Rachel Cusk - The Country Life

‘So why do you attack him?’ I cried. ‘He’s got enough problems as it is! He doesn’t do it deliberately — he thinks people are after him. That’s why he sabotages the footpaths. Mr Trimmer told me. It isn’t because he’s malicious. The whole business with Geoff only happened because he must have run over one of the trip-wires.’

‘Geoff died an honourable death.’ The creature paused and looked sombrely at the ceiling. ‘Why he does it isn’t my concern. Adolf Hitler might be after him for all I care. The point is that innocent people are in danger.’

‘But he’s obviously not well!’

‘In that case he should be put in an institution. But people like that, you see, they don’t get put away, do they? They’re above the law. Let’s see what’s under that shirt, dear. Lean on the table there. That’s it. No, he’s a danger to himself as much as anything. Should never have married that flibbertigibbet. There’s a piece of advice for you. Never marry someone you can’t be sure of hanging on to. You’ll end up thinking the whole world wants to take her away from you. Especially if she’s got the money. How does that feel?’

‘Much better,’ I said, surprised. I had barely felt the creature’s fingers on my skin, but a luxurious heat was beginning to penetrate the tender bruises.

‘You’ll find it’ll heal up nicely in no time. You watch yourself in future. You only get one body. And there’s not much of yours, at that. Are they feeding you?’

‘Yes.’

‘They’ll have your heart and soul as well if you don’t mind out. That’s the way they are. I see that young Casanova’s already circling. He didn’t waste his time getting down here to have a look at you.’

‘Toby?’

‘The very same. He’s another one. If he’d been born where he deserved to be, he’d have been locked up by now. You keep away from him, my girl.’

‘He’s not that bad.’

‘And where have you been all your life? He only got the last one pregnant, didn’t he? Got her up the spout and got her the sack. She was a silly enough little thing, but nobody deserves that kind of luck.’

‘He’s not interested in me.’

‘He’s interested in anything he can shag, if you’ll pardon my French, dear. You keep your knickers on. Off you go now. I’ve got business to attend to.’

The creature opened the door and stood beside it.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘And please don’t be too hard on Mr Madden. He’s nice really.’

‘You’re a soft touch, aren’t you? We’ll see. I’ve been thinking of getting out of rambling anyway, diversifying a bit. There’s interesting things going on in bloodsports at the moment. Take care of yourself.’

‘Goodbye.’

‘Toodle-pip!’

That evening over dinner, Pamela announced that she and Martin would be away the following day.

‘We’ve been summoned to visit Aunt Lilian in Oxford tomorrow, Stella, so you’ll be pretty much at liberty for most of the day.’

‘Do we have to?’ whined Martin.

‘Yes, we bloody well do. The old girl’s on her last legs, and if we’re to stand a chance of getting anything out of her then we’re going to have to sit there and smile if it kills us. Come to think of it, Toby, it wouldn’t hurt you to come along too. Can you spare him tomorrow, darling?’

‘Yes,’ said Mr Madden firmly.

‘We should be back by teatime, Stella, so if you could give me a hand with tomorrow evening then I reckon we’ll have just about settled the score.’

‘All right,’ I said.

‘Actually, I could use a bit of extra cash at the moment,’ interjected Toby. ‘Can’t we just slip something into her tea and speed things up?’

‘That’s awful !’ shrieked Pamela delightedly. ‘Aunt Lilian,’ she added, addressing me, ‘is a very perverse old lady. She’s got pots of money, which she’s always threatening to leave to some dreadful organization — what is it again?’

‘The Animal Liberation Front,’ said Martin.

‘ That ’s right. So we all have to go rushing up there once or twice a year to try and talk her out of it. I think she does it to get attention. She probably thinks we’d never visit her otherwise.’

‘We wouldn’t,’ said Martin.

‘I suppose it’s rather sad really,’ sighed Pamela. ‘She never married, so we’re all she’s got. She’s had quite a lonely life. She adores the children, of course, but they were always rather frightened of her.’

‘She’s a crone,’ said Martin. ‘She’s got these scaly hands and when she pinches your cheeks her nails dig into your skin.’

‘ Little boy! ’ cackled Toby, leaning across the table and pinching Martin’s cheeks so violently that his head flew backwards and forwards. ‘ Come here, little boy! ’

‘Get off!’ shouted Martin, pushing him away. His cheeks were scarlet where Toby’s fingers had been. ‘Just fuck off!’

‘Enough of that,’ pronounced Mr Madden from the other end of the table, without looking up. He was examining his hands intently and his face was dark.

‘I’m simply longing for tomorrow evening!’ said Pamela brightly. ‘It’ll be the first time we’ve all been together as a family since — since when?’

She looked wonderingly about the table.

‘Since the last time,’ said Martin morosely.

That night I dreamed of Edward; but even the dream itself had the guilty atmosphere of a concession, as if my subconscious was manifesting a concern more dutiful than sincere. The dream took place in Franchise Farm, where I was attempting to show him the house and gardens and tell him about my new life. In the dream I kept forgetting him, like a reluctant promise or some newly acquired but not yet treasured object, and would experience rush after rush of anxiety as I remembered him and went chasing back to where I had left him. The most arduous aspect of this peculiar cycle was that each time I went back to retrieve him, finding him sitting helplessly as a baby in the room in which I had last deposited him, I was forced to explain to him not only what I had been doing, but how I had been able to do it. In other words, I was compelled to spell out to him over and over again the principles of will and motion, of which he did not seem to have the faintest idea. Each time he gazed at me with an expression of almost idiotic incomprehension, and I would feel a sense of intolerable pressure or enclosure; and each time, just as I felt this, I would remember something persistently forgotten and look down and see that he was sitting in a wheelchair.

Eventually this dream yielded to a mute, horrible nightmare in which I lay in my bed in the cottage while birds flew about the room, diving and pecking at my body; and I woke sweating and aching, with the sense of some imminent and unavoidable misfortune lying in wait for me. Outside the window the day wore the ripeness of mid-morning, and I could hear faint sounds of industry, the buzz of a farm engine, the distant murmur of can. A sharp consciousness of time scythed through these languorous apprehensions. I bolted up in panic, the bedclothes flying back, before remembering that Pamela had taken the boys to see Aunt Lilian and that I had the day to myself. There are few things more pleasant than this type of realization. One is acquitted not only of the original crime, but also of the suspicion that one might in fact under other circumstances have committed it and of the consequences of having done so; all of which, in addition, are washed away in a matter of moments by some anticipated pleasure. I have often wished that I could make other problems vanish in a similar way. Subsiding back into the pillows, I considered my twice-granted liberty and wondered what I would do with it. With Mr Madden occupied at the ferm, both the day and the rest of the property were mine. In my mind I toured its facilities, inspecting them anew with a proprietary gaze. I was surprised to find myself so shamelessly sizing up what did not belong to me, as if I had merely been awaiting the opportunity to do so. Dimly it struck me that this was a consequence of my disfranchised state. Those aspects of life I would previously have regarded with the mild eye of entitlement now lay tantalizingly under lock and key. With the door to privilege left ajar and unattended, I could no more prevent myself from trespassing beyond it than a pauper could stroll past a banknote lying on a pavement.