Wish Her Safe at Home (22 page)

That night of my dinner party.

I began to feel better. Later—after my guests had gone and Horatio and I had the house all to ourselves again—I totally got over it. I truly did. Excitement reasserted itself, came flowing back exactly as it should have done. I
wasn’t
like the child who knows what he wants while he wants it (they could hand you the moon—you’d grow tired of it soon). Oh, but I’d really started to believe I might be. Just when I had almost everything I wanted...
Just when I could see it all so nearly coming true...
Oh, what a terrifying thought, that I might be intrinsically fickle, spoilt, impossible to satisfy!

But I quashed it. And as I say, thankfully, so thankfully, intoxication caught up with me again. As I undressed I sang. Yes of course! My theme tune. “Oh, if you want to be a big success—pom, pom!—here’s the way to instant happiness—pom, pom!...
” And I
was
young and beautiful. I must be. Otherwise none of this could possibly have happened. They didn’t
know
that I had varicose veins (even though mere children sometimes got them!)—they never would know—that was the great big glorious confidence trick. So what on earth did a few silly veins matter? Where was
their
importance in the vast eternal scheme of things?

And then I stopped. I stopped singing. I stopped performing my little musical striptease. (So tantalizing to the gentlemen!)

I suddenly thought...
how stupid I was. It came over me so strongly. Jesus had said, “Pick up your bed and walk.” He had cured the blind, the paralytic, the mad. Just like that. Rise from the dead. Chase out those devils. Open your eyes. Walk. So easy. I really felt—I really did feel—that the next time I ran my fingers down the back of my left leg they would encounter...
only smooth flesh. I really did feel that.

* * *

In fact I tried it. No, not “tried”—just did it. And how right I’d been! My fingers found nothing but smoothness: lovely silky smoothness. No bumps, no blemishes. I was a whole person once again.

Fit to be a bride of Christ.

* * *

Really a whole person.

That night he came back.

No, I express myself badly. Not for a moment had he ever been away.

What I mean is—he came back as I had viewed him only once before. Unclothed.

And he came with love.

I’ll tell you how it happened.

I hadn’t been able to sleep; and after what appeared like hours of tossing and turning, half-dreaming but continually jerking awake, my mind still racing and delirious, I decided to get up and go to make myself a hot drink and a sandwich (it seemed preposterous I should be hungry after such a meal; yet actually I’d felt rather too excited to eat)—then listen to some music. It was a mild night and with my young and silky, firm, unblemished limbs I had no need of any nightdress. I threw it off, luxuriously—and felt so free, so unencumbered. I floated down to the kitchen, remembering how we had laughed and fooled about and sung over the washing up and made it almost the loveliest part of the whole lovely party. The kitchen seemed so full of happy ghosts, my own very much included. I glided upstairs to the sitting room—it felt equally alive, maybe even more so—and selected a record, sat down and ate my sandwich, drank the milk; took a pink carnation out of a vase and joyfully threaded it through the hair of my maidenhood. I made a small garland of daisies (I had picked them just the previous day; had them right beside me in a honey jar) and carefully set it down in that same hallowed spot...
how sweetly it added to the charm. I may have fallen into a reverie; lulled by the Water Music I had put on the player. I saw myself searching for bluebells in the moonlight, feeling the dew-damp grass between my toes...
I wanted to run straight out and find some; had begun to leave my chair. But then suddenly he was there again, at the fireplace, and even as I completed the action—having forgotten the bluebells and determined this time really to hold him if such a thing were possible—he turned round and smiled and extended his hands to me. And he said:

“I’ve been waiting for you for so long.”

* * *

He admired the fine, upstanding quality of my breasts—even before he started stroking them; the flatness of my stomach, the smallness of my waist—“Surely,” he laughed longingly, in a tone of wholly undisguised wonder, “my fingertips could almost meet around it? And oh my one true love...
I can’t believe in so much excellence and grace. Tell me this isn’t just a dream! Tell me you won’t fall to pieces in my arms! Tell me that you’re no mere fragment of a starved imagination—and of my endless years of waiting and desire!

“Then to Rachel let us sing,

That Rachel is excelling;

She excels each mortal thing

Upon the dull earth dwelling...

“All this outer loveliness,” he said, “
and
a heart that’s filled with poetry, sweetness and delight.” He clearly marvelled at such a glorious combination. “My Rachel, my darling, my all. You have fresh flowers in your cunt.” He bent, and watered them with tears.

“Ah. i see that madam has come back. It is
so
lovely, isn’t it?”

“I’d like to take it,” I said.

“You would?”

“Yes, please.”

“I’m sure you won’t regret it, madam.” Yet was it my imagination or did she sound a jot uncomfortable? “Your daughter will be coming in too?”

“No. That won’t be necessary.”

“But any small adjustments which might be thought desirable...
?”

“We can see to those at home.”

This time I wasn’t wearing gloves. It didn’t matter. Indeed I had left them off on purpose. She’d be able to gawp discreetly at my wedding ring.

“In fact I want to tell you something. My daughter and I often get mistaken for sisters. Even for twins. We have precisely the same measurements.”

“Then you’re very fortunate, madam.” She began to gather up the dress. “Extremely fortunate.”

“And I’d state with complete confidence that this gown is the correct size. Wouldn’t you? But please don’t ask me to try it on. Not here. It wouldn’t seem appropriate.”

“I must admit,” she said, “I should feel happier if I could only see the young lady herself.”

I laughed. “Oh, ye of little faith!”

“Madam?”

I hastened to reassure her. “And that remark applies almost as much to me as it does to you.”

“Besides,” she went on, “I’d naturally feel interested to see her. We all would; it’s a very special dress. We’d like to wish her luck.”

“Luck?” I said. “Oh, no! You mustn’t pin your hopes on
luck
! Nor on experiencing life at merely secondhand. No one should ever feel content to live vicariously.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Poor woman—I sensed immediately that you were under stress. What can I do to help? My dear, you should try to relax a little more. Try to let go, lean back, give way. That’s the great secret of it all.” I smiled encouragingly.

Or was the trouble really something else, I wondered—something far less easy to prescribe for? In seeing me, was she perhaps seeing a younger version of herself, a heartrending image of what she, too, might once have been?

I can endure my own despair,

But not another’s hope.

Oh no. That was the last thing I wanted—to become a punishment to others, purely an object of envy, a knife-twisting reflection in some enchanted looking glass. I wanted to become so much more than enviable. I wanted to be viewed as an example. A pattern of what anyone could hopefully aspire to.

Radiant.

Charismatic.

Irresistible.

“Tell me your name, dear?”

She didn’t answer. She appeared flustered. It seemed I’d got there just in time—oh, thank God, thank God! She called through a curtained doorway for somebody called Doreen.

Doreen
! Doreen couldn’t possibly be the name of the manageress. Doreen could only be the name of an assistant, a rather lowly one at that, quite probably a temp. Oh my! That made my flustered friend the woman at the helm?

“Are you?” I asked.

She didn’t answer that one either. I began to understand the full nature of my problem.

Issues over privacy in particular; communication in general.

But at least she
tried
. You’ve got to give her that. “Your daughter’s getting married, then?” A start—of sorts—no matter how inept. Or superfluous. Or borderline grotesque. A bit like Judy Garland tottering onto the platform in smeared makeup and peering out across the footlights at all those suddenly hushed thousands. (Oh, Judy! Whatever happened to Baby Dot?) “You say the wedding date’s been set?” I hadn’t spoken of any wedding date. “How nice. The young man. Is he local?”

Chillingly unnatural but, as I say, potentially encouraging. And of course I did what I could to reciprocate.

“Oh yes. He was local long before all others whom you’d see around today.”

She didn’t quite know how to deal with that. It
was
complex. “He’s thirty-three,” I added quickly, to make it all much simpler. “Naturally, he’s a little older than I am.”

(Anyway, she couldn’t truly have supposed I had a daughter of marriageable age; she must have seen it was a jest—would surely have ascribed it to shyness, though, rather than a sensitivity to the longing of others and a determination not to flaunt.)

Doreen finally arrived, really little more than a schoolgirl, pale, freckled, endearingly anxious to please. I was thinking she might have been the one who’d sold me my sky-blue but probably this shop had to replace staff every week...
patently understandable. I wished her a smiling good morning—merry, magnetic, inspirational—although obviously it wasn’t only her I was thinking of as I did so.

The older woman laughed. I’m afraid it was a harsh and none too pleasant sound.

“Then in that case you’ll still be seeing a lot of them.” (She was getting muddled.) “That’s good.”

At her mother’s knee, I thought, she must have learned the Ten Commandments: make conversation, keep up pretences, never lose a sale, your conversation doesn’t need to make much sense...
(Well, yes, I had to change my mind: that was
one
form of communication.) But even so I still wanted to say, “Oh, please, don’t strain! If it doesn’t
flow
just fill your reservoir in peace.” But I couldn’t of course; not in front of her subordinate.

Instead I told them the story of Howard Hughes sitting on the lavatory for seventy-two hours.

“Now to whom do I make out the cheque?” I hadn’t really forgotten though—it was all a part of the therapy.

The woman told me.

“Ah,” I complimented her, “much better! That truly is...
much better.”

Her little helper could have given her a lesson or two in
flow
. She asked: “You live in Rodney Street, don’t you? I’ve often seen you.”

“Yes, yes, I do. Next time make sure you wave hello.”

“My mum has the teashop just across the road. Sometimes I help out.”

“That makes us almost neighbours!

“Hey, neighbour, say, neighbour,

How’s the world with you?—

Aren’t you glad to be alive this sunny morning,

Can’t you see the sky above is showing blue...
?”

Laughingly I went back to their desk to complete the writing of my cheque. “How foolish! I ask you! Where else would the sky be if not above? Yes, it’s foolish...
but it’s fun. Oh, no, for heaven’s sake—
please—
you mustn’t try to start me off again!” I concentrated on the cheque.

“Is that young man, the one with the fair hair, going to be the bridegroom? He’s ever so handsome.”

“Yes, isn’t he? Like some sun-dappled Scandinavian god. He’s got a beautiful physique.”

“My!”

“You should see how all the muscles ripple in his back.”

“My boyfriend’s got a back like that. He goes to weightlifting.”

The other woman said sharply: “Thank you, Doreen. That will be enough!
I
can manage now.”

“He just came in to buy some cakes, Mrs. Pond.” The girl had gone a little red. I felt so sorry for her.

“Yes, that’ll do, Doreen, thank you!” The woman almost shrieked.
Mrs.
Pond. (I’d been wondering if the wedding ring might have belonged to her mother.) Undoubtedly divorced then or separated or widowed—or else the wedding ring must have belonged to her mother. Oh dear. I felt quite sorry for her too. I didn’t mean the mother—although she also, on reflection, could probably have done with all my sympathy.

I said to the departing Doreen: “Why don’t you pop in sometime for a cup of tea? We could talk about your boyfriend.”

“That would be nice.” She disappeared behind the curtain. “Don’t lose your spontaneity,” I called.

I thought I would extend the same invitation to Mrs. Pond. For on no account must she feel ostracized and the visit might do her good, poor thing—although I myself, naturally, could hardly be expected to look forward to it with
avidity
.

“These school-leavers...
!” she said after a pause. “I’m afraid she still has a great deal to learn.”

“Haven’t we all,” I agreed. “‘And if it ever come to pass that I inherit wealth I’ll eat and drink, and drink and eat, until I wreck my health...
’ Those old songs can be remarkably comforting, don’t you think? They show us that
other people
do it too! We’re none of us alone, Mrs. Pond. No, dear—you’ve just got to believe this!—there is nothing new, nothing new whatever, under the sun.”

I added merrily: “Apart from this lovely silk and rose-embroidered wedding dress.”

“Oh, it’s futile,” she said.

“What is? What is? Dear lady, it doesn’t
need
to be wrapped up quite so beautifully as that. You mustn’t chastise yourself over the wrapping. The wrapping is not important.”

I didn’t believe this in the slightest but as I’d once pointed out to Tony (the recollection could now make me smile in place of want to weep) there had to be room in even the most truthful philosophy for an occasional—
very
occasional—little white lie.

“Here, let me help you.”

“Madam, it’s all
right
. Thank you.”

“No, Mrs. Pond, it is obviously very far from being all right! At least promise me that you will
try
to look for the silver lining,
try
to walk on the sunny side of the street,
try
to banish from your vocabulary, forever, such awful words as ‘futile.’ Remember that in thirty years’ time” (and I studied her most lovingly) “well, let’s say in twenty years’ time, you will be looking back on all of this and thinking—oh if only I could have those sweet and precious days returned to me! That morning, for instance, when I sold the wedding dress...
if only I had realized
then
just how happy I was, if only I had struggled
then
to appreciate each dear God-given minute!”

I smiled at her and spread my hands.

“How many minutes
are
there, Mrs. Pond, in the course of twenty years? How many breakfasts, lunches, dinners, teas? How many opportunities for joy?”

She gazed at me and I saw her lips begin to quiver. I wasn’t dismayed. A purification in tears. A baptism. A mulching for the young green shoots, the new and tender leaves, the freshly petalled flowers. I was ready to take her, warts and all, into my warmly reassuring arms, to soothe her, tell her she was not
inherently
rapacious, that all she needed was to reawaken love (or else to find it for the first time—which I thought in fact was probably more likely).

“You’re nobody until somebody loves you,” I would say, “and believe me I do know. Love is the answer; someone to love is the answer...
”

But by then she was shaking—positively shaking—and staring at me in a fashion that really seemed half-crazed. “Happy!” she cried. “Happy! Oh, I’ll tell you how to get happy! Care about nothing—care about nothing—that’s the only way you’re ever going to do it!” And as she spoke she flailed her arms...
and in one of her hands was a pair of scissors. I stepped back rather than embraced her.

“Yes,” I said, “yes, that’s certainly
one
point of view. Indeed I believe it’s rather Buddhist. If sorrow is caused by desire then get rid of that desire. For those who are up to it I’m sure it sometimes works. But
I
wouldn’t want to waste much of my time or precious energy upon it. Strictly for the unintelligent is what
I
’d say! Oh, gracious—you’re not a Buddhist, are you? I do hope I haven’t spoken out of turn.”

Again no answer. But at any rate she used the scissors just to cut the string. Also her shaking seemed to have lessened. Even to that extent, therefore, I had been able to calm her.

Hallelujah!

“Yes, I can certainly see how it would work.” I lied smilingly, wanting to consolidate the good I knew I’d done. “Care about nothing! Perhaps you’ve found the key! There was recently a ninety-minute programme about some Buddhist monks. Unfortunately I didn’t watch it.”

Before handing me the box she scrutinized my bank card. She scrutinized the cheque. For the first time it occurred to me that this was going to bounce.

I laughed. “Oh, Lordy Moses,” I exclaimed. “Then get thee to a nunnery.”

No, I didn’t exclaim it; in fact I said it rather gently, not at all in angry Hamlet’s tone. (And
she
was no Ophelia.) But it suddenly seemed the one entirely valid response to such a situation—a literally inspired piece of counsel—although admittedly a touch ambiguous...
since I wasn’t fully sure whether it was directed more towards her or towards myself! All I knew was that if life had been less kind to me I could now have been travelling right behind her on that horrid downhill path.

(
Behind
, I mean, because of the obvious discrepancy in our ages.
Right
behind, perhaps not.)

She still hadn’t spoken.

At the door I shrugged. Last time she had opened it for me and on that first occasion too. This morning, clearly, I had given her too much to think about. “Of course,” I mentioned, “there is that other all-important thought. Yet here I have to leave you all alone with your god and your conscience and your priorities!” I gave her a moment in which to try to adjust to this. “But is it so much funnery...
in a nunnery?”