Triangles

by Andrea Newman

  She couldn’t be bothered with breakfast after the phone call, so she set out for work instead, thinking she’d be early. But the bus didn’t come for twenty minutes and the rain did; she ended up standing and swaying, jammed against a lot of strangers who smelled of damp raincoats, a smell that always reminded her of school cloakrooms.

  Not the day to ask for a rise, she thought, arriving at work late and finding Mr Ferguson already there. He allowed himself the satisfaction of glancing at his watch but he didn’t say anything sarcastic such as ‘Afternoon’. That meant he was in a good mood. In fact he looked positively joyful, in so far as he could. Meg thought he resembled a bloodhound, and she wondered if people ever said to him as they did to her: ‘Cheer up, it may never happen.’ Greengrocers, being merry little souls, seemed to say it more often than other people, and she was heartily sick of smiling through clenched teeth or grimly replying: ‘It already has.’ She didn’t suppose that Mr Ferguson went to greengrocers much; Mrs Ferguson probably did all that. And even if he did, there was something about him that would make anyone think twice before they told him to cheer up. Meg, being a woman, was fair game.

  ‘It’s sexual fascism, Mum,’ Jenny always said. ‘You should fight back. They’re all male chauvinist pigs.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind so much,’ Meg explained patiently, ‘if they only did it when I really feel depressed. But they do it when I’m quite cheerful as well. I can’t help having a droopy face. It’s not doing them any harm, after all.’

  ‘You’re too meek,’ Jenny said with a mixture of sympathy and contempt. ‘You should stand up for yourself.’ But of course she had never had to before: there had always been Johnny to fight her battles for her.

  It was all her mother’s fault, Meg reflected, taking dictation faster and faster. Mr Ferguson was like a man inspired today, and she thought she knew why. Her mother, bringing her up to be polite to everyone, never to give offence. It was odd, when you thought about it, because her mother went around giving offence all over the place, although she called it speaking her mind. So why hadn’t she brought Meg up to do the same?

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ Jenny would say. ‘There wouldn’t have been room for both of you in the same house.’

  Mr Ferguson went into overdrive around midday, then drew to a screeching halt about twelve fifteen. ‘That should keep you going this afternoon,’ he remarked with satisfaction. ‘I’ll be lunching with a client, back about four. But if my wife rings, better say I’m in a meeting. Too many expense account lunches and she thinks she doesn’t have to cook.’ He winked.

  ‘Right.’ Meg was pleased that her intuition was on target. Mr Ferguson had just told her, in code, that Corinna was in town and he would be spending the next four hours in bed. She could have done without the wink, though.

  Corinna was an air stewardess with an American accent, although she came from Reading. She had shiny hair and shiny teeth and no one would ever tell her to cheer up because she was always smiling. Sometimes she called in the office to discuss her stocks and shares with Mr Ferguson. She liked Hermès scarves and Gucci bags and Ivoire by Balmain. Meg knew because she often had to buy these items gift-wrapped during her lunch hour, so that Mr Ferguson could present them to Corinna later. She also had to send flowers to Corinna in Reading and to Mrs Ferguson in Haywards Heath. Mrs Ferguson liked Hermès scarves and Gucci bags and Joy by Patou, but she only got them at Christmas and on her birthday, whereas Corinna got them all the time.

  When Meg started typing, she noticed that the calendar said it was Friday the thirteenth. That explained everything, she thought. Not that she was superstitious, of course. Perhaps she should ask Mr Ferguson for a rise today: Corinna was sure to put him in a good mood. If you want me to tell lies and do your shopping, Mr Ferguson, Meg said to herself, you ought to pay me more. I’m valuable. I could ruin your life.

  Around quarter to four, Mrs Ferguson phoned. Her instinct was amazing. After weeks of not phoning, she always picked a Corinna-lunch day.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Ferguson,’ Meg said smoothly, ‘he’s in a meeting. Can I get him to call you back?’

  ‘No, thank you.’ Mrs Ferguson sounded grim. ‘I’m at Harrods.’

  Oh God, Meg thought, as she put down the phone. The vengeance spree. On some unspoken level, Mrs Ferguson knew all about Corinna and would now go raving mad with her American Express card. When Mr Ferguson came back at ten to five, all rosy and replete, she reported the conversation, and he looked so stricken at the mention of Harrods that she hadn’t the heart to discuss her salary. He repaid her by dictating another half-dozen letters and asking her to stay late to get them in the post. On a Friday. She ought to be angry; she was angry. But she did it.

  ‘You’re too soft, Mum,’ she could hear Jenny saying. ‘You should make a stand.’ But she hadn’t even been able to insist that Jenny tidied her room, so that it didn’t look quite like a bomb-site; she had preferred to ignore it. And after all, what did it matter? The room was tidy now, because Jenny was gone.

  ‘You spoil that girl, you know,’ her mother said, disappointed that Jenny wasn’t with Meg on her Saturday visit. ‘You let her walk all over you.’

  ‘She had an essay to write,’ Meg said defensively.

  Her mother snorted. ‘More likely off somewhere with that boyfriend of hers, enjoying herself.’

  Sometimes Meg almost hated her mother for voicing her own resentment. She also wondered why Jenny got blamed for being a bad daughter but she herself didn’t get praised for being a good one.

  ‘She was sorry not to see you,’ she lied. ‘And she sent her love. Now aren’t you going to have a slice of this cake?’

  Her mother peered at it and sighed. ‘Chocolate,’ she said. ‘Why do you always make chocolate cake?’

  ‘Because you said it was your favourite.’ One day I shan’t make any cake at all, Meg thought, and then you’ll get a shock.

  ‘It is my favourite, but that doesn’t mean I want to eat it every week. Can’t you be more imaginative? I’d like a surprise now and then. Anybody would.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Fruit or sponge next time? Or ginger perhaps? Or walnut?’

  Her mother stared. ‘If I tell you that, it won’t be a surprise, will it?’

  Meg cut a slice of the offending cake, counted to ten and regaled her mother with an account of Mr Ferguson’s love life. Anything to change the subject. She expected disapproval, but her mother expressed the view that since Mr Ferguson was paying the piper, he was entitled to call the tune.

  ‘It’s just a pity he doesn’t pay this particular piper a bit more,’ Meg said. She was pleased in a way that her mother could still surprise her, although Jenny would have complained about the old double standard rearing its ugly head, and how Gran would never approve of Mrs Ferguson behaving like that. What was more, Jenny would have got away with it. Sometimes, listening to them argue, Meg was amazed how alike they were. She felt like the filling in the sandwich, totally flattened, or a bone between two dogs, tugged this way and that. They thoroughly enjoyed their arguments, which they called discussions, and had a healthy respect for one another.

  ‘Gran’s impossible,’ Jenny would say fondly.

  ‘Jenny takes after me,’ her mother boasted. ‘She’s got a mind of her own.’

  God help me, Meg thought, if I tried to copy either of them. I’d soon be shouted down.

  ‘I shouldn’t fret about your salary if I were you,’ her mother said. ‘You’re lucky to have a job at all the way things are these days. And you know you could always move in with me. It’s ridiculous paying for two lots of everything when we’re both on our own.’

  Meg knew this was just her mother’s way of saying she was lonely. Compassion mingled with panic: it was the obvious solution but it wouldn’t work. Surely they both knew that? Guilt wriggled its way in next: am I a monster because I can’t share a house with my mother? (Worse still, is this how Jenny feels about me?) Oh, but it’s too soon, she told herself; I ca
n’t give up yet, I’m only forty-one. It can’t be all over yet, surely.

  ‘And it wouldn’t be easy,’ her mother added, ‘finding another job at your age.’

  ‘I must go,’ Meg said, kissing her. ‘See you next week.’ She looked at the neat bungalow and the disciplined garden and knew she could never live there.

  ‘You could stay the night,’ her mother said. ‘What’s the point of rushing back to an empty house?’

  When Meg took flowers to the cemetery on Sunday, she stared at Johnny’s grave for a long time. ‘It’s all your fault,’ she said to him. ‘Why did you have to die? It’s not fair, I can’t manage without you.’ She put the flowers in water, tidied the grave and said a prayer, accepting her anger as part of her love. It had been Jenny who released it, saying one day with eyes full of tears, ‘Oh Mum, I’m so cross with Dad for dying.’ Meg recognised her own feelings, long suppressed out of guilt. And when she read books and magazine articles about bereavement, later on, she discovered it was normal to be angry with someone for dying and leaving you, even though they could not help it. Only no one had told her and so she had tried not to be.

  It was only three years. Some said it took five, others seven. A few said you never got over it, merely came to terms with it, whatever that might mean. She wasn’t sure why she still prayed, because she was angry with God too. Why take Johnny away, when they were so happy, why not take one of the one-in-three couples who were busy getting divorced, and save them all the trouble and expense? People said it was a merciful release, when they knew Johnny had cancer, but why had God let Johnny get cancer in the first place? She had argued the point with the vicar, who had tried to explain but failed.

  She pinned her hopes to Sunday evening: supper with Edward. She found the prospect very soothing. They took turns to cook and Edward always talked about his girlfriend Roz and how they couldn’t get married because she had to stay with her invalid husband. Meg would listen and sympathise. Her mother said she ought to marry Edward but her mother didn’t know about Roz. Besides, Meg didn’t like the way Edward kissed her. He had only done it once, one Sunday night a year ago when he was rather drunk because he and Roz had decided yet again that they should do the decent thing and part for ever. Meg thought they had probably been watching Brief Encounter. Anyway, what alarmed her was the way Edward’s lips came forward and his teeth disappeared as if retractable. It was like being kissed by a small hungry bird: she felt Edward was waiting for her to drop a worm into his open, pursed-up mouth. ‘Oh Mum, how yukky,’ Jenny said when Meg told her. Meg felt guilty about exposing Edward to Jenny, but she had to tell someone and there was no one else to tell. The bird image persisted after that, for Edward was tall and thin. If he had stood on one leg, he would have reminded her of a heron.

  The kiss was never repeated, so she assumed Edward found it equally unsatisfactory. She was greatly relieved: she preferred to go on thinking of him as good old Edward who was like a brother to her, had once been Johnny’s bank manager, and made an excellent goulash. She was particularly looking forward to seeing him tonight in the hope that he might allow her to talk about Mr Ferguson and her rise, Jenny’s empty room, the problem of her mother. She felt if only he would listen to her for a while, she might get things clear in her head and make a few decisions. But Edward, stirring and tasting and flavouring something in a vast pot on the stove while she sat in the kitchen and watched him, wanted to talk about Roz. ‘I don’t know how to tell you this,’ he said. ‘It’s rather delicate.’

  Meg sipped her drink. Surely Roz couldn’t be pregnant? It seemed unlike either of them to be careless after all these years. Then she noticed Edward’s lips were quivering as if he were trying not to laugh.

  ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘oh dear, it’s sad in a way so I shouldn’t rejoice, only, well, the fact is Roz’s husband has finally died and we’re going to get married.’

  Meg stared at him. She couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  ‘After a decent interval, of course,’ he added.

  ‘Congratulations,’ Meg said faintly. She was surprised how angry she felt. Bang go my cosy Sunday evenings, she thought. Suddenly everyone (except her mother) was having more fun than she was: Jenny with Tom, Mr Ferguson with Corinna, and now Edward with Roz. None of it would have mattered if she could have shared it with Johnny. But if Johnny had still been alive, she wouldn’t have been here in the first place.

  She was still not used to the fact that unhappiness made you angry. Women were not supposed to be angry. They were supposed to be plucky, smiling creatures who went merrily on, no matter what happened, because others depended on them. In extreme cases, a little mild depression might be allowed from time to time. But anger was definitely out. Anger was unfeminine.

  ‘I’ve asked Roz to join us,’ Edward said. ‘I knew you wouldn’t mind.’

  And what could she say to that? How astonished he would be if she screamed and yelled: I don’t want to see bloody Roz, I don’t like Roz, hell, if you’re going to marry this wretched woman, surely you can give me your undivided attention for one evening, is that too much to ask? How lovely it would be to be two years old again permitted to have tantrums, to fall over and shriek and drum her heels on the floor.

  ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ she said.

  Roz duly arrived. She talked about her husband’s last hours, which so reminded Meg of Johnny that she almost started to cry. Had Roz’s husband known, Meg wondered, that Roz was only waiting for him to die?

  ‘It was a merciful release,’ Roz said. Edward held her hand and she smiled at him. Meg drank some more wine.

  ‘Meg understands,’ Edward said. ‘It was the same thing with her husband.’

  Roz beamed. ‘Oh,’ she breathed with relief, ‘then you really know how I feel. You must go on coming round here, you know. We’ll always be pleased to see you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Meg, ‘but I think I should go home now. It’s getting rather late.’

  They offered to call her a taxi. Meg insisted that she did not want a taxi, she would catch the last bus, and in any case if she missed it, she could always pick up a taxi in the street.

  ‘Oh, but you shouldn’t be out alone at this time of night,’ they said, as if they were her mother.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Meg, smiling brightly. ‘Nothing ever happened to anyone in the high street at half past eleven.’

  Roz lifted the phone. ‘It won’t take a minute,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you for a lovely evening,’ Meg said, and ran.

  Outside in the street she breathed the cool air and tried to collect her thoughts. She hung about for a while but there weren’t any taxis or buses around so she decided to take a short cut to the main road where she would have more choice.

  The side street was small and quiet but well lit. She had often used it before. At first she was hardly aware of the man walking on the opposite pavement; her mind was full of Edward and Roz.

  ‘Cheer up,’ he suddenly called across to her.

  She couldn’t believe it. In daylight perhaps, she was fair game, a woman on her own looking miserable. But at quarter to twelve on a Sunday night under a street lamp, how could he even see if she was looking depressed? And what did it matter to him?

  She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye without turning her head. He was average height and build, grey-haired. Very nondescript really, nothing to be afraid of. But why couldn’t he leave her alone?

  ‘Shut up,’ she called back, emboldened by Edward’s wine and the disappointment of the evening. She walked on, pleased with herself for this display of spirit. In daylight she would have just ignored him.

  ‘Cheer up,’ he called again a moment later.

  Something in Meg simply snapped. The events of the weekend, the pain of the last three years, the loss of Johnny – all suddenly erupted into the first unpremeditated action of her life.

  ‘Shut up and fuck off,’ she shouted very loudly indeed, and to her own amazement
raced across the road directly at him, swinging her handbag. She was going to hit him.

  But he ran. She had never seen anyone move so fast. One moment he was there, the next he had disappeared back into the building he had come from, like a rabbit down a hole. Meg stood by the traffic lights breathing hard, cheated of her prey, both relieved and disappointed, still high on adrenalin and amazed at herself. A taxi drew up alongside.

  ‘Hop in, love,’ the driver said admiringly and she did, feeling she deserved a taxi now even if she could not afford it.

  ‘Now that’s a very useful lesson for you,’ the cabbie went on. ‘Ninety-nine times out of a hundred a man will run if a woman screams that loud. He’s not expecting it, you see. Gives him quite a shock.’

  Meg dimly remembered something of the sort being said on a TV programme about self-defence that she had watched with Jenny, who claimed that she would always opt for a crippling blow to the groin if anyone attacked her. That would make them think twice, she said, before they did it again.

  Meg still didn’t believe she had actually used that word. She had heard Johnny use it, of course, either lovingly in bed or furiously when he struck his thumb with a hammer; and she had heard Jenny shush her friends when they used it without thinking when Meg was in the next room. But to use it herself. To a perfect stranger. In the street. She was dizzy with astonishment.

  ‘Trouble is,’ she heard the cabbie say, ‘a woman swearing always turns me on.’

  There had been a time, probably until about ten minutes ago, when any sort of sexual remark from a taxidriver would have alarmed her greatly. But now, what did it matter? If she could frighten a man in the street, there were no limits to what she could do. She laughed.