A Complicated Woman

by Sheelagh Kelly

  Oriel barked a quick laugh too, but was soon eaten away by anger again. ‘God, I’ve never been so humiliated.’

  ‘You should live with my husband,’ replied the other with a telling look in her eye.

  Oriel was repentant. ‘Oh, he hasn’t hit you again, has he? Is there anything I can do? Why don’t you take the plunge with me?’

  ‘I’ll be all right, I usually am.’ Dorothy noticed that her friend was tugging bad-temperedly at her clothes. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve caught fleas into the bargain?’

  ‘It’s this blasted money holster,’ complained Oriel, and lifted her blouse to adjust it. ‘They’re not made for women.’

  Dorothy howled. ‘You’re not meant to wear it across your chest! It’s a wonder you haven’t cut your circulation off. You’re meant to sling it over your shoulder.’

  ‘Are you sure? I did it like that first but it kept slipping off – and I’m taking no chances of that greedy little rat getting his hands on it. It’s all I have. Did I tell you he’s been going through my bag? He’s paranoid that Daniel’s going to come and take everything he’s worked for. He’s worked for, mind. I haven’t done any of it. Oh no, he was the one who sewed the curtains and the clothes and the chair covers and organized the children for school and washed the sheets when they peed the bed. Oh no, I haven’t done any of it.’ She patted her chest where the money lay. ‘Well, he isn’t getting his paws on this. It goes everywhere with – oh, hello, Cuddy!’ She broke off as Dorothy’s husband came in.

  ‘Oriel.’ Cuthbert gave a curt greeting and remained surly as he addressed his wife in punctilious fashion. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your tête-à-tête but I was taken ill at work. I must have developed Clive’s complaint – though not the whole of it, I trust.’

  Dorothy bit her lip and hurried to tend him. ‘Oh dear, come and sit down. Can I get you anything?’

  ‘Yes, you can get rid of this woman from my house.’

  Realizing that he was referring to her Oriel gasped, ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Your husband’s told me all about your callous disregard for him. I must say I always thought he was a saint to have put up with you all these years. I have never had very much respect for you, Oriel, and could never imagine what pleasure my wife derived from your company, but now you have sunk far below my previous estimation. I have to inform you that you are no longer welcome here.’

  ‘Cuddy, Oriel’s my friend,’ beseeched Dorothy.

  ‘Be quiet,’ she was ordered by her husband, and obeyed. ‘Will you please go?’

  ‘Gladly.’ Oriel picked up her handbag. ‘I’ve no wish to be in the same room as a wife-beater.’ Seeing Dorothy cower under her husband’s furious glare, she tilted her chin at Cuthbert and issued forcefully, ‘And if you so much as touch my friend once more I’ll have the law on you!’ She turned to leave, adding more gently, ‘I’ll see you some other time, Dorothy.’

  ‘No, you will not,’ came the terse reply. ‘I do not wish my wife to associate with such a woman. You will not try to contact her again.’ Not wishing to exacerbate her friend’s maltreatment, Oriel simply threw a quick look at Dorothy who was standing behind her husband and was reassured by the wink that came in return. Without another word being exchanged, she collected her children from the garden, and left.

  * * *

  Still trembling from the contempt she had received, it was a relief to find her own house empty again. Giving Jennifer and Dorrie tea, she joined them at the table to nibble on a slice of bread and butter that felt like carpet as it made its way down her throat. The cup of tea was too hot. Unable to settle, she got up and opened a drawer of the sideboard with the intention of looking through some personal papers which she had gathered together earlier, but found they had already been disturbed. Momentarily forgetting the children’s presence, she erupted, filling the air with expletives. Just what had he thought to find?

  She was not to be allowed to ask this until much later, long after the children had been put to bed. Forced to sit and listen to the wireless, she tapped her foot with burgeoning impatience, seething over Clive’s audacity. By the time he came in she was ready to kill him.

  ‘Find anything of interest amongst my belongings, did you?’ she demanded as he came through the doorway of the lounge. The moment the comment had left her lips she knew she had played into his hands. One glance at his face showed a man on the verge of explosion and she had provided the detonator.

  ‘You bloody rotten bitch!’ He went berserk. The transition from pathetic martyr to cuckolded husband was astounding to behold as he ranted and raged and swore, spittle flying everywhere. ‘You sit there accusing me! It isn’t me who’s done anything wrong. I’ve never looked at another woman, never! I’ve done everything I possibly could for you. I’ve never knocked you around – maybe you would’ve thought more about me if I had!’

  Idiot, thought Oriel, but sat perfectly still and made no accusation of his shortcomings for she recognized the final act of a defeated cornered animal and was too afraid to push him further into that corner.

  ‘I’ve been sat out there for ages looking at that rope the kids use for swinging on the tree – I’m not bloody kidding!’ He screamed at her. ‘And you’ve driven me to it. Wait till that Daniel finds out what a cold hard bitch you are! And if he shows his face around here I’ll bloody kill him!’ Looking wildly around him he seized the nearest thing to hand – a book – and threw it at her.

  She cringed to protect herself as the tome bounced off her stomach to the floor and Clive stormed out of the room – but she tensed for another attack as the sound of his fists reverberated against the double doors, punching them wide open and rocking them in their hinges as he barged back in to spit at her, ‘I hope you both rot in hell for what you’ve done to me!’

  She sat there for a moment, wide-eyed and listening as the pounding passage to his room terminated in a slam. Only then did she hear the sound of her daughter weeping. She sighed, and was about to go tend the child when her four-year-old son appeared in the doorway to stare at her.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she told him with certainty in her voice. ‘Your father’s all right.’ For she knew that for all his self-pitying hysterics Clive would emerge from this trauma the same as he had always been, would go on living and doing the same old things year in year out, like the dog who turns around and around before he lies down to sleep, not knowing why he does it, only that he must.

  ‘Jenny’s crying.’ Tongue curled round his upper lip, Dorrie played with his pyjama trousers. It was terribly hot, his hair was clinging to his brow.

  Oriel was sweating too though hers was as much from fear as from the heat. ‘I know. I’ll go and see her. Come back to bed.’ She put her hand on the little boy’s shoulder and steered him down the hall to his darkened bedroom next to the pantry.

  ‘Why is Daddy shouting?’

  ‘He’s—’ She pushed her hair behind one ear. ‘He’s angry with Mummy because she has to go and live somewhere else.’

  The drowsy face looked up at her. ‘Are we coming to live somewhere else too?’

  ‘Yes. Remember I told you? Well, we’ll be going tomorrow.’

  ‘Is Daddy angry with me and Jenny as well?’

  ‘No! He loves you. None of this is your fault.’ Oriel bent down to pick up her son, cuddled his heated body, and installed him in bed before going to comfort her daughter, to whom she gave the same explanation that none of this was their fault.

  To alleviate their discomfort she turned on the fan, then sat between their two beds, singing to them. After soothing them back to sleep, she crept from the darkened room, crept to the linen cupboard, took out a blanket and went to the dining room, keeping her ears alert for another attack. But there was no sound from Clive’s room. Her own bedroom door had no lock but the dining room did. Feeling safer here she turned the key, lay down on the sofa, covered herself with the blanket, and tried to sleep.

  19

  In the mor
ning she prepared to leave, creeping about the house like a thief as she collected as many clothes and belongings as she could. Only then did she get the children out of bed and give them breakfast.

  It was in the kitchen that she found the letter. Unable to witness the departure of his wife and children, a sleepless Clive had sneaked from his bed in the early hours and before leaving the house had composed a rambling damnation of her behaviour throughout their marriage.

  Whilst her children ate, Oriel read it dispassionately, then folded it up and scribbled on the back of it. ‘I hope you find the person you deserve.’ He’ll probably take that to mean that he deserves someone better than me, she thought – interpret the phrase as a vindication of his own behaviour, whilst in reality it meant that she hoped he would find someone who was as lacking in intuition and imagination as he was. A person who was willing to spend the next twenty, thirty or even fifty years with a man who was content to get up at the same time every day, eat the same breakfast, go to work at the same job, rush to catch the six o’clock swill, come home to a meal on the table, abandon her in favour of his cronies, then come home to bed in the hope of sexual gratification. That person was not Oriel. She was not sure what she wanted from life, only what she did not want and she did not want him. She wanted to awake to a feeling of anticipation, not to the terrible quandary of how she was ever going to get through another day. There was nothing wrong with him. There was nothing wrong with her. They were just different, and that difference had been slowly killing them both. Why could he not see that?

  She played with her wedding ring, wanting desperately to remove it and with it all trace of her marriage, but how would that look when she had two children? For their sake she left it on.

  ‘Finished, Mummy!’

  She turned to smile at her son and daughter. ‘Clean plates? Good-o. Well, run and collect a few of your favourite toys and books – just a few. I won’t be able to carry much, but you can get the rest later. I’ll take them to the new house and they’ll be there waiting for you when I pick you up from school.’

  Jennifer and Dorrie ran off to rummage through their toy cupboard. Simultaneously, the front door knocker sounded. Oriel jumped, then left the washing up and went through the hall to answer it, her face dropping at the sight of Melinda and her children. She hesitated before holding wide the door, ‘Mel… come in.’

  ‘No thanks,’ was the icy reply. ‘I just come here so’s my children could see the woman who’s taking their father away.’

  Oriel’s expression crumpled. Her eyes toured the row of solemn little faces, hardly daring to linger upon Alice, who had always shown such admiration of her ‘aunt’, and who now beheld her with fear and accusation.

  ‘Have you no conscience?’ Melinda’s voice tremored, but her expression remained firm. ‘How d’yer think we’re gonna live with no wage coming in? How we gonna pay the bills, buy food? How can you do it? Not just to them but to me? My best friend – at least I thought so! I always looked up to you for the way you took me in and looked after me when I had Alice, never believed what your father said that y’only took me in to spite him ’cause he walked out on you and your mum – but I believe it now. You use people to your own ends, Oriel. You been coming into my home just so’s you could steal my husband.’

  Oriel’s grip tightened on the edge of the door. ‘You can’t steal people, Mel. They’re not possessions.’

  ‘Shut up! I’ll have my say.’ Melinda fought back tears of rage.

  Oriel was close to tears too. ‘Mel, I am truly sorry for what’s happened.’

  ‘Then don’t let it happen! There’s time yet. Dan’s working his last shift at the mill but he could always tell ’em he’s changed his mind. Just leave him alone and stay with your own husband. I reckon Clive’ll feel the same way as I do. He’ll forgive you and be glad just to have yer back, as I will Dan.’

  Oriel’s temper flared. ‘I haven’t left Clive for Daniel! I’d already started divorce proceedings. It was sheer luck that we bumped into each other.’

  ‘Lucky for who? Certainly not these children! And what about yer own, eh?’

  Oriel’s mind was reeling. She nipped her brow. ‘That was the wrong choice of word. I meant to say coincidence.’

  ‘All right, I’ll take you at yer word. You’d finished with Clive, you were feeling vulnerable, you were scared of being on yer own, I know I would be – I bloody am! Then you met Dan and you thought he could look after you. I can forgive that. He’s a lovely man, makes everybody feel as if he cares about them – but I mean everybody, Oriel, not just you, you’re nothing special. Who d’yer think he’s been sleeping with the last two days? If yer think he’s been saving himself for you yer wrong.’

  Oriel showed no emotion, pushing the other to frustration.

  ‘You don’t know him!’ yelled Melinda.

  ‘I do.’

  It was the certainty in Oriel’s voice that led Melinda to the realization that her marriage was over. She stood there facing the other woman for long seconds, then said tersely, ‘Well, yer’d better make sure he gets another bloody job then. He’s still got four kids to feed!’ Grabbing two small hands, she led her brood away.

  Oriel watched her stalk down the path to the battered car and withdraw from it the painting that Nat had given her years ago, watched as she hurled it over the garden gate with a cry of futile retaliation. ‘See how yer like them apples!’

  Leaving it where it lay, Oriel shut the door and collapsed against it, trembling, then opened her eyes to see her own children standing before her, their arms full of toys and books, bewilderment on their faces.

  Collecting her senses, she tried to look cheerful. ‘Don’t worry about all that row, it’s just something silly. Now, what would you like for playlunch?’ A falsely animated discussion followed, during which Oriel enlisted their help in preparing the sandwiches. How she could conjure so many jokes she did not know, was only glad that they worked. By the time they reached school she had been able to calm the youngsters and they went through the gates with no complaint.

  After leaving them, she took a bus into town where she collected the keys to her new home. As the name might suggest, Parkville boasted wide open spaces, Royal Park on one side, the university grounds on the other, with many desirable residences amongst its rolling green acres – but Oriel’s cottage was not one of them. Situated in a pocket of working-class housing, it formed part of a terrace, and was surrounded by wood yards, industrial sites and a steam laundry.

  Evidence of petunias amongst the weeds in the tiny front garden told that it had once been a pretty little house, as did the iron lacework around its front verandah. Now, rust and flaking paint prevailed. Having come prepared for cleaning, with cloths and disinfectant, Oriel was nevertheless horrified at the size of the task before her. Why had she not noticed it yesterday? Every room stank of urine and sweat. It would never be in a fit state for the children tonight. Her chore was further delayed by the fact that there was no hot water, but luckily the gas had not been turned off, and in the time it took to boil a kettle she was rushing about cleaning and scrubbing and swearing as the cuffs of her gingham smock kept catching on doorknobs almost ripping the seams.

  ‘Bloody buggering knob!’ After the umpteenth time of being dragged backwards she lashed out at the door with her foot, chipping even more paint off it, before tearing and ripping the smock from her back and hurling it at the wall. After the display of rage she took three deep breaths, scolded herself into some sort of order, and launched herself back into her task.

  Alas, despite taking nearly every layer of skin off her fingertips with copious amounts of bleach and scourer, almost asphyxiating herself into the bargain, the house still reeked.

  It was by now midday but Oriel had not thought to bring anything with her to eat. Famished and exhausted, she was about to go out and buy something when a knock came at the door. Frowning, she answered it to find her friend on the doorstep.

  ‘Oh than
ks be to God – the cavalry!’

  ‘I can’t stay long!’ Humping a basket, Dorothy rushed inside, looking furtive. ‘Cuddy’ll kill me if he finds out. Oh, I’m really sorry about yesterday, Oriel! I wouldn’t have had it happen for the world. He told me I hadn’t to see you again – that was even before he knew about Daniel – but I took no notice, thinking he’s out all day at work and wouldn’t find out. Trust him to get sick!’

  ‘Oh well. Just so long as he didn’t take it out on you after I left.’ Happy to see her friend, Oriel shrugged and ran a hand over her dark waves, then glimpsed the barest hint of agitation in Dorothy’s face before the other turned away. ‘He didn’t, did he?’ She caught at her friend’s sleeve, eyes quizzing her face. Though Dorothy denied there had been violence Oriel knew she was lying. ‘Oh, he did, the bloody wretch! I could kill him! Oh, what can I do – or have I done enough?’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault!’ Dorothy tried to make light of yesterday’s violence. ‘Somebody else had upset him at work. He just gets… frustrated.’ When her friend begged her not to put up with this appalling treatment she refused to budge. ‘I’m all right, honestly! It’s you we have to worry about at the moment.’ Seeing that Oriel was holding a hat, she asked, ‘Were you going out?’

  Oriel sighed. ‘Yes, you just caught me. I was going to find something to eat.’

  ‘I can save you the trouble.’ Dorothy began to unload the contents of her bag, amongst them a flask of tea. ‘I wasn’t sure if you had a stove so I brought tea and sandwiches – there’s a quarter of tea, bread, butter, milk, sugar and some Vegemite too.’

  ‘Oh, you little beauty! I’m almost fainting with hunger. I have got a stove – and I found an old kettle – but it’s not much to speak of.’ Oriel disposed of her hat, bit into a sandwich and watched the other pour two cups of tea. ‘I’ve had a disastrous morning. First Melinda turned up on my doorstep—’

  ‘Crikey Moses!’