Possession

by Celia Fremlin

  “I can understand it, can’t you—that feeling of not wanting it put into words? All the while a thing hasn’t actually been said, there is a sense in which it hasn’t quite happened—do you know what I mean?”

  “Indeed I do. But, Sarah, why are you talking as if it was a piece of bad news for Mrs Redmayne? ‘Breaking it to her’—‘Not wanting it put into words’—you make it sound as if it was a death in the family! What makes you—makes Mervyn—think that she won’t be pleased? Most mothers would be delighted.”

  “Most of your sort of mothers,” agreed Sarah—and was there a tiny edge of patronage in her voice? “But you see, Mummy—I know you and your friends all mean terribly well, and I realise that your generation was brought up with this phobia about possessiveness—but honestly, Mummy, not everybody is like that—not nowadays. There are lots of people now who believe in family affection, and who don’t think it’s awful for children to love their parents, and for parents to love their grown-up children.”

  “I’m not talking about love,” I protested. “Of course we love our children, at any age. But surely you can see, Sarah, that love and possessiveness are two quite different things—”

  “No,” said Sarah. “I don’t. I’m sorry, Mummy, I know these are the treasured beliefs of your generation; but I just can’t see it that way. I think love should be possessive. How can you possibly love a person and not want to have them around most of the time? It doesn’t make sense. I think it’s wonderful, the way Mervyn’s mother loves him so much. And has the courage to show it too, in spite of all the old prejudices against it—you know, all that conventional Freudian nonsense that people used to be brought up on.”

  Sarah spoke vehemently, and for a moment I was nonplussed. “Old prejudices”? “All that conventional Freudian nonsense”? Could it really be that our attitudes, which we felt to be so enlightened and modern, were already becoming the old-fashioned ones? Sarah had been speaking with just that sort of pitying tolerance that I remember using in talking to my mother about her out-dated opinions. But were Sarah’s views really typical of the new generation, as she implied, or was she simply expressing in the guise of rational argument a deeper conviction of the heart? A blind determination that all that pertained to the man she loved should be recognised as perfect?

  “I know I am going to love his mother,” she continued. “And, in the end, she will learn to be fond of me. Mervyn says he’s sure of it. But it’s no good hurrying it, he says, because he and she have been so close all these years, ever since his father died….”

  “But that was fourteen years ago, you told me!” I protested. “Surely, after all that time, she should have been able to build a new life for herself? I’m sorry, Sarah, but I can’t help thinking that it’s very wrong of her—very selfish—to be using a past grief like that as a sort of weapon against her own son. A trick to deprive him of a life of his own—”

  “Mummy! Stop it!” Sarah, usually so sweet to me, and so affectionate, was flushing angrily. With an effort she controlled herself.

  “I’m sorry. But honestly, Mummy, you’ve got quite the wrong idea. You see, Mervyn’s father didn’t just die. There was—well, there was a rather awful mystery about it. Mervyn doesn’t really like it being talked about, but I think I’d better tell you, once and for all, so that you will understand about his mother. But, of course, you must promise not to tell anyone. Ever. Especially not Peggy.”

  “Of course I won’t,” I promised readily. “But—just as a matter of curiosity—why not Peggy in particular?”

  “Oh. Well.” For one second Sarah looked wary. Then she continued, with an offhand little laugh:

  “Well—just that she’s the biggest gossip this side of Hadrian’s Wall, now isn’t she, Mummy? I don’t mean it nastily—I love her being like that, just as much as you do, she’s marvellous fun. But that’s the point. What I’m going to tell you isn’t fun. And so Peggy mustn’t have it to play with. Yes?”

  “Yes. Agreed. I promise. Go on, then. Tell me, how did he die—Mervyn’s father?”

  “It was suicide,” said Sarah in a low voice. “A—a rather dreadful kind of a suicide, too. He hanged himself in the garage. Mervyn’s mother found him when she went out to call him in to Sunday lunch. Just found him—like that—when she’d thought he was happily staking beans in the sunshine! Can you imagine it? The shock …!”

  “Oh! Oh dear! Oh, the poor woman! Yes, I do understand, I suppose…. Though even so, after fourteen years….”

  “It was so sudden, you see.” Sarah was staring out through the rain-splashed window with a look of immense sadness in her grey eyes, as though this long-ago tragedy had been her own. “He was a very solid, stable sort of person, you see. Everyone says so. Steady, and down-to-earth, and kind. The very last person on earth that you would expect…. And that’s what made it so specially awful for his wife, you see, thinking he had been happy with her all these years, and then suddenly finding that there must have been some awful misery, that she knew nothing of….”

  “I suppose they’re sure it was suicide?” I interposed—rather pointlessly, really, because would the contemplation of murder be any more consoling for the poor widow?

  “Oh, yes. Oh, I think so,” said Sarah. “Of course, Mervyn himself doesn’t know an awful lot of details, because he was only a boy at the time—a schoolboy, taking A-levels. So everybody—all the relations and neighbours, I mean—they were all terribly tactful with him, keeping off the subject as much as they could, and trying to cheer him up—that sort of thing. So he never really heard the story properly; just bits and pieces. And his mother, of course—she couldn’t bear to talk about it at all. She never has, Mervyn says, from that day to this—”

  “Don’t you think that’s a wee bit unhealthy?” I couldn’t help interposing. “I mean, I can see how perfectly ghastly it was for the poor woman at the time; I can’t imagine a more terrible shock; but don’t you think she might have been making it worse for herself by repressing it so much? If she could have talked about it a little more, she might have been able to get over it—to get back to—well, to normal life—a bit quicker?”

  Sarah shook her head doubtfully. “I don’t know. I did say something of the sort to Mervyn once, but he didn’t agree. He said I didn’t understand: that I didn’t realise how impossible it was for a woman like her to speak of something so dreadful. She’s such a very sensitive person, you see.”

  Sensitive people always make me see red. They just mean that they want special privileges, emotionally speaking. I felt deeply sorry for Mervyn, a mere boy at the time of the tragedy, and hence pathetically vulnerable to this sort of exploitation. But before I could say anything to this effect, Sarah was continuing, in a much more cheerful voice:

  “But don’t worry, Mummy; I know I shall be able to win her round. I know I can make her like me; and once she likes me—myself, just as a person, and not as her son’s future wife—then I think she’ll be more reconciled to it. It’ll make her feel….”

  “That she’s not losing a son, but gaining a daughter,” I quoted sardonically. “I only hope you’re right, sweetie. And I hope, too, that having gained a daughter she won’t then start making the same sort of claims on her. Appealing to her sympathy—demanding endless time and attention—”

  “I don’t care if she does!” declared Sarah stoutly. “I shall give her the sympathy—the time—the attention! She won’t need to demand it! She has a right to all that from her children! I’m going to be the sort of daughter-in-law she needs—wants—has a right to! I shall show her that more love is coming into her life, not less! You see, Mummy, I have principles, too, though they are not the same as yours.”

  Young—untried—and proud: how could I shatter her vision of her future mother-in-law as a lonely, unhappy woman who could be won over by the power of kindness? How could I even be certain, at that stage, that her generous instincts were wrong and my own cynical ones right? For kindness is indeed a mighty pow
er; in its time it has moved mountains. But it has also, at times, brought its guileless practitioners to total and irrevocable destruction.

  But let me not over-dramatise the situation as it confronted me that afternoon, with the stove murmuring cosily and the bright kitchen curtains just drawn against the falling darkness and the rain. I was not thinking in terms of destruction. The very worst danger I was at that time contemplating was simply that my daughter might find herself landed with a jealous, spiteful mother-in-law, who would do everything in her power to drive a wedge between her son and his new wife. A common enough hazard in marriage, and one that Sarah would have to learn to cope with. My chief fear was that she might fail to cope with it: that this glowing, innocent faith in the power of simple goodness might shatter itself against the stony, implacable self-centredness of a jealous and possessive woman. I didn’t want to see my lovely warm-hearted Sarah hurt—perhaps damaged—by such a disillusionment.

  But even if I had had some inkling of the situation that lay ahead, what could I have done? Sarah had made her choice. Head held high, she was following her own star, which was not, as she had just pointed out, the same as mine. What right had I to try and deflect her? Especially as my star was flickering but dimly that afternoon; it had become a Red Dwarf, a dying sun in a galaxy that is coming to an end. For the first time, and in the awesomely casual tones of youth, it had just been labelled Old Fashioned.

  CHAPTER V

  IT WAS EXACTLY a week later when we finally met Mervyn. Again it was Saturday afternoon, and again it was raining; and again Sarah had come home for the weekend—this time without any promise of bringing Mervyn with her. I suppose, after last time, she was afraid of disappointing everyone all over again.

  So it happened that I was out when he arrived. I noticed an unfamiliar car parked outside our gate as I came in, but thought nothing of it—people park their cars all anyhow in our road, especially at weekends, when the kettles are on and the teatables are spread, and the grandmothers and the babies and the in-laws are on the move, like nomadic tribes, back and forth across the suburbs. My hair was damp, my coat was damp, my wheeled shopping basket crunched on the wet gravel, and as I got out my key I glanced in at our front room, where they had already got the light on and had not yet drawn the curtains.

  I knew at once that it must be Mervyn, and my first feeling was one of unspeakable dismay. He was sitting with his back to me, leaning a little forward in his chair, and the merciless electric light above him revealed, even from this distance, that his hair was already growing thin. Mousy-coloured hair, plastered down and spread out sparingly over his pink scalp—soon I should have a son-in-law who was bald!

  Swiftly, with a skill so familiar that I noticed it hardly more than one notices the muscles used in catching a ball, I set myself to discover that it wasn’t so bad after all.

  And of course it wasn’t. His hair wasn’t so very thin—it was just the light falling at that particular angle that was making it appear so; and you could see already that he was of quite good build; his head, bent forward, was well-shaped, above broad shoulders. I realised at that point that he must be playing chess—yes, with Ralph; there they both were, leaning rapt over an unseen board in the unmistakable chess-player’s pose.

  I was filled with joy. He must be nice, then! Ralph must like him already; they must have been getting on splendidly to have got together over a game of chess so quickly! My fears receded; and half trembling with a confusion of hopes and speculations, I dragged the shopping basket indoors, flung off my wet things, and hurried into the front room.

  It was all right! He was a perfectly presentable young man. Not exactly handsome—his long nose and somewhat receding chin gave him a slightly bird-like look. But he had a nice smile, and white, even teeth; and by the time the introductions were over, I knew that I could show him to my friends without a qualm. His voice was nice too, his manners good, and—apart from the thinning hair—he looked younger than his age, almost boyish. People could easily think there were only six or seven years between him and Sarah, I thought triumphantly. His eyes were blue, and very clear, like a child’s, and at the moment they were focused on the game with innocent intensity. Evidently he meant to win; his lips were pressed into a tight line, and I could see that Ralph was well content to have found an opponent prepared to take the game so seriously.

  “He should have taken the bishop!” Sarah whispered to me incautiously, and was instantly silenced by an indignant glance from both players. For a moment I was chilled. Surely warmth, as well as irritation, should have flashed out of those blue eyes? And then I remembered what a solemn business chess is to men, and how little related to ordinary life. He was simply obeying the inscrutable masculine law which ordains that a man playing chess shall act like a pompous schoolmaster, just as it ordains that a man in a car must hurl insults at his fellow motorists. It has no more to do with the real man than has an army uniform.

  Sure enough, as soon as the game was over, his solemnity left him. He allowed—even encouraged—Sarah to join in the post-mortem on the game, and to make suggestions as to alternative moves that might have been made. I noticed that the sillier her suggestions were, the more they delighted him: finally, at a particularly idiotic scheme for checkmating her father’s king he pulled her down into his lap and kissed her. Sarah was playing up to it, I could see; coached by Ralph almost since infancy, she is really a very capable chess player, and for a moment this faked silliness jarred on me.

  Oh, well, it was only a game, after all, and they were only fooling about, finding excuses to kiss one another: surely the privilege of young love? There was bound to be a lot that would seem irritating to my jaded parental eye, and I must school myself not to be irritated by it. So I beamed on them both, laughed with them and then went to prepare tea.

  Over tea, Mervyn told us about himself and his prospects. He enjoyed his job immensely, he said, and was hoping soon to be promoted. This might involve moving to Bristol. “I bet you don’t know where Bristol is!” he added, mockingly, to Sarah.

  She giggled delightedly. “Wales?” she suggested in a silly, baby voice. “Is it in Wales, Mervyn?”

  “Ye gods!” He raised his eyes to the ceiling in mock horror. “She thinks it’s in Wales! Really, this girl’s geography!”

  Actually, Sarah’s knowledge of geography is excellent; also she has been to Bristol twice, once on holiday and once for an interview. Again, the faked idiocy annoyed me; but she was giggling so happily, so obviously enjoying her unaccustomed rôle of dumb blonde, that I hadn’t the heart to spoil the fun for her. For it must be only fun obviously; no one who had known Sarah for several weeks, as Mervyn had, could possibly think she was really such a fool.

  All the same, as the evening went on, I began to feel uneasy. Was this to be the pattern of their married life—she acting the part of silly little girl in order to feed his masculine vanity? Having—perhaps deliberately—chosen a woman so much younger than himself, was he now determined to make sure that she was also sillier? Or was the whole thing just a lovers’ game—a deliberately exaggerated sort of showing-off of his masculine qualities and her feminine ones? Passionately, I resolved that this should prove to be the case; having just had all my qualms about Mervyn’s looks and manners triumphantly dispelled, I wasn’t going to saddle myself with some new ones about his long-term effect on Sarah’s character. Besides, look how happy she was, laughing, leaning her cheek against his so that her light hair cascaded down his dark suit; and he mocked her gently, protectively, as if his mockery was a shield, a sweet fortress, within which she would be safe for ever.

  Safe? Why should our gallant, life-loving Sarah want to be safe? This man was changing, possessing her too much … but no sooner had this thought come into my head than I thrust it away, violently. I recognised it, you see: it was an Interfering Mother thought, and as such must be crushed without mercy. As a prospective mother-in-law my soul must be pure of interfering thoughts, just as the so
ul of a novitiate on the eve of her final vows must be pure of sin.

  Today’s worship of permissiveness sets us wrestling with strange demons, and I was thankful when the ringing of the telephone released me from further spiritual struggle. The ensuing conversation with a mother already sunk to the lowest depths of non-permissiveness did a lot to build up my self-respect. I felt, I suppose, that same flush of pitying scorn that virtuous women used to feel on coming into contact with prostitutes; and so it was almost with gratitude in my voice that I began to answer Mrs Redmayne’s anxious enquiries about her son.

  “Yes, he’s still here,” I assured her; “We’re enjoying having him enormously. He—What? Oh, I see. Oh.”

  I tried—well, I think I tried—to keep the disapproval out of my voice. Certainly Mrs Redmayne seemed in no way discomfited by it, for she went on, in the same confiding tone:

  “I’m sorry to have to spoil his evening, but he did say he’d be back by six. He absolutely promised me. I’m sure you, as a mother yourself, will understand….”

  “Well! Really….” I couldn’t trust myself to continue. This outrageous coupling of me and herself under this hideous concept of motherhood was more than I could stomach. Mrs Redmayne must have sensed something of this, because a monstrous coyness now crept into her tone.

  “I suppose you’ll think I’m a great silly-billy,” she said. “But you see I’m all on my lonesome; and where we live it’s really rather isolated.”

  I knew her address; a big block of flats near the Bays-water Road. Isolated, indeed! I thought of the winds howling across the desolate Paddington moors; I thought of the untrodden wastes of the Edgware Road on a Saturday night; and I almost laughed aloud into the telephone.