Death of a She Devil

by Fay Weldon

  It might be a very pretty young head, but perhaps not as clever as I had assumed. I am beginning to feel rather annoyed with her.

  ‘But a big party would be so good for morale, don’t you think? And I’m happy to get it all together. A bit of excitement and good cheer? It can get to feel cut off and boring for everybody out here, and the food here can be a bit sad. We could have canapés and champagne for our Widdershins Walk, our equinox party! And the media would come in droves. Oh do let’s, Diavolessa, do let’s!’

  High Tower food is perfectly serviceable. I’m not interested in food. Canapés are a wicked waste. One mouthful and all that time and effort gone for nothing. But I weaken. I can see the advantage of such publicity. Equinox, parity, equality; an Institute anniversary; my own birthday. All on the one day. Media fodder. The girl is probably right.

  ‘Very well,’ I say. ‘Start the ball rolling. We have something to celebrate, and we need to remind the public what the IGP has achieved.’

  ‘Oh wow!’ she says. ‘A party!’

  19

  For The Small-Minded, Small Things Are Important

  Flora Bradshap nurtures her grudge.

  Ms Bradshap thought that, in the great scheme of things, alive or dead mattered very much indeed. She hadn’t heard from let alone seen her ex-husband Roy for at least twenty years. Perhaps he had died and the disordering of her pencils was some kind of message from him from beyond the grave, the best a ghost could do? Was Roy saying he forgave her? But surely it should be the other way round? He was the one who needed forgiveness; she had been right to go. She had been in an abusive relationship, and it had taken a consciousness raising group to point it out. She had seen what she had seen; she did not make mistakes.

  The She Devil had then made Ms Bradshap feel far more foolish than she deserved. For a full five mornings after her request Lady Patchett had come up tip-tapping with her stick, following Ms Bradshap to check the arrangement of her pencils when she opened up. There had been no disturbance, though the mushroomy smell of dry rot had got worse morning by morning. This the She Devil had failed to notice.

  ‘Strange smell, Flora? What smell? Oh, that! That’s just some seaweed gone mouldy outside, I daresay. The next high tide will wash it away. You are becoming rather odd, Flora. Perhaps you should see Dr Simmins about your hormones?’

  Flora Bradshap found herself reflecting that with Alzheimer’s one of the first symptoms was loss of the sense of smell – when an old person can’t tell the difference between a freshly cut onion and a freshly cut apple they need to take medical advice. She herself had a keen sense of smell. Should so important an organisation as the IGP be left in the hands of someone who could not even detect the smell of dry rot? Someone whose age, as Valerie would put it, meant others had to take up the slack? Perhaps Ms Bradshap had been too short with Valerie and her latest bright idea. She must take care to make amends. Valerie was very popular with the Board and might even be drafted onto it. The She Devil had an unreasonable amount of power, being self-appointed Chairperson of the Board, CEO and President, all three. Everyone must see that. Elections would be in February: for four decades they had been a foregone conclusion. This time others must stand, at least for the Chair. The median age of the Board was seventy-two. At sixty-five Ms Bradshap was one of the youngest. The IGP needed new younger blood: someone not forever in need of an afternoon nap.

  Even now as Ms Bradshap looked at the neat row of rainbow-coloured pencils on her desk she could have sworn she saw the indigo and violet pencils lift up and place themselves before the green. She struck her forehead with her hand and when she was able to look again the pencils were back in their proper order.

  These things were happening in her own neurotic head. She couldn’t even smell the mushroomy dry-rot smell any more. Banging her head so hard with her own hand seemed to have shaken her out of some kind of paranoiac episode, which albeit unreasonably she blamed the She Devil for provoking in the first place.

  20

  Samantha Stands By Her Man...

  ...old and demented though he might be.

  Samantha had a good job up there at the High Tower. The Institute for Gender Parity paid above the odds, and she was saving up to afford a degree course in Social Care she planned to take when old Mr Patchett moved on. It was bound to happen but she would be sorry when it did. She had become almost fond of him. He said dreadful things sometimes, and most would dismiss him as a foul-mouthed dirty old man, but he spoke the truth the way he saw it.

  There’d been a certain amount of unpleasantness when she broke it to Human Resources that she was going to get married and would live henceforth down in St Rumbold’s village. She’d been upset enough that there’d been not a hint of congratulation from the all-female staff, let alone a whip-round. So much for sisterhood. She’d known better than to send out wedding invitations. Even so, someone had muttered androphile after her on the stairs. She’d looked up the word on Google. It meant lover of men. Well, so she was and so she did: she loved Chris and that was that.

  But now she was not just married but pregnant too. HR would really hate it if they found out – marriage was disloyalty; procreation wicked and irresponsible. She’d resolved to keep quiet about it as long as she could, at least until the time came to start worrying about maternity benefits, and she’d managed for five whole months. But she couldn’t keep it secret forever. Forget HR, she wouldn’t put it past the old biddies on the Board to try to make her abort if the baby was a boy. She did seem to remember there’d been a clause – along with a confidentiality agreement – saying she had no intention of getting pregnant for four years. But she didn’t think she’d ever actually signed it and, even if she had, HR were always in such a muddle they wouldn’t have checked, and it hadn’t been intentional anyway: a condom had split.

  And what could the Institute do about it anyway? They weren’t going to find anyone prepared to look after old Bobbo Patchett in a hurry, let alone anyone who actually cared about him. She’d recently smuggled in an iPad so he could keep up with current porn while he was awake, and she, Samantha, could keep in touch with her many Facebook friends on it while he slept.

  Lady Patchett’s eyesight was bad and she wasn’t likely to cause any trouble, let alone notice Samantha’s figure. She hardly ever came up to see the poor old man, anyway – once it had been for a photo shoot when the concept of ‘the compassionate feminist’ had been all over the media, with the She Devil at Bobbo’s bedside, explaining to the cameras how upsetting it was to see the husband she had once so loved in his present mindless state, a soul trapped in a derelict body, not even able to recognise his nearest and dearest, and so on. Samantha thought Bobbo recognised his wife well enough.

  On that occasion he’d certainly found his tongue.

  ‘Get away from me, She Devil,’ he’d cried, and they’d had to turn the camera off. ‘Bring out the garlic, the wooden cross! It’s the bat-mistress from hell herself.’ And another photo-op had been spoiled when Bobbo leapt from his bed and opened the window. ‘Off they go! The black bats, the black bats! The shadow of lies darkens the land. Male the villain, female the victim. Avaunt thee, foul she-demon!’ and so on and so forth, until the She Devil left, weeping crocodile tears for Ellen the photographer to catch.

  Bobbo was confused and mad but he had the gift of the gab and was not stupid. Sometimes Samantha could almost see the bats flowing out from the High Tower, spreading darkness through light, like some scene from The Lord of the Rings, Part 1, her favourite film.

  And whenever the wind started howling, Bobbo would start up in his bed. ‘Frigid bitch!’ he’d cry out. ‘Lying, frigid bitch!’ and then lie back in bed again and sob as if his heart would break and the wind would howl and howl as if to keep him company. It was a good thing Samantha was not the superstitious kind or she would have said the Lantern Room was haunted.

  As it was, Samantha, on reflection, decided her continued employment was secure enough, at least until B
obbo’s death or the baby’s arrival, whichever came first. She knew where the bodies were buried, as it were. And she had a kind of fellow feeling with the ghost, if that was what it was, and that would keep her safe.

  21

  Surely Someone Else’s Fault?

  Memories can be so elusive.

  My power nap has failed to empower me. I am too disturbed. This girl Valerie seems to know more about me than I do myself. She must have been snooping round in the Archives. A grandson! I suppose I have to accept him as real. Forget the impostor story. Nicci had a son? Did I ever know, or have I just forgotten? One forgets so much. Things in the past fade out.

  I’d actually tried to get hold of Nicci lately. One gets milder and sorrier as one gets older. I’d even gone on Facebook, against my principles – I leave all that social media stuff to Valerie – and been instantly unfriended. So she must know of my existence, and does not choose to get in touch. It still hurts, though I daresay I deserve it. But surely it was up to Mary Fisher to look after the little by-blows she had been so keen to bring into the world. Abort, abort, I had said to Nicci, what about your future? But she hadn’t listened. Just keep out of my life, she said. At the time I wanted nothing more to do with her and hers.

  And now, apparently, after the girls, who I believe were not a success, a grandson! And so like Nicci, with her appetite for ugliness, landing the child with a vulgar American-sounding name. Tyler. But getting in touch with the boy as Valerie is so keen for me to do? I am not sure. Wearing a crown and walking backwards with the lad as mythical family? Absurd.

  But Valerie is so persuasive. I have scarcely been in my bed twenty minutes or so when there is a knock on my door and it’s Valerie saying she has a bunch of party invitations which she needs me to sign if they’re to catch the post, the personal touch being so important – I thought I’d said no to this party of hers but it seems to be going ahead: I must have misremembered. And also, the dear girl, she is bringing a cup of the extra strong coffee she brews especially for me, Ms Bradshap serving only decaf in the canteen. I put on my red dressing gown and let her in. She is still going on about happy families and myself and my grandson hand in hand. I quite like the sound of ‘your grandson’, I have to admit.

  ‘I am not sure a granny image suits me,’ I say, cautiously. ‘I need time to come to terms with all this. A boy, you say. It would be so different if he were a girl.’

  ‘Feminism is evolving, Lady Patchett.’

  ‘Feminism will never change,’ I say, automatically: how many times have I not said it? ‘The battle for equality is eternal, and its price is vigilance.’ Valerie doesn’t seem to hear: just goes on with her riot of exclamation marks.

  ‘We need to be young and cheerful! To show the world that feminist men are welcome! Too long we’ve been identified with the old, the humourless and the drab! Tyler knows you’re his grandma but his mother won’t let him speak to you. She’s in therapy. But Tyler’s so lovely! And I’m supposed to be a lesbian!’

  She will go on about it so. Of course she is a lesbian. Who isn’t, these days? It is such an obvious simple step out of the clutches of the patriarchy. If only I had been told about a granddaughter, not a grandson. A Tanya not a Tyler. If she was halfway intelligent I could have trained her up. She could have been the one to take over.

  ‘This Tyler,’ I ask. ‘Is he heterosexual or gay?’

  ‘A very second wave question,’ she remarks. ‘Fluid, I daresay, like so many of us.’

  It’s all too much. Don’t wish for family in case you get it. The last thing I really want, I realise, is for Tyler to speak to me. ‘My children will not speak to me,’ has created a kind of runnel in my brain through which a whole lot of universal complaints and emotions have got diverted.

  The Board had chosen Valerie Valeria from a hundred and fifty-two applicants, all of them with good feminist credentials – her insistence on wearing lipstick overlooked because she was so bright, competent, quick and cheerful, full of ideas, understood social media and, not least, how to charm and manage their CEO and President, the She Devil, and keep her on her toes and up to date. And now she is certainly keeping me on my toes with the Widdershins Walk.

  Valerie had built a successful funding campaign around the fact that the High Tower had once been a lighthouse. ‘Light into the Life,’ her mantra went. ‘As once it shone as a beacon for shipwrecked mariners, now the High Tower shines into the lives of women and men and guides relationships to safe harbour.’ The High Tower, as a phallic symbol shining through stormy, foamy waves, was now a logo on all Institute publications and had certainly attracted funding. Donations had come pouring in. It had seemed somewhat crude to me at the time but I had been outvoted by three-quarters of the Board, Valerie assuring them that for once the end justified the means.

  ‘Nothing,’ she had said, ‘must stop the drive towards gender parity. The end justifies the means.’ That had gone down well with the Board. One has to suppose she knows what she is doing. She is so young, and we are all so old.

  ‘Only in the northern hemisphere is widdershins unlucky,’ Valerie exclaims as if to a public meeting. ‘We are all globalists now! Other cultures, other customs! Our feminist struggle overall is to upset the status quo, overturn the apple cart!’

  ‘In black masses witches walk widdershins round the church,’ I say, ‘and then go inside to summon up Satan. I’m the head of an international charity, not a witch.’

  ‘Never a witch, Lady Patchett!’ cries Valerie Valeria. ‘A seer, yes, perhaps! If you won’t do crowns and ermine trim, you shall wear the purple velvet coat, the laurel wreath of the Cumaean Sibyl of ancient times, as you process widdershins round the High Tower! Leader of women the world over!’

  It is an unfortunate comparison. I remember lessons in classical mythology where a Sibyl soothsayer had angered some God or other, and had ended up moaning in a jar hanging from a tree on Mount Olympus with little children taunting her. ‘Sibyl, Sibyl, what do you wish for?’ And the Sibyl replies: ‘All I wish for is to die.’

  In my youth I’d invoked all the powers of cosmetic surgery and wealth to turn myself into a simulacrum of Mary Fisher, Bobbo’s mistress. It had been a very painful process and had never quite worked. My shortened legs still ached unpleasantly. Cosmetic surgery more than thirty years old is not a pleasant sight. Bits swell and other bits shrink. Little by little original features return, as if the mind insists on finding its true reflection in the body. I avoid mirrors as an unpleasant reminder of reality. In my old age, I prefer not to look at or be looked at. My once retroussé nose droops down to meet my chin, and my eyebrows shoot in different directions. It is not the icy cold I fear, or stumbling on uneven ground, so much as having my photo taken.

  ‘Anyway, the High Tower isn’t a church, it’s an old lighthouse,’ Valerie protested. ‘And widdershins can be good luck not bad. In Mecca it’s how they go round the Kaaba, in Judaism it’s how the bride circles the groom, and if we set off at the right time from the right place the light will be right for a photo-op. Ellen will get the shot she wants. And we’ve bought the latest in photoshopping software. Very expensive.’

  So that’s all right, then. I am suddenly very sleepy. Valerie gets my permission and forges the rest of the invites for the Women’s Widdershins Walk, while I snuggle down under my blanket again. I do so like sleeping.

  22

  Free At Last

  A warning to wantons.

  Tyler leapt on to the back of Hermione’s Harley-Davidson and the young couple roared off into Brighton to withdraw his £57.90 from Barclay’s Bank on North Street. That safely done, Hermione, the rather alarmed Tyler clinging on behind, whisked round the corner to the Dome and the Pavilion. They thundered illegally down a newly opened pedestrian tunnel, low, bumpy and underground, built in 1804 by the Prince Regent to meet his lovers (or so it was said). A notice flashed by which read ‘Not Safe for Baby Buggies’ as walkers scattered in alarm and a cloud of petrol fumes. Herm
ione shrieked with joy as they emerged. They roared back to the cliff-top road and made off for the dullness of St Rumbold’s and home.

  Hermione had been at school with Tyler, but had left at sixteen. She was now prosperous, even rich. After a disastrous spell at the Jobcentre Plus, she’d gone on to make a living selling drugs and legal highs from a remote cottage up the coast. She was dyslexic and anorexic, dressed in vintage goth, had long black hair and hollow eyes, a twenty-two-inch waist and a one-inch thigh gap, and when Tyler was on the back of her motorbike his beautiful hands could clasp round her middle. As Miss Swanson had suggested, she was always good for a meal, but was more free with her favours afterwards than Tyler (a nice lad but easily influenced, as his headmaster once described him) thought appropriate. So ‘free’ was perhaps not quite the right word.

  Tyler and Hermione had been friends since they were fourteen. Both were understood by their mates to be outsiders, Hermione by virtue of her independent way of life and frequent conversations with the police, Tyler by virtue of his wonky eye and easy nature. Hermione was sexually easy and a frequent sexter, Tyler more scrupulous in his dealings with the other sex. Other than Hermione, there had been only two others (one male, one female) in seven years – which made Tyler almost a hermit amongst his peers, but at least one who had the kind of respect and affection once awarded in the old days to a saint.

  It was true enough that when lit from behind his hair would make a halo round his head, and his smile was benign, though his eye so wandered it was hard for others to recognise quite what sort of emotion lingered there. People tended to avert their own eyes, so that his full beauty was not instantly evident. All the same his nickname was Archangel, after St Raphael, whom a teacher had told them was patron saint of eyesight. He had the blithe confidence of one not bullied at school, though it could be easily punctured by casual insult. Tyler might be Archangel to his school friends, but at home in Seaview Cottage he had been at the mercy of his twin sisters Madison and Mason, nine years older than he, who delighted to refer to him (usually in the third person) as Cyclops, and despised him as of right for the brute arrogance and boorish insensitivity of all males the world over.