by MARY HOCKING
She had reached her climax and climbed into bed. Her mother had given her a hot water bottle to comfort her, and she held it against her stomach, snuffling. Her nose was blocked and the muscles of her throat ached. She looked at the window. The curtains were drawn back, and every now and again fireworks exploded in showers of red, white and blue. She resolved to look at them, keeping her eyes open wide, because once the lids began to close she would sleep and then in no time it would be morning. ‘I’m going to stay awake all night,’ she told Alice. But in spite of all her efforts she was asleep in a quarter of an hour.
Alice could not stay in the bedroom, wondering what was happening in the sitting-room. So she sat on the stairs leading down to the first-floor landing where, although she could not hear anything, she did not feel so shut away. Moonlight slanted through the landing window beneath her: she could see it gleaming on the lino and falling more dully on the floorboards. The stairs and landing had been painted recently and the skirting boards still had a shine about them, but there were dark marks here and there where Mrs Moxham had got floor polish on the paintwork. Alice had not understood why her mother carried on so about it, but now, looking at the dark smears, she whispered, ‘Oh Mummy!’ and felt the need of tears she was unable to release. In lieu of tears she went into the bathroom and wetted the cleaning cloth. Then she knelt on the floorboards and worked at the smears until her elbows and wrists ached. The smears remained obstinately immovable. It upset her that she could not get the skirting boards clean for her mother. ‘Oh Mummy!’ she said again, rocking back on her heels. All the scrubbing and ironing and mending, cooking, stoking fires, and then to have this happen! It wasn’t a sensible equation that so much elbow-grease should equal so many children growing up good and straight; but Alice felt in her stomach it should have been so. And yet she felt that Louise was right because she was so brave. It was very unpleasant to be thus torn.
Later, she saw Louise come upstairs and go to her bedroom. She wondered whether to follow her but did not. Then, half an hour later, her mother came up arid Alice wondered whether to speak to her but did not. Finally, her father came up and went into his study and she knew she must not disturb him. It was dark on the stairs and none of them noticed Alice. At this moment, she thought, we are all in different parts of the house. She supposed it must have happened before, but now, late at night, it troubled her and she hurried back to the sleeping Claire.
She slept restlessly, and somewhere between waking and sleeping the thought came to her that the Leaning Tower of Pisa had fallen.
It was a long time before Stanley Fairley went to bed. He was in a state of the utmost confusion. A man of formidable energy, he could usually be relied upon to react with the whole force of body, mind and spirit – whether irritated by the delivery of the wrong newspaper or in denunciation of the most heinous crimes of a dictator. If tears were called for, he shed them, embarrassing his wife during the curtain speech in Cavalcade, and startling a colleague by his response to the playing of a barrel organ on a cold, foggy evening, fumbling for silver to make up for all those who passed by. In the Ben Travers farces he laughed louder at the asininity of Ralph Lynn than anyone else in the cinema. Yet now, at what was undoubtedly the worst moment of his life, he actually found himself asking how he should respond; a calculation which, in another person, he would have had no hesitation in denouncing as emotional bankruptcy.
It was, however, as a bankrupt that he faced himself this evening. He would have preferred to have said that he faced his God, that he stood condemned, a man who had failed. But even here confusion set in because he was unable to recount the matters in which he had failed. The lack of words in someone so articulate was almost as daunting as the lack of appropriate response. It meant, for one thing, that he could not pray since, for him, prayer was a dialogue between himself and his Maker, in which he tended to have rather the more to say. Had he been a Quaker he might, in that community of silence, have been held by others stronger than himself. The Anglican church might have provided him with a structure in which he could offer his desolation to God. But his own brand of vehement, aggressive Methodism had not prepared him for the time when the spark went out.
As the hours went by, he sat and stared at the empty grate. He cracked his knuckles and occasionally he groaned; and once he jumped to his feet, baring his teeth savagely. All of which accomplished very little.
In their bedroom Judith longed for the physical comfort of his presence. She thought about the time when she was carrying Louise. How lovingly they had planned for the baby! This poor creature would come into the world as a result of youthful heedlessness, the chance effect of the snatched moment. Louise, at nineteen, could have little idea of how this unconsidered child would cramp her life, tying her to domestic responsibility and a man she might not have chosen had she given herself more space in which to grow. It might not matter so much for Guy to make a mistake. But women must get the answers right from the beginning: it is rare for them to get a second chance.
Chapter Seventeen
Judith and Stanley Fairley walked down Old Oak Common Road. Several days had elapsed during which Louise had been taken to the doctor, an elderly man who had querulously given it as his opinion that Louise was pregnant. They were late because the groceries had been delivered just before they left and Judith had had to check them. Stanley could not imagine why this should have been necessary at such a time.
Judith said, ‘What did you say to him?’
Stanley had telephoned Mr Immingham from the school. ‘I just said there was something we wanted to talk to them about. What else could I have said?’ he demanded irritably as if she had rebuked him. ‘He had a client with him and old Norris was hanging around waiting to speak to me. He’s been at the school for over thirty years; you’d think he would have accepted the fact that boys write on lavatory walls, wouldn’t you? But every time it happens he behaves as if he was Mother Superior at a convent school.’ Judith could tell he intended to occupy his mind with Norris’s prudery until he was confronted with the inescapable presence of the Imminghams.
After the first impact of Louise’s revelation, when they had seemed to grope their way together, their different attitudes had become more apparent. Stanley saw Louise as betrayed; any other view was totally unacceptable to him. Judith was able to accept the reality and begin to reconcile herself to it. But for him this was not possible. A scapegoat must be found.
As they walked, Judith was already thinking about the next day when she would be seeing Miss Blaize. This would be an undertaking more formidable than the present one, since Miss Blaize could afford to indulge in moral outrage, a luxury scarcely open to the Imminghams.
They were passing semi-detached houses where men were working in the gardens. Stanley Fairley groaned at the smell of new-mown grass and wondered if he would ever again have the heart to work in his garden. It flickered across his mind how many troubles have started in a garden. He looked at a youngish man clipping a hedge, and thought how small his concerns must be; probably there was nothing on his mind except the need to get the hedge finished before his supper was ready. From the open window came the sound of scales repeated again and again on a piano. Tears blurred Stanley Fairley’s eyes. They turned down a side road with smaller houses and neater gardens. Judith opened a gate, ‘I shall be glad when this is over,’ she said.
They heard a door open in answer to their knock. When he saw Mr Immingham standing in the hall, wearing his neat grey office suit, his feet in the soft slippers his wife insisted he should wear indoors, Stanley Fairley felt his stomach lurch.
Mr Immingham took Judith’s coat and hat, and Stanley’s hat, and put them in a wardrobe to the right of the front door. Then he led them into a room at the back of the house. Mrs Immingham was sitting in a wing-chair by the mottled-oyster tiled fireplace; although she rose to greet her guests there was no welcome in her eyes. Either she had a presentiment of unpleasantness, or she regarded all visitors as in
truders. She was wearing a draped dress of soft material and smelt of Devon Violets; her hair was prettily puffed about her face. Judith felt an unexpected pity for her. Mr Immingham invited Judith and Stanley to sit down, offered cigarettes which they declined, lit one himself, and made an attempt at conversation. His wife allowed her eyes to travel to the clock.
‘I can’t think why you did not telephone me,’ she said to Judith.
Judith, ignoring the important fact that the Imminghams were on the telephone, said, ‘We wouldn’t have called on you at this time if it hadn’t been serious.’
Mrs Immingham, still under the impression that nothing was so serious as establishing her advantage, said, ‘Had you telephoned me I would have asked you to tea.’
Judith looked at Stanley who made a grimace, perhaps intended to convey that this was woman’s work. Judith was as brief as possible.
The Imminghams lived for Guy. To say that the sun rose with his every homecoming and set with his departure was scarcely an exaggeration. His wellbeing was their chief motivation in life. To learn that Guy was involved in social disaster was only a degree less terrible than the announcement of his death. Looking at them, Judith and Stanley saw the situation in all its stark misery. Here was no fumbling for meaning, no anxious trying for the right response. Mrs Immingham crumpled like a cream bun on which someone has accidentally trodden, a victim of random destruction. Mr Immingham was stricken. In front of their eyes this quiet, kind man withered. Oh children, children! Stanley Fairley thought, you try to give them the future and they throw it down like babes given an expensive toy for Christmas. Mrs Immingham wept and her husband held her hand, his fingers lifeless on hers, seemingly unaware of her as a person. They would have no comfort to offer each other; whereas Stanley and Judith, however much their motives might differ, would see this through together.
‘They are both very young.’ Mr Immingham spoke without bitterness. ‘We should have realized it was expecting too much of them, sending Guy to America.’
Judith looked at him sharply, surprised by his understanding.
‘We sent him to get him away from her,’ Mrs Immingham sobbed. ‘Because she meant to have him.’ She looked at Judith with loathing as though she saw in her the architect of their misfortune. ‘Oh yes! Your daughter meant to have our Guy.’
Judith, who felt that this was probably true, controlled herself and remained silent.
Mrs Immingham, maddened that at such a time Judith should adopt what seemed to her an attitude of superiority, cried, ‘And how do we know that our boy is the father? She was loose, I always said she was loose.’
‘Our daughter is no more loose than your son is a rake,’ Judith retorted. ‘And please don’t imagine that we ever approved of their friendship. We never thought him good enough for Louise.’
‘My wife is very upset,’ Mr Immingham said apologetically.
‘My wife is very upset, too,’ Stanley Fairley countered.
‘He will marry her, of course.’
‘No.’ Stanley Fairley spoke quietly. ‘My daughter will not have to marry your son. We have talked this over, my wife and I, and there is no question that they will have to marry.’ Although he profoundly hoped they would marry, he said firmly, ‘There will be no pressure from us. We have decided that if, when they see each other again, Louise is at all unsure, we shall advise her not to marry him.’
‘Not to marry him!’ Mrs Immingham echoed. She was unable to understand what manner of people these could be, yet she perceived that out of their perversity might come deliverance. She pressed a handkerchief to her lips, not trusting herself to speak.
‘Three lives would then be ruined,’ Judith said. ‘We shall bring the child up in our home if Louise decides not to marry Guy.’ Some feeling of oppression, always there but unrecognized until now, had lifted since she made this decision. She felt as though a very tall building which overshadowed her house had been demolished and she could see for miles and miles.
‘I think that’s very wise, don’t you, dear?’ Mrs Immingham said to her husband.
‘They will marry.’ He looked from one to the other, sad for them because they could not see how inevitable it was. ‘You may think they have a choice, but they will not think so.’
Yes, he’s right! Stanley Fairley thought in relief. Then he thought how superficial Mr Immingham made him feel: this has destroyed him, poor fellow. He was ashamed of his own indestructibility, fearing it came not from strength of character but a craven refusal to drink the cup to its bitter dregs.
Aloud, he said, ‘Of course, I blame Jacov.’ As he said it, he experienced a feeling of release. The need to blame was very strong within him, but how could he blame the son of this stricken man? He must on no account allow himself to hate Guy if he was to marry Louise. And there was the child to consider: he must be at peace with the father of his grandchild. Yes, he saw very clearly that it was Jacov’s fault. It had, after all, happened in the Vaseyelins’ house. Years ago, had he not been persuaded, much against his will, to entrust his daughters into Jacov’s care at that first party they had attended at the Vaseyelins? Some kind of bargain had been struck, had it not, with honour involved? And where had the first fateful encounter taken place but over the garden wall!
He said, ‘I blame myself for allowing this intimacy with the Vaseyelins to develop.’
‘Foreigners live so differently from us,’ Mr Immingham said, sad and still without bitterness.
Judith said nothing. She thought that the blame probably lay with Louise who was strong-willed and impetuous, but she realized how important it was that they should reach common ground with the Imminghams, and was content to sacrifice the Vaseyelins to this end.
As soon as Judith and Stanley had departed, Mrs Immingham sat down to write to Guy.
The next morning Alice sat by the bedroom window waiting for Claire to get ready for school. How could everything be so different in so short a time? When she was eight, Alice had sprained her wrist. For weeks afterwards her mind had been pinned down, concentrating on the mechanics of movement she had hitherto taken for granted. So now, life seemed out of joint and each small exchange demanded thought and effort.
‘Have you told Daphne?’ Claire asked.
‘I haven’t told anyone. You haven’t, have you?’
‘No.’ Claire’s face wore such a look of misery that Alice was satisfied she was telling the truth. ‘But I must tell Heather. We tell each other everything.’
‘Is Heather more important than Louise?’
‘Yes, she is. I hate Louise.’
Claire spoke with conviction. Last night she had dreamt she was standing on the stairs leading down to the cellar; there had been a disgusting smell and the wall beside her was wet with something that wasn’t water. She had been terrified.
Alice thought that Claire was being selfish, but she did not say anything because she realized it would only make matters worse for her parents if she and Claire were at odds with each other. Since things had changed so drastically she was more aware of her parents’ love, which seemed stronger and of a different quality now that it was being given when it could no longer be taken for granted.
As they left the house Katia came running out of her house to join them. ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ she said. ‘We’re still friends, aren’t we?’
‘Of course we are,’ Alice said uneasily.
‘Only your father doesn’t speak to us now.’
‘Daddy doesn’t speak to us sometimes when we meet him in the street.’ Alice was voluble. ‘Mummy often says, “Here comes your father, let’s see if he will notice us.” ’
Fortunately, Katia’s curiosity was allayed by the sight of the postman coming out of Number 23. She ran up to ask him if he had any post for her, and returned with a letter from her boyfriend in Germany.
‘Are you going to Germany in the summer?’ Alice asked.
‘Yes, of course.’
‘What about Hitler?’
&
nbsp; ‘Ernst’s father is in the Nazi party, so I shall be all right,’ Katia said, and added, ‘He’s a friend of Hermann Goering.’
Alice did not know much about Hermann Goering, but she gathered from Katia’s tone that he was important. Although she thought Katia was showing off, she encouraged her to talk about Ernst and his family so that she would not ask why Louise was away from school.
At ten o’clock, when she was on her way to her English lesson, Alice saw her mother sitting waiting outside Miss Blaize’s room. She had her handbag on her knees and both hands gripped the handle. If Alice spoke she would turn, taken unawares before she had had time to summon up her usual confidence. Alice hurried away. When she reached the classroom she was ashamed and wanted to go back, but it was too late.
Miss Lindsay said to the class, ‘I think we’ll have a discussion today. I know how much you enjoy discussions.’ A few girls groaned obligingly.
Miss Lindsay regarded it as part of her mission to suck from her pupils the poison which was fed to them daily in nauseous hymns and romantic literature. She fully intended before she left the school to introduce her pupils to the work of the Marquis de Sade. In the meantime, she contented herself with introducing into the discussion on Jane Eyre, Blake’s ‘The Sick Rose’ – a poem she interpreted in the light of her own beliefs rather than Blake’s.
‘This is one of the few poems which dares to examine the origins of love.’ They were unimpressed. ‘I want you to copy it out. I will read it slowly.’ This, she knew, was one way of ensuring that some of the words lodged in their minds. She watched with sardonic amusement as these dough-faced girls wrote:
