Authors: Elaine Feinstein
And then a gust of laughter shook both of them simultaneously so that neither of them could quite get out
–That ornamental pond.
It was a very windy night, a night of rain and mud, and just to leave the taxi and walk the twenty yards to
the door of the labs soaked through her raincoat, and left her running with water. All the same; when she saw Ben he was even wetter than that; and she looked a little anxiously at him, to see if his face was a good colour, or if he was shivering. But his face was
good-humoured
and pink enough; though as he stood on the stone steps of the lab corridor waiting for her, a pool of water had dripped around him and darkened the teak of the stairs. Without glasses, he looked utterly
defenceless
.
–My god, you’ve actually been
IN
the pool, she accused him. At which they both began to laugh again. Then soberly, they both went out in the rain and stood
looking
in the water. She saw at once it presented a
completely
opaque surface. The rain filled her neck and ran down her sleeves.
And Ben said eagerly: Can you see them?
–Nobody could see anything in there. Oh darling. It’s like black ink. He was very disappointed: I thought anyone with normal vision would see them right away. Then he looked and saw how wet she was getting, and put an arm round her protectively.
–Never mind. I’ll have to get them in the morning. Could you, he said lugubriously, just pick out any papers you can see floating about?
In the car, even with the heater full on, they were both chilled to the bone; but first one and then the other began laughing. She wasn’t sure why. And all the same she was worried about him. When they got home she could only think to run a very hot bath; and he took off all his dripping clothes and sank into it saying: Come in too, it’s lovely.
–There isn’t room, she objected. But she took off her wet clothes all the same, and dried her hair with a towel.
Afterwards they both sat in the kitchen, drinking hot milk flavoured with Nescafe.
–We ought to go to bed, said Ben. And they got under the warm blankets cuddling close to one another like affectionate animals. And that night made easy,
uncomplicated
love. Easy as laughter.
And now they entered a strange and brief
honeymoon
: as the weather changed into the deep heat of a quick English summer. It echoed their move into the new house, with its tiny elegant terrace; the whole shape and manner of the place delighted them. Even the grass pushing through the cracks of the stones. There were yellow flowers growing about the ironwork of the balustrade. Flowers of an extraordinary deep blue grew of their own pleasure, to hang over the black rail in delicate arches. And at every turn of their eyes, the stones levelled unevenly, and beyond their own terrace: a public park gave them a sense of space, another world of people, lying in their own groups, their own lives, under the huge trees.
After about three in the afternoon, the sun went behind the first high boughs and sunlight filtered for the hottest part of the day through the leaves of the
sycamore
. She and Ben sat on the terrace drinking beer and talking. Coolly, of what had been, and what still might be; and how clearly they were now only enjoying the choices other people had made; but both, for once at the same time, were happy to do that, to be open to the sensuous beauty of the place, the variety of textures
about them. Even to the old round swinging bird box hung on the line, the elegant bits and pieces of the house still light and lovely even in decay. And how long did that last? Like the sunshine, it was hard to be sure afterwards; how long the heat had been there as a fact of their experience. At any rate while it lasted it was a sort of holiday.
*
From the park came the splash of water; a group of younger children had blown up a paddling pool and were filling it, bucket by bucket, jumping and
screaming
with the pleasure of the slippery wet plastic, as they jumped and fell in the water. And their own children came back to them one after the other; Alan first, carrying his
Observer
Book
of
Trees
. And an open seed pod in his hand; a yellow open pod with little black seeds.
–Is it Laburnum? Or Locust would you say? His long hair hung over his ears, and his faun shaped head hung to one side; his chest had filled out a little, she saw, though he was still thin. Or it might be the deep brown of his skin that made him look more like a young adolescent than a boy.
–Doesn’t look like a locust to me, teased Ben.
–Locust
tree
. Oh, honestly! Alan laughed. Head back and mouth open. His teeth were a bit yellow she thought, but big and regular, his laugh open and
uncomplicated
. After all, had he escaped her damage.
Then Michael came in and sat at their feet,
sharpening
his penknife dangerously on a stone; in preparation for what, she asked him? As the big ginger tom from next door sprang over the wall to join them.
–I’m going to carve a model. In balsa wood.
–Do we have any? she asked, surprised.
–Aha his face wrinkled into a grin. I’m going to buy some.
Ben said: What with?
–It’s very cheap. From the woodshop. I thought, he said. I could do a few errands for you at the same time.
–I tell you what you can do, said Lena. With your nice sharp knife. Go and pick me some daffodils.
–Oh hell no, he said disgustedly.
*
That night they went to a party. In a flat hung right over the sea, so that through the wide windows only the green movements of water and sea-birds could be seen. Their host was a portrait painter; of about sixty; handsome still, in an eye-bulging, affluent way that reminded her of the man who used to swing with a big moustache from the covers of wartime
Esquires.
His wife was a plain, phlegmatic woman of about the same age. They had prepared a table of intricately made food; and a bigger table of hard strong drink. Scotch, vodka, gin. In ten minutes her blood sang joyfully; she had not drunk for a long time; and she found herself happily talking. Even to ad. men, public relations
gradduates
from Cambridge, with certain melancholies of their own; and some of the young teachers from the art school where the older man taught. They spoke guardedly, she thought. But she did not mind. She was afloat. Over a sea of meaningless cheerfulness.
Suddenly, looking across the room, she saw that Ben was deep in talk with a blonde girl of about nineteen; a beauty, she saw with a pang. Delicate bones in her face, and long naked-looking legs. Her skirt rode up to her thigh, but it was the face you looked at first. Or the
rounded shoulders. And Ben was leaning over her; looking down, as it seemed, into the open gap of her loose dress. And they were talking. Really talking she reckoned, not just making the kind of party noises she was part of at her side of the group.
–Who’s
that
? she asked the man in the pink blouse, just down from Cambridge, at her side. Pointing at the girl. But he thought she meant Ben. And answered without hesitation that he was fairly sure he was a sculptor.
–You can always tell, you know. By the shoulders.
–Hm. She tried her other neighbour, who was carefully pushing a small anchovy puff between his lips. And he narrowed his eyes, and licked the last flakes of puff from his lips. But he didn’t know.
–Why not go and ask?
–No. No. I can’t do that. She was ashamed enough as it was. To feel that the composition of her blood could change so suddenly and that she was now sober. Walked to the window and looked coldly over the
moving
of the Channel, and thought there are no fixed points ever. Absurd to hope for them. No end to the possible pull on either of them, this way or that. And at this point their host arrived at her side and unexpectedly (perhaps he thought she looked lonely?) began to; pinch her bottom and put a hand up her short skirt. Which she wriggled away from laughing. A bit
uncomfortably
. And made her way over to where Ben was sitting.
–Perhaps we should go? he suggested. Which lightened her heart for a moment.
But as they left the artist in the doorway kissed her a sexy goodbye with one hand tweaking her left nipple blatantly. And when she had drawn away, she had to say goodbye into the plain brown eyes of the hostess as
neutrally as she could. On the lift going down, they exchanged comments on the extraordinary coolness of the wife.
–She seems very well-adjusted, said Ben.
–I suppose you’d have to be by the time you get that old. Perhaps you don’t care any more, she said
dishonestly
.
–But do you think he’s really very attractive? said Ben. I shouldn’t think she’d have much to fear, concretely, would you?
–Oh I don’t know, said Lena sadly. Some girls like middle-aged men.
–And some boys like middle-aged women, he teased her. She grunted gloomily. Those French films. With all the maternal figures around thirty. I wonder. If I’ll ever adjust. To getting old and unloved as that. Or if I’ll just die with the misery of it. When I see you feeling up some pretty little thing in a corner.
–You won’t have to worry, said Ben. I’ll be past all that soon.
*
They lay drunkenly on the bed side by side. And she could feel his excitement. And really she didn’t care. How impersonal a thing that was. Or what had made him so, that evening. Why should it matter? As he slipped inside her. Easy. Easy. And quickly out. So that she rolled away from him and opened her legs so that he could tease himself in and out of her as he would. And took a strange sweet pleasure. A long way from orgasm. Just from that movement. As it seemed to her that she wanted him to do that, just that, thinking barely of her, or her needs, barely touching her with any other part of him. Wanted him to do that. Just that, slowly, slowly,
not regarding her pleasure. And she let him. Move as he would, her body simply following his. And when he came inside her, silently, his face a long way from hers, their bodies twisted and hanging over the edge of the bed. It took only one stroke of his hand. Lightly brushing her. Casually. To bring on her own
convulsion
.
–God. They lay together and then dropped into sleep. Though she woke a few moments later to think of it and the strange impersonality of that encounter. Without pain. Recognising that it did not matter to her what image had excited him. As she clung to his body. Though it turned in her mind how much lovelier the girl at the party had been than Gertrud. And the face got in her dreams sadly. She did not care as long as there was. The continuity and closeness of his body in her bed. And though she woke once again in the night, with wet cheeks, so that in sleep he mumbled: what the hell? She did not explain. It was, It had to be. Irrelevant.
It must have been about two days later, the same week anyway, that Alan had his birthday; he was too old for a party they’d decided. And so they planned an outing to take its place. Because the weather still held, marvellously; perhaps a little colder, but still the morning rose a brilliant blue over the slate house tops. And downstairs on the mat were a small collection of envelopes for him; from grandparents, from Ben and herself; from the next door neighbour; from a friend in another town: and then among them: suddenly: she recognised. A German post mark and a familiar, almost forgotten, childish writing: Gertrud. She stood over him, watching him excitedly opening the envelopes one after another, taking out the ten-shilling notes, the book token, reading the bad verse on the card as though they were real poems believing in them. And at last with
surprise, reaching Gertrud’s letter he puzzled over the stamp.
–Gosh Mum. It’s Gertrud. She still remembers us. After all these years. I wonder why? Suddenly?
Lena wondered too. With a little cold clutch at her heart, absurdly; a coldness in her chest that she could not put down, that she would not let emerge in her voice.
–That’s very kind, she said, evenly.
As Alan read the letter. A long letter. In the small neatly formed letters of a continuing adolescence. Though she must be what? Twenty-five now? She tried to calculate. And yet still wrote a small hand like a child.
–Mum, you’ll never guess. Look. She’s got a baby of her own now. Isn’t that great?
–I suppose, said Lena. It was always what she wanted. The main thing she wanted. That’s. Very good news, Alan.
–What’s this? Ben was down by them in his
dressing-gown
.
–He heard from Gertrud, said Lena. How to keep her voice even.
–You must write back, Alan, she said, severely.
Remember
that. You must write a thank you letter. With love. From all of us. Wish her luck.
–Of
course
I will. Why do you say that? Alan was indignant.
–Wish her luck. Lena tried to force some generosity into her voice. Surely she felt that? Surely that much
freedom
had been gained after all this time?
–Who has she married I wonder? she asked.
–She doesn’t say anything
about
him, said Alan.
Reading
the letter again. Just the baby. A girl. But she’s got a funny new name look, he pointed to it at the end of the letter.
–Well, good, laughed Lena.
–Her English is terrible.
–Well. She’ll be speaking mainly German again. I wonder. What took her back to live there, Ben? Why she went back.
–Who knows? He turned away from the problem. Didn’t read the letter.
–I thought we were going to shop, he said a bit irritably: For this picnic, remember?
–Breakfast first, Lena said.
–Breakfast? what luxury, he said.
*
Afterwards they went out in the car to find the delicatessen. Found a strange collection of food to take with them; smoked cods’ roe and pickled eggs and cold salami. Sour cucumbers. Rye bread and cracker biscuits. Chocolate for the children.
–Ugh, said Lena when it was assembled. Do you think this is a very well-balanced meal?
–Well, it’s interesting, said Ben.
Neither of them mentioned Gertrud. She did not want to ask him about her, now. And in a sense, she realised, it was irrelevant. Remembering the lovely blonde at the party. Irrelevant, she supposed. Or at least. To talk of it further could only be damaging.
They went off towards Mungo Park, just outside in the Sussex hills. A wild-life park. And both children were excited; at the air coming in the open roof of the car; at the sunshine burning the leather of the seats. They wanted to take off all their clothes; but she made them keep T-shirts on. Out of laziness really. The thought of assembling them neatly again on arrival. Because certainly it was hot enough to be undressed,
even with the air moving in at them through the windows.
They parked with the other families. In a car park. And the children wanted to eat right away as they could see others doing, there on the grass. Ben was indignant: We’ll find somewhere beautiful, he said. Anyway, you can’t possibly be hungry yet.
The park was alive with colour, with birds. Walking, freely about the fields or swimming in a linked
network
of waterways. At the waterside were the
marvellous
orange-necked flamingoes, on their long insect legs.
–Why don’t they
snap
? asked Michael.
And it was even stranger to walk among the huge white pelicans; that stood as tall as Michael and came up to him while he stood stock still. Unbelieving. Level with their huge lower jaws.
–I suppose it’s
safe
? whispered Lena.
–Must be, said Ben. Leading Michael aside all the same. To the edge of another pool, where the birds swimming in the water caught the sun and the reflection of the water on their feathers. They found a green place at the side of the water where they could eat. Looking. At the Chinese ducks, with their absurd, squared markings; and the peacocks. Blazing. And while they were eating, a huge tame deer, a doe, Lena supposed, came up to them, and tried to get at their sandwiches. She had to stop Michael sharing his, bite for bite. And they sat in an open circle, eating and looking.
–What can you do, said Michael. To get that peacock to spread his tails?
Ben said: I’ll whistle at him. But nothing happened. The blue creature just walked away from him behind the trees, over a small bridge.