The Marriage Bed

by Constance Beresford-Howe

  In fact, I hadn’t yet forgiven her for what she did to our first real dinner-party. It was to be a sort of mini-housewarming, just for four couples, and I spent hours preparing cocktail dips, casserole dishes, and a great salad bowl. The table looked elegant, set with all our wedding-present silver and crystal. We had scented candles burning everywhere to combat the lingering smell of fresh paint and varnish. I’d gone to the hairdresser, who made a crown of my thick gold braid, and Billie had bought me a delicious dress of green chiffon with innumerable tiny pleats gathered at the neck and falling loose to cover the by-then-considerable bulk of Martha. “Later on, if you ever get your waist back, you can wear it with a belt,” she said. “Meanwhile the colour is gorgeous with those eyes of yours.”

  Jeff and Lynne were the last to arrive; and we had all begun on the punch, so the atmosphere was already jolly. Bonnie had a naval-reserve officer in tow, an amusing fellow; and Randy was euphoric because he’d just had both a legacy and a row with Fraser at the office, and had decided to leave. “No kidding, it’s like being born again,” he told me. “Never mind if Ross is the white-haired boy in there now, he’ll have to get out too.”

  “I know.” But this was no night for talking shop. I took the bottle of wine Jeff was holding out and gave Ross Lynne’s coat to hang up. “Sorry we’re late,” Jeff said, “but I got a call from the hospital just before we left – Chinese baby damn near moribund with diarrhea. They will let the grandmothers at them with roots and things. Hey, the house looks great.”

  Ross and I squeezed hands privately. He ladled out more punch, not forgetting his own glass. Soon he was at the head of the table carving beef, looking flushed and happy. When everybody had a full plate, Jeff raised his glass and proposed a toast to the house. It was a nice, rich burgundy, and it flew straight to my head, making me feel pleasantly muddled, but at the same time witty, wise, and wonderful. It was at this point that Lynne Reilly began to take over the conversation.

  “… been to the meeting? Concerned Citizens – oh, you must have heard of them. We’re pressuring the city to set up new bylaws about waste disposal. Do you realize that the domestic garbage of this city contains one hundred and fifty-nine thousand tons of metal, glass, and paper, all of it simply wasted? And that’s not to mention another twenty-nine thousand tons of bones and vegetable matter, all of it recyclable one way or another. Now, if the law forced every householder not only to keep a compost heap, but to wrap separately all fats and bones –”

  “Oh, dem bones,” somebody sang.

  “I’ll bet you’re making those statistics up.”

  “Won’t you have some more meat, Lynne?”

  “No, thanks. When you realize the cost per annum of shipping out all those cubic feet of garbage –”

  “We flatten all our tin cans and take them to the depot place,” said Randy’s wife, “but I must say it’s a bit of a drag.”

  “Well, I haven’t got time, myself, to rush around bundling up newspapers,” said Bonnie. “As for fats and bones, what are doggies for? My poodle Chi-Chi recycles all that kind of thing.”

  “No responsible person can afford to ignore this problem,” said Lynne severely. She was a very tiny girl, but there was a ferocious curl to her nostrils and a masterful ring to her voice that was beginning to make more frivolous conversations about things like inflation fade out. “There’s nobody who can’t find the six minutes twice a week it would take to sort and pack household refuse for recycling.”

  “Six minutes?” somebody asked sceptically.

  “That’s all. It’s simply a matter of organization. Plus, of course, awareness of the fact that ecology is the biggest single issue around. Is there anybody who can’t find six minutes twice a week to preserve the planet?”

  “Yes. Me,” muttered Bonnie rebelliously. But Lynne heard her, and to everybody’s surprise stood up, tossing down her table-napkin. “You don’t think it can be done in six minutes, do you?” she demanded of us all. “Well, it’s time somebody raised your consciousness, then. I’m going to show you how quick and easy it is.”

  “Lynne –” murmured Jeff, trying to detain her. But her eyes were flashing a challenge all round the table. “Now you come on out here, all of you,” she said, “and I’ll show you how one concerned citizen can make a contribution. Where’s your garbage, Anne?”

  Helplessly, two or three of us followed her out to the kitchen, where she seized the pedal-can and dumped out onto a sheet of newspaper God only knew how many cubic feet of potato peelings, ratty lettuce leaves, bits of packaging and plastic, coffee grounds, eggshells, and orange peel. These relics appeared to give her the most profound satisfaction. She pounced on an empty spray-tin with particular relish. “Look at that!” she cried. “Every time you push that button, you deplete the ozone layer and increase the rate of skin cancer, don’t you know that?”

  She pulled on a pair of my rubber gloves and began to sort the mass of our household waste into various unsavoury piles.

  “I’m timing you, Lynne,” Bonnie said, grinning.

  The men all stayed at the table sensibly having more beef and refilling their glasses; but we women watched with unwilling fascination while Lynne demonstrated concerned citizenship amid the garbage. Over her head I caught sight of Ross, his eyebrows raised to their fullest extent, and made a cheerful face at him. But the six minutes seemed to extend themselves endlessly. Bonnie drifted away, bored; but I somehow felt obliged to stay until Lynne had everything sorted and packed to her satisfaction. At last she peeled off the gloves, saying, “You see? Six minutes precisely. Nothing to it.”

  “Amazing,” I said bleakly.

  She went back to the table again, and there all cheerful chatter abruptly ceased and one of those disastrous social silences dropped like a pall. Lynne had two helpings of dessert, but the party never really recovered, and I’ve had a grudge against ecology ever since.

  “How is Lynne?” I asked Jeff.

  “Oh, she’s fine. You sound down, dear. Had a rough day?”

  “Jesus, don’t ask.”

  He rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “You know, I honestly can’t figure Ross in all this. What the hell’s happened to the guy this last year? He’s the very last one I’d ever imagine would cop out like this. I mean, he was really bonded to you. And for another thing, at Ridley he used to be religious. Not smarmy with it – not your altar-boy type – but actually for real. He tried to be a decent guy. He was respected.”

  “He’s still trying to be decent, Jeff.”

  “That’s a joke, maybe?”

  “No, I mean it. He thinks he can’t do anything for me any more, and he’s found somebody that he thinks needs him.”

  “That white rat Larine? After you? Come on.”

  “No, you don’t get the point. You don’t really know him.”

  “Look, we went through four years of boarding-school – if you don’t know a guy after that –”

  “This is different. Marriage is a whole new ball game, as you must know damn well.”

  He drew a little away from me and clinked the flask against his cup again. “Right,” he said in a suddenly cooler voice.

  “No, don’t blame Ross. It’s more me that’s wrong. This whole mess is my fault, basically. He never wanted all these pregnancies. I mean, three of them in three years. It’s all been just too bloody much. He can’t understand why I’ve been so totally incompetent, and then so stubborn. No wonder he felt overwhelmed. Threatened, even.”

  Jeff shifted forward to have a look at Hugh, now fast asleep with his face turned blindly up to the moon.

  “When we went to the gynecologist this last time – you know, Miller – he said, ‘Believe it or not, you’re at it again, Mrs. G. But how you’ve managed it I’ll never know.’ And poor old Ross had to sit down with his head between his knees. Another accident. Or blunder. Did I know the IUD had slipped out? I mean, Hugh was only seven months.… Then Miller asked his usual question, did we want an abortion. Both
of us answered together. Only I said no, and Ross said yes. Pretty basic difference of opinion, right?”

  Jeff grunted helplessly.

  “So he took off just a month or two later. What’s more, I don’t blame him, Jeff. I mean that. The whole scene has done bad things to him, and he’s built up a big resentment. Even fear. He says I’m too powerful. I fill up the whole house, he says, with all my kids and plants and books and animals and junk, till there isn’t enough air for him to breathe. I know just what he’s trying to say. I understand how he feels. And if I can, surely you can.”

  A thick pepper of small, bright stars looked down at us, though a drifting snow-cloud hid the moon.

  “Actually, I sometimes think I’m a touch obsessed – with all this kid business, I mean. Don’t you think? With all the fool-proof contraception around … well, look at you and Lynne. Three years, isn’t it, since –” Their first baby had been found dead in her crib one morning, and they had had no more.

  He cleared his throat. After a minute he said, “We’ve maybe got too many choices now. Lynne … she’s got a thing about zero population. Two years ago she insisted on a tubal ligation.”

  “Well, Lynne is a very intelligent girl.”

  “Sure. We’re actually talking about a trial separation. And you can’t get much more intelligent than that.”

  “I’m sorry.” So I was, though not altogether surprised. But in fact I’d hardly taken in what he said. My thoughts had jumped back to the last stage of my sixteen-hour labour with Martha, who had characteristically tried to arrive in the breech position. After an age with poor, pale Ross rubbing my back pain, they had to put me out so she could be turned. At the end, it took a whole medical team to get her out of there – nurses yawning wearily, the obstetrician sweating, Ross trembling as he coached me with the breathing. I was exhausted, battered with pain and high on several different kinds of dope. But when Ross lifted my head for the first look at that small, purple creature, its head swollen and bruised, its mouth open and furiously yelling, my whole life focussed and became perfectly simple. I had one purpose: to keep that ugly, helpless human thing safe. Total commitment. Adulthood at last.

  “Anybody chooses to skip kids –” said Jeff, as if I’d spoken out loud. “I saw mine born and – well – without them you just go round in circles, polluted by your own ego. I can’t get this through to Lynne. But to hell with zero population, I say.”

  “Me too.”

  Suddenly he turned to me and lifted my face so we could look directly at each other.

  “Anne?”

  “What?”

  “I’m feeling unprofessional.”

  “Eh?”

  “Yes. You don’t realize, I know, the way you make me feel. But it’s been like this for a long time. And it’s a powerful feeling. It really is.”

  And before I could say, alarmed, “Don’t,” he kissed my eyes and cheeks and then my mouth. My heavy body lay against him, too astonished to move. But within seconds the stars began to buzz and jump like fireworks, and I pushed him away.

  “Well, at least you’ve never called me Mother, like that old pill Dr. Marshall,” I said, pulling the sides of my coat together in a way I hoped he’d recognize as completely final.

  “This isn’t funny, Anne. Not to me,” he said humbly. We looked at each other, ridiculously bundled in our winter gear under the lopsided moon, and nobody smiled. In a burst of desperate honesty I said, “Jeff baby, go home. You don’t know how basic I feel.”

  “My poor, sweet Anne. How’ve you been managing? Hasn’t there been anybody since Ross left?”

  “Well, hardly, with me like this. So I manage in the obvious way. Not that it’s any real substitute.”

  “You are so beautiful,” he said slowly. “I never thought I could tell you this, but – Know what I’ve often wanted to do? I want to undo that hair of yours and let it all fall down around me like some gorgeous, golden tent. For years I’ve wanted to.”

  Suddenly I thought, “Dear Jeff.” If intercourse had not at this stage been out of the question, I would probably have taken him to bed then and there, out of simple gratitude and affection. As it was, I turned my head and kissed his hand where it still rested on my shoulder. “That’s twice in twenty-four hours,” I thought dimly, “that I’ve felt loving-kindness for somebody who probably doesn’t deserve it. I must be mad.”

  “We’re going to talk more about this, Anne. And do something about it, too. But right now, you’re worn out. Also a tiny bit smashed. Wait here and finish the Scotch. I’ll put Hugh to bed.” And expertly scooping up the baby, he went into the house.

  Thanks to the pre-dawn hour and the whiskey, none of this seemed at all real. The stars were drifting around in lazy circles. My head buzzed with sleep. Jeff came back, helped me climb onto the broad, empty bed, and covered me with a blanket. A profound and blissful sleep overtook me at once. I didn’t hear him go.

  WEDNESDAY

  Edwina held up a limp lace veil banded across the forehead with tarnished silver flowers. “My dear mother and I both wore it,” she said. “I think it will look very nice on you.… Of course, you won’t have your hair in that braid.” “Cut it off, I tell you,” said Junie. With a weak little bleat the phone rang and I snatched up the receiver. “Anne, I’m coming home,” said Ross’s voice.

  I struggled upright in bed, my heart drumming. The phone was silent. The veil was in a drawer somewhere, waiting for Martha, unless she proved a lot more agile and cunning than her dear mother had been. My mouth tasted of rusty metal, and a headache thumped between my ears. With some surprise, I noticed that I was wearing a coat; and with that came the memory of last night’s regrettable encounter with Jeff. I rolled over and groaned into the pillows. Even for me, this was an extra stupid and pointless situation to get into. There was absolutely nothing to be gained from it, and much to be lost – namely a first-rate pediatrician.

  This line of thought was so acutely disagreeable that I pulled the blanket up around my head and fixed my mind instead on Edwina’s veil. When I showed it to Billie she gave a little scream of dismay.

  “Oh you poor duck, how ghastly. And I suppose you can’t very well refuse. Not only is it hideous, but it means you have to wear a long white dress, the whole damn business, complete with tulle garter. They can be so vulgar, actually, these old Upper Canada families. Still, it could be worse – she might have forced you into some awful satin gown made in the thirties. As it is, Max wants to give you a great triple strand of pearls, so you might as well have the lot, I suppose.”

  “I know. And we were going to keep everything so simple. All private and quiet, you know, because of what Edwina calls ‘my Condition.’ But the other night she and Ross began to make a list of all the relatives that apparently have to be invited.… There are hordes of them. All her sisters and their families, and Ross’s Uncle Hugh and his lot out west; and of course Granny, and dear old Gwen, who looked after Ross when he was a baby … it’s shaping up into a real circus.”

  The truth was, though, that all the arrangements about rings, flowers, and rehearsals fascinated me as much as it did Ross, and we put up only token resistance to the whole business.

  “Then there’s the best man,” Edwina said, rubbing her forehead with a pencil. “I suppose it had better be your cousin Edwin.”

  Ross gave a groan and closed his eyes. “For God’s sake, Mother. Ed takes fits.”

  “Very mild seizures, dear; well controlled. He’d be perfectly all right.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “I can’t stand to think what he might do with the ring. I’ll have Jeff, or Randy. That is, if I have to have anybody.”

  Edwina frowned at her list. “And Anne will need at least one attendant. A maid of honour –”

  “Maid meaning maiden?” I asked, unable to control myself. “Well, I doubt very much if my friend Bonnie would pass any test, but –”

  She drew up her bosom in a warning sort of way, but went on blandly, “Per
haps, then, you know some … nice little girl, just to hold your flowers while the rings are exchanged.”

  By processes like these our wedding rapidly shaped into a clan gathering, a ritual in which Ross and I would be at once the most prominent and the least active figures, like those saints in effigy carried in religious processions.

  “It’s ridiculous,” fretted Billie. “I hate churches, they’re as bad as hospitals. When you aren’t bored to tears in them, you’re scared to death or horribly depressed. I don’t know why the two of you don’t just elope.” Quietly but firmly she left all the arrangements to Edwina, who adored her double role as martyr and impresario. When I repeated Billie’s suggestion about elopement, she only said, “Quite a … sense of humour your mother has,” and went on to debate whether champagne or a sparkling rosé would be better for the breakfast. “And we must call Hugh tonight and ask if he’ll propose the toast. He’s a busy man, but I’m sure he’ll make the effort.” After a pause she added, “I do hope, though, he’ll … control … his sense of humour.”

  Ross’s head snapped up. “Good old Uncle Hugh,” he said. “Will you ever forget that joke he told at Barbara’s –”

  “Quite,” his mother said crisply. “I’ll just have a quiet word beforehand with your Aunt Jean. Then there’s Catriona. I’m afraid she’ll expect to be asked to sing.”

  “Look,” said Ross earnestly. “In no circumstances will I let that cow sing ‘O Perfect Love’ anywhere near me, do you understand?”

  “Well,” she conceded with an unwilling little smile, “I must say I’ve always wondered why they’re so proud she never had a lesson in her life.”

  This kind of thing was highly diverting; but the time soon came when I couldn’t avoid noticing that Ross was growing day by day more silent and withdrawn. He tried to conceal it from me, but his sleep was thin and restless, his food disagreed with him, and when he thought no one was looking, he would put his head in his hands and sigh.