Rachel Cusk - The Country Life

‘Sorry, darling. Caroline and Derek’s baby. Everyone got something to drink? Caroline?’

‘I’m not drinking,’ said Caroline bashfully, her hand on her stomach again.

We raised our glasses, which had become warm in the sun. Afterwards, nobody seemed to have very much to say. The congratulations having been exhausted, still it seemed rude to change the subject.

‘I think I’ll bring out the lunch,’ said Mr Madden finally.

‘Oh, would you?’ said Pamela. ‘You are a dear. Have you thought of any names, darling? I might be able to suggest one or two if you’re stuck.’

‘We thought we’d call it Hugh if it was a boy,’ said Caroline. I was perplexed, thinking her to have said ‘you’. It seemed to me a confusingly renegade feminist stand, considering Caroline’s earlier remarks. ‘If it’s a girl we’ll probably call her after Derek’s mother. Margaret.’

‘That’s rather an elderly name for a little girl, isn’t it?’ said Pamela, after a pause. ‘Don’t you think?’ she coaxed, when Caroline did not answer.

‘Obviously we don’t,’ Caroline coolly replied, ‘otherwise we wouldn’t have chosen it.’

Tension had entered the scene stealthily and without warning. I wondered if Pamela was offended that the baby was not going to be named for her, and then thought that perhaps Derek’s mother had died.

‘Well, Maggie will be delighted, anyway,’ said Pamela grimly. Derek’s mother was evidently still with us. ‘Have you told her? About the baby, I mean?’

Caroline hesitated, which of course made what she said next sound like a lie, although whether this was deliberate or not I could not tell.

‘No,’ she said finally. ‘We thought we’d pop down to Hastings this evening.’

‘Ah,’ said Pamela, nodding energetically. ‘Piers!’ she called to Mr Madden, who was by now making his laboured progress back across the lawn towards us. ‘You couldn’t be a darling and put up the umbrella, could you? It’s utterly scorching out here.’

Mr Madden nodded heavily and, depositing the tray upon the grass, turned obediently on his heel. I was pleased by this news, for I had been driven by now to place a hand over either cheek, which I was concerned was giving an impression of theatrical dismay. Martin had been so quiet that I had assumed him to be asleep, but when I glanced at him I saw that his eyes were wide open. I had the feeling that he had been staring at me.

‘Are you all right?’ I said, all at once remembering my role in this family drama. ‘Do you want a hat or something?’

Martin shook his head.

‘Are you overheating, darling?’ intervened Pamela. ‘Daddy will have the umbrella up in a minute.’

‘I’m fine ,’ said Martin impatiently. A look of resentment was fired off at me. I gathered that Martin, contrary to Caroline’s theories, disliked having attention directed towards him.

‘Goodness,’ said Pamela, looking at her watch. ‘You’re due at the centre any minute. We’d better get on with lunch.’

The mention of the centre naturally brought the driving issue once more to the foreground, and I wondered if, with the element of change Caroline’s announcement had introduced, Pamela’s offer to drive Martin herself would still stand. I had a discomfiting sense of having let go of the situation somewhat. I could not remember any of my plans for negotiating the difficulty, and indeed felt that it had regained all of its former complexity and more. Like a child trying to recall how to tie its shoelaces, I found it hard to believe that I had ever mastered the method of this particular deception, having now forgotten so completely how to do so. Were Pamela to ask me now to drive, I would, I knew, undo myself utterly.

‘Stella, are you ready to shoot off with him as soon as lunch is over?’ said Pamela.

The lawn and sky went briefly out of focus in the ensuing silence.

‘Yes,’ I said, nodding my head with confidence.

‘Actually, I could drop him off on my way home,’ said Caroline, whom I thought I would never learn to love. ‘I go right through Buckley.’

‘He’ll need to go straight off,’ said Pamela doubtfully. I was tempted to reach across the table and bludgeon her over the head with my heavy crystal glass. ‘Don’t you want to stay and have a swim?’

‘No,’ said Caroline, rising ever higher in my estimation. ‘No, I’ve got to get back. I’ve got such a lot to do. And Martin and I can have a nice chat on the way.’

My betrayal of Martin was regrettable, I can admit; but my instincts of self-preservation were in this instance too forceful. I risked a glance at the condemned and was met by narrowed eyes. He mouthed something which I could not decipher but which I took to be an explicit promise of revenge. Much as I longed to offer him some apology, under the present circumstances it was impossible. Now committed to a selfish course, I wondered instead whether Pamela would offer me a swim during the afternoon; and if not, how I could tempt such an offer from her.

‘Dig in, everybody!’ cried Pamela, as Piers discharged his freight of laden bowls and platters upon the table. He produced a large parasol and began to wrestle with it. ‘Come on, Stella, don’t be shy.’ She looked around at us all. ‘Oh, what a happy day!’

Some time later, I stood alone in the empty kitchen of the big house. Through the window I could see the deserted scene of our lunch on the lawn, the chairs still pushed back as if in horror or anger from the table where everybody had stood up. Caroline was now safely dispatched, and with her both Martin and the threat of driving duty, my evasion of which was a matter of great but temporary good fortune.

Seeing an opportunity to entrench myself in the family affections, I had undertaken to clear up lunch. My offer had been roundly accepted and the company speedily dispersed in its wake, as if I might be liable to retract it. Pamela was now ‘resting’ upstairs, and Piers had returned to his indeterminate work on the farm. I had watched him go through the window, his solitary progress — as aimless and slouching as a boy’s, discreetly whistling as he ambled off — bespeaking a discomfort with family groupings, from which he was evidently rather glad to get away.

I put the first consignment of dishes in the sink, aware that my solitude in the Maddens’ house — a somewhat improper condition, given the fragility of our acquaintance — was beckoning me towards an unwelcome analysis of my situation. I sensed that a clear picture of my predicament lay veiled nearby, like an exam result in an envelope, or a pair of policemen sitting in the next-door room, awaiting my arrival. Although I had already performed several smaller assessments, clods of percipience thrown up by the churning wheels of every passing hour, of how my life in the country appeared to be going, a grander survey required a journey back to all the chaos which had preceded it; and from there, perhaps even an expedition to the permafrost of human unhappiness which lay beyond. Having so recently emigrated from my past, I was not ready to revisit it; yet I felt a swollen, tremulous sorrow, as fragile as a bubble, floating so close in the air around me that it seemed inevitable that at any moment it would touch me and burst, whether I liked it or not. I whistled cheerfully as I ran the gushing taps; and was about to turn them off again and sob uncontrollably at the kitchen table, when I heard the far-off ringing of the telephone.

Telephones, like children, cry out to their owners, and so it was some time before I responded to this shrill summons. Eventually, however, I remembered that Pamela was asleep upstairs, and with a jolt of dismay had an image of her being roused, bad-tempered, from her bed, furious that I had permitted her to be disturbed. This was, of course, an overreaction on my part; but it is the hegemony of an irrational or unpredictable character such as Pamela’s that it makes even the most innocent incidents pregnant with the possibility of accusation and blame. I rushed from the sink and through the kitchen door, pausing in the ante-room to locate the sound. For a moment I thought that it had stopped; but then it came again, from the direction of the hall. I flew through the swinging door and ran across the flagstones, my ears filled with the alarm of rings, to where the telephone lay stubbornly plinthed on a small table. The minute I picked it up, however, I felt strongly that I had made a mistake. I saw again, quite clearly, Pamela’s anger; but this time it was my presumption rather than my neglect which provoked it. I really had no idea of the correct thing to do. My parents had never relayed guidelines on such matters to me, and I was hard-pressed to see how else I was meant to have studied them.