Sunday Best (2 page)

Does it show on my face? Lately I've found myself avoiding mirrors. Was this a rehearsal for an act that I would never indulge in again? And is it for this reason that I cannot look my
wife in the eye for fear of what I would find there? My wife is very clever and her understanding has been my undoing. Other men complain that their wives don't understand them. I complain because mine does. She has always insisted on understanding me. She has destroyed me with her understanding. But I have destroyed too, and I must get back to it and take upon myself the blame. I must leave my wife out of this, tho' this too, damn her, she will understand. I married her when I was twenty-one. It was not my first mistake. I had made many before, but minor ones that I could have rectified, had they been important enough. But my marriage was a major error. Not marriage itself. I have nothing against marriage, but at twenty-one, for a man, it is foolhardy. Moreover I was a virgin. I didn't know I was. In fact I thought I wasn't. That might give you some idea of how much of a virgin I was. I am not sure to this day whether my wife was or wasn't, and later on, when I learned the facts of it all, I had already forgotten the circumstances. It is a great omission in one's life if one does not know whether or not one has married a virgin. I have always been too embarrassed to ask my wife out of fear of betraying my own ignorance. In any case she would laugh at me and remind me of it. She exploits my secrets at every opportunity, not in playful private teasing, but in public malice. But I must not speak ill of her. I have done her great wrong. She is a victim, and therefore unaccusable.

I want to start at the beginning, because I need to know myself how it all started. I have problems with what is relevant. I remember sneaking into a church when I was a boy and spitting into the baptismal font. I had walked about half a mile through the town and over the tombs in the churchyard, gathering saliva all the while. I gathered it with relish and deliberate intent, tho' what my purpose was, I had no idea. Then I saw the font, and the cause of my harvesting became clear. I dropped it neat and clean on to the holy slab, and I watched it trickle down the side, holding its integral shape all the while. I don't know why I am reminded of this incident at this time. Did that act of blasphemy have anything to do with that man who lies rotting in the earth? Everything is relevant, and nothing. I am digressing again. But in truth I am postponing. I will start at some sort of beginning and promise to go straight to the end. But this is a vain promise from a man whose whole life has followed detour after detour. But as a token of my honest
intent, I shall leave my shadow on the straight and narrow, as hostage as it were, as I digress into my meanderings. And after my detours, I shall ask myself, ‘Where was I? Where was I?' and pick up my shadow again to lead me to the point of my story. I will try. I will start at the beginning. Not with the teeth. When you look for the root of your problem, you're really looking for someone or something to blame. No one is to blame except myself. This I have learned. My scribblings have not hoodwinked me. Forget the teeth and the apples. This is really the beginning of my story. My stubby pencil trembles on the thin straight line, and my ill-fitting shadow ploughs the way.

We have neighbours, my wife and I. The Johnsons. You will notice in my story, that apart from my own name, which makes you feel at once that you are in the company of a better class of person, all other names are very banal, common even. Which makes you feel that the story could have happened to anybody, not you, of course, but at least to your next-door neighbour. And in fact, this story did happen to the Johnsons as well as it happened to me. So think again. It could happen to you also.

The Johnsons had been married for fifteen years, and had kept their charlady all their married life. That's the sort of people the Johnsons were. Everything always went right for them. Mr Johnson did-it-yourself, Mrs had a slender wardrobe, but always the right thing to wear for the occasion. I've seen inside her cupboards, but I could have told you without looking that she had trees in her shoes. Everything about the Johnsons was in its right place. They did no one either harm or good. They were totally unaccusable. The Johnsons were what is known as a nice couple and everybody loathed them.

I had a nodding acquaintance with both of them, which is unavoidable, I suppose, if you're neighbours. I would see them on my way home from school, always together, in a desperate armlock which I found unnerving. They were both very tall. Laid end to end, they would have covered lengthwise their twelve by nine Axminster on the living-room floor, or their lounge, as they chose to call it. Though they were not the sort of people you would associate with lounging. One wondered indeed in what position these two giants slept, tho' sleeping, like lounging, was an activity difficult to associate with them. For they were always up and doing, cleaning their car, weeding their front lawn, even sweeping the small square of pavement that led from their gate to the kerb. For me and for all the others in our street, their activities on a Sunday morning were
a fair eyesore, and a row of net curtains was hastily dropped at the sight of the Johnsons' infuriating energy. I would watch them from my study window on a summer Sunday, see them settle in their car with Tom their son and a picnic basket, and there was no doubt in my mind that wherever they were going, along with thousands of others who were going to the same place, Mr Johnson would find somewhere to park.

As I dropped my net curtain those summer afternoons I often offered up a fervent prayer, that one of these fine days, one of the Johnsons would come a cropper. And God is occasionally good.

It happened on a Sunday that I remember very well. It was apple Sunday, and had marked the first apple that I had had to deny myself. I'd gone up to my study, tickling my teeth on the stairs, and in such a profound depression that I went straightaway to the window to refuel my melancholy with the sight of the wretched Johnsons at work. But their frontage was deserted. Their car stood at the door, gathering whatever dust was available, and a few sweet wrappers shamed the garden out front, shedding a sudden humanity on to the whole house. And then I heard Mrs Johnson screaming. It was a cue for all the net curtains in the road. Within a few seconds we were rewarded with yet another scream, and then another. Things were hotting up. In my excitement, I even forgot my tooth problem. The silence between the screams was as promising as the screams themselves, but Mrs Johnson herself put an end to the show by crying out, ‘Help, help. Please stop him.'

The row of net curtains dropped like frosted eyelids on business that was not their own. Now I don't know what made me different from the others. I am a monumental coward, and what made me rush downstairs and into the street and up the Johnsons' drive, I shall never know, and had I stopped to think I should have turned back. I had time to retreat as I stood at their door banging on the knocker. My knees quivered and I badly wanted to relieve myself. But I banged away, having no thought of what I would do once inside. The screaming continued as the door gently opened, and young Tom, terrified, stood blinking in the gap. I squeezed myself in. The screams were fainter now, and I feared that I had arrived just in time for the kill. But first things first. ‘Can I use your bathroom, Tommy?'

He boggled at me. Had I come just for that? Didn't I have
one in my own house? Or was he just astonished that a schoolmaster, and his form-teacher at that, was subject to natural functions like anybody else. I'd never been inside the house before, but I ferreted out that bathroom with a kind of survival instinct, and bolted the door. For some reason I felt safe inside, and the strangled whimpering from below stairs did not bother me. I took my time with my toilet, staring at my parts with a loathed compulsion. I hated this position, that I, like all men, had to assume at least three or four times a day, and the enforced necessity of viewing oneself. A woman, if she so wished, could live out the whole of her life without confronting her gender. For a man it is impossible. And at each confrontation, I was filled with disgust. Perhaps had I been able to put my parts to better use than the mere tool of natural function, I would have felt less hostile towards them. I ought to tell you at this juncture in case it isn't already very obvious, that my sex-life is practically non-existent, and has been such for many years. I could tell you all about it, but it would be a digression, or perhaps I use that as an excuse, for it would also be very painful. But whatever the reason for my withholding the truth, I intend to proceed with my story. It would be a relief indeed to take my mind off my present toilet position, with any digression whatsoever, but not that one. Any reflections on my inadequate sex-life would stun me into dumbness. Once you've started on your confession you've got to get on with it, but I've no intention of exposing myself to unnecessary pain by confessing with each and every part of me. For that I could go to an analyst, and because I was paying, would have to tell all, or else not get my money's worth. But this confession is free, and I am entitled to be generous with it or otherwise. I don't know why it should bother me that there are certain things I don't want to tell you about. I am not, after all, in any way beholden to you. But I will not be nagged into total confession. I can and will be silent when it suits me. I will not be bludgeoned into complete exposure by anybody.

I've got to get off this subject. I am trembling with an indignation that seems to have no source. It is doing me no good, this confession, and I must get back to that Johnson bathroom, or lose my sanity.

Our own bathroom is a complete reflection of the state of our marriage, and I have a fancy that all couples reveal, or
rather betray, themselves in their bathroom furnishings. Ours, for example, is clinical, with a permanent smell of disinfectant. It has, it is true, a lingering lavender odour, but I am not for one moment fooled by that one. There is nothing in our bathroom that isn't white, unless it's hidden away in the white medicine cupboard. Even our soap is white, always. And there is a double lock on our door. It is a room for ablutions and toilet only, and nothing beyond these two functions could conceivably take place within. We have a white clock too, which is my own contribution. I don't know what my wife does in there, but she takes an inordinate time doing it, and sometimes, if I have the opportunity, I set the alarm before she goes inside. She has never referred to the clock, although she's probably been jolted off her seat more than once by the bell. I suppose she understands, like she understands everything, tho' I don't know the meaning of it myself.

Now the Johnson bathroom was a different story. It was completely unorganized, and yet it looked neat and clean. I suppose it was the colour; a duck-egg blue, which softened corners and reflected whatever dust there was with its own colour, thus making it acceptable. And even if it was just plain dirt, I found it far less disgusting than I would have had I found it in my own house. Often one can leave one's neuroses behind, and more often than not, they are left in one's bathroom, since there, they come most splendidly into flower.

There was a bookcase filled with paperbacks, and this piece of furnishing attracted me too, though the titles were ones that I had spent many years dissuading my pupils from considering. Clearly, there was more to be done in this bathroom than the mere washing of hands. In my position, I was directly facing the window, and the shelf which held the Johnson disguises. Divided into two sections by a giant china soap container, her cover-ups were on the left, and his on the right. But in the middle, directly in front of the soap-container, stood a tin of denture cleaning-powder, and it irritated me that there was no clue as to which side of the partnership it belonged, and I resolved at my next meeting with the Johnsons, which threatened to take place pretty soon, if I was to justify my presence in the house, at that meeting, I would investigate whose choppers were portable, his or hers, or possibly, since the powder was in the middle, theirs. I wiggled my teeth again. At least I still had them, and I assured myself
that as long as I laid off apples, I would keep them for ever.

I buttoned my fly, and wondered what to do next, and as I stood marvelling at their neatly folded bath towels, it occurred to me to run myself a bath. I still wore my dressing-gown, and had missed my bath that morning. The apple incident had left me too depressed. But now, for some reason, I was feeling infinitely better, with the determination and courage to visit the dentist the following day. It seemed to me to be quite natural to take a bath while still undressed, and I ran the hot water at full speed to drown the moans that persisted from below. I lay in the bath, completely submerged, avoiding confrontation, and sailing a rubber duck across my chest. We have a rubber duck in our bathroom, a white one of course, and apart from the clock, my sole contribution. My wife, some ten years ago, had actually had thoughts of giving me a child, and I remember the excitement with which I had bought that duck as my first preparation for its arrival. Since then she has made many promises, but I know better than to invest in rubber ducks. I know, and she never ceases to remind me, that her own mother died when she was born. She is afraid, she says. But she's lying. It has nothing to do with that. She simply doesn't want to lose her figure. Now I know that if I'm writing in the first person, you are seeing my characters only from my point of view. But believe me, in the case of my wife, there is no other viewpoint. Anyone else would tell you the same. I am not trying to prejudice you. These are the facts I am giving you, and one can prejudice only with opinions. Another fact is that she offered to adopt a child. I am giving her her due. But I could never see the point in that. You'd never know where it came from, and after all, it wasn't as if I couldn't manage one myself. She actually stopped sleeping with me too. She wasn't going to run any risks, she said. So I went and found it elsewhere for a while. And of course, she understood, and there is nothing more calculated to put an end to an extra-marital affair than one's wife's understanding.