The Country Life (16 page)

This surprising monologue was rapidly and sarcastically delivered, and rather knocked the stuffing out of any politeness which might have been on the agenda. All eyes turned to Caroline, who remained enigmatic and brutish behind her sunglasses.

‘Say hello to your sister, you scoundrel,' said Pamela.

‘Hello, sister,' said Martin.

‘I'm Caroline,' said Caroline, evidently to me. She precipitated herself forward in her chair and extended her arm. The movement was unexpected, and the unpredictable shifting of her mass caused me instinctively to draw back, as if from the path of a landslide or falling boulder.

‘Stella. Nice to meet you,' I added gamely, shaking her hand.

‘What will you have to drink, Stella? Martin?' said Pamela. ‘We thought we'd have lunch out here, as it's so glorious. If you've had enough of the sun just shout and Piers will put up the umbrella.'

Nobody said anything, and Pamela looked about with the bright, nervous movements of a bird.

‘I'll have whatever you're having,' I said awkwardly, indicating
their glasses. It sounded rather demanding, as if I were placing an order with a waitress.

‘Right!' said Pamela. ‘I'll go and rustle up Piers and see what's happening with lunch. You lot just sit here and enjoy the sun.'

She stood up abruptly, as if she were upset, while the rest of us remained guiltily seated. I was surprised by the sight of Pamela's body in her swimming costume. Her skin was brown and shrunken, like dried meat, and running up the pot of her belly was a seam of raised flesh, like a geographical feature on a relief map.

‘Do you want a hand, Mummy?' said Caroline.

Martin made a strange noise beside me. When I looked at him, he was mouthing Caroline's offer with an idiotic look on his face, his lips flapping like wings.

‘No, no, I don't think so,' said Pamela wearily. She hesitated for a moment, hand to her forehead, as if contemplating a landscape of strictures and duties by which she suddenly realized herself to be surrounded. Eventually she turned and trod lightly off, the soles of her sandals slapping against her feet.

The three of us were set adrift in uncertain silence. Pamela, the focus of our attention, being gone, it was required of us to re-form in a new constellation, and as it soon became evident that neither Martin nor I was equipped to set this orbit in motion, Caroline gathered herself up in her chair and took charge.

‘Mummy tells me you're from London,' she said, to me.

‘That's right,' I replied. I could see that I was to be interrogated, and felt that no more was required of me at this stage than to give clear and correct answers.

‘And you worked as a secretary, is that right?'

‘Yes.'

‘At a law firm.'

‘Yes.'

I should add that while these enquiries were being made,
Caroline was indulging in a shameless inspection of my physical appearance, running the beam of her gaze up and down my body like a minesweeper. Despite keeping my own counsel in so far as I possibly could, I sensed that a deeper, unauthorized method of extraction was at work which I was powerless to prevent. Her appraisal was as penetrating and objective as an X-ray; and yet I felt that I was being sized up as a threat, although to what precisely I could not gather.

‘That sounds very respectable. Why did you leave? Did you feel there was no future for you at the firm?'

I deduced from the insinuating, indeed the downright challenging, nature of this question that I was being tested for the weakness of my character, and understood that this was the point at which I must establish my boundary; that if I did not, Caroline would invade and conquer, certain of victory.

‘On the contrary.' Caroline's sunglasses were beginning to unnerve me. They appeared to give her an advantage, shielding her from my remarks while at the same time preventing me from monitoring their effect. ‘The certainty of my future there was the very thing which enabled me to reject it. I dislike having too clear a view of what lies ahead. It lacks,' I finished rather triumphantly, ‘adventure.'

Caroline seemed surprised and, for the moment at least, repelled by my reply. She retracted her interest as an animal would a probing tentacle and appeared to be reconsidering the situation. Martin gave a snort of laughter.

‘If adventure is what you want,' she said presently, head held high, ‘then you must find things very quiet here. In fact, it is usually for its lack of adventure that people come to the country. We don't really go in for that sort of thing here.'

‘Oh, I've had more than my fair share of excitement,' I said. Keeping my eyes fixed on Caroline's sunglasses was proving to be quite a strain. I was beginning to feel very uncomfortable from sitting so still in the heat, and longed to get up from my
chair and move around. ‘By adventure I mean the unknown, really. I wanted to see a different side of life.'

Caroline snorted, evidently a family trait.

‘I'd hardly call Buckley a different side of life. Or Martin, for that matter.'

‘Thanks,' said Martin.

‘You make it sound so dull here, and yet I find it interesting.' The sun was getting at the side of my neck, and I was forced to unlock my gaze from Caroline's and shift around in my chair. ‘I've only been here a day or two, but I feel that I've already learned a lot.'

‘Such as?'

Mercifully, at this point I heard the warning rattle of a tray behind me, and turned to see Mr Madden bearing down on us.

‘Hello!' he said, looking from Martin to me and back again with stunned cheerfulness. ‘How did you two get on?'

‘Oh, fine!' I said; a trifle too warmly, perhaps. The sight of Mr Madden, after the tension of my exchange with Caroline, had aroused in me a bounteous, doglike affection for him. ‘Martin showed me around. The rose garden is wonderful.'

‘Good, good!' said Mr Madden vaguely. He seemed lost in thought for a moment or two. ‘Fresh air will have done you the world of good, old chap. Get some colour in your cheeks.'

‘I'm amazed you got him out of his room,' chimed Caroline unexpectedly. Her next comment was addressed more generally to the group. ‘Mummy says it's an absolute pit in there. It took Mrs Barker the whole morning to set it straight. It's a bit selfish of you, Martin, wasting Mrs Barker's time when there's so much else to do. Why you can't tidy up after yourself I don't know. Mummy's been at it all morning and she's absolutely exhausted.'

It is difficult to convey the speed at which all of this was pronounced. Caroline's diction was high-pitched and rapid, and when she delivered it her mouth moved extraordinarily
quickly, as if she were gobbling food. The effect was not very attractive – we were all, I felt, watching it with equal fascination – for her lips were thin and downturned above the piston of her chin, whose motion was so automatic that it seemed possible that it would never stop. I was anticipating, half-gleefully, a vituperative response from Martin, and was surprised to see that he seemed to have fallen asleep in his chair.

‘Don't be too hard on him, Caro,' said Mr Madden, laden tray still in hand. ‘It's difficult for us chaps to remember to tidy up. We've got other things on our minds, fighting wars and running things and suchlike, what?'

I laughed enthusiastically at this, and was mortified to hear my laughter make its solo flight across the table.

‘It just seems unfair on Mummy,' said Caroline sullenly. ‘She's got so much to do already, and only Mrs Barker to help her.'

I immediately regretted my rhapsodies about the rose garden, which in retrospect gave substance to the accusation that I was no help at all.

‘You're giving me a headache,' said Martin plaintively, opening one eye in a squint.

‘Take an aspirin, then,' retorted Caroline.

‘Take one yourself,' muttered Martin, sinking his chin into his small, puffy chest. ‘Not that it would make you less of a pain.'

‘Oh, I'm dying!' said Caroline, melodramatically clutching at her heart with her two plump hands.

‘Right!' blustered Mr Madden, intervening with his tray and dealing the drinks one by one. ‘That's enough, you two. Lunch'll be ready any minute, so let's clear some space here, shall we, and I'll give Mummy a hand bringing it out.'

I jumped to my feet as if at a starter's pistol and began collecting the empty glasses strewn about the table. I could feel Caroline's eyes on me again behind her sunglasses; or rather, on my body, measuring it as exactly as if she were fitting me for a
garment. After a while she folded her arms and looked away across the garden, her lips as pursed as if there were a drawstring threaded through them.

‘Shall I take them inside?' I said to Mr Madden.

‘No, no,' he replied. ‘Just sit down, why don't you?'

I sensed the mildest irritation in his reply, and had an indistinct memory of annoying him before with a similar display of keenness. Searching for this incident, the recollection of Pamela's unfortunate remarks concerning my feelings for Mr Madden – overheard from the cottage garden – returned forcefully to me instead. I snatched my hands away from the table and held them trembling behind my back. I felt myself dangerously capable of directing some obscenity, or even a punch or kick, at Mr Madden, merely to prove my lack of fondness for him. I sat down again; and when I saw the look of affront on Caroline's face felt my situation to be rather miserable. Caroline evidently thought it inappropriate that I, a paid domestic, should sit with her, the daughter of the house, while its owners were scurrying about in the effort to serve us. Mr Madden had, however, spoken; and with the question of my fancy already so publicized, I was not about to confirm it in full view of witnesses by pestering him further.

‘What do you do, Caroline?' I sociably enquired instead. My comment had been automatic, an embarrassed reflex, and I was rewarded for my heedlessness by a glacial stare.

‘What
do
you mean?' Caroline eventually replied.

‘I was asking whether you worked,' I hastily amended. This sounded in some way rude. ‘Or whether…' For some reason I could think of no alternative, and was compelled to trail off.

‘I am a housewife.'

My lips formed the reply ‘Oh', but my voice failed to follow it through, leaving us in silence.

‘You disapprove of that, do you?' said Caroline. ‘Are you one of these feminists?'

‘Well,' I began. My skin was now in torment, and I wished
that I had been in a position to ask Mr Madden to hoist the umbrella.

‘I personally don't feel the slightest need to compete with my husband,' continued Caroline. ‘I am not insecure. Were we desperately short of money, then that would perhaps be different. Of course I would do everything I could, but I would regard it as a misfortune. It would be embarrassing for my friends, and above all for Derek. As it is we are very comfortable.'

‘Good,' I said, placing one hand surreptitiously upon my cheek.

‘There is a woman, for example, in our village,' said Caroline, entrenching herself deeper in her chair, ‘who has been driven by necessity to take a job in some kind of shop, ladies' fashions I believe, in Tonbridge. She used to live in the Rectory with her husband, but then he walked out on her, ran off with his secretary or somesuch, and she had to go it alone. Sold the house, put the children in the local school.'

‘That's awful,' I said, sympathetically.

‘We've all tried our best to support her, but it is difficult. At one point, Derek and I thought we might buy the Rectory from her to sort of help her out, but she had it on at such a ridiculous price and wouldn't
consider
selling it for less, even to friends. Personally, I think she should have moved right away from the village. We all used to knock about together, you see, but it's harder to invite a single woman to things, and she obviously isn't entertaining any more. I mean that in both senses of the word.' She smiled, surprised at her own unintended cleverness. ‘She's so down these days that one ends up just having her to supper in the kitchen, lest she bursts into tears or something. Some of the wives say they won't even have her in the house any more because she gets very aggressive with the men after she's had a drink or two. And of course the children have turned into savages at that dreadful school. The others don't want to play with them.'

‘Poor woman!' I cried, my own problems for the time being forgotten.

‘I suppose so,' said Caroline after a pause. ‘But you shouldn't feel too sorry for her. Things could have gone very differently if she had acted with a little grace. I'm afraid to say that she has behaved – inappropriately. Working in a shop!' She shook her head. ‘One or two of the wives went in, not realizing, of course, and said it was quite dreadful when she came from behind the counter. Doing the hard sell, you know.'

‘Surely it's not her fault if her husband left her?' I objected. ‘What else could she have done?'

‘Well, whose fault could it be?' said Caroline, amazed. ‘She can't have been doing her duty to him.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘There are certain things,' said she mysteriously, ‘that a woman is expected to do for her husband. You might not always feel like it. But you do it. I don't think Miriam quite saw it like that. She used to say as much. It's no wonder, really, that he went elsewhere in the end.'

I was quite shocked by Caroline's remarks, and by the assurance with which she made them. The fact that her sympathies lay so far from my own was perhaps to be expected, given the evident differences between us; but it was the confidence of her views rather than their substance which disturbed me. It surprised me to feel a strong and in some way reciprocal identification with Miriam, as if we were two lighthouses telegraphing flashes of sympathy to one another across a dark and treacherous sea. This identification did not please me. It suggested that Miriam and I belonged to some form of minority, with its attendant dangers of exclusion and victimization.