by Mavis Cheek
‘Let’s leave your dad out of it, Tass. Everything is going to be fine between him and me. And if it isn’t, then you’ll be the first to know. Right now this is marriage business. It may become family business later. But for the moment – leave it. Now, how are you getting on?’
If ever a maternal tone was designed to show that the mater was serious in not wishing to pursue a subject, it was mine. I sounded firm, convinced and sane. If ever an attempt to tell the truth produced some interesting and useful offshoots, it was this: I was retrieving the marital ground from the clutches of my offspring. As adults (and we parents will always be The Adults until we are suddenly seen to be dribbling and suffering from dementia when our – God help us – children become The Adults over us) we should take the confident high ground more often. This is what I knew, this was the truth that hit me back. Truth for Truth. I was proud of myself for speaking out and sorry I had not done so sooner. ‘No, Tassie. This is not your business. Yet.’
Tassie said, ‘Mum?’ in that guarded way denoting she thought I had probably gone off my rocker. But I was no longer afraid. ‘Now leave it, Tassie,’ I said.’ ‘Leave it to your dad and me. It’s our muddle and we’ll sort it out.’
That was it. I was pleased with the use of the word muddle, a comforting word, and felt that with its use I really was back in charge and no longer afraid. The sword of truth or the shield of verity protected me. Afraid? Afraid of what? What is it that these nice, middle-class, look-down-their-noses children are likely to do? Knife us in the guts? Burn down our houses? No, no. They might – just – make the love and sacrifice unworthwhile. They might do it publicly. If we go against their wishes they may take to drugs, which would be our fault. Or drink. Or stop eating. They might leave us to lonely old age and spit on our parental efforts and tell the world. They could disown us and stop us seeing our grandchildren – and then it will all have been in vain. I shivered, even then and in my rebellious mood, at the prospect. Tassie was puffing like a grampus down the phone. ‘Mum, this is bad. You and Dad have never separated before.’
‘He’s on a working holiday, darling. Not in a bachelor flat.’
‘You’ve never been apart like this.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Silence. And then an altogether less confident tone: Have you?’
‘No. But we came close a few times. It’s marriage, Tass, that’s what people do in marriage – they argue and then they make up. But it’s not your business. It’s ours.’
‘Dad wouldn’t see it that way.’
‘Yes he would.’
Oh God, I suddenly thought, how enviable are those oft-vilified parents who are known, with true British diplomacy, as lower class. They may be in the same self-created, oppressed boat as the supposedly more responsible middle classes, but – because feckless and given to obesity (as opposed to we the middle classes who are secret drinkers and constantly dieting on mixed leaves) – they tend to give up earlier on attempting to rein in and appease their offspring. A clip round the ear and if that doesn’t do it – well – so what? That’s their funeral. I’ve spent sixteen years bringing him/her up and if he/she doesn’t like it, then he/she can just piss off. Frankly the lower classes strike me as a good deal more sensible and intelligent in this matter than the Lidl Châteauneuf-du-Pape brigade. Love is not love that gives in to the first demand. Love is not love that condones infant assertion over adult good sense. Watch those lions, see how they behave once their sweet little cuddly cubs get big. I couldn’t help thinking that if Robert and I had merely opened a bag of cheese-and-onion taquitos and a can of lager when charged with bad behaviour by our children we might have been a lot happier. And so, actually, might they …
How feeble I was. Could I ever forget that useless moment when I said to Johnno, ‘Now, Johnno, – if you don’t tidy up your room Father Christmas won’t come …’ And Johnno didn’t and Father Christmas did. After that it was downhill and racing rapidly towards asking Tassie, at the age of eight and a half, ‘Now – what would you like for your supper?’ And she, wisely spotting an opening, had taken it as her right to choose her food from that moment on, instead of what it should have been – a one-off piece of gentle humouring. Oh yes, they are programmed. From that day forth she selected her meals. And I, bleating like a hopeless sheep, obliged. Johnno also lumbered into the gap. Some nights I cooked three different dishes – one for Tass, one for Johnno, and one for us. This was followed swiftly by Tassie choosing her clothes, followed by Johnno choosing his clothes (including the trainers for which a mortgage was required) and, eventually, everything else in life that gave me authority they removed and I, in that unnameable fear, concurred. Walking Tassie to school I couldn’t help feeling that she took my hand when it came time to cross the main road. And my innate fear that, should I not give in, she would begin that fearsome process of disowning me and telling the world of my iniquities, became entrenched. Yes – it had been downhill, and racing, all the way with both of them. Though Johnno was more inclined to put his headphones on and walk away when anything he did not want to do was asked of him. When he reached six foot two at the tender age of fourteen, all was lost – unless I stood on a chair.
With Tassie, the microcosm of having a poached egg on toast when all about her were eating fish became the macrocosm of her believing it was her right to make her parents toe the behavioural line. I could tell, now, down that crackly old telephone line, that my dismissal of her role as marriage guidance counsellor and peacenik shocked her. Why, she could not have sounded more astonished if I had asked her if she was remembering to change her underwear at acceptable intervals and had she washed behind her ears.
‘Mum, that’s not fair. It isn’t going to be fine – not from the way Dad sounded when he spoke to me –’
‘You’ve spoken to him since Ven – since I talked to you? I asked you to wait, Tass. Why couldn’t you, just for once, do what I asked and no questions?’ Part of me was thinking that she’d managed to get through to him while he continued to ignore me. A thought that provoked a little bubble of panic.
‘He rang me, Mum,’ she said in a voice of exasperating weariness.
‘Oh. Why?’
‘Same as you. To tell me not to worry and that it’s all going to be fine. But it didn’t sound as if he believed it. You really need to do something, Mum. So? What are you going to do? You are my parents and – well – I expect to be kept in the loop.’
It might have been all right if she had not used that phrase. In my day loops were little plastic squiggles that prevented pregnancy. Or something that Biggles did in his little aeroplane. Fortunately I reined in my first desire which was to enlighten her about the IUD. Usually I ignored our children’s irritating use of current catchphrases but not now.
‘Ridiculous phrase, in the loop, Tassie. Let’s leave the subject alone, shall we? And don’t get all dramatic and say you’re going to catch the first plane home. There really isn’t any point. I promise you’ll be told if there is anything serious we think you should know. But there won’t be. Your dad and I will be fine. Trust me, Tassie, I’m his wife.’
‘And I’m his – your – daughter. Doesn’t that count?’
‘Not half as much. Now, what I really want to know is how you are.’
Even as I said the word I realised that there is something impenetrably solid about wife when it is said with utter conviction. The same with the word husband. So much more definite than partner. It implies unity, oneness, legal and emotional binding, two cleaved as one. At its best it is something that no one can break and no one can squeeze between. At its worst both the terms can be used as expressions of dismay. In this case they were expressions of unity. Poor Tassie. I almost felt sorry for her. The puffing increased.
‘I’ll see if I can get hold of Johnno. At least I can talk to him about it …’
‘He’ll grunt, Tass. You know that.’
‘No he won’t. Not with something like this.’
> ‘Like what?’
‘You and Dad. You.’
‘All you need to know is that I love the old sod. And sometimes you get cross with the person you love. That’s it, that’s all, that’s everything. And the old sod, for all my sins, loves me. And that is the truth, plain and simple. In fact, we are both behaving like silly so-and-sos and are best ignored.’
And then, thank the heavens, Tassie laughed. If she has one abiding quality that is entirely hers, it is that she can laugh at herself. Not very often but sometimes she can. Johnno is more like Robert. They both rearrange their lips over their teeth and look down, as if embarrassed and are not, actually, in the room. Something to do with saving the masculine face, perhaps? And primal.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘If you’re sure. When you call him an old sod it feels better.’
So that’s the trick of reassurance. I might try silly bastard next time. That is, I thought painfully, if there is a next time. I might have sounded confident to Tassie – that, after all, is another role for the parent – but I didn’t feel it, I didn’t feel it at all. The Venetian bordello and the Venetian incident had shaken me. Life could turn on a sixpence. You only have to say Yes instead of No and that’s it.
We talked for a while about what she was doing, seeing, eating and drinking – and then, as we were saying goodbye, she added, but now in a little girl’s voice which, of course, wrung my heart, as it was intended to do, ‘Will you ring me once Dad gets home and will you promise not to lie about what’s going on?’
‘I promise.’
I was beginning to find truth-telling had unexpected rewards, like applying at last the holy grail of feminism and being assertive. It was a little late for me to discover that it actually worked but … I put down the phone and felt as if someone had cut all my strings. Two and a half days to go and Robert would be back. Tassie was crossed off the list which felt such a relief that I thought about going back to bed. But no – I had places to go, battles to win, the next of which would roll Marathon, the Sack of Rome and Waterloo all into one. I had to try to put things right with Toni. Pure cowardice told me I couldn’t do anything because she was in Scotland. Scotland was not Timbuktu. Scotland was part of the British Isles (no matter how hard it fought not to be) and there were things called trains, were there not, if one did not relish the idea of driving all that way.
If not the sword of truth then surely I could wear its breastplate? Aletheia, goddess of truth and daugher of Zeus, appealed to by Pindar most touchingly, ‘Aletheia, who art the beginning of great virtue, keep my good-faith from stumbling against rough falsehood …’ Five thousand years ago and Truth was perceived as feminine. Given that most of our politicians are male, and given that they are perceived to be the biggest category of liar on the planet, go figure.
1‘Sing small’ is another phrase which carelessness in pronunciation has changed from the original. The phrase should be ‘sink small’, to be lowered in the estimation of one’s fellows.
Seventeen
Upas: a baleful, destructive, or deadly power or influence; from a fabulous tree with properties so poisonous as to destroy all animal and vegetable life … around.
Sir James Murray’s New English Dictionary, 1926
I TOOK THE train to Edinburgh. It had to be done and I just couldn’t wait. A surprised and warmly friendly Arturo told me where Toni was staying. His innocent friendliness made the situation all the more painful. As I made my way to the station I toughened my determination. Whether or not she was staying at the Monument Hotel – which is what she had told Arturo – or whether she was staying in a Travelodge on the A7 with Bob the Logistics – I had to talk to her. Now. I knew she was definitely in Edinburgh, or nearbye, because the dialling code for the number Arturo gave me fitted the area. Toni never relied on her mobile in case she couldn’t get a signal. She thought of everything and was irreproachable in that regard – possible illness, accident, etc., made it an absolute. Once up there I would go to the Monument Hotel and find her, and if she wasn’t booked in there, then I’d have to ring. Otherwise – to cite the Pythons – my chief weapon would be surprise – minus, sadly, those other requirements of fear, ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.
Long train journeys can be evocative and with luck the sensation encourages your ponderings mile after mile. Sylvia Plath called it ‘the incomparable rhythmic language of the wheels, clacking out nursery rhymes, summing up the moments of the mind like the chant of a broken record …’ Even though rails no longer clack, the thought of Plath remained. Something to do with the way Toni might look – made ill and brittle with the precariousness of love maybe. And the enclosed world of the rolling carriage. Plath was a great one for milking the strangeness and illusions of any experience, including train journeys, and giving her fellow-travellers dark and mysterious personae. I looked about me at my travelling companions – an elderly couple doing the crossword – engrossed and hunkered up together – two young boys holding something electronic, clicking away with their fingers and laughing horribly at whatever they conjured up. On and on, all the way down the carriage, ordinary lives, normal people, reading newspapers, drinking coffee, eyes closed, mouths open, telling lies when they felt it was necessary, telling the truth if they could. Unconcerned. And I – I had no idea what I was going to say when I got to journey’s end. April green and clear blue skies raced by – another hour or so and it would be dark. Less to look at, more to think about. Sinister, almost, these close but impenetrable minds giving away nothing of what they were planning, thinking, hoping. No wonder Plath found trains and travellers evocative, like her three fat Frenchwomen knitting on a train at night with their blind, complacent faces and making what she called their webs of fate while the telegraph poles and the dark pointed pine trees rattled by … But Plath had always had that dark side. Toni used to be all light and laughter and fun. I had with me Mary McCarthy’s book on Venice, but hadn’t opened it. I could always go home. I began to wonder what the next station would be …
And then, fortunately, Brando rang. He was very excited.
‘Your Italian has shown me all kinds of instruments and diagrams in the museum here. Oh my, Nina, they tell of despicable things. You wouldn’t get away with it now. Well – not unless you paid a fortune.’
‘Enchanting,’ I said, but the irony was lost on him. ‘Stop delighting in the proclivities of straights.’ One or two eyes appeared over their newspapers opposite me.
‘Perfect for the illustrations. We shall have an entire chapter devoted to ways to extract truth from the unwilling, including sexual favours. You’ll like that. We can point out that if some of these little items were applied to our politicians nowadays it would make things a whole lot more transparent.’
‘Well, politicians have certainly always fallen at the first hurdle of what you call sexual favours,’ I said quietly. Not quietly enough, for even the two crossword puzzlers stopped their concentrating and gave me a startled look.
‘I knew Venice would provide,’ he said happily. ‘Come back at once. I need you to interpret. Your Italian talks too fast for me.’
‘He is not my Italian and he speaks excellent English.’
‘Well,’ he said, in his pompous voice, ‘it’s not good enough for the ah – nuance.’
‘Brando – why say that? It’s almost perfect.’
‘Oh, I see – you’re determined to squeeze the truth out of me?’
‘I doubt it,’ I laughed. ‘But go on. Try.’
‘All right,’ he said, in a much smaller voice. ‘If you must know, I miss you.’
I was astonished. ‘What?’
‘I shall not say it again.’
‘Oh go on.’
‘Once and once only. Now, will you come over?’
‘Brando, I really can’t. I’m on the train for Edinburgh. I’m going to see Toni.’
‘But you’d much rather be here with me?’
I could answer that with absolute sq
ueaky pure truth. ‘Oh God, yes – I’d much rather be there with you. Much.’
‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘it’s the fault of having children. You stop being self-indulgent. Pity. The Italian and I are going to lunch on Torcello tomorrow, the Cipriani – pomegranate blossom and all …’ He said this last wheedlingly.
‘Sexy things, pomegranates. I’d be careful if I were you.’
‘Not with that one, my dear. He’s not TBH. Nowhere near it.’
TBH was our code. It stood for To Be Had. Brando’s way of saying a straight man might surprise himself if Brando tried really hard … Well, in days gone by.
‘You never know with those passionate Italians. You might find that pomegranates do it for him.’