Rachel Cusk - The Country Life

‘Mark’s against it,’ said Millie.

‘ Against it? How can you be against marriage?’ Mr Madden guffawed, as if in appreciation of some joke, which he evidently expected to be informed his daughter’s remark was.

‘His parents are divorced,’ said Millie, while Mark looked silently down at his plate. ‘He’s seen how much damage it can cause.’

This remark, although I couldn’t discern why, was evidently judged to have exceeded the boundaries of good taste. There was an immediate chill in the atmosphere of the room. Millie sat with a stricken expression. Caroline touched Derek’s arm and quietly asked him to pass her the butter. Pamela stood up.

‘Right,’ she said brightly. ‘I think I’ll get the second course in. Would someone mind giving me a hand?’

‘I will,’ I said.

‘Thank you, Stella,’ said Pamela. She gave me quite a friendly look. Millie’s unpopularity had evidently freed up a quantity of approval which I, by my offer, had been able to claim. ‘If you could just stack up some of these plates and bring them out with you, I’ll go and get on.’

Obediently I toured the table, collecting the debris of the first course. As I reached over each shoulder to retrieve a plate, I seemed to be dipping briefly into the charged aura of another human being, tasting their incredible autonomy. Millie seemed to shrink from my proximity as I leaned past her, as if she were too delicate and fragile to withstand it. The sturdy, tanned back of Mark’s neck visibly prickled when I came to him. Derek was as mild as milk, yielding immediately to the temporary authority of my business.

‘Families!’ exclaimed Pamela when I reached the kitchen. She was tapping about in her high heels, incongruously glamorous. ‘Is your family as noisy as ours, Stella?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Do you know, I’ve never even asked you about your family!’ she shrieked, above the rattling of plates and dishes. ‘How many are you?’

‘Five. Four,’ I said.

‘You don’t sound very sure,’ she remarked.

‘I had a brother who died.’

‘Oh.’ She bent down, hands muffled in oven-gloves, and opened the oven. ‘How terribly sad.’

‘Yes, it was.’

‘You must miss him dreadfully.’

‘It was a long time ago. But yes.’

She didn’t say anything more. When she straightened up, her face looked pinched and rather annoyed.

‘Shall I start taking things through?’ I said anxiously.

‘You’re a darling.’ She laid a hand briefly on my arm and I flushed with pleasure. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you. I hope that’s not too hot.’

She handed me a serving dish full of bright, steaming vegetables. I bore the dish out of the kitchen and into the ante-room. It was in fact very hot, and by the time I reached the hall I was forced to stop and put it down on the floor for a moment to relieve my hands.

In that moment, crouched on the floor beside the steaming dish, I had a most peculiar feeling. It started as a sensation of almost overwhelming unreality, as if I had woken up and found myself there without the faintest idea of how I had come to be so; but then this feeling peaked or crested in some way, and I felt it flood out of me like something boiled over. When it had gone, I became aware of the most remarkable silence; not in the house, but in myself. The roar of the past week had ceased. I was quiet. I was quiet inside. I picked up the serving dish and bore it into the dining room.

‘Where on earth have all my dishcloths got to?’ said Pamela, when I returned to the kitchen for the next consignment. ‘I used to have simply masses of them.’

‘It’s not fair !’ Millie was wailing when I returned to the dining room. ‘I don’t see why she’s got to act as if everything’s a personal injury to her. It’s not as if she can stop us. She may as well just be nice about it.’

‘Being old-fashioned,’ observed Mr Madden, uncharacteristically epigrammatical, ‘is hardly an unreasonable quality in a parent. Your mother’s entitled to her opinion, as am I. Don’t see why we should pretend to be pleased if we’re not.’

‘Your father’s got a point,’ nodded Mark diplomatically. His forehead shone with sweat.

‘Mummy and Daddy are only being honest,’ added Caroline. ‘I do think you’re being a teensy bit oversensitive, Millie.’

‘There’s no need to stick your tongue right up their arses,’ said Martin crudely.

‘Daddy!’ shrieked Caroline. ‘Derek!’

‘Steady on,’ said Derek, although to whom it was not clear.

‘I can see your point, mate,’ said Toby, grinning horribly at Mark. ‘I’d want to keep my options open too.’

‘That’s not funny,’ said Millie.

‘If you really believe that Mummy and Daddy can’t stop you,’ rallied Caroline, ‘then I don’t see why you’re so upset. It suggests that you do care what they think.’

‘Of course she cares,’ said Martin. ‘She just wants their blessing.’

‘Exactly,’ nodded Millie.

‘I heard that,’ snapped Caroline, turning on Martin.

‘What did he say? What did he say?’ implored Toby.

‘I won’t repeat it. Something very rude, not surprisingly. Our boy genius doesn’t seem to have all that much imagination.’

Martin was mouthing something at Toby, who was chortling oafishly, leaning across the table.

‘Look, let’s just change the subject, can we?’ said Mark wearily.

‘I hope you’re all hungry!’ announced Pamela, bearing in a joint of meat on a vast silver platter.

I sat down in my chair as Mr Madden got up and prepared to carve. My hands were resting in my lap; but presently I felt the warm, clammy pressure of another hand, Martin’s, taking one of mine. He removed it from my lap and held it under the table. I glimpsed him out of the corner of my eye. He was looking straight ahead, as if nothing unusual had happened. I didn’t resist his gesture, which I took to be one of comfort and solidarity. What surprised me more was that I actually seemed to be having some physical response to it. Waves of electricity were passing from his hand up my arm. I did not interpret this as proof of some deeply submerged romantic feeling for Martin on my part. It was merely, I felt sure, that I was not touched very often by another human being. A plate of meat and vegetables arrived in front of me. The pâté had served to awaken rather than satiate my appetite; and at the sight of the plate, saliva began to prickle in my mouth. I wondered how I would be able to eat with Martin gripping my right hand.

‘Dig in!’ cried Mr Madden cheerfully.

‘Bon appetit!‘ said Toby.

‘This looks delicious ,’ said Millie.

‘Great,’ affirmed Mark.

‘Mummy’s gone to so much trouble,’ declared Caroline.

‘Looks splendid, Mrs M.,’ said Derek.

‘Happy birthday, darling,’ said Pamela, leaning towards her husband and giving him a kiss on the cheek.

‘Hmmph!’ exclaimed Mr Madden, who evidently felt it was not worth his while pointing out again that it was not yet his birthday.

I picked up my fork face-up in my left hand — it is surprisingly easy to do this, once you accustom yourself to it — and began to eat. The food tasted good. My wineglass sat untouched in front of me. Martin shifted his grip slightly, squeezing my fingers tighter. I squeezed back. We turned our heads and our eyes met; and we both smiled.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. The Country Life could be seen as a modern take on Jane Eyre , as well as on a certain popular type of British novel that extolls the virtues of country living. How does Rachel Cusk play with the themes and plot of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel, and with the perceived ideals of a rural existence?