Unexplained Laughter (16 page)

‘That’s not why you won’t have Finn back,’ said Betty astutely.

‘True,’ said Lydia. ‘I am sufficiently stupid to have put up with all that for a time, but I will not be cuckolded by a duck. It wouldn’t be so bad if he’d gone off with a beauty, but I’m damned if I’ll form part of a collection which includes someone bandy.’

‘Women can’t be cuckolded – and she wasn’t bandy,’ said Betty.

‘Yes, she was,’ said Lydia. ‘It was because of being web-footed. All ducks are bandy. They waddle.’

‘If you insist on being so exclusive,’ said Betty, ‘you’ll never get married.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of getting married,’ said Lydia. ‘Why should I get married?’

Betty looked at her uncertainly. Just as Lydia had gradually grown fond of Betty as she recognised her good qualities, so Betty realising how reprehensible Lydia could be liked her less. In the end she would only find her fascinating and feel no pity for her at all. ‘Companionship?’ she suggested.

‘Oh yes,’ said Lydia contemptuously, ‘and financial security and little children. No thanks.’ Mischief had gone to her head and she felt powerful and free and unconstrained. Her plot now seemed more sadly trivial than wicked. If she had known that she would be offered the opportunity of fighting Finn all round the valley, she would never have planned her picnic. She was ashamed of her scheme, now finding it unworthily small-minded.

‘If Finn comes back,’ she said, ‘I’ll ask him to the picnic.’

‘Why,’ asked Betty bluntly, ‘if you won’t let him stay here and you’re so angry with him?’

Lydia was evasive, not having a good answer ready. ‘Mmm,’ she said shiftily, ‘I just thought it might be amusing.’

‘For whom?’ enquired Betty.

‘Oh, for me of course,’ said Lydia, forced into the open.

‘Don’t I deserve any fun?’

‘You have lots of fun,’ said Betty repressively. ‘Too much.’

‘I haven’t for ages,’ pleaded Lydia. ‘I’ve had a terribly peaceful few weeks.’

‘You should’ve asked some of your friends to stay,’ said Betty.

‘I don’t want any of my friends to stay,’ said Lydia. ‘I’m bored with my friends at the moment.’

Betty looked unhappy. ‘I don’t think you know what you want,’ she said.

‘Anyway, I’ve got you,’ said Lydia, rather too late.

Betty smiled in an irritatingly understanding way. ‘Oh yes,’ she said.

‘And Beuno,’ added Lydia, rendered unkind by this annoying smile. She wasn’t going so far as to make protestations of delight in Betty’s company.

‘Anyway, I shall have to go back soon,’ said Betty. ‘You’re lucky being freelance. My boss didn’t really want me to take three weeks all at once.’

Lydia hadn’t thought of that before. She was used to working only when she felt like it, or the deadline loomed too horridly. Besides she had a little money of her own. She wondered when Finn would turn up again. She knew he would.

Elizabeth has left the house. I followed her down the lane on the other side of the hedge. I thought she would cry, but she is angry. I took down the curtains, the pretty curtains that she had made, because they hid my window and made the earth smaller. That wasn’t all. I took the milk, and I poured it on the floor where the slate is hollowed, because once I saw the lake in moonlight and it was white. I only saw it once, and I wanted to see it again. I thought if I waited my lake would grow, and if I waited long enough the walls would walk away and the heron would come to swoop above my lake, milk-white in the moonlight. Listen. Elizabeth is angry . .
.

‘I don’t think I can stand it any more. She’s ripped up everything in her bedroom and she’s thrown milk all over the kitchen.’

(Only one little, little lake.)

‘I’ve tried and tried to look after her well, but she’s impossible
.
I’m sorry to be here like this but I couldn’t get through to anyone. The telephone doesn’t work . . .’

(I tore the wire from the wall. It rang while Elizabeth was in the field and I picked it up and someone spoke to me, but I cannot speak, so I tore it from the wall and then no one could speak to me.)

‘I’m at my wits’ end. She’s getting worse and worse. You know, she follows me sometimes? She’s probably outside now, listening. She doesn’t understand half of what we say but she listens all the time. I never know where she is.’

(I am here, Elizabeth. Here outside the window.)

‘Oh, I am sorry. I shouldn’t be here bothering you like this, but she’s such a worry. Hiding in corners or out on the hills in all weathers . .
.

(Listen, the little woman is speaking.)

‘Oh, Elizabeth, you must worry terribly when she’s out.’

(Listen to Elizabeth. Listen, listen, listen.)

‘All I worry about is that she’s going to come back.’

Even Lydia was subdued. She avoided Betty’s eye and absent-mindedly put too much sugar in her tea. Finn sat in the armchair eating cake. He had arrived at the precise moment when Elizabeth had begun to sob and then desolately to weep, and all Lydia’s skills, social, sexual and manipulative, had abruptly deserted her. She had taken Elizabeth home in the car, leaving Betty to explain to Finn whatever she saw fit.

‘There was no one at the farm,’ she said. ‘I offered to stay, but she obviously wanted me to go. There was a pool of milk in the kitchen but it wasn’t too bad. No sign of Beuno. He’s as odd as the rest of them really. I think he just dematerialises when he feels like it.’

‘He goes for long walks,’ said Betty mundanely.

‘Who does?’ asked Finn.

‘Beuno,’ said Betty.

‘I don’t like things with no answer,’ said Lydia. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any answer.’

‘Who’s Beuno?’ asked Finn.

‘Oh, do shut up,’ said Lydia. ‘We’re trying to think.’ Elizabeth’s distress had been so evident that even Lydia felt bound to take it seriously. The game, if game there had been, had broken the constraints of rule, and there is nothing more reminiscent of chaos and old night than a game become uncontrolled. ‘Why on earth did she marry him,’ she demanded fretfully, ‘knowing she’d have Angharad to contend with? She must have had some idea what she was doing.’

‘People don’t think when they’re in love,’ said Betty.

‘Oh, horsefeathers,’ said Lydia crossly, ‘
I
do.’

Betty, who was obviously getting sick of reminding Lydia that she was unusual, said nothing.

‘Who’s Angharad?’ asked Finn.

‘She’s Hywel’s sister,’ said Lydia. ‘Do stop asking questions. I hate explaining things. I make my living out of explaining things to a lot of dum-dums, and if I do it at all I expect to get paid.’

‘Who’s Hywel, Betty?’ asked Finn, unperturbed.

‘I’ll tell you later,’ said Betty. ‘Lydia, are you sure she was all right to be left alone?’

‘No,’ said Lydia, ‘but she isn’t a child and I hardly know her, so I couldn’t start throwing my weight around, could I?’ Lydia was also faintly disgusted by tears, by the weakness they evinced and by the viscosity of their substance. In truth she now felt guilty for leaving the shuddering Elizabeth alone in the farmhouse. ‘I offered to bring her back again but she said she had to wait for Angharad.’

‘She must feel terrible for having told us that,’ said Betty.

‘What?’ asked Finn.

‘Shut up,’ said Lydia. ‘Do you suppose Angharad
was
listening?’ she enquired of Betty. ‘She does go round very silently. I’ve seen her but I’ve never heard her.’

‘There was someone outside.the kitchen window when I arrived,’ said Finn placidly, apparently pleased to be able to contribute something to this limited discussion.

‘Oh, help,’ said Lydia.

‘I wonder how much she
does
understand,’ said Betty. To Finn she said, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t make it very clear. Elizabeth was crying because Angharad’s been destroying things in the house.’

Finn said, ‘You’ve done it again, haven’t you, Lydia? Landed yourself in the midst of a drama.’ And Lydia said, ‘If you’re going to be rude you can bugger off.’ But she said it half-heartedly. The skin was peeling off Finn’s nose and she wasn’t in love with him any more, so she didn’t really care what he did.

Noting the half-heartedness, Finn smiled, misunder -standing. ‘I’ve got to pick up my stuff from the pub,’ he said. ‘Do you want anything from the village?’

‘Cider,’ said Betty, ‘from the off-licence. We’ve got everything else.’

‘We’re having a picnic,’ said Lydia wearily. ‘Tomorrow. You’ll be able to meet all our new friends.’

Betty relaxed. Like Finn, she believed that Lydia had now relented, mistaking her lack of interest for compliance, which led to further misunderstandings at bedtime when Lydia told Finn that he was to sleep in the tiny room where she kept the oil lamps which was furnished with a camp bed and sleeping-bag.

‘But . . .’ said Betty.

‘But . . .’ said Finn.

‘I’m tired,’ said Lydia plaintively. When Finn had gone to bed she sat by the fire and looked at the flames.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Betty in a whisper, coming downstairs in her dressing-gown.

‘I’m looking at the fire,’ said Lydia. ‘If I was a dog you wouldn’t let me. You’d tell me I’d go blind.’

‘No, I wouldn’t,’ said Betty.

‘Yes, you would,’ said Lydia, staring at the flames, lost in thought.

‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Betty.

‘Men,’ said Lydia.

‘What about them?’ asked Betty, settling down for an exchange of confidences, a revelation of Lydia’s motives in banishing Finn to the lamp room.

‘I was wondering why they talk of
possessing
women,’ said Lydia. ‘Do we say that the penny possesses the piggy bank? Or the sausage the roll? Or the jam the sandwich? It seems to me that the foot is in the other boot, so to speak.’

‘Oh
Lydia,
’ said Betty exasperatedly.

‘No,’ said Lydia, stirring. ‘If ever I catch another man looking at me with that look which means “You’re mine, all mine” I shall kill him, because I’m not his all his at all. I think I shall take a vow of perpetual chastity.’

‘It’s not like that Lydia,’ said Betty. ‘You know it isn’t.’

‘Oh, yes it is,’ said Lydia.

She sent Beuno to fetch the doctor. She lay in her room and waited for him, and when he came I did not listen, but when he left I heard. He said, ‘Until tomorrow,’ and she said, very softly, ‘Oh love, love.’ And when he passed me I did not like to look at his face because it was dark like the shadows of the hill, and when he reached the door he laughed and I did not like to hear him laugh, and when he reached the yard he stopped because Beuno was there and he said to him, ‘She’ll be all right now. I’ve given her something and she should rest.’

And Beuno said nothing, but he looked at him as mildly as he looks at the trout that he catches in the stream, and the doctor said, ‘Until tomorrow,’ and he left, and Beuno watched him go as mildly as he watches the sheep when he frees them from where they are caught in the hedge
.

Then he made my supper, and when Hywel came back they talked in Welsh and they laughed
.

Elizabeth slept. She is sleeping now. Hywel does not know what I did or how she cried. It is not I but Hywel who is deaf and he has not seen what I have seen
.

Finn was very good looking. Lydia realised this afresh when she came downstairs the following morning. He looked at her without animosity and for a moment her knees weakened. He had lovely lines. The line of his neck, decided Lydia, related perfectly to the line of his lower leg with no unsightly discrepancies in between to interrupt this happy progression. She was seeing him sideways on, all profile and flank, and she thought that this was much the pleasantest aspect of all people. Straight on, either front or back, the human being tends to look somewhat banal. This androgynous obliquity of flowing unbroken line was seductive and beautiful.

‘Morning, ratface,’ she said, quite affectionately because after that momentary frisson she had remembered the duck and known she would never love him again. Because of this she felt generous and said she had realised some time ago that a really beautiful man was very much more beautiful than the most beautiful woman, and wasn’t that interesting. Finn said that not being queer he couldn’t see that at all, and Lydia, instead of clinging grimly to her theory, agreed that it was probably all in the eye of the beholder. ‘What have you done with the duck?’ she asked amiably.

‘What?’ said Finn.

‘That awful girl you took to Greece,’ explained Lydia.

‘Oh, she’s around,’ said Finn.

‘Around where?’ asked Lydia.

Finn looked at her speculatively. ‘Just around,’ he said.

‘Does it matter?’

‘No,’ said Lydia. ‘It doesn’t. You can make the coffee.’

‘We have to talk,’ said Finn.

‘We are talking,’ said Lydia. ‘We just had a discussion about aesthetics.’

‘You know what I mean,’ said Finn.

Lydia did, of course, know what he meant but denied it. ‘You can make the toast too,’ she said, going into the garden.

Finn followed her. ‘I knew at the time it would probably come to nothing,’ he said. ‘She’s completely self-centred. There’s nothing to her but . . .’

Lydia interrupted. It was one thing for
her
to be rude about a fellow female, quite another for a man. Like all loyalty, loyalty to one’s own sex was at once necessary for the survival of the whole and self-serving. Women must protect each other at all costs from the onslaught of the male, particularly from their contempt. Should she permit Finn to speak insultingly of the duck then she would have rendered herself vulnerable; for all traitors are peculiarly at risk – from both within and without.

‘And
she’s into women’s lib,’ added Finn ill-advisedly.

‘Good,’ said Lydia briskly. ‘Splendid. Wonderful. So am I.’

Finn sank further. ‘But you’re intelligent,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a sense of humour.’

‘No, I haven’t,’ said Lydia. ‘It wore out a minute or so ago. Don’t imagine you can flatter me by telling me I’m not really a feminist, because I
am
, and I find your denials extremely insulting.’