Three Pretty Widows

by Barbara Else

  ‘You women! All the same!’ Barnaby thumps the table. ‘Bella spent the day scowling at a caddy spoon I told her to repair. The handle’s Georgian, the bowl is too elaborate, the damned thing was already ambiguous.’

  Lydia laughs. ‘Then Bella’s work would be quite adequate. What a determined little soul, to take up painting again. I enjoy my tennis too, but I don’t expect to win at Wimbledon.’

  Family dinners, when the most inoffensive phrases carry monstrous freight. Bella rises to gather the plates. Barnaby makes as if to slap her bottom. The last time her behind was patted was by the tippling archdeacon near the dishwasher: it was slurping too, like an old man with foul manners. She evades Barnaby, leaves the plates, tries to smile, and goes into the kitchen.

  ‘Good God. Dinner was late, you’ve burnt dessert, now you can’t clear the bloody table,’ Barnaby calls.

  ‘Are you not feeling well?’ Charlotte asks him. ‘You’re behaving very oddly.’

  Bella picks up a knife to spread the icing on the cake. Lydia’s voice cuts through. ‘If Bella’d had children to bring up, she’d know what life was all about.’

  Snap. The knife jangles in the sink. Bella circles past the carrot cake. Her jacket is over the back of the hall chair, her bag is on its seat. She opens the front door.

  ‘She knows I’m joking! We’re both joking. Eliot, get back here,’ Barnaby shouts. ‘Bloody women. She’ll calm down!’

  Bella strides out and down the street. There are still some spots of rain. Eliot runs up and walks with her. She doesn’t trust herself to speak.

  ‘Last straw,’ Eliot says as they reach the corner.

  They take more steps in silence. She is quivering all over.

  ‘I’m too thoroughly worn down to go back,’ she says at last, ‘but you …’

  ‘It’s all right. I’ve got a spare bed.’

  Lightly, he takes her arm. How unexpected, shocking, strange it feels, his hand. The world seems to spin faster, then to hesitate. Eliot’s still touching her. She looks up at his face. He’s said he has a spare bed but his eyes say something different.

  The rain has stopped. A silver moon begins to rise. She does not want to be in love, she doesn’t want to cope with that. But she wants him to keep touching her. What other chance will she have to take one night with no control? One night when she flings herself away?

  The moon floats up from the horizon, a headband of cloud across its upper half. Bella gasps as the quivering seeps further into her body, deep inside.

  ‘What’s funny?’ Eliot asks.

  ‘A spare room is always useful,’ Bella says.

  Jocasta thinks the kind of lust which, when indulged, turns into love must forge the most formidable love of all. Her youthful curiosity about what men could do to her slim body and its secret places pulled Peter down into her heart and keeps him there, cages him for ever. He’s trapped. He cannot change.

  The second time he came back on leave, months later, was early autumn. He still didn’t talk much about the war, not Peter, but word was that he was going to get a medal. A modest man — he never said about it, but his friends did. Her Peter was a very annoying hero.

  ‘Why?’ Jocasta said. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Trimmed Hitler’s moustache,’ was all she could get out of him.

  They searched for a thicket in the woods where they’d be sheltered from the wind. Peter’d brought a blanket with him, and in its folds they pressed and twined their two young bodies, never close enough to make them finally and permanently one but the idea was to try. They yelped and nipped each other’s tender places, burrowed into the succulence of male flesh, young female crevices.

  ‘Other girls are getting married,’ said Jocasta.

  ‘You’re too young yet.’ He started to kiss her, then gave a sharper yelp, too loud.

  ‘Hush,’ Jocasta said. ‘We don’t want folk to hear.’

  ‘Something bit me.’ Peter thrust the rug down. ‘It’s a dog. Get off!’ He picked up a stone and threw it straight and hard. Another stifled yelp and something slunk off in the shadows.

  ‘Was probably a bitch.’ Jocasta half sat up to see. ‘After your tasty bits, I shouldn’t be surprised.’

  ‘I think I hit it, any rate.’ Peter drew her down, tugged the blanket up and nuzzled near her ear. ‘Won’t bother us again.’

  And goodbye next day, Jocasta wangling time to go with him to Whitby, take a photo of him at the monument, the bag on his back, the strong wide smile, a short walk arm in arm along the beach, then off to Whitby station, tired out, to watch the train pull away.

  ‘Why wasn’t Grandma in her bed last night?’ Jocasta’s mother asked. ‘She’s too frail to get round by herself. She’s being odd in her ways, these days.’

  Indeed she was, poring through her old herbal, especially the pages at the end in the crabbed and cryptic writing that she’d never told Jocasta how to read. It’s about a wigwam for a goose’s foot, was all she’d ever said.

  ‘I was out myself,’ Jocasta told her mother. ‘She was in bed when I left.’

  ‘She’s hurt her wrist,’ Jocasta’s mother said. ‘She doesn’t know how. Or rather, the old biddy refuses to say.’

  Time passed, with one postcard, a letter, word of mouth about her Peter from the neighbours down by the village shops. Grandma’s wrist still didn’t heal.

  Jocasta didn’t like to be in Grandma’s room these days. It smelled of dried-up juices, lavender, a tang of sharp old sweat, no matter how you scrubbed and tried to air it. Grandma was anxious, fretted as if some hidden thing gnawed at her, some burden that she had to bear and couldn’t talk about. Grandma, though Jocasta loved her, was simply being old and past her time.

  When Peter came home a third time, Grandma said Jocasta must not meet him, the nights were far too cold. It was summer again, early summer, so Jocasta made believe she didn’t hear. Out the door, and running down the main street to where the bus stopped — her heart, already high with love, lifted to see Peter’s shoulders through the crowd, the hoist of his bag as he stepped down from the bus and moved towards her like a filing to a magnet.

  More of the rug, more twining, melting of their hearts and in their bellies, more in love than ever with a sad thrill running through it now, a fear the war might never end. Would it always be Goodbye, I love you, keep safe, hurry back to me?

  She was too young to be married, Peter said. But she was nearly seventeen. Three of the village girls had married the minute they turned sixteen. Jocasta knew what he really meant, and blood chilled around her heart: too young to be a widow. ‘I want it to be perfect for you, love,’ he said. ‘I promise. When. And if, Jocasta.’

  So, goodbye. Goodbye, and down to the cliff tops on your own to watch the gulls sift up and down the pathways of the air as the days drew in, to listen to the waves slide up the beach and roll back out, watch a small stick bobbing in the waves, each time shifting further, further southward. The way the North Sea wrenched it slowly south, you thought that tiny stick would reach the far side of the world and then return. Being patient was all very well but how long would it take for that to happen, how many months, or years?

  At least now Grandma was showing Jocasta how to read the last pages of the herbal.

  But he was coming home, her Peter of the red red face and strong black eyes, the black hair thick upon his head, rough on his back and curled between his legs … This time, her man, her handsome heart, was coming home for good. Except it wasn’t home he had to go first: it was after his thirteenth op, a night raid, and there was an accident at the base when they thought they’d landed safely. So much for being a hero. He was being sent to a sanatorium over towards York where they treated some burn cases.

  Jocasta hadn’t told her mother that her monthlies hadn’t come. If Grandma were still alive, Jocasta would have asked for her advice. But Grandma had breathed her final breath a week or so ago after a jolly little party in her bedroom with some elderberry wine. The room still s
melled oddly, like foxes, Jocasta thought in the midst of her weeping. It was strange as well to find a saucer of water tucked behind the old oak wardrobe. Jocasta tipped it out and rinsed it clean before her mother saw. She dried her eyes. It was strange and wonderful, heart-breaking but uplifting, to know how Grandma had decided it was time for her to go.

  ‘You’re the prettiest thing in anybody’s eyes,’ Grandma murmured at the last. ‘You’ll always get the best, if the best is what you want. You must be thinking only of yourself.’

  Quite so. Jocasta searched through Grandma’s herbal and tried ginger root, which made her feel sick. So it was on to drinking tansy. But Grandma’s store ran out. Then on to pennyroyal, but it wasn’t clear how much would do the job, and how much would be dangerous. And, after all, why should Jocasta’s heart be in making sure the baby didn’t see the light of day? A baby. Hers.

  Her baby would be born in the breath of spring.

  ‘I’m going to visit Peter,’ said Jocasta.

  Her mother seemed disturbed. Her mother had never shown any particular care for Jocasta before. Jocasta looked at her mother’s worried eyes.

  ‘You should wait,’ her mother said.

  ‘I’ll go.’ Jocasta’s voice was more steely than she’d meant. She knew that Peter would be dreadfully and permanently changed.

  Something tightened in her mother’s face. ‘Go, then. But take your coat.’

  Jocasta’s heart turned in her breast. People always took their coats. Her mother knew she was pregnant. That silly comment meant her mother cared for her after all, when it was far too late for caring.

  Besides, Jocasta wasn’t hopping on a bus this minute. There were arrangements to make first.

  chapter thirteen

  Ruth’s eyes are red — it’s sleeplessness as well as yesterday’s tears. When a dear friend dies, it underlines how time drives on.

  At her dressing table, she holds her latest publicity photo and compares it to what she sees in the mirror. Ruth’s asking for self-torment. Early morning is the time of serious puff, and sag, and shadow. Her fingernail traces a line on her left cheek. She puts her fingers into her hair and presses up. The drag of time is stayed, infinitesimally. This is why old women wear their hair in buns — the instant face lift. Oh, Ruth’s crows’ feet are softer than on many women of her age. If you were generous, you’d say the moon lines bracketing her mouth show a readiness to smile, mean warmth and wit.

  The world of style and beauty is not generous.

  If Ruth won’t fight, she’ll soon become invisible. She’s seen it happen often — the patronising, potent disregard caused by the alchemy of time. It comes to men as well as women, although that is no comfort. The only way to stay young is to die young.

  Ruth still looks good enough — but there’s her problem: ‘still’ and ‘good enough’. ‘Still’ means that change is possible. Look hard at ‘I still love you.’ There are echoes in the margins that sing in soft faint voices, I can say I love you now but I cannot read the future (dare not read it — do not wish to read it, thanks). I cannot say my love will last for ever.

  Walsh loves her. He has loved Ruth from the instant he saw her at a student protest meeting. She wore emerald-green stretch pants. He will love Ruth till he dies and then beyond. He keeps a photograph of her in his socks drawer with his medals. He’s deeply thankful he is lucky enough to have her. Winning Ruth was quite impossible, he’d thought. He thinks she is beautiful, still. Few women are as lovely (still) as Ruth.

  There’s a shadowy overlay on her reflection: the fox-like curve of her grandmother’s upper eyelid as it began to droop when she neared sixty, the way her wrinkles feathered like a bird’s wing if she smiled — though Alice wasn’t known to smile often. She was always beautiful, though tart, and she grew old and died. Alice never had a job. She sewed Ruth’s clothes and sifted like a ghost around Ruth’s parents’ house. You’ll be the prettiest in the family, Alice said to Ruth (astonished Ruth) one day, but you might not find it’s such a blessing.

  Indeed. Ruth feels she’s lived beneath a curse. The fight to find work, thirty years ago: in those days being pretty meant you could work as a receptionist but hardly as a journalist, my dear; as a chemist shop assistant, not a chemist. A pretty one won’t be serious, don’t touch her with a ten-foot pole, the pretty ones cause trouble. And a married pretty thing? That was far worse. She heard it on a bus one day: Those young ones with a husband, they should leave the jobs for single women. Archaic. Prejudiced. Reality: it stinks, okay, back then as well as now.

  You weren’t supposed to have a baby, either, if you worked. So: A baby? Not for me. A kid would cramp my style. Only Walsh knew how Ruth cried each month. Only Walsh. Ruth lived hollow with lies, with the loss of something she might never have.

  And then?

  Abraca-dabbler! Out sprang the wonder baby, Anna.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Ruth blows her nose again and glares at her tired reflection. She fought hard then — she’ll damn well fight again. Regenerative magic. Plastic surgery.

  We don’t say plastic, dear. Let us use the term, cosmetic.

  A syrup of dead bacteria would paralyse the muscles and make Ruth unable to frown. She could get her crows’ feet injected with dead bugs too, and any other wrinkles caused by the years of showing how she feels. A mere few hundred dollars would buy a face as frozen as a statue’s. The injection only lasts six months or so, then the statue unfreezes, just like in a fairy story. But these days, sorry, dear — you’re only lovely if you’re paralysed.

  There is laser skin resurfacing, vitamin C oil, acid peels, all manner of modern magic Ruth could try. She’s thought about it all. She’s tried some of it.

  She could just give up and put a bag over her head.

  Ruth feels as angry and defensive as a teenager, but she does not want to be invisible. For a moment, she hears singing in her memory, sees the moon outside the window of her student flat, glimmering through the branches of a winter oak while four young men sing to her on the courtyard below. Her lovely boys, her men. The braided voices, baritone, bass, two tenors, are strong as the branches of a tree, are hymns to Ruth. Rapunzel, let down your hair. Beautiful dreamer. Mrs Brown, you’ve got a stunning daughter. She sighs, and laughs, and wipes her eyes. I love you, every one! I’ll elope with every one of you! You’re mine, my lovely boys! Oh Barnaby. Dear Barnaby.

  The itinerary to Vancouver and London is in her study. So is a pile of magazines and brochures, recent newspapers from both cities. So is a patient consent form for a local private hospital, and a letter from a farm a few kilometres up the coast where people can stay in a discreet cottage for as long as they choose and have groceries brought to them and left outside the door.

  Ruth has a laptop with a modem. How extravagant the fashion scene is in London, she plans to write, how luxurious the shops here in Vancouver. They’ve decided white is the new black again, she’ll write, but, if you’re bold enough to step out of line, sweethearts, try black as the new black!

  A virtual working trip to anywhere she chooses because ‘older’ is a word we’re scared to use.

  Modern magicians, wrote Ruth a week or so ago, prefer to slice into the faces of wealthy healthy people rather than use their skills to fight the plague of poverty and ignorance in low socio-economic areas …

  ‘Can’t publish that,’ snapped Nausea. ‘Cut your own throat if you want to, Ruth, but please don’t try to cut mine.’

  Yes: one fell swoop, hey presto! — one terrible blow with the sword of a magician priest! — though of course it will be several slashes with a scalpel: snick, snick, snick.

  Ruth will forget to give Walsh the names of the hotels she’s meant to be staying in. She won’t be home until it looks as if she’s suffering only from jet lag, which she can count on to make her look like a slipper that’s been left out in the rain.

  This is terrible deceit. She hates herself.

  Ruth, in Walsh’s dressing gown, goes heavily downst
airs to get some breakfast. She hopes the milk is at its use-by date and not beyond.

  What will she do about Craig? He still seems to think he’ll meet her in Vancouver. Did I stuff it up? It would be great to see you again but I do understand you might not want to … He’s still pestering about photographs as well.

  What will happen if Anna gets into trouble of some kind while she’s away? She must phone Anna. Ruth’s eyes fill up again with tears.

  What if Walsh is taken ill while she’s in hiding? He’s Barnaby’s age, he’s in a stressful job; Ruth doesn’t want to become a widow without knowing as soon as it happens. Please God it won’t, but you don’t know till lightning strikes. Tears spill down her cheeks.

  Lightning blisters, scorches, knocks you over, down and out. Lightning will strike as many times as it pleases. How futile to think you can stop God’s thunderbolts. How futile to imagine you won’t grow old and show it.

  Strong widows are a feature of Ruth’s family. Jocasta, on her side of the fence, smiles the special smile that comes with knowledge — superior, perhaps, but with a hint of rue. The common rue, the garden rue, the herb-of-grace. Rue’s for remembrance, but watch out: it may cause blisters. It may get rid of worms as well: intestinal ones, that is. Make use of it, that’s what Jocasta says.

  A widow once wore boxing gloves. Ruth’s mother’s side of the family, a hundred and thirty years or so ago. The widow drew blood twice. Molly, married to a boxer, Flash Jack Lightning (See Lightning Strike! said the posters). Molly served him sweetbread pie: that’s pancreas of lamb which Molly simmered, skinned and mixed with onion, stirred into a savoury two-egg custard, covered with shortcrust and baked in a very slow oven. The pie should be served lukewarm.

  When Flash Jack died, Molly didn’t make herself a victim. Not a bit. She advertised five pounds to any woman who could last three rounds with her. There’s a sketch of her in costume: boxing gloves, a waltz-length skirt and baggy trousers.

  ‘Help out the pretty widow!’ cried the compere. ‘No women brave enough?’