Authors: A.S. Byatt
Babel Tower (55 page)
She
likes
to live in that story.
But she’s not retreating into her childhood, she’s grown up. She seems to me much more grown up than I imagine I seem to her.
Frederica feels safe, telling things to Agatha. She trusts her completely, not to gossip, and also not to distort or seethe what she’s told, in her mind. Because Agatha never reciprocates with confidences, Frederica only tells her things in a slightly ironic, impersonal tone, even if they are very personal and hurtful things, such as how to describe having an axe thrown at her, even, what to say about discovering you have a sexually transmitted disease. Agatha listens, and makes one or two precise remarks about the etymology of “venereal.” You can confuse Venus the hot and hurtful with the vernal airs of spring, she says. They seem to go together because of Botticelli’s Venus landing in Paphos covered with flowers. But really it isn’t that. You must just find some exact words.
“I could leave it out,” says Frederica.
“You could,” says Agatha. “But it might be very important, as proof of something. What matters is what’s evidence. That is.”
“It’s just the life of some bacteria, really. I feel it’s a sort of violation, but really it isn’t, really I
don’t care
what he did when I wasn’t there.”
“You might, if you cared more altogether.”
“I don’t think I care about anything,” says Frederica. “Except Leo.”
“I expect you will,” says Agatha.
Frederica looks at Agatha’s neatly drawn face, its clear, elegant proportions. She wants to ask What do you care about? And dare not.
Arnold Begbie has converted Frederica’s pitiful narrative into a Petition for Divorce.
In the High Court of Justice
Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division
(Divorce)
To the High Court of Justice
Dated the 1st of April 1965
The petition of Frederica Reiver showeth:—
(1) That on October 19th 1959 the petitioner, Frederica Reiver, then Frederica Potter, was lawfully married to Nigel Reiver (hereinafter called “the respondent”) at the Parish Church, Spessendborough, in the County of Herefordshire.
(2) That after the said marriage the petitioner and the respondent lived and cohabited at divers addresses and finally at Bran House, Longbarrow, in the County of Herefordshire.
(3) That there is one child of the petitioner and the respondent now living, namely Leo Alexander, born on the 14th of July 1960.
(4) That the petitioner proposes the following arrangements for support, care and upbringing of the said Leo Alexander. He will live with the petitioner at 42 Hamelin Square, London SE11, a house shared with Miss Agatha Mond and her daughter, Saskia Felicity Mond. He will start school in September at the William Blake Primary School, Lebanon Grove, London SE11, in company with the said Saskia Felicity Mond; the petitioner intends to apply for maintenance as hereinafter set out.
(5) That since the celebration of the said marriage the respondent has treated the petitioner with cruelty.
(6) That the respondent, who is a man of violent temper, has frequently nagged, sworn at, shouted at and struck the petitioner.
(7) That on September 28th 1964 the respondent attacked the petitioner with several blows to the head, ribs and back; that when she sought refuge in the bathroom, he turned off the mains-electricity to the house, in order to frighten her, and kept her imprisoned therein for several hours.
(8) That on Sunday 4th October 1964 the respondent again attacked the petitioner in her bedroom, so that she ran out of the house in fear and hid in the stables. That when she came out of hiding, the respondent was waiting with an axe, with which he threatened her; that when she ran out into the fields he pursued her, abusing her verbally, and threw the axe, wounding her in the hip.
(9) That before the specific acts of cruelty set out above the respondent treated the petitioner with neglect, spending most of his time away from home, in the company of business friends, beyond the reasonable requirements of the pursuit of his business. That he insisted that the petitioner and child remain at all times in Bran House. That he treated visiting friends of the petitioner with rudeness, and unreasonably refused ever to entertain them or to allow his wife to see them.
(10) That there is reason to believe that the respondent has committed adultery, since the petitioner was diagnosed in November 1964 as having contracted a venereal disease. The petitioner has sworn an affidavit that the disease could have been communicated by no one but the respondent.
(11) That the petitioner discovered a large collection of lewd and filthy publications in the respondent’s wardrobe.
(12) That the petitioner has not in any way been accessory to or connived at or condoned the adultery hereinbefore alleged and that she has not condoned the cruelty hereinbefore alleged.
(13) That this petition is not presented or prosecuted in collusion with the respondent.
Frederica considers this document: another narrative of her marriage. She says, “He won’t like this.”
Begbie smiles. “He cannot be expected to like it.”
Frederica tries to cast an analytic look over it.
“You haven’t written that he stopped me from
working.
”
“I didn’t think it was wise.”
“In fact that was the most cruel thing.” Frederica’s tone is small and dry. “It stopped me from being
myself.
”
“Marriage is expected to have that effect,” says Begbie.
“And you have written that I am asking for maintenance. I don’t want it. I can work. I want to keep myself.”
“You are asking for custody of your son. And for care and control of him. The Court is not necessarily going to look favourably on you as a parent if you put too much stress on your desire to work, if you display too much personal ambition.”
“If I were a man—”
“You have a good chance of custody because you are a woman. Women are presumed to wish to stay at home and care for children. Your sex is your principal advantage, if I may put it so. Your husband, as you have described him, has all the other advantages, in the Court’s eyes—a beautiful home, several other devoted women who know the boy intimately, the capacity to pay fees at a good boarding school. You will not appear in a good light if you put your own pride before your son’s comfort. And if your husband has treated you as cruelly as you claim he has, you must surely wish him to pay you the support to which you are entitled.”
“It isn’t like that. I
don’t
want his money. I don’t want a quarrel and a battle. I want Leo, and to be myself, and to work.”
“In the adversarial system, both of the British law, and of the marriage relation, I fear a battle is what you must be resigned to. May I ask if your husband has ever been violent towards his son?”
“No. Not really. It counts as violence to Leo to hurt me, I think. It hurts Leo. But no.”
“Only towards yourself?”
“Everyone else worships him. Yes, only towards me.”
“A pity. A pity.” He sits back in his chair, contemplating the disadvantages of Nigel Reiver’s lack of cruelty towards his son.
He explains to Frederica that the petition will be served by post; that it will be filed in the Divorce Registry, and that the respondent must enter an appearance in the Divorce Registry if he intends either to contest the divorce, or to cross-petition. If he does not intend to defend the divorce, he must return an acknowledgement to the petitioner’s solicitor. He asks Frederica what she thinks her husband will do.
Frederica tries to think. She imagines Nigel’s dark face, looking down on the foolscap pages. The blows, the axe, the lewd and filthy pictures. She imagines rage. Nigel’s face becomes that of a blue-black demon. She crosses her own arms defensively across her breasts.
“He won’t let it pass. He’ll fight, and he’ll want Leo.”
“Then we will fight. We will fight resourcefully. We shall need witnesses to the acts of cruelty—a Court does not always accept the unsupported evidence of an aggrieved spouse. Doctors, family, friends who saw the injuries? It would be a great advantage to be able to prove adultery, which we should be able to do if your account of your—infection—is accurate (and again supported by medical evidence). Are you sure you have no idea where your husband went on his journeys, whom he saw, what he did?”
“I didn’t ask. I didn’t mind, much. What I wanted was a life of my own. He went around with Pijnakker and Shah, doing business with his shipping, I think. They belonged to a lot of clubs in London, where I certainly wouldn’t want to go. There was one called the Honeypot, I remember. And one called Tips and Tassels. I saw a brochure for that once. Oriental waitresses in belly-dancing silk trousers and bras. With tassels. I think Shah had a financial interest in that, I think I heard them saying.”
“I know those places,” says Begbie, with a note of satisfaction. Frederica watches him sharply. “I know who goes to those places,” says Begbie, looking at Frederica. Frederica says nothing. “High-class call girls and tarts,” says Begbie. Frederica thinks that she knows this, and has not thought about it, because it was nothing to do with her. She wonders what she meant by “nothing to do with her.” She means that she has no proprietary interest in Nigel’s body, she thinks to herself in legal words in the lawyer’s office. She wants
her own life.
She would not, in theory, mind if he had his, if hers were not house and confinement. Is this so? She remembers her shamed disgust over the filthy pictures. She did not find them amusing. It is very possible that she would not find the Honeypot, or Tips and Tassels, amusing if she were there. Arnold Begbie appears to be hearing her thoughts.
“Evidence of filthy literature in the respondent’s possession is admissible as evidence for adultery to be inferred,” he says. “If a woman visits a brothel, that is taken as conclusive proof of her adultery. In the case of a man, such a visit provides strong evidence of adultery against him, but is not conclusive.”
“Interesting,” says Frederica, drily.
She has the impression that Begbie is taking some sort of pleasure in her general discomfiture, which for him is somehow to do with the imagination of the actions of human bodies, and for her is to do with
the discrepancy between what caused her pain and what must be adduced as evidence in order legally to end it. If I had cared more about the Honeypot and so on, she thinks, I might not now be here, because I might have cared more
altogether,
and then things would have come out differently.
“If the divorce is defended,” says Begbie, “we need to consider the bars to dissolution of marriage. You must consider: denial of the charge, connivance, condonation and collusion. Your attitude to your husband’s extra-marital activities could well be taken as condonation, if you are not careful. Then there are the discretionary bars. The ones you must consider here are the petitioner’s own adultery or cruelty. Any adultery of your own—I am required by law to put to you—should be recorded in a sealed discretion statement, which will go before the Court.”
“I haven’t,” says Frederica. “I haven’t—committed—”
“Both the other side and the Court are likely to wonder whether your relationship with Mr. Thomas Poole was entirely …”
“Well, it was. It was for convenience. He had children, and a flat, and a job. We shared baby-sitting. He was a friend and colleague of—
of my father’s,
” says Frederica, avoiding Alexander, genuinely indignant.
“Good, good. And now you live with another woman. Good. Are you sure there is no one else? If the other side decide to contest the divorce they will seek to know …”
“No.”
“And your friends, to whom your husband objected. Were they men, or women friends?”
“Men.”
“But he had no cause to be jealous or suspicious?”
“None. They were
my friends.
”
“And always were?”
“Not always, not all. I—slept with some men, at Cambridge.”
“Of course. Pre-nuptial incontinence does not come into the domain of public morals. But it may lead to a presumption that you had no objections to sleeping with more than one man: it might lead to questioning about your subsequent conduct.”
“I haven’t slept with anyone else,” says Frederica. It is curious that although this is true, she feels that she is lying and will be found out. This is possibly because Begbie, who is
her
solicitor, is disinclined to believe her. Again, he reads her thoughts.
“Lawyers are temperamentally inclined to question people’s statements,” he says. “Of course I accept that you have been faithful to your husband.”
“It isn’t a question of ‘being faithful,’ ” says Frederica. “I’m not sure I know what ‘faithful’ means. But I haven’t slept with anyone else.”
“Very good.”
Frederica still has the feeling that her solicitor dislikes her. There is something she is not doing or saying that she should be doing or saying. Weeping, perhaps? Lately, any emotion has driven her to dryness. When she was younger, she could scream and weep. But now, she needs to hold herself together. She needs to be competent. And yet she feels that Arnold Begbie does not entirely approve of her dryness and competence.