A Bouquet of Barbed Wire (23 page)

‘Oh, now honey ..’

‘I mean it.’

‘You mean—your
mother?’

‘Yes. That’s who I mean.’

‘You
are
joking, aren’t you?’

‘No.’

They faced each other, very cold and still.

‘You want to tell your mother. Have I got that right?’

‘Yes.’

Silence. ‘Do you have a reason? Or are you just plain out of your mind?’

Prue shook her head. ‘I think she ought to know.’

‘Why?’ She didn’t answer. ‘Why? Go on, tell me. Just to be bloody-minded, that’s all, isn’t it? Hell, what’s the matter with you? You’ve caught your old man with his pants down—okay—isn’t that enough for you? So what did your mother ever do to you that you have to rub her nose in it too? Huh? Tell me that. You’d actually do a thing like that
to get back at your Dad because he objected to me knocking you up. Christ, honey, you must be sick.’

‘It’s not that at all.’ Prue’s mouth made a thin little line.

‘Then what is it? Go on, tell me; I’m interested. This more than makes up for that Psych, course I missed. So it’s not revenge—then what is it?’

Prue said tightly, ‘Justice.’

He laughed. ‘Oh yeah? And just who are you to start dispensing that doubtful commodity? And how does it differ from revenge, tell me that? And even if it’s justice for your Dad, which I question, how come it’s justice for your mother too? You can’t have it both ways, that’s for sure.’

‘He should have thought of that before.’

‘He
should! Oh, that’s great. Who are you to sling mud at your Dad?’

‘He slung mud at me fast enough.’

‘Sure. He’s your father. That’s kind of a right parents have. Like we’ll sling mud at Junior if he steps out of line. It’s kind of to compensate for buying the food and paying the rent. It’s like the balance of nature. And it just doesn’t work both ways.’

Prue stared at him, narrowing her eyes. ‘You’re on his side. Just because he’s a man you stick up for him.’

Gavin slammed his hand on the table, making it shake. ‘Christ Almighty! I’m sticking up for your mother as well. More, if anything, because she’s the one you’d be hurting most. Look, have you thought about this at all? Either she doesn’t know and you’ll be telling her and
hurting
her,
badly
, (are you listening?) or she does know and she’s trying to ignore it and you’ll be humiliating her by saying you know as well. Now, do you
want
to do either of those things? Do you really think that’s justice? If you’re out to punish your Dad tell him, not your mother. That’s quite sick enough. You don’t need to punish her too.’

‘I’m not trying to punish anyone.’

‘Not much you aren’t. Christ, I don’t get it. What’s so terrible if your Dad has a girl-friend? It happens all the time. And it’s just not your business.’

Suddenly Prue started to cry. ‘He’s supposed to be faithful.’

‘Who to—you or your mother? Look, you can’t have it both ways. You nearly throw up when I say he’d like to screw you, but the moment he screws someone else, wham, you’re after his blood.’

Prue was sobbing freely. ‘He’s got Mummy. She’s lovely. He doesn’t need … he doesn’t have to …’

Gavin lit a cigarette and tossed the match on the floor. ‘Balls. Don’t give me that eyewash. He’s done it before and he’ll do it again. Every man does. Plenty of women too. Maybe your mother even. Why should she be a saint? And we’ll do it, too. Oh, not now, not yet, maybe not for years. But we will. You can’t seriously think we’re going to be faithful to each other till the day we die.’

She said in a small voice, choking through sobs, ‘We promised we would.’

‘Oh, Prue. Promises are for kids.’

‘No.’

‘Yes, they are. Promises like that anyway. Like swearing blood brothers with the kid next door. No adult can look at another adult and guarantee to feel the same for ever and ever. It’s just not possible. And no adult would ever expect it, either.’

‘But we did. We said it. When we got married—’

‘Yeah, I know. But that was kind of emotional. Like it’s something you feel at the time, not something you
know
as a fact. Like I might say you’re the most beautiful girl in the world—’

‘But you never have.’

‘Well, like I might say Beethoven was my favourite composer. Sure I’d mean it. Only next week it could be Mozart.
What do I know? You say it and you mean it, sure, at the time, but people change. Come on, Prue. You know they do. What about those guys you had before me?’

‘I wasn’t in love with them. And stop trying to change the subject.’

‘What subject? That’s all settled. You’re not going to tell your mother, that’s all. What you say to your father is up to you but you’re not going to tell your mother because if you do I’ll knock your head off, that’s all.’ He smiled very amiably. ‘So you see? The subject is closed.’

M
ANSON SAID
, ‘Well, this is it. What d’you think? Go on, have a look round.’ He lit a cigarette; he was surprised to find himself actually nervous. If she did not like the flat … if she should resent his acting without consulting her …

Sarah walked from room to room. It did not take long: the flat was tiny. Two inter-communicating rooms, kitchen and bath. But it was very white and well-furnished, and high up, in a quiet street with a view of trees and roof-tops. She liked it at once but she was too surprised—and somehow also alarmed—to speak. So she just went on walking round the rooms, saying nothing and looking at things. Lots of things were so nice she might have chosen them herself. But she had not.

‘It’s five minutes from the office,’ he said. ‘I timed it. So you’ll save on fares.’

‘Enough to pay the increase in rent?’ she asked lightly, finding her voice.

He felt himself flushing. What was the matter with her? Wasn’t this what she had been angling for? ‘Of course not. That’s all taken care of.’

She turned her back on him to look out of the window. She said, ‘You’re setting me up.’

There was unmistakable hostility, even suspicion, in the words which he forced himself to ignore, saying, ‘That’s one way of putting it. I thought I was just making it easier for us to meet.’

Silence. She gazed out of the window with absorbed attention.

‘Look, you don’t even have to live in it,’ he went on. ‘We can just … come here. But I thought a single room would be sordid, that’s all.’

She said, ‘But you can’t pay all this rent if I don’t live here.’

‘That’s not the point. Would you
like
to live here?’

She turned round, frowning. ‘You mean money’s no object all of a sudden? Business is booming, I’m getting a raise?’

He stubbed out his cigarette in a clean ashtray and sat down. He felt tired. The whole thing was misfiring badly. He said, ‘I thought you’d be pleased. I’m sorry. I made a mistake.’

All at once she rushed over to him and hugged him, hard. It was actually quite painful, his ear pressed against the buckle of her dress. ‘No, you didn’t, it’s lovely. I love it.’ She kissed the top of his head. Familiar gesture, Prue or his mother, maybe both; not Cassie though.

‘Are you sure?’ he said, disentangling himself.

‘Yes. It just gave me a shock. It seemed so Victorian, somehow—or professional—being set up in a flat. No one’s ever done that for me before.’

‘I should hope not indeed,’ he said with mock severity. But he thought at the same time how true it was that he knew very little about her, and he was chilled by the thought. ‘It’s vacant—you can move in any time you like,’ he added quickly to stop her picking up wavelengths. ‘I’ve only got to sign the lease.’

‘You
have?’

‘Well …’ He hesitated, not knowing how to put it.

‘Oh yes, of course. Because you’ll be paying the rent.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just how these things are done. Don’t let it bother you.’

She smiled an odd little smile. ‘How long is the lease?’

He wished he did not have to answer that. ‘Six months.’

‘Oh.’

‘Well, initially six months that is, then automatically renewable if you don’t set the place on fire.’

‘I see.’

He said, ‘It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a formality.’

‘Yes.’ But she could not help thinking that it meant a limit to their relationship, that he had had to think in terms of time. To cover the unworthiness of this thought she said, ‘It’s funny, d’you know, I’d actually started looking at bedsitters. Only you don’t get much for four pounds, which is all I pay for my share of the flat. I wasn’t joking. It’d be cheaper to give me a rise. Anyway, here’s what I’d like to do. If I move in here I’ll pay you four pounds a week towards the rent.’

He wanted to say, ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ but she wasn’t, she had sudden dignity and he was embarrassed to argue with her. He said, ‘Is that what you really want to do?’

‘Yes.’ She turned away, fiddling with a lampshade. “That’s the only way I can do it. It wouldn’t work for me otherwise. Every Friday I shall pretend you’re my landlord, okay?’

‘You really are extraordinarily independent, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, I shall never get on in the world, my mother’s often told me.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

* * *

When she got back to the office she cried in the lavatory. Part of her was elated, excited, yet she felt the need to cry. She felt the first stage was over; they had either to part or to embark on the second stage, and this they had done. But it had a finality about it. It would lead nowhere. And she was angry that her first home alone would not be all hers, completely paid for and answerable to no one. She resented his kindness and yet the thrill that she got from thinking of the
visits, the phone calls, the sense of possession, ran right from her neck to the soles of her feet, making her shiver with delight.

She cried more at home in the bathroom, getting ready to go out, and in the car Geoff noticed her red eyes at once and said they matched the paint. He was excessively jovial with nerves at his imminent departure: once, rather drunk, he had told her he hated, was terrified of, flying. She wanted to say she would pray for him and although she was not even sure about God she said it anyway and felt better for it. He squeezed her hand.

‘Crazy, isn’t it?’

‘Not a bit. I’m frightened of moths, that’s far crazier.’

They had nothing to say. They sat in the lounge and drank drinks they did not want and looked at each other. They had met every week for six months and never been separated. Suddenly she became aware that she was thinking of him as her brother, like Simon. Their images, once so distinct, had merged.

When his flight was called she went with him to the barrier and the tears started again. He looked at her in amazement, touched, and said, ‘Are all those for me?’

She said yes. In a way it was true. They kissed and hugged, very hard, and she noticed he was white with fear. She felt a sharp pain that she could not protect him from the flight and wondered if that was some deep-buried maternal instinct. He left without looking back and she said out loud to herself, ‘Everyone goes out of my life.’ A man passing by said, ‘Pardon?’ She shook her head and walked quickly away to where the car was parked, hers for six weeks; she could not bear to watch the aircraft take off. Driving home she was still crying and switched on the wireless to cheer herself up. She had the feeling that she had lost a friend, and no one could afford to do that.

S
HE MOVED
in haste that weekend, with her things in a hired mini-van. She was sure she detected relief in Annabel and some regret in the others; but she had never really fitted. All the same, she felt oddly desolate leaving the flat and the rows of big white South Kensington houses with their steps and pillars and balconies. She had always lived in South Ken., ever since she left home. South Ken.
was
home.

The new flat was so absurdly central that she felt the mini-van driver must think her a call-girl, at least, and newly promoted. She would not have found the description too incongrous either. The proximity of the flat to the office no doubt meant lunch-time sessions to make up for the evenings—most evenings—when he could not stay late. She thought it was very like the Hollywood drama she had always imagined and avoided: the stolen hours, the secrecy, the isolation. Not like her life at all. Despite deceiving people when necessary, she had always thought of her life as very open. She had not had to be furtive, merely evasive. It had been she who kept moving, set the pace. Now she felt that she was being put in storage, for use as and when required. She would be in a safe place, where no harm could come to her, but where she would be immediately accessible to him, as she had not been while sharing a flat. And he would be paying part of the rent. The greater part, she felt sure. Would that entitle him to walk in at any moment, unannounced? Would he expect to have a key? Or would he
telephone first? Would she be free to invite her friends here in his absence? In fact, would it really be her home?

All these qualms chilled her profoundly. She could not understand herself. Nothing would have persuaded her to turn down the flat: it solved everything. And yet she could not rejoice in it wholeheartedly. There were the prickings of excitement, but distantly, in secret, as if under her skin or in her veins. On the surface she was very much disturbed. After the driver had moved her stuff in and left, having made a few admiring and faintly suggestive remarks, she was actually shivering and had to switch on all the fires. She unpacked as quickly as possible, to have her own things around her; nothing already in the flat felt as if it belonged to her. She found when she unpacked that she handled quite unimportant objects, like a rather ugly vase Barbara had once given her, with a new tenderness. They seemed more valuable. They made up the fabric of her life, her past. She placed them carefully, in prominent positions, to establish her identity.

* * *

She shopped, for weekend things, and put them away in the strange new kitchen. It was
well-planned
, and disconcerted her. She felt she was standing in a shop, in a showroom, and half expected to see people looking in the window, regarding her. She went in the bedroom and made up the bed and thought about him, but with affection, without desire. She felt in a dream, that she was going through the motions in some pre-ordained role.