Parlour Games

by Mavis Cheek

  And then, of course, there was Susannah. A fragment of hope fluttered into Celia’s heart. Perhaps Susie would name the rose but she did not.

  ‘There’s no question,’ she said. ‘Celia is a daisy. A daisy is the first flower we recognise, children love it, it is homely but beautiful in its simplicity. Sophisticated gardens and natural countryside would both be the poorer without it. So –’ she shrugged in a beautiful gesture – ‘Celia is a daisy.’

  ‘I used to pick daisies all the time,’ says Tom, rather too loudly.

  ‘What did you say?’ asks Susannah, peering across at him.

  ‘Celia,’ says Isabel. ‘You should tell us what flower you think you are – now that you’ve put the rest of us through it ...’

  Why say it wasn’t her idea?

  Why say anything?

  She stands up. She leans upon her hands upon the table. She looks around at each of them in turn, very slowly. Then she says, ‘Clematis. That’s me. Tough and hardy. Thriving anywhere. But only –’ She swallows to gain control. ‘But only –’ She swallows again to keep it. ‘But only if I’ve got some support ...’

  And then, trundling her trolley in front of her, head held high, she marches out into the kitchen. Where she weeps. And weeps and weeps. To the distant sound of merriment as her guests continue to enjoy themselves. Ho, Ho. Such wit from their hostess.

  She will never play Parlour Games again, she vows, and she weeps a little bit more. They may have been fun once but she knows now that you can never go back, only forwards. If a tear shed upon a birthday denotes tears all year, what Celia weeps will last for the next forty years. Unless, she comforts herself, that saying is just an Old Wives’ Tale. And then she cries afresh. For that is what she is now. An Old Wife. She takes a big spoonful of the chocolate mousse and swallows it ruminatively. And then another, and then another. Poor Rebecca, stay with your sweet-toothed dreams, for your mother had greater need than you. Undoing the button on the back of her skirt, Celia returns to her happy guests. And she now feels so full that speech is impossible. She merely remains at the table, smiling fatly, and waiting for them all to go home.

  Somewhere the accountant in the jade-green tracksuit is engaging his guests with tales of his exploits in the shipping world and, the situation in the Gulf being what it is, for once his guests are riveted. They stay as late at Celia’s, which is why, despite the Neighbourhood Watch, three houses in the area are burgled successfully. There would have been a fourth but the flickering light of Hazel playing some of her old ‘Dynasty’ videos discourages the felon. There is always, as they say, a silver lining to be had somewhere.

  PART TWO

  1

  The house is silent.

  Celia roams it.

  She punches one of the cushions in the front room, the adult space, which is perfectly clean and perfectly ordered – or was until Celia made the dent in the cushion. There is no hint that any sexual activity of the slipping down on to the carpet variety took place in this room last night. Nothing is ruffled into tantalising suggestiveness. Alas.

  As she punches she says ‘Pansy,’ vehemently.

  It is Saturday afternoon, Celia’s real birthday as Susannah so correctly stated last night, and Celia is spending it quite alone. Neither Alex nor the children are here. She punches the cushion again and repeats ‘Pansy’ loudly, with a snarl of ill temper which is neither becoming to that half-shy floral tribute of her husband’s nor the carefree pink-clad birthday girl of yesterday.

  We must back-track to understand why.

  Celia, who back-tracks with us, lets out one more, really defiant, yell of ‘Pansy’ to her distressed walls (distressed in the interior design sense – pearl on deeper pearl and done by a friend of hers – and now, perhaps, distressed in the emotional sense too, for the cry was of blood-curdling resonance) as she does so. It is just as well that her neighbours are green-wellie Bedford Park and have gone off for the weekend to Somerset for even they, who are blessed with total restraint in all response to matters of personal grief, might have been forced to rush to her aid. Let us leave Celia to compose herself after that outburst and make our back-track.

  Last night, when the guests finally left, Alex stacked the dishwasher. He did this with the utmost care and precision saying to a hovering Celia that he saw no reason why his wife should have to do such a chore since she had already done enough and it was her birthday. So far, so good. This is a perfectly acceptable piece of Bedford Park male liberation. Rather like cooking at barbecues it is not viewed as emasculating. Dave and Isabel, were they still around, would be pleased to see it. It shows that Surbiton is not alone in having thoughtful husbands. If the husbands here would only empty these machines afterwards as well it might be a gesture of perfection.

  So Celia, well used to the ritual, continued to hover by the dishwasher. But with no good reason that either her sister or an upfront woman’s magazine would see, she became oddly irritated by Alex’s absorption in the task. It seemed, to her, that it was taking an inordinately long time to complete. Being a good wife she did not do what she wanted to do which was to push him to one side and finish the job in half the time. Instead she went to the glasses cupboard (Mrs Green has spat in all the crystal before polishing it, to her great and dry-mouthed satisfaction – even greater satisfaction when Celia complimented her on the sparkle) and removed a brandy glass (Alex has already berthed his earlier one somewhere near the entrée plates) and a liqueur glass for herself. These she made ready with a nip in each, saying over her shoulder that she was going into the front room to wait. The word ‘wait’ had a sort of appealing ring of desire to it. Alex nodded and began humming the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ again to himself.

  And so Celia waited; chocolate mousse more or less digested, skirt still loosed, shoes kicked off, sitting on the white fur rug, head bent prettily to rest on the arm of the low settee. Very provocatively, she fancied. And she waited, and waited, and the little carriage clock went ping before Alex appeared. He picked up the brandy glass, drank it down in one, bent low over her – she, breathlessly waiting, raised her head, puckering up slightly, to receive what? The first kiss that would herald the beginning of some sumptuous sexual activity, of course. Which did not come. Instead from her husband’s lips emerged first a little touch to her forehead and then a long, pleasant yawn and a, ‘Come on, my little pansy, I’m tired. Let’s get to bed.’

  Problematical in this was the need for Celia to remove her make-up. A woman of forty must look after her skin (she could hear Susie’s voice saying so) and so she did. By which time Alex was fast asleep. Pity overcame anger. He had had a hard day. She would catch him in the morning. And with that thought, snuggling up to her lovable if torpid husband, she slept her first sleep of her forty-first year.

  In the morning she turned to put her arm around him and found only bare space. From the bathroom she heard the whoosh of the cistern, the beginnings of the shower. It was seven-thirty. Early but too late. At eight-fifteen she was standing on the doorstep waving goodbye to the Volvo and saying, ‘See you Monday night.’

  Hence the cushion punching and the cry to the wall of ‘Pansy’ now. Sheer frustration. A rose would have clutched him with its thorns. Stupid, mindless games, she thinks. Never again.

  The Bedford Park Saturday street was deserted as Alex and his smart pigskin suitcase drove off. While he blew the last kiss she heard the telephone ring and she heard Rebecca answer it, but she waited until the car was out of sight before going back indoors. Which accounts for Celia being quite alone this afternoon, on her birthday. For the telephone call was from Hazel. Kind, well-meaning Hazel, who has arranged – apparently – for Henry and Rebecca to accompany her own children, with the munificent Jo’s nanny, to a farm for the week. Hazel will go too – to recuperate.

  So you see, Celia dear, you’ve got all that time to yourself.

  Hazel, who knows nothing of Celia’s sudden feeling of sadness and loss and fury with all pansies, still dwe
lls within a relationship where taking the children off a friend’s hands for a few days is as good as gold dust: Celia feels unable to say she would rather not have them go. If Celia had got to the telephone before Rebecca she would have vetoed the motion, feeling in need of her children as she will not have her husband – but Rebecca’s radiant face at the news is insurmountable; Henry’s excitement (already looking for his other gumboot in the understairs cupboard) is something Celia feels unable to take away. She thanks her friend, offers to deliver the children so that she can see her, but Hazel laughs. No need, Celia, no need, the nanny will drive by (such an Americanism – picked up from ‘Dallas’ or ‘Dynasty’, Celia wants to say, but stops herself). You are free, Celia, to really enjoy yourself.

  ‘Break a leg, duckie,’ exhorts Hazel, well pleased, certain that Celia – bright, lively, adorable Celia – will make the most of it – ‘Break a leg, see you at the end of the week. Bye-ee ...’

  So now, roaming the silent house, punching cushions, yelling at designer walls, Celia avails herself of all this free time. A whole weekend of it without Alex, a whole week of it without the children. Not even Mrs Green will penetrate the self-indulgence until Monday – nor will the Bedford Park friends since it is weekend time, family time. Celia could be a speck of dust on a cloud-strewn hill for all her neighbourhood will think of her today and tomorrow. She punches the cushion yet again, and then she picks them all up and holds them fast in her arms before throwing them into the air. ‘Oh shit,’ she yells. ‘Oh shit, shit, shit,’ and – feeling better, kicking at them as she passes – she goes back towards the kitchen. On her way she must pass the big table – usually strewn with Plasticine and Lego by now. It is bare. And this stops her in her tracks. Little family, she thinks, I miss you. And she pauses to stroke the empty table with her finger.

  The table is not quite empty. It supports the beautiful crystal vase and the flowers in all their finery. She thinks, briefly, of Tom and his face as he twitched with desire. That was cheering. But, just as if her sister were in the room with her and wagging a finger in her direction, she sees that next to the flowers is Isabel’s present: both books sit heavily on the table top and she feels just like Alice. Read me, they say. She pauses, forgets that she was on her way to the kitchen and instead sits down at the table.

  This should be a nice experience. A warm June afternoon with nothing to do except indulge herself. She has already done a bit of that – given herself a long, bubbly bath, a manicure, a pedicure, read Good Housekeeping, wandered down to the Indian delicatessen and bought some smoked salmon (enough for one) and amazed herself at how little time all that has taken out of the span allotted to her. Come on, Celia, she says, pull yourself together – make the most of it. She begins looking through the definitive History of Art and wills herself to become interested in what she sees but the text is too dry for her mood, the illustrations too much chosen for their historical importance than for their gutsiness. In any case, British Art may hold many epithets but gutsy is unlikely to be one of them. After that yell only something gutsy will suffice. She closes ‘Book One’ and turns her gaze upon the flowers. But the vase is cold today – the sunlight does not bring out the fire, and the blooms are too hothouse and have already begun to droop slightly, with faint browning around the edges of some of them. All this is suddenly too representative of how she feels herself just at this moment. Bugger Alex, she thinks, for she decides that all this low spiritedness is due to one thing and one thing only. Sexual frustration, frustrated need for intimacy. For something, anyway. Perhaps, she thinks, slightly amused, perhaps I should have learned to masturbate – a skill she has never really mastered. A skill, indeed, that she looks upon askance. The idea of it turns her off rather than on. And anyway, she argues, she has never had to. It might perplex her to know that her daughter can, and often does, which proves that some female skills are nothing to do with what is learnt at Mother’s knee (or, indeed, under Mother’s apron). Perhaps one day mother and daughter will talk of this but it seems unlikely – she hasn’t even discussed it with Hazel, and the way she feels about her now, she probably never will.

  Rebecca could tell her that it provides a very pleasant kind of condolence in times of frustration and stress, but she is not here – and, anyway, since when did parents ever seek counsel from their children? No – Celia must find some other way – but what?

  She decides that perhaps the sound of a warm, friendly and totally loyal human voice will help. The telephone. She will ring up someone. Hazel, Best of Bedford Park Friends. Then, remembering Hazel’s disloyalty with Josephine, she decides she will ring someone else. One in the eye for her BBPF. And then she remembers – more appositely – that Hazel is away. Which just about wraps up the disloyalty quite nicely. Worse, Hazel has taken away her children so if she does ring someone else locally what can she say?

  ‘Let’s go and have a picnic tea?’ Without her children they would think she was mad. Give up all that lovely free time to sit on a river bank watching somebody else’s children dribble ice cream and chase ducks.

  Well then. She could say, ‘Why don’t you come over tonight and we’ll get a takeaway?’

  Without Alex this would look at the least odd, at the middle screwy, and at the worst as if there was something up with her marriage. Besides, while the female of the invited couple might just about be able to relax, the male would be pacing the floor feeling very nervous and wondering who to relate to without another man around.

  Possibly, ‘How about going to see a film tonight?’

  No good either. If the nannies are in, it’s because they have been booked to babysit well in advance as their employers are already going out. If the nannies are not in, and therefore their employers are not going out, they are either looking forward to a quiet evening with the telly, or are giving a dinner party, or – even if they did think the idea was marvellous – they’d be unable to get a babysitter at this kind of notice anyway.

  So much for filling the vacuum. It has never been difficult before. Of course if Alex had behaved differently last night she could have been lying around feeling sated but his cavalier disregard has left her frustrated and uneasy. And no amount of telling herself off for being wet makes any difference. The only person she can be sure to find in and willing to talk to her on the telephone without wondering why she has rung is her mother-in-law, and perish the thought of that. She ought to ring her, of course. She ought to ring her because her card (pastel flowers with a simpering kitten behind them saying, ‘For you dear daughter-in-law’) and her present (the annual subscription to Good Housekeeping fought for over the years by Celia who felt that if she received one more National Trust teatowel or set of coasters she would crack – so would Mrs Green come to that) arrived yesterday and should be acknowledged. She sits at the table setting her teeth against making this telephone call. For it would be thus:

  ‘And how is Alex?’

  ‘Very well indeed, Joyce.’

  ‘May I have a word with him dear ...?’

  ‘Well – he’s not here at present.’

  ‘Oh? Where is he?’

  The temptation here would be to say ‘just popped out’ but such lies do us no good in the end. So she would say truthfully, ‘He’s away working this weekend.’

  There would be a pause, a little sorrowful silence, before Joyce would say in that false quaver of hers, ‘Poor boy – he does work so hard.’ With its implication that Celia forces him to do so in order to fulfil her selfish whims. If the women of Bedford Park do not lie around on silken cushions sipping sherbet, their mothers-in-law certainly think that they do.

  But ye gods, the house is silent. No dishwasher, no washing machine, no hoover – for in the circumstances none of this is necessary. Celia decides that she feels hungry. The smoked salmon, while being wonderfully self-indulgent, does not mean she feels well-fed. She remembers the left-overs from last night and is already fashioning in her mind a sandwich made up of cold veal, mayonnaise a
nd watercress when she pats her stomach which wobbles slightly and she knows that she must not. The chocolate mousse is still in there somewhere and even before it that aquamarine skirt was a shade too tight last night. Susie’s flickering glance at her waistline did not go unnoticed by Celia. Neither, as we know, did Isabel’s plumpness. No sandwich for Celia after all. So then, she stands up, resigned, and goes towards the telephone in the hall, where they keep their address book. It is of small comfort to Celia that still, after all these years, she cannot exactly remember her mother-in-law’s telephone number, which she proceeds to look up.

  She begins to dial carefully so as not to spoil the new nail-varnish and then a piece of paper catches her eye. Still holding the receiver she reads the paper and an idea comes to her. The paper is one from the leather-bound notepad that Alex carries around with him – Celia bought it for his Christmas stocking: it has ‘Phone Home’ embossed on the leather cover. He had liked that. It made up for the fact that when he took the children to see Spielberg’s ET (which he had loved) Henry had howled and had to be brought out of the cinema. Rebecca had then howled because she had wanted to stay in. Alex had come home extremely put out. The notepad was a little consolation prize.

  The piece of paper says:

  Queen’s Brough Hotel

  Lowndes Street

  Salisbury

  Alex always leaves his hotel address in case there is an emergency while he is away. Celia’s idea is that she will ring him. After all, if he is there and busy he can say so, and if he is there and not busy, they can have a chat. Instantly she feels happy again. This beats Joyce’s quavering mother-love any day. But there is no telephone number on the paper which is an unusual oversight. Alex is generally scrupulous in giving all the relevant information required on anything. She hums, amused to find she is humming the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’, with its irritating memories, and dials Directory Enquiries. This now being privatised she has to dial and re-dial as it is constantly engaged and when she finally does get through to the operator, he dies in a fizzling pop of electronics. She dials again, engaged again – and all this takes a good deal of time.