by Pat Rosier
The portrait that grabs her attention is a commissioned oil painting by someone she has never heard of, Maggi Hambling, and the subject is someone she has never heard of, either, Dorothy Mary Crawfoot Hodgkin, chemist and crystallographer. She was the first scientist to, “make an X-ray diffraction photograph of a protein,” among other things and was the “first and only British woman to win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964.” That's ambiguous, Ann thinks, it needs a comma. And what's more, “a Royal Society Fellowship was established in her name to help women who wish to be both career scientists and to raise children.”
The painting has Dorothy sitting at a large, untidy desk covered in papers, with a standard portrait background of a window looking out to trees, a dull blue curtain, shelves of books and folders, a splodgy wall. A schematic scientific model sits in the left foreground. Or maybe it’s a model of something chemical. Dorothy looks down in intense concentration, a paper in one hand, a pen, writing, in another. There are actually four hands and arms, all looking perfectly natural. She has a lot to do, urgently, no time to comb the dishevelled white hair or straighten the cardigan. The hands move quickly, but not as quickly as her mind. Ann can sense the mind, focused yet ranging, concentrated, thinking, thinking. This woman is old, and that is the least important thing in the portrait. I want that, Ann thinks, that absorption, that involvement, that intensity of thinking, taking something to somewhere else.
*
That night it snows. The snow settles briefly but by morning there are only patches and by midday it has completely thawed. Tuesday is a particularly bad day for Chloe and they all stay in. Ann is getting a new understanding of just how constant young children are. These two, according to her mother, must be particularly good-natured and well-managed, they sound like little angels. Don't they destroy things, and throw paddies and whine at dinner-time? Ann had done all three and she expected nothing less from two terrible twos. I did not whine! Ann says indignantly to herself.
Email replies from her friends encourage her in her “adventures with Suzanna,” as one put it. It’s Mo, of course, ever-careful Mo, who cautions her to only go to public places until she knows Suzanna better, and be on the alert for signs of obsessiveness, or any other odd personality traits. She's a librarian, for heaven's sake, thinks Ann, she lives and works locally, and the first place we went was with a bunch of her very ordinary-seeming friends. I'm the stranger in town that nobody knows, who could be presenting myself as someone I'm not. She smiles at the idea of it.
Chloe's nausea goes on all through the afternoon. “My body is paying me back for having such a good weekend,” she complains. Ann encourages her to lie down, try and sleep. She's read about the ill-named morning sickness on a couple of pregnancy websites, but doesn't go so far as to offer advice, she guesses Chloe will have heard or read it all. Eat small amounts often and rest, that’s the guts of the online advice. She doesn't feel as though she and Chloe are getting close, but they are rubbing along okay.
Story-reading has become her specialty with the children, she does it with vigour and encourages them to join in. They have a few chants, like, “We’re goin' on a bear hunt, we're not scared.” Which they usually follow by running somewhere and hiding their heads and squealing in pretended fear. Jo likes, “I do not like green eggs and ham,” and repeats it over and over while she’s eating. In spite of Ann's best efforts, they do not respond to A A Milne. Too young, she supposes. Chris's attachment to Thomas the Tank Engine disturbs her, she thinks the language is stilted and the stories silly.
“Why don't you try nursery rhymes? There's a book of them somewhere. I'm such a rotten singer I haven't really bothered,” says Chloe.
Ann prefers more contemporary books, but finds the nursery rhymes and they, all of them, are away. Miss Muffet is a favourite. Then the gingerbread man pops up from somewhere, and “run, run, as fast as you can, you can' catch me I'm the ging'bread man.” causes great hilarity and much running about. Untrammelled, Ann thinks, whole-hearted. Chris in particular can be a body in constant movement, round and about and up and down, falling, getting up, rushing, pushing, pulling and suddenly Ann will notice a stillness in the air and look around and see him asleep, on a sofa, or a cushion, or even lying sprawled on the floor. As much as possible he’ll be left to wake up naturally, when he’ll be instantly in motion again.
Ann misses Suzanna's mid-morning call. A text reads, “wl call agn in lch br8k”. Ann is making sandwiches when the phone rings in her pocket. “Hey, babe, d'ya miss me?”
“Not really.” It’s true, but she should have tried for a kinder reply.
“Ouch.” Pause.
“When's your lunch break tomorrow? I've got some books to return.”
“Don't put yourself out, babe.”
“Oh, sorry. I'm in the middle of making lunch and I'm making a hash of this phone call.” At least that got a laugh.
“Gotcha. Tomorrow, twelve thirty. Library. Right? Caio.”
A bit more than two weeks to go until Christmas Day. Then a week until new year. Then time to go to Paris. Given that she's barely given Suzanna a thought during the weekend should she, keep seeing her? You can hardly break off something that’s barely started. Or started barely. It was S herself who had said no strings etc etc.
“After fourteen years in a relationship with one person, I don't know how to do this stuff,” she tells Jo.
“S'uff,” said Jo, “S'uff, s’uff, s'uff.”
“Thank you, Jo, you are a great help.”
“Help at what?” Chloe comes in, edging Chris in front of her towards his lunch, making a thumbs up indicating toilet success with the boy.
“How to have a relationship that isn't a relationship or going to be one, how much to worry about the other person, all that.”
“Oh yeah, Jo's good at that. What you mean is—,” Chloe leans close to Ann and whispers, “Fuck buddies. I've never had one myself, but I hear they're all the rage in the city.” Then Chloe is laughing. “If you could see your face! I wasn't always a staid married woman and mother,” she says. “I've been around, seen most things, haven't done many of them, mind, but seen them. You should see accountants at a party, that’d blow the stereotypes away. So I married a librarian. Entrapped by his charm, of course.”
Ann has joined in the laughter. So have Jo and Chris.
“I should just go to lunch tomorrow and see what happens, right? But what if, you know, one of us gets hurt or something?”
“That's life, honey. You know, you can be very serious. Have a holiday romance. Don't think about consequences. Just don't think so much. You and Joshua both. Life happens, good and bad, and you deal with it. That's what life is.”
“I know that, really.”
“You read too many books.”
“There's no such thing as reading too many books!”
“Suit yourself.” Chloe strikes a pose. “I might just start an advice column until I get back to spreadsheets. Do you know how beautiful a spreadsheet can be? No, probably not.”
“Sandwich?” Ann gestures at a plate.
“Ta. Mmm. Good. Lettuce and what? Red onion?”
“Uh huh”. The twins are working their way through cheese, bread, segmented orange and carrot sticks, mixing them all up together.
It rains in the afternoon, reinforcing a decision to stay in. Joshua gets in early, more snow is threatening, he says, so he'd skipped his lunch break to leave work early.
After supper he says, “It's about time for a cuzzie-beer Ann, what do you think?” Ann looks at Chloe, who nods.
“Go on,” she says. “It's time I gave Mum a call,” she says to Joshua.
“Give her my best.”
“Hypocrite!”
“I love my mother-in-law!”
“Sure. Especially when she's not here.”
“While you of course, can't wait to have her come and stay.”
“Never!” Chloe is adamant. “Not after last time.”
Ann watc
hes, fascinated. When she first came they would never have talked to each other like this in front of her.
*
It’s only a few minutes walk to the Mortar and Pestle. Ann could tell Joshua its history, but holds back. “You read too many books,” had stung, a little.
“You and Chloe are getting on like a house on fire.” They both have a glass of red wine. “She's really taken to you.”
“And I to her. Josh, what do you remember of your father? Your original father.”
“Not a lot. Well, nothing much, really. Why?”
“Well, I've been chatting about you and everyone in my emails home, and Mum says she's got some stuff, some photos of you and him, and a few bits and pieces that your mother left behind, and she wonders if you’d like to have them.”
“Well, I don't know that I ever think about him, really. Some photos might be nice. I don't remember Mum having anything much. And what does she mean by bits and pieces?”
“I don't know. Maybe the two of you could talk—email—directly. She's dying to send you something. And she loves the photos I've sent her, she's had most of them printed I think. She says you look like your Dad.”
“Okay, yeah, it would be good, I'll email her. Shirley. My Aunty Shirley. I don't remember her, not really. Maybe one of the kids will want to know about their other grandad some day, yes, it would be good to have—whatever. And what about you, cousin Ann, what exactly are you getting up to? It's not just the books that are the attraction at the local library, eh?”
*
Ann feels awkward walking into the library. She is pleased to see Suzanna busy with someone, drops her books in the returns slot and withdraws to the children's section.
“That's a bit old for twos.” Suzanna appears at her elbow.
“I know, I'm casing the whole genre. And hello.”
“Hello to you too. I'll be off in a couple of minutes. Good to see you.” A quick touch on the arm and Suzanna goes back to the desk. Ann chooses some books almost at random, has them issued by a grey-haired woman and goes to wait outside.
“Hello, again.” Suzanna has a talent for just appearing. “Shall we go and—well, what shall we go and …?” She wouldn't kiss her would she, not right here outside the library. No, she leans towards her a little, and then steps back. Tease.
“How long is your break?”
“Not long enough for what I hope you are thinking.” Tease and flirt, leading to fluster.
Ann can't think what to say, so sets off walking away from the library in the opposite direction from which she had come. A hand grasps her arm.
“If we really are to have lunch, this way is better.” So she turns and walks the other way. Suzanna falls into step beside her
“I've got forty minutes from about three minutes ago, and, no, I am not laughing at you, but I am enjoying you blushing.”
Ann stops and turned to her. “Look,” she says, “I've forgotten how to flirt. If I ever knew. You don't have to do this if you don't want to.”
“Oh, I want to all right. Thinking about you kept me going through a shit weekend of pointless family dramas, about which I promise not to tell you.”
“I’d like it if you did. I know how to relate to people who talk about their lives.
“Come on, over here. They do a decent coffee and edible paninis.”
When they've ordered and found space at a table away from the espresso machine Ann says, “If we're not talking about families, I don't know what to say. There's the weather, I suppose, but 'cold' and 'sometimes raining' and ‘a bit of snow’ about covers that. I know nothing about fashion, or celebrity gossip or the like. I have read some good books lately …”
“Books, maybe. But first tell me what you did at the weekend.”
Ann doesn’t point out that that involves the apparently no-go family area. “My first ice-skating.” Ann describes Joshua and Chloe on the rink. “And some shopping, it feels like real Christmas shopping, with the cold air and the lights and everything”. She talks, too, about the portrait of Dorothy Hodgkin, and how moving it was, and how she wants to be that totally absorbed in something, and it might be writing books for children, really, really good books for children. “Oh! I didn't know I would say that. I didn't know I had even thought that, it just popped out.”
“D'you know, Ann, your eyes are shining brighter than any Christmas tree, you look about twelve years old and you are beautiful.” A hand caresses the side of her face so briefly she hardly feels it.
“I don't know what to say.”
“I think you are not at all used to unbridled admiration, that's what I think.”
“I think you’re right. Mustn't let people get too big for their boots where I come from. Gumboots, probably.”
“Gumb…?”
“Wellingtons.”
Suzanna is smiling and shaking her head. “Talking with you is almost as much fun as …. Speaking of which, meet me after work and we can pick up some kebabs and go to mine.” She rolls her eyes, raises her eyebrows, grins wickedly.
Ann is about to agree but stops herself. “Can we make that tomorrow?” She doesn't want to change arrangements with Chloe, and she wants to go home and think about the children's book idea that jumped out of her mouth. Not that she doesn't want to go back to Suzanna's, she does, rather a lot, but not with the urgency of getting hold of this new idea she has sprung on herself. All these images of something jumping at me, she thinks.
Suzanna's exaggerated sigh and elaborately drooping shoulders are a relief. “Heaven protect me from conscientious women who like to do what they said they would. Tomorrow will be just fine. Today and tomorrow would be better, but, hey, a girl has to wash her hair now and then.”
Not knowing how seriously to take Suzanna is strange. Ann remembers Joshua telling her not to think so much. She puts her hand on Suzanna's, looks directly into her eyes and says, “I'm already looking forward to tomorrow,” and sees the other woman blush.
They say little on the short walk back to the library and part with a quick touch of hands. “I finish at six tomorrow,” says Suzanna as she disappears inside. “Mañana,” she mouths through the glass.
“”Bye,” says Ann to the air as she sets off for home. Branches and twigs on the bare trees make complicated patterns against a dull sky as the day turns to twilight.
Chapter 11
Chloe, Chris and Jo are all asleep on Chloe's bed when Ann gets in. In her attic room she finds a pen and paper and does sums. How long could she live without a job, a real income? Where would she live? With her parents would be sensibly cheap, can she stand to be living in her parents' house for one, two years? Will she feel like a teenager again? And Lower Hutt? She can still remember the relief of moving into Wellington when she was, what? Eighteen? Nineteen? against her parents' sensible arguments. What about putting her house money back into a house while it’s a buyers' market? Does she need to live in the city? Should she go up the coast? Otaki maybe, or the less fashionable parts of the Wairarapa?
She has no idea what it costs her to live. Savings, yes, unaffected by this trip, thanks to Uncle John. House money. No dependents. There are courses on children's writing, should she do one, be a student?. Learn the basics, make some contacts. Join the Children's Literature Association.
On fancy’s wild and roving wing I sail.
Anna Laetitia Barbauld’s concern was the state of the nation rather than one foolish woman’s future, but her line fits. It also reminds Ann that what reputation she has is as a Romanticist, a specialist in the Romantic era.
What does she know about children's books? Or children for that matter. Who does she think she is, J.M.Barrie? Sheesh! She’s doing her own head in. Do something practical, something with immediate results. Take ingredients, make a meal, that's what she needs to do, something hands-on.
Oh-oh, what’s that Paul Klee painting doing hovering in the back of her mind? The Twittering Machine, that’s it, and the one with the legs, Viaducts Break R
anks. And Fish Magic. Stories that bring kids into art, gets them away from the telly and their ipods even. Or leads them into games where they make their own stories. Whoa, Ann, slow down, cook supper, think gestation periods.
Later, singing nursery rhymes with the twins brings up a whole other approach: rhymes to go with paintings.
The twittering machine
the twittering machine
where does it come from?
where has it been?
What is it saying?
what can it do
What does a twittering machine
say to YOU?
Pretty bad, and the rhythm’s all wrong, but an idea. Poems, rhymes, paintings. Acquainting children with their art heritage, bringing it into their daily lives. Not a big deal, part of what’s around them.
Stop it! Stop it! Slow down, let the ideas settle, one step at a time …. Bruegel. Or at least the Bruegels. Children's Games is too obvious, what about the Babel one? She laughs at herself, and the twins, hickory dickory docking, laugh too.
“Hello-oo.” Joshua is at the front door, peeling off outdoor layers, and Chris and Jo run to meet him. “Good day, everyone?” he asks as he sits on the dining room sofa, a twin under each arm.
“Oh yes,” says Ann. And he looks at her knowingly, and she knows what he’s thinking and knows he is partly right and checks in the oven.
Ann meets Suzanna outside the library with a bottle of wine and a kiss on the cheek. They stamp their feet and blow white breaths at each other while they wait for kebabs and kiss as soon as they are inside the upstairs door. Then Ann insists that they eat.