Recognition Part Four
or A Cruel World


There was a continuity to her life, resulting from confidence. She would have said that it was trust in god; but all she knew of that invoked being was a set of precepts.

She had her own confidence, faith in herself and dependence upon herself. She thought she was self-reliant. She would call herself a sinner, because she transgressed slightly some of the rules imposed; but she never found herself otherwise lacking, so her faith in herself rarely failed during her working years; and she maintained a similar credence in others. She came to rely upon others; and suffered; and saw herself as a failure, eventually, despite her disposition towards discretion and forethought.

That she should accede to her husband's inclinations and her father's dependency was, to her, an obvious thing to do. That their comfort could have been managed in other ways did not suggest itself; the times were against her.

We have to give and take, she said, as people took from her what she offered, and also what she did not sufficiently resist giving up.

She cooked, as her mother and her mother had cooked, and all the mothers back to Eden, fussing help out of the kitchen, because it wasn't really help and it wasn't really meant, but all a kind of appeasement and domination. Those two worked together. You inveigled the cat with mushy words and nice food because you wanted to look at its ear or its foot or whatever it had damaged this week. They had no sense, but there'd always been an animal of some kind; it was something to come home to; though they got themselves into scrapes and then they languished. Men too! Men are a lot like cats.

She quite liked cats. You don't have to explain anything to them.

She scrubbed the area outside the door. She did the doorstep. She put red where it should be red and black where it should be black. She did the washing. She swept the floors and the picture rails. When she was young, even if you were poor, there was someone poorer who would do these things. She felt poorly off.

Now that there were only two of them, they had less time, not more. They had to do everything themselves. They went out more. When he couldn't go or didn't want to go because he didn't know the people, she went on her own; but not for long, not now.

He had a new job, which is to say there was a new title for what he did. The wages seemed as small as ever.

Industry was a long time returning to its pre-war kind. Commerce had a different feel, too, or so they told her. All that she noticed was that those with whom she was in contact still seemed a temporary group.

They didn't grasp the fundamental facts that her superiors, all her superiors, had known without effort. Many were dead. Some who came back came back distracted and lessened. The new ones were looking for change and advancement, while what she wanted was predictability.

At home, there was both continuity and change. If no future, different to the present, was prepared for, perhaps it wouldn't happen; and that had to be good. All the alteration she had known had been an impoverishment.

They lived in the past a great deal. So much had gone, and the present was an assemblage of absences.

They were already married. That was done.

They hadn't died. They were healthy. Who else was there to die? His parents were becoming rheumatic and ruminative, but they'd last.

His siblings were as annoying as ever. They'd last.

It would go on and on.

It looks as though you're marrying a Fred Astaire, her uncle had written. Am I, she'd thought? Fred Astaire? Not even singing. But looks, I suppose.

She had known him all her life. Did he look that good? Like a film star? Few to whom she had been attracted had been good looking. What mattered was that they made her laugh, and were reliable.

She wasn't even sure she would have married if it hadn't been for the war. She was quite happy then, she told herself.

It would be different if they had a child.

Was it nice cake? she asked.

I don't know, he said, looking at the fire place, seeming to catch some of its ochre round the cheeks, I was so hungry I just ate it. I think it was dry.

Was it dry?

I should think it was.

He still wasn't looking at her.

Do you wish that you had kept the plate?

He turned. What do you mean?, he asked, gaping at her, his lower lip sticking forward the way his brother's did all the time because he was always angry. She was very surprised. She didn't answer immediately.

The same thing had happened a year or so before. The phone lines were down, someone doing a little bit too much demolition, and she hadn't been able to say she'd be later than expected; but then, because of that, she didn't stay that long. She got ringing and was worried that he didn't answer, though he was probably still at work. He liked his work and he was beginning to stay late. I'm not paid piece rate, he said. She knew that. He never said more. She didn't know why he said it. That wasn't what she meant. When she came in, though, he was there. The room was terribly smoky, you could see the smoke, and she opened the windows as much as she could - they always caught now and the landlord did nothing - even though it was cold, even though she knew her hair smelt too. She was flustery.

Where have you been? he wanted to know. You know where I've been, she said, lightly, a deliberate and calculated lightness.

Later on that evening, they had the scare of an argument, about the little chap at work. It was the first real nasty argument they had ever had. He's no harm, she said; but he said: I don't like it. They never had rows; she had told her friends that.

She had to go in on Monday and say there could be no more presents. It was shabby.

Now she had no contact with any of that.

He asked again: What do you mean? It was so kind a voice, in its softness, she felt threatened. Was he threatening her? Surely not.

The baby was asleep.

I don't mean anything. I'm teasing you...

He did look silly, with that glare.

I love you very much...

The only reason his hair wasn't on end was he put so much grease on
it.

You're so easy to tease...

He said: I didn't want to keep the plate.

He looked at her with graceless rigidity, like something made in a machine shop. He said: You are everything there is to be desired.

Ooo, she said, pursing her lips, and then breathed out Am I? with a hefty aspiration. He came towards her.

Everything?

He stopped.

Am I everything to be desired?

Everything, he said, with ponderous sincerity.

Even my cake?

One thing about him was that he had a good sense of humour; and, if you hung on long enough, he'd laugh at himself as he was almost doing now.

Especially your cake.

For a while, she was partly of the community of other mothers. She was of them and not of them. The children kept her busy, but she was lonely; yet she did not wish to join her peers - she didn't like them; they were dull. And the children argued with her as she would never have argued with her parents.

To go to work now, even part time, was not thinkable.

He worked too much. She never saw him.

He defended his self-esteem by going to work even when he felt ill. He put on weight.

She kept to herself what she called her aches and pains.

Neither she nor he questioned the necessity of aches and pains.

Whereas the children disputed and suspected everything. It fatigued her.