Naomi glanced at Miriam, inviting her to share the joke.
‘Perhaps we could speak to the head of the department,’ Miriam suggested wearily. ‘But I really think that it is important to recruit mature women students into the department.’
‘Into a place like that?’ Josephine demanded.
Wendy nodded in agreement with her. ‘They are openly showing pornography,’ she said quietly. ‘We know this encourages men to see women as sexual objects, and encourages violence against women. The statistics are very clear, Miriam. We can’t send women in there, it’s not safe.’
At the key words ‘sexual objects’ and ‘safe’ three other women nodded solemnly, their gigantic earrings clashing like cymbals. They had invoked a code as powerful as that of a Victorian drawing room where the word ‘improper’ once held the same power. No rational discussion could possibly follow the invoking of the word ‘safe’. If a woman knew she was not safe, thought she was not safe, or even fancied on entirely mistaken evidence that she was not safe, then nothing could be said to dissuade her from her fear. It was a key taboo, and its invocation marked the complete end of all reasonable debate. Miriam threw a despairing look at Louise.
Louise responded. ‘I’d be prepared to take a message to the head of Science/Industry from this committee, drawing the posters and noticeboards to his attention,’ she said. ‘If he’s prepared to take them down then perhaps we could feature his department in our open day. It’d show he was open to education. There must be women working in the department who might be prepared to come and represent the department at the open day.’
‘If there are women working in that environment then I think we should form a subgroup to discuss the issues with them,’ Josephine persevered. ‘They’re being bombarded with male obscenity every day of their working lives. We should be working with them.’
‘That’s two motions,’ Naomi observed, nodding at Miriam prompting her to move on.
Miriam shot her a look which was neither grateful nor sisterly.
‘Can’t we set up a women-only Science and Industry department?’ Wendy asked. ‘Housed in the same buildings but working alternate sessions. So that we train new women scientists and engineers by experienced women scientists and engineers in a safe and segregated environment.’
Naomi Petersen made a muffled exclamation. ‘We haven’t organised an open day yet, and we’ve been discussing it for twenty minutes! How the hell d’you think we’re going to organise an entirely new university department?’
Josephine smiled at her. ‘That’s a very negative attitude to Wendy’s interesting suggestion, Naomi,’ she said with slow triumph. ‘And a very unsupportive tone of voice. A lot of women’s groups have found that separate development solves many problems. I think we should consider Wendy’s very imaginative idea.’
Miriam rubbed her face as if struggling to stay awake. ‘Wendy, would you like to make a report on this, and bring it back to our next meeting, next Tuesday? And Louise, would you approach Sci/Ind and tell them our concern about their noticeboards? And Josephine, would you like to find out how many women are working at Sci/Ind already, staff and students, and we can then consider your idea for a subgroup at the next meeting?’
There was a rather disappointed consensus, but the most disaffected members had been skilfully lumbered with tasks and were reluctant to open their mouths for fear of incurring more chores. Miriam was no slouch in the chair. She glanced around the table. ‘Does anyone want to say anything more about this item?’ she invited. ‘Absolutely sure? OK. Next item is crèche provision at the university. Susan has a comment.’
Louise and Miriam walked home from the meeting. Louise carried some of Miriam’s box files. Both women were inwardly seething at the way the meeting had gone but neither could voice a personal attack against one of the sisterhood. It must be done; but it would have to be done in code.
‘I’m very concerned about Josie,’ Miriam began in a pleasant tone after they had walked for a while.
Louise glanced at her.
‘She seems very stressed,’ Miriam said. ‘Stressed’ was a codeword for behaviour which in conventional society would be regarded as unreason verging on insanity.
‘She is tense,’ Louise agreed. ‘Of course she has personal problems.’ Josephine’s long-term woman lover was a student in Naomi Petersen’s department and had briefly enjoyed a staggeringly glamorous fling with her. The open nature of Josie’s relationship and the general myth of feminist solidarity precluded any complaints when Naomi suddenly favoured the young woman, took her to London to see experimental theatre, kept her overnight at her Brighton flat, lent her books, cooked her meals, and then with equal suddenness sent her, reeling with delight and totally unmanageable, home to Josie.
Neither Louise nor Miriam would discuss other people’s sexual affairs. They adhered to the belief that these matters were private and that any curiosity was vulgar and prurient. Even when they were longing to dissect a piece of rich gossip their conversation had to be conducted in a code as arcane as that of an Edwardian parlour, and always had to indicate first and foremost their concern for the people involved. ‘Josie is bound to find it difficult to work with Naomi for a while,’ Miriam said. ‘Considering her relationship difficulties.’
Louise nodded. ‘I understand that Josie and Viv are talking about a trial separation – ever since Viv spent time with Naomi.’
Miriam widened her eyes but was too restrained to demand details. ‘That’s unfortunate.’
‘Viv seems to think that she may have a future with Naomi.’
‘Oh,’ Miriam said. ‘I wouldn’t have thought Naomi was ready for a commitment.’
‘Viv is very determined. I think she went round to Naomi’s flat and virtually camped on the doorstep.’
‘It’s good that she should ask for what she wants,’ Miriam said doubtfully. ‘But I don’t know if Naomi is right for her?’
‘And Naomi is going through a rather – er – unsettled phase,’ Louise offered. Miriam nodded, understanding that Naomi’s rampant promiscuity meant that no-one stayed more than a couple of nights in her elegant flat, and that Viv might force her way in, but would be swiftly bounced when the novelty wore off.
‘She’s rather brisk,’ Louise said. ‘I thought she wanted to chair the meeting instead of you.’
‘She’s welcome to it,’ Miriam said. ‘I have all the meetings I ever want. And things change so slowly!’
‘You do wonderful work,’ Louise said absent-mindedly. ‘I couldn’t do it.’
‘Your contribution is theory,’ Miriam reassured her. ‘Have you finished that essay on Lawrence yet? Sarah told me she was waiting for it.’
Louise thought of the word processor screen still empty of anything but the little winking cursor, and the van in her orchard. ‘How can I work? Every time I look out of the window I see this huge blue van and this mad woman in it with her horrible dog.’
Miriam glanced at her. The linked topics of madness and women were as taboo as the Unipart calendar. ‘Do you mean she is ill?’ she asked rather stiffly. ‘Has she been released for care in the community? Is she alone and unsupported?’
‘I didn’t mean mad, I meant independent.’ Louise retreated rapidly. ‘She wears something like fancy dress. She seems to be alone. And I can’t help but dislike the fact that she seems to know the neighbourhood and she has parked on my land without permission. There are plenty of other places she could go.’
‘If she’s not doing any damage …’
‘She’s invading my personal space.’
Miriam shot her a quick mocking smile. ‘I didn’t know your personal space went as far as several acres.’
Louise felt herself smiling guiltily in reply. ‘Well, you wouldn’t like it if it was your front garden,’ she said.
Miriam sighed. ‘It virtually is. The phone never stops ringing. I seem to be out every night at one meeting or another. If they all came and lived in a caravan in my gard
en it would be easier to manage.’
They turned in the gate of the tall terraced house. Miriam glanced up at the illuminated windows of the top flat. ‘Oh, Hugh’s in,’ she said. ‘He might eat with us.’
She opened the front door. A thin watery smell of cooking pulses greeted them. ‘Lentils again,’ Miriam remarked without pleasure. ‘Toby has bought a New Age cookbook. We haven’t had meat for weeks.’
Louise dumped Miriam’s box files on the hall table and went through to the kitchen. Toby was stirring orange porridge in a casserole dish. Louise put her arms around him from behind and hugged him, resting her cheek against the smooth blade of his shoulder.
‘I’m starving,’ she said. ‘It smells wonderful.’
Toby did not disengage himself as Miriam came into the kitchen. He smiled at her. ‘Hello, darling, three phone messages for you.’
Miriam nodded and went out to the telephone in the hall. Toby heard her pick up the phone and dial a number. Only then did he turn to Louise and kiss her deeply on the mouth. While his left hand stirred the lentils his right hand smoothed down from her neck across her breast and down to her buttock.
‘Lovely,’ Toby said. With Miriam and Louise under his roof again he felt wealthy as a polygamous sheikh.
Hugh was not invited to join them for dinner. Toby said he had not made enough. Hugh stayed upstairs, eating baked beans with a spoon from the saucepan, tantalised by the smell of hot food and by the sound of popping corks and laughter. Hugh was Miriam’s choice of lodger. She and Louise had together decided that another woman would not be suitable. Toby’s faint, unexpressed hope, that a second woman lodger might invite him into her flat and into her bed in the morning and at weekends when Miriam was working, was disappointed before he had even acknowledged it to himself.
Hugh was researching into marine life and kept strict office hours at his studies. On Friday and Saturday nights he would go out to a modern jazz club with friends from work and get seriously but quietly drunk. Toby in his heart rather envied these bullish excursions. Toby had no friends. Colleagues at the university feared and envied the speedy progress of his career. Women tended to pass through his life, not stay. The Men’s Consciousness group which he led on Thursday nights was an area of conscientious work rather than spontaneous pleasure. Too many of the men had sexual problems, too many of them would weep over their relationship with their father. Toby would facilitate their tears and their worries over the size of their genitals but he could not grieve with them.
He knew that Men’s Consciousness groups were a pale shadow of the real thing. In this area the women had the edge. Female consciousness had the pulse of an authentic revolutionary movement. Women had so much more to say. They were angry with their mothers, with their fathers, with their kids. They had issues to challenge about social treatment. They had two thousand years of repression to cite. Every week, every day, almost every moment they suffered from inequality and had to evolve a revolutionary response. Male consciousness was nothing more than a bandwagon attempt by the left-out kids somehow to join in the game. All the unconvincing inventions of male bonding and tenderness could not conceal the fact that men were solitary, rather stupid individuals while women were spontaneously sensitive and collectively minded. Female sexuality was Toby’s delight. Male sexuality held no interest for him whatsoever. Indeed he had to conceal distaste when his brothers wanted to hug him. Except for Miriam and Louise, Toby was a solitary man.
Miriam concluded the last of her telephone calls and came into the kitchen. The table was laid, Toby and Louise were drinking wine. A glass was standing ready for her at her place.
‘Thanks,’ she said, dropping into her chair. ‘That was about the council again.’
The lease on the women’s refuge was due to expire within six months and the council were reluctant to renew. Miriam had launched a lobby campaign on councillors but battered wives were not a priority in a tourist town where income depended largely on an atmosphere of carefree perfection.
‘They’re such bastards,’ Miriam declared.
Toby and Louise nodded, looking suitably grave.
‘Help me serve,’ Toby said to Louise.
Together they arranged the soufflé on the plates and took them to the table. There was a green salad with Toby’s special salad dressing and his home-made brown bread. They opened another bottle of wine.
‘How was the meeting?’ Toby inquired.
‘Bloody awful,’ Miriam replied.
Toby smiled and helped himself to more bread. Miriam might be irritable now but after more wine and some fruit she would become sleepy and pliable. He would not make love with her, he was tired after groping with Louise in the car, but he enjoyed the reassurance of knowing that his wife and his mistress were sexually available to him. Tomorrow morning, after Miriam had brought him a cup of coffee in bed and gone to work, he would make love with Louise if he felt like it. He was a fortunate man and he knew it.
Thursday
LOUISE, driving back to her cottage after teaching a morning tutorial, had every hope of seeing an empty orchard. Instead, as she rounded the bend that Mr Miles had found so treacherous, she was greeted by the irritating sight of the big blue van and a washing line strung between two of her apple trees. Brightly coloured blouses and shapeless grey underwear were bobbing among the blossom. Louise swore, turned her car down the drive, jerked on the handbrake and marched purposefully towards the orchard.
‘Anyone home?’ she demanded truculently.
The van rocked. First the dog put his head around the door, and when he saw Louise wagged a welcoming tail. Then the old lady herself emerged. She was wearing a man’s smoking jacket in deep plum patterned silk and midnight-blue silk pyjama trousers. ‘You again,’ she said.
‘I think you should move on today,’ Louise said clearly. ‘This is my orchard and you have been here now for more than twenty-four hours. I think it’s time you went. If you want a nearby site I can telephone Mr Miles at Wistley Common Farm for you. He sometimes has a vacant field.’
The woman observed her from under the mop of hair. ‘Out all night,’ she said. ‘Did you go to a party?’
Louise found herself blushing. ‘Of course not. I was at a meeting and then I went on to dinner with friends.’
‘I’ll trouble you for some fresh water,’ the woman said. She reached inside the van and brought out the empty jug again. She jumped lightly down from the steps and strolled towards the gate, the dog at her bare heels. Louise took the jug and marched into the house. A couple of letters were pushed to one side as she opened the door into the porch. She filled the jug and stalked back down the garden path. The old woman was leaning on the gate.
‘Beautiful day,’ she commented. ‘You must enjoy the birds at dawn.’
Louise, who never woke until long after dawn, said nothing.
‘I was born here, you know,’ the old woman said conversationally. ‘In this very cottage.’
Louise could not help but be interested but she remained sulkily silent.
‘The trees were younger then,’ the old woman sighed. ‘The trees were so much younger then.’
She put out an old mottled hand and rested it against a tree trunk as an owner might stroke a favourite dog. There was a strange familiarity between her and the tree, as if the tree were responding to her touch. Louise found herself trying to picture her orchard as a field of saplings, like girls ready to dance. ‘I think you should go today,’ she said, but her voice was no longer angry.
The old woman nodded. ‘As you wish,’ she said. ‘Whatever you wish.’
Louise felt suddenly deflated, as if she had triumphed in some small act of malice.
‘What was your meeting?’ the old woman asked.
Louise shrugged. ‘It’s a committee I belong to. We’re trying to encourage older women to go on university degree courses. Every year we organise an open day and then for those that are interested we run introductory courses. This year we’re focusing on
women in science and industry.’ Louise heard her voice sounding flat and indifferent. ‘It’s a very important issue,’ she said.
‘And where did you go for dinner?’
‘To my friends’ house – Toby and Miriam. I used to rent their flat before I came to live here. Miriam and I were at university together. Toby and I …’ Louise abruptly broke off. ‘Toby is her husband,’ she said.
‘Drives a white Ford Escort car, does he?’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve been past a few times. Quite often there was the white Ford Escort parked outside.’
‘Yes,’ Louise said shortly.
The old woman smiled at her benevolently. ‘Quite a friend you are!’ she observed.
Louise could think of no response to make at all.
‘And what d’you teach, at the university?’ the woman inquired pleasantly.
‘I have an experimental post. I’m a specialist in women’s studies seconded to the Literature department on a year’s trial.’
The old woman nodded. ‘Well, I must get on,’ she said as if Louise were delaying her with gossip. She started towards the van.
‘But you are leaving today?’ Louise confirmed.
The old woman turned and waved the gaudy jug. ‘Just as soon as I get packed,’ she said. ‘As you wish.’
Louise nodded and turned and went into the house. She picked up the letters and went to read them in her study. The van, solid and blue, obscured the view of the common which she usually found so soothing. She opened the letters without needing to tear the flaps, glanced at them and put them under a paperweight. She switched on the word processor and picked up the phone to speak to Toby.
‘She says she’s leaving.’
Toby, collecting books for a seminar for which he had failed to prepare, was rather brisk. ‘Good. End of problem.’
‘I feel like a bully.’
‘Napoleon!’
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