“Sure. Whatever that is.”
He hung up with almost audible relief. I made a couple of hideous faces at the phone before putting it down, but they didn’t help much.
Hardly any conversation in my life had been as disagreeable as this one, or in so many ways undermining. The more I thought about it, the worse I felt – the sort of reaction you get after stepping in dog crap. Not only is there always more of it than you thought at first, but you can’t get rid of the smell of it, or the suspicion that this kind of thing could never have happened if you were a better person.
I wandered aimlessly from kitchen to dining-room to hall, nibbling a soda cracker to quiet a queasy stomach, and occasionally giving the telephone a finger-up signal to relieve other feelings. When my legs got tired, as they soon did, I sank down again in the rocker. Thank God I was alone, at least, without other people to preserve a face for. Hugh, for instance, if he caught me wearing certain expressions, was apt to burst into tears, while Martha would snap with military brusqueness: “Smile!”
The to-and-fro creak of the rocker gradually tranquillized me a little. Chairman Mao appeared from one of his lairs and leaped onto my shoulder. After a loud conversational squawk or two, he curled up against my neck. He had recently been eating fish, and the rhythmic flexing of his claws dug uncomfortably into my shoulder, but his companionship was comforting. It was easy to understand why people in solitary confinement made friends with cockroaches and rats and fellow-prisoners like that. Communication without demands, so unlike the kind the bloody telephone brought every day. Or didn’t bring. The silent phone on the counter smirked at me. Beside it, in a litter of Lego bits and crayons, were a pile of bills and the car keys.
Suddenly, without any conscious process at all, I knew what I had to do now. Like all important decisions, it was classically simple. I couldn’t think why I hadn’t done it weeks and weeks ago. Mao yowled in protest as I struggled out of the chair, displacing him. The Neilsons’ phone number came obligingly to mind, and I dialled it.
“Pat, is your mother there?” My watch said ten o’clock. It wasn’t too outrageously late to call, in the circumstances.
“Yes, she’s home – didn’t go to French Conversation tonight. Hold on, I’ll get her.”
“Wait – don’t bother her, Pat – it’s one of you girls, actually, that I need. Just for an hour, to sit. Would you see if your parents will let you come over?”
“Well, I’ll see.”
“I know it’s late-ish, but I have to go out – there’s something urgent I have to do. I’ll send a cab for you.”
“Just let me check – hold on, please.”
In a few seconds her voice came back. “Okay. Daddy will run me over. Be there in two minutes.”
I used them to struggle into my duffle coat, boots, and head scarf, in which outfit I had exactly the shape of those portly wooden dolls from Russia that contain other dolls in diminishing sizes. The bills and the car keys I stuffed into my purse before opening the door to Pat.
“Nice of you to come. I won’t be more than an hour. The kids are asleep – you shouldn’t have any trouble. Emergency numbers by the phone. Watch TV if you like, and eat anything you fancy in the fridge.”
She gave me a quick glance but was too well brought up to ask any questions about where a grossly pregnant woman could be going alone and on impulse at this hour. I, on the other hand, noticed that she had a slight limp, and, in the unfair manner of adults, didn’t bother to repress curiosity.
“Hurt yourself, Pat?”
She pulled up her denim trouser-leg to reveal a raw scrape that ran the length of her shinbone.
“I got it hitching? The roads are neat for it these days. Got nearly the whole way to yoga class on the bumper of a sports car today. Don’t mention it to Mum.”
I looked at her in some bafflement. The days when I too practised the cool anarchy of the teens were so far behind me as to seem prehistoric. It was sad, perhaps even tragic, to lose that instinctive resistance to authority, that urge to live recklessly, that fellowship with all rebels and crazies. But from the moment Martha was born, I’d become a true-blue conservative, a supporter of the law, regular bowel movements, safety belts, and correct grammar. It’s not a conversion I was really prepared for, then or now, and at moments like these it still gave me a vaguely bewildered feeling of being alienated from my own tribe. Even Pat’s habit of making most statements into questions, as if it were stupid to be sure of anything, however trivial, reminded me how dogmatic motherhood had made me, how prematurely middle-aged. “When I have more time,” I thought, fumbling with the car keys, “I may just worry about this. It could be important.”
“See you, Pat,” I said before stepping out into the frosty air. With caution I negotiated the snow-clotted steps. The moon was large and bright, lolling to one side as if a trifle drunk. The city air smelled of cats, exhaust, woodsmoke, and the sugar snow that lay fresh everywhere an inch or so deep. It was wonderfully good to be out of the house – marvellous to be alone and moving somewhere with intention. I breathed up the cold air in deep drags and stamped my booted feet in brisk rhythm as I walked along.
Around the corner where we rented parking-space at a gas station, I found and opened our shabby Volks crouching patiently there in the snow. Ross rarely used it, and it was weeks since I’d driven anywhere. Some kind of lethargy – or perhaps it was self-punishment – had kept me tethered to the immediate neighbourhood, or clinging to the security of home. But when I tried to squeeze behind the wheel, I discovered I’d expanded so much since last time that I wouldn’t fit. Muttering, I stooped double and levered the seat back. Once more I tried to cram myself in behind the wheel – the Incredible Hulk in action. But struggle as I would, I simply couldn’t get in. The giggling this predicament brought on was a serious threat to bladder control, because of course I’d forgotten to attend to that before setting out. Finally I slammed the door shut and locked the car up, defeated. Luckily there was nobody around to watch this undignified retreat.
It was clear I would just have to walk it. Prince John Street wasn’t more than ten or fifteen minutes away. Off I went, my breath preceding me in generous puffs; but the pavements were so slippery with ice under the fresh snow that several times I slipped, lurching like some derelict tanker in a heavy sea. A fall would be highly inconvenient, since once down I would probably be incapable of getting up again, so I slowed my gait to a sort of stately waddle. At that pace the distance seemed endless, but I dared go no faster.
At last, however, I drew in sight of the house. Downstairs through the sheer curtains of the front window I could see three or four heads watching the blue flicker of TV. Ross and Larine were not there. Upstairs one bedroom window made a bright square in the dark.
As I stood out there in the street, I felt a sudden burst of such basic fury that my blood literally seemed to boil. I would not knock at that door and stand waiting for someone to answer. Without stopping to think about it, I stooped awkwardly down, grasped as much sticky snow as I could pack into a ball, and hurled it at the lighted upstairs window. Hot and breathless, I barely waited for it to land on the pane with a loud and satisfying whack before launching another. And another. Both bull’s-eyes. Between grunts of satisfaction, I puffed obscenities into the night air. Pat’s face formed in my imagination grinning congratulations. I was briskly packing a fresh missile when the window-sash lifted with a scrape and Ross’s head poked out.
“What the hell are you doing, Anne!” Between the moon and a nearby street-light, he had no trouble identifying me. “For Christ’s sake,” he added indignantly, “cut that out and come into the house. You’ll have the whole neighbourhood –”
“Fuck the whole neighbourhood,” I returned, not at all quietly, and shot another hard-packed ball after its predecessors. His head jerked out of sight. There were faces clustered now at the downstairs window, all alight with spectator interest – two girls, one of them Chinese, and a tall lad with a
bush of fair hair – Jamie. Larine was nowhere to be seen, which was all right with me. It was not Larine I had anything to say to.
The front door opened and Ross came out, slinging a denim jacket over his shirt and jeans, which also had the air of clothes pulled on at top speed. At the sight of him close up, all the fierce, energetic anger suddenly died out of me and my legs felt light and weak. I dropped the last snowball and brushed my wet gloves together clumsily.
“Now will you kindly tell me what the hell you think you’re doing?” hissed Ross in a low and furious voice. He looked so self-righteous, so morally outraged, that I couldn’t hold back a hilarious grin.
“The same to you, whack,” I mumbled, and because laughing made it difficult to keep my balance, I caught at his arm to steady myself. He wasn’t ready to support that mammoth weight, though, and I had no choice but to sit down rather abruptly on the curb.
“Jesus Christ, Anne, will you get up! Hang onto my hands – now pull. You can’t sit there.”
But in spite of our joint efforts, I couldn’t manage to get up, and he wasn’t strong enough to haul me to my feet alone. The heads at the window watched us, fascinated. Behind them the TV flickered in vain competition with this more interesting show.
“I’ll get Jamie to help,” he said.
“No, don’t. Sit down here with me for a second. I have one or two things to say to you, and it might as well be here, where we have a bit of privacy. Come on, sit down.”
Reluctantly he did so, after first throwing the watchers a dignified glare intended to send them away. They didn’t move. It gave me a grim satisfaction to know that his bottom on the icy pavement must be even colder and damper than mine.
“Well?” he said stiffly.
“You haven’t been by for over a week, so here I am. There are some bloody bills to pay. And a couple of things to tell you.”
“Yes; go on, then.” He sat well apart from me, dignified even with his feet in the gutter. His face was aloof, the guarded eyes looking into the perspective of the dark street.
“The chief thing, Ross, is that Tim Brian called me up tonight. We had a long, horrible talk. What a shit he is. Anyhow, you may not know it, but he’s getting ready to push you out of the office. Larine is only the excuse, of course. He’s always wanted to be top banana down there, and now he sees a chance to force you out.”
“Yes, I know.”
“All right, then. I just thought if you didn’t, I’d better warn you. Up to you, of course. Maybe she’s worth it.”
He said nothing. His head was lowered now and his hands were knotted together like a pair of wrestlers in deadlock. A woman with a Siamese cat on a leash strolled past us with an easy stride. She had a good-humoured, freckled face that opened in a wide grin at the sight of two adults sitting on their butts in the snow. I liked the look of her and grinned back. Somewhere a clock chimed the half-hour. The moon was high now and dropped a thin white light over the city’s rooftops and bare trees.
“Actually,” he said with some reluctance, “Larine’s getting into Hare Krishna these days. Her friend Cheryl is one of them. Really into meditation and fasting and all that. She’s thinking of quitting at the office anyway. There’s nothing very transcendental about typing.”
“Well, that makes it simpler, then. A bit.”
“Not much, really. The thing is, these groups are bad news for people like Larine. All that fasting … I mean, the little fool could kill herself.”
“She will, of course. In the end. You know that, don’t you? One way or another. Sooner or later. Nobody can prevent it.”
“You could be right. But I still feel – responsible.”
“Sure, because you’re like that. But you feel a lot more about her than that, right?”
“No, not really. Not any more. For quite a while now I’ve just felt sorry for her.”
“I suppose that’s what you were doing up there just now. Feeling sorry for her.”
“Don’t be coarse,” he said primly.
“Well, as far as Hare Krishna goes, you know that poor old aunt of mine, the one that was always having nervous breakdowns and things. When she got to be sixty, she joined the Scientologists. Everybody was appalled. But it was quite marvellous, really. She got so happy and quite fat.”
But Ross only shook his head gloomily. He was so Anglican that all other forms of belief embarrassed him. I wondered whether Larine realized what a serious mistake she was making.
“Well, is that all you want? We can’t sit here –”
“Wait a minute. There’s something else. Um – has Jeff Reilly by any chance been in touch with you today?”
“No, why? The kids all right?”
“They’re fine. But you see … well, you may find this hard to believe – I do myself – but last night Jeff came to the house for Hugh’s croup, and we … I mean he … well, the upshot is he’s now talking about divorces all round.” My face felt hot and I itched all over with embarrassment and shame. For one thing, I’d made up my mind very firmly never, in any circumstances whatever, to tell Ross about that regrettable little episode. For another, the whole thing sounded so ridiculous – perhaps even untrue. For still another, I knew perfectly well that in future Lynne Reilly was not going to allow her husband to walk to the corner alone, much less divorce her. Why on earth, then, had I ever mentioned it? Did I want to feel guilty – as guilty as Ross was? To make it easier for him? Was I prepared to stop at nothing to get him back? The answer to that was yes. The immorality of it was total. From somewhere there jigged into my head the phrase “In a vain head and double heart.”
Ross had shot me one brief look of surprise and distaste. “Well, in my shoes I can hardly come all over the outraged husband, can I.” After a pause he added in a louder voice, “Just the same, I am outraged.”
“Love, so am I. If you only knew. But the thing is that poor old Jeff has been sort of emotionally involved for quite a while, only I didn’t realize it till last night. Of course it’s crazy. He’ll recover. But at the moment he’s going around in circles, rather.”
“Well, he can go round and round till he disappears up his own backside. And much good may it do him.”
“You wouldn’t like to be free? I mean legally?”
“Of course not. Would you?”
“No. Certainly not.”
“Well, at least we agree about something. Makes a change.”
“Oh, Ross, I think you’re almost as crazy as I am. It’s a real bond. Blessed be the tie that binds.”
When he smiled he looked as young as Hugh. I leaned on his shoulder and he braced himself to support my weight.
“What a pity we’ve made such a mess of it,” I went on. “Because it’s just been bad management, not – well, it’s like that time you dislocated my jaw on our honeymoon. The one before we were married, I mean.”
Unwilling to laugh, he pushed up his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, frowning. On the night in question we’d been so keen and as yet so unskilled that in the throes Ross hit me hard on the jaw with his elbow or knee or something. “You remember that?” I asked, knowing that he did. “I actually saw a huge white star. It didn’t interfere for a second, though, did it, with the business in hand. I mean that was one time when feeling sorry was more than enough.”
In the milky light of the moon, I saw Ross’s shoulders twitch. Suddenly he gave a great snort of laughter, hunching low over his own bony knees. “We were pretty gauche, all right. Remember those hiccups I had at the wedding? That old bishop with the sniff, I’ll never forget how he glared at me.”
“Ross, I want you the hell home,” I said abruptly.
At once he stopped laughing. A cold little wind pushed at my back. He said nothing. But this was what I’d come here to tell him, and I was glad to have had the guts to say it at last.
“I need you. I can’t cope alone. You think I’m powerful and tough, but I’m not. The way I feel about it, I’m ready to make any kind of deal,
anything. I’ll keep the house neater. This can be our last baby. Do you get the message?”
“Oh, Anne. You know it wouldn’t – you couldn’t – Look. Yesterday I went over to Jenny’s place. I was going to ask about buying that loom you wanted. All set to make the big peace-offering. But on the way there, I got to thinking how goddam silly it was to put a loom in that dining-room where there isn’t room to eat now, and I got so mad all over again about the whole scene that I got acid indigestion and walked right past the place. See what I mean? It’s never going to be any different for us.”
“I suppose you’re right. Only maybe that doesn’t matter. The thing is, even when we’re at each other’s throats, something’s there, kicking like a wild horse.… Which is worse, to live with ulcers or boredom?” I shifted position. “You see, I think you –” But something was hurting me a lot, though I wasn’t sure whether the pain was physical or metaphysical. Then, abruptly, I felt a warm gush and between my feet appeared a considerable puddle.
“Oh, will you look at this, I’ve disgraced meself –”
Before we could do more than look stupidly down at the pool in the gutter, a sharp blade of pain penetrated me. Its quality and meaning were things I well remembered. Ross looked quickly into my face, then gripped my shoulders to brace me. Turning his head to the window where one of the spectators still lingered, he called in a loud voice, “Jamie! Get out here quick!”
On the ebb of the pain I said, “All right. No panic. Just help me up and call Miller. I’ll go home in a cab for my things and meet him at the hospital. There’s plenty of time.”
The tall boy with the hair had now come out of the house and somewhat cautiously approached us.
“There damn well isn’t plenty of time,” Ross said. He seemed ridiculously agitated. “You can’t possibly go home. Jamie, I need a hand here. We’ve got to get her up and into the house. The waters just broke; she’s in labour.”
I started to say, “No, I’m not, it’s too soon,” but the fierce gripe of another contraction cut me off. My panting sounded hoarse in the sudden quiet of the night city. The two men hovered over me helplessly. Ross’s knee bracing my back gave support as the spasm eased.
The Marriage Bed Page 20