‘Can’t you spare me even a minute, Charles?’
‘Well?’ Charles was peering over his amplifier, adjusting the balance of the speakers, fiddling with the bass control.
‘No, sitting down properly. I need to talk to you, want your full attention, for a change.’
‘Why say a minute, then, when you mean half an hour?’ Charles removed the Schoenberg and returned it to his alphabetical record storage cabinet, after Scarlatti and before Schütz.
‘I’m sorry. I suppose I should have booked a formal appointment. But considering it’s your daughter I want to talk about …’
‘Must you keep referring to Magda as ‘‘my daughter’’? Can’t you use her name?’
‘She is your daughter, isn’t she? Or are you ashamed of the relationship?’
‘No, I’m not ashamed. But you use it as a battle-cry, and a way of getting at me. I’ve told you I’m sorry, Frances, several times in fact. Do you expect me to go on prostrating myself for the rest of my life for springing Magda on you? Where is she, anyway?’
‘At Viv’s.’
‘She’s always at Viv’s.’
‘She likes it there.’ And no wonder, Frances thought. Viv and David weren’t always drawn up for battle, circling each other, torturing. Viv’s house wasn’t wrapped in cellophane and tissue paper, with ‘keep off the grass’ printed all over the garden. ‘That’s what I want to talk to you about. Magda’s made friends with Bunty, so Viv suggested we try to get her into Highfield.’
‘What’s Highfield?’ Charles hunted down a Satie which had strayed behind the Schoenbergs and filed it back in order.
‘Charles, you know it’s Bunty’s school. You’ve even been there.’
‘Christ, that bear garden!’
‘It’s not a bear garden, it’s a perfectly respectable place. Magda’s not used to private schools, in any case. You told me yourself she’d been stuck in her local comprehensive …’
‘Yes, and look what it’s done to her.’
‘I’m not suggesting she stays there. She couldn’t, anyway. It’s a dreadful journey, now she’s moved from Streatham. But she’d have a ready-made friend if she went to school with Bunty. They could travel together. Viv could even pick them up.’ Frances had it all worked out. If Magda couldn’t live at Viv’s, she could do the next best thing, stay there as much as possible, make bosom friends with Bunty, and keep out of the way.
‘It’s not a Catholic school.’
‘Well surely you don’t want Magda to be brought up a Catholic, do you?’
‘She is a Catholic, Frances.’
‘But you hate Catholicism. You spent the first few years of our marriage forcing your atheism down my throat. I suppose that was just a reaction to being caught out by a religious fanatic who wouldn’t use the Pill.’
Frances had never spoken to Charles like that before. She could hear her own voice, harsh and hectoring. It was usually a soft silk voice, but Magda seemed to have turned her into some bristling, prickly thing; released some cruelty in her, which she never knew existed. Even in the matter of the school, she was being selfish and hypocritical, considering her own peace and privacy, rather than Magda’s happiness. Yet the child could be happy at Highfield. It was a decent school, not too demanding, and she would start with the advantage of a friend in her own year. If Charles were really worried about religion (and it seemed preposterous), then Magda could attend catechism class with Bunty. That would leave Sunday mornings Magda-free as well, maybe all day, if Viv suggested lunch. Sunday lunch at Viv’s house had been known to last until five.
She knew what Charles wanted – to send Magda to St Helier’s, a small private school on the Green. They had no canteen facilities, so Magda would be home for lunch; the school holidays were longer there, and they had every Wednesday off. Magda would be far too close to home. She could almost see the convent from the window of her bedroom, whereas Highfield was two miles away. If Magda went to St Helier’s, she’d soon look down on the Highfield girls, and the friendship with Bunty would swiftly peter out. Somehow, she couldn’t handle Magda on her own, must have Viv as ally.
Charles sat down, at last, but now he was reorganizing his briefcase, setting out the papers in neat piles on the table, pausing a moment over a letter or memorandum, and then relegating it to the appropriate section. She never had his full attention, always had to share him with books, or music, or paperwork. Yet wasn’t she the same herself – with Magda – grudging the child her undivided attention? Both she and Charles tried to squeeze caring and conversation in among the chores.
Charles stowed a stray sheet of paper into a loose-leaf file, and placed it at the far end of the table. ‘I’ve more or less decided on boarding school for Magda.’
‘Boarding school! But you don’t believe in them for girls.’
‘It’s you that don’t believe in them, my darling. You have an amazing habit of kidnapping my rubber stamp for all your own views. But never mind. I’m sending her for your sake. It’s the obvious solution. She’ll get a first-rate education and you’ll only have to see her in the holidays.’
‘It’s not that I don’t want her, Charles …’
Charles snapped his briefcase shut. ‘Frances, for God’s sake, be honest.’
How could she be honest? Tell her husband that she wished his daughter dead. No, no, not dead, that was truly wicked. Just negated; someone who had never been; a bad dream she could wake up from, and find that Charles was still her exclusive property, no Magda, no Piroska. And yet wasn’t it just as wicked to wish a child away? A sort of late abortion? She had never believed in abortion, nor in boarding schools. So how could she shatter her life principles on the stony rock of one oppressive child? Charles didn’t seem to find it difficult.
‘She’ll be away more than half the year as a boarder. And even in the holidays, they take them on school trips – skiing in the Alps, or pilgrimages to Rome.’
Frances fiddled with a paperclip. It was tempting, certainly. They could choose a school deep in the country, too remote for frequent visiting, wipe Magda out from September to Christmas. Or could they? Did you forget the foetus you flushed down the lavatory? However many miles they put between them, Magda would still be there, still alive, still suffering.
‘Yes, but Charles, she’s just had one big upheaval in her life, losing her mother and coming to live here. If we pack her off again before she’s even …’
‘No one’s packing her off anywhere, Frances. Don’t distort everything. I’ve spent a lot of time and trouble on the problem, and I’ve found a very decent convent school. The nuns are kind, but strict. Magda needs that. She’s had no discipline at all.’
And whose fault was that? Frances bit back the remark. Her husband looked irritable enough. He had picked up a bronze sculpture, a small figure of a girl, and appeared to be trying to wrench its head off. How, in all conscience, could he suggest a convent school? He had drilled into her long ago the dangers of indoctrination. An indoctrinated Magda might be easier, of course. The nuns could make her docile and obedient, force her out of jeans into stern blue gymslips. Break her spirit, break her heart.
Charles traced a finger along the bowed bronze legs. ‘She’ll pick up some accomplishments at a convent – embroidery, piano lessons, skills they don’t bother with at Highfield.’
‘Charles, you can’t be serious. Magda wouldn’t do embroidery!’ He must be blind to the reality of his own daughter. Did he see her as he wanted her to be, instead of the angry, slouching rebel who had actually arrived? No, that wasn’t fair. Magda had another, sunnier side, the one she showed at Viv’s. She found her voice at Viv’s, even laughed, occasionally; helped with the children. But back with them, she froze again, returned to the sullen waxwork who had been moulded in mid-scowl.
Frances jabbed the paperclip, hard, into her palm. She’d tried, for heaven’s sake; had the whole studio redecorated, so that Magda would have a nicer room. She’d replaced the Victorian patchwork with an easy-care quilt, and teamed it with frilled curtains in a stylish pattern of blue and purple cornflowers. She’d adapted the scheme from a picture in Homes and Gardens and persuaded Reggie, their elderly tame painter, to complete it in just a week. She had tried to keep it a secret from Magda, which wasn’t easy with the smell of paint and Reggie underfoot, but Magda was often round at Viv’s, or deafening herself with Radio Caterwaul at the very top of the house.
On Saturday, the room was completed. She had added the last touches: a row of children’s classics on the new bookshelves, a bunch of real cornflowers from the garden, a quilted nightdress-case she had made herself. The surprise was planned for after dinner. Magda had spent the whole of roast lamb and apple pie defying them. She had eaten the pie with her fingers and then wiped them on the tablecloth. She refused to remove the badge on her shirt which said ‘FUCK OFF, I’ M A JUNKIE’. She informed Charles he was a Nazi, and damned Richmond as a dump. She herself had tried to keep the peace; she didn’t want the evening spoilt. They had trooped upstairs together, stopped outside the studio. The room looked delicate and charming, its hazy blues and mauves contrasting with the dazzling white of the fluffy goatskin rug.
‘It’s yours,’ she’d said to Magda. ‘Your very own room. You can have your friends here, play your records. We’ve even got a really special desk for your homework.’
The windows were wide open to dilute the smell of paint. An oleander bush pushed against the panes, scattering fragrant blossoms on the sill. The walls matched the curtains in a tapestry of rambling flowers. The quilt was plain blue terylene, frilled round the edges, and there were cushions of the same material on the graceful bedroom chair. Charles had chosen the pictures carefully – the John Pipers were too precious for a child – but he had replaced them with some Edward Bawden watercolours, tranquil landscapes in muted, low-key colours. The desk was his own, a Regency jewel, which she’d harmonized with the modern furnishings.
‘Well?’ she’d said, smiling. They were still outside, all three of them, as if the room were too immaculate to enter. She and Charles were looking at Magda, waiting for her reaction. They knew she wouldn’t rave, but …
‘It stinks!’ the girl had shouted, and rushed up to her old room, muttering obscenities about stupid fucking frills and poncy flowers.
On the Sunday, Charles had summoned Magda to his study and dealt sternly with the ‘fuckings’. He then forced her to move in among the cornflowers and the terylene; explained how much the room had cost, in terms of time and trouble. Magda had said nothing, just jabbed her foot against his desk.
She obeyed that evening, sullenly, dumping all her possessions on the floor, a tangled mess of shoes, jeans, records, junk. She tacked punk posters over the gilt-framed Bawden prints, stuffed the cushions under the bed, flung the nightdress-case in the dirty linen basket. Then she put her wildest, rowdiest rock group on the stereo and played it at full blast, over and over, long past midnight. When Frances knocked, she didn’t even answer, just turned it up louder still. At three A. M., the house was vibrating with drums and screaming with electric guitars. Frances lay alone in bed, staring up at the quaking ceiling and the wincing chandelier, torn between fear, fury and exhaustion. Charles had escaped, caught the late-night plane to Paris for an emergency board meeting of a French property developer.
When he returned, the stereo was broken, and Magda and the rock group had fled to Viv’s.
‘I’ve written to the nuns already,’ he was saying. ‘They’ve sent a prospectus. The fees are very reasonable. They’ve got lovely grounds, even a trout stream and a lake. I really think it’s the best thing in the circumstances.’
Frances took an apple from the fruit dish and laid her cheek against its cold green skin. Boarding school would mean quiet uninterrupted nights, tidy rooms, well-mannered meals … She bit into the apple with sharp teeth. ‘We can’t send her, Charles. I know we can’t. She’d hate it.’ Her friend Theresa had run away from a convent boarding school when she was only seven. And then been expelled at seventeen. The only men she ‘d ever seen in the hundred years between were an octogenarian gardener and a Polish priest with a private line to Hell. They’d taught her that dancing was dangerous and Protestants were damned, and she’d spent much of her childhood praying fervently for her favourite Auntie Annie, who was a C. of E. ballroom-dancing teacher.
Oh, yes, it would be idyllic to have the house to themselves again, to springclean Magda off the premises and return to their civilized, sound-proofed way of life. But to sacrifice a child for your own peace and privacy … Theresa had told her how she’d cried every night with earache, and the nuns had instructed her to welcome the pain, and offer up her little agonies for the Holy Souls in Purgatory. They’d even had to keep a Penance notebook, a record of all their penances and privations, so they could tot up how many souls they’d saved. It sounded like something out of Charles’ system, except Charles didn’t believe in gratuitous suffering. He suffered only in the cause of efficiency and order, or of Britain’s financial solvency.
‘Look, Charles, I’m sorry if I’ve been too hard on Magda. But don’t send her away. She’s suffered enough.’
She was surprised by her own words. Here was a chance to put half of England between herself and Magda, and she was turning it down, refusing the very thing she’d wanted since the child first set foot inside the house. It wasn’t just a prissy desire to live up to her principles, though that was there as well. She did oppose boarding schools and religious education, and everybody knew it. Even if she’d borrowed her beliefs from Charles to start with, they were firmly grafted in her own mind now. But there were deeper feelings, too – irrational but important ones. She yearned for a child and Magda had arrived. Only a mockery of the child she wanted, a bane, not a blessing, but perhaps also an initiation, or a trial. The way she treated Magda might determine the fate of her own baby, its very existence, even Charles would scoff at such superstitious non sequiturs. She almost scoffed herself. But some strange inner voice kept repeating, ‘Would you send your own child away?’ The answer was an unequivocal no. So how could she send Magda?
Her friends would know she’d only done it to get rid of her. Laura would mock, and Viv would agonize. Ned would fight a duel with Reverend Mother. But why bring him into it? He wasn’t even a friend, and there were enough complications without invoking the bolshie views of a half-baked anarchist. Yet Ned was the only one who’d really understand those inner promptings, those voices which urged, ‘Love, don’t destroy.’
But she couldn’t love. There was only a gaping hole where that emotion should have been. Perhaps it would be kinder to send Magda away, than keep her in a house without affection. Maybe she was wrong about the nuns, and they knew more about love than she did. She felt pulled in all directions. Not only inner voices, but Charles, Laura, Viv, Ned, all nagging to be heard.
‘Look, Charles, I think we ought to discuss it further. It’s a very big decision.’
‘It’s a very simple decision, if only you’d keep emotions out of it.’ Charles was replacing the contents of his briefcase now, working from the right-hand pile in towards the left. She had no idea what he was really thinking. He knew Piroska didn‘t want their child at boarding school and that Magda herself had no desire to go. Was it easy for him to override all three of them? Perhaps he realized that it would be to their advantage, in the long run. Charles was often maddeningly correct in his decisions.
He winced suddenly, as the front door slammed and footsteps hammered down the hall.
‘Mrs Parry Jones!’ It was Bunty, in muddy jeans and her brother’s climbing boots, with something cradled in her arms.
‘Take those … clodhoppers off in here, please.’ Charles frowned at the marks on his silk Kashan carpet. Bunty pulled off the boots without undoing them, and placed her bundle gently on the floor. It got up and shook itself, standing on four uncertain legs.
‘Isn’t he lovely?’ Bunty crowed. ‘Magda found him in the pond. Someone tried to drown him, the stinker! I’d drown him, if I could catch him.’
Chocolate-brown eyes stared into ice-blue laser ones, six feet higher up. The puppy dropped his first. His tail had also dropped.
‘Kindly remove that creature from my drawing-room.’ Charles’ voice had turned a ball of fur into a ravening lion.
‘W … where’s Magda?’ stumbled Frances, praying that the puppy wouldn’t relieve itself on Charles’ precious Persian rug.
‘Waiting in the garden. She didn’t dare ask you. Well, you wouldn’t mind, would you? I mean, he’s Magda’s dog already. She rescued him, you see. He’s only small. I don’t think he’ll grow much more. You can tell by the legs.’
Frances shut her eyes. Perhaps the small, bedraggled, trembling wretch would have disappeared when she opened them again. It hadn’t.
Charles was reinforced concrete towering over a small, pink Bunty made of plasticine. She tried to slip between them.
‘Charles dear, it’s not Bunty’s fault. Let’s take the puppy into the kitchen, shall we? And make some tea.’
‘We’ve just had tea.’
‘Bunty and Magda haven’t, darling.’
The puppy was exploring Charles’ trouser-leg. Charles almost kicked it off and put half a dozen Persian-carpet dragons between the two of them. ‘I’ve got some reports to finish for Oppenheimer. I’ll be in the study if you need me.’ He was already halfway through the door. ‘And I want that animal removed.’
Charles had a talent for escaping. Frances had never really noticed it before Magda arrived. His daughter had obviously inherited the same characteristic.
‘Magda should have asked me herself, Bunty. It’s no good running away from things.’ She shuddered at her hypocrisy. Given the chance, she’d run away from things herself – other people’s children, for example.
Bunty’s pink-rubber face was screwed up in supplication, pale eyes fixed on Frances, like another dog. ‘She was afraid you’d say no. You won’t, though, will you? She’s never had a pet, you see, never in her life. Her mother went out to work, and anyway, she had asthma, so Magda wasn’t even allowed to keep a cat.’
So, Bunty knew the whole story, did she? A latch-key mother with asthma didn’t sound too cheerful, but none the less she was forced to harden her own heart. ‘I’m sorry, Bunty, but I shall have to say no.’ Or rather Charles would. Charles always avoided animals, and disturbances, and …
‘But why? He won’t be any trouble. Magda will look after him.’
No trouble. A boisterous smelly dog shedding its white hairs on Charles’ dark sombre life, chewing up his carefully constructed barriers, peeing on his principles, barking at his platitudes, scratching up his whole perfect system.
‘Look, Bunty dear, my husband simply prefers not to have animals in the house, that’s all.’
‘But what about Magda? She lives here as well, doesn’t she? Why can’t she have a pet? Mum said she could adopt one of ours. But it’s not the same, is it, not like having one of your own?’
‘No, it’s not the same.’
The puppy was shivering on the cold kitchen tiles. Bunty took off her jumper and wrapped him in it. Frances walked over to the stove. ‘I’ll warm some milk for him.’
‘Oh, thank you, Mrs Parry Jones.’ Bunty and the puppy were crushed against her chest in a hug. ‘You’ll let Magda keep him, then? I knew you would. I told Magda you would. Shall we call her in?’
Frances longed to say yes. What was the point of a home, if nothing was allowed to live in it? And yet, there was something safe about rules and prohibitions. Elegance and order wrapped you in a sound-proof, chaos-proof cocoon. Magda had already ripped it open and let in a dangerous cacophony of sounds. If she went any further, they’d soon be overrun. First a drowned rat of a puppy, then kittens, snakes, ponies, boyfriends, gangs. Their house wasn’t built to stand it; she and Charles weren’t programmed to withstand an invasion on that scale.
Even when Magda brought her Streatham friends back, she felt threatened, a prisoner in her own home, confined to her study, while Magda’s rude rebellious cohorts terrorized the house. One of them had struck a match against the Bechstein and another ate lunch in her vest.
There was some small serpent-trail of envy mixed in among the fear. She had never been allowed Magda’s freedom, to come and go as she pleased, to have cash on demand for anything that caught her eye, to shrug her shoulders at every social nicety. It had always been ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees, Frances’, ‘Take the cake nearest to you, Frances’, ‘When I was your age, I didn’t …’ Yet mothers only did things for your own good. Rubbish! Mothers could hate and break and envy and destroy. Mothers turned puppies into principles, and simple requests into catastrophes.
She moistened a sponge with warm water and cleaned the puppy’s coat. He whimpered, shut his eyes. He was only a baby, really. Just one, small, harmless animal – would it really be so unendurable? She fondled his ears with her free hand and went on dabbing his fur, until it showed up white, with two brown patches.
‘He’s not exactly a beauty, is he?’ She stared at the spindly legs, the dumpy little body, the ears like small pink flaps.
‘No, but he’s sweet, isn’t he, Mrs Parry Jones? You must admit he’s sweet.’
‘All right, he’s sweet. If you insist.’ She poured milk into a saucepan and heated it gently. She’d never had a pet herself. Her mother regarded all animals as dirty or dangerous, and her father was the sort of man who instantly reported any dog he saw fouling the pavement. At the age of eight, she’d adopted the butcher’s dog, a white bull terrier which dribbled. She’d sneaked into the butcher’s shop every day, after school, and sat in the sawdust feeding him her ration of jelly babies. Her father had discovered her one Thursday afternoon and locked her in her room until the morning. Since then, she’d avoided dogs.
Perhaps she could start again. Why repeat the old restrictions, or say no to Magda because she’d been refused herself? Her father was only a plot now, a square of turf and a headstone. The puppy was alive.
‘Do you know if he’s house-trained, Bunty?’
‘Oh, yes, I’m sure he is. And even if he’s not, he won’t take long to learn. He’s very intelligent, you know. Does that mean you’re going to let Magda keep him?’
‘Don’t rush me, Bunty.’ It was so hard to do anything impulsive. Dogs were dirty, and a tie – everybody said so. On the other hand, they were also good companions. The puppy would be company when Charles was away. And they could always send him to dog-training classes, or restrict him to the kitchen.
Bunty’s soggy features wrung themselves into an expression of rapture. ‘Oh, please say yes. Please.’
Frances continued weighing pros and cons. They might even enjoy a dog. They could drive over to Acton and introduce him to Rilke. Ned would find a crazy name for him. Though why did Ned keep sneaking into things? He’d scoff at all her agonizing, take in half a dozen dogs. ‘Well, all right, maybe …’
‘Oh, thank you!’ Bunty almost capsized her with the force of her hug. ‘Magda will be over the moon! Here, hold the puppy and I’ll go and get her in.’
The small furry body was trembling in her arms. Frances felt a strange sense of power. She could choose life or death for a dog, life or death for Magda.
Magda shuffled in, looking wary and embarrassed. The bottoms of her jeans were soaked and there was a three-cornered rent in her new corduroy jacket. She had trailed mud and water across the shining kitchen floor. There was something about the very sight of her which rankled. It always happened. So long as Magda wasn’t there, she could revel in good resolutions and rapprochements. But as soon as Magda slouched on to the scene, shoulders hunched and hair defiant, her precious peace was shattered. She bundled the dog into Magda’s arms and picked up the floor-cloth, stabbing at the footprints with unnecessary force. Magda watched her, jeering almost, kicking her muddy shoes against the table.
‘Thanks for the puppy,’ she growled.
Why couldn’t she speak properly, and sit up straight, and cut her hair? ‘Look, I haven’t said you can have it, yet …’ Frances squeezed the cloth into the bucket, as if she were wringing someone’s neck. She knew she was being petty and unreasonable. But Magda never made it easy. The child almost flung her youth at her, flaunted her idleness, her foreignness, her dishevelled good looks. Everything about her screamed lies, infidelity, Piroska. She’d made enormous efforts, planned treats and expeditions, cosy little talks together, home-made fudge, visits to the Planetarium. But the minute she melted the butter, or set out in the car, the stars blacked out or the mixture burned. It was as if she and Magda were two chemicals which would not, could not fuse, but only consume each other or explode. She must have been crazy, refusing boarding school. Charles was right – it was the only possible solution.
‘Bunty just told me you said yes. Well, didn’t you?’
Magda’s sullen whine went through her like a knife. She heard herself answering in the same harsh, grudging tones. ‘There’s your father to consider. We haven’t asked Charles.’ Your father, your father … Why was she always fathering and daughtering, when both words cut her into pieces?
Magda was gripping the puppy too tight, digging her nails into its skin. ‘I don’t care what he says. He can’t say no, in any case. The puppy’s mine. I rescued him. He’d have drowned without me. I’ve already got a name for him. So, fuck!’
Bunty’s pale eyes almost disappeared in the worried folds of plasticine. ‘Ssshh, Magda, don’t be stupid. You’ll only ruin things. Mrs Parry Jones was saying yes in any case.’
Frances had finished the floor and was slapping at the walls. They weren’t even dirty. ‘Oh no, I wasn’t …’
Magda marched to the door, the dog clutched against her chest. ‘Frances never says yes to anything. She’s the one who always makes a fuss and then blames other people. If she didn’t live here, I bet Charles would let me have a puppy. And lots of other things. He’s my father, isn’t he? And a father’s more important than a stupid, rotten husband.’
Frances eased up to her feet and turned the gas out under the milk, which was almost boiling over. She kept her own voice down to simmering point. ‘Well, I suggest you ask your father, then. He’s in his study. And leave the puppy here, please.’ She didn’t add ‘change your shoes’, just watched the large, wet footprints writing their rude message on the floor; jumped when the study door slammed.
Five minutes later, the front door slammed as well. Bunty and the puppy cowered. ‘Your husband said no,’ Bunty whispered dully.
It wasn’t a question and Frances didn’t answer it. Bunty scooped up the creature from the corner where Magda had almost hurled him, and stood uncertainly at the door. ‘I’ll take him home, shall I? Mum won’t mind. Then, if you change your mind …’
‘I’m afraid we shan’t,’ said Frances, glancing at the child. Bunty was plain, like the puppy, dumpy and graceless, with the same pinkish eyes and short legs. ‘I’m sorry,’ she added, feeling her usual racking mixture of guilt, misery and failure. If only Bunty hadn’t sprung it on her. Even Charles might have agreed to a dog, if she’d primed him first, inspected the kennels in the area, selected a decent specimen with a health certificate and a proper pedigree. And then drawn up a set of rules, limiting its freedom. ‘Look,’ she said desperately, ‘don’t just run away like that. Have a cup of tea before you go. Or I’ve got some cherry cake …’
‘No, thank you, Mrs Parry Jones.’ Bunty’s voice was toneless. ‘I ought to be with Magda.’
Frances drank the tea herself, slumped at the kitchen table. Since Magda arrived, she’d wasted endless time simply recovering from the arguments, upheavals. How could just one extra person cause so much aggravation? Her stomach felt curdled, as if she had mixed lemon juice with milk. There were so many layers of feeling, including wallowing self-pity, but also pity for Magda, pity for the trembling dog. But simple gestures of compassion could misfire. You took in a harmless puppy, and it grew into a snarling, thieving brute; you mothered a child and became a monster overnight. Magda was making her doubt herself in every smallest thing, undermining her values, wrecking her principles. She’d always assumed she could love a child. It was the next thing you did after settingg up a home and writing fashion hand-outs. But love was proving screamingly impossible. Maybe it was simpler with your own child, but how could you tell? It had been easy in the past to condemn baby-batterers, or shudder when you read reports on cruelty to children. But if your baby was a Magda in miniature …
She abandoned her tea and walked upstairs. The lion was sitting on her bed, still grinning. ‘Ned,’ she whispered miserably. She’d christened it Ned – the first name she’d thought of, really. She cradled it in her arms like a baby. Toys were so much easier, didn’t make puddles or noises, or wreck the house or deflower the garden, or grow up. Dogs did all those things, and so did babies. Yet she couldn’t give up trying to have a baby. Her life was constructed now round a sacred fertility rite. She dared not halt the whole complicated process, the self-important visits to the gynaecologist, the special calendar, the sense of mission. She dared not fail. Magda had become almost part of the process, the precursor for her own child. She knew somehow that she would have her baby, when she had come safely through the storm and fire of Magda.
She held the lion against her shoulder and walked with it to Magda’s room. Even with junk on the floor and punk on the walls, it still looked elegant. Too elegant. She arranged the lion in the centre of the bed, tail curled around its body. She threw out the dead flowers and replaced them with a fresh bunch from the garden – cheerful easy flowers: roses, daisies, marigolds. She brought up the tin of cherry cake and put it on the dressing-table, with a bowl of shiny apples. The room still looked wrong – all frills, all substitutes. The kid wanted a flesh and blood animal, a real, red-blooded dog, not a stuffed, synthetic toy and a vase of flowers which would die within the week.
She could have said yes to the puppy. Too easy to blame Charles, when he’d only underlined her own refusal. Fundamentally, it had been a choice between Magda’s happiness and her own convenience. No, not just convenience – safety, order, discipline, all the things she needed for her own happiness, even her survival. It was frightening to realize her joie de vivre depended on a set of rules, a wire cage of restrictions. She had nothing to give Magda, nothing solid, nothing real. She couldn’t even hug her. Every time she tried, some new barrier reared itself between them and turned her arms to wood.
She stood rigid in the centre of the room. One rose had already dropped its petals on the bedside table. Even the lion looked older. She paused by the bed to stroke its curly mane. ‘Tell her I …’
She stopped. Pointless and ridiculous, talking to dumb animals.