Turn Us Again (22 page)

Sam savagely twisted onto his belly, and Madelyn slipped off the side of the bed, a safe distance away from him. A strangled scream emerged from the pillow.

“I'll not have you bossing me about and making my life a misery! Fucking women!” Sam punched the pillow, and Madelyn flounced out of the room and downstairs. The whole family was gathered around the dining table, shoveling food in their mouths like there was no tomorrow. Hilda looked up nervously, “We didn't know whether to wait…”

Some of Madelyn's embarrassment dissipated. Who cared if these people had overheard their argument? Maybe it would motivate them to finish the cottage. She helped herself to roast beef and vegetables and began to eat, amazed at her indifference.

Towards the end of the meal Sam appeared, nodding around the table and ignoring his wife. Farmer Brown passed him dishes zealously, and poured him a generous mug of beer. “I was over looking at your cottage today,” he said, “and I think she's just about ready for you.”

“Excellent,” Sam replied, shooting a smug ‘how-efficiently-I-do-everything' look at his wife.

She did not return the look. Sam seemed to interpret everything in terms of criticism, while deflecting the criticism (through sarcasm and unpleasantness) was interpreted as ‘getting the upper hand.' It was such a flawed way of looking at everything.

Almost a week passed before they moved into the cottage. Sam avoided talking about it, and Madelyn had no idea what the situation was. She broached the subject once with Hilda, who assured her frostily that Farmer Brown had the matter in hand. Hilda's frostiness stemmed from the fact that Madelyn refused to descend for breakfast and had in fact taken Sam's advice and blockaded the door with their suitcases. Hilda had made one attempt to get in, squawking on the other side of the door like an infuriated hen. To Madelyn, lying in bed dropping crumbs in abundance, it sounded like Hilda was throwing her prodigious weight against the door. However, Madelyn had stacked suitcases loaded with Sam's books solidly against the door (despite warning stabs of pain in her abdomen) and she was sure it was impregnable. So she lay back and stifled her giggles with her hand, occasionally calling in a weary voice,

“I'll come down soon, Hilda. I'm afraid I can't get up to let you in. I'm not feeling very well just now. I'll talk to you later.”

Since that episode, Hilda had maintained an irate silence, a blessed silence as far as Madelyn was concerned.

But she was still forced to wander outside for a large chunk of the endless, wet days, in order to escape from the inimical atmosphere of the house. The days became longer and longer until she felt that she couldn't get through them. She abandoned herself to gloominess, waking up each morning with a heavy feeling of dread which she did not try to dispel. Sam was not greeted with sharp words and arguments, but often by a pale, wilted face covered in tears. He tried to jolly her out of it, and when that did not work he ignored her.

‘He is already indifferent to my anguish, after a few weeks of marriage,' thought Madelyn in despair, ‘how does this bode for the rest of our lives?'

Then she heard him shouting at Farmer Brown one day in the yard.

“The situation here is untenable. The quarters are cramped and uncomfortable, and my wife is unhappy.”

“Oh, it's nearly ready now.”

“That's not good enough!” Sam bellowed in sudden rage. Madelyn leaned closer to the window and smiled with satisfaction. “You said it would be ready more than a week ago. I suggest you spend all day today on it, because we're moving in tomorrow. If it's not ready, I'll take days off — with full pay, mind — and work on it till it is.”

Madelyn hoped it wouldn't come to that, because Sam was notoriously unpractical with a hammer and nails.

However, the next day Sam came home early with his face wreathed in smiles.

“Come on then, let's drag this stuff to our new home.”

Farmer Brown loaded everything onto his ancient truck and drove them over. It wasn't very far. In fact Madelyn had passed this little row of cottages several times during her wanderings. She tried to be positive and prolong the joyous feeling produced by leaving Hilda's domain.

“Oh look at the ivy on the walls and the little thatched roof,” she enthused, hoping it was bigger inside than it looked on the outside.

It wasn't.

The tiny little door (Sam had to duck his head in order to enter) opened onto a small sitting room with a battered horsehair sofa and two chairs placed prominently in front of a little fireplace. A primitive kitchen jutted out from one side, containing a plain deal table, two chairs, and a gas burner. Upstairs opened onto a largish landing with a door on the opposite side leading to the one room. There was a large bed and a sink in the room containing a bowl. That was it.

“The toilet?” she ventured timidly.

“Ah, this way.” Farmer Brown steered them out the back door where a little walled garden boasted some extra-strength roses. Madelyn couldn't see an outhouse, but Farmer Brown had only stopped momentarily in case any compliments were forthcoming about the privacy or anything like that. Silence greeted him. Madelyn was worried about the toilet, and Sam was unaware of Farmer Brown's expectations and would not have let them influence his behaviour in any case.

With a sigh, Farmer Brown pointed to a little door in the wall at the end of the garden. Madelyn thankfully marched towards it and thrust it open to reveal an identical little garden that had been well-tended. There were neat flower beds cut along each side of the wall and toys lying about. However, there was still no sign of any outhouse. She looked enquiringly at Farmer Brown, who pushed past her to take his rightful place at the head of the procession again. He sauntered across the neighbour's garden and opened another door into a third garden, tramping without pause diagonally across to yet another door. Madelyn, who couldn't believe this was happening, cast her eyes beseechingly around this third garden in the hopes that an outhouse would materialize. There were a few cats pacing in their direction, and a small shed, but it was not the longed-for edifice because Farmer Brown had already disappeared through the next door. Madelyn looked at Sam and saw he was laughing. “Lucky we're both regular,” he whispered to her.

“I beg your pardon?”

“One poop a day after breakfast!” he broke into stifled snorts, and she couldn't help but smile. The situation was so absurd.

The next garden hit the jackpot — a clean row of outhouses sporting tin roofs, with the numbers of the cottages painted on the doors. Farmer Brown pushed their door open.

“I made it all nice for you — cleaned it and washed the walls. Doesn't smell or anything. This is your private bathroom.”

“Luxury,” Sam murmured.

I am amazed at myself. Here I'm living in this grotty little hovel, and I feel happy. When Sam accused me of wanting to nab a rich lawyer, he wasn't 100% wrong. Of course I imagined a life of soft beds and housekeepers; who would choose to be a drudge if they had the choice? Nevertheless, here I am in a basic hut, traipsing down three gardens to relieve myself, and content to do so! I hardly understand myself, I am such a funny little thing. It contains everything we need; our books are stacked on the landing, our washing apparatus hangs in a little bag by the sink. ‘Essential' clothes hang on hooks in the bedroom, though some things have been stored in boxes. There is nobody to dress up for, after all. How nice that is. There is a dear little pub within easy walking distance, with a fireplace and a powerful draft cider brew. Everyone is friendly and we already know all the regulars. One nice couple asked if they could sit with us the other night. The poor man tried to engage Sam in a conversation about sports! Sam knows nothing about it, and cannot understand how anybody could be interested in kicking a ball around. But when they started comparing ciders and brews from different areas Sam became animated, so they found a common ground in the end. I had no problem talking to the woman, who has an eight-year old. Minute comparisons of every detail of pregnancy will engage us for months to come, not to mention the story of the birth, which she will recount as many times as I want to hear it.

I potter about during the day, taking walks when the weather permits, resting in the afternoons and leisurely preparing Sam's meal before he comes home. What could be nicer? Though it is hard to construct an adequate dinner out of the meagre coins that Sam pours into my hand at the end of every week. We live on scrag end of mutton and other cheap food. I had one funny episode. I asked the butcher if he could recommend some other animal part, and he told me that chitterlings were tasty fried with a bit of onion. I had no idea what they were, but he was already wrapping them up and I wasn't sure I wanted to know in any case! So I brought them home and put them in the pan with some onions. Dinnertime comes and I serve them up; it seemed all right when I put it in my mouth but after a few bites I had this awful taste and could hardly restrain from gagging. I got up without saying anything to Sam, and scraped my plate into the garbage. Then I sat back down and watched Sam eating with his usual gusto. He rarely complains about food, which is just as well, since our standard of living is the result of his whims.

The next day I did ask the butcher what animal part chitterlings might be and was told they were intestines, and should be washed very carefully before consumption
.

I must be careful what I eat because I am feeding two. Surely it is the most incredible thing in the world to feel another human being moving inside one, a human being that one has created. I smile and smile like a lunatic whenever my baby moves. I try not to think of that other child that once nestled under my heart. This one will vanquish any residue of guilt. This one will be welcomed, cherished and loved.

It was a time of relaxation, concentrating on the growing life within. Sometimes Madelyn captured Sam's hand in the evenings and placed it on her belly to feel the baby kick. He would sit patiently for hours, brow furrowed. His hand would jerk if he felt the baby move and he would look at her in amazement.

She wrote to her parents often, and read bits of their correspondence out to Sam, as he lay with his hand on her stomach.

“Oh look, poor father had chicken pox! I do hope Mother is pampering him, he seems to feel twice as miserable as other people when he's sick.”

She glanced down at Sam's face. He appeared to be asleep.

She took paper and pen and began a sympathetic letter to Eddie. Half an hour later, Sam snorted and opened his eyes.

“Include this little tribute to Ed's small pox in your letter.”

How cruel fortune mocks

Us mortals for our sins

Now scarred with chicken pox

Lies the face that sunk a 1000 gins
.

Madelyn laughed in good, wifely fashion, but neglected to include it.

She also wrote a good deal in her diary, describing every symptom and feeling that accompanied her state. She knew this might not interest large literary circles, but it gave her great satisfaction.

EIGHTEEN

S
ix months after their wedding, Madelyn went into labour at ten o'clock in the evening. She greeted the initial back pain with quiet joy, lying on her side and savouring the experience. After a while she prodded Sam gently in the ribs, wanting him to share in the delight of this anticipatory period.

“What the hell are you doing? I have to work tomorrow,” he snapped. Sam was always horrible when she woke him up. Every nightly pee for the last few months had been an exercise in torture, trying to maneuver her increasing bulk off the creaky bed without waking him.

This time she did not freeze at the sound of his voice. She just smiled to herself and poked him again.

“It's happening. Here, put your hand on my belly. You can feel how it tightens with each contraction.”

Sam tore his hand away and sat bolt upright in bed. “What? You're in labour? Oh my God, my God!”

He leapt out of bed and flopped around the floor looking for his socks, hopping around on one foot trying to put them on in the darkness.

Madelyn lay there, smiling to herself. “Come back to bed, Sam. There's lots of time yet. Let's just lie here together for a while.”

“Lie there? What if it happens quickly?” The thought galvanized him with fear, and he rushed out into the night with one shoe on. Ten minutes later he was back, a whirlwind of cold air and anxiety in the peaceful room. “Are you all right? I phoned a taxi from the pay phone. They'll be here in twenty minutes. I'll get your bag ready.” He stood there with the open bag in one hand and an expectant look on his face, waiting for her to instruct him.

A spasm went through her body, and she closed her eyes and groaned.

A heavy hand dropped on her forehead. “You're in terrible pain, this is awful. Shall I fetch the neighbour?”

“No darling, do calm down. I'm a trained obstetric nurse, remember? They are fairly mild contractions. Put a nightie and my toothbrush into the bag, my hairbrush and powder puff. No underclothes. They would only be ruined, and the nurses will provide me with something. What else … my book. It's over there on the floor. I think that's all.” She resisted the urge to add ‘there's a good boy.'

As soon as the taxi tooted outside, Sam was by her side, half-lifting and half-dragging her towards the stairs. She was literally pushed out the door and into the taxi.

“Good luck!” he called through the window, “I'll phone the hospital in the morning to see if you've had the baby and I can visit.” And he gave her a kiss and disappeared inside the cottage.

“In a bit of a state, your husband. No chance of it popping out on the way, is there?” queried the taxi driver.

“No, it's not coming for ages yet. Sam has to work tomorrow. The rush and bustle was more about him getting a good night's sleep.”

“Oh, ah,” replied the taxi driver noncommittally.

The hospital was tiny, and the midwife incompetent. Madelyn kept looking at the clock on the wall of the room, concentrating on the moving hand for the duration of her contractions. When they got bad, she groaned and pressed the pillow to her abdomen, sucking furiously at the ice cubes that the midwife kept popping in her mouth.

Then she was up on her knees and pushing, swept by waves of exhilaration so strong she could have sung out loud for joy. The pain no longer mattered.

“I think we'll have to give you an episiotomy,” said the nurse. “It looks like a big head.”

‘Like hell you will,' thought Madelyn and pushed as hard as she could while the midwife went to get the doctor.

A little tear, and the head was out. It was enormous, inherited from Sam. The tiny mouth opened and squalled.

Madelyn glanced at the clock. Gabriel was born at 7 a.m. She felt an overwhelming sense of achievement.

Some time later they placed the little creature in her arms, bathed and swaddled, for his first feed. A small, pale baby, with an over-sized head.

‘Is it normal to find it rather ugly?' she thought, holding the baby up to her breast.

“That's it,” the midwife smiled approval. “He needs to get a good feed, because it's four hours till the next one. It's important to get them on a four-hour routine as soon as possible.”

Madelyn dozed during the morning while Gabriel was in the nursery. At some point Sam came with a huge bouquet of flowers.

“He's beautiful,” Sam whispered.

“He has your huge head.”

“That's a sign he has my intelligence.”

The doctor dropped in while Sam was there. He was an attractive young man, and Madelyn surreptitiously pinched her cheeks to give them colour.

“How are we doing? Have we had a bowel movement?”

Madelyn kept her eyes lowered as she shook her head.

“And what's the situation on the home front? Running water? Toilet?”

“Of course. When is she coming home?” Sam replied.

Madelyn cut short her demure look. “Rather primitive on the home front, since you ask. Toilet three gardens away and no running water.”

“What difference does that make? The baby doesn't need to go to the toilet, does it?”

The doctor cut in smoothly. “Lots of cottages like that around here. Not a problem.” He smiled at them both, “We'd like to keep you in for about two weeks, Madelyn, just to make sure everything heals well.”

Sam, who had no idea how long people were usually kept in, thanked the doctor. Madelyn felt pleased at her little triumph.

Mary and Eddie arrived in time to escort Madelyn home. It was a happy day. Eddie's plan was to stay for lunch and then drive back, leaving Mary for a couple of weeks to help her daughter.

As the car approached the house, Madelyn peered out of the window with anxiety, trying to see her first home through her parent's eyes. It looked like a hut to her, and there were piles of garbage leaning beside the cottage door. Of course, it would be garbage day. Her parents were silent, but Madelyn thought she detected shock on her father's face.

Sam rushed out of the house, swathed from head to foot in an absurd apron and waving a spatula.

“Looks like Sam is making dinner,” Eddie commented.

“Looks like he wants us to be impressed, too,” Madelyn replied, still irritated by the awful exterior to their cottage.

Sam ushered them inside.

“Look, I've made a lovely dinner — roast lamb and potatoes.” He whisked the cover off a boiling cauldron that Madelyn had never seen before. “And how did I make roast lamb and potatoes without an oven, you may ask? An astute question.” Sam grabbed Madelyn's arm and hustled her parents before him with an expansive gesture. “Welcome to our humble abode. Let me show my revered mother-in-law to her bedroom.”

A new bed presided over the space at the top of the stairs, wedged between the roof rafters. It even had covers and a pillow. Madelyn appreciated the thought and work involved in getting an extra bed, but still she saw the cottage from her parent's point of view. How would her mother like being stuck out on the landing?

“And that's not all,” Sam boomed, confident that the silence was bursting with admiration, “Look in the back garden. A brand new cot and pram. Everything we need, eh Mummy?”

Mummy? Had her name been changed for a second time?

Sam was sweating with exuberance and joy at his accomplishments. Madelyn looked at the cot and tried to smile too. New to Gabriel, she thought, but used by a hundred other children. Horrible.

“Yes, everything we need.”

My mother is going home tomorrow. I don't know how I'm going to cope without her. Who will look after Gabriel during the day so I can sleep? Life has simplified to ‘The Search for Sleep.' Every time he closes his eyes I debate whether he's likely to sleep long enough to make it worthwhile for me to sleep too.

Mother says I will cope, that I am doing a fine job. We had an argument today, such a shame.

“I wish I could help you more,” she lamented. Translated, that meant “I thought Sam was a lawyer — what the hell is he playing at?”

“Sam doesn't want to spend his whole life making rich people richer.”

“Couldn't he spend a bit of his own life making himself richer?”

Poor, gentle Mother. I don't know why I got so angry with her. I suppose it's because even when I complain about our poverty, I know my desire for nice things is base. There is no doubt that most people spend their lives racing after money, and Sam's rejection of this is noble. He truly doesn't care about material things. He doesn't notice when his pants have holes in them. That is so rare in today's world.

And we have everything we need.

I was annoyed at first when he called me Mummy, but now I feel it is appropriate. My whole being is given over to this new role, my body and breasts, my exhausted mind. I am Mother Earth
—
I have been ever since I became pregnant. When Gabriel is older I will go back to my previous state, and reclaim Madelyn
.

Madelyn and Gabriel settled into a routine, which soon became set in stone once Mary had returned home. Madelyn pushed the baby for hours in his little pram every morning, rain or shine, exploring the country lanes and picking dandelions. In the afternoons while he slept she dozed and read books. She always had an ample dinner waiting for Sam when he got home utterly exhausted from work.

Sam spent an hour with Gabriel after dinner, playing and talking to him. He was gentle and patient, and it gave Madelyn enormous pleasure to see father and son together. She realized she had not known what sort of father Sam was going to be and felt relieved at the wonder and joy he derived from the baby. It could so easily have been otherwise. Many men didn't pay the slightest attention to their offspring for the first couple of years.

In the evenings they'd go to the pub and sit outside in the garden, propping Gabriel in his pram if he were sleeping, more often jiggling him on their laps while he stayed whiningly awake. Sometimes the nice neighbours would join them, and they'd companionably drink pint after pint of draft cider, taking turns with Gabriel.

The nights were the worst. Gabriel's cot had been moved out to the landing after Mary's departure, and he would wake up and cry, while Madelyn lay rigid with misery in her bed. She had instructed so many women to be strict about four-hourly nursings, without any conception of how terrible this regime was. Every scream yanked on her heart, she could almost feel her blood pressure rising. It went on for weeks, as though Gabriel just couldn't learn the lesson he was supposed to grasp within days — nighttime was for sleeping. Sometimes Sam would toss beside her, and she felt tension tightening like a bow string between her shoulder blades and along her neck. He never said a word, and she appreciated his restraint, but she was all too aware of his anxiety about getting enough sleep. So she lay in bed praying that Gabriel would shut up. It was agony, reminding her irresistibly of the aborted fetus, with its little hands grasping onto life desperately. Gabriel's hands seemed to be reaching for her all night, crying, ‘Where is my mother, and why has she abandoned me in my terror?'

Sometimes she would call out, “It's okay Gabriel, Mummy's here and loves you. But it's nighttime and you need to go to sleep now. I'll see you in the morning.”

Sam's mutterings and tossings increased during this little conversation, and it didn't seem to comfort Gabriel much either.

‘It's getting less,' she assured herself, ‘every night he cries a little less. He's learning.'

But she was no longer sure such a tiny morsel of humanity was capable of learning.

One day they were surprised at their dinner by a knock on the door. Sam got up to answer, and there stood his father, with hat in hand and a sheepish expression.

“Come in, Father! Come in! How wonderful for you to visit!”

Madelyn jumped up and came towards the tall man standing awkwardly beside the door. He reached out his hand, grasping hers.

“I'm Frank. Have I come at a bad time? You're in the middle of eating.”

“Not at all, you must join us.” Madelyn did a quick inventory of the available food. Damn, pork chops. I can't offer him those. Thank God I made a Bakewell tart this evening, as a special treat.

“I've already eaten.”

“Nonsense, Father, sit down.” Sam dragged one of the ‘good' chairs by the fire up to the table, and guided his father into it.

Madelyn began to relax. Frank didn't look very imposing.

“We were just about to have our dessert with some tea. I do hope you'll have some Bakewell tart?” she said, whisking away the pork chop remains and stashing the plates under the sink.

“I love Bakewell tart. It's my favourite.”

A wail from Gabriel announced that he was ready to join the activities. Sam picked him up and presented him to his father.

“He's lovely. What a large head, just like you and your mother.”

“Does she know you are here?”