Mortimer Penelope: The Pumpkin Eater

“In the country,” I said.

“I realize that, but — ”

“It’s on a hill, and down in the valley is a barn, where I used to live before I married Jake. That’s where we met. Now can we get back to the dust, because …”

“Of course,” he said, and picked up his pen again.

I tried to think. I stared at him, silhouetted against the net-curtained window of the consulting room. I heard the tick of the clock, the hiss of the gas fire. “I’ve forgotten what I was going to say.”

He waited. The clock ticked. I stared at the fire.

“Jake doesn’t want any more children,” I said.

“Do you like children, Mrs. Armitage?”

“How can I answer such a question?”

“Could it be a question that you don’t wish to answer?”

“I thought I was supposed to lie on a couch and you wouldn’t say a word. It’s like the Inquisition or something. Are you trying to make me feel I’m wrong? Because I do that for myself.”

“Do you think it would be wrong not to like children?”

“I don’t know. Yes. Yes, I think so.”

“Why?”

“Because children don’t do you any harm.”

“Not directly, perhaps. But indirectly …”

“Perhaps you don’t have any,” I said.

“Oh, yes. Three. Two boys and a girl.”

“How old are they?”

“Sixteen, fourteen and ten.”

“And do you like them?”

“Most of the time.”

“Well, then. That’s my answer. I like them most of the time.”

“But you have …” He glanced at his list and made do with, “a remarkable number. You seem upset that your husband doesn’t want any more. This hardly sounds like someone who likes children most of the time. It sounds more of …”

“An obsession?”

“I wouldn’t use that word. Conviction, perhaps, would be nearer the mark.”

“I thought I was meant to lie on a couch and talk about whatever came into my head.”

“I’m not an analyst, Mrs. Armitage. I simply want to find out how you should be treated.”

“Treated for what?”

“We don’t know yet, do we?”

“For wanting another child? Is that why Jake made me come to you? Does he want you to persuade me not to have another child?”

“I am not here to persuade you of anything. You came of your own free will.”

“In that case I do everything of my own free will. Crying, worrying about the dust. Even having children. But you don’t believe that, do you?”

“I’m not here to believe you, Mrs. Armitage. That isn’t the point.”

“You keep saying you’re not here to do this, that and the other. What are you here for?”

“Perhaps,” he gave another of his wan smiles, “to find out why you hate me so much, at the moment. Oh, I don’t mean myself, personally, of course. But you hate something, don’t you … other than dust?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“What was the first thing you hated — can you remember?”

“It wasn’t a thing. It was a man. Mr. Simpkin …”

“Yes?”

“And a girl called … Ireen Douthwaite, when I was a child. And a woman called Philpot. I don’t remember …”

“Your previous husbands?”

“Oh no. No. I liked them.”

“Your present husband? … Jake?”

“No!”

“Tell me about Jake.”

“Tell you …?”

“Yes. Go on. Tell me about Jake.” He sounded as though he were daring me. I laughed and spread my hands out, looking down on them.

“Well, what … what do you want to know?”

“Whatever you want to tell me.”

“Well, Jake … It’s impossible to tell you about Jake.”

“Try.”

I took a deep breath. I felt as though I could open my mouth and pour words out for ever. I felt as though I could open my heart, literally unlock it and fling it open. Now the truth would be told. The breath petered out of me. I said nothing. He waited.

“This house we live in,” I began. “The sitting room faces south, it has huge windows, sash windows, so whenever there is any sun it’s like a greenhouse, very hot indeed. Of course the sun shows up the dust. When people come into the sitting room for the first time they always say what a marvellous room it is, and then after a bit I see them noticing things. Women mostly, of course, but also men. Somebody once wrote an article about Jake; they said he bought books, not yachts. Well, of course, he doesn’t buy either. He doesn’t buy anything. The things people notice are the burns in the carpet and the marks on the wall. Jake used to drink a lot of tinned beer, and you know how it spurts out when you make a hole in the tin. Then the children. Well, nobody has ever washed the walls, for some reason, I mean not since it was last painted, about two years ago.

“Of course it is a marvellous room. I’m in there most of the time now, I really live in it. I do know it very well. There’s a picture on the side wall, here, just as you come in the door, a terrible yellow and green thing, an abstract. It belongs to Jake. We don’t get rid of it, although it’s the most hellish picture you’ve ever seen. There are piles of magazines, too. We don’t get rid of things. We’ve still got bicycles in the shed that we brought from the country years ago. Quite useless. Then there’s nowhere to put the new ones.

“Anyway. Jake has a study downstairs, he used to work there a lot until he got this office. His office is in St. James’s, that’s where he works now. I haven’t been there for a long time. He never liked working in the study at home, he used to feel lonely. He was always coming upstairs to talk to someone, the children, or me, or whoever was in the house. He used to cook things for himself, he was always hungry, he liked being in the kitchen. Of course Jake was an only child. We both were. There are eight bedrooms, but we’ve only got one bathroom. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

There was a long silence. I thought he might have gone to sleep. That gas fire would send anybody to sleep; he ought to have a bowl of water in front of it.

“Shall I go on?”

“Please.”

“Isn’t it time to stop?”

“Only if you want to.”

“You ought to have a bowl of water in front of that gas fire, you know.”

“You find it too hot?”

“The trouble is that people throw their match ends into it and they float about for days. Then the water dries up.”

“You hate … messes, don’t you?”

“Yes. That is something I hate.”

“They frighten you.”

“Perhaps they do frighten me.”

“Was …” he glanced down at his paper, “Mr. Simpkin a mess?”

“Yes,” I said. “To me he seemed the most terrible mess. Is that helpful?”

He stood up, leaning on his desk like an after-dinner speaker. “We shall, I think, make progress,” he said.

Jake’s father said, “I suppose you know what you’re doing. What do the children say?”

“They — ”

“We haven’t actually discussed it with them,” Jake said. “They are children , you know. We don’t have to ask their permission, do we?”

“Indeed,” his father said, “I should have thought that was most important.”

“I don’t understand why you want to marry Jake,” he went on, delicately biting the end off a cheese straw. “Simply don’t understand it.” He smiled in my direction, holding the straw poised for the next bite.

“I know there are an awful lot of us, but — ”

“Oh, I’m not worrying about that, not worrying about that at all. I suppose your previous husbands pay a bit of maintenance and so on?”

“A little,” I lied.

“You’ve managed so far. I should think from the look of you you’ll go on managing. Why Jake, though? He’ll be a frightful husband.”