A Bouquet of Barbed Wire, page 10
He said reluctantly, ‘Well, all right,’ and then to her horror leaned forward. ‘Give us a kiss then.’ So this was the price. She would have given five pounds to avoid it, ten if she had it, anything. But to refuse now would be to delay his departure—the greater evil. She inclined her cheek and held her breath as the furry chin and warm wet lips brushed against her face. She nearly retched. It was involuntary, like the times when a doctor or dentist pushed something down her throat. But he seemed not to notice. He said contentedly, ‘Well, so long for now,’ and trotted off down the corridor. Sarah closed the door before he had gone a yard. She went straight to the bathroom, locked herself in, and began to scrub at her cheek with soap and a flannel. She scrubbed till it was red and sore. In the middle of the scrubbing she began to cry. Once she had started she seemed not able to stop. She went on crying while she ran her bath full of green foaming water; she was still crying when she sat in it. She had filled it very full, wanting to immerse herself completely, and she thought how absurd it was to be wallowing in all this water and yet still producing more. She would have to go out. She could not stay in to be the object of sympathetic curiosity. No one must know there was anything wrong: that was rule number one. She must laugh it off or better still ignore the whole thing. Never show weakness. Never. There was not a person alive who would not take advantage of you if you did.
* * *
‘Simon, can I come over? If you’re not busy, that is.’
He was busy, she could tell. His sleepy voice meant he had been studying, curled up in a chair. But he sounded pleased and welcoming.
‘I’ll get a bus,’ she said, meaning a taxi. She was feeling reckless on her own account but she did not want to alarm him. At the off-licence on the corner she bought a bottle of wine as a gesture.
His room was in its usual mess and she did not mind. She pretended to be very gay but she did not want to talk so she got him talking and they played records and drank the wine. She got rather drunk rather quickly. He said he had already eaten so she pretended that she had, too. The time stretched out interminably, an agony of waiting. He never took her directly to bed, which normally did not matter, but tonight she needed the comfort of another human body, young, warm and clean, to heal her: needed it so much that her skin felt sore with waiting, as it did when she was getting flu. At last when they were in bed and making love she cried with relief and he thought he must have pleased her very much. He went to sleep like a puppy, curled up and happy, totally relaxed, and she lay awake protectively and wondered why she did not love him.
17
‘SUPPOSE I take the boys down to Salcombe,’ said Cassie, ‘and you join us at the weekend.’ The twins were becoming restless now that the adjustment from school to home was complete, and they were not due to go abroad to visit friends until September. August yawned before Cassie as an unfillable void. Normally they made plans for it, went away somewhere together. She had never known her husband so irresolute. It was only since Prue’s wedding, but a sort of blight seemed to have settled on him. He talked less, and when he did it was nearly always about Prue or the fact that he was middle-aged, which seemed to have only just occurred to him. She did not know how to make contact on any other subject, and she was becoming impatient at her own failure, and at him for causing it. He seemed indifferent to everything around him, and she felt that all her efforts at compensation had been disregarded. Inevitably, she attacked him through the children. ‘We might as well go; they’re not getting much attention from you.’
Manson looked up from a manuscript. She observed that he was bringing much more work home of late. ‘What?’
She repeated what she had said with weary patience. She hated to be involved in a scene like this, not seeing herself as a complaining wife.
He said with his new detachment, ‘That simply isn’t true.’
‘Well, my parents would like some time with them anyway and I don’t suppose you want to invite them here.’
He gave her a small, tolerant smile which she resented. ‘No.’
‘Anyway, it’ll be more fun for the boys by the sea. We owe them that much at least.’
He said, drawn, ‘Don’t make it sound as if we never do anything for them.’
She scented blood and perhaps, out of it, truth. ‘Well, we don’t do much. I think we rather take them for granted. We make far more fuss over Prue.’ She hesitated, as if testing the ground before placing her foot on it. ‘It’s a case of the prodigal daughter, if you like.’
‘Is it?’ He stared at her coldly.
She thought they were becoming daily more separate and she did not know how to stop it. It was as if all the warmth of family life that she had devoted herself to generating all these years was now quite abruptly flowing out of the house, seeping through the walls, vanishing. They had lost some vital insulation.
‘Well, she’s away now, isn’t she? So that’s that.’
‘Not really.’ Cassie braced herself for another attempt at being calm and reasonable. When she caught sight of herself in a mirror these days she thought she looked worn out and much, much older. There was a tension in the house where before everything had been fluid and easy. ‘She might as well be here. If you’re not talking about her, you’re thinking about her. The boys don’t get a look-in. Oh, I know you play the odd game with them but that’s not giving them your attention. God knows they’re away enough. This is our one big chance per year to catch up on them. Find out what they’re thinking; get to know them again.’
Manson, still holding his manuscript as a shield, said, ‘I’m tired and I have a lot on my mind.’
‘You have Prue on your mind.’ It was out before she could check it. ‘I simply can’t understand a) why you’re so worried about her and b) what makes you think you can do anything. She’s on holiday with her husband and that is that. We’ve got our own lives to lead here.’
The words struck a chill in Manson. He visualised, and for the first time, although the words ‘life to lead’ were frequently thrown about, a man with a donkey haltered by a piece of string and bearing panniers on either side of its back. The man was leading the donkey but both were trudging slowly and pointlessly towards some unseen destination at the end of a long, muddy lane. No doubt it was a scene he had observed on some long-forgotten country holiday but it was none the less valid an image, and that it should come into his mind at that moment seemed meaningfully apt.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘So we have.’
‘Well, we’re not doing much about it.’ She was distressed: the house and the home were her creation, their family life was all she had to show for her life, and in ordinary circumstances it was much more than enough. But conversely if it was threatened, the threat was much greater because it struck at all she had. There was nothing else. Frightened, she said, ‘Please, darling, let’s do something as a family soon and stop worrying about Prue.’
Manson looked at her. The straight thick ropes of blonde hair were mixed with grey, her skin tanned from gardening in the sun, her eyes vague and thoughtful as always, her mouth, unmade-up and incongruously voluptuous. She was wearing trousers and a shirt and looked comfortable rather than elegant, but if he went closer there would be the special faded-scent smell that he liked. She was his wife. Together they had discussed thousands of days’ events over an evening drink, spent thousands of nights in the big double-bed. The fabric of their life stretched back so far you could scarcely see the beginning any more, and forward, where you could not see the end. What was wrong with him, what more did he want? He loved Cassie; he knew she loved him. So why this restless urge for something more, what more could there be than work and love, a job and a wife and family, and a sufficiency with which to enjoy them?
But she did not look like Prue. Not at all. Prue was all him. And Prue was abroad with Gavin. He was sure something was wrong there. He could not believe all those tears had been for him. Something was wrong and he did not know what. He was powerless to help and his child might be suffering. Stemming from this, everything at home seemed colourless and purged of feeling. Prue was in a vortex of excitement or drama or pain somewhere and he could not reach her. The same force was around him in the street, everywhere he looked, young people involved with each other, feeling intensely; even that girl in his office had come in looking haggard the other day. But it was all for the young. There was some general current of feeling that they were all washed into, while he and Cassie, too old, were supposed to stand on the bank and watch without envy, or wander off along some sluggish tributary of their own. Envy. It was sheer envy. The realisation shocked him.
He said, ‘Meaning Prue isn’t family?’ and Cassie came back with it instantly: ‘Well, she’s practically got a family of her own.’
He said bitterly, ‘Yes, I’m well aware of that.’
‘Do you hate the idea of being a grandfather so much? I thought you’d be pleased when you got used to it.’
‘Of course I don’t hate the idea. But in due time—not like this, overnight. I don’t understand you, Cassie. Prue’s had no time to look around, she hasn’t even finished her education. God knows if she’ll even get her degree now with a baby on her hands.’
Cassie said softly, ‘There are worse reasons for not getting a degree.’
He stared at her. ‘Well, now I’ve heard everything. And coming from you—’
‘Why? What’s so surprising? Oh, I know I was very academic but if I’d met you when I was Prue’s age it might have been a very different story. And I never wanted to work after we were married. I surprised myself in fact—I never felt I was missing anything. Maybe Prue’s like me—maybe all she needs is a husband and children. We may even have pushed her into going to college because we have this thing about education. It may not be right for her at all.’
Somehow he resented the idea of Prue being like Cassie, resented it very much. Now that he came to consider it, he realised that in all his fantasies about Prue’s destiny he had always seen marriage as a long way off. He had been sure that she had a brilliant future ahead of her, and those were comfortingly vague terms in which to think. But perhaps if he analysed it he had really visualised that future in terms of academic achievement. Disappointed—yes, he had been—when she failed to get into Cambridge as a student, he had perhaps seen her ending up there as a don. But he had not been aware of it till now. Idiotic. What a deeply-buried, foolish dream. How absurd to plan another person’s life. But in the case of a child—how tempting.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ve been a fool.’
‘Now I don’t mean that.’ Cassie was always gentle when she sensed agreement or victory.
‘I do. I’ve been a fool to make plans for her. You’re quite right. Just because she’s capable of going to college doesn’t mean she wants a career. Now that girl in my office—’
‘You mean your new secretary?’
‘Yes, the girl Monica found me. Now she’s got no further education, she’s just a damn good secretary. But she’s ambitious, she wants to get on. There’s something driving her.’
‘What’s her name again?’
‘Sarah. She’s an ordinary girl from a very ordinary background and she’s not much older than Prue but she’s realised that shorthand and typing can take her round the world.’
Cassie said tenderly, ‘And is that what you wanted for Prue—a trip round the world? When you can hardly bear her out of your sight.’
He bristled at that. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well.’ Cassie paused to pick her words carefully. ‘You miss her now she’s away. You worry when you don’t see her for a while. Don’t you?’
‘Well, what’s so abnormal about that?’
‘I didn’t say it was abnormal.’ His use of the word puzzled her. ‘It just doesn’t fit in with round the world trips, that’s all.’
‘Oh, that was just an example. What I meant was—heavens, I’d have thought you would know this—I just wanted her to have freedom of choice, completely. The sky’s the limit. That sort of thing. Surely you can understand that.’
Cassie, made flippant by the tension in the air and the aggression of his speech, said, ‘Yes, she could have been an air stewardess.’ She did not know what she hoped to gain from this—to annoy him or to make him laugh.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Peter.’ It was unlike him to be so vehement.
‘Well. You complain I’m too quiet and then when I try to talk to you, you come out with a damn fool remark like that.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Well, it’s no wonder I don’t talk to you about Prue if that’s your reaction.’
Cassie was chilled. ‘You’ve missed the point. I’m not asking you to talk about Prue, I’m just asking you to talk. About anything. About work or the boys or our holiday. Anything but Prue, if you like. Because I think we’ve done too much talking about her. It’s pointless. You bring them up and let them go. You have to. Talking endlessly about things you can’t change is pointless. And I think it’s becoming a kind of obsession.’
The word was a bad mistake. She could see that as soon as she said it, as if she had struck him between the eyes with a dart that had penetrated at once to his brain. He said, ‘Just what are you suggesting?’
‘Nothing. Nothing. I’m not suggesting anything.’
‘You said obsession. I’m concerned about Prue’s welfare, as any father would be, and I think she’s made a mess of her life and that worries me so I talk about it—and you call that an obsession.’
‘Obsession was too strong a word. I’m sorry. I mean I think you’re letting it get out of proportion.’
‘You said obsession.’
‘Yes, and I’ve said I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.’
‘Since when have you ever said anything you didn’t mean?’
Cassie panicked. She could feel the ground vanishing beneath her feet as if someone were rolling it up like a carpet. She said, ‘Darling, please don’t be so hostile. Do you realise we’re actually quarrelling? And we never quarrel.’
It was true. And it was one of the things he had always liked most about her. Her tranquillity. Now he was shocked to find himself regarding it more as a placid acceptance of disaster. The fact that she was not even half as concerned about Prue as he was seemed to put a great distance between them. He felt alone, as if he was Prue’s only parent, as if he had brought her up and lost her all by himself.
‘No,’ he said, ‘that’s right. We never quarrel.’
Cassie waited for peace moves but none came. She said helplessly, ‘Maybe it’s just as well I’m going away for a few days.’
18
THE MOMENT she had gone the house was unbearably empty without her. It reminded him how unfitted he was for bachelor life. He wandered round aimlessly, picking things up and putting them down, turning on the wireless and turning it off, opening books and closing them again. Marjorie and Alec had invited him to dinner and he went to be polite, because he could not decently get out of it, but he felt they had only done it to take pity on him and he resented their kindness. It was a good dinner, as Marjorie’s dinners always were, and as he lived within walking distance he had rather a lot to drink. They talked desultorily about politics, television and money—they were renovating their house and obsessed with the subject—and he left early because Cassie was going to phone to let him know she had arrived safely. He had looked forward all evening to hearing her voice and yet when he did he was only conscious of the mileage between them: she sounded so far away, such a small voice, so distant. He knew it was not in her to bear him a grudge and yet he could not bring himself to refer to the quarrel, to apologise, to make it up, although he had intended to. To do so now, on the telephone, seemed to him to make altogether too much of it. So he said instead, ‘I miss you,’ and she said predictably, ‘I miss you too,’ sounding pleased and sad, but that was all, and then he talked for a moment or two to his in-laws and wondered yet again why he had never warmed to them. They were perfectly nice people who had always been charming to him, but he had never been able to feel that they were part of his family. When the phone call was over he wondered if it was his relationship with his own parents that was responsible: he had never been close to them either, though they had given him every possible advantage. He had wanted to love them—at times he had felt almost physically weighed down by the love he had for them—but he had been a shy child who needed time in which to express love, and there had never been any time. His mother on committees, with dress-makers, with hair-dressers, at the theatre, on the telephone, lying down with a headache. And his father at the office, or abroad, or in his study surrounded by papers. And he himself playing games, or going to exhibitions, or studying, or away at school. And the house full of people, whether relatives, servants or guests: there never seemed a moment, looking back, when they were alone together, the three of them, with nothing to do except talk. It had made him all the keener to establish a proper relationship with his own children, to be an active father, to create a real family life, but he thought now that it had also stunted his emotional growth, made him capable of being a father but not a son.
The next day was sticky and warm. There was no news from Prue. He sat in his office as the afternoon petered out, trying to work but in reality preoccupied with dread at returning to the empty house. He had half-decided to ask Rupert to have a drink with him after work, maybe dinner; it was a long time since he had had an evening with Rupert and he was always an amusing companion. But about five o’clock Rupert looked in to say he was leaving early and was that all right? He still played the game of employee and boss, and his smile showed he knew it was a game, but Manson still enjoyed it as an amusing courtesy. He said yes of course, and laughed, and Rupert went off looking cheerful and arrogant, as if in expectation of a very good evening. Manson wondered idly if it was a man or a woman who was exercising Rupert’s current attention, and then fell to considering his own changed plans. He could always go to his club, of course, but he did not want to; in fact he wanted to less and less often these days. Was it that he was getting old, he wondered, and too lazy to go anywhere after work, or was it the fear of finding himself becoming a club man, the least likely image he could ever assume. On an impulse, which he could never afterwards explain or justify, he said to Sarah, ‘Why don’t we knock off early and have a drink? Nobody can work in this heat.’
