Love, Again

Sarah returned from France to find Joyce in her flat. This time it seemed she intended to stay. Again something had happened but Joyce was not going to talk about it. She had gone home, saying that she was going to.stay there because 'they aren't nice people' — meaning Betty and the gang. Her father had heckled and shouted, and found himself confronted by Anne, who announced that if he was ever 'nasty' to Joyce again she would leave him. Hal said Anne was being silly. Anne began packing. Hal said, 'What are you doing?' Anne said, 'What do you think I'm doing?' She had seen a lawyer. At that, hell was let loose. Sarah heard all this from Briony and then Nell on the telephone. The two grabbed the receiver from each other in turn. They were full of the awe appropriate to reporting a major hurricane. 'But when Daddy stopped shouting, Mummy said, "Goodbye, Hal," and started to leave,' said Briony. 'Yes; she got to the door before he realized she meant it,' said Nell.

He made promises. He apologized. The trouble was, Hal had never believed he was anything less than adorable. Worse, he had probably never wondered what he was like. He did not know what his wife meant by 'behaving nicely', but his manners did change, for whatever he said to Briony or Nell or his wife came out as short incredulous exclamations: 'I suppose if I ask you to pass the butter you are going to threaten me with a lawyer?' 'If I get your meaning rightly you're going to the theatre without me.' 'I suppose you'll fly off into a rage if I ask you to take my suit to the cleaners.'

Joyce removed herself to Sarah's. Anne said she was absolutely fed up with him and was going to leave him anyway. 'But I'm going to retire soon,' said Hal. 'Do you expect me to spend my last years alone?'

He came to see Sarah. He did not telephone first. Standing in the middle of her living room, he asked, or announced, 'Sarah, have you thought of us spending our last years together?'

'No, Hal, I can't say I have.'

'You aren't getting any younger, are you? And it's time you stopped all this theatre nonsense. We could buy a place together in France or Italy.'

'No, Hal, we could not.'

There he stood, gazing somewhere in her direction with wide and affronted eyes, his palms held out towards her, his whole body making a statement about how badly he was being treated — he, who was entirely in the right, as always. This big babyish man, with his little tummy, his little double chin, his self-absorbed mouth, making a total demand for the rest of her life, was not seeing her even now. Sarah went close to him, stood about a yard away, so that those eyes that always had so much difficulty actually looking at someone must take her in. She said, 'No, Hal, no. Did you hear me? No. No. No. No. No. No, Hal — finally, no.'

His lips worked pitifully. Then he turned sleep-wise around and rolled slowly out of the room, with the cry, 'What have I done? Just tell me. If someone would just tell me what I've done?'

Anne took a flat, and Joyce went to live with her mother.

Briony and Nell were outraged and would not speak to Anne or to Joyce. They announced they intended to marry their boyfriends, but their father wept and begged them not to leave him. At last they understood how much their mother had shielded them from, how much they had not noticed. Pride did not allow them immediately to forgive Anne, who, they kept saying, must shortly come to her senses. Meanwhile Sarah was a transmitter of messages.

'What did Mummy say when we said we wouldn't ever speak to her again?'

'She said, "Oh dear, but when they get over it remind them they have my telephone number.'"

Briony said angrily, 'But that's patronizing.'

'Do you want me to tell your mother so?'

'Sarah, whose side are you on?'

And Nell, a week or so later: 'What are they doing over there?'

'You mean, how are they spending their time? Well, your mother's working as usual. Joyce is cooking for both of them. And she's trying to learn Spanish.'

'Cooking! She's never cooked; she can't even boil an egg.'

'She's cooking now.'

'And I suppose she thinks she's going to get a job with Spanish?'

'I said she is trying to learn Spanish.'

Sarah did not tell them how happy their mother was. She realized she had never seen Anne anything but long- suffering, tired, exasperated. Anne and Joyce were like girls who had left home for the first time, sharing a flat. They made each other little treats, gave each other presents, and giggled.

Then Briony: 'Doesn't Joyce ever actually say anything? I mean, she must be awfully pleased with herself.'

'Well, yes: she says all her dreams have come true.'

'There you are, we knew it!'

'What's wrong with that?'

'All her dreams have come true. That's all she ever wanted, just to have mummy all to herself.'

'But, Briony, just a minute… surely you don't imagine… '

'What?' demanded Briony, already affronted by the new dose of unpleasant reality announced by her aunt's tone.

'Well — don't you see? She's not going to stay at home, is she?'

'What? Why not?'

'Well, she's going to get bored, isn't she?'

'Oh no… '

'She'll be off and back again, it'll all go on the same.'

'But it just isn't fair,' said Briony.