When I Was Otherwise

by Stephen Benatar

  6

  For there were other good things.

  To begin with, there were her books: at the moment she was reading the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini—it was such a pleasure to be able to escape into somebody else’s life, particularly one set in a different century and as fascinating as his.

  Then there were her visits to the bank and to the hairdresser’s: not to transact business necessarily or to have her hair done, but simply to say hello and be given a cup of tea—with biscuits (at the bank) or a cigarette (at the hairdresser’s) and a look at the Financial Times or the problem page of Woman; what muck, but at any rate something to take your mind off things a bit.

  And also there were sunny days like this, with always the chance of getting into conversation…preferably with somebody young and lively and interesting. Wasn’t it odd how the lively ones were the ones so frequently drawn towards herself, as though they could immediately sense some strongly sympathetic spirit? Kindred spirit! “Why me?” she’d wonder. “What can they ever see in my funny unforgettable mug?” It was one of the big eternal mysteries, probably up there with Stonehenge or the Bermuda Triangle or the Marie Celeste.

  And then, naturally, there was her little car: her Austin Seven: her sine qua non, her winged and fiery chariot.

  Yes, thank heaven. At least she could still pooter about like Mr Toad, shaking the dust off her wheels as she saw Hendon retreating in her rearview mirror. Hendon…not merely suburban, but practically off the map!

  A twilight zone to all cartographers!

  Without this faithful ferryman of hers—she thought of him as Charon’s mirror image, ferrying the souls of the living and taking them away from Hades (yes, that too began with an H…while for river Styx read Finchley Road)—without him she would go mad. Life would be unbearable. She’d take a dose.

  But with him there were always people you could see. You were still somebody while you were mobile: an entity, a life force, a person to be reckoned with. (Without a car, of course, you were little better than a zombie.) So how incredible that Madge Fairweather should ever have suggested that she, Daisy, might now be getting too…!

  Well, there, if you liked, was an example of the living dead: Madge Fairweather with her ghastly posture and her soft pudgy whiteness, her dowager’s hump and her silly teetery legs in their disgustingly vainglorious stockings (vein glorious!): with her interminable droolings over her long-dead husband who was supposed to have been a saint—what a ridiculously overworked word that was!—and probably had been, too, if he had managed to put up with dear Madge for more than two weeks together, let alone bring her up breakfast in bed and say, “There, there!”, which had seemed to be his principal occupation in life and his principal line of dialogue. Saint or prize ninny? It was hardly the sixty-four thousand dollar question.

  But, no, she certainly had small need of any Madge Fairweather. “My fair-weather friend,” she always called her. Madge herself seemed unable to see the joke—which only went to show, didn’t it? Even without her, Daisy still had Edgar and Vera in Blandford Street, bless them, Bill in West Kensington—despite that shrew of a wife of his—and young Malcolm in Notting Hill. (Never tell Marsha about that.) And that nice and intelligent, though not very pretty little thing, Phoebe, with whom he lived. Daisy didn’t exactly approve of this but at least it was done without hypocrisy and warmhearted Phoebe was always offering her another glass of sherry—and, after all, why not? The young were more sensible now than previously; she’d willingly throw in her lot with their generation—yes, any day of the week—rather than with their so-called elders and betters. Ha!

  And then, of course, in addition to these three shining oases offering sanctuary and sustenance in a boundless and unheeding desert, there was always the club! The club was in some ways the kindest bolt-hole of the lot; and thankfully, Mr Daniel Stormont, very far from being extinct. (So long as one paid no attention to the odd depressing rumour—which nobody sensible ever did!)

  Yet without her trusty little Austin, her Charon, her Pegasus, how often could she have got to it?

  (But how extraordinary of Madge Fairweather! What an extraordinary thing to say! Oh, the woman was plainly jealous. And no wonder: since she only sat and guzzled chocolates all day long, at least four to every one she ever offered you, while gawping at the television quite literally open-mouthed: such a wholly plebeian cast of soul! And she was the sort of person who always wanted to label people, label them and limit them, file them away in some neat little pigeonhole until she thought she knew exactly how much they were worth. People and things: she labelled the one by their pedigree, their job, their age; the other by their price. In short—she had the Florence complex. And, naturally, when you had said that, you had said everything. Poor soul.)

  The club, though… She remembered Marsha’s reaction: “But what do you do there?” She would clearly have to tell Marsha all about Madge Fairweather.

  Perhaps she would tell her when she got home this afternoon. Or would she go to the library first, put off that deadening moment of return for just a few hours longer—try to stay out if she could until suppertime? Then she would hold Madge up as an example, the most salutary warning in West Hampstead; but do so, obviously, with tact. She wasn’t quite certain how—not yet—but she was bound to think of something when the proper time arrived. It seemed she always did.

  7

  “Oh, Daisy, how could you? How could you? You really are the limit. You’re quite impossible.”

  “Impossible? Why? What have I done?” She busily adjusted the tiny lever on her hearing aid. “Wait a minute, wait a minute! You don’t want to waste your sweetness on the desert air.”

  “Honestly!” Marsha appealed to Dan. She’d been in the midst of clearing away the supper things; her brother and sister-in-law were still at table. “Can’t you say something?”

  “I must admit, Daisy, I think it isn’t very considerate of you. To suddenly spring it on poor Marsha like this.”

  “Dear heaven,” said Daisy, “it’s only Friday night. They won’t be here till Sunday. How much notice does she need? Six months and a printed invitation? And I thought this was my home. Aren’t I free, then, to ask my friends to come and see me in it?”

  “Of course you are, Daisy. Of course this is your home. But at the same time perhaps—”

  “You know I always do the weekend’s shopping on a Friday.”

  “What was that?”

  “I always do the weekend’s shopping on a Friday!”

  “I’m only surprised you don’t do it on a Monday and have done with it! Then you’d have all day Sunday to plan for it and write out your shopping list!”

  “Well, I tell you, I just couldn’t bear to live my life in the muddle you live yours!”

  After a moment, however, Marsha spread her hands and spoke in a lower register.

  “Besides—you don’t even know what they like to eat. Does this man from Persia eat normal food, for instance? I don’t suppose it even occurred to you to ask.”

  She didn’t wait for an answer.

  “And how do you imagine we’re going to sit five extra people around this table? It takes six at the outside.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s a relatively minor problem,” said Dan.

  “But it goes to show she doesn’t think. And what about all the extra expense? Is the housekeeping simply meant to stretch? I rack my brains to make economies and then she just comes along…! And, no, Dan, I don’t see why you should be expected to fork out, I really don’t.”

  “Nobody is expected to do anything,” said Daisy, grandly. “I intend to do all the shopping myself and to pay for it; I assumed you’d both take that for granted! What will it matter if I have to do without a few little things for the time being: unimportant things like cough lozenges—or aspirin—or the batteries for this infernal aid? I really can’t think what all the fuss is about. A simple act of Christian charity to homesick strangers in a wintry land—that’s what it st
arted out as. I thought you’d be pleased. I didn’t know that Marsha would carry on as though I’d landed her with the feeding of the five thousand.”

  “Rubbish. You didn’t think of us at all. And you know perfectly well you won’t be the one to do the shopping—or the one to pay for it.”

  “Furthermore, I shall buy everything already cooked,” said Daisy, loftily.

  “A typical Sunday dinner this is going to be!”

  “I can’t help that. I shall certainly do my best.”

  “Yes, and I suppose you’ll set the table, too, and get the house all ready—”

  “There was never a house more ready than this.”

  “—and see to all the washing up afterwards.”

  “Naturally.”

  “We’ll each help with those things,” said Dan.

  “Well, I keep on offering,” said Daisy.

  There was a silence. Marsha resumed her clearing of the table. “Here,” said Daisy. “Let me do that for you.” Marsha said nothing. “Here’s the custard jug,” said Daisy. Silence. “Would you like me to try to carry that tray? I think I could probably manage it.”

  Dan returned from the front door with the shaken tablecloth and Daisy was able to relax again.

  Marsha continued to sulk for the rest of the evening.

  “In any case, you ought to be glad to have the opportunity of making new friends—both of you. I am,” said Daisy, while Dan was trying to listen to a radio play. “Making friends, indeed, is one of life’s greatest pleasures.” After a moment she added: “Though keeping them, I admit, is sometimes slightly less of a pleasure! I occasionally wonder if it’s worth it.”

  When she got no noticeable response she said a few seconds later, “Is this thing any good? What’s it all about? I wish you had a television. Everybody has a television these days. In case you didn’t know, this year is nineteen-seventy-five, not eighteen-seventy-five! They all think that’s extraordinary at the club. ‘What do you do,’ they say, ‘the evenings when the club’s not open?’ ‘Nothing,’ I say, ‘nothing! Just stare at the carpet and go crazy.’ ‘You don’t have to tell us that!’ they say. Thank God, though, I’ve got inner resources. I don’t know what I’d do if I hadn’t! What’s happening now?” she asked.

  Dan tried to give her a quick résumé. “No, no, it doesn’t matter,” she interrupted. “I can’t hear a word—you and the wireless in competition. You enjoy yourself; forget about me. I’ll simply sit and twiddle my thumbs.”

  She was quiet for a short period. She adjusted her hearing aid.

  It whistled.

  She tapped her foot a little, in time to a tune that must have sounded catchier inside her head than it did when she tried to hum it.

  “Have you sent off your Christmas cards yet?” she said to Marsha.

  Silence—except for the radio.

  “The best friend I ever had, you know, was Marie. Though it beats me why people can’t pronounce that name properly any more. It’s as if they’d never heard of Marie Corelli—or Stopes—or Tempest—or biscuits! Weren’t they ever taught it ought to rhyme with ‘starry’?” She gave a richly contemptuous snort. “Where was I, then?”

  Nobody answered.

  “Oh, yes. Marie. Now, there was a sensible woman: the most sensible woman I ever met. Sometimes I think the only sensible woman I ever met! And sensitive! I mean—sensitive to the needs of others, naturally. There’s not a single day passes when I don’t think of her—and miss her! No! Never!”

  She tapped her foot some more.

  The leading male character in the play was declaring his love for the leading female character. Daisy listened for a couple of minutes. He was getting quite passionate.

  “Silly ass!” she said. “Can’t think why he doesn’t find something better to do with his time. Poor fellow is all I can say. Deserves everything he’ll get. Bill could tell him a thing or two! Oh, my word, but couldn’t he just! I don’t know how you’ve got the patience to put up with all this tripe.”

  Dan—with his customary good-humoured compliance—stood up and switched off the radio.

  “Oh, I see you haven’t.” The cessation of sound seemed to make her instantly more cheerful. “Wise chap! There’s hope for you yet, dear.”

  Marsha said curtly, with her head still bent over her sewing basket, “Dan was trying to listen to that play!” It was the first time she’d spoken for ages.

  “Yes, I know, dear. I didn’t quite hear what you said but I daresay you’re right.” Anything to be conciliatory, she thought. She chuckled. “And welcome back to the land of the living!”

  So obviously Marsha, too, had a bit more discrimination than she sometimes gave her credit for, and in the end the only thing her recovery had needed was for all that filth and cacophony to be switched off. “Love stories, dear! I ask you! Oh ye gods and little fishes!”

  “Daisy, I said—”

  “It isn’t important,” interrupted Dan.

  “But it is important!” replied Marsha. “If we’re all going to carry on living together like this… Of course it is.”

  “That’s right, dear. You tell him!” Daisy clapped her hands encouragingly. Marsha clearly had her dander up over something but at least she’d stopped moping. This would surely be a good moment to speak about Madge Fairweather.

  “So I shouldn’t think there’s ever been much of a love story in that part of the world,” she ended up triumphantly, “other than on the most nauseating ‘I-hope-your-egg’s-all-right, there-there!’ sort of level. Perhaps you might call it tepid…almost…if you were somebody, that is, with a marked penchant for overstatement.”

  Marsha didn’t say anything about this then—indeed, she hardly appeared to be listening—but the following afternoon it was clear she wished to make amends. She and Dan had been to a jumble sale and had brought Daisy back a framed piece of woolwork which could have been Victorian (“A real collector’s item,” cried Daisy ecstatically—she was much moved—“I shall treasure it for ever!”) except that the colours seemed almost too fresh for that. But the bonnet and crinoline were certainly Victorian and so was the text…”and not at all in keeping, dear, with all those very pretty flowers and butterflies and trees that look like lollipops! ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged’! Oh, thank you, dear. And you, too, Dan. It’s the nicest present I’ve had in centuries!” And several times during the course of the evening she gave Marsha a sudden impulsive kiss; and didn’t once bemoan the temporary closing of the club, due to renovations.

  Indeed, it was a happy evening. Especially as dear, sweet Dan had insisted on paying for everything, even for the cider—though strictly, of course, on the q.t.!—and all her cups of coffee and cigarettes were safe.

  She felt so pleased with the pair of them.

  It was doubly unfortunate, then, that the following day Marsha should again become upset…being equally as enraged when the students didn’t come to lunch as she had been when she’d first been told they would.

  8

  “Thank you, dear, that’s very good of you,” said Daisy, taking the hot-water bottle which Marsha was holding out to her. “These September nights are getting really quite nippy—don’t you find that?” Daisy was already in bed but in expectation of Marsha’s visit she had her hearing aid clipped into the pocket of her pyjama jacket; it was a man’s one, striped. “Don’t run along at once, dear…unless, that is, you’re just too busy to stay. Sometimes it worries me how much you have to see to. I just can’t imagine how you cope. But I take my hat off to you; really and truly I do. Or I would, I mean, if I had it on! So why don’t you just sit down a moment and rest your tired old legs? Tonight, dear, I’m feeling a little…well, to tell the truth, a little lonely. That chair is a nice and comfortable one. Just sling the handbag on the floor—oh, anywhere, it doesn’t matter. ‘A handbag, Mr Worthing?’ Yes, I must say, you and Dan have made it all quite cosy for me. On the whole. But then, of course, it is six months since I moved in—would you believe
it?—it hardly seems more than a week or two. And, incredibly, we still appear to be surviving, don’t we?”

  “We certainly do.”

  “But…”

  “Yes, Daisy?”

  “I often wonder who she was, dear, don’t you?”

  “Who?”

  “The woman who did that tapestry thing. Many’s the time I’ve lain here—just propped up against these pillows—staring up at it. And thinking.”

  “Perhaps she’s still alive?”

  But Daisy shook her head, decisively. “No. I feel it in my bones she’s not.” And she didn’t add that, alive, she would have been just another woman, not someone you could speculate upon with any real degree of satisfaction. “Anyway, I certainly hope that I never fall into the habit of judging people.”

  “Well, I suppose no one can avoid it, really.”

  “No, you’re quite right, dear. Quite right. You usually are, of course.”

  “Oh, oh, oh. All this soft soap. What might you be after, Lady Jane?”

  “Yes—and don’t forget the flannel, dear. Soft soap and flannel! My word, you’ve just reminded me: I used to grow mustard-and-cress on a flannel once, when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. And delicious it was, too. Cress sandwiches—the best I’ve ever tasted. They were. It’s true! But…Now what were we saying? Oh, yes, dear, I was thinking a little about your own case. I don’t see how you can help judging people when you have to go through all the rigmarole of a divorce. Do you?”

  Marsha gave a shrug. “Well, that was a long time ago, Daisy.”

  “And now one can be all philosophical about it and see that the fault was evenly divided—is that what you’re saying? You just weren’t compatible?” Daisy nodded. “Although you, dear, were probably a lot more compatible than he was, if the truth were known. That was always my view of the matter at any rate.”