politeness was catching.
‘Oh, but it is not kind to look after one who is beautiful!’
Zahin had appeared at the top of the stairs which, in the Hansomes’ house, descended to the sitting room. Bridget had taken time to persuade Peter that the removal of a wall, and the inclusion of the space which had been the hall and stairway into the living area, would give an added dimension and light, but it took Zahin, standing like a model or a film star, to show off the alteration. He was dressed in a vivid blue silk shirt which Bridget had not noticed when he appeared so miraculously at the gate, and which brought out the colour of his eyes.
‘Zahin,’ she said, ‘that is called hyperbole.’
But she was not displeased. She was not beautiful, nor had ever been—but it was a long while since anyone had even pretended that she might be.
‘Oh, but you are.’ The boy was down the stairs nowand plumping cushions. Bridget could make out the shoulder blades which she had fancied resembled incipient wings. ‘Beautiful in your spirit. I see it.’ He stared at her and to her chagrin she found she was blushing.
‘Get away, child!’ she said, and his voice followed her as she hurried up the stairs,
‘I know what hyperbole is, Mrs Hansome—and it isn’t you!’
No, indeed, she thought, lying in the bath, where she had brought up the tumbler of golden whisky, she was not much given to exaggeration. Peter had, one had to admit it, embroidered—improved on life, as he might, if challenged, have put it. But she herself did not wish such improvements. Not for reasons of greater honesty than her husband (about human honesty, even her own, Bridget was firmly sceptical) but because it wasn’t safe, she felt, to polish things up, or dim them down. Not to name things as you found them put you more at their mercy…
If Peter Hansome had not named things quite as he found them it was because he had problems discerning them clearly in the first place. Reality may be singular but the sense of it is not, and ‘one man’s meat is another man’s poison’ refers to more than simple taste. ‘A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees’ perhaps puts it better. Many conflicts of opinion can be explained by the fact that perceptual systems depend on the personalities of the perceivers.
In Peter’s case, behind all his responses lurked a chronic panic, which coloured—or obscured—his apprehension of reality. Although he would never have owned to it hecould not forget that day when half his known world walked away and left him. From this moment, he had constructed a personality upon which such a loss had made no obvious dent; but this did not mean that the dent had not been planted. As a child the knock had made for a wary caution. In time, and with training, the wariness had become overlaid with an acceptable veneer, one in which a kind of genial sociability acted as a polished surface which deflected intimacy; but the most significant feature of his character was that at bottom he was frightened of people.
It takes a rare man to know he is afraid—and why. Peter was not aware that he was fearful of other people’s power to remove themselves, nor that he had chosen Bridget because although she exuded a power which did not always make him feel comfortable, it did not, at least, feel as if it might desert him. And in this he was correct. That he was capable of being harmed, perhaps mortally, through loss of another’s love, was a secret, even from himself. Dormant and lethal, it lay hidden at the centre of Peter’s universe, until the October day when the truck driver adjusted his cassette and exploded Peter’s former reality.
It is part of nature’s way to meet threat with superfluity: toads puff up their skin, snakes rear, peacocks rattle and spread their tails; the habit of hyperbole is but another version of this florid system of defence. Lying in her bath, inhaling the scent of meadow flowers, Bridget remembered
‘Oh, but it is not kind to look after one who is beautiful!’
Zahin had appeared at the top of the stairs which, in the Hansomes’ house, descended to the sitting room. Bridget had taken time to persuade Peter that the removal of a wall, and the inclusion of the space which had been the hall and stairway into the living area, would give an added dimension and light, but it took Zahin, standing like a model or a film star, to show off the alteration. He was dressed in a vivid blue silk shirt which Bridget had not noticed when he appeared so miraculously at the gate, and which brought out the colour of his eyes.
‘Zahin,’ she said, ‘that is called hyperbole.’
But she was not displeased. She was not beautiful, nor had ever been—but it was a long while since anyone had even pretended that she might be.
‘Oh, but you are.’ The boy was down the stairs nowand plumping cushions. Bridget could make out the shoulder blades which she had fancied resembled incipient wings. ‘Beautiful in your spirit. I see it.’ He stared at her and to her chagrin she found she was blushing.
‘Get away, child!’ she said, and his voice followed her as she hurried up the stairs,
‘I know what hyperbole is, Mrs Hansome—and it isn’t you!’
No, indeed, she thought, lying in the bath, where she had brought up the tumbler of golden whisky, she was not much given to exaggeration. Peter had, one had to admit it, embroidered—improved on life, as he might, if challenged, have put it. But she herself did not wish such improvements. Not for reasons of greater honesty than her husband (about human honesty, even her own, Bridget was firmly sceptical) but because it wasn’t safe, she felt, to polish things up, or dim them down. Not to name things as you found them put you more at their mercy…
If Peter Hansome had not named things quite as he found them it was because he had problems discerning them clearly in the first place. Reality may be singular but the sense of it is not, and ‘one man’s meat is another man’s poison’ refers to more than simple taste. ‘A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees’ perhaps puts it better. Many conflicts of opinion can be explained by the fact that perceptual systems depend on the personalities of the perceivers.
In Peter’s case, behind all his responses lurked a chronic panic, which coloured—or obscured—his apprehension of reality. Although he would never have owned to it hecould not forget that day when half his known world walked away and left him. From this moment, he had constructed a personality upon which such a loss had made no obvious dent; but this did not mean that the dent had not been planted. As a child the knock had made for a wary caution. In time, and with training, the wariness had become overlaid with an acceptable veneer, one in which a kind of genial sociability acted as a polished surface which deflected intimacy; but the most significant feature of his character was that at bottom he was frightened of people.
It takes a rare man to know he is afraid—and why. Peter was not aware that he was fearful of other people’s power to remove themselves, nor that he had chosen Bridget because although she exuded a power which did not always make him feel comfortable, it did not, at least, feel as if it might desert him. And in this he was correct. That he was capable of being harmed, perhaps mortally, through loss of another’s love, was a secret, even from himself. Dormant and lethal, it lay hidden at the centre of Peter’s universe, until the October day when the truck driver adjusted his cassette and exploded Peter’s former reality.
It is part of nature’s way to meet threat with superfluity: toads puff up their skin, snakes rear, peacocks rattle and spread their tails; the habit of hyperbole is but another version of this florid system of defence. Lying in her bath, inhaling the scent of meadow flowers, Bridget remembered
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