The Nightingales Are Singing

by Monica Dickens

  When she was not talking about her own ailments Mrs. Gaegler liked to discuss other people's. She was always boring Vinson and Christine with long stories about people they did not know, who all seemed to have cancer or T.B. or polio. It did not make for stimulating conversation. After supper Vinson would usually escape to his carpentry in the basement — he was making a playpen now — and Christine would be left to hear about that perfectly darling Sally Thome, who's just riddled with bone cancer, the most shocking thing.

  When she had temporarily exhausted her own and other people's insides, Mrs. Gaegler would turn her attention to Christine's. Never had an expectant mother been given so much advice and criticism as Christine had in those two weeks. It maddened her. Although she was always willing to discuss

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  the baby with Vinson or Lianne or Nancy Lee or even the pessimistic Betty Kessler next door, she found herself reluctant to discuss it with her mother-in-law. Mrs. Gaegler's approach was somehow offensive. She was almost ghoulishly curious, and she was full of all the unappetising old wives' expressions like Quickening and Waters Breaking. She said that Christine was wearing the wrong clothes, doing the wrong exercises, eating the wrong food. Christine was following her doctor's advice and her own instincts, but her mother-in-law, having produced three children — "and nearly died with each of them, for all the thanks they give me now" — considered herself a sounder authority than any doctor, and certainly than any green wife with her first baby — and an English wife at that.

  Although she never openly insulted Christine's homeland, she was always taking little digs at it; and in spite of the evidence of the overpopulated British Isles, she was of the opinion that having a baby in unenlightened England was the most hazardous thing in the world.

  She was talking about the baby one evening when she and Christine drove to the Arlington Annex to fetch Vinson. She always said: "My first grandchild. Don't let's talk about it; it makes me feel so old," and then proceeded to discuss every aspect of the baby, before and after birth.

  She was objecting now to the names that Vinson and Christine had chosen. No Gaegler had ever been called Stephen or Pamela. It would not do. Christine drove in silence.

  Mrs. Gaegler never noticed if you did not answer. If she asked you a question she was usually saying something else before you could speak.

  "Careful, dear," she said, shrinking delicately back from the windscreen. "You were too near that green car. I shall come East for the christening, of course. I know you'll want me to, even though I shall balk at the font when I hear the child's

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  name spoken. What kind of a church shall you have the christening in?"

  "A Catholic one, of course." Christine was surprised that she should ask.

  "Oh, my dear, I do hope you're not getting infected with this popish bug of Vinson's. He got it from his father, and it's stuck to him even after Harry Gaegler managed to throw it off to suit his own convenience." She always spoke of her miscreant husband by his full name, as though he had been a mere acquaintance.

  "I'm not thinking of being converted, if that's what you mean," Christine said as she drove through the gates of the Annex and slowed down for the coloured policeman to recognise her and wave her on with a smile. "But Vin's a Catholic and it's a law of his Church that his children should be too, and of course he wants it." She looked behind her to back the car into Vinson's numbered parking space opposite the end doors of the building.

  "But you're surely not going to sit down under that! Watch it, dear, you're very near that other car. I think it's terrible the way the Romans grab hold of children before they're old enough to know better, though they have to, I suppose, to save the Church from dying out. I had to have Edna and Vinson baptised Catholics, but when it came to Matt I dug in my toes, and he was baptised a good Methodist. Harry Gaegler didn't mind by that time, because he was already interested in That Girl and beginning to see the disadvantages of his religion."

  "I don't see that it has any disadvantages," Christine said. "I often wish I'd been bom a Catholic instead of someone who's supposed to be a Protestant, but never learned to do anything about it."

  "You are thinking of being converted!" Mrs. Gaegler ac-

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  cused her. "I wouldn't have thought it of a level-headed girl like you. 0 She was always saying how sensible and levelheaded Christine was, as opposed to herself, who was so sensitive and emotional. "I depise the Catholic Church. I never would have married Harry Gaegler if I hadn't been an innocent young thing and so mad in love with the guy that I thought it didn't matter. I tell you, it's been a great disappointment to me to see my son grow up in the toils of Rome. It brings on one of my migraines whenever I think of it. I feel I have one coming on right now, if you want to know. Edie was more enlightened, thank goodness. She took my advice and gave it up long before she met Milt, and now she goes to the Episcopal Church with him like a sensible woman. But Vinson's so stubborn and prejudiced."

  "He's not," protested Christine. She hated her mother-in-law to criticise Vinson in any way. It seemed unfair. She had no right to, when she had done so little for him. "Not about religion, anyway. He just does what he thinks is right and leaves other people to do what they like. He's never tried to persuade me to be converted. Sometimes lately I've thought I might, because it would be more convenient with taking the child to church and everything, but Vinson says if one's only doing it for convenience it wouldn't be right. They probably wouldn't have me, anyway. The Catholic Church isn't always

  out to grab people, like you say. You have to work your way

  • »

  in.

  "My, my," said Mrs. Gaegler, raising her eyebrows and patting her fluffy hair, "you are very much under Vinson's influence, aren't you? More than I thought. I declare, it's quite a change to see a nice old-fashioned submissive wife. Perhaps that's why Vinson chose to marry an English girl. They're not so enlightened as American women in that way."

  Christine said nothing. She was not going to be rude to her

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  mother-in-law. She would not give her that weapon — that English girls were rude, and she was suddenly too tired to talk to her any more.

  "I hope Vin comes out punctually/' she said, to change the subject. "He promised he would, because I've got a lot to do." Milt and Edna were in Washington and were coming to dinner. Matthew was coming too. It would be a family reunion, and Christine was determined to have everything perfect in case anyone felt like thinking that English girls did not make as good wives as Americans.

  Vinson did not come out punctually. At four-thirty the doors opened and the stream of white, coloured, uniformed, crippled, old, young, thin and fat people began to pour out and head for the cars and buses like lava. She had seen this many-headed sight often since she came to Washington, but it never failed to fascinate her. If Vinson came out late, which he usually did, she was quite happy to sit and watch the throng of released workers, recognising a face here and there among the officers, speculating about the civilian employees, and what their homes were like and what they were off to do now in such a hurry.

  Mrs. Gaegler, for all her psychology and her professed interest in people, did not want to watch the crowd which poured out of the Annex for a solid ten minutes. She bent her head and began to fiddle with the dial of the radio. She did not want to watch any crowd that had negroes in it. She was allergic to coloured people. She was proud of that. It was her Southern blood, she said. She was almost pure Middle West, but she made great play with a far-away ancestor who had come from Louisiana, and her eyes misted over if she saw a Confederate

  The last stragglers had come out before Vinson appeared. He was talking with another naval officer, who wore a plastic

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  cover on his uniform cap, because it looked like rain. On the steps Vinson waved at Christine and then stood and talked for a few more minutes, the two of them with brief-cases under their arms and their
heads poked forward seriously, as if the entire defence programme of the United States was on their shoulders.

  "Sorry, honey/' he said, as Christine moved over and he got into the driving seat — he would never let her drive him. "Hope you haven't been waiting."

  "We have. You know you said you'd come out early, because of the dinner."

  "I know, but I had to stop back and talk with John Flett about that Japanese business. That's important."

  "So is my dinner," Christine said, and he laughed and patted her knee to show that he did not think she meant it crossly.

  "We waited a full quarter of an hour," his mother told him, "and the leather odour of this car brings on my nausea. Honey-chile didn't like waiting. She barked at everyone who came out, didn't you, my pet?"

  "I'll bet she did."

  "But your wife and I have been having a very interesting talk." She had taken to calling Christine Your Wife, almost as if she were disclaiming her as a daughter-in-law and reminding Vinson that the responsibility for bringing her into the family was all his. Christine retaliated by calling her Your Mother. Mrs. Gaegler had said that she must call her Lucette, but Christine could not bring herself to do that. She could not call her Mrs. Gaegler, and she was not going to call her Mother, so she spoke of her to Vinson as Your Mother, and did not address her directly by any name.

  "Well, that's fine," Vinson said. "What were you two girls gossiping about?" He tried to preserve the illusion that his mother and his wife were the best of friends.

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  "She was telling me that you intend to bring my grandchild up a Papist/* Mrs. Gaegler said.

  "I told you to keep off the subject of religion/' Vinson murmured to Christine.

  "Oh, you did?" said Mrs. Gaegler, who always heard things she was not meant to. "So your wife is to be told what she can and can't talk about now, is she? My goodness, if Harry Gaegler had spoken to me like that I'd have given him something to remember. I would never have stood for half the nonsense your wife puts up with from you."

  No one said: "Perhaps that's why he left you/' Vinson swore at a perfectly harmless old man in a Panama hat who was trying to cross the road, and Christine turned up the radio with a blare of "Shrimp boats are coming/'

  The family reunion went off no better than might have been expected with a family who did not particularly want to be reunited. The evening started unpropitiously by Honeychile refusing to take her gland extract. Every time she was given the pill she stuck out her long tongue and deposited it on the carpet. Mrs. Gaegler was in a ferment. She wrapped the pill in meat, and Honeychile ate the meat and spat out the pill. She crushed it with sugar, and Honeychile took the spoonful into her mouth, goggled her eyes and threw the whole lot back on to Mrs. Gaegler's shoe.

  "Open her mouth and put the pill on the back of her tongue and then close your hand round her nose so that she has to swallow it," Vinson said.

  "Oh no, Vinson, that's cruel. You must remember Honey-chile isn't like other dogs. She's sensitive. She gets it from me. Why, if I were to force the pill down her she'd never take one again."

  "She doesn't seem to be taking it now," said Vinson, with

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  the mild sarcasm which was all the impertinence he would allow himself to give his mother.

  "She will, she will. It just takes a little psychology. I can always win her around/'

  She was still trying to make the rat-tailed dog take its hormones when Edna arrived. She was so busy fussing on the carpet with Honeychile that she hardly looked up to greet the daughter she had not seen for months.

  When at last she could be persuaded to stand upright Edna kissed the air near her cheek and said: "How are you, Mother?" This was rash, because her mother proceeded to tell her just how she was that evening, which was half dead from nervous exhaustion, with a nauseated feeling to her stomach.

  "Where's Milt?" she asked suspiciously, as if she thought Edna's husband might have left her.

  "Outside fooling with the car. He thinks he's got a slow puncture. He never notices these things when we're near a garage. Will you help him if he wants to change the wheel, Vinson?"

  "I'd be glad to. But this suit has just come back from the cleaner — "

  "Oh, never mind," said Edna briskly. "I expect Matt will help him when he comes."

  "I don't know why you're so fond of that gabardine, Vinson," Mrs. Gaegler said, travelling her eye up and down him as if he were something that somebody was trying to sell her. "The colour's all wrong. Don't you think so, Edie?"

  Milt came in presently, kissed Christine in his squashy way and told her she was the most wonderful girl he had ever seen, and asked his mother-in-law: "How are you?" before anyone could stop him. Mrs. Gaegler told him how she was, with embellishments on the story she had told Edna and the addition of a pain in her foot from the worry about Honeychile —

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  "reactionary nerves," Milt incensed her by saying she looked wonderful, perfectly wonderful. He would have made a good compare on an audience-participation radio programme. Wonderful was his favourite adjective.

  Washington was having two days of Indian summer. It was as hot as it had ever been in July, and although there was a storm approaching, it was sucking the air into a stifling vacuum before it could bring relief. Everyone felt limp, and Christine saw that she was not alone in having to smother yawns. There seemed to be nothing to breathe in the little living-room where Mrs. Gaegler told about the feeling in her stomach and the electric fan whirled the stale air uselessly round and round. When the heat came down Mrs. Gaegler had insisted on closing all the windows in the house, to keep the hot air from coming in, although Christine thought you could argue a better case for opening the windows to let the hot air out. However, her mother-in-law fussed so much if the windows were opened, and slipped so many discs in her spine reaching to shut them again, that Christine was forced to let her have her way and seal the house up like a biscuit tin.

  Vinson made drinks for everyone except Christine, and then there was a jaunty hammering on the door and Matthew came in and broke up the spiritless boredom of the room with his cheerful presence and exuberant greeting of Edna and Milt. He was the only Gaegler who seemed perfectly at ease with his family. Edna and her mother were fairly polite to each other on the surface, but behind their quick, critical eyes they seemed to be sparring in unspoken combat, like two women in love with the same man. Vinson had been quiet ever since his mother came, and he was even more constrained in the presence of his whole family, as if he could not be himself in front of them.

  When Christine went to the kitchen to give the finishing

  touches to the dinner, Edna followed her out, her slight stoop pulling her dress up on one hip. She was wearing the same brown dress — a little uneven now at the hem — which she had worn for Christine's wedding, and a little hat shaped like a canoe, which rocked like a canoe on her untidy coffee-coloured hair.

  "How've you been, honey?" she asked, putting down her drink and picking up a cloth to wipe some saucepans on the draining-board. Edna was one of the few women Christine knew who could come into a kitchen and do what was wanted without asking.

  "How do you get on with Mother?" she asked, polishing a saucepan more brightly than Christine ever could.

  "Oh — very well, really."

  Edna laughed, screwing up her monkey face. "You'll get used to her. You have to know how to treat her. Vinson never did know. He lets it get him down when she fusses all the time about her health. Me and Matt, we just pay no attention."

  "One day," Christine said, "she'll have something really wrong with her and no one will believe it."

  "She'll never have anything wrong with her," Edna said, "unless it's penicillin poisoning."

  "Why do you always talk about me behind my back?" Mrs. Gaegler came round the kitchen door, her round eyes aggrieved. If you were asleep or trying to telephone, she could shake the whole house with the noise of her high heels, but at inconve
nient moments she could creep up on you like an Indian.

  Christine felt guilty, but Edna said blandly: "I was saying

  how much I like that gown, Mother. It's very becoming to

  » you.

  "Oh, do you think so?" Her mother twirled around de-

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  lightedly. She was a sucker for the glibbest compliment. "But that's more than I can say for your hat, Edie. You're not of an age to wear that kind of frivolous thing any more/'

  That came well from her, whose hats were all about twenty years too young for her, but Edna did not mind. She took off the canoe and threw it up on to the top of the refrigerator.

  "I hate any hat," she said, "but Milt doesn't care for me to go out without one. I guess I'll take my shoes off too if Christine doesn't mind. My feet are always happier when they can feel the floor." She kicked her shoes into a corner and ambled across the kitchen for her drink, very short and flat-footed in her stockinged feet.

  "You'll have to watch yourself, Edie," her mother told her. "You've gotten a bit cranky in your forties."

  "I always have been," Edna said. "It's inherited."

  "Harry Gaegler," said her mother, who did not see how this could mean her, "never took his shoes off until he went to bed, whatever else he may have done."

  "What are you looking for? Can I help you?" Christine asked, for Mrs. Gaegler was questing distractedly about the kitchen.

  "Yes, dear. I want some fresh newspaper to put down for Honeychile."

  "I can't see why you don't train her to use the garden," Christine said, encouraged by Edna's presence to voice an irritation that had been with her ever since her mother-in-law started spreading newspapers on prominent bits of the floor.