Mavis Belfrage

by Alasdair Gray

  “Do you know what you’re talking about?” asked Gordon who was listening with an obvious mixture of amusement, boredom and exasperation.

  “Unfortunately yes. And now I regret I can stay no longer,” said Schweik glancing at his wristwatch. “It is a pity. I would have liked to meet charming Mavis again. One remembers interesting students because the majority are dead timber, psychologically speaking.”

  “So why teach them psychology?” asked Gordon.

  “Ah Mr Kerr, we academics are entitled to question everyone but our paymasters!” said Schweik smiling and standing up. “May I offer you a lift into town Mr Kerr?”

  “Very kind of you. Yes, you may. The last bus went twenty minutes ago.”

  The guests left and Colin gently shook Bill awake saying, “Go upstairs Bill. I’ll wait for her.”

  “Pull yourself together,” said Bill, yawning. “Things aren’t as bad as you think.”

  He wandered off to bed. Colin waited.

  At half past three she came home and looked into the living-room with the cool sympathy of a surgeon visiting a patient after an operation.

  “Hullo,” she said.

  “Hullo.”

  “How did it go?”

  “Can’t you guess?”

  “Yes. I suppose that’s what frightened me away. You’re brooding. You should be in bed.”

  He neither moved nor looked at her. She said, “If you want me to apologize I will. I’ll even try to be abject. Will I apologize?”

  “No.”

  “Then I may as well go to bed myself.”

  On a gentler note she added, “Come to bed Colin. I’ll be nice to you. You know I can be, sometimes.”

  “No.”

  “Well, good night. I ought to feel guilty but I’ve worn that feeling out. I told you I was a bitch at the very start, Colin.”

  “Can you not change, Mavis?”

  “O yes. One day I’ll be old and lonely because nobody will find me attractive. Meanwhile you must either kick me out or let me stay. Brooding can’t alter that.”

  “It must.”

  “Well, Colin, if you think of something don’t wake me with it. I’m very tired.”

  She went to bed and he continued thinking hard. The problem was that he could not sleep without her and could not join her in bed without loathing himself.

  16

  He wakened her at eighteen minutes past six, switching on the bedside light, sitting on the mattress edge and saying eagerly, “I know what to do, Mavis! I know what to do!”

  Dazed and puzzled she opened her eyes saying, “What’s happening?”

  “Nothing. I’ve just worked out what to do. You see, you hurt and humiliated me tonight, publicly, without needing to. I won’t be able to rest until I’ve hurt you back.”

  With open right hand he smacked her on one cheek, with open left hand hit the other, then lay beside her watching the result. Since she neither cried nor winced the pain may not have been great. Her bewildered look did not change until suddenly blushing red all over she scrambled out of bed away from him, staring and stammering faintly, “You ..! You ..!”

  She seized a hairbrush from the dressing-table and raised it defensively or threateningly, he could not say which but assured her, “I’m all right now. We’re even. Now I can rest.”

  She thrust her face close to his and asked in a quiet, breathless voice, “Happy are you?”

  “No.”

  “Never mind. You’ve beaten a woman. You must think yourself a real he-man.”

  “No, but now I’m able to sleep.”

  “Never mind. It’ll do your ego a power of good.” Thrusting her face close to his she yelled, “Would you like to do it again?”

  “Twice was enough.”

  She sneered, scooped clothes from a chair and went to the door. He sighed and said patiently, “Come back to bed Mavis.”

  She spat at him and went out.

  He lay listening to her rouse and dress an unwilling Bill Belfrage and order him downstairs. She returned to the bedroom and, ignoring his remark that all this fuss was needless, took several things from the wardrobe and went downstairs. Colin arose and followed. Dressed for outdoors she knelt on a bulging suitcase on the lobby floor, tightening straps and watched by Bill who was similarly dressed.

  “Where are we going Mavis?” Bill asked querulously. She did not answer. Colin said, “You can tell him – I won’t hound you.”

  Through clenched teeth she muttered, “I don’t know where we’re going.”

  “Stay here till you do,” said Colin. “Sleep in Gordon’s old room if you’ve finished with me.”

  She picked up the suitcase and told Bill, “Open the front door.”

  Bill did.

  “Mavis,” said Colin, “borrow my car but I want it back – tomorrow night, if possible.”

  “I’m not a thief, don’t worry,” she muttered.

  “Goodbye,” said Colin.

  “Say goodbye,” she commanded Bill.

  “Goodbye,” said Bill.

  The door closed behind mother and son and that was the last time Colin Kerr saw Bill Belfrage.

  17

  He heard the car returning soon after eleven on Monday morning. He heard her enter the front door and climb the stairs. She came into the bedroom carrying a suitcase, went straight to the dressing-table, opened the top drawer and half emptied it before noticing him in bed watching her. Startled she said, “Hullo! Why are you not at work?”

  He did not answer. Partly amused, partly disdainful she looked at a glass and half-full vodka bottle on the bedside table and asked, “Are you drinking?”

  “Yes,” he said thickly. “Don’t like it much.”

  “Then stop it. You’d better phone Gordon as soon as possible. I’m here to clear out the last of my things and leave the keys and the car.”

  She finished packing then sat for a moment not looking at him, twisting her fingers together and saying, “Colin I’m not angry that you hit me, please don’t think that. I’m surprised now you didn’t do it sooner. But we’ve become bad for each other, very bad, I don’t know why. We’d better not meet again. I also think you should send for your father. You need company – someone to look after you – but there’s clean socks and underwear here which should last a fortnight.”

  He said loudly, “I don’t want, in a day, or a week, or a fortnight, to find in a drawer the socks you cleaned and folded up for me yesterday morning when we were both happy.”

  “Well, I think you should very soon get in touch with Gordon. There – I’ve put the keys in this little dish. Goodbye.”

  “Mavis!” he cried, heaving himself up a little on an elbow and blinking at her. She paused in the doorway, watching him in a haunted way. His thick, clogged voice tried to reassure her.

  “Mavis whatever happens don worry. Good things don go bad because they nevr last. Y’re all right Mavis. Whatever happens evything right. Member that!”

  She hurried away and he heard the front door shut

  and shortly after got up, pulled a dressing-gown over his pyjamas, took a pillow from the bed and carried it down to the kitchen. Here he slightly scorched his fingers removing a metal cap covering a pilot light on the cooker. Stooping he managed, after several efforts, to blow the light out. Opening the oven door he removed two sliding grids, put the pillow inside, turned the oven burners full on then lay on the kitchen floor with head on the pillow breathing deeply. He breathed deeply for what seemed several minutes then wondered why the only alteration to mind and body seemed a greater sobriety. When small he had heard his mother’s friends whisper solemnly, “she put her head in the gas oven”, “they put their heads in the gas oven”, so had thought gassing a swift and simple way to die, but of course gossip always simplifies things. He tried to consider the matter scientifically. If coal gas was lighter than air it was flowing up to the kitchen ceiling, so would not suffocate him until enough had collected to fill the room down to the level of h
is nostrils. If heavier than air it was pouring past him onto the kitchen floor and would only work when it had risen upward to cover him like water. Should he stand up and start again by covering the oven with a tent of hanging blankets and crawling under? But perhaps the prospect of death had so speeded his thinking that what now seemed ten minutes was only a few seconds. At that moment he heard the front door open. Gordon was now the only other person with a key to it. With Keystone Cops rapidity Colin jumped up from the floor, switched off the oven, snatched out the pillow, closed the cooker door.

  Gordon entered the kitchen and found his son sitting at the table with folded arms on a pillow. Colin said, “Hullo Dad.”

  “What’s wrong with you? Why’s your phone off the hook?”

  “Headache.”

  “Faint smell of gas in here.”

  “Is there?”

  Colin got up and went to the cooker, sniffed, peered and said, “The pilot light’s gone out.”

  He relit it and asked, “A cup of tea?”

  “Sit down. I’ll make it.”

  Colin sat. Gordon filled the electric kettle, switched it on and asked, “Where’s Mavis?”

  “Left me.”

  After a moment Gordon murmured, “I see,” and sat down facing him, then pointed a forefinger and said urgently, “Listen son. Listen. When a thing like this happens to a man the first thing he must do is, cut his losses.” Colin stared at him then started laughing. Three seconds later the laughter became its opposite. With elbow on table and brow on fist Colin shook with almost silent sobs. Gordon sat watching him until the kettle boiled.

  18

  One evening three months later Clive Evans watched a rugby match on television while Mavis lay on the hearthrug reading a Sunday paper, fingers pressing ears to shut out the commentator’s gabble. The game ended. Evans switched off the set, yawned and said, “They should have won. I don’t know who’s to blame for the result – them, the referee or their opponents, but they should have won.”

  Mavis turned a page of the paper.

  “I’m going out for an hour or two, Mavis. See you about eleven.”

  “For a drink I suppose.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And I’m not coming?”

  “I’ll be seeing Jack and Ernie Thomson and Hamish Cunningham most likely. Do you like them Mavis?”

  “I think they’re bores.”

  “And you don’t hide your feelings, do you? Frankly, Mavis, you’re an embarrassment in certain company. Why do you want to meet my boring acquaintances?”

  “I’m lonely,” she said in a low voice.

  Evans sighed, chose an apple from a bowl, ate it thoughtfully then said, “I’m sorry you’re lonely Mavis but what can I do? We could kill the next two hours watching telly or playing rummy but that would make two people miserable instead of one. We’d be like married couples who stop each other enjoying the things they can’t share so lead lives that are half envy and half boredom. I enjoy my boring friends. I won’t stop meeting them because you don’t enjoy them and have no friends of your own.”

  “You explain everything beautifully,” Mavis said with a bitterness which Evans found infectious. Lifting the fruit bowl he laid it beside her saying softly, “Look Mavis! Lovely apples for you. Try one. They’re delicious. And here’s a bookcase half a yard away. The best minds in human history, Shakespeare, George Eliot, Agatha Christie, Edna O’Brien have sweated blood to fill these shelves for you. Or here’s television, our window on the world, a choice of three windows nowadays. Not a night goes by without it showing people slaughtered by bombs in Asia or famine in Africa. Watch them doing it and feel privileged Mavis. Or do you want the sound of a friendly human voice? Try the telephone! Dial the speaking clock and find what the time will be on the third stroke.”

  His voice had grown louder but now, losing his temper, he thrust his face toward hers and said in spitting whisper, “Do anything, Mavis, but shut me up in your depressing little predicament for the next two hours.”

  She cried out, “I wish I hadn’t sent Bill away! He loved me.”

  “Kids have no choice, have they?” said Evans soberly. “Funny. I never thought there was cruelty in me but when you tighten your sullen screws on me the stuff comes bubbling out, doesn’t it?”

  She seemed to ignore him. He put a coat on saying, “You’re still a young woman. Why not try for a job?”

  “What job? Nursing the sick? Wrapping biscuits in a factory?”

  “Your trouble is you feel too good for the world so have to depend on people like me, who don’t.”

  At the door he turned and said, “I still love you Mavis, as much as you let me nowadays. I’m still glad we met when you were tiring of Colin Kerr. Weeks may pass before you find a way to leave me. Let’s pass them as pleasantly as possible, eh? When I come back at eleven I’ll be a lot less ironical.”

  He left and soon after she went to the phone and dialled. A voice said Colin Kerr here.

  In a low voice she said, “Hullo Colin. Do you remember me?”

  Mavis! How good to hear you! I was hoping you would call.

  “You mean that?”

  Of course.

  “Would you like to see me?”

  Of course. I’d have called you long ago but didn’t know where you were.

  “Tonight?”

  Definitely.

  “Could you pick me up in the car?”

  No, I’ve sold it.

  “Then I’ll come by bus unless … Colin, is Gordon with you?”

  No.

  “Right, I’m leaving now. Are you sure you don’t hate me?”

  I love you.

  “I just want to see you tonight Colin.”

  Fine. Do it.

  19

  At Saint Leonard’s Bank the Colin who opened the door to her was more fleshy, more relaxed, more like his father than the Colin she remembered. He led her into a living-room where a rolled carpet lay like a felled tree trunk on bare floorboards. Windows were curtainless. All furniture but the sofa was stacked in a corner.

  “You’re leaving!” she said.

  “That’s right.”

  “So I’ve caught you on your last night in the old home?”

  “O no. I’ll be here till Tuesday when the furniture will be removed. Then I’ll spend a week in Gordon’s place, then I’ll go to Zambia.”

  “Why?”

  “To lecture in a college there.”

  “Why?”

  “It might be more interesting. It might not, of course. Come with me and find out. But first of all, a coffee? I can also offer sherry. I still have a full bottle I bought for that disastrous party.”

  “Coffee please,” she said smiling back at him. “I’m glad you didn’t drink all the booze in the house.”

  He went to the kitchen. She walked to the sofa between books piled on the floor. Before she arrived he had obviously been tying his library in bundles. She sat and lit a cigarette. He returned with a loaded tray and sat beside her with the tray between them.

  “Your health,” he said, raising a mug of tea.

  “Yours!” she said, lifting a mug of coffee. They clinked mugs and sipped.

  “Life with Evans hasn’t made you less beautiful Mavis.”

  “That’s the first compliment you’ve ever paid to my looks, Colin Kerr! You used to take them for granted. I hated it.”

  He smiled back and said, “I was maybe too shy to pay compliments, but I never took your looks for granted. Have an ashtray. How’s Bill?”

  “He’s at a boarding school.”

  He stared at her in horror. She said defensively, “It’s a very good boarding school. His father is paying for it.”

  “You sent him to strangers? Maybe you’re a wicked woman after all. I think, Mavis,” said Colin firmly, “you had better come back to me.”

  “I don’t recognize you, Colin.”

  “It’s your fault…” (he looked down ruefully at the curve of his abdomen) �
��… whenever I feel lonely nowadays I eat. It helps.”

  “I’m not talking about your figure.”

  “I love you.”

  “You don’t look unhappy.”

  “I’m not. I’ve learned to love you without that. I’m grateful, Mavis!”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes you do! You’re responsible for it. Before we met my life was almost wholly shaped by my father and I didn’t even know. He’s such a decent man that I don’t think he knew either. Going to Cambridge changed nothing because Cambridge was a cosy patriarchy too. That’s why I needed you who hated everything that cramped me. So you drove Dad out and started shaping my life yourself. Thank God you weren’t a decent Scots woman who would have kept me at my pointless job in that dull college for the rest of my life! I’ve never been good at asserting myself. But you forced me to assert myself – before you cleared out.”

  “So now you’re happy and free?” she asked sarcastically.

  “I’m independent. I can be alone without going melancholy-mad. What others think no longer worries me much. I don’t need you, Mavis, but I want you because you’re bonny and reckless and clever and now I can love you like a man. It wasn’t a man who loved you three months ago. It was …” (he thought a little then smiled with amusement and distaste) “… a dog shaped like a man.”

  Abruptly Mavis stubbed out her cigarette and said, “You’re a stranger to me Colin.”

  “Good! Your life has been full of strangers. Try life with this one.”

  “But you aren’t the sort of stranger I like.”

  His smile faded. She stood up and said, “I suppose I’m glad you’re happy, Colin, but you’re the sort of man I most detest because the world is so full of you: all glib and grinning and damnably, damnably sure of themselves. You used to be … not like that. I loved you then.”