The timer rings in the kitchen and, released, she gets up and twitches her skirt straight. Her colour is quite normal again. “Come along,” she says briskly. “Time to eat.” Meekly I follow her out to the table where with a few efficient motions she sets two places and serves us each a portion of Pam’s steak-and-kidney pudding. I taste it without enthusiasm, but it proves to be delicious. Suddenly I feel hungry and begin to eat almost with greed.
“Nice of Pam Wright to do this,” I say between mouthfuls.
“It reeks of garlic.” She pushes away her plate fretfully. “I don’t know why some people have to mess around with decent food, making it trendy. Dad always used to say those people next door were like educated gypsies.”
“So he did.” Approving as he did of almost nobody, perhaps including himself, Edwin was able to function comfortably with few acquaintances and even fewer friends. I accepted this for so long that it’s a surprise to hear myself add, “Your father used to make a lot of remarks that might be better left unquoted, don’t you think?”
She glances at me, clearly surprised and offended. She opens her mouth to take exception; then closes it again. That new look of patient forbearance already so familiar to me settles over her face.
“You’re not quite yourself today, Mother. I suppose that’s only to be expected.”
How do you know what myself is, I think rebelliously. How can you, when even I don’t know any more? Just the same, it seems to me that Marion, with no resource but intelligence, is possibly even less qualified than I am to face my problems.
“Will you be all right here tonight?” she asks, getting up from the table. “The men are coming first thing tomorrow to sand the apartment floors, and I should be there to –”
“Of course, dear. I’ll be fine.”
“Right, then. I’ll call tonight to make sure.”
“Fine.”
We have nothing more to say to each other. Perhaps she suddenly feels as defeated as I do, for as soon as the dishes are done she buttons on her tailored navy coat and goes away with no further discussion. The moment the door closes behind her, I rummage under the sofa cushions for my library copy of Mrs. Wilson’s Love and Salt Water. Before sinking onto the sofa to read, I push the thermostat back up a notch.
The bright day has faded to silver by the time I next look up from my book. Some sound or other, outdoors or inside, is tugging vaguely at my attention. After a moment it comes again – a fumbling rap at the front-door knocker. With a sigh I get up to answer it, first carefully setting my open book face down on the hall table. With any luck I can probably get back to it at once. The caller is in all likelihood just someone collecting for cancer or selling real estate. But when I open the door Canon Thomas Foster stands there balancing his hat in one hand and a square cardboard box in the other.
“Why, Tom. Do come in. Let me take that while you …”
Once he has shrugged himself out of a bulky sheepskin coat, Tom stands revealed in an outfit that sorts oddly with his dog collar: a baby-blue cardigan with wooden buttons and a pair of baggy green tweed trousers. These indicate that his visit is social rather than professional, though Tom likes the swing of his priest’s robe so much that he sometimes wears it even for an evening of bridge. With his foursquare male build, he has no qualms about wearing skirts; in fact, they are a statement of confidence, in a way.
“I just thought I’d drop by,” he says, presenting the box to me with a courtly little flourish. “Thought you might be just a little – a bit of company might help. Black Forest cake in there. I know your sweet tooth, Rowena.” He smiles ingratiatingly, exposing square, yellowish teeth. And I know yours, I think, smiling in return.
“How nice of you. What’s the time, anyway? – it’s never five! Well, we’ll have some tea. Make yourself comfortable in there while I put the kettle on – won’t be a minute.”
But instead of heading as usual for his favourite upholstered chair, Tom follows me out to the kitchen and plumps himself jauntily astride a kitchen chair. There he looks around him at banal objects like the stove and fridge with something like a child’s lively interest. Most of Tom’s life has been spent dining in the officers’ mess, or in parish halls swarming with useful ladies. At home, first an adoring mother and then his wife, Marjory, had seen to it that kitchens need not concern him in the least, except as a distant source of frequent, comfortable meals.
“Getting on all right, then, are you, my dear,” he says, without inflecting it as a question.
“Oh, yes. Pretty well, considering.”
“Ah. Of course. The whole situation requires … a considerable emotional adjustment, no doubt. To forgive and forget, you know … we must be prepared for it all to take time.”
“I’m not sure there’ll ever be enough time for that, Tom.”
The edge in my voice makes his pale blue eyes widen more in curiosity than surprise. “Now, my dear, that doesn’t sound like you.”
I fill the teapot with a gush of boiling water. “Doesn’t it? Well, I wonder how you’d feel in my shoes. Forgive may be possible – but forget? No, I think even Mother Teresa would find that a bit much. Right now, if you want the truth, I feel outraged, Tom. Worse, I feel humiliated – I’ve been conned.” Warming to my topic, I go on. “As for Edwin, I’m sure he died in a rage, you know. To be snatched away like that with nothing organized – nothing decently arranged – and everything exposed …” I think of those silent rages of his that occasionally for days on end would freeze the whole house. “I don’t imagine he’ll speak to God for weeks yet.”
Tom smiles tolerantly. No doubt he has heard many worse things from the recently bereaved. The setting sun, flashing in and out of some transient clouds, splashes a dazzle of light at the window. Somewhere in the distance a siren whoops. A branch of the back-yard maple jerks under the weight of two black squirrels chasing each other with love or death in mind. They disappear and a little shower of snow rains down brilliantly. Life in the act of going on.
“Edwin was a true believer, my dear. He’s reconciled, you must believe that. As you will be, in time.”
“I’d like to think so.”
“You can be sure of it,” he says serenely.
In the act of slicing the cake, I pause to glance across the table at him with some curiosity. I’ve often wondered how much of Tom’s faith is simple professional habit and how much social expediency. One major ingredient of it, I know, is his love of high-church pomp and ritual. When Tom kisses his embroidered stole on feast days, or recites in his rich voice the drama of the Last Supper, he makes such an effective performance of it that the sceptic in me is tempted to wink. But unlike ministers of the more emotional sects, who at moments like this would certainly pray all over me, Tom only murmurs with dignity, “God bless you, my dear. And sanctify this food to our use. Amen.” He then draws towards him the plate with the larger slice of cake and plunges his fork into it.
I sip my strong tea with greed. What drugs or alcohol do for other people, a powerful cup of tea does for me. It not only cheers, it very nearly inebriates. As soon as half my cup is gone I top it up. A peaceful silence settles between us while Tom gives his full attention to the cake. When his slice is gone, he spreads out his square, reddish hands on the table with a sigh of satisfaction. Then he gulps the last of his tea and after patting chocolate crumbs from his grey-white mustache, clears his throat. My heart sinks. Now he is evidently, like Marion, going to try to organize me.
“More tea?” I ask.
“Yes, please.” He leans a little forward, fixing me with a benign blue gaze. “I suppose, Rowena, you’ve considered the possibility that you may have to become self-supporting. Of course you have. You’re an eminently sensible woman.”
I smile faintly. “The problem is I have no skills to market, Tom. You can’t count home dressmaking or baking muffins.” His blue eyes are still fixed on me with a sort of attention I find vaguely disquieting.
“Well, now, you may
not consider this at all appropriate or acceptable – but what would you think of a sort of part-time housekeeping job? My parishioner Miriam Whittaker has a grandson – they live here in Don Mills – he and his wife are setting up a small video store in the shopping mall, and they’re looking for a sort of mother’s help person. They have – er – four children between about three and ten, I believe. Perhaps this wouldn’t be suitable at all for you, but I thought – well, failing anything better – I’ve been racking my old brains, but truly I can’t seem to come up with –”
“You’re very kind,” I say out of a dry throat. “You understand, though, that just right now … But I do appreciate the thought. Give me a week or so and then maybe I’ll …”
My voice trails away as I try to imagine myself coping with four children aged ten to three, part-time or any time. Mentally and every other way I shrink from thinking about this or about anything. It depresses me to calculate that at least fifteen years must elapse before the old age pension with income supplement can rescue me from my dilemma.
“Will you have a bit more cake, Tom?”
“Well, maybe just a little. Quite good, isn’t it?”
I lift the teapot invitingly and he passes over his cup. “Think of it this way,” he says comfortingly. “It’s fortunate for you that so many people need help in the home these days to care for the young and the very old. Not that it isn’t to be deplored, in a way. The Lord in His wisdom gave us no children, but my dear Marjory devoted her full time to me and our home, and that made us both perfectly happy, though it seems such an old-fashioned arrangement nowadays. Women who stay at home have gone right out of style – with exceptions like yourself, of course – and I for one regret it.”
I murmur something affirmative. Of course I support in principle everything the feminists stand for; it’s just that knowing my own limitations has always been more than enough to prevent me wanting personal liberation from home life. The world outside my own four walls is so tough, rough and competitive as to be overwhelmingly threatening. This is no doubt my fault, not the world’s. Nevertheless, remembering Tom’s wife brings a sort of comfort with it. While I rarely leave the neighbourhood, I do at least go shopping and to the library; but she lived entirely indoors. In the time left over from the care and feeding of her many ailments, she looked after Tom and watered their aspidistras. At the end she was a putty-coloured woman who weighed well over two hundred pounds. Her poor health had been such a long and absorbing charade that everyone, including probably Marjory herself, was astonished when a few years ago she actually died.
“Well, my dear, I must away to a confirmation class. Many thanks for the refreshments. It’s always a pleasure to spend time with you.”
“Thanks for dropping in, Tom. And for everything.”
I go out to the hall to hold his coat and find his hat with the butler-like efficiency we both expect of me. With a heave he shrugs heavy shoulders into the sheepskin coat.
“I’ll be in touch, Rowena. Keep your heart up, now. I hope, by the way, that you’re careful these days about opening the door to just anyone. A woman alone here like this – there are some evil people about – you must be on your guard.”
While delivering this advice he takes me by the shoulders and draws me near. Contact with the bulk and warmth of his solid form registers itself on me as he obviously intends it to do. Then he gives me a kiss, masterfully if briefly parting my lips in a way no one could call ecclesiastical. With a complacent smile and a flourish of the hat he then takes himself off, leaving me alone with my surprise.
A few hours later I begin to feel the onset of a queer kind of delayed reaction to everything. The sensation is so peculiar that for a while I can’t identify it at all. After Tom’s departure, I calmly tidied up the kitchen; I even went down to the basement and ran accumulated laundry through the machine. After that I sat down with Mrs. Wilson for a comfortable read. But within minutes my attention begins to slide off the page in a most persistent and provoking way. Even more annoying is the onset of a sort of irritable restlessness in the legs and arms that makes sitting still almost impossible.
It occurs to me these may be twinges of conscience, so I go to the desk to tackle the notes of condolence. But after looking awhile at my carefully written words, “Thank you for your sympathy,” I find myself unable to write another syllable, and click the ballpoint off. After that, I go energetically upstairs (“Well, Mother, what have you accomplished?”) and begin to pack Edwin’s clothes into cartons for the Salvation Army. Rapidly I fold away jackets, suits, the old dressing gown, sweaters, shirts … They seem as much mine as his, passing through my hands as they did for years, to be mended, laundered or thriftily sponged clean at home with vinegar and hot water. But as I empty his bureau drawers, these clothes begin to feel almost eerily inhabited. I morbidly imagine they are heavy, and warm with body heat. Certainly his personal dry, celeryish smell hangs about them yet. Soon I am reluctant to handle them. Then, all at once, I cannot go on with it at all. Grimacing like a scared child trying not to cry, I push the half-filled cartons into the cupboard and close the door on them.
Downstairs the clock chimes ten. I have forgotten to give myself any supper, but the thought has no appeal whatever. To prevent Marion calling me, I call her and say I am perfectly fine. Then I wander to the window for a look at the weather; perhaps a brisk walk would settle my nerves. But outside under a bullying wind the tree branches toss about in a distraught sort of way. Thick cloud obscures most of the stars. Briefly a full moon emerges, high, blue and cold as a bullet. The thought of a walk through windy city streets under that hostile sky does not recommend itself. I jerk the curtains shut and turn down the bed. A good night’s sleep is probably all I need. To promote relaxation I take a warm bath. Then I switch off the light and stretch out under the blankets.
At once a confused crowd of images, ideas and memories swarms into my head. The coffin lurches on its way down by train to Ottawa. Nana’s silver thimble winks as she guides my needle along a row of hem-stitching – trousseau pillowcases, those were, made of linen so fine we are still using them. Through my mind jig the lines, “With the other masquerades/That time resumes.” Marion’s childish voice cries, “Guess who?” Tom’s bristly moustache tickles my lips. From next door come distant voices and a faint burst of music – the Wrights are entertaining. “He who was living is now dead,” intones John Hill. “We who are living are now dying/With a little patience.” The pillow on the other side of the bed still has Edwin’s faint, sharp smell. “He is survived by his widows, the two Mrs. Hills.” Downstairs the clock ticks so heavily it seems to climb the steps with beats as neat and precise as feet. Edwin coming to bed at exactly ten forty-five, pausing on the landing to turn out the hall light, entering the bathroom to brush his teeth. The toilet flushes. His shoes are neatly placed by the door. (Somewhere in a neighbouring back yard the barbaric serenade of cats rises.) He yawns. The bed on his side creaks. He puts his hand on me.
The first night or the nine hundredth, or the last – nothing really distinguished one from the other. Except that the first had an element of surprise, perhaps better described as shock. My wedding nightgown was white, of course, and embroidered by my own hands with a chain of daisies and buttercups around its modest neckline. Nothing could have been more emblematic not so much of innocence as crass ignorance.
Years later, Pam Wright on the other side of the porch told someone between hoots of laughter, “She was married five years before she found out that all intercourse isn’t anal.” But I did not smile at the predicament of this unfortunate lady. Ignorance is only funny to the well-informed. Nana’s pretty image of dandelion seeds floating on the breeze vanished in a stab of pain. I resisted, whimpering. The shock that followed came not so much from his use of force, but from the gradual realization, many times later verified, that it was my reluctance that excited him most. How long was it before I understood that, and all that it implied about both of us? A long t
ime, because it was not a lesson I was willing to learn. Eventually, though, I learned it. And resorted to cunning. It was all over much more quickly if I feigned ready consent.
A transatlantic plane drones high over the city. When the noise fades, minuscule creaks and sighs steal through the house. I lie there in the dark and contemplate that ugly little strategy of mine, craftily practised all those years in bed with Edwin.
There was no one I could talk to about this or anything personal, in fact, except the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Wilson, and while they’ve been a consolation to me, they never had any advice to offer. I’ve had no way of verifying my assumption that most women, like me, find the foreplay (if any) agreeable enough, but are grateful if what follows involves little or no discomfort.
I turn over, flouncing the bedclothes. My heart for some reason is racing. No, Tom’s tickling little kiss – if he had any remote thought of following it up – has no hope whatever of success. Celibacy is the ideal condition, as far as I’m concerned. Death has at least liberated me from the routine carnal procedure required of wives. As for orgasm, that is nothing but a word. True, words have been my friends – my only real companions – for too many years to count. But that particular word surely has no equivalent reality. For all my reading, I don’t believe anybody actually experiences such a thing. Like falling in love at first sight, it’s just another of those romantic illusions; a catch-phrase to express the fantasies of housewives. My marriage, if it did little else, has left me too mature to believe in such nonsense. At least I have that much experience after the physical side of life with Edwin. Sex is the ultimate in trivial pursuits, of that I’m sure. Curious that so many poets and novelists (even Mrs. Wilson) should so often hint it is pretty well the pivot of everything.
A faint gust of laughter comes from next door. Wind rattles the window glass. My heart hammers. “Nothing of him doth remain.” Oh no? The clock paces indifferently on. My own breath is loud in the dark.
A Serious Widow Page 4
