* Woman * Short Story

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Woman

You won’t be able to do anything without me I told him. But he laughed and didn’t believe me. I had all I needed to win this battle. I told him he’d be the loser, but he carried on laughing and didn’t believe me.
We’d set up this advertising brochure in which we featured everything and anything, and, usually, what was of interest to all and sundry. This was after we’d retired, although we’d retired unusually early. Nevertheless, my husband said that the private sector didn’t guarantee a man his due and that we should profit from the time, the people and this new stage. The office that we’d worked in was a subsidiary of a multinational corporation. Fate, or events, was conspiring against the owners; they disagreed, disputed and split up. My husband resigned before he was dismissed and I followed before the announcement of the office’s closure, and before my husband went off and got used to working on his own, without me. We had an agreement that we would be husband and wife, partners and colleagues. We ate together, went out together, came home together and worked for others together. We were always in ‘publicity and advertising’. I used to ask him why it was called ‘publicity and advertising’ and what the difference between the two words was. He would recall the brief period in his life when he studied Latin and would explain the derivation of the word ‘publicity’ to me, going back to ‘publicise’, ‘publicist’ and ‘publish’ and ending up with ‘publican’ and ‘puberty’. He would then go on to explain that publicity was really about attracting people’s attention, whereas advertising was about the product. I often let him philosophise away like this, because I knew I was the only one to give him the chance. He would expound upon the dimensions and depths of adverts we’d done for different types of stockings, silk or nylon, and the concept of limbs throughout the ages in connection with their complex relationship with high-heeled shoes. Yet I couldn’t grasp the depths of this relationship, which he told me about using the pictures in the ads. We chose, wrote, took photos and lied. The last office in which we’d worked belonged to a food cannery, and the markings of the cans showed through onto the faces of beautiful girls. We photographed them pouting, hair rippling, on stairways and balconies, and wrote in a few expressive words, of their happiness after meals of corn beef or tuna in oil or brine. Yet when we sensed any disagreement, we rushed to the rescue.

Afterwards, my husband said he would set up his own independent office, and then realising his mistake said ‘our’ own office. We would be the bosses and the workers, he said. A simple little brochure that we’d be in charge of. One issue could be an ‘advertorial’, another ‘display-ads’ and another an interview, which could be open or surreptitious advertising. One time it could be for men, another for women, and another for children. Before he said ‘and another for animals’ I said, ‘I’ll work for it but on my terms.’ He frowned.
‘You’re imposing conditions on me when you said nothing to them, to the others?’
‘I know better now.’
‘I’m your husband.’
‘Because you’re my husband.’
But he didn’t understand. He sat in front of the television sullenly and refused to eat dinner with me.
The next day we were supposed to go the registry office to register the partnership agreement. He signed it after I’d added a clause consisting of my one single condition for starting the brochure. It stated: ‘Nothing about me will appear in the brochure without my consent.’ Once again he laughed.
‘I thought your condition would be more important, ’ he said. He hadn’t understood the extent of its significance, nor was he expecting the surprise I was concealing.
‘Stay at home for a week and relax, and you’ll find the brochure finished,’ he said.
‘And the condition?’
‘We won’t disagree,’ he said and looked at me as if to say ‘do you think the world revolves around you?’
A week later he presented me with the brochure. It was a collection of small ads for glass conservatories, garden tools and travel beds. He found me turning over the pages.
‘No, no, no,’ I said.
‘What does no, no, no mean? Is it a song?’
‘The condition more like. I do not consent to all this and the brochure can’t be published without my consent.’ He got angry.
‘And what connection does Your Royal Highness have with everything here in this brochure? The radiant faces, the jaunty poses, the flowing hair?’ I shook my head.
‘A connection and a half and three-quarters.’ He screamed and hit himself on the head, but only softly.
‘What, in the devil’s name, does Her Royal Highness have to do with all these pampered young things gazing happily and lovingly into the cameras, living out the dreams of young girls everywhere. Look, look at this smile longing for the sheen of double-glazing and this shapeliness lounging in perfect relaxation on a deluxe model bed. What does all this have to do with Her Highness, a middle-aged woman, a wife, retired, at home with her husband.’
‘None of that matters. What matters is the agreement, and my condition in the agreement is plain and clear.’ The moment I said this he threw the brochure at me and brandished his fist. He leapt up and ran out, slamming the door in my face as if he were afraid I’d follow him.
When he came back late that night I knew he’d gone to see his friend the lawyer and that they’d read over the agreement. From his gentleness and sweet talk I knew also that he couldn’t do what he wanted.
‘Your name will be at the top of the staff list.’
‘There’s only you and me.’
‘Your name dearest, before mine.’
‘You won’t be able to do anything without me, or without my consent.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And that’s what your friend the lawyer told you. And the photographer who you work with couldn’t fix it for you either.’
‘He tried and failed. The result was miserable lifeless pictures. Seas and moons. We thought of using pictures of little girls but the lawyer said that they too would come under your condition because you could take a little girl to represent your childhood.’
‘That’s right,’ I said, smiling for the first time since our quarrel. He kept up his endearments and cajolery.
‘Then we thought of ads without any, I mean any of you, I mean without you, and there wasn’t a brochure left. The problem? We couldn’t write a single word. The lawyer showed me the ways in which your condition could be construed. According to him, a word could also be you because the condition includes the words ‘about me’ without any restriction; this could be taken to mean your name, your existence, your symbolism, in fact anything that relates to femininity in this existence. I never expected you to have thought of all that.’
‘What makes you think I did?’
‘Because the condition is meaningless without it. The lawyer showed me it could include the brochure itself, its words, its full stops and its pages.’
‘You won’t be able to do anything without me and I won’t be how you want me to be or for what you want me to be for.’
He didn’t laugh and sat thinking of a way out for the brochure, or how to win me over. Meanwhile, I’d started to think how the brochure could be turned into a rallying call for the condition. Yet I feared that I’d find no other way than having pictures of women splashed over all publications, which I’d vetoed in our very own brochure. Then I thought: what if together we stipulated that we wouldn’t be turned into advertising? Wouldn’t it be earth-shaking? But I got annoyed when my husband said, ‘How I’ve changed since I retired.’ [/ALIGN]