by Rachel Cusk
He sat and looked around the room, at the table and the people sitting at it, as if for an answer.
He had come to the conclusion, he went on, that up to a certain point his whole life had been driven by needing things rather than liking them, and that once he had started interrogating it on that basis, the whole thing had faltered and collapsed. But the question of liking was, as he had already said, more complex than that: people would swear that they needed things because they liked them, or that what they needed they also liked. He had felt such guilt, for instance, after leaving Susie that it sometimes felt almost as if he wished he could return to her. He was used to being with her: once she was gone he was left with a need that could not satisfy itself, because the cycle of repetition had been broken. But he had started to realise that what he called need was actually something else, was more a question of surfeit, of the desire to have something in limitless supply. And by its very nature that thing would have to be relatively worthless, like the cheese sandwich, of which there was an infinite and easily accessible number. To desire something better required self-control, required an acceptance of the fact that you might not have it for ever and that even if you did you would never feel full to bursting on it. It left you alone with yourself, that desire, and when he thought about his life he saw it as a series of attempts to lose himself by merging with something else, something outside him that could be internalised, to the extent that he had forgotten for long periods that he and Susie were separate people.
‘Darling, eat,’ Eloise urged him. ‘Everyone else has finished.’
Lawrence picked up his fork and took a sliver of foie gras and put it slowly in his mouth.
‘How are the boys?’ he said, to me.
I told him they were with their father for two weeks while some work was being done on the house. Now that we had moved to London, I said, such visits were a possibility.
‘About time he took some responsibility,’ Lawrence said grimly. ‘Eloise’s ex is the same. I don’t know how they get away with it. Those aren’t men,’ he said, taking a long swallow of wine. ‘They’re children.’
‘It isn’t so bad,’ Eloise said, patting his hand.
‘You only had a year of it,’ he said to her. ‘Not like you,’ he said, to me.
‘What’s been the worst thing you’ve had to do?’ Eloise said, almost excitedly, her hands clasped at her chest.
I said I wasn’t sure – different things were difficult for different reasons. There was a period, I told them, when the boys’ pets kept dying. First it was the cat, then both their hamsters, then successive hamsters bought to replace the dead ones, then finally the guinea pigs, who lived in a hutch out in the garden and whose matted corpses I had had to dig out with a shovel from where they had buried themselves in the straw. I didn’t know why, I said, but the facts of these deaths and the disposal of the bodies had seemed a particularly hard thing to cope with alone. It felt as though something in the house had killed them, some atmosphere I was forever trying to deny or dispel. Like a curse, I said, that fulfils itself in ways you can never foresee. For a long time, it seemed as if every attempt I made to free myself from it just made its defeat of me more complex and substantial. What Lawrence’s remarks about desire and self-control had left out, I said, was the element of powerlessness that people called fate.
‘That wasn’t fate,’ Lawrence said. ‘It was because you’re a woman.’
Eloise burst into loud laughter.
‘What a ridiculous thing to say!’ she said.
‘Nothing good was ever going to happen to you there,’ Lawrence went on, unperturbed, ‘on your own with two kids. He left you for dead – and them,’ he added. ‘He wanted to punish you. He wasn’t going to let you get away with it.’
What that was about, Lawrence said, was revenge: like he said, these people were children. When he’d said that he’d sometimes forgotten he and Susie were separate people, what he’d meant was that the realisation that they were separate had extinguished his anger towards her and at the same time permitted him to leave her. He respected her far more in divorce then he ever had in marriage: he honoured her as his daughter’s mother; if she was in crisis, she knew that she could come to him for help, and he knew that likewise she would try to help him.
‘We’re good at being divorced,’ he said. ‘It’s the first thing we’ve ever been good at.’
Looking at him and Susie now, you would almost find it hard to understand why marriage between them had been a disaster, yet it very publicly had been.
‘But you,’ he said to me, ‘you were the last people I ever thought this would happen to.’
When Susie and he were turned inside out, he went on, what you found was a set of good intentions that in their bondage to one another they had never been able to fulfil. For you, he said to me, it was the opposite: something that looked good on the outside turned out to be full of violence and hatred. And in that scenario, he said, to be female was to be inherently at a disadvantage, just as it would have been in a physical fight.
‘Someone like you,’ he said to me, ‘would never accept that femininity entailed certain male codes of honour. For instance, a man knows not to hit a woman. If those boundaries aren’t there, you’re basically powerless.’
I said that I wasn’t sure I wanted the kind of power he was talking about. It was the old power of the mother; it was a power of immunity. I didn’t see why, I said, I shouldn’t take my share of blame for what had happened; I had never regarded the things that had occurred, however terrible, as anything other than what I myself – whether consciously or not – had provoked. It wasn’t a question of seeing my femaleness as interchangeable with fate: what mattered far more was to learn how to read that fate, to see the forms and patterns in the things that happened, to study their truth. It was hard to do that while still believing in identity, let alone in personal concepts like justice and honour and revenge, just as it was hard to listen while you were talking. I had found out more, I said, by listening than I had ever thought possible.
‘But you’ve got to live,’ Lawrence said.
There was more than one way of living, I said. I told him that I had recently come across an old diary of my son’s, while I was packing up the house. He’d written on the front: You read, you take the consequences.
Lawrence laughed. Eloise had stolen away from the table while we were talking and I watched his eyes tracking her around the room. She was carrying two bowls of something down to the far end of the table.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘She’s giving them bloody pasta.’
He got out of his chair and went to follow her, grasping her elbow and saying something in her ear.
‘Why doesn’t he just let her do it?’ the leopard-print woman said to me. ‘They’re her kids.’
I turned to look at her. She had a narrow head and small very round eyes that she widened frequently, as though in private amazement at the things people said and did. Her dark hair was tightly drawn back from her bony face by a leopard-print band. She wore earrings like dangling gold ingots that matched her collar-like necklace. She was sitting back in her chair with her wine glass in her hand, her food uneaten on its plate. She had mashed the balls of choux pastry into a pulpy mess and hidden the foie gras under it.
‘Gaby,’ Birgid said severely, ‘he’s trying to establish boundaries.’
Gaby twirled her fork in the mess on her plate.
‘Have you got kids?’ she said, to me. ‘I wouldn’t want someone telling me how to bring mine up.’ She pursed her darkly lipsticked mouth, flipping over her fork and mashing the food with the back of it. ‘You’re the writer, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Lawrence has talked about you. I think I’ve read one of your books. I can’t remember what it was about though.’
She read so many books, she said, that they tended to blur together in her mind. Often she would drop the kids off at school and then go back to bed and spend the whole d
ay there, reading, only getting up when it was time to collect them again. She could get through six or seven books a week. Sometimes she would be halfway through a book and suddenly remember that she had read it before. It was bound to happen, given how many of the things she read, but all the same it was a bit disturbing how long it could take her to realise it. She would start to get this surreal feeling, as if she was looking back on something while it was actually occurring, but for some reason she never blamed it on the book: she always thought the sense of déjà vu was to do with her own life. Also, at other times, she remembered things as if they’d happened to her personally when in fact they were only things she’d read. She could swear on her life that this or that scene existed in her own memory, and actually it was nothing to do with her at all.
‘Does that ever happen to you?’ she said.
The worst thing was the arguments it caused between her and her husband. She would be absolutely certain that they had been somewhere or done something, and he would simply deny it point blank. Sometimes she realised after the argument that the trip to Cornwall had in fact taken place in a book rather than in reality, but at other times her certainty about something remained, to the point where his refusal to recognise it nearly drove her mad. Recently, for instance, she had mentioned a spaniel they once owned called Taffy. Her husband claimed to have absolutely no memory of Taffy at all. More than that, he had accused her of making Taffy up: they had never owned such a dog, he said. They had ended up screaming and shouting at each other, until she realised that there had to be some proof and had turned the whole house upside down searching for the evidence that Taffy had existed. It had taken her all night – she had turned out every single box and drawer and cupboard – while he sat on the sofa drinking Scotch and listening to his contemporary jazz collection, which she hated, at full volume, and mocking and jeering at her whenever she happened to pass through the room. In the end they had both collapsed with anger and exhaustion: the children got up in the morning to find their parents fully dressed and asleep on the sitting-room floor, with the house looking like it had been ransacked by burglars.
She put her wine glass to her dark fleshy lips and drained it in one swallow.
‘But did you find anything?’ Birgid said. ‘Did you ever solve the mystery?’
‘I found a photograph,’ Gaby said. ‘In the last box there was a photograph of an adorable little brown spaniel. I can’t tell you what a relief it was. I’d thought I was actually finally going mad.’
‘And what did he say?’ Birgid said.
Gaby gave a mirthless little laugh.
‘He said, oh, you meant Tiffy. If I’d known you were talking about Tiffy, he said, obviously that would have been completely different. But there was never any Taffy, he said. The thing is,’ she said, ‘I know the dog was called Taffy. I just know it.’
The girl in the red dress – Henrietta – spoke for the first time.
‘How can you be sure?’ she said.
‘I am sure,’ Gaby said. ‘I know it.’
‘But he says it was called Tiffy,’ Henrietta said.
Her face was as smooth and round and white as a china doll’s. She must have been fifteen or sixteen years old, but despite her tight dress and high heels she acted with a childlike simplicity. She stared at her mother with wide, unblinking eyes. Her expression, which never seemed to change, was one of alarm.
‘He’s wrong,’ Gaby said.
‘Are you saying he’s lying?’ Henrietta said.
‘I’m just saying that he’s wrong,’ Gaby said. ‘I’d never call him a liar. I’d never call your daddy a liar.’
Eloise came and sat back down in her place opposite me and looked brightly from one to the other of us, trying to get abreast of the conversation.
‘He’s not my daddy,’ Henrietta said. She sat very still and erect and her round, doll-like eyes didn’t blink.
‘What’s that?’ Gaby said.
‘He’s not my daddy,’ she repeated.
Gaby turned to Eloise and me with open irritation, and proceeded to explain the details of Henrietta’s conception as though Henrietta were not sitting there listening. The girl was the product of a previous relationship – or not even a relationship, a one-night stand she’d had with someone in her early twenties. She’d met Jamie – her husband, and the father of her other two children – when Henrietta was only a few weeks old.
‘So he is her daddy really,’ she said.
Lawrence served the main course, one tiny bird with trussed-up legs each.
‘What is it?’ Angelica asked, as hers was set before her.
‘Baby chicken,’ Lawrence said.
Angelica screamed. Lawrence stiffened, plate in hand.
‘Leave the table, please,’ he said.
‘Darling,’ Eloise said, ‘darling, that’s a little bit harsh.’
‘Please leave the table,’ Lawrence said.
Tears began to roll down Angelica’s cheeks. She got to her feet.
‘Do you know where he is?’ Eloise said, turning away.
‘Where who is?’ Gaby said.
‘The father,’ Eloise said in a low voice. ‘The man you had a one-night stand with.’
‘He lives in Bath,’ Gaby said. ‘He’s an antiques dealer.’
‘Bath’s only just down the road,’ Eloise exclaimed. ‘What’s he called?’
‘Sam McDonald,’ Gaby said.
Eloise’s face brightened.
‘I know Sam,’ she said. ‘In fact, I bumped into him just a few weeks ago.’
There was a cry from the other end of the table. We turned to look and saw that one child after another was rising to its feet beside Angelica, until all of them were standing before their plates, tears pouring down their faces. They stood in a row, their mouths emitting sounds that were indistinguishable as words and instead merged together in a single chorus of protest. The candles flamed around them, streaking them in red and orange light, illuminating their hair and eyes and glinting on their wet cheeks, so that it almost looked as though they were burning.
‘My God,’ Birgid said.
For a moment everyone stared, mesmerised, at the row of weeping, incandescent children.
‘A little row of martyrs,’ Gaby said amusedly.
‘I give up,’ Lawrence said, sitting heavily back down.
‘Darling,’ Eloise said, placing her hand on his, ‘let me take care of it. Will you do that? Will you let me take care of it?’
Lawrence waved his hand in a gesture of resignation and Eloise got up and went to the end of the table.
‘Sometimes human will,’ he said, ‘is not enough.’
Henrietta had remained perfectly erect and unmoving, her round eyes staring, her sheet of red hair like a flaming veil around her bare shoulders.
‘Why haven’t I met him?’ she said.
‘Met who?’ Gaby said.
‘My daddy. Why haven’t I ever met him?’
‘He’s not your daddy,’ Gaby said.
‘Yes, he is,’ Henrietta said.
‘Jamie is your daddy. He’s the one who takes care of you.’
‘Why have I never seen him?’ Henrietta said, unblinking. ‘Why have you never taken me to see him?’
‘Because he’s nothing to do with you,’ Gaby said.
‘He’s my daddy,’ Henrietta said.
‘He’s not your daddy,’ Gaby said.
‘Yes, he is. He is my daddy.’
Water started to pour from Henrietta’s eyes too. She remained absolutely still, her white hands folded in her lap, while the tears ran steadily down her cheeks and dripped over her clasped fingers.
‘A daddy is a person who looks after you,’ Gaby said. ‘That other man doesn’t look after you, so he can’t be your daddy.’
‘Yes, he can,’ Henrietta sobbed. ‘You never even told me his name.’
‘What does it matter who he is?’ Gaby said. ‘He’s nothing to you.’
‘He’s my daddy,’ H
enrietta repeated.
‘He’s your father,’ Birgid said. ‘He’s your biological father.’
‘You never even told me his name,’ Henrietta said.
‘Jamie’s your daddy, sweetie,’ Eloise said. ‘He’s known you since you were a tiny baby.’
‘No,’ Henrietta said, shaking her head. ‘No, he’s not.’
‘A daddy is someone who knows you,’ Eloise said. ‘Someone who knows you and loves you.’
‘I’ve never even seen him,’ Henrietta said. ‘I don’t even know what he looks like.’
‘He is not your daddy,’ Gaby said, with finality. She sat, triumphant and glowering, staring at her wine glass while Henrietta wept in front of her.
Nobody spoke. The other adults sat in an embarrassed silence. All around the table tears were pouring down the children’s faces. But the sight of the red-haired girl transfixed with pain was so pitiable that I felt forced to address her. At the sound of my voice she turned her head minutely. Her eyes stared into mine.
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘I do want to meet him. Does he want to meet me?’
I said I didn’t know. She returned her gaze to her mother.
‘Does he want to meet me?’
‘I suppose so,’ Gaby said bitterly. ‘I’ll have to ask him.’
I could hear my phone ringing in my bag and I got up to answer it. At first nobody spoke at the other end. I could hear scuffling sounds and then a distant crash. I asked who it was. There was a faint sound of sobbing. Who is it, I said. Finally my younger son began to speak. It’s me, he said. He was calling on the landline – his mobile had run out of battery. He and his brother were fighting, he said. They’d been fighting all evening and they couldn’t seem to stop. He had scratches all down his arms and a cut on his face. It’s bleeding, he sobbed, and some things have got broken. Dad’s going to be really angry, he said. I asked where their father was. I don’t know, he wailed. But he’s not here. It’s late, I said. You should be in bed. There were more scuffling sounds and then the sound of the phone being dropped. I could hear them fighting. Their cries and grunts got further away and then closer again. I waited for one of them to pick up the phone. I called down the receiver. Finally there was my older son’s voice. What is it? he said flatly. I don’t know, he said when I asked where his father was. He hasn’t been here all evening. It’s not your fault, I said, but you’re going to have to sort it out. He too began to cry. I spoke to him for a long time. When I had finished I returned to the table. The children and the red-haired girl were gone. Gaby and Birgid were talking. Lawrence sat back in his chair with a preoccupied expression, his fingers resting on the stem of his wine glass. Some of the candles had gone out. The fog pressed at the windows, now utterly opaque. I realised then that none of us could have left Lawrence’s house, no matter how much we might have needed or wanted to.
