All the Hopeful Lovers

by William Nicholson

  Roddy is in jersey and jeans and slippers, looking rumpled and homely. He seems to Laura to be much the same as ever. He always did have the air of someone who has forgotten why he came into the room.

  Diana brings the Broads up to date with the Lymans’ news. Their daughter Polly has joined Plane Stupid, and was part of the group that shut down Stansted airport a few days ago.

  ‘There was a picture of her in the Telegraph!’

  Neil and Lynne exhibit pride muted by irony.

  ‘Poor Polly was mortified,’ says Neil. ‘She was so hoping to be arrested.’

  ‘Fifty-two flights cancelled,’ says Diana. ‘You have to hand it to them.’

  ‘I’m glad I wasn’t flying out of Stansted on Monday,’ says Henry.

  ‘Well, why would you?’ says Diana. ‘It’s all Ryanair at Stansted. Surely you don’t fly Ryanair?’

  ‘Can you believe it?’ says Lynne. ‘Plane Stupid gives their members training on how to handle their parents.’

  ‘What are they supposed to do?’ asks Laura, interested.

  ‘We don’t know. Polly told them we were cool about her protesting. So I suppose we’ve done something right.’

  ‘It’s not as if it’s a mystery,’ says Neil. ‘We get it. We’re taking action. We’re on board. It’s going to hurt a bit, but we’ll survive.’

  ‘We’ve talked so much about this, haven’t we, Roddy?’ Diana throws an anxious look at her husband, who’s sitting on a low stool smiling to himself. ‘Turning down the central heating is the first step. Then of course there’s food miles. We’re buying as local as we can.’

  ‘That’s a tricky one,’ says Lynne. ‘Moroccan tomatoes consume less carbon than English tomatoes, even allowing for the flights. It’s because of the oil burned to heat the polytunnels.’

  ‘And of course buying from developing countries boosts their economies,’ says Neil.

  ‘We’ve downsized our car,’ says Laura. ‘From a Volvo to a Smart. I’m getting over sixty miles to the gallon.’

  ‘We thought of trading in our car,’ says Neil. ‘But when you account for the carbon costs of building a new car, you’re probably better off staying as you are.’

  ‘And anyway,’ says Henry, ‘it makes no real difference what any of us do. Once all the Chinese start driving cars, the planet’s screwed.’

  ‘Oh, Henry,’ says Diana. ‘You’re such a contrarian.’

  ‘Every little helps,’ says Lynne. ‘Neil and I felt we needed to make a statement. Everyone talks so much. We wanted to do something.’

  ‘Roddy and I have talked about going vegetarian,’ says Diana. She directs this at Roddy, but he does not respond. ‘Apparently this thing about cows farting isn’t a joke at all.’

  Even so everyone laughs.

  ‘Polly’s a vegan,’ says Lynne. ‘I’m so in awe.’

  ‘Sheep are less of an issue,’ says Diana, who has cooked lamb for dinner tonight. ‘I don’t think sheep fart.’

  Laura is put out that her own gesture over the car has gained her no merit. ‘So what is this statement you’re making, Lynne?’ she says.

  Neil and Lynne’s eyes meet as if to say, Will you tell or

  shall I?

  ‘Well,’ says Neil. ‘This is very new. You’re the first to hear it. But the die is cast.’ He allows a brief dramatic pause. ‘We’re selling the Aga.’

  ‘No!’ exclaims Diana. ‘You love your Aga!’

  ‘I shall go into mourning,’ says Lynne. ‘It’s a sacrifice, I admit. But you know what they say. If it isn’t hurting, it isn’t working.’

  ‘How much do you expect to get for it?’ says Henry.

  ‘Zip,’ says Neil. ‘That beast cost over ten grand, admittedly fifteen years ago. Now it’s worth nothing. We may even have to pay to have it taken away.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ says Laura. ‘We’ve got an Aga.’

  ‘Valueless.’

  ‘I’ve always preferred to cook on gas,’ says Diana. ‘I’ve always thought the Aga thing was a bit of a cult.’

  ‘I adore my Aga,’ says Lynne. ‘It’ll be like losing a member of the family.’

  ‘And a source of much-needed warmth,’ says Neil. ‘We’re having to put in two extra radiators to compensate for the heat loss in the kitchen.’

  Roddy utters a sudden snort.

  ‘What’s that, Roddy?’ says Diana.

  But Roddy just shakes his head, and gazes into his empty wine glass.

  ‘So there it is,’ says Neil. ‘Each of us has to do our bit.’

  After dinner the Lymans announce that they have to leave.

  ‘No coffee, Neil?’

  ‘Bless you, Diana, no. I don’t drink coffee any more.’

  Laura suspects that this early departure has been concerted in advance, but if so it’s convincingly done. Roddy has said barely a word all evening. Round the dinner table his silence has not been obtrusive. He nods and smiles and gives the occasional chuckle as he moves about filling glasses with wine, and so plays his part well enough. Once or twice Laura finds his eyes on hers. Then comes a small lift of his eyebrows that says, I know you know.

  As soon as the Lymans are out of the door Diana takes Henry by the arm and propels him into the kitchen.

  ‘Come on, Henry. I need some help.’

  Laura is left alone in the bleak living room with Roddy. She has been preparing herself for this moment, and has resolved to be direct.

  ‘All right, Roddy,’ she says. ‘What’s going on?’

  He gives a slow shrug and seems about to answer, but in the end he says nothing.

  ‘Have you taken a vow of silence or something?’

  He shoots Laura a keen look.

  ‘Not exactly,’ he says.

  So at least he’s willing to talk.

  ‘Well, could you please stop. It’s scaring Diana.’

  ‘I’m not ready quite yet.’

  He speaks slowly and carefully, as if each word has to be precisely weighed.

  ‘What do you mean, not ready?’

  ‘I need more time.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Roddy. Think of Diana.’

  ‘I am thinking of Diana. That’s exactly what I’m doing.’

  ‘Then why don’t you tell her what’s going on?’

  ‘Because.’ He hesitates. ‘Things are in flux, you might say. If I speak now, it’ll only confuse matters.’

  ‘Roddy, please tell me. Are you having an affair?’

  ‘No. Certainly not.’

  ‘Are things okay between you and Diana?’

  Another long hesitation.

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far, no.’

  ‘Then you have to tell her. Whatever it is you think Diana’s done or not done, she can’t deal with it if she doesn’t know.’

  ‘She hasn’t done anything. She’s just gone on being Diana.’

  ‘But something’s wrong.’

  ‘As I say, things are in flux. Something has changed. You pretend it isn’t happening for as long as you can. Then the day comes when you can’t pretend any more.’

  ‘It does sound awfully like an affair. You’re sure there isn’t someone else?’

  ‘Quite sure. Look, Laura, I’m sorry to be so cryptic. It’s just all rather personal, you see. I can’t go into it with Diana quite yet. On the other hand, I find going on the same old way quite impossible. So I prefer to remain silent.’

  ‘You can’t.’ Laura has no idea what’s going on, but she holds fast to this one conviction. ‘You can’t stay silent.’

  ‘What we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence. That’s Wittgenstein, of course. For some reason the quotation is far better known in the more pompous rendering. “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” People do so love to inflate things.’

  ‘If you can’t tell Diana, then tell me.’

  ‘So that you can tell her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He starts to circle the room. His earlier sleepy calm has vanished. H
e seems excited.

  ‘That would rather defeat the point of the exercise, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know what the point of the exercise is.’

  ‘Not to cause unnecessary damage.’

  ‘You’ve caused damage already, Roddy. She doesn’t show it, but she’s really upset.’

  ‘Is she? Is she?’

  He circles the coffee table, now frowning, pushing one hand through the sparse hair on the back of his head.

  ‘Diana is a wonderful wife in so many ways,’ he says. ‘She can be sharp, but she’s loyal to me, and utterly devoted to the children. I’m an odd sort of bod, it’s good of her to put up with me. So you see, I’m trying to manage the situation as best as I can.’

  ‘Roddy, you’re talking like a man who wants to leave his wife.’

  ‘Well, that’s it, really. In a way, I have left.’

  He comes to a stop in front of her, gazing down at her, looking for understanding. And for forgiveness, perhaps.

  Laura is in shock.

  ‘Diana’s devoted to you. She’d be devastated if you left.’

  ‘But I’m not leaving. I have considered it. But I know my duty.’

  ‘You’re staying only because it’s your duty?’

  ‘Not a word much used any more, I know. But I made a vow when we got married, and I regard myself as bound by that vow. I know that’s no longer a widely held view. I think the general idea is you do what makes you feel happy, and when you don’t like it so much any more you abandon it. Well, here’s another old-fashioned idea. Being happy isn’t what matters most.’

  Laura stares at him. A piece of the puzzle is dropping into place.

  ‘Roddy,’ she says, ‘have you gone and got religion?’

  He responds with a funny little smile. That smile that Diana spoke about, that he seems to be smiling from somewhere far away.

  ‘You could put it that way.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Quite.’

  Laura, like Diana, has no religious belief. Diana goes further. She regards religious belief as a form of backwardness, evidence of congenital ignorance.

  ‘What sort of religion?’

  ‘That’s what I’m still working out.’

  ‘You haven’t joined some cult, have you?’

  ‘No. I’m doing this all on my own.’

  ‘Oh, Roddy.’

  Diana will not take kindly to this. She’ll see it as an attack on her world view, possibly on herself. And she may not be wrong. Roddy turning to God is Roddy turning away from her.

  ‘What did you mean when you said you’d left?’

  ‘I mean that I’m a stranger and a pilgrim on the earth.’

  ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘That’s another quotation, by the way.’

  ‘Diana won’t understand.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I have to work out my own position before I talk to her. Diana’s not the pilgrim sort.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘One of the by-products of all this,’ he says, now moving away again, ‘is that one becomes more aware. Take this house. Why are we living like this? The works of art. What are they for? Our conversation at dinner this evening. So many opinions – for what? Isn’t it all a rather sad parade of ego and self-righteousness? Isn’t it all vanity and hypocrisy? I include myself, of course. I too am part of this – what? – this waste of breath – this illusion.’

  ‘Except you didn’t take part.’

  ‘I accept guilt by association. But Laura’ – his eyes gleam at her, and his voice drops to an intense whisper – ‘I mean to change my life. I must. Once you see it, there’s no turning back.’

  ‘Oh, Roddy.’

  In a way she can’t help admiring him. He looks so absurd in his baggy jersey and his slippers, his ungainly features all puffy with excitement: this sixty-year-old rediscovering the passions of adolescence. Of course Diana will put a stop to it. She won’t like being told her life is all vanity and hypocrisy. No wonder he’s kept silent about it so far.

  ‘Look, Roddy, I have to say something to Diana. I’ll keep it as vague as I can. But she’ll want the full version from you.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  All his excitement now drains away. He senses that his brief bid for freedom will soon be over.

  ‘And really, Henry and I have to go.’ She looks at the time. ‘We’ll miss our last train.’

  ‘Thank you for listening, Laura.’

  ‘Thank you for speaking, Roddy.’

  It’s all rather touching in its way.

  She goes to the kitchen door. She’s hardly turned the handle when Henry comes bursting out, looking a little crazed, as he always does when left alone with Diana for too long.

  ‘We’re going to miss our bloody train,’ he says, reaching for his coat.

  Diana follows, her eyes on Roddy. She sees at once that some kind of meaningful exchange has taken place.

  ‘You’re better off getting a cab,’ she says. ‘The Northern line can take for ever this late in the evening.’

  ‘What if there aren’t any cabs?’

  Henry is panicking.

  ‘There’ll be cabs on Upper Street. Come on, I’ll come with you.’

  Out into the London night, walking fast up Duncan Street, Laura gives Diana her edited version of Roddy’s state.

  ‘He’s having a sort of philosophical crisis,’ she says. ‘He’s questioning a lot of very basic stuff.’

  ‘But he’s not having an affair?’

  ‘No. Definitely not.’

  ‘Well, that’s something.’

  Only then, hearing Diana’s soft expulsion of breath, does Laura realize how much her sister has feared this.

  ‘He’s still working out what he thinks about things. That’s why he doesn’t feel like talking.’

  ‘Well, he’s bloody well going to have to feel like it. It sounds like some sort of a breakdown to me, Laura. Did he seem odd to you?’

  ‘A bit, yes. But Roddy’s always been odd.’

  ‘Did he say anything about things at the bank?’

  ‘No. Nothing at all.’

  ‘Well, if he’s not having an affair and he’s not been sacked, then I expect we’ll manage.’

  As they reach the glow of Upper Street a cab sails into view, its amber light shining. Diana gives Laura a quick hug.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘Big help.’

  In the cab Laura tells Henry about Roddy’s turn towards religion. Henry is fascinated.

  ‘What on earth will Diana say?’

  ‘She’ll die of shame,’ says Laura.

  ‘Christ, it was cold in that bloody house.’

  ‘How did you get on in the kitchen?’

  ‘I dried up. I mean, with a tea towel. Diana scrubbed away in the sink and I rubbed away beside her like we were cleansing the sins of the world.’

  ‘What’s wrong with the dishwasher?’

  ‘Not green, apparently.’

  ‘Oh, Henry. What are we going to do?’ She recalls Roddy’s outburst. ‘It’s all vanity, isn’t it? Vanity and hypocrisy.’

  ‘Probably,’ says Henry.

  He doesn’t sound at all troubled. Tired now, Laura leans her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes. Am I wrong to want a quiet life? she thinks. To love my family and my home and not to think all that much of others? Yes, I’m wrong. I mustn’t let myself become so narrow that I only really care for Henry and Jack and Carrie. But caring for all the world is so difficult. Once you start, where do you stop?

  Should I not be using the dishwasher, then?

  22

  The strange power of the passing of time. Some forty hours ago Jack met Chloe in the Half Moon and they had a drink together, talked about this and that. Nothing happened, no intimacies took place. Since then they have had no contact. And yet, like a seed planted in warm soil, that short half-hour they spent together has sent down branching roots, and pushed up eager shoots, and assumed a vigorous li
fe all of its own. Shortly Jack will drive into Lewes to meet Chloe again, and it feels to him that this will be a reunion of lovers. Apart so long, the emotions so overwhelming, they’ll fly into each other’s arms, he’ll cry with joy, she’ll—

  It’s embarrassing. Jack knows very well that he’s made it all up, but he can’t help himself. Somehow the hours he’s spent thinking about Chloe have played the part of an actual relationship with her, as if she’s been party to his secret roller-coaster of hopes and fears. Impossible to meet again as common friends. And anyway, what about all the resolutions he’s been making? This time, he tells himself, he’ll behave differently. No more passivity. This time he takes control.

  He comes down to a late Sunday breakfast to find his father still at the kitchen table, reading about the collapse of sterling.

  ‘More horror with the toast,’ his father says.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Oh, just the financial crisis getting worse.’

  ‘Serves them right,’ says Jack.

  His father has no means of knowing this, but Jack’s stern moral stance has more to do with his new non-passivity than with any clear grasp of what’s going on.

  ‘Serves who right?’

  ‘The bankers. They deserve everything they get.’

  ‘What about the rest of us? We’re suffering too. Do we deserve it?’

  ‘It’s our greed that’s screwing up the planet.’

  Jack hadn’t quite meant to follow this line but he has to defend himself somehow. He can’t just say, Oh, sorry, I was talking without thinking. So now he’s got himself into an argument that actually doesn’t interest him at all.

  ‘That’s a bit of a sweeping statement, Jack.’

  ‘I don’t see why. If we go on the way we’re going, Planet Earth will be uninhabitable in fifty years.’

  ‘You don’t seriously believe that.’

  Actually Jack doesn’t seriously believe it, but he can’t back down now.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I believe it? All the scientists say the same thing. Just because it’s scary, or inconvenient, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.’

  And only a couple of weeks ago in his college room he’d argued with passion that feeling guilty about something doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. Look at all the Victorians who were racked with guilt over masturbation, and really they needn’t have bothered.