by Fay Weldon
‘And no doubt the same applies to you,’ said Dr Rhea.
‘Do you really think so?’ asked Annette, and she giggled some more.
‘Spouses are often far less dependent upon each other than they imagine,’ said Dr Rhea. ‘The close relationship can turn destructive; in response it is not unusual for one partner to develop an image of themselves as dependent.’
‘My feeling more dependent than usual is nothing to do with being pregnant?’ asked Annette.
‘Oh no,’ said Dr Rhea. ‘Your feelings of dependence are to do with your attachment to the child: a reflection of embryonic dependency, which is becoming a basis for your unconscious and conscious maternal solicitude.’
‘Well, thank you very much,’ said Annette.
‘You are more light-hearted than your chart suggests,’ said Dr Rhea. ‘You giggle a lot.’
‘Nerves,’ said Annette. ‘What you say is quite shocking to me, but I’ll try and take it seriously.’
‘Of course, Spicer, being male, experiences the primordial mysteries directly and indirectly as provocative: a force that sets him in motion and impels him towards change. It is a matter of indifference whether the transformation of the male is caused by positive or negative fascination.’
‘I’m not altogether indifferent,’ remarked Annette, ‘to changes in Spicer.’
‘But of course in Spicer we notice the emergence of something soul-like—the anima—from the Archetypal Feminine, the unconscious, represented by yourself; so the relation of the ego to the unconscious changes. What you describe as a bad patch, Mrs Horrocks. It may be more profound than this.’
‘That sounds bad,’ said Annette.
‘The transformative character fascinates but does not obliterate. It sets the personality in motion, produces change and ultimately transformation. The process is fraught with danger, even mortal peril. Spicer will fight for the preservation of his ego: you the Feminine are determined to retain his ego as your mate.’
‘I see. Well, I don’t really, but I expect we’ll weather it,’ said Annette. ‘Can’t Spicer come in and join us? I’m beginning to miss him.’
Dr Rhea thought for a moment. ‘Spicer tells me you have been suffering from sexual fantasies of a markedly destructive nature.’
‘He told you this?’ asked Annette.
‘He is open with me, of course,’ said Dr Rhea. ‘Don’t reproach yourself. The spontaneous processes of the collective unconscious are at their most demonstrable in mental disorder.’
‘Mental disorder? Are you telling me I’m nuts?’
‘My dear,’ said Dr Rhea, ‘don’t be distressed. Of course not, or only as the world will see it. You are simply open at the moment to the elementary character of the Archetypal Feminine. The affected individual doesn’t in reality have visions, they occur as an autonomous natural process. You will have these visions: you will communicate them to your husband; the structure of the transformative character, that is to say Spicer, already relates to a personality embracing the spontaneity of consciousness, that is to say yourself. It is a fascinating phenomenon, Mrs Horrocks.’
‘Good,’ said Annette. She polished her nail with her thumb. Her fingers were quite stiff and swollen.
‘Spicer’s dreams indicate the degree of transformation. The Western symbol group of the Terrible Mothers—night, abyss, sea, watery depths, snake, dragon, whale—all the symbols colour one another and merge. Devouring water, rending earth womb, abyss of death, hostile snake of night and death, whale, sea—all aspects of the negative unconscious; which lives in the nocturnal darkness beneath the world of man and threatens catastrophe.’
‘Poor Spicer,’ said Annette. ‘Though I wish you wouldn’t call him Spicer, and me Mrs Horrocks. It smacks of possession. He is my husband. He has been dreaming of whales, as it happens.’
‘It’s understandable that you are resistant. Spouses often are. You fear the anima in Spicer, he the anima in you. You to him are like the enchantress who turns men into beasts. He sees himself as Odysseus, the successful suitor; you as Circe invited to share your bed. But danger is all around: to be changed into a pig is the fate of those who displease Circe: your anima is negative, your intention to poison his male consciousness, as he sees it, like Circe to endanger it by intoxication—’
‘Is that why he’s gone off drink?’
‘You have a frivolity, Mrs Horrocks, that isn’t altogether helpful to your own cause. You are putting up barriers to understanding. Very well, I will speak in language you understand.’
‘What is my own cause?’ asked Annette.
‘To keep your husband, Mrs Horrocks.’
‘I don’t think I am in any danger of losing him,’ said Annette. ‘Tell me, do you have children?’
‘No. But we are not thinking about me, we are thinking about you.’
‘I’m thinking quite hard about you,’ said Annette. ‘You’d be surprised.’
‘You may not realise quite how ill your husband is. He collapsed and nearly died in this very room on his first visit to me.’
‘He didn’t mention it to me,’ said Annette.
‘Perhaps he thought he wouldn’t receive much sympathy. Your husband’s view is that there is so great an unconscious hostility to him that you welcome his illness, indeed have brought it about.’
‘Your view or Spicer’s view? His illness or the one you’ve put into his head?’
‘And please try not to be hostile to me. I am here to help you both if I can. My concern is primarily with Spicer: he is my patient and therefore my responsibility, as you are not. But because of your relationship you and he are interlinked. That is why I needed to see you.’
‘And my star-chart isn’t sufficient to tell you all about me?’
‘It can tell me a lot but not everything,’ said Dr Rhea.
‘I see,’ said Annette. ‘And Spicer can get on very well without me. That’s the conclusion you’ve reached.’
‘Spicer and I have discussed it between us, and yes, we have more or less come to that conclusion,’ said Dr Rhea. ‘Spicer is not the man he was when you met him. We all change: you as well.’
‘Don’t tell me what is perfectly obvious, Dr Marks,’ said Annette. ‘And when Spicer so nearly died, or so you say, how exactly did you save him?’
‘I am medically trained, as is my husband. We were able to revive Spicer with an appropriate remedy. A natural stimulant.’
‘You didn’t think to call an ambulance?’ asked Annette.
‘There was no need,’ said Dr Rhea. ‘The danger was over. Hospitals do more damage than most people realise. The body is a self-healing entity. Statistics show that heart-attack victims, simply left to themselves, have a better survival rate than those who are rushed off to hospital. It is the journey which kills, and powerful drugs introduced into a system already under stress. I am a qualified medical doctor, Mrs Horrocks; I do know what I’m talking about. Now I understand your hostility to me: most spouses profoundly resent the therapist: so don’t see yourself as unusual. The spouse sees therapy as an interference in the life of the marriage: but sometimes a therapist will intervene to help a marriage survive which would otherwise fail, if the therapist judges that is the best option. You feel threatened: of course you do: I understand that.’
‘I don’t feel threatened,’ said Annette. ‘I am threatened. And not even free to ask a second opinion. Are you telling me I’m the cause of Spicer’s alleged heart-attack? And telling that to Spicer too?’
‘Why “alleged”? Why are you so resistant to the idea of his illness?’
‘Because he hasn’t been to see our doctor.’
‘He has changed his doctor, Mrs Horrocks. I am his doctor, and his counsellor.’
‘Don’t forget astrologer. Got him all ways, haven’t you?’
‘You have a very treacherous Mercury, Mrs Horrocks. You present yourself as a doubting Thomas, the fool who mocks, the enemy of the self. A great deal of negative energy can shelter
behind mirth. You have an afflicted Mercury in the Tenth house.’
‘So it’s just stress that’s harming Spicer’s heart; not a history of drinking, or smoking, or genetics, anything like that? Not even a negative Mercury? Just stress, that is to say me?’
‘The spouse,’ said Dr Rhea, ‘is in most cases the primary source of stress.’
‘So Spicer’s illness is my fault?’
‘We are not talking about blame, Mrs Horrocks,’ said Dr Rhea.
‘You don’t like me very much, do you?’ observed Annette. ‘Or is it just that you love rocking the foundation of other people’s lives?’
‘On the contrary, I am surprised I like you so much,’ said Dr Rhea, ‘even though you are temporarily so hostile to me.’
‘It’ll all be in my star-chart,’ said Annette. ‘I wonder what your motives are in doing this to me? Are you jealous because I’m pregnant? Or because I’ve written a book? Perhaps you’re a would-be novelist? Perhaps you’ve tried and you can’t so you sit there earning a living by writing living fictions: altering the narrative of other people’s lives: changing it in their heads: writing your scenario about Spicer getting on perfectly well without me. For God’s sake, Spicer and I would both be lost without the other! We have a very special, very solid relationship.’
‘It has been deteriorating for years,’ said Dr Rhea. ‘But you haven’t perceived it.’
The baby gave Annette a blow beneath the ribs. It had woken up.
‘But this is appalling,’ said Gilda to Annette. They were lunching at Antoine’s. Gilda picked at a roast pepper pâté, Annette at a tomato and feta cheese salad.
‘At first I thought it was funny,’ said Annette, ‘and then I saw it was appalling. When she called Spicer in, having totally devastated me, I said, as lightly as I could, “according to Dr Rhea here the next step for us is divorce.” Spicer said no one said anything about divorce: divorce is just a scrap of paper, and Dr Rhea said I am glad Mrs Horrocks can take it so lightly: a separating out would in the circumstances perhaps be advisable. To which I said, well in my mind you’re either together or apart; it’s only eggs get separated out.’
‘You shouldn’t have been so flippant,’ said Gilda. ‘She’ll really have it in for you now.’
‘But at least Spicer said he’d like to give us another try: if I could be sexually more responsive it would help, and she talked about the generative earth and the phallic penetration of the primeval hill, which was consciousness rising out of the unconsciousness, the foundation of the diurnal ego.’
‘Was she talking about him buggering you? It sounds like it,’ said Gilda.
‘I have no idea. I hope not,’ said Annette. ‘But I daresay that’s how Spicer registered it.’
‘Why do you hope not?’ asked Gilda.
‘Because, forget the diurnal ego, all he’s doing when he buggers me is confirming the shit-like nature of my existence,’ said Annette. ‘Rubbishing me.’
‘Hush,’ said Gilda. ‘Not so loud. I don’t see why you have to see buggery like that. I quite enjoy it.’
‘Well I do see it like that,’ said Annette, ‘and that’s that. The non-maternal end of me, as it were. The reluctant hole. Unnatural love. The slippage into pleasure/pain, into death not life, into grunts not murmurs, into silence. Then Dr Rhea gave us this stuff about the uroboric primeval serpent, and the luminous principle, and I agreed to give it another try, as expected to.’
‘What, the marriage?’
‘By that time “the marriage”,’ said Annette, ‘seemed to be a kind of luminous principle in itself, not just a word which described Spicer and me living together. And I was the one who was somehow burrowing under it, wearing it away, with dark archetypal flood water and I had to be stopped.’
‘But Spicer isn’t doing anything wrong?’
‘No. Spicer is just emerging like a moth out of a chrysalis of unknowing.’
‘And Spicer takes all this seriously?’ asked Gilda.
‘I told you she has sapped his intelligence in some peculiar way,’ said Annette. ‘But what was most nightmarish was the way his loyalty seemed to be towards her, not me. And his saying I was sexually suffocating and he was an unhappily married man.’
‘He’s trying to punish you,’ said Gilda. ‘He doesn’t mean it.’
‘But why should he want to punish me?’ asked Annette.
‘For the same reason she’s doing what she is. Because you can make things where there was nothing before. You’re having a baby and you’ve written a book and they’re screaming with envy in their souls, the pair of them. And he’s frightened of death, and if he has to ditch you to save his life, he will.’
‘It does seem to boil down to all that,’ said Annette. ‘But what can I do about any of it? Too late! I was born the way I was, and it served Spicer very well for ten years: now this!’
Annette pushed away her plate. Gilda asked for duck and red cabbage.
‘What was your feeling?’ asked Gilda. ‘What was the sub-text? Is she trying to make or break the marriage?’
Annette thought for a little. ‘To break it,’ she said. ‘As Spicer and I left, an exciting thought seemed to come to her. She waved her hands in the air. She had serpent rings on her fingers. She said that since the majority of Spicer’s planets were in the creative and romantic constellation and mine were in the active, the relationship was all but impossible. “Thank you so much, Dr Marks,” I said, and she quickly amended it to “needs a great deal of work”. So let us just say that she hopes it doesn’t work, so she can be vindicated in her belief in astrology.’
‘I wish you’d eat more,’ said Gilda.
‘I’ve lost my appetite,’ said Annette.
Gilda ordered toffee pudding for herself and a black coffee for Annette.
‘Annette,’ said Spicer, ‘there is a side of me you simply don’t understand.’
‘I’m trying to understand it, Spicer,’ said Annette. ‘What’s the time?’ she asked.
‘Two-thirty,’ said Spicer.
‘Afternoon or night?’ asked Annette.
‘Night,’ said Spicer. ‘Have you been taking sleeping pills?’
‘Of course I haven’t,’ said Annette. ‘They’d be bad for the baby.’
‘I don’t know how you can sleep while there’s so much going on.’
Spicer turned off the ceiling light and turned on the bedside lamp.
‘Did you say something?’ asked Spicer.
‘No,’ said Annette.
‘It sounded to me rather like “it’s because I’m so earthy and practical.”’
‘I wouldn’t be so smart-alecky, Spicer,’ said Annette. ‘I just sort of groaned, I think.’
‘I hope so,’ said Spicer, ‘because I can do without the wisecracks. Especially at this time of night.’
‘Spicer,’ said Annette, ‘if it’s two-thirty in the morning, where have you been?’
‘Walking, thinking, dealing with my shadow-side.’
‘Is that the whale?’ asked Annette. ‘Sorry, I was joking. You must mean the uroboric primal principle.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t talk about what you don’t understand, Annette.’
‘I’m sorry. Can you tell me what uroboric means?’
‘The uroboros is the circular snake biting its tail,’ Spicer said.
‘I see,’ said Annette.
‘I don’t think you do,’ said Spicer. ‘It’s the symbol of the psychic state of the beginning. I am a creative man, Annette.’
‘Of course you are, my darling,’ said Annette.
‘A romantic.’
‘I know, my sweet,’ said Annette.
‘My conscious ego takes on the female role, just as yours does the masculine. That’s the case for everyone.’
‘So?’ asked Annette. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘There are power struggles going on inside me. In the creative, romantic male the mother archetype in the collective unconscious tries to take over, so I fi
nd myself fascinated by certain things. I can’t help it.’
‘What sort of thing, Spicer?’ asked Annette.
‘It’s known as uroboric incest,’ said Spicer. ‘I believe.’
‘Dr Rhea tells you all this?’
‘Yes. It’s dangerous, perilous, Annette,’ said Spicer. ‘It can lead to madness, or death. God, I wish I were married to someone who understood me.’
‘Just come to bed, Spicer. You seem terribly distressed about nothing.’
‘You’re so dangerous to me, Annette.’
‘I don’t feel dangerous, Spicer,’ said Annette.
‘I think I’ll sleep in the spare room,’ said Spicer.
‘Annette,’ said Spicer.
‘What’s the time, Spicer?’ asked Annette.
‘I don’t know,’ said Spicer. ‘But it’s not quite dark and not quite light. I couldn’t sleep. Move over so I can get into bed. You are so beautifully warm and soft. Female.’
‘I should hope so,’ said Annette.
‘But in that very fact lies the threat. How can I locate my anima when you’ve stolen it all?’
‘Spicer,’ said Annette, ‘couldn’t you just stop seeing Dr Rhea Marks?’
‘It’s natural for you to feel threatened,’ said Spicer. ‘She told me you would be. I think she’s right about us separating out. At least for a time.’
‘But why?’
‘Because I am going on a journey, and you’re incapable of keeping me company.’
‘A spiritual journey?’
‘Yes,’ said Spicer.
‘I see,’ said Annette, ‘towards the oneness, the wholeness, the ineffable light.’
‘Don’t mock,’ said Spicer.
‘I suppose Dr Rhea Marks would keep you very good company on this inner journey? Having first pointed out the way.’
‘I should have stayed in the spare room,’ said Spicer. ‘You’re beginning again.’
‘If you want to go and live somewhere else, Spicer,’ said Annette, ‘please do. Go and meditate to your heart’s content, or should I say soul? And I’ll have the three kids, or would you do Jason the honour of taking him with you? Though I suppose he’d get in the way of your soul’s development. And we just part, do we? A property settlement? All that?’