Needlemouse

by Jane O'Connor

  Walking up the front path this afternoon for their annual Hallowe’en party I allowed myself to imagine for a moment that this was our house, mine and Prof’s, with the fading clematis tumbling over the bay windows and the ivy creeping round the door. I stood on the step and marvelled at how the brass lion-head knocker looked so perfect on the creamy yellow front door, enjoying the faint scent from the pots of woody lavender on the porch and feeling the warmth of the unseasonal October sun on my back. I had a shiver of anticipation knowing Prof would be inside. This yearly event, a generous invite extended by the Scotts to all their colleagues and their families, is one of the few occasions I get to see him outside of work. I can’t imagine what would otherwise entice me to don a witch’s hat and make small talk with people from the department and their children all afternoon. Prof adores Imogen and frequently asks her advice about how to deal with his boys and she treats him like a naughty schoolboy when he is late for meetings or forgets to answer emails.

  ‘Sylvia! We’re in the backyard.’ It was Leonard, leaning out the side gate, in full zombie get-up with a plastic dagger sticking out the side of his head. ‘Come on through, Sylvia.’ It is one of Leonard’s endearing qualities, the way he uses your name all the time.

  I followed him down the side passage and out into their garden which still looked glorious this late in the year, the trees golden and red in the afternoon sun. They had decorated their vast conservatory as a wizard’s lair and extended the fun to the tiered patio which was dotted with braziers to keep it warm. The children were hooting and screaming with joy as they discovered secret tricks and surprises around the garden, the adults perched on wicker furniture draped with black sheets, drinking various lurid coloured potions and eating bowls of chilli from a cauldron served up by Leonard. He was in his absolute element, laughing with his sons-in-law as he stirred his creation.

  ‘It’s the only time he ever cooks and he won’t tell even me what’s in it.’ A ghostly looking Imogen had sidled up next to me and touched my arm as we both watched her husband affectionately.

  ‘Now, what can I get you to drink?’

  I asked for a dry white wine spritzer and scanned the party for Prof. I thought I saw him on the lower patio by the apple bobbing and was making my way there when I got waylaid by Lola.

  ‘Hello, Sylvia, fancy seeing you here.’ She smiled falsely, adjusting her black cat ears. I felt a prick of annoyance at how much her costume suited her, especially compared to the way my witch hat just made me look faintly ridiculous.

  ‘Not that much of a surprise, surely? I do work in the department and Imogen always invites everybody.’ I smiled falsely back.

  ‘Yes, but I’ve never seen you at any other social event, that’s all.’

  She turned back to the group of post-grad students she was talking to, triumphant that she had dropped her bombshell, knowing full well that I was unaware of the social events she was referring to. This was the only one I knew about, so I had to assume that she had been socialising with Prof without my knowledge. My hand shook as I brought my glass to my lips and my eyes burned into the back of her head as she tossed her hair and laughed knowingly with her group. It was then that I saw Ned halfway up the biggest horse chestnut tree in the garden, climbing out onto a low-hanging branch, presumably after conkers, Prof’s boys egging him on from the ground. Instinctively I grabbed Lola’s arm and urgently said her name. She spun round, her face furious at the interruption, ready for another spat. Then she saw the danger her son was in and sped up the garden, dropping her bowl on the grass as she went. By the time she arrived he had swung successfully to the ground and was being clapped on the back by the admiring Lomax boys. I couldn’t hear her admonishments, but Ned was clearly forbidden to leave his mother’s side for the rest of the afternoon and looked thoroughly miserable at the prospect.

  ‘You should thank Sylvia for telling me you were in danger,’ said Lola tightly as they returned to the patio and Ned rolled his eyes at me before grunting a grudging ‘Thank you’, saving Lola the trouble and neatly casting me as the fun-spoiler rather than her.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ I said and resumed my mission to find Prof. Glancing round I saw Ned poke his tongue out at me and, childish though it was, I poked mine out back.

  I finally found Prof in the gazebo at the end of the garden with the die-hard smokers. He was dressed all in black with a trail of ‘blood’ dripping down the side of his mouth and was having an in-depth conversation about educational inequality with Dr Bastow, Dr Kofi, and a postdoctoral researcher called Patrick, the sort of insipid young man whom Mother would describe as a ‘drink of water’.

  ‘But of course, Bernstein would attribute it to the restricted linguistic codes of the working class,’ Prof was saying as Patrick nodded shyly.

  ‘No, no, no,’ said Kofi excitedly, drawing on his pipe, ‘it is the legacy of post-colonialism that has embedded class hierarchies in this country. We will never have equality; it is an inherited bias.’

  They ignored me as I came in. I stood next to Prof and tried to follow their conversation, nodding sagely. Bastow, who was clearly losing the argument, jumped on me in his usual unpleasant way. ‘Sylvia, you seem to be agreeing with two completely opposite viewpoints there; can you explain your position?’

  ‘I agree with Professor Lomax,’ I said after a moment’s awkward hesitation.

  ‘Hmmph.’ Bastow snorted with contempt and Prof reddened slightly. He obviously felt the need to reward my loyalty with an attempt to include me in the conversation, or perhaps he just wanted to change the subject.

  ‘So, Sylvia, how are the … erm … hamsters doing?’ he asked, indicating his empty glass to Martin as he came into the gazebo carrying a bottle of wine in each hand.

  ‘It’s actually hedgehogs,’ I said, but he had already turned back to Bastow to resume the debate.

  I left the gazebo, feeling momentarily deflated, but I understood that Prof was a little drunk and in full socialising mode. It was hard for us to know how to communicate outside our bubble in the office where the balance worked perfectly and I forgave him for that. In fact, I found it endearing, the way that Prof was being typical of his gender in behaving differently when in a group of other men than he behaved when he was just with me. It was also thrilling that he seemed to sort of know about my hedgehog sanctuary work. This proves he must have had at least one conversation about me with somebody else as I have never told him about that myself. On reflection, the whole encounter reinforced for me that we do have a special relationship and by the time I had reached the conservatory I was buoyant with insight and flushed with love.

  Imogen had set out a tempting-looking dessert table covered with plates of homemade cheesecakes, trifle, chocolate cake and individual strawberry tarts. I stood staring at the spread, deep in thought about future garden parties Prof and I might hold.

  ‘Do help yourself, Sylvia.’ Imogen’s cheerful invitation broke the spell and I realised it looked like what I was longing for was cake.

  ‘Oh no, I’m fine, thank you.’

  ‘Go on, you are allowed to treat yourself sometimes. Can’t always be good.’

  She was starting to annoy me. I hate being encouraged to eat, especially in public. It was so long since I had allowed anything sweet to pass my lips that the concept of eating a bowl of trifle or a piece of cheesecake was as alien to me as putting a live insect in their mouth would be to most other people. I smiled and picked up a slice of kiwi from the fresh fruit platter, hoping that would satisfy her. Imogen gave me a curious look and was about to say something when two of her grandchildren dressed as little devils, ran up and started greedily reaching for the chocolate cake. Imogen laughed and told them to wait while she put it in bowls for them and disappeared back into the kitchen.

  I took the opportunity to slip out the side gate and make my way home. I always try to leave social gatherings in that way, under the radar. I can’t stand all the protracted goodbyes and pretence that peopl
e are sad you are leaving. Nobody cared if I was there or not, except Prof, of course, although he was in his cups, and perhaps Imogen, but she was busy with her family. Once on the pavement I stood for a moment listening to the jovial party sounds going on behind the house that now seemed thousands of miles away – a different planet full of normal people with partners and children and grandchildren and proper lives. I was overcome with an urge to go back. Maybe one of the families would take me home, assimilate me into their world like a stray dog that becomes a treasured family pet. Maybe I could just become one of the Scott family and live with them in their beautiful house? But I knew I couldn’t go back in. I took off my witch’s hat and shoved it in my bag as I made my way resolutely down towards the tube station, feeling a wintery snap of cold begin to bite as the afternoon sun faded away.

  Sunday 1 November

  I arrived at the sanctuary early this morning after a restless night going over and over my interaction with Prof yesterday at the party, agonising over whether I should have said more or less or stayed longer or gone earlier. I tortured myself with thoughts of Lola in her cat costume and tried to banish images of them chatting and drinking together from my mind. It was not quite half past eight and the light was still weak as I walked up the side way and opened the back gate.

  Jonas was already up and about, tending to his garden, and I knew he would have been out there since dawn. I paused and watched him for a moment, digging over an empty bed, stopping to rub his back after each couple of spadesful, and wiping his face with a large grey hankie. It was impossible not to feel affectionate towards Jonas, seeing him like that, and to feel sad that the physical decline that is slowing him down will gradually take him away from his garden and his hedgehogs altogether. He is such a harmless old man, even if he drives me mad with his lack of opinion or conviction about anything. Perhaps that’s what happens as one gets older, although it seems to have worked the opposite way with Mother, whose (largely negative) opinions and convictions about everything and everyone seem only to strengthen with her advancing years.

  Watching Jonas made me reflect on how hard it is to look after Mother as she shows no vulnerability at all and is terrified of being pitied. She is always dressed formally and immaculately, as if on her way to one of the Queen’s garden parties and any offer of help, a proffered arm for example when crossing a busy road, is swiped away in annoyance. She talks in disparaging terms about ‘old people’ as if they are a different, weaker breed than her, who have lazily and carelessly allowed themselves to age. Jonas, on the other hand, has a quiet dignity about him in the way he cares for his plants and the animals, the way he seems to calmly accept his fading importance in the world. You could pity Jonas – he wouldn’t care – and he accepts all offers of help willingly. He is a man with nothing to prove, who wants only to spend the final part of his life doing what he likes doing, as close to the rhythms and consolations of nature that it is possible to be in the suburbs of South London. And where Mother chose to take father’s passing as a personal insult about which she is still, more than twenty years on, furiously indignant, Jonas seems to have taken the love he had for Paula with him, cherishing the people and things she valued and honouring the life they built together. They looked after each other and now their daughters look after him, taking it in turns to bring him dinners and do his washing and keep the house clean. It has been Carrie’s turn this week. Not a natural nurturer, Carrie is happiest riding her vintage motorbike round various music festivals with her tattoo artist boyfriend, but she tries her best to look after Jonas on her weeks, bringing round takeaway curries and ironing the collars of his shirts. Harriet and Katie are much more conventional, with their husbands and kids and four-by-fours, but I know Jonas loves Carrie’s wild spirit, even though she’s not much of a housekeeper.

  I looked round for Igor, knowing he would be close by, and spotted him lying among the last of the cabbages, head on paws, watching Jonas with interest. He suddenly flipped onto his back, rolled left and right and did an enormous sneeze, before jumping to his feet and snuffling round where Jonas was digging, trying to get his attention.

  ‘What do you want, boy, eh?’ Jonas scratched Igor’s ears and the dog lent into him in ecstasy.

  ‘Do you want me to take him for a walk for you?’

  He wasn’t at all surprised to see me there so early. ‘That’d be grand, lass. Carrie didn’t have time yesterday.’ He smiled as he wiped his face again.

  I put Igor on his lead and we made our way down the hill towards the park. I was nervous about letting him off when we got there in case he ran away and I would have to return to Jonas empty-handed, but he pulled and pulled so I undid the catch on his collar and let him dash across the grass and chase the squirrels into the trees. The park was quiet, only a couple of serious joggers passed me as I walked down the central path. Tempted by some movement or scent that was beyond my limited human senses, Igor swerved sharply to the left into a small copse of birch trees. I followed after him, anxious to keep him in sight. On the other side of the trees there was a little clearing, the right-hand side of it separated off by two big rhododendron bushes, and it was there that I thought Igor had gone. I got as far as the first bush and then I saw them – a young couple lying on a bed of coats, making love. The sight was so visceral, so private and so intense, that I stood rooted to the spot, transfixed. They didn’t notice me; they were in their own world. He was moving on top of her, she with her arms flung out above her head and then grabbing his black hair and pulling his face towards hers. I couldn’t turn away. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I stumbled backwards. A sharp emotional pain seared through me as if I had been electrocuted or burnt; it started at the back of my neck and shot down my arms to my fingers. My whole body trembled as I stood there, transfixed, watching them express their physical love, or perhaps just lust, for each other and I had to force myself to turn around and creep away, shamefully, silently, like a despised, dirty animal. When I was a few metres away I started to run and didn’t stop until I reached the path, where I found Igor lying next to a bench eating an apple core that someone had dropped like it was manna from heaven.

  I tried to compose myself on the walk back to Jonas’s, but I was shaken up. Most of the time I put sex completely out of my mind, turning over the television channel if a steamy scene comes on, or skipping certain passages in books. My fantasies about Prof are more romantic than carnal. Him proposing on a dinner cruise down the Seine, say, or us dancing to Frank Sinatra on a starlit balcony at our wedding. I don’t ever imagine actually consummating our love, although that would obviously be part of our married life together. A tipsy Millie recently started telling me about a new sexual position she and Kamal had been trying and I shut down that conversation straight away.

  ‘I don’t want to know,’ I told her firmly, putting my palm up.

  ‘Don’t be such a prude, darling. You have had sex in your life,’ Millie had said, laughing at me, putting my reluctance to discuss her private life down to me being uptight and squeamish. That is part of it, I suppose; it has been seventeen years since I have been intimate with a man and I do feel rather uptight about the whole subject. The bigger issue, of course, is that the last time I did have sex all those years ago was with Kamal, a fact I would rather die than ever have Millie find out.

  By the time I got back to Jonas’s place in Hartland Road, my discomfiture at being privy to such an intimate act had begun to turn into indignation. I found myself telling Jonas what I had seen and how disgusting it was that young people had no shame any more.

  ‘Don’t you agree,’ I said, ‘and wouldn’t you have been shocked?’

  Jonas clearly didn’t share my pique, he carried on calmly planting his daffodil bulbs and said with a chuckle, ‘They weren’t bothering anyone else, so what’s your problem? They must have been cold, though.’

  I was quite taken aback at his laissez-faire attitude – I would have had Jonas down as a stalwart of traditional values and
moral behaviour.

  ‘I just think there is a time and a place and that was neither,’ I stated defiantly as I passed him another bulb from the sack.

  ‘You have to take your happiness where you can in this life. It’s over too soon and you’re a long time dead.’ Igor leapt up then and started digging energetically in the dirt at this, as if he understood the sentiment and wanted to ensure he had made the most of his morning.

  ‘Well, that’s a cheerful thought. I must say, Jonas, you do surprise me sometimes.’ I wasn’t going to back down. The possibility of agreeing with him frightened me; it would feel like stepping off a cliff that I had been clinging on to for a very long time.

  ‘And you me, Sylvia.’

  I puzzled at this and looked at him for clarification but he was engrossed in his task and didn’t offer any further explanation.