by Jane Rogers
He persuaded her to stay on another night. But she would not agree to going sick on Monday, so they had to drive back in time for work the next morning, leaving the pub with the dawn again.
“What’s happening next weekend?”
“I’m busy, Alan – I can’t see you next weekend.”
“All weekend? What are you doing?”
“Oh – lots of things. The garden’s crying out for my attention. And it’s Clare’s birthday on Sunday. I want to get ready for that and cook a nice meal – there are lots of people coming. . . .” She broke off.
“What?”
“I wondered if you’d like to come. But it’s not a good idea. You don’t know anyone anyway. You’d be like a – you’d probably feel a bit out of it.”
There was a silence.
“I think it’s a good idea.”
“No, I’m sorry, I don’t want you to come.”
“You don’t want me to meet your friends.”
“What – what’s the point, Alan? Our lives are separate. It’s much simpler if we stick to drinks after work and dirty weekends.”
“Is that all this is to you? A good fuck from time to time?”
She looked at him and laughed. “You don’t fall over them in the street you know.”
“Stop pretending to be tough, and look at me – Caro.”
“I’m driving.”
“Stop then.”
She pressed the accelerator fiercely for a moment, then slowed down abruptly, squealing the brakes. “What?”
“Is that all this is to you?”
Colour flamed up her cheeks. “What – what d’you want me to say, Alan? You’ve been here all weekend as well as me.” She waited in silence for a minute, then started the engine again.
She would only see him twice that week; that night, they had already agreed, for a drink after work, and on Thursday evening after eight.
“What are you doing till eight?”
“W–Washing my clothes, changing my sheets, having a bath and sitting staring out of the window for half an hour. I have to leave some time in the week for myself, or I’d go mad. Don’t you?”
“You’re on your own most nights this week.”
“Yes, but I’m asleep, so it doesn’t count.”
“And then you have all your other lovers to entertain, of course . . .”
Two weeks later Alan told Carolyn that he was going fishing with Mike next weekend.
“D’you want to take Chrissy?” she offered. “He would be so excited. I know he’d be good.”
“No. I don’t think so. I mean, we’ll probably end up in the pub on Saturday night, and what would we do with him?”
She nodded quickly. “Where will you go?”
“Mike’s choosing the spot. I just feel as if I need a break.”
She nodded again, smiling at him.
He despised her for being easy to deceive.
He got home fairly late on the Sunday evening. Carolyn was watching television.
“Hello!” He bent over the sofa and kissed her.
“Have a good time?” she asked. Her voice was croaky.
“Oh – yes – yes. Very pleasant. Are you getting a cold?”
She shook her head.
“Is there any food?”
“No.”
“Oh – well, can I have a sandwich or something? I’m starving.”
“Help yourself.”
She always made him food when he came in. He suddenly felt panicky. “What’s the matter? Are you feeling bad? Sore throat?”
She didn’t reply. He walked around the sofa and looked at her. Her face was swollen and blotchy. “What’s the matter? Carolyn.”
She stared fixedly at the television, speaking so low he could hardly catch what she said. “Annie had a – an accident. She fell off the swing and broke her arm. This morning. I had to take her to hospital.”
“Annie? Where is she? Is she all right?”
“Yes. They put a plaster on it. She’s in bed upstairs.”
“Oh Christ. Is it all right? What on earth happened?”
“I tried to phone you.”
There was a silence.
“At Mike’s?” he said pointlessly. He had rung Mike twice to tell him but the bastard was always out.
“Yes – I thought Sarah . . . Mike answered the phone. He didn’t know anything about it.”
“No.”
“So I rang your parents.”
“My parents?”
“I thought they might know – if you’d had an accident –”
Alan stood up and went to the window. On television a woman was singing a schmaltzy song. Carolyn got up abruptly and turned it off. The silence lasted a long time. He looked at her. She was sitting rigidly on the sofa, leaning forwards, her hands clasped between her thighs.
“I went – I had to go – for work, I had to. . . .”
She didn’t move.
He went and knelt down next to her. “Carolyn. Look at me. Look, I didn’t want to upset you – when there was no need.”
She was shaking. He touched her arm. “Carolyn – look at me. It was nothing – nothing serious. All right? I’ve come back – I’m here. . . .”
He stood up again. “I’m sorry, all right. I went away for the weekend with someone else.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
He was astonished by the question. “Yes.”
She began to cry, desperately, as if she had just heard the most terrible news. Alan knelt down awkwardly again, trying to embrace her.
“Stop it – please don’t cry. You must have guessed – you must have realized when you telephoned –”
She gasped for breath. “I couldn’t believe it.”
The night was very unpleasant. Alan was not prepared for the strength of her reaction. For himself, he was sorry she had found out, because now it would all be much more complicated and difficult. And he was sorry she was upset. But he could not actually feel that there was any need for her to react so extremely.
After sobbing uncontrollably for what seemed like hours, while he paced around, trying futilely to silence her, she raised a hideously blotchy face to gasp, “You – were with her – that weekend. The car – when you said the car –”
He did not know what proof she had, and kept silent.
“You were!” she screamed, and threw herself at him, pummelling him aimlessly with her fists. When he put her back gently on the sofa she flopped over like a rag doll and went on sobbing hoarsely, covering the cushion in snot and tears.
At last Alan went to bed. There was nothing else he could do. He was dog tired. He didn’t wake up till he heard the children banging about in the morning. He got up cautiously and went into the girls’ room. Chris was there too. They were all bubbling with excitement over Annie’s plaster. Alan sat on her bed and heard the whole story of the fall. the journey to hospital, the X-ray machine, and what the doctors had said and done. Then he told Chris to help Annie dress, shut the door on the three of them, and went quietly downstairs. The sitting room was empty. He was suddenly badly frightened that she might have gone. But she was in the kitchen making toast. Her face was white and her eyes were red, but she had combed her hair and washed her face, and looked relatively normal.
“Did you sleep?”
She turned her back.
“Carolyn – aren’t we going to talk?”
“What d’you want to say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to see her again?”
“Not if it upsets you like this.”
“Not if it upsets me? Did you think I would be pleased?”
“Carolyn, people have affairs all the time. Anyone would think I’d murdered someone. I’ve said I’m sorry. What more can I do?”
She ran out of the room and he heard the toilet door slam, and then, a little later, her voice upstairs in the children’s room.
He did not see Caro at work that day. That night he f
ound that Carolyn had moved out of their bedroom into the spare room – not just made up the bed there, but moved all her clothes out of the wardrobe, her make-up and things from the dressing-table, removed every trace of herself from the bedroom. She had already given the children their tea. There was nothing for Alan or herself to eat.
“Well, look – you go and lie down and I’ll make something.”
“I don’t want anything. I’m going to bed.” She went upstairs and shut herself in the spare room.
It continued like that, squalidly and remorselessly, every evening. There were a couple of frostily factual conversations about what exactly had happened when, but she used these to refuel her distress, and retreated from them to start crying all over again, in her room. After staying in and listening on Monday night, Alan went out to the pub at nine on Tuesday, and as soon as he had kissed the children goodnight, on Wednesday.
On Thursday he went to the pub straight after work, telling himself he would stay there all evening. He watched the hands of the clock move through all the minutes between half-past seven and eight o’clock, drinking steadily. He made it to eight. The hands moved on, through five past, ten past, quarter past. He had to tell her at least. Tell her what? What was the point of not seeing her, if Carolyn was behaving like this? It couldn’t get any worse; he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. Wasn’t it a goat? Goat for preference, at least they’re lecherous. He drank up, went out to the car, and drove, with exaggerated alcoholic caution, to Caro’s house.
Soon after Alan arrived at work the following morning, he was telephoned by his mother . She wanted to know if he could meet her for lunch.
“Today?”
“Yes, why not?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in Grove and Ellisons, actually.” It was a large department store. “Don’t be so suspicious, darling. I’m in town shopping, and I suddenly thought how nice it would be to meet my long-lost son for lunch.”
“I’m not long-lost.”
“Sweetheart, I know you’re not. I’m offering to buy you lunch. Yea or nay?”
“Yes, please. Thank you. Where?”
“Oh – shall we lash out?” She named a French restaurant in the city centre.
“I’m only supposed to have an hour, you know.”
“Well, I’m sure you can wangle it somehow, darling. See you at one.”
She was late, of course. He had a drink while he waited. She had never done this before; in fact, he could not remember a time when she had gone out of her way to speak to him. Then he realized what it was. Carolyn had telephoned home after Annie’s fall. That was only last Sunday, although it felt more like a year ago. What a joke. His mother – Lucy, of all people – wanted to tell him the error of his ways. He had walked into it as blindly as a kitten. But after another drink he began to anticipate her arrival with pleasure. What on earth could she say? When he had listened to her performance he would say casually, “And how’s Jeremy? Randy as ever?”
He bought a cigar and started to smoke it, occasionally glancing at his own reflection in the mirror behind the bar.
Lucy created her usual flurry on arrival, with dramatic embraces, long and implausible excuses for her lateness, and complicated discussions with the waiter on the correct preparation of various items on the menu. At last they had ordered and she was settled with a drink.
“Well. So here we are. It’s an absolute delight to see you again. Have you given up visiting your aged parents?”
“We came at Easter.”
“Did you? Was I there?”
“Briefly, yes.”
“How’s that musical daughter of yours? Is the piano right for her? I did wonder about viola.”
He told her about Annie’s broken arm, and offered her another drink.
“I can’t keep up with you, my love. As a matter of fact, you’re looking positively dissolute, now I’ve had a chance to sit and stare. Have you been ill?”
“No.” He was contemptuous. Was that the best she could do? He had hoped for more finesse.
“How’s Carolyn taking it?”
“Taking what?”
“Your affair, darling. Don’t be so coy, for heaven’s sake.”
“She’s – I –” He stopped. “I don’t really think it’s your business, mother.”
There was a pause. She started to ferret in her handbag, and he listened to the sound of her taking out and lighting a cigarette. He couldn’t stop himself from blurting out, “That’s why you phoned me, isn’t it? It’s incredible! What d’you think gives you the right, after you –” He stopped. She always did this to him – always. Within minutes, he was a sulky child again. It made him want to roar with frustration.
“Alan, my sweet, it’s the last thing to enter my head. I wanted to talk to you about Pamela, as a matter of fact.”
“Why?”
“Well, she’s getting divorced. And she’s written me a very peculiar letter.”
The soup arrived, with impeccable timing, bringing with it the opportunity to fiddle with rolls and cutlery. Once they had started to eat, Alan said unconcernedly, “Well, go on.”
“It transpires that she’s left Anatole, and she’s left Nikki with him.” Nikki was Pam and Anatole’s one-year-old daughter. “Apparently it’s my fault.”
“Your fault?”
“Yes. Dreary, isn’t it? I can see that retribution will be heaped on my head until the day I die.” She smiled bleakly. “This soup’s a little bland, isn’t it? Almost tired. A weary little soup. I should say these mushrooms came out of a tin.”
“How is it your fault?”
“Well, as far as I can understand the poor child, she thinks I should never have let her be born. That’s what it seems to boil down to – the essence, I suppose you could say, of her complaints.”
Alan laughed humourlessly; a noise to encourage her to continue.
“It is harsh, isn’t it? Goodness me, if every infant in the world took up the cause – what adult could escape blame, I wonder? Only the cautious, the celibate, and the frightfully ugly. A purge would leave a motley and unproductive – that’s to say unreproductive – crew.” She sipped her soup meditatively. “It’s not as if she was unplanned. Admittedly we didn’t ask her, but medicine was less advanced in those days. . . .” Her smile died away, and her mouth settled into a bitter line that Alan had not noticed before.
“Did she say why? Why you should never have let her be born?”
“Oh, the usual reasons; she’s frightfully desperately miserable, and has been since my hostile womb expelled her into the world. Her life is an empty shell – you know the patter. The sort of thing they say in Dallas, all those women with hair and teeth.”
Alan nodded.
“It appears she might have fared better in this vale of tears, had someone else given birth to her. I, according to her psychoanalyst, am eminently unsuited to be a mother. So it’s not being born as such, which troubles her, as being born to me. Even a test tube would have been preferable, apparently. She seems to forget that she’s twenty-four. Did they have test tubes in the fifties? I suppose we could have lashed out on a jam jar.”
“Why are you unsuited to be her mother?” He felt afraid, as he asked the question.
“Ah, that’s just it. She didn’t say. I don’t know whether the venerable shrink revealed that or not. The letter ended with various unsavoury descriptions of how she might choose to finish her days.”
“What sort of –” Alan broke off. Lucy had ducked her face into her hands. “Lucy?”
She raised her head quickly, smiling. There were tears on her cheeks.
“How silly. Your father’s gone down to sort her out, with his little black bag tucked under his arm, just in case.” She dabbed at her eyes carefully and inspected her face in her compact mirror. The waiter took away their soup and brought their entrees.
“So – there we are. My curiosity was piqued. I wondered if you could give me any answers?”
/>
“To what?”
“Well, have I really been such a dreadful Mama? I always thought you were relatively happy, as such things go. In between the major tragedies like grazed knees and the cat being sick, and having to practise your instruments. I admit I didn’t spend many days up to my elbows in chocolate cake mix, or whatever it is that real mothers are supposed to do – but that would have driven me completely batty, and done you no good at all. You were as happy as most children, no?”
“Yes. Yes we were.”
She flashed her beautiful smile at him; the question was light but steely, like a wire you might use to garotte a man. “Well why does she say that?”
Alan picked over the food on his plate. “1 don’t know, Lucy.” He hesitated, then plunged. “She was upset, I guess – we both were – when she found out about Jeremy. But she was old then, in her teens at least.”
Lucy went very still. He looked up. She was staring at him.
“What did she find out?”
“Well – that you were – having an affair.”
“But I wasn’t.”
There was a silence.
“Oh. She thought you were. She told me you were.”
“When? Why?”
He laughed nervously. “She said she saw you. She came down late one night – very late – and saw the pair of you in the drawing room –”
Lucy lifted her napkin from her knees, folded it carefully and placed it on the table. She pushed back her plate. “This conversation really doesn’t go with food, does it? Shall we give up and go somewhere more squalid?”
