Authors: Margaret Drabble
He let the phone ring for a long time, not knowing how she could not be there. There was still no answer. She cannot have gone away, he thought. Anxiety mounted in him. He could not put the receiver down. But in the end he did so, and rang, instead, without allowing himself to think too much, Christopher’s number, which he found from Directory Enquiries. Christopher, unlike Rose, replied. I’ve got to talk to you, said Simon, and Christopher seemed not at all alarmed by such an approach. Come round now, he said, I’m out tomorrow. All right, said Simon. And he said to his son, look, I’m just going out for a few minutes, put yourself to bed when the programme’s over, won’t you. All right, said Dan, absently, unsurprised, his eyes not leaving the set.
Simon, walking down the dark road, past the florid scented hedges, remembered suddenly that night in the winter, the night after he had first met Rose. He had gone out into the garden, he remembered it. That was what had done it. A minor act of eccentricity. It was that which had led him here. Too late now, not to have done it.
Christopher, when he opened the door, appeared to have been drinking. Simon shortly found himself drinking too. Christopher had made things easy for him, in a sense, by assuming without preamble and in part correctly that his visit was connected with Rose’s receipt of his affidavit. I suppose I ought to feel sorry about it, he said, pouring himself another large dose of Bell’s, but I don’t, I don’t think I do, I think I hope she sweats blood. For Christ’s sake, said Simon.
‘Well, what would you have done, if it had been you, and you’d read it?’
‘I didn’t read it,’ said Simon.
‘Why ever not?’
‘I didn’t want to.’
‘Well then,’ said Christopher, with a bitter smile – with precisely, a bitter smile – ‘you’d better read it now.’
‘No thank you,’ said Simon, primly, like a teetotaller refusing a drink: and for the first time Christopher turned on him.
‘You stupid bugger,’ he said calmly, ‘you really want things both ways, don’t you? You want to come round here and chat me up on her behalf, and at the same time you want to think I’m a violent, ignorant cunt, don’t you?’
That was so exactly what Simon wanted that he wiped his glasses, sighed, had a drink, and took the sheets of paper that Christopher offered him. His eyes moved over them. He saw paragraphs about education, about suicide attempts, about opportunities lost, about poisoning children’s minds against their father, about – and here he stopped looking, even – about other men. A man the children had talked about, called Anton. Another man called Nick. He didn’t read it. He handed it back, he threw it on to the table between them.
‘No, thank you,’ he said. ‘I really don’t want to read it. I don’t suppose it’s the truth, and even if it were, I don’t want to know; nor do I see its relevance.’
It sounded like a loyal husband’s deceived statement. In the face of it, Christopher became almost apologetic.
‘I’ve got evidence,’ he said, ‘I’m not making it up, you know.’
Evidence or not, said Simon, it was irrelevant. What seemed relevant to him, he said, was that Rose was in a state of such acute distress that she seemed positively unbalanced. I don’t know what she’ll do, he said, I rang her this evening and there was no reply. She said she was going away, she might have gone already. You’ve driven her to it, whatever she does, he said. She probably didn’t answer her telephone because she thought it was me, said Christopher.
‘Aren’t you worried about her, at all,’ said Simon.
‘Let’s ring her and see if she’s there now,’ said Christopher.
They rang, as though in collusion. There was no reply.
‘Well, shit,’ said Christopher, quite drunk by now, but not showing it particularly, his speech slurred and dull as it always was, ‘what do you suggest I do, as a sensible serious person, as I see you clearly
are? Only really sensible people wear glasses like yours,’ he said, offensively.
‘I suggest,’ said Simon, ‘that you forget about the divorce, and go back and live with her.’
He had thought about this deeply, on the short walk between the two houses.
‘Do you really?’ said Christopher.
‘Yes, I do.’
‘She wouldn’t have me.’
‘You should ask her, first.’
‘I don’t want to live with her. She’s made my life a misery once, why should I go through all that again?’
‘Because if you don’t, worse will happen. You know as well as I do that whatever you’ve written on those bits of paper – and how you found a reputable solicitor to handle your case I can’t imagine – that there’s not the remotest chance of getting your children back that way. You know what will happen when that case gets in front of a judge, don’t you? You’re no fool, you must know. You’ll be denied access. Rose will plead, if she’s any sense, that you’re unbalanced, and they’ll believe her, and you’ll never be able to see them again. You haven’t a hope. So it’s up to you. Either you simply drop the case – forget it – and I don’t believe you’d be content with that, would you? – or you change your line of attack, and try to get her back. That way, you’ve a hope. This way, no hope at all. I’m saying this to you because I don’t think you are vindictive. I’m giving you the credit of believing that you really are more interested in yourself and your children than in having your revenge on somebody you’ve already reduced to a state of unbelievable misery. So there you are. That’s all I’ve got to say.’
‘Well, that’s very generous of you,’ said Christopher, aiming at irony. Without success. ‘Thank you for your advice. It’s not every day that people take such an interest in my affairs. Or give me their free legal advice.’
The attempt was deplorable, hopeless, the real knowing certainty of manner all gone. Like a child he spoke, like an angry child. He rubbed his eyes, picked up his glass, put it down again. It was only by
such a fall that one could measure how high the flight had been. His eyes were red with tears. He covered his face with his hands. ‘Oh God,’ he said, ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God.’ He wept, now, his medium rediscovered, fittingly.
‘I’d better go now,’ said Simon, rising to his feet.
‘Don’t go,’ said Christopher, have another drink: reaching for the bottle, blindly, without looking, although it was by now empty. But Simon left, nevertheless, thinking perhaps that for once, having for once taken some action, he might perhaps have made some kind of point. He might even, beautifully to his own disadvantage, have done some kind of good. He took some satisfaction from the thought that any gain would be his own loss.
On Saturday morning, Simon decided that he would do some gardening. He had depressed himself so thoroughly by reading the newspapers that he felt he had to do something. The newspapers, for a holiday weekend, had been full of unimaginable disasters. An earthquake in the Middle East had killed tens of thousands, and cholera was breaking out amidst the survivors: There was an account of a trial in the States over an alleged massacre in Vietnam. Three men in an iron works in Yorkshire had been killed by molten slag from a mobile ladle. A child in a mental home had fallen into a bath of scalding water and had died five days later of burns. There had been a twenty-car pile-up on the M1. Mr Calvacoressi said that it would cost his wife a fortune to reclaim her baby. So Simon dug his garden, struggling incompetently against the crude and violent efflorescence of early summer. He was not very good at gardening, having been brought up with a back yard and a few stinking geraniums in pots: they had smelt of tomcats, the geraniums, as though there had not been enough cats around without such an addition. He was never sure whether it was weeds or flowers that he was uprooting: he would give dog’s mercury and willowherb the benefit of the doubt, and throw lilies of the valley on the incinerator. A few tags, culled from God knows what repository of folk knowledge, aided him: slugs are no good, worms are the gardener’s best friend. And as he dug, he thought about industrial accidents, and the
cheeseparing of employers when it came to safety precautions, and a horrible case he had been involved in where a fire had destroyed a whole warehouse full of people because the management had barred up the safety exits to prevent their workmen slipping out for an unsupervised smoke on the fire escape. God could still kill more at a blow, but man was doing his best to emulate his acts.
The crazy paving was coming loose all over the place. He spent an hour digging the weeds out of the cracks, and then wished he hadn’t, because it looked even worse without them. He started to mix some cement to fill in the holes and replace the loose stones: the children, attracted by this activity, came out and wanted to help, so he gave them some old spoons and knives and let them have a go, knowing that whatever they did would probably need redoing later. He thought about Rose and the London Rocket, that rare and modest herb, and about a story she had told him about the peppered moth, which had evolved a black species to survive in the industrial landscape. Biston betularia, the Manchester moth, its lighter brethren dying, its blackened survivors clinging grimly to blackened walls and tree trunks. Perhaps such modesty was all one could hope for. No more spectacular species, the envy of predators, but a grimy race of uniform lowliness. What was man to hope for, after all? Spectacular injuries, amazing sufferings, or the grim squabbling of those who intend to continue, who do not intend to be picked off. A ladle of molten slag. Herbert Alfred Jowitt, out of a job. But not starving, of course, not shot in the back, or dying of cholera. Progress and evolution, what banal and adolescent preoccupations. The loose stones, irritatingly enough, would never fit back into the holes that they appeared to have come out of: it was like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. The children found it amusing. So, in a sense, did he. And why not allow oneself such modest pleasures? His father had received his near-fatal injury while inspecting the safety mechanisms in the glass factory up in South Shields: he was telling the foreman that the women ought to wear hairnets at work when half a ton of machinery had dropped through the ceiling on to his head. It had been a famous victory, the women had worn hairnets thereafter. Nothing would drop on to Simon’s head in Chambers, not even a dislodged
cobweb, and nowadays young men were suing their employers for wrongful dismissal if told to have their hair cut for safety reasons. There was progress, certainly.
‘I think,’ said Kate, looking up from the excavation over which she was squatting, ‘I think we ought to plant some little plants in these holes, Dad, don’t you? Don’t you think it would look pretty?’
‘I’ve just dug a whole load of little plants out,’ said Simon, pointing to the smouldering heap of grass and plantains and groundsel and dandelions.
‘Yes,’ said Kate, ‘but those were weeds, we ought to plant some nice little plants, flowers and stuff. Couldn’t we leave a few holes for some flowers?’
‘What chance do you think flowers would have, with you lot thumping around and riding bicycles over them all day long?’
‘If weeds would grow, why wouldn’t flowers?’ said Kate.
‘Flowers are more delicate,’ said Simon. ‘I think.’
‘Oh look,’ said Kate, ‘do come and look at this nice beetle. Come on, quick, before it runs away.’
And he was just about to go and look at the beetle when Julie appeared at the back door. Her hair was in curlers: they were going out that evening.
‘Simon,’ she said, ‘there’s a woman on the phone for you.’
‘Oh,’ said Simon. He did not ask who it was. ‘Oh, all right. I’m coming.’
He wiped his hands on his trousers: they were covered with mud and cement. There was only one woman he could think of who would be at all likely to ring him, but when he went in and picked up the receiver it was not Rose’s voice that answered.
‘Hello,’ said the woman. ‘Hello, Simon. This is Emily here, Emily Offenbach. I had to ring you, I’m sorry, I couldn’t think what else to do, I am sorry to disturb you at the weekend, but I couldn’t think what else to do, and I had to do something.’
‘That’s all right,’ he mumbled, waiting for her to continue.
‘It’s about Rose,’ she said, ‘I’m at Rose’s, I can’t stay here, I’ve got to get back to the children, and she didn’t want to disturb you, but
I knew you wouldn’t mind – and you might even know what to do, I thought, which I certainly don’t – the thing is, Christopher came round to collect the children this morning, very early, he was going to take them to Norfolk for the weekend, that was all arranged, and he took them off, and then half an hour ago Rose got a telegram from him saying he was leaving with them. Taking them out of the country. And we just don’t know what to do about it, we don’t know whether to take it seriously or not, and she didn’t know who to ring or who to ask, so I’m afraid we thought of you.’
‘Oh Lord,’ said Simon. ‘Oh dear. She’d better ring her solicitor immediately, I think, and explain it all to him.’
‘She’s tried,’ said Emily, ‘but it’s the weekend, he’s not in.’
‘Has she got his home number?’
‘Yes, we’ve tried it, but he’s not there either.’
‘Is Rose there? Can I speak to her?’
‘She won’t. She won’t speak to anyone.’
‘Oh well,’ said Simon, making his mind up, for him, more or less instantly, ‘I’d better come round and see what I can do, hadn’t I?’
‘Would you really? Could you really?’ The relief in her voice was evident. ‘Please do, I really don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do with her, I don’t understand this whole awful business, it’s been dragging on for so long now, I simply don’t understand what’s happening, it’s getting quite ridiculous …’
‘I’ll be round in half an hour,’ said Simon.
‘And what shall we do? Wait for you?’
‘That’s right. Don’t do anything. You could try the solicitor again, perhaps he’s just gone out shopping, but if he’s not there wait for me.’
‘It’s very good of you,’ said Emily.
‘Not at all,’ said Simon, politely, and rang off. Then, before he had time to worry about it, he went and told Julie that he had been called out urgently. She was so astonished that she did not have much to say, beyond the fact that he couldn’t have the car because she wanted it and hers was in the garage.