The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer Page B

bent over and kissed my forehead. “We’ll straighten you out. Don’t worry.”
    â€œWhen will they finish the tower?”
    â€œSoon. Go to sleep now. Happy dreams …”
    I shut my eyes. He stroked my hair for a time, until he grew uncomfortable; then he went away.
    A woman whom I knew to be his mother closed the door. We were in a dark castle. She was going to have a party, she said; we were invited. We were there early, eating a meal with Jake’s mother and another woman who didn’t like her very much. She said, “I’ve asked Philpot for a cup of tea.” There was a storm and we ran for shelter, Jake and myself and the others, I was wearing a fur coat. Philpot was standing wearing terrible clothes, looking plain and poor. The party began. There were hundreds of people in a vast, white, icy hall. “Who are these people?” I asked, “and why don’t we know them too?” Someone said, “They are Jake’s cousins.” Jake wasn’t there and I was nervous, but there was a Paul Jones, so I joined in and danced with the Mongol boy. It was a marvellous dance, elated, soaring. I was enjoying it, but he went away and I walked over to a group of street-corner louts who were sitting on a bench and asked, “Why don’t you dance?” One of them said, “I don’t dance with hard-faced bitches.” I said, “I’m not a hard-faced bitch,” and he believed me. We waltzed very beautifully on the ice.
    I walked down a broad, long corridor, as though dug out of the earth. Philpot was walking a long way in front of me carrying a great sheaf of copper beech leaves. I laughed, unpleasantly, and she dropped the leaves and ran away. When I reached them, the leaves had all disintegrated into dust and twigs. I felt ashamed, and found her in a brightly lit little cabin with her child. “I’m sorry I laughed,” I said. She burst into tears and threw something at me, something soft, a cushion or a scarf. I caught it and gave it back to her and walked away.
    There was a huge barn, and wagons made out of ice. I sat on top of one of the wagons with a lot of other people, waiting for a film to begin. It began, and Philpot, dressed in stuffy clothes and a cartwheel hat, was the Snow Queen. “She is here in a menial capacity,” I said, “as an actor.” The lights went out and she sang, off key and rather sadly, a little song. Jake appeared, sitting by me on the wagon. I said, “I’m having a
wonderful
time, what have you been doing?” He said, “I’ve been making love to your friend here.” I looked down, there was a schoolgirl in an old, broken down car beside the wagon.
    Jake and I set off somewhere, through a great fair. I kept on saying how much it must have cost. We found that we had to go the wrong way, through a chain of caverns, each cavern contained Mickey Mouse or Popeye or the Sleeping Beauty. But we were going the wrong way. We walked along the truck lines and at last climbed up a conveyor belt: the belt carried wooden painted mermaids, which were going down, but it was not too difficult. When we came out, the party, the people, had all gone: nothing was left but icy water lapping against the walls, darkness and cold. A man in uniform, a fireman, was poking about in the water. Jake had disappeared. I looked and searched, but couldn’t see him. Then I heard him calling and saw a hand coming up out of the water. I ran and put my hand down into the water, feeling the rim and neck of some big jar or hole into which he had fallen. I felt his head and hand inside. He was holding a blade of grass and I pulled at it, trying to pull him out, but it broke. I shouted for the fireman, but he shouted back, “I’ve got six more down here!” I tried to hold Jake, to pull him out, but my hand kept slipping and at last he stopped moving, and I knew he was dead.

8
    â€œI don’t think,