by Patrick Gale
‘Seth’s the only boy I know who blushes – I mean, really blushes.’
Benji mustered a kind smile. ‘It’s meant to be a sign of sensitivity and acute perception,’ he said, as though speaking tactfully of an absent limb.
The front door opened.
‘Mummy!’ Netia laughed, and ran to hug her.
‘Hello, young lady. You smell divine. Seth, you’re puce. Have they been talking about something improper?’
‘No. Castles, actually.’ Her son mutely welcomed his ally.
‘Hello, Benji. It is Benji, isn’t it?’ She shook hands. Seth watched for his wince at her unexpected strength. It came. God bless Mother.
‘Isn’t Benji’s car wonderful?’ he declared.
‘Splendid,’ she said.
‘Benji and I had a marvellous drive from Cambridge. It was so sunny we had the roof down, so the wind was in our hair. And we sang songs at the top of our voices. I think some people thought we were drunk.’ She laughed her haven’t-seen-you-in-ages laugh. Benji rose.
‘That reminds me. Buckhurst is a long way to go yet and I’ve no headlights.’
‘Oh. Must you?’ asked Evelyn, vaguely.
‘Yes, I’m afraid I must,’ he replied, and shaking hands graciously all round, he left with Venetia beside him to wave becomingly from the steps.
‘Thanks for the lift, mein Engel.’ The engine roared, the claxon blared and the future Lord Buckhurst was gone.
‘I didn’t realize he was Buckhurst as in the Castle.’
Mother laughed kindly, ‘Oh you poor thing.’ She lowered her voice. ‘He’s a bit of a prat, isn’t he?’ She noticed the tea. ‘Yes please.’ Seth poured and dribbled some on to the table. He mopped it up with a hanky. ‘Dirty boy,’ she muttered, then, ‘Oh, the police!’
‘Was it murder?’
‘Dreadful! I had to wait hours, then fill in a form, then another, then give names and addresses and say why I was leaving for Cornwall and when would I be back and so on. Then I had to sit and nod politely while they read the whole thing back to me. I thought I’d never get out.’
Netia walked in and put her hand on Evelyn’s shoulder.
‘Hello, Mummy,’ she said.
‘Hello, Poppet.’ Evelyn patted the hand. ‘Now sit down and tell me all your news while I cook something. Seth, have you packed yet? Well do so now, please, so we can load up the car tonight for an early start.’
They wanted to talk.
FRIDAY six
‘Hi there. Great. I’m Gemma. Come on in.’
‘Er, hello. I’m Louise,’ said Mo, and did.
Bleeders had listed it as a ‘consciousness-raising session’. She’d been glued to one of these on Channel Four a couple of weeks back. Seven intelligent women sitting in a circle talking about themselves. No men. No sizing each other up. Just talk and sympathy.
‘Welcome to Thornhill Square, Louise. Still a bit of a mess, I’m afraid. We’re doing it all ourselves and there’s a lot to do.’
As the door closed behind her, the curiosity that had brought Mo thus far wailed that it wanted to go home.
‘Come on down. We’re all in the basement as it’s the only bit straightened out.’
Following, Mo’s eyes strayed up and around. At least three floors. All theirs. The girl was only about twenty-two. Glancing at the quantity of sheet-draped furniture, Mo bet she was a social worker. A large room leading up some steps into an overgrown garden. A large, shaggy dog asleep on the sofa in the corner and two women bolt upright on floor cushions.
‘Now, everyone, this is Louise. And Louise, this is Emma and that’s … er …’
‘Fay.’
‘Yes. Fay.’
‘Hi.’
‘Hi there.’
‘Hi.’
Mo recognized Emma. She lived with her sister a few streets away from Lydia Villas. She ignored her conspiratorial smile.
‘Well it looks as though that’s all we’re going to get. Louise, if you’d like to sit on the Futon … yes, that mattress thingy there. Great. OK?’
‘Hopelessly middle-class, ducky,’ thought Mo, watching her practised descent into a cushion.
‘Hey, we live round the corner from each other, don’t we?’ asked Emma, a nice enough looking sort with short red hair and pink denim dungarees.
‘Well … I thought, perhaps. Lydia Villas?’
‘Panton Street. Up to the top and second on the left.’
‘Oh. Right.’
‘Contacts, contacts. It’s what it’s all about,’ Gemma said in a stupid voice. Behind her hung a big, framed print of that picture of the protester putting a flower in that guy’s gun. There was a pause which she broke by clapping her hands together. ‘Well, look, we can’t really benefit from these sessions until we’ve all got to know each other better, so I suggest we just chat about anything under the sun, OK? ’cause I know most of these things get really formal, you know? with set topics and guest speakers and all that shit, well I think we should try to avoid that, so as I’m the mug who had this bright idea in the first place, I’ll take the plunge and just start talking and then you all react and we’ll just go where the conversation leads us. OK?’ They murmured gratefully. Gemma set her lips, stared at the carpet and began.
‘Well look, I’m in my early twenties, OK, and I’ve had, well, maybe three long-term relationships, and the obligatory sleeping-around-just-got-my-first-packet-of-pills bit of course, but the one thing I really want to do, and actually the one thing I think perhaps I need to do, is sleep with another woman.’
‘You couldn’t sleep a ruddy wink,’ thought Mo, and then the door opened.
‘Hi there.’
‘Oh. This is Robin who’ll be doing useful things like making us tea.’
‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’
‘Actually, I just brought you some apple juice. Is that OK? Run out of milk.’
‘Great. Thanks.’
‘Well. I’ll get back to my bread-making.’
‘Not just a pretty face,’ said Gemma. ‘Makes great date loaf.’
‘Well, this is something I’ve been worried about, too,’ said Emma. ‘I mean, I think men are too possessive of women and women are too possessive of, well not of men exactly, but of the idea of men. I reckon a guy should be prepared to let a woman sleep with another woman because I think they could both learn something really valuable from the experience. I think men should, at least, be prepared for some alternatives to vaginal intercourse.’ Mo took a gulp of apple juice. Piss, she thought. Fay, extraordinarily out of place in a short skirt and lipstick, piped up.
‘Well maybe I’m just old-fashioned, or conditioned or something, but … and it does make me feel guilty sometimes … but I really, well, I have tried other things but …’ Mo watched her discomfort and tried to imagine her with her skirt over her head.
‘Well I find I just need it. Nothing else will do.’
‘How about you, Louise?’ asked Gemma.
‘Wouldn’t say no,’ thought Mo. ‘It’s great with a woman,’ she said. She had drained her glass and set it on the floor. ‘Frankly, I wouldn’t know about men.’
Fay shifted uneasily. Gemma was fascinated. A three-dimensional lezzy. With a scar. On her Futon.
‘Would you call yourself a gay woman, then?’ she asked.
‘Guess so,’ said Mo.
‘Don’t you think that’s rather limiting to your sexuality? I think separatism is a very real danger.’
‘Look, love. You’re a woman, not a man, not a motorbike. I’m a dyke. You don’t eat tripe, because a look and a sniff and you can see what you’re not missing; same goes for men.’
Sycophantic laughter; not just a lezzy, but a character, too. Robin came in with a plate of flapjacks.
‘Ever slept with a bloke, Robin?’ asked Mo.
‘Fraid not,’ he said.
‘Leave him out of it,’ said Gemma and he retreated.
‘Isn’t it un
fair of you to be jealous of him and to expect him to let you sleep around?’ asked Mo. Talk and sympathy my arse.
‘It’s not the same thing.’ Gemma threw up a tight laugh.
‘Sex is sex, isn’t it?’ suggested Emma.
‘But … is it really as good?’ asked Fay, getting prurient.
‘Look. You don’t need the pill, you don’t have his cum dribbling down your inside leg, and you don’t wake up black and blue from his pudding-fisted search for the “start button”.’
That had been her last contribution. Cow Gemma had seized on the reference to the pill to steer the rest of the discussion on to ‘straight’ issues. Would a ‘male pill’ make them feel less secure during sex? Did sterilization make one less of a woman or merely less of a wife? And so on. Mo tried to be shocked at such blatant cold-shouldering then reflected that she had asked for it.
When the time came to leave, she wrote down her false name and number, put it down to experience, and started unlocking her bike.
‘I gave a false name, too,’ said Emma, ‘my name’s May.’
Then, as Mo sat astride her BMW and fidgeted with her helmet straps she heard how May not only lived just around the corner from her, but had had her long-term suspicions confirmed that the woman May lived with was not her sister, but her lover of nine years’ standing, and that she was unlikely to let her reluctant neighbour escape without handing over her genuine phone number. She’d complied. Tonight’s call was the fulfilment of a threat.
FRIDAY seven
Evelyn and her daughter listened to Seth’s footsteps as he ran upstairs, then Netia said, ‘Pain about your purse.’
‘My wallet?’
‘I mean, your wallet. Where did you go today?’
‘All over the place. But I know it happened at Ilena’s exhibition by Waterloo Bridge. I had to pay to get in, and everything was there then. I’d have found out sooner, at the cake-shop, only Seth paid.’
‘Observing the sweet ritual for the last time?’ Venetia found it hard to be funny. She was home. There was a pause, then Evelyn rose swiftly, emptied her tea into the sink, and opened the fridge.
‘What can one make with pâté, kippers, mashed potatoes, eggs, half a lemon and some cheese?’ she asked, as she peered into various pots and bags.
‘Leave the lemon for the garnish, then have a sort of fishy potato-cake thing, with pâté and toast to start, and bikkies and cheese to follow.’
‘Wondergirl. I can’t think straight this evening.’ Evelyn switched on an old radio that perched on the fridge. Radio Three: ‘And now, to carry on our apocalyptic theme, some Messiaen; two movements from Le Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps.’
‘I haven’t had a period for five and a half weeks,’ murmured Netia.
The Messiaen began. Evelyn chopped a kipper in half.
‘What was that?’
‘I said my period’s overdue.’
‘Oh.’
‘And before you ask me, yes I do take all possible precautions and the chances of my being in a certain condition are about a zillion to one. I feel foul.’
‘Poor darling. Does this often happen?’ The kippers, now lacerated, were gradually hidden by a soft fall of grated cheese.
‘Never. I’m normally regular as a ruddy time-bomb.’
‘There’s not much I can say that helps really?’
‘No.’
‘There’s no pain, just tension?’
‘Yup.’
The quartet swelled. Some lightly dehydrated onion and red pepper joined the fish and cheese. Three boulders of mashed potato later, the whole lot rolled into an electric mixer and lay around the stationary blades. While Evelyn banged her way through a greasy pile of cast iron saucepans, Netia pondered the position of woman in society. Rather, she pondered her own as a woman who appears to be pregnant with no rational explanation.
At a dispassionate distance she could see that her circle at Cambridge was sexless – all talk and little of the hard-gutted reality. She knew closet debs who talked dirty at parties but always left when the first glass was kicked over. She knew ‘Hooray Henries’, who cultivated manly laughs, but had probably done it with juniors at school. These went around in droves, for security, then got drunk from time to time and laid some hapless and quickly forgotten tart from the biochemistry department. Then came the Token Perversion – desensitized, Debrett-cleansed creatures like dear Benji. The place was an obstacle course in which one had to gain a reputation while retaining a certain hazy integrity. She had discovered within a fortnight of her arrival in College, two years ago, that slander could prove an invaluable armour against ill-repute. In a society where proclaimed virginity was a mark of feminine weakness, it was as well to have her secret masked by the misinformed complexion of jealous surmisal. All it took was a lusty laugh in the right place, the occasional hint of debauchery, and a healthy inverse honour was fast established. She had a fine double-act running with Benji along these lines. United in their disdain, they threw a series of costumed parties that might best be described as ‘naughty’, and successfully cast the nature of their sex-lives and, indeed, the purity of their own relations, into uncertainty.
At the touch of a button, fish, egg, potato, onion, pepper and cheese were as one.
After her Finals in English, Venetia wanted to visit New York. She could easily apply for research, but it had to be abroad. If not research, then advertising – on the creative side, of course. She knew she would be a rat leaving a sinking ship, but the suicidal heroism behind this pejorative left her cold and smiling. Americans were so bland, their intellectuals so temptingly open to The Great Literary Bullshit. She looked up at Mother’s strong back at the stove and hated all the Seventies values it stood for: self-sufficiency, do-it-yourself, get-your-rights, pick-your-own, plant-a-tree, save-a-whale. What the hell! Life was too short for saving left-overs. She intended to get out, smoke, drink and enjoy herself while she was young, then swell to a fat and famous prime. She had yet to learn to smoke, however, and regretted the integral part that sex seemed to play in such aspirations.
Daddy had touched her once. There had been Seth’s seventh birthday party, then Mummy had gone to visit Granny for a week, so he had said that he had to get her ready for bed. As she had lain there in the soapy water, unaccustomed to this male presence, he had touched her. Every night until his wife came back, he had knelt on the bathmat and touched her. It had been their little secret. Nothing had ever been said, but now she remembered every time, and it put her off. Not that she was hung up on it. She was the last person in the world to be called neurotic. She was simply keeping her options open. And her legs crossed.
‘When’s Daddy coming home?’
‘He’s not. He’s gone ahead to Saint Jacobs.’
‘That’s rather sudden.’
‘Not really. He wanted to be alone to work for a few days.’ Venetia pierced a grape with a fingernail.
‘Oh for Pete’s sake, Mummy, don’t lie. I’m old enough, aren’t I?’
‘What?’ Evelyn turned around, smiling, genuinely bewildered.
‘What did you row about this time?’
Evelyn was unflinching, supremely calm. ‘Netia, we didn’t “row” about anything. He just needed peace and quiet, that’s all.’
‘All right.’ That twistless-knickers tone. ‘I’m sorry. No row. Pax vobiscum.’ Netia almost ran upstairs. Evelyn sighed and, turning back to the stove, prodded the six fishcakes that lay smouldering there on a griddle. Suitably liturgical for Messiaen, she thought.
There was a scratch at the French windows. As she turned and saw a cat waiting to be let out, she saw herself reflected, pinny at waist, flushed from the heat, fish-slice in hand: the perfect little woman – only she’d been too tall to play lacrosse with the other girls.
She had married Huw when she was twenty-four and he was thirty-eight. It was something of a cliché, she had always known, for an underprotected, rather plain girl to seek the protection of an older, brilliant
mind. Her heart full of Daphne du Maurier and the Brontës, she had been blind to the blatant sexism of the match. After the initial shock at his atheism, she was attracted by the thought that his ego must play the part for him that God played for her in shoring up her night-thoughts. She could love an atheist if his godlessness had stature. Unfortunately, Huw’s rigour of mind was far from Marlovian. His firmness of unbelief permeated his whole manner with an unappetizing negation. Where she would answer a pestering child with ‘Wait and see’, he had said ‘I think not’.
She had had her first baby at twenty-six, her second at thirty. A difficult birth. The pain of Seth’s arrival into the world had left a trace of suffering in all her dealings with him; her love was founded on the hurt of his creation. In his depth she found a pleasing counterpoint to Venetia’s less complicated brightness. Seth could play brightness, just as Netia could play Medea, but she sensed that he was a ponderer, not a playboy, at heart. She walked to the door and called the children.
The discomfort of living with a man who laughed at her every mention of the sublime was considerably soothed by the presence of children. A house, a husband, a son, a daughter provided the raw materials of her happy marriage; she had only to wait for the appropriate spirit to perform a transfiguring miracle. Needless to say, the tongue of fire never descended, but between them Venetia and Seth had provided a focus for devotion and concern. ‘Those were the last two movements from Le Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps by Olivier Messiaen, performed by members of the Gudrun Ensemble under director, Gerry Hackett. And now, two songs: Fauré’s Après un Rêve and Tchaikowski’s None But the Lonely Heart, performed here by Helmut Schreier, with Daniel Grossman at the piano.’
‘All packed and I’ve put it in the back of the car.’ It was Seth. ‘That smells good. Left-over rissoles – my favourite.’ She smiled. Needless to turn round. She could hear him laying the table. ‘Why’s Father gone on ahead to Cornwall?’
‘He had some new ideas for a book and wanted to be alone with them.’
‘How exciting. Have you mustered a pudding, or not?’
‘Just cheese, bikkies and fruit.’