The Life Situation

by Rosemary Friedman

  “Why are you crying?”

  “This is the worst day of my whole life.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “No, I have sincerely tried to make you happy…”

  “You have.”

  “I cannot get over your gall in taking us to the christening.”

  “I thought we could all be friends.”

  “You must be mad!” She was shouting and sobbing.

  “Ssh! The children!”

  “Fat lot you care about the children.”

  “I do, as it happens. You said you got on well with her. You’re very similar in many ways…”

  “I do not want to hear about her disgusting ways.”

  “You brought her into the house; asked her to look after the children; remember.”

  “I did not ask you to f— her. I never thought about it like that. I never thought about you like that.”

  “Perhaps you never thought enough about me. About my needs…”

  “I told you. I did my best. If I haven’t succeeded you’d better leave.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “It’s you who are dissatisfied.”

  “Did I say so?”

  “‘I don’t think about your needs.’ I think about nothing else.”

  “Running the house, yes; the food, the children… I’ve always admired the way you cope with everything. I’ve told you so.”

  “What more?”

  “Difficult to explain. Marie-Céleste made me feel good. Told me how marvellous I was; to look at, to be with…”

  “You know I love you.”

  “When did you last say so?”

  “You know very well…”

  “People like to be told; need to be told; built up. They need it. She didn’t always wait for me to make the first move…it was so…uninhibited. She didn’t mind what I did…”

  “I don’t want to hear! You’ll be telling me what position you used next and the colour of her underwear…”

  “Why do you hate her and not me?”

  “I told you I love you.”

  “You’ve never said. Not for years.”

  “Would it have made any difference?”

  “I don’t know. I should never have told you.”

  “Why did you?”

  “You made me.”

  “You wanted me to make you.”

  “You said you could take it. If I’d known it would be like this…”

  “How did you think it would be?”

  “I don’t know. It happens all the time.”

  “Not to me.”

  “How do I know what you get up to, all day long? Don’t tell me there’s never been anybody else in fifteen years.”

  “Nobody else. I thought we were happy.”

  “I thought so too until I met…”

  “Oscar! Leave her out of it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “When I think how stupid I must have been; how blind!”

  “In what way?”

  “I don’t know exactly. Things. You started bothering…about your hair; fussing. And the yellow sweater. I suppose she gave you the yellow sweater. And one day you talked about some shops in Bond Street and I thought it was research for the books, and you went to see Marie-Céleste in hospital and I remember thinking at the time how odd you never visit people in hospital, certainly not when they’ve had babies… Oscar!”

  “Mm?”

  “It isn’t your baby?”

  He hesitated, unable to resist turning the screw just for a moment.

  “No.”

  “I couldn’t stand that.”

  “I took her to the south of France. To Villefranche.”

  “I thought you went to Nice.”

  “It was too noisy.”

  “You stayed in our hotel though?”

  “For a night.”

  “I suppose you told her all about me?”

  “What?”

  “What a lousy wife I am. I hope you had a good laugh.” She sat up. “I put chocolates in your case! After Eights. Did you sit in bed together eating them?”

  “I didn’t tell her. I thought you’d guess when you picked bits of white stuff off my jacket one day; marabou. I wasn’t particularly careful.”

  They lay in silence.

  “God, it’s hot!” Oscar said. He flung back the covers and opened the drawer by his bed.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for a sleeping pill.”

  “What for?”

  “I shall never sleep.”

  “What about me? It’s nearly two o’clock. I have to go to work tomorrow. Have you found a pill?”

  “Yes I wish I was dead. I’m no good. Nothing’s any good.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “It’s true. I should be lying there at peace instead of my father.”

  “You’ve had a rotten time.”

  Silence.

  “Those pills are useless. I’m just as agitated.” He sat up and opened the drawer again.

  “Oscar, no!” She put an arm across his chest to restrain him. He pushed it away. “Leave me alone.” He lay back. She moved across the bed and put her head on his chest. He could feel her tears, warm, through his pyjamas.

  She started to make love to him, warmly, tenderly.

  He stroked her hair. “It’s no good, Karen. I don’t feel anything. You don’t understand. Nothing at all.”

  She held him in her arms, comforting. “I’ll hold you till you go to sleep.”

  In the morning pale, swollen-eyed, she dressed silently; blue cotton dress, white sandals, sunglasses.

  Rosy came down to ask if they could go swimming and Karen snapped at her.

  “Mummy’s got a headache,” Oscar said.

  “Well, can we?” she persisted.

  “Go back to bed,” Oscar said.

  “I’m not tired.”

  “Well go away…!”

  “Daddy’s got a headache!” Karen said.

  When she’d gone he wondered what to do. Whether Marie-Céleste would get in touch. Whether Ernest would let her. Perhaps he was torturing her; giving her a rough time; making her suffer. He got out of bed. Washed and dressed quickly; all fingers and thumbs. Stupid; he should have gone last night, not left her to face the music alone. He wondered what Ernest would do. He didn’t care. He called to Rosy and Daisy to go play in the garden until he came back. He passed Araminta coming up the path.

  The maternity nurse opened the door.

  “Is Mrs Burns at home?”

  “What name shall I give?”

  He thought, and then, what the hell. “John. Oscar John.”

  “I shan’t keep you a moment.” She shut the door in his face. He wondered if she’d had instructions. Perhaps Ernest had gone out, left home…

  The door opened. It was Ernest.

  “Yes?”

  “Can I talk to you? And Marie-Céleste.”

  “Come in.” He was dressed for the City. There was no anger in his voice.

  He followed him into the drawing-room. Marie-Céleste was sitting in an armchair in the cream lace negligée. She was pale and drawn. She did not look at him.

  “You’d better sit down,” Ernest said.

  The three of them sat.

  “I came to apologise,” Oscar said, wondering if that was really why he had come.

  “Hardly adequate, in the circumstances,” Ernest said. “I had not imagined that Marie-Céleste… I’m extremely shocked, hurt…we’ve talked it over and all I have to say is that you are never to see her again; never. If you have any ideas about it you can forget them. She will either be here with me or with her aunt…”

  He caught Marie-Céleste’s eye for a fraction of a second.

  “I… I am exceedingly disappointed with her and disgusted with you. I rather liked you, and your wife… I suppose she is accustomed to your peccadilloes…”

  “I assure you…” Oscar said angrily.

&nb
sp; “…but you can play your little games elsewhere. Marie-Céleste is not the type of woman…”

  He wondered why no one understood the nature of their relationship. Ernest was droning on about having left her alone too much, not having given her a child, allowing her to work and other such nonsense. Silly c—! If he had been Ernest and Marie-Céleste his wife he would have beaten the living daylights out of himself.

  He heard the baby crying, a compelling, primeval sound.

  Marie-Céleste stood up. “I have to go.”

  Ernest got up and held the door for her.

  “What about a drink?” Ernest said when she’d gone. “Or is it too early?”

  Oscar stared at him with disbelief as he opened the cupboard. Nobody could be that lacking in feeling. But then perhaps he was; perhaps that was why Marie-Céleste…

  “Most likely highly out of order,” Ernest was saying, “but one has to be reasonable. However, as you are never going to see her again…what will it be, Scotch?”

  “Neat,” Oscar said weakly. He had the impression he had walked into a ‘tired businessman’s play’ at Wyndham’s. There couldn’t be any ‘real’ people quite like Ernest.

  He wondered what they were going to drink to.

  “You might care to toast my son,” Ernest said. “Handsome little fellow. I must say I’m tickled pink.”

  “Laurent!” Oscar said.

  “Warnford Laurent.”

  He did not want to go home. He drove to Regent’s Park and found a call box. Rosy answered.

  “I’m so glad you phoned, Daddy. Araminta wants us to go swimming and it’s all right because her mother’s taking us. It’s a sort of club and after we might go to the pictures. Please Daddy!”

  “All right.”

  “Thanks Dad! You’re one in a million!”

  He put down the phone.

  He spent the morning in the park, walking, thinking, lying on the grass. He liked the park. The anonymity of it, the polyglot itinerants; children with balls and tennis rackets; dog-walkers; hairy youngsters in plimsolls and frayed jeans; retired couples, sedate; workers with sandwiches; excited tourists with maps. He took a boat out. His mind was getting tired with the effort of trying to see into the future. Karen and the children or Marie-Céleste. He shut his eyes and concentrated. Himself with Karen and the girls; himself with Marie-Céleste. The two images were invariably superimposed. He had always had difficulty in giving up anything. As a child he had always wanted the aeroplane and the model train; to go to the pictures and skating; to go away and stay at home.

  He had lunch in a pub, feeling alienated from the other customers who seemed to him to know exactly what they were about and laughing with it, then sat in an almost empty cinema to see the latest Michael Caine thriller. Exhausted from his ruminations he fell asleep half way through and stayed to see it round again, buying a choc ice in the interval and a drink of so-called orange in a horrid plastic carton. He had difficulties in getting the straw through the hole and thought of Dr Adler.

  His watch had stopped and it was eight o’clock when he reached the house. He hadn’t intended not being there when Karen came home. It was quiet when he opened the door and remembered the girls would not be in until late.

  “Karen!”

  There was no reply.

  He went into the kitchen. She was sitting at the table slumped over a bottle of cooking sherry.

  “Karen!”

  She raised her head slowly. Her light brown hair was streaked with platinum highlights.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I meant to be here when you got back from work.”

  “I haven’t been to work. Dr Boyd thought I didn’t look well. He gave me the day off.” Her voice was strange, slurred.

  “I would have come home if I’d known.”

  “Oh, I haven’t been at home.” She shook her head from side to side slowly.

  “Where have you been?”

  She ran a hand through her hair.

  “Elizabeth Arden: shopping.”

  She stood up with difficulty. She was wearing a superbly cut black dress with blonde insets and blonde snakeskin shoes; mascara was running down her face.

  “Like it?” she said, attempting a crooked seductive smile. “Ungaro. Shoes by Charles Jourdan.”

  Nineteen

  He sat in Marie-Claire’s anonymous furnished apartment facing Marie-Céleste. A quiet desperation separated them. He did not remember seeing her so haggard, drawn. He loved her.

  “Tell me again what happened.”

  “I’ve told you. Twice.”

  “Once more.”

  She looked down and spoke softly. Her hair fell about her face.

  “I saw you and Karen and the children into the lift and went towards the nursery to feed Laurent. He was crying and it was time. Ernest asked me to come into the drawing-room for a moment. I said no, the baby was crying, hungry, but he said it was important, just for a moment. He looked strange, sort of…odd and I think I had a premonition although I could not formulate it. I stood up anxious to get to Laurent, his crying was in my ears, but Ernest made me sit down. He didn’t sit. He said:

  “‘How long has it been going on?’

  “And I said ‘What?’

  “And he said: ‘You and Oscar?’

  “I thought quickly of all kinds of things, what was he talking about, he must be mistaken, I had no idea what he was alluding to, he must be imagining things…he had always been jealous…then I looked at his face. It was agonized with hurt. I had never wanted to hurt Ernest.

  “I said: ‘Since January.’

  “I wondered if he would hit me, threaten me, leave me, call me names. But of course it was Ernest.”

  “He asked me if it had been necessary. He meant to deceive him.

  “‘Neither necessary nor unnecessary,’ I said. ‘Inevitable.’

  “He said he credited me with more self-control. It was obvious he hadn’t a glimmer of understanding, so it was useless trying to explain.

  “‘I don’t want you to be upset,’ he said. ‘We have to think of Warnford; that’s our first consideration. I don’t want to even discuss it again; ever. I just want you to promise me one thing, Marie-Céleste.’

  “I knew what it was going to be.

  “‘That you’ll never see him again. Never.’”

  “What did you say?” Oscar said.

  She hesitated. “‘I promise.’”

  After a while she said: “What about Karen? You’ve told her?”

  He nodded. It was more difficult. He felt a fierce loyalty to Karen which Marie-Céleste did not have for Ernest. He could not tell her that she had reduced him to tears by her pathetic and expensive attempt to turn herself into Marie-Céleste, thereby, as she thought, winning back his love, which as far as he was concerned she had lost.

  The children had stayed at Araminta’s, the attraction being a midnight feast with Sanatogen tonic wine and Cheesy Whatsits.

  He had taken the weeping Karen upstairs and undressed her gently. In place of her Marks and Spencer underwear she was wearing costly wisps of transparent gossamer from a trousseau house in Conduit Street. She clung to him and they made tender, passionate, satisfying love such as had not occurred between them in years. He was shaken by its intensity and mutuality and could not attribute it to the effects of the cooking sherry.

  They lay in harmony.

  “You still love her?” Karen asked.

  He nodded.

  “I wish she was dead.”

  He moved away, breaking the mood. “You’re not to talk to like that. I won’t listen to you. I shall walk out of the house.”

  “I can’t help it. I wish she was dead. Wiped off the face of the earth.”

  “You will push me too far.”

  “I have to speak my mind.”

  “I have been thinking all day. That’s why I was late. Perhaps I should go.”

  He waited.

  “Why don’t you say anything?”


  “What do you want me to say?”

  “Anything. React.”

  “The decision must be yours. I don’t ever want you to say I stood in the way of your happiness.”

  “Happiness! You must be joking. Do you want me to go?”

  “I love you. I don’t want you to stay with us and be unhappy.”

  “Could you manage without me?”

  “I would have to. People do.”

  “Are you telling me to go?”

  “You know I’m not. I just said I would have to manage.”

  “You could, of course. Probably better than with me. Don’t know why you’ve put up with me for so long. Slopping around at home all day. Letting you go out to work. Neglecting the children… I’ve never taken them to the Science Museum. Selfish bugger. Don’t buy you presents…don’t even remember your birthday unless you remind me…”

  “Did you buy her presents?”

  “A blouse.”

  “You’d never go into a shop for me!”

  “It wasn’t easy. I really went in for a nightie but…”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “I thought you did.”

  “Nothing. I hate her.”

  “I don’t like to hear you say that. It upsets me.”

  “Then you’ll have to be upset.”

  “I don’t have to stay and be upset.”

  “No.”

  “You want me to go.”

  “Don’t try to manoeuvre me into saying so. I only want you to promise me one thing.”

  “Yes.”

  “Not to see her again. I couldn’t tolerate that.”

  “It’s all over. I promise.”

  He got out of bed.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To get a drink.”

  It was three weeks before he could see Marie-Céleste. He sent her messages through Mrs Wilson at the surgery. Finally Ernest, having delayed his trip, took off for New York having handed over the care of Marie-Céleste to Marie-Claire who was in London until October. Apart from shopping and having her hair done Marie-Céleste was to go nowhere away from home other than to the service flat that Marie-Claire rented each summer in St James’s.

  He had spent three weeks in an agony of indecision. Sometimes he sat at the table watching Karen and the girls as if on a cinema screen. He tried to make them mean something, to get involved, but could not. They were aware, the children at any rate, of his detachment, the feeling he had of being with them but not of them; the unreality of the situation. He looked at Rosy and Daisy and tried to tell himself flesh of my flesh, re-enact their birth and infancy, the trials and tribulations of their upbringing. They might have been any two random-picked, healthy, normal children. He had no special feeling for them, no psychic closeness which must at all costs be preserved.