He sees her face.
“Did you think I meant that sarcastically, Morag? I didn’t. Your speech has a directness which one often does not encounter in academic circumstances. Where do you come from?”
She does not say.
“Oh–nowhere, really. A small town.”
“Your family lives there?”
“I don’t have any family, actually. I was brought up by–”
By no one. She cannot speak Christie’s name, Prin’s name.
“I was brought up by some friends, well, acquaintances of my parents,” she finishes. “They’re no relation to me. My parents died when I was very young.”
“You seem very calm about it,” he says, looking at her as though from a great distance, behind his glasses. Then his face relents and she sees that what she has taken for disapproval is in fact a kind of admiration.
“It happened when I was really very young,” Morag says. “I don’t remember it. Or at least hardly at all. I guess I was too young to be affected much.”
Untrue. But she does not want to pose as brave, which would be even more untrue.
“And these–acquaintances who brought you up?”
“We were never–close.”
“Have you had a lonely sort of life, Morag?” His voice is not prying; he needs to know, though, for some reason.
“In a way, I guess. Perhaps no more than most.”
Dr. Skelton smiles, as though touching her, not in either amusement or pity.
“You’re proud, I would guess. Am I right?”
“I can’t bear pity,” Morag says.
Dr. Skelton’s face is no longer smiling.
“You needn’t worry,” he says. “You’ll not get that from me, ever.”
Ever? That is a long time. She does not feel able to interpret him.
“I had a relatively solitary life myself, as a boy,” he says. “I was born in India. My father was Headmaster of a boys’ school not far from Calcutta. Church of England school. I was pretty much alone as a youngster.”
“But if it were a boys’ school–”
“No. I didn’t go to school there. I was sent to England to boardingschool when I was six.”
“That’s–awful. Like that kid in that Kipling story, ‘Ba Ba Black Sheep.’”
“Not quite like that,” Dr. Skelton says. “I wasn’t so easily browbeaten. Nor quite so shortsighted, either. I liked the school once I got used to it. Still, in retrospect, I don’t remember childhood as a golden era.”
“It must be interesting to have a past like that, though,” Morag says, regretting the naive words as soon as they are uttered. “I mean, India and like that.”
“Fascinating.” Dr. Skelton grins. “Exotic as all hell. Don’t hunch up your shoulders, Morag. I didn’t mean that as any slur against your response. It was interesting. I loved India as a child. I used to go back on holidays. I still miss it. What sort of a past do you feel yours was, then? Or perhaps you’re still too young to have considered it very much.”
“I’m twenty,” Morag says. “Or nearly. I don’t feel–I don’t know, I just feel as though I don’t have a past. As though it was more or less blank.”
She will not–she will not–tell him about the town, and Christie, and all. Scavenger Logan. No. Not ever.
“That’s a strange thing to say, Morag. Almost more interesting than having a past.”
“You mean–An aura of mystery surrounded her?”
They laugh. Morag feels she has never felt so close to anyone before, except of course Ella, which is different.
“Come on, mysterious one,” Dr. Skelton says. “I’ll drive you home.”
“You can’t. I live away to hell and–I mean, my boardinghouse is away out in the North End.”
“No matter.”
The car finally skids and slithers successfully through the snow, and they reach the Crawleys’ house.
“You were right,” Dr. Skelton says. “It is away to hell and gone. Why do you live here?”
“It was the first place I looked at, and I thought I wouldn’t find another. Now I don’t like to move. They’re nice people.”
“I like you, Morag.” He reaches up and removes her glasses, simultaneously removing his own. “Life has many hazards for the not-fully-sighted–have you noticed?”
He then kisses her. It is not a friendly or teacherly salute. It is knowledgeably hard, his tongue exploring her mouth, not coolly or hesitantly but with insistence. Morag responds, as usual, instantly, but more so than ever before. If he should ask her to strip in the exposed and icy car and make love with him here and now, no holds barred, she would do so.
Dr. Skelton breaks away. Heavy breathing from them both. “I’ve wanted to do that for quite a while,” he says. “Here–have a cigarette.”
Cigarettes for safety. Morag, shaking, takes one.
“Dr. Skelton–”
She stops. You cannot call a man Dr. Skelton when he has just kissed you with his entire body.
“Brooke,” Brooke says. “At least, out of class.”
He sounds miserable, and she enquires with her eyes.
“Oh, nothing,” he says. “It’s just–well, goddamn, I’m thirty-four and you are a child.”
“No,” Morag says clearly. “I am far from a child, Brooke–you know that.”
“Do I? When you’re fifty, I’ll be sixty-four. You wouldn’t be happy.”
“I would. I would. I’ve never before–”
“You seem very sure.”
“I am,” Morag says. “I always am, over things that matter. I always know. But what–what do you like about me?”
He kisses her some more before replying.
“What do I like about you? I don’t even think I can say. You’re not exactly beautiful, but you will be. I don’t know. You’ve got a kind of presence.”
He laughs, as though being serious is a treat at the moment.
“Perhaps it’s your mysterious nonexistent past,” he says. “I like that. It’s as though you are starting life now, newly.”
Morag’s feelings exactly. Now, however, now that it matters, she would like to tell Brooke everything, to make sure. Clowny Macpherson. Piper Gunn and the Bitch Duchess. Gunner Gunn and the War. The snapshots. Christie ranting the Logans’ war cry, the pathetic motto and crest. The Nuisance Grounds. Prin, so long ago. The valley–the Tonnerre shack.
No. No.
“You’d better go now, Morag,” Brooke says gently. “Go now, my dear. If you stay here, I’ll turn the car around and drive you back to my flat, and that wouldn’t be a good idea.”
Why not? But she does as he says. His car chuffs off through the loose whiteness of the road.
If she cannot be with him from now on, and live with him inside her and outside her in every way, she will not be able to bear the pain. She is all at once without shame of any kind, totally unscrupulous in what she would do, totally vulnerable. She will do whatever he wants her to do.
It will never happen. He would never consider marrying anyone like her. If he knew where she had come from. Or if he knew what she was really like, for that matter. Could she be exactly what he wants? What does he want? She will find out. She will conceal everything about herself which he might not like. None of Christie’s swearing.
It will be useless, though. It will never happen. He will change his mind. Or believe the age difference matters.
She is numb with too much hope, too little hope.
They are walking down Portage Avenue. Brooke reaches out for her hand. Students may see. This matters less and less.
“You know, love, you have a quality of innocence that’s very moving,” he says. “I don’t mean naïveté. I mean genuine innocence. I’m not like that. I’ve lived too long for that, and in too many places. But it’s a quality I love in you.”
She wants to tell him she is not like that, either. She also has lived too long for that. The state of original grace ended a long time ago.
“Brooke–I think I
should tell you about my childhood. All about it. I think I should.”
He laughs a little.
“All right, if you really want to.”
Brooke’s apartment is the size of five minutes. A miniature livingroom with hideous pale mauve walls which the previous tenant fancied and which he cannot be bothered to repaint. Bookshelves everywhere. A worn sofa covered with a very large and elegant white Kashmir shawl with intricately embroidered flowers and strange unworldlike birds in coral and black and leafgreen. A leather chair. A table. Prints of Renoir and van Gogh on the walls. Some pieces of Benares brass–a vase, several bowls enamelled in soft turquoise and clear brilliant red, patterns of birds and flowers and leaves, from a world too far from this one. The kitchen is actually more of a large cupboard with sink and two-burner hotplate. The bedroom contains a large and beautiful walnut spool bed, Brooke’s desk, an austere dresser. The bathroom is so small you couldn’t swing a cat in it (if you should ever desire to engage in such an activity–where do these phrases come from?). Morag thinks the apartment (flat, to Brooke) is beautiful.
“Shall we have some sherry before you tackle the eggs and bacon, which is all there is here at the moment for dinner?”
“Please,” Morag says, having recently learned to say, simply, Please, instead of Oh yes thanks I’d just love some, or, worse, Okay that’d be fine.
“Now what’s all this about your nefarious past?” Brooke says, smiling.
“Not nefarious. But–well–Christie and Prin Logan, the people who brought me up–”
“Prin?”
“She was christened Princess.”
Brooke bursts out laughing.
“No–it wasn’t all that funny. She–they–were quite poor, you see, and–”
She cannot go on. She looks away from Brooke and sees Hill Street.
Brooke is holding her now. She realizes she is crying.
“Hush,” he says. “Hush, love. Listen–don’t tell me. All I want to know is this–were they cruel to you? I mean, did they ever–well, mistreat you? Or did the man–you know–ever try anything?”
Morag stops crying instantly.
“No. Of course not. It was nothing like that. Nothing like that at all.”
“Well,” Brooke says, “it has been known to happen, you know.”
“Yes,” Morag says. “I know.”
“You know in theory,” Brooke says, “but you don’t really know. My dearest love, you’re very young.”
She knows in more than theory, about some things. Vernon Winkler, as a small boy, being beaten by Gus. Eva crying in the dancehall, and the night that followed, and Christie taking the small unformed corpse (could it be called that? what would it have looked like?) and giving it burial. The valley, the snow and the fire.
“I don’t think I ever felt all that really young,” Morag says apologetically.
“Nonsense,” Brooke says, holding her more tightly. “You were and are. That’s one thing I love about you. You’re serious, but you’re happy, too. You’ve got a talent of laughter that’s lovely and heartwarming. It restores me, and I love it.”
“Brooke–I am happy, with you. And anything else–Manawaka and that–it’s over. It doesn’t exist. It’s unimportant.”
“That’s right, my love. Don’t talk about it–it only upsets you. I only want to know you as you are now, my tall and lovely dark-haired Morag, my love, with your very touching seriousness and your light heart. Never be any different, will you?”
“Never. I promise.”
Then they are exploring one another’s bodies, and Brooke, lying on her, is hard and demanding, and she rises to him. Now neither of them wants to stop, or can.
“A damn sofa is no place to make love,” Brooke says grimly, and despite themselves they both laugh.
The bed, true, is better. Morag feels no hesitance about peeling off her clothes. She is, in fact, undressed first.
“Let me look at you,” Brooke says, when they are lying together. “Oh my love, you’re so goddamn beautiful.”
He, too, is beautiful. His long body is taut, spare, lean. His ribs can faintly be seen under the skin, and the hair on his chest is light browngold, the colour his hair was before it became grey. His cock is proud, long, ready, and she wants to touch it but wonders if he would think this too forward of her, so soon. He sees where her glance is, and smiles.
“Don’t be alarmed, love,” he says. “Women always wonder, the first time they see a man naked and erect, if there’s enough room inside themselves. Well, there is.”
“Yes.”
The first time they see a man naked. Should she tell him? But she cannot. What would he think of her? But is she deceiving him? Perfidious Morag. If she tells him about Jules, he will leave her. She cannot. Would he understand? Would any man? She does not think so, and cannot bear to take the chance.
“Put your hands there, my love. There–that’s good. You’re not shy–you have no false modesty. I knew you wouldn’t.”
Then their skins are close and touching all over, arms and legs entwined around one another, close close. And then he breaks away and fishes a small purple envelope from under the pillow, and takes out the safe, and she looks away, all at once embarrassed at this intrusion of some world outside their two selves, a world of drugstore and smirks.
Soon it is all right again, though. But when he tries to go into her, and she wanting him with every blood vessel and muscle in her, it hurts her. She tries not to let on, but her body betrays her and she flinches. Brooke is desperate, hardly able to hold back but unable to go on hurting her. Then he collapses, away from her.
“Oh christ, Morag. I can’t hurt you. I can’t.”
“Brooke–I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
She has failed him. He strokes her hair, her face, her breasts. Then lights cigarettes for them both.
“Hush, love. It doesn’t matter. I shall just have to be–well, as gentle as I can, and patient.”
“Brooke, I don’t mind if it hurts the first time or so–”
He grins wanly.
“I’m not very experienced with virgins,” he says. “Well, at least it’s proof positive, isn’t it?”
“What if I hadn’t been?” she asks.
There is a chill in her voice which her own ears catch, but mercifully he does not seem to notice.
“But you are, love, so the question doesn’t arise, does it? Idiot child, I wouldn’t have thrown you out on the street. I would’ve been–well, disappointed, I expect.”
“Why, Brooke?”
Now she is remembering overhearing a conversation between two boys in the college coffee shop. I was all set to throw her the ice and it wasn’t one of your two-bit rings neither and then she gave in and whaddya know I wasn’t the first on that road so I thought the hell with that jazz.
“I don’t know, love,” Brooke says. “I suppose I like to feel that it’s something you’ve only experienced with me. It’s–well, if I didn’t care about you, I wouldn’t feel that way, would I? I think most men would feel that way about their woman.”
Their woman. Her clenched and doubting guts now dissolve with gratitude and care.
“Am I your woman, then, Brooke? For sure?”
He laughs and draws her close.
“For sure, my darling. For absolute bloody certain.”
His wife, then? Morag would be willing to be his mistress, fancy woman, kept woman, moll, or whatever. Just so he doesn’t leave her. Just so they can always be together, always and always.
“Brooke–I love you so much.”
“And I love you so much, my love. Aren’t you going to ask if I intend to make an honest woman of you?”
“Well, you haven’t made a dishonest one of me yet. Not that that was your fault.”
“Oh, it’s like that, is it? You’re asking for it, then, love?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“Well, this time I’ll make a dishonest woman out of you. Oh my love, just relax and
try to trust me.”
“I do trust you, Brooke. And I’ll try–”
It still, however, hurts like hell. She wants only to focus upon him, upon the two of them together. But remembers how, in medieval times or somewhere, if the sheets weren’t bloody, the bride was considered a disaster and a jezebel and might be sent packing home to Ma and Pa. Imagine being sent packing to Christie and Prin for that reason. Prin wouldn’t understand what was going on. Christie would laugh his fool head off.
For one unbelievable and appalling second, Morag is suddenly homesick for Manawaka. Then the moment of inner-talk passes and she is again with Brooke.
“Brooke–”
“My love–oh God, I can’t keep it any longer–”
And he goes off, inside deep deep inside her herownself and she is inhabited by him at last.
Afterwards, when they are their separate selves once more, they are not separate.
“Morag, listen, my love, it’ll be better for you soon. It really will. I promise you.”
“I know. I do know. And it was fine–it was fine, anyway.”
“Morag?”
“Mm?”
“Listen, dear one. I’ve been offered a post in Toronto, full professor. Would you like Toronto, do you think?”
Would she like Toronto? Would she like Paradise? With Brooke, and away from the prairies entirely.
“Of course I would. Of course. Of course.”
But so strongly does she feel about this response that her voice comes out like a croak. She clears her throat.
“Sorry. Frog in my throat. Oh Brooke–Toronto would be great.”
Dramatic effect is somewhat marred, second time. Frog in the throat? What a gruesome expression. Who could ever have thought that one up? Ugh. Those clammy clambering teeny saurian legs in your gullet, for God’s sake? Worse, more hideous than crab-claws but why think of that now for heaven’s sake, crabs another word for VD or is it lice? She doesn’t know enough. Why think of any of that with the cleanest best man ever to walk God’s earth? But why did he say Women always wonder if there will be enough room in themselves, etcetera, and then said Not much experience with virgins. Well, no one would expect or want him to be a virgin at thirty-four and what a disaster it would’ve been if he had been. Crab is also Cancer the zodiac sign, Morag’s sign, and they always say lucky in career but not so hot luck in love, although oriented towards children and family. What a load of garbage. But to have Brooke’s children–that is what she now sees is necessary in the deepest part of her being. What a sign to have, though, Cancer, and why think of that in connection with a frog in your throat? Words words words. Words haunt her, but she will become unhaunted now, forevermore.
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