The Parasite Person (3 page)

A non-sequitur if ever there was one: and lest she should catch him out over it (after all she
was
an ex-student of psychology, with at least a year or two’s training in catching other psychologists out) he hurried on:

“So you see, Ruth, I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid I won’t be seeing you any more….”

Her head was pressed back hard against the pillows, black hair splayed out, and she continued to stare at him with her big green-flecked eyes, slightly bloodshot at the moment from the ordeal she had put her body through.

“Like to bet on it?” she challenged; and then, raising her voice slightly as he began to move away:

“Did you know, Prof, we’re called the Pre-Morts here on this ward? Good, isn’t it? ‘Pre-Morts!’ And down in the basement they have the Post-Morts! Maybe
that’s
where we’re going to meet next—had you thought of that? Like, if I was to have another go, tonight, and you were the last person to have talked to me? Asked me all these questions? You’d be in it then, Prof, up to the neck, right? It’s a fifty-fifty chance you got, because fifty percent of us here
do
have a second go, and that’s a statistic. Check it out if you want, but there’s no need, us Funnies know the score. Well, we should do, shouldn’t we, seeing we’re the fans …!”

*

Her laughter, clear as a child’s, followed him the whole length of the ward, ceasing only when the heavy swing doors fell softly back into place behind him, sealing off the Pre-Morts and all their doomed concerns inside their proper enclosure, well away from the busy, important world outside.

M
ARTIN BACKED OUT
of the Visitors’ car park, conscious, as he turned his head left and right, of the boyish lock of hair flopping to and fro against his forehead. There was a touch of grey in it now, but it still seemed to suit him, just as it had once suited the brilliant, rebellious student who still cowered somewhere inside him,
immobilised
by the lapse of time, and haunted for ever by an early promise that had somehow never been fulfilled.

An open scholarship to Oxford. A First in P.P.E., followed by a startlingly successful research year, and then, before he was twenty-two, a paper read to the prestigious Durkheim Society, and subsequently published as a leading article in their Annual
Proceedings
.

What had happened to it all? Where had the years gone, that he should find himself turned forty, and with nothing to show for it but a run-of-the-mill lectureship at a run-of-the mill polytechnic? Where, now, was all that early promise, that arrogant, devil-
may-care
iconoclasm and drive?

He knew the answer to this one. It was right here inside him still, unused and undiminished. The question to be asked was not
where
it was—that was easy—but
when
it was that this early promise had begun to be of no use any more? Being promising had been his stock-in-trade as far back as he could remember; it was the thing he had lived by, had gloried in, and had so taken for granted that he had somehow never noticed the years chipping away at it,
diminishing
it, until, all unawares, he must have crossed that awful frontier in life where early promise has to be replaced by actual achievement. Only when his fortieth birthday loomed—quite
suddenly, it had seemed, out of the clear dawn of youth—had it hit him, like a spear of poisonous light, that it is no good being “promising” at forty. You have to have
done
something.

By now, he should have landed a professorship somewhere. By now, he should have published a number of controversial articles in the learned journals, not to mention several books, both academic and popular. His name should be on the lips of
colleagues
and rivals everywhere—Martin Lockwood, the
enfant 
terri
ble
of Social Psychology, the irrepressible whizz-kid, the rebellious newcomer whose revolutionary views were setting the whole Establishment by the ears.

But he wasn’t a newcomer any more. His views were revolutionary no longer. By now, whole books had been written about them, but not by him.

What had happened? Whose fault was it? It had to be
someone’s.

It was Beatrice’s fault, of course. He should never have married her.

It was only since he’d known Helen that he’d fully realised how hopelessly inadequate a wife Beatrice had been to him, right from the beginning. Until then, he’d vaguely assumed that all women were like that—all wives, anyway—self-pitying, self-absorbed, bored by their husbands’ careers, resentful of their colleagues, uncomprehending of their ambitions. It had taken Helen to show him how wrong he was—to teach him that a woman who is gloriously feminine and sweet can also be a tower of strength to a man, a true helpmeet in trouble, and an efficient collaborator in the furthering of his career. All the things, in fact, which Beatrice had never been.

Not that Helen had ever pointed this out, in so many words, she was far too kind. She had never even hinted it. On the contrary, she had always gone out of her way to be nice about Beatrice, never allowing a word of criticism to pass her lips, and leaning over backwards to try and see her rival’s point of view—even,
sometimes
, trying to persuade Martin to see it, too:

“Oh,
no,
darling, you know how Beatrice hates being alone in the evenings; I do think you should be getting back to her now.” Or: “Look, darling, it’s not quite fair to expect Beatrice to see it
our 
way, when she comes from such a very conventional background.”

That sort of thing. And the paradoxical thing was that it was just this unwavering generosity of Helen towards her rival that
somehow
, for Martin, highlighted his wife’s defects to such an extent as to render them no longer endurable to him. Helen’s tolerance, her lack of resentment, seemed somehow to set
him
free to be
more
intolerant,
more
resentful, than he had ever dreamed of being before. Safe in the ambience of his mistress’s gentle wisdom, he could allow his own spirit to boil and splutter with such rage against his wife as he had never known was in him. And though Helen might chide him gently for these explosions, reminding him that “She can’t help it, you know, darling,” or “I’m sure she’s doing her best, according to her lights,” she somehow did it in such a way that he never felt that he had gone too far, or had put himself in the wrong by these tirades. Helen understood him as no one else had ever done; understood that the long-repressed
disappointments
and frustrations of his marriage had to be got out of his system somehow, and how better than by pouring them forth into a sympathetic ear such as hers?

And as if all this wasn’t enough, she was proving herself a marvellous little housewife as well. Tonight, for instance, late though he was bound to be, there would be no fuss or
recriminations
; no “Where have you
been
all this time?” or “Well, don’t blame
me
if it’s all dried up!” No, there would be a delicious three-course meal done to perfection at whatever time he walked in; and candles on the table too, very likely, which she would light when she heard his key in the door.

What a woman to be driving back to through the February drizzle! What a lucky man, at long last, he was!

First, though, he must call in at home and pick up some shirts. Call in at 16, Hadley Gardens, that is—Helen hated him to use the word “home” for the house which, until the last few weeks, he had shared with Beatrice. He could understand Helen’s objection, of course—it was flattering in its way—but all the same, it’s difficult not to think of a place as “home” when you’ve lived there for nearly fourteen years.

It felt odd to be drawing up outside the familiar house in which
he lived no longer; odd, too, to be inserting the same old key into the same old lock, just as if nothing had happened.

Inside, the house was in darkness. Automatically, his hand reached for the switch just inside the front door, and for a moment he stood blinking in the sudden light, waiting uneasily for his wife to pop out from somewhere. He could feel his body already braced against the encounter, whatever form it might take. Tears?
Reproaches
? A handful of bills?

“Beatrice!” he called up the dark stairs, after a few moments. “Where are you, Beet?”

This was another thing Helen didn’t like, his addressing his estranged wife as “Beet”, but what the hell, a man can’t always be watching his step about everything, and anyway Helen wasn’t here at the moment, was she?

“Beet!” he called again, louder, going to the foot of the stairs, “Beet, I’m here! I’ve come for my …” His voice trailed away among the echoes, and he knew now, for certain, that the house was empty. All the same, some kind of uneasy nagging of the spirit drove him to open first this door and then that, switching on the lights and noting, in each room, the blank, unlived-in look of a house in which a woman is suddenly alone, in a place much too big for her. He even peered down the cellar stairs, and tried the outside lavatory—though how she could have been there, with the back door securely bolted on the inside, top and bottom, he could not begin to imagine.

Where the hell
had
she got to? The sense of outrage that was growing within him took him quite by surprise, and he stood for a moment in the chilly, white-lit kitchen trying to analyse the feeling. Why in the world should he care whether she was here or not? He’d only come to collect his things and go. In fact, it was better this way, the last thing he needed was another tearful scene. Or any more telephone messages from the solicitor, or to hear anything whatsoever about money. He was sick of hearing about money, of thinking about money, of getting letters about money … and above all he was sick of Beatrice moaning about money, her mouth pinched with grievance, her pale eyes red-rimmed under their sandy lashes, and her fists clenching and unclenching themselves
as she sought desperately for some new way of hurting him. This was quite a problem for her now that he’d left home. The old ploys, such as burning his dinner black or refusing to go to bed with him were quite obsolete now that he had Helen.

All the same, and thankful though he was to avoid another of these scenes, Martin still felt obscurely affronted by the fact that Beatrice wasn’t here to—well, not to
greet
him, that was
ridiculous
—but, well, to do, or be,
something.
To acknowledge his
presence
, even if only by refusing to speak to him.
Something.
It was his right, somehow.

*

Whistling to keep himself company, Martin set off up the stairs and entered the spare room, which for many months preceding his final departure had served him as bedroom as well as study. By his own request, most of his personal belongings had by now been stacked in this room ready for removal to Helen’s; and now, standing at the door and contemplating his massed goods and chattels, he found himself once again gripped by an inexplicable sense of outrage.

Inexplicable, because he himself had ordained that this was where they were to be; had, indeed, transported several of the objects with his own hands from various parts of the house. Why, then, was the sight of them all here, all together, so infuriating?

Collecting them together in one place had been a
good
idea. It had been
his
idea. How could he have guessed that his most treasured possessions—his books, his filing cabinet, his hi-fi
equipment
, even his brand-new dinner-jacket—would look, in the mass, like the remnants of a church jumble sale?

Cardboard boxes bursting through their lids with bits and pieces: piles of shoes, piles of sweaters, of pyjamas, of underwear—could he really ever have been the owner of all these garments which Beatrice (at his behest) had sullenly unearthed from all the drawers and cupboards in the house?

And his expensive, ultra-modern reading-lamp, too. He’d only bought it recently, and now here it was slumped drunkenly against some packing-cases, for all the world like a derelict on the
Embankment
. And his pictures likewise, his framed photographs of school and University cricket teams; there they all were, bundled
together, with string round them. Even his new divan had been dismantled, the base upended against the wall, and the sprung mattress lashed around with rope into a great sullen roly-poly blocking out half the window.

It was awful. It was monstrous. Martin stood there almost in a state of shock, as if he had come home and found the place vandalised. And the fact that it had all come about in accordance with his own instructions alleviated the horror of it not one whit.

“Beatrice!” he nearly screamed again, because
somebody
must bloody do
something
: but of course it was useless. Bloody Beatrice wasn’t bloody here.

*

Past seven o’clock. Helen would have been expecting him for quite a while now, and he was anxious, if possible, not to have to mention to her this visit home—to 16, Hadley Gardens, that is. Not that she would be anything other than sweet and understanding about it, but all the same …

The shirts must be
somewhere.
Beatrice wouldn’t have washed them herself, of course, she’d have sent them to the laundry, and so what he must look for was a slithery blue plastic parcel with Sunfresh Laundry printed on it, and a bill for God-knew-
how-much
pinned on. Irritably, he began picking around among the clutter, shoving piles of clothing this way and that.

*

A door slammed downstairs. The front door it was, propelling a blast of cold air right through the house, and reverberating like a shot from a cannon. For a moment, Martin crouched immobile, like a criminal caught red-handed. Then, cautiously, he
straightened
up and tiptoed to the door. If it was Beatrice—and of course it was Beatrice, who else could it be?—then it was better that
he
should give
her
a shock by creeping downstairs than that she should give him one by creeping up. This would establish the correct order of precedence in the ensuing quarrel.

Well, of course there would be a quarrel. There always was. Trust Beatrice to think up
something.

And now there came another sound. A laugh this time, a woman’s laugh, loud and slightly mocking; and then, echoing it,
Beatrice’s pleased, tentative little giggle which meant that
someone
had just said something outrageous which she, Beatrice, would have loved to say if she’d dared.

Martin knew well enough who the someone must be; but for confirmation he crept across the landing and leaned over the banister.

The light was still on in the hall, just as he’d left it, and from his vantage point he could see the two hairdos from which flimsy headscarves, glistening with rain, had just been removed:
Beatrice’s
threadbare perm, and the dark, shining up-piled edifice that belonged to Marjorie Pocock, Beatrice’s evil genius from over the road. Not content with making life hell for her own husband, Marjorie was for ever in and out here, inciting Beatrice to make life hell for hers…. Martin watched the two heads move apart as coats were hung up, then swing close again as the pair made their way, still giggling, out into the kitchen. Through the open door, he could hear taps being turned on, a kettle being filled, the clink of crockery … the silent white-lit kitchen was coming alive now, for
them
….

Footsteps. Little thuds and clatterings. More giggling. The scrape of a chair … the door of the fridge opening and then shutting … a low murmur of voices … and then a little shriek of merriment from Beatrice.