Moonlight

by Fergus O'Connell

  And that was how it began.

  She said yes and they went for tea at an ABC. If he had expected her to be shy or diffident in any way, he was to be surprised. She was confident and, if anything, it was he who came away from their tea feeling somewhat intimidated and inadequate. As well as being pretty, she was well read and seemed to have the same head for business as her father. But all of this only reinforced his desire to pursue her. He could still remember how much he had admired her self-possession and poise. Now, though, as the train clanked along, he wondered if what he had seen as self-confidence wasn’t actually the reaction of an animal that has seen its prey and now needed to bring it down.

  At the time, he thought that their courtship was the happiest he had ever been in his life. Now he couldn’t help feeling that it had all been orchestrated by her, telling him the things he wanted to hear, deferring to him, doing things he wanted to do. Everything had just fallen into place – even the death of Clara’s father six months into their courtship. Not that Henry hadn’t been sad to see him go. On the contrary, he had been very fond of the old man.

  Obviously Clara had no part in the old man’s death, but that event too had helped to propel Henry to the altar. Clara’s mother had died several years before her husband. Clara had an older brother and, even if she did have lots of aunts and uncles, Henry felt that it was up to him now to take care of her. Clara’s brother inherited the stationary business; she inherited the house in Acton and some money. So now they had a place to live. They were married within the year.

  At first it had been blissful, particularly when Clara got over the worst of the grief after her father’s death. Any fears Henry might have had about the physical side of married life were also quickly dispelled. In the pub he and the other men from the office might laugh uproariously about wives, saying things like, ‘Somebody has to hold the beastly thing’ but Henry often wondered how many of them were actually joking. Clara had no such reservations – she was uninhibited in a way which, again, he found somewhat daunting. There were times when it was almost as though she was the man. This affected Henry so much so that, for about six months after they were married, he had difficulty getting it up. Again, what he saw then as Clara’s understanding and patience in helping him through it had really been her continuing to get what she wanted from their relationship.

  But the main thing, the thing that overrode everything else – Henry is now in the lift taking him up to the station exit – was that somewhere along the way, she stopped loving him. That’s if she ever had.

  He can’t pinpoint where this happened. Was it when she gave up working in the shop, which she did almost immediately after they were married? Or when she was pregnant with Ursula? Although, almost all through that pregnancy, she still wanted to have sex. In fact, he had been the one who had been uncomfortable with the whole idea.

  ‘Won’t it be able to see us?’ he asked, to which she had laughed that laugh of hers that, at the time, he loved so much, but that now grated on him whenever he heard it. At the time he had found it lusty, hearty, full of joie de vivre. These days it just sounded rather common.

  It is a short walk to the office. It is getting near the time when he must put these thoughts to one side and concentrate on his work. Being a manager has brought with it heavy responsibilities and he will not make the mistake he made before with the stationary – of taking his eye off the ball. These days he gives it his full attention and is often thinking about it long after he has returned home.

  They are due to go to Devon on holiday in mid-August. They are going to stay by the sea. It is the first time since their honeymoon that they have been able to afford such a luxury. This morning at breakfast, Clara announced that she was coming into town to pick up some necessities for their trip. She suggested that she and Henry meet for lunch – even if it was only a quick one. However, he demurred, explaining that he would be too busy, by which he really meant he didn’t want to be distracted from the task at hand.

  But there is a second reason why Henry demurred, and this is also the reason why he is not particularly looking forward to their holiday in August. Because Henry has a secret.

  Chapter 9

  Monday 29 June 1914

  Clara too often wonders how and where things changed. It seems like one day she and Henry were lovers – young, passionate, fun-loving – and the next they had the relationship they have now. But it can’t have happened as suddenly as that. Can it?

  She has one theory, which is that the marriage itself caused the change. After they left the church it was as though they both suddenly took up roles, as though they were actors in a play. Henry suddenly became the serious, self-important, I’m-the-provider type of person, reading the paper, going off to work, insisting that his shoes were shined and his collars were sparkling white. Before, his landlady had done those things. Without even a murmur, Clara had stepped in and taken over.

  And that’s the other thing. She first thought that Henry was to blame for this change in their relationship. She realised now that she has facilitated it completely. Just as he took up his role, so she took up hers. She took it as her duty to keep a clean and tidy house, to make sure his clothes were just so and that meals were served up. Since she had no other job, she threw herself heart and soul into this one. But as a result, the other Clara, the independent, opinionated, extroverted Clara who had worked in the stationary shop, became a distant memory.

  Her thoughts continued in circles, as all her theories seem to. Didn’t all women want this – the nesting, homemaking, child rearing? Yes, she had, but she also enjoyed her other life. And most of all, she just didn’t want to be viewed as a sort of combined maid and nanny and sex vessel. (This is a phrase she has begun to use to herself – ‘sex vessel.’ A vessel as in a container, not a ship. A container for what Henry shoots into her every Saturday night after he has taken her to dinner.)

  She had pictured their life after they married would be a continuation of what they had done before. Talking, laughing, sharing what had happened each day. He would go off to work, her job would be the house and eventually the children, but the fun would continue when they were together again in the evening. It would be an equal partnership – he brought in the money, she cared for the house and the family. Surely that was the way it was meant to be. But now, instead, it has evolved into something where, somehow, his job is more important than hers. In fact, not just more important. It is like it is the only job that has any meaning. Hers seems to have been reduced to just skivvying around the house.

  The worst part is that she knows it cannot be changed. How could they possibly row back from such a position? Would Henry even want to? Because it seems to her that part of the change is that he now sees her in a different light from when they were courting. She is not his equal any more. He sees her in this skivvy role. She is the maid and nanny with whom he has sex. One night a week, for those few hours when they go to the Trocadero or some such place, he is maybe the man who romanced her again, but even that is fading. The last night they were there, he was very subdued and, after she made numerous attempts to engage him in conversation, she gave up.

  So she knows this isn’t a conversation she can ever have with Henry. But could she do something? They say that actions speak louder than words. Can she start to live the life she pictured? And in doing so, in changing her behaviour, might she cause him to change his?

  If she is to do this, if she is to live this other life, the first thing she has to do is change how she feels about herself. Because she has been going along with this idea that his is the only job that matters. Everything she does, from being the first up in the morning to being the last in bed at night, is all centred around making Henry’s day go as smoothly as possible. His clean clothes are there when he gets up, his shoes are polished, the children aren’t too boisterous at breakfast, one of his favourite dinners is cooked and waiting when he comes home. Henry doesn’t really like fish, whereas Clara adores it. As a res
ult, she rarely cooks it.

  And then there is the whole business of ‘Don’t upset your father.’ Clara spends literally all the time that Henry is at home trying to make sure she or the children don’t do anything to irritate him or annoy him. She sort of knows where this comes from. When Clara was growing up, her parents constantly argued. For some reason that she doesn’t at all understand, Clara assumed that these arguments were either about her or that she was to blame for them. As a result she spent much of her childhood trying to ensure that whatever she did wouldn’t trigger one of these arguments. She would spend long hours in her room watching the birds that she coaxed onto her windowsill with crumbs of bread. When her mother took to her bed, as she often did, her father would explain that it was her mother’s ‘nerves,’ and as Clara took over the running of the house, she would try to ensure that whatever she did wouldn’t upset her father.

  Clara is still the same child. She realises this. ‘Find the child and you’ve found the adult’ is a favourite saying of hers. Even though she is now a grown woman, in some ways – and this is especially true in her marriage to Henry – she is still the little nine-year-old girl trying to please and not cause any disagreement.

  Clara thinks life should be a bed of roses. She is the only person she knows who has ever thought this. When she was at school she had a friend, Genevieve, to whom she once said this. They were talking of what they wanted life to be like when they grew up. Genevieve so ridiculed this idea that Clara never mentioned it to anybody again. Not even to Henry. Not even when they were courting.

  Chapter 10

  Monday 29 June 1914

  ‘Bother! O blow! Hang spring-cleaning!’

  They are probably Clara’s favourite words from what may well be her favourite book, The Wind in the Willows. They suddenly occur to her now, standing on the dew-drenched lawn of the house in Acton in her bare feet. It is early morning.

  A few minutes ago she woke before Henry’s alarm clock went off. The room was in darkness. While she would prefer to sleep with the curtains pulled back and be woken by the sun, Henry prefers to have them drawn. She slipped into her dressing gown and slippers and stole silently out of the room. In the bathroom mirror she brushed her hair and then came downstairs. The house was silent; the girls were still asleep.

  She loves this time of morning, before everyone else is awake. The hush and then the stirring, the pause before the chord, the breath before the kiss. She goes into the kitchen, opens the back door and then down the three steps to the lawn. Here she takes off her slippers and stands in bare feet on the wet grass. She likes to stand on the earth, likes to imagine the sphere of the world turning slowly with her attached to it. Clara’s middle name is Mahala. Her mother told her that it is an American Indian word for woman. Clara likes to imagine that somewhere, right now, an American Indian woman is standing on the Earth just as Clara is doing.

  She closes her eyes and lets the sun, which slants into the back garden when it rises, warm her face. She listens to the birds twittering madly. They aren’t as loud or as many as they were in spring but it is still quite a performance. Clara adores birds. How she loves the spring when the fluff ball baby birds – the ‘little babas,’ as she calls them – start to appear and get their first flying lessons. They are all well out of the nest now.

  And that is when it occurs to her – the Bother, O blow and Hang spring-cleaning. She won’t stay around the house all day cleaning, dusting, sweeping and minding the girls. She will take a few hours to herself and go into town. She can buy some things for their holiday. And perhaps meet Henry for lunch. Hang spring-cleaning indeed. With this resolve, she slides her feet back into her slippers. Their wetness doesn’t bother her. The dew is holy water, beautiful wine.

  Henry is already up – she can hear him in the bathroom. She goes upstairs again and calls Ursula. The general hubbub has woken Virginia, who lies happily in her cot until Clara comes to get her. She is such a placid child, unlike her sister at that age. Clara brings Virginia downstairs, pops her into her baby chair and starts to prepare breakfast, talking to her all the while. The table has been laid the night before. She makes Ursula’s lunch for school. Meanwhile Ursula and Henry appear and sit at the table. Clara makes tea and ferries toast from the grill to the bread basket. Henry isn’t really one to talk much in the morning but, in fairness to him, she feels he makes an effort. He asks – as he does every day – each of the three of them in turn what they intend to do that day. Ursula gets to be asked first.

  ‘We’re going to be reading stories in school,’ she says.

  ‘And you, Virginia?’

  ‘Papa,’ says Virginia happily, between mouthfuls of porridge that Clara is feeding her.

  Clara has noticed an interesting thing – though she has never said anything about it to Henry. When Henry is there, Virginia seems to just know a few words – ‘Mama,’ ‘Papa,’ ‘chair.’ But when Henry is at work or in the sitting room, and Clara and Virginia are together, Clara will talk constantly to the child, who then seems to know many more words. She knows ‘leg’ and ‘face’ and other parts of the body. She understands when Clara says, ‘I’m just going to open the window’ or ‘Where did I put that spoon?’ and will repeat some of the words. It is very curious. Though in another sense, it isn’t. Clara thinks – has thought from the first time she clapped eyes on her – that Virginia is an old soul. She has been here before.

  ‘And you, my dear?’ asks Henry.

  ‘I thought I might go into town. Pick up some things we’re going to need for our holiday.’

  ‘May I come, Mummy?’ asks Ursula.

  ‘I come?’ asks Virginia, in the same questioning tone.

  ‘Not today,’ Clara replies. ‘You stay with Mrs Parsons. We three will go some other day. Anyway, you’ve got school, Ursula.’

  Ursula returns to her toast. Clara butters a small piece and gives it to Virginia. There is a knock at the door.

  ‘That’ll be Mrs Parsons now,’ says Clara.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ declares Ursula.

  ‘That’ll be nice,’ Henry says, spreading butter on a crust of toast.

  He often does this, referring back to a piece of conversation that occurred a while back. Clara knows that he ignores a lot of what goes on in the house, not to mention what she says. He often doesn’t listen because he is reading his newspaper or thinking about work or something else. This is true particularly lately. But it is almost as though there is some other part of his brain that is recording the conversation and then this recording gets checked for anything of significance. Clara has this image of a group of little men in Henry’s head listening to the recording, a bit like the dog on the ‘His Master’s Voice’ advertisements. If they hear anything worthy of his attention, they pass it along to him and he comments on it, just as he did now. Clara once told him about the little men in his head but he wasn’t at all amused. She keeps it to herself now.

  ‘I wondered if you’d like to meet for lunch?’ she asks.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ he says, now somewhat more engaged, though his eyes are still on the newspaper. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to today. Not on Monday. Everything tends to be far too busy on a Monday. Perhaps some other day.’

  For a moment Clara is surprised – and hurt. But the feeling passes quickly.

  ‘Of course,’ she says, sitting down herself.

  She pours some tea and butters a piece of toast. It doesn’t matter. Time in town by herself will be just as nice.

  After breakfast, Clara goes through everything with Mrs Parsons, particularly the collecting of Ursula from school. Then, with Virginia in her pram, Clara delivers Ursula to school. After that, leaving Virginia with Mrs Parsons, Clara goes upstairs, bathes and dresses. She puts on a frothy white blouse and a dark blue skirt. She won’t need a jacket today – not in Central London, not in this weather. A white hat with a cornflower blue ribbon, some lipstick and she’s ready to go.

  She takes the omnibus
into town. She wanders in and out of shops on Regent Street. She picks up some bargain winter clothes which are being sold off. They won’t fit Virginia now but should by the end of the year. She buys each of the girls a little gift – a small packet of sweets for Ursula, a little bar of chocolate for Virginia. Clara goes into an ABC and orders coffee and two cakes. What a beautiful drink coffee is. She rarely drinks it at home. Henry prefers tea and it seems silly and expensive and wasteful just to make it for one. The cakes each consist of two round shortbread biscuits with strawberry jam in between, icing and hundreds and thousands on top. She has loved them ever since she was a child.

  She doesn’t mind being by herself like this. It seems to her sometimes that she has spent her whole life alone. Her mother began to retreat into herself while Clara was still a child. Clara never knew the reason for this but she wonders if it had something to do with the deep-seated unhappiness that existed between her parents.

  The more her mother withdrew, the more her father retreated into his work. By the time she was nine Clara was often – for weeks at a time – running the house, cooking for her father and brother and trying to jolly her mother out of bed and out of her increasingly profound depressions. Clara had the top bedroom in the house at that time – a dormer window on whose ledge she would leave crumbs of bread to encourage birds to land. They became her friends. She named them and talked to them and rejoiced in the tiny fluffy youngsters that appeared each spring.

  When she married Henry, she thought her being alone had finally come to an end. Looking back on it now, she can see how wrong she was – how stupid she has been. Her marriage has just been a momentary interruption before she returned to what she now thinks of as her natural state.

  She finishes her coffee. It is only lunchtime. She doesn’t want to go home yet. The nearest park is St James’s so she goes across to it and finds a bench by the water. Ducks wander about on the grass and occasionally squabble noisily with one another over food. A swan sails past stately as a queen. A pelican lands. Clara realises that she is smiling; she loves being surrounded by birds like this. She wishes she had brought some bread and is just considering going to see if she can buy some when a man comes along and asks if she’d mind if he shared the bench with her.