The House Within

by Fiona Kidman

  ‘So what’s this all about, young man?’ he said to Stephen.

  ‘What’s it to you?’ Stephen said, sneering at him.

  Bethany sat at the table, her head in her hands.

  ‘I’ve a good mind to thrash you.’ Matt raised his fists instinctively, as if, in a way, he feared Stephen.

  ‘You don’t have the right.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Matt said, lowering his hands. ‘Why did you do it?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Are you going to cut up Molly’s clothes?’ Molly was his daughter, the sister of Stephen’s friend.

  ‘Of course not.’ His voice was indignant, his face scarlet again. ‘D’you think I’m sick or something?’

  ‘Something,’ said Matt, quite gently, as if he could suddenly see what was eating Stephen. ‘I had to check it out, given that you visit us.’

  He sat down at the table without being invited. ‘Perhaps Stephen needs to find a way to pay for the dress,’ he said to Bethany.

  She nodded. ‘That would be enough.’

  ‘Can I go now?’ asked Stephen. He left anyway.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Bethany. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had to come out like this. Something just snapped.’

  ‘I can understand that. Are you sleeping all right?’

  ‘Yes, I am. That’s what’s so odd. I go to bed and fall into this deep, dark sleep and in the morning I can’t wake up.’

  ‘You have to have some time when your mind’s not working or it can’t heal.’

  ‘I guess I’m just tired of jumping backwards and forwards over the fire,’ Bethany replied.

  He looked at her without speaking. Bethany said, to fill the silence, ‘This ring of mine. My mother gave it to me. I’ve always wondered if it was junk.’

  ‘Are you wanting to sell it?’ he said, reaching for her hand.

  ‘No, just curiosity. I shouldn’t ask you, should I? It’s like asking a dentist to look at your teeth at a party.’

  He smiled then, so that she saw that his own teeth were very white, edged with a pink, scalloped gum line.

  ‘Pigeon blood,’ he said still smiling.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A very nice garnet, we call it pigeon blood red.’

  He went on holding her hand thoughtfully for a while and then put it down on the table again.

  SHE WISHED HER departure could be grander in its scope, an escape to another town, a new and splendid job that changed everything. Or a trip abroad. Bethany has travelled a little with Matt since her marriage — to Sydney to see an exhibition of metal jewellery made with techniques that don’t require soldering (in particular, she remembers a Persian bridal veil made of linked chains, worn over the face); to Brisbane to see an exhibition of paintings by Matisse which made her weep, the colour so stunning and unforeseen (she had bought a transparent circular box covered with amethyst-coloured gauze as a memento, and some prints, and she had also looked surreptitiously but in vain for a glimpse of her lost sister’s face); and to Rarotonga for ten days of just blobbing out, as she and Matt put it. She could up and go to London.

  But none of these things happen. When she does leave, back in her own house, she writes away for information about extra-mural university courses. Perhaps it is not too late to study. The newspapers used to feature pictures of women in maturity who had obtained degrees, even women who were eighty and achieved doctorates. When the material arrives, she wonders whether this is the action she craves, or whether it is just another of the courses in self-improvement she has embarked on before; such achievements are no longer exceptional.

  All of this changes one Wednesday morning when Marjorie rings her up.

  ‘Dear heart,’ Marjorie says, ‘I’m desperate. I can’t do class tonight.’ Now she has retired, she teaches a cookery class at the local night school. ‘John’s mother is ill,’ she tells her now, ‘I’m flying to Wellington with him this afternoon. You couldn’t possibly take my class, could you?’

  ‘Me? I’ve never taught in my life.’

  ‘No, but you can cook. Just tell them what you do.’

  Bethany begins to protest, and for the first time in their long friendship, she hears something at the end of the line, an escaped sigh that tells of impatience.

  ‘Never mind,’ says Marjorie, ‘I can just cancel. The woman in the office can ring around.’

  ‘Well, all right,’ Bethany says, ‘I’ll give it a go.’ She thinks of all the times she has instructed new recruits at the laboratory; they always seem to know what to do when she has finished with them.

  ‘MY AUNT VERA,’ she begins, ‘had a wonderful spreading lemon tree at the back of her garden, and so have I. Marvellously sour, fleshy Genoa lemons. Because I’m not your regular teacher and I don’t know what you’d be doing as a rule with Marjorie, I thought I’d bring along my last windfalls of the season and share them out with you. We can have a go at one of Aunt Vera’s old recipes.’

  ‘I thought we were going to do blue cheese and lamb.’

  ‘Another time,’ says Bethany, and smiles at the woman who has spoken. She doesn’t respond. ‘I’ll give you the recipe and then we can get down to work. Have you got your pens ready? This is Lemon Honey.

  ‘250g sugar, juice of 2 lemons, 50g butter, 2 eggs.

  ‘Beat the eggs, add the other ingredients and stir over the fire but don’t let it boil. You’ll know when it’s cooked by the way it coats a wooden spoon.’

  ‘All that sugar,’ says the woman at the front, and sniffs. Bethany has met her before — her name is Selina, she writes poetry. In fact, she is the town’s one claim to literary fame, having won a poetry writing competition and had her name in the paper. One of those women. Her nails are long and blood red, her hair frizzy.

  ‘Quite,’ says Bethany, ‘you should talk to my daughter. But it’s old-fashioned cooking we’re talking about here.’

  ‘You have a speciality in this?’ asks a young man. He has introduced himself as Troy, and wears a knotted scarf at his throat.

  ‘Yes,’ says Bethany, mentally exploring the idea, ‘yes, that’s my area of expertise.’

  ‘THEY LOVED YOU,’ says Marjorie.

  ‘Too much sugar.’

  ‘Oh, don’t mind Selina, she’s neurotic.’

  ‘And that young chap, Troy, I felt as if he was watching me.’

  ‘Him? He’s sweet really, he’s done a publishing course, but he’s still waiting for something to turn up.’

  ‘Is he with Selina?’

  ‘No,’ says Marjorie, and gives her an odd look. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think about Selina, she hardly ever comes to class. I thought she’d dropped out.’

  Bethany doesn’t know what the problem is with Selina, but she can see Marjorie’s not going to tell her.

  ‘You couldn’t do the class again, could you?’ Marjorie asks a week or so later. ‘They’ve been asking after you, and I’ve torn my calf muscle. I’m all strapped up.’

  ‘Well,’ Bethany begins, a refusal dying on her lips. ‘I suppose I actually enjoyed it. Except for Selina.’

  ‘She’s definitely dropped out,’ says Marjorie, ‘she’s writing a long poem.’

  ‘Really?’ Bethany thinks briefly of the Ancient Mariner but supposes Selina is writing a different chronicle of sorrow.

  ‘I’m well shot of her. Troy’s been asking for your phone number.’

  ‘Oh that’s it, then. No, that’s scary.’

  ‘In the nicest possible way, he thinks you’re an original.’

  ‘Like Grandma Moses?’

  ‘Absolutely. An artiste, he thought, especially when you compared your lemon honey with Matisse’s yellows.’

  ‘Did I do that? Oh well, yes, there’s this tablecloth in one of his paintings, the one with the box of fruit on it, and the canvas of nude women behind it. It seemed quite appropriate.’

  ‘I’d never have thought of that. I can see why they’re enchanted. Oh, go on Bethany, if you weren’t so good I wouldn
’t ask again.’

  ‘THIS IS A very old recipe, something more natural, less inclined to sugar,’ says Bethany. ‘We won’t have time to make it, of course, we’ll do something with filo pastry, but you might like to try this when you’ve got the time. My grandmother passed this one on to Aunt Vera. This is the recipe for Nasturtium Seed Capers, which came in the first place from Mrs Fosbender.

  ‘Gather nasturtium seeds young and green. Wash and cover them with cold water in which a good tablespoon of salt to each half a litre of water has been added. Leave for 12 hours, strain, dry in cloth — a muslin cloth, although a paper towel will probably do — and put into bottles.

  ‘To each litre of vinegar that is required to cover this amount, allow 50g of salt, 12 peppercorns, 1 teaspoon of grated horseradish, 2 cloves. Put these ingredients with the vinegar into a pan and bring to the boil. When cold, pour over the seeds and divide the spices among them. Cover the bottles with parchment paper.’

  ‘Parchment paper?’ says Troy, with wonder.

  ‘Parchment paper,’ says Bethany firmly. ‘Like moth wings. Nothing else is as good.’

  BETHANY AND MATT did try to work out their lives together. Matt was not a bad man, she liked him immensely at the beginning. A kind man but flashy is how she would describe him when she was resolving to leave him. They had shared a taste for the illicit when they were younger. She acknowledges her part in that. When word comes that he is dead she feels responsible. Death, persistent and ungenerous, has caught up with her again. It is difficult to remind herself, and certainly not others, of the good times she has had with him. This would seem too apologetic, a belated remorse. Still, she had not thought his sorrow would be so extreme.

  I don’t want anything, she had told him when he called around after her evacuation from his house. Certainly not your life, she might have added.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault. He didn’t die of a broken heart,’ Marjorie tells her crisply, although it is his heart that has let him down, on the golf course of all places, his swing poised beautifully at the fifteenth hole.

  ‘You don’t know that,’ cried Bethany.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ said Marjorie, with the infuriating complacency that Bethany can only put down to her past career. ‘Stop crucifying yourself.’

  At his funeral, his children cannot decide whether to ignore her, or to stand close to her for comfort. Molly and her daughter Zoe settle for comfort. Bethany has not stopped acting as though Zoe is her granddaughter. The child wears glasses strapped to her face. Matt’s son Anthony stands a respectable but forlorn distance away, nearer to her son Stephen; at one stage of his life, he has referred to Stephen as his brother. Anthony and Molly’s older brother is overseas and hasn’t made it back in time for the funeral. But Matt’s brother Sam, who has lived in Canada for years, arrives with an hour or two to spare. He is a big, shaggy man, quite unlike Matt.

  When this funeral takes place, Bethany and Matt had only initiated the first process in their divorce. Bethany hadn’t looked forward to its completion, a second time round in the annals of failure. Instead she finds herself a widow.

  ‘I THOUGHT YOU weren’t coming back,’ says Bethany to Selina.

  Marjorie doesn’t pretend to be in charge of the class any more. ‘It will do you good to go along there,’ she says, in her brisk, confirming voice. It is just over a week since Matt died but, as Marjorie reminds her, it need hardly be a cause for deep grief, not in the circumstances. This is not fair, of course, but Bethany doesn’t argue. She has come to look forward to the group. Especially, she enjoys the way Troy responds to her recipes. He writes down the things she says, as well as the recipes, which embarrasses and at the same time pleases her. Bethany is taken aback when Selina comes into the group late, dressed in a long blackish skirt and a dull maroon top; she looks as if she has been weeping.

  ‘I did pay my fees,’ she snaps, taking a seat at the back of the room, hunched over as if in pain, and doesn’t take notes.

  ‘This is Mrs Purple Jones’ Apple and Tomato Chutney,’ Bethany says.

  ‘Who is Mrs Purple Jones?’

  ‘I never met her, but I’ve heard she was a great hulk of a woman who wore purple from head to foot and roared like a bull when she was crossed. She lived next door to my grandmother, who, according to Aunt Vera used to hide behind the drapes in the dining room when she heard her coming. But she made the best chutney in the world, and my grandmother ventured out to get her recipes now and then. She once told my grandmother that hunger is actually the best seasoning for meat, but maybe she was quoting someone else on that. She was an educated woman. Have you got your pens ready?

  ‘2kg sour apples (weighed after peeling and coring), 2kg tomatoes, 1kg onions, 500g brown sugar, 125g garlic, 2 tablespoons salt, 1 tea-spoon of cayenne.

  ‘Cover with vinegar and boil for 5 hours.’

  ‘I don’t see how you can stand round here making stupid remarks and acting as if everything’s a laugh,’ says Selina. ‘Now that he’s dead.’

  Everyone else has gone. Bethany’s hand flies to her throat as if she has been caught out. ‘I didn’t know you knew my husband,’ she says.

  ‘There’s something I think you ought to know,’ says Selina. ‘About Matt.’

  ‘Oh no,’ says Bethany. Already she can tell what is coming. She wants to be wrong, Selina’s gaze is relentless.

  ‘I expect you knew about us. I supposed that was why you left. He was pleased of course, in a way, that he didn’t have to tell you about our love.’ She says ‘our love’ in a fluttery girl’s whisper.

  ‘Of course, he didn’t want to damage you. He thought you might have gone mad, seeing as it happened to you before. But I can see, you’re really heartless. I’m glad to see what you’re like. It makes me feel better now I know I didn’t steal him away from you, you just drove him away, which is what he told me all along.’ She takes out a tissue and sniffles into it, glaring defiantly with her rheumy red eyes.

  ‘Perhaps you should write a poem about it,’ says Bethany.

  ‘Oh, you don’t understand,’ cries Selina. ‘What do you know about poetry, you cold-hearted bitch?’

  BUT BETHANY DOES know. She is writing the poetry of her life. This is something that Troy apparently understands. ‘You should write down everything you’ve told us in class,’ he says, the next time he sees her. ‘I’ve taken some notes for you, to help you make a start.’

  She is writing Creamy English Rice Pudding, Tabbington and Colonial Goose, Laughing Jennies and Parkins, pickles and sauces, chutney and jam.

  ‘Mrs Fosbender earned her living from raising poultry for the table and also from selling second-hand buttons and bric-a-brac,’ Bethany wrote. ‘She dressed in all shades of grey from the palest tones of Marsh lavender through to dark iron greys. Her colour schemes had the effect of making her invisible as she slipped like a shadow from one clothesline to the next, snipping buttons as she went. What betrayed her was the permanent odour of raw onions and dead chickens that followed her. My mother and my aunts were sent to watch for Mrs Fosbender when the washing was on the line. On one of their lookouts, Mrs Fosbender was caught. My grandmother, a merciful woman, set Mrs Fosbender down in her kitchen …’

  ‘I just love this,’ says Troy, ‘Mrs Fosbender’s recipes are pure magic, her celery soup is just the best.’

  Bethany thinks of her grandmothers, one of whom died before she was born, and the other who died three years after. The facts and fictions of her life fuse in the recipes she writes, as she translates old Imperial measures into metrics, the simple, pleasurable foods of her early life flowing on into words she cannot stop.

  ‘My paternal grandmother sent this next recipe to my mother, who in turn passed it on to my aunt, the person who did all the cooking when I was a child. This grandmother died of a broken heart when my father was killed in action …’ (Bethany’s pen hesitates over the words broken heart, remembering the dismissive tone Marjorie used when she spoke about Matt. Still, she b
elieves, some people really do die of them. She has nearly done so herself.) ‘I don’t remember ever meeting her but from her pictures it is clear I am like her. It is odd, too, that I have had to correct her spelling which has never been one of my strong points, but you will notice she is exact about figures. She was proud of her son’s death, because it was a noble sacrifice, but pride has its own rigorous demands. I believe grief ate her like a worm inside and made her ashamed.’

  She doesn’t remember meeting this grandmother of whom she writes, has no pictures of her, but she is sure that what she has written would be right, that if they had known each other she would have known more about herself. The recipe she writes is for Oriental Chocolate Chew, which she has made for each of the children’s birthdays for as long as she can recall. Cherries and ginger, raisins and cocoa. Sweet biscuits, cut into fingers.

  ‘YOU’RE MAD,’ BETHANY told Selina, and she believed it, although hers is the kind of insanity that will probably pass. The febrile, feral look of the mistress, hot and hunting, which she should have recognised. She’s seen it in others, she knows it, with sorrow, in herself.

  She remembers now the thin, malicious gleam in Selina’s eye when she mentioned Matisse.

  ‘You know a lot about art, do you?’ she had asked. As if Bethany was an impostor pretending to know more than she did.

  Selina, she realises now, knew every detail of Bethany’s life, as mistresses do about wives they would like to replace.

  ‘Not really,’ she had said, and remembers smiling at Selina.

  SHE SMILES BACK at herself in the mirror but it is one of those stretched grins, the lipstick smile.

  ‘More blusher?’ asks the make-up woman.

  ‘I don’t know, you’re the expert,’ says Bethany. ‘I’ve never done anything like this before.’

  ‘You’ll have to get used to it,’ says the woman. ‘You’ve written a best-seller, they tell me.’