross.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Cut to make it sort of slinky. Kind of sideways. But that means it may have stretched.’ She got up from her knees and delved
deep in the chests, dragging out more dresses. ‘You could wear black, you ‘re so fair. Black silk. Whatever people say, girls
can wear black, though perhaps your mother mightn’t like it. Violet satin? No, that’s for dowagers. And pink is far too babyish.
Or there’s this taffeta. A sort of toffee colour, very subtle with your colouring, and there’s several yards of it, only a
bit faded in the creases.’
Daisy said, ‘You can’t make things for me.’
‘But I would like to. . .
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