by Fay Weldon
Everyone said Doreen had dragged her child out of bed in the middle of the night and broken her own nose to make it bleed.
I paid for a hotel, I paid her lawyers, I paid to set her free. She divorced Saul and moved back with Chloe into the marital home. It was unheard of. Until that court case, if you left your husband you left the child. No-one forgave me, and I daresay my defiance of Karl started the rot of our marriage. The Dumpling did as she was told.
‘Why come to me?’ I asked Doreen that night. ‘You have lots of friends to go to.’
‘You’re the only brave one,’ she said, ‘because you earn your own money.’
‘I suppose now you have no money,’ said Polly, ‘you are no longer brave.’
‘That’s pretty much true,’ I said.
Polly In Another Sulk
‘You’ve told me all this, Mum,’ says Polly. ‘But it’s way in the past.’ How children do hate to receive instruction from their parents. I sympathize. I remember my grandmother trying to teach me to play the piano, and the boiling rage of resentment it called up in me. ‘Can we get on? At this rate we’ll never get to Venetia’s.’
‘I’ve never told you what happened next,’ I say.
I tell her Saul never forgave Doreen and never stopped loving her. He married again and beat up the second wife in the same way. Doreen stayed lonely and tearful for the rest of her life, which was not a long one. She took to yoga and drink and had druggie boyfriends who also beat her up. She neglected the house once it was hers, died of drink and few people came to her funeral. Chloe was okay, but after the flight in the night became and stayed over-weight. Nervy people can coat themselves in fat so the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune don’t hurt so much when they land. I think that was the case with Chloe.
I should not have interfered. Doreen and Saul would still be together, and might even have gone to AA and no longer disturbed the neighbours; Saul’s second wife would have been saved the shouting and hitting. Chloe would have grown up to be as beautiful as her mother. Fathers for Justice would not have gone on risking their necks perching on tall buildings in attempts to see their children.
I have really annoyed Polly. This not what she wants to hear about – the difference between what ought to happen and what does happen. For example, you go to Turkey because you deserve it, and come back to fall out of the sky. Justice is not built into the system, but this is a really hard concept for some people to accept.
At the third roadblock rebuilding is proceeding apace. I scarcely recognize the area. Most has been torn down: big new attractive houses – the word dacha comes to mind – parklands and ponds are being built where once Grand Avenue stood in suburban splendour. Dominating all, such has been the skill of NUG architects, is the old Victorian family home of Victor and Venetia, now with an outgrowth of steel and glass buildings, and topped by an array of spiky aerials, which means it is very much in touch with the rest of the world.
We have to line up behind rows of white CiviVans, no doubt already bringing in items of luxury and pleasure. It was like the Good Days back again, when the traffic jams would be caused by cheerful activity and the sheer volume of vehicles, not the booths of CiviSecure. The end of the road is gated, as is Downing Street, and the policemen are armed. But at least here we have proper adult policemen to check our passage, stare at us long and hard, and confiscate our IDs. They are polite to us but check ahead and we are motioned into a lay-by to wait for permission to pass.
Polly Tells The Truth
‘It seems NUG is coming to Victor, not Victor going to NUG,’ I say.
‘Told you so,’ says my daughter. And then, ‘It’s probably nothing to do with Victor beating her up, probably no-one minds that at all, like you: at least they have the excuse that they’re men. You don’t.’
I wonder what it is she objects to exactly. The truth or my refusal to deny the truth? It’s a fact that in the past I never carried the story on to its proper end but wrapped it up with the successful court case. Today was different.
‘It’s the other things she told me,’ complains Polly. I hate it when she is in this mean mode.
I blame myself for having smoked while I was pregnant with her. But perhaps I don’t need to. Polly is a Scorpio and they can get moody, bitchy, self-pitying and destructive, in which case one can blame the time of birth and not the faulty, irresponsible, smoking mother and I am off the hook.
‘And even then I wish she had not told me what she did,’ Polly goes on. ‘I don’t know why she had to, since she spent nearly thirty years not, and never told a soul.’
‘What is that, Polly?’ I ask. ‘What secret?’
Long-kept secrets are usually to do with the fathering of babies. Ethan someone else’s baby, not Victor’s? But I’d have known. Surely. And it’s true; Ethan doesn’t look much like Victor. Even I have remarked upon that. Then who? Who was involved with Venetia all those years ago?
‘Tell me about it,’ I say.
‘We’ll have to get out of the car,’ she says, ‘if your mad fantasies about bugging are true.’
‘Okay,’ I say, and get out of the car. I wish I hadn’t.
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise
Good Lord, I think: surely I deserve a break. That’s what Cynthia said and I denied it to her. Now it’s I who deserve one. I may have been a bad girl in my youth but since then I’ve paid my way, worked hard all my life, been a conscientious citizen, got the law changed, become wealthy and famous, worked for charity, helped others on their way, was dubbed a Dame for my pains, had books published and plays performed, and still it has come to this.
Forget bailiffs at the door, the taxman coming, eyesight if not exactly fading, at least needing light bulbs that are bright, God help me now. Do not let me hear what I think I am going to hear, and from the mouth of my own daughter, who ought to know better than to try to kill me with the truth. The girls have always been full of blame, blaming my various lovers for my present predicament. I blame myself – for the last thirty-five years I have caught up lovers and husbands in a spiral of self-destruct and they really didn’t know what hit them.
‘What Venetia told me,’ says Polly, ‘and she was crying and bending over the sink with a bit of steak held to her eye – can you imagine, real steak? – wasn’t just about him hitting her, it was about Ethan.’
‘If Victor had just “heard about Ethan” perhaps that is why your sister had a piece of steak to her eye. Men get funny about that kind of thing. When your father realized I had a lover, he hit me. I didn’t hold it against him. I do not suppose Venetia will hold it against Victor. I hope they sort it out.’
I add that I am glad the taps have been running because it might mask what was heard on the mikes. Polly doesn’t like the thought of me having a lover – one rule for the men, apparently, one for the women, same old thing – and called me a slut.
‘No, I was not a slut,’ say I. ‘Certainly not by the standard of the times.’
And I point out that I’d only had a lover in the first place because her father had decided he was too good for me, artistically speaking, and had already gone off with a semi-human, malformed creature shaped like a dumpling. What was I meant to do? Live on my own and mourn my loss for ever? I was doing it for their sake, I add. So I wouldn’t be an emotional burden on them for ever.
‘She was a perfectly nice, very attractive woman, just not too bright and a bit fat. And I don’t think you’re remembering things in order,’ says Polly. ‘Our father made a mistake, that’s all, and wanted to come home. But you only cared about yourself, not us.’
Ah, there we have it, laid out clear.
‘So I suppose Venetia having a baby and palming it off on poor Victor is my fault too? I like Victor.’
‘Mum,’ she says, ‘you only like Victor because it’s through him you get hold of real coffee and sugar. You are a Vicar of Bray. Victor is a monster who puts human meat stuff into the National Meat Loaf.’
I am aware t
hat I am putting off the moment of truth, and so is she. I more or less know what I am going to be told. I want to live in a world in which I don’t know a little longer.
‘You’ve been reading Redpeace,’ I say. ‘It’s all in there and all lies.’
‘Ethan says it isn’t.’
‘Does Ethan know he isn’t Victor’s child?’
‘No.’
‘Then he’s an ungrateful lout, biting the hand that feeds him.’
But I can put it off no longer.
‘Who is Ethan’s father? Tell me.’
One should never ask one’s children a direct question any more than offer a direct command, it opens the way too easily to a blank refusal to speak, or act. I remember only too well an episode upon the stairs when I forgot and told Polly outright to wash her face. She had come back from Primrose Hill where she had been taking part in a protest. The conversation had gone like this. She was six.
‘What was the protest about?’ I asked her.
‘Something about caning in schools,’ she said.
‘Do you have caning in your school?’
‘No.’ Then realizing I was questioning the reasonableness or otherwise of the protest, she added, ‘But we might have any time.’
‘Ah,’ I said. Then because her mouth was ringed with a mixture of ice cream, chocolate and sticky sweets I said,
‘Go and wash your face, Polly.’
‘No,’ she said.
‘Polly,’ I repeated. ‘Your face is very dirty. Go and wash it.’
‘I won’t,’ she said.
‘Do as I say.’
‘No. Why should I?’
I think hard for a good reason.
‘Because I’m your mother.’
‘I didn’t ask to be born.’ Very shrewd. Where can she have got it from? She’s only six. I should have said, ‘Wouldn’t it be a good idea for you to wash your face,’ or ‘You would look much prettier with a clean mouth’ – anything but the direct command. The ‘no’ still comes, but only to the proposition, not the command. But too late now.
‘I told you to wash your face, so wash it.’
‘No. Why should I?’
‘Because I’m bigger than you,’ I said, getting to the nub of the matter, and I slapped her across the cheek to prove it. I have never hit her before or since, or, until now, given her a direct command. She said nothing and stared at me. She turned on her heel and went to her bedroom, which was then where my kitchen is now. I stayed where I am, helpless with remorse. What had I done? She will hate me for ever. A minute later she comes out of her room. Her face is smeared with blood.
‘See what you did,’ she said. I was horrified. Then I remembered she could make her nose bleed at will by sticking a sharp fingernail up her right nostril.
I began to laugh. So did she. She went up to the bathroom and washed her face, from blood and ice cream, chocolate and sticky sweets, and came down good as gold, and peaceful. I do not think this conversation will have so good a conclusion this time.
‘It isn’t going to be easy for you,’ says Polly. ‘It wasn’t easy for me either, I can tell you. Another half-brother all this time, and not knowing. But it’s not as if they were blood relatives.’
‘I told you to tell me who Ethan’s father is.’
‘Oh Mum, work it out. She only did it for your sake. So you and Karl would get together again, and poor little Henry would have a mother. But you wouldn’t.’
So. Karl. Karl fucked his stepdaughter and Ethan was born. The square Mussolini jaw came down through the male line.
The senior policeman is coming over to us. He is smiling. We have been approved.
‘I’m honoured,’ he says, ‘Lady Venetia’s mother and sister! We’ll lead you in.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘I’ve been taken rather suddenly ill. My daughter here will take me home.’
He is all concern, but I say I feel faint and I have no doubt I look it.
Polly takes me home. There are no roadblocks. She prattles on the while. I think I hate her too.
‘We should have gone on in to see Venetia,’ she says. ‘It wasn’t good to back out like that. We should all have talked it through. Made our peace.’
Where does she think she’s living? Munchkinland?
‘Mother, it happened a long time ago. She’s had to bear the burden of secrecy ever since.’
The burden of secrecy! The joy of deceit, more likely.
‘Poor Daddy. He was so unhappy when Claire died, and he tried so hard with the baby.’
And what did Daddy think I was, when he left? Happy?
‘And you know how Venetia always adored him. And she was all alone with Amos.’
Oh the poor, poor thing. I was paying for her keep, sending Amos to school. Venetia is a festering store of ingratitude.
‘And Daddy had become so helpful about her art. It made such a difference to her. It’s only like Woody Allen and his stepdaughter. They’re very happy together.’
I don’t seem to remember Mia Farrow being very happy about it.
‘It’s not like it was an abuse of power thing.’
‘No?’
‘Oh Mum, loosen up.’
Is she insane?
‘Venetia didn’t mean to get pregnant. When she found out she wanted to get rid of it, but Karl said keep it. It would be company for Henry. He really loved Henry. Venetia would have moved in with Daddy but she thought it would make you unhappy, so she married Victor and everyone assumed it was Victor’s child.’
Oh honourable, kindly, disgusting Venetia. ‘Lady’ Venetia. That was quick. You are not my daughter. Every pleasure I ever took in motherhood I hereby renounce and deny.
I wish you had never been born. I envisage you and Karl together and want to vomit. You took me into another universe all right and it is hell, and ever since I’ve known you, always has been. I should never have been born. I curse my mother’s womb, and my own, and Venetia’s. And Polly’s, come to that. I almost curse Rosie’s and Steffie’s but find I can’t.
Prattle, prattle, prattle, on Polly goes. God, she’s stupid.
‘Mum. Please speak to me. You haven’t said a word all the way down.’
‘Just leave me on the corner of the Crescent. I’ll be fine.’
She leaves me on the corner of the Crescent. I go to No. 3 and try to turn the key in the lock. I can’t. It is bunged up with superglue. I walk round the corner to 7 Rothwell Street and find the front door open. I am not conscious of pain in my knees but I expect it is there. I go through the house and into the potato field and across the mud, and curse the potato flowers and hope they wither and rot. No. 5 is as I left it. They have not come back. Perhaps they have been arrested and shot and made into National Meat Loaf. I hope so. I get up the stairs somehow, past the empty armchair with the still-waiting duct tape, through the hole in the wall, and down again to my own room. I lie on the bed and fall asleep.
Presently I wake up and open up my laptop and write the scenes between Karl and the slut Venetia.
Karl And Venetia
A country farmhouse, dilapidated and charming. Old copper pans for cooking hang from ancient beams, and are actually used, though badly in need of tinning. An ancient Aga, a charming old oak Welsh dresser, hung with chipped antique mugs and lined with cracked blue-and-white china. Everything is good to look at from a distance but on close inspection, rather grimy. A red hen running about the floor and shitting at will, two cats and two dogs. Paintings and drawings fill every available space on the walls. Ornaments and objets trouvés cover every surface. A toddler sits on the floor, wetnappied, sticky-mouthed, untended. A slight smell of spliff and baby’s poo combine to make a warm, welcoming atmosphere. An artist’s home, fertile and creative.
Outside, geese chattering. A cluster of rather scraggy rare-breed sheep that probably don’t get enough to eat stare mournfully towards the house. Venetia pulls up in her fetching yellow Volkswagen. The sheep scatter in alarm. She wears white and hi
gh-heeled pink shoes. She has a nice figure and a soulful look. She goes inside and snatches up the baby, takes it to the sink and starts washing its bottom. Fortunately, and surprisingly, there is a roll of paper towels available.
Venetia: [calling] Dad!
Karl comes down the stairs. He wears an artist’s smock and practically has a paintbrush between his teeth. He is a cross between Picasso and Rembrandt.
Karl: Oh it’s you, Venn. Don’t call me Dad.
Venetia: [hurt] Why not?
Karl: Because I’m not your dad. We are not blood relatives. I just happened to be around when your spider mother caught me like a fly in her trap. I struggled for years and finally escaped. I should have gone home with her sister and it would never have come to this. Alone, a baby on my hands, a show to get ready in the next six weeks and the tank out of heating oil. I have been very depressed, Venn.
Venetia: I’m sorry. I found the baby sitting on the floor crying and covered with shit.
Karl: Then thank you for picking him up. I don’t know how he gets out of his cot.
Venetia: Babies do grow, Daddy, with time.
Karl: That daddy thing again! It’s perverted. Don’t do it.
Venetia: It is very cold in here. The baby’s nose is running. Dad, you can’t live like this. And Mum can’t live like she is. She cries all the time. It’s too upsetting.
Karl: Your mother is perfectly happy in my house, which as you know well she robbed me of, cavorting with her lover. What do you expect me to do about it?
Venetia: Go back to her. She loves you.
Karl: Of course she loves me; women always love me, the meaner I am to them the more they come crawling. That is her misfortune, not mine. She’s a selfish hard-hearted neurotic half-man of a bitch. Claire was all woman. She had at least some aesthetic understanding and it’s a tragedy to the art world that she’s gone. Let alone to me.