Rachel Cusk - The Country Life

I laughed enthusiastically at this, and was mortified to hear my laughter make its solo flight across the table.

‘It just seems unfair on Mummy,’ said Caroline sullenly. ‘She’s got so much to do already, and only Mrs Barker to help her.’

I immediately regretted my rhapsodies about the rose garden, which in retrospect gave substance to the accusation that I was no help at all.

‘You’re giving me a headache,’ said Martin plaintively, opening one eye in a squint.

‘Take an aspirin, then,’ retorted Caroline.

‘Take one yourself,’ muttered Martin, sinking his chin into his small, puffy chest. ‘Not that it would make you less of a pain.’

‘Oh, I’m dying!’ said Caroline, melodramatically clutching at her heart with her two plump hands.

‘Right!’ blustered Mr Madden, intervening with his tray and dealing the drinks one by one. ‘That’s enough, you two. Lunch’ll be ready any minute, so let’s clear some space here, shall we, and I’ll give Mummy a hand bringing it out.’

I jumped to my feet as if at a starter’s pistol and began collecting the empty glasses strewn about the table. I could feel Caroline’s eyes on me again behind her sunglasses; or rather, on my body, measuring it as exactly as if she were fitting me for a garment. After a while she folded her arms and looked away across the garden, her lips as pursed as if there were a drawstring threaded through them.

‘Shall I take them inside?’ I said to Mr Madden.

‘No, no,’ he replied. ‘Just sit down, why don’t you?’

I sensed the mildest irritation in his reply, and had an indistinct memory of annoying him before with a similar display of keenness. Searching for this incident, the recollection of Pamela’s unfortunate remarks concerning my feelings for Mr Madden — overheard from the cottage garden — returned forcefully to me instead. I snatched my hands away from the table and held them trembling behind my back. I felt myself dangerously capable of directing some obscenity, or even a punch or kick, at Mr Madden, merely to prove my lack of fondness for him. I sat down again; and when I saw the look of affront on Caroline’s face felt my situation to be rather miserable. Caroline evidently thought it inappropriate that I, a paid domestic, should sit with her, the daughter of the house, while its owners were scurrying about in the effort to serve us. Mr Madden had, however, spoken; and with the question of my fancy already so publicized, I was not about to confirm it in full view of witnesses by pestering him further.

‘What do you do, Caroline?’ I sociably enquired instead. My comment had been automatic, an embarrassed reflex, and I was rewarded for my heedlessness by a glacial stare.

‘What do you mean?’ Caroline eventually replied.

‘I was asking whether you worked,’ I hastily amended. This sounded in some way rude. ‘Or whether…’ For some reason I could think of no alternative, and was compelled to trail off.

‘I am a housewife.’

My lips formed the reply ‘Oh’, but my voice failed to follow it through, leaving us in silence.

‘You disapprove of that, do you?’ said Caroline. ‘Are you one of these feminists?’

‘Well,’ I began. My skin was now in torment, and I wished that I had been in a position to ask Mr Madden to hoist the umbrella.

‘I personally don’t feel the slightest need to compete with my husband,’ continued Caroline. ‘I am not insecure. Were we desperately short of money, then that would perhaps be different. Of course I would do everything I could, but I would regard it as a misfortune. It would be embarrassing for my friends, and above all for Derek. As it is we are very comfortable.’

‘Good,’ I said, placing one hand surreptitiously upon my cheek.

‘There is a woman, for example, in our village,’ said Caroline, entrenching herself deeper in her chair, ‘who has been driven by necessity to take a job in some kind of shop, ladies’ fashions I believe, in Tonbridge. She used to live in the Rectory with her husband, but then he walked out on her, ran off with his secretary or somesuch, and she had to go it alone. Sold the house, put the children in the local school.’

‘That’s awful,’ I said, sympathetically.

‘We’ve all tried our best to support her, but it is difficult. At one point, Derek and I thought we might buy the Rectory from her to sort of help her out, but she had it on at such a ridiculous price and wouldn’t consider selling it for less, even to friends. Personally, I think she should have moved right away from the village. We all used to knock about together, you see, but it’s harder to invite a single woman to things, and she obviously isn’t entertaining any more. I mean that in both senses of the word.’ She smiled, surprised at her own unintended cleverness. ‘She’s so down these days that one ends up just having her to supper in the kitchen, lest she bursts into tears or something. Some of the wives say they won’t even have her in the house any more because she gets very aggressive with the men after she’s had a drink or two. And of course the children have turned into savages at that dreadful school. The others don’t want to play with them.’

‘Poor woman!’ I cried, my own problems for the time being forgotten.

‘I suppose so,’ said Caroline after a pause. ‘But you shouldn’t feel too sorry for her. Things could have gone very differently if she had acted with a little grace. I’m afraid to say that she has behaved — inappropriately. Working in a shop!’ She shook her head. ‘One or two of the wives went in, not realizing, of course, and said it was quite dreadful when she came from behind the counter. Doing the hard sell, you know.’

‘Surely it’s not her fault if her husband left her?’ I objected. ‘What else could she have done?’

‘Well, whose fault could it be?’ said Caroline, amazed. ‘She can’t have been doing her duty to him.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There are certain things,’ said she mysteriously, ‘that a woman is expected to do for her husband. You might not always feel like it. But you do it. I don’t think Miriam quite saw it like that. She used to say as much. It’s no wonder, really, that he went elsewhere in the end.’

I was quite shocked by Caroline’s remarks, and by the assurance with which she made them. The fact that her sympathies lay so far from my own was perhaps to be expected, given the evident differences between us; but it was the confidence of her views rather than their substance which disturbed me. It surprised me to feel a strong and in some way reciprocal identification with Miriam, as if we were two lighthouses telegraphing flashes of sympathy to one another across a dark and treacherous sea. This identification did not please me. It suggested that Miriam and I belonged to some form of minority, with its attendant dangers of exclusion and victimization.

‘Martin!’ called Caroline suddenly. ‘Don’t just go off ! We’re about to have lunch.’

During our conversation, Martin had been edging his wheelchair further and further away from the table. So subtly had he moved that I had not really been aware of it; but when I looked round, I saw that he had materialized beside a far-off flower bed. He was throwing a stick for Roy, who jogged slowly off to retrieve it, his black belly heaving. He did not return smartly to the table on Caroline’s orders, but rather affected not to have heard her, and once Roy had been dispatched seemed engrossed by his inspection of a small bush. To my dismay, all at once Caroline dislodged herself violently from her seat and rose in such precipitate anger that the entire doll’s arrangement of table and chairs lurched as she thrashed among them, seeking an exit. She displaced an obstructing chair with one powerful hand, and stormed across the grass towards the inadvertent Martin, whose neck seemed visibly to bristle at her approach behind him. With alarming speed she reached him and, disengaging the brake with her foot, whirled him around so that his hair positively flew and began to propel him back towards the table. I could see her mouth moving, although I could not hear what she was saying.