A Bouquet of Barbed Wire, page 5
‘Gavin?’
‘No, thank you, Mrs. Manson.’
‘You ought to call her Mother.’
‘Don’t be silly, Prue, it doesn’t matter. Let him do it when he’s ready.’
‘You should call them Mother and Father.’
‘Prue. Leave him alone.’
‘I was only teasing him.’
* * *
Prue in a bikini. Was he the only one to feel his eyes riveted on her stomach? Nothing to see. Gavin rubbed oil all over her, very slowly and conscientiously, then she turned over so he could do her back. Cassie read a library book; Manson sheltered behind dark glasses. Why in God’s name did it have to be hot so they were all forced together into the garden? Not that it wasn’t big enough for separation but somehow while it was all right to use different rooms in the house because of their allotted functions, in the garden it would have seemed pointed not to sit together in a close little group on the lawn. If only the boys had been home from school: at least they would have made a decent noise. It seemed to him that he could hear every bee that buzzed as a separate entity. A distant plane droned overhead. Someone nearby started up a motor-mower. A dog barked.
‘Are you asleep, Daddy?’
He didn’t answer her.
* * *
‘Mummy, what’s up with Daddy?’
‘Darling, he’ll hear you.’
‘No, he won’t, he’s asleep.’
‘He’s not asleep and the window’s open.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I just opened it.’
‘No, about him not being asleep.’
‘Oh, I just know.’ Cassie filled the kettle.
Prue sighed. ‘Do you think I’ll ever know Gavin that well—to know when he’s only pretending to be asleep?’
‘I expect so. But it’s not vital—just convenient.’
‘Hm. But why is he pretending?’
‘I expect he doesn’t want to talk.’
‘Oh. I left him alone with Gavin in case he woke up and they wanted to talk.’
‘Never mind. You can’t force it, you know, Prue. They’ve both got a lot to forget. Now if you really want to help you can butter some bread.’
‘You’re awfully tolerant, aren’t you?’
‘Am I? Hovis and raisin bread, it’s on the table in front of you. Well, it’s just no good trying to force people. I remember when I was at school being introduced to some child and the teacher saying, Now I want you and Josephine to be very good friends. Who knows, we might have been, but for that. That started the biggest feud in the history of the school. People were still talking about it years after we left.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose I didn’t think of it. Is it important?’
‘I like hearing about you when you were young.’
‘Darling, don’t use the butter straight out of the fridge, it’s much too hard. There’s some more in the larder.’
* * *
‘Sir, do you and Mrs. Manson have any plans for the summer?’
‘Why?’
‘I merely wondered.’
Is he trying to be pompous or polite? Or am I supposed to respond with a question?
‘Why, do you?’
‘Oh, Prue and I thought we’d go to the South of France for a month or two. I’ve got a friend over there with a cottage we could use.’
A month or two. So casual. Meaning I won’t see her all that time.
‘You and Mrs. Manson could join us if you’d care to.’
Incredible. He can’t mean it. A grand gesture. Anyway, quite out of the question. ‘Thank you, Gavin, but I’m afraid that’s not possible.’
‘Oh, that’s too bad.’ Never any expression in his voice, even when I threatened to hit him. Wish to God I had. ‘We wouldn’t be going till August; we’re going to work all through July to make the fare.’
‘Both of you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’
‘Well, we can’t make enough otherwise.’
‘I’m talking about Prue’s health.’
‘Prue’s perfectly healthy, sir.’
‘I think that’s a question for her doctor to answer. Being sick and fainting in the street—’
‘She’s okay, sir.’
‘I’m delighted you think so. But you’re hardly an expert, are you?’
‘No, sir, I’m not an expert.’
‘And you don’t think it would be advisable to consult an expert?’ Christ, what is it about him? He always makes me sound so pompous I hate myself but can’t stop. Does he do it deliberately or is it just our mutual chemistry?
‘I don’t think Prue needs her doctor’s permission to put in four weeks in an office.’
Now I’m making him pompous. If I wasn’t so angry I would find it funny. A great human limitation, to realise something is laughable and yet not be able to laugh at it.
‘You must realise I’d be more than happy to pay Prue’s fare.’
‘I do realise that, sir, but we couldn’t accept.’
He enjoyed using that ‘we’. Damn him. I realise I actually, actively hate every bone in his body. He’s going to ruin my daughter’s life and he’s made a good start already.
‘Well, of course, if your pride is more important than Prue’s welfare…’
‘That’s not how I look at it, sir.’
This exaggerated, phony respect makes me choke. ‘How do you look at it?’
Shrugs. Really those clothes of his are detestable. ‘We need the money and it won’t do Prue any harm to work. It’s no harder than studying.’
‘Tea-up.’ Prue shrieking across the lawn. We both turn and wave. Cassie with a tray coming nearer and nearer, white linen cloth and the best china. Different kinds of bread, pots of honey and jam, biscuits and chocolate cake already starting to melt in the sun. He gets in first, leaping up to take the tray from her. ‘Gee, that looks good.’ Prue, a little behind, looks from one of us to the other.
‘What’s the matter? What have you two got such long faces about?’
Cassie: ‘Prue, darling, do hush. Have a little tact.’
‘But they look so grim.’ Quite unabashed, my daughter.
‘Your Dad can’t join us in France, hon, that’s all.’
‘France?’ says Cassie enquiringly.
* * *
‘Mrs. Manson, can I give you a hand?’ Gavin’s sudden appearance in the kitchen gave Cassie quite a shock.
‘Oh. No, thank you, Gavin. I think everything’s under control.’
‘Oh, pity.’ He hovered by the sink. ‘I guess I wanted an excuse to talk to you.’
‘Do you need one? All right, then, you can peel the mushrooms.’
‘Great.’ He perched on a stool and began. ‘I thought—well, I thought maybe I should leave Prue and her father alone for a bit, I thought maybe they’d have things to say.’
‘That was very tactful of you.’
‘Well, I thought we might too. I … don’t know quite how to put this but … well, I sure hope our being here isn’t going to create any kind of discord.’
Cassie frowned. ‘Between whom?’
‘Well, you and Mr. Manson. And look, I’m sorry about that Mother and Father bit but I just can’t manage it yet.’
‘That’s all right,’ Cassie said easily. ‘Nobody expects you to. Nobody but Prue, that is.’
‘Oh, she likes playing. That’s nothing.’
The remark struck a chill into Cassie. How well you know her, she thought, my daughter. Is this what she wanted, this absolute knowledge and acceptance? ‘Well, I shouldn’t worry about discord,’ she said. ‘We’ve been married a long time and we understand each other.’
‘Yeah.’ He brooded, peeling a mushroom with extreme care. ‘Well, I sure hope Prue and her Dad are going to get over this thing.’
Cassie said with feeling, ‘Yes, so do I,’ and wondered if she was being disloyal.
‘Because—to be quite honest with you—it makes me uncomfortable to be around it. Look … I wouldn’t have come. I mean it’s okay with me if Prue wants to visit on her own. But she wouldn’t come without me. So I said I’d try to keep out of her Dad’s way.’ Another pause. ‘I guess I haven’t been too successful.’
Cassie sighed. ‘Gavin, it’s going to take time, that’s all. It’s—very difficult.’
‘But not for you. You’ve accepted it. I mean you don’t treat me like I’d crawled out from under a stone.’
Cassie said lightly, ‘Well, you haven’t, why should I? Anyway, it’s easier for me.’ She felt he deserved an explanation but that was as close as she could get.
‘Is it? Oh, I guess it must be harder for fathers of girls.’ He pondered, the mushroom stalk pale in his hands. ‘I sure hope our baby’s a boy, that’s all.’
* * *
‘Well, we had a super honeymoon, thank you for asking,’ Prue said sharply.
‘Good. I’m delighted to hear it.’
‘It was nice of you to pay.’
‘Your mother paid. It was her present.’
Prue shrugged. ‘Same thing. Anyway, I think honeymoons are a great idea.’
Goaded, he said, ‘Is honeymoon quite the word?’
‘Why not?’ She opened her eyes wide: he could almost believe her surprise was genuine.
‘In the circumstances,’ he said tightly.
‘“Honeymoon,”’ Prue recited, ‘ “the first month after marriage, the interval spent by a newly married pair before settling down in a home of their own.” That’s the dictionary definition. I looked it up.’
‘You know quite well what I mean.’
She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t. It doesn’t say anything about pregnancy, if that’s what you mean. And anyway, why is that such a dirty word? After all I am married now, it’s all respectable. Don’t you want to be a grandfather?’
‘In normal circumstances, yes of course.’ But he had never considered it. It had always seemed such a long way off.
‘So you haven’t forgiven me.’ She came nearer, eyeing him curiously. ‘Funny, on Monday I thought you had.’
‘Prue, you know my views. I just don’t want to discuss it any more.’
She turned away. ‘No, you really don’t, do you?’ She shrugged, and picked up the paper. ‘Which room have you put us in, by the way?’
‘What? Oh, the spare room.’ The question took him by surprise.
‘Oh. Not my old room.’
‘No. We—thought you’d be more comfortable in the spare room.’
She turned back, wearing the disappointed face of childhood. He had seen it often (No, you can’t have another meringue, Yes, you must clean your teeth after meals) and knew well the sulk that followed it.
‘Oh, what a pity. I love my old room. We could perfectly well have managed in a three quarter bed. No trouble at all.’
He flinched from the picture she was conjuring up. ‘Well, your mother thought the spare room would be better.’
‘Oh, Mummy.’ A tiny smile, just this side of mockery. ‘I bet she didn’t. I’m not big yet or anything. In fact it doesn’t show at all yet, does it?’
‘No.’
‘Can’t we swap? I hate twin beds.’
Prue, it’s all arranged …’
‘Oh, I see. You’re putting your foot down. Well, the spare room it is then. I guess we can manage in one of the beds if we try.’
* * *
In the evening a concert on television. Submerged by the music, trying to pretend that the undercurrents simply don’t exist. My daughter quiet and tense, withdrawn in her chair, curled up with her feet under her. Somewhere inside her, beneath the absurd heap of clothes, that baby floats. His baby. Little arrogant go-getting runt in the chair next to her, impregnating her, marrying her, holding a gun to our heads, when she should have had the best and all the time in the world to find it. For what else was she born, for what else did we make her, Cassie and I?
He’s holding her hand. If I didn’t love her I wouldn’t care that she’s lowered herself to this. But what a solution. Is this the answer, to stop loving your children so that whatever they do it cannot hurt you, because you don’t care? Her choices are over, and they’d hardly begun. She’s only nineteen and her life is fixed, a long corridor, interminable, with no doors opening off it. Whither he goeth, she goes. He’ll drag her down and down, to whatever level he chooses, and I am powerless to help. There is nothing more I can do for her. I am reduced to buying her lunch at the Mirabelle and paying for a lease on her flat so that she can live in comfort with him. I can no longer guide her, advise her or help her: she is out of my sphere of influence. All her potential, all that bright shiny talent we nurtured so happily, the ponies and the music and the fun, all sunk into cooking his meals and bringing up his child. She could have had anyone and she chose to have him.
Prue said to Gavin, ‘Isn’t it lovely?’
‘Yeah, great.’
* * *
‘They put us in here on purpose.’
‘What?’ Gavin was pulling his shirt over his head.
‘They wouldn’t let us have my old room. Don’t you think that was mean?’
‘I don’t see that it matters.’ Gavin unbuckled his belt and slid out of his trousers.
‘But I love my old room.’
‘So? You’ve slept in it often enough. What’s one night more or less?’
Prue looked at him. ‘But I wanted to sleep there with you.’ She put her arms round him. ‘Oh, aren’t you delicious, all dark and hairy in your pants. Take them off.’
‘Well, that is what I had in mind, just give me some space.’ He tugged them off and ‘threw them in a corner. ‘Which bed do you want?’
‘Whichever you’re having.’
‘Oh, honey, come on, not again.’
‘What d’you mean, not again?’
‘Like this morning we nearly missed the train.’
‘I know, wasn’t it fun?’
‘Yeah, it was great. And tomorrow maybe. Only right now I’m pooped.’
She switched on mock-misery. ‘You’re bored with me already. Oh! How shall I bear it? My lord and master wearies of me. Oh!’
‘Cut it out, honey. I’m tired.’
‘But you’ve done nothing all day.’
‘Yeah, I know. But doing nothing down here beats a whole week at school.’ He got into bed. ‘Put the light out, huh?’
Prue stood at the window in the dark. She said presently. ‘Even the garden doesn’t look right from here. I hate this room. It’s for guests.’
‘We are guests. Go to bed.’
Pale moonlight gleamed on her newly-brown skin as she crossed the room. ‘All right, since you insist. Move over.’
‘Oh, Christ.’
‘Well, that’s a nice welcome.’ But her fingers had reached him. ‘Oh ho. Who said he was tired?’
‘Reflex action.’
‘Oh yes. That’s quite a reflex you’ve got.’
They grappled in silence. Presently he said, ‘Well, you asked for it.’
‘Oh yes. Please yes.’
‘Slave?’
‘Yes. Anything you say.’ And much later, drowning, gasping for breath, ‘Oh please more. Really hurt me this time.’
* * *
‘There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?’ Cassie said when they were undressing.
‘What?’ He despised himself for affecting not to understand but the pretence was automatic.
‘Our day en famille.’ She spoke tolerantly, humouring him, he felt, which enraged him.
‘No, it was great.’ (In the spare room, two walls away, Prue slept with Gavin.)
Cassie began to laugh, then, seeing his face, stopped. ‘Oh, darling, it doesn’t matter how he talks, does it? Really? He can’t help it.’
‘And the clothes. And the hair. He can’t help that either?’ (It would have been intolerable to have them next door.)
Cassie shrugged helplessly. ‘He’s just young. They’re all like that now. It’s just a fad. Part of being young. We all did it once, more or less. We had our funny fashions and our special slang.’
‘Oh yes?’ He got into his pyjamas, unpleasantly conscious of looking and sounding sulky. If they had been next door, in Prue’s old room, he would have been listening, and trying not to hear.
‘Well, didn’t we? Don’t you remember?’
What did she mean, that he was too old to remember? Was she taking sides with them against him? His last citadel fallen and the world upside down. That was bad enough, but it was the sense of ridicule that was hardest of all to bear, and that came as much from within him as from those around him. I am making myself a laughing-stock, he thought, behaving like a jealous old man because it’s all over for me and for them it’s still happening or whatever they call it. The world belongs to the young and you’re a fool if you resent it. They’re the new élite. You’re a narrow-minded sentimental old fool if you object to your daughter being knocked up by a long-haired layabout.
‘Anyway,’ Cassie went on, ‘what was all that about France?’
‘Oh.’ He got into bed and looked defensively round for a book. ‘We were cordially invited to spend our summer holidays with them in the South of France.’
‘And you said we couldn’t go.’
‘Well, naturally.’
‘Why?’
He was truly taken aback. Perhaps the passages in books he had summarily rejected in which people said ‘What do you mean, why?’ and ‘Are you seriously suggesting …’ in outraged tones, were not so wide of the mark. The highbrow novel might endeavour to reject cliché, but cliché was the humiliating stuff of real life. He surrendered to it and allowed himself to say, ‘I should have thought that was obvious.’
Cassie sat on the edge of the bed in her nightdress and said seriously, ‘I don’t see why. It might have been very nice.’
‘Nice!’ He could not prevent himself from echoing her. (Were they asleep?)
‘Well, we won’t get anywhere by ignoring them, will we? We might all have got along quite well in the sun. You like the South of France, you might even get to like Gavin in a holiday atmosphere.’
