Rachel Cusk - The Country Life

‘Marvellous,’ said Piers, to my surprise.

‘And your skin!’ she rhapsodized, raising a hand to her own cheek. ‘Oh, to be young, what bliss! Look after it, Stella, please, while you’ve got the chance. I left it far too late!’

Glad as I was to have escaped a reprimand, I felt that a denial of this fact would push the happy scene over into excess and merely gave her an erubescent smile. It was some time before she removed her hand from her cheek; and seeing her like that, I remembered the newspaper clipping I had seen in the creature’s room. What could it have meant? The words ‘lovers’ tiff were clear in my mind. They evidently did not, unless I had misunderstood them, refer to the Maddens’ own relationship. Could Pamela or Piers have had an affair? It seemed, looking at them now, impossible; and besides, who was there in the countryside with whom to have one? I had seen barely anybody during my time here, except the creature, and the people who ran the ‘shop’; unless, of course, you counted Darren over at the Dog, or Mrs Lascelles, for whom I could not vouch. So far, the only people with whom I could consider either of them having an affair were each other.

‘Right!’ said Mr Madden, brushing some invisible detritus from his trouser leg. ‘I’d better get on.’

‘OK, darling,’ said Pamela radiantly. To my surprise, she even took his arm and walked with him over towards the door. I wondered what had happened in my absence to provoke this marked increase of affection between the Maddens. I soon realized, however, that Pamela had accompanied Piers to the door so that she could talk to him privately; although I am afraid that I could hear every word she said. What she said was: ‘You’ll sort out that business in the top field, won’t you? We don’t want any trouble with the police.’

‘Yes, yes, all right. Just leave it to me,’ Mr Madden mysteriously replied.

I glanced at Martin, but he was occupied ruffling Roy’s velveteen ears and did not seem to have heard anything. Pamela, thinking herself unobserved, laid a hand on Mr Madden’s cheek and looked at him with an expression I could not fathom.

‘Oh, darling,’ she said. She withdrew her hand longingly. ‘Go on, off you go.’

‘What would you like to do now?’ I said to Martin in a loud voice as soon as Mr Madden had gone.

‘Dunno,’ he replied, still engrossed in Roy. ‘We could go up to my room and listen to some records if you like.’

‘That’s a good idea!’ said Pamela ingratiatingly, overhearing. She came back across the room and put her arm around me, placing her other hand on Martin’s head. We now formed a sort of chain, starting with Roy and ending with me. ‘Why don’t you two slope off upstairs and have your party, and I’ll give you a shout when supper’s ready!’

Tiring somewhat, I can admit, of Pamela’s jollity, I was relieved when Martin and I had gained the cool sanctuary of the hall.

‘Did you have a good afternoon?’ I enquired, as he slid from his chair at the bottom of the stairs.

‘No,’ he panted, inching backwards up towards the first step and lodging his backside on it.

‘I thought you liked it there.’

‘What do you know?’ he said, levering himself on to the second. ‘It’s crap. How would you like to spend three afternoons a week with a bunch of spastics?’

‘That’s not very nice,’ I said, picking up his chair and plodding after him. ‘You don’t have to go.’

‘Yes I do,’ he puffed.

‘Why, if you hate it so much?’

‘Apparently’ — he heaved again — ‘I learn things there.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘I dunno. How to get used to being there, I suppose.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well.’ He stopped for a moment, his face red. ‘If something happens to them. Mater and Pater, that is. You know.’

He resumed his ascent, his black hair flopping up and down.

‘But!’ I cried, dumbfounded. ‘But you wouldn’t — I mean, if something did happen — you wouldn’t go there!’

‘I bloody would. Or somewhere like it.’

‘But what about — what about Caroline?’

He stopped again and opened his mouth wide. ‘Ha! Ha!’

‘I mean,’ I extemporized, ‘I mean, you might not get on all that well, but she’s your sister. She’d be glad to—’ I tried to think of a tactful way of putting it: ‘she’d be glad to have you Uve with her, I’m sure!’

‘No, she wouldn’t.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because,’ he said firmly, ‘she’s said so. They all did. Mummy and Daddy sat them all down and asked them. I mean’ — he dragged himself onto the landing — ‘they didn’t say no just like that. But they all made excuses. Even Millie.’

‘Who’s Millie?’

‘My other sister. You haven’t met her yet. She’s nice.’

I trailed up the stairs, the chair cumbersome in my arms, and deposited it beside him on the landing.

‘But why?’ I said, or rather wailed.

‘Why what?’

‘Why won’t they have you?’

‘Oh, I dunno.’ He grasped the handles of the chair and levered himself up. ‘Millie was upset about it, I suppose. She just said that she couldn’t promise. She didn’t know what was going to happen and stuff. I dunno.’

He wheeled past me with a blazing face down the corridor to his room. I lagged behind, my mind alive with curiosity and shame. I had often felt as a child a sense of surprise at how far the machinations of the adult world had progressed beyond my own, while I had been busy cultivating the solipsistic cabbage patch of my own thoughts. My parents had often surprised me with what they knew, the things they had considered and discussed. The reason for my unpreparedness was perhaps because I never saw them do it. To return to the subject of Martin, it had never occurred to me to wonder what might happen to him if Pamela and Piers met with some misfortune. Of course, I could see now that such a discussion, given his age and disability, had been inevitable; but the fact that it hadn’t occurred to me gave me the perhaps unwonted feeling that Pamela and Piers were more responsible, more complex somehow, than I had believed them to be. I have always felt that moments such as this have a peculiarly ageing effect on the mind; and I was to age still further when I arrived at the dreadful subject of Caroline and the others’ refusal to accept the guardianship of their poor defenceless brother. My first thought, fired off in disgust, was that I myself would offer to take care of him; but as soon as I had thought it a tempting though unlikely vision of my future life, beckoning me towards footloose adventures in foreign parts and romantic elopements at midnight, came to haunt me.

‘Come on!’ called Martin from up ahead.

I hurried along after him to his room, which had undergone a transformation since the morning — the fruits, no doubt, of Mrs Barker’s campaign — but had already embarked on its return to chaos. One or two items lay abandoned on the pristine carpet, like the first fallen leaves at the end of summer presaging the long but irreversible process by which everything which was lodged orderly on branches would eventually be flung to the ground. Martin was in the corner of the room, leaning far out of his chair to inspect a rank of records which stood in a long rack like hundreds of silvery slivers of toast.

‘What sort of music do you like, Stel-la?’

‘I don’t know. Anything, I suppose. Whatever you like.’

Martin turned around in his chair, as if astonished.

‘Don’t you like music?’ he said.

‘Of course I do. I just don’t have a favourite sort.’

‘Strange girl,’ muttered Martin, turning away.

‘Edward always used to buy the records,’ I added, feeling that I ought to explain myself. ‘He had a huge collection. I suppose that’s why I don’t have any myself. Not that that’s any excuse, of course, but if somebody’s very passionate about something it tends to mean that you can’t be.’