Flying Under Bridges (2 page)

I shake
my head. ‘No, that’s not right.’

He
raises his eyebrows. ‘You did not use the word “crucified”?’

‘It was
wisteria not a holly bush.’ The pencil pauses for a moment and I am tempted to
help him with the spelling of wisteria which may, for all I know, be unknown
in middle-European garden centres.

‘Wisteria
sinensis,’
I say, as he pauses. ‘It’s originally
from Central China.’ He stares at me. ‘Member of the pea family. A deciduous
climber with divided leaves and trusses of lilac-blue flowers. Beautiful for
house walls.’

‘How do
you know that?’ he enquires.

‘I read
things and I remember. I don’t do anything with them. I just remember.’

He
writes something down. I suspect it is not a gardening note. Then he looks up
and stares me in the eye again.

‘I see.
So, tell me about yourself.’

I
think, this won’t take long. And then I stop for a minute.

‘It’s
difficult to know where to begin,’ I say.

‘Aaah,’
he intones and nods. His large nose beats time above his lip. The hair from the
wart dangles like a fine fishing line. He should have a moustache or a beard.
There is a big space between his nose and his lip. Not a handsome man. About
sixty. He’s probably heard it all. All the loonies. I don’t really want to tell
him anything. I take some sewing out of my bag. I like cross-stitch. You have a
pattern and you just follow it. You just follow it exactly and at the end you
have something beautiful. It isn’t complicated. Old Freud is staring at me. I
realise I haven’t been paying any attention.

‘Sorry,
what was the question?’

He
writes something down and then stares again.

‘Tell
me who you are.

Who are
you? Such a simple question and yet it gives me a bit of a jolt. I can’t
remember ever being asked. Well, not since I joined the Brownies. We had to
write an essay about ourselves while Brown Owl went outside for a cigarette,
but that’s going back a bit.
Who are you?
Such a tricky question to
answer. Mrs Adam Marshall — Mrs Adam Marshall — that’s how the AA addressed me
on my new card, which arrived the week you did. I am Mrs Adam Marshall. The
really strange thing is that it’s taken me twenty-odd years to notice that I’m
not really me any more. I mentioned it to Adam.

‘Do you
realise my whole name has disappeared?’ I said to my husband, my lover, my
partner in life. ‘That I don’t have a single name I started with?’

Adam
sucked on his teeth, which is a new habit. It’s not attractive. ‘You shouldn’t
be worrying about these things,’ he said. ‘People are past all that women’s lib
nonsense. Good job too.’

Which
is all very well for him. I mean, he’s not Mr
Eve
Marshall, is he? I
thought Shirley would think it odd too, but she didn’t.

‘It’s a
new millennium, Mum.’ She shook her head at me and crunched a Hobnob. ‘It’s
time to move on. There are other issues. You know you really ought to be a “post-feminist”
by now.’

That
was what my grown-up daughter thought. Post-feminist. It’s a funny expression.
I think it suggests that I’ve already passed through a feminist phase, and yet
I don’t remember it. You had yours, didn’t you, Inge? I envy you that. Perhaps
my feminism is in the post and hasn’t arrived yet.

The
psychiatrist is waiting patiently. I suppose I had better say something.

‘When
the post comes, it’s addressed to Mrs Adam Marshall. That’s me, I suppose
and.., well, there’s not much to say. Bit of a nothing, really. I can’t even
seem to manage to stay on the church flower—arranging rota.’

I
laugh, but apparently it is not funny. He does not laugh. Perhaps he is very
religious. It’s everywhere these days. Still, for all I know he may never
laugh. I am embarrassed. I was quite a laugh at school, wasn’t I, or have I
forgotten that too?

‘Of
course the flower rota wasn’t entirely my fault. Mrs Milton got so funny about
the whole shop business and…’ I drift off. None of it seems important now. Do
you remember Mrs Hart at school? Geography and PE. Odd combination really. It’s
not like you need ordnance survey to find the sports field. Anyway, whenever someone
had some little problem or other, she would look down her nose and say, ‘I see.
And where do you suppose this fits in the great scheme of things?’

The
answer was always nowhere. The trouble is I can’t seem to see the great scheme
of things at all.

The
psychiatrist prompts me back into my inner recesses.

‘Mrs
Adam Marshall?’ he says quietly.

‘Mmhmm,’
I reply. ‘Yes. It was only when Inge moved back to Edenford that I noticed my
whole name had disappeared.’

Big
nose scribbles away. His pencil bounces across the pad. I have no idea what I’ve
said to cause such a literary surge. Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned you.
Perhaps he is a fan.

‘Adam
does a lot of correspondence,’ I say while I wait for him to catch up. ‘Mainly
to the
Eden ford Gazette.
He had the first cuckoo last year.’

I use
the word ‘cuckoo’ deliberately. I think it would be rather a good one for a
shrink. He could give me that searching glare and say, ‘Zo you zay “cuckoo”,
and are you ze cuckoo person?’

But he
doesn’t. He is resolute in pursuit of my reason for being. I like cuckoos. They
just sort themselves out and don’t give a damn. And why? Because their parents
didn’t give a damn. Just lay the egg in some other bird’s nest and let someone
else raise their kid. Then the cuckoo hatches and shoves all the other eggs out
of the nest. No guilt, no retribution, no Hail Marys, just…

The
psychiatrist gives me a long Germanic look and says quietly, ‘And do you mind? About
your name?’

 I
suddenly feel nervous. ‘I shouldn’t, should I? I mean, it’s silly. It’s just a
name. I didn’t think about it. Not for years. I know there are women who don’t
bother any more. You know,  keep all of their name always, but I’m sure it
mattered to Adam.’  I stop and think.

I
should have known straight away. We had only had one date when Adam mentioned
it.

‘I hope
you’re not one of those … women’s libbers,’ he said. I remember because I was
holding the screws while he worked on the security bars for Mother’s pantry
window. Adam always dabbled in security even before it became a living. I think
he spent his childhood making sure other people’s rabbits didn’t escape. Mother
always worried about the pantry —what with her prize-winning jams and pickled
eggs. When she found Mrs Bartlett’s boy from next door, who’d never really been
right, looking through the pantry window, she had burglar bars fitted.

Adam’s
first job was in plaster-relief mouldings. That’s how I met him. Mother wanted
a new ceiling rose after that trouble in the lounge when the bath upstairs ran
over while Aunt Luce had her seizure on the toilet. Odd to think I got my
husband from the
Yellow Pages.
Mother never liked him. She always said
she rued ‘the day she patched her parlour and took up Adam’s offer to protect
her preserves. Then, of course, he went into insurance and never looked back.

I tell
the psychiatrist all this and there is a long pause and I don’t know what to
do. No one has ever taken this much interest in me before. I realise that I
have stopped sewing and the blue thread has drifted out of the needle. The
situation looks hopeless. I look at the wayward yarn, feeling as though I’ve
never threaded anything before. The psychiatrist is waiting. I’m not sure that we’re
getting anywhere and I don’t want anyone to blame Adam. It really wasn’t his
fault, so I add, ‘Don’t think that Adam and I don’t get on. We have a lovely
life. I mean there’s … the house.., it’s all double-glazed.’

The
psychiatrist carries on staring at me. He obviously doesn’t think I’ve
finished. I fumble with the thread, but his eyes are boring into me.

‘Of
course, there were lots of people who said, “How could you?” when I married
him. “How could you marry a man named Adam?” I have to say I still wonder
myself. You see, I’m Eve. Adam and Eve. Well, it was hardly something to put
across the front windscreen of your Cortina. And, of course, we live in
Edenford. Adam and Eve of Edenford. It was awful. Shame, because everything
else about him seemed so … acceptable. He’s older than me (fifty-five next
birthday, but he doesn’t want a fuss). I liked him. He was kind and I couldn’t
very well say, “I quite like you but we can’t possibly get serious unless you
change your name.” So that’s me. Mrs Adam Marshall.’

I want
to talk to the psychiatrist about my dreams. Perhaps he could help me. We have
to sit here anyway. I dream it is pitch black and I am scared, but then I find
a torch. The batteries are weak. I should have changed them. That is my fault.
I am stumbling around a dark room and I suddenly realise that I am inside my
own head. The room is quite empty except for a long row of old-fashioned metal
filing cabinets. They are all neatly labelled but the drawers are open. The
drawers are open and all the files have spilt out on the ground. The floor is
covered in scraps of information but I can’t get any of it back into the filing
cabinet— ‘What else?’ demands Big Nose.

‘What
else?’ I can’t think what else. ‘Well, I’m forty-five. Forty-five.’ God, we’re
going to get back on to the menopause in a minute I think, so I change the
subject. ‘I suppose I have achieved some things. Let’s think. I have a son
called Tom and a daughter, Shirley. Well, obviously you know about Shirley. She
was.., anyway, I’m somebody’s mother.’

‘What
do you think about your children?’

What do
I think about them? What a ridiculous question. I don’t
think
anything.
They are in my blood, in my limbs, under my skin. I don’t think about them, I
am them. Think? What does any mother think about her children? They are what I’ve
done with my life. They are my contribution to the world. I haven’t written
anything, invented anything, built anything. I did once think of an idea for a
cot bumper which played a tune when the  baby hit it with its head but, of
course, it never came to anything. No, I have made two children. I am very good
with coughs and scraped knees and a complete whiz at chicken pox. Of course now
I am also a killer. Is that what Shirley will come to think?

Does
she need to think it was an accident? I can tell them that. I  can, Inge.

My
inquisitive friend is staring at me. I think it must be rather dull for him
listening to people whinge all day. No wonder he looks so miserable.

‘Tell
me about your daughter,’ he says.

 But I
can’t. I can’t think about Shirley. I can’t talk about her. Not yet. I try to
change the subject.

‘Did
you know,’ I say brightly, ‘there’s a woman in the cell next to mine who is on
remand for throwing a brick through her own window? Don’t you think that’s
bizarre? I mean, how can she be a menace to society? I tell you what I think it
is. It’s because we’re not supposed to. Women. Be violent, I mean.’

‘Why do
you say that?’

‘Well,
we’re not. Men kick and punch things and that’s all right. They’re meant to. We’re
supposed to worry about the colour of our kitchen tiles. And I’m not saying
that’s wrong. I thought it mattered too. My kitchen took an age. To me it was
the most important room in the house.’

‘Why?’

I look
at the learned enquirer. Only a man could ask such a question.

‘Because
I spend the most time there.’ I carry on with my sewing. He sits staring at me.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.

‘I took
ages with the tiles. The man at the All Squared Tile Centre drove me mad. Hadn’t
a clue. “I know what I want,” I said to him. “I want mushroom tiles.” You know,
that lovely, soft, just-picked colour. He had no idea. Backwards and forwards
with ceramic samples until at last we found what I wanted. Adam put them in. He
says they look brown.’

‘Are
these the things you think about?’

They
aren’t, of course. I haven’t thought about my kitchen at all until now. The
time when all that mattered seems such an age away. Everything has changed. I
don’t know what to tell him. I think about strange things now. I’ve been
reading the Bible. Shirley gave it to me. I used to read the
Encyclopaedia
Britannica
but they won’t let me have that many volumes at once in here. I
don’t understand it. The Bible. It’s nice, lots of it, but I want to know why
there doesn’t seem to be a single woman’s opinion from Jesus’s time. If the
Virgin Mary was the mother of God, might she not have made some notes? I don’t
say this because I realise it’s silly. I mean, she had other kids. She must
have been just as proud of them. Anyway, she was probably too busy round the
house. The Old Testament has Ruth and Esther. I thought Esther was a woman
writer because there’s a whole bit in it at the beginning about what some
curtains looked like, but then it talks about ‘Queen Esther’ as if she were
someone else entirely. Ruth has her own book, but it’s very short and I can’t
work out if she wrote it or if it’s just about her. The thing is.

‘So you
are a mother,’ he says.