“Okay, that’s that,” she said crisply. But I knew she wasn’t offended. Unlike most favours, hers never had strings of obligation or ego-commitment tied to them. And she was one of the few people I knew who could change a subject with speed, grace, and finality.
“Got a great new guy I’ll tell you about soon. Met him at the Squash Club. He’s been married twice and doesn’t want any more of that, thank you very much. Perfect. We’re doing some discos tonight. He’s fun.”
“Great. Oh Bonnie, dancing sounds like heaven from here.”
“It is, ducky. It is. But I’ve got to run. Shirley and Maura are due back from lunch.” These were her much-harassed assistants, a pair of pale girls in black nail-polish who often had to adjourn to the washroom and cry into the roller-towel, so inadequate were their personalities to cope with hers. She was often very kind to them, which of course made their predicament harder, not easier. It was Bonnie’s only real vice, as far as I knew. There was no Envy, Greed, or Covetousness in her; but she sharpened her claws on those girls, all right, in a form of Pride.
“So give your brats a hug from me, and I’ll see you in Maternity one of these weeks, all right, kid? Ross will let me know when there’s news.”
“Yes, I suppose he will. Thanks for the call, Bonnie. It will be great to see you.”
“Right. Till then.” And with admirable timing she rang off just as a rending crash from the sitting-room announced that Hugh had pulled the standard lamp over on himself again.
Well, I thought, waddling rapidly down the hall, this motherhood thing may be a career that lacks glamour, but at least it leaves no time for bad habits like Pride. Envy and Sloth, I also thought it fair to say, were more Junie’s sins than mine. (With a few energetic swoops I righted the lamp and restored some vestiges of order to the sitting-room.) The older kids sprawled around the TV watching a woman cry with joy as she was given a hair-dryer, a food-blender, and a microwave oven for winning a three-legged race tied to someone else’s husband. I switched off the set, ignoring the kids’ protests, and unearthed some puzzles and games for them out of a drawer. Hugh I led away for safekeeping to the kitchen playpen, which I made more attractive by tossing raisins into the four corners for him to find.
With a sigh I settled in the big wicker chair near the window to finish the small nightgowns. As I threaded the needle I continued to think idly about the Seven Deadly Sins. Sloth and Gluttony – what quaint choices, with the whole canon of human evil to choose from. Of course, like most of the race, I was often guilty of those vices of torpor. As for Wrath, who could live without it? But what was the last of the seven, anyhow? I couldn’t remember. Nor was there time for this or any other form of meditation: Charleen’s voice was now uplifted in a loud wail.
Once more I lumbered down the hall. She was sitting, thumb in mouth, amid uncountable fragments of jigsaw puzzle. Darryl had evidently hit her over the head with a 1,000-piece view of Peggy’s Cove. With one hand he was now unconcernedly rolling dice, and with the other, playing with himself. Martha was somewhat smugly giving a private doll’s tea party behind the wing armchair.
“He hit me,” snivelled Charleen.
“Why did you do that?” I asked him.
He simply shrugged, as if to say, “Because she was there.” While I had no illusions about the goodness of little children in general, young Darryl seemed to have genuine promise as a criminal. On the other hand, Charleen was so much the wet, whining victim that it was hard to feel at all sorry for her. “Come on, cheer up,” I said bracingly. “Play dolls with Martha.”
“She won’t let me.”
“Well, then, do this rabbit puzzle, it’s a nice, easy one. Darryl is going to pick up all these pieces, aren’t you, Darryl?”
“Nah.”
“Or else, buster.”
“Yah. Okay. Later.”
“Now.” Under my basilisk eye he abandoned the dice and with his free hand began languidly to drop bits of the puzzle one by one into the box.
“I got nothing to do-oo-oo,” moaned Charleen.
“Oh, watch bloody TV, then.”
“I don’ wanna.”
“Christ. Come on out to the kitchen then, and help me make a shepherd’s pie.”
Her pudding face brightened faintly as she took charge of a vegetable peeler and some carrots. A lovely silence fell, broken only by her adenoidal breathing, while I got on with my smocking. Darryl and Martha stayed in the front room, mesmerised by a police show. The sun dropped out of a cloudbank into a lake of blue sky. Violet wagged her tail at the bowl of leftover potatoes on the counter. Hails of bullets and running feet echoed from the TV; then a wild scream rang out, making me start in alarm. Charleen’s brow was furrowed as she mashed up the potatoes with milk; she appeared to hear nothing. Normally I would have turned off the program – not out of any impulse to censor violence, of which on the whole I approve, but for the practical reason that I’d noticed both my children got tense and irritable after watching that kind of show. Today, however, I smocked away resignedly and let them all get on with it.
In the distance a factory whistle announced five o’clock. Where on earth, I wondered, was June? She could hardly have been trying on boots all this time. No, she’d probably been home for the last couple of hours, watching her soaps with feet up and a beer in hand. But just then the doorbell rang.
“Go see who that is, Char – it’s probably your mum.”
Charleen thumped off. A minute later she came back with Clive. In a bulky-knit sweater, his hunched shoulders looked massive as a gorilla’s, and the effect was heightened by a new haircut that made his head look abnormally small.
“Oh hi, Clive.”
“Thanks for taking the kids.”
“A pleasure,” I lied.
“She oughta be home looking after her own kids.”
“No, it’s all right, really. We help each other out.”
“Where’d she go anyway?”
“Downtown to a sale. She ought to be back any minute.”
“The bitch. Suit me okay if she never gets back.” His voice was so casually vicious and at the same time so loud that I couldn’t keep the surprise off my face. Involuntarily I glanced at Charleen, who was poking toys through the bars to Hugh. Her thumb was in her mouth, but I hoped maybe she hadn’t been following the conversation – if you could call it that.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a beer around, would you? We’re all out.” What for Clive was a winning smile bared a row of crowded, feral-looking teeth. Truly, Junie, I thought, you shouldn’t want to get into something kinky – you’re already there.
“Yes, I’m sure we’ve got a can somewhere …” I stooped to extricate a beer from the fridge. When I straightened up, it was to find Clive in the leisurely act of looking up my legs. His bright rogue’s eye caught mine in a wink. With one meaty hand he opened and tilted can to mouth, saying, “Cheers.”
By way of a hint, I got busy browning hamburger for the shepherd’s pie, but Clive appeared to be in no hurry to finish and go. With rising annoyance I became aware that his gaze was still on me. Specifically on my breasts this time, though God knows they were so conspicuous that perhaps he couldn’t help it. I began to feel distinctly uncomfortable. It was impossible to ignore the fact that a noticeable and impressive bulge had appeared in Clive’s faded jeans. As a replacement for small talk, I suppose this demonstration had its merits; but what on earth did he expect to happen next? And the shaming thing was that I had to make a heroic effort to tear my eyes away from the silent hulk of him and pretend to look in the oven to hide my flushed face.
“I’m afraid we’re just about to have supper now,” I said, trying to sound casual. “So if you don’t mind –”
“Sure,” he said. “Come on, Char. Get your stuff on and call Darryl.”
“I’ll help you,” I said, hastily following her down the hall. But before finally padding off to his own house after the kids, he looked back at me once more with a sle
epy lust in which there was a distinct gleam of ridicule. With a shock I realized that inside that hairy bulk lived a sharp intelligence – sharp enough to mock at mine. I wished I hadn’t seen it.
Only when the Williamsons were all mercifully gone did I remember what was the Seventh Deadly Sin. Lechery, of course. Did it rank at the top or the bottom of the list? Well, perhaps that didn’t matter. But it was a bit sad to realize that the Seven Deadlies were shared around more equally than I’d thought between me and my neighbours.
When the doorbell rang an hour later, I jumped as if bitten by a wasp. Who the devil could that be? A vision of Clive Williamson presented itself, complete with bulge and satiric wink, standing out there in the snow with subversive intentions. We were all half-undressed for bed, which didn’t help tranquillize me. I decided the best thing to do was simply not answer. The bell rang again.
“I get it, Mummy,” said Martha helpfully, and though I grabbed at her, she slipped through my hands and ran naked downstairs to open the door. I wallowed after her, muttering indecencies as I pulled on a dressing-gown.
There in the open doorway stood Max in a dark coat with a fur collar I hadn’t seen before. His white hair was bright as the snow, and the smile in those dark eyes of his was like balm on a stinging wound.
“Oh Max!” I threw my arms around him in a great hug. He smelled of the lavender water he used as shaving-lotion, and of the cigars he kept in his breast pocket.
“Easy there, kid, I’m a married man. Come on, let’s get this crazy Miss Canada in out of the snow.” Gently pushing us all back into the hall, he rubbed my back lovingly with one hand and put up the door chain with the other, clicking his tongue at it with disapproval. “Now, now, Annie, the very sight of me makes you bawl? Lucky thing I don’t drop by too often.” While I blew my nose, he swung Hugh up for a kiss. “After this, you lock up the door for your careless mum, and keep out the bad guys.”
For some reason, this remark struck Hugh as brilliantly funny, and he lolled over Max’s arm in a fit of ecstatic laughter.
“Oh Max, it’s so great to see you. Billie mentioned that you might drop in, but I –”
“Well, I meant to call first, but there wasn’t time. Here, let me get my coat off, you guys.” He shrugged it off while Martha jealously tried to climb his leg.
“Lift me up!” she demanded. “I want to laugh too.”
Hugh rolled on the floor, still weakly giggling. “I was just getting them ready for bed. I suppose – Max, could you stand it if we gave them a bath? They need a good soak, and I can’t lift them out of the tub any more by myself.”
“Sure, sweetie. Only tell me what to do. I’m no expert with babies.” But Max was born knowing how to be a parent. He hoisted Martha up to ride his shoulders, and tucked the shrieking Hugh under one arm like a parcel. Somewhat laboriously he began to mount the stairs with them, Martha steering him by the hair and Hugh still drunkenly laughing. On the landing he paused, breathing hard. “Ouf. Comes to me a bit late in life, this grandfather bit. Hang on there, honey –”
A few minutes later we had them one at each end of the long, old-fashioned tub, splashing luxuriously belly-deep in bubbles. They were perfectly silent now. This was too great a pleasure to be taken lightly. Hugh’s face was grave as he steered a small plastic tugboat through the water. I had caught up Martha’s hair off her nape with a bit of pink ribbon, and her profile was thoughtful as she bent over the ripples made by her own fat knees.
“What a pair of beauties, eh?” said Max, looking at the children proudly. He wiped his hands with an air of accomplishment on the big towel I’d pinned around his middle.
“Yes, they are.” But another strong contraction just as I spoke steered me sharply away from sentiment. Surely there’d been more than usual of these damned spasms today? I frowned, trying to remember. Perhaps it might be a good idea to time them. Not that it could mean anything, really; not this soon. Both of my other deliveries had been late, not early.
“You okay, Anne?” Max asked in his slow, warm voice, and instantly I was, perfectly okay, even happy, though before his arrival, this awful day, so full of abrasive encounters, had left me feeling physically battered. This was Max’s great personal gift. His combination of affection, horse sense, and ghetto humour made a safety zone where people as different as Billie and I could both rest and be eased.
We each dried a naked, fragrant child and put it into clean night things. Relaxed and warm, Hugh lay back on Max’s lap, his soft mouth open, eyelids sinking shut as if pulled down by weights. Martha perched on my knee, chatting Max up in a grave, sweet voice she never used with me. Her fat hands moved in delicate gestures as she told him a number of shocking lies about tigers. From time to time she gave him a devastating, sidelong glance with glimmering blue eyes.
“At three already this one could give lessons to Bardot,” he said, shaking his head. “Wonderful and scary how little girls are born with that old female magic.”
“Don’t I know it. And they never waste it on women. Ross, for instance, really believes she’s as angelic as she looks – she can con him into anything. Right, shall we tuck them in now?”
“Yes, and then I am going to make my girl Anne a great big hot pot of tea, and we’ll have it in the kitchen with our shoes off, and a good talk.”
“Lovely. Oh Max, I’m so bloody glad to see you.”
“No more with the tears now, doll, they make me nervous. I’m always afraid women want something from me when they cry.”
“Well, this one doesn’t.” But of course I was lying. I wanted from Max now what I’d always wanted: nothing less than his total concern, his whole presence, the fatherly comfort and warmth of him. But at the moment I craved these things in a starved, almost dangerous way, and we both knew it. A sort of constraint suddenly made us shy with each other, and we went downstairs talking about the price of oil and gripping topics of that kind.
In the kitchen Max rolled up the sleeves of his white silk shirt and made tea in the brown kitchen pot. He established me in a rocker filched from the sitting-room, with a cushion deftly wedged against my backache. My feet he slipped gently out of their battered Roots shoes and lifted onto another chair.
“There,” he said. “How’s that now?”
“Marvellous.”
“Good. Because the fact is, I got a bit of a confession to make.”
“Oh?”
He poured the tea carefully into Coalport cups, having waved away kitchen mugs. (“Tastes better in good china.”) His voice seemed to come from a long way away, or else it was thinned by a kind of diffidence rare in him. “This whole business with Ross. Now I’ve kept my nose strictly out of it, all this time. But it’s been on my mind, believe me; it could make an ulcer there. Here you are about to go through labour again, struggling all by yourself, looking like hell – I mean it’s too much. I’ve been your father too long. So for the first time I called him up today.”
“And?” I said.
“Well, after winding up my nerves for a week to do it, the guy was out. I left a message to call me back. That was first thing this morning. And he hasn’t called. Now Anne dear, that can only mean one thing. No need for me to say a word to him after all. I mean, no point in any of us hanging on hoping for the best any more. You’re a young and beautiful woman. We get you a divorce and you’ll marry again, this time a real man, with any kind of luck. Maybe I’m out of date, but I figure a woman needs a husband to look after her. Especially when she’s got three kids. Tell me at least you’ll think about it, honey.”
“I’ll think about it,” I muttered.
“What you mean is, go to hell. Sorry. I know it’s none of my –”
“Max, it isn’t that. Only right now I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do. I just have no idea. I feel as if there’s only today. I mean, as if there might not be any tomorrow.”
“Hey, that’s no way to talk, at your age.” His voice was sharp, and when I glanced at him I found his w
hole face dark with a frown that made him look frightened. He added crossly, “Women don’t die in childbirth any more. I read an article.”
“Of course not. Don’t be silly.”
But I said this without much real conviction. Giving birth, as I’d had two chances to discover, could bring you unpleasantly close to that hooded character with the scythe. My ward-mate after Martha was born lost her nine-pound boy on the second day – a plug of mucus in the airway – crazy bad luck, and fatal. They told her behind drawn curtains, and in nightmares I could still hear that terrible, animal howl of hers. As for me, I started to hemorrhage after Hugh … not, probably, very dangerously, but zip went those curtains, they cranked my bed up fast, they gave injections, and urgent hands massaged my abdomen. A little later I heard the gynecologist tell a young intern, “They can empty in half an hour; you have to watch ’em like a hawk.” Out of kindness I spared Max these reminiscences, but there were times – and this was one of them – when I thought I’d been not brave but dotty to choose these risks instead of the nice clean curettage everybody so warmly recommended.
“After all,” I said, trying to dismiss the subject lightly, “dying can’t be worse than living, so why not be a good sport about it.”
“No, it’s not that I mind it, really, for myself,” Max said slowly. And I remembered that he was sixty. It could be that in spite of my adventures in maternity, he’d given death more thought than I had. I tried to imagine the world without Max in it and gave a sudden shiver.
“What’s the point in whining about it,” he went on. “After all, we were given life for free in the first place; it’s not decent to complain. But what I’d like is the chance to die for some good reason, you know? Not some stupid accident or a physical screw-up like cancer. Hardly anybody does die for a good reason, if you think of it. Maybe some in wars. In fact, that may be why wars keep on being popular. Seems to me you have to respect even those nuts killing each other in Belfast or Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, because they’re dying for something, and that gives them some kind of dignity, even if the cause is stupid.”
The Marriage Bed Page 18