‘You are rather eccentric,’ Hugo said, making eccentricity sound like a disease.
They both resumed their silence.
‘If it weren’t for Horatio,’ she said at last, ‘then the bad guys would have written up the story. They’re always in charge, aren’t they? That’s because the superior people like Hamlet always hesitate, because they have scruples and integrity, while the mob of boneheads don’t. So they’re always quicker on the draw. Take Fortinbras of Norway. He can march about through Denmark, with his soldiers banging their drums, and all for what? To lay claim to a little slice of Poland. I mean, Poland. God. I mean, what for?’
‘Mm,’ Hugo said. She thought that he had maybe fallen asleep.
She paused to look around his garden and noted that it was very much in need of weeding. What had evidently once been herbaceous borders had been overcome with ground elder.
‘I could do your garden for you if you like,’ she said. ‘For money, I mean. Maybe even carve out a few flower-beds for you.’ When Hugo didn’t reply, she went on, ‘Nothing rank and gross. I’m not thinking of doing it over with peonies and giant dahlias. But look. Over there. Right now you could be staring at a carpet of autumn-flowering crocuses. There under those trees.’ She dwelt wistfully on the sight of Hugo’s beautiful old brick walls and envisaged how they would be all shimmering with dew on spiders’ webs first thing in the morning.
‘I could plant some of those lilies for you,’ she said. ‘The ones that come so white they’re almost green. They’re green in the bud. They have green pollen guides. You know the ones I mean? You get them in pictures of the Annunciation.’
Then she passed some time in contriving the floral accessories for Judith and Hugo’s wedding. The Green Man and the Scarlet Woman. She toyed with giving Hugo a green carnation in his buttonhole. Then she settled for a sprig of parsley flowers which were prettier, she thought. She gave Judith a bouquet of dark green broccoli florets with an aureole of scarlet ribbon and lace. She seated Hugo in a mahogany invalid’s chair like an old-fashioned baby’s push-chair.
‘What’s wrong with Poland?’ Hugo said suddenly, like the Dormouse starting up from the teapot. He was speaking with feeling for the first time.
Christina was taken aback by the unexpected challenge. ‘Well,’ she said, inadequate, defensive. ‘Nothing, I suppose –’
‘I have been invited to give a paper in Poland,’ Hugo said, rather pompously, she thought. ‘In December.’
Christina made no remark, not knowing quite what to say.
‘In Warsaw,’ Hugo said.
‘A paper is sort of like an essay, I suppose?’ she said at last. ‘I expect it’s longer and more difficult to write.’ When Hugo didn’t reply, she said, ‘I hope that you liked my essays, by the way.’
‘Mm,’ Hugo said. She had no way of knowing whether Hugo’s ‘Mm’ denoted approval, or was merely a way of punctuating the gaps in what she said.
‘I enjoyed writing the Comedy essay,’ she said. ‘I hoped that you would like it.’
‘Mm,’ Hugo said.
Maybe I would like to kill this person, Christina thought. If there be any cunning cruelty which can torment him much and hold him long . . . but would even torments open his lips, or should she dispatch him outright? Instead she made ready to leave.
‘Perhaps I could recite both my essays to you, standing on my head?’ she said. She saw Hugo sigh and glance at his watch. She took a last look at his garden.
‘Excuse me,’ Hugo said.
‘What?’ Christina said.
‘My pen,’ he said. ‘I dropped it just before you came. It’s lying to the left of your foot.’
‘Oh,’ Christina said. She bent to pick it up. It was the same pen as he had used before in the greenish rooms by the river. It was mottled, green and black. On the pocket clip it said ‘Waterman’. She handed it to him.
‘Thank you,’ Hugo said. He uncapped it and began to write.
‘I’ll tell you something about your Tragedy essay,’ he said. ‘You failed to mention King Lear.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. Frankly, it’s because the story always makes me queasy. What I mean is – take the demon offspring. Well, that’s just all of us, isn’t it? What I mean is, don’t we all want to get the parents off our backs? Heave them out of doors; get them out of our lives before they nobble us for good? Don’t we all want to treat the house like a hotel . . .?’
‘Instead,’ Hugo said, ignoring her, ‘you have wasted your time on the idea of the Objective Correlative. A dead horse, if ever there was one.’
‘Yes,’ Christina said humbly. ‘Excuse me, but about my Comedy essay. Could I have it back, do you think?’
‘Ah,’ Hugo said, ‘Ahem. Now, that could be a little bit of a problem. The fact is that I seem to have mislaid it.’
For ‘mislaid’, read lost, Christina thought. There was a pause. ‘Was that before or after you’d read it?’ she said.
Hugo sighed. ‘I can’t remember,’ he said and he kept on writing.
The Scarlet Woman, the Green Rabbit and the Very Telling Cranium
On her way back through the house Christina saw that Judith had come home. She was in the kitchen with five children, all of whom were female. A younger trio sat at a breakfast counter, raucous and assertive, while a pair of quieter, older girls stood about holding dinner plates. The older two were probably about twelve years old, Christina thought. One was thin and fair, while the other was fat and dark.
Judith was, once again, dressed in scarlet. Her jacket, slim-waisted and multi-panelled, was tapered at the front into two elongated points. She wore it with wide silk trousers gathered into elegant silk folds. These radiated from the crotch, creating a second elongated V to reflect, almost exactly, the angle of the inverted V, made between the points of her jacket.
The sight of Judith at once lifted Christina’s spirits from despondency. She wondered whether, means permitting, she might ever become anything like as dressy. She considered it unlikely. But if she were to, then Judith would be her model; Judith her inspiration. Judith’s clothes were not only sexy, she considered, but they had the effect of equating sexiness with efficiency.
And yet, she reminded herself, Judith had married Hugo. Why? How on earth had that come about? Wasn’t marriage about exchange? Yet to attempt even verbal exchange with Hugo was like talking into a distorting mirror. It made you panic and doubt yourself. It gave back nothing, except your own self reduced in dignity and self-esteem. So how did Judith stand it? Or did she, like Bottom the Weaver, like to play all the parts herself?
At that moment, Judith, though she looked undeniably sexy, appeared anything but efficient. This, Christina decided, was because her context was unsuitable. A kitchen was not Judith’s landscape.
She was attempting to serve basic foodstuffs to the five hungry children. The three youngest were drumming loudly with their feet against the doors of the cupboards beneath the counter. At the same time they were banging rhythmically with their cutlery and chanting as they did so.
‘Hi,’ Judith called out to Christina, cupping a hand around her ear against the din. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine,’ Christina said, still from beyond the threshold. ‘Except that your husband has lost my Comedy essay.’
Judith failed to respond to this. Or was she, perhaps, too preoccupied to assimilate Christina’s intelligence?
‘This person is Miffy,’ she said, her voice still raised. She indicated the fat, dark-haired, older girl, who had begun to gather up plates. ‘Mercifully,’ Judith said, ‘only Miffy is mine.’
Miffy’s friend was Rose. And the oldest of the three younger children was Patience. Her voice was consistently raised above others. Right then, Patience was raucously defying the implications of her name as she orchestrated an ear-splitting demand for pudding.
‘Why are we WAY-ting,’ the little ones chanted, taking their lead from her. ‘We are suffo-CAY-ting.’ The pile of discarded s
upper plates – which Miffy had meanwhile quietly removed and dumped beside the sink – contained the unattractive remnants of boarding-house food. Chunky edges of institution piecrust tinged with dark brown gravy besmirched all the plates, along with some soggy-looking vegetables.
‘And do you know what Mrs Spencer has made for your pudding?’ Judith was saying. She spoke rather too enticingly, Christina considered. She sounded like a childless aunt who had been left in charge to mime the parental role.
‘Jelly-rabbit, jelly-rabbit, JELL-EE-RABB-IT,’ chanted the little ones, who were evidently way ahead of her. ‘We want jellee-rabbit.’
‘And we want choc-late sauce,’ Patience chanted, assertively, with an instinct for upping the stakes.
‘Choc-late sauce, choc-late sauce, CHOC-LATE-SAUCE,’ chanted the trio, like sheep.
Miffy had already approached the fridge. She drew from it a quivering, lime-green bunny rabbit that had previously been turned out on to an oval serving plate. She now placed it on the workboard under the children’s eager eyes, while her friend Rose went to get the chocolate sauce. This came readymade in a brown aerosol canister, its plastic cap, a gnome’s hat, swirled to a crazy point.
‘Well, I’m not having the rabbit’s ass,’ Patience said.
‘Holly can have his ass.’
‘But I’m not having his ass,’ said a younger sister, shrill with indignation.
‘Yes, you are,’ Patience said.
‘No, I’m not,’ said the younger sister. ‘I’m a visitor.’
‘So am I,’ said Patience. ‘Dummy.’
‘Visitors,’ Judith said, ‘do not abuse the cutlery. And in England, an “ass” means a donkey, okay? The word you are looking for is “bum”.’
‘Mum,’ Miffy said reproachfully. ‘Don’t.’
‘Holly licks his bum and says yum-yum,’ Patience said.
‘I don’t,’ Holly said. ‘Judith, I don’t lick his bum. Tell Patience I don’t.’
‘You’ve only started them now,’ Miffy said, wishing to educate her mother into the manner of managing small children. ‘They’re fine, you see, and then you always have to start them off, don’t you?’
‘Sorry,’ Judith said. She looked up at Christina across the children’s heads. ‘Hang on in there,’ she said, ‘if you can stand it for another moment. Miff is about to rescue me. She’ll cart the whole mob off next door. That’s where they belong. The pay-off is she gets to spend the night.’ She rolled her eyes somewhat meaningfully. ‘She loves it in there,’ she said.
Miffy, meanwhile, had applied the knife to the rabbit’s controversial physiognomy. She had quietly resolved the problem by dissecting the creature along the spine from the region of its cerebral cortex to the last of its lumbar vertebrae. Then she lopped off the offending nether parts and served the remainder, in equal portions, on pudding plates which she placed before the children.
‘Miff,’ Judith said. ‘You’re a genius.’
Patience, having seized first rights to the aerosol canister, had projected a coiled snake of chocolate foam, first, directly into her mouth and then all over her jelly.
‘Hurry UP,’ said one of her sisters. ‘I’m WAY-ting.’
‘Me too,’ said the other.
‘I’m writing my NAYm,’ Patience said.
‘Me next. Me next,’ Holly said, agitating. ‘I want to write my NAYm. Huh, Oh, Luh, Luh, Yuh,’ she elaborated phonetically.
‘You say “Yuh”,’ Patience said, with nauseating smugness. ‘But I say “Wye”. I say “Aitch, Oh, Ell, Ell, Wye”.’
‘Stop it,’ Miffy said firmly. And she removed the canister from Patience. In the moments of silence that followed, spoons were gouged into portions of jelly until Holly’s produced a small, explosive, suction plop as jelly was parted from jelly.
Patience, primadonna-wise, at once threw down her spoon. ‘Urgh!’ she said. ‘This jelly is farting!’
‘Urgh!’ said the sisters and they threw down their spoons in emulation. ‘This jelly is farting!’
‘We’ll go,’ Miffy said quickly. She was on the ball with diplomacy. ‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said. In a moment of scuffling and chair scraping, the five of them were at the back door.
Miffy had brought up the rear with Rose. She kissed her mother good-naturedly and spoke with resignation.
‘You’ve got them all wound up,’ she said. ‘But they’ll be fine in a minute, don’t you worry.’
The sound of children’s departing feet was heard crunching briefly on gravel. A neighbouring door opened to admit them. Then it closed and all was silence.
Christina ceased to hover. She came forward and entered the kitchen. On the counter, brown and green substances lay smashed together in pudding bowls, while coils of spilled chocolate foam were detumescing on the wooden surface.
‘Bliss,’ Judith said, and she sat down. ‘Peace,’ she said. ‘The kids’ parents are here on sabbatical. The family’s from Vancouver. Lovely people. Six daughters. Quite wonderful for my Miff.’
Christina began, without thinking, to make inroads into the mess. She dumped the bowls on the draining-board and brought a cloth to wipe up the spillage.
‘Miff and Rose have become very close,’ Judith continued. ‘Best bosom buddies. Poor Miff has begun to imagine that she’d like six children one day.’
‘She seems very capable,’ Christina said. ‘Very domesticated.’
‘Ah, she’s my Little Nell,’ Judith said. ‘Far more Little Nell than Miffy.’
Christina wiped up and rinsed and wiped. ‘Isn’t Miffy a rabbit?’ she said. ‘I thought Miffy was a rabbit.’
Judith smiled. ‘My little brother,’ she said. ‘He gave her a book when she was born. Miffy Goes Flying. It was always her favourite. She took it with her everywhere until she lost it somewhere in North London on a visit to my parents. Her real name is Zuleika.’
‘I know that book,’ Christina said with a sudden, regressive enthusiasm. She remembered it, oddly, as one of the few books that Dulcie had legitimately owned. All the others on Dulcie’s shelf had been the property of libraries. Miffy had had a cross-stitch nose. Her ears had poked up through her flying hat. She had gone off in an aeroplane with her favourite Uncle Bob. They had sat in the cockpit manifesting identical noses and ears.
‘ “Zuleika”?’ she said, thinking it extreme. ‘And why Zuleika?’
Judith got up and filled the kettle. She reached for a jar of instant coffee. ‘My little brother again,’ she said. ‘I wanted her to have his name. Unfortunately Zachariah is not of the easiest to match. There were not too many girlish equivalents that scored with me at the time.’
Zachariah, Christina thought. Some name to give your baby. The penultimate book of the Old Testament. Not the last. The second to last. Judith had made a mistake there. I am alpha and not quite omega. Why had Judith got that wrong? Was she a little bit stuck on her brother? By the sound of it, she was. Still, he had to be an improvement on the recumbent green Hugo, she thought.
‘Zuleika,’ Judith said, musing. ‘That was pretty well as close as I could get.’ She scooped heaped teaspoons of Blend 37 into two large mugs. ‘My parents, of course, are Jewish,’ she said. ‘They don’t terribly care to have the newborn named after the living like that.’ She poured boiling water into the mugs and brought them to the breakfast counter. Then she fetched sugar and milk. ‘Sit down, Christina, please,’ she said. ‘Coffee time. Come on.’
Christina sat down. She took a sip from her mug. As she did so, she surveyed the rump of slaughtered green rabbit which, all alone, still lay on its plate on the counter. Hunger rose within her. She discovered an urge to sink her teaspoon into its quivering flank.
‘Doctors let their children eat anything,’ she said, hoping that stern judgment would obliterate the shameful need.
Judith sussed her at once, however. ‘What’s the matter, little Chrissie?’ she said. ‘Are you pining for a bowl of jelly rabbit?’
Christina dropped her guard
and smiled. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say no,’ she said. ‘That’s if it’s going begging. I didn’t have time for any lunch today. But please don’t bother with chocolate sauce.’
Judith rose and approached the oven from which she drew forth a large pie dish. It contained a substantial half of the children’s institution meat pie. A daunting aroma of school dinner promptly assailed Christina’s nostrils.
‘But have some pie first,’ Judith said hospitably. ‘Go on. Please. If you didn’t have lunch.’
‘No, thanks,’ Christina said quickly. ‘The pudding will do me just fine.’
Judith put down the pie dish. She found a bowl and scooped the bunny’s rump into it from the serving plate. Then she handed it over, along with a pudding spoon. She watched Christina dig in with relish.
‘So you’ll eat synthetic lime jelly,’ she said smugly. ‘But you won’t eat Mrs Spencer’s homemade pie. Why aren’t you eating properly?’
‘I am,’ Christina said. ‘I do.’
‘Ever had an eating disorder?’ Judith said, as though she enjoyed the idea.
‘Of course not,’ Christina said. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘So what’s the matter with you, then?’ Judith said. ‘You’ll eat junk, but you won’t eat food.’
‘Nothing’s the matter,’ Christina said, ‘except that your husband has lost my essay.’
‘It’s very common in these parts,’ Judith said.
‘Losing people’s essays?’
‘Eating disorders,’ Judith said. ‘Binge on junk food. Throw it up down the washbasin. That’s till your hair starts falling out in tufts.’ She paused to glance quickly at Christina’s fine blonde hair which was none the better for its recent sluice in cut-price washing-up liquid.
‘My hair is always like this,’ Christina said. Judith, for some reason, was going at the theme with gusto.
‘And how about your teeth?’ she said. ‘How are your teeth?’
‘My teeth are fine,’ Christina said, and she continued to spoon up jelly.
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