‘I don’t understand these modern things,’ she said once she was sufficiently recovered to say anything at all. ‘Really, I don’t belong to this age.’ Her voice still hoarse, she added, ‘Thank God you came when you did.’
I started to tremble then and it was a full half-hour before I could hold a cup and not spill it, my hands were shaking so much. It had been such a near thing that I had not arrived on time. One of the removal men had started chatting out in the hall as he placed the last of Posy’s boxes on the bare floorboards. ‘This must be one of the smallest houses that I’ve moved anyone into,’ he said companionably. ‘In fact, it reminds me of one of them doll’s houses that my youngest lass keeps nagging me to make her.’
Normally I would have stopped and chatted back, but that day, as most days lately, I was feeling tense and mildly irritated with the whole world, so instead I had muttered some reply and hurried on to the kitchen to speak to Posy about where she wanted her turn-of-the-century steamer trunk put as the men were leaving and that had been when I found her on her way down the disposal unit. It was enough to make anyone tremble, the thought of how tiny were the actions that decided between life and death. To chat or not to chat? Something as minute as that.
‘But you saved me,’ Posy insisted. ‘So it’s all right.’
‘Yes, I did,’ I said darkly. ‘But I might just as easily have been chatting about doll’s houses next door while you were having your last breath squeezed out of you.’ I felt my voice rise. ‘I simply can’t stand the randomness of things, the arbitrary way that people’s fates are decided. How can we be expected to go on when we have no control over the things that really matter?’
‘So what are you planning to do about it?’ Posy asked.
‘Go mad,’ I said. I was joking of course. ‘Maybe then it won’t bother me so much.’ We finished our coffee and I helped her settle in. After supper I went to my bedroom and worked. I liked it there. It was a tiny room, with only just space for my desk and chair, my bed and a chest of drawers. (The wardrobe was inbuilt.) It was a room that fitted round me snugly, leaving no space for thoughts to roam out of control. I had got a job writing a weekly story for a magazine called Modern Romance, edited by an old colleague of mine, Mary Swanson. Mary was a good woman, a born-again Christian who had resigned from the Chronicle rather than investigate Bishop X’s rumoured weakness for altar boys. ‘It’s for God, not man, to do the exposing,’ she had said at the time. At the time, too, I had been spiteful enough to add, ‘Tell the bishop that.’ But I had come to respect her decision even if I didn’t agree with it.
Writing the stories for Mary’s magazine was hard work, mainly because each one obviously had to be about romantic love and I still hadn’t figured out the first thing about that, and also because, to make matters worse, three out of four stories had to have a happy ending. I did not have a natural talent for happy endings. Now and then I cheated, killing off the heroine, say, but allowing her dog and the hero to live happily ever after. Or sending the hero off to Alaska to find a different kind of romance, the romance of the wild; that sort of thing. Sometimes I got away with it. Sometimes I didn’t and a story would be returned with a terse note to the effect of ‘Anyone would think you didn’t believe in romance’ or ‘Where’s your heart?’.
Where indeed? ‘In San Francisco?’ I crooned to myself, remembering the old song. But I needed the work so I kept trying, writing of love at first sight and of trembling knees and sightings of heaven, of descents into hell and wounds to the heart and love that transcends all. Things, in fact, of which I knew next to nothing, but had learnt second-hand from books and films, and other people’s lives. ‘Your readers will always notice if you’re not sincere,’ Mary told me. ‘Tongue-in-cheek writing simply doesn’t succeed.’ So I tried hard to believe my fantasies and to my surprise I sometimes did, at least for as long as it took me to write them. It was four o’clock the next morning before I got to bed, having finished the latest story. I set it in Italy and it was all about a man who was in love with his wine cellar, neglecting his poor wife and spending all his love and attention on tending his bottles, a dozen in particular, all from the same vineyard; taking them to be recorked each decade, tenderly turning them at frequent and exact intervals, checking the temperature, until one day, many years on, when he opened the first of them to drink. He raised his glass, smacked his lips, drank. Just then his wife appeared on the terrace, and as he caught her sweet smile he realised that all the years had not marred her beauty because it came from within and nothing could wither it. The bottle, on the other hand, whose beauty could also be said to come from within, was past its prime and tasted sour on his lips.
The next morning I got up at eight, feeling light-headed with lack of sleep. Posy was already at the breakfast table and she made me some coffee while I leafed through the paper. Barry Jones had been out of the news lately, but that morning’s tabloid carried a piece about him drying out in a Welsh clinic. I read on over my bowl of All-Bran. ‘We work hard here,’ he was quoted as saying. ‘Real work tending sheep and making our beds. I feel more like my old self with every day that passes and I’m looking forward to being back on your screens before long.’
Personally, I just wished he’d go away. ‘A bad conscience sweeps its debris under the carpet,’ Audrey had once said and at the time I hadn’t understood what she meant, but now it fitted in with how I felt. I was fed up with feeling guilty about the man.
That morning, over my bowl of All-Bran, it seemed to me that God, the God who had laid down the laws of the universe, was uncannily like Audrey. The more I thought about it the more plainly it was there to see; the inconsistency, the despotic whims – Audrey would spoil you rotten one day only to be on a frugality drive the next. God did exactly the same. One day you would have it all, just like Barry Jones, the next – poof! – it was all gone. Or think of poor old Job; that story had always made me extremely uneasy. And there was more. ‘You can tell me everything, darling,’ Audrey would say. ‘I’ll always be there for you.’ So, lulled into a false sense of security, you would come to her with your problem. And she’d say: ‘Darling, not now. Can’t you see I’m busy. You have to learn to sort your own problems out.’
Same thing with God. ‘Come to me with your prayers.’
‘Please, dear God, help those who are starving and whose land is ravished by war. And while you’re about it, please could you cure me of this nasty illness.’
‘Sorry, but you see, I can’t interfere. Child murders? Bosnia? Auschwitz? I thought I explained all of that. I have a strict policy of non-interference. And about that illness of yours. Haven’t you heard the one about God helping those who help themselves?’
So there it was, God had created Audrey in his image and, as usual, I was left to set my own rules.
Twelve
‘Angus thinks you’re wonderful,’ Posy said. Angus was her brother and he had taken us out to dinner the night before.
‘That’s nice,’ I said. I had just emerged from my room after finishing the first draft of a story set in Sweden.
‘Why Sweden?’ Posy asked. ‘You’ve never even been there.’
‘It’s because I’ve never been there,’ I replied. ‘It makes it more interesting to write. And my mother’s been. Her oldest friend, Olivia Stendal, you know who I mean, lives there. She even had me learn the language. It was years ago, when she was in her “children’s minds are like sponges just waiting to soak up information” stage. A Swedish friend of Olivia’s was over here and needed a job so she came to the house once a week and read Strindberg to me. Audrey said that Swedish was especially useful because hardly anyone speaks it, there aren’t even that many Swedes, but somehow I think there is a flaw in that argument.’
‘So you speak Swedish? I never knew.’
‘Not much. I read it better than I speak. The lessons didn’t last long. Audrey sat in on one and after that it seemed she decided that children didn’t have minds at all, sponge-like
or otherwise, and that the money was better spent on other things. I kept it up myself though, for a while, reading some books that Olivia Stendal had sent me, listening to tapes, that kind of thing. Mostly to prove Audrey wrong, about my mind, I mean.’
‘Say something in Swedish,’ Posy said, the way people always do.
And the way people always do when asked to say something suddenly in another language, I felt stupid. ‘What?’
‘Anything.’
‘Det ar synd om manniskan,’ I said.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Mankind is to be pitied.’
Posy looked unconvinced and returned to the subject of her brother. ‘Angus really adores you.’
‘He doesn’t know me. Before last night we hadn’t seen each other for twenty years.’
‘That explains it.’ Posy smiled at me.
‘And I fell asleep over coffee.’
‘He thought you were cute. “Just like a puppy,” he said.’
I frowned. ‘Call me peculiar if you will, but I would prefer to be admired for, say, my scintillating conversation and my sparkling personality, rather than my canine ability to fall asleep in public places.’ But my curiosity quickened. To be honest, Posy’s brother had not made a huge impression on me. I remembered that he worked in advertising, but seeing he was so kind about me, the least I could do was to recall what he looked like. Tallish, dark, sensitive mouth, nice but unremarkable eyes of unspecified colour.
‘Anyway.’ Posy shrugged her lace-wrapped shoulders. ‘He’s going to give you a call.’
Two days later I was having dinner again with Angus, just the two of us this time. ‘You’re much less forceful than I remembered you,’ Angus said. ‘Much softer seeming.’
‘Dithering, you mean?’ I asked. ‘I haven’t been on top form lately, that’s all.’
Angus put out his hand and placed it on mine, which I had carelessly left at the side of my plate. ‘Don’t do yourself down. You’ve changed and it’s really nice.’
I sighed. What could I say? People always believed me least when I was speaking the most truth. Instead I studied him across the table, wriggling my hand slightly to see if I could throw his off. As children, Angus and Posy could have been taken for twins. As grown-ups they still looked alike, but somehow he was a little less of everything. Posy had waves and Angus had the odd stray lock. Posy had two dimples whereas Angus had one, in the left cheek, and it showed only when he smiled. Posy’s eyes were large and dark-green, Angus’s were hazel. There was a dreamy energy about Posy. Angus’s movements were slow and he seemed to be content with everything the way it was.
‘To think we’ve known each other since we were children,’ he said, his hand still on mine. It was a dry hand, warm but dry. I decided to stop wriggling and to leave his where it was. ‘But I’m not just Posy’s annoying little brother any more, am I?’ His smile was sweet but a little unfocused. We had drunk almost two bottles of wine.
I looked at his unremarkable but handsome face and at the warm dry hand on top of mine. Then I looked up and into his eyes. ‘No, no you’re not.’
‘Angus really thinks you’re terrific,’ Posy said some days later as we settled down to watch television, each with a large bowl of pasta in walnut sauce.
‘I’m glad,’ I said and added hastily, ‘I think he’s pretty terrific too. But I’m not sure I’m really ready for a relationship.’
‘Do you still miss Holden?’
I sighed. ‘I miss something, but whether that something is Holden I don’t know.’
‘But you like Angus?’ Posy insisted.
‘Of course I do.’ And he really was very nice. In my view nothing recommended someone to me more strongly than a high opinion of me. I thought they were mad, of course, but that was another matter. And I seemed to be making Angus happy, and I hadn’t even gone to bed with him yet. I had been thinking a lot about making people happy these days and I had decided that it was one of the few useful things left to me. So far, I had failed dismally, just ask Barry Jones or Mr and Mrs Hammond (so all right they had both got the latest in artificial limbs, an arm for him, a leg for her, fitted at the Roehampton Hospital, but I can’t really see them thanking me for that). I had let Chloe down after all the support she had given me over the years. I’d even disappointed my mother. The poor woman had wanted a little golden-haired girl with great musical ability and a fun taste in clothes, and look what she ended up with. No, it felt good being with Angus, sunning myself in his admiring gaze. When I looked at him I saw reflected an altogether more acceptable Me. Maybe that was what true love was? Someone in whom you saw a pleasing reflection of yourself. I had been a bit lonely lately, as well. Working at home, I had lost touch with many of my old colleagues already. And even when someone did call they had to be really patient. Everything I did took so long these days. It was as if the tiniest decision required the kind of deliberation normally reserved for matters of national security, or in Audrey’s case, whether red lipstick was a strong fashion statement or merely ageing.
I painted Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly on a piece of cardboard and pinned it on the wall above my bed. I was looking at it now, upside down, as I lay on my back, with Angus beside me. We had made love, or to be more exact, we had added sex to our friendship. As far as I knew I had never made love in the true sense. I would have enjoyed sex with Angus more if I hadn’t been so busy thinking about all the things the child that would not result from the act (Angus was wearing a condom, of course) might have achieved for mankind. As Angus lowered himself on top of me I saw a meeting of world leaders deciding on the future of our overpopulated undernourished world. I saw before me the large table with the solemn delegates seated round. And I saw the empty chair where my child would have sat, had Angus not been wearing that condom.
As Angus moved inside me, his warm sweat-damp chest pressed hard against mine, I saw our daughter receive the Nobel Prize for Medicine after discovering the definitive cure for cancer. Then, at the moment of triumph, accepting the honour from the King of Sweden himself, she grew transparent and vanished altogether, and with her the hopes and salvation of millions, and I let out a moan of despair. Angus thought it was a moan of pleasure and got even more excited, quickening like a crab in boiling water. OK, I thought, it was quite possible that the child would have turned out to be a perfectly harmless minor player, working as an inspector for the water board, for example, but like most mothers to be, or not to be in my case, I couldn’t help having big plans for my offspring.
Angus had shuddered and let out a moan of his own. Then he had kissed me a little clumsily on the neck before rolling off, on to his back. It was then I arched my back and looked up at the cardboard sign.
Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
I had to admit that when the fairy godmothers were busy doling out gifts at my christening, the gift of taking myself, or anything else, lightly had not been on their list. Then I remembered that I wasn’t christened.
‘Did you have a nice time?’ Angus’s voice reached me, fuzzy and a little coy.
I mumbled something vague, hoping to convince him I was still in the throes of post-coital ecstasy.
‘So how is it going, you and Angus?’ Posy asked over breakfast, her eyes wide with the expectations of good news, lovely news, life’s-young-dream kind of news. She must have been listening at the door last night.
‘Not too good,’ I said, pouring myself a bowl of All-Bran.
Posy didn’t lose her starry gaze. She could afford to be chirpy, I thought, breakfasting as she was on crusty white bread with butter and apricot jam. Posy looked at me, her head a little to one side. ‘I expect you’re only saying that.’
‘What do you expect me to do? Write it down? Tap dance it in Morse code? Send a singing telegram?’
Posy bit into the soft thick bread and the golden orange jam rose over her even white teeth. ‘You old grouch you,’ she mumbled through her mouthful.
What could you do with someone like that? Kill her? ‘If you ever get caught in the waste-disposal unit again,’ I said, ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you.’
Posy giggled. ‘Always joking.’
‘Not always,’ I said, putting the spoon into my bowl of All-Bran.
I was having lunch, that day, with Mary Swanson, the editor of Modern Romance. We had decided on one o’clock at her office in Covent Garden. I arrived at quarter to two. Mary was in the grip of one of those controlled furies which make the sufferer speak very slowly, stringing out each sentence as if it were a straining leash. ‘I was expecting you an hour ago.’
‘I had problems getting here.’
‘Traffic?’
I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t want to lie. The traffic had been its normal demented self and anyway, I had taken the tube. No, it was simply that nowadays everything took so long: where to cross the road, which route to take, which charity box to put my money in… every step was hounded by the need to make a decision about something and it all took time.
I tried to explain it all to Mary, but she wasn’t interested. ‘Let’s get on, shall we?’ she said, nudging me towards the door. ‘I called and the restaurant is keeping the table.’
Once there (it was intimate and Italian, and I forgot the name of it as soon as we left) we ordered and Mary got down to business. ‘Normally I don’t talk business over lunch, as you know, but with the lack of time’ – here she looked pointedly at her watch – ‘at our disposal, we’d better get down to it straight away. I like your stories. A lot of us do, but there are rules in romance writing, particularly in magazine stories such as ours.’
Frozen Music Page 17
