Cuckoo

by Anne Piper

  “Back to London, I suppose,” I said drearily.

  “I shan’t have any money for a hotel, Prue.”

  “Claire’s away, we could go to the flat for a few weeks anyway. Will you ask Mary to divorce you?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “I don’t know. Of course I want to marry you, but I’m very fond of Mary too.”

  “I’ll wait then and see what her reactions are.”

  Instead of going straight to bed back at home, we found Mary dramatically tied up in a chair by a burglar, just like a film. I nearly laughed, but he must have hurt her, and she sent me up to stop Nicholas bawling. I changed him and picked him up and walked him about the room. Tom’s son, what might it feel like to have Tom’s son? I peered into his cross, red face, trying to see any look of Tom, but he didn’t look like anything but a furiously hungry baby. The evening went on, even after that, because I waited in the boat-house till Tom came.

  “Well, you’ve got your way,” he said. “We’re both going to England the day after tomorrow.”

  “It was you who wanted to come with me, I didn’t ask you, Tom, don’t be so unfair.”

  “Fair or unfair, we’re off, and Mary doesn’t ever want to see you again. You are to spend tomorrow out of her sight in Geneva.”

  “Oh. What about you?”

  “I shall come with you, and we’ll try and fix something about tickets. Now cut along to bed, there’s a good girl, I’m all in tonight.”

  “Yes, Tom.” I didn’t even kiss him. I bolted into the dark, choking down my tears until I was out of earshot, then I began to cry stumbling up the hill to the house. Everything was awful again, and none of it my fault; I didn’t even want Tom to come with me now.

  *

  Looking back I can hardly bear to think of the next day. Still walking round and round the hot streets of Geneva, still with a blister, not enough money to stop at cafes between meals. Tom stumping beside me, not saying anything at all. Buying tickets.

  In the evening Tom left me on a bench in the Jardin Anglais and went home to fetch the luggage. I was to meet him later at the station. I made him give me my ticket, I thought he might have a reconciliation with Mary and never come back. It was Saturday night and I sat and stared at strings of coloured lights all round the lake under the squat plane-trees and round the waists of poplars on the little island. Nothing will ever be beautiful again. I am old now, everything has happened to me, what ever shall I do for the next fifty years?

  And all night we sat up on the leather seats of a third-class carriage, falling involuntarily against each other in our sleep. Tom complained of the weight of my suitcases, and groaned because he could not shave in the morning. His blue chin made him look more bad-tempered still, he sent me to brush out my hair although the plaits had not really slipped. So we both sulked through breakfast at the Gare St. Lazare. Tom refused to come and look at the shops because they weren’t open, so I walked the length of the Boulevard Haussman alone, staring in front of me, not seeing anything of Printemps or the Galeries Lafayette except their names.

  Tom sat reproachfully by the luggage where I had left him. “You could have put it in the cloakroom,” I said.

  “It wasn’t worth it for an hour. Come on, the train’s in.” I was seasick, miserably, ignominiously — over the side. Tom walked away from me in disgust. It wasn’t even rough, just swelling gently. Afterwards there came a moment of utter joy, I felt free of every single person in the world, as free as the shining, jumping wake of the ship below me. But the mood didn’t last and by the time I turned the key in the flat door, Tom’s determined silence had reduced me to the deepest despondency again.

  “Where do you want to sleep?” I asked, waving vaguely at the closed doors.

  “My dear Prue, since we are living in sin we may as well make an effort to enjoy ourselves. I suggest, boldly, that we sleep together. Where do we want to sleep?”

  It was too much. I started to cry, that mocking voice. “Darling — darling Prue — come here. Look, that’s better. Here, have a blow. I’m terribly sorry. I can’t think what’s got into me. I’ve been in a vile temper all the way here. Mary upset me, and I’ve been feeling guilty about both of you, however now we’ve cut our cake we may as well lie comfortably on the crumbs. What about supper?”

  “I could open a tin, or we could go out. There isn’t any bread or butter or anything.”

  “We’d better go out now, and you’ll have to be up betimes to get us something for breakfast.”

  So we went out, and ate peppery Vienna steaks and trifle without any sugar.

  “We’re home all right,” Tom said.

  It was cold in the flat and I turned on the fire in Claire’s bedroom.

  “This is the biggest bed,” I said doubtfully, sitting on the edge of it. Claire had left everything tidy, spotless and a little bleak, not a single stocking on the floor or a single grain of powder on the glass-topped dressing-table. I folded the counterpane and sat down again fiddling with the books by the bed.

  “Don’t do that,” Tom snapped suddenly. He was lying back beside me in his shirt-sleeves reading the New Statesman. I didn’t know he was even looking at me.

  “Why not?”

  “You’ll make them untidy, and you know how particular Claire is.” I put the books down obediently and went to wash. I should like to have been brave enough to borrow one of Claire’s voluptuous nightdresses, but it seemed bad enough to be using her bed, so I struggled into my own crumpled cotton as usual. I brushed my hair out for a long time, in front of the bathroom mirror, hanging my head first to one side and then the other to see which shone the most. I stood very close to the glass, entranced by the darkness and deepness of my eyes.

  “You’ve suffered,” I murmured aloud. “And you will suffer more and more.”

  “Hullo,” said Tom cheerfully, bursting in behind me. “Talking to yourself already? That’s bad. Where’s my toothbrush?”

  “In your sponge-bag, I expect. You packed it yourself.”

  “So I did. Do you think Claire has any bicarbonate? That sausage meat lies very heavy on a steak-habituated stomach.”

  “There may be some in the kitchen. I don’t think she takes it.”

  I climbed into bed and sat primly with my hands round my knees and the sheet up to my chin. I felt shy of Tom, as if he were a complete stranger. I heard him knocking down a lot of things in the kitchen cupboard.

  “No good,” he announced crossly as he returned. “What an ill-regulated household. Just have to take my indigestion to bed, I suppose. You look pretty as a picture and as good as Saint Theresa, no one would guess you were an abandoned woman.” He walked about the room, dropping his clothes and shoes all over the floor.

  “I don’t feel a very abandoned woman.”

  “That’s just as well.” Tom gave an enormous yawn. “Because I shall be asleep two seconds after I touch the pillow tonight. God, wasn’t last night awful, and I can’t think what possessed you to be sick on the boat. Nobody else was.”

  “I can’t think either. I wasn’t going over. I suppose it was not enough sleep.”

  “Well. Better get some now, chicken.” He climbed into bed, kissed me lightly on the forehead, turned over at once with his back to me, switched off the light, and in five minutes was snoring. I didn’t know he snored. In the boat-house I always left before he fell asleep. I lay rigid beside him, my fists clenched. The snores began softly, but after a while the whole bed shook with them.

  “I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it,” I thought. And I slipped carefully out, though I needn’t have bothered to be careful, he never stirred, and fled away down the passage to my own room, my fingers in my ears. My bed wasn’t made up, but I crawled between the blankets and sobbed myself to sleep.

  *

  “What are we going to do all day?” Tom asked after breakfast. He paced about the sitting-room looking much too large.

  “Do?”

  “We can’t make l
ove all day, and we can’t be seen out together. I don’t want to lose my job.”

  “Surely there wouldn’t be anyone you know, around here?”

  “Might be. Can’t risk it anyway.”

  “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “I don’t suppose you had. But I’ve got to support five people now, six counting myself. Can’t afford to be out of work.”

  “You don’t have to support me, Tom.”

  “Not yet perhaps. But probably later. Somebody’s got to consider the future. For instance, where do we go from here?”

  “You mean when Claire comes back?”

  “Preferably before Claire comes back.”

  “I don’t know. I could go into a hostel when my term starts.”

  “Do you know any hostels that would take your lover too?”

  “Oh Tom, don’t talk like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “That awful voice. What’s happened, why has everything suddenly got so horrid? Don’t you love me any more?”

  “Of course I love you, you silly girl. But love isn’t enough to make the world go round.”

  “It is for me.”

  “Of course it is for you. You’re nineteen, leading a carefree, uncomplicated life. You haven’t got four dependents.”

  “No, Tom.”

  Better not say any more or I’d begin to cry again. I switched on the wireless to “Music While You Work,” from a brass band.

  “For God’s sake,” Tom yelled. “What’s got into you? Turn off that ghastly noise.”

  I switched it off again, and sat very still, concentrating on the strap of my right sandal. Tom spoke in the clear, level tones of an irritated adult humouring a tiresome child.

  “Now listen to me, Prue. I think the best thing for both of us would be if I went off to the lab I’ve got plenty to catch up on over there, and I can give the impression I’ve come home before Mary just to work.”

  “Yes, Tom. What time will you be back?”

  “I don’t know. Surely it doesn’t matter?”

  “I was wondering about lunch.”

  “Good Lord, I won’t be back to lunch, more like supper. You get a nice meal ready for me by seven, there’s a good girl, and I’ll be back in time to eat it, How’s that?”

  “All right, Tom.”

  So there I was, alone in the flat for eight hours. I sat down in my dressing-gown and wrote a long, desperate letter to Liz. She would have reached Jean-Pierre’s house by now, and heard the whole story. I wanted her to hear my point of view as well as Mary’s, how Tom had told me Mary wouldn’t mind. I longed to know how much Mary did mind now, and whether she was very unhappy.

  I was just going out to shop in the afternoon when I realised I had half-a-crown and the bank would be shut. I sat down in the kitchen and considered, and finally I spent it on potatoes, kippers for breakfast in the morning and some tea. So supper was boiled potatoes, tinned peas and slices of tinned Spam. Tom didn’t look very pleased, but he didn’t say anything either.

  “You didn’t leave any money,” I said. “So I had to open two of Claire’s tins.”

  “So I see. You’d better replace them tomorrow. Here’s a pound,” and he went on eating. After supper he settled down with a dreary-looking Botany book. I let him read for an hour and then I flung myself across the room, between him and the beastly book.

  “Tom, please say how much you love me.”

  “Very much, you wild thing.”

  “Yes, but how much?”

  “About twenty pounds’ worth.”

  “No, be serious. I mean for ever and ever? or until Wednesday week?”

  “My darling — what a hopeless question. I don’t know at all. I’ll tell you on Wednesday week.”

  “But, Tom, I’m in such a muddle, and I want to know where I stand.”

  “But we were talking about all that this morning.”

  “No we weren’t. We were talking about dull things like rent and money, and rooms and jobs and dependents. I want to know about emotions.”

  “If you dissect emotions they disappear. It’s much safer to talk about jobs, the dull things are always with us, the emotions are very brief visitors.”

  “Oh dear.”

  But he stopped reading then. That night I stayed in the double bed in spite of his snoring. I didn’t mind it so much as long as he loved me.

  In the morning he said I hadn’t tucked the blankets in properly. He said he’d been awake on and off all night because his feet stuck out through the end.

  “Mary would never make a bed in that slovenly way,” he finished up.

  “Mary can cook too,” I said.

  “She certainly can,” he sounded wistful.

  CHAPTER IV

  It was like being married. Tom went out after breakfast and came back tired to supper in the evening.

  I practised a bit in the mornings, and mooned about London in the afternoons. I sat on a bench in the sun in Lincoln’s Inn, and waved a black stick at a golden sparrow. Who am I? What does it mean? I wrote sudden spurts of poetry on envelopes, in a boat going to Greenwich, in a bus to Kew, in a Tube to Hampstead. Nothing added up. With Tom at night I was more alone than I’d been on the river.

  “Don’t you want to know what I’m thinking?” I asked him one evening in the sitting-room after a two hours’ silence.

  “Why, are you thinking something interesting?”

  “Not particularly, but I want to know all you’re thinking whether it’s special or not. I want to know what you really like, and really hate. I don’t know anything about you.”

  “Well — I’m a naughty married man aged thirty-five. I have a beautiful young mistress of nineteen. I’m not at all sure I don’t qualify to be a Dirty Old Man.”

  “Oh Tom — please not that sort of talking. Don’t make everything about us sordid.”

  “But my darling — everything about us is sordid.”

  “Oh, it isn’t — it isn’t. It must be lovely.”

  “How can it be lovely? We’ve let everybody down in all directions, and we’re even sponging on your aunt, who wouldn’t at all like it if she knew.”

  “But it’s got to be lovely — you and me loving each other I mean, or else nothing’s worth it at all. Look, I’ve written some poems, I’ll show you what I feel.” I pushed them into his lap on all sorts of scraps of paper.

  “But darling, I can’t read these.”

  “Can’t you? Oh dear — wait a minute then, I’ll do them on Claire’s typewriter.” Tom went back to his book. I type very slowly with one finger, so I gave up after the third poem. “That’ll have to do, these are the best ones, though.” Tom lowered his book again and picked them up, as if he were handling very rare specimens. He read them right through with only a few odd grunts. I sat back on my heels on the hearthrug rocking anxiously.

  “Do you like them? Do say what you think, Tom.”

  “I think they are very nice, darling.” But in the voice of someone who’s been shown a raffia bag worked by a child of ten.

  “Oh. You don’t think they’re good? I mean they don’t express anything of what you feel?”

  “But, my sweet, how could they? I’m sixteen years older than you. I see everything differently.”

  “Oh. I thought if one was really in love everything came out the same at any age.”

  “You funny little girl.”

  “Oh please, Tom. I’m not a little girl now.”

  Liz’s letter arrived the next day by the second post when Tom had already left the house.

  POOR OLD PRUE — You seem to be in the supreme muddle this time. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to stop it happening before it was too late. Couldn’t you have seen what a lot of nonsense Tom talks? Oh, well no good going on about it now, particularly as nobody seems to be suffering over it, except you. Tom, I imagine, is very pleased with himself for being such a randy gay dog, and Mary and I are having the best time we ever had in our lives. We have arrived in
Paris now. Jean-Pierre drove us all up, and is paying the bills in a heavenly hotel. Each meal is more scrumptious than the last, but I have now acclimatised my digestion and eat even more heartily than the children (for whom by the way J.P. has found a nursemaid so we don’t have to drag them round with us everywhere). Jean-Pierre, has produced a witty journalist friend of his, an American, and we all four go out dancing, or to the theatre, nearly every night. I can’t tell you how happy I am, so whatever you do don’t have any pangs of remorse on our account. Mary tells me to say she has quite forgiven you, and if she had known what fun it would be she’d have left Tom years ago. She is thinking of settling in Paris.

  Must stop as we are just off to the Folies Bergères.

  Love from Liz.

  I was so happy to hear they were all happy. I could scarcely wait for Tom to come into the flat in the evening before I waved the letter at him.

  “It’s all right!” I shouted at him excitedly.

  “What’s all right? What’s all the noise about? Aren’t you going to kiss me?”

  “Of course, of course — but look — it’s all right about Mary and Liz and the children. They’re having a wonderful time. It doesn’t matter a bit our having gone off. It’s such a relief. I was so afraid they’d be miserable. Now we can do what we like.”

  “Here give me that — what does Liz say?”

  He snatched the letter from me and read it with the most extraordinary expression. If I hadn’t known he couldn’t be, I’d have said he was scowling.

  “Isn’t it lovely?” I asked as he reached the end. He didn’t answer, but went straight back to the beginning and read it through again; this time there could be no doubt about the scowl.