she’d put down her drink and gathered up her bag, saying that she was not the sort of girl who went out with married men. Because she wasn’t, not at all. She was, she knew, the sort of girl who went out with a nice boy, then married him and lived above a shop with him and stayed married to him forever. That was who she was. The question, however, was what did that sort of girl do when this destiny, decreed from a very young age, went awry, went horribly, horribly wrong?
She didn’t say this, though, to Peter, in the Holborn pub. She gathered up her bag and made to leave but he put his hand on her arm and said simply, “I understand.” Just like that: I understand. Such a lovely thing to say and uttered with such profundity, looking deep into her eyes. She straightaway forgot why he’d said it and it became just a beautiful general statement. He understood. Everything. Every last thing about her. It was as if great soft blankets had been folded about her. He looked into her eyes and told her he understood.
She’d sat down again, of course, and listened to what he said about how he and Jenny weren’t married and they didn’t believe that people could own each other and that Peter had been feelinglately that perhaps he and Jenny had come to the end of their story, and Monica asked about his children. Peter’s face had softened into an expression she hadn’t seen before and he described to her his two daughters, Florence and Jessica, and how he had been making them a tree house in the oak in the meadow, and Monica’s mind became filled with the idea of herself in a green place, grass beneath her feet, leaves above her head, a man at her side. In this image, she was loading a basket with cakes and squash and sandwiches so that two little girls high up in a tree could winch up the basket. The girls wore sandals and print smocks and had delighted, open faces, so much so that when Peter asked if she’d like to take a walk to the river so they could watch the sunset from Waterloo Bridge, she’d said: Yes. Yes, I would.
Monica scrubbed vigorously at her feet with a pumice stone. Aggravating how, the older you got, the harder your feet became. This heat was making the skin on her heels crack and blister, her shoes feel constantly tight. No, she wasn’t doing too badly in the aging department yet. The few gray hairs she had, she was plucking out. When the time came, she would dye them away. She was still, more or less, the same dress size she’d been when she’d got married. The first time she’d got married, that was, aged eighteen. Which was not something most women could say. She would never say this to anyone, of course, but having a husband considerably older than you made you feel younger and look younger to others, by comparison. And having had no children, of course, was an advantage. In terms of keeping your figure and so forth. In those situations where women gathered in states of undress—in changing rooms, the few times in her life she’d ever been to a public swimming pool—Monica was seized with a horrified fascination at the devastation childbearing wreaked. The slack pleating of stomach flesh, the silvered scars that found their way over dimpled legs, the deflated sacs of breasts.
She shuddered as she rose out of the water, tossing back her wet-ended hair. No, the whole childbirth thing was not for her. She knew that. She’d always known that.
· · ·
The summer Monica turned nine, something happened to her mother. Her mother had always been a large presence. She made noise when she moved, when she ate, when she breathed. She couldn’t put on her shoes without holding a conversation with herself, with the air around her, with the chair she sat on, with the shoes themselves: “Get on there now, you two,” she would address the brown leather lace-ups. “I don’t want a moment’s trouble out of you.”
Her mother, you could say, made her presence known. Monica could tell when she
She didn’t say this, though, to Peter, in the Holborn pub. She gathered up her bag and made to leave but he put his hand on her arm and said simply, “I understand.” Just like that: I understand. Such a lovely thing to say and uttered with such profundity, looking deep into her eyes. She straightaway forgot why he’d said it and it became just a beautiful general statement. He understood. Everything. Every last thing about her. It was as if great soft blankets had been folded about her. He looked into her eyes and told her he understood.
She’d sat down again, of course, and listened to what he said about how he and Jenny weren’t married and they didn’t believe that people could own each other and that Peter had been feelinglately that perhaps he and Jenny had come to the end of their story, and Monica asked about his children. Peter’s face had softened into an expression she hadn’t seen before and he described to her his two daughters, Florence and Jessica, and how he had been making them a tree house in the oak in the meadow, and Monica’s mind became filled with the idea of herself in a green place, grass beneath her feet, leaves above her head, a man at her side. In this image, she was loading a basket with cakes and squash and sandwiches so that two little girls high up in a tree could winch up the basket. The girls wore sandals and print smocks and had delighted, open faces, so much so that when Peter asked if she’d like to take a walk to the river so they could watch the sunset from Waterloo Bridge, she’d said: Yes. Yes, I would.
Monica scrubbed vigorously at her feet with a pumice stone. Aggravating how, the older you got, the harder your feet became. This heat was making the skin on her heels crack and blister, her shoes feel constantly tight. No, she wasn’t doing too badly in the aging department yet. The few gray hairs she had, she was plucking out. When the time came, she would dye them away. She was still, more or less, the same dress size she’d been when she’d got married. The first time she’d got married, that was, aged eighteen. Which was not something most women could say. She would never say this to anyone, of course, but having a husband considerably older than you made you feel younger and look younger to others, by comparison. And having had no children, of course, was an advantage. In terms of keeping your figure and so forth. In those situations where women gathered in states of undress—in changing rooms, the few times in her life she’d ever been to a public swimming pool—Monica was seized with a horrified fascination at the devastation childbearing wreaked. The slack pleating of stomach flesh, the silvered scars that found their way over dimpled legs, the deflated sacs of breasts.
She shuddered as she rose out of the water, tossing back her wet-ended hair. No, the whole childbirth thing was not for her. She knew that. She’d always known that.
· · ·
The summer Monica turned nine, something happened to her mother. Her mother had always been a large presence. She made noise when she moved, when she ate, when she breathed. She couldn’t put on her shoes without holding a conversation with herself, with the air around her, with the chair she sat on, with the shoes themselves: “Get on there now, you two,” she would address the brown leather lace-ups. “I don’t want a moment’s trouble out of you.”
Her mother, you could say, made her presence known. Monica could tell when she
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