Trouble Read Free

Saint Estephe without consulting me—you are so competitive it extends even into the world of wine!—and worse, do so without the slightest concern for the health of our baby. You have so much ambivalence about poor little Gillian, I’ll be surprised if you manage to bring her to term. You don’t go to the Clinic—cutting off your nose to spite my face because making me responsible for your actions is another way of controlling me, and you can’t resist a little extra dig, mentioning that Steve went with Gilda. Poor Steve: he seems to have no will of his own. You must have me all to yourself so you send the poor kids off to the cinema, regardless of what they want, let alone the fact that I might want to see them. You cook beef although you know perfectly well the only protein I can eat these days is white meat—chicken or a little fish—and you overcook the mangetout in a way that can only be deliberate. Then you break some plates, follow me in here where I am peacefully reading, snatch the book from my hand, and fling it in the fire. Is that enough about what the matter is? Now for God’s sake don’t start crying or you’ll upset the children. They’re upset enough already. Okay?’
    ‘Gilda,’ said Annette on the phone early next morning, ‘I am so miserable.’
    ‘What’s the matter now?’ asked Gilda. ‘What’s the time?’
    ‘It’s well past nine,’ said Annette. ‘I’m sorry. But I have to speak to someone.’
    ‘The baby kept me awake kicking all night,’ said Gilda. ‘I’ve only just got to sleep.’
    ‘Well, I didn’t sleep at all,’ said Annette. ‘I was suffering from terror. That’s the only way I can describe it.’
    ‘Tell me more,’ said Gilda. ‘Here’s Steve with my cup of tea. Thank you, Steve. You are so good to me. Okay, Annette, go on. Forgive me if I slurp.’
    ‘It’s a kind of black pit within the periphery of myself,’ said Annette. ‘It’s as black and empty as outer space, and everything spins down into it and is lost.’
    ‘A black hole,’ said Gilda. ‘I used to feel that when Jackson my first husband left me and I didn’t know how to pay the rent. I think you’re describing anxiety, not terror. What’s making you anxious?’
    ‘The thought of me without Spicer,’ said Annette. ‘He said such terrible things to me last night, and I love him and I’m having his baby. How could he? Then he just went and slept all night in the spare room. He said he was frightened to sleep next to me in case I did him some terrible damage. He said I was a madwoman, and eaten up with hatred of men.’
    ‘What had you done?’
    ‘I broke some plates,’ said Annette, ‘and threw the book he was reading into the fire.’
    ‘Well,’ said Gilda, ‘you ought to expect some reaction. If you behave like a madwoman you get called a madwoman.’
    ‘He drove me to it,’ said Annette. ‘He wouldn’t eat the dinner I cooked. And he was late home and wouldn’t say why. And I lay alone on the bed all night with a headache and a black hole in my chest, and I must have dozed off because when I woke Spicer had left the house and gone to work, and without a word, without a note.’
    ‘You told me you didn’t sleep at all,’ said Gilda.
    ‘Gilda, this is serious. There was a difference in tone. I can’t explain it. I’m terrified.’
    ‘It doesn’t sound serious to me,’ said Gilda. ‘He’ll ring later in the morning and apologise.’
    At ten-thirty precisely the phone rang. Wendy put Spicer through.
    ‘Annette,’ said Spicer, ‘I hope you’re okay. I left you sleeping. You look lovely asleep: I didn’t want to wake you. I hope I didn’t upset you last night. I seem to get these moods these days.’
    ‘You upset me quite a lot,’ she said.
    ‘But you’re better now? It’s all forgotten?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said.
    ‘I love you very much,’ he said. ‘None of it’s your fault. You can’t help being what you are any more than I can.’
    ‘Well, thank