by Maisie Mosco
Her wariness returned. “Will I do what?”
“You’re no different now from when you were a kid!” he exclaimed. “Thinking your own thoughts instead of listening to what I’m saying to you. It used to drive me mad.”
“Would you like to hear some of the things about you that drove me mad? I could also put that into the present tense.”
“Let’s not get into a row, Marianne. Blood remains thicker than water. And I want a favour from you.”
“Oh yes?”
“Why must you sound so hostile?”
“Get on with it, Arnold!”
“Repeat myself, you mean, because you didn’t hear a word I said. Were you working when I rang?”
“On the synopsis for my next book.”
“And no doubt you went on doing so in your head. All right, I’ll forgive you.”
He wouldn’t, though, if he knew what Marianne’s thoughts had been, since he took himself and his views so seriously discussion with him was impossible.
“I’m giving a dinner-party at the Inn On The Park,” he informed her, “and I need you to hostess it for me. Lyn has refused point blank. But her lack of co-operation is nothing new, I regret to say. My rise from small beginnings to where I now am owes nothing to my wife.”
“I’m surprised that you actually remember whence you came,” Marianne replied. “And has it never occurred to you that your wife also has a point of view? No, Arnold. I will not play hostess at your bloody dinner-party! Ask your secretary to do it.”
“That wouldn’t be suitable. And you might find it an enjoyable evening.”
“I doubt it.”
“Look – I don’t recall ever before asking you to do anything for me. And believe it or not there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
“In that case, Arnold, I’ll make a bargain with you. I’ll play hostess if you’ll include Matthew and Pete in your guest-list.” As good a get-out as any.
“Are you out of your mind, Marianne? Some of my parliamentary colleagues will be there. Also a couple of important industrialists. And I’m thinking of inviting an American I’m told is the best in the game when it comes to ghosting memoirs. I’d like your opinion of him, for when the time comes.”
“I’m relieved you’re not thinking of commissioning me! Why are you giving this dinner-party?” Marianne inquired.
“It’s one of the things that from time to time it’s necessary for me to do.”
“But the bargain I’m prepared to make with you remains the only way you’ll get me in on the act.”
Arnold said after a pause, “Since it’s more than likely that my son and his friend will be touring a play, I think I can safely take the risk.”
Marianne had lost her gamble, and if her brother lost his… Matthew was unlikely to turn down an invitation from the father whose respect he longed for but had never won. If he let himself view it as the hand of friendship, what a disappointment he’d be in for.
What have I done? Marianne was chiding herself when Arnold asked her to get her diary to check some possible dates.
Neither could have known that the date they set would be recorded in twentieth-century history under the heading “Chernobyl”. And for Marianne that date was to prove doubly memorable.
Meanwhile the busy pattern of her days continued. The synopsis on which she had been working when Arnold called was approved by her editor, and once again she gave herself to the gestation that preceded the birth of a book.
Her grandson had made good use of the latchkey she had given him. There were times when Marianne was so immersed in her work she did not hear A.P. enter the flat and would later find him eating a snack in the kitchen or doing his homework in the living-room.
Eventually the frequency of his visits began to worry her. Visits they’re not, she finally accepted. A refuge was what her home had become for him.
Nor was there any longer the pretence that Marianne had even a non-relationship with her daughter-in-law. They never saw each other, and if Marianne rang up and Moira answered the phone the few words she uttered were cursory indeed.
When Martin dropped in, he would talk about his work and Marianne about hers, as they always had. They chatted about A.P. too, but when had Martin last mentioned Moira? When had Marianne last mentioned her? It was as if by tacit consent they avoided a subject painful to both.
On an evening when A.P. had sought refuge yet again, Marianne asked herself how her grandmother might have handled the situation. Marianne, though, had never been the manipulator that Sarah was.
“My mum’s at church and I don’t know why she doesn’t take her bed there,” A.P. had said when he arrived. “And Dad of course is at Uncle Andy’s, working as usual.”
It was now an empty house that the lad was escaping from. She watched him make short work of his third helping of cornflakes. Well, at least it wasn’t affecting his appetite.
“I wouldn’t mind moving in with you, Gran,” he said.
That did it! Someone must give Moira a talking to and it would have to be Marianne. Martin could use one, too. The way things were looking, what was there to lose?
Moira awaited with some trepidation her mother-in-law’s arrival at the restaurant, wishing that she herself had not arrived too early. But the days when she would calculatedly have kept Marianne waiting were long gone.
She could remember discussing with Rhoda Frolich, when they were newly-weds, how best to handle their mothers-in-law. But where had tactics and trying to assert themselves got them?
Umpteen years later, though Andy’s mother was now dead and buried, Rhoda said a day never passed without Andy saying he wished he had treated her better. Reminding Moira of a thought she had once had in that respect, that the invisible cord that bound Jewish sons to their mothers was not severed even when the mother went to her grave.
Nor was it just the mother. It was the intangible that Jews called Family. An example of which, Moira recollected, was Andy’s once having spent the little he and Rhoda had in the bank, in order to fly to the funeral of an Israeli relative he had never met.
So much for Moira’s trying to ensure that her son would not fall prey to that intangible. And who could blame her for withdrawing from the fray to the sole comfort she had?
She saw Marianne enter the restaurant – greeted by the owner like the celebrity she was. How could that tiny woman exert the influence she did? It was she, not Moira, to whom Moira’s husband and son took their troubles. If it weren’t for her – what she represents – how different my life might have been.
Marianne would not have been so hypocritical as to kiss Moira’s cheek, nor did she offer a platitudinous greeting. All she felt able to say was, “I’m pleased you weren’t too tied up to lunch with me.”
She had called Moira’s office and finding her unavailable had left a message. A secretary had called back to accept the invitation.
“I presumed you had something to discuss with me and cancelled another date,” Moira replied.
“Thank you for showing me that respect,” said Marianne. Was this cold formality all that was left to them?
She noted Moira’s pallor – which currently matched Martin’s. How nice it would be if she could just pack the two of them off on holiday and all would come right.
Regrettably it would not, since they would return to the same state of affairs they had left behind. Nor would Moira have taken kindly to the suggestion if it came from Marianne.
Somehow, though, Marianne must try to dispel the chilly atmosphere. “Remember when you came up to London to stay with Ralph and me? And I took you to lunch and then to buy a pram?”
Moira had a picture of that day engraved upon her mind, along with others like it. Herself heavily pregnant, and Marianne ushering her into John Lewis’ babywear department where they had first bought the washable nappies now largely replaced by disposable ones.
“Didn’t we lunch at Genaro’s?”
“I believe we did.”
> “I recall us both gorging ourselves on that wonderful cannelloni with the spinach filling and the creamy sauce,” said Marianne.
“What a remarkable memory you have.”
“Only for some things.”
And Moira’s remembrance included her own resentment of Marianne’s behaving as if the unborn baby was hers too.
“I seem to be seeing rather a lot of that pram’s occupant now he’s a teenager,” Marianne said carefully.
“You’re that sort of grandmother,” Moira replied.
The thinly veiled innuendo did not escape Marianne. But Moira’s failing to see her own contribution to the situation was an all too human frailty, she thought while scanning the menu.
“One thing I do remember, Moira, is your fondness for fish. That was why I chose Wheeler’s.”
“But if you don’t mind, today I’d prefer steak.”
Nothing more was said until the waiter had taken the order, after which Marianne saw no alternative but to take a deep breath and plunge in.
“Shall we agree to speak our minds, Moira? I seem to recall us doing so that time you stayed with Ralph and me. And my afterwards believing that it had cleared the air. But I was wrong about that, wasn’t I? Now, here we are, years later, with no more understanding between us than there was then.
“I have tried my best to be the opposite of what I believe we then discussed. Jokingly discussed. The archetypal Jewish mother. But you weren’t joking, were you, Moira? I knew that at the time and took a good look at myself.”
“In the caricature sense you’re not one,” Moira replied.
“Thank you for that.”
“But there is nevertheless something about you I spent years of my marriage to your son struggling against.”
Marianne went on buttering a roll. “Has it never occurred to you that the ‘something’ you mentioned might be all in your mind?”
“A preconception, you mean? I admit that I did have one. But it didn’t take too long for it to be confirmed. That’s your grandmother’s brooch you’re wearing, isn’t it?” she remarked. But it wasn’t just jewellery that Sarah Sandberg had passed down. “Why, exactly, did you ask me to lunch with you, Marianne?”
Despite the sudden hostility in Moira’s tone Marianne kept her own even. “Well, let me put it this way. There has to be a reason for A.P.’s preferring my home to his own and it isn’t my chicken soup.”
“I wouldn’t call your providing him with a latchkey discouragement. On the contrary –”
The waiter’s arrival with their first course cut short the conversation.
“You would like the black pepper on the smoked salmon?”
“No, thank you,” said Marianne.
Moira made no reply.
A moment of silence followed his departure and they went through the motions of squeezing lemon juice on the luscious-looking delicacy.
Marianne forked some into her mouth. It was delicious, but the food wasn’t what they were here for.
“I am not the one to deny a child his need when it is made graphically clear to me,” she responded to what had sounded like an accusation. “But that is neither here nor there, Moira. What I’d like is for my grandson no longer to have that need.”
“Then I’m afraid,” said Moira, “that you’re crying for the moon. For once, Marianne, you’re not being realistic. The real picture, and I may as well give it to you, is that the closer my son draws to his father’s family, the farther he grows away from me.”
“But that could have been avoided, couldn’t it? And it isn’t too late to right matters now.”
“Which matters are you referring to, Marianne? The situation between my son and me? The travesty my marriage now is, perhaps? Or the situation that no doubt causes you to lose a lot of sleep? Your daughter-in-law’s keeping her distance from the clan.”
“All three, Moira, and you’re welcome to know that I lose sleep about this entire, unhappy state of affairs. But it’s what you said finally that’s at the root of it.”
“Please believe that I tried.”
“I do.”
“But after a while I had to retreat.”
“Our family isn’t your enemy, Moira. I must now ask you to believe something. We care about you.”
“The caring is part of it, Marianne. Since your memory is so good, you might recall that at several family gatherings I went outside to get some air. On one occasion you followed me and asked if I was feeling ill – I think it was at your grandmother’s ninety-ninth birthday party. Every single member of the family was there, and we were all crowded into your mother’s flat. But it wasn’t that. I’d had the same claustrophobic feeling at the last few family gatherings and panic went with it –”
“Has that happened to you under any other circumstances?”
Moira shook her head.
It was then that Marianne realized that her daughter-in-law required psychiatric help.
But who is going to tell her? Not me.
Martin was that day lunching with his old friend Bill Dryden in the Oxford pub that was the setting for Bill’s introducing him to Moira.
“When you called me, I almost said Martin who?” Bill quipped with the dry smile that Martin recalled from their youth.
“I should’ve reacted similarly if you had called me.” Martin surveyed Bill’s well-bred face with affection. “When we do get together, though, however long the interim it’s as if I’d seen you yesterday.”
“On this occasion I wouldn’t say that applies visually,” Bill countered. “I’ve had time to acquire a bald patch and I don’t recall your demeanour being the one it is.”
Martin gave his attention to his soup, then put down his spoon. “I never could fool you, could I?”
“And I seem to recall, back in our commune days, that our friendship almost came a cropper when I stopped you from fooling yourself.”
“Me, too,” Martin said with chagrin. “And I never did bring myself to thank you. Instead, I wasted time licking my wounds when you read my brain-child and told me I wasn’t a novelist.”
“Your finally accepting my judgement was thanks enough. And our lunching here is certainly an exercise in nostalgia,” Bill remarked while refilling their glasses with Burgundy.
“In our undergrad days we couldn’t afford to lunch here,” Martin reminisced, “though at table in our seat of learning we were somewhat splendidly wined and dined.”
“My father,” said Bill, “has been known to joke to his friends that Oxford metamorphosed me into a connoisseur of vintages if not into a professor.”
“When mine said that sort of thing he wasn’t joking!”
“They might both have changed their tune had they tasted that dreadful plonk we were constrained to imbibe at the commune.”
“And I sometimes wish myself back with what Omar Khayyam conjured up in a couple of lines.”
“‘Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough, a Flask of Wine, A Book of Verse – and Thou –’” Bill quietly quoted.
“I shan’t bother asking how you knew.”
“That all is not well with you and Moira? If I may dip into The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam again,” said Bill, “she wasn’t, figuratively speaking, beside you singing in the Wilderness in the days you’re now yearning for. The Wilderness wasn’t quite Paradise for you then, though I have to say it was for me.”
The onlooker sees more of the game than the participants, Martin reflected. Or was it that there was much I didn’t let myself see?
They fell silent while their soup plates were removed and roast beef with Yorkshire pudding put before them. Visible from the dining alcove was the bar beside which Martin had first set eyes on Moira, its polished oak patina seeming timeless as did the pewter tankards hanging above it, and the hunting prints on the wall that were there when Martin was a student.
Time, though, had moved on and with it his hope of happiness had crumbled to dust.
Bill was helping himself to roast pota
toes and cauliflower, his appetite as ever belied by his bony appearance.
“Is your life with Sukey still paradise, Bill?”
“Good Lord no! I should like to meet the fellow who a decade and a half on could honestly say his marriage is.” Bill spooned horseradish sauce on to his plate and poured a small pyramid of salt beside it.
“When I first saw you do that,” Martin said with a smile, “you and all the others who did it at table, it seemed to me symbolic of the difference between you lot and a grammar-school lad like me. In our house the salt was conveniently shaken on the food – a habit I’ve never lost,” he added while doing so.
“I’d agree it’s more sensible,” said Bill, “but one’s conditioning will out and is apt to remain in matters of more importance than how one deals with condiments.”
“My son deals with condiments his mother’s way,” said Martin, “but I’ve never minded.”
“Why on earth would you mind something so trivial?”
“One thing leads to another, Bill.”
“A cliché that could mean anything.”
“But in this case it means that the things I do mind have finally led to the impasse that impelled me to call you. When you said you were shooting a documentary in Oxford this week, it seemed destined that I tell you in the place where I fell in love with my wife that my marriage is as good as over.”
Bill stopped eating and dabbed his lips with his napkin. “Steady on, old chap, or you’ll be lapsing into some of the purple prose in that manuscript I implored you to burn.”
“What you actually said was that the novel was lifeless. That was Moira’s opinion too, though she’d refrained from saying so lest it hurt me. I have to tell you, though, she doesn’t give a damn about hurting me now.”
“It isn’t my advice you want, is it?” Bill said after a pause. “Not that I feel equipped to dispense it. A marriage isn’t a book.”
“To whom but you can I get how I feel off my chest, Bill? The situation is long past the stage when anyone’s advice would help.”
While Bill went on eating, Martin unburdened himself at length, his meal forgotten.