‘Today,’ said Robin firmly, ‘we start with D.H. Lawrence as a poet. What did you think of his poems?’
Silence. The sun shone. A bus snorted and farted its way up the hill.
Total crippling silence.
‘Anyone?’
The hunk, whose name was Clyde, stroked the black hairs on his arms into whorls and kept his head down. He put one finger up his nose, rotated it, inspected the result and wiped it on his jeans.
‘My own feeling,’ said Robin, ‘is that Lawrence’s poetry has been underrated. His novels of course are better known. How many of you have read anything by Lawrence?’
A small fly hovered over the hand of one of the mature students. Cara flipped it away. It came again, persistent, onto a good thing. She slapped, shooed, flapped as though it were a tsetse fly about to inject her with a particularly virulent trypanosome. ‘Go away,’ she muttered. ‘Go away.’ It stayed for some time, cruising and drifting in the silence.
‘Lawrence,’ said Rebekkah with the breasts, ‘is a turn-off.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Total,’ said Clyde.
They were in accord, all except Helen, the middle-aged woman with horseshoes on her scarf. She stirred on buttocks tight with tension, got her commitment out in a rush, stuck up for the man. She had adored every one of Lawrence’s books and didn’t mind saying so.
The Japanese woman looked as if she were about to be sick. Her eyes were glazed; beads of sweat lay on her upper lip.
Robin leaned forward. ‘Do you feel all right?’ He glanced at his name sheet. ‘Taeko.’
She nodded; her polished blue-black hair did not move. ‘I am confused,’ gasped Taeko and vomited. The copper-coloured projectile of disaster hit the floor followed by the stampeding feet of 4B’s first tutorial.
Robin cleared it up. He never saw Taeko again.
He moved back to his bride and her delustred satin, sidestepping Calvin and his snatch of imploding wedding cake, took her hand, kissed her ringed finger. ‘I love you,’ he said.
‘I know.’ She laughed, tossed back the veil. Her hair was tied up in knots. He could see she wouldn’t have wanted it plaited which was how he liked it best. The bleached gold entwined with endless variations of darker strands from below fascinated him, turned him on man, turned him on. Plaits were not on offer. But why do they do it? Ritualised as shaven Hasidic brides, their hair is tied in knots for their wedding day. Lisa’s multicoloured richness was now manipulated into pouches, poufs, loops and holes for bats to die in.
‘I wish we’d had dancing,’ she said.
‘We couldn’t afford it.’
‘You always say that. It’s not quite a real wedding without dancing.’
He kissed her, took her in his loving arms and kissed her hard. The crowd parted, clapped, loved it.
His mother was at their side, abandoned, tremulous, forgiving. ‘Robin, can I have the flowers later for poor old Mrs Parkhurst? She’s got weeks of physio coming up.’ Eileen’s head moved, she gave a damp cluck of sympathy. ‘Stretched nerve,’ she murmured.
‘Yes, yes, of course.’
‘Who’s Mrs Parkhurst?’ asked Lisa.
He shook his head in defeat. ‘When can we go?’
‘Oh, we can’t go. Not for hours.’
She moved away, laughing and bubbly as ever.
‘You can’t mean it!’
She grabbed her going-away clutch purse to her breast. ‘Of course I mean it.’
‘Carry you. No. I won’t. No. This is the nineties.’
‘That’s not my fault,’ said Lisa. ‘Come on.’
His heart was thudding. Not from effort, she was light as a drifting leaf, but from something like shame, dislike at the phoniness of the yo-heave-ho gesture of satin-filled arms in once-aboard-the-lugger pretence. He had seen a Fire Service calendar recently of a muscle-bound hero oiled and stripped to the waist, carrying a limp blonde to safety; eyes closed, hair hanging down, the redeemed one’s nightgown was neck-to-knee cotton. The mannered pose, the cheerful face of the pretend rescuer had made him shout with laughter. A good night’s work.
He set her down gently.
‘Well,’ he said.
She smiled at him. ‘Robbie.’
‘Do you want anything to eat?’
‘Heavens, no.’ She patted her concave stomach. ‘Do you?’
‘I’d like a sandwich.’
‘A sandwich.’
‘Yes. I’ll get it. You get to bed.’ He felt tempted to tell her she had had a big day but thought better of it.
She was sitting up in bed propped by white pillows, expectant and pink-cheeked in her trousseau nightie. Her hair, he was pleased to see, fell around her shoulders once more. The nightgown was chaste; white, virginal, the blue ribbons tied.
She had never worn one before. Not as an adult. Not in her whole goddamn life. He laughed, fell on the bed and reached for his bride with shaking head.
‘What is it?’
‘God, I love you,’ he said.
He tried to tell her about his tutorials but what could you say.
Hamlet’s a terminal wimp.
No worse than Ophelia.
‘Why,’ said the old man in the front scrabbling at the tape recorder with arthritic hands, ‘is the gravedigger meant to be funny? He’s not funny. Not funny at all in my book.’
‘I agree that some of Shakespeare’s comic characters can be, shall we say, uncomfortable to us,’ said Robin carefully. ‘I don’t mean the comedies themselves of course, but some of the characters, well, I think we have to regard them as comic in intent.’ A tutor had told him this a few years ago and he was happy to hand it on. ‘Humour,’ he added all by himself, ‘changes over the years. Most verbal humour doesn’t last. Probably the audiences at the Globe fell about at funny peasant stuff like this. Whereas Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale or Lysistrata say, well, nothing dates bawdy. Sex,’ explained Robin, ‘is part of the human condition.’ There was a flicker of interest; heads lifted. He paused. ‘Satire lasts if it’s good enough. Wait till we get to Swift.’
Clyde, he glimpsed upside down from the desk in front of him, was reading a recipe for apricot jam.
The briefcase yawned.
They sat in silence. The brutal sullen silence of bored adolescence. He discovered later that some of them, Barclay with the briefcase, Jeanette with the pony tail and the psychedelic pencil-case, the one with the teeth, were all very bright. On paper they shone. Their Browning essays had shown that.
‘That’s my last Duchess on the wall, painted as though she were alive.’
Using this quotation as an example, discuss the tensions achieved by Browning in his dramatic monologue ‘My Last Duchess.’
In room 4B, week after week, month after month, the intelligent ones, the ones who could have contributed, who could have lifted the gloom, who could have bloody well helped, sat mute.
As time passed the matrons and one or two of the others thawed, which brought its own dangers. They wanted him to know what they thought and why they thought it in their own words. They brayed, they hesitated, they insisted. They would not shut up. They asked questions which ranged from the eager to the banal to the abysmal.
‘I think,’ said Helen, ‘that this one’s the most wonderful poem I’ve ever read about a baby.’ She placed her palm on her Sylvia Plath, flattened ‘The Night Dances’ with gentle reverence.
Her friend, Cara, who favoured the drifting pale creams and off-whites of Edwardian memsahibs, peered at the page with increased interest. ‘You mean there’s a baby in it? What do you mean it’s obvious, Hen? I can’t see it.’ Cara peered again, her face troubled as she searched for babies, waited for them to boo at her from behind dense thickets of words. ‘Oh,’ she said. “‘Small breath.” Is that it? Is that the baby?’
She had trouble also with Larkin. Look at ‘Church Going’. ‘Proper to grow wise in.’ What did Robin mean he was not religious? He wouldn’t have said that otherwise, would he? Not i
f he didn’t have faith.
All this and more he tried to explain to Lisa as he stir-fried vegetables with the brisk competence of the professional cook. Lisa sat on the kitchen bench with the sun on her back, her eyes on her pink strappy sandals, a can of Sprite in one hand. She lifted her head; her eyes were kind.
‘But why does it worry you, Robbie? I’m sure they like you really.’
He turned quickly, the opened can of shrimps still in his left hand. ‘What on earth’s that got to do with it?’
There was a problem with one of her buckles. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’
‘I don’t give a stuff whether they like me or not. We’re not there to make friends.’
‘No.’ A long swig of the Sprite. ‘And anyway they couldn’t. Not, I mean.’ She put the can in the sink, lifted her legs, held them close. She told him about her day at the lab. She told him how many specimens they had had on A Bench and how they were just having to work harder and harder and harder and how the sinking lid was making things virtually impossible and how every single piece of equipment, even swabs if you could imagine, had to be accounted for because of the cutbacks, and how Padma and all the seniors were ropeable, in fact everybody was, you should hear them. It was all Admin, Admin, Admin, everywhere you looked. Completely top heavy. They just walked around all day doing nothing or else sat there with their fat salaries and their car parks and goodness knows what else and expected the people at the cutting edge where it was all happening to make bricks out of straw. It couldn’t go on like this. You should hear the nurses. And it’s the patients who’ll suffer. Everyone says so. People will be hurting. You can only do so much.
He turned the gas down and looked at her. It was true, all true. The country, as Miss Bowman said, was being thrown to the dogs in the name of progress. That was all that mattered. That was all you had to fight. And yet her attempt to console nettled.
But wasn’t that love. Caring. Concern for the other.
He thought of Sandy and Janice and the last conversation he had overheard. Their self-absorption never failed him. I did this. I did that. We went here. We didn’t. We did. He said and I said and he said and I said No. My bassinet was frilled with pink. Mine wasn’t. Mine was blue. Mum said. Mine wasn’t.
He realised he was being ridiculous. It would not always be like this. He and Lisa would have other things to talk about, more interesting things to discuss together than their daily whinges from the cliff face of work. I did, I didn’t, I did. What Lisa and Robin did at school and how difficult it had been for both of them.
He knew also that sharing is one of the joys of a stable relationship. Her A Bench problems, her regrettable tendency to split ends, the plastic shower curtain which would cling to her legs with amorous enthusiasm instead of hanging straight, were his problems as well. He wanted her to share, to confide. They would crack the problem of the mould in the bathroom between them. It concerned them both. It was theirs and he loved her. His heart lurched each time he turned into their cul de sac after a catering session and saw the bedroom light shining. Come home, my lurve, come home.
So what on earth was he on about. All was well and would become better. Things would grow and flourish between them, interests would blossom, nourished by the hand-held watering of togetherness, of love.
Cooking was not even a starter as a shared interest. Never had been, but that was good. Lisa was meticulous about the washing-up (‘No, no Robbie, it’s my turn’) and they were both neat. Robin’s love of cooking did not include a prima donna disregard for muddle. It is a myth engendered by the mucky that Mess = Talent squared. He looked forward to the savouring, the presentation, the lift of her lips as she reached for the Bordelaise minus bone marrow. Yummy.
Even the shopping did not bore him as he sought the perfect melon, tracked down Florentine fennel, the best pawpaws, polenta. And always, of course, the freshest coffee.
He had assumed that her lack of interest in birds stemmed from the comparative dearth of interesting ones in Seatoun. It was not that she did not enjoy them in the bush; the limpid call of the bellbird delighted her as did the tramper-friendly fantails and the clockwork charm of the bush robins. But she was completely nonspecific, she liked them all, they were all nice. ‘Listen!’ she whispered, one hand palm-out in blessing. But she had no concern as to which was which. Was that plangent call across the valley a tui or a bellbird? Lisa did not care. Whatever it was made a nice noise and she loved it. It was the same with all bird calls. She was happy to ask him which it was, nod happily and forget immediately. Glimpses and flashes which left him haunted at not knowing worried her not at all. Bush wren, grey warbler, what did it matter? He had thought she would want to learn, would catch on to the fact that knowing is part of it. But of course it didn’t matter. As she said, she adored the bush. They must get away more often. Yes, she agreed, they certainly must. It was just that things seem to happen in the weekends, don’t they. Parties and that.
The Ornithological Society held no charms. She was happy to go with Rob on his gull counts or dotterel checks, was glad to picnic on river banks surrounded by lupins and cicadas. She loved it. But not the actual counting, not standing for hours with binoculars and counting. She sat on the bank or in the car with her knitting until it was time for afternoon tea and she called him, waving the signal tea towel with oystercatchers from Forest and Bird. The exception was chicks. Chicks she had to see. Bundles of black or grey fluff, the maternal behaviour of a banded dotterel mother feigning injury as she flapped away from the nest in her attempt to entice the predator, left Lisa speechless with joy. Wasn’t it clever of her? Brave too. I mean she didn’t know Rob wouldn’t hurt the chicks did she. Lisa was a great enjoyer. They must indeed get away more. She needed a break as much as he did. As Padma said she was a lovely little worker.
She had no objection, for example, to the Saturday-morning roster at the hospital laboratory. You had more responsibility somehow. Not really of course, there were plenty of seniors about, but it was all urgent stuff and very varied and it kept you on your toes and was good experience. ‘I’m on next Saturday, remember.’
Robin rang Emmeline. Could he come and see Miss Bowman? Ask her about Alice O’Leary? He had tried straight after the wedding but she had had a relapse and returned to hospital. He must be quick; quick, careful and considerate, but most of all quick.
‘Yes,’ said Emmie. ‘She says she’d like to see you.’
‘Did you mention Alice O’Leary?’
‘No. Why?’
He’d always known she was nuts.
He would go to the supermarket first. Do his stuff with Eileen and Maureen. Save the treat for the end as he had always done. He strode about the echoing aisles of the barn-like place flinging things into his trolley with precision. He wasn’t after anything interesting, just stocking up on basics and a box of Roses for Eileen and something for Maureen. He checked the tabloid covers at the checkout—‘Half-man half-plant battles evil in Louisiana bayou.’ ‘Di’s secret sweat obsession.’ ‘Bishop denies rort’—and drove on to Seatoun wondering why it seemed so much flatter than Lyall Bay when it was not. His memories were of flat gardens, flat houses, flat roads stretching to the sea; of biking to school and back in head winds. The bobbles framing the hood of Lisa’s pram had tossed in the northerlies as he pushed.
He sat motionless in the car, hands flat on the wheel, his eyes on his mother’s house. Two bedrooms, tidy condition, handy to bus, one careful lady owner—and lucky to have it as well she knew. He was, he supposed, a reasonably good son; he ‘kept in touch’, mowed her lawns, intended to fix the dead fence eventually. Robin dragged his hand through his hair and stayed sitting. When he woke in the night, which was seldom, he instinctively put out his hand to the warmth of Lisa beside him, heard her breathing. Always in these moments; intrusive, unwelcome as Witnesses with Watchtowers came the thought of his mother lying alone.
He snatched the box of chocolates and leaped out. Of course she would be sleep
ing alone, what else would she be, and had been for years and would continue to be till death did them part. He ran up the drive and hammered on the back door. No response. He banged again, then moved to the rust-ridden mint in the kerosene tin, lifted one corner and removed the key.
He called her name, walked through the narrow slab of the kitchen into what had once been a dining-room before cosying itself into a den. Two well-rounded autumn-toned chairs had moved in; the television waited vacant as an unlit oven beside the large heater in front of the boarded-up fireplace. The mahogany formica table and chairs had been shoved to one side—tea was nicer on the knee she found nowadays and why not? The formica coffee table remained, its legs splayed for the unwary, its surface unscarred by use. Limbs had been sliced by flying shards in the Falklands campaign. And drip-dry shirts cling to the skin when alight. Nothing is perfect.
He moved to straighten the beaked half-man half-bird chocolate-paper collage inscribed in early joined-up writing—Mum, Happy Christmas from Robin. The crocheted afghan folded neatly across the back of Eileen’s chair waited as did a pile of ‘my little papers’ on a stool beside it. The top cover smouldered at him, New Zealand’s own supermodel’s pout was his alone.
He stared around, his face blank as the TV. Clutching his chocolates (was the birdman Roses?) he moved on. He had no reason to fear a collapsed corpse and did not. Empty rooms and still air surrounded him. She would be out doing her rounds. Popping in to cheer Miss Bowman perhaps. So near, within such easy popping distance, and so ill.
His shoulders twitched as he rejected the thought. Miss Bowman was not pop-in material. Miss Bowman was a rock who chose solitude or by appointment, who was not to be peppered by the casual or bored by the uninvited.
He scribbled a message, placed it under the chocolates and shut the door. His faint annoyance at his mother’s absence was illogical, ridiculous and present. Here he was bearing gifts and where the hell was she. He gave a quick snort of self-disgust and tried next door. Maureen was not at home either. She too would be on duty, biking around the flats in search of the day’s bride, the train to be tweaked, the veil to be spread wide with quick concertina-playing movements of both hands.
The House Guest Page 7