Big Women. Fay Weldon

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      ‘Supposing I go home and Bull hits me for coming here when he specifically told me I wasn’t to?’

      ‘Then we do what a group of women did in Germany last week,’ said Stephie. ‘We go round to your house, heave Bull out, pull down his trousers, and march him up and down the street for all the neighbours to see, with a label round his neck saying “wife-beater”. This is what they chanted: “Any woman who sleeps with the same man for more than one night is a fool and a reactionary.” That is a translation. It may well have sounded better in German. But the point’s the same. Women have to take responsibility for what happens to them.’

      ‘I don’t see why,’ said Layla, ‘when you can so easily blame men.’

      ‘You’re a mad woman, Stephie,’ said Daffy, with confidence. ‘Personally I’m going to go and make coffee, since your husband has failed to bring us any.’

      ‘You better had,’ said Stephie, ‘since it’s all you’re fit for.

      Go back to the socialists, where you met my husband. It’s where you belong.’

      At which Daffy slammed out and Alice continued as if nothing had happened.

      ‘We are on the verge of the greatest revolution the world has ever known. The moment of praxis approaches. Theory feeds through into action, the stresses of oppression build up and burst through, as burst they must …’ and so on, while in the kitchen Daffy found mugs amongst the chaos of a kitchen where food was occasionally cooked, but often thought about. Here were garlic presses for non-existent garlic, saucepan lids for no longer existent pans, a wooden butcher’s block brought home by Hamish but covered with children’s painting material, old bills, overlooked letters, postcards, wooden spoons, a Victorian knife sharpener, a dozen blunt and rusty knives, matches here, cracked pottery lemon squeezers there; bread in one place, butter in another, jam nowhere to be found, a fridge you shuddered to look into.

      Daffy found the instant coffee with no trouble, and looking around, longed to bring order to the chaos, cleanliness to the grime, care to the uncared-for. Hamish came in as she knew he would.

      ‘I was just coming to do that,’ said Hamish. ‘She who earns most outside the home must be obeyed inside the home.’

      ‘But you can still make us wait,’ observed Daffy.

      ‘Oh, shrewd, shrewd,’ said Hamish. ‘Why are you wearing that ridiculous garment? I can’t tell where your tits begin or your bum ends.’

      ‘That’s the reason why. To save us from lascivious looks and so we’re all equal and don’t compete for male favours. Why should we dress for men?’

      ‘Perhaps I should wear a skirt,’ said Hamish, ‘to keep women in face.’

      ‘That’s silly.’

      ‘No more silly than girls wearing trousers,’ he said. The water boiled in the kettle. Neither switched it off, a task necessary in those days. It continued to purr steam into the room. Someone had removed the warning whistle.

      ‘Women only want to wear trousers because it’s the garb of the ruling elite, that is to say, men. Men don’t want to wear skirts because that’s what the servants wear.’

      ‘Women want to wear trousers so men don’t look up their skirts,’ said Daffy.

      ‘Why bother about any of it,’ said Hamish, ‘when a girl like you can get what she wants just by standing around.’

      ‘I’d feel more like arguing only your wife Stephie keeps calling me a fool.’

      ‘She only calls you a fool,’ said Hamish, ‘because she knows I like you.’

      He undid the top of her dungaree straps. She made no move to stop him other than by leaning over to switch off the kettle, to show she did not really care, one way or the other. He undid the other strap. Underneath, her blouse, which was her little sister’s, gaped open. The bare, rising, pale pink, translucent skin of her breasts could be clearly seen.

      ‘I’m a traitor,’ said Daffy.

      ‘All women are traitors,’ said Hamish. ‘That’s why feminism will never work.’

      His hand slipped down to touch the breast, fingers stretched to find the nipple. The hand was none too clean, marked with furniture polish and rust from the iron chain. Daffy rather liked that kind of thing. Stephanie hated it: she washed frequently.

      Stephanie, meanwhile, found herself not paying total attention to Alice. She wondered what was going on in the kitchen, while trying not to. Alice, in any case, was talking to Zoe, speaking to her as to a child.

      ‘By Praxis,’ said Alice, ‘I mean the moment theory meets its response in everyday life: when the convergent dynamics of oppression and protest meet. Something happens.’

      ‘I’ll open some wine,’ said Layla, ‘since neither Hamish nor Daffy seem capable of bringing coffee.’ And she went to Stephanie’s cabinet, brought out four bottles of Bulgarian red, found a corkscrew on the windowsill between unkempt pot plants and opened all four. Stephanie still said not a word; her face was arranged into a careful, attentive and amiable mask.

      ‘Praxis’, went on Alice, ‘means culmination, breaking-point. Also, interestingly enough, it’s a term used in Victorian pornography for orgasm, and a Victorian girl’s name, though I don’t suppose the parents who used it understood the double meaning: certainly not the fathers. Girls who enjoyed sex were known as nymphomaniacs, and the threat of the description still keeps many a girl out of a man’s bed today.’

      ‘I’m always being called a nymphomaniac,’ said Layla, liberally pouring wine. ‘And I’ve always taken it as flattery.’

      ‘That’s because you have your own money,’ said Zoe, ‘and don’t have to worry about what men think of you.’

      Stephanie drank a whole glass of her own bad red wine almost straight off, and then another. But she would not go into the kitchen: would not.

      Hamish had Daffy’s breasts uncovered, the corners of her blouse tucked under her armpits, and the top of her dungarees flapping down below her waist.

      ‘Did you burn your bra?’ asked Hamish.

      ‘It fell to pieces in the wash,’ said Daffy. ‘I only have the one. I don’t earn much. I can’t afford another. And they support themselves well enough. I have good muscular tone.’

      ‘Stephie’s flop all over the place,’ said Hamish. ‘Some men like that kind of thing.’

      ‘Comparisons are odious,’ said Daffy, ‘especially when it comes to women’s tits. Men are always doing it, to make women feel bad. Do we women talk about your private parts? No; we are too polite: we understand your insecurities.’ But she made no move to break away from his hands.

      ‘Supposing Stephie comes in?’ she asked all the same.

      ‘All the more exciting,’ said Hamish. ‘I’m fed up with her. Anyway, she rations sex. She uses it as a controlling device. I doubted the wisdom of her fish and bicycle poster, so she’ll have a headache for a week.’

      ‘That’s СКАЧАТЬ