Fay Weldon - Novel 23 (31 page)

 
          
Once
she, Felicity, had been young and poor, had sung for her supper, and danced
too, with or without clothes. There had been no-one to help her. There had been
a house once, she remembered that. A rather fine house with a cook and a maid,
and a mother and father, and all had vanished away. Things did. And a garden
and a full moon and a summerhouse in
winter,
and after
that she had made her own life. But the generations had been dealt a savage blow,
and had struggled on to produce Sophia, and that would be the end of it, this
particular experiment in nature’s passion for diversity, which caused human
beings such pain.
These girls with plentiful red hair, too
bright and vulnerable for their own good.

 
          
Luck,
mostly, that she had not become diseased or dissolute, or taken to drink or
drugs; that the lineaments of disappointment had not written
themselves
on her face. Her share of bad luck had piled up in the first twenty years.
Apart from the next blow in the form of Angel, which had well and truly struck
home, she had dodged most of the others, eaten more good meals than most, slept
in softer beds than most for the last fifty years at least.
And
worn prettier clothes than most.
That was something.

 
          
‘Miss
Felicity, Miss Felicity, unlock the door! Are you deaf?’

 
          
‘Fat
chance,’ thought Felicity, stirring herself to open the glass doors.

 
          
‘My,
you were in a dream,’ said Joy. ‘No William today? Well, I suppose there
wouldn’t be, since I’m using the Mercedes.’

 
          
‘Don’t
be nasty, Joy,’ said Felicity, oddly pleased to see her friend. ‘William has
his own transport now, but thank you for the use of it. Jack said it was okay.
I had no idea it would upset you.’ ‘I’m not upset, Miss Felicity, just hopping
mad. You went behind my back. You knew I wouldn’t approve. One look at that man
and I knew he was after your money.’

           
‘Go a bit softly here, Joy,’ said
Jack. ‘We have no proof of it.’ ‘Even if he was after my money,’ said Felicity,
‘I might not mind. I might think it was worth it.’

           
But her heart wasn’t in it. She
could hear her own voice, quavering for once, not ringing and defiant. He
should have been home when she called.

 
          
‘Once
he gets his hands on your fortune it wouldn’t be so pleasant,’ said Joy. ‘He’d beat
you and abuse you, to help you on your way to the grave. You’d be glad to die.
The papers are full of it.’ ‘Young women search out rich old men,’ said Jack,
‘and screw them to death, and there’s bugger all anyone can do about it. They
make a business of it.’

 
          
‘Language!’
shrieked Joy.

 
          
‘You’re
no different from your sister,’ said Jack.

 
          
Joy
fell silent, mutinous and sulky as a little girl.

 
          
‘Only
louder,’ added Jack for good measure. Then he said to Felicity, ‘I’d better
meet this William of yours. See what I make of him.’

 
          
Felicity
nearly said she didn’t know what to make of him either, other than that he’d
let her down, gone to the Casino without her, and was secretive about his past,
but desisted. If Joy heard about Foxwoods there would be no end to it. She sat
them down and prepared coffee. She did not want to stir up room service for
fear of stirring up Nurse Dawn as well.

 
          
‘So
long as it’s decaff,’ said Joy.

 
          
‘I’m
a real coffee man myself,’ said Jack.

 
          
‘That’s
why you’re so bad-tempered,’ said Joy.

 
          
‘What
is the matter with you two?’ asked Felicity. She had not heard them like this
before. Neither was able to tell her.

 
          
‘Perhaps
it’s the ghost of Francine,’ said Felicity, joking, but they didn’t think that
was funny.

 
          
‘I
loved Francine very much,’ said Jack.

 
          
‘I
loathed her,’ said Joy, and they were both silent for a little. Some truth
between them seemed to be emerging, the other side of irritation and
resentment.

 
          
Nurse
Dawn tapped on the door and entered without waiting for an invitation. She was
in her white uniform. She had changed her shoes to trainers but Felicity could
see the outline of a black corset bra beneath the white fabric. The uniform had
been washed and rewashed until, though brilliantly white, it was soft and
flimsy. ‘Visitors again!’ she said. ‘I wish you’d ask them to come through the
reception area and check in properly, not to use the French windows. I know Mr
and Mrs Epstein of course, but it isn’t safe, Miss Felicity. There are so many
rough types around. Well, it is
Rhode Island
, isn’t it?’

 
          
‘
Connecticut
’s much nicer,’ said Joy.
‘Much
more classy.
I always told you so.’

           
‘The used car market’s better in
Rhode Island
,’ said Jack.

 
          
‘That
is exactly my point,’ said Joy.

 
          
‘If
you can’t observe these simple precautions, Miss Felicity,’ said Nurse Dawn,
ignoring the interruptions, ‘we might have to move you to an upstairs room, for
the safety of the other guests. You could always play Rapunzel, of course, but
I don’t think your prince will exactly be able to use your golden hair as a
rope. This is such a dear room, with the view and
all,
it would be a real pity to have to move. Your granddaughter’s turning up from
London
tomorrow.
Such a
competent young woman.
I’ll discuss the security problem with her,
shall I? And Dr Grepalli will also be having a word with her about the
painting.’

 
          
‘What
painting,’ asked
Felicity.
‘Do you mean the Utrillo?’

 
          
‘If
it’s
worth as much as they say,’ said Nurse Dawn, ‘for
such a little painting anyone could have done, it does leave all of us with yet
another security problem.’

 
          
Nurse
Dawn took leaflets out of her pocket. She waved them around to make sure
everyone saw. Then she left them on the little polished table by the door.

 
          
‘You
might be interested in these, Miss Felicity. No Mr Johnson today? Stood you up?
Well, that’s the way it goes in the world of the love-lorn. I remember it well.
I think Dr Grepalli had a word with him. Today’s beau is tomorrow’s history.’

 
          
She
left, leaving Joy and Jack bemused. Jack examined the leaflets. They were
issued by the American Gaming Association and offered free treatment for
problem gamblers.

 
          
'Warning!'
they declared. 'Gambling in
moderation entertains millions and generates jobs.
America
has taken gambling to its heart - a 35
billion-dollar industry with a great future. But for the few for whom gambling
is pathological, it can get to be a problem. Like any other addiction
compulsive gambling can lead to lying, stealing, going broke, neglect of
employment, and even suicide. If you are one of the unlucky few or know anyone
with a gambling problem, contact the AGA helpline. Treatment is free. We're
here to help/

 
          
And
so forth.

           
The phrase
Win the Wages of Life
appeared here and there, enclosed in a pink
heart.

 
          
‘Why
did that woman leave you these?’ asked Jack.

 
          
‘I
have no idea,’ said Felicity. It was a lie and one she shouldn’t have told. But
she was weak, and undermined, as people are from time to time, by the
accumulated misfortunes of the past, all the things that had gone wrong, all
the disappointments and the hopes dashed, and for a moment lost faith. She did
not want to hear Joy’s roar when she was told that William was a gambling man.
It is in such moments of untruth that the seeds of social disaster can be sown.

 
          
And
suddenly at the French windows there William stood; silhouetted against the
light, wearing his new suit and his lucky gambler’s hat, bright-eyed and
smiling, in good form, his bright new red Saab parked in full view. One of
life’s winners, not one of life’s losers, and Felicity’s faith was restored.
She corrected herself.

 
          
‘William
is a gambling man,’ she said. ‘And Nurse Dawn is a poisonous bitch. Do come in,
William. Joy you already know, and this is Jack her husband.’

 
          
‘Deceased
sister’s husband,’ both chorused.

 
          
‘I’m
so sorry,’ said Felicity, ‘I keep forgetting.’

 
          
Guy
and Lorna did not make good travelling companions. They surprised me by
deciding at the last minute to accompany me to
Rhode Island
. Guy got through to me in the editing suite
on the Friday, and by claiming it was to do with Felicity and it was urgent
actually got me to take the call. Not only did I lose focus but Harry slipped
into my seat as I left it and took over at the console, which he had been dying
to do. Men do so need to be in control. There was nothing wrong with Harry’s
editorial skills of course, I did not doubt them, but the same kind of thing
happens at the board as when a friend borrows your car. It never quite handles
the same thereafter.

 
          
But
Harry mollified me by saying as he took my chair, ‘This seat is wonderfully
warm, what bliss!’ For some reason this made me feel secure. So I wasn’t just
someone he slept with and someone he worked with, in separate compartments. I
was someone he slept
and
worked with.
The roles overlapped and melded. Holly had been very quiet lately, and if only
by virtue of sheer distance, over oceans and landmass, had begun to seem in my
mind a little bleached out and pallid. Or perhaps Harry just kept her messages
from me. The last news he’d given me was a couple of weeks back, when he’d
remarked that her latest plan was to have artificial insemination by donor,
using someone else’s egg, Harry’s sperm (she had some on hand frozen - really
it was revolting) and a hired womb, but she had to get it all together, and he
thought it was beyond her. She had been more preoccupied, Harry said, with the
possibility of getting a big part in a sci-fi special effects production, a
film where the dresses were sheets of changing colour and very little else, so
she was having to get a body-double to do her difficult parts, namely her back,
which the producers had decided was over-muscled.

 
          
‘You
mean, she looks like Schwarzenegger,’ I said.

 
          
‘She’s
more like Demi Moore,’ he said.
Which put me in my place.

 
          
Perhaps
involving a lover in the genetic make-up of a projected child was a normal
Hollywood
way of keeping a man? Who was to say? Would
it work? Who was to say that either? It was on the cutting edge of the new
genetic technology coming out of LA. Invented people as well as invented
narrative. Holly was an increasingly unreal person but then films were unreal
and Harry was a film person too. He
effected
reality:
he made a really good stab at it: if this bouncing endomorph with the
companionable testosterone-ridden flesh was in truth just a cartoon character,
the big-time director out of
Hollywood
on the loose, you could have fooled me. I
know there have been big advances lately in animation technology, but he was
still amazingly detailed: his shoulders might be fantasy broad and unreasonably
square, but one of his front teeth was whiter than the other, and his face was
mobile way beyond the expectation of the ordinary viewer. Holly might be
someone in one of the new special effects films coming out of
Hollywood
, but I told myself the longer Harry stayed
out of that city the more actual, the less virtual, he became. And as for me,
my obsession with films had lately been faltering. Offer me a choice between
going to the cinema and going out to Twickenham for a dreary lunch with Guy and
Lorna and oddly enough I’d choose the latter. And now I was abandoning Harry’s
company and flying off to see my grandmother when she wasn’t even sick. Just in
love and contemplating marriage.

 
          
What
Guy had to say on the phone was that he and Lorna had decided on impulse that
the time was ripe to meet their grandmother Felicity. They’d be hard-put to
find their way to her without me, so could they come with? I murmured
objections to do with passports and bookings. You can’t decide on the Friday that
you want to travel distances on the Saturday, not if you’re an ordinary person.
I travel easily and without fuss, and like to put a difference between
myself
and those less well travelled, who ought to find
journeys difficult. Crossing the globe is not like stepping on and off a bus,
whatever people might say. The ankles swell, and paranoia with it, strange
viruses circulate with the air, the body’s time clock is shot to pieces: the
shortterm memory goes. You learn to ignore these things, just as you learn to
ignore what goes into the water of the municipal swimming pool, but it doesn’t
mean it isn’t there, that shit doesn’t happen.

 
          
Guy
was having none of it. He said surely I could put the studio’s travel agent on
to the problem of availability: I had often spoken of what marvels they could
work. I had to agree that indeed they could. And yes, both brother and sister
had their passports in working order. They holidayed in
Barcelona
in
Spain
every year: they’d told me this. So they
had, though why I had forgotten. There was some good historical reason for it:
as there is to most people’s holiday habits. Perhaps Lorna once had a pen pal
in
Spain
? I feel bad about forgetting. I called the travel agent, and they
manoeuvred two extra seats in Club Class at economy prices. But we all had to
go to
New
York
not
Boston
. I of course was the one still travelling
economy. That’s the way it goes.

 
          
Would that it had.
Lorna and Guy, in a flurry of
self-sacrificing good nature, insisted on negotiating with the steward, once
the flight had departed, to ease the two little Japanese newly-weds out of the
seats next to me and into Club Class. Thus my cousins could sit next to me.
This was remarkable behaviour and a better measure of their ignorance as
travellers, I thought, than of their concern for me. They lifted the seat
divisions and their solid bulk squashed up and pressed me in against the
window. Guy was next to me and I thought he was unduly pleased to be so close,
flank touching flank, but I overlooked it. He was family. Just sometimes I
remembered his grandfather Anton and poor Felicity, whose pre-Raphaelite
red-gold hair I shared, and what Lucy had told me of what happened next, and I
shrank away. But all that was generations back and evil, like wealth, got swallowed
up or dissipated with the generations. Forget it.

 
          
I
had booked a suite in the Wyndham Hotel in
West 68th Street
so we could rest overnight before going on
up to
Rhode
Island
.
I had called ahead to the Golden Bowl to tell them I would be arriving the next
day, and mentioning the two extra grandchildren I’d bring with me. I left a
message on Joy’s answerphone to see if by any chance Charlie could come and
pick us up in
New York
. I would not totally spring this new family upon Felicity, while yet
not giving her too much time to react unfavourably to the notion of their
existence. It would be a
fait accompli
,
yet I could argue it was expected. Guy and Lorna, as I had, would have
travelled a long way to see their elderly relative. She could hardly refuse
them. And, I told myself, Felicity was of an accepting rather than a rejecting
nature; she was never churlish. I was sure the meeting would go well.

 
          
But as I say, not a good flight.
I should have expected it,
I told myself. I cast the coins before we set out, and threw hexagram number
three and not a changing line anywhere, the fates set fast and unswerving.
Difficulty at the Beginning works supreme
success.
Described as
Chun
,
in the
I Ching.
K’an
, the abysmal, above: water,
Chen
; the arousing, below.

 
          
Thus the superior man

           
Brings
order out of confusion.

 
          
In
other words it was going to be all right in the end but fairly dreadful on the
way. So it proved. Once the cousins were settled in - and it took a good
half-hour into the journey before they were - Lorna kept pressing the button
for attention and when the steward came asked any old thing: how the seat
recliner worked - she could just as well have asked me, but it seemed she liked
to get people to work for their living - or require him to adjust the airflow
when she could just have reached up and done it herself or could have asked Guy
to. And then she wanted to be brought water and when told she could get it for
herself she was piqued. When Lorna finally subsided - I kindly put her
behaviour down to nerves - it was Guy’s turn to get going. He complained that his
headphones didn’t work - how his body had pressed into mine as he squirmed and
searched for a plug point! -
and
demanded they be
replaced. He complained loudly about the quality of the music. And then there
was the matter of the missing free copy of the flight magazine, and how Lorna’s
food tray wasn’t secure and could easily tip and spill boiling coffee on her,
and so forth and so on. My cousins then contemplated asking the Japanese couple
to return, so they could go forward, where they’d discovered the air was
better: but I persuaded them otherwise. The turmoil would have been dreadful.
One way or another I was unnerved. I couldn’t pretend they weren’t with me,
because they so clearly were: they chafed and irritated loudly all the flight
through.

 
          
Nine
at the beginning, according to the
I
Ching
, means:
Hesitation and
hindrance.

 
          
It furthers one to remain persevering,

           
It
furthers one to appoint helpers.

 
          
Seasoned
travellers know the only thing to do is not
react
to
events, not to notice shortcomings, not to make objections: it is a waste of
time and emotion. You go with the flow, pass out of full consciousness when
you set foot into an airport and only go back into it when you step out of the
other, the far side of immigration and customs. This was not Guy and Lorna’s
way. So circumspect and well-behaved at home, they were a far more obstreperous
pair out of it. Perhaps Alison’s maternal influence lay like a damp cloud over
the house. Perhaps she was more like her Aunt Lois than she appeared: perhaps
she too had been a tyrannical mother. Oddly enough, although I squirmed with
embarrassment, I liked Lorna and Guy rather better for this outbreak of
antisocial behaviour.

 
          
It
is not a good idea to go on living in the childhood home: people should move
out as soon as they can, and rejoice when the ancestral pile or suburban semi -
both seem to rouse the same passions -
my
train set, the walnut tree, the blue remembered hills: gone, all gone
- is
sold up. Too many of my friends go into mourning when it happens. It’s easy for
me to say this, of course, never having had a proper childhood home, and so
never having had one to move out of. I had just ended up living near where my
mother had been conceived, round the corner from Mearde Street, Soho, which is
little more than an alley linking Wardour with Dean Street, in the heart of
London’s film land. But I daresay that’s just a coincidence, not the nearest I
could get to home.