AN IRRELEVANT WOMAN

by MARY HOCKING

  Supper was a silent meal. Patsy had taken the children home and Hugh was depressed. After they had all got in each other’s way doing the washing-up, Murdoch went for a walk with Humphrey.

  Katrina settled down in the television-room to watch A Very Peculiar Practice. To her annoyance she was soon joined by Stephanie. Katrina had spent some time before supper trying to come to terms with her relationship with Stephanie. She had acknowledged that Stephanie would always be the elder sister in whose presence she herself would become immature gauche, and, worst of all, shrill. It would be sensible to accept this and never, never get into an argument. She had not wanted her newfound wisdom to be put to the test so soon.

  Stephanie, who was never able to watch television without instructing other people as to what was happening, said, ‘I find the reversal of the roles particularly amusing, don’t you?’

  Katrina grunted.

  Stephanie watched in silence for a moment or two and then said, ‘And rather more interesting than all this business with the lesbian woman doctor which I find rather obvious.’ Katrina began to file her nails. ‘It’s the old Hollywood story of the Thirties. In fact, I suppose one might say that it is the eternal love story in reverse. The man it is who nearly drowns and has to be rescued by the big, strong policegirl. Who then discovers that he is wounded and vulnerable, poor chap, having been ill-used by a brute of a wife. So she must teach him the gentle art of loving. But, note, warning him that she is not to be tied to any one man, which he meekly accepts, just grateful for her attentions while he is in receipt of them. One can see Clark Gable and Janet Gaynor playing the Thirties version.’

  Katrina said, ‘And that appeals?’

  ‘I find it amusing.’

  ‘But the idea of playing the Clark Gable role appeals to you?’

  ‘There are times when I feel the urge to mount my horse and ride off into the sunset.’

  ‘That was Gary Cooper – The Plainsman and all that – not Clark Gable. Anyone can tell you’re not a cinema buff.’

  ‘Oh well, whichever . . .’

  Katrina said, keeping her voice at its lower register, ‘Well, it doesn’t appeal to me.’

  ‘You have led a rather sheltered life, Katrina. I can see that the ideas of the Women’s Movement would come hard to you.’

  ‘I liked the way women were before they started moving.’

  ‘You could hardly remember, I should think.’

  ‘Well, I’ve had a few opportunities to see what happens to men. And if being liberated means having all the things a man has, I don’t rate it that highly. The more I see of them sweating themselves to an early death to make it to the top, all the freshness and vigour gone by their forties, thick round the waist and puce in the face with drink, the more I pity them. As far as I am concerned they can have all the room at the top.’

  ‘Are we by any chance talking about a particular man?’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  ‘We are talking about a particular man.’ After a pause she put an arm round Katrina’s shoulders and gave her a little hug. ‘Oh, lovey, I am sorry. But whatever you do, don’t let it ruin your time at university. No man is worth that.’

  Katrina, now puce in the face herself, began to talk rapidly, her voice rising in pitch. ‘It’s funny, there is all this stuff written about school, and how they try to mould you and how bad it is for you. And then you go to university and there’s this myth that they aren’t trying to mould you. It’s all free and liberating. And people really believe it. They go through life congratulating themselves on their independence of mind as though people couldn’t even guess whether they were at Oxbridge or LSE. And they never cotton on to what has happened to them.’

  Stephanie smiled her sorrowful smile. ‘One of the faculty, is he? And married, no doubt. A pity.’

  ‘Oh, you’re so clever, Stephanie!’

  ‘There must be things you can get involved in – theatricals, debating societies . . .’

  Katrina took a deep breath and said, quite calmly, ‘I go for long walks, up in the hills. There’s a farm . . . I’ve learned quite a lot about animals.’

  ‘Yes, well, that will do no harm. In fact, I expect it helps to distance this wretched affair.’

  It was Katrina who smiled now. ‘Quite a bit of distance, in fact, on the Cheviots.’

  Since there seemed little to be gained from further conversation with Katrina, and she did not anticipate much in the way of support from Hugh, who had, after all, been unable to handle Patsy and was unlikely to prove more effective with his own mother, Stephanie decided to have a word with Murdoch before tackling Janet.

  As she stood outside his study door, aware of noises from within, the occasional squeaking of his old chair and the thud of something, probably a book, on the floor, all notion of treating him on equal terms deserted her. She opened the door softly and peeped inside. He was sitting hunched over his desk; papers were spread about the room, on the floor, the armchair, even the window sill.

  ‘I don’t want to interrupt you if you are working on the book,’ she said. He was usually much more orderly than this.

  ‘I’m doing my accounts,’ he said shortly. ‘And you are interrupting.’

  ‘I thought your accountant took care of all that?’

  He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘God give me patience!’

  ‘And anyway, it’s a bit late, isn’t it? Aren’t you supposed to send details off to him in April?’

  ‘Since you are here . . .’ He looked round, his face wrinkled in rueful misery. ‘How much is a large packet of Daz?’

  ‘What?’ She came and stood beside him and saw the long strip of figures, some ticked.

  ‘Your mother was so careful always,’ he said rather desperately.

  She folded her arms around his shoulders and rested her head against his. ‘Oh Daddy, darling, you mustn’t, not you!’

  ‘But who am I?’ He cupped her face in his hands. ‘Tell me that. I used to think I was the provider. But now I see how very little I earned and what miracles your mother wrought with it.’

  I have never felt so close to him, Stephanie thought; but it’s not right, not for him, this closeness.

  ‘What are we to do about Mother?’ she said softly.

  ‘That is for Mother to decide.’

  ‘Has she made any suggestions?’ Not that she would have done, but it was important to keep talking now that the subject had been broached.

  ‘Nothing serious . . . She did say one evening she thought of becoming a parish worker.’

  ‘A parish worker!’ The very idea roused so much anger in Stephanie that she scarcely knew on what to concentrate her scorn. ‘Now, when women are being denied the priesthood? She would be satisfied with that!’

  ‘I don’t think she meant it. She was annoyed with the vicar who had been to see her. She said she could have been more helpful to someone in her condition than he was.’

  ‘Oh well, even if she were serious, they would never have her. Not after this breakdown.’

  ‘I suppose some people would say that a breakdown is almost a prerequisite to entry into any form of deeper spiritual life.’ He was only half-mocking. ‘A broken and a contrite heart is something that must never be despised.’

  ‘I have no difficulty in despising it! Male language.’

  ‘To describe a condition also applicable to men,’ he said, making one of his wry, clown’s faces.

  ‘You aren’t serious about this?’ she said hopefully. ‘You wouldn’t countenance it?’ She was shocked to think that he might even consider putting his own future to one side to assist her mother in this, or any other whim.

  ‘Countenance sounds rather grand.’ He patted his stomach which was no longer so paunchy, ‘I don’t think I have ever visualised myself “countenancing”.’

  ‘I have always thought you were so good at defending yourself. But now I wonder if it wasn’t Mother who did all the defending.’

  ‘That is a thought, c
ertainly; one of many to have been presented to me of late.’

  She thought he sounded altogether too good-humoured. ‘Your book is never going to get finished if you don’t learn to defend yourself.’

  ‘Oh that? I’ve sent it off to my agent, didn’t I tell you?’

  ‘But you had only just started revising it.’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘There wasn’t any more I could do to it.’

  ‘You mean you didn’t bother?’

  ‘I bothered quite a lot, in fact. But it was no good.’ He looked at her quizzically, not a fatherly look, more that of a social scientist trying to evaluate the worth of a potential observer. ‘I suppose it has to be said . . . probably it will have to be said rather often. So why not now? It is over, Stephanie.’ He said the words slowly and clearly and then waited with that alert interest with which he had sometimes confronted her when she was young and had tried to be too clever; she had known at such times that he would give no quarter.

  She felt a slimy coldness at the pit of her stomach as she repeated foolishly, ‘Over?’

  ‘Once, when I shut that door, I was in a world over which I seemed to have complete control.’

  ‘We never interrupted,’ she said tremulously, not really wanting to know any more about this.

  ‘You have done plenty of interrupting lately, so you had better listen. Now I come in here and shut the door and I wait. And deep inside me where once strange things stirred, nothing happens. But I can feel the space and I know I am standing on the edge of a precipice. And I know also that whether the door is shut or not, visitors are getting in over whom I have no control.’

  ‘I didn’t think you worked at night, I . . .’

  ‘I don’t mean you, you silly girl! It is not external, an invasion from the outside world. It is happening within me. My mind – or my receiving apparatus or whatever it is – is working differently.’

  ‘Then you will write a different kind of book. Think how exciting that will be!’ In her nervousness she spoke in the terms in which she encouraged her sons when some new encounter with life alarmed them.

  He shook his head. ‘The ideas and insights which begin to fill my head now do not cry out to be written.’

  ‘You’re not going soft, are you?’ Dismay made her bold. ‘You are not trying to tell me that it is more important to do than to write?’

  ‘No, no, no! A change is taking place somewhere inside me which it is beyond my power to reverse.’

  ‘But you mustn’t simply give in.’ It wasn’t just his gift he was renouncing; that life beyond the closed door belonged to all who had held it sacred throughout their childhood. ‘You must fight, not assent!’

  ‘Assent!’ He drove his fist against the desk. ‘I have assented a hundred times and then withdrawn from the abyss, unable to stand on its giddy edge. I have walked around it, prospecting for hope and alternative explanations. Believe me, I have done that times without number in the last months. But eventually it must be approached cold, with clear head and prepared heart.’

  ‘I don’t understand. I don’t understand what you are saying. You are tired. This business of Mother’s has upset your balance as well as your routine. You are suffering from writer’s block, you . . .’

  But he shook his head and would not speak of it any more.

  The next morning, after breakfast, Stephanie went to see Janet. She was surprised to find her looking composed, if remote, propped against the pillows, hands still on the turned-back sheets.

  There were flowers in a bowl on the bedside table and Stephanie bent to see if they needed more water – and to give herself time for composure. In doing this she knocked over one of a little pile of books placed beside the flowers. Stephanie recognised the products of the Women’s Press and Virago. She was disturbed to find, on picking up the fallen book, that several passages had been marked with comments in Janet’s handwriting. Was it possible that, while they had imagined her lying here day in and day out doing nothing, Janet had, in fact, been reading all this subversive literature, searching through it perhaps for something to hold on to? How maddening and how pathetic! Stephanie said gently, replacing the book, ‘Did Patsy provide you with this? I do hope you haven’t taken it seriously, or let it upset you?’

  ‘I think I knew most of it already.’ Janet, as so often lately, seemed to be addressing someone beyond the window. ‘I was born knowing it.’

  ‘Mother!’

  ‘It’s all very one-sided, of course, don’t you think?’ Janet consulted that outside observer and waited for a moment to see whether he – or perhaps it was she? – consented. ‘All about how men have used women. No mention of women using men. Women do. I suppose you could say I used Murdoch because I wanted children. One has to be fair.’

  ‘But you loved him!’ Stephanie tried urgently to draw attention to herself. Usually, with her majestic physique this did not present any difficulty; but at the moment she felt like Alice suffering one of her diminutive transformations. Janet pondered the question, seemingly unaware of its source.

  ‘Did I love him? He excited me physically and stimulated me intellectually. The loving came later, much later. What I most remember of those early years is the moment that I saw my first baby.’ She turned her head slightly, gazing wonderingly down as though the infant lay beside her. She was not telling Stephanie something, it was doubtful if she connected the baby with the woman beside her; she was reliving the moment which had given her the most joy in the whole of her life.

  After a little while she went on, no longer looking out of the window but into the far corner of the room. To me, it was a miracle. Now people talk about it as if it is just a function. And while all these books are being written, men are plotting a takeover; wresting the power and the mystery from the woman, transferring it to their own laboratories, engineering it, reestablishing themselves as God. It’s all jealousy. Men have always been jealous that it is the woman who bears the child. She is the fruitful one – they call it passivity. That is why I never envied Murdoch his gift. Why I always wanted him to have every opportunity to exercise his creativity. Nothing compared to mine, but some recompense. I was so sorry for him, shut up all day over dry old bits of paper.’

  Stephanie said shakily, ‘I think you are a little mad.’

  ‘Am I?’ She registered Stephanie now. ‘I brought you into the world. Don’t you think you are of more value than one of your father’s books? Now what have I said?’ For Stephanie was crying. ‘What is so terrible about that?’

  ‘Well?’ Katrina asked a few minutes later when she came into Stephanie’s bedroom. ‘Did you make her agree to go into a rest home? Is she crying, too?’

  Stephanie blew her nose vigorously. ‘I didn’t mention it. I decided . . . after a little preparatory exploration . . . that this is something she and Daddy will have to work out between them. I don’t know about you, but I propose to go home tomorrow. I . . . I have quite a few matters to attend to.’

  Chapter Ten

  One winter evening, many years ago, when she had been sitting looking at the fire sinking in the hearth, Janet had said, ‘Women are the true explorers.’ Although she had spoken quietly, this had startled Murdoch. Even then, so long ago, he had been aware of a feeling too deep for him to reach. Why had she said it? Had some lack in him occasioned the remark, or had he said (recently or distantly, women can brood long before speaking) something hurtful, committed one or many an unconscious cruelty? For whatever else had been in doubt, there had been no mistaking the fact that the statement related not only to woman’s potential but to man’s estate. He had pressed her in a manner which suggested he had rights over her mind as well as her body. It was not usual for him to behave like that, but he had encountered a door closed against him and like a child in a dark place had tried to batter his way to the light. She, of course, had refused to say any more. The words had stayed in his mind and had seemed to grow in importance. He had told himself, ‘There is a book here; it will com
e to me one day.’

  It was only now, when there were no more books in him, that his greatest revelation came upon him. And came, as great moments so often do, unheralded by significant signs, as he stood at the kitchen window. He could see Janet propped in the cane garden seat, a flimsy dress billowing about her thin body, indifferent to her surroundings as a scarecrow hoisted to frighten the birds away. He said involuntarily, ‘Women are the true explorers!’

  Malcolm, who did not find this a surprising discovery, continued to whisk vigorously some concoction which, since if Malcolm was to cook it would not be sufficient to do it adequately, he had promised would be a gastronomic miracle.

  Murdoch’s mind, accustomed to making great leaps in time and place, now presented him with a fleeting but perilously authentic image of a girl in a garden at whose edges the sea curled. From her island home he had uprooted this girl carelessly, without thought. It is, after all, the lot of most women to be uprooted, borne far away from their homes to the strange, barren places which men make for themselves; and there to be left stranded, with no resources than those which she brings with her, no corn in this alien territory. While the man pushes forward towards his intellectual goal, the woman mines the hard, crusty soil of their lives. It is she, not man, who must push beyond the barriers of the possible, expand the known limits of feeling, create love and comfort in emotional atmospheres one would not imagine capable of sustaining human life. Triumphantly she makes the desert flower, water to flow in parched soil, the grudging earth to yield its hidden riches. What engineer can match the miracles quiet women have wrought in humble homes, unknown, but surely not unrewarded? Did Janet think she was unrewarded? As she sat out there had she come to the end of his exploring and found that he had led her into a polar wilderness which even her gifts could not redeem? There was a bleakness about her which frightened him.