Clara's Daughter

by Meike Ziervogel

  Of course, when we lie in bed I rarely feel a desire to make love to him. But that is not because of my body, or his body; it is because of my head. It’s sometimes difficult to get my head around it. I can’t switch my mind off. But that’s always been the case. We’ve always gone through phases when we made either more or less love. This idea of regularly having sex x-number of times a week, ideally on the same days, never seemed to work for us. And it never bothered us. I put on my bra again. Should I feel guilty? Blame myself for my husband’s lack of self-control? For his middle-aged man’s fear of death, which he then tries to forget in the arms of a younger woman? I pull up my skirt. What am I supposed to do? Go down on my knees, fling my arms around his legs, cry and beg him not to leave me for a younger woman? And say that I am so sorry and will promise to spread my legs every evening? Anything to keep him . . .

  I walk back into the study. Ridiculous. My thoughts are ridiculous. My behaviour is ridiculous. Jim is ridiculous. And I won’t run after him. I pick up the whites, carry them back into the bedroom and leave them on the bed. I could, of course, wait and see if he comes back and asks for my forgiveness. Crawls back under Mama’s warm wings. We had a contract. An implicit contract that related to trust and sexual loyalty. At least that was my assumption. He has broken that contract. And if there is one thing I have learned in business it is that if people break a contract knowingly and wilfully once, they will break it again. No need to be angry or upset. It’s human nature. I fetch the roll of black bin liners from the kitchen drawer. Only I didn’t have Jim down as a contract breaker. And he probably wasn’t. But we are in a different phase of our lives now. New phases bring different stresses. I walk back up the stairs. But Jim’s stress is his problem. At least now. If he had come to me and said, Can we talk? But he didn’t. He acted his stress out and is probably still acting it out.

  I am back in the bedroom and rip one plastic bag off the roll. I open it. His children have now left home. And suddenly he sees a long empty road at the end of which lies death staring him straight in the face. He is lost. And scared out of his mind. I put the whites into the bag. Then I turn to the wardrobe. For a moment I hesitate. I could just sweep all these clothes into the bin liners in no particular order. But I don’t yet know what I am going to do with the bags, so a systematic approach is more sensible. I pull the drawers with his pants out, followed by his socks. I lift the plastic bag. It’s not too heavy yet and there is still plenty of room. I fit his T-shirts in too and close the bag with a knot. The next bin liner will contain his jumpers. I make sure that they remain folded, putting two piles next to each other at the bottom of the bag first. The anger has gone. The clearing out calms me. I keep focused on the task in hand, avoiding any thought of what it is exactly I am trying to achieve. I close the second bag and take the third, then drop it to the floor so as first to remove trousers and suits from the hangers and neatly fold them. I place the suit jackets flat on the bed, the front face down. I fold the sides and the sleeves over, ensuring that there aren’t too many creases. I always felt lucky to have Jim as the father of my children. I carefully place a jacket on top of the clothes pile already in the bag. And I shouldn’t denigrate our relationship. We have had many good times over the last twenty-five years. We share a similar sense of humour. We enjoy walking and hiking together. We talk well. He is intelligent, caring, good-looking. But. I have knotted the third bag. For a moment I stand still.

  The three bulging big plastic sacks are leaning into each other. They might rip when I carry them down the stairs. I should put each one into another bin liner. I pick up the roll, rip the next bag off and then another two. I manage to stuff each full bag into another empty one. Yes, that’s better. Though I should nevertheless hold them from underneath while carrying them downstairs. I look at the empty wardrobe. His shoes on the bottom shelf still need to go. I open another liner. I should use a double bag straight away. It’s not easy pulling a second bag over a full one. I might have been able to deal with Jim’s reluctance even to contemplate having Mum move in. He has a point, as I have in fact admitted before. I have always found it difficult to be around Mum and I understood – and even shared – his fear that living together would not be a smooth ride. Even though she now needs our help, I could have excused and respected his point of view. But this immature, crude way of asserting his independence by going and fucking the first woman who comes his way is unacceptable, hurtful and degrading. End of discussion. Four bags. I carry them downstairs, line them up in the hallway. I fill the plastic bowl from the kitchen sink with water and wipe the shelves and empty drawers. There is a surprising amount of dust. I close the doors.

  ‘Stephanie, it’s Michele. Jim and I discussed the basement conversion. We think it’s a brilliant idea and would like to go ahead with it as soon as possible. Please call me when you get this message.’

  I watch my hand lowering the phone on to the table and hear Helen from next door laughing in the garden. I turn my head. Through the open door I spot a white sock on the balcony. It must have fallen out from among the cricket whites.

  3

  Clara casts a quick glance at the kitchen clock. Twenty-five minutes to eleven. Michele is always late. They are not going to make it to the osteopath in time. She gets up from the chair, unbuttons her coat and takes off her little hat – a light-blue pillbox hat matching the light blue of her coat. Even in summer she would never leave the house without hat and coat. Since half past nine she’s been waiting for her daughter. In the hallway she places the hat on the table. For a moment she stands there patting it. When Hilary mentioned that Michele was going to pick her up, Clara knew it was a bad idea. Hilary is far more reliable than Michele. The old woman walks upstairs. She stops at the top and wonders why she came here. Yes, she remembers. She is looking for the clay model of the mother and child she made a few years ago. It’s Michele’s birthday in a couple of weeks, her forty-ninth, the last one before she is truly middle-aged. In the bedroom she opens the wardrobe. She’d love to give her eldest daughter something special. Clara is staring at Edward’s suits hanging there neatly. They were never that orderly when he was still with her. He was such a messy man. She spent her life clearing up behind him and the children. She bends down to reach the back of the shelf beneath the suits. She sighs. Her knees hurt. When the children were small she used to hide birthday and Christmas presents here. She feels along the shelf. Nothing – except dust. Bringing her dirty hand close to her face, she smells the dryness. Disgusting. Michele had recently sent a number of young women to look after the house. And what did they do? Clara’s filthy hand proves yet again how right she was in showing these women the door. She closes the wardrobe. Surely she hasn’t given the clay model away. She heads back downstairs to the kitchen. Quarter to eleven. Unbelievable. Michele is perfectly capable of being on time. But she picks and chooses. If it is in her interest, she is punctual. In fact she is just like Edward. In anything to do with his work, he was organized and conscientious. But at home, of course, he had a servant – his wife. Clara sits down again at the table. It is covered with pieces of clay. Ever since Edward’s death she has enjoyed the freedom of not having to clear away her art at mealtimes. She herself doesn’t care much for food anyway. Never has. Some buttered toast and a bit of fruit will do fine. Cooking and meals she provided for others because they wanted them. Now finally she can concentrate on her work. She takes off her coat and lets it fall over the back of the chair. Being irritated with Michele brings on hot flushes. At the sink she retrieves a dirty glass from beneath the unwashed plates. She rinses it, fills it with water and drinks. Over the past couple of days, ever since Hilary visited her last, she hasn’t had time to wash up. She is working on a vase and thinking about it seems to take all her attention. Time simply flies. It didn’t use to.

  As a girl she couldn’t wait to grow up, especially since they arrived in England just before the war broke out. Her father, her British father, who had marr
ied a German woman, her mother, in 1933, because he believed he should support the Nazi struggle against Communism, had finally realized that saving the world from Communism wasn’t the Nazis’ only aim, and that his native Norfolk might after all be a better place for him and his family. They moved into a dingy bedsit in Norwich. Five-year-old Clara was spat at in school because her father had never taught her proper English and she couldn’t hide her German accent. She hated going to school, but hated even more returning to that dingy bedsit where her mother hid all day in bed because she couldn’t speak a word of English and was worried sick about her family back home. Time stood still in that bedsit and only sometimes crawled forward slowly, on all fours, when Father returned from work with a jar of jam and occasionally some sweets. And then suddenly, Clara can’t remember when the transition happened, probably when she married Edward, time started to fly. And ever since, she hasn’t been able to control it.

  But back to the two clay figures of the mother and child. When Ruth from next door died a few months ago and the new people moved in, Clara panicked and worried that the new neighbours might break into her house at night. She invited them round once, a young professional couple, and they drank tea in her house. They were very interested in her work, especially the mother and child model, and the young woman – what was her name again? She can’t remember. Anyway, as she was stroking the statue, the young woman mentioned that they were hoping to have a baby soon. Afterwards Clara decided to hide the piece. One can’t be too careful. That’s right. She hid it. But where? It must have been somewhere down here. She opens the cupboard under the sink.

  ‘Hello, Mum. It’s me,’ Michele calls, pushing the door to her mother’s house open. ‘Mum?’ she calls again as the door closes behind her. A clattering noise is coming from the kitchen.

  Clara’s head and shoulders have disappeared under the sink. A mouse shoots out of the cupboard and runs across the floor to the other side of the room, where it vanishes behind the dresser.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Michele enquires matter-of-factly, while Clara continues to rummage in the cupboard. The mouse clearly didn’t upset her. If she noticed it at all.

  ‘I am looking for the clay model of the mother and child I made a few years ago. You know the one. Everyone said I should exhibit it.’

  Michele turns on her heel and walks into the dark front room. Her mother never opens the curtains here, fearing that the neighbours will see her artworks. The smell of dust takes Michele’s breath away. She grabs the model from the bookshelf.

  ‘Here you go.’ She places it on the draining board.

  Clara has reappeared from beneath the sink and straightens up – her knees might be in pain, but she is remarkably agile considering her frail frame and the fact that she only leaves the house when one of her daughters takes her out.

  ‘Where did you find them? I was so worried that I’d lost them.’ She looks at the two clay figures with great tenderness.

  ‘They were where they’ve always been for the last thirty years.’

  This clay model is her mother’s best piece. She made it right at the beginning, when she started her pottery classes, around the time Michele and Hilary left home. She never produced anything of that quality again, concentrating rather on bowls, plates and jugs, giving them to her children as Christmas and birthday presents. Michele has a big box of them in the basement.

  ‘They can’t have been,’ Clara contradicts her daughter sharply. ‘I hid them a few months ago because of the new neighbours.’

  Michele shakes her head but keeps quiet. There is no point arguing with her mother. She drops her bag on a chair and takes off her cardigan.

  Clara looks at her daughter in surprise.

  ‘I thought we were going to the osteopath. And you are terribly late.’

  ‘Didn’t Hilary call you? The osteopath cancelled the appointment half an hour ago. They had a water leak and Health and Safety insists that they need to sort it first. They were very apologetic. Hilary rebooked for next Wednesday when she will be able to take you.’

  Michele walks over to the sink.

  ‘She didn’t call,’ Clara says. ‘I’ve been waiting since nine o’clock.’

  Michele’s hands glide into the yellow rubber gloves. When she is with her mother she feels as if she is underwater, holding her breath, hovering just beneath the surface, looking up. She can see and hear everything, but doesn’t react or interact. She tries to hold her breath for as long as possible, waiting for the moment when she can resurface without danger of being attacked. She has learned to ignore most of her mother’s comments. They often sound like accusations, but Michele isn’t sure that her mother really means to accuse. It’s simply her way of expressing her constant disappointment with the world. If she lets her mother’s comments pass, Clara usually changes the subject quickly.

  ‘What a lovely piece of work,’ Clara now says. ‘You know Ruth from next door, who died last year? Do you remember her? She got me into pottery in the first place. Do you remember? She did it for years. And someone had dropped out from their course and so she asked me, because she knew I was interested in art and did a bit of painting. Do you remember? No, you probably don’t. Anyway, I made these lovely figures after three months. Three months. And Ruth attended classes for years and never produced anything of a similar standard.’

  Clara walks over to the table.

  ‘It’s a pity really that Ruth and I didn’t get on.’

  Michele piles up the dirty dishes on the draining board. She has heard these stories before. She lets water run into the washing-up bowl.

  ‘Are you rinsing with hot water?’ Michele hears her mother say.

  ‘Yes, I am, Mum.’

  ‘Good. Because I will be able to smell the soap if you haven’t.’

  ‘Yes, I know you will, Mum.’

  Michele has finished with the dishes. She wipes the worktop.

  ‘By the way, you’ve got mice,’ she says.

  ‘I’ve never seen one,’ Clara contradicts her daughter straight away.

  ‘Well, I’m afraid you’ve got them.’

  Michele presses down hard on an old egg-yolk stain that refuses to come off the Formica. Eventually she decides to scrape it away with a knife.

  ‘I know why you make that accusation,’ her mother suddenly says in an aggressive tone.

  Michele straightens up, blowing a wisp of hair that has come loose from her ponytail out of her face. She places the knife in the washing-up bowl, wipes the food remnants off the surface and throws them into the bin next to the sink.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ her mother asks. ‘Or do you now have the same hearing problem as your father?’

  Michele rinses the cloth and hangs it over the tap. She places the gloves over the edge of the sink. This is going to be a difficult conversation, and she wanted to wait till she had taken her mother out for lunch. A restaurant seemed a safer place for this talk than here in the kitchen. But since Clara has now started, Michele knows her mother will not let go. So they might as well talk now.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Michele asks, and puts on the kettle.

  ‘Is that what you do when you negotiate your deals, offer tea?’

  Michele turns off the kettle. She pulls a chair close to her mother, their knees nearly touching.

  ‘Mum, we need to talk.’

  ‘I am not going into an old people’s home.’ Clara leans back in the chair and folds her arms in front of her chest. Her blouse is covered in tea stains.

  ‘How do you know that that’s what I want to talk to you about?’

  ‘Hilary told me last week that if it were up to you you’d put me away. Into storage. Lock me up, basically.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s what Hilary said.’ Michele’s voice is calm. She manages to control her sudden anger with her sister. She hadn’
t expected Hilary to have mentioned to their mother the place that has become available at the residential home.

  Clara looks down at her crossed arms like a sullen little child.

  ‘Well, she told me you want to put me in an old people’s home. Hilary doesn’t like the idea either. And I certainly won’t go.’

  ‘You need help with the housework, and some regular company would be good for you too.’

  ‘You can find some help for me,’ Clara immediately agrees, her voice less panicky.

  ‘You’ve had five nice, competent women in the last six months. You didn’t like any and got rid of them all within a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Your secretary chose them. She doesn’t have a clue what I need.’

  ‘Hilary and I personally interviewed the last two.’

  ‘They were useless.’