Mrs Caliban and other stories

by Rachel Ingalls

  ‘Coffee?’ Estelle asked, already pouring it out. Sandra and Joey wandered into the kitchen separately, stared glumly, had to be told to say hello, opened the icebox for food, ate standing up and shuffled out again. When they were beyond the door and out of earshot, Estelle muttered, ‘They sometimes seem hardly human. I keep telling myself it’s a phase. They’re so crass and surly and just godawful. All they say is Yaah and Naah. At first I thought they were drugged.’

  ‘Maybe they are.’

  ‘No, no, that I’m sure of.’

  ‘They’ve got hormones shooting through their systems a mile a minute – those are drugs. I see what you mean, though. When I was that age, I was all dimity and feminine and dreamy, reading poetry and so on.’

  ‘Were you? I was out in a back seat with Jimmy McGraw from the other side of the tracks. Best nights of my life. After the divorce, I thought of tracking all those people down, and then I thought what’s the use. The whole point about it was that it was then, not now.’

  ‘That figures.’

  ‘What I mean is … you’re right, it doesn’t make sense. You know what I mean.’

  ‘It may be something to do with fitting in with the others, too.’

  ‘Like those Irish children. It’s – no, I threw it out. It was an article in a magazine: they did a sociological survey on children from several different families where the parents wanted at least one child to go into the church. And what they found was that these children were chosen quite early. You could see they were nice-looking and obedient and neat, whereas their sisters and brothers became plain and bad-tempered and sloppy-looking. What was interesting about the study was that after the children had been chosen and the time of danger had passed, the other children suddenly blossomed and stopped being plain and slovenly. I mean, they also seemed to change physically.’

  ‘A subconscious defence. And the other ones were conforming to expectation. They’d stay that way, too.’

  ‘But Jesus, Dorothy, I’m not trying to put my kids into the church.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. They’re like any other teenagers. As a matter of fact, you’re lucky they’re not being brain-washed by one of those freak cults, told to break with their family and so forth. After that Jones business, anything is possible. And the teens are the dangerous age for religion. I felt that way myself.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ Estelle said. ‘You? I thought you were my one reasonable friend.’

  ‘Oh, you know. All those feelings of holiness and beauty and love. What else tries to explain them? Then you look around at most of the men and women you see, and you think that’s certainly not enough, that’s just routine. Let’s say it was romance. Your instinct for romance is very powerful in your teens.’

  ‘Romance, right. That’s different. Romance and tragedy. Except, now I’m older, what I really go for is comedy. Even the international situation. My God, what a circus.’

  ‘Which reminds me‚’ Dorothy said, ‘how are Charlie and Stan? They know about each other yet?’

  ‘Oh-ho. Sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. I think Charlie knows that there’s someone, but doesn’t know who it could be. He actually thought there was someone when there wasn’t yet.’

  ‘And Stan?’

  ‘Him, he’s so conceited it would never cross his mind.’

  ‘Is he good-looking?’

  ‘Didn’t I show you the picture?’

  ‘I didn’t think it was so special.’

  ‘He’s better in the flesh, as they say.’

  ‘But Charlie’s better in bed?’

  ‘You’re not supposed to be able to guess these things so easily. Let’s talk about you. Let’s talk about your new lover.’

  ‘Oh, come on. Me? What you could talk about that would help me, would be how I can get Suzanne off my neck.’

  ‘Is she coming with her kids, or alone? Or with what’s-his-name?’

  ‘Bruce. Not this time. Just Suzanne all by herself. I almost prefer it when they all come. They’re fighting with each other so hard, you don’t even have to say much, just sit there and listen. And I get a kick out of seeing Fred start to get hysterical but trying to contain himself. He doesn’t like them either, even Suzanne. Why he won’t admit it, why he keeps shoving her on to me … to be fair, I thought Robin wasn’t so bad last time. She’s a funny-looking girl, though.’

  ‘With the Brillo-pad head, like her mother?’

  ‘Just the opposite. You know the Charles Addams cartoon of the thin wife with the long, stringy hair? Robin’s like that, but instead of wearing a long dress that tapers down to where she disappears into the rug, she’s usually wearing pants and cowboy boots. She says she wants to be a choreographer. She says she has an idea for a whole series of ballets based on the chemical combinations of molecules in action, or something like that. She drew me a picture. It looked great. Really. But she won’t be coming. Just Suzanne.’

  ‘The only way really to get rid of her is to leave the house yourself when she arrives. You know, pack everything, and the minute you see her marching up the path, you just march right out of the door with your suitcases.’

  ‘I thought of that‚’ Dorothy said, and sighed.

  ‘Fred could take her off your hands if he’d just make an effort.’

  ‘Well I see what he means. He can’t do much if he’s working all day.’

  ‘Working. That’s what they all say.’

  ‘Well, it’s true.’

  ‘It’s not work like real work, like us.’

  ‘Estelle, you’re terrific. We’re so exploited, we’re spending our afternoons sitting around drinking coffee.’

  ‘Another cup,’ Estelle said. She managed, as usual, to over-ride Dorothy’s protests.

  They talked about the studio. Dorothy said that in a few months, she might ask Estelle to set up another job for her. Not now, but in five months’ time or so. By that time, Larry would have gone back to his home again, and she would not dare to stay in the house, mooning around the back rooms, thinking about how everybody always left or died. Years before, when she thought she was just about to sink like a stone, it had been the jobs which had brought her back to life again. There had even been other people she had met through the work, who might also have helped, but she hadn’t seen that at the time. And meanwhile, she and Fred had lost a lot of friends and stopped going out much.

  As Dorothy started to leave, Estelle said, ‘I’ll pick you up for the show. The place will probably be packed and we’ll have to fight for a parking space.’

  They agreed on the time and Dorothy thanked Estelle again for the Saturday invitation, but said that since Fred wasn’t coming, she’d ask for a raincheck too. She started off in the direction of home, then changed her mind and stopped to buy some avocados.

  When she got home, Fred was there before her. He said, ‘I may have to go out again. I’ve got a deal on.’

  ‘With Art?’

  ‘That’s right‚’ he said, so quickly that she knew it wasn’t true.

  ‘Some time I want to talk about Suzanne and what we’re going to do about the vacation.’

  ‘OK, OK, only not now.’

  ‘All right. Just remember that I don’t want her here until after we get back.’

  ‘All right, all right.’

  ‘You aren’t listening.’

  ‘After we get back. Mr Mendoza left a note about the garden. Where were you? You’re out driving in the car all the time. A hundred bucks a minute if the price of gas goes up any more.’

  Dorothy picked up a crumpled paper from the desk. She looked at it, turned it over, and said, ‘Could you make out what this means? All I can read is, “Dear Mess Jade”. Usually his writing is so neat. He must have been in a hurry.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘That’s all. Unless this word is supposed to mean Saturday.’

  ‘Where were you this afternoon?’

  ‘What? Oh, at Estelle’s,’ Dorothy answered, still peering at the letter. ‘Ho
nestly, can’t you help?’ She handed the paper to him. He took it, but did not look at it. He looked at her instead.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘I called Estelle. She said you weren’t there.’

  ‘Of course I wasn’t there. I’d just left.’

  ‘It took you a long time to get home.’

  ‘I went shopping. What is this? You can call Estelle and ask her when I arrived and when I left.’

  ‘What did you get when you were shopping?’

  ‘Avocados‚’ Dorothy said. She turned from him, strode into the kitchen, picked up the brown-paper bag and brought it to him.

  ‘Oh, I believe you‚’ he said. She unrolled the top of the bag so that he could see what was inside. All at once the tight, ironic, play-acting expression went out of his face. He said, ‘The whole bagful? You bought a whole bag of avocados? Jesus there must be twenty of them in there. What on earth for? We’ll never get through them. They’ll go bad.’

  ‘No, they won’t. I’ll eat them.’

  ‘Dorothy, that’s crazy.’

  Dorothy dosed the top of the bag. Her voice rose. ‘It isn’t crazy‚’ she insisted. ‘It’s a special avocado diet. You lose several pounds all at once and just keep going.’

  ‘They’re fattening as hell.’

  ‘Not if you don’t put anything on them. And it’s all a question of balance, anyway. Once you get settled in the diet, the trace elements start burning up all your fat, or something like that.’

  ‘You could always buy gold-dust instead. In the first place, you don’t need to go on a diet, and in the second place, if you did, you could go on one by just eating less than normal. A whole bag – honestly, Dot, it’s crazy. It looks like the treasure of the Aztecs. A whole bag.’

  ‘Never mind. You won’t have to eat any if you don’t want to.’

  The phone rang. There was a tiny electric moment between them and then Fred grabbed for the phone.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘yes. No. About half an hour. OK.’

  Dorothy wondered what would have happened if she had answered, instead. An even shorter conversation: wrong number.

  ‘What time are you coining back?’ she asked.

  ‘Before midnight, I hope.’

  ‘I’ll want the car,’ she said. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Couldn’t you just–’

  ‘No I need to be able to get out. Didn’t the garage offer you anything?’

  ‘It wasn’t supposed to take this long.’

  ‘Oh, Fred, it always takes this long. Everything on that museum piece has to be fixed by a fanatic. They have to scour the countryside for experts and then they have to make all the missing parts from scratch.’

  He picked up the telephone receiver again and called a cab.

  Dorothy held up Mr Mendoza’s note in front of him.

  ‘I don’t know‚’ he said. ‘One of the words is “tomatoes”.’

  ‘That’s “tomorrow”.’

  ‘It’s just about the only one I can understand.’

  The taxi arrived, driven by someone who looked like an eleven-year-old girl with a beard. He had on a big leather jacket and walked up to the door very slowly, not like most of the taxicab hustlers in town. Fred answered the bell and went back down the path with the boy. He turned around to wave to Dorothy, who raised her hand in return. He hadn’t done that for years.

  She went back into the kitchen, where she forgot what she had intended to do next, and sat down in a chair by the kitchen table. He was asking her all those questions too, almost as if he suspected her. It might be because he himself felt guilty, or maybe she did unconsciously give out some signal that she was again a desired woman.

  She made a large salad, which she tossed in the Hawaiian wooden bowl. All over the top she laid long slices of avocado. Her father’s family had called them ‘alligator pears’, but she hadn’t told Larry. She thought he might be hurt somehow. The ones she had bought were the smooth, thin-skinned type, though she had seen others that really did look like the hide of an alligator: dark green and knobbly outside, with thicker skins. Inside, the edible part was exactly the same.

  She took another quick look at Mr Mendoza’s note. It must mean tomatoes after all. She had forgotten that this was his day but he would be back the next week.

  She carried salad and plates into Larry’s room. He was listening to her foreign broadcast of classical music, but turned it off as she came in sideways with the tray.

  Over the meal he said, ‘I was watching TV before he came in.’

  ‘Something nice?’

  ‘An old movie called Marie Antoinette.’

  ‘They must have put it on because of the fashion show. Some of the costumes from the film are going to be there. That’s where I’m going with Estelle on Thursday.’

  ‘That would be interesting.’

  ‘I wish you could come too.’

  ‘That would be even more interesting. As a matter of fact, I’ve also been looking at the news and current affairs, and you can’t imagine what they’ve been saying about me. And in how many states I’ve been seen. The monster this, the monster that. Why should people make up such things? No one has seen me, and yet they say it and they even appear to believe it. Why?’

  ‘That’s hard to explain. Sometimes it’s just to feel important. Sometimes they see something unclear and very quickly, and don’t know what it is; a shadow behind a tree, or something, but they exaggerate.’

  ‘No, they invent. I’m asking because I want to know whether this is a basic human characteristic.’

  ‘I don’t know about basic. It’s pretty common, but I think it mostly depends on circumstances.’

  ‘I know one thing. If they catch me now, they’ll kill me. These people talking on the news are trying to frighten other people and trying to make them hate me. And they feel disgust. They keep talking about “alien intelligence” and “animal instincts”.’

  ‘They won’t catch you. As long as you’re careful.’

  ‘They have to get close to do it. Last time, they shot me with a dart while one of them was talking to me. A little arrow filled with anaesthetic. But now if anyone tries to get close, I’ll grab him and hold him in front of me. And afterwards I’ll kill him, so he can’t tell where I live.’

  ‘Don’t do that. Knock him out, and we’ll gag him and keep him here until you can get home. Then we’ll let him go.’

  ‘It might be a good idea to have a hostage if we drive through Mexico.’

  ‘More trouble than it’s worth. We’d have to keep our eye on him all the way. I don’t like the idea of hostages, anyway. It’s so cowardly. It’s so like what they did to you.’

  ‘What we should really have as a hostage is a baby. Nobody would try to shoot us with darts if we held it up in front of us upside-down.’

  Dorothy set down her fork and held her hands over her face. She told him about her two children again, this time in more detail. She started to cry. He patted and hugged her, and crooned in her ear.

  ‘I don’t dislike them‚’ he said. ‘I would like to see one. I’ve seen them on television. It would be interesting. Could you bring me one to look at?’

  ‘Larry, darling,’ she told him, ‘they don’t just hang around street corners or something. Babies belong to people. The only time they’re ever left alone is if the mother is so weighed down by shopping bags that she has to park the baby nearby in its pushchair, but just for a few seconds. Those are the only cases of baby-stealing I’ve heard of.’

  ‘So they are stolen? What for?’

  ‘Lonely women. I used to think about it myself sometimes. For a few months. I’d see them outside the supermarkets and think: see how much they care for you – you’d be better off with me, I wouldn’t leave you unprotected and ignored like that.’

  ‘We could borrow one.’

  ‘They cry. And we’d have to put it back.’

  ‘We could just let it go and it would find its own way home.’

/>   ‘Babies aren’t like other small animals. They’re helpless.’

  ‘All of them? How peculiar.’

  ‘They’re very slow to develop, and almost everything they develop has to be taught. If you don’t know how to teach it, or don’t bother to, they never learn it.’

  Dorothy cleared the table and brought in coffee.

  ‘Where you come from, are the births one at a time, or a number all together?’

  ‘Both. It depends. Sometimes one way, sometimes the other.’

  ‘It’s the same here. There can be two, three, four, five, but the most common is just one. The higher the number, the more unusual it is. But, I’m sure it used to be the other way around. A long time ago.’

  ‘Do you think that you and I –’

  ‘I was just wondering about that this afternoon. I’d be delighted if it happened.’

  ‘Are you sure? It might put you in danger. And any child or half-child of mine would be called a monster, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Born on American soil to an American mother – such a child could become President. It would be American. And I’m married so it would also be legitimate. After I sold the story to the dailies, it would be rich, too. It’s surprising how little people mind what they’re called, so long as they have enough money.’

  ‘A mixing of the species is said to produce a sterile offspring, isn’t it?’

  ‘The only one I know about is mules. But I don’t think it holds true with plants. I should look it up. With you and me, we’re so alike I’m not sure if we should really be called separate species. We might be the same species at different branches on its evolutionary development.’

  ‘At the Institute, they said I was a different species. Even Professor Dexter said it. So we might not mix.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me. They didn’t like you and they treated you shamefully. They’d want an excuse. For centuries people like that kept saying women didn’t have souls. And nearly everyone still believes it. Same thing.’