And then suddenly he had to go back. He had to see his children. His mother. He had to go back to England and find the old Gordon. He didn’t realize that none of these things were the same any more.
He’d got what he’d so stupidly wished for. He’d got an ordinary life. He didn’t need to go to prison for murder, didn’t need to hang for killing Eliza, he had his punishment every day. He’d lost his treasure, greater than a king’s ransom. He’d lost Eliza.
PRESENT
EXPERIMENTS WITH ALIENS (Contd.)
‘You killed my mother?’ I repeat in disbelief. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go at all.
Gordon sits slumped on my bed with his head in his hands.
‘You killed my mother?’ I prompt him. He looks up at me. In the dark his eyes are like black holes. When he opens his mouth – another black hole. He shakes himself like a dog, pulls himself together. ‘Well, what I mean …’ He stumbles then visibly pulls himself together. ‘What I mean is I killed her spirit.’ He shrugs. ‘I wanted her for what she was, but when I got her I wanted her to change.’
That’s an old familiar tale, but it’s all I’m going to get. Gordon pats my leg under the eiderdown – ‘Sorry if I woke you, old thing,’ – and disappears back into the night. The Dog follows him as far as the doorway, and then flops down on the threshold with a sigh of exquisite misery.
THE ART OF SUCCESSFUL ENTERTAINING
On Christmas Eve I wake up slowly from a bizarre Ovidian dream in which Eunice had been in the act of turning into a cow – a real one as opposed to a pantomime one, lowing mournfully at me for help. Her lower half (gymslip and white ankle socks) was still recognizably Eunice but her head was completely bovine. The metamorphosis had just reached her arms and she already had hooves where her hands had been, but (thankfully) no udders yet. I was just thinking that Eunice gave a whole new meaning to the word ‘cowgirl’ when I wake up.
It’s a cold, sunny morning. I can hear the baby gurning and carols being sung on a radio somewhere in the house. Charles bursts into my room without knocking and asks irritably if I’ve got any wrapping-paper, ‘I’ve only got one present left to wrap and I’ve run out.’ I mutter something negative and put my head back under the covers. It’s the middle of the afternoon when I wake up again and outside it’s already growing dark. Blink and you miss the daylight at this time of the year. So much for saving it.
I struggle out of bed, feeling exhausted, it’s as if I haven’t slept at all. My party dress is hanging on the wardrobe door but it’s too early to put it on, that would be like asking an accident to happen. Despite what Hilary said about not bringing a present I have bought her a boxed set of Bronnley lemon soaps which are sitting gift-wrapped ready on my bedside table. I think it is best to smooth my passage into this sophisticated milieu of the Walshes. Although, of course, the only reason I want to be at this party is to steal away Malcolm Lovat from under Hilary’s little nose.
I come downstairs still in my dressing-gown. Debbie and Gordon are both in the kitchen, Gordon at the sink wrestling with tomorrow’s turkey, a small frozen butterball, lethal enough to fling from a catapult and destroy an entire castle and its occupants. The relation of dead poultry to male genitalia is still something of a puzzle to me but it’s hardly something I can discuss with Gordon, heroically delivering the turkey of a bloody plastic bag of giblets. We would be better off with a roasted suckling baby at our festive table, at least then there might be enough white meat to go round.
Gordon sees me and smiles. He seems to be completely ignoring his mad wife who appears to have turned into a mince pie factory – there must be a hundred of them piled on the kitchen table. I hope she’s not planning some kind of Christmas party. ‘You’re not planning a party, are you?’
‘No. Should I be?’ she asks, attacking a helpless rectangle of pastry with a fluted cutter like a little hollow crown. I decide to leave her to it.
In the hall Vinny is wheeling the baby up and down in its pram. The baby regards Vinny with a glum expression as if it had been expecting something better from life. Who can blame it? Vinny seems to be disappearing before my eyes, so thin and insubstantial that she’s more like a cloud of dense ectoplasm than a human being. She’s drying up, desiccating like a dead beetle and she’s developing a strange aura, a cross-hatching of cobwebs around her outline as if she’s fraying at the edges (it could be her nerves). Perhaps the baby’s sucking the life out of her.
The baby has a name at last, I suppose if it had been left much longer Vinny, the Keeper of Cat Names, would have ended up christening it Tibbles or something. Although Tibbles might suit it better than the new-fashioned name it’s been given – Jodi.
‘I’ll do that,’ I offer reluctantly, taking over the pram handle from Vinny who staggers off gratefully to her room, followed by several Cats who have been prowling around jealously.
Perhaps we could take the baby and leave it on someone else’s doorstep, they might be fooled into thinking it was an anonymous Christmas present. They might even think it’s a manifestation of the second coming – Jesus come back to earth as a girl. (Now that would be something.) But the baby doesn’t look like it wants to save the world, it looks as if it would settle for what we all crave in Arden – a good night’s sleep.
It’s quite a peaceful activity walking up and down the hall with the pram, rocking up and down on the handle occasionally. There’s no hurry anyway – ‘Don’t go too early,’ is Mrs Baxter’s advice, ‘there’s nothing worse than being first at a party,’ well, except perhaps for never being at parties at all.
‘I thought you had a party to go to?’ Debbie says, breaking into my reverie. I look at my watch in amazement – it’s several hours later than I thought it was. How can that be? I must have completely lost track of time. Again.
‘Time playing tricks, eh?’ Gordon laughs (almost) as I pass him on the stairs.
So. I have the shoes (white stilettos that I can hardly walk in) and the frock, of course, but what about the rest of me? I need my mother, I need my mother to turn me into a real woman, but in her absence I do the best I can, damping down the frizzled snakes of my hair with Vitapointe so that I end up smelling well basted, like Christmas dinner. Not to mind, I think, putting on the fur tippet which curls comfortably round my neck.
I am going to walk into the party and Malcolm Lovat will catch a glimpse of me, walk towards me in a dream, we’ll melt (yes, melt) into each other’s arms, he’ll peel the pink dress off me and inflamed by so much naked flesh we’ll swoon into – why don’t I have a mother advising me against such a rash course of action? (I’m sixteen, for heaven’s sake, I’m a child.) Why isn’t my father asking me where I’m going as I fly so eagerly down the stairs?
‘Where are you going?’ Gordon asks.
‘Just out,’ I say airily and a little frown pinches his brow. ‘I’d give you a lift,’ he says, ‘but – ’and he indicates the kitchen at his back, now so full of mince pies that they’re rolling out of the door. ‘It’s OK, I’ll get the bus,’ I reassure him hastily.
He reaches out and straightens my coat collar. But I have no time now for such tendresse, I am away to forgo my virtue and the clock’s upbraiding me with the waste of time. ‘How are you going to get back?’ Gordon shouts after me. ‘There’ll only be a skeleton bus service tonight.’
‘It’s OK. I’m getting a lift off Malcolm Lovat,’ (there’s nothing like being optimistic). Although the idea of a skeleton bus service has a certain novel – if somewhat ghoulish – attraction.
The Walshes’ house turns out to be a gracious Georgian affair with pillars and a portico. My chest is tight with party anticipation. I pause for a second at the gate to savour the air of excitement, all the lights are on in the rooms and a tree in the garden has been strung, not with the garish coloured lights of the seaside prom, but with tasteful white globes like bright little moons. The wrought-iron gates at the foot of the driveway are wide open and on one of them is hung a large h
olly wreath, embellished with a red ribbon bow, a badge of cheer and festivity to welcome us partygoers. I walk up the path, dress rustling, take a deep breath, and ring the doorbell.
The door is flung open as soon as my finger touches the bell, as if someone has been standing behind it waiting for me. Taking the role of footman is a frog-faced boy I have never seen before who smiles breezily at me and says, ‘Hello there – whoever you are.’
I certainly haven’t arrived too early, the house is buzzing with chatter and excitement and svelte girls – all of them spilling over with self-confidence and spilling out of expensive dresses which are definitely not hand-made. ‘Go in the living-room!’ the boy at the door bellows cheerfully at me above the noise, pointing at a doorway on the left from which The Shadows are twanging loudly.
Inside the living-room Hilary’s parents – ‘John and Tessa’ – stand smiling, as if they’re part of a wedding reception party, only they have their outdoor clothes on. Dorothy, Hilary’s older sister, is hovering around next to them, a vision in lemon tulle.
‘We’re going to leave it to you now,’ Mrs Walsh laughs gaily, ‘you young things all together, while we have to go to the boring old Taylor-Wests’ do, I really rather envy you.’ Who this statement is addressed to isn’t entirely clear but as the nearest person I feel a duty to laugh and nod sociably as if I know just what she means. Mr Walsh gives me a funny look and, turning to Dorothy, says, ‘Now, Dotty, you’ve got the Taylor-Wests’ phone number if you need us. Just remember, don’t turn the music up too loud and make sure you give all these poor fellows a Christmas kiss.’
‘Dotty’ laughs graciously and says, ‘Don’t you worry about us, Daddy, you get yourselves off – and have a wonderful time!’
So this is how normal families behave, I always knew it! (Why, they might even be happy.) Oh, how I love John and Tessa and Dotty and Hilary. Where is Hilary? Not that I’m really interested in Hilary, but she is the thread that will lead me to the object of my heart’s desire (Prince Malcolm). ‘Where’s Hilary?’ I ask in my politest voice and Dorothy turns to look at me and smiles indulgently as if I’m a quaint but backward relative. ‘I think she’s in the kitchen with the fruit punch,’ she answers and then laughs uproariously at this ‘joke’. ‘That didn’t sound right, did it?’ and Mr and Mrs Walsh laugh as well, bright, tinny laughter that could set my teeth on edge if I wasn’t in such a festive mood.
Mrs Walsh pulls her mink coat (the foxes at my neck flinch in distress) closer around her body and kisses Dorothy’s cheek goodbye. I’m half-expecting her to do the same to me but her eyes gloss over me as she turns to Mr Walsh and trills, ‘Come on then, Johnny, we’d better leave them to it.’
Hilary is indeed in the kitchen with the fruit punch, doling it out with a glass ladle in a very ladylike way, like an aristocratic WVS woman. ‘There you are, Isobel,’ she says, giving me a charitable kind of smile. The glass punch cups have tiny glass handles that are impossible to hold. I hand over the gift-wrapped soaps, ‘I brought you a present,’ which she takes cautiously, as if the box might contain something venomous. She puts it down without unwrapping it, turns her back and starts fiddling with a plate of Ritz crackers that have been given sophisticated party toppings that Debbie would envy – bits of Gouda and cocktail onions, stuffed green olives and tiny shiny black fish eggs like fleas.
I sip my fruit punch awkwardly, trying to stop the little cup slipping out of my big hand. It tastes, rather disgustingly, of orange squash and Ribena. Just then the captain of the football team, a loutishly handsome boy called Paul Jackson, comes into the kitchen, winks at me and pours an entire bottle of vodka into the fruit punch. When Hilary turns round he stuffs the bottle into his jacket pocket and smiles at her. She smiles back and says, ‘Canapé, Paul?’
Hilary and Paul seem very interested in each other and not very interested in me and so I help myself to some of the newly fortified punch (which now tastes of orange squash and Ribena, with a hint of nail varnish remover – a slight improvement) and slope off to try and find somebody who might be interested in me, like Malcolm Lovat, for example.
Everyone at this party seems to know everyone else and yet I know nobody – I’ve certainly never seen any of these people in school, where have they all come from?
The Walshes‘ house has many mansions and I wander through the different rooms, each one alive with chattering party-goers, each one presenting a different tableau of conviviality. Trying to infiltrate these hard knots of people is like trying to get into a rugby scrum. Emboldened by anonymity, I try varying social tactics. ‘Hello, I’m Isobel,’ I say shyly on the outskirts of one group – and am completely ignored. Perhaps I’ve accidentally put on my cloak of invisibility.
‘Hello, my name’s Isobel, what’s yours?’ I try, more loudly, on the edge of another group and everyone turns round to look at me as if I’m an unwelcome imbecile. There’s no sign of Malcolm Lovat anywhere.
I overhear someone say, ‘God, have you seen that dress, what does she look like?’ and the other person replies, ‘A strawberry tart,’ and hoots with laughter. Do they mean me? Surely not. I slink back to the kitchen. Hilary has disappeared (if only) and been replaced by her brother Graham who’s grinning at me in an odd way. ‘Hello, Is-o-bel,’ he says in an affected kind of way.
Graham’s with a group of his college friends, all dressed in sweaters and corduroy jackets and stripy scarves just in case anyone mistakes them for anything else. To my horror I suddenly realize that one of them is Richard Primrose.
‘Surprise,’ he says, snarf-snarfing.
‘Why are you here?’
‘Graham, my good friend here,’ he says, draping his extra-long arm around Graham’s shoulder in a drunken way, ‘invited me, of course. And I told him to invite you,’ he laughs, jabbing in my direction with his finger. He can hardly stand, he’s so drunk. ‘This,’ he says, gesturing to the rest of the group, ‘is my kid sister’s friend,’ his voice drops to an artificial whisper, ‘the one I was telling you about.’ They all look at me as if I’m an exhibit in the zoo and I feel myself blushing to a shade that probably accessorises quite well with my dress.
They crowd around me, one of them says, ‘Hello, Is-obel, my name’s Clive,’ and another one says, ‘Hi, I’m Geoff.’ This is amazing, to be the focus of so much male attention and for a deluded second I imagine the dress must be weaving its magic and I’ve been transfigured into a magnetically attractive person. They are so close that I can smell the alcohol fumes coming off them, more beerily pungent than just vodka-laced punch. One of them puts his arm round my waist and laughing and smirking, says, ‘Well, Is-o-bel, we’ve all heard what a goer you are. How about giving me a try?’
‘Goer?’ I repeat, mystified, wriggling out of his unpleasant embrace. ‘Goer? What do you mean?’ In my mildly befuddled brain I wonder if a ‘goer’ isn’t some kind of snake – or is it an island? ‘Goer?’ I puzzle to the nearest boy? (Clive, I think, but they’re indistinguishable really with their little beards – you can just tell they’re all jazz fans.)
‘Yeah,’ he says, fingering the edge of one of my cap sleeves, ‘we’ve heard how accommodating you are, Is-o-bel. Izzie-Wizzie, let’s get busy.’
‘Old Dick here,’ another one of them says, nodding his head in Richard’s direction, Richard sniggers, ‘has been telling us that you do anything, Is-o-bel.’ He snorts with laughter. ‘Things that nice girls don’t do.’ ‘Nice girls,’ another one chuckles and mimes being sick.
‘Not like Ding-Dong here,’ another one, possibly Geoff, says (they’re as numerous as mince pies). ‘We’ve all heard what Dick gets up to with you, Ding-Dong.’
‘Yeah, pussy’s in the well,’ another one of them leers. The foxes at my neck growl protectively.
I glare in disbelief at Richard. ‘What on earth have you been saying about me?’ He has the grace to look slightly shame-faced but at that moment Dorothy strides into the kitchen with a tray of dirty glasses and the pack of boys
all wheel round to watch Dorothy’s magnificent breasts and bottom. ‘What an arse,’ one of them sighs quietly and Dorothy says, ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Isobel!’ with a disgusted expression on her face, before sweeping out again.
Slightly chastened for only a moment by Dorothy’s commanding presence, the baying pack now close in on me in a way that’s really quite frightening. They’re all built like half-backs and I don’t think that the fox tippet’s going to be an adequate champion if it comes to a contest between us. Richard’s keeping his distance on the outside of the circle, reviewing my discomfort with a supercilious smile. I vow to kill him at the first opportunity.
One of them starts singing, Ding-dong bell, pussy’s in the well, and Graham makes an amateur pass at my sweetheart neckline. Flight’s the only solution here and I turn to one of them and give him a hefty kick on the shin before shouldering him out of the way and heading out of the back door and into the garden.
I’m expecting the Walshes’ back garden to be as tamely suburban as the ones on the streets of trees, but it resembles a stately home in its landscaped vastness, it’s like unexpectedly entering another dimension. (Appearances can be deceptive.)
I sprint across the grass as fast as I can but my movements are hampered by the heels on my shoes and the large volume of pink I’m wearing, and I haven’t got very far when Graham does a rugby tackle on me, sending me crashing on to the frosted grass of the lawn. His hand slips down into the bodice of my dress, determined apparently on this particular goal, but I manage to jab him hard in the ribs with my left elbow and he rolls off me, yelping with pain. I have lost one of my shoes by now, and I hastily kick off the other one as I scramble to my feet.