The Long and Spectacular Life of Agnes Magnusdottir 25

Chapter 18.

 

After I finished packing I got Zara to call me a taxi. When it came I made it stop at the bank as it was opening up. Zara and I had set up a joint savings account some years before to fund the baby we were going to adopt. It was a favourite game of ours to think up names for it, Odin, Odysseus, Ozymandias. We wanted a name that it would have to live up to and succeed where we, we believed, had failed.

    The teller didn't bat an eyelid when I slid across the request slip to withdraw the full amount. Three thousand pounds probably wasn't a lot for her. I kept my fingers crossed as she punched keys on her keyboard and resisted the temptation to place my forehead on the cool looking reinforced glass between us.

    I didn't know whether Zara would already have withdrawn the money in anticipation of me doing something like this.

    "How would you like the cash sir?"

    "Twenties." 

    I saw the teller next to mine lean across as I slid the note through the slot and my teller laughed as something was whispered in her ear. 

    "She thought it was a hold up," she said. She indicated my note. "’This is a hold up.’ You know, like in the movies."   

 

1971

 

The following week was Christmas week. A light snow had fallen making everything look clean and virginal. Agnes took this to be a good sign. It was to be a fresh start. 

    Benjamin was to pick her up outside her house. She had been very surprised when he had told her he had his own car. She had never met anyone her age with their own car before and for night after night before the appointed date she had imagined how thrilling it would be to climb into the front seat.

    She would be like a film star or a member of the Royal Family being whisked away to a special event. 

    However, as she approached the car, she had been watching for its arrival from her bedroom window and had practically fallen down the stairs, she was disappointed to see there was already someone sitting next to Benjamin. 

    "This is Tom," said Benjamin calling over. "We’re dropping him off en route. Can you hop in the back."

    It was difficult to hear what the two friends were talking about over the noise of the engine. And they had the radio playing, a troublesome kind of syncopated jazz that she found annoying, which didn't help matters much either. At one point she heard Tom say Nietzsche, quite authoritatively, and then he was twisting his neck looking back at her. 

    "What do you think of Nietzsche’s assertion that God is dead? True or not?"

    She didn't know what to say. She wasn't doing Nietzsche until the following year, if only he had asked her then she could have chatted on for hours and hours, and her mouth opened and closed several times while she tried to come up with an intelligent sentence. 

    "I say," she heard Tom say as he turned back to Benjamin, "you've got yourself quite a frog there. Gobble gobble. Gobble gobble. Is that what you see in her?"

    Her ears burned in shame as both the boys laughed loudly and Benjamin punched the steering wheel causing the horn to sound.  

    The time when they were to drop Tom off couldn't come soon enough and when they eventually pulled into an impressively gravelled driveway she breathed a sigh of relief. The house itself was grand, much grander than any house she herself had been in. Even the hedges were impressive, cut into the shape of Knights of the Round Table.

    "Shan’t be long," said Benjamin and she watched from the window as he and Tom made their way up the long drive. Benjamin, she was surprised to see, was carrying all of Tom’s bags. At the door they stopped. She thought that would be that but five minutes passed and then another five. After this first Tom and then Benjamin became quite animated, hands went up in the air and Benjamin came storming down the driveway. He got back in the car and slammed the door behind him. He started the car and they went scooting down the road, gravel flying up behind them. 

    "Is everything alright?" asked Agnes. 

    Benjamin didn't say anything for a while then he stopped the car and got in the back where Agnes was still sitting. 

    "Someone will see," she Agnes. 

    "They won't," said Benjamin. His chest was going up and down, but tightly like he was struggling for breath. "This Christmas is going to be the best ever, I promise you."

    Afterwards Agnes followed Benjamin into the front. He didn't speak. He drove with his hands clenched on the wheel, music blaring out from the radio.

    They had separate rooms in the house but Benjamin said she would be able to sneak into his bed when everyone else had gone to sleep. 

    "And they'll be times in the day when we can sneak out to the summer house. No one goes there in the winter. Mother and father will know what is going on but it’s a game, isn't it?" Benjamin gave a dry unhumorous laugh. "A certain public decorum has to be maintained. It’s expected of me as a virile young man. In five or ten years time I'll be working my way up to the top of my father’s company. They do advertisements. You may have seen some."

    He named a cheese and then a pair of shoes for children that were apparently all the rage. Agnes shook her head. She hadn't heard of either of them. She couldn't lie. 

    Benjamin’s sisters, all four of them, were like tiny Russian dolls, the kind made of wood that fit inside each other. They all had the same blonde hair in pigtails and rosy red cheeks. The house itself was enormous. It had a gravel drive even bigger than Tom’s and its own orchard at the back that was maintained by not one, but two, gardeners. His father, as already mentioned, it was mentioned many times over the following days as if there was something marvellous about it, worked in advertising and his mother, Agnes was thrilled to find out, was an editor at a large publishing house. 

    They had arrived on Christmas Eve and that evening there was to be a big dinner. Benjamin had told her to wear her most casual clothes, it was all very relaxed, but when she went down it looked as if the family were expecting a Royal visit. There were two candelabras on the table, each holding about twenty candles and the family, if not dressed up exactly, all wore clothes that looked extremely expensive. 

    "So how did you meet our Benji?" asked his mother. She had the most piercing blue eyes.

    "Magnusdottir," said his father butting in. He tipped an enormous wine glass towards his mouth. "That's an Icelandic name isn't it?"

    "It's from my grandfather," said Agnes. 

    "Both her parents are dead," said Benjamin. "Her mother of cancer and her father soon after in a fishing accident."

    "Benjamin," said his father half seriously.

    "She tells everyone," said Benjamin, placing an elbow on the table and taking a large swig from his wine glass. "She doesn't like to be mollycoddled."

    "And are you close to your grandfather?" asked Benji’s mother in a kind voice.

    "He lives in Argentina," said Agnes. "He writes to me sometimes, and he sends money, but I've never met him." And then she said, purposefully changing the topic, "You have the most beautiful house. And a wonderful family."

    At nine o’clock the girls were all sent to bed, excited about the visit of Santa in the morning, while the adults repaired to a luxurious lounge with what looked like original paintings on the walls. 

    Agnes found herself drinking too much. Benjamin had sloped off ’to make a phone call’ and had been gone for some considerable time and then when he had returned his face had been like thunder and he had hardly spoken a word to her. At one point she had actually seen him go over to the window and kick the skirting board, his lips moving as if he was engaged in conversation with some imaginary being. 

    In lieu of Benji she spoke mostly to his mother. She had never met an editor before and in one sentence she managed to mention Virginia Woolf, Mary Wollstonecraft and Alice B. Toklas. She was aware she was talking too much but she couldn't stop herself. It was like she was in a car and the brakes had gone. 

    "Why didn't you tell me your mother was an editor?" Agnes asked Benjamin on one of the rare occasions they found themselves alone. His eyes were bloodshot and the way he was holding his wine glass at an angle meant a large proportion of it was slopping down onto the carpet. He didn't seem to care.

   "I'm going to fuck you so hard later tonight." He had gripped her quite suddenly by the arms and pulling her to him he almost snarled the words into her ear. His breath, which she could feel on her cheek, was hot and smelt of garlic and red wine. "Apparently that's how Virginia Woolf liked it, rough as all hell. Why do you really think she wanted a room of her own? So no one could hear her scream." He gave a disgusted laugh. "All those lot of hers were deviants. Did you know? Father says the lot of them should have been killed. That's his opinion. Straight down the middle. You wouldn't know it to look at him but he's a fierce old Tory. Death penalty all round and then some."

 

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