Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman

Chapter Six

The phone by the bed woke me abruptly. With an effort, I turned my head and the clock informed me that it was six o’clock. The possibility that either Sam or Poppy was in trouble pierced my torpor, and I snatched up the receiver.

‘Rose?’ It was Nathan and, for a second, I imagined he was ringing to tell me that he had been kept overnight in the office – big story breaking, Rosie - and that he was on his way home. ‘I wanted to check you were OK.’ It was the calm, sensible, negotiating tone. ‘Are you?’

It had taken me a few years to understand the art of negotiation with Nathan. It was a question of returning a question with a question. ‘What do you think?’ My hand crept across the space in the bed that he should have been occupying.

There was a quick intake of breath and the public voice vanished. ‘I couldn’t bear to leave you like you were…’

He went on to say a lot of things about not wishing to hurt me and how his decision had been made after careful thought – ‘Not so careful,’ I flashed back – and how he would not have done it unless he considered it was necessary for his happiness… and, even, mine.

Etc., etc.

‘Keep my happiness out of it,’ I said. ‘You’re muddling us up.’

‘Sorry. That was stupid. But I just need to know you’re OK.’

‘That’s very touching, Nathan.’

Supposedly the past is a foreign country of which we should beware. That was not true: it was oneself that was the foreign country, the unexplored, possibly dangerous side. The woman who clutched the telephone with whitening knuckles and wished to inflict as savage a hurt on her husband as he had inflicted on her was unknown to me. I did not recognize her and, although I was interested in, even intrigued by, this strange woman, I was also repelled by her. ‘I thought the point was that you did not care about my welfare any more. That’s why you have left. You care about s… someone else’s.’

‘Of course I care.’

‘Oh, Nathan.’

‘You don’t have to live with someone to care about them.’

‘This is a pointless conversation.’

‘I know,’ he conceded miserably. Then his voice hardened. ‘I did try to explain yesterday.’

I saw this image of us both on skates, veering round a rink, neither of us reaching the point where we faced each other. I began to shiver again, but I managed to say, ‘I can’t talk any more.’

‘Wait… wait, Rose. We must discuss details. Money and things… You’ll need some.’

Nathan was neither mercenary nor ungenerous, but money always had to be dealt with first. That was how he was. Once that was done and discussed, he was free to deal with subtler considerations. Over the years I had worked out strategies to deal with it – one of the most successful being, if I was desperate, to ignore him. ‘Where are you at the moment?’

‘At Zeffano’s.’

It was the hotel used by the paper’s journalists when they had worked too late to go home.

‘Why aren’t you at… Minty’s?’

There was a short, pregnant silence. Parsley stalked into the bedroom, jumped on to my feet and treated me to one of her stares.

‘Minty isn’t quite ready to have her space invaded.’

More new language from Nathan. ‘Really?’

‘I respect her for that.’

I had the advantage over Nathan, for I was familiar with Minty’s vocabulary. She talked about freedom, space, non-commitment and sex-for-pleasure-not-love, in the way that Ianthe talked to me about duty and restraint.

Where had they been together? How often? Was it in the afternoons? Or that shadowy moment between work and home, what Mazarine would call the cinq à sept? The hours set aside for married lovers.

The questions choked me. How? Why? When? I wanted to know the details. I wanted chapter and verse, to feast on it like an insect on rotten fruit. But I did not wish Nathan to witness my need, or grant him the power to refuse to answer.

Instead, I said, ‘Nathan, the company won’t foot the bill for your love affairs.’

‘I know’

I thought of our years together: Nathan, encouraging and committed, ambitious, sometimes bad-tempered, mostly sweet; myself, eager to be settled, flustered by the arrival of children, perhaps a little unquestioning in the latter part of the marriage, a little too ready to accept that life had settled into a particular shape. All of that could change. In the breathing space that the departure of the children had left, all of that could – should have been examined. ‘Nathan, have you been so very unhappy? If you have I’m sorry, so sorry.’ The words were dragged from me. ‘I thought I made you happy.’

‘Oh, Rosie,’ he said, ‘you know how I loved you. From the moment I saw you on the plane.’

‘Then why?’

He said sadly, ‘You never loved me in the same way.’

‘That’s not true, you know it isn’t. Yes, I loved Hal but I loved you too. In the end much more, with a real love based on a real life. Remember all the things – all the things – twenty-five years… Nathan, listen to me, you’ve let your imaginings get in the way. We know each other too well to throw it away. I know romance dies. I know I’m not twenty-nine any more, and Minty is lovely. I understand…’ I made a huge effort. ‘It’s not too late.’

‘Look,’ Nathan cut me off, ‘about money. I won’t let you down.’

I believed that without question, but I clung to my pride. ‘I have a perfectly good job. If I have to, I can manage.’

He said, patiently, stubbornly, ‘For the time being I will contribute my half of the bills. I don’t want you worrying.’

I could not bear to hear any more. I knew I should be clever and search for a better, more sensible, resolution. Think again. For the children’s sake. For my sake. You will get over this, and I will forgive you. Maybe I should be asking, What have I done to you? Maybe I should be begging, Nathan, you must forgive me.

But the voice that usually issued from me – the one in which wives and mothers cajoled, bossed, teased, wooed, which might be snippy, tender and powerful – failed. It had fallen silent.

I dropped the receiver into the cradle and slumped back on the pillows. Sensing her opportunity, Parsley slid closer. I dropped my face into my hands. Talk money. Nathan’s kindness was unbearable. I had much, much rather that he had been cruel and angry. It was difficult enough, almost impossible, to absorb what had happened, let alone consider a salvage operation. But Nathan had. He had been working covertly and underground, his miner’s lamp shining on a rich, new seam.

I thought of Poppy, and of a glove being turned inside out, finger by finger.

At eight thirty I rang Vee, conscious that it was Saturday and the worst time of the day for her. Along with Mazarine, Vee was my oldest friend and all three of us had been at university together. ‘It’s Rose, Vee. I’m sorry to ring at this hour, but I had to talk to someone.’

‘Oh, Rose. Goodness. It’s ages since you’ve been in touch. Yes, of course. What’s wrong?’

‘Nathan has left me. He’s gone to live with my assistant.’

The cries of Annabel, seven, and Mark, five, were loud in the background. Vee’s voice veered into a shocked upper register: ‘You’re joking. When?’

‘Last night.’ A child’s wail punctuated this exchange and Vee shouted at it to be quiet, that Mummy was coming. ‘I’m sorry, Vee, this is the wrong time.’

‘Look,’ she said, ‘I can’t talk. There’s a taxi at the door for Luc and me, and the children are playing up. I’ll ring when I can.’

The exchange had exhausted me and I pulled the sheet over my head. If I was going to suffer – that is, more than I was at the moment, and there was no doubt that I would – I might as well do it properly and give myself up to grand and august pain.

But thoughts like tiny white-sailed boats skidded inconsequentially over the waters. I had to put out a note for the milkman. The gas bill was overdue. My passport needed renewing. I should ring the children – but I did not want to face them with the earthquake that had shaken their parents’ marriage. It was children who came to parents for help and advice, not the other way round.

I flipped back the sheet and struggled upright.

Poor Mum, he’s left her for a younger woman.

I began to weep, wildly, convulsed from head to foot, and went on until I retched with exhaustion. Eventually I crept into the bathroom, propped myself against the basin, and ran a bath. The toothpaste had been squeezed last by Nathan. As usual, he had not put the top back on.

Like a convalescent, shaky and unsure, I lowered myself into the water. I lay and looked at the shelf above me. Bath oil. Mouthwash. TCP. A spare soap – the pick’n’mix of family life.

I looked down at my partially submerged body. What did I expect to see? The gleaming bronze of a fountain nymph, whose lines flowed untouched and unmarked? My body had swelled in gestation. It had been stretched, ripped, sewn up. It had carried children, cradled them and, when the time had come, pushed them gently away. It had learnt to be endlessly busy, to snatch at repose, to guard its silences in the hot, crowded demands of the family. How could all this activity not be written into the flesh?

‘That’s what women are put on earth for.’ Ianthe was clear on the point. ‘There’s no more to be said. Take it or leave it, Rose.’ I remembered that she had been peeling away the brown, waxy skin from a boiled ham. ‘If you do what’s right, you won’t go wrong.’ Taking up the knife, she scored the fat, which had gone transparent with boiling, then stuck in cloves to make diamond patterns. ‘Raising children and keeping the family going brings its own reward.’

My skin was beginning to wrinkle. ‘Mum is a prune, Mum is a prune…’ That was Poppy, who used to climb into the hot, soapy bath in which I took refuge. There would be a scrabble of thin limbs, a displacement of water, and a wet, bony little form attached itself to me. Sometimes Sam appeared too and asked, ‘Can I come in?’ And we ended up in a heap of wet bodies and giggles. Unless I was tired and snapped at them.

As I got dressed in a pair of old jeans and a jumper, I noticed that my hands were shaking. Stop it, Rose, I admonished myself. You must think. You must be strong. I went downstairs to pull back the curtains, write the note to the milkman, begin the business of living through today, tomorrow, the next day and the one after that.

Later in the morning, I went out into the garden. During the winter, the roof of the shed had yielded to frost and its age, though I secretly suspected the squirrels, and had sprung a leak. Inside there was a scum of moisture from the previous day’s rain. I hoicked out the fork and secateurs and carried them over to the lilac tree. Lilac is greedy: it drains every drop of moisture from the soil, the garden dipsomaniac, but mine got away with it because of the pleasure I took in its scent and heavy, erotic flowers, but the patch under it remained the one place where I struggled to make any plant thrive, however often I got down on my knees and coaxed.

A solution was to cut a rain tunnel into its branches now before the new growth was too thick or the tiny infant blossoms had appeared, when I could not bear to cut them away.

Dead wood is easy enough to target: it takes only a snip here and there and the dry, brittle spikes fall away. But last year’s growth was strong, sappy and lubricated with coming spring. It resisted my invasion: it did not understand the need for a rain tunnel. For half an hour or more, I fought with it, and my secateurs bit deep into pulpy flesh, leaving scars that would weep into the rain.

Anyway, I needed Nathan on the stepladder to finish the job properly. My sense of balance had never been good, and he had never let me up the stepladder. ‘I want you alive,’ he said. ‘How would I manage without you?’

I began to cry again.

I seized the fork and drove it into the earth. At best, digging was a calming activity; at worst, it induced exhaustion. I did not care which. This many-times-performed ordinary task must help me: it would provide reassurance that energy continued to flow over obstacles, and that digging and weeding would always be required. Even if a wife was not.

Despite applications of mulch, the earth remained stubborn and fractious, clagging the tines. The handle whipped out of my hands. Again, I lifted the fork and sank it into the dry, lumpen clay. This time, it struck a root mass and refused to budge.

‘Go on, damn you,’ I muttered. ‘Please.’ But it was no good: the fork was stuck. I wiped my face with the back of my hand.

A click sounded in my head. Almost immediately, there was an alteration in my vision of the merest fraction, but what I saw was wider and larger, less exclusive. It was like cutting into a piecrust to discover that underneath was rotten meat. It was like peering at my picture of the roses to see not only the ruffle of the petals and tender green calyx, but the canker, the sulphurous weal, burning on the bud.

How had I missed the rot on the Iceberg rose? Or the woodlice and wireworms snaking through the meagre patch I had turned over. Or the spume of stones, the shard of orange plastic and a ringpull from a can. Woven, too, around these underground citizens and invaders were the lusty, ubiquitous roots of bindweed.

‘I can’t believe it,’ said Vee, when she rang later that evening. ‘Did you have any idea? I haven’t talked to you properly for so long, Rose, that I don’t know what’s been going on.’

Once upon a time, we would have known exactly what was happening in each other’s lives, but recently, not so much. Our once close, interconnecting friendship had been the victim of our busy lives. Vee was the books editor on a rival newspaper – ‘Rivals make the best of friends’ – she was on her second marriage and a late-starter mother, while I had been caught up in my job. There was no room in the spaces between these intense, life-building activities to cram in any more.

Vee sounded tired and I felt guilty that I had bothered her. ‘No, I didn’t but I wasn’t looking. He didn’t buy new underwear, or put on aftershave, or read poetry. Vee, I’m sorry I bothered you, but I couldn’t think of who else to turn to.’

‘Of course you should have rung me. But I was on the way to my ex-nanny’s wedding. The last thing I wanted to do on a precious Saturday but all in a good cause. I wanted to make sure that the current one realized how solid and friendly our relationship could be.’

I understood the subterfuges to which a working mother descended. They were justified on the grounds that no moral scruple was greater than ensuring the care and comfort of children – which left pretty much a blank sheet where behaviour was concerned.

‘Look, would you like to come over here? I could fix some supper.’

I was having difficulty focusing on anything, and the idea of leaving the house made me panic. ‘No, no, it’s fine. Just talking to you is enough.’

‘Have you told the children?’

‘I can’t bear to. Not just for the moment.’ Sam would go silent with shock; Poppy’s red mouth would pale and tremble.

‘Rose, I know how you’re feeling, believe me. You must call me, day or night.’

‘Thank you.’

There was nothing more to add.

I went on the hunt for Nathan’s whisky and found it in his study. An empty glass with a thumbnail of peaty residue in the bottom stood beside the bottle. No doubt he had drunk it while he waited for me to come home and planned his escape from our marriage. I disliked whisky but I poured myself a slug and it obliged me by punching into my empty stomach.

I thought of Minty shaking her shiny head, the soft whoop of her laughter, and Nathan joining in. I supposed some of their amusement had been directed at me.

I had the strangest sensation that my body had become a foreign entity to which I held no key; neither did I possess a map to its arrangement of skin, bones and blood. I held out a hand. Would my fingers flex? Would I manage to swallow? Would the air in the tiny alveoli in my lungs perform its chemical exchange? A pain pulsed above my left eye, and my throat was sore from crying. Shock, of course: my body had raced ahead of my mind. Although I had listened to Nathan, heard the front door snap behind him, and I had inhabited an empty house for a day and a night, a part of me did not believe that he had gone.

Nathan loved his study. The notice on the door said, ‘Keep Out,’ and he had insisted on installing two phone lines and purred when they rang at the same time. His study had been the dry run for the office, and in it he reflected on weighty office matters. He had taken pains also to set up systems to deal with bills, insurance and family finance.

I sat down at the desk, opened a drawer and was confronted by his neat arrangement of Sellotape, biros and screwdriver. On the notepad by the phone was written, ‘Ring accountant.’

It was a fair bet that he had – before quitting the study to sack his wife. Nathan always worked methodically through the tasks he set himself.

A long time ago Vee had accused Nathan of being unimaginative, but I argued that he was the opposite. It was precisely because he could imagine only too well the disasters that might overtake his family that he took such pains to anticipate them.

Hanging above the desk, at the point where it would have caught his eye each time he raised his head, was a framed photograph of Nathan and his colleagues at last year’s Christmas dinner. The men – they were all men – were in dinner jackets, which conferred clubbable conformity and suggested that the occasion, which was about eating and drinking, was important. I had teased Nathan about that.

He was seated between the chairman and the editor, and when he first produced it, the photograph had given me pleasure, for he looked so toned and relaxed. It read differently now: shining in Nathan’s expression was not the natural pleasure of a man at ease with his work and home but, rather, the excitement of a man who had embarked on a different course entirely.