It was when I came back from Switzerland to see Susy, in 1998. It was ghastly, and we were in the dark. I had come alone; Alexandra refused; she acted as if I were committing a crime, but for once she couldn’t change my mind.
I walked up the road with limbs of lead, feeling all the neighbours were looking at me, though I’m sure they had mostly moved away, and in any case they would have forgotten me. I didn’t ring the doorbell, I’m not sure why, I let myself in and dragged upstairs, perhaps out of an obscure desire to claim that this was still my house, that I wasn’t some stranger visiting, I was still her father, I was coming home (yet how passionately I wished not to be there!)
The house, as I corkscrewed up the staircase, smelled unnaturally clean, cleaner than it did when we were living there, but there were pale stains on the wood and curtains which surely hadn’t been there before, and many things had vanished, plants, books, pictures… an unfamiliar fresh smell of pine, less pleasing when I realised it was disinfectant.
The bedroom, they were in our bedroom. I pushed the door gently; it smelled of blood, stale air and menstrual blood. They were sitting together in the half-dark in the third-floor room which had once been our bedroom but was now clearly Susy’s, holding hands, a moving tableau of mother and daughter, except that their sizes were transposed. Susy had swelled to a mountain of flesh; Mary the comforter, sitting on our bed, was dwarfed by the land-mass whose flanks she was stroking, her strong hand moving over Susy’s fat pale one, for even her hands were fat, my God, and she must have been inside all summer, I’d never seen Susy look pale before. I took this in slowly; neither of them spoke; the curtains were only open a few feet so at first I saw only the outlines of their forms, almost allegorical in their silence.
Susy looked at me. She didn’t seem surprised, as if she had been expecting me, though she couldn’t have been waiting for eleven years. Mary didn’t smile; she was never an actress. She half-rose from the bed, and touched my arm, I was grateful for the touch since her face was so grave, and she muttered ‘Sorry, I just walked through the door, I haven’t had a chance to clean up in here today, if you want to go away for a minute, Chris —’
But both of us interrupted her, my voice, phonily bluff, the father, saying ‘Heavens, no, I want to see Susy,’ and Susy, her voice surely not the same, or was I hearing it afresh after the long absence, flat and sibilant, a fatter voice, surely, hissing ‘He can clean up. Let him stay.’
Then Mary slipped away, like a tactful shade, effacing herself so completely that somehow I’d forgotten she was there, I’ve suppressed that momentary monolithic tableau, the two female bodies in the menstrual dark, touching each other, excluding me, linked by mysteries I could never share.
— Except that when she’d gone, and my eyes had grown used to the dark, I saw that the mysteries were spread around the room, open to the eyes of whoever should come; the room reminded me of something half-forgotten; it was strewn with wads of drenched cotton-wool, sanitary towels soaked with dark blood, left wherever she had thrown them, bloody face uppermost, see what I’ve done.
— It reminded me of the hospital room where Penelope gave birth to Susy. The aftermath of a precipitous labour, before anyone had had time to clear up, and it lay all round us, bloody sheets and towels and tissues and the smell of iron, like a battlefield… but the baby was crying, we were laughing and crooning, we had a daughter, life was good, there was a sense of rightness in that room. I remember Penny saying, ‘This is all I wanted.’ Not that it was true, but she felt it then.
Whereas Susy, who had once been all we wanted, had just had her third abortion, and discharged herself against doctor’s advice; her brother had summoned me against her wishes; everything was wrong, cross-grained.
How could I have forgotten seeing Mary there? I didn’t try to see the Browns before I flew back. I was too ashamed, of course. They’d done what I should have done. What crimes they must think I am guilty of. But Mary had a sweet nature, forgiving…
So many of my memories are bound up with you two. Mary, you were always so kind to Susy. How is she doing, do you know? If you see her, please give her my love…
(too casual)
… please give her all my love, as ever.
I am thinking of coming back to London. Venice is extraordinary, of course, but the perpetual damp can’t be good for my health, and I miss…
What shall I say? What do I miss so badly? I miss having anyone who minds about me, though that isn’t a reason for going back to London, since I don’t suppose anyone minds about me there (but perhaps they do. Perhaps Mary does. She always used to seem pleased to see me when I dropped in unexpectedly, with one or another child in tow, she nearly always agreed to look after them… My God, it’s a quarter of a century ago).
I’d better not depend too much on Mary. Susy should mind about me. She’s my daughter. I picked up her pads and threw them away. I cleared up the mess, that morning’s mess, I did my best with it. I wasn’t too proud. Nor angry, though that mess should have been my grandchild.
… I miss the Independent, which you hardly ever see here, and eggs for breakfast, and Earl Grey tea. If you’re still at your old address, or wherever this letter finds you, drop me a line and tell me your news.
Perhaps we shall meet before too long!
Your affectionate friend
Christopher
— There’s Lucia’s bell ringing me to dinner. I’m pleased with myself, for here is my letter, a little achievement, signed and sealed, a little spurt of energy fed into the system, a tiny gesture against entropy. Something might change because of this… perhaps it will bring an answering wave. Perhaps it will clear the fog away.
Lucia has already opened a bottle, but I have brought my Chianti with me. Tonight I shall celebrate my letter by drinking two bottles of good red wine… I feel warmer now, less sorry for myself.
Good. Fritti misti, and a fine dressed salad gleaming red and green under the candelabra Lucia lights for me every evening. Life in Venice is not so bad. I think Lucia would miss me if I went home. That enormous table, just for the padrone. The salad glowing like a vegetable garden on its field of immaculate white linen. The breathing bottle of Amarone. Ah, my delectable Amarone. Forget the Chianti, push it aside…
And it lurches and tips across the white linen, pale bluish-purple as it soaks underneath, a terrible, garish red in great lagoons around my plate, going quickly darker, it’s everywhere, I dab and squeeze with my linen napkin but the task is beyond me, I must ring for Lucia, spreading, staining, I have to help…
I tried to clear up but I wasn’t very good at it. In the hospital, I held the baby — Penelope let me hold the baby — while the midwives sponged and washed and scoured.
Penelope cut her wrists nine years later, in the office one Friday evening, when everyone had gone home for the weekend. It had taken her a very long time to die. There was blood on every scrap of paper. She wrote a letter which was brief and competent; Penelope was always competent. She’d astonished me during our divorce by the coolness with which she refused custody of the children. ‘I’m not going to be a single parent. I’m not going to wreck my life for you.’ Her affairs were all left in perfect order, but the mess in the office was indescribable. Her secretary, who had been with her for a decade, took pleasure in telling me all the details.
‘Lucia! Help!’ For it was on my letter. The top pages looked splotched with blood, I would have to rewrite it, all that work… but women are never there when you need them, and when she comes she will only scold.