by Jane Rogers
She was quiet, sitting on the windowsill, fingers clasping the ledge beneath her thighs, face bent forward into the shadow. I watched the sky. Up beyond the range of fireworks, a plane crossed, red landing lights flashing. I thought how many levels there are in the sky, it’s like the sea turned upside-down. How much depth there is in everything. Being pregnant, the secrets of the universe were mine alone. I was less use to Vi than a stuffed dummy.
At last she said, quite quietly, ‘You hypocrite.’
‘What?’
‘Hypocrite. You. Filthy lying hypocrite. You – both of you – how could you?’ She was crying again and not every word was clear. ‘How could you – all lies and lovey-dovey, even having a baby again – how could you be so disgusting – I hate you. I hate you – both of you –’ She half-fell off the windowsill – I think she misjudged the distance – recovered herself, and ran out of the room. I heard her run along the landing and slam her bedroom door.
Outside a new shower of rockets burst into silver stars with a distant pop-pop-pop.
* * *
Sat. 22
The mural. When I was pregnant with Vi I thought, Ruth will feel displaced by the new baby, especially because it will sleep with us, while she must stay in a room on her own.
I decided to make her room nicer. On the wall opposite her cot, I would paint a beautiful mural. I studied her favourite book, nursery rhymes, and made drawings of the things she liked best; the old woman who lived in a shoe, and the cow jumping over the moon. I couldn’t do people so I made the old woman’s shoe-house, with little windows and blobs of children’s heads staring out of them. I spent evenings poring over the book and doing rough drawings; when I had done my final drawing I copied it on to graph paper and measured up squares on the wall, so that I could transfer it accurately. I spent a long time choosing colours and paints – emulsion wasn’t bright enough, and the tins were far too big. At last I got something from a specialist art shop.
And then the work began. I painted while she was asleep at nights. She was always a good sleeper. I brought the Anglepoise from the desk, on an extension lead, and aimed its illumination at the particular patch I was working on. Sometimes the shadows were odd; sometimes I could see my dark, looming, pregnant shape outlined against the squares, as if it too was waiting to be filled in with colours. I was aware of her the whole time peacefully sleeping behind me. I loved those evenings; working quietly, watching the picture grow. The first thing I filled in was the cow, a beautiful black and white Friesian with bent forelegs and stiff straight hindlegs leaping for the moon like a rocket. Then the moon, fat and yellow as a wedge of Edam, lying on its back like a baby’s cradle. When she woke in the mornings I would point out my last night’s work to her, and she would clap and exclaim excitedly.
One night Gareth came home while I was still working on it, and said, ‘Isn’t that bad for her?’
‘What?’ I was filling in little green curtains at all the windows in the shoe-house.
‘The fumes from that paint.’
‘The window’s open.’
‘Yes, but it stinks in here, Marion. It can’t be good for a child that age to be breathing in those fumes. Not to mention you.’
‘All right. I’m stopping now.’
‘Do you have to do it with her in the room?’
‘What am I supposed to do – move her?’
‘Why not? You could work in decent lighting then. You’ll ruin your eyes.’
I could not be bothered to argue with him. He had no idea why I was doing it, why it was so important for it to be Ruth’s room, that Ruth was in, while this magical wall grew. Any more than he knew that I worked on it night after night for weeks. He knew nothing. The fumes were negligible, I could hardly smell them.
‘What do you think of it?’
‘It’s fine. Very nice.’ He laughed. ‘Marion my dear, there’s been a technological revolution I should tell you about, though – you can buy posters these days, reproductions of great paintings. It’s much quicker than doing your own. They’re by real artists, too.’
I didn’t laugh. He wasn’t laughing either, because later that week he bought her a poster of that Chagall picture, the one of the cow and the moon, and he stuck it on the wall facing the end of her cot.
She liked it. She stuck it in her new room when we moved.
* * *
About the twins. With Gareth: ‘I’m pregnant.’
‘You what?’
‘I’m pregnant.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
He laughed. ‘That’s all we need.’
‘I want it.’
‘Oh no – Marion, no.’
‘Yes. Why not? It won’t interfere with you, and the girls are practically independent now, it’s not going to affect anyone but me – and I’d love it. I’d love to have a baby again.’
‘You’re fantasizing, Marion. You’re thirty-eight. It won’t be like it was before. Look, I don’t want it. There’s nothing to abortion these days, you can be in and out in an afternoon, honestly, it’s less than having a tooth out. Marion, I must have some say in this. I do not want it.’
‘And I do. You’d know all about the ease of obtaining abortions, I dare say. Spare me the blow-by-blow account of how much Carol enjoyed hers. I’m not your secretary, I’m not a little piece of fluff you can make orders about. It’s mine. And I’ll have it.’
‘Over my dead body. And what about your so-called job? What happens to that?’
‘It doesn’t matter. I was going to leave. I can get paid maternity leave anyway.’
He grew more subtle. ‘I know why you want it. Because you’re too bloody scared and inadequate to form a relationship with another adult – you think a baby will solve all your problems. Mew mew mew, Mama Mama Mama, you’ll be meat and drink to it and the centre of its universe.’
‘Why not? What’s wrong with wanting a child to love?’
‘You. You’re wrong. You’re perverted. There are enough children in the world, go out and love some of those, instead of making another one that never asked to be born.’
‘Like you? Go out and love poor little eighteen-year-old girls, like you?’
And then he said, ‘You needn’t think you’ll make me stay again.’
‘What do you mean?’ I hated speaking to him. I hated looking at him. When he spoke to me like that I was so filled with furious loathing the sight of him contaminated my eyes.
‘I’m not falling for it again, Marion. If you decide to have it, you make that decision on the clear understanding that it is against my wishes, and that I want nothing to do with it. I’ve spent sixteen years doing your thing, being Daddy and mortgage and family home. I’m not doing it any longer. The girls are old enough now; if you have it, I’m leaving.’
‘Leaving?’ Why should I be surprised, why didn’t I sing and dance and throw my hat in the air? I hated him.
‘Yes, of course I am. We’ve done what we set out to do; we’ve lived in sodding wedded bliss, and managed to raise two relatively normal children. That’s it. My part of the bargain fulfilled. At no place in any agreement we have ever made did it say the whole bloody business had to begin again after sixteen years.’
‘No – indeed not. And of course you’ll do something so different next time, won’t you Gareth. You won’t do anything as silly as live with poor Linda, or let her have the baby she’s dying to have – you’ll be rugged and independent, won’t you –’
‘Fuck off, you bitch.’
When he’d gone out I howled in rage, that I had said ‘Leaving?’ in that silly startled voice.
* * *
‘What about your so-called job?’
It was always a so-called job. Never a real one. Even to me. It wasn’t meant to be. OK, it was convenient – two and a half days a week when Vi started school, and I could drop them off and pick them up on my way to and from the big school, and have school holidays.
I never thoug
ht about that time. I didn’t even think about it while I was there. A library assistant is invisible. I liked the peace and order, I suppose I enjoyed the mechanical, housewifely aspects of the work; the replacing in order on shelves, the retrieving and repairing of books. I never had to make any decisions about it. I just had to pad around quietly getting on with it. Then they sent me off one day a week to be trained, and Mabel had her hysterectomy, and didn’t get any better, and I took over the reading and ordering, until gradually I was in charge, and the head introduced me to new members of staff and I had a budget. It still wasn’t real, in comparison to Gareth’s or Jackie’s or the jobs I imagined myself doing when I did imagine it. It was too easy. Mabel used to flap when the first years came in in gaggles looking for books for their projects, or when fourth or fifth years had to be ejected for making too much noise, or eating. Then, I was glad I only had to tidy up books and put them away. But by the time I was Mabel they were easy to deal with, and if they weren’t I fetched one of the deputy heads. It was ordered, the ground rules were clear. Sometimes I saw it as an island of peace in all the milling movement of the school. I liked it when it wasn’t busy and I could go up to a child who was scanning the shelves with that glazed, hopeless look, and talk to him about something he might enjoy reading.
When I went into the staff room I was invisible. I talked to Janice, the lab technician. I ate my sandwiches and read a book. Teachers don’t talk to librarians. It didn’t matter – it didn’t count. It was a so-called job, it had a wage, it was convenient for the time being. I was always about to apply for something interesting. Jackie kept bringing me the Creative and Media page with crosses scrawled on it; she could not see how absurd it would be, for me to try and get into anything like radio or TV. She thought Gareth would help me. It was the last thing either of us wanted; me, to be beholden to him, or him to have me around at work. It was impossible anyway, I’d been out too long. I’d done nothing. And I suppose it must be true, that I didn’t really want to leave the library. Since I never did.
* * *
Ruth, in one of the school plays. She only had a tiny part, a messenger. A messenger ant, it was, in The Insect Play. She was twelve. When I saw her walk on to the stage I was furious. She was stiff with embarrassment, her thin shoulders hunched forward, her gait like a stiltwalker’s. I knew what she really looked like. I knew how supple and agile her body was, how graceful her movements. Now, on display before an audience, she was laughable. I was angry with the stupid man who had directed the play, for not telling her to move differently. But I was even more angry with Ruth – who had a beautiful, flowing body and nothing in the world to be ashamed of or embarrassed by. I wanted to shake her and tell her not to be so stupid. I wanted the world to see her as I did, I didn’t understand why she had to be so stupid and obstinate as to want to hide it. I told her afterwards, how ridiculous she’d looked.
* * *
Ruth. At the beginning. When I told her I was pregnant.
It’s sixteen years since I had her. She can have babies too now. Suddenly weak and evasive, as if she’s the mother and I the daughter: ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
Uninviting silence.
‘Well, I’m pregnant.’
‘At your age?’ She’s flat, hard, incredulous. ‘You must be mad.’ She’s standing up, as if impatient, as if she wants to leave the room. ‘What are you going to do with a baby?’
I try to laugh. ‘Look after it, I suppose, bring it up.’
‘Well, you needn’t think I’ll look after it for you.’
‘I didn’t think anything of the sort, although I did think you might be slightly more gracious and welcoming.’
Sullen silence, lips pursed. She’s pushing a paperclip across the carpet with her toe. ‘You’ll have to stop work.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you plan it?’
I’m watching her. She won’t meet my eye. She hardly ever does, these days. If I don’t tell the truth, Gareth will. ‘No.’
‘It’s an accident?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why don’t you have an abortion?’
It’s what I would say to her, of course. ‘Why should I? I’m perfectly healthy, we can afford to look after a baby, I like children – I’m glad I’m pregnant. It’s an accident that pleases me, what possible excuse could there be for taking its life?’
‘You’ve had your family. You’ve been a mother.’
‘That doesn’t mean I have to stop, even though you’d clearly be delighted to disown me.’
She never looks at me. Kicking and scuffing at that wretched paperclip. ‘I think you’re making a mistake,’ she announces.
‘I don’t care what you think, you are the most completely self-centred person I’ve ever met,’ I cry childishly.
‘You made me,’ she tells me calmly, before going out and closing the door very quietly. I pick up the paperclip.
* * *
The first day it moved. The baby. I didn’t know there were two, yet. In the kitchen, about nine in the evening. They’d all been there for dinner. Gareth left straight after to go back to work or to Linda’s, I forget which he told me or which was true. Ruth was going to a school disco and we’d had a row about when she should be back by. Gareth didn’t want to be tied to picking her up (so it probably was work, in fact) and said she must get the bus. Vi went to do her homework with Helen at Jackie’s, and would probably stay the night but would ring me. I had cooked them ratatouille, I’d used olive oil and the heavy taste of the oil made me queasy. I sat and chewed dry bread and watched them eating. Then they all went out and left me with the swimming plates, tomato pips and bread crusts, crumbs of a French loaf all over the floor. I was very tired and the kitchen was a mess. I got up at last and stood at the sink, turned the tap on. As I straightened myself I suddenly felt it move – the touch of the child inside me. It was like a torch – God, I was so glad. I was so glad that there was a baby of my own in my belly tapping me to tell me she was there.
* * *
When they were babies I was so happy. Ruth and Vi. Now I look back I can hardly believe it was me. Sitting on the sofa with Vi on my breast, her little monkey-skull still visible through the down of black hair, her hands slowly clawing at my blouse in pleasure as she sucked; Ruth, big and grown-up and serious, all of two and a half, sitting beside me holding the book, while I read her a story and told her when to turn the pages. The sweetness and order of our lives, like ‘a box where sweets compacted lie’, each pleasure clear and distinct.
Their bath time. When I’d tested the water with its creamy layer of bubbles, I’d lift Ruth in; Vi lying kicking and gurgling on the changing mat on the floor. Ruth would stand for a minute, enjoying the warmth of the water, her little round tummy sticking out and her back deliciously hollow.
‘Sit down, Ruthie.’ Slowly, she would sit, dipping her hands in and out of the bubbles – raising them, watching the bubbles drip from her finger ends – looking up at me and smiling. Then she would turn and kneel up – ceremoniously, one by one, the toys would be lifted down into the bath. I can see them all, the first set of bath toys – the dented yellow duck and her two ducklings, the squashy sponge ball that used to squeak, the jug and the floating frog with squinting eyes. Before Vi was born we had a stack of yogurt pots too, some with holes pierced in to make sprinklers. But Ruth and I decided it might be too crowded for the baby. On the radiator their pyjamas, Vi’s nappy and sleeping suit, and two towels were warming. Ranged on the shelf, just within arm’s reach, were powder, Vaseline, nappy liners, pins, cream, shampoo, hairbrush. I lowered Vi into the bath slowly, while Ruth scooped her toys back out of the way. When Vi was submerged, and I was supporting her head and neck with my right hand, her little limbs floated in the water, and she wriggled them in sensuous pleasure. Ruth poured water for her, and gathered up the bubbles, and Vi laughed aloud to see her. I remember the round smooth texture of her baby skin, rubbing her body with my hand, running my forefing
er along the crease at the top of each chubby little thigh, swooshing bubbles over her tummy. Then reaching behind me with one hand (the other supporting her still in the water) to grab the warm towel and spread it over my knees; lifting her, skinny and naked as a fish, on to my lap and wrapping her round: the tiny, brilliant, vivid life of her. When she was dry and lying on her back on the changing mat, I’d kneel over her – lower my head slowly towards her. Her eyes would widen and widen as our noses drew closer – nearly touched – and at the last minute she would burst out laughing, reaching up for my hair with her little starfish hands. When her top was on I’d leave her to kick, and wash Ruth, who’d been swimming and sliding up and down, scolding the ducks, bombing with the soggy sponge ball. I dried her on my knee. She was heavy and solid, in no danger of melting away now, solid and dear to my heart. I tickled her until she could hardly breathe for giggling, and gave her great raspberry-blowing kisses on her tummy and her arms, while she wriggled and shrieked and clung on to my knees. How gigglingly sweetly they went to bed – Vi turning and curling into sleep the instant her thumb was posted into her mouth; Ruth cuddling beside me for her story and glad to snuggle down under the blankets afterwards, tired and happy, welcoming sleep.
Days of order, days of grace, days of measured contentment. I thought they would come again. Days that I could control.
* * *
Days that I could control. The worst and blackest day, when I had to leave them. Gareth’s ultimatum; you will come away with me for a weekend, you will leave Ruth and Vi with your mother. We haven’t had a single night without them since Ruth was born – it’s ridiculous. They’re not the only people in the world, you know.
He was jealous. Once I recognized this I despised him for it. How typical of a man to be jealous of his children, instead of lavishing all love upon them and basking in the tenfold warmth they return. How silly and possessive of him to insist on his wife’s individual attention.
But having said that the children would miss us, would keep Mum awake at night, would be unsettled – what other reason or excuse could I give for not going? To say I couldn’t bear to leave them for forty-eight hours would have sounded ridiculous, even to my ears.
