by Mavis Cheek
‘I know,’ she says. ‘Put it in the washing machine.’
He gapes.
‘Go on,’ she says. ‘No one ever looks in there except me.’
So in it goes and he closes the door and they both walk out into the conservatory as if life were no more than a vase full of water on a special birthday night.
Alex pops another cork and remarks that Hazel and John are late as usual.
Celia says she expects it is the children.
‘Very probably,’ says Alex, meandering around with the bottle. ‘No doubt little Caspar has shat himself again.’
‘Surely he was doing that months ago?’ says Susie. ‘When we were last here with them? How disgusting.’
‘Some children take longer to train than others,’ says Isabel, sniffing the rose and smiling above it at Celia. ‘Don’t they? Usually the more sensitive ones.’
Isabel and Dave’s boys were in nappies at night until they were ten. This has always been put down to their sensitivity.
Susie grimaces. ‘Hardly sensitive, I wouldn’t have thought. Thick more like it. I mean – if I can train Vesta in a week, surely he can be trained in however many years it is ... He must be remedial.’
‘Who’s Vesta?’ asks Celia, trying to diversify.
‘My cat.’
There is a deafening silence after this remark, broken suddenly by an agonised Dave who has been desperately trying to think of something to say before his wife does. So he looks at Tom, grins awkwardly and shrugs, saying, ‘Kids! Who’d have ’em?’
‘Not us –’ says Tom, not smiling back – ‘if you remember …’
Dave’s seat creaks with his embarrassment. ‘Ah yes,’ he gasps, anxiously searching for something diplomatic to say. ‘No wonder you’re so successful at what you do.’
‘Oh – and does the one necessarily negate the other?’ asks Alex. It comes out rather thinly as he speaks through gritted teeth.
Celia snaps the stem of a long carnation and wonders, again, what on earth is wrong with him tonight. Playfully she says into her flowers. ‘Alex is very successful. Alex has got a big important case today so he’s going to be even more successful, even more renowned because of it.’ She plonks the carnation into the centre of the display. ‘And he’s got children.’
Alex, who has been advancing towards her empty glass with the second bottle, immediately swerves away without filling it. He is definitely offended. Celia considers this and decides that very possibly it did sound like a criticism. She is also, now, feeling sensitive again, but puts that down quite definitely to the occasion being what it is. In fact, she thinks, everyone is behaving in an over-sensitive way. As if they were all in an early Pinter. Queer, very queer, she wants to say.
Dave says, ‘I’m glad I don’t have the professional responsibilities of you two.’ He means the men. ‘I made my decision back at university that I wasn’t going to get on the gravy train and I opted out. It’s either exploit or be exploited when you’re high-powered.’
‘That’s what makes it so enjoyable,’ says Tom.
And Alex looks at Dave as if he had just crawled out from under a palm pot. ‘I don’t exploit anybody. I help – that’s what my profession is all about – fair play – justice, if you like.’
Celia clamps her mouth closed. She is not going to get into all that again and there is a strong desire to say what Alex has so often said to her – that in his profession it is usually the Law which is upheld rather than Justice.
‘Oh, we all exploit somebody,’ says Isabel.
‘I don’t,’ says Alex obstinately.
Oh God, thinks Celia.
‘If I had to change a crappy nappy,’ says Susie, ‘I should say that was exploitation.’ She laughs and crosses over to Celia and begins poking around at the flowers.
‘All women are exploited. And wives in particular,’ says Dave. ‘They have to be. If they weren’t the whole economy would seize up.’
‘People have nannies for that sort of thing,’ says Tom, disparagingly. He is looking at his wife.
‘I didn’t,’ says Celia happily.
‘You’re different,’ says Tom.
‘That’s not to say you couldn’t have.’ Alex’s voice is very sharp.
‘Oh, I know – I just didn’t want one, that’s all. I was quite happy being a Mum.’
‘Don’t you exploit – as you call it – Isabel, then?’ Alex’s jaw has gone out a fraction, which is not a good sign.
‘I exploit as few people as possible. It’s a decision I made a long time ago. And woman is the nigger of the world, you know – sexually, domestically, financially – I just don’t want to be a part of all that. That’s why I didn’t finish my degree. So that I could get out of something that would force me to exploit, and into something that wouldn’t. That’s why I’m a plumber. I’m not chasing anybody else’s arse or required to show that I know how to behave in public. And I don’t have to stay away from home – which is, I reckon, where all those mid-life divorces start – I’m around for the kids, and Isabel can get on with her job too. I respect my wife. Politically, I have to.’
All eyes move to Isabel who looks down coyly and with deep satisfaction into the rose. Celia feels – quite suddenly – that she could smack her.
Alex picks up the bottle. ‘Great,’ he says. ‘Let’s all become plumbers and go and live in Moscow. Meanwhile more champagne, you running dogs of capitalism?’
Susannah gives a delicate little snort of amusement. She has always admired Alex’s wit. It is one of the reasons he likes her.
Celia holds out her empty glass but the question was purely rhetorical.
Tom stares at Dave, genuinely incredulous. ‘Are you saying you understood all that at twenty? That’s amazing.’
‘It’s not particularly,’ says Susie. ‘I’d planned my life by then.’
‘Had you indeed?’ says her husband.
‘It isn’t that amazing,’ says Dave deprecatingly. ‘After all – I was a sociology student.’
‘I don’t like even having my cleaner, actually,’ Celia says – just as a general statement.
‘Ah,’ says Dave, ‘even an ex-Labour supporter has her principles – doesn’t she?’
But it was not principles she had in mind.
She is still holding out her empty glass. Tom notices and leaps to his feet, rattan racketing. Dave gives her a wink, pleased with his little barb, as if to say, That’ll set the cat among the pigeons, but instead of what she expects, which is that Alex will immediately start to have a go at Dave about socialism, her husband gives a faintly derisory grunt – or possibly a chuckle, the two are often similar with Alex – and slaps his brother-in-law on the arm. Then they both snort together. It is unfortunate that it is Tom’s face into which she is looking as he pours out her champagne because he – who does not in the least deserve it – gets the full, sour, not to say acid, benefit of her expression. Quite reasonably, on receipt of this, his handsome, indulgent features lose their affectionate light and go quite hard. Without finishing filling her glass he plonks the bottle back down on the table and himself back down into the chair which – just as reasonably – groans and shrieks in protest.
‘Careful of that chair, Tom,’ she says automatically.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Wouldn’t want to break up the happy home.’
She turns away, aware that there is a flush on her face, and finds herself looking straight into Susannah’s eyes, which smile at her. Instantly she is reminded of that wicked package in the washing machine. But it is all right – she would never let Susie down. Not really. Still, it’s a nice secret – and harmless. She looks back at Tom as sweetly as she can manage but he is draining his class ceilingwards and does not see.
Susie says, ‘You’re looking flustered, Celia. I knew we should have taken you out for a meal. It’s unfair that you should have to cook for us on your birthday.’
‘Oh, no. I like it. I really do. And I’m good at it.’ She hol
ds the dish of olives up. Susie runs her long pink nails through her smooth blonde hair and shakes her head looking faintly disgusted. She offers the dish to Isabel, who puts up her hand with sensible-length unpainted nails, and says, ‘How anyone can actually like the taste of those things beats me.’
‘And they’re full of calories ...’ says Susie, giving Celia a look.
Celia pops one in her mouth defiantly. ‘I love food,’ she says, ‘and I love cooking. It merges those two most dynamic forces – science and art. And it’s something I’m good at.’
‘Sometimes,’ says Isabel, ‘It’s good to have a go at things you’re not good at.’
Immediately Celia is twelve again, bringing home a book token for five pounds which she won for a composition prize at school. If it had been a prize for sums, her sister had said, she could see the point in being so proud – but since it was for something Celia excelled in anyway, well ...
‘I wasn’t always good at it,’ she says, ‘I had to learn. The cookery I like best is as much about pleasing the soul as the stomach – and making it aesthetically pleasing as well as good to eat. Even at its lowest level cooking is about timing and co-ordination –’ She is about to go on to say that you need only watch an inexperienced cook (she has Alex in mind but would diplomatically never say so) attempt to produce a hot meal comprising chops, mashed potato and cabbage to understand what she means, when her brother-in-law interrupts with the quip, ‘And just what do you know about the lowest level nowadays?’
‘Oh,’ she says, ‘children are very conservative on the whole. As long as it’s well cooked they will eat very basic stuff – fish fingers and chips are the current favourites ...’
Of course this is not what Dave was implying but she considers she has fenced it rather well. Perhaps an aspect of being forty is that your wits get sharper. It is a hopeful thought. She goes on swiftly. ‘I do wish Hazel and John would get here.’
‘Has she ever thought of smacking him when he shits himself?’ asks Susie. Celia pictures Hazel’s face if the suggestion were put to her. In Bedford Park residents tend not to inflict violence upon their offspring. They discuss, negotiate, find excuses, rather than let rip with the red weal of a handmark across the back of a leg. Uncontrolled passions are not a feature of the locality.
‘He’ll grow out of it,’ says Celia. ‘Once he discovers it doesn’t create much excitement any more.’
‘Perhaps that’s what he needs,’ says Susannah. ‘A bit more excitement in the form of a smack or two.’
Alex stands up. ‘We tend not to do that around here if we can help it. Henry never caused us any problems –’ He looks at Celia for agreement. She gives him an uncomfortable smile.
‘He was very good really,’ she says.
Alex adds, ‘And all without having to belt the living daylights out of him,’ with a definite touch of pride.
And then, miraculously, everybody begins to discuss the way children should be brought up – even Susannah and Tom who, if they have no personal experience, were children once themselves and so can join in with impunity.
Celia takes the opportunity of slipping off into the kitchen, and wishes heartily that she still smoked. The last statement from Alex was not exactly true. There had been one unfortunate episode. A hot June day, rather like today now she comes to think of it, or even hotter. Rebecca had been a tiny babe in arms, as yet unseen by Alex’s mother. Celia was due at the South Coast bungalow for lunch to show off the new offspring. (It had not occurred to Alex to arrange for his mother to come up and save his wife the effort of going down – all he foresaw was a lovely day by the sea for his family. Blessed are the peacemakers, he had said to Celia when she protested. Blessed are the dogsbodies, more like, she had replied.) All the same, there was no point in making an issue of it. Anyway, car journeys were one of the few things that helped keep newborn Rebecca asleep, and there were few enough of those. She prepared to set off in none too good humour. Her mother-in-law was not the most sympathetic of people and did not like (as well as blacks and supermarkets and policemen with beards) lateness, and there was a good couple of hours driving ahead in all that heat. Already Rebecca had sucked a few antirrhinum leaves, thoughtfully provided for her by Henry, and had dribbled pale-green goo all down the front of her best white frock. She had then protested loudly at the subsequent change into pink gingham. All this took so long to arrange that Celia’s timetable (feed baby, drive off immediately after and therefore arrive with beaming infant because the next feed was not due yet) was all ruined. They would now, undoubtedly, arrive with a screaming Rebecca and mother-in-law would be able to consolidate her first impressions, birthed in Henry’s babyhood, that Celia made a poor mother.
Well, she got them all into the car somehow – wound down all the windows, turned on the ignition – and was just pulling away from the kerb when the rich, ripe smell of crap pervaded the car. Shoes checked, she could only turn, in horror, to the carrycot in the back, but a quick motherly poke among the baby’s Peau-Douce revealed just a pink talcum powdered bottom. And anyway, she sort of knew instinctively already that the smell came from something a bit more substantial than her own milk. Her eyes met Henry’s – his alight with defiance, hers with disbelief – and she broke. She hauled him into the front seat and twisted his ear until even his screams penetrated her own red rage, kicked him out on to the pavement, slapped him all the way upstairs, and alternately showered the foulness from him while beating his bottom into a mass of red weals. And if you ever do it again, she said, I will kill you.
And when, fresh and settled back in the car, tears finished with, he had piped up that he would tell his father, she had braked hard, grabbed his hair and told him if he ever uttered a single word to anyone about it, she would kill him twice. Henry had never sullied his pants again, mother-in-law had been forced to compliment her on her well-behaved children (even Rebecca, perhaps because she had absorbed some of her brother’s fear, arrived smiling milkily) and Alex never suspected that his perfectly potty-trained family owed its good grace to violence. Celia had never even told Hazel about the incident. Not even when Hazel had bemoaned Caspar’s inadequacies and asked her what the secret of her success had been. ‘Just one of those things,’ Celia had said and made up for it by saying what a sweet nature Caspar had. Untrue but it seemed to appease.
The sight of all the beautiful preparations in the kitchen makes her impatient. She wants to control the evening and not feel like an outsider which – peculiarly, unpleasantly – she does. She returns to the conservatory where everybody is chatting happily now and even Alex seems to have dropped whatever it was that made him tense. He and Dave and Tom are discussing pre-war Rileys as if they were desirable women: Isabel and Susie are talking about television soaps. It seems that they both prefer ‘Dynasty’ to ‘Dallas’. In Bedford Park such programmes are not acknowledged as discussion points. Hereabouts ‘Dynasty’ and ‘Dallas’ are programmes that people catch when ‘just by chance I was turning on for the news and caught the last few minutes.’ Amazing how detailed the knowledge can be from just those last few minutes, Celia has always thought.
She goes over to the men.
Alex puts his arm around her shoulders and kisses her cheek and draws her in to the circle. ‘Hallo, birthday girl,’ he says. ‘Happy?’
She nods and looks up at him. He is still intent on what Tom is saying about the Arab market for pre-nineteen-fifty models.
‘I think we should ring Hazel and John,’ she whispers.
‘No point,’ he says. ‘They’re either delayed or on their way. Telephoning isn’t going to alter that.’
The very logic of this is annoying. As is so often the case with Alex’s legal training, he goes straight to the dry imponderables and what he says cannot be faulted. That it would make Celia feel better to ring up is an emotional argument. ‘I expect it’s the way all that chrome winks in the sunlight over there ...’
‘What?’ she says, but then realises he is add
ressing Tom.
It is her birthday, so she asserts herself.
‘You do it for me then,’ she says. ‘I’d like to know. That’s all.’
Grudgingly Alex raises his pale eyebrows to the assembly, and then looks back at her. ‘All right, all right – any whim of yours shall be satisfied tonight ...’
‘Ho Ho ...’ someone says, and there is laughter.
Alex goes off to telephone and Celia is left feeling like an idiot.
‘Talking of which,’ says Isabel, ‘what had you planned tonight – apart from eating, I mean – anything?’
Determined to sound confident, Celia says, ‘Yes. I thought we’d play some games. Like we used to in the old days.’
Somebody groans.
‘Fair play,’ says Isabel indulgently. ‘It’s her birthday. We’ll all do whatever Celia wants – won’t we?’
‘I’m forty – not four,’ snaps Celia.
Perhaps, she thinks, this is what happened to the Marie Céleste. They all got so niggled before the meal that none of them could stand it when they sat down to eat – so they left the table and committed a watery suicide en masse.
‘I’ll just go and put the meat in the oven,’ she says.
‘Good grief,’ says her sister. ‘It’ll take hours, won’t it?’
‘We like it pink in the middle here,’ she says. ‘Not done to death.’
In the kitchen she finds Alex going through the telephone directory. ‘I don’t know their number,’ he says.
She puts her arms round him. He, still clutching the directory, puts his arms round her.
‘I love you,’ she says, feeling immediately better.
He holds her closer, the spine of the S-Z digging into her back.
‘Kiss me,’ she adds, since he says nothing.
Behind them the telephone shrills making them both jump.
‘That’ll be them,’ he says, disengaging himself.
‘At last,’ she says fervently.
She opens the oven which is already at top heat because she remembered to turn it on some time ago. At least, she thinks, some aspects of her domain still function normally whatever her age. She puts in the beautiful, symmetrical piece of veal. As she pushes the door closed she decides that any scratchiness tonight is probably due to her. And that if it isn’t, it is still the easiest thing to think that it is. With this complicated piece of philosophy firmly tucked under the peacock-blue highlight she returns her attention to Alex and the telephone. On the way her attention wavers for a moment and fixes upon the washing machine. Any residual irritation, unease, ill-temper, is immediately overcome by peering through the concave glass door, mysterious and purple, wherein she is just able to distinguish the oblong of the gift. The prospect of opening the washing-machine door tomorrow is so tantalising that she smiles to herself quite involuntarily. It is a smile of such alluring proportions that Alex would, despite the Brandreth case and the hundred and one other things on his plate, find it hard to resist. As it is he has his eyes on the kitchen floor as he talks on the telephone and misses it entirely. It is Tom who gets the full beauty of its seductive mystery when he appears at the kitchen door – and it balances out the earlier one of sourness. For some reason, he too, looks at the washing machine with what appears to be just a twinge of remorse as well as conspiracy. Well, thinks Celia, remorse is a fitting emotion for a married man giving away presents to another woman.
