Trouble (15 page)

‘What are you reading?’ asked Annette.

‘A book called
Healers of Olympus. Theotherapy: The Magic of the Gods. Symbols and Practice.
You wouldn’t be interested.’

‘Did Dr Rhea give it to you?’ asked Annette.

‘Please, Annette, go back to bed, go to sleep,’ said Spicer. ‘I’m not doing you any harm. I’m just sitting in my study and reading by candlelight. I wish you very well. I’ll sleep in the spare room so as not to disturb you.’

‘I was coming round this morning, Annette,’ said Gilda on the phone, ‘but there’s a new washer-drier being delivered. Steve bought it for a surprise. Now I’ve got to wait in for the man.’

‘That’s okay. Have you heard of Theotherapy, Gilda?’

‘I can’t say I have, Annette.’

‘It’s archetypal psychology,’ said Annette. ‘Jungian.’

‘You’ve already left me behind,’ said Gilda.

‘Symbols are primitive analogues that speak to the unconscious,’ said Annette. ‘I’ve been reading this book. Actually it’s rather more complicated than that. To quote Gustav Jung himself, they’re also ideas corresponding to the highest intuition produced by consciousness. Archetypes get to us all, Gilda. They’re what we know without knowing.’

‘Is it Spicer’s book?’ asked Gilda.

‘Yes,’ said Annette. ‘He said he’d sleep in the spare room, but he didn’t. He read till about five when he slipped in beside me. He was very cold. I think he just wanted to get warm. I was sorry for him. I don’t know why. He says if my reactions are screwy it’s because I have the moon in Aquarius. He seemed inclined to forgive me for my existence. Poor Spicer. I wish he were happier. A threesome with you and Marion and him won’t make him happy: I can see it might relieve some inner pain, but how horrible to have the pain in the first place.’

‘The threesome didn’t happen, Annette,’ said Gilda. ‘Believe me.’

‘I believe you, Gilda,’ said Annette. ‘I feel quite calm this morning. I think probably I’m good and he’s bad. But at least he’s trying to be good. I stretched out my hand and touched him. You know how men will be in bed, careful not to touch you but wanting your warmth?’

‘I can’t say I do, Annette,’ said Gilda. ‘I don’t know men like that.’

‘Lucky old you,’ said Annette. ‘In the early days we’d lie entwined, facing each other; I’d have my knee between his legs. That hardly ever happens now. Of course I’ve always had to wait for him to make sexual overtures to me; he’s always had to initiate lovemaking. If I make the first move he’ll turn over and go to sleep, or turn on the light and start reading, so I’ve learned not to. But last night I just touched him because I was so sorry for him. He winced. He just shrank away from me. It was worse than if he had hit me.’

‘You don’t have to tell me all this, Annette,’ said Gilda.

‘I’m sorry, Gilda,’ said Annette. ‘It’s too personal, isn’t it, sorrow? Even more personal than threesomes. Let’s get back to Theotherapy. Oh look, it’s inscribed inside the front cover: “To Spicer—a special gift, from Dr Rhea Marks”.’

‘Are you crying, Annette?’

‘No. I feel quite calm,’ said Annette.

‘It could have said “To darling Spicer with love from Rhea”,’ said Gilda.

‘Quite so,’ said Annette. ‘It’s the “special” I don’t like. There’s a pencil mark down the side of page eighty-one. Spicer never marks books. He hates the children doing it, or me. So we’ve learned not to. I expect Dr Rhea did the marking. He wouldn’t think to reproach her. The passage marked is about the goddess Hera, Gilda. Otherwise Juno. I suppose the first is Greek, the second Roman. It says “Attributes: Fatal softness, gullibility, dependence: ill treatment by husband: shame, embarrassment, bickering: scheming; meddling: intrigue: lying; insane jealousy: use of sex as a weapon …” Gilda, what’s going on? A little further on it says: “Therapies: bathing in moonlight, running water, wearing of bangles, bracelets and anklets.” I am suddenly so sleepy, Gilda, I am just going to lie down and sleep. I can’t go on talking.’

‘I wish I could help more, Annette.’

‘We used to be happy, Spicer and me,’ said Annette. ‘Really happy. But he seems not even to remember that any more: it’s as if someone were stealing all our good past: replacing it with something dreary and dreadful. But how can that be? I have to go to sleep.’

‘Annette, darling, you took ages to answer the phone.’

‘I was asleep, Spicer.’

‘Sleep is the best thing for you,’ said Spicer. ‘You’ve been looking so tired! Good news. The British Rail deal has come through at last. All signed and sealed. Horrocks Wine Imports out of the woods.’

‘I didn’t know Horrocks and Sons Wine Imports were in the woods,’ said Annette.

‘I didn’t like to worry you with it, darling,’ said Spicer. ‘It’s all been touch and go, financially, over the last couple of months. If I’ve been behaving out of character, that’s all it’s been. I’ve been under a strain.’

‘Spicer, I wish you’d told me,’ said Annette. ‘I thought I was causing the strain, but all the time it was only business worries! How wonderful—’

‘“Only business worries” is a rather mild way of describing near-bankruptcy, Annette,’ said Spicer. ‘You’ve no idea how close to ruin we were. How it distressed me, the thought of letting the family down: you, Susan, Jason, the baby, all of you!’

‘You would only have let us down in a material sense, Spicer,’ said Annette. ‘We wouldn’t have thought you loved us any less. You have been behaving rather strangely, Spicer.’

‘In what way, strange?’ asked Spicer. ‘I’m sorry you see it like that!’

‘I don’t see it any way, I’m just so pleased to have you back,’ said Annette. ‘Your voice is altogether different—’

‘The BR contract means me spending quite a few months in France each year,’ said Spicer. ‘I’ll have to go over in January, February. I’m sorry about that. The baby will be so new I’ll hate to miss a day. My loss. Shall we go out to lunch to celebrate? One o’clock? Can you make it?’

‘I’ve let myself get into such a mess,’ said Annette.

‘Stick your hair under the tap,’ said Spicer.

‘My eyes are swollen—’ said Annette.

‘Why? Does pregnancy do that?’ asked Spicer.

‘Seems to,’ said Annette.

‘We’ll have champagne and lobster,’ said Spicer.

‘I’m not sure about lobster,’ said Annette. ‘Salmon would be good.’

‘You can’t not like lobster all of a sudden,’ said Spicer.

‘My digestion’s a bit queasy,’ said Annette. ‘But it’s only temporary.’

‘I should hope so,’ said Spicer. ‘You’re my-lobster-and-champagne girl. Don’t let new motherhood change you too much. So it’s meet me for lunch, sweetheart, and put all our troubles behind us and start again.’

‘Oh, Spicer! Oh, darling!’

‘Gilda, it’s Annette. Gilda, everything’s explained. Spicer nearly went bankrupt. That’s why he’s been so dreadful. He’ll give up therapy now, I know he will. It’s only when the material world fails that the spiritual one seems so exciting.’

‘Annette,’ said Gilda. ‘I can’t bear to hear you sounding so happy.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s too sudden,’ said Gilda.

‘We’re having a celebration lunch, Gilda. Just him and me. Everything’s just fine. I’m sorry to have been such a pain. I have to go. I can’t find the hairdryer anywhere.’

‘Happy birthday, Annette!’

‘Happy birthday!’

‘Many happy returns of the day—’

‘Here’s to you, Annette!’

‘Many happy whatsits.’

‘Why, Spicer! And Ernie and Marion—and Eleanor and Humphrey! Good heavens, it’s my birthday! I’d quite forgotten!’

‘Trust Annette to forget her own birthday!’

‘Champagne, Annette? We opened it,’ said Spicer. ‘You are rather late. I said one. It’s one-twenty—’

‘Spicer, I’m sorry. It’s just when you say one it’s always one-thirty—’ said Annette, ‘so in my head I was going to be early …’

‘It’s party time again! My beautiful wife. Isn’t she lovely, isn’t she perfect, in spite of her bump!’ said Spicer. ‘In spite of her being the vaguest person in the world. Forgetting her own birthday!’

‘Because of her bump,’ said Eleanor, ‘not in spite of. It’s not the neatest bump in the world, it’s true. It is kind of all-pervasive. Round the back as well as in the front.’

‘I’d marry Annette tomorrow if I wasn’t married already,’ said Humphrey. ‘I love every single bumpy bit of her.’

‘That’s only because to live with Annette is to live in the Crescent,’ said Eleanor, ‘and that is your major ambition in life. You say it’s mine but everyone knows it’s yours.’

‘Hump would have to move me out first,’ said Spicer. ‘And if I ever move out of that house it will be feet first so I’m afraid we’re talking about murder.’

‘I did your Tarot cards again this morning, Annette,’ said Marion. ‘Here’s the computer printout. Happy Birthday! You can get a Tarot programme now. It chooses your cards at random. Jungian Synchronicity. You should read the great Carl Gustav’s intro to the
I Ching.
All part of the flow, the ebb and the flow. Isn’t that so, Spicer? Your cards were brilliant, Annette. Death upside down. That means new life, new hope, rebirth.’

‘And I’ve got Annette a couple more chat shows,’ said Ernie, and a
Guardian
interview. It looks as if this book of hers is going to make quite a splash, even without the Oprah Winfrey intervention!’

‘I may not be feeling up to any of it,’ said Annette. ‘I’ll let you know.’

‘Annette will decidedly not be feeling up to it,’ said Spicer. ‘Here comes the lobster thermidor. I ordered for everyone inasmuch as it’s a working weekday: we’ve all got to get back to work, except of course the birthday girl, who can sleep all day and often does. We have so very much to celebrate, Annette and myself: haven’t we, darling? Here are my birthday gifts to you, Annette, with all my very, very, very, very, very special love. One present for every very. Annette, the love of Spicer’s life. The only one.’

‘Thank you, Spicer,’ said Annette. ‘That was a really lovely speech.’

‘Start opening your presents now,’ said Spicer. ‘Nothing messier than lobster thermidor when the claw crackers start cracking.’

‘What pretty little packages,’ said Marion. ‘What can they be? Five little flat circles, so prettily wrapped! Are those mandalas on the paper?’

‘Mandalas, Marion?’ asked Ernie. ‘The things you know. Marion is into the occult. She’s had a pyramid made above her bed to focus the energy but it’s the energy of dreams that concerns her, nothing else.’

‘Sex is a waste of time, Ernie,’ said Marion. ‘It stands between a soul and its dreams.’

‘Bangles, bracelets and of solid gold, Spicer? You are so extravagant—’ said Eleanor, ‘and only recently you were talking bin-ends and desperation.’

‘I went down to Bond Street this morning and bought them,’ said Spicer. ‘Between one meeting and the next. I wanted something very special for Annette, on this very special day.’

‘But what’s the gold chain for, Spicer?’ asked Eleanor.

‘It’s an anklet chain,’ said Marion. ‘So pretty!’

‘Spicer, how glamorous, how thoughtful, just what I want. I simply love the bracelets,’ said Annette, ‘but the anklet will have to wait till after the baby. My ankles are so puffy! Look at them! I couldn’t bend down to get it on, let alone take it off, but I can put the bracelets on now. Just!’

‘Baby wrists,’ said Spicer. ‘I love them. Let me put them on. Not too tight?’

‘Just nicely firm,’ said Annette.

‘Now you look positively Indian!’ said Marion. ‘Properly docile. Not wild-eyed and academic at all. Ernie, will you buy me some bracelets?’

‘No, I will not,’ said Ernie. ‘I’ll give you some anti-New Age books to make you think.’

‘I’ll jangle wherever I go,’ said Annette, ‘from now on. And wherever I go I’ll think of you, Spicer. Thank you, my darling husband. I am so happy.’

‘Eat up your lobster,’ said Spicer.

‘Gilda?’

‘Hi, Annette,’ said Gilda. ‘I’m in the bath. Can you hear it? I have a phone in the bathroom now. Steve bought it for me, so you and I could talk more comfortably. Steve worries about you. So now I can lie in the warm water, which always relaxes me, and watch my tummy rippling. Ooh, there he goes. A foot or an elbow. Some people can tell which: I never can. The Clinic says he’ll be on time. You didn’t go again. They say the head’s engaged. I like being pregnant: I never thought I would. Being helpless is so sensuous. I don’t look forward to the birth one bit. How was the kiss-and-make-up lunch?’

‘I told Spicer I didn’t want lobster but he just went ahead and ordered it.’

‘I expect he just forgot.’

‘Yes,’ said Annette. ‘I expect so. But now I have indigestion. And it wasn’t tête-à-tête at all. There were other people.’

‘Spicer’s sociable by nature,’ said Gilda. ‘We all know that.’

‘Why didn’t he ask you and Steve? He asked everyone else.’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Gilda, after a little pause. ‘Do you think I’ve offended him in some way?’

‘It’s easy to do,’ said Annette. ‘Quite often nowadays it happens all by itself. It was my birthday and he gave me gold bracelets.’

‘Oh my God, I forgot your birthday!’ cried Gilda. ‘I’m so sorry, Annette.’

‘I forgot it too,’ said Annette, ‘what with one thing and another.’

‘That is just terrible!’

‘Spicer remembered,’ said Annette. ‘That was something. But I wish he hadn’t given me the bracelets.’

‘Sometimes I feel quite sorry for Spicer,’ said Gilda. ‘Not often, just sometimes. It does seem difficult for him to do anything right. It sounds a really nice present to me.’

‘If you remember,’ said Annette, ‘the therapy for the goddess Hera is bangles, bracelets and anklets. Turn to the relevant page and there’s another passage marked by Dr Rhea in the book on Theotherapy: it says Hera is endowed with all the positive characteristics of a good wife and mother, but is at the same time so prone to feelings of jealousy that she is prepared to sacrifice everything she believes in—even her own life, if need be—in an attempt to establish what she believes to be her own rights. Consequently, her married life tends to be dogged by ever-growing crisis.’

‘So?’ asked Gilda.

‘So, Gilda,’ said Annette, ‘having got nowhere with horoscopes, Dr Rhea is now attacking me with Theotherapy. She’s just near enough the truth to do me down in Spicer’s eyes. I’m not an unreasonably jealous person, am I?’