As usual I stayed with Beatrice. A strange convention but one accepted by us both, that since we were related by marriage and lived alone, we ought to be together at Christmas. No amount of tacit dislike could get around that, it seemed. I drove down there on Christmas Eve and I returned home on the day after Boxing Day. Nothing less would have sufficed: it was traditional. We had both long since given up considering how much we resented it, or perhaps we had simply gone past resentment. There is, after all, something restful about knowing exactly what you will be doing for three days every year, particularly when all your eating and drinking is at the expense of others.
My chosen contribution was champagne (also traditional): six bottles in a box on the back seat of the car, produced with a flourish like the conjurer’s rabbit and greeted by Beatrice with cries of amazement and wonder, as if I had never done it before. After that, I could relax: no further effort was required. I had only to be even-tempered and appreciative.
Between six and eight Beatrice kept open house for neighbours, some of whom brought small presents and all of whom consumed large drinks. (Not our precious champagne, though; that was for family delectation only.) I was usually introduced as a visiting celebrity (‘This is my brother-in-law, Alexander Kyle; I expect you’ve heard of him.’) to new neighbours; old ones were supposed to remember me from last Christmas. It was all fairly embarrassing, as I grew more obscure every year and few of the neighbours had the slightest idea who I was, though some of them were polite enough to pretend, however unconvincingly, that they had.
Promptly at eight, like well-trained dogs responding to a high-frequency whistle, they all departed and Beatrice and I sat down to our solitary dinner together. Beatrice cooked turkey on Christmas Eve in order that Gemma might cook goose on Christmas Day. Each year I found myself wondering how a woman with so little imagination could be such a good cook. Eventually I decided that all Beatrice’s latent energy, all her creative talents that might otherwise have been channelled into eroticism or wit, had discharged themselves in haute cuisine, an art she had certainly concealed from her daughter.
Christmas Eve was also reminiscence night, and over the first bottle of champagne Beatrice dug out her memories: my dead brother, their idyllic courtship and marriage, her tragic loss, Gemma’s birth, the trials of her upbringing, the triumph of her marriage and the joys of grandchildren. (Beatrice, like most women, had lived her life vicariously.) All that was routine and usually took us up to the plum pudding; I had only to listen and grunt. But tonight she seemed to gallop through it all, cutting short her customary eulogy of the children and doubling back to Christopher before we had finished the turkey. I listened uneasily: any departure from tradition at this time of year had to be suspect.
‘Poor Christopher,’ she said, sighing a little. ‘It’s such a pity he has to work so hard.’
‘Does he have to?’ I asked. ‘I thought it was his choice.’
‘Well, he’s very dedicated, of course.’ She approved of the dedication; I could see her casting around for a way to criticise it without compromising her principles. ‘Too much for his own good, I sometimes think.’
I refilled her glass. She went on as if I had asked her to explain.
‘Well, it doesn’t leave him much time with Gemma and the children. I often think it’s a pity Gemma’s always had help in the house – all those silly foreign girls and that cleaning woman – it leaves her with a lot of time on her hands.’
Was I imagining a look of suspicion, interrogation, on that large bland bovine face?
‘She hasn’t always had help in the house,’ I said. ‘Only since the second child.’
‘Well, nearly always. I never had anyone to help me with Gemma, there simply wasn’t enough money. I had to struggle on alone as best I could.’
Christmas, I thought, was an unlucky time to be reminded of Beatrice’s everlasting poverty.
‘You had a cleaning woman for years,’ I said. ‘I distinctly remember her. She had varicose veins.’
‘Oh, Mrs Hodges. Yes, but you could hardly describe her as a help.’
I refilled my own glass. If Beatrice was determined to play the martyr, I might as well get quietly drunk. She went on with a nasty edge to her voice:
‘I wonder sometimes if Gemma appreciates how lucky she is.’
I said smoothly, ‘Oh, I’m sure she does.’
‘When I compare her life to mine – well, I just wonder if she realises, that’s all.’
‘But you wouldn’t have wished her to suffer like you, surely?’
‘No.’ She sounded uncertain, as if, with hindsight, she felt a little suffering might have done Gemma good but, in her maternal role, dared not own up to such an idea. Or was that amount of sadistic commonsense beyond her?
‘After all, it was always your ambition she should marry well,’ I reminded her. ‘And she has.’
‘Yes.’ Again she sounded doubtful. ‘Too well, perhaps.’
‘You mean you envy her?’
‘Of course not, don’t be ridiculous. I just mean she’s had a very easy life.’
‘Well, it’s not over yet,’ I suggested. ‘Perhaps the worst is yet to be.’
‘Now, Alex, that’s not funny at all.’
‘Who’s trying to be funny? Isn’t that exactly what you were advocating – a little healthy disaster to make her count her blessings?’
We had clearly finished with the turkey. Beatrice compressed her lips and gathered up the plates. I watched her broad shape disappear into the kitchen; I should have to be very careful. Her instincts were still making her pursue the scent she could not identify. But that only made it more exciting. She was not a worthy adversary but she would add a little spice to the game. After all, without the Nazis, there would have been no need for the Maquis.
Christmas morning meant church with all the family. Agnosticism was no excuse and I had long ago decided to give in gracefully. Besides, I enjoyed the ritual, enjoyed hearing the music and inhaling the incense and wondering how high Beatrice’s favourite vicar really was. Religion, like money, was a subject I preferred not to discuss with her, but it amused me to sit in the pew beside my relations (making six of us in all) and play the conformist. Now and then I would steal a glance at Gemma’s profile, so pure and serene (what a pity the children had not inherited it), and wonder if her conscience troubled her at all, particularly in this holy setting. But for most of the time I simply shut my eyes and gave myself up to the delight of erotic thoughts. My first night in the spare room had proved most satisfactory.
After church we all assembled at Gemma’s house, armed with two of my precious bottles of champagne, and started drinking to deaden the sound of Gemma’s children playing with their toys. Santa Claus had arrived at half past five, Gemma told me, miming exhaustion with a charming bend of the knees.
‘This is very good of you, Alex,’ Christopher said, opening a bottle.
‘It’s the least I can do,’ I said modestly. I was enjoying myself; I always enjoyed myself in Christopher’s presence since the affair began. It was as if I had been granted perpetual double vision: every time I looked at Gemma and Christopher, I saw Gemma with David. And it was all my doing. The sense of power made my head swim long before I tasted the champagne. I could hardly wait to get back to London to continue my machinations, yet the enforced hiatus was almost attractive, giving me time to savour my own anticipation.
Gemma’s goose was not a success, but we all pretended it was. I hoped her typing would prove more reliable, should I ever have occasion to test it. Proof of her more than adequate talent for flower arrangement was all around us throughout the year. I used to think that Beatrice had maliciously withheld her culinary arts from Gemma, until I recalled that she had parted with her most precious commodity – money – in order to entrust Gemma’s education in these matters to others. It was ironic and appropriate that of the three skills Gemma had acquired only the least useful and the most decorative. Meanwhile, I entertained myself during lunch with variations on the theme of her goose being cooked, since the conversation was generally reduced to the lowest common denominator of the children, and therefore left a great deal of time for private thought.
Grown-up presents were exchanged after lunch, again according to a tradition whose origins no one could remember but which struck me as foolish, since by that time the children had forgotten the avalanche of parcels they had received in the morning and demanded more, becoming fractious and greedy. A few small extra gifts (apart from ours) were put by to pacify them: not for the first time I marvelled that a man who was otherwise so coldly rational could as a father be so indulgent. I even wondered what character changes I might have undergone had I ever become a parent. Fortunately, there had never been the least danger of my finding out.
We all assembled in the sitting-room and the ritual began.
Beatrice gave Gemma a book, Christopher a record, and me some driving gloves. I was a most difficult person to buy presents for, she reminded me, and we all laughed, for no apparent reason. Everyone then marvelled at what had been unwrapped. Gemma and Christopher kissed Beatrice. I smiled at her.
Christopher gave Gemma a blue cashmere jersey, Beatrice some scent and me some cigars. He apologised for his lack of originality. Gemma kissed him. Beatrice kissed him. He and I shook hands.
Gemma gave Christopher a shirt, Beatrice a nightdress, and me an onyx cigarette box. We all kissed her and sat down again, exclaiming that she had given us just what we wanted. There was a lull. I had been waiting for it with fearful delight.
I gave Christopher a bottle of brandy, Beatrice some slippers, and handed Gemma the newly wrapped gift from her lover. She looked puzzled; she had been expecting her usual bottle of scent (now reposing on the mantelpiece of the spare room.) She could tell from the shape of the parcel it was not scent.
Beatrice and Christopher unwrapped their presents and told me what an excellent choice I had made. They did not feel compelled to touch me to prove the point. Gemma was slow with her parcel and suddenly just as she opened it I realised she was going to blush. I quickly diverted Beatrice’s and Christopher’s attention to some nonsense with the children and their toys so that I could watch, enraptured and in perfect safety, the deep flush of colour in Gemma’s face. She looked up and caught my gaze; she knew. I nodded.
She took out a silver pendant on a silver chain and slowly hung it round her neck. On the medallion was her Zodiacal sign of Virgo. Until that moment I had been quite angry with David for not researching the matter: the present was totally out of keeping with my character. But the look of enchantment on Gemma’s face made me forgive everything.
‘Whatever’s that?’ said Christopher, turning round from ruffling his son’s hair.
Gemma said carefully, ‘It’s a pendant with my birth sign on it. Isn’t it lovely?’
Christopher actually laughed. ‘So you finally got one.’ He turned to me. ‘I didn’t think you believed in all that nonsense.’
‘I don’t,’ I said, ‘but Gemma does.’
‘Oh, Gemma certainly does. She’s been nagging me for years to get her something like that.’ Alcohol had made him almost jovial.
Beatrice said sharply, ‘I thought you always gave Gemma scent for Christmas.’
‘Time for a change.’ I beamed at her in my best jolly-uncle style. ‘I suppose I really should have thought of it in time for your birthday,’ I said to Gemma.
‘Oh, this is much nicer. More of a surprise.’ She was holding the medallion loosely in her hand, moving it to and fro on its chain.
‘I even wondered if I should have got them to put Libra on the other side as you’re nearly on the cusp, but the man in the shop advised against it.’ Was I overdoing it?
‘My word,’ said Beatrice, ‘you have been reading it up.’
‘Maybe Gemma’s been dropping hints,’ I said, passing the ball.
She fielded it neatly, as I expected. ‘Fancy that, you actually remembered me saying I used to read both horoscopes to get the best of both worlds. Well, I don’t do that any more.’
‘Then I made the right decision,’ I said, trying to sound bored with the subject.
‘And Gemma got her own way again,’ said Beatrice.
‘Well, why not?’ said Christopher genially, pouring us all brandy. ‘It is Christmas, after all. If a silly present like that makes her happy – no offence, Alex, you know what I mean – well, why shouldn’t she have it?’
And then to my amazement I heard Gemma say, ‘Well, I couldn’t get it from you so I had to get it from someone else.’ Luckily at that moment one of the children stepped on a toy, overbalanced, fell and hit its head on the corner of a chair. All hell broke loose, distracting us perfectly. Beatrice and Christopher sprang to the rescue at once but Gemma was swifter and had the child in her arms before they could reach it. At intervals it paused to draw breath and there was a brief but welcome silence before the next bellow. The other child watched with what appeared to be mild interest and total unconcern, confirming my belief that the basic callousness of human nature is determined at an early age, and Christopher’s views on family planning were absolutely justified.
Nothing else of interest occurred, and at six o’clock tradition decreed that we should leave, so that Gemma and Christopher could be alone with their children and Beatrice and I could be alone with each other. We were all destined to consume cold meat in solitude that evening when we might – who knows? – have preferred to go out and get drunk at the local inn (was it open?) or retire early to bed to sleep – or weep for our transgressions. But variations on the theme were not permitted. Christmas must be played according to the rules, or not at all. I hoped David and Catherine were having a fairly dismal time in Kentish Town.
On the way back in the car Beatrice said to me coldly, ‘You’re spoiling her.’
I considered the implications of this, spoken after a long silence; in particular the interesting ambiguity of the word spoiling. Did Beatrice have in mind indulgence or ruin; and did one, in fact, automatically lead to the other? I thought for some time about what my answer should be: a polemic or a dignified silence. In the end I settled for enigmatic neutrality, which spared me a lot of effort.
‘Of course,’ I said.
I still had not been alone with her.
Boxing Day was a gamble: it could go either way. Dregs or bonus. Gemma and Christopher were obliged to lunch with us, but beyond that nobody quite knew what to do with the time. It was a left-over day: we had all eaten and drunk too much, drowned in presents, seen each other too often. We had run out of steam. I was not allowed to depart, although I am sure Beatrice hoped I would. Everyone was beginning to wish that life could be normal again, and then feeling guilty for wishing it.
Still, if I were lucky or clever, there might be a chance. I could tell Gemma wanted to talk: she had a furtive, shifty expression on her face and she kept trying to manoeuvre the lunchtime preparations and aftermath so that we could be alone together. (‘Uncle Alex and I can get lunch for you, Mummy; it’s only cold, isn’t it?’ Or: ‘Mummy, why don’t you sit down, you’re doing too much. Uncle Alex and I can do the washing up.’)
But Beatrice foiled her, martyr to the end. Not for nothing was it the feast of St Stephen, and Beatrice intended to make us feel every arrow.
‘Nonsense, Gemma, you know I enjoy it. And anyway, you look worn out.’
It was unfortunately true. Gemma did look pale and tired – drawn, I believe the word is, only that reminds me of seasonal poultry, or felons on the Elizabethan scaffold. I wondered if Christopher had been claiming his rare conjugal rights as a Christmas treat.
As if accused, he now looked up from the Radio Times; he was strangely addicted to old films on bank holidays, though too disciplined to succumb to them on other occasions.
‘Does she? I thought she was looking rather pretty today.’ He caught hold of her hand as she passed him, squeezing it briefly. I thought I saw Gemma flinch, but that may have been wishful thinking.
‘I’ve eaten too much,’ said Gemma inconsequentially. ‘I’m going to be fat as a pig. D’you fancy a walk, Chris?’
She must have known he’d refuse.
‘Well, I rather fancied watching The African Queen.’
‘Oh, is that on again?’ said Beatrice and stopped short, having fallen neatly into Gemma’s trap.
‘I’ll come for a walk with you, Gemma,’ I said casually. ‘I could do with some fresh air.’
That left Beatrice with a dilemma. According to her own etiquette, it would be impolite to leave Christopher alone in front of the television, however much he might desire such a fate. Obediently she switched on the set, and shot me a glance that was almost pure hatred. I was surprised; I had not thought her capable of such extreme emotion.
‘Take the kids with you, Gemma,’ said Christopher over his shoulder. ‘Then we’ll get a bit of peace.’
It was a nasty day, typical of the English winter at its worst, not the Christmas card variety, picturesque with snow, but dank, raw, clammy weather like November. There was nothing crisp and clean about it, as winter should have been, only a misty chill that seeped into your bones as you walked. The children didn’t notice, mercifully; they ran ahead shouting and throwing sticks for the dog. In the distance, a few other families were bent on the same errand; otherwise the common was deserted.
‘Alone at last,’ I said to Gemma.
She giggled; not a habit I like in others but in her it was charming, full of childish mischief without the other disadvantages of childhood. She was tactfully wearing Christopher’s present over her jeans and under her sheepskin (firework) jacket. The blue matched her eyes almost exactly. It was like Christopher to select the obvious colour: I was pleased to find him so predictable. And round her neck, proudly, defiantly, hung the medallion for all to see.
‘I think your mother guesses,’ I said.
‘Yes, so do I. At least, she thinks there’s something but she doesn’t know what.’
Silence. We walked on. Alone again with her after what seemed an eternity, I felt I was reclaiming her, like land from the sea. Too many tides had washed over her: David, Christopher, the children, Beatrice, but at some fundamental level she was still mine. I wondered why I wanted to risk losing her: all my schemes, first with Christopher, now with David, took her temporarily out of my orbit. Some kind of potency test, perhaps, or else the ultimate gamble for a jaded palate. For if I lost Gemma I would lose everything.
Suddenly she said vehemently, ‘Well, she can rot. She can’t prove a thing.’
The violence amazed me; what passions had David awakened? I was pleased. ‘She, she – the cat’s mother, they used to say when we were children. It was very rude.’
‘Yes. I hope so.’
‘It’s odd that she’s noticed and Christopher hasn’t.’
A long sigh. ‘Oh, he’s too close. He can’t see what’s under his nose. Or he doesn’t want to.’
‘That’s more important. You need him to be blind, don’t you?’
She didn’t answer. Just as suddenly, after another silence, as if starting a new conversation, she said, ‘God, I hate her. She’s never stopped watching me – she used to know when my period was due before I did. She just sits in a corner watching and waiting like a bloody great spider.’
The analogy pleased me: Beatrice was terrified of spiders.
‘I’ve always hated her,’ I said smugly.
‘You used to hide it.’
‘I used to do lots of things I don’t do now.’
‘Besides, it’s all right for you. You can afford to hate her, she’s only your sister-in-law. But it’s awful to hate your mother.’
‘Awful it may be,’ I said, ‘but it seems to be very common. And it isn’t all right for me – I absolutely dispute that. Nothing is all right for me. Far from it.’
But she wasn’t interested in me; she was too young. She was only interested in herself.
‘It’s terrible to hate your mother when you never knew your father,’ she said. ‘It’s worse than being an orphan.’
Another silence. I felt we were leading up to something.
‘He’s an orphan,’ she said.
‘Yes, I know.’ Christopher’s parents had conveniently died in the classic car crash the year after he qualified, as if they had wanted to make sure of his education and then relieve his future wife of the encumbrance of in-laws.
‘I meant David.’
It was then that I knew, really knew for certain, for the first time, that she was in love. The way she said his name was unmistakable: the proud casualness mixed with the tender lingering verbal caress, as if no one else in the world had ever had a name. I wondered if I had misunderstood her deliberately in order to make her say it so that I could hear it.
‘He’s had a terrible life,’ she went on. ‘His parents divorced when he was five and he was shunted between them. Then his father died and his mother remarried and didn’t want him – imagine that, not wanting your own child – so he went to foster parents. But they said he was too difficult to keep – because he was so unhappy, of course – so he went to another lot, and another, but none of them worked out, and then his mother said she’d have him back after all, only then she died so he ended up in a children’s home.’
She said the word with such horror that she made it sound like Auschwitz. I was reminded of Othello and Desdemona: something about ‘She loved him for the dangers he had passed / And he loved her that she did pity them.’ I had never found that particularly convincing, but obviously Shakespeare as usual was right and I must revise my ideas. However, I also remembered Catherine Meredith’s warning, and I wished I had paid more attention to Oliver Twist and Winston Churchill, at least in their youth.
‘So of course he got married young just to have a home of his own and someone to love. But after the children were born his wife said she didn’t want him any more.’
I cast about vainly for something to say that Gemma would consider adequate. It was, after all, the first time in her life that she had had any one to feel sorry for. A luxury.
‘Extraordinary,’ I said.
‘So now they stay together because of the children. He can’t bear his children to go through what he went through, you see, and he’s afraid they might, if there was a divorce. So he stays. He’d rather he was unhappy than risk upsetting his children.’
She sounded as if she were nominating him for the Nobel Prize for sanctity.
‘It sounds grim,’ I said.
‘It’s terrible.’
She seemed really upset when she ought to be grateful: if he were happily married he might not be having an affair at all. (I say ‘might’ advisedly, as I am far from expert on the matter.)
‘You knew at once about the present,’ I said to change the subject.
‘We talked about it once. He said if he ever—’ She stopped and seemed to change her mind. ‘He said it was something he might give me one day. He knew I wanted one. He believes in it all. He’s Gemini. We’re not supposed to be compatible.’
Perhaps answers were not really necessary. Perhaps she was talking to herself. In a moment she might tell me his collar size and his inside leg measurement, the colour of his socks and the design of his underpants, what kind of shampoo and toothpaste he used and whether he believed in deodorant or sweat. Any amount of random trivia might pour out of her because, if it pertained to him, the vital him, it was of supreme importance. I dimly, enviously recalled the feeling. Every scrap was valuable. (I had once stored someone’s nail clippings in an envelope.) When the beloved crossed the room you stared in wonderment at the miraculous way he or she moved. Look, they can walk, aren’t they wonderful, you thought quite seriously.
Sensing her recklessness, I said, ‘You took a chance yesterday, saying what you said to Christopher.’
‘I know. I couldn’t stop myself. I was suddenly so angry with him.’
‘Why?’ This was progress.
‘Oh – for having everything. And for being so pleased with himself. And for being so bloody sensible.’
And for not noticing, I thought.
‘I wouldn’t mind if he had faults, like Mummy,’ she went on. ‘She’s a bitch. But he’s a good person – really good. He’s kind and generous and he never thinks of himself.’
‘And he never thinks of you either.’
‘Well, he’s always thinking of other people. Their welfare and all that. It makes me want to scream sometimes but how can you scream at someone like Chris? I mean, he’d be so surprised and hurt. And then he’d make allowances for me. He really hasn’t any faults – oh, I know you don’t like him much, but really, he hasn’t. He makes me feel terribly inferior. I used to think I was all right – not good, not bad, just all right – but living with Chris…’ She fell silent, as though living with Chris left her speechless; she tried again. ‘Well, he’s so adult. Whereas David and I are like children playing together. I feel we’re equal. We don’t want to hurt anyone but we do want to be happy. Now I don’t suppose Chris has ever thought about whether he’s happy or not – that’s simply not the way he thinks.’
She stopped. I thought it all sounded most promising and was about to press for more when a piercing shriek distracted me. In the distance the younger child had fallen over. The elder one yanked it to its feet, then stood and watched it bawling. Gemma stared in the direction of the accident but did not move. The moment was frozen, one of those trivial incidents that would be timeless, forever fixed in memory for no apparent reason.
‘Mummy,’ Jonathan yelled without emotion, sounding rather bored. ‘Stephanie’s hurt herself.’
‘Coming,’ Gemma called back, but she still didn’t move; she fiddled with the fastenings of her coat and said to me in a low voice as if we might be overheard, ‘D’you think it’s possible to love two people?’
I felt it was a rhetorical question and did not answer: in a moment she ran ahead to join her children.
Next day I escaped and went home with a letter in my pocket. She kissed me goodbye with tears in her eyes.
(6)
‘Darling David,
I don’t know what to say to you about my lovely lovely present. It’s perfect, exactly what I meant, and as soon as I saw it I heard your voice saying, If I ever give you something like that you’ll know I’m in love with you. Darling, did you mean it? I can’t bear it if you don’t. I think I fell in love with you ages ago only I wouldn’t admit it, I was too scared. After all you said about us having a sexual friendship I was afraid my being in love would put you off, and I was afraid for myself too – afraid I couldn’t look Chris in the face if I actually loved you. So I pretended I didn’t – it was safer. I fooled myself so I could fool him. Now I can’t any more. I ought to feel guilty but I’m too happy. It’s as if you’ve said it’s all right for me to love you – I couldn’t quite let myself till you gave me permission. Now I feep terribly free. I can be myself. When I’m with you I feel completely different from when I’m at home – I’m another person and I think that person is really me, or at least a side of me I can’t express at home. It’s so awful feeling only certain bits of you are acceptable and you’ve got to sit on the rest and squash it down because it’s nasty or silly.
Darling, I’m wearing your present day and night. It was so clever of you to think of giving it to me that way so no one could object, and Uncle A. played his part beautifully. (I think he enjoyed the intrigue.) Chris made fun of it, of course, and I wanted to hit him. He can’t stand anything like astrology and he always makes fun of things that upset him.
It’s awful being Virgo, can you imagine the jokes at school I had to put up with? I do wonder though what it would have been like if I’d been a virgin for you, if we’d met in our teens and I hadn’t married Chris and you hadn’t married Cathy. It’s tempting to imagine us living happily ever after but that may be just a silly fantasy – perhaps we only get on so well now because of all we’ve been through already. The thing that worries me now in spite of being so happy is about whether there’s enough love to go round. It works all right with children – I mean you don’t love the first one less after you have the second – but that’s different. Can it work in a case like this? (You ought to know – come on, tell me what happened before in all those affairs you pretend you didn’t have!) Already I don’t want Chris to make love to me, I only want you. And I used to be so angry with him when he didn’t feel sexy – now I’m angry with him when he does. And then of course I feel guilty because I ought to be pleased and he’s probably only trying to please me because I used to complain – or maybe I’m more attractive now I’ve got you? – but anyway it’s no good, all that stuff about rights and duties doesn’t mean a thing when you’re in love, in fact it’s pretty revolting. Chris has rejected me so often, why should I accept him now when I don’t want to? I wish we could live like brother and sister, then we might get on perfectly well – if I could see you as often as I like, a bit much to ask, even of a brother!
I find I keep thinking about you and Cathy and wondering, if you really love me, whether you still want her. I know you said she doesn’t ever want you but I find that so hard to believe. Not that I think you’re lying, just that I can’t imagine anyone not wanting you. In one way I feel very jealous when I imagine you both together, quite sick with jealousy, but in another way I almost hope you do make love because if I can’t be with you I’d rather you had someone, even her. I know how much sex means to you and I can’t bear to think of you feeling deprived. And because she’s your wife it doesn’t seem quite so bad – as if it doesn’t really count. If it was another woman I’d die of jealousy but you wouldn’t do that to me, would you?
I’m sure there must be something wrong with marriage if we all end up like this.
Christmas was simply awful – packed with relatives and friends all eating and drinking too much and talking about nothing and watching rubbish on TV. Thank God it’s over. If I was God I wouldn’t have a birthday. Do you think that’s blasphemy? I know you said you don’t believe but I bet you do really even if it’s only on the ‘old man with a beard in the sky watching us all’ level.
If it hadn’t been for your present I think I’d have gone mad over Christmas. In fact if we hadn’t met I really don’t know what I’d be doing now, I can’t believe we’re meant to spend our lives like this. It’s incredible that we only met in October and we’ve only been lovers for a month. Oh, darling, I do love you so much.
What I want most now is to be with you on New Year’s Eve somehow. Obviously we can’t manage the evening but maybe we could manage lunch. I do loathe all these stupid family festivals that keep getting in our way. If only we could have a night together sometime – d’you think we ever could? If we told enough complicated lies perhaps – I could be staying with Uncle A. if he was ill or it was foggy and you could be on tour in Aberdeen or somewhere. Oh, could we? I can’t bear to think it will never happen.
Darling, please forgive this scrawl but I’ve had to write all over the place, mainly in the loo as there’s nowhere else I can lock the door and be alone, especially at Xmas. That’s another awful comment on marriage. Do you think we should introduce Chris and Cathy? They might get on fine and all our troubles would be over. I ache to be with you and I don’t know how to wait till the next time. I did a silly thing the other night after I’d had my bath, I got a brown towel and put it between my legs and stroked it and pretended it was your head. I wasn’t going to tell you but now I have. It didn’t feel right, velvet would have been better but I haven’t got any brown velvet. Anyway it gives you an idea how much I want you.
Darling my love, please be extra careful crossing roads and do let’s meet soon. Now we’ve got our own special room it all seems so lovely and private.
All my love,
Gemma’
It should have been the happiest time of my life but something went wrong. What went wrong (for me) was that nothing went wrong (for them). They were too cosy; they got highly organised very quickly; they dug themselves in. David bounced back from the Christmas recess demanding twice or thrice weekly meetings under the banner of my employing Gemma to type. (They had not managed New Year’s Eve, which made them both rather twitchy.) When I reminded him of the howls of rage that had greeted that idea when it came from me, he actually laughed. I was most offended by the laugh. He said it was different now, surely I realised that. Monday, Wednesday and Friday would be just about right. I said I hoped he wasn’t expecting me to cook and he said no, she could do that or they could go without or get takeaway Chinese, there was no problem, they could even have a cold picnic on the floor. The fact of there being no problem enraged me. There ought to be a problem, so that I could solve it. I had made everything too easy for them and now they had rendered me impotent. When would the work get done? I asked. Oh, before or after her visit; I wasn’t to worry. Everything would be all right. And where was I meant to be, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, walking the streets? Well, I might be lucky, even at my age. Then he saw my face and rearranged his own: of course they were grateful and of course they realised they were inconveniencing me, but I could always go to my club or the British Museum, couldn’t I? In fact, he wouldn’t mind if I stayed in the flat but he thought Gemma might be embarrassed.
I watched them together, the next time they met, steeling myself to have a drink with them. They were both extremely high, as if they had arrived drunk, only I knew they had not. A feverish excitement burned between them. They fed on each other; they laughed overmuch at one another’s jokes. The glances they exchanged were hot with longing but they were also sure enough of themselves to enjoy the delay before they could touch. My presence was a tantalising aphrodisiac. I toyed briefly with the idea of announcing I would not go out, I was ill, it was too cold, but decided to keep that possibility for another time: it was useful to hold something in reserve. But I accepted another drink, for the fun of seeing anticipation turn to anxiety. They instantly became very solicitous, assuring me that Gemma would really type while David cleaned; it was so kind of me and they were so grateful (and now would I please go, I could see them longing to say, so they could fall into each other’s arms and my spare room bed). I mentioned maliciously that I could not afford to pay Gemma for typing as well as David for cleaning. Instantly they both offered to work for nothing. And that, I suppose, is love. Defeated and triumphant, I went out and found it really was cold. (One of the few disadvantages of living with central heating is that you do not form any impression of the temperature outside). At my age it is positively dangerous to wander about in the cold, but the B.M. and my club were not attractive alternatives. On an impulse I went into a phone booth and looked up Meredith, D. There were not as many as I had expected and I found it easily, Meredith, David, printed in full through vanity, no doubt, vainly hoping to be plagued by fans. I jotted down the number and dialled. It rang for a long time. Finally, when I was about to give up, the unforgettable voice answered.
‘Hullo?’
I hung up. I did not have the correct small coins and I was not certain what I wanted to say. Instead I went to the cinema, my favourite place for thought, as I have mentioned before. Besides, once you have decided what to do, you do not have to do it immediately.
I sat in the dark and considered the matter, while the screen antics moved in front of me like comforting shadows. I was disappointed in Gemma’s letters: they were so ordinary. The stolen-fruit quality was still pleasing, but unfortunately the quality of the stolen fruit was not very high. If the letters had been handed to me open, I doubt if I would have bothered to read them. Beatrice had been right all along: Gemma was not clever. She had no special talent. Her ideas were commonplace; she dealt mainly in feelings and even there she had no originality. David had also been right all along: she was lonely and she wanted someone to talk to, someone to hug. She had fallen into my trap only because it was so exactly the trap she would have set for herself, had she had the intelligence. She was beautiful, spontaneous, affectionate – and rather stupid. Well, that was probably enough. They were all qualities I lacked conspicuously, and so far her life had been far more rewarding than mine.
My other complaint was more serious: I had done myself out of a job. Like an impresario, I had succeeded too well. My protégée was launched, and all that remained for me to do was make the bookings and collect the percentage. Only the percentage was not high enough, and I had noticed before in biography and autobiography how boring the story becomes once the early struggles are over and before the doom and destruction begin. The halcyon plateau of success is delightful for the protagonist but infinitely dull for the observer. In Troilus and Criseyde it comes as a shock when we are told that the affair has lasted for three blissful years. Time has passed imperceptibly: there was nothing for Pandarus (or Chaucer) to do while the lovers disported themselves in ecstasy. But as soon as the liaison is threatened, he is as busy again as when he first acted as their go-between.
Happiness, then, is not very interesting – unless, of course, it happens to be your own. You cOuld, I suppose, put my dissatisfaction down to simple envy, but I happen to think it was a little more subtle and complex than that.
When I got home at half past four they were both still there, drinking tea and gazing foolishly at each other across the table.
‘Oh, you’re back,’ they said. I had the impression they spoke as one, though that is probably not factually true.
‘Yes, I live here.’ I smiled to soften the words. I was surprised (in view of how well I thought I knew myself) at how angry I felt: rage spilled out of me like the semen that was doubtless trickling down Gemma’s legs.
‘Would you like some tea?’
‘Yes, I would.’
They were so happy, they had more than enough kindness to spare for the ugly, bitter old man they had exiled from his own home. Gemma poured me the tea, with lemon and no sugar, just as I like it. She smiled at me. She looked like pictures of the Virgin Mary, young and innocent.
‘Thank you.’
I sat at the head of the table as was proper, forming the apex of a triangle with them.
‘I’ll have to be going,’ she said to David.
‘I know,’ he said.
She didn’t move. Their hands met and clasped across the table. They were quite oblivious of me. I drank my tea, watching them avidly, against my will. Gemma’s make-up was smudged, nearly gone, and she looked exhausted; but not, I felt, merely through sexual excess. It seemed like the exhaustion of spent tenderness, of giving out emotion, like a mother when her child’s bedtime finally comes. David looked exhausted, too, but in a different way, as if he had had a long and exciting day and been kept up too late: he looked young and vulnerable, as I had never seen him before. They had made the difference in each other’s faces, something I could never do.
‘Darling,’ she said, ‘can I give you a lift?’
‘Thanks, just to the tube station.’
‘Oh, good.’ She smiled at him: a few more golden moments together. Again no one moved.
‘How was the typing?’ I asked unkindly.
‘Oh.’ She flushed. ‘I did it all. I’m a bit rusty, I had to do some of it twice. But I think it’s all right.’ She was talking to me but her eyes were on him. He looked at her tenderly as she described her exertions, as if she had spent the afternoon down a mine.
‘Come on, love,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to go.’
She got up obediently; she kissed me on the forehead while he fetched her coat and helped her into it, an amazing courtesy, I thought, for him.
‘Day after tomorrow,’ he said to me curtly, shepherding her out with an arm round her shoulders as though she might break.
When they had gone, I poured myself a large drink, got into their stained and rumpled sheets and made love to myself, since there was no one else to do the job. A lonely enterprise. Was it perhaps that one did not value what was so easily gained? Or did the very certainty of success detract from the anticipation? Anything, anything, rather than dwell on the fact that one had been rejected by the entire world. Here, in their sheets, where they had been two, I was one. There were no miracles.
‘I didn’t expect to see you again,’ Catherine Meredith said. ‘Not so soon.’
We were eating some rather disgusting moussaka in a Greek restaurant in the back streets of Camden Town. She had selected the restaurant because it was cheap, thinking of her own poverty rather than my relative affluence, although I was paying. She had also selected it because it was convenient – for her, not for me. When I rang up she had sounded immensely surprised; I treasured the sound of surprise in her voice: Catherine Meredith, whom I had thought never to take unawares.
‘I got bored,’ I said. ‘They’re using my flat three days a week.’ I paused. ‘They’re there now.’
She crammed her mouth, chewed, swallowed and drank. ‘I imagined they must be,’ she said, ‘when you asked me to lunch.’
‘They’re in love,’ I said.
She smiled and poured herself some more retsina. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘they would be. It’s about time. Her letters are very sweet, don’t you think?’
I was nonplussed. ‘How d’you mean?’
‘Oh, come on,’ she said vulgarly. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t read them.’
There was a long, long silence. I avoided her eyes. Finally, deciding to laugh, I forced myself to look at her.
‘How did you know?’
‘I used to steam open letters. They look different, that’s all. If you’ve ever done it, you can tell. Other people can’t, don’t worry. David doesn’t know. He doesn’t look at details like that.’
‘Why aren’t you jealous?’ I said, much too abruptly, riveted by her unconcern.
‘Oh.’ She swallowed a lot of wine. ‘I’m past all that. That was a long time ago.’
‘You mean you were jealous once.’
‘Yes, of course. In the beginning, like God. But it passes.’
‘He told me,’ I said, overcome by our proximity in the scruffy, steamy restaurant, her pale face and pale hanging hair, the black jersey I vaguely recognised as belonging to David, our sleazy intimacy in this unlikely spot, ‘he told me you threw a vase at him and his clothes out of the window when you found Mrs Salmon’s photograph.’
A frown creased the smooth forehead.
‘Photograph?’
There was a pause, during which I felt a fool. ‘There never was one? Nor a vase? Nor a scene?’
She smiled gently. ‘He has fantasies. Like everyone else.’
‘He says you’re frigid.’ I was getting more reckless.
‘If I don’t fancy him I must be frigid.’
She spoke with such calm, amused contempt that I stared at her, fascinated.
‘Why don’t you divorce him?’
‘Why should I?’
She made it sound like a genuine question.
‘Well, it doesn’t sound as if you’re very happy together.’
‘No, it doesn’t, does it?’ She swallowed another huge mouthful of moussaka. For someone who never ate during the day, she seemed to have an enormous appetite. ‘But then I’m not sure marriage is meant to be happy. I think it’s a twentieth-century fallacy.’
I thought of Gemma and her pathetic idealistic hopes, and I could see Catherine’s point.
‘But might you not be happier with someone else?’
‘I don’t see why. After the first few years I’d probably be just as bitchy, whoever I was with.’
‘You could live alone. Like me.’
‘Ah, but living with David I can feel superior all the time. I like that.’
‘You’re very honest,’ I said.
‘Am I?’ she said. ‘How do you know?’
‘Well, at least you don’t say you stay together because of the children.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘At least I don’t say that.’
There was a silence. She did not help me to break it, merely drank more retsina and looked at me. Challenging me to continue? I wondered how old she was. It was an unlined face.
‘That’s what David told Gemma,’ I said. ‘About the children.’
‘What else could he say?’
‘You mean it’s not true?’
‘If I said he couldn’t live without me, would you believe me?’
Black made her look younger than the pallid colours she had worn to my flat. And she had plaited her hair so that it hung like two ropes framing her face. Thick fat plaits held with rubber bands, like a little girl in the school playground.
She said, ‘Well, anyway, he’s got to support his children, he wanted them, I didn’t, so he might as well support me too. He certainly can’t afford two homes. I think it serves him right, don’t you?’
I said, ‘I didn’t think you’d come to lunch. After all you said about not eating in the daytime.’
She laughed. ‘So now you’re wondering if I’m just as big a liar as David. Poor Mr Kyle. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to us. I told you it would take time.’
Afterwards we walked by the canal. The temperature was unpleasant for sightseeing but I was reluctant to let her go, and she did not invite me home. Indeed I was proud to be seen with her in her black flowing cloak, as I had been proud of being seen with Gemma when she was a conventionally pretty child, and later Miranda when she went around with pre-Raphaelite hair smelling of incense. It seemed a privilege to have some of their incongruity rub off on me: there is little enough beauty or mystery left in the world. Catherine was better equipped for the weather than I was, with David’s sweater and some bisexual jeans tucked into seven-league boots that seemed made for striding along river banks in winter.
‘I don’t know this part of London,’ I said to break the silence that had iced over our conversation.
‘No, I didn’t imagine you would.’
She tried pointing out landmarks to me while I tried steering her back to David and the children. She seemed bored with the subject now: all she would say was that David simply loved her being pregnant but he wasn’t so keen on the actual children. (This was awkward, since one stage lasted so much longer than the other.) Whereas she quite liked them once they were here, but found the nine months very tedious. I pressed her for reasons.
‘Oh,’ she said, sounding cross, ‘I think it’s feeling my body doesn’t belong to me, it’s been invaded. Which is probably why David loves it.’
She seemed more vulnerable in the open air: altogether gentler and softer once exposed to the elements. I wanted to put my arm round her.
‘So I just hope your niece is on the pill,’ she said lightly. ‘There’s nothing he likes better than impregnating women all over the place. He won’t admit it but I think he gets a kick out of seeing them swell up and knowing it’s all due to him.’
‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘Nothing to worry about. Her husband’s a doctor and he’s very keen on family planning.’
She smiled. ‘I wish I could say the same for my husband.’
That night I could hardly sleep. The idea of Gemma pregnant by David excited me beyond measure. Her other pregnancies had taken her away from me because they were Christopher’s, but this one would surely bring us closer together. If David and Gemma were to have a child, the three of us would form an unholy trinity, united beyond the grave, and I would be revenged forever on Christopher. He would be condemned to support another man’s child till he died. Longer: he would surely make bequests.
Moreover, it would be a supreme test of my ingenuity.
The letters stopped: the two of them were too much together even for Gemma to have need of letters. But I panicked, plunging into a paranoid fantasy. They had discovered me and were being clever, playing it carefully, covering their tracks. I knew this was not true, but the idea roamed, like an animal escaped from the zoo.
Their room became full of objects: scent, hairbrushes, make-up, dressing-gowns, things for the bath. Another life went on in there, just through the wall from my room, where no life went on. They were more than visitors: it was like being dispossessed by squatters, disguised as charming children. I had the feeling that everything was gaining momentum, rushing out of control. Had I not said at the start, no, before the start, that we were set on collision course?
He sang her praises as if he had invented her. Week after week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, he talked about her non-stop from ten till twelve while he dusted and polished – that is, if I stayed in the room with him. But he did not tell me anything about her because he talked in generalised superlatives. She was magic. She was so giving. She was so warm and gentle. She transformed him.
(‘When I think of that bloody cold bitch at home’ he said once and stopped short, abruptly, as if someone had turned him off by flicking a switch.)
She laughed at his jokes, she took an interest in his work, she made him laugh, she could cook. (Cook!) She was sexy. She was innocent yet uninhibited. (But that did not tell me what she was like in bed.) And she was so affectionate he felt no one had ever really loved him before, even his mother. Correction: least of all his mother. In a word, she was perfect.
It did not seem to occur to him that he was indebted to me for finding this paragon and delivering her up to him; or if it did, he did not see fit to say so.
I thought about mirrors. It would mean going back to my old haunts and no doubt prices had gone up, but it was a mirror that the spare room lacked and needed. A mirror would make it come alive for me. I now regretted, of course, getting rid of Oswald’s and Miranda’s mirror, but in those days I had favoured the clean sweep theory of getting over distress and had jettisoned everything that reminded me of them. An expensive method of avoiding heartbreak.
Then at twelve (and always punctual now) Gemma would arrive and we would all three have an uneasy drink together while they gazed at each other and pretended to be talking to me. At quarter past twelve I would leave, returning at three sometimes to find they had gone, occasionally to join them for tea and more foolish glances. Then they would leave together.
In short, I was never alone with her. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, when they did not meet, she would ring me up to complain about this deprivation and to explain how wonderful he was, how lucky she was, and how benevolent I was. At least she was appreciative; I must give her that. Almost monotonously so. She went on and on about how grateful they were to me for bringing them together and allowing them the use of my spare room, and whatever would they do without me, but it did not occur to her to do anything/or me in return, such as visiting me alone or talking about something other than David. I had forgotten how selfish lovers are: like children they are interested only in themselves, and they prattle away unselfconsciously, insanely convinced that what is of devouring interest to them must necessarily fascinate everyone else. If it were not insulting it would be comic.
One week Stephanie was ill and Gemma could not come on Wednesday. She spent half the morning on the telephone to him when he would have been better occupied with the vacuum cleaner. Thursday produced this:
(7)
‘Darling love,
Thank you a million times for being so sweet about Steffie. Much sweeter than I could be, I’m afraid. We’ve had a miserable afternoon playing games very half-heartedly and the more I looked at my watch thinking of where I should be, the more she went on about her sore throat and her tummy ache and the pain in her head and how she was hot/cold/hungry/sick and wanted a drink of water. I know she felt rotten and I was sorry for her (I think) but at one remove somehow. I mean I know it isn’t serious and she could have managed without me, even Chris said so when he took a look at her this morning and I’m sure Inge could have coped. What’s more, she’d have played games a lot less reluctantly than me! Now of course – now I’ve finally got S. to sleep and I’m racing to catch the post – I feel full of guilt for being such a rotten mother. Poor child, she did feel awful, she was all hot and cold and funny and just wanted me to be there, but I wanted to be somewhere else and there were moments this afternoon when if I’m honest I’ve got to admit I resented her like hell for stopping me – even hated her – I felt she was doing it on purpose – every time I went near the telephone she yelled as if she knew – I swear she’s got wind of something she can’t understand on her radar, just like my bloody mother.
Darling, please don’t stop loving me because it looks as if I love you more than my own child. Even writing that scares me. It can’t be true, can it?
Love, love, love and more love,
Your Gemma’
She started sounding me out about my holiday. ‘Are you going away as usual?’ – ‘Yes’ – ‘To the same place?’ – ‘Yes’ – ‘How lovely. Lucky you.’
Each year I spend my birthday in the sun. The Caribbean sun, to be exact. It seems to me, born at such a desolate time of year, the least I can do to console myself, and, with advancing years, almost a medical necessity.
‘You’ll come back all brown,’ she said enviously.
‘That’s right.’
‘And I shall hate you.’
I smiled. ‘But you’re young and beautiful and happy. You shouldn’t expect to be brown as well. Think how much compensation I need compared to you with all your advantages.’
There was a silence while she thought about it. I had an idea what she was coming to, but it was amusing to let her get on with it.
‘Of course,’ she said, as if it had just occurred to her, ‘what I should really do is ask Chris if I can go with you this time. Then he’d give me the money, David and I could stay at your flat, he could pretend he was on location, I’d give him the money and we could both go under the sunray lamp every day.’
‘What a brilliant idea,’ I said. I was impressed by the amount of detail she had gone into, as well as her carefree disposal of Christopher’s money. ‘What a pity it’s not possible.’
‘Oh, I was joking,’ she said quickly.
My instincts told me she had in fact been deadly serious, needing only my encouragement.
‘No, I meant the flat won’t be available. Otherwise you could probably get away with it.’
The silence on the other end of the phone was eloquent with pain and surprise.
‘Won’t be available,’ she echoed faintly.
‘I’m afraid not. I promised it to a friend – oh, ages ago. Last year. Before you and David ever met.’
‘You mean we can’t use it at all?’ Stricken.
‘Well, no. Not really. I’m sorry.’
‘Who is he, this friend?’
I had expected David to ask questions, so had my answers ready.
‘He’s an American academic. This way he can have a cheap vacation, staying in my flat.’
‘Funny time of year for an academic vacation.’
‘He’s on sabbatical to write his book.’
David was sharper than I had given him credit for. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Morris Abrahams.’ The answers flowed so readily, I was proud of myself. I began to see the man, neatly bearded but going bald, I thought, an alert Jewish face with dark intelligent eyes and a dry sense of humour. About fifty. His students liked him. He deserved to have the use of my flat. He would be more grateful than David and probably leave me a duty-free bottle of bourbon.
‘Won’t he be going to the British Museum like you?’
‘Oh yes, I expect so.’
‘Couldn’t we come to an arrangement – sneak in while he’s out?’
‘That would upset Mrs Abrahams.’ She would be in the kitchen a lot. Morris had married out, to the distress of his family, so Mrs Abrahams was trying to make amends by practising kosher recipes. She was a second wife.
‘So you don’t want me to come here at all while you’re away – to clean or anything?’
‘No. Of course I’ll pay you just the same.’
With Gemma it had been all disappointment. With him it was rage. But there was nothing he could do.
‘He’s in a filthy temper,’ Catherine said. ‘What’s gone wrong? It ought to be too soon for trouble.’
We were eating lasagne in a nice Hampstead restaurant (my choice). I explained about my holiday and the visiting American professor. She listened attentively and then began to laugh.
‘I don’t believe a word of it.’
I tried to assume an innocent, injured face, but it didn’t work too well. She knew me already.
‘You’re just doing it to be spiteful,’ she said.
‘Well… it is my flat. Why should they have it when I’m away?’
‘I wonder if he’ll find somewhere else to meet her. I’ll soon know if he doesn’t.’
‘How?’
‘He’ll start making love to me again.’
I asked if she minded and she looked almost gleeful.
‘I shall lie still as a stone and make him feel it’s rape.’ She smiled. ‘All that lovely guilt.’
‘His or yours?’
‘His, of course. I never feel guilty about anything.’
As you can see, we were rapidly becoming more intimate. My attentiveness was paying off. I felt privileged every time she told me something new. Often if I made no reply but merely studied her bony, mobile face, leaving a space for her to speak, she would go on.
Now she said, ‘D’you like Wagner?’
‘Yes. Very much.’
‘I don’t. I often think Wagner must have made love like David. A long, exhausting performance full of noise and false climaxes. By the time you get to the end, you’re too worn out to enjoy it. I’ll settle for a quick bash on the surgery floor any time.’
I must have looked surprised for she pretended alarm and added, ‘Oh dear, now I’ve given the game away.’
‘What game?’ I asked obediently.
‘I’m having an affair with my doctor. It’s terribly convenient. David thinks I’m a frightful hypochondriac. I’ve been dying to tell someone about it and you’re the obvious person. You really treasure secrets, don’t you? No wonder you like having David and Gemma in your flat.’
But my mind had stopped five sentences back. I was stunned. (Was it true?)
‘Are you really having an affair?’ It would explain everything: the alleged frigidity, the unconcern, the air of wellbeing.
‘Oh dear, now you’re doubting everything I say. It’s David who tells lies, you know, not me – well, not often. It rubs off a bit, I suppose.’
‘You’re not answering my question.’
‘Yes, of course I’m having an affair. It’s lovely. Perfectly safe for me and terribly dangerous for him. God knows what he’ll do if he ever wants to end it – I could wreck his career.’
‘But you wouldn’t – would you?’
‘I might… who knows what I might do if I felt spiteful enough? But he won’t, he loves me.’
‘And do you love him?’
‘I don’t know about love any more. Perhaps.’
‘Doesn’t David suspect?’
‘No, of course not, he’s far too conceited. That’s why he thinks I’m frigid – he thinks I can do without.’ She smiled. ‘I’m talking too much and it’s all your fault. You’re a true voyeur, aren’t you – a professional.’
On the strength of that, I ordered the mirror. My friends in Paris warned me prices had gone up.
‘You’ll miss seeing Chris on TV,’ said Gemma listlessly. ‘He’ll be on while you’re away.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘He’s in a debate about contraception and abortion. They’re terribly pleased to get a doctor who’s in favour of both and religious as well.’
She reeled off the information as if she were reading a publicity handout, but she seemed very doleful about it. ‘You must be proud of him,’ I said.
‘I suppose so. It’s very nice for him to be asked. All his hard work’s paid off at last. All those long evenings.’ She sounded oddly bitter.
I said thoughtfully, ‘Funny they should both be on TV.’
I had to pick my moment carefully. I waited till he was up a ladder cleaning paintwork so he could not see my face (I am not as skilful a dissembler as I pretend) and I busied myself with dusting and rearranging books on their shelves. So we were both fully occupied and far apart within the confines of the room.
I said, ‘Her husband’s going to be on TV.’
He echoed my words most gratifyingly. ‘Whatever for?’
‘He’s talking about sex.’
He laughed. ‘What the hell does he know about that?’
I laughed too: it was a comfortable feeling, making us into allies, men of the world. ‘No, not making love, prevention and cure, that’s all. He’s in a debate about abortion and contraception. He’s the Christian doctor on the panel.’
I expected a ribald joke; instead he said seriously, ‘I don’t approve of abortion. Cathy had one once. I didn’t like it at all.’
I said, ‘Well, I expect Christopher sees it as a last resort. The lesser of two evils and all that.’
He said, ‘It’s not right. There’s no excuse for it.’
It seemed unlike him to be so sternly moralistic. I said soothingly, ‘Well, Gemma’s never had one. She wanted more children but he wouldn’t let her have them.’
A silence fell: I was alarmed. Visions of a sniper flinging his grenade, a saboteur planting his gelignite flashed across my brain. I could see why brains are described as fevered. A strange hot sensation ran over my forehead. I had planned this moment so carefully: was there to be no reaction at all?
He said, ‘More fool him.’
I said, ‘She was very disappointed. She really wanted more. I think that’s why she got restless. Ironic, isn’t it?’
Another silence. I was desperate but counselled myself to be patient, to wait, as if it did not matter.
He said casually, thoughtfully, ‘I suppose that might explain it.’
I did not want to seem too eager. ‘Explain what?’
‘Why she’s so careless. I’ve often wondered. She keeps on and on about how we must be careful, but half the time she leaves it all to me.’ There was a shamefaced edge to his voice, as if he did not feel it quite proper to be disclosing these intimacies to me, yet found it impossible to resist. ‘You’d never think she’d been married ten years. God, I’ve had teenagers who knew more about it than she does.’
‘I suppose he takes care of all that.’ I didn’t like the words I had chosen but they seemed suitable, redolent of women’s magazines: precautions, methods, that side of marriage. ‘Have you asked her?’
‘No, not really. I tried but she wouldn’t talk about it.’ His voice was full of tenderness again: she was the perfect one, inviolate, her faults a delight. ‘There are things she won’t say – you can’t really discuss him with her properly.’
I thought of the letters: was that all she would expose? End-stopped conversation: she revealed what she chose and no questions answered. I thought too of our chats when we were alone. Not enough.
He said gently, admiringly, ‘It’s like a kind of protection. I suppose she doesn’t like to betray him twice.’
I longed to say more but dared not. Instinct told me it was better to let the matter rest. I might well have done enough – we would see – and if not, I could always re-open the subject later. Much too dangerous to press it now, however terrifying the renewed silence. I had planted the seed (how gratifyingly sexual these metaphors are) and that must suffice.
On the last night, all the same, while packing my holiday clothes, such as they were, I made a thorough search of the spare room. They were a messy couple and I discovered all sorts of debris: hairpins, champagne corks, stained towels, used tissues and old lipstick, but I persevered, and at the back of a drawer I finally found Gemma’s diaphragm. Very carefully, slowly and delicately, I punctured it several times with a needle. I am remarkably ignorant of these methods and their sabotage, but it seemed worth a try, just in case my revelations had fallen on stony ground. It did occur to me to wonder if she had a similar device at home (would it be indelicate to use the same one with lover and husband, and why were her methods so primitive?) or was Christopher in sole charge and did he spring forth like Minerva fully armed? But I did not wonder for very long; I was tired and I had a plane to catch in the morning. As I fell asleep my last conscious thought was of Troilus and Criseyde and a problem I had never considered before: how had they avoided pregnancy? Three years of coitus interruptus (for what else could it have been?) seemed to take a lot of the glamour out of their romance. Perhaps it merited a footnote.
For the first few days they did not exist. Annihilated by the heat, the flowers, the hovering humming-birds, the darkness of the nights, the blaze of day. They were people I had dreamed of in another life. I was glad of the peace: I found myself exhausted by contrivance – six months since David came to me – and the recent inexorable flow of Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays relentlessly following each other like soldiers on the march. I needed a rest.
As always, I had not quite remembered the exaggeration of the tropics. In theory, of course, I knew from experience exactly what to expect, but the reality always took me a little by surprise. The sun in the sky was hotter and brighter than the sun in my memory; the nights more densely black, a thick, soft colour that descended more abruptly than I could ever expect. It was another world: absurd to concern myself with people in England who were not real.
Every day after breakfast, a stroll through the hotel gardens then down to the beach, a fearsome drive, my bones and teeth rattling, but worth it to find a stretch of sand where even I did not mind exposing myself. It is not easy for a voyeur to become an exhibitionist, though that perhaps could be as good a definition of holiday as any. After lunch a languid siesta by the pool until the sudden sunset. A rest and a shower before dinner. And afterwards no more than two drinks, to avoid socialising, and early to bed for two hours’ work before sleep overcame me.
Slowing down the pace of life makes details stand out: the highspot of my day became watching the lizards on my veranda and trying to persuade them to pose for photographs.
Their wrinkled, primeval, jolie-laide faces reminded me of my own: I felt the tug of kinship. But they evidently did not. Too often at the last vital moment they darted away.
The first gin and tonic of the morning (around half past eleven) was another peak. I could walk fifteen minutes along the beach to the nearest hotel for it, or take the magic ingredients, with ice in a flask, and mix it myself. I usually preferred the latter, the personalised ritual. The barman at the hotel was not attractive, and there were too many American matrons revealing themselves with rather more courage than tact. Alone on my private beach I could swim and drink, balancing the liquid within and without; read and sunbathe, laze and drowse. I even began to imagine that if my whole life could be spent like this, I might acquire a nicer nature.
Catherine wrote:
‘Dear Mr Kyle,
I thought when you gave me your address it probably meant you wanted a letter. Are you enjoying yourself? I don’t see you as a holiday person, you seem to need your own environment. David and I don’t have holidays because we can’t afford them but I’ve always liked the idea of going somewhere new and strange for two or three weeks and telling some outrageous lies. A great opportunity to be someone else, holidays. David has borrowed a flat from a friend ofhis but it’s very grotty (I know the friend) so I don’t think she’ll like it. Anyway it means I won’t get raped by Wagner after all which will please my doctor who gets terribly jealous. I can’t understand jealousy myself any more. I know I did once but now I can’t remember how it felt. One body is very much like another, after all, it’s what goes on in the mind that counts. She’s written to him at the flat already, it’s a nice letter, do you want me to make a copy of it? They have a photostat machine at the post office that only costs 5p.
Love (whatever that is),
Catherine
P.S. I saw her husband on TV the other night, he seemed to have all the right attitudes. I also thought he was rather good looking – I like that hollow sunken-cheeked style. Or maybe I just have a thing about doctors. C.’
And then I began to miss them. All three of them. They were my children. What was I doing in this strange foreign place?
A honeymoon couple arrived to torment me. They were young and dark and thin and they kept touching each other. Apart from that, they did not do anything overtly embarrassing (in fact they were rather off-hand with one another verbally) but I resented them nevertheless. They were both very pretty and full of energy; they shone like well-groomed horses. The excesses of the night left a gloss of satisfaction on their faces as they chewed their breakfast paw-paw; afterwards they would play tennis and I would hear them shouting to each other, making fun of their bad shots, before I went down to the beach. They were younger than Gemma, and there they were, pledged for life, and seemingly delighted with the arrangement. About twenty-four, I thought. And rich enough to come to the island for their honeymoon. They always went to bed in the afternoon (I used to stroll past their chalet to soak up the sounds) and reappeared early in the bar, every night in new clothes, browner by the hour and smiling kindly at the rest of us. Like Gemma and David, they had a lot of goodwill left over.
It all turned sour after that. I began to notice VD posters scattered around the island for some kind of health campaign; it struck me as I drove about that the older inhabitants were obsequious and the younger ones arrogant; even the weather did not seem as perfect, a few showers and a high wind at night. I started to dream, not the sort you remember in order to recount but those that leave you vaguely uneasy, knowing you have slept badly but relieved to wake up. Suddenly paradise was a hostile place.
Gemma wrote:
‘Dearest Uncle Alex,
I hope you’re having a lovely time but I can’t wait for you to come back. We are borrowing a flat belonging to a friend of David’s but it’s not a bit like your lovely spare room. The sheets are filthy and there’s a horrid atmosphere. Still, we’re grateful to have anywhere – though we daren’t risk going there more than once a week. I can’t justify any more trips to town with you away. Hurry back!
Chris’s TV thing was a great success but he wasn’t a bit excited about it, in fact he’s been very funny lately. He can’t suspect anything, can he? He’s very quiet and sometimes he looks so sad I just want to fling my arms round him and say I love him although of course I don’t – except that in a way I do. And then I feel disloyal to David. Anyway I can’t hug Chris, however much I sort of want to, and I think by now he’d be surprised if I did. I’m worried about him though – suddenly he looks so much older or else not well – I’ve tried to get him to have a check up but you know what it’s like trying to make a doctor do that.
I wish you were here to talk to. I know I haven’t talked to you much lately but now you’re away I really want to. Because of Chris being the way he is and me feeling so guilty, I can’t argue with him about anything, and now he’s saying we must go to Majorca in June instead of Cyprus because of the troubles. I’m sure it’s all quiet there again now and would be quite safe to go but he won’t listen. I have this awful feeling he’s just making excuses and really he only wants to go to Majorca to have a second honeymoon with me. I keep telling him it will be horrid and touristy and spoilt – not at all like it was ten years ago – but he won’t listen. He insists there are still some nice quiet places left – I think he expects Robert Graves to ask us to dinner or the ghost of Chopin to materialise with a brand new nocturne – it’s going to be awful, I don’t know how I’ll bear it. After all this time away from our room, to be marooned on holiday with Chris being terribly affectionate is more than I can stand. It’s like a jail sentence.
David and I have such fantasies about running away together one day. At least I suppose they’re fantasies. The trouble is he can’t bear to leave his children and of course I couldn’t possibly leave mine so it would mean taking four children with us and he’d never earn enough to keep us all and I could hardly work with four children to look after. That’s quite apart from all the upset for them, and hurting Chris and Cathy. And of course they might both fight for custody. Now I’ve written it down it looks quite ridiculous and yet we talk about it all the time. We ought to be satisfied with what we’ve got, I don’t know why we want more, we’re really very lucky. But it seems to be a terrible craving like for drink, to plan a future we know really we can’t ever have. We even talk about the sort of flat we’d get and how we’d furnish it.
You must think I’m mad. Hurry back. Maybe I’ll be sane again once we’re back in our lovely room.
Lots of love,
Gemma
P.S. I almost forgot to tell you the other awful thing – Inge is leaving. I’ve been so busy with myself lately I didn’t even notice there was anything wrong with her but she’s just announced she’s pregnant – it must have happened at Xmas when she went home – and she wants to go back to Germany and marry her boyfriend as soon as possible. She keeps apologising for all the inconvenience she’s causing us (I’m sure we’ll never get anyone so ideal again) but she looks terribly cheerful all the time and I’m so envious I could hit her. Being in love doesn’t seem to improve one’s character, does it?’
On my last morning the honeymoon girl appeared pale and tense at breakfast. I imagined a quarrel but it turned out she had hardly slept because a large red spider had got into their room and her husband had failed to catch it. Wafts of reminiscent terror emanated from her, palpable even at several tables’ distance. The maids were sent in; at lunch they announced, triumphant, that they had captured the beast. Were they really sure? she demanded. Oh yes, they had kept it for her as proof. She shrank away under her husband’s shoulder. ‘No, no, don’t let them show it to me, please.’ He comforted her and reassured her they wouldn’t; everyone laughed good-humouredly, the maids’ large white teeth flashing, their eyes puzzled by the exhibition, but her terror and panic were real and I felt them. For one night at least her honeymoon had been ruined and she would remember.
I flew back home vindicated, reading Gemma’s letter over and over again. Treasure trove.
The pleasures of homecoming: an even tan masking nearly all irregularities, making me almost enviable; the contrasting pallor of an English spring and the surly unconcern of the natives; and my flat, familiar yet strange after absence, full of contradictions. It looked larger and smaller, lighter and darker than I remembered it. Empty and hollow, yet containing so much of me that I half expected to meet myself coming down the corridor.
Gemma was ecstatic. ‘You look marvellous – oh, it’s so good to have you back.’ It was my spare room she was really talking about as she hugged me.
David merely said, ‘Yes, you’re very brown, it’s all right for some.’ Then he looked round the flat suspiciously with his expert’s eye. ‘They were very clean and tidy, your friends. Not a thing out of place.’
I said smugly, ‘Americans are great respecters of property,’ and went out. I had a lot to do and so, presumably, had they.
The mirror was a huge success. I had been right to be apprehensive: the price brought tears to my eyes. But it was worth it, once they got it installed. Just like old times in its accustomed place: boldly on the wall in their room, safely behind the tapestry in mine. I could not afford to take any risk of David finding it in the course of his cleaning.
I trembled a little as I looked at it: the culmination of a dream and the nearest I would ever get to paradise. I had been a fool to quibble at the cost. You cannot measure such privilege in terms of mere cash.
There were of course certain practical problems to be overcome or perhaps simply risked. David would have to become accustomed to my locking my bedroom door occasionally when I went out – better still when I went away. They would think themselves doubly alone then and be more relaxed. If I made sure he cleaned my room on Wednesdays, I could say I was going away for weekends and watch safely on Mondays and Fridays. The excitement was almost too much for me; I feared for my heart. If the very thought of watching them had this effect, what would the reality do to me?
In case you are wondering, I had no guilt. I was not stealing, merely taking what was my due, which they had withheld. They had stopped talking to me and they no longer wrote letters. They would not be the poorer by my action, for they would never know.
Catherine said, ‘You seem very restless. As if you were expecting something to happen.’
We were walking by the Serpentine, a new meeting-place, in the pale spring sunshine. I was surprised to have succeeded in luring her so much nearer to my territory, so far from her own.
I said, ‘Not expecting, my dear Catherine. Merely hoping. I get bored easily, you see. Any event would be welcome.’ She walked slowly in her flowing caftan, her hair loose. The garment was sea-green; it was the first time I had seen her in a primary colour. She seemed a different creature with the change of season: there was colour in her cheeks (though still no make-up) and she walked with a lighter step. She seemed younger, nebulous, floating. For a mad moment, making nonsense of my mirror and all the expensive delights to come, I thought David must be crazy to prefer Gemma to her. Gemma had proved so attainable.
‘Well, it’s too soon for disaster,’ she said equably. ‘I told you that before.’
‘I remember.’
Back home they would be making love in front of my mirror, unobserved. A kind of undress rehearsal (I permit myself the occasional pun). It was a Wednesday, of course. David would clean my room either before or after the performance. I was getting them accustomed to the new regime, and I did not grudge the delay. True artistry cannot be hurried: it grows slowly, like a plant. In truth I was a little afraid to face the moment when I was to watch for the first time. There would be no way to recapture that novelty, however many times I watched and however much variation I saw.
Catherine asked, ‘So what are you hoping for?’
‘Satisfaction,’ I said, feeling that to say happiness would be over-reaching myself.
She laughed. ‘Are you in love with them? Are they doing it for you?’
So casually asked, it threw me. I could not answer. The Serpentine spun in the thin April sunlight.
She went on, ‘Satisfaction through others, it’s only saints and voyeurs who can live like that. The man in your poem, David told me about that.’
I said faintly, ‘It’s Chaucer’s poem, not mine.’
‘Well, you know what I mean. You’re making it yours. That man was in love, wasn’t he, supposed to be anyway, with someone who never rewarded him?’
I was taken aback. ‘You’ve actually read it.’
‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘a long time ago. I’m not as ignorant as David. I was going to do English before I switched to Art. Only I never really believed in Pandarus having a lady, however cold and distant. I think that was just an excuse he used to put people off the scent. I think he was in love with Troilus and Criseyde.’
She was going too far, too fast. I was scared of her again. ‘I think he was in love with power,’ I said.
‘Oh, that’s just a smokescreen.’
There was a long silence.
‘Poor you,’ she said gently, to my amazement taking my hand. ‘Has no one ever loved you?’
‘Not your pity,’ I said. ‘Please. Spare me that.’
‘You mustn’t mind,’ she said. ‘It’s the kindest emotion I can feel. And I told you I’d find out eventually. But it doesn’t matter, really it doesn’t. Love is such a myth.’
I had the intercom installed. I told the man that the child of a friend of mine was coming to stay and I must be sure to hear her if she cried in the night. He tested it for me with one of us in each room, but after he had gone I put the radio on their bed and went back into my room. I folded back the tapestry and hooked it out of the way; then I lay on my bed. There through the glass I could see the radio lying innocently on the winter quilt. And I could hear it: every word, every note of music. There would be two bodies coupling and I would see every movement, hear every sound. I would share their love at last; I would be part of it.
David got a job. Only a small one, of course, a guest appearance in some long-running TV series in Birmingham, but it meant being away for a week. I was disappointed and angry at first, then I thought that perhaps it was just as well: a break in routine at this point might make him less likely to notice or question my new habits and the locked bedroom door. He was jubilant, of course; I assumed it was merely actor’s ego, but when I saw a strangely intent conspiratorial look on Gemma’s face I knew there was more to it than that.
‘If you’ll help,’ he said, oddly diffident for him, ‘we can have a night together. It’s our only chance.’
‘Please,’ Gemma said. ‘You will help, won’t you?’
I liked their soft words and pleading faces. The plan was simple: David would go up there for a week, all bona fide, and Gemma would join him for a night, pretending to be with me.
‘A Saturday night would be best,’ she said. ‘It’s very awkward now Inge’s gone and the new girl hasn’t arrived.’
I was amused at the intrusion of these domestic details into their night of bliss.
‘I won’t be there on a Saturday, it’s Monday to Friday.’
‘Then make it Friday and we can travel back together on Saturday.’ Her face lit up at the added bonus: on top of a whole night together, their first, the joy of a train journey as well.
‘Yes, I’ll tell Cathy there’s a party or something, she won’t care.’
‘And you’ll have finished work, so I won’t be distracting you.’
They were both trembling with excitement, as if they were planning a bank raid.
‘I never thought I’d be so pleased about going to Birmingham.’
They both laughed as if this were terribly witty. Then they looked at me.
‘You will, won’t you?’
‘You don’t have to do a thing. Only say I was here. Just pretend, in your head. You don’t have to stay in or anything. You can go to the pictures if you like.’
‘My children,’ I said, ‘how can I refuse you?’
‘Oh.’ She hugged me so hard that for a moment I could scarcely breathe. On David’s face I saw no gratitude but intense relief.
‘Now,’ I said. ‘To be practical.’
‘Just remember to say I was here for the night on Friday if anyone asks. That’s all. I’ll explain to Chris.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s a little more to it than that. Why are you here?’
‘Oh.’ She pondered. ‘I’ll think of that later.’
‘You’re ill,’ David said promptly to me.
I said with a smile, ‘You needn’t sound so pleased. And I don’t like pleading illness to a doctor.’
‘What d’you mean?’
Happiness had made them stupid.
‘Your husband,’ I said, ‘might ring up.’
‘Why should he?’
‘Why shouldn’t he? To speak to you. To ask how I am. To check up.’
There was a short pause. I could almost hear them thinking, like the ticking of a clock in another room.
‘I know,’ Gemma said. ‘We’ll do it in easy stages. Then he can’t ring up. I’ll come here at lunchtime as usual to type. Then in the afternoon I’ll ring Chris and say you’re ill and can I stay. He’s bound to say yes. Then it’s all spur of the moment and I’ve spoken to him and he won’t ring up. You’ll have nothing to worry about.’
‘And if he does ring up?’
‘He won’t.’
‘But if he does.’
She looked exasperated at my obstinacy; I was spoiling the dream by conjuring up reality. I represented all her worst forebodings and she would not admit them so she must condemn me instead.
David said, ‘Oh God, it’s easy. I’ll leave my Birmingham telephone number with you and if he rings up, you ring us and Gemma can ring him back. Tell him she’s in the bath or something.’
It was easy; he was right. ‘And how serious is my illness?’
He went on smoothly. ‘Food poisoning, I think. You went out to a heavy lunch. Oysters, probably, followed by pheasant. You’re allergic but you won’t admit it. There’s nothing Gemma can do but you don’t want to be alone. He’ll tell you to suck ice cubes. It happened to me once.’
‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘Provided he doesn’t come rushing up here to minister to me.’
‘He can’t leave the children,’ Gemma said quickly.
‘He could ask your mother to babysit.’
‘He won’t.’
No. He certainly wouldn’t. My health was not a matter of much concern to him.
‘There’s nothing anyone can do,’ David said with authority, ‘not even a doctor. You feel so ill you just want to die.’
‘But not alone.’
‘That’s right. Now you’ve got it.’
I remembered to say, ‘And I was planning to go away for the weekend.’
‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘you can go another time, can’t you?’
On the appointed day she did no typing, needless to say. She arrived late, overnight essentials hidden in her handbag, her face such a mixture of happiness, fear and excitement that I did not know what to say to her. But I doubt if she’d have heard me if I had spoken. She was hardly in the world at all.
‘When I was a child,’ she said, ‘and I read love stories, I always thought there was something magical about the night, about actual sleep. Two people together in darkness, unconscious…’ She balanced on the edge of her chair, rocking it gently. ‘That seemed to be what made the bond between them. Anything could happen. Giving your unconscious to someone – I thought that was why there was all that fuss about the wedding night. It seemed the essence of marriage somehow, being together asleep in the dark.’
And of course Christopher telephoned. About nine, when I was beginning to feel secure. Gemma had done her bit in the afternoon, ringing neighbours to collect the children, ringing Christopher to describe my symptoms and ask permission. I was surprised how genuine she sounded, what a competent actress she had become. Perhaps David had been coaching her.
But was she good enough? The telephone bell sent chills through my stomach, momentarily making me feel almost as ill as I was alleged to be. It could, of course, have been anyone, even Gemma herself. But I knew it was Christopher. I had foreseen it from the time I cross-examined the guilty lovers and David concocted the plan.
‘Yes?’ I hoped my voice sounded suitably weakened by vomiting.
‘Oh.’ He seemed slightly taken aback. ‘Alex. I thought you’d be in bed.’
‘I am.’
‘Oh. Yes, of course. It was only that I expected Gemma to answer as you’re not well.’
A pause. He had not asked, but I suddenly felt obliged to answer his silence.
‘She’s in the bath,’ I said.
‘Oh.’ He sounded – what? Relieved. Disappointed. Disbelieving. All three. And something more: the unutterable sadness that Gemma had described in her letter to me, that invaded his voice and, dislike him as I might, totally overwhelmed me. But it was not a time for sentiment; rather was it a time for a calculated gamble.
‘Shall I call her?’ What was I to do if he said yes? Why had I chosen to take such an appalling risk?
‘No.’ I had of course known he would, he must say no. ‘It’s very trivial, I only wanted to ask her where she put some notes…’ His voice trailed off.
‘I’ll get her to ring you back.’
‘No. Don’t bother her. No need.’
For a moment I was insanely convinced he knew.
‘No bother.’ Was my charade effective?
He pulled himself together, put on his doctor’s voice. ‘How are you feeling, Alex? Any better?’
‘Pretty weak. You know what these things are like.’
‘Yes, indeed. I told Gemma to tell you, just suck ice cubes. There’s nothing else for it. Don’t even swallow water till tomorrow, you’ll only be sick again.’
‘I know, she told me. And before that – I found out to my cost.’
‘It’s a wretched business. Give it twenty-four hours though and you’ll be amazed at the difference. Well, I must get on. Goodnight, Alex.’
He was gone. I hung up slowly, half expecting to see Gemma emerge from the bathroom wrapped in a towel, her face full of guilt and apprehension. I had convinced myself at least. But then I have always had a talent for make-believe. What surprised me was the lack of gleeful conspiratorial response. I felt instead – well, no, not guilty, no, but embarrassed. His pain was in the room with me. Did he really love her that much?
I was wasting time. I looked up the number and dialled. It rang several times. A cross sleepy voice answered; they must be in bed already.
‘David,’ I said sharply, ‘get Gemma to ring home, would you?’
There was a startled pause. Then:
‘Christ. He actually rang.’
‘Yes. He actually rang.’
‘I never thought he would. What did you tell him?’
‘She’s in the bath. I didn’t change a word of your dialogue.’
Silence. Then Gemma came on the line. ‘What did he say?’
‘Nothing much. He asked for you, of course. Something about some notes – he said it was trivial.’
A long sigh. ‘Oh God, yes. I was typing something for him – he’s going to a conference next week – oh God, I suppose he couldn’t find it. I should have thought.’
Her remorse irritated me profoundly. ‘Look, instead of explaining to me, why don’t you ring him?’
She didn’t even notice my irritation. ‘Did he say anything else?’
‘Not much. He asked how I was.’
‘But did he sound all right?’
‘You’ll know if you ring him,’ I said, ‘won’t you?’
‘You don’t think he’s guessed?’
‘How can I tell?’
‘It might have been an excuse about the notes. He might have been trying to catch me out.’
‘Then he’d have made me call you, wouldn’t he?’
‘Oh yes. Yes. That’s right.’ What was that extra note in her voice beyond the relief? Disappointment?
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I don’t know how long you usually take in the bath, but hadn’t you better ring him back?’
‘What’s the matter?’ she said abruptly. ‘You don’t sound yourself.’
‘I’m not feeling well,’ I said. ‘Have you forgotten? Something I ate disagreed with me.’
Oh, but I forgave her everything when I saw her. It is not granted to many to witness such perfection. I was reminded of the Bible: ‘They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions,’ although strictly speaking, speed and strength were not what I saw. But as a measure of sublimity the ancient words echoed in my head. What I saw was love. When Gemma kissed David all over his body it was because she loved every inch of him, as the saying goes, literally, and this was her way of showing it. I followed her tongue with my eyes, my own lips sensing the feel of the curly black hairs. Her body arched over his, charming in its imperfections, breasts sagging a little since the last child, stomach a little stretch-marked and curving with maturity. I loved her imperfect body and so did he. Lying there like a Sultan in his private ecstasy, he was of all men most enviable. All I lacked was the smell of his sweat and the warmth of his skin under my face. And he looked so young. As Gemma moved, I glimpsed his face behind her tangled hair and his youth hurt me even more than his pleasure. No one had ever kissed me like that, and now it was too late: no one ever would. I was ugly, and I was old. I was undesirable in every sense of the word: sexual, aesthetic and social.
When he made love to her I was enchanted again and in a different way. I had expected a marathon, to judge from Catherine’s jokes and Gemma’s letters, and that to me suggested coldness and endurance, a long-distance battle of wills. Instead there was a young man struggling to hold himself back, to give pleasure, to prolong the magic or to repeat it. And when I heard that strange lost cry from Gemma’s throat, I did not marvel that he should strive so hard to conjure it. Kingdoms had been well lost for less. She clutched at him as if she were dying, as if he were a raft in the sea or her last hope of spiritual salvation. Her fingers dug into his flesh, her mouth closed on him, her arms dragged him closer till it seemed he would go right through her and they would both suffocate or drown.
There was so much I had forgotten: wilfully, I suppose. In a spirit of self-preservation. So as not to go quite mad. The contorted faces of those in the last extremities of sexual pleasure: a weird sight indeed. Like victims struggling under torture. Was that how the whole sado-masochistic sexual mythology had arisen, by chance, from an observed phenomenon? It was so long since I had had a partner and I was not in the habit of watching myself – in my case there was no pleasure to be had in that. But the typical interplanetary visitors, beloved of newspapers and science fiction, reproducing like the amoeba or the fish, how astonished they would be if told that these were lovers enjoying the highest form of physical delight vouchsafed to mankind. They would never believe it. These twisted features, these cries of rage and pain and loneliness – no, never. Everyone knew that these people were torturing each other. Any fool could see that.
I had forgotten how they spoke, too. All that loving chat, and the jokes. Unfinished sentences. A word, a look, a laugh. How easy it was for them. It flowed. There is no way I can describe it as it was: even now your memories will have to do their work. For they moved from caress to speech, from activity to inertia, and back again. To recount it is to make distinctions, and it was all one.
When he came he sounded angry. As if his seed were being wrenched from him.
Afterwards they were very still and silent, like the dead. They had the same repose and exuded the same air of invulnerability. They were beyond everything, out of harm’s way. ‘Fear no more the heat of the sun’ was in my mind as I watched them. They lay in a huddle of limbs, flopped down where they had fallen and wrapped around each other, sweating and breathless and silent, still as stones. Until they opened their eyes and smiled at one another; smiled and began to talk. And to kiss.
If I had forgotten the foolish words and the caresses, the endearments and the silly jokes, still more had I forgotten the kisses. The afterwards kisses, for love only, not to excite, when there was nothing more to gain, different by a world from those lavished on the body to arouse. Kisses on the mouth and eyes to say Thank you, to say Goodnight and go to sleep, my love, and rest, you’re safe with me. No, I had not forgotten. They were something I had never known.
I watched through a mask of tears and I was not ashamed.
Gemma noticed the innovation at once. ‘I like the new mirror,’ she said to me on Wednesday.
‘Yes, I thought you deserved something better.’
God, it was a happy time. It did not seem much hardship now to have endured sixty-four wretched years to reach this state of joy. Twice weekly, Mondays and Fridays, in my own private cinema, a programme fixed but infinitely flexible, and on Wednesdays lunch with Catherine. Three matinees a week, starring all my favourite people.
Of course I was terrified at the start. On the first Friday, terror almost overcame excitement. It took a real effort of will to install myself behind the locked door, unhook the tapestry and wait. I wanted to run away. Quite frankly, I could have (almost) abandoned the entire scheme there and then. The waiting was so long. Once David had arrived (about eleven, late because he thought I was away, I noted) I was of course a prisoner. Too late to retreat now: the die was cast with a vengeance. I had to lie quiet in my room, trying to give out emanations of emptiness, and listen to him bustling about with dusters and polish; the chink of washing up, the roar of the vacuum cleaner. These familiar sounds seemed very foreign because I was not supposed to be there. I was reminded of the first day he had come to me, when I was very aware of everything he did around the flat because he was a stranger. It is an eerie sensation to be in your own home, on your own bed, pretending to be away, while another person makes free with your other rooms and your cleaning equipment. I could hear my heart beating. I was terrified. That was absurd, of course. The worst that could happen was that he would try the door and find it locked. That in itself was no crime, merely odd, perhaps not even that. But of course he did not try the door: why should he? He had cleaned the room last Wednesday and had no reason to go in it till next Wednesday. All I had to do was keep silent. Unless I made a sound, I could not be found out. Immediately the greatest temptation in the world was to sneeze, cough, scream. Even that he made easy for me. He turned on the wireless. It was bizarre to lie there, a helpless victim of popular music, waiting for the greatest experience of my life.
Gemma arrived about twelve. I thought they’d be sure to go straight to bed but they were ages in the kitchen and living-room, eating and talking. I could hear the sound of their voices but not what they said – an infuriating predicament. When they finally came into the spare room the angle of vision prescribed by the mirror prevented my seeing everything they did: by focussing on the bed I had lost the rest of the room. Somewhere in a private recess they were undressing and I could see nothing, only hear tender banalities: ‘God, you’re so beautiful,’ and ‘Darling, I do love you.’ So it was a shock when they finally came naked into my sight and began to caress each other. There is something touchingly vulnerable about the naked human body. But I do not want you to imagine I was obsessed with anything so crude as mechanical performance. As always in these situations, the most titillating sensation arises first from anticipation, next from the feeling of power and privilege that watching unobserved can give you: the secret intrusion into privacy, the furtive participation in intimate rites. Of all stolen fruits, these are surely the most delicious.
‘You’re looking very cheerful,’ Catherine said. (Tea at the Savoy.) ‘Has something happened?’
‘My work’s going well,’ I said.
They were not sexual athletes like Oswald and Miranda, but I got some wonderful photographs all the same, despite the difficulty of working at an oblique angle. Nothing new, not more than half a dozen basic positions in all, but some lovely movements with all the grace of dancers. I concentrated on their faces: there is, after all, nothing more erotic than the expression on the faces of two people in love who are giving each other pleasure. I did not find out anything new about sex but I learnt a great deal about love.
Oswald and Miranda had in some ways been a disappointment. Young and beautiful though they were, they seemed to me to experiment too much. They were not truly in love. When I look back over their photographs, I am struck by an air of strain, of improvisation for the sake of novelty. Sometimes, anyway, it was as if they were trying something new simply because they had heard about it, like a drug or a T-shirt, or because someone was paying them to pose for a calendar. They lacked tenderness.
In the streets as I went about my business, shopping or strolling, I half expected to be arrested. I felt my air of satisfaction and well-being (which Catherine had noticed) was conspicuous to passers-by, and anything so blatantly happy must surely be an offence.
Perfect love casteth out fear of germs. I was impressed and envious at the mutual worship of genitalia that was going on in my spare room, all that licking and sucking, like animals devotedly grooming one another. They had pet names for each other’s sexual organs and lay staring at them for long periods of time, saying at intervals, Isn’t he (or she) lovely, in the same tender rapturous tone that they used when talking about their children.
One day they didn’t make love at all but lay on the bed with their arms round each other, naked, silent. They kissed for a while. I waited for the action to start but nothing evolved. I took a few photographs and began to get bored. Then: ‘Leave him.’
‘Oh darling, don’t.’ A long sigh from Gemma. ‘Not again. I can’t bear it.’
I switched on the tape recorder.
‘If I get that job we’d have enough money.’
‘Not for four children.’
‘Just bring yours. I’ve given up. I don’t think Cathy’d let me have mine anyway – not really. She’s a cow, she’d fight me all the way and the bloody courts would back her up.’
Silence.
‘I can’t do that to Chris.’
‘What about what you’re doing to me?’ Very sulky little boy voice full of injury.
‘Oh, darling.’
A lot more kissing and hugging; an air of desperation. Nothing I could record. Then she sat up, arms round her knees, legs apart, breasts hanging loose, hair tousled. I took a photograph; she looked very appealing.
He said, ‘You couldn’t just leave them, could you?’
‘I’ve thought about it.’
‘God, are you serious? I thought you’d be shocked.’
She said very sadly, ‘I was shocked at myself when I first thought of it. But I’m not shocked at you. I’m glad you’ve said it.’
‘But you won’t do it, will you?’
‘Oh God.’ Another long silence. ‘I wish I could.’
He said with sudden furious energy, ‘I just can’t bear to think of you on holiday with him next month. He’ll get randy in all that heat, won’t he? He’ll be at you all the time.’
She turned to look at him; she shook her head. He pulled her down to kiss him and she ran her hand up and down his body, lingering on his cock with sad proprietary tenderness.
‘I love you,’ she said presently, very slowly and seriously like a pledge.
‘Then leave him.’
Silence. The tape recorder ran on, wasting itself.
He said abruptly, ‘I’m so lonely. You’ve no idea. There’s nothing like living with Cathy to make you feel alone in the world.’ He paused. ‘And there’s something about this place I don’t like.’
‘Our lovely room?’ She sounded shocked and puzzled. ‘Yes, it’s worse in here, but the whole flat, there’s something—’ He stopped. I held my breath.
‘What?’
‘Your uncle gives me the creeps, if you really want to know. I bet he comes in here and wanks after we’ve gone, poor old sod.’
‘Don’t say that, it spoils everything.’
‘Why? Surely you know he fancies you. And me, come to that.’
‘Of course he doesn’t, he’s just lonely.’
‘He’s a weirdo.’
‘No he isn’t.’
‘Kinky then. You know he is, why not admit it?’
‘He’s a bit eccentric – all right – but he can’t help it – he’s alone so much.’
‘I’m not surprised. Who could fancy him the way he looks?’
‘Darling, don’t. I’ve known him all my life – and look how good he’s been to us. Where would we be without him?’
‘Better off.’
‘We’d have nowhere to go.’
‘If you’d leave Chris we could have our own place. I’m sick of meeting you in a dirty old man’s spare room.’
Well, that was what you got for trying to help people, for providing all the comfort and convenience of a brothel without the expense. They say listeners never hear any good of themselves but there is no excuse for rank ingratitude.
Catherine said, ‘I can’t think how you’re going to manage the ending. He’s bound to leave her first, he always does. I warned you about that.’
I shook my head. ‘Criseyde left Troilus in the end.’
‘I know that. But it was wartime, she was a hostage. You can’t reproduce all that. What can you possibly do – persuade her husband to emigrate and take her with him?’
‘That’s a bit too drastic, I’d never see her. Besides, he wouldn’t go; he’s a pillar of the local community.’
‘I was joking,’ she said gently.
‘She has to meet a new lover, that’s all.’
‘Diomedes.’
‘Of course.’
‘I always fancied Diomedes. I remember thinking Troilus was a bit wet, really, always bursting into tears and not eating, but Diomedes was sexy. I always liked Greeks after that.’ We were walking in Hyde Park. It was turning from a warm spring into a hot summer and office workers, wage slaves, lay sprawled on the grass in various stages of undress. Catherine picked her way delicately through them, looking absurdly young in jeans and a diaphanous shirt. I was proud of her.
On the last day before the holiday they made love with particular beauty and skill. I could not hear their voices clearly, they were muffled against each other’s skin, but David was saying something urgent to Gemma about not letting Chris make love to her. They both wept a little in their embrace, I remember, and I found that more moving and erotic than anything else they had done. For a moment I almost felt an intruder.
While he was dressing she got up, still naked, and wandered across to the mirror to brush her hair. I held my breath; we were inches apart; she looked as if into my eyes and saw, of course, nothing but her own reflection, while I felt I gazed into her soul. It was what I had always coveted.
They were so preoccupied with themselves that never once did they try the locked door or question my new habit of going away at weekends. They never even asked if I enjoyed myself. Love makes people very selfish. I have noticed that before.
I thought I would miss them and all my new-found delights, but in fact I was glad of the rest. Like a too rich diet, my observations had weighed me down. I was heavy, exhausted, satiated.
David cleaned sullenly. He arrived late and left early. He took frequent breaks for coffee and martinis. He talked round the subject, nothing of interest about himself and Gemma, but a lot of veiled malice about Christopher and a constant peevish refrain about why Gemma was afraid to leave home. He tried to present this as a temporary fear, as if he were certain that she (or he) would overcome it. I was not sure if he was trying to convince himself or me.
‘She doesn’t love him, you know,’ he said insistently. ‘She’s just sorry for him. She doesn’t know how to tell him it’s all over.’
He looked peculiarly attractive: it was pleasant to have him all to myself again. Of late I had been wondering sourly what Gemma saw in him (a foolish question to ask of lovers) because he was so removed from me. She had stolen him away and so, for the loss to be bearable, the prize must be worthless. But now he was given back, albeit on loan. Redeemed, like a pawnbroker’s pledge. I looked at him closely. He had one of those faces that was always changing: it could be very attractive and then just as suddenly plain, so that you were puzzled by your own allegiance. At some angles it was even lop-sided. The sulky shutdown look that moods evoked suggested more was going on in his head than (I suspect) actually was. Watching him as he stood there in his jeans and jersey, the belt on the hips, the scarf at the neck, his face a brooding mask as he cleaned my silver and reflected on his life, I was enslaved all over again and angry with myself for being so. If he could reject Catherine for Gemma, I had never stood a chance. I knew he was shallow and worthless, that was why I had chosen him, to give us all the maximum trouble. I could not go back on my bargain now and wish him more amiable. I should not complain that there was not enough inside his lovely shell. So why did I still hanker after him? I had seen the extent (and limitations) of his sexual performance; I knew (at one remove) every detail of his body; I was satisfied that there was little of interest in his head. But – and perhaps this is true of all people who sell themselves for a living – the elusive essence of self was exceptionally fascinating, for that was all he had to offer. The play of light upon his face, the way it changed from little-boy-lost actorish puppy charm to dangerous crooked devious malice. He in himself was not really powerful except in this one aspect of quick-change artist. It left us all not knowing quite where we were, a delicious uncertainty. Kicking and stroking were interchangeable. The waif we had rescued might turn on us yet, all gratitude gone, steal our silver and kick us in the teeth. Or (if we were very lucky) kiss our feet and weep to be forgiven. It could go either way; that was part of the fascination. But – and this worried me – uncertainty too could become boring, a habit like any other. Suppose I should tire of him before Gemma did? What if my spare room became a permanent refuge for two people who no longer excited me? How would I bear it? How (more important) would I ever get rid of them?
He talked a lot about Catherine too: how she suspected; how she was jealous; how she kept pretending she was ill in order to capture his attention; how surprised she would be when he left her and how it would serve her right for being such a cold-hearted bitch. He said all that in a sour, aggrieved, obsessional tone, often repeating himself. I said nothing but listened attentively. One day he suddenly rounded on me. ‘You must be very pleased with yourself,’ he said savagely. ‘You’ve really messed things up good and proper.’
Gemma wrote from Majorca:
‘Dear Uncle Alex,
I’m enclosing a letter for David, please don’t tell him what’s in your letter. I’ve made a big effort to be cheerful in his letter.
I am afraid I may be pregnant. I can’t tell David yet in case it isn’t true, please God it isn’t, telling him would make it more likely somehow. I don’t know why I’m telling you really except I must tell someone. I was late before we left but put it down to the worry about leaving David and going on holiday with Chris etc. But I am still late, in fact now I am twelve days late and I have never been twelve days late in my life without being pregnant.
I can’t be pregnant, it’s absolutely impossible. I can’t worry David with it, it’s too silly. But if I am pregnant I’ve got to have an abortion and I’m terrified of abortion, I always have been, the more Chris tells me about how simple and easy and painless it is these days the more I curl up and die. I mean when he tells me about abortion in the course of his work, not that he’s got any idea about me. But can you imagine if I am – the effort of keeping something like that secret from your husband who also happens to be a doctor?
Please please make me not be pregnant. I’ve never prayed so much in my life as I have this week but nothing happens. Do you think God doesn’t hear me? Why can’t he be merciful and let something happen? The awful irony as you know is I’ve always wanted another child by Chris and now even more by David, and this means I’ll have to get rid of something I want to keep. I can’t believe it, it’s too cruel. Oh please let it not be true. Perhaps after I post this something will happen.
To make matters worse this is a lovely place and we could all be enjoying ourselves. Chris was right, there are still unspoilt bits though Robert Graves and Chopin haven’t turned up yet. The hotel is super and we have a small beach nearly to ourselves and delicious food and lots of lovely walks. The kids are loving it and Helga’s very good with them though I find her a strain after Inge who was so quiet – she’s got a mid laugh and does everything too loudly. But it may be just my nerves. I expect I’d find anyone a trial just now.
Chris is being terribly sweet and considerate – well, he always is but more so – which is absolutely terrifying because it makes me think he suspects something. Whatever I want to do is okay with him and no matter how moody I am he’s never cross with me.
I just can’t believe it, every day I tell myself it can’t be true but still nothing happens. Oh I want it so much and I can’t have it, it’s not fair. If I was at home I could have a test. I don’t know how I’m going to last another week without knowing. But of course I won’t have to, something’s bound to happen before then.
Please not a word to David, there’s no point in alarming him about nothing. If you can’t pray can you cast a spell or cast entrails or whatever you do – please? See, I can make jokes so I must be quite rational only I wake up in the night, like a mad woman choking with terror and I have to tell Chris I’ve been dreaming – oh please let it not be true.
Love,
Gemma
P.S. Seriously – please pray for me – even if you don’t believe – it might do some good – anything might – please try.’
The letter puzzled me, after my initial elation subsided. It seemed wonderful news to me: why was Gemma so distressed? I could only think that she was unsure who was the father of the child. Did she perhaps feel that she could not stay with Christopher and bear David’s child, nor run away with David while pregnant by Christopher? Delicate scruples, it seemed to me, but who was I to question how women felt about these matters? Still, it annoyed me not to be able to rejoice wholeheartedly. I would have liked to revel in our triumph, whether it was due to Gemma’s inefficiency, David’s careless egotism or my own contrivance. We would never know, but for the first time in my life I felt I had a share in paternity.
When I was calmer, I put on the kettle and opened Gemma’s letter to David.
(8)
‘Darling my love,
I miss you so much. We seem to have found one of the few beautiful quiet places left on the island – if only you and I could be here together.
I think such a lot about our night together. Going to sleep with you, waking up with you. What luxury. If that’s what a lifetime would be like – but would it? If I brought the children with me would you get sick of them? Would you be jealous if I had mine and you didn’t have yours? If I left mine with Chris would I feel so guilty or miss them so much we couldn’t be happy together?
I’ve been thinking about all this very seriously as you can see. We must get something settled soon. I know things are terribly difficult as they are but I don’t want to exchange one sort of problem for another. There must be a solution – so many people are in our situation after all and they find ways out of it. Perhaps if we all lived near enough to each other (though not too near of course) we could have the children Monday to Friday and Chris could have them at weekends. Then Cathy might let you have yours when mine were with Chris. It all sounds very complicated but I’m sure we could work something out.
The really awful bit I can’t get over in my head is telling Chris. It wouldn’t be so bad if he’d been a rotten husband – if I’d had a difficult marriage the way you have – but he’s really done nothing wrong and it seems so unfair to leave him and take his children away from him when he doesn’t deserve it. Still, perhaps he’ll be better off without me. I can’t have been making him very happy lately.
Darling I love you so much, I don’t think I was really alive till I met you. We’ll manage to be together somehow won’t we? Only we must be very sure what we’re doing. There are so many people involved. I think I’m a bit afraid of putting too much pressure on us and spoiling what we have. But I can’t imagine living with Chris for the rest of my life – not even another year. It just isn’t living. It’s funny when you think how lightly we started, and now we’re facing all this upheaval. We were so sure it would never come to this, weren’t we? But now it has and of course you’re right, we can’t go on meeting in Uncle A.’s spare room for the rest of our lives. I don’t actually hate it the way you do but I’d love us to have a place of our own – God how I’d love it. It only worries me that maybe we’re being too greedy and if we try for too much we’ll be punished and lose it all. Please be very sure you won’t have regrets – I promise I won’t have if you don’t.
Remember how much I love you. Oh darling please hold me tight.
Your Gemma’
When I had resealed David’s letter, I read mine again. They might have been written by two different people. How strange women are.
‘Must be a big thing this time,’ Catherine said lightly. ‘He hasn’t laid a finger on me all the time she’s been away.’
They were sitting on either side of the table when I came in. Gemma looked tanned and fit and well, her brown face contrasting strangely with her expression of stricken misery. David looked pale and sick and angry.
‘Well, go on, tell him,’ he said, pointing at me with his thumb. ‘He might as well know.’
Gemma barely lifted her head to acknowledge my presence, though I had not seen her for two weeks. ‘He knows already,’ she said in a low voice.
‘Oh, great. Who else have you told? Maybe I’m the last to know.’
She muttered very low, ‘No one else.’
‘Apart from a few dozen friends and relations, I suppose.’
‘I had to tell someone. I didn’t want to worry you.’
I had never seen two people so savagely unhappy. I even suggested leaving them alone again, although as far as I knew they had already been alone for three hours, but they both demanded that I stay, so insistently that it occurred to me they were hoping I would arbitrate.
‘She’s going to kill my child,’ he said to me. ‘That’s all. She’s going to have it sucked out of her, all blood and bits, into a bottle. It doesn’t take long, only about five minutes, and you don’t feel a thing, well, maybe a bit of discomfort or the odd twinge or two, but nothing you could really call pain. Isn’t that splendid? Her shit of a husband was explaining all about it on TV. It’s the in-thing nowadays – did you know that? All the smart trendy people are having it done. Lunchtime abortion, it’s called. Well, it saves so much time when you’re out shopping.’
Gemma started to cry silently, big tears rolling down her cheeks like a child. I wanted to put my arm round her but I did not like to touch her in front of him.
‘I suppose you think it’s a good idea,’ he said. ‘You’ve been encouraging her, haven’t you?’
‘I don’t know anything about it,’ I said with dignity, ‘but it’s Gemma’s decision.’
‘And it’s my child.’ He banged his fist on my (rather valuable) table. I really wished he wouldn’t.
‘I haven’t got a choice,’ Gemma said, barely audible.
‘Why don’t you get your precious husband to do it for you since it’s so easy and he’s so keen on it?’
‘Aren’t you being a little hard on her?’ I said, as it seemed my duty to intervene. ‘I happen to know Gemma doesn’t like abortion any more than you do, but if she thinks it’s necessary—’
‘It’s murder,’ he said flatly. My heart sank as I heard the no-argument tones of sheer irrationality. The fanatic on his soap-box.
‘Would you feel so strongly,’ I enquired, ‘if it was Christopher’s child?’
‘She says it isn’t.’
‘But if it was. That wouldn’t be murder, would it? You’d be glad to get rid of it. It’s only your children that are sacred.’ I was thinking of Catherine.
He didn’t answer (which convinced me I was right), just kept looking at Gemma, who stared at the table, tears streaming down her face.
‘Is it Christopher’s child, Gemma?’
She shook her head.
‘How can you be sure? You still have it off with him, I know you do.’
‘If Gemma’s not sure,’ I said to pacify him because Gemma didn’t seem able to help herself much, ‘isn’t that a good reason for having an abortion?’ It annoyed me slightly to think that we were going through all these contortions when one good hefty lie from Gemma would settle the whole matter.
He turned to me. ‘She says she loves me, she says she’s going to leave him and come away with me – and now she’s going to kill my child.’ His voice cracked oddly; I wondered if he too was on the verge of tears. All this fuss, I thought, about an unborn child, a foetus, a clump of cells that may not even be there.
‘Gemma,’ I said with sudden hope (I had wanted them to suffer, yes, but this was ridiculously exaggerated), ‘aren’t we being a little premature? You weren’t even sure you were pregnant when you wrote to me.’
‘I had a test as soon as I got home.’ I could hardly hear her.
‘Oh yes, she moves fast all right,’ he said bitterly. ‘She’s a real expert. Apparently you can only have the super new method if you catch it early – that’s right, isn’t it?’
Gemma blew her nose. His prolonged attack seemed to be making her pull herself together.
‘Up to eight weeks,’ she said.
‘After that it gets a bit messy and old-fashioned. You might have to suffer and that wouldn’t do, would it?’
‘It’s not that at all.’ She began repairing her face. ‘If you have vacuum extraction you can go home the same day. If they do a D and C they keep you in overnight. I can’t explain that to Chris again.’
‘You see?’ He turned back to me; he seemed set on scoring points, checking with the umpire. ‘It all comes back to bloody Chris. Mustn’t tell him lies, must we? Can’t be away overnight, he might get cold in bed. You’re going to kill my child just to keep your fucking husband happy. Christ. And you said you loved me.’
In the middle of making up her face, Gemma started crying again. ‘I do,’ she said. ‘I do. And I want your baby. But I can’t have it. I can’t tell Chris I’m having your baby while I’m still living with him. It’s too cruel. Can’t you see that?’
‘Then leave him. Leave him right now. Just don’t go home.’
I went away to make a cup of tea for us all and left them to it. From the kitchen I could hear them shouting at each other. It was strange to have so much sudden noise in my home, where voices were seldom raised. Was I perhaps getting a little too much reality? I was not altogether sure now how to proceed: I had envisaged Gemma staying with Christopher and bringing up David’s child; I had imagined her rejecting David at a later stage, not running away with him. I had never considered abortion, and while in a sense I welcomed the drama of it, it would, might one say, be short-lived. Not to be compared with the long-term interest of a cuckoo in the nest. Besides, it might make Gemma depressed, and while unhappiness can be colourful, depression is dreary for all concerned.
By the time I went back with the tea there was a terrible silence. I poured three cups. The sound of the liquid flowing from the pot and into the china seemed unnaturally loud. The spoons chimed against the saucers. It was eerie, unnerving.
‘You don’t love me,’ he said as if I was not there.
‘I do. I do love you.’
‘If you loved me you couldn’t kill my child.’
They did not seem to have made much progress. I handed round cups of tea.
‘Look,’ Gemma said. ‘Between us we’ve got four children already. We don’t even know what we’re going to do about them yet. How can I have another baby when—’
He cut in. ‘The others belong to Chris and Cathy.’ He made them sound like a couple. ‘This baby’s ours. We can make a fresh start.’
‘And leave them all? Is that what you mean?
‘Why not? Don’t you see, it’s our big chance. It’s fate. You once said you wanted more kids.’
‘Not like this.’
‘Then you should have been more careful.’
‘So should you.’
‘Children, children.’ I was embarrassed: I reverted to cliche. ‘What’s done is done. It won’t help to quarrel about whose fault it is.’ Although in fact nothing could have interested me more, given my own involvement in the matter. But I did not feel it was a safe topic. ‘You’ve got to decide what to do.’
‘What the hell d’you think we’re doing?’
Anxiety was making him ruder than usual.
‘She never meant to leave him,’ he went on in a contemptuous tone.
‘I never believed you really wanted me to,’ Gemma said defensively.
‘She’s too fond of home comforts – afraid she might have to rough it for a change. She wants the best of both worlds. A rich husband and a bit on the side.’
My ears ached with his abuse. But there was something familiar – an echo – about the way he talked about her as if she were not there. Yes. He reminded me of Beatrice. For both of them Gemma was a child, a toy, an animal. A beautiful object to have about the house, to be abused or shown off at will. I resented the essential vulgarity he shared with Beatrice. They were coarse clay, both of them.
‘Gemma,’ I said soothingly. ‘What would you really like to do?’
She said again, ‘I haven’t any choice.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ He banged the table again, making my precious china jump and tinkle. I winced. ‘Be honest. You mean you want to kill it.’
He seemed to have only one thought in his head.
‘Look.’ I tried to be fair. ‘All this haste, isn’t it putting you both under pressure? If you want the baby, Gemma, why don’t you have it? Stay with Chris till after it’s born. Let him think it’s his and decide what you’re going to do later when you’re not so upset. Would you agree to that, David?’
To my surprise he said humbly, ‘I’d agree to anything to keep the baby. And make Gemma happy.’
She put out a hand to him across the table and he took it. They hung on to each other tightly. Gemma started to cry again, just when I thought I was getting somewhere. Lovers are very unpredictable.
‘Chris would know,’ she said.
‘How would he know?’ I was baffled. ‘He hasn’t guessed so far.’
‘He’d know it wasn’t his.’
I had never seen anyone cry so much.
‘How? He can’t be sure, even if you are.’
‘He can.’
‘Why? I don’t understand.’ Now we were both attacking her. She said with extreme reluctance, ‘He’s had a vasectomy.’
I would really prefer not to remember the next week. They did not make love at all: I felt a fool locked in my bedroom while they were in the kitchen crying and arguing, or while they lay on the spare-room bed and talked endlessly round in circles in the hopeless way that people do when there is no solution but they cannot bear to leave the subject alone. Between meetings they each insisted on trying to indoctrinate me with their separate points of view, David in person, Gemma on the telephone, as if once convinced, I might persuade the recalcitrant other. I was exhausted.
Gemma appeared to consider a vasectomy a badge of shame, which was why it had taken her so long to tell us about it. She felt she was betraying Christopher by admitting something so humiliating. David, on the other hand, viewed it as comic (which for some reason enraged Gemma). To me it seemed eminently sensible of Christopher, given his views on family size and his knowledge of Gemma’s fecklessness, and her current predicament only served to prove how right he was.
‘He said he ought to practise what he preached,’ she said wretchedly. ‘Whatever method we used I was always forgetting or doing it wrong, I don’t know why, because I wanted another baby, I suppose, although I didn’t think it was on purpose. But Chris said as he was the one who didn’t want any more and it was such a simple operation for him, he should have it done. He said it wasn’t fair to keep recommending it to others if he wasn’t prepared to have it himself.’
The inescapable puritan logic of that sounded so exactly like Christopher that I almost laughed. He was the sort of man who would have become a vegetarian if he felt himself unable to kill a sheep, despite the fact that the world is full of slaughterers. It was ironic and embarrassing that his good sense had rebounded on him – on all of us. But laughter would have distressed Gemma, who saw nothing even faintly amusing in the situation. So I tried to comfort her instead, but she would not be comforted.
I asked if she had seen her own doctor yet. I had no idea how one set about getting an abortion these days but it seemed the logical place to start. She said no, he was too close to Chris and she was afraid. I invoked the Hippocratic oath and she said of course he wouldn’t tell but he’d be carrying the burden of her secret (as she was carrying the child, I thought) and seeing Chris every day, he might let something slip. And even if he didn’t, the idea that someone so near home knew all about it threw her into a panic; it seemed to be tempting fate. She had thought about going to one of the charity places for anonymity but they were full of Christopher’s friends doing part-time work and they didn’t do the method she wanted yet. The National Health Service, yes, they would be cheaper still, but she doubted if they could move fast enough for her, they were so overworked. She made so many objections that I wondered briefly if she was trying to talk herself out of the whole thing. (But in the end it turned out that she was trying to talk herself into spending money. Mine.)
Beatrice rang up and I felt a pang of guilty terror. Gemma wasn’t looking well, she remarked conversationally, as if I should know why. Yes, she’d had a lovely holiday and yes, she was very brown, but the fact remained that she didn’t look at all well. Wasn’t that odd? I took a deep breath and said I had noticed the very same thing and I couldn’t understand it. In fact I had been going to mention it to her myself.
Every time I spoke to Gemma I felt we were sitting on a time-bomb ticking relentlessly away. If only I could persuade David, she said. She hated to do it without his approval; well, she hated to do it at all but it seemed much worse that way. Besides, she needed his support, his comfort. She had already wasted a week trying to persuade him: couldn’t I try?
I had already tried; I tried again. David proved inflexible, using the word ‘murder’ as if he had invented it. If Gemma was prepared to kill his child, it meant she did not love him. There was nothing to discuss. I tried to argue that it was the immediacy of the decision that presented the problem, rather than intrinsic morality. Gemma within another week or two must either abort and stay with Christopher, or remain pregnant and run away with David. I winced a little at the words ‘run away’; they sounded so melodramatic. I pictured Gemma with a suitcase scuttling down the garden path while David waited in a car with the engine running. But he saw nothing incongruous. To him it was the ideal opportunity: a reason to do sooner what they had planned to do later. Unless of course Gemma had never intended to do it at all, he added accusingly. For my own satisfaction I tried to get out of him if he had ever really wanted her to, since she obviously didn’t believe him and it seemed to me a most unlikely plan (why on earth couldn’t they simply go on as they were?), but he insisted it was what he had always meant.
‘Well, of course he’s lying,’ Catherine said, ‘if you mean not telling the truth. But he probably does believe what he says, for what it’s worth.’
I was still amazed to find myself in her living-room. But the children were sick and she could not find a sitter. I looked round greedily, sure that this was my first and last visit to such intimate territory, anxious to absorb as much as I could. The flat was incredibly cluttered, toys and books and bits of suede and leather all over the place. A cottage industry, David had called it sneeringly in those far-off days before we began. Now, when I looked at Catherine, I felt I had known her all my life.
She didn’t apologise for the mess, merely sat down in it and began stitching something.
I said, ‘I’m flattered to be here. I didn’t think you’d risk it.’
She smiled. ‘Why, in case one of the children said to David, Mummy had a funny man here? Don’t worry, they’re used to Mummy’s funny men. They wouldn’t think it worth mentioning.’
Not quite the answer I wanted but I had to make the best of it. I sat down opposite her and studied her pale angular face. I felt I wanted to save her from something but I was not sure what it was.
I said inadequately, ‘I’m so glad to see you.’
She smiled and went on stitching. Presently she said, ‘If she has an abortion, he’ll leave her. If that’s what she’s afraid of, she’s absolutely right.’
I said, ‘But you had one and he didn’t leave you.’
‘I had two, but he doesn’t know about the second. Of course he didn’t leave me, I’m his wife.’ A look of extraordinary self-satisfaction passed across her face.
I wanted to question her but I did not dare. Why did she seem so pleased? Not for the first time I wondered what I had blundered into; what went on between them; was nothing as it seemed?
She said in an amused, artificial tone of voice, as if she knew my thoughts, ‘He’s stuck with me, you see. But girlfriends have to prove themselves. Very keen on grand gestures, David is. Self-sacrifice and the world well lost for love. All that. I lost track of it years ago but I think that’s what he wants. To him, you see, getting rid of his child is a personal insult. He’s very insecure. But I told you all that, didn’t I? He wants people to prove they love him, all the time. It gets very exhausting.’
I said, ‘But I don’t see what Gemma can do. She’s obviously afraid to leave her husband for him.’
Catherine said gently, ‘She’s right to be afraid. It wouldn’t last.’
‘But she can’t stay with her husband if she’s pregnant. He’s had a vasectomy. And if she has an abortion you say David will leave her.’
‘That’s right.’ Her tone was utterly calm.
‘I think she knows that.’
‘She’d be a fool if she didn’t.’
The minutes ticked by. She put aside her stitching and poured us two drinks. She resumed her seat and told me that presently we could eat a salad lunch and some home-made soup.
I said with a touch of desperation,‘So she doesn’t know what to do for the best.’
‘No. She’s really in a mess.’
Her cool rational callousness was beyond anything I had ever encountered. I was thrilled and disgusted. I did not know how to deal with her. I wanted to run away and yet I felt I had a lot to learn.
I said, ‘You don’t seem very upset.’
She shrugged. ‘No. If you remember, I did try to stop all this happening, right at the beginning. But you wouldn’t help me.’ She said it very gently, logically. Without reproach. She was stating a fact. ‘So there’s no point in my getting upset now. It’s not my problem any more.’
Gemma said, ‘I want to see Peter. He’s the only person I trust.’
‘Peter?’ For a mad moment I imagined she meant Peter Hughes; that she must be having a fit of nostalgia for her first love. I pictured him ineptly trying to abort her with a bicycle pump borrowed from his father’s shop.
‘Peter Grayson. My baby doctor.’
It was suddenly clear. ‘A first-rate chap,’ I said, my total-recall memory bringing Christopher’s words back to me.
She didn’t notice the allusion. ‘He’s marvellous. He’ll understand.’ I felt she was casting me out along with David. ‘And if he doesn’t want to do it himself, he’ll refer me to someone he knows.’
‘Gemma,’ I said uneasily, ‘are you sure all this is legal?’
‘Of course it is.’ She sounded quite cross.
‘But do you really have grounds for abortion?’
‘Yes. Don’t be stupid.’ She quoted something about the risk to the physical and mental health of the pregnant woman and her children being greater if the pregnancy continued than if it was terminated, but she quoted it so fast I lost track of her. When I remarked that she was very well-informed she shrieked at me that I was just like David, and how could she help knowing all about it, being married to Christopher? After that there was a long silence and I felt I had failed her.
‘All I want from you is money,’ she said hurtfully. ‘Can you lend me some money? Chris will notice if I’m overdrawn and Peter isn’t cheap but he’s the best. I’ll be safe with him.’
I was reminded of Beatrice’s words on Gemma’s wedding day and I was close to tears.
‘Of course I’ll lend you money,’ I said. ‘As much as you like. I’ll do anything you want, you know that.’
‘That’s all I want,’ she said, started to cry and hung up. I hovered, but she didn’t ring back.
Something was bothering me; I spent the rest of the evening in a kind of daze. I had a problem to solve. If Catherine had been there, I could have worked it out sooner. But hours later, in bed, it came to me; I saw where I had blundered. I had got the roles confused; I had cast the wrong actors. None of this trouble would have arisen if I had realised fully what I was about. I was even surprised that Catherine had not pointed out my mistake; it was so simple. Christopher wasn’t Criseyde’s dead husband after all: he was Troilus, in all his fidelity and tears. So David wasn’t Troilus, as I had fantasised: he was the glamorous, the unreliable, the threat: he was Diomedes. I had got it all wrong, from the very beginning.