How It All Began Page 4

  And what of Stella?

  Jeremy is relaxed, pragmatic, he deals unfazed with what comes along. Stella is clenched, strung tight as a wire, waiting for the next inevitable blow: the girls will break a limb, Jeremy will get cancer, the house will fall down. And when these hold off, so far, there is always winter flu, the car packing up, the cat run over, a blocked pipe. Ah, that blocked wastepipe.

  In fact, nothing much has ever happened to Stella. She has seldom been ill, has never been seriously short of money, her children are healthy and compliant. Jeremy courted and married her because she was small, neat and so pretty, and she came along at the right time—the conjunction of availability and the moment that triggers most marriages. He told her he adored her, which he did, right then; she was happy to adore back.

  Twenty years ago. Since when both Jeremy and Stella have discovered her propensity to collapse. Disaster is not necessary; Stella can go into meltdown for no very evident reason. There was that major event a few years ago, requiring alarming medications and specialist treatment. She is basically vulnerable, said the sister, staring hard at Jeremy. Stella herself admits as much. I just don’t know what happens, she says—mystified, mortified—I don’t seem able to hang on. You will need to watch her, Gill orders Jeremy—the responsible older sister; no stress, no shocks.

  So Stella’s present state is Jeremy’s fault entirely. He acknowledges this, with a few wry thoughts about that betraying mobile. Offstage, Charlotte Rainsford, catalyst, is settling into her room at Rose’s house and, elsewhere, a juvenile delinquent is going about his (or her) business.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Henry has lived in London for years, or rather, he has existed on a particular one of London’s planes. He lives in his white stucco house in an expensive postcode, and goes forth to his club in Pall Mall, to Wiltons or Rules, to Covent Garden (a couple of times a year), to the Royal Academy and the Tate and the British Library and the British Museum. He visits the House of Lords less and less frequently; the debates are tedious, the company dismayingly mixed nowadays, and the food appalling. He uses buses whose routes are familiar to him, finding the Freedom Pass that Rose obtained most satisfactory (one doesn’t need to fumble for change). On the buses his plane intersects with those of many others—people who are ignorant of the British Museum and the Royal Academy, whose own London backdrop would be as alien to Henry as a North African souk or downtown Moscow, just as the destination of many of the buses are entirely mysterious to him—Clapton Pond, Whipp’s Cross, Hackney Wick.

  London is said to be an agglomeration of villages; not at all, London is a vast entity within which people move around, each upon their own exclusive level, ignoring all that is unknown and irrelevant. In the buses, Henry is sometimes aware that there do not seem to be many others like him—elderly white male wearing suit and tie, with raincoat over arm, and that the bus speaks in tongues, most of them unfamiliar to him. In his youth, the Britain of fifty years ago, he recognized the class divide, both as a social phenomenon and something you were aware of all around you; there were distinct planes of existence then, oh dear me, yes. But today’s disparate and polyglot populace is another matter; you cannot place anyone in context, you cannot judge prosperity, hazard a guess at occupation, know if this person would speak English, Russian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croat, Urdu, Pashto. From time to time, Henry stares at his fellow travelers on the bus and feels disoriented. What has gone on here? The society of his youth was a familiar territory; you knew where you were with it, and moreover it related to history: he saw also from whence it sprang, he saw its origins in the nineteenth century, and in his own personal patch, the eighteenth. Behind and beyond it lay the long slow metamorphosis of this country. In the mind’s eye, the centuries were laid out, heading toward today, with significant developments flagged up: Civil War, Reform Act, universal suffrage. But none of that could have been seen to lead to this.

  Truth to tell, Henry is not that interested. His professional concern has been the past, and the present has caught his attention only when relevant to himself: who was what in academia, and beyond it the people he knew or felt he should know, or had heard of. He has devoted himself to intense scrutiny of eighteenth-century political life but his fellow citizens and their circumstances are not, on the whole, of much concern to him. He keeps up with political affairs, of course, has always made sure to be acquainted with a few key people at Westminster; he would have views on most issues of the day. But he is without curiosity, when it comes to those around him; they exist, and that is all there is to it. Crucial political factors, of course, in a democratic society, but without individual significance.

  Today, Henry is on the 19 bus, heading for the Royal Academy. It is a few days only since the Manchester debacle, and he has not recovered. He seethes still with humiliation. He sees again and again the complacent face of his old adversary’s protégé. He replays the Vice-Chancellor’s words of farewell, and detects patronage, even, possibly, mild contempt for one whose day is done. The situation is unbearable; one made a fool of oneself—was made a fool of, by anno bloody domini.

  He must do something. He must redeem himself. He must demonstrate capacity, power, prestige. Publish something.

  Publish what?

  Well, the memoirs, in due course. But they are far from completion, and some immediate measure is required.

  A letter to The Times? One has written many letters to The Times, over the years; always a good idea to keep one’s name in the public eye. But The Times has lost its clout, and anyway on what would one write?

  No, something more substantial is required. A long piece in The Times Literary Supplement, or a leading academic journal, demonstrating that one is still very much a figure to be reckoned with. Something provocative, contentious even, to set people talking. A new slant on some aspect of the eighteenth century.

  What slant? Henry is in fact out of touch with the eighteenth century. He stopped thinking much about it a number of years ago, he has not kept up with new publications. The eighteenth century has moved on, leaving him behind. History is a slippery business; the past is not a constant but a landscape that mutates according to argument and opinion. Henry is well aware of this, and aware that the eighteenth century has disappeared over the horizon so far as he is concerned, reconstructed, reinterpreted.

  No, better not stick one’s neck out. Could be cut up by some young turk. Not that one’s own work does not remain the basis of Augustan studies, in the opinion of any reputable scholar. Most reputable scholars, anyway.

  She can crutch it to the bathroom. Rose and Gerry’s spare bathroom; their own is en suite, thanks be, so she is not getting in their way. She can crutch it down the stairs, just, Rose and Gerry’s stairs, waiting till both have gone to work, and Rose will have left breakfast on the table, Rose and Gerry’s kitchen table, having brought up a cup of tea earlier, to check that one has not croaked during the night. Rose is being kind, tactful, she brings tears to the eyes; Gerry too is doing his best, he insists that one has his end of the sofa, from whence the TV is best viewed, he is always offering the newspaper.

  Charlotte is doing what she would not wish to do—living with her daughter and son-in-law. She is filled with resentment and compunction. The resentment is not directed toward Rose, whom she loves to distraction, but toward the malign fate that has forced her into this situation. The compunction is because Rose and Gerry are obliged to do this, to have their marital privacy invaded, to have this perpetual third in their home. Yes, yes, Rose is doing it not just because she knows she ought to, but also because she is concerned, feels responsible and probably loves her mother back, though this is not a matter that is ever bandied around between them. Neither are people who brandish affection.

  That said, all this should not be. Charlotte should be in her own home; out of sight although not out of mind, of course not. Rose and Gerry should be enjoying the intimacy of marriage, if enjoy is what they do and one has always hoped and prayed so. The
days when the indigent, dependent old had to be stacked up by the fireplace, fed, grumbled at, nudged toward the grave, are long gone. There are arrangements now, state provision.

  “Home help,” she had said. “Coming in every day…”

  Rose had had that set look, long known, experienced first when Rose was three, four, five. “No.”

  “Really, that would be fine.”

  “No.”

  Rose was a good child, she never gave trouble, but there was always that small, firm core of resistance. If she wasn’t going to, she wouldn’t, and you didn’t bother pushing the matter. Later, grown up, she did what she intended to do, and you knew better than to go on at her with disapproval or alternatives. She chose to go to one of the lesser universities because a friend was going there; Charlotte made a protest, and then subsided, knowing herself ignored. Then there was office work that was leading nowhere, and then the children, who were fine and thank heaven for them, and at that point his lordship did indeed seem a useful interim job while the children needed Rose, but there she still is, interim it apparently was not. So Charlotte eyed Henry with a certain disdain, he who has consumed Rose’s working life, had her dance attendance on him when she might have…Oh,

  I know, I know, says Charlotte, hearing what Rose has never said, I know you never wanted a career, but even so…

  Charlotte had not known that she herself wanted a career; she fell into one because she was so good at what she did. She began to teach, with her nice new shiny degree in English, back in the heady 1960s, which for some were all about miniskirts and the Beatles (and indeed Charlotte wore a miniskirt), but for her this was the time of liberation (yes, the word of the day) and the realization that there was something she could do, and do very well, and enjoy. She could persuade young and pliant minds to appreciate reading in the way that she did herself; she could take the set texts on an exam syllabus and bring them alive, she could stand in front of a class and see attention on every face. She could glow with satisfaction as she read an appreciative, intelligent essay. She rose through the system; she moved to a more celebrated school. She could have had a headship but did not want one; she wanted to be in the classroom. She ended up as Head of English at one of the most prestigious of girls’ schools in north London, showering her pupils around the nation’s universities, a legend to many of them: Mrs. Rainsford who could have you mesmerized by Macbeth on a wet Monday afternoon when you had a cold and your boyfriend had dumped you and A levels were only a month off.

  So there it was, there it had been, a teaching life, a career if you must call it that, and Charlotte now looks back on it with a certain satisfaction, and then scolds herself for being smug. I was a conduit, she thinks, that’s all. I was lucky enough to have the knack of transmission—I could get them to see and hear a poem, to absorb a novel. The power is in the stuff itself—language; all you have to do is show the way.

  In Rose and Gerry’s house, Charlotte misses her books. Her familiar walls, lined with language. Rose and Gerry have books, of course, but not so many, nothing like, and some of them are wonderfully obscure, to her eye, and that is in itself a challenge. She has spent a morning with Gerry’s Handbook to Coarse Fishing, and learned a lot. Equally his manuals on carpentry and home repairs, though here her eyes began to glaze over after a while.

  Gerry is fifty-four, and seems to have been that since he was twenty-seven, when he and Rose were married. He was one of those young who are not, in whom you spot already the older self, peering out, waiting to take over. He was cautious, reserved, pragmatic. She and Tom had told each other that he was a nice, sensible chap, he’d do fine for Rose, stable, not someone who’d go off the rails. Neither wished to find fault; any doubts were unspoken. Is he a wee bit dull? Charlotte had wondered. Of course, one doesn’t really know him.

  She does, now, probably. In so far as one knows a person. She knows Gerry’s political views (temperate), his tendency to indigestion, politely concealed, his reluctance to get into argument, his worry that he may be going bald (he is), his few intense dislikes (unpunctuality, garlic, Spain, the tabloid press, German shepherd dogs). The aversion to Spain stems from a family holiday there many years ago, when it seems there was a contretemps with a Spanish hotelier about inadequate facilities. The German shepherds would appear to have to do with his childhood—better not to inquire.

  Charlotte is entirely used to Gerry. He has been a part of the landscape of her life for a long while now. He is Rose’s husband, and that is that. Occasionally she thinks of her own dear man, by contrast, and then pushes the thought away. Tom who was vigorous, spontaneous, filled with energy and curiosity, who, like her, could teach the socks off most of his peers, who was head-hunted from school to school. Tom who was unfairly snuffed out at fifty, one of those beastly galloping early cancers, nothing they could do, just the two of you holding hands a lot, moving from day to day, waiting.

  Charlotte sits in Rose and Gerry’s kitchen, eating breakfast and reading Gerry’s Telegraph, which in fact reads pretty oddly, if you are used to the Guardian. The hip aches, but not unbearably, one has known worse, much worse. Later, she will attempt a hike to the front gate, though Rose would prefer that she did not, for fear of falling, and Rose will not be back till half-past one, when she has done with his lordship.

  If Charlotte was at home, her day would be filled. Getting up with The Today Program (occasionally interrupting John Humphrys), breakfast with the Guardian, tidy the kitchen, do a bit of cleaning, put on a wash, walk to the shops, lunch with a book propped up in front of her—one of the few mitigating factors of life alone is that you can read during meals without giving offense—a rest on the sofa, then whatever needs doing in the afternoon—letters, a spell in the garden, her shift at the adult literacy class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, then the evening with plenty more reading time and whatever is acceptable on the telly.

  None of that now, except the reading. She has a stack of books from home with her, and has commissioned Rose to get a new paperback she wants. So the most important thing is still available, though somehow reading was more savored when kept for those special periods in the day. When you can do it any old time it is less cherished. And her concentration is all askew: the medications, the nagging hip.

  Forever, reading has been central, the necessary fix, the support system. Her life has been informed by reading. She has read not just for distraction, sustenance, to pass the time, but she has read in a state of primal innocence, reading for enlightenment, for instruction, even. She has read to find out how sex works, how babies are born, she has read to discover what it is to be good, or bad; she has read to find out if things are the same for others as they are for her—then, discovering that frequently they are not, she has read to find out what it is that other people experience that she is missing.

  Specifically, she read bits of the Old Testament when she was ten because of all that stuff about issues of blood, and the things thou shalt not do with thy neighbor’s wife. All of this was confusing rather than enlightening.

  She got hold of a copy of Fanny Hill when she was eighteen, and was aghast, but also intrigued.

  She read Rosamond Lehmann when she was nineteen, because her heart had been broken. She saw that such suffering is perhaps routine, and, while not consoled, became more stoical.

  She read Saul Bellow, in her thirties, because she wanted to know how it is to be American. After reading, she wondered if she was any wiser, and read Updike, Roth, Mary McCarthy and Alison Lurie in further pursuit of the matter. She read to find out what it was like to be French or Russian in the nineteenth century, to be a rich New Yorker then, or a midwestern pioneer. She read to discover how not to be Charlotte, how to escape the prison of her own mind, how to expand, and experience.

  Thus has reading wound in with living, each a complement to the other. Charlotte knows herself to ride upon a great sea of words, of language, of stories and situations and information, of knowledge, some of which she can summon up,
much of which is half lost, but is in there somewhere, and has had an effect on who she is and how she thinks. She is as much a product of what she has read as of the way in which she has lived; she is like millions of others built by books, for whom books are an essential foodstuff, who could starve without.

  So, this morning, Charlotte settles herself on Rose’s sofa, after breakfast, and opens The House of Mirth, which is part of a deliberate program to revisit books that have been influential for her in the past, and see if they still taste the same. But after five minutes or so her attention starts to stray; she is looking out of the window, not at the book, staring at Gerry’s meticulously clipped garden hedge while her thoughts drift, unfocused—she simply sits there, and realizes suddenly that half an hour has passed. She reads a few pages, relapses once more, is gazing at the hedge, at a white butterfly dancing along it, at a plane forging across the sky above.

  The morning is half gone. She gets up, crutches it to the kitchen, makes a cup of coffee. This will not do, she thinks. I cannot spend the next few weeks in a trance. If reading is to fail me thus, then something else must be found.

  She cannot do useful things around the house, because of the crutches, and anyway Rose would not hear of it. She cannot get out and about. Today is her adult literacy class, where she is not. The class floats into her head, person by person. There is Lesley, who is in her forties, had some debilitating illness in childhood, missed much schooling, emerged unable to read, and has somehow got by ever since with subterfuge and the help of her family. There are the Bangladeshi mother and daughter, who cannot read or write in their own language, let alone English, but are now triumphantly mastering whole sentences. There is Dan, in his late fifties, a builder and heaven alone knows how he has got by, but he has, by dint of a compendious memory and a wife who does the office work; Dan has been propelled to the class by becoming a grandfather, he would like to be able to read to the kids, and this of all motives has Charlotte fervently at his side, wishing that there was more scope for one-on-one attention. There is seventy-year-old Liz, who has been bullied into coming by her daughter but doesn’t actually give a hang whether she learns to read or not, she’s got along all right without all her life, hasn’t she? Yes, it’s a nuisance sometimes in the shops, but you can always ask someone. There is eighteen-year-old Paul, who also missed much schooling, was labeled dyslexic, but is not, he just needs patient coaching. There is the girl who is half Somali, half English, born here, and quite why she has had so little school is a mystery; thereby hangs a tale, no doubt, but she is making headway at last, a confident finger rushing from word to word. There is Anton, a newcomer, a soft-spoken man, central European of some kind—Charlotte hasn’t gathered from where—his spoken English good but some block where reading is concerned. That is why he is on an adult literacy course, rather than English-as-a-foreign-language; reading is the problem, not speech.