The Jealous One (10 page)

When Rosamund woke the next morning, she did not yet realise that she had caught ’flu; it would be another twenty four hours before the symptoms became unmistakeable. She knew that she had passed a restless, half wakeful night, and that she now felt depressed and tired, disturbed by a vague sense of foreboding: but her anxiety and unhappiness about her husband and Lindy seemed quite enough to account for all this. She lay for a few minutes after the alarm had gone, weighed down by a dreadful
reluctance
to do anything at all. Getting up, cooking
breakfast
, tidying the house, all seemed equally impossible. And when she remembered that this was the day for the coffee morning at Norah’s, her depression unexpectedly deepened. For usually she greatly enjoyed these sessions of gossip and problem-airing, in spite of the fact that they had been Lindy’s idea in the first place. Within a few days of moving into the neighbourhood, Lindy had expressed herself
astonished
that no such activity existed among the local
housewives
. But
everybody
has been having them for
years,
she had declared wonderingly: they were such
fun,
and such a good way of getting to know the neighbours … of bringing out the shy ones … of giving the housebound young mothers the chance of a little intelligent conversation.

She turned out to be perfectly right, of course: the
meetings
were
fun, and achieved everything she had predicted of them. The shy and the housebound, as well as the notably
un-shy and the opinionated, came flocking to the first
meeting
, held in Lindy’s charming sitting room. Lindy had started things off with an amusing little speech about her trip to America three years ago, and of course that had led to a lovely discussion about the evils of affluence—always a delightful topic to discuss in affluent surrounding. It had been agreed that they should meet once a fortnight, in each others’ houses, each in turn acting as hostess. It was a splendid idea, the only snag being that Lindy had started off the cycle with such a lavish supply of refreshments that the succeeding hostesses were left with a major problem on their hands: whether to keep up with her over-generous standards, or to risk appearing mean. Rosamund,
summoning
all her courage, had tried to reverse the trend when it came to her turn, and had firmly produced nothing but biscuits to accompany the coffee: and the look of relief on all the faces at the sight of this modest display had led her (rashly) to suppose that the entertainment would from now on establish itself at this manageable level.

But almost at once the standards began creeping up again. The next hostess after Rosamund produced biscuits and a plate of little scones, which she declared, a little apologetically, she ‘happened to have just made’. The next one produced, without apology, biscuits, scones, and a huge chocolate cake: the next one biscuits, buttered buns, cheese tartlets, and meringues. By now it was a landslide.
Sandwiches
, smörgesbrodt, olives, sausages on sticks, half a dozen different kinds of cake—these were what poor Norah had to contend with. It was no wonder that when she rang Rosamund, in desperation, just after breakfast, she spoke of these fast-multiplying delicacies as if they were advancing enemy troops, and her home the beleaguered citadel.

‘… and I thought, with the fruit cake, that would be enough,’ she was gabbling. ‘Because of course I was going to do the drop-scones last thing before we started, so they’d be hot. But I’ve only just got the sausage rolls in the oven now, there’ll never be time for the macaroons as well, they have to have such a cool oven. I shan’t even be able to
start
them
before ten! Oh, Rosamund,
what
do you think everyone would think if I simply ran out and
bought
a cake?’

She paused on this appalling suggestion for long enough to let it sink in, but not long enough for Rosamund to reply. ‘It seems so awful,’ she continued unhappily. ‘After that time at Rhoda’s!
Five
different kinds of cake—do you remember?—all home made! And those shrimp things in aspic; and…’

‘Why not let Rhoda win?’ suggested Rosamund
bracingly
. ‘
Someone’s
got to, in the end. Just give us biscuits, Norah. No one
wants
all that food in the middle of the morning. It’s ridiculous!’

‘I know, I know!’ wailed Norah. ‘But what can you do? Oh…. They’re burning…!’

The receiver at the other end crashed down. Rosamund, feeling quite revived now by the thought of the five different kinds of cake that she wasn’t having to make, set about her work quite energetically, and was ready to start for Norah’s in plenty of time not to be offered a lift in Lindy’s car. There was something peculiarly dreadful about Lindy’s many small acts of kindness towards her. It wasn’t so bad when Geoffrey was there too—you could then feel that she was acting a part for his benefit; but when he wasn’t, you didn’t know what to feel. All these little obliging actions, interspersed with subtly spiteful remarks—what did they really mean? A more charitable character than Rosamund would no doubt suggest that Lindy’s bark was worse than her bite; but what consolation in this when it is always the bark that is ringing in your ears?

In spite of Rosamund’s early start, Lindy was there first. She was already comfortably settled in one of the
cretonne-covered
armchairs in Norah’s sitting roon, and Rosamund could see at once that she was being charming. No one would have guessed from her flattering comments on Norah’s pictures, her wall-paper, her iced walnut cake and the view from her window that the speaker considered Norah to be a nagging wife, a possessive and incompetent mother. Though of course, Rosamund reminded herself,
there was no real inconsistency, lots of nagging wives live in pretty houses….

‘Whatever are you looking at me like that for?’

Lindy finished on a slight laugh, as if the question was being asked jokingly. But Rosamund had a queer feeling that it hadn’t started like that at all; it was as if the words had been startled from Lindy by some sudden shock, from which, with swift effort, she had recovered herself. But what sort of a shock? And what
had
Rosamund been looking like? A quick glance into the mirror above Norah’s
mantelpiece
of course only revealed what mirrors always do reveal—the controlled, appraising look of one who wants to see what she looks like.

So Rosamund laughed too.

‘I was just surprised that you’ve beaten me to it,’ she
explained
. ‘I didn’t notice you passing me in the road—or didn’t you come in the car?’

‘Yes. Yes, I came in the car.’ Lindy still seemed to be watching her intently. Then: ‘Did you see Basil last night?’ she asked sharply, as Norah left the room for a minute.

Rosamund was taken aback at the unexpected question. She hadn’t seen Basil for weeks—had almost forgotten his existence.

‘No. Why? Did he say he was coming?’

‘No. I just wondered.’ Lindy did not seem to understand that further elucidation was called for. ‘He didn’t telephone, or anything?’ she persisted.

‘No. Why should he? We hardly know him. I only ever met him that once, you know, that time at your party….’

‘But you seemed to get to know him quite well then. I saw you talking together for ages. What did you think of him? Do tell me.’

Lindy was leaning forward now, intent and anxious, and Rosamund had an odd sense of a sudden small shifting of power between them—an indefinable change in the balance of their relationship. For a moment it made her physically dizzy, like an earth tremor beneath them both. The room seemed to quiver, she felt sick and shivering, but of course
this could have been the beginning of her ’flu: anyway, it passed quickly, and she found herself answering:

‘Well, it’s quite a while ago now, you know, but I
remember
thinking he was quite amusing. Yes, I liked him, really. He seems a rather impulsive young man, though….’

She was being guarded. She had the uneasy feeling that whatever she said on this topic was going to be used against her in some way—or rather, against Eileen, though by what devious means this could come about she could not imagine. But nothing more could be said now, for here was Norah back with another plate of food—plainly, she had ignored every scrap of Rosamund’s advice on the telephone—and behind her came three or four new arrivals; and the consequent confusion of greetings, exclamations and
enquiries
made further private conversation impossible.

The next half hour was devoted to the passing round of food and cups. About half the company fell to with gusto, forgetful both of their figures and of the future terrors of competitive hostess-craft; the other half vied with one another in that highly complex art of registering the utmost delight and enthusiasm about all kinds of cakes and pastries without actually eating any of them.

This ritual over, Norah’s worried little face relaxed a little as she surveyed the victorious mounds of left-overs which, like the survivors of a well-deployed army, had brought glory to their general: and now the discussion began.

As usual, it started with somebody’s travels to somewhere, but within minutes everyone, speaker included, were talking about their children, competing, like Hyde Park orators, for an audience for their particular problem.

The mothers of the teenagers won, of course: the owners of babies or toddlers didn’t stand a chance in the
competition
. For how pale and shadowy has toilet-training become during the last few years; and demand-feeding; and
jealousy
of the new baby; all the issues which not so long ago used to rock society from the topmost teaching hospitals to the humblest young mother at her welfare clinic, filling the newspapers and magazines with their backwash as they
passed. These once momentous questions have now been thrust back into the narrow nursery world from which they so mysteriously arose. Use your common sense, the young mothers are told nowadays: their brief glory is over.

Not so the mothers of the teenagers. Nothing so dull as common sense is demanded of
them.
The notoriety of their children’s age group inevitably rubs off a little on to them, and hitherto unremarkable housewives suddenly find
themselves
in the position of V.I.P.s, albeit of a secondary and reflected kind.

And so it came about that Rosamund, Norah, and a brisk, very young-looking brunette called Carlotta stepped
undisputed
into the limelight of this little company, simply by virtue of owning one or two each of these extraordinary creatures about whom so many millions of words are day after day poured forth. It had been like this for two or three years already for Rosamund, but she still enjoyed it. ‘We’ve
got
one!’ she could say of Peter, as if he were a Great Auk’s egg, or a burglar alarm that unfolded into a coffee table: and the uninitiated would at once turn to her, attentive, respectful, and full of solemn questions. And it hardly mattered how she answered; everything she said was
listened
to with awe and wonderment, as were the travellers’ tales of long ago: she might have been an explorer, newly returned from some dangerous and uncharted jungle. What is it
like
, people would say, wide-eyed; what
happens
?

But this morning her unearned notoriety was less
enjoyable
than usual, for of late, for the first time, she had begun to think of Peter as a problem instead of merely as a
nuisance
. Not that Peter had changed particularly. He was really no lazier, no more unpredictable, no worse mannered than he had been for ages; it was just that he and his
failings
seemed to matter more. As the happiness of
Rosamund
’s marriage slowly drained away it was leaving Peter and his sins sticking up like a jagged rock, right in the middle of everything; you could no longer float past and over them on smooth sunlit waters. She felt sure that Geoffrey was aware of the change, too: his relationship with
his son was deteriorating as she watched. Not that he called Peter to order more than he had before, or was more severe; if anything he was less so. But his reprimands, when they came, were unhappy and irritable where once they had been confident; as if, Rosamund fancied, he resented having to be bothered with the boy’s misdemeanours—resented, perhaps, having to be bothered with his home life at all. Or as if his eyes had been opened to imperfections in a way they had never been in the old happy days. A skilful teacher he had at his command, one who could train and develop sensitivity to domestic imperfections as if it were a precious artistic gift.

So Rosamund’s contributions to the debate this morning were a little sombre; so too were Norah’s. Norah, very
tentatively
, allowed herself to enjoy for just a little while her prestige as the owner of the most nearly delinquent son of their little circle, but never for long. Ned’s misdoings always earned her a good deal of interest and sympathy, and would have earned more but for her habit of whitewashing, as well as worrying about, everything he did. The resultant
bewildering
tangle of worry and whitewash threw everyone into some uncertainty, no one feeling sure where sympathy would be appropriate and where it would merely throw her into a nervous fluster of retractions and explanations.

Carlotta’s recital came next. No problems here, but the same unbroken success story as had been deflating all her friends for years, ever since the days of her unnaturally natural pregnancies when she had felt so much less sick than anyone else and had produced bigger babies with shorter labours and fewer stitches than anyone could imagine. The way she’d talked about it, you’d think that the babies were mere by-products of the process; no more than incidental trophies designed to commemorate Carlotta’s capacity for Radiant Motherhood. You kept waiting for something to go wrong, but nothing ever did: and now here was the first of these products getting nine O-levels and a prize for physics—a tribute this time to his mother’s
qualities
as a Whole Woman.