Mortimer Penelope: The Pumpkin Eater

“Did you?”

“Yes, of course I did.”

“But you told me … that you hadn’t.”

“That’s right. I lied to you. What else do you expect me to do?”

“Was it here? In the house?”

“I suppose so. I can’t think where else I would have slept with her.”

“Often?”

“Why keep torturing yourself? As often as we could, I imagine. What the hell does it matter now?”

“Nothing matters now, I suppose. And yet something does.”

“Of course something does. The future.”

“No. Not the future. The truth.”

“Can’t you see? Before you knew the truth, we were happy. What’s the good in ferreting out the truth all the time? It’s always unpleasant.”

“Is it only lies that are pleasant?”

“Usually. That’s why people tell them. To make life bearable.”

“Yes. I see.”

“This thing’s only turned into a nightmare now you’ve seen Conway. Before that it was nothing. I suppose you realize I’d have to marry the girl if he divorced her?”

“Why?”

“I’d have to stand by her.”

“What about all the others? Didn’t you have to stand by them?”

“There weren’t any others!”

“How many?”

“I’ve told you! None!”

“How many?”

“Half a dozen. A dozen. I don’t know. What does it matter, how many?”

“When you were away, or when you were here?”

“I expect it was when I was away! Does that comfort you?”

“Yes, if it’s true.”

“Then it was while I was away. I don’t give a damn.”

“Why did you marry me, Jake?”

“Because I loved you.”

“Why did you marry me?”

“I married … a background, I suppose.”

“What do you think about marriage?”

“I don’t think it exists, really. There are just human beings in situations they make for themselves. What do you think about marriage?”

“What do you think about human beings?”

“That they’re sad. And lonely.”

“Is that all?”

“Pretty well all … Giles rang today while you were out. You know — your husband. Giles. He said he’d seen you.”

“Yes. We met in the street.”

“He asked if you were all right. He said you wouldn’t speak to him.”

“That’s right. I didn’t speak to him.”

“Why?”

“I … didn’t know what to say.”

“Well, it’s a bit odd when he rings up after God knows how many years — ”

“Thirteen.”

“To ask if you’re all right. I should have thought you’d fling yourself into his arms and ask him to take you back, considering how much you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Of course you do. Otherwise you’d never have told Conway.”

“I wasn’t thinking about you. I was thinking about myself.”

“That’s honest, anyway. That’s the truth.”

“Why did you go to bed with her?”

“Oh, for God’s sake.”

“Why?”

“Out of curiosity. Vanity. Wanting to keep young.”

“Did you love her?”

“I found her … appealing.”

“But did you love her?”

“I love you. I don’t know what it means, love.”

“Didn’t you ever, any of the times … try not to?”

“You know I have no self-control.”

“When I was in the nursing home … didn’t you mind?”

“Of course I minded! Good God, I came to see you every evening, didn’t I?”

“And sometimes you went to her afterwards. Sometimes she had an excuse for Conway and met you, after you had left me.”

“It’s not true.”

“Where did you meet? Somewhere near the nursing home? Would she be waiting for you there?”

“It’s simply not true.”

“How many times?”

“Only a few times. She was ill too. She couldn’t go out much.”

“Where did you meet?”

“A hotel, of course. Where do you think we’d meet?”

“Near the nursing home?”

“Not very far. I don’t know where it was. Anyway, it never happened. What are you doing? What’s the point of it?”

“Did you sign the register?”

“No!”

“You mean there are hotels where you can go for some hours, without signing the register?”

“Yes, if you pay! Good God, why don’t you find out for yourself, if you want to know these things! Why ask me , of all people?”

“You sent flowers to her yesterday.”

“Yes. I sent flowers to her yesterday. Now I’ve cancelled the order. Why don’t you shut up? Why don’t you die ?”

“How should I die?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. Why don’t you leave me?”

“We can’t seem to leave each other.”

“No. I wish to God we could.”

“If you’d let me have the baby — ”

“That was your decision. You decided that of your own free will.”

“But it didn’t help either of us, did it? We both had our reasons. We both failed.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t talk about it. I can’t stand any more.”

“So what shall we do?”

“Forget it. I love you. I’ve always loved you. Forget it.”

“He says that you love her. He says that you made her sick with your … love.”

“Well, it’s not true. What more can I say? The man’s crazy, he just wants to make you miserable. It’s your own bloody fault, opening letters, talking to people. You’ve brought the whole damn thing on yourself.”

“Was Philpot the first, or were there others, before?”

“No, of course there weren’t any others.”

“How many? Who were they?”

So we were back at the beginning again. There was no end. You learn nothing by hurting others; you only learn by being hurt. Where I had been viable, ignorant, rash and loving I was now an accomplished bitch, creating an emptiness in which my own emptiness might survive. We should have been locked up while it lasted, or allowed to kill each other physically. But if the choice had been given, it would not have been each other we would have killed, it would have been ourselves.

Now I realized how completely I had been absorbed by Jake. I needed the outside world, but had no idea where to find it. For the first time, I needed friends; there were none. Over-indulgence in sexual and family life had left us, as far as other relationships were concerned, virginal; we said we had friends much as schoolchildren, busy with notes and hearts and keepsakes, say they have lovers. In a packed address book there was not one person to whom I could speak or write. If you have ever found yourself in this predicament, Ireen, and if you have followed your faith, you will of course have taken a part-time job, a cookery course, you will have plunged into bridge or spiritualism. Don’t think I despise you. On the contrary. I envy you at last. I only knew how to do one thing, to give myself away. Now there was nothing left to give. It is a moral tale, proving that it is better to take life in neat steps and small sips than it is to believe, as I did, that there is a wealth which is perpetually renewed.

The wound would not heal. I had injections, pills, I was plugged and probed, my body, which had always done exactly as I wanted, turned spiteful. I became morbidly ashamed, avoided seeing myself naked, undressed in hiding. The idea that I was in some way monstrous grew unchecked, except by the feeble attacks of my own reason. Jake made love to me, for comfort, after the terrible evening battles; afterwards, while he slept, my thoughts were so hideous that when they became dreams I was consciously relieved and said to myself, as though under anaesthetic, this is only a dream.

I wanted to go home, but now my father was dead there was no home to go to, only a house where my mother mourned and thanked goodness that I had at last seen reason. Jake told me that he had heard that Conway was roaming London blind drunk. I knew this, because for a week after our meeting he had rung me every day with such vile punishment that now I never answered the telephone, and if I was alone in the house took the receiver off the hook. I began drinking because the thought that I was drinking gave me a kind of identity: each time I poured myself a brandy in the deserted afternoon I could say to myself “I am a woman who drinks.” It was the positive action rather than the brandy itself that gave me courage. By tea-time I could sit at the head of the table and listen calmly enough to the children, even though I could not understand them. They roistered like billeted troops, cramming themselves with bread and chocolate, swigging great mugs of milk and sweetened tea, miraculously innocent, strong, indifferent. The thought of this half a ton of hungry, growing, sentient body and brain coming from my body should, perhaps, have satisfied me. In fact, lacking now my own instincts, values and beliefs, I had nothing to offer them, and what they offered me — dependence, love, trust — seemed a monumental responsibility which I could no longer bear.