When I Was Otherwise

by Stephen Benatar

  My game, I think!

  Well, yes, certainly. She might have thought the game was hers. But before this had she ever been paired against Daisy Todd-Ferrier?

  “Did you think I hadn’t realized?”

  Because you couldn’t leave anybody—and especially not a boy as sensitive as this—to breathe his last in hands so patently unfeeling.

  “Did you really think I hadn’t realized?”

  No, it clearly hadn’t shown itself, that sense of shock. Since otherwise what could have accounted for Mrs Stormont’s astonishment? “But even Henry doesn’t know.”

  It seemed that at different times he had spent over four years in a Swiss sanatorium.

  “He believes himself cured,” she said.

  Daisy shrugged. “Well, that’s as it may be. But anybody with medical experience, with the right medical experience…”

  “I see.” The woman who now avoided her eyes looked positively unwell, in comparison to the one who had brought her through to the bedroom.

  “Besides. Who says he can’t be cured? To speak of dying is defeatist—wrong! New methods of treatment are being tried out all the time. Have you taken him to Lourdes?”

  “I have no doubt you mean well,” said Florence, with extreme weariness. “But please don’t be naïve.”

  “Naïve? Naïve! Well, perhaps I am. And in that case I thank God for it, because I’d rather be naïve than arrogant. I think one should fight. I think one should tell the truth. To hide from your son the fact that he is dying—if he is—is patronizing and unforgivable. How dare you underestimate him? How dare you rob him of his one big chance to show his greatness?”

  She waited for an answer. She didn’t get one.

  “Well, I shall tell him, Mrs Stormont, just as soon as we are married. And however long or brief a time we have together I shall expect it to be filled with acceptance and nobility and strength. It isn’t life that matters. It’s the courage one can face it with.”

  She stood up.

  She stood tall.

  “And we shall make it beautiful,” she predicted.

  Then—being always a person to think about her exits—she turned and walked slowly from the room; merely pausing briefly at the door.

  “And please don’t worry, Mrs Stormont. I shall do everything I can to bring him felicity. Everything. And may I take this opportunity of wishing you—and yours, of course—a very happy Easter?”

  17

  “Well, how’s that? You can turn back to the mirror now and take a look.”

  “No, I can’t. I’m paralysed. Paralysed in every limb.”

  “But why? I’ve been enormously restrained.” Marsha laughed. “Nothing to what I could have done if I’d only let myself go!”

  So at last Daisy turned: with extreme caution and with hands before her face. She peeked between the fingers.

  “Oh, dear God!”

  She closed her eyes again.

  “No, Daisy, honestly! You mustn’t be so timid.”

  Though she had done it accidentally Marsha had hit upon the right approach. Daisy had never thought of herself as timid—nor, in truth, had anybody else. She despised timidity. Almost anything was better than that. She would be a clown.

  She lowered her hands and opened her eyes.

  “Grimaldi,” she said.

  Marsha, who inexplicably believed this might be one of the Ugly Sisters in King Lear, which she had studied at school but not to any great depth, again came up with the right answer.

  “No,” she corrected, “Cinderella.”

  “Really?”

  “Grand transformation scene. Come on. Let’s go and surprise Andy.” In all her excitement she had forgotten she wasn’t best pleased with him. “I shall even take a feather to knock him down with!”

  And she drew one out of a hat. It was all such fun. Then she reached up and replaced the hatbox.

  “You know,” said Daisy, “this doesn’t feel at all like me!”

  “It soon will. I promise. And you’ll have to buy a whole new wardrobe to go with your whole new personality. I’ll come and help you choose it.”

  They went downstairs. At the entrance to the drawing room Marsha pretended to put a trumpet to her lips. She blew a most important fanfare. It seemed to involve a lot of finger movement.

  “Tarrah, tarrah!”

  Andrew, sprawled a long way down in his chair, didn’t even look round. “Have you any idea of just how long you’ve been?”

  “Not really, but you’ll think it time well spent, my love. And please don’t spoil it for her. Nor for me.”

  More loudly she made a further request. “Will all gentlemen kindly stand? So that they may conveniently be knocked down with an ostrich feather? Tarrah, tarrah!”

  “It is ten-past-bloody-six.”

  “I am the herald of the Queen of Sheba! Please enter here, Your Majesty!”

  “Said the spider to the fly!” chortled Daisy, nervously.

  Marsha prayed that everything was going to be all right and squeezing herself to one side was suddenly surprised at just how small the Queen of Sheba was. From a distance Daisy certainly didn’t give an impression of shortness, yet at close quarters she made Marsha feel nothing but legs. And with Daisy now brushing past her in the doorway even her head seemed small and fragile, like a china doll’s. So breakable! On the other hand, at the dressing table, while Marsha had been hanging over her and intent on reformation she hadn’t experienced any such feeling of incipient power. Perhaps that had been lost in the intimacy of applying the rouge and the mascara and the powder puff.

  Daisy went into the sitting room and said: “Think of Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel. Think of Leonardo da Vinci and the Mona Lisa. Think of Marsha Stormont and…but, no, whatever you do, please don’t think of me! Or have I suddenly become a swan? All plucked and ready for the palace spit?”

  “Marsha Poynton.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I liked you better as you were.”

  Daisy put the back of one hand to her forehead and the other to her breast; but then, before finally petrifying into tragedy, appeared to have a moment of doubt and turned to Marsha seeking confirmation.

  “Even from Andrew—that wasn’t quite a round of applause?”

  It was Andrew himself who answered, “Do you realize that all this nonsense has taken you a full hour?”

  Ignoring him Daisy said desolately to Marsha—all hope departed—“No, I thought not.” She resumed her stance of heartbreak and of deprivation. “I vant to be alone!”

  Marsha giggled.

  “Oh Andy, truly, doesn’t Daisy look attractive?”

  “And you needn’t think I’m just playing the giddy goat. If you don’t say yes, I may stay like this all evening. Perhaps forever. Oh, what an embarrassment! What an eyesore! How could you explain it? Something brought from the museum in Cairo? No one would admire your taste. Besides—I couldn’t play those games of chess. Three, did you say?” She noticed he’d set out the board.

  “I shouldn’t think there’s even time for one. Not now.”

  Marsha had never been able to laugh before when Andrew got the sulks—far from it—but Daisy seemed to regard the matter as a joke. With Daisy there even Marsha couldn’t take it very seriously. She couldn’t help but see its absurdity. Its comic appeal.

  Daisy abandoned her pose. She questioned Marsha. “Then haven’t you dared tell him that he’s stuck with me tomorrow, for a good half of tomorrow, though he’ll probably want to know what’s good about it? Or is it just that he spends Sunday morning in church—and hasn’t got a travelling chess set?”

  “No travelling chess set,” answered Marsha.

  “Yet he does go to church?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “But that’s the reason why they were invented!” Daisy sounded scandalized. “What’s the matter with this man of yours? Doesn’t he know anything? No wonder he can’t smile.”

  Then—almost incredibly—he di
d. It was reluctant: a mere quivering of the lips that couldn’t be contained…and soon was stubbornly suppressed. But it was at any rate a beginning.

  Daisy exclaimed:

  “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more… Cry ‘God for Harry! England and Saint George!’”

  As she did so, she brandished her sword on high, looking as though she might actually put down her head and charge. It hardly made a difference whether or not she was on horseback.

  When she was in certain moods Scrooge himself might have had difficulty in holding out against Daisy…

  And amazingly, at the finish, it turned out to be a really good weekend; lighthearted; one of the very best, Marsha thought, they had spent in their new home. Wasn’t life full of surprises? When Daisy left, late on Sunday evening, Andrew said, “We must do this again. And when we do—I shall beat you mercilessly! I mean, even more mercilessly.” This weekend he’d patently had to struggle: out of their nine games he had won only five.

  “I’ll make you eat those words! Ha, my friend! Just you wait.”

  “Nonsense, you know I was out of practice.”

  “And I suppose I’ve been playing twenty times a week?”

  “I’m going to bone up,” he said.

  “I’m going to bone up better!”

  Then she peeled off one of her woollen gloves and threw it to the ground.

  “There!”

  He picked it up. “To the death! But I imagine that as a rule you’re fairly busy at weekends?”

  “Mmm. Fairly.”

  As Marsha and Andrew waved her goodbye and she drove off, hooting cheerily, in her little black Austin—the ancestor, eventually, of a quartet of others—they stood together at the garden gate. It was a pleasant autumnal evening with a lovely moon. Andrew had his arm about Marsha’s shoulders. His sleek fair hair gleamed in the streetlight and his eyes were gleaming too.

  “You’ve done some very nice things to this garden,” he said, as he looked around the small area with uncharacteristic approval. “You’re a girl who’s obviously got green fingers.”

  “Oh, darling, I am so glad you think so. But it’s a long way past its best. It was much nicer a few weeks ago.”

  “Tired?”

  “Yes, just a bit.” She yawned, as if at the suggestion. “But peaceful. Happy.”

  “How’s the little one?”

  “Very well, thank you—I hope. But little.” Momentarily she placed a hand on her stomach. “And I do hope I’m not going to grow enormous.”

  “Me too,” he replied—and with great feeling, although she didn’t really notice its underlying seriousness; she hadn’t yet been sick behind the phone box. They laughed.

  He said after another few seconds: “Actually, green fingers isn’t all you’ve got. She’s quite a nice-looking woman, isn’t she? I hadn’t realized. You managed to bring it out.”

  Marsha felt tremendously content. She thought she had never before received so much praise from him, certainly not over so very short a period.

  “Both green fingers and lipstick fingers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Of course, she does need to do something major with her hair. I told her so. I can’t think why she’s never bothered.”

  He yawned as well. “I imagine she’s the type of woman who doesn’t worry overmuch about her looks.” Then, mindful of something similar he’d said the day before and of the reaction provoked by it, he added hurriedly, “Well, at least she has plenty of personality. I suppose she’s always got by on that. She’s certainly intelligent. But quite fun,” he went on, also hurriedly, for fear this might have seemed like criticism.

  “I am glad,” repeated Marsha, although she wasn’t quite sure what she was glad of. Just of life, generally.

  “I suppose she always knew she could never be as pretty as somebody like you,” said Andrew. “That must have discouraged her—well, it would, wouldn’t it? It would discourage any woman.” He spoke suddenly as if he were an authority on such a subject. She felt that she was almost brimming over. She led him gently up to bed.

  But, as it happened, Andrew and Daisy weren’t destined to play chess again together.

  Marsha wasn’t destined to go shopping with her and searching for a new wardrobe.

  It was a pity. It might have been fun. Sisters-in-law. It might have been a good way of getting to know her and then genuinely, perhaps, to like her.

  Two little maids from school are we.

  Part Three

  18

  She was weeping. She had waited until now before finally letting go. She had wept, perhaps, just a dozen times in the whole of her adult life: notably, at some of the mutilations she had long ago witnessed in France, and once in the empty flat on the day of Marie’s funeral, after the last of the mourners had departed and she was left alone in the weighty silence. This morning, however, in the court, she had stood there small and staunch and scornfully dry-eyed. Unbeatable. She had even at one point shaken her fist at the magistrates. (She had immediately claimed she was only knocking away a fly—a ludicrous explanation which the magistrates, thank heaven, had accepted.) And she had brushed aside their offer of a chair with almost the same air of contempt. But now she was crying: sitting in the back seat of her own car, which Malcolm was driving for her—he felt grateful to be occupied. Phoebe, beside him, was twisted around uncomfortably and had one hand on Daisy’s skirt, ineffectually patting her knee.

  “Couldn’t we stop at a pub, Mal?”

  He shook his head.

  “A coffee bar?”

  “No. It’s better to get back.” He too was whispering though Daisy wouldn’t have heard them anyway. “Have we any of that brandy left?”

  “I think so. Oh, but isn’t this unspeakable? What are we going to do with her?”

  “She’ll be all right. Get her talking of the past. We’ll take her to a film.”

  Aloud he said:

  “We’ll soon be home, Daisy. What we all need is a strong cup of tea! Laced with brandy!”

  She did make an effort. “Yes, dear. Just what the doctor ordered. But it’s all been such a shock, you see. I’ve never experienced anything like it in my life. No! Never!”

  She blew her nose hard. This time it seemed that she might rally.

  “I suppose I look a frightful sight!”

  “Not a bit of it,” he said. “And even if you did…? Well, you are among friends.”

  “Yes—and none better. I know that, dear. But just the same…who ever thought I’d go and make such a goose of myself?”

  She added bitterly: “At least I waited until we were free of that abominable place!”

  “You did indeed. You were incredibly brave in there.”

  Unfortunately she didn’t hear.

  “But my lovely car.” She ran an arthritic hand caressingly over the leather seat; even through thick grey wool the twisted joints were still apparent. “My dear old Pegasus. My one dependable companion.”

  The tears started to well again.

  “At least there’s a bright side, Daisy.” Too late, Malcolm realized the futility of this. But, perversely, she had heard him and he had to carry on. “You’ll get a bit of money for it. I know someone in the trade and he’ll make sure you won’t be cheated.” He thought that, on the sly, he could probably add an extra fifty pounds himself, following his uncle’s good example—for Dan had given him an open cheque with which to pay the fine. But Daisy only sniffed.

  “Money! Is that the bright side you talk of?”

  Feeling piqued he answered: “No, the really bright side, of course, is that the woman wasn’t killed. We can all thank our lucky stars for that. And how!”

  “She was hardly even hurt,” said Daisy.

  “A broken leg?”

  “Well, she needn’t have broken it. That was her fault. She didn’t know the proper way to fall.”

  Malcolm kept silent.

  “Besides, she was too fat. You never saw such mounds of flesh. An
d if it hadn’t been for all that weight…”

  He couldn’t keep silent any longer.

  “Or perhaps if it hadn’t been for your own gross inattention… And on a pedestrian crossing!”

  In fact, it had been mentioned in the court how good Daisy had been with the woman, taking charge with sympathy and efficiency until the ambulance arrived, although she herself had obviously received a shock.

  “What was that?” The aid gave its familiar piercing whistle. “What did you say?”

  Phoebe had turned and pressed his arm. “Almost there now, Daisy. Have you ever seen such traffic? That’s what Malcolm said.”

  “Oh.” She slumped back against the seat and glanced without interest at some of the offending vehicles. “No. It’s a disgrace. This wretched government should have cleared it up long ago! No guts, that’s the trouble! In some ways, of course, I’m really better out of it.”

  “Much.”

  “Oh, but I don’t know, dear. It’s easy enough for you to say that…” She shook her head and pursed her lips. “No, I just don’t know what I’m going to do from now on and that’s the truth. Take a dose, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “Or take a bus,” suggested Malcolm, whose sympathy was still a fraction dented.

  “A bus!” said Daisy. “What—with my knees? That only shows how little you understand of it. If you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “Conductors are usually fine about helping people on and off.” Phoebe, too, could be tart on occasion.

  “Yes, I know, dear. I know.” Daisy sounded weary but propitiating. “Even if most of them are as black as your hat.”

  “The black ones are often the best.”

  “Oh, I know that too, of course.” Daisy spent the next three minutes staring through the window. “My word! Just look at that creature over there! She must suppose she’s on the beach at

  San Tropez—did you ever in your life see anything like it?”

  It was a June day and the woman, Phoebe noted, was wearing a perfectly respectable sundress.

  “Pull over, why don’t you? I’d better direct her to the Strand, if not somewhere in the Caribbean!”