There was another reason Arnold couldn’t go to the retreat, and that was because it was on a weekend when they were meant to visit her parents. On the Friday, they talked about it. He repeated that he would not get the opportunity again, that he had to go. Her parents wouldn’t mind if he wasn’t there, he said. What did it matter, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d missed a Sunday at the ugly house. Polly felt suddenly weak in her argument. It was true that occasionally Arnold was unable to go because he was away at a conference, or attending a literary festival or was just too busy with teaching-related work, and Polly had gone to her parents without him, taking Evelyn with her. She didn’t like going alone to visit her parents because it made her feel like a child again, and she hadn’t enjoyed her childhood. They had had a number of rows about it, over the years. Arnold thought that they visited her parents far too frequently. Because he was an orphan, he felt frustrated that he wasn’t able to counter their influence on Evelyn with his own parents. How Evelyn would have loved them, he sometimes lamented, and the house they lived in, with all its art and music and books. Had they still been around, Evelyn might have been more interested in such things.
‘Just promise me,’ she said to him on the Friday evening, ‘once you come back from this retreat, you will be finished with your research. No more going to Vera’s church on Sunday. Ever. Do you understand?’
‘Not ever?’
‘No. If you go back, I’ll have to assume you’ve become a Christian.’
‘And then what?’
Was he teasing her? Did he still think it was a joke?
At the ugly house she felt vulnerable and afraid. She had thought about cancelling her visit, but something made her decide to keep to the normal routine. Evelyn was happy to find that some of her young cousins were there, as both brothers had come this time, and brought their whole families. But when Evelyn went off to another part of the house, Polly felt even more alone, and prey to the old values. Her birth family seemed to tower over her, in the absence of her own. Without Arnold they seemed to think themselves more entitled than ever to offer any advice and criticism they wished, and there was no end to it. How much money was the shop making? Why didn’t she branch out into gifts and souvenirs – they lived near a popular tourist attraction, why didn’t she sell pictures of the cathedral, or porcelain plates with the cathedral on, or Union Jacks?
‘The age of paper is dead, sweetheart,’ said her mother, who had never shown much interest in paper when it was an abundant thing. ‘Only a fool would throw everything into making paper at a time when everything is going onto the internet. No one writes letters now, no one writes on paper. Haven’t you heard of computers? There is such a thing as email. You are a funny girl.’
It should have earned their respect, as a daughter of builders, that she was earning money as a capitalist, making something with her hands. But they seemed to think paper was not something of any proper value. Not the paper she made, at least. Why make paper, they wondered, when there were mills that could turn out rolls of perfect, pure white paper thousands of miles long, day after day, against which her paper was like some awful recycled rough-textured stuff from the bottom of a packing crate. Trying to compete with the big boys when paper was in decline and the market was sewn up by the conglomerates – it was crazy. It seemed to them like someone trying to compete with Sony by knocking up home-made televisions. It was pointless and doomed to fail.
‘No Arnold, this month?’
‘No, Arnold’s gone away.’
‘Oh? Where’s he gone?’
‘Wales.’
‘Wales? What on earth for?’
‘He’s doing research.’
She braced herself for the opinions that would be sure to come, about the folly of writing anything other than potboilers.
‘What’s he researching?’
She decided to be honest.
‘He’s writing a novel with a religious theme, and he’s gone to Wales on a religious retreat.’ In the hush of puzzled silence that followed this statement she felt it necessary to add, ‘To do the research.’
They were seated around the table for lunch. She noticed odd looks askance from other members of the family – her sisters-in-law exchanged glances across a bowl of steaming sprouts.
‘It’s a funny old thing, religion,’ said her father, using the phrase, word for word, that she had heard come from his lips whenever the subject of religion was raised in his presence, ‘you either believe it, or you . . .’ And as ever, he left the sentence unfinished, hanging. For some reason, it seemed, he could never quite bring himself to utter the negative, with regard to religion.
‘He’s been going to church for the same reason,’ she tried saying this in as relaxed and unconcerned a way as possible, ‘joining in with prayers and singing hymns.’ She laughed. No one else did. They looked rather concerned.
‘Have you been going as well?’ said her mother.
‘Me? No. I couldn’t bring myself, not even for research. I’m not sure how Arnold can stand it actually. He hates it as well. The hypocrisy . . .’
‘They’re all just in it for themselves,’ said her mother, to general nods of agreement around the table, as she set off on one of her favourite hobby-horses. ‘The priests, the Catholic Church. It’s all a racket. Like everything else . . .’
It had not occurred to her before, but she now saw that her parents’ aversion to religion had, like everything else in their lives, an economic source. It was all to do with money. Nothing that came into their lives or came out of it did so on anything other than a river of cash. They hated this fact, but they put up with it. They did more than put up with it, they let it completely govern their lives, so that doing anything that didn’t make economic sense was utterly pointless. This meant that they regarded anything they did for recreational pleasure as simply a way of using up money that had been earned. They had taken a pragmatic approach to life to a vulgar extreme. She had tried to put her view across many times over the years – that just because money is important doesn’t mean it is everything. Her father would lean back in his chair and laugh meanly at such a sentiment. Of course, now she understood. Their hatred of religion stemmed from its claim that money wasn’t everything. She could make that claim because she had the security of her comfortable upbringing. The Church could make it because it was wallowing in gold stolen during the Crusades. Or whenever. But her parents couldn’t make that claim because they had nothing else to fall back on. They were frustrated. Deep down they knew that money wasn’t everything, but they just couldn’t fathom what else there was. Polly felt a flutter of nervousness at the thought that her opposition to her parents put her on the side of God.
It was a showery day. Rain would pound the plastic roof of the conservatory where they ate, for a few minutes, and then be replaced by bright sunshine. Under the strain of the sudden changes in temperature the whole conservatory seemed to creak and crack arthritically. The weather was all around them and yet they could hardly seem further from it. Around the table people constantly changed colour, went in and out of shadow. Later the sky opened up and sunshine established itself and the lawn quickly began to dry out.
‘It would be quite nice to sit outside,’ said Polly.
Her mother wasn’t keen. ‘Would it be worth getting the furniture out? You’ll be going soon.’
It seemed they couldn’t just go in the garden. It had to be prepared for them, the garden furniture had to be got out of the garage, the swinging bench thing that they had bought recently, which Polly thought looked like a floating settee, under a gondola-like canopy, had to be set up. Sunshades had to be erected and correctly positioned. At home, if they used the garden, they just went out there, maybe taking a blanket to sit on.
‘I might just go out anyway, I need some air.’
And so she stepped out onto the lawn alone. It was a large, well-kept garden, almost all the work of a hired gardener, and the view across the Weald was mesmerizing. I
t was not a house she had known as a child. She had grown up somewhere much smaller, and every time she came to her parents’ house now she had to readjust her conception of the family home.
At first she remained alone in the garden, everyone else seemed to be busy with something, but soon she was joined by her sister-in-law Holly, Mikey’s wife. Of her two sisters-in-law she was more wary of Holly. She trusted her less. She was the worldlier of the two, always dressed fashionably, always fabulously turned out. She had been flirty with Arnold when she first appeared at the ugly house, and somewhere deep inside herself she had never forgiven her for this, even though she understood that she was just a flirty sort of woman who communicated with most men that way. She had brought two children with her from a previous marriage, and now her daughter with Mikey, Tabitha, was three years old. The little girl was with her now; she was beautiful but seemed quietly nervous of everything. She hardly ever spoke, and then only in soft murmurs in her mother’s ear. Polly didn’t really know what to do with her whenever she encountered her, she was so different from Evelyn.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t read any of Arnold’s novels,’ said Holly, as she guided Tabitha by the hand round the edge of a flowerbed, ‘I don’t get a lot of time for reading.’
‘Arnold hasn’t written any novels. This would be his first. He usually writes poetry.’
‘Well in that case I’m sorry I haven’t read any of his poetry anthologies.’
‘And he’s only written one of those.’
‘Oh . . .’ She didn’t seem to know where to take the conversation next, and Polly, a little meanly she acknowledged to herself, didn’t want to help her. She had come out here to be alone, and to not worry about Arnold.
‘I lost a husband to religion once. It was weird.’
This piece of news, delivered so tritely, seemed too big for the mouth it had come out of.
‘I haven’t lost him. Didn’t you hear what I was saying in there? He’s doing research. I haven’t lost him to religion.’
‘I didn’t say you had. I’m just saying, I had a husband who went over to religion.’
‘As though that gave us something in common. But it doesn’t.’ Polly had to recalibrate her tone of voice. ‘I’m sorry for snapping. I’m tired.’
Holly was silent for a few moments, and Polly could almost hear her thinking how to frame the next statement, how to present her thoughts about Arnold. She approached closely, still with Tabitha in her hand, who was trying to reach out to pick the flower heads.
‘On the other hand, I can tell you’re worried he’s gone over. You put on a good act in there, laughing about it, but I can see it in your eyes. You’re worried he’s become religious. Believe me I know the signs, I’ve been there.’
Fury rose up in Polly’s chest, at the effrontery of this woman to make assumptions about her marriage, but the anger would not express itself and instead held back at the brink. She realized that, presumptuous though this woman’s remarks were, she had valuable knowledge. Polly wanted to hear more.
‘What happened to your husband?’
Holly shook her head at the memory of it.
‘Our son Jamie nearly died from meningitis when he was six. Tom said prayers by his bedside every day. Constantly. He’d never prayed before, though he did go to a religious school, but he’d never prayed like that. And Jamie got better, thanks to the antibiotics, but Tom insisted it was a miracle. From then on he became a true believer, started going to church, reading the Bible. I didn’t know what to do, where to look. He made this separate space for himself in our lives that was nothing to do with me. OK, it was only an hour or so every Sunday, and I wouldn’t have minded if he was playing golf or going to the gym, but going to church was different. I wondered if I should join him, to be supportive, but I just couldn’t bring myself to. I don’t have strong objections to religion, but I can’t sit in a church and be told what to do and how to live my life by a man wearing a dress. So I stayed out of it, and we didn’t talk about it and things just carried on for a while. But it was never the same again. Tom had changed. It was almost like he was having an affair, and in a way he was, but with God. God took priority in everything that went on in our lives from then on. It was like there was a stranger in the house, someone in the room with us all the time – at meals, watching the TV. At times I was scared. He stopped drinking. He’d always liked a pint with his mates, but he stopped going to the pub. He started seeing less of his friends, and more of the people at the church. Then the criticism started. If I wore anything too revealing in public, and I’m not talking tarty, just a normal bit of cleavage – he would start getting upset. If I went out with my friends and came home a bit drunk he would give me these filthy looks. Then he started trying to turn the children against me, using me as an example of how not to behave – “You don’t want to end up like your mother . . .” I actually heard him say that to our daughter. Then he wanted them baptized, and then he wanted me to start coming to church. He said I needed to be saved. He got more and more fanatical. In the end I just had to leave.’
Polly was touched by Holly’s openness, and her obvious desire to share her experience in order to help.
‘Thank you for telling me all this, Holly. And I’m so sorry about Jamie, it must have been terrifying.’
‘In some ways it was. But I knew we’d caught it in time, and I just had complete trust in the doctors that they would cure him. My doubt in them never wavered. But for some reason, Tom didn’t think science was enough to save Jamie. It was almost like he was waiting for an excuse to become religious.’
By now Holly had let go of Tabitha’s hand and the child was now roaming the edge of the flowerbed, talking to the flowers as though they were a class of children and she was their teacher, her quiet voice making very little sense, as far as Polly could hear.
‘Like I said, Arnold hasn’t become religious. If he had, why would he hide it?’
‘I’m sure you’re right, Polly. Arnold hasn’t got the religious spark in him that was triggered in my Tom. There has to be something there in the first place for religion to do its work. You look at Arnold, you can see there’s nothing there.’
Polly began wondering if she should get offended all over again at these remarks, but by now Buzz had come into the garden, with a can of beer in his hand. He and his father headed over to the garage and began work on filling the lawn with furniture.
Arnold didn’t get back on Sunday night till very late. It was a long drive from Wales and he had texted her regularly to give her updates on his journey. But she was in bed and pretending to be asleep when he got home, at half-past one in the morning. She could follow through sound the entire progress of his journey through the house, even though he was doing his best to be quiet. She heard the front door go, then the soft hiss of the pipes as he filled the kettle in the kitchen. Then more sound from the plumbing as he used the downstairs loo. She heard the stairs creak and the study door click as he poked around in there for a while. Then the closer sound of the bathroom, where she could monitor the brushing of his teeth, more tap noise, more rinsing. He was in the bathroom for longer than normal, making no sound at all.
And then he was in the bedroom. She could hear his feet on the carpet, hear his breathing, the rustling of his clothes, the clink of his belt, the rasp of his fly, the momentary pauses now and then when he was watching to see if she was awake. Then the covers were lifted and he was inside, bringing cold air with him. She could sense him craning his neck to check on her once again. She could have murmured a goodnight to him, but she decided to maintain the pretence of being asleep. She could always tell the difference between when he was asleep and when he was lying there awake but with his eyes closed. But he couldn’t. As far as he could tell she was dead to the world, and he was soon asleep himself.
In some ways, what she feared most was that she might become someone who had feelings of bitterness towards men in general. She didn’t want to be like some of the women she
knew, the worn-out, faded women who’d nurtured their good looks and had used them ruthlessly to ensnare and captivate, only then to wonder why they had been treated so thoughtlessly by those they had captured. She didn’t want to be weary of men, to be cynical, to be dismissive, and yet she couldn’t help feeling that she would become so if Arnold betrayed her. She had never been betrayed like that before, by a man. She had parted company with previous boyfriends and lovers painlessly and politely. She had lately begun to visualize her state of unbetrayal as a kind of pearl that she carried inside her, of innocence and loving trustfulness, that was perfectly beautiful and solid and hard at the same time. Over the years the cultivation of this pearl had come to matter to her more than anything, and the work of carrying it throughout her entire life seemed the most urgent and important task that she had assigned herself, after the successful raising of Evelyn. It was important because it fed all her energy, all her resourcefulness, it gave her the ability to face up to the daily challenges of life and to see them as things of potential reward. She thought that betrayal by Arnold would dash this pearl from her grasp and risk it being damaged or lost for ever. For that reason she would treat any misdemeanour by Arnold with severity, before it could damage her. That was just how she thought about things. Cultivating herself meant being in proximity to beautiful and nourishing things. Arnold had been one of these things, and his new venture into things separate from her she regarded with suspicion and fear.
The Paper Lovers Page 20
