THE CLIMBING FRAME

by MARY HOCKING

  They sat facing each other across the kitchen table, talking as they had talked for so many years; the mother understanding more than the daughter realized, and yet always reaching a point at which she was baffled by the enigma that was her daughter. She was prepared to accept this, believing that if the soul is to survive there must always be a last bastion beyond which no intruder can penetrate. She smiled as she replenished Maggie’s empty cup and said:

  ‘You don’t need me to defend you any more.’

  ‘Don’t you be so sure about that.’

  The ties that bound them had been very strong, and Maggie was reluctant to admit that they were loosening now. She had been nine when her beloved father died. They had lived in the Manse then, on the far side of the village. He had gone to the library to prepare his sermon, and there, quietly and composedly, he had left them, resigning their company without a struggle or a backward glance. It had been little comfort to Maggie when her aunt told her that God had taken him gently and that he looked very peaceful. She had ensured that her mother had very little peace for the next two years. Although she had calmed down after that, the period of wild grief had had its effect and she was slow to mature, remaining very dependent on her mother with whom she argued constantly but without whose advice she was reluctant to take a step. When she went to university she had made a conscious effort to break free and her mother had supported her. She had gone to Durham, to be as far away as possible. But the distance had been too great and only emphasized her need; she was not ready to stand alone. Nor was she prepared to make the compromises that were demanded of her by her fellow students. Her gentle manner belied a certain obstinacy of spirit: Maggie, as her mother often said, could be led but not pushed, and most of the time she could not be led.

  ‘University was a traumatic experience,’ Maggie said. ‘I’m not sure I’m over it.’

  ‘You’re over it,’ her mother said quietly.

  Maggie laced her fingers round the cup and stared out of the window. Her mother got up and went to the sink.

  ‘Don’t, not yet. You block my view.’

  ‘You want to have a little brood, do you?’

  ‘Well, it is lovely. Even you must admit that.’

  Her mother laughed. ‘I suppose it is.’

  ‘You suppose it is! Honestly, how can you? You look out of that window every day from early morning—very early it was this morning—until nightfall, and you suppose it’s lovely! You’re developing into a complete moron. You’ll have to watch it.’

  ‘But then I’m not a poet,’ her mother said mildly.

  ‘You don’t have to be a poet, you just have to have eyes, and a soul.’

  They grinned at each other in the darkening room. The mother said, ‘You’re writing more lately, aren’t you?’

  ‘Bits here and there,’ Maggie admitted lightly.

  ‘You keep at it. And one day you’ll be famous.’

  ‘You believe that because I’m your daughter.’

  ‘No. I don’t think you’ll ever be successful at that office; and I don’t think you’ll ever have much money. But I think you’ll be a famous writer.’

  She did not think that her daughter would be happy. Maggie did not know what she wanted from life; she was the kind who would journey on looking for something that lay over the hill and round the next bend of time. Others would give up and accept second best, but Maggie would never do this. She would not accumulate much in the way of material blessings and this perhaps did not matter, they were not important to her and in her own way she would probably live comfortably enough without them. Her spiritual needs her mother neither understood nor endeavoured to; she was convinced that her daughter had a gift which she must be left to develop in her own way and at her own pace. But about her emotional needs, her mother did worry. Something in the way that Maggie had grieved for her father, a kind of unforgiving intensity that had not spared herself or anyone else, made the mother believe that Maggie would love once and once only. And what a risk that was! Love was such a lottery, one made a bad choice, or chose a man one could not have . . . If she could have interfered in this one thing, if she could have spared her daughter this pain, she would have done so. But it was not in her nature to interfere. If you interfered, she believed, you ran the risk of altering the natural course of events and thereby precipitated disaster. One must not ask for happiness for one’s child, any more than one asked it for oneself: one must only hope for fulfilment.

  ‘I wrote a poem at the Governors’ meeting,’ Maggie said. ‘It was so incredibly dull and they went on for so long over things that really aren’t important, like the drainage of the playing field. Then they didn’t have the energy to pay attention to Reverend Mother’s report. And you need to pay attention to her. She speaks so quietly, and she is so diffident and humble, that unless you are very careful you don’t realize how deeply she penetrates, right under the skin of life. She’s really good; not in a way that sends waves of goodness pulsing out everywhere, but in a way that is so refined and pure that it’s almost scientific, but without being cold or indifferent. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘No. But you do.’

  ‘Not really. If one could understand her that easily, she wouldn’t be important, would she?’

  ‘But you’ve written a poem about her, just the same?’

  ‘I’ve started it.’

  And tonight she would finish it. And tomorrow evening she would give it to Mylor, together with other poems she had written recently and two short stories he had not yet seen. Always she longed for his comments, and always when they came they were never quite what she had anticipated. Sometimes he rejected things that were very dear to her. Once he had said, ‘That description of the old woman is marvellous. It’s not only her appearance that is so precisely observed; you show such insight into what it is to be old.’ And as her spirits soared, he went on, ‘But it doesn’t belong. You haven’t time for a set-piece like that in such a short story. The whole thing lost momentum—for me at least—and never picked it up again.’ Although in many ways he was self-assertive, and as competitive as the next man, in his attitude to her writing he was completely without self-interest. He was not in the least jealous, nor was he over-anxious to make a contribution himself. ‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at in this one,’ he had said of one poem. ‘But I think this may be a lack in me, rather than in your writing.’ He was not trying to abase himself in any way; he merely accepted the fact that in her own field she was superior to him, she had a gift and he respected it. In her turn, she respected his honesty and objectivity; his praise was never grudging but it had to be earned. It gave her tremendous joy to share her work with him; a poem was never truly complete until it had been seen through his eyes and then it seemed to gain a new dimension, released from the narrow confines of her own mind. Never afterwards, when she became well-known, did she recapture the joy of those days when Mylor shared her work.

  ‘I’m going to do the washing up now,’ her mother said. ‘If you want to brood, you’ll have to go outside.’

  ‘I’ll help you.’

  ‘No. You’ve had a long day.’

  Maggie gave in, not because she was tired, but because it was comforting to be spoilt a little still. She went outside and walked in the orchard.

  Beneath her sandalled feet the grass was still warm, but the earth was gradually cooling and the orchard smelt strongly as though all its sweetness had been gathered together during the day and was now released by the evening breeze. As Maggie breathed this soft, sweet air she was torn by a feeling so strong that she did not know whether it was pain or joy. She asked no questions; she was at that stage where she offered no resistance but simply wondered at the miracle of life unfolding within her. At last, a person was being born that was Maggie Hester, a person who would emerge whole and would never again be dependent on anyone else. How strange it was that an emotion that was so strongly rooted in another person should yet have this liberating effect! She
kicked off her sandals and stood working her toes into the soil beneath the rough grass. The sensation sent a little shiver of ecstasy through her. She was a country child and had thought herself familiar with nature and all its works, yet now day by day and evening by evening it seemed to strew new miracles across her path.

  Through the trees she could see a square of gold. Her mother had turned on the kitchen light and Maggie could see her bent over the sink; the face seemed less familiar seen at a distance, the strong features relaxed in tired lines. This is how she is when I’m not at home to keep her young, Maggie thought. She noticed the greying hair; it had been greying for a long time, but until tonight she had not chosen to acknowledge the fact. Now, standing looking at her mother from the outside, she was separate from her in a way that she had never been before, as remote as a creature from another planet. It filled her with desolation. She wanted to rush into the kitchen and fling her arms about the beloved figure, to cry that she would never leave her, never, never! But she did not do this. She stayed in the orchard while the earth cooled and stars came out between the branches of the trees. Her mother finished at the sink and the light in the kitchen went out. Maggie cried softly in the darkness, and then went back to her room to finish the poem.

  The immaculate wimple frames a face that

  Rembrandt might have painted:

  Each line part in a statement of all that life

  has given and taken away—

  A tapestry of experience—

  While the transparent flesh reveals a summary in bone . . .

  Jemima said, ‘If you would take an interest in your children for a moment . . .’

  She thought that he was reading his pupils’ work. He put the exercise book aside hastily. He seldom brought home school work and he did not want to give her time to register the fact.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.

  ‘No problem,’ Jemima chided gently. ‘There doesn’t always have to be a problem, does there? Parents discuss their children from time to time. You school teachers! How you do complicate life.’

  ‘Life doesn’t need any help from us in that direction.’

  Jemima closed her eyes and ran the tips of her fingers gently across her forehead; it was apparent that she had planned this talk for some time. No doubt she had meant to speak easily and calmly, but she had thought about it too long, waiting for just the right moment, and had now worked herself up into a state of nervous tension. Mylor wondered what would happen if he sat down beside her and hugged her. Would a nice, uncomplicated gesture like that work? He would need a psychiatrist to tell him the answer to that one: he wasn’t trying it on his own initiative. He sat and watched her warily.

  ‘I worry about Daniel,’ she said. ‘With all the schools here going comprehensive, I worry about him.’

  ‘By the time Daniel is eleven the comprehensive business will be sorted out.’

  ‘But the schools will still be, darling. Even if they are sorted out to your satisfaction. I’m not thinking of this as an educationist, but as a parent. I expect that Eton is “sorted out”, but I don’t want Daniel to go there.’

  Mylor was never sure what she wanted him to do when she behaved like this. It seemed that she was goading him to lose his temper; if he was patient she increased the pressure, telling him that he talked down to her as if she was a retarded pupil. But when he lost his temper, she became quite rigid and later, invariably, she was sick. Better to keep the ball in her court. He said:

  ‘Where do you want him to go?’

  ‘I don’t know. How can I? You’re the one who knows about schools. I think we ought to talk it over together, that’s all, darling. We should be able to talk together, but you make it so difficult, I feel I have to marshal all my facts and have all my answers ready, just as though I was going in for an examination.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we wait a bit?’ Mylor hated making plans in advance.

  ‘Darling, people have their children’s names down at schools for years and years, you know that.’ Jemima never felt secure unless the path ahead was well-mapped out.

  ‘I’m not going to have my child’s name down years in advance! People who behave like that have their values all wrong. They choose a particular school because they think it will mould their child in the way they want him to develop . . .’

  ‘How aggressive you are!’ Jemima stared at him, her eyes wide in wonder. ‘I can’t say the simplest thing but you fly off the handle. You ought to be here with them all day, you’d soon find that instead of theorizing you were doing some moulding!’

  ‘That’s different. It’s simply helping them to survive without doing too much damage to themselves or anyone else . . .’

  ‘. . . teaching them not to be destructive, to respect other people’s feelings . . .’

  ‘But that isn’t making them fit into a preconceived pattern . . .’

  ‘To want success for your child isn’t wrong!’ Jemima had the stretched patience of someone pleading for sanity. ‘I’m not snobbish and I don’t mind a bit if Daniel is not a genius, but I want him to have stability and security in the future. I think that is the least one could ask for one’s child. I don’t want him to go to a school that’s trying to prove itself all the time - he’s not the guinea pig kind of child. He needs somewhere with established standards.’

  ‘What standards—and whose?’

  Jemima tilted her chin. ‘Mine if you like. One shouldn’t be ashamed of one’s standards, otherwise one might as well not have any. Daniel is my stake in the future, and I want to put everything I have into him. Can’t you understand that?’

  ‘You talk about children as though they were investments,’ Mylor said angrily. ‘You’re working out the long-term yield.’

  ‘And to you?’ Jemima gave the taut little smile that always maddened him.

  ‘They’re just human beings who are in our charge for a certain length of time. They’re not our possessions, we can’t order their whole future . . .’

  ‘You make fine-sounding excuses for irresponsibility.’

  He bit his lip, reminding himself that it was wrong to use the children as a means of attacking her; she had little enough belief in herself, and the children were her joy, the one achievement that she did not question. He sat looking at the ground, trying not to see that maddening little smile. He said to the carpet:

  ‘Do you want him to go to a boarding school? I can’t see him being happy in that sort of environment myself, but . . .’

  ‘Now who’s moulding him?’

  ‘Or there’s the direct grant school.’

  There was a pause. He looked up and saw her examining this suggestion with the self-consciously casual air of a purchaser who does not want to betray undue interest in case it should affect the bargaining position.

  ‘It’s a possibility, I suppose,’ she said, without enthusiasm. ‘I had wondered about it myself.’

  All this protracted argument, this tormenting of each other, this mutual agony—and she had known the answer all the time! He felt the heavy throb of blood in his veins.

  ‘Why ever didn’t you say this in the first place?’

  ‘Because you wouldn’t have agreed if you hadn’t thought of it first. Now don’t look so thunderous. It’s perfectly true. But tell me, do you think there will be direct grant schools by then?’

  ‘You’ll have to take that up with the Secretary of State.’

  ‘How childish you are! Darling, if you could only see yourself when you get in a paddy!’

  ‘There’s also the question of whether he would pass the entrance examination.’

  ‘But what about the free places?’

  ‘I don’t think he would qualify for one.’

  She gave a light shrug. ‘Condemned to failure at seven. Poor child!’

  ‘I am not condemning him.’ As always, when he was really angry, he was suddenly ice-cold and very much in control. And don’t ever speak of him as a failure.’

  �
�You said . . .’

  ‘No, don’t put words into my mouth, Jemima. I am just doubtful at this stage whether Daniel is really a particularly academic child. The only person who has mentioned failure is you.’

  It went to her heart as sure as steel when he spoke to her like this. She got up and began to collect things together clumsily, overturning her work basket, spilling cotton reels, thimbles, and an assortment of buttons on to the carpet.

  ‘I think perhaps it would be better if we never spoke,’ she said in a bright, brittle voice. ‘Perhaps we could write each other notes.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Jemima, what is it?’ he shouted. ‘What’s wrong with you? I’m not an easy person, I know that; but I try . . .’ He stopped, all the anger suddenly draining from him. He was so weary of all this and desperately anxious for a truce, at least, if they could never hope for peace. ‘What is it that I do that upsets you so much?’ he implored. ‘Tell me, and I’ll try; I promise I’ll try, Jemima.’

  She stood in front of him, frangible as cut glass; if he touched her she might shatter. She looked at him and shook her head. ‘I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you if you can’t see for yourself.’

  ‘My dear . . .’ He put his hand out tentatively and she jerked away from him. He said with a break in his voice, ‘Jemima, don’t be like this; let me . . .’

  ‘It always has to be me that’s wrong, doesn’t it? It’s never Mylor that mustn’t be like this . . .’

  From the landing, Daniel called out. Mylor went past Jemima into the hall.

  ‘Why aren’t you asleep?’ he asked as he came up the stairs to the boy. ‘You’ll wake Clare.’

  ‘I want a glass of water.’

  This had happened once or twice lately. A way of asking for attention, Mylor supposed; yet he was not denied attention, Jemima was endlessly patient and considerate with the children. He fetched the glass of water. ‘Been dreaming?’ he asked. The boy shook his head. He did not seem to want the water.

  ‘How was school?’ Mylor asked, wondering whether there had been any trouble there.