Invitation to the Married Life

by Angela Huth

  She had no idea for how long she watched the fire. When eventually it subsided a large pile of charred mess was left in the grate. Minuscule edges of gold still glinted among powdery worms of material. A wisp of chemical-smelling smoke floated into the room. Later, she would sweep the grate, throw the cold remains in the dustbin. But now she was empty, hungry, in need of food at last.

  Rachel boiled herself an egg, buttered thick slices of homemade bread and sliced them into fingers. She settled down to enjoy her lunch. When she had eaten she would go back to bed for her usual afternoon sleep: the break in the routine, yesterday, was the beginning of disaster.

  Happy in her silent kitchen, she felt the warm return of normality.

  * * *

  Thomas was well acquainted with the feeling of peculiar excitement when engaged in some act linked to a woman in his life. This time the feeling was all the more powerful because the woman was so very different from all the others: she was no minor affair, he had fallen in love with her. The extraordinary realisation had kept him awake most of the night as Rachel, snoring, slept deeply beside him. He had risen at dawn and undergone the rare experience of making his own breakfast. In fact, he had rather enjoyed it. He ate quite competent eggs and bacon in the kitchen long before the papers were delivered, and usefully employed his time by trying to compose a postcard to Rosie. The wording was very important, as would be all his future overtures. He was most anxious not to alarm her, or burden her with his feelings. Restraining his natural impetuosity would be a hard battle which he was determined to win. Caution, slowness, understatement: that would be his way, until the right moment came to declare his hand.

  At eight o’clock, he took Rachel a cup of coffee. As making fresh coffee would have been an unnecessary extravagance of gesture, on this of all mornings, he heated up what was left in the pot.

  Pleased with himself, he entered the bedroom quietly. Rachel looked a bit rough, he thought. But there was no point in chiding the old thing. She didn’t often make public mistakes. Her rum performance last night had not affected him. In all but body he had been far away from St Crispin’s, the Fellows, their dreadful spouses, and his inebriated wife in a dress that flashed like lightning.

  Coffee delivered, he hurried up to the studio. There, for inspiration, he walked up and down for a while, and studied the three new watercolours propped up on his desk. These, he thought, would never go downstairs. These were his, from Rosie. The ones she had said she would most like him to have. He looked at each in turn, letting himself be sucked into the view of light sky and distant ethereal sand, until his present surroundings ceased to exist. He was still conscious, though, that his heart pounded unnaturally loudly, and his hands sweated and trembled as adrenalin charged through his body. Eventually he sat down at the desk, further disturbed by the pungent smell of his own sweat, and the damp armpits of his clean shirt. He longed for the nursery sofa of his boyhood, for arms around him, for comfort. But with the object of his love so far away, innocent of his need, there was no comfort. He put his head in his hands, rubbed his eyes, groaned out loud to ease the esurient feelings that had reduced him to this pathetic state so early in the morning – a time he was usually at his strongest.

  At last, with a great effort of will, he took a pile of postcards from a drawer, cards he had collected from art galleries all over the world. As he flipped through them, the old excitement of committing a private act connected with the loved one rose within him, giving him strength. Solitude, he chose first: Serusier’s pained peasant girl on a mountainside. He wrote a message, but his hand shook so much that the result was as full of mistakes and smudges as the work of a young child. Never mind, he thought, Serusier was wrong for Rosie anyway. Not her kind of solitude. She would be impatient of loneliness, might even take the card as a sign of misguided sympathy. He tore it into small pieces.

  An hour later, six other cards had joned the pile of destroyed rejects. But the finished product, the one he was going to send, was also there. Finally, he had chosen a Van Gogh self-portrait, where the artist’s look of anguish exactly portrayed all Thomas himself was feeling: with any luck Rosie might get the message. His economy of actual words, he felt, was admirable: Please could I come for more pictures, he had written, and to see you again? Thank you for yesterday, Thomas.

  He stamped the card, put it in his wallet, intending to post it at the box on the corner. The deed done, he felt calmer. What would happen next – whether Rosie would contact him, or he would give in to his impatience and ring her – he did not know. He would have to think carefully about the next move. But for the moment there was the evidence to be disposed of: the pile of torn cards. It was not the kind of thing a man should leave in his wastepaper basket, no matter how unlikely it was that his wife would go nosing through the rubbish. He could, of course, hide the scraps in his jacket pocket, take them to the office and throw the confetti of his guilt into the wastepaper basket when his secretary was not looking – but even that would be a risk not worth taking. Burning was the only safe answer. Well, there should be no problem. Rachel was obviously asleep. He would be undisturbed. The fire would be a matter of a moment.

  Thomas crept silently downstairs, the pile of torn cards in the cup of his palm. He scattered it in the empty hearth, lit it with a trembling match. Unaided by newspaper, the glossy surfaces of the cards burned uneasily. Thomas watched the slow process impatiently. He looked at his watch: he had a meeting at twelve. It was eleven-thirty. There were footsteps overhead. Rachel must be getting up at last.

  Thomas poked desperately at the burning cards, urging them to disintegrate into fine ash. But the flames were too feeble. They died completely, leaving suspicious-looking blackened curls. There was no time to try again. Thomas propped the guard in front of the fire, and made a mental note to be the first one to lay it in October. But deception has its revenges: he left the house in a state of unreasonable panic.

  Two minutes later, at the postbox on the corner, Thomas was able to smile at himself. For the thought that now overwhelmed him was that he would like to be the postcard. Here I am this sunny morning, he said to himself, a middle-aged, hard-working, reasonably intelligent man, generally considered sane, whose greatest wish is to be a postcard. . . . I long to travel in the darkness of canvas bags, whirl through sorting machines, be snapped into the local postman’s elastic band, and at last be dropped through that door, to be picked up, held, read, studied by her. . . . He slipped the card into the box, the envy of its journey a physical pain.

  * * *

  Frances Farthingoe stood in the ash-coloured front room of her dressmaker’s house, contemplating her reflection in the long mirror.

  She had been so busy with the party that there had been little time to think about her own dress. She had devoted just one day to shopping in London, and quickly decided that shopping was a hopeless waste of time. The dress she knew she would recognise as the right thing when she saw it did not materialise. She tried on a dozen expensive things in electric colours, either too stiff or too supple, beaded, embroidered and even feathered, but all lacking in charm. Depressed, she was then inspired. On the drive home a picture came to her of exactly what she wanted: a mermaid look.

  For her own party, after all, she calculated, the hostess should turn up in something memorable. The design she had in mind was exactly that – strapless, silver sequins would be tight to her knees (she had privately to admit her curvaceous figure would thus be seen to maximum advantage), then flare out with a tail effect, a frou-frou of speckled, pleated organza. . . . The vision brought her much relief.

  When Toby had gone off to the woods one night she drew a sketch, and went to London again in search of material. This time she was lucky. The stuff she found was embroidered not only with sequins but mother of pearl beads, and crystal drops were sewn across it in definite ripples. To the close observer there would be a sense of water, waves. . . . As for the Italian organza – she found some with a tiny pattern of shells etc
hed on to a background of misty grey. To celebrate the gods being on her side, Frances had allowed herself a chocolate milk-shake in Selfridges. She sat alone, straw prodding the milky bubbles, happy as a child, thinking of the sensation her dress would cause.

  Now, she looked at herself critically. Noon was not the ideal time to judge the development of an evening dress but, even in the gloomy light that pressed through the net curtains, she saw its potential.

  Miss Hubbard, a seamstress who had once worked for a grand couturier in Berkeley Square, but had now retired to Northamptonshire, knelt at her feet. She was stabbing pins at the curved hem, from which eventually the froth of chiffon would emerge. Some twenty pins were stored between Miss Hubbard’s bony lips. This arrangement was no impediment to a torrent of opinions when she felt in the mood, though for the moment she worked in silence.

  Frances noiselessly sniffed the thick air: smells of marigolds and boiling cabbage mingled with a fustiness that was hard to define. On the wall over the gas fire hung a clock whose face beamed from a bonnet of oak sunrays. A cabinet of glass animals hung on another wall beside a calendar whose rural scene was stuck at March 1987, the time of Miss Hubbard’s proud retirement. Frances liked the minimal decoration which conveyed the dressmaker’s positive tastes. She felt safe in this room, which she had been visiting for three years in all weathers and lights, watching the satisfying progress of her sketches turning into beautiful dresses. There was something reassuring about the large table with its muddle of machines, materials, tape measures, reels of many coloured cottons, from which the clothes mysteriously emerged. There was no reason to feel pity for the solitary Miss Hubbard. She loved her work. It was her life.

  ‘My word, we’re living through an interesting time in history if you ask me, Mrs Farthingoe, not that I catch it all on my wireless, we get a lot of interference with Radio Four here, but I like to keep in touch. . . .’ Like a ventriloquist, her lips did not move as she spoke, but the pins swayed slightly, a spiked fan round her mouth. ‘I’ll nip this up just a bit higher in front, I think, and then there’s this ozone business, isn’t there? If I had grandchildren I’d be worried. I’m buying environment-friendly cleaning things now, but, my, what a price, don’t you find, fifteen shillings for a roll of kitchen paper, I don’t know.’

  The voice lapped peacefully over Frances, not disturbing her own thoughts. She was remembering that at her last fitting she had still been in love with Ralph Cotterman and it was for him, really, this dress was being made. Now, that useless passion finally exorcised, she could concentrate her love, as well as her duty, on Toby.

  It was not easy to feel encouraged by Toby, but she was determined to do her best, to make up for the years when her energies had been dissipated. But his polite distance was hard to penetrate. Now that the old days of his jealousy were over, she sometimes felt quite helpess trying to get through to him. Still, it was evident that at least he still desired her, even if she failed him in other areas. Last night, when she had least expected it – indeed, she had resigned herself to his preference for badgers continuing through the summer – he had returned, wild, impatient, passionate. It had been something of a smudged occasion, she was forced to acknowledge: taken by surprise, deeply asleep, her response was not as rapturous as it might have been. And it was saddening to find him gone so early in the morning – but work, of course. Toby liked to start early. . . . Frances fingered a slight mark on her neck. Perhaps he would return again tonight. Perhaps he had had enough of badgers.

  ‘There.’ Miss Hubbard moved back on her knees. She spat the remaining pins on to the carpet. ‘What do you think?’

  Frances shifted her weight, put one hand on her hip. She saw herself gliding down the stairs on the night of the party to give Toby a private view before the guests arrived. The dress was now for him, a message.

  ‘Marvellous,’ she said.

  ‘You’ll be the belle of your own ball, if you ask me.’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘You’ve still got the figure. Others couldn’t get away with this sort of thing.’

  Frances winced slightly at the word ‘still’. How old did she look? The shadows under her eyes were not often there. It had been an unusual night.

  ‘I hope so,’ she said.

  ‘You mark my words. Have you told Mr Farthingoe what we’re working on?’ Miss Hubbard tugged the skirt, making the sequins flash like bells in frost.

  ‘It’s going to be a surprise,’ said Frances.

  ‘His eyes’ll be all over his head,’ assured the dressmaker, taking out pins.

  The dress fell twinkling to the ground. For a moment Frances saw in the mirror the pale replacement of her own skin and bare breasts, and wondered, and hoped.

  * * *

  The morning after Rosie Cotterman had visited Bill and Mary Lutchins and given them details of her good news, Bill’s watch stopped. So, by chance, did the kitchen clock. It wasn’t until he switched on the radio to hear the news, only to find it over, that he realised he was behind schedule. Indeed, half-an-hour behind schedule, because he had planned to be at work by eight-forty-five.

  As he hurried across the field to the fallen tree, the distress he felt at being late was soon dissipated by a mild sun in the blue sky, and a temperate westerly breeze which would ease his work. On the back of this breeze came the familiar smell of the balsam leaves – a sweet, grey, Eastern smell, always most potent in May. The slain tree was not yet dead, and were he not to chop it up it would take a long time dying, Bill thought.

  He reached the pile of logs from the larger branches, and sat on them to plan his day: first, he must strip leaves from the small branches and put them aside for kindling. Light work, and a break from the noise of the saw. By next week, Bill reckoned, he would be ready to begin on the trunk. To saw up the whole tree would be a long job, and he worked slowly. But he had time, as much time as he wanted.

  He looked at the great trunk-corpse, some twenty metres long, helpless in a slash of long grass made by its falling. He remembered the day he and Mary had planted it, not ten years ago, and secured it with a rubber belt to a tough wooden stake. ‘Take an alarming gale to blow her down,’ Bill had said at the time. But this recent gale had been of peculiar force, and there was warning of similar storms to follow. Bill glanced at the group of other trees he had so carefully planted and nurtured, and felt afraid.

  He stood, bent to pluck a leaf, and rubbed it in his fingers. Its scent came powerfully to him, and with it the memory of the tree’s seasons. First came the long, pointed bronze buds of the early spring, which only smelt if you squeezed out the sticky yellow wax. Dull brown catkins followed (the tree was a male), and then the surprisingly yellow-green leaves of May. By September the scent was waning, the leaves turned a deeper yellow with rusted veins, while their undersides were white, as if covered by a permanent frost. In a late autumn wind, the flickering of the yellow-white leaves made a splendid light show against an evening sky. Bill could not remember how many times he had stood, just looking at this private view, smell of the bonfire coming from the orchard. In winter, the disorder of the thin high branches was exposed as they scratched against hard skies, fretful, cold. But no more seasons for the poor old tree. Bill kicked at the trunk, and threw the leaf from his scented hand.

  ‘How’re you getting on, then?’

  Bill turned. Mr Yacksley, the postman, stood there, bagless, bicycleless.

  ‘Morning, Jack. It’s a long job.’

  ‘That it is, I can see. I could give you a few hours help some evenings, perhaps, though the wife’s got this trouble with her joints.’

  ‘That would be kind. I’m not as fast as I was with a saw.’

  ‘We’re all slowing up, Mr Lutchins. My bike’s an elephant to push some mornings. We’ve been married thirty-seven years.’

  ‘I hope Mrs Yacksley . . .’

  ‘She’ll pull through.’

  ‘Still, I enjoy it. Mary and I have been married a good many years, t
oo.’

  ‘I was leader of the choir at your wedding, remember? That was a grand day, that was.’

  Both men looked at the tree, silent for a while. Then Mr Yacksley transferred his gaze to the logs, and smiled.

  ‘That’s a neat pile you’ve made there. Shipshape.’

  Bill smiled, too. Jack Yacksley was probably the only man he knew who would appreciate the fine architecture of his pile.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I came over to say we’ve a regular fight on our hands again at the meeting tonight.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Vicar’s wanting to take a vote this time. I said to him yesterday: I said, Vicar, you’ve lost all the old folk for miles around with all your new fiddle-dee-faddle. They’re not the words we know, Vicar, I said. He didn’t seem to care.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He said he’s got this guitarist lined up for Sunday evening in place of the sermon. Said people will flock.’

  ‘I won’t be there.’

  ‘Nor me. So we can rely on you for some of your strong words this evening, Mr Lutchins?’

  ‘You can. Of course.’

  ‘I must be back on the round, then.’ Mr Yacksley’s grey eyes, under a tough thatch of white eyebrow, tipped up to the sky. ‘That’ll be a good day you’ve got for sawing. . . .’

  The old postman trundled back the way he had come. Bill watched until he disappeared. He and Jack Yacksley, fellow sidesmen, had much in common. They were united in their fight for the preservation of traditional services in their church, their abhorrence of the rapid desecration that was taking place at the hands of the young vicar, whose wife had been known to organise tequila parties in the graveyard. Sunday after Sunday, when urged to shake hands with their neighbours, Bill and Jack Yacksley kept their arms rigid as guardsmen by their sides, gleefully defying the order. When, this last Christmas Eve, the vicar had urged everyone to kiss during the Peace, the two rebels had left, noisily, in disgust. In truth, they made little headway, as the vicar had lined up several like-thinking young people on the church council, leaving the few remaining older members in an uncomfortable minority. But they persevered, and insisted on the rights of one 1662 service a month when – the vicar seemed not to notice – the church doubled its congregation.