A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman

by Margaret Drabble

  (1970)

  7

  A Success Story

  This is a story about a woman. It couldn’t have been told a few years ago: perhaps even five years ago it couldn’t have been told. Perhaps it can’t really be told now. Perhaps I shouldn’t write it, perhaps it’s a bad move to write it. But it’s worth risking. Just to see.

  This woman was a playwright. She was one of the few successful women playwrights, and she had had a hard time on the way up, for she came from a poor background, from a part of the country hostile to the arts, from a family which had never been to the theatre in its life. She wasn’t really working class: more lower middle class, which made her success all the more remarkable, as her plays didn’t have shock value, they were quite complicated and delicate. But they worked: they were something new. She made her way up: first of all she was assistant stagehand at her local repertory, then she worked in the office at a larger provincial theatre as she didn’t really have much interest in life behind the scenes – and all the while she was writing her plays. The first one was put on by the rep she was working in, and it was very much noticed. Kathie (that was her name – Kathie Jones) used to say modestly that it was noticed because she was a woman, and women playwrights were a rarity, and there was something in what she said. But her modesty couldn’t explain why she went on writing, professionally, had her plays transferred to the West End, had them filmed, and did really very nicely. She was good at the job, and that was why she succeeded. She was also good, somewhat to her own surprise, at all the things that went along with the job, and which had kept women out of the job for so long: she was good at explaining herself, at arguing with megalomaniac directors, at coolly sticking to her own ideas, at adapting when things really couldn’t be made to work. She had good judgement, she was calm and professional, she could stand up for herself.

  She was not, of course, world famous, let us not give the impression that she was an international name. No, she was a success in her own country, in her own medium. Some of the gossip columns thought her worth mentioning, some of them didn’t. Not that there was much to mention: she was a quiet, hardworking girl, with her own friends, her own circle of close friends – some of them writers, one or two friends from the early days at grammar school in the Midlands, one or two journalists. She was considered rather exclusive by some, and she was. She didn’t much care for a gay social life, partly because she hadn’t time, partly because she hadn’t been brought up to it and didn’t quite know how to cope. She lived with a man who was a journalist, and who travelled a great deal: he was always going off to Brazil and Vietnam and up Everest. He was an exceptionally good-natured man, and they got on well together. Sometimes she was sorry when he went away, but she was always so busy that she didn’t miss him much, and anyway it was so interesting when he came back. He, for his part, loved her, and had confidence in her.

  So really, one could say that her life had worked out very nicely. She had a job she liked, a reputation, a good relationship, some good friends, a respectable though fluctuating income. At the time of this story, she was in her early thirties, and had written five successful plays and several film scripts. She had a play running at a lucrative little theatre in the West End, and was amusing herself by working on a television adaptation of a play by Strindberg. Her man was away: he was in Hungary, but he would be back soon, he would be back at the end of the week. At the moment at which we close in upon her, she was just putting the phone down after speaking to him: they had exchanged news, she had told him what was in his post which she always opened for him, he had said that he loved her and was looking forward to coming back and kissing her all over but particularly between her stockings and her suspenders, if she would please wear such antiquated garments on his return to greet him. Then he told her to enjoy her evening; she was just about to go out to a rather grand party. So she was smiling, as she put down the telephone.

  She was quite a nice-looking woman. This we have not mentioned till this point, because it ought not to be of any importance. Or ought it? Well, we shall see. Anyway, she wasn’t bad-looking, though she was nothing special. She had rather a long, large-featured face, with a large nose: she had big hands and large bones. Some people thought her beautiful, but others thought she was really plain. You know the type. As a child, she had been plain, as her mother had never tired of saying, and consequently she had no confidence in her appearance at all. Nowadays she didn’t care much, she was happy anyway, and as long as her lover continued to take an interest in the serious things of life, like her legs, then she wasn’t much interested in looking in the mirror. In fact, she hardly ever did, except to brush her hair, and she wore the same clothes most of the time, until they wore out. But tonight was different. She would have to have a look at herself, at least. So when she’d put the phone down she went into the bathroom to have a look.

  Tonight was rather a special, grand sort of party, not the usual kind of thing, so she’d put on her best dress, a long green-blue dress that she’d once thought suited her rather old-fashioned looks. She wasn’t so sure, now, she wasn’t at all sure what she looked like these days, the older she got the more variable she seemed to be. Not that it mattered much, one way or the other. But one might as well wear one’s best dress, once in a while. She’d bought it for one of her own first nights, years ago, and hadn’t worn it much since. She didn’t go to her own first nights any more, or anyone else’s for that matter. It had cost a lot of money, for those days. (Not that she spent much money on clothes now – in fact she spent less.) Staring at herself, hitching it a bit at the shoulder, she wondered whether she’d put it on because she was still, whatever she told herself, slightly nervous about the kind of do she was going to. Surely not. Surely not, these days. Why should she care?

  The party she was going to was being given by one of the grandest (socially speaking) theatrical entrepreneurs in London. And there she was going to meet the hero of her childhood dreams. It was all quite romantic. His name was Howard Jago (quite the right sort of name, but people like that have that kind of name) and he was one of the biggest American writers of his generation. He had written plays that made her heart bleed when she was sixteen. They still, oddly enough, moved her profoundly.

  She admired him more than she admired any other living writer. He hadn’t kept up with the play writing – she knew well enough that playwrights, compared with other writers, have a short working life – but he was now doing screenplays, and also a certain amount of political journalism. He had published a couple of novels, which she had liked immensely: he seemed indefatigable.

  When she was a child, she had wanted more than anything to meet him. She had even written him a fan letter telling him so. He did not reply. Probably it never reached him.

  She had had several opportunities to meet him before, as he was quite often in Europe, and was published by her publishers. But she had always declined.

  Why had she declined? Was she afraid of being bored or disappointed? Afraid of not being disappointed? Was she afraid that he might not have heard of her (when, by the rules of the game, he should have done) or might find her boring? Combing her hair, now, looking at herself in the mirror, she wondered. Perhaps she had simply been too busy, on other occasions: or Dan had been at home and had not wanted to go. He didn’t care for grand parties, and neither as a rule did she. They preferred to get very drunk quietly at home amongst friends: that was their favourite form of social life.

  She couldn’t work out why she hadn’t wanted to meet him before: nor why, now, she had decided that she would.

  She put him out of her mind, as she went downstairs and found herself a taxi. There would be plenty of other people there that she would know.

  And so indeed there were. She knew nearly everybody, by sight or in person. She thought with some relief, as she looked round the massive house in Belgravia, and its glittering inhabitants – film stars in outré garments, diplomats, writers, cabinet ministers, actors, actresses �
�� she thought that at least she didn’t have to feel nervous any more. In a way that took some of the thrill away, but it was much pleasanter to be comfortable than thrilled. Being thrilled had always been so exhausting, and such a letdown in the end. Nowadays, she sought and found more lasting pleasures. Nevertheless, she had been very different once. Ambitious, she must have been, or she wouldn’t have found herself here at all, would she? And, as she talked to a friend and kept an eye open for Howard Jago, she said to herself, if I’d known twenty years ago that I would ever find myself here, in a room like this, with people looking like this, I would have been delighted. A pity, really, that one couldn’t have had that particular thrill then – the thrill of knowing. It wasn’t worth much now.

  The house was enormous. Tapestries hung on the walls and statues stood in corners. The paintings were by Francis Bacon and Bonnard and Matthew Smith and Braque.

  After a while, she saw her host approaching her. He was leading Howard Jago in her direction: Howard Jago was doing his rounds. He looked as she had imagined him: wild, heavy, irregular, a bit larger than life-size, the kind of man who looks even bigger than he looks on the television. (She had caught a glimpse or two of him on the television.)

  ‘And this,’ said her host, ‘is one of the people you particularly asked to meet. This is Kathie Jones.’

  Kathie smiled, politely. Jago shook her hand.

  ‘I enjoyed your play the other night,’ said Jago, politely.

  He looked as though he was being careful. He looked as though he might be a little drunk.

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Kathie. ‘I must tell you how very much I have always admired your work.

  ‘I’ve admired it …’ and she was going to say, since I was a child, which would have been true, but had to stop herself because it might have been a rude reflection on his age, and went on with ‘…I’ve admired it ever since I first found it.’

  They looked at each other, with assessment, and smiled, civilly. Kathie couldn’t think of anything else to say. She had remembered, suddenly, exactly why she hadn’t wanted to meet him: she hadn’t wanted to meet him because she knew he was a womanizer, she knew it from a friend of hers, an actress, who’d had a bad time with him in New York. He can’t help it, her friend had said, he’s a real sod, he hates women, you know, but he just has to get off with them, he can’t let them alone …

  The memory paralysed her. She wondered why she hadn’t thought of it earlier. It was obvious, anyway, from his work, that he had a thing about women, that he didn’t like them and had to have them. He was a great enough writer for it not to matter to her: it was a measure of his greatness, for she did care about such things considerably.

  She thought with a sudden nice physical recollection of Dan, who liked women, and loved her in particular, to her great delight.

  She stood there, and smiled, and said nothing. Or rather, she said, ‘And how long are you in London this time, Mr Jago?’

  And he replied, with equal banality. It’s all right, she was saying to herself, it’s safe. It doesn’t matter. (What did she mean by that?)

  And as she listened to him, she saw approaching a film actress, a lady of considerable glamour, approaching with some purpose. ‘Howard, Howard, there you are, I lost you,’ she wailed, throwing her arm around his neck, possessively, her bosom heaving, her necklace sparkling: she started to stroke his greying hair, passionately, as she turned to greet Kathie. ‘Why hello, Kathie,’ she said, ‘what a surprise, I haven’t seen you in years. Howard went to see your play, was he telling you? … Oh look, Howard, there’s Martin – ’ and she marched him off: but Kathie Jones had already turned away. Well rid of him, she thought herself. He was drunk: he swayed slightly as Georgina grabbed him. Georgina was well away. She was a young lady with a will of iron. She was quite amusing on some occasions. Kathie wished them joy, and turned to look for a sympathetic friend, thinking as she went that the poor sixteen-year-old child she had been would have been shocked, shocked beyond anything, to have missed the opportunity to ask him, to hear him speak, even, of what he felt about, perhaps, the freedom of the will (one of his themes) and evolution (yet another). She smiled to herself, and went and talked to some publishers. They were much more interesting than Howard Jago had had a chance to be.

  It was a couple of hours before he came back to her. She had been enjoying herself. There was plenty to drink, and some very good buffet food, and some people she knew well and some she hadn’t seen for ages: she had been drinking quite steadily, and was sitting on a settee with an actress and her husband and another couple she’d never met before, laughing, very loudly, all of them, choking almost, over some anecdote about a play of hers, when he came back. He was looking more morose than before, and more obviously drunk. As he approached, Kathie made space for him on the settee by her, as he clearly intended to sit: they were still laughing over the story, as he sat. ‘Hello again,’ she said, turning to him, secure now, expecting nothing, willing to include him in the circle. ‘Do you know Jenny, and Bob …’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said crossly, ‘I know everyone, I’ve met everyone in this place. I want to get out.’

  ‘Why don’t you go, then?’ asked Kathie, politely, slightly at a loss: and even as she spoke, she saw Georgina bearing down on them. Jago saw her too, and flinched: he rose to his feet, pulling Kathie to hers.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s get out of here.’ She was thrilled. She had never heard anyone talk like that except in a movie. And Howard Jago turned his back on Georgina, with calculated offence, and marched Kathie across the room, gripping her elbow, again in a way that she had only seen in the movies.