Harriet

by Jilly Cooper

  Harriet lay in the bath, trying not to cry and wondering what it would be like to be married to Simon. ‘Harriet Villiers’ had a splendid seventeenth century ring. Could she cope with being the wife of a superstar? Some stage marriages she knew lasted for ever. She wouldn’t be a drag on him; when he was away acting, she’d have her poems and novels to write; she might even write a play for him.

  She could just see the first night notices:

  ‘Simon Villiers’s wife is not beautiful in the classical sense, but there is an appealing sensitivity, a radiance about this brilliant young playwright.’ Unthinkingly she pulled out the plug.

  Simon walked into the bathroom, yawning, hair ruffled, to find Harriet sitting in an empty bath, dreamily gazing into space.

  ‘I thought I told you to leave the fucking water in.’

  Harriet flushed unbecomingly.

  ‘Oh God, I’m frightfully sorry. Perhaps there’s some hot left.’

  There wasn’t.

  Even worse, she went into the kitchen and found that, although she’d turned on the oven, she’d put the moussaka into the cupboard instead, so when Simon came in, shuddering with cold and ill-temper, there was nothing to eat. The row that followed left her reeling. He really let her have it. She had no defences against the savageness of his tongue.

  Once more she went and sobbed in the bedroom, and she heard the front door slam. Hours later when he came back she had cried herself to sleep. He woke her up.

  ‘You’re too sensitive, Harriet baby. You overreact all the time. Poor little baby,’ he said gently, ‘poor, poor little baby. Did you think I wasn’t coming back?’ Never had he made love to her so tenderly.

  Chapter Six

  Harriet woke up feeling absurdly happy. True love could only be forged on rows like that. It was the first of March, her meagre allowance had come through. She got up, leaving Simon asleep. She cashed a cheque at the bank, and bought croissants and orange juice. In spite of a bitter east wind, the snow was melting, dripping off the houses, turning brown and stacked in great piles along the road.

  It would be spring soon. She imagined herself and Simon wandering through the parks with the blossom out, or punting under long green willows, and dancing till dawn at a Commem ball. All great love affairs had their teething troubles.

  When she got back to Simon’s rooms, she took his mail into his room. He was still half asleep, so she went to the kitchen and made coffee and heated up the croissants. She was worried about a large spot that was swelling up on the side of her nose. However much make-up she put over it, it shone through like a beacon; she must start eating properly.

  When she took breakfast into his room, he had woken up and was in excellent form.

  ‘Buxton Philips’s written me a letter saying he’s sorry, he’s coming down to Oxford to take me out to lunch,’ he said, draining a glass of orange juice.

  ‘Oh darling, that’s wonderful,’ said Harriet.

  Simon drew back the curtains. Harriet sat down on the bed, with the spot side furthest away from him, pouring out coffee.

  ‘I think you’d better start packing, darling,’ he said, liberally buttering a croissant.

  ‘Oh God, is your mother coming to stay?’

  He shook his head, his face curiously bland. ‘I just think it’s time you moved out.’

  She looked at him bewildered, the colour draining from her face.

  ‘But, why? Was it because I smashed your dog, and let out your bath water, and forgot about your suit, and the moussaka? I’m sorry, I will try to concentrate more.’

  ‘Darling, it isn’t that,’ he said, thickly spreading marmalade. ‘It’s just that all good things come to an end. You should live a little, learn a bit more about life, play the field.’

  ‘But I’m not like that. I’m a one-man girl.’

  Simon shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘W-when will I see you,’ she was trembling violently now.

  ‘You’re making this very difficult for me,’ he said gently.

  She sat down.

  ‘Mind my shirts,’ said Simon hastily, removing the shirts she had ironed from the chair.

  She stared at him. ‘What did I do wrong?’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, you didn’t do anything wrong.’

  It must be a bad dream, it must be. She felt her happiness melting round her like the snow.

  ‘Why can’t I see you any more?’

  ‘Darling, for everything there is a reason. You’re a lovely warm crazy girl, and we’ve had a ball together. Now I’ve broken you in nicely, you’ll be a joy for the next guy, but it’s time for us both to move on.’

  ‘But I love you,’ she stammered.

  He sighed. ‘That’s your problem, sweetheart. I never said I loved you. I never pretended this was going to last.’

  Her face had a look of pathos and stricken dignity.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ she whispered.

  Simon was not finding this as easy as he had expected, rather unpleasant in fact. Oh God, why did women get so keen on one? He was nibbling the skin round his thumb nail. He seemed to Harriet to have shrunk in size; there was something about his eyes like an animal at bay.

  She licked her dry lips. ‘Will you find someone else?’

  ‘Of course I’ll find someone else,’ he snapped, anger with himself making him crueller towards her. ‘Borzoi’s coming back. I got a letter from her this morning.’

  ‘And so I get d-dumped like an unwanted dog on the motorway.’

  Slowly it was dawning on her that his future didn’t contain her.

  He tried another tack. ‘You’re too good for me, Harriet.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she said helplessly.

  ‘Yes, you are, I need a tough cookie like Borzoi.’

  The sun, which hadn’t been seen for ages, suddenly appeared at the window, high-lighting the chaos of the room — the unmade bed, Harriet’s clothes strewn over every chair, the brimming ashtrays.

  ‘Cheer up,’ said Simon. ‘At least it’s a lovely day. Come on, lovie, get your things together; we haven’t got much time.’

  As he threw records, scarves, papers, make-up into her suitcase, she felt he was getting out an india rubber and carefully erasing every trace of her from his life. He was hard put to contain his elation. Even his goodbye was absent-minded. He patted her on the bottom and told her to behave herself. She could almost hear his sigh of relief as he shut the door and rushed back to tidy up for Borzoi.

  She went straight home and dumped her suitcase. For a minute she lay on her bed and listened to the clocks striking all over Oxford. Only eleven o’clock. A whole day to be got through, a whole lifetime without Simon stretching ahead. She got up, turned on the gas and knelt down beside it; after ten seconds the meter ran out.

  Mrs Glass came in and started to shout at her for the rent, then she saw Harriet’s face and stopped. ‘White as a corpse, poor little thing,’ she told her husband afterwards. ‘’Er sins must have catched up with ’er.’

  Harriet got up and went out and walked round the town, the slush leaking into her boots. She didn’t notice the cold even in her thin coat. She had nothing of Simon’s. He had written her no letters, given her no presents. How crazy she had been, how presumptuous to think for a moment she could hold him. It was like trying to catch the sun with a fishing net. She walked three times round the same churchyard, then took a bus to Headington, looking at the trees, their branches shiny from the melting snow. She got off the bus and began to walk again, thinking over and over again of the times Simon and she had spent together, illuminated now in the light. Never again would she tremble at his touch, or talk to him or gaze at him. All she would hear was stupid people yapping about his latest exploits, that he’d landed a part in a play, that he was back with Borzoi.

  It couldn’t be true. Borzoi would come back, Simon would realize they couldn’t make a go of it, and send for Harriet again. Wading through the cold grey slush, she walked back to her digs a
nd fell shuddering into bed.

  Everyone said, ‘I told you so.’ Geoffrey was magnanimous, then irritated that she wouldn’t snap out of it, then furious that Simon had succeeded where he had failed, and made violent attempts to get her into bed. Her girlfriends, who had all been jealous of her and Simon, were secretly pleased it was over. Theo Dutton was vitriolic about the badness of her essay.

  The child looked in terrible shape. She was obviously having some kind of crisis.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘No-one, nothing,’ she muttered. ‘Simon Villiers.’

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear. He was the nasty bug all my girl students caught last summer. I thought he’d gone out of fashion now. I must say I’m disappointed in you, Harriet. I thought you had better taste. He was one of the worst students I’ve ever had; his mind is earth-shatteringly banal.’

  Then, like Mrs Glass, he saw the stricken look on her face and realized he was on the wrong tack.

  For days she didn’t eat, wandering round Oxford getting thinner and thinner, gazing for hours at the river, wondering whether to jump, hanging around Simon’s digs at a respectable distance hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Mostly she saw him come out and sit in his car, impatiently drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, revving up the car, lighting cigarette after cigarette. Then Borzoi would come spilling out, spraying on scent, trailing coloured scarves, her gorgeous streaky gold hair tumbling over her face. And they would drive off arguing furiously.

  Chapter Seven

  It was only after a month that Harriet started to worry — but it was a worry that was nothing compared with losing Simon. Another week slipped by, then one evening she washed her hair and put on a black dress of Susie’s that she’d never been able to get into before, but which now hung off her, and went to see Simon. She waited in the cold till Borzoi had gone out, almost biting her lip through as she watched Simon kiss her in the doorway. Then Borzoi drove off with a roar, and Simon went back into the house. He took a long time to answer the doorbell. For a minute she gazed at him close up; he was after all only a face. How could he have caused her so much unhappiness? Then suddenly all the old longing came flooding back.

  ‘Hullo,’ he said, hardly seeming to recognize her. ‘Oh it’s you,’ he added politely. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  He looked at his watch. ‘I’m going out in a second.’

  ‘I don’t want to hassle you, but it’s important.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ he sighed. ‘Well, you’d better come in.’

  The room was in chaos. There were ashtrays full of stubs everywhere and finger-smeared tumblers, and cups full of old wet coffee grounds. Clothes, everything from fur coats to party dresses, lay piled high on every chair.

  ‘Tidiness has never been Borzoi’s strong point,’ said Simon, picking some dead flowers out of their vase and throwing them dripping into the ashes of the fireplace. ‘Thank God the char’s coming in the morning.’

  He put a cigarette in his mouth — not offering her one.

  ‘Well,’ he said, noticing her red-rimmed eyes. ‘How are things? You’ve lost a lot of weight. Been dieting?’

  Harriet took a deep breath. ‘Simon, I’m pregnant.’

  The match flared. Simon breathed in deeply. The end of the cigarette glowed. He threw the match into the fire.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I had the results of the test yesterday.’

  ‘But you were on the pill.’

  ‘I know; but I’d only just started taking it, and the night we first w-went to bed together, I was in such a state beforehand I think I may have forgotten to take it.’

  ‘Bloody little fool,’ said Simon, but not unkindly. ‘Are you sure it’s mine?’

  She looked up horrified, her eyes full of tears.

  ‘Oh yes, there’s never been anyone else.’

  ‘What about Jeremy or Gordon, or whatever he was called.’

  ‘Geoffrey? Oh no, I couldn’t. I didn’t. .’

  She started to cry.

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said Simon. She was aware only of the terrible boredom in his voice. She might have been some mild inconvenience, a button off his shirt, a pair of dark glasses left in a taxi.

  He went into the kitchen and put the kettle on.

  ‘Well, you’d better go to London as soon as possible, and see Dr Wallace.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To get rid of it of course.’

  ‘B-but I couldn’t.’

  ‘It’s not dangerous any more, darling. You don’t want to listen to any of those old wives’ tales. Dr Wallace is a pro. They just suck it out with a Hoover these days.’

  Harriet winced.

  ‘Borzoi’s been to him twice,’ said Simon. ‘So have Chloe and Deirdre and Anne-Marie and Henrietta. Honestly, he ought to give me a discount the number of birds I’ve sent to him.’

  ‘But I don’t want. .’ Harriet began.

  ‘You might feel a bit depressed afterwards, but it’s the end of term next week, so you can go home and recuperate.’

  ‘But it’ll be so expensive. I don’t want to rip you off.’

  ‘Oh don’t worry about that, darling; I’ll treat you. I’m not that much of a sod. Do you mind Nescafé? Borzoi insists on making real coffee, but it’s so disgusting, and I can never get the coffee grounds out of my teeth.’

  He poured boiling water into two cups and handed one to her.

  ‘If you like,’ he went on, putting two saccharine into his cup, ‘I’ll ring old Wallace now, and fix you up an appointment. The old bags on the switchboard give people they don’t know rather a hard time.’

  The scalding coffee burnt her throat but seemed to give her strength.

  ‘Would you mind terribly if I kept it?’

  ‘Oh be realistic, angel. You of all people are simply not cut out to be a one-parent family. I know people keep their babies, but they have a bloody awful time, unless they’re rich enough to afford a lover and a nanny.’

  Harriet sat in Dr Wallace’s waiting-room feeling sick, thumbing feverishly through the same magazine, watching girls go in and out. Some looked pale and terrified like herself, others obviously old timers, chatted together and might have been waiting for an appointment at the hairdresser’s. Two models embraced in the doorway.

  ‘Fanny darling!’

  ‘Maggie!’

  ‘Friday morning — see if you can get booked in at the same time, and we can go in together.’

  Dr Wallace was smooth, very suntanned from skiing and showed a lot of white cuff.

  ‘You’re certain you don’t want to get married and have the child, Miss Poole? This is a big step you’re taking.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to marry me,’ whispered Harriet, unable to meet the doctor’s eyes. ‘But he’s perfectly happy to pay. I’ve got a letter from him here.’

  Dr Wallace smiled as he looked at Simon’s royal blue writing paper.

  ‘Oh dear! Mr Villiers again; quite a lad, isn’t he? One of our best customers.’

  Harriet went white. ‘Fond of him, were you? Shame, shame, boy’s got a lot of charm, but not ideal husband material, I wouldn’t say. You’re very young, plenty more fish in the sea. Not much fun bringing up a baby on your own, pity to ruin a promising academic career.’

  ‘I know,’ said Harriet listlessly.

  ‘Just got to get another doctor to sign the form. Will first thing Friday morning be all right for you? You’ll be out in the evening. There, there; don’t cry, it’ll be soon over.’

  Her last hope was her parents. She caught a train down to the country. As she arrived one of her mother’s bridge parties was just breaking up. Middle-aged women, buoyed up by a couple of gin and tonics were yelling goodbye to each other, banging car doors and driving off.

  Harriet noticed as she slunk up the path that the noisiest of all was Lady Neave, Susie’s mother-in-law.

  ‘Goodbye, Alison,’ she was saying, c
lashing her cheek against Harriet’s mother’s cheek with infinite condescension. ‘Great fun! We’re all meeting at Audrey’s next week, aren’t we, Audrey? Hullo,’ she added, suddenly seeing Harriet. ‘Are you down for the weekend? You must go over and see Peter and Susie. The new wallpaper in the drawing room is such a success.’

  What a gauche child thought Lady Neave, as she drove the Humber off in a series of jerks, narrowly missing the blue gates at the bottom of the drive. One could hardly believe she came from the same family as Susie, who although not quite what the Neaves would have liked for their only son, knew her place and was shaping up as a nice little wife.

  Mrs Poole, having made her farewells, found Harriet slumped in a chair in the kitchen, the cat purring on her knee. Why must the child look such a fright, she thought, that awful duffle coat with all the buttons missing, no make-up, hair unkempt. She was just like her father, always grubbing round in his silly old museum.

  ‘I wish you’d warned me,’ she said. ‘I’ve only got sausages for supper. Are you staying the night?’

  ‘Yes please,’ said Harriet.

  ‘That’ll be nice — just the two of us.’

  ‘Where’s Daddy?’

  ‘Away; gone to one of his dreary ceramics conferences.’

  Harriet’s heart sank. Her father was the only person she could talk to.

  Her mother put some sausages on to fry, and started washing up.

  ‘These bridge fours have become a regular thing,’ she said, plunging glasses into soapy water. ‘Elizabeth Neave’s really a wonderful girl.’

  How could anyone over forty be described as a girl? thought Harriet.

  ‘She’s really bullying me to get a washing-up machine; she says they’re such a boon when one’s entertaining.’

  Harriet looked at the rubber gloves whisking round the hot suds — like surgeon’s hands, she thought in horror, sucking a baby out like a Hoover. The smell of frying sausages was making her sick. Out in the garden the wind was whirling pink almond blossom off the trees.