by Mark Morris
“The same thing is going to happen to me,” she said when she called me. I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. She was sobbing hard. I told her to slow down. That’s what you say to someone when they’re not making sense, isn’t it, slow down, regardless of the speed they’re actually talking at?
Most of what Beck was trying to say was drowned out in tears.“Mum’s dead,” she said at last.“No one’s allowed to see her body. She jumped off the roof of a multi-storey car park.”
My blood ran cold. Another idiotic cliché but in this case that really was how it felt, as if cold liquid had been injected directly into my veins.
Jennie Hathaway had killed herself.
“Did she—?” I said, after the requisite fifteen minutes of being horrified and outraged and sympathetic all at once. Did she leave a note? was what I meant to ask, and Beck must have understood this because she answered my question as if I’d spoken all the words aloud and not just the first two.
“She didn’t need to, did she? Dad knew. We all knew. She was changing. She must have known she didn’t have much time.”
We talked for almost an hour.
“I’m not going to do what she did,” Beck said just before we hung up. She’d stopped crying by then but her voice was still rough with catarrh, bunged up with old tears. “No one can make me do that. It’s not my fault I’m—”
She never finished her sentence.
A freak, I thought. Like Beck had done with me, I knew exactly what she was trying to say.There was no need for her to spell it out.
* * *
How did I feel about her, in the end? Like I would drop everything to go and be with her. Like I never wanted to see her again.
* * *
The doctor who gave evidence at Jennie Hathaway’s inquest confirmed that she had been suffering from a chronic degenerative muscular condition for several years. The prognosis had been uncertain, he added, because the exact nature of her condition had not been agreed on.
“A rare form of muscular dystrophy,” the doctor suggested, “with additional complications.”
When asked what these complications were, he hesitated, then stated that Jennie Hathaway had been suffering from what he referred to as calcification of the epidermis, and that she had also undergone a full hysterectomy after an exploratory operation had revealed large numbers of fibrous growths attached to the lining of her womb.
“Silk,” Beck said. “Only no one was going to admit that, were they? According to their bloody textbooks there’s no such disease.”
“Beck,” I said. “You can’t be sure of that.” Get real, was what I wanted to say.This spider shit is all in your head.
People make television programmes about the nature of genius and speak in hushed tones of the pain of alienation and outsider status. What doesn’t get talked about is how time-consuming these people can be, the hours you waste talking them through their latest crisis, only to have them chuck your advice down the toilet an hour later. And still you’re supposed to be there to pick up the pieces.
And if you put your foot down and refuse to do that? You’re seen as a callous bitch, drowning in bitterness and jealousy, most likely. It never occurs to anyone that you’re just tired.You listen for hours and weeks and years, you hug them and hold their hand and never once do you tell them to shut up or get a grip or stop being so bloody selfish, because that would mean you didn’t get it, that you weren’t sensitive enough to understand how thin-skinned these geniuses are, how vulnerable, how barely able to cope with being in the world.
How about those of us who just have to soldier on? Who’s going to come running when we feel like going off the rails?
Not your genius friend, that’s for sure.
The only reason Beck and I were able to stay so close was because I went long periods without having anything to do with her.
3. Jorōgumo, 1995, 4’x3’, oil on canvas. Sometimes known as “the binding bride”, the jorōgumo in Japanese mythology is a woman who can turn herself into a spider or vice versa. She is often represented carrying an infant, later revealed to be an egg sac bursting with spider eggs. Strongly inf luenced by the late work of the Portuguese artist Vieira da Silva, a painter Hathaway greatly admired, Jorōgumo is crosshatched with narrow bands of white, pink and mauve, the layers of paint building in places to a thick encrustation. At close quarters, the effect is suggestive of densely woven fabric. When the canvas is viewed from a distance, however, the greyish outline of a female figure becomes visible, the strands of her long, purplish hair intermingled with the crosshatched background and finally indistinguishable from it. Jorōgumo is Hathaway’s best known painting, and earned her the silver medal in the 1996 Siemens Painting Prize for European artists under fifty. The award included a travel bursary, which Hathaway used to extend her residency in Berlin. It was during this time that she met the painter who was to become her husband, Marco Teich.
I liked Marco. As an artist, he was brilliant and surprising. As a human being he was resilient, engaged, and interested in other people, which isn’t the norm when it comes to artists, believe me.
I would never have seen him getting together with Beck, not in a million years. Even then, she was so brittle, so self- absorbed. People have the idea she was a party animal but she wasn’t; the only thing she liked about parties was that they gave her an excuse to sit in the corner and drink vodka and not talk to anyone. Marco did the talking. He was a wonderful host when he was in the mood, which was most of the time when he wasn’t actually working.
He knew Anselm Kiefer back in the day, though he never traded on that fact; he didn’t need to.
I remember him saying to me that Beck was squandering her talent.
“She drinks far too much.” As if Beck could solve her issues by consuming less alcohol. Marco liked a drink too, but never before 6pm, when he finished work for the day. You could argue that Marco’s strict work ethic was part of the problem, making him believe that Beck’s afternoons in the pub were the root of her troubles when they really weren’t, they were just a mask she put on.
The pub was where she felt safest, in the end. Most of the fights that break out in pubs are of the common or garden, bloody-nose variety, no demons allowed.
It’s important to say that Beck really did believe she was a jorōgumo, a spider-woman. I believe she was an undiagnosed schizophrenic, like her mother. The difference was, Jennie had Adam. Adam Hathaway protected Jennie not just from the world but from herself, which is why she was able to survive for so long without coming unstuck. Marco couldn’t do that for Beck, firstly because he was selfish, like all artists, and secondly because he refused to admit there was anything wrong with her.
For Marco it was all about discipline, or rather Beck’s lack of it—if Beck would only organise her life properly then she would get better. He may even have had a point—half a point, anyway. God knows Beck had a singular talent for living in chaos.
* * *
In West Africa and the Caribbean, the spider is the avatar of Anansi, the trickster god, the storyteller, the finder of pathways. In Hopi and Navajo mythology, the Sussistanako or Spider Grandmother taught her people how to hide in plain sight.Throughout the world the spider goddesses—and with the exception of Anansi they are female deities: black widows, secret sharers, whisperers in darkness, keepers of the flame—teach patience and cunning as the cardinal virtues. Among the Inuit people, string games—passed literally from hand to hand, generation to generation—bring schoolgirls on the playground closer to their spider heritage.
Arachne, weaver of silk, of tapestries so rich and so articulate the gods of Olympus grew jealous of her talent.
After Beck won her prize for Jorōgumo I decided I would write an essay—maybe even a monograph—on the famous Doré etchings on the theme of Arachne, considering them alongside a series of pen-and-ink studies by the Japanese- American artist Helen Ogawa. At first glance, the two sets of images are remarkably similar, depicti
ng the horrific metamorphosis of a woman as her body is bent, wrenched and coerced into an alien form. Study them more closely and you will begin to see that whereas Doré’s images are concerned with the agony of loss, Ogawa’s reveal the ecstasy of transgression and rebirth.
The jorōgumo is more powerful in her spider form, and she knows it. Her transformation is hard-won, and in spite of its evident discomforts, passionately desired.
* * *
By the time the bus pulled in opposite the pub it was almost dark. The bus ride had been chilly but the air outside was bitter, sharp as razors. I could smell fish and chips. My stomach growled—I hadn’t eaten a thing since Exeter—and I seriously considered ducking into the pub, ordering something hot and greasy from the bar menu, forgetting Beck and Ben and the whole sorry mess. For an hour or so, at least.
I asked myself why I’d agreed to this—staying in Beck’s house, especially. It had been a mistake.
I couldn’t pretend Ben wasn’t waiting though, waiting for me to arrive so we could both get some supper, probably. I left the pub behind, carried on down the road and turned left into the narrow cul-de-sac where Beck’s cottage was. I was relieved to see there were lights on, in the porch and in the downstairs front window. I rang the bell and waited, shivering inside my coat, a ratty old parka I hadn’t worn since the last time I was there.
Would Beck still be alive if I’d done more for her? Being back in Hartland made the question seem more present somehow, and certainly more brutal, probably because it was harder to avoid.
Beck was doomed—everyone who knew her had known that. Doomed and sick. The doctors had confirmed her illness at least, a condition that could not be halted, or even accurately named.
The front door opened, releasing the familiar smells of damp, old newspapers and mild discomfort, the kind it is easier to come to terms with than to try and change.
“Isobel,” Ben said.“You look exhausted.” He had his coat on, and I realised he’d been about to leave the house—to go to the pub, most likely, if he had any sense. He hovered in the doorway, clearly undecided over whether he should invite me in or suggest we both go out.
“Shall we go and get something to eat?” I said, deciding for him.“I’m actually really hungry.”
“If you’re sure that’s all right. I mean, you’ve only just arrived. I can easily go and fetch some fish and chips.”
“The pub’s just down the road. And I still have my coat on.”
“Beers are on me, then.” His voice caught in his throat suddenly, as if the mention of alcohol, even in such an innocent context, was still and always would be problematic. He slammed the front door hard, which was the only way of ensuring that it closed properly. It juddered in its frame, warped with damp.
I’d seen Ben at the funeral of course, but everything was different then. He had looked ghastly: too thin, traces of stubble on his cheeks, his black suit old-fashioned in cut and obviously hired for the occasion. Ros, by contrast, seemed to be thriving, her schoolmarmish, charcoal-coloured pinafore dress bizarrely and coincidentally in fashion for the first time ever. She was wearing one of those fake Russian earflap hats, which could have been classed as a faux pas had the weather not been so cold, cold enough for snow almost.
* * *
I’m being a bitch again, aren’t I? Dear old Ros, she always did do everything by the book.Which is why she has a tenured fellowship at an Oxford college while I’m still a tottering freelancer and always will be, a glorified temp. If Ros is order and Beck was chaos, what the hell am I?
* * *
The pub smelled comfortably of beer and there was a good fire going. We ordered two plates of the homemade lasagne then grabbed our beers and went to sit in one of the alcoves. I found myself wondering if Beck had ever occupied the same seat. I realised I knew next to nothing of Beck’s daily life, here in the village.What I knew about was her work—the contentment she had found here at first, her increasing isolation as the disease took hold. What she did when she wasn’t working I had no idea. Had she made friends here, people she went to the pub with on a regular basis? I knew she had friends from London come and visit from time to time—Nuala Reinhard, April Lessore of all people, even Marco—but that was hardly enough to call a social life.
Had she been lonely? Probably. I decided it was better not to think about it.
The guy from behind the bar brought our lasagne. “You’re the family of the young woman who died,” he said. A statement, not a question. I always thought that thing about village gossip spreading like wildfire was a cliché but apparently not.
“Ben,” Ben said at once. He offered the man his hand. “I’m Rebecca’s brother. And this is her best friend, Isobel.”
Her best friend. I smiled a wan smile, the kind of gesture you see people make in films, when you know the person smiling is really thinking fuck off. I was still caught on the words “young woman”, snagged on them like a plastic bag flapping about on barbed wire, because Beck had been getting on for fifty and worn down to the bone. I wondered how anyone might look at her and think young woman, then supposed that must be how we looked to people here, all of us Londoners, young in mind if not in body, pink as peeled prawns and as raw, shuffling along the high street like children on a school outing, whining about the cold and not understanding why we’d been brought here or what we were supposed to do with ourselves until we went home.
“Thank you for coming, Isobel,” Ben said, once the more immediate issue of hunger had been resolved.“I mean really. I couldn’t have managed this alone. I’m truly grateful.” He paused. “Ros didn’t know Beck, not properly. She thinks I should call house clearance, get rid of the lot. She’s probably right—sensible, anyway. But I can’t bring myself to do it. Does that sound silly?”
“Not even remotely. There’s Beck’s work, apart from anything.We need to catalogue it, find out what’s there.”
“Exactly.” He let out a sigh. “I knew you’d understand. You and Beck—”
I didn’t let him finish. I wasn’t ready to talk about her. Not yet.“How is Ros, anyway?”
“Ros is great. She’s pretty wrapped up in Chantal, actually. Which is probably why she doesn’t have much left over for—well, this.”
I forgot to mention that Ben has a child now. After four decades as a dyed-in-the-wool bluestocking, ghastly cardigans and all, Ros suddenly decided she was going to give birth. Ben was thrilled, naturally. You can tell he’s the good-father type just by looking at him. You wouldn’t imagine Ros would know what to do with a baby—submit a paper on one, perhaps—but as it turned out she was born to it, the complete earth mother. She had even gone part-time at work.The last I’d heard she’d set up an online hub where people could swap fairy tale variants or whatever.
She didn’t want Chantal anywhere near Beck, that went without saying. Beck was a bad influence, a nightmare of an aunt complete with vodka bottles stashed under the sink and overflowing bin bags.
And Ben? Did I catch a hint of that familiar man-baby wail in his voice as he told me just how busy Ros was these days?Was he trying to let me know, in his roundabout, non-judgemental, Bennish way, that his wife didn’t understand him now that her attention had been diverted towards their daughter?
Men are all the same when you get down to it. Even the nice ones.
“Would you like to see some photos?” he asked, a question you can’t say no to, not if you still want to be considered a member of the human race. He began scrolling through his picture library: innumerable images of a moon-faced little girl with pursed lips and wide-open eyes, Ros looking obscenely comfortable in her new range of pinafores and so pleased with herself you’d think she’d produced the baby single-handed.
I was glad of the diversion, actually. Cooing over little Chantal, it was almost possible to forget the reason we were there.To pretend that everything was normal when we both knew that it wasn’t and never would be again.
“Do you think I let her down?” Ben said,
much later, when we were back at the house, a half-drunk bottle of Merlot between us on the kitchen table.
“No more than I did.” Probably the most honest words I’d spoken since I got off the bus. We looked at each other then looked away again.
I felt as close to him then as I was ever going to feel, and it wasn’t pleasant.
* * *
I slept in the spare room, the same as I had the last time, when Beck was alive. The room was drab but clean and seemed unchanged, even down to the unstable stack of cardboard boxes in the corner by the window, their flaps iced with dust, their logos—Brillo, Campbell’s, Bird’s—pointing towards a past buried somewhere in the last century.
I’d glanced into the top box when I was last here. It was full of school exercise books, the kind of stuff I could never imagine wanting to see again, let alone keep. I imagined the boxes following Beck around, from her parents’ place near Peterborough to the bedsit in Lewisham, then the Fulham flat, then here. From the thickness of the dust it was clear the boxes hadn’t been moved since being dumped here.
Possessions are like a safety blanket, a proof of identity—a proof of existence, even.Then suddenly when you die, they’re just rubbish to be cleared.
“How much of this do you think we should keep?” Ben asked me, sometime during the morning of the following day. We’d been wandering from room to room, picking things up and putting them down, undecided, undecided, undecided.
The big things—the furniture, the odd bits of garden equipment, Beck’s clothes, even—these things were easy because they were worthless. They could be loaded into a van and taken away. After a couple of hours of dithering I called a house clearance company and booked them to do just that.
“They’re coming Friday,” I told Ben. “Between ten and twelve.” I hoped I’d be gone by then, although I supposed that would depend on how quickly we sorted through the other stuff: the schoolbooks and diaries, the pads of A4 graph paper covered in coffee rings, wine stains and shopping lists and—occasionally—the ghosts of ideas that were undoubtedly worked out more thoroughly in Beck’s sketchbooks.