The Marriage Bed (6 page)

O
nce the cake was in the oven, I dragged up a kitchen stool to prop under my broad bottom, and with a sigh uncapped the silver polish, trying not to let the smell of it get to me. Luckily, despite
my feelings about Edwina and her marmalade, I really liked the silver tea-set. Each piece was designed with classic simplicity, without any silly bulges or ornamental fuss, and it was actually a pleasure to turn the bronze tarnish into a bright, silky shine.

Perhaps it took someone with a rootless past like mine really to value everything this silver stood for, namely continuity in an incoherent world. A long, tranquil sequence of time produced both Ross and the tea-set that was a natural part of his heritage. It was carried in every afternoon at four by his grandmother’s lame old maid Gwen, who had been with the family for forty years. On the tray was always the same array of things: a faded Crown Derby bowl for slops, a delicate little sterling strainer, and a set of embroidered cambric napkins. The food was always paper-thin bread and butter, a plate of oatmeal cookies, and a fruit cake. The thin little George
III
spoons were brought over to Canada by Ross’s great-grandfather. Also part of his luggage was a velvet-lined leather case for his top hat. It was a world where young Malcolm Graham was expected to become a Supreme Court judge, and did, just as Ross Malcolm Graham followed him to Ridley and Osgoode Hall as naturally as he breathed.

All this made me think with some bitterness of the five suitcases Billie and I used to tote from seaside hotel to seaside hotel, like a pair of travelling actors. I see now that Billie probably felt the need to play over and over again the role of pretty young widow with child; but in those days I never really knew my part. Children get their sense of security from their background, and I had none that lasted; it kept folding and dropping away like stage sets. Bournemouth, Brighton, Felixstowe, Broadstairs … it was there at the Sea View Hotel where I first felt that almost desperate need to find some kind of stability. Perhaps that’s what first attracted me to science, a branch of study where change was not a threat to be struggled with in confusion and dismay, but a natural
process to be observed, codified, and documented. A career in some lab or lecture theatre would give me a persona, a settled place to be in.… That was what I craved, and why I made that childish grab at Max.

It wasn’t until much later that I realized how much of this Max perceived. I was completely astonished when, a few months after that night on the Promenade, he wrote to Billie.

“There’s been a kind of miracle,” said the thin blue air-letter, and the slow smile in his dark eyes came right up through the flimsy paper like something palpable. Business would bring him back to London in December, and he went on to suggest that we join him there and do some theatres over Christmas weekend. So for several days Billie and I ate with him in grand restaurants, and looked at crown jewels and zoo tigers and the pantomime, just like a family.

I hardly dared to breathe for happiness and hope. He was clearly attracted to her. Unfortunately, he was not at all the kind of man Billie generally fancied: she preferred them to have mustaches and fast cars. It seemed so unfair that I had the agility and common sense to want him now for Billie rather than for myself, and yet had such poor chances of success because his sideburns were short. The day he was scheduled to fly back to Toronto, fog delayed him a whole extra day with us and I rejoiced; but Billie had caught a heavy cold. Instead of being sparkling and silly she looked small and miserable, the end of her nose bright pink and her eyes puffy. I was sure then there was no more point whatever in thinking about a future with Max in it.

But on our first morning back at the Sea View, an overseas call came for her while we moped over a sausage-and-egg breakfast. She came back to the table looking flushed and astonished.

“I may just die of complete surprise,” she said.

“Why, what’s the matter?”

“That was Max Ehrlich. It’s three in the morning in Canada. And
what an awful connection; it was like trying to talk at a dogfight.”

“But what did he want?”

“Well, he said, ‘Billie dear, why don’t you and Anne come over to Canada this spring and look the place over.’ His exact words. I think.”

“Oh, Bill. That means he wants to marry you.”

“He’s much too clever a man to say that yet, sweetie. But, yes, that’s exactly what he means.”

“You don’t think it was just crossed wires or wishful thinking, do you? It would be awful to go all the way over there and then find out he only wanted to show us Niagara Falls.”

Billie gave a snuffling little laugh. “What a funny, middle-aged sort of kid you are, ducky. But what do you think of the idea? You like him, don’t you?”

“Would you marry him, then?” I asked, hardly daring to believe it. “I mean, if he asks, would you accept?”

“Of course I would. That is a very special man, and I know it. He’s about a hundred times brainier and nicer than I am, but if he doesn’t mind that, why should I? No, I think it would work out very well, mostly because of the way Max is. Good without being dull. So rare, that, when you think about it. As for his being Jewish, I like that too. It’s part of him, maybe the nicest part. He knows how to laugh, anyhow, better than any Christian I know.”

I listened in some surprise to these tributes. Billie stopped talking for a minute as if she were a little surprised herself. Then she added briskly, “So you approve, then? I thought you would. And of course it’s lovely for both of us that he’s quite rich into the bargain.”

“Yes.”

“Then there’s Toronto. I like the sound of it. Right on that huge lake, and everything so new and busy.”

“Yes. And if I get my A levels, I could go to the university there, couldn’t I?”

“Of course, if you’re really bent on it.”

Billie poured us more tea. There was a sudden rather awkward little silence between us. I glanced at her to find that all the gaiety had faded abruptly out of her face, leaving it with a rather pinched look that had nothing to do with her cold.

“What’s the matter, Bill?”

“Oh, nothing really. Only I’m forty, you know, sweetie, and he’s over fifty. We’re both pretty wise birds, in our different ways … you get to a point in life when you know more than you want to know … I mean when there are absolutely no starry-eyed delusions about anything. Marriages, for instance. They are
deals.
Max and I both know that. A sort of trade-off on both sides. Nothing soppy and romantic about it at all. I get security and companionship. He gets … well.” She pushed away her tea without finishing it.

“Of course, you realize he’s marrying both of us,” she went on. “He thinks the world of you – admiration, respect – the lot. Me he will keep as a pet.”

“Billie!” I said, shocked by what I recognized as the naked truth. It alarmed me considerably, because I thought no one having such thoughts could possibly marry in spite of them. In this, as in so many other things, I was, of course, wrong.

The timer buzzed, jerking me back to the present, where my own bed was made – i.e., my cake baked, my silver polished, and my bloody mother-in-law due for tea. How queer that Ross’s stable past and my rootless one had twisted together like this to produce today, with all its possessions, its ironies, its insoluble problems. With a great sigh I stooped and lifted the cake from the oven as Martha called to me from upstairs. Christ, it was nearly four o’clock and I still had the kids to dress and the house to tidy.…

P
romptly on schedule, Mother emerged from her taxi and minced daintily up the path, crocodile handbag in one hand, bulging plastic carrier in the other. A face flashed at Junie’s bay window. Intermittent gusts of dry snow spat at Mother’s mink. “Why does she walk as if her sodding
legs
were nailed together?” I wondered as I went to the door.

We exchanged the light ritual kiss she had taught me to receive and give. The kids watched with large, surprised eyes while the fur coat was taken off and hung up. Most of our callers wore duffle coats, so I think as she first approached they’d seen Mother as some kind of fur-bearing animal, a bison for instance, which God knows wasn’t far from the truth. For various reasons (flu, Florida), she hadn’t paid us her usual monthly visit since Ross left, and they had forgotten her.

“Well, and here are the dear little … 
children
!” she said, exposing for their benefit the full expanse of her newly mended bridge. They both backed off, looking hunted.

“Haven’t you got a kiss for your old Granny, then?” she asked.

“No,” returned Martha bleakly.

“At least say hello, can’t you?” I urged, mortified.

Just the same, as they stood shoulder to shoulder looking up at us, I was proud of them. Hugh was balanced firmly on widespread legs. His Ogilvy tartan shorts and white shirt hadn’t been on long enough to be more than slightly crumpled. And although his nose was running, he took his favourite three fingers out of his mouth long enough to give Edwina a wide, wet smile.

Martha’s black hair was brushed smooth and pinned back with a silver clasp, and she was smugly conscious of her pink smocked dress (kindly ironed the week before by Ross). She had actually stood still willingly while I forced little silk loops over twelve small buttons down her back. I just hoped she wouldn’t
repeat to Mother any of the words I’d mentioned at the time.

“Do come in and sit down, Mother, and I’ll get us some tea.”

“Is there presents in that bag?” demanded Martha.

“There might be, for a good girl,” declared Mother coyly. “Come and let’s see. My, how they’ve grown, Anne. Hugh has changed so I’d hardly know him. He’s the perfect image of my father. How has he … 
been
lately?” she added rather less cordially when he toddled over to lay a wet hand on her knee.

“Well, this winter he’s had one long cold, or about sixteen short ones. Still, that bad go of croup he had in December was the last – he hasn’t been to hospital since, thank God.”

“What does Dr. Marshall say about all these colds?”

“Mother, we left Dr. Marshall years ago. The kids’ doctor now is Jeff Reilly, an old pal of Ross’s. He’s young but awfully good.”

“And why do I say ‘but,’ ” I thought crossly. Why did I ever endure the austere régime of her old buddy, Dr. Marshall, who had no lips and no compassion – likewise no interest in Martha’s five-month colic.

“Hm,” said Edwina, exercising restraint.

Hugh listened to this exchange pensively. In his sixteen months of life, he’d learned more than some people ever know about the frailties of the flesh. In that short span, recurrent ear infections and bouts of croup had fetched us running into Sick Kids’ Emergency several times, and he’d been in for six days in the fall, having a hernia repaired. Neither he nor I would ever forget the suffering of that separation, the twice-daily agony of the visits when we met and parted and tried to control our tears. Poor old Hugh had a naturally cautious and pessimistic nature, and his experience of life so far tended to confirm his worst misgivings. That was why I so loved his patience and gentleness. Now he looked with speculation at the carrier bag; but he would
never, as Martha did, lay bold hands on it and shout, “Open up!”

“Now just a minute, dear,” murmured Edwina, meaning “What foul manners your child has.” I escaped to the kitchen to boil water and cut lemons, but out there I could hear amicable sounds of mutual approval as she doled out the gifts. Martha actually said a gruff “Thank you!” and ran out to show me a Lego set. On Mother’s large, bland face when I returned was a faint, gratified smile, although she said, “I really meant it for Hugh; but the tea-set seems to be what he likes.”

“Yes, I think Martha’s going to be an engineer, she’s such a Lego nut. As for Hugh, he may well wind up as a nurse.”

Mother chose to regard these remarks as jokes, and attempted to smile. A balloon over her head said in large letters, “They’re queer youngsters. But what can you expect?”

“Let me see,” she said. “Martha will be three next month, won’t she? I must say she has a very large … 
vocabulary,
for such a little girl.”

“Well, it’s my guess that she’s got a higher
IQ
than either Ross or me. They say you should never do this, it makes problems later on at school – but she is
forcing
me to teach her to read. Already she does quite well with things like Dr. Seuss.”

“Go, dog, go,” said Martha complacently.

“Now, Mother, come and sit at the table, there’s less chance of spills that way with the kids. Come on, you two.”

The table with its bright silver and best china looked orderly and gracious. The children’s faces shone over their clean white bibs. Gently I removed Martha’s hand from the cake knife and gave her a marmite sandwich. The tea ritual unfolded with propriety to the tinkle of spoons and inane remarks about distant relatives and the weather. By Mother’s standards, it was all going extremely well. But just as I thought this, the napkin slid off my
lap and, as I bent to retrieve it, I spotted on the carpet, close to Mother’s foot, a large human turd. Martha, of course. It even had a cheeky little curl on the top of it.

Swiftly I dropped a Kleenex and with a scoop and a twist recovered this deposit before beating a swift retreat to the kitchen to dispose of it. Once safely out there, I leaned against the counter to let a wild, silent fit of giggles come and go.

“And now do tell me all about Ross. How is my boy these days? It seems so long since I saw him last. He’s still working up to all hours, I suppose.”

“Well, we knew setting up his own practice would mean a rough year or two, even with partners as good as Tim and Randy. Luckily, though, the business is rolling in. No trouble about that side of it.” (And just how lucky, Mother dear, I hope you never know.)

“So he’s still getting home late every night, I suppose, and working every weekend? Well, it’s a mercy you live downtown – at least he’s not commuting at all hours. But when does he ever see the children? I must say, it’s rather … 
hard
on you, specially with this new one coming. Well, he’ll simply have to take a little time off then. Pity there’s no such thing as
paternity
leave.” And she gave her little tittering laugh.