Stanley and the Women

by Kingsley Amis

  ‘Well, not ultimately, perhaps. I was thinking of pregnancy and confinement and the rest of it. Obviously a young child’s going to make more difference to the mother’s life than the father’s.’

  ‘Confinement. That takes me back. Anyway, what about an older child? Does the mother continue as much more important there?’

  ‘I don’t know about much more. It depends. But more, more important. I mean that’s the view the courts take, after all, when there’s a split-up. It’s the wife who usually —’

  ‘I suppose it was your first wife who took the decision to become pregnant?’

  ‘I can’t say what happened. She said it was an accident. I was still believing a lot of what she said in those days but of course that was ridiculous. It wasn’t my decision anyway, which I take it is the point.’

  ‘Would you ever have taken that decision if it had been left entirely to you?’

  ‘I can’t say about that either. Quite likely not. I don’t think all that many men actively want children, not when they’re twenty-five. Look —’

  ‘What was your reaction to the news?’

  ‘Well, I was pleased in a way. The timing was off, though, financially and that. There’s always a case for not having a baby in the next twelve months when you’re that sort of age.’

  ‘So really you’d have preferred the pregnancy not to have occurred when it did.’

  ‘Yeah. Yes, I think I would. Do you mind telling me what all this is leading up to?’

  ‘I think we’re almost there actually, Stanley. We’re close to establishing that you had a negative attitude towards parenthood and resented the difficulties it occasioned.’

  ‘Are we hell! That was just at the start, before I’d had a chance to adjust to the idea. By the time Steve arrived I was as thrilled and excited as, I was going to say Nowell but there again —’

  ‘It’s quite common in young primogenitors of high activity — first-time fathers. And it often persists even in association with definite positive behaviour. That can produce some pretty bizarre results.’

  Trish Collings started to laugh while she was saying the last part of this and went on after she had finished, her shoulders shaking and her slightly spaced-out teeth glistening. The scale of it went beyond what you normally expected from someone just struck by a witty thought, in a civilized country anyway. When it was over she got up from her bit of bench and without another word walked past me in the direction of the lavatories at the rear of the pub. I was hoping that on her return she would get her questions over and with luck explain the point of them, no insistence there, and then let me ask her about Steve. Well, I said to myself, if one of the first things she wanted to know was how I had felt when I heard he had been conceived, there was probably not so very much wrong with him.

  The pub was as quiet as I had said in the sense that there were not yet many people in it, though of course it was noisy as well — I had forgotten about that, as I still often did after all these years, not as noisy as it could be, nor noisy absolutely all the time, but noisy. A fat ginger-haired fellow in — among other things — a whitish tee-shirt and a burgundy plastic anorak, which between them made him look amazingly undressed and dirty and dangerous as well as horrible, was playing the fruit-machine, in this case a new improved model that broadcast at top volume an extract from a harmonium sonata every time anything happened and part of the soundtrack of a Battle of Britain movie in between. In case you were deaf and trying to think, it flashed different combinations of coloured lights on and off like billy-ho. Apart from that there was not much to see by, just a couple of table-lamps with tasteful imitation-parchment shades on the bar and some feeble sun from the street, cut down further by the criss-crossed strips of painted lead glued on the windows.

  What with the semi-darkness and being preoccupied I failed to spot Lindsey Lucas until she was almost within arm’s reach, and the gritty Ulster tones made me jump. Her hair-do and clothes had their usual neat, slightly dated look.

  ‘When are you going to start managing some advertising? Whenever I run into you you’re boozing your head off in a well-known Fleet Street watering hole. My turn — what can I get you?’ As she spoke she was taking in the half-full glass of gin and tonic opposite where the Collings woman had been sitting.

  I tried to think and found it hard going. The trouble was that although I knew quite well that it would be a good idea to get rid of her and at once, I was so cheered by the sight of her that the words took their time about coming. It was not my day. Before I had done much more than stand up and open my mouth Lindsey’s expression changed in a way that showed that Collings was on the point of joining us, and I was still turning my head when she actually appeared. Even now it was not too late to send Lindsey packing with talk of deal, rate, space, block and so on, but instead of that I found myself introducing them, or rather saying their names one after the other and pointing at each one in turn at the same time, perhaps in case either of them started wondering which was which. While my vocal cords went on being selectively paralysed my eyes were more than up to snuff. They showed me Lindsey quietly transmitting a claim to part-ownership of me, but when I looked to see how the other female was reacting I found her sending the same message back in a different style, more obvious, jerky, where Lindsey was smooth, but there. Or so I thought.

  That finished me off, for the next half-minute at least. I went on standing about while Lindsey again offered a drink, to Collings as well this time, took an order from her for a single gin and ice and asked me whether I wanted water or soda.

  ‘What?’ I said, having heard perfectly well. ‘Er … soda. Water.’

  ‘Are you pursuing that girl?’ Collings asked me when we were alone. Her manner was morally accusing, not at all sexual now.

  ‘Of course not. No. What if I were?’

  ‘But you want her to join in our conversation.’

  ‘No. Why should I? Absolutely the opposite.’

  ‘In that case, why didn’t you tell her we were talking privately?’

  ‘I don’t know really. I suppose I couldn’t face explaining that you were a psychiatrist dealing with my son’s case.’

  ‘Oh, case. Why couldn’t you? It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You wouldn’t mind telling her your son had broken his leg, would you?’

  ‘No, I just …’

  ‘I’d have expected you to be well educated enough not to take that view.’

  ‘It’s not a view. I couldn’t face going into it with her. Surely you can see that. And now would you mind just telling me what you were getting at with your questions about my attitude to Steve before he was born?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? You resented him as an intruder. You made him feel he wasn’t wanted. Not calculated to foster a sense of security.’

  ‘But that’s not true,’ I said, trying and failing to catch her eye. ‘It just isn’t true. I can remember, I didn’t resent him when he was born. I wanted him by the time he was born. I couldn’t have made him feel he wasn’t wanted because I wanted him. Honestly.’

  ‘I don’t mean you consciously behaved to him in an unloving way.’

  ‘Oh I see. I thought I was thinking one thing when really I was thinking the opposite. I know.’

  Her lips came apart with a little smacking noise. ‘Have you ever asked him about this?’

  ‘No. Have you?’

  ‘I didn’t have to. He told me. There was plenty of it. “Dad was always trying to freeze me out. Dad never really accepted me. Dad had as little to do with me as he could.” That kind of thing. Of course you often get —’

  ‘What’s the address of your hospital? Out Blackheath way, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Stanley, I can’t let you see him at the moment. Not just yet. It wouldn’t be at all a good idea.’

  ‘How do you stop me?’

  ‘Only by telling you that. But it’s enough, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Sod it.’

  ‘As I said, this is
quite common. And you often find an element of exaggeration, centralizing what are objectively relatively minor grievances.’

  ‘Ah, cheers.’

  ‘I have to get through some more work with you on this session, so can we cut the social get-together short?’

  ‘She won’t stay long.’

  It was not till then that I realized that Lindsey’s eyes were at least as good as mine. She was obviously going to think I was not just with Collings but so to speak going round with her. But Lindsey must not think that —I could simply not bear her to think that. I knew very little about why I felt so strongly on the point, except that the reason had to do with Collings rather than Lindsey. At that moment she was turning carefully away from the bar clasping three glasses in her hands. I should have followed her over there earlier and fed her some plausible de-sexing tale, but it was too late for that, and even at this late stage I could have bounded across the room to give her a hand and dole out a compressed edition, but I thought of that too late as well. Normally I would at least have jumped up to help her put the drinks on the table, but today I forgot.

  ‘Something wrong, Stanley?’ asked Lindsey.

  I pulled myself together. ‘No. I remembered something I should have done. But I can’t do it now.’

  At this she led off reliably by explaining how she came to have a quarter of an hour to spare, then switched to friendly interest and good manners —no curiosity showing — to ask Collings if she worked in Fleet Street too. This is it, I thought.

  ‘I do and I don’t,’ said Collings, smiling suddenly. ‘I’m in the Accounts Department of the Sunday Chronicle.’

  ‘Oh really? Of course, eh, that’s where Susan works, the Chronicle.’

  ‘Yes, the people on the editorial side, we don’t see much of them in Accounts as a rule.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  It struck me later that to have Ulster and Dorset or wherever it was coming back at each other in this style was like something out of a very carefully cast radio play. Not at the time, though. At the time I was pretty well too terrified to think at all. I sat there staring at Lindsey, willing her to look my way so that I could twitch my face to signal at least that something was up but, as always in these situations, I might as well have gone to see my aunt.

  ‘In fact I don’t know her at all really,’ Collings was saying. ‘Just by sight. I expect you know her though, don’t you? Being a journalist yourself and everything.’

  ‘As it happens I’ve known her longer than that. Nearly twenty years, in fact. Why?’ Lindsey gave the last word quite a shove.

  ‘Oh, I’m just interested. You’ll be able to tell me — is it Lindsey? — I imagine she is a very intelligent woman?’

  ‘Christ, you don’t have to know someone for twenty years to reach a conclusion on that. Yes, she is very intelligent, exceptionally intelligent, as anybody who’s ever talked to her for five minutes is well aware. Including her husband.’

  Collings gave one of her hearty laughs and laid her hand heavily on my shoulder. Somehow I managed not to fling it off or bite it. ‘Oh, he says the same, but you know what men are, he could be biased, couldn’t he? But Lindsey, you mustn’t mind me going on like this, I’m curious, but I’ve heard people in the office who do know Susan say they’ve found her a bit, well, not stand-offish exactly, but very very reserved. What would your comment be on that? Stanley won’t mind me saying what I’ve said.’

  That did make Lindsey look at me, but there was no need for signals now. She had gone rather red, which suited her looks no end. Glaring through her glasses, she said, ‘Stanley may or may not mind what you’ve said, but I can assure you that I do. And my comment would be, Fuck off, whoever you are. What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you listen? I told you she was an old friend of mine. What do you think I am? Be in touch, Stanley. Go carefully.’

  She gave me a quick kiss and a squeeze of the hand that reminded me of Susan, and hurried away without another glance. Collings, who had kept up quite a good detached sort of air while Lindsey had been telling her her fortune, twisted her mouth at me as though it had been Lindsey who had behaved oddly or badly. I sat down and for a moment just gazed.

  ‘What the bleeding hell were you playing at?’

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.’

  ‘Me being upset’s not the point. What did you think you were doing? I mean that literally. What did you actually think you were doing? For God’s sake.’

  ‘Gathering information,’ she said in her patiently reasonable voice.

  ‘Yeah, and a great roaring success you made of it, I’ll give you that. You extracted the precious secret that Susan’s intelligent and you’re where you started on whether she’s reserved or not. Terrific. All that at the price of a few lies and a spot of trouble-making.’

  ‘There was information there right enough if you knew what to look for.’

  ‘Oh I get it, you could tell what she meant when she thought she was meaning the opposite or not meaning anything at all. You’re a marvel, you are.’

  ‘I have upset you. Please try to —’Well I would be upset, wouldn’t I?’ I stopped for a moment and then went on more gently. ‘Look. You’re not just a woman I happen to have taken to the pub, you’re the doctor who’s looking after my son or however you want to put it, and he seems to be very sick. So what do I think when I see you behaving in such a daft and irresponsible and pointless way? What am I supposed to think?’

  For the first time she met my eyes steadily for something over a couple of seconds. Her own were narrowed while at the same time her eyebrows were lifted. At least that was what it looked like, though admittedly when I tried it later in front of the mirror I got nowhere with making my own face do both those things at once. She also seemed to have drawn in her nostrils. I could not have said what that expression expressed but it was nothing encouraging, that was for sure. I thought for a moment she was going to cry and got ready to start apologizing for everything I could think of, but the moment passed and her face went back to its constant movement. When she began to speak it was in a flat voice without much inflection.

  ‘Now listen to me, Stanley. First of all you’ll have to take it from me that my experiment just now wasn’t pointless. As regards the rest of it, you’ll have to agree that no actual harm was done. That little Irish girl went off quite charged up with having stood on her dignity, and nobody said anything to hurt your feelings that I heard. But the important thing is for you to reshape your image of psychiatry and psychiatrists, which you’ve got from people like Alfred Nash. Oh, a brilliant man undoubtedly, made a fine contribution, only trouble is he’s still stuck in Sydney in the 1950s, and the world’s moved on since then. Everything’s got much more flexible, there aren’t the old rigid categories any more. The way Nash sees the human race, there are mad people and sane people …’

  ‘Dr Collings,’ I said, ‘if I could just —’

  ‘Do call me Trish. The medical title is so compartmenting.’

  ‘M’m, but if you don’t mind I think I’ll stick to Dr Collings, but you can go on calling me Stanley if you want. Anyway. We’ve talked about me and my first wife and my present wife and Lindsey Lucas and me again and now Dr Nash. Could we talk about Steve? I dare say you haven’t finished examining him or whatever you want to call it yet, but you must have some thoughts about him. I wish you’d give me an idea of what they are, if that’s all right.’

  ‘Sure.’ She gave me a smile I had to hold on to myself not to look away from. ‘Let’s have another drink, though. My round. The same again?’

  She was good in pubs, I thought to myself, promptly naming her preference when I asked her earlier and correctly taking that single off Lindsey to put in her half-drunk gin and tonic. It seemed not to go with the rest of her. Whatever that was like. I groaned quietly. Just when I could have done with a spot of mind-battering the fruit-machine was vacant and silent but for an amplified hum and the general noise-level seemed to be down.
There was nothing to stop me from worrying about whether I really had tried to freeze Steve out when he was small. What was it about the idea that was familiar? — not the accusation itself but the type. Familiar from long ago, not the more recent past. Of course! Nowell. It had been a favourite trick of hers to denounce you for doing something or being something that had simply never crossed your mind, so that when it came to answering the charge you had nothing to show, no register of dates and places that showed you doing or being conspicuously the opposite, just a load of denials and undocumented general stuff, no alibi, in fact. But then people without alibis were often guilty.

  I had got that far when Collings came back with the drinks. She plunged into business straight off, talking in a much less jittery, uncomfortable way than before.

  ‘Nash’s diagnosis of Steve was schizophrenia,’ she said, lighting a Silk Cut. ‘I just can’t accept anything as prefabricated as that. What’s at stake here is far from simple. On the information available so far, I think we’re dealing with a problem in living, something involving not just him but also the people close to him, especially his parents. You’ve got to remember first that all kids of that generation have got a lot to cope with, a lot to try and make sense of — unemployment, of course, but also the nuclear holocaust, racial tension, urban pollution, alienation, you name it. They’re very vulnerable and they feel powerless, it’s a big, dangerous world over which they have no control. Someone like that senses that he’s at risk. Then there comes a crisis in his emotional life, like breaking up with his girlfriend, and he’s defenceless. So, what does he do? He creates a defence. He doesn’t have anywhere to hide, so he makes a place to hide, a place we call madness, or mental illness, or delusions, or hallucinations.’

  She paused for a swig, also probably for effect. I felt drunk or something, but asked her, ‘Do you mean he’s just putting on all that stuff about Joshua and the other fellows in the Bible?’

  ‘Not consciously. He believes every word of it, for the time being.’