The Pumpkin Eater

by Penelope Mortimer

  “I don’t know. Maybe it is, but that’s something else I can’t believe. I feel … I want … I need what we had, in those years in the barn … And yet it was always falling down, and the noise. You never once lost your temper. The children made the noise, but we were quiet. Sometimes I try to remember the evenings, but what did we do? Did we talk to each other?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “What about?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever people talk about.”

  “I can’t remember. Did we quarrel?”

  “No. You just said, I never lost my temper.”

  “Why? Are you so good?”

  “No. I’m lazy, rather timid. You had your own way over everything.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Of course.”

  “But didn’t you mind? Didn’t you ever think I was wrong?”

  “Sometimes. But you had such a belief in your own infallibility that it would have meant … Well, I hadn’t the courage.”

  “It seems to me we were so happy.”

  “We were. At least, I was. Your belief in yourself made me happy. It was like a great tide I could be carried along on. Very strong and natural, and it seemed to me pure.”

  “But if it was flowing in the wrong direction? If it was just … chaos, really?”

  “Tides can’t flow in the wrong direction. It’s an impossibility.”

  “I mean, you let me believe that life was as easy as that? You knew it couldn’t last. I was bound to find out sooner or later. We were so alone there, but one day the outside world would have come breaking in — ”

  “It did. Jake.”

  “It had to be someone, or something. The children would have grown up and stopped believing in me. So would you, at some point, because … anyway, there were other things.”

  “I couldn’t keep you, that’s all. You didn’t need me. At least Jake’s managed to keep you up to now, although Christ…”

  “What? What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. Does it hurt if I touch it?”

  “No.”

  “You believe this is true, anyway?”

  “Yes. I do. If I didn’t believe in that, I’d really be mad, wouldn’t I?”

  “You were mad to let them do it.”

  “But I thought it was the first really sane thing I’d ever done. Only I did it for the wrong reason, I thought … How can you tell about anything? It’s what you do that matters, the reason is just … nothing. The reason why Jake and Beth Conway went to bed together — whether it was good or bad, it couldn’t matter less. Reasons don’t have consequences, only actions. She’s pregnant and I’m sterile. I’m in bed with you, and who cares if it’s justified or unjustified? I’m in bed with you, and Jake and the children don’t know where I am. I could ring them up and tell them why, but what difference would it make? You may feel you’re right or wrong in killing someone, but the result is, they’re dead.”

  “Put my dressing gown on. You’ll get cold.”

  “Shall I make tea or something?”

  “No, I’ll make it.”

  “I’d like to make it.”

  “Perhaps you’d better go back.”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “I just want to help you. It’s time someone helped you.”

  “You mean you’re advising me?”

  “I don’t know. You’re thinking about the children.”

  “No, I’m not. They’re perfectly well looked after.”

  “Don’t talk like that!”

  “You almost shouted. Why? Don’t you believe me?”

  “No. You’ve been hurt, you’re confused. But you love the children.”

  “You sound like someone reciting a kind of creed. Supposing I told you that I didn’t love the children, that I don’t give a damn about the children? It might be true, you know. But for years you’ve relied on me to bring them up and provide love and cut their fingernails and teach them to tell the truth, as though it mattered. You’ve been free. Supposing I want to be free?”

  “That was the way you wanted it then. I don’t believe you’ve changed so much.”

  “Then you’re like me, not believing what you can see and hear, not even believing what you feel.”

  “The kettle’s boiling.”

  “You’ve relied on Jake, too. He’s kept them, he’s even been fond of them. No wonder you tell me to go back. I can’t think why you ever let me stay.”

  “The tea’s ready. You bring it in. I’ll light the fire.”

  “There must come a time in your life, mustn’t there, when the most important thing to do is to find out who you really are, what you’re really like. That doctor I went to … he made me angry, he wanted me to change. You know, he wanted to sterilize my … attitude to everything. All right, it was an idiotic attitude — that you have a kind of duty to avoid … evil. I couldn’t even tell him what I meant by evil. I kept on talking about the dust … I don’t know what to do, Giles. You think I should go back?”

  “Not if you don’t want to.”

  “I don’t know who I am, I don’t know what I’m like, how can I know what I want? I only know that whether I’m good or bad, whether I’m a bitch or not, whether I’m strong or weak or contemptible or a bloody martyr — I mean whether I’m fat or thin, tall or short, because I don’t know — I want to be happy. I want to find a way to be happy, I don’t care what it is. You see, everything I say sounds absurd. Like a child talking. I don’t even believe it myself. You know, one night, before all this happened, I was alone in the house.”

  “Alone?”

  “Jake wasn’t there. Perhaps he was still abroad. I can’t remember. Anyway, I was alone.”

  “Yes. I see.”

  “It was about half past eight. It was the cook’s night out — I mean the night when she doesn’t come, because she doesn’t live in — and Dinah had the ’flu or something. Anyway, she was in bed and I was cooking leeks. I remember because of the smell, it filled the whole house. You know the smell of leeks — strong and sharp, but sweeter than onions, very like sweat. It’s a reek, really, more than a smell. I like it very much. Anyway, I was wondering how to get through the evening. The leeks were cooking and the children were in their rooms and the nurse — oh yes, the nurse had just given notice, she did that once a month, but in the end I sacked her and got another. Although in the middle … there was a short time in the middle when I didn’t think I would get another nurse. She had gone out too. That nurse went to all the new plays because she had a friend who worked in a ticket agency. She was always amazed by them. ‘I’m amazed,’ she used to say, ‘that people go to things like that.’ As though it were my fault. Anyway, I was alone, and since it didn’t matter, I was talking to myself a bit. At the end of the day, if Jake’s away, I forget what words sound like. I suppose I was giving myself another drink and telling myself the time and asking myself what was on television. I don’t know, but what I do know is that I was … well, I was despairing. This was before I met you again. You know how silent London can be? At the tower there’s usually noise — I don’t know, the rooks, the lambs, the cows, the dogs, they kick up the most terrible racket, even in the dark. But in London, where we are, when the demolition men have stopped, there are great long times of silence. Then a lorry goes up the side road, or a car; or a train, somewhere miles away. You know people are going somewhere. You try to imagine where they’re going. You try to imagine the people, but they have blank faces, only they all lean forward in the same eager attitude and they all seem to be young. You imagine them whizzing about, from place to place, never still, never alone. They go round the house with a great tearing noise and then they’ve gone, and there’s silence again. That wasn’t an extraordinary night, I mean nothing had happened to make it particularly unbearable.”

  “I thought you must have friends, hosts of friends.”

  “The doorbell rang, so I walked down the hall in the dark, and turned on the light and through the
glass I saw this Jamaican. He was wearing a camel-hair overcoat, he was rather handsome, about forty, with a beard. When I opened the door I saw that he had something written down the front of his overcoat in red paint. He said he was glad I wasn’t frightened or alarmed, and that I might like to know that he was the new King of Israel, anointed by Yahweh, the Eternal Lord God, and that he had come to give me his blessing. I thanked him and he talked for a time about the Emphasized Bible and how the name Yahweh appeared well over seven thousand times in the Emphasized Bible and how he had been appointed to fulfil some prophecy in Ezekiel — and this appeared seventy-two times, I think. I didn’t really listen, but I thought why shouldn’t he be King of Israel? Why not? And why shouldn’t Yahweh have anointed him, and why shouldn’t he bless me? I gave him five shillings to build a radio station in Jerusalem and he said, ‘The people are unhappy because they give the gift of their love to unworthy men and unworthy women.”’

  “And then?”

  “Then he went away, I suppose, to eat on the five shillings.”

  “But he was a maniac.”

  “He didn’t seem like a maniac. I’m not saying he was sane. But neither was I. I’m not saying he even believed in himself, but neither did I. He got five shillings from me and I … I was comforted. I told you I don’t know who I am or what I’m like, but I know there aren’t any rules — perhaps the kind of person I am believes in Yahweh. Perhaps that Jamaican King of Judah and I need the same thing. Anything’s possible. When I was young — well, you remember — I thought that to need comfort was humiliating, that it was sufficient to be alive, and make love, and have children, and behave as well as possible. Well, it was sufficient. Now these things have been taken from me, but not naturally. I don’t know, and now I never will, but I imagine that the natural way is gradual, that you’re given time, that you’re old enough to accept it, even with relief. What happened to me was sudden and artificial and it was done by people — oh, and by me, of course; I did quite surely to myself what I would never have done to anyone else. But that cruel truth people tell when they’re meant to be comforting someone — the nurse keeps saying it to the children when they fall off a wall or lose something they love or run out of pocket money — ‘You have only yourself to blame!’ It’s far worse of course than being able to blame someone else. ‘Only yourself,’ is terrible. That is what Conway is saying to her. I know. Like a torturer, over and over for the rest of her life, ‘You’ve only yourself to blame.’ What are the good of such judgements, once something has been done?”

  “She gets the worst of it. Beth Conway. She’s the worst off.”

  “Yes. I know. But … there is a kind of hope for her. She may … love the child when it’s born. She may get away from Conway. My God, why should I feel sorry for her?”

  “Yesterday … last night you seemed …”

  “What he’s doing to her is terrible, it’s monstrous, but — ”

  “You kept crying and saying ‘poor girl, poor girl’.”

  “I was drunk, then. I feel pity — pity for everyone. Even Jake, now I’m here, away from him. But I’m not sorry for her. I wouldn’t do a thing to help her … All right. It’s not true. How long can we sit talking here?”

  “As long as you like. It’s Saturday.”

  “What’s the time?”

  “Eight o’clock.”

  “Your watch must have stopped.”

  “No. It’s eight. Look, you’ve been awake all night — why don’t you sleep now?”

  “Saturday?”

  “That’s right.”

  “They’ll all be home. You know … what started as a small affair of Jake’s, nothing at all important, perhaps … perhaps it wasn’t important … has grown so big, it’s involved so many people — ”

  “I don’t think it was particularly unimportant if he was busy getting her pregnant while you were being carved up like that.”

  “I never said that was when it happened! I never told you that!”

  “But it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Maybe he had regrets suddenly — that he’d never be a father again.”

  “Don’t! That’s not you! It’s … Conway.”

  “You said you weren’t sorry for her. But it wasn’t true. Well, I’m not sorry for Jake Armitage and that’s the complete truth. Now what are you going to do? Stay here?”

  “I behaved like Jake, you mean. But you let it happen, you didn’t fight, you didn’t even seem unhappy.”

  “It’s over, for God’s sake. Are you going to stay?”

  “You don’t love me, do you?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t the ability to love you, or anyone. I can’t offer you anything, I never could. That happiness you talk about all came from you, there was this great, energetic conviction that kept us all bouncing like ping-pong balls on an air-jet. Well, now you’re like this … what can I do? Stay here. Sleep. I’ll feed you, listen to you, do what I can. But respect my inadequacy, if you don’t mind. I know who I am and what I’m like. I wouldn’t want you to mistake me for anyone else.”

  “I don’t …”

  “Don’t cry. Your Jamaican may have said that we give the gift of our love to unworthy men and women, but he didn’t tell you how to get it back. You can’t get it back, once it’s given. All you can give the Yahwehs is a seven thousandth part of a substitute, because you feel so empty and dead, having given away so much of yourself, that you must try and fool yourself that you’re capable of something. All right. Try and fool yourself. Run about the place for a while saying you don’t know who you are or what you’re like or what you want. You do know. You just won’t accept it. It doesn’t matter, there’s plenty of time.”

  “No. There isn’t. I can’t stay, Giles.”

  “Go to bed now, and sleep. Later on, I’ll ring them up. I’ll tell them you’re here.”

  “But — ”

  “Don’t rush into anything. Just sleep. I’ll ring Jake and tell him you’re with me.”

  “With you?”

  “I’ll tell him I’m looking after you. For the time being.”

  23

  I woke in the dark — a small bed, curiously cold air. At first, but for no more than a second, I thought I was back in the nursing home. Then I even remembered where I had put Giles’s dressing gown. I pulled it on as I got out of bed and groped towards the slit of light under the door. Giles was reading. He dropped the book on the floor and held out his hands, welcoming me.

  “Did you ring them?” I asked.

  “Yes. I spoke to Jake. I told him you were here. I told him not to worry. Do you know you’ve slept for eleven hours?”

  “What did he say? Was he …? Did he ask why? Was he … angry?”

  “No. Just worried. He thought you might have thrown yourself in the river, or something. That’s what he said. He seemed very relieved to know you were here.”

  “Well … I suppose that’s … natural.” I didn’t know what Jake would say under these circumstances. It seemed quite likely that it would be, “I thought she might have thrown herself in the river, or something.” I could hear him saying it, as though I were old tea-leaves, orange peel thrown out of a passing boat. “And the children?”

  “They’re all right. Dinah told them you’d gone to stay with your mother, she told them your mother was ill. She’s ringing your mother to tell her she’s ill. You see — it’s all very simple. I lit the geyser hours ago. You can have a bath if you like. Then I’ll take you out and feed you.”

  “Dinah told them that?”

  “So he said.”

  “Then where does Dinah think I am?”

  “She knows now. Look, children are tough. You’ve got a perfect right to go off if you want to. Don’t worry.”

  “Did he ask … when I was going back?”

  “No.”

  “Well … did he … Didn’t he ask why?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing?”

  “No. I said you’d contact him when you fe
lt … able.”

  ‘You mean he said nothing?”

  “No.”

  “Oh … Can I have a drink? Are you having a drink?”

  “Of course. I’ve been sitting here for hours, getting plastered and reading this appalling book.”

  “You never used to drink.”

  “Neither did you.”

  “Did he sound upset, or angry, or — didn’t he care?”

  “Why don’t you ring him yourself?”

  “No — I can’t.”

  “Well, he can contact you any time. He’s got the number and the address. It’s up to him, isn’t it?”

  I bathed in the narrow, chipped bathtub, scoured myself with ascetic soap. I’m living my own life, God help me. I have drawn the line, gone so far and no further. Jake, Jake, what am I doing here? “You mustn’t wave to him like that! He’ll think you want to see him!” “Well, I do want to see him!” I want to fly from a window and pour through the air like a wind of love to raise his hair and slide into the palms of his hands. But it’s up to him. My dear Ireen, what does it matter who it’s up to? Well, if it doesn’t matter to you, it doesn’t matter to me, I’m sure. I’d only like to ask where it’s got you, that’s all — you’ve a very nasty scar there, dear, if you don’t mind my saying so, and it’s not a very pleasant thing when the only person you have to turn to after all these years is your ex. I wonder whether that baby will look like Jake, of course he’s bound to see it, it’ll be a bond between them for ever, Jake’s youngest child …

  “You’ve been crying again,” Giles said. “You should sing in the bath, not cry in it, why don’t you ever do anything right? Here, have a drink.”

  “I have arguments with myself.”

  “About what?”

  “Between the part of me that believes in things, and the part that doesn’t.”

  “And which wins?”

  “Sometimes one. Sometimes the other.”

  “Then stop arguing. Powder your nose, and we’ll go out.”

  When we got back to the flat after dinner, I felt sure there would be some message, some sign from Jake. There was nothing. Giles showed me his Hi-Fi — of course he had built it himself — and played records, Giles sitting with his head against my knees, his eyes closed. I believed that at any moment the doorbell or the telephone would ring. “You’re arguing,” Giles said. “You’re not tired. Come on, we’ll go out.”