A Serious Widow

by Constance Beresford-Howe

  “I suppose I will be able to cope,” I say dubiously.

  “My dear Rowena, think of the money. I mean, in your position at present, this is a godsend. As for the children – why, you simply must have more confidence in yourself. You know, don’t you, that you’re a person with many rich resources that have so far never been tapped. Don’t you know that?”

  The car has stopped with a jerk outside my door. “Well, but Tom, it’s going to be tough trying to be even a part-time parent to those kids. I don’t know what it is about children – their egos, maybe – that makes them so scary.”

  “I don’t know about that. My father was a whip-the-offending-Adam-out-of-him parent,” Tom says rather gloomily. “And that was even worse than it sounds, because he enjoyed it. Almost makes me a believer in permissive upbringing. I say almost, of course.”

  “Well, the grandparents who brought me up – they went to the opposite extreme. They were so sweet and gentle I grew up thinking everybody was like that, and what a shock to find it wasn’t so. And they adored me too much … they tried to protect me against absolutely everything.”

  “That was bad luck for you,” he remarks. I glance at him, startled by this point of view. “Because,” he goes on, “that’s probably why far too many things frighten you now.”

  With reluctance I admit, “It wouldn’t matter what job I was going to on Monday, I’d be scared rigid. Not really much help, is it?”

  “That’s where the resources come in.” Tom’s light-blue eyes look intently and kindly into mine.

  “Well, maybe. The thing is, have I got the right ones?”

  “Of course you have, you little goose.” He takes me by the chin and gives my face a little mock shake. “Courage, my dear!”

  For a minute I think I am going to be kissed – again – but evidently he remembers in time we are more or less in the public eye. He helps instead to extricate me from the seat belt and reaches across me to open the car door.

  “I’ll drop by Monday evening to see how you got on,” he says. “All right?”

  “Of course. And thanks, Tom, for everything.”

  Some spiritual emergency or other must have called Tom away on Monday evening, because it is well after nine, and I’ve given him up before he appears at the door. A high wind is booming through the dark streets, and his face is ruddy from his walk. Tired as I am, it is good to see him.

  “Excuse my dressing gown, Tom … do sit down. Let me make you some coffee.”

  “No, my dear, don’t bother; you look a bit tired. How did it all go, then? Come sit here and tell me all about it.” He plumps himself down on the sofa and pats the cushion beside him invitingly. But, remembering the aphrodisiac effect my widowhood seems to have had lately on more than one occasion, I wrap my old gown close and sit discreetly nearby on a straight chair.

  “Well, Tom, I’m afraid … After all the trouble you’ve been to … Just the same, it was – I mean in our wildest –”

  “Here, here,” he says, looking at me in some alarm. “Was it that bad, then, my dear?” Midway through these remarks he perceives that my bent back is shaking not with sobs but with laughter. Then he says with rather less warmth, “Tell me about it.”

  Wiping my eyes, I try to pull myself together. “Well, after the parents left, I caught the two older kids smoking in the bathroom, and I’d rather not mention what they called me when I took the cigarettes away. I asked the seven-year-old then if it wasn’t time for him to go to school, but he said he wasn’t into all that lesson crap and his mother lets him stay home. I made pancakes for lunch and that was all right, but they got into a fight over the syrup jug, and by the end of it we were all pretty sticky. So was the kitchen.”

  Tom draws a sigh.

  “I offered to take them to the park to play, but they preferred to stay home and shoot cap pistols at each other. Well, by five o’clock my legs were feeling sort of trembly and my head was aching fit to split. The parents showed up at six-thirty. It turned out they’d stopped off for a drink after work. They’d had a tough day, they said. I am leaving out, Tom, the only adjective the whole family seems to know, because it’s not a word I can say out loud, even when I’m alone.”

  Tom clears his throat.

  “Anyhow, I spent all afternoon working on a speech to Mrs. Whittaker that went something like this: ‘Your kids have turned me into a believer in the cane – the dark cellar – the head held over the gas ring. For the first time in my life I find the idea of child abuse attractive. I’m sure you wouldn’t approve of that, so I am resigning as of now.’ Of course what I actually said was, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid this job calls for a much younger person, so would you please send the day’s pay to my home address.’ ”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “Well, yes, for me that was terrific assertiveness. It was quite a thrill, in fact, to find I could do it. Maybe you were right after all about those resources.”

  “Hm. A pity it had to work out that way. Miriam will be really disappointed, I know. Most regrettable.” He steals a glance at his watch.

  “I’m sorry, too, Tom.”

  “Of course I do admit those boys are a bit unruly, but with a firm hand … Oh well. No help for it, I suppose. I mean I don’t suppose you’d feel like giving it another … No, I guess not. Only trying to help, bumbling old duffer that I am. My intentions were of the best.”

  “It’s not that I don’t appreciate it, Tom.”

  “No. Quite. Well, I must get along now.”

  “Sure you won’t change your mind about coffee?”

  “No, thank you, Rowena.”

  “Good night then, Tom. And thanks again.”

  “Not at all.” But his voice is cool, and he takes himself off with a faint air of injured dignity.

  As soon as he is gone, I step into the hall cupboard among the coats, close the door on myself and into the darkness whisper the word fuck.

  After a twenty-minute wait in line, I finally reach a girl in the tellers’ row who gives me an encouraging smile. As soon as I mention Edwin’s safety deposit box, however, she waves me to the opposite side of the bank. “They’ll look after you over there,” she promises. But after I have stood another ten minutes at the counter, nobody there seems at all keen to do that. Many of the desks in this area are empty, it being the lunch hour; but there are young men here and there talking into phones or gazing intently at computer screens. At the desk facing me a large woman sits frowning at some papers. I try without success to catch her eye, though she seems to me to be busy chiefly in seeming to be busy. Eventually, though, she does get up and approach me with a heavy sigh. She is the possessor of a quite enormous bosom that projects in an almost menacing way.

  “There was something,” she tells rather than asks me.

  “Well, yes. You see, my husband – he died last month – and his safety deposit box –”

  “You the co-signee?”

  “The what?” (All very well for Cuthbert to say, “Just tell them who you are” – for me, that’s a lot easier said than done.)

  “I’m Mrs. Edwin Hill. The box was – is – in his name, but I – that is, my lawyer – we need some of the papers in it, and he told me to come here and – I have the key here …”

  “We’d need some official notification of the death, and also proof of your identity, Mrs. – um – Hall, before we could give you access to the box.”

  “It’s Hill. And as for official …” (here a sense of unreality steals over me in a sort of vertigo) “I mean, he was buried at Pinewood Cemetery on October third … I haven’t got proof of that, of course, but surely I wouldn’t make up a thing like that; and as for proof of identity, I’m afraid I …”

  “Driver’s licence? Credit cards? Citizenship card?”

  “Sorry, but I haven’t got any of those –” Here I scrabble nervously in my handbag and after what seems an hour, unearth my dog-eared library card. The large woman looks at this with suspicion and contempt before f
lipping it back to me. I am about to turn away and go, so total is my sense of non-existence, but a customer standing behind me at the counter speaks over my shoulder.

  “My mother died last summer and I was given access to her S/D box here without the slightest bother. You’ve had this lady’s ID, and that’s all you need.” She adds, turning to me, “You have the key with you, Mrs. Hill? Then –”

  Sulkily the big-bosomed one moves to open a wicket at the side of the counter and let me through. Before following her to the vault, I turn to say thanks to my rescuer. With envy and admiration I discover she is a jean-wearing girl of not more than twenty.

  “Mother says do please come over and have a drink – she’d like you to meet some amusing people. It’s not a party, she said to be sure and tell you.” Young Maxwell Wright gives me a disarming smile, but I back away from him defensively, drawing around me the old grey cardigan. A cold wind whirls at the open door, tumbling his fair hair.

  “Oh, please thank her so much, but I’m afraid it – you see I’m not dressed and –” I can hardly after all explain to this pleasant boy that my evening plans are to read through the classified ads for domestic help, and complain to Prince Charles about the defection of both my former admirers. Then I remember that Pam has promised to introduce me to her friends in the chicken-pie business who might have work for me. This leaves me no choice: I’ll have to go.

  “She also said to tell you that people will be wearing just any old damn thing, so not to give that a thought.”

  The candour of this and the echo of Pamela’s verbal style make me smile in spite of myself. “Yes, well, thanks, then. Let’s go.”

  “Great,” says the boy cheerfully. Seconds later he flings open their front door for me and shouts, “Ma!”

  I shrink into my cardigan for protection. What would anyone call this throng, if not a party? The brightly lit hall is full of people who have spilled out of larger spaces. All of these strangers are talking at once. Quite a few others are sitting on the stairs, thus cutting off access to the bathroom, that home from home for social misfits like myself. Job or no job, I long to back out quietly and go home; but Pam now emerges from the ruck, flinging her arms wide in welcome.

  “I’m absolutely delighted to see you, Rowena,” she tells me. And some overflow of her delight with herself really does seem to include me. She is wearing black jeans and a green T-shirt that pictures someone hugging a tree over the caption, “I’m environment-friendly.”

  “Now we won’t bother with any of those people up there, Max’s old schoolmates are bores to a boy. Come in here with me and meet Steve and Arlene, they’ve been living together for three years and have a poppet of a little boy, but they’re having a huge white wedding in June, isn’t that wonderfully absurd of them? – Steve, this is Mrs. Hill, the charming neighbour I told you about. (John, dear, a drink here – Scotch, isn’t it? – and a tiny smash more gin for me.)”

  Steve’s bride-to-be is a pretty Japanese girl as little and neat as a paper doll. “How do you do?” I say to them.

  “Pam says you’re a master chef and cut up chickens like a veritable wizard,” the young man says, his lips close to my ear as if imparting a secret.

  “I’m afraid she has rather a creative imagination.”

  “Who has?”

  “Pamela.”

  “Well, maybe; but she never – you must have noticed this – she never actually lies. If you’re half as good with chickens as she claims, I can offer you a job at my place starting Monday. Five bucks an hour and no fringe benefits. Dream Pies, it’s called, in the plaza – you know it? Here’s our card. Give me a call if you’re interested.”

  “Thank you.” I pocket the card with a ridiculous sense of accomplishment. Somehow or other, with a little help from friends, I may just wind up self-supporting. And cutting up chickens all day, while not exactly fun, would be preferable to facing the Whittaker family or vacuuming Marion’s apartment. Now perhaps I can slip away, I tell myself, edging quietly towards the door. But just then John appears with my drink. “Nice seeing you,” he says. “Frightful crush. Come this way. Meet Pam’s –”

  I lose the rest of his sentence but allow myself to be steered into the kitchen. It is relatively quiet here, the room being chiefly occupied by a silent, hand-locked couple, and Arthur, who is too busy gulping his dinner to bark. Young Max, at the sink opening a bottle, waves the corkscrew at me in a friendly manner. He then presents both me and a glass to an old man on a bar stool. “Here you are then, Seb – nice malt whisky. This is our Revered Ancestor – our neighbour Mrs. Hill.” Balancing a rubber-tipped cane across his lap, the old man turns towards me a long face creased with melancholy and says in a sharp voice, “Pointless contiguity.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said, ‘Pointless contiguity.’ ”

  “Oh, I see. Yes, it is rather.”

  “Inconsequential jabber. No communication whatever. Just syllabic diarrhoea.” He grasps the cane lying across his bony knees and stares past me into the crowded hall with age-bleached, fierce eyes. He is a scrupulously clean old man, thin as a thread, his nails scraped white and pink scalp showing under his scant white hair.

  “Wittgenstein,” he adds angrily.

  I look around. “The cat?”

  “Of course not. The philosopher. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.”

  “Oh. Is that who he was?”

  “Only philosopher of the century with the intelligence to shape a brilliant theory and then the guts to repudiate it. Think of the intellectual energy that took, eh?”

  “Yes.” Abandoning my glass on the counter, I climb onto the stool beside his. “I’m interested in philosophy – up to a point. Specially lately. But it’s so abstract; it seems to have little or no connection with real life, don’t you think?” Yet even as I say this I’m aware that it’s ghosts, memories and speculation, ethical, moral and theoretical, that have preoccupied me for these past weeks.

  “Think so, do you? Well, ponder this connection. I was Philosophy Chairman at York till ’75. Then, just when I was beginning to know something about my subject, they kicked me out. Mandatory retirement. Emeritus pat on the back. The scrap heap.”

  Well, you’re scrappy enough, I think, and as if he can read this message on my forehead, he gives an uncouth snort of laughter. Then he goes on, “Never mind, he was the greatest thinker of the age, Wittgenstein. He was about the first to understand that language is central to every system of thought. Now that ass McLuhan couldn’t even write English. Old Ludwig should have lived into the age of TV; he’d have told ’em.”

  “Told ’em what?” I ask, interested.

  “Well, for example, that a sentence that says something must be a picture of reality.”

  “Oh, yes. Especially in fiction. Good fiction, that is.”

  His hooded eyes contemplate me with suspicion.

  “You trying to take the piss out of me, young woman?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “So you say. Wouldn’t trust you. Profound introvert, sticks out all over you. Subterranean fantasy life.”

  I feel my face grow rather hot. But then he thrusts forward a cold, bone-white, liver-spotted hand. “Sebastian Long,” he says, as if we are meeting for the first time. It is like shaking hands with a skeleton. “Pamela’s father,” he adds. “Such are the accidents of conception.”

  “I’m Mrs. Ed – my name’s Rowena Hill.”

  “Never heard of Wittgenstein, eh? Shame on you.”

  “I’m an autodidact. Lots of holes in my education.”

  “Mine, too. I’ve never read much fiction.” We look at each other in a friendly fashion.

  “Rowena, you must come with me at once and meet Miriam Whittaker – she’s trying to line up a housekeeper for her grandson.” And as Pamela hustles me away she mutters, “Sorry you got stranded with the old walrus. Dire, isn’t he?”

  “I like him. He called me a young woman. Now, Pam, I’m afraid
you’ll have to excuse me – I really must go home. Mrs. Whittaker wouldn’t find me satisfactory – I know this in advance. Tell you all about it some day, maybe. Meanwhile, thanks for the nice party. Don’t bother – I’ll see myself out. Oh, and please say good-night to your father for me.”

  “No, I really can’t understand why Cuthbert hasn’t been in touch … It’s been a whole week now. And after I managed to get those things from the bank he asked for, you’d think –”

  But ever since that night on the sofa, Prince Charles has not been particularly keen to discuss Cuthbert. His face now takes on a rather huffy, Royal look and he gazes off into space. “I don’t think about him at all,” he says. “Do you?”

  “You needn’t imagine there’s anything like that in my mind,” I tell him with some severity. “It’s simply a matter of business.” I pull free a long strand of blue wool and knit busily away. It is the same rather unusual purply blue of the waistcoat Edwin wore on our wedding day. Those are purls that were his eyes, I think crazily. Nothing of him doth remain. If only. Then I jerk myself back to the subject at hand.

  “Now don’t let your imagination run away with you, Charles. You must have been eating too much fish lately or something. For pity’s sake, the last thing on earth I want is another man, for a start.”

  “You didn’t give that impression on a couple of recent occasions we can both recall.”

  It is now my turn to be huffy. “I was not myself at either of those times, as you very well know. Whatever myself is, I mean. A passing impulse … it could happen to anybody. You’ve had one or two yourself.”

  “It’s not like you to be unkind, Rowena.”

  “I wish people wouldn’t keep on saying what’s not like me.”

  “I could say what a lot of thought to waste on a man who looks like a gerbil, but I won’t. Don’t let’s quarrel.”