When I Was Otherwise (7 page)

“Well, I'm not so sure,” responded Marsha.

“What was that, dear? No, naturally you're not! Why should you be? Handsome is as handsome does—
that's
what I say. But…” She fiddled impatiently with her hearing aid. “You yourself always had the looks of the family, didn't you, dear? I mean the Stormonts. Henry was all right—
facially
—but one has to admit that Dan didn't come out of it too well. He looked just like a thin, gangly monkey when he was younger, with sleeked-down gingery hair, and he looks just like a slower, puffier version now, with hardly any hair at all to speak of, gingery or otherwise! Not that that matters, of course. He has a nice lazy easy-going sort of face to match his personality. Not much get-up-and-go, however—oh, well, you can't have everything—none of you ever showed much of that! Of course, it usually works out in this life that it's the brothers who get all the beauty and the sisters who are left to look like monkeys. So you, dear, did very well for yourself. I mean—in that respect. But… Why
did
your mother never encourage you to develop more resources? I've often wondered.”

“I suppose in those days people just didn't consider it important for women to be educated.”

“Well, I don't know, dear.
I
managed to scrape together an education of some kind. Of course, that wasn't quite in those days, I grant you. Your mother herself was reasonably well-educated. In a way. According to her lights. I must say it seems very strange. And it wasn't only you! To have let Dan go into hairnets and Henry into Selfridge's… Didn't your father ever have a say in it?”

“You're forgetting, Daisy. When Father died Henry would only have been—what?—thirteen.”

“Yes, but Dan…he'd have been older. And he never went to university. So your father could still have had a say in it, couldn't he? Those hairnets.”

Marsha merely shrugged. “I really can't remember.”

Anyway, thought Daisy, Marsha's father must have been a distinctly poor sort of a fish: you only had to look at the woman he'd chosen to marry! He'd clearly had the words
There, there!
inscribed all over him in indelible ink—luminous, too. And even the fact that he had finally marched off to war to make the supreme sacrifice…this couldn't
always
be seen as enough of a gesture to exonerate him completely.

And besides which, she already knew the answer to the main part of her question. The reason Marsha hadn't been encouraged to develop more resources was simply this: Florence had wanted to keep her daughter thoroughly subservient. That was mainly why she had organized the divorce: to have an unpaid companion to dance grateful and admiring attendance in her final years. And how wonderfully she had succeeded!

“I wonder what she's doing now.”

“Who?”

“Your mother.”

Marsha stared at her. “But, Daisy, my mother is dead.”

Daisy stared back at her a moment; suddenly appeared to give herself a little shake.

“Yes, I know
that
, dear.”

She passed one hand across her forehead and spoke almost with vehemence.

“I meant, of course—I wonder what she's doing now, in the afterlife. Don't you believe in heaven? Don't you believe that we go
on
?”

“Yes…I think I do.”

“Well, then?” She put her hand back to her forehead, kept it there a little, shaded her eyes with it. “Don't go for just a minute, there's a dear.”

“Aren't you feeling well, Daisy?”

“Oh—as well as I ever do! But I think somebody must have walked over my grave, that's all. What a ridiculous expression! Before they did so I hope they at least had the manners to wipe their boots!”

Marsha began to relax. “You're not sitting in a draught or something?”

“Yes, I am. I'm sitting in a something. I'm sitting in a bed.”

“Oh, you chump!”

They chuckled.

But, after a moment, Marsha administered one further test.

“What do you think heaven will be like, Daisy?”

“A colossal bore, most likely.”

“Oh—you don't!”

“It all depends what types you'll have to mix with. Suppose I found myself surrounded by a lot of idiotic women engaging in good works?
Them
, of course, not me—all gracious and condescending and holier-than-thou! (Well, that's
my
view of it, anyway. I could be talking through my hat. I very often do!) Or suppose I was forced, for the sake of redeeming my lost and shabby soul, to attend meetings given by the Mother's Union: suppose I had to be polite to my own mother let alone to yours? I don't think I could stand it.” (There seemed nothing much wrong
there
, Marsha thought.) “Though that was just my little joke, dear, as I'm very sure you realize.”

“Yes, Daisy, of course.”

“Great Scot! I do believe you're growing quite broad-minded in your old age! There's hope for you yet!”

“Oh, good! I
am
relieved!”

“No, but I don't really mean it, dear—you know me—not a word. Shall I tell you what I intend to do the minute I arrive?”

“In heaven?”

“Yes. Paint the town red; you might have guessed. ‘Good Lord,' they'll say, ‘what's this the wind's blown in? Hold on to your hats, boys! This place will never be the same—oh,
hallelujah
!' Apart from which, I intend to catch up on a few of the shows I was sorry to have missed in London. I mean, I'd like to see Burbage and Garrick and Kean. And—of course—keep up with all that's going on when I'm no longer here to see it.”

But Marsha shook her head. Smiling. Bewildered.

“Oh, Daisy, how can that be? What's past is past. Nothing can bring it back.”

“Oh, ye of little faith!”

“Well, it's no good pretending that I understand! But do you really believe it might be possible?”

“I do! I do! If that's the sort of thing you're after.”

“Then I'll just have to think about it. I know I've never been as clever as you, Daisy.”

“‘Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever.'”

It was a moment of rare harmony between them.

“And do you know how else I see it?” asked Daisy. “I see it as a sort of might-have-been place, where you can relive your life as it really ought to have been. All the right people responding in the right way. Your true potential unimpeded. I wouldn't
mind
, dear, finding myself in a place like that. Would you?”

“No, it sounds quite beautiful.”

“And probably all poppycock if the truth were known!”

“I shan't believe that!”

“You please yourself, dear. You'll be as mad as I am before you're through!”

Marsha stood up. “Well, Daisy, in that case I could certainly do worse. But now I think I really had better be on my way. You need to get your beauty sleep. I need to make Dan his good-night cup of Horlicks.”

“Yes, naturally you do! I mustn't keep you. Perhaps we ought to call you Martha—not Marsha.” Daisy gave a wide yawn.

“Oh, don't do that; you're making me do it, too!”

“Now just look at you, you poor old thing! You should have been in your bed
hours
ago. Tell Dan to make his own Horlicks!”

“Here, let me take your aid for you and put it on the table. Do your pillows need plumping again? Is that a little better?”

Daisy didn't hear but nonetheless she supplied the right answer. “That's very nice. Thank you, dear.” She gave another yawn. “Thank you for my hot-water bottle. Just the way I like it. Thank you for sitting and listening to me. I've been jawing the hind legs off a donkey—
as
usual! But tonight, dear,
you
provided a fair amount of the jawing yourself! Still—mum's the word—I shan't tell on you! Don't forget to say goodnight to Dan for me.”

Marsha bent and kissed her on the cheek. (It was still as rouged as in the daytime.) Daisy mumbled her customary nocturnal benediction.

“Sweet repose. Half the bed and all the clothes… God bless. Happy dreams.”

“Thank you, Daisy. Sleep well.”

“Not that there's much chance of it—but as usual, dear, I'm grateful for the kind wish.”

When Marsha passed her room again, some fifteen minutes later, Daisy was deeply and rhythmically snoring. Marsha was always thankful for the fact that, in this house at least, the walls were far from paper-thin.

Part Two

11

When Marsha had been married for about six months—and was now actually enjoying the experience once again, no longer writing notes to Boers or thinking of divorce but freshly inspired by a conscientious will to make her life succeed and riding one of those sporadic waves that could sometimes buoy her up for weeks—during this happy, cheerful and frenetic period she received a phone call from Daisy.

“Hello! I want to come and visit you. I want to meet your groom—properly, I mean. Didn't have a chance to speak two words to him at the wedding.”

Marsha, feeling skittish, having been brought up always to observe the little niceties of life, considered asking, “Who is this, please?” But she couldn't quite bring herself to do it.

“Why, Daisy! Hello! Good morning! How are you?”

She felt pleased with herself—that for once she had thought so quickly of the right retort. It was a much kinder and more subtle manner of teaching her sister-in-law a little lesson.

“Oh, not so bad. Not so dusty. You know—
considering
!”

It was a dampening and very necessary reminder; and all Marsha's pride in her correctness vanished.

The thing was, of course, so very much had happened in her own life during the past year that she'd forgotten how slow the same passage of time might appear to others: say, to somebody who was mourning the loss of a loved one. And although she'd never been wholly certain—well, nobody had—just how much Daisy had
truly
cared for Henry she now saw she'd been failing to make allowances.

Because, after all, the real wonder had to be, didn't it, not that Daisy had overlooked some trivial piece of etiquette but that she was still managing to function even
adequately
, let alone robustly, let alone with such resilience? She was a lesson to the world, a study in survival, when Marsha had supposed that
she
was going to be the teacher! For how could Daisy bear to come and visit newly-weds—and such very playful newly-weds as well, continuously billing and cooing—such bliss—just the way she'd always imagined it was going to be; with Andrew amusingly trying to pretend he was far too serious for all that type of thing and acting like some old curmudgeon but in fact only wanting to lead her on? (Why, take last night, for example: the way he'd given a groan when she had moved over to his side of the bed whilst asking for a cuddle! The way he had actually got out and padded round to
her
side, having first snatched up the bolster and shoved it down into the space between them! The way he had threatened her with separate rooms if she
still
hadn't learnt to control herself; if she
still
couldn't see a need for more responsible behaviour! So…? From now on it was to be on
ration
, was it? His favours weren't just to be had, it seemed—not any more—as though they were merely two a penny! He was the master of the house and in future she must earn them! Well, what a lark! In the end, of course, she had certainly managed to earn them, along with his grumbles and his grudging sigh of resignation. In truth, she thought she had earned rather better than she got, yet never mind, there were some things better not mentioned, even in fun.) But, oh my, all these delightful and tantalizing and presumably quite typical carryings-on! Daisy herself had been a bride not much more than a year ago and although naturally she wouldn't be invited up to the bedroom she must surely remember how it was. Had she simply decided then to take the bull by the horns? Yes, that was it. It would entirely fit her character.

Marsha remembered Daisy at the funeral, such a grim-faced plucky little woman. And Daisy had also had her father's funeral to contend with.
And
her mother's only a short time before that. So… Two parents and a husband all lost within five years! Was ‘plucky' a sufficiently good word?

She remembered her at her own wedding, still very much in mourning—how every eye had flown straight to her, so surpassingly dramatic in black, the one stark figure in a sea of whites and pastels!—and still residually grim-faced. “So they didn't try to get you to postpone this whole wedding palaver? Well, I should think not, indeed! And I hope you'd have put your foot down if they had! I rather doubt it.”

As her gift she had sent them a blanket and pair of double sheets: a generous and most useful present. Then Erica had seen the blanket and inspected it more closely, and they had found a monogram on the pair of sheets. Marsha had mentioned all this to her mother, never dreaming that such revelations would get passed on. Daisy had eventually heard about it from one of her patients—who was the sister of Florence's maid. “D.H. on the sheets!” Daisy had cried out. “D.H.? Well—naturally! Where do you think I bought the wretched things?”

She had insisted that D. H. Evans was still
D
.
H
. Evans, wasn't it, or had even department stores succumbed to this modern mania for change and excitement?

“Change, change, change!” she had exclaimed. “Nobody can do without it! Well, quite right too! I'm sure I'd take a dose if everything remained the same!”

It had still been a most useful and generous present, Marsha had contended; and she only hoped to heaven Daisy wouldn't make any mention of it now.

“Yes, of course you may come and visit us!” she cried down the telephone, gaily. “Good gracious! Surely you don't have to ask!”