by Muriel Spark
‘What’s his mother really like? Do you think I’d get on with her?’
‘If you wish I’ll take you to see his mother one Sunday.’
‘No, no,’ Trudy said. ‘It’s got to come from him if it has any meaning. The invitation must come from Richard.’
Trudy had almost lost her confidence, and in fact had come to wonder if Richard was getting tired of her, since he had less and less time to spare for her, when unexpectedly and yet so inevitably, in November, he said, ‘You must come and meet my mother.’
‘Oh!’ Trudy said.
‘I should like you to meet my mother. She’s looking forward to it.’
‘Oh, does she know about me?’
‘Rather.’
‘Oh!’
‘It’s happened. Everything’s all right,’ Trudy said breathlessly. ‘He has asked you home to meet his mother,’ Gwen said without looking up from the exercise book she was correcting. ‘It’s important to me, Gwen.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Gwen said.
‘I’m going on Sunday afternoon,’ Trudy said. ‘Will you be there?’
‘Not till supper time,’ Gwen said. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘He said, “I want you to meet Mother. I’ve told her all about you. ‘All about you?’
‘That’s what he said, and it means so much to me, Gwen. So much.’ Gwen said, ‘It’s a beginning.’
‘Oh, it’s the beginning of everything. I’m sure of that.’ Richard picked her up in his Singer at four on Sunday. He seemed preoccupied. He did not, as usual, open the car door for her, but slid into the driver’s seat and waited for her to get in beside him. She fancied he was perhaps nervous about her meeting his mother for the first time.
The house on Campion Hill was delightful. They must be very comfortable, Trudy thought. Mrs Seeton was a tall, stooping woman, well dressed and preserved, with thick steel-grey hair and large light eyes. ‘I hope you’ll call me Lucy,’ she said. ‘Do you smoke?’
‘I don’t,’ said Trudy.
‘Helps the nerves,’ said Mrs Seeton, ‘when one is getting on in life. You don’t need to smoke yet awhile.’
‘No,’ Trudy said. ‘What a lovely room, Mrs Seeton.’
‘Lucy,’ said Mrs Seeton.
‘Lucy,’ Trudy said, very shyly, and looked at Richard for support. But he was drinking the last of his tea and looking out of the window as if to see whether the sky had cleared.
‘Richard has to go out for supper,’ Mrs Seeton said, waving her cigarette holder very prettily. ‘Don’t forget to watch the time, Richard. But Trudy will stay to supper with me, I hope. Trudy and I have a lot to talk about, I’m sure.’ She looked at Trudy and very faintly, with no more than a butterfly-flick, winked.
Trudy accepted the invitation with a conspiratorial nod and a slight squirm in her chair. She looked at Richard to see if he would say where he was going for supper, but he was gazing up at the top pane of the window, his fingers tapping on the arm of the shining Old Windsor chair on which he sat.
Richard left at half-past six, very much more cheerful in his going than he had been in his coming.
‘Richard gets restless on a Sunday,’ said his mother.
‘Yes, so I’ve noticed,’ Trudy said, so that there should be no mistake about who had been occupying his recent Sundays.
‘I dare say now you want to hear all about Richard,’ said his mother in a secretive whisper, although no one was in earshot. Mrs Seeton giggled through her nose and raised her shoulders all the way up her long neck till they almost touched her earrings.
Trudy vaguely copied her gesture. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘Mrs Seeton.’
‘Lucy. You must call me Lucy, now, you know. I want you and me to be friends. I want you to feel like a member of the family. Would you like to see the house?’
She led the way upstairs and displayed her affluent bedroom, one wall of which was entirely covered by mirror, so that, for every photograph on her dressing-table of Richard and Richard’s late father, there were virtually two photographs in the room.
‘This is Richard on his pony, Lob. He adored Lob. We all adored Lob. Of course, we were in the country then. This is Richard with Nana. And this is Richard’s father at the outbreak of war. What did you do in the war, dear?’
‘I was at school,’ Trudy said, quite truthfully.
‘Oh, then you’re a teacher, too?’
‘No, I’m a secretary. I didn’t leave school till after the war.
Mrs Seeton said, looking at Trudy from two angles, ‘Good gracious me, how deceiving. I thought you were about Richard’s age, like Gwen. Gwen is such a dear. This is Richard as a graduate. Why he went into schoolmastering I don’t know. Still, he’s a very good master. Gwen always says so, quite definitely. Don’t you adore Gwen?’
‘Gwen is a good bit older than me,’ Trudy said, being still upset on the subject of age.
‘She ought to be here any moment. She usually comes for supper. Now I’ll show you the other rooms and Richard’s room.
When they came to Richard’s room his mother stood on the threshold and, with her finger to her lips for no apparent reason, swung the door open. Compared with the rest of the house this was a bleak, untidy, almost schoolboy’s room. Richard’s green pyjama trousers lay on the floor where he had stepped out of them. This was a sight familiar to Trudy from her several weekend excursions with Richard, of late months, to hotels up the Thames valley.
‘So untidy,’ said Richard’s mother, shaking her head woefully. ‘So untidy. One day, Trudy, dear, we must have a real chat.’
Gwen arrived presently, and made herself plainly at home by going straight into the kitchen to prepare a salad. Mrs Seeton carved slices of cold meat while Trudy stood and watched them both, listening to a conversation between them which indicated a long intimacy. Richard’s mother seemed anxious to please Gwen.
‘Expecting Grace tonight?’ Gwen said.
‘No, darling, I thought perhaps not tonight. Was I right?’
‘Oh, of course, yes. Expecting Joanna?’
‘Well, as it’s Trudy’s first visit, I thought perhaps not —’Would you,’ Gwen said to Trudy, ‘lay the table, my dear. Here are the knives and forks.’
Trudy bore these knives and forks into the dining-room with a sense of having been got rid of with a view to being talked about.
At supper, Mrs Seeton said, ‘It seems a bit odd, there only being the three of us. We usually have such jolly Sunday suppers. Next week, Trudy, you must come and meet the whole crowd — mustn’t she, Gwen?’
‘Oh yes,’ Gwen said, ‘Trudy must do that.’
Towards half past ten Richard’s mother said, ‘I doubt if Richard will be back in time to run you home. Naughty boy, I daren’t think what he gets up to.’
On the way to the bus stop Gwen said, ‘Are you happy now that you’ve met Lucy?’
‘Yes, I think so. But I think Richard might have stayed. It would have been nice. I dare say he wanted me to get to know his mother by myself. But in fact I felt the need of his support.
‘Didn’t you have a talk with Lucy?’
‘Well yes, but not much really. Richard probably didn’t realize you were coming to supper. Richard probably thought his mother and I could have a heart-to-heart —’
‘I usually go to Lucy’s on Sunday,’ Gwen said.
‘Why?’
‘Well, she’s a friend of mine. I know her ways. She amuses me.’
During the week Trudy saw Richard only once, for a quick drink.
‘Exams,’ he said. ‘I’m rather busy, darling.’
‘Exams in November? I thought they started in December.’
‘Preparation for exams,’ he said. ‘Preliminaries. Lots of work.’ He took her home, kissed her on the cheek and drove off.
She looked after the car, and for a moment hated his moustache. But she pulled herself together and, recalling her youthfulness, decided she was too young really to judge the fine shades and moods of a man like
Richard.
He picked her up at four o’clock on Sunday.
‘Mother’s looking forward to seeing you,’ he said. ‘She hopes you will stay for supper.’
‘You won’t have to go out, will you, Richard?’
‘Not tonight, no.
But he did have to go out to keep an appointment of which his mother reminded him immediately after tea. He had smiled at his mother and said, ‘Thanks.’
Trudy saw the photograph album, then she heard how Mrs Seeton had met Richard’s father in Switzerland, and what Mrs Seeton had been wearing at the time.
At half-past six the supper party arrived. These were three women, including Gwen. The one called Grace was quite pretty, with a bewildered air. The one called Iris was well over forty and rather loud in her manner.
‘Where’s Richard tonight, the old cad?’ said Iris.
‘How do I know?’ said his mother. ‘Who am I to ask?’
‘Well, at least he’s a hard worker during the week. A brilliant teacher, said doe-eyed Grace.
‘Middling as a schoolmaster,’ Gwen said.
‘Oh, Gwen! Look how long he’s held down the job,’ his mother said. ‘I should think,’ Grace said, ‘he’s wonderful with the boys.’
‘Those Shakespearian productions at the end of the summer term are really magnificent,’ Iris bawled. ‘I’ll hand him that, the old devil.’
‘Magnificent,’ said his mother. ‘You must admit, Gwen —’
‘Very middling performances,’ Gwen said.
‘I suppose you are right, but, after all, they are only schoolboys. You can’t do much with untrained actors, Gwen,’ said Mrs Seeton very sadly.
‘I adore Richard,’ Iris said, ‘when he’s in his busy, occupied mood. He’s so —’
‘Oh yes,’ Grace said, ‘Richard is wonderful when he’s got a lot on his mind.’
‘I know,’ said his mother. ‘There was one time when Richard had just started teaching — I must tell you this story — he …’
Before they left Mrs Seeton said to Trudy, ‘You will come with Gwen next week, won’t you? I want you to regard yourself as one of us. There are two other friends of Richard’s I do want you to meet. Old friends.’
On the way to the bus Trudy said to Gwen, ‘Don’t you find it dull going to Mrs Seeton’s every Sunday?’
‘Well, yes, my dear young thing, and no. From time to time one sees a fresh face, and then it’s quite amusing.’
‘Doesn’t Richard ever stay at home on a Sunday evening?’
‘No, I can’t say he does. In fact, he’s very often away for the whole weekend. As you know.
‘Who are these women?’ Trudy said, stopping in the street.
‘Oh, just old friends of Richard’s.’
‘Do they see him often?’
‘Not now. They’ve become members of the family.’
The Fortune-Teller
The château lay among woodlands in a wide valley in the heart of the old Troubadour country of France. It was about ten years ago at the end of summer.
We were a party of three, Raymond, his wife Sylvia, and me, Lucy. The marriage between Raymond and Sylvia was already going bad, which made me very uncomfortable. I had already decided after the third day of our travels that I would never again go on holiday alone with a married couple, and I never have since.
I had begun to wonder why they had asked me to join them and I fairly guessed that they were trying to prove, by the evidence of my single state, that they were truly a couple. We arrived at the château after a week in France, by which time I was on the point of getting on a train to the nearest airport and so back to London.
But I changed my mind precisely at the château. Sylvia asked for rooms. Mme Dessain, thin, tall, work-worn and elegant, who had come round the side of the house with a bucket of pigswill in her hand to greet us, declined to answer Sylvia. She addressed me, saying very politely that yes, she had a double room for me and my husband and a small room for Mlle on the maids’ floor at the top of the house. Raymond intervened to explain the relationships aright. She gave the sort of smile by which it was plain she had understood perfectly well. I supposed that Sylvia, who spoke French better than I did, had nevertheless lacked the required respect; she had taken Mme Dessain for one of the hired hands, and had selected her tone accordingly. This was a habit of Sylvia’s; I always marvelled at the trouble she must have put into harbouring such a range of initial attitudes as she had for different people, when one alone would serve for all. She was, of course, a follower of Lenin who was class-conscious by profession. Raymond was fairly neutral about the incident. He was big and bearded, a television producer; and he was intelligent. But he was vain enough, and perhaps sufficiently at the point of exasperation with his marriage to show himself pleased with the proprietor’s mistake, if mistake it was. Madame did not apologize; she merely told us the price of the rooms and asked if we wanted demi-pension. Sylvia, when angry, had a leer. Her teeth protruded and for some reason she dyed her hair bright red. In spite of this she had a handsome look. But, leering, she looked, to me, morally low, very low, and stupid although in fact she was a rodent-biologist of some distinction.
Mme Dessain put down the bucket and again addressed me. She asked me if I would like to see the rooms. Plainly, she was not too grand to be catty and she had taken against Sylvia.
‘Have we decided to stay?’ Sylvia said to Raymond. ‘Do you like the place?’
‘It looks lovely,’ he said, ‘I would like to see the room anyway, because I would like to stay.
Mme Dessain led the way upstairs. I followed with my two clever friends behind me. The rooms were fine and we all decided to stay. Strangely enough I wasn’t put in a maid’s room upstairs, but in a large room on the same floor as my friends. Madame — it turned out that she was in fact a marquise — ran down to get on with her jobs, leaving us to cope with our luggage. I thought she looked well over fifty when I had first seen her but watching her trip so easily downstairs I could see she was younger, not much over forty. She had obviously taken a dislike to Sylvia, but I didn’t care. Already I felt free of the embarrassing couple. In a curious way Mme Dessain had released me. She had held out a straw. I clutched it and miraculously it held me up. It struck me she was highly intuitive, as indeed are so many in the hotel business.
I was delighted with my room. It had windows on two sides. The furniture was French Provincial, plainly belonging to the eighteenth-century château and by no means brought in for hotel guests. It was much the same all over the house. There were two drawing-rooms, the yellow one and the green, and these were by no means rustic, but in the great high style of eighteenth-century France. There was an Oriental room with a Chinese part and an Egyptian part, full of those furnishings and treasures brought back from the travels of nineteenth century ancestors, which are too good for the use of ordinary tourists yet not too rare for everyday accommodation. It was a satisfaction to feel we had been taken in as guests, since plainly Mme Dessain had to be discriminate.
Few of the guests used the Oriental room, or the other priceless-seeming rooms with their Sèvres ornaments and plates behind glass cabinets. There was a more serviceable library in general use, with a television set, tables, and plenty of worn, cretonne-covered sofas and chairs.
It was there that a few evenings later I offered to tell Mme Dessain’s fortune by cards. People were grouped around, after dinner, some just talking, others playing various card games and a couple in a far corner were playing chess. Outside it was pelting with heavy thick rain; it had been raining all day. A small, stout, elderly man was Mme Dessain’s husband; a surprising couple. He sat by her side while I told her fortune. Sylvia and Raymond, bored with my fortune-telling, had moved away.
I must explain that when I find myself in a country or seaside establishment of the residential sort on any of my many travels, if I see someone lonely or ill at ease, and obviously not enjoying their stay, I always offer to tell their fortune by my card
s. I’ve never been refused. On the contrary, it tends to have a hypnotic effect on the other guests, and candidates for my fortune-telling are never wanting; they even come up to me and ask me what I charge, and when I explain that I do it for free, they are slightly embarrassed, but want their fortune just the same, and politely accept being put off when I’ve had too much or for some good reason don’t want to do it.
My peculiar method of fortune-telling follows no tradition of occult sciences; I follow rules, but they are my own secret ones, varying quite a lot in their application to each individual. They are my own secret rules but they arise from deep conviction. They cannot be formulated, they are as sincere and indescribable as are the primary colours; they are not of a science but of an art. Very often I make a mistake, but I know it; at such moments I’m thinking my way, talking through a dense fog, shining the torch of my intuition here and there until it hits on some object which may or may not prove to be what I say it is. Sometimes my predictions are wildly astray as they pertain to the present time and environment, but I have known them to become surprisingly true much later in life, in a different place, and presume that this may happen, too, in some of the cases where I lose sight of the person whose fortune I have told.
For the actual selection of the cards I have a precise system. I should never reveal it in detail, except to say that it is based on sevens and fives. Sevens and fives; and if you should ask me any more about this initial stage of the proceedings I should tell you a falsehood; indeed the whole of the process is most precious-fragile to me, and I wouldn’t give it away lest I should lose my powers. I mean what Yeats meant:
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
To tell the cards I begin by asking my client to shuffle them. Then I deal according to my seven and five system; a varying number of cards which emerge from this process are set apart and I ask my client to shuffle again. Again I deal and set apart, and a third time, three cycles in all. The client then shuffles the cards which have been set aside; these are the cards of his fortune. At the same time the client is asked to make a silent wish, and mightily concentrate upon it.