by Brian Aldiss
He forbore to mention his own painful decision. Just being with Daphne again was comfort enough. And the meal was relaxed and enjoyable.
As the two women accompanied him back to where the car was parked, Daphne signalled to Crystal. Making a moue to show dislike of her mother’s hint, Crystal kissed Dominic’s cheek and walked off briskly in the direction of No. 11. He saw her go with regret.
Daphne took Dominic’s arm, making him walk more slowly. ‘I know you’ve got trouble with Fenella, Dom. You’ve never mentioned her once. Can I give you a bit of advice? You’ll think me mad.’
He did not try to pretend. ‘I’ll be glad of any advice, Ma. I know you never took to Fen. I certainly need some help just now.’
She stopped a few yards short of the car. ‘Pray.’
When he looked at her in astonishment, she smiled and repeated the word. ‘Pray, Dom. I don’t believe in God any more than ever I did. But I do believe in prayer.’
‘One without the other? You must pray to God, yah? You can’t just pray to … no one.’
‘Dom, I’m telling you this most feelingly.’ Looking at him with a worried expression, she clutched one of his hands. ‘I know it’s not the sort of thing people usually go on about. But we two are different, aren’t we? I couldn’t – wouldn’t dare say this to my other sons. I don’t believe in God, still can’t make myself believe. But I pray to him.
‘It’s not God that’s important. It’s the prayer. There’s my discovery. My secret. We live in a hard materialistic age with little place for God. But prayer sweetens up life and strengthens us. It has sweetened and strengthened me.’
He was embarrassed. ‘Ma, I know life’s difficult for you—’
‘Nothing that can’t be borne,’ she said firmly. ‘What prayer does – praying aloud – is concentrate the mind. You have to formulate in words what you desire, what you must do next. “Oh Lord, make me as kind to the naughty boys in the class as to the good, to the stupid as to the clever.” That sort of thing. Then you know. Then you’re clear in your own mind. You’re really addressing your higher self. Provided you have one. Maybe prayer encourages a higher self to develop. Anyhow, it works. Next time you’re about to be angry with a lout of a boy, you remember your prayer. ’Cos that prayer contained what you really wanted. So you aren’t angry.’
Dominic looked away from her. ‘Yes, but – what you say, Ma – well, we know prayers don’t work.’
She gave a strained laugh. ‘You think I’m turning into a religious freak in my old age? Not a bit of it. I’m just telling you prayer works. If all the people in the world got down on their knees today and prayed for a better world, on Monday we’d have a better world. Go back to Fenella. Do as I say. Be brave. Dear Dom.’
They embraced in the street. He kissed her cheeks. As he had done so often in the past. Then they parted.
But if Dominic had come to a decision, so had Fenella.
She was returning to Scotland as soon as possible.
He responded to the announcement in his usual conciliatory fashion.
‘Fen, I know I have offended you. I’m sorry. I sometimes don’t know my own mind. Just let’s forget some of our little problems, shall we, and try to start again? I do love you – you know that really.’
She was standing in the north reception room holding a glass vase. She gave Dominic one of her searching stares, almost as if she had not heard, before setting the vase down.
‘What’s all this leading up to?’ Folding her arms across her chest, defensive, looking beleaguered.
Dominic gave a nervous laugh. ‘Well … it’s leading up to … whatever you like. Depends on you. Can you hear the – Fen, the implications of my words, is that what you call it, not just the words?’
‘Why does this have to depend on me so much? It wasn’t my idea we should part. I’ve always been faithful to you.’
He sighed. ‘Let’s sit down and talk, shall we?’ When she picked up the vase again, he took it from her hand and placed it on a side table.
She sat down meekly as instructed, crossing her legs and leaning forward with an arm raised defensively across her chest. ‘I’m tired of seeing that expression on your face, Dom. Why don’t you cheer up and realize how lucky we are? We shall be able to get Fuarblarghour estate into working order again. Stirrup and Dower say there were fishing rights in Loch Awe which have been allowed to lapse, but can be revived. And the old farm, Fuarblarghour Farm—’
He raised a cautionary finger. ‘It is exciting that you have come into this inheritance. But there is something we must put right first of all. You know what I mean. A terrible coldness between us – a quarrel. We must try to ease that situation before we even discuss to go to Scotland to live. Isn’t that so? Obvious, yah?’
It was as if she was a long distance away in the big white room.
‘If you refuse to come up to Fuarblarghour, the quarrel, as you call it, will never be settled. You just want to get rid of me. You want me to go up there where I belong, alone with Malcolm. Don’t deny it.’ She gave him a sly look, a mixture of tease and hatred. ‘When I’m gone, you can see as much of Lucy Traill as you want. The truth is, you have ceased to be interested in me.’
Letting out a wild, bitter laugh, Dominic said, ‘Don’t start that again. I’m still interested in you, Fenella! Jesus, yes! I’m interested, yah – as I am in life and death – I just can’t get through to you.’ In a fit of desperation, he rushed over to her so that she flinched back in the chair. He merely flung himself at her feet and clutched her dress.
‘Fen! Please! Stop this internal game you play. You are caught in a web of your own making. I see it, I see it clear. Confess.’ He buried his face in his hands, saying to himself, How can prayer stand against all this? I travel through this stony wilderness. Rejection. Death of the soul. I don’t stand a chance. Can I take much more? She is – she lost something, something in her was poisoned by that mother … Better if her mother had left her, jumped into Loch Awe.
He broke into whatever she was saying. The truth was, he hated to hear her talk. A conversation with her was pretence. The custom of loving her had been eroded, a knife-blade worn thin on a grindstone. ‘I shall not hurt you. I just wish you to see that you make your own difficulties. This is such pain. All pain. Please, Fenella … I’m afraid of you, because whatever I say to you is twisted in a way to hurt us both. Stop it, break free, why can’t you, when I’m here to support you? I know of a quite famous psychotherapist in Oxford. Let’s go together to him and let him help us.’
Something in her face closed, and he saw it. The line of her jaw altered.
Later, he thought that among all the waste of moments, the desert of their life together, this point was a decisive one. His offer to bring in an outsider convinced her of a conspiracy against her. For that was what she now proclaimed, mouth narrow and bitter in a hard face. When she asked him if he had spoken of her to this person in Oxford, it seemed to Dominic wiser to answer Yes, not to lie yet again. That for her was the needed confirmation. He had been talking about her behind her back; all that she had feared was now out in the open.
He had betrayed her. It could never be explained, but he had betrayed her.
Just for a moment, staring at her face to face, he seemed almost to catch her thought, to penetrate through to the conceptual world of Fenella Cameron, the bleak land through which she was destined to travel. A prevailing wind would always be blowing against her. There could be no joy here. Equally, with feelings deadened by cold, there was no pain.
Anyone who appeared over her horizon was axiomatically an enemy. Despite the passions they had enjoyed before they were married – those passions soon to wilt so inexplicably – hers was a strangely asexual world: and, because without sex, without colour. Those she loved most, being phantom-like without colour or character, could never be allowed in close. They carried a general contamination. This was a frigid land: all there was to stand against it was will. And the will could not be
trusted; it too might fail. But as yet it kept her moving towards magnetic north.
‘You have prepared this Oxford person,’ she was saying. ‘You talked to him secretly. This silly plan you speak of. Of course he will be on your side.’
His attempt at a placatory smile was a mockery. She saw that.
‘It isn’t a question of sides. The man’s a psychotherapist.’ He sighed, wondering whether it was worth the effort of going on. His will too would fail. ‘If it was a question of sides – look, I come over to you, to your chair. I’m at your feet. I’m begging you. I’m at your feet, look, Fen, damn you. When would you ever come across to me? I’m on your side. Why don’t you see this?’
‘You have been talking about me secretly behind my back. You admit it. This person will know all about me. He will be against me, like all the others. I saw the way your friend Colin Cohen looked at me. Don’t think I don’t see the way those servants of yours look at me – the horrible Betts you like so much. How he looks at me. He treats me with contempt, just like everyone else. It’s quite clear to me why you employed him and his wife in the first place – I’ve seen through that.’ She gave a queer little laugh. ‘I’ve seen through a good many things this last year.’
‘Do you wish us to be together or not? Tell me that.’
The train roared on down the track.
‘Oh, I’ve seen through your plan. Betts is here to watch me, to keep me imprisoned in this horrible place with the planes hovering overhead. Lock me up, chain me, beat me! You don’t care anything for me, you just want me prisoner. Yesterday there was an IRA bomb outrage in the centre of London. I saw it on TV. Oxford Street was closed. Some poor woman carried off on a stretcher. It could be Shreding Green next time. Do you care? Do you want to see me dead, carried off? We’ll all be blown up. We’d be safe in Fuarblarghour, but that doesn’t suit you—’
‘Hush, Fen. The Irish aren’t after us. Don’t be silly.’
‘Betts is probably Irish. Hired secretly, like this man in Oxford. I’ve read of such things. You’ve seen them marching. It’s peaceful in Blarghour. But of course you have your plan, you will do as you like—’
He jumped up. She was already launched on a sick monologue. ‘Stop it, Fen. Stop it at once. You know what you’re doing, you’re killing our marriage.’
She leaned back in the chair, laughing at him without humour, mouth open, eyes stony. ‘Marriage, what marriage? I’ve never meant a thing to you. You don’t even like me.’
He spoke very quietly, his face white. ‘Fenella, I can’t go on pretending for ever. You are mad. Destruction is somehow in your brain.’
‘Oh yes, you always blame me … I know it’s my fault. I’m always in the wrong. You think I’m drugging myself. You’d like me to kill myself, wouldn’t you, just because I’m worthless? Just because I failed once … Shall I do that, Dom, shall I? Would you like me to be dead and gone? A small thing carried away in the river?’ Her lips were dry, flecked like a beach with a dry white foam.
As he rushed from the room, he found Arold polishing a bronze in the hall. The man gave him a sympathetic wink. ‘Don’t take no notice, Mr Dominic. They’re all the same, yak yak yak. Don’t mean nothink.’
Fenella was not deflected by her husband’s behaviour. She dismissed him from her mind and went about her preparations for the move to Scotland and Fuarblarghour. Much packing was needed. Everything had to be washed. She was scrupulous about the washing. Many things had to be washed more than once.
At this time of crisis she was extra kind to young Malcolm, greeting him when he came back from infant school; hugging and kissing him. She told him how exciting it would be in Scotland, with a whole eighty acres of their own to roam in. And in one of the outhouses was an ancient tricycle which she had ridden when she was a small girl; it would be his. She would buy him a pony. There used to be ponies. She meant to hire a ghillie and go shooting.
‘Will Daddy come and see us?’ Malcolm asked. ‘He doesn’t like shooting.’
She fondled him again. ‘Oh, I’m sure he’ll come and visit now and again. The air is so good up there. You could climb Beinn Breac. You may see an occasional stag. One day when I was small, my father took me fishing on Loch Awe, Malcolm. It was so lovely. Just the two of us. I’ve lost my scissors. The cook had packed a splendid picnic basket for us with hot coffee in a silver thermos, and I remember we had salmon and cucumber sandwiches. That was the first time I ever tasted wine. Daddy let me have a sip. Ugh, I hated it. I’ve never touched the stuff since. He did laugh at the face I pulled.’
‘Was Grannie there?’
‘I told you, just Daddy and I. He recited a Robbie Burns poem. I sat on his knee and he recited to me. We didn’t get home till it was dusk and everyone was in such a panic in case we had drowned. I mustn’t use that word. It was so silly. I knew I was safe with Daddy.’
‘Did you catch a lot of fish? Did you visit the castle, the old ruined castle? Is it haunted?’
‘Of course not. There’s no such thing as a ghost. Though a lot of men were killed there in a siege.’
‘How many? Was there a lot of fighting and blood? What were they fighting about, Mummy?’
‘We shall have to look up the history when we get there. Oh, we’ll have such fun. You’ll see.’
Malcolm peered into the case she was filling with towels. ‘We better be sure to pack all my toys. We don’t want them left behind.’
‘Yes, dear,’ she said vaguely, stooping to sort through the bottles in the drawer of her bedside table. Taking up a small brown bottle, she shook two red and white bombs into the palm of her hand, transferring them into her mouth. ‘We’ll leave nothing behind worth having.’
Standing in his offices at the top of the house, Dominic watched his assistants down in the garden, as they climbed into their cars and drove off one after the other. It was late afternoon. His mood was sunken. There was a sullen pleasure in neglecting his work, as he had done recently. The assistants, both bright and younger than Dominic, had commented neutrally on his lost enthusiasm. He knew they would leave soon, equipped with the knowledge they derived from him, perhaps to establish their own businesses. Well, let them go. To hell with them.
A stand of trees showed over to his left, their fine bare branches reaching up into the sky. Lights began to spangle the unestablished landscape visible from where he stood. Darkness was setting in. The sky was everywhere grey with mottled cloud, except behind the entanglements of the copse, where the setting sun showed through.
He tried to think of the English word for that colour, not quite yellow, not quite orange, not quite gold. And how you would paint it, suppose you were the painting kind.
While he stood there, the car he was awaiting arrived. The gates stood open for it. He identified it as a Bentley before turning from the window and making his way downstairs to greet the visitor.
Bruce Dower of Stirrup and Dower, the prominent solicitors of George Street, Edinburgh, and London Wall, was a son of the founder of the firm. His father had acted as solicitor for the Cameron family, as he now acted for Fenella Mayor. However, it was Dominic who had summoned him on this occasion.
Arold had shown Dower into the hall by the time Dominic got there. Taking Dower over, Dominic led him to the library, and explained the situation to him before Fenella arrived.
While listening, Bruce Dower folded his arms and allowed his head to turn in a complete survey of the room, rather like a falcon surveying a barren field. Dominic became conscious of the poverty of his library. The built-in shelves he had inherited were filled on one wall by calf-bound eighteenth-century theology bought by the yard, never read, never opened. Cheap ornaments decked the other sets of shelves. He pulled nervously at his beard while addressing the solicitor.
Dower was a man of late middle age; he kept his precise years to himself, as he kept many other confidences. The suit, the striped shirt with button-down collar, the discreet tie, the general air of a man being encased rather than
merely clothed, all proclaimed someone accustomed to keeping confidences. Dower’s manner was always guarded, almost cold, despite the hectic colour bannered across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. This bridge was high, and gave him a hawk-like appearance, not entirely undeserved. It was apparent nothing would ever shake his equanimity.
Dower looked down at Dominic, observing but making no observations.
‘Would you like something to drink, Mr Dower?’
‘Thank you. A dry sherry would be appreciated.’
Dominic poured two sherries. He found his hands were trembling. The moment had come to stage this crucial meeting. Fenella’s and his future would be decided. He began to wonder whether he was equal to the task. Prayer or no prayer, he could not convince himself that he had the will any longer to continue with Fenella. Yet he loved her. Whatever kind of love it was – and that desertion in the snow before he was born lent its overpowering colour – it operated on him still. He loved her because of what once had been. But he could no longer breathe her atmosphere: it was too chill even for him.
As he and Dower raised their glasses, the lawyer said, ‘I am here as you requested, Dominic. But I should remind you that I am engaged as solicitor by your wife.’
Dominic was diminished by the way in which Dower pronounced his first name, as if reading a sermon from a pulpit. It hinted at condescension rather than intimacy.
‘We – Fenella and I – we have a marital problem, Mr Dower, yah.’ He was not certain he had pronounced the word ‘marital’ correctly, confusing it with ‘martial’.
After a pause, Dower said, ‘Fenella has informed me that you intend leaving her.’
‘That was said, yes, in the heat of the moment. Unfortunately.’
‘In effect terminating the marriage. And do I understand that, now Fenella has inherited considerable wealth, you wish to retract that statement?’