The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories

  But, as time passed, Tom was more and more at the Gloucestershire house. He seemed to have drifted apart from his Arts Club friends, and began to get together with what Lorna thought of as “arty” people in the country. It was surprising how many potters there were about, painters, sculptors, and those who practiced one craft or another. Tom was not painting much; he worked for a while with a local furniture maker, and sought now to make elegant pieces himself—the studio became a carpentry center.

  When Christine and Charles, in turn, went to boarding school, Lorna made the decision that Gloucestershire should now become their main home. There was a nice little private day school not far away that Paula could go to, until she too began to board, a moment that Lorna dreaded.

  “Then don’t,” said Tom. “Send her to the local comprehensive. Send them all, for that matter.”

  He spoke, as so often these days, as though it were not really his concern. And when Lorna said that well, yes, I mean it would be fine by me, but Daddy would be simply horrified, I couldn’t do that to him, Tom shrugged.

  Presently Christine was joined at Westonbirt by Paula; Lorna did rather like them being at her own old school. The thought somehow mitigated the loss that she felt: the empty house, for weeks on end, until, thanks be, they all came tumbling back for the holidays. But those barren weeks were hard to get through. She determinedly sought occupation—some voluntary work at a hospice, a course in garden design. She would redo the garden entirely, get Tom involved in choices, decisions. He left everything to her too much, she felt: “Whatever you prefer, darling . . . Whichever you like . . .”

  *

  And here he is, provoking, as always, a sudden lurch in her composure. They greet, he sits down. For a few minutes they engage in chitchat, but this does not go on for long. They have an agenda today: they need to talk about a shared concern. Paula: Paula’s impending divorce.

  *

  The 1970s did not much leave their mark on rural Gloucestershire. Some flared jeans, some cheesecloth shirts—Lorna herself wore a long wrap-around skirt—but not much by way of attitudes or assumptions. Tom’s friends—the potters, the craftspeople—were long since dedicated to creativity, and when the urge to demonstrate a creative flair became a widespread fashion, they could show benign contempt. This would pass, and did, along with the sideburns and the tie-dyeing.

  Indeed, Tom’s own sideburns came and went, but he was now quite respectably involved in furniture-making; original designs executed in oak and elm—the studio had to be expanded. He sold pieces at craft fairs, and insisted on using the proceeds to contribute to the costs of the studio extension, though Lorna knew he needed anything that came in for materials. He had long since ceased to quibble about drawing on their joint account, but did so meticulously, mentioning to Lorna any unusual expenditure.

  “But you don’t need to tell me, darling.”

  “I know, I know—it’s only money.” An odd sort of smile, one that always bothered her, somehow.

  Christine left school and went to university, followed in due course by Charles. They still came home a fair amount, of course, but Lorna could see yawning ahead that time when they would not. There was talk already of possible futures: Charles might do postgraduate work in America, Christine wanted a London job. Well, there would be Paula for a while yet; Lorna clung to that thought. She was worried by the idea of there just being her and Tom at home.

  It was not that there was anything wrong between them, she told herself: no, no. More that there was this absence of anything much at all. They shared a bed at night, and yes, Tom still made love to her (well, sometimes, and middle-aged people just don’t so much, do they?); by day he vanished into his studio or off to some craft fair or to visit friends, associates she did not know, never suggesting she came too (“Oh, you’d be bored, darling, it’s all just talk about stuff we do”).

  And so, when it happened, she was not prepared, was not expecting it, was ambushed.

  When he came into the kitchen one day and said, “Lorna, can we have a talk?”

  She was cooking for the freezer. Paula was home from university; Christine was coming for the weekend.

  They sat down, opposite sides of the kitchen table. Lorna looked at him. She saw the Tom she had known for twenty-four years, and understood that she hadn’t.

  He told her that it wasn’t working, was it? That it had not been working for a long time, possibly it never really had, and they had not faced up to this. He told her that yes, he had loved her, and that there was a sense in which he still did, but that he couldn’t stay with her. He was sorry, he said, really, really sorry, but that he had to do this, should maybe have done it earlier, but couldn’t while the children were young. He said they might understand, now. He hoped, desperately, that she might.

  She said she didn’t.

  No, he said, no. There wasn’t anyone else. That, she believed.

  Stricken, she fell silent. And, a while later, Tom moved out.

  The divorce went ahead. Lorna’s father said, “Lawyers are trying to tell me he’s entitled to a percentage of this, a percentage of that. Well, we’ll fight—he’s not getting a penny.”

  There was no need to fight. Tom asked for nothing. Just the contents of his studio.

  In the years to come Lorna never questioned the children for news of him, but learned some, nevertheless. The children had their own lives now, and she knew that these included time spent with their father. He was in Somerset, in business partnership with another furniture-maker—less high-end products, she understood, more by way of mass production, they were doing quite well.

  In time, she heard of Annie, whom Tom had met apparently through his business partner, some relative of his, and in more time still she heard that they were married. This shook her, left her stricken again, for a while. But then she began to see George Wheatley, whose wife had died, who farmed vast tracts of Gloucestershire and was so easy to get on with, and that helped. Much of the time.

  Enough to fall into this practice of meeting up with Tom every year or so. A drink, a lunch. To talk about the children, mostly. Occasions that Lorna both dreaded and looked for.

  *

  As, indeed, today. But, in fact, nowadays she is pretty calm about it. Here we are again, she thinks, and goodness, how can he have got quite so—well, quite so old. As am I, but I know about that because I see this face in the mirror every day. But Tom . . . The Tom in her head is twenty-two still—one of the many Toms in her head.

  They discuss Paula. “It’s just so sad,” says Lorna. “Such a pity. I’d thought they were happy together. I like Matthew.”

  Tom sighs. He says that he too is surprised, but there it is. He is concerned about Zoe, the child, their grandchild. Zoe is six.

  Lorna too is worried. “Going from one to the other, it seems. Oh dear, I hate to think of that for her.” Couldn’t they have hung in there, for Zoe’s sake? After all, Tom . . . She is thinking now of their own marriage, she realizes. And perhaps Tom is also, because a silence falls between them. A weighted silence, and both look away, avoid each other’s eye.

  It is Tom who speaks first, acknowledging what is in the air. “One can’t make comparisons,” he says. “We can’t know what they . . . how they . . . We were . . .”

  “We were what?” says Lorna.

  “Different.” He looks away again. “Well, of course”—shaking his head—“that’s stupid. Let’s not go there, Lorna.”

  And then Lorna says it, that which she has never said before.

  “What went wrong?” she says. “What went wrong between you and me?”

  He does look at her now. He takes a breath.

  “You were rich, Lorna,” he says. “Just that. You were rich.”

  Point of View

  The Scriptwriter is wrestling with the question of POV. Point of View. She has these three characters shut
up in a room together, engaged in a discussion which must reveal, at the same time, their relationships with one another, aspects of their individual histories, and the current state of play in all three lives. To do this, she needs to display the scene from different points of view. The characters in question are in the nineteenth century. This is a costume drama series—it is hoped that it will trounce Downton Abbey. So there is the added complication of the nineteenth-century POV, which does not come naturally to the Scriptwriter but must be seamlessly suggested.

  The Scriptwriter is Lauren Stanley, and right now, as she sits at her desk, wrestling, everything is seen from her POV. The screen of the laptop in front of her, the view of the street out of the window above. And, especially, thoughts which are distracting her from work, thoughts about a real-life connection which keep shoving aside these fictional concerns. She is a bit—well, quite a lot—worried about her relationship with her partner, Paul. It occurs to her that real life is a single POV affair, or rather, a matter of myriad conflicting POVs.

  The relationship is not in crisis, but in poor health. It has a bad case of flu, from which it may well recover, but it is in need of care and attention. Lauren thinks of it in that way, as though it were some delicate substance—the Relationship. She is concerned about it.

  Is Paul concerned?

  Ah—this is where POV comes in. She does not know if Paul is concerned, if he is aware that things are not good, or, if he is aware, whether he is concerned. Or just not bothered, possibly. Is he thinking: so we’re not getting on . . . well—whatever.

  Paul is a research chemist. He works for a big pharmaceutical company. A pharma, you say nowadays. His work is about as remote from Lauren’s as could be, a matter of substances and reactions, hypotheses and results. No nonsense about what he said or she said or who did what, when, where and to whom. No hint of a POV.

  They met at the wedding of a mutual friend. Oh, cliché, cliché. Met, got talking, took a shine to one another, met up a week later, took further shine, the gulf between their occupations no impediment whatsoever, met up again, and again, went to bed, went to Venice for a weekend, were spoken of as a couple, moved in together. Lauren, Paul, Harry and Archie.

  Harry is Paul’s thirteen-year-old son. Archie is Lauren’s cat. Paul has been married (he is somewhat older than Lauren)—Harry is the detritus of the marriage and is actually only with them alternate weekends and some of the school holidays, though it sometimes seems longer than that to Lauren. When she and Paul first got together Harry was a charming—well, mainly charming—six-year-old. Thirteen is less charming. Most of Harry’s time is spent with his mother, who lives in Maidenhead, and exerts a malign influence from there.

  Archie is a ten-year-old neutered tabby. He has had no previous relationship.

  Lauren has. Two. Eighteen months and three years. She has been assuming for some time that she and Paul are a fixture, which is why the Relationship’s onset of flu is a worry. She considers the symptoms each day, testing them for progress. Better? Or worse?

  Paul fails frequently to give her that quick kiss before he goes off to work.

  He seldom inquires about her work, which he used to do.

  Sex, when it happens, feels perfunctory.

  All that is worse.

  Better was when he did remember her birthday. When he and Harry brought a choice takeaway supper back for them all after they had been to a football match. When he reached out for her hand in the car last week.

  But worse are all these times he has nothing to say. When he comes home late (could he be having an affair?). When he seems not to care whether she is around or not.

  She does not really think he is having an affair. Paul just is not that sort of man (but anyone could suddenly become that sort of man, couldn’t they, if subject to a coup de foudre?). And he hates crisis, upheaval. The end of his first marriage shattered him. That Relationship suffered some kind of terminal flu, it seems. He prefers not to talk about it.

  The Scriptwriter homes in on her three characters, determinedly. She has one of them move to the fireplace, and turn angrily to her sister saying . . . Saying what?

  Lauren wonders if Paul really has these departmental meetings that make him late home—very late—every Tuesday. He probably does. Paul is deeply involved in his work. This is a much more likely scenario than some woman tucked up in an adulterous flat.

  The Scriptwriter frowns, stares at her screen, types: “Charlotte (angrily): That is untrue, Emily. I have never spoken ill of you—I have not, I have not.”

  Lauren compares life with Paul now to life with Paul, say, a year ago. Surely he talked to her more then? Surely sex was more enthusiastic? There was more companionship: going to see a film, a walk in the park. Last weekend he didn’t want to come for a walk with her, stayed home reading the paper.

  The Scriptwriter tells Emily to reply. Emily is silent.

  Lauren sifts the last week for some positively companionable, even affectionate, moment. Paul patted her on the shoulder when asking what was for supper. An e-mail he sent from the office to say what time he would be home had a couple of Xs at the end. He has never been one for endearments, so absence of a “darling” or two means nothing.

  The Scriptwriter sighs, closes the screen, and consigns her characters to the depths of the laptop.

  Lauren considers their respective personalities; pronounced differences are perhaps relevant. She knows that she is more volatile, more excitable, more prone to panic or dismay. None of these defects are present to excess, but they are not reflected in Paul’s personality. Paul is phlegmatic. He is even-tempered, inclined to caution, rational, conscientious, persistent.

  So, given what seems a certain apposition, is she just fussing? Is it just that Paul doesn’t react like she does, so seems distant?

  No. Because if always a bit calm and cool he has become more so. Much more so.

  Are they an otherwise mismatched couple? Paul is tall, gangly, with a long thin face, glasses. Lauren is short, inclined to plump, with (she considers) a reasonable face, quite pretty even, perfect eyesight.

  No, appearance is irrelevant.

  Are their living circumstances unsatisfactory? Well, not really. They moved into the Finsbury Park flat three years ago, after a prolonged engagement with London house prices, and are very pleased with it; their bedroom, a small one for Harry, Lauren’s study, sitting room, bathroom, kitchen with high cabinet on top of which Archie usually roosts, paws neatly folded, surveying them. No, the flat is fine.

  Problems with their extended families? Paul’s mother is widowed; Lauren gets on well with her, they visit regularly, Eileen comes to them for Christmas. His only sibling, a sister, lives in Australia but relations have been entirely amicable on her occasional visits.

  Lauren also has a sister, of whom she is fond. Paul has always seemed to like her well enough, and her husband. Sally recently had her second child, and Lauren was careful, when last she and Paul went there, to refrain from any enthusiastic reaction or comment; no “Oh, isn’t he lovely!,” no pleas to be allowed to hold him. Indeed, she remembers making some breezy remark on the way home to the effect that Sally was in danger of becoming a complete baby bore: “Rather her than me!”

  Paul does not want them to have a child together. His silence on the matter has made that clear to Lauren.

  Lauren is thirty-six. Before too long it would be too late anyway. So she has bitten the bullet, told herself if that is the way it is, then that’s the way it is, get over it, get a life.

  No, families pose no problems. And the baby issue . . . The baby issue is her problem; she has never confronted Paul, sensing how he feels, never made anything of it, has not risked wrecking this good, solid relationship. He has Harry—well, a share of Harry; she can understand that that is enough, for him.

  And she has her work, her absorbing work, which is enough for her,
isn’t it? She has her work, she has a much-loved partner, she has a choice flat in a sought-after area of London, she has good health, a stable bank balance, and an assertive cat who is winding round her legs right now not out of affection but because he wants food.

  Lauren feeds Archie: Whiskas, one pouch.

  There, she tells him. You are not a baby substitute, and never were. I am fond of you, but in a perfectly balanced, merely cat-loving way.

  Archie eats.

  Later, Lauren feeds Paul: chili con carne, followed by a fruit salad.

  Paul eats, but with expressed appreciation. Chili con carne is a favorite of his. He pours them each a glass of wine.

  Archie, with practiced agility, has leaped to the top of the kitchen cabinet and settled himself, observing them without apparent interest.

  Paul has had an exacting day. Now, back home, he is trying to put these things out of his mind and concentrate on . . . chili con carne, a glass of Sauvignon, the sight of Lauren, in that gray stripy top and the amber pendant he gave her for Christmas.

  Paul loves Lauren. His POV, right now, is of the person he loves, eating her supper, talking about something someone said in the supermarket. Fine, you might think. What more could a man want?

  Except that it is not fine. Not quite. Because there hovers around Lauren an absence. There is something missing. A someone.

  Paul knows that Lauren does not want to have a child with him. That is clear from the fact that she has never raised the matter, from the merrily disparaging remarks she makes about her sister’s new baby. All right. All right, if that is the way she feels. But for him, there is this hovering absence. This wistful wishing. It has made him a bit offhand with her lately—he knows that.

  Lauren says, “I never understand how Archie gets to the top of that cabinet. It would be, for us, like jumping about twenty feet.”