Harold is a broadcaster. He reads the news. He does not read many books, but of course he would like to, if ever he had the time for it. He has recently split up with his wife, who has their two kids. He misses the kids, and can see them only every other Sunday and even then his wife is always there, so how can he talk to them, with her sitting there vetting his every word?
“Are you married, Morag?”
“Divorced.”
The evening grinds on.
“Can I drive you home?” Harold asks, an hour later.
In the car, complex problems go on in Morag’s head. Should she ask him up for a drink, or would he interpret that as over-eagerness? Impossible, anyway, as Carol is there. Why worry about Carol? Because Carol will tell her ma, is why, and Carol’s mother will then refuse to allow her innocent (ha ha) daughter to babysit for an immoral lady who brings men home. If Harold makes the suggestion should Morag go to his apartment instead? Nope. Two strikes against that one. Carol has to be home by midnight. Secondly, Morag does not have her diaphragm with her–she will never carry it in her purse, as that seems in some mysterious way unprincipled and also probably a bad omen.
Harold stops the car in front of the house on Begonia Road. He carefully takes off his glasses and places them in the glove compartment. Morag’s glasses are in her handbag and she feels as though she is looking at the world through six fathoms of seawater. Then Harold kisses her. Morag struggles with her sex so as not to appear to respond with instant swiftness. The poor guy doesn’t want to be raped, after all. But he seems pretty eager, too.
“Can I come up to your place for a while, Morag?”
“Yes,” she says, and then, “but do you mind waiting here in the car until the babysitter’s gone home?”
“You’ve got a kid?” Harold enquires, as though appalled. “I didn’t know you had a kid.”
Is this the exit line?
“Well, I do,” Morag says flatly.
“How old?”
“One.”
What is he thinking, and why doesn’t he say? Why ask how old? Is one year old okay–not talking yet, or not much, and presumably not likely to come pattering in at the wrong moment? What if she’d said three or five?
“Well, sure, okay,” Harold says finally. “I’ll wait here.”
When Carol has trotted off home, Harold comes upstairs. Morag has checked on Pique. Asleep, thank God.
The appropriate rituals have to be observed. A drink. Lighting cigarettes which are obviously going to burn away in the ashtray. Morag wonders if Harold is only doing it this way because he thinks she expects it. If he thought she didn’t expect this small theatrical act before the real act, he’d be out of here like a shot, probably.
Jules never put on that act. But then Jules was never much of a games-player. At this thought, and at her sudden terrible desire to see Jules and hold him, Morag feels she is betraying the man here with her now.
They then are in bed, and this man now and here is inside her, and Morag is present here and now. Her need for him, for the pressure of his sex, is so great that she finds it difficult to hold back enough to accommodate his time. He has drunk a lot more than she has, and is in consequence slower. Then she cannot stop herself, and her consciousness is submerged, drenched in this spasm of gladness.
He laughs a little.
“You wanted that for a long time, didn’t you?” he says.
This is true. But she does not like the arrogance in his voice. On the other hand, possibly it is not arrogance at all, but only resentment or even apology for the fact that he has not yet come. Morag wants to reassure him, but does not know what words would be acceptable to him. She tries to bring him, not knowing what acts will be best for him, and not wanting to ask. Finally, his own effort or frenzy succeeds, or appears to. It is so brief and unstrong that Morag is not sure it has really happened at all. Has she ruined it for him by being first? Or was it just the booze? She won’t ever know. The casualness of this association now hurts her.
Harold kisses her lightly at the door, and leaves.
“I’ll call you,” he says.
Morag’s own uncertainty tells her she won’t hear from him again. But if he did think he hadn’t done all that well, he may call again in order to show his prowess.
That is an unworthy thought, Morag.
Harold does phone, for whatever reasons, several days later. “My, my, living it up, aren’t we?” Fan says with approval, as Morag waits for Harold to pick her up.
Restaurant. Dinner. Then back to Harold’s apartment, which is glossy and looks unlived-in. Harold drinks very little, and ultimately comes with unquestionable strength. For Morag, it is less good than the first time, although she finds it difficult to understand why. The Black Celt within seems to be threatening her spirit.
“That was great, eh?” Harold says.
“Yes.”
She smiles at him, and wonders what they can possibly talk about. Dinner has exhausted the topic of Harold’s job at the radio station, his dislike of smartass disc-jockeys who think they own the place, the ways in which a broadcaster has to look after his voice, how to avoid laryngitis, and so on.
They get dressed, and Harold in a remarkably short time goes through half a bottle of rye, probably out of sheer relief.
“My wife,” Harold says, “is the bitchiest bitch in this town, you know that? The first year we’re married, I go four thousand bucks into debt on account of her. And now she’s saying she’s going to take me to the cleaner’s for alimony. She admits it quite openly. She’s out to ruin me. I’m fighting it, though. Just before we split up, she was berserk, I kid you not. Broke dishes, the whole bit. Said I’d been running around. I wasn’t running around, Morag. Sure, okay, there’d been a coupla women, but they didn’t mean anything.”
“Yeh. Well, maybe she was jealous. I mean, of you. If she hadn’t been doing the same thing. Maybe she felt she lacked experience, or something.”
“Who, her? Not a chance. She was this little girl from Blackfly, B.C., a little mouse. Or so I thought until she blew her stack. She got really impossible, I’m telling you. I couldn’t take the dog for a walk but what she’d be quizzing me when I got back. And yell. Could that woman yell. Want another drink?”
“No, thanks. I have to be getting home.”
“In a minute. Well, like I was saying–”
Morag is bored and anxious. Her sympathies are increasingly with Harold’s wife. This makes her feel apologetic towards Harold. She has been using him. He, however, has also been using her.
“Harold, don’t bother driving me home, eh? I’ll get a cab.”
“Absolutely not. You’ll do no such thing. I won’t allow it. One more for the road, and then I’ll drive you.”
Harold handles the car with reckless zeal. Morag curses herself.
Jesus, lover of my soul, get me out of this. Please please please.
“For God’s sake, Harold, don’t drive so fast.”
“I’m okay. I always get there safely. Just relax, relax.”
Through some miracle, he does indeed pilot the car to Begonia Road. Then things become all at once strange. He takes Morag’s hand and sits quietly for a moment. This gesture surprises her, so she waits, wondering if he is all right. Should she suggest black coffee?
“Know something, Morag?” he says finally.
“What?”
His grip tightens on Morag’s hand.
“I really love that woman,” he says. “And it was always great, in bed. And then, you know what she said to me when I moved out? She said it had never been any good for her. Never. Not even once. That’s what she told me.”
What is there to say? Who hurts whom?
Harold puts his head down on the steering wheel and cries. Morag holds his hand. That is all she can think of, to do. At last he raises his head and takes off his glasses. Dries them with a Kleenex. It is only when she sees his determined hands mopping the surface of his glasses with the flimsy white tis
sue that Morag wants also to cry.
“Sorry about that,” he says brusquely.
“It’s all right. Really. It’s okay.”
“Well–goodnight.”
He does not phone her again, of course, but she knows he has got back safely to his apartment because she hears him reading the news the next day.
Even if he had called, she would not really have wanted to see him again. Sadness is everywhere.
Memorybank Movie: Chas
Snapshot: Pique, age three and a half, clad in overalls and a T-shirt, her dark and now-long hair in a ponytail, grins gleefully as she sits on the new swing in the back yard of the house on Begonia Road. This is all that the picture shows–a small girl, who looks like both her parents and like neither, smiling over a new swing. When Pique grows up, will she have any memory of the other things from this time, the things which the snapshot doesn’t show?
“Tell another story, Mum.”
“One more, and then you go to sleep, and no argument, okay?”
“Okay.” Laughter.
“You’re a monkey, Pique.”
“No, I’m not. I’m full of beans.”
“You sure are. All right–settle down.”
Pique is still at the small-animal type of story. Once upon a time there was a robin, etcetera. Later on, will Morag tell her the old tales of Piper Gunn who led his people on the long march up north, and Rider Tonnerre the buffalo hunter? Will Pique want to hear the stories, or only be bored?
The story over, Pique still tries.
“I feel sick, Mum.”
“Listen,” Morag says with chagrin, “you were fine five minutes ago. Where do you feel sick?”
“Here.” Hand on stomach.
The old problem. Is Pique play-acting or not? Is this guile or the beginning of appendicitis? How to tell? Morag goes by the theory that the kid will either get better or will get worse, perceptibly, and if the latter, then it will be time enough to phone the doctor. In practise, however, Morag worries incessantly at such times and often phones the doctor unnecessarily.
“Well, listen, honey, you just try to sleep now and I’ll come in after a while and see how you are.”
Morag reads in the livingroom for an hour, and then goes into the child’s bedroom. Pique is asleep.
The doorbell. Morag flies downstairs to stop whoever it is from ringing again and waking Pique. It is Chas, one of Fan’s occasional men. He is never called Charles or Charlie, just Chas. He is bone-thin, with a cadaverous face which is nonetheless handsome, or at least sexy, perhaps owing to the insolence of his eyes, a quality which both repels and attracts Morag.
“Fan’s gone to work, Chas.”
“I know. I came to see you.”
“You might have phoned,” Morag says, instantly realizing that this can be taken as a sign of interest on her part.
“I was driving by,” Chas says, “so I thought I’d drop in. I saw your light.”
Yeh, well it wasn’t a red one, buddy.
“Pique’s not very well. I don’t think I can ask you to stay for a drink.”
“We won’t disturb her,” Chas says. “We can go in Fan’s livingroom. She won’t mind. I brought a bottle.”
You did, eh? Well you can just take it and you know what you can do with it.
This is not what Morag says.
“Well, just one drink, Chas, and then I have to get back to work.”
Why does she say this? Which self is talking this time? She’s tired. She’s exhausted. She’s been working every minute possible on the new novel. She’s gone for days speaking to no one except Fan, Pique and the milkman–for months, probably. These reasons parade themselves obediently through her head as she pours the drinks in Fan’s kitchen.
“You’re a good-looking gal, Morag,” Chas says cornily, with minimum effort to be subtle. “Some people think you’re stand-offish, though.”
Stand-offish. Little does he know.
He shortly finds out.
This is insanity. Morag’s flesh and her self are two separate entities. She is her own voyeur. She decides that if she is about to go ahead, it will be better to suspend thought for a while. Play now, think later.
“Don’t go upstairs to fix yourself,” Chas moans, searching for the condom which he has prudently stashed away somewhere. “I can’t wait.”
“All right.”
She wishes he would shut up. She does not want to hear his voice. This is not related to making love with a lover or even a friend. They screw like animals all over Fan’s living room, and it is, quite truthfully, fine. When they are both exhausted, Morag pulls away and scrambles back into her clothes. Chas laughs.
“Why the hurry?”
She doesn’t know. She usually feels at home with herself and with a man, when naked. Yes, she doesn’t know, though. He is getting dressed now, too.
“Chas, you better go now. I have to get back upstairs.”
“I’m coming with you. I’ll stay the night.”
“No, you won’t.”
Chas’s hands are long and slender, and they do not look all that strong, but are. He holds her arm and bends it slowly backward.
“Am I coming upstairs with you, Morag?”
She realizes now that she knows absolutely nothing about him. She does not even know his last name. She is alone in this house with Pique and this lunatic. Maybe he gets his kicks this way. What if he breaks her arm? What if he strangles her? It happens. No one could ever say she hadn’t asked for it. Seldom has Morag been as frightened as she is this minute.
What if he goes upstairs and does something to the child?
Morag twists around to lessen the pain. No use appealing to him. Words won’t reach him. As soon appeal to a rabid dog. She does not say anything. She is fairly strong, physically, but not nearly as strong as Chas. She is thinking very quickly and she knows that it is better not to do anything precipitous. (Fan’s ma used to knee her husband in the groin–ugh.) Unless he heads for that staircase. Morag knows something she did not know before. She is capable of killing, at least under this one circumstance. Fan keeps the butcher knife in the second drawer on the left in the cupboard beside the sink. The fact registers on her mind almost visually.
They struggle without noise or words for another second or two. Then their eyes meet. Chas’ pale hazel eyes are alight with a hatred as pure as undiluted hydrochloric acid. And Morag realizes that he may well be seeing the same thing in her own eyes.
He drops her arm.
“Did I scare you, Morag?”
“Get out.”
“I just wanted to see how you’d react, that’s all. It was just a joke. Can’t you take a joke?”
“Get out.”
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll go quietly.”
He brings up one hand, and before she can move away, he hits her with full force across the breasts.
He walks out while she is still paralyzed with pain. Morag breathes deeply and forces herself to walk to the hall and lock the front door. She checks the back door. It is locked. She goes back into Fan’s kitchen. Chas has left the bottle. She takes it and pours the rest of the rye down the sink. She then goes into Fan’s bathroom and throws up.
Only then does she start to shake. She goes upstairs quietly and looks at Pique, almost expecting her not to be there. She is there, and peaceful. Morag takes a scalding bath and after several hours the trembling stops.
He’s sick. And I half knew it all the time. Why did I do it? Because I needed a man. It seems a fairly simple thing. Why isn’t it? Why the hatred in his eyes? Because he thinks I’m a whore? I don’t feel like a whore. Maybe a whore doesn’t feel like a whore, either.
Pique continues sleeping. Her forehead is still cool. Her breathing is normal. She is not restless. Is she, perhaps, too quiet?
I know it doesn’t work that way, God. I know it but I don’t believe it. My head knows perfectly well that retribution is unreal. But my blood somehow retains it from ancient times.
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Pique does not become ill. What happens is that Morag is more than a week late with her period that month. She stops work on the novel. She becomes absentminded, except in looking after Pique, which she does with exaggerated care.
“Whatsamatter, sweetheart?” Fan asks. “You’re awfully quiet these past few days.”
Morag, against her will and judgement, explains. The point has been reached when she has to talk to someone.
“Holy mackerel, him,” Fan says. “Well, I wish you had of asked me about him first. You needn’t apologize to me that it was him. I wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole. Don’t worry, sweetheart. It’s probably just the worry that’s delaying you. But if not, I know where you can go.”
There would certainly be no alternative. Morag detests the whole idea of having a living creature torn out of her body. But there is no way she is going to bear a child to a man she despises. She imagines it growing in her flesh, totally unknowing, a human which cannot be permitted its life under any circumstances.
Why hadn’t she at least put in her diaphragm? The condom was probably faulty. What if Fan’s contacts have moved and she cannot find anyone? What about payment? What if she hasn’t got enough money? What if she is forced to bear it? It happens all the time. No way out. Trapped irrevocably. No say in the matter. And to look after it until it is an adult? Every day seeing Chas’ cat-eyes burning at her? Eighteen years. She would have to try to love it. It would be part hers, and its own person. But could she?
“Come on, Pique–eat your dinner.”
“You aren’t eating yours,” Pique points out.
“I’m just going to.” But how?
When she puts Pique to bed, she has to go through the story-telling.
“About the robins, Mum. Tell that one.”
“Okay. Well, once upon a time there was this mother robin, see, and she laid four blue eggs in a nest very high up in the dogwood tree in our back yard–”
“That very same tree?”
“Yep. That very same tree.”
Morag suddenly bends over the bed and holds Pique, hugging her too tightly, unable to stop crying now that she has unfortunately begun.
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