A Bouquet of Barbed Wire (6 page)

He had tried to picture the people in the street all going home but he couldn’t; it was impossible to imagine enough houses to contain them all. He didn’t know about flats. So he pictured them going into burrows instead, vanishing one by one into holes in the ground in a wood like the one he played in. And when he got tired of that he pictured them in cages, like
his
rabbit’s cage, being fed with lettuce and carrot by other rabbit-people, and he laughed because it was funny, because he was still seeing them with their hats and coats and shoes on. It was like
Alice In Wonderland
, only better.

His mother looked down at him and said, ‘What’s the
matter with you, what are you laughing at?’ and he said ‘Nothing,’ because it was always safer, and because he knew that she did not really want to be told, not now, and because even if she had it would have been too difficult to explain, in the street with the noise of the traffic. He would have had to shout and he wanted to whisper.

There was a December smell in the street, a city smell, full of chestnuts and petrol and frost and soot; he liked it very much. There was a rawness about the air, so that when he breathed it in he was not entirely comfortable, but he didn’t mind. It was always like that and it was very important that things should go on being the same. He was not even sure that he would have liked—
really
liked—his mother suddenly to forget about all the things she had to do and decide that shopping was fun. It would have been nice but alarming, as if she had turned into someone else.

In the park he sat on a bench for a while, before resuming his stroll, and watched the ducks and the people feeding them. He thought he had not developed very far from the boy he remembered in the Christmas street forty years ago: he still resented change. And yet in a sense he craved for it. Perhaps it was that if certain changes were forced upon you, you were obliged to long for others, even to create them, in order to prove that you still had some control over events. What did he have to look forward to? Prue’s baby—a mixed blessing—another fifteen or twenty years in the firm and the hope that either David or Andrew, if not both, would care to follow him there in due course. Retirement: would he become a mellow old man in the garden, sniffing Cassie’s roses and sleeping in the afternoons? Christ! It was unbearable. He was not yet fifty and he was practically burying himself. They did not
have
to live in the country after all; they could take a small place in town and lead a gay life seeing lots of people, as they had when they were first married. He wondered if Cassie would like that again. He was
not even sure that
he
would, but at least it would be a change. Or he could retire early and really do some academic work, maybe even carve out a new career for himself. That was more like it; but would he have the initiative when it came to the point? And it would mean leaving David (or Andrew) to cope at a relatively early age—as he had been left. He knew how tough that could be. And suppose neither of them cared to take it on, what then? He would have worked all these years very largely for nothing. It would not be a family firm any more.

He looked at the people around him, at the cross-section attracted by the park. Only the young ones showed some emotion, wrapping themselves round each other as he had seen Prue and Gavin do when they thought he was out of the room. He couldn’t bear to watch them. It was so long ago since he and Cassie had done that, but he had not thought to be reminded so abruptly that he was well and truly middleaged. Past it, he thought bitterly; now there was a nasty expression, full of cruelty and patronage. It could only have been invented by the young. He looked at the faces of the older people, at the ones his age and older, and he thought he detected resignation, in faces and movements, as if they knew that the young condemned them and they accepted the verdict: it was indeed all over for them, and they hid their anxieties and preoccupations behind a mask of indifference. He wondered if he looked the same to them.

‘M
UMMY, PLEASE
may I have some more?’ Like a child.

‘Yes, if there
is
any more.’ Cassie scraping the remains on to her plate.

The boy, silent, as if by non-participation he could at least be sure of not giving offence. Long hair. A flowered sleeveless jacket and tie on a black lace shirt. Flowered trousers. Maroon suede shoes. And Prue in some long shapeless thing not at all like the nice grey dress she wore for lunch the other day.

‘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.’