Alice Hartley‘s Happiness

‘Were you very close to your Aunty Sarah?’ she asked.

Michael shook his head. ‘I hardly know her,’ he said. ‘She is much older than my father, a funny old biddy who lives out in the old vicarage at Rithering. I’ve only been over once since I’ve been here. I should have gone more often I suppose.’

‘There you are then!’ Alice said triumphantly. ‘The auras are never wrong. I said it was a healthy aura.’

‘Not very healthy for Aunty Sarah,’ Michael said reflectively.

Alice paused. ‘She is just moving to another plane,’ she said. ‘Will you go and see her at once?’

‘Will you come?’ Michael asked quickly and then blushed. ‘I mean’, he said, ‘I suppose you’ve got loads of other things to do, moving house and all that.’

Alice looked surprised, she had forgotten the furniture. She had, in any case, nowhere to go.

‘That can wait,’ she said. ‘We do not yet know each other well, Michael, but I can promise you that I would never waste my time on trivial housewife details.’ She hissed the word housewife through clenched teeth. She had not forgotten Charles’s slight on her carrot cakes. ‘Not when there are elemental forces at work. The great chasms of death and birth are around us all the time. We must be ready for them. I will come with you.’

Michael threw his arms around her naked waist and pressed his face into her neck. He felt a sudden stirring as if his deepest essences were ready for plunging again, but Alice gently disengaged herself.

‘Not now,’ she said softly. ‘We must go to your Aunt. The old lady will be waiting for you, she may want your help to move her into a fresh astral plane. You must centre yourself, root yourself in the earthly elements. I will help you.’

Michael nodded obediently, put both feet into one trouser leg and fell to the floor.

Alice regarded him with affection. ‘Get dressed,’ she said. ‘I have to go to the health centre and see someone. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

She threw her gown over her head and tied half a dozen scarves about her person, three on her head, one on each wrist, one at her waist, and slipped from the room.

Outside, the campus was quiet with the early-morning stillness of centres of great learning. Students were not yet awake and those faculty members who had survived the most recent wave of redundancies and were still clinging to salaries and offices were writing their novels, their guides to Provence, and malicious letters to specialist journals. Alice glided easily across the dew-soaked grass with her wide dancing stride and ran lightly up the steps to the university medical centre and into the counselling room.

Professor Hartley was at the window, he had been watching her. Sitting in his shadow was a small elderly woman in grey. She wore pale grey shoes, stone-grey tights under a buff-grey skirt. Her shirt was grey silk, her cardigan was shapeless-grey. Her hair was natural grey. Her smile was professionally serene.

‘Welcome, Alice,’ she said kindly.

Alice tossed her an angry look. Her husband she totally ignored.

There was a short silence. Professor Hartley seethed in silence like a small culture of poisonous yeast.

‘Shall I start?’ the counsellor asked.

Alice, who had been gazing sulkily at her red varnished toes peeping through her golden sandals, glanced up and shrugged her broad shoulders. The Professor nodded.

‘I notice you have arrived separately this morning,’ the counsellor said, her voice carefully neutral. ‘Would you tell me, Alice, why that is?’

Alice glowered at her. ‘I imagine you know perfectly well.’

The counsellor’s raised eyebrows and innocent look expressed total bafflement. ‘What do you mean, Alice?’ she asked with playgroup patience. ‘Remember our rule here: no ambiguous statements!’

Alice jerked her head at Professor Hartley who was standing with his back to the window, blocking the light. ‘I imagine Charles has told you that I have left him!’ Alice said defiantly.

The counsellor put her head on one side like a small grey canary. ‘And if he had told me, and please notice, Alice, that I do not say he has told me, what do you imagine that Charles would say about you?’ she asked.

Alice laughed shortly. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Not again. I have wasted years trying to work out what Charles thinks. I have wasted a lifetime trying to please him.’ She pointed an accusing finger at the counsellor. ‘You have wasted hours and hours trying to work out what Charles wants. I am here today to say only one thing: that I am not coming into this dreary room to have you two ganging-up on me any more.’

Charles Hartley pushed himself up off the window-sill, pulled a chair towards him, and sat down leaning forward earnestly, his hands clasped, as if he were praying for Alice’s redemption. ‘I don’t know why you are so angry with Mrs Bland, Alice,’ he said, in his special marital-counselling voice. ‘It makes me wonder what it is that you are so angry about in yourself?’

‘Oh no,’ Alice said again. ‘Not that one. I am not angry with myself. I am angry with you, Charles. You are pompous, you are a liar, and I will not be ditched by you for some stupid undergraduate.’ Alice swung around on Mrs Bland. ‘And you,’ she said. ‘You are One of Them!’

The counsellor’s placid smile did not waver. Her eyes flicked to Professor Hartley as if seeking expert opinion. He nodded at her. ‘Delusional Paranoia,’ he said softly.

The counsellor’s face grew yet more serene. ‘Why are you abusing your husband, Alice?’ she asked. She gave a little humble smile. ‘And why are you insulting me?’

Alice choked on her anger. ‘I don’t trust either of you!’ she said, stammering. ‘You know! You both know! You both know what I am angry about!’

‘And what is that?’ asked Mrs Bland. She looked to Charles. His face was a portrait of hurt bafflement.

‘What do we both know?’ he asked gently.

‘You both know that Charles is having sex with Miranda Bloomfeather. You both know that he wants a divorce. You both know that I left him last night. And you both should know that I am never, never going back!’ Alice proclaimed.

Mrs Bland put in a wonderful performance of utter mystification. ‘I think you had better explain this to me, Alice,’ she said. ‘I can assure you I know nothing of this!’

Alice hammered the arms of her chair with her fists. ‘You do! You do!’ she said, her voice rising with her frustration. ‘I don’t believe that Charles hasn’t told you. Half the university knows about him and Miranda. Even I know!’

‘Oh, I see now what is happening here,’ Mrs Bland said gently. Alice glanced at her, momentarily hopeful.

‘You have forgotten our little rule,’ she said, smiling and holding up one finger. ‘D’you remember which one I mean?’

Alice shook her head.

‘Do you know which one I mean, Professor Hartley?’ Mrs Bland asked him, smiling.

Charles smiled back, like a big child in a nursery class who is prepared to play nicely to help the little ones learn. ‘Would it be the one about not bringing gossip into our counselling sessions?’ he asked.

Mrs Bland clasped her hands together as if struggling not to applaud. ‘That’s the one!’ she said gaily. ‘And anything which needs to be said, is to be said here and now.’

She turned to Alice. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Do you want to ask Professor Hartley about his relationship with his students?’

Alice was twisting a dark lock of hair around her finger, her face black. ‘Yes,’ she said sulkily.

Mrs Bland nodded. ‘Go on then, Alice,’ she said. ‘Ask the Professor whatever it is you wish.’

Alice tugged on the lock of hair, and then looked directly at Charles. He leaned towards her, his face a picture of kindly concern.

‘Do you want to divorce me?’ she asked. ‘Are you having an affair with Miranda Bloomfeather?’

‘No, and No!’ he said triumphantly. ‘Alice, how could you even think such a thing? Miranda is one of my brighter students, but a mere girl. And you and I have been married for sixteen years! It is obvious that I am committed to the success of our marriage, Alice! Why! Just look at my commitment to the success of our marital counselling! Who was here first today? And who was late, Alice? And who was rude to Mrs Bland?’

Alice goggled at him. ‘But you said last night…’ she started.

Charles sat back in his chair and glanced at Mrs Bland. Promptly she held up one admonitory finger. ‘Stay in the Here and Now, Alice,’ she said sweetly. ‘How do you feel about what Professor Hartley has said to you now?’