Female Friends (20 page)

Françoise, who has a great respect for literature in all its forms, extracts the address of the household from Thérèse, and makes her way to Chloe’s door.

It is true enough that Chloe at this time is more short-tempered than usual. She has, over some eight years, and in all secrecy and diffidence, managed to complete a novel. She sends it, unsolicited, to a publishing house, who, to her surprise, accept it with moderate enthusiasm. Oliver has not read the manuscript, nor does he do so until it is in the printing presses.

Well, Oliver has been very busy and none too happy. His latest film, written at great emotional and financial cost to himself, and a departure from his normal big-budget top-star cops-and-robbers commercial successes, being concerned with the fragile sensibilities of a man sexually betrayed by his wife (himself and Chloe, some said), has finally been made and screened, and although not slammed by the critics, has been ignored and failed to get distribution either at home or abroad.

So if he has not read his wife’s manuscript until this stage it is hardly surprising. When he does read it, he calls for its immediate withdrawal. The publishers demur. Oliver issues an injunction—he has taken over his father’s passion for solicitors—and succeeds in getting publication stopped, though at considerable cost to himself. Thus he addresses Chloe, in the mildest terms, for someone so tried by the folly of a wife:

Oliver
Chloe, my dearest dear, what were you trying to do to us? To thus air our domestic grievances to the world? All you could do is harm the children, yourself, me. No artistic endeavour in the world is worth that, surely. It is a great achievement of yours, Chloe, you’ve had it accepted, and we both acknowledge its worth, while not pretending it’s any great work of art. Isn’t that enough? My clever literary Chloe! But you know how dangerous this autobiographical stuff is. No-one, honestly, is interested.

Chloe
Oliver, not by any stretch of the imagination is that novel about us. It’s about twin sisters.

Oliver
Yes, my dear, and you based it on my sisters, did you not?

Chloe
Your sisters aren’t twins.

But Oliver is right and she knows it and her resistance crumbles. She has used his sisters, those lively Jewish matrons, whom she so liked and he so feared, and tapped the sources of their energy and jollity, without permission, and feels like a thief in consequence. All the same, she is unusually cross, for a time, with Imogen.

And worse, as a result of her libellous folly, and the increase of Oliver’s overdraft—already burdened by his venture into filmic self-examination—by the £1,500 he is obliged to pay her publishers in recompense, Chloe finds herself morally responsible for Oliver’s financial anxieties.

Oliver, as Grace says, has money disturbances as other people have eating disturbances.

It is part of the pattern of Oliver’s life, ever since he resigned himself to supporting his father, that he should always be in debt, always endeavouring to earn more rather than spend less—though he demands prudence and parsimony from his family; and if, as frequently happens, so many tens of thousands of pounds should tumble through his letter-box all at once as would make any more ordinary person free from anxiety for the rest of his life—Oliver will take to gambling and dispose of his good fortune that way, and feel quite convinced, too, that in some mysterious way it is Chloe who has driven him to it.

Now, for once, Chloe feels actively responsible for his sleepless, agitating nights. She prepares to take a job in a rather shoddy department store in Cambridge as a trainee buyer. Oliver, on hearing what the salary is to be, tells her that she is wasting her time and her life, and her family’s happiness and future, but for once Chloe persists. She employs Thérèse, underpays and overworks her on Oliver’s instructions, and is irritated by her long-suffering face. She, Chloe, at least suffers cheerfully. Did not Esther Songford once tell her so to do? She nags and snaps at poor Thérèse.

And if Thérèse, running away from her torment, encounters Françoise on Victoria Station so that now she stands on Chloe’s doorstep, is this not exactly what Chloe deserves? Though Thérèse, to be fair, would bring out the bully in anyone.

Thus Chloe describes her household to Françoise, at that initial interview:

Chloe
My husband is a writer. He needs peace and quiet and a tidy house if he’s to function properly. His digestion is delicate, and he cannot eat eggs, they give him stomach cramps. He will not eat carbohydrates for he is watching his weight, and we steer clear as much as possible of animal fats for fear of cholesterol in his blood-stream. Within these limits, he likes to eat very well. He has a light continental breakfast in bed—just coffee and bread and butter, but the bread must be fresh, which means we make our own. I’ll continue to do that in the meantime—I let the dough rise overnight and then pop the loaves in the oven an hour before his breakfast. As for coffee, it must be made with freshly ground beans—he cannot bear the taste of instant coffee. It seems to get into his lungs. We have some trouble getting good quality beans, but now I’m going into Cambridge to work I can of course pick some up in my lunch-hour. But do remind me! Don’t let me forget, it makes such a bad start to the day. Inigo is eighteen and is in his last year at the Comprehensive. Imogen is eight and goes to primary school just down the road. She comes home for lunch. Three other children stay at half-term and holidays—Kevin and Kestrel, fourteen and twelve, and Stanhope, also twelve. They share a birthday—Christmas Eve. We haven’t much domestic machinery, I’m afraid, we like to live naturally. But I’ll help with the washing. You know what boys are. Fortunately everyone’s quite healthy except for Oliver’s migraines. And he suffers dreadfully from insomnia. His nights are a battle against it, and when he sleeps, he has nightmares. We have separate rooms. We have to. I snore, I’m afraid. I don’t throw off colds easily and I get stuffed up—and, well … I need someone to run the household while I’m at work. Feed, clothe, care for everyone. Not so much an au pair, or a household help, as a replacement.

Françoise
You want someone to replace you?

Françoise’s brown eyes are bright and somehow shuttered. She has hairy moles upon her chin, strong fat forearms and short legs. She looks stupid, but she is not.

‘Yes,’ says Chloe, ‘I want someone to replace me.’

And so she does. At this point in her marriage she would gladly leave Oliver.

For Oliver finds fault with Chloe all the time. If she rises from the table she is restless. If she sits at it she is lazy. If she talks she is yacketing. If she is silent she is sulky. Chloe cannot bear to lie in the same bed with Oliver. She suffocates. Oliver says Chloe’s snores keep him awake: his wife has enlisted on the Enemy Insomnia’s side. Chloe moves to another bedroom. Chloe has no weapons left.

The children’s eyes are anxious. They watch their parents carefully. Imogen sulks. Inigo’s face gets spotty.

And how can Chloe leave? Where can Chloe go? Oliver might make himself responsible for Inigo, but there would still be Imogen, Kevin, Kestrel and Stanhope to provide for, and without Oliver’s money, how could Chloe do it? Is there a divorce court in all the land which would agree with her that Oliver was unkind? She doubts it. Courts of Law are staffed by men. And perhaps the law would be right, and Oliver was not unkind, and it was she herself who was impossible, alternately restless, lazy, yackety, sulky, and frigid.

She who once lay so close to Oliver, slept soundly with her legs thrust between his; or half-asleep, embracing, knew herself to be exalted from her daytime body into that other night-time self, into that grand compulsive being which nightly rides the surging horses of the universe—she, Chloe, frigid! Her daytime self in full possession even when asleep—mean, aggrieved, resentful, out of tune with the rhythms of the earth; spiteful too—killing the kitchen pot plants with a glance.

It might be parasites which do the damage, of course, but Oliver says they die because Chloe has failed to water them.

Yes. Certainly Françoise can replace her. Certainly!

O
NE MORNING, WHEN FRANÇOISE
has been with her for six months, Chloe stands in her kitchen drinking a cup of coffee before running to catch the bus to take the train to get to work in Cambridge. It is term time. Inigo has left for his school. Françoise has taken Imogen along to hers. Françoise now works there on Tuesday mornings as a speech therapist, an arrangement which suits Françoise very well. It would have suited Chloe well, too, had she thought to apply for the job.

Oliver, in an evil mood (she knows by the forward curve of his shoulders), comes into the kitchen, and thus the conversation goes:

Oliver
Chloe, I have something to tell you.

Chloe
Could you tell me this evening? I don’t want to be late for work.

Oliver
This is rather vital, actually, to all our interests. But since it concerns people and their happiness and not pay-packets, I can understand you wouldn’t think it very important. Off you go, my dear. Don’t miss your bus whatever you do. Or there’ll be a shortage of maroon crimplene in Cambridge tomorrow! Off you go to your chosen profession, Chloe.

Chloe sits down and takes off her gloves.

Chloe
I’ll take the next bus.

Oliver
Thank you. I’m touched at your concern for your family. You must be the only woman left in the country who wears gloves.

Chloe
I’m sorry if they irritate you. I only wear them because it’s cold in the mornings and the bus isn’t heated. If you’d let me take the car I wouldn’t have to wear gloves.

Oliver
Chloe, last time you drove the car you ruined the exhaust. If you haven’t the sense to realize you can drive forward over a ditch but not backwards, you’re scarcely fit to be driving. Anything might happen.

Chloe
It wasn’t a ditch, it was a bump in someone’s drive. It could have happened to anyone.

Oliver
I’m not criticizing or scolding, merely saying when you drive I’m worried stiff, and then I can’t write, and if I don’t finish this novel soon God knows where the next penny will come from.

Chloe
From films, I suppose.

Oliver
I’m not going back to writing that crap.

Chloe
Are you worried for the car, or me?

Oliver
For you. You’re in a bad mood, Chloe. Perhaps you’d better get off to your office, after all.

Chloe
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It was provocative.

Oliver (Magnanimous)
That’s all right. I’m irritable myself. I’m not used to worrying about money. There’ve been so many expenses lately, what with your publishers to pay off.

Chloe
Oliver, they are still prepared to publish, amazingly enough; don’t you think it would be possible just to
show
the manuscript to your sisters and see if they recognized themselves?

Oliver
Thank you. I don’t want to be sued by my own family. My early life was made miserable enough by litigation. I couldn’t stomach any more of it.

Chloe has gone too far. And she has missed her bus. Home and office will both be a source of misery for the next few days.

Oliver
I came into the kitchen because I had something important to say and I have been deflected yet again into rancour and argument. I don’t want to argue with you, Chloe. It tears me to bits. I want to talk calmly and rationally about Françoise.

Chloe
Oh yes. Françoise. I know about that.

Oliver
How?

Chloe
I make the beds.

Oliver
I pay Françoise to make the beds.

Chloe
She has quite enough to do. And actually, I pay her.

Oliver
She has taken over your work; it is perfectly proper that you should share your pay-packet with her.

Chloe
I’m not complaining.

Oliver
I am. It leaves you hardly anything to contribute towards the expenses. Running this house is turning into a nightmare. The children are monstrously extravagant—no-one makes the slightest effort to control them. I find lights left on all night—even radios. And of course the holidays are coming up and the bastard tribe will be arriving—

Chloe (Ferocious)
None of them are bastards.

Oliver
I was joking, Chloe. See how you are spoiling for trouble? Things are too bad: the strain is intolerable. How can I write if I don’t have domestic peace?

Chloe
If we slept together again—I mean, just share a room.

Oliver
You snore. It drives me mad,

Chloe
Or at least—

Oliver
No.

Chloe
It’s ever since Imogen was born.

Oliver
You’re obsessed. That was eight years ago. I’ve accepted the child as my own. What more do you expect?

Chloe
But you haven’t accepted me back.

Oliver
What nonsense you talk. You had a perfect right to sleep with Patrick Bates if that was what you wanted to do. We should all be free to follow our sexual inclinations.

Chloe
Like Françoise, you mean.

Oliver
Yes.

Chloe (In tears)
Imogen spoilt everything, didn’t she.