by Fay Weldon
Ms Serena of the Ethics Committee, who loved cats, rather to the distress of Housekeeping, suggested that taxidermy was the way ahead. Jeremy Bentham himself, founder of Utilitarianism, a philosophy much favoured by the IGP, sat mummified in pride of place at University College London as an inspiration to others. Housekeeping said to suggest embalming was ethnically and religiously insensitive; she was surprised Ms Serena had said that. Ms Serena apologised. Housekeeping said she wondered if Ms Serena would see her way to having her cat seen to: Tibbles had already had four batches of kittens, and finding homes was not easy. Ms Serena said she would do so and Housekeeping accepted her apology.
Burial at sea was mooted: though it meant hiring a boat and an exceptional sea depth was required. There was an authorised centre for sea burials at Newhaven, a mere six miles down the coast where deep water was near the shore, but it was closed at weekends.
Ms Valerie’s interjection – ‘We could hire a boat, No one would know’ – was met by a rather shocked silence. But she added, ‘Sorry, everyone, just a cadaver, not a person. But delete, delete!’ and she was forgiven. She was young, and the young, though at home in the computer age, could be disrespectful of custom and convention. It was eventually decided that Mr Patchett would be buried in the small patch of sandy earth between the High Tower and the road, where ornamental sea grass was grown, very prettily. Lady Patchett did not ‘do’ funerals, even for a husband – and at her age she would hardly be expected to. Ms Valerie had arranged for a close relative to be present, so etiquette would be honoured and convention observed.
3. Matters relating to tomorrow’s celebrations.
This was quickly dealt with. Security had dug up and dealt with the dead rat – everything was under control. The weather forecast was not too good but the BBC often got things wrong. Luxuriette had agreed to serve hot chocolate as well as sausages at the scheduled stops. The umbrellas from Harrods had arrived and would look very jolly and festive.
4. Vote of thanks to Valerie Valeria, for 10 per cent membership rise over two years.
This was passed and unanimously agreed.
5. Policy direction.
It was agreed that now was not the time for this particular discussion, but that it would be No. 1 on next month’s agenda.
6. Any other business.
None other being raised the meeting was closed and lunch was served in the canteen.
‘Spice-crusted aubergines & peppers with pilaf or crisp kidney bean curry with wild rice’ was served for lunch, followed by ‘Sticky stem ginger pudding (gluten free) or clementine & prosecco jelly with oat biscuit’. No one could say that Ms Bradshap didn’t try. Valerie Valeria kept a stack of Mars Bars, a variety of potato crisps and pork crackling bites in her stationery cupboard to which all were welcome. But after lunch today her office was closed and Ms Valerie was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter 4
Valerie
Let’s follow Valerie Valeria back from the meeting. She leaves it with the little hop, skip and jump in the corridor that marks her elation. Things had gone exceptionally well. The path ahead lay clear. She would replace the She Devil as head of IGP, which would go from strength to strength, she would be head hunted by other charities, move once or twice – then the national NGOs would take an interest, after that the worldwide organisations. She could be the woman from the WHO telling the nations of the world how to act in the face of epidemics, the one from the IMF warning them of financial meltdown ahead. Now the power of women had been released there was no stopping them. She could be Mrs Gandhi, Mrs Thatcher, Catherine the Great, hop, skip and jump! She was beautiful, she was lean, she was smart, she was childless and now she was in love. In love with an angel, the beautiful, the spiritual Tyler Finch Patchett. Hop, skip, jump!
But what she must not do was have children. Everywhere she looked, it was motherhood that held women back, that and the monthly debilitating curse of menstruation, which sapped energy, will and competence, caused girls to fail exams and productivity to fall by 20 per cent every twenty-eight days. The moon was full today: tomorrow it would be the equinox; the moon would follow the sun; the tides would rise in obedience – her own sexuality rose and fell as the moon waxed and waned. It was high today. Forget Leda. ‘Burn in Mordor’ indeed! Hop, skip and jump!
Four years now since she’d been fitted with an intrauterine device which fed the hormone progestin into her system. That had been in Sydney. She no longer had periods, she could not have babies. A perfect solution – well, more or less perfect, it had been known to fail, just as lesbianism itself could fail. And the device, trade mark Femmefree, needed replacing. Its lifetime, according to the literature, was five years. Valerie Valeria – how she loved her name: it could take her anywhere! – was well within the limit; but even so. How she had loved and trusted the mother who had blessed her with that name. The only thing that had gone wrong in her whole enchanted life had been the sudden death, by suicide, of her mother. Valerie had been sixteen, in the throes of a first wondrous love affair with Amy, the head girl at school, both of them in the netball team, and her mother’s death had spoiled all that. The reason for the tragedy stayed a mystery; the sight of it still appeared in dreams. Hanging. Oh forget it. Move on! Hop, skip and jump!
Valerie Valeria had a friend and fan in Dr Simmins, who had offered her help during a rare attack of self-doubt and weakness: she could no doubt see to the Femmefree concerns. Valerie would approach her as soon as the Widdershins Walk was over and done. Everything was under control: nothing could go wrong; she had seen to everything, overcome doubt and weakness; the world was her oyster. The Walk today, tomorrow the top tables of the world. Hop, skip, jump!
And now she was to be reunited with Tyler in 2CC/16, her bedroom on the second floor of the Castle Complex: one of the premium corner rooms, one side facing the bay, the other the noble iconic structure of the High Tower. She had dragged herself from her bed that morning to get to the meeting, resisting the temptation, as she was surely entitled, to claim preparation for the next day’s work, but now at last she was free to get back to the embrace of her angelic boy’s golden, muscly arms.
It couldn’t be for too long, though. She would have to introduce him to his grandmother before the old lady took to her bed for her nap, and sort out all that family feud nonsense. That should be easy enough: if Tyler had turned out for his grandpa’s death, with a little persuasion he would turn out for his burial and his grandma’s eighty-fifth. The She Devil had walked out of the meeting early because of an apparent surfeit of grief at the thought of Bobbo being poured down the drain, but Valerie thought it was more likely to be future shock: face to face at last with her own mortality, and she needed a rest.
Come hell or high water, Valerie Valeria was determined: Tyler the beautiful would process on Widdershins Day. Fate had delivered him to her. The universe was on her side. Look at how lovely the weather was today, how clear the sky. The pathetic fallacy perhaps, but never mind. The High Tower had its own micro-climate, she was aware of that. Indeed, she’d always thought old Bobbo, with his so very male and disagreeable moods, tempers and flare ups, had something to do with this idiosyncrasy. Perhaps now he was dead the High Tower would find itself conforming to the national weather forecast. Though with any luck not as soon as tomorrow for which the forecast was, frankly, really rather bad. But these old ladies, however nutty, were brave and buoyant in the face of adversity with a courage that could put the young to shame. All except the She Devil, who seemed so neurotic about hot and cold. She had become quite fond of the old lady, in spite of her follies and fancies. But she needed to face facts: her day was done, her brand of gender politics stale and over.
And now for Tyler. He was two years younger than she was. You could tell it by the resilience of his flesh. Leda had been at least thirty-five. Hop, skip and little leap!
Chapter 5
Ms Bradshap
Ms Bradshap was in good time for the Board meeting at two, which w
as when the She Devil had told her it was – only to find it had already taken place that morning, and that Valerie had had the nerve to accept the office of acting Chair; that there was to be no funeral for Bobbo, but the Victory March was to go ahead with Bobbo’s dead body paraded as though in a victor’s triumph. Lady Patchett had walked out of the meeting in disgust. This she was told by a tall girl with dark hollow eyes from Security who was stacking chairs but happy to talk.
Ms Bradshap had had to sit down on one of them to take it all in. Valerie was far too young and inexperienced to be on the Board, whose median age was seventy, and had grown up, so to say, in the business of committees. Valerie had tapped in to a lot of new money with her tasteless logo and brochure – which had gone viral, whatever that was, but it certainly appealed to the lowest common denominator. She was young and bright, pleasant to look at and even interesting to talk to, but everything hung on her being young, and with youth came folly. Ms Bradshap said as much to the Security woman, whose name she remembered was Leda.
Leda absolutely agreed, and added that Valerie thought she was Lady Marwen, but scratch her and she was just a bitchy, treacherous Orc like any other, good for heartbreak but nothing else, and a disgrace to Mordor. In any battle the troops would come out on the side of the She Devil, of Sauron.
‘Is that The Lord of the Rings?’ said Ms Bradshap, who at least recognised the name Sauron. She politely excused herself, her point made, and walked back to her hated dark and dreary office in the depths of the High Tower, 3HT/12. On her way she passed Valerie coming in the other direction, noticed the little hops, skips and jumps and they irritated her.
She’d been feeling quite poorly after her embarrassing fit of terror at seeing Mary Fisher’s face at the window the previous day, though Dr Simmins had given her a jab of something which had calmed her and made her sleep in late the next day. She probably wouldn’t have made the morning meeting anyway. Once back in the office she found the atmosphere quite changed; her pencils were still in the proper order in their box and she had no sense that they might move of their own volition. The musty smell had gone. She gave her great-niece Irene a call.
‘Things are so much better here,’ she said. ‘The old man’s gone. Such a disruptive presence. A male of the dinosaur school.’ She suggested that Irene came along to the big party the next day. It was the birthday Widdershins Walk round the High Tower. Quite an event. Everyone would be very busy. Irene could slip in unnoticed, even bring the boys. A few men had even been invited, so gender purity wasn’t an issue. The Lantern Room would be empty and Irene could sight-see to her heart’s content.
‘Did you say widdershins?’ shrieked Irene. ‘You’re joking! That’s so, so unlucky! Something terrible will happen. Witches go widdershins round the church at the beginning of the black mass. And if anyone looks like a witch it’s the She Devil.’
‘We aren’t a church, we’re a phallic symbol,’ said Ms Bradshap. ‘And that too is sinister. It’s all a disgrace. And I don’t think that Valerie is any better than she should be.’
‘Yup,’ said Irene.
‘Wear some grey agate for protection and something amethyst to calm things.’
Chapter 6
Valerie Again
When Valerie Valeria returned to her room the blinds were still down: Tyler was still asleep. If he’d been a girl he’d have been up by now, bathed and fresh, blinds up and window opened, bed re-made, little lipsticked love-notes on the bathroom mirror. But Tyler still slept like a lovely log, arms flung out like a baby’s above his head, open and unafraid, man not woman, seeking his own satisfaction, free of guilt. Valerie had found sexual satisfaction enough with women, affection, trust and more than enough emotional turmoil to satisfy anyone. But with Tyler the sense of the opposite was strong. More desire and involuntary excitement, if less turmoil. She must not forget to go to Dr Simmins. She could see she was more at the mercy of more primitive instincts than she had ever imagined she could be.
Leda’s ‘Burn in Mordor’ left Valerie unafraid yet gratified, relishing the freedom of being what she chose to be: the more Leda suffered the greater her response to Tyler’s male charms. The sense of being powerless, impaled, thrilled. Love was in the head and the heart, sex was in the clitoris. Compared with love, sex was trivial. It was exhilarating; no longer the thrill of conquest, the thrill of being conquered: more the joys of emotional masochism than the superficial thrills of tribbing. There’d be no explaining it to Leda, whose eyes would only fill with baffled tears. Valerie was in love: she was happy. Love, love, love! She was Mary Fisher’s child and heir! The She Devil with all her bitterness was the one to burn in Mordor.
Tyler had woken, drawn her fully dressed into the hot, steamy bed, smelling of man. Organ met orifice, limb melted into limb; she was suspended there it seemed for hours, impaled as a butterfly upon a pin. But what was easy enough with women seemed not to be with men: orgasm eluded her. She didn’t make a fuss. He didn’t apologise. Perhaps he didn’t even notice. He was a man, after all.
Valerie Valeria, she of the blessed existence, could see it might become a problem – but they were new together. Custom and practice might make a difference. It better had.
Valerie made him shower and shave – oh those dear little black sprouts! His beard, like his eyelashes, was black; comb his hair – oh those blonde, shiny, bouncy curls! She’d never liked Leda’s hair, greasy and flat; and then dress, lending him her baggy midnight blue Jason Lu sweater. It went beautifully with his trainers. Tyler did not mind instruction, thank God – girls often did, full of objections, insisting on garments which simply did not suit them.
And then she and Tyler were ready, all happy and handsome, to go and beard his grandmother, her boss the She Devil, in her den.
Chapter 7
The She Devil Meets Her Grandson
Valerie was the last person the She Devil wanted coming into her bedroom when she was taking a nap, and without bothering to check that she was up and dressed. Which fortunately the She Devil was, and sitting in a winter sun so warm she didn’t even need the heating. She was a little minx, Valerie, with her purloined acting Chair, her airs and graces and her impulsive decisions! Valerie had an iron fist in her velvet glove. Of course the meeting had ended quickly, everyone always wanted to get away to their tea, or in this case their lunch. Though everyone reported that when they did the aubergine was overcooked and slimy, and the curry too crisp to taste. Who’d ever heard of a crisp curry anyway?
Valerie had deliberately placed ‘Policy direction’ as the second to last item on the agenda, before ‘Any other business’: the dustbin end, when nobody had inclination or energy left to argue but simply postponing the item until the next meeting was unthinkable.
And here was Valerie in person, bright and glowing with youth and energy even more than usual. She must be delegating well, or she’d be in a state of hysteria about her big day tomorrow. As ever, the She Devil’s heart began to soften. But then, in shock and horror, she saw Valerie had been followed in by an emissary of the enemy, a man: a young and pretty man. Was it perhaps her brother? The two were not unlike each other.
‘A long time since I’ve had a man in my bedroom,’ said the She Devil, reproachfully but not too savagely, ‘I’m happy to say. The last one now lives in the freezer downstairs. So who is this?’
Valerie explained that it was the She Devil’s grandson, the one she had been talking about, Tyler Finch Patchett. He had been there at his grandfather’s death.
‘Ah, it was you,’ interjected the She Devil, and smiled at Tyler as if she actually liked him. ‘I thought you were some kind of hospice assistant. Well, you make a good girl, for a boy!’
And now he needed to be at the funeral, said Valerie. It was only legal to bury a dead body in the garden in a decent, obvious and permanent way. In the She Devil’s absence, to have another family member there would obviate invidious talk.
‘Um,’ said the She Devil. The sun was feeling a litt
le less warm. There were a few clouds beginning to form on the horizon. The sea was looking a steel grey rather than an innocent blue.
‘But I am still expected to head the Parity Procession round the High Tower?’ she enquired.
‘Oh indeed!’ said Valerie. ‘But Diavolessa, we must keep up with the times. We prefer to call it the Widdershins Walk. Have you forgotten?’
‘I haven’t forgotten there is a walk, whatever you’ve decided to call it today. I was rather wondering where my red velvet dressing gown had gone, by the way,’ murmured the She Devil. Tyler thought that something quite deep and intense was going on, but he couldn’t be sure what. Well, these powerful women would just have to fight it out. His mother and Mason would sometimes have fights like this. Men thought with fists, women with words. He was beginning to feel very hungry. He wished they’d just get on with it. There had been a lot of sex lately and not much food. A good dinner and back to bed with Valerie would suit him very well.
‘I gave it to Housekeeping, to be altered,’ laughed Valerie. ‘To give it a hood to keep you nice and warm. But it should be back this evening.’
‘Delegate, delegate, Valerie, that’s the way,’ said the She Devil amiably, but with a hint of sarcasm. Tyler thought she was probably rather angry. She was not unlike his mother, which he supposed was to be expected. His mother’s voice went quiet before she exploded with rage. ‘You’re so good at it!’
‘Thank you. I am, actually!’ said Valerie, laughing again. ‘As for the burial, one does hope that the soil is not too sandy. There needs to be three metres of good soil on top and three below the body to be safe. I could ask my legal girls to check.’
‘Perhaps not,’ said the She Devil, coolly. ‘Let’s not bother them now.’
‘All the same one certainly would not want Bobbo bobbing to the surface,’ said Valerie. ‘A stray hand beckoning from the grave, the better to pinch a bottom.’