by Weldon, Fay
To which in their joint heart Angel replied, ‘Of course,’ Angelica replied ‘Presume away; I take leave to doubt it –’ and Jelly replied with some vehemence, ‘This is no more than bullying and harassment,’ but fortunately, their mouth being by this time occupied with Brian Moss’s engorged and twitching member, which mention of money always cheered up, they were not expected to respond. Jelly had lately developed quite a stutter. Brian Moss liked to believe it was his doing, that the girl’s mouth had become better adjusted to sex than to speech, and the three were content to let him believe this to be the case. Better that Brian Moss did not become aware that warring personalities battled for possession of his secretary’s mouth. Jobs were hard to find: should Rice v. Rice come to court and alimony not be granted, Lady Rice would need employment. These days jobs went to the ordinary, the reliable and the sane, not to the perforated and split.
‘Faster and further down,’ instructed Brian Moss. ‘Come along! Do you think I have all day to spare?’
He was impatient: she was at first inexperienced. He enjoyed his own masterfulness. ‘Not like that! For God’s sake! I have a client waiting.’
If Tully Toffener paced in the anteroom, annoyed by every wasted minute, why then all things would combine to please Brian Moss the more. But he would not take cinnamon in his coffee: he was nervous that the office cleaner would deduce his activities from his habits.
‘But what are you so nervous of?’ Angel would ask with Jelly’s mouth.
‘I love my wife. She would be so upset. I have to look after her,’ said Brian Moss, but the more he said it the more his penis twitched and required satisfaction, and seemed to have little connection with the man himself. ‘You’ve put a spell on me.’
‘Where are you going?’ Brian Moss would ask, adjusting his clothes when her task was done.
‘To the powder room,’ Jelly would say. ‘To wash my mouth.’
‘There isn’t time for any of that,’ Brian Moss would say. ‘Stay here and take notes.’ And she would, without further protest.
‘The relationship between male employer and female employee,’ Ajax once wrote in his notes, ‘contains a sexual element at the best of times: he controls, she submits: he makes the running, she follows after. He is dominant, she is submissive. Should the veiled eroticism become actual, it is only natural for the relationship to drift easily into her masochism. His power can only be her pleasure. If he forbids her to use the powder room when she wants to wash the scent and feel of him away, that’s that. She puts up with it. She stole his power, illegitimately: now she wants him to have it back.’
Lady Rice spent these office days in bed at The Claremont, sleeping, weeping, rocking in her sea of sorrow, or so it seemed to her: though any pursuing photographers could have tracked her physical being to Catterwall & Moss and snapped her well enough, and used the photograph as evidence of her bad character in a divorce case.
Lady Rice was interested enough to hear what Angel/Angelica/Jelly had to say about their day when they returned; they would talk her through it, but still she felt it was none of it very much to do with her. So long as they brought the body back safe and well, whatever else they did was nothing to do with her. It disappointed them, but there it was.
Angel said to Lady Rice, ‘I worry about you. You’re so disconnected. Not even sex can bring you back.’
To which Lady Rice replied, plaintively, dreamily, ‘For me sex is to do with love. Anything else is abhorrent to me. Try to grasp that I’m a domestic kind of creature; my aim is to be gracious. You are nothing to do with me. As for you, Angel, you are some kind of changeling, and I just wish you’d go away.’
Angelica complained to Lady Rice, taking her aside, ‘I wish you’d put a little effort into being in charge. You let Angel get away with everything. She has Jelly and me on our knees there in front of Brian Moss any time of the office day he chooses, and he’s a married man. Brian is right: supposing we get found out? I don’t want to make poor Oriole Moss miserable. Surely it’s possible to incorporate and control Angel?’
‘Angelica, I am prepared to recognise,’ replied Lady Rice. ‘I see you as myself before I married: active, picky, bright, kind, full of certainties. I take no real exception to you, except I find you hopelessly shallow. But Angel is no part of me. No. My best plan is just hang around and look the other way, so Angel gets bored and goes back to the internal whorehouse she comes from. It was lonelier before you girls appeared, but at least I knew who I was, even though it was me sleepwalking.’
Jelly said, ‘Hang on a minute, it’s only thanks to Angel that we’re in this relationship with Brian Moss at all. He’d have fired me long ago if I hadn’t obliged. And I gave up Ram the chauffeur on your say-so. His name is Rameses, by the way. He was conceived on a trip up the Nile. The poor guy’s broken-hearted, but at least drives me here and there free of charge. I know you don’t like me much, Lady Rice; you think I’m vulgar, common and greedy, lower-middle class, but you need me. I’m the one who earns the money and fills in the cheque stubs. None of you others would bother. And I think you should be in there as well when we service Brian Moss, not opting out, leaving the whole thing to us. And another thing, I don’t want too much said against Angel. Angel’s got guts, skill and experience, and giving blow jobs requires all three.’
‘Skill!’ jeered Lady Rice, but Jelly explained to her how the mouth could get tired, the neck could get cricked, the tongue get chafed if a girl wasn’t careful: how you had to keep your teeth out of the way, masked by the lips, but not forgotten; their existence providing an edge of danger and drama.
‘I think you should think about these things,’ said Jelly.
Lady Rice said she would rather not.
Angel said, ‘Talk, talk, talk, the lot of you. And you’re nuts, Jelly. Blow jobs don’t take skill, they just take instinct. And it’s a Below Job, anyway: Pidgin English; it’s what whores do; money the only reason they bother to do it. I’m getting bored with this hotel, with doing nothing. Brian Moss doesn’t count: I want some real action. Wait and see where I take you next.’
‘Where?’ Lady Rice, Jelly and Angelica asked nervously, but Angel just laughed and fastened her net stockings to the little bobbles which hung from the thongs of her lacy suspender belt.
‘I like the grip of the fabric round my waist,’ she said, ‘and the stretch of elastic down my thighs. I can’t stand the way you girls wear tights, just because they’re practical.’
Angelica and Jelly fell silent, allowing their wilful and drastic other self her head. Later, instead of sleeping, they all, including Lady Rice, accompanied Angel down to the bar and allowed her a triple gin, and a wink or two at an Italian couple who, being on holiday, seemed anxious for a third to join them in the bed. Angel had the knack of knowing who to wink at, and whose smiles best to respond to.
Lady Rice was so furious and miserable the next day that Angel promised to be good, on pain of Lady Rice taking an overdose of sleeping pills and putting an end to the lot of them. Jelly had to take a day off to recover from the excesses of the night, which also sobered Angel; as did Angelica’s complaint that the world of forbidden sex was too full of euphemism to be safe. ‘Joining a couple in bed,’ sounded cosy, white-sheeted, yawny and warm, but in fact turned out to be cold, unhygienic, and a matter of strippings, whips and manacles as the wife took her symbolic revenge on the husband’s notional mistresses over a decade and the husband reasserted his right to have them as, when and how he chose.
2
A Gust Of Chilly Wind
Una Musgrave answered Brian Moss’s advertisement. Like an answer to a prayer, like the wild gust of wind which arrives with the God, she appeared in Brian Moss’s front office. Jelly happened to be doing reception work: a replacement for Lois, who had handed in her notice. She was going at the end of the week.
‘Lois is in love with me,’ Brian Moss confided in Jelly. ‘I think she’s jealous of you. Remember when she pushed the door open –
and I’d thought it was locked –’
‘I think she’s underpaid and overworked,’ said Jelly tartly. ‘Nothing whatsoever to do with me.’
Brian Moss liked her to be tart: the sharper her tongue, the more pleasure he had in silencing it, the more intimate its flavour.
Be that as it may, there Jelly was, pale and demure with a triple set of pearls from Fenwicks and a nice pale pink cashmere sweater, half-price because of a single pulled thread which Lady Rice came out of retirement to attend to, a red pleated skirt, shoes a trifle battered but well polished (The Claremont’s overnight service) and sturdy tights; hair neat, an exceptionally clear complexion (Brian Moss swore that was his doing) and a buttery little mouth.
‘When suddenly the door opens,’ as Jelly described it to Angelica that evening, ‘and a wind blows in and papers fly everywhere, and my hair’s all over the place. Such a disturbance! I knew at once it was Una. She must be over sixty, but she’s one of those women who might be any age. Wide eyes, lots of bone and no wrinkles.’
‘Sounds like a facelift to me,’ murmured Angel, whom the others did sometimes still let out to make the servicing of Brian Moss more tolerable. But remained quite shaken and subdued, after what the three referred to as ‘The Italian Job’.
‘Don’t be so catty,’ said Jelly.
‘Hoo hoo hoo,’ said Angel. ‘If I didn’t think I’d get into trouble, I’d say you’d fallen in love with this Una.’
Lady Rice, looking in the mirror, found herself going quite pink.
‘How dare you say such a thing about poor Jelly,’ said Angelica. ‘We’ve none of us ever shown the slightest lesbian tendency. Heterosexual through and through, that’s us. Apologise at once, Angel.’
For once, Lady Rice initiated a statement:
‘Actually, I think I was far fonder of Susan than I ought to have been,’ she said. ‘That’s why I got so upset about all that business with Lambert and Edwin.’
‘Ought schmought,’ said Angel. ‘Where’s the ought in proclivity? Personally I don’t care what gender anyone is. Some people turn me on, some situations turn me on, and that’s it.’
‘You’re so crude,’ said Angelica. ‘Go away.’
The others agreed that was what they wanted. Angel went.
When her little sister had gone, Lady Rice said, ‘And actually I rather liked Anthea. She always had a kind of swagger. I admired her. I wanted her to accept me as her equal, but the best I ever got from her was her being sorry for me. I think the one I was jealous over was Anthea, not Edwin. I’d gone off Edwin ages back, if the truth is to be told. I’d have had a baby by him if I’d really loved him, I expect. The fact of the matter was, when I first met up with him, Edwin was a catch. Pop star marries into aristocracy; though a mean and shoddy sort of aristocracy it turned out to be, only after the main chance itself.’
‘Careful,’ said Jelly, ‘or you’ll lose your anger and if you lose anger, you might lose alimony. Practise saying it: “Every day in every way I’m more and more Edwin’s victim.”’
‘She’s not going to say that,’ said Angelica. ‘Mother hen just didn’t like hubby preferring Anthea to her; she was humiliated. Her feathers got all ruffled. Hell hath no fury, et cetera.’
‘Stop talking about me behind my back,’ said Lady Rice, and burst into tears. ‘Mother hen! That’s so cruel!’
So Jelly went on chattering to Angelica about the sudden appearance of the magical Una.
‘You’d trust this woman with your life,’ said Jelly. ‘She oozes self-confidence. She was wearing leather boots up to her thighs; you could see a stretch of black stocking before a pleated miniskirt began and, waist up, it was Fifties’ style: twinset and pearls and a turban. The pearls were real, tiny little uneven things. I thought for a moment she was a man in drag, but how could she be; she’s Sara’s mother. But it was a really stylish outfit, I can tell you.’
‘You’re beginning to think like a typist,’ complained Angelica, ‘as well as talk like one.’
‘Bitch, bitch, bitch,’ said Jelly. ‘What makes you so special? You’re just a trumped-up pop star. Fame for a day and never got over it! At least I know how to do a good day’s work.’
‘Can’t you talk in anything but clichés?’ demanded Angelica. ‘You’re driving me mad.’
‘Please stop this,’ begged Lady Rice, who was banging her head with her fists. ‘I’m getting such a headache. I feel so anxious. I’m going mad. I’m too ashamed to go back to work. How can I look Brian Moss in the eye? I’ll slash my wrists if you’re not careful. If I order a steak from Room Service, they’ll bring a steak knife and I can use that. This fruit knife’s much too blunt. Can’t we have Angel back? At least she makes a joke from time to time. With her we’ll get a social disease, but without her I’m suicidal and you two get murderous. I’m splitting. The perforations are ripping. I can’t control things any more. I thought the trauma was from outside, but it’s coming from inside. Somebody help me!’
‘Get Angel,’ said Angelica, urgently.
‘Get Angel,’ said Jelly, panicky. ‘Get her back now.’
Angel steadied and slowed the hand that was vainly trying to make the blunt knife, provided daily with a complimentary basket of fruit, slice through the skin of her wrists to draw blood.
‘Satan finds work for idle mouths to do,’ said Angel.
Angelica laughed, Jelly sniggered, Lady Rice stopped sawing away. It was magic.
Angel hitched up her skirt to see how her legs were doing. They were fuzzy with unshaven hair.
‘My God,’ said Angel. ‘You girls need me. I’m the most important part of us; why do you keep denying me?’
She made them go round the corner to the all-night beautician in Bond Street, and had her legs waxed in the old-fashioned way, with hot beeswax, smeared over the skin with a spatula, allowed to cool, and then ripped off. The process produced a smoother and more enduring finish than the lighter, less painful, quicker drying synthetic waxes now available.
3
A Mother Returns
Sara and Tully sat at either end of their polished mahogany table. The new maid, Nawal, brought in veal escalopes, mashed potatoes, carrots and peas. She was a plump and pretty girl from Iran. The Agency had relented and allowed Sara one more chance. Ayla had left, gone to kinder, steadier employers, claimed the Agency; further justification, if any were ever needed, of her employee’s delinquency. Nawal’s fingers on the vegetable bowl had left a grubby mark behind. Sara said nothing. Tully sniffed at the claret before pouring the wine from the full bottle into their bleakly sparkling glasses.
‘You don’t think she’s watered it?’ asked Sara, almost eagerly.
‘How could she?’ said Tully. ‘It’s full.’
‘She could have drunk some and then watered it,’ observed Sara. ‘If all the Cabinet are as trusting as you, Tully, I’m not surprised we’ve turned into a nation of scroungers. I suppose you do have to open it beforehand and then leave it? It always seems so unwise.’
‘It’s expensive wine,’ said Tully. ‘It has to air.’
They were neither of them in a good mood. Wendy’s death had made Tully surprisingly sad. He had lost an enemy, and that can be hard.
‘I was born in that house,’ said Sara. ‘Now it goes to a stranger.’ She bent over her escalope, forcing knife and fork into rubbery toughness; tears fell on to the hard coating of crumbs. Tully noticed.
‘You won’t need salt,’ he said tenderly. ‘That’s something.’
‘Wendy was the only family I had,’ said Sara. ‘Now I’ve got no one. I never even had a mother.’
‘You have me,’ said Tully, hurt.
‘I know, darling,’ she said. ‘We found each other.’
He moved from the far end of the table, taking knife, fork and plate with him, and sat close to his wife. Their knees touched.
‘We shouldn’t have waited for them to die,’ said Sara. ‘We should have moved into Lodestar and nursed them. I would have
done it. There were enough rooms there for everyone, but so dark and closed up it never occurred to me. I always imagined if I opened the wrong door bats would fly out and get into my hair.’
‘There are doors in the House of Commons like that,’ said Tully, darkly. ‘So many corridors, none of them understood: the same men scurrying down them through the centuries. Who’s dead, Tweedledums, who’s alive, Tweedledees, it’s hard to tell. Men with tight waistcoats.’ He tapped his own full belly affectionately. Sometimes they spoke like this: not often.
‘But nothing would do for you or me,’ said Sara, ‘but we pull the place down, start over, and make a fortune. And now we’re thwarted. It isn’t fair, but perhaps we deserve it.’
Sara gave up the struggle with the escalope. She had served her husband the better, more tender piece. Tully appreciated her gesture. With his superior skill, his greater dexterity, he cut up the meat on her plate as if she were a child. She ate, gratefully.
A blast of cold air filled the room and made the heavy, boring curtains shudder. Tully looked alarmed.
‘It’s only the front door opening,’ said Sara.
‘I didn’t hear the bell ring,’ said Tully.
‘Perhaps it’s the new girl letting in the burglars,’ said Sara, but they both just sat and waited, leaning into one another, overwhelmed by emotions which came strangely to them, and when Una strode into the room, that was how she saw them.
‘Well, well!’ said Una. ‘That’s better than I would ever have expected back then when you were five. You actually found a man who likes you, Sara.’
‘Mother!’ cried Sara.
4
A Sniff Of Skin
Jelly had gone to work with not just her legs but her crotch shaved, and invited Brian Moss to put his hand up her skirt, feel and admire. Brian Moss was reluctant so to do.
