The Girl Who Passed for Normal

by Hugh Fleetwood

  Why don’t you come home? You say that you want to do something. Well, come home and get yourself a job here, where you can meet people that aren’t all foreign or mad. Get a job in a hospital teaching people if that’s what you like doing. You could meet lots of nice doctors, I’m sure. You say things are simpler, but they’re simpler here where you belong than in a big house in a foreign country with a mad girl. You always used to say you wanted to be useful — then come home and be useful to people who need it, not to some little rich girl who’s probably simple because she’s too rich.

  But I won’t waste any more ink — I’ve told you what I think, and it’s a horrible idea, but doubtless you’ll go ahead and do exactly what you want to do, and I shan’t try and help you this time, it’s your funeral. I’m quite well, thank you.

  Love, Mother.

  Barbara sniffed the letter to see if it smelled of grease, but it had no smell and she tore it up. It was a mean, miserable letter; her mother disapproved of her going to live with Catherine because of the money involved; and she disapproved of money because she had none, having spent everything she had worked so hard to earn on educating her daughters so they could make it. She had lived for money, and expected Barbara to do the same; but she had thought that in order to have money one had to suffer, be miserable, make compromises, accept all that life offered, however cruel or unfair or sad.

  But she wasn’t right, Barbara knew. She wanted money, she loved money, because it gave possibilities to life. But she didn’t want it on her mother’s conditions; for if she did, she would end up like her mother, with only sadness. That had been her mother’s mistake. By accepting the compromises she had not only lost any chance of love and happiness, but had also, ironically, condemned herself to poverty; a poverty of the spirit made manifest in the flesh.

  It was an example of her mother’s puritanical, sad reasoning, that she said it was unnatural for Barbara to go and live with Catherine, when what she considered natural was finding a husband with money. And if, Barbara thought, by saying that she wasn’t going to help this time, she meant that she had helped by faking her heart attack and precipitating the present situation — well, she was glad she wasn’t going to help.

  David had left. Mary Emerson was leaving. Marcello and her mother had abandoned her as if she had the plague. She was alone. But soon she would have Catherine, and she would love her — and this was what her mother and Marcello hadn’t admitted or considered. Her mother had said it was a nasty, perverted love, but her mother loved nothing, so how could she tell? And Marcello was perverted himself, because he only thought about loving, and didn’t do anything about it; that would have meant admitting that he was weak, and believed in myths.

  *

  One Sunday at the beginning of December, Barbara took all David’s clothes out of the wardrobe, folded them up, and packed them in his suitcases. She stacked his books in cardboard boxes she had collected from local shops. It took the whole day, but by late afternoon she had made the apartment look empty and about-to-be-left. She had decided to take all David’s things with her when she moved to the Emersons’; then, if he came back, he would have to come to her. She was sure he would come to her in any case, but she didn’t want it to look as if she hadn’t been expecting him; besides, if she didn’t take them she knew Marcello would, and distribute them among his pretentious friends.

  If David did come back, perhaps he would want to move into the villa with her and Catherine. She wondered how Catherine would like that, and decided she’d like it quite a lot. The three of them living there… David could have a room to work in somewhere, and she’d spend the day with Catherine, and then in the evening … oh, it would be beautiful. David could teach Catherine to read. She would be like a child to them. A child who paid them and gave them a house and a garden and a housekeeper. Perhaps, when David heard where she was living, he would come back. Perhaps he had left so that all this would happen. Perhaps he had planned it all.

  Next day she said to Catherine, “If David comes back I’m not sure what I’d do. You see I’ve given up our apartment from the end of December, and —” she shrugged. She thought it was better to plant the idea in Catherine’s mind now. Later, if David returned, she would cultivate it. And if David didn’t return, it occurred to her, there might be someone else.

  Five minutes later Catherine said with a little frown, “But David’s not coming back. He’s buried in the wilderness; don’t you remember? You told me not to mention it.” She turned away as if she was afraid of being punished for having mentioned it now.

  Barbara nodded. “Oh yes. I forgot.”

  *

  She was alone all the time, and she wanted everything to be simple. But still, when she woke in the middle of the night sometimes, she wondered whether it was possible that Catherine was right about her mother’s having killed David. It was absurd of course — but since she had imagined that Catherine was essentially, if poetically, right about the death of her father, wasn’t it also just possible she was poetically right about the death of David?

  She knew it was ridiculous, for even if, in her fantasies, she believed Catherine, she had also believed Mary Emerson’s version of the death of her husband at the time. She had believed both versions, and felt that somehow both were true.

  It was absurd, ridiculous — but what, she couldn’t help asking herself, would happen if Mary Emerson had killed David? She would have to be caught, of course, and tried, and punished — she couldn’t be allowed to go away to America and be free. She would have to be locked up and punished, and be condemned to have dirty hair for the rest of her life. Yes — Barbara smiled in the middle of the night — that would be a suitable punishment. Condemned never to have her hair washed again, until it turned from its rich red to a gray that was slimy with dirt, until it heaved with the movement of every sort of flea and louse…

  These were the thoughts of the middle of the night, but on the afternoon of the 15th of December, Mary Emerson called Barbara from her lesson with Catherine, and said she wanted to speak to her. There had been a change in the plans they had agreed on a couple of days before. She had planned to leave on the 20th; now she had had to postpone her departure till the 23rd. The trouble was she had already promised Iva that she could go away for her Christmas holidays on the 21st, and Iva had already booked her ticket to Germany, where her sister lived.

  “Honestly, it doesn’t matter,” Barbara said. “I can clear up after you’ve gone. I promise.”

  “I hate to do that to you, my dear,” Mary Emerson said. “I already feel guilty about going off before Christmas and leaving you here without Iva, but at least if she’d been here when I left she could have gotten the house really cleaned up. But I can’t ask her to put off her holiday. She always goes to her sister’s for Christmas and the New Year.”

  “I promise you it’s all right. I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m quite glad that Catherine and I will be alone together for those ten days. It’ll be good at the beginning. Because, however well we know each other now, it’s still not like living in the same house, and if we’re alone, we can really start the relationship we’re going to have. No, I promise you it’s all right. It won’t take me long to clean up.”

  Mary Emerson put her head on one side and smiled. “Well, if you’re sure, my dear — it’s so sweet of you.”

  They were standing in the dining room, by the window. A lamp was on in the far corner of the room, but it was not bright, and the darkness from outside, coming in from the wilderness, seemed to make it less bright than it was. Barbara remembered her thoughts of the previous night, and said, “I was thinking —” she waved her hand toward the dark wilderness — “in the spring, would you mind if I got someone to clear at least part of the wilderness? It’s depressing, isn’t it?”

  Mary Emerson looked out of the windows and nodded. “I guess so, but I never really look at it. In the summer it’s all right.” She turned back toward Barbara and said, almost impati
ently, “Look, my dear, once I’ve gone, you can do exactly as you please. It’s nothing to do with me. As long as you can get the money out of the trustees, you can build swimming pools, have the whole garden landscaped, go to the South of France or India with Catherine, go to Switzerland for winter sports, go wherever you like, but please don’t tell me. I’ll be in touch, of course, very often, but I really only want to know how Catherine — and you and Iva — are. What you actually do —” she shrugged. “And if I were you I wouldn’t ask the trustees anything; tell them. But please don’t ask me for advice. As of next week, Catherine, and all this mess, is yours, and the only advice I would give you is not to get a conscience about Catherine’s money. Spend it as fast as the trustees allow you to, and start from the beginning, so they get used to the idea and think you’re being thrifty if one month you spend slightly less than usual. Catherine doesn’t need money, and something’s got to be done with it.” She walked across the room and turned another lamp on, and the wilderness retreated. “My dear, if I were you I would spend some of the money trying to find out where David is and some of it trying to get him back.”

  Barbara looked around the bright room as if she had never seen it before. She had, she thought, come a long way since she arrived back in Italy a month ago. “I thought you said he’ll never come back?” She smiled.

  Mary Emerson touched her hair. “Did I say that? Oh, dear.” She looked confused, and glanced at Barbara as if she wasn’t quite sure how Barbara would take it if she laughed. “How dreadful. But anyway, if you can’t buy David back, you’ll be able to afford anyone you want.” She smiled, and went over to the door. “I’ll let you get back to Catherine now, my dear. But seriously, don’t get a conscience, or you’ll not only be a hypocrite, but you’ll end up like Catherine.”

  As she walked out of the room Barbara swore to herself that, even in the night, she would never again think of David dead and buried in the wilderness.

  When she had finished her lesson with Catherine she said, “Catherine, you must be nice to your mother this week before she goes away. Please. Do it for me. Then we can all part friends.”

  Catherine smiled at her blankly and said, “Do you have many more things to bring from your apartment?”

  “No. I’m almost through now.”

  “Why do you come by bus every day?”

  “How should I come?”

  “By car.”

  “I don’t have a car.”

  “Mother has a car.”

  “She uses it. I can’t use it till she’s gone. The insurance papers have to be changed and things.”

  Catherine considered this, and then asked, “Why do I have to be nice to mother?”

  “Because she’s leaving, and —” Barbara hesitated, “—because she’s nice.”

  Catherine looked at her scornfully. “You’re only saying that because you hate her and you’re glad she’s going.”

  Barbara shook her head.

  “Oh, yes, you do. You’re a hypocrite.” Catherine said the word proudly, as if she had just learned it — which, Barbara reflected, she possibly had. She supposed the girl had been listening, and she glanced at the door of the living room, from behind which she had first seen Catherine appear.

  The girl followed her eyes, and smiled. “Are you frightened she’s listening?”

  Barbara shook her head.

  Catherine said, “You should hate her, you know.”

  “I have nothing to hate her for.”

  “What about David?”

  “It was not her fault if she liked David. Even if she went to bed with him.”

  “Even if she killed him?”

  “She didn’t kill him. Catherine, your mother is nice.”

  “Then why do you hate her?”

  Barbara sighed. “I don’t hate her, Catherine.”

  “Oh, yes, you do.”

  Barbara shrugged her shoulders.

  “You’re only telling me to be nice to her because you don’t want her to know how much you hate her. You’re frightened of losing your job.”

  Barbara was silent for a moment, and then said firmly, “Catherine, stop this silliness.” She looked down, and saw that her hands were trembling, and when she looked up again at Catherine the girl was staring at her lips. “I don’t hate your mother and I’m not coming to stay here for any reason like that.”

  Catherine said seriously, “Oh, I know that.”

  Barbara wondered what she meant by that; but she guessed it depended on what the girl had understood her to have said.

  Catherine came up to her and said softly, “I love you. And I wouldn’t let her send you away if she wanted to.”

  Barbara smiled and said, “Thank you.” Then she lowered her head. “I don’t think she’d send me away in any case.”

  “Oh, yes,” Catherine said. “She’ll try. Once she’s got herself all fixed up in America she’ll get Luke to send someone else to stay with me. You’ll see. She’s being nice to you now because you’ll do for now, and she wants to get away. Also she doesn’t like scenes.”

  Barbara stared at the girl. “Rubbish! You’re just saying evil things.” Catherine didn’t say anything, or move. Weakly, Barbara said, “Why should she send me away? Because she thinks I hate her?”

  “Oh, no.” Catherine shook her head. “She doesn’t care about that. It’s just that she doesn’t trust you.”

  “You’re making these things up,” Barbara whispered.

  “Oh, no, I’m not.”

  “Then how — do you listen at the door and —”

  Catherine frowned. “No. Mother tells me everything. She doesn’t really hate me, you know.”

  “I know,” Barbara whispered, so quietly she hardly heard herself.

  “She’s always told me everything. She just talks to me because it’s like thinking out loud for her. She’d talk to George if I wasn’t here.”

  “And she’s said all these things to you? She’s told you?”

  Catherine didn’t reply to that. Instead she said brightly, “But don’t worry. I won’t let her send you away.”

  8

  Barbara moved in officially on the afternoon of December 22nd. The room to which she had been bringing bags and cases, every day for the last four weeks, the room that she had been gradually taking over, finally became her own. Tomorrow, she told herself, the whole house would become hers — the house and the land, and Catherine. Eventually, of course, she would move down into what was now Mary Emerson’s bedroom; but not immediately. First she would get used to the feeling that the house was hers, that she was free to sleep where she liked in it; then she would start rearranging things, just as she would start rearranging her life. She would move slowly into it, feeling her way around, until she had, as it were, the run of it. Then, when she had learned perfectly how to use this vast property, she would turn to the world — Marcello, her mother, David if he returned — and the world would have to see her as she wanted to be seen, accept her as she was. She would no longer be a secretary, to be hired or fired at will, to be patronized or corrected, to be summoned to the bedsides of the falsely sick; she would have a share of power in the world; she would be ruler, not ruled.

  She helped Mary Emerson finish her packing; four trunks were being sent by sea, and Mary was taking two smaller bags with her on the plane. The trunks were to be sent off after Christmas, when Mary was sure where she wanted them to go. She told Barbara she would telephone her as soon as she had a definite address, and Barbara said she would handle everything.

  “Listen, my dear,” Mary Emerson said, “I’ve written my friend’s address, where I’ll be staying for the first two weeks or so, Catherine’s lawyers’ address in America, my lawyers’ address here, and Luke’s address, in the book by the phone in the dining room. Also the telephone numbers.”

  As soon as she could, Barbara looked at this book. Luke Emerson’s address was in San Francisco; Catherine’s lawyers’, in New York City; and Mary Emerson’s friend,
also in New York City, on Central Park West.

  “Will someone be meeting you?” Barbara asked.

  “I don’t think so. Only two people — two or three — know I’m coming. I thought I’d surprise everyone else. And anyway,” she glanced at the door and lowered her voice, “I’ve been on the point of going so many times before, and I’ve even written and told people to expect me — once even to meet me — and I’ve never gone. I think they’ve begun to doubt that I ever will leave this place, so it’s better not to say anything, I think.”

  “What would you have done with Catherine if you’d left?”

  “Oh, taken her back with me, and rented this place to someone. But it was always easier to stay here when it came to it. First of all, it’s a nice house and I like the city — then I have Iva — and I guess not least I notice the limitations that Catherine has always imposed on my life less here than I would have done back home.”

  Barbara looked around the room at all the evidence of departure, and it made her feel sad. “Do you know where you’ll end up — I mean, where you’ll live eventually?”