by Fiona Kidman
She resigned as president, but Genevieve was due to go to kindergarten and she was asked to go on that committee.
So it went on. Harriet supposed she was happy enough in the suburbs. She was known to be a woman with a mind of her own, and she took a secret pride in that. There was also a slight element of mystery surrounding her. One or two people appeared from the old football club, and vague rumours circulated about her from time to time when the coffee cups were rattling. She had a past, it was said, though substantiating it proved difficult; the gossip simply died a natural death, without anything positive to feed on. Harriet avoided the women who were married to members of the old crowd, cultivating a formidable aloofness.
Sometimes when the children had been tucked up for the night, she would see Max looking at her reflectively. She would wonder what he was thinking and then decide against asking him. She had nothing to hide from him, he knew her, she had never lied to him. He seemed to her a plain man in his needs, and she tried to provide for them. One night, however, he asked her, ‘Harriet, are you happy here?’
She had been folding nappies; Peter, her second child, acted as if he was going to wear them for the rest of his life. Surprised, she put down the pile she had been about to take to the airing cupboard.
‘I don’t know, I haven’t really thought about it. Do I seem unhappy?’
‘No,’ said Max, thinking as he went along. ‘But I remember you in Wellington, when I first met you. You’ve changed since then.’
‘Of course I’ve changed, silly,’ said Harriet, laughing at him. ‘I didn’t have you and the children then.’
‘But you were going to do so many things with your life then. You were very excited. And you haven’t done any of them.’
‘I opted for something different.’
‘Not quite,’ said Max. ‘Most of it’s just happened. I think you thought I’d share some of the things you wanted to do.’
‘And did you mean to?’ Harriet sat watching him. Something was happening between them, but she didn’t know what it was.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I thought all of this would just follow the way it has, and that it’d be what you wanted anyway.’
‘Well then, are you trying to tell me it’s not what I want? What are you trying to talk me into, Max?’
‘I don’t know.’
The moment had passed and they were both backing away from it. However, Harriet never forgot what Max had said. He deceived me, and he knows it, she thought. He was trying to be honest now, but perhaps it was a little late for honesty. He was a perpetrator of some great lie, like all the other men who lived in the suburbs of Weyville. True, he was vaguely aware of it without recognising exactly what he had done — but then, neither did Harriet. She told herself that she was happy; she was, she knew it. Then she began to have flashes of anger against Max, who had tried to provoke her into thinking she was behaving badly because she didn’t fit exactly into the mould that all the other women did.
This led her to believe that Max observed her more closely than she realised. Had he wanted a totally conventional woman? She supposed that he must have done. Maybe he hadn’t known what he wanted at that time any more than she had. She decided to ask him.
‘Do I seem different to other women round here?’ she said.
‘Yes and no,’ he replied defensively.
‘What do you mean, yes and no? What sort of an answer is that? Do I embarrass you? Aren’t you comfortable with me? Don’t I preserve enough fruit? Aren’t the children clean enough?’
‘Of course they are, sweetheart. You know they are.’
‘The children are clean enough, we’ve established that, but what about the other things? You haven’t answered any of them.’
‘Well, that was the last thing you asked me. Logically it was the first one to answer.’
‘Logic,’ she said bitterly. ‘You’re fencing. You started all this.’
‘I did?’
‘Asking me if I was happy. You know you did.’
‘What in God’s name is wrong with asking your wife if she’s happy? If you love her, of course you want to know that she’s happy.’
‘Some men don’t.’
‘All right then, you want me to be like some men. I’ll try harder.’
‘Max, you’re twisting what I say.’
‘Why don’t we just leave it?’
So she did. She felt as if she was walking through cobwebs. It must be her fault, turning that brief moment of his self-revelation and doubts into a crusade, worrying over it, blowing it out of proportion. She must try harder, do better, not rouse such strong feelings in people. Because she did. She’d split the kindergarten committee down the middle on what, looking back, had been a fairly minor issue. There had been no need for it and she could have avoided taking it so far, but she hadn’t.
It was the same when they went out to dinner. Harriet was lively and more widely read than many of the people in Weyville, so they came to be included in the dinner parties given by the town’s intellectual set, or those who saw themselves as such. They were schoolteachers, a few scientists who were gathering round the milling complex, lawyers and doctors. But whereas the rest of the company was content to follow well-laid conversational tracks, Harriet was unpredictable. Often she would seize like a terrier on any issue that interested her, shaking it and everyone present, and refusing to give up till an opponent was routed.
One night she took issue with a middle-aged lawyer who had been defending a rape case.
‘Of course, my dears,’ he said, looking round conspiratorially at them all in the candlelight, ‘you know she asked for it. Women nearly always do.’
‘That’s an absurd generalisation,’ said Harriet sharply.
There was a quickness in the air around the table. Max moved uneasily, for the lawyer was considered the best in town, and as sharp as a flick knife. If Harriet was about to take him on on his own ground, she was obviously due for her comeuppance. The women sat back to enjoy the sight of blood, though only half believing that Harriet would pursue such dangerous quarry. The lawyer, Nick Thomas, waited; it was clear he expected the battle to be brief.
‘Come, come my dear girl, a woman like this one sets up her charms to attract men. If she succeeds, then she can hardly complain, can she?’
‘Presumably most women set out to charm men at some stage of their lives. Haven’t we all?’ said Harriet, looking round the women. ‘Or did all the men here simply come and take you off a shelf marked available for marriage?’
The women smiled tentatively. ‘I suppose we must have,’ one of them said.
‘The point is, we had the right to choose who we slept with, didn’t we?’ She knew she had reached the point where Max would like her to stop.
‘Of course you did,’ said Nick. ‘But then you must realise that this — lady, if you like to call her that, had chosen to sleep with many men.’
‘I can’t see what difference that makes,’ said Harriet.
‘It makes a great deal of difference in the eyes of the law,’ said Nick.
‘Then the law is an even greater ass than some people already suppose,’ said Harriet. ‘She didn’t choose to sleep with this particular man, did she?’
‘We don’t know that. We don’t know whether in fact she’s simply paying him back for a tiff they had afterwards.’
‘But you said she was covered in bruises.’
‘Possibly self-inflicted.’
‘Do you honestly believe that?’
Nick shrugged. ‘My client denies it, and although he was foolish to become involved, I consider him of better character than the witness.’
‘Because he’s a man. Look, Nick, what d’you think about uninvited guests in your home? Would you let them stay?’
‘Of course not. I’d throw them out.’
‘Because you’ve got the right in law to choose who enters your home?’
‘Obviously.’
‘But yo
u do, do you not, invite many people into your home?’
Nick, still not taking her seriously, walked into the trap before he was aware she had made one. He smiled assent
‘Then don’t you think that whether a woman has one man or many enter her body, the choice is even more important than who should enter your house? Or do you place respect for possessions ahead of respect for a woman’s body?’
Nick flushed angrily. The anticipatory fidgeting had stopped and there was a fixed stillness in the room.
‘I see. I see,’ he said sighing heavily. ‘Well, as we’ve established a philosophical principle, do I have the permission of counsel for the prosecution to make one or two practical points?’
‘Please do,’ said Harriet.
‘Very well then. This — lady, open, one might say to many men, claimed that she was attacked in her home, on the other side of Weyville. She screamed, she struggled, she fought and she bit, but in the end despite all her protests, she was overpowered and …’ his voice sank, ‘ravished. What sort of a town is Weyville, I ask you, where a young woman could scream her lungs out and not be heard and helped by her neighbours? If any one of you people here were to hear a woman screaming in her house, would you not immediately rush to her assistance?’
They reflected. Elaine Mawson said tentatively that perhaps some of them might think twice about interfering in a domestic dispute. After all, people did get mad at each other on occasions.
Nick fixed her with a stern eye. ‘Would you be prepared to take that chance if you heard another woman in distress? Would you not at least approach the house and try to determine the nature of the crisis? Especially if that woman was shouting for help? As this person claimed she was doing?’
Everyone agreed that they certainly would but Harriet did not answer. ‘Don’t you agree, Harriet?’ asked Nick, leaning eagerly over the table.
‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re simply trying to turn aside an ethical dilemma you can’t answer with courtroom tricks that make you appear to be reasonable and make people afraid of challenging you in case they make fools of themselves.’
‘Dear Harriet, forgive my saying so, but I’m starting to find this tedious.’
‘Then let’s simply finish the topic by proving whether or not it’s possible to cry for help and go unheard in Weyville. Why don’t we all, on the count of five, scream help as loudly as we can, and see how quickly help arrives? As there are eight of us here, then it should test the validity of your theory eight times more effectively.’
The hostess said nervously, ‘But then we might have the police around.’
Max said, ‘Shouldn’t we be ringing and checking the babysitter, Harriet?’
She looked around at them, all flushed, all more than a little embarrassed, unable to cope. She was enjoying herself very much at that moment. Suddenly Elaine Mawson, giggling palely, said, ‘It can’t hurt can it? After all, Nick could say he was testing a theory. They wouldn’t arrest us, would they?’
Nick, piqued, but unwilling to prolong the scene further, suggested tersely that he give the count. On five, Camelot resounded with a crescendo of shrieks. For fully two or three minutes, they continued to shout and scream, then, one by one they fell silent, astonished. The silence continued, somebody laughed nervously. ‘Nobody’s coming,’ they started to say to each other. And it was true. Nobody did come.
Harriet and Max left early. In the car Max was quiet and cold. As they parked the car in the garage he said, If you can’t control your drinking, I’d prefer we stayed home at the weekends.’
‘I wasn’t drunk,’ said Harriet calmly. ‘I simply wanted to wipe the smug look off Nick Thomas’s face.’
‘And mine too?’ he asked bitterly.
‘Did you think I did that to make a fool of you?’ Harriet said, in real surprise.
‘You know I wanted you to stop. Surely that was enough.’
Harriet started to cry softly, her face streaming with tears in the dark. ‘Max, Max,’ she said, ‘hold me, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.’
After he’d paid the babysitter, he led her to bed and made her hot cocoa. When he joined her, he held her against him for a long time, stroking her hair. She drifted off to sleep, and woke towards morning, aware that he was still lying awake, holding her in the same position as when she had gone to sleep. Why? she wondered to herself. Where am I taking us? Or is it me, it must be me, because I cried and said I was sorry. I always cry though, that’s my weakness, once I cry I’m lost. Thank you, Father, you gave me that. That, and always saying I’m sorry. Thank you for nothing.
‘You must be uncomfortable lying like that,’ she said to Max.
‘I didn’t want to disturb you,’ said Max, removing his arm with relief.
‘What are you thinking?’
‘Oh … this and that. Would you like us to have another baby?’
‘Would you?’
‘It could be a nice idea,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ she said gratefully. It seemed to make perfect sense.
The next time Harriet visited her, Cousin Alice looked at her shrewdly. ‘You’re becoming quite a celebrity my dear.’
‘What have I done this time? No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to be reminded.’
Cousin Alice shook her head. ‘I wish I’d been you,’ she said.
Harriet looked at her in astonishment. ‘You don’t mean that.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Cousin Alice lightly, ‘I must say you seem to make life extraordinarily difficult for yourself … I don’t know whether I’d have had the constitution for that. But at least you’re living.’
‘Hmm, nappies and squashed crayons, that’s about all there is.’
‘They’ll grow up, and then, a person like you, there’ll be the world at your feet, you’re still so young. You’ve got spirit, girl, I could see it at the beginning. Why do you think I put up with you.’
‘You were hard on me at times.’
‘Hard or wrong? Eh? No, you don’t want to answer me that any more than I want to myself. But you learnt from it, didn’t you? Some people never learn from any experiences, good or bad. You have.’
‘You credit me with too much,’ said Harriet. ‘Anyway, Max wants us to have another baby, so it looks as if I’m not going to be quite as young as you think when they’re grown up.’
‘Do you want it?’ asked Cousin Alice.
‘Why not?’
‘Don’t have it,’ said Cousin Alice. ‘You’ve got enough. You’re a good mother now, you’ll end up hating the lot of them.’
‘Probably too late,’ said Harriet. ‘I threw my pills away last week.’ She said more or less the same thing to Nick Thomas when he rang her a few days later and suggested they have an affair.
‘It’s unethical,’ she said, laughing it off.
‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘Neither of you is my client.’
‘Then you’re touting for business. You want to handle my divorce.’
‘I want to handle you, my dear,’ he said.
She burst out laughing. ‘Oh Nick, you’re so subtle,’ she said.
‘Listen to me,’ he said fiercely into the telephone, ‘I haven’t stopped thinking about you, damn you, since you made an idiot of me. I’ll tame you — you’ll like that!’
Thinking about his grey-shot hair, the soft velour of his folded face and his immaculate energetic hands, she thought that, yes, she just might too.
‘No good,’ she said, ‘I’m off the pill. Max thinks a baby might keep me quiet in public places.’
‘Damn Max, you’re not going to have a baby.’
‘Give me a chance, the idea’s quite new.’
‘You’re not pregnant. Get back on that pill, and we’ll wait till you’re safe again.’
She laughed again and hung up. Odd how she’d felt towards the man. She really disliked him. When he won the case they had been discussing, her dislike deepened, though she supposed she was unreasonable to the poi
nt of irrationality over the whole matter. She felt for the woman whose character he had so soundly assassinated in court It emerged finally that she was Nance, now Noddy’s ex-wife, from the days of the milkbar. Old Nance, she wouldn’t have stood a chance Harriet thought. Come to think of it, she wouldn’t have had the brain to invent a story like that in the first place. Poor bitch, poor cow.
Nick was right, as it turned out. She wasn’t pregnant then; it took a couple of months of trying. Really, having a child seemed the safest and most sensible course of action.
She was drinking wine one Saturday afternoon with Don Everett, who had called to borrow their lawn mower. Later, she couldn’t remember where Max had been, though she thought he might have been helping a friend to build a fence. Things like that appealed to Max on a Saturday afternoon, and she thought that he must have taken Genevieve with him, because the house was very quiet. Peter she could account for; he would be sleeping, for he only needed to be shown his bed to fall asleep on it. An excellent being, young Peter. She could forgive him a few scatological deviations. From time to time he would defecate in a corner of the house, and stand calmly unmoved while she cleaned it up. He had learnt early that cleaning up shit was women’s work. It seemed a small price to pay for peace.