“You must bring Ireen to the works,” my father said. “That is, if she’d be interested?”
“Oh yes!” Ireen said, “I should adore that!”
‘We’re coming tomorrow morning anyway,” I said. “Don’t you remember?”
“Show her all your old haunts,” he said, as though I were a ghost.
“But we arranged it already!” I insisted. “You said to come to the office about ten o’clock. Don’t you remember?”
“Did I, dear? Now Ireen, you can’t throw away your bamboos in that reckless fashion …”
At last we went to bed. Ireen put her hair in curlers and did extraordinary things to her face, slapping it smartly with the back of her hand and covering it with grease. “You can read my magazines if you like,” she said. “It says in one of them you must do this every night if you don’t want a double chin by the time you’re twenty. They have terribly serious articles too, you know, about cancer and having the curse,” she giggled briefly, “and what to do if your husband is unfaithful and all that. Of course Mummy’s never told me a thing, but those magazines are mostly awfully frank, you really should read them.”
“I’m reading Jane Eyre,” I said. It sounded priggish, perhaps, but I was in some ways very stupid.
“But that doesn’t tell you anything! I mean, look here.” She pulled a magazine off her bed and opened it at random. “ ‘I am fifty-one years old and have recently experienced some pain and difficulty in relations with my husband. I am afraid that this may have a bad effect on our married life, and I have already noticed a slight cooling off on my husband’s part. Can you help me before it is too late? Signed Anxious Wife.’ And the woman says, ‘This is a condition known as kraurosis, which is a vaginal shrinkage due to hormone withdrawal in middle age. In most cases the use of a special cream will restore normal elasticity. Your doctor will be able to help you if you go to him.’ Well, I mean, they tell you things like that, and it’s terribly useful because no one else would, would they? I bet your mother’s never even said the word vagina to you, has she?” She giggled hopefully and I answered, with complete truth, “No, she hasn’t.” If the woman had a sore throat, I couldn’t see what it had to do with her marriage, or why she should write to a magazine about it. “What else does it tell you?” I asked curiously.
“Well, there’s a great long bit about Princess Elizabeth in this one, and a cut-out picture of Clark Gable, and it says what to do about your spots. Oh, oodles of things. You really ought to read them, you know. They’d do you much more good than that old Jane Eyre.”
“I’ll have a look at them tomorrow,” I said. “Thanks.”
“They’d help you like anything with Him,” she said, bundling into bed and winding her watch, which she then laid carefully on the bedside table. “I know, because I tried it on Brian last holidays. It works like magic.”
“What does?”
“You know. Keeping them at a distance, being a bit snooty to them. It drives them absolutely wild, honestly.”
“Supposing you don’t feel snooty?”
“Well, of course you don’t, barmy. You just pretend to. I mean, the worst thing of all is running after a boy. It’s absolutely fatal…”
She talked on for what seemed most of the night. I dreamed I was running after the clergyman’s son, running and running with outstretched arms, and when the elastic snakes got in my way I tried to fly over them … It was very unpleasant and when I woke up I had been crying. Ireen said, “You’re quite different in the holidays. I don’t know why.” Miserably, I watched her as she drenched her face in pink powder and clasped on her beads. When we went to the factory I let my father take her round, which he did with great charm, as though she were Royalty. Nobody could see how awful she was. On the way to the Copper Kettle she took my arm and said, “I do believe you’re afraid I’m going to steal him from you. Well, you needn’t worry, you know. One thing I am, and that’s loyal.” As she said this she stopped and rearranged her fringe in front of Sainsbury’s window. “Mary was petrified, you know, that Graham would like me best. Well, I simply froze him off. After all, Mary’s my best friend — next to you, of course.”
“I don’t think he’d like you to … freeze him off,” I said. “He likes people to be nice to him.”
“But of course I’ll be nice to him! I just mean you needn’t worry. I mean, he’s your boy-friend. I’m just a dear old gooseberry.”
After we had waited for ten minutes in the crowded tea shop, he came lumbering through the door. My heart leapt and I could feel myself growing pale, my knees under the gingham tablecloth began to tremble. “There he is,” I whispered. “Where?” “There, by the door.” “You mustn’t wave to him like that! He’ll think you want to see him!” “Well, I do want to see him!” “Hush, here he comes. I say, isn’t he tall…” She moved up on the oak pew, making room for him.
“Hullo,” I said.
“Hullo,” he said.
We smiled at each other and he clapped his hands together, knocked against a woman at the next table, apologized, at last fitted himself into the pew with his back to Ireen.
“This is Ireen,” I said.
He swivelled round, pulling the tablecloth with him. There was demerara sugar all over the place. He slapped about with a rather dirty handkerchief and Ireen said it didn’t matter at all. He then said, “How do you do?” and held out his big hand which grew out of his rather skimpy sleeve like a beautiful cabbage. She shook it delicately. He then sat on his hands, as though to prevent further damage.
“I’ve heard so much about you,” Ireen said. Her eyelids were fluttering as mine did when I was trying not to cry. I thought perhaps she had hurt herself in the scuffle. “It’s so nice to meet you at last.”
“Well,” he said. But nothing came after. He was staring at her. Her eyelids beat up and down and for some reason she had clenched the tip of her tongue between her teeth and was smiling at the same time. This gave her the look of a complete maniac. At least two whole minutes went by, while I held my breath and wondered what on earth was happening. Was she having a fit? Was this normal? Should I scream or faint or simply carry on with the conversation?
“Are you going to have an ice cream?” I said.
“No. No. I can’t stop. I can’t stay. I’ve got to …”
“Oh, but you must!” Ireen said, and put her hand on his arm, at the same time impossibly moving her body at least six inches towards him. “You simply must stay!”
Now I knew that in daylight, in public places, the clergyman’s son was untouchable. To brush against him by accident was enough to send him crashing away, hair tossing, arms flailing, a fearful embodiment of terror and disgust. Therefore when Ireen assaulted him, so to speak, I drew in my breath, knowing what would happen. He leapt up as though shot, took two steps backwards and overturned a hatstand, whirled round and hit a small child over the head with his great uncontrollable hand, bent sideways, grabbed the hatstand, looked desperately at the screaming child, dropped the hatstand, leapt over the pile of fallen coats straight into a waitress with a tray, turned, gasped, gave a hunted cry and was gone. I let out my breath and took a mouthful of ice cream. The cafe reassembled itself round me with sounds of protest and distress.
“What a pity,” I said. “He doesn’t like you.”
“Doesn’t like me?”
“You have to be very careful with some boys,” I said. “You have to know how to deal with them.”
“If you think he ran away like that because he didn’t like me — ” she shouted, outraged.
I licked my spoon, stroking my tongue with it. “I know he did.”
“Well, that just shows how ignorant you are! That just shows! He was absolutely mad about me! Didn’t you see the way he looked at me?”
“Yes,” I said. It was the first time I had ever felt completely grown up — calm, amused, comfortable as my father in his armchair after a good dinner. “Would you like another ice cream?”
“No, I wouldn’t! And I think you’re the most awful beast, saying a thing like that! You’re just a silly little baby who doesn’t know anything, and another thing, you’re the most awful hostess I’ve ever known. You’re just green with jealousy, that’s your trouble, and I can’t be bothered with you and your stupid vicar’s son or whatever he is. I’m going home to pack now and I’m jolly well going back to Little-hampton. So goodbye!”
I wandered out into the warm morning feeling so happy and smooth and agreeable that even my reflection in Sainsbury’s window seemed beautiful. I walked slowly up the street, humming to myself, and when I came to the churchyard my body wheeled to the right without the slightest trouble, and I found myself hopping over the graves, even leap-frogging a tombstone, without a doubt in my mind about where I was going, or why. His bedroom window looked over the churchyard, and this had always seemed to me lugubrious for him; now it seemed proper that he should live so, among the pure and dignified dead. I hop-scotched for a few minutes on the broad paving outside the church door, then sauntered towards the Vicarage. I hardly hesitated before ringing the bell. While I was waiting I leant against the side of the porch and idly chewed a churchyard grass. The door was finally opened by a maid who looked as though she had not been out in the light for a very long time. I asked for the clergyman’s son.
“He’s not in,” she said.
“Oh.” Should I tell her I’d wait? But no, the gesture had already been made. I had not exactly run after him, but at least I had come this far. “Tell him …” I said, and pondered.
“Yes?” So great was the magic that surrounded me that she seemed eager, even pitifully anxious to know what she should tell him.
“Tell him … I called,” I said.
She nodded solemnly. I raced back across the churchyard, through the gate, up the hill, so full of energy that I had to catch railings as I passed, jump gutters, leap for overhanging lilac. “I love my love with a B because he is BATTY!” I sang. As I burst in through the front door I ran straight into my mother. She steadied me, then not waiting for me to get my breath back she said, “Ireen is upstairs. She says you were both extremely rude to her and that she wants to go home. I don’t know what Mrs. Douthwaite would think, so I want you to go straight up and tell Ireen you’re sorry. Now,” she added, as I hung back. “This minute.”
We patched it up. I knew Ireen had never intended to go back to Littlehampton, anyway. She hadn’t the courage. My parents made a great fuss of her for the remainder of her stay, and she took advantage of this and began to behave as though she were their guest, not mine. This suited me well, for it left me time to myself. The clergyman’s son remained in hiding, and for all her conviction that he was dying with love for her, Ireen did not suggest that we tried to find him. It was a hard job, keeping her entertained, even with my parents’ help. There was only one cinema in the town, and we saw both programmes. Most of the time she was making her extraordinary faces at the boys in the row behind, so I don’t think she would have noticed if we had seen both films twice; but she was so cross when they did not follow us home that she swore she’d gone right off going to the pictures and wouldn’t care if she never went again. It was the same story at the tennis club. Only well-brought-up boys played tennis, and she scared them off the courts the moment she appeared.
“Don’t you know any boys?” she said, conveniently forgetting the clergyman’s son. “I mean, aren’t there any boys in this place?”
“You met two today,” I said. “The ones who let us have their court.”
“Oh, them! They’re children! I think the thing is that I really prefer older men. You know. Men with poise.”
I realized, of course, that she was going to have a hard time making up any stories about her stay with me. Supposing she left without one conquest? She was getting desperate. The bus conductor whistled at her as she got off the bus one day, and that put her in a good temper. But one bus conductor didn’t make a summer. Secure, patient in my love for the clergyman’s son I didn’t see what was happening. I just longed for her to leave, so that I could be free again. My mother said, “You’re keeping a certain person at the Vicarage very far from Ireen, I notice.” My mother could be a bitch at times, in her well-meaning way: or perhaps, like me, she was just stupid. It’s often hard to tell the difference, even in oneself.
On the last night of her stay Ireen put on an evening dress, if you please. “Mummy thought you might dress for dinner,” she said. “Of course we weren’t to know … Well, anyway, I’d hate her to see I hadn’t worn it.” “My goodness,” my father said. “This calls for a celebration.” He gave her a glass of elderberry wine — she said she often had wine at home — and during supper I noticed that she was making her faces at him, and that far from being terrified, as any normal person would be, he seemed to be quite interested in them. After supper we played mahjong as usual, but Ireen giggled so much — she had persuaded him to give her some more wine at supper — that it was a hopeless game, and at about half past nine my mother said, “You’re looking peaky, dear. Don’t you think she’s looking peaky, George? And Ireen has got a long day tomorrow, so I think we should all have an early night.” She tipped her bricks into the box without waiting for argument. “Come along now. Bedtime for the ladies!”
Ireen scowled. I could see that it was a little undignified, going to bed at half past nine in full evening dress. But no one argued with my mother. We all trooped up the stairs together, my mother bringing up the rear. She kissed us both briefly — she was a scrupulously fair woman in many ways — and told us not to talk too late. I could feel her relief as she shut the door on us and marched off to her own room. Ireen sat down on her bed and began biting her nails. There seemed to be nothing I could say — everything had gone too far — so I undressed and put on my pyjamas and went off to the bathroom to do my teeth without a word of comfort for her.
When I came back she was busy at the dressing table. I hardly glanced at her; just said ‘Excuse me” as I reached for my hair brush. When I had finished my hundredth stroke I lay down in bed, dropped my arms like heavy weights outside the covers and shut my eyes. After what seemed like five minutes I opened my eyes again. She was still at the dressing table. I said, “You’re being an awfully long time. Do buck up, I’m dropping.”
She didn’t answer, because she was busy doing something to her mouth. I sat up and stared at her. “What on earth are you putting lipstick on for?”
She capped the lipstick and put it down carefully. Then she swivelled round on the stool. Her face was brand new, she had made up every inch of it. “If you think I’m going to bed at half past nine,” she said, “you’re crazy.” Her voice shook a little.
“What are you going to do, then?” I asked.
“Go downstairs again, of course.”
“But you can’t! Suppose Mummy finds you?”
“If you think I care about your mother,” she said, “you’re crazy.”
“But what are you going to do?”
She took a breath, looked at me and swallowed it. Then she got up in her evening dress and went to the light switch, acting just like a mother in a story by Galsworthy. “Goodnight,” she said sweetly, “Sleep well.” Then she turned out the light and was gone. I did not hear her go down the stairs. She must have taken her shoes off.
I lay awake for about half an hour, waiting for her to come back. I was frightened about what my parents would say if they found her wandering about the house after bedtime. Anyway, I thought, my father was downstairs. He would deal with her. When I woke up again it was midnight. She had not come back. I thought vaguely of going to look for her, but fell asleep while wondering where to look. The next morning she was neatly tucked up in bed, but had not taken her make-up off. It had streaked all over her face; she looked as though she had been left out in the rain. I spoke to her hesitantly.
“Was it all right… last night?”
“Was what all right?” She was again the Ireen I knew
at school: arrogant, off-hand, not bothering about herself.
“Well, I mean … did they find you?”
She laughed at me. “I’ll leave you those mags,” she said. “You ought to read them sometime.”
“Thanks. I will.”
“And good luck with that vicar’s son of yours. I suppose you’ll be necking with him again now — when I’ve done gone, I mean.”
My father drove us to the station. Ireen kissed us both goodbye. “Thanks,” she said, “for the most gorgeous time.”
“Come again,” my father said. “We’d love to have you.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll remember that.”
My father and I looked at each other blankly when the train had gone. “Well, old thing,” he said. “Back to work.” I followed him out of the station, and the strange thing was that I felt sad. It was almost as though Ireen had stolen the clergyman’s son from me after all. I felt deserted, and puzzled, and sad.
10
My father loved me, I know, in his self-sufficient way. For years he regretted that I wasn’t a boy, but after Ireen’s visit his attitude seemed to change and during the following, the Christmas holidays, he really began to take some sort of tentative pride in me. My mother too stopped pushing and shoving me quite so much, and resigned herself to my straight hair. I began reading the women’s magazines, starting with the ones that Ireen had left behind, and learned many useful facts such as that all men are children, all men are emotionally immature, all men dislike hairnets and criticism, all men are unfaithful, must be trusted, need hot breakfasts, want more than they should have and need more than they are given. As I never thought of the clergyman’s son as a man, I didn’t apply any of this to him. I would not believe, even when he changed so strangely, that he was childish or half-witted — and there, according to Ireen, I made my mistake.
We met as usual on the second day of the holidays. He was staring into the window of the bicycle shop, where all the torches and spanners were wreathed in tinsel. I was wearing an old overcoat of my mother’s, since I had grown out of last winter’s, and had belted it tightly with a short luggage strap. I had also dabbed my nose with my mother’s natural powder and was wearing a suspender belt: but this he couldn’t possibly have known. He had grown even taller and his wrists were blue with cold. When I said hullo he whirled round, knocking over two scooters. I propped them up again while he stammered, “Hullo … Gosh … Didn’t see you … I was just…”
The Pumpkin Eater Page 7
