Chapter Thirty-Three - We
See What We Want to See
It's october. I have been at
this pesky building for nine months. But it is nearly
finished. I have managed to find a buyer, and the place is
now sold. The buyer wants a few things done. I am putting in
bits of skirting-board, adding a door in the middle of the
hallway to divide the bungalow into the day areas and the
bedrooms. I also have to put down cork tiles in the kitchen
and the bathrooms.It's october, the
evening is going grey about me as I drive home. It is
quarter to seven. I am, as usual, shattered, filthy and
starving.The children are
next door with grandma. She is reading them a story, and
they are just listening to the sound of her voice while
playing games. Cephren is driving a truck over the carpet
and making rumbling noises. Mini is playing with a glove
puppet and talking to herself. Annabel is nowhere to be
seen."Ann's next door,"
says mother.I am hungry and I
phoned her to tell her when I was starting home so she could
have a meal ready for me. But I am too tired to be cross. I
walk up the hill.Ann and Terry are
sitting on the sofa doing the Guardian crossword.Cindy is sitting on
the carpet by the fire. I sit down in a small rocking chair
by Cindy. Ann is very solicitous. She comes over to me, puts
an arm around my shoulders, and kisses under my ear. "Are you all right
darling? You look dead beat.""I'm knackered, and
I'm starving. I thought you would have got me a meal.""I have dear. It's
in the oven. I had a large tea and I'm not hungry now. I'll
come down later. You go back and have
your meal and lie down." She was stroking my hair. She
looked the picture of the really loving wife."Okay, I'll toddle
off in a minute. I feel like a little rest. I've only just
sat down.""Do you want a
drink?" asks Cindy.I sit in the rocking
chair drinking a sickly sweet sherry. Cindy is staring into
the fire. Behind us Terry and Annabel are happily trying
various combinations to get the next clue. They look like a
happily married husband and wife. They dont have a care in
the world.Cindy looks up at
them. I look down at Cindy, and I can tell from the way she
looks that she knows.I look back at
Annabel. She hasn't seen. I finish my drink, get up heavily,
and go home to my dinner.An hour later
Annabel comes home and I go up to bed.I didn't hear her
come upstairs or I would have told her Cindy knew.I didn't hear Cindy
knock at the front door later that night, and I didn't hear
Annabel go downstairs.I didn't hear Cindy
arguing with a melodramatic fervour in the kitchen while
Annabel tried to pacify her. And when I came down in the
morning and had a little talk with Ann about her and Terry,
and the threat from Cindy, I was told my warning had come
too late."Luckily she didn't
wake you. She started shouting quite a bit, and I tried to
get her to keep her voice down. I was scared she was going
to wake you up, and then you'd have been cross as well.""But Annabel, you
must have known she'd be able to tell.""But I didn't think
we were doing anything. We were only doing the crossword for
heaven's sake.""It was obvious the
way you were sitting together; that sort of feeling of
togetherness. It was obvious to anyone who cared to look,
and Cindy isn't that dumb.""Are you cross?""What do you mean,
am I cross? It doesn't matter what I feel does it? What
about Cindy? She'll freak out.""She's no good for
him anyway. She's always being moody and arguing with him,
and going into hysterics, and getting melodramatic. Their
marriage cant last. I dont know how he puts up with her.""Annabel, you cant
argue like that. Perhaps they get a kick out of the way they
run their relationship. Terry is after all a born
masochist.""No he's not, it's
just the way he has be to be to put up with her.""He doesn't have to
put up with her in the first place.""It's part of his
stupid middle class upbringing. He doesn't want the scandal
of a divorce, that's all.""So, he's a
masochist.""Huh. You dont know
him.""Whereas the little
Annabel, after a couple of tete-a-tetes knows him better
than his wife.""Oh shut up.""Well, you know all
about that. The lady always knows best. She can always see
the situation as it really is; meaning as she wants it to
be. And.... and this is the golden rule, the other bird is
always, repeat, always wrong, especially if the other bird
happens to have got there first. Getting there first is
synonymous with being wrong for the man.""But it's not like
that. She is wrong. You know that.""I don't know
anything. Sure, she might drive me up the wall, and I'd
probably beat her. Perhaps she needs beating now and then, I
don't know, but Terry tolerates her, and is sorry for her.
That's no way to handle your wife. It's insulting to be
tolerated.""He ought to leave.""And settle down
with you? You don't want that do you? Or do you?""Of course I don't
darling." And she put her arms round my neck.And I thought I was
still in control because, just like Annabel, I saw what I
wanted to see, not what was really there.At the very least I
should have noticed that suspicious 'darling' at the end of
the sentence. It is an important little word. I'm a poet. I
am supposed to know about words. I am supposed to spot a
word that is being used to cover up for another word. I
should note the judicious way the word was brought in when
it wouldn't normally be there.At the very least I
could have gone back to my room and written all kinds of
words on a piece of paper, and then written D A R L I N G in
capital letters right across them all. * * * * *
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