The Man Who Understood Women

by Rosemary Friedman

  ‘It wasn’t cowardice. It was the foolish hope that by keeping it to myself some magic wand might be waved and it would turn out to be no more than a figment of my imagination, a bad dream, a boyish fantasy from which I might shortly be released. No punishment could bring more suffering than that which was within me.

  ‘“Before noon,” you said. At break I wandered off to where the willows leaned towards the brook and daffodils and grape hyacinths interrupted the greenness of the bank. I wanted to think. I didn’t hear old Partridge, he must have followed me, until he said, “How did it happen, Dawson?”

  ‘“How did you know it was me, sir?” I said. It was my conscience speaking, gently.

  ‘“I,” he corrected me automatically. “There were ink stains on your Unseen.”

  ‘He stood there in that ancient suit of his, his hands knobbly with arthritis, waiting for me to answer.

  ‘“It just happened,” I said inadequately, and again he waited.

  ‘It was like that in the Latin lessons. He had all the patience in the world, old Partridge. He knew that you could make no impression upon small boys’ brains with a steamroller. If he was teaching us a verb that we had difficulty in memorising, he would demonstrate it in such a way that it would stay with us for ever. Until my death I shall remember nubere, to marry, and the sight of poor old Partridge pacing before us with the blackboard duster on his head to represent a wedding veil. At the time we laughed, of course. With old Partridge there were so many causes for amusement. His misshapen fingers, how painful they must have been; the pebbly glasses through which we liked to imagine he could not see us in our mischief; the bushy eyebrows, each one like a small moustache.

  ‘He stood there by the brook, his cracked shoes shabby on the tender grass, waiting for me to explain.

  ‘When I didn’t, he said, “It isn’t the end of the world, you know, Dawson.”

  ‘“Our worlds are not the same,” I said, for I was on the threshold and he an old man.

  ‘He put a thin, almost weightless arm round my shoulders and said, “There is only one reality. If the whole of mankind were to perish tomorrow, it would remain.”

  ‘“The floor was so beautiful,” I said. “Why did it have to be me?”

  ‘“Life is beautiful, Dawson,” Partridge said. “Nobody’s sheet remains clean.”

  ‘“What can we do?”

  ‘“Only our best. Inflicting the least pain.”

  ‘“The others will hate me.”

  ‘“Never do anything worse, Dawson, and you will be a man.”

  ‘As he went up the bank he stumbled over a root of the willow. I didn’t laugh. I think the growing process had already begun.’

  We had by now made three turns of the graveyard. Or perhaps it was four. I had been talking all the time.

  Now Heatherington spoke: ‘And at noon you came to my study and confessed.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Could you distinguish my knock from the beating of my heart?’

  ‘You were pale, but I expected it. Old Partridge was a wise man.’ Heatherington, his chin huddled into his scarf, looked sideways at me. ‘You don’t know how wise.’

  I raised my eyebrows in query and clapped my leather gloves together against the cold.

  ‘We knew it was you who had the accident with the ink.’

  ‘You did, sir?’

  ‘Partridge saw it happen. He was passing the library and saw it through the door. He told me immediately. I was furious. I wanted to come down straight away. Catch you red-handed as it were. Try to do something about the stain before it was too late. Partridge wouldn’t let me. He said, “If you go down now, the blot will never come out.” He wasn’t referring to the floor.’

  We had come round to the grave again and this time we stopped. I knew that both of us were for the last time seeing the shiny suit, the kind face that radiated love of a humanity that was not easy to love. The rare genius of a man who could put first things first in a topsy-turvy world.

  ‘What about a headstone?’ I glanced at those about us in varying stages of neglect and decay.

  Heatherington fixed me with the flint-blue, uncompromising glance born and bred in all headmasters. ‘Partridge has a hundred living monuments.’

  I took out my wallet. ‘Nevertheless, I’d like to do something.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you.’

  ‘I can afford it.’

  He took the money I held out and folded it neatly. ‘Any particular wording?’

  ‘Just “A wise man”,’ I said. ‘In Latin, of course. I’m afraid I don’t remember the exact words.’

  ‘Chisellings on stone,’ Heatherington said. ‘Partridge would forgive you.’

  He turned up the collar of his coat and looked at his watch.

  We shook hands, stamping our feet, cold in thin shoes, and said goodbye. It was unlikely that our paths would cross for a third time.

  Heatherington, head down against the wind, set off across the park. I looked after him. I had meant to ask if, after twenty years, the blot had faded.

  Tomorrow Will Be Welcome

  1961

  Sara Parker awoke to an autumn morning scarcely able to believe that a year had already passed. Was it possible that she was able to face the sight of the trees, their leaves already turning from green to gold, in a world that no longer held her beloved Roly?

  It was possible and even more. Turning her face into the pillow until the pale sunlight was blotted out, she admitted to the darkness that she was contemplating marriage to another man. Not that he had actually asked her to marry him.

  In the six months that she had known him, the subject had not once been mentioned. But today he was going back three thousand miles across the Atlantic and she knew, as women always know, that he would not leave without asking her. Of that she was certain. She, who had been so sure that there could never be a life without Roly, was now contemplating an entirely new one with someone else.

  Would anyone believe that she would not be replacing Roly with Judd? She would simply be living the only life she felt that it was possible to live. In the warm blackness of the pillow she was back for the millionth time in that other autumn morning, the rain beating against the bedroom window.

  Roly was in the bathroom. He called to her, ‘If you don’t get out of that bed, lazybones, we’re going to be late and Simon will take a very dim view of that!’

  Sara smiled a fulfilled smile into the bedclothes, happy at the love in her husband’s voice and because they were going to see their son Simon at school, whom, by half-term, she always missed terribly.

  When they set out, they found the tarmac glistening and the traffic heaving. Once on the open road, Roly put his foot down.

  ‘The roads are awfully skiddy, Roly.’

  ‘Don’t worry, darling. Simon will be upset if we don’t arrive on time.’

  She remembered the bend in the road and the dripping hedges. She would remember for ever the sickening, frightening slide as they negotiated it, which left them spinning like a top on the wrong side of the road. She remembered how huge, almost like the prow of a ship, the approaching hulk of the furniture removal van had looked. After that she would not allow herself to remember.

  At the hospital they had avoided telling her the news for as long as possible. But because she knew, she did not press them. ‘In a day or two,’ they said, ‘when you’re stronger.’ She made no effort to get stronger to greet the husband she knew would never come. When the doctor in the long white coat came finally to sit on the bed and take her hand she was able to spare him his embarrassing task. The only thing she hadn’t known was that Roly had died instantaneously. She was supposed to derive some comfort from the information.

  The weeks immediately afterwards had not somehow been so bad. The sickening, engulfing grief, the grief that was impossible to live with, somehow slid past in an anaesthetising wave. It was a bad dream, and she had wakened one morning to find that reality was far, far worse.

>   For the children’s sake she had tried, but she found that without Roly she did not know how to live. There was no one even to quarrel with. Noisy, shouting quarrels whose course was satisfying and whose end was always certain.

  She felt alone, as if she were standing on a high rock. Beneath her, kind arms waved to welcome her, but the arms she searched for were not there, so she remained alone on her rock and soon the arms stopped waving. The children made it possible – essential in fact – to carry on, but sooner or later children had to go to bed and she was left, wandering around the house, which brought back too many memories. She did not go out. She could not bring herself to make the effort.

  There were problems. She found that Roly had left her enough money to live on and support the children, but she would have to cut down their standard of living. Should she stay on in the roomy old house, sell up and move into a small flat, or take the children and move in with her mother? There were problems she had to face.

  On the evening when Judd had first called she was kneeling on the floor of the sitting room cutting out a dress for her daughter, Harriet, from a paper pattern. It was a task in which she was inexperienced and the concentrated effort had wearied her. Simon and Harriet, in pyjamas and barefooted, sat cross-legged before the fire eating their supper. Everywhere there were pins, material, books, games and vital pieces of her pattern.

  The bell surprised them all. Nowadays no one ever visited them in the evenings. Sara got up and went to answer the bell, shutting the door behind her so that whoever had arrived would not see the mess.

  A stranger stood on the doorstep, large, loose-limbed and blond. ‘I hope I’m not intruding,’ he said, certain of his welcome. ‘I’m Judd Morphy from Washington. I met your husband when he was in the States. He told me to be sure and call when I was over here. I just got in.’

  ‘He told me about you,’ Sara said, facing him through the twelve inches she had opened the door.

  ‘Is your husband home, Mrs Parker?’

  She looked at him. ‘Roly’s dead,’ she said, and it was the first time she had spoken the words aloud. She watched the large, bland, all-embracing American smile fade from his face. She was glad he didn’t say he was sorry.

  ‘May I come in?’ Sara had heard Americans had no sense of occasion. She shrugged and opened the door wider. In the sitting room he tried not to put his large feet on the paper pattern. She made no attempt to clear up or apologise. She never bothered to make up for her evenings with the children and knew her hair needed washing. She didn’t care, she hadn’t asked him to come in.

  He said, ‘This has come as a shock. All the way over on the plane I’ve been thinking of Roly and the good times we had.’

  ‘How long are you here for?’ she asked politely.

  ‘Six months. What happened to Roly?’

  ‘It was a car accident,’ she said, ‘last October.’

  ‘Daddy’s died and gone to Heaven,’ Harriet said calmly.

  ‘Oh, shut up, Harry!’ Simon said fiercely, kicking her with his bare foot.

  Judd stayed only half an hour. When he got up to go she realised that she had offered him nothing, not even a cup of coffee. She was far too weary and she hadn’t even washed her supper dishes.

  At the door he said, ‘I’m sorry for pushing in, but I know what it’s like. I lost my wife to cancer soon after our marriage. Of course, it’s a very long while ago now, but I remember how it feels. It doesn’t do to be too much alone. I’ll call you some time, Mrs Parker.’

  ‘Sara,’ she said. He had been a good friend to Roly. He didn’t telephone her, probably anticipating what she would say. He just came back frequently and rang the bell and stood patiently on the doorstep waiting for her to let him in. She made no effort to entertain him. He had supper with her in the kitchen, listened, relaxed, to the radio, helped her get the children into bed. She scarcely noticed whether he was there or not until after two months, during which time he had visited them at least three or four times every week, he quite suddenly stopped coming.

  The sitting room, cluttered as it was with furniture and toys, seemed empty. The children missed him. For the first time in a long while Sara looked into her long mirror and was horrified at what she saw. She hadn’t bothered about her hair, her skin, her face, her clothes, the things she had cared for so proudly for Roly. She looked like an old woman and not a very tidy one. She wasn’t even standing up straight. She braced her shoulders. The effort was painful but it took a few years off her age.

  They heard nothing from Judd for three weeks. When he did come he said he had been in Europe on business. He made no excuse for not letting them know. Why should he? If he noticed that Sara had a new dress and had had her hair done, he did not say anything.

  One day he noticed the golf clubs that were kept in the cupboard under the stairs.

  ‘They’re Roly’s,’ Sara said. ‘I don’t play.’

  ‘Well, I do,’ Judd said. ‘How about walking round with me?’ He didn’t say it would do her good to get out into the fresh air, but she knew that that was what he meant. He was quite right. She had hardly been outside the house for months.

  And on the golf course she would not have to face people.

  It was not long before she bought a waterproofed jacket, trousers and shoes, and borrowed a bag of lightweight clubs from a girlfriend. In the weeks preceding Christmas she trudged miles over sodden grass, pulling a trolley uphill and down dale behind her. She learned to relax her knees, keep her head down and take the club head back slowly and follow through, and there were hours at a time when she did not think about Roly. When it snowed and they could not play she was upset and practised in the hall.

  Slowly, week by week, with Judd she learned to laugh again. He made a Christmas tree for the children. He took them skating on a frozen lake. She found herself looking forward to his double ring, punctual as a grandfather clock.

  By the time her drives were landing, time after time, on the fairway and her iron shots stopping neatly on the green, she began to be sure that Judd wanted to marry her. She knew that there would never, ever, be a love like hers and Roly’s, it was something past. One could not live in the past and Judd had broad, comfortable-looking shoulders.

  As the weather grew warmer and their golf games more frequent, she began to expect his proposal. She wondered when it would be. That he was fond of her was obvious. A woman did not have to be told.

  One after the other, their days together slid quickly by and the proposal of which she was so sure was never mentioned. Before she realised where the weeks had gone, it was time for Judd to return to Washington. Still nothing had been said. That there was no one else, she knew. He told her all there was to know about his life at home and she was certain he had no woman waiting to welcome him.

  Today he was going home and, dreaming on her pillow Sara guessed that before his plane left he would ask her. She was ready with her answer. She dressed carefully and was annoyed with herself for being in a dither of excitement.

  They had lunch at the airport. She thought to herself how familiar his large, kind face with its straight mouth and receding hair had become, how much she had grown to depend upon him.

  After the coffee he held her hand for the first time, filling her with a sense of security.

  ‘Sara,’ he said gently, ‘I’ve known you long enough to ask you something.’

  She watched him stub out his cigarette; then he was holding her hand in both his own.

  ‘Would you think of getting married again?’ he asked.

  She thought of Roly and, knowing that his memory would always remain untouched, said yes, she might, and waited for what would come next.

  He leaned forward. ‘You mustn’t mind what I’m going to say, Sara,’ he said, ‘because I say it for your sake. If you should think of getting married again, I ask you to wait. Wait until your heartache’s gone and there’s no need to seek the comfort of the first pair of arms that comes along. When you’ve had a sho
ck, such as you have had, your judgement goes haywire and your imagination may give to any man qualities he does not really possess.

  ‘And there’s another thing, Sara. Marriage is for two. It needs giving as well as taking. You cannot expect to give yourself over to the task of building a new marriage and making it work while you are still recovering from Roly. Whoever you marry you will have to meet halfway.

  ‘You don’t mind my saying this?’ he asked. ‘Look at me, please, Sara.’

  She managed to raise her head but knew her eyes were full of tears of disappointment.

  ‘I’ll go and get my baggage cleared,’ he said, standing up. ‘Wait for me downstairs.’

  Before he got into the plane he held her very close and very tight, and she tried not to cry when he kissed her. He left her holding a large square box, his parting gift. As she waved goodbye to the plane the tears slid unrestricted down her face.

  When she got home the children were waiting for her, busy with the presents Judd had given them. They wanted to know what was in her parcel so she sat on the settee, red-eyed, to open it. There were three-dozen brand-new golf balls in the box and she started to laugh hysterically through her tears. When she was calm she realised that it was not such a stupid present after all, and that with each one she would learn to live a little more, concentrating on something she was anxious to do really well.

  ‘Is Uncle Judd coming back?’ Harriet asked from the floor where she was busy with her new doll.

  Sara shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, Harriet.’

  Simon said, ‘I think he is, Mummy. He’s left his golf clubs in the hall.’

  Sara ran across the polished floor. The large, heavy leather bag leaned solidly against her own light one as it had done for months. She knew that he had not left them by mistake.

  Rosita