Maddie

by Claire Rayner

  She began to walk again, or try to, but now it was hell. Her legs seemed to shriek at her and her hips ached abominably and she remembered suddenly, vividly, the same ache after Danny’s birth which had been so prolonged that she had had to spend over three hours on her back with her legs slung up on stirrups. After that her hip joints had felt just like this, except that this was worse.

  She almost dragged herself to the nearest restaurant, unable to mink of anywhere else she could go to sit down, and pushed the door open to a smell of soya and frying ginger and onions that made her suddenly dreadfully aware of how long it had been since she had eaten any real food, and she stood there, her vision hazy and glittering, and blinked to try to sec more dearly.

  The space before her shifted, shivered and split and a Chinese face appeared and she stared stupidly, for he seemed to be something out of a bad film, wearing as he was traditional ancient dress, and framed in the strands of the glass bead curtain which had obscured the entrance.

  ‘You wish a table –’ the man murmured, looking at her doubtfully, and she nodded dumbly and managed to push herself forwards and to pass him and go into the restaurant.

  ‘A table – yes, for one, please,’ she muttered and then managed to straighten her back, which was also shrieking pain at her now. ‘But first a telephone. And the telephone book. Important –’

  The old man seemed as though he were about to turn her out, he looked so dubious, but then he nodded courteously and went away and fetched her a phone book and with her fingers shaking she began to look at the Giovales. And felt sick, for there were page after page of them. But then she found it, amazingly, remembering the address he had given her on his card when they had parted in London, and she ran her finger along the line and somehow managed to circle the number with the pen the old Chinaman had lent her.

  ‘Please,’ she said and her voice croaked in her own ears. ‘I must call him. Urgently –’

  ‘Phone out back,’ the Chinaman said and she managed to get to her feet and follow him, horribly aware of the curious glances of the other customers at the tables they passed, and then at last was offered a tall stool on which to perch as she used the phone.

  There was of course no reason why he should be there. She sat with the earpiece pushed against her head, very aware of the way her sweat made it slippery against her skin, and listened to the distant ringing and told herself, he’s like everyone else, gone to the coast. He’s got a place in Cape Cod like everyone else and that’s where he is. In Cape Cod … he won’t be there and I’m still alone and I still don’t have anyone to care for me or –

  The ringing stopped and the thin voice clattered, ‘Yeah?’ at her and she sat and stared dumbly at the red wall in front of her, unable to believe it.

  ‘Yeah, who is it?’ the voice said impatiently and now she managed to talk. ‘Mr Giovale?’ she said at last, and her voice croaked. ‘Is that Mr – Gian Giovale?’

  ‘So who wants him?’ the voice rasped and she caught her breath in sudden hope, recognising that sort of suspicion as so much a part of the man, just as it had been so much a part of her father’s, to whom he bore so warm a resemblance.

  ‘I – this is Maddie,’ she said. ‘Maddie Braham Kincaid. I’m –I’m Timothy’s daughter-in-law and you said in June, in London, if I ever needed help not to forget you.’

  She was weeping. Not because of the fact that she had found him. Not because of Jay and Gloria, but because she hurt so dreadfully. Every fibre of the muscles in her legs and buttocks were shrieking their revenge at her for the way she had abused them that evening and she could hardly sit with the misery of it.

  ‘Hey, where are you?’ The voice had changed, lost its rasping suspicion and become concerned. ‘Are you calling from London, for Chrissakes?’

  ‘No – no.’ She managed the ghost of a laugh. ‘I’m here in Boston. I’m –’ She squinted at the wall where a copy of the restaurant’s menu was pinned. ‘I’m in the Jade and Ivory Garden Restaurant on Kneeland Street. Don’t ask me why I’m here – I was so – I didn’t know what to do, you see, I just walked and walked and then I remembered you said if I ever needed anyone to help me and the boys I should – so I walked in here and – oh, Gian, what am I to do? It’s all so dreadful!’ And now she could no longer speak at all, for the tears had choked her and drowned her voice and she sniffed hugely and heard him say only, ‘Stay right there. I’ll find you. Don’t budge now, you hear me? I’ll be right there.’

  And the phone went dead and buzzed in her ear and for the first time since she had woken from her whiskied sleep that morning she felt it was possible that someone could perhaps bring some sort of order and comfort for her out of the chaos into which she had tumbled.

  34

  July 1987

  ‘If I give her any more she’ll just go out cold. In bigger doses it’s an anaesthetic. Hold on. It’s all we can do. Hold on and see if she’ll start again.’

  ‘I never heard her talk so before,’ Annie said, and whispered it. It seemed wrong to speak loudly, after the sort of sound with which Maddie had filled the little room. ‘So vicious, so bitter …’

  He nodded. ‘I told you. She’s reaching some very painful material. There’s something here that’s very powerful. That’s why she’s been the way she has for so long. She couldn’t cope with whatever it was that –’

  ‘Of course she couldn’t!’ Annie said, irritable suddenly. ‘How could any woman cope with such a – such a betrayal. That man – how could that man be so –’

  He shook his head then and leaned forwards to peer into Maddie’s face carefully before straightening his back once more. ‘It’s not that. At least I don’t think so. It’s more than that. Yes, he behaved appallingly – not that I’m all that surprised. It’s amazing what some people regard as perfectly reasonable behaviour towards others.’ He looked at her sideways and grinned a little, the corner of his lips curling at her. ‘At least, it’s amazing in my terms. But then I’m a different sort of bloke, I suppose.’

  ‘No one could think it reasonable to treat a woman like that, a woman with his children and –’ She stopped abruptly and was silent for a long moment, and then said slowly, ‘My father did.’

  ‘Yes,’ Joe said and looked at her, still sitting there with Maddie’s arm across his lap, still holding the syringe firmly in the crook of her elbow. ‘Yes. But would that have made your mother withdraw from everything the way Maddie has? Did it? You know it didn’t.’

  ‘Jen and Maddie are – were – different women. What one can cope with perhaps the other can’t. And Jen had me – ‘She shrugged then. ‘Hell, how can I know? How can you?’

  ‘You’re quite right. No one can. Everyone’s very different, but all the same I think there’s something more here than the fact that her husband treated her badly. Much more. What she’s resisting is a memory that is so explosive that –’ He shook his head. ‘She’s very frightened. Look at the sweat – and her pulse is strong, but it’s much more rapid than the drug would justify.’

  ‘Yes,’ Annie said and then suddenly moved round him to crouch beside the bed and leaned forwards and set her cheek against Maddie’s. ‘Poor Maddie. It’s all right, Maddie. Never mind, my love. It’s all right.’

  And she began to croon softly as if to a child and Joe sat very still looking down on them both and wanted to shout his delight aloud but didn’t. It was as though something in Annie had given way at that moment, as though a sheet of ice had thinned, shivered and then dissolved to nothingness so that she could feel warmth on her own face again and wanted to pass it on to someone in greater need of it than she was herself.

  For a long time it seemed Maddie was not going to respond, but then, slowly, her head moved and her lips twitched and then parted and Joe, moving with great care, leaned over and touched Annie’s shoulder with his other hand, and she lifted her head and looked at him and then again at Maddie and scrambled to her feet to stand behind him in her old place again.


  Gently, with infinitesimally delicate movements, Joe let some more of the drug slide into the vein in Maddie’s arm and she turned her head on the pillow and shrieked, ‘Oh, God. Oh, my God, what have I done?’ and tears, great oily tears, began to push from beneath her eyelids to fill the sockets above her cheekbones.

  August 1953

  ‘I can’t think about it,’ Maddie said and closed her eyes tightly as though shutting out his face would have the effect of shutting out his voice as well. But it made no difference. He went on talking, his voice low and agreeable and oh so reasonable, and slowly she let her lids rise and watched his face as the words went on. And on.

  ‘I don’t see why,’ he said and smiled winningly. ‘Here’s the problem. The man has behaved to you like a bastard, a grade-A copper-bottomed bastard. But you’re a woman. A real warm loving woman, so what do you say? Get this man off my back, get him out of my hair, screw him for every penny he has and men get rid of him, the way a man who’d been treated that way would? No, not you, on account of you’re a warm lovely woman. You just say to me, “Gian, help me. Get him back for me.” And I want to help you.’

  He smiled again now, more widely than ever as he caught her glance. ‘I want to help you, believe me. But I have a better notion of how to help you than you have.’

  She shook her head. ‘It can’t be that way,’ she whispered it, partly because of fear of what she had heard and partly because of the way her voice had become so unreliable. She had swallowed some hot soup – he had insisted on feeding her before he allowed her to say a word – and had managed to eat some of the noodles he had ordered for her, but even so she still felt very shaky and her back and legs and hips ached abominably. Above all, her voice could not be trusted. ‘It can’t be.’

  ‘Why not? It don’t hurt your precious Jay –’ He reached forwards now and patted her hand. ‘I tell you, a woman like you, a price above rubies, to love a man so much when he’s treated her so bad – it’s a beautiful thing to see. Beautiful. I wish my Momma had known you. She would have understood you, and she would have loved you like a girl should be loved. And she’d have told you I’m right. “My Gian is right,” she’d say. “You listen to him, cara, my Gian is one who knows. Take advice from an old woman, listen to my Gian.” That’s what she’d have said.’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s impossible,’ she whispered. ‘You can’t expect me even to consider it.’

  ‘Why not?’ He sounded all sweet good sense. ‘Give me one really good reason why not and believe me I’ll listen. Gian Giovale always listens.’ His face split into another of his great grins. ‘This is the way I’ve learned so much and got so much, cara. I listen. So I’m here, listening. Tell me one good reason why not.’

  ‘It’s – it’s wrong,’ she said and coughed a little, experimentally, needing to see if she could trust her voice yet. She couldn’t.

  ‘That is no reason,’ he said strongly. ‘What he’s done is wrong. What he’s planning to do is wrong. You ain’t wrong, and I ain’t. He is. To say you’re not married, to a lovely little Momma with two such lovely little men you’ve given him, to dare to say you ain’t married on account you went to City Hall and not to mass? This is a load of bullshit, you should excuse me. All he has to do if he feels bad about that is to take you to church. End of problem. No. He is wrong. He’s using the Church –’ and here he crossed himself devoutly ‘– like it was his shoe rag. For a convenience, for an excuse. So don’t tell me what I say I’ll do is wrong. It ain’t. It’s paying a debt like it should be, and what’s better, it’s solving a problem.’

  Again he gave her that winning smile, tilting his head beguilingly at her. ‘So, give me another good reason.’

  ‘I – it – you’d get into trouble.’

  That made him laugh, and he threw back his head to do it, opening his mouth widely so that she could see the glint of gold in his teeth.

  ‘I said a reason, cara! This is not a reason! This is a –’ He waved one hand. ‘This is just non-existent. You’re talking to Gian Giovale, not to Joe Soap. Believe me, it’s good of you to worry. I appreciate it. But there’s no need. Try again.’

  She stared at him and then shook her head, almost despairingly. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said at length. ‘How can you even think of – and why should you be so willing to – to do such a thing? I don’t understand.’

  There was a little silence and then he leaned forwards, and put both his hands firmly on hers on the table. His fingers were square with highly polished and carefully filed nails and the backs of his hands were thickly dusted with hair and she stared down at them, fascinated.

  ‘Listen, I’ll tell you. When I met you in London –’ he gave a gusty little sigh, ‘I tell you, I committed a sin. I saw you, another man’s wife and I thought – ay, ay, Gian, why didn’t you meet this lady long ago? I never saw a lady I liked the look of better. You’re lovely, you know that? A beautiful lady, with two beautiful little boys – I loved you the moment I saw you. But I tell myself, I am not a man to steal another man’s wife. I am Gian Giovale, a good man, well brought up by a great Momma, a lady like you. I don’t do such things. But when I say I love someone that is for life. I can’t ever hope you’ll care for me, but I won’t ever change. And that means, when you want something, I want it.’

  He leaned back again, well satisfied with his speech, releasing her hands and staring at her with his eyes glistening with unshed tears of emotion and suddenly, dreadfully, she wanted to giggle.

  There was this square little man with the overfussy clothes and an air of self-importance as ridiculous as a bullfrog’s, whom she had found agreeable simply because he looked faintly reminiscent of her dead father, here he was vowing his love for her, casting himself as some sort of latter-day Abelard, and all she wanted to do was laugh at him …

  And then she remembered the calm way he had told her what he could do to help her and the laughter spluttered and died in her throat and was replaced by tears and she shook her head, miserably, letting the tears slide unheeded out of her eyes, and he looked at her with his own eyes brighter than ever as his feelings bubbled up, obviously deeply gratified by her response.

  ‘There, my dear Maddie, there, there!’ he said and patted her hand again and then, clearly well satisfied, leaned back.

  ‘I can’t let you do such a thing,’ she said huskily, and reached into her pocket to find a handkerchief. ‘I mean – it’s the maddest thing I ever heard and –’

  ‘There’s nothing mad about it,’ he said sharply and she glanced at him and then away, startled by the new note in his voice. So far he had been all she could ever have wanted in his attitude to her; warm, concerned, tender, always polite, even when he had outlined in the most chillingly casual terms his remedy for her dilemma. But now he sounded irritable and she felt a little stab of apprehension.

  ‘There’s nothing mad about it. It’s an answer. This man Costello and his daughter have made trouble for you. So, we deal with this. Is this mad?’

  ‘No, Gian,’ she said. ‘Of course I didn’t mean mad – I just meant, it’s so extreme.’

  At once he was all charm and tenderness again. ‘Extreme? I like that. It sounds so English – so refined, you know? I don’t think it’s any more extreme than what they’re trying to do with you. They want to end your marriage to a man you love and make your little men into bastards? That is extreme. What I am saying will stop them. And make sure they never try it again –’ He laughed then, cosily, as though he were talking of some sort of practical joke, no more. ‘And make sure they never try it again – and like I told you, I’ve had a few business problems with Costello. I ain’t saying I couldn’t handle ‘em, but this may be quicker and I’d get an extra benefit out of it as well at the pleasure of being of service to you. So why not?’

  She stared at him with her eyes wide, fascinated now. The longer he went on about it, the more reasonable it sounded and she knew that she was being dazzled. The combination of her ac
hing muscles and back, the way her feet screamed their resentment of her abuse of them, the empty-headed sensation that still bedevilled her, all added together to rob her of all her common sense. Or so it seemed, for she heard her own voice speaking now, a little more strongly, and was amazed.

  ‘How would you – I mean, what sort of –’ she swallowed, ‘what would you do?’

  ‘That’s better,’ he said softly. ‘Now you think like a person, and not only a good loving lady. It’s right you should be such a lady, of course, but sometimes a person has to be sensible and not so good. Are you sure you want me to tell you? Wouldn’t it be better I just arrange it all and let you know afterwards?’

  ‘I haven’t said yes, yet!’ she said, alarmed, and he laughed again and shook his head at her.

  ‘I know you haven’t! And I promised you I wouldn’t do anything without your agreement and Gian Giovale keeps his ‘ promises. As a matter of honour – okay, you want to know what I do?’

  He tilted his head and thought a while. ‘There’s a lot of possibilities. Cars is always good.’

  ‘Cars?’ she said.

  ‘Huh hmm. Cars. A little attention beneath the bonnet, the long run up Pilgrim’s Highway – anything can happen.’

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t – I mean, suppose it doesn’t? Suppose that it goes wrong and the car – the car crashes, but the people in it –’

  ‘Yes,’ he said judiciously. ‘Yes, this is a problem, so it’s not a way I like. This time. But there are other possibilities.’

  She watched him, still fascinated, unable to believe this was happening. She was sitting here discussing with this little man the way to get Cray Costello and his daughter Gloria out of her way for always. That, he had said with every air of practical common sense when she had told him the cause of her distress, was what had to be done. There would be no sense, he had pointed out, in trying to buy Costello off; he was too rich. No sense in trying to appeal to his better nature, because he hadn’t got any of that. Gian had been very certain and his face had hardened as he had spoken of his past dealings with him. So what was left? Just get rid of the pair of ‘em, he’d finished calmly. ‘What else can we do?’