Molly Fox's Birthday by Deirdre Madden

Author:Deirdre Madden [Deirdre Madden]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571252619
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2008-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

‘He wouldn’t see it that way. He’s against the very idea of religion, to be honest with you.’

‘Do you ever talk to him about it?’ I hadn’t for years, not since I was a student, for I was no longer sure enough of what I myself believed. I didn’t want to expose my last poor, weak vestiges of faith to the brisk rationality of Andrew’s atheism, but I wasn’t going to tell Tom that.

‘No, I don’t,’ I said, ‘but himself and Molly row about it from time to time. It can get quite heated, vehement, you know.’ Tom laughed.

‘I bet it can. What sort of thing does Molly say?’

‘Oh, I can’t remember now.’

‘How’s she keeping these days?’

‘You tell me,’ I was tempted to reply, for this was at a time when I still faintly resented their friendship. I had begun to realise that Molly had a much stronger personality than I did, for all her shyness and (at times) mousy demeanour. She had a habit of taking over my friends, my family, now, even, as a cat will quietly move into the warm, empty chair one has vacated, and refuse to give it up again.

‘Molly’s fine,’ I said. ‘Busy as always.’

‘She said an interesting thing to me a while back,’ Tom remarked. ‘We were talking about her work and she said that there’s a kind of truth that can only be expressed through artifice. She said that what she wanted to convey to people through her work, more than anything else, was reality. It was a question of showing something familiar but in a moment outside time; saying, “Here’s love, here’s sorrow. Do you recognise them?” I thought it was a good way of putting it.’

More than Tom, I appreciated the accuracy of what Molly had said, because unlike him I had worked in the theatre. I knew the force of the experience one might have as a member of an audience; but I also knew intimately the strange tawdriness of the things that made it happen: the dressing rooms with their stale air and harshly lit mirrors; those blank corridors and stairways backstage; the faint smell of dust and sweat from old costumes. At no time does a play look more unconvincing than when viewed from the wings, but Molly had laughed when I said this to her. ‘It looks even more peculiar when you’re on stage in the middle of it, believe me.’

‘Do the family know you’re here?’ he said suddenly.

‘No.’ He let a silence sit between us for me to fill. ‘I couldn’t face it, Tom, and I don’t know why.’

‘You can get too much of a good thing,’ he said, after another long pause. ‘I won’t let on that you’ve been here.’

‘I feel guilty about it.’

‘There’s no reason. Conventional life always expects you to meet it more than halfway. You should give yourself the benefit of the doubt from time to time.’ There was another long silence which he finally broke himself, by adding, ‘I certainly do.

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