At eleven-thirty the night before Timothy’s party, Catherine was still blowing up balloons. The ones she had already finished, all colours and shapes, drifted slightly about the room, pushed by a breeze from the open window.
It was a mild night for October. Catherine felt hot, and her head ached from all the blowing. She had not bothered about dinner, so was also hungry. Some of her friends threw themselves gleefully into preparations for their children’s parties, she reflected, and she wished she was one of them. But she found the whole thing a great effort, and worried for weeks about the birthday cake and expensive bags of going-home presents and the bloody balloons … The fact that Timothy’s friends always enjoyed themselves made no difference to her annual anxiety. Still, this time tomorrow the whole thing would be over.
Seven, she thought. Timothy. Seven years ago. Unbelievable. The passing of every year, in middle age, grows more unbelievable.
Catherine picked up the last yellow balloon and blew into it with a final effort. Her head cracked with renewed pain. To hell with it. There were quite enough. She let it wither back into her hand with a little snorting noise. It lay there, a deflated caterpillar, slightly warm. And where was Oliver? Unlike him to be so late, knowing he was needed to help. He had a tedious amount of evening meetings and dinners, since he had been made managing director, but was rarely very late. Catherine felt a surge of annoyance. He knew what she was like about parties, what a nervous state they caused her. He knew she would have wanted his support this evening, though, of course, he could not know what sort of day she had had – a flat tyre, the dentist, four shops to find white candles … and just very tired.
But there he was, the familiar bang on the door. He hurried in, carrying a huge parcel.
Timothy’s train set,’ he said. ‘I managed to get it just before they closed.’
‘Wonderful,’ said Catherine.
His sudden presence demolished in a trice the resentment that had built within her.
‘I’ll wrap it up in a moment. I’ve written a card. You’d better sign it, though he won’t bother to read it.’
Oliver was pouring two glasses of whisky. ‘I’d rather thought it was my present, actually,’ he said, throwing ice carelessly into the glasses. ‘I mean, it was my idea. I found it. I paid.’ He turned, watched the incomprehension shift across his wife’s face. ‘Oh, all right, then. It’d better be from us both.’ He passed Catherine a glass.
‘Well, our big present is always between us, isn’t it? Thank you.’
Oliver sat in his usual chair by the fire. He gave a small kick to a couple of balloons at his feet, watched them jump along the carpet.
‘You’ve been hard at work,’ he said. ‘Everything under control?’
A small pulse ticked in his neck. Catherine stared at it, fascinated. She had never seen it before.
‘I think so,’ she said. ‘I picked up the cake, a pretty good chocolate engine, though goodness knows what the sponge will be like. I had a bit of trouble getting the right candles …’
Catherine cut short this story, knowing it was the kind of event in her day that would not interest Oliver and for which she could expect no sympathy.
‘There are still the strings to put on the balloons, but I’ll do that in the morning and hang them about the place. Timothy insisted I wasn’t mean with the balloons. Well, I haven’t been, have I?’
She allowed herself a tiny smile of self-congratulation to make up for Oliver’s indifference. He did not smile back. Catherine had learned long ago that efficiency in domestic matters was not the way to his heart, though inefficiency provoked his displeasure. No: he was a man whose objects of admiration were set on higher things, and she had come to accept that in this he would never change.
‘But I must admit,’ she heard herself saying, ‘I could have done with a bit of help blowing them up. They’re so hard, these days.’
‘Sorry I was late.’
Oliver held his glass in both hands, looking down into the liquid as if studying a magician’s magic ball. His fine, soft face, in this light, scarcely seemed to have changed in the fifteen years they had known each other, thought Catherine. Their eyes met.
‘I’m leaving you, Cathy,’ he was saying. ‘I’m terribly sorry, but I’m going.’
As when a limb is broken in an accident, or an icy snowball breaks on warm skin, and there is no pain, no feeling, no immediate reaction of what is taking place, so all sensation but incredulity drained from Catherine. She stared at her husband, unblinking.
‘What about Timothy’s party?’ she said at last. ‘Leaving for where? You can’t let Tim down like that, whatever the business.’
‘Oh, the party. I’ll be there for that. But you don’t seem to have understood. I’m not going anywhere on business. I’m leaving for good. Leaving you and Tim, this house, our life. Finally going. Do you realise what I’m saying?’
‘No,’ said Catherine.
‘How can I make myself more clear?’ Oliver was trying to curb a flash of impatience. ‘I’m going. For good.’
Catherine felt her hand freeze on her glass. She looked at it. The fingers swelled up and quavered, like fingers seen through a distorting mirror that makes you laugh. Her mouth, when she opened it to speak, puckered and trembled against her teeth.
‘What have I done?’ she asked.
‘Nothing. At least, nothing I can really complain of. You’ve been a good wife to me in so many ways. That’s been part of the trouble, the reason I’ve taken so long in deciding. That’s what makes it so difficult a decision.’
‘Difficult,’ repeated Catherine.
The reality was beginning to seep through now, chilling her veins. In the blind alley of her mind she struggled to formulate another looming question.
‘Why, then?’ she asked.
Oliver gave a small shrug, an awkward smile. ‘I can’t lie to you. Another woman. I fell in love with her four years ago. I did try very hard, I promise you, to resist –’
‘Four years ago? I don’t believe it!’ Catherine was on her feet now, scarlet and shouting. ‘You’ve been deceiving me with someone else for four years? I don’t believe it! Four years of no clues, no hints, carrying on being so ordinary to me, same as ever, loving, happy, I thought. It’s not possible!’
‘These things happen,’ began Oliver. ‘And stop shouting, or you’ll wake Timothy.’
‘Why do they happen? They don’t have to happen if you don’t want them to happen. You could have stopped – ’
‘I tried to at first. Very hard. In the end I didn’t want to any more.’
He was quite flushed. A wisp of hair stuck out behind one ear. For the first time in her life, it occurred to Catherine that her handsome husband looked absurd.
‘I see,’ she said.
In the long silence that followed, she looked about her, at the familiar room made unfamiliar by the bright balloons shuffling about, drowning her in her own house. Glancing in the looking-glass above the fire, she saw her wracked face, and was horrified: in middle age, shock or great despair are brutal to unfirm faces – she had seen the quivering of troubled flesh on others’ jowls, hated her own lack of demeanour. She knew her appearance would do nothing to endear her to Oliver, either. She sat down again, needing the steady hug of a chair.
‘I always thought,’ she said, ‘we were absolutely all right, you and me, Ol. So many friends breaking up, but you and me … We’ve always said how lucky we are, haven’t we?’
‘Well, we were. We’ve had good years, I don’t deny that.’
Another silence. I can’t believe this, Catherine repeated to herself. Then eventually, she said, very quietly, ‘This is madness, isn’t it? Insanity. It’s not true. It’s not happening. We’re going to wake up in a moment from this nightmare.’
‘It’s no nightmare,’ said Oliver, curtly, ‘though I can understand your shock. But didn’t it ever occur to you that things hadn’t been well, how shall I put it, quite tickety-boo for some years?’
Anger flamed through Catherine’s spine. She sat bolt upright, knew she was going to answer.
‘No! It did not occur to me things weren’t quite tickety-boo, I’m afraid.’ Ammunition fired, she slumped back, weak again. ‘Does anyone else know?’
‘I’ve not told anyone.’
‘Thank God for that.’
‘Do you want to know anything about it?’
‘I suppose I’d better know the briefest outline. You could spare me the details.’
Oliver got up to fetch the bottle of whisky. As Catherine watched the man whom she had loved without reserve for fifteen years, memories of things innocent at the time began to bite. Last summer in Brittany, he had gone every day to the hotel to make ‘business’ calls, saying there was a crisis. There was an unexplained tie in his cupboard: he did not usually buy himself clothes of any kind. The trappings of infidelity, discovered in retrospect, are infinite in their cruelty. She accepted more whisky.
‘We might have gone on for another thirty years, you and me,’ Oliver was saying. ‘That would have been perfectly possible. We could have carried on in our minor key of compatibility, if that’s what it was, ignoring the constraints, the general lack of – ’
‘Constraints?’
‘Yes, constraints. Is that a surprise to you? Had you no idea there were constraints between us? We could have ridden them, perhaps, had it not been for Jennifer – ’
‘Jennifer? God, what a name.’ Catherine’s voice rose: Oliver’s fell.
‘Jennifer made me realise that for the first time in my life there need be no constraints between two people, however difficult circumstances may be. She made me realise something I’d been trying not to observe since the early days of our marriage.’ He paused to drink.
‘What was that?’ Catherine was relieved to find actual words could still be formulated, albeit shakily.
‘She made me realise that though you and I were always very companionable, we were never at one in heart and spirit, never loved in a way that I now know – ’
‘Stop, Oliver. Such justifications are rubbish. I don’t want to hear them.’
Companionable, merely? What could he mean? All the years of laughter, the marvellous spartan holiday in their Scottish croft, the daily, mutual pleasure of Timothy, the wild enchanting nights, often better now, even, than in the beginning? Only last week …
‘I would describe our marriage as more than just companionable,’ she said at last.
‘That’s the difficulty, when two people see the same situation in completely different lights. It’s a hard fact, but what you may have seen as a loving, satisfying marriage, I’ve known for years, for me, was just … as I said. Ultimately unsatisfying, not what I wanted.’
This is laceration, thought Catherine.
‘You bastard,’ she said. And instantly regretted it. There was no point in returning insults. ‘You can’t just ditch me with no explanation,’ she added. ‘I want to know – ’
‘I’ve been trying to tell you. But I don’t think this is the time to go over it all again.’
He glanced at his watch like an impatient doctor who had to deal with a tiresome patient. Catherine recognised his voice as the mildly firm one he employed if she suggested they should ask some of her old school friends, with whom he had nothing in common, to dinner.
‘But perhaps you’d be interested to know that Jennifer is over, now. Over. Four or five months ago.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘So there’s currently no one else. I’m not leaving you for anyone else, understand?’
‘So much for unconstrained love,’ said Catherine, unable to resist. ‘Is that meant to be better or worse, leaving me for no one?’
‘I don’t know,’ Oliver sighed. ‘I’ve put it all in my solicitor’s hands,’ he went on quietly. ‘I promise arrangements will be amicable, fair. You and Timothy can stay here, of course. You won’t be short of money.’
The rich divorcee, Catherine thought.
‘What a funny time to tell me all this,’ she said.
‘I spent a lot of time trying to work out the right moment.’ Oliver sounded almost boastful. ‘It seemed to me – I mean, I imagined that with so much to do tomorrow it would take your mind off it… It was as good a time as any, I reckoned.’
Catherine tried to laugh. The result was more like a howl. Oliver, ignoring the savage noise, shut the window and switched off the lights.
‘Bed,’ he said.
Catherine stood up. ‘I’ve a right to fight for you,’ she said.
‘Fight all you like. Nothing will change my mind. I’ve been weighing it all up for months.’
‘You might have shared your calculations.’
‘No point. As I said, my decision was nothing to do with you, fundamentally. Now, come on. Finish your drink.’
Catherine obeyed. She asked if she should make up the bed in Oliver’s dressing-room?
‘I’d rather you didn’t. Unless you feel …’ He seemed surprised she should suggest such a thing.
‘I don’t feel anything,’ said Catherine. ‘Except a little drunk.’
By the light from the hall, they made their way across the darkened room, kicking at the impeding balloons – some globular, some giant sausages, others decapitated heads with painted grins and pointed ears.
‘Damn these things,’ grunted Oliver, kicking. One burst with a squawk.
‘Oh no,’ groaned Catherine. She envisaged them all bursting, firing their irregular bangs like the guns of battle. How could she face Timothy tomorrow, balloonless?
But there were no more bangs. Oliver was careful. And in bed he held his wife in his arms as usual. She quivered, tearless.
‘Whatever does it mean, this sudden hardening of your heart?’ she whispered. It was easier to ask such a question in bed.
‘I don’t know,’ he answered, and she could feel him, strangely, wanting her. ‘But I’m sorry. You must be brave. You’re always brave.’
Oliver forgot to sign the card on Timothy’s present, but Timothy did not notice, as Catherine had predicted. He was delighted by the train set, and other presents, spreading them all over the breakfast table. As for Oliver, except for a firmer set of his face, perhaps, a slight tightening of the handsome mouth (both changes so slight that none but a wife would notice them) he appeared completely normal, quite cheerful. Admiration of the presents delayed them. There was a sudden hurry to get ready, all the scatty urgency of late departure … Barely time for Catherine to straighten Timothy’s tie, kiss her husband on the cheek.
‘Back soon as I can for the party,’ he promised.
Alone in the house, Catherine decided to take Oliver’s advice and be brave. She set about her preparations with exhilaration surprising after the sleepless night. In the kitchen she cut sandwiches, mashed bananas, made biscuits into patterns on plates, mixed jugs of fruit cup and stuck seven infirm candles into the chocolate engine. In the sitting-room she pushed back the sofas to clear a space for Zsa, the charming post-graduate conjuror, who supplemented his days of research by entertaining children with his off-beat magic and childlike jokes. It would probably be the last such party, Catherine thought. Next year, at eight, Timothy would want some sort of sophisticated outing to McDonald’s or a theatre.
The balloons seemed to follow her everywhere. In the dining-room they clustered round her legs as she carefully laid the table. She put cat masks at twelve places, piled up crackers, laid folded paper napkins printed with tigers on paper plates bright with matching tigers, and stuck striped straws into scarlet paper cups. Companionable, companionable? Very companionable, she and Oliver. The words rattled about like spilled marbles among the decorations, but they did not hurt.
Last job was to tie strings on the dozens of balloons. Catherine hung them in great clumps on the bannisters, over pictures, on the hatstand in the hall, remembering to reserve three for the front gate – universal signal of a party. Who on earth chooses the colours of balloons, she wondered? The sour reds, scorched oranges, raw yellows and chemical greens hurt her eyes. There were so many ugly colours in the commercial world. She had once asked Oliver if he was offended by these millions of hideous colours, in shops and towns, that confront us every day. He said no, of course not, and thank goodness he did not suffer from her over-sensitivity.
Companionable, companionable. The balloons all in place at last, never quite still, Catherine returned to the chair in which last night she had received the news of her husband’s departure. The scene, so mad, so painful, so bleak, swirled like minuscule grains in her head. The far past she always saw in much reduced size (last night now felt like the far past) thus making its reality hard to vouch for. As for the present, this silence before the revelries, normality only blotched by balloons -what now? Should Oliver really go, sweeping familiar companionableness from her – what then?
Then, of course, life would go on. Different life with different possibilities. New challenges, new emptiness. But perhaps new rewards, too. Possibly even some kind of new love – the kind Oliver had found with Jennifer, and imagined he might find again. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too bad, once she had grown accustomed to unmarried life. – It would also be inconceivable.
After a while, Catherine roused herself from her brief reflections, stood. It was time to brush her hair, pin on a brooch and a smile, be ready to welcome Timothy home shortly. She must check he had a clean shirt. She must plan how to approach Oliver tonight. She must continue to be brave, whichever way things went. Catherine smiled to herself. The trouble with good mothers, she thought, was that no matter the traumas in their own lives, there was simply no time to collapse.
It was an uproarious success, as always, Timothy’s party. Twelve boys jerked shrieking through the rooms caught in a sleet of wrapping paper and ribbon, bursting balloons and upsetting books, ashtrays, lamps – but you couldn’t put everything away, Catherine decided, every year.
Oliver arrived halfway through tea, which was devoured in a very few minutes. (Catherine had wrongly allowed fifteen.) The cake cutting was a ceremony made deafening with witches’ screeches. The out-of-tune rendering of Happy Birthday made Timothy blush. Oliver smiled, helped his son cut the chocolate engine. Tea over, Timothy gave Catherine a sudden hug for no apparent reason. Her eyes stung. She felt the letters of the word companionable, sharp as beads, fetter her limbs, strangling. But at least for these two hilarious hours, as for the rest of the day, there had been little time for thought. Oliver had been right, as usual.
During the conjuror’s masterful performance of cracking eggs and mixing them to a disgusting mess in a bowler hat while the children screamed their appreciation, Oliver, Catherine saw, eyed her with something like respect. Well, she had remembered to cover the carpet where Zsa performed with newspaper. Oliver always admired such forethought, expected it of his wife.
They were gone – parents with impatient eyes, minds on the rush hour: boys with their single balloon and plastic party-bags of sweets and water pistols. Timothy was finally in bed, the relics of his seventh birthday scattered on stairs, floors, chairs and tables. Catherine found a tray, went to the dining-room to clear the demolished tea that had taken so long to arrange. Crossing the hall, she found Oliver contemplating the bunch of unburst balloons still tied to the bannister. He held a pointed kitchen knife.
‘Tim’ll be glad there are so many over,’ said Catherine.
She wanted to clear up fast, concentrate on the chicken Kiev for dinner, think about the proper discussion which must take place.
‘I hate the things,’ said Oliver.
Catherine continued on her way to the dining-room. As she scraped chocolate cake from plates, she heard a succession of quick bangs. She counted. Ten. Perhaps Oliver was going through a mid-life crisis, she thought, gripping the table to stop herself shouting. That must be the explanation for his curious behaviour of the last twenty-four hours. The male menopause, of course. Must be dealt with gently. She’d read enough articles about it. Catherine picked up a forgotten cat mask, licked jam from its nose, and put it on. Then a purple paper crown. Male menopause being the explanation, the first thing to do would be to make Oliver laugh. She’d always been able to do that, at least.
There was a final bang. Louder. The front door.
Masked, purple crown askew, Catherine carried the tea-tray to the front hall. The bunch of balloons was now a bunch of rubber ribbons hanging limply from their strings. Life, tension, air, gone from them. Unable to chase her any more. Next year, she would get one of those pumps to blow them up … no need for the chicken Kiev, now, was there?
Catherine moved automatically to the kitchen, set down the tray, vision impaired by the cat mask. Perhaps, though, she should still cook it. It was more than likely Oliver had just gone down the road for more cigarettes. Scraping the parsnips would give her time to think. Calmly, rationally. The party over – and, heavens, it had been a good party, Timothy had loved it – her mind uncluttered at last, she could work out whether this little fracas was serious, and Oliver meant all he had said last night. Or whether it was merely one of those moods of no importance that sometimes come to ruffle even the most companionable of marriages.
