Weep a While Longer

by Penny Freedman

  I return to the website and find that local councils offer a brilliant service called Tell Us Once. One phone call to the council and income tax, council tax, state pension and a whole lot of other things will be dealt with. I do think this is wonderful and if the Bullingdon boys’ public sector cuts mean that it disappears I may actually assassinate one of them.

  I make a list of jobs and phone calls and put them into a logical order. Then I go home and drink half a bottle of red wine, left behind by my house guests, and eat several slices of toast and marmite. This is a bad combination and I feel sick. I try to watch television but can’t concentrate. I go to bed. At some point in the night, I go to the bathroom and throw up. In the morning I am light-headed and exhausted.

  *

  Tearsday. It is mid-morning before I haul myself into work and when I pick up my mail I find that HR have already sent a response to my letter of resignation. Fast work, I must say.

  Dear Mrs Gray,

  We have today received notice from the vice-chancellor’s office of your intention to leave your post as director of the English Language Unit.

  We note your willingness to be flexible in the matter of notice, and in view of the imminent dissolution of the ELU in its present form, we propose that your resignation takes immediate effect from the date of your letter, that being the 30th July. You are offered two months’ salary in lieu of notice.

  Please reply in writing immediately to indicate your acceptance of these terms.

  So there it is. I’ve resigned, but they’ve somehow managed to sack me anyway. I’m done. No last this or that. I’m out. I half expect someone to appear with a couple of cardboard boxes to put my stuff into. I look round my office. There’s enough here for a pile of movers’ crates, never mind cardboard boxes. Better get started, then, before I find someone else is moving in.

  I start with the filing cabinet: I select two box files with official stuff in – exam results and so on. Student Records have all this information, I’m sure, but I’m not comfortable about throwing it out, so I take the files down to the office and ask Gillian if she can give them house room. I don’t tell her I’m leaving. I haven’t found a satisfactory way of telling it yet. While I’m downstairs, I go into the cleaners’ cupboard and take a roll of black bin bags. It seems to be my week for bin bags. I pile files and papers into the bags, sweeping stuff off my desk to join them and tearing down the theatre posters that adorn the walls. I pull out the drawers of my desk and empty them into another bag. I survey the bags, which are now taking up most of the floor space. They are heavy and they will have to be dragged downstairs one at a time. I shall be asked what I am doing. I am hot and furious and close to tears again. I go over to open the window and conceive a brilliant idea. My office is on the first floor and the window is low, with a wide ledge that can be used as a seat. I push it up as far as it will go, take one of the bags, tie it tightly at the neck, haul it over to the window and push it out. It splits a bit as it hits the ground because it has sharp-edged box files in it but nothing falls out. I repeat the process until eight bags are deposited there. I did intend to drag them round to the bins at the back but I’m really too tired for that now. I have to think about the books. I have a small inner office which is lined, floor to ceiling, with books. These are not being binned – not even the out-of-date teaching books from the 1980s. I phone a removal firm and tell them I have several hundred books needing to be packed up and put in storage. They will come tomorrow. I take a last look round the room and walk over to the SCR.

  There I find Malcolm, who is actually just the person for such an occasion. I tell him the whole story, minus the events of Saturday, since I think these may still be confidential. I tell him about the amalgamation, the resignation, the clear-out. ‘Could you tell the others?’ I ask. ‘They’ll know something’s up; the bin bags are a bit of a giveaway.’

  He laughs, and I do too but I have to be careful. Anything can tip me over into hysteria these days. I take a deep breath. ‘I need to say goodbye to you all properly, of course,’ I say. ‘Lunch time Thursday at The Old Castle? I’ll have had time to work out how you’re going to manage the summer courses without me.’

  ‘Not your problem,’ he says. ‘HR made the problem. Let them sort it out. Bin the worries along with everything else.’

  He is a surprising man and I realise that I have always underestimated him. He is actually quite envious of me, I think. A fantasy bolter himself, maybe?

  In the afternoon I have a scheduled class with my wives, who won’t know that I am not actually their teacher any more. I go to say goodbye, taking some strawberries with me as a festive touch which cannot, I think, possibly be non-halal. I can see immediately that there is no chance of our being festive, however. Athene has gone, her husband’s money from the Greek government having been cut off; Juanita says she will have to leave early as she has packing to do for their return to Venezuela for the rest of the summer; Jamilleh is not there, of course, though Farah is, looking severe and unsmiling in her darkest jilbab, with her khimar, it seems to me, wound more tightly than usual round her strained face. Only Ning Wu looks as usual, but her usual is not life-and-soul-of-the-party.

  Unwilling to tell them that I have been sacked, I say that someone else will be taking over the class as my mother has died and I have to go to London for a while. They make mildly sympathetic noises but don’t seem sorry to be losing me. I ask Farah how Jamilleh is and she replies warily that she is all right, as though she believes that answering any question is a dangerous thing to do. Jamilleh will not be coming back to English class, she says, though I suppose she may change her mind when she hears that I have gone. She blames me because I brought Paula Powell along and got her into a sequence of events that nearly killed her. No-one official will apologise to her, of course; she is just collateral damage. We make stilted conversation about children and summer plans; they are not interested in my plans, which is a relief since they are unknown to me at present. I offer strawberries. Farah takes one and nibbles at it suspiciously as though it might have been injected with cyanide; Juanita comments that strawberries are the only good fruit that England produces; Ning Wu eats silently. After twenty minutes, I give up, wish them well and send them away. To my surprise, Ning Wu remains.

  ‘I would like to thank you,’ she says, ‘for very good classes.’

  I am ridiculously pleased by this. ‘I’m so glad you enjoyed them,’ I say.

  ‘I learn at lot,’ she says. ‘Very good vocabulary.’ Vocabulary is a difficult word for a Chinese speaker because of their difficulty in distinguishing l from r, but she manages pretty well. ‘I hope to take degree course next year,’ she says. ‘Next week I start full-time summer course for my IELTS exam. Do you think I can get IELTS 6.0?’

  ‘Do the eight-week course, Ning Wu,’ I say, ‘and I’m sure you can. You have good study skills and it’s a very intensive course.’

  ‘I hoped you would be my teacher,’ she says.

  ‘All the teachers will be good,’ I say. ‘I can guarantee that – I chose them.’

  ‘But we laugh in your class. You make us cheerful.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I say, giving her my biggest smile. ‘Cheerful – that’s my best thing.’

  I give her an awkward sort of hug, wish her luck, press the remaining strawberries on her and go home.

  Wasteday.

  Hospital

  Register office

  Undertaker’s

  Bank

  Council offices

  Vicar

  Flat

  These are the jobs for this morning and I may not do them in exactly this order but the first two have to come first. I wait for the rush hour to subside before I set off and when I get to New Cross I engage a taxi. This is, I have decided, the only way to manage this morning’s tour of the London boroughs of Southwark and Lewisham. They aren’t places where you can flag down a taxi any old time – they are, after all, south of the river. ‘I shall need you
for possibly a couple of hours,’ I tell the driver. ‘I have seven different places to go to.’

  He looks at me, weighing up my trustworthiness. Is he going to ask for a deposit?

  ‘Have to charge you waiting time,’ he says. He is evidently the grumpy kind, which suits me fine. I don’t want him to take an interest in me; silent contempt will be very restful.

  And so we go, and all is remarkably smooth: this has an air of unreality for me but I’m engaging with people for whom it’s totally mundane. At the hospital they are chilly – deaths go on their debit side, after all; at the register office they are kindly and gentle, at the bank cool and brisk, at the council offices slow but competent, at the undertaker’s calm and reassuring. By then I’m in need of a cup of coffee and I get my driver to take me to the Turkish café near the church, where the proprietor welcomes me like an old friend. I offer the taxi driver a coffee but, to my relief, he prefers to sit in his cab and smoke. In the café I phone the vicar to tell him I have the documents he needs for the funeral and he says he will come and join me. He breezes in, charming and energetic as before, orders a double espresso, casts a look over my documents and makes a couple of notes, says he has had email exchanges with my lovely daughters and we’re getting there, and rushes off again. I get back in the cab and go to my mother’s flat, where I pick up the unopened correspondence from the kitchen drawer, assuming that this will give me access to her utility and pension providers, and anyone else who needs to be notified. I ring Margaret’s doorbell, because I feel I should, but am relieved to get no reply. I get back in the cab, return to the station and hand over to my driver a huge wodge of cash, drawn earlier for that purpose at my mother’s bank.

  On the train home I get a text from David. Time to talk? He asks. Dinner tonight at La Capannina? I regard this message with misgiving. It had to come, of course, the coup de grâce. I think he hoped that he could treat me so badly that I would dump him, but since I haven’t done that he feels the need to draw a line. He doesn’t like untidiness, David. The choice of La Capannina is tactless, I think. It’s not our restaurant in a pathetic, sentimental way, but it is a place that we’ve gone to when we’ve been feeling harmonious. I text back. Do we really need a meeting? How about email? Doing it by text is also fashionable. My phone rings. ‘I’m on the train,’ I say.

  ‘Quiet carriage?’

  I look around. ‘No.’

  ‘Fine. Why not dinner? I have things to tell you.’

  Why not dinner? Because either he dumps me at the start and then we have to do still be friends for the rest of the evening, which will be excruciating and give me indigestion, or he waits to the end and I have to munch my way through three courses, waiting for the moment, also giving myself indigestion.

  Into my silence, he asks, ‘Were you planning to do something else this evening?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, clutching at the lifeline. ‘Much Ado. I got sacked from it but I ought to go and see it – see just what sort of a hash they’ve made of their costumes without me.’

  ‘Well, I’d better come and see it too,’ he says. ‘It’s Beatrice and Benedick, isn’t it? The pair you like to compare us with.’

  ‘Except it has a happy ending,’ I say.

  ‘Really?’ he says.

  *

  So we go to see Much Ado. We arrange to meet for a drink beforehand and David arrives looking quite bouncy and pleased with himself. Is he already dating Paula, I wonder?

  ‘You’re looking smug,’ I say, accepting a gin and tonic.

  ‘Professional pride,’ he says. ‘We’ve got good evidence that Billy Brody robbed the petrol station and killed Karen and Lara. Doug Brody’s conviction will be quashed and the coroner can give a clear verdict on the murders, which is the best the family can hope for. But the big news you’ll read in the papers tomorrow. The drugs and people trafficking ring I was working on with the Met – we made ten arrests overnight, in London and here. It’s a major breakthrough and the Met have offered me a job.’

  ‘In London?’

  He looks at me. It is a stupid question.

  ‘Well done,’ I manage. ‘Jolly good.’

  So this is how he’s going to do it. In London for good – huge responsibility – married to the job – long-distance relationship not really viable, blah blah blah.

  I drain my drink much too fast. ‘I, by contrast,’ I say, ‘have lost my job.’

  ‘You’re not serious! Why? How?’

  I wave an airy hand as the gin surges dizzily through me. ‘Too boring to explain,’ I say. ‘University politics, crap vice-chancellor, unwise me.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Well first I’m going to bury my mother.’

  ‘Of course. Sorry. When’s the funeral?’

  ‘Friday afternoon.’

  ‘Would you like me to come?’

  ‘I don’t … let’s see, shall we?’

  ‘OK.’

  We are silent. He drinks; I watch him.

  The play is all right but the dank chill of the evening seems to cast a gloom over cast and audience alike and it doesn’t really take off. They have found a teenager, it seems, to play Ursula – quite well, actually – but the costumes suffer from the absence of a watchful eye – a hem here, a bra strap there, and some outrageous footwear from a couple of the men, who have, presumably, lost the shoes they were issued with. David seems to enjoy it, though; nothing can dampen his good spirits. He suggests another drink afterwards but I propose tea and a pudding at the pizza place next to the abbey. More alcohol is likely to make me cry. If we’ve got to get this over with, a ballast of carbohydrate may help.

  When we’re settled, he says, ‘I know you’ve got a lot to think about at the moment but have you thought at all about what you’re going to do job-wise?’

  ‘Not really. Why?’

  ‘Might you move away from Marlbury?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I mean, without the job and with Annie launched and Ellie settled, you could move, couldn’t you? Somewhere with more opportunities professionally?’

  ‘Why are you being my career consultant?’

  ‘Well, you know the riff you do about us not knowing what to call each other – partner, boy/girlfriend, lover, other half, significant other all unsuitable? I was thinking that there is a solution to that.’

  ‘Just not see each other, you mean?’

  ‘I was more thinking of marrying each other.’

  ‘What?’ I choke on my mouthful of plum and almond tart and stare at him. ‘Do what?’

  ‘Get thee a wife, get thee a wife. They’re nearly the last lines of the play. We could move to London. There’d be loads of colleges for you to teach in. A new life.’

  ’Hold on,’ I say. ‘I must just—’ and I rush off to the ladies, where I stare at myself in the mirror for a long time and wash my hands before returning.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘No.’

  ‘Look,’ he says, ‘if this is just punishing me because I’ve been preoccupied with work, don’t you think you ought to—’

  ‘It’s not that.’

  ‘Well, what then?’

  ‘I’m nearly fifty, David. You’re forty-two. Yes, it’s time for you to get married. It’s not too late but it will be soon. You shouldn’t be hanging around with a menopausal woman, you should have a family – have a son – have a life.’

  ‘I can have a life with you. And I’m fond of Freda and Nico and the girls. I don’t need more family.’

  ‘You do! Being fond isn’t good enough. You can’t opt for being an honorary grandfather at the age of forty-two. Marry Paula, why don’t you. She’d have you like a shot. And have your babies.’

  ‘I don’t want Paula, I’m not at all sure she wants me and I know she doesn’t want babies! You of all people shouldn’t assume—’

  ‘Well, find someone else then, but not me. I’m on the downward slope, David, and not even HRT can stop it. In ten years’ time you’ll still be a good-
looking man and I’ll just be an old bat.’

  There is a silence. ‘I did think,’ he says, ‘that you loved me.’

  ‘I do love you!’ I say this so loudly that heads turn from nearby tables. ‘That’s why I won’t stay with you,’ I hiss, ‘because in ten years’ time you won’t love me and I won’t be able to bear it.’

  I pick up my bag and coat and I go round behind his chair. I drop a kiss on the top of his head and lay my cheek for a moment against the rough texture of his hair. ‘Get a life,’ I say. ‘Just get a proper life.’

  *

  Thirstday. Well, I cry a lot in the course of the night and am horrified in the morning at the state of my face. I try all sorts of repair tactics – even cucumber slices on my eyelids – in the hope of not looking completely pathetic when I meet my ex-colleagues at lunch time, but in the end I have to dig out some old light-reactive sunglasses which don’t look too ridiculous when worn inside but do disguise the ravages to some extent.

  I get to The Old Castle early but find Malcolm already there, nursing a glass of coke with a lot of ice in it and looking miserable. ‘Are you all right?’ I ask.

  He looks at me as though he can’t quite focus on me. ‘I’ve had a bit of a shock,’ he says. ‘I did night duty at the Sams last night and Estelle – our director – was there in a terrible state. I don’t think it’s confidential – she says the media are all over it. Her husband has been arrested on people and drug trafficking charges. There were a whole lot of them arrested apparently, early yesterday morning. Estelle’s distraught.’

  ‘And I suppose she had no idea what he was up to? Wives never do, do they? You acquire it when you sign the register, the blind eye, available to be turned as necessary.’

  ‘You’re very cynical,’ he says.

  ‘Me? No. Disappointed idealist, that’s me.’

  ‘Actually,’ he says, ‘I think she did suspect something. Karen Brody rang us because she had information she said she wanted us to pass to the police. She kept asking to speak to Estelle about it and Estelle got rattled. I think she was afraid that Karen’s information was about Bruce – her husband.’