Cuckoo

by Wendy Perriam

  That sort of mission was impossible. She couldn’t bring the Gospel to savages in Botswana, when Charles needed her in Richmond Green. In any case, she had to conserve her energies. One of the reasons she hadn’t conceived when she first came off the Pill was the stress of her career – she was sure of it. This time it would be a gentle, unambitious little venture; yes, a little job, pace Mr Rathbone.

  But what should it be? Whatever Viv said about damp daffs, a florist’s would be ideal. A most suitable background to conceive a baby in, all those buds and blooms. But no florist’s post was advertised. How about a waitress? There were scores of openings there, except Charles would disapprove. And supposing one of the members of the Royal Mid-Surrey Golf Club should come in as a customer and catch their ex-Lady Captain slopping about with trays of shepherd’s pie. She turned back to the ‘situations vacant’.

  Temporary Owner-Drivers Urgently Required

  Medfield Mini-Cabs

  A driver. Now that was something she could do. She had her own car, an elegant Citroën which spent a lot of its life yawning in the garage. Driving was simple and soothing and wouldn’t overtax her. She’d still have vital energy to spare for circles round the dots. And it could be called a fun job. Not as daring as a bunny girl, but then you didn’t need a forty-inch chest to be a driver – it would only encumber the steering wheel. But at least a little daring. Wasn’t there some risqué film called Confessions of a Taxi Driver? Charles wouldn’t allow his wife to be a taxi driver. But as Laura had said, Charles needn’t know. Well, need he? He was away for a week in any case, so she could just try it out. She almost ought to break a rule, on principle. She’d been so obedient all her life, so careful and professional, never taking risks, never acting foolishly. She suddenly wanted to turn round and stick her tongue out, shrug off all those cautions and prohibitions, and, if not plunge in the deep end, at least put a toe in the water.

  She picked up the phone. ‘Medfield Mini-Cabs? Hallo, I’m phoning about your advertisement for drivers. Yes, of course I’m a woman, what did you think? Oh, I see. Good Lord, what prejudice! I’ve got a remarkably good sense of direction. It’s nothing to do with sex – I could read a map when I was eight. Yes, a ’79 Citroën Pallas. Of course it’s got four doors. Clean licence? Yes. What, you want me to come now? Right, give me half an hour.’

  She took the stairs two at a time. She’d got an interview and she wasn’t even dressed; wasn’t sure she wanted a job at all, let alone a crazy one like this. She hunted through her wardrobe for something suitably severe; didn’t want anyone to get ideas. She pulled on a sludge grey suit and a pair of walking shoes, and peered in the mirror. She still looked too demure. Her Minton china look, Charles called it. Charles loved fine china. Her dark hair was cut like an elf (an elf with a healthy bank balance and an extremely good hairdresser). Her eyes were blue, a very deep intense blue. Inestimable eyes, Charles had called them, when he’d first fixed his own lighter ones upon them and promptly decided they were assets he should invest in. He approved of the fact she had dark hair and blue eyes, which seemed to make her special, or at least superior to those who automatically associated blue eyes with fair hair, and dark with dark. She didn’t like her nose. It was too small and insignificant, but she’d learned the trick of not seeing it when she looked in the mirror. She focused on her eyes instead, or on her even teeth.

  She wished she were an inch or two taller. It might help as a driver. Small women were always treated as even more fragile and feeble than the big ones, and it rankled. She kicked off her brogues, put on her highest heels.

  ‘Lord! You’re a littl’un,’ muttered the small, greasy man in shirt-sleeves, stirring his coffee with a custard cream. The Medfield office was a dingy room sulking above a coin and stamp shop – girlie posters on the walls, nothing on the dirty concrete floor. The man fished half a soggy biscuit out of his cup and dried it on the blotter. ‘I’m Reg,’ he said, ‘the boss. You must be Mrs Jones.’

  ‘Yes.’ She had dispensed with the Parry. ‘And if you’re worried that I can’t reach the pedals …’

  ‘All right, keep your hair on, Mrs Jones. You’re the women’s lib one, aren’t you?’

  ‘Certainly not! I don’t believe in women’s liberation, not as it stands, in any case. It needs total re-thinking and reform …’

  ‘Well, we don’t get many women on this job, lib or otherwise. But with the summer hols coming up, I can’t be choosy. Sit down.’

  The interview took exactly twelve minutes, half of which Reg spent answering outside calls. Did she have a police record? Did she know the area? Could she add up?

  ‘Now, listen …’

  ‘OK, OK, I’ll take you on. Though I wouldn’t, if I weren’t desperate. I’ve nothing against you personally, mind, but women are invariably born with no sense of direction.’

  Frances opened her mouth to object, but Reg was rattling on about insurance, commission, and methods of payment.

  ‘Phone in tomorrow for your first booking. Nine o’clock sharp. No excuses. We’ll take it from there.’

  ‘Tomorrow? Good gracious! I don’t think that’s …’

  ‘And don’t forget to see that bloke I mentioned. He’ll fix up your insurance right away, if you say I sent you. OK? Close the door behind you. There’s a draught.’

  She reeled to the nearest café and ordered a black coffee, to recover from the shock. She never acted impulsively like this. She should have gone to a professional employment agency and taken a job more suited to her station in life. She grinned into her Danish pastry. No one except Charles used expressions like that.

  The trouble was, her station in life was so exceptionally narrow. She’d never had a job which wasn’t sheltered and respectable; never even had a lover. Oh yes, a few tepid paddlings when she was at university, but they didn’t really count. Then Charles had taken over and insisted on an early marriage, before she’d even sat her degree and long before she’d had a chance to taste the wide and wicked world. And here she was, aged thirty-four, and fifteen years married, Charles’ creation more or less, accomplished, efficient, successful, and barren. Charles was ten years older, or maybe a hundred years. She loved him, she admired him, she depended on him almost frighteningly, and yet sometimes she felt he’d taken away all her spontaneity, kidnapped her youth, and locked it in a bank vault.

  She selected a second Danish pastry, even larger and stickier than the first. (Three black crosses. Charles hated obese women and bad teeth.) Was the job an act of rebellion? Mrs Parry Jones, mini-cab driver, stuffing herself with pastries, and wasting Charles’ precious time. Perhaps she’d do worse – waste the whole day window-shopping and sprawling in the sun. She’d be a working girl tomorrow, so she’d treat herself to a little indulgence today. It wasn’t easy. She was so accustomed to being useful and committed, it seemed sinful to miss the Save Wildlife fund-raising tea-party, and to turn down a freelance fashion job when her old boss phoned in a panic and begged her to do it for him. Worst of all, Charles’ eye seemed to peer down at her from the sky in mingled disbelief and horror when she switched the Bach recital over to Radio 2 and lay down to doze in her bikini on the lawn.

  She was due for drinks with Clive and Laura in the evening. She cancelled that as well. Laura was still more maddening on her own home ground – all fizz and façades – and Clive made a life’s work out of being unobjectionable, and hid behind half a dozen clichés and the whisky bottle. Besides, she felt it was important not to see anyone before she started the Medfield job. They’d all make witty remarks and say how amusing she was (meaning downright stupid) and then she’d weaken, and instead of ringing Reg in the morning, she’d be chairing the meeting for the Richmond Residents’ Association or practising her Mozart. She’d written a new rule for herself: do something impulsive, ridiculous, and jolly well enjoy it. She had and she would.

  She was watching a thriller on ITV when Charles phoned, just before ten. She switched it off hastily – his all-seeing ey
e was frowning from Bahrain.

  ‘Miss you, darling.’

  ‘Miss you too.’

  ‘Good flight?’

  ‘Not bad.’

  The shorthand of her marriage. She could have done it in her sleep. ‘How did your paper go?’

  ‘So so.’ (That meant brilliant.)

  ‘Hotel all right?’

  ‘Not bad.’ (Five star, with all the trimmings.)

  ‘Are they working you hard?’

  ‘No, not really.’ (Fourteen-hour day and homework on top of it.)

  ‘Poor darling.’

  ‘No, I’m fine.’ (Man is born to labour.)

  It was comforting, predictable. Charles never let her down. Cards for all their anniversaries, phone calls for his trips away. And yet, somehow there was a barrier between them. She longed for her bare soul to rub against his, for their two minds to crash into each other and send up showers of sparks. But all that happened was this kid-glove conversation, this whirring of words. They never seemed to meet head-on, only obliquely, and, even then, there was a moat and a drawbridge up on Charles’ side.

  ‘Charles,’ she said suddenly. ‘I …’

  ‘What, darling?’

  ‘I … love you.’

  ‘Yes, of course, love you too.’

  The formula again. That wasn’t what she’d meant to say. But how could you start on all those forbidden, complicated things, via a crackling line half a world away? She could picture Charles in his Turnbull and Asser maroon silk dressing-gown, with all his possessions arranged in straight lines in the drawers; the items on the dressing-table drawn up in military formation, the alarm clock set for earlier than he needed it, the memoranda on the bedside table.

  Suddenly, she missed him. The second bed looked cold and empty, his brown spare slippers gaped on the bedside rug. She reached out and picked up the lion from where it had fallen on the floor, tried to turn it into Charles. It wasn’t easy; Charles was hairless and didn’t have a tail. She turned the other way and imagined Charles beside her, stroking her breasts the way he always did, seriously and with total concentration, as if he were trying to increase their output or improve their dividend. Charles approached sex like a business meeting, a challenge he must meet with unqualified success. It was always successful – when they had the time for it. They did all the right things in the right order. She sometimes even came, and pretended quite convincingly the other times. They tried new positions and never skimped on foreplay. They’d ploughed through Masters and Johnson and the Hite report. Yet, somehow, they both remained detached and apart. However hard their bodies thrust and thrashed, the heads above were looking the other way, averting their eyes. She found she was making a shopping list, or working out a problem, at the very moment Charles was spurting into her.

  She worried, sometimes, that there was something wrong with her. She never felt abandoned or overcome with passion, like all the books described. Did Laura scream and squirm in ecstasy? Did Viv cry out ‘I’m dying with it, Fabrizio,’ like a Bertolucci heroine? She’d never know. It was bad enough never having had another man. Being faithful was almost a perversion these days, more pitiable than being scrofulous. You were more or less obliged to pretend to affairs – hint at torrid entanglements and abandoned couplings, to give yourself a modicum of self-respect.

  She picked up the lion and held him close against her breasts. His tail dangled down conveniently against her pubic hair. She tried to move herself against him. ‘I’m dying with it, Fabrizio,’ she whispered. And yawned. It really was more tempting simply to go to sleep.

  Chapter Three

  Frances hated going into pubs alone. It was almost three o’ clock, closing time, and the Bricklayer’s Arms was noisy and crowded. How, in heaven’s name, was she supposed to find a Mr Smythe? She whispered to the barman and then wished she hadn’t. ‘Any bloke here for a Medfield Mini-Cab?’ he shouted, fortissimo. ‘Lovely lady driver! Don’t all rush at once.’

  She tried to ignore the catcalls. Mr Smythe was struggling through the crowd, a small, spindly man, with an apologetic moustache in one shade of ginger and a toupee in another.

  ‘Medfield?’ he grunted. His voice was surprisingly deep, as if God had made a mistake and given him the voice of a Titan.

  ‘Yes. Where to?’ She’d learnt already to cut through the formalities. Even the female passengers seemed to want her life history, and she didn’t intend giving it to anyone.

  ‘Broke down, didn’t I? Right on the way to a fancy customer. God knows when I’ll see my car again. You need wheels in this job. I’m a salesman – suppose they told you, didn’t they? Hygi Hankies, South West London area.’

  He paused, as if for congratulation. Frances said nothing. She was fighting her way through two dozen beer-laden stomachs.

  ‘Must admit I’ve never heard of Medfield. All women drivers, are they?’

  Frances side-stepped a lighted cigarette. ‘No.’ Monosyllables were safer – she’d discovered that the first few days. There were only two female drivers to twenty-three males, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.

  The air outside smelt blessedly fresh. ‘Where to?’ she asked again, opening the car door and holding it for him.

  ‘Thanks, Miss, but I’ll sit in front if it’s all the same with you.’

  Frances left him to open the front door himself, and edged over as far to the right as possible. ‘Where are you going, Mr Smith?’

  ‘Smythe, with a ‘‘y’’, dear. Lesley Smythe. Pleased to meet you. Nice little car you’ve got here. Not that I’d ever touch a foreign car myself.’

  ‘Mr Smi – er – Smythe. I’m due to finish at five o’clock sharp, so if …’

  ‘Sorry, dear – thought they gave you all the details before you picked me up. Sunbury Trading Estate, please, and fast. I should have been there half an hour ago.’

  Frances did a neat U-turn and accelerated sharply, feeling irritable and out of sorts. The job had proved a disappointment. She’d gone into it as a sort of holy rebellion, expecting excitement and regeneration, and all she’d found was traffic jams and crude boring passengers who wouldn’t stop nattering, or tried to chat her up. A drawing-office assistant had spent the whole journey to Gerrards Cross and back again telling her what an intrepid drinker he was, how many times he’d lost his licence, and how he rigged the breathalyser. And an electronics engineer from Staines had boasted about fathering three babies on three different women and not paying a penny for any of them.

  She glanced at Mr Smythe, who was waving what looked like a strip of blue and white awning above his ginger head.

  ‘The Hygi Hankie, dear. Quite a different little product. I wondered if you’d ever come across it?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘It’s half-way between your fancy handkerchief and your all-purpose Kleenex. Man-made. Man-size. No washing, no ironing, no wispy bits of paper sticking to your nose. One a day, throw away. Lasts all day even when wet.’ He blew his nose loudly.

  The product demonstration, Frances assumed, making a mental note to gargle that evening. She hadn’t realized what a germy job cab-driving would prove to be. She’d already risked two colds, three coughs, one roaring influenza, and a bad case of eczema.

  Mr Smythe finished blowing and started doing unspeakable things with the handkerchief. ‘You see, it still holds together even with the heaviest cold. I can guarantee you’ll never go back to ordinary hankies, once you’ve tried ours. What about your husband? Men are mad for Hygi, you know. You’re married, I presume?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Frances firmly. She usually got that one in, somewhere near the beginning of the ride.

  ‘The only way to be, isn’t it? I’m widowed myself. Twenty-five years we had together. You should have seen the stuff we got on our silver wedding! Bloody great teapots, silver cocktail shakers. The wife did all the catering herself. She wasn’t well then, but she never said a word. Six months later, she was gone. Want a Polo?’

  Frances sh
ook her head. She’d earned a hundred black crosses, on the strength of the job alone, without ruining her teeth on top of it.

  ‘Two years, it took me, to get over it. You never do, though, do you? Of course, we had the boys, but they were always closer to their mother. The older boy married, though I must admit, I didn’t like his wife. She dyed her hair. Turn left at the garage and then it’s first left. You needn’t wait. I’ll make my own way back.’

  He tipped her generously and left her two boxes of Hygis and half a tube of Polos. She watched his small figure breezing up to the ugly red-brick factory, preparing his patter; wondered how many doors were slammed in his face in the course of a normal working week. She hadn’t been exactly friendly herself. Quite the stuck-up, frosty little bitch, in fact. But, somehow, the way he mixed up death with silver cocktail shakers … Maybe Charles was right – it wasn’t what you said, it was the way you said it. Charles meant it cynically, but it seemed to operate in life. When his partner’s wife died, for instance, the poor bereaved fellow carried on like the matinée idol of a cosmic tragedy – until someone caught him fondling his secretary in the back of his new Mercedes, just three days after the funeral.

  No, she mustn’t think of what went on in the backs of cars – or not until she’d handed in her notice. That was the reason she had to be so sparing with her sympathy. You offered them a friendly ear, and soon they were grabbing something further down. No wonder women didn’t work as cab-drivers. Yet, Laura would have handled it superbly, slapping them down with just the right mixture of flattery and fury, so they’d be eating out of her hand by the first green light. And Viv would be maternal and relaxed, chatting and sympathizing, and even managing to enjoy herself, for heaven’s sake. She slumped at the steering wheel. Perhaps she was a misfit, only functioning when she was in her own neat, safe world, with Charles by her side, pointing her in the right direction and engraving her soul with his maxims for life.

  She cruised through the side streets, searching for a phone box. ‘Reg, it’s Mrs Jones. I’m signing off now. I’ll ring you in the morning, and bring my cash in then.’