Midsummer Night in the Workhouse

by Diana Athill

  Walking on, out in the street again, she was jubilant and began to hum: a glass in the grass alas, a glass in the grass alas, but it was odd that those footsteps had not been Martin’s. A glass in the grass, and not alas but hurrah, because at this moment nothing matters. Listen: I say to myself that I walked out on my poor love – I didn’t only walk out on him, I insulted him in front of George and Lucy. He will be angry and perhaps he will mind, so that I shall soon feel bad about it – oh dear, supposing it has really . . . no I won’t think of that. No, but I did this odd thing, and it doesn’t matter. Here I am alone, what a relief. Perhaps it will not continue to be a relief, but that is what it is now.

  Ah, the silly tangle of being two people – though it seemed that Martin was not much tangled, because if he had followed her straightaway he would have caught up with her by now. That florist’s window, banked with fresh flowers even at night: do they take home the flowers which are beginning to fade, or do they just put them in the dustbin? So he must have gone back to his argument with George as though nothing had happened, and that, considering that he had probably forgotten her putting the keys in her purse, was pretty cool. If she was in bed by the time he got home she would pretend to be asleep – unless he started rooting about for the Alka-Seltzer: what a pity that she had left it on the kitchen dresser instead of in the bathroom, he would never find it there without help. It was tiresome to be able to see him so clearly, suddenly; she should have been a fraction more drunk, so that it would have carried her right into bed and sleep. To spoil this lovely walk by thinking of his return was a waste of time, while as for thinking of tomorrow, when he would ask her why she had done something so unlike herself . . . it was not as though he had been very boring, either, poor treasure; not nearly so boring as George. The best thing, the wisest thing, would be to remember poems – ‘Sabrina fair, listen where thou art sitting’, perhaps, or Lycidas, which would almost see her home.

  He might have tried to run after her straight away, and have been kept there by George and Lucy against his will: perhaps a little longer between the taps might be a good thing – tap, tap, tap, tap – she could change her speed now without any special effort, but walking slowly seemed to be more tiring than walking fast.

  Madeleine tried stepping on the lines between the paving- stones, then stopped and looked back, but there was only a policeman on a bicycle. He looked at her questioningly as he passed, which made him wobble. It was foolish to dawdle, better to go on briskly in an ordinary way, and perhaps, now that she had almost reached their own street, think of some- thing everyday, such as whether they could afford Mrs Moxon three times a week instead of twice. The night was not so warm as she had thought it, but even now she was not really sorry. She was only seeing a little too clearly that soon she might be.

  When, halfway along their own street, she heard first running feet on the pavement, then the chink of money in his pocket, the threat of sorriness vanished because she began to giggle at herself again, as she had done when she walked the wrong way in the square: what a fool she was, with this relief driving out her proud, private relief so imme- diately! In a few minutes she would have begun to be sure that he had not followed her, and if that had happened it would have been horrible: so much for her! But when he caught up, put his arms round her and pushed his face into her hair, panting, smelling of drink and gasping, ‘God, darling, what made you do that?’ she thought: how odd. While he was running along the road it had seemed that he, like her, would be amused, but he was not, nor was he angry. He had apparently gone off on his own into some silly fuss. He was still drunk, of course, and he was leaning on her, and he was missing the point.

  ‘They kept saying you’d come back,’ he gasped. ‘And then Lucy said had you got the key, and I remembered you had, so they said that even if you didn’t come back you’d be all right, and to let you cool off. But I couldn’t stop thinking in vino veritas, in vino veritas. Madeleine, why did you do it?’

  ‘Oh darling, I don’t know. Don’t make a fuss.’

  ‘I’m not making a fuss, it’s important.’

  ‘It isn’t important. I suppose I just felt bored, suddenly, because I was tight. I’m sorry, darling, it was just a silly thing – it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘But it might matter. You’ve never done anything like that before, and it’s because you were tight that it might be so awful. It might be something coming out, about me!’

  Oh damn, she thought. I would so like to tell him about the island and the wine-glass, but I don’t see how I can. So she said, ‘Come on home, sweet, and don’t worry. It was nothing to do with you – absolutely not, it was to do with me. And I love you.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Martin.

  ‘Yes,’ said Madeleine truthfully, but feeling a little sad.

  DESDEMONA

  They turned into a street she had often passed but never been down, a long straight one which she supposed led to some unfamiliar part of the city. It was thick with new snow and the lamp standards on either side were tall, swan-necked, shedding a cold light.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘To my place,’ he said, ‘where did you think?’ But she hadn’t been thinking at all, she was too drunk.

  He changed down to second. ‘The thing to remember,’ he said, ‘is the drunker I am the slower I must drive.’

  She was watching the slender lamps moving slowly towards her and thinking, ‘This is the street where the white lilies grow.’

  There was one black figure in the street, cape, helmet, a compact conical shape. ‘We’ll ask him,’ he said.

  ‘Stay downwind of him,’ she said, pleased with her- self for this prudent thought, although there was no wind now that the snow had stopped falling. The policeman noticed nothing amiss and told them to take the first on the right, and when they did she was surprised to see that she knew where they were after all: not in an unfamiliar part of the city, but quite near the square where he’d told her he was staying.

  The flat was warm and the bed had not been made for many days. She would have expected that to put her off, but now she understood that it was a good thing: sheets lying open to a warm room absorb some of the warmth and give no shock to naked bodies. But on the other hand, how could she bear a whole night in a room with no air in it? The door was open, but she could tell from the smell that the windows in the other rooms were always kept shut, so what came in was no fresher than what was there already. She might creep out of bed later and open the bedroom window just an inch – but it was his place, he liked it this way, so she mustn’t be fussy. A few people had survived even in the Black Hole of Calcutta, she must remember that and concentrate on the feel of his hands and his prick: very welcome after all the tension of the evening, and how lucky that she wasn’t so drunk as to feel dizzy when she lay down. Although she was too drunk, it now occurred to her, to get any real pleasure beyond a sleepy feeling that his body was an agreeable one.

  Never mind, she thought when he’d rolled off her, it’s not the only pleasure. This stranger with a hard face and a bit of a paunch and friendly hands and a life locked in his head so different from hers that she could imagine only corners of it; when he’d topped the ridge and slid down into helplessness in her arms, that in itself was a pleasure. She held him tenderly, one hand on the nape of his neck, one on his buttocks, and there he was at her mercy, little knowing that she was planning to creep out of bed as soon as he was thoroughly asleep and open his bedroom window whether he liked it or not. That seemed to her very funny, a situation quite as delightful, for the moment, as a satisfying lovemaking would have produced. And then there was the additional pleasure of knowing that when she woke up next morning she would see this stranger walking about his room, tucking his shirt into his pants, cleaning his teeth, living his life. She’d never known a man like him before, even his snoring was interesting. And next time they’d go to her
place, where she would be in control of the ventilation, and she wouldn’t get so drunk.

  Four months later, at her place, a moment came, as it often did now, when she knew what he was feeling. Was this true? The surer she felt that her own sensations reflected his, the more sharply she enjoyed them, so she might be wishing the correspondence. She thought this even while it was happen- ing, but with only a fraction of her attention. Earlier, most of her mind had been following what they were doing, enjoying it, amused by it, at one moment when he hurt her rejecting it, enjoying it again; but now there was only a tiny peephole of observation left, nerve-endings had taken over from mind, communicating with each other and sending the same mes- sage out through their bodies. It must be the same message, or how could their movements be so concordant without their trying? The movements were happening, not being made. His lips were drawn back from his teeth like hers, his breath gasped like hers, the words he was moaning had the same sound as hers. Oh yes yes yes, they were together in this, they were away, they were gone . . . Ah, how well they fucked together!

  He liked to lie on the floor afterwards, flat on his back, arms spread, like a man crucified. She usually liked closeness after making love, but she found she enjoyed the sight of him there, dead on the carpet, his wet prick lolling on his thigh and becoming slowly smaller. It still had a little life in it. Once or twice it stirred, then sank to rest again, the silly dumb thing. She watched it through half-shut eyes and smiled. She hauled herself up, appreciating her legs’ weakness, to push a pillow under his head and kiss his eyebrow, then flopped back onto the bed, belly down. She lay with blankets and sheets bundled comfortably under her torso, one arm dang- ling over the edge. He moved his outflung arm till their hands touched, and after their fingers had exchanged a few squeezes they remained lightly interlinked as he fell asleep.

  Awake on one breath, snoring on the next: hrrr-pfff, hrrr- pfff. A gentle snore, soothing, she didn’t mind it. The window was open with summer air pouring through it, and now she heard the sounds. Children were gunning each other in the gardens over which the house looked. Only the smallest boy shouted ‘Bang bang’, his thin voice anxious for fear he might be left behind. The others made the real sounds of every kind of gun television had ever shown them. She moved her lips silently, and knew that if she articulated the sounds they would be nowhere near so accurate. The thrush in the acacia by the wall sang on, undisturbed by the children. The permanent background of sparrow-chirps . . . a note of extraordinary mock-purity followed by a jeering whistle – a starling of course . . . someone rounding up the children . . . voices becoming distant . . . Only the birds now. The fluting thrush and the air bathing her skin, silky and warm. Only the birds and the air . . .

  . . . and fingers moving between her own, a hand closing on hers. Coffee. ‘What about a cup of coffee, love?’ he said. Good god, they had been asleep for over an hour!

  While they drank the coffee she sat on the bed and looked out of the window, and he read the Daily Telegraph.

  ‘Look at it,’ she said, and he turned his head in that direc- tion and turned it back again. He didn’t know the difference between an acacia and a pear tree, a thrush and a starling, because he came from another country. He might know the difference between a eucalyptus and a blue gum (or were they the same?). She gave him the benefit of that doubt, but the truth was that he didn’t look at things unless he was doing something to them, and the things he did something to were usually made of metal. He knew today that the sun was shining and that it was, astonishingly, hot enough to be naked in a room with an open window, but that was all. So when she said ‘Look at it,’ she was only making a friendly noise at him because her body had been able to feel what his was feeling.

  He, also wanting to make a friendly noise, said ‘I’ve reached a conclusion.’

  ‘And what conclusion have you reached?’ she asked, knowing what he would answer.

  ‘I’ve concluded that there’s nothing better than a good fuck, excepting two good fucks.’

  The first time he’d said that, she’d supposed he wanted to start again, but now she knew it was just something he said when he was feeling good.

  We might play chess? she thought. Or shall I ask him to mend the kitchen stool? She enjoyed his company when he was doing things because he took a job gravely. Watching him use his broad, short-fingered hands she felt almost as tender towards him as she did in bed. And she could still enjoy his talk about his past, listening as though she were reading a story, although now the best parts of the story had been used up. She knew the part about the captain and the first officer who both got drunk at Las Palmas, and fought, and hurt each other so badly that he, who was engineer, had to take the ship on all the way to Lisbon. She knew the part about his being reduced to shovelling grain on the docks in Sydney; the part about his running away from home at fourteen; the part about the rich old bag in Hong Kong who offered him money to sleep with her; the part where he found a big sapphire near Alice Springs and gambled it away that same night; the part where he agreed to sign on as a mercenary in the Congo and then thought better of it; the part where he bought a share in a Caribbean schooner and almost settled on St Vincent but the schooner broke up on a reef. To begin with she had felt like Desdemona listening to Othello. Looking at his box- shaped head, she had seen it as containing seas and ships and goldmines and drunken brawls in brothels and sudden emergencies and endurance and sharp wits by which he fell on his feet, and when her body felt what his felt it seemed to her that she was touching and sharing these things, and she wanted this to be true.

  It was a pity that he also liked to talk about his opinions.

  Twice she had let him meet friends of hers, and after that never again. Both times it began well because he came into a room well, not swaggering but suggesting swagger, inspiring curiosity and slight alarm. He didn’t say much at first, and when he spoke it was factual, and his facts were as different from those of her friends as they were from hers so that, like her, the friends began by responding Desdemona-fashion. But when this first success had relaxed him he would start saying what he thought, and her friends’ eyes became at first round, then cold.

  It became apparent that he distrusted anything and any- one he didn’t understand. Women he mistakenly didn’t distrust because he thought he understood them, being able to please them in bed as he could; but any man whose experi- ence covered different things from his own he bristled at and had to put down. If a man showed that he was well-read, then he was a dry stick; if he mentioned theatre or painting, then he was a homosexual; if he had made money, then he was a crook; if he had a social conscience, then he was an airy-fairy ninny. Any man who might, he felt, score off him had some- thing wrong with him, except for a few he could never possibly meet and whom he elected as heroes. General Montgomery was one of these, and Franco was another (because if you knew Spain as well as he did you’d understand that without a strong man at the top . . .). When he spoke of a man with affection it always turned out that the man was safely his inferior in status or experience, some loyal and trusty peasant – but a white one. Wogs and niggers didn’t count, although their women could teach some white women a thing or two. Within an hour her friends were thinking ‘Has she gone mad? No doubt he’s good in bed, but how could she?’ That was embarrassing enough, but more painful was the spectacle of this man sup- posing that he was in command of the situation while in fact he was being dismissed as a stupid and disagreeable bore. All right, she too saw that he was a stupid and disagreeable bore, but with her this image was safe, she would keep it covered. These others might at any moment beam it back at him, and what would happen to him then?

  She wanted to protect him because she knew the smell of his skin and the touch of his hands, and had felt his sweat and hers slippery between their bellies. But it wasn’t only that. By now she had a black list – and a long one – of things to hold against him, but she also had a w
hite list.

  The white list ran:

  1. He describes things well

  2. He can make things with his hands

  3. His mother died when he was ten and no one ever taught him anything

  4. In spite of this he used to write poems when he was a boy

  5. He is as scared of draughts as an old maid and has a painful corn on the little toe of his right foot

  6. Before he gets out of the bath he wipes every drop off with a sponge, ‘so as not to make the towel wet, of course’

  7. He can make mayonnaise and he can knit.

  He never bothered to explain or laugh off either his frailties or his surprising accomplishments. When he sat at her kitchen table intent on adding no more than one drop of oil at a time, or when he wore one of the two pairs of grey socks he had knitted, she almost loved him: her unselfconscious old thug.

  So after those two outings they stayed at home, moving between bedroom and kitchen, sometimes playing chess, reading the papers, talking of what was under their noses like an old married couple except that they were together only two or three nights a week, not all the time. They could enjoy a movie together, but only if it happened to be a western or a thriller, and they could manage a short pub-crawl, but her natural talk over drinks was gossip about people, and he, though he would listen amiably for a while, didn’t see much point in that. A decadent lot making too much fuss over nothing; that was how he saw the people she knew.