I hope to God that Mrs Dyer is still alive. May her monkey-puzzle flourish like the green bay, and may that sunflower head lift heliotropically when Oliver stirs her intermittent doorbell.
Gillian ‘I wonder who lived here before,’ said Sophie.
‘Different people,’ was all I could think of as a reply.
‘I wonder where they’ve gone,’ she added. It wasn’t a question, any more than her first remark had been, but I felt defensive. I also felt, suddenly, Stuart should be here; he’d know the answer to that, after all the whole thing was his idea. He got us into this.
No, we got us into this.
No, I got us into this.
One of the ways I deal with it is to go out into the street and look up and down. You know the kind of street this is: a hundred or so houses, fifty on either side, in terraces of twenty-five at a time, all part of a late-Victorian development, all indistinguishable. Tall, thin terrace houses of that yellow-grey London stock brick. Semi-basement, three storeys, with an extra room on each half-landing. Tiny front garden, thirty-foot back garden. What I tell myself is, this is just one of a hundred identical houses in the street, one of a thousand in the neighbourhood, one of a hundred thousand or more across London. So what does the number on the door matter? The bathroom and kitchen are different now, the decoration’s changed, I’m not going to have my studio on the top floor as I did before, but on the middle so it won’t feel the same, and if there’s anything that reminds me of ten years ago I’ll get out the paintbrush. The girls help make the house feel new. And a cat would be a good idea, I think. Anything that’s new would be a good idea.
If you want to say I’m evading things, perhaps I am. But at least I know what I’m doing. Anyway, that’s how you live after a while, isn’t it, how everyone lives? Evade a few things, ignore a few things, keep away from certain subjects. That’s normal, that’s grown-up, that’s the only way to live if you’re busy, if you’ve a job, if you’ve children. If you’re young, or you haven’t got a job, or you’re rich, if you’ve got either time or money or both, then you can afford to—what’s that word?—confront everything, examine every aspect of your relationships, question exactly why you’re doing exactly what. But most people just get on with things. I don’t ask Oliver about his projects and I don’t ask him about his moods. In return, he doesn’t ask me if I’m feeling hemmed in or frustrated or exhausted or whatever. Well, perhaps he doesn’t ask because it doesn’t cross his mind.
Outside the back door there’s a newish bit of red-brick patio, which wasn’t there before, the old grass, which is neutral enough, and a pretty uncoordinated mixture of plants and shrubs. Yesterday I went out and cut down the only two shrubs I remembered from ten years ago. I recognised them because I’d planted them myself: a buddleia, in the hope of attracting butterflies, and a Cistus ladanifer, another act of optimism. I cut them down to the ground and then I dug up the roots. I made a bonfire and burnt them. Oliver was out with the girls and when he returned he saw what I’d done but didn’t comment.
That’s what I mean, you see.
Stuart seems to be just letting us get on with it. He sent us a leg of pork as a house-warming present.
Ellie The new studio’s much better. More room, more light. There would have been even more light if we’d been on the floor above. Also, less noise from the rest of the house. But I suppose that’s why they wanted their bedroom on the top floor. Anyway, it’s none of my business.
I’ve just finished Stuart’s picture. It didn’t improve with cleaning, that’s for sure. Having it here became a bit embarrassing. I’d find myself working on it when she wasn’t around. Once she gave it a glance, as if to say, ‘Cheaper to put it on the fire.’ I made a sort of noise agreeing and put my head down. ‘It belongs to Mr Henderson,’ I said to myself, in case I had to say it to her.
I rang Stuart on his mobile, as he’d asked me to. He said bring it round and we’ll have a drink. Not exactly an invitation, not exactly an order, just a sort of statement. I told him what the bill would be.
‘You’d prefer cash,’ he said, again in the same way. I wasn’t being pushed, but I wasn’t being asked either. I didn’t exactly take offence, I just felt he was in the adult world and I wasn’t. The way he was behaving must seem perfectly normal to him and lots of other people, but not to me. I suppose you get used to it, you call it the way of the world or something. Only, I’m not sure I want to get used to it. Ever.
Stuart Pigs are highly intelligent animals. If you submit them to stress, by overcrowding for instance, then they tend to mutilate one another. It’s the same with chickens—not that chickens are particularly bright. But pigs get stressed and attack one another. They chew one another’s tails off. And you know what the industrial farmer’s response to this is? He docks the pigs’ tails so they won’t have anything to chew, and sometimes their ears as well. He also clips their teeth and puts rings in their noses.
Now, none of this is exactly going to reduce a pig’s stress, is it? Nor is being pumped full of hormones and antibiotics and zinc and copper, and not being allowed to wander about a field or sleep on straw. Things like that. And apart from anything else, stress affects the relaxation of the muscles, which in turn affects the taste of the meat. So does the pig’s diet, of course. People in my business agree that pork is the meat that’s lost the most flavour as a result of factory-farming methods. And because it doesn’t taste of anything, consumers have to be charged less for it, and that drives down the production margins, and so on. Getting the consumer to pay more for decent pork is a bit of a crusade with me, if you must know.
The other thing it makes me think—well, the whole organic argument makes me think—is, what about us? Isn’t it exactly the same with us? How many people live in London? Eight million? More? With animals, at least the experts have worked out how much space each of them needs, if they’re not to get stressed. They haven’t even started to do this for people—or if they have, we don’t take any notice. We just live on top of one another, higgledy-piggledy—is that where the phrase comes from?—and bite off one another’s tails. We can’t imagine things being different. And given our stress levels and what most of us eat, I bet we taste horrible.
Look, this isn’t a comparison. It’s not one of Oliver’s comparisons, at any rate. It’s just a logical progression of thought. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Organic human beings—what a difference that would make.
Gillian I’m looking down from the bathroom window into the garden. It’s a beautiful morning, just a touch of autumn in the air and the light. There’s a sparkle of dew on a spider’s web across the corner of the window. The children are in the garden, playing. It’s one of those mornings when even an array of London back gardens, half of them untended, separated by low yellow-grey walls, a few blighted trees here and there, a few plastic climbing frames here and there—when even an ordinary view like that can seem pretty. I look back to the girls and they’re running in a circle, half-chasing one another, just having fun. They’re running round a pile of ash.
I think: three days ago I cut down two shrubs—shrubs I liked, which I’d planted myself—because of what happened in this house ten years ago. I took it out on the shrubs. I hacked them down, grubbed them up and set fire to them. At the time, it seemed an entirely sensible, practical, logical, reasonable, necessary thing to do. Now, as I watch my daughters dance around what’s left of a couple of plants I decided to punish, it strikes me as almost the behaviour of a mad person. Doctor, I left my first husband for my second husband, so ten years later I incinerated a buddleia and a cistus. Can you give me anything for this sort of behaviour?
I know I’m completely sane myself. I’m just saying, some small, neutral action—some action that doesn’t harm anyone and never will—can seem quite sane one day and quite mad the next.
Marie’s just tripped and fallen into the ash pile, and since Oliver isn’t here I’ll have to go down and clean her up. At least all of that is sane.
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Oliver My first neighbourly duty—no, more an attempted appeasement of existential panic—was a call at number 55. The windows still suffered painfully from glaucoma, and the monkey-puzzle middle-fingered its bottle-brushes at me from the front garden. The door was still the same shade of caca de dauphin. No pigment modification—might she yet live? The pad of my forefinger, cruising on muscle memory, found just the right nor’-nor’-easterly angle from which to press the bell. Was ever pause so pregnant? Was ever pregnancy so hysterical? But then I heard the slippered slide of ancient feet.
As with the revisited domiciles of childhood, so Mrs Dyer was even smaller than I had remembered. All that emerged into the sunlight was a downturned crown and a contorted extremity which looked as if it had received a visit from the footbinder. To facilitate our reacquaintance, I fell to my knees as once I had when offering her my hand in marriage. Even so, my head felt high enough to nestle in her shoulder. I revealed my identity, whose specificity alas appeared to evade her. Eyes as milky as the windows surveyed me. I talked of incidents she might recall, laid out my carvery table of jokes in the hope of attracting the inquisitive prod of her fork. But none seemed to her taste. In point of truth, she responded as if I were barking mad. Well, at least she was alive, after a fashion. I rose from my knees like a cavaliere-servente and bade her farewell.
‘Eleven twenty-five,’ she said.
I looked at my watch. She was several hours out, unfortunately. But then, I reflected, perhaps this is the nature of time: the less there is of it left, the less you care about its calibration. I was just deciding not to tell her the news that the sun was nearly over the yardarm when she repeated, ‘Eleven twenty-five. That’s what you owe me for the gas.’
Then she withdrew her swaddled foot and slammed the door.
Mme Wyatt Stuart tells me that he is happy to be returned in England.
Stuart tells me that the friendship is restored.
Stuart tells me that Sophie and Marie are charming children and he almost feels like a godfather to them.
Stuart tells me he will try to get Oliver an employment in his business.
Stuart tells me that he is only anxious about Gillian, who seems to him to be under stress.
I do not believe all of this, of course.
But it does not matter so much what I believe. What matters is how much of it Stuart himself believes.
Stuart And I was also thinking this. Do you know what I mean by ADI and MRL?
No? Well, you ought to. ADI is acceptable daily intake. MRL is maximum residue limit. MRL is about the amount of pesticide allowed by law in food when it leaves the farm gate. ADI is about how much pesticide we can absorb into our bodies without it doing us any harm. They’re both expressed in mg/kg, that’s to say, milligrams per kilogram. In ADI the kilogram obviously refers to our body weight.
This is what I was thinking. When people live together, some of them produce the equivalent of pesticides which are harmful to others. For instance, horrible prejudices which just seep into those around them and poison and pollute them. So I sometimes look at people, at couples, at families, in terms of pesticide level. What’s the MRL of him over there, I ask myself, that fellow who’s always sneering and full of nasty opinions? Or, if you lived with her for any length of time, what would be your ADI? And what about your kids? Because when it comes to absorbing poisons kids are more susceptible and vulnerable than adults.
I think I’ve got just the job for Oliver.
Sophie Yesterday I found Mum in that room at the back of the house, the one above the bathroom, that we don’t know what we’re going to use for yet. She was just standing there, miles away. She didn’t even notice me. It was a bit creepy because she usually notices everything. But she’s been a bit odd ever since we moved in.
‘What are you doing, Mum?’ I asked. Sometimes I call her Maman, and sometimes I call her Mum.
She was a million miles away. Then she started looking round and eventually she said, ‘I was wondering what colour to paint it.’
I hope she isn’t getting Down in the Dumps, like Dad did.
Ellie I took back the picture. His flat looked exactly the same, except for about twenty shirts in dry-cleaning bags on a table in the sitting-room. It all looks so temporary. Except if it was temporary, it would look more permanent, if you know what I mean. If he was some businessman working in London for a few months, he’d be in one of those flats you see advertised in the free magazines that come through the door. Three-piece suites, standard lamps, swagged curtains hooked back with belts, inoffensive prints on the wall. He saw me looking.
‘Don’t have time, really,’ he said. ‘Or maybe it’s I’ve got the time but I don’t have the taste.’ He thought about it some more. ‘No, I don’t think it’s that either. It’s more that I don’t have the taste just for myself. It seems rather pointless. If it’s just for me, then I don’t want it enough to get interested. I want someone else to want it. I think that’s it.’
He could have made all this sound pathetic, but he didn’t. It was more like he was trying to get to the bottom of it. ‘What about you?’
I told him how I went about decorating my bedsit, where I got the stuff. When I said ‘charity shop,’ he looked as if I said I got things off a skip.
‘I can’t imagine going to that trouble,’ he said. ‘Do you think it’s a sex difference?’ No, I don’t, actually. ‘Do you think it’s genetic?’
We’d both seen this wildlife programme on the telly, a few days before, about bowerbirds. Did you watch it? They live in the jungle somewhere, south-east Asia, I think, and the males spend vast amounts of time and energy creating display areas to attract females. They arrange all these flower blossoms and small nuts and pebbles and things in huge piles and swathes. It looks like some naïve artist’s been at work. I mean, they’re not nests or homes or anything, they’re just displays to attract the female of the species. It was all very beautiful, and at the same time I found it a bit scary, the amount of obsessive activity and artistic purpose that basically went into getting a shag.
I didn’t say that last bit, but when we’d finished talking about the programme we both found ourselves looking round his flat and laughing. Then he got up and sort of rearranged his shirts on the table, standing some of them up and colour-coordinating them, like it was a display. It was quite funny.
‘You wouldn’t have time for a quick drink? There’s a pub on the corner.’
This time he asked it normally, not like on the phone, so I said yes.
Stuart Why do we like people? This one rather than that one, I mean.
As I think I said before, when I was growing up, I used to like people because they liked me. That’s to say, I would like them enormously if they were merely polite and decent to me. Lack of self-confidence. That’s often why people get married the first time, if you ask me. They can’t get over the fact that someone seems to like them, no questions asked. There was a bit of that in my case with Gill, I can see that now. It’s not enough of a basis for things, is it?
Then there’s another way of getting to like people. You see it in those classic serials on telly. For instance, a man and a woman meet and she doesn’t particularly rate him, but over a period of time he performs various actions which make her realise that he’s a really decent fellow after all, and then she does like him. You know, Lieutenant Chadwick rescues Major Thingummy from a gambling debt or some potentially ruinous position or some social or financial embarrassment, whereupon the Major’s sister Miss Thingummy, who Lieutenant Chadwick has admired without getting anywhere with ever since being posted to the region, suddenly recognises his virtues and likes him.
I wonder if things ever happened this way, or if it’s just a fantasy on the writer’s part. Don’t you think it’s the other way round? In my experience, for what it’s worth, you don’t meet someone, then be given a certain amount of evidence about them, and on the basis of that decide that you like them. It’s the opposite: you
like someone and then go looking for evidence to support that feeling.
Ellie’s nice, isn’t she? You like her, don’t you? Do you have enough evidence? I like her. Perhaps I’ll ask her out properly. Do you think that would be a good idea?
Would you be jealous?
Oliver Mr Cherrybum maintains that everyone—from hoi polloi to high pontiff—needs a Business Plan. He even had the culot and the cojones to ask what mine was. I pleaded flagrant ignorance. The music-drama of till and vault may vitalise Stuart’s soul, but not mine.
‘All right, Oliver,’ he said, setting his elbows firmly on the quasimarble pub table-top. He temporarily eschewed his beaker of King & Barnes Wheat Mash (you see, I can have an eye for quotidian detail if I wish) and looked at me, I was going to say man to man, but—forgive the chortle—I don’t think either of us qualifies. And I don’t think I want to, given the grim viva voce involved, the medical inspection and the assault course, the perils of bonding. I can hear the campfire bonhomie, feel the flick of a wet towel. No, I wish to be excused. Here’s a note from my mum. She never wanted me to grow up to be a man.
‘Let’s start at the beginning,’ he said. ‘Who do you think you are?’
My friend does exhume the sempiternal philosophical posers, doesn’t he? Nevertheless, the question deserved answer. ‘Un être sans raisonnable raison d’être,’ I replied. Ah, that old poet’s wisdom. Mr C looked puzzled. ‘A being with no reasonable reason for being.’
‘That’s as it may be,’ said Stuart. ‘We none of us know why we have come to this great vale of tears. But it’s no excuse for not getting on with the job, is it?’
I explained that this was precisely the reason for not getting on with the job, the irrefutable justification for accidie, excess of black bile, Melancholicke Disease, call it what you will. Some of us arrive in the vale of tears and feel disinherited by Fate; others—I leave you to guess—immediately get out their day-pack, fill their waterbottle, check their supply of Kendal mint cake, and stride off up the first footpath they see, ignorant of where it leads, yet convinced that they are somehow ‘getting on with the job,’ and confident that a pair of waterproof trousers will be protection enough against earthquake, forest fire and carnivorous raptor.