The Ex-Wives

by Deborah Moggach

  What had his Dad learned, from all his wives? How had he coped? He would like to see him, but by now a meeting would be so strange and artificial that he didn’t want to risk the terrible sense of loss such an encounter might cause. Maybe his father was disappointed in him because he was gay. But he didn’t even know that. Big things like that, let alone the little things. A whole universe of little things which, even if they met now, it would take a lifetime to bring up in conversation.

  Long, long ago his Dad used to visit. This was during the Pimlico period, when Quentin was little. When he lived above The Old Brown Mare. In retrospect, maybe his father only visited because it was a pub; maybe it was less to do with parental love than with the magnet pull of the booze. He and Ma had the most appalling rows. Then Terry, his stepdad, would storm across from the Saloon Bar and throw his father out. The bellowings in the street! The shape behind the frosted glass, banging on the window! The fist, battering against the inlaid lettering, PUBLIC BAR written the wrong way round, RAB CILBUP. The bellowings fainter and fainter as the years passed.

  The visits petered out. As time went by, each meeting became a paler repetition of the one before, each one more indistinct until the image of his father almost faded away. Maybe his Dad felt the same, that Quentin gave less of himself each time, said less, until they were like two near-strangers exchanging small talk. Barely remembering, after the event, what the other person looked like. His Dad was like a rubber stamp which was never dipped in the ink pad. Stamp, stamp, each time fainter.

  Quentin sat down with his tagliatelle. What was he going to do for Christmas? Each year he dreaded it. Each year the friends his age dispersed to their families in Northumberland or Surrey; temporarily they became dutiful sons, people he would hardly recognize if he saw them, chaps who hadn’t brought home a girlfriend yet but there was plenty of time for that, wasn’t there dear? The men with whom he had lived, who were mostly older, had sometimes taken him somewhere hot, Morocco or somewhere, but this had often ended in tears.

  Sometimes there had been nobody at all in his life and he had simply gone home to his Mum. These Christmases, though cheery and alcoholic, had often ended in tears too. It never failed to amaze him that, considering she was such a simple woman, their relationship was so complicated. Had his Dad ever felt this? Being a son was a peculiar condition with its own network of snares and traps, but then, no doubt, being a husband was a peculiar condition too. He himself had been a sort of husband to Talbot, who had been rather female in his moods. He would like to discuss this with someone. His Ma wouldn’t understand. He adored her really, despite the tears, but she would take it personally; she wouldn’t understand.

  His Dad would. This year, for the first time, he didn’t just wonder: what will Buffy be doing? He always wondered that, briefly. This year he thought: wouldn’t it be interesting if we met?

  Christmas was a time of miracles. That was what Miles had been brought up to believe. Brenda believed in it too. Beneath the tree, in their little house near Swindon, the floor was spread with Ordnance Survey maps. She crouched there, muttering under her breath. How dumpy she was! Once he had considered her curvacious but his inner vocabulary had changed. Curvacious to dumpy, vivacious to wittering. It was the same thing, really, just lit from the other side. He wished he weren’t voicing this, even to himself. It was a terrible thing to put into words.

  ‘Framshill . . .’ Her stubby finger moved across the map. ‘Six-Mile Bottom . . .’ She looked up at him, her face flushed. ‘Gail thinks it’s in the Peak District but I’m keeping my trap shut.’

  A gold key. That’s what lay buried somewhere or other. The key to a trip of a lifetime, to a fortune, to happiness. Brenda didn’t look happy; she looked flustered. Already, all over Britain, people were tramping over ploughed fields. They were armed with torches; they went out after dark, when nobody could see them, to dig for the treasure.

  ‘Where’s Tiverton?’ she muttered. ‘Devon. Blast.’ She tapped her biro against her teeth. ‘What’s an anagram for sepia?’

  ‘Despair.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, there’s no town called Despair. Anyway, that’s got a d in it. And an r.’

  Celeste was spending the night with somebody. How did he know? Because she looked flushed and radiant – her actual features looked subtly different – and under her overall she wore the same sweater two days running. Because when he phoned her, first thing in the morning, there had been no reply. When questioned she had shrugged her shoulders – assumed nonchalance, he knew it well – and said: ‘I must’ve just popped out to get some milk.’

  Red alert! Warning bells! Popping out always meant trouble. That airy, throw-away phrase, what betrayals it had concealed! Jacquetta just popping-out to the shops. Such housewifely diligence, how very uncharacteristic! Him running out to remind her to buy a bottle of soda and seeing her at the end of the street, in the public call box.

  He was sixty-one, with a lifetime of popping-outs behind him; he was something of an expert on the subject. He knew when a woman was having an affair, just as he knew when a woman was pregnant. He had heard the ping of the phone extension, that tiny chime at midnight. He had seen that closed, secret look on her face; that look a child has when they have got a forbidden sweet in their mouth and stop chewing when a grown-up comes into the room. Oh, the over-elaborate explanations of where they had been! (He should have smelt a rat with Penny’s trips, he had slipped up there.) The fact that they always seemed to be having a bath when he came home from work. The sudden and totally uncharacteristic acts of generosity – no you go, you’ll have a lovely time – and lunches in town with female ex-schoolfriends whose name he didn’t quite catch. The sudden alertness when the phone rang, like a fox stiffening at the sound of a hunting horn.

  Oh he could go on for ever, he could give master classes in it. And here it was, starting all over again. In the season of goodwill, too.

  Come and Behold Him, Born the King of Angels . . .

  Five days to go. In Blomfield Mansions, Buffy was sleeping. Down the road, in one of the large houses with ruched curtains, one of the houses he passed in his walks, Annabel lay sleeping too. Annabel, from the hotel room in Rye. He hadn’t met her since; indeed, he never would. But what did it matter now? Women he had touched; women he had wanted to touch. Women who had arrived too early or too late, just missed on the stairs, just missed at the bus-stop. Women he had just glimpsed in a swing door and dreamed about later, waking in the night damp with desire, with evaporating conversations. Who cared if it never happened, what was the difference? He was alone now, asleep, with his dog snoring beside him.

  While he lay dreaming, India and Nyange were emerging from the Subterranean Club. It was a smoky basement near the Charing Cross Road, its floor slippery with beer and flyers. They emerged, their eardrums singing. Downstairs the music thumped; muffled, now, like heartbeats.

  They met occasionally in the West End, when India finished work at the cinema. They were fond of each other; after all, they were sort of family.

  ‘Your Dad’s been very strange recently,’ said India.

  ‘Which dad?’

  ‘Your real one.’

  ‘Oh. Him.’

  ‘He’s obsessed with somebody half his age.’

  ‘Not with me though. Oh, no.’ Nyange tossed her head. ‘He hasn’t even come to see the show.’

  ‘How could he, when you’ve never told him about it?’ They stood at the stop, waiting for the night bus. ‘It’s up to you, too,’ said India.

  Men, passing, turned to stare at Nyange. She turned her head away. An empty Marks and Spencer’s carrier bag bowled along the pavement, its handles raised like arms. A gust of wind blew it into the air, up, up above the parked cars.

  ‘What’re you doing for Christmas?’ India asked.

  ‘Mum’s going to Kingston, but I can’t go because I’m working.’

  ‘Kingston’s not far.’

  ‘Kingston Jamaica, peabrain. Visiting
the grandparents. Doing some consciousness-raising amongst the women. She’s really boringly political now.’

  ‘Go and see Buffy.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Nyange. ‘I haven’t seen him for years. Last time it was really depressing.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He smoked all through Christmas dinner.’

  ‘Perhaps he was nervous,’ said India.

  ‘Mum had to cook him pheasant, yuk. He bit on a shotgun pellet and cracked his tooth, blimey he made a fuss. We said poor little bird, it didn’t want to get shot. It would rather be flying round the woods and things, wouldn’t it? And then he gave half of it to his dog.’

  ‘Maybe you’d put him off. Maybe it was disgusting.’

  ‘Then his dog was sick on the carpet.’

  ‘Exactly.’ India’s bus hove into sight, its interior blazing with light. ‘Actually, I like him better than my real parents.’

  ‘That’s because he’s not your real parent,’ said Nyange.

  The bus slowed down. India rummaged for her purse. ‘It’s the season of forgiveness. Whatever your Mum’s been saying about him, all these years, that’s not to do with you. He’s in quite a state.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  The bus doors folded open with a hiss. ‘Come and have Christmas with us then,’ said India. She hugged her and stepped on the bus. ‘I wish you would. It’ll be much more fun if you’re there.’

  The doors closed, with a sigh. India sat down. The bus was empty. DO NOT SPEAK TO THE DRIVER, said the sign.

  As the bus carried her home, India dozed. She dreamed it was Buffy up there, sitting at the wheel. The bus wasn’t empty now, it was crammed with children and ex-wives. DO NOT SPEAK, it said, but they were all speaking at once, their voices deafening. They were shouting that he hadn’t a clue where he was going, he hadn’t passed his test and how could he take them home when he didn’t live there anymore?

  O Come, All Ye Faithful . . .

  Three days to go. When Buffy went into the shop, Celeste was on the phone. She muttered something into the receiver and put it down quickly.

  ‘Who was that?’ he asked, a pleasant smile stretching his lips.

  ‘Nobody.’

  He tried to rally. ‘Let me take you out tonight. The 39 Steps is on at the Everyman.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’ She reddened. ‘Sorry, I can’t.’ She stood behind the counter, gnawing her fingernail.

  ‘Know what Picasso said? One starts to get young at the age of sixty, and then it’s too late.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, smiling.

  He paused, then he said casually: ‘Would you believe, I don’t even know your address! What happens if I want to send round a little Christmas something?’

  ‘How lovely!’ She told him her address. ‘I’m up on the second floor.’

  When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even . . .

  Three days to go . . . but no snow lay. The weather was mild. The ground was soft, perfect for digging.

  In the dark, solitary figures toiled. The moonlight caught the flash of their spades. One on Dartmoor; one in a field just outside the glow of Basingstoke. All over England people were digging for treasure.

  In Bockhangar Wood, in deepest Kent, two figures were digging, side by side. They weren’t digging for treasure; they were planting, hoping for their own miracle.

  Last winter I went down to my native town, wrote Dr Johnson, where I found the streets much narrower and shorter than I thought I had left them, inhabited by a new race of people, to whom I was very little known. My playfellows were grown old, and forced me to suspect that I was no longer young.

  Added to that, thought Buffy, a drowsy numbness brought on by duplicity and drink. At his age it was hard to stay awake until the small hours. He managed to, until two in the morning. Then he went downstairs and hailed a cab.

  It was a tired-looking street. His darling angel lived here; his darling, treacherous angel. There was nobody about. He got out, telling the taxi-driver to wait, and crossed the road.

  There was a junk shop, at street level. Up above music thumped. Pink light glowed through a torn blind. But on the second floor, Celeste’s floor, the room was dark. The curtains hadn’t even been closed. Nobody was there. And by this time of the night, nobody would be.

  He stood there, shivering in his bedroom slippers. There was a note stuck with sellotape to the front door. Liam, I’m at Chog’s. Behind, the mutter-mutter of the taxi-engine. Mutter-mutter, cuckold-cuckold, that’ll be £3.50 squire, from Heathrow ho-ho, mutter-mutter, bit of a wally aren’t you? Always have been, eh?

  God rest ye merry gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay . . .

  The Three Fiddlers was festooned with streamers, the ceiling practically groaned with them. The lunchtime roar was swelling in volume; beside the fire the two old girls, Kitty and Una, were singing. Behind the bar the impossibly young Australian was wearing a Santa Claus hat.

  Buffy was having a drink with Celeste. Men leered at her – even more so with the new haircut. Oh, my God, did he look at her like that?

  ‘Who’re you seeing?’ he asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Buffy, I told you!’ She patted his knee. ‘He doesn’t exist.’

  ‘Is it Liam?’

  ‘Who’s Liam?’ she asked.

  ‘Or Chog?’

  ‘Who’re you talking about?’

  She got up and went out to the loo. Or was she making a phone call? While she was gone he rummaged inside the pockets of her coat. The things he had discovered, in his previous lives! Train tickets to Bristol Temple Meads; a screwed-up note, in unfamiliar writing, saying Bell broken, bang on door, xxx. No actual love letters, he had never slept with a woman that stupid.

  He pulled out her darling woollen gloves and a packet of Polos. He felt around in the bottom and pulled out some empty, earthy polythene bags and a plant tag. Cypripedium calceolus, it said. Lady’s Slipper Orchid.

  He bundled all the stuff back. Who was she having an affair with – a gardener? She returned.

  ‘I am coming for Christmas, aren’t I?’ he bleated.

  ‘Of course. I said so.’

  ‘I’ve bought the turkey.’ He had insisted on this. He hadn’t bought one for years; it made the whole thing seem more domestic – more possible, somehow.

  ‘I’ll come and fetch it on the morning,’ she said. ‘Then you can come to my flat. I’m cooking us all Christmas dinner.’

  ‘What do you mean, all?’

  She blushed. Whoops, a slip-up there. What was she envisaging, some ghastly show-down?

  ‘Who’re you talking about?’ he asked.

  She said: ‘I’ve got a lot of rabbits.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll tell you some day.’

  He put his arm around her. ‘Let’s have lunch tomorrow. It’s Christmas Eve. Let me take you out somewhere swish.’

  She stroked his knee, running her finger down the lines of the corduroy. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I’m getting off work early.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘One o’clock’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve got to go somewhere,’ she said.

  Twenty-nine

  CHRISTMAS EVE AND the streets were crammed. People were leaving, their cars piled with gifts. Better fill up now, no petrol tomorrow. People were going home, gathering in their children, battening down the hatches. People were rushing out making last minute forays – cranberry sauce, paper napkins. Oh, God, some Ferrero Rocher chocolates for Thingy. The rustling of wrapping paper behind closed doors, whispers, giggles. In heated rooms trees silently dropped their needles, and unwatched TVs announced that snow was forecast.

  It is not just what you wear, it’s the way you wear it. This was Buffy’s profession, of course. Still he was taking no chances. Shaving off the beard was the obvious thing but he couldn’t bear to do that. God knew how many chins lurked under there by no
w; that was one of the reasons he had grown it in the first place. But he wore a black trilby hat; he had purloined it, long ago, from the BBC costume department and nowadays he only wore it to visit his bank manager. He wore dark glasses. Christmas Eve had dawned cold but sunny too, so they didn’t look too ridiculous. He had wrapped a black scarf around his face; as he hid in the bushes, waiting, his hot breath breathed back into his face, dampening it with the condensation of his anxiety. His coat – well, Penny had given it to him, say no more. Charcoal-grey, satin-lined, from Aquascutum. Her sort of thing, like all her presents. One look at the coat and you could see why his marriage had failed. He hadn’t worn it for years; Celeste, of course, had never seen it.

  Through the sooty leaves he could see the corner shop. At one o’clock sharp Celeste emerged, putting on her coat. She called ‘Happy Christmas!’ as she closed the door and hurried into the Edgware Road, crossing when the green man was lit.

  His old heart was thumping. He sidled out, through the shrubbery. A bus was approaching. He crossed the road, saunteringly, like a stockbroker. Or was he a bit of a spiv, with the shades? Whatever, she didn’t notice because she had shuffled in, with the rest of the queue, and by the time he climbed in she had gone upstairs.

  She liked sitting on the top of buses. How painful it was, to remember her childish confidences now! He mustn’t think of that, it was too upsetting; he had to keep alert and keep in character. His skin tingled with the old actor’s adrenalin – it had been so long since he had done any proper work. Down here he was in a good position to see her leave. The woman next to him had a pile of parcels on her knee. ‘They all want those Nintendo things, don’t they?’ she said.