by Weldon, Fay
Annie reports a ring of flame and blackness and Driver speaking in Mavis’s voice and saying, ‘Run to the ends of the earth, run as far as you like, I’m still your mum: you’ll never get away,’ and in Alan’s voice saying, ‘Starve yourself to death, there’s no escape; you’re half your mum and half your dad, for ever and ever, that’s it,’ which left her shaken and upset.
And that Driver then took on Audrey’s face to moan and groan at Laura and gabble about original sin and how she was her father’s daughter and no amount of motherhood would cleanse her: and that when back in his own body, he capered about, baaing like a sheep and jeering at her, Annie, and prodding Carmen with a cloven hoof in a shiny leather shoe and telling her to stop praying to God because God was out to lunch and he was in charge: and how Carmen’s tears turned into diamonds as they fell upon Sir Bernard, and enraged him further. ‘Little Miss Frigid!’ yelled Driver. ‘I’m your dad and don’t you forget it; every girl’s dad, the spice in your life, the fork to your knife −’ and then he was talking to himself, first with Raelene’s face, then with Andy’s. Raelene was weeping and wailing about rape, and Andy saying she’d been asking for it.
He began to sound so ridiculous, so over the top, that she, Annie, began to laugh, and Laura laughed too. That calmed Driver. He said to Carmen, in a perfectly reasonable voice, ‘Shall we have a little self-interest here, Carmen? A young girl like you married to an old man like him. I’m off and he’ll fall to pieces without me: he’ll blow farts; his breath will stink; he’ll wear slippers and his trousers rolled. Bored? You’ll die! Five years on and you’ll look into someone else’s eyes, as sure as rotten eggs are rotten eggs, and I’ll be looking out of them. I’ll have your soul in the end. You were born for me and me alone.’
‘I love him,’ said Carmen.
‘Then let me have both your souls,’ he pleaded, ‘for my cassette shelf −’ – now why, Annie wanted me to tell her, was Driver suddenly talking about cassettes? − ‘then the two of you can be together, side by side, incorporated and consumed, for all eternity.’
‘No,’ said Carmen. ‘I’d rather live in real time.’
‘Boring, boring, boring,’ he shrieked and with a smell of singeing feathers he was gone, along with the ring of flame.
Bizarre, said Annie, but that’s what I recall.
But I dismiss this too as Annie’s fantasy; for all her staunch everydayness, I think she had indeed inherited some of Mavis’s capacity to read minds, though she always fought against it. She projected into Driver’s mouth all the things she knew but would rather not, and had picked out of people’s minds details she had no right to. And perhaps there was some slight hallucinogen in the air, from the heather that the contractor’s explosions had fired, because Laura had been affected too.
When reality re-established itself, nevertheless, Driver and the BMW were gone, simply gone, and the ambulance was there, and Sir Bernard was sitting up, his head on Carmen’s shoulder. The ambulance driver said, ‘I could have sworn he was a goner,’ and had to sit down himself.
Sir Bernard said, ‘Carmen, I have a shocking headache. What’s going on?’
‘You were stunned by a rock, I think,’ said Carmen. ‘But you’re okay now.’
‘What was I saying? I seem to remember becoming quite excited. I’m too old for this kind of caper.’
‘I expect you are,’ said Carmen.
‘You’ll have to keep my slippers warmed,’ he said. ‘Time to rest on my laurels.’
‘It is, my darling,’ she said, and her eyes seemed to slip sideways, but Driver was gone: she had chosen.
‘Remind me to fire the driver,’ said Sir Bernard to Carmen as they helped him into the ambulance. ‘If I can fire Mrs Haverill, I can fire him too. He really gets above himself. I’m perfectly capable of driving myself.’
‘Of course you are, Bernie,’ said Carmen, clambering in after him.
And the ambulance doors shut, and off Sir Bernard and Carmen drove into their future, and the contractor’s bulldozers roared down, Annie and Laura fled, and the great Eastern Scheme was underway once more.
22
Many of us, including me, though I had to use a stick, managed to cross the world to get to Annie’s wedding, which was a triumph, under brilliant skies, of helipads, marquees, Pavlova cakes and wonderful New Zealand wine. The white Chardonnay is superb: golden in the bottle, nectar to the tongue. The bride was slim, not bony, and sucked barley sugars before and after the ceremony. Her father gave her away: her mother wore a pink dress which became her very much, but was too like the one Mrs McLean was wearing for comfort. It was Mrs McLean who changed, into a pleasant blue outfit. Mavis and Alan were seriously contemplating a move to New Zealand. Mavis loved the bush − so quiet, dark and sinister, unspoiled. Laura and Woodie came with all the children − they too thought they’d stay, if the Government would have them. A wonderful place to bring up kids; and the pace of life would suit Woodie. Sir Bernard paid for their tickets: whatever Carmen asked, it seemed, he did. In the end they had been married secretly in the Bahamas − Sir Bernard had quite gone off PR since his accident − and presumably the wedding night went okay; at any rate Carmen was now pregnant. Annie was not sure whether she wanted children, though Tim said he’d like a little brood of kiwis some time. They went off to the Franz Joseph Glacier for their honeymoon. The returning party slept off the excitement and the Chardonnay while night turned to day, and day to night, with extraordinary rapidity outside the aircraft window. I kept the blind open, though I was meant to keep it down for the film, the better to see the Southern Cross, and the strange starry constellations of the other hemisphere. Cassiopeia, Betelgeuse, the Red Dwarf. I was not sure whether I would have time to study the stars and learn their names, now that I had to take my place in normal society. My disability allowance had ceased. I would have to find a job, or write a novel: something.
I would like to report that the Devil’s safe house burnt down: was razed to the ground as some desperate member of staff, out of control since the departure of Mrs Haverill, attempted to burn out the bed bugs. But it would not be true. Bellamy House still stands, and makes a decent profit, and nothing exciting or scandalous or remarkable seems to happen there. But then nothing exciting ever happens in Fenedge these days. A tradition has grown up that you must never insult the town aloud, or hope too vehemently to escape it, in case the Devil happens to be flying by, and overhears, and all hell breaks loose.
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First published in Great Britain in 1992 by HarperCollinsPublishers
This eBook first published in 2014 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Fay Weldon, 1992
Cover image © Sniegirova Mariia
The moral right of Fay Weldon to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (E) 9781781857991
Head of Zeus Ltd
Clerkenwell House
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London EC1R 0HT
www.headofzeus.com
Contents
Cover
Welcome Page<
br />
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Copyright
Sandra Harris—wife, astronomer (known for discovering the planet Athena), television phenomenon, and “professional searcher after truth”—has had an epiphany. She leaves her boring attorney husband and runs off with Mad Jack Stubbs, her trumpet-playing lover, and his groupie entourage, for a tour of Southern France. Pursued by her husband, Mad Jack’s wife, and the paparazzi, Sandra lives entirely for the moment—and great sex. In between, she ponders her past (institutionalized mother, Nazi war criminal father) while trying to ignore the deafening tick of her biological clock...
Table of Contents
Contents
Cover
Welcome Page
Epigraph
Chapter 1: Travelling South
Chapter 2: Details
Chapter 3: So Let Us Begin With – A Burst of Radioactivity
Chapter 4: Breakfast at the Hôtel de Ville
Chapter 5: Mother’s Got a Headache
Chapter 6: A Telephone Call
Chapter 7: Trying to Get Through
Chapter 8: Bringing to Life
Chapter 9: Scene in a Car Park
Chapter 10: A Summons from Afar
Chapter 11: Return of the Citronellas
Chapter 12: So, Starlady Sandra
Chapter 13: Breakfast Time
Chapter 14: Under the War Memorial
Chapter 15: Lying in the Shade
Chapter 16: Truth Being Stranger Than Fiction
Chapter 17: Chew You Up and Spit You Out
Chapter 18: Tell Me About Your Wife
Chapter 19: Where Will We Live?
Chapter 20: The Unclassed
Chapter 21: How’s Your Pains?
Chapter 22: A Certain Rhythm
Chapter 23: Highs and Lows
Chapter 24: A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight
Appendices
I: Alison’s Story: A Libation of Blood
II: Jennifer’s Story: Come On, Everyone!
III: Jude’s Story: GUP – or Falling in Love in Helsinki
Copyright
She was a good girl –
And I can never understand
Why did she fall for the
Leader of the Band?
Mrs Jack Hylton’s favourite song
1
Travelling South
I, Starlady Sandra, professional searcher after truth, rejector of fantasy, organiser of eternal laws into numerical form, confiner of cosmic events and swirling next-to-nothingness into detail not only comprehensible but communicable to a TV audience, was in flight from my own life, my own past, and the revenge of my friends.
I went south with the Band towards the sun and the gigs and the Folkloriques of summer France, rattling and sweating and leaning into Mad Jack the trumpet-player whenever I could, one leg numb with the effort of keeping myself on my seat while the minibus swerved and jerked and started and stopped; the other leg pressed into his, flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, and happy beyond wild dreams of happiness, drugged out of my mind with love, zonked out of my wits by sex.
Many are in flight, of course; take to their spiritual heels by way of drink or drugs, and sometimes come back and sometimes don’t, but I was off in body as well as mind: run, run, I cried to myself, and run, run I did, leaving home, husband, work behind me, deserting mid-sentence, mid-function, mid-programme, without due notice or warning, leaving others in a terrible fix. I was in love. And those I left behind counted for nothing, nothing: they were ridiculous in their insignificance: even the bruises on my neck where my husband tried to strangle me seemed no more than stigmata, self-generated. But of course, in reality, those I had offended failed to recognise their insignificance, and went on being the centre of their own lives, and came after me, furious, murderous.
Those who pursued me were:
My husband
My lover’s wife
The gutter press, the sidewalk papers.
The Producer of Sandra’s Sky, who was also –
My friend Jude, subject of a story I should not have written, as was
Alison, my erstwhile friend.
*Harpies
*Furies
*History: personal, political, national.
No escape for any of us, of course, from the three starred items above; we carry them with us in a cloud around our heads, products of our guilt, waste-matter of our fate. What we can’t help, what we could have – and how they belabour us, squawking, with their horrible claws and flapping wings, no matter how fast we run, how deep we bury our heads into unmentionable parts of other people’s anatomy. But I tried, I tried. For all our sakes, I tried. And this autobiographical novel is an account of how I tried, written a year after the events recorded. Autobiographical, I say, believing I have invented nothing, but how can I be sure, peer behind my own conviction? For the further back into the past I go the more wishful thinking clouds my memory: the more difficult it is to sort my way through the fog, stumbling against those blocks of recollection put forward by my ego in the interests of my self-esteem.
I went south with the Band in a Renault van designed to hold six in comfort but re-fitted in the interests of profit to hold ten in discomfort. And these and this is what the van contained:
The Band.
Rhythm section:
Pedro (33) guitar
Sandy (47) double bass
Hughie (26) drums
The Front Line:
Stevie (56) trombone
Karl (72) clarinet
Jack (44) trumpet. Oh, Jack, Mad Jack, leader of the band!
The Groupies.
Frances (15) Jack’s daughter
Jennifer (40) Sandy’s wife
Bente (23) Hughie’s girlfriend
and myself, Sandra Harris, Sandra Sorenson, Starlady Sandra, Sandra the lady astronomer, all terms apply. The Band knew me as Sandra Harris, secretary, and sometimes one or other would look puzzled and say ‘don’t I know you from somewhere?’ and I’d look vague and say ‘oh, I’ve been around the jazz scene a while’. Starlady Sandra, liar.
Sandy’s double bass took up one of the seats, and the van’s back door was blocked by Hughie’s drums, round which Karl had erected a kind of wooden frame, into which the other instruments, accoutrements, various stands and PA system could slot, but whose stability Hughie doubted, frequently, loudly and at length as we travelled, thus much offending ancient Karl; and there were boxes of wine in the aisle, and the bags and cases of those who did not want to risk getting them wet – for thunderstorms swirled across the wheatfields of France, through which we rocked and slithered, and the roof-rack tarpaulin flapped and fluttered and offered the luggage on top scarcely any protection at all – and Jennifer’s iceboxes and dustpans and emergency supplies blocked the side door, and grubby articles of clothing discarded as the storms stopped and the heat began littered what was left of the floor, and Christ knew what would have happened had we been in a collision. As Stevie, a tidy man, kept remarking: making Hughie laugh wildly and take his corners more dangerously. You know what young men are. Nor of course was there any air-conditioning – only a kind of blower, which, when switched on by the driver, blasted out hot air from beneath the stacked drums, and of course overheated and filled the vehicle with smoke and fumes and was so noisy that pleas from the back to switch it off went for a suffocating time unheard: until Hughie realised his drums were suffering and pulled into
a layby so abruptly the women squealed and the men shouted. And I was happy, pressed into Jack; and thus love makes fools of us.
2
Details
The van was the best the Band could afford. For the Band was no wealthier than the sum of its members. How could it be? Its sound was New Orleans Revival with a touch of folk: it was out of fashion and therefore out of pocket: it was glad enough often enough to play and sing for its supper and no more.
The name of the band was the Citronella Jumpers. Acid green stickers and posters covered the battered sides of the yellow van. ‘Revive with the revivers’, they begged, a mysterious enough message in its native England: incomprehensible here in France.
The gig was Karl’s. That is to say, he it was who had been approached to join the Festival, offered free accommodation and subsistence by Monsieur le Directeur, in return for entertaining the entertainers at the Folklorique of Blasimon-les-Ponts. Karl’s sister was Monsieur le Directeur’s aunt. Karl had a hearing aid: he was a Marxist, and had been to Eton. But Jack was musical director; Jack was leader of the Band. Jack chose the numbers, beat in the time, kept musical discipline – but it was Karl’s gig. That is to say, the moral responsibility for our being in France was Karl’s, and Karl’s alone. When things went wrong, Jack shrugged; I loved him the more for his insouciance. I, who was in the habit of organising, taking responsibility; who know that to make money you must spend money, who would in a trice have invested in a new van and reprinted the posters and required Monsieur le Directeur to pay for them, who would have written out a schedule daily and had the Festival Office xerox it free, so that all the Band met up at the same time at the same place; who would have consulted maps before we set out, thus saving at least five driving hours of our journey, who would have had in writing the terms of our contract and presented them to each of the Band and made sure all understood them before setting out; who would have ensured that our accommodation was not in a disused town hall twenty kilometres from the Festival centre, who would have named as drivers for the purposes of insurance the two Band members who drank least and not the two who drank most – I did none of these things. I shrugged like Jack and twined my limbs with his, and thought who cares? What has efficiency to do with music? Art and efficiency are at odds. The worse the Band was organised, the better the Band would play. Jack said so. Jack knew how to live. I could feel the life of his body in mine; how could I doubt it? Besides, I loved him.
