by Fay Weldon
‘Perhaps he’s sickening for measles,’ says Margot, ‘I thought he might be this morning. Have you taken his temperature?’
‘I haven’t got a thermometer. We’re never ill.’
‘Well,’ says Margot, ‘I’ll tell Philip when he comes back. You really ought to get through to the Night Service after six, you know.’
‘I don’t trust them,’ says Lily, and puts the phone down.
‘What’s the matter with your voice?’ asks Enid. ‘It’s very hoarse. And why did you say Philip was out when he’s not?’
‘Because there’s nothing the matter with her snotty little brat,’ says Margot, ‘she’s just in a fury because Jarvis has gone out with Hilary, and she’s after Philip, I know she is. Nasty predatory little bitch. Anything in trousers will do for her.’
Enid frowns puzzled.
‘But you usually say how lovely she is,’ she remarks. ‘And fancy Jarvis taking Hilary to a film like that,’ says Margot, thrusting her fingers through hair barely long enough to make the gesture worth while, ‘mind you, he never thought of anyone except himself. It just wouldn’t occur to him she might be upset. And if it did, he’d forget it pretty quick, in case it interfered with his enjoyment.’
Jarvis’s enjoyment!
Margot’s too; long ago. At Madeleine’s expense.
Good evening.
It was much the same for Margot when she encountered Jarvis on his twenty-ninth birthday. She found herself dancing with him but having nothing to say; a social predicament which in those days she dreaded.
Easier to kiss Philip in the sluice room than think of something creditable to say.
Easier to follow Jarvis upstairs than say something witty, sophisticated and sparkling.
Margot had gone with her friend Katriona—who later so nearly died of septicaemia, and who’d been at college with Madeleine—to Jarvis’s twenty-ninth birthday party. It was some time after Margot’s abortion and she was feeling low, and bored by her secretarial course, and lonely in her bed-sitting room, and yearning for Philip (or so she interpreted the pain of the stifled surging of her young life) and she was pleased to be asked, though she could not see the hostess anywhere. Mind you, it was a large house. And a whole house! Everyone else Margot knew lived in a hostel, or a bedsitting room, or, at best, shared a flat. But a whole house for two people!
Jarvis dances with Margot: his eyes seldom leave her breasts. He has had too much punch to drink. He says nothing. If she tries to speak he puts his fingers across her lips, thus solving many of her problems. He seems to be including her, this host, this man of property, sophistication, friends and temperament, in some kind of conspiracy. She is flattered. Their bodies bump together, melt together.
Bodies do. He takes her by the hand, draws her out of the room, still secret, silent, conspiratorial, and with drunken precision leads her up, step by step, stair by stair, to the spare room, where the remains of the wallpaper put up long ago by Philippa Cutts’ father, great splodgy roses on a fawn ground, now peels, from the wall, and the broken bed sags under the weight of the damp coats of the guests: and there he forces punch down her more than willing mouth, and, by the pressure of his body against her, eases her on to her back, upon the bed: a V-neck sweater slips easily off one arm, and then with a little pressure off the other; and then her bra is easily removed, and her breasts exposed—and if she hadn’t wanted that to happen, would she have worn such a sweater?—and then at last he speaks. ‘You have pink nipples. Thank God. I can’t stand brown ones.’
But if she speaks, he lays his finger on her lips: and really, she would rather his fingers were elsewhere, so she remains silent, until she is totally unclothed, and seated on top of him—what is happening she scarcely knows, so little does this experience accord with any information her mother, her friends, her nursing manuals have given her. So far as she knew, the man lay on top of the woman; in bed according to them; in the sluice room, according to her one single experience. She did clearly hear Jarvis say, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll only put it in a little way.’ Did he? Is he? It doesn’t feel like it, but how is a girl to know? She can’t look, that would be indecent. She can only feel. And feelings, physical sensations, when related to such an unexplored, uncharted area of her own genital organs, she can see might not necessarily accord with what was happening to them and in them.
Presumably he is right and she is wrong. Men know what they are doing. Any man, however drunk, knows better than any woman, however sober. Or so Winifred had brought her up to believe. The more you defer to the male, the more popular you’ll be; the richer you’ll end up. The door opens once, twice, closes again. Margot does not hear, does not know: this is the best, the most valuable, the most transfiguring experience of her life so far: she is blind at last to sense and prudence. How wonderful!
Presently in any case he falls asleep, though in a companionable manner, not a rude one. Has he finished? She does not know. She cannot tell. She disengages herself quickly from the host, dresses quickly and guiltily—supposing she is surprised by the hostess, the host’s wife?—and goes downstairs, and quickly, quickly, out of the house and home to recover.
Later that very night Philip her true love comes knocking on her door, begging to be let in. He cannot live without her. He’d been to the party, looking for her, failing to find her. ‘I came home early,’ she said. ‘Nothing’s any fun without you.’
Bitch. Liar. But how nice to believe what you want to believe.
Four weeks later there she is again, pregnant.
Well, Jarvis said he’d only put it in a little way so presumably he had, and in any case wouldn’t it all fall out, that way up? She’d been wet enough. And nobody knew.
And though Philip wore a French letter everyone knew they weren’t reliable. In the light of events he at any rate assumed it had been faulty.
That was in the days—remember?—before the pill or the coil, when men took responsibility (or didn’t) for birth control, and girls relied on abstinence (or the good intentions of men) to keep themselves unpregnant, and diaphragms were available to married women only. Otherwise, the theory went, promiscuity amongst the young people would know no bounds. The fear of pregnancy being the beginning of morality.
Margot forgot the Jarvis episode as best she could. What else could she do? It was too shocking to be true. Two men in one night! When up till then her average had been one man in twenty-two years—and that on only the one occasion, in the sluice room of the maternity ward—and the proper way up. She had the feeling, in any case, that the other way up didn’t count. She developed a quite inflated notion of Philip’s fertility. He’d done it once, he’d done it twice.
This time Margot, at Philip’s insistence, proceeded with the pregnancy. She was married, in church, in splendid, radiant white, four months pregnant with Laurence. Margot’s mother, Winifred, acknowledged defeat and even paid for the wedding and the reception out of her savings, since Philip’s parents declined to attend the wedding. But Jill came in her wheelchair, and took the wedding photographs. She’d taken up amateur photography as a hobby. You can do that quite well from a wheelchair. ‘Why don’t you just have the baby,’ suggests Margot now to Enid. ‘Babies solve so many problems.’
And so they had, for her.
But Enid is not to be convinced. Her work at the Department has repeatedly indicated that babies are the cause of many problems, both practically and statistically. Unemployment, low family income, immobility of labour, inflation—you can put the lot down to babies.
When Margot gets up to show Enid out, her foot is dragging again.
‘Are you limping?’ asks Enid.
‘I don’t know what the matter is,’ says Margot, ‘Philip says its psychosomatic.’
‘I bet he does,’ says Enid, unkindly. ‘I suppose it’s something to have the use of both legs. Madeleine Katkin had one of hers cut right off in that car crash. She and Jarvis were Sam’s first customers. He’s quite upset about it.’
‘They don’t say much at all,’ says Margot. ‘They just drink.’ Enid stares at her friend. Margot’s in a strange mood, thinks Enid, and she’s not looking well. Her eyes are hollow and staring. ‘Poor thing,’ says Enid. ‘Though why she just didn’t get herself a decent job I can’t think. I’d never live off alimony. But then I’ve got too much pride and I’m not afraid of hard work.’
How those who can manage despise those who don’t.
Unfair!
‘She had Hilary to look after.’
‘That’s what I mean about children,’ says Enid gloomily. ‘They stop you doing what you want. Madeleine always looked such a mess, didn’t she. I’ve noticed that about mothers—they always have such an ungroomed look. No wonder Jarvis went off with Lily. Madeleine drove him into her arms, Sam says.’
Sam would. Enid leaves.
Only the fair deserve the brave. Only the fair.
Well, of course, in a manner of speaking, that’s what Madeleine did. She drove Jarvis away. What with her untidiness, her coach journeys, her couriers and her talk of sexual freedom: a liking for all men, it seemed, just so long as they weren’t poor Jarvis; as if Jarvis had suddenly become too old for the fancying on his twenty-ninth birthday.
She denied it all, everything, afterwards: she said she’d only made it up about the couriers; she said it in order to tease Jarvis, because he was neglecting her, never going on holiday with her, never leaving his work for a single day, on her account let alone on poor little Hilary’s. Sex on her holidays? How could she do anything like that, lugging Hilary along?
Oh, panic!
It had all been talk; she’d never, anyway, stopped loving Jarvis: it was just she couldn’t stand his attitudes, his coldness to herself, to Hilary. If she’d nagged, it had only been revenge for his coldness and indifference: couldn’t he understand that? She was sorry, terribly sorry. Couldn’t they just start again?
But by that time it was too late to say sorry. Jarvis had become enamoured of Lily, his partner’s secretary, and that was that. Slim, sweet (sweeter, in those days) and lovable. Jarvis told Madeleine all about it—hadn’t they agreed always to be honest? (Well, she’d agreed for both of them, back in the old days of her ascendancy.) He’d just nodded, for the sake of not missing Match of the Day on television. Jarvis was a great soccer fan: his phoney working-class yearnings, as Madeleine described them (oh, unkind, desertable Madeleine). Jarvis was quite affronted when Madeleine objected to his relationship with Lily. Madeleine had driven him to it, after all, showing her boredom, in bed, flaunting her infidelities. What had she thought would happen?
Jarvis brought Lily home to meet Madeleine.
Lily thought that Madeleine was singularly over-possessive, jealous, and careless of her appearance. What, it was both their refrain, had Madeleine thought would happen? Madeleine deserved to lose Jarvis: poor Jarvis: overweight, unhappy, bronchial Jarvis, and all due to Madeleine. Her fault, not theirs. What did Madeleine think of Lily? Jarvis wasn’t listening. And actually Madeleine was too stunned, more or less, to speak.
Jarvis moved into the spare room. Presently he moved Lily in there, too. Well, he had to. Lily was pregnant. What else could he do? No, he wouldn’t give Madeleine a divorce. That would mean selling the house and breaking up Hilary’s home. Hilary was the only important person in all this mess. Everyone agreed.
If Madeleine didn’t like it, Madeleine would have to go. No, Madeleine couldn’t take Hilary. Hilary was his, by law. Madeleine was a bad mother—whoring on holiday in Hilary’s presence. Everyone knew. Madeleine had boyfriends by the dozen, couldn’t he even enjoy his one true love in peace? What was all the fuss about, he’d like to know?
Panic!
Madeleine stole Hilary out of bed one night and ran away with her. Mutual friends, fearful of interfering between husband and wife, mindful of the sanctity of marriage, declined to take her in. Madeleine got a living-in job as a cleaner, child not objected to. Lily moved into the main bedroom. Jarvis sued Madeleine for divorce. She’d driven him to driving her out. Everyone knew.
Panic!
The pain in Margot’s leg gets more intense: her breath comes in gasps. It’s psychosomatic, thinks Margot. It must be. What else can it be? Philip is right. It’s hysterical. That’s all. Control it. Don’t fight it. Enter the pain; don’t resist it.
Now I know how Madeleine died, of course, it’s worse. Chest and leg.
Margot takes Panadol, three, four, five tablets, but the drug has no effect. She reels. She gasps. She crawls on the floor. No one comes to help. Who’s going to? No one knows that Enid has gone, and Margot’s voice no longer seems her own to summon them.
Presently Margot crawls to the telephone and dials Lily’s number.
‘You bitch,’ says Madeleine/Margot in her new hoarse voice, in response to Lily’s best, fluty hostess tones. ‘You filthy murdering bitch. You stole Jarvis. You shan’t have Hilary too.’
‘Who’s that?’ demands Lily, in panic. ‘Who is it? What are you talking about?’
In the past Lily has received many such phone calls from Madeleine, and discounted them, on Jarvis’s instructions, as sick, mad ravings. The very reason, after all, that Jarvis had to leave mad Madeleine and cleave to Lily. But Madeleine is dead. This voice is not quite like Madeleine’s, not quite. Did Madeleine have a sister, so far unheard of? Is there someone still left to pursue, reproach, and threaten poor Lily for following her heart’s desire? Poor Lily! Has she not given Jarvis back his youth, his health, his happiness? How can she deserve such persecution?
Margot puts down the phone. The pain has dissolved. She feels quite better, quite herself. Who was she telephoning? She can’t remember. And hush! Philip comes in, weary and worn from tax. Such paperwork! What has it got to do with healing the sick? Listen!
1 PHILIP: Enid gone?
2 MARGOT: Yes.
3 PHILIP: How was she?
4 MARGOT: Pregnant.
5 PHILIP: Don’t tell me. I’ll know soon enough. Who’s the father?
6 MARGOT: Sam, of course.
7 PHILIP: What, after all these years? You’re joking.
8 MARGOT: I think that’s very cynical of you.
9 PHILIP: All women are the same, my dear; except you, of course.
10 MARGOT: And that’s very patronising.
11 PHILIP: What’s the matter with you tonight?
12 MARGOT: Nothing.
13 PHILIP: Were you on the phone just now?
14 MARGOT: No.
15 PHILIP: Oh, I thought I heard it pinging.
16 MARGOT: Don’t you believe me?
17 PHILIP: Of course. You’re very edgy, Margot. Perhaps you should have a tranquilliser before you go to bed.
18 MARGOT: Perhaps.
Which being translated is:
1 PHILIP: Is it safe?
2 MARGOT: Yes.
3 PHILIP: I’ll try to be polite, though I don’t feel like it.
4 MARGOT: Actually, Enid’s not as boring as you thought.
5 PHILIP: Yes she is. Boring and immoral.
6 MARGOT: She’s nothing of the kind.
7 PHILIP: I have some knowledge of human nature.
8 MARGOT: You’re not the man I married.
9 PHILIP: I have a low opinion of women, especially you.
10 MARGOT: I know what you really mean.
11 PHILIP: Why are you reacting to things as if I were saying them for the first time?
12 MARGOT:
I’m not telling you anything.
13 PHILIP: Women. Always gossiping.
14 MARGOT: I shall retaliate by lying.
15 PHILIP: But I will catch you out in a lie.
16 MARGOT: Am I in the custom of lying?
17 PHILIP: You are a difficult woman and I am a very patient man. I make no distinction between you and my many middle-aged, neurotic female patients.
18 MARGOT: That’s unfair.
Margot and Philip go to bed, and lie far apart. What’s the matter with them both? Margot lies awake. Philip sleeps.
Margot/Madeleine gets up and stalks the room, hollow-eyed. Devil, she thinks. This devil I’m married to. He uses up my youth, saps my strength, exploits my good nature; he uses me as servant, whore, a punch bag for his ill humour. He gives nothing in return. I am married to the devil. See, how he smiles in his sleep? He is impervious to my distress: worse, he grows strong on it.
The doctor’s wife pinches the doctor’s arm sharply and suddenly. The doctor wakes and cries out in alarm.
‘I want us to have Hilary here,’ says Margot/Madeleine, with the gravelly taste of blood in her mouth. ‘Do you understand?’
The doctor stares at the doctor’s wife. Long years of practice—in the days before the prudent introduction of his Night Service—have enabled him to wake suddenly from sleep, and face emergency.
‘What makes you think she’d want to come here?’ enquires the doctor. ‘Why should she? Stop behaving like a mad woman. You’re perfectly sane.’
To which there is no reply.
Philip falls back asleep. Presently Margot feels better, and creeps back into bed beside him, and closes her brown button eyes, and her face falls into its usual sweet, complacent lines, and the doctor’s wife sleeps too, and does not dream.
It is the cold, hard, dreamless sleep of the dead, all the same. As if, in mimicry of Philip’s father, who never wanted her, never acknowledged her, Margot is trying death out for size, getting into practice; as the womb will get into practice months before a birth, with a few trial contractions. Just in case you forget.