Wicked Women (26 page)

“You shouldn’t wear grey,” said Maria’s mother, clearing away the cards. “And shouldn’t you do something about your hair?”

“Bernard’s father is dead,” Maria wanted to say, “and I am in a state of distress. I am not entitled to official mourning: I have been disinherited from grief by divorce, along with everything else. I like grey. I will wear my hair as I want.” The dancing patches of light on the wall stilled, as if the waves were holding their breath. Maria said nothing. The pounding began again. A trick of sea and wind, working in unison for once. The curve of the wave, held in suspense, foam whipped along the crest, as a gust of wind beat it back, before falling into its melee of navy and white. Lunch was served. A little thin soup. A mackerel, freshly caught.

“How is Bernard?” asked Maria’s mother. “Still living in half your house?”

“It works well,” said Maria. “It’s sensible. There’s no reason after a divorce why you shouldn’t be friends.”

“Careful of the bones,” said Maria’s mother. “I wouldn’t want you to choke.”

“And Maurice can go between us as and when he wants,” said Maria, hearing the plaintive edge to her voice. Why do I have to suffer so others can be happy? I have to live beneath my ex-husband Bernard so Maurice can run upstairs to see his father when he wants: so I don’t even have proper possession of my own child: so Bernard can criticise the way I bring him up: the clothes he buys, the pocket-money he has; can find fault with me if I have any kind of social life: all the while congratulating himself on his forbearance, on his self-control—living above a wife who so aggravated him when she was with him, was so frigid, so neurotic, he was obliged to have girlfriend after girlfriend just to stay sane. And how, having a child in common, and being noble, he now helps her out. She is of course a hopeless mother—absent-minded, over-emotional: Bernard can’t leave Maria unprotected in the world, because of the damage she might do to Maurice. So to the detriment of his own life, his own artistic, poetic need to be free, he puts up with staying where he is, in the ex-marital home, halved by hardboard. The stairs are shared. Up the stairs go the succession of girlfriends. Turn up the music so as not to hear the moans and the groans, the creaking of the floor. What kind of example is that for a growing boy? Bernard changes the girls so often. The backs of their legs are oddly the same. Bernard seems to like girls with solid calf muscles. Maria’s own legs are thin, straight up and down without much ankle. Mad legs, Bernard would call them.

“We couldn’t afford to buy two houses,” said Maria to her mother. “We had no choice but to do it the way we did.” Maria’s mother pushes away her plate: the half-eaten mackerel lies dull upon it. The maid poaches them with the heads on. White, white sightless eyes.

“Disgusting fish,” said Maria’s mother. “I can’t think why she buys them.”

“Because they’re cheap, I suppose,” said Maria, and Maria’s mother raised her eyebrows, in surprise that this should be seen to be an adequate motive for doing anything. “I don’t think I ever met Bernard’s father,” said Maria’s mother, and Maria said, “He came to our wedding,” and then realised it might be better not to have said it.

“The wedding,” said Maria’s mother. “Of course, you asked that bitch to it and didn’t warn me. Do you like ginger ice cream? I’ll get the maid to bring some in if you like.”

It was easier to say no, but Maria made herself say yes. The ice cream came, a small single scoop in the middle of a large white plate. The “maid” was a broad local woman, with shoes trodden down at the back; local wages were low. Maria’s mother spent money carefully. Maria’s father spent everything there was to spend, as soon as possible, and always absently, and seemed surprised when he’d done it. He’d look at bills wonderingly; it was a family joke. Eleanor worked long hours, perforce—she was a graphic designer; she worked freelance—but her voice never hardened into reproach and complaint. Maria would listen as Eleanor spoke to confirm that it didn’t, and would listen to her own voice likewise.

“It’s a wild day,” said Maria’s mother: foam flew up the cliff and swept over the lawn and gently patterned the French windows. If the tide rose any higher it would not be so gentle. “The other side of the glass the wind will be howling. And it’s a high tide. Sometimes we get the foam up here, not often. The garden’s salty. Growing things is a problem.”

“Twenty-three years later and you still call her a bitch,” said Maria, boldly.

“She was,” said Maria’s mother. “And you should never have asked her to your wedding. You’re my daughter, not hers.”

“I didn’t ask her,” lied Maria. “She just came. I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d turn up. You were so against poor Bernard.”

“One look at Bernard,” said Maria’s mother, “and you could tell what would happen next. You’d see him through college, you’d have his child, you’d take responsibility, provide all the money, and he’d wander off. Another child, like your father, not a grown person at all. I’m glad that bitch Eleanor got what she deserved. I could never understand why you were so thick with her.”

She rose, as if to say the audience had ended. Her cheeks were pink: she knew she had been unduly talkative; she blamed her daughter for it. The maid came in to take the ice cream plate from under Maria’s nose. Maria sat with her head lowered, as if she were a disgraced child.

Eleanor had developed breast cancer and taken four years to die: Maria’s father now lived well on her life insurance money. Maria had asked him, at the time of her divorce, for the loan of enough money to buy a house at a distance from Bernard. She’d never asked her father before for money. It had been her habit to ask Eleanor. “I don’t think lending you money would be a good idea,” said Maria’s father. “I don’t want to interfere between husband and wife, even when they’re allegedly exes. You two get along well enough. A divorce by mutual assent. Very civilised. If anyone can make it work, you can, Maria. I only wish your mother had been like you.”

Eleanor would have understood, would have lent her the money. Maria had cried for a week when Eleanor died. Bernard said, “Crocodile tears. No one loves a stepmother.” But then he was angry at the time. Bernard didn’t see why Maria wanted a divorce; why she couldn’t adjust to a husband’s need for sexual variety, or take lovers herself to ease the emotional burden from his shoulders; Maria was rigid in her outlook, he complained: hopelessly jealous and possessive; she needed therapy rather than a divorce. And a divorce would upset Maurice. Maria had persisted. Now every time Maurice had flu, or was in trouble at school, or failed to satisfy Bernard’s expectations of him, Bernard would raise his eyebrows and say, “His parents are divorced. Of course he’s unhappy and disturbed. What did you think would happen?”

Maria took in Bernard’s mail when he was out, looked after his cat when he was away, let in his girlfriends when they’d lost their keys. They’d look at her curiously. She wondered what Bernard said to them about her. “Isn’t it time you found yourself a boyfriend?” Bernard had asked her once or twice, meeting her on the stairs. “But I suppose, since there’s such a glut on the market of unattached women, you have a real problem.” Maria knew better than to protest. Bernard was a journalist, a columnist: he was clever, moody, talented. He had the statistics of society at his fingertips. If she looked doubtful, he’d quote such figures as suited him to prove his point.

“I do seem to have a problem,” she’d say, hoping he’d leave it there. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t. “Divorced women over forty,” he’d say, “rarely re-marry.” If she said she didn’t want to re-marry, wasn’t interested in men, he’d raise his eyebrows as if she was protesting too much. Maria felt uglier and uglier. At the beginning she’d given a couple of dinner parties; Bernard had asked himself down to them, and hogged the conversation, and laughed at her cooking, which was indeed bad. She didn’t try again. He’ d grabbed her on the stairs and kissed her once, a couple of years into the upstairs-downstairs arrangement, and said he was free on Saturday night, why didn’t she come up after Maurice was asleep? Not to make it a habit, he said. Just the once to show there was no ill feeling: that she didn’t hold grudges: that she wasn’t like her mother, and a nag and a bore. And just the once she’d gone, to prove exactly those things, and he had been a wonderful lover, and she’d thought perhaps she could put up with all those girls after all, but he hadn’t asked her up again. Maria felt worse. And the next girl, Angela, seemed a permanent fixture. Maria didn’t want Bernard to marry again, she wasn’t quite sure why. Especially not someone like Angela, a currant bun: tight little curls, lax mouth, stocky legs. Why would anyone want Angela when they could have Maria? Amend. Could have had Maria. These days Maria told her friends she loathed Bernard, they’d laugh at his dreadful behaviour, the things he’d done, but when he was away, when she couldn’t hear the footsteps overhead, she was uneasy and nervous, though relieved of the burden of thinking about Angela and Bernard together.

Maria’s mother sat down at the round mahogany table and dealt the cards again. Face downwards, blank, all but the last card in each row, face upwards. The pink faded from her cheeks. “Be all that as it may,” Maria said, “it’s the present that counts, not the past. I don’t mean to be defeated by a funeral. I hate funerals, but I’ll go to this one.”

Red on black, black on red. Death on life, life on death. Her mother said nothing.

“Bernard’s father lived with us for four whole years,” said Maria. “Of course I want to pay him my last respects. He was gentle and nice. While he was about Bernard behaved. It was after he left that the women got out of control. Their suspender belts in our bed. Well you know about that.”
Slap, slap, slap
went the cards.

“But I take a lot of the responsibility,” said Maria. “I was working full-time and Maurice was still small, and I expect I neglected Bernard. I went off sex. Well, he said I did. I didn’t notice. It can be like that, I suppose. It was understandable Bernard looked elsewhere. I expect I should just have put up with it. In the light of death these little dramas seem so pitiful.” Maria’s mother gave a little cough.

“Well, forget all that,” said Maria. “I shouldn’t burden you with it. I’m grown up now. Bernard and I will go to the funeral. At least this is something we share—a particular grief: his father’s dying. The end of something. There were really good times, some of the time, when I was first married to Bernard. That’s why the marriage had to end: I didn’t want it to get spoiled, in retrospect: unravel itself out, backwards, into nothing. The divorce was damage limitation. Do you see? In a marriage the past is forever piling into the present.”

Maria’s mother’s game resolved itself. Four rows of up-turned, revealed cards announced finality: the imposition of order upon chaos, design over happenstance. Maria’s mother smiled. “I need a breath of fresh air,” she said, and threw the French windows open, and the sounds of wild weather and pounding sea charged into the room, spray dampened their hair, the curtains billowed almost to the ceiling, Maria’s mother’s dress swirled around her legs, and the cards were flung about the room and in profound disorder again, as if thoroughly shuffled. Both women laughed, exhilarated.

Maria leaned against the windows to close them against the gale.

Enough was enough.

“What do you mean?” asked her mother. “You won’t be defeated by a funeral? Why should you be defeated?”

“It’s the journey,” said Maria. “The drive. You know how I hate driving. The funeral’s at the Golders Green Crematorium. I hate driving into London. And I get lost.” Maria had been late for Eleanor’s funeral. She couldn’t forgive herself for that. She’d kept missing the turning: finding herself back on the one-way system.

When she did get it right, she lost more time trying to park in a space too small anyway, panicking.

“Get Bernard to drive you,” said Maria’s mother. “That man must be of some use for something.”

When Maria got home, Maurice was back from school: he’d made his own supper. He was lying on the floor watching football on TV and doing his homework at the same time. “Why didn’t you go up to your father?” she asked.

“Because he doesn’t like me watching football,” said Maurice in his croaky adolescent voice. “He thinks television rots the brain. And he can’t stand me rotting my brain and doing my homework at the same time. And Angela’s there again, and she gets on my nerves. You know they’re getting married?”

“Why her?” asked Maria, after a little time.

“Because he really only likes stupid women,” said Maurice. “And Angela is really stupid. Will you come to the wedding?”

“I expect so,” said Maria, bleakly. “There’s no point in making things more difficult than they are already. We all have to get along together somehow. I wish he’d told me himself.”

“He probably meant to tell you at Granddad’s funeral,” said Maurice. “You know what he’s like. This is a really boring football match. I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

“What is he like?” asked Maria. “What is your father like?”

“How do you expect me to know what he’s like?” enquired Maurice. “He’s my father. But you’re okay.” She had to be satisfied with that. If there was a battle, and she had tried so hard for there not to be, she was winning. Maurice was on her side. Later Maria called Bernard and asked him if he could give her a lift down to the funeral: it seemed a waste for two cars to go from the same address. Bernard said there was no room in his vehicle: it was only a sports car, he was of course taking Maurice down, and he was surprised to hear Maria wanted to go at all. Maria had in all probability triggered off the events which had led to the death in the first place. He and she were, after all, divorced. Divorce meant that his family and her family were wholly separate. And he would hardly expect to go to Maria’s mother’s funeral, for example. Maria said briskly that she would make her own way to the Crematorium.

Maria intended to start early: to allow at least two hours for a journey which would take Bernard one and a bit. She put on a grey suit. Black at funerals always seemed self-conscious, primitive. Widow’s gear: the renunciation of sex. That’s it, that’s gone: the delights of the flesh deliquescing into mud. That’s you served right for enjoying yourself. Black on red. Maria put on a red scarf to cheer the suit up. The hem of its skirt was unstitched. She found needle and cotton to see to it. Maurice had to be persuaded not to wear an overlarge, cannabis-worship jacket: pink curling puffs of smoke on a yellow background, and words she failed to understand but Maurice said were acceptable, Granddad wouldn’t have minded. It grew later and later. Maria seemed unable to accept the dictates of the clock. Her will and the material world were at odds. Something rebelled. In the end she and Bernard left at the same time.