Trouble

by Fay Weldon

  ‘An astrologer is a professional?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Spicer.

  ‘And my chart is bad news?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Spicer. ‘In so far as it relates to mine.’

  ‘Then it is to do with me,’ said Annette. ‘If you believe this nonsense.’

  ‘Annette,’ said Spicer, ‘I am trying to read.’

  ‘In what way is my chart bad news?’

  ‘You are badly afflicted in both the Fourth and Seventh houses. The house of childhood and the house of marriage. The unhappy, lonely child of elderly parents: a mother badly treated by a faithless husband: we know all that to be true, don’t we.’

  ‘It hardly registered like that, Spicer,’ said Annette.

  ‘Your Pluto being afflicted by your Neptune,’ said Spicer, ‘you’re so confused, hardly anything registers. Look at us. Your total lack of sensitivity.’

  ‘Spicer, what is the matter? Please!’

  ‘Don’t upset yourself. You’re so excitable, these days. I thought pregnancy was meant to calm women down. The matter is that your moon in the First is quincunx your moon in the Seventh; you simply have no idea how to be a wife. Well, the unhappy daughter seldom has.’

  ‘I am a good wife, Spicer. And a good mother.’

  ‘Really? Do good wives nag? Are they obsessively jealous? Do they break plates and burn books? Do they blab the secrets of the marriage bed to all and sundry? You have wonderful qualities, Annette, and I love you dearly, but let us not suppose you are without faults. As for being a good mother, you have a kind heart and a good nature but your idea of cooking is a bacon sandwich. Your idea of child-rearing is to let the kids watch TV all day. They are increasingly withdrawn and disturbed. It’s quite a worry.’

  ‘If it’s all written in the stars, Spicer,’ said Annette, ‘there’s nothing we can do about it, so why worry? I have to have an afflicted whatever it is to show up in Susan’s and Jason’s star-charts as a persecuting mother. And my parents had to be what they were, in order to prove my affliction.’

  ‘Everything’s interconnected, Annette,’ said Spicer. ‘I’m surprised you don’t recognise that.’

  ‘How can I recognise anything if it’s written in my star-chart that I won’t? And how can anything surprise you about me now you know what I’m like before we even begin?’

  ‘Annette, you are becoming upset about nothing at all. Our compatibility-chart shows up problems, that’s all I’m trying to say. I’m tired. I say things I don’t mean because you provoke me. I wish you wouldn’t say “star-chart”; you do it to mock and deride. The proper description is natal-chart. Now please, Annette, leave me alone.’

  ‘Well, Spicer,’ said Annette, ‘if it makes you feel better, I’ll be down to the nearest fortune-teller the moment I can.’

  ‘You are impossible,’ said Spicer. ‘There’s the phone. How any woman can spend so much time on the phone beats me.’

  ‘Annette?’

  ‘Ernie!’

  ‘You busy?’

  ‘No. Just talking to Spicer.’

  ‘I hope he’s saying nice things,’ said Ernie Gromback. ‘Is he in the room?’

  ‘No, Ernie, he isn’t,’ said Annette. ‘He’s in the study and I’m in the hall. But it makes no difference. I won’t say anything to you I wouldn’t say if he was by my side.’

  ‘That’s what worries me about you, Annette,’ said Ernie. ‘You won’t. He is in your head. I thought you were looking peaky the other night.’

  ‘I thought I was looking rather beautiful,’ said Annette.

  ‘You are always beautiful, Annette,’ said Ernie Gromback. ‘But you were distracted. Distracted people are not productive. I need my writers to be productive.’

  ‘So this is a business call?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Ernie Gromback. ‘I have had an offer from a German publisher who wants to do Lucifette Fallen.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ said Annette. ‘Will there be much money?’

  ‘Very little,’ said her publisher. ‘It’s a first novel, a foreign sale, and translation costs are high. But I thought it might cheer you up to know.’

  ‘I’m perfectly cheerful as it is,’ said Annette. ‘Do you know anything about astrology?’

  ‘As little as possible,’ said Ernie Gromback. ‘But everyone’s into it. Marion’s writing a book on the nature of Sagittarians. I’m a Sagittarian. I talk too much and am faithless. I think of you a lot, Annette.’

  ‘Goodbye, Ernie,’ said Annette.

  ‘Goodbye, Annette,’ said Ernie.

  ‘Who was that?’ asked Spicer. ‘Your lesbian friend?’

  ‘It was Ernie Gromback,’ said Annette.

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He’s sold Lucifette Fallen to the Germans,’ said Annette.

  ‘Trust the Germans,’ said Spicer. ‘And trust that little runt to disturb a peaceful evening. That last dig of yours, Annette, about fortune-telling? Shall we go back to that? Astrology is nothing to do with fortune-telling. It is a wonderfully useful diagnostic and therapeutic tool, in the hands of intuitive and sensitive people. And thank God there are some around.’

  ‘And I’m still not to know the name or gender of this wonderful and sensitive person,’ asked Annette, ‘who means so much to you?

  ‘I’ve been advised to tell you as little as possible,’ said Spicer. ‘Though in fact she may want to see you sometime.’

  ‘She,’ said Annette. ‘I knew it. You’re having an affair with her.’

  ‘I knew you’d be like this,’ said Spicer. ‘No wonder I put off telling you. She’s my therapist.’

  ‘Your therapist? You have a therapist? You?’

  ‘There is nothing sexual in my relationship with her,’ said Spicer.

  ‘I should bloody hope not,’ cried Annette. ‘And why does this astrologer-therapist want to see me, and why should I go, and why do you want one in the first place, Spicer? What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘The matter is, Annette,’ said Spicer, ‘that because of scenes like this, and the perpetual stress of the rows you precipitate, my blood-pressure has become dangerously raised, and I am in danger of falling dead with a heart-attack or stroke.’

  ‘Your blood-pressure? But you’re too young!’

  ‘Stress can kill at any age,’ said Spicer.

  ‘But this is dreadful! What does Dr Solstice say? Is it going to be okay?’

  ‘I’m not seeing Dr Solstice. I’m seeing a homeopath.’

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ said Annette.

  ‘I shouldn’t have confided in you,’ said Spicer. ‘I might have known this is how you’d react. No sympathy, no understanding: nothing except hysteria.’

  ‘Spicer, you have my every sympathy. I’m just terribly worried. You don’t believe in alternative medicine. Who on earth recommended it? Your therapist? This astrologer?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Spicer.

  ‘And who recommended the therapist?’

  ‘Marion,’ said Spicer.

  ‘Spicer!’ cried Annette. ‘Marion’s an idiot. You know she is!’

  ‘I knew it wasn’t wise to tell you,’ said Spicer. ‘My therapist said you’d react like this. If I so much as talk to another woman you curl up with spite and jealousy. Therapy and homeopathy helped Marion’s asthma when conventional medicine failed. I started getting headaches, my vision was blurred. I took Marion’s advice; that’s all there was to it. I don’t want to live on doctor’s pills for the rest of my life.’

  ‘But what is this homeopath doing for you, Spicer?’ asked Annette. ‘Is it working? That’s all that matters. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to raise my voice. I was just taken by surprise.’

  ‘She’s given me drops,’ said Spicer, ‘which I place on my tongue every morning and every evening.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘Annette, leave off! I can feel my blood-pressure rising already. Half the human race is female.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

>   ‘Try not to make me choleric,’ said Spicer. ‘It’ll kill me.’

  ‘Choleric’s a funny word,’ said Annette. ‘Where did you get it from? I suppose it’s a homeopathic term. Kind of medieval. Are the drops working?’

  ‘My blood-pressure is down, yes, though scenes like this don’t help.’

  ‘It isn’t a scene. It’s just me reacting. What sort of drops? What’s in them?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Spicer. ‘All I know is you have to make sure they get to the tongue without first coming in contact with any other part of the body, or they don’t work so well.’

  ‘Like sex without foreplay,’ said Annette. ‘A shock to the system.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Spicer.

  ‘Could be good, could be bad,’ said Annette.

  ‘Let’s go to bed and find out,’ said Spicer. ‘I’m glad that’s out in the open. I’m glad I’ve got it over. Now let’s get back to normal.’

  ‘Is making love good for blood-pressure?’ asked Annette.

  ‘Best possible thing,’ said Spicer.

  ‘I suppose it will give me time to let all this sink in,’ said Annette.

  ‘Think things through.’

  ‘The important thing for you, Annette,’ said Spicer, ‘is not to think too much. Just accept. Come upstairs.’

  The phone rang.

  ‘Don’t answer that,’ said Spicer.

  ‘I won’t,’ said Annette.

  ‘Pay attention to me,’ said Spicer.

  ‘I will,’ said Annette, and they went upstairs to the bedroom, and the phone went on ringing.

  ‘Wait till I take my drops,’ said Spicer.

  ‘I will,’ said Annette. ‘Spicer, I suppose the therapist and the homeopath aren’t the same person?’

  ‘Let’s say they’re part of the same gestalt,’ said Spicer. ‘Annette, will you help me? My eyes cross if I try to do it myself. Thank you.’

  ‘What’s a gestalt?’ asked Annette.

  ‘A German word for a whole made up of parts which you could separate out but on the whole would be better not to,’ Spicer said.

  ‘So they could be the same?’

  ‘Actually, yes they are. She is both healer and astrologer. Now don’t make a fuss.’

  ‘She’s not making a lot of money out of you?’

  ‘My God,’ said Spicer, ‘a man’s health is not to be measured in monetary terms.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Annette.

  ‘Nor is his mind, or his soul.’

  ‘Sweetheart,’ said Annette, ‘I love your tongue, I love your teeth, I love your mouth, I love all of you. How often do you see her?’

  ‘Four times a week at the moment,’ said Spicer, ‘while the crisis lasts.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Annette.

  ‘The nicer you are to me the sooner the crisis will be over,’ Spicer said.

  ‘Of course,’ said Annette. ‘I wish you’d tell me her name.’

  ‘Let it be, Annette,’ said Spicer.

  ‘I can always sleep in the spare room,’ said Annette.

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past you,’ said Spicer. ‘You are inconsistent enough. I can’t rely on you for anything.’

  ‘Other people find me perfectly consistent and reliable,’ said Annette.

  ‘Other people, other people!’ said Spicer. ‘I don’t like your habit of appealing to these convenient witnesses. What other people?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Annette.

  ‘Your apologies are accepted,’ said Spicer. ‘Rest assured my therapist/astrologer/homeopath has conventional medical qualifications and I am in excellent hands; it’s just that at the moment I’d rather be in yours. The great thing about you being pregnant is that your breasts are finally a proper size.’

  ‘Yes, but there’s this bump beneath them,’ said Annette.

  ‘I’ll forget it,’ said Spicer, ‘if you will. Put on your white pleated silk nightgown. I like so to take it off. You are so beautiful, even with your bump.’

  ‘I’m not sure the white nightie will fit over the bump,’ said Annette. ‘But I’m willing to try.’

  ‘Don’t talk all the time, darling. Stop thinking. Just be.’

  ‘Can I just say one more thing?’

  ‘If it’s neither critical nor reproachful,’ said Spicer.

  ‘I wish you’d told me earlier you were going to see a therapist,’ Annette said.

  ‘I have told you,’ said Spicer.

  ‘But isn’t it just what Aileen did?’

  ‘That’s a silly comparison,’ said Spicer. ‘Aileen wanted to end the marriage. I want the opposite for ours. I want to live in peace and tranquillity.’

  ‘Help me put the nightie on,’ said Annette. ‘Just a little tug at the back. I love your hands, Spicer. I always have.’

  ‘I love all of you, Annette,’ said Spicer. ‘You’re like the sea; I love to drown in you. But like the seas you have your moods: sometimes you can be dangerous. So I must learn to navigate you. Is that comfortable?’

  ‘Well, not totally any more,’ said Annette. ‘You are quite heavy on the bump.’

  ‘Turn on your side, then. Is that better?’

  ‘Well, yes, but then I can’t see you,’ said Annette. ‘I like to see you: the expression of your face. I like to watch you loving me.’

  ‘But by liking to see me we have to stay very decorous, very missionary, Annette.’

  ‘Something’s lost, something’s gained,’ said Annette. ‘I’ll turn on my side. Not too hard, not too violent, please. I wouldn’t want you to shake the baby loose—’

  ‘Babies are well locked in,’ said Spicer. ‘Nature sees to it. Other women don’t make this fuss. Don’t make me feel guilty or none of this will work.’

  ‘Sorry, Spicer,’ said Annette. ‘If I bring my knees up—wonderful, wonderful—you’ve always been wonderful like nothing else, no one else.’

  ‘Then why can’t you be more secure in me?’

  ‘I am, I am,’ said Annette. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken the way I did to Gilda: I didn’t mean to be disloyal.’

  ‘You speak far too much to Gilda,’ said Spicer.

  ‘I’ll try not to in future,’ said Annette.

  ‘Gilda isn’t a real friend: she just wants someone to gossip about.’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘The way you go on about me,’ said Spicer, ‘makes me wonder about you. You are sure it is my baby?’

  ‘Of course I am, Spicer.’

  ‘Because I have to have you all to myself,’ said Spicer. ‘I couldn’t bear to share you.’

  ‘Only you, Spicer, only ever you.’

  ‘Not like Aileen.’

  ‘Never, never like Aileen,’ said Annette. ‘Spicer, not so rough: Spicer, whatever you like—but you are tearing my best nightdress.’

  ‘It’s too tight over the bump; why did you wear it? Please don’t talk, it distracts me—turn over, talk into the pillow if you have to—’

  ‘I don’t want to turn over,’ said Annette.

  ‘Why not? I love every bit of you, every part of you,’ said Spicer.

  ‘I want to be able to say that too,’ said Annette. ‘To your face, not to a pillow.’

  ‘Do as I say,’ said Spicer.

  ‘Oh very well,’ said Annette.

  ‘I love you,’ said Spicer into his wife’s ear. ‘So much love must be good for the baby. It couldn’t possibly harm it: that’s what Rhea says. There, I’ve told you. Dr Rhea Marks, my therapist. Annette, I’m coming, I can’t help it, you moved so suddenly—come with me—please—’

  ‘I am, I am. There.’

  ‘There. Oh my God. I love you, Annette.’

  Spicer brought Annette some orange juice and sat in the blue basket chair by the bed.

  ‘You were faking, weren’t you,’ said Spicer.

  ‘I was not,’ said Annette.

  ‘Yes you were. I can always tell.’

  ‘I’d quite like to go to sleep now, Spicer,’ said Annett
e.

  ‘You never talk when I want to talk,’ said Spicer. ‘You always talk when I’d rather you didn’t.’

  ‘I expect I’m afflicted in my planets. Ask Dr Rhea Marks. She’ll tell you all about it.’

  ‘Sulky, sulky!’ said Spicer. ‘Rhea told me it would happen. Spouses feel resentful if an outsider, as they see it, comes into the marriage. But of course it isn’t like that.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Good God no,’ said Spicer. ‘Is your seeing Dr Herman Marks coming between you and me? No. The opposite is true. Weren’t we together just now? You were wonderful. He’s already dispersed some of the frigidity.’

  ‘But I’ve never been frigid,’ said Annette. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Lilith is cold,’ said Spicer. ‘Lilith is the devourer of children, the hater of men. Lilith stops women coming. See Dr Herman as Saturn: only Saturn can deal with Lilith.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Spicer? You’re frightening me.’

  ‘You mustn’t be frightened,’ said Spicer. ‘I’m coming back into bed. We have to drive Lilith out. You were faking.’

  ‘I was not so, Spicer,’ said Annette. ‘I want to go to sleep. Please. I’m pregnant.’

  ‘Spoilsport. Talk to me.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Annette. ‘Is Dr Rhea young and attractive? Or is she the female equivalent of her husband?’

  ‘She’s kind of in the middle,’ said Spicer. ‘I do not have a sexual relationship with her. Okay? And I’ve never even met her husband. It seems such a waste for the baby to have your breasts.’

  ‘It won’t be for long,’ said Annette. ‘Then you can have them back. Do you see her in the house in Maresfield Gardens?’

  ‘Yes. But it’s on a lease from the AJA. They have to move out soon.’

  ‘The AJA?’ asked Annette.

  ‘The Association of Jungian Analysts,’ said Spicer. ‘Very reputable, very respectable. She was well recommended. I’m not a fool.’

  ‘If you go to the same house, how come you haven’t met her husband?’ asked Annette.

  ‘I like your knees,’ said Spicer. ‘I’ve always liked your knees. Part them just a little. If I haven’t met her husband it’s because anti-synchronicity is almost as strong a force in the universe as synchronicity.’