Читать книгу What Makes Women Happy - Fay Weldon - Страница 9

We do not define ourselves by our animal nature. We are more than creatures of a certain species. We are moral beings. We are ingenious and inquisitive, have intelligence, self-control and spirituality. We understand health and hormones. We develop technology to make our lives easier. We live far longer, thanks to medical science, than nature, left to its own devices, would have us do. We build complicated societies. Many of us choose not have babies, despite our bodies’ instinctive craving for them. We socialize men not to desert us; we also, these days, socialize ourselves not to need them.

‘I don’t dress to attract men,’ women will say. ‘I dress to please myself.’ But the pleasure women have in the candlelit bath before the party, the arranging and rearranging of the hair, the elbowing of other women at the half-price sale, is instinctive. It’s an overflow from courting behaviour. It’s also competitive, whether we admit it or not. ‘I am going to get the best man. Watch out, keep off!’

To make friends is instinctive. We stick to our age groups. We cluster with the like-minded. That way lies the survival of the tribe. A woman needs friends to help her deliver the baby, to stand watch when the man’s away. But she must also be careful: other women can steal your alpha male and leave you with a beta.

See in shopping, source of such pleasure, also the intimidation of rivals. ‘My Prada handbag so outdoes yours – crawl away!’ And she will, snarling.

And if her man’s genes seem a better bet than your man’s, nab him. Nature has no morality.

Any good feminist would dismiss all this as ‘biologism’ – the suggestion that women are helpless in the face of their physiology. Of course we are not, but there’s no use denying it’s at the root of a great deal of our behaviour, and indeed of our miseries. When instincts conflict with each other, when instinct conflicts with socialization, when nature and nurture pull us different ways, that’s when the trouble starts.

‘I want another éclair.’

Agony.

Well, take the easy way out. Say to yourself, ‘One’s fine, two’s not.’ No one’s asking for perfection. And anxiety is inevitable.

A parable.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Picture the scene. It’s Friday night. David and Letty are round at Henry and Mara’s place, as is often the case, sharing a meal. They’re all young professionals in their late twenties, good-looking and lively as such people are. They’ve unfrozen the fish cakes, thawed the block of spinach and cream, and Henry has actually cleaned and boiled organic potatoes. After that it’s cheese, biscuits and grapes. Nothing nicer. And Mara has recently bought a proper dinner set so the plates all match.

They all met at college. Now they live near each other. They’re not married, they’re partnered. But they expect and have so far received fidelity. They have all even made quasi-nuptial contracts with their partner, so should there be a split the property can be justly and fairly assigned. All agree the secret of successful relationships is total honesty.

After graduation Henry and Mara took jobs with the same city firm so as to be together. Mara is turning out to be quite a highflyer. She earns more than Henry does. That’s okay. She’s bought herself a little Porsche, buzzes around. That’s fine.

‘Now I can junk up the Fiesta with auto mags, gum wrappers and Coke tins without Mara interfering,’ says Henry.

Letty and David work for the same NHS hospital. She’s a radiographer; he is a medical statistician. Letty is likely to stay in her job, or one like it, until retirement, gradually working her way up the promotional ladder, such is her temperament. David is more flamboyant. He’s been offered a job at New Scientist. He’ll probably take it.

Letty would like to get pregnant, but they’re having difficulty and Letty thinks perhaps David doesn’t really want a baby, which is why it isn’t happening.

Letty does have a small secret from David. She consults a psychic, Leah, on Friday afternoons when she leaves work an hour earlier than on other days. She doesn’t tell David because she thinks he’d laugh.

‘I see you surrounded by babies,’ says Leah one day, after a leisurely gaze into her crystal ball.

‘Fat chance,’ says Letty.

‘Is your husband a tall fair man?’ asks Leah.

‘He isn’t my husband, he’s my partner,’ says Letty crossly, ‘and actually he’s rather short and dark.’

Leah looks puzzled and changes the subject.

But that was a couple of weeks back. This is now. Two bottles of Chilean wine with the dinner, a twist of weed which someone gave Mara for a birthday present…and which they’re not sure they’ll use. They’re happy enough as they are. Medical statisticians, in any case, do not favour the use of marijuana.

Henry owns a single e, which someone for reasons unknown gave him when Mara bought the Porsche, saying happiness is e-shaped. He keeps it in his wallet as a kind of curiosity, a challenge to fate.

‘You’re crazy,’ says Letty, when he brings it out to show them. ‘Suppose the police stopped you? You could go to prison.’

‘I don’t think it’s illegal to possess a single tablet,’ says David. ‘Only to sell them.’

He is probably right. Nobody knows for sure. Henry puts it away. It’s gone kind of greyish and dusty from too much handling, anyway, and so much observation. Ecstasy is what other people do.

Mara’s mobile sings ‘Il Toreador’. Mara’s mother has been taken ill at home in Cheshire. It sounds as if she might have had a stroke. She’s only 58. The ambulance is on its way. Mara, who loves her mother dearly, decides she must drive north to be there for her. No, Mara insists, Henry isn’t to come with her. He must stay behind to hold the fort, clear the dinner, make apologies at work on Monday if it’s bad and Mara can’t get in. ‘You’d only be in the way,’ she adds. ‘You know what men are like in hospitals.’ That’s how Mara is: decisive. And now she’s on her way, thrum, thrum, out of their lives, in the Porsche.

Now there are only Henry, David and Letty to finish the second bottle. David’s phone sings ‘Ode to Beauty’ as the last drop is drained. To open another bottle or not to open another bottle – that’s the discussion. Henry opens it, thus solving the problem. It’s David’s father. There’s been a break-in at the family home in Cardiff, the robbers were disturbed and now the police are there. The digital camera has gone and 180 photos of sentimental value and some jewellery and a handbag. David’s mother is traumatized and can David make it to Cardiff for the weekend?

‘Of course,’ says David.

‘Can I come?’ asks Letty, a little wistfully. She doesn’t want to be left alone.

But David says no, it’s a long drive, and his parents and the Down’s sister will be upset and he’ll need to concentrate on them. Better for Letty to stay and finish the wine and Henry will walk her home.

Letty feels more than a little insulted. Doesn’t it even occur to David to feel jealous? Is it that he trusts Letty or that he just doesn’t care what happens to her? And is he really going to Cardiff or is he just trying to get away from her? Perhaps he has a mistress and that’s why he doesn’t want to have a baby by her.

David goes and Letty and Henry are left together, both feeling abandoned, both feeling resentful.

Henry and Letty are the ones who love too much. Mara and David love too little. It gives them great power. Those who love least win.

Henry and Letty move out onto the balcony because the evening is so warm and the moon so bright they hardly need a candle to roll the joint. On warm days Mara likes to sit on this balcony to dry her hair. She’s lucky. All Mara has to do is dunk her hair in the basin and let it dry naturally and if falls heavy and silky and smooth. Mara is so lucky in so many respects.

And now Henry walks over to where Letty sits in the moonlight, all white silky skin and bare shoulders and pale-green linen shift which flatters her slightly dull complexion, and slides his hands over her shoulders and down almost to where her breasts start and then takes them away.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

‘No, you shouldn’t,’ she says.

‘I wanted to,’ he said.

‘I wanted you to do it too. I think it’s the moon. Such a bright night. And see, there’s Venus beside her, shining bright.’

‘Good Lord!’ he says. ‘Think of the trouble!’

‘But life can get kind of boring,’ Letty says. She, the little radiographer, wants her excitements too. Thrum, thrum, thrum goes Mara, off in the Porsche! Why shouldn’t it be like that for Letty too? She deserves Henry. Mara doesn’t. She’d be nice to him. Letty’s skin is still alive to his touch and wanting more.

‘But we’re not going to, are we?’ he says.

‘No,’ says Letty. ‘Mara’s my friend.’

‘More to the point,’ he says, ‘David’s your partner.’

They think about this for a little while.

‘Cardiff and Cheshire,’ says Letty. ‘Too good to be true. That gives us all night.’

‘Where?’ asks Henry.

‘Here,’ says Letty.

All four have in the past had passing fantasies about what it would be like to share a bed and a life with the other – have wondered if, at the student party where they all met, Henry had paired off with Letty, David with Mara, what their lives would have been like. The fantasies have been quickly subdued in the interests of friendship and expediency. But Mara’s sheets are more expensive than Letty’s, her bed is broader. The City pays more than the NHS. Letty would love to sleep in Mara’s bed.

‘We could go to your place,’ says Henry. To elbow David out of his own bed would be very satisfactory. Henry is stronger and taller than David; Henry takes what he wants when he wants it. Henry has wit and cunning, the kind which enables you to steal another man’s woman from under his nose.

But Letty’s envy is stronger than Henry’s urge to crush his rivals. They agree to stay where they are. They agree this is greater than either of them. They share the e, looking into each other’s eyes as if they were toasting one another in some foreign land. It is in fact an aspirin, but since they both believe it’s ecstasy, it has the effect of relieving themselves of responsibility for their own actions. Who, drug-crazed, can help what they do?

They tear off each other’s clothes. Mara’s best and most seductive apricot chiffon nightie is under the pillow. Letty puts it on. Henry makes no objection. It is the one Mara wears, he has come to believe, when she means to refuse him. Too tired, too cross, just not interested. He pushes the delicate fabric up over Letty’s thighs with even more satisfaction. He doesn’t care if he tears it.

‘Shouldn’t you be wearing a condom?’ she asks.

‘I don’t like them,’ he says.

‘Neither do I,’ she says.

For ten minutes Letty is supremely happy. The dark, rich places of the flesh unfold and surround her with forgetfulness. She is queen of all places and people. She can have as many men as she wants, just snap her fingers and there they are. She has infinite power. She feels wholly beautiful, consummately desired, part of the breathing, fecund universe, at one with the Masai girl, the Manhattan bride, every flower that ever stooped to mix its pollen, every bird that sings its joy to heaven. And every one of Henry’s plunges is a delightful dagger in Mara’s heart, his every powerful thrust a reproach to pallid, cautious David.

Then Letty finds herself shifting out of a blissful present into a perplexing future. She’s worrying about the sheets. This is condom-less sex. What about stains? Will Mara notice? She could launder them – there’s a splendid washer-dryer in the utility room, but supposing it broke down mid-wash? Henry could possibly argue that he spilt wine on the sheets – as indeed he has, and honey too, now she comes to think of it. She is very sticky. Can Mara’s chiffon nightie be put in the machine or must it be hand washed?

‘Is something the matter?’ he asks.

‘No,’ she says.

But she no longer feels safe. Supposing Mara gets a call from her family on the way to Cheshire and turns back? Supposing she and Henry are discovered? Why is she doing this? Is she mad?

Her body shudders in spite of herself. She rather resents it. An orgasm crept up on her when she was trying to concentrate on important things. She decides sex is just mechanical. She’d rather have David, anyway. His penis is less effective and smaller than Henry’s, but it’s familiar and feels right. David must never find out about this. Perhaps she doesn’t want a baby as much as thought she did. In any case she can’t have a baby that isn’t David’s. What if she got pregnant now? She’d have to have an abortion, and it’s against her principles, and it would have to be secret because fathers can now claim rights to unborn embryos.

Henry rolls off her. Letty makes languid disappointment noises but she’s rather relieved. He is heavier than David.

Henry’s phone goes. He answers it. Mara is stuck behind an accident on the M6 north of Manchester,

‘Yes,’ says Henry, ‘I walked Letty home.’

Now Letty’s cross because Henry has denied her. Secrecy seems sordid. And she hates liars. And Mara? What about Mara? Mara is her friend. They’re studied together, wept together, bought clothes together and supported each other through bad times, good times. Mara and her Porsche and her new wardrobe have all seemed a bit much, true, but she sees why Mara puts Henry down from time to time. He’s not only irritating but untrustworthy. How could you trust your life to such a man? She ought to warn Mara about that, but how can she? Poor Mara, stuck behind an ambulance in the early hours in the far north while her partner betrays her with her best friend…

Henry is licking honey off his fingertips suggestively. ‘Shall we do that again?’ he asks. ‘Light of my life.’

‘No,’ says Letty and rolls out of bed. Her bare sticky feet touch the carpet and she is saved.

Moral

Few of us can resist temptation the first

time round, and we should not blame

ourselves too much if we fail. It’s the

second time that counts. Let sin pass

lightly on and over. Persist in it and it

wears your soul away.

Letty’s sense of guilt evaporates, washed away in the knowledge of her own virtue and fondness for her friend. Guilt is to the soul as pain is to the body. It is there to keep us away from danger, from extinction.

And good Lord, think what might have happened had Letty stayed for a second round! As it was she got into her own bed just minutes before David came through the door. His father had rung from Cardiff and the jewellery had been found and the burglary hadn’t happened after all. Letty hadn’t had a bath, thinking she’d leave that until the morning, but David didn’t seem to notice. Indeed, he fell on her with unusual ardour and the condom broke and he didn’t even seem to mind.

If she’d stayed in Mara’s bed David would have come round to find Letty and at worst killed Henry – fat chance! – and at best told Mara, or if not that then he’d have been able to blackmail Letty for the rest of her life. ‘Do this or I’ll tell Mara’ – and she’d have had to do it, whatever it was: go whoring, get a further degree (not that there wasn’t some attraction in surrendering autonomy…)

But as it was it all worked out okay. Letty had her 10 minutes of sublime pleasure, felt anxious, felt guilty, and was rewarded by having her cake and eating it too. I don’t know what happened to the sheets. I daresay Henry calmed down enough to put them through the washer-dryer and get them on the bed again before Mara got back. I hope he had the sense to rinse out her nightie in the basin at hand temperature, not hot.

I do know that in the following week Henry sold the Fiesta and got a Jaguar which could outrun the Porsche any day, and he used the joint account to do it. He felt better about himself.

I allow Letty, having observed the moon, to sleep illicitly with Henry once, but not twice. It is a balancing act and she got it right.

It is doing what you should, if only in the end, and not what you want which makes others respect and like you, and to be respected and liked by others is a very good way to be happy.

Save your moral strength for what is important.