The Society Game

by H. Lanfermeijer

  A solution to my boredom came to me over such a weekend. It started as a frivolous thought, one which ordinarily I would smirk at then toss it out of my head, but this pecked away at my brain nagging me to pay attention to it. The idea initially started as a solution but then grew to an excited Eureka moment which sat me up from the sofa and actually encouraged me to turn down the television so that I could concentrate on the developing plan. It was ideal, I had been married for a few years, and I had a beautiful house and time to spare. A baby, a cooing baby of my own, would mean I would have other mums to be friends with and parks to explore together. But greater still was the idea of having a tiny child to love and to love me back. At that stage the only barrier was Mark, but if I slowly suggested to him the prospect of a child at the right moment when he was home and in a happy mood then it would be just a matter of time before he agreed. In the meantime, I needed to wait for this moment to arise, until then I sat back and turned up the television once more to watch the end of my Saturday afternoon film.

  Spikes of joy in the tedium of my week were the days I loved above any other day and this was when either Carolanne or James was free to see me. Carolanne had moved to Windsor with Toby, to a small cottage overlooking the Great Park. She no longer wore makeup and preferred to pull her hair into a pony tail above her head, don her wellington boots and walk her black Labradors, called Susie and Trixie, with her husband. I was always welcome there and we chatted about everything, except one topic which was Mark – I was happy to oblige. Similarly, when I was with James I also didn’t mention my husband but this I preferred as I wanted to hear about him and his life and I wanted to just listen to his thoughts and listen to his sweet kind words to counteract the bitterness of Mark’s daily acerbic remarks.

  Seeing James was getting harder as his stage business was growing and we led lives that were as different as two cultures in two different countries. I was aware that I needed him more than he needed to see me but he never refused to meet and, when we did see each other, we spoke of walking in the hills, of diving, what was happening in the news – anything other than my life though sometimes I lapsed and wandered away from idle thoughts.

  ‘So good to see you, James.’

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve been a crap mate recently,’ he said. ‘Work is manic and nobody seems to give a toss that I love my weekends and meetings seem to be organised for then. But today – well, till three at least, I’m all yours, Ol.’

  He grabbed me and placed an arm over my shoulder like a warm blanket as we walked.

  ‘You don’t seem yourself these days Ol,’ he continued. ‘Carolanne mentioned it as well. You okay mate?’

  ‘You ever wonder, James, when sadness stops and depression begins?’

  ‘You depressed, Ol?’ James stopped our walk to look at me. He was framed by the sun and I could barely make out his face. The hum of the A241 distracted me from my thoughts and I said, ‘Of course not, how could I be?’

  A skateboarder whizzed past us forcing James’ arms to drop from my shoulders.

  ‘I suppose I’m just a bit overwhelmed by the move. Maybe I’m missing London and seeing you whenever I want. It’s great there though, the house is amazing. I wish you’d come and visit?’

  ‘Yeah I will I promise, it’s just life is mad at the mo, work is crazy. Sorry,’ James said.

  ‘Of course, I completely understand. I’m crazy busy myself. But seriously, anytime you’re free. You know – anytime. Erm, are you around this way much?’

  I grabbed his hand to hold as we continued our riverbank walk.

  ‘Are you depressed Ol?’

  ‘No, no, of course not. Mark is taking me to Barcelona at the weekend. It will be amazing. He’s so sweet to me.’

  James dropped my hand and placed his in his pocket.

  ‘I’m not depressed or sad,’ I said. ‘I was just curious – for a friend of mine, she’s always crying and moaning and…’

  ‘Coffee shop ahead. Coffee? I dunno, if you’re still down after two weeks then, yeah, I’d say she’s depressed. I’d also say be a good friend to her and always be there when she needs you. You know I’m always here for you, Ol. I promise.’

  It had been months since the last time I had smiled voluntarily. Mark’s comments now resided in my head and refused to leave me so that at any opportune moment, from shopping to sitting quietly reading a book, I could hear Mark telling me how boring I was, how I was an embarrassment, how ugly and inferior I was to other women he knew.

  Mark’s rages were sporadic but always expected, the violence was mainly his words beating me to submission and I duly kowtowed to him as I knew his rant would ease to a simmer if I did not retaliate and turn up the gas beneath his tongue. I had dwindled to a small child around him and my ears were able to close up to most, but not all, of the battering I received when he was home. Yet strangely, my heart would leap when I saw his car driving up as this meant I had his companionship to alleviate the boredom. It also meant the possibility of me receiving a kind warm loving husband who said ‘maybe’ to my baby plan.

  I was able to assess his mood from the way he got out of the car: if he closed his Jaguar whilst looking towards the front door searching for me then I knew my weekend would be magical and full of baby talk. But if he slammed the door, abandoning his car somewhere in the driveway, and then barged pass me as if I was part of the opened front door, such as the knocker or the letterbox, then I wished for the tedium of a weekend on my own watching repeats of Hollyoaks.

  A weekend like this was in the middle of March, nearly a year after leaving London. On this occasion I could tell Mark’s dark mood from the way he raced into the driveway tossing the small stones behind him. He screeched to a halt displacing all the stones to one side in the car’s wake. Before he even got out of the Jaguar, I wanted to slam the front door closed and barricade myself in with the television remote and earplugs in against the banging front door. Alas, he pushed passed me.

  ‘I want to sue the government for my loss of earnings from being held hostage by the M25 for three hours!’

  Thoughtlessly, I giggled which was met with a snarl from Mark. Friday evening was held in silence, as was Saturday morning. Every so often I tried to start a conversation but the flow went one way. I mentioned the prospect of going for a walk together but this was met with a stare and another snarl.

  A week of praying that my husband would be civil to me when I next saw him allowed my brain to lapse into ideas to solve his temper. I offered an alternative to his dark outlook by reminding him about last week when he was happily talking about the top private schools where his boy would attend or the large wardrobe he would have built for his daughter’s shoes and dresses (I didn’t want to rile Mark that perhaps our unborn and as yet to be conceived daughter, could also attend the same top school; instead, I just encouraged his daydreaming with agreeing to everything he said). Stupidly, I tried to encourage him to relive those dreams of last Sunday or relive the night time ‘baby’ telephone call only two days ago, but this time Mark grabbed the back of my head and pulled me to my feet.

  ‘A baby? A baby with you? Why would I want a baby with you. Why would any man want a baby with you? And in any case, you pregnant yet? No, you can’t even get that right you’re probably barren – useless woman, just as well as I don’t want anything from you.’

  ‘I thought that’s what you wanted as well?’ I pleaded.

  My head was now firmly in his grasp and I was pulled by my hair to the hallway mirror where my head was pushed against my reflection so that the left side of my face was merged with the left side of my reflection and my eyes had to strain to the right to avoid my distorted image. In their path my eyes were met with Mark’s face – it was puce with anger. His teeth were so close to my eyes that I had to close them to avoid any scrapes on my eyeball whist he hollered at me. His breath reeked of cognac and cigars which stung my nostrils.


  Eventually, he pulled my head away so that I could look at my reflection which was red on one side and wet from tears around my eyes.

  ‘Look at you!’ he continued, with my head still in his left hand, ‘Look at you!’ This time he shook my head as if I was a rag doll.

  ‘You’re an ugly woman; your red hair makes me sick, your pale skin makes you look like a freak – because you are a freak. Why would I want my child to look anything like you? I have a responsibility to this world and if I am going to send half of me out into it then it will be matched with the right stuff and that doesn’t come from you.’

  Mark continued but my mind had started to shut him out and, unfortunately, my thoughts were no kinder. Instead of Mark’s bitter words I stared at my reflection and felt ashamed of what I saw. My eyes stared at how my ears stuck out and my teeth were askew, that my eyes were small and hooded, and my skin was indeed pale with freckles. I was being held around the neck by my husband who deemed me unfit to have children and just at that moment I agreed with him.

  ‘Are you listening to me, Olive?’

  Mark didn’t wait for an answer but instead yanked me away from the hallway and pushed me outside smashing my head against the back door frame as he did so. My head squealed in pain and I grabbed it feeling the warm trickle of blood oozing between my fingers. Mark slammed the door on me and left me crying in my dressing gown in the rain. As my body became soaked I grabbed for my cell phone and called the last person I had spoken to on it. I called Carolanne and begged her for help. I do not remember her reply but I remember lying in the rain until I stopped crying and then I remember her banging on the front door and hearing her shout at Mark, softly at first then louder as I heard her get closer to the back door searching for me, screaming, ‘Where is she? Where is she?’

  I sprang to my feet and almost toppled with dizziness. My panic about Mark had given way to my panic about how to explain why I was outside in the rain and how to explain to Carolanne why I had called her – but especially how to explain to Mark why I had called her – a thoughtless momentary lapse and, as soon as my hysteria had subsided in the cold rain, I wished I had shown control over my feelings and not pulled out my phone from my pocket.

  Carolanne opened the back door and ran towards me. For a brief moment I allowed her to hold me up and support me whilst I staggered to the house and away from the rain.

  ‘Oh my poor, poor dear Olivia, what has he done to you?’

  Carolanne took off her Parka jacket and wrapped me in it then started to gently clean my cut with wet kitchen towel.

  ‘I knew he was treating you badly. I knew he was wrong for you. Stay still sweetie whilst I look at your head’

  ‘It’s nothing, we just had a small disagreement,’ I said through tears.

  ‘How dare he touch you! How dare he do this to you? He’s a monster.’

  Carolanne then turned her head away from me and screamed, ‘Yes you, you’re a pathetic monster Mark, don’t cower in the hallway I can see you – you coward!’

  ‘He didn’t mean it, it was me, I was nagging him honestly Carol, I shouldn’t have called you…’

  ‘You think this is funny? You’re a vampire Mark, look at her – you’ve sucked the life out of her… Go on, Mark walk away – pathetic!’

  ‘Please don’t Carol, you’ll make it worse,’ I pleaded.

  My voice was muffled by Carolanne’s huffing. As she breathed out over me I could smell her humbug sweets she often sucked in her car and when she breathed in I could smell the scent of rosewater that she bathed in, made from the roses she lovingly tended to in her garden.

  ‘You’ll come and live with me,’ she said softly, ‘In a moment I’ll call Toby and tell him to make up the spare bed after he’s cleared out the spare bedroom of all his fishing paraphernalia. In fact you’ll be doing me a favour Ol, as he can eventually throw out the rubbish he never uses.’

  ‘You can’t make him do that? He’ll just tell you to get lost especially for a hysterical friend who is just wasting your time.’

  ‘I can and I will! Stay still, sweetie, as I need to look at this cut. It’s not too bad, I think it’s just superficial. Stay calm, sweetie, I’ll get you out of this I promise.’

  Carolanne’s head then swivelled round to greet Mark hovering in the background.

  ‘She has a deep, deep wound thanks to you Mark, you evil vampire.’

  Mark looked childlike and genuinely worried. Whether that was about my welfare or that he had been discovered throwing me out in the rain I do not know.

  ‘I didn’t do anything to her – Olive, tell her this is all rubbish on your part,’ he shyly offered.

  ‘Shut up, I don’t want to hear you. Come on, Ol, come back with me.’

  ‘I’m fine, honestly, nothing happened, nothing. Please forget it!’ I pleaded.

  ‘See. You heard her, nothing happened, I don’t know why you’re here,’ squawked my husband.

  ‘If you were half a man then you’d leave, just go, leave her here with me and you disappear.’

  Mark attempted to defend himself but, after further futile exchanges of trying to reclaim his position of innocence in the hands of a nagging, cruel wife, he conceded defeat and grabbed his work case and left.

  I knew he was returning to London and I knew he wouldn’t return until time had eased the memory of this day to a mere embarrassing sticky moment that he could justify as, ‘him over-reacting to my annoying behaviour’.

  He would return with a gift and a kind word of how he had missed me and that, ‘You know it won’t happen again but, please Olive, don’t push me to get so frustrated with you. Let’s just forget it.’

  And I will respond with a, ‘Thank you for my gift.’

  However, on this occasion it took until the end of April before he returned home-armed with a pair of pearl drop earrings.

  In the following two months Carolanne called me daily and visited me at least twice a week. I had convinced her that this was an unusual occurrence and we were trying for a baby and the frustration of this not happening had got to the both of us. I explained that I had screamed and shouted at him and that it was me threatening to leave, but as I ran out of the house I hit my head on the door. Mark had not noticed this and in his frustration he closed the door and didn’t appreciate that it had locked until my dear friend arrived to relieve my silly whim.

  I discovered many years later that Carolanne had not believed any of my explanation but instead spoke to James, Colin and Toby. The three went to see my husband. I am not privy to the conversation they had as Mark never spoke to me about it but Mark did not physically harm me again until the day we parted.

  When Mark returned in April, there was a difference in him; he was calmer and at times sanguine about his stressful life. He was kind, gentle and once more I was pleased he was my husband. By the summer we were celebrating that, after an eternity of trying, we were finally pregnant.

  It was a burning hot August day, the type of day that was uncomfortable just sitting; my hair clung to my sweaty forehead and my white cotton summer dress felt like a polar bear skin hindering any coveted cool air that might float my way. Ordinarily I would have swum in the pool then hidden from the sun on the patio bed but this day I was happier than I could have been, as I held a pregnancy test that told me that finally I was to be a mother.

  Mark joined me for my twelve week scan in the September and I knew he was as excited as I was as he held my hand in the waiting room and didn’t let it go until I was lying on the scanner’s chair with jelly on my stomach.

  Up until this point the pregnancy had been easy: I didn’t have morning sickness or any aversion to food, I didn’t have tender breasts and any mood swings were merely oscillations of happiness from calm satisfaction of life to overwhelming excitement. Mark seemed to share these moods with me. He would hug me at his whim and tell me
how proud he was of his beautiful lady in waiting.

  Mark’s hand dropped away from mine as the image on the screen was explained to us: There was no baby as it was an empty sac. There was no heartbeat as the embryo had not developed, most likely, due to a chromosome defect. The sonographer was very sorry but I would most likely miscarry very soon.

  Alternatively, I could have a ‘D&C’, to have it removed from my body. This I had the next day at the Victoria hospital. I know Mark was with me when they wheeled me away from the hospital suite to the theatre but he was not there when I returned, instead his driver greeted me with a bunch of pink roses for when I was ready to go home.

  I didn’t ask where Mark was but instead I stared at the walls of my room and occasionally I looked out at the grey autumnal day and the damp cars in the car park which my room overlooked. The paisley pink walls of my hospital room had yellow daisy pictures hung all around. It was designed to cheer the patient up but I found them condescending and almost disrespectful to the mourning I felt of losing the wonderful joyride I had ridden since the beginning of August. Now everything was as grey and as pointless as that October day.

  I was deposited back at home and as I got out of the car I cried at the prospect of returning to the mundane drudge of my life without the excitement of a child to share it with me. I would return to the weekly shopping and facials and hair appointments. I would return to the weekly luncheons with friends who did not know I was pregnant and who would never know I had a miscarriage. Instead, they would hear of the forthcoming extension to the swimming pool to incorporate a larger gym and the upcoming Halloween ball in aid of some charity.

  I walked through the door still sobbing. Mark was in the kitchen reading the newspaper.

  ‘You’re tired; go to bed. I’ll wake you if I need you,’ he said without looking up. I duly agreed and went upstairs.

  I was woken just as dusk turned the grey day to a murky evening. The street lamps in the distance had not yet turned on and I felt as groggy as the soggy, muddy puddles scattered across our driveway. I could hear Mark on the phone and I went to the landing to make my way down to be with him, but I stopped short of the stairs and looked over the railings into the green, dark library. Mark was negotiating a price on something but it was hard to distinguish between each word. A prickling down my back hinted this was a conversation I needed to hear.