She was mad, Gloria repeated to herself, as she got drunk and burst into tears at home one afternoon; telling Paul that she was terribly sorry, and that she realised she had first disarmed him and then abused him for not fighting, and that he mustn’t worry: she would never abandon him as she had the boys. (Paul merely raised his eyebrows and said ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Gloria.’ But that evening, for the first time since they had arrived, he went into town by himself and stayed out till four in the morning. He returned, though he tried to disguise the fact by putting on his gloomiest face, looking more pleased with himself than Gloria could ever remember having seen him.) Yet however mad she told herself she was, and however unbearable she now started to find both Vera Cruz and Paul—whom she had to come to look on as her own Vera Cruz, as she told him one night with a vague smile and absolute sincerity—there were two things that Gloria couldn’t do. One was leave the place; and the other was come to that understanding with Paul that she might have been able to come to, had she not been so frantic and felt so guilty about the boys.
‘What would I do if I left?’ she almost shrieked at her lover; who as she fell to pieces, not only seemed to be gaining the upper hand in some way, but seemed to be becoming more sanctimonious by the minute. ‘I haven’t got a job any longer, I haven’t got a house, I haven’t got anything.’ A question that Paul had answered with an irritated little shrug of the shoulders, as if he couldn’t imagine why she was bothering him, and a comment, ‘well, you could actually buy another house, you could actually get another job, you know,’ that was delivered in the tone of one who, having worked hard and had no problems all his life, couldn’t understand why other people didn’t stop snivelling, pull up their socks and get on with the job themselves.
‘Besides,’ she had added on another occasion, when she had asked Paul more or less the same question and he had given her more or less the same answer, ‘even if I did go back, how would I go about looking for them? I mean, all their friends move house every few months, and in any case, are probably dead. If something had happened to them, the police might not have known their names and if I just wander around looking in rehabilitation centres—well, I suppose I might find them, but the chances are a million to one against.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, shut up,’ Paul had shouted. ‘Why do you go on about those kids? If they’ve gone to hell, it’s their own bloody fault and there’s nothing you can do about it.’
‘I was mad,’ Gloria told herself. ‘I was absolutely mad.’
Then, one morning, a year and a half after she had left England and just when she was coming to the conclusion that whatever difficulties she would have to face, and however hard it might be to trace the boys, she would and should return to London, a letter arrived. It came in a clearly typed envelope, so Gloria wasn’t certain whom it was from before she opened it; and its message was so unexpected that though her initial reaction was and had to be, ‘thank God’, her subsequent reaction was altogether more mixed. It was, however, a letter; and it was a letter that at least didn’t cause her to mourn.
It was signed, this letter, by David; and what he—or a secretary, it occurred to Gloria—had so neatly typed was the following. That he hadn’t written before because he hadn’t wanted to concern her about real problems in the real world, since she had opted out of the real world and undoubtedly didn’t want to be bothered by it. That now, since, ‘insofar as real problems can ever be solved’, his and Michael’s for the moment had been, he had thought she might like to hear from them. And that to cut a long story short, they had come back to England armed with not only the admittedly still fragile self-confidence they had gained at Las Frechas, but with a number of letters of introduction to people who had been associated with the community in the past, or similar, affiliated communities. They had followed these letters up and met several people through them, ‘who without exception turned out to be most helpful and kind’. And the result of that had been that he had found a job with a small ‘but dynamic’ advertising agency based in Manchester and had earned £17,000 in the past year—‘just imagine, £17,000!’—Michael was working for a tulip import company in Norwich who were paying him fourteen thousand plus, but had promised him a rise, and not only were they both buying their own houses, but Michael, ‘believe it or not’, was engaged to a Norfolk girl whom he planned to marry in three months’ time, ‘though we’ll let you know the exact date later.’
Startling developments indeed. Nevertheless, had David ended his letter there, ‘thank God’ would probably have continued to be Gloria’s reaction to it, despite those snide remarks about her opting out of the real world and her misgivings at sons of hers boasting about how much they were earning. But after a fairly chilly salute, ‘Hope you and Paul are well, let us know what you are doing, Love from us both, David,’ David had added a postscript. And that made it impossible for her to repeat any expression of relief with very much conviction. For in what Gloria couldn’t help feeling was the real body of the letter (all that business about introductions, jobs, money and houses had just been so much stuffing, designed no doubt to irritate her), David had gone on, still in a chilly, rather detached fashion, to say that he and Michael had spent a lot of time talking about her and their past lives when they saw each other. Moreover, they had come to the conclusion that while of course they didn’t in any way blame her for what they had gone through,—‘after all, you only did what you thought was right and no one can be blamed for that’ (he made it sound like an advertising slogan)—they had to confess that they were really quite pleased that she was living out of the country now. It wasn’t because they didn’t want to see her; they did and they hoped she might be able to come over for Michael’s wedding, ‘or at least for a week or two sometime next year’; but because ‘well, apart from the fact that we’ve always felt you’re happier living in hot countries surrounded by small brown people, (it does allow you both to feel superior and to agonise over your feelings with a fair degree of comfort, doesn’t it?) you must confess, Ma’—and it was the first time he had ever used this word to her; she had always, to both of them, been Mummy from the day they learned to talk—‘that you do rather monopolise the moral stage, don’t you? You don’t allow an awful lot of room for those around you to stand in the lights and play a part. However insignificant or trivial that part may be, especially when compared to your altogether more meaty role. And we do feel that were you to come back to England again and live here, even without meaning to you might shove us off into the wings again and make us have to put up with simply watching you. I realise we are probably being terribly unfair and it’s just that we’re still not used to our independence, or grown-upness, or whatever you like to call it. If it came to the crunch we probably would be strong enough to keep on our feet and in the light. You never know, though, do you? Some relationships never lose their power, whether for good or ill. So do us a favour Mummy, please—don’t, now that you’ve heard from us, suddenly come rushing home.’
In a way of course, Gloria told herself as she read and reread this postscript—and, more particularly, as she walked down a shimmeringly hot street to the gallery, an hour later, and went through the whole letter again in her head—she should be feeling not just relieved, but delighted. For, in a way, everything had turned out for the best. The boys had become solid, respectable citizens, and she—she had her place in the sun. And the facts that she had never wanted her sons to become solid, respectable citizens and that now, notwithstanding David’s yes, unfair remarks, she no longer wanted her place in the sun were, surely, incidental. Weren’t they?
She couldn’t help herself, however, she thought; as she found herself answering her question with a no. She couldn’t help herself just because she was answering her question with a no. Oh, she supposed she could have grown accustomed to the idea of the boys becoming useful members of society. After all, if that wasn’t the future she would have chosen for them, it was undoubtedly better than the future they look
ed like having not so long ago. But for their becoming useful members of society to depend on her staying out in her unwanted place in the sun: that was another matter entirely. I mean, she almost said out loud, as she began to feel dazed now, either by the heat or by the contents of the letter really starting to sink in, do I have to sacrifice myself in order for them to continue being useful members of society? Do I have to be a martyr to the cause of solidity and respectability? Oh no, no, that can’t be, isn’t right. And I won’t, damn it, do it.
Except that now that you’ve heard from boys and you know they’re all right, she seemed to hear a voice whispering, your dislike of Vera Cruz and your hatred of Paul will evaporate—as you were always sure they would if you heard that the boys were all right. Now you really will be able to settle in here, now you really will be able to work something out with Paul; and in six months’ time you’ll be so relieved that you’re here and not back in wet, smug, shabby old England that you’ll even admit that unfair though David’s remarks were, he was only telling you things you’ve told yourself in the past. So go on, that voice whispered to her, relax. Everything has turned out for the best. For the very best possible, and for a best far better than any you ever imagined. Why are you fighting it? Go on. Relax. Smile. Be happy.
Yet though she heard this voice and acknowledged that there was something in what it said, Gloria still couldn’t relax; nor be happy. It was partly because the good if extraordinary news from England had come too late, when Vera Cruz was already lying in ruins round her and her relations with Paul had reached the stage that though she was constantly reminding herself that he had once been beautiful and was still attractive in a pale, depressing sort of way, whenever she looked at him she thought him the ugliest person she had ever seen; a person so monstrously, obscenely ugly that she outraged her eyes by raising them towards him. More, though, she couldn’t obey that voice’s instructions because now that she thought about it, she suddenly felt sure that David knew exactly what she was going through here. He knew; and his wishing her to stay, and his making his own and Michael’s continued survival dependant on her staying, were not only, not really, because he was afraid of being pushed off the moral stage should she return to England, but because he actually wanted her to be pushed off stage herself and wanted her to suffer, even die, as a result. David and Michael didn’t just want her to be a passive, relatively happy sacrifice, she told herself. Oh no. That wouldn’t do at all. They wanted her to be an active, profoundly unhappy sacrifice; and unless she were prepared to be one, she suspected they were trying to tell her, then by God they were still prepared to go back to their drugs to punish her. A game she couldn’t and wouldn’t play. Why the hell should I, she asked herself. Why the hell should I?
Because you actively sacrificed them and condemned them to unhappiness so you could stand centre-stage, she tried to tell herself in the month that followed the arrival of David’s letter, and she tried to write an answer to that letter and send it. She didn’t convince herself, however, as she tore up sheet after sheet of paper and began to wonder whether she’d ever manage to communicate with her children again. If David and Michael had been sacrificed—and she denied it absolutely—their sacrifice had been entirely unintentional; a tragic by-product of her determination, as David had so glibly put it, ‘to do what she thought was right’. And her determination to do what she thought was right had in no way been dependent on their being sacrificed. Of course it hadn’t, she told herself as she tossed away yet another sheet. The idea was ludicrous! As if she hadn’t been fighting the fight since she’d been sixteen—years and years before they were so much as conceived, let alone started sticking needles into their arms. How could she even think such a thing? she asked herself, more and more angrily, as that month went by. How could she? And she’d be damned if she’d put up with the boys’ threats. She’d be damned if … She may very well be damned, she reflected, whatever she did.
In which state of mind she was eventually able to complete a letter to her sons. One that said just two things. The first was that she was very happy to hear from them after all this time and happier still that everything had turned out so well. And the second was that while she understood what they said about her not returning to England, even if she was a little hurt by it, or by the manner in which it had been said, she was curious about something. Namely, as to whether what they were really saying was that their integration into society was dependent upon her exclusion from it. Even if that exclusion should cause her, as it now had (and as they had rightly predicted that it would) to feel she were going mad, had been cast out into hell and would either put an end to herself if it wasn’t terminated fairly quickly, or would kill or be killed by Paul. ‘I mean, I love Mexico,’ she wrote, ‘and I’m sure if I had come here when I was younger or in different circumstances I could have involved myself in Mexican life and in Mexican problems. As it is, I have realised that either because of my age, or because of Paul—whom I have come to think of as a ball and chain which keeps me attached to England and English problems—I can never now be a part of Mexican society. Moreover, if I do stay on here I am bound to live as an outcast, who will be ever further cast out with every day she stays.’
She supposed, she murmured to herself as she took the letter to the post office and mailed it, that she had better make sure she was not imagining things before she started getting too worked up.
She only had to wait another three weeks to find out that no, she was not.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Mummy,’ David wrote back (and now she might have preferred a ‘Ma’), ‘stop being so melodramatic. Living in hell. Being killed by Paul. What a lot of rubbish. You know quite well that if we had written telling you that we were living under a bridge stealing and selling ourselves in order to buy drugs you would have written telling us you were blissfully happy and that Paul had bloomed in the sun. Instead, just because I write and tell you that we’re now happy, or look as if we have a chance of being so, you start clutching your head and moaning that you want to come home. Well, no, Mummy, I’m sorry—to be perfectly frank, we don’t want you. If you’re an outcast in Mexico, you’re an outcast here. We, however, belong here now and we don’t want you, intentionally or unintentionally, making outcasts of us again. Of course, we can’t precisely forbid you to return, or prohibit your entry into England if you are determined to. But I promise you one thing; I’ll never speak to you again if you do. And when you do manage, nevertheless, as I know you will if you return, somehow to worm your way back into our lives and undermine us, I’ll make sure that when we collapse it’ll be on you whom we fall.
‘Oh Mummy, I’m so sorry to write like this, because you know we love you and always will. We really would never have had another mother. I mean, we both feel that with you we’ve really been through it, whatever ‘it’ is, and come out the other side. With the result that we’ve not only seen far more of the world, or of life, than most people, but that we’re in a position to appreciate it more than most people. However, perhaps what it really boils down to is this. The world needs martyrs if it is to continue, and the cause of let’s say decency, honesty and morality—civilisation?—is to prevail. For years—and I repeat, I’m sure without your intending us to be so—we were the martyrs, while you took up the cause. And I’m sure before us you found other people to sacrifice. Daddy, for one. Or all those friends you told us about you’ve lost contact with. Now, though, we’ve taken up the cause, Mummy, and you’re the martyr. Perhaps what I’m saying is nonsense. Perhaps the cause doesn’t need martyrs, only willing conscripts. But I can’t help feeling I am not talking nonsense. After all, you did always teach us that civilisation requires blood, didn’t you? Well, for years that blood was ours. Now, Mummy, I’m afraid, though I’m still convinced you were exaggerating in your letter and that you’re actually quite happy there, if blood there must be, it’s going to have to be yours. I don’t want to be selfish, but I do feel that Mike and I have given enough; and if
we give even another drop, we’ll die.
‘Honestly Mummy, please believe me: we do love you very, very much. But please, too, believe this: that if you love us, you will stay away from England; and you’ll never, whatever happens, try to come back.
‘In the end, all we are asking you to do is retire.’
The trouble was, by the time Gloria did get this confirmation of her worst fears, she had stopped feeling angry about the boys’ previous letter and about the fate they had reserved for her. And her anger wasn’t even revived when she came to the sentence in which David seemed to be equating honesty, decency and morality with working in an advertisting agency, or importing tulips. Perhaps he was right, she told herself wretchedly; and perhaps she was, as usual, being priggish to feel that she should be angry. Yes, she was in hell here, in hell for the very reason that she had retired here, and had come to the conclusion that one couldn’t retire, not from the fight in which she had been engaged, and go on living. Moreover, she really didn’t think that she was being melodramatic when she told herself that she would end up either killing or being killed by Paul. But somehow, for some reason, she no longer cared. And though she had told herself earlier that she’d be damned if she stayed, as well as damned if she didn’t, now she told herself she didn’t mind if she were damned; and that whatever happened to her here, no, she would not go back to England.
Was it because, somewhere inside herself, she believed that the boys were right? Because some latent masochism made her want, after years, as if were, of handing out the punishment, to be that martyr that David said was necessary? Or simply because this country that she had come to love—and she had not been lying to David—had in a sense corrupted her; corrupted her with its sun and sea, corrupted her with its beauty and flowers, corrupted her with its poverty and its air of a place that had lost its past without ever having found a present in which it felt comfortable?
The Man Who Went Down With His Ship Page 17
