It had not been easy. He had had to remind himself that he had a promise to keep. It was a hard thing to do. To open the casket and touch the pale grey powder. He looked over his shoulder. There was no one about. Not even a jogger. It was too early in the morning for walkers. Too cold for the birds. Staring at the contents of the box he wondered, did one hurl them into the air like confetti, or allow them to slip in thin rivers through one’s fingers onto the ground as if one was feeding bone-meal to the roses?
Should he tip them out all at once, or prolong the agony? He took off his gloves and stuffed them into his pocket. He plunged his hand into the ashes and with an underarm movement, as if he were playing bowls, scattered the light dust onto the unyielding earth, into the air, onto the toe-caps of his shoes. When the box was empty, he turned it upside-down and shook it, before hurling it into the trees.
“I love you,” he yelled, falling to his knees on the white powder. “Oh God, I love you!”
Sally Maddox was the first person he had told.
When he had finished speaking, wondering where he had found the strength, she covered his hand with hers. He did not protest. He realised how much he had missed the warmth of human contact, someone to touch as of right.
“She knew,” was all Sally said.
And when Topher did not reply: “Didn’t she?”
Topher looked at her. He wondered why her face was so distant, so distorted, before he realised that he had been crying.
“Say it.” Sally said. “You’ll feel better.”
Topher took out his handkerchief and blew his nose.
“Yes,” he said firmly. “She knew”.
Sally left him alone while she removed the tea-tray. After a while Topher carried the empty crumpet plate, which she had forgotten, into the minuscule kitchen. She took the plate from him and laughed, lightening the mood.
“There’s no room in here for two!”
He went back into the other room and didn’t protest when Sally called out that she was cooking some spaghetti. He was feeling hungry, although he had no idea of the time. They opened another bottle of wine and balanced their supper on their knees.
“How’s Pushkin?” Sally asked.
Topher recited: “‘Do not sing to me again/You songs of Georgia/They bring to memory/Another life, a distant shore…’” from the poem The Poison Tree. He repeated the verse, haltingly, in his newly acquired Russian. Sally reciprocated with Verlaine: “Ah! Quand refleuriront les roses de septembre?”
It was after midnight when, leaving the car in Jeffrey’s Street, Topher walked home.
Eleven
Topher was woken abruptly by what he thought was the sound of the gavel calling for silence in court (which bore an uncanny resemblance to Sally Maddox’s basement flat) but was in fact the slamming of his own front door.
Both his daughters had keys. The sound of a bicycle being manhandled into the hall told him that this was Penge.
She tip-toed into the bedroom, lighting it with her yellow smock which ballooned over black harem trousers.
“Are you awake?” Her whisper was of the stage variety.
“I am now.”
“I’ve been ringing and ringing.” (Lady Macbeth). “The telephone must be out of order.”
“I switched the bell off.” Topher squinted at the clock. It was 10.30. “It is Sunday.”
“Chelsea tried to get you yesterday.” The voice was accusing. “She tried all afternoon.”
“I was out for tea.”
“Until after midnight?”
Topher did not think it necessary to account for himself.
“We were worried about you.”
There was indignation as well as concern in Penge’s over-reaction. Casting his mind back to the wide-awake small hours he and Caroline had spent listening for the sounds of Chelsea or Penge returning from a night out, Topher concealed a smile beneath the bedclothes.
“I appreciate your concern.”
Penge sat on his feet, only slightly mollified.
“Where were you?”
“At Sally Maddox’s.”
Turning to the bedside table to show Penge An End to Dying, he realised that he had left the book in Jeffrey’s Street. He did not need Marcus to interpret the significance of the action.
“Who’s Sally Maddox?”
“Just a friend.”
He was surprised to hear in his own voice the defensive tones he had hitherto associated with the young. He saw Penge’s lips tighten, as his and Caroline’s must so often have done, when the girls had lived at home. He did not elaborate, any more than they had elaborated.
“As long as you’re all right.”
Penge’s opinion of his exploit was obvious from her tone.
“What did Chelsea want?”
“They’re having a drink at the Beeb on Thursday. After her programme ends for the summer. Six o’clock. She thought you might like to go.”
“I’d be delighted.” Topher was touched that Chelsea had thought to include him in the celebrations. Then he remem-bered. He was promised in Lowndes Square.
“On second thoughts,” he said, “I have a previous engagement.”
“Sally Maddox?”
Topher shook his head. Penge appeared relieved. He thought it neither politic or necessary to tell her about Jo Henderson. Penge moved herself from his feet and opened the curtains. Clutching them, with one hand raised in what Topher recognised was her Hedda Gabler pose, she looked out into the street. Her face, touched by the pale sunlight, seemed troubled. Topher wondered if she had really called because she was worried about him, or if she had something on her mind. He guessed it was her love life which was not running smoothly.
“How’s Chad?”
The name was assumed. The minor poet had been christened Gary by unimaginative parents.
“Fine.”
Penge was in monosyllabic mode. It was clear that whatever irked her would have to be forcibly extracted. Topher was considering the best approach when she surprised him by saying: “Do you miss Mummy?”
Wallowing in his own self-pity, Topher wondered whether he had perhaps given insufficient thought to his motherless offspring. Penge did not wait for his answer.
“I find myself wanting to ask her opinion…tell her something… I have my hand on the telephone…”
“I know exactly how you feel.”
“I keep thinking she’s away on one of her trips. Morecambe Bay. Or Sandwich. I can’t believe she’s dead.”
“There is her jewellery in the bank,” Topher said. “I put it away when she was ill. I must get it out for you and Chelsea.”
He could not think what had possessed him to say it. He knew that it was not Caroline’s collection of Victorian rings and bangles that Penge was after.
“Thanks.”
She had withdrawn again into herself.
The minutes passed.
“Sure you and Chad…?” Topher said.
“I told you. Everything’s OK.”
“Are you managing?”
He meant money.
Penge nodded.
“I’d better be going.”
“Won’t you join me for breakfast?”
She shook her head.
Topher put on his dressing gown and helped her out with her bicycle. The tyres left dirty marks on Madge’s polished floor. Penge kissed him.
“Take care,” Topher said.
“You too.”
He watched her, her yellow top billowing, cycle off down the empty street. The newspapers were on the step. He picked them up and went into the kitchen. Taking two eggs and a packet of bacon out of the refrigerator and setting the frying pan on the gas, he realised that he was not sorry that Penge had refused his invitation. After the first chaotic months of his widowhood his life seemed to have settled itself into some sort of routine. He would, he acknowledged, never be anything of a cook. He was temperamentally unsuited to the “sweating” of vegetables or the making of roux, all o
f which – according to those of Caroline’s cookery books he had consulted in his idle moments – seemed to be integral to the good table.
Breaking the eggs into a cup (with an expertise which he had learned from a man in a striped apron on the television), Topher slid them into the pan, together with a rasher of bacon, and pondered on his change of status. Before the Second World War he remembered, when he had been growing up, roles had been clearly defined. Women had raised children and run the homes. Men had worked. Tilting the pan he splashed the fat which had run from the bacon over the eggs. A more complex pattern had now developed. Parents had ceded their responsibilities to the Welfare State. Women worked. Couples divorced and re-married in what seemed like a contemporary version of musical chairs (or more accurately beds). There were more single parents. More one-person households. Schools, once the preserve of children, were taken over, as night fell, with enthusiastic adults seeking new skills. The eggs were sitting up nicely. He added pepper to the yolks (salt came afterwards according to the man in the striped apron). In many households, men were no longer the breadwinners. While their wives brought home the bacon…It was amazing how it always shrank to half its size…they stayed at home. There was no statistical evidence to evaluate the actual extent of their involvement in the home. The whites of the eggs were crisping nicely. He turned the gas down. Notwithstanding the loud noises made by the feminists, equal sharing – he scooped up the contents of the frying pan deftly with the spatula – was still a concept honoured more in the breach than in the observance, more an ideal rather than a reality. Taking his plate to the table, Topher reflected with satisfaction that tradition, said by some to be dying, was not only taking an unconscionably long time about it, but, thankfully, was nowhere near dead.
The telephone rang as he was finishing his breakfast. He had been half-expecting Sally to phone about the forgotten book.
“Sally?”
“This is Lucille…”
He cast his mind back to Bingley, and Miles’ birthday party. He remembered perfectly. A cleavage. And a yellow dress. Long red nails. Lucille.
“I’m coming to London. I thought we might do a show.”
Topher considered the matter.
“I suppose you’ve seen Cats? I’ve a friend, well, a friend of a friend, who can get tickets.”
“I haven’t actually.”
“I thought everybody in London had. I thought I’d try for the week after next. I’m coming down for the dentist and to see a couple of girlfriends. Most of my pals are in London. Is there any particular night?”
Topher hadn’t said that he would go.
“No particular night.”
“That’s smashing then. I often think of you. How have you been keeping?”
“Very well. Very well indeed.”
“What’s the weather like? It’s bucketing up here. I’m still in bed. I don’t bother getting up on a Sunday. I have everything on a tray and watch the television. There’s a James Bond this afternoon. The one with Ursula Andress where she walks out of the water with her blouse clinging to her nipples… Are you still there?”
“I’m still here.” Topher said.
“You don’t go to church do you?”
“No,” Topher said.
“I wasn’t sure. I expect you’re very busy so I won’t keep you. I’ll let you know when I get the tickets. I’ll be staying at the Mount Royal. They know me there.”
As Topher put the phone down he felt slightly shaken by the fact that for the first time in his life he had been invited to the theatre by a woman, and that he had – if only by default – accepted the invitation. The horrendous thought suddenly occurred to him that, with Caroline’s death, he had become a “catch”. He left the remains of his eggs to congeal on the plate and hurried to get dressed. He needed to talk to Marcus. Sally telephoned as he was leaving the house.
“You left your book. I’ve got to be in Hampstead on Thursday, about sixish. I’ll bring it round.”
“I shan’t be in.” He realised that he would much rather see Sally than go to Lowndes Square.
“If the invitation to come to court with you still stands, I could come on Monday and bring the book with me.”
“I can’t promise that it will be anything very interesting.”
“I just want to see how judges judge.”
Topher arranged to pick up Sally at nine-fifteen. He made a mental note to solve the riddle of her attack upon his person on their next meeting. The longer he left it, the harder it was going to be.
“Thank you for yesterday,” he said. “I’m sorry if I out-stayed my welcome. I didn’t realise…”
“It was a good evening. We must do it again.”
Marcus set two whiskies down on the table in the Saloon Bar of the Bull and Bush.
“What am I to do?” Topher said. “Women keep ringing me up.”
Marcus helped himself to a potato chip. “You are man of learning and of property, not bad-looking and patently in need of care. Many men would feel flattered.”
“I do. The world seems suddenly to be peopled with available females. How is it that I never noticed them before?” Topher applied himself to his whisky. “I feel ashamed of myself.”
“For talking to them?”
Topher was silent. His recent sexual fantasies had not only encompassed Sally Maddox, and Lucille from Bingley, and Jo Henderson (who had accommodated his gold pen), but, horror of horrors, Mrs Sweetlove.
“I feel that Caroline is looking over my shoulder. Not to mention Chelsea and Penge.”
Marcus, in his Sunday sweater, waited for him to continue. Topher could not go on. He sometimes had the feeling that were it not for the necessity to earn his living he should, out of respect for his wife, stay alone in the house remembering her.
“The desires are natural enough,” Marcus said. “The trouble is that they are in conflict with what you see as acceptable behaviour. You feel that you have let Caroline down. I would say that you are suffering from a nasty dose of what is known in the trade as guilt.”
“What am I to do about it?”
Marcus considered the problem.
“Guilt can have a tremendous effect on people’s lives. Without it I’d be out of business. It is, however, extremely damaging. It gives rise to pain, and shame and a whole host of other disabilities.”
“Go on.” The fact that Topher had voiced his misgivings had made him feel lighter of heart already.
Marcus picked up the empty glasses.
“Let me.” Topher took them from him. “In lieu of your fee.”
When Topher returned from the bar, Marcus raised his glass.
“Cheers.”
“Cheers,” Topher said.
“People who don’t feel any guilt behave selfishly and dishonestly,” Marcus said. “They have absolutely no sense of right and wrong.” His gaze wandered to a group of young people who had just come into the bar. “What I’m trying to point out…” His eye was taken by a scarlet mini-skirt. “What I’m trying to point out is that one should neither be ashamed of one’s guilt, nor try to avoid it altogether. One must simply learn to control it, in an attempt to restrict the damage it can do.”
“How does one do that?”
“Firstly, it’s necessary to differentiate between the relevant and the irrelevant. Secondly, we have to put the guilt into proportion and perspective. Finally, we have to build up our defences in order to cope with it.”
Topher tipped the remains of the potato chips first into his hand and then into his mouth. He wiped the crumbs from his lips with his handkerchief.
“Do you really think I’m capable of sorting that lot out?”
“You must ask yourself if your guilt stems from the fact that you have actually done something wrong, or that your behaviour is inconsistent with your unrealistic expectations.”
“I have always had a punishing conscience.”
“Like many successful people you have used it as a positive, rather tha
n a negative, force. Do you think it was by chance that you became a judge?”
“Certainly,” Topher said. “I just happened to be around at the appropriate moment.”
Marcus made no comment but continued: “As for putting the matter into proportion and perspective, you have to accept first that you have not done anything and secondly, that Caroline’s dying wish was that you should not be on your own.”
“I can’t help the way I feel.”
“Of course you can’t. That is where your defences come in.” He looked at Topher’s empty glass. “One for the road?”
Topher put his hand over the glass. “‘BREATHALYSED JUDGE OVER LIMIT’. I don’t think it would look too good in the Ham & High.”
“Possibly not,” Marcus agreed.
“You were speaking about defences.”
“You have certain rights as an individual. It’s important not to forget that those rights exist. Because Caroline has died – and God knows I loved that woman as much as anybody – does not mean that you have to spend the rest of your life being miserable. That’s the last thing she would have wanted. You have a right not only to enjoy yourself, but to expect others to respect your rights. You have a right to make decisions without thinking of everyone around you.”
“‘Easy to say, difficult to do’.”
“It will come.”
“Allowing Lucille to get tickets for Cats felt like knocking another nail – metaphorically speaking – into Caroline’s coffin.”
“Perhaps it would help you to feel less badly about yourself if I tell you that people who suffer most from feelings of guilt generally have a lot going for them. Don’t underrate yourself, Topher. Spend a little time looking at your good points instead of concentrating on your faults.”
“On an intellectual level all that you say makes a great deal of sense. Sadly it doesn’t make two-pennyworth of difference –” Topher put a hand to the front of his pullover – “here.”
“Think of yourself as an observer. What would you say to some chap in the dock who had lost his wife, but had confessed to the heinous crimes of having tea with a woman, going for a drink with another, agreeing to see Cats, and having the odd sexual fantasy by way of good measure?”
An Eligible Man Page 10
