Possession (9 page)

She waited, eyes alert beneath their lowered lids, for Sarah to break into the appropriate protestations; and of course Sarah did: Mrs Redmayne
wasn’t
silly; she
must
tell us what was wrong; we all only wanted to help her, to make her feel happy again.

You could see Mrs Redmayne soaking it all in, with secret, gluttonous satisfaction. Evidently things were going according to plan. She called Sarah a dear, sweet girl, and kept patting her shoulder; while I looked on, with growing revulsion. Suddenly I hated the sight of those deft little white hands pad-padding about on my daughter’s shoulder. The quick, nervous little pats, which purported to express affection, in fact expressed nothing, they were like a nervous tic, something quite detached from the owner’s will or volition. Brusquely, and I fear almost rudely, I seized Mrs Redmayne’s arm, pulled her away, and piloted her towards an armchair, urging her to sit down, to rest, to relax, to drink a nice hot cup of coffee and just see how much better she’d feel in a minute.

How much less capable she’d feel of carrying on with her scene, I really meant, and she knew it. She submitted so far as to allow herself to be pushed gently down into the chair; then, immediately, she put her hand to her head.

“Oh. Oh dear!” she apologised. “I’m sorry I’ve been so stupid—what
will
you think of me? It’s just—Oh, I don’t know. I had such a bad night last night … such terrible dreams….”

“Mother!”

Something in Mervyn’s voice startled all of us. We looked up, and I saw that he had grown pale. For one second a look of extraordinary intensity passed between mother and son: not exactly hostile: more a sort of measuring look, a mutual
calculation: and then both simultaneously dropped their eyes, as if they realised, at exactly the same moment, that they were revealing too much.

Hastily, with the blundering instinct of the hostess for smoothing over any embarrassment, at any cost, I
intervened
.

“What a shame,” I said brightly to Mrs Redmayne. “Never mind, though. The thing to do about a bad night is to forget it. Look what a lovely day it is….”

“A bad night can be forgotten—yes,” agreed Mrs
Redmayne
. “But it’s the dreams, you see, Mrs Erskine. That’s what upsets me—when I get these dreams. Perhaps you’re not subject to nightmares yourself?”

“Indeed I’m not,” I agreed. “But if I ever
did
have a nightmare I can assure you that I’d put it out of my mind as quickly as possible. I’m sure it does no good to dwell on such a thing….”

“You’re sure? How can you possibly be
sure
?”

The odd little question brought my glib preaching to an abrupt halt. I stared at Mrs Redmayne nonplussed; and she went on, in a weak, little-girl sort of voice:

“You see—I suppose I’m silly, but I do get these silly little ideas sometimes, don’t I Mervyn? Every now and then I get the silly little idea that a nightmare can be—well—a
warning.
A warning that one shouldn’t—well, that one should—you know—be careful. That’s why I came, actually. To talk to you about being careful, I mean. Oh, dear, you
will
think I’m a silly-billy!”

Silly she certainly was; but this affected silliness,
superimposed
on the genuine article, was almost more than I could bear.

“What do you mean?” I said stiffly. “Careful about what?”

“About what? Why, about Sarah, of course. About your daughter. That’s why I came trotting round like this, in such a mad little hurry, to get here before she and my son started on their little trip. You see, my dream was
about
Sarah and their little trip. It was a terrible dream, shall I tell you what it was?”

“No!”

I think we all three spoke at once. Sarah and Mervyn had moved close together on the sofa. I could see that Mervyn was trembling.

“Stop it, Mother!” he said hoarsely. “Please stop it, you’re frightening Sarah!”

“Frightening her? But I don’t mean to do that. Of course I don’t. I only want her to be careful. That’s all.” She turned to me: “Don’t be frightened, Mrs Erskine. I didn’t dream that they’d have a car accident, or anything dreadful like that. I didn’t dream that dear Sarah would be
hurt
in any way; that would be
too
dreadful. I just dreamed that she turned into a doll. Wasn’t that funny?”—her eyes slid towards her son. “I dreamed, Mervyn, that you came back from your trip with a doll on the seat beside you, instead of Sarah.”

Mervyn was on his feet. In three strides he was across the room, he had his mother by the shoulders in a grip which—even from where I sat I could see it—whitened his knuckles.

“Stop it, Mother!
STOP
IT
.”

His voice choked; and suddenly, to our utter
consternation
, he began to cry. Like ice melting under some
science-fiction
heat-ray, he collapsed sobbing to his knees beside Mrs Redmayne, and there he was, crying like a baby in his mother’s arms. And now the firm little white hands were patting
his
shoulder, just as they had patted Sarah’s, and with the same emptiness of meaning; an obsessional
movement
, involuntary, and sinister in its absence of intention.

I did not look at Sarah, so I cannot tell you what she was looking like, nor what she was thinking. I know what
I
was thinking: I was thinking, No one need know! I needn’t tell anyone, ever! Or if I do—if, for some reason, I am
compelled
to, then I shall make a funny story of it. Yes I shall.
Funny.
I can, I know I can. I’ll do what Peggy does, I’ll turn my troubles into a funny story before the neighbours can find
out how it really was. I rehearsed the way Peggy would tell it: ‘My dear, you won’t believe it, but she had everybody in
tears
by the time she’d finished, she really did! But literally, in
tears
! And then, at that very moment, who should walk right into the middle of it but….’ Well, who? The cat? The milkman? Mervyn’s boss? Someone uproariously funny, anyway. Peggy is so amusing, you see, people expect it of her. It’s a marvellous protection, being so amusing, and if she can do it, so can I.

Mervyn and his mother were standing up now, side by side, facing us. He was in command of himself now. The tears had vanished from his white, strained face, and he looked tall, and strong, a sure protector to the little woman who leaned against him, tear-stained, trembling, and victorious.

“Sarah,” he said gravely. “I’m sorry—I’m not blaming you, it’s not your fault—but I’m afraid we’re finished. I can’t have my mother upset like this. I’m afraid we must call it off.”

And he held out his hand, no longer trembling, for the return of his ring.

T
HE NEXT FEW
days were ones that I don’t care to
remember
. Sarah’s white-faced misery: Janice’s ill-timed jubilation—succeeded by sulks when she discovered that no one was disposed to share her view of the catastrophe as an occasion for rejoicing—quickly brought our once happy domestic routine to the verge of dissolution. The brief art-school term was just over, so that Sarah was at home all day with nothing to distract her from her grief; and to make matters worse—at least, I think it made them worse—we had decided for the time being not to let the news of the break-up spread beyond the immediate family. The decision was mainly Sarah’s: she was so certain (she claimed) that it was all just a misunderstanding which would be cleared up the moment she could contrive to see Mervyn by himself. It would be silly, she said, to upset everyone for nothing.

She still went on crying, though; and so, for some reason, did Janice. Just to be in on the drama, I suspected, and my irritation with her grew daily. Surely, at seventeen, she should have had more consideration and self-control than to add to our miseries in this way. I had tried hard, over the past weeks, to understand and tolerate her jealousy of her sister’s happiness; and now here she was, equally covetous of her sister’s broken heart! Must I understand and tolerate this as well? Now and then, and utterly unfairly, my
irritation
with Janice would spill over onto my poor Sarah. There were moments when I could have knocked both their heads together as they wandered about the house, pallid and touchy, or sat tear-stained and silent at our once happy family meals.

For it was affecting Ralph and me too: there were times when I could feel our marriage shaking, like an old, solid
house in a high wind, under the impact of our daughter’s disaster. There was no longer any pleasure in Ralph’s return from work. He no longer came eagerly into the kitchen to pour us both a glass of sherry and then to sit at the kitchen table, talking and laughing over the events of the day, while I put the finishing touches to the meal. Now, the events of the day were no longer such as we could laugh over, or even discuss; they were not merely too painful, but also too boring. The awful monotony of grief gripped us all like a paralysis.

So I couldn’t blame Ralph for trying, in the end, to keep out of it all. Instead of striding happy and masterful into the kitchen, the heart of our home, he now crept through the front door like a burglar every evening; listened for a moment to ascertain in which room there was no crying going on, and then tiptoed into it, armed with the evening papers, to hide there until it was absolutely necessary to emerge for the evening meal. I missed him as if he was dead, and I believe that he was feeling the same. They are always saying that discord between husband and wife leads to children getting into trouble; but from my own observation over many years I would say it is usually the other way round. It is the troubles of the children that drive a wedge of petrified silence between the parents, and as trouble piles on trouble, so is the rift widened, mercilessly, and by a process which no one can halt.

At least I don’t think they can. Ralph and I couldn’t, anyway, during this our first real test. For my part, I felt that suddenly I had nothing left to give him; all my emotional energies were draining away into Sarah’s misery—and draining away uselessly, too, as if through a leak in the
hot-water
system, for my futile sympathy was no help to her at such a time; if anything, I should think it was something of an annoyance. There was nothing to say; she didn’t want to talk; she just moped, or squabbled with Janice, who then moped too, and sulked, and was scolded by me for making everything worse.

It was while things were like this that Anna had to turn up.
Naturally. I have already told you of Anna’s propensity for this sort of thing. Name any humiliation you like: she will be there, taking a look at it. I shall never know how far it is deliberate, and how far it is simply that she is what one might call incident-prone. On a subtler, more domestic level, she is like those people who always chance to be on holiday in just the country where a revolution breaks out; who happen to be at Heathrow airport just when a plane bursts into flames; who unerringly give lifts to hitch-hikers who
subsequently
have their pictures all over the Sunday papers in connection with some gruesome murder case. Yes, Anna is like that. She must be, because how could it possibly be deliberate? On this occasion, for example, how could she possibly have heard of the ending of Sarah’s engagement when we had kept it such a secret? And for another, surely even Anna wouldn’t deliberately choose such a moment to come swooping in, all smiles and congratulations, with a huge bunch of hothouse flowers for Sarah, and a dazzling programme of Christmas plans for the young couple. They must come to lunch; they must come to the theatre; they must come to the party that Anna was giving specially in honour of their engagement … such was the drive and glitter of her high-powered benevolence that for several minutes she did not seem to notice the leaden nature of our response; and even when she did, she seemed to attach no particular significance to it. She simply redoubled her efforts to brighten us up. Finally—and to this day I do not know whether she had by this time begun to suspect
something
, or whether it was just sheer, disinterested stupidity—finally she began, without warning, to tell us how marvellous she thought Mervyn was. It was a pity, really, that she hadn’t thought of telling us this before, when things were going happily. Then, she had remarked only that she was glad to hear he was no more than thirty-one, she’d thought he looked so much older; and added that baldness can be quite becoming, really, if only a man can avoid being too self-conscious about it.

But now—now that all was at an end—she couldn’t say enough in praise of him. His good looks; his intelligence; his marvellous job; “I’d
love
to get to know him better, dear,” she enthused to Sarah. “That’s why I’m planning this party, specially for the two of you. You must let me know what day would suit you both. Next week? Or the week after?”

Sarah took it bravely. She smiled—though anyone could see how recently she had been crying—and said: “Thank you, Aunt Anna, it’s sweet of you, but we don’t quite know yet what we’ll be doing these holidays. May I let you know?”

No awkwardness. No lying, even. I was filled with admiration. Anna scrutinised her niece intently.
Affectionate
concern, or expert probing for the weak spot?

“You look pale, dear,” she observed at last. “Doesn’t she, Clare? She’s been doing too much. Out with Mervyn every night, I suppose, and working so hard at Art School all day.”

This could be sarcastic, too; the idleness and
unpunctuality
tolerated at Sarah’s art school has to be experienced to be believed, and Anna probably knows it.

“It’s holidays now,” I pointed out. “They have much longer Christmas holidays than….”

“Holidays! Oh, isn’t that good? I hadn’t realised you were on holiday already, dear! Then perhaps we could fix for you and Mervyn to come over really
soon
?
Tonight, perhaps? Or tomorrow?” Her little gilt diary with its tasselled gilt pencil tinkled threateningly. If not tomorrow then the next day. If not Wednesday then Thursday. If not next weekend, then the one after. In the end, Sarah would be driven into a corner.

“Do you mind, Aunt Anna, if we leave it a bit vague?”—she began; and I do believe that her poise and self-control might have carried the day even against Anna, if Janice hadn’t chosen that moment to leap, with incredible
clumsiness
, to her sister’s defence.

“Aunt Anna,
please
don’t keep on at her,” she protested. “Can’t you see she wants to be left alone?”

She might just as well have said: ‘Can’t you see she’s been jilted?’ There was an awful silence. A look of slow, total comprehension spread over Anna’s face, and then, all in a rush, she began being tactful. She changed the subject with a determination that was like a roll of drums, and then, like an acrobat on a high wire, she proceeded to display her skill in avoiding all reference to love, men, women, dates, holidays, Christmas—anything that could possibly remind us of our disaster.

Our secret, clearly, was a secret no longer. But what would Anna do with her new-found knowledge? Would she go round telling everyone, or would she just keep it to herself and Simon, to gloat over in the long winter evenings?

Am I making her sound a much nastier person than she really is? Am I being unfair? The thing one must remember is that Anna has no children of her own, and I think she minded very much once, until she learnt this technique of hunting out the flaws in other people’s happiness, and retailing them to Simon as they sit together in their beautiful empty home. I think he counts on her for it; he can’t be reassured too often that what he and she have missed was no great shakes anyway. Anything that goes wrong with our children is thus a sort of present for Anna, which I could give her willingly, if I chose, by confiding in her. Since I don’t so choose, she takes it by force, and in a way you can’t blame her, since she puts it to such good use in keeping Simon happy. It is important to remember the unhappiness which lies so often at the roots of spite.

But hang it all! Do I have to think charitable thoughts about her
as
well
as putting up with her? It’s all very well, this business of inferiority complexes. No doubt it is true that arrogant self-conceit like Anna’s really owes its origin to some deep-seated insecurity. But so do crocodiles owe their origin to small, soft eggs, buried harmlessly in the mud; how does this knowledge help one in confronting the full-grown
crocodile? Should one dodge away less fast, or watch the river’s edge less carefully? The point about Anna is that, however she may have started, she really
does
feel superior now. And when I talk pityingly about her beautiful, empty house, I should qualify the phrase by pointing out that actually all it is is beautiful; I have never seen it empty. Simon and she give parties all the time, and have celebrities to dinner, and long-limbed people in sun-glasses staying for weekends. On top of all this, they adore each other, Simon and Anna do; theirs is one of the happiest marriages I know; and whenever I try to get the better of Anna by pitying her, these are the sort of things I stumble up against.

One thing I do know: she is never so kind as when she has just discovered that something frightful has befallen us. Thus this evening, after the inquisition was over, she exerted herself to be good company, and to take our thoughts off our troubles. When she left she kissed Sarah with real affection; a sort of Thank you kiss, I suppose, for something having gone wrong. Sarah kissed her back without
resentment
; and after she had gone, heroically refrained from reproaching Janice for her ill-judged intervention. In fact, she seemed happier and more herself that evening than she had at any time since parting from Mervyn; and when, after I was in bed, I heard her talking on the telephone, I thought, Good, she is making contact with her old friends again, picking up her social life where it left off. I was glad, really that the engagement was at an end. That final scene between Mervyn and his mother had disgusted me in a way which I didn’t think I would be able to forget. Sarah was well out of it.

I knew this. I knew, too, that her heart would mend before very long; she was, after all, only nineteen. The thing that weighed on me now was the prospect of telling all our friends. Instead of being the first of our set to have a married daughter, I was merely to be the tenth (or thereabouts) to have the debris of a broken love affair wrecking our domestic peace. I thought of that glorious evening, only a short time
ago, when I had sat telephoning the news of my triumph far and wide. Now a second evening confronted me—several evenings, probably—of humiliating explanations. Of condolences, of advice, of veiled glee masquerading as sympathy. Some people would be truly kind; others would be kind, but nevertheless revel in the drama of it; others again—those who had suffered some similar disaster—would welcome me, with almost indecent joy, into their ranks. I would become a member of that melancholy and
tight-knit
secret society, the Failed Parents’ Association, into which one is conscripted by Fate, and from which no member can voluntarily resign. And yet it has a fascination of its own, this underworld of parenthood. You can confess to fellow-members disasters which you would never dream of admitting to the outside world, and after a while you begin almost to feel like a bizarre kind of elite, with your own secrets, your own special rites and customs. You become adept at recognising potential fellow-sufferers in all sorts of places; in the street; at school medical inspections; at meetings of the Parent-Teacher Associations. There is a sort of brightness about these doomed people; an unnatural eagerness to talk about
your
children instead of their own. The apparently innocent questions they put to you vibrate like an electric drill as they probe desperately to find out if you, too, have a Backward Reader, or a delinquent
fifth-former.
And if you do—why, then the warmth generated is something indescribable in terms of ordinary friendship. Most friendships are based on some kind of similarity of interests, of basic attitudes; but not these. The tie that unites troubled parents is trouble, and nothing else. The link thus forged is strong as tempered steel, and yet fragile as rare porcelain; for as soon as your misfortunes are over, you are OUT. No one says so; no formal resignation is asked or given; but you know, and they know, that your membership is at an end. The confidences cease; you are back among the smug and the successful; your home is a Good Home once more, and there you are, scrambling back into the cat-race,
a little dazed, a little wiser, and wondering how it all happened.

The reason I know all about this secret organisation is, of course, because I once belonged to it for a short while. It was when Janice, at the age of nine, became involved in the traffic in stolen lipsticks which flourished briefly one summer term at her Primary school. I never quite fathomed how the system worked, and I don’t think Janice did either—this, I suppose was the main reason why it was she who was the one to be caught. Out of all the dozen little girls smudged from chin to cheek-bone with sunset shades of pink, orange, vermilion and pale green, it was Janice who found herself in front of the headmistress; it was Ralph and I who were visited by the polite and somewhat embarrassed manager of the local Woolworths; and it was I, the mother in the case, who crashed like Lucifer from my position in the
cat-race
, and joined, briefly, the secret community of the damned.