Уильям Николсон - Motherland

Kitty meets Larry off the train at Lewes. Driving back, she asks after Geraldine, who is spending a week in Arundel with her parents.

‘Geraldine’s fine,’ says Larry.

Pamela and Elizabeth greet Larry with cries of joy, and fight over who’s to sit on his lap. Kitty looks on with a smile.

‘Sometimes I think they see more of you than they do of Ed.’

‘Pure cupboard love,’ says Larry, searching his weekend bag. ‘Now what have I got here?’

He takes out two small packets of sweet buttery biscuits from Normandy.

‘And the bananas!’ cries Elizabeth.

‘Bananas?’ says Larry. ‘What bananas?’

His gifts are always much anticipated, always the same. He takes a bunch of ripe bananas from his bag and hands them over. The girls retire to gorge.

‘How are bananas?’ says Kitty, meaning his work.

‘Challenging,’ says Larry. ‘My father has just decided to retire. Which puts me in the driving seat.’

‘But that’s wonderful, isn’t it?’

‘As I say, challenging. After all these years of having the market pretty much to ourselves, it looks like we’re about to get some serious competition. A Dutch firm called Geest.’

‘Geesed? As in goosed?’

‘Almost.’

‘You’ve been wanting to take over for ages, Larry. Now you can do all those things you’ve been dreaming of doing.’

‘Yes, that’s the exciting part.’ He looks round. ‘I take it Ed’s away.’

‘As usual. I want to talk to you about that. Later, when the girls are in bed. Oh, Larry, I’m so glad you’ve come.’

The guest bedroom above the kitchen is known as ‘Larry’s room’, because whenever he comes, with or without Geraldine, this is where he sleeps. He’s in the room, hanging up the modest changes of clothes he’s brought for the weekend, when he hears a soft tap-tap on the door.

‘Come in!’ he calls.

No one comes in. He opens the door himself. There stands Pamela, looking unsure whether she wants to come in or run away.

‘Pamela?’

She twists about on her toes and turns her head this way and that, but says not a word.

‘You want to talk to me?’

She nods, not meeting his eyes.

‘Come on in, then.’

She comes in. He closes the door. Realising she might find it easier to speak if he isn’t looking at her, he continues with hanging up his clothes.

‘Larry,’ she says after a while, ‘do you think Mummy would ever leave us?’

‘Leave you?’ says Larry. ‘No, never. Why would you ever think such a thing?’

‘Do mothers ever leave their children?’

‘No, they don’t, sweetheart. Hardly ever.’

‘Judy Garland got divorced. She’s got a little girl.’

‘But she didn’t leave her daughter, did she? And anyway, film stars aren’t like us.’

‘So Mummy wouldn’t ever go off with another man?’

‘No, Pamela, never.’ She has his full attention now. ‘Why are you asking me this?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Then tell your mother. You can tell her.’

‘No!’ says Pamela. ‘I could never tell her!’

‘Pammy, this must be some silly muddle you’ve got yourself into.’

‘It’s not a silly muddle! You don’t know. But I jolly well do know.’

Larry can see that she wants to tell him, but holds back for fear of the consequences.

‘How about I promise not to tell anyone else, if you tell me?’

‘No one else at all?’

‘No one in all the world.’

‘Not Mummy or Daddy?’

‘No one. Cross my heart and hope to die.’

‘You have to do it,’ Pamela says.

‘What?’

‘Cross your heart.’

Larry makes the sign of the cross.

‘No, not like that!’ Pamela demonstrates, describing an X across her skinny chest. ‘Like that.’

Larry complies. There follows a silence. Then Pamela bursts into tears, and mumbles some indistinct words that Larry fails to catch.

‘Come here, sweetheart,’ he says gently, opening his arms. ‘Whisper it in my ear.’

She presses her lips to his ear and whispers.

‘I saw Mummy kissing Hugo.’

He moves her round so he can look her in the face.

‘Hugo?’

She nods, snuffling.

‘You’re sure?’

Another nod.

‘Where?’

‘In the kitchen. When I came back from school.’

‘They were probably having a friendly hug.’

‘No! It was mouth kissing!’

Larry says nothing. He’s not sure what to think. He’s not sure what he feels.

‘You don’t believe me.’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I believe you.’

‘So you see. It’s not a silly muddle I’ve got myself into.’

‘No,’ says Larry, ‘but it may be a silly muddle all the same.’

All through the remainder of that Saturday Pamela’s revelation fills Larry’s mind. He knows he must talk to Kitty about it, but doesn’t know how. His promise to Pamela seems to him to be overruled by the seriousness of the situation. Kitty is clearly in trouble. Apart from Louisa, who’s not at all well, he’s her best friend. Who else can she confide in?

All day long his thoughts bounce back and forth, from Kitty to Ed to Hugo and back, missing out only himself and his own feelings for Kitty. So long controlled if not denied, he dares not unlock the secret room in which he has hidden away his love for her. Kitty is married to his best friend. He himself has a wife. Things are as they are, and must be lived with.

But Hugo?

It makes no sense at all. Behind the locked door waits the secret cry: if Hugo, why not me? Except he knows why it can’t be him.

But Hugo!

One case reported by a child, one kiss that may never have happened, has rocked the fragile equilibrium with which he’s been living for so long. The old self-accusation rises up to taunt him.

I’ve been too weak. I’ve been too afraid. If I’d spoken out long ago. If I’d made demands. If I’d been a man.

If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Evening comes. The girls are tucked up in bed, presumed asleep. Kitty talks freely now, telling him about Ed and his absences and his drinking. All the time she’s talking, Larry looks on her lovely face and asks himself, Is it possible she has sought consolation elsewhere?

‘Hugo was here the other day,’ she says. ‘He told me he wants Ed to take leave of absence from the firm. That’s how bad it’s got.’

Hugo was here the other day.

‘What will you say to him? To Ed, I mean.’

‘I don’t know, Larry. I don’t know what to do with Ed. He knows I hate his drinking. So now of course he does it in secret. But there’s something I hate more than the drinking. Why is he so unhappy? Have I failed him? What have I done wrong? He’s got me, he’s got the girls. I’ve never asked him to do anything he doesn’t want. I don’t ask him for smart cars or fur coats. I’m a good wife to him, aren’t I? He knows I love him. And I do, I do love him. Sometimes he can be so sweet and I think I’ve got him back, the old Ed. But then it’s like a door closes, and I’m on one side, and he’s on the other, with his unhappiness.’

She speaks rapidly but calmly, long past the stage of incoherence and tears. Larry understands that what he’s hearing is the cycle of thoughts that go round and round in her head.

‘Of course I blame myself, how can I not blame myself? But I’m so tired of it all, Larry, it wears me out. And there’s something worse. I get angry, too. Angry with Ed. Why is he doing this to us? Why can’t he see how good his life could be? Why can’t he see how unhappy he’s making me?’

‘I think he knows that,’ says Larry.

‘Then why doesn’t he do something about it?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Larry. ‘But I’m sure of one thing. It’s not your fault. I know he’d say that too. It’s something in him.’