Every Day Is Mother's Day

her misfortunes, and doing a performance she called worrying about the future.

When the pain came back, Muriel leaned forward and dug her fingers into her thighs. The vast bulk before her seemed to pulsate dully, throbbing and jumping like a machine. There was no guarantee that she would not always have to stay like this, her head down, a dry grunt coming from her throat. But after a minute or two the spasm slackened and released her. She took a deep breath, ran her hands along her legs, and stroked her knees. This was a change in her state. This was a process, she thought. There would be something at the end of it.

It was so long since Colin had eaten that he felt slightly nauseated. Frank was an accomplished cook, and he had taken a great deal of trouble. It was obvious that the meal had not been waiting. Did that mean, Colin asked himself, that his lateness had made no difference at all? If he had sat there with the rest of them, consuming Frank’s generous drinks since eight o’clock, he would have been in no state to drive home; and they had hardly started on the wine that was to accompany their meal. He looked apprehensively around the ring of faces. They looked little different from when he first came in, but different they must be, edging by degrees towards inebriation; he hoped there would be no scenes.

“Insalata di funghi e frutta di mare,” Frank announced. He tripped slightly, bearing the plates in, but retrieved himself. His glasses were completely steamed up from the heat in the kitchen. But he did not seem to notice. “No squid, of course,” he said gloomily.

“Ah well, Frank,” Mrs. Toye said. “Squid is next to impossible, especially those tender little sea creatures which the Italians, so poetically I always feel, call sea-strawberries.” Mrs. Toye now sat back with a languid air, as if, because of the absence of squid, she could expect to find no further pleasure in the evening.

Colin looked down at his plate, and down the table at Sylvia. She wouldn’t eat raw mushrooms, that was for sure. Oh well, she could blame her pregnancy for anything she couldn’t manage.

“Sidney. I’m speaking to you,” Edmund Toye said. “I say, I understand you are also a schoolmaster.”

“Yes, that’s right. I teach history.”

“Well, you say history, but I wonder what you think history is. Probably a question we would need considerable time to go into. ‘It is a sign of the gods’ especial detestation of a man, when they drive him to the profession of schoolmaster.’ Now which of the ancient writers, I wonder, said that?” Toye did not wait for a reply, but pressed on keenly, thrusting a forkful of salad into his mouth. “Tell me now, what is your preferred form of creativity? Frank of course has written some delightful poetry. As an actor he is extremely skilful. His painting I feel is artificial. Intellectualised.” A stray thought claimed Colin’s wandering attention and involuntarily he raised his eyes to the deep blue ceiling above the Regency Stripe. Didn’t he remember Frank complaining about the cost of undercoat? No, Toye didn’t mean that, evidently he didn’t mean that.

“Frank,” he was saying, “have you told Colin about your novel?”

“My novel,” Frank said, beaming. “You want to hear about my novel, Colin?”

“That would be very nice,” Colin said. “I had no idea.”

“Well it’s just a germ as yet, you understand.” Frank took off his glasses and polished them vigorously. “It’s all rather circumstantial…as a matter of fact, I had a stroke of luck. Do you remember that bad fog we had, when my car got a bump, and was in the garage?” Frank paused, took a sip of wine, then a gulp. “Robust,” he said. “Here, Colin, let me top you up.” Colin pushed his glass towards Frank. Out of the corner of his eye he checked on Sylvia. She didn’t seem to be making too much of a fool of herself. There was an untouched glass of white wine by her plate, and he knew she had only had two gins.

“Well, the odd thing was,” Frank began.

“Perhaps for brevity I should take the story up,” Toye cut in. “When he got his car back, it came complete with the most extraordinary document. Obviously belonged to somebody else with a car in for repairs, and the garage men had taken it out and then put it back in the wrong car. At least, that’s the explanation we came up with.”

Colin felt uneasy. “What exactly was it?”

“Oh, a most extraordinary thing,” Toye said. “A kind of case file which a set of wretched social workers had been keeping over the years. Really, you cannot imagine the low level of literacy among those people.”

“The entries,” Charmian Toye said slowly, “have given us much innocent pleasure.”

“But look,” Colin’s heart was hammering in his throat. “Look, Frank, you must give it back at once. It’s the property of the Social Services Department.”

“Oh, knickers to that,” Frank said. His grin was distinctly lopsided, and his eyes behind his spectacles seemed to slip out of focus. “Finders keepers. It’s all about two dotty women. It’s a gift. Grist to the mill. I’m going to turn it into a novel.”

“Frank could never,” Toye said, “have invented such grotesquerie by himself.”

“For goodness’ sake,” Colin said. He was aware that his voice was very loud, and that the Frosticks, man and wife, had turned to stare at him. “Frank, think now, this is confidential information you’re talking about.”

“Then someone should have taken better care of it. Here, Frostick, open another three bottles, will you, I’m talking. You can’t imagine the lives some people lead. I might turn it into a sort of allegory, you see, about the state of our society.”

“But regardless of how it came to be lost…some poor social worker…the consequences could be very serious.”

“Poor social worker be damned,” Frostick said. “I’m not sure that they’re not the villains of the piece. Interfering do-gooders. Caring Society. Huh.” Frostick showed yellow teeth in contempt, and took to grappling with the corkscrew.

“Come on now, Frank, you’ve got to give these papers back.” Colin’s tone was pleading.

“Not a chance. I’ve already written Chapter One. Stranger than fiction. It’s inspired me.” He waved an arm. “It’s all through there, in the study, waiting for me to get back to it tomorrow morning.”

“Really, Frank,” Colin said, “you can’t do this. You’ve lost touch with reality.”

“He has if he thinks he’ll do anything tomorrow morning,” Elvie said. “Except vomit.”

“But these are real people. You can’t make their lives public property.” He turned around on Toye. “You’ve no