Outside, the cold wind blew, cooling Prue’s flush and she put up a hand to her neck in a gesture that was becoming habitual. Still smooth, she thought, a little guilty that she minded.
In front of her flowed the life of the city - an arterial stream of traffic, punctuated by the ganglia of shops, precincts and the market. Looming over this commercial activity was the cathedral, whose massive symbolic and physical presence used to exert an osmotic force on the life of the city. Mutandus mutandi . . . (Prue was learning some Latin.) She delighted in the building, and often made a detour as she did today to wander in its precincts or look inside. The January light failed to penetrate the dim interior, lit here and there by the bright, isolated stars of candles. The aisle was shrouded in a green-tinged dimness, and echoed to the half-whispers of tourists and church officials going about their business.
Her basket weighing on her arm, Prue hovered in the transept, thinking about people and their separate circles of isolation, sometimes overlapping others, sometimes moving forward without contact. It was perfectly possible to live a life thoroughly boxed in by Christian habits but lacking the essential core of belief. She knew because she was making a good job of it herself, and occasionally she told God off for not being there. Life would be easier with Him.
A group of Japanese tourists fluttered and fussed in the aisle, and some nuns were praying in the pews. Presumably God loved this stone tribute to him. She trusted that he did, for it had been built on sweat, lives and ambition. Of course, the same could be said for motorways and supermarkets.
Prue left the smell of wax and ripe flowers and returned to the daylight.
‘Wicked, Mum, you’re on time.’
Jane was preceded by a collection of bags slung into the back seat, then a great deal of green uniform and green tights, and plaited fair hair.
‘How’s the week been?’
‘Fine.’ Jane always made the question sound irrelevant.
‘The French test?’
‘Oh, Mum. Don’t ask me those questions the minute you see me.’
It was windy and rather bleak on the hill where the school was situated. To the east the motorway, always crowded, cut away to London, and to the west a new section was being hacked out of the chalk downland, much to the bitterness of local protesters. That view was not pretty.
Jane sighed.
‘What, my sweetie?’
‘Nothing. Just glad you’re here.’
Prue drove out of the school yard. ‘Violet and her family are coming to stay for a bit.’
Jane sat up. ‘Oh, Mum,’ she repeated, this time with a dying inflection indicating her disapproval. ‘That’s a real pain. Where will they all sleep?’
‘In the spare room, of course. Luckily it’s big enough for the baby as well. If not, they can put him in the guest bathroom.’
Jane bit her lip.
‘Aren’t you curious to see your new cousin?’
‘Not really,’ said Jane, who preferred computers to ballet and software to clothes. ‘Babies are boring.’
Prue smiled. ‘You weren’t. You were marvellous.’ She observed her daughter from the corner of her eye. The approach always worked, mainly because she meant every word. ‘I used to wonder what I’d done to deserve such a good baby.’
‘Truly?’
‘Truly.’
Actually, there had been a black cloud and that had been Violet. But Prue would not permit herself to say so to Jane.
Jane went quiet for several minutes. They drove on between hedges lightly tipped with new life - nature always got on with things much earlier than you imagined - over mud islands from last night’s rain and past telegraph wires on which rooks and moisture were equally strung. The landscape was suspended, but also secretly in flux, waiting for the moment it tipped over into spring proper. Every so often, a cascade of water hit the windscreen and, as they descended the hill to Stockbridge, the road became slippery.
What had I done to deserve such a good baby — and such an awful stepdaughter?
The car skidded slightly and a vision of Jane lying crushed and bleeding by a roadside, calling for her mother, flashed by Prue, so vivid it almost made her choke. It was the old nightmare, come back to visit, the old anxiety. It meant many things.
Prue tried to explain her fears for Jane to Max, and how they were connected to the idea of perfection. They’ll vanish quickly enough when she’s a teenager with a safety-pin through her nose, he said.
Jane broke the silence. ‘It’s a pity you don’t like Violet. You don’t, do you, Mum?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘My intuition,’ said her eleven-year-old daughter. ‘Don’t worry, it’s quite normal in the circumstances.’
It was then that Jane explained the Snow White theory.
What, Prue asked herself, did her worries about her stepdaughter matter? All over the country, there was apprehension. A fog was stealing over northern towns and masking the classy shopping developments in the south. Desperately worried men and women prepared for the weekend, and talked to each other about banks calling in loans, high interest rates, the behaviour of building societies, about the dole and sleeping rough, of businesses collapsing and redundancy.
Then, again, perhaps they kept silent. Perhaps you cannot talk about things that are too pressing. Perhaps silence is easier. Perhaps it is human nature to ignore the thing that looms largest and most awful in your life.
Prue climbed into bed that night and said nothing to Max about Violet.
Chapter Two
‘Can you meet us at Heathrow?’ Violet never bothered to ingratiate herself with her stepmother- that point had long ago been passed if it had ever existed - but since the last thing she wished was to struggle to Dainton by public transport or incur the expense of hiring a car, she managed, ‘If you would, Prue.’
Prue made an effort and said she would, adding, ‘It will be lovely to see you and to meet Jamie and the baby.’
‘Five a.m., terminal four.’
‘Five a.m.!’
‘Afraid so.’
‘Violet, that’s hideously early.’
‘Well, if you feel you can’t, Prue, could you organize hiring a car for us?’ Violet calculated two things. One, the request might shame Prue into agreement. Two, if it did not then the likelihood was that her father would pay. It was a measure of her current state of mind that she forgot that Jamie’s bank was paying most expenses. Or perhaps she wished to put Prue to considerable trouble.
Same old tricks, thought Prue, powerless before Violet’s determination. ‘Don’t worry, I think we can make it.’
‘See you, then.’
In Dainton, Prue was accounted something of a saint - older husband with two tragedies, or at least incidents, in his past, and a stepdaughter who thought rather too well of herself and made it her business not to cooperate. Violet was well aware of Prue’s putative sainthood and had lived with it for those difficult, uneasy years before she had left home; it had sharpened her quick, but essentially unsubtle, mind. If our characters are shaped by those we hate, as much as by those we profess to love, Violet was very much Prue’s creation, a fact that would have astonished both women.
‘I hope we’re not too much trouble.’ Violet pondered the coup de grâce, which proved too tempting not to use. ‘After all,’ she modulated her voice sweetly, ‘you don’t have that much else to do.’
The conversation left Prue to stare at the calendar on the wall, unsettled and disturbed. Only Violet managed to prick the skin, so soft and gracious, in which Prue clothed herself without having to try. Only Violet could make her feel so angry and unwilling. Picking up a pen, she scrawled: ‘Heathrow, 5 a.m.’, in such a way that the whole of the day’s space for 7 February 1992 was obscured.
Violet’s recollection of her childhood was a fractured, uneasy jumble of dreams and memory. On one hand, she took comfort from a cosy, firelit nursery, a cross between Enid Blyton and Charles Dickens where she knew she was safe
(OED ‘safe’: uninjured, entire, healthy). On the other hand, her memories or dreams were often teeming with visions of running from a terror she found impossible to describe.
Oh, that white dust churning in her face and choking her mouth and nostrils as she panted across her inner landscape. Nails tearing as she battened on to blank rock faces blocking her way. Sweat running like lava down her body. The terror that clawed at her back.
She had read that those who lose their mothers young can be subjected to mirages like Violet’s warm nursery, and the terror swimming in the darkness outside. Violet’s dream figurations were obvious responses to trauma but that did not diminish either their import or their impact. They were cruel fantasies, both for the fear they stirred and, worse, for the false suggestion of safety enshrined in a leaping nursery fire, the rag-rug, the rocking-chair and the cupboard in which lived Ned the Teddy and Muffin the Mule. Oddest of all, Violet had no recollection of her mother and she had been almost six when Helen had gone away and, soon after, died.
Jamie understood. ‘By dying your mother let you down,’ he said, ‘and you’re angry with her and you’ve blocked her out.’
Violet regretted her impulse to confide in Jamie - but the marriage was still young. ‘I wonder’, she commented acidly, ‘what the world would have been like before Freud reinvented it. Fresh and innocent, perhaps?’
‘I don’t mind my concern being rejected or abused,’ said Jamie lightly. But he did.
‘Sorry,’ said Violet who was still delighted by the acquisition of a new, handsome husband and, furthermore, loved him.
They were in the bedroom of the New York apartment packing the last bits of luggage. Jamie inserted a pastel wedge of Brooks Brothers shirts into his suitcase and closed it. Violet watched. Because she could not fathom them, she distrusted Jamie’s occasional silences.
‘I am sorry, Jamie.’
He placed the suitcase alongside the others by the door. ‘I’ll think about accepting the apology.’ He had his back to her and she was unable to see his smile.
Uncertain how to take the last remark, she sat down on the bed. ‘I never know where I am with you, Jamie.’ When baffled, Violet had a habit of clicking a nail against another. The sound filled the pause. Then she continued, ‘I don’t want to be left out, if you see what I mean . . . Because I am your wife and I want to share everything.’
‘It’s simple.’ Jamie came over and pushed her back on to the pillows. ‘I love you and I can take your nastiness.’
Violet should have replied, ‘I love you, too, and thank you for being nice.’ Instead she said, ‘Mind my breasts. They’re sore.’
‘I won’t.’ Jamie edged closer. ‘Beautiful, clever wives must put up with interest in their breasts.’
This was familiar ground. Violet gave a laugh and ran her hand down Jamie’s back. ‘Friends?’ she asked softly, meaning lovers.
His arm reached over her body. ‘Friends.’
After a moment, she wriggled free. ‘I must pack.’
Jamie rolled over and folded his hands behind his head. ‘Are you going to have a minor panic or a major one?’
‘Neither - and do you have to joke all the time?’ Violet pulled open the top drawer of the chest and surveyed the contents. Muddle, she hated muddle, and muddle stared back at her. ‘Jamie?’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t think having a baby addles your brain permanently, do you?’ She bit her lip as the words left it. A bundle of crawling, post-partum neuroses was not the best aphrodisiac.
‘It’s not your brain I’m interested in.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Ignoring the base metal of yours, do you think I’ll ever be normal again?’ She sifted her fingers through a Liz Claiborne scarf and a Ralph Lauren belt and let them drop. ‘My memory is haywire, so’s my ability to organize. I’ve always been so good at remembering.’ She wanted to say, I’ve always shone at whatever I’ve turned my hand to, which would have been true.
She poked furiously at the scarves and belts and slammed the drawer shut, trapping a belt. There was another silence. ‘Jamie. I seem to have lost my will to do things,’ she said helplessly.
It was so uncharacteristic of Violet. In a flash, Jamie was on his feet and cradling her in his arms. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘having a baby, running a department and the home takes a toll. Your body is telling you to slow down, that’s all, just until you recoup your energies.’
‘You think?’
Jamie stared over Violet’s dark, glossy head to the New York landscape framed by the apartment window. ‘I know so.’
Violet stiffened. Before meeting her, Jamie had lived with Lara and her daughter, Jenny, for ten years. That meant he had ten years’ extra experience and nothing would ever alter this advantage. Violet’s competitive instinct was nettled. It was not so much that she had missed out on ten years at Jamie’s side, rather that she had launched herself into a relay race where she was forever condemned to the outside track. Whatever Violet did, however fast she ran, Jamie was pounding away on the inside track.
She leant against Jamie’s cashmere-clad shoulder. Then she pulled back and stared into his face. I want to read you, she thought to herself. I want to gather up what is you. But I can’t.
Under her scrutiny, Jamie’s eyebrows lifted a fraction and Violet was swept by desolation for she was failing to grasp something important, and she did not know what. She reached up and pulled his head down and gave him one of her soft, dry kisses on the lips which he said he always found incredibly erotic. ‘Thanks, Jamie.’
A howl from the second bedroom made her jump. The howl increased and Violet folded her arms across her stomach and tightened her mouth. ‘I can’t, Jamie. He was only fed a couple of hours ago. I just can’t.’
Jamie pushed his wife gently away. ‘You stay there and I’ll bring him in.’
As it was fashionably situated - they had agreed on fashion over comfort - the apartment was tiny and, thus, Jamie was back thirty seconds later. He held a squalling Edward out to Violet. Reluctantly, she accepted him. The baby was red and furious, and the rash sprayed over his face appeared embossed into his skin.
‘Oh, baby,’ said Violet, angry at his thoughtlessness. ‘How could you?’
‘I’ll get you a cup of tea,’ said Jamie.
Edward smelt and it was a toss-up between enduring the crying or the smell. The second option was easier. Violet forced herself to hold the baby and, hating herself for hating him, dragged up the front of her designer jersey and allowed him to latch on. Silence broke over the room, the kind when the breath hisses out in release.
Jamie came back with a tray and gave her a mug. With her free hand, Violet engineered it to her lips but, worried about dropping hot tea on the baby, only managed an unsatisfactory sip. Even having a cup of tea was an effort, these days. The biscuits remained on the saucer. Officially, she ignored them but unofficially their sweet and infinitely desirable image burnt a hole in her stomach.
Edward made satisfied sounds. Bully for him, she thought. She was sucked dry, an arid, slackened arrangement of tubes and organs, no longer pumping sweet juices but bile. The baby’s mouth at her breast tugged and worried her flesh with the arrogance of complete possession. Violet looked down at the incubus that had recast her life, and tried not to hate him for his being hideous with spots, because he had made her hideous and her clothes did not fit, and because she was stretched to screaming point by sleeplessness and the scars from her stitches still hurt.
Nobody had warned Violet.
What shall I do? she thought with real panic. A baby and leaving New York. Can’t we turn the clock back, Jamie? she asked him silently. Why are you making us go back home?
It had been four hugely exciting years. Of all the great, glorious metropolitan cities to choose from in the world, New York was Violet’s. She had made herself there, and the pulse-beat of urban life thudding day and night thudded in time to hers.
New York suited her brand of goo
d looks, her sharp, smart shrewdness, and applauded the terrier quality that made Violet excel in the rights department of a publishing conglomerate.
‘I know, I know,’ Jamie had said four months ago when he told Violet that the American arm of the bank was being scaled down because of the recession. He knelt in front of the white sofa where she had been sitting. ‘But I’m going back to a good job.’
Violet had not moved. ‘What about my job?’ she had asked him. ‘Can’t you get another one over here?’ In reply, Jamie had gently splayed his fingers over her pregnant stomach. ‘There are other things,’ he said.
‘Evidently not for you,’ she spat at him. ‘Your job comes first.’
Edward continued to feed at her breast as though his life depended on it which, of course, it did. She placed a thumb on his chin and, with a sound of released vacuum, Edward was forced to relinquish the nipple. Face averted, Violet held him up against her shoulder and waited. After he had belched into her ear, she transferred him to the other breast.
A future of eternal broken nights, feeds, milk dripping down her shoulder and an enlarged stomach - almost worse than anything — was visited on Violet. It seemed so awful, and she felt so desperate that she bent her head over the baby and cried. Afterwards, she took Edward into his room to change his nappy.
She had taken infinite pains with the room - more pains, Jamie had commented wickedly, than she had with the baby. It had had to be blue and white, ordered, stacked with white towels, clean-smelling and resolutely non-adult. As with most things, Violet achieved her aim and by the time the nursery was finished it was a strong candidate for Interiors magazine.
That was before Edward was born and cotton-wool balls had migrated like starlings across the floor and the snowy towels had acquired indelible marks.
Violet pushed back a lock of hair which fell stylishly on to her cheek - the haircut by Kelvin requiring a bank loan. The cut was terrific with the power-suit but irritating at home. Skewering Edward to the changing mat with one hand, she felt in her pocket for a kirby-grip and jammed it into her hair. Edward whinged.
Perfect Love Page 2
