by Sean Thomas
Her knees up, Rebecca says, gaily:
— Hayzee Fantayzee … that song … ‘John Wayne is Big Leggy’, that’s very Sylvia, she’d have loved that
Patrick says:
— And Kajagoogoo, if only she’d have known about Kajagoogoo, would that have influenced the Ariel poems, made them a bit happier?
For a moment they are both chuckling together: laughing happily and bondingly. Then a sudden sadder silence descends. Sadder music is filling the car, softer clarinet music, and Patrick feels heavy and morose at the thought of what is upcoming. The two of them are plummeting down the M3 to his mother’s house, for lunch, and the thought of this obliges Patrick to think of his mother. And his father. In different places. He always dreads meeting his divorced and almost equally lonely parents. The guilt, the loneliness, the age, the new liver spots, how he hates them. So he must try to think of things he must do, must say, to take everybody’s mind off. He must try not to think about these other things.
— You know it’s the next junction
— I did live here eighteen years
— OK sorry
Rebecca is smiling apologetically across. Looking at his smiling girlfriend, Patrick feels guilt and tension again. Because. That smile. Is it her special sweet you can see me naked smile? Or her tell me I’m a lovely slut smile? Or her you really should tell me about Murphy hut I’ll always still love you smile? Oh, Jerusalem. What can you do? Patrick feels a cold tender grief inside, thinking on the love, the love, the love that burns between he and she. It is too much, too fast, too exciting, too speedy, too dangerous. Sometimes when Patrick is thinking about sex with Rebecca, doing sex with Rebecca, remembering sex with Rebecca, he feels like he is hurtling down the motorway with the brakes fucked; that’s what it feels like. Like the wires have snapped, the metal sheared. Trying hard to not remember how it feels Patrick reaches across the car and squeezes his girlfriend’s thigh. In return Rebecca smiles and reaches over and coils a finger with some of his hair. Tickled by this Patrick thinks of Rebecca’s cunt.
Turn here? Turning the wheel right Patrick takes the slip road, takes the roundabout, gets on the dual carriageway, heads on into the suburban countryside of West Hampshire.
And as he does he thinks, again, again, afresh, what else is there to think of? He thinks of what he always has to think on. Rebecca: their sex this morning. The press of her cold breasts to his face. The salty moan. The sliding and blackness; the soft and the flesh. The time he stood by the lake and gazed up at the mountains: the queenly, snowbound, glorious mountains, rose-tipped by sunrise …
Overtaking a lorry he didn’t even really see Patrick tries to think back to a time when he didn’t feel like this: devoured, banjaxed, mullahed by love. When he didn’t spend all the time he didn’t spend fucking Rebecca thinking about fucking Rebecca: so when did he start obsessing? When did it start? Is the reason he feels a strange desire to be unfaithful to her merely a result of his being so thrown by his unprecedented desire to be faithful to her?
Right. Mn. Yes. Intent, Patrick listens to a saxophone riff. Then he watches, equally intent, out the windscreen: at the sun coming out. Oh yes. Patrick watches the sparkle of new sun on the wet, glossy road, the rainy black Tarmac. Then Patrick decides that he cannot understand or fathom the
— Looks like it’ll brighten up
fathom the Darwinian reasoning behind it. No: he cannot. All his life, so far, Patrick has marvelled at the Darwinian logic of everything. That’s been his supreme creed. Wherever he has looked – at the beauty of flowers, the sleekness of otters, the clever-cleverness of modern novels – Patrick has seen confirmed the blind unfeeling action of Natural laws, the ruthless reason of unreasoning Evolution. Even the random mutation of shoe fashions, or the speedy global spread of successful TV quiz show formats, all these have so far merely explained to Patrick the super-efficient Darwinian processes of a wholly Godless world. These things have reaffirmed Patrick’s faith in his faithlessness.
Until now. Now Patrick is confronted by – a tractor? Patrick swerves out, pushes the pedal, swerves back – now Patrick is confronted by something he cannot fit in his self-consciously tough atheistic Richard Dawkinsy outlook.
Deftly, Patrick takes a left, thinks on. How can he explain the depth and frighteningness of this, this thing, this deeply, disturbingly carnal love he feels for Rebecca? How can he explain his mad actions, the lunatic ardour? I mean, Patrick thinks: what’s the evolutionary point in worshipping her kneecaps? Auditing her panties? Sniffing her hair when she sleeps? Why does he watch for hours the way her calves tense as she paints her toenails? Is that Darwinian? To spend his life thus? Shouldn’t he be out foraging, slaying, making money, something? What fitness and survivability is inferred when he has to stop work for an hour to think about the curious disposition of her pubic hairs? What is the sociobiological reason behind his spending a morning in reverie about the slight wobble of her buttocks when he fucks her hard from behind?
— Rbecsdhfgda
— Rebeasgahappp
And now he isn’t even making much sense. There is too much spit in his throat. Because he is thinking of Rebecca’s pubic hairs, their disposition. He is remembering her bare knees abraded by the carpet of his car. Her little feet kicking the back of the passenger seat. FUCKTHISSAY-SOMETHING
— Rebecca
— Mm?
— Er
— Yes?
She has turned on him. This time she has turned and smiled serenely across the front seats and given him the full refulgent force of her royal beauty. The slums of beautiful Krakow. And again this does it, when Rebecca turns her lovely face and does that lovely smile Patrick feels the brakes go, again: in a rush in an almost cocainey rush he sees the tableau of this morning: fingers force-fed in her whorish mouth; fat cock stuck in her sleepy cunt; pink heels stirruped by his shoulders.
Slowly, Patrick pulls the wheel right and checks the mirror. The rain is Cyrillic on the windowpane. The sun is, however, shining. Patrick feels his heart, his heart. He feels something hurting, in the distance. In the far, rainy distance.
— Hello, Mum
His mother is wearing old woman’s shoes. And nearly-old-woman slacks. Trying not to care about these things, trying not to show he’s noticed these things, Patrick hugs his mum and feels the usual love-death-grief-sadness-affection-happiness as he hugs her. During the hug Patrick glances over his mum’s shoulder and sees that Rebecca has got out of the other side of the car and is crossing the wet pebbly drive
— Hello Mrs Skivington
— Hello dear, you must be Rebecca
Coming around the car, scrunching pebble, Rebecca smiles and offers the bouquet of flowers and says:
— Uhm. We got you these
— Oh they’re lovely
— Patrick chose them
— Really?!
Patrick’s mother is laughing, Rebecca is smiling, Patrick isn’t. He can’t be jolly, he feels too tense. Tensed, Patrick watches the two women step up the steps and go into the tiny kitchen he remembers so well and, no, Patrick decides, he cannot laugh. Not now. Instead he watches his mother turn and pour cold water and prepare the flowers in the small chipped sink and as his mother does this Patrick feels tremendous and unwonted protectiveness towards his mother. And shame, too: shame for his mum’s poor Co-oppy clothes, her chapped red working woman’s hands. Close, Patrick looks at Rebecca; close, he sees Rebecca looking back. Meantime Patrick’s mother turns and looks at the two of them; she reaches out and holds her son’s arm as if seeking balance or support. And she says:
— You’ll be staying for lunch?
Discomfited, Patrick hugs his mum, and secretly rolls his eyes over his mum’s shoulder at Rebecca. But in truth he is feeling anything but complicity with Rebecca. Right now he is feeling love and stuff for his mother.
— Cup of tea first, Mum?
— It was a horrible drive, was it?
— Uh yeah
— Ho
ld on, you sit there
— Thank you Mrs Skivington
— Sally, please
And so it goes; so it goes. Maudlin, but trying not to show it, Patrick observes the rigmarole unfold as predicted. Patrick watches as Rebecca watches the way he and his mother interact. He watches Rebecca watch the protectiveness they show for each other, unwonted. Then, out of nothing, Patrick cheers up suddenly (blood sugar?) and thinks fuckit and turns to his mother and says:
— You sure you’re eating properly, Mum
— Patrick
— Wearing enough vests?
— Patrick!
The mother laughs at the son, the son laughs lazily and alpha male-ishly.
Across the biscuits and tea-cakes the glamorous girlfriend laughs, unsurely. And then Patrick says to his mother as she transports dripping teabags to the bin:
— When are you going to get a haircut, Mum?
— I just had one …
— You’re such an old hippy, you know that?
— And you’re in the City now …
His mother is being sarcastic. Patrick takes a mug of tea from his mother’s hand and hands it on to Rebecca, who says:
— Thank you
— How’s the dog Mum?
— We never had a dog
— Oh yeah
— Drink your tea and tell me about London …
The conversation chugs along; as it does so Patrick finds he is sitting by the old kitchen table watching his lonely mother whom he loves so much, and that he is not sure what he is really feeling. He watches his mother as she biscuits and cakes and sugarcubes, and he feels pity. He watches her as she kettles and boils and chats, indefatigably, and he feels a kind of pride. And withal he feels: the gulf. Between. Between his small, pinched, tidy and lower-middle-class home, and the haute-bourgeois glossiness of his girlfriend. Between the woman he loves so much and the woman he loves so much.
Sneaking a look at Rebecca as she sits demurely on the kitchen chair drinking overstrong tea, Patrick allows himself to think what he has been trying not to think ever since Rebecca and he arrived here: how Rebecca-y, beautiful, and wrong Rebecca looks in this kitchen. Rebecca’s newly cut blondeness; her Italian jeans; that obvious private dentistry: it does not fit. It is too much. Patrick is embarrassed and mortified by the way Rebecca looks so unable to fit in, despite her obvious efforts. Oh, Jerusalem.
Patrick broods, nibbles biscuits, watches. Leaning forward, Rebecca murmurs and asks and listens and then gets up and goes to the directed-to lavatory. When she has gone Patrick’s mother looks at her son with an at-last expression, and says:
— Rather posh … isn’t she?
— Tell me about it
— You sure you can afford her?
— Less maintenance than you’d think
His mother chuckles, takes the mug from his hand. Says:
— Did I make too much tea?
— Not quite. A gallon’s about right
— Very attractive though of course
— Perhaps you overdid the biscuits. Four packs of Bourbons?
— You always liked the pretty ones
— Is that wrong?
— Like your dad
— Of course, Mum, he chose you
— Are you going to see him?
Patrick looks at his mum; thinks about his dad; says:
— Maybe … is he doing OK?
— He’s still ill
— Not in hospital though?
Patrick’s mother shrugs:
— You know what he’s like, you remember
— I remember, I fucking remember Mum
— Don’t – Patrick’s mother looks tired, and pained – It’s not his fault, really
— You were too young, right?
— Yes. Too young
Tense, stiff, Patrick goes quiet. Patrick’s mother goes to touch his forehead with the back of her hand as if to check he is ill. Patrick goes to push her away, but as he goes to push her away he feels the love and protectiveness inside him again and he goes to hug her; at this she smiles, and at that moment when the two of them are really hugging Rebecca walks through the kitchen door. Startled, Patrick turns away, confused and embarrassed. He does not know how to act, where to put himself; so he decides … to flee. Faking a cough he turns and retreats down the cheap hall carpet to the back door which he flings open onto the wet garden. The tiny wet garden. O, this garden. How he knows this garden, how he no longer knows it. The cheap little shrubs his dad planted. The place where he used to play as a kid. The stupid seat where he did his French homework. Monsieur Marsaud travaille dans le jardin …
Looking at the infinite pathos of the tiny garden Patrick breathes in the sour wet early spring air and he wonders about death, and love, and Rebecca. Jean Claude et François. Ecoutez et répétez. Beep. And he wonders whether he will go and see his father and he despairs of ever finding a place to be truly happy and then he wonders if his mother really likes Rebecca and then he wonders if Rebecca will have sex with him behind the garden shed.
15
— I don’t know what constitutes rape?
Murphy is silently shrugging in the witness box. Stefan continues, more sneering still:
— But I think Patrick raped me?
Another Murphyish shrug. More silence. Unfazed, Stefan lifts a gowned arm, looks across at his witness, says:
— Miss Reardon …
Murphy raises her eyes. Patrick thinks about Murphy’s surname. Stefan says:
— Miss Reardon, wouldn’t you say that’s an odd thing to say? Given that the plaintiff was claiming she had indeed just been raped?
— I … – Murphy drawls, at last – I s’pose … Yeah. But
— Were you surprised by it?
— Not really
— Not really, Miss Reardon??
— Well, she – Murphy looks around the court as if expecting to see Rebecca crouching weepily in the corner – She was, you know … very upset. Y’know. I didn’t really think about it …
— Of course – Gown folded back, Stefan continues – And so … what did you do then, after she’d said … – Very long pause – … I don’t know what constitutes rape, but I think Patrick raped me?
— Sorry?
— What did you do after she said that?
Frowning, now, Murphy says:
— I rang her father
— Miss Jessel’s father?
— Yes
— And you told him that Rebecca was claiming that she had been raped?
— Yes
— But you didn’t tell him … – Stefan looks down even though it is palpably obvious he doesn’t need to – That she had just said … ‘I don’t know what constitutes rape … but I think Patrick raped me?’
In the dock, Patrick feels his stomach tighten. In the box, Murphy says:
— No
— I see. And what did you do then? After you’d spoken to Miss Jessel’s father?
— I think … – Murphy fires a look across the hushed courtroom at Patrick, a look so sharp it makes him involuntarily sit back – Yes. After that I called Patch
— You telephoned the defendant?
— Yes
— Why?
Murphy, quick:
— I wanted to tell him what I thought of him
— And did you?
Patrick thinks he can hear the tick of the watch on the wrist of the policeman sitting next to him. Murphy:
— Yeah. I told him he was a fucking sadistic bastard
Stefan, still unfazed:
— And what did the defendant say?
— Ts. Nothing
— He answered the telephone and then he said … nothing?
— Yup – Murphyish toss of the hair – Virtually nothing
— Why did you telephone the defendant?
— Because … – Murphy does her coolest, vaguest, I’m-just-a-fool shrug – I was angry at him. I know it was stupid but I was so angry at what he’d
done to Becs
— Did you tell him that Rebecca was with you?
— Yeah
— And did you tell him what she’d said
— Yeah
— You mean you told him that she’d said – Another glance down at his notes, another sly little smile – ‘I don’t know what constitutes rape … but I think Patrick raped me?’
Murphy glances, dark eyes, wide:
— No
— So what did you tell him?
— Stuff. I don’t exactly … recall every word
— Did you accuse him of raping Rebecca Jessel?
Murphy levels her stare:
— Didn’t have to
— Miss
— He knew what he’d done, y’know?
— Miss Reardon, I
— S’not like it was news – She lifts her head – He did it. So it wasn’t exactly a BBC newsflash, shock horror exposé, you know?
Just as Patrick is about to wonder if this is all going wrong his lawyer steps back and forward and says:
— Miss Reardon. Is it true you once … requested sex with the defendant?
Distant voices, distant traffic. Murphy opens and closes her mouth …
Two or more lawyers have bobbed up. The judge lifts a sagacious hand, rhythmically lifting it up and down as if patting all the lawyers on the head. The judge intones:
— As I said … previously – The judge coughs, clears his throat – I think this line is permissible. You can continue, Mister Stefan
— Thank you, M’Lord
The other lawyers subside. Stefan turns and pauses, gown wafting around him. Patrick, his chin poised on two sharp thumbnails, notes how Stefan’s face goes all boyish and mischievous when he is on a roll, on a line of questioning he likes. As now.
Robert Stefan QC:
— I’ll rephrase the question, Miss Reardon – Importantly – Isn’t it true to say you once had a … crush on the defendant … at the same time as he was going out with Miss Jessel?
— Mn …
Murphy is stalling, mumbling. Patrick looks excitedly around the courtroom. The jury box seems to have altered itself so it faces more directly at Murphy. The geometry of the courtroom seems to have shifted, subtly, centring Murphy and her witness box; Murphy is herself looking around the courtroom as if she is now doubly scared she might see Rebecca in the corner, somewhere, all sobbing, bitten, hissy, raped … betrayed. Then Murphy says:
