The Pumpkin Eater (22 page)

These were the last hours in which I loved Jake as I had loved him since the night when I took all Philpot's possessions and dumped them in the garden. How long ago was that … nine years? These were the last hours of being joined to him by fear, and anger, and sexual necessity. This was the last time that I demanded — of him? of what? — that he should change, even secretly, as his father had changed; the last time that I believed it to be possible. You don't know Jake. You only know me. Therefore it probably seems absurd to you that I ever expected so much of a man who must seem to you very normal, limited, understandable, a man who as far as you can see did his best, after all. To Jake, living is necessarily defective, vicious, careless, an inevitable time of activity between two deaths; to him the world is a little spinning piece of grit on which sad and lonely human beings huddle together for warmth, sentimental but unfeeling, always optimistic, but embarrassed by any real hope. That is the basis on which he works, and loves, and will eventually die. It's enough for him. Those were the last hours — that night, when I was waiting — during which I tried to believe that it was Jake who was deluded and I … It's amazing how vanity clings on to the very end, you open your dead eyes to look in the mirror which they are holding to your mouth. I still believed I was right. I was still on about avoiding evil; avoiding the messes in the street, the dust, the cruelty in one's own nature, the contamination of others. I still believed that with the slightest effort we could escape to some safe place where everything would be ordered and good and indestructible, where Simpkin and Conway could never threaten us: a place where we could trust the trees not to fall down and crush us, the birds not to peck us to death, the earth not to split open under our feet. This belief wasn't strong any more, but it still clung to me, tried to comfort me through the night. I was convinced by now that it wasn't true. Jake's battle was as good as won, if only he'd known it.

But he didn't. I sat by the window in the morning, looking out. The mist had cleared a little, like an outgoing tide, and the peak of the hill, on which the tower stood, was free of it. The garden — what would one day be the garden — sloped down to the brow of the hill and against that the mist lay just as thickly as on the previous days. There was no hedge or fence dividing us from the field below. I looked straight into the mist, which dazzled me.

They came up over the brow of the hill spread out, like beaters. In the first second I saw only one child; then they rose up from every part of the small horizon, advancing through the mist, breaking it down, coming slowly on up the stony hill with their heads lowered and their short, strong legs moving like pistons. I must hide, I thought — hide. Where? Through the back door, then? Hide in the scrub and then …? But they were fanning out; some were taking the back path; they were surrounding me. Where's Jake? I thought it would be Jake who would come. I could hear them now, coming across the gravel. I ran to the bottom of the stairs, where there were no windows; I ran up the spiral stairs, two at a time, and into the high, top room. They were swarming round the tower, trying the doors.

“There's no point in waiting for the key, you fool. It's bolted.”

“Let's try the window, then. There's bound to be a window.”

I had been waiting for Jake. I could have bargained with him. I could have made some effort to defend myself, however useless. But what could I do against my children? Tell them to go away, leave me alone? Oh clever Jake, wily Jake … “For God's sake,” I said out loud, “they're breaking in …”

There was a splintering crash and a high, cold voice said, “Now you've done it.”

“Are you all right?”

“I say — he's broken the window.”

A voice from inside the house said, “Hang on a tick, I'll unbolt the door.” I began to laugh; I laughed with the back of my wrist against my mouth, trying to stifle and control the laughter that was attacking me from inside myself.

“Well, where is she?”

“She's probably still in bed.”

“I'm going to find the cats.”

Some of them were already half way up the stairs. They stopped, and looked up at me; I was still laughing, but they didn't ask me why. I looked at each one, and finally at Dinah. She smiled.

“Well…” I said. “How did
you
get here?”

“He stopped in the village. He told us to come first.”

“But … all of you? Where's Josephine?”

They glanced at each other. Some clapped their hands over their mouths and made great eyes. The older ones turned to Dinah. “She left,” Dinah said.

“Left? When?”

“On Wednesday.”

“But … why?”

“She said she couldn't go on.”

“Then who's been … looking after you?”

“Dinah didn't go to school.”

“We managed all right.”

I went down the stairs. They stood back to let me pass, then raced on up the stairs, from room to room, calling the cats.

“He said we should come here,” Dinah said.

“Yes. Of course.”

I went outside. The air was much warmer than I had expected.

“He's buying some bread and stuff,” Dinah said. “In case you haven't got any.”

I saw Jake climbing up through the mist. Clear of it, he stopped, looked up at the tower, then came on. I was no longer frightened of him. I no longer needed him. I accepted him at last, because he was inevitable.

“I brought the children down,” he said. “I thought I might join you for a while.”

I have tried to be honest with you, although I suppose that you would really have been more interested in my not being honest. Some of these things happened, and some were dreams. They are all true, as I understood truth. They are all real, as I understood reality.

THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK

PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

www.nyrb.com

Copyright © 1962 by the Estate of Penelope Mortimer

Introduction copyright © 2011 by Daphne Merkin

All rights reserved.

Cover image: Susan Bower
Downhill in a Pram
, 2007; Private collection / The Bridgeman Art Library

Cover design: Katy Homans

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data Mortimer, Penelope, 1918–1999.

The pumpkin eater / by Penelope Mortimer; introduction by Daphne Merkin.

p. cm. — (New York review books classics)

I. Merkin, Daphne. II. Title.

PR6063.O815P86 2010

823'.914 — dc22

2010034049

eISBN 978-1-59017-400-5
v1.0

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