Rachel Cusk - The Temporary

*

‘But what does he want?’ said Janice, the passion of her question undimmed by repetition. She attempted to wave one hand in order to lend it new force, but the dinner plate displaying two crackers, a slice of cheese, and a small mound of peanuts which was balanced on the arm of the sofa tipped dramatically and she withdrew her hand to steady it.

‘I don’t know,’ said Francine again. Her reply seemed to her each time more profound. She hadn’t thought much about what Ralph wanted, and now that Janice had got her on to the subject she longed to see him so that she could ask him herself. ‘He says he’s happy with whatever I choose to do.’

‘But what does that mean ?’ Janice thumped the sofa triumphantly with her other hand. ‘What does it actually mean ?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Francine, mystified.

She had not spent such an enjoyable evening for some time. It was so nice to be able to talk things through. Ralph never wanted to talk about anything — or at least not in any detail — but Janice seemed to understand the importance of circling a subject without needing to gain by the arrival at any conclusion. It amused her to think of how clever Ralph thought he was, when really he didn’t know anything about conversation — the art of conversation, she believed it was called — at all. She lit a cigarette and exhaled with conspicuous elegance. She hadn’t felt able to smoke recently in Ralph’s presence, unsure of what he might infer from such a gesture and conscious that it would perhaps not be to her advantage, but now it seemed the perfect adjunct to her liberation from his strictures.

‘God!’ Janice sighed and fell back onto the sofa. She took a cigarette from Francine’s packet and lit it in a gesture of solidarity. ‘God, that’s so — typical!’.

‘I think he just doesn’t want to pressurize me,’ said Francine, reconsidering Ralph’s reluctance to interfere as a matter for pride.

‘Don’t defend him, Francine. It’s his problem too, you know. If he thinks he can just walk away, then’ — Janice’s pronouncement hung dangerously between them — ‘then he’s wrong.’

‘Oh, I’m sure—’

‘A lot of men, Francine,’ continued Janice, raising her hand, in which the cigarette smouldered ominously, against interruption, ‘a lot of men think they can make a problem like this just disappear. They think, “Well, she can go in in the morning, out by lunchtime — and Bob’s your uncle ,”’ she added darkly. ‘Often they don’t even pay for a private clinic.’

‘Is that how long it takes?’ Francine was astounded. ‘Just a morning?’

‘The emotional work takes much longer,’ said Janice.

‘How do they do it?’

‘Suction.’ She demonstrated with her hands, while making a sucking noise through her lips.

‘Does it hurt?’

‘They knock you out,’ said Janice brightly, as willing now to argue the facility of the process as she had been moments earlier to demonstrate its duresses. ‘It’s really easy. You just go home afterwards and carry on as if nothing had happened. A friend of mine did it recently. She went straight from the hospital to the pub.’

Francine digested this news in amazement. At school, there had been a girl called Roxy who had disappeared one day in a cloud of rumour that she had got herself pregnant and had come back for the new term grey faced and alone. She had been quite a popular girl, Francine remembered, but after that no one had paid any attention to her, except to follow her through the corridors imitating the hilarious way in which she hung her head, her fringe grown long over her eyes. Francine’s mother heard of the incident and told Francine not to talk to Roxy, even though she had come to their house once or twice after school.

‘I knew that girl would never come to any good,’ she said, nodding her head. ‘She was always over-developed.’

Francine had certainly worried at the time about Roxy’s misfortune, for, not quite understanding how this unpleasant fate had been visited on her, she feared becoming its victim herself. She took her mother’s advice and avoided Roxy’s contagion, and even later, when Francine used to see her sometimes at the newsagent’s where she worked, her bulky form and the continual rash of spots on her forehead occasioned by her drooping fringe still seemed to suggest the marks of her shame. Francine hadn’t really kept in touch with anyone from school after she’d left, but she knew that quite a few of the other girls had had babies. When she saw them lumbering along the street with their squalling charges, she regarded their soft stomachs and angry maternal faces with pity and a certain contempt; but she never felt the dark fear and revulsion that belonged to Roxy. At least these girls had something. Roxy was alone, and her loneliness was to Francine the most terrible evidence of her punishment.

‘Straight to the pub with her boyfriend,’ said Janice. She smiled at the memory. ‘I met up with them later. They were completely pissed. We had a good laugh.’

‘How do you arrange it?’

‘You just phone a clinic. I can phone if you want, I’ve got a number. I’ll go with you if he won’t. He doesn’t even have to know what you’re doing.’ She paused for a moment, her brows furrowed with decision. ‘Are you sure it’s what you want, Francine? We don’t have to do anything against your will.’

‘No,’ said Francine, confused.

They looked at each other across the cosy room.

‘Look at us!’ burst out Janice suddenly, laughing.

Francine laughed too, overwhelmed with warm feelings for her friend. Janice was so supportive and easy to get along with — she wondered why she had ever thought otherwise — and she always seemed to have the answer for everything. She had such nice clothes, too, silky, expensive things. Francine wished that she could work in retail. It was so much more glamorous than secretarial. She wondered if Janice would put in a word for her at the boutique. The telephone rang, making them both start, and Francine jumped to her feet.

‘I’ll get it!’ she said, keen to reach the phone before Janice, in case it was Ralph. Janice always spoke to Ralph on the phone in that whispering voice she put on when she was talking to her own boyfriends.

‘It’s probably him,’ warned Janice.

‘Hello?’

‘Can I speak to Francine?’ said Ralph.

‘Yes, it’s me.’ She felt aggrieved that he did not recognize her voice, and her excitement at the sound of his, along with all the pleasant contrivances of the past hour which had made things seem so much better, disappeared. ‘What do you want?’

‘What’s wrong?’ he said. His voice was surprised.

‘Nothing’s wrong.’

Janice rolled her eyes on the sofa.

‘You sounded a bit upset, that’s all. I was wondering why you didn’t come round tonight. I thought something might have happened to you.’

‘I’m fine. I just wanted to be on my own.’ The phrase sounded triumphant to Francine. She looked at Janice, but she had leaned back and closed her eyes, as if she were asleep. ‘I am allowed to be on my own, aren’t I?’

‘Of course you are. You might have told me what you were doing, though. I was worried.’

‘You don’t own me,’ said Francine. ‘I can do what I want.’

Ralph was silent for several seconds and her heart quickened with the delivery of provocation as she awaited his reply.

‘So you keep telling me,’ he said finally. Something crackled dangerously in his voice and a wave of apprehension rose in her stomach at the sound. She sensed that he was not going to respond to her challenge in the manner she might have wished. ‘But in case you hadn’t noticed, we seem to be stuck with each other, so why don’t you just stop messing around and start acting like a decent person?’ The last words were delivered at a shout, and a tremble of awe warmed her at the emotional force of their interchange. ‘Now, if you want to sit around with your — your bitch of a flatmate talking about how awful I am, then that’s fine, but don’t come round tomorrow expecting sympathy!’ He paused, out of breath. ‘OK?’