Maddie

by Claire Rayner

  But by the time it did, late in the evening as the fireworks too reached a crescendo of noise to match the crescendo of her pain, she almost hated it, and certainly did not care whether good things happened to it or not.

  They showed her the child, wrapped in a bloodstained towel, its face a furious red streaked with a revolting yellow waxiness and she stared at it, turning her sweat-soaked head on the pillow to do so, and felt nothing. No concern, no worry, no excitement and certainly no love or awe or any of the emotions she had been expecting to feel. Not even any interest. She just turned her head away again and said hoarsely – for her throat hurt from the way she had been shrieking her reaction to her pain – that they should take it away, she was tired, take it away and let her sleep.

  But next morning it was quite different. She woke to a gleaming hot day – it was always hot now and she wouldn’t have dreamed she could loathe summer weather as much as she did here in Boston – but the humidity had blessedly dropped a little so the air was fresh and breatheable. Not as clean and crisp as English summer weather, for which she had so often longed during the past burdensome weeks of her pregnancy – but at least tolerable.

  They bathed her and settled her against clean comfortable pillows and then brought the baby to her. And this time some feelings were there. He had lost the ferocious redness and the waxy streaks and looked agreeably baby-like, and she touched his hand and the small fingers closed convulsively on hers and she found herself grinning from ear to ear with pride and delight.

  Jay, when he came later that afternoon, carrying a large and singularly ugly bouquet of crimson peonies, seemed less excited by him. He peered down on the infant when the nurse brought him for his approval and said, only, ‘Oh – it’s a bit creased, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, Mr Kincaid!’ the nurse said, all arch disapproval. ‘How can you say such a thing? And you his dear daddy. Why he’s just darling, the dearest little baby! You should think him the most beautiful child in the world, shouldn’t he, Mrs Kincaid? I’m sure you do –’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Maddie said and tried to look adoring. That she was fascinated by the baby and pleased with her success in creating and bearing him was undoubted, but did she think him the most beautiful child in the world? She knew she did not, and it was a little worrying that that should be so; but she said nothing about her doubts. It was safer to keep her own counsel.

  She had become very good indeed at keeping her own counsel. The last month had been a minefield for her, as she had tacked her way to and fro through the choppy Kincaid waters, trying to get where she wanted to go without having any head-on collisions, and she had managed it; but mainly by dint of keeping her mouth shut. And of course her ears open.

  It really had been rather like it had been in the old days at home, when she had worked in Daddy’s office and helped Jay to make some useful deals on the basis of her inside information. She had started to visit Jay downtown in State Street once it had been agreed that they would have their own home. She had persuaded the old man to release some money for them (and when she thought of just how rich he was it infuriated her that he was so very mean about allowing them enough to buy the sort of house she wanted, but again she bit her tongue and said nothing. It was safer that way) and the spending of it had devolved heavily on to her. But, knowing as little as she did about house prices and the geography of Boston, she needed guidance; hence the visits to Jay so that she could get necessary decisions and information from him during office hours when the realtors were available to talk to. And there was too the matter of building work and renovations when they did get their house, a small but pleasant one at the Massachusetts Avenue end of Beacon Street. Where else would she seek workmen but through her husband’s family firm?

  So it was a rare weekday that did not find Maddie bedecked in the most elegant maternity clothes she could buy from Saks or Bonwit Teller, sitting in her husband’s office or outside in the main reception area, as the work of Kincaid and Sons surged around her. And she listened.

  Sitting now in her hospital bed, watching Jay trying to cope with the baby the nurse was so determined he should hold, she remembered with satisfaction how useful those days had been. It had been worth the effort and the weariness as her body became ever heavier and more cumbersome to have heard the things she heard and worked out how to use them. She looked at Jay fondly, at the thickness of his hair curling over his ears and the smooth broadness of his shoulders and could have burst with the delight of just being with him. The way she felt about him had not been reduced in any way by the strains of living in his parents’ house or of moving into their own. The loss of her girlish shape had mattered to her only inasmuch as it mattered to him and when she had found that his need to make love to her was not in the least diminished by the way her breasts and belly bulged and got in the way, she had been hugely relieved and loved him all the more. To see him now holding the baby she had made for him and knowing that their bank balance bulged with a good deal of money she had also made for him by dint of using her ears and her wits around the office made her feel wonderful. Much better than being a mother made her feel, that was certain.

  When at last the nurse had gone and taken the baby with her, she had pulled Jay to sit on the bed beside her and had nestled against him contentedly and he had talked about the last deal he had done for the firm, to supply the materials for a building that was to be put up at Wollaston Beach in Quincy this autumn.

  ‘It’s going to be one hell of an operation,’ he said with great satisfaction. ‘It’ll cover three-quarters of an acre, and have every damned facility in it you can think of. The holiday business is one hell of a business, if you ask me. Hotels, resorts, they’re all making money like tomorrow’ll never come. It’s beautiful.’

  ‘Did you do it the way I said, Jay?’ she asked, sleepily now. It was getting hot again and her body still ached a little from yesterday’s efforts.

  ‘Mmm? How do you mean?’

  ‘I told you!’ She pulled herself up, sharpened by the tone of his voice. ‘Oh, Jay, you did, didn’t you? All you have to do is pad the estimates by five per cent. No more than that! And if the supplies are put through the subsidiary company we’ll have no problems getting it out again –’

  ‘I told you before,’ he said a little sulkily, ‘I don’t like it. Suppose the old man does one of his checks? You know how he can be.’

  ‘I know perfectly well how he can be – and I also know perfectly well that good at dealing as he is, the one thing he hates is reading complicated bookkeeping. You do it the way I said, with a lot of documentation, and he won’t know whatever sort of check-up he does. Nor will anyone else. Not even Declan, and we all know how he noses about – and I’ll bet he’s picking up plenty on the side for himself. It’s not difficult for you, Jay! And you’re entitled to it – you work hard enough.’

  He looked at her broodingly for a moment and then nodded. ‘Yeah, I do, don’t I? And Declan getting only a coupla thousand below me – and what the hell does he do anyway but screw the stenographers every chance he gets and stay out to lunch till it’s cocktail time? Goddamn it, the old man ought to check up on him! That’d make him think a bit –’

  ‘So you’ll do it,’ she said softly and he grinned at her and said, ‘Crazy kid, Maddie,’ and she smiled and snuggled down against him again. That was great. Not just Jay happy, but another fifteen thousand dollars at least into their own private account by the end of the year. Getting some real money together was going to take time, but if he listened to her they could do it, and then it wouldn’t be Kincaid and Sons any more for him, but his own company Kincaid Inc. Or perhaps Jay Kincaid and –

  She lifted her chin. ‘We’ll need a name for him,’ she said. ‘Have you thought?’

  ‘Hell, what do I know about names?’ he said and then added, ‘I dunno – Jay Two maybe?’

  ‘No,’ she said and pushed her head even more into his chest. ‘Next time, maybe. This time, box clever. How about
Timothy? Timothy Kincaid the Third. Isn’t that something that sounds good? And wouldn’t it be useful?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said dubiously. ‘It sounds – maybe you ought to talk to the folks first.’

  ‘Why should we? He’s our baby, so it’s our choice. And he is the first grandchild, isn’t he? So he has the right. They ought to be very pleased he’s here. Timothy Kincaid the Third. Only we’ll call him – what shall we call him?’

  ‘Buster,’ Jay said after a moment. ‘He looks like a guy I used to play ball with in college. Buster was a good fella, too. A real pal –’

  ‘Buster it is then,’ Maddie said contentedly, not caring at all that it sounded a silly name to her. If Jay wanted it that was good enough.

  ‘I would not have come if I had not been told of your choice of name,’ Blossom said and stood ramrod-straight at the foot of the bed, refusing to sit down, refusing to look at the baby who was in a crib beside Maddie. ‘This child cannot be called by the name you have chosen.’

  ‘Oh,’ Maddie said and folded her hands on the counterpane in front of her. Her eyes were glittering a little and were narrowed too, as she stared at her mother-in-law. ‘And why not? He’s the first grandchild you have, isn’t he? He’s the third generation of the family –’

  ‘It’s no grandchild of mine. It can’t be,’ Blossom said and stared at her with the same blank look on her face and for a moment Maddie did not understand the import of what she was saying. And then she did and her face flamed.

  ‘What did you say? Are you daring to suggest that I – that this baby is not Jay’s?’

  ‘Oh, of course it’s of Jay’s getting!’ Blossom sounded contemptuous. ‘The way you are around him, like a bitch on heat, even when you’re as pregnant as a farmyard sow, makes it obvious.’

  Maddie stared, her face as blank as Blossom’s own for a moment. To hear that sort of language from a woman who rarely had spoken of anything but saints and feasts of obligation and the virtues of Father Mulcahy of Our Lady of Sorrows Church on the corner of Sewall Street was amazing, and even more than that – it was exhilarating. She felt the laughter lift in her and then put her hands to her face as it burst out.

  ‘Yes, you would laugh, wouldn’t you?’ Blossom said. ‘It’s all you’re fit for. Laughing in the face of God will take you to hell as sure as you sit there in all your sinfulness. Your sins will be paid for so I needn’t worry over them. But you are not to name your bastard as you said you would, and as Jay has said you are. I will not permit it –’

  ‘You can’t prevent it,’ Maddie said softly. ‘And why should you? For he is not a bastard. He is the legal child of our marriage – do you want to see the certificate we have from City Hall?’

  This was an old argument; she had heard Blossom rant on before about the speed in which her pregnancy had followed her marriage, though not in the coarse way she had this afternoon. She wasn’t going to be upset by it, she wasn’t, no matter what the wicked old bitch said.

  ‘City Hall certificates.’ Blossom almost spat it. ‘What do such things matter to me? That’s no marriage. You are living as a fornicator. You have seduced my good son to forget his Catholic soul and taken him into fornication. But God won’t be mocked. You’ll see what will happen to you and your bastard!’ And now there was expression on her face, for it had developed red patches over the cheekbones.

  ‘Timothy Kincaid the Third,’ Maddie said in a reflective way, and smiled sweetly at her, feeling better and much calmer now that Blossom had let her composure crack. ‘It sounds good, doesn’t it? Timothy Braham Kincaid the Third. That’s his name, and you can go to your own private hell and burn for all you can do to change that.’ And she laughed, a soft contented sort of laugh, designed to make Blossom even angrier.

  ‘You can’t,’ Blossom said then and seemed to droop a little. ‘It’s Rosalie’s right to have that name for her baby. Rosalie and Timothy Two. It’s due in just another month – for God’s sake, be decent and let her have the name her child is entitled to have. They had a decent nuptial mass, they live a decent Catholic life. You can’t come along and steal their name from them –’

  ‘My son is the first grandchild to Pa,’ Maddie said. ‘So, he’s entitled to be called as I’ve named him. It’s not Timmy’s right at all. Anyway, Rosalie’s going to have a girl. You’ve only to look at her to know that –’

  ‘She’s to have a boy!’ Blossom almost wailed it. ‘I’ve prayed and she has prayed – it’s to be a boy –’

  ‘A girl,’ Maddie said implacably, and laughed again as Blossom half turned to go. ‘Oh, giving up already? I am sorry. Well, do come here and see your little grandson before you go –’

  ‘I will go when I’m ready!’ Blossom said, and turned back to her. ‘Not until I get your promise you won’t use my family’s name for your bastard –’

  Maddie took a deep breath in through her nose and leaned back on her pillows to close her eyes. There had been other such arguments before with Blossom, if not couched in quite such vituperative language. She had shown her loathing for Maddie more and more obviously as the weeks had passed, but never in the presence of anyone else. If any of the family were within earshot Blossom either ignored her or spoke with icy politeness, but when she got her alone, oh, it was a very different thing then.

  Maddie looked back over the long weeks of her pregnancy and saw herself standing against the attack much as the people of London had been described as standing firm during the Blitz. It had felt like that, in many ways: a bombardment of cold loathing that had threatened sometimes to make her crack and turn and run away.

  But she couldn’t run away and leave Jay – and there was the painful core of her situation. For Jay could not, would not, believe that his mother disliked her. She had tried to tell him of what happened when he and his father and brothers weren’t there, had tried to enlist his support, but had known when to give up. In Jay’s eyes, as in Timmy’s and to an extent in Declan’s, Blossom was all that was good. She was alarming, someone to be catered to and placated and worried about rather than someone to love in a comfortable and easy way, but she was good. Of that there could be no doubt in her sons’ minds, and Maddie had squirmed and tried to escape from the trap into which his attitude to his mother had pushed her and could find no escape. To bring the struggle with his mother on which she was engaged into the open could destroy their marriage. Jay loved her, but he revered his mother and if there was one skill Maddie had developed over these past few eventful years, it was the ability to recognise when to stop fighting. So she had stopped fighting with Jay. But not with Blossom. She was still an adversary and always would be.

  And now she stood at the foot of her bed looking at her with a venom that Maddie could recognise even with her eyes closed, and willing her to buckle under the onslaught.

  But she didn’t. Because now she had a trump card; she was the mother of a baby that old Timothy was very happy to have in his family. He had come to visit her on the baby’s second day of life, bringing chocolates and flowers and a bottle of champagne and had leaned over the child and admired him and spoken approvingly of his tough lungs when the baby, woken by the old man’s noisiness, had bawled his alarm. There was no doubt that Pa was well pleased with his grandfatherly status, and much less put out by the fact that his son and daughter-in-law had been wed in a City Hall rather than in a church. So Maddie had a new weapon to use against Blossom, and she wouldn’t hesitate to do so.

  Now she opened her eyes and looked at Blossom and then, slowly, smiled. ‘Why do you hate me so much, Mother?’

  ‘You may not call me that!’ Blossom snapped. ‘I’m not your mother. If I had been, you’d have been a decent God-fearing girl and not a fornicating bitch on heat who steals from good souls –’

  ‘If I’d been your daughter I’d not be here. I’d be out man-hunting and getting desperate with it,’ Maddie said and lifted her brows insolently at her. ‘And as for stealing from you – I’ve stolen nothing. I
wouldn’t soil myself –’

  ‘You have stolen my son Jay! You have stolen my son Timmy! Do you think I don’t know that it was your doing with that stupid Rosalie, sending her to her brother, stealing my son away to work with him? Do you think I don’t know? And fornicating with my husband, an old man like my husband – you’re a foul and evil creature –’

  The words rolled on and on, and again Maddie closed her eyes. Once Blossom was set on one of her tirades there was no point in interrupting her. And it was good in a way to hear it all with its new development of violent language and wild accusation; it showed Maddie just how much she had managed to get her own way and how much she had got under Blossom’s skin since she had been pitchforked into this hateful family. Not all hateful. Not my Jay. But, oh, I want to go home to Daddy! And for a moment tears threatened to crawl out from beneath her eyelids.

  But she could not let Blossom have the satisfaction of knowing she had penetrated her defences in any way and now she opened her eyes and pulled herself up to a sitting position and reached into the crib beside her for the baby, who had woken and was whimpering.

  ‘It’s time for Timothy the Third’s feed,’ she said loudly and with deliberate movements, unbuttoned the front of her nightdress and pulled it back over her shoulders with a langourous movement so that she was sitting there with her breasts fully exposed. ‘He’s a greedy little darling, too –’ and she lifted the child towards her, and at once he turned his head and began nuzzling her bare skin.

  It worked as she had known it would. Blossom stared at her and then with a sharp little sound of revulsion that was almost a retch turned and went, slamming the door behind her, and Maddie was able to put the baby down on her lap and rebutton her nightdress before ringing for the nurse to bring his bottle.