by Weldon, Fay
And was not property theft? Had not Marx so described it? Neither of them, Wendy or Congo, had worked for its acquisition. Wealth had come to them: they had not earned it. You could not take objects beyond the grave, however valuable or beautiful: why should the dealers not have them, to make an honest or dishonest living as they chose? If the dealers didn’t get them, Sara and Tully Toffener would. Relatives were more dangerous and distressing by far than dealers ever were. Relatives traded love and hate, using possessions as both weapons and symbols: dealers merely traded.
What could the motive of the nightly visitors be, in so attacking him, so abusing him? That was the real problem. Did he deserve it? Was hell sending out its messengers? The visitors used language in a way Congo never had in all his life, thus persuading him the more of their reality.
‘Get that fridge thawed out, you fuck-head,’ the executioner would snarl, while Congo kicked and poked him away with the broom.
‘I got your false teeth in my pocket,’ jeered a Communard one day. ‘We’re stewing them up for food because we ain’t got nothing else. You fat bastards are starving us out.’ And he wormed, halfway between adder and human in his grey rags and red silk sash, over the oak floorboards, and caught and ripped the sash on a nail which had often bothered Congo, catching as it would on the dry skin of his old toes. It was the detail that so impressed. And Congo could swear he once heard Tinkerbell snipe, as she swung by, ‘I used a dildo on Wendy when you were asleep’, and as she swung back, ‘She loved it, darling, absolutely loved it. Filthy old thing!’
He tried to maintain a dignified silence, but sometimes it got to be too much.
‘Get out of here!’ he’d yell at them. ‘Who are you? What do you want? This is my home –’ but they didn’t seem to hear, as if he were the apparition, not they.
One night the executioner put the noose aside to sharpen a guillotine blade. Screech, screech. Congo’s ears hurt. An edge of the blade caught in the thin fabric and ripped it. The tear revealed a perfectly ordinary Chelsea street scene outside: the good Georgian houses of Lodestar Avenue, the decorated street lamps which the tourists loved; the headlights of occasional passing traffic. And Congo could hear the sheet ripping. There was no discernible difference between that reality and this. What was he to make of it? And when he looked out of the window he saw a row of Arabs squatting by the garden wall, staring up at him reproachfully. They seemed hungry. What was Congo meant to do about it? There was no food in the house, only ice and vodka. The whole world was needy: in old age especially, the rich as well as the poor.
Anyway, this was the scene I envisaged, on the strength of one phone call from Tully Toffener. I had no understanding at the time of how later it would relate to my own affairs. It is strange how these things happen. The scenes that stay in your mind for years, for no apparent reason, can later turn out to have great relevance to your life. A passing meeting with a stranger by the lake: lake and stranger engraved into your memory, though you can’t imagine why: the stranger turns out to be your future husband’s brother; the lake where your best friend inherits a house, so you come to know both well. The examples of portent are so often trivial and gossipy; it’s as if, in the Platonic sense, they were mere shadows of Portent itself. But I digress.
Congo had to sleep, that was the trouble. God alone knows what goes on while you sleep and in the end everyone has to sleep.
If I understand the culture of the aboriginals correctly, human beings are the mere result of dingoes dreaming in the dreamtime, before the power of those dreams made the world take actual form. Well, that figures. Dreamt up by a dingo. I can deal with that. And at least for a time I was out of my own predicament, and into Congo’s, and learning to despise and dislike Tully, as well as Anthea. Spread outrage more thinly, and it’s easier to swallow.
2
The Wicked And The Good
‘Congo sees things,’ Tully Toffener repeated disingenuously to Brian. ‘He needs to be shut away for his own good. So does the old woman, before he manages to kill her off. Because that’s what he’s up to. And it gets up my nose. Not that I have a vested interest in keeping the old girl alive, on the contrary, but why should Congo Warby get away with it?’
‘Get away with what?’ asked Brian Moss, cautiously, in his soft, lawyer’s voice. He always spoke slowly, the better to wrong-foot both client and opposition should need arise. His mind moved quickly enough. Three thoughts for every one word.
‘Robbing my wife Sara,’ said Tully Toffener, ‘of her rightful inheritance.’
‘How is Mr Warby doing that?’ asked Brian Moss, as if he really wanted to know. Oh, he was good!
‘If the old bitch hadn’t remarried,’ said Tully, ‘Sara would have stood to inherit the tenancy of Lodestar House. Wendy’s her grandmother, her mother’s mother. Sara’s the only living relative. I mean to fight it, you know.’
Brian Moss allowed himself to sound puzzled.
‘But Congo Warby is the husband,’ he said, ‘and in residence, and your wife and yourself are adequately housed. More than adequately, if I may say so. I am not sure that you have much of a claim.’
‘Warby only married Wendy to get his hands on the Lodestar Avenue property,’ said Tully. ‘Everyone knows Wendy was in her dotage even then and that was twenty-eight years ago. I don’t see why Sara and I should be doomed to live in second class accommodation when Lodestar’s ours by right. Look, I’m calling from the House. I’ve got to get back to a Division in a mo: it’s a three-line-whip.’
Tully Toffener lived at a perfectly good address in Livermore Gate, W8. His round figure and bald pate appealed to the cartoonists; his whiny voice made him sound both earnest and honest; his clamping jaw intimidated: he had a full soft lower lip, very bright and pink.
‘What I was trying to say, Brian,’ said Tully, more reasonably, ‘is that when Sara goes round to see Wendy, Congo won’t let her in. He’s barricaded the place. He won’t even open the door to the social workers. They’re only trying to earn their living, poor bitches. Sara’s worried stiff about her Gran. The only people Congo lets in are the vermin, by whom I mean the dealers. They’re allowed to run in and out like mice, you bet they are, dragging the goodies away. You’ve got to do something.’
‘No one is by law required to answer the door to anyone,’ said Brian Moss temperately. ‘And we have no evidence that either of the parties is mad, bad or a danger to themselves or others.’
‘They’re a fucking danger to me,’ shouted Tully Toffener. ‘They’re disposing of my wife’s inheritance. Don’t give me that shit about old people not being paper parcels, having a will and rights of their own. If I had my way, everyone in this country over eighty would be tied up with string like the parcels they are, and put out of their misery. Get this pathetic old couple certified. Lock them up where they can be properly looked after. Get me power of attorney, Brian. There’s the division bell.’ And the phone clicked down.
Brian Moss turned to Jelly and said, ‘Human nature is a remarkable thing.’ As if Jelly didn’t know.
And Brian told Jelly what she knew already, for anyone can read the legal column in The Times, but Brian loved imparting information, about the shocking new legislation under which long-term tenants could buy the property in which they lived, at the price the property would have fetched at the time the tenancy began. ‘The old woman’s a socialist; she doesn’t believe in owning property. Drives Tully mad.’
‘What happens if she just does nothing?’ asked Jelly.
‘The property reverts to whoever owns it,’ said Brian.
‘And the opportunity of making a million or so simply vanishes. These days the law punishes non-activity when it comes to the possibility of making money for nothing.’
‘So, what will you do?’ I asked.
‘Tully’s the client,’ said Brian Moss cheerfully. ‘Ethically, my duty is to look after his interests. So I’ll do what I can to get the old folk out of their home. I’ll try and get Sara p
ower of attorney so she can take over the tenancy, sell the property at a vast profit and inherit the money. The place is falling down, anyway. Gloomy old house. It needs to be developed. The future has to sweep away the past, sooner or later.’
It was becoming clear to Jelly that Brian Moss had the ethics of a buck rabbit. He was all too likely to screw her, in both senses of the word, with a clear conscience, as man and employer. Nor would he see either way as mutually exclusive. She was prepared to put up with it. She had an interesting and comparatively well-paid job, and had to earn a living somehow, though she had been advised by Barney Evans not to let it be known just how capable of doing such a thing Lady Rice was. Women claiming alimony must present themselves in two different ways at the same time, said Barney Evans, as hopelessly incompetent yet with expensive tastes. If a woman shows herself to be strong, independent and practical, she will be penalised. The less she can manage on, the less she will be given. The law, while preaching gender equality, favours the old tradition: that women are mythical creatures who can’t live without a new hat and who scream at the sight of a mouse. The more a woman conforms to this archetype, the better a judge will look after her.
Property disputes are almost a relief after the tangled distresses of matrimonial cases. The ‘different perspective’ of the different and differing parties in all kinds of litigation is to me, as it is to Brian Moss, a source of perpetual wonderment. If Toffener and Warby fight over property, it is because there is no space in our society left for fisticuffs, for physical confrontation, and so the law has to do it for us, metaphorically. But Rice v. Rice, matrimonial, is war against the self, and there can be no real victory in it on either side.
‘Except I suppose for Anthea,’ said Lady Rice to Jelly one evening, ‘horse-faced bitch; running her fingers up and down my husband’s spine, taking away what’s mine by right. What is this preoccupation of yours with Tully Toffener?’
‘I don’t like him,’ said Jelly, childlike, as if disliking justified everything. As happens with so many not very likeable to themselves, she spent a good deal of time disliking others. Lady Rice liked most people but, as she kept saying, to bored looks from such friends as she still had, ‘Much good has it ever done me.’
‘Let her get on with it,’ advised Angelica. ‘Jelly’s obsession with Tully seems to keep Angel away. We don’t really want any more of this Ram business or nights out on the tiles with strangers. Angel could get us all into real trouble. I’d encourage Jelly if I were you. Let her get on with Toffener v. Warby and Lodestar House.’
‘I’m a very insecure kind of person,’ lamented Lady Rice, with a rare flash of self-knowledge. ‘Really I have very little or no influence on anyone, not even myself. But I don’t like the way Jelly seems to be taking over. She’s competent but without imagination. Couldn’t you have a go, Angelica? I don’t suppose you like Tully Toffener either. Who does?’
3
Tully Toffener And His Powers
Tully Toffener sits on the Government Front Bench of the House of Commons, but only when his superiors don’t think it prudent to sit there themselves, when they don’t want to have to answer difficult questions. Then he acts as the Department’s spokesman. He is the one who takes the blame, carries the can. He is the one who gets hated. Tully it is who recommends, if only by proxy, that little old ladies should pay more for their heating, that the lame should be obliged to limp to the dole office, that the poor should drink the rain from heaven, not water from the taps. Yet at the same time Tully must profess to love the old, the lame, the poor. Tully is politically ambitious: he would not want his hypocrisies made public: he would not want his desire to euthanase all unfortunates made known. I might blackmail him.
Tully is quite attractive. His fleshy face has a well-fed glow; his eyes are bright and intelligent; he knows he is powerful, and so do the girls he meets at parties, on tap for his benefit and entertainment. I think he mostly goes home to his wife Sara, whom he loves, though perhaps not always. They have no children.
Once I took the nastiness of people like Tully for granted. Part of me still does. Part of me might even have agreed, just a little, with his views; that the rich deserve to be rich and happy, and that the poor deserve to be miserable. But I am changing. I am more censorious of the Tullys of this world than I used to be. I have joined the ranks of the persecuted. I have grown kinder in one way, crueller in another. It’s not so much, as Lady Rice says, that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned: it is that a woman scorned is thrust into hell and must work her way up out of it, and her antennae as to what is good and what is bad, and where hypocrisy lies, and who most deserves her sympathy, become sensitive and acute. And she might as well turn that to her advantage, says Lady Rice.
The guardians of our society have lost their way, says Angelica. The law refuses to condemn, our politicians need to be liked.
‘Leaders of the people by their counsel
Wise and eloquent in their instruction –’
Oh yes, oh yes. Tully Toffener, leader of the people. Brian Moss, eloquent in his instruction. Villains! Bastards! cries Angelica.
I am led, I am instructed, and it does me no good at all, says Lady Rice. Edwin loves Anthea; he no longer loves his wife. And when she remembers it she is all to pieces and different personae again. Anthea has stolen my husband from me, and she is so much lesser a person than I am. How can he possibly prefer her to me? My head hurts as the alter egos kick and writhe within it.
4
Welcome To Our Wonderful World
‘Wise and eloquent in thei-ei-eir in-struct-shun.’
My father made me sing soprano solo in Handel’s Messiah before the days of my defection to rock ’n’ roll. How easy admiration and adoration once seemed, before we realised men were merely men, not heroes; before we got to see our leaders on TV.
‘Welcome to the club,’ as the experienced divorcees say to the new arrival. ‘Welcome to our wonderful world!’
What a wonderful world, as Disney says, Mickey Mouse gliding on liquid waters between faery parapets opening out on chubby kings and cute princesses, yellow curls and pink cheeks, and perhaps Prince Othello to keep us in officially correct countenance, with a gnarled tree or so and a witch for an enemy: between English hedges and Swiss mountains and Rhine castles and Mowgli jungles. Eskimos tend to get left out.
People in cold climates need their energies for survival: they need other humans if only for warmth: why argue, kill and render cold when the fun of doing that is as nothing compared to the enjoyment of just being warm: of touching another person and knowing they’re part of the living world, not the dead? The difficulty is that the chilly folk don’t have the energy of the warmer folk, let alone the time left over, after the demands of survival have been met, to weave cute costumes and develop intricate dances. In the realer world – I don’t say ‘real’, notice, these things are all comparative – in the realer world out there, in the arctic wastes, a stamp or two on the ground to bring a seal to its airhole will do for a dance, and the greatest kindness is to offer your wife to a passing stranger.
Does the wife say to the husband over the seal-stew meal, ‘Nudge, nudge, he’ll do’? An unwilling wife wouldn’t be much fun for the stranger. What are the divorce laws like in the far tribal Arctic? Does adultery count? What does alimony consist of there? Do they have their own equivalent of Catterwall & Moss? Does a calm, handsome Brian lookalike offer his tissues to the chilly, lonely, weeping, un-velcroing men and women of the Arctic wastes? Men weep, too.
‘Welcome to the club!’ as the velcro rips and tears. ‘Welcome to our wonderful world. Divorcees unite; you have nothing to do now but compare notes.’
Unlike many a member of the club, I am not living in humiliating circumstances, but that is due to my cunning, not Edwin’s will.
‘Not a penny will she have from me,’ I heard him tell Brian Moss on the phone. He’d got fed up waiting for letters which never came. ‘Not a penny, the slut. She’ll h
ave to take me to Court before she gets a penny!’
This is the voice that once spoke lovingly, protectively.
It is sad for me to have to call The Claremont home, but I grant you it’s better by far than to live in a cardboard box. One must do without the world’s sympathy, it seems, damned by the standard of my accommodation, whilst attempting to save that world from self-destruct. The whole universe, willy nilly, has focused down on Catterwall & Moss, and its humble, legal assistant, Jelly White. Everything, everything, is at stake. Justice must be exacted, wrung out of the world like water out of a stone. It can be done.
5
No Grand-Daughter Of Mine
‘Is there anyone there?’ asked Sara Toffener to the closed and wormy door which faced her, and then murmured aloud, as memory dictated, the words of the Walter de la Mare poem:
‘“Is there anybody there?” said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor.’
She spoke the words as she would a charm. When Sara was little, her grandmother would give her two shillings for every poem she learned by heart. Sara had always favoured Walter de la Mare because his lines were so short. Still the door did not open. She took up the yard broom which stood, witch-like, by and beat upon the disintegrating wood: paint and dust flew everywhere. There were movements in the air behind her; a stirring of her hair. It was probably a bat; she would not be surprised at all if it were a vampire bat.
‘Bats in the belfry!’ she chanted, opening the letterbox, putting her lips to the rusty, metal-lined slit. ‘Bats in the belfry!’ Why not? Inside, they were all deaf as posts. They must be, or they would surely have opened to her knocking. In the end, people did.
