The Life Situation

by Rosemary Friedman

  “Will if you like.”

  Karen lay down again. “OK.”

  “Too tired,” Oscar said.

  “Thank God! I was beginning to wonder!”

  His fears seemed groundless. Karen’s inspection of Rosy and Daisy revealed temperatures down, healthy appetites and a predilection for backward somersaults which were shaking the whole house. The only unknown factor was now Mrs Hubble. Since she was not on the telephone he would have to contain himself until half-past two.

  When Karen had gone he sat at his typewriter staring blankly at Death on the Riviera. It had no more meaning for him than the Koran. He wondered who it was who had written the preceding pages.

  He knew there would be no writing done that day.

  By the time Mrs Hubble came he had changed into the red, polo-necked sweater she had washed for him and which was still slightly damp. He ran the clothes brush over his suede shoes in lieu of the wire brush he could not find. In the mirror, six-foot-two, head up; retracted stomach muscles, he thought himself not unattractive, a fair match for Michael Caine or what’s his name O’Toole that the girls went crazy about.

  “Pooh, you don’t half pong!” Rosy said, holding her nose when he went up to say goodbye.

  “What of?”

  “Mummy’s hairspray.”

  “What day do you think it is?” Daisy said.

  “Wednesday. Why?”

  “You’ve got your Sunday sweater on.”

  He feigned surprise. “Be good for Mrs Hubble.”

  “Can we go down and watch telly?”

  He nodded, willing to agree to anything. “Put something on or something…”

  Exhausted with the anticipation he slammed the door of the house, taking care not to break his leg as he ran down the steps.

  He left the car on a meter in Grosvenor Street, realizing that even one’s affaires amoureuses were state-controlled now, with a time limit of two hours. The excess penalty flag on the meter disturbed him by its phraseology. He wondered if anybody would recognize the car and tell Karen. He looked at a fur coat draped on the floor in a shop window. He could always have been contemplating a sable for her birthday.

  With most of his time divided between Primrose Hill and Hampstead in the afternoons he had forgotten how it was in Mayfair. Lunched ladies from Claridge’s Causerie, clusters of Japanese with cameras, girls in headscarves, men in bowlers, anything and everything in what was still the most exciting city in the world despite its current tattiness. Perhaps he should get out more instead of staying at home hunched over his typewriter.

  There were twelve cards in the lighted slots by the door of the entrance of the block of flats in Berkeley Square. He pressed the one which said Dr M C Burns, then remembered and pressed it again. Immediately the buzzer sounded. She must have been waiting. The entrance hall was thickly carpeted, one wall mirrored. He checked his appearance and smoothed his hair while waiting for the lift. Its doors opened silently. He pressed ‘7th floor, penthouse’. He was adjusting his jacket when the lift doors slid open and in front of him was Marie-Céleste in her flat.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  She held out a gold key and laughed. “If I unlock it it brings you straight up. If I don’t you land up on the sixth floor and have to walk up and ring the front door bell.”

  “You should warn people. God knows what I might have been doing.”

  She took his hand. “Come out or you’ll find yourself downstairs again.”

  He stepped out and the lift doors closed behind him.

  “I’d forgotten how beautiful you are,” she said.

  He was unused to receiving compliments.

  The floor was green marble covered with silky, gold Persian rugs like the ones he had often admired hanging from the walls of the shops in Knightsbridge. There were Dufys and Degas on the walls, each with its individual light.

  The drawing-room was huge, with tapestry and velvet settees the colour of sunlight, enormous lamps, more paintings, pieces of furniture, each one of which must have cost a small fortune, Country Life on the coffee table.

  She opened the doors on to the balcony. Below, London went about its business; toy taxis stopped for midget people. She was wearing a grey cashmere dress with pearls. It suited her.

  “It’s nice in summer,” she said, “when the leaves are on the trees. There are floodlights…” She pointed behind her.

  “Of course.”

  “Not that we use it much. We’re in the country most weekends.”

  He imagined her in country clothes, Ernest in deerstalker hat.

  She leaned against the balcony and pointed. “You can see the Post Office Tower.”

  “I have not come here to see the Post Office Tower.”

  She turned to face him. “I’m sorry. I suppose I’m nervous…”

  “Me too.”

  He held out his hand. They went inside. He didn’t know how he had imagined the bedroom. She had removed the bedcover. He liked her lack of coyness. He felt a need to empty his bladder. The bathroom carpet was shaggy and almost covered his shoes which he felt it was sacrilege to be wearing at all. Everything was sludge-green, the bath, the two washbasins, the shower cubicle, the WC, the bidet. There were towels and bottles everywhere. He felt he should not be urinating in such splendour. He eyed the towels. Since they were all clean he felt it didn’t matter much which he took. He used some of Ernest’s aftershave.

  When he came back she was standing on the white rug at the end of the bed naked. His mind raced – la Primavera, Venus. She was none of these. Too thin; to the point of emaciation. You could see her hipbones sharply defined; her small breasts had pink nipples. He remembered she had not had a child. Her scant pubic hair declared her a natural redhead. Her skin was like taut, white silk, unmarked.

  “You make me feel overdressed,” he said, his voice appearing to come from elsewhere.

  She held out her arms towards him and he realized that great bosoms, full hips and plump arms were not necessarily synonymous with femininity. He had been writing too long; living too little.

  “No problem,” she said, as he went towards her.

  He removed his jacket. She seemed not to be interested in the red sweater that Mrs Hubble had washed for the occasion, nor the fact that he had newly brushed shoes. She did not comment on the snazzy underpants Rosy had given him for his birthday.

  They looked at each other.

  “Marie-Céleste got undressed,” he said.

  “What?”

  He told her about the limerick he had composed the first time he had seen her.

  “If I was a writer perhaps I would have made up one too.”

  “How would it go?”

  “I’m not a writer.”

  She stood still and he walked round her. He kissed her right buttock. “If you were a writer how would it go?”

  She turned round slowly putting a gentle hand on his head, keeping close enough for his lips not to leave her body.

  “I can only show you.”

  When they grew tired of standing they continued their exploration of each other on the sheepskin rug.

  When the floor grew hard (reminding him he was not so young as he had been) they moved body to body towards the bed. On the gold, fluffy blanket, he imagined for a brief moment her doing the same things with Ernest.

  She made love to him with such passion and expertise he wondered for one moment if he were indeed the only one to lie on Ernest’s fluffy gold blankets in the afternoons. The thought was soon gone. He could not contain it amongst the sensations she was provoking – of pleasure so intense he feared for his consciousness. When he could endure it no longer he made love to her like a man seven foot tall, a stallion, a god.

  When it was over and they lay bound to each other with perspiration, their feet somehow on the lace-edged pillows, he knew it would not be a case of one afternoon; that he had eaten the apple and that his life was no longer going to be the same.

  A t
hought struck him. “I suppose you’re on the pill?”

  “No.”

  He removed her hair from his mouth and raised his head. “Marie-Céleste!”

  “I don’t bother.” Her voice was slow and satisfied. “Ernest is desperate for a son and heir, always has been, I mean what’s going to happen to all that ink? But nothing’s ever happened. It isn’t me. I’ve been gone over with a fine tooth comb. If it’s Ernest he isn’t telling.”

  “You should have said.”

  “I didn’t think.”

  “Next time…” He suddenly realized what he had said. “There will be a next time?”

  She smiled. “Tomorrow?”

  He wondered what he could do about Dr Adler.

  “Not if you don’t want to.”

  He would have to explain but not now. “It isn’t that. Can I ring you?”

  “Unwise. I’ll ring you.”

  “No. I’ll be here at 3…” He’d fix it somehow.

  He noticed on the gilt bedside clock which had ticked fussily throughout the past hour, but which he only now became aware of, that it was 4 o’clock. He sighed.

  She kissed his cheek. “What?”

  “I have to go.”

  “You’ve only just come.”

  He laughed.

  Reluctantly they disentangled themselves. While he used the bathroom again and dressed she put on a long white silky thing with bands of what appeared to be cotton wool round the wide sleeves.

  “You look like a bride.”

  She put her arms round his waist, her head on his shoulder.

  He said: “There are so many things I want to ask you…”

  “I’ll allow you one question.”

  “Is it like this with Ernest?”

  She raised her head and leaned back. “Ernest always asks my permission. Afterwards he says ‘thank you’ as if I’d passed the marmalade.”

  “Have you had other lovers?”

  “I said ‘one’!”

  “It’s part two of the same question.”

  She laughed and moved together with him towards the hall and lift. She pressed the call button and they stood in silence, red wool against white satin while they waited for it to arrive. The doors slid open. He did not want to let her go. In the minute’s grace allowed by the automatic mechanism of the lift, she said, “I have never slept with anyone but Ernest; until today.”

  When he got home Mrs Hubble had her hat and coat on and was standing by the front door clutching her shopping basket on wheels.

  “Sorry.” She was used to him appearing at 4.23 precisely on his return from Dr Adler’s.

  “I got me shoppin’ to do. There’ll be nothing left. It’ll have to be mince again.”

  The way she said it made it sound revolting. They were not badly off. Oscar reckoned the Hubbles had more coming in each week than he and Karen. Apart from her ‘daily’ sallies, for which she commanded some outrageous sum per hour only a small proportion of which was spent actually working, Hubble himself cleaned windows at such an alarming rate it was hard to appreciate that he had actually come and gone again for an equally outrageous sum (cash of course). Oscar wondered, apart from the two weeks at Christmas in Benidorm, what they did with it all. Of one thing he was sure. The tax man did not see any of it. The Hubbles did not believe in such things and considered any interference by the state in the way of forms to be filled in or stamps to be stuck on as a ‘diabolical liberty’.

  He could not exactly shed tears, therefore, over the fact that in the Hubble family it had to be mince again.

  Rosy and Daisy, red, swollen and blotchy, were glued to the television in a sea of empty crisp packets, banana skins and Penguin wrappers. They did not look up when he came in. He went into his study and with his feet up on the desk wondered how he was going to arrange his life, in particular vis-à-vis Dr Adler. He thought fleetingly that he might temporarily dispense with his services in the interests of Marie-Céleste, but immediately dismissed this. Once in analysis one stayed in analysis come hell or high water. He could not recall the number or times he had asked Dr Adler how he would know when the analysis had ‘finished’. He knew that strictly speaking it was never complete, and that there had been people who had been twenty years or even a lifetime, according to who died first, analyst or analysand.

  He pulled a piece of paper towards him and wrote on it ‘Dr Adler v. Marie-Céleste’. He stared at it for some time; boxed it in; shaded it then struck out ‘Dr Adler’, at the same time hearing him say, “Why do you want to kill me off?” “I don’t want to kill you off!” Indignation. “I just want to…” He sighed. Dr Adler had not said a word. He was still sitting there, pondering the imponderable, when Karen came in. She put her head round the door, still in her coat.

  “Working?”

  “No.” He reached for the piece of paper bearing the names of Dr Adler and Marie-Céleste and crumpled it into a small ball.

  “Thinking?”

  “Mm.”

  “Need any help?”

  He smiled inwardly and shook his head.

  “Where are the girls?”

  “I don’t know. They were watching telly. Sorry. Lost count of time.”

  “Not to worry. They’re quiet anyway. I’ll bring you a cup of tea.”

  He hadn’t asked her what sort of day she’d had; whether she had problems or was tired; he should be making the tea. He threw the ball of paper into the wastebasket and missed. Could he cope without Dr Adler? He retrieved the paper and smoothing it out tore it into tiny shreds; not that anyone ever examined the contents of his basket, overflowing with discarded writing as it always was; he looked at the shreds, small enough almost for confetti…‘confetti’…? He could see no way out of the problem, which was still going round in his head when Karen brought the tea and one of his favourite Bath Olivers.

  He looked at her, pretty, with her soft brown hair released from its working ‘pleat’. He felt an overwhelming sensation of love and, to his surprise and shame, sexual arousal. Perhaps there was something the matter with him, a case of satyriasis…not twice in one day! Not for many years…he must look it up when he went to the library. What about Karen and sex anyway? That was going to present problems. What about Dr Adler? Problems, problems.

  She left him with the tea and Bath Oliver. Before the children her hips had been as slim as Marie-Céleste. He had always joked that when they were first married he could hold both buttocks in one hand. She was not fat by any means; rounded, womanly. He wondered why he didn’t feel guilty and presumed it was because he still loved Karen, would never stop loving her, Marie-Céleste was just…well…he wasn’t sure for the moment and put it in the pending file of his mind.

  Dr Adler? Perhaps he had a space between 4 and 6. He could be at the library, research…

  It seemed a reasonable solution. It was no good telephoning; it was not something Dr Adler would be prepared to discuss over the telephone. He thought he’d better keep his appointment tomorrow much as he yearned to see Marie-Céleste. He needed to talk about her to Dr Adler.

  He looked at his watch. Six o’clock. He couldn’t ring. Ernest might be home, would be. Lazy devil. She’d said he was usually home by 5.30. She wouldn’t be there anyway. She’d still be doing her evening surgery. He didn’t want to speak to the businesslike receptionist who would demand his name before putting him through. Probably listened in anyway. He began to dial the surgery number, then stopped, replacing the receiver. He had another idea more exciting, which appealed to his writer’s mind and his sense of the dramatic.

  He dialled her home number.

  “952 3388.” Crisp, decisive, no mucking about.

  “I’d like to speak to Dr Burns, please.”

  “She isn’t here. You can leave a message. I’ll see that she gets it.”

  “My name is Lumley. It’s about the sheepskin rug in the bedroom. I had an appointment at 3 o’clock tomorrow afternoon – cleaning. Unfortunately owing to the pressure of work
and unforeseeable circumstances (he admired the subtle decline into working-class jargon) I shan’t be able to get along until Friday if that’s convenient.”

  “I’ll give my wife the message.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Just the right amount of obsequiousness.

  Pleased with himself, he was about to replace the receiver.

  “Incidentally, it isn’t sheepskin.”

  “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  “The rug. It’s Shahtoosh. It’s made from the wool that comes from the throat of a rare goat found only in India, and is infinitely finer than Vicuña. I hope your firm can handle it. Actually I wasn’t aware that it was in need of cleaning. However…”

  He thought quickly. “I assure you sir…the ultimate possible care…many years in the business…attended to the floor coverings of royalty…” He was getting carried away and decided not to overdo it, “…it’s just that I had sheepskin on my docket. I haven’t got it here in front of me. However I do apologise.”

  “Not at all. Just for the record.” The receiver was replaced.

  Oscar wiped his forehead. ‘Just for the record.’ He didn’t like that. He wouldn’t try being funny any more. The man was sharp as a tack. Must be, of course, or he wouldn’t be the biggest thing in ink. He hoped he wasn’t going to check his firm’s credentials, but then he had been careful not to mention the name of the firm, so if there was any checking to be done he would have to discuss it with Marie-Céleste whom he prayed would get the message. There must be no more telephoning.

  Suddenly exhausted from the events of the afternoon and the anxiety of the last few moments, he flopped down on the day-bed, piled high with books and papers and bills and old Bath Oliver tins in which he kept paperclips and elastic bands and other tools of his trade, not to mention used stamps and keys and clothes pegs which miraculously found their way there, and fell asleep. He was woken harshly by the sound of the cowbell he and Karen had brought back from Switzerland. His first reaction was depression, his second that it was morning, and his third, after reflection and the opening of one eye for purposes of orientation, that it was dinner-time. He yawned, removed the Encyclopedia Britannica, Gunn to Hydrox, from the small of his back and got up.