Say You Love Me

by Marion Husband

  Last night she’d managed to feed and bathe the boys and tuck them in to bed before Danny woke up. He’d come down to the kitchen in his trousers and string vest, the dark hair on his chest showing through the diamond patterned mesh. He lit a cigarette and narrowed his eyes against the smoke.

  ‘What’s for tea?’

  Warily she said, ‘I’ve made you a cheese sandwich.’

  ‘Pickle?’ He sat down at the table.

  ‘Yes. Cheese and pickle.’

  As she set the sandwich in front of him he caught her round the waist and pulled her close, his face nuzzling into her body. ‘I’m sorry, angel.’ His voice was muffled, his breath warm through her jumper. She touched his hair cautiously and he broke away to look up at her.

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ he said.

  ‘I won’t!’

  ‘I’d kill myself if you left me.’

  ‘I won’t leave you, Danny.’

  ‘I promise not to hurt you again.’

  Not judging his mood well enough she said hurriedly, ‘Or the kids? Little Mark – he’s so good –’

  He stared at her. ‘Shut up about that little bastard.’

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s just –’

  He slammed his fist down on the table, causing her heart to leap. ‘If you’re going to go on pretending he’s mine I’m going to bring him up as I see fit, do you hear me? I won’t have him growing up into some fucking little fairy!’

  Scrubbing at the stained bath Annette tried to remember when Danny had started to accuse her of going with other men. It was probably during their first date together after he’d been discharged from the Marines. He’d called for her, dressed to the nines in a new suit and tie, his shoes polished as glass. He had a bunch of white chrysanthemums and a box of Milk Tray for her gran. Her gran had eyed him suspiciously and left the chocolates on the kitchen table as though they were tainted.

  Outside on the street Danny had laughed. ‘Is she like that with all your other fellas?’

  ‘I haven’t got any other fellas!’ She’d smiled at him. ‘I told you that in my letters – I was staying in until you got back.’

  ‘And you think I believed you?’

  She’d laughed, unsure of herself. ‘It’s true.’

  ‘It’d better be.’ He squeezed her hand tightly. ‘Are your mam and dad dead then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’d heard they were. Just you and the old bag, eh?’

  ‘Don’t call her that!’

  He’d looked at her. ‘Orphan Annie, aren’t you? Little Orphan Annie.’

  He liked the fact that she was almost alone in the world. Stupidly, she’d imagined that this was because he wanted to take care of her.

  She rinsed the last of the Vim away. The stain remained, only a little lighter. She started on the sink, moving aside Doctor Walker’s shaving things, his toothbrush and toothpaste. It was what she hated most about cleaning, being forced into intimacy with other people’s most personal things. And it was always worse with a new employer; in the other houses she cleaned she’d become so familiar with the stuff they left about that she almost didn’t see it any more. Here, though, everything was strange. And he was a man on his own – at least for the time being. She felt shy of making his bed: an intimacy too far.

  Reluctantly she went into the bedroom. His bed was already made. She heard the sound of a lawn mower and looked out of the window. She watched as he pushed the mower back and forth, creating neat stripes. His limp seemed less pronounced and she wondered if he suspected she may spy on him like this and so make an effort not to appear too crippled. His blonde hair caught the sun. As if he sensed he was being watched he stopped and looked up. He smiled at her, wiping sweat from his brow with his forearm before miming that she should open the window.

  The sash stuck but eventually it gave and the smell of cut grass filled the room. He called, ‘There’s some lemonade cooling in the kitchen sink. Why don’t you bring it out here with a couple of glasses?’

  ‘I haven’t finished in here yet!’ She laughed, embarrassed by how her voice had rung out so loudly over the quiet gardens. Glancing towards the blank, listening windows of his neighbour’s house, she imagined the gossip had already begun about the new doctor and his absent wife.

  He followed her gaze. Turning back to her he grinned and cupped his hands around his mouth. He shouted louder, ‘I might die of thirst, you know! You don’t want to be responsible for my death, do you?’

  ‘All right – I’m coming!’ Leaving the window open to fill the room with the spring-scented air, she went downstairs.

  They sat on the summerhouse steps, the bottle of pop between them. She’d noticed that a little of the cobweb still clung to his hair and itched to brush it away. She itched too for a cigarette, but didn’t think it seemly that she should smoke in front of an employer. The sun was warm and she lifted her face to it, closing her eyes. If she concentrated on its warmth and the way it seemed to intensify the garden’s scent, she might forget her craving. A bird called out; she tried to think only of the song it made and to keep her mind in the present. Inevitably she thought of Mark’s teacher, the stern, closed look on her face that had softened only when the woman told her how lovely Mark was. It was obvious the woman thought she didn’t deserve such a child.

  Doctor Walker said, ‘It’s a blackbird. They nest every year in that tree over there.’

  She opened her eyes and the bird swooped down to land a few feet away from them. It pulled a worm from the ground and despite the warmth Annette shuddered.

  Gently he said, ‘Are you all right, Annette?’

  ‘Yes.’ Realising how abrupt she sounded she added, ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

  He frowned at her. ‘I’m sorry, but I think you don’t look well.’

  ‘No – I am. Just tired.’

  ‘Then forgive me.’ He sipped his drink, watching the bird hop across the grass. After a while he said, ‘My father used to teach me to recognise species of birds from their songs. He was a bird watcher. I thought it was the most boring, pointless thing a grown man could do. Now I’m not so sure.’ The bird took off and he turned to her and smiled sadly. ‘Must be getting old, eh?’

  ‘I like watching them – though we only get sparrows where we live.’

  ‘And where do you live?’

  ‘Tanner Street. Behind the sugar factory.’

  He nodded. ‘I think I know where you mean.’

  ‘They’re going to knock it down soon. For the new road.’

  ‘Are they? How do you feel about that?’

  She shrugged. ‘We’ll get a new flat in the tower blocks they’re building on Rosehill. Ben can’t wait.’

  ‘Ben’s your husband?’

  ‘My son.’

  ‘Of course – you told me yesterday. Ben and Mark? Five and six years old.’

  She looked down at her drink. At lunchtime, as she did everyday, she would go to the school and look through the railings to see if she could see her boys. Almost always Ben would be playing football and Mark would be standing alone against the school wall watching him, bumping his head gently, rhythmically, against the red bricks. She felt ashamed for him, for his isolation, his strangeness that made the other children keep their distance. He looked like he wasn’t quite right in the head, even though she knew how bright he was, or had been as a baby. When he was a baby Danny had ignored him; it was only when he started to talk that the trouble began. Trouble! The word didn’t seem big enough to describe what Danny did.

  She stood up. ‘I should get on, Doctor Walker.’

  ‘Sit down, Annette. Enjoy the sunshine – everything else can wait.’

  She did as she was told, even felt grateful. She was sick and tired and her heart felt like a stone, a painful, useless weight. Her hand went to the pocket of her overall, closing furtively around the outline of her cigarette packet.

  On impulse she said, ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Do you mind if I have one
with you?’

  They smoked in silence, the garden’s quiet seeming to deepen around them. Even the birds had become still. The sun warmed the summerhouse roof and the smell of its tar mingled with the smoke from their cigarettes. She thought of Danny not knowing that she was here with a strange man, smoking in such peaceful silence. If he knew he would kill her.

  Doctor Walker said, ‘My wife may have to stay in hospital a little longer than I’d first thought. She has to have quite a major operation.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Looking straight ahead he said, ‘She was pregnant but she miscarried and now she’s to have a hysterectomy.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ It seemed inadequate just to keep repeating that she was sorry. Too quickly, she said, ‘I lost a baby. I know how sad she must feel.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  She laughed painfully. ‘Mark was only a few months old when I fell again. I would have had three babies under three. Everyone thought losing that baby was for the best.’

  Doctor Walker said, ‘I don’t suppose you thought it was for the best.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘People say stupid things, don’t they? Doctors especially, I’m afraid.’

  ‘It was a girl. I thought there might have been something wrong with her, for me to lose her like that.’ Shyly she asked, ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘I called her Heather. Not that I’ve told anyone I gave her a name.’

  ‘You’ve told me.’

  ‘Yes.’ Guiltily she hung her head. She hadn’t told Danny. She never talked about that time – the memories were too shaming. The doctors had treated her as though she was stupid. One of them had said, ‘Do you understand about contraception, Mrs Carter? It’s 1963 – no one needs to have a baby a year these days.’ She felt herself grow hot at the memory, ashamed all over again.

  She looked away to avoid Doctor Walker’s gaze, knowing that his sympathy would make her cry. Crushing her cigarette out beneath her foot she said, ‘I feel guilty not doing any work –’

  ‘Don’t. Talking to you gives me an excuse not to do the weeding.’ He looked out over the garden. After a while he said, ‘When you move to these new flats do you want to be on the top floor with the view of the hills, or the ground so you don’t have to bother with the lifts?’

  She smiled. ‘The top. Right at the top so you can see for miles.’

  ‘I think you’re right – I would prefer the view, too. What about your sons, though? They’ll need somewhere to run about.’

  She remembered the plan of the new estate she’d seen in the library: the model tower blocks stuck onto a green board with darker green bits of spongy stuff representing trees and shrubs. Each block was on its own little island surrounded by the sponge trees, a parkland where the children would play. She couldn’t imagine living in such a place.

  She said, ‘Maybe we’ll get a council house. Not everyone’s going to the flats.’

  ‘Perhaps that would be best for the children.’ As if to disguise his curiosity he said lightly, ‘What does your husband do?’

  ‘He’s a bin man.’ Even the words for Danny’s job sounded rough: a bin man, a rubbish man. The words shut up people like Doctor Walker. She glanced at him surreptitiously, wondering if his expression would give anything away. Contempt, perhaps, or boredom – the small discomfit of finding himself with absolutely nothing to say about such a job, no questions to ask.

  Catching her eye, he smiled. ‘My first wife’s father used to say that bin men were life’s true heroes, that we would all go to hell in a handcart without them.’ He laughed a little as if remembering. ‘Edward. He was a nice man. Grace – my first wife – used to call him the absent-minded professor. All the same, she adored him.’

  Annette wondered what it would be like to adore your father; she had barely known hers. All at once she felt jealous of this Grace. From the soft expression on the doctor’s face she’d obviously been adored just as she adored others. Long ago Annette had decided that the supply of love in the world seemed only to gather around certain people; the more they had the more they got, like iron filings drawn to a magnet.

  Doctor Walker said, ‘Grace was killed in one of those V2 rockets attacks right at the end of the war. I was still in hospital – convalescing.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Ironic, don’t you think? I survived the Normandy beaches and she was killed buying flowers on a London street.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Well – long time ago now.’

  ‘You miss her though.’

  He looked at her curiously. At last he said, ‘You said that as though you’d looked into my heart.’

  She blushed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve embarrassed you.’

  ‘No.’ She stood up. ‘Would you like me to dust the front room? Or I could clean the kitchen floor if you like…’

  He sighed. Getting awkwardly to his feet he said, ‘All right – we’ll get back to the grindstone. If you wouldn’t mind dusting the living room?’

  Relieved she smiled. ‘I don’t mind – it’s what I’m here for.’

  Simon finished mowing the lawn, all the time thinking about his last visit with Joy.

  Joy had said, ‘I won’t be able to give you children.’

  He’d taken her hand, so small and white and cold on the hospital counterpane. ‘Joy, I only want you to be well – and you will be. I’ve heard the gynaecologist here is a good man – a fine surgeon.’

  She drew her hand away. ‘It all seems so pointless now.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘Why not?’ A tear rolled unheeded down her face. Calmly she said, ‘I’ve been thinking about divorce.’

  ‘Oh Joy – no! Don’t think about that! Thoughts like that won’t help you to get better.’

  ‘Don’t think about that! Don’t say that! Why shouldn’t I think and say these things? It’s what you’re thinking – wondering why you’re trapped in a pointless marriage like ours!’

  ‘Is it pointless, Joy? I don’t think it is.’

  ‘But you don’t love me. And you married me out of some sense of duty – although I’d told you I could manage on my own with the baby…’ Baby was a taboo word now, of course, and she covered her mouth with her hand, appalled that it had escaped her lips. Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks.

  Helplessly he said, ‘Joy, I’m so sorry. I wish I could make it better for you – I’d do anything in the world –’

  ‘No one can do anything!’ Her voice rose angrily. ‘No one! Least of all you! You’re useless! I wish I’d never, never laid eyes on you! I must have been mad to have anything to do with such a useless, feckless, faithless man!’

  She wept, terrible, keening cries of pain, all the control she’d managed to hold on to over the last few days finally breaking down. Other patients and their visitors turned to look at her, startled that such a loud, ugly noise should come from the neat, demure little woman who had arrived amongst them that afternoon. Simon pulled the curtains around the bed, focusing his emotions on his anger at the hospital for moving her in to a public ward so soon.

  Sitting on the bed he tried to pull her into his arms but she pushed him away. ‘Go home! I don’t want you near me!’

  ‘Joy, please…’

  ‘Did you want our baby? Did you?’

  He must have hesitated a beat too long because she gazed at him with the kind of bitter triumph that comes when a bad opinion is justified. ‘You don’t care, do you? In fact, I think you’re relieved!’

  Later, when she had calmed down a little and a pretty nurse had brought them both a cup of tea, he had told her that he loved her and that he had wanted their baby as much as she had. He held her hands, keeping them trapped between his own so she wouldn’t pull away. He half expected her to smack his face if he let go. But all her anger had spent itself and she was meekly tearful. She had even apologised to him for her outburst. For the moment it seemed she wo
uld accept his lies. When the nurse drew back the curtains he had an idea that all the other men sitting by their wives’ beds were wondering how he might get away with it.

  Simon put the lawn mower away in the shed packed with the junk his father had always gathered around him. Rooting around earlier for the lawnmower’s grass box, he’d found a biscuit tin full of the toy soldiers he’d played with as a child. Alongside, amongst tins of solidified paint, was the fort his father had made.

  He smiled, remembering how patiently his father had cut out the plywood with his fret saw and glued the pieces together. The fort had a drawbridge that worked by winding a tiny handle connected to its string and bobbin mechanism. It had a platform running around the interior on which his soldiers stood and pointed their rifles at the enemy. His father, who never once talked about his experiences during the two years he’d spent in the trenches, would sometimes help him to arrange his armies and Simon would ask his advice about formations, but he would pretend not to know about such things. Later he came to think that perhaps he really didn’t know. A soldier was the very last thing his gentle, unworldly father had wanted to be. Whatever he’d learnt in France he’d decided to forget.

  He lifted the fort down and blew away the years of accumulated dust. He thought of Joy, who would surely want to claim this shed as her own, a place where she could store all her tools for the gardening she loved so much. He should clear the rubbish out, make it the neat and tidy space she would approve of. He set the fort down gently beside the tin of soldiers. He stared at it, thinking of his father who had loved Grace so much and would have been so sad for Joy and the loss of the baby.

  He caught his breath and tears welled up in his eyes. Joy was right, he was feckless, a useless man. He’d wasted his life.

  Behind him Annette said, ‘Doctor Walker?’

  He spun round, hurriedly wiping his eyes. She frowned at him. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes! Hay fever. Blasted nuisance!’

  Stepping closer she said, ‘It makes you look as though you’ve been crying.’