The Rules of Engagement (10 page)

After clearing away the lunch she had been toying
with from the kitchen table I went and surveyed
Digby in the drawing-room, suppressing a wish
(but registering one) that he would remove himself if
he wished to doze unobserved and not do so in such a
public space. My father had had the same
unattractive habit, which he pursued as a
deliberate strategy in order to defy my mother's
angry remonstrances. It was his defence against her,
and although clearly willed, it was also genuine. He
seemed able to plummet into unconsciousness at a
moment's notice, and this had soured the atmosphere
at home and reconciled me to the various changes
in my situation. Now, by an exquisite irony,
I seemed to have been returned to my origins, the
only difference being that my father's place had been
taken by my husband. I did not think that men should
behave like this, was annoyed with Digby for being too
somnolent to wish my mother a sufficiently
ceremonious goodbye, although I had sensed her
reluctance to engage with him for longer than was necessary.
She had seemed to want to confine herself to women's
talk, largely in order to share what I now
understood as her fear of the future. The woman with
whom she lived, and whose contributions covered the
villa's expenses, could not be counted upon to care for
her. They had met on a cruise and had
formalized their plan to retire to the sun without
giving the matter much thought. Indeed my mother, who
had not previously been known for her appreciation
of female company, was no doubt regretting the
arrangement but was unable to dismantle it. She may
even have been looking to Digby as the man of the
family who would know how to extricate her, cancel
the friend, sell the villa, or, if not, advise
her how to proceed and in a more general sense
what to do.

Her need of support, in the broadest sense
of the word, had not been met by any helpful
suggestion on my part. I was embarrassed for her
and by her; the hand that went repeatedly to her face
served only to emphasize her altered looks.
And I was embarrassed for and by Digby who had
clearly not wished his afternoon to be disturbed, claiming
a right to the peaceful enjoyment of his home in what
he viewed as his holiday. Again the thought of
Edmund's holiday intruded, not only with the
inducements and embellishments that I was used
to reading in the travel brochures that I had
loyally brought home, thinking that by doing so I was
demonstrating an enthusiasm that I knew to be
acceptable, but with a clear and piercing vision of
Edmund himself, enjoying the sort of intimacy to which
I should never be admitted. There was nothing to be
done about this, and at that moment I knew the situation
to be unalterable, even irreparable. I took a
book at random from off the shelves and prepared
to sacrifice the afternoon to Digby's so-called
holiday and to respecting his wishes. He liked
to have me sitting near him, so that he could reach out and
take my hand. In this way we were both appeased,
for I was newly aware at such times of his goodness of
heart. I lowered my expectations to meet his own,
and in so doing achieved a measure of virtue.
The book I had taken at random, or so I
thought, was unfortunately Madame Bovary,
and the evidence of Emma's adultery seemed out of
place. I closed it quietly and put it
aside, exerting myself, as I often did,
to observing everything in the room, as if to reassure
myself of its validity. Digby took my hand and
asked me whether I wanted to go out; I told him
that I was perfectly happy for the moment but that we
might take a walk later, perhaps eat in one of the
local restaurants. I thought he mumbled rather, but
put that down to his recent sleep: fortunately
we had both eaten earlier, before my mother's
inconvenient arrival, on which I now looked
back with a sense of displacement. This, as always, I
looked to Digby to disperse. But it seemed to me that
his own face had become a mirror image of my
mother's, with the same slight distortion. This was
surely a projection. I walked to the window and
looked out, but there was little to be seen that I had not
seen before. When I looked back at him, in this
different light and perspective, he
seemed much as normal.

Digby had picked up my book and was leafing
through it.
“
You won't like that,
”
I warned him.
“
I never have liked it. It's a woman's
book, really.
”

“
Yet it was written by a man.
”

“
Yes, only a man would have killed her
off.
”

“
She died because she had got into debt,
”
I
reminded him coldly.

“
I suppose so.
”
There was a brief
silence.
“
Are you making tea?
”
he asked.
“
Deborah gone?
”

“
Ages ago. Yes, I'll make tea.
”

I went immediately to the kitchen, suddenly anxious
to avoid his presence. Yet I had warmed to him in
the course of that peaceful afternoon, appreciated him,
even admired him. Now my mood changed to one of
weariness and incipient revolt. I played my
wifely part adequately, and yet I could see
it for what it was: a sham. And it was not only my
married life that was a sham; my other life too
did not, could not, bear active scrutiny. I
saw the point of those grim days in Paris. They
had been the means of preparing me for a life lived
according to my own rules, rather than by rules imposed
on me by other people. I had had a glimpse of the
freedom available to the purely selfish, though
that freedom could be limited by desire. Once
again I wanted to roam the streets unobserved,
my thoughts confined to myself rather than anticipating
another's movements, another's wishes. I
wanted everyone to die and leave me alone. I
particularly wanted Edmund to die, for I knew
that without him I should be myself again and not the person I
had become once I had chosen him, or been
chosen by him.

There was another area of discomfort. When we had
exchanged that meaningful glance, and the recognition of
each other that was to change everything, we had been in
his house, in the presence of his wife. So great was
the pressure of that moment that I had managed
to ignore her. Now I wondered how much she
knew about her husband's affairs, of his skilful
arrangements. With increasing discomfort I could now
see that she was fully aware
—
must be aware
—
of
Edmund's manoeuvres, and that she was cynical
enough to be amused by them. Either that, or they were so
close that full disclosure was possible on both
sides, that Edmund's adulteries were part
of a marital game which engendered a sort of
excitement they both found acceptable, even
desirable. Maybe Constance too had lovers and
could deal with them in such a way as to engender no
remorse, no anguish, no soul-searching. Not every
woman is an Emma Bovary.

Constance had always made me uncomfortable. She
seemed to find me amusing in several minor ways:
my careful cooking, my earnest reading, my
obvious
—
obvious to a woman like herself
—
boredom, my acute self-consciousness in her
presence. For she had managed to instil an
uneasiness even before there had been any
justification for such a feeling to exist. Her sly
watchfulness across the dinner table had always seemed
to expose weaknesses in myself that were not obvious
to anyone else. I felt transparent in her
presence, and had always done so. That was why I must
never see her again, never go to their house, never ask
about her children, once heard innocently playing in
an upstairs room. I must never ask Edmund
if he loved her, though, alone in my kitchen,
I could see that he must be linked to her in several
ways that survived love. Her value to him was
obvious, almost as great as his value to her. It was
a Faustian bargain, but who was to say that
Faustian bargains never worked?

This revelation, which I had somehow managed not
to confront, shocked me, as complicity, connivance,
always shock one. I saw that I was merely an
accessory, a minor character in a much grander plot,
one I was not fully equipped to understand. I saw
both of them on one side of a sexual divide and
myself on the other. Now I should have to work out whether
I wanted to join them in their knowingness or retain
an essential part of my own ignorance. I was not
clever enough to work out an independent strategy. Yet
I was still not willing to forgo the experience. I even
felt a certain unhealthy curiosity: what would
come next? And if I did not like what came
next what could save me, apart from flight?
When the telephone rang I almost dropped a
cup, thinking that it must be Edmund calling from
France, telling me when he was coming home. But it
was a woman's voice, and my disappointment informed
me that I was not yet ready to relinquish this
adventure, however destructive it turned out
to be.

I cleared my throat.
“
Hello?
”
I
repeated.
“
Who is this?
”

“
It's Betsy.
”

“
Betsy! Where are you? How long are you here
for?
”

“
For good, I think. Or for the time being
anyway. I just rang to give you my new
number.
”

“
Oh, you've sold the house, then? Where will you
be living? Yes, give me your number. Have you
moved?
”

“
Not quite. Not yet. I've bought a rather horrible
flat that I haven't had time to prepare. It was the
first one I saw.
”

“
Betsy, what is that noise? I can hear
drilling. Are you still there?
”

“
Builders. The new owners are having a
lot of work done. I had to ask if I could stay
on for a month, until the new place ...
until I've sorted myself out.
”

“
What's happened? Of course I'm
delighted that you're here, but ... you don't sound quite
yourself.
”

“
I've not been well.
”
The voice was
monotonous, uninflected.
“
I'll tell you
all about it.
”

“
Are you alone? Daniel?
”

“
Daniel died.
”
The voice was still
neutral.

“
I see,
”
I said slowly.
“
Would you like
to meet? I'd love to see you.
”

I did want to see her, not only because I was
intrigued by the change in her voice but for more
general and more admirable reasons: she was a part of
my past when the past was still relatively
unspotted, not yet subject to alien influences.
She was the friend of my youth, and therefore an
essential witness. She had looked to me for
protection, yet her blitheness was in itself more
protection than I could offer. She had seen me
as respectable, with a proper home and proper
parents, not dreaming how fallible both could be.
She had admired my mother, had felt a
misplaced respect for our lives, for my
life, which she viewed as fortunate. Not once
throughout our mismatched childhoods had she
manifested envy or resentment. I remembered,
with a twinge of pity, of embarrassment, her evenings
at the cinema with her aunt. Her staunch spirit
seemed to have withstood the blandishments of those heroes and
heroines, for whom everything progresses to a
foreseen conclusion. Then I reminded myself
that to let her down by confessing to my current
behaviour would be a major solecism, almost an
offence I could not bring myself to commit. And she had
found a hero of her own, a man almost as
unrealistic as herself, and who was now dead. This in a
sense was appropriate, yet I could hardly
point this out. It was somehow in line with her
classical aspirations: Titus and
Bérénice
doomed never to be happy together.
Did she still cling to those superhuman ideals?