I can see her eyes taking in my hand on the door handle; this is a look from her, not a glance, but my obvious desire to escape has no effect.
She begins to do this terrible thing. To prove to myself that I don’t lack courage, I attempt to interrupt, opening my mouth to take a breath, but with hardly the first word out of my throat she raises her finger at me and says, ‘Just let me finish.’
This must have been going on for fifteen or twenty minutes. Is there something about me which invites such abuse? What would it be? How could she have picked it up when I have never spoken to her before?
After an hour — yes, an hour — I am becoming claustrophobic; I cannot speak, cannot make myself heard. Unsaid words are throttling me. Something in my right eye is vibrating. My breathing is shallow, my legs feel crushed. Surely she can hear that I am angry, and see that she is assaulting me, that I am being crushed under an injustice. But I am mesmerised. My husband would say that this must have happened to me before, yes with mother, in the kitchen, or on the phone, and sometimes with friends, but does it follow that I want this all the time?
Soon an hour and a quarter has passed: more, even; I have lost my bearings. She has forgotten me, and I have forgotten myself, as if she has planted a virus in my mind which slowly wiped away my memory, my volition, my entire identity.
I watch the madman passing, and then I look at her again, the woman whose eyes have not left my face. A terrible thought occurs to me, not one I could bear to say to anyone. I know why her son has withdrawn inside himself, and why he cannot speak, if this is what she does to him. She has forced him into a compact ball, the only protection he has. But who will say this to her?
She is looking at her watch. She must have measured out exactly how much time she had to talk. ‘That’s it,’ she says. ‘Sorry, I don’t want to be late. We got distracted. Lovely to see you. Let’s do it again.’
I get out of the car and take a few steps. I am weak; I need to lie down.
The woman waves and drives off, leaving me on the pavement in the rain with a madman striding towards me.
Maggie
It was late morning when the door bell rang. Max was tramping on an exercise bicycle in his new gym, flicking idly between Indian, Chinese and Arab TV channels. As he did with everything now — recently he had begun to practise, actively, a new creed of ‘slowness’ — he took his time showering and dressing. Then he sat on the bed, staring out of the window, considering scenes from the past. There was no rush: Marta, the new girl, would let Maggie in, and provide her with coffee, biscuits and the newspapers.
About three times a year Maggie came to London to stay with friends for a few days. Informing Max that she needed to see him, she added that their usual lunch, welcome though it was, wouldn’t be enough. She had a serious request she couldn’t talk about on the phone.
He and Maggie had met at a campus university in the mid-seventies and stayed together for around ten years, depending on how it was added up, or by whom. It had been his longest relationship, apart from that with his wife. But there were other reasons he wanted to think about what he now called the ‘experiment’. After it, Maggie had moved to the country with her partner Joe — called Jesus the Carpenter by Max — and brought up two children. Max had remained in the city, taking advantage of the Thatcherite expansion of the media, where he became successful and now had four children.
‘Hello, my dear,’ Max said, when he appeared in the kitchen in shorts, flip-flops and a T-shirt which he now realised only just covered his stomach when he stood up. ‘Let’s go onto the terrace. I’d like you to see it.’
It was unusual now for him to invite Maggie to the house because she irritated Max’s wife with, as Lucy put it, her ‘soppy self-righteousness and earnestness’. Lucy might well go on to say more maddening things like, ‘And as for that weird thing the three of you seemed to have had together, can you explain what in God’s name that was about?’
What indeed? However, Lucy was away filming; Max, she and the rest of the family would meet up tomorrow at the place they’d bought in Suffolk.
Max led Maggie up the stairs and onto the terrace, which stretched out across the top of the kitchen. There was a view of the garden, with a shed at the end, where the boys rehearsed their band and watched movies with their friends. Beyond that was the bowling green and the local park. It was spring, the blossom was out; so far it was the nicest day of the year.
They sat at the table and Marta, a young woman with dyed red hair, appeared again with a tray on which there was coffee and two glasses of grappa.
He said, ‘This is where I’m intending to spend the summer months.’
Maggie put her head back, attempting to catch the sun on her face. ‘What doing?’
‘Writing poetry, drawing, learning to paint. Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ve got nothing better to do. But for years I was too tangled up to be creative.’
‘You were? How?’
He indicated the house and terrace. ‘It’s all nearly finished. I did it myself.’
‘The building?’
‘Of course not. The organisation of it.’
‘You seem to have a horde of people working here.’
‘It takes two girls to keep the house and kids in order, and the Polish builders are installing a sauna.’
‘Where are those naughty boys?’
He had briefly seen two of his sons — aged fourteen and fifteen — that morning in the kitchen with a bunch of their friends, who’d slept over.
‘The younger ones are with their grandparents, and the big ones seem to have disappeared to Niketown to spend my money,’ he said. ‘They’ll be back later. We’re going up the road to watch Chelsea at home tonight.’
Maggie asked, ‘Why? Are you a Chelsea supporter?’
He hummed a Chelsea song. ‘We all are. Season ticket.’
‘But you used to be Fulham.’
‘I was Fulham, sort of,’ he admitted. ‘Mainly because of what I read about Johnny Haynes as a kid.’
He had intended to ask Maggie how she was, knowing she would complain about the hours, the wages, the clients, the government and the local council. She’d been a social worker since they’d been together, when he was beginning to make documentaries, and her work was demanding and difficult. He’d always said that she didn’t appear to be quite cut out for it, becoming over-involved and allowing it to exhaust and infuriate her, but she called it ‘passion’.
He just said, ‘What was it you wanted to ask me?’
‘Max, for a while I’ve thought I should change my life.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘I knew you’d be delighted.’
‘Change it in what way?’
‘I’ll tell you later.’
‘Now I’m intrigued.’
‘Good.’ She said, ‘What’s really up with you?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m still happily bored.’
‘Depressed?’
‘A man who is tired of suffering is tired of life. But you won’t hear me complain.’
Five years ago Max sold his television company to a big media conglomerate. Having set it up during the time he was with Maggie to promote investigative journalism on television, he and his colleagues had made programmes about political and business corruption, ‘covering shadiness of all shades’. Later, after the company made a satirical political comedy series which achieved big ratings, they made other clever funnies. As he became more of an executive than artist, he sold the company well at a good time. For a while he’d loved having his pockets full of money, buying whatever he wanted, shopping with the kids. Apart from watching football, it was the thing they most liked doing as a family.