Mortimer Penelope - The Pumpkin Eater

Dinah came to see me after school. She brought a small bunch of violets, their stalks twisted in silver paper. “Though, gosh,” she said wonderingly, “with all the others you’ve got …” I said truthfully that I preferred the violets. I didn’t know how to tell her why I was there, I didn’t know what to tell her. In the end I told her nothing.

“It’s a sort of … womb thing, I suppose, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said. “Something like that.”

“Does it happen to everyone?”

“No, of course not.”

“Gosh, you know, it’s hell being a woman. Look at men. They can do just what they like. It makes me sick when I think of men.”

“Does it?” I asked. I was seeing her for the first time as though she were static, complete, no longer part of a moving chain. I wondered if all the children would appear like this, in focus, their outlines sharp and permanent: the youngest for ever the youngest, with no one to bully or protect. They seemed much nearer to me than they had done for many years. I talked to Dinah about them. We analysed each one. Where Dinah found fault, I defended; where I criticized, Dinah said it would pass. She was still there when Jake arrived, and the nurses said oh well, they’d have to leave me for once, if I died in the night they’d take the blame.

“Hullo,” Dinah said. “I haven’t seen you for ages.”

“No,” Jake said. “How are you, then? How’s Trotsky?”

“That just shows how out of date you are. Of course if you ever got up the morning, I might see you.”

“If you didn’t leave for school at half past seven in order to get there at nine, I might see you . What do you do , anyway? It can’t take an hour and a half to get from home to South Kensington.”

“It does,” Dinah said, “if you don’t happen to go by Jaguar .”

She left, and I said, “Perhaps you shouldn’t come here so much. You ought to see them. You ought just to see they’re all right.”

“They’ll keep,” he said. “Anyway, I go straight home when I leave you.”

“Then why don’t you see Dinah? It’s early when you leave here. It’s only ten.”

“She’s always in bed or … messing about in her room, or something.”

“Is she?”

“Yes!” he shouted suddenly. “She is! Didn’t I tell you so?”

“I’m sorry …” For the first time, my hands moved involuntarily to my stomach. They lay over the hot dressing, the wound I had never seen. I watched Jake inspecting the flowers.

“Sorry I shouted,” he said. “I’m tired.”

“It’s all right.”

“Did you write to the Conways, thank them for this?”

“Yes.”

“Good. People like Conway … you know, they’re touchy.”

It was almost time to go home. I knew now that it was all right, that I could make life work again. Although Jake and I didn’t talk about it, I was full of plans. I planned during the day, when I was alone. I had hated the nurse for too long: she must go. I would take back the children and in the summer we would live in the tower. I would live with Jake. I realized that for the first time in my life I could make love without danger. Danger? For the first time in my life I could make love. It was an amazing thought, as though I suddenly had the gift of tongues, the ability to fly. I could hardly contain my love, it ran out of my arms and eyes like lightning. “Be careful,” Jake said, “you’ll hurt yourself.” I laughed till the tears came and it really did hurt. “You’re crazy,” Jake said. “What’s the matter with you?” “Nothing. I love you. I’ve been such a fool .” He laid me back against the pillows. “No,” he said, “you’ve never been a fool.”

The next morning they took the stitches out. They came at the time that Jake’s secretary usually arrived, so I told them to ask her to wait. I saw the wound for the first time. It was larger than I had expected, a long, blood-caked gash between my navel and shaved pubic arch. It was very ugly. They covered it with sticking plaster and said it would soon fade. I knew they were lying. A scar is what they call a distinguishing mark. It lasts for ever.

Jake’s secretary was nearly an hour late. She literally ran into the room, her beehive tumbling; her mascara had spread so far that her face appeared to be covered in small footprints. “It’s happened,” she said, “I wasn’t in the office five minutes before they rang — she’s been taken to hospital!”

“You shouldn’t have come round here. Hurry. Get a taxi — ”

“Well, I didn’t know what to do, Mr. Armitage told me to take his letters down to the studio, he won’t be in the office today. It’s having to hold my job, I can’t do it, Mrs. Armitage. I wondered if you could give them to him this evening? I’ll have to phone him of course, I don’t know what he’ll say, he’ll probably sack me.” She wept into a clenched handkerchief and burrowed in a briefcase with her free hand. I told her to leave the letters, whatever they were, on the table, gave her a pound for a taxi, promised to clear her name with Jake, asked her to ring me to say how her mother was. She ran off clutching her hair, a girl with a desperate problem. I telephoned Jake at the studio. He said, “Blast the woman.”

“She can’t help it, darling. Do be a bit kind.”

“There’s a pile of work waiting for her down here. What am I supposed to do?”

“You’ll have to borrow someone else. Is it awful?”

“One of the camels has got ’flu and John’s going round telling the whole camera crew that Doug ought to be directing TV commercials and Dante’s got a temperament and Beth’s still not back. What d’you mean — awful?”

“Not back from where?”

‘She’s been off for a week, God knows what’s the matter with her. Well, see you tonight if I’m still alive.”

“Take care of yourself.”

I got up now, and walked about my room. I already knew it so well that lying in bed with my eyes shut I could reconstruct it exactly, green-painted furniture with stencilled motif slightly chipped, basket chair with cretonne cushions, crack in the wall over the wardrobe (why do ill people need wardrobes?), squat taps in the basin polished every morning, locker with ink stain, Victorian commode, two strips of cretonne hanging from ivory rings over the window. There was nothing to do in the room but walk round it. I brushed my hair three hundred times, watered the azalea, cut off a few daffodil stems with a pair of nail scissors, looked out of the window. It was a freak March, they said it was seventy degrees. Dinah, excellent with news, told me that the tortoises had come out of their straw. I could only see a jagged chunk of blue sky and people far below in the narrow street walking hatless, their coats open. In a week’s time the workmen would be finished and we could move into the tower. I was in love with Jake; it was a convert’s love, passionate, wholly occupying. I sang as I pottered round the room. The nurse, bringing in my lunch, said, “You sound chirpy enough, time we got rid of you .”

In the afternoons they drew the two pieces of cretonne, took away the pillows and told me to sleep. That afternoon I was excited as a child before a party. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t rest. I made a list: sack nurse, sort out things for tower, THROW AWAY, ring movers, get cleaners, Jake’s shirts, get hair cut, MAKE CLEAN SWEEP. At the bottom I wrote: love Jake. When this was done I decided to pack, to save time in the morning. It didn’t take very long. I was disappointed to find that I was tired now, the sticking plaster dragging and burning. I had used up half an hour of the afternoon. What to do now? The telephones were dead until four o’clock, the nurses resting more fervently than the patients. I had piled all the books on the table for Jake to take home this evening. There must be one I hadn’t read. I got up and looked them over. No, I’d read them all. Idle, bored, I flipped through the pile of Jake’s letters. A few of them were addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Jake Armitage, but I didn’t bother to open them. There was a mauve envelope with large, scrawling writing, marked Personal. I threw it on top of the pile and got back into bed. Lying there, I watched the mauve envelope. After a while, I got out of bed and opened the letters addressed to both of us: circulars, invitations, nothing interesting. Then I ripped open the mauve envelope, tearing it carelessly with my thumb. The mauve paper was headed in mauve print: Beth Conway . An arrow from this heading pointed to two words, scrawled and underlined: needs Armitage . I thought very clearly, I don’t want to read it. I think I sat down somewhere, on the bed or the chair. Anyway, I held the letter in my lap because it seemed too heavy to hold it up. The writing was like a careless child’s.