The Women's Room (Virago Modern Classics)

by Marilyn French

  A sound of children burst into the kitchen.

  ‘Elizabeth? I have to go. The Indians are charging in and it sounds as though the cavalry is just behind them. Right. So long.’

  Eric and Linda were both screaming. She gathered them up in her arms and took their coats off, shushing them, trying to find out what was wrong. They sobbed breathlessly. A big boy on the school bus had bullied Eric, Linda had punched him, he had got off the school bus at their stop and had chased them home and promised to come back and get even. She put their coats back on. She was still wearing her jacket.

  ‘Okay, kids, we’ll find this big bully,’ she said, starting toward the front door, when a crash resounded from the living room, followed by terrified screaming.

  She rushed in. The playpen was on its side, Mindy was lying helplessly on the wooden slats, screaming, with Mike lying on top of her, whimpering himself, glancing guiltily toward his mother. Adele picked Mike up roughly and set him down hard on the floor. He began to scream. She bent for the baby and picked her up, holding Mindy against her body, and bounced her gently. With her free hand, she righted the playpen.

  ‘What happened?’ she demanded angrily of Mike, who at eighteen months could barely talk. He tried to explain, sobbing and hurt at her roughness, glaring at her reproachfully. He had wanted to play with the baby, had tried to get into the playpen.

  ‘All right, all right,’ she said apologetically, ruffling Mike’s hair. ‘It’s okay, Mikey, she isn’t hurt.’ He calmed a little, but was still sobbing under his breath. ‘Come on, we’ll get some cookies.’

  He trailed behind her into the kitchen. The baby was calming against her shoulder. She reached for the cookie box, which had to be kept up high, and handed him two cookies. The older children clamored. She handed them each two. The baby was quiet. She carried her back inside and placed her back down inside the playpen. The baby howled in protest.

  ‘Oh, God,’ Adele sighed. She turned to Mike sharply. ‘I have to go out. Now you watch Mindy, you hear, and don’t try to get inside the playpen! Just stay here and watch her.’ She left.

  Mike turned large eyes to watch her, confused, but half-contented with his cookies. He sat down and watched the baby scream herself blue in the face as she saw her mother leave. He put out his hand to pat her face and smeared chocolate all over it. He sat there until his cookies were gone, then put his hands around his knees and rocked himself, talking to Mindy all the while. After ten minutes, she gave up and fell asleep.

  Adele had grabbed the collars of the two older children and pulled them out of the door. ‘Now where is this boy! Show me!’

  Calmed by the safety of home and the comfort of cookies, they were eager to let the whole thing go, but she insisted. She trudged the two of them down the street. Just then the bus from Gardiner School (grades 4–6) arrived, and a group of children got off. A boy who had apparently been standing behind a bush ran to get on. ‘There he is!’ the children yelled and pointed, and Adele ran toward the bus, but collided with Billy, who leaped aside at their encounter, and sent Adele sprawling across the sidewalk. She looked up as the school bus chugged off. She lay there on the sidewalk, her chin propped on a hand, wondering if she were hurt, wondering if she could have accomplished a broken leg. Oh, well: it would make a good story to tell the girls. She got up, limping; her knee was bruised.

  On their return to the house, she lectured Linda and Eric. They were not to speak to that naughty boy, they were to ignore him. If he came around or followed them home again, they were to come straight to her, she would take care of it. They nodded with large-eyed, solemn faces. They had giggled when she fell, and felt guilty.

  She looked at the clock. ‘Oh, God! Eric, get your uniform on!’ She took a bottle from the refrigerator and set it in a pan of water. She went into the living room. Compressing her lips, Adele picked the baby up and carried her to the kitchen and washed the chocolate off her face and hands, jammed her into a jacket, and plunked her on the kitchen floor. The baby whimpered quietly; the others were hushed: they all recognized their mother’s danger point. They put their coats on quickly; Adele jammed Mike into his and tested the bottle. It was too hot, so she ran it under cold water briefly, then packed up the baby and her bag and ordered all of them into the car. She strapped the baby into the rear seat and put the bottle in the baby’s hands and the baby began to suck it and screamed, and Adele snatched it away and tested it again and found it was still too hot and she sat in the front of the car leaning her head on the steering wheel and said, ‘Oh, God, oh, God,’ over and over, then pulled herself up and jerked the car out of the driveway, the baby screaming with a burned tongue, her own knee burning where she had bruised it, the other kids hushed with anxiety, and she realized she should have washed her knee, and she jerked the car all the way down the street until she had calmed a little.

  Ordering everyone to behave, she went into the cut-rate soda place and bought a case of the cheapest canned soda. Then she drove to Elizabeth’s and honked. Tom ran out and got into the car. Next she drove to Mrs Amory’s, where the Cub Scout meeting was being held this week. Tom helped Eric carry the case of soda. She drove to the DiNapolis’ and dropped Billy off, telling him to call her when he wanted to be picked up. She drove to the tailor at the other side of town, the only one Paul felt did decent work, and picked up his gray suit, ordering the children not to touch it as she hung it on a hook over the rear seat of the car. She stopped at Milkmart for a gallon of milk. By now the bottle had cooled and Mindy was peacefully sucking it. Then Adele drove home. The baby had worn herself out with screaming, and the warm milk had sent her back to sleep. She was heavy as Adele lifted her out of the car seat, her bag dangling on her arm. Linda tried to help, and picked up the milk to carry it indoors, but it was too heavy for her and she dropped it halfway up the driveway. Adele heard the crash, turned and looked. Linda’s face was white and terror-stricken as she looked up at her mother. (Oh, my God, my God!) Adele turned around, walked back, put the baby back in the car seat. Linda just stood there. Adele brought her voice into control. ‘Get back in the car, Linda.’ She drove back to Milkmart and picked up another gallon of milk.

  ‘Take my purse, Linda,’ Adele said as they pulled again into the driveway. She lugged the now deeply sleeping baby out of the car seat again, and Linda followed her up the driveway. ‘Stay away from the broken glass,’ Adele ordered sharply. Linda hopped dangerously among the pieces. Adele carried the baby into the living room and laid her in the playpen. She sighed. Mindy would be awake until late tonight: three naps in one day were too many. She went back out to the car and got the milk and the suit, brought them into the house, put the milk in the refrigerator, and hung the suit on a hook. Then she got a broom and dustpan and told Linda to follow her. She swept up the glass with Linda holding the dustpan. She poured the glass fragments directly into the garbage pail, being sure to jam the cover on tightly – you never know what kids might take it into their heads to pry into. She gave the broom and dustpan to Linda and pulled the hose off the rack and turned on the outside spigot and hosed down the spilled milk.

  She went inside and took off her jacket. Linda stood in the hallway staring at her. ‘What are you looking at me for!’ Adele shrieked. ‘Are you just going to stand there looking at me all day?’ Linda edged away. ‘Take off your coat and hang it up!’

  Linda took off her coat slowly, and walked toward the hall closet. Adele went into the living room and removed the baby’s jacket. She picked her up and started upstairs, then noticed Linda’s small form standing inside the closet door, silently moving. She went back down. Linda was leaning against the closet wall, weeping. Adele reached out her hand and touched the child’s head. She cried out loud then, burying her head in the coats.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ Adele said, near tears herself. ‘It’s all right, honey, I know you didn’t mean to do it.’ The child turned suddenly and buried her head in her mother’s side. Adele stood there, the baby heavy on
her arm, fondling Linda’s head, murmuring, ‘It’s okay, it’s all right, baby.’ Linda stopped crying and Adele stooped down to her. ‘I’m going to put Mindy to bed. Do you want to come and help me?’

  Linda nodded eagerly, and Adele stood and took the child’s hand in hers, and the three of them mounted the stairs together. Adele’s heart was full of emotion: the small hand was placed in hers so trustingly, after so many betrayals. Adele changed Mindy’s diaper and put her in the crib.

  ‘How come Mindy’s sleeping now, Mommy?’

  ‘She’s just tired.’

  ‘But can I play with my dolls?’

  ‘Of course not! The room has to be dark and quiet.’

  ‘But I want to play with my Barbie doll.’ The voice was already rising into hysteria.

  ‘Take it downstairs, then. Hurry, get it, and be quiet.’

  Linda got her doll and its paraphernalia, dropping bits of it to Adele’s whispered, ‘Be quiet, I said!’

  Linda took her toys into a corner of the living room. Adele went into the kitchen and sat for a moment on a high stool, thinking. Easy night, tonight: Paul was going out. There was some leftover spaghetti for Eric and Linda. Paul wouldn’t touch spaghetti, claiming not to like it, but Adele suspected it was worry about his figure. Billy had adopted this dislike. There was a little leftover chicken for Billy. She would heat that. She sat there hunched over. She had not even asked the children about school today, she should find out what had happened to Linda in kindergarten. She sat up, drew in a deep breath, and walked toward the living room. Linda was squatting on the floor, playing with her doll.

  ‘Now you’re a bad girl, a bad, bad girl,’ she was saying as she slapped the doll on its bottom several times. ‘You go straight in your room and don’t come out! And don’t wake up the baby!’ her little voice said angrily. She put the baby doll on its feet and marched it toward the couch.

  ‘Mmmmmm,’ she whined, ‘I didn’t mean it, Mommy,’ she said in a tiny high voice.

  ‘You did so and you’re bad!’ she said in her Mommy voice, and threw the baby doll down on the floor on its face. The baby doll was eighteen inches long; the Mommy doll was small, less than a foot tall. She put an apron on Barbie, and said in a calm, happy voice: ‘I wonder what I should make for Daddy’s supper tonight. I know, I’ll make chocolate cake with raisins, and bacon.’ Then she paraded the Barbie doll around in a circle, humming all the while. ‘Hello, dear,’ she said in an artificial voice. ‘How was your day today? Guess what I’ve made! Chocolate cake with raisins!’ There was a silence, in which presumably the father answered.

  ‘Oh, yes, it’s been one of those days. After you eat, I want you to go in and spank that baby, she was so bad today! Isn’t this chocolate cake delicious?’

  Adele stood there silently, then turned back into the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of wine and turned on the radio. The gallon jug of cheap California was going fast: Paul would notice. Turning furtively to see where Linda was, she poured some water into the wine. She sat down again on the high stool. The radio was playing some Mantovani-ish music: ‘You’d be so nice to come home to, You’d be so nice by the fire.’ She and Paul had danced to that song, clinging to each other, way back, years ago, a lifetime ago. She’d been brisk and efficient and independent, a legal secretary, earning good money for a woman, and Paul was still a law student. She had always known that a career was not really what she wanted. She wanted to get married and have kids; she wanted to marry a professional man and have some luxuries, a life less harried than her own mother’s. But she had fallen in love with Paul in a hopeless way, like diving off the board without checking first to see if there’s water in the pool.

  She leaned on her elbow, sipping the wine. The song ended, the radio announced that it was five o’clock. Wearily she rose and got the spaghetti and chicken out of the refrigerator. Eric had gotten a ride home; he came in the door grousing about something. Adele sent him upstairs to change his clothes and start on his homework.

  ‘What’s for dinner?’ Eric asked, and contented with spaghetti, went upstairs.

  But Linda came trailing into the kitchen. ‘Do I have to eat spaghetti too?’

  Adele’s back straightened. ‘You like spaghetti!’

  ‘No, I don’t. I don’t like it, I hate spaghetti!’

  ‘You always liked spaghetti!’ Adele argued. ‘You liked it when we had it on Monday.’

  No, I didn’t. I don’t want it! I won’t eat it!’ The child jumped up and down on the kitchen floor. Adele swiftly reached out and swatted her on the rear, sending the child into screams of agony. She ran into the living room and threw herself on the couch crying.

  The front door opened and Paul came in. ‘For God’s sake,’ he said softly, ‘can’t I ever come home to peace and quiet? All day long I listen to shit.’

  Adele turned to him white-faced. ‘You have five children,’ she said hoarsely. ‘What do you expect?’

  He turned to her. He was handsome and well-dressed and he had great elegance of movement. ‘Did you get my suit?’

  She nodded toward the hook.

  ‘For God’s sake, Adele, why didn’t you hang it in the bedroom? You leave it here where the kids with their grubby paws …’

  ‘I didn’t have time!’ she snapped. ‘Besides,’ she added defensively, ‘it has a plastic cover. And the kids didn’t touch it.’

  The door opened and Billy came in. Billy was eight. Adele’s eyes shone when she looked at him. ‘Mrs DiNapoli had to go out for milk, so she dropped me off.’

  ‘Oh, that was nice, honey. How did the project go? Are you finished?’

  Billy, authoritative and knowledgeable even at his age, began to explain to her the difficulty of the project and the incredible stupidity of Johnny DiNapoli.

  Paul still stood idly in the kitchen. ‘Can I at least get a drink around here?’ he interjected.

  ‘Oh, Paul!’ Adele gasped. ‘I’m sorry!’ She ran to the refrigerator, where she had a small pitcher of martinis cooling.

  ‘Spaghetti!’ Paul sniffed. ‘Glad I’m going out.’

  ‘Oh, are we having spaghetti, Mom?’ Billy protested, his voice rising into a whine. She looked at him grimly. To children, food was everything, she thought. Their whole evening rose or fell according to what they were to have for dinner.

  Paul was in the living room with his drink and his paper. Linda had snuggled up beside him on the couch. ‘I hate spaghetti!’ Linda yelled toward the kitchen.

  ‘Well, I have to confess I do too,’ Paul said, putting his arm around her and tickling her.

  ‘That’s great, that’s just great!’ Adele stormed in. ‘I try to live on our budget and spaghetti is one of the cheapest things we can have, and you undermine me right and left!’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Adele, if she doesn’t like it, why should she have to eat it?’

  ‘Because,’ Adele said, and was surprised herself to hear the level and height of her voice, ‘it’s all I have, there’s only enough chicken for Billy, and I didn’t have time to make anything else!’

  Paul looked up at her coolly, almost appraisingly. ‘Why not? From your color, I’d guess you’ve had time to booze it up with the girls this afternoon.’ He rose, took his suit and his drink, and went upstairs.

  She stared at him. Her throat was full of tears. Injustice, injustice.

  ‘Am I having chicken, Mom?’ Billy asked eagerly.

  ‘Why can he have chicken and I can’t?’ Linda leaped up.

  ‘Shut up! Just shut up! You get what you get!’ she shouted and ran into the kitchen and poured herself another glass of wine. Then she made the salad and set the table. Paul came down looking beautiful, kissed her lightly on the cheek, and said he probably wouldn’t be late, but not to worry.

  Adele felt calmer after he was gone. She called the children to dinner. Linda gazed at her spaghetti and refused to eat, her voice edged with hysteria.

  ‘You’ll go to bed without dinner, then,’ Adele
said grimly.

  Linda wailed.

  Adele sank to a chair. She took Linda’s arm and pulled her toward her, trying not to be rough. ‘Linda, I didn’t know you didn’t like spaghetti. You always liked it before. You can look at Billy’s plate. There isn’t enough chicken for both of you.’

  ‘Why does he get it and I don’t? He always gets everything!’ Linda wailed.

  ‘He got it because I knew Billy didn’t like spaghetti. Listen. I won’t make it for you anymore, okay? I didn’t know you didn’t like it. Okay?’

  Linda gazed at her mother, figuring her chances. It looked as if it was spaghetti or nothing for dinner, no matter how she responded, but she was not sure whether she could trust this momentary conciliatory mood. She was not sure she wanted to; she wanted to protest about something. But Adele let go of her and rose wearily. Clearly she was not going to bend any further. Linda ate her spaghetti, expecting some reward afterward. But none came.

  Adele ran the bath water. She bathed Mike, then Linda, then called Eric to take his bath. Each time, she emptied and cleaned the tub and refilled it. She put Mike to bed and came back down.

  ‘Read me a story,’ Linda demanded.

  Demands, Adele thought bleakly. There was nothing like demands from a child who had done something wrong. She drops the milk and I have to pay: all night. ‘I’m too busy,’ she said.