Wicked Women

by Fay Weldon

  “She’s a good little writer,” said Dervish, “with a certain flair, and has a future in journalism if she can get over this bad patch.”

  “She has a hold on you,” said Francine, flatly.

  “But if she doesn’t deliver her piece on fluoride pollution by Friday afternoon, she loses her job. Will you tell her that?”

  “No,” said Francine. “Supposing I were to deliver a piece on fluoride pollution by Friday afternoon in her place, would I get her job? Literary style is inherited too, you know; part of the genetic gestalt.”

  There was a pause at the other end. “Well, you’d better come up and see me sometime.”

  “I’ll be there Friday afternoon,” said Francine.

  “That was Weena,” said Defoe. “I think you upset her.”

  “And why should I not upset her?” asked Elaine. “She irritates me.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t let it show. It’s always unwise to upset the press.”

  “When you had a TV show to run, perhaps. Now it can hardly matter.”

  “Thank you very much, Elaine,” said Defoe, with irony.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant you were doing her the favour. When is she coming?”

  “On Monday,” said Defoe. “I asked her to stay for lunch. I thought she should be pacified.”

  “But I go to pottery class on Monday,” said Elaine.

  “Oh goddamnit, I forgot,” said Defoe. “Call her up and put her off.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Elaine. “I’ll serve something simple and go, and you two can linger. She won’t think I’m too rude, I hope. It’s not as if her generation sets much store on manners.”

  “No, but she’s an Eloi,” said Defoe. “A throw-forward. They are easy to hurt; prone to bruising. Unlike the Morlocks. Those of us who have dwelt too long in TV studios can’t help being Morlocks.”

  “She would make an insubstantial lunch, I fear,” said Elaine.

  “You know your problem, Elaine?” asked Defoe, and answered the question himself. “You suffer from high self-esteem.”

  “I didn’t know I had a problem,” she said.

  The telephone rang. Defoe took it. It was their daughter, Daphne. “Well?” barked Defoe. His daughter, who had delighted his younger years with her wide-eyed charm, her curly-headed, little-girl ways, had little by little turned square-jawed and mirthful: she had ceased to adore him in a way he understood. She was too like her mother—the irony had entered her soul. It had descended when she was seven, as a soul descends into a five-month foetus. He remembered the occasion. Daphne had fallen down a well in the garden. She crouched twelve feet down, unharmed, her little face grimy and tear-streaked, the bones of dead cats about her. Fire appliances, ambulances, police cars were assembled: their crews milled about: media men arrived: DEFOE DESMOND’S DAUGHTER TAKES PLUNGE. Peter wailed his distress about the garden, rightly, he being the one who had removed the well’s protective planking. Up above, the noisy business of her extrication began: down below, Daphne stared up at her distraught father. “Are you all right?” he enquired.

  “I’m bored,” she called up, and they laughed together. But he knew it was the beginning of the end. She double-took the world, experiencing it in its shifting experience of her: this was not a gift a woman should have. To be all jokes and intelligence—the world got worse and worse: the dawn of self-awareness came earlier and earlier: these days even infants sprung into the world fully post-modernised, gave you a glance before latching onto the nipple as if to say, “Look at me! I’m a baby, but I won’t be for long.” For both his children, heterosexual relationships had seemed too head-on, too upfront to be properly real; they preferred the inbuilt jokes of same sex love: the brushing of breast to breast, penis to penis, like to like; the very lack of outcome of such intimate encounters appealed. For some reason Defoe found Peter easier to accept than Daphne.

  “Well?” barked Defoe again.

  “If you want phone calls from me,” said Daphne mildly, “you will have to be more polite.”

  “Why are you calling? What do you want?”

  “I don’t want anything,” said Daphne. “People do sometimes call home. You are my family.”

  “You know your mother and I disowned you years ago,” said Defoe.

  “Can’t be done,” said Daphne blithely. “Your blood is my blood. All you have to do, Dad, is reconcile yourself to your genetic responsibility. Can I come home for a few days?”

  “You and Alison?” Defoe was wary.

  “Is something wrong with that?” asked Daphne. She allowed the frown in her voice to be heard. These days she worked for Her Majesty’s Customs as a senior European negotiator: the youngest ever in the service. She was both ruthless and light-hearted: talks which had dragged on for years found themselves completed in weeks. Bureaucratic stumbling blocks dissolved beneath the astonishment of her gaze.

  “Nothing at all,” said Defoe hastily, “except your mother doesn’t like the dog.”

  “I need some space to sort out a personal problem,” said Daphne.

  “What’s the problem?” asked Defoe, as a father should.

  “You know Alison used to be Alistair before the operation—” said Daphne.

  “The entire yellow press of this country obliged me to notice,” said Defoe.

  “Well, we’ve now just about decided I want to change to being a man.”

  “What?” asked Defoe. “Sew on to you the bit they took off him? Wouldn’t it have been simpler to both stay the way you started out?”

  “Simplicity is not the object of the exercise,” said Daphne. “And I think you misunderstand the nature of the surgical intervention, which in any case is symbolic rather than sexual: more to do with gender integrity than anything else. But it’s a big step, and I’d like to come home and brood about it for a few days. Now don’t get all old and stuffy, Dad.”

  “When do you want to come?” asked Defoe, defeated.

  “The beginning of next week?” suggested Daphne. “The Brussels talks broke down and I have a window.”

  “From Tuesday on is okay with me,” said Defoe. “I’ll put you through to your mother,” and he called for Elaine to take the phone, and went upstairs to use the mobile in his office.

  “Dad says it’s okay if Alison and me come to stay,” said Daphne.

  “Is it essential?” asked Elaine, not unkindly but wanting to know.

  “Yes it is,” said Daphne. “Our apartment’s being de-flea’d by the Department of Health. We have an infestation. We had to have something done. The hall rug seemed to quiver whenever you looked at it: it turned out to be fleas leaping about. But the stuff they use is poisonous, so we thought we’d come and stay for a couple of days.”

  “With Alison’s dog?” asked Elaine. “I love it but your father hates it.”

  “We can hardly put her in kennels. Jumper hates change. She’ll be traumatised. And they’re not her fleas. It’s a local epidemic.”

  “Perhaps Jumper started it,” observed Elaine. “If Jumper comes too, your father will only kick her.”

  “Then Alison will kick him. Only three days, Mum. We’ll come on Saturday, leave Monday on the 5:15 train. Dad wanted us to come midweek but that was just his power-trip. Don’t mention the fleas. I told him I was contemplating a sex-change operation. That quite moved him.”

  “Oh?” Elaine was interested. “What to, male or female?”

  “Cheap jibes!” said Daphne amiably.

  “You shouldn’t tease your father,” said Elaine. “I don’t know how you came to be so good at lying, Daphne.”

  “It’s in the blood,” said Daphne. “You and Dad have to decide which one of you it’s from, and reconcile yourself to it. It comes in handy for the job: a past spent playing one parent off against the other. See you on Saturday.”

  “Please don’t bring Alison or the dog,” said Elaine. “I’m trying to sell the house.”

  “That’s another thing we need t
o talk about,” said Daphne. “Peter and I feel we should have been consulted. So that’s settled. We’ll come Saturday, leave on Monday evening, then. If Alison and Jumper come, we’ll go by car, otherwise by train.”

  “Bring Alison and then you can drive the Red Mercury girl back to the station,” said Elaine. “Save your father doing it.”

  “Who’s the Red Mercury girl?”

  “Weena Dodds. Some young fan of your father’s drifting into our lives and out again.”

  “I thought all that kind of thing would be over now,” said Daphne. “What kind of thing?”

  “Never mind,” said Daphne. “You never could see what was under your nose. It made coming out a real problem, for both of us.”

  “Coming out of where?” asked Elaine. “Never mind,” said Daphne. “And what’s Red Mercury?”

  “Some kind of sinister nuclear substance,” said Elaine, “half-way between a catalyst and an explosive, manmade, which if used properly destroys life but not property. Your father knows all about it, and Weena Dodds wants to pick his brains.”

  “She sounds quite bright,” said Daphne.

  “Not exactly the stuff of genius,” said Elaine.

  “Pretty?” asked Daphne.

  “I haven’t really looked,” said Elaine.

  “Are you offering her as some kind of alternative to Alison? Does she not smell perhaps? Does she not have dogs?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” said Elaine, “she’s too self-centred. You could even drive her back to town, if you left Alison and still brought the car.”

  “Lesbians are not like heterosexuals,” said Daphne. “They do not jump people.”

  “I just thought in my quaint old-fashioned way,” said Elaine, “you might like some company on the way home. And you could both leave before the 5:15. It’s such a bad service. They don’t even man the station, except on Friday and Sunday nights.”

  “I don’t believe this! You were trying to throw us together,” croaked Daphne, whose voice lately had been getting deeper and deeper.

  “For a trained negotiator, you can be very tetchy,” said Elaine. “And I’m sure I never complained of Alison smelling, but it does rather get into the upholstery, along with the dog hairs.”

  “I wash too much,” said Daphne. “Alison doesn’t wash enough. I’ll come by train, and that’s that, but I won’t bring Alison, or the dog. Okay?”

  “Okay!” said Elaine.

  “Jesus!” said Daphne, as she put the phone down.

  Francine Dodds sat in Dervish’s office. Dervish was a good-looking young man run so much to plump that his thighs spread of their own accord. Unmade-up nice girls with straight hair, soft voices and unblinking stares ran in and out of their editor’s office, with faxes, copy and cups of herbal tea. Some were tall and gangly, others very short: many had buck teeth. A proportion wore saris or ethnic dress of one kind or another. “This is an equal opportunities concern,” said Dervish, “as you may notice. We run things on a point scale here. We make an exception for Weena, who is white and privileged and would not normally be eligible for employment, but she comes from a broken home and was a child-abuse victim. But we see the perpetrators as victims as well; and one of my staff pointed out we must not become ageist—no one on the New Age Times is above thirty and we need to address that—so I felt able to call you in, Ms. Dodds. You are a widow, too.”

  “Call me Francine,” said Weena’s mother, perched on the desk, legs dangling, high heels half-on, half-off her elegant little feet. “And let me point out that Weena is the victim of no more than her whiteness, her privilege, as loving a family as she would allow, her education and her looks, all of which have hopelessly spoiled her until now she is as poisonous as a pampered rattlesnake. That is not chatter you hear, that is the noise made as the serum is working through. Weena’s home was broken only by death, and no abuse occurred, although her father and I occasionally wished to beat her to death. Sometimes, if the truth be told, and though it is unfashionable to say so, a monster springs from the loins of the nicest people. Weena may have picked up on the vibes, I don’t deny it. For that I take responsibility. In my time, as I think you know, I have run a chain of magazines from Management Consultancy to Industrial Strategy, all of which did very well under my management. I am now training further in the field of Clinical Psychology with a view to research work, but could be tempted back into the commercial field. I abandoned my career when my husband fell ill: the better to nurse him, to devote myself to his last days. This Weena may have told you.”

  “No. She implied you were sacked for forging your time-sheets and shuffling your expenses. But the expenses we offer here are minimal—”

  “So it seemed a risk worth taking? Of course it is! Fire Weena, employ me as a contributing editor. I need the money. You need me. Circulation is falling. Fifty per cent of your staff need to go; I expect you know that. You just lack the courage to do it. Make me assistant editor—I’ll do it. Years with Weena have toughened me up.”

  “But they’re such nice, good girls,” said Dervish helplessly. “What would I fire them for?”

  “For being too young, inexperienced, half-starved and in need of animal protein to liven them up, but which they are too principled to eat. The media is no place for principle. Even the New Age Times must be a hot-bed of expediency and cynicism if it is to succeed. Look at it clearly—their T-shirts are grey and stiff from ecologically sound washing powder, but they are too full of integrity and regard for the environment to throw them away. Even Weena has this unhealthy obsession with old clothes. But at least she eats meat.”

  “Weena eats meat?” Dervish was startled.

  “Weena eats meat at home, and she can sleep herself into a job anywhere.”

  “So could you, if you wanted it enough.”

  She stared at him; he stared at her.

  Weena was on the phone to Hattie. She lay in Bob’s bed. It smelt agreeably of toothpaste, old socks, lust and despair. He had snivelled and wept into the pillow. Now he had gone to work.

  “Hattie,” said Weena, “I think I can see my way through my life.”

  “I’m really glad for you, Weena,” said Hattie. “I can’t. I have my niece to stay. She’s three.”

  “Why are you so masochistic? Why do you do it?” asked Weena.

  “To help my sister out, I suppose,” said Hattie.

  “I drink you’re being the opposite of helpful,” said Weena. “Parents should be left to get on with it. Then they’d have fewer children.”

  “Whose phone are you using?” asked Hattie.

  “Bob’s,” said Weena. “I’m in his bed.” There was a short silence.

  “I thought you’d finished with Bob,” said Hattie.

  “I have,” said Weena. “This was just a one-off.”

  “Do you think that’s fair?” asked Hattie.

  “You ruined his life: now just to go scrabbling about in the ruins!”

  “The problem with Bob is he never had much of a life to ruin,” said Weena.

  “His wife is well rid of him. I don’t suppose his children want to see him anyway, I don’t mean ever to fuck an employed person again. Employment saps a man’s soul. They’re forever having to get to work or find sick-notes. A man must be self-employed if he’s not to end by sweating like my editor or grovelling like Bob. Status games make lovers sweaty and grovelling. In future, I’ll stick to the self-employed.”

  “Then what are you doing there, Weena? In his bed?”

  “I need a commission. Bob can get it for me. I need to write Defoe Desmond’s biography. I’m tired of my job. I’m tired of living with my mother. I want to live quietly in the country in a grand house and be a chatelaine. I want to be acknowledged, Hattie. I want to take my proper place in life. This bed is just a starting point. The sooner I’m out of it the better. This bed is damp, sweaty and full of crumbs.”

  “Then you will be out of it soon?”

  “Of course. I just need to ma
ke another phone call. Why?”

  “Those are my crumbs, Weena. Bob and I had toast and marmalade in that bed yesterday morning.”

  Again a short silence. Then Weena spoke.

  “Your problem, Hattie, is you try to be good to men. Men prefer it if you’re terrible.”

  Weena made another phone call.

  “I really ought to be at the New Age Times,” said Weena to Defoe. “But it’s such a boring place. No one there likes me, except the editor. And he just lusts after me. Sometimes he writes my pieces for me. But since I met you, he’s rather gone off me.”

  “Why’s that, Weena?”

  “I guess it sort of shows I’m into someone else, Def. So if I lose my job, it’s your fault.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t work for a boss who lusts after you,” said Defoe.

  “A good job’s hard to find,” said Weena. “And a hard boss is good to find.”

  “What did you say just then, Weena?”

  “Forget it. Just a saying. I feel really soft and happy and lazy today. It’s the thought of seeing you on Monday. I’ve been so upset about my mother.”

  “What’s the matter with your mother?” asked Defoe.

  “She used to abuse me when I was a child, but we won’t go into that. I got away for a couple of years, but somehow I drifted back. People say she has an unhealthy hold over me. I had a pure white satin blouse and she put it through the hot wash on purpose, with all her dark things, and of course it’s ruined.”

  “That certainly seems a symbolic thing to do,” said Defoe. “I know if anyone shrinks a shirt of mine, I get very wound up indeed. Shouldn’t you leave home?”

  “I can’t,” said Weena. “I can’t afford anywhere on my salary. I need someone to take me in.”

  “Drewlove House has lots of rooms,” said Defoe, “and I’d love to, but you have your work to do and I don’t think Elaine would like it.”

  “But why not? Is she very jealous?”

  “She can be,” said Defoe.

  “But not of us, surely,” said Weena. “You shouldn’t give in to her. It’s so low and ungenerous to be sexually possessive. And it smacks of a bad sex life. I’m never jealous because I know I make men happy.” She yawned, languorously, the smell of the male bed-sitting room and its desperate sex flowing into her nostrils.