by Fay Weldon
“What does she want?” asked Angel. “Our heart, or our body or both? For herself, or for the White Slave traffic?”
“Don’t be so absurd and old fashioned,” said Jelly. “She’s just come for her inheritance.”
Una Musgrave wore shiny black leather boots up to her thighs, short red skirt, white sweater and a wide patent belt with a buckle which looked like solid silver to Jelly. Brian Moss came out of his office, blinked, and asked her in. Jelly felt displaced and unable to compete, and even Angel blenched.
Once a week the management of The Claremont provided a bowl of complimentary fruit, each apple so perfect and red, each pear so well-formed and greenly glossy, each plum so unblemished and free from wasp invasion, as to make the contrast to the fruit from the
Rice Court orchards more remarkable. The Rice Court fruit trees were ancient, gnarled and beautiful: the fruit they produced was meager and misshapen by commercial standards, but full of flavor so long as you could find a pest-free scrap, and were prepared to bite and trust.
The hotel fruit—and the bowl had been refilled that day—was without flavor: all perfection and irradiation. Jelly found herself crying; she had thought tears were Lady Rice’s province, but no. She too could be brought down by the misery of remembrance. She missed the orchard: brilliant white and pink with blossom in early spring: she missed the annual vain endeavor to keep the birds away from the cherries: see, see, Edwin! They’ve taken every one. It can’t be true!—but always was. She missed the bleak winter branches of the trellised plums against the Elizabethan wall; she missed the walled vegetable garden, and the ancient asparagus beds which should have been replaced and never were, and the way thistle would disguise itself as artichoke: in her mind she could place everything exactly: move in her head between the gooseberry and the black currant bushes, knowing how much to the inch she had to spare, frowning at nettles, smiling encouragement at bold plump orange pumpkins, reclusive dark green courgettes. All this she had lost; all this had been stolen: the human part of the loss was possible to forget. But all this garden history Anthea had robbed her of: Anthea and Edwin, together, had deprived her not just of future, and present, but of the past. She hoped the rose bushes she had pruned over the years would prick, and wound, and make anyone who dared touch the blooms bleed to death. She was getting a headache.
“Take an aspirin,” said Angel. “It isn’t that kind of headache,” said Jelly. “You’re missing the others,” said Angel. “They’re better at coping with misery than you. And it’s mad to be jealous of Una
Musgrave. Good God, she must be sixty-five if she’s a day. Brian Moss won’t look at her for a moment. And she’s a client. He wouldn’t be so stupid.”
“I’m staff,” said Jelly, “and that’s pretty stupid, too.”
“Anyway, there’s always Ram,” said Angel. “Good old Ram. Did you know his name was Rameses? His parents were cruising down the Nile when his mother went into labor, five weeks early.”
Angel was trying to distract Jelly. She didn’t like the way Jelly was staring at the fruit knife which went with The Claremont’s fruit bowl.
“I think I’ll slash my wrists,” said Jelly. “I can’t go on.”
“The knife’s too feeble,” said Angel, “even to cut through our skin.”
“Then I’ll order a steak from Room Service,” said Jelly, “and they’ll bring a good strong knife with a serrated edge.”
Jelly picked up the phone. Angel slammed it down. Jelly picked up the fruit knife and started to saw away at her wrist. She reddened the skin but could not draw blood.
“Told you so,” said Angel.
Angel hitched up her skirt to see how her legs were doing. They were furry with unshaven hair.
“My God,” said Angel, “how any of you ever got on without me? I’m the most important part of you and all any of you ever do is insult me!”
She made them go round the corner to the all-night beautician in Bond Street, and had her legs waxed in the old-fashioned way, with hot beeswax, smeared over the skin with a spatula, allowed to cool, and then ripped off. The process produced a smoother and more enduring finish than the lighter, less painful, quicker drying synthetic waxes now available. Jelly felt better.
(26)
A Sniff of Skin
JELLY HAD GONE TO work with not just her legs but her crotch shaved, and invited Brian Moss to put his hand up her skirt, feel and admire. Brian Moss was reluctant so to do.
“I don’t want this thing between us to get too personal,” he said. “You know that. I love Oriole very much. If she isn’t enthusiastic about sex it’s because she’s too tired, poor thing. Two children under five are a handful for anyone. We bring them up in the modern way, trying to develop their personalities, so they don’t sleep much. I’m in charge by night. Elsie has nightmares, Annie gets colic. I get back into bed with Oriole: I may be cold but I’m loving, yet even in her sleep my wife rolls away from me. I seem to disgust her. She says my feet smell, and she doesn’t like the texture of my skin. She claims it’s clammy. But I do love her. I expect she’s right about me and I’m just a hopeless sort of person.”
“Feel my skin where I’ve shaved it,” was all his secretary said. “You’ll find it interesting. Smooth, but with a kind of prickle just beneath the surface; a very white skin there because, when you come to think of it, between the legs very seldom meets the light of day.”
But Brian Moss was not to be tempted: not by words, descriptions, nor open invitation as she led his hand upward, rubbed his finger against the shaven skin, tried to guide it inward into the soft damp warmth of the split.
“I don’t know what’s got into you,” said Brian Moss. “You never used to be like this. Oh God, is it all my fault?” And he lit a cigarette, finding a packet in an open drawer.
“You see!” he said. “You’ve started me smoking again. Oriole made me give it up when she was pregnant. Passive smoking can do untold damage to unborn babies.”
“And to you, too,” said Angel. “But I don’t suppose your wife mentions that.”
“You don’t seem to think well of wives,” said Brian Moss nervously. It seemed to him his secretary was behaving oddly. He would have to get rid of her; he had let himself get involved with a seriously disturbed young woman. He would miss her but that couldn’t be helped. She was not, after all, as stunningly attractive as he had supposed. He preferred, at any rate outside marriage, the kind of blatancy Una Musgrave and her kind provided. Give Jelly twins and she’d end up like Oriole anyway.
“No,” said Angel, “I don’t think well of wives.” She was sitting on the edge of the desk, removing her little lace-up boots Jelly had bought at Marks & Spencer. She let them fall. First the right, then the left. She kept her eyes on Brian Moss. “Especially not cat wives.”
“What’s a cat wife?” he asked, though who knew where such conversation might lead.
“A cat wife wants a home and a man to pay for it, and someone to father her children and when she’s got it, she snarls and drives him away.”
She was unbuttoning her sweater, undoing her bra, wriggling out of her skirt.
“Don’t do this,” he begged. “Someone might come in.” His secretary ran over to the door, neat bosom bouncing, locked it, took the key and threw it from the open window. He heard the faint dry sound of its landing two floors below.
“Oh yes, I know your wife’s kind well,” said Angel, undoing his belt, unfastening buttons, unzipping his zip. “And thank God for her. One man’s misfortune is any whore’s good fortune.”
“Don’t do this,” he begged. “You’re not well. You’ve been working too hard. Get dressed. Get Lois to go down and get the key and let us out of here.”
“Not till I’ve had my fun,” said Angel. “I deserve some too. It’s my lunch hour. You’ll have to do as I say, or I’ll tell Oriole about you and me.”
“There is nothing to say about you and me,” said Brian Moss, “that I won’t deny at
once. I’m not afraid of blackmail.”
“I’ll tell her about the mole on your thing,” said Angel, giggling. “Sometimes it seems little and sometimes it seems big. It’s a matter of proportion.”
“I’ll say you saw it by accident,” said Brian Moss but, since he was by now naked to the waist and leaning against the wall, his statement lacked conviction. His belt fastened one hand to the handle of a drawer above his head; his tie fastened the other to its fellow; his penis was slowly and powerfully rising.
“What have you done to me?” he demanded. “I’m completely helpless.”
He saw the expression on his secretary’s face alter: the wildness faded from her eyes. She simply looked aghast.
“For God’s sake, somebody,” Jelly squealed. “Come and rescue me! Angel is totally out of control. After all she promised—”
“Told you so!” said Angelica.
“Not again,” said Lady Rice.
They were back. Jelly breathed again.
“Good lord,” said Lady Rice, backing away from the trussed-up Brian Moss, “I am really so sorry! I don’t know what came over me. I’m not really your secretary at all, I’m Barney Evans’ client, Lady Rice. I do have excellent secretarial skills, though, so I don’t feel too much of a fraudster. And it might be thought by some that you deserved this.”
Mad, thought Brian Moss, trying to slip his hands from their bonds, and failing. Entirely mad!
The door handle was rattling. It was Lois.
“I can’t open the door, Mr. Moss,” called Lois through the door. “It seems to be locked.”
“The key’s on the ground outside the window,” called Angelica,
“Angel threw it out. Go and get it!”
“No, no!” cried Brian Moss, but he was too late. Lois had gone.
“This is professional suicide,” said Jelly. “You realize that?”
“You can’t go on pretending any more,” said Angelica. “Let’s face it,” said Lady Rice, “we need treatment.” At which Angel ran round the room of the mind shrieking and squealing she didn’t want to be cured: she didn’t want to be locked up. Angelica caught her and quietened her.
“Let me out of here,” pleaded Brian Moss, but his secretary was making coffee, setting out his cup and saucer, the powdered milk, the sachet of sweetener, and didn’t seem able to hear him.
“Lady Musgrave’s here,” called Lois through the door. “What shall
I say to her?”
“Tell her to come in,” called Jelly.
“No, no,” cried Brian Moss again, struggling to get free. At least his penis was lying quiet and still. “Ms. White, you are fired!”
“Thank God,” his secretary replied, in the attractive timbred voice she had lately taken to using. Brian Moss had taken credit for that.
“Thank God!”
(27)
Official Business
UNA WALKED IN THROUGH the door as Lois opened it and Jelly walked out. Una looked after Jelly, not without admiration, and moved to undo Brian Moss’s bonds.
“I can’t thank you enough,” said Brian Moss, re-establishing his circulation, re-arranging his clothing. “My secretary has had some kind of fugue. A crise. Perhaps we should postpone this meeting?”
“On no account,” said Una. She still had Brian Moss’s tie in her hand. She smoothed it out and tied “it for him, pulling up the knot just a little savagely around his neck. The tie was yellow, with a pink and red pattern but did little to give the impression he hoped to achieve—that of a wild man falsely imprisoned in a grey suit. “I think it would be better if we did,” begged Brian Moss. “This has been a most upsetting incident,” but Una was persistent, saying in her experience men always made the best decisions immediately after sex. She wanted Brian Moss’s enthusiasm: she wanted him to help her raise the capital necessary to restore Lodestar House as a private hotel. She had never wanted anything from her family. She was not a family kind of person, but this windfall having fallen into her lap, she would extend her business interests into London. Brian Moss said he would do anything she wanted.
Brian Moss could see Jelly packing her desk in the outer office. She was slamming and stamping about. He tried to concentrate on what Una Musgrave was saying, which was about her early family history. Sara Toffener appeared to be Una’s daughter by her stepfather,
Wendy Musgrave’s husband. Una herself had been born out of wedlock: Sara had been born when Una was fifteen. “A victim of child abuse!” he said. “How dreadful.” But he’d said the wrong thing. Una snorted.
“I was an abusing child,” she said. “I hated my mother and wanted my stepfather just to spite her. And I got him. Once I’d got him I was tired of him. Always my problem. Sara was such a plain little girl too, and I was lumbered with her. I gave her away as soon as possible; I was far too young to cope. I’m glad she grew up to find Tully Toffener. People find their own equivalent in the other sex, I’ve noticed, and can end up perfectly happy.”
Brian Moss thought it was probably safe to invest in anything Una Musgrave thought workable. She would not be diverted from profit by sentiment or proper feeling.
Brian Moss could see Lois as she bent over to help Jelly with the lower drawers. Perhaps he could persuade her to stay. It was only by comparison to Jelly that Lois appeared plain. Plain girls, in any case, were more stable, less neurotic, than the pretty ones. “No one’s drama,” said Una Musgrave, “I can see, is of any real consequence to anyone else. You’re not even listening. As it happens, Lodestar House turning up in my life again is a fine example of the synchronicity which has accompanied my path through life. Ever read Jung?”
“No,” said Brian Moss.
“If you don’t think a little more about me and a little less about your dick,” said Una Musgrave, “I won’t pay you for this session.” Brian Moss paid attention.
“A house with many rooms is a wonderful thing,” said Una. “In the house of our dreams each room represents a different aspect of the self. Did you know that?” i
“I don’t dream much,” said Brian Moss, “nowadays. I’m far too tired. I have two children under five.”
On her way out of Brian Moss’s office, Una stopped in her booted stride at Jelly White’s desk.
“If ever you want a job,” she said, “get in touch with me. You’re just the type I like.”
“What type is that?” asked Jelly.
“Demure and devious,” said Una, “and not what you seem. Mind you, what woman is? I see you as someone with a past that you roll up as you go, so you hardly remember what happened yesterday, let alone last night.”
“It can be a problem,” said Jelly, “and getting worse.”
“It’s always darkest before dawn. Your lipstick’s smudged,” said
Una, taking out a little frilled cotton handkerchief from her pocket and dabbing at the corner of Jelly’s mouth. “But it’s a useful little mouth, I can tell.”
Part Four
Going Home
(1)
Angel Goes Home
“I’VE NEVER SEEN RICE COURT,” says Angel. “All you others have. You forget how recent I am.”
These days Angel would play for their sympathy. She felt guilty that Jelly now had no job, that the divorce would have to get on without useful intervention, and that Lady Rice’s satisfactory alimony was now less likely than ever.
Barney Evans wrote to Lady Rice that further delays were bound to ensue, since apparently Brian Moss’s computer files had been maliciously wiped by an employee with a grievance. It was an Act of God, and his client must see it for what it was, nothing more: Lady Rice should not expect the case to be settled within the next twelve months: eighteen was more likely. However, Sir Edwin, the circumstances being what they were, had agreed—without prejudice, of course—to allow Lady Rice an interim payment of £400 the month.
Angel had been disappointed when the letter from Barney Evans arrived with news of financial reprieve: she had hop
ed that sheer necessity would oblige the others to consent to her going to work for Una Musgrave at Lodestar House. As it was, they could continue to live free and respectably at The Claremont, use the credit card at the stores and to pay Ram, and the £400 a month for cinemas and the occasional meal out, to preserve them from the tedium of Room Service.
“I expect Anthea spends four hundred pounds a month on dog food,” said Angelica. “Mean bastard.”
“Even more,” said Jelly.
Lady Rice just sighed.
Rest and absence of strain were good for them. They felt physically well. They swam in the hotel pool; used the hotel’s beauty parlor. They had each other for company. Ram would call them up occasionally, if he was free; they never asked him in, but he’d found a fresher, airier car-park behind Harrods somewhere, and the Volvo was comfortable and familiar and the darkened windows meant the degree of illicitness and of danger worked to their sexual advantage. Just an ordinary parked corporation limo, rather rocking about. Nothing unusual.
Angel was growing more mature; Angelica was cured of anxiety; Lady Rice’s spirit no longer flew here or there in search of its monster; Jelly got on with her book on, of all things, the Servant through the Painter’s Eye, which took them all to art galleries, and, they hoped, expanded their cultural awareness: a field in which they all felt they were lacking. Not a word from Ajax. All was well, so long as no one stirred too deep.
