A Bouquet of Barbed Wire, page 6
Out it came, too much, too bitter, but unstoppable. ‘Why should I, when you obviously like him enough for both of us?’
Cassie gave him a long, thoughtful look which he very much resented. ‘Not particularly. I mean I don’t like him or dislike him. I just accept him and I think it would be a lot better for you, as well as everyone else, if you could too. There’s simply no point in keeping up a feud when he’s one of the family. If he was … Dracula we’d have to accept him now or risk alienating Prue. And neither of us wants to do that.’ She got into bed. ‘At least if he asked us to join them on holiday he’s making an effort, isn’t he? It can hardly be his idea of fun. When did we ever ask my parents to go away with us?’
Manson lay down and switched out the light on his side of the bed. ‘Now you’re saying he wanted us to refuse. So what would have been the point of accepting?’
Cassie sighed. ‘I’m simply pointing out that he was making a peace move which I think was rather nice of him.’
‘Only he didn’t want to be taken up on it.’
‘Well, probably not, but—’
‘Then I did him a favour. He had all the kudos of making the offer and none of the inconvenience of having it accepted. Ideal.’
Cassie switched out her light. ‘All right, we won’t talk about it any more. Prue looks very well, don’t you think?’
This was too much for Manson. ‘She won’t much longer if he has his way.’
‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘He wants her to work in an office all through July to earn the fare for the holiday.’
‘Well?’
‘You find that quite acceptable, do you?’
‘Why, won’t he be working too?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, then.’
‘You don’t see any difference?’
‘Darling, do try to be rational. She’s only three months pregnant. Lots of women work up to six or seven months. It’s perfectly all right so long as she takes it easy and gets enough rest.’
‘You never worked when you were pregnant.’
She squeezed his shoulder. ‘I was lucky, I didn’t have to. But I would have done if we’d needed the money.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t have let you.’
‘I do love it when you sound masterful. It makes me feel young again.’
‘Now you’re changing the subject.’ He hated himself for not being able to respond to the warmth in her voice. He would have liked nothing better than to make love to her and by so doing forget the whole ghastly mess, but he was prevented as surely as if they were in different rooms.
‘Oh.’ He heard her registering the rebuff. ‘Well, times have changed, I suppose. The working wife is taken for granted now, even the pregnant working wife. When we were young it was rather unusual.’
Everything went back to age. It was as if he was on some hideous roundabout, perpetually passing the same point, unable to jump off. He lay in the dark and let the words revolve in his mind: too old, times have changed, they’re young, accept the inevitable, things are different now, on and on, digging an endless division. Not a family any more but two generations at war. How abruptly it happened.
Cassie said gently, ‘I’m sorry you’re taking it so hard.’
‘Yes, I’m making a fool of myself, aren’t I?’ The bitterness shocked him, yet he could not control it.
‘No, I don’t mean that and you know I don’t. It’s just sad.’
‘Yes, it’s pathetic that I haven’t come to terms with it.’
She didn’t rise to that. Instead she said slowly and distantly as if to herself, ‘It’s different for men, I suppose. There’s no dividing line. Once I accepted that I could never have another baby, that all that was over for me, I also accepted that nothing would be so sad ever again. In a way Prue’s doing it for me, having the baby. It does make me envious, up to a point, but happy as well. I don’t feel so much a grandmother as a sort of proxy mother-to-be.’
He said, wondering, ‘Why did you never tell me you felt like that?’
‘There wasn’t much point. You can’t fight the menopause.’ It was like her to use the correct term. ‘You didn’t want any more children after the boys were born, and it wouldn’t have mattered how many we’d had, I’d still have felt the same, I think. It isn’t the actual child you want, in the end, just the knowledge that you’re capable of having one.’
He put his arm round her. Presently, more out of proximity and tenderness than actual desire, they began to make love.
10
‘NOW IS there anything you’d like to ask me?’
Manson always gave them this opportunity after he finished his dissertation on publishing in general and the firm of Eliot and Manson in particular. Sarah Francis had listened attentively with a polite expression, not a smile, not a blank. Her eyes were dark though he could not tell what colour, and heavily made up, her hair blonde; dyed, he presumed. She had very golden skin, either from a holiday or make-up, and pale lips, and her hair was tied back severely, like Prue’s. Although it was June she wore, instead of a summer dress, a grey linen suit and white blouse—to look the part, he supposed. The only concessions to summer were the open neck and the short sleeves. She wore black patent sling-back shoes and carried a huge black patent handbag.
He did not normally study anyone in such detail but he had been talking for about twenty minutes and had nowhere else to look. Against his will he found himself contrasting the girl’s neat appearance with the clothes Prue had worn at the weekend—to keep Gavin company, he assumed. The weekend still rankled: on Sunday morning he had been forced to play chess with Gavin, while Prue and her mother prepared lunch, and Gavin had let him win. He was sure it had not been a genuine victory: Gavin, whatever else, was not stupid and not a beginner, and he had made the kind of mistakes that only a very stupid beginner could make. The condescension had been harder to take than defeat. Then after lunch, while they were still browsing through the Sunday papers Prue had come up with some thin story, some reason for returning to London which she thought she had mentioned already, hadn’t she? and they left before tea.
‘Yes,’ Sarah Francis said. ‘I’d like to ask you when I can start.’
He laughed, pleasantly jolted out of his reverie. He had not expected such a direct approach.
She went on quickly, ‘Oh, I know you can’t answer that, you haven’t even offered me the job yet, and you’ve probably got dozens of other people to interview. But that’s really all I want to know. It all sounds super and I had a long chat with Miss Bradley after she gave me my test and she’s been so happy here, I’m sure I would be too.’
He could not see, apart from surface diplomacy and technical competence, that they had enough in common to ensure that what pleased one would please the other, in fact quite the reverse, but of course he could not say that. He asked instead why she wanted to go on working in publishing, expecting her either to profess a love of books which from a secretarial point of view would be largely irrelevant, or to mention glamour and excitement which after three years she must know hardly existed.
Sarah Francis said, ‘I like to feel I’m doing something useful.’
‘I’m glad you think publishing is useful.’ Manson smiled. ‘I sometimes have doubts about that myself.’
Sarah Francis smiled back as if to say that they both knew these doubts were not serious and could be dismissed. ‘I think what I mean is, I could work in, say, advertising, but I’d have to admit I was wasting my time. On the other hand, I really ought to work in something medical, only I’m a bit squeamish.’ She looked apologetic. ‘So here I am. Compromising.’
It was a curious voice: rather pretty but completely accentless, and neither too high nor too low. It went with her looks and her clothes as if she had chosen it, picked it off a rack to complete her outfit and create a good impression.
He said, ‘And what do you do in your spare time, Miss Francis?’
She hesitated for what he now felt was the prescribed length of thinking time, and said, ‘Oh, I like going to the theatre and playing tennis and … having dinner with people. And I make clothes sometimes. That’s about all really.’
‘Do you live at home?’ He knew she would not but it seemed better than asking her if she lived alone.
‘No.’ She concealed any hint that the idea was absurd. ‘I share a flat with three other girls.’ She grinned, letting some of the poise slip. ‘It’s a bit chaotic at times but it’s fun and very cheap.’
‘I have a daughter about your age.’
For the life of him he did not know why he’d said that. He had had no idea he was going to: the first he knew was when the words were actually spoken. And yet he was not sorry because it seemed somehow important.
Sarah Francis said, ‘That’s nice. What does she do?’
‘She’s a student.’
Her eyes were serious, as if she knew more than she could possibly know about what they were discussing.
‘My parents wanted me to go to university but I couldn’t wait to start earning money. I’m not sure I was clever enough to get in, anyway. Is your daughter very clever, Mr. Manson?’
‘Not very.’
‘Still, she must be quite clever or they wouldn’t have taken her. It’s getting very competitive now, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ It occurred to him that she had trained herself to hold a conversation regardless of subject; if he had asked her to talk for one minute on any given topic she could have done so.
‘People keep telling me I’ll regret not going. I don’t know. I haven’t had time to find out yet.’ She smiled at him as if—to his newly sensitised perceptions—asking forgiveness for her youth. He stood up to indicate that the interview was over, and held out his hand.
‘Well, Miss Francis, I’ve enjoyed talking to you. You’ll hear from us very soon. I promise not to keep you in suspense.’
They shook hands. She had a very firm grip, but knew when to let go.
‘I’ll cross my fingers.’ Again the grin, which was positively mischievous compared with the smile, which was prim and polite. Somewhere under the cool facade Miss Francis had a sense of humour.
She walked to the door, the grey linen very neat and uncreased as if she had never sat down. She went out without looking back or fumbling with her bag and the door handle. No bungled exits for her. He heard her exchanging pleasantries with Monica in the outer office, then another door closed neatly. She had gone.
Monica knocked and bounced in. ‘Well, what do you think?’ Her eyes shone with pride and satisfaction, as if she had created the soignée Miss Francis out of papier maché and genius. Manson flopped in his chair.
‘All right, Monica, she’s the winner. Especially as there aren’t any other contestants.’
Monica looked crest-fallen. ‘You didn’t like her.’
‘Yes, of course I did. How could I dislike her? I just can’t believe that out of the whole of London you could only find one girl worthy of interview, even at your exacting standards.’
Monica’s expression grew more and more perturbed. ‘We had about thirty-one applicants,’ she said, ‘but I weeded them out.’
‘Evidently. That’s not weeding, that’s more like savage pruning.’ He was surprised to find himself with an urge to needle Monica. Unusual.
‘I’m sorry if I did the wrong thing. I was only trying to save you trouble as you’re so busy.’ Her shut-down face. He had offended her.
‘I know and I appreciate it. Of course you didn’t do the wrong thing.’ Climb down; make it all right. He didn’t want to conduct dozens of interviews, anyway, and they would all be the same if Monica vetted them first, all perfectly charming and efficient. He would not be able to tell one from the other, let alone choose, so what was the point? But still something in him resented that he had not been given at least an illusion of choice.
Monica said doubtfully, ‘Of course you could still interview them all if you want to. Although there were only five or at the most seven who were even worth considering. This kind of job attracts a lot of the wrong types.’
Did he want to interview seven little girls? Of course he didn’t. He would probably end up with Sarah Francis, anyway. And Monica was leaving in a fortnight, come what may. He said, ‘Write and tell her she’s got the job.’
11
CASSIE SAID hesitantly, ‘Do you think all fathers feel so—possessive about their daughters?’ She watched Marjorie position the cigarette in its holder, light it, and inhale while considering her answer. I shouldn’t be talking to her at all, she thought, only there is no one else to talk to, and I’m tired of thinking, and I’ve had too much wine.
‘I dunno,’ Marjorie said, exhaling. ‘I suppose it’s quite common. I’ll ask Alec if you like. I’m not sure how he feels about Judy.’
‘Oh no, no,’ said Cassie automatically, now feeling disloyal; then, reflecting that Marjorie would almost certainly discuss it with him, anyway, in the curious non-privacy of marriage, ‘Oh well, all right. It might be a good idea.’ It was at times like these that she should have either more friends or none at all, close to hand; it hardly mattered which. But to be stuck with Marjorie alone, bless her, was absurd.
She had lost the habit of girl-friends and confidence; confessions were hard to arrive at and stuck in her throat. Friendships, intense at Cambridge, during the war, had vanished, surprisingly, with marriage and children. She had expected to keep up with her friends but she had not. The hectic years in London meeting mostly new people and entertaining business contacts for Manson, then the move to the country when Prue was born. It had all, to her surprise, been fully absorbing, and in what time she had, she read books, propping them against the high chair while she fed Prue, beside the bath when she washed her, above the cooker while she cooked. She read books, after motherhood, as if she had never seen a book in her life before, voraciously, one after the other and often two or three at once, as if she had never obtained two degrees (to Manson’s feigned chagrin at having only one) which she still thought vaguely she might use one day. It was as if Prue’s birth released a kind of intellectual hunger that she had only glimpsed before. But with the twins it waned: gone into the sheer physical and nervous strain of coping with two energetic small boys and Prue as a moody adolescent. It had not returned—instead she found herself making jam and gardening, occupations she would once have scorned—and it seemed to have taken her capacity for friendship with it, or to have replaced it at a time when both could not be fitted in. She had chosen books because her life then had seemed so full of people she had hardly needed any more; she had needed a refuge from them instead.
‘Of course, mothers feel a bit funny about their sons,’ said Marjorie chattily. It occurred to Cassie that she might actually be pleased to be having a fairly intimate conversation for a change. ‘Don’t you think? I know I do.’ She giggled. ‘I wouldn’t admit it to anyone else but it’s quite different from how I feel about Judy.’
Oh dear, Cassie thought, that means she regards me as a special friend. Oh dear. How can I possibly reciprocate that or deserve it? And how extraordinary. Unless of course she, like me, is stuck with no other choice so I am, faute de mieux, a friend. I must not flatter myself without cause.
‘I suppose there is a difference,’ she said vaguely. ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’ Was she more maternal, more possessive, over the boys? Was there a sexual element in her love for them? Thinking about it she immediately pictured them in the bath and wondered if that was significant.
Marjorie laughed in rather an embarrassed and adolescent way. ‘Well, I wouldn’t like to go into it too closely but I’m sure it’s there. It must be quite normal. Nothing to worry about. So I shouldn’t get in a state about Peter being a bit funny over Prue.’
‘No, you’re right,’ said Cassie at once, wanting to end the conversation and wishing she had never started it. She could not think what had possessed her to do such a thing. ‘It’s all very trivial,’ she said, to convince herself as much as Marjorie. ‘Just a bit tiresome when we’re all together, the four of us. It makes such an atmosphere, his disliking Gavin so much. That’s all that bothers me really.’
But Marjorie was not so easily deflected. ‘They like to think their little girls are pure as the driven snow, you know. Now mothers are more realistic. I’m perfectly sure Judy must be—what do they call it now?—heavy petting all over the place, if nothing worse, but I’ve never said so to Alec. Even in his profession I’m sure he’s not broad-minded about his own daughter. If she actually got pregnant he’d hit the roof.’
Cassie began to wonder if she had been right to inform certain neighbours and friends of Prue’s pregnancy. At the time of the wedding, with all its talk-provoking suddenness, it had seemed much more sensible to be open with a selected few and avoid the inevitable speculation and sidelong glances. She was always, where possible, in favour of honesty, and it was at best a difficult situation to carry off with dignity, but if Marjorie was going to keep on about it…
‘So he has to blame the boy,’ Marjorie went on triumphantly. ‘His daughter has to be pure so it must be all the boy’s fault. But let me see now, how would it go…? If he also envies the boy he has to be twice as angry because the boy’s done what he’d have liked to do and—’
‘Yes, Marjorie, I do understand.’ Cassie did not even care now if she sounded rude. But she blamed herself very much for letting Marjorie get the scent of blood in the first place. A nasty disloyal feeling of ‘Have I betrayed Peter?’ crept over her like fog swirling up from the ground.
Marjorie was immediately repentant, though not on the right wavelength. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I always state the obvious, I know I do. No wonder Alec gets so impatient with me.’
* * *
‘Sure your Dad wants to screw you, baby. Sticks out a mile.’ Gavin punctured a Coke and began to drink it from the tin.
