by Weldon, Fay
But the Rice lawyers, summoned by Edwin, were clever: injunctions were served, Humphrey was given no time to recover: he was ejected from the home, Susan reinstalled, with little Roland back in her care, within six weeks. Clive and Natalie attempted a reconciliation but Natalie could not stop crying: not even Rosamund’s Prozac helped.
The upset had lost Susan her baby (though Mrs MacArthur claimed it was too much gin and a purposefully too hot bath that did it). Humphrey was blamed by nearly everyone for his insane jealousy, for murdering the child by upsetting the mother. No one blamed Susan. It was clear to everyone that Humphrey had driven Susan to infidelity. He was obviously unstable. Susan was too open, too innocent, too charming, too impetuous to have the marriage-breaking instincts which Natalie, Rosamund and Humphrey claimed she had; they regarded her as an obsessive hater of wives, rather than a lover of men. Natalie, on the contrary, was said by everyone, except Rosamund, to have a long history of infidelity, culminating in her current affair with a colleague at work. Clive was to be pitied, not blamed. If only Clive and Susan could get together. Possessive Natalie stood in the way of true love.
Before Susan left Rice Court, she said to Lady Rice, earnestly, ‘Don’t ever think Edwin isn’t safe with me: you are my friend, after all,’ but there was a look behind a look, a smile behind a smile which made Lady Rice then say to Edwin –
‘Did you and Susan ever –?’
And Edwin looked astonished and said, ‘Good heavens, Susan’s like some kind of sister to me. I’m very fond of her.’
Nevertheless, Edwin reported that encountering Humphrey in the street, Humphrey spat at him. Spat! In the circles in which Edwin had been reared, infidelities were commonplace, but no one spat. Lady Rice felt herself to be included in, indeed responsible for, Edwin’s distaste for the world his wife had created around him: people now scarcely worth the candle of his acquaintance.
And of course it didn’t stop there. Once sexual betrayal splits a community of apparently like minds, the evil’s never over. Households fall, writs fly, children and adults weep alike. Sometimes one could almost believe that if a war, an earthquake or a famine doesn’t come along and get in first, people will set out to destroy their own households, their own families, their own communities. As if we build only to break down, as if the human race can’t abide the boredom of happiness. As if truly the devil is in them. The fireworks of Bonfire Night are a burnt offering to the Gods of War, to appease them, but no one really wants those Gods appeased for long. Peace is boring, war is fun. Non-event is a terrible thing.
8
More
So there was Susan living righteously at Railway Cottage, the snows of winter past, the hollyhocks of summer beginning to burst into purples and mauves and pinks. She was beginning to look quite pink and healthy again, people said: she had recovered from the miscarriage, though not yet from what was seen as Humphrey’s mistreatment.
Susan herself said very little about the events of the past months, as if by ignoring them they would cease to exist. She lived quietly, though it was known that she had changed her solicitor and her doctor. She was divorcing Humphrey for unreasonable behaviour, and Humphrey had decided not to resist it, for Roland’s sake.
‘I suppose I should be grateful,’ was all Susan had to say, ‘but so typical of poor Humphrey! He has these passions but he can never persist in them. Of course he’s a Gemini. You never know which twin you’re kissing.’
It was obvious that Clive, so much and publicly in love with Susan, could hardly handle the legalities of the divorce; and apparently Dr Rosamund Plaidy no longer suited her as a medical advisor. Rosamund did rather gossip, Susan murmured to one or two friends, about her patients. And had not Rosamund treated her own husband for low spirits, and thus tipped him over into real depression? Had she not stood between Humphrey and the psychiatrists when it was obvious that Humphrey was raving? Was such behaviour ethical?
One day Natalie came across Clive weeping into his rose bushes when he should have been at work.
‘I suppose you’re weeping for love of Susan,’ observed Natalie.
‘I am,’ said Clive.
‘Not for the grief and trouble you’ve caused myself and the children, but for yourself? Because you’d rather be with her, not me?’
‘Yes,’ said Clive. ‘I wish it wasn’t true, but it is.’
‘You under-rate me,’ said Natalie. ‘You wait!’
Natalie went upstairs and threw Clive’s clothes and papers out of the windows, out of the house, into the garden, into the street. There went his school photographs, his early letters to Natalie, his secret porn videos, his cigarette lighters, his compact discs. Clive packed what was left of his belongings after Natalie had finished into cardboard boxes and put the boxes in the back of the car. The children watched. Daddy was leaving home. They were too stunned to cry. Natalie opened the bonnet of the car and took out plug leads and threw them into the brook which ran so prettily through the English country garden.
‘I want the car,’ she said. ‘It’s mine by right. I need it to take the children to school.’
Clive called a taxi, and left home in that. It had begun to rain. Taxi tyres drove the mementoes of a happier past further into mud. Later Natalie went out and retrieved what she could.
Clive went to Susan and said,
‘I know you don’t love me. But aren’t you lonely in Railway Cottage? You and little Roland need looking after. Let me move in with you. Please?’
‘No,’ said Susan.
‘But I love you,’ said Clive. ‘I’ve given everything up for you. Home, wife, family. All for you! I’m losing my clients; my business is failing. When you left me, so did others. You’re all I have!’
It was true that Clive was losing the confident, well-fed look a successful lawyer needs to have. His little moustache had turned grey.
‘Clive,’ chided Susan, ‘don’t be absurd! We had a certain rapprochement for a time. It was wonderful and I don’t regret it and I don’t want you to. But it wasn’t the stuff of which futures are made. Can’t you get back together with Natalie? I’m sure she loves you. It’s all such a great fuss about nothing. You have your children to think about.’ When Clive wouldn’t go, she became plaintive and reproachful. ‘Please don’t pester me like this. It’s thanks to you I’ve lost Humphrey. Poor little Roland has to make do without his father. I’ve been treated so badly and I’m behaving so well. I don’t know why I bother!’
Clive took a bedsitting room in town and hung about in the supermarket, hoping to catch sight of Susan. But Susan changed shops, and blamed Clive for that too. She had to pay more.
‘It’s really hard to take men with moustaches seriously!’ said Susan to Lady Rice, meeting her in the greengrocer’s. Sometimes boredom would drive Lady Rice to shop in the village. ‘Natalie is being so horrible to me: she just cut me dead in the street. It’s not my fault her husband’s the way he is about me. She ought to look after him better. I thought she was my friend but when it comes to it she’s as cold as the rest of you. You’d all rather have a grievance than a friend. Why doesn’t she just ask him back and be nice to him? He’d soon get over it. Women round here make such a fuss about this kind of thing. If I go to a party and Natalie’s there, Natalie just walks out. It’s kind of stupid of her: people will stop inviting her if she keeps making scenes.’
And Susan was of course right. Susan got asked out. Natalie didn’t. The wronged make depressing companions.
‘And Rosamund’s another one,’ said Susan. ‘She acts strangely towards me, too. It’s unprofessional of her.’
‘But you’re no longer her patient, Susan,’ said Lady Rice. Susan enthused over the quality and colour of local apples, and the greengrocer’s wife, with adoring eyes, offered her a bagful free. Susan accepted.
‘But you still are,’ said Susan, ‘and I am rather surprised. She’s such a gossip: all that silly stuff about your having an oestrogen implant, when we all know how much Edw
in wants a baby. Remember how he wept when I lost mine? You and Edwin were so good to me, I’ll never forget that. You’re like sister and brother to me. But Rosamund – why is she the way she is about me?’
‘I think she thinks Roland is Lambert’s,’ said Lady Rice.
Susan turned pale. The colour drained from her face. She looked quite gaunt and nearer forty than thirty. She left the shop. Lady Rice followed.
‘You will tell everyone that’s ridiculous,’ said Susan. ‘It’s obvious, just to look at him that he’s Humphrey’s. And he has all Humphrey’s talents and qualities. Poor Humphrey; he could be such a wonderful companion sometimes, but he just never understood what marriage entails. He can’t face any really close relationship. He’s emotionally crippled, like so many English men of his generation. But that leaves his genes okay, doesn’t it? So that’s what Lambert’s saying. Good Lord! Men get so obsessional, don’t they! And full of fantasies. They’ll always claim you’ve been to bed with them when you haven’t; actually what’s happened is they’ve tried but you said no. No wonder Rosamund is paranoid. It’s not just me, it’s you as well, Angelica. Well, I guess that’s solved. What a problem village life can be!’
And, quite recovered, she went on down the village street, basket over arm, strong stride, fair hair shining, exotic yet domestic; with all the confidence of her own goodness, likeability.
Lady Rice called in upon Rosamund. It seemed prudent. ‘You and Lambert? I never said any such thing,’ said Rosamund to Lady Rice. ‘Susan, or the Great Adulteress of Barley, as some call her, just enjoys stirring up mischief. Roland is indeed in all probability Lambert’s child, but Lambert has gone right off Susan since she had her affair with your husband. I’m not saying for one moment Susan actually did, just that Lambert, who is paranoid, believes she did, so what’s the difference?’
Lambert was back home again with Rosamund. Susan-damage, as Rosamund observed, had so far been restricted to three households, four children – two of hers, two of Natalie’s, and one baby, who never got born. The village had calmed: gossip was stilled. Rosamund was beginning to build up her medical practice again. When one patient goes, others do.
‘Angelica,’ said Rosamund, ‘I’m pregnant again. Don’t you think it’s time you and Edwin began?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Lady Rice quickly. Angelica might well have said yes, what a good idea. But the new Lady Rice found herself frightened of change, of sex, of pain, of swelling up, of sharing her body with another personality. As well grow a monster as a baby. Lady Rice was a little person, with narrow hips. Edwin was big. If the baby inherited Edwin’s size, how would it get out? These things hadn’t occurred to her before. Maternity, to Lady Rice in her discouraged state, seemed a very bad idea indeed.
How quickly time passed. Rice Court went on the Heritage brochure as a three-starred family outing.
‘Do come to Roland’s birthday party!’ said Susan to Sir Edwin and Lady Rice. He’ll be four on Saturday. I’ve asked Rosamund and Lambert to come. They can’t keep up this silly quarrel with me. I asked Humphrey but he won’t come. So uncivilised. You’d think, even if he can’t do it for my sake, he’d do it for his son’s, but no.’
Susan made the garden pretty for the party. It was her gift to make things pretty. Ropes of coloured lights twisted through the flower beds. Little iced cakes were prettily arranged; there was champagne. Susan had forgotten to provide additive-free fruit drinks for the children so they made do with water. Lady Rice observed to her husband that it didn’t seem so much a children’s party as one to celebrate Susan’s childhood.
‘You women are so catty about poor Susan,’ said Edwin. ‘You must have your scapegoat, I suppose.’
Rosamund declined to come to the party, though all those of note and influence in the neighbourhood did: it seemed ungenerous of her to stay away. Lambert came without his wife. He wore a shirt unbuttoned to the waist. A piece of string held his trousers up. His shoes were unlaced. But the disorder seemed born of triumph, not tragedy. His eyes sparkled. He was animated.
‘Are you okay, Lambert?’ asked Lady Rice, startled.
‘I’m more than okay,’ said Lambert. ‘I left home today.’ And he held Lady Rice by her two shoulders, and stared into her eyes. ‘Everyone deserves happiness.’
Everyone agreed that Rosamund tried to pressurise Lambert into respectability, made him look and act like a husband and father when actually he was a creative artist.
‘I’m never going back to Rosamund,’ said Lambert. ‘She’s destroying me. I’m moving in with Susan today. Susan can’t cope here on her own; she gets lonely and frightened.’
Susan was laughing and chattering amongst her guests. She held Roland’s hand. She had dressed him in the party attire of a hundred years ago – white broderie anglaise flounces, leggings, black patent-leather shoes. He was a quiet, passive child. Angelica didn’t think that much would frighten Susan, but she didn’t say so. Lambert would have his own view.
‘What about Rosamund?’ asked Angelica.
‘I want you to break this to her, Angelica,’ said Lambert. ‘You’re her friend. Rosamund will get over losing me very quickly, I promise you. She doesn’t like me; she just wants to own me. But Susan loves me.’
And indeed, when Susan looked at Lambert, her eyes did seem to soften, just a little. She came over now to stand next to him.
‘Wild man,’ Susan said, running her finger over his stubbly chin. ‘Wild man! Wild animal! I can see I’ll have to tame you, groom you a little.’
Lambert roared like a lion. People stared. Lambert was certainly livelier in Susan’s company than in Rosamund’s. Little Roland was frightened and cried. Susan squeezed the child’s hand to allay his fears. Perhaps she squeezed too hard because he cried louder. Lambert picked him up and tossed him in the air and caught him. ‘Don’t cry!’ he said. ‘Don’t cry. Daddy’s here!’ But the child just howled louder.
‘Don’t!’ said Susan. ‘You’re not his father!’ And such was the force of her protest that Lambert’s wildness drained. ‘Sorry,’ he said, quite mildly.
When Lady Rice had recovered a little, she trailed Lambert into the wooded area where once the railway track ran. Susan was attending to her guests.
‘Lambert,’ said Lady Rice, ‘what about your children? Had you thought? And isn’t Rosamund pregnant?’
‘When you speak to my wife,’ said Lambert, ‘tell her I advise her to get an abortion. That is if she thinks she can’t cope. It’s her decision. But really Rosamund can cope with anything. It’s a daunting prospect for a man. Susan’s such a feminine person – she can raise a real family. I’m going to make up for all the unhappiness of the past. I already have. Keep it a secret, Angelica, but Susan’s pregnant.’
‘Well,’ said Lady Rice, ‘I’m not going to tell Rosamund, and that’s that. Do it yourself.’
‘Hi, Lady Rice,’ said Jelly. ‘Let me introduce myself. My name is Jelly White. That might have been a rude thing to say but you have my total support. Indeed, you can hold me responsible for saying it.’
‘Are you okay?’ asked Lambert. They walked together back into the garden. Lambert held her elbow.
‘I thought I heard voices in my head,’ said Lady Rice. ‘I expect it’s the hot weather.’
Edwin came up and said, ‘You two seem to be having an intense conversation.’
Lady Rice said, boldly, ‘Don’t you “you two” me, Edwin.’
‘That’s right,’ said Jelly White. ‘Stand up to him!’
Lambert said, ‘For a gentleman you can be very ungentlemanly, Edwin.’
Edwin said, ‘You could make her pregnant too, only fortunately your wife’s made her sterile.’
Lambert said, ‘I never saw you as a family man, Edwin. Too many drugs. But you need an heir.’
Edwin said, ‘At least I have something to be inherited,’ but by that time Lady Rice, unaccustomed to such open hostility in a social setting, had fainted again. Lambert had tol
d Susan who had told Edwin. How else? It was too much.
English country garden flowers are tall: delphiniums, hollyhocks, lilies. Lady Rice simply fell amongst them, breaking blooms and stems. Shorter flowers might have survived better. Susan blamed Lady Rice for that, too: ruining the flowerbeds! Lady Rice felt so bad about the damage she’d done that she agreed to tell Rosamund that Lambert had left, having made Susan pregnant. The shock of the fall seemed to have blotted Jelly White out. There was no help there.
‘Four households and six children,’ was all Rosamund said. ‘Susan is doing well. Natalie and her two, add Humphrey and his one – or so he thought – me and my two, and another on the way. I shan’t go through with this pregnancy. Though I daresay Lambert will return when he has to change a nappy or put up with a tantrum. Susan is very bad with little children. She tends to smack them when no one’s looking. In the meantime, I have patients to see.’
Word got round. A few concerned voices were raised. The man in the Post Office refused to sell Susan a stamp and told her she was a marriage-breaking trollop. Edwin had a word with Robert Jellico about this and the man in the Post Office lost his job. He was told he was not sufficiently customer-friendly for the post. Now so many visitors came to Barley, to admire the church, the old village pump and the quaint country cottages, someone more up to date was needed. Susan was upset by the incident. ‘Why do people say unkind things about me?’ she asked. ‘The worst I’ve ever done is love not wisely but too well. Aren’t I meant to look after my own happiness? I can’t be responsible for other people’s, surely?’
