The Private Parts of Women

by Lesley Glaister

  ‘She must stay with us,’ I told Mary.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it will be good to have children in the house.’

  We moved some furniture round to make things comfortable. We bought cots for the babies and brightened Mrs Petit’s room with ornaments and flowers. They could have slept in my parents’ room. I stood by the locked door where the wardrobe was, trying to steel myself to go in. But could not. Mary did not ask questions, I think she sensed my fear but did not intrude. Oh she was good. I wish, I wish, I wish. If wishes were horses the devil could ride. So we left the room and the wardrobe inside it where it was.

  I hate it, hate it, that wardrobe. But still, when I moved up here, when I sent for my stuff – because I could not show my face there after what followed – I sent for the wardrobe too. I had the removal men put it in the attic, though they had to saw it in half to get it up the narrow stairs and reassemble it up there. They thought I was mad. I saw the way they looked at me. They thought I was a mad woman, but I paid them for the job, they almost doubled the price when I insisted that they get the wardrobe into the attic. ‘What do you want to go keeping this for?’ they said. ‘And all the junk inside?’ It was full of the things, the same old things. Truth is, I don’t know why I kept it. I just could not let it go. It was a reminder of something. Father’s punishment. Why should I want to remember that? No, not that. It was more like a part of me. And a reminder of Benjamin Charles, my brother. If he had lived … oh how different my life would have been.

  Mrs Petit arrived at the Citadel at the end of a meeting. It was a hot night, July, still light. As soon as I saw her I knew who she was. Mrs Petit, Ivy, was a tiny woman, under five-foot tall, bird-boned, sharp featured – and heavily pregnant. Her babies looked incongruously huge with their round heads, chapped red faces and hair fine and colourless as dandelion clocks.

  The oldest child, a girl, held the second, a boy, by the hand. A third slept in the pram, packed around with bundles and clothes. Pots hung from the pram handle and at the foot of the pram, most prominent, was a Bible.

  ‘Welcome,’ I said. She looked round the hall. Her eyes were sharp and narrowed.

  ‘Where is he?’ she asked. ‘My husband, Mr Petit, where is he?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘Sit down, do,’ Mary said indicating a chair.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Mr Petit passed away.’

  The baby woke up and looked at me with startled eyes.

  ‘We’re so sorry,’ Mary said. ‘Do sit down, would you like a drink of water, you or the children?’

  Mrs Petit ignored her. ‘He’s passed on?’ She brought her knuckles to her mouth. ‘The bastard,’ she said.

  Mary flinched. She knelt down to the level of the children. ‘I’m Mary,’ she said to the little girl, ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘I’m Jean and he’s Arfur,’ said the girl, ‘and him in the pram he’s Colin.’

  ‘Beg your pardon,’ said Ivy, ‘excuse my language … but what am I supposed to do? He never was no good for nothing. Now he’s gone and died!’ She said this as if it was the most outrageous of a string of outrageous acts. ‘What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘We have a room for you,’ Mary said, ‘all prepared. You can stay with us till we fix up something more permanent.’

  ‘Where’s our daddy?’ Jean asked.

  ‘He’s with Jesus,’ Mary said. ‘In the sunshine.’

  Mrs Petit looked sardonic. ‘I could do with getting these to bed,’ she said.

  ‘It’s sunny here,’ Jean said.

  ‘In the permanent sunshine. Heaven.’

  ‘What’s pernananent?’

  ‘For ever and ever.’

  ‘If he’s gone then,’ Mrs Petit said, ‘where’s his things?’

  ‘What things?’ I asked.

  ‘His gold watch, his chain, his good boots with the money in the soles.’

  ‘When your husband arrived here he had none of those things,’ Mary said. ‘He had nothing but what he stood up in.’

  Mrs Petit’s face flushed. ‘We haven’t come all this bloody way for nothing,’ she said. ‘I want his things, that were promised me. “Ivy,” he always said, “whatever becomes of me, you must be sure to have my things.” Three little bastards to feed, and another one coming. Every one of them his, though he might argue but what they wasn’t. But they’re his spit, don’t you think, his bleeding spit.’

  I looked at the white-haired, red-faced children, tried unsuccessfully to recognise a likeness.

  ‘Come,’ Mary said. ‘Let’s get you back and put the children to bed. Then we can discuss other matters.’ She took the handle of the pram and we set off. I held two sticky little hands in my own. We walked slowly along, the tired children dragging their feet, accompanied by the clanking of pots and pans against the pram’s frame.

  ‘I see you have a Bible among your possessions,’ Mary said. ‘Do you read it?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Mrs Petit seemed to collect herself. ‘Every night, don’t I Jean?’ The girl nodded blankly. ‘Only how I’m going to manage on thin air … and this little one never to lay eyes on its father at all …’ She patted her stomach and started to cry.

  ‘Come now,’ I said, ‘It will be all right, you’ll see.’

  Ivy Petit settled in, but she was not grateful. Do you want gratitude? I asked myself and the answer was no. I was not really being generous, only trying to make amends. Maybe I was trying to show Mary how good I was, because I missed her love. It was as if a cloud had dragged across the sun and blotted up its warmth. So whenever Ivy was rude, or took advantage, I tried not to mind, I tried to meet her nastiness with kindness as if each mean word had antiseptic qualities that might cleanse and heal me. Which they did not.

  The woman seemed to fill the house, her and the children. After she had rested for a day or two, I asked if she’d like to help keep house to pay for her keep. I was only concerned for her self-respect. I thought her coldness was pride. To accept charity is hard. It is hard for the taker not to hate the giver. But when I suggested it she was affronted.

  ‘I’ve come all this bleeding way,’ she said, ‘to find my poor old man gone, not cold in his grave. To find his valuables what was promised me gone missing …’ and she gave me, as she said this, a most accusing look. ‘And now I have to work … in my condition …’ Her voice took on a whining quality, her eyes filled with tears. ‘Me, a poor, grieving widow with all these mouths to feed.’

  I tried to like her and forgive her. But the truth is, I failed. The truth is, I thought her a miserable, deceitful, leech. The only time she showed any sign of grief over her husband was when work was mentioned. The truth was … no, my suspicion was that she had never set eyes on Mr Petit but that she had somehow heard of the man’s death and decided to claim him. Even if I am wrong, even if the children were his children, I don’t believe there ever was a watch and chain. There never was any money. He was a habitual drunkard and no man who has drunk himself into such a state of wretchedness still has valuables to his name. If he hasn’t sold or pawned them for drink they will have been stolen. If there is honour among thieves there is none among drunkards, no honour, no dignity, no pity. But I don’t believe so-called Ivy Petit knew him anyway, she called him Jim – though in our records his name was George. When I asked little Jean about her daddy she knew nothing. ‘Where is he?’ was all she would say. And Ivy’s stories varied, she tripped herself up. One day her husband had been a grocer swindled out of his shop; another day he’d gambled it away. One day he was a good man and she managed to squeeze out a tear in his memory, another day he beat and forced himself on her. Some of it may have been true. But I believed nothing. There was no sincerity in her greedy, darting eyes. And never a thank you after all we did for her, hardly even a smile.

  I know that these are not Christian thoughts, not charitable nor forgiving. Whatever else was false, the truth was that she was poor and homeless and had three children to support and
another on the way. Her lies and cunning were her means of survival, the tools of her trade. If she survived by weaving, then balancing upon, a tissue of lies who was I to despise her for it? At least she knew what she was doing and why.

  There was something else too. Ivy had a narrow, slanting way of looking at me, accompanied by a mocking smile as if she saw right through my uniform and godliness. As if she knew me for a sham. And this I could not stand.

  ‘I’d push off,’ Ivy said. ‘I’d go now if you give me what’s rightfully mine.’ Mary and I exchanged glances. I picked up the poker and stirred the glowing coals. Although it was August, it was a chilly evening and we had lit a fire. Ivy sat in the chair my mother used to sit in, but whereas my mother had been so still you could almost forget her, Ivy fidgeted and fretted so that no one could rest.

  ‘He had nothing,’ Mary said, as she had said, patiently, over and over again. ‘He arrived here in filthy corduroys. No linen even, no stockings. His boots were worn through, lined with newspaper, only fit to throw away.’

  ‘And why should I believe you?’

  ‘Because it’s the truth. We have no interest in stealing.’ Even Mary’s voice had developed an edge of irritation when she spoke to Ivy. ‘And anyway, where do you think you’d go?’

  Mary looked exhausted, she’d just put the children to bed, while Ivy had sat staring into the flames. Apart from the odd snap or slap, Ivy had practically ignored her children since she’d arrived and Mary had taken them over. I could see in the way she spoke to them, played with them, scolded them kindly, a sort of rehearsal going on for the day when she had her own. When Harold was there, he watched her with a look of such enchantment on his face that I had to leave the room.

  Ivy was hunched over the mound of her stomach, twisting a strand of her hair nervously round a finger so tightly that the tip of it had gone a dark, fat red. I knew very little about pregnancy but I thought she couldn’t possibly get much bigger. Mary had arranged with a midwife that she should be confined at home, and all talk of moving her to somewhere more permanent had ceased until after the baby was born.

  ‘What are you gawping at?’ Ivy asked me suddenly.

  ‘I was only thinking about the baby.’

  ‘Cup of tea?’ Mary asked.

  ‘Not for me,’ I said. ‘I think I’ll go up.’

  ‘If Jim had been alive,’ Ivy said plaintively, ‘it would of been his birthday today.’

  ‘Oh, my dear.’ Mary went over to Ivy to embrace her, but Ivy flinched away.

  ‘Don’t give me your bleeding pity nor God’s love,’ she almost spat. ‘Just give me what’s rightfully mine and I’ll go.’ Mary stepped back.

  I went upstairs. Her ingratitude made me seethe. I had given her the best room, fed her, put up with her children for weeks – and for what? To be abused, to be made uncomfortable in my own home. I knelt on the gravel by my bed and prayed to God to help me forgive her.

  In the night, I was woken by Mary’s fist on my door, her voice: ‘Trixie, Trixie my dear, are you awake?’

  Ivy was in labour. She had woken Mary a few minutes before. Mary was already dressed to go out in her bonnet and cape.

  ‘I’ll go and fetch the midwife,’ she said. ‘There’s no rush, it’ll be hours yet – but best be on the safe side.’ Her voice bubbled with excitement. ‘You keep her company while I’m gone.’

  She touched my hand and smiled. It was the first real tenderness she’d shown me since the Harold episode and I thought I was forgiven.

  I took a few moments dressing, a moment or two for prayer, not long. I was not prepared to find Ivy as I found her, sitting bolt upright against the bed-head with her knees open and up under her – my – long nightdress. Her hands were twisted in her hair and her face gleamed with sweat.

  ‘It’s coming,’ she gasped.

  ‘Not yet,’ I said, ‘Mary said it’d be hours.’

  ‘I tell you, it’s bleeding coming.’

  On the sheet was a streaky wetness. She gasped and gritted her teeth, I could hear the faint grinding along with her moan. ‘Oh Christ,’ she groaned, ‘Oh Christ get this bastard out of me …’ Then her face darkened as she bore down.

  I did not know what to do.

  ‘Mary will be back soon with the midwife,’ I said.

  ‘Aaaah …’ I thought she would tear the hair from her head. She slid down further on to her back, I tried to get her hands out of her hair, but in the process some of it came out and was left tangled around her fingers. I hovered uselessly by the bed. ‘What shall I do?’ I asked.

  She pulled her nightdress right up and I saw that her private parts were stretched open. I put a hand on one knee. I was surprised by its coldness. She was trembling violently. I picked up a blanket to cover her but she fought it off.

  ‘Aah … aaah … aaaah!’ her voice rose from a moan to a scream and she grasped my hand and squeezed with her bony fingers until I wanted to cry out myself. Then she began to push, her face swollen and dark. I was awed by her strength. Her eyes were closed and veins in her neck and forehead bulged.

  She stopped and looked at me for a moment, then she laughed. ‘You’ve gone white as a bleeding sheet,’ she said. ‘You’re no more use than a chocolate tea pot. Oh Christ …’ and then it started again.

  ‘Jesus, Jesus, let it be all right …’ I muttered, I couldn’t think of a coherent prayer. I kept one hand on her shuddering knee, the other gripped in hers as she pushed down, her belly like a boulder, squeezing and contorting with the force of the contraction.

  ‘Water …’ she whispered and I gave her a sip, helping to support her small head. Her hair was damp. I kept looking at the door, hoping that Mary would come with the midwife.

  Then she grasped my hand again and began to push, making a low deep growl. One hand went down between her legs and I saw her stretching wider open like a slow grin spreading, and heard little sticky ripping sounds and then, crammed against the lips of her opening was something crumpled, soft and blue. I saw a wisp of colourless hair and realised it was the baby’s head.

  ‘It’s coming!’ I said.

  ‘You don’t say.’ She paused, panting, before the next contraction was upon her. I was excited now, as if somehow I was achieving this, helping to achieve it. At the next push more of the head came out and I thought Ivy would split in half, with the great blue upside-down head jammed half in, half out. But then, at the next push it seemed to swivel and the head was born. Ivy was making little animal cries and gasps.

  ‘What do I do?’ I said. ‘Water? Is there anything …?’ but she did not answer. She squeezed her eyes shut and with a wet gush the shoulders, then the rest of the little blue wax-caked body came slithering out. The room filled with a hot, wet, bloody, womanish smell. The cord seemed a terrible twisted thing, pulsing and snakeish. I was trying to lift up the steamy, slithery baby just as Mary came in, followed by the midwife.

  ‘Beat us to it, Angel,’ the midwife said. ‘Hot water, towels … I could murder a cup of tea.’

  ‘Trixie, oh Trixie, I’m sorry.’ Mary put her arm round my shoulders. ‘I never dreamed it would be so quick.’

  ‘It was fine,’ I said, ‘perfectly fine.’

  ‘You’ve done well.’ She kissed me on the cheek.

  I went downstairs feeling almost as if I had been blessed, feeling light-hearted, quite silly with joy and relief, with a ridiculous sense of achievement. My hands were greasy from the stuff that had coated the baby’s skin. As I boiled water and gathered towels, I could hear the high mew of his new voice and alongside it, Ivy’s complaint.

  For two days there was an atmosphere of celebration in the house. I thanked God for answering my prayer. Sharing the experience of birth with Ivy had brought us closer, I thought. I felt that I understood her and though that is not the same as liking, my dislike was not so strong. She was quieter, exhausted by the birth, softer somehow. She’d decided to call the baby Harold, after Mary’s Harold, when he brought her a parcel of clothes f
or her son.

  I was fascinated by little Harold’s newness. His cloudy-blue eyes, when they squinted open, seemed filled with impossible knowledge and wisdom. When I held him in my arms and sniffed the soft skin of his scalp, the smell made me ache, I don’t know what the smell was, only skin and hair but it was more like new-baked bread … no, more than that, it was almost a spiritual smell as if something was permeating from him along with his warmth, something like the smell of Heaven.

  And then. Oh this is the worst thing. Why do I torture myself with this memory?

  Many of the Salvationists from our Corps visited the new baby and gave him gifts. He was like a little prince, surrounded by admirers. Mary, Harold and I sat round the bedside on the second evening and sang. Ivy’s children, all freshly bathed with their white dandelion-seed hair standing up like haloes round their heads, sang with us the verse Mary had taught them. Ivy looked almost beautiful in the soft light, with the baby, wrapped in a white shawl, in her arms. Jesus bids us shine with a clear, pure light, like a little candle burning in the night. Harold’s voice was so tender and low, and Mary’s so sweet – but mine was reluctant. I don’t know why, as if I was choked, too full of emotion to sing. Harold and I had hardly looked at each other since his proposal but on that night, our hands touched as I passed him a cup of tea and our eyes met for a stinging second.

  And then a wickedness came upon me, just for a moment, only a thought, come from Satan, but I thought I would have him, I would snatch him out from under Mary’s nose. Have him, how I do not know, whether to keep or just to use, I really do not know. It was only a second’s evil thought that intruded into the song, but I was so ashamed. In the world of darkness, so we must shine, you in your small corner, and I in mine.

  Ivy didn’t like to have the baby sleeping in the same room, she could not sleep she said, hearing him snuffling, waiting for him to wake up and cry. So on that night, after she’d fed him, we tucked him up in the pram in the hall where he’d wake Ivy only when he was properly crying. I stayed for a moment after Mary had gone upstairs rocking the pram to make sure he was settled. I bent over and kissed the top of his downy head, breathed in that heavenly smell. And then I went upstairs to bed.