Born of Woman (29 page)

‘Forgive me interrupting, but we must finish dinner.' Anne had hardly said a word since Matthew entered. ‘There's still some fruit and cheese.'

Matthew folded his napkin into a perfect square. ‘I'm sorry, Anne, we haven't time for anything more. We're expected at the Spencers' for a drink. David Spencer toured Australia last year and met a lot of influential people. He could be
very
useful.'

Once she heard the front door close, and the boys disperse, apples in their pockets to eat upstairs, Susie sprang to her feet and moved to Matthew's chair. She took a sip of his mineral water, shook out his napkin, frowned and tapped the table.

‘Leave the room, Hugh.'

Jennifer didn't laugh. She had to be careful not to be disloyal. Susie might even be an Enemy. She didn't look like one, but Matthew saw Enemies everywhere. Agents were Enemies, other publishers, neighbours (except the Spencers), socialists, bureaucrats, the Inland Revenue—even Lyn, at times. Lyn had still not reappeared. Jennifer had made a quick search of the house for him while Anne was fetching her jacket. He had probably gone out to clear his head. Best to leave him—let him walk his anger off. Anyway, it would give her a chance to talk to Susie alone. They would have to get to know each other if they were spending the summer together. She piled the glasses on a tray, tipped Lyn's almost untouched turkey onto the pile of scraps.

Susie lit a Woodbine. ‘Look, leave those. That's
my
job. You're far too grand to be a waitress.'

‘Grand?'

‘Well, I mean, on telly and everything. You're a real live star now, aren't you?'

‘Hardly. I made such a fool of myself last night, I go hot all over when I think of it.'

‘I liked it. It was smashing—especially when you cried.'

‘Don't remind me!' Jennifer moved into the kitchen, tried to distract herself by starting on the washing-up. The tears were bad enough, but they had led on to Rowan, and Rowan on to Jasper, and Jasper on to scandal and bastard babies—even murdered bastard babies. How on earth would Lyn react if he …?' She'd been trying to block it out, trying not to worry, refused to bring breakfast down to dinner.

Susie had followed her out to the kitchen and was sitting on the work-top, blowing smoke over the turkey carcass. ‘Do you really believe it, though—all that stuff you spouted about back-to-the-land and natural living? I can't see the point myself, when we've got machines and convenience foods and things, to have to go grubbing around with yeast and manure and … All you're doing is putting the clock back—plonking women back in the kitchen or the farmyard when they've spent the last twenty years trying to get out. I'm all for women's lib myself.'

Jennifer said nothing. The subject was too fraught. Until the book, feminism had been one of those vague, prickly topics she rarely thought about. She knew she was old-fashioned, but she preferred to live that way. Anyway, she couldn't be a libber because that would mean attacking Lyn and he was too battle-scarred already to endure another skirmish. Her role was to heal and soothe him, not open up the wounds. She scrubbed harshly at the plates. The water had turned grey and greasy now, little scraps of debris murky at the bottom.

Susie had found a tea-towel and had semi-dried two plates. ‘That's where I go in the evenings—a Women's Group. Don't tell Anne, though. She's sure to disapprove.
She
prefers the painting classes. They finished months ago, in fact. The course closed down for lack of funds.'

‘What d'you do at Women's Groups?'

‘Talk, drink, smoke. Hold debates on all the issues. Support our suffering sisters. Plot Death to the Male.'

Jennifer ran clean water into the sink. The heavy silver cutlery deserved reverential treatment. ‘But I thought you … I mean, the boys were saying they'd seen you with a male.'

‘Yeah—Sparrow.' Susie was using the meat tin as an ashtray. ‘His mates call him that because he's six-foot-three with shoulders like an ox. He's been here once or twice. Charles fell in love with his bike.'

‘What's he like?'

‘Great! Won't be seeing him much more, though.' Susie turned away, ground her fag-end into pulp. ‘Let's change the subject, shall we? Is Lyn really Matthew's brother? They don't look much alike.'

‘Mmm. More or less.'

‘You're as mysterious as Anne. It's a crummy house, this. No one tells me a thing. I mean Matthew didn't even make it clear he was careering round the world like that. When I first arrived here, he said he'd be away and could I cope, but I thought he meant a week or two, not half the bloody summer. Lyn seemed pretty sore about it, too. Did
you
know they were going?'

‘Well, Matthew always travels quite a lot, and to tell the truth, I'm just thoroughly relieved it's not
me
that's involved as well. I almost died when he mentioned Australian television. Look, if you're worried about the boys, I'll help. I'd like to. I'm very fond of them.'

‘They're all right, I s'pose. I'm just off kids in general at the moment. What I really want to do is act—you know—on the stage. This job's only a stop-gap, until I land a part, or sleep with some film director or something. Cor! I really envy you. You've got all the things I'd give my right arm for—fame, money, freedom …'

‘But I haven't, Susie. You're wrong. I …'

‘I'd love to have my photo in all the papers. And people like Parky and Russell Farty begging me to spare them half an hour. And that Tyne Tees thing you're complaining about—wow! The only time
I
ever went to Newcastle, all I saw was the bloody coach-station and some flea-pit Chinese restaurant. I bet you live it up!'

Jennifer found a second tea-towel and started on the drying. ‘I've been already—just two weeks ago and I hated every minute of it. I had to stand for hours in stupid poses with everybody staring and …'

‘Who's that Jonathan bloke Matthew mentioned? I s'pose he drives a red Ferrari and buys you exotic cocktails in American bars.'

Jennifer laughed. ‘Oh Susie, we really ought to swap. Jonathan did buy me cocktails—enormous ones with half a fruit salad floating in them and little flags on top, and all the time I was dying to be back home in my nice warm bed with a Mars bar and a magazine. He's the publicity man from Hartley Davies. Very sort of … smooth. We never say anything
real
.'

‘Christ! I would. Do you fancy him?'

‘How d'you mean?'

‘Oh come on, Jen. Don't be coy.'

‘Well … he's … you know—doesn't go for women.'

‘Gay, you mean.'

‘I … think so.'

‘All the best men
are
these days. And half the women, judging by our Women's Group.'

Jennifer mumbled something indecipherable. She was embarrassed by the subject. Best to change it, start a safer one. She had learnt that trick from Matthew. ‘Er … where d'you come from, Susie? You're not a Londoner, are you?'

Susie's accent was difficult to place. There was a trace of London in it, but overlaying something more provincial. The result sounded mixed and mongrel, but Susie's voice was like the rest of her. It never droned or faltered, but jumped straight out at you, loud and clear and cocky.

‘I was born in Nottingham, moved five times in seven years, up and down the country, until my parents finally settled in Great Yarmouth, having produced a child in every town. I'm the eldest.'

‘How old
are
you?' Jennifer polished up a glass. ‘You don't mind me asking, do you?'

‘No. Seventeen and a quarter. How about you?'

‘Twenty-five.' It sounded settled, almost senile. Seventeen was light years away. She hadn't met Lyn then, didn't have a book, a public, hadn't learnt to lie. And when she was that age, she had never looked like Susie, never been so carefree and outspoken, or worn gold and silver eyeshadow, one above the other, or bought scarlet dungarees. She glanced down at her own boring summer frock, a limp brown thing patterned like the lino. Everything Susie did was somehow colourful and stylish, even eating cold potatoes with her fingers or lighting up another of her crushed and scraggy Woodbines. She felt strangely drawn by her, as if Susie were a flame herself, and she a drab brown moth.

Susie blew the match out. ‘Your husband's older, isn't he?'

‘Well, yes. A bit.'

‘D'you mind?'

‘No, of course not.' Lies were almost easy now. Would a younger man go off you, renounce sex, live like a monk without a monk's serenity?

‘Bit ratty, isn't he?'

‘He's … er … not too well at the moment.'

‘What's wrong with him?'

‘Oh … headaches.'

‘Nerves, I bet. Did you see that thing in
Cosmo
? They said men were getting headaches now, like women used to do—because they didn't want it.'

‘Want … what?'

‘Sex, of course. They're frightened of our orgasms, so they pretend they're feeling rough, and then they don't have to compete. D'you read
Cosmo
?'

‘N … no.'

‘I'll lend you mine. There's a quiz this month. ‘‘Is Your Guy A Romeo?'' You have to answer questions and award your partner stars for things like foreplay. How many stars would Lyn get?'

Jennifer banged the last fork on the tray. ‘That's
nothing
to do with you.'

Susie laughed. ‘You sound just like Matthew. No stars at all, then, I bet.'

‘Look here, Susie, I only met you an hour or so ago and I've no intention of …'

‘Keep your hair on. Why all the aggro? Screwing's only like eating—bit cheaper, that's all. I had five different blokes in a week, once. I'm off it now, though. Wouldn't mind if I never saw a guy again.' Susie flung her still-dry tea-towel on the table. ‘Cor! You're a whizz at washing-up. It takes me hours when I do it on my own. I notice all the boys have disappeared. They always do when there's work around. Fancy a cup of coffee?'

‘No thanks. I'm going out.'

‘Oh, still offended, are we?'

‘No, I ought to look for Lyn.'

‘Leave him. If he wants to sulk, that's his hard cheese.'

Jennifer hesitated. Stupid to take notice of a seventeen-year-old's remarks, and a sluttish one at that. How could anyone have five men in a week and then boast about it afterwards? She stared at Susie's fag-ends, lipstick-stained and shredded—felt like one herself, stale, snuffed, spent. All the exhaustion of the last few weeks seemed to have settled on her body like a dirty film of ash—the publicity tour itself, the fret and glare of the television studio, the horror of her tears, the gruelling breakfast interview with its spin-off of new terrors, the wrench and chore of packing up from Cobham—and now Lyn's disappearance. She dithered at the door, not knowing what to do. If she went chasing after Lyn, Susie would despise her for it. It was probably pointless, anyway. She would never find him in the maze of Putney streets. Best to go upstairs. She had a griping period pain and it would be a relief to lie and rest.

She said a brief goodnight to Susie, then walked into the hall and up the dark curving staircase with its heavy bannister and sombre carpet. She could hear Hugh's radio punching out pop music, he and Robert giggling. It seemed sad they had to grow grey and stern like Matthew, put away their comics and their cowboy hats and do earnest blinkered things like Growing Up and Getting On. She walked into their den, a strange, hybrid room where Anne's elegant taste and furnishings had been overlaid and pockmarked. The huge mahogany tallboy had almost disappeared beneath its frieze of posters, the expensive rug converted into an air-strip and a motorway.

Robert was lying on his bed in crimson Y-fronts. ‘Done your teeth?' she asked him.

‘Did them yesterday. If you brush them too much, you wear them down to stumps. A boy at school warned me just in time.'

Jennifer smiled, tucked them up in turn. Hugh smelt of toothpaste, Robert of bubblegum and hot pennies. Robert kissed her greedily, arms flung around her neck, pulling her down into the pillow. Hugh was more wary. When she got to Charles's room, there was no kiss at all. Charles was in his teens, already half grown-up and thus inhibited. He was too like Lyn—thin, intense and moody, with the same long lashes, the same angry troubled eyes. He was standing up, politely, but she could see he was waiting for her to leave. She longed to hug him, make him laugh, tear him away from that frowning pile of books.

‘Goodnight, then, darling.'

‘'Night.'

She trailed into her own room, a large and gloomy one with a high wooden bed and two Victorian wardrobes blocking out the light. There were no frills, no fripperies. The walls were solemn brown, the windows gagged and blinkered with heavy curtains. She pushed them back, tried to coax the late evening fragrance of the garden up into the room. The sky was dark and troubled now, bloodied with scarlet clouds. She lay on the bed feeling her own blood seep into the Tampax.

In three weeks' time, it would be exactly a year since she had lost the baby. Lyn had never called it a baby, never now referred to it at all. She almost wished she could be a different sort of woman, one who didn't need marriage and a man or crave old-fashioned things like children. If she were a feminist like Susie claimed to be, then she'd be cock-a-hoop with all that she had achieved—not just a job, but recognition, fame.

But fame had threatened her more important job—that of wife to Lyn. It wasn't simply virtue which made her want it back. There was safety in it and a sort of power. Lyn completed her, gave her a role and purpose. He needed her, relied on her, clung to her as a bulwark or a beacon. His weakness was her strength. She knew he could be touchy, that other people criticised the way she pandered to him, but they only saw the outside. Underneath was talent, passion, anguish—a depth of feeling which both jolted and excited her, expanded her own small and shallow world. Recently, however, the anguish had been more obvious than the passion. That made it harder to put up with his moods. Always before, he had used sex as restitution, apologising with his mouth, his hands, his body. Now he used his hands still, but little else.