*****Passing On*****

by Penelope Lively

  Helen?’ Helen replied that she had better not, since she had to drive.

  The Watsons eventually rose, and Helen with them. Giles made no attempt to restrain her; he said, ‘You’re all going . . In the hall, he helped her on with her coat, his hand resting on her shoulder for a moment — or so it seemed. The Watsons got into their car, and Helen into hers. She had to drive to the end of the street to turn round; when she passed Giles’s house on the way back the door was closed.

  She drove home through further rain. Her mother rode in the back seat — silent, exuding complacency.

  As soon as Helen had gone Edward was overwhelmed with self contempt. Bleakly, he sat at the kitchen table eating spaghetti bolognaise out of a tin. Tam watched, drooling. Half way through Edward gave up, scraped the rest into Tam’s food bowl and put the kettle on for a cup of tea; behind him, Tam slurped as though rescued from the brink of starvation.

  Edward, leaden with gloom, waited for the kettle to boil; as he did so he watched the steady progress of a wood-louse across the wall behind the sink. There were many wood-lice at Greystones; the wood-louse is a kind of prawn, surprisingly — hence its preference for damp places. In an age of central heating and renovation Greystones presumably featured as a rare unspoiled habitat. Dorothy had persecuted the wood-lice, in Edward’s view; she stamped on them, swept them up and even poured boiling water upon whole colonies of them. Edward, observing the patient journey of this one (from whence? and why?), experienced a momentary consoling detachment. He put his reading glasses on and looked more closely at it; there were, he knew, dozens of different kinds of wood-lice, all classified, all named, distinguished by minute anatomical refinements, small but significant differences in the antennae or the genitalia.

  Goodness only knew what this particular one was, toiling down towards the crack behind the sink, but it seemed profoundly satisfactory that it should have the dignity of documentation.

  Even more important was the fact that people had devoted their lives to establishing the identity of such creatures; that for someone the original distinction between Porcellio and Armadillidium had been a matter of life-consuming importance. Edward envied such people.

  Those who knew of his predilections often wondered why he had not become a botanist, an entomologist, a biologist. At school, the few masters who had noticed him at all had tried vaguely to direct him towards science. In fact, Edward did rather worse in scientific subjects than in others. He was not systematic;

  formulae and calculations confused him. Presented with a diagram of the alimentary canal, he tended to marvel at its artistry rather than study its efficiency. As an amateur ornithologist he knew himself to be far behind those people who could identify from a snatch of song or flicker of a wing. He could never remember the names of rarer plant species.

  The kettle boiled, spurting scalding water everywhere, as usual. The wood-louse had vanished, and with it Edward’s temporary distraction from his gloom. He felt alone. He felt a recurring flash of resentment towards Helen. Tam brushed against his leg in passing and Edward leaned down to pat him but Tam, replete, was staggering towards his favourite sleeping place by the cooker — he shrugged Edward’s hand off and collapsed with a noisy sigh. Edward observed him with a certain bitterness; such simplicity of need could seem enviable.

  He switched on the radio. The kitchen was filled instantly with a loud snuffling noise, interspersed with grunts; Edward, perking up, poured out his tea and listened attentively. After a few moments the snuffles and grunts were overlaid by a voice explaining in sympathetically conspiratorial tones that we were listening to the sounds made by mating koalas in the Pilliga Nature Reserve in New South Wales. The koalas faded and their place was taken by a studio discussion about threatened habitats and imperilled creatures. The pig-footed bandicoot, the trumpeter swan, the scimitar oryx, the sperm whale, the cheetah, the bower bird … the list went on and on. Such has been the destruction of the Brazilian rain forests that only about two hundred of the golden lion tamarin survive in the wild. Their relative, the cotton-top tamarin, fares little better. Edward, who had seen both of these creatures on the television screen, pictured the tiny animals, with their sad wise old men’s faces framed by silky manes, their long, long tails, their agility. A few hundred of them, and five billion human beings. The tamarin will be preserved, in all probability, only if zoos throughout the world cooperate in breeding programmes. The programme concluded with a snatch of birdsong, a low trill, repeated several times before dwindling into silence; this, the presenter announced, was the song of the dusky seaside sparrow, a species of which the last survivor had died a few days before in its aviary at Disney World in Florida. This sound would never be heard again on earth.

  Edward, much affected, switched off the radio. The unutterably sad sound of the sparrow lingered in his ears. His own depression was compounded now with this global malaise, a process he found paradoxically satisfying; it was acceptable to weep for the dusky seaside sparrow, but not for oneself.

  He went to bed, and lay awake. At one point tears rolled from his eyes; they crept down the side of his face, and into his ears; he continued to lie rigid. Tam snored at his feet.

  Did you have a nice evening?’

  ‘Quite,’ said Helen.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘There’s no need to snap,’ said Edward piously.

  Helen poured herself another cup of tea in silence. The phone rang. She jumped up. ‘I’ll go.’

  Louise, in Camden, was in full torrent immediately. ‘Is that you? God! As if I hadn’t got enough on my plate with Tim throwing a mid-life crisis and Phil doing the disturbed adolescent bit — now if you please Suzanne comes in at three-thirty in the morning, and me lying there sick with worry, she having never thought to phone, and London with rapists on every street corner or so one’s told. And then her only response is to burst into tears.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She’s in love. I thought she was the one with some sense.’ ‘Ah,’ said Helen.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ stated Helen, ‘is the matter.’

  ‘Well, you’re not being very sympathetic. I’ll go, then. I only wanted a shoulder to weep on. I’ve been awake all night and I’ve got a hell of a day ahead, meetings from morning till night.’

  Helen returned to the kitchen. The phone rang again. She said to Edward, ‘You can go this time.’

  ‘It won’t be for me.’

  ‘Then let it ring,’ said Helen.

  Edward rose and went into the hall. He returned. ‘It’s that man.’

  ‘What man?’

  The solicitor.’

  Helen stared at him. The kitchen, which had been a uniform grey, was dappled with sunlight, she saw; outside, a blackbird sang.

  ‘He’s waiting,’ said Edward. ‘I suppose.’ He dropped a half eaten piece of toast into Tam’s bowl.

  Helen went back to the phone. ‘Hello.’

  ‘It’s me — Giles. Am I interrupting your breakfast?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bless you for helping me out with the Watsons. You were heroic — he is unstoppable, once in full flow. I saw you enduring.

  But then you rushed off and left me without a chance to say the most important thing of all . .

  Edward appeared, clad for school, briefcase in hand, scowling.

  ‘I’m going.’

  ‘Excuse me a moment,’ Helen said to Giles. ‘I’ll see you tonight then, Edward.’

  He went out, banging the door.

  ‘I’m sorry … Edward was just leaving.’

  ‘Please give him my regards. We didn’t get enough chance to talk at your party. Anyway … the thing is, I have tickets for the opera on Friday — are you free? Don Giovanni — it’s the touring company, you know, usually very good.’

  ‘Well . .’ she said. ‘Yes. Yes, I’d like to.’

  And so there shone yet another distant sunlit hi
lltop. How do people endure this switchback of emotion? Helen wondered.

  They have no choice, of course. She felt as though flung from health to illness and back by the day, by the hour. She thought of Giles Carnaby both continuously and not at all; he was permanently in the head, but as some unavoidable elemental force — she could not consider him as a person, reflect upon character or deeds. He was there, simply. For better or for worse.

  She telephoned Louise, who was grumpy. ‘And the school terms ends in another week, which means the children either mooching around the house all day under-occupied or vanished and one’s wondering where the hell they are.’

  ‘Is Suzanne still …?’

  ‘Besotted. Yes, poor little wretch. Thank God one is beyond all that. Getting older has some compensations. I occasionally find myself eyeing some bloke and thinking I wouldn’t mind popping into bed — but passion… no thanks.’

  Edward’s term too would end shortly. It was high summer. A year ago Dorothy had been in the first, ominous stages of her illness, furiously denying that anything could be wrong, her normal ill temper exacerbated by discomfort and increasing disability. It had not been a pleasant summer. Helen had attended Dorothy and tried to be as patient as possible; the doctors told her, privately, what to expect. Edward kept out of the way. When confronted by his mother he was propitiating to the point of servility.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ demanded Dorothy. ‘Why’s he being so obliging? I suppose he imagines I’m going to die or something.’ She laughed.

  Edward had not taken to Giles Carnaby. His usual attitude towards people casually encountered was one of absent-minded indifference. In this case, though, hostility had festered. He told himself that the man was arrogant, self-satisfied, and smelled of after-shave stuff; Helen was an idiot to let him pester her like this. Also he appeared to have corrupted her: she was alternately prickly and forgetful. She snapped at Edward; there was no bread. Edward, brooding, remembered a summer long ago when Helen had brought back a schoolfriend and he had felt pushed aside, abandoned. He saw himself then, and now, and did not like what he saw.

  Act One concluded. The curtain came down. Giles said, ‘We’ll stretch our legs, shall we?’ The little theatre was full; they joined the crowd moving towards the bar. A woman alongside Helen said uncertainly, ‘Well! What a commotion!’: the stated purpose of the enterprise was to bring opera to those who do not often experience it.

  He went to buy drinks. Helen was greeted by an acquaintance; ‘Hello! We spotted you from above — we’re in the circle. Isn’t that Giles Carnaby you’re with? My sister knows him.’ Helen said ‘Yes.’ There was the slightest pause. ‘He’s very popular, apparently,’ said the woman, moving away.

  Giles returned, his hands full. ‘There — worth the struggle, let’s hope. Well — what do you think of it? Personally, I’m wallowing. It never fails, with me. And this isn’t a bad production is it? Elvira is a bit weak, but the Don is doing fine, and the orchestra has plenty of dash. And the best is yet to come.’

  ‘The flames of hell . .

  ‘Exactly. Operatic plots are so satisfying. Everyone getting their just deserts. Perhaps that’s the secret of its appeal — opera, I mean.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Helen. ‘It’s the singing, so far as I’m concerned.’

  Giles shot her a look tinged with disappointment. ‘Well, of course, yes. The music . .

  ‘I don’t mean music. I mean all that systematic expression of emotion. That’s why you come away with a sense of release.’

  The look changed, rapidly. ‘How true.’ After a moment he added, ‘I don’t know you all that well as yet, of course, but I imagine you’re not a person who throws emotions around, yourself?’

  ‘No, I suppose I’m not.’

  Infinitely preferable,’ said Giles. ‘Operatic behaviour in real life is intolerable, of course. One has experienced it occasionally.’

  Helen nodded. An image flew into her head of Dorothy as some Wagnerian virago; it was not entirely inappropriate — there had been a whiff of the Valkyrie about her mother, with her alternating hairstyles of frayed bun or plait wound around the head and tendency to long brown shapeless garments. She smiled.

  Giles also smiled, enquiringly.

  ‘I was thinking of my mother. She was uninhibited in that respect.’

  ‘I wish I had known her. I get the feeling that I have missed quite an experience.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Helen.

  ‘Well, at least she brought us together.’ He beamed at her, and took her arm. ‘Come along — they’re ringing bells at us. Let’s go back in and wallow.’

  He stopped the car outside Greystones. Only the hall light was on, Helen saw; Edward must have gone to bed — or at any rate was in his room. She hesitated. Giles got out and came round to open her door.

  ‘Would you like to come in for a … cup of coffee or something?’

  ‘Do you think I should?’

  The query seemed enigmatic. Not knowing how to deal with it, she began to walk towards the front door. Giles followed her.

  They went in. Instantly, Tam flew from the kitchen and embarked on a histrionic welcome display. ‘Be quiet!’ ordered Helen. ‘Get down!’ Tam continued his staccato barking. If Edward had gone to bed he certainly would not be asleep. Helen waited to hear a door open. The house remained silent. Tam lost interest and returned to his basket. She led Giles into the kitchen.

  ‘No coffee,’ said Giles. ‘Nothing, in fact.’

  ‘Then we should go into the sitting room. It’s not very comfortable in here.’

  ‘But I love your kitchen.’

  Helen thought of his — fragrantly warm, humming with appliances. Behind her, both taps dripped. Tam was snoring.

  There was a smell of rotting dishcloth. Like Dorothy, Helen and Edward used swabs of mouldering grey stockinette; they festered by the sink and were known as dead rabbits. She saw one now, and shuddered.

  ‘It has a sort of museum appeal. One almost expects a mangle, or a posset stick.’

  And me? thought Helen. Am I one of the exhibits? Of nostalgic charm?

  ‘The thing about you, Helen, if I may say so, is that you are so refreshingly detached from all that one finds disagreeable about contemporary life.’

  ‘Unfashionable,’ said Helen.

  ‘Is that what it is? Then do please stay that way.’

  ‘I doubt if there’s much chance of anything else.’

  Giles laughed. He moved closer. ‘You’re not acquisitive. You appear to have no pretensions whatsoever. Your opinions are your own. You’re the most attractive person. And you seem not even to know it.’

  She stood there. He put his hands on her shoulders. And then leaned forward. He laid his cheek against hers; she felt his warmth, and smelled him. He turned his head and kissed her cheek. At the same time his hand slid down her arm and reached behind her; it slid swiftly over the curve of her buttocks. The erotic effect was electrifying; it could not have been greater if he had plunged his hand into her crotch.

  He stood back, releasing her. ‘What a lovely evening, my dear.

  We must talk very soon. Don’t let me out — I know my way.

  We’ve probably disturbed Edward as it is.’

  She heard him close the front door gently behind him. She continued to stand in the middle of the kitchen, ablaze.

  ‘Where are all the dead rabbits?’ complained Edward. ‘There’s nothing to wash up with.’

  ‘I threw them away. We’re going to use those scourer things in future.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They’re more hygienic. And they don’t smell.’

  He looked affronted.

  ‘Don’t you ever realise,’ said Helen, ‘that the way we live is unlike the way other people live?’

  ‘On the whole I should have thought that was cause for satisfaction.’

  ‘Actually,’ she continued, ‘when I come to think of it — you never go into other people’s houses, do
you? Anyway, if a sanitary inspector came in here I should think the whole place would be condemned.’

  ‘What else are you going to chuck out?’ enquired Edward, with resignation.

  Helen sighed. ‘Oh, I don’t think I have the stamina for a full scale assault. Aren’t you going to be late? It’s after half past.’

  Edward glanced at her with reproach. ‘It’s the sports day.’

  The Croxford House sports day, the culminating event of the year and last) day of term, was his annual torment. All the staff, whether sporting or not, were required to be in attendance.

  ‘So it is,’ said Helen. After a moment she added, in an offhand tone, ‘By the way, have there been any phone calls this week when I’ve been out?’

  ‘No.’

  In other years she had displayed appropriate sympathy about sports day. Edward, resentful, set off in an even more dour frame of mind than usual. He knew all too well what to expect: several hours of bad behaviour from the children — over-excited and freed from the constraints of routine — and importunate conversation from the parents. He would have to dredge up an interest in his least favourite pupils and submit himself to a barrage of child-obsessed monologues from people he barely remembered from the year before. Parenthood brings out the worst, it seemed to him; vicarious ambitions and frustrations raged all over the lawns and games fields of Croxford House on sports day. The sports were in fact more of a backcloth than the central event; the real purpose of the day was for the parents to prowl around the school inspecting the various displays of work set up in the classrooms, and compare the achievement of their offspring with that of others. They all expected each member of the staff to express — discreetly — particular and intense interest in their child.

  The whole process was, it seemed to Edward, a fine manifestation of the single-minded ruthlessness of species in pursuit of survival and improvement — if you considered Willmots and Handley-Smiths and Stannards as species.