When I Was Otherwise

by Stephen Benatar

  And in fact it suddenly occurred to her. This whole affair was so exciting…why even wait until tomorrow? Why should they still abide by ordinary rules of day and night? They could make up their own rules as they went along.

  Surely?

  50

  Dan wasn’t asleep—which was fortunate since she certainly wouldn’t have wished to arouse him, new guidelines or not. “I wondered if you’d like a cup of tea?” she offered. Her planning had revitalized her to such an extent she would have cooked him a full meal if he had wanted one.

  “Who is it?” he asked, momentarily shielding his eyes from the glare. Then he started pushing back the bedclothes and was about to get up.

  She noticed his flannel nightshirt had a tear beneath one arm.

  “No, no, Dan, you stay where you are, darling. It isn’t morning yet. I just felt like a chat. May I sit?”

  She perched herself on the edge of the bed.

  “You’re dressed,” he said.

  She gave an automatic glance down and answered in a tone of faint surprise. “So I am.”

  “Then has the doctor been again?”

  “Oh, no, my love. Do you like this dress? I think it rather suits me.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I told you, darling. Daisy is going to be fine. She’ll be up and about in no time.”

  “Really?”

  “She’s going to be fine,” Marsha repeated, with several energetic nods. “We’ve got to be very careful, though.”

  He looked at her enquiringly.

  “Yes. You see, some people might get the idea it was all our fault, the fact she fell downstairs. I mean, some evil-minded old busybody pushing his nose in where it wasn’t wanted. They might say the accident was all our fault. Or rather they might say…”

  “Yes?”

  “That it was all your fault.”

  “Mine?”

  “Because you were the one on the telephone, weren’t you? Don’t you remember now? You said Daisy must have thought you were speaking to the doctor?”

  “Was it the doctor who said that it was my fault?”

  “Well, I’m afraid that, yes, darling, it was. But who cares? I know it wasn’t your fault. Don’t feel bad about it. The only point is—if the doctor does come back you mustn’t let him in.” She told him this twice. “Do you understand me?”

  “Why? What would the doctor do?”

  “Take you away, perhaps.”

  “Take me away? I wouldn’t want to go. I’d tell him it wasn’t my fault. I’d tell him it wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

  “Yet he mightn’t believe you. He might say it’s always somebody’s fault.”

  “Where would he want to take me?”

  “Oh. I don’t know. Maybe some kind of hospital.”

  “To prison?”

  “But you don’t want to go with him anywhere. Do you, Dan? You just want to stay here at home with me. With Daisy and me.”

  “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  “So, then. Just remember that you mustn’t open the door.”

  He pondered this. “But how will I know if it’s him or not?”

  “There’s a very easy answer to that. Don’t open the door to anyone. Not ever. That’s definitely the best policy.”

  The best policy. She savoured the phrase. She enjoyed it.

  “Try always to think of people, Dan, as being our enemies. You see, everyone wants to worm out our secrets. We don’t want them worming out our secrets, do we? Because they are all such horrid and uncaring busybodies. Can you understand that, darling?”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes. That way we shan’t make any mistakes; we shan’t ever get muddled. That way we shan’t fall into any cunning traps.”

  “But supposing the doctor just wants to bring us Daisy’s medicine?”

  “Daisy’s already had her medicine.”

  She added:

  “What she needs now is aspirin. Lots and lots of aspirin.”

  She told him then about her hopes and schemes for the future. It took her a long time. She told him in detail and she wanted to make sure he realized all the benefits.

  “You remember that grocery shop I had when I was five? You were always my favourite customer. You used to be so patient. You’d ask me questions about each item on the shelves, where it came from and what it was good for, various things like that, and I’d put my hands on my hips and have to go through my patter yet again, telling you how stupid you were but really loving every minute! So now, Dan, it will be just like playing grocery shops again, as though we were still at Ashford, you and me and Henry. And Mademoiselle.”

  “I remember Mademoiselle.” He laughed. His face took on a faraway expression.

  “Except—instead of Henry—there’ll be Daisy.”

  “She was very pretty, wasn’t she?”

  Marsha shrugged and smiled and let him reminisce.

  “I only saw her at weekends,” he said. “I had to go off travelling during the week. You know, I had this dream we’d marry if I was ever able to earn enough. We’d have lots of children and live in a grand château. She wanted to be a nurse. I wonder what became of her.”

  “Yes, that’s right. That’s right. A nurse…”

  But Marsha’s air of indulgence slowly underwent a change.

  “A nurse,” she said. “In France. During the Great War.”

  She paused and for an instant bit her lip.

  “She told us Andrew wanted to marry her. That was a lie. That was a horrid, horrid lie.”

  “I took her to the pictures once. We saw The Affairs of Anatol.”

  “However, I do believe this much. She absolutely ruined my life. If it hadn’t been for her I’d still be married to him. Yes! Perhaps it wouldn’t have been ideal; I’m not saying it would have been ideal, exactly, but all the same…”

  “More than once. Another time we saw a Charlie Chaplin film. I think there was a Pearl White serial on as well.”

  “I’m not nearly as stupid as she supposes.”

  “She was tied to the railway track…”

  “And she’s never once, you know, never once said she was sorry.”

  They nodded at one another. Companionably.

  “Tomorrow, good and early, you must go to the bank,” she said. “Shall I come with you? We’ll be safe—much safer—the two of us together.”

  “Safe,” said Dan.

  “Safe. And maybe I should bring along the toilet brush. For extra protection.”

  He looked puzzled. The greater part of his mind remained with Mademoiselle. With Gloria Swanson, Charlie Chaplin, and The Perils of Pauline.

  “No, that was just my little joke,” she explained.

  He’d also been to see Charlie Chaplin in Colchester, on his very first date with Erica. He wanted to lie down again, in the dark, to think quietly about that.

  He gave a yawn.

  “Oh, what a great big sleepy boy!” Her mind, equally, was still on other things: what lay ahead tomorrow. She arranged his covers and kissed his cheek. “Yes, I’m feeling sleepy, too.”

  “It is going to be all right, isn’t it?”

  “Of course it is. Like a storybook.”

  “I wish Erica were here.”

  “Yes. I know, dear. But Marsha will take care of you.”

  “And I did what Erica asked, didn’t I? ‘Please be kind to Daisy,’ she said the day before she died. ‘And may God forgive me for not having tried to understand her better and even to love her a little.’ ‘God will forgive you,’ I replied. And I really knew he would—especially if I invited Daisy to come and live with us. If I offered her a home.”

  Marsha had been told this before. Well, it was easy enough for Erica, she had thought, the first time she had heard it. After all, Erica had been about to die.

  “But I really didn’t want her to have this accident,” said Dan. “I really didn’t mean to try to send her away. I’m sure that nobody would think it was my fault.”


  “They’d have no right to, at any rate.”

  She bent and kissed him again; then went to the door and switched off the light. Dan settled down once more.

  On the landing Marsha heard Daisy’s groaning. It seemed to be getting louder. She didn’t want to go back to her. But neither did she want to be on her own. She felt frightened.

  She undressed where she stood near the staircase, dropping her clothes all round her. She reopened the door she had just closed, walked back to the bed, got in on Erica’s side and laid her arm lightly across Dan’s chest.

  “Erica?” said Dan, drowsily.

  Marsha said: “Happy dreams. Sweet repose. Half the bed and all the clothes.”

  51

  Perhaps the very nicest thing, Marsha found, about this period of her life was that Joan and Beryl got back in touch with her. Nobody else telephoned but one or other of those two was always on the line, spending ever greater portions of each day gossiping about this and that and talking over old times—well, old times now were just like new times—so that she often had to scold them, laughingly, for preventing her from getting on with the housework and for making her so lazy. “Oh, it’s all very well for the likes of you!” she’d say. “You may have nothing else to do. You may both be ladies of leisure…!” And, indeed, they probably were: Joan no longer worked in the film studios and had lost her second husband, tragically, to cancer; while Beryl too was now alone, having gone through all the miseries of a divorce, of being deserted for another woman. Well, naturally enough, Marsha could sympathize with her over that. She didn’t mind their having neglected her so long. They had come back when they needed her; that was what mattered; and not just good times, but really good times, were reestablished. Paradise regained…she thought there’d been a book called that. And all those lovely long evenings in Paddington Street now returned with a vengeance—for this time she really appreciated them—especially after Joan (or was it Beryl?) managed to contrive a three-way telephone system and they could all talk to each other at the same time, which was glorious. No wonder that she got so little of her work done! But then of course, she had forgotten, it didn’t need doing. And, oh, how they laughed, how they talked about the things that were important! “I shouldn’t think,” said Malcolm, “that you’d come across many ordinary homes in which you’d get three such pretty women who spend so much time together.” How Beryl, still, was always popping out to Uncle with the brooch that Raymond never missed. How Joan, still, was always dashing out upon that frantic last-minute shopping expedition to buy a birthday card. (Weren’t there some discrepancies here? Were there? Well, never mind.) It was a lovely thing to have happen to you when you had thought your life was over and there was nothing more to look forward to. Dan might complain that she was always on the telephone but that was only his jealousy, poor thing. She had to be so kind to him. He indeed had not been blessed with friends. How many people had? She often said it, though: she had been blessed with friends: and she, truly, must be amongst the very luckiest of mortals.

  52

  As the weeks went by, Marsha spent more and more time sitting with Daisy. Even at night she often felt reluctant to leave her.

  “Why?” asked Dan.

  “Because you have to keep an eye on her. You just do. Otherwise you never know what kind of mischief she might be getting up to. I had to find out the hard way, of course. Well, she doesn’t get a second chance! Not with me here and watching her every move! Oh, no!”

  “What sort of mischief?”

  “Oh, do you really need to be told that? Flirting. Trying to steal other women’s husbands. And not caring one scrap about who she hurts in the process. Just doing it for the hell of it. For the thrill of the chase.”

  She turned back to Daisy.

  “And after you get what you want you don’t want it! They could give you the moon; you’d grow tired of it soon. No, they should have called you Jezebel. You’re nothing but a painted trollop.”

  But she remembered that Bette Davis had played in Jezebel and she hadn’t been nearly wicked enough, oh no, not nearly. Right up to the end, you see, you’d wanted her to win back Henry Fonda.

  Yet there were other reasons why she was reluctant to leave. Along with retribution Marsha wanted forgiveness; and she hoped all the time for moments of renewed intimacy that might be a sure sign of her getting it.

  Also, to be truthful, she wasn’t always certain where day ended and night began. And even when she did know, it was often something of an effort to get up from her chair and to go through all that paraphernalia of getting ready for bed. It was easier to stay put. Dan didn’t seem to mind where she slept. It was possible he didn’t even notice.

  Sometimes he called her Erica.

  One night, for instance, he shouted up the stairs to her: “Erica! Erica! Why is it so dark? Why don’t the lights work?” He would ask this regularly although not always at the same hour. “Is there a piece of cake anywhere?”

  Marsha, sitting close to Daisy, heard his voice but not what he was saying. With a weary and impatient sigh she dragged herself to her feet and picked up the candle. She went out on the landing and answered him from there.

  “What is it now for heaven’s sake?”

  “What?”

  “What do you want?”

  He repeated his three questions in precisely the same words and with precisely the same intonation.

  “You know as well as I do why the lights don’t work. You haven’t been paying any of the bills. Have you?”

  “Well, that isn’t my fault,” he said at last, sulkily, when he had grasped her meaning.

  “Did I say it was? I think you’ve got a very guilty conscience! And, no, there isn’t any cake. There hasn’t been any cake for ages. But there may be a packet of biscuits somewhere; look in the loo; go down on your hands and knees and feel around in the dark, but whatever you do don’t take a candle. You know you can’t be trusted not to set the house on fire.”

  He mumbled something that she didn’t hear.

  “And then go to bed why don’t you? It’s getting late. In fact, too late!”

  “Too late for what?”

  “And don’t let the bugs bite!”

  “I don’t want to go to bed,” he answered. He spoke as petulantly as she did. “And I’m feeling cold!” This was delivered like some kind of ultimatum.

  “Then put your cardigan on.”

  “It is on. I think.”

  “Your overcoat then. What is the matter with you? Do I have to supervise your every movement?”

  He turned this sharp interrogation aside; replaced it with an equally aggrieved one of his own.

  “And why’s there nothing on the wireless? Are the wireless people still on strike?”

  “Yes, yes. I suppose so.” It was by far the easier.

  He shambled back into the lounge, feeling sometimes with his hands, sometimes with his feet, but grumbling all the way. “Nothing works in this house. Nothing ever works. And you can never find a single thing you want. It’s all rubbish—rubbish. Rubbish!” he said defiantly, kicking some of it out of his path.

  She didn’t really hear, which he had partly been counting on in any case. She thought he must be asking for food again. He was always saying he was hungry.

  “You’re too fat!” she shouted after him. “Fat, fat, fat!”

  Hardly a day went by when she didn’t call him fat.

  “I am not!”

  “Then when,” she would ask, “when did you last see yourself in a mirror? Of course, I can tell you when it wasn’t. It wasn’t when you were shaving!”

  He had a three months’ growth of beard. It was seldom washed and he was always picking at it.

  “The mirrors are all smeary,” he’d said on one occasion.

  “Well, you could wipe them, I suppose? Or is that totally beyond you, something as difficult as that? Though, on second thoughts, you’d better not! You’d see how fat you are.”

  “And yo
u’d see how dirty your face is and how matted your hair! You used to say that I was built for running. Like a whippet.”

  “I never said that. Not once in my life!”

  “Then Daisy did. Perhaps Daisy did. Did you know there’s a big fat spider hanging over her? A big black hairy spider? On a great long stretchy thread? Did you know that?”

  “Of course I did. But she doesn’t mind. At least, she hasn’t said she does.”

  “Do you mind?”

  “No. I rather enjoy watching it. I enjoy wondering just how far it’s going to come. It’s beautiful, when you look at it up close.”

  “In the dark you can’t see it, though. Does it go away?”

  “Things change,” she said. “Things change.”

  Things did change.

  One morning they discovered that Daisy was dead.

  “Are we just going to leave her here?” asked Dan, picking up one of her hands and letting it flop back on the sheet.

  He did this several times.

  “Yes. Why not? And please stop doing that, Dan. Stop it! Why must you fidget? We don’t want to let anyone inside this house; we said that from the start. No undertakers. No snoops. And we can’t just toss her from the window, can we?”

  “We could bury her in the back garden. In the middle of the night.”

  “I want to keep her by me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she never really learned her lesson, did she? She never told me she was sorry.”

  “Well, she isn’t going to learn it now.”

  “We don’t know that. We hope, indeed, she will.”

  “She isn’t going to say she’s sorry. We do know that. We hope, indeed, she won’t!” He sounded almost cocky.

  Marsha ignored this. “Perhaps in time her mouth is going to turn up at the corners? She’ll smile. To show us how she’s meaning to apologize?”

  It occurred to her to take out Daisy’s dentures. The underside of either plate was coated in a slimy paste.

  “Here,” she said.