The Facts of Life

by Patrick Gale

  ‘Oh he’ll be pleased. In his way. When it sinks in.’ Her hair wrapped in chiffon, her mother had already climbed into bed and was tugging the covers up around her. She sometimes claimed that sleep was the one pleasure that never disappointed. Sleep and Gordon’s gin.

  ‘Put the top light off on your way out, there’s a love,’ she murmured sleepily.

  Sally crossed the cramped room with its loudly ticking alarm clock and bedroom smells of night cream and talcum powder. As she reached for the light switch, her mother made soft, pettish little settling noises as she snuggled into her pillows and Sally knew that even now, after so many years of hard practicality and cruel disappointment, her mother threw aside her khaki slacks and work gloves in her dreams to become some headstrong character from the films she loved, with a palatially draped bedroom suite, dour but loving Scottish servants and an embarrassment of impatient suitors.

  8

  The punt slid under a bridge. Sally dropped her head back on the cushions, steadying her blue straw hat with one hand. She gazed up at the clammy stones then, as they emerged, at a clutch of day-trippers who were staring at them. A red-haired woman took a photograph then turned immediately away, as though the seizing of the picture had rendered the actual beauty of the scene insignificant. Edward was punting proficiently, with a steady rhythm and minimal splashing. He was in cricket whites and had taken off his jacket to reveal a white shirt that – fetchingly, Sally thought – looked two sizes too large. He had rolled up his sleeves to keep them dry and now she could see the tendons flex in his forearms as he pushed and pulled on the glistening pole.

  Impatient with holding the thing in place, she slipped off her hat and dropped it in her lap. She ran her fingers through her hot hair then, shutting her eyes against the sun, let a hand trail in the water. The Rex smelt faintly rotten, unless it was the odour of exposed mud at the base of its banks. There had been no rain for weeks and the river flowed slowly, deep on its bed. As they drifted past a college where the lawns were being mown, the sweet scent of cut grass washed over her and made her open her eyes.

  Thomas sat before her, in front of Edward. Despite the heat, he had persisted in wearing both jacket and tie and his face was pink and shiny in the shadow of his panama. The picnic he had brought with him was packed in a basket between their feet. When they had first set out, he had kept up a stream of pronouncements and mordant witticisms. It was as though his position – wobbling in a damp punt, in a holiday setting far from his usual academic context – threatened to render him anonymous, so he strove to impose his superiority on the weed, the ducks and the idling passers-by. Then they passed a punt full of young men who mimicked his manner and roared with impudent laughter. With a faint pout, he fell silent, merely casting over his shoulder a look that could have bored holes in their boat timbers.

  Pitying him, Sally drew him out afresh, asking how Rexbridge had changed since his undergraduate days. She assumed, correctly, that he had spent the best part of his life in largely unchanged circumstances, attached to the same, distinguished college. He had served as an air raid patrolman during the war, which had entailed his finally learning to ride a bicycle. He snorted dismissively when she suggested that the Home Guard might have been more amusing, then went on to question her closely about her work and responsibilities. Edward played no part in the conversation. When she addressed him, he would smile and give a short reply before returning to his labour. His assumption of the punt-pole appeared to make him at once a party and an outsider to their society, like a cabby or a gondolier.

  Thomas had yet to congratulate them on their engagement. On first acquaintance, she would have mistaken this for a calculated discourtesy, but now that she had known him several weeks she suspected that Edward had simply not yet told him. This suspicion was confirmed when they were sliding through the ragged edge of town. Thomas said that he was planning to take a trip to Tuscany in the late autumn and hoped that Edward would come with him. Edward said nothing but blushed hotly when Sally threw him an angry glance.

  He steered them in to the bank where some poplars marked the edge of a field. A family was picnicking noisily a hundred yards away on the opposite side of the river. One of the children was climbing a tree that hung out over the water. Sally looked at his baggy shorts and muddy feet and was startled by a sudden access of broody warmth. She had often pictured herself as married, complete with shadowy husband and roses around the door, but motherhood had never formed a part of the fantasy. There were no love songs about childbirth or motherhood, none, certainly, to which one could dance.

  Even allowing for rationing, Thomas’s picnic showed that eye for luxury at which selfish bachelors excel. There was none of the starchy mass which recent austerity had made a wifely virtue, just formal islands of flavour, enticing and rare. Sitting cross-legged on one corner of the rug, he delighted in revealing the network of more or less corrupt contacts through whom he had come by the ingredients – a rector’s wife, to whose daughters he taught Latin, a butcher’s boy he had once surprised in an act of public indecency.

  ‘And these,’ he crowed, producing a small, napkin-lined tin of petits fours as the coffee heated on a little oil burner, ‘come from Didier.’

  ‘From whom?’

  ‘The college’s new sous-chef. He’s from Alsace, poor boy, and very young to be away from home and no-one in common room bothers to speak to him at all when he’s carving, much less in French.’

  Thomas’s explanation tailed off as he sank his teeth into one of Didier’s small confections and assumed an expression worthy of St Teresa. Edward caught Sally’s eye and grinned but she looked back at him flatly and said, ‘Edward, why don’t you rinse these plates and glasses in the river, then it won’t make such a mess of the basket when I put them back?’

  Edward dutifully took a handful of picnic things down to the water’s edge. Sally leaned back on the rug, resting on one elbow, and watched. Thomas watching him go. For the first time it occurred to her that he might be nervous left alone in her company. It would pay, she decided, to be direct.

  ‘Thomas?’

  ‘Mmh?’ Thomas had closed his eyes again and was pretending to sun himself.

  ‘Edward hasn’t told you our news, has he?’

  ‘Er. No?’ There was a slight quaver to his voice, which he promptly mastered. ‘But I think I can guess.’ He opened his eyes. ‘Congratulations,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks.’

  She glanced towards the river. Edward had walked along the bank and was crouching down to talk to the little boy and his older sisters, who had rowed across from the family party.

  ‘You don’t approve of me, do you?’ she asked. ‘I mean, as a wife for Edward. You’d rather he fell in love with some don’s daughter. Someone with a plummier accent.’

  ‘My dear woman, you couldn’t be more wrong! I can think of nothing worse for him.’ He looked full at her. Shaded by his hat brim, his eyes searched her face. ‘You’re strong. You’ll protect him.’

  ‘What on earth from?’

  ‘Well.’ He shrugged, and poured three cups of coffee. ‘Cream?’ he asked.

  ‘No, thank you. I take mine black.’

  ‘There you are.’

  ‘What from, Thomas?’ she persisted.

  ‘Himself, largely. He’s spoken of his family, I take it?’

  ‘He said they were dead.’

  ‘Yes.’ He stirred two spoonfuls of thick brown crystals into his cup, raised it and sipped. ‘Terrible to be so alone and so … so unsure. He –’ Thomas broke off.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If I have any disapproval,’ he said at last, ‘It’s with the marital institution, not with his choice of mate.’

  ‘Oh.’ Sally thought a moment, taking this in.

  ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me, doctor, I really must have a smoke.’

  Before she could exclaim that she was inured to pipe smoke, he was up and striding away from her, busy with his tobacco pouch, parting a wa
y through the cows that had drifted over to graze nearby.

  Sally drained her coffee, relishing it to the bitter dregs. She looked in one direction and then the other at the two men – they could not have been further removed from her earlier life. As she formed the thought, it struck her with the force of a revelation, that her life had altered irreversibly. Her wedding day and its attendant rituals were, in a sense, a sentimental irrelevancy. The wedding was for the world, for her mother. Sally felt it was now, not then, that a part of her life was over and a new one begun.

  She lay back, head on her hands, and watched a white cloud unravel on an eggshell sky. She felt full – with good food, of course, but also with possibility. She felt tired as well. The week had been no more exhausting than usual – a daily round of chest-tapping, medication, fretful children and adults respectful of authority, frightened of pain. Whereas previously she would have returned from work, eaten her tea then collapsed on the sofa with a library book or the radio, however, she had now the added labour – however bewitching – of a love life. She had become an athlete of sleep, adept now at snatching intense restorative catnaps in a vacant hospital consulting room.

  Lulled by the sun, doped with wine, she let her eyelids close and drifted off into a heavy doze during which she could hear the afternoon progressing around her but was too somnolent to sit up and re-enter it. She heard Edward return and sip his tepid coffee. She heard him tentatively say, ‘Hello? Sally?’ but she failed to respond. He snorted – either from disappointment or affection – and packed away the picnic things.

  ‘Sally?’ he asked again more persistently. ‘Where’s Thomas?’

  And still she could not answer. She felt him lie with a resigned sigh on the rug beside her, smelled the faint tang of his sweat and listened to the soothing rustle of him turning the pages to find his place in a novel. He had read a few pages when Thomas came back. The two of them spoke softly for fear of waking her.

  ‘I say.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Congratulations. Sally told me the good news. You are a chump to have kept so quiet. Made me feel a fool. I hate surprises.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I’m … I’m very glad, mein Lieber.’

  ‘Thank you, Thomas.’

  ‘Have you set a date?’

  ‘Well, Sally’s job finishes in August.’

  ‘Good. Long engagements are pointless. Where will you live?’

  ‘We’ll find somewhere. Thomas?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Would you – I’m not sure how you say it in English – give me away?’

  Thomas gave a soft, affectionate chuckle.

  ‘Be your best man, you mean, your Trauzeuge? I’d be delighted, you fool. You could use the college chapel, if you liked. No-one around in August and anyway, I’m sure you’ve the right. The chaplain’s – er – he’s very sympathetic’

  ‘I’d better ask Sally.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Edward patted Sally’s hand as he spoke. His touch freed her as from a charm, and she felt able to stretch and sit up. Blinking, she looked at the two men.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Nodded off.’

  ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ said Thomas and kissed her hand, rather ostentatiously she thought.

  ‘I suppose we should be getting home,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t the punt have to be back by four?’

  On the way home, Thomas suddenly burst out with another round of congratulations.

  ‘I’ve had an idea,’ he added. ‘I’m going to give you the car as a wedding present. How’s that?’

  Amidst their delighted protestations that it was far too generous and surely he used it some time and what about emergencies and so on, Sally had her second revelation of the day. Thomas had insisted they change places going back so that she should have the view. She could see the ever so subtly beseeching way he was watching Edward’s exertions with the punt pole. Tenderness welled up from the base of her spine, bursting out in an almost painful smile. She smiled at the uselessly clever, lonely man before her and thought, ‘You love him.’

  She sensed that the sad grin he gave her back expressed the closest approximation he would dare to an affirmation. Thomas, she resolved, should have a place in their married life.

  9

  The good weather continued through the week and they found themselves on a second excursion the following weekend. This time Dr Pertwee was the instigator. Sally had sent her a letter, announcing their engagement, and she had responded at once with an invitation to lunch in her rooms on Saturday. Her congratulations were heartfelt, even a little tearful. She gave them sherry then served up a characteristically bitty lunch of Spam, egg salad, pickled beetroot slices and a Stilton so strong it was nearly mobile.

  ‘I have some news too,’ she announced, handing out frugal third shares of a tinned treacle pudding she had heated inside the kettle. ‘Not,’ she laughed, ‘I hasten to add, another engagement. No. I’m going away. I’ve decided the time has come.’

  ‘What fun,’ Sally said, ‘A holiday?’

  ‘In a way,’ Dr Pertwee told her. ‘But a long one. I’m retiring.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ Edward put in, ‘But I thought you already had.’

  ‘I’m retiring, young man, from the world.’

  Neither Sally nor Edward knew quite what to say. Sally stood to take the kettle and set about making them a pot of tea.

  ‘Properly speaking,’ Dr Pertwee went on, ‘I’m retiring from the vexatious world of men. I’m joining the women at Corry.’

  ‘The island?’ asked Edward.

  ‘That’s right. You remember, don’t you, Sally? Off the Dorset coast. That rather saintly woman from St Maud’s went there – Professor Carson. Bridget Carson.’

  Sally returned to the table with tea and cups.

  ‘But I thought you were an agnostic,’ she said, frowning.

  ‘So I am, dear. And so I shall continue, barring miracles. But that doesn’t seem to be a problem with them. Corry is a very unorthodox community – not like a nunnery at all. One of their number penned a tract prescribing division by gender as the cure for all society’s modern ills. And they house a Buddhist and a Communist vegetarian. Not in the same room, though,’ she chuckled. ‘No, I shan’t be becoming a Bride of Christ at my great age. The Mother Superior, Lady Agnes Bowers, wrote to me out of the blue this week. One of the sisters has been gathered, it seems, to the Great Dormitory in the Sky, so they now have a rather nice vacant room with a view of the sea. My name was put forward by several of the women, including the saintly Professor Carson.’

  ‘Will you be happy there?’ Sally asked, still uncertain.

  ‘Could you pour, dear?’ their hostess asked Edward. ‘My old wrists can’t handle that pot when it’s full.’ She turned her face towards Sally, although concentrating her gaze on a crumb she was chasing off the tablecloth with the side of her palm. ‘Well happiness was ever a moot point. I should certainly be happier there than in some ghastly rest home. I know I could crumble away contentedly on my own – plenty of people here seem to – but the peace would be most beneficial and I could learn to keep bees, which is something that has always fascinated me. Apiculture is the island’s principal source of income, you know,’ she told Edward, like some benign geography tutor. ‘There’ll be a kind of liberation in leaving all my books and business behind and making a late, fresh start in a new, more practical world. I suppose the communal meals with some pious creature reading aloud from improving texts might take a little getting used to, but I usually read when I eat alone and it would be better than the din of everyone chattering at once, the way I fear a group of educated women might tend to. So,’ she sipped her tea, ‘I’ve told them yes and I shall be taking up residence – bag and baggage – at the end of August. Which sadly means I shall have to miss witnessing your first months of wedded bliss.’ She pulled a comical-sad face at Edward, who smiled back at her.

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ Sally said slowly. ‘I’ve
always thought of you as my second mother.’

  Edward glanced at her, wanting to take her hand. He wished, guiltily, it were her real mother who was moving away so completely.

  ‘I would hope that by now, I’d become a sort of friend as well,’ Dr Pertwee replied.

  Too moved to speak, Sally merely smiled and kissed her cheek. Her eyes were large with tears. He saw that Dr Pertwee was determined not to let Sally make her mawkish. Her tone was bracing.

  ‘Anyway, you can come and see me.’ She patted Sally’s hand then thought to reach out and touch Edward’s arm as well. ‘You can both come and see me, you poor, untried young people. We have an open day once a year, or twice. I forget. Now, Edward, were you serious in your offer of taking the old crone for an outing in your marital motor?’

  ‘I certainly was. Where would you like to go?’ he asked.

  ‘Ely?’ Sally suggested.

  ‘That would be nice, dear, but then we’d be forced to endure evensong and I was rather thinking I might pay my last respects to The Roundel.’

  ‘But of course,’ Edward told her. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘You drive out past Mildenhall towards Methwold. It’s near St Oswald’s church. Down some tiny roads. I’ll know the way when I see it.’

  In the Wolseley, Dr Pertwee sat up in front beside Edward, fluttering her hands in excitement as they passed old, familiar sights or new, surprising ones, and calling out comments to Sally in her soft tones.

  The house was unlike anything Edward had ever seen, though he said at once that it reminded him of a cathedral chapter house. Its twelve sides gave it an almost circular appearance. Its small red bricks and pantiled roof were the only concessions to vernacular fenland style. A small hillock raised it slightly above the astonishing flatness round about, and a thickly overgrown walled garden shielded its lower windows from public gaze and winter winds. Not that there could ever be much public in such an eerie, isolated spot. The nearby village comprised no more than six houses and a church. The nearest building was a huge brick barn which looked older than anything else there.