by Sue Gee
‘President Clinton disait ce matin que les Etats-Unis sont encore préparé d’utiliser des armes si c’est nécessaire …’
‘The UN doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job,’ said Harriet, listening, picturing the fall of American bombs on mountain strongholds.
Susanna shook her head. ‘It’s almost impossible …’ She ground in sea salt and black pepper.
Harriet, half-watching, half-listening, said, ‘We haven’t talked about any of this, have we? I’ve just been a tourist all day. In London I think about it more.’
‘Of course. You’re on holiday here.’
‘Yes, but –’ She finished her tea, and sat thinking. ‘I imagined that once I’d crossed the Channel it would all be upon me – well, I suppose it will be, as we travel. I feel hermetically sealed from world events here somehow, even though Brussels is a sort of nerve centre –’
‘It’s half-asleep. Like me.’ Susanna gave one last stir, turned the flame right down, and looked in the fridge. She took out tomatoes and mushrooms in plastic boxes, and peeled off the cellophane. ‘I find it difficult to concentrate on the news. Hugh has an update every fifteen minutes – if Clinton sneezes it’s on the office screen before he’s got his handkerchief out, but I – of course I try to keep up with things, but sometimes –’
Harriet looked at hard red clean tomatoes, spotless white mushrooms. Like them, the kitchen was immaculate, pale grey worktops and cupboard doors without a finger mark, plates shining, every cup on its hook.
She thought: You don’t work, and it’s too much of an effort to take in the news. If I had not begun, today, to understand you, I should be dismissing you. And I only begin to understand because you dropped your guard – uncontrollably, in a way most people hardly ever do.
How often did that happen? What did most people make of Susanna? Who did she talk to? Who were her friends?
She said: ‘Susanna, do you mind if I ask you –’ and then there were sounds from out in the corridor: a key in the lock, the door opening. They heard Marsha, running out excitedly, and Hugh’s voice, and another voice, and more than one briefcase dropping to the floor. They looked at each other.
‘Oh.’ Susanna frowned. ‘He’s brought this man – he’s already with him. I thought –’
Then Hugh was in the kitchen, which all at once felt small and cramped, and full of dolls’furniture, as he – looking also much smaller, with a subdued Marsha beside him – introduced the man who was having this effect on everything.
‘Susanna, my wife – Christopher Pritchard – my sister, Harriet Pickering – Marsha, my niece.’
Christopher Pritchard held out an enormous hand to each of them, and even his smile seemed loud. He was six foot two, perhaps even taller; he was overweight; he wore a creased linen jacket and trousers which also looked in need of a press. Dark straight hair flopped across a broad forehead; his skin was open-pored, with a faint sheen of sweat, a shadow of stubble. A narrow crimson tie was loose at the neck: he loosened it further, revealing to Harriet’s critical gaze a missing button.
‘Okay if I smoke?’
‘Of course …’ Susanna opened a cupboard and passed him an ashtray; Hugh was getting out cans of beer from the fridge.
‘Mind, darling –’ He gestured to Marsha, who shrank. She moved behind the counter where Susanna had been chopping and made a face at Harriet. Harriet looked away.
‘Well,’ said Christopher Pritchard, inhaling deeply, ‘it’s good to be here and meet you all. I’ve been looking forward to this.’ He coughed, and flicked ash into the ashtray. Some of it missed.
Hugh handed Christopher can and glass. ‘Nice to see you again, too. Harriet, what will you have? Shall we go and –’
‘Yes,’ said Susanna, somewhat to the air. ‘Why don’t you all go and have a drink while I –’ She gestured at the vegetables, the room. ‘And I must change …’
‘Must you?’ asked Christopher Pritchard. ‘You look pretty good to me.’
She gave a careful smile. ‘That’s kind of you, but –’
‘I think,’ said Hugh, moving towards the door with a tray, ‘I think we’ll go through, shall we, Christopher?’
Christopher inhaled, dropping the lighter back in his crumpled pocket. ‘Sure.’ He looked at Harriet. ‘You joining us?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ignoring Marsha’s wild grimacing. ‘I’ll just give Susanna a hand for a minute.’
‘Okay, good.’ He put an enormous arm round Hugh’s shoulder. ‘Well leave the ladies to it while we catch up, then.’
‘We’re not ladies,’ Marsha blurted out with scorn.
‘So-rry.’ He flicked ash somewhere. Marsha flushed. ‘You’re a bit of a little madam, aren’t you?’
There was another, ghastly silence, as Harriet felt these phrases land in the room and roll around on the floor like marbles. She wanted to grind them underfoot.
‘What’s a madam?’ Marsha demanded.
‘Marsha –’ Hugh’s, Susanna’s and Harriet’s voices, in tones ranging from the soothing to the severe, descended in unison upon her head. She hung it, scarlet-faced and furious.
‘It’s okay.’ Hugh patted her shoulder. ‘Go and get a Coke or something from the fridge. Now. Christopher.’ He led him firmly from the room.
‘Must just go to the bog,’ said Christopher, as the door swung to behind him.
They looked at each other.
‘He’s awful,’ hissed Marsha. ‘He’s awful.’
‘Have a drink,’ said Susanna, passing her, as suggested, a Coke from the fridge.
Marsha tore at the aluminium ring and tipped the can up into a glass. ‘Sexist,’ she muttered, drinking. ‘He’s sexist and horrible.’ Bubbles went up her nose and she sneezed. Ash from the ashtray flew into the air. She pushed it violently away. ‘A bully. And he smokes.’
‘All right, all right.’ Harriet removed the ashtray and swept its contents into the bin. She felt completely at home, she realised, doing this: extraordinary how being one day ahead of a new arrival could anchor you. Particularly an arrival such as Christopher had proved to be. Marsha was right: he was pretty awful. She straightened up, wondering if he had this effect on everyone. If so – She said, ‘Even if you don’t like him, you can’t behave like that, it’s terribly rude.’
‘He was rude.’
Harriet gave up.
‘I don’t think he meant to be,’ said Susanna. The last of the vegetables and herbs had gone into the pan; she wiped the chopping board and returned it to its place on the worktop, leaned against it, pushing her hair back. ‘I think perhaps he’s just a bit shy –’
‘Oh, sure.’ Marsha rolled her eyes to the heavens, as Harriet, recalling ancient Flanders and Swann songs played on their first gramophone when she and Hugh were small, suddenly heard herself sing:
‘He’s shy, he’s shy,
He’s really terribly shy …’
Marsha, who knew this one, joined in, so that when Hugh pushed the door open, coming back for nuts, he found the two of them in stitches, Susanna watching in amusement. He looked from one to the other, smiling; he took packets of cashews and pistachios out of the drawer.
‘Hey,’ said Marsha, ‘can I have some? We only have peanuts at home.’
He tossed her a packet. ‘Share the joke?’ he asked mildly, tipping them into a bowl.
Harriet thought: He’s probably pleased to see Susanna relaxing. So am I. She felt a wave of affection for both of them saying: ‘Nothing, just –’ and nodded towards the open door, the absent Christopher.
Hugh said, sotto voce: ‘I shouldn’t take too much notice, I think he’s just a bit shy.’
They held their sides.
Supper, at Marsha’s request, was to be in the dining room. Susanna,
heaping broken meringue, frozen raspberries, redcurrants and cream into layers in a snow-white bowl, reminded her that they only ever used it for formal dinners.
‘But you’re not going to have one of them while we
’re here, are you?’ Marsha licked a finger and pressed up crumbs of meringue from the worktop.
‘No, thank God.’ The last spoonful of cream dropped into the bowl; Susanna slid it into the fridge. ‘You’ll be ill,’ said Harriet, seeing Marsha lick the spoon. ‘We’ve been eating all day.’
‘And walking.’ Marsha held the spoon under the tap, and turned it on, too hard. Water fanned into the spoon and sprayed everywhere. ‘Help. Sorry.’ She turned it off. ‘Please,’ she said to Susanna, brushing her wet T-shirt. ‘It looks so special in there, we never have meals anywhere like that at home.’
‘Oh, all right, if it makes you happy. Christopher can be the excuse.’
‘And we can lay the table,’ said Harriet. ‘You go and join the men.’
‘Yes, I must. But don’t worry, I’ll do the table, I know where everything is.’
Harriet protested. Susanna insisted. They should go to the drawing room; she’d join them in a few minutes. They did as they were told. She’s powerful, thought Harriet, taking Marsha down the corridor, with a bottle of wine, hearing Susanna, in the dining room, slide open drawers. She falls apart but she never lets go of the reins. Are all her guests made impotent? What happens on other people’s territory?
She led Marsha into the drawing room: the men rose.
Christopher, his back to the open balcony doors, glass and cigarette in hand, looked as though he had unwound a little. The sheen of sweat had gone, he had brushed his hair, and standing here now, in the context of this beautiful, well-arranged room, he looked less disorderly than raffishly eccentric. Actually, she realised, greeting the two of them, he had presence, and not just because of his size. It was hard to know yet what qualities might redeem his earlier crassness, but she sensed, suddenly, that they might be there.
Marsha made straight for Hugh’s side. Harriet, not wishing to line up in a row of three opposite Christopher, but feeling, just for a moment, socially disconnected, found herself hovering.
‘Please,’ said Christopher, gesturing to the sofa. She went to sit beside him. He stubbed out his cigarette, which was only half smoked, and drained his glass.
‘We’ve been reliving the distant past,’ Hugh told her.
‘Is this wise?’
‘Rather enjoyable.’ Christopher shifted on the sofa, crossing his legs. ‘Not many people I’m in touch with now with whom I can share my memories of those happy days.’
‘Were they happy?’
He shrugged. ‘There were moments. We survived.’
‘Made us the men we are today,’ said Hugh drily, refilling his glass.
‘Quite.’ Christopher lit another cigarette, and Harriet noticed a tremor in his hand as he did so, and leaned back. Inhaling deeply, he looked up for a moment at Susanna’s portrait – pale hair, bare arms, silk dress – at the softness of the brush strokes, the remoteness of the gaze.
‘That’s rather fine.’ He went on smoking, and looking. ‘Who’s the painter?’
‘A friend.’
‘Mmm.’ He looked back at Hugh.
Hugh made a gesture towards the bowl of nuts: Marsha leaned forward beside him, and helped herself.
‘Are you married?’ she asked Christopher abruptly.
‘Marsha …’ Harriet gave her a look.
‘Divorced,’ said Christopher flatly, drinking.
Marsha looked into the bowl again, embarrassed. She fingered the nuts, picking out pistachios.
‘Not a problem,’ he said easily, kindly, even. ‘And I’m sorry if I got up your nose just now – in the kitchen. Had a long hot day at the office.’
She blushed. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Tell me about your school. What’s it like?’
‘It’s nice.’
‘A far cry from what we had, I can tell you that,’ said Hugh. ‘Sounds like a holiday camp.’
Marsha kicked him with a trainered foot.
‘Much prep?’ asked Christopher.
She looked blank.
‘Homework.’
‘Oh. No, not really.’
‘What do you do after school?’
‘See my friends.’
‘Lucky you. Remember prep, Hugh? Remember those quiet hours under eagle eyes in the Upper Fourth? The scratch of the nib and the rumble of the half-starved stomach?’
‘How could I forget?’
Harriet noted Christopher’s phrasing, which was pleasing, and pictured, as she drank, high windows, bent heads, legs in grey socks swinging beneath the desk, footsteps over the floorboards to sharpen a pencil. The sounds of boys down at the cricket nets drifted in through an open window; church bells rang across the moors. There was all that. It was ordered, it was peaceful, it was what her parents must have envisaged and hoped for, and it had, no doubt, contained such nourishing hours. It had also, she felt certain, contained times as painful and lonely, in their way, as anything Lucy Snowe had experienced during the long vacation in Villette. And she saw, as Hugh refilled her glass, and she listened to their exchange of groans and laughter at the names of particular masters, particular boys, one boy waiting for another on a darkened stairway, pulling him into an empty classroom, closing the door.
And then?
He was a bit of a bully, Hugh had said lightly of Christopher, and shrugged when asked if he himself had been a victim. Looking at the two of them now, reacquainting themselves with the past and with each other, it was hard to believe that their relationship had ever been one in which Hugh had not been in control. He was the host, he was the well-mannered listener. He was also rich and successful, and no one coming upon them now, seeing him laughing, pouring drinks, smiling with affection at his niece, would make a connection with a distant, disturbed little boy who did not know how to talk to people. He had found his place in the world.
And his wife wept in public places, and they could not have children.
‘Supper,’ said Susanna, appearing in the doorway. She had changed into a pale green dress; dull pewter earrings shone softly, like shells, beneath her hair.
Christopher rose.
They smiled at each other.
No, thought Harriet, all of a sudden. No, please no.
They made their way to the dining room.
In the last of the evening light at the window, the polished table shone. This room was at the back, on the darker side of the building.
‘Hugh tells me you’re en route to Prague,’ said Christopher, breaking his roll into pieces. He helped himself to a quantity of butter. ‘Summer hols?’
‘Yes,’ said Harriet briskly.
‘Been there before?’
‘No, never, but –’
‘Wonderful city. A dream. Crawling with tourists now, of course, as no doubt you know. Most visited city in Europe – ruining the place. All eating McDonalds and patronising the massage parlours. Like the Czechs. Still, why not? After forty years of being told what they couldn’t have, people should be given what they want. And if that’s trash and junk food and pornography, too bad, don’t you think? Hope I’m not putting you off. Have you got any connections? Know anyone there?’
‘Well – sort of.’ She was treading carefully, unwilling to share anything of herself with this man.
Christopher held out his glass to Hugh, who was settling everyone in with an opened bottle. ‘Thanks.’ He turned to Harriet again. ‘You must let me give you a few tips – I know Prague pretty well by now, I’m beginning to make a bit of an impact.’
‘Doing what, exactly? Hugh’s told me a little, but –’
‘Selling.’ He took a mouthful of roll. ‘I’m a born salesman, I’m afraid.’
‘Why should you be afraid?’
‘Just that you look a bit high-minded.’
Harriet ignored this. ‘What do you sell?’
‘Pretty well anything. In the more desperate moments of my youth it was encyclopaedias. In London I was a commodity broker for quite a while, with a special interest in Eastern Europe.’
‘Oh?�
�
‘Speculating on futures in Yugoslavian bauxite and Bulgarian tomato juice, that sort of thing. Yugoslavia’s not exactly the place to do business now, of course, poor bastards, and anyway – I got my fingers burned, in ways we won’t go into.’ He was talking compulsively, hurriedly – as if, she realised, he really wasn’t quite used to conversations with women. Or perhaps that was nonsense, perhaps he always steamrollered on in this way.
He took a mouthful of cucumber soup, disturbing a gentle pool of cream and chopped chives.
‘So, I came here, and set up my own show, using the old contacts. But I specialise a bit now – raw materials for paints and plastics, mostly. Polymers, resins. Buy here, sell there, or vice versa – they need practically anything I can get them, I’m delighted to say. I’m a pragmatist, only too happy to give people what they want. Mind you, competition’s pretty fierce – the whole of Western Europe has its mitts in Eastern Europe these days, doesn’t it? Do you know anyone who isn’t opening up a branch in Bratislava?’
‘I don’t know anyone who’s opening up a branch anywhere,’ said Harriet, carefully tipping her shallow soup plate away from her, and keeping half an eye on Marsha. ‘I don’t know if that says more about the recession or my limited acquaintance with the world of commerce.’
‘No doubt the latter. I told you, you look high-minded. What do you do?’
‘Teach.’
‘Bad luck.’
‘It’s not so bad.’
‘Isn’t it? What sort of school?’
‘A large west London comprehensive. I’m the head of history.’
‘God, how frightful.’
Harriet put down her soup spoon and looked at him.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Only joking. Must be a bit dreary, though, isn’t it?’
‘No more dreary,’ she said tartly, ‘than selling tins of paint, or whatever it is you do.’
‘Touche.’ Christopher had finished his soup. He licked a finger and pressed up crumbs of roll from his plate.
‘I hope,’ said Hugh, with mild authority, from the top of the table, ‘that there is no disharmony among my guests.’ He turned to Susanna. ‘That was delicious.’
