Angel Cake

by Helen Harris

  I was completely crushed when, at about eight o’clock, he said, ‘Look, you’ll have to excuse me, I’m afraid, but I’ve got to meet a guy in Fulham at half-past eight. Which way are you going?’ I was convinced then that I had been a failure and, for days afterwards, I sulked over the bungled opportunity.

  I didn’t believe Rob’s casual, ‘I’ll be in touch,’ at the Tube and when, about a week later, he rang me at the museum and asked if I was free for dinner one night that week, I was quite angry with him for having misled me.

  We went to his friends Jean and Eddy last night. Although they are all in their mid-thirties, hardly any of Rob’s friends are married. Jean and Eddy aren’t married either, but they have a baby. Their baby is called Adam Pluto and all the group of friends dote on him. He is a self-assured, solid baby, who accepts their spoiling with amiable indifference. If he were my baby, I would wash him more. Jean and Eddy give him, in smaller quantities, whatever they are having to eat themselves, and when you bend down to greet him, sometimes you are struck by a waft of pungent garlic breath which seems monstrous coming from such a small pink face. They feed him curry and Chinese take-away too, even though Jean once told us over dinner that it makes his nappies terrible. But when I said to her, was she really sure that babies ought to eat things like that, she answered, why on earth not? That was what they ate in less developed societies and all those special baby foods you saw in the supermarket were nothing but a great marketing ploy.

  On our way home that night, Rob took me up on what I had said to Jean. ‘You don’t really believe in all that ready-processed crap, do you, Alison? You don’t think babies should be cellophane-wrapped and sanitized and only introduced to life in gentle stages?’ And quickly and dishonestly I had said no, no.

  That was one of the few occasions when I stuck my neck out and challenged their group thinking. They are all taking Adam Pluto’s upbringing very seriously. He is their first prototype baby and they want to do everything right by him. I was not yet on the scene when Adam was born, but I shouldn’t be surprised if Jean’s labour was jointly planned and discussed at the dinner table in just the same way.

  Last night’s dinner was in honour of Adam in a way too. Jean and Eddy recently started their own small publishing company and one of their first books is an ‘alternative baby book’, featuring their baby in all the photographs. The official publication date is in ten days’ time, but yesterday being Adam Pluto’s second birthday, they had decided to invite their close friends round for a private pre-publication launch.

  Eddy greeted us at the front door, wearing a cardboard badge which read, ‘Adam Pluto’s PRO’.

  ‘Sick,’ Rob said to him, handing over our bottle of wine. ‘Commercial exploitation of an infant. Sick!’

  ‘Hi, Rob. Hi, Alison,’ Eddy answered, beaming. ‘Come on in. Meet the mega-star.’

  Adam was in the middle of a bad cold and, I thought, should not have been kept up for the party. He was propped, bleary-eyed and wheezing, in a mound of bean bags with a montage of pictures from the book on the wall high above his head. Around him, Eddy and Jean’s friends stood in a vivacious circle, holding their drinks and cracking jokes about Adam’s debut in the media.

  ‘Rob!’

  ‘Rob!’

  ‘Rob!’ everyone said as we came in. Even among his friends – I nearly said his equals – Rob makes an entrance. I come into their parties in his wake, cravenly hoping to be overlooked.

  A thin red-haired woman called Madeleine came out of the circle and lunged at him. ‘Rob, you bastard,’ she said. ‘You never sent me those tapes you promised.’

  Rob struck his forehead and then clung on to her in apology.

  ‘Lousy selfish pig,’ she cooed. ‘I know you don’t mean a word you say.’ She generously included me in the exchange by repeating, ‘He’s a mean selfish sod, isn’t he?’

  I said, ‘What are they? I’ll try and make sure he remembers them.’ But that was quite the wrong thing to say of course, because Madeleine burst into a mocking exclamation of, ‘Oh, tut-tut, tut-tut!’ and waggled her forefinger at Rob with teasing severity. ‘Make sure you do what the little woman tells you.’ She turned away to answer someone who had called out to her and Rob said to me apologetically, ‘Pissed already.’

  ‘Rob!’ Jean said behind us. ‘Alison. What can I get you to drink?’

  Since our disagreement over the baby food and another difference of opinion about militaristic toys, Jean has made little effort to hide her disapproval of me, which is a pity because, before that, she was the one with whom I got on best, I thought. She is very bustling of course and no nonsense – being half a publishing company and organizing all the things she does for women. But despite her short manner and her air of self-sufficiency, I thought that underneath she must have some secret fondness for shameful old-fashioned aspirations, to have set up such a relatively traditional household and to have had a baby. I thought she liked me because, before the business over the baby food, she used to make a point of singling me out for conversation, not letting me get by as an appendage of Rob’s, but perhaps it was only as a point of principle because I am a woman.

  Now when she speaks to me she uses manners, which she – they all – dispense with when they talk to each other.

  ‘How are things at the museum, Alison?’

  ‘Fine, thanks, Jean, fine.’

  ‘Preparations for your big exhibition coming along OK?’

  ‘Yes. It’s awfully hard work though.’

  ‘I bet, I bet.’

  ‘It’s a lovely book, Jean.’

  ‘Oh, thank you very much, Alison.’

  Poor Adam rescued me by choking on a sneeze. Jean had to pick him up and comfort him, although someone said that he was old enough to learn to suffer and if Jean always picked him up when he had a problem, he would not know how to cope in later life.

  Rob told me once that, when they were younger, they had all of them been in love with Jean at some time. It is true that she is serenely fleshy and has a Renoir’s peachy skin, but I was still surprised when he told me. Jean behaves as if she would laugh out of countenance anyone who declared his feelings for her. I was even more surprised when Rob added, grinning, that they had all of them slept with her too. How can she bear to have them all together at her parties? What surprised me most though was Rob’s conclusion: ‘I suppose that’s why we’re all so dotty about Adam. We feel that we all fathered him. OK, it was Eddy in the event, but it could just as easily have been Andy or Clive or me.’

  I can’t help remembering this every time I see Jean, the fleshy shared figurehead of the group. Last night, I looked around the party and I imagined various of the men there knowingly eyeing Eddy and Jean and violating their intimacy with their knowledge. For the first time, it occurred to me that Eddy was probably the one to be pitied. He did seem small and insignificant and almost arbitrarily chosen out of the crowd, and baby Adam the sticky fruit of a collective fantasy.

  Jean and Eddy had laid out dinner on the kitchen table. People helped themselves and ate wherever they were comfortable. Rob had gone off to talk to a man who might be going to produce a drama workshop version of his last play and I found myself sitting on the floor beside Andy Ellis who is, I suppose, Rob’s best friend, although the term ‘best friend’ is far too sentimental for the way they vigorously run each other down. Physically, Andy is the opposite of Rob: thin and blond and jittery. Rob call him a self-destructive nutcase. He calls Rob a compromised materialist. They have been friends since university.

  Andy said, ‘Mm, Jean’s a really good cook, isn’t she?’

  I thought of how things might have been when it was his turn to have Jean. I agreed: ‘Tremendous! I wish I could make ratatouille like this.’

  I observed carefully what Jean and Eddy had done and what dishes they had cooked, to see if I could do likewise in my turn. I was conscious that since I came to live with Rob nearly nine months ago, we have not given any parties. I can think
of a number of explanations for this and one or two of them are worrying. At the end of November, though, it is Rob’s thirty-fifth birthday and I am determined to overcome my nerves and hold a birthday party for him.

  ‘It’s a gift,’ Andy said tactlessly. ‘It’s not a question of recipes, I think. Either you can or you can’t.’

  ‘And these quiches,’ I went on desperately. ‘I’d give anything to be able to make quiches like these.’

  At the end of the evening, when everyone was drunk enough, Eddy and Jean were persuaded to show the video that will publicize the book. We turned out the lights and on the television screen there appeared, I think to everyone’s surprise, Eddy and Jean in bed together, apparently making love. There were whistles and catcalls from their friends. Suddenly Jean sat up and, abandoning Eddy as though his role were over, addressed the camera cheerily: ‘Adam was conceived on a long, cold February night. We had great fun making Adam and we do not intend to forget it. That is the gist of our book; bringing up baby should be fun.’ Then there was a picture of a woman groaning in labour. ‘Not me,’ Jean called out. ‘Not me! It’s from the film library.’ ‘I know,’ a male voice answered. ‘We can see those aren’t your legs,’ and there was a lot of laughter. Next Adam appeared, toddling unsteadily on to the screen in scarlet dungarees, and after some rather obvious offstage coaxing, put his fingers to his nose and wiggled them. Jean’s voice in the background said, ‘Yes, Baby Adam thumbs his nose at the rules.’

  Afterwards there was quite a fierce discussion as to whether or not this was child exploitation or whether, since the book’s aim was to make children’s upbringing freer and more relaxed, Adam was actually working towards his own liberation. By the time Rob and I got home in the end, it really was terribly late.

  Rob is still asleep and I am listening for the first sound of mattress springs from the room next door. When he wakes up, he will call me back to bed. But for now the flat is silent, with a precious temporary silence. Outside, a wintry mist is lifting from the elephantine white houses. The trees along Holland Park Avenue are slowly detaching themselves from the sky. Soaring inside me in a way that is incompatible with sitting in silence, my happiness feels ready to flap and crow.

  First comes the love-making. (I have never liked to call it ‘sex’.) Since Rob’s first fascination with a new body has worn off, he has grown very experimental with me. I have no idea where he gets his ideas from, if he read them somewhere, or if he learnt them from someone else, but sometimes I am astonished. I would be quite happy to go on and on the ordinary way for ever, and not need to twist or hold my breath or kneel, but I know better than to appear old-fashioned about that, above all. After the love-making, the breakfast – or as Rob would have it, brunch: fresh oranges, squeezed, and real coffee and muesli and croissants. Rob reading the Sunday papers and exclaiming over the iniquities of the world.

  In the afternoon, we usually go out somewhere – for a walk in the park perhaps or to visit some of his friends. In the summer, Rob and his friends play frisbee as though it were a religion. Then at five o’clock, Rob always goes off to his sitar lesson and I tend to do all the silly things that I would not like him to see me do: making my ex-junk-shop clothes from an old velvet bodice and an antique lace collar, working at my toys. Today I shall go back to that grim little road in Shepherd’s Bush, I think, and see if my so-called housebound old lady is in.

  *

  Alicia did not like her home help because she was black. Put that way, she had to admit, it sounded rather bad, but her feeling was in fact more complicated. She did not like Pearl, first and foremost, because Pearl made her feel she was unkind. However fussy and bossy Alicia was to her, however nagging and nit-picking, Pearl remained serenely unflustered. Whatever demeaning demands and unfair criticisms Alicia heaped on her, Pearl just shrugged and smiled and swivelled. Her giant face received the aggravation like so many microscopic midges. They could not puncture her immense composure. Alicia was naturally infuriated. She expended so much energy hounding Pearl during her Wednesday visits that afterwards she was as worn out as if it was she who had done all the washing and cleaning and laundering herself. And into her exhaustion came the realization that she had spent the only two hours of regular company that she had each week abusing Pearl, instead of talking to her. This made her feel remorse for which, unfortunately, she only disliked Pearl the more.

  There were other things about Pearl which she disliked too, of course. She didn’t like the shrieking colours Pearl wore over her outsize person: yellow and purple and turquoise and pink, all jumbled up together so that they quite took your breath away when she came in. Alicia didn’t like her outsize person either. She could not say if she found it vaguely menacing – Pearl, one day driven beyond endurance, would round on her and suffocate her with her size – or if it simply annoyed her that anyone should flourish so much. She didn’t like Pearl’s hair or her nose or her mouth. But Pearl was the one whom the social services had sent; it was Pearl or nobody. Alicia had had such a different picture when she had seen the name Mrs Pearl Cunningham on the form. When Pearl had arrived on her first morning, Alicia knew that she would never forgive her for the disappointment.

  When Pearl rang the bell on Wednesday morning, thereby confirming Alicia’s suspicion that it was Wednesday, Alicia came down the stairs as fast as she could. But it was not fast enough to prevent Pearl from ringing the bell again, imperiously, with her big brown forefinger.

  ‘Goodness gracious,’ grumbled Alicia, opening the door, ‘there’s no need to make such a racket. I was coming as fast as I could. Do you want me to fall down the stairs and break my neck?’

  Pearl beamed at her, as if she were a cantankerous but sweet child. Alicia stood back to let her in, or maybe Pearl just billowed in past her. Alicia made a meal of closing the door. ‘I don’t know – if it’s not one thing, it’s another,’ she said.

  She had been in two minds whether or not to tell Pearl about her unexpected caller. But now that Pearl was here, she found the temptation to share the mystery was irresistible. It made such a change to have a piece of news of her own, instead of just the usual string of complaints about windows that wouldn’t open, taps that wouldn’t turn and household objects that had been spirited away. She followed Pearl into the kitchen. ‘I said, if it’s not one thing, it’s another,’ she repeated significantly.

  Pearl smiled indulgently into the middle distance. She unbuttoned her coat to reveal a shiny black, green and gold blouse bulging above her favourite mauve slacks. With a praiseworthy effort of self-restraint, Alicia banished her reaction to the blouse. ‘You wouldn’t believe the week I’ve had,’ she went on.

  Pearl busied herself at the sink. ‘You’re low on Flash,’ she answered.

  Alicia felt indignant. Was Pearl ignoring her deliberately? She had bent down into the cupboard to look for something and her big bottom was sticking up quite plainly in Alicia’s direction.

  Alicia quivered with fury. ‘What are you rummaging for?’ she snapped. ‘Tell me.’

  Pearl straightened up painfully. She said, ‘The rag-bag.’

  For some reason, that mortally offended Alicia. ‘Well, kindly don’t,’ she cried shrilly, ‘while I’m trying to tell you something.’

  Pearl sighed. To Alicia’s astonishment, she pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. Alicia completely lost track of what it was she was trying to tell her. She had never seen Pearl sitting down at her kitchen table, or anywhere else for that matter, in all the months that Pearl had worked for her. For a moment, the two of them looked at each other, shocked, and then Alicia – she had no idea what had come over her – was so struck by the sight of Pearl sitting down that she blurted out rustily, ‘Would you like a cup of tea before you start work?’

  It was hard to say which of them was the most surprised by this suggestion, but Pearl quickly answered, ‘Oh no, thank you, Mrs Queripel,’ and made to get up.

  But Alicia detained her. ‘A most extrao
rdinary thing,’ she gabbled on. ‘I don’t know what to make of it.’

  Pearl sat politely at the kitchen table, despite her size a pupil sitting straight for the teacher. But she couldn’t help herself and she had to smother a yawn.

  Alicia was so carried away by what she had begun, so eager to share her anxiety, that she ignored this rudeness. ‘I’ve got my theory,’ she said, ‘but I could be wrong.’

  Pearl propped her chin on her cupped hands. She looked at Alicia wearily and, for the first time ever, Alicia thought she detected resentment in Pearl’s blood-shot eyes. But her mind was all on her mystery and in a frenzied rush, she carried on regardless.

  ‘It was on Sunday,’ she said, ‘round about teatime.’ (It suddenly occurred to her that she didn’t know whether Pearl and her family had tea at the same time she did, nor what they had, nor any details of their domestic life at all.) She added, ‘Around five.’ She clasped her hands, for dramatic effect, as she set the scene. ‘It was getting dark. It was raining. I was here in the kitchen, getting my tea – a couple of chops you know, new potatoes and peas – right here by the draining-board, when all of a sudden the bell rang.’ She clutched her hands to her throat to convey her panic. ‘Who could it be? At that hour? On a Sunday? In all that wind and rain? Round here? I was petrified. They didn’t just ring the once, whoever it was, they rang twice, while I waited in here for God knows what. Then I plucked up my courage; I went over to the kitchen door, I stood just here and I looked out to see what I could see.’ She paused, peering up the hall as she had done on Sunday. ‘I got the shock of my life. I was expecting a grown man of course, up to no good, but there was this short little shape out there, no bigger than this. While I was watching, he rang again and as I was debating in my mind whether or not to answer, he coolly turned on his heel and walked away. Didn’t give me a chance to make up my mind.’