Angel Cake (26 page)

‘We moved to Gascoigne Gardens and that was all right. Well, we were neither of us going to take against it, were we, when we knew it wasn’t for long and the next place was going to be for good. We used to go out looking every Sunday. I can’t pretend when we finally found this place that it was my idea of paradise. But, to tell the truth, I was sick and tired of looking. I would have been happy with anywhere by that stage, nearly, provided it had a roof and four walls and was within our price range. We knew the neighbourhood and, while it wasn’t Belgravia, it was nothing like as bad as it’s got now. In its own way, it even had charm.
Then
. So we put together all we had and we bought it. We had to pay off every penny there and then, you see. We were hardly of an age where anyone would have considered us for a mortgage. We moved here in July 1969. I shall never forget it. The beginning of July 1969. A boiling summer’s day.’

‘Like today,’ said Alison.

‘Oh, it was much hotter. Our belongings came in the removal van and we followed in a taxi. I remember stepping down and standing out there in the street while Leonard paid the driver, looking up at the house and thinking, “And they both lived happily ever after.”’

‘May I ask you a question which is a bit indiscreet?’ asked Alison.

What – now? thought Alicia. Not now when we’re nearly
done, when she’s swallowed all I’ve told her, when I’ve got her eating out of my hand.

‘What is it?’ she asked a bit tetchily.

‘Well, listening to you talk about those years – I know this is an awful cheek – but it doesn’t sound as if you were always really quite as happy as you make out, you know. I know it’s frightfully rude of me to ask, but didn’t you ever have any regrets?’

Alicia drew breath. She felt just how she used to when all the other lights in the house went down, but the spot on her. Out there in the dark, the audience waited for the Big Speech. She squared her shoulders. She gave her hair a quick pat and she began, ‘Why ever should I, with a man like Leonard Queripel? What do you suppose I would have regretted? No, I counted my blessings year in, year out. I know what other women have to make do with. But I was the lucky one. I had the best of husbands, I know I did, and the best of men.’

It was so silent in the theatre that you could hear the rewarding sound of each little sniff, each little gulp, the rustle of every hanky being unfolded, and you knew that your performance had done the trick.

‘I won’t pretend our life together was always a bed of roses. That would be wrong. When you have a man as superior as Leonard Queripel, it’s not surprising that now and again those around him find it hard to match up. But I knew he was always in the right, you see – had to be – so it made it easier to put up with any little differences. Besides, I worshipped him. He was my guiding light. And I know I can say that in forty years of marriage, he never so much as looked at another woman. We were everything to each other.’ She sighed a heartfelt sigh. ‘I only wish for your sake, my dear, that you’ll find such happiness one day too. Once you’ve known perfection like that, you’ll never accept second-best.’

The silence seemed to last for an eternity. Alicia stole a sideways look at Alison’s face, lost in rapt contemplation of this rosy vista.

‘So you think Rob’s second-best?’ Alison asked bluntly.

Alicia pretended to be embarrassed. ‘Put it this way, dear,’
she said kindly. ‘You’re like me. You’ve got a sweet tooth, as it were. What you crave is a piece of gateau, but your friend keeps serving you beans on toast.’

She waited for a long while after she had said this, worried that at the mundane mention of beans on toast, the whole multi-coloured many-storeyed edifice which she had built up so artistically might crumble.

Alison sat still for a long while too. She didn’t seem to have been brought out of her reverie by the unfortunate introduction of beans on toast. She was gazing down at her hands, which Alicia noted promisingly, she seemed to be wringing in her lap. Then suddenly Alicia saw one, two tears trickle down Alison’s face. She sat back in her chair and she listened to the applause rise tumultuously from the stalls.

In the pink peace of the summer evening, she tried on her seaside outfit again when Alison had gone. She paraded in it up and down the landing, one hand now and then on the banister railing, closing her eyes as if it were the railing on the promenade and she were breathing sea air. It was awful to go back into the bedroom and catch sight of her face between the sky-blue dress and the matching hat. The dress and hat hadn’t aged.

Maybe she had struggled upstairs once too often, against her better judgement, to take a look at the outfit. Maybe it was the turmoil of emotions brought on by telling Alison today’s instalment which caused it. Coming down the stairs again afterwards, she had a turn. Or rather, the house turned around her. She had to sit down sharply on the bottom step. Something like a tidal wave washed over her, taking her breath away. She could hear the sea roaring in her ears, like in one of those shells.

On Tuesday evening, I think it was, Jean of Jean and Eddy telephoned. I started to remind her that Rob was away in Liverpool, but she interrupted me. ‘It was you I rang up to speak to, believe it or not. We wondered if you felt like coming over to eat with us one night while you’re on your own?’

I was so surprised that I was momentarily at a loss for an excuse. ‘Gosh,’ I said, ‘that’s awfully sweet of you!’

‘Which night would suit you best?’ Jean asked, a trifle briskly.

I hesitated. ‘Look, are you quite sure?’ I said feebly. ‘I mean, you mustn’t feel I need inviting out just because Rob’s away for a week.’

‘We don’t,’ Jean answered. There was an awkward slight pause and then she said, ‘What about tomorrow?’

‘Oh, I’m afraid I’m busy tomorrow,’ I lied.

‘Thursday?’ she said.

I realized that for whatever reason, she wasn’t going to let me get out of this, so I replied, ‘Thursday’s fine. Thank you very much.’

‘Great,’ she said. ‘We’ll see you then.’

‘Oh, what time should I come?’ I asked.

‘Whenever you like,’ Jean answered. ‘It won’t be anything special.’

When I got to their house on Thursday evening Jean was out, delayed at a meeting, Eddy told me as he let me in. He was peeling an enormous mixture of different vegetables on the kitchen table, while Adam sat docilely in the middle of them, absorbed in sampling one after another peelings of potatoes, parsnips and onions. Eddy gave me a vegetable knife in response to my offer of help, and for an hour or so we worked there together, while Eddy spluttered at the evening news bulletins on the radio and I wondered whyever they had invited me over.

It didn’t become clear until the strained evening was almost over. Jean came back at nearly nine o’clock, worn out and irritated by the confrontations of her women’s meeting. By then Adam was grizzling on the kitchen floor, petulantly protesting at the lack of direction to his evening by repeatedly pulling vegetable peelings out of the bin and flinging them on the floor. For an instant, Jean looked quite shocked to see me sitting there and I realized she had forgotten that I was coming.

We sat down to eat in the end, very late, already having drunk nearly two bottles of wine between us, while the
vegetables were turned into a big vegetable curry and Adam was coaxed unsuccessfully into bed two or three times.

I waited for some intimation all through the curry, and the crumble which followed. But Jean and Eddy chatted on in an offhand way, Jean about her meeting and Eddy about some new book project. They really didn’t seem to attribute any particular significance to my presence at all and I had virtually decided it was an act of duty, which they had reluctantly fulfilled with a minimum of effort, when Jean said to me, ‘I’m not sure how you’re going to take this, Alison, but we wondered if we could help you in any way? We thought maybe you had some sort of problem?’

I said, ‘Sorry?’

‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ she said earnestly, ‘but it hasn’t escaped our attention that you’ve been a bit – well, out of it recently. None of us ever sees you and when we do, you seem, you know, not quite all there. We wondered if you were having some kind of hassles? We thought we might be able to help you work through whatever it is?’

I said, ‘I’m fine.’ I laughed. ‘I don’t really know what you’re talking about.’

‘Oh, come on, Alison,’ said Eddy. ‘There’s no need to be like that; it’s so counter-productive. We’re not trying to interrogate you here. We’re just offering to discuss whatever’s bugging you in a constructive, non-confrontational way. Group therapy, you know.’

Jean said, ‘Ed-dy.’

‘OK, OK,’ Eddy said. ‘I’ll leave it to the expert.’ He took a big swig of wine and sat back in his chair.

‘But nothing’s bugging me,’ I said brightly. ‘I don’t know what gave you the idea –’

‘Well, for instance, things don’t seem to be going too brilliantly between you and Rob,’ Jean said sarcastically.

I stared at her. ‘What makes you say that?’ I snapped.

‘Oh, please,’ said Jean, ‘give me the credit for a little nous.’ She softened. ‘Look, Alison, I know it’s never easy to admit to oneself that things are in a mess. I’ve done a doctorate in self-deception in my time. But it’s the only way we’re going to start to work towards a solution.’

‘Thanks very much for the offer,’ I said rudely, ‘but fortunately, there’s no need.’

Jean and Eddy sighed in unison.

Eddy said, ‘I hate to see someone turning their back on a positive approach.’

Impatiently, I answered, ‘Look, there’s nothing to discuss. And, even if there were, do you honestly imagine I’d sit here at your kitchen table discussing the ins and outs of Rob’s and my private life?’

Eddy said, ‘Why ever not? Don’t you see, we can help you by putting a new perspective on things?’

‘What I don’t understand,’ said Jean, ‘is why you insist on clutching “
your
private life” to your breast, as if it were somehow sacred and top-secret. I mean, for God’s sake, it’s perfectly obvious
something’s
the matter, and I don’t really see what you think you stand to gain by hushing it up.’

We glared at each other.

I said hotly, ‘My private life
is
sacred and top-secret. I’ve no intention of airing my woes for public consumption – If there are any.’

‘God!’ Jean exclaimed. ‘I find your concept of a relationship so claustrophobic. I wonder if that’s not part of the problem? Don’t you see, you’re cutting yourself off from all sources of outside input?’ She paused. ‘Are you sure Rob sees things the way you do?’

‘Look,’ I said angrily, ‘there’s no point in going on. Firstly, I’ve already said there’s nothing to discuss and, secondly, even if there were, I assure you I wouldn’t hold a DIY analysis of it here.’

I was quite proud of myself for that. I thanked them for the dinner and I got up to go. They were both shaking their heads over their wine-glasses.

‘I think you’re being amazingly short-sighted,’ Jean said warningly.

I took my jacket off the back of my chair and, without meaning to underline my disgust, I picked two or three stray carrot scrapings from it.

‘I appreciate you meant well,’ I added pompously.

I rode home, sitting especially straight, pumping fast and furiously on my pedals. How dare they? I thought indignantly.
How dare they stick their prying noses into my affairs?

All the next day, the taste of their pungent vegetable curry kept returning to remind me of my righteous indignation.

Rob came back on Friday. I heard him typing in his study as I came up the last flight of stairs. As I opened the front door, I called out cheerily, ‘Hello-oh!’ and he called back, ‘Hi, hi!’ He came to the door of the study and looked out at me warily to see how things stood between us. He must have decided that they were on the mend, that distance, to quote Mrs Q, had made the heart grow fonder, because he came bounding across the hall and gave me a big hug. I gave him a token one in return.

‘Well,’ I asked him, ‘how was it? Come into the kitchen and tell me all about it.’

When he had finished, Rob asked, ‘What’s new with you?’

I told him that Jean and Eddy had invited me over to dinner.

He said, ‘Uh-huh?’

It was too casual.

‘You don’t sound very surprised,’ I said sharply. ‘Did you know they were going to?’

‘Put it this way,’ said Rob, ‘I’m not surprised.’ He hesitated. ‘How was it?’

I pulled a wry face. ‘Not a great success, I’m afraid. Why aren’t you surprised? I was.’

Rob said weakly, ‘They’re decent people. They knew you were on your own.’

‘It was nothing of the sort,’ I contradicted him angrily. ‘They invited me over to grill me.’

Rob shifted on his seat. ‘OK, I confess,’ he said, grinning ruefully. ‘I was a bit worried about the state you were in before I went away, so I asked them to take you under their wing. Why are you looking at me like that? It’s not such a big deal, is it?’

I said tensely, ‘What did you say to them? Did you just say I’d be by myself and could they keep an eye on me? Or did you tell them – something else?’

Rob sighed, ‘Oh God, does it really matter what I said to them? I assure you it was nothing important.’

I nearly shouted, ‘What did you say to them?’

Rob started to lose his temper too. ‘All right,’ he said hotly, ‘I
asked
them to invite you over. I
asked
them to see if they could make head or tail of what’s going on in your head these days. And I dare say they couldn’t. Now are you happy?’

I sat aghast. I imagined his group sitting round, maybe on a Sunday afternoon when I had been over at Mrs Queripel’s, earnestly debating the best method to combat my hang-ups. Above the roaring sound in my ears of all my faith in Rob draining in one deafening go, I struggled to hear myself say, ‘But how
could
you?’

‘I don’t see why you’re making such a fuss,’ Rob said bluntly. ‘Surely the fact that I’ve discussed this bloody business with other people shows that I care about it, doesn’t it?’

As I stood up without a word, he grabbed at my hand and he bellowed, ‘Doesn’t it?’