Death of a She Devil

by Fay Weldon

  He could pull out a front tooth, he supposed, and thus spoil his looks and meet Miss Swanson bloody but unbowed, and she might well take it as an excuse for non-attendance. But his front tooth was so perfect, so white, and strong, lining up so satisfactorily with its thirty-one companions, it seemed a pity to lose it. And besides, it would hurt. And life as a rent boy might not be so bad. You could end up in a penthouse not just a gutter. One must look at the bright side. The half-empty cup must be seen as half-full, as Miss Swanson so frequently reminded her depressed and desperate clients.

  His name was called; ‘Tyler Finch Patchett?’ Double-barrelled, so there was a sneer in the voice that called it. But Tyler had always rather liked his name. He stood up and went up to the bullet-proof screen.

  6

  Matilda Likes To Have The Last Word

  It is her job to defend her client.

  Tyler himself is a strikingly beautiful boy with an agreeable nature and a devil-may-care attitude, which I suspect masks an inner rage. His masculinity has been under attack from the beginning by mother and sisters who are firmly convinced that women are the superior sex. He is a graduate but has not been able to find employment, always beaten to the post by some girl better qualified or more submissive than he. Employers tend not to employ attractive young men if they can help it. They get above themselves and cause trouble. And pretty girls tend to shy away from them. Too much competition.

  Tyler’s father is one Gabriel Finch, a very good-looking plumber who ill-advisedly married Nicci only to leave home the day Tyler was born. He ran away to join a male revue group, Bronze Gods International, the better to delight the hearts and fire the loins of hen parties and such like, probably because it had seemed impossible to achieve the same things with Nicci at home. Nicci does not like sex with men: the idea of penetration is abhorrent to her: this very reluctance seems to make her attractive to a certain class of men.

  Nicci has many qualities, and is working hard with me to improve her mothering skills. She has toiled hard and stoically for women’s movements all her life, often in the area of reproductive rights. Interestingly enough, she continues to live in St Rumbold’s village in the shadow of the High Tower. As some crave to be near the love object, others crave to be near the hate object. This too needs to be worked through in our weekly sessions. I am well aware I have a duty of care and confidentiality to my patients, and try not to abuse it if I can help it. But it can be difficult.

  It was on my advice that Nicci broke off all contact with the She Devil in case she sought her grandchildren out and destroyed yet another generation.

  I do feel that all Nicci’s ills can fairly be laid at the door of the mother who first abandoned her, and then disinherited her and her twins when she was fifteen, when the poor girl declined to have a termination. Ruth Patchett – they call her the She Devil for good reason – had the nerve to blame the stepmother, Mary Fisher, for putting ideas into the girl’s head. As it happened, going through with the pregnancy was the most sensible thing Nicci could have done, she being under-age and the father a wealthy pillar of the community and married at that. A meal ticket for life.

  7

  Hooowoo-h, Wooo-h, Wooo-h, I Am The Ghost Of Mary Fisher

  I circle the High Tower on stormy nights, which I love. But I too can feel quite angry.

  Hear me moaning in the gale that whips around the High Tower on stormy nights and be afraid. Pull the blankets over the head. The dark is frightening; anything could happen. The electricity goes off, the candle blows out, the torch battery has gone missing. Hooowoo-h, wooo-h! The wind howls. Just you and the dark and your guilt between racing clouds; perhaps the glimpse of a blood moon. And what is that scrabbling sound on the windows, that strange shape in the moonlight? It is me, Mary Fisher, come to haunt, come to remind you of your sins (wooo-h, wooo-h!), and possibly punish you for them.

  Oh why do I waste my time? You don’t believe a word of it, do you, you don’t even notice me, you just carry on as usual and turn up the central heating. I’m a figure of fun, a suffering soul turned comedic, no longer serious. Once I was, now I’m not. That’s what death does for you if you miss the boat to heaven. Which I seem to have done.

  Once I lived here in the High Tower, scene of so many glorious fucks with Bobbo. (I reckon there’s not been another one for the past three decades.) Now I’m dead I have become part of its very bricks and mortar. There’s dry rot in the woodwork, fungal tendrils creeping sideways: the She Devil is not as secure as she thinks. Of course the ground trembles under her feet. Centuries of pride and endeavour may any day just crumble: one further battering from wind and tides may bring the whole structure tumbling down. I encourage the dry rot as best I can, fanning spores. But my ability to affect the world of now is shockingly limited.

  Once I stirred a cosmic rage in the She Devil and she in me. Called a She Devil by Bobbo, her poor provoked husband, that’s what she became. Ruth Patchett, deserted wife and mother, the feminist, the ultimate victim, came to rule the world, sitting smugly on the moral high ground in all her squalid bulk (Lord, was she plain!), casting lightning bolts of disapproval and condemnation wherever she goes.

  Ruth had all the powers of reason, social justice and Satan to back her up. All I ever had was the power of love, and that was not enough. She is still alive, and I have passed away. She won. I, poor little Mary Fisher, lost. The women of the world gave up romance, subservience and submission, and once empowered, took to hard work, truth and reality. Much good has it done them. The pain of love might sometimes seem unbearable, but oh, oh, what fulfilment, what riches, what pleasures women have lost! A generation of millennials sunk into callously copulating, digital gloom.

  8

  Valerie Valeria May Be Too Full Of Good Ideas

  She’s very pretty and pleasant, but is she as good a feminist as the She Devil supposes?

  ‘Diavolessa,’ said Valerie Valeria to the She Devil, ‘we have three things to celebrate: the winter equinox, forty years since the Institute for Gender Parity was founded, and your eighty-fifth birthday. All on the same day, the 21st of December. A great day and one for great opportunities! How about we inaugurate an annual ceremonial Widdershins Walk round the High Tower? The equinox! The IGP’s birthday, and yours too, the President heading the procession, a flood tide lapping round our feet, symbol of the inexorable rise of female power across the continents! Great copy. A PR wet dream!’

  Valerie was at her laptop as she talked, concentrating, her golden head bent over the keys, the tip of her tongue showing between scarlet lips. She was all of twenty-five years old, sixty years younger than the She Devil. She had a bold taste in lipstick. Now she lifted her head and met the She Devil’s rheumy eyes with her own clear bright blue glance.

  ‘A rather unfortunate male analogy,’ said the She Devil.

  ‘Oh not at all,’ said Valerie. ‘Women have them too. But delete, delete. Just PR dream, not wet dream, if you prefer.’

  The She Devil let it go, as seemed only prudent. One had to resign oneself to the lack of sexual inhibition in the young, and go with the flow.

  ‘The twenty-first of December!’ Valerie said. ‘Midwinter’s day. We’ll make it our own. Widdershins Day. We’ll invite the great and the good: the staff will have a day off! We’ll make it a party to remember! Oh, Diavolessa, this is so exciting!’

  Ruth quite liked being called Diavolessa. It seemed affectionate yet not over-familiar. To be known as the She Devil was all very well – suggesting as it did it might be wiser not to tangle with her – yet the Italian sonority of Diavolessa both acknowledged and softened her reputation. She hoped it would catch on.

  And she liked the way Valerie Valeria did not question, but announced, with built-in exclamation marks. She supposed she could take the girl at face value – and it was, Ruth couldn’t deny, a very attractive and unusual face – all cheekbones, planes and angles, topped by golden curly cropped hair, enlivened by quick, brilliant blue eyes, and wit
h the skinny flat long-legged figure of today’s ambitious young female. In the She Devil’s young day legs had been shorter and altogether bulkier. It was as though the patriarchal society had managed to squash them down and inhibit their normal growth, stop the female body stretching towards the sun.

  Valerie had turned out to be an exemplary employee of the Institute – a competent, literate, dedicated feminist with a PhD from the University of Sydney – just full of rather misjudged enthusiasms: of which the She Devil feared this Widdershins Day might be one. It was nearly a year since Valerie had applied to be the She Devil’s PA, and since then she had become indispensable: an efficient, sensitive and pleasant help and companion, but perhaps not as level-headed as the She Devil had hoped. But one had to be conscious of the paranoia which came with advancing age, though, and not let it take hold.

  ‘But the twenty-first of December, midwinter? It will be so cold!’ protested the She Devil. ‘And since, as you say, it’s a very high tide the rocks will be far too wet and slippery for any sort of procession. And why on earth Widdershins?’

  ‘Because it sounds so good,’ said Valerie, ‘and it will catch on! The Widdershins Women’s Walk! And it’s fun. It’s not like you to be so negative, Diavolessa,’ said Valerie, the bright eyes briefly clouding over. ‘In these days of the Internet, markets as conversations and so on, feminists can’t afford to be negative and lag behind. Today’s price of progress is eternal vigilance and a catchy phrase! I shall be there, oh Diavolessa, to hold your arm as you lead the Widdershins Women’s Walk, the High Tower’s Own. I will not let you fall!’

  The prospect of a nasty, wet, cold equinox didn’t disturb Valerie Valeria at all. But then she didn’t seem to feel the cold herself, going round winter and summer in jeans and striped t-shirt, with a skimpy waist-length cashmere cardigan on top if the temperature fell below freezing. The She Devil had to shroud herself in woollies, and maintain a room temperature at 70 degrees Fahrenheit in order to be comfortable. Once excessive heat or cold had annoyed her yet not curtailed her actions. Now they did. She must remember that midwinter was not such a source of fear to others as it was to her. But Widdershins? Really? Widdershins was unlucky.

  ‘Wipe the twenty-first of December from your mind, Valerie,’ said the She Devil briskly. ‘I am old I know, but growing older is nothing to celebrate, let alone remind others about. Age is bad for business. So no party. No Widdershins. Concentrate on the IGP brochure. It’s more than a week late and the Board is getting restive. I’ll take a look at it tomorrow.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Valerie Valeria, meekly. But really, meek was not in her nature.

  The wind got up and howled around the High Tower; the buzz of the central heating changed its tone; the She Devil went to warmer quarters and Valerie reached for her skimpy little red cashmere cardigan.

  9

  A Life Of Constant, If Misguided, Endeavour

  The old lady tries to sleep, broods, and feels sorry for herself.

  Well, what is to be done? The past is what one made it. ‘The Moving Finger writes and, having writ, moves on,’ as the poet said, though I can’t for the life of me remember which poet it was. I left school when I was sixteen, my parents not favouring education for girls. I would have a hard enough time in the marriage market, they thought, without having learning added to my other shortcomings. How did the poem go on?

  Nor all thy Piety nor Wit,

  Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

  Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

  And death is death however it comes. I haven’t long to go. No doubt the curses of the living help it on its way, and I’ve had curses enough. But let them curse away. I am old, old, old, I would quite like to die. I am tired, my business is done, I am satisfied. The world is as I want it: women triumphant, men submissive.

  There are plenty who praise me for what I have done. I, Ruth Patchett, She Devil, honoured by Her Majesty the Queen for Services to the Community, now Dame Ruth Patchett of St Rumbold’s. I took my name from the little village at the foot of the High Tower. I seldom visit the village. It’s small, depressed and boring. I prefer to sweep through it in my armoured S-Class Mercedes, bought at dear Valerie’s insistence. I am President of the Institute of Gender Parity, a major incorporated charity, a community of women living and working in the High Tower. Our mission is to bring about equality of dignity and wealth between the genders. I wear the royal badge with pride, the only jewel a feminist can legitimately wear. And still my children will not talk to me.

  There is a man living in the High Tower, spoiling the perfection of our all-female community. Bobbo. A male-free environment seems so difficult to achieve! Not because Bobbo is the husband who walked out on me and in so doing set me free. Not from any lingering fondness, I assure you, but because in their bureaucratic folly the Charity Commissioners decided that to justify a claim for gender parity there must be at least one male on our Steering Committee. My old husband Bobbo was a suitable cipher so I recommended him. He was a monster but these days he’s no trouble. He suffers from dementia but is legally fit to sign a form. He no longer recognises me when he sees me, or else he mistakes me for Mary Fisher (which still has power to hurt, as though I were a girl again). He just dribbles and looks vacant.

  So I take care not to see him more than I have to. I hired a carer to look after him, Samantha. She refuses to live in but comes in daily. Security looks in on him by night and Dr Simmins visits once a week. Old Bobbo, once so vigorous, now this wretched scrap of living flesh! Timor futuri perturbat me. And custodum, come to that. My carers, my guards. Dr Simmins says I must prepare for the worst.

  Too late for remorse; all, all too late. I am eighty-four, so old, so tired, so weak that tears of grief start to my eyes unasked, and at the slightest provocation. I will weep at the sight of an apple tree in bloom, or the beauty of clouds lit by a rising sun, but most of all I weep for what I was, for what I did. Mary Fisher is dead, Bobbo is all but dead, and my children will not speak to me.

  10

  A Dream Turned Sour...

  Bobbo, confined to his bed in the High Tower, has no distraction but his own disagreeable thoughts. Serves him right!

  I reckoned, when all those years back I left Ruth and the kids and moved into the High Tower with that slag Mary Fisher, I’d be able to do a bit of gene spreading. Kids, even. But when it came to it, the willing bird got less and less willing. She was too old: she’d lied about her age: nothing like deceit to put an honourable man off. She put one over on me with all that make-up, and I twigged her game too late. Got all lovey-dovey and never enough sex. ‘Don’t mess my hair, don’t smudge my lipline. I have a deadline. Please no, Bobbo, not now.’

  Bitch. I should have been warned. I came to hate her. Things began well, but after Ruth burst in on us, me and her together on the white velvet sofa, and handed over her kids, the lovey-dovey dream began to turn sour.

  I’d think about that, ladies, if I were you. Sneer away all you want, but you’re not going to have it your way for long. You think you’ve put us men in our place, but we’re having you on. We let you have a go for form’s sake, but everyone can see that the more you take the top jobs the more you make a mess of them. We’re stronger and taller and have better brains than you, and we’re a good deal more ruthless. Revolt of the bloody dinosaurs? It’s on its way.

  I heard you! Old trout of a dried-up slag, Dr Simmins, I’m not as deaf as you suppose. ‘We must prepare for the worst.’ You can fucking well prepare all you like, I’m not ready to go. There’s life in the old man yet.

  11

  Actuality Becomes Irrelevant

  Valerie Valeria does her best for the brochure.

  Next morning, and Valerie Valeria is working on the brochure when the She Devil, refreshed and enlivened by a good night’s sleep – she took sleeping pills in the end – and a good breakfast (porridge, no salt, no sugar, no cream, but freshly squeezed orange juice), creeps up unseen behind Va
lerie to see what she has on her screen.

  ‘The High Tower, an ancient and important Heritage site, is a fitting home base for IGP’s varied charitable activities. And what a history it has! Built in 1646 to act as a lighthouse to warn mariners when they were too close to the rocks – but also, it is said, as a sumptuous hidey hole for the beleaguered King Charles I.’

  ‘A good attempt,’ says Lady Patchett. ‘But your sentences are too long. Keep it brief and snappy. Readers of funding pitches have a very short attention span. And I am not sure of your historical accuracy.’

  ‘I put in the “it is said” to be on the safe side,’ says Valerie Valeria and grits her teeth. She is accustomed to praise, not criticism.

  ‘In 1664 the tower was destroyed by male parliamentarians, who razed all spires, pinnacles and gilded balustrades to the ground, including the metal reflecting mirrors. Two ships went down as a result. In 1815 Ada Lovelace, wife to Charles Babbage and inventor of the first computer, designed an ingenious array of mirrors so the light could be seen five miles away.’