‘No,’ says Chloe, ‘I don’t know what today is.’
Today Françoise has been in the Rudore household for just nine months. For three months she has had carnal acquaintance with her employer. Chloe has had none for nearly a year. Is this hardship? Chloe does not know.
When Chloe sleeps in her husband’s bed, there is no end to her expectations – not just that the empty spaces in her body should be nightly filled and rewarded, but all her inner space as well, by day.
Look after me, nurture me, love me, care for me, she cries to him with every waking and with every sleeping breath. Be perfect. Not perfect as you see it, but as I want perfection. Be perfect not just for me, but for our children too. All our children. Don’t work, don’t drink, don’t be bad-tempered; these things deflect you from your task. Your task is me. Fill me, fill my empty spaces. Complete me.
Although, in her heart, Chloe knows she never can be filled. Some wounds have gone too deep, protective membranes have been torn and can’t be mended. Love and concern will always trickle out of her, in the end, and leave her empty again, no matter how he fills, and fills.
But sleeping in his bed, she cannot quench her expectations.
Out of his bed, she can be serene. Badly treated, but at least free of expectation. Walking wounded, trudging away from the battle zone, not needing the pretence of being whole. What a relief! So long as the children notice nothing.
Of course they notice. Inigo and Imogen, Kestrel and Kevin. Stanhope too.
‘Very well,’ says Chloe, ‘tell me what today is.’ The ground beneath shakes as a juggernaut passes, off on its journey to the M4 and the West.
What a dim domestic heroine she is in danger of becoming, like her mother, like Mrs Songford, who at least died in disgrace. Like a million million women, shuffling and shameful to the end.
‘Today eighteen years ago,’ says Marjorie, ‘I went to the hospital to collect Ben and I found him dead in a drawer. Today a week ago I went to the doctor, and he said I ought to have a hysterectomy, it was ridiculous the way I bled, and I don’t know what to do. Don’t you please tell me, either, Chloe, I don’t trust your judgement any more. Not since Françoise. You don’t know how that’s upset me. I had hoped that you at least could be happy.’
What can Chloe say? She wants to cry, for everyone.