by Voss, Louise
So I dropped out of my degree course altogether, and stayed in Lawrence. (There were no Immigration issues, thanks to the lucky happenstance of my mother giving birth to me when she’d gone with my father on a term’s sabbatical to Yale. I had joint nationality, which meant I could come and go at will. In hindsight, I sometimes wondered if that was really the blessing I used to assume it to be.)
I finished my dissertation, just to prove to myself I could; and then got a job cleaning houses. It was hard, menial, and back-breaking, but in a weird way I enjoyed it. No longer having to study came as quite a relief – my dissertation was entitled ‘Gertrude Stein: Method, Aim and Influence’, and by the time I was done with it, my mind felt utterly scrambled by the nonsensical Dadaist poetry of ‘Tender Buttons’. It felt gloriously uncomplicated to scrub floors, then come home to Ivan.
Ivan and I had a free apartment for that second year, which meant that I didn’t need to earn more than pin money for us. A friend of his had gone to Europe and wanted somebody to cat-sit his tabby, Barker, a commitment we undertook willingly. The apartment was small for two of us and a lively cat – a studio, with an irritatingly unpredictable heating system – but it was at the top of Mount Oread, and it had a balcony and wonderful views out across the plains to the endless horizons. Not to mention a bird’s-eye view of the bar opposite, my local, the Crossing.
On my day off, I could check who was there, congregating out front on its shabby deck, and nip down for a beer if there was anyone interesting about. Billy, for example. For some reason, I often popped over when I saw his pick-up truck parked outside the Crossing, if Ivan was training or away at a tournament.
I convinced myself I didn’t fancy Billy, or anything so base or illicit; but he was good company and, because he was the local pot-dealer, he was always surrounded by people who I thought – at the time – were interesting. (They became considerably less interesting after several years of them walking uninvited into our house at all hours – but that was all still in the future.) The day of the big storm, however, in January of 1981, I didn’t go over to the Crossing. I stayed up on our balcony, relishing some unseasonably hot sunshine, and waiting for Ivan to come home after three days away at a tournament in Dallas. In the pre-mobile phone era, all I had to go on was a brief call on the answerphone to say he’d be back ‘some time’ that afternoon.
It was ridiculously warm for the time of year. People were sitting outside the Crossing in sandals and shorts, despite the fact that just two days earlier it had been snowing. The temperature was over seventy degrees – and it felt twice that inside the apartment, since I had been unable to turn down the heating.
My muscles ached from washing windows and polishing woodwork all week, and I felt too tired to go and do anything; so I just stayed on the balcony nursing a cold beer and reading Tom Robbins’ Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. Barker was next to me, stretched out to about two feet in length along the balcony rail, his furry flanks rising and falling as he dozed.
Down on the Crossing verandah there was an impromptu jam session taking place: someone was thumping a bass homemade from an upside-down wash pot, broom handle and string; someone else played twelve string guitar; and a woman I didn’t recognize with wild red hair was singing, just about in tune. People in Kansas knew how to make the most of a bit of unexpected sunshine, especially when it was obvious that there was a storm brewing, and at any minute we’d all be plunged back into winter again.
Billy was there, and I watched him unseen, admiring the way he was so much at ease with everybody, the way his face looked so relaxed that, even at a distance, I felt my own face relax into a smile too. He even had a kind word and a clap on the shoulder for the local town outcast, an unusually pungent and gloomy alcoholic whose real name I could never remember, but whom I had christened Eeyore for his grey pallor and miserable demeanour. That afternoon, the pre-storm air was so heavy and still that I quite clearly heard him, Eeyore, asking Billy for a quarter for the phone. Billy obliged, and Eeyore weaved slowly across the road to the phone booth near the door of our apartment block.
I saw Ivan’s cab pull up then, his familiar racket bag on the back seat, and the sensation of relief that he was back safe and sound flooded through me. I watched him delve around in his tracksuit pocket for the fare, and I noticed that he didn’t once look up to see if I was there waiting.
Eeyore’s voice floated up to me. He had put his quarter into the phone, but he didn’t appear to have dialled a number. ‘Hello?’ he said authoritatively. ‘Yes. I wish to make a complaint. I have dirt on the back of my pants and …yes …my stomach is too large. Thank you.’
He nodded with satisfaction, hung up, and began to weave back towards the Crossing, just as Ivan finished getting his stuff out of the cab and was walking up the path towards the apartment door. They collided; Ivan’s big racket bag caught Eeyore’s shoulder and knocked him clean off his feet.
‘Watch it, dude,’ I heard his reedy nasal voice protest as he staggered to his knees. I waited for Ivan to apologize and help him up, but he didn’t. Instead I heard a muttered imprecation, and then the outer door of the apartment building slammed. Eeyore, grumbling and furious, made it back over the road to the bar, where I saw Billy greet him with concern.
‘Are you all right, man?’ he said, and I swear he looked up at me then, catching my eye as I stood up to meet Ivan. His naturally sunny expression was gone, and something which could easily have been disapproval, or perhaps pity, was there instead.
Don’t be so paranoid, Susie, I told myself. But nonetheless I felt ashamed.
‘How did you get on?’ I asked Ivan when he came into the apartment, sweaty, unshaven and as malodorous as the unfortunate Eeyore. ‘Phew, you need a shower.’
‘I know,’ Ivan snapped, ignoring my question about the tournament (although I should have known better than to ask. He’d have been away longer than three days if he hadn’t been knocked out). ‘I’ve been in that bloody cab for over an hour. What the hell’s up with this weather? It was freezing when I left. Turn the heating down, can’t you?’
‘I can’t. It’s stuck again,’ I said mildly. ‘I’ll run you a cool bath, shall I? Then we can have some beers outside.’
Later, once Ivan had washed off his travel grumpiness, we went out on to the balcony, marvelling at the novelty of being able to wear shorts in January. We sat watching the sky turn to a dark greyish-purple colour, part storm, part evening, and laughed with awe as lightning forks zigzagged closer and closer. The smell of rain filled the air, signalling that the unseasonable sunshine would soon be forgotten again. Billy had gone from the Crossing, and the music had moved inside, but a few hippies were still out there, their faces tilted upwards in readiness for the rain.
Barker’s tail whipped nervously from side to side, and Ivan stroked him absent-mindedly.
I hadn’t intended to bring up the incident with Eeyore, but seeing him still over on the Crossing verandah, sitting on his own in a corner, made me feel sorry for him.
‘Ivan,’ I began, ‘what happened with that man, you know, the drunk who was making a phone call when your cab arrived?’
Ivan shrugged. ‘Like you said, he’s a drunk. He bumped into me and then fell over. End of story.’
‘You could have helped him up,’ I said. ‘It was your racket bag that knocked him over.’
He glared at me, his face lit by a lightning fork with something akin to malevolence. ‘Why are you asking me what happened if you think you already know? What did you expect me to do? Kiss it better and bring him home with me?’
Billy might have done, I thought, but I didn’t say so. ‘You could have said sorry,’ I said, getting up abruptly. ‘Want another beer?’
Thunder crashed above us, making us both jump and Barker growl, his fur standing up on end. He shot indoors and under the sofabed. Ivan grabbed me around the waist. ‘Beer later,’ he said, dragging me down towards him. ‘You now.’
He kissed me hard, less sloppily than usual, and
I felt lust stirring within me even though I was still annoyed. I was further incensed to realize that I was only as annoyed as I was because Billy had witnessed the incident.
‘I missed you,’ I said, truthfully, deciding to try and forget about it.
‘I missed you too,’ he murmured as the first fat drops of rain splashed on to our faces, at that stage still as warm as a Spring shower.
‘Sorry you didn’t win.’
I felt him shrug through my embrace. ‘Can’t win ’em all.’ He rubbed the sides of my bare thighs, inside and out, with his big hands, then slipped his fingers up inside my brief shorts.
He was lovely when he was clean, I thought, although even just twenty minutes after his bath, he was sweating again. The rain began to fall harder.
‘I’m so glad it’s raining,’ I whispered. ‘Let’s make the most of being outdoors. Let’s take off all our clothes and stay out here. It’ll probably be snowing by tonight.’
‘Too bloody hot in that apartment anyhow,’ Ivan agreed, stripping off my sleeveless top. I wasn’t wearing a bra. I glanced over to the Crossing to make sure nobody was looking, but the rain had sent everybody running for cover, except for a few hardy – or, more likely, stoned – souls who had skipped out into the street to yell and dance in the rain. Besides, it was coming down so heavily now that visibility was almost zero – which was just as well, considering I was standing outside, topless.
Ivan squeezed my breasts, his eyes glazed with lust and a crafty little smile on his lips. The shape of his face was beautiful, I thought.
The noise of the rain was deafening below on the sidewalks and against the balcony floor, dashing off it in spikes which pricked my bare skin and made me shiver. It’s January, I thought incredulously. I felt like a sponge, heavy and sodden, soaking up the water. I lifted Ivan’s T-shirt over his head and threw it into a corner of the balcony. Then I ran my wet hands over his body, pushing him down to the wooden floor; smiling at the whiteness of his torso against the year-round tan of his arms and into the V on his chest. Ivan resisted my push. Instead, he sat up and quickly removed his shorts and underwear.
‘Nobody can see through these gaps, can they?’ I asked anxiously, referring to the narrow spaces between the wooden slats of the balcony wall.
‘No. Now get yours off,’ he commanded, slapping my backside hard, still grinning.
‘Ow!’ But I complied immediately, and as I wriggled out of my own shorts, he smacked me again, this time on my bare flesh. The slap made a sharp crack audible over the rattle of the rain. ‘Stop it!’ I put my hands behind me to cover my bottom, laughing and hopping around naked, squealing at him, half in fear, half in excitement. For once it didn’t irritate me.
Now he yanked me roughly down on top of him on the wet floor, and I lay full length on him, enjoying the sting of the slaps and the lash of raindrops across the back of me.
We began to make love. Through the gaps of the balcony wall I could just about make out the people dancing below on the street, and hear their whoops and splashes. I lifted my head and chest and arms and legs and allowed myself to surf and slide on him, pinioned in one place only. I no longer felt cold.
After a few minutes he pulled out of me and rolled me over on to my stomach. The wet wood was slippery beneath me as he got hold of my waist and lifted me up until I was on my knees and elbows, entering me from behind, holding on to the top of the balcony for support. I could see Barker peering disgustedly out at us from inside. But then I shut my eyes to relish the sensation, and the wonderful freedom of air on my skin at a time of year when it would usually be wrapped up in woollens.
Ivan loved this position. I suppose most men do, but I got the impression that given his own way, he’d have always done it like that. I think because it distanced him, meant that he didn’t have to pretend to feel closeness; he could just pump away and think about his backhand volley, or whatever.
Perhaps that was unfair. And that time out on the balcony did seem different. Maybe it was the novelty of the alfresco act, or the pleasure of the rain, but I thought we were really connecting in more than just a physical way. He always did that to me – just when I’d decided he was unbearable and I was worth more, he redeemed himself somehow.
I realized then that something else was different, and turned my head.
‘Ivan,’ I said in a slightly panicked voice, ‘you’re not wearing a condom.’
‘I know,’ he panted, ‘I’ll pull out. You’re due on, anyway, aren’t you?’
That was the other thing about Ivan. He had an almost spooky awareness of the progress of my cycle.
I was convinced that he must have a detailed wallchart rolled up in a cardboard tube somewhere, on which he plotted the course of my ovulation, PMT and menstruation in order to avoid either fertilization or confrontation, depending on the time of the month.
‘I’m going to bend you over the edge of the balcony,’ he said, dragging me to my feet again.
I protested, pushing my sodden rat-tailed hair out of my eyes. ‘What? No! What if someone sees? You’ll get us both arrested.’
‘No one can see through this,’ he said. ‘Now get over there.’ He grabbed my elbow and steered me over to the balcony wall. The hippies were still dancing in the street, but I could barely make out their shapes through the rain. Thunder boomed above us, and he pushed me between the shoulders to make me bend over. Pressing down hard on my back to keep me in place, he entered me again, and I felt, through the embarrassment of dangling bare-breasted over a balcony’s edge and the blood rushing to my head, twitchy waves of orgasm begin to wash through me. I couldn’t prevent myself shrieking out into the rain, and I heard Ivan yell too as we were both swamped and helpless.
The temperature began to drop noticeably as we lay in each other’s arms on the balcony floor, until all of a sudden it felt like January again.
‘Let’s go inside. I’m freezing,’ I said, and we staggered back to our feet. ‘You didn’t pull out,’ I added, trying not to sound accusatory.
He glanced sideways at me, almost sheepishly. ‘I know. Still, I’m sure it’ll be OK. You ovulated two weeks ago.’
‘I hope you’re right.’ I opened the balcony door and the heat from inside hit us, finally welcome. ‘Oh well, if I’m pregnant, we could always call the baby Storm. Or Rain. Good old hippie names.’
‘Don’t even joke about it,’ he snapped suddenly, ruining the mood. ‘It’s not funny.’ He walked naked over to the fridge for another beer, leaving wet footprints on the floorboards. I was pleased to see a nasty-looking splinter embedded in one of his buttocks. Ha, I thought, serves him right. Hope it hurts so much that he’s begging me to tweeze it out for him.
Then I felt a tiny strange flutter in my lower abdomen, an almost subliminal impression of movement, of development. It was a split second’s prescience, but I kept it to myself.
The temperature continued to drop that night, and for the few days following it. By the time the next sunny day came around, I was already seven weeks pregnant.
Chapter 35
Gordana
So many machines in our lives already. Usually I understand how they work: coffee machine, ticket machine, ball machine, sewing machine. In here, I don’t understand how any of them work, but I’m surrounded by them. I have been in them, on them, next to them: X-ray machine, mammogram machine, MRI …The MRI doesn’t hurt at all but it scares me: the thudding boom-boom in an enclosed space, the throbbing of a giant artificial heart, much stronger than mine. They have injected me with something radio-active for ‘tracking’. Perhaps it make me glow in the dark, so they can keep an eye on me. All in one day: needles and machines. And then Mr Babish draws all over my chest with a black marker. I feel foolish, and am surprised that I do. What does it matter if I am being drawn on? This man’s going to save my life. But I look like one of those maps Ted brings on long walks, with the dotted lines showing us where are the hills.
As if we can’t tell. The hills are the
bits which are hard to walk up, I tell him. Anyway, I have grade three tumour. It is three centimetres wide, and Mr Babish says it’s about seven weeks old and growing fast. He makes it sound like a foetus, an evil little baby in the wrong place.
It’s all very tiring, if I let myself stop to think about it.
Ted’s with me. He holds my hand and talks about this blasted puppy. It’s the only time he smiles, so I suppose we must keep the wretched thing. It will be a good way to make Ted take exercise. But I tell him, as they wheel me off into surgery, that he has to promise he will clean up all the little mistakes. I do not wish to find dog mess under my sofa. And if that puppy eats any of my shoes, it will have to find a new home.
Ted smiles again, with those teeth of his. He’d look like Dracula, if Dracula was a kindly count. His crooked smile was the first thing I ever noticed about him, when he turned up on my parents’ doorstep, at the wrong party. That was a very long time ago now. I was young and stupid then, and so grateful to Ted. I’m still so grateful to him.
I hope the puppy doesn’t try and jump up on me when I come out of hospital. Lord, it makes me weary just thinking about going home again: there is not only the puppy, of course, but I need to keep an eye on Ted, and Ivan. There will be court appearances and journalists and all sort of nightmare things. Ted already looks like his heart is beating fast, all the time, and even when he’s smiling, he’s grey. Rachel is a lot better, but I still worry about her. Ivan, I think, is about to explode at any moment. Susie will be at home too, and I am fond of her, but she wants to talk to me all the time, to tell her what to do with her life, like I’m some kind of expert. I can’t do that anymore. I will have to tell her she must decide.
These people must learn to look after themselves, I think. Let me get today over with, before I start worrying about getting home. First things first.
I feel a needle in my hand, am told to begin counting backwards, and I give myself permission not to think about it all. Ted’s white hair wavers into a misty cloud, and then his face become a blob…