Mortimer Penelope: The Pumpkin Eater

“If you don’t believe that all this has really happened, why did you come here?”

“If I had believed it, I wouldn’t have come. I would have been able to change it, somehow. This doesn’t change anything.”

“Nothing?”

“No, of course not. I’m very … grateful to you. But, you know … I can’t even believe this, Giles. I know it’s true. I left the house, just after that boy ran away, after I’d made him cry. I drove down here and I waited in the car for two hours till you came back. I remember it, but it’s like remembering seeing a woman sitting in a car. Then we came up here and you gave me a drink…”

“Yes.”

“I had a lot of drinks.”

“Yes.”

“And I told you … I suppose I told you about…”

“You told me about the Conways, about the operation.”

“Yes, of course. You see, I don’t remember what I told you. I only remember what we did. I asked you to come to bed with me.”

“Don’t you believe that?”

“I believe it, but I don’t believe in it. It’s not really happening, I kept saying to myself. It’s not really true. As though while I was telling myself that, I needn’t really be involved. Oh Giles … I’m sorry. Can’t you make me believe something’s real? Can’t you make me?”

“Obviously not.”

“I’ve won my bet.”

“I never took on any bet. You can’t stop me feeling sorry for you.”

“But I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. It humiliates me.”

“Then I’m sorry for that. I’m no good at fighting. I never was. Is that what you need now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it is, but that’s something else I can’t believe. I feel … I want … I need what we had, in those years in the barn … And yet it was always falling down, and the noise. You never once lost your temper. The children made the noise, but we were quiet. Sometimes I try to remember the evenings, but what did we do? Did we talk to each other?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“What about?”

“I don’t know. Whatever people talk about.”

“I can’t remember. Did we quarrel?”

“No. You just said, I never lost my temper.”

“Why? Are you so good?”

“No. I’m lazy, rather timid. You had your own way over everything.”

“Is that true?”

“Of course.”

“But didn’t you mind? Didn’t you ever think I was wrong?”

“Sometimes. But you had such a belief in your own infallibility that it would have meant … Well, I hadn’t the courage.”

“It seems to me we were so happy.”

“We were. At least, I was. Your belief in yourself made me happy. It was like a great tide I could be carried along on. Very strong and natural, and it seemed to me pure.”

“But if it was flowing in the wrong direction? If it was just … chaos, really?”

“Tides can’t flow in the wrong direction. It’s an impossibility.”

“I mean, you let me believe that life was as easy as that? You knew it couldn’t last. I was bound to find out sooner or later. We were so alone there, but one day the outside world would have come breaking in — ”

“It did. Jake.”

“It had to be someone, or something. The children would have grown up and stopped believing in me. So would you, at some point, because … anyway, there were other things.”

“I couldn’t keep you, that’s all. You didn’t need me. At least Jake’s managed to keep you up to now, although Christ…”

“What? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Does it hurt if I touch it?”

“No.”

“You believe this is true, anyway?”

“Yes. I do. If I didn’t believe in that, I’d really be mad, wouldn’t I?”

“You were mad to let them do it.”

“But I thought it was the first really sane thing I’d ever done. Only I did it for the wrong reason, I thought … How can you tell about anything? It’s what you do that matters, the reason is just … nothing. The reason why Jake and Beth Conway went to bed together — whether it was good or bad, it couldn’t matter less. Reasons don’t have consequences, only actions. She’s pregnant and I’m sterile. I’m in bed with you, and who cares if it’s justified or unjustified? I’m in bed with you, and Jake and the children don’t know where I am. I could ring them up and tell them why, but what difference would it make? You may feel you’re right or wrong in killing someone, but the result is, they’re dead.”

“Put my dressing gown on. You’ll get cold.”

“Shall I make tea or something?”

“No, I’ll make it.”

“I’d like to make it.”

“Perhaps you’d better go back.”

“Do you want me to?”

“I just want to help you. It’s time someone helped you.”

“You mean you’re advising me?”

“I don’t know. You’re thinking about the children.”

“No, I’m not. They’re perfectly well looked after.”

“Don’t talk like that!”

“You almost shouted. Why? Don’t you believe me?”

“No. You’ve been hurt, you’re confused. But you love the children.”

“You sound like someone reciting a kind of creed. Supposing I told you that I didn’t love the children, that I don’t give a damn about the children? It might be true, you know. But for years you’ve relied on me to bring them up and provide love and cut their fingernails and teach them to tell the truth, as though it mattered. You’ve been free. Supposing I want to be free?”

“That was the way you wanted it then. I don’t believe you’ve changed so much.”

“Then you’re like me, not believing what you can see and hear, not even believing what you feel.”

“The kettle’s boiling.”

“You’ve relied on Jake, too. He’s kept them, he’s even been fond of them. No wonder you tell me to go back. I can’t think why you ever let me stay.”

“The tea’s ready. You bring it in. I’ll light the fire.”

“There must come a time in your life, mustn’t there, when the most important thing to do is to find out who you really are, what you’re really like. That doctor I went to … he made me angry, he wanted me to change. You know, he wanted to sterilize my … attitude to everything. All right, it was an idiotic attitude — that you have a kind of duty to avoid … evil. I couldn’t even tell him what I meant by evil. I kept on talking about the dust … I don’t know what to do, Giles. You think I should go back?”

“Not if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t know who I am, I don’t know what I’m like, how can I know what I want? I only know that whether I’m good or bad, whether I’m a bitch or not, whether I’m strong or weak or contemptible or a bloody martyr — I mean whether I’m fat or thin, tall or short, because I don’t know — I want to be happy. I want to find a way to be happy, I don’t care what it is. You see, everything I say sounds absurd. Like a child talking. I don’t even believe it myself. You know, one night, before all this happened, I was alone in the house.”

“Alone?”

“Jake wasn’t there. Perhaps he was still abroad. I can’t remember. Anyway, I was alone.”

“Yes. I see.”

“It was about half past eight. It was the cook’s night out — I mean the night when she doesn’t come, because she doesn’t live in — and Dinah had the ’flu or something. Anyway, she was in bed and I was cooking leeks. I remember because of the smell, it filled the whole house. You know the smell of leeks — strong and sharp, but sweeter than onions, very like sweat. It’s a reek, really, more than a smell. I like it very much. Anyway, I was wondering how to get through the evening. The leeks were cooking and the children were in their rooms and the nurse — oh yes, the nurse had just given notice, she did that once a month, but in the end I sacked her and got another. Although in the middle … there was a short time in the middle when I didn’t think I would get another nurse. She had gone out too. That nurse went to all the new plays because she had a friend who worked in a ticket agency. She was always amazed by them. ‘I’m amazed,’ she used to say, ‘that people go to things like that.’ As though it were my fault. Anyway, I was alone, and since it didn’t matter, I was talking to myself a bit. At the end of the day, if Jake’s away, I forget what words sound like. I suppose I was giving myself another drink and telling myself the time and asking myself what was on television. I don’t know, but what I do know is that I was … well, I was despairing. This was before I met you again. You know how silent London can be? At the tower there’s usually noise — I don’t know, the rooks, the lambs, the cows, the dogs, they kick up the most terrible racket, even in the dark. But in London, where we are, when the demolition men have stopped, there are great long times of silence. Then a lorry goes up the side road, or a car; or a train, somewhere miles away. You know people are going somewhere. You try to imagine where they’re going. You try to imagine the people, but they have blank faces, only they all lean forward in the same eager attitude and they all seem to be young. You imagine them whizzing about, from place to place, never still, never alone. They go round the house with a great tearing noise and then they’ve gone, and there’s silence again. That wasn’t an extraordinary night, I mean nothing had happened to make it particularly unbearable.”