The Country Life

by Rachel Cusk

  ‘If one is fortunate enough,’ pronounced Martin, ‘to possess something unique, of more than average worth, one has a duty to share it with one’s fellow man.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ I replied. ‘But if all this were mine, I don’t think I’d want to share it with anyone.’

  ‘There you are.’ Martin folded his arms with satisfaction. ‘That’s why things are better off in our hands. We know how these things ought to be done.’

  ‘Who is “we”?’ I enquired.

  ‘The upper classes,’ said Martin, his face crumpled and white, like something botched and screwed into a ball. I caught a glimpse of the cavity of his mouth, dark and moist.

  ‘I do apologize,’ I said sarcastically. ‘I didn’t realize that was who you were.’

  ‘Our family,’ intoned Martin, ‘has lived in this house since the seventeenth century, and in this area since long before that.’

  ‘Does that make you upper class?’ I was becoming quite irritated, in a desultory fashion. ‘I’d have thought it just makes you local Anyway,’ I closed my eyes and leaned back against the elaborate grid of the bench, and as it pressed into my flesh the taste of my vision lingered briefly on my tongue, ‘aren’t you a bit old to be boasting about your family? There used to be girls who did that at school. If they weren’t comparing how much money their parents had, they were droning on about some old relative of theirs in a bearskin who’d got his name in the Domesday Book.’

  ‘My—’ Through the crack of my eyelid I saw Martin’s mouth, flapping like an open door in the wind. I guessed that he had been about to tell me that his ancestors were in the Domesday Book. ‘Bearskins were earlier,’ he said finally. ‘Don’t you know anything?’

  I sat up again and opened my eyes. I knew that I had to get out of the sun immediately. My sunburn was proving to be very inconvenient, a form of incontinence. I glimpsed a wedge of shadow on the sundial in front of me, and for no reason other than idle curiosity peered at it more closely. There were numbers engraved all around its circumference, and the shadow fell exactly between a twelve and a one. It then dawned on me that this was the time. I was about to remark on what a clever thing the sundial was when I thought that Martin might laugh at me for it, my logic having a backward flavour.

  ‘Goodness, look at the time!’ I exclaimed instead. ‘We’d better be getting back.’

  ‘Do we have to?’ complained Martin. ‘I was having fun.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ I replied, getting to my feet. My head swam for an instant. ‘Personally, I always prefer to quit while I’m ahead. How do we get back to the house?’

  I grasped the handles of Martin’s chair and wheeled it around on its axis. Much as I pitied him for having to submit, physically at least, to my authority, there were advantages to having him chair-bound. I imagined running around the rose garden trying to catch him as he scampered off on his little legs, and almost laughed aloud. I had certainly been in the sun for far too long.

  ‘That way,’ said Martin, pointing directly ahead.

  We set off in the opposite direction to that from which we had entered the rose garden and before long came to a gate identical to the first. I tried to work out where this would lead us, and figured that it would be somewhere to the side of the house. Martin leaned forward and opened the latch; and when I propelled him through I was surprised to see that we had entered directly what was evidently the bottom of the back garden. Turning around, I realized that the side wall of the rose garden was also the side boundary of the back garden. To our left was a queue of trees, evergreens, so dense that it was difficult to see what lay beyond them. In front and to our right was a great lawn, at the top of which was the back of the house.

  ‘Come on,’ said Martin, jiggling up and down as if he were spurring on a horse.

  I braced my back and began to push.

  Chapter Ten

  The back of the house was quite different from the front; although like a revolving door, some frustration in its design made it impossible to get a sense of both sides at once. Indeed, for some time as we made our slow progress up the lawn I was unable to articulate what constituted this difference, great though it was. The rear of the house seemed far older and more frail, and gave the impression of being ignorant of the monolithic grandeur of its façade, like a rich old aunt tucked out of view. It had a number of flowering vines and other greenery creeping up its walls in patterns of invasion, giving it that sprawling, colonized look which constitutes rusticity: an air of monitored decomposition, as if the house were being held on the brink of an elegant faint before it sank into the garden’s arms. At the very centre of the back wall was a glass appendage, like a prosthetic ear, in the shape of a beehive; a conservatory, I soon realized, within which I could discern a muffled profusion of fronds.

  The garden which surrounded this fragrant heap consisted mostly of a large expanse of lawn, although to one side I could see the municipal architecture of the swimming pool, its undisturbed, unnatural blue lying flat on the grass like a fallen piece of sky. The lawn itself curiously sported a pattern of stripes – a piece of horticultural frivolity, I guessed, related to the cutting of hedges into the shapes of chickens or dogs – which rolled out towards us in a fan from the distant point of the conservatory. At the far end of the lawn was an arrangement of tables and chairs, upon one of which I could just make out the familiar form of Pamela. On another of the chairs sat a woman I did not recognize. From that distance the scene appeared very small, and the oppressive heat gave it an atmosphere of calcification which reminded me of the little plaster figurines which had populated my doll’s house when I was a child. It was odd and not entirely pleasant to remember this object, having not thought about it for years. The feeling that one’s own memories have become unfamiliar can give rise to the suspicion that one’s identity is malfunctioning and inefficient, like a badly run office. I had a sudden picture of pink plaster hams, and tiny plates to which coloured food was glued. Mr Madden appeared from the side of the house, as elliptical as a butler. Roy trotted heavily behind him. He was carrying a tray and when he reached the table he bent stiffly with it from the waist, distributing glasses which winked in the sunlight.

  ‘Look who’s here,’ said Martin from below. I was surprised to hear his voice, for although I had been pushing him along all of this time, I had grown so used to the action that the wheelchair, and to some degree Martin’s presence, seemed to have become a part of my own physical remit.

  ‘Who?’ I said, my voice lower than his, for we were now within fifty yards or so of the group.

  ‘My fucking sister,’ Martin volubly replied. ‘Come to see her mummy. Can’t keep her away.’

  ‘Does she live far?’ I enquired, toiling up a slight rise in the lawn.

  ‘Just a stone’s throw,’ said Martin in a fluting voice. ‘She wanted to stay near her mummy. I had hoped Dewek would take her away to Papua New Guinea so that they’d both be eaten by savages. Or at least as far as Tonbridge.’

  ‘Who’s Derek?’

  ‘Dewek,’ amended Martin. ‘Dewek is Caroline’s damp face flannel of a husband.’

  ‘There’s no need to be unkind,’ I said.

  ‘What do you know, anyway?’ said Martin, drumming his hands abstractedly on the arms of his chair. ‘Stel-la.’

  Pamela had caught us in her sights and raised her hand in a salute of acknowledgement, using the other hand to shield her eyes, as if we were travellers sighted across a lonely reach of desert.

  ‘Hi-i!’ she called from afar, stretching the word in her customary fashion, her face split by a smile.

  ‘Hi!’ I called back.

  Pamela was wearing a pea-green bikini and a pair of gold sandals. Around her neck glittered a thick gold chain, like a rope. The effect, as she sat glass in hand, was odd, as if she were at a party but had forgetfully come out in her underwear. The other woman – Martin’s sister, as I now knew, although she did not resemble him at all
– was wearing a dress patterned with vivid tropical flowers. She was fairly plump, not in the dense, landscaped fashion of Mrs Barker, but rather as if she had been filled too full and had spilled over. She had straight fair hair cut in a kind of thatch above her forehead, the colour, if nothing else about her appearance, favouring Pamela. She watched our approach closely through dark glasses, like a secret agent. Even from a distance I took a more or less instant dislike to her. There was something despotic about her solid, suspicious face and bulk. I was beset by an image of her in army uniform, setting about some cringing cadet with a truncheon.

  ‘How did you get on?’ said Pamela, as we drew up to the table. The skin about her eyes looked very wrinkled in the sun, and her pupils glinted like tiny jewels kept in a crumpled handkerchief.

  ‘Fine,’ I said.

  ‘Mar-Mar?’ Pamela leaned forward slightly and concentrated her gaze on Martin. She was not, I decided, speaking in some alien dialect, but rather was deploying, or even inventing, a nickname. I was irritated by her concern, implying as it did a certain untrustworthiness or even outright menace on my part. ‘How about you?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Martin crossly, screwing up his face at her. He looked unwell in the strong light, his face as bleached and savage as a piece of rock.

  ‘Hello, Martin,’ said Caroline deliberately. Her voice startled me, for despite her looming presence her inertia had caused me to forget her, as one could forget a large mountain. ‘How are you? I’m fine, how are you, Caroline? Oh, fine, thank you, kind of you to ask.’

  This surprising monologue was rapidly and sarcastically delivered, and rather knocked the stuffing out of any politeness which might have been on the agenda. All eyes turned to Caroline, who remained enigmatic and brutish behind her sunglasses.

  ‘Say hello to your sister, you scoundrel,’ said Pamela.

  ‘Hello, sister,’ said Martin.

  ‘I’m Caroline,’ said Caroline, evidently to me. She precipitated herself forward in her chair and extended her arm. The movement was unexpected, and the unpredictable shifting of her mass caused me instinctively to draw back, as if from the path of a landslide or falling boulder.

  ‘Stella. Nice to meet you,’ I added gamely, shaking her hand.

  ‘What will you have to drink, Stella? Martin?’ said Pamela. ‘We thought we’d have lunch out here, as it’s so glorious. If you’ve had enough of the sun just shout and Piers will put up the umbrella.’

  Nobody said anything, and Pamela looked about with the bright, nervous movements of a bird.

  ‘I’ll have whatever you’re having,’ I said awkwardly, indicating their glasses. It sounded rather demanding, as if I were placing an order with a waitress.

  ‘Right!’ said Pamela. ‘I’ll go and rustle up Piers and see what’s happening with lunch. You lot just sit here and enjoy the sun.’

  She stood up abruptly, as if she were upset, while the rest of us remained guiltily seated. I was surprised by the sight of Pamela’s body in her swimming costume. Her skin was brown and shrunken, like dried meat, and running up the pot of her belly was a seam of raised flesh, like a geographical feature on a relief map.

  ‘Do you want a hand, Mummy?’ said Caroline.

  Martin made a strange noise beside me. When I looked at him, he was mouthing Caroline’s offer with an idiotic look on his face, his lips flapping like wings.

  ‘No, no, I don’t think so,’ said Pamela wearily. She hesitated for a moment, hand to her forehead, as if contemplating a landscape of strictures and duties by which she suddenly realized herself to be surrounded. Eventually she turned and trod lightly off, the soles of her sandals slapping against her feet.

  The three of us were set adrift in uncertain silence. Pamela, the focus of our attention, being gone, it was required of us to re-form in a new constellation, and as it soon became evident that neither Martin nor I was equipped to set this orbit in motion, Caroline gathered herself up in her chair and took charge.

  ‘Mummy tells me you’re from London,’ she said, to me.

  ‘That’s right,’ I replied. I could see that I was to be interrogated, and felt that no more was required of me at this stage than to give clear and correct answers.

  ‘And you worked as a secretary, is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘At a law firm.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I should add that while these enquiries were being made, Caroline was indulging in a shameless inspection of my physical appearance, running the beam of her gaze up and down my body like a minesweeper. Despite keeping my own counsel in so far as I possibly could, I sensed that a deeper, unauthorized method of extraction was at work which I was powerless to prevent. Her appraisal was as penetrating and objective as an X-ray; and yet I felt that I was being sized up as a threat, although to what precisely I could not gather.

  ‘That sounds very respectable. Why did you leave? Did you feel there was no future for you at the firm?’

  I deduced from the insinuating, indeed the downright challenging, nature of this question that I was being tested for the weakness of my character, and understood that this was the point at which I must establish my boundary; that if I did not, Caroline would invade and conquer, certain of victory.

  ‘On the contrary.’ Caroline’s sunglasses were beginning to unnerve me. They appeared to give her an advantage, shielding her from my remarks while at the same time preventing me from monitoring their effect. ‘The certainty of my future there was the very thing which enabled me to reject it. I dislike having too clear a view of what lies ahead. It lacks,’ I finished rather triumphantly, ‘adventure.’

  Caroline seemed surprised and, for the moment at least, repelled by my reply. She retracted her interest as an animal would a probing tentacle and appeared to be reconsidering the situation. Martin gave a snort of laughter.

  ‘If adventure is what you want,’ she said presently, head held high, ‘then you must find things very quiet here. In fact, it is usually for its lack of adventure that people come to the country. We don’t really go in for that sort of thing here.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve had more than my fair share of excitement,’ I said. Keeping my eyes fixed on Caroline’s sunglasses was proving to be quite a strain. I was beginning to feel very uncomfortable from sitting so still in the heat, and longed to get up from my chair and move around. ‘By adventure I mean the unknown, really. I wanted to see a different side of life.’

  Caroline snorted, evidently a family trait.

  ‘I’d hardly call Buckley a different side of life. Or Martin, for that matter.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Martin.

  ‘You make it sound so dull here, and yet I find it interesting.’ The sun was getting at the side of my neck, and I was forced to unlock my gaze from Caroline’s and shift around in my chair. ‘I’ve only been here a day or two, but I feel that I’ve already learned a lot.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Mercifully, at this point I heard the warning rattle of a tray behind me, and turned to see Mr Madden bearing down on us.

  ‘Hello!’ he said, looking from Martin to me and back again with stunned cheerfulness. ‘How did you two get on?’

  ‘Oh, fine!’ I said; a trifle too warmly, perhaps. The sight of Mr Madden, after the tension of my exchange with Caroline, had aroused in me a bounteous, doglike affection for him. ‘Martin showed me around. The rose garden is wonderful.’

  ‘Good, good!’ said Mr Madden vaguely. He seemed lost in thought for a moment or two. ‘Fresh air will have done you the world of good, old chap. Get some colour in your cheeks.’

  ‘I’m amazed you got him out of his room,’ chimed Caroline unexpectedly. Her next comment was addressed more generally to the group. ‘Mummy says it’s an absolute pit in there. It took Mrs Barker the whole morning to set it straight. It’s a bit selfish of you, Martin, wasting Mrs Barker’s time when there’s so much else to do. Why you can’t tidy up after yourself I don’t know. Mummy’s been at it all morning a
nd she’s absolutely exhausted.’

  It is difficult to convey the speed at which all of this was pronounced. Caroline’s diction was high-pitched and rapid, and when she delivered it her mouth moved extraordinarily quickly, as if she were gobbling food. The effect was not very attractive – we were all, I felt, watching it with equal fascination – for her lips were thin and downturned above the piston of her chin, whose motion was so automatic that it seemed possible that it would never stop. I was anticipating, half-gleefully, a vituperative response from Martin, and was surprised to see that he seemed to have fallen asleep in his chair.

  ‘Don’t be too hard on him, Caro,’ said Mr Madden, laden tray still in hand. ‘It’s difficult for us chaps to remember to tidy up. We’ve got other things on our minds, fighting wars and running things and suchlike, what?’

  I laughed enthusiastically at this, and was mortified to hear my laughter make its solo flight across the table.

  ‘It just seems unfair on Mummy,’ said Caroline sullenly. ‘She’s got so much to do already, and only Mrs Barker to help her.’

  I immediately regretted my rhapsodies about the rose garden, which in retrospect gave substance to the accusation that I was no help at all.

  ‘You’re giving me a headache,’ said Martin plaintively, opening one eye in a squint.

  ‘Take an aspirin, then,’ retorted Caroline.

  ‘Take one yourself,’ muttered Martin, sinking his chin into his small, puffy chest. ‘Not that it would make you less of a pain.’

  ‘Oh, I’m dying!’ said Caroline, melodramatically clutching at her heart with her two plump hands.

  ‘Right!’ blustered Mr Madden, intervening with his tray and dealing the drinks one by one. ‘That’s enough, you two. Lunch’ll be ready any minute, so let’s clear some space here, shall we, and I’ll give Mummy a hand bringing it out.’

  I jumped to my feet as if at a starter’s pistol and began collecting the empty glasses strewn about the table. I could feel Caroline’s eyes on me again behind her sunglasses; or rather, on my body, measuring it as exactly as if she were fitting me for a garment. After a while she folded her arms and looked away across the garden, her lips as pursed as if there were a drawstring threaded through them.