A Stairway to Paradise (3 page)

‘We’ve been playing tennis,’ said John. ‘I won.’

‘Actually, it was me,’ said James.

‘He’s lying,’ said his brother.

‘Now he’s told two lies,’ said James.

They began to fight.

‘Okay,’ said Barbara. ‘Out!’ They stopped.

‘No, do let us stay,’ they pleaded. ‘We’ll be
so
quiet.’

They sat in a dumbshow of utterly inert silence for half a minute and then a faint ringing was heard below. ‘Hey, Barbara!’ they cried. ‘It’s your telephone! Shall we go and answer it for you?’

‘
No
,’ she said. ‘Leave it.’

‘How
can
you?’ they yelped. ‘
Please
let us answer it.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Anyway, it’s stopped.’

They were now at last bored with her; John turned to James. ‘Shall we go and see if Simon’s home?’

They got up. ‘Goodbye, Barbara darling,’ they said.

‘Goodbye,’ she said. ‘Be careful crossing the street.’

‘She’s pretending that we’re babies,’ said John.

‘It’s her way of showing that she really cares about us,’ said James.

‘She can’t help it,’ said John, as the front door slammed shut behind them.

5

The meal was almost ready—there were just a few last-minute things left to do. She looked around and began to clear up.

The front door opened and closed again; a single, heavier tread was heard in the hallway. It stopped and then advanced once more towards the kitchen. The master of the house.

‘Ah, Barbara.’ He stood in the doorway, a much larger and coarser version of his sons, but with dark hair, and enveloped (as one might hope they never should be) in weariness.

‘Hello, Tom.’

He looked around at her demesne: he knew perfectly well that he was trespassing. He gestured. ‘I—got away early today. Had to pick up the car.’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Little blighters about?’

‘They’ve gone to see Simon. So they told me.’

‘Ah, yes. Simon. Serena not home yet of course—is she?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘Well—I might just jump the gun and get myself a G & T. How are we off for tonic—are we okay?’

‘Yes, there’s plenty; I got some more today. There’s some in the fridge. In the door.’

‘Oh, yes. Marvellous. You’ll join me, won’t you?’

Barbara sat down on a chair diagonally opposite to her employer’s, shaking her glass gently, watching the bubbles, to all appearances unaware of his scrutiny, with all its helpless hunger. She went on playing, letting him look, letting him hunger. She liked him, but that was as far as it went: that was as far as it
could
go.

‘I haven’t actually seen you for ages, have I? How have you been keeping? Managing okay down there, are you?’

‘Yes, fine, thanks. Everything’s fine.’ So it was. Now she was looking at him: those eyes. Poor sod. Don’t make it worse. Put a stop to it, in fact: enough is enough. ‘I’d better get on,’ she said. She got up and took the cream from the refrigerator.

He didn’t ask, like the twins, can I watch you: simply sat, unable to move, watching. She took down a bowl and got the whisk; she poured the cream into the bowl. ‘Fool,’ she said. ‘I’m making a fool.’

‘Ah,’ he said, cottoning on at last, smiling with relief. For one extraordinary moment he had thought…but of course it was so. Yes, he dumbly, helplessly thought, I want her, and I’m a fool to do so, because it’s hopeless; entirely out of the question; hopeless. I should go up and change. ‘Won’t you have another?’ he said.

She stopped whisking; she smiled. ‘No,’ she said, ‘thank you.’ He got another drink and sat down again.

‘I can hear your telephone ringing,’ he said.

‘It’s nothing important,’ she said, unperturbed. ‘Or if it is they’ll try again later.’

‘Perhaps we should get you an answering machine,’ he said very seriously.

‘No, really. It’s fine as it is.’

‘If you’re sure.’

‘Yes, positive. Thanks all the same.’

She was almost done. She finished making the fool and put it in the refrigerator. She put the tart in the oven and set the timer, and wrote a note for Serena to tell her what needed to be told and left it in the agreed place, and he watched her all the while, dumb, helpless. This sort of thing won’t actually do, she thought. Still, it hardly ever occurs: if he started to come home early more often then it would really be bad news, but as it is—he’ll have forgotten all about me within half an hour.

He’s rather a dish, though, she thought! no doubt about that.

6

Alex wandered into Claire’s study and stood there, looking around. It was one of the things he sometimes did, when he was alone in the house.

Alex and the house had a whole deep relationship unknown to anyone else. He thought of it, in fact, as in some quasi-spiritual aspect
his
house, his solitary own. It was for one thing his brainwave, the only truly clever thing, he thought, he’d ever done: going in for this big house, back there in the dark ages, in that innocent era before the property boom. The mortgage repayments had become an absolute doddle and the whole heap was now worth several times what it had cost.

But the real beauty of it was that a marriage such as his and Claire’s had become was perfectly negotiable: perfectly: as long as one had all this space. All this rare and valuable north London space. And just look at those mouldings, and try those doors: yes, those
are
the original handles. And the skirting—it made up for a lot, an awful lot, that skirting. It made up for vacancy, and ironical courtesy, and alienation, almost. He sometimes wondered if buying this house hadn’t been merely clever, but actually prescient.

He always had, of course, a reason for being in Claire’s study, a real reason. There was the dictionary, for example. If Claire hadn’t been indifferent to his coming in here she wouldn’t have insisted on keeping the
Shorter
in here. Alex was damned if he was going to buy another copy just so as to save Claire’s feelings. Or his. Claire. Claire’s books. He looked, once more, at Claire’s books: shelves, positively in the plural shelves, of fiction, virtually all of it contemporary. I never read novels, he said one day. At some point (he hadn’t noticed precisely where, along the long slow curve) he had ceased to be a person who read novels; now he too could say, flatly, I never read novels.

No, Claire said, men are always saying that. Well, it’s true, he’d said. Yes, of course, said Claire. But the point is the tone of voice: as if you were disclaiming the practice of some solitary vice. Which is what you seem to think novel-reading is. The average man I suppose would rather be caught with his prick in his hand than a novel, God help you all.

And the thing was, he couldn’t be bothered arguing: couldn’t be bothered pointing out to her that any man so
caught
was up to something one million times more authentic (repeat, authentic) than reading any of the works of…and there followed a sample of the names of the novelists reviewed, admired, interviewed and extolled by Claire and her fellows over the past few years: Claire in the broadsheets, Claire across the airwaves, Claire in the glossies, Claire and all her kind: all that avidity, all those queasy phrases: all that crazed enthusiasm: if he’d had the time, if he could have been bothered, he just might have managed to demonstrate, clearly, cleanly, and apocalyptically, that all this activity wasn’t, wasn’t by any means, wasn’t by even half, as harmless as it looked, and that it was in fact the sign,
the very sign
by which one knew, beyond any possible doubt, that civilisation was coming, disgracefully, to its end.

He took down one of Claire’s novels, inscribed by the author, and began to read. Yes. You see, he said to himself, as if addressing Claire, as if she might attend to him, as if he might really care that she should, it isn’t simply a case of the emperor’s having no clothes: the fact is, that
it isn
’
t even the emperor
: it’s actually—just take a good look, just open your eyes and for God’s sake
look—
it’s actually the court bloody eunuch.

He replaced the book, and looked around again, at Claire’s desk, at the litter on its surface, the chair (one of her jerseys still draped over its back), the rug beneath it. It was one of the good ones which they’d bought in the early, early days. Caucasian. And at its edge, the daybed. He sat down.

Why did I come in here, he thought. What did I actually come in here
for
. But now at last there was no reason for wondering, none for resisting: now, at last, he gave himself to memory, acute and engulfing. He saw once more (as not, now, for a good twelve months) as in a vivid dream that week (now two years distant) when, on this very daybed, in this very room (not then Claire’s study) he had had, for his own, for his very own unforeseen, unimaginable, incredulous delight, Barbara.

PART TWO

7

‘I
told
you.
Scunthorpe
. Yes, all right,
of course
it’s risible, let me know when you’ve finished laughing and I’ll go on, take your time, I wouldn’t dream of spoiling your fun.’ And she left the room. Alex shook his head—the au pair was clearing away the children’s tea, pretending not to notice a thing—and went after her. She was in the sitting-room, lighting a cigarette. She sat down and picked up the
Guardian
.

‘Okay, Claire, don’t get in a wax with me. You’ve got to admit— the Scunthorpe Literary Festival—I mean, things have obviously come to a pretty pass when—’ and he started to laugh again.

She gave him one of her looks, cold, stupefying, and her gaze returned to the newspaper.

His laughter drained away. ‘Let’s take it from the top,’ he said, utterly sober, beaten.

‘If you’re quite ready,’ she said. Very cool, very polite: utterly reasonable.

‘Yes, absolutely; sock it to me.’

‘It’s perfectly simple,’ she said. ‘I’ll be in Scunthorpe—’ she shot him a look; he did not flinch; not a muscle twitched; he was all attention—‘all next week. Monday to Friday. Coming back Saturday: okay? But that’s the week that Astrid will be away—you remember. No, of course you don’t. Let that pass. She’s going home to Denmark for a week. Her sister’s wedding. So I’ve asked Barbara to come and stay and look after the kids. You can look after yourself. For a week, at any rate.’

‘Barbara,’ he said.

‘Yes, Barbara.
You know, Barbara
.’

‘Oh, yes, yes of course. That protégée of yours. Big brown girl, brown eyes?’

‘Clever of you to notice. Yes. She’ll come over on Sunday night so that I can explain everything: so it
might
be nice if you were around that evening. Do you think you could manage that?’

‘Oh, I should think so, yes, why not.’

‘Splendid.’

There was a pause. Advantage Claire.

‘Though I can’t
quite
see,’ he said, ‘what all the fuss is for.

Couldn’t the children go to your mother’s for the week? She loves having them.’

‘I wouldn’t expect you to have noticed,’ said Claire, ‘but the fact is, they’ve both started school. And at the moment, as it happens, the schools are not on holiday.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Of course. School. Still, at their ages—’

‘A week is in fact absolutely crucial,’ said Claire. She was still cool, still polite, still reasonable. He was beaten.

‘Whatever you say,’ he said. ‘So this Barbara—I mean—knows what she’s doing, does she? Understands kids?’

Claire looked at him, and then began to laugh: long peals of genuine laughter. ‘You really are priceless,’ she said, and laughed some more. But at last she stopped, and in the aftermath her face looked for an instant appallingly sad. ‘Oh, God,’ she said. ‘Oh, God.’

He ought to have gone to her and put his arms around her, but he couldn’t: it wasn’t simply that he didn’t want to:
he couldn’t
.

He couldn’t make it better, but he didn’t make it worse. ‘Drink?’ he said.

‘Yes, why not,’ said Claire. ‘Mine’s a spritzer.’

‘Right you are,’ he said, and he got up and went into the kitchen.

And that was how Barbara came to be staying in the house, in his house, for virtually a whole week, two years ago; because of the Scunthorpe Literary Festival. Well done, Scunthorpe. And Astrid’s sister’s wedding. Three cheers for Astrid’s sister. That was how Barbara came to be sleeping, for six nights, on this very daybed, in this very room. It had been the spare room in those days, when what was now the spare room had been the au pair’s room. The spare room…a phrase to conjure with: a space to conjure with: what say you, M. Bachelard?

8

Marguerite was eight and Percy was six. Percy was having a hard time getting out from under Marguerite, but he was getting there. Meanwhile, he had quite a lot to put up with: Barbara couldn’t help wondering whether Marguerite couldn’t have handled the whole situation by herself: clean clothes, journeys to and from school, food on the table, bath and bedtime at nine p.m. sharp, the lot, Percy stumbling along in her grasp.

As it was: How was school today, Marguerite?
Infantile
. Percy?
Infantile
. He’s just saying that, he doesn’t really know what it means. Yes I do!
What
does it mean?
I
’
m
not going to tell you. Go and find out for yourself!

Barbara wasn’t sure what, if anything, she ought to do about Alex’s supper: she ate with the children. The first night she made cauliflower cheese, enough for four, and put some aside. Alex got home every evening in time to see the children for an hour or so between bath and bedtime. After they were safely put away for the night he came awkwardly into the kitchen where Barbara was sitting listening to Radio 4, feeling strange and homesick. She looked up and turned off the wireless.

‘Oh, please—’ said Alex.

‘No, it’s all right,’ said Barbara. ‘I wasn’t really listening.’

‘Would you like a drink?’ said Alex. Lord: was he going to have to socialise with this stranger in the house every evening until Claire’s return?

‘Oh—’ said Barbara, as unequal, now that she was in its midst, to the situation as he, ‘only if—’ and she broke off. What was she meant to do? Alex was so foreign, dark, remote and unpeaceful. Every strange man is Mr Rochester, she thought, almost laughing. She smiled to herself.