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Authors: Margaret Drabble
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feels herself blushing, hopes her make-up will conceal the colour in her cheeks.
‘Yes,’ says Susie, firmly, primly (why does Fanny make her sound so smug, so prim, so suburban?), ‘yes, I do speech therapy at the clinic where I used to work, two half-days a week . . . and apart from that, yes, I am quite free.’
Free. The word hovers in the room, over the very slightly tarnished silver teapot, over the three-piece suite, over the coffee-table and the occasional tables, over the silk-fringed shades of the standard lamps. Free. An uneasy word, an uneasy concept, a confession, a concession. What has Susie surrendered? Something, she knows. Fanny has noted, has recorded, will exploit. Despite herself, Susie feels a faint tremor of excitement, a physical thrill, a stirring of the flesh. Fanny continues to chatter on, about her parties at Eastwold Grange, about her weekends in Paris, about her plans for future parties, about the complaisance of poor Ian . . . Susie does not know what to believe, does not know what is fact and what is fantasy, succumbs to a mild gin and tonic, refuses a second (‘I have to drive back’; ‘Ah, next time you
must
have a proper drink and go home in a taxi!’), and as she drives back through the waste land that links Northam and Hansborough, images of a strange, sinister, isolated Grange float into her mind, a Grange with brightly lit windows moated in mist. Laughter echoes into the surrounding emptiness, laughter on stairs and in bedrooms. Carnival, abandon, licence. Susie is outside, out on the flat grey mist-spangled lawn, looking in. Fanny, within, lies back on a brocaded settee, in a silken dress that parts to show the lace of her underskirt. Her head is thrown back. It is cold outside. Susie shivers and turns up the fan on her car heater, as she drives home to a solitary supper. Clive is out at a meeting, and the girl will have fed the children, will be waiting to go out with her boyfriend. Susie will eat eggs on toast in front of the television. Fanny’s ringed hand with its crimson nails reaches for a glass, and a high-heeled shoe drops from her thin hard ankle. A hand—an unattached, disembodied hand—reaches for Fanny’s lean thigh, beneath the silk.
Tony Kettle returns from an evening at the Bowens to find his mother lying snoring on the living-room settee. Her head is thrown back, and she snores, deeply, evenly, rhythmically. The television is still on, but it is soundless. The remote-control gadget has dropped from Fanny’s fingers and lies on the Persian rug by an empty bottle of Bulgarian Mountain Cabernet, an empty wineglass, an empty packet of cigarettes, an orange plastic cigarette lighter, and a stub-filled triangular Craven-A mock-antique ashtray. It is twenty to ten. Tony gazes at his mother with an indeterminate expression which accurately reflects his indeterminate feelings, then watches for a while the muted but loquacious participants in an incestuous BBC Answerback free-for-all about the alleged obscenity of a recent drama series. Tony does not know whether to creep quietly upstairs, like a prudent coward, or whether to attempt to wake his mother and persuade her to go to bed too. His father is away at a conference, so it doesn’t really matter if she lies there all night, or until (which is more probable) she rouses herself in the small hours, makes herself a cup of tea, and then puts herself to bed.
He wanders into the kitchen to think things over. He has had a pleasant evening with his friend Sam and Sam’s parents. Tony had not met Alix and Brian Bowen before. Alix did not seem the kind of mother that one would find lying asleep on a settee with an empty bottle of wine, but she was by no means unalarming: her wild grey hair, her piercing blue eyes, her intent concentration on everything one said, her large gestures, her sudden exclamations over forgotten parsley sauce, all these things had been slightly disconcerting. She seemed of a
‘Yes,’ says Susie, firmly, primly (why does Fanny make her sound so smug, so prim, so suburban?), ‘yes, I do speech therapy at the clinic where I used to work, two half-days a week . . . and apart from that, yes, I am quite free.’
Free. The word hovers in the room, over the very slightly tarnished silver teapot, over the three-piece suite, over the coffee-table and the occasional tables, over the silk-fringed shades of the standard lamps. Free. An uneasy word, an uneasy concept, a confession, a concession. What has Susie surrendered? Something, she knows. Fanny has noted, has recorded, will exploit. Despite herself, Susie feels a faint tremor of excitement, a physical thrill, a stirring of the flesh. Fanny continues to chatter on, about her parties at Eastwold Grange, about her weekends in Paris, about her plans for future parties, about the complaisance of poor Ian . . . Susie does not know what to believe, does not know what is fact and what is fantasy, succumbs to a mild gin and tonic, refuses a second (‘I have to drive back’; ‘Ah, next time you
must
have a proper drink and go home in a taxi!’), and as she drives back through the waste land that links Northam and Hansborough, images of a strange, sinister, isolated Grange float into her mind, a Grange with brightly lit windows moated in mist. Laughter echoes into the surrounding emptiness, laughter on stairs and in bedrooms. Carnival, abandon, licence. Susie is outside, out on the flat grey mist-spangled lawn, looking in. Fanny, within, lies back on a brocaded settee, in a silken dress that parts to show the lace of her underskirt. Her head is thrown back. It is cold outside. Susie shivers and turns up the fan on her car heater, as she drives home to a solitary supper. Clive is out at a meeting, and the girl will have fed the children, will be waiting to go out with her boyfriend. Susie will eat eggs on toast in front of the television. Fanny’s ringed hand with its crimson nails reaches for a glass, and a high-heeled shoe drops from her thin hard ankle. A hand—an unattached, disembodied hand—reaches for Fanny’s lean thigh, beneath the silk.
Tony Kettle returns from an evening at the Bowens to find his mother lying snoring on the living-room settee. Her head is thrown back, and she snores, deeply, evenly, rhythmically. The television is still on, but it is soundless. The remote-control gadget has dropped from Fanny’s fingers and lies on the Persian rug by an empty bottle of Bulgarian Mountain Cabernet, an empty wineglass, an empty packet of cigarettes, an orange plastic cigarette lighter, and a stub-filled triangular Craven-A mock-antique ashtray. It is twenty to ten. Tony gazes at his mother with an indeterminate expression which accurately reflects his indeterminate feelings, then watches for a while the muted but loquacious participants in an incestuous BBC Answerback free-for-all about the alleged obscenity of a recent drama series. Tony does not know whether to creep quietly upstairs, like a prudent coward, or whether to attempt to wake his mother and persuade her to go to bed too. His father is away at a conference, so it doesn’t really matter if she lies there all night, or until (which is more probable) she rouses herself in the small hours, makes herself a cup of tea, and then puts herself to bed.
He wanders into the kitchen to think things over. He has had a pleasant evening with his friend Sam and Sam’s parents. Tony had not met Alix and Brian Bowen before. Alix did not seem the kind of mother that one would find lying asleep on a settee with an empty bottle of wine, but she was by no means unalarming: her wild grey hair, her piercing blue eyes, her intent concentration on everything one said, her large gestures, her sudden exclamations over forgotten parsley sauce, all these things had been slightly disconcerting. She seemed of a
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