The Fat Woman's Joke (7 page)

And all the way home in his taxi that evening he brooded about Esther's malice in plotting to cook his omelette in butter the night before.

“It all sounds rather sordid to me,” said Brenda, sipping her coffee. “Secretary and boss and stolen idylls in the park. It's like the News of the World. My mother always said that men in offices were underemployed. That's why she would prefer me to marry a professional man. They are so worn out by work they don't cause trouble. She is very funny, my mother, in a sinister suburban way.”

“It was only a kiss,” said Susan, “but afterwards all the colors in the park seemed stronger and the trees made strange shapes in the sky and when I went home and told William, I found my knees were trembling and so I knew I meant what I was saying. I was in love. The same man, not my boss, would probably have made no impression on me at all, I am honest enough to admit it. Status is a great aphrodisiac. His name was in black type on the telephone list and if you work for an organization like Zo's, even temporarily, these things have the power to affect you.”

“What do you mean, told William?”

“I explained to him about Alan, and how it would be better for him to move out because it wouldn't be fair to him, me being in love with someone else. He quite understood. We have a very civilized relationship. He went home. It all seemed, at the time, to fit in very well.”

“You were presuming, weren't you? I mean that more would happen between you and Alan than just a kiss in the park? You were getting rid of William before you were sure of Alan. I mean, next time you met him he might have pretended it never happened. I've met men like that before.”

The foreign gentleman held out his cup. Brenda filled it.

“His bladder will burst,” said Susan. “How can any man drink so much coffee?”

“It's because he doesn't want to leave. The coffee is his excuse for staying. He is suffering greatly on our account.”

“Your account.”

“It is true,” said Brenda, “that his eyes follow me, not you. I wonder why.”

“Perhaps in the country he comes from they like their women to have massive legs.”

“What country do you think it is?”

“The Lebanon?”

“Where's that?”

“I haven't the faintest idea.”

“Perhaps Ceylon or somewhere like that. He seems an educated man to me.”

“Now how do you deduce that?”

“He has a very intelligent expression in his eyes. Don't you think he's very attractive? I like a silent man.”

“I don't. I like words. Alan handled words beautifully.”

“Susan, if William is so civilized and understanding, why isn't he here now?”

“Because his wife's having a baby. I don't see why you're complaining. You're only here in the flat because he's not.”

“I'm sorry, I'm sure.”

“I didn't mean it like that. But naturally a girl prefers to live with a man.”

“What about all those Kensington secretaries, sharing flats with one another?”

“Cowards, or Lesbians,” said Susan.

“Surely!” Brenda was disbelieving.

The foreign man closed his eyes. Brenda moved over and gently stroked his forehead, even as she protested.

“Brenda!” Susan was scandalized. “You hardly know him!”

But Brenda stroked on. Susan rose and went back to the pub, leaving them together.

“B
Y THE FOURTH DAY
of the diet I was in despair,” said Esther to Phyllis. “I can't really bear to think about it. Shall we go and have some curry? It would do me good. I have hardly been out of this place for days.”

“You'll have to change,” said Phyllis. “You can't go out like that.”

“Why not?”

“You're covered with soup.”

“If I don't care, why should you? I didn't bring anything with me when I left. I don't need clothes. I don't want anyone to look at me; it's their misfortune if they do. Are you ashamed to be seen out with me?”

“No.”

“You're lying. People have been ashamed to be seen out with me as long as I can remember. I was a very dirty little girl. My mother used to tell me so. She's a very small neat woman, as you know, and I, by comparison, overflowed. I seemed to have more surfaces than she, and every single one of them picked up dirt. While I was married to Alan I tried very hard to be clean. I dusted and swept and polished. I bathed every day, changed my clothes twice a day, bought new ones perpetually, had everything dry-cleaned. It is a very expensive business, being clean. I sewed on buttons, too. None of it was my true nature. In trying to be clean I contorted myself. This is what I am really like: I shall pretend no longer. If you are too ashamed to go into an Indian restaurant with me as I am, it doesn't matter to me in the least. I don't really want to go out, anyway. I have lots of English curry in the cupboard.”

“You can't still be hungry.”

“It has nothing to do with hunger, for God's sake.”

“It's psychological, you mean.”

Esther did not deign to reply. She picked out a tin of curry and a tin of savory rice from the shelf.

“It's not real curry, this, of course. Real curry is very tricky to make. You use spices, added at precise intervals, and coconut milk. It's not just a matter of making a stew and adding curry powder and raisins and bananas. You have to devote a whole day to making a true curry. It is all a great waste of time and energy, but it keeps women occupied, and that's important. If they had a spare hour or two they might look at their husbands and laugh, mightn't they? I am glad you stopped me going out. If I leave this place goodness knows where my footsteps might not take me.”

“I didn't stop you going out. You stopped yourself.”

“Did I? How fortunate. Now where were we? One of the strange things about not eating is how clearly you begin to see things. By the end of the week I could see myself very clearly indeed, and it was not comfortable. My home was not comfortable, either. It seemed a cold and chilly place, and I could see no point in the objects that filled it, that had to be eternally dusted and polished and cared for. Why? They were not human. They had no importance other than their appearance. They were bargains, true. I had bought them cheap, yet I had more than enough money to spend, so where was the achievement? Those old things, picked up and rescued and put down on a shelf to be appreciated, seemed to have taken over my whole life. They were quaint, oh yes, and some were even pretty, but they were no justification for my being alive. Running a house is not a sensible occupation for a grown woman. Dusting and sweeping, cooking and washing up—it is work for the sake of work, an eternal circle which lasts from the day you get married until the day you die, or are put into an old folk's home because you are too feeble to pick up some man's socks and put them away any more. For whose sake did I do it? Not my own, certainly. Not Peter's—he could as well have lived in a tree as in a house, for all the notice he took of his surroundings. Not Alan's. Alan only searched for flaws: if he could not find dirt with which to chide me, if he could not find waste with which to rebuke me, then he was disappointed. And daily I tried to disappoint him. To spend my life waging war against Alan, which was what my housewifeliness amounted to, endeavoring to prove a female competence which was the last thing he wanted or needed to know about—what a waste of time this was! Was I to die still polishing and dusting, washing and ironing, seeking to find in this way my fulfillment? Imprisoning Alan as well as myself in this structure of bricks and mortar we called our home? We would have been as happy, or as miserable, in a cave. We would have been freer and more ourselves, let's admit it, in
two
caves.”

“Caves are nasty damp places. You would have
TB
in no time. And I don't see Alan as a caveman. Now Gerry, I could see Gerry in a cave.”

“Oh, you are an inveterate little woman, aren't you? You love having a bully for a husband.”

“Gerry's not a bully. He is very strong-willed and not very good at controlling his emotions, and he speaks his mind, and he is very highly sexed, but he's not a bully. And he needs me. And I like having the house nice when he comes home, and the smell of food cooking to welcome him and everything looking neat and tidy.”

“I bet you put on lipstick for the great homecoming, too. And a fresh dress and comb your hair, and put on a welcome-home-darling smile, just like in the women's magazines. God, what an almighty bore.”

“That's silly. He looks forward all day to coming home.”

“That's what he says, you really make him say it; but what does he feel? What does he really think? What do any of them think? When I looked at Alan during that week I saw a stranger, and a hostile stranger at that. Someone who conned me and betrayed me and laughed at me behind my back. All these years of marriage, I could see, he had been laughing at me, playing with me, using me and my money, and caring nothing for me at all. When he smiled at me it was to hide the sneer of derision on his lips; when he touched me and embraced me it was the worst insult of all, because he had to steel himself to do it. I knew he did. Because he touched me to keep me quiet. He lusted after someone half my age, and half my size.”

“Those are terrible feelings to have about anyone, let alone a husband. And Alan's not like that. Alan's not a sly kind of person.”

“I'm not saying he is. I'm just saying that's what it felt like to me, that particular week. Juliet did what she could to make matters worse, too.”

On the seventh day of diet Juliet sat at the living-room table polishing the silver with impudent inefficiency and singing. Esther, in the adjoining kitchen, clattered pots and pans to indicate disapproval of her cleaner's merriment. The more she banged and crashed, the sweeter Juliet sang. Then Esther appeared in the doorway, staring at her, but Juliet sang on and refrained from speeding up the rate of her polishing, or of pressing harder upon the metal.

“Juliet, if you rubbed a little harder it would come up better.”

“Bad for the surface, Mrs. Wells, rubbing too hard. Gently does it, with the good stuff.”

“You just
say
that, Juliet. It's not true.”

Juliet put her cloth down. “Are you saying I don't know how to polish silver?”

“Yes,” said Esther with desperation.

“Then perhaps you should find someone else to do it. To speak frankly, since you and Mr. Wells started not eating, this house has not been a pleasure to come into.”

“I would rather you didn't leave, Juliet.”

“You are quite right not to want me to go. You wouldn't get anyone else to work in a place like this. Things everywhere. Nothing new. Everything old-fashioned and dingy.”

“It's very fashionable, as it happens.”

“And the atmosphere! You wouldn't get anyone else to work in this kind of atmosphere.”

Esther was terrified. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” said Juliet, in a more kindly fashion, “I daresay it does take all sorts, and to be frank, your home is nothing to some I've seen.”

“You'll stay, you mean? Please do. Don't be upset.”

“I'll see you through a bit longer, because obviously you are not yourself. I think it is very foolish of you to ruin your health and your temper in this way, if you don't mind my saying so. Some of us are made fat and some of us are made thin, and that's all there is to it. You'll lose your husband if you carry on like this. He can't much fancy this glimpse of the Real You.”

“But it's he who makes me do it.”

“Not satisfied with what he's got? Is that it? That's husbands all over. Ungrateful pigs. You do everything for them, you bring up their kids, you cook their food, you wash their clothes, you warm their beds, you fuss over your face day after day so they'll fancy you, you wear yourself out to keep them happy and at the end of it all, what happens? They find someone else they fancy more. Someone young some man hasn't had the chance to wear out yet. Marriage is a con trick. A girl should marry a rich man, then at least she'd have a fur coat to keep her warm in her old age.”

“I don't know who you're talking about, Juliet, but it's certainly not
my
husband. If you do want to go on working for me, and I pay you 8 shillings an hour, which is 3 shillings above market rates, I suggest you get on with it.”

“Oh, go on, Mrs. Wells, just as we were getting on so nicely. Have a nice hot piece of toast with jam on it. And some nice milky coffee.”

“No, that would be cheating. Alan will kill me if I cheat.”

“You don't think he's cheating away at his office, wherever he is? What do you think he does when you're not looking?”

“Just get on with the polishing, Juliet.”

Juliet started singing. Esther went back to the kitchen, and tiny tears ran down her wide cheeks.

When Susan went back to her flat she found Brenda pacing the room in a dressing-gown. She seemed surprised: her large gray eyes were opened very wide. The man from overseas lay, fully clothed even to his carefully knotted tie, asleep on the hearth-rug.

“What an extraordinary thing,” said Brenda. “How strange life is. They are right, love knows no boundaries of creed or color. It strikes out of a clear sky. I am glad I left home. Things like this only happen in London.”

“I should be careful if I were you. Perhaps he has a strange disease.”

“Oh, no, he's not like that at all. He is a very gentle, sensitive, discreet kind of person.”

“How do you know? He doesn't speak.”

“You can tell,” she said. “You can tell from the way he breathes.”

“I think your behavior is quite extraordinary. It might almost be called promiscuous. Please ask him to leave at once.”

“He's asleep. We'll have to wait until he wakes up, or it will be bad for his health. It is most unjust of you to call me names. You are always advocating free spontaneous behavior, yet the slightest sign of life from me and you try to make me feel I have behaved badly. But I haven't, I really haven't. I have done nothing at all to be ashamed of. Everything I did, I did from love. It flowed out of me. It was a wonderful feeling, like being part of the earth.”