A Serious Widow

by Constance Beresford-Howe

  “Anyhow, I’ll be job hunting soon,” I add calmly. “Not that I can do anything at all anyone would pay for, except maybe cook. I’m not bad with boiling chickens and tough cuts of beef.”

  “How fascinating; John dear, we’ll simply have to rack our brains and come up with something delightful Rowena can do that will pay well and doesn’t need any real ability. The world is full of jobs like that, look at the government. I’m sure we can hit on the very thing, remember that woman we used to know, darling, the one with the wart on her chin – she had some absurd name like Ermentrude – anyhow, she used to pay someone to come in and play with her cat. Or there’s Mike, isn’t there, love, who’s always looking for people to lacquer things – he refinishes furniture.”

  At this point a vague, floating sensation in my head warns me it is time to go. I edge my drink out of sight behind a philodendron in a pink pot and adjust my feet to deal with the challenge of getting up without falling down. The cat gives me a cold glance and hops off my lap.

  “Oh, do you really have to go? – well, you must come again as soon as possible. John will find your coat. Then there’s Steve, another friend of ours – he studied for years and years to be an opera singer, and then decided he didn’t want to be that after all, and began to sell chicken pies that he cooked in his mother’s kitchen. It nearly drove Emma mad, of course, for several different reasons, but he’s actually making quite good money at it now, in a take-away shop of his own. Perhaps he could use somebody to cut up veg. As a matter of fact, we’re having a little evening do here next week for Steve – he’s getting married – do come round and join us – you never know where contacts may lead – I’ll call you soon.”

  Once safely home behind my own door, I find myself smiling foolishly at the walls. The combination of Scotch and Pam has been enough to turn a stronger head than mine. To sober myself, I pull up a chair to the sitting-room bookcase and, as Cuthbert urged, begin one after another to take out and shake open every book, on the off chance that a will may obligingly drop out. In a Victorian novel, of course, it would do that after a delay of only a few hundred pages, but I have little hope anything of the kind will happen in the real world. My mind, as it keeps doing these days, drifts off into trivial reflections instead of busying itself with serious questions (e.g., what is the relationship between language and truth, and does anybody’s last will and testament ever really express it?) – speculations I would have if I were a more impressive woman. Instead I think about the cat Wittgenstein, who seems to like me. I hope the Wrights will remember to invite me over again, and that they won’t be annoyed when they find my unfinished drink.

  It is kind of Tom and Cuthbert, too, I think, shaking open a Greene thriller, to take such an interest, specially since in the past, as Edwin’s friends, they never before seemed much aware of either my identity or my gender. In fact they’ve always treated me rather like a piece of furniture too familiar to be even vaguely interesting, whereas now…

  What an eclectic collection of books ours is. It consists of worn-out paperbacks or shabby out-of-print hardbacks picked up at church bazaars. Marion’s childhood copies of Alice and Grimm jostle Edwin’s do-it-yourself manuals on plumbing and a rain- or tear-soaked copy of The Wide, Wide World. There’s little here to tempt even such a browser as me, but, yawning, I go on dutifully opening even such unlikely sources of a will as Edwin’s prayer book. Once my heart gives a jump when a square of paper flutters out of a borrowed copy of Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, but this turns out to be an old shopping list. The last item on the shelves is a coverless Bleak House, which, for all it is about a lost will, also yields up nothing. Here, though, flipping through the pages, I am seduced into reading about Mr. Guppy’s visit to the Dedlock mansion, where he gaped with such interest at the portrait of a Dedlock ancestress “with large round eyes and other charms to correspond.” There, I think, I must show that to Pamela.

  Just then a rap at the front door makes me start. Who can that be, calling after dark like this? To ignore it seems the prudent thing to do. Then I think it might be Marion, dropping in on impulse, perhaps having lost her key. But no, I remind myself, Marion has no impulses and never loses keys. When the knock comes again, I approach the door in a dither of indecision. Then to my alarm the letterbox flap is raised. A voice muffled by stooping says, “It’s only me, Rowena – Cuthbert.”

  “Oh! Just coming. Hold on a second.” I wrestle the chain free of its slot and let him in.

  “Sorry, I should have called you first,” he says, once more stepping neatly onto the mat where he wipes his galoshes with care before removing them. “Hope I didn’t startle you. But on my way out to get a bite of supper, I suddenly remembered something I meant to mention this morning, only what with everything, it completely slipped my mind. It’s about cash – Edwin’s bank account.”

  “Why don’t you take your coat off, Cuthbert? And if you haven’t eaten yet, will you stay and have something with me? It won’t be very exciting, but I’ve got eggs, and we could have some kind of omelette, if that’s all right for you.”

  “Well, I’d love to, if you’re sure it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Not a bit. Give yourself a glass of sherry while I get organized.” What Edwin would say to this reckless expenditure of alcohol I can’t imagine and don’t much care. Normally a single bottle of sherry and another of port saw us from one Christmas to the next. Well, it’s his own fault for dying and creating the demand. But, aware that my own breath is redolent of Scotch, I hastily munch a soda cracker at the kitchen counter.

  A moment later, Cuthbert comes in, glass in hand. He has something folded small in his free hand, which he furtively shoves under the tea caddy when he thinks I am too busy beating eggs to notice.

  “Yes,” he says, “I can’t imagine how I could have forgotten to mention it this morning; but of course you realize because your bank account was in Edwin’s name, it will be frozen now. Obviously, though, you’ll need some money to go on with, so I’m advancing you some ready cash, Rowena, to meet current expenses and pay any outstanding bills.”

  “Oh, but Cuthbert –” It’s not really surprising that this significant detail should have failed to occur to me, but it surely should have occurred to Marion. Odd that it has not.

  “Now that’s an end to it,” he says firmly. “What’s an old friend for if not to give a hand.”

  “Well, but I really feel –”

  “Enough,” he says. “Just don’t bother yourself one bit about it. As a matter of fact, you know, I’ve been quite rich ever since my father passed on. He left me some nice lakefront property up there in cottage country near Barrie, which I sold and converted into T-bills. And when Mother goes – which I hope will be never – there’ll be a portfolio of pretty good stocks as well. So unless the bottom falls out of everything, I’m quite nicely, thank you. And what have I got to spend money on? Basil’s my only dependant, isn’t he?” He sits down, adding prudently, “Of course if you insist, and if we have any luck with our application for support and assets, you can pay me back some day out of the estate.” He pauses to sip his sherry. “It really is the most frustrating thing we can’t find a will later than the one that fellow showed us, because if only we could, you’d be entitled to seventy per cent of all Edwin had. And I say again, it simply wasn’t like the man to leave you unprovided for.”

  Not trusting myself to comment on that, I say simply, “Well, I’ve looked through every book in the house, and there’s no sign of anything.”

  “Now, you cheer up, Rowena. Such a dear, nice person as you are, somehow or other I just know things are going to work out all right for you.”

  I look up sharply from the tough heel of Cheddar I am grating. “Do you really believe that whether we’re nice or not has anything to do with what happens to us? What a sunny philosophy.”

  “Well, I don’t mean physical things, of course, like diseases. Even then, ulcers don’t happen to tranquil peo
ple, do they, and teetotallers generally have nice healthy livers. Even with accidents – how many accidents are there with no human factor involved? No, I really believe just about everything that happens to a person relates to his inside self somehow. Or hers, of course.”

  “If that’s true, then Edwin killed himself. After, of course, killing me.”

  With something like horror I hear myself (or the Wrights’ Scotch) blurt this out. The naked, devastating truth of it seems to break the air between us into long, destructive shards of glass. Without warning I then burst into noisy sobbing, the bowl of egg mixture still gripped in my hand.

  Calmly, as if neither surprised nor shocked by this outburst, Cuthbert first switches off the heat under the omelette pan, and then wraps his short arms tightly around me. He presses my head into the front of his soft sweater and rocks me to and fro exactly as Nana used to do. He pats my back and murmurs the sort of wordless comfort appropriate for babies. And indeed I feel as outraged and disoriented as any newborn. Eventually he provides a clean handkerchief. Then he says, “There now. That’s better, isn’t it? You needed that. Have a sip of this sherry, Rowena dear. You’ll feel much better now.”

  I blow my nose. “No, I won’t, Cuthbert. This isn’t grief. You don’t understand – and neither did I, really, till just now. It’s so obvious once you put it all together. He got involved with me in the first place against his better judgement – against his conscience – and against the law, come to that. And he resented me for it – how could he not? Punished me for it, too, in various different ways, all those years we were together. Destroyed me, you could even say. As for his death, you might say he ran to keep himself young for me. That would be touching if it were true. But what he did was run to get away from me. And dying the way he did – that was not only the one way of escape for him, it was revenge as well, do you see that? Well, probably not. But I do.”

  “Rowena, let’s go in and sit where it’s comfortable. You’re just very shocked and tired.” He guides me into the sitting-room where, after turning off all but one small table lamp, he draws me down beside him on the sofa. There I lean against him, closing my eyes. In the dim light I all but forget he is there; my own wailing voice seems to be the only real presence in the room.

  “Of course I resented him, too. But that’s nothing to how I feel about him now that I know the lie he lived, and made me live with him. Mrs. Edwin Hill, indeed. But that wasn’t the worst of it. He was the worst of it. When Marion was conceived, for instance. He was furious, as if I’d impregnated myself … For a whole week he barely spoke to me. It meant, among other things, that instead of spending what my grandmother left us on a car, we had to make a down payment on this house, and saddle him with a mortgage as well. So I carried all this guilt around for the rest of the nine months, plus the fear he’d resent me even more if it weren’t a son. Oh, I was so pleased and relieved he turned out to be delighted with a daughter. Of course he was. He already had a son. After that he focused more and more tenderness on her, and less and less on me. That was another surprise, though not so nice a one. After that, without of course denying himself anything, he vetoed any more children, though I badly wanted more. Couldn’t afford it, he said. But he could afford to pack me off to the doctor to be fitted for a thing I loathed using … After that it was the pill, never mind that it gave me headaches and depression. After all, it was only me. And I didn’t exist, except as Mrs. Edwin Hill, did I? And then even my name – if you call it mine – turned out to be a fraud. What a dirty thing betrayal is. It taints the victim, too, because what happened was that I betrayed myself. I collaborated with him. I was even more or less loyal to him. And that’s the worst thing of all.”

  A short silence follows.

  “Blow your nose, dear,” he suggests gently.

  I do that, then settle back inside his arm with a long sigh. After another silence I say, “Your sweater’s all wet. Sorry.”

  “Well, I must say when you cry, you don’t fool around.”

  “Do you want that omelette?”

  “Not really. Do you?”

  “No.”

  “Why don’t you just lie down here and get comfortable.”

  “All right. But please don’t go.”

  “No, no. I’m going to lie down right beside you. How’s that, now. Comfortable?”

  He clicks off the light, removes his glasses, then takes off my shoes and his own. After that he tucks himself close against me with a matter-of-fact cosiness, as if we do this sort of thing every day. A smell of damp wool comes from his cashmere sweater, and from his skin a spicy aroma of aftershave. His proximity feels perfectly natural and so reassuring that in seconds I begin to drift towards sleep. But then his voice in the dark tugs me back.

  “As a matter of fact, you know, even before you told me about yours, the whole idea of marriage has always scared the heck out of me.”

  “Has it?”

  “Well, my parents were what people call a devoted couple, but I lived with them, and that doesn’t quite describe it … That’s one reason I’ve never … I mean, finding somebody you actually want to spend your whole life with … And then I guess I’ve got some hang-ups besides … Just the same, I’m as hetero as anything, you know, Rowena, though plenty of people think otherwise. Girls – women – turn me on so sometimes I can hardly … Well, you know what I mean. But because I don’t look macho, women just aren’t interested. The fact I’ve never actually – that’s beside the point. It’s simply that casual sex is not something I can possibly … well, part of it’s upbringing, of course. My mother, sweet and kind as she is, has very strict notions, and … Anyhow, the truth is sex without commitment just isn’t for me, and that makes me a real freak these days, I know.”

  “Never had a girl-friend?”

  “Not really. Once, years ago, I was sort of engaged to a girl in my last year at Osgoode – that is, I wanted to marry her, but she never would give me a definite answer. Anyhow, one night we were – sort of necking around, and things got – I thought – she seemed more than willing and started to undress me, which I found pretty embarrassing but nice – anyhow, when she saw me – that is, my – she burst out laughing. I found out later she’d done the whole thing as a bet.”

  “Not nice.”

  “No. And you can imagine that didn’t do my various inhibitions one bit of good.”

  His voice shakes a little and I fumble one hand free to lay it on his cheek. “She was stupid, on top of everything else, Cuthbert. Not to know that the size of a man has nothing to do with his manhood.”

  “Well, the problem is, where are the girls I could ever – I mean these smart, tough career women I work with have no time for anybody bald and short and half blind. I go bird-watching with a nice group, but all the women in it are married, except for a couple of sad, cranky singles like myself.”

  “Somebody will come along one day.” But hoping this is true is no real excuse for saying it, I know.

  “No, Rowena, they won’t. I know that.”

  He nuzzles closer and clumsily as a child begins to drop kisses on my face. Half by accident one of these lands on my mouth and instantly ceases to be childish. After my brief courtship days with Edwin, kisses ceased to play any part in our relationship, and now, with astonishment, I feel (for the second time today with Cuthbert) a whole series of mild, delightful stirrings. Since he is, by now, lying half over me, I am aware he is having them, too. For a few minutes, bemused with growing pleasure and half-stunned with fatigue, I accept it all with gratitude. It is very soon clear that, mother or no mother, inexperience is no real problem for Cuthbert; in fact he has plenty of natural aptitude for this kind of thing. Then, abruptly, he gets up.

  “Sorry, Rowena,” he mutters. “Forgive me. You’re so sweet, but I mustn’t … The money isn’t really why I came back here tonight. It’s so lovely to touch you. But I mustn’t.”

  I murmur something drowsily.

  “Tell me you’re not angry.�
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  The truth is that for the first time in forty-eight hours I am free of anger, but I have no energy left to explain this to him.

  “It was wrong of me,” he goes on, “to take advantage … Of course it’s far, far too soon, I know; but would you consider marrying me some day? Don’t say anything now. You’re worn out and I’m going home. But think about it, will you?”

  This unforeseen proposal does not seem much more preposterous than most of the other things that have happened to me recently. I murmur something noncommittal. Sleep is closing thickly around me again. With a faint but audible groan in the dark he resumes his shoes and glasses.

  “Go to sleep now,” he whispers, touching my head. “See you tomorrow.” I feel him gently cover me with the afghan Nana crocheted years ago; but I do not hear him go.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Next morning a square of radiant sky, blue and immaculate, confronts me like the first day of creation. I blink at it, bewildered. For a minute or two I recognize nothing in the room, including myself. The bright light dazzles my eyes. I hear the chirp of sparrows somewhere outside with a kind of amazement, as if they are exotic birds in a fable. It is some time before I can connect or focus the commonplace impressions that drift around me like pieces of dreams: a long arrow of sunlight on the wall; the postman’s whistle as he retreats down the street; the mantel clock, which now politely chimes nine times.

  What on earth has possessed me to fall asleep on the sofa in all my clothes? But the answer to that, when it drifts along, is not one I care to dwell on. It is strange how weak, almost light-headed I feel, as if drained by a long illness. It is a real effort to disentangle myself from the afghan and get clumsily to my feet. The mirror over the mantel reflects without mercy my dishevelled clothes and tangled hair. Fumbling, I collect my shoes. My throat feels hot and dry, so I pad into the kitchen and drink down a large glass of cold milk. Beyond the window the yellow leaves of the maple glow. It occurs to me this whole day is mine, to do what I like with. There is nobody now to defer to, consult, consider or placate. Only yesterday that thought would have been intimidating; now I find it satisfying.