SEVEN
Of course Pamela Pryor, mother of Danny, gave in eventually. And went up to his bedroom – his ex-bedroom – her soon-to-be-study, to look for the things he requested her so baldly to send on.
After she returned from the post office she rang his number to say the parcel was on its way. She got the answer-phone.
‘Dan Pryor and Lilian Watt are not here right now . . .’
So The Girlfriend had a name. She waited for the beep and then said, ‘I have finally sent you the parcel which you do not deserve. It took so long because I am very busy at the shop at the moment. Next time you leave a message, how about some preliminary chatter? Along the lines of asking me how I am, that sort of thing. . . Works wonders.’
A bit stinging, she thought afterwards, but mothers had rights, too.
She could imagine The Girlfriend rolling her eyes at the maternal neurosis of the message. She no longer cared.
Truth was, since hunting through Danny’s room, she could imagine The Girlfriend rolling a darn sight more than just her eyes. . .
The Girlfriend who, apparently quite untouched by a passable degree in philosophy, thought Crete was a great place for holiday nightlife.
The Girlfriend whose geographical knowledge stretched only to Malibu being a drink.
The Girlfriend who, with all these outward attributes, had captured Danny’s heart and who, it was now clear, had captured all his other maternally proscribed bits as well.
This information was gleaned from going to his room, as requested, and finding some hidden, and presumably forgotten, pornographic magazines. She was still feeling most strange from the experience.
I’ll open one, she thought, just at random.
She went into his room at seven and did not come out again until a quarter past nine. With nothing whatsoever packed up but with a very strange light in her eye. And a serious need for gin.
At first she decided that the magazines all belonged to some far-off adolescent time when he and his friends used to congregate up here. But they were dated last December and January. She was both fascinated and repelled and, although they were not hard core, it took a while for her to look at the pages inside. There was something very unedifying about knowing they belonged to her son. She opened them furtively, flicking through, trying not to dwell on the photographs that looked more like alternative positions for healthy childbirth than hot poses. She realized there was an entire dimension to him that she would never know, could never know. She smiled, wryly. She must abandon the images of chuckling bathtimes and schoolday sulks. Her son was now a Bloke.
One of the magazines asked on its cover, ‘Tell us the truth. Are you and your partner really hot together?’
How silly, she said to herself out loud. But she quickly turned to the page and found the questionnaire. Danny had filled it in. No use pretending. It was definitely his writing.
‘Does your wife/girlfriend refuse any of your sexual needs or fantasies? Would you consider using a prostitute for these?’
Danny had written, a little too convincingly in her opinion, ‘No’ and ‘No need.’
That made her think, as she sat there goggling.
Nothing?
Refused him nothing?
Ah, well, she consoled herself, he probably never asks for things. Whatever things might be. She tried not to think of polythene and whips.
She read on, trying to clear her mind of The Girlfriend as some sort of obliging orifice with a brain as secondary function. And she also, even more embarrassingly, tried to clear her mind of Oedipus. Had she done anything that might give him strange tastes? It was a thought best rejected. At times like this she wished Peter were more of this world. He was the only one with whom she could share any of this without it being a betrayal. Hopeless. She could imagine ringing Peter up now and reading some of the questions and answers aloud. He’d go whiter than his walls.
‘What would you do if your wife/girlfriend told you she wanted to have sex with another man?’
Danny had written, ‘Watch.’
She closed the magazine, red-faced as if he were in the room with her.
She very nearly did ring Peter at that. Just to share the burden. But if she felt a bit weak and wobbly, Peter would simply point a pale and shaking finger at her and say it was all her fault for putting royal blue carpet over the Furtzbangers and letting him have his way with the red and black.
Watch, indeed. Would he? She read on, abandoning the sense of guilt for the more urgent need to know. She was strangely moved to find that under the question, ‘Was your wife/girlfriend more experienced when you met? Did you mind this?’ he had replied ‘Yes’ and ‘Yes.’
Pamela felt she had failed. Maybe there was something in the old fashioned idea of sending a young man off to Paris to sow his wild oats? She had done her best. Told him about caring for the girl, not hurting her in either an emotional or a physical way, told him that it was possible, and very nice (deep breath here), to have sexual experiences without, er – it taking place (God knows where she was looking when she told him that one – neither of them had found the kitchen ceiling so interesting before or since). And lots of other liberal-parent stuff that had them both writhing in a state of pink embarrassment and which she could never be sure he had heard. Had it all been for nothing?
The last question cheered her up. Danny had ticked the box which stated that he felt himself now to be a ‘fully tuned-in, turned-on sexual partner’.
Well, thank God for that.
She felt like cheering.
Then she felt like crying.
Then she remembered and felt like a large gin.
Which was when she went back downstairs.
If anything was designed, she thought, cutting savagely at a lemon (she could hear Danny saying, What Has That Lemon Ever Done to You?), to show her, finally, that her son was now a separate entity, it was a questionnaire on his sexual habits. She banged the glass down on the kitchen bench and threw in the lemon so that it splashed. And that was good, was it not? So why did she suddenly feel so cross?
Best be honest. She was cross because he had a love life and she didn’t. She was cross because she had abandoned her own. The thought slipped out and into the gin glass before she could haul it back. Even though it was well over a year ago, she could still hear Danny’s voice on the stairs, still feel the panic, and still get goosebumps at the thought of being caught in flagrante with a lover young enough to be her son. It was the end of Dean Close. Dean – final testimony to her recovery from Douglas. Dean, who a moment before was the object of her desire, became quite suddenly an expendable threat to her role as mother. She froze in his embrace as Danny called again, ‘Hi, I’m back . . .’ She was almost physically sick as she jumped out of Dean’s arms. And that, she told the gin glass, was it. I simply could not cope with the guilt.
Friends said she was silly to be so protective. Rick, who was Danny’s guitar teacher for years and a friend in whom she often confided, said that he, personally, would have loved to know his mother was having a good time. Not surprising, she thought caustically, since his mother was dead. Rick had a nipple ring put in when he was fifty, and a tattoo as a present from his wife saying SAVE THE PLANET, SING. So she couldn’t take his cool advice seriously. ‘Just tell him,’ said Rick, playing an irritating little riff as if they were taking part in some sentimental musical. ‘He’ll be fine about it. . .’
Tell him indeed. She had only to say to Danny, Let’s talk, and he would be backed out of the door, half-way down the street, saying, Don’t wait up . . . As for telling him she was heartily knocking off someone young enough to be his brother? It would have sent him hurtling into outer space. He was his father’s son, after all – both still seemed to have a proprietorial view of her morals. A mother should be above such things – the Virgin Mary was in there somewhere – and that was that. Whatever Rick or anyone else said, Pamela knew that her son would not be able to countenance the idea of her being sexy, let alone countenance her being Hands On and Doing Sexy. Free-thinking stopped with your parents. She wouldn’t be able to handle his knowing, either.
She felt that sick feeling in her stomach again, heard the voice on the stairs, re-lived the panic in the dimness of a bedroom with the curtains pulled against the afternoon light. Ended, over, buried, gone. Might as well admit it as not. She did feel resentful. All it needed right now, given those magazines, was for her son to ring up and say, Mum, get a life, and she might very well tell him about the one he had taken from her. Or all three, she thought resentfully, still wondering what the erotic demands her son made on his amenable girlfriend might be, and trying not to. Oh yes, all three. . .
On entering their marriage, baby Daniel had put a gap between her needs and aspirations and Peter’s that they had never managed to bridge. He had then grown into a teenager and grunted like a pig, glaring lout-like at Douglas when he appeared on the scene, his sixth sense telling him that his mother was in danger of putting him second. And finally there was Dean – whom he had seen off without so much as even knowing he existed. Dean – her oasis for the parched, whose youth made her feel ashamed of herself and whose pleasures were truly sweet in their simplicity. Or apparent simplicity. Nothing was simple, nothing was safe. She had to give him up, didn’t she? After those magazines she was not quite so sure.
She put her feet up on the settee and sipped her drink. Well, well – they were all in the past. Over and done with. Gone. No going back, no second chances, that was for sure. She pressed the remote for the television. There was no longer even the comfort of fur to stroke. Piggins had gone to that Celestial Cattery in the Sky. She really was finally and completely alone. She could simply walk out of the house now and not have to worry about a thing. Not the state of the fridge food stocks, not what she’d find on her return, not even asking the people next door if they would feed the cat.
Why, Dorothy, she mused, You could just put on these spangly red shoes, take that yellow brick road, and do anything. But she didn’t want to do anything. At the same time she felt restless. It was a conundrum. And it was then, against a background of Trevor MacDonald giving the headlines, and the chink of ice in her glass, that she remembered Vita Sackville-West’s All Passion Spent. Of all the things to remember. It made her feel cold. All passion spent? She wondered if it was.
She hummed a few bars of ‘The best is yet to come’. Second chances, she thought, second chances? Well, maybe. But not with any of them. That was certain. Musingly, she sucked on her lemon and thought sourly about second chances, while the depressing image of a snowball in hell came to mind.