Revenge is Sweet (by C. Fremlin)

It was a long letter: much longer than Gerald’s usual hasty, loving scrawls – “Millions of kisses, darling,” “In a mad rush, but lots and lots of love” – that sort of thing. This was a serious letter, and even as she picked up the airmail envelope from the mat and felt its thickness, Felicity was already filled with foreboding. And when she took in the mode of address – “My dear Felicity,” instead of “My sweet, darlingest Flicky,” she knew at once what the letter was going to say. It was going to tell her that their four-year love affair was at an end because Gerald had met someone else.

No need to read it, really. Why torture herself over the details when the main outline of the story was already so agonisingly clear?

A nonsense question. Of course she must know the details, every miserable one of them. The strange thing was that the more agonising any particular detail might be, the more desperate was her need to know it. Walking slowly into her sitting room, bright now with morning sunshine, she sat down by the window to read the four – no, five – closely written pages.

It was a careful letter, every sentence carefully contrived and its likely impact calculated. Felicity could picture Gerald, in his office, perhaps, or maybe in the university library, penning draft after draft, discarding the first one as too brusque, the second as too sentimental, the third as too apologetic. What fun the cleaners must have had going through his wastepaper basket next morning! She could almost hear their giggles across the three thousand intervening miles.

“I just hate to be writing this letter,” he’d settled on, for his final draft. “I can’t bear the thought that I may be causing you pain, my dear, but we have always made it a principle that we should be absolutely honest with each other – isn’t that so? That’s why I’m being absolutely honest with you now, as I’m sure you’d wish me to be. The truth is, my dear, that I’ve met someone else…”

Of course you have. Get on with it. What’s she like? Tell, tell…

Greedy for further torment, Felicity turned the page and read on:

“Actually, Tricia’s a bit like you, my dear, only blond, and with a less chiselled cast of feature. Almost snub-nosed, if I-m to be honest, and with round cheeks that…”

Here three words had been blacked out, but not so black that the eye of hatred couldn’t pierce through to them. “That blush easily,” he’d written, and had then realised that they might be hurtful to his former love. How right he was! what a perceptive, sensitive fellow!

Another page. At this point he seemed to have judged it appropriate to bring in a bit of sentiment, the soft stuff:

“I will never forget the wonderful times you and I have had together, Felicity, dear. I shall always be grateful for them, and I do trust that we shall continue to be friends, close friends, always. Tricia wants it, too. She sends you her love – yes, she really does! – and is longing to meet you. I’m sure you will get on well together; you can’t help liking her, she has such a sweet, generous nature…”

She’s going to need it, too! Just let her wait. what else, Gerald dear? What else can you tell me to make me feel good?

“We shall be arriving in England on the twenty-third and will be going straight to my flat, where we plan to set up home together. We’re even thinking of getting married; and perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea? That’s the thing you and I never managed to get around to, did we, Felicity, dear? Your deep-seated need for personal freedom was something I had to respect…”

Bloody hell, it was your deep-seated need for personal freedom: I just went along with it, as you know damn well! Perhaps you’re not in that university library at all, or even in your own flat? Perhaps you’re in her cosy little bed-sit, with her hanging over your shoulder telling you exactly what to say to that wretched woman in London ? Yes, I feel that this next thought is all hers:

“How wise you were, my wise Felicity, to insist that we should each keep on our own flat, and not try to move in together. It would have been a disaster, and in our hearts we both knew it…”

No, it was nothing to do with our hearts, mine or yours. It was because of your brand-new fitted carpets: You couldn’t bear to leave them. Fair enough; I can quite understand. I even understood at the time; but don’t start talking to me about hearts.

“I do hope this letter isn’t going to upset you too much, my dear…”

I’m sure you hope so. It would make everything so much easier, wouldn’t it, and not so much of a strain on Tricia’s sweet and generous nature.

“And do remember, Felicity dear, that I do still love you, I always will, though not quite in that way anymore. After all, nothing lasts forever…”

Indeed, it doesn’t. Why don’t you tell her so too, so that she doesn’t get a nasty surprise one of these days? Yes, tell her right now, while she’s kissing the bald bit on the top of your head and helping you to write this difficult letter to your discarded mistress.

Slowly, Felicity refolded the letter and slid it back into its envelope; cautiously, as if it was a bomb, to be handled with care. Leaning out into the June sunshine, Felicity contemplated the green canopy of leaves below. From up here, on the seventh floor, even the topmost branches seemed quite a long way down, moving ever so slightly in the almost windless air.

Why not go along with this “Let’s all be friends” nonsense and invite the pair of them to Sunday lunch?

“Tricia, come and look at my view!” she could say, while Gerald was out of sight, doing something helpful in the kitchen; and while Tricia leaned out to admire the expanse of greenery – just a tiny push to send her hurtling to the pavement fifty feet below, her fashionably shod feet pointing upwards, waving wildly.

Ridiculous. Too crude. Too pointless, also; the dead don’t even know they’re being punished. And it was not, anyway, the sort of thing that a person like Felicity could possibly bring herself to do.

All right: So what sort of thing could a person like Felicity possibly bring herself to do?

Why not wreck their happy homecoming, which – they had so conveniently told her – was to be on the twenty-third? She still had the key to Gerald’s flat, just as he still had the key to hers. Why not go along and wreck the place? With hammer, axe, and any other tool of destruction she could lay her hands on? Bash up those antique spindly chairs from Great Aunt Something-or-other? Splash ink and yellow paint all over his bloody fitted carpets? Smash every bulb in every one of his concealed-lighting effects? Pour cement down all the plug-holes and leave the taps running. Tear the microwave from its wires and chuck it across the room? And, best of al, switch off the freezer, tear the lid off it, and leave the rest of the task to the midsummer heatwave?

“Welcome home, my darling,” Gerald would be crooning to his beloved with her round cheeks that blushed so easily. “Welcome to our new home…!” and he would lift her lovingly over the threshold into an intolerable stink of decaying salmon, rotting poultry, and forty prime-quality pork chops crawling with maggots…

A perfect revenge! So appropriate! So well-deserved. Their homecoming ruined: Their first romantic evening transformed into a nightmare!

For a minute or two – perhaps more – Felicity sat relishing the scenario she had conjured up; but it wasn’t long before the objections to the plan began forcing themselves into her consciousness; the chief objection being – just as in the case of the murder plan – that she, Felicity, wasn’t the sort of person who could do this sort of thing.

Foiled again. Back to the drawing board. And now, at last, the inspiration came to her. The perfect revenge! So neat, so easy, and, above all, everything that needs to be done was something that a person like herself could do.

Flowers were the first thing. She bought them in the market, fresh and dewy, on the morning of the twenty-third. Roses, lilies, sweet-scented carnations: enough to fill Gerald’s whole flat with colour and sweetness. She arranged them in shining vases, silver some of them, and others crystal, and set them at strategic points in all his rooms, catching the light and reflected in the polished wooden surfaces she had worked so hard to bring to perfection. Here and there, loving little notes were attached: “Do you remember that night in Naples when you scattered lilies on our bed?” And more mundane notes, too, about the delicacies she had prepared for him, some all ready to eat, others waiting to be heated in the microwave. And finally, the best note of all was pinned to his pillow-case. You couldn’t miss it when you turned the coverlet back.

“Darling, I can hardly wait,” was all it said.

And then she went home. But first, she stood for a moment in the doorway of Gerald’s flat, contemplating her handiwork and picturing its consequences. The sweet, generous nature would surely crack. Tricia’s charmingly blushing cheeks would grow white with rage; the girlish voice would screech like a fishwife, calling her lover every name under the sun, of which “Liar!” and “Double-dealing bastard!” would be among the least offensive.

Wonderful!

It worked like a dream, exactly as she’d planned.

“Letter? What letter?” she inquired innocently when, some hours later, Gerald burst into her flat, incoherent with anxiety and panic, and barely able to frame intelligible questions.

“I never got any letters,” she repeated, “I didn’t expect one, I mean, darling, you never do write letters, do you? Only those nice, funny postcards.”

Watching the immensity of relief spreading across his face, she knew exactly what had happened. The terrible quarrel that she had planned for the two of them had indeed taken place, and Gerald, frightened and frantic, was fleeing back to his old love for solace.

And solace she would give him. Why not? She had won the victory and could afford to be generous. What use, in the long term, she was going to make of the victory, she had no idea; but then this has been the problem for conquerors the world over, from Alexander the Great onwards. And this particular moment, with Gerald’s arms tightening around her, did not seem the right moment for solving such an old-age problem.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 1905