Splitting (16 page)

The core of the amoeba is fluid; its outer parts jelly-like. When the amoeba wishes to move, fluid is converted to jelly at the leading end of the body, and jelly is converted to fluid at the other end, and so the whole animal moves along. The concept of “wish” is vague, and there seems no point within this single-cell creature which could generate an emotion, or drive, yet “wish” it does. It wishes to move, or chooses to move, or fails to remain still. However you put it, the amoeba demonstrates intent: just so Lady Rice’s body, flowing, incorporating, changing from fluid to jelly, jelly to fluid, announced to her and demonstrated to her parts its joint intent to experience a unified and unifying orgasm, as Ram strove and stroked.

“That’s better,” said Angel to the others, shuddering and juddering. Ram pulled her close to him. “That’s what you lot needed. A good fuck.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Angelica. “It was the last thing I ever wanted,” and she turned her mouth away from Ram’s. “Edwin and I always got on well enough without. I liked being wooed and I liked being kissed, but I hate being out of control.” Angel made Angelica turn her mouth back to Ram’s. His lips were heavy on hers and Jelly could feel the bristles of his chin roughening the delicate skin of her cheek, but had to let the matter rest.

“He’s not even wearing a condom,” agitated Jelly into Lady Rice’s ear; surely that would make an impact. “For God’s sake, put a stop to all this—”

“It’s beyond me,” murmured Lady Rice, consenting to make a final comment, but quite without affect. “My mother used to tell me there was no stopping a man once he’s begun, or you get yourself raped. So why begin it? Just get it over. But aren’t you going to be late for the office? All right for you to be as late as you like; just not all right for me to stay in bed in the mornings.”

Jelly and Angelica wept, Lady Rice sulked, Angel responded to Ram in energetic fashion, though her own gratification had been long since gained.

“We must do this again,” said Rani. “Tomorrow?”

They wondered what to reply. They talked amongst themselves.

“Get involved with a chauffeur?” demanded Angelica. “You must be joking.”

“Impossible. I must keep my mind on my work,” said Jelly. “I can’t afford diversion.”

“Never, never, never,” cried Lady Rice, panicked back into existence. She was having trouble staying away, for all her hurt feelings. “Edwin might find out.” But they discounted her. She was the one who loved Edwin. The others had long given up. Love, they could see, was a luxury they could ill afford. The humiliation of love spurned was what made women on the edge of a divorce give up their rights so easily. “Take it all,” they cry. “I don’t want a thing.” Later, when love’s over, they can see their mistake. The man seldom has any such qualms. Winner takes all.

“Of course we’ll do it again tomorrow,” said Angel, and, as she had use of the mouth and the whole body felt good and at ease, it was Angel Ram heard. “Unless you’re free this evening. But shall we concentrate on now?”

“Slut, whore, bitch! Anybody’s! Stone her to death,” came Angelica’s response. She
was
in a temper. Angel bit her own lip and let out a yelp. Ram licked the sore place better.

“And what time of the month is it?” Jelly asked. “Forget AIDS, what about pregnancy? Christ, you’re irresponsible.”

Lady Rice just gave up and thought about other things. Let Angelica, Jelly and Angel emote; it left her free to reflect in tranquillity. She had wanted a fuck and got one but, when it came to it, this was no kind of answer. She supposed she was in the power of the statistic, yet again. She was one of the 34 percent of women who engage in untoward sexual activity when first apart from their husbands and suffering, as a consequence, from low self-esteem. Her own behavior, she could see, was nothing to do with her, not her responsibility at all.

Interesting, she noted, that Angel’s stretched arms fell apart from around Ram’s neck at the moment of orgasm. Jelly would have clasped hers the tighter, in surprise. Angel, on orgasm, felt gratification, not surprise. Angel’s body fell automatically loose and languid at such a moment. Angelica would have tautly stretched and sidestepped: first the stretch to better experience, but then the last-minute sidestep to avoid the fluid to jelly, jelly to fluid of orgasmic takeover. Fidgeting, defensive Angelica; self-interested, manipulative Jelly; serve them both right to be overwhelmed by the desires of lustful, conscienceless Angel!

What pleasure then, as out of the sepulchral gloom which surrounds the death of marriage, this brilliance dawned, this Angel, sweeping away humiliation, self-interest, discrimination, with such powerful wings. Or this at least was how Angel would have liked her compatriots to view her birth. If only the others could have seen it so. This new source of lustful energy streamed out waves of stormy, light-dappled dark; and in the flickering blackness of the car-park Ram McDonald also gained his power; hairy male arms and legs entwined with her angelic smooth white limbs.

“King Crab Ram,” Angel called him, and when he asked her why, said he’s clearly crawled out from under a rock, perfectly at home in his watery parking lot; monstrous yet everyday; the handsome, healthiest crab you ever saw; king of the rock pool, all-important till you got a glimpse of the ocean. A chauffeur today, but who tomorrow?

If Angel fluttered through clouds of sexual glory, it was to rejoice in their turbulence. Good Bad Angel, thought Lady Rice; her little sister Angel, who loved to feel the stickiness of hot leather on naked thighs, who rejoiced in the rush of non-identity to the head, the feel of long skinny legs opened, the satisfaction of the thrust of strange hard flesh felt between; and the familiar flurry and panting begin, the search for the soul of the other, buried so obtusely in flesh. Leave it all to Angel.

Angel cried out, in urgent anticipation of her coming to birth.

“Be quiet,” begged Jelly. “Don’t make that dreadful noise.”

“Don’t overdo it,” warned Angelica. “He’ll think you’re faking.”

Good Bad Angel, little sister! Lady Rice denied maternal status. She would be Angel’s sister; that much she could allow, but she could, never see herself as mother in charge. She had had enough of all that, in marriage. In charge of Rice Court, in charge of her husband’s happiness, in charge of everyone’s morals, as good wives are: inexorably, little by little, simply by virtue of knowing best, being turned into mother, albeit one without children. What even halfway decent man could allow himself to stay married to his mother, once that status had become unequivocal? Her spirit began to wander.

“By the way,” said Angel, humping and pumping away. “My full name’s Angel Lamb.” Lamb was Angelica’s mother’s maiden name. “I am the Angel and the Id together,” she introduced herself. “I am the internalized sibling of Lady Rice, Angelica Barley (a passing stage name) and Jelly White, our father’s daughter. Now just shut up and let me get on with this. There’s no stopping me now I’m here. The time you’ve wasted; the journeys you’ve taken with this gorgeous hunk of manhood and done nothing about it! Too bad!”

Angelica winced at the phraseology, and Jelly lamented the folly of what had been done, and Lady Rice drowsed and sniffed her un-happiness and got out of the mind altogether. m

I
N HER DROWSINESS, LADY
Rice became telepathic, saw visions, moved about her own house like a ghost. Since they would not let her through the door, she had no choice but to move through walls. Rice Court was her home. And if the inside of a body, a head, gets too crowded, one or other of the inhabitants is likely to go for a walk. The spirit of Lady Rice went wandering, and shot unbidden to Rice Court.

As Ram leaned over Angel, shuffling off his blue serge trousers in the back of the Volvo, and Angel inclined further backwards on the real leather seats—with their added helpful spray of leather aroma—pulling her narrow skirt further up around her hips to demonstrate her assent, to quieten her howling, Edwin entered Anthea, not in the marital bed but in the second floor linen room of Rice Court and Lady Rice witnessed it. Here the shelves were neatly stacked with bedding of the old and tasteful kind, linens and cottons well-washed to a delicate flimsiness, folded neatly and flatly by Mrs. MacArthur or her staff: woollen blankets likewise: not an acrylic duvet or a man-made fiber in sight.

Lady Rice thought she saw a fanged monster slouch by outside the linen room: a bulky thing straight out of hell, with a leathery hide and red eyes, but it was waiting for Edwin, not for her. It moved by, almost touching her, and she did not mind. Perhaps it was her beast? Perhaps she owned it?

Edwin, massively built, broad-shouldered, a softness of flesh covering muscle and nerve, smooth-chested, warm-skinned in spite of his blue blood, a chin naturally commanding but with a nature perpetually retreating, these days appeared to the outside world as a man extremely fortunate in his heredity, both physical and financial. He was supremely rational, calmly confident, pleasant and cooperative, and intelligent enough, with untold shares invested in mysterious companies abroad. This man, this paragon, this foolish Prince now grown into Kingship, leaned back against the slatted laundry shelves, parted Anthea’s knees with his, pushed up between her thighs and with no ceremony entered her. Anthea barely blenched, though Lady Rice did. Anthea wore a familiar headscarf of heavy cream silk, with a splatter of anchor chains and horses upon it. Edwin, Lady Rice perceived, liked Anthea to wear the headscarf in the house and out of it, and Anthea, conscious always that her hair was probably in need of washing, made no objection to doing so. The headscarf, at this moment, was all she wore. She was narrow-hipped to the point of skinniness. Lady Rice, watching, found the woman wholly eclipsed by the man, by so many inches did his width surpass hers. They had to use the linen cupboard, clearly, because Mrs. MacArthur too often surprised them: bringing their breakfast on a tray, or saying the cleaners wanted to get in, or the plumber, or Robert Jellico needed Edwin’s presence: Here they were safe, for at least an hour or so.

So much for the spirit of Lady Rice.

It was understood, but seldom said, that Edwin had succumbed to a passing infatuation when he married Angelica; he had married someone hopelessly unsuitable; a young woman with no background, who not only wouldn’t ride to hounds but spoke up for the hunt saboteurs; who would unfairly refuse her husband his marital rights on one pretext or another, while still claiming his title. Of course he had looked elsewhere. Anthea understood that the way to keep a man happy was to give him as much sex as possible but no intellectual challenges. Men liked to rest, once adolescence was over.

See Anthea now, as did the spirit of Lady Rice, leaning back into pieces of soap-scented linen, arms outstretched as if crucified against the shelves, hands clenching and un-clenching; eyes rolling, gasping: more, more! Oh darling! They seldom kiss—it seems too personal. That’s how Edwin likes sex; so does Anthea. Lots of sex, and all of it impersonal.

My problem, thought Lady Rice, or one of them, was that the original Angelica, ex-Kinky Virgin, turned out to be over-fussy. Angelica required wooing; she had a notion of romance; she liked kissing, endearment, sweet words, tired easily, and in the end would rather plainly not fuck at all if she could help it. A man can grow weary of that kind of thing. Seduction and persuasion, foreplaying and tantalizing, are all very well for a year or two, but ten years into a childless marriage can begin to seem onerous.

The spirit of Lady Rice was called back to the Volvo, urgently. The snarl of the monster had for a time drowned her alter egos’ cries for help.

“Jesus!” cried Angelica. “I can’t keep Angel in her place. She’s taking over. Where are you, Lady Rice?”

“She won’t listen to us,” moaned Jelly. “There’ll be no holding her. She simply will not abide by a consensus. She isn’t safe.”

“I’m just trying to get a few things straight in my head,” said Lady Rice vaguely. “Trying to be a nicer person.”

“That is a luxury we can’t afford,” screeched Angelica. “This slut is budding off from you. Do something! She’s your unconscious, not ours.”

“Oh dear,” said Lady Rice, and returned to her body, relieved of the attempt to be reasonable, to overcome jealousy, and see things from Edwin’s point of view. But she was too late.

For even as in the second floor linen cupboard of the ancestral home her rightful husband shuddered within her rival, in the back of Ram’s car Angel let out the bellow which was her birth-cry. The umbilical cord that tied Angel to Lady Rice was cut. Angel understood, as Angelica had not, or Jelly either, that life could be good. You just had to accept what it offered, and if the offering was male, you’d take it.

Angel adjusted her dress and Ram took up his place in the front seat and took her to the very door of the office, not just the corner of the square. Could someone so precious be expected to walk even a few yards when the chauffeur was at hand?

“I
’M SORRY TO BE
so late,” said Jelly to Brian Moss, of the velvety smooth voice, cunning eye and beautifully cut suit. “I had to go to the doctor. I hope you haven’t opened the post,” she added. “You always get everything in such a muddle.”

“I leave detail to you, my dear,” he said. “I look after the major issues, the wider sweep, as befits the male. Shall we have coffee now?”

“You mean will I make it?” she asked, and did.

These days a good legal secretary is hard to find and, if they are found, are usually elderly women—the young ones decline to take work both so responsible and so poorly paid. Legal secretaries often start out with crabby natures—those with an eye to detail often have these—and impatience with human folly gets the better of them, and feeds into the original disposition. It is not easy or pleasant to get correct, day after day, the detail by which human beings try to wrest justice from a world determined not to deliver it. People, it soon becomes clear to the legal secretary, veer either to the delinquent or to the boring. At the delinquent end of the scale, in criminal or family law, there is too much distress; at the tedious end—contractual or constitutional law—there is just yawning boredom. And even that boredom exists as a fragile, if opaque, lid on a bubbling cauldron of iniquity and roguery; scams so great, from the stealing of pension funds to the selling of junk bonds to the hijacking of nations, it is hard to believe it is happening. The detail of fraud is not so much interesting as incomprehensible to the noncriminal mind. Spelling mistakes creep in. Negatives where negatives should not be. The computer operator, the legal secretary, to whom the shameless effrontery of others so often is initially apparent, tends to shut up and stay silent. A bad dream induced by boredom, they tell themselves. It can’t be happening. Shut up, stay quiet, don’t stir things up, look after yourself, keep the job. The world can’t be as bad as this, nor the people in it so villainous, so confident in their grey-suited villainy: the stories unfolding before my eyes upon the screen, she moans, must surely be fiction. But no.