Nature and Necessity

by Tariq Goddard

  *

  Regan pulled their bags out of the boot, finding at once that Jeremy’s was too heavy for her to take any further. Making her mind up to call him she watched his progress, over the gravel she had taken her first steps on as a toddler, passing the point of no return, as Petula came out of the front door to greet them. He was on his own now. Jeremy had proceeded ahead of Regan unwillingly and only at her insistence, since, knowing that her mother liked men who showed initiative, Regan had forced him to lead from the front. She was as desperate as he was that Petula should admire him; he was her find.

  Regan watched them approach each other, Jeremy bombing up like a fell walker eager to complete a disagreeably jagged peak, her mother betraying no body language she could recognise. All she saw at this stage was that it was mercifully unhateful; Petula was not above redirecting her ire at whoever she happened to land on. Her near-androgynous twiggyness, clad in flimsy Gucci rags suggesting a humility she intended to be obvious in a subtle way, did nothing to disguise the risk she posed to the too-eager-to-please. Regan left her holdall where it was and, straining painfully, hauled Jeremy’s sack over her shoulder, determined to play second fiddle to a fault. It crossed her mind that her friend was either planning on several changes of clothing a day, or looking to stay longer than the couple of nights planned upon. His bag was as heavy as meteorites.

  ‘Hey, Jeremy…’ she called protectively.

  To her slight annoyance, though understandably, Jeremy appeared to have forgotten her, and hobbling awkwardly over the crude indentation that was supposed to be a speed ramp, Regan wondered why her mother had not come to greet her first. The thought was selfish and frighteningly base. It was as if a reflex churlishness was there on the drive, waiting for her to come home, step on, and carry in on her shoe.

  ‘To be contemporary you must be predictive,’ she heard Petula say, responding to what was most likely a compliment. From the expression on their faces it looked like they had both noticed something neither could remark on, and seeing them absorbed in one another’s company, Regan dropped the bag, which was on the verge of breaking her back, and walked over to the neat line of cars parked in the yard.

  Petula had never taken any interest in vehicles, there were no other guests expected, yet here stood an Audi estate, two Golfs, one of them brand new, a Range Rover and a Porsche; what did her mother want with them all? There was no denying the showroom flashiness of their shining bonnets and gleaming tyres, especially considered in the light of her childhood transports, a mud-splattered Volvo and her father’s old MG, impossible to sit in and forever breaking down. Of the few conversations they had actually had in the past decade, Regan recalled her father gently steering matters round to her mother’s spending, this miniature tribute to Beaulieu Motor Museum indicating that he may have had some cause. Regan would never have described Noah as flinty or selfish, but as Petula had so often said, he tended to think of things in individual units, himself fore-mostly, rather than in abstractions like family, herself and Petula, to distil it to its essence.

  And so what if Petula used a different car every day to plunder Waitrose? Regan noticed she was doing it again, inexplicable droplets of negativity infiltrating her thoughts like bearded fireworms, banishing the generous sanity they brushed against. The desire to act as a censor, brimming over with petty moralising, was little better than coming out straight and telling Petula she was jealous of her, for what else could lie behind it? Unfortunately Regan could not entirely help herself, weakened by the effort of having to pretend she was feeling other than she was, in her mother’s company.

  Regan glared at Petula, who still had not said hello, hoping to attract her attention, and at Jeremy, who had not bothered to even thank her for the lift. It was a kind of mania that she could not keep down. Neither of them had done anything wrong. Regan tried smiling, found that she could not, so clearing her throat, called: ‘So now you’ve met Jeremy…’

  For some hidden reason she hoped never to discover, her mother was actually listening to Jeremy, who was holding forth buoyantly, coming in stronger than she would have thought possible, though judging by what she could hear, courting disaster. ‘I can only imagine. You know, what you are going through, being lied to by someone you trusted, whom you probably thought you knew inside-out, I mean, it must be one of the worst things to wake up to, being jilted by a bloke you were married to, so confusing, it must be doing your head in…’

  Regan practically choked. Talk about diving straight in at the deep end; now she feared for him! Jeremy’s lack of tact was a lack of breeding, it always showed; they never guessed that the confidence they believed was expected of them came across as simple vulgarity. Regan stopped herself again, loath to divide people in this way, and quickly amending her prejudice, decided Jeremy was a victim of nerves. She would have to come to his aid.

  Her concern was misplaced. To her amazement, her mother did not cut him short, choosing instead to pick up where he left off. ‘Yes, confusing is it in a nutshell. We confuse who we want people to be with who they are, allowing them to live up to a lie. It reminds me of that saying, I only consulted it this morning when the bomb dropped, “an atheist who values his life will let himself be burned alive rather than give lie to the view that is generally held of his bravery”. Which says it all really. At least, for me. We’re actors who read our lines off the identities others give us. Basically, that is it. It’s little wonder that we hardly know who one another are, despite sleeping in the same beds with them for years.’

  ‘For sure, it’s impossible. And great that you’re able to be so philosophical and cool about it Mrs Montague.’

  ‘Regan hadn’t told me that you read philosophy? The subject fascinates me to tell you the truth, without it I don’t know how I’d have lasted this morning out. It’s been hell from start to finish.’

  Without it? Regan reserved the right to feel some confusion of her own. Had her mother not rung her that morning for comfort; was that before or after burying herself deep in Heidegger and Heraclitus? Petula was a rock alright, but Regan could not remember her mother being this stoical on the phone, nor very much about her previously-existing love of philosophy either. What she had observed was that, like many an improvisational actress, Petula was handy with quotation.

  ‘It’s good of you to come anyway, new people always lift me up. No man has killed me yet.’

  Petula’s spirited patience with Jeremy became her, but Regan also found her forbearance annoying; what would become of their new intimacy if the suffering that announced it was already over?

  ‘The important thing is that you look great Mrs Montague, I mean it, really fresh, given what’s just happened. Not many people could bounce back this quickly. You know, I wouldn’t have believed you’ve been through what you have, if Regan hadn’t given me all the details.’

  Regan cringed; she had provided Jeremy with no more than a few guiding lines; it could only be seconds before Petula exploded.

  ‘That’s an observation that loses nothing from repetition, please make it again.’

  ‘You look great! Your husband must be a madman to up sticks.’

  Petula laughed, and casually held her arm out to Regan, touching her shoulder familiarly, while keeping her eyes firmly on Jeremy. Regan could not understand what was happening; had it been anyone but her mother she would have thought her manner unbecomingly flirty, which was of course impossible.

  ‘Don’t be too hard on him, he was Regan’s father you know, whatever his other shortcomings. It’s no one’s fault really. We simply became so much ourselves that we stopped being aware of each other except as characters bound up in our own fantasies.’

  ‘What a lovely way of speaking, do you always talk like this?’

  ‘I don’t know, I would have thought you’d already have had some experience of me knowing Regan as you do, perhaps she’s inherited some of my habits of speech.’

  For the first time since arriving Jeremy turned to
address Regan. ‘If you insist, but if you don’t mind my saying so, it’s no puzzle where she gets her looks from. And her brains. It would be an act of philanthropy if you went out and had more daughters! Mind you,’ he added, lowering his gaze to Petula’s bosom, ‘Regan hasn’t got… no, nothing! Forget it!’

  Petula scooped back her freshly trimmed wedge of hair, to indicate that though she had heard compliments along these lines many times before, she was still willing to accept them. ‘Ha! No, don’t underestimate Noah, there were brains on his side of the family too, I couldn’t have stayed married to a complete plank.’

  ‘But he couldn’t have thought deeply about leaving you, or else he wouldn’t have done it!’

  ‘Thinking, as such, wasn’t really his forte, but he was a useful manager.’

  ‘Who wants to be a manager?’

  ‘That’s not quite what I mean. Look, I judge a man’s competence and stature by how many different worlds he can manage, and there have to be at least two on the go for me to rate his achievement,’ Petula pouted, showing her game face. ‘As for Noah, judging by his dingy affairs, he must have been managing at least six or seven, whereas my son, you’ve yet to have that pleasure, he exists in one and can’t even manage that. He was supposed to phone me earlier, I charged him with a little task. He and I fight at different weights, I heavy, he light. Anyway, forget that, what I’m trying to say is that I can’t be too hypocritical. Noah and I were alike in more ways than people think. And I might have enjoyed the odd dalliance or infatuation in my time too. I’m no innocent myself you know, so you see, we’re all hypocrites. We just hope that knowledge of that hypocrisy makes us nicer people. Which is why you won’t find me bitter about any of it.’

  ‘That’s magnificently big of you Mrs Montague. I’m kind of startled by your attitude to tell you the truth.’

  ‘Petula, please, call me Petula. Or else I might go off you!’

  ‘Sorry, Petula! So, was there, if you don’t mind my asking, someone else involved in this? A third party?’

  ‘Jeremy, sorry to interrupt, but you sound like you work for the News of the World!’ Regan interrupted, ‘You can’t ask that.’

  Petula waved Regan’s objection away. ‘You could say so. But a love won at the cost of another enters the world in a diminished state.’ Petula’s voice hardened, a sudden knotted quality making the words atonal. ‘Noah’s killed his chances of future happiness on that score,’ she coughed angrily, ‘I actually feel sorry for the little table dancer he’s ended up with, I think that’s what he said she was. God alone knows what she expects from him or what he’s promised her. That’s their business. But one thing is for sure Jeremy, they’re not going to get it from me.’

  ‘Why should they?’

  Petula threw her arm back at The Heights, as though unveiling a portrait. ‘All I asked for was this, a beautiful home where the world would leave me in peace to live my life. No one needs more, or to live anywhere larger than the average home of the British middle class. Millionaire ranches and helicopter launch pads are not my thing, I leave that to others. Yes, this is about right for me so far as privilege and luxury are concerned, the rest is just conspicuous consumption. But what I love I will not give up. Still, that’s just my personal opinion. Others,’ she looked at Regan, ‘might differ.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Jeremy eyeing a forecourt the size of a small park, the building behind it larger than any private dwelling he had ever been invited to, ‘this is about right. You can’t ask for more.’

  ‘Thank you, yah, that’s it, exactly, this is about right, and I have always found that I can trust people who like it here, who feel the energy of this place. And can’t stand people who don’t. They’re not for me at all.’

  ‘I feel it alright. The energy.’

  Regan listened open-mouthed, her disbelief incapable of finding a toehold that would allow her to disrupt the performance. Had they any idea of how stupid, false and venal they sounded? She could not believe a word of what she was hearing. What was all this about her mother’s ‘infatuations’ and ‘dalliances’? She had overheard scurrilous slander, so typical of village life, whispered by poisonous gossips, yet never credited it as fact, nor seen anything that made her suspect it could be, apart from that one night with Fogle. Yet if Petula was gaily admitting as much, the truth must have been under her nose all the while. Which was crazier still; why would her mother confess to being a hussy in front of someone she had never even met before? Who exactly was the idiot here? And why stop at that revelation? All her fanciful poppycock about a ‘table dancer’, and ‘being left in peace to live her life’, the stuff about consumption and hypocrisy, it was a sham, all of it, as was Petula’s entire countenance with Jeremy. What was she playing at – had grief sent her mother mad? For the first time in their association, Regan thought she might be blind to something that everyone else thought obvious, and that loving Petula most did not mean knowing her the best. She looked at them, grinning, immersed in their bottomless, nauseous nonsense, and said, ‘Mum, what are you on about? Are you feeling… alright?’

  ‘Do you think you’ll remain, after this, on good terms with Regan’s dad?’ asked Jeremy, Regan’s question having as little effect on his hearing as the sharp squalling of gulls over the freshly ploughed fields. ‘Will it be a good break-up, do you think?’

  ‘That all depends on what you mean by good, Jeremy.’

  ‘I’m not sure. No, you know, I’m sorry. Regan’s right, I’m beginning to feel like a snoop sent over here to doorstep you! I’ve already bothered you with enough questions, probably. I don’t want to overstep the mark on our first meeting!’

  ‘Don’t be so silly, my life is an open book, anyone who knows me could tell you that. I’m not interesting enough for secrets… though I have a few.’

  Regan clenched her fist so the blood showed, not that anyone was likely to be looking. She could have killed them both, couldn’t they just shut up and be quiet and resist the urge to say another stupid word? Why was her mother leading this idiot on? It was desperate, she absolutely had to stop them from talking and proceeding as they were, but short of telling them to hold their tongues, which she knew she was incapable of, what else was there apart from storming off in a sulk? And that, she guessed, they would not mind at all. It was all too like the mistake she committed when she made ‘Never talk to me like that again’ her catchphrase when she started Nohallows; raising negative capital had never been her forte.

  ‘Would you take him back? I guess that’s what I’m getting at, do you give people second chances?’

  ‘Are you mad? If he sets foot in this place again, I’ll have his bloody guts for garters!’

  ‘Touché!’

  ‘Oh how crass!’ said Regan.

  ‘The good terms I want to be on are his knowing his place,’ continued her mother, ignoring her. ‘Crossing me by coming back here, for whatever reason, is out of the question. From now on he lives in the shadow world he has chosen to inhabit. I’ve no place for him. I don’t blame him for being what he is, and I don’t want to waste the rest of my life hating him, but that doesn’t mean I actually want anything further to actually do with the man.’

  ‘Boy, I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes if ever you get hold of him!’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t. His problems, those that will flow from this decision, are just beginning. But he never was any good at seeing that there would always be consequences. There is a saying…’ Regan groaned loudly, but Petula was unstoppable now, ‘an old saying from these parts that says that you had better trust your mistress more than your wife. I dread to think what dirt that little squaw must have on him by now, probably enough to get him to invest in a line of those clubs he met her through. And I’m sure she has got a troop of brothers and sisters, all dancing on little tables of their own, who all require paying too, regularly on the bloody hour. He’ll have a whole caravan of dependents before he knows it, and not one of them, mark me, that will be p
repared to look after him in his dotage, as I would have!’

  ‘Mum! I don’t think it’s right for us to call this… person, names. Or make assumptions about her and her, her culture and family.’

  ‘Sorry darling, I thought that would be kinder than referring to her as a whore or whatever you’d call an individual you’d find on a card in a taxi office in Manilla.’

  Regan quelled her agitation with a diplomatic ‘Please Mum, let’s change the conversation.’

  ‘Don’t take me so seriously darling, you know how I like to lash out for sport!’

  At least Petula was talking to her. Regan noticed her mother’s hands were shaking and that beneath her bonhomie, her pallor was as pale as Alaska. Instead of understanding her curious behaviour as a symptom of grief, Regan saw she had rushed to judgment once again. What she ought to have done was take her mother to one side and tell her it was all going to be okay. As it was, the pressures of the day were in danger of spoiling their reunion.

  ‘I know this is hard for you Mum, but mightn’t it be a good idea to take a bit of time out and a rest? Lie down a little before tea? You don’t want to wear yourself out. Today has been absolutely mental for you.’

  ‘Lie down, why?’

  ‘Because, because you’ve had a really hard day of course.’ ‘Hard? On the contrary dear, as I was about to say to Jeremy, I’m entering one of the most fascinating challenges of my life. The only hard bit about it is the point of the axe I’d like to bury into that little trouser snake’s head, should your father ever bring her anywhere near here!’