The Wives of Bath

by Susan Swan

  The river ran quite fast here through a concrete bed. A wall of cement lay flat on either side of the stream, like two strange concrete shores. The water had no choice but to follow the man-made bed. Then Josie said, “I just love the countryside, don’t you?”

  I know that feeling superior to people is not polite, but how could anybody think a funny little culvert just outside the city was real countryside? Obviously, Josie didn’t know a river from a hole in the ground. I felt mad at her for being so dense, and a teeny bit of contempt, too, because she hadn’t guessed I was a girl. Then, the next thing I knew, Josie was slapping her chest and shrieking at me about a bee getting caught in her blouse. And all of a sudden she was lying flat on her back in some bushes, and I knew something was going to happen that I didn’t like.

  “It’s inside my brassiere, Nick. Get it out, please!”

  I bent down and started to peer under her blouse, and she kicked me impatiently.

  “Hurry, it’s stinging! Ouch! Oh, it’s mad as can be.” She grabbed my hand and made it yank down the cups of her bra, and then she was spilling out everywhere—lying like a crazy fool in the bushes, her tubby legs spread and her poor pillow-sized breasts bare for all the world to see.

  She’d stopped moaning and just lay there without moving. I thought she’d died. And then she said my name in a whispery little voice, and I knew she wasn’t hurt and maybe there hadn’t even been a bee at all. And what’s worse, I understood that this was the moment Kong was waiting for, and I’ve never felt so frightened in all my life. Josie looked not just fat but big—bigger than me by a hundred times. Bigger than the ski mountain in Madoc’s Landing. And I thought with a little shock, this is how you’d look, too, Mouse, if you were lying there waiting for a boy’s hands to love you. I’d be scared—maybe more scared than the boy. And not knowing that I was a mountain to be scaled.

  “Nick, sit down like a good boy.” She patted the ground beside her, and I did what she said, but I kept on my cap to hide my long hair, and even Lewis’s sunglasses, because I was afraid she would see I had girls’ eyes and not boys’ eyes, although, as it turned out, she kept her own eyes half-shut, as if she didn’t want to see what was dead obvious to anybody who cared to look.

  I lit a fag to stall for time and thought what a shame it was I had to act tough when my ideal man was John Kennedy. The least I could do was behave like a gentleman and not stare at her breasts. If John Kennedy had been in my position, I know he would have kept his eyes averted. Besides, Josie had embarrassing breasts, and I was sure somebody with breasts like that wouldn’t want anyone looking at them too closely. Funny little white lines ran off from the edges of her nipples, as if her breasts were starting to crack open like a window some kid had broken with a stone. I knew those funny-looking lines were stretch marks, because I’d seen them on Sal’s cousin Ginny, whose body fell to pieces, Sal said, after Ginny had five kids.

  Meanwhile, Josie started squeezing me all over and giggling and whispering in my ear about how hard my legs were when they weren’t hard at all. She inched her fingers up toward my crotch and asked me in that fake whispery voice if I had a rubber. I didn’t have a clue what she meant, and she started to laugh again, and just when I thought I couldn’t stand her laughing at me anymore, she kissed me with a wide-open mouth. And I kissed her back, my sunglasses still on. I knew that’s what she wanted me to do, and I did it not just to be polite but because I was curious, too. And she opened her mouth even wider, and all of a sudden I had the stupidest idea that she was like a house with too many open windows. I wanted to warn her to board herself up, because any robber could crawl into a house like that. And then she snatched my hand and placed it on her breast, and for no good reason I let my hand rest on her soft cool skin—as cool as Plasticine. And then she suggested that I take off my shirt, too, because she wanted to see my breasts.

  “Not on your life,” I said, forgetting I wasn’t supposed to speak English, and that’s when I realized that Josie had never believed I couldn’t speak English in the first place. And she’d never believed I was a boy, either.

  “You don’t like me because I’m fat,” she said, and started to cry, as if I’d been manhandling her.

  “That’s not true,” I said weakly.

  “Liar,” she said, sobbing, as she tucked herself back into her bra.

  Then she ran off, weeping, and I stood for a long time smoking while Sal’s shaming voice rang and rang in my head. It said all the usual things and a few new bits about how disgusting it was for one girl to touch another, but mostly it kept at me about getting what I deserved for being deceitful, and I had to grant the voice it had a point on that count. When I told Lewis about it, I left out the part about Josie knowing I was a girl, and I wondered if Lewis knew. I said Josie got mad when I touched her, and all Lewis replied was, “You can’t be a real boy, Mouse, until you stop getting sucked in by what girls say. They always want to make everything your fault.”

  This wasn’t exactly true, but for the life of me I didn’t know how to argue with him.

  27

  November 9, 1963

  Dear Mr. Kennedy,

  It’s high time I told you about the tests. I’ve promised Paulie I won’t say a word to the other girls, and a Mouse always keeps her promises. That’s me to a T—I mean an M. I’m a promise keeper.

  Today is a pretty weird day for me. I have to do something that Paulie dreamed up to show my mastery over nature. I’m a little nervous. I feel like Roy Orbison in his song “Runnin’ Scared.” You know that song, Mr. President? I’m sure you’ve heard it, but you probably prefer old-fashioned stuff like “The Shrimp Boats Are Coming.” Well, I’m running scared all the time, too, hoping things will turn out all right in the end.

  Right now, I’m in a shed with a pigeon. I’m supposed to kill it to prove I’m a man. Well, not a man—you’re a man. To prove I’m manly. I don’t want to do it, and yet I know I have to. Paulie says men have to do things to prove they are men. And they kill the thing they love—like Oscar Wilde said. That’s too much to ask of anybody, but I guess men can’t protect women and children unless they learn to be bad. There’s no way around it. As Paulie says, women are good only for having babies, and men are in charge of death, which is a very, very tough job. If you want to be as good as a man, you have to learn to administer death, too.

  Not that I want to be mean to the pigeon, or think it deserves to die. Sure, it pecked my foot a few minutes ago, but I don’t hold that against it. Actually, it looks a little sick. It’d really be putting it out of its misery by killing it. That happens in war, doesn’t it? Your best buddy asks you to do him in because he’s so far gone he knows he’s not going to live. A poet here named Earle Birney wrote a long poem about two men climbing a mountain. One of them got pretty smashed up during a fall on the rocks. So he asked his buddy to roll him off the cliff, and—can you guess the rest? His buddy didn’t want to do it. But David begged and pleaded, and finally his friend rolled him over like a log into empty space.

  I hope you don’t think I’m showing off, but I read about how you said poetry kept you from getting conceited. You said it’s easy when somebody is running the country for them to get too big for their britches and forget about important things. (Like the northern lights on evenings in August and being nice to daughters—the top of my list, Mr. President.) I guess this pigeon is my David, and I have to put it out of its misery. It’s just that I don’t think I can kill a pigeon, Mr. President—even a sick one. But Paulie will be here any moment, and that’s what I have to do. Correction: that’s what I will do.

  Your pal,

  Mouse

  November 13, 1963

  Dear Mr. Kennedy,

  I have great news about Morley! (My father, in case you’ve forgotten.) He came to see me! And I was lucky enough to get him to myself for an hour and twelve minutes. Without Sal. Can you believe that, Mr. President? 1 was coming out of Mrs. Peddie’s class at 3:30 when 1 saw a tall figure in
a fedora standing in the front hall. I’d know that fedora anywhere. It’s black, and Sal turns the brim up because she says it will balance the sag of Morley’s big, sloping shoulders.

  For a second or two, I thought Morley looked a little sad standing there by himself, like Dr. Kildare on the wrong TV set, staring with his nice, big eyes at the packs of girls in green tunics swarming past him, their arms full of books. (By the way, I am proud to say I have Morley’s eyes, which are prone to showing circles of fatigue.) Then Morley spotted me, and the next thing I knew he was cuffing me on the cheek and handing me a food package that Sal had made up (ten packages of yellow Chiclets, my fav, and five Oh! Henrys, my second-fav.) I will give the Chiclets to Paulie and keep the candy bars for myself. I’m glad I don’t have to diet like the other girls even though food and mail are the only things I have to live for. (Not that I get many letters.) So I thanked my father, and I would have kissed him, too, except that Morley and I don’t have that kind of relationship.

  Then we went for a walk around the hedge, which is where all the girls go with their visitors. Morley shuffled along in his big tan wing tips, not noticing the gorgeous waxy brown leaves still on the oak trees in the ravine or the older girls playing field hockey on the pitch below us. And not—I’m afraid to say—noticing me. You see, Morley always acts like he is asleep or dead, Mr. President. That’s because he works too hard. Like you, he’s very busy. Everybody wants him.

  I hoped he would say the wonderful things he’s always wanted to tell me. You know the kind of fatherly remarks I mean. He doesn’t normally say them, because he doesn’t like to make Sal jealous. Well, maybe he’s afraid I would tell her, because that afternoon Morley didn’t talk much. Once, just once, when I was telling him about having our tunics inspected by the matrons, he stopped and said, “You’re all right, aren’t you, Mouser?” I almost told him then about the pigeon, but when he looked at me with his worn-out, old eyes, I just couldn’t bring myself to say how much I hated Bath Ladies College. I didn’t want to cause trouble between him and Sal. So I said, “I’m fine, Morley.” Then we sat in his Olds, and finally he made my cheek sting with his big hand. “Morley’s love taps,” my stepmother says when he pats her goodbye like that. If only you knew how much I hated myself for not being able to talk to him the way I can talk to you! I think it’s because you understand the dark side of things. I know you do, because I read about you giving a talk at Amherst College and how you quoted Robert Frost’s line, “I have been one acquainted with the night.” I have been acquainted with the night, too, Mr. President. In fact, inside this dump it always feels like night.

  I don’t mean that Morley doesn’t know about pain, because he does, and he also has the kindest eyes of anybody you ever saw. Your eyes, Mr. President, are more frank and glad than Morley’s. You always look expectant, as if somebody we can’t see is about to give you a very nice surprise. Morley’s eyes look like he is expecting nothing except problems. Maybe Morley sees just a little too much pain for any decent person to handle. Well, sayonara, Mr. President. It’s been a ball talking to you.

  Your buddy,

  Mouse Bradford

  P.S. By the way, the pigeon died. (Not at my hands.) I thought it should have a sporting chance, so I took it out to the hill behind the school. I set it down and let it stagger around, hoping it would have the sense to fly away. And just at that terrible moment when it didn’t fly off and I knew I had to get out Paulie’s bowie knife, and I felt like Abraham after God asked him to sacrifice Isaac—just then Spruce, Sergeant’s corgi, came tearing down the hill and grabbed the pigeon and ran off shaking it by its neck. Well, I ran after the dog, hitting it with a stick to make it drop the bird. But it was too late—the dastardly deed was done. Spruce chewed the head off the poor thing. I bawled my eyes out, and then Paulie got mad and said I was a disgrace to the male sex. I don’t like being a man that much, Mr. President. I don’t know how you do it.

  November 15, 1963

  Dear Mr. President,

  Today is a red-letter day because you wrote me. I can’t believe it. I have your note taped over my bed beside my Kennedy half-dollar. I especially liked the part “Regards, John F. Kennedy,” but I also did appreciate your advice, “Being a child has many difficulties, and parents are not perfect, but we must each give each other the best we have to offer.” Thanks a million, Mr. President. I don’t mean to sound sentimental, but you are the greatest friend I have ever had.

  All my love,

  M.B.

  P.S. What do you think of a father who cuffs you on the cheek with the back of his hand when he says good-bye? Would you do that to Caroline? Just wondering.

  — Mouse?

  — What?

  — He really wrote you, didn’t he?

  — He really did. But I didn’t send my last three letters. I was afraid he wouldn’t approve of the tests, either.

  28

  One night, when Ismay had gone with the school to the Royal Winter Fair, a pigeon tumbled onto the windowsill of our room and fell with a soft thud onto the floor. I yelled, and Paulie jumped almost ten feet. We both crept closer to see—Paulie purposeful, me cowering, my hands near my face in case the pigeon flew straight for my head in the flukey way that birds and bats do. What if it was the mate of the pigeon I’d tried to kill coming for revenge?

  “This is your last chance, Bradford.”

  “Somebody will come in,” I stammered. At the sound of my voice, the bird’s pale eyelids slid apart, and two moist pink balls peeked sorrowfully up at me over the ridge of its beak. Then the gauzy lids slowly shut again. It knew—the way animals always do—what I’d tried to do to its wife or brother.

  “Not if you’re fast,” Paulie said. “Do you want me to show you how?” Paulie held her pillow over the bird, which sat without moving—a puffed-up mass of beak and dirty feathers as round as a football.

  “Don’t be weird!” I shouted. “This pigeon still has a chance to live. Leave it alone!”

  “What do you mean, I’m weird, Bradford?” Paulie handed me her pillow and I stood like a dope holding it over the bird’s wilted head. Honest to God, I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t heard footsteps in the corridor. Paulie and I stared at each other. There was no mistaking who it was. The door swung open, and there she stood, a study in toneless greys. Her bloodhound eyes flicked left and right. Then she saw the bird. “Don’t tell me that’s another sick pigeon. Why do people poison dumb creatures?” the Virgin said irritably.

  “Well, they’re not very smart,” Paulie said.

  The Virgin stared at her.

  “I mean, they aren’t any smarter than turkeys. I don’t see that it’s any big deal.”

  “Is that so? Take this bird to the infirmary, will you, Tilly?” The Virgin waved her hand, and Miss Phillips, who had been waiting outside in the corridor, walked in and carried off the frightened bird in Paulie’s towel. I was very relieved to see it being taken out of Paulie’s clutches. I sat down on my bed and waited. The Virgin didn’t just drop by for nothing.

  “I know you must be wondering why I’m here.” The Virgin chuckled and waited for us to chuckle, too, but neither of us made a sound. “Well, Paulie knows, don’t you, Paulie?”

  Paulie sat down on her bed and turned her back to us. She didn’t answer.

  The Virgin walked over to look at the photographs of President Kennedy I’d pinned up on my bulletin board. “He’s a literary man, isn’t he?” the Virgin said. “You must like that. Have you read his Profiles in Courage?”

  “Yes, Miss Vaughan.” I stared down at the floor. In front of me rested the pair of snub-nosed pumps we all dreaded to hear in the hall. And the powerful legs that drove the gunboats. These legs were encased in support hose that squashed down the unshaved hair that grew in thick and lush just above her ankles. How gross! But at least the Virgin’s gunboats had more verve than Miss Phillips’s plain lace-up boots.

  “I see you have asked permission to go out wi
th your aunt and uncle this weekend. Are they going to take you to the Visitor’s Luncheon at Kings College? You must be looking forward to seeing Victoria there.”

  “Wait—wait! What about me?” Paulie asked. “Can I go?”

  “Excuse me, Pauline. I was talking to Mary Beatrice. But since you’ve joined in, I have a question for you. Why haven’t you been keeping your promise to me about your visits to Dr. Torval?”

  Paulie turned her back to us again and didn’t reply.

  “Now, Pauline, listen to me. I’m asking you to give Dr. Torval a chance even if you don’t think he’s a suitable choice. Don’t you think she should go, Mary Beatrice?”

  “Go where?” I asked.

  “He’s a shrink, Mouse.” Paulie suddenly jumped up and addressed me as if we were alone in the room. “And he stinks! His B.O. makes me want to puke.”

  “Pauline! Would you please show more maturity! You’re almost a grown woman.”

  “I am not. I am not a woman!” Paulie cried.

  “Is being a woman so bad, Pauline?”

  “Yes, it is, and you know it.” Paulie paused. “And so does Mrs. Peddie.” I couldn’t believe my ears. I knew Paulie was referring to the incident we’d read about in their letters to each other.

  For once, the Virgin had nothing to say. I wasn’t sure if the Virgin was silent because she realized Paulie knew more than she should about her personal life, or if she had just run out of patience. To this day I’m not sure, but I’ve often wondered why the Virgin didn’t keep a tighter check on Paulie than she did. Maybe she was trying to be “progressive” or maybe she didn’t want to upset Paulie in case Paulie spilled the beans about her lesbian love affair.