“Well, yes. I’m sure I would.” How was it that nowadays, Clifford managed to turn all conversations back to himself?
“If only we’d been younger when we met,” Clifford sighed, driving off down the road.
“I was young,” Mavis reminded him.
“Well, yes. But you know what I mean. I think we’d have made a good couple.” He paused. “I could still leave Dorothy, you know.”
Mavis looked at him, surprised. “It’s a long time since you’ve said that,” she said.
“Well, I still mean it. And I’m sure Dorothy could manage without me.”
Mavis too was pretty sure that Dorothy could manage without Clifford, but she didn’t say so. More to the point was the fact that she was beginning to realise that she too could probably do without Clifford. It had taken some time for her to realise this, for Clifford had been around for so long that he was an intrinsic part of her life. Clifford’s phone calls, their meetings, their little anniversaries (Clifford was good at marking these), the visits to Dennis’s flat — these had all been woven into the fabric of her life, and for years she had thought that they were essential to her happiness, but now she wasn’t so sure. Clifford’s self-absorption had become burdensome, his conversation increasingly dull, and as for the sex, that too appeared to be dwindling in frequency, as well as in any pleasure it brought to Mavis. Perhaps Clifford’s libido was wearing off with age, but such lovemaking as they managed was so restricted by boundaries pertaining to Clifford’s physical problems that Mavis often thought that it was hardly worth their while bothering at all. By the time they had waited for Clifford’s little blue pill to work and he had been settled comfortably, with pillows in all the right places, it was often nearly time for him to go home. As for Mavis’s little device, that hadn’t seen the light of day (or anything else) for weeks.
“Well?” said Clifford now.
“Well, what?”
“What about me leaving Dorothy?”
“Oh no,” said Mavis at once.
“What do you mean, no?”
“Just what I said. It would never work. It might have worked once, but not now. No. We’re much better off as we are.”
“Are you saying I should have left Dorothy before?”
“I’m saying nothing of the kind. I’m just saying that it’s too late, Clifford. For both of us. Besides, there’s Mother.”
“But she’s dy— she’s not going to get better, is she?”
“I don’t know. But I’m not going to start planning a life without her.”
Clifford drove on in silence. Mavis hoped very much that he wasn’t sulking. Clifford’s sulks always took time, and she was anxious to get back to the hospital.
After a few more miles, they found a pub that promised GOOD FOOD, and Clifford pulled in.
“Will this do?” he asked.
“Fine,” Mavis said. She hadn’t had a proper meal for two days and was quite hungry.
But the food, despite its promise, wasn’t particularly good, and Clifford was annoyed and complained. The waitress got upset, the manager was defensive, and at the end of an unpleasant ten minutes, neither party was satisfied.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Mavis said when they were safely back in the car. “The food wasn’t that bad, and it wasted our evening.”
“I don’t believe in settling for second best,” Clifford told her.
“If you eat at a random pub, that’s a risk you have to take,” said Mavis.
“But honestly! Salad with fish and chips! And grated carrot!”
Back at the hospital, Clifford accompanied Mavis as far as the entrance, where they encountered Gabs.
“Oh, hi!” Gabs greeted Mavis with a hug. “I’ve been looking for you. You must be Clifford.” She held out her hand. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
Clifford was obviously torn between admiration of Gabs’ legs (which were sandwiched between the tiniest of skirts and a pair of scarlet calf-hugging boots) and annoyance at her knowing who he was. The struggle was brief, and the legs won.
“Hello,” he said, taking her hand.
“I’m Gabs.”
“Gabs is one of my best friends,” Mavis said.
“Oh.” Clifford had difficulty in concealing his astonishment.
“Yeah. You wouldn’t think it, would you?” Gabs grinned.
“Well…”
“You don’t have to say anything.” Gabs turned to Mavis. “I went up to see her. I think she recognised me, but it’s hard to tell. Poor Maudie. I’ll go back up and wait for you, shall I?”
When Gabs had gone, Clifford turned to Mavis.
“You never told me about — her.”
“I told you I had new friends; I just didn’t describe them.”
“But really, Mavis. She isn’t your type at all.”
“How do you know what my type is? Gabs is kind and generous, and I don’t know what I’d have done without her.”
Clifford bridled. “You know you can always turn to me. You don’t need — people like that.”
“People like what? How dare you, Clifford! How dare you insult a friend of mine — someone you don’t even know! Especially when you could hardly take your eyes off her.”
“That’s rubbish!”
“D’you know, Clifford, I don’t care. I don’t care what you think of my friends or whether or not you enjoy ogling their — assets. I’ve got more important things on my mind. I’m going up to see Mother now.” She paused. “Do you want to come? No — of course you don’t. It brings back all those painful memories, doesn’t it? Well, I mustn’t keep you. Goodnight.”
In the lift, Mavis felt a surge of something like triumph. While she was both hurt and angry, and what she had said to Clifford had probably been very childish, he had had it coming. Since his operation, everything — everything — had been about him: his health, his problems, his needs. Gabs, too, had had her problems, and yet she had managed to put them aside for Mavis — something no one else had done in years. Gabs might be a “bad girl,” but in the essentials, she was good in a way that Clifford would never be.
When she reached the ward, Maudie was awake.
“Hello, Mother.” Mavis sat down and took her hand.
“She’s trying to say something,” Gabs said.
“Mother? What is it? What do you want?”
Maudie mumbled and coughed, and shook her head in frustration. Her eyes were fixed on Mavis’s face, as though pleading with her to understand what she was trying to say.
“I don’t know. I can’t make it out. Gabs, can you?”
“What is it, Maudie?” Gabs said, leaning over her. “What can we do to help?”
Tears trickled onto Maudie’s pillow as the mumbling became more frantic.
“Perhaps she wants a priest,” Gabs whispered to Mavis. “Has she seen a priest?”
“Oh, goodness! I never thought. Mother, would you like to see a priest? Would you like — confession?”
Maudie’s lips twitched as though she were trying to smile, and her face seemed to relax.
Late as it was, the Catholic chaplain was sent for. He was reassuringly elderly, and seemed pleasant and sympathetic.
“Shall we — may we stay?” Mavis asked.
“Let me talk to her on my own for a few minutes. Just a few minutes. Confession is private, as I’m sure you know.” He smiled. “She’ll be all right; don’t worry.”
“She may not understand,” Mavis said.
“Never mind. That doesn’t matter.”
The curtains were drawn around Maudie’s bed, and Mavis and Gabs waited outside, listening to the soft murmuring of the priest’s voice.
“There.” The priest finally emerged. “I think she understood. I’ve given her the last rites, and absolution. She’s settled now.”
“Did she — did she say anything?” Mavis asked.
“It was rather odd, actually. I couldn’t hear properly, but I think what she was trying to say was ‘b
ad’ something. Could it have been ‘bad girls’?”
Gabs and Mavis looked at each other and smiled.
“Yes. It could have been,” Mavis told him.
“Well, she certainly doesn’t seem to have been a bad girl. Perhaps her mind was wandering.”
“Perhaps it was.”
The priest nodded, packing his things away in a small black bag. “Whatever it was, she’s sleeping now. She’s at peace.”
Maudie never regained consciousness. The doctors said she must have suffered a further stroke, but Mavis preferred to believe that the chaplain’s visit had, as it were, given her permission to go. Her small sins forgiven, her poor exhausted body anointed, Maudie was ready to be with the God she had worshipped so faithfully all her life.
Mavis was at her bedside until the end, and wondered at the smallness — the unimportance — of her mother’s life and of her death. Her passing would go largely unnoticed, as though the world she had lived in had closed gently over her, leaving only the slightest of ripples to show where she had been. And yet she had made her contribution: she had lived a good life, been a loving wife and mother and a loyal and entertaining friend.
Some lines of a poem came to Mavis — something she had learnt at school and that she had always remembered: lines about another small, unimportant woman, who had lived, like Maudie, “among the untrodden ways,” but who had nonetheless been deeply missed when she died.
“But she is in her grave, and oh,
The difference to me!”
“Oh, the difference to me,” Mavis whispered, gazing at that still, beloved face. “Such a difference!”
And sitting by the bed, still holding her mother’s hand in her own, she buried her face in the counterpane and wept.
The Funeral: December
Finn wanted to go to Maudie’s funeral.
“I’ve never seen a funeral before,” he said.
“It’s not the Tower of London or Star Wars,” Alice objected. “It’s not something you have to see. There’ll be enough funerals in the future, believe me.”
“But I want to go to this one.” Finn spoke with his mouth full. Why was Finn always eating? What was wrong with him?
“It’s not as though you knew her that well,” Alice said.
“I found her when she got lost, remember?”
“You helped to find her.”
“Same thing.”
“Look, Finn. A funeral is — personal. Mavis is terribly upset. It needs sensitivity.”
“I can do sensitivity.” Finn poured himself another bowl of cereal. “I liked Maudie. She was good fun.”
“Well, that’s the first sensible reason you’ve given.”
“And Trot wants to come, too.”
“Oh no. Oh no.” If Alice suspected Finn’s motives, she suspected Trot’s even more.
“Trot rescued you all that time,” Finn said. “You’d probably still be rolling around in the park if it wasn’t for Trot.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous. Look. If you promise to behave and if Mavis doesn’t mind, you can come. Oh — and if you can find something suitable to wear. You can’t go to a funeral in jeans.”
“Why not?”
“Finn, I’m warning you.”
“Okay. No jeans.” Finn drank the last of his milk from the bowl. “Great. I’ll go and tell Kenny.”
Alice herself wasn’t looking forward to the funeral. It was the last thing she needed at the moment. Last week she had finally said goodbye to Jay.
It had been one of those increasingly rare occasions when Jay had been able to get away for an evening, and as soon as they had arranged it, she had known that that night had to be the night. She couldn’t put it off indefinitely, and the time had come to bite the bullet. There would never be a good time, just perhaps a least bad time, and she had wanted to do it properly; she didn’t want rushed goodbyes in some dingy pub or car park.
“Come to the house,” she’d said to him.
“Are you sure?” Jay had sounded surprised.
“Yes. Finn’s staying with a friend. We won’t be disturbed.”
Jay had brought flowers, as though he knew what was coming, and for perhaps the first time ever, they seemed awkward with each other, like two shy strangers. Alice poured wine, and they sat talking about small, safe things: Alice’s job, a patient of Jay’s who had had a bad reaction to his treatment, even the weather. But while they chatted, all Alice could think of was that this was it. This was the last time she would sit beside Jay, feel his hand in hers, smell the faint smell of soap and hospitals on his skin, hear his voice.
“Why do you keep looking at me like that?” Jay asked later on as she prepared supper.
“I’m just — taking you in. I don’t want ever to forget what you look like.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because — because this is it, Jay.” Alice put down her glass. “The last time. This has to be the last time.”
There was a long silence, then Jay looked away and nodded. “I know,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“The way you sounded on the phone, the way things have been going recently. And now, the way you look this evening. That top I’ve always loved, my favourite perfume.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I just know.”
“I’m sorry,” Alice said. “Oh, Jay! I’m so sorry.”
“No. I’m the one who should be sorry. I’ve — got you into all this.”
Alice came over and put her arms around him. “We got ourselves into this. Both of us. And I have no regrets. No regrets at all.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Oh, Alice, I don’t — didn’t — deserve you, deserve the time we’ve had together. You’ve been so good about everything, so accommodating, so…” He gave a small, helpless gesture. “You’ve just been — amazing.”
“Jay, I’ve been an absolute cow recently, as you well know.”
“That too.” They both laughed. Jay picked up his glass, and then replaced it on the table. “Can we — may I make love to you? For the last time?”
“For the last time,” Alice repeated. “How sad that sounds.”
She had often wondered what happened to the sex lives of people who were properly together — married couples, people who had lived together for years. Did the sex gradually fizzle out as they grew older, until they were left just holding hands because they hadn’t the energy to do anything more? Or were they aware that the last time was just that: a final episode in a lifetime of sexual encounters? And did they miss it, or did they accept it as inevitable? Of course there was much more to marriage than sex, but because she and Jay had had so few opportunities, sex had acquired a greater importance than it might have had they been married.
That night, they made love with a passion verging on desperation, as though they were trying to cram into that one hour all the years of lovemaking that would be denied them in the future and afterwards. Alice buried her face in Jay’s neck and wept.
“Don’t cry.” Jay stroked her hair. “Darling Alice, please don’t cry.”
“I can’t help it. I know what we’re doing is the right thing, but it’s so hard. So hard!”
“I know.” There were tears in Jay’s eyes, too. “I guess this is the price. We knew we’d have to pay it one day. This is our — well, our day of reckoning, I suppose.” He attempted a laugh, but the laughter sounded flat and hollow, and Alice realised that she would probably never hear him laugh again.
For a long time, they lay holding each other, talking quietly. I shall never forget this evening, Alice thought. I want to remember every last detail. Jay’s pale blue shirt (now discarded on the floor); the five o’clock shadow on his cheeks, because he’d rushed over straight from the hospital; the fact that he’d been wearing odd socks (had he noticed? Probably not. Alice knew that he often got dressed in the dark to let Angela sleep in after being up with the baby); the enormous bouquet of roses and fr
eesias (her favourites); the smoked salmon that neither of them had been able to eat. Like a series of precious photographs, she wanted to preserve it all, for while she knew the memories would cause her pain, she also knew that what she and Jay had had together would always be an important part of who she was, and she didn’t want to forget even the smallest detail.
“I — slept with Trot,” she said suddenly. (Where on earth had that come from?)
“When?”
“The other week. I’m so sorry.”
Jay sighed. “It doesn’t matter. Sweetheart, it really doesn’t matter. It can’t spoil what we’ve had, and besides, we all need a bit of comfort.”
“That’s what Trot said.”
“Wise man.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Alice laughed. “Trot may be many things, but I’d never call him wise.”
“But I do envy him,” Jay said. “Because he’ll go on being a part of your life. He’ll be able to see you whenever he likes.”
“Well, he is Finn’s father.”
“That’s what I mean.” He turned to kiss her. “Darling Alice, what am I going to do without you? How am I going to — to be without you?”
“You’ll be all right. We — we’ll both be all right. Eventually,” Alice said.
“But not yet.”
“No. Not yet.”
Jay pulled her closer into his arms. “The worst thing will be missing you so much but not being able to talk to you about it. Not being able to share it with you.”
“I know.”
“Do you think — I mean, could we keep in touch? Just occasionally? Just so that I can make sure you’re all right.”
“I’ll be all right. And no, I don’t think we’d better keep in touch. It’ll only make things worse. For both of us.”
“A clean break, then?”
“A clean break. It’s the only way. For us. And for — for your family.”
Jay’s family. For the first time that evening, Alice realised that she hadn’t asked about the baby, and Jay hadn’t mentioned her. It was as though for this one evening, they had both agreed to shut the rest of the world out, leaving the two of them to say their farewells undisturbed.
“I want you to go now,” she said, moving out of Jay’s embrace. “Before we have any more time to think about it.”
Women Behaving Badly_An uplifting, feel-good holiday read Page 30