by Weldon, Fay
Every other year Mark would have to go off on a Presentation, or on a holiday cruise – for he was now account executive for a large travel agency and obliged to travel; journeys from which he would return pale with exhaustion and overwork and fretted by the company of capitalists and idiots. It was a pity that his promotion coincided with the nation’s economic recession, and that there was as little money as ever.
Time passed. Molly’s parents no longer seemed to loom so large in her life as once they had done, and she was obviously of as little importance as ever. Her mother’s complaints reeled faintly into the heavens, and faded into nothingness somewhere out there amongst the stars. Her father no longer even bothered to send her a card at Christmas. Molly, if they remembered her at all, was someone from long ago, a gawky girl full of promise who had long since come to nothing, lost in a suburban street in a world stuffed as full of students as a haystack with straw. Molly no longer minded.
Then all of a sudden she and Mark were forty, and the girls were nine, eight and six, and it was 20 June, the sun was passing from Gemini to Cancer, and three surprising things happened.
Mark gave her a video-cassette recorder for her birthday. ‘It must have cost hundreds!’ she breathed.
‘It’s from the office,’ he said. ‘All the executives have them now: even the junior ones like me. Well, there has to be some recompense for the life we lead. Some danger money for our souls!’ And he gave her a bunch of red roses as well, in love and gratitude. The real present. Molly gave Mark, that morning, a book on pond life – for she had built a pond in the garden with her own hands, digging out and cementing and lining, so that Mark could put tadpoles in it and grow frogs and feel nearer to the nature that he loved.
The second surprising thing was that Mark took the three girls to lunch at the office, so that she could have the day off, to do as she wanted. Wonderful! Well, he didn’t take them actually into the office – not wanting, he said, to subject beings as tender and true as his daughters to the sordid glare of commercial life – but at least out to lunch at a French restaurant nearby.
The third surprising thing, even more surprising to Mark than to Molly (for he tried to eject them when they turned up) was a party from the office, who arrived in drunken hilarity, in three taxis, with champagne, to wish Mark a happy fortieth birthday, just as Mark and Molly were setting off for their Chinese restaurant.
Molly was quite excited. A party! She remembered thoughts of silken shifts and glittery shoes and lovers’ glances across rooms, and realised how long it had been since they’d gone to a party, except up and down the street, where the dresses were Crimplene, the shoes came from Marks and Spencer and no one looked lovingly, except perhaps the man from the television rental, who seemed to eye her sometimes with a fleeting nod and wink.
The girls clambered out of bed, the baby-sitter accepted champagne from the tooth-mug, and a good time was had by all. Molly was amazed and gratified by how popular Mark seemed; how he underrates himself, she thought. And how well-heeled they look, she reflected, and imagined that perhaps they regarded her shabby home askance.
Yet how could they? Why should they? She and Mark had what they never could have. If they looked, it was with envy. The malefics fighting in the sky: Mars and Saturn.
They had brought Mark a tribute, they said. A cassette to mark his birthday, made by his colleagues, starring his colleagues. Mark protested, but champagne and bonhomie drowned his protests, and the cassette was slotted into the new video, with its green digital clock and the two dots beating, beating life and time away.
‘We made it in the TV Department,’ they cried. ‘Makes a change from blue films, any day.’
Molly shivered with shock. She could believe it of them, suddenly. Trendy, phoney people, after all, seeking amusement, pushing experience to its ultimate ends, coming slumming down in her nice homely house, intruding where they were not wanted, where they had not been asked. Blue films! And Mark had taken the girls near the place, and she had been glad, selfishly, wanting a day off, just one day.
And there they were on the film, staring at themselves out of the telly. Wouldn’t they be spoilt? Surely it was bad for them? Didn’t these people care? ‘Happy birthday, Daddy!’ Yet they seemed so sweet: hand in hand, little mid-cuspians, with their sturdy natures, and their afflicted fourth Houses. The House of the Home.
But what was wrong with their home? Nothing. Astrology must be wrong. A false trail.
Then came a tribute from Mark’s boss. The senior accounts executive. Red-faced, backed by a massive oil painting of ships at sea. He raised a glass to Mark. Was that the Boardroom? It was enormous. Mark’s boss was jovial and drunk.
‘Are we on camera? Yes? From one king newt to another,’ he said, ‘here’s wishing Mark may the next forty years be as lively as the last! The day he came on the Board was the day I should have handed in my notice, and I didn’t, and I haven’t looked back, or at any rate, up from under the table, ever since! I daren’t, because the Agency’s gone from strength to strength and he’s after my job. So here’s to you, Mark, and may all your tots be doubles!’
The Board? Mark drinking? Mark never drank at work. He said it gave him a headache. He suffered from headaches in the morning, quite badly sometimes. And was somnolent in the evenings. But then many office workers were. Paperwork is a great strain, and dealing with people, and exercising judgments, and in general taking responsibility.
‘Here’s wishing you many happy returns, Mark,’ said a gentle voice, and a simpering, willowy blonde bit her lip and stared out of the camera, ‘and this is the best present I can give you. Just a look.’ And she edged away a corner of her blouse until a portion of white breast showed, which she rapidly re-covered as the screen went blank and a great cheer went up from the audience.
‘Put it away, Wendy! Put it away!’
Now another woman: older and darker and cleverer by far on the screen. Sleek and cross.
‘Sod off, Mark,’ she said, ‘even if you are forty, you can’t expect pity from me. I may feel different by August, of course.’ And the screen went blank and cries of ‘Good for Stella!’ went up, and somebody screeched, ‘Stella always waits ’til the last minute before she changes her mind.’ And somebody else said, ‘But just don’t tell Amantha!’
Stella? Stella was supposed to have moved to another agency years ago. August? August was when Mark had to go on the bi-annual fact-finding cruise which bored him so. Molly looked over to where Mark leaned against the sideboard – bought eight years ago from the junk shop down the road. She thought he was avoiding her eyes. Well, of course he was.
He was smiling, slightly, a strange, far-away, rueful smile. He is Gemini, she thought, all Gemini. Which twin are you kissing? The one who loves you or the one who doesn’t? The one who needs you, or the one who keeps you in reserve? The one who comes home to you, the half-life, to rest while gathering strength for the real life, the true life, the office life: of girls and excitement and power and drink?
Someone else smiled from the screen, now. A restaurateur. French. You could tell from the beret and the menu on the blackboard. Steak au poivre: £14.50. No, that must be a joke. Surely. That was the price of the whole birthday once-a-year celebration Chinese meal.
‘Now from the lips of the man whom single-handed Mark has made rich,’ sang the commentator, half on screen, half off, for the cameraman seemed to be drunk too, ‘Monsieur Victor himself. Sing Happy Birthday, Monsieur Victor.’ Monsieur Victor shuffled and grinned and looked embarrassed and could not sing. ‘Please,’ begged the commentator, ‘to the greatest gourmet of them all, to Mark, the man who loves smoked halibut by the pound, and Chablis by the crate! To Mark, on his fortieth birthday!’ And the picture crumbled into confusion and laughter and suddenly a few of the guests were looking at Molly as if realising what they had done, and Molly was leaning against the wall, in the Indian kaftan she had ironed and loved and looked forward to, and which now seemed absurd.
&
nbsp; The television screen leapt into life again. Now it was a young man with a blond moustache, raising a glass and saying, ‘Until I met Mark I never knew that advertising and dirty weekends were synonymous, so happy birthday, Mark, king of the con-men,’ and someone abruptly switched off the set and the party evaporated with nervous smiles and cries of, ‘Surprise over,’ and Mark and Molly were left together, with Angela, Anthea and Bernice, up far beyond their bedtime, flinging their arms around their father, crying, ‘Happy birthday, Daddy! Happy birthday, Daddy dear. Oh, and Mummy too, of course!’
The School Run
You know what it’s like in the country. Too many roosters strutting round too many farmyards surrounded by adoring hens: too many bellowing bulls mounting too many grateful cows: too much soft-eyed female acquiescence and too much glittery male pride, too many females being chosen and males choosing to allow you to believe, as is possible in the city, that nature can be subdued and men and women made equal. The lesson from nature is too extreme to be ignored, and that, in my opinion, is why the villages hereabouts buzz with destructive scandal, and adultery, suicide, self-mutilation, incest, rape and murder are common occurrences, and cities are, by comparison, sane and peaceful places.
My name is Judith. I come from the city. I am thirty-four. My husband is ill with asthma, which is why we moved down here. We have two children, Colleen and Kieron. We live opposite Ranstrock Farm, in a nice little old sub-Georgian house, rather cheap because it’s near the main road. It’s a rather new road, carving through the Ranstrock acres. We tend to live in a cloud of pesticide but never mind: the meadows are wonderfully green and lush and fertile. My husband makes architectural models – you know, those miniatures of new hospitals, new schools, new urban centres and so on, which serve to get commissions for architects and go on display to soothe the local inhabitants when it’s obvious that change is neither wanted nor needed, but is going to happen.
(Round here I’m described as cynical and am not particularly welcome at the WI, because sometimes their cakes make me laugh. There is a certain Mrs Leaf, who uses at least a teaspoon of green colouring and at least a teaspoon of orange colouring in her icing, not a drop or two like other people, and when I start laughing, so does everyone else, which is half a relief, half terrifying, because once we start, when will we ever stop? Zen must come to Easter Dundon – our village – too, in the end. Nothing’s safe. We all know it, but they’d prefer to put it off for a bit, not welcome it, like me. So I get labelled cynical.)
My husband is what you would describe as a craftsman, and I am what you would describe as a craftsman’s wife.
Craftsmen’s wives are on the whole good-looking, stable and reasonable. We wear well. Our husbands, after all, are not indifferent to appearance and have an eye for quality, and a weakness for a bit of gloss. They are practical men: they know they will never be rich but will always be right, and choose accordingly. They are often overtly gentle men, with anger and envy running in strong torrents beneath. But they love and are loved and are usually faithful. Their wives develop strong and fairly idiosyncratic views of their own, a kind of inner fortress within the outer defences of the craftsman’s view of the world. Craftsmen tend to despise the world, because, being genuinely sensitive, they can’t quite cope with it.
Artists’ wives, if I may digress, have a far harder time. If your daughter must go to Art School, never let her do a Fine Art course. The young male artists are all waiting there to pounce, and pounce one will. Then watch her turn from some slim, bright, energetic girl into Saskia washing-up at Rembrandt’s sink, soft, plump-armed, doe-eyed, barefooted, serving the Artist who serves Art. Art is a convenient mistress for any man. He can drink, beat, steal, fornicate, commit any number of domestic cruelties and excesses in Her name. It’s expected. And when your artist has sucked his Saskia dry and turned the corners of her smiling mouth from up to down, he throws her out and, if he can, finds another plumper, less currently weepy one. The process can take years, and a handful of children.
Want to sleep? Your artist wants to wake. Want to work – no – his retrospective’s coming up. Want the baby? No – terminate! How can he paint if he can’t sleep? Don’t want a baby? Then you must have one – how can he live with the sterility you impose upon him? Want to eat? No, he wants to drink. And so must you, daughter, you must want what he wants, for you must serve Art too. But Art’s a faithless mistress; pity the Artist: he only uses you as he is used. Serve Her as he may, drink, batter, carouse, fornicate at Her bidding, she’ll turn her back in the end. Many, many are called, and few are chosen. Many have the symptoms of genius, but very few have the disease itself, and those that do probably look and behave like bank-clerks, and never even realised they were Artists.
(Bank-clerks as husbands are another story. I’ll tell it some time.)
Farmers’ wives – ah, farmers’ wives. Sandra Jephsen lives across the way in Ranstrock Farm. At the Carnival Party last year Geoffrey Jephsen, cock of his dungheap, swaggering young farmer, Sandra’s husband, owner of Ranstrock Farm and its three hundred acres, as was his father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather before him, let his eye light on me, and now I love him.
Sandra Jephsen has thin fair hair and a timid eye, fleshy legs and a gentle manner. A proper farmyard female, just right for Geoffrey, who glitters and glistens with male sweat and energy, and has muscles which move beneath the skin as if they had their own separate existence: as if it were they which made love, not he. I know that, I know all that; I don’t care.
What does he see in her, when he could have me? I have long slim legs and sharp brown eyes and look and feel a bit like Shirley MacLaine.
He didn’t want to marry her, he didn’t choose her. He married her because she was a Fenton and the Fenton Farm’s two hundred acres verge on to Ranstrock Farm, and that’s the way things are done round here: a Jephsen and a Fenton sacrificed, so that two half-acre fields can become one one-acre field and the ploughing made easier. The old order continues alongside the new. They have two pale little children, more Fenton than Jephsen. I’m surprised she managed to impose her genes upon them at all, she has so little will, so little energy. She knows about me: I know she does. We take our cars out at the same time each morning – on the school run. Our children go to the same school, five miles down the road. She looks at me with her sad, pale eyes and looks the other way and I know she knows, and I don’t care.
I let her go first, I drive behind her, rather too close. I like her to know I’m there. I know it’s cruel, but I don’t care about that either. I see her eyes in the mirror, looking back at me if she has to stop and I pull up just behind her. My father was an artist, my mother killed herself (at any rate she died when I was twelve; that’s how I interpret it. Suicide or second-hand murder). When he died last year there were two hundred canvases in the attic. He’d sold three when he was twenty-six, and nothing since. Nothing. Perhaps I inherit his cruelty? I burnt them all. I and my sister, we presided over the death of his life. It was a wonderful bonfire. Crackle crackle! My husband Roy was shocked. He doesn’t like to see anything die that lives. He doesn’t like to see Art, Craft’s big sister, insulted. I think he changed his view of me a little, then. But how can I tell what’s happening between him and me? It’s all one-way now, in any case. I love Geoffrey. I’ve forgotten Roy. I would drive whey-faced Sandra off the road, if I dared, which I so nearly do. Except for the children, in the cars; for this is the school run.
Five miles to school there and back in the morning, and the same again in the afternoon. That’s a hundred miles in a school week.
‘It’s crazy,’ says Roy. ‘Why don’t you and Sandra Jephsen get together and organise something?’
‘I like doing it,’ I say. She sometimes manages to elude me on the way home, but there I am in the morning, always, falling in just behind her. Well, the children do have to be at school on time. She’s not a bad driver.
They closed our village school at the beginni
ng of the year: it was either put the children on the school bus to Polydock Junior, which has a low reputation, or do the hundred weekly miles to Pennyham and back. How was I to know Sandra would choose Pennyham, too? I’m surprised she cares. I’m surprised she can tell a good school from a bad school. I can. I’m a real PTA type. Geoffrey says so.
Geoffrey said so, nuzzling my ear in the back of his Range Rover, my skirt rucked up and tearing, caught on the door handle, with the dogs snuffling and uneasy outside. It’s quick, sudden, farmyard and violent with Geoffrey, not slow and gentle and peaceful and reverential as it is with Roy. Roy talks to me while he makes love, admires my body, looks after my feelings, goes on patiently till I’m satisfied: Geoffrey doesn’t care about me, only about him. He loves me, in so far as he loves me, and while it lasts, for the sexual pleasure I give him. That’s all. Geoffrey says things like, ‘what a little slut you are,’ or, ‘if I were your husband I’d throw you out,’ or, if I say I have to go, because of the children, ‘what a real little Miss PTA you are!’ And then his teeth will nip my ear so I cry out and I don’t go until he’s finished, and the children wait at the school gate and I don’t care. I love him. Sandra Jephsen collects hers on time, poor thing.
Why does he want her, standing in his kitchen, mashing the potatoes for his supper with her pale suffering eyes? He could have me.
I wonder if Roy knows. I don’t care about that, either. He’d never have the courage to leave me. He loves me, he does what I say. He’s weak. He’s not strong. Geoffrey is strong, and so am I. Roy should have Sandra; I’m sure they’d suit each other.
Roy’s asthma is worse down here in the country, not better. I used to feel for his wheezing and gasping – now I despise it. I’m never ill. He’s half Geoffrey’s size; he is really quite a small man, now I look at him. Is it really a man’s job, to sit day after day gluing tiny scraps of wood together? And not even to his own design, but to someone else’s? He says that really he’s a cabinet-maker, but he can’t keep a family on that, so he has to do this. Compromise! I say I’d go out to work happily enough, even gratefully, but how would the children get to school? Roy doesn’t drive. He has one of those peculiar disabilities which mean if you see a large object coming – like a truck – you drive into it, not away from it. A disability driving instructors fear, for there is no curing it. Or so Roy says. I wonder. I wonder about all kinds of things, since my father died, since I started this affair with Geoffrey. No, I didn’t start it. Geoffrey did. We live in the country, after all, and the cock looks round the hens, and thinks, I’ll have that one this morning, that pretty little feathered thing; and so he does.
