Lace II

by Shirley Conran

  “What’s got into me?” Judy was suddenly quiet. “I’m terrified that I’ll end up like my mother, feeding the cat and watching the neighbors and waiting. I don’t want to be powerless like she was, just sitting helplessly in the middle of her own life, waiting for it to end.”

  “There’s a lot to be said for that sort of life.” Now Mark was angry. “At least that sort of woman isn’t jealous of her own daughter.” He was unable to resist the urge to hurt the suddenly vulnerable Judy. “You used to say that jealousy was the penalty of thinking only about externals. You used to say that there would always be younger, more beautiful women in the world. You used to say that jealousy never troubled a self-confident woman.”

  “So now I know I was wrong!” Judy shouted. “Do you want to know how it feels to become a mother when you’re my age and then suddenly find that your baby is one of the most beautiful women in the world?”

  In the hall, Lili didn’t want to hear any more but she didn’t want to leave. Mesmerized, like a frog in car headlights, she felt unable to move.

  “Do you really want to know what it feels like to be Lili’s mother?” Judy continued. “It feels as if I’m slowly becoming nobody! It feels as if I’m becoming the Invisible Woman! Little by little, I’m losing my identity! Very quickly, I’m losing the business that I spent twenty years building up. So I’m losing my job, my status, my money. I’m facing financial and professional disaster and disgrace. And I’m desperately afraid of failure—all because I’m Lili’s mother.” Her voice cracked. “Everything’s slipping away and I’m frightened, Mark.” Too late, she was finally telling her lover what was on her mind.

  Lili stood up and tiptoed to her room, tears running down her face. She didn’t want to listen any longer, as the two people she cared for tore their relationship to pieces—because of her.

  * * *

  Judy perched in front of her breakfast counter sipping her high-energy drink—the juice of an orange, a teaspoonful of honey and a whole, raw egg; it was blended every morning for her breakfast, and tasted nicer then it sounded. Force of habit had compelled her to get up at her usual six o’clock, but this morning there had been no reason to linger because Mark had moved out the night before, with his clothes stuffed into a khaki duffel bag. He had been exhausted and angry because Judy couldn’t understand his predicament. As Mark saw it, he was being falsely accused of disloyalty, when he had tried to be truthful and faithful.

  Gallant, confident Judy, the brave little drummer boy, had suddenly crumpled into a clutching, distraught female, and Mark simply didn’t know how to cope with her; he wished he could help her but he couldn’t. He could see that his presence upset her. So he had left. It seemed better than having an all-night row, which is what they had been obviously heading for. He had said, “Take care of yourself, Judy,” then walked out of the door, leaving Judy bitterly to wonder why people always say, “Take care of yourself,” when they meant that they don’t intend to take care of you. She’d never needed a man in her life so badly before, and now, when she needed Mark, he was leaving her. He thought he’d be able to get an assignment in Nicaragua. It might as well be the moon.

  As Judy finished her drink, Tom called from the VERVE! office. “Not good news, Judy,” he warned.

  “Hit me, I can take it,” she replied, dully, their joke formula for riding a crisis.

  “Judy, I can’t keep up this juggling act much longer. I’ve held the creditors off for as long as I can, but they won’t take our-check-is-in-the-mail any longer. This is now more than a cash problem. We’ll have to pull something out of the hat, fast, Judy.”

  There’s nothing left in the hat, Judy thought to herself, as the other phone rang and she picked it up. It was Lili’s agent, Stash. A phone clasped to either ear, Judy said, “Morning, Stash, d’you want Lili? I think she’s still asleep.”

  “No, I want you.” His silky voice held a trace of middle Europe. Judy turned to the left telephone and said, “I’ll call you back, Tom,” then turned to the right and said, “Why, Stash?”

  “Would VERVE! magazine like to be one of the sponsors of the International Beauty Pageant this year?” the worldweary voice inquired.

  “Sounds interesting.” Judy’s voice was guarded. “What does it involve?”

  “They want you to be one of the judges in Miami, and then you would chaperone the winner to Istanbul and Egypt, on the start of her world tour.”

  “Our policy on VERVE! is to soft-pedal the beauty contests. We like to think that our readers have more on their minds than lipstick.” Judy’s response was automatic. “In any case, our sponsorship program is allocated for this year.” Years of experience had taught Judy never to say no outright, even when people approached her for money.

  “This isn’t the normal deal; you won’t have to put in a cent. They’re offering you a big slice of equity in return for coverage in the magazine and identification with yourself. They want to reposition the beauty contests so that no woman would feel them degrading.”

  “I appreciate your offer, Stash, but I couldn’t leave New York.”

  Stash said, “These days, New York is only twelve hours away from anywhere, and your magazine works on a six-week schedule; it’s not as if you were running a daily newspaper.”

  Judy paused. Stash mentioned the money involved. Judy gasped. Carefully backpedaling, she said, “We’ve always made a point of staying in touch with the average American woman and her ambitions; and there’s no doubt that the beauty queen is one of the most fascinating figures of our age. Providing the terms are right, I think it would be in all our interests, but I may have to fly back if there are any … business problems.”

  After discussing further details with Stash, Judy exuberantly called Tom. “Hi, this time we really are about to mail the check.”

  * * *

  “She bought it right away, just like you said.” Wearing his usual vicuna coat and black leather gloves, Stash walked into Lili’s bedroom without knocking. Judy had long since left her apartment and gone to the office. Stash knew that there was no chance of being overheard.

  Lili gasped rhythmically as the Japanese masseur made delicate crisscross movements up and down her spine with his thumbs. “Are the International Beauty people happy?” she asked, as she was rolled over.

  Stash’s glance at her flesh was that of professional appraisal. Knowing how much Lili could eat, he vigilantly checked her weight and, when he did so, he also made a covert inspection for needle tracks in her arms, crepe skin that would indicate diuretic abuse, puffiness that might be due to drink. That was part of an agent’s job. As usual, Lili was amused by the lizardlike, quick appraisal.

  Stash said, “Frankly, they took a lot of persuading. They said they didn’t need a woman’s magazine.”

  Lili yawned, “If they want me as a judge, then they’ve got to have VERVE! as a sponsor.” The Japanese masseur started to attack Lili’s left thigh as she continued. “Oh, Stash, I’ve decided to do the Mistinguett film after all.”

  Stash was surprised. “I thought wild horses couldn’t drag you away from your mother at the moment!” He looked serious. “It’s about time you got back to work again, Lili. We both know that I get no percentage if you don’t work for six months. But you can’t afford to be out of view for that long. You know how fast they forget, and how fickle the public can be.”

  “Yes, but I thought that learning to love my mother was more important than money or fame; now I now that the best thing I can do for my mother is leave town.”

  “Okay, I’ll set up meetings with Omnium.” He was delighted. Not only was it a great dramatic part, but it was the best vehicle yet for Lili’s considerable singing and dancing talents. She’d have to get fit fast, but that was the only problem.

  Lili sat up on the massage table and pulled out the tortoise-shell pin which held her silky hair clear of the massage oil. “It’ll be fun to spend the summer in Britain,” she said, without much conviction. “Though I ca
n’t understand why they want to make a film about a French vaudeville star in Britain.”

  Stash shrugged. “Maybe they got a tax situation; maybe Omnium has some money blocked somewhere; maybe a reciprocal deal…”

  7

  March 1979

  SIR CHRISTOPHER’S COFFIN was carried out of the chapel at Trelawney; on top of it was a single red rose from Pagan and a nosegay of white daisies from their fifteen-year-old daughter, Sophia.

  In spite of the dreadful weather, Pagan had insisted that the funeral party walk to the private chapel from the stone manor house. A fierce Cornish wind blew from the cliffs, thrashing the blooming thickets of rhododendrons, whipping at Pagan’s black veil and threatening to blow the sodden, black umbrellas inside out.

  Pagan had insisted on an old-fashioned burial, and there had been an explosive family row when Selma, her mother’s partner, had remarked that, as most of Sir Christopher’s organs were now in the deep freeze waiting to be dissected by medical students, it hardly seemed worthwhile to bury what was left.

  Pagan knew what had prompted her vicious remark. Selma had helped Pagan’s mother to convert the debt-ridden manor house into a profitable health farm. Selma had almost succeeded in cheating Pagan of her inheritance, and Selma could never forgive the younger woman for the fact that one day the entire estate and the entire business would belong to Pagan.

  “Darlings, don’t come, I want to be alone,” Pagan had firmly told Judy and Maxine. So now Pagan stood alone at her husband’s graveside, and the rain beat down on the big black umbrellas, as the box that contained Christopher was lowered into the rich red Cornish earth.

  Pagan still couldn’t believe that Christopher was gone and that, after her sixteen years of care because of his serious heart condition, her husband could have been wiped out by one careless driver’s one careless moment. After long years of cancer research, Christopher’s team had been on the verge of a triumphant breakthrough, but now success had been snatched from him, and he had been snatched from her.

  Pagan felt far away, as if she were watching the entire scene from the top of the tiny seventeenth-century church. Everyone present, including herself, seemed doll-sized, as they huddled in the graveyard. As the priest intoned “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” in the teeth of the gale, Pagan wondered if there was a sinister reason why the grass in graveyards was always so thick and green; she could hardly see the little yellow aconites which studded the turf.

  Beside her, young Sophia cried silently into one of her father’s enormous handkerchiefs. “I’m sorry, Mummy, I can’t stop crying.”

  “It doesn’t matter, my darling. Daddy won’t mind you howling your eyes out.”

  Why aren’t I crying? Pagan wondered. She blinked her eyes to try to make tears come, but nothing happened. I should be crying, Pagan told herself, I’ve lost the only man who ever loved me. She tried thinking of all the tenderest moments that she had shared with Christopher, but still no tears came. Mortally wounded men on the battlefield often cannot feel pain. Similarly, some widows cannot cry, and although they often seem to be amazingly collected (almost unfeeling), they are anesthetized by shock.

  Suddenly, a blast of wind blew her umbrella inside out and tore off Pagan’s black velvet hat and veil. Blast God, she thought, for taking Christopher before his work was finished. How dare God do this to me! How can He? I did all I could. It’s not fair. I can’t be expected to put up with this. Why should I? I’ve done so much good. (Well, I haven’t done much bad … Well, I’ve done less bad than most people.) What more does He want? Why did He have to pick on me?

  After the mourners had left, Pagan walked to her favorite cliff-top.

  Her old sheepdog, Buster II, wheezed at her side through the dead bracken. Pagan sat on the weather-beaten wooden bench and recalled Christopher’s black figure sitting here, hunched against the gray sky, when first they had met. Suddenly, Pagan no longer felt sheltered, like a big baby. She felt nothing: no misery, no pain, no grief. Her body felt numb. Inside her head, there was chaos but no feeling; her thoughts bolted crazily in all directions, like a herd of panic-stricken animals. Unwelcome pictures slid into her mind, and she remembered, with distance, her husband’s knobby feet, the way his bald head freckled in the sun, and his irritating habit of loudly crunching peppermints. Pagan thought, how dare Christopher leave me alone? She felt bewildered, disoriented, and frightened by her own feelings. She felt as if she were in a never-ending black tunnel—the Valley of Despair.

  * * *

  During the following three weeks, Pagan was unexpectedly calm, as she held meetings with lawyers, trustees, and accountants. Then she began to forget things. Christopher’s secretary quietly took over the organization of his memorial service at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Smithfield, after she discovered that Pagan had forgotten to invite most of her husband’s closest friends.

  Every morning Pagan heard the newspaper thump through the letterbox and waited hopefully. She always thought, it isn’t true, it hasn’t happened. God wouldn’t let it happen to me. I haven’t done anything to deserve it. It must have been a bad dream and Christopher is really shaving in the bathroom at this very minute.

  “I wish that I wasn’t so terribly tired all the time,” Pagan complained to Sophia, “and I wish it wasn’t so cold in this house. She sat, swaddled in her old Persian lamb cloak, in front of a roaring log fire, and added, “Christopher was so mean about the heating installation.” Sophia decided not to mention that, while the rest of London enjoyed an unusually balmy spring, Pagan’s sitting room thermostat registered 78.

  Two days later, Sophia came home from St. Paul’s school to find her mother pale but dry eyed, briskly digging a hole at the bottom of the garden. Buster’s dead body lay under the plane tree. “I forgot his lead, and the stupid dog ran off after a cat—straight under a motorbike. God knows what we’ve done to deserve two road deaths in one month. But Buster’s time was up, he was almost twenty.” To Pagan, life was unreal. It was a nightmare from which she hoped, shortly, to wake up. Actions were meaningless. People were meaningless. Nothing in life made sense. What was the point of life?

  The following day, Pagan’s old MGB was stopped by the police, doing almost 100 mph down the crowded streets of Ladbroke Grove, and she could not remember the registration number of her car. “I have all these huge, black holes in my memory, officer,” she explained, but he didn’t seem to understand. Bloody man.

  “I do think, darling,” Pagan told Sophia that night, “that your father might have picked a better time to leave us. I’ve no idea how he wanted to allocate the money from the première, and there’s nothing in any of his papers to tell us whom to appoint as the new director of the foundation. Why on earth should I be expected to put up with all this? Just what am I supposed to do now?” She prowled around the pink, hydrangea-patterned drawing room, thinking, who can I talk to now? Who can I do things with? Who can I share things with? Who knows my past, my jokes, my fears? Who am I supposed to spend Christmas with? Aloud, she said, “Just what am I supposed to do now?”

  “You sound like Grandma,” said Sophia bluntly, hoping that this unforgivable insult would shock Pagan into becoming, once again, her erratically adoring mother instead of this whining automaton. Pagan took no notice. She switched on the television, picked up a box of chocolates and watched a raucous game show until Sophia burst into tears and rushed out of the room. Then a black pool of cold panic started to rise in Pagan’s body, as she heard that Mona, from Chipping Norton, had won a hostess trolley, a facial sauna and a giant Donald Duck. What’s happening to me, Pagan wondered, why can’t I control what I’m thinking? As she watched Mona scream with unbelievable joy and hug her husband, Pagan thought, why can’t I behave as I want to? Why can’t I remember things? As Mona, who couldn’t think of the name of a peanut former who lived in a white house, was ignominiously bundled off the stage, Pagan thought, perhaps I’m going mad. Perhaps I’ll go to the doctor tomorrow. She did not know that s
he was suffering from the classic symptoms of bereavement, that she was groping her way through the tunnel of death.

  But the next day she looked around her kitchen and decided not to visit the doctor. There’s no point in saving a worthless person like me, thought Pagan, swinging from shock to depression. Doctors are for people who are really sick, not women who haven’t enough self-discipline to pull themselves together. She looked around the cozy kitchen at the bunches of rosemary and thyme from Trelawney which hung from the ceiling, the well-used pans, the hand-thrown terra-cotta pots, the baskets of brown Cornish eggs and fresh vegetables. The delicate pink-rimmed Minton dinner service she had inherited on her marriage was ranged along the ashwood shelves of the country dresser. Whatever is the point of trying to make a kitchen attractive? she wondered. It’s just a food-processing plant, dolled up by pretty china. Plates always break in the end, however much you like them. Everything breaks in the end. Pagan took one of the Minton tea plates off the dresser, opened the window, threw the plate out and watched it smash in the basement area. That’s what happened to me, she thought. My life is smashed like broken china.

  Half an hour later, Sophia stood in the kitchen looking at the empty shelves of the dresser. She had already noticed the pile of smashed china, when she opened the front door. “Mother, I’m going to stay in Tuscany with Jane for the holidays.” Defiantly she flicked spikes of auburn hair back from her face, silently daring her mother to care for her, daring her mother to say, “Oh, no, you won’t! You’ll stay here with me.”

  “Whatever you like, darling,” Pagan replied, absent-mindedly.

  “Mummy, I can’t stand seeing you like this anymore. I’m leaving now,” Sophia shouted. Pagan took no notice as Sophia ran to her bedroom, stuffed two shirts and her tape player into a tote bag, then rushed out, slamming the door.