by A. S. Byatt
Good stuff, Julia thought, and remembered the telephone.
‘Are you there? He doesn’t seem to be here.’
‘Where is he then? Can you get hold of him?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve just got in.’
‘I need to speak to him. When will he come home?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Soon or late?’
‘I —’
‘It’s very urgent.’
‘Can I take a message?’
‘No, no. I’ll just ring later, that’s best.’
‘Or can I do anything to help?’
‘I’ll just ring later, thank you.’
‘I’ll tell him you called.’
‘No, don’t do that, I’ll ring later, that’s best.’
‘Can’t you —’ Julia began, but the caller had rung off. Julia, slightly unnerved, went back into the living-room and surveyed the alien sacks. The baby’s bath was well worn, the plastic scratched and scored, the whole slightly grey. She kicked the sacks gently with one pointed foot. They yielded: cloth, of some kind.
She took off her coat and hat, feeling let down by her family’s absence, and was heading for Deborah’s room again when the front door bell rang. At the same time the telephone pealed again. Julia opened the door, beckoned vaguely to the man on the doorstep to come in and ran to the telephone.
‘Hullo, Julia Eskelund speaking.’
‘Is Mr Eskelund there?’
Julia could not tell whether this was the same voice.
‘No. I don’t know where he is.’
‘Oh, God,’ wildly. And then, more belligerently ‘I can’t understand it.’
‘Can I take a message?’ Julia said, but the connection was broken.
Behind her a man in a duffel coat was carrying a pile of blankets across the hall, and a woman in tartan stockings and a young man with sparse curls and a dandruff-spattered olive-green sweater were carrying a cot, a potty, and part of a high chair into her living-room. She followed them nervously.
‘Hullo,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’m Julia Eskelund.’
‘Bill Terry,’ said the man. He had a double chin and was moist with effort. He breathed heavily and volunteered no more. Julia turned to the others.
‘Lorna Terry. And Douglas,’ the woman said, brushing her hands together. ‘Where do you want the cots, Mrs Eskelund?’
‘I don’t know.… My husband.… I don’t know where my husband is.…’
She could not bring herself to ask their business; they were sufficiently clearly something to do with Thor.
‘I’ll just get the mattresses,’ said Bill. Julia began to push pieces of her own furniture ineffectively against the wall, to make room for what might still come. The thought crossed her mind that the flat had simply become a collecting depot for Oxfam. She did not, somehow, want to test this hypothesis by asking.
‘Can I make you some coffee?’ she said to Lorna Terry, who was screwing two sides of a cot together, just inside the kitchen door. The telephone rang.
‘There’s a woman keeps ringing up and frightening me,’ she said to Lorna, confidingly. Lorna smiled briefly through the bars of the cot. The boy, Douglas, was for some reason undoing one of the sacking bales. This made her apprehensive. She went out to answer the telephone.
‘Please,’ she said, ‘please, will you …’
‘Ah, Ju. Ivan here.’
‘Darling,’ said Julia. ‘Darling, I’m in such chaos.’
‘As always, my beautiful. What is it this time?’ Julia lowered her voice and cupped her hand over the phone. ‘I don’t exactly know.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Oh, forget it, I’ll tell you later.’
‘You do sound distraught. How did your exorcism go?’
‘It wasn’t an exorcism. It was a visit.’
‘I adore you. You don’t sound as though it’s done you much good. Shall I come round?’
‘Not at the moment. There’s such chaos.’
‘Can’t I come and help?’
‘Well, not exactly,’ said Julia. ‘Though of course I’d love you to help me with anything at all, darling, but this isn’t exactly your cup of tea. It’s something I expect I’ll understand in a minute or two. It’s a – a sort of invasion.’
Bill Terry humped a double mattress round the front door, rested it against the hall chest, and went in search of his wife, breathing even more heavily.
‘I don’t understand my life any more,’ Julia said. ‘It doesn’t make sense. I need help. I do rely on you to sort me out, darling.’
During this speech, Thor came in through the front door and went across the hall.
‘Well, can I come round and protect you?’
‘No – love – no, not just now.’
‘You do sound flapped.’
‘I am, I am. I’ve got to see you.’
‘And there was I thinking you’d come back a new woman. Come and have some supper and tell all.’
‘I’d love to.’
‘I’ll ring you. Hey, Ju —’
‘Yes?’
‘Keep sane. Go and write it all down.’
Julia rang off. She followed her husband into the room; he was kneeling on the other side of Lorna Terry’s cot, helping to screw it together. Douglas’s sack was undone, and he was spreading clothing, all sexes and sizes, across the carpet in a bewildered but purposeful way.
‘Well, I’m back,’ said Julia.
‘So I see.’ He stood up, and came to embrace her.
‘I’ve got a lot to tell you. I’ve done an age of thinking …’
‘I shall be glad to hear it,’ he said, courteously.
The telephone rang again.
‘Where’s Debbie?’ said Julia, and then, ‘Thor, there’s a fearful woman …’
‘Excuse me, the telephone,’ he said, and went out, closing the door behind him.
Julia thought she should help Douglas.
‘What principle do you sort by?’ she asked.
‘Men’s here, women’s there, anything suitable for the babies in this corner, things you can’t mend in that chair. Do you think you could put fly-buttons on this suit? It’s a funny colour, but it’s in good repair, apart from fly-buttons.’
‘I’ll see what I’ve got,’ said Julia, associating herself firmly with the enterprise, whatever it was. Douglas smiled at her gratefully, and she felt better – accepted, occupied. Thor came back. He said, ‘Will you have tea, Bill, Lorna?’
‘I’ll make tea,’ Julia cried.
‘That would be kind,’ he said, gravely. Julia hung the suit, a grass-green and yellow tweed mixture, over a chair, and eased herself round the cot into the kitchen. Thor began to construct a second cot. He was humming to himself. He looked mild; Julia wondered why he had not told her what was happening.
As she laid out cups and saucers Julia studied the visitors with a quickened interest. Bill had rounded soft fingers; and words could be found for the ballooning smoothness of his intermediate chin; the skin had a kind of gloss and yet was not shiny; it was just taut enough to have a bloom, but not as the word bloom was normally understood. He was in need of buttons himself and had trails of thread caught unnoticed on the texture of his jacket and flannels. Julia put him down as a soft man; kind, a slow thinker. Lorna had false teeth, clearly; they had a glistening plastic completeness, no green, yellow, brown or chipped edges. This, Julia decided, was what gave her her air of artificiality – combined with the curls and red lipstick. Her clothes were all right, but typed her: grey pleated skirt, cable-stitch sweater, brogue shoes. Doubtless she wore, outdoors, a woollen cap with a tassel. Douglas had clammy hands and wrinkled socks. Julia decided that he either played a wind instrument in an amateur orchestra, or wrote bad poetry. It was in his face that he was a permanently hopeless intellectual. His curls at his temples were greasy. Julia decided that he had probably been imprisoned for his principles, and then that he might just have joined the ambulance unit
. She poured out boiling water cheerfully and called to Thor, ‘Darling, where’s Debbie?’
‘I don’t know.’
Julia lifted the tea-tray and began to edge back round the cot. The door bell rang, very long, and Julia’s tray tipped so that tea spouted out and swirled amongst the saucers.
‘That will be the Bakers,’ said Bill.
‘I’ll go,’ said Douglas.
‘No,’ said Thor. ‘I will.’
‘Who …?’ said Julia. ‘Milk, sugar?’ she said to Lorna who did not answer.
Thor came back. He was followed by a tall man in a soft, grey woolly pork-pie hat and donkey jacket, a woman in a long blue felt coat with torn buttonholes, and two small children. Julia remembered nothing about children, but both of these were still at the short fat age and one had trailing scallops of wet nappy below her skirt. The woman carried a baby. The man was clearly largely Negro, with a kind of drained, dark yellow face; his wife was white, and the children had dark curls, large brown eyes, and, under dirt and stickiness, skins of a delicate gold like easter eggs boiled with onion skin. They stared flatly at Julia, who stared back. The smaller child put its thumb in its mouth and rubbed its nose reflectively with a forefinger.
‘Sit down,’ said Thor. ‘There is tea, for all.’
‘May I take your coats?’ said Julia. Thor looked up at her with a sharp curiosity. What does he expect of me, Julia asked herself. The Bakers, in the doorway shifted from uneasy foot to uneasy foot.
‘This is Fred Baker,’ said Thor. ‘And Edna. And here are Trevor and Rose, and the baby is Dawn.’ He’s learned them efficiently, Julia thought, who knew her husband to be bad at names. Thor said to Mrs Baker, ‘We aren’t so far ahead as we’d hoped, but I think you’ll find we have everything we need. We’ve got bedding – and a few clothes.’
‘We brought our own things,’ said Mrs Baker, flatly. ‘Out in the hall, they are.’ She looked at Douglas’s work. ‘We’ve got clothes,’ she said. She sat down on the edge of a chair and motioned to the children to stand nearer. Mr Baker took off his hat and held it submissively in front of him. His eyes were yellowed and bloodshot. It seemed to Julia now, likely that Thor meant to house these people; she wondered how long. They had had African and Indian students on the living-room couch for the week, or the night, and two pale Hungarian youths immediately after the Revolution, hungry crosses between gangsters and students of the kind England seemed not to produce. She looked again at her husband, and then asked brightly of the room at large,
‘Well, what’s the next move?’
Thor looked up at her and wrinkled his face – surprised, displeased? – and kept silence. Lorna Terry said warmly:
‘How much space have you got? This is very kind of you, Mrs Eskelund. Really generous …’
‘Very kind, I’m sure,’ said the colourless voice of Edna Baker behind her. Fred Baker, who had not sat down, coughed.
Thor, not looking at Julia, said, ‘I thought Mr and Mrs Baker could have the spare room. With the baby. And we can clear out my study for Trevor and Rosie. We can share the living-room and kitchen.’
Julia winced momentarily, then gathered herself.
‘Excellent,’ she said. ‘We’ll start on the study.’ Mrs Baker said, defensively, ‘It’s only until Fred’s got a job and we’ve got a place.’
Julia spun round. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Of course. Now, please think yourselves welcome. We’ll have everything fixed in a jiffy. And I’ll show you the kitchen. And the children can have a bath …’
Thor looked at her, and smiled briefly. The telephone rang again and he went out into the hall. Julia motioned to Lorna Terry to take the other end of the cot, and they began to carry it through into the study. Thor came back again, pale, and strained-looking.
‘I find I have to go out,’ he said.
Julia looked at him through the gathering and smiled, warmly, generously.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll manage. I’ll arrange everything, by the time you get back everything’ll be quite tidy.’
Thor looked at her heavily. Julia thought: he would find it easier if I’d been furious. Or hysterical. And then; well, I won’t be. She went on smiling. Thor put on his coat.
Next week, Julia had supper with Ivan in his flat. They sat, youthfully cross-legged, one on each side of the hearth, eating avocado pears with teaspoons. Between them was a large bowl of savoury rice on an electric hot-plate. Ivan’s flat was black and white leather, tiling, stainless steel, purple glass lights. His wife, Merle, who was an actress, was working. Ivan himself was a small, round, dimpled man, with a wispy skullcap of rather Chinese black hair, and slightly sloping eyes. He had a surprisingly deep voice.
‘So what happened then, my angel?’
‘So then I took charge, in a rather awful way, and we put up beds – the boy, Trevor, had the spare bed, and they had the mattress, and —’
‘Spare me the domestic catalogue. I see it exercised your mind.’
‘So then I bathed the children, darling, one of them peed in the bath. Then we all had supper – I cooked it – and then the older Terrys started giving clothes to the Bakers, and that Douglas and I did the washing-up, and he told me all. I liked Douglas,’ said Julia, reflectively, meaning that Douglas had liked her. Ivan’s soft lashes flickered and he grinned.
‘What was all?’
‘Well, they’re London’s homeless poor, and he’s been in prison three times – once for breaking and entering, twice for malicious wounding, and the kids are bed-wetters and they don’t want the family split. I don’t know where Thor got them from – he’s got on the committees of more and more of these Samaritan agencies – but anyway he apparently brought them to Meeting, and then stood up and talked for forty-five minutes about how we avoided the sufferings of others and paid out our cash so as not to have our lives invaded and how everyone had been romantically stirred by the Hungarian Revolution and had housed refugees, but no one thought to house those in need now, and that we had a duty to involve our lives in others’ sufferings and most Friends, he guessed, had no moral right to the amount of space they occupied. If he’d been anyone else, he’d have been eldered after fifteen minutes. As it was, I guess from what I got out of Douglas by encouraging him with bits of jokes and things, that he thoroughly annoyed all the worthy Friends and hurt the Bakers’ pride by talking about the bed-wetting, etcetera, in front of them.’ She paused, reflectively. ‘You know, the thing about Christ and St Francis and all those – even St Paul, whom I hate, Ivan, for his censoriousness – the thing was, they stirred people up, they appealed to their imaginations, they involved people in things. I know Thor; I’ve heard him speak. He thinks he can overcome people with flat facts and moral imperatives. He mumbles, too, and looks embarrassed. So that they feel a bit guilty, and a bit repelled by him, but not co-operative. So the upshot was, nobody offered, so Thor said he’d house them. But Friends feel guilty enough to be bombarding us with all their unwanted clothes, and blankets, and saucepans, and home-baked cakes and useful pieces of chintz. And we have to bundle it all up and take it round to Oxfam in vans, except what Mrs Baker thinks she might like for when they do get a place of their own. So I said, do make yourselves at home, and they have, for which I suppose I ought to be grateful. Only the bloody telephone never stops ringing now – I think it’s not only one woman, it’s about four, and so – so – determined. I think Thor’s decided he’s got to live his charity. And he’s bad at it, and it involves us all.’
Ivan began to laugh.
‘No, don’t laugh. It’s not funny. It’s such a little flat, that’s why I liked it. They think it’s little, too, they keep telling me.
The bathroom’s full of drying-out sheets and nappies. Thor says I ought not to have scrubbed the children’s heads, it takes away their dignity.’
Ivan laughed again. He laughed with his mouth closed, and twirled one foot, gracefully, in a black suède shoe and a purple sock.
‘It
’s a judgement, Ju. He wants to drive you out. He wants to leave no room for you.’
‘No, it’s not that. I’ve thought of that. I’d know if it was that, I’m not that imperceptive. No, he really is involved in doing good. He’s right in a way. If you start from first principles there is a sense in which we’ve no right to a flat, when people are being segregated into single-sex dormitories.’
‘A rather remote, obscure sense, love, when you think of the complexity of modern justice.’
‘He says justice should be simpler. I admire him.’
‘And they? These people?’
‘Well – he runs them. He says they must get a job. He’s always on about their dignity and self-respect. And they take that, but not the way he means it. They treat him as a master. They lie to him. About – oh – minor things, breakages, telephone calls. He knows they do, he doesn’t exactly mind. He’s a bit clumsy – he respects them at the wrong times and then tightens up when he ought to be a bit blind.’
‘Which you don’t?’
‘Oh, they love me. They don’t like him, but they love me. Mrs Baker follows me from room to room like a large floppy dog peering through all her hair and telling me her life. I know a lot about her life. She’s had two dead children and Mr Baker beats her. She used to work in a hotel stripping beds – you wouldn’t believe what she saw. He was on the lift, a bit, and got sacked and took her with him. Everything she’s done, she apologizes to me for. In a defiant sort of way. Everything. “I’m sorry to say —” she begins each sentence, and “if you don’t mind” she ends it. And she has to talk. If I sit down to write she appears with some question about how to work the automatic potato peeler – she’s broken that – and how to hang lace curtains the Terrys brought to stop the neighbours looking in at the bedroom. I abominate lace curtains. And – and she regularly uses my loofah and leaves black hairs twisted in it and god knows what else of my things when they’re all in the bathroom.’