Stanley and the Women (15 page)

‘In
fact she did face going through it again.’

‘That’s
right. She wouldn’t have not done it just because she’d told me she couldn’t or
wouldn’t. If you remind her that she’s said something it doesn’t suit her down
to the ground at that moment to have said, she says she didn’t say it, even if
you’re fool enough to produce a boatload of other people who heard her say it. Simplifies
life no end. She makes the past up as she goes along. You know, like
communists. Why are we talking about this, anyway?’

‘You
still haven’t told me why there are no children of your second marriage.’

‘No, I
haven’t, have I? I can’t think what it can have to do with anything, but you’re
the doctor. So. Susan was nearly thirty-six when she married me and that’s oldish
to start having children, I should have thought. She hadn’t had any by her
previous husband, and presumably she wanted to go on not having any — well,
that was what I presumed. She said she reckoned she wasn’t cut out for
motherhood, which I took as a sign that she probably wasn’t.’

‘Was
that all she ever said on the matter?’

‘Just
about. I didn’t try to get any more out of her. It sounded quite reasonable to
me. After all, it’s not as if she was the Queen.’

‘Did
you try to get her to change her mind?’

‘Certainly
nor.’

‘Why
didn’t you?’

‘Well,
I had no particular, special desire for any more kids. Lots of men would have
felt the same, perhaps most of them. No child of Susan’s and mine could have
been any kind of company for Steve. And I didn’t think it was my place to talk
her into a thing like that. The woman should decide, and Susan was absolutely
definite about it.’

‘Is
that your usual line, would you say, leaving the basic decisions to your female
partner?’

‘No, I
said in a thing like that, that concerns her more than me.

‘You
mean you think the role of the mother is much more important in the raising of
children than that of the father.’

‘Well,
not ultimately, perhaps. I was thinking of pregnancy and confinement and the
rest of it. Obviously a young child’s going to make more difference to the
mother’s life than the father’s.’

‘Confinement.
That takes me back. Anyway, what about an older child? Does the mother continue
as much more important there?’

‘I don’t
know about much more. It depends. But more, more important. I mean that’s the
view the courts take, after all, when there’s a split-up. It’s the wife who
usually —’

‘I
suppose it was your first wife who took the decision to become pregnant?’

‘I can’t
say what happened. She said it was an accident. I was still believing a lot of
what she said in those days but of course that was ridiculous. It wasn’t my
decision anyway, which I take it is the point.’

‘Would
you ever have taken that decision if it had been left entirely to you?’

‘I can’t
say about that either. Quite likely not. I don’t think all that many men
actively want children, not when they’re twenty-five. Look —’

‘What
was your reaction to the news?’

‘Well,
I was pleased in a way. The timing was off, though, financially and that. There’s
always a case for not having a baby in the next twelve months when you’re that
sort of age.’

‘So
really you’d have preferred the pregnancy not to have occurred when it did.’

‘Yeah.
Yes, I think I would. Do you mind telling me what all this is leading up to?’

‘I
think we’re almost there actually, Stanley. We’re close to establishing that
you had a negative attitude towards parenthood and resented the difficulties it
occasioned.’

‘Are we
hell! That was just at the start, before I’d had a chance to adjust to the
idea. By the time Steve arrived I was as thrilled and excited as, I was going
to say Nowell but there again —’

‘It’s
quite common in young primogenitors of high activity — first-time fathers. And
it often persists even in association with definite positive behaviour. That
can produce some pretty bizarre results.’

Trish Collings
started to laugh while she was saying the last part of this and went on after
she had finished, her shoulders shaking and her slightly spaced-out teeth
glistening. The scale of it went beyond what you normally expected from someone
just struck by a witty thought, in a civilized country anyway. When it was over
she got up from her bit of bench and without another word walked past me in the
direction of the lavatories at the rear of the pub. I was hoping that on her
return she would get her questions over and with luck explain the point of
them, no insistence there, and then let me ask her about Steve. Well, I said to
myself, if one of the first things she wanted to know was how I had felt when I
heard he had been conceived, there was probably not so very much wrong with
him.

The pub
was as quiet as I had said in the sense that there were not yet many people in
it, though of course it was noisy as well — I had forgotten about that, as I
still often did after all these years, not as noisy as it could be, nor noisy
absolutely all the time, but noisy. A fat ginger-haired fellow in — among other
things — a whitish tee-shirt and a burgundy plastic anorak, which between them
made him look amazingly undressed and dirty and dangerous as well as horrible,
was playing the fruit-machine, in this case a new improved model that broadcast
at top volume an extract from a harmonium sonata every time anything happened
and part of the soundtrack of a Battle of Britain movie in between. In case
you were deaf and trying to think, it flashed different combinations of
coloured lights on and off like billy-ho. Apart from that there was not much to
see by, just a couple of table-lamps with tasteful imitation-parchment shades
on the bar and some feeble sun from the street, cut down further by the
criss-crossed strips of painted lead glued on the windows.

What
with the semi-darkness and being preoccupied I failed to spot Lindsey Lucas
until she was almost within arm’s reach, and the gritty Ulster tones made me
jump. Her hair-do and clothes had their usual neat, slightly dated look.

‘When
are you going to start managing some advertising? Whenever I run into you you’re
boozing your head off in a well-known Fleet Street watering hole. My turn —
what can I get you?’ As she spoke she was taking in the half-full glass of gin
and tonic opposite where the Collings woman had been sitting.

I tried
to think and found it hard going. The trouble was that although I knew quite
well that it would be a good idea to get rid of her and at once, I was so
cheered by the sight of her that the words took their time about coming. It was
not my day. Before I had done much more than stand up and open my mouth Lindsey’s
expression changed in a way that showed that Collings was on the point of
joining us, and I was still turning my head when she actually appeared. Even
now it was not too late to send Lindsey packing with talk of deal, rate, space,
block and so on, but instead of that I found myself introducing them, or rather
saying their names one after the other and pointing at each one in turn at the
same time, perhaps in case either of them started wondering which was which.
While my vocal cords went on being selectively paralysed my eyes were more than
up to snuff. They showed me Lindsey quietly transmitting a claim to part-ownership
of me, but when I looked to see how the other female was reacting I found her
sending the same message back in a different style, more obvious, jerky, where
Lindsey was smooth, but there. Or so I thought.

That
finished me off, for the next half-minute at least. I went on standing about
while Lindsey again offered a drink, to Collings as well this time, took an
order from her for a single gin and ice and asked me whether I wanted water or
soda.

‘What?’
I said, having heard perfectly well. ‘Er … soda. Water.’

‘Are
you pursuing that girl?’ Collings asked me when we were alone. Her manner was
morally accusing, not at all sexual now.

‘Of
course not. No. What if I were?’

‘But
you want her to join in our conversation.’

‘No.
Why should I? Absolutely the opposite.’

‘In
that case, why didn’t you tell her we were talking privately?’

‘I don’t
know really. I suppose I couldn’t face explaining that you were a psychiatrist
dealing with my son’s case.’

‘Oh,
case.
Why couldn’t you? It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You wouldn’t mind telling
her your son had broken his leg, would you?’

‘No, I
just …’

‘I’d
have expected you to be well educated enough not to take that view.’

‘It’s
not a view. I couldn’t face going into it with her. Surely you can see that.
And now would you mind just telling me what you were getting at with your
questions about my attitude to Steve before he was born?’

‘Isn’t
it obvious? You resented him as an intruder. You made him feel he wasn’t
wanted. Not calculated to foster a sense of security.’

‘But
that’s not true,’ I said, trying and failing to catch her eye. ‘It just isn’t
true. I can remember, I didn’t resent him when he was born. I wanted him by the
time he was born. I couldn’t have made him feel he wasn’t wanted because I
wanted him. Honestly.’

‘I don’t
mean you consciously behaved to him in an unloving way.’

‘Oh I
see. I thought I was thinking one thing when really I was thinking the
opposite. I know.’

Her
lips came apart with a little smacking noise. ‘Have you ever asked him about
this?’

‘No.
Have you?’

‘I didn’t
have to. He told me. There was plenty of it. “Dad was always trying to freeze
me out. Dad never really accepted me. Dad had as little to do with me as he
could.” That kind of thing. Of course you often get —’

‘What’s
the address of your hospital? Out Blackheath way, isn’t it?’

‘I’m
sorry, Stanley, I can’t let you see him at the moment. Not just yet. It wouldn’t
be at all a good idea.’

‘How do
you stop me?’

‘Only
by telling you that. But it’s enough, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.
Sod it.’

‘As I
said, this is quite common. And you often find an element of exaggeration,
centralizing what are objectively relatively minor grievances.’

‘Ah,
cheers.’

‘I have
to get through some more work with you on this session, so can we cut the
social get-together short?’

‘She
won’t stay long.’

It was
not till then that I realized that Lindsey’s eyes were at least as good as
mine. She was obviously going to think I was not just with Collings but so to
speak going round with her. But Lindsey must not think that —I could simply not
bear her to think that. I knew very little about why I felt so strongly on the
point, except that the reason had to do with Collings rather than Lindsey. At
that moment she was turning carefully away from the bar clasping three glasses
in her hands. I should have followed her over there earlier and fed her some
plausible de-sexing tale, but it was too late for that, and even at this late
stage I could have bounded across the room to give her a hand and dole out a
compressed edition, but I thought of that too late as well. Normally I would at
least have jumped up to help her put the drinks on the table, but today I
forgot.

‘Something
wrong, Stanley?’ asked Lindsey.

I
pulled myself together. ‘No. I remembered something I should have done. But I
can’t do it now.’

At this
she led off reliably by explaining how she came to have a quarter of an hour to
spare, then switched to friendly interest and good manners —no curiosity
showing — to ask Collings if she worked in Fleet Street too. This is it, I
thought.

‘I do
and I don’t,’ said Collings, smiling suddenly. ‘I’m in the Accounts Department
of the
Sunday Chronicle.’

‘Oh really?
Of course, eh, that’s where Susan works, the
Chronicle.’

‘Yes,
the people on the editorial side, we don’t see much of them in Accounts as a
rule.’

‘No, I
suppose not.’

It
struck me later that to have Ulster and Dorset or wherever it was coming back at
each other in this style was like something out of a very carefully cast radio
play. Not at the time, though. At the time I was pretty well too terrified to
think at all. I sat there staring at Lindsey, willing her to look my way so
that I could twitch my face to signal at least that something was up but, as
always in these situations, I might as well have gone to see my aunt.

‘In
fact I don’t know her at all really,’ Collings was saying. ‘Just by sight. I
expect you know her though, don’t you? Being a journalist yourself and
everything.’

‘As it
happens I’ve known her longer than that. Nearly twenty years, in fact. Why?’
Lindsey gave the last word quite a shove.

‘Oh, I’m
just interested. You’ll be able to tell me — is it Lindsey? — I imagine she is
a very intelligent woman?’