Puffball. Fay Weldon

her, and the exhaustion of the drive, and the stirring up of childhood griefs, had all combined to trigger off in Richard’s mind such a wave of fears and resentments and irrational beliefs as would stay with him for some time. And in the manner of spouses everywhere, he blamed his partner for his misfortunes, and held Liffey responsible for the cold patch in his heart, and the uncomfortably angry and anxious, lively and lustful thoughts in his mind: and if he did not love her any more, why then, it was Liffey’s fault that he did not.

      

      ‘All I can say,’ said Bella, ‘is that love or the lack of it is made responsible for a lot of bad behaviour everywhere; and it’s hard luck on wives if misreading a train timetable can herald the end of a marriage: but I will say on your behalf, Richard, that Liffey is very manipulative, and has an emotional and sexual age of twelve, and a rather spoilt twelve at that. You’ll just have to put your foot down and move back to London, and if Liffey wants to stay where she is, then you can visit her at weekends.’ ‘She wouldn’t like that,’ said Richard. ‘You might,’ said Bella. ‘What about you?’

      

      Spoilt. It was a word heard frequently in Richard’s childhood.

      

      You can’t have this: you can’t have that. You don’t want to be spoilt. Or, from his mother, I’d like you to have this but your father doesn’t want me to spoil you. So you can’t have it. It seemed to Richard, hearing Bella say ‘spoilt’ that Liffey had been the recipient of all the good things he himself had ever been denied, and he resented it, and the word, as words will, added fuel to his paranoic fire, and it burned the more splendidly.

      

      As for Bella—who had thrown in the word half on purpose, knowing what combustible material it was—Bella knew she herself was not spoilt, and never had been. Bella had been obliged to struggle and work for what she now had, as Liffey had not, and no one had ever helped her, so why should it be different for anyone else?

      Richard sat up in bed. His chest was young, broad and strong. The hairs upon it were soft and sleek, and not at all like Ray’s hairy tangle.

      ‘I wish I could imagine Liffey and you in bed together,’ said Bella. ‘But I can’t. Does she know what to do? Nymphet Liffey!’

      

      Bella had gone too far: approached too quickly and too near, scratched Liffey’s image which was Richard’s alone to scratch. Whatever was in the air between herself and Richard evaporated. Bella went back to her desk, typing, and Richard lay back and closed his eyes.

      

      The wind rose in the night: two sleeping pills could not wipe out the sound or ease the sense of danger. Liffey heard a tile fly off the roof: occasionally rain spattered against the window. She lay awake in a sleeping bag on a mattress on the floor. The double bed was still stacked in two pieces against the wall. Liffey ached, body and soul.

      

      Liffey got up at three and went downstairs and doused the fire. Perhaps the chimneys had not been swept for years and so might catch light. Then she would surely burn to death. Smoke belched out into the room as the hot coals received the water. Liffey feared she might suffocate, but was too frightened to open the back door, for by letting out the smoke she would let the night in. When she went upstairs the night had become light and bright again; the moon was large: the Tor was framed against pale clouds, beautiful. Liffey slept, finally, and dreamt Tucker was making love to her on a beach, and waves crashed and roared and stormed and threatened her, so there was only desire, no fulfilment.

      

      When she woke someone was hammering on the front door. It was morning. She crawled out of the sleeping bag, put on her coat, went downstairs and opened the door. It was Tucker. Liffey stepped back.

      Tucker stepped inside.

      Tucker was wearing his boots, over-trousers tucked into them, a torn shirt, baggy army sweater, and army combat-jacket. His hands were muddy. She did not get as far as his face.

      ‘Came up to see if you were all right,’ said Tucker.

      ‘I’m fine,’ said Liffey. She felt faint: surely because she had got up so suddenly. She leaned against the wall, heavy-lidded. She remembered her dream.

      ‘You don’t look it,’ said Tucker. He took her arm; she trembled.

      ‘How about a cup of tea?’ said Tucker. He sat squarely at the kitchen table, and waited. His house, his land, his servant. Liffey found the Earl Grey with some difficulty. Richard and she rarely drank tea.

      ‘It’s very weak,’ said Tucker, staring into his cup. She had not been able to find a saucer and was embarrassed.

      ‘It’s that kind of tea,’ said Liffey.

      ‘Too bad Hubby didn’t come home,’ said Tucker. ‘I wouldn’t miss coming home to you. Do you like this tea?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘I don’t,’ said Tucker. He stood up and came over to stand behind her, pinioning her arms. ‘You shouldn’t make tea like that. No one should.’

      

      His breath came warm and familiar against her face. She did not doubt but that the business of the dream would be finished. His arms, narrowing her shoulders, were so strong there was no point in resisting them. It was his decision, not hers. She was absolved from responsibility. There was a sense of bargain in the air: not of mutual pleasure, but of his taking, her consenting. In return for her consent he offered protection from darkness, storm and fire. This is country love, thought Liffey. Richard’s is a city love: Richard’s arms are soft and coaxing, not insistent: Richard strikes a different bargain: mind calls to mind, word evolves word, response evokes response, is nothing to do with the relationship between the strong and the weak, as she was weak now, and Tucker strong upon her, upon the stone floor, her coat fortunately between her bare skin and its cold rough surface, his clothing chafing and hurting her. Tucker was powerful, she was not: here was opposite calling to opposite, rough to smooth, hard to soft, cruel to kind—as if each quality craved the dilution of its opposite, and out of the struggle to achieve it crested something new. This is the way the human race multiplies, thought Liffey, satisfied. Tucker’s way, not Richard’s way.

      

      But Liffey’s mind, switched off as a pilot might switch off manual control in favour of automatic, cut back in again once the decision of abandonment had been made. Prudence returned, too late. This indeed, thought Liffey, is the way the human race multiples, and beat upon Tucker with helpless, hopeless fists.

      

      It was the last day of her period. Surely she could not become pregnant at such a time? But since she had stopped taking the pill her cycle was erratic and random: what happened hardly deserved the name of ‘period’: she bled for six days at uneven intervals, that was all. Who was to say what was happening in her insides? No, surely, surely, it would be all right, must be all right; even if it wasn’t all right, she would have a termination. Richard would never know: no one would ever know.

      

      She was worrying about nothing: worrying even as she cried out again in pleasure, or was it pain: Tucker now behind her, she on her side, held fast in his arms. They were like animals: she had not cared: now she began to: she wanted Richard. Where was Richard? If he hadn’t missed his train none of this would have happened. Richard’s fault. It could not happen again: it must not happen again: she would have to make clear to Tucker it would not happen again: so long as he understood what she was saying, peasant that he was. Even as she began to be horrified of him he finished, and whether she was satisfied or not she could not be sure. She thought so. It was certainly a matter of indifference to Tucker. He returned to the table and his cold tea. He wanted the pot filled up with boiling water. She obliged in silence, and poured more.

      ‘I suppose you could develop a taste for it,’ he said. ‘But I’d better be getting back to Mabs.’

      

      He