AN IRRELEVANT WOMAN

by MARY HOCKING

  She went downstairs and found him still sitting at the table in the kitchen. Over the past months he had shed probably as much as two stone; this weight loss added years to him – only the young look well for being thin. And the perky cheerfulness, had that been an illusion of the flesh? Now, the feelings which had sometimes surprised her in his novels because they seemed beyond his compass had at last found expression in the eyes and mouth – grief, pain, even horror. What had he looked upon that was so horrid? She had imagined herself to have a monopoly of horror.

  ‘Were you very proud when we came here – to our first home?’ she asked, sitting beside him.

  ‘I was too daunted by the responsibility of it,’ he said drily. ‘The pride came a good deal later when we paid off the mortgage.’

  So it wasn’t for the house he did all this, she thought. For me, then? A labour of love – or a coming to terms? A combination of the two perhaps, since they are usually inextricable. As yet, she could not bring herself to be grateful. She was not even sorry for him. Her reaction was one of dismay that his wellbeing should have been so dependent on her.

  ‘I’ll get on with things in here now,’ she said, crossing to the sink. He left her without argument and went into the garden.

  We are like a couple who have been away travelling separately, she thought, watching him through the window. Now we have come together again we have things to tell each other. Shall we be able to do that? We are not quite the same people who set out on our journeyings, I want him to accept that I am changed, yet am dismayed by the change in him. There is so much talk about weathering storms, not enough about the reconstruction work that must follow in their wake.

  It will take time. Travellers need time to reorientate themselves. The place to which they return has become smaller, or dearer, or less relevant; is found to hold more of memory and less of the future than before, or offers possibilities not seen until distance separated the traveller from it. How will it be for each of us? Shall we find a meeting place, Murdoch, now that I can no longer accommodate to your vision, letting it suffice for me?

  ‘Did you do this for me?’ she asked in the evening when they were together in the sitting room. For much of the day they had avoided each other, each needing time alone. Now they sat on the sofa, a little apart, wary of physical contact which might be misunderstood – or too well understood. ‘All this work for me?’

  ‘Well now.’ Murdoch looked at the convex mirror above the fireplace which encapsulated two miniature figures in a formal pose. He rocked back, locking his fingers behind his head. ‘I did it because it needed to be done and you weren’t doing it any more. It struck me as a return to childhood – the moment when your mate throws down her spade halfway through the building of the sandcastle and says, “It’s your turn now”. Either you get on with it, or you lose your temper and knock down the whole edifice.’

  The superficial common sense of this response irritated her. ‘Time will destroy the sandcastle anyway,’ she said.

  He shrugged, irritated in his turn. ‘I didn’t make a theology of it. And anyway, the answer to that is to build another castle when the tide goes out again. Time is cyclical, not linear.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ She would have liked him to develop this theme, but he went on:

  ‘And irrespective of time and tide, there were days when I was minded to knock down the castle.’ He stretched his clasped hands above his head and studied them. He found difficulty in knowing what to do with his arms since the physical solution which had in the past proved efficacious in resolving their differences was now denied to him. He compromised by stretching them along the back of the sofa.

  She said quietly, ‘And then?’

  ‘Then I began to need the work. My thinking has been largely of one kind – a kind which required hours spent staring at my desk, or taking long walks. You know all about that. But now there was a new kind of thinking which seemed to be taking over which didn’t react at all favourably to quiet hours or solitary walks. I found that this kind of thinking responded remarkably well to the stimulus of cleaning windows and scrubbing and polishing floors. As though inner spring-cleaning demands the outward rites. So I suppose if I am truthful, I started to do it for you and ended, as is the way of so much of my endeavour, in doing it for myself. But there again, where is the truth of it?’ He let one hand rest lightly on her shoulder. ‘You were my inspiration. At first, I was humbled by the realisation of all that you had done for me without my being aware of it and I felt ashamed and angry with you for putting me in the position of debtor. And then that passed. I became interested in the fact that I was seeing and experiencing things in a different way, noticing more of the detail of living, taking the scenery into account.’

  Janet remembered Stephanie saying, ‘Daddy goes straight to the guts of the matter, without having any idea how he got there. He never describes the landscape through which he has passed.’ She had been speaking of one of the novels.

  ‘Is detail good for your writing?’ Janet asked.

  ‘Death to it.’

  She turned her head sharply towards him. ‘And I am to blame for that?’

  ‘No. Whatever else, we are not going to talk of blame – either of us.’ He pressed her shoulder, more to stay her than as a gesture of comfort. ‘As for my writing, there was no need to resort to dramatic renunciation, drowning it deeper than did ever plummet sound or making a bonfire of the pages. The gift was gone. I always knew it could happen one day.’

  She bowed her head, appalled and angry. She had, after all, lived a long time in the shadow of his gift. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  His hand moved automatically to the nape of her neck. ‘I think that now we have to talk about you – and your gifts.’

  She was still as the shrew beneath the hovering hawk. If he should demand too much, or she be prepared to offer too little, all would be over between them. Was that what she wanted? Once more and so soon she was in a dangerous place where there was no easy comfort and never would be again. Wants were irrelevant, so much excess baggage. There was something here more than love, custom and companionship, the tests of marriage and the ties of children, something quite outside the affections of individual man and woman. Beyond the window the shades of evening had darkened the lawn so that it merged into trees and shrubs and the sheltering hedge was already lost in night. What was at issue here was necessity. She could not go back to what she had been, nor could she reach out to what she might become, without him. Slowly she turned her head until her cheek rubbed against the palm of his hand, a gesture instinct with that particular tenderness which is also a statement of trust, as binding on the recipient as the giver.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘There go Stephanie and Piers,’ Deutzia said, looking from her window. ‘All the others have already arrived, the poor things.’

  Mrs Beaney said, ‘I must say I find it hard to understand how she can do this to her children. The whole venture will undoubtedly fail and it will all fall on them.’

  ‘And on Murdoch! If they had done this when they were younger, I might have understood. But now, when she is getting old and has been so ill. He is doing it to please her, of course. Whoever would have thought it of him? Sacrificing himself like that! He has quite changed. They came down to tell me and naturally I was upset. Another link with the past gone. I tried to warn them about rushing into things without sufficient thought. “After all,” I said to her, “there is so much you could do here – taking people to keep hospital appointments, changing library books, writing letters for the disabled and the blind – or simply taking old people for a run in your car . . .” But I could see she wasn’t listening.’

  ‘It would have to be something more dramatic to suit her,’ Mrs Beaney said. ‘She would never settle for the humdrum.’

  ‘I daresay you are right. But I wouldn’t have believed she could be so selfish. I used to give up a lot of my time to her; for years I went up there to lunch ev
ery Sunday. He was more aware of my feelings than she was. “Of course we shall still see you,” he said. “We shan’t be so very far away.” “But I shall hardly feel able to call on you there,” I told him. “And you won’t have time to come here just to see me.” He admitted they were going to be very busy at first. “And what about your books?” I asked him. “You won’t have time to write with all that going on around you.” “No,” he said, “Not another line.” ’ Deutzia turned away from the window. ‘She has ruined his life, of course.’

  Piers drove in silence up the hill towards the house. His face was white and tense. This has reopened old wounds, Stephanie thought; over the last few days he has been reliving the time of his own testing, perhaps regretting his choice. When they came in sight of the house, he said, ‘We have got to stop them! At their age, one cannot start a new life. It is just too difficult.’ He is afraid they may succeed, she realised.

  ‘But how to convince them?’ he went on. ‘The trouble is neither of them has ever really had to make something work. They don’t know how hard it is.’

  They approached the front gate slowly. Stephanie dreaded that the FOR SALE board would be up already, but this was not the case. As they came to the gate she saw that there was a board, but it said SOLD.

  ‘We’re too late,’ she said.

  ‘Nonsense!’ He turned into the drive. ‘They can move to the village. Or into town. Even better.’

  ‘But this is home.’ She looked at him in amazement. He simply did not understand what this meant to her.

  He jammed his foot on the brake. ‘Your home is with me and the children. You can have no idea how hurtful it has been all these years to have you referring to this place as home.’

  ‘For Heaven’s sake, we’re not going to start that again! The only reason we live in Surrey is because it is a sort of no-man’s-land between your job and mine.’ She got out of the car and slammed the door.

  Katrina and Malcolm were sitting under the apple tree shelling peas. Stephanie could see at a glance that they had accommodated themselves to the situation, whatever it might be. Malcolm was saying, ‘There’s nothing to it – no bulk, no thrust, no . . .’

  Katrina said, ‘You really are going to be an actor, Malcolm. I had my doubts at one time; but now I can see you when you are old, grumbling on telly about modern playwrights’ inability to create great parts and rambling nostalgically among your past glories.’

  Stephanie walked across the lawn towards them. ‘Is that all you can find to do? With all this nonsense going on?’ She swept an arm towards the SOLD board.

  Katrina said, ‘It’s no use each of us nibbling at them individually.’

  Malcolm said, ‘We were waiting for you to lead the chorus of disapproval.’

  ‘And what is Hugh doing about it?’

  ‘The conveyancing.’

  ‘You mean that Hugh is supporting them, actually helping them to buy that . . . that . . .’

  Malcolm pointed a dramatic finger eastwards, ‘ “Something lost behind the ranges, lost and waiting. Go!” For “ranges”, read “blasted heath”. Hugh thinks they should have a shot at pioneering in the outback.’

  ‘But why? Hugh, of all people the least adventurous!’

  ‘He foresees that Patsy may become involved,’ Katrina said, ‘and there would be the possibility of a limited reconciliation – periodic comings together without the disadvantage of his having to endure Patsy’s housekeeping.’

  Stephanie looked at her sister thoughtfully. ‘You seem to find this amusing.’

  Katrina shrugged. ‘There is probably nothing we can do about it, so we might as well go along with it, don’t you think?’ Her hair was reverting to what, as far as Stephanie could remember, was its natural mid-brown shade. Whether this was the sobering effect of her parents’ madness, or whether something rather more significant – such as a quest for identity – had led to this toning down, Stephanie could not be sure. She rather hoped the question of identity was not involved, any amount of tediousness might follow from that. She said to Malcolm, ‘I’ll help Katrina with these while you carry my case indoors.’

  ‘Piers has done that already.’ Malcolm got to his feet. ‘Perhaps you would like me to supervise the unpacking.’ He strolled across the lawn.

  ‘Malcolm seems in surprisingly good form,’ Stephanie said. ‘I thought he would be hardest hit by all this.’

  ‘The stage manager has fallen in love with him and taken him to her ample bosom.’

  ‘Is he in love with her?’

  ‘How you do cling to these old-fashioned notions, Stephanie!’

  ‘I don’t, but Malcolm does.’

  ‘Wrong again. Being in love isn’t of first importance to Malcolm – except for portraying it on stage. The essential thing is that he should be cherished and protected.’

  Stephanie sat beside Katrina. ‘And what have you been up to?’

  ‘Down used to be the word.’

  Stephanie ran a nail along the side of a pod and skimmed out the contents before she said, ‘Are you telling me something?’

  ‘Only because you will have to know sooner or later. I’m not going back to university.’

  ‘May one ask why?’

  ‘One would rather you didn’t.’

  ‘Because I love you, pet, and I would like to know.’ Stephanie had boundless reserves of affection which could always be called into play when needed.

  ‘All right.’ Katrina surrendered. ‘It’s worse than you think, so prepare yourself. I am going to help to run a farm up in the Cheviots.’

  ‘Oh well, so long as it’s a nice family.’

  ‘The family will consist of me and one other person.’

  Stephanie closed her eyes. After a moment she said quietly, ‘Not Heathcliffe, I take it?’

  ‘Her name is Phyllis. I have been helping her for some time now, so we know it’s going to work.’

  ‘Oh, dear God! How old is this woman?’

  ‘Nearly forty.’

  ‘Oh God, oh God! It won’t last, you know. Twenty years older.’

  ‘If it was a man you would have accepted the twenty years, regretfully perhaps, but reminding yourself of all the cases you have known where it worked very well.’

  ‘But none of that is relevant to this case. You are so young, Katrina, and very immature. And you had a bad experience with your tutor.’

  ‘Our mistakes are our stepping stones, Mr Beaney would have it.’

  ‘I doubt if he would want to be quoted in this context! Do you . . . is she . . .?’

  ‘Oh, come on Stephanie, spit it out! After all, you deal with matricide and incest without batting an eyelid, so what is a little lesbianism?’

  ‘At least you have the grace to blush!’

  ‘Anyway, it’s not like that. She is the most wonderful companion with whom to share a life.’

  ‘Of course, you are very immature. I can see that for a time you probably need a mother substitute to help you to break away from home and . . .’

  ‘It’s the sharing, Stephanie, the sharing of a whole way of life. And it’s a way of life that isn’t competitive, that is slow and patient and . . .’

  ‘And harsh.’

  ‘Hard, anyway. We are up on the hills by six in the morning. I didn’t know I could live like that, that I had it in me. I am finding out so much about myself.’

  ‘Grinding poverty for those who have no choice . . .’

  ‘Then I’ll be ground down, too. I think wealth is obscene.’

  ‘Crippled by arthritis by the time you are forty . . .’

  ‘I didn’t grow up in a home where you just touched a switch to get hot air and water. And, anyway, better arthritis at forty than high blood-pressure and a couple of failed marriages.’

  ‘There is a middle way, Katrina. Take Piers and myself . . .’

  ‘I’d sooner take Phyllis. She shares the cooking and the housework.’

  ‘Darling, I know you are disillusioned and insecure
just now. But have you thought that you are living at a time when whole new worlds are opening out for women – and what do you do, but run away from all these wonderful new opportunities!’

  ‘They aren’t my wonderful opportunities, Stephanie. I don’t suppose I can make you understand, but I’ll try. Once, on my way home, I stopped off in London and went to the Elizabeth Frink exhibition at the Royal Academy. I felt a bit low so I treated myself to lunch afterwards. At the same table there were a couple of women – in their late thirties, I would guess. They were both business consultants and much of their talk was too specialised for me to understand. But the purpose of their meeting seemed to be to float the possibility of starting up on their own and they were assessing the market. They talked about places in the Third World as though they were on their daily route to work. It was all quite low-keyed, they weren’t trying to impress each other, let alone me. They took the travelling and the expertise for granted. One of them said she felt that if she went solo she would need something behind her as security, so she had bought a hotel in Berkshire. The other one approved of that; she herself was toying with buying a gallery in Farnham. They were, you might say, doing pretty well. But not only that. They were – not enjoying life, they were beyond anything as superficial as enjoyment – they had found something that challenged and stimulated them. I realised how much I envied them. And do you know why? It wasn’t the money or the little businesses on the side, or six months of the year in India or Africa or wherever; it was because they were planning to set up together. The globe-trotting and the high-powered jobs were right for them, you couldn’t doubt it listening to them talk; but that didn’t interest me. What I ached for was the sharing and companionship, the integration of work and friendship.’

  ‘Dear me!’ Stephanie was disturbed by the picture conjured up of Katrina sitting at that table measuring herself against these two women who sounded so admirably in control of their lives and then coming to such a wilfully injudicious conclusion about her own life. She said, ‘I can see it’s no use arguing with you. Time will take care of it. A few more nuclear mishaps and the glamour will go out of sheep farming.’