Unexplained Laughter Read online

  ‘I’m at my wits’ end. She’s getting worse and worse. You know, she follows me sometimes? She’s probably outside now, listening. She doesn’t understand half of what we say but she listens all the time. I never know where she is.’

  (I am here, Elizabeth. Here outside the window.)

  ‘Oh, I am sorry. I shouldn’t be here bothering you like this, but she’s such a worry. Hiding in corners or out on the hills in all weathers . . .

  (Listen, the little woman is speaking.)

  ‘Oh, Elizabeth, you must worry terribly when she’s out.’

  (Listen to Elizabeth. Listen, listen, listen.)

  ‘All I worry about is that she’s going to come back.’

  Even Lydia was subdued. She avoided Betty’s eye and absent-mindedly put too much sugar in her tea. Finn sat in the armchair eating cake. He had arrived at the precise moment when Elizabeth had begun to sob and then desolately to weep, and all Lydia’s skills, social, sexual and manipulative, had abruptly deserted her. She had taken Elizabeth home in the car, leaving Betty to explain to Finn whatever she saw fit.

  ‘There was no one at the farm,’ she said. ‘I offered to stay, but she obviously wanted me to go. There was a pool of milk in the kitchen but it wasn’t too bad. No sign of Beuno. He’s as odd as the rest of them really. I think he just dematerialises when he feels like it.’

  ‘He goes for long walks,’ said Betty mundanely.

  ‘Who does?’ asked Finn.

  ‘Beuno,’ said Betty.

  ‘I don’t like things with no answer,’ said Lydia. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any answer.’

  ‘Who’s Beuno?’ asked Finn.

  ‘Oh, do shut up,’ said Lydia. ‘We’re trying to think.’ Elizabeth’s distress had been so evident that even Lydia felt bound to take it seriously. The game, if game there had been, had broken the constraints of rule, and there is nothing more reminiscent of chaos and old night than a game become uncontrolled. ‘Why on earth did she marry him,’ she demanded fretfully, ‘knowing she’d have Angharad to contend with? She must have had some idea what she was doing.’

  ‘People don’t think when they’re in love,’ said Betty.

  ‘Oh, horsefeathers,’ said Lydia crossly, ‘I do.’

  Betty, who was obviously getting sick of reminding Lydia that she was unusual, said nothing.

  ‘Who’s Angharad?’ asked Finn.

  ‘She’s Hywel’s sister,’ said Lydia. ‘Do stop asking questions. I hate explaining things. I make my living out of explaining things to a lot of dum-dums, and if I do it at all I expect to get paid.’

  ‘Who’s Hywel, Betty?’ asked Finn, unperturbed.

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ said Betty. ‘Lydia, are you sure she was all right to be left alone?’

  ‘No,’ said Lydia, ‘but she isn’t a child and I hardly know her, so I couldn’t start throwing my weight around, could I?’ Lydia was also faintly disgusted by tears, by the weakness they evinced and by the viscosity of their substance. In truth she now felt guilty for leaving the shuddering Elizabeth alone in the farmhouse. ‘I offered to bring her back again but she said she had to wait for Angharad.’

  ‘She must feel terrible for having told us that,’ said Betty.

  ‘What?’ asked Finn.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Lydia. ‘Do you suppose Angharad was listening?’ she enquired of Betty. ‘She does go round very silently. I’ve seen her but I’ve never heard her.’

  ‘There was someone outside.the kitchen window when I arrived,’ said Finn placidly, apparently pleased to be able to contribute something to this limited discussion.

  ‘Oh, help,’ said Lydia.

  ‘I wonder how much she does understand,’ said Betty. To Finn she said, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t make it very clear. Elizabeth was crying because Angharad’s been destroying things in the house.’

  Finn said, ‘You’ve done it again, haven’t you, Lydia? Landed yourself in the midst of a drama.’ And Lydia said, ‘If you’re going to be rude you can bugger off.’ But she said it half-heartedly. The skin was peeling off Finn’s nose and she wasn’t in love with him any more, so she didn’t really care what he did.

  Noting the half-heartedness, Finn smiled, misunder -standing. ‘I’ve got to pick up my stuff from the pub,’ he said. ‘Do you want anything from the village?’

  ‘Cider,’ said Betty, ‘from the off-licence. We’ve got everything else.’

  ‘We’re having a picnic,’ said Lydia wearily. ‘Tomorrow. You’ll be able to meet all our new friends.’

  Betty relaxed. Like Finn, she believed that Lydia had now relented, mistaking her lack of interest for compliance, which led to further misunderstandings at bedtime when Lydia told Finn that he was to sleep in the tiny room where she kept the oil lamps which was furnished with a camp bed and sleeping-bag.

  ‘But . . .’ said Betty.

  ‘But . . .’ said Finn.

  ‘I’m tired,’ said Lydia plaintively. When Finn had gone to bed she sat by the fire and looked at the flames.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Betty in a whisper, coming downstairs in her dressing-gown.

  ‘I’m looking at the fire,’ said Lydia. ‘If I was a dog you wouldn’t let me. You’d tell me I’d go blind.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ said Betty.

  ‘Yes, you would,’ said Lydia, staring at the flames, lost in thought.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Betty.

  ‘Men,’ said Lydia.

  ‘What about them?’ asked Betty, settling down for an exchange of confidences, a revelation of Lydia’s motives in banishing Finn to the lamp room.

  ‘I was wondering why they talk of possessing women,’ said Lydia. ‘Do we say that the penny possesses the piggy bank? Or the sausage the roll? Or the jam the sandwich? It seems to me that the foot is in the other boot, so to speak.’

  ‘Oh Lydia,’ said Betty exasperatedly.

  ‘No,’ said Lydia, stirring. ‘If ever I catch another man looking at me with that look which means “You’re mine, all mine” I shall kill him, because I’m not his all his at all. I think I shall take a vow of perpetual chastity.’

  ‘It’s not like that Lydia,’ said Betty. ‘You know it isn’t.’

  ‘Oh, yes it is,’ said Lydia.

  She sent Beuno to fetch the doctor. She lay in her room and waited for him, and when he came I did not listen, but when he left I heard. He said, ‘Until tomorrow,’ and she said, very softly, ‘Oh love, love.’ And when he passed me I did not like to look at his face because it was dark like the shadows of the hill, and when he reached the door he laughed and I did not like to hear him laugh, and when he reached the yard he stopped because Beuno was there and he said to him, ‘She’ll be all right now. I’ve given her something and she should rest.’

  And Beuno said nothing, but he looked at him as mildly as he looks at the trout that he catches in the stream, and the doctor said, ‘Until tomorrow,’ and he left, and Beuno watched him go as mildly as he watches the sheep when he frees them from where they are caught in the hedge.

  Then he made my supper, and when Hywel came back they talked in Welsh and they laughed.

  Elizabeth slept. She is sleeping now. Hywel does not know what I did or how she cried. It is not I but Hywel who is deaf and he has not seen what I have seen.

  Finn was very good looking. Lydia realised this afresh when she came downstairs the following morning. He looked at her without animosity and for a moment her knees weakened. He had lovely lines. The line of his neck, decided Lydia, related perfectly to the line of his lower leg with no unsightly discrepancies in between to interrupt this happy progression. She was seeing him sideways on, all profile and flank, and she thought that this was much the pleasantest aspect of all people. Straight on, either front or back, the human being tends to look somewhat banal. This androgynous obliquity of flowing unbroken line was seductive and beautiful.

  ‘Morning, ratface,’ she said, quite affectionately because after that m
omentary frisson she had remembered the duck and known she would never love him again. Because of this she felt generous and said she had realised some time ago that a really beautiful man was very much more beautiful than the most beautiful woman, and wasn’t that interesting. Finn said that not being queer he couldn’t see that at all, and Lydia, instead of clinging grimly to her theory, agreed that it was probably all in the eye of the beholder. ‘What have you done with the duck?’ she asked amiably.

  ‘What?’ said Finn.

  ‘That awful girl you took to Greece,’ explained Lydia.

  ‘Oh, she’s around,’ said Finn.

  ‘Around where?’ asked Lydia.

  Finn looked at her speculatively. ‘Just around,’ he said.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘No,’ said Lydia. ‘It doesn’t. You can make the coffee.’

  ‘We have to talk,’ said Finn.

  ‘We are talking,’ said Lydia. ‘We just had a discussion about aesthetics.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ said Finn.

  Lydia did, of course, know what he meant but denied it. ‘You can make the toast too,’ she said, going into the garden.

  Finn followed her. ‘I knew at the time it would probably come to nothing,’ he said. ‘She’s completely self-centred. There’s nothing to her but . . .’

  Lydia interrupted. It was one thing for her to be rude about a fellow female, quite another for a man. Like all loyalty, loyalty to one’s own sex was at once necessary for the survival of the whole and self-serving. Women must protect each other at all costs from the onslaught of the male, particularly from their contempt. Should she permit Finn to speak insultingly of the duck then she would have rendered herself vulnerable; for all traitors are peculiarly at risk – from both within and without.

  ‘And she’s into women’s lib,’ added Finn ill-advisedly.

  ‘Good,’ said Lydia briskly. ‘Splendid. Wonderful. So am I.’

  Finn sank further. ‘But you’re intelligent,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a sense of humour.’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ said Lydia. ‘It wore out a minute or so ago. Don’t imagine you can flatter me by telling me I’m not really a feminist, because I am, and I find your denials extremely insulting.’

  Finn was clearly perplexed. Lydia could see his dilemma. Because he liked women to be gentle and soft and obedient he thought that women would like being that way since it would make him like them. He thought that this was their purpose, their raison d’être. He thought all right-minded people of both sexes must hate feminists.

  ‘You see,’ said Lydia carefully, ‘the only use women have for men is to be impregnated by them. Once they’ve done that, men can go and boil their heads. They are surplus to requirements.’

  Betty in the bathroom could hear every word and could bear it no longer. She leaned out of the open window. ‘Oh Lydia,’ she said, ‘you told me only yesterday that you didn’t want any children. You know you did.’

  ‘I’m a maverick,’ said Lydia. ‘I’m the exception that proves the pudding.’

  ‘Oh, you,’ said Betty crossly. ‘You think you’re the light of the world.’ She retired into the bathroom with her toothbrush.

  ‘Come here,’ said Finn gently, leaning towards Lydia.

  He obviously had impregnation on his mind, but by now Lydia had lost her temper and she told him to get stuffed. She apologised later because the atmosphere was getting oppressive. Betty was tight-lipped and Finn was conspicuously sulking.

  ‘Look at him sulking,’ she said to Betty, ‘he could jump in his car and go to Bogota but no, he’s going to sit there and sulk where I can see him.’

  ‘You’ve hurt him,’ said Betty.

  Lydia was briefly speechless, but recovered. ‘That’s exactly the same as telling the wall it’s hurt the person who just banged his head on it. Did I ask him to come back? Did I welcome him with open arms? Did I implore him to stay?’

  ‘He’s in love with you,’ said Betty.

  ‘No, he’s not,’ said Lydia. ‘He’s one of those wimps who can’t muddle along without a woman and he’s gone off the duck so he’s come back here.’

  ‘That’s not so,’ said Betty.’You’re being cruel.’

  ‘I couldn’t be cruel to him if he wasn’t here, could I?’ said Lydia reasonably, but she was beginning to regain her temper. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, since the mood of the morning appeared to depend solely on her, and she took Finn a cup of coffee.

  The kitchen table was covered with slices of bread and amputated crusts, and Betty was boiling eggs and mashing sardines. A quiche and a cake sat side by side on the dresser veiled with a clean tea-towel.

  Lydia thought she should offer to help, but the idea of buttering all those identical pieces of bread made her feel tired. Monotony was exhausting, no matter how light the task with which it was associated. She didn’t feel inclined to wrap anything up either. Edible things tended to crumble when packaged and someone was going to have to remember where they all were when the time came to unpack them. She thought it might as well be Betty and sat down by Finn, because then Betty, even if displeased at her laziness, could not fail to commend her courtesy.

  ‘Who exactly are these people you’ve got coming?’ enquired Finn.

  ‘Just some locals,’ said Lydia. ‘One of them is one of us but the rest are pretty good hell. The situation is rather as though instead of going to the zoo I had invited a small group of creatures to come to me. We have very little in common. I watch them and they watch me, but whereas I feel, possibly mistakenly, that I can comprehend their animal antics, they find me bewilderingly inscrutable.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Finn.

  He said it warmly and gently, and at this Lydia was surprised since she had thought her remarks somewhat offensive and would not have made them had she still been in love with Finn and desirous of his good opinion. She looked at him warily to find that he was regarding her with unprecedented tenderness.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she asked abruptly.

  ‘Like what?’ asked Finn.

  ‘Like that,’ said Lydia, nearly sticking her finger in his eye. ‘As though you found me exceedingly lovable.’

  ‘I do,’ said Finn, recoiling, and Lydia thought that here was another ludicrous irony: that the less you were in love with someone the more you could enchant and ensnare them. You could behave like a pig and they would simply think how sweet and original you were, whereas if you were wildly in love you would be on your best behaviour, nervously uncertain and consequently lacking in charm. It was all down to confidence, thought Lydia. The successful artiste is neither timorous nor tremulous but leaps around on the high-wire glittering with outrageous elan and gathering applause.

  ‘It makes you look like a sheep,’ she observed coldly, but even this seemed not to offend him. He merely gave her shoulder an affectionate nudge and leaned back on a cushion. Once upon a time, thought Lydia, when I was in love with him, he would’ve socked me for that. The recollection was faintly depressing, making her realise how little useful or productive communication there had been between them. She wished Beuno was there, standing by the stream and gazing through the alders at the flower-printed meadow.

  ‘They’ll be here soon,’ she said. ‘You’d better help Betty load the stuff in the car.’

  Now she began to feel truly depressed, a not uncommon symptom when some social event blithely planned in a moment of cheerfulness becomes threaten -ingly imminent. She wished she could lay claim to a migraine but knew that Betty would not let her, that anyway even she could not be so mannerless as to absent herself from her own picnic, and that even if she did have a blinding migraine she would still have to go. ‘Oh, sod,’ she said gloomily, getting up.

  The Molesworths, all three, arrived with Dr Wyn, who hooted from the lane.

  ‘That’s them,’ said Betty, picking up little bags of salt, pepper and sugar and peering appraisingly round the kitchen for signs of some f
orgotten but vital accessory to the meal.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Lydia. ‘Let’s get it over with.’

  They drove in convoy along the lane to the farmhouse. The yard was empty. Lydia in the leading car was loth to hoot for fear of maddening the dogs and loth to get out for the same reason.

  ‘Go and bang on the door,’ she directed Finn.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Betty. ‘Wyn’s going.’

  The dogs snarled and cowered about his ankles. He put his hands on each side of the open door, leaned forward and called: ‘Elizabeth.’

  He is calling Elizabeth. She stands in the shadow of the stair and then she goes forward. She says, ‘Hello, Wyn,’ as though they were friends, and steps past him into the yard. She stops at the two cars and then goes to the one with the woman from Ty Fach because the girl is in the other one. I have seen the cats of my country look as she looks now and afterwards make a great howling.

  ‘Well, this is nice,’ said Lydia when Elizabeth had got in the back beside Betty.

  ‘I shouldn’t really be coming,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Farmers’ wives have no business going on picnics.’

  Lydia grew more alert. This was the most interesting thing she had ever heard Elizabeth say, because it had undertones of cynicism, of self-mockery. She reminded herself that it was unlikely that all people could possibly be as stupid as she supposed them to be; that at some level even she, Lydia the clever, could find common ground and communicate intelligibly with other human beings. It was the constraints of formality, the manners and mores of different groups that caused alienation. Stripped of mask and domino they were not wholly unlike herself. At one time she had found appalling the comforting observation that people are similar, with much the same fears and fantasies. Not to be unique had seemed to her intolerable, but she was getting more sensible. Humbly she said what was expected of her, made the appropriate response. ‘You must have a change sometimes,’ she said. ‘All work and no play . . .’

  Finn glanced at her suspiciously.