The Accidental Woman

by Jonathan Coe

  Picture if you can a day in late autumn, or early winter, if you prefer. It is early evening, or late afternoon, if you’d rather. In a distant corner of the park, nearest to Maria’s college, there is an ornamental pond, made up of lilies, and reeds, and algae, and of course water, a nice enough mess in all. This was where, and this was when, Maria and Sarah most liked to walk, and sit, and talk.

  ‘You alarm me, Maria,’ Sarah said, on one such occasion.

  Maria smiled fondly. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because nothing excites you. Nothing amuses you. Nothing moves you.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Sometimes I think you’re unhappy.’

  ‘Sometimes I am unhappy. But not now. I’m no more unhappy than you, or than any other girl, really.’

  ‘Do you know who I feel sorry for?’ Sarah asked. ‘Any man who falls in love with you.’

  Maria laughed. ‘Men don’t know what love is.’

  ‘Neither do you, Maria. You’ve never been in love, have you?’

  ‘I know what love isn’t. It’s none of the things people tell us it is.’ Then it occurred to her to ask, ‘Why, have you been in love?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Tell me about love.’

  Sarah said nothing at first. ‘I can’t tell you. It can’t be described.’

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it worth it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How does it hurt?’

  ‘You feel very empty and confused. Like trying to catch the wind, in a butterfly net. For the first time in your life you know exactly what you want. You spend every day looking for it. Then it comes, for an instant, and then it’s gone. Then it comes again. When you’re with… whoever it is you love… then you’re happy… nearly always… at first.’

  ‘Then it is worth it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘“There are moments in life worth purchasing with worlds”. Do you believe that?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I do believe something like that. And you don’t, Maria, you see, you don’t believe anything like that at all. Doesn’t it make you want to believe it, that I do?’

  Maria did not answer.

  ‘That’s what worries me. That’s what makes me wonder whether you’ll ever be happy. That’s what makes me wonder whether you’ll ever get married.’

  ‘Explain the train of thought,’ said Maria, ‘which leads from love, to happiness, and then to marriage.’

  ‘Cynicism doesn’t suit you, Maria. Don’t be cynical.’

  ‘It’s you who are cynical. Surely, when so many marriages end in ugliness or unhappiness, it would be cynical to believe that they were ever founded on love. That would be to admit that love has no power to hold people together. Far better to say that there never was any love, and that when a marriage ends, it is simply an economic contract that has been broken.’

  ‘One day,’ said Sarah, ‘you will unsay all that. One day, when you are married, you will look back on today and think what a foolish girl you were to say all these things.’

  Maria did not answer.

  ‘You have such a loving nature, Maria, that’s what amazes me. You love to love people, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course. But I know so few lovable people.’

  ‘Your standards are too high.’

  ‘It’s not standards. I can’t help it when I don’t understand people.’

  ‘Fall in love, Maria.’

  Maria laughed, or cried, I forget which. Sarah took Maria in her arms and they sat, very quiet, for only a few seconds.

  ‘No. Don’t fall in love. I don’t want you ever to love anyone but me. I want you, all to myself.’

  *

  Unfortunately for Sarah, for both of them in fact, and surprisingly, too, Maria did not heed this advice, the most heartfelt she had ever been given. Not that she instantly fell in love, strictly speaking, but she had a try. The man in question was called Nigel. He was a friend of Ronny’s.

  It was at about this time that Ronny got into the habit of proposing marriage to her, and so it must also have been at about this time that she got into the habit of refusing him. These proposals were never especially dramatic, that was something to be thankful for, they simply arose in the normal course of conversation. Ronny never went down on his knees, for instance, because he had a keen sense of his own dignity, and his proposals were always made in a public place, for Maria never went to his room, and always found excuses for not inviting him to hers. Nevertheless he seemed to mean it, and Maria certainly meant it when she refused him. But I love you, he would protest. But I don’t love you, she would reply. Never mind, he would say, love’s not important, it’s respect that matters. But I don’t respect you, she would say. Respect’s not the be all and end all, he would say, just as long as we feel comfortable together. But I don’t feel comfortable with you, she would say. Maria always stuck to her guns, credit where credit’s due. And indeed she was only telling the truth, for she did not feel comfortable with Ronny, not comfortable at all, especially when he put his face very close to hers, and she could see the pimples and blackheads, and when he put his arm along the back of the seat upon which they were both sitting, and she could smell the sweat under his arms. And Ronny was not the worst, not by any means the worst.

  In some respects, pretty salient ones by and large, she preferred Nigel to Ronny. For one thing he was not devoted to her. This meant that it was possible, sometimes, to have a sensible conversation with him. Maria considered conversation to be an overrated pastime, but occasionally she craved it, simply as a change from all the other overrated pastimes. It was Nigel’s conversation which first impressed her. Ronny had chanced upon her one day in the street, and had insisted on taking her to a cafe for tea. They sat by the window, and were noticed by Nigel as he passed by the tea shop on his way back from a meeting of the Arbuthnot Society, a club for socialist chess enthusiasts. Maria was by no means attracted to him immediately, but she was nevertheless relieved that he came to join them, for Ronny had done nothing but stare moodily into her eyes for the last twenty minutes, and the tedium of the occasion was becoming staggering. He was clearly in no mood for talk himself, so Maria and Nigel began to talk to each other. In the course of their chat it emerged that both were labouring under a half-baked desire to see a new French film which was showing, for one night only, at a cinema in Walton Street. They agreed, therefore, to go together. Ronny was beside himself. He could not accompany them because, by a stroke of rank ill fortune, he was required that same night to attend, in his capacity as treasurer, a meeting of the Crompton Society, a club for existentialist bridge players. So he could only sit and watch, helpless, while his best friend, before his very eyes, arranged to go out with the girl whom he had loved for as long as he had known her.

  Maria and Nigel spent a peculiar evening together. Before the film, they met for a drink, or at least met at a place where drinks were served, and drank there. We say, ‘Shall we meet for a drink?’, as though drinking were the main end of the appointment, and the matter of company only incidental, we are so shy about admitting our need for one another. When Nigel and Maria met for a drink, in other words, they were really meeting for a chat, to which the drink was no more than an oddly necessary accompaniment. After the drink, they went to the film, and after the film they went for another drink, or rather another chat because strange though this may seem after three hours together they did not yet want to part. And after the second drink, they went back to Nigel’s room for coffee. Or at least, when they got back to Nigel’s room, they drank coffee, but this was not the main purpose of their withdrawing there, because although I agree it surpasses belief, the fact is that after four hours they were still not tired of each other. We say, ‘Would you like to come for some coffee?’, as though it were less frightening to acknowledge that we are heavily dependent on mildly stimulating drinks, than to acknowledge that we are at all dependent on the companionship of othe
r people. Funny, that. Several changes had already taken place in the nature of Maria’s and Nigel’s relationship by this stage, changes which, when Maria thought about it later that night, seemed hard to account for. For instance, when they emerged from the cinema, and walked from the cinema to the pub, they did so hand in hand. And when they emerged from the pub, and walked from the pub to the room, they had their arms around each other’s waists. And when they emerged from the room, and said goodnight under a cloudless sky, they had their tongues in each other’s mouths. Some people would call this progress. Maria didn’t know what to make of it.

  This was the start then of Maria’s affair with Nigel. How significant, really, that the language affords no better word than ‘affair’ for this sorry procedure. How long it lasted, how much pleasure it gave them, these are details which we needn’t bother with. However, a few words about the pastimes, the means of filling out the hours of empty fondness, enjoyed by this couple.

  Before meeting Nigel, Maria had discovered only two ways of affording herself anything which she could honestly call enjoyment. They were listening to music, and being with Sarah. Now Nigel did not like music, and he did not like Sarah, so both of these had to go out of the window.

  There were many things, on the other hand, which Nigel was not ashamed to admit that he enjoyed. Only three of them need concern us here, for in only three of them was Maria allowed to have any share.

  One of Nigel’s delights was to go to the pub and drink, with his friends, and now also with Maria. Many were the evenings on which he would take her to The King’s Arms, or The White Horse, where she would like as not be the only woman among a circle of perhaps eight or nine men, all friends of Nigel’s, all loud and jovial people, heavy and noisy and smoky and dark. The satisfaction derived by Maria from these entertainments was limited. It was not that Nigel’s friends ignored her, although that would have been bad enough. Nor was it that their talk offended her, for Maria did not take offence easily, if ever. No, the sensation with which she would look back over such evenings was one of puzzlement. The friendship which bound these people together was not, she decided, of a sort which she could easily understand, and yet she tried. Of course she did not understand, for that matter, the friendship which had held her and Sarah together, but at least the comfort and the reassurance which they had found in that friendship had always been explicit, and it was its very explicitness, the delight they would take in expressing it, the delight each would take in witnessing the other’s expression of it, which had made it all worthwhile, as far as Maria could see. For where was the comfort in all this boisterous aggression, what was the point of all this drinking, joking, thumping and laughing? This was what puzzled her. But if Nigel’s friends puzzled her, then how much more, although they would never admit it, did Maria puzzle them. Are you all right, they would say. Cheer up, have another drink. It may not happen, they would joke. Maria always fell for this one. What may not happen, she invariably asked, and then the deafening roars, the yawning hilarity.

  Sometimes, when Nigel did not want to take her to the pub, he would take her to a party. Maria tagged along out of a sense of duty, or who knows, out of inclination, of a perverse sort. It would be stretching the truth, though, to suggest that she ever enjoyed the experience. Even she would admit as much to herself, sometimes. It would be hard to say which aspect of it she objected to most, there were so many. There was the heat, for example. Maria would wrap up warm, to go into the cold night, and then find, when she and Nigel arrived at the party, that the room was horribly hot, a consequence no doubt of the fact that it was crammed to the roof with people. And this also meant that Maria would find it difficult to move, or sit, or stand, without coming into closer contact with the other guests than she would have liked. And it meant, too, that the room would be extremely noisy, so that if Maria wanted to talk to one of the other guests, which, fair enough, she occasionally did, she would find it difficult to do so, so difficult, in fact, that she would be obliged to shout in order to communicate her ideas. Naturally, all the other guests would also be shouting, in order to communicate their ideas, or in some cases desires, so perhaps some exceptionally rational or level-headed person might have suggested, after calling a general silence by beating on the table with a stick, that everyone should henceforth talk, rather than shout, so that henceforth there would have been no further need for shouting. But such a person would have been misguided, for she, or he, would not have taken into account the fact that music was also playing, impossibly loud music, in order to encourage people to dance, or rather to shuffle, with as much freedom of movement as was consistent with a tolerable level of drink-spilling, and toe-treading, and knocking over onto the floor of bottles, and of people, with a crash. So not only did this make it doubly difficult for Maria to move, or sit, or stand, but it also made it doubly difficult for her to talk. And even when she did succeed in talking to one of the other guests, it was often, let’s be honest, a let-down, because what possibility was there of interesting conversation, when all of the guests, to a man, and to a woman, were more than likely pissed out of their heads, almost as soon as and in some cases before the party began? Maria too would be pissed out of her head, she had no choice; but strange to say Maria pissed out of her head retained vestiges of rationality equal, one might say superior, to those which most of us attain even when sober. Drink seemed never to affect her reasonableness. And it is no fun, when you are in the mood for an interesting conversation, to receive nothing in response to your remarks except grunts, or yelps, or loud bellowing laughter or inarticulate expressions of sexual desire. For Maria often found herself to be the unwilling object of sexual desire, at times like this. Sometimes she would wonder if she were the only person present whose immediate objective was not to achieve coitus with the nearest available partner, and at the earliest possible opportunity, which often as not meant there and then. And you would be wrong to think that Nigel was in any way a comfort to her in this situation, for he would not talk to her, or be with her, but would disappear early into the crowd and start making advances at whichever woman seized his wandering fancy. Which left Maria to stand and watch, apart but engulfed, removed but stifled, desperate, in her quiet way, for enjoyment, surrounded by what she had been encouraged to believe were its manifestations, and knowing nothing but this, that on none of the tired and wasted faces which thronged around her did she see the marks of real happiness, only the marks of a hateful delusion from which it seemed to be her privilege, and her burden, to be mysteriously free.

  So much for parties. The third of his pleasures in which Nigel allowed Maria to share was sex. Indeed it might be argued that her co-operation, or at least participation, was in this instance essential, rather than accessory, to his enjoyment. But this is not quite true, for if there had been no Maria there would have been another woman, and even if there had been no other woman, Nigel could quite easily have satisfied his needs unaided, he had a pair of hands after all. It took him a week or two at first to entice Maria into his bed, and to gain admission to hers, but once the precedent had been established this interval decreased, until it could be done within a minute or two or in exceptional circumstances a matter of seconds. There is no need to give the details. Why describe all the gropings, the senseless fumbles and thrusts which this poor misguided couple executed upon each other on warm spring afternoons and clammy evenings? Why enumerate, in the hope of enlightening or perhaps even arousing the reader, the various gasps, kisses, groans, caresses, stains and clasps which characterize this ludicrous pantomime? Far better to forget, as Maria tried often and vainly to forget, the hours she had spent with this man in the flagging pursuit of a hazy gratification.

  That then is the story of Maria and Nigel, the story of their love. Impossible to say how it ended, it faded away as all insubstantial things do. Sarah was waiting for her, of course, all this time, waiting to receive her when the moment came, which it did. And then all was well for a while. But the second year soo
n ended, and Maria and Sarah had to part, and not only for a few months, because Sarah’s studies took her to Italy for the whole of the next year, Maria’s last year. So that their days together, those days which had for both of them been nicer than most, were gone for good.

  4. The House

  The new academic year brought Maria a change of scene. One day during the previous term, her tutor had called her into her office.

  ‘I have a proposition for you, Maria.’

  Maria watched warily from her low armchair.

  ‘When one has been at Oxford for as long as I have, teaching, working for the university, and when one is married to a man who has also taught, and worked for the university, for a long while, then one is bound to have accumulated a certain amount of – how shall I put it? – money. Now one doesn’t want one’s money to lie around idle, not doing anything, so one tends to invest it. My husband and I have chosen to invest our money in property. We own a small property, on the Iffley Road, which we rent out to students.’

  A pause was left, in which Maria suspected that she was meant to manifest comprehension. This she did, by nodding.

  ‘Naturally, we like to choose our tenants carefully. We like to take our pick of the students. My husband teaches at St John’s, of course, but one of the first things we decided, was that we would prefer to let the rooms to girls, and to girls alone. And naturally, we look for certain … qualities, in a girl, before we make her an offer of rooms.’