Mortimer Penelope - The Pumpkin Eater

“ Dinah told them that?”

“So he said.”

“Then where does Dinah think I am?”

“She knows now. Look, children are tough. You’ve got a perfect right to go off if you want to. Don’t worry.”

“Did he ask … when I was going back?”

“No.”

“Well … did he … Didn’t he ask why ?”

“No.”

“Nothing?”

“No. I said you’d contact him when you felt … able.”

‘You mean he said nothing ?”

“No.”

“Oh … Can I have a drink? Are you having a drink?”

“Of course. I’ve been sitting here for hours, getting plastered and reading this appalling book.”

“You never used to drink.”

“Neither did you.”

“Did he sound upset, or angry, or — didn’t he care?”

“Why don’t you ring him yourself?”

“No — I can’t.”

“Well, he can contact you any time. He’s got the number and the address. It’s up to him, isn’t it?”

I bathed in the narrow, chipped bathtub, scoured myself with ascetic soap. I’m living my own life, God help me. I have drawn the line, gone so far and no further. Jake, Jake, what am I doing here? “You mustn’t wave to him like that! He’ll think you want to see him!” “Well, I do want to see him!” I want to fly from a window and pour through the air like a wind of love to raise his hair and slide into the palms of his hands. But it’s up to him. My dear Ireen, what does it matter who it’s up to? Well, if it doesn’t matter to you, it doesn’t matter to me, I’m sure. I’d only like to ask where it’s got you, that’s all — you’ve a very nasty scar there, dear, if you don’t mind my saying so, and it’s not a very pleasant thing when the only person you have to turn to after all these years is your ex. I wonder whether that baby will look like Jake, of course he’s bound to see it, it’ll be a bond between them for ever, Jake’s youngest child …

“You’ve been crying again,” Giles said. “You should sing in the bath, not cry in it, why don’t you ever do anything right? Here, have a drink.”

“I have arguments with myself.”

“About what?”

“Between the part of me that believes in things, and the part that doesn’t.”

“And which wins?”

“Sometimes one. Sometimes the other.”

“Then stop arguing. Powder your nose, and we’ll go out.”

When we got back to the flat after dinner, I felt sure there would be some message, some sign from Jake. There was nothing. Giles showed me his Hi-Fi — of course he had built it himself — and played records, Giles sitting with his head against my knees, his eyes closed. I believed that at any moment the doorbell or the telephone would ring. “You’re arguing,” Giles said. “You’re not tired. Come on, we’ll go out.”

“We could go somewhere in the car, if you like.” I thought I might drive where I could see the lights of the house.

“No, we’ll walk.”

We walked to the river, along the river, over bridges, past bright furniture shops and drapers, shut houses, pubs, churches, miles of railing, corridors of brick, streets, cross-roads. Giles talked, and I kept my legs moving one after the other, left, right, left, right, keeping in step. We went to bed and slept. Again, when I woke, it was nearly night-time. No, Giles said, no one had telephoned, no one had come. We went out to the same restaurant, but I paid for the meal. Afterwards, Giles suggested going to the pictures but I pretended that films, anything to do with films, distressed me. Instead, I bought a bottle of brandy and we went back to the flat.

“I’ve got no clothes, no make-up, no anything. What shall I do?”

“I’ll go and get you some in the morning.”

“You can’t, in the morning. You have to go to work.”

“I shan’t go tomorrow.”

He didn’t actually follow me about, but he watched me, he was always there. He watched me thinking. He heard my feelings. I said I could sleep in the armchair that night, but he made me go to bed and took a spare blanket from the cupboard for himself in the armchair. I felt so guilty about him, and so lonely, that after a while I got up and fetched him. He came with the same uncomplaining grace that he did everything, but in bed he suddenly burst into tears and clutched at me as though he were dreaming. I twisted my head, clenched my hands, calling for Jake again and again, amazed that my body was putting up no resistance. My skin grew no spurs, barbs, thorns, briers to protect it, I had no shell to shrink into — why, when the rest of me was speared like a battlefield? At last he cried my name out loud, and I knew that at that moment he thought he was alone. Then, slowly, the realization that I was there came back to him. There was nothing to say. We were both ashamed, both silent. He moved away from me. I said, “I must go in the morning.”

“Yes. I know. Where will you go?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps to the tower. Perhaps … I don’t know.”

He was silent for a long time. Then he got out of bed, he was standing up somewhere in the dark room. I asked whether I should put the light on.

“No. No. I’ve got something to tell you.”

“Well? What is it?”

He hesitated. “I’ve only had two feelings in my life,” he said at last. “Love for you …”

“Yes?”

“And hatred. I didn’t know there was such a thing. Hatred.”

“Of course there’s such a thing. Why don’t you turn the light on? I can’t see you.”

“I hated Jake.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t understand. I’ve only had two feelings in my life.”

“Yes, I do understand.”

“I’m empty. You, the children … were taken by Jake. After that I was empty.”

“We weren’t taken by — ”

“Yes, you were!” he shouted. The sound was abrupt and violent.

“Let me turn the light on. Please.”

“No. Leave it off. Wait till I’ve finished … That pitiful performance you just witnessed — God knows you couldn’t take part in it — was me. Me. Myself. As I now am. Do you understand?”

“Look, you’re good, Giles. You’re kind. There isn’t anybody like you. Just because — ”

“Good? Kind?”

“It’s not fair to you if I stay here. That’s all.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“All right. I don’t want to stay.”

“We’ve had this conversation before.”

“Yes. What were you going to tell me?”

There was a long silence. I didn’t care what he had to tell me. In the darkness I covered my face with my hands, pressing my hands against my jaw and forehead, longing to break the bone. Nothing I could do to myself would hurt enough. Everything was an indulgence, courage and cowardice, punishment and crime, honesty and deceit; everything was corrupt; nothing, no regret, remorse, no penitence was untainted by pleasure. I might as well stay with Giles, revelling in disgust; I might as well give in. Avoid evil? There’s nothing else. Nothing else in my own head. Nothing else in me.

“I lied to you about Jake,” Giles said.

“What?” I looked up, over my hands, into the darkness. “What did you say?”

“I lied to you. About Jake. He rang up … oh, half a dozen times.”

I groped for the light, turned it on. He was naked and turned with his back to me, desperately looking about for some covering.

“What do you mean? When did he ring up? When?”

He was stumbling into his clothes. “When you were asleep. Yesterday. Today … Each time I told him you didn’t want to talk to him … I left the phone, as though to ask you, and went back and said you wouldn’t talk to him … I was comforting him, can you believe that? Laughing my bloody head off, comforting him … Even he thinks I’m good, kind, self-sacrificing, poor bloody Giles only wants to help … Well, you came back to me, didn’t you? You came back to me, didn’t you? You came back to me?”