Cuckoo Page 14

  Her friends would know she’d only done it to get rid of her. Laura would mock, and Viv would agonize. Ned would fight a duel with Reverend Mother. But why bring him into it? He wasn’t even a friend, and there were enough complications without invoking the bolshie views of a half-baked anarchist. Yet Ned was the only one who’d really understand those inner promptings, those voices which urged, ‘Love, don’t destroy.’

  But she couldn’t love. There was only a gaping hole where that emotion should have been. Perhaps it would be kinder to send Magda away, than keep her in a house without affection. Maybe she was wrong about the nuns, and they knew more about love than she did. She felt pulled in all directions. Not only inner voices, but Charles, Laura, Viv, Ned, all nagging to be heard.

  ‘Look, Charles, I think we ought to discuss it further. It’s a very big decision.’

  ‘It’s a very simple decision, if only you’d keep emotions out of it.’ Charles was replacing the contents of his briefcase now, working from the right-hand pile in towards the left. She had no idea what he was really thinking. He knew Piroska didn‘t want their child at boarding school and that Magda herself had no desire to go. Was it easy for him to override all three of them? Perhaps he realized that it would be to their advantage, in the long run. Charles was often maddeningly correct in his decisions.

  He winced suddenly, as the front door slammed and footsteps hammered down the hall.

  ‘Mrs Parry Jones!’ It was Bunty, in muddy jeans and her brother’s climbing boots, with something cradled in her arms.

  ‘Take those … clodhoppers off in here, please.’ Charles frowned at the marks on his silk Kashan carpet. Bunty pulled off the boots without undoing them, and placed her bundle gently on the floor. It got up and shook itself, standing on four uncertain legs.

  ‘Isn’t he lovely?’ Bunty crowed. ‘Magda found him in the pond. Someone tried to drown him, the stinker! I’d drown him, if I could catch him.’

  Chocolate-brown eyes stared into ice-blue laser ones, six feet higher up. The puppy dropped his first. His tail had also dropped.

  ‘Kindly remove that creature from my drawing-room.’ Charles’ voice had turned a ball of fur into a ravening lion.

  ‘W … where’s Magda?’ stumbled Frances, praying that the puppy wouldn’t relieve itself on Charles’ precious Persian rug.

  ‘Waiting in the garden. She didn’t dare ask you. Well, you wouldn’t mind, would you? I mean, he’s Magda’s dog already. She rescued him, you see. He’s only small. I don’t think he’ll grow much more. You can tell by the legs.’

  Frances shut her eyes. Perhaps the small, bedraggled, trembling wretch would have disappeared when she opened them again. It hadn’t.

  Charles was reinforced concrete towering over a small, pink Bunty made of plasticine. She tried to slip between them.

  ‘Charles dear, it’s not Bunty’s fault. Let’s take the puppy into the kitchen, shall we? And make some tea.’

  ‘We’ve just had tea.’

  ‘Bunty and Magda haven’t, darling.’

  The puppy was exploring Charles’ trouser-leg. Charles almost kicked it off and put half a dozen Persian-carpet dragons between the two of them. ‘I’ve got some reports to finish for Oppenheimer. I’ll be in the study if you need me.’ He was already halfway through the door. ‘And I want that animal removed.’

  Charles had a talent for escaping. Frances had never really noticed it before Magda arrived. His daughter had obviously inherited the same characteristic.

  ‘Magda should have asked me herself, Bunty. It’s no good running away from things.’ She shuddered at her hypocrisy. Given the chance, she’d run away from things herself – other people’s children, for example.

  Bunty’s pink-rubber face was screwed up in supplication, pale eyes fixed on Frances, like another dog. ‘She was afraid you’d say no. You won’t, though, will you? She’s never had a pet, you see, never in her life. Her mother went out to work, and anyway, she had asthma, so Magda wasn’t even allowed to keep a cat.’

  So, Bunty knew the whole story, did she? A latch-key mother with asthma didn’t sound too cheerful, but none the less she was forced to harden her own heart. ‘I’m sorry, Bunty, but I shall have to say no.’ Or rather Charles would. Charles always avoided animals, and disturbances, and …

  ‘But why? He won’t be any trouble. Magda will look after him.’

  No trouble. A boisterous smelly dog shedding its white hairs on Charles’ dark sombre life, chewing up his carefully constructed barriers, peeing on his principles, barking at his platitudes, scratching up his whole perfect system.

  ‘Look, Bunty dear, my husband simply prefers not to have animals in the house, that’s all.’

  ‘But what about Magda? She lives here as well, doesn’t she? Why can’t she have a pet? Mum said she could adopt one of ours. But it’s not the same, is it, not like having one of your own?’

  ‘No, it’s not the same.’

  The puppy was shivering on the cold kitchen tiles. Bunty took off her jumper and wrapped him in it. Frances walked over to the stove. ‘I’ll warm some milk for him.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Mrs Parry Jones.’ Bunty and the puppy were crushed against her chest in a hug. ‘You’ll let Magda keep him, then? I knew you would. I told Magda you would. Shall we call her in?’

  Frances longed to say yes. What was the point of a home, if nothing was allowed to live in it? And yet, there was something safe about rules and prohibitions. Elegance and order wrapped you in a sound-proof, chaos-proof cocoon. Magda had already ripped it open and let in a dangerous cacophony of sounds. If she went any further, they’d soon be overrun. First a drowned rat of a puppy, then kittens, snakes, ponies, boyfriends, gangs. Their house wasn’t built to stand it; she and Charles weren’t programmed to withstand an invasion on that scale.

  Even when Magda brought her Streatham friends back, she felt threatened, a prisoner in her own home, confined to her study, while Magda’s rude rebellious cohorts terrorized the house. One of them had struck a match against the Bechstein and another ate lunch in her vest.

  There was some small serpent-trail of envy mixed in among the fear. She had never been allowed Magda’s freedom, to come and go as she pleased, to have cash on demand for anything that caught her eye, to shrug her shoulders at every social nicety. It had always been ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees, Frances’, ‘Take the cake nearest to you, Frances’, ‘When I was your age, I didn’t …’ Yet mothers only did things for your own good. Rubbish! Mothers could hate and break and envy and destroy. Mothers turned puppies into principles, and simple requests into catastrophes.

  She moistened a sponge with warm water and cleaned the puppy’s coat. He whimpered, shut his eyes. He was only a baby, really. Just one, small, harmless animal – would it really be so unendurable? She fondled his ears with her free hand and went on dabbing his fur, until it showed up white, with two brown patches.

  ‘He’s not exactly a beauty, is he?’ She stared at the spindly legs, the dumpy little body, the ears like small pink flaps.

  ‘No, but he’s sweet, isn’t he, Mrs Parry Jones? You must admit he’s sweet.’

  ‘All right, he’s sweet. If you insist.’ She poured milk into a saucepan and heated it gently. She’d never had a pet herself. Her mother regarded all animals as dirty or dangerous, and her father was the sort of man who instantly reported any dog he saw fouling the pavement. At the age of eight, she’d adopted the butcher’s dog, a white bull terrier which dribbled. She’d sneaked into the butcher’s shop every day, after school, and sat in the sawdust feeding him her ration of jelly babies. Her father had discovered her one Thursday afternoon and locked her in her room until the morning. Since then, she’d avoided dogs.

  Perhaps she could start again. Why repeat the old restrictions, or say no to Magda because she’d been refused herself? Her father was only a plot now, a square of turf and a headstone. The puppy was alive.

  ‘Do you know if he’s house-trained, Bunty?�
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  ‘Oh, yes, I’m sure he is. And even if he’s not, he won’t take long to learn. He’s very intelligent, you know. Does that mean you’re going to let Magda keep him?’

  ‘Don’t rush me, Bunty.’ It was so hard to do anything impulsive. Dogs were dirty, and a tie – everybody said so. On the other hand, they were also good companions. The puppy would be company when Charles was away. And they could always send him to dog-training classes, or restrict him to the kitchen.

  Bunty’s soggy features wrung themselves into an expression of rapture. ‘Oh, please say yes. Please.’

  Frances continued weighing pros and cons. They might even enjoy a dog. They could drive over to Acton and introduce him to Rilke. Ned would find a crazy name for him. Though why did Ned keep sneaking into things? He’d scoff at all her agonizing, take in half a dozen dogs. ‘Well, all right, maybe …’

  ‘Oh, thank you!’ Bunty almost capsized her with the force of her hug. ‘Magda will be over the moon! Here, hold the puppy and I’ll go and get her in.’

  The small furry body was trembling in her arms. Frances felt a strange sense of power. She could choose life or death for a dog, life or death for Magda.

  Magda shuffled in, looking wary and embarrassed. The bottoms of her jeans were soaked and there was a three-cornered rent in her new corduroy jacket. She had trailed mud and water across the shining kitchen floor. There was something about the very sight of her which rankled. It always happened. So long as Magda wasn’t there, she could revel in good resolutions and rapprochements. But as soon as Magda slouched on to the scene, shoulders hunched and hair defiant, her precious peace was shattered. She bundled the dog into Magda’s arms and picked up the floor-cloth, stabbing at the footprints with unnecessary force. Magda watched her, jeering almost, kicking her muddy shoes against the table.

  ‘Thanks for the puppy,’ she growled.

  Why couldn’t she speak properly, and sit up straight, and cut her hair? ‘Look, I haven’t said you can have it, yet …’ Frances squeezed the cloth into the bucket, as if she were wringing someone’s neck. She knew she was being petty and unreasonable. But Magda never made it easy. The child almost flung her youth at her, flaunted her idleness, her foreignness, her dishevelled good looks. Everything about her screamed lies, infidelity, Piroska. She’d made enormous efforts, planned treats and expeditions, cosy little talks together, home-made fudge, visits to the Planetarium. But the minute she melted the butter, or set out in the car, the stars blacked out or the mixture burned. It was as if she and Magda were two chemicals which would not, could not fuse, but only consume each other or explode. She must have been crazy, refusing boarding school. Charles was right – it was the only possible solution.

  ‘Bunty just told me you said yes. Well, didn’t you?’

  Magda’s sullen whine went through her like a knife. She heard herself answering in the same harsh, grudging tones. ‘There’s your father to consider. We haven’t asked Charles.’ Your father, your father … Why was she always fathering and daughtering, when both words cut her into pieces?

  Magda was gripping the puppy too tight, digging her nails into its skin. ‘I don’t care what he says. He can’t say no, in any case. The puppy’s mine. I rescued him. He’d have drowned without me. I’ve already got a name for him. So, fuck!’

  Bunty’s pale eyes almost disappeared in the worried folds of plasticine. ‘Ssshh, Magda, don’t be stupid. You’ll only ruin things. Mrs Parry Jones was saying yes in any case.’

  Frances had finished the floor and was slapping at the walls. They weren’t even dirty. ‘Oh no, I wasn’t …’

  Magda marched to the door, the dog clutched against her chest. ‘Frances never says yes to anything. She’s the one who always makes a fuss and then blames other people. If she didn’t live here, I bet Charles would let me have a puppy. And lots of other things. He’s my father, isn’t he? And a father’s more important than a stupid, rotten husband.’

  Frances eased up to her feet and turned the gas out under the milk, which was almost boiling over. She kept her own voice down to simmering point. ‘Well, I suggest you ask your father, then. He’s in his study. And leave the puppy here, please.’ She didn’t add ‘change your shoes’, just watched the large, wet footprints writing their rude message on the floor; jumped when the study door slammed.

  Five minutes later, the front door slammed as well. Bunty and the puppy cowered. ‘Your husband said no,’ Bunty whispered dully.

  It wasn’t a question and Frances didn’t answer it. Bunty scooped up the creature from the corner where Magda had almost hurled him, and stood uncertainly at the door. ‘I’ll take him home, shall I? Mum won’t mind. Then, if you change your mind …’

  ‘I’m afraid we shan’t,’ said Frances, glancing at the child. Bunty was plain, like the puppy, dumpy and graceless, with the same pinkish eyes and short legs. ‘I’m sorry,’ she added, feeling her usual racking mixture of guilt, misery and failure. If only Bunty hadn’t sprung it on her. Even Charles might have agreed to a dog, if she’d primed him first, inspected the kennels in the area, selected a decent specimen with a health certificate and a proper pedigree. And then drawn up a set of rules, limiting its freedom. ‘Look,’ she said desperately, ‘don’t just run away like that. Have a cup of tea before you go. Or I’ve got some cherry cake …’

  ‘No, thank you, Mrs Parry Jones.’ Bunty’s voice was toneless. ‘I ought to be with Magda.’

  Frances drank the tea herself, slumped at the kitchen table. Since Magda arrived, she’d wasted endless time simply recovering from the arguments, upheavals. How could just one extra person cause so much aggravation? Her stomach felt curdled, as if she had mixed lemon juice with milk. There were so many layers of feeling, including wallowing self-pity, but also pity for Magda, pity for the trembling dog. But simple gestures of compassion could misfire. You took in a harmless puppy, and it grew into a snarling, thieving brute; you mothered a child and became a monster overnight. Magda was making her doubt herself in every smallest thing, undermining her values, wrecking her principles. She’d always assumed she could love a child. It was the next thing you did after settingg up a home and writing fashion hand-outs. But love was proving screamingly impossible. Maybe it was simpler with your own child, but how could you tell? It had been easy in the past to condemn baby-batterers, or shudder when you read reports on cruelty to children. But if your baby was a Magda in miniature …

  She abandoned her tea and walked upstairs. The lion was sitting on her bed, still grinning. ‘Ned,’ she whispered miserably. She’d christened it Ned – the first name she’d thought of, really. She cradled it in her arms like a baby. Toys were so much easier, didn’t make puddles or noises, or wreck the house or deflower the garden, or grow up. Dogs did all those things, and so did babies. Yet she couldn’t give up trying to have a baby. Her life was constructed now round a sacred fertility rite. She dared not halt the whole complicated process, the self-important visits to the gynaecologist, the special calendar, the sense of mission. She dared not fail. Magda had become almost part of the process, the precursor for her own child. She knew somehow that she would have her baby, when she had come safely through the storm and fire of Magda.

  She held the lion against her shoulder and walked with it to Magda’s room. Even with junk on the floor and punk on the walls, it still looked elegant. Too elegant. She arranged the lion in the centre of the bed, tail curled around its body. She threw out the dead flowers and replaced them with a fresh bunch from the garden – cheerful easy flowers: roses, daisies, marigolds. She brought up the tin of cherry cake and put it on the dressing-table, with a bowl of shiny apples. The room still looked wrong – all frills, all substitutes. The kid wanted a flesh and blood animal, a real, red-blooded dog, not a stuffed, synthetic toy and a vase of flowers which would die within the week.

  She could have said yes to the puppy. Too easy to blame Charles, when he’d only underlined her own refusal. Fundamentally, it had been a choice betwee
n Magda’s happiness and her own convenience. No, not just convenience – safety, order, discipline, all the things she needed for her own happiness, even her survival. It was frightening to realize her joie de vivre depended on a set of rules, a wire cage of restrictions. She had nothing to give Magda, nothing solid, nothing real. She couldn’t even hug her. Every time she tried, some new barrier reared itself between them and turned her arms to wood.

  She stood rigid in the centre of the room. One rose had already dropped its petals on the bedside table. Even the lion looked older. She paused by the bed to stroke its curly mane. ‘Tell her I …’

  She stopped. Pointless and ridiculous, talking to dumb animals.

  Chapter Ten

  That evening, Charles took her out to dinner, on her own. Magda had not returned. They studiously avoided the subject of pets; combining tolerable scampi and indifferent chocolate mousse with careful observations on the shadow cabinet’s regional funding policy and the Richmond redevelopment scheme. Charles drained his port.

  ‘Fancy a stroll by the river?’

  ‘Well, yes, but haven’t you got to work?’

  ‘Not tonight. It’s your evening. I wanted to spend it with you, darling. To – er – thank you …’