Angel

by Kate Mitchell

  ‘Yes, that’s too much love.’ My voice was very convincing considering the circumstances, still in that slight degree of unremitting shock. I am not the most maternal of people, but even I know that one should not hit babies.

  ‘Oh, and I was feeling so bad about it. Sometimes, when he cries, I would put the music up so loud so that I wouldn’t be able to hear him yell, but then I have such a headache because the music must be louder than his mouth.’

  ‘Yes, that’s too much love,’ I repeated with determination.

  ‘Yes, yes, you must be right. It’s too much love I have for him. Did you say you looked after babies and things?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Oh, are you busy now? I mean, someone like you would be the right person for me, to take care of my baby.’

  ‘I’m not busy at the moment. Are you asking me to work for you?’

  ‘Well only if you want to, like a friend. I’d give lots of money of course. But I need as much help as possible with my little, whittle Toy-Soldier, probably more.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I found out and what people fail to understand. The poor mothers are often the ones who need the most care and attention, if not all the attention.’

  She seemed to hesitate as though she was reconsidering inviting me to work for her. Her faltering made me nervous. Had I blown it, by being too eager, too sympathetic? But then she spoke.

  ‘I have had other nannies for my little Toy-Soldier in the past, and they were all very nasty to me. They said I was spoilt, that I put myself first before the baby. They were very wicked to me and made me cry. So, I sacked them of course, giving them a bad reference.’ She giggled enjoying her power over others. ‘But you’re not like that, are you? You are different, kind, and you like me. I think those silly old women didn’t like me. I think they were jealous of me. They are all bad people. Anyhow, they are all gone now. When can you start?’

  She is one of those people who always got what they wanted out of life. One of life’s manipulators or, perhaps, someone who was extraordinarily lucky, just like the person I thought I was. I had this funny sensation that I did not have a choice in the matter. If I wanted a way to the money, then I had to take the job of looking after her brat. She was my sworn enemy and yet…oh well.

  She wanted me to begin helping her that evening, she did not want to understand that people, other than herself had lives to live. Although I stood to lose this job and the prospect of reaping financial rewards in the future, I told her that her wishes were not practicable. But the real reason why I was now choosing to be difficult, was that I had to do a great deal of thinking. I needed to sort out my own feelings. As always, I had reacted without thinking about the consequences and it was always done in temper. I had a spit-fire temper, and this had cost me dearly. Time for me to rethink my strategies, grow up and be wise. But there was another aspect which had surprised me was my feelings about John. Learning that John had a secret life outside of our marriage was not only devastating but painful. If anyone had known John as well as I thought I knew him, they too would have been incredulous or even dumbfounded. But if I procrastinated too long perhaps… In for a penny, in for a pound, I decided to go along with the swing of things.

  Money has a great deal of muscle when faltering indecision parks its heart in the middle of a dubious breast. Thus, I told her ‘Yes,’ and heard her chirping in the background like a winning prize canary…oh well.

  John’s mistress said she would send her chauffeur to fetch me in the morning and then she queried if I could drive. A car was needed because her house was out in the country. I could drive but because of circumstances, I did not possess a car. This provoked questions from the nosy-parker side of her nature. The explanation was the truth, I had a car accident. A car accident, she quizzed worriedly, a certain apprehension in her voice. Oh, it wasn’t my fault, I lied, quickly. Two young boys, joyriders, you have heard of joyriders. Well, they crashed into my car and came out of it without a bruise, not that I would wish them any harm. But my car was a total wipeout and so nearly was I.

  ‘Ah yes, I see’, she said as if my phantom near-death experience was of little significance, as long as it did not affect her. I then added selfishness to her mental attributes. The list was accumulating, I was organizing bad marks after her name.

  Reluctantly I gave my flat’s address, spelling it out for her as one does for a deficit adult, but I had the inkling that she was not so stupid as she tried to appear. I don’t know why I thought this, except perhaps a tingle in my spine warned me to press cautiously. The spelling test having been completed, she told me that she would send her chauffeur in the morning.

  I was of the opinion that ‘the morning’ meant something like after the hours of twelve noon. I did not think the morning began before twelve o’clock. I mean, what is the point of mornings apart from turning over and sleeping them off, and since I did not have to get up for work anymore, I chose to ignore the early charms of the day. Only cheerful people are awake before dawn.

  At seven in the morning, my doorbell rang. Before then I had been sound asleep. Grabbing my alarm clock, I stared at it in disbelief. Why? What was going on? And who set this alarm, were my first thoughts. In my dreams, I was still decorating my flat, do battle with colors the advice I was given was bad, I needed to get back to my dream to sort out this problem. Nevertheless, I managed to yank myself out of this dreamy sleep. Snatching hold of something respectable, I ran to the front door and peeked through the spyhole. A man in a smart grey uniform, with cap and gloves, was waiting patiently. I thought I saw his eye glance at my eye through the spyhole, but being too much of a gentleman, he averted his gaze. When he saw me in my uncompleted state of dress, he respectively said that he would wait in the car for me just outside of the flats.

  I showered, dressed and then went to put my cosmetic camouflage on when I realized that he must have seen the still red scar on my cheek. A hot flush crept over me, was this the first time I had ever been embarrassed, but then I told myself to be sensible. This was a mission to get the money I should have had. No one cares what you look like when you have money. All that I needed to do was to stay focused. Besides, this job was not about how I looked, but how I managed myself.

  A silver-grey limousine was waiting as I stepped outside. A stab of envy twisted its cold steel claws tightly around my chest. But I braved my rivaled hatreds, they were not profitable. Soon, very soon, I told myself as I climbed into the plush interior, I would have my chance in my own time and in my own way.

  Of course, I was much cleverer than she was. Although, at the moment, it didn’t look it considering she had everything. But she had hooked John in the usual ways with her youth and probably her looks. But I had one big advantage on my side, I knew who she was when she had absolutely no idea who I really was. If she knew who I was, then perhaps she would not be as happy to meet me or to entertain me in her home.

  It was an hour and a half journey to reach Angel’s home. This was a place which certainly did not court public transport; we were now driving through the stately countryside. I admired the views from the window. Just think, if I had been clever all this could have belonged to me

  We drove into a driveway which carried on leading towards a house. In my awe, I would have described as a mansion. This was where John lived with her. This was the secret life that he had excluded me from. And this is where I get everything that I’m owed.

  A maid in modest uniform opened the door and told me that, Madam was still asleep, and would I mind waiting? Did I have a choice? No, but I think this large-nosed, mousy-haired servant must have felt pity for me because she then tactfully asked if I would like coffee or tea. Coffee, naturally I asked for strong and black without any sugar. She curtsied, which was strange, whether she did it because she had forgotten herself was nothing that I was going to think about too much. Before leaving she showed me into a room which I would have described as being a lounge.

  I am unfamiliar wit
h such gross lavishness of rooms, the likes of which I had only seen in magazine representations. There were spindly chairs with padded seats, I’m not an admirer of the past as my feet are in the future, and yet, if this had been mine, I would have been pleased to possess it. Paintings which from my raised eyebrows not wanting to go too near them looked to be originals, although I had no idea who had painted them. Not an expert at such things, I have no way of describing them.

  Real Viennese coffee, now this was something that I knew about arrived swiftly, carried on a silver tray which she set on a small round pencil thin-legged table. I helped myself from the silver pot and poured some coffee into a bone china coffee cup and saucer. I tried to picture John drinking coffee while I was doing this, but then I remembered that John never touched coffee, he considered it to be too risqué for his palate. Again, it occurred to me that perhaps I had never known anything about John, about this man who had been my husband for so long. That sadness that I had never felt before came drifting back to me like a tapering mist from a lake.

  All questions and no answers and now, there will never be any answers except those that I will eventually manufacture for myself. The latter part of our lives together, if not the entire marriage had become a sham and a big lie. John had never called me his, ‘little princess,’ not that I wanted him too, and if he had, I probably would have hit him. Perhaps that was why he never said all those gooey things to me. Apparently, for some this strange sweet talk is quite important in marriages, but not in ours. If I hadn’t felt mentally abused by this kind of talk, I might have been here and still married to him. Unfortunately, it was not in me to become his baby girl.

  Two hours waiting, waiting because I had no choice if I wanted to get what I had come for, I had to keep my patience. Two hours in deep reflections about the mistakes I made in our marriage. Starting with the way I spoke to him, and after a while, how I had come to treat him. I had no choice; it was my temper which treated him with contempt.

  It was me who behaved like a macho man, telling him what he should be doing. He was doing what I had always wanted him to do, be successful and make the most of himself. But why should it always be my fault for bullying him, and why did he keep his successes away from me? I was hurting and John was dead; there was no way of asking him why.

  Perhaps the truth is that John was just a dirty old man who lusted after younger women. John was looking at me now and smiling.

  And then the door opened, and she appeared. I was surprised because she was smaller than I imaged. I don't know why but I had imagined her as being taller and statelier than me. But the next thing I noticed was her long golden-blond hair. She looked exactly like she sounded, a doll. I was so shocked at her appearance that I nearly burst out laughing. Throwing a hand to my mouth, I starved the laughter coming from my belly.

  ‘Oh, I’m glad you came. Oops! Did I make you jump?’ she said noticing my handclasp firmly to my mouth.

  ‘No, no,’ I gasped. ‘I didn’t realize how pretty you were going to be.’ I lied, I had to. Yet, she was in truth very pretty, but it was that kind of sickly prettiness, the sort that men fall for. The kind meant for trapping men into taking care of them. But this compliment did the trick because she smiled engagingly and was well pleased with my false flattery.

  From an objective position, I could see why John had found her so appealing, one cannot help but fall in love with a concoction like her. She was all curves and dimples and undulating softness, there was nothing angular about her, meaning she was the complete opposite of me. Her baby blue eyes were large and round and fanned by long silky eyelashes and her deep pink lips were the shape of a rosebud. Was this Nature’s own work, I wondered. But yes, for flesh is improved not by the adding of cellulite but from the willingness of gladly eating.

  Grudgingly, I had to agree that she was pretty, but it was a prettiness that would grow and grow in vulgarity, and in time she would look grotesque. While I would still hold my shape. Nothing would drop, droop or sag from me because I had nothing to drop. I will always be too slim for other people's good. However, John would not be present to see her predicted metamorphosis. And if he had waited and considered life as a future investment, instead of opting out, I am pretty confident he would have exited her out of his life as cleverly as he had deleted me from his.

  ‘I love your room,’ I said turning about, my hands alluding to all the furniture, decorations and artifacts. In actual fact, I did, though it made me sick to remark on it. Oddly to me, it did not follow the obedience of her baby-doll appearance, I would never have thought her to be in possession of refined and discerning tastes, judging her from her physical appearance. My perception of her, by looking at her and listening to what she said was that she was an airhead, and yet, ridiculously, here she stood in the middle of it all.

  The positioning of everything in the room overwhelmed me, each complimented the other, in both color and design, and yet, the orchestrated room still maintained to have its own original and thoughtful character.

  Thank you,’ she replied pleased with herself and thereby revealing that smug satisfaction with the tossing of her golden soft-ringlet hair. As she did this, I saw to my surprise that she had a large girly ribbon tied in a pink bow at the back of her hair. ‘Johnnikins did it all. I can’t think about chairs and things myself especially if they are old, what’s the word? Oh, I know, antiques. You don’t know who’s been using them, sitting or touching them.’ She crinkled her nose with distaste. ‘Johnnikins wanted me to have the best. So, he said; but what is the best supposed to be? Old or new? I don’t particularly like it myself.’ She confided. ‘But perhaps someday, it will grow on me, but if it doesn’t, I can always get rid of it.’

  As I watched her talking, I noticed that she was taking little steps towards one of the most comfortable armchairs, which somehow irritated me. That this woman should be so used to comfort and privilege whereas I, his once legal wife was now reduced to scraping away at ideas to cover myself again in clover. And while she made her way to the armchair, I wondered at John. John had done all this, decorated the rooms to his taste, and picked out the furniture. John who loved comfort, his old smelly, tacky armchair where he would read his books while toasting his carpet slippers by the gas fire. Astonishingly, John was the one who had created this stylish room, and I never had a clue that he had this artistic flair.

  It had been my custom, in the past, to taunt him, good-humoredly of course, that he had no taste. And I can see him now, smiling his absurd dozy smile, his kiss-curl abandoning itself to gravity as his eyelids slipped over his eyes. Like a silly old loyal dog, he had grown used to its mistress’ disgruntled mood swings. Now I knew the truth of why he lowered his eyes, he coveted thoughts of ‘if only she knew, if only she knew,’ and waited. Planned and waited for me to leave him.

  Once more I rolled in that tidal gulf of emotions that questioned, again and again, as to my knowledge of this man John, whom I had called my husband, who was he. For over two decades we had been married, yet he chose to bar me from this better side of his mind. Oh, how the empty silence of pain ran itself once more afresh in my breast. For, he had hurt me more than I could ever have hurt him. I had lived with an unwilling stranger, my own husband. And yet, and yet, what had I been doing in our marriage? Was I as unwilling as him, how honest now can I be to myself? But this was not a time for despair and regret. It was a time to look ahead and outside of myself, I still had my future to consider.

  She sat with a bounce onto the comfortable armchair and after straightening out her full flounced lavender dress, she dipped her head and peered at me with a strange, shy look. In that unoccupied space of thought, I realized it was my turn to be put under scrutiny. I, as a person, was becoming interesting to her. A prickle of fear intermingled with a prickling of defiance made me sit up in my chair. Bravely, I lifted my chin and waited for her decision.

  ‘You’re not how I imagined you to be.’

  ‘Oh?’ a vibration of anxiety cre
pt down my spine, yet, what should it matter what she thought of me, for she had no intelligence as to who I really was.

  ‘You’re much prettier than I thought, but it doesn’t matter.’ She looked at her pretty dimpled, manicured hands and at the shining diamond ring perched safely on her middle digit. There was a look of peevishness, a sulk which was determined to will its way out but for who's display? A self-surveillance erased this displeasure; it was natural to resent anyone who approached competition. She was definitely, spoilt. But she did not sulk for long.

  ‘Have you had breakfast?’ she asked as if the idea had suddenly sprung into her mind.

  ‘No, I never eat breakfast. A cup of strong black coffee always, but as to food, never.’

  ‘Never eat breakfast?’ she was aghast. ‘But you’ve got to eat breakfast, it ruins your looks if you don’t.’ And she shook her head at me as if to underline the importance of her remark.

  I raised my eyebrow, this was a new idea to me, presumably one of her own invention.

  ‘I always eat breakfast. See!’ She pointed to her round face. ‘I have no lines. My skin is perfect, look.’ And then, she held her face forward in a pose expecting me to examine it.

  ‘Yes, you are right. You are perfect.’ A sudden smile to my lips was irresistible, I didn’t think that people like her really existed except possibly, in books. Her type of person was a fabrication, a stereotype that men dreamt of to fill their silly little world with, and the type that we played about with within our magazine. But this one was most undeniably alive, she perpetuated the patriarchal, ideological myth of the little woman; the little angel in the house. She was like a little girl, who in fiction would never grow old but always do, and of whom had been forgotten by the outside world. She was made not to grow-up, or perhaps she preferred not to grow up. My fascination and curiosity watching her had for the moment, overrode my hatred and contempt for her, for although it may seem like it, I had not forgotten why I had come.