The Rules of Engagement (2 page)

This is not to imply that Betsy possessed any
recondite powers of divination. It is rather that those
who have meagre beginnings are obliged to study the world
more stringently, looking for clues. And there was much
to learn, not only for Betsy but for girls of our
generation, too old for the Fifties, too young for the
Sixties. We were still bound by the rules laid
down by parents and teachers, obliged to be obedient,
respectful, with little understanding that we were entitled
to make choices that had been denied to the generation that
had preceded ours. In this matter I was as
ignorant as Betsy, but perhaps more secure; my
parents had a strong influence on me, largely
because they were both decisive characters who abided
by certain social rules which they saw fit to pass
on to me. I now see, with all the wisdom of
hindsight, that I was given the wrong instructions,
as were my peers. Today I look at the
truly liberated young (and the even more liberated
middle-aged) and marvel at their insouciance, their
apparent lack of anxiety. Even now I
wonder if there are no penalties for what I still
regard as bad behaviour. We were untroubled
by desire, though timidly aware that the world was
changing. On our excursions to the King's Road
on a Saturday morning (the morning being safer
than the afternoon, given over to householders,
shoppers) we discussed the future in terms of
what work we would do. This did not much interest me,
whereas Betsy was considerably exercised by the
prospect of a future for which no provision had
been made. In that way she was more realistic than
I was, for my grandparents had left me some
money, and although this was controlled by my father I received
an allowance which would enable me to postpone any
far-reaching decisions. My mother had mentioned a
cookery course, a year in Florence; this
possibility I kept in reserve. In all
innocence I mentioned these matters to Betsy, as
we sat drinking milky coffee out of glass
cups. She looked at me, perplexed.
“
But
don't you want to work? Or go to university?
”
she asked.
“
You're good at English.
”

“
I wouldn't mind being a journalist,
”
I
said, but this in fact was only a conversational counter.
“
What about you?
”

“
Well, I'll have to get a job, won't
I?
”

“
You're the one who ought to go to university.
You're good at languages. Your French ...
”

“
There won't be any money for that. And I
need to look after Mary. She's not strong, you know.
She has anaemia. It makes her tired.
That's where you're lucky.
”
She blushed, as if
she had committed an impropriety. It was the
only time
—
the only time
—
I ever heard her refer
to the imbalance in our fortunes. To be envied
simply because one had parents, after all a
natural endowment, was not something I could understand. I
had read stories about orphans and I knew that
they were to be pitied. But I could not see that her father
was much of a loss, and in any event she had the
sort of courage that enabled her to look towards the
future, a courage in which I was strangely
lacking. For the moment I was content to drift,
to live out my last school years, and then perhaps
to light upon a solution, or to have one arranged for
me.

“
Do give my love to your mother,
”
she said, as
we shrugged on our coats.

It was perhaps an attempt to retrieve an
earlier
faux pas
, a reference to my good
fortune in possessing parents, but it revealed her
concomitant weakness, a need to go too far. Too
far in politeness, in accessibility, in offers of
service. I was to witness this on many occasions,
particularly as we grew older. Those evenings at
the cinema, watching the fabled lives of others, had
done nothing to persuade her of the necessity of
dissembling, of holding back her assent, of
flirtatiousness and unreliability, such as
attended the heroines of those Hollywood romances
her aunt favoured, and whose trickiness, whose
feistiness always brought about the desired, the
honourable result. Betsy never mastered that art.
Her eyes would widen with something like shock if she
encountered anything less than the plainest of
speech, the slightest deviation from the truth. I
could see that this might make her something of a burden;
I could even see that there might be some things one would
have to conceal from her, but at the age of fifteen, of
sixteen, I put it down to lack of a mother who could
instruct her in what was appropriate. She never
entirely lost that faculty, and whatever one knows
to be the desirability of honesty, one lives
long enough to regret its persistence in others,
particularly in those who knew one when one was just as
honest oneself.

What I did not tell Betsy
—
and this was one
of several related matters that I was obliged
to conceal from her
—
was that my parents did not get
on, and that I had become used to hearing angry
voices issuing from their bedroom far into the night.
My one desire was to get away, and to live my
life far from the contamination of these adult matters.
I valued a sort of innocence, or more
probably ignorance, which I feared might be
destroyed. My confused feeling at the time was that
I should be allowed to make my own mistakes and not
be harnessed to those of others. Instinctively I
resisted my mother and her plans, thinking, perhaps
correctly, that they did not have my best interests
at heart. In this I was probably wrong, but I
did not know then that two people could hate each other and
still live together. I was aware that my father had a friend,
but a girl is more likely to forgive her father than
her mother. My mother, as far as I knew, was
faithful, but fidelity had merely sharpened
her tongue, her powers of criticism. Her
scornful bitter voice in the bedroom filled
me with horror, even with terror. I thought that
parents should be sweet-natured, self-effacing, and
some children are lucky this way. My plans were
non-existent, but they centred around some form of
escape. My one comforting thought was that I had my
own money and could at some point run away, even
go abroad. At sixteen this was unrealistic.
At the same time I was sufficiently ruled by my
upbringing and the codes of my class to know that I must
lodge no complaint, express no
dissatisfaction, and carry on as if all were for the
best in the best of all possible worlds.

That I did not take Betsy into my confidence
was perhaps an enactment of this code, which has somehow
stayed with me, and also perhaps because I could not face the
look of sympathetic horror in her unwavering
gaze. I did not see how I could inflict that
outrage on one whose innocence (or ignorance) had
not yet been compromised. That was why I
deflected all questions that had to do with my future,
even with the putative choice of a profession. Our
friendship depended on a sort of mutuality: she
must not be told that I was already in touch with the sordid
truth of which she could have no knowledge. She was only too
willing to admire my parents; she would not be able
to understand that they were not necessarily admirable. I
thought that she should be protected from sadness, since
she had most certainly endured the sadness of not
having known her own mother. She had done well, so
far, and I had no wish to cloud her horizon.
It was not that I had any special loyalty to her
beyond the limits of our childhood friendship. Had
I known what was to follow I think I should have
behaved no differently. Again, one respects those
qualities one does not possess oneself.

This was to be the pattern: I must protect her
because she had so few people in whom to place her trust.
Miss Milsom, a broken reed at the best of
times, could not carry out this function. I thought that
Betsy behaved superbly in accepting Miss
Milsom as she was, without a hint of impatience
or criticism, enduring the insipid food, the
formulaic conversation, the weekend visits to the
cinema, as a version of family life with which she
had no quarrel. It was clear to me that when the time
came she would support Miss Milsom in her
declining days, which might not be far off, and not even
suspect that the Miss Milsoms of this
world would contribute very little to those whose care and training
fall within their remit. Betsy owed her schooling
to scholarships; she would undoubtedly win a
scholarship to university, yet Miss Milsom
and her disorder might stand in her way. Betsy's
loyalty, which extended to everyone she knew,
including my parents, was no doubt the result of a
truncated childhood, but it was no less
impressive for that reason. In time that loyalty
turned into a form of desire, as I was to witness.
There was not then, and never would be, a wish on my
part to damage that bright trust, even when it took
on a damaged quality, or rather a dimension of
longing, of distress, which at last revealed the
original wound.

Already our association was conducted along certain
lines, and strangely, or perhaps not so strangely,
this was how it continued. On one level we knew
each other very well; on another I was obliged
to keep my own counsel. I was able to sustain this
because I was proud, but I now see that there is no
pride without some underlying shame. I felt this
shame rather more than my parents appeared to do; I
felt it even more when I was with my peers, most of
all when Betsy outlined her artless plans: a
job that would enable her to care for Miss Milsom,
whom she had no reason, as she saw it,
to abandon. In comparison with such transparency I
knew myself to be opaque. Although we were both quite
unawakened
—
we were, I suppose, the last
virginal generation
—
I knew that I had glimpsed
complexities that were not available to Betsy, for
whom everything was straightforward. I kept in mind
my plans of escape, though the thought frightened me.
I was young enough to want everything to stay as it was,
even if I were to become a hostage to my parents,
their one point of contact. In the King's Road
we wandered thoughtfully, making our way to our
respective homes for lunch. We walked on
in silence, until Betsy whispered,
“
Did you
see that girl?
”
I nodded.
“
Wasn't she
pretty? You could have your hair cut like that. It would
look lovely. You've got such good bones.
”
Of her own bones there was no mention. It was as if
she could only envisage certain advantages for
others. Herself she treated with a stoical good sense
that even then I perceived as rather fine. I wished that
I possessed something of that quality, yet I also
knew that without it I might make rather more realistic
progress through life than if I had
been blessed, or rather cursed, with all the virtues.