The Essence of the Thing Page 2

  5

  ‘Are you doing anything tonight?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘Can I come round after work?’

  ‘Just you?’

  ‘Yes. Just me.’

  ‘Is anything wrong?’

  ‘Ish.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’

  ‘I’m afraid Geoff’ll be here. It’s one of his days off.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Look, I’ll bring something to drink. Is there anything else you’d like?’

  ‘No, something to drink will do nicely.’

  ‘I’ll see you later then, around six-thirty, okay?’

  ‘Yes, see you then. Take care.’

  ‘You too.’

  Susannah hung up.

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Nicola.’

  ‘What does she want?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘A friend in need.’

  ‘Oh? Something wrong?’

  ‘She says ish. I dare say we’ll find out tonight.’

  ‘Oh, God. She’s not going to go on and on, is she? I might go out and leave you girls to it.’

  ‘As you like. We can manage without you.’

  ‘Is she coming here for supper?’

  ‘Well, naturally. She’s coming straight from work. She’s bringing something to drink.’

  ‘Tell you what. I’ll stay until we’ve eaten and then I’ll bugger off down the pub.’

  ‘It’s karaoke night.’

  ‘All the better.’

  ‘I thought you liked Nicola.’

  ‘She’s a sweetheart.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I just don’t like women going on and on.’

  ‘Exactly what do you mean by that?’

  ‘You know. On and on. Complaining. Usually about a man.’

  ‘If only there were never any occasion to.’

  ‘Come, now. You don’t hear us men going on and on.’

  ‘You have no occasion to.’

  ‘Can it really be as simple as that?’

  ‘Possibly not. Well, that’s interesting, isn’t it. The thing that’s wrong with women is that they go on and on, and the thing that’s wrong with men is that they don’t.’

  ‘Do you think I should do my Joe Cocker number tonight, or that Bryan Ferry one?’

  ‘Honestly, Geoff. This is no time for joking. Nicola might be in real trouble.’

  ‘Not her. That chic little Nothing Hill set-up with the deluxe plumbing and the stuffed shirt laying down the old claret. No way. She probably just wants some help with her vol-au-vents.’

  ‘Geoffrey: you are an idiot. I think you’d really better make yourself scarce tonight after all. Do the Joe Cocker. Now bugger off and let me get some work done.’

  Susannah worked from home, and Geoffrey was a lecturer at a former polytechnic, so between them they just managed to service the mortgage on a house in Clapham which they had bought before the neighbourhood became quasi-fashionable. They had one clever child; they could not afford another.

  Later on that day Susannah gave Geoffrey a shopping list and he went to Sainsbury’s and got everything in, plus some caramels.

  ‘What’s this?’ said Susannah, unpacking.

  ‘Caramels.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, why not?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘A token of my esteem.’

  ‘Oh, I wish.’

  ‘And my love, admiration, gratitude, etcetera.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Want one?’

  ‘Well, since you ask. Just one.’

  The clever child, a boy of nine, at this moment came home from school.

  ‘Cor!’ he said. ‘You’re eating sweets! Cor!’

  ‘Well, we’ve been good today,’ said his father.

  ‘So what else is new?’ said the child, whose name was Guy.

  ‘Give me a kiss,’ said his mother

  ‘All right,’ said Guy, and obliged.

  ‘Want one?’ she asked, offering the caramels.

  He took one.

  ‘Do you want to see my poem?’ he asked them.

  He was invited to read it to them, and did so.

  ‘Cor!’ said Susannah. ‘That’s really whizzy. Well done!’

  ‘I wish I could write like that,’ said Geoffrey.

  He meant it, too: any adult might have wished as much. But there you were.

  6

  They were all sitting around the kitchen table eating spaghetti and drinking the wine Nicola had brought, except for Guy, who was drinking chocolate-flavoured milk. When they were all done, Guy obtained permission to go and watch television and the adults sat back and sighed at each other.

  ‘So how’s Jonathan?’ said Susannah.

  Nicola was smoking a cigarette. She fiddled with her lighter.

  ‘I’m not exactly sure,’ she said.

  ‘Are there grounds for concern?’ asked Susannah, who had from the inception of this relationship believed that there just possibly could be.

  ‘Well. You see…’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I went out last night to buy some cigarettes.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘We’d been sitting around watching telly; it was a perfectly average evening.’

  ‘Yes, I know the sort of thing you mean, we have those too.’

  ‘And so, anyway, I went out to that offy and got the fags and came straight back, and when I got in, Jonathan called out to me and said, Come in here, I want to talk to you. So I did, I mean I hadn’t even had a chance to take off my coat, and he told me, he said—’ She broke off.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He said, I want you to move out.’

  ‘He what?’ cried Susannah.

  ‘Just like that?’ asked Geoffrey.

  ‘Yes, just like that.’

  Her interlocutors sat there, stunned and appalled.

  ‘I mean,’ said Susannah, ‘had you no suspicion beforehand—’

  ‘No, none. I mean, absolutely none.’

  ‘He must be round the twist.’

  ‘He seemed perfectly rational.’

  ‘That’s when they’re at their worst.’

  ‘Ho hum,’ said Geoffrey.

  ‘You shut up, you,’ said Susannah.

  He ignored this. ‘What happened then?’ he asked.

  ‘Well—’ said Nicola; and at some length she managed to relate the rest of the conversation and to describe the sensations which it had induced in her.

  Her friends were still appalled but they were no longer stunned.

  ‘He’s a complete and utter rat,’ said Susannah. ‘It’s a merciful release.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ said Nicola unhappily. The relating of the tale had left her shaken.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Susannah. ‘He’s a rat.’

  ‘Well, perhaps not exactly a rat,’ said Geoffrey. ‘But certainly a prat. A prat, definitely. But that was always obvious. I mean, just look at the guy. You’re better off without him, much.’

  ‘But I love him,’ said Nicola, and burst into tears.

  Susannah slid her chair around until it was beside Nicola’s, and put her arm around her friend’s shaking shoulders. ‘There, have a good cry, darling,’ she said. ‘Susannah’s here.’

  She continued to hold her as close as she could, patting her back from time to time, and meanwhile she turned her head and shot a withering look at her husband. ‘Piss off,’ she mouthed at him, and after raising his eyebrows he muttered an excuse and got up and left the room.

  ‘There,’ said Susannah, ‘there, there. Have a good cry. Stupid men. There, there.’

  7

  Nicola at last dried her tears, and sat silent and desolate while Susannah made some tea. She looked down at her teacup.

  ‘Jonathan may be a rat,’ she said. ‘That is, he is acting like a rat, at th
e moment. And he might go on being a rat now for good. But he isn’t a prat. Truly he isn’t. I know you think so, but really he isn’t.’

  ‘That was Geoff’s word, not mine,’ said Susannah.

  ‘But I suppose you agree,’ said Nicola.

  ‘Well, every rat is ipso facto a prat,’ Susannah pointed out.

  Nicola had on reflection to concur. ‘All right then,’ she said. ‘Let’s say he’s a prat. But he’s the prat I love.’ She paused. ‘Actually, I’ve never been absolutely sure what prat means, exactly.’

  ‘I’ve never been absolutely sure what love means, exactly.’

  ‘It means, that even when someone acts like a rat, and/or a prat, you still want to stay with them.’

  ‘Some people would call that masochism.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The abyss opened up before her. Who knew what anything meant, exactly? How far into that darkness would one have to fall, or painstakingly climb, before one discovered meaning and truth— even assuming that they were, ultimately, there to be found? She scrambled as far away from the edge as she presently could.

  ‘The trouble is,’ she said, ‘that one goes on fancying a person. No matter how badly they might behave.’

  ‘Yes, that is the trouble, all right,’ said Susannah. ‘That’s all the trouble.’

  ‘It must be a sort of trick,’ said Nicola, wondering. ‘To make sure that we go on reproducing, no matter what. Not that sex these days has anything to do with reproduction; but still.’

  ‘We’re hooked up to the old mechanism, nevertheless. It’s a mean old trick all right.’

  They were both silent for a while. Susannah at last very tentatively spoke. ‘Did this thing last night,’ she said, ‘really come out of the blue? Had you really no idea that it might be in his mind?’

  Nicola didn’t answer immediately. She was trying to collect her memories and her thoughts.

  ‘There have been a few rat-like moments,’ she said. ‘But nothing like this. Nothing suggesting this.’ She paused again, and sat, thinking. ‘Perhaps I’ve been simply obtuse,’ she said slowly.

  ‘I always think it’s better to be obtuse than paranoid,’ said Susannah.

  Nicola smiled wanly. ‘At least the paranoid are always prepared,’ she said. ‘For the worst, I mean.’

  ‘Were you prepared for the best?’ asked her friend.

  There, at last, clearly, it was.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nicola. ‘I thought it was only a matter of time, I mean, not very much time, before we’d decide to marry.’

  ‘Marriage being “the best”, eh?’

  ‘It must be, mustn’t it?’

  ‘Until we think of something even better.’

  ‘What could that be?’

  ‘Ah, if we only knew.’

  Guy entered the room.

  ‘Tell us,’ said Susannah, ‘what could be better than marriage, Guy?’

  ‘Salvation,’ he replied.

  His elders howled.

  ‘Where do you learn these words?’ asked Susannah.

  ‘I learned that in RE,’ said Guy. ‘I’m not sure exactly what it means, but it’s meant to be very good, so it might be better than marriage.’

  ‘Can’t you have both?’

  ‘Well, I suppose so, but salvation is still probably the better of the two.’

  ‘The better of the two,’ repeated Susannah. ‘Very good, Guy. Very good.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said.

  He now remembered what he had come in for. ‘Can I have another caramel?’

  8

  ‘What’s your dad doing?’

  ‘Watching telly.’

  ‘Take him a caramel then.’

  The child departed and the two women sat looking at each other for a moment.

  ‘Lucky you,’ Nicola sighed.

  ‘Your turn will come,’ said Susannah.

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘Yes, of course I do. As soon as you get shot of that rat.’

  Nicola’s face was a portrait of misery. She did not want to get shot of Jonathan; her present situation was so intolerable that it could not truly be pondered, or even admitted: even here, now, with Susannah, she could look only at its edges, not at the excruciating whole.

  ‘Jonathan isn’t a rat really,’ she said, almost wildly. ‘He isn’t— it’s just—something’s gone wrong somewhere. I mean, it’s probably my fault. I just haven’t had a chance to talk to him properly. I don’t know what’s in his mind. It must be my fault: I must have done something wrong.’

  ‘He should have told you what it was, then, when you did it, not waited, and then—this.’

  ‘Yes, well, it’s difficult for him—he’s—you know—perhaps he was too shocked, or confused—I don’t know.’ She broke off, near to tears again.

  ‘Listen, darling,’ said Susannah, ‘he may or may not be a fully paid-up rat but he’s landed you in it good and proper, causing grief to you and consternation to your friends. As far as I’m concerned, if he doesn’t shape up and talk this through to your mutual satisfaction as soon as he gets back from his cowardly weekend away, then the thing for you to do is to eff off out of the place immédiatement and leave him to it. Just pack a bag and go. I don’t know what your alternatives may be but you know you’re entirely welcome to come and crash here until you get sorted. But I mean, no pissing about. Either he shapes up and explains himself and makes a most profound apology and a guarantee of no further similar scenes— that is, if you really do want as you say to stay with him—or you get the fuck out of his rat-like way. You can sleep in my workroom. I’ll even clear some space for your things. I can’t say fairer than that.’

  ‘You’re an angel,’ said Nicola miserably. ‘But I can only hope that I won’t need to take advantage of your generosity.’

  ‘Never mind that: just promise me that you won’t hang about. I mean it. I know rats. If there’s one thing they love to do, it’s prolong the agony. Do you promise? You’ll telephone me on Monday evening, all right, at the latest Tuesday, either to assure me that the situation’s sorted out, or to say that you’re on the way here: is that understood?’

  ‘You’re an angel.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Susannah, ‘that’s me, definitely.’

  9

  Nicola had gone home in a taxi, Guy had gone to bed, Susannah was washing up and Geoffrey was hovering in her vicinity, giving an impression of helpfulness.

  ‘What’s she going to do, then?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s too soon to decide.’

  ‘Too soon? How long does it take? He’s told her to push off, it doesn’t seem to me that there’s anything to hang about for.’

  ‘Ah, little do you know.’

  ‘So tell me.’

  ‘Well, doesn’t it occur to you that he’s obviously had a rush of blood to the head, or something of the kind? I mean, to suddenly come along and give an order like that, for no evident reason—well, it’s perfectly mad.’

  ‘Oh—so you think this is just a fit of temporary insanity. Total withdrawal of affection while the balance of his mind was disturbed.’

  ‘Well, it might be. Something like that, anyway. I mean, it was so awfully sudden, so unforeseen—’

  ‘We have only Nicola’s word for that.’

  ‘Well, one has to trust her version in the absence of any others.’

  ‘All right, for the sake of the argument, it’s totally sudden and unforeseen and therefore possibly irrational. But who wants to go on living with a bloke who can behave like that?’

  ‘Nicola does.’

  ‘Then she must be mad too. They’re a dangerous pair.’

  ‘Then they’re best off staying with each other. Like the Carlyles.’

  ‘She never struck me as mad before.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, she isn’t. I wouldn’t have said what I did, but it was just one of those irresistible debating points.’

  ‘No, I think you must be right. If she wants to st
ay with him, she must be mad.’

  ‘No, she is not mad.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘She loves him.’

  ‘Oh, God, spare me.’

  ‘What, spare you? Why?’

  ‘Love. For God’s sake. What does it mean?’

  ‘You tell me. I seem to remember being presented with a whole bag of caramels, for my very own, this very afternoon, in token of your love for me, among other things.’

  ‘Well, that’s completely different.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘The way I feel about you couldn’t possibly be compared to the way Nicola feels about Jonathan.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Well, for God’s sake. You’re being disingenuous, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, truly not. I genuinely want to know what you mean.’

  ‘Our situation is totally different from theirs. They couldn’t either of them possibly feel as do either of us. Their situation is completely different, and so are they. Nothing is comparable.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean she can’t love him, in her way, according to her nature and her situation.’

  ‘All right, but I can’t take that kind of love seriously.’

  ‘I think that’s very intolerant of you, not to say arrogant, to say nothing of unimaginative.’

  ‘Yes, that sounds like me.’

  ‘So what could you possibly know about love?’

  ‘Do you have to be tolerant, and humble, and imaginative, to know anything about love?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a moment’s silence, and then Geoffrey spoke. ‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘you’ve just made a serious point. How disconcerting.’

  ‘Well, we were having a serious conversation, weren’t we?’

  ‘Were we?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake. We were talking about love. After all.’

  ‘And nothing is more serious than love.’

  ‘No, nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.’