A Gift of Poison Read online

  Helen dislikes Magdalen’s brutal tone: some personal animosity there perhaps? ‘Well, that’s something you can never accuse me of,’ she says, to change the subject, ‘painting too much.’

  ‘Indeed I can’t,’ says Magdalen.

  ‘In fact if I don’t do more work soon I’ll either have to sell the house or take in lodgers.’

  ‘Richard not coming back then?’

  ‘I don’t want him back.’

  ‘Maybe if you gave up teaching,’ Magdalen says.

  ‘Then I’d go bankrupt.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. Nothing like it to concentrate the mind.’

  ‘Oh well,’ Helen says vaguely. ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘Of course you know Jerome Ellis would love to commission you again. Every time I see him he asks after you most fondly. Still wants that Greek mural in his bedroom and there’s no one else in the world who can do it but you.’

  ‘God help me,’ Helen says, ‘it may yet come to that.’

  * * *

  She goes to the studio and rummages through the drawer where she keeps odd mementos from long ago: Sally’s first baby shoes, her divorce decree, Richard’s love letters when they first met, a photograph of Carey as a student, and yes, underneath it all, an article clipped from an ancient magazine, all yellow-faded now, about the adjacent studios and idyllic marriage of artist Jordan Griffiths and photographer Hannah Levinson. Under a caption of ‘DOUBLE VISION’ their faces smile out at her, Jordan looking absurdly young and happy, Hannah serene and thoughtful, rather as Anne Frank might have looked, if she had been permitted to grow up.

  Part Two

  Inge is happy. She thinks of all the lonely Christmases she has spent waiting for Richard and getting drunk in front of the television while the boys were out at parties. Now she can hardly wait for them to go. She prepares the Christmas feast joyfully and watches them all eat it, but her own appetite is small: she is already too full of happiness.

  She gazes at the candlelit faces of her three men, Richard and the boys, across the table as they eat her food; she remembers all the years she was afraid this would never happen again. Of course it’s not perfect yet: Karl is still edgy with his father, she notices, hostile and displaced from his role as man of the house, while Peter tends to be clinging, wanting extra attention as if to reassure himself that Richard won’t disappear again. But she understands all that: Michael has taught her things don’t have to be perfect. Good enough will do. It’s been a revelation to her. She has learnt so much from him. That was why she had to tell him her news first, ahead of everyone, even Richard. She knew he’d be on her side.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise you were trying.’

  She actually blushed. ‘Neither did Richard.’

  ‘Ah.’

  It’s the therapeutic ‘ah’ that she has become used to. Sometimes she even practises it when she’s alone, like a child trying on a parent’s clothes, saying ‘ah’ the way he does as if at a great discovery but also quietly, in a satisfied way at having a suspicion confirmed.

  ‘I’m so grateful,’ she said. ‘It’s like a miracle. If you hadn’t helped us…’

  ‘You helped yourselves,’ he said. ‘You both worked very hard. And now? How will he react, do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She didn’t want to focus on that; didn’t want anything to spoil her happy feeling. ‘I know he may be angry but I don’t want to think about that now. And after all, maybe he won’t be. It could go either way. I just want to be happy now.’

  He nodded. ‘So that’s our task for today, to focus on being happy.’

  ‘Yes. I feel I’ve never done that before.’

  ‘It’s a new feeling then?’

  ‘Yes.’ She saw him smile slightly, indulgently, as if she were a child learning to walk, and unexpected tears welled up and spilled over. She went on talking easily through them. ‘It’s very strange. When we were first married I was happy but there was always a shadow because I was pregnant when Richard married me and I was never sure if he really wanted to. And when he came back to me I was happy because I’d got what I wanted and the cow was all alone. But there was still a shadow because he wouldn’t make love to me. And then we came to you and you helped us and he did make love to me and now I’m pregnant. And I’m so happy I don’t want to think of any more shadows, like if he’s angry when I tell him. I just want to stay with the happy feeling.’

  ‘So let’s do that, it’s important for you. Can you tell me more about it? What’s it like?’

  She smiled. She knew he was only doing his job, but no one had been so eager to hear her thoughts and feelings ever before in her life and it was a new sensation, a big treat. ‘It’s very physical,’ she said. ‘I feel so well, so warm, so peaceful. I feel there’s something smoothing out all the rough edges inside me. I feel I’m being healed. I feel very calm and very excited at the same time. I don’t even feel angry with Helen any more, I feel sorry for her. I want to stop calling her the cow. I even think maybe I should go round and see her or write and tell her I’m sorry for the other time I went and screamed at her. She must be very lonely and she had a bad time with her daughter.’

  ‘So being happy makes you feel very well and you want to be nice to people.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what’s the difference this time? There’s a shadow but you’re happy; when before there was a shadow, it spoiled your happiness.’

  She thought about it. ‘I suppose I’m cheating. I’m not thinking about the shadow.’

  ‘And why do you call that cheating?’

  ‘Because it is.’

  ‘Is there anything else you could call it?’

  ‘I told you I wanted to concentrate on the happy feeling.’

  He said equably, ‘Now you sound angry with me.’

  ‘Yes, I am a little. Why d’you want me to talk about the shadow? I said I didn’t want to.’ It was a great luxury to be cross and able to admit it without fear. He wasn’t going to reject her; he would just think it was interesting. She was safe.

  ‘I want to know why you call it cheating to ignore the shadow for a while. Cheating is dishonest, is that how you think of yourself?’

  ‘No. Well, I suppose a bit. Getting pregnant without telling my husband, that’s cheating, isn’t it?’

  ‘Perhaps, but that isn’t what we are talking about. We’re on happiness today, remember? What could you call it other than cheating when you ignore the shadow, and why can you do it now when you couldn’t before?’

  ‘That’s two questions,’ she said. ‘That’s not fair.’

  They both laughed.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I suppose I’m not looking ahead to trouble the way I used to. I just want to be happy now.’

  ‘So what are you doing?’

  ‘Oh Michael,’ she said, ‘you’re asking me riddles.’

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You know it’s better if you work it out for yourself.’

  She thought about it. ‘I suppose I’m living in the present.’ She was rewarded by his smile, and he sank back a little in his chair as if relieved.

  ‘So can you feel that for a while? Feel happy and know you’re living in the present.’

  ‘I’ve forgotten the other question,’ she said.

  ‘Inge,’ he said, ‘concentrate. You’re so nearly there.’

  She was suddenly reminded of reaching orgasm, which though usually easy could sometimes be a long hard struggle, a tiring journey, and a final exhausting triumph. ‘I always spoil everything,’ she said. ‘That’s what I said to Felix. By worrying about the future. By analysing too much. I make people leave me by being afraid they will. And now I’m not doing it any more.’

  ‘And why’s that?’

  ‘Because I’m living in the present.’

  ‘And?’

  Brilliant as neon, it flashed into her head. ‘I’m not thinking about Richard. Well, I am, but not all the time. I’m not letting h
im spoil anything.’

  ‘And isn’t that cause for celebration?’ he said. ‘That you don’t always have to depend on Richard for happiness. Whatever happens in the future, you’re happy now, and no one can spoil it for you. Doesn’t that give you more control over your own life? Just think, you might even make a habit of this.’

  She started to laugh. ‘Yes, you’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s a lovely feeling. But very strange.’

  Michael glanced at his watch. ‘Well, it’s almost time. Perhaps we should think about stopping in a moment.’

  ‘It always jars on me when you say that,’ she said. ‘It’s such a jolt.’

  ‘Yes, it is difficult, isn’t it? Is there a way we could handle it differently?’

  Now, alone with Richard, she tries to keep Michael’s tone of quiet acceptance and approval in her head to give her courage. It is a testing moment and she wonders if her happiness will survive it. ‘Richard,’ she says, ‘can we talk now? There’s something I have to tell you. Please listen and please don’t be cross. I’m going to have a baby.’

  * * *

  He hears the terrifying words, and behind them the echo of twenty years ago, when she was first pregnant, and in a haze of pity and lust he married her. That child died and he should have run away then, he now realises, but instead he stayed and gave her Karl and Peter, as if to make amends. Karl, who now resents him, and Peter, who clings. He has betrayed them all, by going away and coming back. From the best of motives he has probably done more harm than Felix, who has only ever pleased himself. The irony hurts. If she is pregnant again, it is as if he has had to marry her twice, when the fact is he never wanted to marry her at all. And he feels like a fool to have such an old deception practised on him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says humbly and yet somehow smugly, watching his face. ‘I knew you’d be angry but I was hoping you might be just a little bit pleased as well.’

  He feels such a surge of violence, wanting to hit her, that he quite shocks himself. ‘I’d like to have been consulted,’ he says, inadequate words for the rage inside him. He is terrified of his own anger. He hasn’t felt as angry as this since he slashed Helen’s painting, since he tried to murder Felix. All these months when he thought he was making progress and now he finds he has gone right back to where he was nine months ago. Nothing has been achieved and he is trapped in a worse mess than before. She has done this dreadfully dishonest thing that will chain him to her for ever. It is only now, realising that he can’t run away, that he also realises that was what he was planning to do. His subconscious was just waiting to get Christmas over before saying to Inge, Look here, I’m sorry, we’ve tried our best but this simply isn’t working, is it? Something like that. He’d even thought she might agree with him, given time. He’d been planning to run away again, only this time with her permission for ever. He’d been planning to run away and beg Helen to forgive him and take him back. Now he sees the lovely ghost of Helen receding into the distance, the person he truly loves and can never have again.

  ‘But you had a coil,’ he says stupidly. ‘You’ve always had a coil. Since Peter was born.’

  ‘I had it taken out when you came back.’

  So simple then. She doesn’t even look guilty. She has a meek expression on her face, as if trying to ward off violence, but her eyes are calm and steady. She is pleased with herself. She knows she is in a strong position.

  ‘God, Inge,’ he says, ‘you might have told me.’

  ‘How could I?’ she says, ‘you might have said no.’

  Was this how Felix felt when Sally deceived him? He doesn’t want to think of Felix, make excuses for him. But the fellow feeling is there, sudden and strong.

  ‘So that’s why we had to go to that slimy therapist,’ he says. ‘So you could do this to me.’

  And yet. And yet. A child of his own again. The image rises up as sheer delight. Not quite worth the nightmare of being married to Inge. But almost. Which of course she knows. She knows him so well. She is facing him with all the confidence of a woman whose husband wants children, whose husband doesn’t agree with abortion. She knows she is safe.

  ‘I wanted you to love me,’ she says. ‘I wanted you inside me again. I needed that, Richard, I needed it so much. How could I live with you and sleep beside you if we never made love? What’s the point of coming back if we’re going to be like that? But I’m nearly forty-one. If I’m ever going to have another child, it has to be now.’

  ‘And you couldn’t tell me that? Ask me? Give me a choice? Christ, I don’t feel like a father, just a sperm donor.’ He thinks of Helen when she talked Sally into having an abortion. Ignoring him. Going totally against his wishes. Now Inge’s doing the same thing. He’s the means to an end or an obstacle in the way. Not a person at all. Not someone with an opinion, with a right to be consulted. All his past is coming back to haunt him.

  ‘You would have said no, wouldn’t you?’ she says.

  ‘Yes, of course. It’s too soon – we’re not getting on well enough – God, Inge, it ought to be a joint decision. Maybe later.’ But he knows he means never and he feels dishonest.

  ‘But there wasn’t any time,’ she says. ‘You might have left me again. I could feel you pulling away.’

  ‘Surely,’ he says, ‘that’s the worst reason to have a child. Isn’t it?’

  ‘I couldn’t bear you to leave me again,’ she says. ‘And now you can’t. You won’t, will you?’

  ‘No,’ he says, staring at her in horror, seeing the long future ahead of them.

  ‘I know she wouldn’t have a child with you,’ she says. ‘Felix told me.’ She means Helen. She has stopped calling her the cow but she can’t quite manage her name. He wishes she wouldn’t mention her at all, or Felix. He feels exposed. ‘And I know you miss your step-daughter. Maybe we’ll be lucky and have a girl. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

  He doesn’t answer.

  ‘And the boys are nearly grown up. They can babysit for us. We’ll be able to go out whenever we like. It’ll be much easier this time.’

  She is so eager for him to agree, to make the best of it. Still he says nothing, punishing her with silence, the only weapon he has left.

  ‘It might bring us closer together,’ she says, still watching his face.

  ‘But that isn’t what children are for, Inge. Don’t you know that yet? The boys didn’t bring us closer together, did they, so why should a new baby?’ How fragile it sounds. And he gets a sudden image of the newborn. The awful vulnerability that he will have to protect when he can’t even protect himself.

  ‘Well, I don’t care. I was desperate.’ A sudden burst of anger. ‘You should have noticed. In the past, when you were really touching me, really looking at my body, you’d have noticed I wasn’t bleeding every month. I couldn’t have tricked you in the old days, could I?’

  He ignores that. It’s true but it only proves how far apart they are, how wrong it is to be having a child at all. He looks round the room at the farce of Christmas, the remains of the food she prepared so lovingly, the silly decorations, the holly and the mistletoe, where she made him kiss her before dinner, and the tree with its dangerous candles. He gets up to blow them out. He wishes he could burn down the house.

  * * *

  Helen goes to the studio on Christmas morning. She doesn’t really expect to get any work done, though she is always hopeful; mainly she is trying to pretend this Christmas, the first one without Richard, isn’t happening, and to forget last Christmas, when Sally was with Carey and they were alone together. Before he found out about the abortion. Before he tried to kill Felix. When everything was still relatively all right. She has a lot of avoiding to do in her head and she doesn’t want any friends or neighbours to take pity on her and help her do it, or see her fail. The very word Christmas makes her feel allergic: she sees it in the papers, hears it on the radio. People keep wishing her a happy one, as if such a thing were possible. There is no escape from the word and it ind
uces such an intense feeling of illness and rage that she is surprised when she looks in the mirror not to see herself covered in a rash.

  This year Sally is roasting a duck, to defy tradition, and they are going to eat it quite late, about three. By then the light will have gone and Helen can’t even pretend to work. So she will be quite entitled to watch television and get drunk, while Sally, having done her duty, goes out and enjoys herself with her friends. Helen might even enjoy herself too. It sounds like masturbation, she thinks, something she has done quite a lot of lately. Perhaps a good sign, that she is returning to life; there was a time when she was too tired and depressed to bother. But she doesn’t like the way that feelings of anger and loneliness get mixed up with the pleasure. She would almost prefer to stay dead. A new way to spend Christmas, anyway, alone in front of the television drunkenly masturbating. Something to aim for, to give her a sense of purpose, although it’s more likely she will fall asleep before she has the energy to start.

  The studio is so normal it colludes with her pretence that this is just an ordinary day. At the same time she likes the feeling that the rest of the world is out there somewhere forcing itself to celebrate. The weather is chill and dank, a raw day but without wind, not really cold. It’s the sort of weather she associates with Christmas, so it seems more appropriate than snow, which belongs on fanciful cards or in newspaper photographs of seasonal disasters or in the works of Dickens. The ghost of Christmas past. No. She switches off the memories and takes a good look at the work she has been doing lately. She attempts to assess it but decides against trying to do any more. Her excuse is that if she fails she will feel desperate and if she succeeds she will be too engrossed to go home on time and appreciate Sally’s duck. Instead she primes a canvas and tidies up some of the accumulated clutter. This sort of occupation usually has a calming effect on her mind. She is using the studio as a kind of sedative.