could be nothing but an additional irritant to him, and I learned to contain my grief, or at least not to display it when Owen was at home, which he was quite frequently then, not out of deference but out of prudence. For a few weeks he went off to Hanover Square every morning like a model employee. I never asked him what transpired there, nor would he have told me if I had. He merely asked me how the sale of the house was progressing. I think he considered it might be a good idea to have some money in reserve, in case any should be demanded of him. I had no idea how things were to be managed. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I was tootaken up with my own sadness to brood for long on my husband’s troubles. This was only one indication of the estrangement I had begun to notice.
I was very lonely during the weeks that followed my mother’s death. I knew that I should never again be all the world to anyone, as it says in the song. Normally I despise women who claim never to have got over their parents’ death, or who affirm that their fathers were the most perfect men who had ever lived. I despise them, but I understand them. How can any later love compensate for the first, unless it is perfect? My simple parents had thought me unique, matchless, yet they had let me go away from them without a murmur of protest. I tried to ask myself whether I could have done more—been more—than was really the case, but it was too late, and the questions seemed artificial even as I asked them. Parents do die, and children survive them: moreover I was in my fifth decade and had left childhood far behind. Yet at that time I grew wistful, thinking of all that I had lost or forgone. I had voluntarily entered a world in which a certain obliquity seemed to be taken for granted, pretty manners hiding a very real indifference. No one was unkind to me. But I felt a coldness in the atmosphere whenever my mother-in-law was present, and I was oppressed by the knowledge that I must continue to dance attendance on Julia, if only to please Charlie, on whose goodwill Owen depended. But I saw it for what it was; there was no question of love, or even liking. Even Owen, from whom I now expected little, disappointed me.
I remember at that time I went to the hairdresser’s. I did this regularly, but I remember that visit for two particular reasons. The first was that next to me was a young mother with a little girl aged about three. The child, whose hair was about to be cut for the first time, screamed with terror andclung to her mother. The hairdresser stood by gravely, comb in hand: he recognized that this was a serious moment. The mother, blushing, tried to comfort the child who had suddenly plunged into despair; all around the shop women smiled in sympathy. What impressed me, and what I particularly remember, was the child’s passionate attempt to re-enter her mother, the arms locked around the woman’s neck, the terrified cries of unending love. So dangerous is it to be so close! I had tears in my eyes, witnessing that bond, seeing that closeness, of which only a sorrowful memory remained in my own life. One loses the capacity to grieve as a child grieves, or to rage as a child rages: hotly, despairingly, with tears of passion. One grows up, one becomes civilized, one learns one’s manners, and consequently can no longer manage these two functions—sorrow and anger—adequately. Attempts to recapture that primal spontaneity are doomed, for the original reactions have been overlaid, forgotten. And so the feelings are kept inside one, and perhaps this is better in the long run. A child forgets easily, whereas it is an adult’s duty to remember. But this proves hard, sometimes.
When it was my turn (and the child was soon smiling, and proud of her new short hair) the hairdresser—John, such a nice man—looked at my reflection in the mirror, and said, ‘You’ve got a lot more grey coming through. Have you thought of a tint? I can introduce it
I was very lonely during the weeks that followed my mother’s death. I knew that I should never again be all the world to anyone, as it says in the song. Normally I despise women who claim never to have got over their parents’ death, or who affirm that their fathers were the most perfect men who had ever lived. I despise them, but I understand them. How can any later love compensate for the first, unless it is perfect? My simple parents had thought me unique, matchless, yet they had let me go away from them without a murmur of protest. I tried to ask myself whether I could have done more—been more—than was really the case, but it was too late, and the questions seemed artificial even as I asked them. Parents do die, and children survive them: moreover I was in my fifth decade and had left childhood far behind. Yet at that time I grew wistful, thinking of all that I had lost or forgone. I had voluntarily entered a world in which a certain obliquity seemed to be taken for granted, pretty manners hiding a very real indifference. No one was unkind to me. But I felt a coldness in the atmosphere whenever my mother-in-law was present, and I was oppressed by the knowledge that I must continue to dance attendance on Julia, if only to please Charlie, on whose goodwill Owen depended. But I saw it for what it was; there was no question of love, or even liking. Even Owen, from whom I now expected little, disappointed me.
I remember at that time I went to the hairdresser’s. I did this regularly, but I remember that visit for two particular reasons. The first was that next to me was a young mother with a little girl aged about three. The child, whose hair was about to be cut for the first time, screamed with terror andclung to her mother. The hairdresser stood by gravely, comb in hand: he recognized that this was a serious moment. The mother, blushing, tried to comfort the child who had suddenly plunged into despair; all around the shop women smiled in sympathy. What impressed me, and what I particularly remember, was the child’s passionate attempt to re-enter her mother, the arms locked around the woman’s neck, the terrified cries of unending love. So dangerous is it to be so close! I had tears in my eyes, witnessing that bond, seeing that closeness, of which only a sorrowful memory remained in my own life. One loses the capacity to grieve as a child grieves, or to rage as a child rages: hotly, despairingly, with tears of passion. One grows up, one becomes civilized, one learns one’s manners, and consequently can no longer manage these two functions—sorrow and anger—adequately. Attempts to recapture that primal spontaneity are doomed, for the original reactions have been overlaid, forgotten. And so the feelings are kept inside one, and perhaps this is better in the long run. A child forgets easily, whereas it is an adult’s duty to remember. But this proves hard, sometimes.
When it was my turn (and the child was soon smiling, and proud of her new short hair) the hairdresser—John, such a nice man—looked at my reflection in the mirror, and said, ‘You’ve got a lot more grey coming through. Have you thought of a tint? I can introduce it
Similar Books
