Aurelia had asked her to bring someone to the party; another teacher, a ‘pure’ teacher Aurelia had said, meaning not a teacher pretending to be a writer. Maybe Marcia should have said no. But she wanted to leave the door open with Aurelia, to see what might develop. Aurelia might read the three chapters and be excited by them. Anyhow, Marcia wanted to go to the party.
‘How did it go with Miss Broughton?’ asked her mother the next time Marcia went round. ‘We’ve chatted on the phone, but you haven’t mentioned it.’
‘It was fine, just great.’
Her mother said, ‘You’re sullen, like a teenager again.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
Mother said, more softly, ‘What came of it?’
‘You should have seen the house. Five bedrooms – at least!’
‘You got upstairs?’
‘I had to. And three receptions!’
‘Three? What do they do in all that space! What would we do with it!’
‘Have races!’
‘We could –’
‘The flowers, Mum! The people working there! I’ve never known anything like it.’
‘I bet. Was it on a main road?’
‘Just off. But near the shops. They’ve got everything to hand.’
‘Buses?’ enquired her mother.
‘I shouldn’t think she goes on a bus.’
‘No‚’ said Mother. ‘I wouldn’t go on another bus again if I didn’t have to. Off-street parking?’
‘Yes. Room for two cars, it looked like.’ Marcia said, ‘We chatted in her library and got to know one another. She invited me to a party.’
‘To a party? She didn’t invite me?’
‘She didn’t mention you at all‚’ Marcia said. ‘And nor did I.’
‘I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if I came with you. I’ll get my glad rags on!’
‘But why?’ said Marcia.
‘Just to go out. To meet people. I might interest them.’
Before, this would have been a kind of joke, and Mother would have returned to her moroseness. She certainly was getting healthy, if she thought she might interest people.
‘I’ll think about it‚’ Marcia said.
‘I can’t wait!’ sang her mother. ‘A party!’
*
Aurelia rang from her car. The connection wasn’t good, but Marcia gathered that Aurelia was ‘in the neighbourhood’ and wanted to ‘pass by for a cup of tea’.
Marcia and Alec were having fish fingers and baked beans. Aurelia must have been close; Marcia had hardly cleared the table, and Alec hadn’t finished throwing his toys behind the sofa, when Aurelia’s car drew up outside.
At the door she handed Marcia another signed copy of her new novel, came in, and sat down on the edge of the sofa.
‘What a beautiful boy‚’ she said of Alec. ‘Fine hair – almost white.’
‘And how are you?’ said Marcia.
‘Tired. I’ve been doing readings and giving interviews, not only here but in Berlin and Barcelona. The French are making a film about me, and the Americans want me to make a film about my London … Sorry‚’ she said. ‘Am I making you crazy?’
‘Of course.’
Aurelia sighed. Today she looked shrewd and seemed to vibrate with intensity. She didn’t want to talk, or listen, rather. When Marcia told her that her will to work had collapsed, she said, ‘I wish mine had.’
She got up and glanced along the shelves of Marcia’s books.
‘I like her‚’ said Marcia, naming a woman writer, of about the same age as Aurelia.
‘She can’t write at all. Apparently she’s a rather good amateur sculptor.’
‘Is that so?’ said Marcia. ‘I liked her last book. Did you read the chapters I gave you?’ Aurelia looked blankly at her. Marcia said, ‘The chapters from my novel. I left them.’
‘Where?’
‘On your table.’
‘No. No, I didn’t.’
‘Perhaps they’re still there.’
Marcia guessed Aurelia wanted to see how she lived, that she wasn’t looking at her but through her, to the sentences and paragraphs she would make of her. It was an admirable ruthlessness.
At the door Aurelia kissed her on both cheeks.
‘See you at the party‚’ she said.
‘I’m looking forward to it.’
‘Don’t forget – bring someone pedagogical.’
Marcia put Aurelia’s novel on the shelf. Aurelia’s books were among the rows of books; the books full of stories, the stories full of characters and craft, waiting to be enlivened by someone with a use for them. Or perhaps not.
*
Mother refused to have Alec to stay. It was the first time she had done this. It was the day before the party.
‘But why, why?’ said Marcia, on the telephone.
‘I realised you weren’t taking me to the party, though you didn’t bother to actually tell me. I made other arrangements.’
‘I was never taking you to that party.’
‘You never take me anywhere.’
Marcia was shaking with exasperation. ‘Mum, I want to live. And I want you to help me.’
‘I’ve helped you all my life.’
‘Sorry? You?’
‘Who brought you up? You’re educated, you’ve got –’
Marcia replaced the receiver.
She rang friends and a couple of people in the writers’ group, even the boy who’d written about the tapeworm. No one was available to babysit. Half an hour before she needed to leave, the only person left to ask was her husband, who lived nearby. He was surprised and sarcastic. They rarely spoke but, when necessary, dropped notes through one another’s doors.
He said he had been intending to spend the evening with his new girlfriend.
‘How sweet‚’ said Marcia.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ he said.
‘Can’t you both come over?’
‘Desperate. Must be another new boyfriend. Have you got any crisps … and alcohol?’
‘Take what you want. You always did.’
It was the first time she had let her husband into the house since he had left. If the girlfriend was there he wouldn’t, at least, snoop around.
When they arrived, and the girlfriend removed her coat, Maria noticed she was pregnant.
Marcia changed upstairs. She could hear them talking in the living room. Then she heard music.
She was at the door, ready to go. Alec was showing them his new baseball cap.
Her husband held up a record sleeve. ‘You know, this is my record.’
‘I’m in a rush‚’ she said.
In the car she thought she must have been mad, but what she was doing was in the service of life. People don’t take enough risks, she thought. She didn’t, though, have a teacher who might interest Aurelia. However, Aurelia wouldn’t turn her away at the door. Marcia had done enough for Aurelia. Had Aurelia done enough for her?
It was Aurelia’s husband who let her in and fetched her a glass of champagne, while Marcia looked around. The party was being held on the ground floor of the house, and Marcia recognised several writers. The other guests seemed to be critics, academics, psychoanalysts and publishers.
The effort of getting there had made her tense. She drank two glasses of champagne quickly and attached herself to Aurelia’s husband, the only person, apart from Aurelia, she knew.
‘Do you want to be introduced as a teacher, or as a writer?’ he said. ‘Or neither?’
‘Neither, at the moment.’ She took his arm. ‘Because I am neither one nor the other.’
‘Keeping your options open, eh?’ he said.
He introduced her to several people, and they talked as a group. The main topic was the royal family, a subject she was surprised to hear intellectuals taking an interest in. It was like being at the school.
She liked Aurelia’s husband, who nodded and smiled occasionally; she liked being afraid of him. He understood ot
her people and what their wishes were. Nothing would shock him.
He was a little shocked later on, in the conservatory, when she reached up to kiss him. She was saying, ‘Please, please, only this …’ when, across the room, she saw the headmaster of her school, and his wife, talking to a female writer.
Aurelia’s husband gently detached her.
‘I apologise‚’ she said.
‘Accepted. I’m flattered.’
‘Hallo, Marcia‚’ said the headmaster. ‘I hear you’ve been very helpful to Aurelia.’
She didn’t like the headmaster seeing her drunk and embarrassed.
‘Yes‚’ she said.
‘Aurelia’s going to come to the school and see what we do. She’s going to talk to the older pupils.’ He lowered his mouth to her ear. ‘She has given me a complete set of her books. Signed.’
She wanted to say, ‘They’re all signed, you stupid cunt.’
She left the house and walked a little. Then she went back and traversed the party. People were leaving. Others were talking intensely. Nobody paid her any attention.
*
Sandor was lying on his bed with his hand over his eyes. She sat beside him.
‘I’ve come to say I won’t be coming so often now. Not that I’ve ever really come often, except recently. But … it will be even less.’
He nodded. He was watching her. Sometimes he took in what she said.
She went on, ‘The reason, if you want to know the reason –’
‘Why not?’ he said. He sat up. ‘I’d get you something … but, I’m so ashamed, there’s nothing here.’
‘There’s never anything here.’
‘I’ll take you out for a drink.’
‘I’ve had enough to drink.’ She said, ‘Sandor, this is hateful. There’s a phrase that kept coming into my mind at the party. I came to tell it to you. Sucking stones. That’s it. We look to the old things and to the old places, for sustenance. That’s where we found it before. Even when there’s nothing there we go on. But we have to find new things, otherwise we are sucking stones. To me, this’ – she indicated the room – ‘is arid, impoverished, dead.’
His eyes followed her gesture around the room as she condemned it.
‘But I’m trying‚’ he said. ‘Things are going to look up, I know they are.’
She kissed him. ‘Bye. See you.’
She cried in the car. It wasn’t his fault. She’d go back another day.
She was late home. Her husband was asleep in his girlfriend’s arms, his hand on her stomach. On the floor was an empty bottle of wine and dirty plates; the TV was loud.
She carried the record from the deck, scratched it with her fingernail, and replaced it in its cover. She roused the couple, thanked them, pushed the record under her husband’s arm, and got them out.
She started up the stairs but stopped halfway, took another step, and went down again. She returned to the living room and put on her overcoat. She went out onto the small concrete patio behind the house. It was dark and silent. The cold shocked her into wakefulness. She removed her coat. She wanted the cold to punish her.
Early in the morning, during the summer holidays, she sometimes danced out here, with Alec watching her, to parts of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.
Now she put the kitchen light on and laid a square of bricks. She went back into the house and collected her files. She carried them outside and opened them. She burned her stories; she burned the play, and the first few chapters of the novel. There was a lot of it and it made a nice fire. It took a long time. She was shivering and stank of smoke and ash. She swept up. She ran a bath and lay in it until the water was tepid.
Alec had got into her bed and was asleep. She put her notebook on the bedside table. She would keep it with her, using it as a journal. But otherwise she would stop writing for a while; at least six months, to begin with. She was clear that this wasn’t masochism or a suicide. Perhaps her dream of writing had been a kind of possession, or addiction. She was aware that you could get addicted to the good things, too. She was making a space. It was an important emptiness, one she would not fill with other intoxications. She might, she knew, turn into her mother, sucking stones at the TV night after night, terrified by excitement.
After a time there might be new things.
A Meeting, At Last
Morgan’s lover’s husband held out his hand.
‘Hallo, at last‚’ he said. ‘I enjoyed watching you standing across the road. I was delighted when, after some consideration, you made up your mind to speak with me. Will you sit down?’
‘Morgan‚’ said Morgan.
‘Eric.’
Morgan nodded, dropped his car keys on the table and sat down on the edge of a chair.
The two men looked at one another.
Eric said, ‘Are you drinking?’
‘In a while – maybe.’
Eric called for another bottle. There were two already on the table.
‘You don’t mind if I do?’
‘Feel free.’
‘I do now.’
Eric finished his bottle and replaced it on the table with his fingers around the neck. Morgan saw Eric’s thin gold wedding ring. Caroline would always drop hers in a dish on the table in Morgan’s hall, and replace it when she left.
Eric had said on the phone, ‘Is that Morgan?’
‘Yes‚’ Morgan replied. ‘Who –’
The voice went on, ‘Are you Caroline’s boyfriend?’
‘But who is this asking?’ said Morgan. ‘Who are you?’
‘The man she lives with. Eric. Her husband. Okay?’
‘Right. I see.’
‘Good. You see.’
Eric had said ‘please’ on the phone. ‘Please meet me. Please.’
‘Why?’ Morgan had said. ‘Why should I?’
‘There are some things I need to know.’
Eric named a café and the time. It was later that day. He would be there. He would wait.
Morgan rang Caroline. She was in meetings, as Eric must have known. Morgan deliberated all day but it wasn’t until the last moment, pacing up and down his front room when he was already late, that he walked out of the house, got in his car and stood across the road from the café.
Although Caroline had described Eric’s parents, his inarticulate furies, the way his head hung when he felt low and even, as Morgan laughed, the way he scratched his backside, Eric had been a shadow man, an unfocused dark figure that had lain across their life since they had met. And while Morgan knew things about him that he didn’t need to know, he had little idea of what Eric knew of him. He had yet to find out what Caroline might have recently told him. The last few days had been the craziest of Morgan’s life.
The waitress brought Eric a beer. Morgan was about to order one for himself but changed his mind and asked for water.
Eric smiled grimly.
‘So‚’ he said. ‘How are you?’
Morgan knew that Eric worked long hours. He came home late and got up after the children had gone to school. Looking at him, Morgan tried to visualise something Caroline had said. As she prepared for work in the morning, he lay in bed in his pyjamas for an hour, saying nothing, but thinking intently with his hands over his eyes, as if he were in pain, and had to work something out.
Caroline left for work as early as she could in order to phone Morgan from the office.
After a couple of months, Morgan requested her not to speak about Eric, and particularly not about their attempts at love-making. But as Morgan’s meetings with Caroline were arranged around Eric’s absences, he was, inevitably, mentioned.
Morgan said, ‘What can I do for you?’
‘There are things I want to know. I am entitled.’
‘Are you?’
‘Don’t I have any rights?’
Morgan knew that seeing this man was not going to be easy. In the car he had tried to prepare, but it was like revising for an exam without having been told the subjec
t.
‘All right‚’ Morgan said, to calm him down. ‘I understand you.’
‘After all, you have taken my life.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I mean my wife. My wife.’
Eric swigged at his bottle. Then he took out a small pot of pills and shook it. It was empty.
‘You haven’t got any painkillers, have you?’
‘No.’
Eric wiped his face with a napkin.
He said, ‘I’m having to take these.’
He was upset, no doubt. He would be in shock. Morgan was; Caroline too, of course.
Morgan was aware that she had started with him to cheer herself up. She had two children and a good, if dull, job. Then her best friend took a lover. Caroline met Morgan through work and decided immediately that he had the right credentials. Love and romance suited her. Why hadn’t she been dipped in such delight every day? She thought everything else could remain the same, apart from her ‘treat’. But as Morgan liked to say, there were ‘consequences’. In bed, she would call him ‘Mr Consequences’.
‘I’m not moving out of my house‚’ Eric said. ‘It’s my home. You’re not intending to take that from me, as well as my wife?’
‘Your wife … Caroline‚’ Morgan said, restoring her as her own person. ‘I didn’t steal her. I didn’t have to persuade her. She gave herself to me.’
‘She gave herself?’ Eric said. ‘She wanted you? You?’
‘That’s the truth.’
‘Do women do that to you?’
Morgan tried to laugh.
‘Do they?’ Eric said.
‘Only her – recently.’
Eric stared, waiting for him to continue. But Morgan said nothing, reminding himself that he could walk out at any time, that he didn’t have to take anything from this man.
Eric said, ‘Do you want her?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘You’re not sure? After doing all this, you’re not sure?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘What do you mean then?’
‘Nothing.’
But perhaps he wasn’t sure. He had become used to their arrangement. There were too many hurried phone calls, misunderstood letters, snatched meetings and painful partings. But they had lived within it. They even had a routine. He had received more from Eric’s wife – seeing her twice a week – than he had from any other woman. Otherwise, when he wasn’t working, he visited art galleries with his daughter; he packed his shoulder bag, took his guide book and walked about parts of the city he’d never seen; he sat by the river and wrote notes about the past. What had he learned through her? A reverence for the world; the ability to see feeling, certain created objects, and other people as important – indeed, invaluable. She had introduced him to the pleasures of carelessness.