The Pink House at Appleton

by Jonathan Braham

  ‘And you, Boyd.’ Papa turned his attention to the small, self-conscious figure lying on the floor, head down, looking at a picture in the encyclopaedia, entitled The Persistence of Memory, oil painting by Salvador Dali, 1931. But Boyd had stopped looking at the picture the moment Papa entered the room. He had been listening hard, expecting violence, and so when he heard his name, his head snapped up. ‘Yes, you,’ Papa said. ‘Don’t think you’re out of it. Don’t think I haven’t seen you hanging about at that fence like a little good-for-nothing. You just make sure you stay on this side of the fence. Don’t think that because Mr Mitchison is the assistant general manager it’s alright to go over into their garden.’

  ‘But I didn’t go over there, Papa,’ Boyd interrupted, astonished. How could Papa have found out that he’d been trying to get to Susan?

  ‘I didn’t say you did. I just don’t want you over there getting into other people’s business. I know what you get up to so don’t play the fool with me. You stay on this side of the fence where you belong, so that you don’t get into mischief. You hear me?’

  ‘Yes, Papa,’ Boyd said, thinking that after such a warning, his only chance to meet Susan would be at school.

  ‘You’re off to the Balaclava Academy. I’ve put your name down and paid the fees. Get education into that empty head of yours.’

  ‘What about me, Papa?’ Yvonne sprang forward, believing that yet again she had been passed over.

  ‘You’ll go to the academy too, but not next term.’

  ‘When then?’

  ‘Next year.’

  ‘Next year!’

  ‘You heard me. Now, don’t be difficult.’ He gave Yvonne a hard look and continued down the hall to Mama’s room. Yvonne’s lips and chin trembled so that she couldn’t face her brothers. The rain drowned out her stifled sobs.

  ‘Shh!’ Barrington said, five minutes later. ‘Papa’s quarrelling with Mama again.’ As one, they all fell silent.

  They had always known fear from an early age. But since their arrival at the pink house, the fear they experienced and believed to be the most natural thing that parents, particularly fathers, inflicted upon their children, had taken on a strange permanence. It was there in the house even when Papa wasn’t there. It was as if they were just moments away from disaster. The door would open suddenly one day and they would all be put out on the street. And it was because Mama and Papa weren’t friends any more.

  ‘I’m going to my room,’ Boyd said, struggling with the encyclopaedia. In his room, he put the book down on the bed and climbed out the window. Poppy joined him. They crouched outside Mama’s bedroom and cocked their ears up to the window. From their place in the drawing room, Barrington and Yvonne pricked up their ears.

  ‘Why can’t you be like other women?’ they heard Papa’s slurred voice say.

  Raindrops dripped from the end of leaves and dropped with loud plops in puddles close to the verandah. Quiet lightning razed the sky. It had been cosy in the amber light of the living room until Papa arrived. He had returned to find Mama in her pink dressing gown, the dressing gown of the housebound, with that bedclothes smell, redolent of everything he would rather not be reminded of. Behind him at the club were women of Mama’s age in soft linen, wearing perfume more tantalising than Evening in Paris, women who were making their mark, not lazing about with long faces and dark brows.

  ‘You married me,’ Mama cried, feeling the tension, knowing the look in his eyes, sensing the background to it. The pressure had been growing before Barrington’s beating and she had wondered when it would erupt. ‘You told my mother I was the only girl in the parish for you.’ She stared at him, trying to quieten her voice. ‘Now you want me to be like other women!’

  ‘You’re always at home, you never go out like other wives.’

  Mama would have laughed if Papa’s comment hadn’t been so pathetic. It was obviously the drink.

  ‘Go where?’ Mama was mystified. ‘I thought you wanted me at home. Now you want me to spend my time at the club like other women? I should walk there, four miles away, and then do what? Who would look after the children? You’ve always said only maids and loose women walk. If you want me at the club, why don’t you take me and the children there more often? The only time we ever get to go there is when I complain that you never take us anywhere. You hardly get home before ten, when it’s too late to go out. You often get home in the early hours. And mostly you’re drunk. As you are now.’

  ‘Me, drunk?’ Papa was incensed. His expression declared that a man couldn’t talk to his wife calmly about the things that mattered without receiving unwarranted criticism. But that was women for you.

  ‘Almost every Sunday morning,’ Mama continued. ‘The children know. They see you lying drunk on the bed with the chamber pot full of vomit on the floor. And they sing that Harry Belafonte song, Mama, Look-A Boo Boo, making fun of you.’

  Papa sprang to his feet, enraged, trembling, pointing his finger in Mama’s face. ‘Do you know how hard I work?’ he growled. ‘All this’ – he indicated the house, the grounds, the firmament. ‘I am responsible for this. You hear me? Without me this doesn’t exist. You hear me? You hear me?’ He saw Mama recoil at behaviour that was increasingly alarming.

  He couldn’t hold back. The words tumbled out. Their quarrels had never taken such a ferocious tone before. Mama kept looking at him from under her eyelashes, silently asking him to stop, to not let it go any further, trying to connect, trying to make him understand. He didn’t want to understand. His guilt saw to that.

  Mama stood back, breathing hard. She felt that she was partly responsible for the state of things. Secretly she believed she deserved it, creating tension with her suspicions. In her heart she believed that her husband was as straight as an arrow, not given to anything underhand. She believed that his only faults were his impatience, idiosyncrasies and his belief that he was always right. All the men in her life, her father and brothers, anyone of note, behaved in that way. But she never quite understood Papa’s revulsion when they argued. This was something new.

  She just wanted things to go back to what they were before the Mitchison’s arrival. It was all because Ann Mitchison was a live wire and had been to college, drove a Land Rover, did this and that about the estate and frequented the club with her pearls and perfume and political talk. Papa wanted her to be like Ann Mitchison. He didn’t say so but she knew. He wanted her at home yet he wanted her out and about. He wanted her to be a woman of the world yet he refused to let her even contemplate establishing her design work. What he wanted, or what he imagined he wanted, was impossible. He was just confused. She was sorry for him in a way, but felt terribly bruised because it was so unfair. And his new anger and disdain frightened her.

  Papa said nothing. Mama said nothing. Boyd heard nothing. Papa sat back in the chair, contemplating his brogues against the polished floor. The waters drained away.

  ‘All I am saying is that you need to get out more. So what if I’ve changed my mind? Can’t a man change his mind?’

  ‘And do what?’ Mama’s voice broke in its appeal. ‘Where would I go? Get out like other women. What do you mean?’

  ‘Go out for walks with the children.’ He said this grimly, without conviction. It was he himself who had laid down the law that no respectable woman should walk about unescorted. The servants should take the children walking. None of the estate wives went walking except in their gardens and on their lawns. Poor people walked, labourers walked, beggars walked and everyone who could do no better walked. And those who walked only did so in the dust of the miserable roads to and from the factory, walked behind slow donkeys to market, to the rum bars and back to their small, wooden, paint-peeling houses. Papa did not mean that sort of walking. Maybe he imagined a wonderful kind of walking that did not take place on the roads of Appleton. Perhaps Ann Mitchison had told him about her walks in the smart squares of London. Maybe he had been listening to Miss Chatterjee talk at the club about how she strolled in
Hyde Park and other London parks with suitors in tow on a pleasant evening. Perhaps he heard Miss Hutchinson say she’d regularly sauntered about the streets of Paris and the suburbs and how delightful that was for a woman like her. On her walks she visited bookshops, art galleries, theatres, restaurants and tea and coffee-houses. But Appleton was neither Paris nor London.

  ‘We live miles from the club,’ Mama continued. ‘We’ve only been there together as a family about four times. The other husbands take their wives and children out every weekend; to Maggotty Falls, to the cinema, to family and friends, visiting new places, to concerts. The Baldoos are always off to Mamee Bay on the north coast. It’s lovely up there – private cottages, private beach.’

  ‘The Baldoos this, the Baldoos that. They are gods!’

  ‘Well, you’re forever talking about them,’ Mama replied. ‘They’re your gods.’

  Papa sucked his teeth.

  ‘The Mitchisons go out as a family,’ Mama informed him. ‘Tim Mitchison is as busy as anybody, always away on business, yet he finds the time. They were at Rose Hall Great House only last week, from what I hear.’

  ‘You heard wrong,’ Papa said with conviction.

  ‘And how would you know?’ Mama retorted, imagining scenarios of every sort.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Papa suddenly commanded, with new vehemence, the veins at his temples visibly throbbing.

  ‘We don’t go out, but you are always going out, here, there and God knows where,’ Mama said. ‘Who knows where you go?’

  ‘I said that’s enough!’ Papa’s eyes were smouldering.

  Mama faced him, unable to disguise thoughts now written large on her face. She knew what she wanted to say but couldn’t. It would hit low and could be fatal. The Lluidas Vale secret lurked at the back of her mind, and Enid’s words, if he’s capable of this, he’s capable of anything, loomed like a fearful warning. She felt a deep urge to say something outrageous, but the belief that that would be wrong was far stronger.

  Papa sucked his teeth again and left the room. It was the second time he’d sucked his teeth that evening. He did not care for her. Mama cried quietly in her pink dressing gown, hoping the children did not hear. They would only worry, the poor things. She was amazed at how frightened she became as she remembered Papa’s threats, meant for the children: ‘I’ll put you on the streets to beg your bread.’ These were words the children were accustomed to hearing. But they were words that were now meant for her.

  Later that evening, Barrington and Yvonne fidgeted in their rooms while Boyd sat in the chintz armchair waiting for Papa to leave the house. Beside him, the Mullard radio droned and buzzed. The news drifted in from the world, the events of that week, but he heard nothing of it. Russia launches first intercontinental ballistic missile. Heavyweight boxing champion Floyd Patterson knocks out Tommy ‘Hurricane’ Jackson in New York in round ten to retain world heavyweight title.

  As soon as they heard the Land Rover gurgle to life, they were at the window, tracking the olive-green shape, the red rear lights vanishing down the hill. They went to Mama like frightened rabbits, while the scent of Angels’ Tears from the garden filled the room. And they believed their days at the pink house would end soon and that nothing would be the same anymore. Barrington would go off to boarding school, far away from Mama. Outside, the sound of dripping water continued, against a background of incessant night noises. Mama did not speak. The night drew in rapidly, chilly and cruel.

  * * *

  Much later that night, if Mama could see Papa, she would see a tidy, respectable arrangement on the Mitchison’s verandah. The night air was clean and scented, and nocturnal creatures sang in the garden. Papa sat with Ann Mitchison, sipping tea. He would have preferred a double gin and tonic with a slice of lime and a chunk of ice. He hated the tea, although it was light and fresh and without milk and served in an elegant china teacup. Tea only reminded him of the revolting cerasee, its bitter leaves growing wild in the back garden, that his mother used to force upon him as a child once a month. It was what some rural Jamaican families used as a laxative, a “wash-out” for their children. The most repellant aspect of cerasee tea was the smell. It made grown men tremble. But tea was tea. Yet, here he was with calm deliberation, seeming to relish cup after cup. It might have had something to do with the person who served it because at one point in the conversation he was flattering.

  ‘Excellent tea,’ Papa said, with a knowing nod.

  Ann accepted the compliment with a smile that squeezed her eyes shut.

  They talked quite a bit after that, and if Mama were watching she would see Evadne clear away the tea things as it got late. If she could hear, as Evadne could, she would know that Mr Ramsook and his companions’ days of unemployment were over and that the estate would provide them and their children with medical support. They got that out of the way early. Evadne locked the windows in the kitchen and in the pantry and closed the shutters. Then she said goodnight, looked in on Susan fast asleep under the mosquito net and went to her room in the servants’ quarters at the back of the house. If she were still looking, Mama would see Papa rise to go because he’d seen the time and wanted to be circumspect. And she would note the subtle, restraining arm of Ann Mitchison and see Papa sink back into his chair.

  Papa sat alone smoking and looking out into the night as Ann busied herself in the kitchen pouring late drinks, real drinks. She returned to the verandah with two nine ounce cut glass tumblers, and Mama, if it were possible that she still watched, would see them draw just a fraction closer to talk. Papa mostly listened while Ann spoke. Then they both spoke animatedly after that and had one more drink. Then Papa really had to go.

  A chill wind came up from the valley as they left the verandah and walked along the path towards the garden gate. The night noises were hushed. There was no moon. It might have been because Ann pressed just a centimetre closer upon him or because her night perfume touched him in the right place. It might have been because it was a risk he wanted to take, or it could have been because of any number of things. All he knew was that she was in his arms, her breasts against his chest, his hungry mouth upon hers. It was short and urgent. It was the first time at the gate, in the open, on home territory. They broke apart, breathing hard, said goodnight and hurried away.

  Papa remembered the shocking silence as he walked off, not once looking back. Ann remembered the short walk back to the verandah, how cool and refreshing the air was, how calm she felt with her child asleep in bed and her husband away from home, the fourth time in three weeks.

  CHAPTER 23

  Whether it was contrived to make up to Mama, or whether it was a genuine invitation, no one knew. But when Papa made the announcement at lunch, he was noticeably uneasy, speaking in the manner of a man at the centre of a clever scheme to beguile an innocent.

  ‘The Baldoos expect us at dinner on Saturday,’ he said.

  ‘The Baldoos?’ Mama said, surprised.

  ‘That is what I said, Victoria,’ Papa replied.

  ‘Well, that’s nice of them.’

  ‘Are we going too?’ Yvonne glanced from one to the other.

  ‘No, just your mother and me.’

  The Baldoos were respectable people. Mr Baldoo was respectable because he was one third bald, wore glasses, had a bit of a tummy and looked important. Mrs Baldoo was very pretty, as only people of Indian extraction could be. Elegance and restrained femininity came naturally to her. Her lipstick was sparingly applied to a small, attractive mouth. And she wore linen suits and silver jewellery, not the common silver bangles worn by the coolies down the hill. There was nothing fanciful about either of them.

  ‘It’s a Humber Hawk,’ Barrington said, indicating the solid two-tone car resting under the papaya tree when the Baldoos first visited.

  ‘It’s very nice of them to invite us,’ Mama repeated, glancing pleasantly at the children. They returned her glance, not looking at Papa, who, observing this and knowing the reason behind it, set his knife
and fork down. His hand trembled.

  ‘When I get angry with you it’s because I care,’ he said, facing them. ‘And when your mother and I argue it isn’t because we don’t love you. We argue because that is what grown-ups do.’

  The children continued to look away from him, at their plates, in their laps or at the other end of the table. Coldly, Papa put aside his napkin, rose from the table and walked down the hall to the bedroom. And that night there was another harsh exchange of words, about something Mama had said at supper.

  ‘Are the Mitchisons going to be there?’ she asked.

  ‘The Mitchisons?’ Papa turned on her. ‘Why should they be there?’

  ‘I only asked,’ Mama returned, wounded.

  ‘Well, why not the Dowdings or the Pinnocks. Why the Mitchisons?’

  ‘Harold, I just wondered.’

  ‘But why them?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Liar,’ Papa growled, and left the table.

  Mama, stunned, saw the shock on the faces of the children and went after Papa, tears stinging her eyes. The children left the table too, chairs tumbling, Mavis suddenly next to them like a mother hen, huddling together on the sofa in the drawing room. They could not make sense of the shouting.

  * * *

  That Saturday afternoon, Papa sat with Mama on the front lawn in the shade of the house in jacaranda-scented air. Frosty glasses sat on a dark-green wicker table, ice slowly melting. It was the calm after the quarrel. But it was a fragile calm. A million swallows sat on the telegraph wires a hundred yards away and moving shadows were long on the ground. Poppy stayed back at a safe distance while the children watched from behind bedroom curtains. The Mullard radio, in the drawing room, radiated yellow light and Pat Boone, when the swallows come back to Capistrano. Vincent observed the scene from a solitary place. He knew whose side he was on.

  At the rear of the house, the poinsettia sun in the first act of the evening, dipped, blazing furiously, wonderfully. White birds in formation dipped too, in crimson, making for the river in one swift swoop to join their mates already strung out on the grassy banks, yellow beaks and yellow feet jousting. There were sad birds among them and Boyd heard their moaning for someone lost that very day.