Turn Us Again (31 page)

There didn't seem any point in involving Ruth in an unpleasant marital argument. Besides, it was impossible to smash that image.

Sam does love me. He possesses overwhelming emotions, both love and anger, and in his anger he lashes out. I thought I wanted to tell Ruth, but I really don't know her well enough. In any case, every marriage seems to have its demons. I like people thinking we are a good couple. The other is too shameful.

Sam did not retreat to his study after lectures that day. He came and sat down at the table as docile as a lamb, pulling Gabriel onto his knee and singing to him. Gabriel crowed in delight and warbled along with his father.

Madelyn put a steaming plate of shepherd's pie in front of him and removed Gabriel to his own seat in silence.

“Wot dis?” Gabriel said with deep suspicion.

“Hamburger and potato and peas. Everything you like.” She hoped Gabriel would relapse into silence. How many times had Madelyn sat at a silent repast and longed to chat, but didn't dare? Now she wanted silence, sensing that Sam felt more uncomfortable than she did.

Gabriel lifted a pea to his mouth with misgiving, testing it with his tongue before popping it in.

“Ooh, it's delishus!” he cried, and started to shovel it in as though he were starving.

Madelyn smiled and wondered why she spent her time worrying whether violence and shouts would influence Gabriel, instead of appreciating the fact that he had inherited his father's overt passion for food, life and enjoyment.

“It is very nice Mummy,” Sam said. “Did you put some different herbs in it?”

“No.”

“I wrote you a poem. Shall I recite it to you?”

“I think I'm going to see a lawyer about separation papers.” Madelyn didn't know what prompted her to say that. She hadn't thought about it, but his mood was compliant, and she felt that it was important to make him realize how awful his behaviour was. It must not happen again. If she was unable to discuss it with him (since any attempt to explain her point of view invoked violent verbal attacks) then she would frighten him into behaving well. Ruth was right. He did love her, and he would be forced by fear into behaving in a reasonable way.

“If you do I'll leave my job and you'll have no money to support yourself and Gabriel.”

She could almost see his mind working, weighing the pros and cons. He hated his job and the awful responsibility of his family, which prevented him from leaving. Her mind also dipped and swerved. She could not work as a midwife in this country. Maybe she could get a job as an RN and support herself and Gabriel. But a woman and child without a husband…

‘I will be silent and hide my intentions. We'll see what happens next,' she thought.

A few days later, one of the faculty threw a summer party. Despite the fact that Sam's wit was no longer considered so funny — especially by those who had been insulted by him — he still had a small entourage, attracted by his high energy and enjoyment of life.

He escorted Madelyn (with her yellow eye) around by the arm, stopping to chat to various people and knocking back both drink and snacks with delicate speed.

They joined a group of professors discussing the merits of one of the brighter students. This student also attended Sam's classes, and Madelyn could see Sam lean forward, desperate for the older professor to finish his ponderous opinion so he could vouch his own.

“I'm not in agreement with you,” he broke in as the professor stopped to inhale. “I've received several papers from Matthews, and, while his ideas are sound, and sometimes even original, his structure is appalling. It is almost impossible to follow the thread of his argument throughout the paper.”

“Now Golden,” intoned the professor in that indulgent, patronizing way with which they often attempted to crush Sam's little outbursts, “I think highly of Matthews. Very highly indeed. I have been teaching composition for forty years, you know.”

“Perhaps you should think about teaching decomposition,” Sam answered.

There was a short silence. Several of the other gentlemen smiled behind their drinks and one even tried to give Sam a wink. Madelyn pulled at his arm, still entwined through hers.

“I've finished my G and T, Sam.”

He wheeled about obediently and approached the drinks table, finishing off his own beer in one large swallow. He smiled down at her, “Wasn't that a rather clever thing to say, Mummy?”

She shook her head. “You must try not to antagonize the older professors all the time. They'll find a way to get rid of you.”

“It's not so easy to get rid of professors once you've hired them. Besides, Matthews writes pathetic papers. His work just happens to be a notch better than the unbelievable crap we get from most students — i.e., he can spell. I don't think that's a reason to make him a topic of conversation at a party!”

“I haven't the slightest doubt that you're right, but the point is you can't afford to offend these people.”

Sam threw his head back and guffawed, “‘Perhaps you should think about teaching decomposition' — priceless, priceless!”

Madelyn recalled Ruth's certainty that Sam both relied on and was guided by her. She dropped his arm. “Are you listening to me? I'm telling you that you will be even more miserable if you put everybody's back up. Stop being clever at other people's expense, no matter how tempting it is.”

“Yes of course, you're quite right,” Sam answered soberly, without the slightest intention of curbing himself in any way whatsoever.

Madelyn sighed with pleasure. How nice it was to have her husband so compliant.

A few weeks later she discovered a gold bead necklace under her pillow. She had seen this necklace several months earlier in a store and had exclaimed “Oh, it's so pretty!” She had no idea that Sam even heard what she said, still less that he had returned to the store to buy it. Tucked under the box was a sheet of paper, containing the poem she had not allowed him to read.

When I perceive through your clear eye

My ugliness, I want to die.

And tho' your heart doth me forgive,

Even then I cannot want to live.

My sins, I know you will forgive,

But still I cannot want to live.

But when in spirit I behold

My body lying dead and cold

Unwanted by my poor soul,

In haste I do my sins forgive,

And graciously consent to live
.

TWENTY-FIVE

I
look at my father and try to smile. “That's a lovely poem.”

He grunts. “It's supposed to be sunny tomorrow. Why don't we have a little walk, sit on a bench somewhere and continue reading the manuscript outside? Make a change from this smoky little room where we're always half drunk.”

“Mellowed perhaps, not drunk.” I smile again, striving to erase any hint of criticism from my voice. I am both horrified and fascinated by the story, and I don't want to alienate my father before we finish it together. “My faculties are working fine. In this highly aware state, I did notice you made two marks beside a couple of points in the manuscript. When Madelyn mentions the separation papers … here it is:
If she was unable to discuss it with him (since any attempt to explain her point of view invoked violent verbal attacks) then she would frighten him into behaving well.
You've put a red mark beside that line.”

My father sighs in a depressed kind of way. “I disagree with so much of how everything is presented here that I hardly know where to make my red marks. I suppose this isn't a big point, because it is true we didn't talk very much. Probably our inability to talk about things was the root of our problems. But placing the whole blame for that on me isn't reasonable. We were both inhibited about discussing emotions, feelings. We never talked about the violence, or sex for that matter. We were an inhibited generation, compared to today. But you've seen that in the aftermath of an ‘episode' I was amenable to discussing anything she wanted. She never attempted to discuss our problems when I was in this frame of mind. She always chose inappropriate moments, like when I was angry and unable to listen. She got the reaction she deserved.”

I bite on my inside cheek for a moment, until the rage calms down. Until I can say in a normal tone: “Oh come on, Dad. Nobody deserves verbal abuse, or worse.”

“I'm not shirking my responsibility for the problems in our marriage. I am pointing out her inability to accept her part in the responsibility. There were long periods in our life when we were very happy together. It is true that I was unhappy at work, and that only got worse. However, later we'd often travel to England for the long summers, and we were so happy there among our old friends. Once every few years I'd have a sabbatical, and the whole year would be relaxed and pleasant. At any of those times she could have discussed our problems without fear of unpleasant reprisals. Why didn't she? It was almost as if her mind was incapable of remembering anything unless it was happening at the time.”

“And your mind?”

“I was ashamed of my behaviour, and I did not want to discuss it. An alcoholic does not broach the subject of his alcoholism, if everybody else is studiously ignoring it.”

I finger the rest of the manuscript. It is too thin to contain years of trips to England, sabbaticals… “Aren't we nearing the end?”

“Yes, it's not complete. It ends abruptly, perhaps because she died suddenly from a heart attack. I have speculated endlessly about when she might have written it. Towards the end of her life? But then why is nothing written about the last fifteen years, when you were growing up?”

I am disappointed. I suppose I expected a year-by-year account of our lives together, going on for thousands of pages. “Am I to be deprived of a happy ending?”

“You can be sure your mother would have constructed a happy ending, if she had finished the manuscript. She was that sort of woman.”

“I assume that means the real ending wasn't happy?”

My father gives me a puzzled look. “You were there, weren't you? There were many good times, many fights. Episodes like … that … were very rare. We were both devastated when she died. She was the heart of the family, holding us all together. I don't think I've ever been truly happy since.”

My mother's death is like a vague memory in my mind. I remember feeling rootless and how it frightened me. You just assume that home will always be home, but the definition of home is where Mum is to a kid of eighteen. The rug had been pulled out from under my feet. My security blanket. I'd just finished school and the death seemed to destroy my ability to think about my own future. Then one of my friends told me he was going to Florida and he planned to fake a green card number and find work and would I like to come too. It was a lifeline. Dad didn't say much when I told him. I didn't think about his feelings at all.

I've been wracking my brains to remember the bad times, to understand the source of tension in our house, but maybe I should try to remember the good times. Tamp down the growing rage in my breast so it doesn't detonate in front of him. Focus a little more on the positive while I sit here with this dying man. I can always indulge in rage later, alone in my room.

So. I remember trips to England, the long walks that both my parents loved over stiles and through cow fields, culminating inevitably at a rural pub for lunch. Both so happy, except during the dreaded visits to Grandma Golden. Everything's comparative, and I guess the tension in our house paled in comparison to Grandma Golden's house, where we all three sat perched at the edge of our seats like frightened rabbits. Good to know that unpleasantly dominating personalities weren't restricted to the male sex, even in that generation.

Of course I remember the fights and retreating to my room to shut them out, but not during our trips to England or the camping weekends over the summer. I guess we were lucky my father was a professor, so we could count on those long holidays of peace.

He used to bring me sweets when I was sick — oh — that jogs my memory! He was incredibly solicitous of my mother during her illnesses. He tended her as though she was a baby, concocting chicken soups and reading to her. She loved being sick. This memory comforted me. Surely such care is a sign of real love and would have shown my mother that her marriage wasn't a total write-off, after all?

“Shall we get on, or should we call it a night?”

“There's just one more red mark I wanted to ask you about.” I flipped back through the pages. “You mark the place when she's feeding Gabriel shepherd's pie, just after the sentence:
Madelyn smiled, and wondered why she spent her time worrying that violence and shouts would influence Gabriel, instead of appreciating the fact that he had inherited his father's overt passion for food, life and enjoyment.
What fault do you find with that? She's being positive.”

“The fault is the dearth of that type of comment. She mentions my success at parties, but seems to suggest that I become a morose animal as soon as I enter my own home, locking myself in my lair to lick my wounds. That's unjust. You know how much joy I extract from life — the pleasure I get from a good meal or even a pleasant interaction at the shops. It takes very little to make me happy and very little to depress me. I extract more joy and sorrow from life than most human beings and give as much pleasure to those around me as unhappiness. Yet she concentrates on the negative, revelling in it in order to present a martyred life, which is how she wanted to see herself. The whole point of reading this manuscript together is to make you understand that this is a one-sided perspective. You know me, you know what I say is true. Remember how I used to recount humorous anecdotes about my students over dinner, and we'd howl with laughter?”

“I remember how you'd fastidiously load your fork with a tiny morsel from everything on your plate — a sliver of meat, a tiny dollop of potato, three or four peas and a scrape of gravy wiped over the top with your knife. You would pause for a minute after placing it in your mouth and concentrate. It was a joy to watch you eat.”

“And I would make little jokes. You used to love my jokes. You'd wait on tenterhooks for me to come to the punch line and then roar, even if you'd heard it before.”

“When you were in a good mood…”

“Not infrequently…”

“That's true, Dad.” I get to my feet and place my hand briefly on his shoulder before I head up to bed.

I can't sleep. My mind is jumbled with confusion. At the beginning, I read my mother's manuscript as though it were a story told by somebody else. But at some point, I began to feel anger with my father. Then we'd talk, and even while I rolled my eyes and tapped my foot at his justifications, still, they did sway my point of view. Almost despite myself, I understood where he was coming from, my initial anger tempered with a confused pity. Am I so wishy washy that I lack any of my own perspective? Instead it depends on who I'm talking to? Or am I doing the right thing, emptying my mind of all criticism and judgment, allowing the events in the manuscript and my father's clarifications to paint the whole picture? I think so.

But now my anger is growing. That scene in the kitchen was utterly repugnant. I felt increasingly nauseous as I read it, imagining my mother's pain. But I think that I successfully curbed my disgust while I talked with him afterwards. There is no point in a blow-up right now. He is sick, he is dying, he is guilty as hell. There is no point feeling irritation when he talks about her negatively. Jenny says that behind every atrocious behavior there is always a primary emotion like fear or sadness, or our interminable need for love. There is no point saying “you're a shit” and leaving him to die. He needs me to listen to him. Gabriel Golden, a.k.a. catholic priest.

I hope I can get through the whole manuscript without a blow-up. Because I'm not really a fucking priest and I feel fucking angry myself — primary emotion being desperate sadness about my poor mother.

Still, I can control myself. I'm not like him. I can wait, reserving judgment till I have all the facts. I must be an open book, receiving information from all sources. Two people in a marriage. Each one with their own perspective, their own truth. They have the right to tell their son.

The next day dawns bright and clear, and I busy myself making a picnic lunch for our day in the park. The neatness of my father's cupboards and fridge amuses me. Leftover food in Tupperware containers on the first shelf, neat lines of pickles, mustards, sauces and other condiments on the second shelf. Veggies and fruit nestle in their respective drawers, while several types of cheese — brie, stilton and mozzarella — are stacked neatly in a compartment called ‘dairy.' I choose hot peppers, olives and tomatoes to create different palatal sensations with the cheeses. I fry up some bacon and make mayonnaise-laden BLTs. Boiled eggs, Bakewell tarts from the store, cheese and onion chips, grapes and apples and a large thermos of tea fill the picnic basket. I set it all beside the door.

My desire to finish the manuscript is overwhelming. I am glad that my mother did not have the chance to construct an ending. I believe everything is the truth as she saw it, and it would be hard to diverge from this mindset in order to accommodate a flight into fiction.

My father's heavy tread plods down the hallway, and I escape into the back garden to allow him the peace and quiet he needs. After he has finished breakfast we set off down the road arm in arm. I feel uncomfortable at the close proximity and realize I had never touched my father much. It is not affection, even now, but a need. I am his walking stick.

“Your Mum and I always used to walk arm in arm,” he says.

A clear picture flashes into my mind of the small, elegant back treading beside the tall, strong one, her head barely reaching his shoulder, arms intertwined. When I was a teenager I went through a silly phase when I couldn't bear to walk with my parents. I trailed behind, eyeing their backs with embarrassment.

“Yes, I remember.”

There is a little park within walking distance. Just. At first I imagined taking the tube to a big park, like St. James's. But I realize this is impossible as I support the brunt of my father's weight, the extent of his weakness betrayed. This little park is still nice. English parks and gardens are always havens of peace and beauty. There are trees and an abundance of plants and flowers, with benches placed in strategic positions. I want sun, he wants shade, so we choose a bench with half and half, placing the basket on the border line between us, the thermos in the sun and the eggs in the shade. We decide to read a bit before we eat. Every action seems to reawaken another submerged memory.

“Do you remember Mum always insisted that we swim before eating at the beach?”

“And we would argue, insisting that we were starving and had to eat immediately.”

“That same squabble, every single time. She always won, by racing into the sea herself and staying there for ages.”

“We didn't want to unpack without her. It was so exciting watching as she produced treat after treat from the innards of the basket.”

In memory of Mum we try to read a bit, but I am so desperate for a BLT that I can't concentrate on anything else. In the end we give up and consume the contents of the basket. After all, the basket holds no surprises for me, so without Mum the wait lacks its advantage — that of anticipation.

Afterwards we sit back, replete. I hold a cigarette in one hand, and with my cup of tea balanced on the edge of the bench, begin to read.