The Playroom

by Frances Fyfield

  Now I am well aware, and may have said so before, that going to the shops is a thrill for some people who are slightly soft in the head, viz. Katherine Allendale, Mrs Harrison and almost anyone else they might count as friend: even Sebastian when pointed in the right direction for buying no more than one thing at a time, but this is not for me, oh dear me no; the whole thing is as thrilling as toothache.

  Ever tried West End shops in midsummer, pursuing a dress fit for the greenhouse effect, plus trousers or skirts designed to minimize a lumpen figure; something to send one back into the throng a transfigured and cooler self? There are, I remarked icily to one of those ultra-female masks laughingly known as assistants, many more people around living comfortably at size sixteen: we may even be the majority, but there would appear to be a conspiracy to pretend otherwise. Looking down a street I do not see a vista of twiggy persons: I see women of larger sizes, many generous indeed, and as for you, you frozen little size-ten waif, why don’t you smile at me while you still have teeth, because if you bring me one more dress with a straight skirt, you won’t be keeping them. By the time I was slumped over the fourth sugarless black coffee eyeing the kind of pastry forbidden on the most rudimentary self-improvement course, I was beyond depression and into nausea.

  So I changed tack and went off in pursuit of lotions for the face; tonics, I’d been told by someone, or was it a magazine read in the doctor’s, reverse the effect of ageing, some such thing, very clever, describing stuffs infinitely superior to the little tub of cold cream which is my whole repertoire along with Christmas-present soap and water. Soap and water, madam, repeated back at me as though I had confessed to a nightly ritual with paint-stripper. Then she shook herself, firmed up, pressed her flawless forehead with nails like talons to check the absence of wrinkles before moving into her routine. What madam should do to ensure youthful skin is as follows; here goes. First you clean your face with blue gunk at fifteen pounds per bottle, then you clean it again with yellow tonique (most unlike the sort I prefer, but she pronounced the word with aplomb) at seven pounds ninety-five a bottle; then you lightly smooth over face and neck this corn-coloured slop at thirty pounds per jar, finishing off the whole process with this translucent eye balm at twenty pounds per tube. I said wouldn’t it be cheaper to have my head cut off or the whole lot lifted to make room for total replacement, since this activity was going to take twenty-four hours a day even before you’ve embarked on whatever it was you had to do in the morning, such as waking at 5.00 a.m. to unscrew the jars or wallow in mountain dew. But then, dammit, whatever happened to the person I once knew, bossy and immune to nonsense? Silenced by her own eyebags, and did she have anything else to make them re-emerge from behind the gin folds? Punny punny, ha ha, I was taken to the cleaners. Yes OK, fine, terrific, have the lot.

  Then the sodding health club. The final stage of the self-improvement course, which on a stinking hot afternoon was beginning to tax my willpower more than anything else. So easy just going home, but what would I do at home, out-of-work creature that I am in my own house, waiting to be displaced by Mrs Harrison, ignored by the children, who have better things to do, and no prospect of seeing the spouse until after dark. Besides I was committed: I had phoned, made an appointment for this exercise class in this health club Katherine had once described as the answer to a woman’s prayer. So, with the vision of a forbidden gin before my eyes like a mirage, I was crossing the park, trying to look as if this was something I did all the days of the week instead of the first time in what seemed, just then, a very long lifetime indeed. Not, however, as long as that class. There has never been an hour in any afternoon, not even the ones spent in thrall to labour pains, as long as the hour it took to endure that class. Shall I begin at the beginning, such as the way I ballooned into the foyer of this place with my clanking parcels, or describe these functional changing rooms, where a group of comfortingly ordinary-looking women without a single sequin on their leotards proved friendly to a plump and, by this time, irritatingly nervous stranger? The whole experiment going so well, even my ancient track suit in place, until the door opened on Katherine Allendale, looking rather strained as she came in, but on sight of me, leaping forward with little squeals of friendliness like a small puppy left alone for five minutes: and with one lurch of heart, watching her undress (so modestly, under a towel), right down to her thin ribs, even though she left this odd, flannel choker round her neck, I immediately wondered why on earth I was bothering.

  The room used for the class was full of mirrors. Glass on three of four sides, I ask you, all the better to catch the reflection at every ghastly angle, an exercise in humiliation. ‘We’ll start slowly,’ said teacher with relish, ‘just a gentle warm-up, ladies, then a little jog, not much because it’s so hot, then a bit of work on the bum and tum . . .’ Promises, promises. The warm-up consisted of flinging arms over one’s head in opposite directions, squatting on one’s haunches and moving slowly up and down so that the thighs felt as if they were igniting; but dear God, that was just the beginning, a mere introduction to the real pain. Ghastly music, everyone running on the spot. ‘Now kick higher, higher . . . another twenty . . . Star jumps, one, a two, a three, ten more, girls, good, good, back to can-can kicks . . .’ And between all this, teacher emitting strange little whoops of encouragement which no one appeared to need since none of them was even breathless. Katherine Allendale could kick her leg as high as something from the Folies-Bergère: her face was pale as ever, despite more maquillage than usual, transfixed with strange pleasure. I thought I was going to die, and in that moment, even forgetting her double walking away from my husband on graceful pins as long as hers, I hated her. She watched for me; she helped me as she might have done some little geriatric, and I hated her more.

  Some of them laughed at my look of sublime disbelief when asked to put my head between my knees or attempt to push my ample chest towards the floor as we sat with our legs spreadeagled, but Katherine did not laugh: she was distressed. It should have made me like her, this obvious concern for my discomfiture, but it did not, just as thereafter, her kind solicitude, pressing on me all the stuff such as shampoo, talcum powder, towel, all of which impedimenta I had forgotten entirely, did not make me like her either. I walked round the changing room like a film version of old John Wayne walking down the street of the OK Corral, my legs fixed at peculiar angles and the knees unlikely ever to touch again, irritated by her concern, that naïve niceness. She emerged from the shower never quite showing herself naked, always modestly swathed, perhaps out of some sort of deference to me, chatting like a sparrow issuing platitudes.

  ‘Don’t worry, Susan, you did ever so well, really marvellous, and it does get easier each time, I promise. Specially when you know what to do, because half the effort goes into concentration, you know? Once you know the routine, it’s so much simpler, you won’t believe.’

  No, I didn’t believe, and as this chatter accompanied me all the way home in a taxi I paid for, to her patent delight, there settled on me the most monumental depression. ‘Always make me feel great, these classes.’ Katherine, talking far harder and faster than usual – was it guilt? – but looking as healthy as she clearly felt, leaning forward with her hands’-span waist on show while I could only imagine the demolition of three loaves of bread washed down by a pint of pure spirit. She so wanted to be friends: in her own way, she has always wanted that, but by the time we reached her door and mine, I could only excuse myself with a briskness which might well have amounted to rudeness. For nothing, I think now, nothing at all: for her being nice: for being the double of someone else, for being so clearly in control of her life while I felt my own was slipping away.

  She took her children, leaving me with mine. I looked at them with wonder, thumb-sucking, rapt with attention, not needing me at all. Nobody needs me. I’ve made myself redundant.

  Mary Mary, quite contrary,

  How does your garden grow?

  With little bells and cockle-shells
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  And pretty birds all in a row . . .

  Samantha squirmed in an orgasm of sleepy delight: I watched her, wanted her, felt desperately shy of her, went away to contemplate the effects of my day, undo those parcels, review the reflection of this brave new self.

  Was there a difference? Yes, there bloody well was. Removed from the horrors of the shops where they were found, the two new frocks were a revelation, floral prints of subdued colours but fresher than anything I owned, the face above them clearer now the puce colours worn in the gymnasium had died down. Stiffness was setting in throughout every limb, but never mind: in that pain there was the pride of survival, a wonderful promise of improvement, and by dint of breathing in, holding my face up high and away from the light, I could see what I might become. Or return towards, or make for, whatever stupid thing it was I wanted; to be loved, perhaps. Or even loving. This is pure silliness: I did not say that then: I did not know it: my ignorance was so profound: I never have been able to see what I was doing wrong. I could not admit any need.

  Downstairs again, with good grace. Any messages, Mrs Harrison, before I repossess my brains? No, none, she said, stiff with sulks, but Mr Thorpe came home earlier, says he left you a note in his study, something about tonight, I don’t know what. No hurry then: I looked at the new dress again on the way downstairs from the children, puzzled over all the multi-language instructions which accompanied my ludicrous face-creams, all of me sober as a judge, wanting to be seen. Remembered this note in Sebastian’s study, strange practice for him, what’s got into the man with all this coming in and going out, went to look, thinking, well, my dear, I am even going to cook a meal, aren’t you the lucky one. Maybe you’ll notice me for once, or, more properly, I you. Let’s see if you see the difference.

  Sebastian thought otherwise. The note covered one side of paper. The words of it I cannot remember since I tore the sheet in shreds. The paragraphs were redolent with apologies and regrets, suggestions of meetings, none of them capable of obscuring the bottom line of this missive. My husband was leaving me. Susan Pearson Thorpe was being abandoned.

  I did not cry as I shredded the paper. There was no outrage, no surprise, not even sorrow, only a blow far duller than shock. I looked out of the window of his study into the garden next door, thinking of the wasp which had buzzed at the window. Katherine and David Allendale were sitting sweetly in their garden. I knew such anger at the sight of them I could scarcely breathe.

  Then I went down and found the bottle of gin. One whole bottle, plus one wide straw.

  CHAPTER 11

  ‘They will grow, you know,’ Matilda snapped. ‘They won’t stay little and tiny and sweet. You’ll have to find homes for them soon before they lose their good looks. If you don’t mind. Kat’s disgusting enough on her own, but five duplicates? And they will grow,’ she repeated. ‘They’re bloody growing by the second, can’t you see?’

  She noticed John’s hand was shaking slightly, his face turned from the kitchen table where he had begun work early, eyes constantly astray in the direction of the cardboard box from which Kat purred like an engine. There was still an obvious lack of coordination between hand and eye, which persuaded him to write at home rather than work where everyone could see. The mere suggestion of seeking treatment had been spurned. He would not even try to make himself better.

  ‘Please, Mattie, no; I’ll be fine, not the first time after all, is it?’ The width of the smile translated as a desperate plea for peace. Certainly not the first time he had suffered injury, but she was not sure if this was simply the worst or taken the worst, not even sure of the difference. ‘Why don’t you tell the police?’ she had screamed, incoherent in the face of his placid acceptance. ‘Because . . .’ he paused in a manner which only increased irritation, ‘. . . because blows are struck out of desperation, reactions against oppression, victims can’t choose. He’s a victim, I’m a victim, and I’m never going to put some poor chap in the hands of the police.’

  ‘Why can’t policemen also be victims – because of the uniform? What about some of the good ones who’ve helped, eh? Such as the chap who brought you home?’

  ‘They,’ said John, turning his gaze back to the kittens in the box, ‘are only the exceptions proving the rule. Authority corrupts, like money, and so do uniforms.’

  Matilda gave up, threw her cereal bowl into the kitchen sink, which smelt subtly of Kat’s Kit-e-kat, a lingering smell she could never understand since the tins were wrapped in polythene before being placed in further, different-coloured polythene at her behest inside the rubbish bin. Perhaps it was the lingering smell of the only kind of meatstuff which was allowed to cross these portals. Typical of John, she thought bitterly: John in all his bloody-minded inconsistency, being illuminated into such devotion for a carnivore which was as horrible as it was voracious. Matilda had a sudden craving for forbidden fruits, and a vitriolic hatred for animal life.

  ‘They’re thinking of giving me an award,’ John said casually, nodding towards a letter on the table, ‘for outstanding devotion to duty.’

  ‘Thinking of it? After this long, still thinking? After all the cases you’ve brought to light? Why simply think of it, why not just do it?’ She snatched the paper. ‘. . . You are being considered for . . . Like free gifts with soap powder. Anyway,’ she added, throwing down the letter, ‘you don’t believe in public honours. Only self-motivation counts, you said, any kind of recognition is so random it’s bound to be unfair.’

  ‘Quite right,’ he said calmly, only the nerve beneath one eye twitching, the rest of him perfectly still. ‘But I’d like it all the same.’ He flashed on her one of those rare wide smiles which could be so disconcerting, huge and anxious, transfiguring his intense face into boyishness. Reluctantly, hating herself for the first sign of melting, she half smiled back, but he had already turned his head towards the kittens’ box, missing her response.

  ‘Here, kitty, kitty, here, here . . .’ The largest stumbled out of the box, rolled in a somersault and made for John’s outstretched finger on little drunken legs, the stump of tail in the air like an upturned rudder failing to give balance. ‘This one swanks like a model,’ John said. ‘Look at her, I’m going to call her Cleopatra,’ gesturing at the furry bottom pointing towards the ceiling. The kitten’s china-blue eyes were full of purpose, the scrabbling paws stopped for a moment in sudden concentration while a tiny pool of urine appeared on the floor, trickling downhill on the uneven surface. Matilda moaned softly and fled for the door. John smiled wider, tutting at the kitten more in admiration than rebuke, ‘Oh you clever girl, or is it boy? Naughty, naughty, naughty little thing. Who’s a clever one, then, but you shouldn’t do that, you really shouldn’t.’ The kitten deliberated, looked at him, sat down in the puddle. He clutched the tiny damp body, kissed the nose, his smile wide and his face in a twitch of joy.

  As Matilda exited at speed, the Indian man from the takeaway, whom she normally avoided, was entering through his own side door, the method always used when the shop was closed, forcing them to collide sometimes in the narrow hall where his face crinkled the welcoming grin he bestowed without choice. ‘Nice day,’ he said. As either greeting or goodbye this formula of words seemed to work while Matilda’s nostrils twitched: if her nose was not filled with Kat or kittens, she was subject to further assault, spices, burnt oil, the rancid smell of foreign diets issuing from Mr Singh’s kitchen as she brushed past him.

  ‘You wouldn’t like a kitten, would you?’ she asked, venomously eyeing the loaded bags he brought with him, imagining kittens squirming inside, turning her head in distaste for his breath as she spoke, a minuscule gesture which he nevertheless noticed and ignored.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘A kitten. Or three.’

  ‘Oh no, missis. We got a Rottweiler.’ Looking at her, perplexed by the subject of this rare conversation.

  ‘A what?’ From the height of her own five foot eight to his mere five foot, she gazed down in disbelief, wondering i
f she had heard correctly, seeing some strange picture of a man with a dog twice his weight. ‘Where do you keep that?’

  ‘At home, now,’ he said, still puzzled by this sudden interest in his life expressed by the upstairs lady who clearly despised him. ‘Only we are bringing him here, Rotty, at the weekends. In the back yard,’ he pointed to the side entrance, ‘through the kitchen, in there.’ He grinned. ‘You didn’t know? He is never barking, this dog, very nice nature, but if we are having many drunks in the shop, we are bringing him out for a walk. To stop ourselves from being beaten up. This happens, you see.’ The chuckle which followed was slightly obscene. ‘He no biting, this dog, only scary. Big balls,’ he explained.

  ‘Oh,’ said Matilda faintly. ‘Oh, really?’

  Bugger, Jenny thought, Bugger, I’m stuck. Why don’t I act like Monica, definite, I mean, conscience free, quite able at the last minute to get on the blower and leave me with Katherine at the last minute, cancelling lunch with some excuse she simply expects me to believe, even though I know her regime always allows lunch since there is no one to talk to at lunch. Leaving me with Katherine, for reasons I’ll tell you, Monica said: can’t stop now, an edge of gaiety in the voice which was profoundly suspicious, a carelessness slightly insulting in the whole insinuation. You’ll understand, Jenny, I’m sure you will. Meet you tomorrow, Jen darling, promise and don’t be cross, please, I can’t handle that: tell Kate I’m sorry, see her soon. I’m sorry too, Jenny grumbled, what do you want to happen, me listening to Kate confess, which I promise you, she’s on the brink of doing, something profound, like she doesn’t like her dresses or any of those boring old restrictions which at least we don’t really have, such as being the truly kept woman whose better earning half buys the clothes. But in threading through the traffic from Bloomsbury to Bond Street, she was cheered by the prospect of food if not by the prospect of conversation with Katherine, which was ever so slightly stilted with Monica absent, and amused by the thought of what Monica was up to, so silent in the last fortnight, the only explanation being contagious disease. Once inside the fussy wine bar where the waiters looked welcoming and the tables half empty, her mind half detached to the thought of shopping later for children’s clothes, the vision of a sweet dress in a window along with the vaguest suggestion that Katherine might bring her something, all somehow redressing the balance of resentment, so that by the time she saw that cool blonde head arrived before her, she was capable of enthusiasm. Noting in the meantime Katherine’s crisp linen blouse with the high Nehru collar, offsetting the oddness of Katherine’s more than usual make-up, such an aberration for high summer, such an indication of tiny slips in the usual perfection, the sight cheered Jenny enough to make her smile in relief. She never meant to be unkind. Lunch would be perfectly palatable after all, with a little wine to oil the wheels, a little something to thin the varnish.