Getting a Life

by Helen Simpson

  “I suppose that was what you might call a professional suicide note,” said Donald. “I wonder if Fiona MacPherson vetted that little diatribe. I rather think not.”

  “And I’m not having some fat hen from HR telling me how to run my life. Or how to have weans, for chrissake,” continued Iain. “Pass that bottle of Deanston’s, Brian.” He waved his quaich in the air. “Freedom and whiskey gang thegither.”

  “I must say I’ve never heard that lesson drawn from Burns’s life before,” mused Donald. “Burns the family man. By all accounts he was the ultimate bastard when it came to loving them and leaving them.”

  “He looked after his bairns, though,” said Iain hotly.

  “Excuse me,” said Nicola. “I was under the impression that it was his mother and his wife who looked after them. If I understood rightly.”

  “Haw hey,” said Iain, fuddled. “Right enough. But he didnae leave them to die in a ditch.”

  “The trouble is, these days at work you have to put in the hours and be sheen to be putting in the hours,” said Brian Mahon, very slurred. “I mean in a proper job. Not just teaching or journalism.”

  “No, you couldn’t call being a poet a proper job,” agreed Nicola, following her own line of thought. “What did they used to say about Friday being Poet’s Day? Piss Off Early Tomorrow’s Saturday, that’s right. Whereas Friday in this day and age is dress-down day.”

  “He did have a proper job, he was a farmer,” said Iain. “He just didnae do very well at it. Then he was an exciseman. He was no idler.”

  Hours are not a measure of love, Nicola assured her children; the number of hours I spend with you has nothing to do with how much I love you; you can ring me at work anytime you want. Which was probably just what these three men, Iain and Donald and Brian, said to their wives. This man Donald had a lovely mouth, she noticed. She lifted her eyes and saw he was glowering at her.

  “Family man,” he said, and his voice was hard and flat. “That’s the euphemism for a lazy bastard not pulling his weight.”

  They lapsed into silence, broodingly, as more music started up. The piano was some way across on the other side of the hall, and Nicola could not see who was playing. If you got them up to Grade IV by the age of ten, you could enter them for a music scholarship. They hadn’t twigged, first time round with Jade and Harry, but by the time the twins were born they’d got wise to it. Hence the Suzuki lessons.

  Allowing herself at last to listen to the music, its solitary thoughtful quality affecting her like alcohol, she relaxed for the first time that evening. She let go, and of course that was a mistake.

  Usually she bowed to the tyranny of positive thinking as anything else was not exactly very helpful. Now fissures of doubt and ambivalence raced along the walls of the fortress. Charlie was off to Australia next week and she would be in Frankfurt. She wasn’t easy when they were both out of the country at the same time. Harry had recently been diagnosed as dyspraxic, but she simply hadn’t had time to follow it up yet. The nanny had been with them so long that she regarded herself as part of the family. And she wasn’t. So that would end badly. Roderick MacKenzie was buried and dead, a man of forty-three, and Charlie’s PA had just been diagnosed as having breast cancer, and she was only thirty-eight. Burns had been thirty-seven, but that was then. She was older than that, they were all getting older all the time. As for sex, it was efficient these days but not exactly exciting. The pilot light was still there and the usual procedure led to a reliable enough firing up. But it had become something that was good for them, like going to the gym. Where was the wild restlessness she could hear in this music? She was aware of Donald Forfar’s solid unfamiliar body beside hers, and wondered whether he was very hairy. She wouldn’t mind. What a coward she was to have slept with only one man since marriage. You have one life, and the way to keep your life alive was through the sexual flame, she had seen that tonight, falling in love with new others, the tinder heart catching fire again and again. Yet she had chosen monogamy.

  The piano playing drew to a close. Never had an evening gone on quite like this before. Those on her table had been bearing each other’s company for many hours like a little band of passengers in a lifeboat, and were now sagging with fatigue and alcohol. When yet another tartan-clad lassie walked up to the microphone clasping her hands soulfully before her, several of them clearly wished to lay their heads on the tablecloth in front of them and give up. Brian Mahon looked less than half conscious. Charlie was rolling his eyes. This is ridiculous, thought Nicola; how are we supposed to get up in the morning after this? It’s not like we’ve got the weekend to recover. It’s a Wednesday. It’s probably Thursday by now actually. She felt angry and sad. A bread roll flew through the air past the next table, leaving a wake of tutting.

  The girl’s voice made a rich pompous warbling noise above them, but at least you could hear all the words.

  John Anderson my jo, John,

  When we were first acquent,

  Your locks were like the raven,

  Your bonnie brow was brent;

  But now your brow is beld, John,

  Your locks are like the snaw,

  But blessings on your frosty pow,

  John Anderson my Jo!

  “Jo means sweetheart,” whispered Donald. “It’s a song from an old wife to her wrinkled old baldy husband.”

  She felt his whispering breath in her hair and glowed. His arm was touching hers and it seemed to give off heat.

  John Anderson my jo, John,

  We clamb the hill thegither;

  And mony a cantie day, John,

  We’ve had wi’ ane anither:

  Now we maun totter down, John,

  And hand in hand we’ll go;

  And sleep thegither at the foot,

  John Anderson my Jo.

  “And are you looking forward to tottering down towards old age with your wife eventually?” she asked Donald politely, daringly, once it was finished.

  He scowled at her as if through a cloud.

  “My wife’s just left me.”

  “Oh, ah. Ah,” said Nicola. “I’m sorry.”

  Charlie’s voice, slurred and fruity, drifted across the table.

  “It’s a braw licht moonlicht nicht the nicht. You see, I have a very good Scotch accent,” he was boasting to Susan Buchanan’s glassy smile. He turned his head and gradually focused an eye on Nicola and her demon lover.

  “Donald, whar’s yur troosers?” he demanded, dissolving into foolish sleepy laughter.

  Then they were dazedly hauling themselves to their feet. The end had heaved into sight. Big Dougal was thanking them for coming and hoping they would all join in singing Burns’ most famous song of all; but first he would like to thank . . .

  Nicola turned to Iain Buchanan, who stared at her angrily.

  “That poor bastert Burns,” he growled. “Always on the edge of bankruptcy, the farm failing. All those mouths to feed, those women and children. Never any fucking security.”

  “I suppose not,” said Nicola, thinking, I’m glad I’m not the one who’s responsible for getting you home. All the way to Guildford, too.

  “He worked hard to keep his family,” said Iain fiercely, as though she were denying it. “When he didnae make it as a farmer he changed his career, he became an exciseman. Did you know that? He wasnae a drinker. The occasional bender like us all, then he might end up having one too many, but right enough he wasnae a drinker.”

  “No, no,” said Nicola.

  “It was the rheumatoid endocarditis, actually,” said Donald, “that killed him.”

  “Naw, he didnae die of drink, you know,” said Iain Buchanan, his face up close to hers, belligerent, and she realized he was very drunk. “It wasnae the drink.”

  “So you said,” said Nicola.

  She could see Susan Buchanan staring across at her husband with a look of hopeless hungry grief.

  “Burns was dying,” Donald Forfar announced in his stately fashion. “The do
ctor sent him off alone to the Solway Firth. The doctor’s orders were, to wade out to sea daily until he was up to his armpits, then to stand there in the freezing cold gray Atlantic for as long as he could. For some reason this did not improve his health. Then a bill for seven pounds and four shillings arrived from his tailor, and it struck deathly fear in his heart. He was hard-pressed for money and he could not pay it. It became a gigantic sum in his mind, a horrifying debt. It tormented him. A few days later he was dead.”

  Iain Buchanan gave a groan and tossed another few gills of whiskey down his throat.

  “That’s very sad,” said Nicola, recognizing for a fact that Iain had, in banking parlance, overextended himself.

  The pipers started up their wailing. It was nearly one o’clock. Side by side around the tables the guests stood up and swayed with varying degrees of self-consciousness and tiredness to the dismal strains of “Auld Lang Syne.”

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

  And never brought to mind?

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

  And days o’ auld lang syne?

  She wouldn’t care if she never saw any of them again. Her right hand was in Iain’s, who was on her left, and her left hand was in Donald’s, who was on her right. She felt uneasy, as though she had become a conduit for their misery, which was, in each case, both inflammable and sodden, dangerously so, and not to be trusted.

  I’m in the middle of my life, thought Nicola. I’m rooted in. I have four healthy children. She felt a wave of gratitude break over her head.

  Donald and Iain were gripping her hands too hard, Iain was droning away about cups o’ kindness.

  I work hard, I earn good money, I’m able to take care of my family, she added to herself. My precious children. And I’m not a drunk.

  Verse followed verse of “Auld Lang Syne” to general incomprehension, even among the Scots. Then it did end. It was over, and people were sheepishly seizing their neighbors for hugs and kisses, unable to meet one another’s eyes. It was like the cringe-making conclusion to a happy clappy evangelical service, she thought: forced contact. Although the emotion here was more what you might call fearful tearful. Or just plain maudlin.

  Donald Forfar grabbed her to him and kissed her on the mouth. Oh good, was her first thought, before common sense kicked in, and she closed her eyes and leaned into his hot body, into the heat and darkness of the kiss. She even liked the smell and the taste of the whiskey. Again, like everything else that night, it seemed to last forever, though it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds.

  Then Charlie was beside them saying “Hey, excuse me,” very unsteady on his feet. He started to prod Donald on the shoulder when Iain stepped in and growled, “Whit ye think ye’re doing to ma friend?”

  “Your friend?” said Charlie, looking baffled.

  “Are you deaf, pal?” snarled Iain. “Or just plain stupid?”

  “Are you talking to me, jocko?” said Charlie, turning away from Donald and squaring up to Iain.

  “Een! Een!” squeaked Susan Buchanan, hopping around them and plucking at his sleeve. “Come away from him! Come away now!”

  Nicola went to join in, but found she was about to start laughing uncontrollably and so held back. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t in the least bit funny. Donald touched her arm but she shrugged it off. No, I don’t want you, she thought. I really don’t. Rabbie Burns notwithstanding, that would be a very bad idea indeed.

  Bystanders from the neighboring tables stood gawping in a circle as though they could not believe their eyes. Iain got hold of Charlie’s lapels and Charlie got hold of Iain’s lapels. This wouldn’t do her relationship with the bank much good, realized Nicola, and her mind leaped ahead, inventing damage limitation strategies. The men were both so stupefied with whiskey that they could barely stand.

  “Naw, Ee-yen,” screeched Susan Buchanan. “Heh naw!”

  Wrestling like two sleepy bears in a snowdrift, they fell, growling, slowly and heavily, the Scotsman and the auld enemy, down onto the white tablecloth at which they had sat politely facing each other for so many hours that night, crashing into the china and cutlery with a noise that was enough to bring a moment’s silence to the rest of the vast room.

  I even love my husband, thought Nicola in that moment, continuing to count her blessings. Even now. She watched him as he sprawled and brawled in the churning tartan-flashing stramash of bottles and leftovers. You are the father of my children, she said silently. But don’t push it too far. Pal.

  OPERA

  But you love opera,” he said. “Particularly the early stuff. I know you do.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

  “So what’s the problem?” he said. “Try that red thing on now.ȝ

  She was standing in her underwear with clothes heaped round her feet, while he lolled on the bed. Since the children and then the loss of her job she had retreated into a shambles of soft leggings and sweatshirts, merely day versions of her pajamas, except on occasions like now, when, kicking and screaming, she was dragged out for Client Entertainment. Then Christopher showed sudden interest in what she wore, as keen-eyed on the effect of this or that dress as any old-style libertine.

  “Front stalls, gala performance,” he persisted. “ Orpheus and Eurydice. Just right for a wedding anniversary, I’d have thought. Hold your stomach in, Janine. No, it’s still no good. Try that black skirt again with the beaded top.”

  “It’s just about my favorite opera of all,” she panted, hating her reflection in the mirror. “So fresh and unencumbered and straight to the heart. But.”

  “But what,” he said.

  “But not with clients,” Janine said reluctantly, as she knew this would enrage him.

  “What difference does it make? They’re all perfectly all right people. You’re always on about how you like people.”

  When he talked like this, she regarded it as a temporary madness in his life which she would have to put up with, like Pamina walking through the fire with Tamino, and have faith that they would be together again once he was over it.

  “Clients aren’t friends,” she said.

  “They can be,” he said. “You’re so narrow-minded. They can become very good friends.”

  “No,” she mumbled. “Clients are about money.”

  “Oh, wicked Mammon,” he hooted. “Everything’s about money if you’re talking in that ignorant way. Music certainly is. Look at Covent Garden, for goodness’ sake!”

  “Clients are business,” she persisted, “not pleasure.”

  “Client entertainment is all about pleasure,” he snarled. “Good tickets, champagne, the works. You used to be more generous-spirited.”

  “You can’t get drunk with clients,” she said.

  “You certainly can,” said Christopher. “I do.”

  “True,” she conceded. “But you couldn’t ever be really rude or insulting to clients.”

  “You won’t keep many friends that way either.”

  “You don’t make friends for their usefulness,” she said. “There can’t be strings attached.”

  “Why not?” he said. “Mutually beneficial relationships, that’s the way the world works. Special relationships, hadn’t you heard? Symbiotic’s the word. Hadn’t you noticed?”

  “Is that why you married me?” she asked. “Because of what I could do for you?”

  “Obviously not,” he said with some truculence.

  There was silence. He looked her straight in the eye.

  “No,” he said.

  “Good,” she said, and went and lay beside him on the bed.

  “Your smell,” she said at last, her face in his shoulder. “That’s how I know it’s still you.”

  “Music! Me, I’m mad for it,” said Nigel Perkins from Littleboy and Pringle. “All sorts. Depends on my mood. Verdi when I’m down. Which isn’t often. A bit of Bowie. Some Cajun. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. It’s like food really, isn’t it. Like Shakespeare said.”
/>   Janine nodded and smiled.

  “It’s what you’re feeling like at the time,” he continued. “I usually listen in the car, to be honest, or on the Walkman. Like most of us. So this’ll be a novelty.”

  “Do you know the story?” asked Janine.

  “No,” he said. “I guess I’ll pick it up as I go along.”

  “Um, but they’re singing in French,” said Janine. “It’s the Berlioz version. Orpheus was a singer whose music charmed the wild beasts. Then his wife Eurydice died suddenly. He went down to the underworld looking for her—”

  “Janice, Janice,” he said. “It’s OK! I get the drift.”

  “Sorry,” said Janine.

  “I think it ruins these things if you analyze them,” he said, looking round for more champagne. “All that chatterchatterchatter.”

  “Mmm,” went Janine.

  “Ah, here’s my wife. Penny! This is Christopher’s wife, Janice.”

  “Hi,” said Penny. “Horrific journey, darling. Mega holdup at Sevenoaks. Now, who’s this Gluck fellow?”

  “Born in Bohemia, studied in Italy,” said Janine before she could stop herself. “Visited London, made friends with Handel, wrote an opera celebrating the Battle of Culloden, which flopped. Then he went to Vienna and—”

  “Now then, Janice!” said Nigel Perkins playfully. “Chatterchatterchatter.”

  “The mummies on the bus go chatterchatterchatter,” sang Penny brightly.

  “What?” said her husband.

  “It’s a nursery school song,” muttered Janine. “Mine sing it too. The daddies on the bus go rustlerustlerustle. Their newspapers, you see.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the performance is about to begin,” announced a waiter, shimmying up to their group and holding out a tray for empty glasses.

  “Any idea how long it is to halftime?” inquired Nigel Perkins.

  “I’m not quite sure, sir, but I believe it’s a very short opera.”