I loved the beginning and end of each day. Falling asleep became a swooning pleasure. Sometimes it was like falling slowly down a well, but on other nights it was leaping off the cliff of my pillow into gorgeous spinning blackness. Waking was a warm climb from absolute ease into a state where I lay, half-stunned and splendid, protected for some minutes from the day by the heat-shivering vividness of dreams. The best dream was of the sea, surfy and crystalline, where men raced naked and white as dolphins and I was carried up effortlessly to the point of laughter on great glassy waves.
My new way of life was turning me into an odalisque. I had never before appreciated the pleasures of indolence. I spent hours in the bath, or polishing my fingernails. My face grew sleek and smooth with all this sleep and idleness. At work I was surprised to notice how few people were affected by my new-found langour. One man complained that I was not completing my usual work-load but I merely shrugged my shoulders and made up some story about a broken typewriter. I have shed the load of worry I was born with. I shall never do more for money than I have to again.
One morning just before Christmas, Tom sat with me opening our cards. He was spruce and ready for the office. I was still in my nightdress and had not even combed my hair. We drank tea and slit envelopes with teaspoons. A great batch of cards had arrived, more than a dozen, and soon the coverlet was spread with angels and madonnas and nativity scenes.
‘Aren’t the stamps pretty this year,’ I said, showing Tom the little picture of Joseph with his arm round Mary’s shoulder and her hand smoothing the head of the infant Jesus.
Tom’s arms held me in a hug.
‘You’re not too worried about anything much these days, are you?’ he commented. He went to the door and stood there, briefcase in hand. ‘Lazy girl. I must be off. I’ll try not to be late back.’
On Christmas Eve we went to bed early again, and turned to each other. I cannot describe the closeness, the warmth of breath and ideal delight of movement. Ah, he said softly, and fell from me, curved round me, fell soundly asleep with his arms round my neck while I breathed in and out, watching his face in the dusky air. I turned my head and observed my relaxed fingers, the whorls on the palms, the oriental criss-cross patterns on the surface of the skin between the fingers. I saw the early stars, over his head, at the window, and felt I was almost near to understanding about them. I fell asleep.
Flares of gold disturbed the dreamlessness. I became aware of the sun on my eyelids. My eyelashes fringed a private pavilion of hot pale colour. Beneath my cheek the warmth of the pillow was delicious, and I moved my face slightly once or twice to receive the full vellum softness of the linen.
When I opened my eyes, I saw his face asleep on the pillow beside me, one hand cupped under it, fine and serious. Each feature was fine, attenuated, carven, the eyelids solemn and the mouth curved and cut like a fruit. It was cold outside, I could feel the snap of frost in the air on my face, and there was a distant clamour of bells from St Christopher’s two roads away. We were warm under our covers.
It was Christmas morning, of course, I thought, taking this as an explanation for the ecstatic complacence which filled me. I leaned across and kissed his curving mouth awake.
What Are Neighbours For
MRS BRUMFITT CROSSED the room sideways and at speed, making for the comparative obscurity of the corner chair. She was tree-limbed, with beetling unplucked eyebrows that gave her a false scowl. Hilary thanked her for the Mr Kipling Almond Slices, and they talked for a minute or two about The Jungle Book, which neither of them had read though Mrs Brumfitt had seen the film. And Mowgli? asked Hilary: any news of Mowgli? Mrs Brumfitt’s eyes dimmed to pebbles and she shook her head roughly.
Chitra arrived next and understood at once.
‘Ah, poor Mowgli,’ she sighed. ‘It is the fur coat gang, I saw it on television.’
‘You look nice,’ said Mrs Brumfitt enviously, wiping her eyes, angry again that her own clean crimplene was the best Large Lady mail order could manage for under fifty pounds.
‘Terribly pretty,’ agreed Hilary. Her own jeans and sweatshirt appeared churlish now that she saw they had both made an effort. The lilac of Chitra’s shot-silk sari caused her skin to glimmer like verdigris. In her left nostril was a star-shaped diamond, and big silver filigree bells hung from her ears. Her feet peeped out in crimson beaded slippers.
‘Here are some cakes from my husband’s favourite shop,’ she said, ‘and here are some pakora which I made myself.’
She arranged herself on the sofa, beaming around her with appreciative delicacy.
‘What a lovely room,’ she said.
You must be joking, thought Hilary, who had hated this dreary back parlour from the very first day. She unpacked the cakes, which were pistachio green, amber and cream-coloured globes and bars.
‘They are made with milk curds that take twelve hours to cook,’ called Chitra from the sofa.
‘Twelve hours!’ said Mrs Brumfitt. ‘Some people must have time on their hands.’
Hilary wondered what to do with the pakora, placing them at last between the egg sandwiches and the Scotch pancakes. When she went to open the door for her last guest, Chitra and Mrs Brumfitt were muttering together with some vehemence about their husbands. Only yesterday she had spied Mr Brumfitt from the bathroom window, perched up a ladder fixing a new plastic down-pipe while his wife yelled at him, ‘You poxy old devil.’ Or perhaps it had been, ‘You foxy old devil.’ Mrs Brumfitt was deeply dissatisfied with him, for the way he refused to eat spiced foods or go out and about or paint the house. When Hilary had asked her to tea, she had responded with immediate wrath: ‘I can’t invite anyone round till he’s decorated.’
Stefania stood puffing in splendour after her climb to Hilary’s upstairs maisonette. She was bearing a large pannetone in a sky-blue box.
‘For you,’ she said, with a grand gesture as though they were both on stage. Her aquamarine dress and della Robbia eyelids dazzled Hilary, who had only seen her before in shapeless coats, generally with a bag on wheels in tow.
‘And who else, I wonder, will be here at your tea party?’ said Stefania as they walked along the hall. The smile slid from her face like an omelette from its pan when she caught sight of Mrs Brumfitt in the corner. She turned stonily, rearranged her features into some fresh approximation of sweetness, and greeted Chitra with a lordly smile.
‘I almost did not come, Hilary,’ she said, sinking into a chair. ‘I have had such a headache all the morning. I said to my husband, this is too much to bear, perhaps I will not go.’
‘I hope you feel better now,’ said Chitra.
Stefania smiled bravely through half-closed lids, and pressed her temples with her index fingers.
‘What about a paracetamol,’ said Hilary.
‘That’s a doctor speaking,’ said Mrs Brumfitt.
Stefania shook her head and closed her eyes completely.
‘Give me two minutes only,’ she whispered.
Hilary thought, if you turned up in my surgery with an act like that, I’d give you short shrift. She was practical and careful in her approach to her work, but a shade underpowered on the empathising front; she took some satisfaction in sending moaning minnies away with fleas in their ears.
‘How brave and clever you are to be a doctor,’ said Chitra, once they were sitting in a circle around the tea table. ‘All that blood.’
‘Girls today,’ said Mrs Brumfitt. ‘There’s no stopping them. My Jill, the one who’s in computers – you met her, Chitra – well, she makes all her own loose covers and curtains, plays squash, goes to Spanish conversation and cooks Rob a hot meal every night.’
‘How does she have time for preparing hot meals after work?’ asked Chitra.
‘She does it all beforehand in a Slow Hotpot,’ said Mrs Brumfitt triumphantly, ‘then she bungs some baked potatoes in the microwave. That girl is so organised it makes my head spin. She’s made time for everything except babies.’
Hi
lary passed the sandwiches round. She was twenty-nine and had been qualified for two years. She had just managed to land a partnership in a local practice, starting in three weeks’ time, after lengthy stints of locum work. Now it looked as though things were about to grind to a close with Philip, more from apathy than for any dramatic reason, plus the fact that he seemed incapable of behaving like an adult. Well, she would be earning enough to be able to buy him out. The question was, whether she should see if she couldn’t get pregnant before he left, without telling him, of course. Caroline had managed it before Archie went, and claimed the child was infinitely preferable to the man. This new job gave fairly decent maternity leave, too. She wouldn’t be able to afford a nanny yet but she’d have quite enough to pay child-minders, although they’d obviously need to be backed up by a dependable neighbour or two. She looked thoughtfully around the table.
The conversation had turned to animals.
‘You know Mowgli has disappeared,’ said Chitra to Stefania.
‘It was a fox,’ said Stefania firmly. ‘My Sammy came back four nights ago with deep tooth marks each side of his muzzle. You’re not telling me a dog did that.’
‘Poor Mrs Brumfitt,’ said Chitra softly, watching her next-door neighbour sag in her chair. They had been on friendly terms for a decade now, but Mrs Brumfitt remained on surname terms with everyone and had done so ever since she got married, blighted as she had been with an unmentionable Christian name. Fanny? Boadicea? Whatever it was, nobody was likely to find out. Even her children did not know it. She gnawed savagely at a Grantham gingerbread, fighting back the tears. What that cat had meant to her was nobody’s business. Now all she had left to think about was her growth, maybe benign, King’s had said, and maybe not. Nobody knew about it except the hospital. It might have been some relief to ask Hilary, her being a doctor, though she probably didn’t know much since she was only just out of medical school. Also, she never seemed to have much time for you – she was always in such a tearing hurry – very like Jill. This tea was a turn-up for the books. She must be bored waiting for her new job. Either that, or she was after something.
Chitra said, ‘In my former life I had cats, dogs, geese, goats, parrots, so it was a full day running around playing with them all.’
‘Spiders are the only one of God’s creatures I cannot love,’ declared Stefania with an elaborate shudder. ‘My God, there was one the size of this teacup on the kitchen floor when I came down this morning.’
‘What did you do?’ asked Mrs Brumfitt.
Stefania ignored her. Mrs Brumfitt’s forehead flushed livid. Chitra became as agitated as a bird.
‘Snakes make me full of horror,’ she twittered, her eyes large and bright.
‘I’m not too keen on eels,’ said Hilary.
‘Eels!’ said Stefania in low thrilling tones. ‘I love eels! From Condon’s I ordered two live eels last February and I carried them home wrapped up in newspaper.’
‘Didn’t they struggle?’ said Hilary.
‘No. There is something about being rolled in the newspaper that transfixes them. When I was a young girl in Palinuro, we used to get up in the middle of the night and go down to the stream with forks. Then we stabbed the eels as they swam. How beautiful they were to fry.’
‘I like them jellied,’ mumbled Mrs Brumfitt, determined to stay in the conversation.
‘How delightful, Hilary – chocolate éclairs,’ said Stefania, artificial as a West End farce.
‘Marks and Sparks,’ said Hilary brusquely. She poured more tea.
‘I have been reading a book on etiquette,’ announced Chitra, ‘and it says to add the milk afterwards.’
‘You put hot milk in tea, Chitra, don’t you,’ said Mrs Brumfitt with interest.
‘Oh yes, my first husband always insisted on hot milk,’ said Chitra, and sighed. ‘He was a banker. We were used to an enormous social circle. We knew a thousand people. I have gone steadily down. We moved; we knew then maybe five hundred. We moved again. A hundred. Then fifty. Now barely twenty. I have come from the heights in my own country to nothing here in Herne Hill.’
‘Herne Hill,’ spat Stefania. ‘My God, sometime I stand at my front gate and stare at the view of all these red bricks, I think, my God how came I into Herne Hill, I who used to look from my front door out over the blue sea.’
‘After the war, wasn’t it,’ commented Mrs Brumfitt. ‘No work down your part of Italy.’
Stefania’s features writhed.
‘How long have you lived here?’ asked Hilary hastily.
‘Thirty-eight years,’ said Stefania, composing herself with an effort.
‘Ever since I got married to him,’ said Mrs Brumfitt, jerking her chin in the direction of her own house.
‘How nice it must have been when you both had young children,’ said Chitra daringly. ‘Did they play together in your gardens?’
‘A fair bit,’ said Mrs Brumfitt, ‘Though Heather and Maria-Grazia used to fight something shocking. I had to throw a bucket of water over them once.’
‘Small babies are best,’ beamed Chitra. ‘All day you can pick them up, put them down, wash them, put them down, clean them up, put them down. But toddlers! Great heavens! Always running here and there! What you must do is get a big strong playpen.’
‘I have seven children,’ announced Stefania. ‘In Italy we love our bambini.’
‘Babimbi?’ repeated Chitra, tasting the word.
Stefania discharged a cackle of hard-boiled merriment. ‘Babimbi, babimbi, babimbi,’ she mimicked. Then, as though to an idiot, she leaned across to Chitra and enunciated, ‘Bam-been-ee!’ She rolled her eyes at Hilary, sharing the joke with someone Educated.
‘I do not know Italian,’ murmured Chitra, who had, however, a full command of Urdu, Punjabi and Parsee.
‘Seven children is a lot,’ said Hilary, rather coldly.
‘Yes,’ shrugged Stefania. ‘They came easily. Like rabbits.’
‘You love your … bambini,’ suggested Chitra, polite to the bitter end.
‘Of course,’ said Stefania. ‘I am a good mather. A very good mather. They are my life and joy.’
Mrs Brumfitt crumbled the remains of a flapjack between strong nicotine-ochred fingers. Stefania knew that she knew that Stefania had not spoken to her married daughter Paola for two years, even though she was only down the road in Crystal Palace and had a six-month-old baby to cope with. Stefania had not even set eyes on this her first grandchild, and all because of a quarrel which had shot up like a beanstalk from a Boxing Day squabble concerning Darwin’s ideas about monkeys. There was also Valerio, with his off-the-back-of-a-lorry dealings and his dodgy nocturnal hours, while Lorella’s boohooing, clearly audible through the party wall, regularly kept her awake at night. And Maria-Grazia had gone right off the rails. Mrs Brumfitt clamped her mouth shut. This was the umpteenth time over the years that Stefania had decided she wasn’t speaking to her for some daft reason or other. Well, she wasn’t going to eat dirt again, today or any other day.
‘It is a good party, Hilary,’ said Chitra, nodding her head and smiling. ‘How nice it is to sit here talking about such things with friends. In my country I talk only with the men; I cannot put up with more than twenty minutes with the women because always they talk of the same things: clothes and jewellery, clothes and jewellery.’
‘Well, they’ve got nothing else, have they,’ commented Mrs Brumfitt.
‘Myself, I like art and the creative life,’ Chitra continued. ‘I have written poetry, in other places where there was society. Most of it I wrote in Urdu. One only has been English – I wrote about how I was happy to be here but I did not like to see the sad old people stuffed away in Homes.’
It’s a toss-up between her and Mrs Brumfitt, thought Hilary. Stefania is obviously a complete nightmare.
‘Last year I went to pottery classes,’ continued Chitra. ‘We made beautiful ducks to hang on the wall.’ She petered out, dispirited by their lack of interest.
Silence descended over the tea table. Stefania had retreated beneath half-closed azure canopies, brooding on some private bitterness, not bothering to conceal the fact that she was not listening. Mrs Brumfitt was concentrating on the stabbing pains which had started up two or three minutes ago. Were they simple indigestion, or to do with you-know-what?
Hilary felt restless and wondered when she could decently start winding up proceedings. A tea party was the only feasible way she could have got them together without their husbands, but she found all this bread and cake rather disgusting, nothing but refined sugar and carbohydrate. These three looked as though they could do with losing a few stone between them. In fact most of the people she saw wandering around this part of London looked acutely in need of some brisk exercise, as she told them in no uncertain terms when they turned up at her surgery. Out shopping for the cakes that morning she had shaken her head over the sign in the dentist’s high street window: ‘Free McDonald’s voucher with every check-up.’
‘I must go now,’ said Stefania without warning, waking from her reverie.
‘If you must,’ said Hilary, who had already mentally dismissed her anyway. She showed her to the door.
Mrs Brumfitt was telling Chitra about her last Sunday outing to Jill’s in Lewisham.
‘We had a ploughman’s lunch in a pub, a piece of cheese this size’ – folding her napkin into a large triangle – ‘stacks of bread, pickle, I don’t know how much else, and all for two pounds fifty.’
Hilary looked assessingly at Mrs Brumfitt’s mulberry cheeks and meaty forearms; she considered her heavy way of walking, and the coughing sessions she could hear every morning through the kitchen wall as she worked through her bowl of muesli. No, she decided, not without regret; Mrs Brumfitt wouldn’t be up to the demands of a young baby for more than an hour at a time, though it might be possible to leave it with her during trips to Safeways or while out jogging. Chitra, on the other hand, looked fit and energetic for her age, and would probably be quite grateful for something like this to help fill her days.
Four Bare Legs In a Bed Page 5