I was just explaining about the fact that Mary had already talked me into paying a deposit for the cottage for Easter when there was another interruption: the front-door bell, this time, and she gave such a start that she chopped her finger on the chopping knife. ‘I’ll answer it,’ I said, and set off down the corridor, but she wouldn’t have that: no, she had to answer it herself, and off she went, dripping blood and sucking her finger. I couldn’t quite see who it was: it was a man, I think, delivering something, but she’d put it down by the time she reached the kitchen. She didn’t tell me who it was. Then we had ten minutes to ourselves before the phone went again: I knew who it was this time, it was her ex-husband, Tony. She always puts on that special brisk tone when she speaks to him. I know it conceals a lot of pain, but you certainly wouldn’t guess it, unless you knew her well, like I do. Obviously he wanted to discuss something to do with one of the children: I could almost hear what he was saying, he’s got such a loud voice. They talked for a few minutes, with her trying to put him off: I started to read the paper to show I wasn’t listening, and after a while she said firmly, ‘Now look, Tony, I can’t talk now, Meg’s here,’ and he rang off almost at once. I smiled at her as she came back to the chopping block, feeling quite pleased to have fulfilled the humble little function of having helped to get rid of him, but she didn’t look too pleased.
Still, I must say she was very nice about Mary. She even offered to lend me the deposit money until I could get it back from the travel agency, if I was hard up. I declined, of course. I don’t like borrowing money, even from someone like her who’s got plenty of it. And she agreed with me that Mary had behaved very thoughtlessly – people are so inconsiderate, we agreed, they never think of the other person’s feelings, they never even notice when they are causing inconvenience. Yes, it’s amazing how insensitive people can be, she said, when Damie burst in again (I forgot to say, he’d already been in several times) – anyway, he burst in for about the fifth time, this time with some question about his history homework. Now if it had been me, I know I’d have tried to pay the poor boy a little attention, but she snapped at him in a terrible voice, ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Damie, bugger off, can’t you, can’t you see I’m trying to talk to Meg?’ To do the child justice, he hardly batted an eyelid. He just pottered off again with his textbook. But one never ought to speak to a child like that, even if one is a working mother. Particularly if, like her, you’re always trying to put over the image of yourself as a kind of superwoman.
Anyway, by this time she was looking a little flustered, and what with one thing and another she still hadn’t got the shepherd’s pie in the oven, and it was getting on for half-past six. I asked again if I could help, but she said there wasn’t anything I could do, unless I wanted to go and get myself and her a drink, from the other room. So I said I would, to humour her, really, because I’m not much of a drinker. (She is, though. I’ve sometimes been astonished by the amount she puts away. I’ve seen her get through well over a quarter of a bottle of gin in the evening.) So I went off into the other room to the table where she keeps the drinks: I knew she’d have gin and water (mother’s ruin) because she always does, but I thought I’d have a Dubonnet and bitter lemon. There was some Dubonnet left in a very dusty bottle, probably the same bottle that I had some from last time (I don’t think she likes it) but I couldn’t see any bitter lemon, so I went back into the kitchen and asked her if she’d got any anywhere else. She said she might have got some in the cellar, and I said I’d go down and look for it, but she said better not, I’d never find it, and anyway it was very dark and cobwebby down there and the light was broken. So I said not to bother, I was quite happy to have the Dubonnet by itself or with tonic or soda. But she’d already set off down into the cellar, and I could hear her stumbling around down there. ‘Don’t worry,’ I shouted, ‘I don’t want to be a nuisance, I’ll be perfectly happy with sherry instead’ – but I was too late. I heard her swear as she fell over something – she does use bad language, but perhaps everybody does these days – and then she came up with a very old-looking bottle of bitter lemon. ‘Honestly,’ I said, ‘I’d have been perfectly happy with something else.’ ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ she said, and at last got around to getting the pie in the oven. At this rate, I thought, looking at my watch, we’ll be lucky if we eat before half-past seven. And I hadn’t had anything except a Mars Bar and a ham sandwich since lunch.
One would have thought things would quieten down a little then, and I did hope they would, because I was really looking forward to asking her what she thought about what Dr Scott had said about trying to reduce my Tranquillex prescription: he thinks that’s what’s been making me put on so much weight lately. Apparently it’s a common side effect. Also, of course, I wanted a chance to hear about her programme. But things didn’t turn out that way. No sooner had we sat down at the kitchen table (she poured herself out an enormous tumblerful of gin, at least it looked enormous to me but perhaps there was a lot of water in it) – no sooner had we sat down (she was putting a plug on a table lamp that the cat had knocked over and fused, I’ve often noticed how incapable she is of just sitting down and doing nothing) – no sooner had we sat down, than the twins burst in, dressed in some funny-looking uniform, saying they’d just got back from the Woodcraft Folk meeting. To tell you the truth, I’d hardly noticed they weren’t there, the house was already so noisy without them. They really are the sweetest children, and very happy, amazing when you think how little time their mother has for them – anyway, then we had to listen to a long rigmarole about what they’d been up to at the Woodcraft Folk, which they said was a kind of guerrilla warfare training for Marxist boy scouts – very funny, I suppose, though I don’t think I’d like eight-year-olds of mine to be quite so precocious. Then they saw that we were having a drink, and began to demand bottles of Coke and crisps and peanuts and something called Corn Crackers. And she found she hadn’t any Coke, so she sent them off to the off-licence to buy some, and a packet of Corn Crackers each for all the kids, and one for me. (They were quite nice, actually.)
But what with one thing and another, we’d hardly had time to exchange more than two sentences quietly together before the pie was ready and it was supper time. And those two sentences weren’t very satisfactory: she said she couldn’t possibly advise me about the Tranquillex, not being a qualified doctor, but that if I wanted to lose weight, perhaps I ought to join Weight Watchers. In other words, she missed the point entirely.
The pie was quite nice, and to do her justice I did notice that Damie at least had stopped fishing the green pepper out, so perhaps one can force anyone to like anything in the end. As usual, there wasn’t any dessert, only fruit and cheese. She says she hates making puddings, and anyway, she says, they do one no good. Quite right, I suppose.
It was half-past eight by the time we had finished, and then, thank goodness, the twins went off to put themselves to bed, and Kate went to watch television, and Damie went off to finish his homework, and I helped with the washing up. At least she thought I was good enough to help with that. So we did have some time to talk. She asked me more about how I was getting on with Mary – really getting on, not just this business about the cottage – and was really sympathetic, as she used to be when I first met her, and not just listening with half an ear, as she is so often these days. And also, she asked me some more about Dr Scott, and asked if I’d ever thought of having any psychiatric treatment, and told me some story about a friend of hers who was getting remarkable results. I said, how ever could I afford it, we weren’t all as rich as her and her friends, and that anyway I didn’t really have much faith in that kind of thing, and she agreed, and put the coffee on, and poured herself another gin. (I didn’t know people drank gin after dinner. I said I didn’t want anything more to drink.)
We had coffee in the kitchen, to avoid disturbing the children in the other room. Damie always does his homework in front of the blaring telly, and how he manages to do so well at sc
hool is a mystery to me. Modern children are a mystery. She told me a story about a man at work who kept trying to take her out to dinner, and then the phone went – again – it was her sister this time, and they went on for hours, some problem about her sister’s baby’s nursery school which they both seemed to find extremely amusing, though I couldn’t see the joke myself. When she rang off, finally, the phone went again the moment she put it down, and I think it must have been the caller who had annoyed her so much earlier, because she snapped back very abruptly with that same funny note – ‘Oh, it’s you is it, yes, I know I told you to ring again later, but it’s not later enough, it’s still early – ’ and then there was a longish silence, while she listened to the other person, and I couldn’t hear a word, because unlike her ex-husband Tony the other person was speaking very softly. And then, she said, in a softer tone, but still, I thought, very irritable, ‘Oh. Oh, yes, I see. Well, that’s different, isn’t it? Yes, eleven should be all right. About eleven. See you soon.’ (Hear from you soon, I suppose she meant.) ‘Till later, then,’ she said, and rang off.
She seemed in a slightly better temper, oddly enough, after this call, and started to tell me about her ex-husband’s new girlfriend, and how well the two of them were getting on, and how she hoped that he would make up his mind to marry her. She puts a brave face on things, I’ll say that for her. And, as the atmosphere was a little more peaceful, I thought I’d tell her about Mary’s husband and how tiresome he’s being over the allowance he’s supposed to pay. But just as I embarked on it, Kate came in to say goodnight, and Damie came in with his homework. He wanted her to help him. It was physics, and she said she’d never been any good at physics, and he said that didn’t matter, it was supposed to be just common sense at this stage (they do the Nuffield course, I think), to which she said that she’d never had any common sense either; but she agreed to have a look at it, and I could see her getting cross all over again when she found she couldn’t understand it. So I asked her if I could have a look (not that I’m any good at physics either, but two heads are better than one) but she rather childishly said No, she wanted to be able to understand it herself, and that if a child of twelve was supposed to be able to do it surely she could too.
It would have been all right, I suppose, if Damie hadn’t leant over the table while he was trying to explain something in the textbook to her, and knocked over the table lamp that she’d just been fixing. And then I really don’t know what happened to her. She flew into such a rage, I’ve never seen anything like it. She picked the lamp up and hurled it at the wall, then she threw the physics textbook at Damie’s head and started hurling abuse at the poor boy – such terrible language too, I hope he didn’t understand it – and then she picked up her coffee cup and threw that after him, as he retreated down the corridor. I can’t tell you how astonished I was. I was really amazed. And this was the capable woman we’re all supposed to think is such a model of efficiency and calm. Poor Damie, I didn’t know what to do, I could hear him crying in the other room. I didn’t know what to say to her either: I said something about how she must be feeling tired after such a long day and not to blame herself too much, but she’d buried her head in her hands and wouldn’t answer. I said I’d make her another cup of coffee, but she still said nothing. So I just sat there for a while, then I said, ‘Shall I go and see how Damie is?’ and she muttered that it would be better to leave him alone, and if I didn’t mind very much she thought she’d go to bed, perhaps she wasn’t feeling too good after all.
So I could hardly stay on after that, could I? I picked up the lamp and put the bits of coffee cup in the bin. It was still only half-past nine, and usually I don’t leave till eleven, but there didn’t seem much point in staying. She didn’t seem to want to fix another day to see me: give me a ring, she kept saying. I wonder if she’d had too much to drink.
Anyway, I felt I had to go. I put my head round the sitting-room door on my way out, and Damie seemed all right again: he was getting on with the homework as though nothing much had happened. When I got out, though, instead of walking straight to the tube, I walked round the block, thinking I’d look in through the sitting-room window on my way back. I was still feeling anxious about Damie, of course. (She never draws the curtains: the whole street can see in.)
And would you believe it, when I got back round the block and looked in, there were she and Damie, sitting on the settee together, hugging each other and laughing their heads off. Laughing, they were. I can’t think what at. There didn’t seem to be anything to laugh at, to me.
So I went and caught the tube home.
You know, sometimes I think she’s a little unbalanced. I wouldn’t like to suggest it myself, but I really do think she could do with some kind of treatment.
(1975)
10
The Merry Widow
When Philip died, his friends and colleagues assumed that Elsa would cancel the holiday. Elsa knew that this would be their assumption. But she had no intention of cancelling. She was determined upon the holiday. During Philip’s unexpectedly sudden last hours, and in the succeeding weeks of funeral and condolence and letters from banks and solicitors, it began to take an increasingly powerful hold upon her imagination. If she were honest with herself, which she tried to be, she had not been looking forward to the holiday while Philip was alive: it would have been yet another dutifully endured, frustrating, saddening attempt at reviving past pleasures, overshadowed by Philip’s increasing ill health and ill temper. But without Philip, the prospect brightened. Elsa knew that she would have to conceal her growing anticipation, for it was surely not seemly for so recent a widow to look forward so eagerly to something as mundane as a summer holiday – although it was not, she reasoned with herself, as though she were contemplating an extravagant escapade. Their plans had been modest enough – no Swans tour of the Greek isles, no luxury hotel, not even a little family pension with check tablecloths and local wine in the Dordogne, but a fortnight in a rented cottage in Dorset. A quiet fortnight in late June. An unambitious arrangement, appropriate for such a couple as Philip and Elsa, Elsa and Philip.
Perhaps, she thought, as she threw away old socks and parcelled suits for Oxfam and the Salvation Army, as she cancelled subscriptions to scholarly periodicals, perhaps she should try to imply to these well-meaning acquaintances that she felt a spiritual need to go to Dorset, a need for solitude, for privacy, a need to recover in tranquillity and new surroundings from the shock (however expected a shock) of Philip’s death? And indeed, such an implication would not be so far from the truth, except for the fact that the emotion she expected to experience in Dorset was not grief, but joy. She needed to be alone, to conceal from prying eyes her relief, her delight in her new freedom and, yes, her joy.
This was unseemly, but it was so. She had been absolutely fed up to the back teeth with Philip, she said to herself, gritting those teeth tightly as she wrote to increase the standing order for oil delivery, as she rang the plumber to arrange to have a shower attachment fitted to the bathroom tap. Why on earth shouldn’t she have a shower attachment, at her age, with her pension and savings? Her jaw ached with retrospective anger. How mean he had become, how querulous, how determined to thwart every pleasure, to interfere with every friendship. Thanks to Philip, she had no friends left, and that was why she was looking forward with a voluptuous, sensuous, almost feverish longing to the delights of solitude. To get away, away from all these ruined relationships, these false smiles, these old tweed suits and pigeonholes full of papers – to be alone, not to have to pretend, to sleep and wake alone, unobserved.
It had not been Philip’s fault, she told others, that he had become ‘difficult’. It had been the fault of the illness. It had been bad luck, to be struck down like that when not yet sixty, bad luck to have such constant nagging pain, bad luck to be denied one’s usual physical exercise and pleasures, one’s usual diet. But of course in her heart she thought it was Philip’s fault. Illness had merely accentuat
ed his selfishness, his discreet malice, his fondness for putting other people in their place. Illness gave him excuses for behaving badly – but he had always behaved badly. He had seized upon illness as a gift, had embraced it as his natural state. When younger, he had made efforts to control his tongue, his witticisms at the expense of others, his desire to prove the rest of the world ignorant, foolish, ill mannered. Illness had removed the controls, had given him licence. He had seemed to enjoy humiliating her in public, complaining about her behind her back, undermining her when they sat alone together watching television. It had reached the stage where she could not express the slightest interest in any television programme without his launching an attack on her taste, her interests, her habits of mind. If she watched the news, she was news-obsessed, media-obsessed, brainwashed into submission by the news-madness of the programme planners; if she watched tennis or athletics or show-jumping, he would lecture her on the evils of competitive sport; if she watched wildlife documentaries, he would mock her for taking an interest in badgers and butterflies when she ought to be attending to the problems of the inner cities; if she watched a comedy series, he would call her escapist, and the comedy would be attacked as cosy middle-class fantasy or as a glorification of working-class subculture. Whatever she watched was wrong, and if she watched nothing – why, she was a television snob, unable to share the simple pleasures of Everyman. Night after night, at an oblique angle, through the small screen, he had abused her. It was not television he hated, it was her.
A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman Page 15