Mischief

by Fay Weldon

  Sylvia was a psychotherapist who worked in the Human Resources Department of the haulage business where Joseph worked as an accountant. Earle was now director of acquisitions at the same firm and earned far more than Joseph, and had an office to himself and a good carpet. He was away from home quite a lot, visiting subsidiary companies abroad. Sylvia was brave about his absences but sometimes she would turn up at Marcelle’s door at the weekend with red eyes and talk about nothing in particular and Marcelle felt for her. And Marcelle could see that bedding Sylvia had been a triumph for Joseph: a feather in his cap, so great an event it was now what sustained him in life. ‘I was the one who bedded Sylvia, Earle’s wife, at the office party seven years ago.’

  But Marcelle still did not want to call Sylvia ‘about Alec.’ Alec had been found taking drugs in school and was in danger of expulsion. Joseph reckoned that Sylvia could help with advice and wisdom, she, after all, being so good with young people. The twins would never take drugs, or be anorexic, like Carla. They were calm and orderly and dull.

  ‘I’ll call her when we get back from Copenhagen,’ Marcelle says to Joseph, looking up from the parade of the jars: different makes, different shapes: some gold topped, some white, some silvery, all enticing. They are going to visit the new baby, and will only be staying two days. She is glad it is not longer. Her stepdaughter has always been a bundle of resentments, at the best of times. Now she will be sleepless, and ordering Marcelle about as if she were the maid. Joseph: ‘What can you expect? You stole me from her. Now you have to put up with it.’ It will not be an easy trip. Joseph does not like the new husband.

  ‘That’s all very well,’ says Joseph, ‘but you promised me you’d call her and now you haven’t. I really don’t understand you.’

  ‘I expect it will have blown over by the time we get back,’ says Marcelle with unusual firmness. ‘Schools always over-react. And I really I don’t see why Sylvia needs to know every detail of our business.’

  ‘She’s a good friend to you,’ says Joseph. ‘Better than you’ll ever know.’ What does he mean by that? Has something else happened between Joseph and Sylvia? Has he tried to restart the flirtation and she refused, for Marcelle’s sake? Or is that just what Joseph wants Marcelle to think, because he’s annoyed? She gives up on the throat cream and then thinks of Sylvia’s smooth and perfect neck, and re-packs it. Perhaps she can do without the eye cream? Sylvia is seven years younger than Marcelle. Sylvia has beautiful clear bright eyes, widely spaced and good cheek bones. Flesh seems somehow to have shrouded Marcelle’s. She feels suddenly hungry and goes to the kitchen to have a cup of coffee and a piece of toast. Joseph follows her into the kitchen.

  ‘Sylvia says the way to keep slim is never to eat carbohydrates before breakfast,’ he observes. ‘And I don’t think this matter of Alec is simply going to melt away, however much you hope it will. You have such a problem with reality! I don’t like to say this of Alec but he does have a family history of criminality. And remember the time when he was eight and you found money missing from your purse? I don’t think you dealt with that properly: Sylvia said the whole thing should have been talked through, not just swept under the carpet. Now this drugs business. Where has the boy been getting the money?’

  Marcelle’s father, a respectable builder, had served a four months sentence in prison for petty theft, shortly after Joseph and Marcelle were married. He had taken a lathe home – he said by accident, but the client had reported it to the police and the magistrate – no doubt in the middle of his own building work – had seen it as a gross breach of trust. Marcelle always had an uneasy suspicion that if her father had turned into a jailbird before the marriage, not after, the wedding would never have taken place. Somehow the feeling was always there that Marcelle was lucky to have caught him – a surgeon’s son, well educated, good-looking, an accountant with a degree in mathematics, and she Marcelle, really, was just anyone, out of nowhere. Joseph’s family photographs were in real silver frames; Marcelle’s were in plastic.

  She saw herself with a terrible clarity. Good legs and bosom, but with a tendency to put on weight, no conversation, no dress sense, no brains and no qualifications, a too shrill speaking voice and a vulgar laugh. And both children took after her, not him. They were a disappointment to Joseph. If he’d married someone like Sylvia – one of whose sisters was now the wife of a peer of the realm, albeit non-hereditary – he would have had children as perfect as the twins. Though Earle had once said something really nice, when they were round to dinner. Earle: ‘Say what you like about those children of yours, Marcelle, they’re never dull. They’re like you. A pleasure to be with.’ She was serving a chocolate mousse at the time. Sylvia never served sweets, only cheese. She didn’t believe in sugar. Sylvia had made quite a face when Earle said that to Marcelle and looked disdainfully at the mousse and tried to smirk at Joseph, but Joseph for once took no notice. He even seemed pleased at what Earle had said, as if he too were being complimented. Men were strange: they were pack animals, no doubt about it, and very aware of who was top dog. Sometimes she was surprised that Joseph never actually offered her to Earle, in recompense for the office party incident, just to even things out. She wouldn’t have minded too much if he had: she liked Earle. But Sylvia would have seen it as compulsive-obsessional behaviour and liked it not one bit.

  She knows Joseph loves her, and she certainly loves him: she feels for him acutely as the world looks by him and over him: she wants to protect him. She knows why he is trying to upset and disturb her: there was a letter in the post recently talking about his pension and the assumption is that he had reached the ceiling his career, and will never earn more than he does now. They will never have a swimming pool like Earle and Sylvia. They will have each other, of course, but that in itself is a disappointment for Joseph. How can it not be? There are so many beautiful and brilliant women in the world that will never be his. She worries for Alec and Carla because Joseph cuts them down to size all the time, as he does her, and she knows that children grow into their parents’ plan for them, and wishes that he would just sometimes pretend to love and admire them more. It would help them.

  ‘I hope you’re going to change before we leave?’ he asks. She is wearing black trousers, and a dark blue cashmere sweater, soft and comfortable but rather over washed.

  ‘I wasn’t going to,’ she says.

  ‘Why don’t you wear that nice pink thing? Sylvia always says how much it suits you.’

  She changes into the pink suit, which is too tight for her and makes her look vast. She has not worn it for a few months. She can’t admit it’s unwearable, she will only get a lecture on Sylvia and carbohydrates. She will just have to hope he doesn’t notice. She goes back into the kitchen. He looks her up and down and says nothing. He is not looking forward to the trip, either. His son-in-law is a man Joseph does not like or respect. He is a small time Danish architect who came to Marcelle and Joseph’s house to discuss plans for a conservatory, in the days when they could have afforded one. The plans came to nothing but he went away with the daughter. Joseph: ‘Marcelle, I can’t forgive you for this! When you knew they were seeing each other why didn’t you stop them? It’s a disaster.’ Now he has to go and see the baby, fruit of this union, and try and look pleased. He never saw himself as a grandfather.

  Well I don’t want to be a grandmother either, thinks Marcelle, with a sudden burst of inner petulance, two can play at this game, and it’s your fault not mine that I am, since I married a man with a child, more fool me. She knows better than to say so: she takes a spoonful of conserve straight from the pot and puts it into her mouth without even bothering about the toast and Joseph gives a sharp intake of shocked breath and leaves the room.

  Marcelle solves the beauty problem by slipping such small jars as she can into the case of Joseph’s laptop. With any luck he won’t notice the extra weight. She wears her highest heels: she knows they are impractical for travel but her morale needs boosting. Since the only good thin
g about her Joseph is prepared to admit at the moment is her legs, she will make the most of them. Sylvia may have the eyes and the cheekbones and the salary, but Marcelle has the legs.

  They get to the airport in good time. Joseph cannot abide being in a rush and Marcelle has learned not to hold him up. She has to pay extra because her bag is so heavy. Joseph (the week after the wedding). ‘Now, about our finances. We will pay each proportionate to our earnings, and keep careful and accurate accounts. I will be paying the lion’s share out of the joint account but that is right and proper: I am your husband. I am not complaining. Personal extras must come out of our separate accounts – by extras I mean jaunts to the cafe, your friends to lunch, parking fines, excess luggage, and petrol for unnecessary outings – that sort of thing.’ And Marcelle had agreed, without asking for clarification as to who decided on the interpretation of unnecessary. Her mother had told her at the time to get everything straight within the first week of marriage because if it wasn’t done then it never would be. But that had been the week her father had gone to prison and her mother had been told she had cancer. She hadn’t been concentrating.

  On the Cityhopper flight to Schiphol Joseph said, ‘I am disappointed you didn’t get through to Sylvia. It’s very unusual for her to leave the answer phone switched off. When we get to Amsterdam I’ll call her on her mobile and you can talk to her then.’

  ‘Did you bring the number with you?’

  ‘It’s on my mobile,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Well, it would be, wouldn’t it,’ she said. That was rash.

  ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with you,’ he said, looking at her with disdain. ‘Next thing you’ll be wanting to go through my numbers called, to check up on me and Sylvia. It really is sick, Marcelle. You’re insanely jealous of your best friend, so you’d risk the future of your own son. And your mascara has gone odd. There are little lumps of it under your left eye. Why do women want to plaster their faces with that stuff? It makes them look worse, not better.’

  She could have pointed out that Alec was his son too, and if he was so sure Sylvia would know how to deal with the situation he could always have called her himself. Or popped in to her office for a consultation as to how to conduct his family affairs. No doubt he did that all the time, anyway. But she said nothing. There was a strange kind of bubbling feeling inside her. Was this what blood boiling felt like? Her ears popped as the aircraft began to descend for the landing and she felt more normal again.

  Joseph called Sylvia from Schiphol to check up on the status of her phone, and Sylvia reported that it was fine, as far as she knew. Perhaps Marcelle had dialled a wrong number. It was easy to do – they made the keys so small these days: they only suited the young. She’d be delighted to talk to Marcelle about Alec, when they got to Copenhagen, perhaps, and had a little more time. It might be, perhaps, that Marcelle was the troubled one, not Alec?

  ‘Did you hear that, Marcelle?’ asked Joseph. ‘You might be the troubled one, not Alec. We have to think about that. Sylvia always has a fresh slant on things. I knew we ought to talk to her.’

  Joseph and Marcelle make their way towards Gate B for the Copenhagen flight. After the brief good cheer of his conversation with Sylvia his mood was worsening.

  ‘I wish you’d keep up, Marcelle. And why are you wearing those stupid shoes? And pastel pink? For travelling? The skirt’s too short for someone your age and weight. You look absurd. The only gold buttons in this whole airport belong to you. Sometimes I think you do it on purpose.’

  And that was the point at which Marcelle threw herself on the ground in front of him, on her knees, hands clasped like a supplicant, wailing; ‘Stop it, stop it, stop it, come back to me, love of my life,’ so piercingly loud in her heart that the Nurturers heard and came to her rescue and returned her to him, and him to her. These things can happen beneath our very noses. I like to think that so shocked was he, so brought to his senses, he didn’t say a single mean thing to Marcelle, or even mention Sylvia, for the rest of the visit. That he even picked up the baby – it was a girl – and smiled at it, and said ‘You’re a pretty girl, just like your grandmother. And you have her lovely smile.’

  ‘So that’s why she did it,’ I said to my husband. ‘He drove her mad. Thank you for asking.’

  ‘It’s obvious you can’t resist a happy ending,’ he said. ‘I felt rather sorry for the poor husband. Dreadful when the wife makes a scene.’

  By that time we were at the Rijksmuseum, but found it was closed, because they were changing the paintings.

  2003

  Christmas on Møn

  He supposed that with time you could get used to the strangeness of things. His father didn’t live in the same house as he did and after six years he was quite used to that. Having a father who lived in another country now seemed almost normal. His father suddenly having a new wife called Lone – what sort of name was that? – was still a little strange because he’d assumed men only had one wife. But apparently no: you could have any number so long as they were in sequence. He had wanted to go to Denmark and visit his father and the new Lone but his mother said no. He’d tried to argue but his mother cried so he stopped arguing. Now he had to get used to his mother being dead. People said things like ‘passed on’ or ‘with the angels’ but the fact was she was dead. Dead as a doornail. Not here. Nowhere else. There was time before and a time after and a clear dividing line, and you had to get used to being on the wrong side of the line. Well, he would, people did. After all he was quite old. He was eleven. He’d had since the summer holidays to get used to her being dead and gone and in a couple of days it would be Christmas.

  ‘You’ll have to get used to Christmases in another country,’ his grandmother warned him. He had to go and live with his father and Lone in Copenhagen. He would have liked to have stayed with his grandmother and so would she, but a judge somewhere had said no, Neil was to live with his father, because Lone was going to have a baby and it would be a proper home. He’d only met his father a few times since he was small and could never think of anything to say to him when he did. But he expected it would be all right.

  ‘It can’t be all that different,’ Neil said, and his grandmother said ‘Oh yes, it can be.’ There’d be no presents waiting when you woke up on Christmas day, Gran said, and no big, noisy, crowded dinner hours late because the turkey wasn’t cooked, with mince pies so you didn’t stay hungry, and friends and family pulling crackers and putting on silly paper hats.

  When the clock struck one on a Christmas day in Denmark, his Gran said, all you would have to eat was cold herring on rye bread. She put some Mars bars in his suitcase so he’d be prepared. She loved him but Neil had the feeling she didn’t like his father very much. Not that Danish clocks actually struck, his gran added, everything was too sleek and electronic. Well, Neil would do his best. He would get used to it. He was certainly better off than, say, Oliver Twist. He’d never gone hungry and his shoes didn’t let in water.

  While she was packing the Mars bars Gran found his Neolithic arrowhead tucked into one his shoes and said why on earth are you taking this old piece of stone?

  ‘I just like it,’ he said, not explaining that he had picked it up on a walk with his father and mother when he was five, and they’d taken it to a museum and the curator had said it was a lucky find and he was a clever boy, and it was actually very late, almost bronze age, and people had been living on that hill for thousands and thousands of years. He liked that thought. It made him feel part of something though there wasn’t much left to be part of that he could see. But it was a kind of lucky charm.

  Now the flint was in the suitcase in the back of the car, and he and Lone were on their way straight from the airport to an island where they had their country house. The island was called Møn, with a line through the middle of the o, unlike Lone. It was not easy to pronounce and Lone laughed when he tried. She was very fair all over and quite broad with large pale blue eyes, and a bump in her middle whi
ch was the new baby. He thought perhaps his mother had been right to hate her. Neil had worked out the number of miles from where he lived to Copenhagen – 693 – and begrudged every one of them, and now here they were driving and driving on and on in a stupid little eco-car with no power, further and further away from anything he’d ever known. Presently they came to the end of the land and a flat, flat sea and a long bridge which took them over to the island.

  It occurred to Neil that the one thing he could never get used to was the landscape. It was wide and flat somehow smoothed out, and empty.

  ‘You’ll love the house,’ this Lone said. ‘It’s right on the edge of the sea. My father built it. He’s a famous architect. Your father is a famous architect too, but not as famous as my father.’

  Neil smiled at her with his bright brave smile and said nothing.

  And Lone looked sideways at Neil, and thought this is not what I meant at all. He was a good looking child with his father’s square chin and bright eyes, but dark and gypsy-ish like his mother. And he had a shocked look, almost stunned, as if he had been hit, and a kind of fixed smile which made her uneasy. She wanted to do her best by the child of the man she loved, of course she did, but why Ben had gone to court to get custody she could not understand. Neil was a child, not some kind of unfinished building Ben was obliged to complete. It was very sad that his poor mother had died of cervical cancer, and so suddenly, but his grandmother had been willing to look after him; why couldn’t Ben have left it at that? There was the new baby to consider. And within ten minutes of meeting the boy at the airport Ben’s Blackberry had summoned him back to some emergency, and she, Lone, was left to undertake the long drive on her own. No, this was not what she had envisaged at all. Life with a stepson who rather clearly hated you. Life with a son – she’d had scans and knew – would be bad enough: she had so wanted a girl.