Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs
Page 48
Considering how exhausted Conrad must have been after his tour de force of piano playing, I thought he had been remarkably good humoured when I returned to Hindleep after midnight, unannounced and uninvited. I had certainly been a good deal upset. The friendly daytime wood of purling waters and leafy glades was altogether unlike its night-time persona of bogs, impenetrable thickets, screeches, howls and sinister black shapes. The rain had fallen in vicious spurts, brambles and thorn bushes had torn at my limbs and every step of the way I had imagined my father’s hand hovering just inches from my shoulder, the knife blade and his spectacles flashing in dribbles of moonlight.
My appearance had been undeniably repulsive. In wiping raindrops from my eyes I had smeared blood from scratched hands over my forehead, cheeks and chin. Fritz and Conrad had taken it in turns to pump enough water from the spring so I could have a bath. There were no spare bedrooms in a habitable state, so I had slept in great comfort on one of the divans by the fire. It had been nearly two o’clock before any of us could close our eyes.
‘Vat time your father go out so ve fetch ze closes and ze toozbrush?’ asked Fritz.
‘Let’s wait until half-past nine to be sure.’
The idea of meeting my father again terrified me. When he had demanded to know where the hell I had been, I had answered with as much calm dignity as I could muster that I had spent the evening at Hindleep and was now going to bed. I had tried to walk past him, but he had beaten me to the foot of the stairs, gripping the banister knob with one hand and putting the other against the wall to bar my path.
‘What sort of time do you call this?’
‘I call it eleven o’clock.’
‘Exactly. I’ve been home since six and I’ve had nothing to eat.’
‘I didn’t know you wanted me to make supper for you. I never have before.’
‘Because your mother’s always done it.’ He smiled unpleasantly. ‘Now she’s romancing a syphilitic gypsy she hasn’t time.’
‘Couldn’t you have had baked beans or something?’
He sighed as though weary, and dropped his hands to crack his fingers. ‘I’ve spent a large part of today at the hospital trying to repair the sickly bodies of the brutish, the ignorant and the villainous. And though tomorrow’s Sunday, I’m on call because Chatterji has had some sort of nervous breakdown. I can’t get a locum until Wednesday, but that won’t stop the lumpenproletariat sticking foreign objects in their orifices and having lumpenproletariat babies. You, I can safely assume, have done nothing that might by the greatest stretch of imagination be called useful. Besides, there aren’t any baked beans. I found half a loaf of stale bread, a piece of brick-hard cheese and a tin of palm hearts, whatever they may be.’
Dimpsie and I had eaten the larder bare but we had not managed to find a use for the latter.
‘I didn’t realize you expected me to be your housekeeper.’
‘You live here, don’t you? Surely even you, self-absorbed and narcissistic though you’ve always been, can appreciate that some contribution is due?’
I considered returning insult for insult. There were plenty that his recent behaviour merited, but I was as tired as I ever remembered being and my mind seemed to drop into bottom gear. The telephone began to ring.
‘Answer it.’ He jerked his thumb at the softly warbling instrument. ‘Say I’m out on a call. Write down the name, number and any coherent symptoms.’
I picked up the receiver. ‘Dr Savage’s residence.’
‘Who’s that?’ The voice was female, middle-class, crisp.
‘This is Dr Savage’s receptionist.’
‘Oh yes – his daughter. I remember. I want to speak to him.’
‘He’s out on a call. If you’ll give me your name and number I’ll get him to—’
‘This is Marcia Dane speaking. He’s there, isn’t he? Tell him he’s got to speak to me.’
‘Mar-cia D-ane,’ I said slowly for my father’s benefit, pretending I was writing it down. ‘Is it an emergency?’ I turned to look at him. He shook his head emphatically.
‘Yes, it is a bloody emergency!’ Marcia’s voice became loud and angry. ‘I want to speak to him now!’
‘If you’d like to tell me what’s wrong I could perhaps make you a priority—’
‘What’s wrong is that he’s a cold-hearted monster! I’ve given him everything – everything! – and now he thinks he’s going to walk away because he’s bored. Bored! He’s taken what he wanted and now he discards me like an old glove.’ I could not help thinking of Conrad then. ‘He’s a shit of the first water!’
‘In that case,’ I said sweetly as she paused to draw breath, ‘you must be two of a kind. I’ll tell him the old glove rang, shall I?’
This was not at all nice of me, but she had made Dimpsie so unhappy. From the other end came a sound as though the receiver had bounced on its rest.
I gave Tom my most despising stare. ‘I take it if Vanessa Trumball calls you don’t want to speak to her either?’
He shrugged. ‘I doubt if Vanessa’s capable of making a phone call. And you needn’t glare at me like that. She was unstable long before I had anything to do with her.’
‘Then perhaps you ought to have left her alone.’
‘Women are masochists. They find it exciting to be treated badly. It was what she wanted. After all, you’ve engaged yourself to that stuffed shirt who’s going to put a collar and lead on you and try to turn you into his mother. How masochistic is that?’
I congratulated myself for recognizing that the introduction of Rafe to the conversation was a diversionary tactic. ‘Do you always give people what they want? Your wife, for example?’
‘What business is it of yours?’
‘It’s my business because I love her. Anything that wounds her, wounds me.’
I could hardly believe that for once I was managing to keep my emotions at a steady simmer rather than a rolling boil. Usually I lost my temper immediately and threw away the argument. It was annoying to be interrupted by another discreet trill from the telephone.
‘Answer it. If it’s Marcia again, just put the receiver down.’
‘Hello? Dr Savage’s residence.’
‘Marigold!’ I recognized the voice immediately. ‘Where the hell have you been?’
‘Hello, Isobel. I’ve been at Hindleep. We expected you.’ I turned to look at Tom but he had gone.
‘Well, I call that pretty damn cool! Rafe says you’ve broken off your engagement. He’s miserable, poor darling. Absolutely wretched. And he’s got one of his heads. Naturally you’ve been out enjoying yourself. I’m surprised you didn’t throw a party.’
‘But it was as much Rafe’s decision as mine to break it off. In fact he was much angrier with me than I was with him. It’s terribly upsetting for everyone, I do realize—’
‘What a fool you are!’
‘Look, it’s late and I’m shattered. Can’t we talk about it tomorrow?’
‘I want to talk about it now.’
I sat down in my father’s armchair and waited.
‘Are you there? Marigold?’
‘Yes. I’m here. What do you want to say?’
‘You know Rafe’s been ill … depressed. But you seem to think it’s all just a game … don’t you realize, you stupid girl, that you may be responsible for driving him over the edge?’
It was the third time that day that I had had to listen to harsh criticism of my intelligence and behaviour. But I stifled my resentment, reminding myself that she felt about Rafe as a mother hen feels about its only chick, and that this was one of her most likeable traits. Besides, though I had tried to dismiss them, my father’s taunts had, as usual, burned themselves into my brain like a pokerwork motto. Why, disliking him as I did, should it matter what he thought of me? Probably it was something best left in the turbid deeps of my subconscious. But if I really was a self-centred narcissist, I no doubt deserved the reproaches that these days rained upon me from all sides.
I understood from the quivering intensity in her voice that in Isobel’s world men only cried when absolutely at the limit of endurance, as when standing in the dawn light before a firing squad and perhaps not even then. In my world men wept like babies because they had been given an unflattering wig to wear.
‘If he gets into that state again I’ll blame you. Everyone will blame you. They’ll all hate you and I’ll hate you more than anyone. You shouldn’t have said you’d dance in Golly’s ridiculous opera. You’re supposed to be getting married, not prancing about on stage so people can say how clever you are.’
‘That isn’t why …’ I stopped, knowing it was useless to try to explain why one might want to dance to someone who had never felt the least inclination. ‘It isn’t only the dancing. I’m terribly fond of Rafe but we aren’t enough alike to be happy living together. This isn’t our first row. We started disagreeing almost from the beginning only I so wanted to make it work … I’ve always thought he was so marvellous and I was flattered when he asked me and I wanted to help …’
‘I don’t believe that. I suppose it was the money. Or did you fancy being mistress of Shottestone?’ Her voice became yet more sneering. ‘Quite a step up for the local doctor’s daughter, wasn’t it?’ I screwed up my eyes tightly and gritted my teeth to prevent myself from crying out in protest. ‘But you’re not prepared to give anything in exchange. You want to have your cake and eat it, you bloody selfish bitch! He’s much too good for you!’
‘Yes,’ I felt tears of tiredness and mortification sting my eyes, ‘I’m sure he is.’
‘Is that all you can say? What about everything my family’s done for you? Don’t you think you owe Mummy something?’
A horrible smell of burning milk drifted into the study. My father had resorted to self-catering in his hour of need.
‘I’ll always be grateful to Evelyn, but that doesn’t mean it would be right to marry Rafe. I don’t fit his ideas of what a wife should be. He wants someone who can strike awe into the hearts of the lower orders and put the screws on bolshie committee members and shine all the other women down. I’m not up to it.’
‘Mummy can teach you. And you bloody well owe it to her. You talk about being grateful, but it’s time you knew exactly how fucking much she’s done for you.’
‘What d’you mean?’
Isobel laughed scornfully. ‘I tried to make Tom tell you ages ago but he said he’d promised Mummy he wouldn’t. Well, I promised too but I don’t care. When Miss Fisher said you ought to go to Brackenbury House, your father said he’d no intention of bankrupting himself for the sake of an adolescent craze. Mummy tried every argument she could think of to get him to change his mind, but he wouldn’t so she decided she’d pay for you to go. I overheard her arguing with Daddy about it, that’s how I knew. He thought it was an unnecessary expense but it was her money, all those vulgar cotton mills. She said she couldn’t bear to see talent go to waste and as far as she was concerned it was the same as giving money to orphans in Africa only much more likely to get a result. She made me swear that I’d never tell you because it would put you under such an obligation. Mummy’s a silly snobbish cow most of the time, but she has her finer moments. And she’s always loved you.’ Isobel paused as though expecting me to say something but I was dumbstruck. Isobel’s voice buzzed in my ear like a furious wasp. ‘Now you know, perhaps you’ll feel differently about wrecking Rafe’s happiness for the sake of your pathetic little ego.’
I registered the loathing patent in Isobel’s voice but for once I was indifferent. Evelyn had paid for me to go to ballet school. I repeated the words to myself two or three times in an attempt to make proper sense of them. The burden of guilt I had carried because my parents had gone without quite modest comforts so that I might become a dancer rolled from my shoulders. Throughout my seven years of training I had been uncomfortably aware that my fees had been responsible for the inadequate food and heating, the ancient Hillman my father drove, the black moods when bills came, the lack of holidays, the fact that each year the already shabby house grew shabbier. And I could only guess how much my sister Kate had suffered, believing herself to be the less favoured child. It would not be an exaggeration to say that her envy had destroyed our relationship. I had accepted her hostility as my due. Now I felt liberated. But only for a moment.
‘Marigold? Why don’t you say something? Come on, you must have suspected!’
I had nothing to say. I had never for a moment had even an inkling of the truth. Evelyn was responsible for me being who and what I was, a dancer first and last – of that I was sure now – and she had done it out of simple generosity. There had been no calculation in it, no hope of repayment, just a desire to help me realize my ambition. Now, like Christian, I was compelled to take up my burden once more, but the load had shifted. It was some slight relief to know that the Prestons had not needed to make any material sacrifices to support my career. But one’s parents are to a greater or lesser extent obliged to put their hands in their pockets for their children. Evelyn had chosen to do so out of the goodness of her heart and my debt therefore was doubled, quadrupled, tenfold – a hundredfold.
‘Marigold! I know you’re there. Say something, for God’s sake!’
‘Goodbye, Isobel.’
‘No, wait a minute! I want to talk—’
I put down the telephone and went into the kitchen. Curls of smoke were rising from the toaster.
‘Why didn’t you tell me it was Evelyn who paid for me to go to ballet school?’
He was hacking at the cracked yellow lump of cheese with the bread knife and did not look up. ‘She made me promise I wouldn’t.’ He appeared calm but I saw the muscles tighten around his mouth.
‘You let me go on feeling guilty as hell, thinking you and Dimpsie and Kate were going without because of me.’ He continued to hack, a model of unconcern. I struggled to contain my fury. He went to the utensil jar, selected the steak tenderizer that Dimpsie had bought years ago in one of her periodical fits of enthusiasm for cooking, and tried to hammer the knife through the cheese rind.
‘I’m not responsible for your thoughts. As for feeling as guilty as hell, I doubt it.’ For the first time he looked directly at me with eyes that were pinpoints of malice. ‘Did you once think of giving it up? Did you even consider missing a performance to come home and see your mother, about whose welfare you say you’re so anxious?’
‘If you weren’t paying for me, why was there never enough money for the boiler to be replaced or the roof to be repaired properly? Or a new car? What about Kate’s riding lessons?’
‘Now you mention her, Kate was not sufficiently on your tormented conscience to make it worth your attending her wedding, I remember.’
‘We were in China! It was my first chance to dance Aurora. Besides, she wrote saying that it would be a waste of time to come back.’
‘What a little hypocrite you are! As though you’d have dreamt of doing so.’ It was true I had not been altogether sorry that her letter had been a clear instruction to keep away. The return flight would have cost me two months’ salary. ‘You neglected your family because you had more interesting things to do.’
I felt the blood rush to my face. I could not deny it. Don’t get sidetracked, I told myself, and above all don’t give him the satisfaction of seeing how much he’s hurting you. ‘One of the reasons I didn’t come home much was because I’ve always hated the way you’ve treated Dimpsie – going off with other women and breaking her heart each time in the most callous way, putting her down, destroying her self-confidence; you’ve always been absolutely foul to her and I couldn’t bear to watch it.’
‘So you left her to nurse her broken heart – if you must use clichés – alone. That was kind!’
&nb
sp; ‘Well, I admit it wasn’t very.’ I was furious with myself for being unable to control my voice, which despite my best efforts was becoming strained and unnatural. ‘I ought to have looked after her better. But you shouldn’t have broken it in the first place. You’ve slept with every woman who caught your eye without a thought in the world for anything but your own sexual gratification.’
‘Much you know about a man’s feelings. I suppose you don’t like it because Rafe’s an indifferent lover.’ For a moment I thought of telling him what Dimpsie had said about his own less than wonderful lovemaking but, even in my barely controllable rage, this seemed impossibly cruel. ‘The Prestons think they’ve a duty to set an example to the nation. No one must be allowed to know their grubby little secrets. As though anyone cared! You’re an also-ran. Did you know that?’ He laughed, his eyes like slits behind his rimless spectacles. ‘You’d be a fool to marry him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Can’t tell you, I’m afraid. Patient confidentiality. But you’d better take my advice.’
I cursed myself for playing straight into my father’s hands. I had to direct the conversation away from me back to him.
‘You’re the last person entitled to give advice to anyone. I shall do just as I choose.’
‘Good. So shall I.’ He returned his attention to the cheese. ‘Oh bugger!’ He had hit the knife so hard that the head of the meat tenderizer had flown off and knocked over a glass. The red wine it contained flowed across the table like blood.
‘I absolutely hate you,’ I said to my own astonishment, the words coming out of my mouth before I could stop them. Suddenly tears were gushing down my face. ‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! I wish you were dead!’
My father’s eyes glittered and he bared his teeth with bitter satisfaction. He had achieved his object. I was weeping, vulnerable, an emotional wreck, like all the women with whom he had anything to do. He had abandoned the cheese and advanced slowly towards me, knife in hand. I had turned and fled.