Three Pretty Widows

by Barbara Else

  Waves slop and suck beneath the wharf. Cold feathers of wind blow over Walsh and Eliot’s drunken faces, muffle their ears. Barnaby, is it, hanging over a bollard, hands to his face, and screaming? They finally realise something terrible has happened, is still happening. They run, grab hold of Barnaby. His face is bleeding. Nicolas has disappeared. Walsh hears a cry below, sees an arm rise out of the choppy waves, kicks his shoes off and dives in. Eliot plunges after him.

  They’re yelling in the water, calling for Nicolas, diving down. They surface, spluttering, and shout for Barnaby to get help. But he’s in tears, blood running from his forehead over one eye, hand clasped to his nose, still cursing, paralysed by the night, the wind, the waves, the flailing arms of Walsh and Eliot below him in the water. Walsh finds Nicolas and tries to drag him to a piling — nearly makes it, sinks himself and loses hold. He thinks he’s going to drown, but Eliot grabs his hair. They cling to the pilings in the dark.

  Walsh feels so very guilty. He insists he be the one to tell the widow. The police go with him. He’s still soaked; he’s refused to change until Ruth has been told. She sits in a battered armchair in the tiny Kelburn flat she and Nicolas have been in for nine weeks. The unused Irish coffee set Walsh gave them as a wedding gift is on a shelf behind her. He weeps as he lets the widow know. She sits like a statue of a goddess, white as stone. She’s such a lovely widow.

  It’s all hushed up. Nobody is to blame: heaven forbid, especially if two law students, and one the son of a man of God, are so involved. A church connection can be very useful. Pomp and claptrap.

  There isn’t a baby after all. It was too early to tell if there’d definitely been one on the way, although the pretty widow was convinced of it.

  Eliot moves south to study engineering. Soon Walsh joins the Navy and moves north for a few years with his new wife.

  Barnaby stays put.

  What will Jocasta do? She knows by now that Nicolas wasn’t Felix. Details of Nicolas’ birth seem clear enough. He never lived in Yorkshire. The others may have done — she may never know the ins and outs of it. She is intrigued by these twists and turns, the secrecy.

  She isn’t weary of the tippling vicar yet. It may well turn out he’s the one who stole her boy — he doesn’t seem to have a past. He becomes the tippling archdeacon. As convenient a way as any for Jocasta to keep in touch with what is happening, learn that all the boys are safe in their careers. Better the devil you know, as they say. What a wicked little devil is the archdeacon.

  As years go by, Jocasta sometimes feels she’s grown too fond of him, as if he is a pet. Who wouldn’t feel affection for a monkey-lover with nut-brown knees, who tells such gleeful stories of the woes of the world while he scuttles round her bedroom looking for the cushions and the scarves he likes? As he grows older — and as, of course, does she — the cushions support their legs, cosset their backs, alleviate the yips and yelps of pain as a knee joint gives out, a shoulder twinges, a cartilage in the ankle creaks.

  Her preventative for arthritis is this:

  1 cup of whisky

  1 packet of red chillies

  Steep the chillies in the whisky for 48 hours.

  Strain the chillies out.

  Take one drop of the whisky in your first cup of tea for the day, forevermore.

  It gives the tea a lift. It is also very pungent and will clear your sinuses explosively if you’re daft enough to take a sniff.

  What else will a harmless, unobtrusive woman do to pass the time till luck comes round again? Travel. Learn. Experiment.

  In some countries, the sea horse is believed to be an aphrodisiac. Grind it up whole and use it to cure male impotence. In Jocasta’s view, the notion of the genuine aphrodisiac proves only how gullible the human being is. Viagra, that’s another case: very modern, altogether scientific. Wait long enough for magic, it arrives.

  By now, all Jocasta wants — she thinks — is to be sure which man is Felix. She wants to hear him say, I was not a happy boy. I missed my mother.

  Children never turn out how you’d like.

  In stories, men journey through danger to find their wives — see Orpheus and Eurydice. Women suffer through impossible tasks to gain their husbands — see Cupid and Psyche, or see Beauty and the Beast. Mothers plead for a daughter’s safe return — see the story of determined Demeter and silly weak Persephone. There isn’t a tale about a mother who murders twice then clears the way to track her son across the world and, when she gets there, simply waits.

  I promised a new one. See?

  Is Jocasta fooling herself?

  What would she do, these many years on, if it were revealed to her at last which middle-aged man is her Felix?

  She would probably need to sit and have a think.

  Bella jams the photo of half-smiling Isabella, her many-times great-aunt, into the faded file box and kicks it into the bottom of the wardrobe. Such odd things she’d snatched from home when she went there with Ruth after walking out on Barnaby. The faded dusty box, some clothes, a bag of books, the teapot. A dark red rose bowl with little pyramids for feet. And a frisbee (glow-in-the-dark). The nephews gave it to her for a birthday. Here it is, between her winter boots and a pair of black high heels. Why would someone run away from her husband and take a frisbee?

  She still hasn’t visited the house since frisbee-liberation day. She can cast off the past entirely, sell the house as it is, let a real-estate agent handle the lot. She could ask the funeral parlour to deliver Barnaby’s ashes to the house as well and have them sold accidentally-on-purpose in the auction.

  When she ran away from New York, she left everything behind. She hasn’t any photos of Jonah, nor of black-browed sexy Mark with the hips as slithery as a lizard’s. Escaping from the dark king’s tower — running off like a rabbit, more like.

  Bella hasn’t got a clue what will happen next: she isn’t writing her own story. She has to wait and see, one step at a time. It’s either that or make another frantic dash — though as her father said when she was nine years old and they played ogres in the woods, ‘If you’re going to run away in terror, make sure it’s the right direction.’

  She’s no good at directions. Putting the issue of men — Eliot — to one side for the moment, is the right direction painting, or silver design? Her first silversmithing tutor said her very tiny hands were an advantage. He also said if she learned too many rules from him it would drive the poetry out of her. She took that to mean he was a lazy S.O.B. She taught herself. With scorpers, tiny chisels of varying sizes, she engraved cups, plates, inscribed wedding dates for people who thought proof of love was always having the right marmalade for breakfast, birth dates for babies who looked like caricatures of their parents (and sometimes of the man next door). She learned how hard to hit a snarling iron, the lever shaped like a Z, one end inside a silver cup or beaker, the hammer tapping on the other end to convey pressure. She likes to leave the hammer marks to show the piece has been hand-made by very tiny hands.

  Once Barnaby asked if she could copy a claret jug, supposedly Victorian. Its handle was a crocodile. ‘I’m not mad,’ she said. ‘Why should I? This is a fake that’s been added to over years by a string of incompetent craftsmen.’

  Barnaby sold it to a man who thought it was an original. Bella shrieked with rage and went round to the buyer to give him his money back. Barnaby was furious. She threw a bottle of perfume at him, which he caught one-handed, dropping to his knees like a cricketer.

  ‘That could have spilled!’ he shouted. ‘And you never bloody wear it!’

  ‘I didn’t choose that shit! You did!’ yelled Bella.

  ‘It’s a hundred bloody dollars for an ounce!’ roared Barnaby.

  ‘Then it’s expensive shit!’ screamed Bella.

  Barnaby’s eyes bulged brown with outrage. ‘You’re swearing at your husband.’

  Bella gasped, tried to hold the laughter back, but it spilled out. One hand to her mouth, the other like a ball between her breasts, she ha
lf-crawled, whooping to the front door, and found Charlotte on the step about to knock.

  ‘Bella,’ Charlotte said. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Your son,’ Bella spluttered. ‘I’ve got to — got to — go shopping! I need a — need a — onions!’

  ‘Ah,’ said Charlotte, a look in her eye: Charlotte’s look. ‘Just like the archdeacon. By all means, dear, buy onions.’

  But. Today. Today, the archdeacon’s dead, and Barnaby is dead. It’s still so hot, with a wind that dries the breath out of your lungs. She must make up her mind about the shop.

  Bella wears her plainest clothes. Brown trousers, cream short-sleeved top, hair brushed all anyhow. Before she leaves the house she searches out Eliot. Not difficult — there’s a dreadful noise of banging in the laundry. He’s pulled the buckets and clothes-rack out, dumped them in the corridor, and is on his knees behind the drier.

  ‘You’re mad,’ she says.

  ‘I’m stopping up holes. Mice could get in.’ He hasn’t glanced up. ‘Maybe I’ll get a dog.’

  ‘Dogs don’t catch mice,’ says Bella. ‘I read that somewhere, so it might be true or not.’

  He turns around, then looks as if something’s hit him in the chest. ‘Lovely,’ he says, half whispering.

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘You’re plain as a pikelet, then.’

  I wish, thinks Bella. I wish. But maybe he does love her.

  ‘I’ve never asked if you like dogs.’ Dust from the drier has whiskered his chin.

  ‘Those ones that look like criminals,’ says Bella.

  ‘Me too.’ Eliot sticks his head back behind the drier and starts whanging the floor.

  ‘I’ve got some stuff being delivered. I thought it would be here by now. Supplies,’ she says. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

  He grunts behind the drier like a minotaur and — why? — she’s filled with warmth. It’s love. Her whole world trembles.

  ‘There’s something I haven’t said, Eliot.’

  The banging stops. He stays motionless.

  But, as happens to the bad girl in the fairy tale, when Bella opens her mouth a second time a toad hops out, not a pearl. ‘Eliot — I — how was your mother?’

  He grunts again and bangs the floor. ‘She had a long conversation with an invisible friend about the difficulties of finding Reckitt’s Blue. She thought I was the grocer. That wasn’t what you hadn’t told me, though. It’s young Craig, I expect. It’s all right, Bella. It’s happened to me before.’

  His tone implies that in the circumstances it would be no more than he deserves. It twists her up.

  ‘For crying out loud. If I’d stayed with Barnaby, he might just have had his stroke a few weeks sooner.’

  She whisks out to her car. She really has blown it now with Eliot.

  So: parking near the antique shop, the sun so harsh on her face, the buffeting wind, the shop door black like a cavern, she has to go inside.

  As she lifts the keys to open up, something taps her arm. It’s that old woman — she has the strangest eyes. Bella can’t bring herself to smile but points to the Closed sign. The woman brings a bunch of flowers into view.

  You should always refuse flowers from a nerdy boyfriend but you can’t from a harmless old lady. Bella cracks the door and Jocasta nips in before her like a blur.

  She holds the bouquet under Bella’s nose. ‘Bee balm. In this heat, and you staying indoors with all these dusty musty things, it helps to have a sniff of bee balm.’ There are dark green and grey-green leaves, with two shades of flowers, red, like tiny crowns. A citrus scent and one like mint. Jocasta puts the flowers in Bella’s hands. ‘Not short of vases here, are you?’

  ‘You’re very kind.’

  And very odd. Bella finds a ruby glass jug and takes it to the workroom. As she’s filling it with water, Jocasta — without asking — sets about making some tea.

  ‘You weren’t going to invite me in.’ Jocasta’s fingers are busy with the caddy, carton of milk, the spoon. ‘I take the law into my own hands.’ She hands Bella a mug of tea.

  ‘Thank you.’ Bella’s weirdly tired.

  ‘I like the little shelf of shoes,’ Jocasta says. ‘They’re always women’s shoes. Except those little Delft clogs perhaps. Because of Cinderella, I daresay. Tell me, how are things with you and Eliot?’

  Time seems to pleat in on itself and then expand. Bella’s voice has disappeared again but the old woman moves around the workroom, lifts her chin as if she’s listening. What a nosey old creature.

  ‘Eliot. Oh, you know. Men,’ Bella says at last. ‘No matter what I do, it’s just a blunder.’

  ‘There’s a lot to be said for being long-suffering,’ says Jocasta. ‘But you can’t be patient all your life.’

  ‘What’s Eliot to you?’ asks Bella.

  The old woman gives a sigh of irritation. ‘Any little boy who needs his behind smacked,’ she mutters.

  A spurt of anger runs through Bella. No wonder Ruth gets exasperated with this woman — but she’s saved from telling her to get lost by a sharp tap on the door.

  It’s Craig. He looks so disconcerted to see Jocasta, Jocasta so annoyed to see him, that Bella’s pleased to let him in.

  ‘I wanted a word in private,’ he mutters as he comes into the workroom. ‘I’ve something to show you.’

  ‘Take your time,’ Bella says.

  Craig’s face goes through awkwardness, to shyness, then decision. He spreads some photos on the table. ‘I thought if you saw these, maybe you’d help me out. Mutual advantage of course,’ he adds quickly. ‘So — what d’you think?’

  They’re not very good shots of a diminutive stage set, Daliesque, black lace, and a large man’s hand spread over trinkets Bella recognises. Barnaby’s tiny pocketknife. Eliot’s miniature silver boots. A medal. A thimble that looks like one of Ruth’s — not that Ruth sews, it was an heirloom.

  ‘I like live models best, but if I can’t — I often have a bit of trouble persuading …’ Craig laughs in an embarrassed way. ‘So I borrow,’ he explains. ‘I give things back.’

  ‘You’d damn well better! What a nerve!’

  Craig’s face lights up with that amazed-male smile that says You’re gorgeous when you’re angry, backs off and leaves the photographs spread out. The shop door closes behind him.

  Jocasta stares at Craig’s creative efforts.

  ‘Barnaby would be mad as hell about that knife.’ Bella points at the medal: ‘I suppose that’s Walsh’s. I’ve never asked Eliot where he got those ugly things. Little gnome boots, gnarled like gnomes. They could almost be squashed cradles.’

  A wave of warm air passes around the shop, ruffles papers in the workroom, makes the light fittings sway and chime.

  And there you go.

  Bella’s sitting in the workroom holding her mug: it’s empty. She can’t remember when she drank it. Jocasta’s disappeared, her mug of tea not touched.

  That wretched hat of Barnaby’s is still there.

  Bella snatches up the phone and calls a real-estate agent. She calls the dealer over the road and says she’s putting the shop on the market and he can have first pick of Barnaby’s leavings.

  ‘I’ll be glad to,’ the dealer says. ‘The man had a darn good eye.’

  Outside, the wind has strengthened. The sky is darkening with clouds. Bella lunges at the window and thumps the frame with her fist until it opens. She still can’t bring herself to touch the Borsalino, so she grabs the coat stand in both hands, sticks it through the window and jerks it hard. Barnaby’s hat tumbles into the delivery yard. The summer storm breaks. In the wind and lashes of rain, the hat scuffs past a clump of weeds. The gale will flip it out of the yard, down Glenmore Street to Lambton Quay, over the wharves and out to sea.

  ‘Good riddance!’ Bella shouts.

  My hat! Stylish as they come, and now it’s cuddled up to the bottom of a street sign. It was not supposed to be this way. Oh hell, I am reduced to being repetitive.

  Yo
u can’t take it with you but I can’t get away from them, the people, all the stuff. The bloody hat.

  How was it meant to be? Where did I come from, where am I going to, how did I get this way? Good grief, I thought I left those questions behind in the sixties. It goes to show — quite what, I’ve no idea.

  I thought, when Dad became archdeacon, that we’d have more — things — at home. The house was a bleak place, cold, we didn’t seem to have a — a history, I suppose. I wanted things to fill it up, things that had proven value, things that people had treasured. Charlotte and the tippling vicar didn’t go for things with history. We didn’t even have photographs. I used to think — and I know this isn’t normal, for a boy — I used to think, if only there was a photo of me in one of those old-fashioned wicker prams, sitting up with a Churchill grin and Lydia in a smocked frock clutching the handle, we’d be a real family. All those parishioners. Coming to the door all day and night for guidance, succour, for a whimper. Scones for the parishioners, no time to spend cuddling the kids.

  I’m snivelling, I’m complaining. Too damn right.

  Well, I enjoyed the church choir. I hoped I’d become a bass or baritone. I wanted a deep voice, subterranean. I wanted people to hear caverns in it, the ebb and flow of slumbering heroes, giants dreaming on their granite couches, weapons scattered on the cavern floor close to their hands.

  If you can’t admit your fantasies at this stage, when the hell else can you?

  But I went from treble to tenor, and bloody Nicolas had a better range than me. He was the perfect one. Fuck him. Walsh? Salt of the earth, what a plodder. Eliot? He sorted out our musical arrangements, all our plans, quietly, efficiently. The guy was a closet nerd, though he’s improved as he’s grown older. Back in those days you would never have picked Eliot to be the one who’d run off with another bloke’s woman. I’ve implied there’s something heroic in it — I fail to see why. Especially when it’s my wife we’re talking about.