“It’s the mother’s fourth baby, Helga, but she’s been in labour for hours. I think there might be a problem.”
“Is baby coming head first?” asked Helga.
“I’ve already told you it is,” Madelyn tried not to scream down the phone. “But there might be other factors which I’m too inexperienced to recognize.”
“Not worry, you very good nurse. Now go back and let Helga sleep, okay? I come in morning.”
Madelyn slammed the phone down and returned to the labouring woman. She had every intention of phoning Helga every hour if necessary, but in fact the woman wasn’t in much pain, and the baby’s heartbeat was strong.
At nine in the morning, Helga put in an appearance. She did a quick examination, then patted the woman on the head, sunk her bulk into a chair and sucked on a fingernail.
“Well?” Madelyn demanded.
“My dear, you go home. You look so tired.”
“But I’ve been here for fourteen hours. I want to stay to the end.”
“There is no need, all is fine. You so tired you not help much anyway.”
Madelyn couldn’t even appeal to the patient. Her eyes were closed in exhaustion, and it was doubtful if she understood what was happening.
There was nothing more frustrating than missing the excitement and wonder of the birth after attending a difficult labour. ‘Bloody Helga,’ Madelyn thought, ‘waltzing in after a good night’s sleep and booting me out. The mother had bonded with me. I could smack her fat face!’
The sight of her sweet little house cheered her up, and by the time she had stashed her bicycle and entered the hallway, Madelyn remembered she was off tomorrow and tried to focus on how she would spend the day. She would not even phone to inquire how the birth had ended.
Philip was lying across the couch in their sitting room as if he lived there, conversing with Louise and Lavinia.
“The prettiest nurse in Cambridge, barring the present beauties,” Philip called out gallantly, and Madelyn felt the last dregs of her irritability fade away.
“I hope you weren’t waiting for me. I’m going straight to bed.”
Philip wagged a finger rakishly in her direction, “I know your habits well. First you will have breakfast, then a cigarette or four. You will sit chatting away all the time as though you had just risen from a refreshing sleep, as opposed to returning from a grueling night of work. Then you will have a shower. Bedtime is at least two hours away, even on an ordinary day. But today is sunny and hot and you happen to be off tonight. Sleep later, punt now with Philip.”
Madelyn smiled and felt the delicious freedom of having several choices, all of which were pleasurable.
“Bed,” she announced, “hard on the heels of one cup of tea and one cigarette, which will take fifteen minutes to the second.”
The phone rang, and Madelyn recounted the irritations of her night into Sam’s sympathetic ear.
“Do you think you’ll be able to go to the party tonight? You remember we planned to go together?”
“Of course. I’ll sleep all day and be quite fit for tonight.” In fact she was meeting John Drake for drinks in the afternoon, but she disliked mentioning John to Sam, since he had behaved so abominably towards him.
Madelyn’s nostrils were assailed by the wonderful smell of frying steak and onions as she hung up the phone. Philip was sitting upright now with a white bib tucked into his shirt and a knife and fork in either hand.
“Wrong decision to go to bed, my dear; we were just about to dine on steak and eggs. Nighty-night.”
Madelyn resolutely went to bed and lay tossing and turning, reluctant to enlist the aid of her pills in case she missed the whole of the summer’s day. After three hours she gave up and walked along the river until she found Philip, who was delighted to see her.
“I’m not going to be lively company, Philip. I just want to lie here and rest.”
“Gazing at your beauty is entertainment enough. Go to sleep, and I will try to remember I am a gentleman and avert my eyes from your soft curves.”
“Be quiet, Philip,” Madelyn said, and lay down, convinced that lying in a rocking boat and absorbing the heat and motion of the water was as restful as sleeping anyway.
She skipped off for drinks with John Drake at the appropriate time. He was polite as always, with his unrequited love bubbling harmlessly under the surface. Unlike Sam’s love, which seethed and fumed, thought Madelyn to herself. She appreciated John’s gentlemanliness and the fact that he never criticized Sam.
Madelyn drank and smoked copiously, wondering why she had not chosen to sleep with John, who would have married her the next day.
She rushed home in good time to prepare for the party and found Sam sitting cross-legged on the rush matting, reading a book of poetry by Walt Whitman. She dropped a kiss on his forehead, confident that she was in excellent time and the night was young and ready to be enjoyed.
“Where have you been?” Sam asked.
Madelyn repressed her irritation with the question.
“It was such a lovely day. I went for a punt on the river with Philip and then met John Drake for a drink.” She imbued John’s name with reproach, in revenge for her irritation. Sam did not reply and sat watching her preparations morosely. Madelyn donned a skirt which had once been a black cape worn for a play when she was a schoolgirl. She was proud of her inventiveness with clothes and told Sam the history of the cape while she dressed. She was aware of his glowering brow, but felt it was his own fault. If it had been left up to her she would have made him laugh, but he always insisted on the boring truth. So she had told him. It was ridiculous to get upset.
“Do I look pretty?” she asked him, swirling around in her cape/skirt.
He got to his feet with difficulty, stiff and sore from sitting cross-legged on the floor, and looked down at her with contempt. “You want to enjoy life too much.” He turned and walked out of the room.
Madelyn looked in the mirror for a minute before following him. ‘And you shan’t stop me!’ she thought. Then, ‘Is it true?’
She sat beside Sam at the party, trying to absorb his statement. ‘Sam never speaks without thinking,’ she thought, ‘every word he says is weighted with thought and meaning. Unlike me. I do want to enjoy life. My greediness destroys my happiness. I flit mindlessly from one pleasure to another, filling every free moment with frivolity.’
Lavinia was washing the dishes when Madelyn came downstairs the next morning. She put the kettle on.
Madelyn threw herself in a chair and leaned back, closing her eyes. “I’m going back to bed. I have to work tonight and I feel terrible.”
“Ah, but did you enjoy yourself at the party last night?”
“I want to enjoy life too much!”
“Why shouldn’t you?”
Madelyn squinted at Lavinia, smiling and crying from her wandering eye as she took tea bags from her own rations. She was not the type of person Madelyn paid much attention to. She liked her helpful, comfortable presence, but she would never ask her advice about anything. How interesting that she thought Madelyn should enjoy life.
“Do you think I like to enjoy life too much?” Madelyn asked Louise, as soon as she entered the kitchen.
“I think life is very hard, and we should all try to enjoy it as much as possible.”
“Yes, but a person who concentrates only on the enjoyment of life becomes shallow.”
“What’s the matter with you, Anne? Sorry, I mean Madelyn,” said Louise. “The other week you asked me if I thought you were intelligent and now you’re worried about being shallow.”
“I just feel guilty about enjoying life too much.”
“Did Sam tell you that? You always take criticism so seriously, without questioning it. Who is he to set himself up as a moral judge?”
“He has certain rights to that positio
n. He has a moral force in him, which makes him strive constantly to think objectively about things so he can come to honest conclusions. I need to think about whether there is truth in what he tells me.”
“He seems to me to be pretty judgmental. He’s quick to see what’s wrong with other people, but blind enough about his own faults. That’s his tragedy. It’s not okay for him to criticize you all the time. Are you just going to go on living day to day, happy on good days and ignoring the bad ones? You have to think about your future.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so down on Sam all the time. Don’t you remember how you used to mock me for jumping from one party to another? It’s all very well to enjoy oneself, but it doesn’t promote growth or maturity, does it? That’s all Sam meant.”
“It’s not just the enjoyment thing. He’s always trying to change you, one way or another. Setting himself up as your mentor or something.”
“Well, why shouldn’t he? Do you know how highly his professors think of him? Have you read one of his papers? He’s not stupid.”
“I can see that. I just don’t think intelligence is as important as he thinks. He has a lot of problems.”
“Him and everybody else. I do think I love him, Louise. I know I love him more than I’ve ever loved the others. He is strength. He is passion. He is man. I like him guiding me, I just want to be sure he is guiding me in the right direction. He’s trying to.”
“Why shouldn’t you enjoy yourself?” Lavinia whispered.
EIGHT
My father has highlighted the words That’s his tragedy, and written in the margin: Again Madelyn is projecting her beliefs into Louise’s mouth. It is her opinion that my judgmental attitude towards others and my blindness in regards to self forms the basis of the tragedy of my life. She had not formed such an opinion at this early stage of the relationship.
Like last time, the comment jolts me, reminding me why I am reading my mother’s manuscript. The peal of the telephone ricochets through the house and I glance at my watch. It’s past midnight, and I plunge for the phone to grab it before it rings a second time.
It can only be one person.
“It’s past midnight, for fuck’s sake,” I stage-whisper into the receiver.
“Is it? I’ll never get the time difference right. You should have called me.”
I chuckle. “You know me and phones, Jen.”
“Just to let me know you arrived safely. Now tell me everything. Every detail.”
So I tell Jenny about my father, and the manuscript, and how weird the whole thing is. Despite the fact that I don’t like talking on the telephone, once I start I can’t stop. I describe the ‘characters’ in the manuscript in great detail, how my father is emerging as a controlling bastard with a nasty violent streak, how he wants to tell me his side of things so this impression is mitigated.
She listens in absolute silence. “Wow, I don’t envy you. That’s pretty heavy.”
“I’m not sure what to say to him. Should I soothe him and say I agree, or argue when I think he’s behaved badly?”
“I think he wants you just to read, listen and absorb. If I were you, I’d try to curb your emotions. I know it’s hard, but try and treat it clinically, without judging. Ask your father to clarify when you think he’s done something controlling, instead of labelling him a controlling bastard.”
“Well, he is. He’s trying to stop her enjoying herself, and changing her name was fucking weird.”
“All men are controlling. You don’t want to have children…”
“Neither of us can stand children!”
“You won’t let me get a dog,” Jenny says in a mock whine.
“We both work full-time.” I prop my feet up on the table. I’m enjoying this. “I haven’t tried to change your name, have I?”
“I know you think the name Jenny is boring.”
“There you go. Proof positive that I’m not controlling. Don’t like name, but wouldn’t dream of changing it.”
“You never use it. You’re always calling me Smooty-Wooty and crap like that.”
We both dissolve into laughter.
“I think it’s romantic, calling your beloved a name that serenades her beauty.”
“Do you find it sexy when a man is so jealous he gets violent? Because I’ve always wanted to punch that co-worker of yours in the face … what’s his name? Dave? Would you want to ravish me if I landed him one on the mouth?”
“Honey, I want to ravish you right now. You don’t have to punch Dave. You’re quite violent enough to get my juices flowing,” Jenny says.
“Excuse me? I am not violent.”
“Okay, wrong word. Rough. I meant rough. You must have broken three sets of plates since I’ve known you. After every argument it’s smash, smash, smash.”
“Everybody needs some outlet when they’re angry. Breaking plates is harmless.”
“Harmless? When we have guests, everybody has a different pattern on their plate.”
“That’s a good thing. It matches our chair situation. Two on hard chairs, one on an office chair and one on an arm chair.”
“And one on a pile of books in the corner.”
We giggle again.
“Gabe, from what you’ve told me, your mother is painting herself in a weird way, too. Almost like, negative. She seems vain and silly and superficial. Was that the way you perceived her?”
I think for a moment. “No. She was a wonderful mother. She certainly wasn’t vain in my memory, and she was completely unselfish. It’s funny that she looks back on herself in that way at a later age. Perhaps she is trying to be truthful and objective, observing her younger self from the vantage point of age. How strange — truthfulness and objectivity were the values she saw in Sam.”
“I wonder if she’s gone too far, like she’s absorbed his way of seeing her? It’s so interesting.”
“Maybe she wanted readers to understand every viewpoint. Every character is a real human being, filled with flaws and strengths.
“But it sounds like all the flaws make it hard to identify with her character.”
“Not really — I like her character a lot. She’s full of life and compassion and feeling. But it does seem to me like she’s describing a total stranger. I adored her. And she was beautiful. Even my friends thought so.”
“And I adore you, Gab. Be nice to your Dad, he’s dying.” Her voice softens. “What … what’s the situation exactly?”
“Well, I usually spend most of the day by myself, and then in the evenings…”
“I meant with his illness,” Jenny interrupts.
“Oh. Well, he has cancer.” I pause, as two things hit me at the same time. First, that I still don’t know exactly what my father is dying of and second, how insane that will seem to Jenny. “It doesn’t seem too advanced. He’s still looking after himself without any problems.”
“How long will he be able to do that? What’s the diagnosis?”
“Umm, he doesn’t really like to talk about it.”
Jenny’s voice collides with my eardrum. “Are you serious? You don’t know what your own father is dying of?”
“He made it really clear right from Day One that he doesn’t want to talk about it. You have no idea what he’s like when…”
“You’re fucking unbelievable.”
“Jenny!”
“Sorry, but you make me angry sometimes. Now listen carefully, and I’ll spell it out for you. You need to find out exactly what he’s got and how long he’s got. You need to make arrangements for him to move into a nursing home when he gets too ill to look after himself. Are you writing this down?”
“Yes,” I say, though I don’t need to. I’m ashamed of myself.
“And don’t judge him, at least to his face. He’s dying. Please try to remember that.”
I hear
the sarcasm in her voice. I want to protest that my father never refers to his illness, doesn’t act sick, doesn’t accept any special care — and might get very angry if I insist on talking about it. I have almost allowed myself to forget about it, swept along on the tide of his intense focus on the manuscript and my own cowardice.
Jenny’s voice goes soft again. “I love you, Gabs. I can’t believe you sometimes, but I love you.”
“I love you too, Smooty-Wooty.”
I fall into bed and don’t wake up till the next afternoon. I spend a few hours walking around, sampling Indian take-out and visiting a park, feeding the ducks.
I return to my father’s place in the evening, with fish and chips wrapped in newspaper. After dinner we settle by the electric stove, my father clasping the customary beer and snacks — tonight it’s pretzels.
“Where have you got to?” he asks, diving into the manuscript without preliminaries.
The need to broach the off-limit subject of his sickness is uppermost in my mind, but I have to wait for the right opportunity. “I got to the place where you kick John Drake over at the party. Did that really happen?” Of course, I’d gotten to where they’d made love for the first time, but I wasn’t about to discuss sex with my father.
“It happened. Your mother was an outrageous flirt. I cannot explain the mortification of wanting our love to be pure and holy — in retrospect of course that sounds innocent, but I was a young man and it was my first love — while she flitted about looking at everybody with the same expression with which she regarded me.”
“I do think she’s being pretty fair, on the whole. She talks about you with great admiration, even adulation. And she often represents herself as a flippant, superficial character. Sometimes even bordering on silly.”
“Yes, she tries. But there is no real understanding of the pain she caused me by her behaviour.”
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