Janice Gentle Gets Sexy

by Mavis Cheek

  They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,

  Love and desire and hate:

  He does not want to read it. Look where reading poetry got him last time.

  He thought he had done so well. The alien woman told him she thought so, too. She said, after it was all over and he had crawled back into bed, that he had dealt with the situation very sensitively, very correctly, very protectively of her feelings. Basking in the praise, and needing the comfort of her arms about him, he did not correct her and say that, really, he had not given her a second thought but considered only himself and, to a much lesser extent, Melanie. She, the alien woman, had not featured in his consciousness at all.

  The alien woman clearly believed that she had. Pressing his head to her bosom all the harder, she reiterated this and he, allowing his cheek to lie there and his ear to pick up the soothing sounds of her heart which pumped away with steady calm, did not point out the error. Months on now, today, he wished he had.

  What was it she had said to him this morning as he shuffled around looking for shoe number two? 'You loved me so selflessly at the beginning and in so few months it has come to this ...'

  To this what? he had wondered, moving her rowing machine, stumbling over her long black boots, opening the cupboard for

  the third time to look and this time finding. As he sat on the bed to do up his laces, he heard that unmistakable sound, felt that unmistakable movement: she was sobbing into the pillow and he had a meeting at nine. Why didn't he say, 'Go on, get out of my life. Go!' He turned. There were those naked shoulders, there was that small neck, the curving breast, the clenching hand, the outline of her bottom under the duvet as she lay on her belly and sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed.

  He sighed, reached out, accepted his defeat. 'I'll come over to your place tonight and we can look at the brochure. OK?' He patted the bottom and stroked the neck. The head turned. The wet eyes no longer looked as if he had taken a hammer to her. A nipple peeped above the scrunched bedding. Pink and sweet and innocent of anything, it winked at him. He pinched it. She smiled. Wanly, but she smiled. And then she nodded. Out he went, dressed for life. And all that, he thought, as he gave the door a harder than necessary bang, because he had clung to a straw of independence. He had arranged to go on a motor rally with a chap from work. That was all. You'd have thought he had suggested going for a fortnight of exotic lust in Bali the way she carried on. It was hardly disloyal to take twelve days in June to go to the wettest part of Ireland and drive a Ford Escort roughshod with Adam Barnet, who had no hair to speak of, a very large nose and about the pulling power of Gandhi.

  It was now or never, he thought fiercely as he made his way into the Underground. Stand up for your rights, man. An invitation to breakfast was not meant to be for life. So what if she does want to go to a villa in Rhodes? He wasn't stopping her. But he didn't want to. Why should he? He knew it had been a mistake that night. He should have just marched back into the bedroom after Melanie left, told her he wanted to be alone, got her a cab - and, bingo, freedom. But now, months on, here he was - fucking well committed again. And this one hadn't just moved in her make-up and her books and the odd item of clothing. She'd brought things like a rowing machine and pot plants and even a bloody Magimix ... He wouldn't be able to put those into a cardboard box when the time came ... If it ever did.

  He sat down thankfully, finally turning his back on the words of the poem, 'They are not long . .

  It was all right when he was away from her, but when he saw her it was hard to resist. And he had his suspicions. If he knew anything about anything, she was now pregnant . .. And you couldn't put one of those in a cardboard box along with the mascara.

  He stood up. He sighed. Suddenly he felt very middle-aged. He prepared to get off the train and take up the cudgel of reality. He turned the corner, oblivious to the short skirts and snappy ankles and wide, red mouths that used to delight his short walk from tube to office.

  'Hi, Adam,' he said, as he turned into the building. 'About that Irish trip. Afraid I don't think I'm going to be able to go, after all. Sorry. Something's come up . . .'

  That was true, he mused painfully, thinking of little friend penis. If that hadn't come up, then he would have been quite safe, for none of this would even have begun.

  *

  She has trampled the flowers underfoot so that their blueness lies crushed in the dirt. Dead rose heads hang on the uncut bushes and last autumn's chrysanthemums point dry, accusing fingers at the sky. She has neglected the garden as if it were herself. She made it a mad vow when she returned the last time. She told it, without reservation, that she would not do anything for it unless he did something for her. He had not. And so the garden must suffer, be punished, for something must. 'I gave you your chance,' she says silently, looking out of the window, 'and you did not take it. Very well. On your own head be it. Not a blade nor a weed shall I touch, you unkind, miserable, ungenerous creature. Not until you show me something in return.'

  The damp, northern air chills her fingers this morning despite the early summer sun, and she fumbles with the toast, which will not fit into the rack. As she pushes at it, it cracks and breaks, as she feels she might if touched. He picks up the bits, places them on his plate, reaches for the butter, reaches for a knife, everything so normal and ordinary and as it was, as it always will be - unless, unless...

  'Your letter, Arthur?' she says. 'The London one. Is it. . .?'

  He looks up. He is chewing. How can he eat? How can he chew food? How can he continue and be so ordinary? The toast crunches in his mouth. He has God on his side.

  She has made her confession, she made it months ago, and not with a hung head and mumbling voice either, but out loud, ringingly. 'Yes,yes, jes,' she avowed, 'this is what I have done.' She had picked up that little gift laid so accusingly on her bed and cradled it against her cheek in front of him. She wanted to be as cruel to him, as he, the other, had been to her. So she caressed it and said, again, 'Yes, monster that I am, I did that and all for nothing. I did it for Love and he did it for Romance. Here I am again. The same woman. Newly fallen in your eyes but anciently fallen in my own. Now what? Do you throw me on the streets? Do you scoop me up in your infinitely compassionate arms?' She had begun powdering her face, manically, laughing into the mirror, seeing how the light, pink dust removed all the signs of the country ruddiness. 'Look.' She turned, blue eyes bright with goading. 'Where is the vicar's wife from Cockermouth now? Where has she gone? Where will this powdered hussy be, this one who has replaced her?'

  He sat very still in the bedroom chair. He did not answer. Frenzy drove her.

  'Where? Where? Where?'

  He stared at her, still unspeaking. She thrust her face closer. He saw how the powder caked little fine lines in her face, how the flesh around her eyes had slackened, how there were tracks at each side of her mouth, runnels for the tears which he expected would come. Suddenly he felt safe. She was ageing, she was fading, and because of this she would stay with him.

  'How about,' he said quietly, 'China?'

  Of course it had been an absurd proposition. But for a time it had held them together. He saw himself atoning for the provincial ease, for the fireside comforts of the manse. Sloth. The most invidious of the Seven. Langland's lines: '"Do you repent?" asked Repentance, but at that moment Sloth dozed off again.'

  She dreamed the days, weeks, months away. Walking through the dream, feeling untouched by the world around her, yet still seeming to participate. The seasons of the church represented themselves in colours and flower arrangements, not done by her, but admired by this other self. 'Well done', heartily, to Mrs Brown, whose Chinese lanterns hung their orange heads amid the dried poppy husks and fiery beech leaves. 'How bright' to Miss Lane, who polished brass and silver as if the Devil himself goaded her.

  And she waited. All these tiny people, all this tiny island, her tiny marriage - soon to be free of it. She saw herself in the harsh landscape of some remote Chinese comm
unity, stricken suddenly with illness, dying gradually, pale against the pillow. She would instruct Arthur to take the small package she held out to him and send it to the other. And somewhere, as her spirit left her body, she would wait to see how the gift was received. He would open it alone somewhere private (knowing the handwriting), and he would find the little compact and a lock of her hair and the imprint of his and her lips on a tissue they had used after eating pomegranates. She would take a text, as Arthur took texts: 'And wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in unto this evil place? It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink.' He would keep these things, he would weep a little, for he was Romance, as she was Love, and in this way he would never forget her.

  She held this picture so tight to herself that it carried her through the the dreary days of reality. The upping and the being and the doing — only she baulked at the garden. She would not do it, for a vow taken must not be undone. The headscarfed ones of her world could look askance, could offer help, but she would have none of it. Let them peer over the wall with their beaky noses and pale, watery eyes, let them point and purse their lips. The garden waited for him to show a sign. If he showed a sign, she would transform it into a magical place. Until then, not a blade would she touch - more, she would defile. She trod and trod and trod until the delphiniums lay crushed, the blue in the dirt as sightless as she wished her own eyes. She was waiting, waiting for the change to come, for the new to begin. She cared for nothing else.

  Arthur watched her. He knew. He kept the flame of the idea alive long after his bishop had told him it was inner cities or nothing. They were happy with him where he was. Did he have to change? There was a wry smile. Did he think he had suddenly been called by God to fight Confucius? The port wine flowed. He had no true zeal for the arguments. He was as phoney as the tea-urn. Escaping not confronting. She was being stifled by the wide-open skies, the swelling seas, the Siberian winds that battered their northern outpost. Perhaps she needed to bask in the teeming claustrophobia of urban decay. Their garden was a symbol. He understood that. It would never be a garden again - not for them. He nodded - both at the decanter and his glass, and at what his bishop was saying. 'Yes,' he said out loud. Inside he thought, God's will be done? Or hers?

  And now the moment to decide had arrived. If he could go on eating toast and not ever have to speak again or open the envelope, he would do so. But she stood there, tense as a bird. He had been careful, reached the post before she did, hidden away the London letters, the official envelopes that betrayed something was going on. He could no longer do that. This was the last post, quite literally. He allowed himself a small smile at the pun. She was dreaming of Beijing, Shenyang, Lanzhov, and he could offer her Leeds, Wolverhampton, Stoke.

  He could feel her breath on his cheek as he slit along the top of the envelope, feel it quicken as he took out the letter. Not Leeds, then. Nor Wolverhampton. Not even Stoke.

  London.

  Whose will? Maybe hers. Maybe God's. Not his.

  She saw it as a sign. Joyous news. Not the garden, then, but the whole of this place, sacrificed. She was going back. Joy flowed through her.

  He saw it, knew why, took the blow and said nothing.

  The pain of sharing her bed became acute, but he would not relinquish it again. Like her, he made promises to himself. When he got to London, when he was renewed in some other place, he would conduct himself according to his heart's dictates. They would have separate rooms. Since she had told him, with fire, with urgently demented need, that their coupling touched nothing in her save the physicality of nerve endings, he had no need of it. And he would destroy the package she had hidden away, his devious red-gold squirrel, he would burn it, make a pyre. And he would tell her he had done so. After that she had her choices. He despised her. He despised himself. If he could wear a hair shirt, if he could be publicly flogged, if he could renounce every ease and comfort, he would do so. But that was too easy. That was not God's way. Instead he would be given a cosy little house, with a cosy little study and a cosy little car, and he would have to go among the destitute, the malodorous, reeking throng, the vicious, the lost, the desolate, innocent and depraved - not to kiss their running sores but to administer advice and hot soup (keep religion to the absolute minimum) and then return to his cosy little hell.

  She rang the number. A woman answered. 'May I speak to your husband?' she said. 'Tell him it is Alice.'

  He came to the phone. He said hallo, cautiously. She said, excitedly, muddling her words at first, 'Arthur and I are moving back to London.'

  'Excellent,' he said in the same recognizable tone she used for headscarfed ones. 'You must both come for dinner in town. Haven't seen Arthur for years . ..'

  'Will we meet?' she whispered, knowing the hearty tone was for his wife to hear.

  'Nice man, Arthur. What's he doing back in the metropolis?'

  'We're coming down tomorrow to make one or two arrangements.'

  She did not say that she had begged to come, that Arthur was seeing the committee, that she had no role nor place in the journey except her desire for time spent with him. One more time, one more time. She could seduce him again, she knew she could seduce him again. They could start afresh. As if she had never been away.

  ‘I will buy pomegranates,' she said softly.

  'What? What?'

  'For tomorrow.'

  'Yes. Good luck with all that,' said the dismissive bellow. 'Will we meet?' she said, louder, more urgent. 'No, no,' he said cheerfully, 'I don't think so. Good wishes to Arthur, then.'

  She would not let him go. 'If not tomorrow, will we meet when I am there for good? I long to see you again, I have to see you again, I -'

  'No, no, I don't think so. Regards to Arthur. I must go. Stephanie's waiting to drive me in. Bye.'

  At the steps down to the Underground she faltered.

  'You go,' she said to Arthur. 'You go and do the things you have to do today and I'll meet you later somewhere. Day Return. We want to get the sixish train. Meet at five, then? Where?' (Not the Ritz . . .) And then he was gone, down into the echoing tunnels, waiting for the lonely train. And she, hunched, despairing, so old she felt now, walked slowly in the direction of Green Park, where she would sit, and wait, and think, and remember the coin she gave to be lucky in love.

  *

  The Little Blonde Secretary Bird reads a magazine advertisement about dental correction and notes the name of the private clinic which offers consultation and service. When she gets to the office

  she will ring them up and make inquiries. His teeth are not going to get any better as he gets older and he is getting older. His hairline is definitely receding, and he was born thin in that department, anyway. At the back of her mind is hair transplanting - but that will come later. For the moment teeth are the issue, and even if it is going to be a bit expensive - well, they have only themselves to think about now, haven't they? (She is not altogether convinced that Derek's teeth are not in some way finked to his obvious lack of virility. If he had nice teeth and could smile into the mirror without feeling - as he must, though he never says so - ashamed of their prominence, it might gee him up a bit.) Why should she take all the trouble with herself and have him go as you please? Besides, he really did have to do something about his teeth now. And it was not her fault it had come to this, so he might as well have the full works.

  The clinic is in Harley Street, so it will be quite all right. Yes, yes, she will telephone today. That is one advantage of being on the switchboard. And actually, there are others. As she told Derek, there is no more important job than being the first voice to be heard when somebody rings a company. Anybody can do secretarial duties (as, indeed, the anybody who has been brought in to replace her does, and oh, those hips), but not many people can be peppy and alert and informative at the end of a telephone. Also she meets all the clients and visitors before anyone else does and has a good range of convers
ational topics for them. The weather, their health, the loft conversion (so nearly complete now), the price of everything nowadays, and lots more. She engages them all in exchanges like this, which, she feels, puts them at their ease and gives a good impression. And the more unforthcoming they are, the harder she works (and it is work, as she tells Derek; it's called 'interfacing' and is very demanding), aware that such reticence is often a sign of stress, which talking can help. If she had more qualifications, she would apply to be one of those counsellor people (There was a piece about therapy last week, everyone should have it, the mind can be sick just as the body can — not hers but certainly other people's. She had seen it.), but as it was she was enjoying herself and wasn't likely to change.

  Switchboard and Reception left you plenty of time to read, and she even managed to knit things (had knitted something for her predecessor's baby in a nice lemon-yellow), so it had really all worked out very well. She thanked the Boss Masculine only the other day for entrusting her with the special responsibility. And told him he looked stressed. 'About time you had another holiday,' she said, but privately she thought she wouldn't much want to go on holiday with the frump of a wife he'd got.

  She put the magazine back in her bag and checked the contents. Hairspray, perfume spray, deodorant spray. She had to carry these about with her nowadays, as she had actually found the Hips borrowing this latter (she always seemed to be perspiring), which used to reside in the ladies' loo. If she put them in her desk, she quite often forgot to take them with her, whereas she always took her bag when she set off for a tidy, so it was no hardship. It was nice to have these small things worked out. As she said to Derek, get the little things ironed out and the big things will follow. She was more and more sure that was true of his teeth, anyway.

  He had been very happy lately due to the building work -whistling around the house, replastering the hole where the Vent-Axia had been (and apologizing, at last, which she had been waiting some time for). He never went near the pub now or that horrid Ken, who winked at her at the firm's Christmas dinner dance. She didn't mind the wink so much (after all, she was wearing her clinging pink velvet), but when he danced he pinched her bottom, hadn't got the consideration to wear aftershave, and carried on a conversation with the couple next to them. Not a very nice conversation, either. And Derek had been sitting next to the store manager or some such, drawing diagrams on the back of napkins - staircases and window recesses and the like - so he hadn't even bothered to look at her and see - well, frankly, how lucky he was.