Crimson (39 page)

That night, as often when she put Josh to bed, Clare held the most precious thing in her world close to her heart and felt guilty and ashamed that she wasn’t providing him with the things she thought she should. She lived with guilt even as she fiercely told herself that it wasn’t fair that her life now should be so miserable and exhausting.

Josh had to be squeezed into Clare’s tight weekday schcdule: after taking him to the babysitter in Pimlico, she caught another bus to the shoe shop where she worked. Lunch hour meant a hurried visit to a launderette or one of the new supermarkets. At six o’clock, Clare again caught the to Pimlico, took Josh back to her basement, cooked supper, cooked her supper increasingly, the same ry food sufficed for both, put Josh to bed, had a looked over any paperwork required by her solicitor, aw led into bed with a book, fell asleep after reading a -page, and woke two hours later, unable to get back to Acep. Insomnia plagued her and sapped her strength. Exhausted and without much hope for the future, she gradually slipped into a permanent state of depresion, which made life even more difficult for Josh, although neither of them realized this.

Thankfully, at weekends, Clare felt almost normal again. On Saturdays, she stayed in bed late although as Josh bounced up and down beside her, it wasn’t a very restful experience. But she didn’t mind as she cuddled his warm little body next to hers, played hide-and-seek under the bedclothes, or read aloud to him. Later, soaping her soWs slippery body in the bath as he wriggled from her grasp and splashed water up at his mother, Clare would again feel happy.

On Saturday afternoons, Clare pushed Josh’s collapsible canvas pram up Sloane Street towards Kensington Gardens” where she mixed happily with other children and. working mothers. They were all sniffed at by the uniformed nannies, who wheeled oldfashioned perambulators rather than the canvas collapsibles.

On Sunday mornings, Clare and Josh went to Mrs. Gooden’s. Here Clare who could cook a hamburger but not much else learned to prepare a traditional British lunch of roast meat and vegetables, followed by a fruit pie or tart.

“You’ve got light fingers,” Mrs. Gooden said approvingly one Sunday as she watched Clare, with the tips of her fingers, mix flour and lard in the big yellow mixing bowl.

“We’ll make a baker of you yet.”

Shortly after this, Clare started to swap babysitting evenings with Stephanie, a mother who also took her small son to Mrs. Gooden. This arrangement ensured that, once a week, both women had an evening and a night off, followed by a leisurely rise the next morning.

On Clare’s first such evening off, she went to a dinner party given by an old schoolfriend who persisted in keeping in touch. Clare’s partner was a just-divorced man who talked endlessly about ‘that bitch who needn’t think she has a free meal ticket for life’, then took Clare to dance at Annabel’s, London’s most expensive new nightclub. He tore her dress on the taxi journey back to her flat, and after a tussle, finally, standing on the pavement at three a.m. he realized that she really wouldn’t allow him in. The following morning, Clare arrived late for work When Gilda heard what happened, she said, “A man who’s just staggered out of nasty relationship wants a bloody nursemaid at first, and then he wants to play the field for a bit. But what he really wants is another relationship.” Clare said, V don’t want another relationship until I’ve struggled free of this one.”

“Maybe you ought to play the field a bit,” Gilda suggested.

“That’s what my solicitor’s afraid of,” Clare said.

“He says it would ruin my case. He’d like to shut me up in a box for the next two years. But Sam can apparently do what the hell he likes, with as many women as he pleases!”

On her next evening out, Clare remembered Gilda’s advice. Feeling selfconscious at entering a pub by herself, she slunk into the Markham Arms, a glamorous tavern in the King’s Road where men-about-Chelsea relaxed in the evening.

Sitting on the next barstool was an antiques dealer called James; he discussed his feelings with Clare for the next two s and then took her to dinner at the Ox on the Roof, she chose the most filling dishes, Eating spaghetti, Oare began to suspect that James would rather talk about 4 relationship than have one; wolfing bocuf bourgaignon, she wondered whether James was flaunting his insecurities in order to attract the maternal feelings he clearly believed nestled within every woman’s breast and from which Clare was trying to escape for the evening.

By the time the creme brfile was served, she realized that James wasn’t the gentle, sensitive, vulnerable charmer that she had first imagined but a crashing bore.

Nevertheless, having had far too much to drink, Clare woke up the next morning in James’s bed, saw that it was nearly nine o’clock, fled to work in her crumpled clothes but arrived late again. Gilda winked.

The following week, Clare avoided the Markham Arms and went instead to the Bunch of Grapes in Knightsbridge. There she met Ian, a fruit exporter. Ian was boyish, athletic, charming, and, Clare suspected, terrified of his fortieth birthday: there had been a bit of the Peter Pan in Sam, and Clare recognized the symptoms.

During dinner at the Pheasantry, Ian clearly expected Clare to be frivolously entertaining. He belittled any attempt at serious conversation with phrases such as, “Well, you’re quite a bluestocking,” or, “Actually, I didn’t come out to discuss politics.”

The next morning, Ian woke her up with a cup of tea, said he was sorry about last night, he’d had a bit too much to drink. Again Clare was late to work.

“Of course they both seemed nice guys,” Gilda commiserated.

“But they was fake nice guys, pretending to be nice guys. If you’re going to get picked up in bars and hand it out free on the first date, you’d better check in regular at St. Stephen’s.”

“Is that a church?”

“No, the local clap clinic.” Always, when Clare’s hangover subsided, she wondered why she did it. She found no sexual pleasure in going to bed with strangers, but, in contrast with the rest of her week, she was comforted by the feeling of being thought desirable, of having someone’s arms around her, of warm cuddling beneath the quilt.

One morning, Clare found herself in a rumpled bed in a strange bedroom with only sixpence in her purse not enough to get to work. If she was late for work one more time, she knew, she would be fired. Clare panicked and telephoned Miranda.

Wondering whether the prim Miss Goody-Goody of a few months ago had really metamorphosed into this forlorn and wanton creature, Miranda said, “I’ll send a car for you, straight away.” She hesitated.

“Couldn’t we meet, Clare? … Won’t you let me give you some money-just to tide you overT “No,” Clare lied.

“I have plenty of money at home.”

“Gran’s worried about you. We all are.”

“How is she?” Clare asked wistfully. In the past, when she felt depressed, she knew that she could always rely on her grandmother to lift her spirits.

“Gran would feel a lot happier if you paid her a visit. Couldn’t you fly to the south of France, just for a week?”

“No,” Clare said, feeling rage rise.

“I can’t take time off.”

“How about a better job?” Miranda suggested.

“You’ve had experience as a shop assistant, so you could work in one of our shops. You’ll probably be better paid, and have a better time of it.”

“No. I want to learn to manage by myself. Don’t worry. I’ll survive.”

“But what about Josh?” “Josh will have to put up with the life that his mother can afford to lead.” was fired for turning up late after she had to wait for her because Josh had a temperature. As the shop owner pointed out, it was the third time that month d been late for work, and if they hadn’t needed her to up on time, they wouldn’t have hired her in the first Having decided to start her own nursery play group sold her engagement ring, a flashy marquise dian in order to buy the lease of the first floor of a big ward ian house in Pimlico: it contained a ballroom, a all rear room, and a bathroom. Clare’s assistants were o other single mothers whose children were also cared for by Mrs. Gooden.

Mrs. Gooden lost three kiddies and three pounds a day but, instead, found herself cooking lunch for thirty-four, a far more lucrative occupation. At midday, Mr. Gooden cycled round to the play group with lunch hauled behind on a trailer. He also did Clare’s bookkeeping. Clare doubled her income overnight, and felt that she was doing a

1F

useful job

p In contrast to Clare, her sister Miranda was leading the fast and frivolous life of the exciting sixties as Britain. launched into the first real business boom since Hitler’s war. A rush of stock exchange takeover bids coined money for shareholders, and Britain imported more French champagne than any other country, although one in three families still couldn’t afford a TV.

The former aristocratic standards of who and what was acceptable were now dumped; everyone wanted to belong to the new meritocracy, based not on birth but on talent, achievement, and the resultant financial reward the wit hit people, as opposed to the dull, un with-its.

Annabel was painted by David Hockney, and Miranda’s portrait a gloomy

study in greys by Brian Kneale was exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery. They both wished that Gran would hide her triple portrait: Annigom was definitely not with it.

Fashion was madly exciting: grannies happily wore miniskirts and platform thigh boots, while young girls wore button-up granny boots and Victorian-style, flower-printed dresses. Females under thirty tried to look like thumb sucking little girls; with turned-in toes, they skipped around in buttock-skimming shifts over pale tights. All females in their thirties dressed like chic astronauts; all women over forty wore jaunty, flared trouser suits.

Make-up manufacturers made a fortune.

TUESDAY, I I JANUARY 1966

Snow lay on the park outside as Miranda showed her new house in Cumberland Terrace to fashion editor Annie Trehearne. Since the heating wasn’t yet working, the two young women stamped around in winter coats and boots, and dodged whistling workmen, who no longer wore baggy dungarees but tight jeans as they ‘carried planks from one room to another.

Annie looked down from the first-floor drawing-room windows to the gaunt trees of Regent’s Park and said, “It’s simply super. Fab. Smashing. Let’s face it, Miranda, not many people of your age can afford to buy a house like this. KITS must be doing ffightfully well.” Miranda nodded.

“But KITS has expanded so fast we’re permanently short of capital. The money for this place came from a family trust.”

“Everyone should have a grandmother like yours. How is she?” “The doctors say she’s responding very well to the new treatment, and she expects to live for another hundred years.” “Glad to hear it.” “N I wan to know what you think of my new skin owl I t care range,” Miranda said.

“It’s targeted at the young twenties and I’m calling it Image. What do you think of launching it with pictures of DeneuveT “Pix by Bailey then. Expensive,” Annie said. Photographer David Bailey had recently married French film star Catherine Deneuve, with Mick Jagger as best man.

“Of course.” Miranda nodded again.

“By the way, how’s Annabel enjoying her retirement?”

“Off the record? Relieved, I think,” Miranda reported. She’s neatly switched to the life of a successful New York hostess she’s on every charity committee in town.” Miranda was not going to let anyone know that Annabel’s selfconfidence had been shattered. It had been painful to watch her struggle for her selfrespect, but she had managed to ward off the threatened nervous breakdown. Endless reassurance had been necessary not of her beauty, for nothing could persuade Annabel that it had not vanished, but of her value to them all, and of her family’s affection.

Airily Miranda continued, “Annabel’s just bought a new apartment. You really ought to hop over for a weekend “and see it, Annie. It’s a penthouse in a high rise on the Upper East Side, with a spectacular three-sided view over the city and across the river. It’s simply stunning. Someone else had practically bought the place, so Annabel was lucky to get it.”

“How did she manage it? “Simply offered more money. Adam fixed it.”

“That family trust again? What lucky girls you are! What news of ClareT “I don’t see much of Clare these days,” Miranda said. il She’s very busy, now that she’s running a nursery play” group She looked

out over the smudged white landscape of Regent’s Park, then peered at the road below.

“Hell, I’ve just got another parking fine. Those stupid new meters! It’s getting really difficult to drive in London.”

“Or out of it,” said Annie.

“Yes. I was pinched for dangerous driving last month, in a radar trap. Luckily, Adam fixed it.”

WEDNESDAY, 12 JANUARY 1966

Clare still swapped one night a week off with Stephanie and reported subsequent events to Gilda, who now aged the shoe shop: occasionally she visited Clare for an evening meal.

As Clare poured sherry, Gilda asked, “So how was the BOAC pilot?” “Tony was the worst yet.” Clare never felt embarrassed discussing sex with Gilda, who could talk about little else.

“He’d read all the sex manuals ever printed. Whipped a porn magazine out of his flight case after the first gin and tonic. He was coldly determined to be a good lover. For me, that was a total turn-off.”

“Porn pictures are a turn-off to most women. Women like words, not pictures,” Gilda said as she sipped her drink.

“But I’m starting to think that everything’s a turn-off for you, doll. You clearly can’t have sex with fellas you ain’t fond of. I expect you need a chap you know well, someone you feel comfortable with, not these one-nighters.” She swallowed half the glass.

“Now me, I’m the reverse. If I don’t give a damn about ‘em, I ain’t anxious, and if I ain’t anxious, then I come easy.” She drained her glass.

“When Tony couldn’t get me to climax, he wanted to ask another girl over,” Clare said.

“He automatically assumed that I was a lesbian.”

“That’s not what he meant,” Gilda said.

“Lots of guys find it a turn-on to watch two women making love.” How very odd. Can you imagine a woman trying to get .1wo men into bed so she could watch th em?” Forget this guy,” said Gilda.