Trouble (2 page)

They were in the drawing room. Annette had found some candles and polished the candlesticks. Their light made the heavy grey curtains shimmer agreeably. She had arranged roses in the vases: red and white. The room seemed delightful.

‘I thought pregnant women weren’t supposed to drink alcohol,’ said Spicer.

‘Just a glass or so doesn’t hurt,’ she said.

‘I thought you’d be at the Clinic,’ he said. ‘Weren’t you supposed to go?’

‘It was Father’s Night,’ she said, ‘so if you couldn’t be there, there wasn’t much point in my going. Steve went with Gilda, though. So I had time to cook us something special. And since Susan and Jason have gone to the cinema, we can have some time to ourselves. Shall we eat now?’

‘I don’t know why you cooked beef,’ he said. ‘I don’t eat red meat. It goes against the grain.’

‘Since when?’ she asked. ‘And what grain?’ but he didn’t reply.

He was not in a jokey mood.

‘I’m afraid that without the meat,’ Annette apologised, serving her husband’s food, ‘the mangetout and the new potatoes look a little bleak.’

‘It takes very little food to keep me going,’ Spicer said. ‘Fruit and vegetables; pulses occasionally. In fact, Annette, if you would keep the fruit bowl full, I could help myself when my appetite dictated and then we could do without the formality of the family meals which nobody wants; let alone the dinners à deux. They must be as trying for you as they are for me.’

And Spicer smiled at Annette politely and rose and went to the living room and, instead of opening the newspaper as was his custom in the evening after dinner, opened a book entitled
The Search for the Father,
which had a whooshy pattern of oranges and reds upon the cover, and began to read intently.

Annette cleared the table. The baby kicked. Annette hurled a plate across the room. It broke. Annette went into the living room and snatched the book from Spicer’s hand and flung it in the fire.

‘For fuck’s sake, Spicer,’ Annette shrieked, ‘what is the
matter?’

Spicer regarded his wife calmly, only occasionally looking away from her into the fireplace to watch the book burn. He could have saved it had he wished, but he did not so wish.

‘Look at you!’ said Spicer. ‘Take a look at yourself in the mirror, ask yourself what the matter is, and try to calm down. You are quite insane.’

‘But what have I done?’

‘It isn’t your fault,’ said Spicer. ‘You can’t help yourself, I realise that. But shall we go through today’s performance? First you call me at my office and try to disturb my peace there; you cannot bear me to escape from you, even for an hour or two; you then call my secretary and try to turn her against me. You spend the morning talking to Gilda on the phone about our sex life—I had lunch with Stephen—it looks as if he’s being made redundant, by the way. You’re totally self-centred and without loyalty. I do not take kindly to you discussing our intimate life with your lesbian friend. I wonder what hold she has over you? When I come home late you’re not even interested enough to ask me where I’ve been. You’re wearing scent so I know that in your calculating way you have sex with me planned for tonight. You do apologise for calling me at the office, which is something, but then you follow it up with a remark designed to make me feel bad, about how much I upset you. You open a bottle of 1985 Saint Estephe without consulting me—you are so competitive it extends even into the world of wine!—and worse, do so without the slightest concern for the health of our baby. You have so much ambivalence about poor little Gillian, I’ll be surprised if you manage to bring her to term. You don’t go to the Clinic—cutting off your nose to spite my face because making me responsible for your actions is another way of controlling me, and you can’t resist a little extra dig, mentioning that Steve went with Gilda. Poor Steve: he seems to have no will of his own. You must have me all to yourself so you send the poor kids off to the cinema, regardless of what they want, let alone the fact that I might want to see them. You cook beef although you know perfectly well the only protein I can eat these days is white meat—chicken or a little fish—and you overcook the mangetout in a way that can only be deliberate. Then you break some plates, follow me in here where I am peacefully reading, snatch the book from my hand, and fling it in the fire. Is that enough about what the matter is? Now for God’s sake don’t start crying or you’ll upset the children. They’re upset enough already. Okay?’

‘Gilda,’ said Annette on the phone early next morning, ‘I am so miserable.’

‘What’s the matter now?’ asked Gilda. ‘What’s the time?’

‘It’s well past nine,’ said Annette. ‘I’m sorry. But I have to speak to someone.’

‘The baby kept me awake kicking all night,’ said Gilda. ‘I’ve only just got to sleep.’

‘Well, I didn’t sleep at all,’ said Annette. ‘I was suffering from terror. That’s the only way I can describe it.’

‘Tell me more,’ said Gilda. ‘Here’s Steve with my cup of tea. Thank you, Steve. You are so good to me. Okay, Annette, go on. Forgive me if I slurp.’

‘It’s a kind of black pit within the periphery of myself,’ said Annette. ‘It’s as black and empty as outer space, and everything spins down into it and is lost.’

‘A black hole,’ said Gilda. ‘I used to feel that when Jackson my first husband left me and I didn’t know how to pay the rent. I think you’re describing anxiety, not terror. What’s making you anxious?’

‘The thought of me without Spicer,’ said Annette. ‘He said such terrible things to me last night, and I love him and I’m having his baby. How could he? Then he just went and slept all night in the spare room. He said he was frightened to sleep next to me in case I did him some terrible damage. He said I was a madwoman, and eaten up with hatred of men.’

‘What had you done?’

‘I broke some plates,’ said Annette, ‘and threw the book he was reading into the fire.’

‘Well,’ said Gilda, ‘you ought to expect some reaction. If you behave like a madwoman you get called a madwoman.’

‘He drove me to it,’ said Annette. ‘He wouldn’t eat the dinner I cooked. And he was late home and wouldn’t say why. And I lay alone on the bed all night with a headache and a black hole in my chest, and I must have dozed off because when I woke Spicer had left the house and gone to work, and without a word, without a note.’

‘You told me you didn’t sleep at all,’ said Gilda.

‘Gilda, this is serious. There was a difference in tone. I can’t explain it. I’m terrified.’

‘It doesn’t sound serious to me,’ said Gilda. ‘He’ll ring later in the morning and apologise.’

At ten-thirty precisely the phone rang. Wendy put Spicer through.

‘Annette,’ said Spicer, ‘I hope you’re okay. I left you sleeping. You look lovely asleep: I didn’t want to wake you. I hope I didn’t upset you last night. I seem to get these moods these days.’

‘You upset me quite a lot,’ she said.

‘But you’re better now? It’s all forgotten?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘I love you very much,’ he said. ‘None of it’s your fault. You can’t help being what you are any more than I can.’

‘Well, thank you,’ said Annette.

‘Pauline just called. She and Christopher want us to join them at the opera tonight. I said yes. That’s okay, isn’t it? It’s
Figaro.’

‘That’s wonderful,’ said Annette. ‘Mozart is always soothing.’

There was a slight pause—

‘That’s not a dig, is it?’ asked Spicer.

‘Of course it isn’t,’ replied Annette. ‘How could it be?’

‘It could suggest you needed soothing, which means you’re not going to let bygones be bygones. Well, never mind either way. We’ll meet up at the Coliseum at seven then: eat afterwards. Wear something lovely, especially for me.’

‘Of course,’ said Annette. ‘Don’t I always? Spicer, you know you have a really remarkable memory? Last night you went through every single thing I said, in order, finding fault. The other side of appalled I was impressed.’

‘I don’t have time to talk now, darling,’ said Spicer. ‘Though I’d love to. I have a meeting. But yes, I do have a good memory. That’s Saturn’s doing, sextile my moon but, alas, also quincunx your sun.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Never mind,’ said Spicer. ‘Not your world. Must go. Kiss you.’

‘Kiss you,’ said Annette.

‘Gilda,’ said Annette, ‘you were quite right. Spicer phoned. The black hole feeling has gone. Last night was incidental, accidental. Put it like this: it was a little bit of emotional flotsam, washed up by the tides of togetherness. In ten years there’d be quite a lot to wash up.’

‘How poetical,’ said Gilda.

‘Thank you. I’m so relieved,’ said Annette. ‘And we’re going to the opera. I don’t know what Spicer was upset about and I suppose I’ll never know, and it doesn’t matter.’

‘I know what it may have been,’ said Gilda, ‘and all I can say is I’m sorry. I was about to phone you. I told Steve a bit about what you told me about Spicer and you in bed, and he talked to Spicer about it over lunch, he now tells me. I’m not speaking to Steve, it doesn’t matter how many cups of tea he brings me. It was a confidence.’

‘I knew that,’ said Annette. ‘I didn’t bring it up. Spicer did mention it. I expect Steve was only trying to help.’

‘Steve likes everyone to be happy,’ said Gilda. ‘That’s his trouble.’

‘It’s over now anyway,’ said Annette. ‘It did upset Spicer. But all kinds of things seem to upset him nowadays.’

‘What do you mean by nowadays? How long has this nowadays been going on?’ asked Gilda.

‘Two, three weeks. I don’t know,’ said Annette. ‘Two or three years, for all I know. How would I know? Spicer keeps complaining I’m unperceptive. But how can I perceive things he doesn’t tell me?’

‘Steve expects me to read his mind and tell him what he’s feeling,’ said Gilda.

‘If I tell Spicer what he feels he goes berserk,’ said Annette. ‘He says he doesn’t like to think of me inside his head so I try to keep out of it. I take nothing for granted. Gilda, have you heard of the word quincunx? Spicer used it this morning.’

‘No.’

‘Neither had I. I felt stupid. I looked it up. It’s a term used in astrology to denote a 150 degree separation of the planets in orbit: a stressful aspect, particularly in a compatibility chart.’

‘Nobody could be expected to know that,’ said Gilda.

‘It was a funny kind of word for him to use in a general conversation,’ said Annette. ‘And then there was sextile. That’s a good aspect, but it applied only to him, not to him and me.’

‘Don’t get paranoid, Annette,’ said Gilda. ‘If you worry about every little thing you’ll wear yourself out. Perhaps Spicer’s just getting you a his-and-hers chart for your birthday.’

‘Spicer would never do anything like that,’ said Annette. ‘He hates all that kind of gobbledegook. The religion of weak minds. Squelchy. So do I. And another thing—’

‘Yes?’

‘I wish Spicer hadn’t called at ten-thirty precisely. It’s as if he had it worked out, and was clock-watching. I’ll let her stew till ten-thirty, then I’ll call. He didn’t phone when he first arrived, he didn’t wait till after lunch. Those are the times he usually calls. But this wasn’t even any old time, it was on the dot.’

‘Annette, that’s insane,’ said Gilda. ‘Ten-thirty is as much any old time as any other. It just happened to be on the dot.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Annette. ‘Now I’m feeling uneasy again. There’s a sub-text I don’t understand. Well, I expect whatever it is will emerge: push itself out like the alien in the film, bursting out of the ribcage.’

‘What a horrid image,’ said Gilda. ‘It can’t be good for the baby.’

Annette lay down on the marital bed and put Optrex pads on her eyes.

‘Mum?’

‘Hello, Susan.’

‘Are you okay? I’ve brought you a cup of tea.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You haven’t been crying?’

‘Of course not. Being pregnant makes your eyes puffy.’

‘Yuk. It’s time you had new wallpaper in here. This lot’s dingy.’

‘It’s how Spicer and I like it,’ said Annette.

‘Why? It’s early eighties drear. Browny dinge.’

‘Because Spicer and I put it up together the week we moved in,’ said Annette. ‘There was no money for decorators.’

‘That’s why the pattern’s slipped,’ said Susan. ‘None of the little flowers match up. It’s a mess, and always has been.’

‘If it’s a mess it’s because you and Jason were crawling round our ankles,’ said Annette, ‘and tripping us up. Well, you were toddling: Jason was crawling. We like it the way it is. It’s our keepsake: our memento of the beginning.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Susan.

‘And if we tried to take it down,’ said Annette, ‘the whole wall would come down with it. We’d have to re-plaster the room. That wallpaper was too heavy when it went up ten years ago and it’s heavier still today.’

‘That isn’t scientifically possible,’ said Susan.

‘Yes it is,’ said Annette. ‘It has sopped up pleasure, uxorious bliss.’

‘What does that mean?’ asked Susan.

‘Never mind,’ said Annette.

‘I’ll look it up,’ said Susan.

‘Look away,’ said Annette.

The phone rang. Annette stretched out her hand. It was Gilda.

‘Annette? Did I disturb you?’

‘No. Not really,’ said Annette.

‘I think I know what the matter is,’ said Gilda.

‘What?’

‘Your novel,’ said Gilda. ‘He’s jealous because you’re publishing a novel.’

‘Why should Spicer be jealous of a novel?’ asked Annette. ‘It isn’t even a proper novel. It’s a novella. I only wrote it for fun. The children were growing up, and work was drying up, and I had some time left over. And it isn’t coming out for months and months. No, that can’t be the matter.’

‘Steve says it might be,’ said Gilda. ‘Steve says perhaps your novella is about Spicer.’

‘Of course it isn’t about Spicer,’ said Annette. ‘If it’s about anyone it’s about my parents, and not even them, really. No, that’s a silly idea. It was Spicer who gave the manuscript to Ernie Gromback. It was Spicer who wanted it to see the light of day. I wanted to just put it in a drawer and forget it. Do you know Ernie Gromback the publisher?’

‘Everyone knows Ernie Gromback,’ said Gilda. ‘He’s given herpes to at least a dozen people I know.’