To Let
Part One: The Spring
There it was again. That gaze, Mr Stevenson was unconsciously giving off his radiating gaze again. James knew what it was. The two of them, Mr Stevenson sitting in his chair and James, standing at the entrance to the room. There they were, two beings poised in a static motionless period in time. It all seemed natural to James. Mr Stevenson would draw a screen between him and the other person in the room. His eyes would first circle the room, then attach a web to all four corners of the room, so if someone would intrude and break into his room, he would be sure to notice.
The sitting room walls were painted in a variegated green chintz and white wall plush. Mrs Stevenson had strewed around a few shawls, relics from past summer holidays in the south of France. In fact, the whole house had been decorated like this. Mrs Stevenson thought it would give that sort of impression, you know, that sort of impression. A few wicker chairs had been scattered here and there, to give a sort of remote and distant approach to the house, almost as if to go back in time. Everything here was different, everything was subtle, everything was unrealistic.
Mr Stevenson had carefully placed his desk and writing chair under the window, overlooking the Wiltshire downs. He had done this, so if anyone were to walk into the room he would look out of the window and fix his eyes upon some fragment of external reality. Yes, the windows were always open. As a rule, all rooms must have a certain quantity of air, a fixed measurement; suffocation and deprivation was not an option.
Yes, Mr Stevenson would pick up that book. The one lying in the middle of the table in the centre of the table. But if he were to reach out and get it, he would destroy his web, his son would notice him and he would have to say something. James formulated a plan in his mind; he would pick up a book. Yes, he thought, the one in the middle of the table, the one he was reading: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. He was writing a review for his school magazine on it and he needed to finish it.
James strode across the room, glanced at his father, picked up the book, turned around and walked out of the room. He had done it. The book was his, some possession, some winning that belonged to him. Nobody else could touch it, not even his father.
The children are coming today thought Mrs Stevenson. Her brother's family, her family. Of course she had her own children, James and Eleanor were her's. But they didn't seem real. Her children were a vision, not yet born, hidden somewhere, to be discovered sometime.
She must make the house seem not only tidy, but presentable. She was always tidy. That was the problem. She had married a self-conscious man who was also tidy. Their profusely tidy nature was a source of frequent conflict in their scheme of family organization. A window would be opened, then ten minutes later, it would be shut.
The house needed tidying. Lunch was over and the children were working or reading, or playing in the garden. So Mrs Stevenson stacked the lunch plates up, put them away and cleaned the dining room table. She paused and glanced out of the window overlooking the garden. She could see the spring. She had always gone there as a child, her six siblings had her had always played and sort refuge in the spring. After lunch they would all play cricket in the garden, or hide and seek in the potted terrace parallel to the rest of the garden, while her parents would sit outside in the shade and read, or talk incessantly.
Mrs Stevenson had taken over the house when her parents died, she attempted to reconstruct the life her parents had created in the house. She wanted to prove to her mother that she could run a house. Her mother had had that ability to make her guests seem as if they were totally delighted with themselves. She had to prove herself.
Her brother was coming over this afternoon and for dinner. Mrs Stevenson loved her brother. Whenever she could, she tried to keep that family continuity that she had had. But they had their own lives to go to now.