They stood with their noses against the wire fence watching Jackie play tennis with two boys and another girl. Wimbledon always inspired her.
‘Just don’t let him hurt you, that’s all,’ Maria said angrily.
‘He won’t,’ Sally said, surprised. ‘He loves me.’
‘Oh, Sal.’ A sudden fierce hug. ‘Be careful.’
‘I am. You know I am.’
‘I don’t mean that.’
* * *
Later in the pub she had to sweet-talk Jackie.
‘But you always go to Cyprus.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘She must be awfully disappointed.’
‘She is and I’m sorry, but I can’t help it. Don’t you give me a hard time as well.’
‘God, he’s really turned your head,’ Jackie said, looking at her as if she were a freak.
‘What d’you mean? I just want to be with him, that’s all. What’s so terrible about that? You want to be with Pete, don’t you?’
‘It’s a bit different.’
‘Why? Just because he’s older, is that what you mean?’
‘Oh Sal, leave it out.’
‘That is what you mean, isn’t it?’
Jackie lit a fresh cigarette and blew smoke over Sally. ‘I don’t know why you need the aggravation, his wife and all that, when you could have a holiday instead. He’ll still be here when you get back. Probably do him good if you go off somewhere. Make him keener.’
‘I don’t want to be apart from him for a single day,’ Sally said. She thought the simple truth might reach Jackie somehow. But she only stared.
‘Blimey, you’ve got it bad.’
Well, there was nothing for it but the direct approach. ‘Jackie, can I come to Aldeburgh with you?’
Jackie looked thoroughly amazed. ‘But I’m going with Pete.’
‘I know, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to have a weekend with Felix and we can’t both get back at the same time. If I tell Mum I’m staying with you for a week she won’t worry.’ Silence from Jackie. The whole trip hung in the balance. ‘I’ll go out a lot,’ Sally said urgently. ‘I’ll wear ear plugs. I’ll keep my eyes shut.’
* * *
Felix had to admit that Richard was the better squash player. He had to use quite a lot of guile to beat him these days. He supposed Richard’s lifestyle was healthier, less hedonistic; or else it was sheer adrenalin from the Marion conflict that raised his game. Afterwards they went for a drink in the bar and Richard told him the story again. He half-listened, reflecting that he had had a near perfect day and there was still dinner with Elizabeth to come.
‘She’s a miserable cow, that Marion,’ he said when Richard paused. ‘Probably needs servicing.’
Richard smiled. ‘She’s got a perfectly nice husband, oddly enough.’
‘Well, he won’t be giving her one, will he? Not if he’s got any sense.’
‘And two perfectly adjusted children. Not a hint of rebellion there. It’s sickening.’ They both laughed. ‘Oh, she means well, of course. She’s one of the old school. The poor should be grateful and deserving. The rich should be kind but firm. And the state shouldn’t interfere too much. Country going to the dogs. Bring back national service. All that.’
It didn’t sound too unreasonable to Felix. Why else did he pay tax? But it wouldn’t be tactful to say so. Not now. ‘Maybe they’ll promote her out of your area,’ he said. ‘Too much to hope she might get the sack, I suppose?’
‘Oh, she’s very efficient. I just wish she didn’t make me feel eleven again, waiting to see Matron for castor oil.’
‘That bad, eh?’
Richard said with enthusiasm, ‘I have fantasies about cutting her up into very small pieces but I think I’m probably over-reacting.’
‘Sounds to me as if you need a holiday.’ He didn’t know how Richard stood it, the case load, the long hours, the problems, endlessly fighting the system for ungrateful moronic clients with a death wish. ‘But I like this violent streak smouldering away under your calm exterior. It’s good stuff. You’re a bit like a dormant volcano, aren’t you, Richard? Who knows when you might erupt? Play your cards right and I might slip you into my next Tony Blythe.’
Richard warmed to his attention. ‘Surely you’ve noticed before that I have homicidal tendencies?’
‘Now and then. There were a few times I thought Inge mightn’t live to reach the divorce courts and you might end up in one of your own jails. Quite a good twist that would have been. Bit rough on Helen though.’
‘She’d have masterminded my escape,’ said Richard, enjoying the fantasy. ‘The file in the cake. The getaway car behind the wall. Hey’ – and he paused, the idea clearly visible in his open face – ‘I suppose we couldn’t get away together – just a short break? I might be able to manage a few days when you go to Cambridge on your crime trip. Be nice to see the old place again.’
Felix felt a beast to refuse, yet he also noted the negative way Richard put the suggestion, as if his whole life was geared to refusals. Really, his expectations must be very low. ‘Sorry. It’s a great idea but—’
‘You have other plans.’ He sounded disappointed but not surprised.
‘Well, I do have a little friend there and I promised I’d look her up. You know how it is.’
‘I do indeed.’ Richard looked admiring and stoical. ‘Never mind. I can’t really spare the time anyway. And I’m probably only chasing my lost youth.’
* * *
Felix had always been a magic person for him, arriving at Cambridge with a secret sorrow, something to do with death and divorce and his mother, a story no one ever got quite clear, a tragedy with strong sexual overtones. Felix had drifted around in voluminous Byronic shirts, affecting a Byronic limp, seducing every woman who crossed his path if he considered her beautiful enough, drinking too much, failing to work, sleeping all day and screwing all night, yet still now and then turning out brilliant essays. Felix embodied all the romantic chaos Richard had read about and dreamed about: Felix could break all the rules and get away with it while he, Richard, had to go on being responsible because he was set that way, like cement. He could hardly believe that this careless, glamorous person was to be his friend; he feared that every invitation would be his last, yet knew that too much humility and gratitude would be fatal. Felix needed him: his solid values were like firm earth in which Felix could plant his rockets before lighting the blue touch paper and failing to retire.
Felix’s friendship seemed to Richard a vindication of his own character, a sense of self esteem painfully maintained in the face of his mother’s clearly expressed preference for his younger brother. Whatever his brother did wrong was excused or transposed into virtue, while Richard’s achievements were ignored or taken for granted. It made sense: his brother was better looking and more fun, rather like Felix, in fact, but he did not have a friend like Felix. That privilege belonged to Richard, and it proved that he was not as dull as his mother thought. Or possibly it proved that she was right to prefer her other son. Once Richard had Felix as a friend, he understood his mother’s partiality for his brother and ceased to blame her for it. He even became quite fond of his brother.
His mother had hardly appeared to notice the death of his father, which left Richard the unwilling head of the household, but she never recovered when his brother emigrated to New Zealand, unable to bear the burning heat of her affection at first hand any more. She seemed to blame Richard for his departure and she went into the kind of mourning that Richard associated with Queen Victoria when she lost Albert. It made another bond with Felix, the lone mother and the lone father, parents bereaved by death and divorce, parents at odds with their sons, parents who needed comforting, parents who had never grown up. It made Felix more than ever his opposite and his twin, a mirror image of himself. They were light and dark, yin and yang, good and evil: put together, Felix said, laughing, they would make up a whole person.
When Inge came into his life, Richard d
iscovered sexual obsession. Even though it was the sixties, allegedly an ideal time to be young and free, he had never been much good at casual sex because he worried about hurting other people’s feelings and, to a lesser extent, his own. All that dangerous activity was better left to Felix, who either managed to stay friends with women whose hearts he had broken or simply didn’t care if they were left bitter and wounded. Richard didn’t really approve of Felix’s behaviour, but he admired the way Felix seemed to raise irresponsibility to the level of an art form. Never having managed to be irresponsible himself, Richard found it a thrilling quality to observe in his friend. He worried sometimes that the vicarious pleasure he took in Felix’s affairs was positively unhealthy, but there wasn’t much he could do about it: it seemed to be addictive, like a drug. Felix claimed to find the same fascination in Richard’s moral rectitude, though Richard privately doubted this. He thought it more likely that Felix enjoyed having an adoring audience and he was content to provide one. He found Felix so attractive and charismatic himself that it seemed only natural that vast numbers of other people should fall in love with him, that he should operate under a special dispensation, that the ordinary rules of conduct should not apply to him.
Richard was engulfed by Inge’s passion for him: he was amazed that anyone could feel so strongly about him because it had never happened before. If this was how love affairs felt, no wonder Felix liked having so many of them. The foreignness of Inge was an added attraction, making her mysterious and dark. They would never speak the same language, no matter how fluent they each became in the other’s: they would have no common ground. Their childhoods would forever contain different points of reference and their memories would be alien. It excited him uncontrollably to merge himself with this strange, exotic person and it seemed appropriate that much too soon their half-hearted attempts at contraception resulted in a pregnancy. Such violent feelings were meant to bring forth life. When Felix suggested abortion, Richard quarrelled with him, briefly, for the first time. And yet he knew at some level that he and Inge were much too young to marry, that they were bound to change, that they would wear each other out. He had been deeply flattered that she loved him so much because no one else had done so and it seemed to validate his existence, but gradually he became afraid of the way she sank deeply into him and seemed to suck out his very soul. There was no refuge from her: wherever he went to retreat, she would find him out. She had an inexhaustible appetite for sex, conversation, affection and companionship that left him searching desperately for hidden reserves where he might find something more to give her, yet he knew it would never be enough.
* * *
Sally waited until she was helping Helen with supper. It was easier to talk while scraping a carrot, her head bent over the sink. ‘I thought I’d go and stay with Jackie when we break up,’ she said casually. ‘Just for a week.’
‘Well, if that’s what you want.’ Helen sounded surprised. ‘Beats me how anyone could prefer a week in Aldeburgh to a month in Cyprus.’
‘Oh… there’s a job going at Tesco. I could do with some money for clothes when I go to college.’ She paused, looking for a more clinching argument. ‘You should be glad I won’t be asking you for the air ticket.’
‘You deserve a nice holiday,’ Helen said warmly. ‘You’ve worked hard. Much harder than I thought you would.’
‘I want to do well. You know. Get the right grades. Make you proud of me and all that.’ Was she overdoing it?
‘I’d rather you wanted to do it for yourself.’
There was no pleasing her. ‘Well, both.’
Silence. Then: ‘Sally, I don’t want to pry, but if there’s some boy you’re keen on and he’s going to be in Aldeburgh too – you won’t forget about contraception, will you?’
Sally felt herself squirming. It was such an intrusion on her time with Felix. She was still wet with him, could still smell him on her skin, feel him touching her, reverberating inside her, and Helen was trespassing on sacred things. ‘Oh Mum, you’re always going on about that.’
‘Not so. I’ve mentioned it maybe twice a year since you were fifteen. Be criminal not to mention it at all, even if I do embarrass you. I know it’s very private but it still has to be said.’
‘Well, you’ve said it. I know all about it, thanks.’
‘And there’s also VD and—’
‘I’m not an idiot.’
‘All right, I’ll shut up. Just promise me you’ll go to the clinic if you haven’t already, and I’ll never mention it again.’
‘It’s a deal.’ She chopped the carrot savagely, overjoyed to hear the sound of a key in the front door. ‘There’s Richard.’
‘For this relief much thanks,’ said Helen drily.
Richard came in. He smiled at Sally and kissed Helen. ‘Sorry I’m late. I had a couple of drinks with Felix.’
Sally was careful not to react.
‘How was he?’ Helen asked without interest.
‘Oh, he seemed in pretty good form. How was your day? How are the Seven Deadly Sins coming along?’
‘Rather slowly. I had Elizabeth crying on my shoulder. She thinks Felix is playing around again. I do feel sorry for her but hell, it’s monotonous, she’s such a victim, and I really wanted to work.’
Sally didn’t want to hear about Elizabeth’s pain. Felix would be home with her now, having supper, being nice. Not telling her the truth. How angry Mum and Richard would be if they knew. What a monumental crisis she could make with just one careless word. The knowledge made her feel dizzy, powerful and helpless at the same time. She held the key to all their futures and she dared not use it. Not yet, anyway. Instead she hung on to the thought of Cambridge, like a talisman.
‘I’ll lay the table,’ she said. She was sick of being good and helpful, but that was what they both expected of her, for ever more, it seemed. That was how it had always been.
* * *
Helen was nearly asleep, but Richard was still talking about Tracey.
‘She’d still be alive if she’d been allowed to keep the baby. If we’d all given her more support. We should have helped her keep it, helped her look after it.’
Helen usually listened when he wanted to talk about work, but she also encouraged him to switch off, for his own sake as much as hers, feeling it was not always good for him to bring the problems of the day home with him. Tonight was difficult. Lust and Envy swam in her head to the sound of Elizabeth’s sad voice mixed with Sally’s peculiar plans for a summer holiday. It was hard to focus on Richard’s words, hard to believe that he was seriously suggesting a girl of eighteen should have been encouraged to have and keep a baby. Eighteen was hardly more than a child.
‘Or helped her get an abortion,’ she said, yawning.
‘No. I don’t believe that’s the answer.’
Oh well. It was an old familiar argument, a bit of pointless idealism left over from Richard’s youth. She attributed it to his Catholic upbringing, although he always insisted he had left all that behind at university. Helen thought it went too deep ever to be totally discarded, but she generally tried to keep off the subject.
‘I do. I’ve been a single parent. I know what it’s like.’
* * *
Felix and Elizabeth lay back to back. Felix wanted to get to sleep before he had to admit to himself that he had had one brandy too many and might be in for a restless night, but Elizabeth wanted to talk. He could feel her thinking: the tension in her back betrayed her. He braced himself for a conversation. It was essential to maintain a sleepy voice to keep it short.
‘Shall I come with you to Cambridge?’ she finally said.
‘Oh darling… I’ll be working all the time. You’d be bored. And I want to do some research.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said, heavy with disappointment. ‘It was just an idea.’
‘It was a lovely idea. But I’ve got a better one. Let’s go back to Venice in the autumn. Would you like that?’
‘I’d lo
ve it.’
‘Good. That’s settled then.’
He always bribed her with Venice when things got sticky. It hardly seemed to matter if they actually went or not. It was just a convenient way of reaffirming love. But tonight it didn’t quite work. He could feel the slight tremor in her body that meant she was starting to cry. But since she had chosen to do it silently, he felt entitled to pretend he hadn’t noticed.
* * *
On the morning of the holiday Richard insisted on taking her to the station. She thought she had talked him out of it the night before, saying she wouldn’t be ready in time, but after breakfast he shouted up the stairs to her, ‘Come on, Sally, if you want a lift.’
She shouted back, ‘It’s OK, I’ll get the tube.’ She felt extremely harassed by his solicitude. Why couldn’t he leave her alone? She had finished packing but she was still sorting the contents of her big everyday handbag into a smaller, smarter one and she found it very distracting to be shouted at. Felix was right: it would be a relief to get away from home and all this interference. Now that escape grew closer she could afford to admit how much she longed for it. To be left in peace. Not to be nagged about tidying her room or playing music too loud. Not to be asked where she was going or what time she’d be back.
But he wouldn’t give up. ‘Don’t be daft,’ he yelled up the stairs. ‘I’m going right past the station.’
She gave up. He was obviously determined to do her a good turn and it wasn’t worth making a fuss. She longed to swear at him, to shriek abuse, thinking how surprised he’d be, but instead she grabbed the suitcase and bag and set off obediently down the stairs.
‘Have fun, take care,’ said Helen, giving her a hug and looking critically at her clothes.
God, why did they all have to treat her like a child? She got in the car beside Richard in a foul temper and sulked determinedly for most of the journey. Fortunately he never talked much in the mornings and she had to admit to herself that a lift was convenient, but it wasn’t worth having to leave in a hurry and all the anxiety that somehow he would stop in the wrong place and run straight into Felix and his car. It spoiled the trip before it had even begun, and she wanted everything to be perfect.
A Sense of Guilt Page 10