by Mary Gordon
Of course it was very hard on the children. It'll take them years to sort it out, I suppose. Perhaps they'll never sort it out. Gwen went down to eight stone. Bonny she looked, but I was worried. Then she got these knots like, in her back, and she stopped going to work altogether. Said she couldn't face the tubes anymore. She hated it; bein’ smothered, like, she said, it was terrifying. But I think she wanted to be home with Daddy so we let her come home.
Colin has a lovely job now. Got a hundred blokes under him. But they're afraid he'll go back to university and quit so they don't pay him properly. He almost took a degree in logic, but he broke down after two years. You should see his papers. Lovely marks on ‘em. His professors said if he sat right down, he'd come away with a first. But he got too involved, if you know what I mean. Forgot there was a world around him.
He's had a lot of lovely girls, and I guess he's had his fling, but I don't think he'll ever marry. After George died, he said, “I don't know how to put it, Mum, but I'm just not that interested in sex.” Once a few years ago he came out to the breakfast table. He was white as a ghost; I was worried. He said, “Dad, may I have a word with you?” I said, “Do you want me to leave the room?” He said, “No, of course not, Mum.” Then he told George he didn't sleep at all that night. He said he felt a kind of calling. He was terrified, he said; he was sure God was calling him to his service. Well, George held his tongue, and so did I. He asked Colin what it felt like, and Colin said, “Don't ask me to describe it, Dad.” He had a lot of sleepless nights, and we called the vicar, and he took him to the place where the young men go for the priesthood, and Colin said that he liked it, but when the time came he never did go.
Him and his father were great pals. Colin, of course, was studying Western philosophy, and he was very keen on it and George just as keen on the Eastern. Oh, they would argue, and George would say, “Just read this chapter of the book I'm reading,” and Colin would say, “I'm not interested, Dad.” Then after George died he took all his books away with him to Bristol. I said, “I thought you weren't interested.” He said, “I really always was, Mum.”
Lynnie's going to be a mother in September. I'm not really keen on being a grandmother. I'm interested in my daughter; she's an adult. I'm not interested in babies. I've never seen anyone like her for being cheerful, though. That girl cannot be made miserable, not even for an hour. I'm sure it'll be a girl, the way she holds her back when she walks, straight, like. I suppose I'll be interested in it when it's born.
George had a kind of miraculous effect on people, though. One time our vicar asked him to address a group of young people. Four hundred of them there was, packed the house with chairs, they did. And up on the stage one big armchair for George. One night I made them all mugs of tea, there must have been fifteen of them here on the floor. Half of them admitted they were on drugs. Purple hearts, goofballs, whatever they call them nowadays. And when they left here they said they were all right off them now.
Of course he had this good friend, the bachelor vicar, Arthur. Like a father to him George was. A very intelligent man, but a terrible lot of problems. Spent all his time here, he did. He'd stay here till two o'clock on Sunday morning and then go home and write his sermons. Said George all but wrote his sermons for him. Once he told me he was jealous of George having me and me having George. Said it was the one thing he could never have. And him a wealthy man. His father has a big engineering firm in Dorset and a great house. Three degrees he has, too. But I think he's really like they say, neurotic. He cannot express his feelings. Me and George, we told each other everything. We kept no secrets. Not Arthur, though. He's taken me out to dinner twice since George died but I like plain food, d'ye know what I mean, and he took me out to this Japanese restaurant with geisha girls and God knows what. Well they gave me so much I sent half of it back, and they said was there something Madame didn't like, and I about died of shame. I think old Arthur's knocking, but I'm not at home to him. Of course he's a wonderful priest, the kids in the youth group love him. He cried during the whole funeral service. I was so mortified. And he will not mention George's name. He says he can't forgive God for taking George.
I used to feel that way but I don't anymore. When George was in so much pain, like, I'd go to the Communion rail and shake my fist at Christ on the cross and say, “What d'ye know about suffering? You only suffered one day? My George has suffered years.” I don't feel that way now. I think there's a reason for it, all that pain, even. George died without one drug in his body, he had that much courage.
Well, I guess I'll be getting you a bath. It's good you've come. You'll never regret the man you've married. George thought the world of him. We've only water enough for one bath. So one can take it tonight and one tomorrow. George and I used to bathe in the same water, but I think we were different from most.
I feel like I've known you all my life. I knew you'd be like this from the letters. Old friends they were, my man and yours. You're not like the first wife. She was a hard one, that one. Ice in her veins.
Perhaps I'll come and visit you in America. I have a job now at the hospital and three weeks holiday in July. Perhaps I'll come out to visit you. But what would I do, the two of you out working. I hate to impose, you know. We used to have friends, widows they were, and we'd invite them over and they'd say, “Oh, no thanks, we'd be odd man out.” I never knew what they meant, but now I know. Look at me talking. I can't even go to Epping by myself, and Lynnie made the trip when she was eight. Perhaps if you found out all the details for me. Wouldn't it be something!
It's good having someone in the house at night. I usually sleep with all the lights on, I'm that frightened on my own. I think I'm getting better with the job and all. But sometimes I'm very empty, like, and cold.
3. ELIZABETH
I like living here on my own. Dear lord, who else could I live with? Like old Miss Bates, she lived with another teacher, for, oh, twenty years it must have been. They bought a dear little house in the Cotswolds to live in for their retirement. Lived there a year and up pops some cousin who'd been wooing Miss Campbell for forty years, and off they go and get married. Well, Amelia Bates was furious, and she wouldn't speak to Miss Campbell, and they'd been like sisters for twenty years. Well poor Miss Campbell died six months later, and there's Amelia Bates on her own in that vast house full of regrets and sorrow.
Here's a picture of me in Algeria in 1923. Oh, I had a beautiful ride over on the ship, it took three days. Some people took the trip just to drink all the way, people are foolish. The first night I lay in my cabin and the ship was creaking so badly I was sure it was the end for me. I went up top, and the waves were crashing around the deck and they said, “You'd better go down below, Miss,” and that's where I met Mr. Saunders.
Don't let the others in the family act so proud to you. When I found out that Ethel had cut you, ooh, I was so angry. I wrote her a very cross letter. Her mum and dad were separated for years and he was living with a half-caste woman in India and afraid to even write his wife a letter. Of course he should have left her and stayed with that other woman, but he didn't have that much courage. He's been miserable ever since. Poor old Lawrence, he's a decent old boy but terrified to death of Millie. You know she was just a governess for his family when he fell in love with her. She was good-looking though, the best-looking of all of us. Well, poor old Lawrence when he came to Mount Olympus (that was the name of my father's house, dear. It fulfilled the ambitions of a lifetime for him), well, when he came to Mount Olympus to meet the family he came down with malaria and was sick in bed for a month. Had to have his meals brought up to him and his sheets changed three times a day. Well, after that there was no getting out of it, he was quite bound. Not that he thought of getting out of it then. People simply didn't in those days, and that's why so many of them were so unhappy. I'm sure things are much better now, in some ways, but nobody seems much happier anyway, do they?
Here is a picture of the family I worked for in India. Now even I h
ad my mild scandal, I suppose. It wasn't so mild to Father. Millie came home from India and told dear Father a great tale. Father wrote to Mr. Saunders and demanded that I be sent home. Then he wrote to me and said I must come back upon my honor as his daughter and an Englishwoman. We simply didn't answer the letters. Mr. Saunders hid them in a parcel in his desk drawer, and I simply threw mine in the fire. Then Mr. Saunders took the family back to England, and I went back to Mount Olympus. Father told me I must take a new name and tell everyone I was married, that I was the widow of an officer. I refused; I told him no one knew but him and Millie. Then we never spoke of it.
I started a kindergarten for the children in the town. Here is the picture of the first class, and here's one of your husband as a baby. Wasn't he golden? Then Mother got sick, and I had to give it up. Nobody took it on after that, it was a pity, really. I regretted that.
Here's a picture of Cousin Norman. Doesn't he look a bounder? Wrote bad checks and settled in Canada. He's a millionaire today.
I'm giving you these spoons as a wedding gift. They belonged to my grandmother's grandmother. I think it's nice to have a few old things. It makes you feel connected, somehow, don't you think?
I only hope my mind holds out on me. I love to read, and I wouldn't care if I were bedridden as long as my mind was all right. Mother was all right for some time, and then when she was in her seventies she just snapped. She didn't recognize anybody in the family, and one night she came at Father with a knife and said he was trying to kill her. We had to put her in hospital then. It was supposed to be the best one in England, but it was awful. There were twenty women in a room not this size, and in the evenings you could hear them all weeping and talking to themselves. It would have driven me quite mad, and I was sane. Then she said the nurses were all disguising themselves to confuse her, and they were trying to poison her. And then she said they wouldn't let her wash, and she was dirty and smelled ill. Well, we finally took her back home, and Father wouldn't let anyone see her. I gave up my position— I was working for that woman who writes those trashy novels that sell so well. And her daughter was an absolute hellcat— and came home. She'd call me every few minutes and say, “Elizabeth, what will we do if anyone comes? There isn't a pock of food in the house.” And I would tell her no one would be coming. Then she'd say, “Elizabeth, what will we do if anyone comes, the house is so dirty.” And it would go on like that. Sometimes she wouldn't eat for days, and sometimes she would stuff herself till she was quite ill. She died of a stomach obstruction in the end, but that was years later. Every night Father would go in to her and say good night and kiss her, and she would weep and say that she was wicked, that she was hurting us all. But sometimes she would just be her old self and joke with us after supper and play the piano and sing or read— she loved George Eliot— and we'd think she was getting better, perhaps. But the next morning she'd be looking out the window again, not talking to anyone.
I can't go near anyone who has any kind of mental trouble. When my friend Miss Edwards was so ill in that way she wrote and begged me to come, and the family wrote, and I simply couldn't. I get very frightened of those sorts of things. I suppose I shouldn't.
Here is a caricature my brother drew of the warden, and here is one of the bald curate and the fat parson who rode a bicycle. He was talented, our Dick, but of course he had a family to support, and that awful wife of his put everything on her back that he earned. And here is one of our father turning his nose up at some Indian chap who was trying to sell him a rug he didn't fancy.
Here I am in Malta, and here's one of me in Paris. Wasn't I gay then? When the Germans took over Paris, I wept and wept. I didn't want to go on. Have you been to Paris, dear? Beautiful city, isn't it? You feel anything could happen there. It wouldn't matter where you'd been or what you'd done, you could begin all over, no regrets or sorrows.
Here is a picture of your husband's mother, wasn't she beautiful? Turn your head like that, you look rather like her when you put your face that way. She would have loved you, dear, and she was a beautiful soul. She used to laugh and laugh, even during the war when we'd have to stay in the shelter overnight and we were terrified we wouldn't see the sunlight ever again. She'd tell us gay stories and make us laugh. She had a little bird, she used to call it Albert as a joke. She let him fly out all about the house on his own. And she taught the creature to say funny things; it was so amusing. She would be very happy for you, dear; she loved to see people happy.
I don't suppose I'll do any more traveling. I remember when I went to France last summer I said, “Elizabeth, this is your last voyage,” and I felt so queer. But I have this house and my garden and Leonard's wife Rosemary and I go out every week and do meals-on-wheels— we take food around to the shut-ins, dear. I suppose they'll be doing that for me someday, but not for a while, I don't think. I like to be active and work in the garden. These awful pillow roses have taken over everything, and I haven't the heart to prune them. And then, when people come, it's so lovely, isn't it, I wish they could stay forever.
4. SUSAN
It's good to have company. Sometimes I feel as though I haven't had a day off in three years since Maria was born. Geoffrey doesn't seem to want to be weaned; he's seven months. I suppose he will when he's ready. It's the only thing that quiets him. I'm beginning to feel very tired. And now Maria wants everything from a bottle, she wants to be a baby too. I suppose they'll stop when they're ready.
My days are very ordered, though. I remember when I was single and I lived in London I'd think what will I do with myself now? And then I'd just go out and walk down the street and I'd look in the windows at the china and the materials and then I'd stop somewhere and have a cup of tea and go home and read something. It's so difficult, isn't it, to remember what that kind of loneliness was like when you're with people constantly. It's like hunger or cold. But now my time is all mapped out for me. I give everyone breakfast and then I do the washing-up and we go for a walk and it's time for lunch. It goes on like that. It's better now. When we lived in the high-rise building I felt terribly alone. There would be other pushchairs in front of other doors and occasionally I'd hear a baby crying in the hall but I wouldn't know whose it was and when I opened the door there was never anybody in the corridor, only that queer yellow light. And I hated the air in that building. It tasted so false in my mouth and we couldn't open up any of the windows. It was beautiful at night and I would hold the baby by the window and say “moon,” and “star,” and sometimes when they were both asleep Frederick and I would stand by the window and look out over the city at all the lights. The car horns were muted like voices at the ocean; it was very nice. I liked it then. But I did feel terribly lonely.
Sometimes I go up to the attic and I look at the piles of my research in egg cartons but I don't even take it out. I suppose I should want to someday. I suppose I should get back to my Russian. But it all hangs around me like a cloud and I feel Maria tugging at me, pulling at my dress like a wave and I think how much more real it all is now, feeding and clothing, and nurturing and warming, and I think of words like “research” and “report” and even “learning” and “understanding” next to those words and they seem so high, so far away, it's a struggle to remember what they mean.
I love marriage, though, the idea of it. I believe in it in a very traditional way. My friends from graduate school come over, and they say I'm worn-out and tired and I'm making a martyr of myself. I should make Frederick do some of the work. But it's the form of it I love and the repetition: certain tasks are his, some are mine. That's what these young people are all looking for, form, but it's a dirty word to them. I suppose I'm not that old, I'm thirty-two, that's young, I suppose, but I like feeling older. I wish I were fifty. I like not having a moment to myself, it's soothing, and my life is warm and sweet like porridge. Before Geoffrey was born sometimes I'd spend the whole day and Maria was the only one I would talk to. She was two then and Frederick would come home, and he was so terribly tired, and I
was too. We scarcely said a word to each other except how's the baby today or your shirt got lost at the cleaner's. It was the happiest time in my life. She wanted to know everything, and sometimes we'd spend whole mornings doing things like taking the vacuum cleaner apart or boiling water or walking up and down stairs. Then Frederick would come home and he'd want to talk about Talleyrand or something and I couldn't possibly explain to him how perfectly happy I was all day, taking everything out of my sewing basket and showing it to Maria, he would have thought I was stark, staring mad.
But I love that: sleeping next to someone you haven't spoken to all day and then making love in the dark with our pajamas on and even then going to sleep not having spoken. It soothes me, like wet sand. We couldn't have that without marriage, I mean marriage in the old way, with the woman doing everything.
Here's something for your lunch. I cook such odd things now, sausages for the children, tins of soup, sandwiches. But I always make this stew for us. I just boil up a hambone with lentils and carrots. I suppose you're a very good cook. I used to be, but now I don't like that kind of thing.
The babies have broken nearly all the china, so we use everything plastic now. Do you think it's terribly ugly? I do miss that nice thin china and glassware, I miss it more than books and the cinema. And the furniture's terribly shabby now. We'll wait until they're grown to replace it.