The Women's Room

by Marilyn French

  She had married young and her parents had sighed with relief. She had been a wild one. Now she had three children; her husband worked in her father’s company, in a highly placed position protected from contact with anything or anybody important. Hamp was a loser, but they both knew that Daddy would never fire him, and the salary checks were so good these days that Nat was thinking of moving to a larger house.

  She liked her days. She liked putting her feet up on the table and sipping her coffee and planning what to do with her morning. There was wallpaper to be bought, and while she was there, she would look at Mr Johnstone’s patterns for a new paper for the bathroom, which was starting to look shabby. She would stop at Carver’s and see if the new pink glass lampshade had arrived. They needed rye; something for dinner. Then she would come home and start in on the study. She was papering one wall with a velvety red design that would warm up the paneling on the others.

  She slipped sandals on her feet, a jacket over her shirt, packed the baby up, and slid her into the car seat. She had perfect body ease, Natalie; no matter how she dressed, she looked as if she were somebody, as if she belonged. She raced from shop to shop, bantering just a little suggestively with all the shopkeepers, was home by ten thirty, and by two had finished the wall, cleaned up the paste, and stood leaning on the cutting table, admiring her work.

  She had unending patience and unerring taste: it was very nice. Luxuriously, she stretched, gave the baby some crackers and cheese and put her in for a nap, and poured herself a rye and soda. Then she went into her bathroom for a shower. She was the only one in the neighborhood with two bathrooms: she couldn’t understand what was wrong with the others. Who wants to take a shower in a bathroom stinky with diapers? It wasn’t expensive, less than a thousand.

  She dressed, cleaned up the kitchen, and checked her watch. It was almost three. The kids – blah! – would be home soon. She phoned Adele. But Adele couldn’t come – she could never come.

  ‘What’s the matter with you, anyway?’ Natalie taunted her, and grimaced as one of Adele’s many excuses followed: somebody had to go to the dentist, somebody to Cub Scouts, somebody was sick. ‘It’s really disgusting that you have so many kids,’ Nat concluded, not worried about the sensitivities of others. Money is a great armorer; and Natalie had always been wealthy. She did not have to worry about people’s feelings because she gave the best parties, and was generous to her friends, giving them something if they admired it.

  She dialed Mira, who as usual was reading. Clark was still napping and Normie was not yet back from the kindergarten. And it was raining out, they would have to be indoors. Natalie grimaced but she was desperate: ‘Sure, bring the kids. Come when Clark wakes up. Sure it’s okay.’

  So Mira came over at three thirty and Lena and Rena arrived home, had some peanut butter and jelly, and the four children, who did not play together because their ages were too different, sat in front of the TV in the newly papered study. Later, Evelyn stopped in with her two, who swelled the TV crowd. The women sat in the kitchen, drinking rye. The children were whiny; they kept coming in for cookies or ice cream, which were liberally offered, although Mira’s brow wrinkled. ‘No more, now, Normie, you won’t eat dinner.’

  ‘What a worrywart you are,’ Nat grinned. ‘Who cares if they eat dinner?’

  Everyone left by four thirty, and Nat felt let down. Lena came into the kitchen for another peanut butter and jelly sandwich and Nat snapped at her.

  ‘I’m going to do homework, and I need energy,’ the child replied coolly, ignoring her mother.

  Rena looked out and saw it had stopped raining. She rushed about, ferreted in the kitchen for her skate key, and ran out. Only Deena was left, sitting like a lump in the playpen. Natalie bent over her.

  ‘Did dose bad sisters go away and weave wittoo Deena all alone? Bad sisters. Momma take.’ She picked the child up and carried her to the kitchen and set her on the floor to crawl.

  Dinner, Nat thought with sinking heart. She hated this time of day, she hated to cook. For herself, she would have been content with a cheese sandwich. She had picked up some pork chops, though and rummaged through the cookbook, looking for an interesting way to serve them. She found a casserole made with lima beans and tomato sauce, and carefully, trying to follow directions precisely, prepared it. Rena came in again, disgusted with the returned rain, and turned on the TV set. Deena was cranky, and was clattering pots on the kitchen floor and whimpering at the same time. At quarter to six, Nat picked up her coat and set Deena in the playpen, cautioning Rena to watch her. She drove to the station to pick up Hamp, who as soon as he got home poured a double shot of rye into a glass, and took a can of beer out of the refrigerator. He settled himself in ‘his’ chair in the study, before the TV set.

  ‘How do you like the wall?’ Natalie asked enthusiastically.

  ‘Nice, hon, really nice.’ His voice was lifeless.

  Natalie put Deena in the high chair and heated some jars of baby food, and fed her. The casserole was bubbling in the oven, and she thought it smelled good. She poured another rye. The house was chaotic, as always in the evening. Lena and Rena were fighting about something, the baby was cranky, the TV set was blaring – and Hamp was sitting like a lump in his easy chair, drinking and reading the paper or watching some stupid cowboy program.

  ‘Can’t you shut those kids up, Nat?’ he called in.

  ‘Goddamn!’ Nat picked Deena out of the high chair and carried her upstairs. ‘You kids shut up, now, you hear me? You’re bothering your father!’

  Rena came crying into the baby’s room as Nat prepared her for bed. ‘Lena took my pad! She says it’s hers! But it’s my pad!’

  ‘Let her use it, she needs it for homework.’

  High wailing.

  ‘I’ll buy you another one tomorrow.’

  Resentment and contentment warred for a moment. Rena wanted the new pad, but she didn’t want to give in too easily, or to make it appear that she was not completely sensible of the wrong done her. Sniffling and murmuring about injustice, she went back into the room she shared with her older sister.

  ‘You’re mean, Lena, and I don’t like you. And Mommy’s going to buy me a whole new pad, nyaahhh!’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Rena. She’ll buy me one too.’

  ‘She will not! She’s just buying one for me.’

  ‘She will too!’

  ‘She will not!’

  Lena leaped up and came into the baby’s room. ‘Aren’t you going to buy me a pad too, Mom?’ Furious eyes, demanding mouth.

  ‘Will you shut up, Lena? The baby’s trying to get to sleep.’ Natalie turned out the light, and closed the door.

  Lena stood staring at her in the hallway. ‘You are going to buy me one, aren’t you?’

  ‘If you need one, I’ll buy you one.’

  ‘I do.’

  Rena was standing just inside the doorway to her bedroom, and as soon as she heard her mother’s ‘Okay,’ she bounded out.

  ‘That’s not fair! She takes my pad and she gets a new one! It isn’t fair!’

  Lena turned swiftly on her sister: ‘I need it to do homework, baby! I don’t just scribble on it like you!’

  Rena was crying again.

  ‘SHUT UP!’ a voice blasted from downstairs. The girls quieted. The baby began to scream.

  ‘Jesus H. Christ,’ Nat murmured, and went in to soothe the baby. The girls went into their room and sat glaring at each other.

  The casserole was terrible, dry and thick, and no one would eat it. They filled up on cookies and ice cream, and Hamp had a peanut butter sandwich. Natalie shouted the girls into baths and bed, cleaned up the kitchen, and around nine, joined Hamp in the study with a drink.

  A show was just going off, and Hamp looked up at her as she came in. She smiled.

  ‘How was your day?’

  ‘Okay.’ He answered her sleepily: since he’d been home, he’d had four double shots and beers.

  ‘Doesn’t the wall really look gre
at?’ She was delighted with herself.

  ‘Yeah, hon, I told you. Looks really good.’

  ‘Mira and Evelyn came over this afternoon.’

  He perked up a bit. ‘Oh, yeah?’

  ‘Evelyn came from the doctor’s. Tommy fell down and had to have three stitches in his lip. And Clark whimpered the whole time Mira was here. God, she spoils that kid.’

  He stared at the TV.

  ‘I stopped at Carver’s, but the shade wasn’t in yet.’

  ‘Umm.’

  She smiled at him coyly. ‘Mr Carver said every time he looks at me he wishes he were twenty years younger. Isn’t he cute?’

  ‘Adorable.’

  ‘Well, you’re as interesting as a book with blank pages.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what I am.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it. Daddy says he pays you to dictate form letters.’

  ‘Really!’ He turned to look at her. ‘And when did His Eminence say that?’

  ‘When we were out on the yacht. Last month.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he say it to me?’

  She shrugged.

  He turned back to stare at the TV, but he was not watching it. ‘Would you like me to quit? Is that the point?’

  ‘Oh, Hampy, I want you to do what you want. You know I think you’re really smart.’ Her voice was coddling and her smile coy. She moved toward his chair, and settled herself on the floor beside it, smiling up at him. ‘Remember you started that course in – oh, whatever it was? You’re an engineer, you could get another job.’

  ‘And you’d live on what I earn.’

  ‘Why should I if I’m still on Daddy’s payroll?’

  ‘So why should I leave if I’m still on Daddy’s payroll?’

  ‘Because you’re not happy there.’

  He got up and turned up the sound of the TV. Gunshots rang out sharply; a cowboy fell. Nat sighed loudly and got up and went into the kitchen for another drink. ‘Get me one too, will you?’ Hamp called, and she came back, handed him his shots and beers, went back for her own, and returned, settling herself in a chair across the room.

  ‘Bliss called,’ Natalie began again. ‘She’s having a party next weekend.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ Hamp’s head rose again.

  ‘Yeah. That’s the one sure way to get your interest, isn’t it? Who is it? I know it isn’t Evelyn, wonderful as she is. Mira, with her books, or is it Bliss, skinny little Bliss with her ass? Who’s the love interest these days? You might as well tell me. I sure know it isn’t me.’ Her voice was acid, etched with hurt.

  He looked at her slowly. ‘What do you mean, these days?’

  Hampden was a large, heavy man with a round boyish face. He had a pleasant, childlike grin that made him seem somehow unthreatening. His voice was boyish too. Natalie’s voice, especially when she was annoyed, was sharp and thin, and no matter what they were saying in an argument, it always sounded as if Nat was jabbing and piercing, and Hamp was parrying and retreating.

  ‘You won’t sleep with me but you seem to find everybody else irresistible.’

  ‘Natalie,’ he looked directly at her, ‘you’re the last person in the world to accuse anyone else.’

  She colored a little and looked away. Both of them had always maintained the pretense of ignorance about her affairs, and she was not sure how much he knew. But she had not had an affair for a year now, not since her father had stopped sending Hamp out of town on business trips. Hamp had proven a poor salesman and was ‘promoted’ and was now home every night.

  She pulled herself together. ‘Christ, you’re here every night, you see what I do. Nothing!’ Her fear turned into anger. ‘I sit and watch the stupid boob tube with you sitting there like a lump of lard slowly blotting your mind out! You don’t do anything!! You don’t help me with the kids, you don’t even take out the garbage. You don’t lift a finger and I wait on you hand and foot and then you say I’m screwing around!’

  ‘Well, there are always the days,’ he said sarcastically.

  ‘Sure, sure!’ She was near to tears of self-pity, self-justification, and rage. ‘I raced around shopping, papered a wall, took care of your bratty kids all day, put up with Mira and Evelyn, and had time for a toss in the hay with Norm!’

  He said nothing, watching three cowboys hide behind a rock, guns cocked.

  She watched him. ‘Or Paul!’ she added, prodding him. ‘Or Sean! Or – who do you think?’

  He turned to her wearily. ‘Oh, Natalie, what the hell difference does it make? You’re a whore. You’ve always been one, you always will be one, and it doesn’t matter with who.’

  Gunshots rang out and three cowboys lay dead. Natalie charged across the room and slapped Hamp hard across the side of the head. ‘Bastard, liar! And what the hell are you, I’d like to know! Mr Superior, you should’ve been a priest, you don’t give a damn about sex, so I’m not supposed to!’

  She stood there waiting, yelling. When he did not respond, she hit him again. Her body was aching. She wanted him to leap up, to grab her wrists and force her onto the couch, to take her by force. That was how it had been in the early years. She would attack him, he would fight back, he would rape her, and then she would lie back in his arms content, promising in a baby voice to be a good girl and do what Daddy Hamp wanted.

  He sat there, gazing impassively at her. There was a sickly grin on his large gray face.

  She cried out and threw herself at him, flailing arms trying, but not too hard, to hit him. He held her wrists; her heart began to pound; he sighed. She was sobbing. He stood up, holding her wrists, then shoved her down into the chair. Then he got his jacket and went out. She sat there sobbing, listening to the car pull out of the driveway.

  9

  ‘Oh, I’m not one for fancy cooking. Hamp doesn’t care a thing about food, he lives on peanut butter sandwiches. But I really like to clean. When we were first married, Hamp used to come home and run his finger over things – the windowsills, you know, and the moldings. He said it was called the white-glove test when he was in the navy. Heaven help me if he found any dust!’

  ‘Norm’s very conservative too. He looks at anything besides beef and chicken as if it were a rattlesnake. Pork he absolutely refuses to eat. I blame it on his mother.’

  ‘I never know what anybody’s eating in my house!’ Gaily said, belying the twitching forehead. ‘Everybody eats at different times. It’s impossible! Sometimes Paul doesn’t get in until nine or ten, sometimes he eats out. The baby doesn’t eat human food yet, and the others! So fussy! And Eric has Cub Scouts and Linda has piano lessons and Billy has the orthodontist, and on Tuesdays I have Women’s Guild – it’s always a madhouse!’ Gaily laughed, belying the twitching hands. ‘So I just cook up a big pot of stew or spaghetti or chicken or something, and dole it out as they come in.’

  ‘Have some more wine, Adele.’

  ‘I shouldn’t, but I will,’ she laughed, gaily.

  ‘I don’t know how you do it, really, you’re marvelous. I go out of my head with my three brats.’

  ‘Adele has the casual touch,’ Bliss laughed softly.

  Adele smiled gratefully. ‘Well, I try to just take things as they come. I don’t get excited. I was raised in a big house full of kids. My mother was wonderful, so calm. “It’s not the end of the world, yet,” she always said. We had this enormous house, a real old-fashioned monster, you know, ten bedrooms. Well, there were nine kids. She had a girl in from the neighborhood to help her, and we all pitched in, you know. When my kids get older, things will be easier. When Mindy’s out of diapers, it will be better.’ Her hand twitched in her lap, and she raised it and drank her wine.

  10

  She climbed the fence that separated her backyard from Bliss’s and helped Mike through it. Then Bliss handed Mindy over to her, they said good-bye, and Adele went in through her back door. She took Mindy into the living room and laid her in the playpen, but the baby was fussy and kept up a running complaint just verging on crying.

&n
bsp; ‘Play with Mindy, Mike,’ Adele said. Mike toddled over to the playpen and waved things over the baby’s head.

  Adele went back to the kitchen and checked her schedule. Wednesday afternoon: Eric to Cub Scouts, pick up a case of soda for Cub Scout meeting; get Paul’s grey suit from the cleaners; Billy to the DiNapolis’ to work on project. MILK, she had scrawled in large letters at the bottom of the page. She looked at the clock: five after three. She picked up the telephone.

  ‘Elizabeth? Hi. How are things? Oh.’ She laughed a little. ‘Yes, okay. We’re surviving.’ Again, the gay little laugh. ‘I keep thinking I just have to get through today, you know? Like an AA.’ Another rich giggle. ‘It did? Ooooh, Elizabeth! Oh, I know. Listen, you’re welcome to bring the clothes over here and wash them. Mine’s been working fine ever since the day it vomited soapsuds all the way into the living room.’ Laughter. ‘Oh, okay. Sure. Well, if you need it … yes, right. No, listen, it’s my turn to drive them and it’s okay because I have to go out anyway. Can you drive the girls to dancing lessons tomorrow?? God, you’re a blessing. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’ Here Adele’s voice got a little tremulous, but she collected herself. ‘Yes, I am. Yeah, my house is the drop-off place for old clothes. I’ve thought of going through them, some of them look pretty good.’ Giggle. ‘Will you be at the meeting? Father Spinola said he wants to talk to us, thank us, I guess, you know. We’re going to have coffee and cake and we need volunteers to bring something. Oh, thanks, Elizabeth. Always ask the busiest person, and she comes through. I’m going to bring my gingerbread, yes, that one, oh, I’m glad. Yes, I don’t know how I’m going to get them in the car. I have six feet of old clothes standing in the garage. I had them in the kitchen, but the baby kept running into them.’ Giggle. ‘Yes, they’re soft, but the thing is they sort of… well … smell. Oh, no, she isn’t walking yet, I meant Mike, I guess I’d better stop calling him the baby, hah?’ She laughed loudly and her voice edged sharply. ‘Sure. We really have to get together one of these days. Maybe some night we can do something. No, not this week – Paul has all these obligations – maybe one night next week. Maybe we can to go a movie together or something. Oh. Oh. Night shift, oh. Will it last long? Well, actually, sometimes it’s not so bad. I’m not always so unhappy when Paul works late.’ Laughter, more laughter. ‘Yeah, and then he screams he can’t sleep with all the noise. I know. Well, the poor soul, he must feel strange having to sleep in the daylight. I couldn’t do it, I’m sure. Yes. Peace and quiet at night, I know what you mean. Yes.’ Laughter.