by Anne Doughty
The reality of this room had confined me for long enough. But I knew now its power had gone. If it hadn’t, then just being here would be totally unbearable. It wasn’t. The sense of total isolation I felt, sitting here, an outsider, extraneous to the performance going on around me, did not distress me. It might irritate me, bore me, make me unutterably weary, but ultimately it did not touch me. Inside my head, I was free.
Knowing what you want is half the battle, I said silently to myself. Well, I knew I didn’t want this. This house, these people, this man I knew I no longer loved, if ever I had actually loved him at all.
William John stirred restlessly in his chair, picked up the telephone again. ‘Think I’ll try McParland, Derry Chamber of Commerce. Just to be on the safe side. He’s a JP. Bound to have contacts in the police.’
‘Good idea, Dad. We did rather well by him on that local government contract. He must have made a bob or two on the earth-moving. Shall I get his number?’ Without waiting for a reply, Colin crossed the room again, found the number, wrote it on a slip of paper and handed it to him. I watched his reflection in the window as he opened a fresh bottle of gin and filled the ice bucket from the built-in fridge behind the bar counter.
Relaxed, confident and infinitely pleased with himself, he was certainly playing the part of McKinstry’s youngest director to perfection. Yet at any moment he was ready to jump to it like a hired lackey and do whatever his father wanted. Staring at the Cinemascope reflections, I remembered how once, a long time ago, I had thought this willingness to give to others what they wanted came from his inherent good nature. But after watching him this afternoon, the hugs and kisses for his mother, the face-giving gestures he made to his father, I could see now that it was policy. What he’d found worked he now operated automatically. There was nothing of caring or thoughtfulness for them, any more than there was for Keith; just a cool calculation as to what would best serve his own ends.
His father began to dial. Colin came across and handed me my drink. As I turned to take it, he mouthed, ‘I love you,’ and pursed his lips in an exaggerated kiss.
I turned away again as soon as I decently could.
‘Ah, Tom, hello.’
The boom echoed in my head even louder than before.
‘How are you? Sorry to butt in like this on a Sunday afternoon. We’ve had a little spot of bother this end which might affect the launch of the Derry office. I think it would help us both if we could have a quick word. Don’t want to get off on the wrong foot, as the saying is . . .’
Colin lit a cigar, lay back in his armchair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his glass within reach. I could see him congratulating himself on the way he’d handled things. William John must have gone up like a sky rocket when the news came through. Probably he’d have been happy to let Keith go to jail if he were charged and wouldn’t even have stood bail for him if it was offered. But, from what had happened since, it looked as if Colin had calmed him and sobered him up by pointing out the advantages of avoiding any unfortunate publicity. He’d also managed to do it so that William John ended up thinking it was all his own idea.
William John laughed again and went on booming. I thought of the Christmas we came back from Birmingham, and of all the times I had sat in this room, watching the McKinstrys play their parts. The very first time of all came back to me, the evening Colin had taken me to meet his family.
I closed my eyes as the memory swept over me. Nervous to begin with, I’d stepped into this lounge and been appalled by its ghastly furniture and the brashness of the bar which occupied one whole corner of the big room. William John boomed at me, asked what I’d like to drink, went ‘Sorry’ and ‘Ho-ho’ when I asked for sherry, and landed me with a stiff gin I hadn’t liked at all. Maisie had been on her best behaviour, but I couldn’t help noticing the way her vowels came and went, just like Eliza Dolittle on a bad day.
Only Keith, awkward and uneasy himself, had made me feel more comfortable when we were left to talk about his A-level texts. I had liked him immediately and really appreciated the sharp one-liners he made that no one else seemed to hear. We’d ended up talking about Richard III and political knavery and I’d offered him some of my own notes.
How easily we tell ourselves stories to explain our discomforts. After that evening I told myself I had been nervous, that gin on an empty stomach had upset me, that Maisie reminded me of a former teacher, someone I’d always disliked. No, I hadn’t been dishonest. I simply hadn’t let myself read my own best intuitions. It had taken over four years for those intuitions to emerge into the full light of consciousness. That light was now as brilliant as the flickering fluorescent tubes. There wasn’t the slightest possibility of my going back on what was so clearly revealed to me.
The door opened and Maisie reappeared. ‘It’ll be a half-hour yet, and I’m sure you’re starving.’
Colin was on his feet immediately. ‘Never mind, Mum, it’ll be worth waiting for. What can I get you to drink?’
‘I’ll just have a small gin and tonic, dear,’ she said coyly.
I had a sudden uncontrollable urge to giggle. It was the ‘small’ that did it. Knowing how much she’d downed before she washed the glass, and how she’d finished off the chocolates to mask her breath, I just couldn’t keep my face straight. In case anyone should notice, I reached hastily for my tonic and ice.
The shock of the warm, bitter liquid certainly removed the smile from my face. It was mostly gin. And what little tonic there was must have come straight out of the box by the radiator. A solitary ice cube floated on the warm surface. It made a small fizzling noise as it dissolved before my eyes. I put the glass down and looked across at Colin, comfortably stretched out again, cigar and glass in hand, chatting idly to his mother. Were he an unknown stranger seen thus across the proverbial crowded room, would I even wish to know him, let alone think of marrying him?
The chicken took even longer than Maisie had calculated and it was nearly eight o’clock by the time we sat down to the meal. Despite my commitment to patience and the fact that nothing much was required of me, I had become progressively more weary as the hours passed. I thought about the work for school I’d planned to do, and worried a bit about how I’d manage if I couldn’t find time to do it, and I wondered about how I’d get through the time back at Loughview, when presumably Colin would regale me with a blow-by-blow account of the good news.
Then I remembered Thompson’s Law and scolded myself for thinking about the future and worrying about something that might not even happen. For a few brief moments, I allowed myself to think about Alan and to remember the feel of his arms around me. But I put that memory out of mind quickly. It was too important, too disturbing, too precious. Somehow, I just had to keep my mind on here and now, however awful it was.
I did my best to eat what Maisie put in front of me, but between my headache and the stringiness of the chicken I made a pretty poor job of it.
‘Come on, Jenny, another glass of wine. Do you good. Put some colour in your cheeks, girl,’ said William John as he leaned across the table.
‘Perhaps, Daddy, Jennifer isn’t feeling too well today,’ Maisie said, as she promptly thrust out her own empty glass. ‘She’s been very quiet. Hardly said a word since you arrived, have you, Jennifer?’ she went on, looking at me sharply.
I had noticed earlier how much her vowels had lengthened since Colin’s arrival. Now I observed that ‘feeling’ too had a ‘g’ on the end of it, just like ‘starving’ had had earlier. Her mother would be proud of her, I thought uncharitably, as she glanced at me sideways, a far from friendly look in her eye. Always, when Maisie was going out, her mother would tell her to remember her name was Margaret, to use only the lace-trimmed hanky in company, and to make sure she minded her ‘ings’. That way, she might do as well as her sister Edith had.
‘Oh, not a bit of it, Mum,’ Colin broke in. ‘We haven’t given you much chance to say anything since we arrived back, have we, darling?�
�� He turned towards me with his most engaging smile and I felt his knee rub against mine under the table. ‘Tell us now, how were things up at home? Tell us all about it. Especially Susie. How was she?’
‘Oh, they’re all flourishing,’ I said lightly.
‘And can Susie say the names of all the flowers yet?’ Colin turned to his mother. ‘You know, poor old Susie can’t say long words yet and Jen’s been trying to teach her. She gets all mixed up, doesn’t she, Jen?’
‘Actually, it’s only the sounds she has any difficulty with, Colin, not the words themselves,’ I replied, rather tartly. ‘She’s quite clear about what she wants to say.’
‘That’s what I meant, love. She keeps getting her words all wrong. Absolutely delightful and very funny too. Of course, Mum, Susie thinks Jen is the greatest thing since the sliced loaf. ..’
And with that, he was well launched into a Susie Saga. As I listened, I wondered if he hadn’t missed a great career in writing for television. He had an unerring talent for failing to understand what had actually been said and an even greater talent for trivialising what he thought he’d understood. Only someone with a real gift for sitcom could turn Susie’s intelligent and determined efforts to overcome her difficulties into jolly family entertainment.
‘And do you remember, Jen, the day we took her to Bellevue and she wanted to see a gillaffe? A gillaffe,’ he repeated, as he downed the last of his wine and leaned back so that his mother could clear away the dinner plates.
Well, Jen, there you have it, I said to myself, your bit of the action. He plays wunderkind to himself, lackey to William John, golden boy to Maisie and indulgent husband to you. ‘Dearest’ and ‘darling’ and ‘Jen love’ to keep me as sweet as he keeps them. And all with absolutely no expenditure of effort on his part. Perhaps this afternoon’s little performance was worth having after all, just for the record.
I was still thinking about just how clearly I was seeing Colin’s new, upgraded director-oriented style when I realised, to my intense surprise, that Maisie was dismissing us. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t like us to stay for coffee, she said effusively, but she realised how much we would have to talk about, and besides, she knew there were always things to do on a Sunday night and that I had to be up early in the morning for school.
A couple of looks passed between Colin and Maisie as she spoke that puzzled me, but I was so relieved to find we were going that I didn’t really pay much attention. For the first time in living memory, we left the house without one of them remembering something to tell Colin, or something we were to take with us, or something to be arranged for the future.
I got into the car, leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes.
‘Headache?’
‘Mmmmm.’
‘Taken anything?’
‘Yes, twice.’
‘Well, you just lie back and have a rest till we get home,’ he said sympathetically. ‘I think I’ve got some news that will get rid of that nasty old head. But good news can wait a little longer.’
I saw him smile to himself as he turned out onto the Antrim Road and settled down to drive at an unusually moderate pace. I kept my eyes shut and gave thanks. At this rate I’d have at least forty minutes of relative quiet before the action began again. Feeling as I did, I reckoned I’d better make the best of it.
Chapter 18
I woke with a jerk as we hit a familiar pothole at the junction between the main road and the private road down to Loughview. The green fields and the gentle sunshine of my dreams was replaced by the darkness of nightfall, and the feeling of freedom and wellbeing disappeared without trace as we drew up with the bonnet of the car almost touching the wrought-iron gates.
‘Got your keys, Jen?’ Colin asked, looking across at me and smiling. ‘We may as well put her away now and have done with it. We’ll be otherwise engaged later, won’t we?’
I scuffled in my bag, got out of the car, and opened the gates. As I stood aside to let him drive through, the full impact of his words struck home. ‘Otherwise engaged’ was his usual way of indicating that sex was what he had in mind.
As I hurried up the drive and struggled with the up and over door, I felt a sudden violent nausea. Given how I was feeling, it wouldn’t matter what he called it. I knew I didn’t love him, and I most certainly didn’t desire him. But I couldn’t see how Thompson’s Law was going to help me this time. If Colin insisted we made love, I was sure I would react violently. I could not bear him to touch me ever again. Not after last night. Not after experiencing the difference between really making love and being involved in Colin’s particular brand of sexual engagement. Perhaps ‘otherwise engaged’ was a good way of describing it, after all. But that reflection wasn’t going to help me if the question of lovemaking should arise this evening.
My headache had subsided for the moment. It was not a migraine, but I knew from experience it was one of those heads that sits, like a dragon, waiting to pounce. Treat it with kindness and respect and it will lie down quietly, or even go to sleep. Upset it and it will go on the rampage. It had protested vigorously enough at the scrape of the unoiled hinges on the garage door. Let that be a warning.
I put on the hall light, hung up my coat, and dropped my handbag in its usual place on the chair in the cloakroom. I heard Colin close the garage from the inside and come into the kitchen, just as I got there myself.
‘What’s all that vegetation in the garage, Jen?’ he said jovially. ‘I nearly did myself an injury when I got out of the car.’
‘Vegetation?’
‘Yes. Wretched spiky stuff. You must have been pruning. Look!’ He picked up a small frond of bronzed bracken from his trousers as he flopped down onto a chair.
The whole bloody double garage to park in after I’ve cleared it out and he has to land right up against my branches, I thought. Aloud, I said, ‘Oh, did you tramp on it? I thought I’d left it well out of the way.’
There was an edge in my voice which wouldn’t do. It would be just like us to have a row about him tramping on my bracken and hawthorn when there were much more pressing issues on the agenda. Thompson’s Law, I said to myself, hastily, like a mantra for warding off evil.
‘It was bracken and hawthorn I brought back for the stone jar in the hall,’ I said, more steadily.
‘Brought back from where?’
‘Drinsallagh. Alan’s bought a cottage down there.’
‘Oh yes,’ he said, without showing the slightest sign of interest. ‘Why don’t we make some coffee and take it into the lounge and then I can tell you all about the weekend.’
The tale of his dinner with William John went on and on, full of blow-by-blow accounts of what he’d said to William John and self-congratulations as to how well he’d put it. It seemed he’d done very well over the last twelve months. Now they were to set up a new branch in Derry, they needed to increase the number of directors, so he’d been given his place on the board. He told me about the salary, the company car and the extra weeks of holiday we would have, and the details of his own expense account and our entertainment allowance.
He had rehearsed so many of the details, so often, there was little I’d not already heard many, many times before. And yet I found myself listening hard, strangely attentive, even while wondering why I was listening so closely to something that surely could have so little relevance for me.
‘So, there you are, Jen,’ he wound up at last. ‘That’s the good news. Now let’s hear all about your weekend. Did Val and Bob have their party down at Alan’s new place?’
I laughed in spite of myself. ‘Goodness, no. The cottage is far too small. It hasn’t even got a bathroom yet.’
‘So when did you see it?’
‘We went down from the party. It has got electric light.’
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘I say, Jen, you don’t honestly mean you went sloping off with old Thompson, at dead of night, to some cottage in the back of beyond?’
‘And why not?’
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‘Well, I mean to say . . . no reason at all, Jen, if you felt you wanted to,’ he said, trying to appear easy about it. ‘But you know how the crowd talk. I mean, if someone spotted you, I’d get a bit of a ribbing, now wouldn’t I?’
A bit of a ribbing, I repeated silently to myself. ‘And would that matter, Colin?’
‘Well, no, of course not. But you know what the crowd are like. Someone might get the wrong idea.’ He paused, flustered. Then he rattled on even more hastily, ‘I mean, I never would for one moment, Jen. But you can’t expect everyone to understand as I do. You know you can’t be too careful with that lot. I don’t give a hang for other people, any more than you do, but it does make life easier if you give them no opportunity.’
‘Easier for whom, Colin?’ I said, my voice quiet and perfectly calm. ‘And no opportunity for what?’
‘Well, everybody,’ he said blandly, shrugging his shoulders. ‘And people do talk. Especially if they get the wrong idea, you know. I mean it’s obvious, isn’t it?’ he added as he got up to pour himself more coffee.
‘It’s obvious to me, Colin, that you think, in your new position, you cannot afford for your wife to be seen with an old friend who happens to be male, unless of course he’s one of the crowd, which clearly Alan isn’t. Is that it?’
I watched him bluster and try to get himself out of the mess he’d made. I could predict his lines. A general-purpose collection of clichés that would indicate just how reasonable, liberal and understanding he was, and how, of course, I really hadn’t quite appreciated his point, had I, or I would have had to agree with him immediately.