‘In here,’ Robert said. He flung open a door and showed Anna into a tall, dramatic room looking out at the back of the house. It contained a brass bed – a very big brass bed – several wardrobes and tables, two armchairs, a black-marble fireplace, a hatstand, a crowded bookcase and curtains of maroon plush.
‘Make yourself comfortable,’ Robert said, ‘bathroom straight opposite. Hang on to the chain and count seven before letting go. I’ll make some tea. Eleanor will be back in five minutes.’
He closed the door. Anna looked about her. There was a copy of The Times Literary Supplement by her bed, and the nearest book she could see in the bookcase was called The Ethics of Ecology. Her bed had an orange cover on it and a pile of riotously embroidered cushions. The room smelled faintly of incense. Anna put her handbag down on an armchair, and felt suddenly very shy.
Eleanor, she discovered, had not so much changed as solidified. She was everything she had been as a young woman, but more intensely so – more articulate, more decided, more culturally avid, more impersonal. She was also fatter. Her averagely shaped body had swelled at the hips to fill her capacious jeans and large, jolly jerseys. She was not only now a very successful novelist, but also a voracious committee woman. She was, she told Anna, a campaigner, and as soon as Ptolemy was ten – the age that he had been assured would allow him to bicycle to school alone – she intended to throw herself into yet more activity. She told Anna that England had become shockingly philistine and repressive; she intended to promote the freedom of the pen.
Ptolemy was a quiet, snuffling child who gave the impression of having a profound inner life that he was protecting from his mother. His two elder brothers, both day-boys at a city school, had the lugubrious sartorial appearance of impoverished Victorian undertakers, and sloped sullenly about the house, slopping endless bowls of cornflakes and muttering for hours into the telephone. They were kept deliberately short of money by Eleanor – ‘The only practical answer, I’m afraid, to Oxford’s drug problem’ – and so were to be constantly caught unabashedly combing cupboards and drawers for the latest hiding-place of her purse. She seemed to think that this was perfectly normal behaviour and as much an inevitable part of the messiness of adolescence as spots (which they both had) and wet dreams. She informed Anna a great deal about her life, her children’s lives and life in general, and after two days had not asked her a single question in return. Anna, who had read No Joking Matter, all the first night when she couldn’t sleep, began to feel that she was in every way in uncharted country.
The pattern of the day was very decided, and fraught with argument since Eleanor and Robert believed in the right of every member of the family to discuss every topic from the threat to the environment down to whether Ptolemy or Gideon should be allowed the last helping out of a box of Ricicles. Breakfast happened about eight in an atmosphere of steady acrimony, and then Robert herded the older boys into the car for school – this provided a wonderful chance for prolonged defiance – before he went on to college, and Eleanor walked Ptolemy to his school. Anna offered to do this (Ptolemy’s eyes gleamed dully at the prospect) but Eleanor said no, because she and Ptolemy had a weekly discussion programme worked out for each term which they got through in fifteen-minute bursts, as they walked. Anna asked what this week’s topic was, and Eleanor said, ‘Racism,’ and Ptolemy said, ‘Boring.’
When Eleanor returned from the walk to school, she shut herself in her study until lunchtime, and sometimes teatime, and someone called Mrs Lemon, who bicycled in from Marston, let herself in through the front door and scattered dusters and tins of polish about to create a good impression while she went to make herself coffee in the kitchen and have a good read of the paper.
Anna felt she must be quiet. She explained to Eleanor about her translation and Eleanor said, ‘Splendid,’ without taking in what she was being told. Anna spread her papers and machinery manuals out on one of the tables in her bedroom, and could progress no further. She tried lying on her bed and reading – every modern novel of any significance was in the house, mostly inscribed by the authors to Eleanor – but unease and a sensation of pointlessness cut her concentration to ribbons. She tried being nice to Mrs Lemon, but Mrs Lemon came to work almost exclusively to get away from her mother’s ceaseless talk, and said she was afraid she hadn’t time to chat, not with a house this size (she was sitting down at the time, with her feet on a second chair, filling in a competition to win a holiday in Greece with the companion of her choice). So Anna went out, and walked. She walked all through Oxford, and the Parks, and the Botanical Gardens and Christchurch Meadows. She went up the spire of St Mary’s, into all the colleges that would admit her, and several times to the Ashmolean Museum. She looked at things of great beauty and great antiquity and great curiousness, and she spoke politely to people who addressed her, and smiled at porters in lodges, and at girls in coffee shops who brought her coffee. And all the time, she felt with a gathering strength that she had, to all intents and purposes, simply ceased to be.
To cheer her up, the Ramsays gave a dinner party. Anna, who only ever went to dinner parties as the Rural Dean’s wife, and that most infrequently, was mildly apprehensive. Eleanor did not seem to notice this, but firmly said that Anna would find the people coming most refreshing – a poet, three academics, a flautist and a psychiatrist specializing in paedophilia. Anna would have much preferred to spend the evening playing snakes and ladders with Ptolemy, a game which was his furtive passion and of which Eleanor disapproved.
There were no preparations for the dinner party until about an hour before everyone was due to arrive. Eleanor said how sweet of Anna to offer to help, but really she did So prefer spontaneity, both for the atmosphere and the taste of the food. In practice, spontaneity meant that the kitchen suddenly became an inferno of chaos and screams, loudly scented with garlic and olive oil and roasting peppers, and Eleanor grew scarlet in the face and yelled that she didn’t bloody well see why she should have to work so hard to keep them all so fucking comfortable and still be condemned to this sodding domestic slavery.
Robert gave Anna a glass of wine and indicated that they should both leave Eleanor to it. With elaborate quietness, he drew Anna across the kitchen – Eleanor’s back was briefly turned while she shrieked and hurled chilli powder into a bubbling pot – and out into the hall, where he closed the door behind them. They sat on the stairs.
‘It’s always like this,’ he said. He sounded perfectly relaxed. ‘I don’t think a creative temperament can successfully be otherwise. She becomes absolutely Wagnerian at Christmas. Wonderful woman.’
‘I wish she’d let me help, I feel such a drone—’
‘Fatal, dear girl, fatal. It has to be her creation as much as her novels do. She needs, craves, the achievement as much as the applause.’
‘I see,’ said Anna. ‘So my role will be the washing-up.’
‘Exactly so,’ said Robert, beaming.
Anna went up to her bedroom and looked at her clothes. At least, with a mother like Laura, some of them had a raffish distinction not usually associated with the wardrobes of the Church of England. Ptolemy came in with his snakes and ladders board.
‘You’ll hate dinner,’ he said gloomily, ‘it’ll be all red and pongy and your mouth will simply blaze.’
Anna indicated the clothes on her bed. ‘What do you think I should wear?’
Ptolemy looked, without enthusiasm. After a while he said, ‘Oh that,’ in a bored voice, pointing to a voluminously skirted black dress, and then added, ‘No-one’ll see, anyway. Will you play with me?’
They sat on Anna’s bedroom floor and played three games. Ptolemy won them all. Then Anna said she must dress and Ptolemy said he might as well stay – he always saw Eleanor in the bath so there were no surprises for him. Anna put on the black dress and tied a golden yellow Paisley scarf round the waist, and Ptolemy said he was thankful he wasn’t a girl. He picked up his snakes and ladders board and went out of the room saying, ‘You can
always come and play some more if it’s too ghastly,’ and trailed up to his bedroom on the top floor.
Anna went out on to the landing and listened. It was not only calm, but an aria from Don Giovanni was floating out of the sitting-room. As she stood there, Eleanor’s bedroom door opened, and Eleanor emerged in an evening pyjama suit of purple-patterned silk with barbaric golden jewellery. She smelled of scent and garlic. She was smiling.
‘Anna. Perfect timing. As always at these moments, I ask myself, why does one do it?’
It was an evening of extreme difficulty for Anna, because, when asked about herself, she could only say truthfully that she was a parson’s wife, it being clearly out of the question to embark on a long description of her relationship with Eleanor, and how that had once been, and how it had changed. It was not, she found, in this enlightened and intellectually fashionable company, at all socially helpful to say that one was a parson’s wife. It froze conversation. Eleanor tried to get her to talk about St Andrews, but she said firmly that, as that was ten years ago, it wasn’t now relevant. Eleanor persisted, demanding that she recount finding the half-brick through the children’s broken bedroom window.
Anna took a deep breath and said very clearly, ‘Eleanor, I may be a clergyman’s wife, but I am not a party turn.’
There was a silence. It was a very complete silence, and it seemed to go on for an unnaturally long time. Anna did not look at Eleanor because she did not wish to see the expression of fury she knew she would be wearing.
Robert gave several little bleats that refused to develop into sentences and then the poet, who was sitting next to Anna, said, ‘You must make allowances for us. It is a long time since religion had any real relevance in Oxford.’
Anna turned and stared at him. He stared back for a little while but he was shorter than she, and staring upwards (unless you are a cat) puts you at a disadvantage.
One of the academics – an appealing, ugly, elderly woman with a deep voice – leant across the table and said, ‘Do be careful, Fergus, or Mrs Bouverie will think us so very ignorant,’ and then she winked at Anna and brandished her wineglass. ‘Now look at that. Empty again. Extraordinary,’ and there was relieved laughter.
After that, Eleanor took no chances. Anna had been graciously, generously, invited to shine and had been most churlish in her refusal: she would not – Eleanor intended to see to it – get a second opportunity. Conversation could now safely exclude her and follow the pattern they all preferred – a little mild intellectual showing-off to warm up with followed by the most excellent Oxford gossip.
Anna and Robert washed up. While they did this, Eleanor sat at the kitchen table analysing the evening, and smoking a Turkish cigarette: ‘My absolutely only self-indulgence.’
When the last plate and fork and glass were dried – Eleanor had not moved – Robert said, ‘Come on, dear girl. Bedtime.’
Unexpectedly, Eleanor said, ‘You go up. I want to talk to Anna.’
Anna and Robert exchanged glances of surprise. He mouthed, ‘Better stay,’ at her. She looked at Eleanor.
‘As a novelist,’ Eleanor said, lighting another cigarette, ‘I am, as it were, helplessly observant. I am programmed to it. I’ve noticed far more this week than you might think.’
Robert went stealthily to the door. Anna was beginning to despise his kindness to her which was, she saw, only part of his voluntary subservience to Eleanor. She said, ‘Good night,’ loudly, to his vanishing back.
Eleanor took no notice. She waited until Anna sat down and then she said, ‘Of course, my dear, the time has come for you to leave Peter.’
Anna said nothing.
‘Do I read your mind?’
Anna said warily, ‘I have a strange diffidence—’
‘About what?’
‘About abandoning a situation which I have been part of for so long. About being sure that changes in me are permanent changes. About how much confidence I have, real confidence, not just bursts of temper—’
‘You weren’t ever in love with Peter,’ Eleanor said, in a voice suddenly much more like her youthful voice, ‘were you?’
‘Not in love, I don’t think, but I believe I loved him—’
Eleanor leaned forward. ‘I believed I loved Robert. I was desperate to stay in Oxford and I thought he was clever and he was so admiring of my ideas and ambitions.’ She reached across the table for a half-empty bottle of wine and poured some into two glasses still warm from Anna’s washing-up. ‘Of course, he isn’t clever in the least, and I could in fact have stayed in Oxford anyway, and his slavishness drives me absolutely insane.’ She took a gulp of wine. ‘He’s simply hopeless with the boys, no kind of notion of discipline, and the moment there’s any question of a decision to be made, he vanishes to college muttering about his commitments. As a lover, he’s as much fun as an old sock, and he’s perfectly idiotic with money, going into a maddening sort of goofy helpless routine when the bills come in. But you see, Anna, the thing is, I’ve pretended. I’m not just someone of significance in Oxford, I’m beginning to be so nationally – actually, there’s talk, too, of an American promotional tour – and I’ve said to everyone, over and over again, that I am succeeding, that I have life taped, I’d give my eyeteeth for a lover, but who’s going to ever think of tackling me with my loudly trumpeted perfect life? Oh Anna,’ said Eleanor, reaching out for Anna’s hand and bursting into tremendous tears. ‘Oh Anna, it’s so wonderful to have you here with all your wealth of knowledge of the human dilemma. I never thought I’d say it, but thank heavens for your connection with the Church. It’s such a relief to have someone who understands to confide in, you can’t imagine.’
When Anna climbed off her homebound train, she found Patrick O’Sullivan waiting for her.
‘I offered,’ he said, ‘and I won. I offered and so did Elaine Dodswell, but I won because I hadn’t also promised to take Mrs Eddoes in to the arthritis clinic this morning. Though if I live here much longer it may come to that.’
Anna said, ‘But where is Peter?’
‘Busy. What does he usually do on Thursdays?’
‘They vary,’ she said. She had promised herself, all the journey home, that she would arrive in a mood of generosity and optimism, that she would greet Peter with affection, that she would . . .
‘Are you all right?’
She lifted her chin. ‘Fine, thank you. Rather a late night, last night, a grand finale—’
Eleanor had talked and cried until almost three in the morning. She talked herself through leaving Robert to staying with him after all to leaving him once again for a life founded upon honesty. When she finally allowed Anna to go to bed, she had embraced her warmly and said that she was absolutely thankful Anna had come and been able to make her see what, simply, had to be done, and that more self-respect was to be gained that way than via any kind of self-sacrifice. Anna, who had scarcely uttered, and was entirely uncertain which conclusion Eleanor had finally lurched to, returned her embrace, and then lay exhausted and wakeful until Ptolemy came in at seven-thirty and said Eleanor had relented, and Anna was allowed to walk him to school because it was her last morning, but that they were not going to converse because he was going to tell her jokes out of his Hundred Worst Jokes Book. Briefly, she considered relaying the one about a gooseberry in a lift to Patrick O’Sullivan, but decided to save it for Flora.
‘I don’t wish to be ungrateful,’ Anna said, getting into the car, ‘but I thought you were a very busy man. After all, this is a very domestic kind of errand.’
Ella had in fact offered to come in Patrick’s place, but he had declined. He said he was picking up some wine on the same journey. She had said, ‘Oh yes,’ in a voice loaded with sarcasm.
Patrick shut Anna into the car and came round to the driver’s side.
‘Don’t sound so suspicious,’ he said, starting the engine. ‘I am merely learning to be a good villager. Doing my bit, as it were, for the Rector’s support-group.’
�
��The what?’
‘It’s in its first week. Can’t remember whose idea it was. But we have all received an earnest circular about doing our bit for our overworked Rector and his lady, for which the accepted term seems to be “lay involvement”.’ He looked sideways at Anna. ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ he said softly, ‘a little lay involvement myself.’
Anna wasn’t listening. ‘A group? Started last week?’
‘Humming along. Beavering about going on all over the place. I expect you’ll get home and find there isn’t a thing left for you to do.’ He glanced at her. ‘Did you like my flowers?’
On the kitchen table sat a mauve-pink African violet with a little card propped against it. The card read, ‘Welcome home. Celia, Elaine and the parish group.’ There was also a note from Peter on the back of a brown envelope, saying that he would be back at twelve-thirty and that Celia had left something in the fridge. Anna opened the refrigerator door. Two perfect, technicolour salads lay on two matching plates (not Rectory plates) under plastic film. Anna banged the door shut. The kitchen smelled violently hygienic. The floor shone; the sink gleamed. ‘Be thankful,’ Anna instructed herself, fighting with rage.
She went upstairs; the staircarpet had been brushed. In her bedroom the air was fragrant with polish, and the dying lilies of the valley had been ostentatiously left in a bowl of clean water. Someone strange, Anna noticed with a spurt of fury, had made their bed, since the cover was arranged with hotel-like precision, tucked trimly in under the pillows, smooth and neat. Peter’s slippers lay smugly together by the wardrobe, and the piles of books on their bedside tables had been graded into pyramids.
She ran into the bathroom. All was shining and regimented. The toothbrushes stood in a sparkling tumbler, the towels hung in ordered oblongs. She sat down on the edge of the bath, suddenly winded by the effrontery of it, the intrusiveness, the heavily implied criticism of everything she had previously done, from her behaviour in the parish to the way she did (or didn’t) polish the taps.
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