by Fay Weldon
24
NED AND ALEXANDRA’S LONDON pied-à-terre, No. 13 Angliss Street, was to the north of Sloane Square, the top half of a small, quaint house in a little street barred to traffic. There were two bedrooms, a small kitchen, a bathroom, a living room and a balcony. The place was just about large enough for Ned, Alexandra and Sascha, though if Theresa came too it was a squash. Theresa’s agreeably firm, white-skinned flesh came in contact with dressers and porcelain, and blue and white china; she’d knock her big head against the wall-lamps and bathroom fitments; the breakages were dreadful. Sascha clomped and jumped about in too small a space for comfort and had to be hushed because of the people living below—an old couple in their eighties, fortunately deaf: they could not hear the noise but could watch flecks of plaster dust falling from their ceiling when Sascha cried, “Watch me! Watch me!” and jumped from sofas or did his sudden if ineffectual somersaults. He would fall sideways, not properly head over heels. But the place was near enough Theatreland. At a pinch, Alexandra could walk to matinees, and in the summer to evening performances, before dark made the streets dangerous.
Here Ned and Chrissie had lived, before Ned met Alexandra and they fell in love, and Ned and Chrissie parted. Divorced. Then the house had been divided: Chrissie had sold her half and gone to live with horses in Sussex. Ned kept his half as a pied-à-terre for himself and Alexandra, buying The Cottage out of money left him by his and Hamish’s mother. Ned was convinced that London was no place to bring up a child—pollution was bad and streets dangerous, and Sascha himself overlively—so one or the other of the parents would always take him back to the green fields, the Virginia creeper and the roses of his real home after a day or so in the city.
Alexandra arrived at four in the morning. She was worn out. She had not eaten for days. But she must sleep now. She was too tired to eat. She went into her bedroom and turned on the light. There was someone sleeping in her bed. A woman. Alexandra turned off the light quickly, went into the second bedroom, lay down without undressing, and slept.
Alexandra did not wake till noon. She had a headache. She took some aspirin, had a shower and went into the kitchen. A woman she did not recognise was cooking spaghetti. She was in her forties, had short straight hair and an intelligent, reproachful face. Alexandra supposed she was some kind of academic. The woman acknowledged Alexandra’s presence with a curt nod, but did not seem anxious for conversation. Alexandra put her dirty clothes into the washing machine, started the cycle, and only then said: “Who are you?”
“Chrissie Ludd,” said the woman. “And now Ned has died, this place is mine. I don’t mind you staying until you sort yourself out, but don’t make it too long. A couple of months will be fine.”
“I don’t think that can be so,” said Alexandra. She feared a re-run of Jenny Linden. She, Alexandra, was the second wife, this one the first. They had never met. Ned had been at pains to keep the two women apart. He had described a neurasthenic, malicious woman, who drank too much and was forever on the edge of a breakdown. He, Ned, had married her out of pity, but eventually, after she had brought home a drunken teenager for a one-night stand, had decided he and she must part. But she had divorced him, eventually. He hadn’t bothered to divorce her even after he had met and fallen in love with Alexandra. The one, the true, the only love in the face of which all other loves must falter. So Ned had said.
Chrissie now said, “According to the divorce settlement, the property remained in my name, but he had the right to live in it until he died, after which it reverts to me. Now he’s dead, so here I am.”
“That isn’t fair,” said Alexandra. “Why should a Court do anything so silly?” It was all she could think of to say.
“It was twelve years back,” said Chrissie. “Fault still entered into these things. Ned’s behaviour had been such I got much the better deal. He howled and struggled and squirmed about everything: he hated to part with a penny. He was a monster; but I stuck to my guns and won. You must have known. You were with him at the time. Very much with him.”
“I didn’t know,” said Alexandra.
“You must be a very unobservant person,” said Chrissie. “Anyway, here
I am. And you’re on your way out, so I’ve won. If you hang about long enough, things come round; you win. I should have got a chunk of his inheritance too, from his mother, but he didn’t disclose it to the Court.
Ned always played his cards close to his chest. But you’ll know that.”
She was straining the spaghetti into her, Alexandra’s, colander. She seemed so much at home Alexandra felt unable to challenge her.
“So, do you have another man ready to go?” asked Chrissie, as if pleasantly. “You look the type.”
“Ned isn’t even buried yet,” said Alexandra. “Why did you divorce him? What were the grounds?”
“You,” said Chrissie. “Adultery. He brought you back to our bed. It hurt, that. I don’t forget it. I walked out there and then. Bed’s still there, in the same place. Fits the alcove. Good mattress: not too hard, not too soft. Makes you feel rough, though, that kind of thing. Took me five years to recover. I slept in that bed last night, like a top. Yes, things come round.”
“I’m sorry,” said Alexandra, bleakly.
“Look at your looks, look at mine,” said Chrissie. “What chance did I have?”
“Looks aren’t important,” said Alexandra. “They count for very little.”
“That’s what the pretty ones always say,” said Chrissie, and laughed: haw-haw-haw. She had a deep voice, a brusque manner. You could see her breeding dogs, winning at a dog show, biting back emotion. Not Ned’s type. No wonder. But what was Ned’s type? Herself? Jenny Linden? Perhaps Ned liked only women he could despise? How would she manage to work without this apartment? She would go to a lawyer: this woman could just be trying it on. Ned would have told her, surely?
“You don’t look too good,” said Chrissie. “You theatrical types, quite flimsy when it comes to it. I didn’t shed a tear when I heard Ned died. Danced a tarantella. But that’s your role, isn’t it? Throwing the tits around in public. I expect Ned liked that. Always a bit kinky.” She was eating her spaghetti now, with Sascha’s tomato sauce from the squeezy bottle. She didn’t offer Alexandra any.
“I’ll replace all this when you go,” she said, indicating the fridge, the cupboards. “Give you the monetary equivalent, if you prefer.”
“That’s okay,” said Alexandra. “Help yourself.”
“And you’re welcome to the little bedroom,” said Chrissie, generous in return. “Come and go as you like, treat it like home for a couple of months. No more.”
“What about the furniture?” asked Alexandra. “Even if what you say is so, it’s the matrimonial property. Ned’s and mine.”
“Most of it’s Ned’s and mine,” said Chrissie. “Or mine. I brought it to the marriage. I started out with quite a bit of money, but Ned spent it. Sometimes I think when it was gone, I had to go too. That also hurt. Did you bring him any money?”
“A bit,” said Alexandra. It had been quite a lot but she didn’t mean to tell Chrissie that. She was sorry she had brought grief even to such an uncouth woman as this. Perhaps she had not been so uncouth to begin with? Perhaps this was where Ned’s rejection led you?
“I’ll put your clothes through the dryer,” said Chrissie, kindly, “when they’re ready. Why didn’t you have a washer-dryer? I would have. They take up so much less space. You’ve got messages on the answerphone. I’ve changed the message out. No point hanging about.”
One message was from Mr. Quatrop, the Estate Agent in Eddon Gurney. His condolences to Mrs. Ludd, he didn’t want to disturb her at such a time, but there was a potential buyer for The Cottage, very keen; he thought she should know.
The second was from her agent, Harry Barney. Harry said Amblin’s casting director was over from Los Angeles, wanted to see her on Monday, only had Monday in London, but that was the day of the funeral: he’d said no on Alexan
dra’s behalf. Hoped she was okay. A little trouble at the theatre he had to talk to her about, but not to worry.
Alexandra punched out Mr. Quatrop’s number. Chrissie interjected. “Go ahead by all means. I’ve had the phone put on itemised, so we can sort out costs later. No problem.”
Alexandra pointed out to Mr. Quatrop that The Cottage was not for sale, so what was he talking about?
Mr. Quatrop said that Mr. Ludd had been in only a week ago, on the Saturday afternoon, talking about the possibility of putting the house on the market; of course it was too early for Mrs. Ludd to give the matter proper consideration, he was sorry to have bothered her, but no one wanted to lose a good prospect for want of asking. Poor Mr. Ludd. It made you think.
“Yes, makes you think,” agreed Alexandra. “You’re sure my husband wasn’t just checking out property prices?”
“Let me put it like this,” said Mr. Quatrop. “One gets a nose for this kind of thing. I viewed Mr. Ludd’s enquiry as the first step on the critical path which leads to a major sale, this one involving three properties.”
And he told Alexandra that Mr. Ludd had been toying with the idea of joining forces with Mrs. Linden to buy Elder House, the language school. He’d gathered from a hint here and a gleam in the eye there they hoped to develop the property after purchase as a centre for theatrical design. Mrs. Linden had to get to the stationer’s before it closed, and had gone off, so it might well have been that he, Mr. Quatrop, was the very last person to speak to Mr. Ludd.
“Mrs. Linden came in with my husband?” asked Alexandra, “to discuss the possible sale of The Cottage and Mrs. Linden’s cottage and the possible purchase of Elder House with the proceeds?”
“That is so,” said Mr. Quatrop. “I hope I haven’t upset you in any way?”
“No,” said Alexandra.
“I’ll be closing for the funeral,” said Mr. Quatrop, “as a mark of respect. Many local traders are doing the same.”
“How very kind of them,” said Alexandra.
“If you make long distance calls,” said Chrissie, “you should try the Mercury network. It’s cheaper.”
Alexandra called her agent at his home number, in Richmond. She thought it might steady her. She asked what the part under consideration was. Harry Barney said it was for the lead in a major drama feature, opposite Michael Douglas—high budget, high profile—the casting guy had been in the audience on the famous First Night, thought Ludd had star quality, wanted an English accent. But that was the way the cookie crumbled. The only person you couldn’t stand up for an audition was your husband’s corpse—Harry Barney coughed an apology.
“Sorry. Never could express myself in these matters. Too much emotion.”
“Harry, you loathed Ned.”
“Yes, in life. But not in death. He was one of us.”
“Why did you hate him?”
“Not as strong as that, sweetheart. I didn’t take all that business too well.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ned pulled strings to get Longriff the Doll’s House part. Everyone said it was going a bit far. Wife and girlfriend in the same production. I managed to get you Nora, but it was a struggle. She got it anyway, in the end. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Go slower, Harry. Ned and Daisy Longriff?”
“Well, yes. You knew, didn’t you?”
“No. But everyone else did?”
“Jesus, I’m sorry. Alexandra, shall I come over?”
“No, I’m just fine, Harry.”
“It wasn’t anything serious, Alexandra. Never was. It was you he loved. Just had a funny way of showing it. The girls simply lay down in front of him. Anything for a good review. Of course, like as not he wouldn’t give it. That’s what I really hold against him. If you’re going to be corrupt, go the whole way. Half-measures only hurt. The sex was nothing. A man’s a man, girl. That’s why I chose to be gay. And for me it’s a choice; I could give it up any time I wanted. Joke?”
“Joke, Harry.”
“That’s my girl, that’s my Ludd. Jesus, one day I might stop all this and settle down and marry you.”
“I’m flattered, Harry.”
“Ned’s trouble was he was eaten up with envy. Couldn’t write, couldn’t act, couldn’t direct. Just loved theatre. And you, you could stand on your head and do it all. Envy’s a terrible thing.”
“I can see that it is, Harry. Got to go now.”
“I’ll put your more personal things into the small bedroom, shall I, Alexandra? And such bits of furniture as I think aren’t mine?”
Alexandra said if Chrissie didn’t go at once, she was calling the police. She, Alexandra, wanted proper documentation, proper consultation with her legal advisors, before any decision whatsoever could be made in relation to the property. She had her and Ned’s child to think about. Would Chrissie now just go? And how had Chrissie got in in the first place, anyway?
Chrissie said she had a key, she’d always had a key, she’d dreamt for years of using the key again and now she had. Alexandra was a marriage-breaker, a bitch, a cow, a slag; she’d ruined Chrissie’s life without a thought. Now it was her, Alexandra’s, turn.
But Chrissie went.
Alexandra waited for the locksmith to come and change the locks. Then she went to visit her mother.
25
IRENE PUT ALEXANDRA TO bed in a nice bright attic room with eaves, its own television, a bathroom with fluffy pink towels and a view of the golf course. She gave her daughter buttered toast and Marmite, hot chocolate and two sleeping pills. Sascha plodded up the stairs and climbed in beside his mother. She held him in her arms and went to sleep.
She slept for fifteen hours until Sascha woke her by prising her eyes apart. He told her about the eight kittens. She told him Ned had died, gone to heaven, gone for a walk in a forest to look for God. Sascha asked if they could have one of the kittens. Alexandra said no, dogs didn’t like kittens and kittens didn’t like dogs. Sascha said yes they did. Couldn’t they send Diamond to go for a walk with Ned in the forest and not come back like Ned? Alexandra said yes, that wasn’t such a bad idea. She found she’d quite gone off Diamond.
Then she thought of Jenny Linden’s marmalade cat and said she’d only have a kitten if it was a tabby. Sascha cried and stamped.
Alexandra looked at Sascha and thought he was very like Ned. Really he was a stranger to her. She found it difficult to believe they were intimately connected, in the way people said. The fact was, she seemed to have suddenly un-bonded with Sascha. She hadn’t known that this was possible.
She presumed it would pass. It would have to. In the meantime she could act, as she was trained to do. She would play loving mother.
“Poor little Sascha,” she said, “but never mind. We’ll see Daddy again in heaven.”
“I don’t want to,” said Sascha. “I want to stay here forever, with Gran and the orange kittens.”
“But don’t you want to go home and see The Cottage and Diamond and all your friends?”
“I don’t have any friends,” said Sascha. “They take my toys and you make me share and then they get broken.”
“There must be some grown-ups you like,” said Alexandra.
“I like Jenny,” said Sascha. “She gives me toffees in the morning. You never do. She keeps them under the pillow especially for me. Oops.”
“Oops, what?”
“I wasn’t to say. There’s ghosts under the bed. They keep bumping in the night.”
Alexandra left Sascha doing somersaults on the bed, shrieking for joy in a way which would make Social Workers shiver, and crying, “Watch me, watch me!” and went down to breakfast.
“I told him,” Alexandra said.
“How did he take it?” asked Irene. She wore a yellow tracksuit and had been out jogging. She was stirring honey into yoghurt. Her husband Abe, the banker, sat stolidly reading the Telegraph. They seemed a very happy couple.
“I’m not sure he took it in,” s
aid Alexandra.
Sascha came down and said, “Ned’s gone for a walk in a forest and he isn’t ever coming back, so I don’t have to go home. I can stay here. I don’t like Theresa. She’s too big.”
He went out into the garden.
“There’s no way,” said Abe, “that Sascha can go home with you now, not in the state you are.”
“What sort of state is that?” asked Alexandra.
“Bad,” said Irene. “Come back and collect him in a week, when you’re ready. We’re not trying to steal him from you.”
“I believe you,” said Alexandra. “I think.”
She drove back to The Cottage. She liked driving. She turned on the radio and thought of nothing. Then she heard a programme called Theatre in London Today and they were talking of Daisy Longriff’s performance in A Doll’s House. There was a discussion about Art and Nudity. Someone said it was like listening to Hamlet in Australian, and someone else said it was the most ravishing and intense performance he had ever seen. Someone said the theatre would be dark on Monday in remembrance of Ned Ludd, that Great Man of the Theatre, whose funeral was on that day: someone else said that was a rumour, to promote ticket sales. It was they said that Alexandra Ludd, probably the best serious female actor the country had, natural successor to Vanessa Redgrave et cetera, et cetera, was so prostrate with grief in their country home she might not be returning to the role. Well, thought Alexandra, now the bare-tits award goes to Daisy Longriff: I get to be serious. At last. But she didn’t think much. She switched to another programme. It was easier.
