Ruth Rendell - Adam And Eve And Pinch Me

Natalie Reckman yawned. She sat up straight and the interview took a different turn. After trying to find out what Zillah had done for a living before she married and being reluctant to accept her vague description of herself as an “artist,” she asked with some incredulity if she was expected to believe the MP’s new bride had really lived by herself in a Dorset village for seven years without a job, a partner, or any friends. Zillah, who was becoming angry, said she could believe what she liked. Zillah was thinking quickly whether it was too late to mention the children, to bring them into the conversation somehow. But how to account for never before confessing to their existence?

The journalist smiled. She began asking about Jims. How long had they known each other? Twenty-two years? Yet they’d never been seen about together before their marriage nor, apparently, lived under the same roof.

“Not everyone agrees with premarital sex,” said Zillah.

The journalist looked Zillah up and down, from the earrings and the big hair to her stiletto heels. “You’re one of those who don’t?”

“I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay. That’s fine. I expect you’ve heard your husband used to be grouped with several MPs that a rather censorious person who shall be nameless threatened to “out.” What do you feel about that?”

Zillah was beginning to regret the absence of Malina. “That’s something else I’d prefer not to talk about.”

“Surely you’d like to say there was no truth in the rumor?”

“If you print anything about my husband being gay,” said Zillah, her control going, “I’ll sue you for libel.”

“Now, Mrs. Melcombe-Smith, or Zillah, if I may, that’s a very interesting thing you’ve just said. It seems to show you think it’s an insult to suggest someone is gay. Do you? Is it likely to bring the subject into hatred, ridicule, or contempt? Do you believe being gay is inferior ? Or wrong? Is there a moral difference between being straight and being gay?”

“I don’t know,” Zillah shouted. “I don’t want to say any more to you.”

Jims and Malina would have known that by now the interviewer had a wonderful story that she could hardly wait to get down on paper-or a floppy disk. Zillah only wanted her to go and leave her alone. And eventually she did go, not in the least put out by Zillah’s anger and refusal to say another word to her. Zillah felt shaken. It had all been so very different from the previous two interviews. She now regretted concealing the children’s existence. Could she possibly leave them with her parents a little longer? They liked being there, they seemed to prefer it to being at home with their mother, but her parents weren’t, in her mother’s phrase, as young as they used to be, and were growing weary, worn out by Jordan’s night crying. And why had that awful woman asked so many questions about what she’d been doing before her marriage? Zillah acknowledged that she hadn’t adequately prepared herself.

One consolation was that the Telegraph Magazine wasn’t like newspapers, the article wouldn’t appear for weeks and weeks. Perhaps not even until she and Jims were in the Maldives. And perhaps it wasn’t too late to stop it-if she dared ask Malina to intervene on her behalf. That would take some thinking about. She didn’t say a word to Jims about it when he came home. That wasn’t until 1 A.M., anyway. He’d been in the Commons chamber, but after the seven o’clock vote he’d slipped out and walked a hundred yards along Millbank where he’d taken a cab to visit his new friend in Chelsea.

Zillah was beginning to see that getting oneself into the newspaper might not be all fun and glamour. These journalists were cleverer than she’d expected. Jims could be left out of it for now, but she had to talk to someone. She phoned Malina and the PR woman came round. “I thought maybe you could call the Telegraph Magazine and say I didn’t mean that about libel and I’m sorry I shouted at her.”

Malina was appalled but didn’t show it. “That would be inappropriate, don’t you think? I would have put in a presence if I’d only been notified. But you did give the interview of your own free will, Zillah. No one brought any pressure to bear.”

“I was hoping you could stop it altogether. Suggest I gave her another interview. I’d be more careful next time.”

“No next time would be the preferred option, Zillah.” Malina seemed to have changed her mind about all publicity being good. “But I suppose it’s too late for that.”

“You could call the other papers and just say I don’t want to.”

“They’ll want a reason.”

“Say I’m ill. Say I’ve got-gastroenteritis.”

“They’ll think you’re pregnant. You’re not, are you?”

“Of course I’m not,” Zillah snapped.

“Shame. That would be the answer to all our prayers.”

But Malina canceled three of the projected interviews and would have canceled the fourth, scheduled for the next day, but the journalist she was trying to reach wasn’t answering his mobile, ignored her e-mail and fax, and responded to none of the messages she left. In spite of not liking her, Zillah had such confidence in Malina that she didn’t bother to dress up when the visit from the next broadsheet was due. Malina would have canceled it. When the doorbell rang she thought, Suppose it’s Jerry? She ran to answer it without, for once, bothering to look in the mirror first.

Charles Challis was the sort of man Zillah would in other circumstances have described as “dishy.” But the circumstances were all wrong because she hadn’t been expecting anyone, particularly a man, and she looked a mess. “You weren’t supposed to come,” she said. “We canceled you.”

“Not to my knowledge. Is the photographer here yet?”

Then Zillah did look in the mirror, at her unmade-up face, unwashed hair, and sweater that was a souvenir of six years in Long Fredington and had originally come from the British Home Stores. Numbly she led Charles Challis into the living room. He asked her nothing about Jims’s reputed gayness nor what she did for a living and made no comment on her appearance. He was nice. Zillah decided it wasn’t journalists she disliked but women journalists. She asked the photographer if it would be all right for her to put on some makeup. When she came back Charles, as he’d asked her to call him, edged his questioning on to politics.

This was a subject of which Zillah admitted to herself she knew little. She knew who the prime minister was and she said she thought him “dishy,” but she couldn’t remember the name of the leader of the Opposition. The journalist put to her the burning question of the hour. What was her opinion on Section 28?

She looked blank. Charles explained. Section 28 forbade local authorities to promote homosexuality; the provision proposed in the local government bill was to repeal it. Their contention was that, due to the section, children uncertain of their orientation were confused and made the victims of bullying. What did Zillah think about it?

Zillah didn’t want to get into any more trouble. Recalling what the Reckman woman had implied about homosexuals and heterosexuals being equal with no moral difference between them, she said hotly that Section 28 was obviously wrong. It should be got rid of and quickly. Charles wrote it all down and tested his recorder to check that Zillah’s voice was coming across clearly. How about trial by jury? Was Zillah in favor of shortening court proceedings and thereby saving the taxpayer’s money? The night before, Jims had been complaining at length about the income tax he paid, so Zillah said she was all for economy and people on juries weren’t lawyers, were they, so what did they know?