A Big Storm Knocked It Over (16 page)

“School tuition for the unborn,” Edie said. “Well, it's like chatting with Mrs. Teagarden. When she was pregnant, she had everything made for her and got this cabinetmaker in Maine to make the crib, and imported the nanny from Ireland, and had the room stenciled, and got one of those machines that sounds like the mother's heartbeat.”

“A machine that sounds like the mother's heartbeat,” Jane Louise said musingly. “I thought that was called the mother.”

“She didn't intend to be around all that much,” Edie said. “What with entertaining and all. She asked me if I intended to nurse and told me that she had actually managed to locate a wet nurse, but it didn't work out at the last minute.”

“And did she find a dairymaid and an alchemist, too?”

“She finds them. Now she's planning a Christmas party. She said to me: ‘I don't know what I want for Christmas. I
have
everything.' I said, ‘What about a large cashmere shawl?' and she said, ‘Oh, I have drawers full of
them
.'”

“She can send one over to me,” Jane Louise said. “I wonder what
her
wedding was like.”

“She told me,” Edie said. “Winter fantasy. Small children dressed as cherubs.”

“And a cake in the shape of a large pile of thousand-dollar bills,” Jane Louise said. “I have nothing.”

“Well, the thing about the Teagardens is they have to be themselves, whereas we get to be us.”

“How swell,” Jane Louise said. “And when we're dead we will be reconciled to it.”

As the winter began, Jane Louise became amazed at the form her body was taking. She and Edie discussed it endlessly. They felt they looked slightly ridiculous, like cranes carrying bowling balls. Every other part of them remained skinny while they bulged, spherelike, in front. Teddy and Mokie seemed to be transfixed. Their lank, fleet wives, who were so precise in matters relating to style, were suddenly slightly fuzzy and off balance.

Around Teddy, Jane Louise realized that she was paying a kind of deference to what she felt was his solemn awe at her condition. How much the idea of fatherhood meant to him humbled her, and her anxiety, which floated freely at the best of times now, took a definite bent: Supposing the baby she produced was not right in some way? Supposing she was incapable of producing a nice, straight child with all its faculties intact?

Sven, as ever, was helpful in this matter. Glancing at her round belly he said: “I don't think any baby produced by
you
would be particularly straight.”

“Thank you, Sven,” said Jane Louise. “Now be a good person and bugger off.”

“How charming you'll look with a little wriggling baby in your arms,” Sven said. “They go with everything, you know, like a string of pearls.”

“Thank you, Sven,” said Jane Louise. “Now be a good person and buzz off.”

“Birth,” said Sven. “What a thrill.”

“For you but not for me,” Jane Louise said.

“Oh, you'll love it, Janey,” Sven said. “I know your sort. You're in this life for the highs.”

“I'm not too keen on pain,” Jane Louise said, wondering how Sven knew this about her.

“Oh, pain,” Sven said dismissively. “It's one of the big deals.”

“And the others?”

“Sex, death, birth. Who could ask for anything more?” Sven said.

“I could,” Jane Louise said. “Glamour, economic security, home ownership, freedom from anxiety, a lizard belt. Shall I go on?”

“Niceties,” Sven said. “Just wait.”

Jane Louise had always wondered if Sven was the sort of man to want to witness what she and Edie called “the birth event.” It turned out he was and had. It seemed to her that he would very much like to witness
her
birth event, although, she pointed out to Sven, this would be a little hard to explain. It seemed to her that he saw aspects of the birth event that had not previously occurred to her, and he attempted to point these out whenever he had a spare minute.

“Everything is not related to pure eroticism,” she said.

“Everything
I'm
interested in is related to pure eroticism,” Sven said.

“Listen,” said Jane Louise. “I'm a busy woman. I've got Hugh
Oswald-Murphy and Erna coming in in half an hour to talk about design. Can you believe it? This book gets delayed every ten minutes, I get put on hold every time I design a page, and this guy wants to come in and talk about type. I ask you.”

“He's a lush.”

“How nice for me,” Jane Louise said.

“He's a blowhard,” Sven said. “He's one of those Brit types who has been so enchanted by the sound of his own voice for so long that he goes around bleating like a sheep and expecting everyone to fall to their knees at his every utterance.”

“Wonderful,” said Jane Louise. “Just my type.”

“Erna schlepps him around like a battered suitcase,” Sven said. “He looks like he's coming to pieces. He has one of those wrecked-boy faces those alcoholic Brits have. All yearning and wide-eyed and full of despair.”

“Yum,” said Jane Louise.

“He's actually very charming,” Sven said. “I got drunk with him once when we published the Eskimo nookie book.”

“He sounds perfectly delightful,” Jane Louise said. “Does he have fancy luggage stickers from famous hotels plastered all over him or just tags from old Cunard boats?”

“Both,” Sven said.

“Thank you for your input,” said Jane Louise.

“Don't let him lean on you,” Sven said. “He has that sort of ‘Help me, I'm a helpless genius' appeal.”

“Erna goes in for that sort of thing,” Jane Louise said, although she was not entirely sure she was herself immune.

“She likes a large, slightly ruined object with a kind of raffish, masculine charm,” Sven said.

Jane Louise gave Sven a long, thoughtful look.

“You ought to write for women's magazines, Sven,” Jane Louise said. “You have a lot to impart to us gals.”

“Women's magazines should write about
me,
” Sven said. “See you round the campus.”

Suddenly Erna, looking flushed and wearing a perfectly tailored old plaid suit, appeared with Hugh Oswald-Murphy in tow.

He was a large, florid, handsome, ruined man with a graying boy's haircut and eyes full of scrutiny and appeal. He walked right up to Jane Louise's desk and extended his great big paw.

“How d'you do, my dear?” he said. “You've been so frightfully nice about all these delays, Erna says. Oh, my!” he said, as Jane Louise stood up. “With child!”

“I guess you mean knocked up,” said Jane Louise, giving him a dumb look. She figured that Hugh Oswald-Murphy was one of those men who respond well to a really dumb-appearing woman.

“Children,” he said. His voice was loud and low, like a bear growl. “How angelic. Such darling creatures. Have hundreds!” he said. “I do.”

“Gee,” Jane Louise said. “Really? Hundreds?”

“Eight,” he said.

“How many mothers?” Jane Louise said.

“Now, Jane,” Erna said.

“A fair question, Erna,” Hugh said. “Five.”

“Gosh,” Jane Louise said. “Five. It makes me feel quite humble.”

Hugh Oswald-Murphy gave her a look of reappraisal.

“This young woman is having me on, Erna,” he said.

“She's not as dumb as she looks,” Erna said.

Jane Louise felt that some day it would be enjoyable to kill Erna, right on the street, in some morbid, painful, and very humiliating way.

“She doesn't look dumb a bit,” Hugh Oswald-Murphy said.

Jane Louise had been called many things in her life, but never dumb. She gazed with hatred at Erna, who was almost panting. It
was sad to see someone in such obvious throes of sex longing, although Hugh Oswald-Murphy did not appear to Jane Louise as much of a worthy sex object. He was too visibly self-concerned, self-referential, and self-absorbed. Even Sven, who was nothing more than an arrow waiting to be shot, was probably capable of some state of thrill or thrall, although love and transformation were doubtless not in his emotional vocabulary.

One of the things Jane Louise most loved about going to bed with her husband was the total change in his aspect. Gone from his features was what she called “the Marshallsville Face,” that pleasant visage he turned to the world to protect himself and make himself invisible. In her arms he was rapt, impassioned, ardent, hungry, and given over to feeling. He longed for her and made it clear. It melted her to see him in this condition: She was addicted to it. That she could work this change on him and make him happy gave her more than hope. It thrilled her and made her wonder if people really did have some deep center and if the soul of another did not necessarily, as Chekhov says, lie in darkness. She hoped that deep might actually call to deep in this internal way. It lightened her darkness. She had never felt this with another soul. She did not feel that if you went to bed with someone like Hugh Oswald-Murphy you would find anything more than the person now sitting in a chair across from her.

“I was thinking,” said Hugh Oswald-Murphy, “that this charming young woman and I might have a chat about the type and the photos, Erna, and then we might all go out and have a bite.”

“Yes,” said Jane Louise dreamily. “A bite.”

Hugh Oswald-Murphy gave her a curious stare, as if she might actually be thinking of biting him. Jane Louise flushed. These days a drowsy languor overtook her, as if the physical processes of her pregnant body had thrown a kind of warm scarf over her. She longed constantly for her bed—not to be in it, but on it, surrounded
by clean pillows and wrapped in her down comforter.

“I can't have lunch,” Erna said. “There's a board meeting.”

“I would have thought that would be quite unnecessary,” Hugh said. “Now that Hamish has finally caved in and off-loaded this lovely place to those loathsome toad compatriots of mine.”

The words
loathsome toad compatriots of mine
floated past Jane Louise's brain.

“Oh,” she said, “did Hamish sell?”

“Oh, Hugh. You shithead,” Erna said.

“I'm frightfully sorry,” Hugh said. “I had no idea this was still hush-hush. Pretend you never heard a thing.”

“I heard a thing,” Jane Louise said. “What gives?”

“I'm not at liberty to say,” said Erna, with a preening expression.

Jane Louise felt a red curtain of rage flap over her eyes.

“This affects my livelihood,” she said to Erna. “I'm pregnant, and my husband is not a political adviser. He's a plant chemist in a tiny firm. You tell me right now, Erna, or I'll hurt you.”

“Good gracious,” said Hugh.

“Calm down, Jane,” Erna said.

“I won't,” said Jane Louise. Her voice was definitely menacing, a tone she had never heard before. She suddenly felt a wave of protectiveness. This was the tiger aspect of impending motherhood.

“It's all very well for you to have inside dope,” Jane Louise said. “Nothing's going to happen to
you.
”

At that moment, Sven ambled in. “Well, well, a family huddle,” he said. “Hello, Hugh.”

“Michaelson,” said Hugh. “Very good to see you.”

“Sven,” Jane Louise said. “Have you been keeping from me that Hamish has sold?”

“I just heard this morning that it's final,” Sven said. “At least
they're publishing people and not in kitchen appliances. But Erna knows all, don't you, Erna?”

“She's not telling,” Jane Louise said. “You'll have to beat it out of her.”

A speculative look came over Sven's features. What a pane of glass he was! You could tell he was thinking what it might be like to smack Erna around.

“Get out the electrodes, Janey. Let's torture her.”

Erna sat down. She had the manner of a teacher telling serious news to a class of preschoolers.

“It's the Primrose Group,” she said. “They own publishing companies in Britain.”

“Some of which they've
ruined,
” Hugh put in cheerfully.

“Do shut up, Hugh,” Erna said. “They own publishers in Britain, Canada, and Australia, and a lot of magazines, and they want to be a presence here. Hamish will have a ten-year contract. We'll all be safe. They like us as we are.”

“They like us as we are,” Sven said. “They love us for ourselves. Isn't that sweet of them?”

“Don't be so cynical, Sven,” Erna said.

“I'm not cynical. I'm realistic. I know that ‘they like us as we are' means cheap binding from here on in.”

“Two-color jackets,” Jane Louise said.

“Really, I feel this is very inappropriate in front of an author,” Erna said.

“Oh, don't mind me,” Hugh Oswald-Murphy said. “I've been through this. My first book got caught in a takeover. That's when dear Erna rescued me and gave me that nice contract with the production clause.”

“Production clause?” Sven said.

“It only means a sewn binding,” Erna said demurely.

Sven groaned. “I'm going to have to find some early-nine-teenth-century
printer to sew it, Erna. Nobody sews anymore.”

“They do!” Erna said primly. “It just costs more each book.”

“Does this man agree to a reduction in royalties?” Sven said. “To cover the cost of sewing his book?”

“Hugh feels his books will last and ought not to fall apart when a reader of the future opens them,” Erna said.

“Any writer would feel that way,” Hugh said.

“I myself love notch binding,” Jane Louise said. “If Erna and Sven would get out of here, I would show you the beauty of it. They cut little notches in the signature and glue it in. It's very elegant.”

Hugh peered at her, a little hungrily, she felt. Erna looked agitated, the way she always looked after a few minutes with Sven. She looked as if she would like to have picked him up by the scruff of the neck, clenched in her teeth like a mother cat, and hauled him away somewhere. Sven, on the other hand, regarded her as an out-of-control, neurotic, runaway horse who needed expert handling. Jane Louise said she would be very happy to see their taillights and asked them both to leave.

“Marvelous woman,” said Hugh as Erna closed the door. “All those children. That husband. This job.”

“All those children. That husband. This job,” repeated Jane Louise. “Yes, it's amazing. How does she do it?”

She looked into Hugh Oswald-Murphy's face. He was very large. His enormous head sat between two immense shoulders. You felt that had he been stripped of flesh, two medium-size women could have played gin rummy in his rib cage. His very face was enormous, and he had a big, mobile mouth with lots and lots of teeth. Jane Louise tried to imagine him eating and then stopped. At the moment, life seemed quite out of proportion. He was not that huge, and yet Jane Louise visualized him as rather a Gargantua, or Gulliver amongst the Lilliputians, nibbling on what
to a normal person would be an entire side of beef. He gave her an appealing look, rather in the direction of her bra.

“Hey,” she said. “Snap out of it.”

“I do think, my dear, that you ought to have a little more respect for a famous writer.”

“Really?” said Jane Louise. “Well, I think you ought to have a little more respect for the person who's going to design your book.”