Georgy Girl

by Margaret Forster

  Perhaps it was to keep Jos, but Meredith had never wanted to keep anyone as she had repeatedly told George. And anyway, she could probably have done that without getting herself pregnant. It was more likely just a whim she had, as egoistic and unthinking as all her whims. George tried to despise her, but it was hard. Meredith was so small and pale and cold.

  ‘I’m getting up,’ said Meredith. She stood up and took the shift off. George blushed furiously.

  ‘Must you?’ said Jos.

  ‘What? Good God, you’ve both seen me naked enough times.’ She got dressed as slowly and as provocatively as possible.

  ‘What time’s lunch, George?’

  ‘I’m going home,’ George said.

  ‘That’s a bloody dirty trick,’ said Meredith, angrily. ‘What do you expect me to do?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ George said lamely.

  ‘What are you apologizing for?’ said Jos furiously. ‘You’re not her cook or keeper. I can’t understand why you don’t throw her out.’

  ‘It’s my charm,’ said Meredith.

  George smiled.

  ‘You just encourage her,’ said Jos. ‘She’s going to be hell to be married to.’

  George took a bus half-way, then walked the rest through Kensington Gardens. It would make her late and that would infuriate her father, but her head ached and the strain of going straight home was too much to bear. The rain had almost stopped, but the March wind blew what remained in sharp gusts around her neck and legs. There was practically no one in the park, only a few children fishing hopelessly, and a coloured couple mooching along with nowhere to go and all the weight of the world on their shoulders.

  She reached the far gate and turned into the road. As usual, she’d gone too far to the right and ended up an extra fifteen minutes’ walk from the street that would bring her into the place where James lived. She strode briskly along, hands in pockets, her pony tail flapping limp and wet behind her. She overtook and passed a girl in a tightly belted shiny yellow raincoat who teetered along in high-heeled, black boots, clinging to a parasol of an umbrella. George snorted and pulled the collar of her black leather coat closer round her neck.

  ‘You’re late,’ said Ted. ‘The one day you choose to come to lunch you’re deliberately late. Why?’

  ‘I slept in,’ George said and sat down, still in her coat.

  ‘You were probably out half the night, though I can’t imagine who’d take you dressed like that. I hope you don’t think you’re going to eat your lunch dressed like that, because if so, you’re very much mistaken.’

  ‘I’ll leave if you like,’ George said, and got up.

  ‘Don’t upset your mother,’ said Ted, sharply.

  The lunch got under way with both of them stonily silent. Doris sighed often, and shot lugubrious, accusing glances at both of them.

  ‘What a crowd they had there today,’ she said, mournfully, after the soup was finished. ‘I’ve asked Mrs L. that often to tell me when she’s going to have a lot extra but she don’t take a blind bit of notice. If there’s not enough I catch it and if there’s too much she complains about the bills. She don’t know her own mind.’

  ‘Leave,’ said George.

  ‘Now George,’ her mother said, warningly. She waited nervously to see if George was going to continue, half hoping she would, then sighed when she didn’t. ‘I don’t know, I’m sure,’ she said, with an air of summing everything up.

  ‘The trouble with you,’ said Ted, cutting his meat viciously, ‘is that you don’t realize how lucky you are, and you never have done. Living rent free in this beautiful house, everything you could possibly want and nothing to worry about. You’d have known about it if I’d gone on being a two pound a week mechanic.’

  ‘Mechanics are well paid these days,’ said George, slyly.

  ‘You be quiet. You’re a fine one to talk – you’ve had everything money could buy from Mr James.’

  ‘Is there anything he couldn’t buy from you?’ said George suddenly.

  ‘No, and I’m proud to say it. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t give a fine gentleman like Mr James. Not that there’s anything he wants. He’s clever enough to have seen to that.’

  ‘Would you give him me?’ pressed George. ‘If he asked you to, and gave you £100, would you have me chopped into small pieces and presented to him?’

  Ted thumped the table and rose to his feet.

  ‘By God, I won’t have you mocking Mr James. I’ll thrash you if you talk like that again.’

  George tried to smile, but failed. Her father was standing over her shaking with a mixture of what she divined as anger and fear. He’d always been afraid. She wanted to ask him why he was frightened, to explain that James wasn’t the Almighty and didn’t need blood sacrifices. Maybe it was James’s actual humanity that frightened him – maybe he saw, as she jibed or mocked, that James was only a big, fat fool and that his whole life had been dedicated to a mere man and not someone unique. His failure as a man must stare him in the face, his repeated cowardice rise up and stick out its tongue at him.

  They finished lunch and Ted went out into the garden to weed. George helped her mother clear away and wash up. There wasn’t even the antagonism that existed in her relationship with her father to warm that with her mother. She was embarrassed when alone with her, and had either to resort to banter or prompt her to come out with one of the endless grumbles against the Leamingtons that forever trembled on her lips, so that she would use George only as a listener and require no reply. She was sorry for her mother, but she didn’t like her. She couldn’t like anyone so utterly spineless and abject. Her mother hadn’t even the excuse that her father had, because she hated James as much as Ted worshipped him. And she despised Ted. Her whole existence was a lesson in hypocrisy, hideously corroded with the bitter need for it over all those years.

  ‘Meredith’s getting married,’ George said. Her mother had met Meredith once when she’d made the big mistake of bringing her home to lunch. Meredith had sat in bored silence and smoked throughout the meal. ‘She’s having a baby,’ she added, without knowing why.

  ‘Well,’ was all Doris said. She seemed offended that George had told her. ‘I hope you’ll be careful I’m sure. Mr James would never forgive Ted if anything like that happened to you.’ George dried the gravy tureen tenderly.

  ‘Who’s the fellow then?’

  ‘He’s called Jos. I don’t know his surname.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he call himself Joseph properly?’ said Doris, crossly.

  ‘Why don’t you call me Georgina?’ said George.

  Doris ran the hot water tap full blast. ‘Your name’s nothing to do with me and you know it. It was your father and Mr James.’

  ‘You were my mother weren’t you? Why didn’t you say you didn’t want to call me after that bloated slob.’

  ‘George!’ Doris stood quite still, listening fearfully to see if Ted or anyone else had been near the kitchen. She had one hand pressed protectively to her aproned heart.

  ‘Oh, mother,’ said George wearily, ‘you’re worse than dad. You act as though James was somebody.’

  She wandered out into the garden where Ted was fiercely hoeing as though every weed that came up was a personal insult to James. She imagined herself saying, ‘Dad, James has asked me to be his mistress and I’ve decided to accept. We’re going to have a baby and call it Teddykins after you.’

  She turned away and shouted to her mother that she was going. It occurred to her, as she passed through the house, that James must be waiting for an answer. He was quite likely to turn up again and ask for one. She stood uncertainly in the hall, then went upstairs to her dancing room. It was cold and bare, and the light reflected from the mirrors was an ugly, grey sheen. She sat at the piano and thought about writing him a note. Absently, she tinkled a tune, then let her fingers run haywire up and down the keyboard, just making a noise and nothing more.

  She saw James in one of the mirrors before he spoke. He lo
oked like an inquisitor.

  ‘Your father said you’d just gone,’ said James sternly.

  ‘Did he now,’ said George lightly, ‘and what are you going to do about that – pull his fingernails out for telling a lie?’

  ‘Have you decided?’ asked James, heavily.

  ‘Come here,’ said George. He advanced ponderously across the room. She took him by the arm and faced the long mirror. ‘We’d better practise just in case,’ she said and started to goosestep to the wedding march, trying to drag James with her.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said and shook her off.

  ‘Yes, I am silly amn’t I? Silly-billy georgy-porgy.’ She twirled with small mincing steps round him. ‘Imagine I’m the sugarplum fairy,’ she said. ‘When I’m finished you can pick me up and put me in your big, red mouth and roll me round your fat tongue.’

  ‘Stop it!’ roared James.

  George stopped.

  ‘Got a cigarette?’ she said.

  ‘You carry on like a bloody half-wit,’ said James, giving her one. ‘I’m not in the mood.’

  You should have a set of traffic lights on your forehead – green for go-ahead, red for don’t trifle with me and amber – what could amber be for?’

  James puffed his cigar, impatiently. ‘You must have made up your mind by now,’ he said.

  George stared blankly at him. Somehow she found she hadn’t even thought about it much. Seeing him there, asking her, it made it something which had to be seriously considered. There was nothing else in the room except the two of them and the emptiness between the mirrors and it was three o’clock in the afternoon.

  She sat down again at the piano.

  ‘It’s so absurd, it embarrasses me,’ she said.

  ‘What’s absurd about it?’ said James. ‘I love you and I want to live with you.’

  George clicked her tongue in exasperation.

  ‘Can’t you see?’ she said, ‘look at us in that mirror. A fat, middle-aged man and a tall, ugly girl. We don’t know anything about love. It’s a stupid word to use.’

  ‘So if I was young and handsome, and you were pretty, it would be different?’

  ‘At least it wouldn’t be laughable or indecent.’ She paused. ‘You haven’t told me a single thing to show me why you should want to live with me. I’ve always been a joke to you. It’s a sort of perversion wanting me. I just can’t imagine it.’

  James heard her say ‘perversion’ with a feeling of guilt. It wasn’t that he wanted her to dress up as a nun and whip him, but there was an element of truth in the idea that his desire for George was slightly kinky. He’d hugged it to himself for years. There was something awful but fascinating in the thought that he could strip her naked and take her to bed. It amounted, he told himself, to a practically incestuous passion. But it wasn’t just the sexual side. George was a freak. She was odd, peculiar. She was so awkward and looked so terrible but from her eyes he’d read a challenge, daring anyone to think that this was really her.

  ‘Give it a try,’ he said.

  ‘Like a new toothpaste?’ said George. ‘Don’t you want to get to know me first, kind sir?’

  ‘I’ve known you all your life,’ protested James.

  ‘We’ve never been alone more than this ten minutes,’ said George. ‘You’ve never taken me out alone, or to the pictures, or even for a walk. You don’t know if you could stand an hour of my company and I don’t know if I could stand you.’

  ‘Well, that’s easy,’ said James. ‘Come on, we’ll go out now. Where do you want to go?’

  ‘If I went it would only be for one reason,’ said George. ‘I’ve got nothing to do. I’m bored. I haven’t a boyfriend and I’m lonely. I’d rather go out with you than go back to my flat.’

  ‘Understood,’ said James. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘We’ll drive somewhere first.’

  She followed him downstairs. Her father opened the car door for them both.

  ‘I’m taking George for a drive,’ James said, ‘she hadn’t gone after all.’

  ‘That’s very good of you Mr James,’ said Ted, looking at George hard to impress upon her that she must be on her best behaviour. He stood and waved as they drove off.

  ‘Doesn’t he make you sick?’ said George. She could say anything to James now. There was no point in even beginning this unless she made the most of it. ‘You can’t really be so stupid that you believe you’re as marvellous as he makes out.’

  ‘I wouldn’t pass too hasty a judgement on your father,’ said James.

  ‘Hasty! For God’s sake, I’ve only watched him crawling and kowtowing for twenty-seven years. Don’t you realize I’ve been brought up to think you a little tin god?’

  James smiled. ‘We’ll go to Richmond,’ he said.

  They stayed out the whole of the rest of the day, doing very little. James didn’t walk, he drove, so they drove through and round Richmond Park several times. He didn’t look to right or left, though he several times commented on the beauty of the scenery to George, as though he was getting some tremendous enjoyment out of it. After his invigorating country afternoon, James needed refreshment, so they went to an hotel outside Richmond and had tea. George was told to tuck in. Then James drove very fast back to London and they sat and drank in the American bar of the Savoy. It ended with a long meal in the grill room and brandy and coffee afterwards. At eleven, James took her home to her flat.

  When he stopped the car, George sat still, feeling stunned and vacant. She waited for him to kiss her with absolutely no emotion at all, and when he did she felt the usual excitement that she experienced when anyone kissed her, even in her dreams. She sat quite placidly while he kissed her again and his hands scrabbled around to find the openings in her leather coat. James was simple. He had no mind. He lived and slept and ate with utter conviction and he did nothing without economy of words and thought. There was nothing to get to know or appreciate.

  ‘Did you enjoy that?’ he said.

  ‘I enjoy anyone kissing me,’ George said. ‘I’m sex-starved.’

  ‘I meant the afternoon and evening. We were together almost eight hours. Does it prove we get on well? I probably wouldn’t be with you that long any normal day so that’s the most you’d ever get.’

  ‘I’ll let you know,’ said George, and got out of the car. James nodded. He was confident. She waited until the car had gone before she went in.

  Meredith was in bed, alone.

  ‘You feeling all right?’ said George.

  ‘If that’s meant to be sarcastic it’s appreciated,’ said Meredith. ‘I’m in bed, alone, and I feel lousy. Where have you been? You never go out on Sunday evening.’

  ‘Or any others,’ said George.

  ‘I kindly didn’t say that.’

  ‘Meredith, look at me. Am I really ugly?’

  ‘Aw, for Christ’s sake! I told you – I feel lousy. Do we have to go through that for the fifty-millionth time?’

  The mute plea in George’s big, long face made Meredith want to vomit and she’d vomited enough that day for other reasons. George was standing there in that terrible coat actually expecting her to indulge the usual self-pitying moans. She’d tried lying and telling her she was beautiful and unusual; she’d tried telling the truth. Now she simply ignored her.

  ‘George, for the last time,’ she said, ‘have some pride. You don’t go around in this life showing your feelings. It does no bloody good at all. You pretend even to yourself and then you feel better. Make me some coffee.’

  For a moment she thought George was going to burst into tears, as usual. She’d made, in many ways, a big mistake coming to live with George. Originally, she’d made the choice because she thought George looked as though she didn’t give a damn about herself and that was all Meredith demanded from people. By the time she’d discovered George lived in one big emotional mess all the time, she couldn’t do without her services as chief cook, bottle-washer and doormat.

 
; George didn’t cry this time. She made the coffee and brought it into the bedroom.

  ‘Don’t laugh,’ she said. ‘I’ve been out with a fella.’

  ‘It had to happen,’ said Meredith. She watched George closely. She wasn’t exactly flushed with excitement.

  ‘He wants me to live with him,’ George blurted out. Meredith put her coffee cup down carefully.

  ‘Actually, it isn’t a man, it’s a lobster,’ said George. ‘Big, red with shiny claws that he puts round you. He finds life difficult out of water and he wants me to feed him with shrimps and things. We mermaids are always getting requests like that.’

  ‘I can’t see your tail,’ said Meredith.

  ‘We’re not exactly stupid,’ said George, ‘we keep our tails hidden.’

  ‘Put the wireless on,’ said Meredith. Humouring George was exhausting. She would grow more and more fey and progressively less funny. ‘We’re getting married on Friday,’ she said, and went to sleep with Radio Luxembourg blaring and George doing a mermaid dance.

  George said they should have Peg, and the members of her best dancing class for bridesmaids. Peg would wear pink satin with roses in her hair and the children would be dressed as nymphs and form a guard of honour with garlands of flowers. She herself would be a page in knickerbocker shorts and wear a cocked hat.

  She seriously couldn’t bear the thought of Meredith and Jos getting married in their lunch hour in some seedy town hall. They must both invite their parents at least, and have a nice meal somewhere, if they really wouldn’t have a reception. It seemed to her very important that they should make an occasion of the marriage, if just to impress upon them what they were doing. Jos was half inclined to agree, but Meredith said in that case he could go and marry George and they could have their rotten pantomime.