by Angus Wilson
Kay, watching the gigantic form of her mother bearing down upon her, was filled with affection. Surely, she thought, no one could be irritated with the absurdities of someone so ingenuously kind and in love with life. Donald, seeing his wife's energy fading in the presence of her mother, felt all his hostility coming to the surface. He had resolved to be patient in face of the many difficult situations that he knew must arise during the Christmas visit, but, remembering previous years, he noted that he was unlikely to be able to keep his resolution.
Happily, perhaps, the worst of all such moments came immediately. Mrs Middleton took the baby from Kay and, looking at her daughter's withered hand, she said, 'No, liebchen, you will have to be content with your grandmother, poor little Mummy cannot manage the big elephant baby.'
Kay, catching a sidelong glance of her husband's face, said, 'Darling, it's wonderful. I'm just like the Vicar. I can't imagine how you've done it all.'
What Donald did not guess was that as soon as Mrs Middleton had alluded in this way to her daughter's deformity, she was overcome with shame. She could not love her daughter as she did her sons, but it was only when she felt cornered by life that she ever wished to be cruel to anyone. Today, despite Maurice Gardner, everything seemed to be giving way to her, and she felt very loving. 'Darling Kay, you look so pretty,' she said. It was something, at least, to have her daughter's praise.
But wishes gratified never occupied Mrs Middleton so completely as those as yet unfulfilled. 'Where can Johnnie be?' she asked. 'I knew it was a mistake for him to come with your father. Christmas is not a time for Daimlers and chauffeurs. It is a simple time.'
'Christmas the season of the small owner-driver,' said Donald. But Mrs Middleton did not regard the things her son-in-law said. She knew that they tended to be 'bitter', but then she also knew that he was an orphan, and therefore she felt able to love him just the same.
Contrary to Ingeborg's expectations, refreshment only seemed to strengthen the determination of the audience to leave. She cajoled and cooed, but all to no avail; and, when she found even Miss Butterfield unwilling to return to the piano, she stood on the stairs, looming above the departing guests with a face so dead and empty that she might have been Brunhild in her long sleep. God had not answered her prayer, despite all her assurances, and, as always happened on such occasions, Mrs Middleton remembered that she was getting old and soon must die. 'Not even Robin, usually so faithful, can do this small thing for me. To be here on time.'
As it became increasingly clear that the performance she had been prepared to give would not be asked for, all her histrionic reserve drained away, and even her smooth, doll-like face seemed to crumple and grow grey. 'Goodbye, goodbye,' she called from the stairs in a monotonous, falling tone. 'No more singing - Merry Christmas.'
Donald even passed her on the stairs without receiving any comment. Coming back to the morning-room, where the maids were clearing away the dirty plates, he said to Kay, 'It looks like being a quieter Christmas than last year. Your mother seems less edgy.' Kay, however, when she went out into the hall, was immediately anxious. If she did not fan her mother's energy until John's coming revived the fire, they would be in for a Christmas Day far worse than she had feared.
'Darling,' she called, 'Donald's spoken to Robin about doing something with the firm and it seems there's a most interesting job going for him giving lectures. He's already full of ideas.' She put her arm round her mother's corseted waist. 'It was a wonderful idea of yours, as usual. I really think he may be able to help Robin, and it'll take his mind off things until the next lot of vacancies comes up. He just couldn't go on with his book and I was really frightened for him. And now, thanks to you,' she leaned across and kissed her mother very gently on the cheek, 'thanks to you, everybody's happy again.' Why do I have to do it? she wondered. What am I so frightened of?
Mrs Middleton stirred very slightly, as though from a very far distance a faint sound had broken her immortal sleep. 'That is good,' she said, but she could indeed only see her daughter through a deep fog of all the injustices life had brought to her. She was old and tired and Gerald would arrive full of the energy of his selfish life; it was too hard to bear.
'Don't mind me, darling! if you want a good cry,' said Kay, practised as an augur reading the entrails of chickens. 'You do too much for everybody.'
But at that moment the purr of the Daimler could be heard from the drive outside. Mrs Middleton, started into life, pounced on a small girl who was still struggling with her goloshes. 'Winnie,' she cried, 'all the others have gone, but you will stay and sing one little song for my son. We will sing together the Tannenbaum.'
Winnie, however, took one look at her hostess's face and was out of the front door before another word was spoken. Mrs Middleton, running after her, fell into John's arms.
'Thingy,' he cried, 'you mustn't come out into the bitter cold in that thin dress.'
'Johnnie,' she murmured, 'oh! Johnnie, you have missed all the little children and their singing.'
Larwood came in with the luggage and Gerald followed him with many parcels. 'You're here early,' he said to Kay.
'No, Daddy, you're late.' She was quite snappish.
Gerald did not notice her tone, he only saw her appearance in an old skirt and jumper and her hair scruffy and dead. More even than her marriage to Donald, it annoyed him that his daughter should let her looks run to seed in that sort of academic dowdiness. 'You've got powder on your skirt,' he said, and went into the morning-room. Seeing only Donald and the baby, he came out again. 'You didn't say you were going to have some sort of show or we'd have come earlier,' he remarked to his wife.
John looked up quite angrily. 'It was the carol-singing,' he said; 'we oughtn't to have been late.'
Gerald thought it useless to remind his son of the reasons. 'I'll get you a drink, Inge,' he said. It was the only contribution he could find to make to his wife after all these years of the children's management of her.
Only once did Mrs Middleton come to life again that evening. Christmas Eve supper was one of her special offerings to the family, the real Danish Christmas Eve dinner, but, unlike that held in Denmark, this was only a prelude to an English dinner on Christmas Day. This evening as usual they sat down to the Danish rice pudding followed by roast goose. Gerald dreaded the effects it would have on his digestion. 'I shan't eat much tonight, old dear,' he said, patting his wife's shoulder. 'I'm frightfully tired.'
Ingeborg put down her knife and fork and smiled at John and Kay. 'Papa doesn't change,' she said, winking at them in special intimacy. 'Even now he believes that he is tired when he is just hungry. Give your father a large piece of goose,' she said to Donald. 'There, Gerald, no one can have indigestion from my roast goose.'
But if Gerald was to be forcibly fed, what would be the reaction of Marie Hélène, about to receive the Sacrament? In her present mood, Ingeborg would have no mercy towards hunger-strikers. Donald was the first to think of this and was delighted, when his mother-in-law ordered food to be kept back for the late-comers, to be able to say, 'Not for Marie Hélène surely. I imagine she'll be going to Midnight Mass.'
It was soon apparent that Mrs Middleton was going to insist on the same scene that she played each Christmas. 'But, my dear Donald, why should you think she wishes to go to church with an empty tummy?' she laughed.
Donald was left by the others to argue the dogma of the Real Presence with her this year. After all, he had raised the subject.
'Very well,' Ingeborg said at last. 'If my daughter-in-law is this kind of cannibal. ... But Timothy will be very hungry, he grows so fast.'
'I expect, Thingy,' said John, coming to Donald's rescue, 'that Marie Hélène will be taking him with her.'
His mother smiled sweetly and shook her head. 'No, Johnnie, no,' she said, and laughed in rippling amusement. 'Midnight Mass is not for children.' Everyone felt that Marie Hélène was the person to sort that one out.
Inge received the 'wishing almond' in her
plate of rice pudding, but somehow it did not seem to placate her. 'What is the good of my wishing?' she cried. 'My wishes never come true.'
CHAPTER 4
JUST before they went to bed, Kay whispered to John and Robin, 'Mother's going to have a Grossmutter tomorrow.'
It was their childhood way of describing the moods of moralizing and intrigue that descended upon their mother when she felt frustrated and neglected. Her manner at such times became sweeter, more intimate as her fear of isolation became more desperate. Her children had decided that she inherited such reactions from their Bavarian grandmother with her Gemütlichkeit and her sense of persecution; this attribution to heredity at once exculpated her from all blame and made more excusable their own acquiescence in her demands. They had learned such acquiescence in childhood; their mother had been a great believer in such character-training. And, as nobody, except Inge, could remember their grandmother, it was not an explanation that could be contradicted.
As the day wore on, Mrs Middleton took her children aside one by one, and tried to reassure herself that no one and nothing came before herself in their feelings.
'Now, little Kay,' she said, 'I am going to show you how to make a real old-fashioned turkey soup. There is no need, you know, to have poor food because one is living on the little, tiny income that my poor Kay has.' She led her daughter into the vast kitchen, which, like everything else in her house, was equipped with the greatest modern simplicity at the greatest possible expense. It was the simplicity only that Mrs Middleton saw, she constantly exclaimed at the frittering and waste of more old-fashioned homes where large capital outlay had been less possible. 'And all that old-fashioned way of living is so unhygienic too,' she would say.
She dispersed the maids from their current tasks. 'Later!' she said. 'Now I am going to give Mrs Consett a cookery lesson. You see, Kay,' she continued, putting herbs into a little muslin bag, 'first the bouquet, so simple and so wholesome. But you are tired, my darling,' she said. 'Tired and sad. That is wrong. A young mother should look so happy. When you were all little babies I used to sing and dance all day. The English neighbours would say "That young Mrs Middleton's quite mad", and look down their noses - so! And then I would dance and sing all the more. It is not right that you should have to worry and save so.'
'But, darling,' said Kay, 'really we're not paupers. I get £980 a year from my shares in the firm and then there's what Donald earns with his articles.'
'Now, Kay,' said Ingeborg, 'that really makes me sad. It is bad when you feel ashamed and have to tell lies to your mother. I don't mind that Donald does not make any money. It is not always the fine people who make money. I am only sad for him. To have no work is bad for people, and for a little orphan boy ...' She left the horrible possibilities of this situation in the air.
'I don't think,' said Kay, laughing, 'that Donald feels unloved, if that's what you mean.'
'Oh, no!' cried her mother, 'you give him so much. But now there is baby.' She paused and went on with her soup-making lesson, then she said, 'Donald is a little shy with baby, I think. Perhaps he is a little frightened of this new stranger who has come to share his Kay with him.'
'He's just awkward,' said Kay.
'Oh, my dear, you need not tell me such things,' her mother laughed. 'I remember Gerald with little Johnnie. But Donald will be happier now that he has this work to do for Robin. I am so glad that I found this job for him. It will make him feel more a part of the family.'
'Mummy,' said Kay, 'you realize he will only do this lecturing for Robin until a university post comes along. He's not going to give up his academic career.'
'No, of course not,' said Mrs Middleton, 'but since your father did nothing for him in the university world, it was time that your silly old mother thought of something.'
'Oh! I think Daddy did his best, but it's not his subject and Donald's very bad at interviews.'
But Ingeborg had had enough, and, in addition, she had really become interested in the soup-making. She patted her daughter's cheek. 'Always so loyal to your father,' she said.
It was Robin's turn after luncheon. 'Where is Timothy?' Mrs Middleton asked, finding Robin alone in the drawing-room, when the others had gone to their rooms to sleep.
'Oh! he's gone off to read somewhere, I expect.'
'Robin,' said his mother, sitting down, 'why is Timothy so lonely?'
'Is he?' said Robin. 'I should have called him unsociable, that's all. Like me.'
Mrs Middleton laughed. 'People don't manage great businesses who are unsociable.'
'My dear mother, I assure you I run a mile from people unless I have to do business with them. There's nothing I hate more than entertaining. Thank God! some of the other directors like it so much.'
'But Marie Hélène,' asked his mother, 'does not feel like that? I have heard so much of her parties.'
'Oh, that's quite different,' said Robin; 'she doesn't have bores to the house. She collects all the writers and painters.'
Once again Mrs Middleton laughed. 'Oh, Robin. Fancy hearing you exaggerate! The practical man of the family. I'm sure your home is not as bad as that. The wife with her lions - her painters and writers - and the poor business husband, knowing nobody, upstairs alone. No, no, Robin, even I know enough of the American cinema to tell where you have got that picture.'
'Did I say I sat alone?' asked Robin gruffly. 'As a matter of fact, I thoroughly enjoy Marie Hélène's do's.'
Ingeborg got up and altered the position of some of the plants in her long, glass 'tropical garden'. The drawing-room, like the rest of the house, had the mark of Homes and Gardens but without any touch of chichi. It was a taste which Mrs Middleton had acquired some twenty years before its fashion in England. Her roots lay deep in Scandinavian and German 'modern' comfort. 'Do you like my new curtains, Robin?' she said, fingering the long crimson velvet hangings.
'Yes,' said Robin, and added with a smile, 'but I miss the old ones.'
Mrs Middleton, too, smiled. 'Men never like changes,' she said, 'but things wear out, Robin, even our dear old silver curtains.' Then, sitting down again, she said, 'But don't think I haven't noticed that you have changed the subject.' Robin looked genuinely puzzled. 'No, Robin, no,' she said, 'you know as well as I do that children are unhappy in loveless homes.'
'Now, look here,' said Robin; 'Marie Hélène and I are perfectly good friends.'
'Yes,' said Ingeborg, 'that I know. Oh, Robin!' she said, flinging one lovely arm towards him, 'you can't expect me to sit by and see it all happening again. Your father and I made such a mistake. We thought that love did not matter so long as we kept the home going. You know what that meant for you children. Do you think I don't remember it every hour of the day.'
Robin, touched, said, 'We were happy enough, my dear.'
'No, Robin, no! We should have got a divorce. Your father loved someone else and he did not have the courage of that love. To lack courage is not good. There was no reason, if we had been honest, why your father and I should not have been - what did you call it - good friends. But we were cowards, and now we are hardly even acquaintances. And every hour of the day, too, I remember that poor Dollie. She was not a bad woman, Robin, Dollie Stokesay, not even foolish. Do you think, Robin, that I can be happy to think that because of a mistaken idea, a stupid convention, that poor woman is now a hopeless drunkard?'
Robin saw nothing for it but direct opposition.' The Dollie in question,' he said, 'is quite unlikely to take to drink. She's a very lively, happy young woman.' As he said it, he saw Elvira's laziness and untidiness slipping into drunkenness.
'She is gay!' cried his mother. 'That is good. Youth has such great powers of recovery.'
'Mother,' said Robin, 'you must get this out of your head. Even if there were a hundred more good reasons for divorce than there are, it isn't possible. Marie Hélène is a Catholic.'
His mother stood over him, brushing his curly hair very lightly with her hand. 'Forgive me,' she said; 'it's so difficult, Ro
bin, for me to understand a religion that denies life. I am getting old, you know.' Then she walked across to the door and stopped to rearrange some chrysanthemums. 'I don't care so much for anything now except beautiful things,' she said, and smiled across at her son, clear blue eyes and head high, a Nordic Ceres. 'Is she beautiful, your Elvira?' she asked. 'I wish I could see this girl who has made my solemn Robin lose his head. But that would never do!' And with a sly little smile, like a little girl caught kissing, she had left the room before he could reply.
By tea-time Mrs Middleton felt restored enough to eat hot buttered scones and Christmas cake. 'Look, Johnnie,' she cried, pointing out of the window, 'even the sun refuses to be banished on Christmas Day. Will you not come for a little walk in the garden? I have put up the Christmas sheaf for the little birds as we do at home. Come and see what sort of Christmas the birds have enjoyed. A little walk will help to keep you slim,' she added. 'It needs it, my darling.' Only with John did she allow herself the intimacy of teasing.
As she came downstairs in her heavy fur coat and with a cyclamen silk scarf tied round her head, her complexion seemed restored to dollhood once more.
'Well, Thingy, what are you working round for?' John asked. His subjection to her lay on a deeper level of frankness than that of the other two.
Mrs Middleton smiled. 'I am too happy for "working round", Johnnie,' she said. 'Do you know it is now three times in two months that you have been down to see me. That is nice. At first, you know, I was so worried that you had resigned from Parliament. My dear father was thirty years a deputy in the Rigsdag and, like you, he was a good Social Democrat. That was fine, Johnnie, to stand for the clean, simple things in life, for a world of peace and good living for all. But now I am glad. You are like your grandfather, but you are also like me. We are very headstrong people, you and I. No whippings for us because we do not think what some party tells us. No,' and she stood for a moment, looking her favourite son in the eyes. 'I am proud of all my children, of course, but especially of my Benjamin. I will even have that awful television in my house so that I can watch him talking to people, helping them in their troubles. Only imagine, I was in the grocer's at Henley and I heard some woman say, "That John Middleton is a good man. We could do with more like him. ..." That's what I always knew people would say of you, Johnnie.' She stopped and bent down to pick up some of the purple-green hellebores. 'But I have a scheme. Yes! I would like you to come here for the summer, Johnnie.'
