by Maisie Mosco
And Moira knew he had more than enough time to catch the bus this morning.
But something comes over her when I talk to Abraham Patrick about my family, thought Martin. And the kid is right. He can’t be expected to go through life addressed as the living symbol of a mixed marriage that hadn’t worked.
“All right. A.P. it is from now on,” he said to his son’s delight.
“You give in to his every whim!” Moira exclaimed. “But I don’t intend to.” She saw them exchange a wink. “And I am not having you and him in cahoots against me, Martin! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an editorial meeting to get to and I still have to take my shower.”
Her exit in her bright blue dressing-gown could be likened, thought Martin, to lightning steaking across the room.
“If I’d known wanting to be called by my initials would cause trouble, I wouldn’t have suggested it,” the boy said eyeing his mother’s unfinished breakfast. He glanced at the clock. “And it’s only half-past-seven. Mum would have to have a flat tyre to be late for her meeting.”
“Hampstead Village can be chock-a-block in the mornings,” Martin said in Moira’s defence.
“Why doesn’t Mum go by tube?”
“She doesn’t like using public transport, A.P.”
“Thanks for remembering to call me that, Dad.”
“And don’t worry, your pals and your relations will soon get used to it,” Martin assured him. “It will probably be a welcome relief to them,” he added with a smile.
“But I’ll bet you a week’s pocket money that Mum will go on calling me Abraham Patrick.”
After his son had left for school, Martin recalled the day he was baptized and how unreal it had seemed. But it had been the price of Martin’s marrying the girl he loved. A precondition of their marriage.
He had had to steel himself to attend the christening, but not to do so would have been letting down his wife, and her afterwards agreeing that their son be circumcised had seemed a portent for the future. As if she was telling him that she knew how he felt.
But that was eleven years ago, when Martin and Moira were still living on the commune, their undergraduate days not far enough behind them for them yet to have learned that the golden dreams of youth bore no relation to reality.
In retrospect it seemed to Martin that it hadn’t been a commune in the true sense of the word. Its members had lived under one roof, eaten together, enjoyed each other’s company. But there had been no common aim. Each of us, he reflected, was concerned with doing our own thing.
Under that roof was a lot of talent. Martin and Andy, and Rhoda, were not the only ones who had since become well-known names. Martin’s friend Bill Dryden, with whom he had remained close, now made TV documentaries that topped the ratings, and Bill’s wife, Sukey, was making a fortune with her beautiful ceramics.
What the commune did was relieve us all of individual everyday responsibilities, Martin now saw. Living there together allowed what was in each of us to flower. Even those whose talents were not the creative kind had, as though it were a breathing space, benefited from that shared interlude before blossoming into what they had later become.
When had that euphoric little world begun to disintegrate? When for each of us in turn recognition, or promotion, or whatever, had its inevitable effects. And what was there to do then but go our separate ways towards the top of whichever ladder?
Since Andy and I are climbing the same ladder, in harness, we are still together. But how long was it since I saw Bill? Along with success came demands on your time and the first thing to go was your social life. Not to mention your sleep!
Martin stifled a yawn as Moira entered wearing one of her smart city suits, pecked his cheek and left, returning him full circle to her remark while she made the coffee. Gone are the days was right! And now here he was, alone in a kitchen that looked like an illustration in a glossy magazine – if you didn’t notice the dirty dishes.
He had better stack them in the dishwasher and go get some shuteye, or before he knew it Andy would be on the phone snarling, “Where the hell are you? We decided to take a short break, not half a day!”
For Andy, composing music came easier than writing the lyrics did to Martin. Martin’s experience was that nothing in this life came easy! Marriage included.
Chapter 7
After his father’s discharge from hospital, the strain to which Howard was subjected was such that at times he thought he would surely break.
Though he was capable of running the business alone, Harry continued to send for him in order to issue instructions. Nor did Harry ever fail to raise the subject of little Ben.
Howard, for his part, was obliged to hide his own feelings, to accept silently the daily recrimination meted out to him, lest a heated exchange ensue, and his father have another seizure.
“You’re not seeing enough of your boy,” Harry would tell him repeatedly, though he must be aware that Howard’s increased business responsibilities kept him from visiting Ben more often. A tirade invariably followed, its theme by now engraved upon Howard’s mind: “When Ben grows up you’ll be like a stranger to him, and what he could turn into thanks to those Germans will be on your own head!”
Since his mother considered it inadvisable to reply that the Schmidts were good people – Howard had never thought otherwise – he refrained from doing so. Instead he would try to keep a smile on his face, and afterwards leave Harry’s sickroom feeling as if he had been hit on the head.
Thankfully, though, his mother’s attitude towards him had softened, he thought, while she served his dinner one evening. Initially, despite his now living alone in a house that echoed with emptiness, she had not invited him to eat with her at the end of his working day.
“It’s a comfort to chat to you, Mum,” he said when she sat down opposite him in the kitchen where he and his sister had eaten before they left home.
The wallpaper was different, but the simple, cream-painted units that reflected his mother’s taste were still there. And the collection of Poole pottery, accumulated on trips to Bournemouth, in one of the glass-fronted cupboards. Only the atmosphere had changed, Howard thought, glancing at the chair his father had once occupied and would no more.
Though Kate was gone from here before she was twenty, Howard had stayed put until he married. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to get myself a bachelor pad, as most of my friends did, he reflected. Staid was the word for me.
It struck Howard now that if his cousin Martin had fallen for a German girl, the family, though they would have liked it no less, might not have been quite so astonished. People in the arts were not expected to conform. But when suburban Howard Klein stepped out of line –
His mother interrupted his thoughts. “I’m glad to have you here, Howard. These days I can use some comfort, myself.”
He watched her take away their soup plates and bring a platter of fried fish to the table, noting her weary demeanour. “Are you still taking tranquillizers, Mum?”
“As a matter of fact I’m not. Uncle Nat came here and gave me a talking to. If my father were alive, he’d never have let me begin taking them, Uncle Nat said. And it’s true. Your Grandfather Smolensky was also a doctor of the old school. Help yourself to fish, Howard. And I’ve made you some potato salad,” she said taking a dishful of it from the refrigerator.
She had garnished it, as she always did, with gherkins and sprigs of watercress, and Howard told her that it was not necessary to go to such trouble on his account.
Ann served him an ample helping and spooned some on to her own plate, her expression bleak. “It would be all too easy for me, right now, Howard, to go to no trouble about anything. To let myself get into slipshod ways. I can’t be bothered to make up my face any more, but I force myself to. Not doing so would be the beginning of me going to pieces. I can’t let myself. Your dad needs me.”
Howard nevertheless feared that she might. He’d been too busy licking his own wounds to notice what was happening to his
mother. She had always been a smart dresser and had on one of her linen frocks, the brown one, with a brooch pinned to the breast pocket. But beneath the surface appearance she was determined to maintain…
“I also have to force myself to eat,” she went on, “to keep up my strength. If I didn’t – well, Marianne would have to stop writing her book and come here to look after both me and your dad. Not that she’d stay after one day of looking after him!”
“Marianne is like a real sister to you, isn’t she?” Howard said after a pause.
“Since I’ve never had one – nor a brother – I wouldn’t know. But Marianne is certainly the one in the family I know I can rely on. What I also know is that she wouldn’t stand for what I’m getting from your dad.”
Ann forked some fish into her mouth and put the ketchup bottle closer to Howard. “You forgot to drench your food with it! And about your father – well, I wouldn’t say this to anyone else, but I now know what a friend of mine meant when her husband became bedfast and she remarked that an invalid could also be a tyrant. And when their condition is such that you daren’t risk upsetting them… Need I say more, Howard?”
“Not to me you needn’t.”
“I can’t wait for the day your dad progresses to the wheelchair the specialist mentioned,” said Ann.
“Does he have you running up and downstairs all the time?”
“What else?”
“Then let’s convert a downstairs room to a bedroom for him. I should have thought of it before. Frank will help me, and we’ll do it on Sunday –”
“Your father won’t hear of it,” Ann cut in. “I suggested it myself, and my advice to you is, don’t even mention it to him.”
“Then he isn’t considering you, is he, Mum?”
“But he always did before his stroke.”
They went on with their meal in silence.
Then Ann said quietly, “What we have to remember, Howard, is that what we’re seeing now isn’t him. I’d also like you to know that, though what Germany conjures up for Jews gives me the shivers, I’d rather not believe, like your father does, that they’re still a nation of Jew-haters. A fixation is what Uncle Nat called it.”
And it isn’t getting any better, thought Howard.
“All the same,” said his mother, “when I think of my grandson being there, and of what Henry Moritz told us about the neo-Nazis –”
“I’ve heard there are less of them in Germany than elsewhere,” Howard cut in.
“But Germany is where it all began, and if your dad has to have a fixation I’m not surprised it’s the one it is. It would perhaps be easier for Ben to grow up there if he didn’t look so Jewish.”
Howard hid his own qualms with a joke. “Would you like him to have plastic surgery?”
“Let the anti-Semites have surgery on their evil tongues!” Ann flashed. “But it’s nice to hear you laugh for a change, Howard.”
“And for me to see that you haven’t lost your spirit, Mum. Despite the tyrant upstairs,” Howard added as they heard from above the tinkle of the handbell with which Harry summoned his wife.
Chapter 8
Shirley’s elaborate arrangements for her daughter’s wedding were deftly foiled by Laura.
“You didn’t have to elope, you had my permission!” was her tart response to learning that the marriage had taken place minus her presence.
They were talking on the telephone and Laura tried to soften the blow. “But wouldn’t you say that flying to Paris to get married was romantic, Mum?”
“What I would say is it’s in keeping with your harum-scarum way of life. And I didn’t see you get married, did I? I’m having to pinch myself to believe you’ve actually done it.”
“I’ll show you my marriage lines.”
“More to the point is when do I get to see the man who’s worked this miracle? A reference from Marianne is the opposite of reassuring to me! And what is all that noise I can hear going on? It sounds like bedlam –”
“My stepdaughter has just thrown a potted plant at her brother and the housekeeper is threatening to leave. The minute Jake and I stepped through the door she began telling us what a terrible time she’d had with the kids in our absence –”
“Exactly as I predicted,” said Shirley. “You’d better offer her a rise if you want her to stay.”
In that respect, Laura, for whom money had always been a minor consideration, was due to learn what her mother never had.
Also to suffer her first doubt that living happily ever after would be the outcome of her marrying a widower with two teenage children. Who stopped scowling at each other and scowled at her, when she entered the living-room.
Laura’s own child then set herself up as the family tell-tale. “It was Jeremy who started it, Mummy, and Janis –”
“Shut up, you little sneak!” Jeremy cut her short. “My sister doesn’t need a baby elephant to defend her.”
Bessie ran to Laura. “I’m not a baby elephant, am I, Mummy?”
But Laura had the wisdom not to cuddle and comfort her. It would seem like taking sides. Instead she said to Jeremy and Janis, “Who started it doesn’t matter. All I saw from the hall was Janis throw the plant at Jeremy. What is it all about?”
“Who started it does matter,” said Janis. “Our mum believed in justice, didn’t she, Jeremy? She was anti-apartheid like our dad.”
While Laura was trying to relate that to the situation in which she now found herself, the housekeeper, standing by tight-lipped, said, “What those two kids need is a smack on the bum, but it isn’t my place to give it them. I’m going upstairs to pack my things.”
“Please don’t, Doris,” Laura appealed to her.
“It’s as good as done.”
The forthright Yorkshire woman marched from the room. And if someone like Doris couldn’t cope… thought Laura. But she’d got used to there being only Bessie, whom her no-nonsense manner had scared into submission from Day One.
Laura rushed after her. “If you’ll stay, though I’ve already given you a rise, I’ll double your salary.”
Doris paused on the stairs and turned to give her a pitying glance. “I’m more interested in keeping my sanity.”
She went on her way, sensible shoes clomping and blue nylon overall rustling. With her went Laura’s hope of a stable beginning to her married life. It was all fine for Jake! He’d escaped to a business meeting. Now he was to be based in London, not Johannesburg, he had set up an office in Mayfair. Laura, though, worked from home and had not yet had time today so much as to pop her head in her darkroom. The kids had begun squabbling at breakfast and so it had continued.
Was Jake going to make a habit of working on a Sunday? But since when did Laura think twice about doing so herself?
She returned to two teenagers with contrite expressions on their faces and a jubilant six-year-old.
“Hurrah!” Bessie was shouting. “I shan’t have to keep my room tidy any more. Agnes and Astrid and Isabella were lovely,” she listed Doris’s predecessors, “but Doris was very strict. She said I’d been neglected, Mummy, and it was time someone knocked me into shape.”
“Does that mean she smacked you?”
“No, she just used to say she’d like to.”
“Jeremy and I won’t let anyone smack you,” said Janis. “You’re our little sister, now.”
“I’m happy to hear you say that,” said Laura.
“But it doesn’t mean we like it,” Jeremy informed her.
Laura’s heart sank.
“Are you going to make Janis and me pay for the damage?” the boy inquired.
The potted plant – a mother-in-law’s tongue Laura’s husband might think aptly named when he met Shirley – had been hurled complete with its china jardinière, now lying shattered on the parquet floor amid a pile of soil and a clump of spiky leaves.
Janis’s slender shape belies her strength! thought Laura. “There’s a window pane broken, too!” she exclaimed, suddenly notici
ng it. “How did that happen?”
“They were fighting, Mummy, and Jeremy’s elbow went through it –”
“If this were South Africa,” said Jeremy, “that kid would be a candidate for the Secret Police. Are you going to charge us for what we’ve done, or aren’t you, Laura?”
She thought carefully. Trivial though on the surface it seemed, this was the first crisis in her new family life. Her hope was that in time Janis and Jeremy would come to love her. But first she must win their respect.
What would your mother have done? she wanted to ask them. But Laura couldn’t wear a dead woman’s shoes. All she could do was tread carefully in her own. Do her best for that woman’s children.
She gave them a smile. “Who do you think should pay for damage? Those responsible for it, or the innocent party? Which in this case is me. If justice really matters to you, it has to be applied to everything. Now help your big brother and sister clear up the mess on the floor, Bessie.”
“That wouldn’t be justice, she didn’t make the mess,” said Janis.
“But I want to help,” Bessie piped, already on her chubby knees beside the debris.
“Be careful not to cut your hands on the broken china,” Laura warned them too late. Bessie was solemnly showing her thumb to Janis and Jeremy.
“It isn’t as bad as a snakebite,” was Jeremy’s way of comforting her.
“But to be sure you don’t get infected from the soil, we’ll give it a suck anyway,” Janis said before doing so.
“It was me, not you, who sucked the poison out of Dad’s snakebite when he took us camping,” Jeremy reminded his sister. “Let me take over –”
“Why can’t I suck my own thumb?” Bessie asked as he did so.
“Because you might not suck hard enough,” Janis patiently explained. “If you tell me where you keep your first aid box, Laura, I’ll fetch it.”
“I’ll fetch it for you.”
Such was the family picture the threesome made, Laura had to get out of the room, lest her emotion was written on her face.
She hadn’t known that Jake had been bitten by a snake. Nor could she envisage him going camping. By no stretch of the imagination was he the outdoor type. But he was the sort of father who would do anything for his kids’ sake, the more so after their mum died. Though Jake had told Laura that his wife had suffered a lengthy illness, her mind had not then encompassed the full effects of that upon him and his children.