Much of this was re-played to Susie at their next meeting. ‘I haven’t felt as churned up about things since Jack left’ Effie complained as the two of them perched on bar stools at Freddie’s. ‘I feel as though a layer of skin has been peeled off and I’m just so easily put in a wobble. I mean imagine getting upset by that awful woman Lucinda.’
‘Oh it’s not just her you’re upset about, darling’ said Susie wisely ‘but it may be that you are beginning to like Oliver and don’t want her spoiling your pitch.’
‘That sounds awfully crude. But it’s true I did have this horrible pang when I saw her grasping on to Oliver, like she owned him. I guess I must feel something for him.’ She pensively prodded an olive with a cocktail stick. ‘You know, maybe it’s a relief to think that someone other than my son-in-law or my ex-husband can stir my feelings.’ She shook her head, ‘but it’s all a bit much to cope with. I’ve seriously been thinking of going to Dr Gordon and asking him to give me a dose of tranquilisers.’
Susie tutted. `Come on, Effie, that’s not going to do anything other than delay you sorting things out.’
‘So?’
‘So, you don’t want to end up a chemical junkie, do you?’
‘Dependency has its attractions.’
‘Sounds like your library researches didn’t teach you much.’
‘Well, I think I gathered that pretty well everything that happens to us when we’re young can work away inside us, and once it’s there it’s damn hard to get rid of, a bit like being on auto-pilot. So the thing is to try and take control of it, like remembering things, kind of making them more obvious rather than letting them sneak up and take you by surprise. So I’ve been trying to think back and remember things that might account for my current emotional mess.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like the fact that my mother adored my brother and never seemed to think I came up to scratch. God, Susie, she was so critical of my weight that it’s a surprise I didn’t grow up with an eating disorder. Least, you don’t think I’ve got an eating problem do you?... I mean I may be a bit on the large side and eat pretty well, but even Jack didn’t complain too much about my size; though, come to think of it, Hilary was quite a skinny bitch. Perhaps all those years he was secretly hankering after a slim sylph for a wife.’
‘I doubt it’ said Susie adamantly, pushing the crisp bowl in Effie’s direction, ‘so why did you marry Jack? I don’t think you’ve ever told me what the attraction was.’
Effie considered this as she noisily crunched on a mouthful of cheese and onion crisps. ‘Did I never tell you that Jack was once upon a time a friend of Victor? Yes, he and Victor met at college and stayed friends after that, and I met him one holiday when he was home. They were good fun. Even my parents seemed to like Jack, and I can tell you my mother was quite fussy about Victor’s friends. She was so possessive. Not that he took much notice.’
‘From what you say, Victor paid most attention to number one.’
‘Right, he was definitely selfish, and perhaps the most selfish thing he did from my mother’s point of view, was to go off and live in America and marry an American who didn’t like England. I guess that just about broke my mother’s heart. Assuming she had one’ Effie added with a brief laugh. ‘But, hey, Susie, shall we have another one? Remembering all this stuff is thirsty work.’
‘Same again please, Freddie.’
Her replenished glass in hand, Effie addressed her friend soberly: ‘You know, I’m just beginning to realise how important Victor was in my life. You see, Jack had got used to coming round to our house quite a bit. He and Victor would pitch up on Sundays around lunch, hugely hungry, a bit hung over, noisy, kind of lively and my mother just loved it. So when Victor went off to the Sates my mother issued Jack with an open invitation to go on coming round for Sunday lunch and he often did. My mother would tell me he was coming as though she wanted us to get together. So we sort of did. I suppose Jack was the next best thing to Victor. He even looked a bit like him in those days when he had a head of hair and I think I did fall in love with him. Of course now, with the benefit of hindsight, not to mention my dipping into books on amateur psychology, I suspect I was really in love with Victor.’
‘Makes a lot of sense. I mean isn’t that what we’re all meant to do? Marry our fathers, or why not our brothers? I only had a sister which has been complicated enough.’
Effie was warming to her task, enjoying the beginnings of a feeling of booze going to her head. ‘Funny thing was, you know, although I can see my mother was definitely encouraging me to become an item with Jack, she didn’t seem that pleased when we got married.’
‘Perhaps you underestimate the competitive element.’
‘How so?’
‘I’d say it’s one thing to wield that baton and conduct an affair between you and Jack, but once you’re married, well, then it’s less under her control and you’re the one who’s got Jack and she hasn’t got her beloved son.’
Effie was impressed with her friend’s analysis. ‘Goodness, Susie, perhaps I should consult you more regularly. That makes a lot of sense though it’s not something to be proud of, I mean, the idea of competing with your own mother.’
Susie shrugged and sipped her Chardonnay. ‘Oh I think you were competing with her for Victor practically from birth, and poor old Jack got caught up in it.’
‘God, don’t be sorry for Jack, that bastard. He doesn’t deserve any pity, the two-timing, f’...ing....’
‘Ok, OK - I only meant he was part of the triangle.’
Effie burst out laughing ‘when you mention ‘triangles’ I can’t help thinking of our maths teacher at school and how she used to get us to sing a song about Pythagoras and a right-angled triangle, the square on the hypotenuse and all that. It was such a neat formulation. Oh that real life were so. I just can’t find an OK place for what’s happened right now, how to think about my own feelings.’ She was sombre again.
‘Look don’t beat yourself up too much about it. You don’t want to get sick or anything.’
‘Well, I haven’t exactly been sleeping my best. Which isn’t surprising I suppose and I’ve been dreaming a lot. Odd dreams, that leave me feeling uncomfortable.’
‘Such as?’
‘Last night I dreamt I was sitting at a piano trying to play a piece of music and I couldn’t do it, it was too hard, and I kept looking away from it, as though someone was watching me from behind.’
‘Oh I think you just can’t face the music’ retorted Susie quick as a flash.
‘God, Susie, do you really think so? I’ve been telling myself I’m doing everything to face up to things.’
‘I’m sure you are, but it’s not just going to happen like that. I spent a good six months sorting myself out on that couch and at the end she made damn sure that I didn’t kid myself it was all neatly tied up. A life task, I think she said.’
‘Oh dear.’ Effie looked glum.
Back home she opened her diary before going to bed. Where had the discussion with Susie taken her? Straight to my mother, was the obvious answer, and she had not so far even given her a heading of her own, subsuming her comments so far under ‘childhood’. She tapped in ‘my mother’, adding as a sub-heading ‘things I liked about my mother’ which gave her pause for thought. Nothing immediately stood out while when she went on to list ‘things I did not like about my mother’ her fingers flew over the keys: ‘never told me I was pretty, told me I was too fat, compared me unfavourably to my brother, didn’t share my joys. What a bitch of a mother.’ Having vented this thought she went back to the ‘what I liked’ column and added ‘she never criticised my mothering of the children which for her amounts to being given the thumbs up. She was OK as a grandmother.’ Yes, she could see that her mother had been very different with her grandchildren. She pictured her mother getting down on the floor to play with the children when they were small, patient and un-phased by the mess, in a way she had never been with her and Victor. Was that a way of making up for earlier shortcomings or was it just that much easier with the next generation? She had only to look at herself and Cathy and the pleasure she got from the two little ones. She flicked back to ‘Cathy’, re-reading her comments about how difficult she had been as a small child. ‘She was difficult and clingy but she was also the most loving of the three, always took things to heart and was probably the one most upset by Jack and me getting divorced. Perhaps I was so taken up with my own hurt about Jack I didn’t give enough attention to how it was for her, and Jane and Leo. I think I relied on the fact that they were all grown up and had their own lives. Can see now that was a mistake.’
With this thought she closed the diary and settled herself for the night in the hope of drifting into untroubled rest. What she found was that she dreamt vividly: she saw a woman running away from some people who were chasing after her shouting that she was a murderer. She was trying to call out herself that she was innocent but they did not listen and she was terrified that they were going to catch up with her. She woke in quite a sweat to find the sun streaming in through the curtains. Five minutes later she was propped up in bed with a cup of tea, her lap-top on her knees, tapping in a new heading for ‘dreams’ which were obviously going to be an important part of the SOP. By the time she had finished typing out the details it seemed all too clear that the message of the dream was something about getting away with it or, more precisely, not getting away with murder. This troublesome thought came out as a dialogue as she wrote.
‘But I haven’t murdered anyone’
‘But you’ve done something which you know is totally wrong.’
‘I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.’
‘It was a hostile act towards your daughter.’
‘Oh god! Do I have to think about it like that?’
‘How else would you think about it?’
‘I don’t know.’
And with that she closed the diary again to set about the business of the day.