The Heart of the Country by Fay Weldon

Author:Fay Weldon [Weldon, Fay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781781858028
Publisher: Head of Zeus

Doing it all Wrong

In the middle of March, Ben and Alice started at the comprehensive. That is to say, Ben stood in the playground on the morning of the first day and shouted at his mother, ‘I won’t go to this school. I won’t. I’m not like the others. They’re thicks and turnip tops. They’ll laugh at me. I hate you! What have you done with my father? You are a bitch!’

Then he gave up, and went inside, unprotected by a school uniform (for here they wore any old thing – one of his other complaints), looking much like anyone else aged 12. Presently Alice stopped crying and went inside the school too, to whatever unpleasant destiny she believed awaited her. Natalie found herself saying under her breath, ‘I hate you, Harry Harris’ and meaning it.

Hate is the third stage of the cure. After passivity comes anger, after anger comes hate. These allegedly negative emotions are to my mind fine, healing things. Natalie was fortunate enough to heal quickly. People differ in the speed with which they recover from what therapists refer to as major life disasters (divorce, that is to say) in the same way as they do from cuts and bruises, and she was lucky. She had been born with a very strong life-energy (Tor-language – sorry) which during her marriage to Harry had simply stayed tamped down, underground. It was this, I do believe, which made her so attractive to men (oh and women, women too!) at that particular time: the sense of the unreleased, which they (Eros willing) might be the lucky one to release. Her suitors interpreted it as simple sexual attraction, but it was more all-pervasive than that. Oh yes.

Dunbarton was withdrawn from auction, suddenly, at the end of March, and was sold, privately, for sixty thousand pounds.

‘He offered cash,’ explained the pleasant, bright-eyed young man at Waley and Rightly, the estate agents. He was Angus’ assistant. ‘We can’t afford to let a cash buyer slip through our fingers! Not with Inland Revenue tapping on the window pane! Not to mention the bank!’

Natalie could remain in the house for two more weeks, he said. The contents were to be auctioned separately at the end of that time, and should, he consoled her, fetch an excellent price. Angus was to be the auctioneer.

‘A fine man!’ said Bright Eyes. ‘Splendid auctioneer.’

Natalie went down to the Welfare Office, and this time saw not Mary Alice but a certain Rosemary Tuckard. Rosemary had a flat, round face and very tiny features, so her face seemed almost blank. Talking to her was rather like talking to one of Alice’s cut-out paper dolls, Natalie thought. But at least she smiled and nodded, and a cold dark hole did not seem to be her natural home.

‘Inland Revenue forced the sale,’ said Natalie. ‘I didn’t have a leg to stand on, according to my solicitor. Not that I trust him. One of his friends bought it, as it happens. You know him? Arthur Wandle the antique dealer? His wife was tired of living above the shop.

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