by Edna O'Brien
“Now, one, two, three, begin,” he’d say. We had to keep time, too. Talk about Pavlov’s dogs. I’d have swapped with any of them.
“Will you do things for me?” he said upstairs as I clicked the Venetian blinds closed and drew the curtains. I locked the door.
“Do things!” I’d been working like a maniac for two hours.
“Have you a black brassiere?” he said. Of course I had. Its the only color you don’t have to wash every day. London is so filthy you’d be out of your mind to wear any other color.
“And boots?” he said. ‘Twas around the time that women were wearing high leather boots to dinner parties and everything.
“No,” I said. ‘Twas different for women that had legs like the back of a bus.
“You’ll have to get some,” he said. “And a leather coat.”
“I’ll get Harrods to send the lot around, straightaway,” I said. And then I blew a bit about how I’d heard they sent a van to Northumberland to deliver a biro pen and a rubber. He said not to bother for then, but to put on a sou’wester rain hat if I had one.
“And plenty of soap,” he said.
“Do you want basins of water, too?” I said. I’m a pure slob. I mean, I always think of soap and water together. ‘Twas beginning to feel like a road accident. I got an old rain hat anyhow and left it on the pillow.
He took off his clothes and folded them real neat. I hate that. It means they’re thinking more about not losing the crease in their trousers.
“Sorry about the boots and gear,” I said, “but we’ll have a rehearsal until such time as I get togged out.”
Not a smile out of him. I got undressed real snazzy. Quicker than the instructors that train firemen. I had so little on, for God’s sake. He took one look at my skin and said ‘twas too white. Just think of it. Unfortunate people hanged, drawn, and quartered all over the world for being black and he had to say this. His own skin was pretty nice, smooth and sort of shiny like gold, polished wood with a line of hair down his stomach.
“Does this have a part in the mating ritual?” I said to the line of hair. Trying to get a bit of fun into it.
Well, I plugged in the old electric blanket and we plunged in.
“Have you ever had a woman?” he said.
“Plenty,” said I. I didn’t know for a minute what he meant. I thought of getting it straight about booking the flat for Kate, but it could wait until the high jinks were over.
“Did you ever use milk bottles?” he said, and then it struck me what he meant. So I said no, not at all, had he ever had a man?
“What makes you think that?” he said, real huffy. I didn’t think it. I thought nothing, to tell you the truth, except that we were taking a long time to do what millions of people do every hour of the day before they go to their work or eat their breakfast or cut their toenails. I was beginning to have severe doubts. When he’d half smoked a cigarette he threw back the covers and began a light touch of singeing. You could smell it.
“Wait a minute,” says I. I’d have enough to account with the bruise marks besides having singed hair. Like an ill-plucked chicken.
“You’ll like it,” he said. “It will excite you.” Excite! I was about going out of my mind with excitement. I didn’t like it. I knew some man that went in for that kind of frolic and giving women whiffs of ammonia, and he ended up in the clink and about ten of them ended up in their graves.
“Come on,” I said, putting the sou’wester on and getting all lovey-dovey. He put the cigarette out and we got down to business.
“Is it big enough for you?” he said. Men worry about that a terrific lot.
“Enormous,” I said.
“You’re a bright girl,” he said. Men are pure fools. Then the hipbone bit came, which I took to be a mere preliminary, and when I said he was welcome to press all, he said, “It’s gone to sleep.” They worry about that a terrific lot, too.
He said that he wanted to kiss my teeth. I have two teeth on a brace, for God’s sake. My teeth were the last things I wanted him to kiss. We lay quite still for a while and he said our bodies were as if a painter had flung them together on canvas. Did I like that? Did I think he was clever? I said yes to everything. I asked what things in the world he liked.
“The inside of a kitten’s mouth,” he said. “It’s like water, only it’s soft.”
Boy, was he making me feel wanted. I asked him then what he was afraid of. I got really frantic to make conversation.
“That I’ll lose any of my teeth,” he said. A born flatterer. I got the inference.
“And I’m afraid that I’m not as good a drummer as I think I am,” he said, then jumped up and looked at his wristwatch, which he’d left on the bedside table. He said he’d soon have to go because he was playing that night.
“I thought we were going to make love,” I said. Between you and me, I really did.
“No,” he said, “not today.” Then he said that I wasn’t ready and that I talked too much.
“With me,” he said, “it has to be pure. It has to be the most pure thing in the world, like the inside of a kitten’s mouth.”
“I can see how you make love to twenty-five women in one evening,” I said to stab him. It worked like a dream. He got all virile then, and with the aid of me, the sou’wester, and himself, he came out of his sleep and set to, to seduce me. We were engaged about four minutes flat when I heard him say, “I came. I didn’t think I would.”
“You’re joking,” I said. By now I’d lost any notion I had that things were going to work out.
“You must promise me something,” he said then.
“Anything,” I said. He was that vain he didn’t even notice the sarcasm.
“That you won’t get pregnant,” he said.
“I’ll try not to,” I said.
“But promise me,” he said. He was an imbecile. On second thought, I was the imbecile. I suppose he thought with the tights and the elaborate bathrooms I knew all there was to know.
In about two seconds he got up and dressed himself and was all concentrated doing his tie knot in front of the mirror. I flung my clothes on, readjusted the blinds and curtains, bashed the pillows a bit, and smoothed the bottom sheet. Things weren’t very tossed, anyhow. He wouldn’t wait for coffee, just got me to ring for a taxi and then, real surprised, banged his pockets and found he had no money.
“Loan me a pound,” he said. I gave him nineteen and eleven just to see if anything would wring a laugh out of him.
“About the studio for Kate?” I said, out on the front steps. I wanted to fix another appointment, to keep things going. Because although he bored me he didn’t bore me all that much.
“Sure,” he said, “I’ll ring you tomorrow,” and then he made his big joke by punching me in the stomach, showing me what pals we were. The taxi came and he lifted the drum down the steps and said was it all right to leave the gate open because he couldn’t manage to fasten it? I closed the hall door before the taxi moved off.
I felt awful, I can’t tell you how awful I felt. One thing I knew, I was going to be saddled with all this guilt and I not having a bit of enjoyment out of it, only exertion. I rang Brady to tell her the flat wouldn’t be ready for a few days but she wasn’t there. Out drowning herself, I imagined.
Cooney didn’t come the next morning. There was an impudent note stuck under the door to say she wanted her cards and compensation.
“What does this mean?” Frank said. He opens my letters. He was in a flaming humor, trying to put on his cuff links.
“Oh, one of her moods,” I said. “You know how she is.”
“That’s no answer,” he said. He’d smelled a rat already, because when he came home the evening before I was carting the stuff in from the coal house.
“What in the hell are you doing?” he said. “That’s valuable mahogany furniture, I’ll have you know.”
“Just french-polishing it,” said I. The stuff was covered with coal dust.
The
n he went to the sink and saw the two good cups, saucers, and plates.
“Who was here?” he asked.
“A poor old man,” I said. I couldn’t think of one person’s name.
“I’ll have to go and speak to Mrs. Cooney,” I said, doing the second cuff link for him. We were having a dinner party that night, the brother and his wife, and some architects, and some big merchants that they were soft-soaping to get a deal out of.
“How many courses?” he said.
“About five.” I hadn’t a clue what we were having. I hadn’t given it a thought, you can imagine why.
“Don’t forget about the cranberry sauce,” he said.
He got cranberry sauce in some house and he thinks it’s the biggest deal he ever had.
“You can’t have cranberry sauce unless you have turkey,” I said.
“Well, bloody well have turkey,” he said. “Have two turkeys.”
“A cock and a hen?” I said. I was as briary as hell.
“None of that smut,” he said, lifting a hairbrush. I skipped away in case it developed into a fracas. He shouted something going out, and I knew that he’d take revenge by yelling at bogmen that are no better than himself.
At about half past ten the brother’s wife rang to know was it dress. Imagine a bunch of us tripping each other up in long frocks in our own front room.
“Wear anything you like,” I said. I was looking up in the directory to see if the drummer was listed. I was going to ask him when Kate moved in. Very obvious tactics.
“What are you wearing?” she said. She thinks of nothing else. Someone could tell her a story of a woman that was raped and murdered on Waterloo Bridge and she’d say, “What was she wearing?”
“Any old thing,” I said.
“That’s fine,” she said, “I’ll do the same. I’m glad it’s nothing elaborate.”
“Well, I had better get a move on,” I said.
“What’s Lady Margaret wearing?”
“How would I know?”
Lady Margaret was the only titled person he and the brother knew. They got in with her for giving monumental subscriptions to some charity organization that she championed. Bitches like that take up charity to get their photos in the paper. Good thing he met her, because before that we had a bit of a catastrophe with a duchess. We went to the local pub when we first moved to here because it said outside DINE AND DRINK LIKE A KING and he liked that. Anyhow, there was a woman there that everyone called the Duchess. She was a gas card, all wrinkles and rouge, and one of those eejity coats with a flared skirt and a fur collar. The minute he heard one of the boys calling her Duchess he got real interested.
“We ought to offer her a drink,” says he. She was knocking back gins like nobody’s business. Well, he didn’t dare approach her that night, but next night he said we’d go around again, and I knew what he was aiming at. We hung around that bar for hours, then she came in with a couple of midgets that were probably jockeys.
“She probably has a few good tips for the Grand National,” he said.
“So have you,” I said. I hated to see him that desperate to get in with anyone.
Every time a tray of drinks was brought to her table he’d look over. He was plucking up courage. Finally he sent over a round just before closing time, and she raised her glass and beckoned us to come over.
“Cheers, Duchess,” he said. She lapped that up. We all got introduced, and then he said why didn’t they come back with us for a drink? I was in my own kitchen making Irish coffee for them when he burst out: “Christ Almighty,” he said, “it’s a nickname. She’s not a real duchess at all.”
I burst out laughing into his face.
“Get her out of here,” he said. “She might flog the silver!”
“Well, watch her,” said I. I couldn’t very well throw her out.
“Watch her! I can’t face her again. I asked her what her crest was, and she said, ‘Mop and pail, governor.’ “
“Is the Monsignor coming?” my sister-in-law asked. I said of course. Frank won’t tile a roof until he’s discussed it with the Monsignor. She hates it that the Monsignor is more friendly with us than with them. I could just see him beside the fire, raving away about you can’t beat an open fire, and full of well-being from the double cream sherry. Suffer the decanter to come unto me. I really was in a hell of a humor.
“Must go,” I said to the sister-in-law. “See you later.” The drummer wasn’t listed, so I decided to give him a day, and if he hadn’t rung me by then I’d drive up next day and bring Brady as a homeless orphan. I rang and told her.
“I can’t sleep,” she said. “I can’t eat. I keep going over and over it.”
“Get out,” I said. “Get an interest.”
“In what?” she said. I began to rack my brains. Mother of Jesus, I don’t know why I was worrying about her when I had me to worry about. I was really stuck on that drummer.
One can’t be tough all the time. My teacup looked ominous, too. I told Brady we were having a dinner party and if she wanted any scraps she could come around to the back door for the leavings. First she said she didn’t eat, then she said she had some pride left, and thirdly she had indigestion. I hung up after I’d promised to talk to her later, to mend her life, to get old Eugene gone on her again, to fix an audience with the Pope, and some last suppers with wise, beneficent men.
“I’ll make it up to you, Baba,” she said. I’d been hearing that particular tune from her, in that particular tone of voice, for about twenty years now. I was tired of it.
I said, “See you later.”
I had to go after Cooney and make a real servile fool of myself.
She had to get two lots of fivers as a bribe: one to keep her mouth shut about drummer boy and the other to come over and cook the dinner. I wouldn’t know what side to lay a turkey on.
“Did he stay late,” says she, “your pianist?” She knew well he wasn’t a pianist. She was just trying to get me to contradict her so that we would have another row and I’d dole out more fivers.
“He was working,” said I. “He left soon after you.”
“I was thinking when I saw the curtains drawn that you’d hardly have gone to bed with him downstairs drumming.”
“Hardly,” I said. I was opening tins like a maniac—cranberries, blueberries, all sorts of berries. I’m a dab hand at opening tins.
“Lovely drum,” she said. “Lovely instrument. I wouldn’t say no to one for Christmas.”
I can take a hint as well as anyone.
We worked like troopers all day, and I kept a chair near the kitchen door so that I’d hear the telephone ringing in the hall.
“You’re a bundle of nerves,” she said.
“For a stupid woman you have great perception,” I said. Anyone could see I was a bundle of nerves. I broke three glasses, and cutlery was flying out of my hand as if I were a goddamn medium in some poltergeist play. We got things more or less right, anyhow, and she did some snazzy sauces. If only she weren’t so low I’d have liked her.
At seven they started arriving. Lady Margaret first. Linked up the steps by her chauffeur, as if she were a cripple or something.
“Midnight,” she said, and he tipped his hat and went off. Her boots were full of snow and she had to change, of course, and the hall was ruined with puddles. You’d think it was a little doggie or something.
“Any little Duracks on the way?” she said to me upstairs. She always said that to me when she got me upstairs, and I always said I thought there were. Just to get her off it. She took ages to do her hair, and put more stuff on her face, which was already like enamel. She said her mink had been dyed to a color that no other mink in the British Isles could approach.
“You should get one—not like mine, of course,” she said.
“I will,” I said. “There’s tons of them at the railway lost-property offices.” Honest to God, I’d seen notice boards about it. Ranch mink and wild mink and blue mink. She didn’t like tha
t; I could see by the way she hurried out of the bedroom and down the spiral stairs in a hurry.
“Maggsie,” Frank said, glorying in it. It’s a phony name he invented to make it seem they’re old school chums. She gave him one of those non-kisses that dressed-up women give. You know, touch-me-not. I went to the door again because the little architect had arrived. She was nice enough, and took her plastic overshoes off in the hall and made no big fuss about going upstairs to view herself. The big merchant was almost on her heels and he asked me if I got the flowers before I had a chance to thank him. White chrysanthemums came. I had them on show, of course, and the room looked quite happy, with all of us apparently having a gay evening and Frank standing next to me with his arm on my shoulder. Proprietory. Married bliss. Big fire burning in the granite fireplace. Bottles of red wine stood near to warm up; white wine getting chilled. Don’t think we got that information for free—I took a course along with the dreariest collection of women you could summon up.
Cooney was banging saucepans like hell down in the kitchen and Frank was coughing before getting on with the two stories he’d planned to tell. It was a month when everyone had a cough or a head cold and catarrh sounds orchestrated the hectic conversation.
“You won’t believe it,” he said, “but I met a man today, and he has three hundred and sixty-five shirts. One for every day of the year.”
“He needs one extra for the leap year,” said I to the little architect girl, who looked as if she might be realizing what a vile evening she’d let herself in for.
The thing about Frank and the brother is they hire nice people. They have boys who would sit up all night on that building site just to make sure that buckets aren’t stolen. Now and then they get what Frank calls a hobo on the site. Someone with a bit of common sense that knows about unions and strikes and things. And boy, do they have him fall off a scaffold!
“And after he’s worn his shirt once,” Frank was saying, “he has it beautifully laundered by the French nuns.” There’s a posh laundry where nuns hand-wash and hand-iron shirts at vast expense. Must be tough on the poor nuns, never having a date with any of the men.