Rachel Cusk - The Bradshaw Variations

Now Antonia embraces her father there in the hall, in front of Mrs Swann. Her arms encircle him for a second too long; her narrow hips and pert little buttocks stare at Mrs Swann insolently.

‘Shall we go through?’ Mrs Swann says, imperatively. ‘I’d appreciate a cup of tea, if it isn’t too much to ask, after all those hours in the car.’

In the cramped sitting room, Thomas goes around clearing old newspapers off the chairs and picking up dirty cups and glasses. It is like the absence of Alexa, the fact that they haven’t tidied up or prepared for the Swanns’ visit: it makes the world seem grey, random, devoid of belief. Mrs Swann sits with her husband on the velvet sofa, which creaks and shudders under their combined weight.

‘Have you had this recovered?’ she says, fingering the mangy velvet arm.

Antonia shakes her head. ‘It’s the same as always.’

‘Is it? Oh. But the curtains are new,’ she says.

‘I had them made.’ Antonia is obviously pleased. ‘Don’t you think they’re fabulous? They’re antique silk.’

‘Are they?’ Mrs Swann is aggrieved by the curtains. There is something critical about them, something that smacks of personal rejection. ‘Why didn’t you say you wanted curtains? I’ve got boxes of old pairs I could have given you. You could have had them altered for next to nothing.’

Instantly she sees Antonia’s face close, close shut like a door.

‘I wanted green curtains,’ she says. ‘I wanted that particular colour.’

‘What a waste!’ says Mrs Swann. ‘When I think of all those curtains in the attic, all beautifully lined, with proper pelmets, just sitting there gathering dust —’

She thinks of the attic, the twilit space, with its freight of wastage and accomplishment. She pictures it, finding the box and getting it down, unfolding the heavy musty cloth as though it were a section of the past that could be redeemed, relived. It would be good to redeem some of that wastage. She imagines the curtains, her curtains, at Antonia’s window. On second thoughts, perhaps she wouldn’t like it after all.

There is a sound at the door, and a moment later Alexa comes in. At the sight of the Swanns her face lights up, cautiously.

‘Hello, Grandma,’ she says, coming closer.

Mrs Swann grasps her, receives her, pulls her unresisting form on to her lap. She is like a doll, or a teddy bear. Mrs Swann feels that she could tell her everything.

‘Silly Mummy,’ she says. ‘Silly Mummy getting curtains made, when Grandma has boxes of them at home.’

Alexa smiles anxiously, glances at her mother.

‘What curtains?’ she says.

‘All the curtains I’ve got in my attic. You remember my attic, don’t you? Well it’s full to bursting with curtains, all going to waste.’

‘Why don’t you use them?’ Alexa asks her.

‘Grandma can’t use them, darling. Grandma already has curtains in her house.’

Alexa considers it. ‘Why don’t you give them away to charity?’

Mrs Swann feels a faint vexation, a sense of entanglement. She remembers it from her own children, the feeling that a child who had come into the world pure and new, unmarked, had somehow become knotted up, full of snags and resistances. What she liked best was a baby, a clean sheet.

‘Grandma believes that family comes first. If everyone took care of their own family, there wouldn’t be any need for charity, would there?’

Thomas has come in with the tray. Mrs Swann wants to grab it from his hands, a steaming cup, a unit of nourishment. She wonders how she will drink her tea with Alexa on her lap. She sees Thomas wonder the same thing as he passes the cup to her. His hand hovers with it, just out of reach.

‘Alexa, let Grandma drink her tea,’ Antonia says, motioning her to get off.

Alexa tries to move, but Mrs Swann is holding on to her for dear life.

‘Let her stay where she is,’ she says. ‘I won’t hurt her, you know. I think I can be trusted to look after a child without scalding her.’

Antonia and Thomas exchange looks. Thomas places the cup on the table, just out of reach. Mrs Swann joggles Alexa up and down on her knee.

‘We’ll just let it cool down a bit, shall we?’ she says. ‘Mummy and Daddy are such terrible worriers. They think Grandma can’t drink her tea without spilling it. But in fact Grandma’s bigger than they are. That’s funny, isn’t it?’

‘I hear you’ve gone freelance,’ Mr Swann says to Thomas.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ Thomas says.

‘They using you much? I did a couple of years of consulting myself. At the time it looked like that was where the real money was, but personally I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t like the lack of structure. I saw other people getting out, working for themselves, and some of them were making serious money, but it all comes unravelled sooner or later. A lot of them went under. Some of them good friends of ours. Meanwhile I’m drawing my share options and my pension. They all said I was too conservative, that I should take more risks, but look who’s had the last laugh.’

There is a silence. The others drink their tea, but Mrs Swann has been separated from hers.

‘The main difficulty’, she says, ‘was that he hated being at home all day. What’s a man doing, hanging around the house? That was the problem. A lot of those marriages’, she adds significantly, ‘ended in divorce. The women simply couldn’t stand it. They lost all respect for their husbands. I think marriage needs an element of mystery,’ she continues, warming to the sound of her own voice. ‘I told them, but they wouldn’t listen. They thought it would all be long lunches and jumping into bed in the afternoon. I said to them, no, don’t let them come home! A man isn’t a man if he’s in the house all day. You need a man, in a marriage. But they wouldn’t listen. And then they’re surprised when their —’ she remembers Alexa is on her lap ‘— their intimate life goes to pot into the bargain!’

She laughs merrily. She is almost fond of them, these deluded souls she has created. She created them and then she sent them to their doom, for failing to heed her wisdom, her experience.

Thomas laughs too. ‘Oh, Tonie’s pretty mysterious,’ he says.

‘Is she?’ Mrs Swann finds something distasteful in this remark.

‘And she’s hardly ever at home these days. So perhaps that proves your theory.’

Mrs Swann blinks. ‘Why is she not at home?’

‘I told you, Mum,’ Antonia says. ‘I’ve gone full-time. They made me Head of Department.’

Mrs Swann draws herself up. Do they think she suffers from senility? ‘I knew they’d made you a head,’ she says. ‘But I thought it was some kind of — of certificate. I didn’t realise it meant working extra hours. You didn’t tell me that.’

‘They’re getting their money’s worth out of you, are they?’ says Mr Swann, with the laugh he uses to express disapproval.

Mrs Swann clutches Alexa closer. ‘And who looks after little one?’

‘Thomas does.’

‘But I thought Thomas was working from home! How can he work and look after a child at the same time?’

Antonia sighs. ‘I’ve told you all this already, Mum.’

Mrs Swann is trembling. It is the effort of bringing this scene to its just conclusion, of saying what needs to be said: it exhausts her and it invigorates her, both at the same time.

‘So they’ve given you unpaid leave, have they?’ Mr Swann asks Thomas.

‘No,’ Thomas says. ‘I’ve resigned.’

‘Have you now?’ Mr Swann sits back, apparently stunned. ‘You’ve resigned, have you?’

Thomas stands, begins collecting the teacups. Mrs Swann has always had a strong feeling for Thomas, as a thing of value that lies within her daughter’s possession. Antonia’s other boyfriends were mostly people who could either be pitied or despised, but Thomas has always made Mrs Swann feel strangely alert and aware of herself. It is as though it is she he is attracted to, not Antonia. He has a lean, muscular body she would like to touch, with something tough and tensile inside it like a length of rope. She would like to take him; she would like to have him for herself. And yet she is dimly aware that this desire involves Antonia. It is refracted, somehow, from the maternal root. He acts like a prism, receiving her ambivalence and separating it, separating her hatred from her love. She passes through Thomas and she is liberated of her burden of dark feeling.