The Needle's Eye

by Margaret Drabble

  ‘Pay her hospital bills?’

  ‘No, no, that I wouldn’t have minded, it was worse than that. She wanted me to recommend her a solicitor and lend her the money to sue the girl who’d been driving the car. I couldn’t believe my ears. She told me some rigmarole about the insurance, and about how they’d only been covered for third parties, and I said, well, she must have known that, and if she didn’t she ought to have found out, and that if she didn’t bother about things like that and went around with people who didn’t bother then it was no good complaining later. And then I said, what do you want to sue her for, and she said damages, and I said what damages, and the truth was that there had been no expense involved at all, and she could hardly have said that she was suffering loss of wages because she’d never earned a penny in her life. I just couldn’t believe it. That anyone could be so vindictive. The girl was her friend, after all. How could one sue a friend?’

  ‘Some people would.’

  ‘Yes. But she wasn’t some people. She didn’t believe in insurance and litigation and lawyers and money.’

  ‘I suppose if she’d been seriously injured, she might have had a point?’

  ‘But she wasn’t seriously injured. She’d sprained her arm, that’s all. It hadn’t cost her a penny, so why should she want money for it?’

  ‘Did you lend her the money for the solicitor?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I refused. I even tried to ask her what she wanted the damages for, and she couldn’t think of a very good reason, and finally said, well, she had lost her holiday in Scotland, hadn’t she. So I pointed out that some people insure against that kind of thing, the kind of people she despises so much, and those that don’t can hardly complain. It was her attitude that upset me. It was so vindictive. She wanted something for nothing, and was annoyed when she couldn’t get it. And she expected me to sympathize with her. That’s what upset me most of all.’

  ‘Did she take it to a solicitor?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since. I don’t think that the girl who was driving could have been held responsible for the accident anyway, Charlotte said there wasn’t another car involved, she swerved to avoid a child and went into a wall. I expected at any moment to hear her say she was going to sue the child. She did mutter something about its parents. Don’t you think it’s shocking?’

  Yes, shocking, everyone agreed, and sighed, and then began to laugh, as they took note of the attitudes into which they had fallen: comfortable middle-aged people, sitting around in easy chairs drinking alcohol, deploring the wickedness of youth. But it was too late to stop, even though they had become aware of what they were doing, indulgently, recklessly, they went on with it, capping anecdote with anecdote, comparing the folly of one young person with the laziness of another, the venality of one with another’s parasitic idealism. Herbert Cookson had a good story about the son of a friend who had pawned the family silver: another man, whose presence Simon had hardly noticed until that moment, produced an account of a militant student of his who had sold out on all his following upon the offer of a job in a thinly disguised advertising agency, and Clare Cookson described a girl who had warmly advocated the liberation of women and the free-for-all sexual permissive society until she became pregnant, and had then, with equal self-righteousness, insisted that the man involved should marry her, because if he didn’t he would be an exploiter and profiteer. They laughed at these stories, aware that they shouldn’t really be allowing themselves to tell them: ‘But after all,’ said Clare Cookson, ‘we must get it off our chests once in a while, mustn’t we?’ And indeed, that is what they did: they exorcized, for the moment, the ghost of righteous youth, and ended up feeling much better for it, defending even Victoria’s ridiculous involvement – because she will, after all, said Simon, learn something from it, at least she cares, at least she tries to make sense of things.

  Only Rose seemed unappeased. Rose thought about the camel and the needle’s eye. What was the point of knowing what was right, if one didn’t then do it?

  ‘I must go home,’ said Rose, rising to her feet. ‘I really must get back to my baby-sitter.’

  Simon rose to his feet immediately, to offer her a lift, but he was too late: the other man, whose name he had never caught, forestalled him. He had not the confidence to insist, even though he thought that he saw Rose give him a look of dismay. A little encouraged by it, he followed her out into the hall, and under the cover of looking for Julie’s coat he managed to say that he would ring her in the morning. ‘Ringing won’t do,’ she said, ‘I must come and see you, I must come and see you.’

  ‘You’ll have to come to Chambers then,’ he said: and that was all they had time for before Julie joined them.

  When Rose got home, she found her baby-sitter Eileen had fallen asleep. Eileen had returned home: she had found her garage man and had been rejected by him. And there she sat, in Rose’s armchair, the baby in a carry-cot by her, snoring slightly, her heavy dark face slumped into misery. Rose could hardly face waking her, she so much dreaded her complaints: she had had to listen to her mother’s version endlessly. Mrs Sharkey was in despair about Eileen: she wouldn’t do a thing for herself or the baby, she wouldn’t even get up to feed it, she let it cry all night, when she changed it she dropped its nappies on the floor and left her mother to wash them. ‘What can I do?’ said Mrs Sharkey, ‘I can’t just leave them lying there, can I?’ ‘She’ll pick them up, surely,’ Rose had said, without much faith. Because the truth was, why ever should she pick them up, what for, ever? There she sat, nineteen, finished, excluded for ever from what she might want to be. She would never try to make the best of things, the gulf between her reality and her aspirations was total, and would remain so. They would drag on for ever, she and her mother: her mother making the best of things, because that was her nature, the daughter letting things go, because that was hers. She couldn’t even go to the bad, now, with a baby around: she’d done that already, and it hadn’t proved much fun. Her face was heavy, like the face of a middle-aged woman. Some people, thought Rose, thinking of Charlotte, aren’t even given a chance to betray themselves.

  She bustled around a bit, not wanting to wake Eileen more directly and after a moment or two Eileen jerked and came round. Rose was tired, she had enough of her own on her mind, but she had to listen for half an hour to Eileen’s complaints about her mother. She’d begun to think she’d have to get a job, just to get out of the house. That sounds a good idea, said Rose: but apparently it wasn’t, because her mother had refused to mind the baby during the day, and she couldn’t get it a place in a nursery. Anyway, said Eileen, she didn’t fancy any of the rotten jobs she could get: there was one serving in the Greek shop, but the shop stank and she couldn’t work there, and there was another one in the bedding factory but the hours were so long, and there really wasn’t anything else she could do. There must be something, said Rose. Oh, I suppose it’ll have to be the bedding factory, said Eileen: the nursery said it would take the baby when it was six months, but it would mean getting up at six thirty to walk it down there, because it was a long way.

  Rose could see that she had, in fact, faced the bedding factory. No wonder she looked depressed. What a terrible moment it is, the moment at which one abandons possibility. Gone was Eileen the wicked lady, driving around in taxis, wearing fur coats, drinking cocktails: gone was Eileen the make-up girl with false eyelashes and a pink overall: gone was Eileen the garage man’s girl, taking trips up the motorway in a fast car. Eileen picked up her baby, and sighed, and accepted a pound note. Her eyes were dark brown, soft, voluptuous: she looked at Rose with a profound reproach. Oh hell, thought Rose, get out of here, you lazy cow, before I offer to adopt that creature for you. For she accepted the reproach: there was no doubt about it, the glamour of her own example had done Eileen no good. The neighbouring thrill of publicity, the drama of violence, the excitement of divorce, all had helped to corrupt her. In the old days she had collected Rose’s press cuttings, had
borrowed her clothes, had come to take baths in her bath. (The Sharkeys had no bath: their house was on a controlled rent, and the landlord refused to spend a penny on it.) Christopher too had encouraged her, when she was fifteen: he had offered her cigarettes, drinks, rides in the car. I refuse to accept any responsibility, thought Rose, thereby accepting it. Get out, get out, get out, she thought. And Eileen went.

  The next morning, Simon sat and waited for Rose. There were other things he was doing as well, but principally he was waiting. She had rung his clerk at nine, to say she would be in later in the morning, and had been given an appointment for eleven thirty.

  She arrived upon the dot, and was shown in: she stood there in the doorway, looking round, clutching a folder of papers. She was trying to be sociable. What strange tasks she set herself.

  ‘So this is where you work,’ she said, gazing, at the desk, at the leather chairs, the oblong shapes of briefs and files and boxes, the red tape tied neatly round the white papers, the brown and red austere masculine outlines. She sat down, edgily. ‘What a nice room,’ she said.

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Well, yes, don’t you? What are those notices you have on the walls?’

  ‘Oh, this and that,’ he said, looking at the framed cuttings and handwritten messages. He did not like pictures. ‘Things that struck me,’ he said.

  She put her folder down on the desk, got up, and wandered over to the wall, and started to read one of the framed notices: it was an extract from a judgement by Lord Justice Scrutton, written in 1920, which Simon had copied out while at Oxford, and kept on his wall ever since. It said.

  … The habits you are trained in, the people with whom you mix, lead to your having a certain class of ideas of such a nature that, when you have to deal with other ideas, you do not give as sound and accurate judgements as you would wish. This is one of the great difficulties at present with Labour. Labour says, ‘Where are your impartial Judges? They all move in the same circles as the employers, and they are all educated and nursed in the same idiom as the employers. How can a Labour man or a trade unionist get impartial justice?’ It is very difficult sometimes to be sure that you have put yourself into a thoroughly impartial position between two disputants, one of your own class and one not of your class.

  Rose read it with attention. He was used to these delaying tactics in clients.

  ‘That’s good,’ she said, sitting down again. ‘That’s a good piece.’

  ‘That’s why I put it up.’

  ‘Who was Scrutton?’

  ‘A judge. A good judge.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He looked at her: she looked very worn. For some reason it seemed entirely natural for them to be sitting on opposite sides of his desk: it was as though the desk had always been there. It was his turn to speak, his initiative.

  ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Come on, now. It must be something.’

  She had extreme difficulty in speaking.

  ‘It’s this case,’ she said. ‘I can’t go on. I’ve had enough. I want to give up.’

  ‘What do you mean, you want to give up?’

  ‘I mean exactly that. I can’t go on with it.’

  He reflected.

  ‘But it’s not your case. It’s his. You can’t give it up. He would have to.’

  ‘But he won’t. That’s why I’ve got to.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘Yes, I can. I thought of a way. I could give him the children. That wouldn’t be illegal, would it? I could just say he could have them, and then he’d drop it, wouldn’t he, because there’d be no point in going on, would there? And if he had the children, and I didn’t claim them, then it would all be settled, wouldn’t it?’

  He was so startled by this extraordinary statement that he started to draw patterns on his blotting paper.

  ‘Well, it would, wouldn’t it?’ she repeated.

  Such possibilities crowded his head that he did not dare to look up: that she had gone mad, that she had never cared for the children anyway, that she had been plotting to get rid of them, that she was in collusion with Christopher for financial reasons. Finally, her silence forced him to speak.

  ‘But why ever should you do that?’ he said, at last.

  ‘Because I can’t bear to go on, I can’t bear it. I’ve been thinking of ways out of it. I’ve been thinking till my brain splits, and it’s the only answer. Don’t look like that at me, it’s the only answer. They’ll be all right with him, he is their father, and I could see them sometimes, maybe, he’d let me see them.’

  ‘But why on earth,’ he said, collecting himself, ‘why on earth have you decided this so suddenly? It’s impossible, you know, it’s quite out of the question, but it’s such an amazing thing even to think of.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, it’s everything altogether, it’s not sudden really, I’ve been trying to train myself to face it, but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t – and then yesterday the solicitors sent me a copy of Christopher’s affidavit, and it’s so horrible, it’s so horrible …’

  She pushed it over the desk, and covered her face with her hands. Through her hands she muttered, ‘I know you saw Christopher, Emily told me, I know what he must have said to you, I know why you didn’t ring me. I’ve made my mind up, I’ve written myself off. I must learn to give up, I must learn to give up. It’s so hard, it’s so hard, but there’s no other way. He is their father, after all, and I know it, I know that he’s sane and I’m mad, so what else can I say, what else can I do? I’m leaving, I’m leaving the country.’

  ‘You can’t, you can’t,’ he said.

  ‘Why can’t I?’

  ‘Because of the children, you must think of them.’

  ‘Look,’ she said, suddenly, sitting upright, taking her hands away from her face, staring at him wildly, ‘look, it’s no good, I’m not going on with that case. I renounce it. I refuse. I’ve committed enough crimes. I can’t go through with this one.’

  ‘But Rose, my dear girl, Rose, you’re in the right, you silly woman, it’s not you that’s committing a crime, it’s him if it’s anyone, you’re simply defending yourself, it’s not a crime to defend yourself.’

  ‘It is, it is,’ she said, her voice unpitched, screeching, ‘it is a crime, I can’t do it.’ She rose to her feet, and started to walk up and down. ‘I can’t do it. I must give in, I must give in or die, I know it. There is no right and wrong. Go on, read his affidavit, read it.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ he said. ‘Look, Rose, calm down,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,’ she said, still pacing.

  ‘I don’t want to read it,’ he said, ‘because I trust you. Look, I may not know you well, but I know you well enough. Of course there are two sides to every question, and I’m quite well aware that your husband’s solicitors will have made out a good case for him, that’s their job, after all, but there’s no need for me to believe it, or for anyone.’

  ‘But I believe it,’ she said, pausing, turning on him. ‘I believe it, that’s the point, he’s right, he’s right. I’m a hopeless mother, I know I am, I’m mean and mad and selfish, he’s right about me, how can I defend myself when he’s right?’

  ‘Now look, Rose. Sit down. Please sit down. There, that’s right. Now listen. I know enough about you to know that you are a perfectly adequate mother. And also I know enough about Christopher to know that he’s a dangerous man, he’s got it all worked out, he knows how to get you, I can see that – but you mustn’t listen to him. No judge would listen to him. It doesn’t exist, this case. It’s ridiculous, I can’t bear to see you in such a state about a case that doesn’t exist. When I think of the cases that some people have to answer, and they do it, you can believe me, without turning a hair – it’s nonsense, the whole thing is nonsense.’

  ‘But even if the case went on, and I won it, what would I do then?’

 
; ‘You would carry on as you do now. Exactly.’

  ‘But don’t you see that I can’t? I couldn’t live, if I’d done that to him.’

  ‘You’re not doing anything to him.’

  ‘But I am. But I am. I’ve ruined his life, I know I have. I ruin everything. I can’t go on. I shall take myself away.’

  He did not see how she could possibly be serious, however much she might look it. But he did not know how to handle her either. He had seen her in distress before, he had seen her in tears even monotonously often, but now she was not crying, she was gone far away, she was no longer regarding herself with a detached amusement: her eyes were staring, her hands clutching involuntarily, her face was white and working with an accumulation of conflicting emotion, her whole being caught up, clumsily. So he did not try to handle her: instead, he stated the obvious.

  ‘But you can’t leave the children,’ he said. ‘It’s an impossibility. You can’t do it.’

  ‘That’s what I used to think,’ she said, flinging herself once more to her feet. ‘I thought that was it, that was the one thing that was a fact. I can’t tell you the agony I’ve been through, knowing that there was no way out, because I couldn’t move. It was like before the divorce, but worse. Like being in a trap, in a hole, on a tightrope, and every way I moved would be death. But not every way. Because if I give him the children – if I did, if I did, then there would be a way out. I could move, it would be different, it wouldn’t be the same trap. It’s all I can do. It’s the only move. And I can’t bear not to move any more.’