Mortimer Penelope: The Pumpkin Eater

“Goodbye,” I said. “Have a nice walk.”

“Where are all the others?” the young man asked.

“At school.”

“But there are some … older?”

“Yes.”

“Where are they?”

“They’re … away.”

“In view of your feelings about the bomb — forgive me, but it’s quite a point — will you have any more? Children, I mean.”

“This is a picture of the tower,” I said. “We built a … tower in the country.” I took the photograph from the mantelpiece and gave it to him, commanding him to take it. There it is, a permanent, indestructible and freehold tower, built for our grandchildren to laugh at in their middle age. There were heaps of rubble in the foreground, we were keeping it to grind into hoggin for the paths. Against fast-moving clouds the tower seemed to be falling, but in the picture the clouds were frozen into white puffs and the tower stood straight, closed, complete, like an unopened crocus. He glanced at it briefly.

“Very interesting. What made you build a tower?”

“I don’t know. We couldn’t buy much land. We had a lot of people to … It goes up and up, you see.”

“Your local council must be very enlightened.”

“There are lots of towers about. Bell towers, watch towers and so on. It’s not very enlightened really.”

“You go there at the weekends, I take it?”

“Yes. We shall. It’s only just finished. We shall be there all summer.”

I put the photograph back on the mantelpiece. I didn’t want him to ask me any more questions. The telephone began to ring and he brightened up, looking at it eagerly as though it were speaking to him.

“Your telephone,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, go ahead. Go ahead. I’ll take some pictures.”

If I had been alone, I wouldn’t have answered it. I lifted the receiver slowly. The young man sat on the floor and shot up at me.

“Hullo?”

“Mrs. Armitage, please.”

I panicked. The camera clicked and whirred. “No. She’s not here. I’m afraid she’s out.”

There was only the slightest hesitation. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” The young man was staring at me, his mouth loosely open. “Mrs. Armitage is — ”

“All right. Give her a message. Tell her Beth Conway’s pregnant.”

I was looking into the little black hole of the re-receiver; it was full of grains of tobacco and dust. I heard Conway’s breathing, rasping, regular.

“I’ll … tell her.”

“It’s not mine. I thought she might be interested.”

I sat down, holding the receiver in both hands. The young man was up on the window sill.

“You’ll get rid of it,” I said.

“Oh, no, Mrs. A. Oh, no. I’m not giving her that pleasure.”

“What?” The young man darted forward and held a light-register against my face.

“She’s going to have this kid in a public ward and if there’s any way of stopping her getting a whiff of gas, I’ll find it. She’s going to wipe its bottom and stare at its ugly mug for the rest of her young life. There’s going to be no more movies, no more champagne, no more hair-do’s, no more sexy clothes for my little Beth. This kid’s going to kill her. I’ve told her that. This kid’s going to make her curse Jake Armitage for the rest of her days. I’m going to see that this kid turns her into an old hag, and if you saw her now you’d know that’s not too difficult.”

“No,” I said. “No. You can’t — ”

“So you want her to get off scot-free, do you? You’re on the forgive and forget jag in the Armitage household. Well, I’m no fool. She’d be off with him again in a couple of weeks.”

“No — ” The young man was machine-gunning me from the end of the room. I turned my back on him, huddling over the telephone.

“Or someone else, then. I’m fixing it so she’s harmless, you understand? I’m going to make her learn typing and work for it. She’s going to hate that kid almost as much as I shall. How’s that for justice?”

“Is there anything … you want us to do?”

“Tell your bloody husband to keep out of my way, that’s all, or by Jesus — ”

I put the receiver down. The young man asked loftily, “Is anything the matter?”

“No. No. Of course not.” I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t breathe. For the first time I understood the meaning of impossibility. “Is there anything else you want to ask me?”

“I don’t know, really.”

“Then perhaps…”

He remembered just in time. “Would you,” he asked, “keep cyanide capsules in your medicine cupboard?”

I turned to him. I didn’t remember what he was talking about. I shook my head.

“Then really you would sooner feel that your children were suffering than dead?”

“Nobody … would keep cyanide in a medicine cupboard.”

“But would you kill them,” he demanded impatiently, “if they were certain to be maimed for life?”

“Maimed?”

“Mentally or physically injured. For life.”

“I think any child … any child … would be better off … dead.”

“I thought,” he said, “that you might.” He snapped his camera shut. “And does your husband share that view?”

“What view?”

“Your pessimism.”

“I don’t understand.”

He strangled his fist in the camera strap. “Your attitude to the bomb ,” he croaked, and cleared his throat.

“No,” I said. “Jake believes that we must live on the assumption that we are going on living. Jake believes in the inevitability of life.”

He stared at me for a moment, openly; then his blank eyes slowly filled with thought. He was seeing himself on his way, bowling through the park in his Mini-minor, beautifully smiling at old ladies on zebra crossings; whistling, probably, to keep his spirits up. Holding the camera in both hands, he sprang athletically to his feet.

“Well,” he said, “it was extremely kind of you to see me.”

“Do you think life’s inevitable?” I asked.

Now it was he who said, “I really don’t know,” hurrying out because he thought I was mad. I got up and followed him down the hall. He opened the front door and started down the steps, running sideways.

“Do you think life’s inevitable?” I asked.

He was out of the gate, plunging head-first into his little scarlet car.

“Do you think life’s inevitable?” I shouted.

The car spat away like a red hot cinder. A small boy stopped in the gateway; he watched me steadily, still as a cat. I looked at him from the top of the steps. He had pale blue eyes and red hair and was clutching a brown carrier bag; his shorts were two skirts over his fat knees. I moved as though to attack him, suddenly. He ran away very fast, wailing up the empty street like a coward.

“I’m so glad you came to me.”

“My dear Giles , there wasn’t anywhere else to go. How do you like that? Fourteen years and nowhere to go, like someone coming out of gaol. Now you’re sorry for me, but you won’t be for long. I know that … I bet you that within half an hour you’ll have stopped feeling sorry for me. No, I’ll tell you why. I will tell you why. Because you can’t keep being sorry for people who don’t know what’s going on. And I don’t know even now . Things happen. I look. I’m miserable, or frightened, or angry. But up here, in my head, I do not know what it is that’s happening. I can’t believe what is happening. Always there’s a voice that says it’s not true, people are good, kind, reasonable, loving, all this is just a dream, I won’t be made to accept it, I’ll be able to wake up. If you can’t believe facts you don’t care about them, if you can’t care about them you can’t change them. But the thing that stops you believing must be … such smugness, such conceit.”