The Pumpkin Eater (3 page)

“Perhaps,” he gave another of his wan smiles, “to find out why you hate me so much, at the moment. Oh, I don't mean myself, personally, of course. But you hate something, don't you … other than dust?”

“Doesn't everyone?”

“What was the first thing you hated — can you remember?”

“It wasn't a thing. It was a man. Mr. Simpkin …”

“Yes?”

“And a girl called … Ireen Douthwaite, when I was a child. And a woman called Philpot. I don't remember …”

“Your previous husbands?”

“Oh no. No. I liked them.”

“Your present husband? … Jake?”

“No!”

“Tell me about Jake.”

“Tell you …?”

“Yes. Go on. Tell me about Jake.” He sounded as though he were daring me. I laughed and spread my hands out, looking down on them.

“Well, what … what do you want to know?”

“Whatever you want to tell me.”

“Well, Jake … It's impossible to tell you about Jake.”

“Try.”

I took a deep breath. I felt as though I could open my mouth and pour words out for ever. I felt as though I could open my heart, literally unlock it and fling it open. Now the truth would be told. The breath petered out of me. I said nothing. He waited.

“This house we live in,” I began. “The sitting room faces south, it has huge windows, sash windows, so whenever there is any sun it's like a greenhouse, very hot indeed. Of course the sun shows up the dust. When people come into the sitting room for the first time they always say what a marvellous room it is, and then after a bit I see them noticing things. Women mostly, of course, but also men. Somebody once wrote an article about Jake; they said he bought books, not yachts. Well, of course, he doesn't buy either. He doesn't buy anything. The things people notice are the burns in the carpet and the marks on the wall. Jake used to drink a lot of tinned beer, and you know how it spurts out when you make a hole in the tin. Then the children. Well, nobody has ever washed the walls, for some reason, I mean not since it was last painted, about two years ago.

“Of course it is a marvellous room. I'm in there most of the time now, I really live in it. I do know it very well. There's a picture on the side wall, here, just as you come in the door, a terrible yellow and green thing, an abstract. It belongs to Jake. We don't get rid of it, although it's the most hellish picture you've ever seen. There are piles of magazines, too. We don't get rid of things. We've still got bicycles in the shed that we brought from the country years ago. Quite useless. Then there's nowhere to put the new ones.

“Anyway. Jake has a study downstairs, he used to work there a lot until he got this office. His office is in St. James's, that's where he works now. I haven't been there for a long time. He never liked working in the study at home, he used to feel lonely. He was always coming upstairs to talk to someone, the children, or me, or whoever was in the house. He used to cook things for himself, he was always hungry, he liked being in the kitchen. Of course Jake was an only child. We both were. There are eight bedrooms, but we've only got one bathroom. I don't know what else to tell you.”

There was a long silence. I thought he might have gone to sleep. That gas fire would send anybody to sleep; he ought to have a bowl of water in front of it.

“Shall I go on?”

“Please.”

“Isn't it time to stop?”

“Only if you want to.”

“You ought to have a bowl of water in front of that gas fire, you know.”

“You find it too hot?”

“The trouble is that people throw their match ends into it and they float about for days. Then the water dries up.”

“You hate … messes, don't you?”

“Yes. That is something I hate.”

“They frighten you.”

“Perhaps they do frighten me.”

“Was …” he glanced down at his paper, “Mr. Simpkin a mess?”

“Yes,” I said. “To me he seemed the most terrible mess. Is that helpful?”

He stood up, leaning on his desk like an after-dinner speaker. “We shall, I think, make progress,” he said.

Jake's father said, “I suppose you know what you're doing. What do the children say?”

“They — ”

“We haven't actually
discussed
it with them,” Jake said. “They are
children
, you know. We don't have to ask their permission, do we?”

“Indeed,” his father said, “I should have thought that was most important.”

“I don't understand why you want to marry Jake,” he went on, delicately biting the end off a cheese straw. “Simply don't understand it.” He smiled in my direction, holding the straw poised for the next bite.

“I know there are an awful lot of us, but — ”

“Oh, I'm not worrying about that, not worrying about that at all. I suppose your previous husbands pay a bit of maintenance and so on?”

“A little,” I lied.

“You've managed so far. I should think from the look of you you'll go on managing. Why Jake, though? He'll be a frightful husband.”

“Now wait a minute — ” Jake said.

“Oh, he will. A frightful husband. You're bound to be ill, for instance. You won't get the slightest sympathy from him, he hates illness. He's got no money and he's bone-lazy. Also he drinks too much.” He smiled very sweetly at Jake, congratulating him.

“You'd think he hates me,” Jake said.

“Nonsense, my dear boy. She knows better than that. Give her some more sherry, but don't have another Scotch, it's got to last me till Tuesday. Now where are you going to live, for instance?”

“We don't know yet …”

“Well, it's entirely your own affair of course. If I were nicely settled in a house in the country with furniture — I presume you've got furniture — and all the usual amenities, I certainly shouldn't abandon it all for Jake. He's totally unreliable, always has been. And I wasn't even aware that he liked children. Do you,” he enquired blandly of Jake, “like children?”

“Of course. I'm mad about children. Always have been.”

“Really? How strange. Now I would have thought you would have found them tremendously boring. Have you
known
many children?”

“You see?” Jake said. “I told you. He's impossible.”

“You're not drinking all my Scotch, are you?”

“I'll get you another bottle.”

“Where? It's Thursday, you know, early closing.”

“I'll go down to the pub before lunch and get you another bottle. All right?”

“You will see that he does, won't you?” the old man asked me. “He
plunders
me, you know. The last time he was here he walked off with my razor — ”

“For heaven's sake,” Jake said, “you had
six
razors.”

“I need six razors. I hope you brought it back.”

“No. I didn't.”

“Perhaps you could send it me, my dear? It's a small Gillette, the kind that screws open, I believe they cost around five and elevenpence.”

“I'll see if I can find it,” I said. “Otherwise, of course, we'll buy you a new one.”

“That would be kind. It's a quite indispensable little razor — for getting at the odd corners, you know. Now, Jake, stop mooning about, boy. Give her some more sherry. His manners aren't up to much, but I expect you've discovered that already.”

“Actually,” I said, screwing up my toes, my voice squeaking a little, “Actually, I love him.”

“I'm sure you do. So do I.”

We smiled warmly at each other.

“You're a brave girl,” he said.

“Oh, no. It's Jake who's … brave.”

“Nonsense. He's out for what he can get. Beautiful wife who knows how to cook, ready-made family, plenty of furniture. He'll expect a lot of you.”

I reached for Jake's hand. “I don't mind.”

“He's been on his own too much. My wife couldn't have any more children, we spoiled him. He doesn't like his shirts sent to the laundry, you know that?”

“Good God,” Jake said. “I'm twenty-nine years old. I am
here
.”

“He also has a shocking temper. When do you plan to get married?”

“Next month,” I muttered. “When the divorce is through.”

“Ah, the divorce. That's all going smoothly?”

“I think so. I'm sorry that Jake — ”

“He's the co-respondent, of course. ‘All experience is an arch wherethro' gleams that untravelled world …' I must say, dear boy, I never thought you had it in you. Well … that's everything, I think? We needn't go on with this discussion, need we? How about getting my Scotch?”

“I hope you'll come,” I said. “I mean, we'd like you to be there, if you'd like to come.”

“Oh, I don't think so. Thank you, my dear, but I don't think so. I detest trains, and if I get Williams to drive me up we can never park anywhere, and then there's the problem of Williams's lunch. No, it's all too tedious. But of course you have my great blessing.”

“As far as the wedding present's concerned,” Jake said, “we'd like a cheque.” His face was a very delicate green and his upper lip was curled under in a petrified flinch.

“A cheque,” the old man said. He became motionless. A shaft of sunlight moved idly over the room, picking out little pieces of silver and cut glass, lighting up the old man's polished toecaps, sliding over the leather chairs. He took another cheese straw, weighed it in his fingers. “What for?”

We couldn't answer that. He waited, then bit the straw neatly. “I'll give you a cheque. Not much, mind you, because I'm a poor man. You'll want a little party, I daresay, after the event, a few bottles of champagne and so on. I'll give you twenty-five pounds on the express condition that you spend it on that. You understand me?”

“But we
can't
— ” I began.

He looked at me sharply for the first time. “On second thoughts,” he said. “Get a caterer. And send me the bill.”

My father said, “There are a few quite practical points I'd like to get straight. Sit down, Armitage. Can I roll you a cigarette?”

“No, thanks,” Jake said. He lowered himself on to a battered leather pouf patterned in dark blue and red diamonds. My father swivelled himself round to his desk and adjusted the lamp to shine exactly over it. “Are you pouring the tea, dear?” he asked.

“Tea?” I asked Jake. We had just had sausages and mash and banana custard for supper.

“No. No, thanks.”

“There's some elderberry wine in the larder,” my father said. “Darling, run and get the elderberry wine.”

“No, thanks,” Jake said. “Really.”

“Well, then. We'll declare the meeting open.” He swivelled round again and smiled encouragingly at Jake. “Now we don't want to go into the whys and wherefores of all this. You're both grown people, with minds of your own. I must say that for a young man with his life in front of him to saddle himself with a brood of children and a wife as plain feckless as this daughter of mine seems to me lunacy. Lunacy. The only good thing about it is that at last she's picked a
man
and not some … fiddler or scribbler like the others. I like you, Armitage. I think you're a fool, but I'd like to help you make a go of it. You think that's fair?”

“Thanks. Thanks very much,” Jake said. “Very fair.”

“If I give you a start, you think you can carry on from there?”

“I hope so.”

“I hope so too. The first thing is to shed the load a bit. I suggest we send the elder children to boarding school. I have particulars of a couple of schools here, perhaps you'd like to look them over?”

He handed two leaflets to Jake and sat back, tapping his pencil on the edge of the desk. “They're only a few miles apart,” he said. “Both by the sea. Of course they're not Harrow or Roedean exactly, but it'll give them a chance of getting scholarships later on, if they're bright enough. What do you think?”

“No,” I said. “Of course not. We can't send them away, they're too young. Anyway, we can't afford it. Anyway — !”

“Pipe down, dear,” my father said tartly. “This is Jake's business, not yours. I'm taking out educational policies that will pay for their schooling for the next five years. That will make them respectively…” he glanced at a sheet of paper on his desk, “fourteen, twelve and eleven. We should know by then whether they're capable of getting any further, and Jake will have had a chance to get established. What do you think?” he asked Jake.

“I think it's a very good idea.”

“No!” I said.

“Look, be sensible,” Jake said. They'd love it. I'd be good for them.”

“It wouldn't! They'd hate it! Why can't you just give us the money — ?”

“Because that's not the point,” my father snapped. “I'm not going to have you crushing this boy with responsibility from the word go. As it is he's taking on far more than he can chew, and he's got to work like a nigger to do it. I don't know anything about this … cinema business, and I haven't got much faith in it, to tell you the truth. But I'm not going to have you trailing home with half a dozen more children in five years' time and another messed-up marriage on your hands. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but that's the size of it. It's high time you saw a little sense, my girl.”

He had never before spoken to me like this. “Jake — ” I said, “Jake — ?”

“Your father's quite right,” Jake said. “It'd make things a lot easier.”

They sat there unmoved, looking at me.

“Anyway … what about the holidays? They'd have holidays.”

“They can come here,” my father said. “Your mother loves having them, as you know.”