The Keepsake

by Sheelagh Kelly

  ‘When you’ve finished laughing I’ve got one question for you,’ said Marty, straight-faced now.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you fancy icing another cake?’

  11

  There were to be many cakes iced during the following weeks, Etta and Marty greedily retrieving the joy of union after famine. However, both were quick to see that the source would not last indefinitely and, sense overruling passion, chose to eke out the remainder of Victoria’s gift so as to enjoy it as long as possible before fate would inevitably step in. In consequence, though Marty still laboured from dawn to dark, somehow he managed to reserve sufficient energy for loving liaisons with his wife, and the rest of the year was happy, as were the first few months of the next.

  But, regrettably, as the last of the French letters disintegrated, so too did the laughter, and when Aggie sought to enquire in all innocence, ‘How’s the cakeicing progressing?’ Etta took no amusement in her answer that she had given it up as useless.

  To her shame she had considered writing to her friend Victoria, even though it was obvious from the lack of correspondence from the other that there was no longer any common ground between them. But, pitted against carnal desire, her selfrespect had finally won and she tore up the humiliating petition and instead looked to Marty for action.

  ‘I got them the last time,’ she told him firmly, ‘now it’s your turn.’

  Contemplating the embarrassing act of having to walk into a shop and ask for prophylactics, Marty reached the conclusion that such a moment’s awfulness would be worth it, and asked her, ‘Did your friend say how much they cost?’

  ‘I think those were quite expensive,’ Etta pondered, her face hopeful, ‘but I recall Victoria saying there are cheaper varieties. They begin at two shillings per dozen…’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s it then!’ he snapped in bitter disappointment.

  ‘Don’t dismiss it yet!’ she urged. ‘We could do without something else.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know!’ Even by dint of cutting down on small luxuries such as her rosewater their income was stretched to the limit. ‘You think of something, you’re the man!’

  ‘Well thank you for reminding me of that!’ He was furious.

  ‘I didn’t mea—’

  ‘I know what you meant!’ replied Marty before striding off to work.

  What else could he do? Who could he ask? The men of his acquaintance were as unequipped to deal with their fertility as he. Nothing. He could do absolutely nothing.

  Forced apart once more through fear of pregnancy, the only spark of passion now displayed itself in arguments as frustration lured petty niggles to the fore. Marty supposed he should be grateful that the mother of his children had learned to ensure they were clean and welldressed and wellcared for; instead he displayed resentment over his own feelings of neglect; began to complain more forcefully about the lax manner in which she ran the household; took great pains to point out that what Etta eschewed as trivia were in fact essential chores. ‘You’ll see what consequence it is when your children fall ill!’

  Still, she refused to be worried by it, saying calmly in that maddening manner of hers, ‘I fail to see how my reluctance to waste time in cleaning the windows or scrubbing the step every day could result in a case of measles.’

  Robbed of answer, Marty could only fume as she added:

  ‘I’d much rather expend my energy on the children.’

  And there lay half the problem. But what kind of man was jealous of his own children? Ashamed of himself, he could only respond with anger. ‘Sometimes you drive me bloody mad, woman!’

  And then it was his wife’s turn to take umbrage, and Etta in a tantrum was not a pretty creature, throwing at him whatever it was she held in her hand, along with a stream of oaths.

  Unwitting of the fact that this was the only way she knew how to respond at having her emotions so ravaged, that she saw these painful criticisms as a retraction of his love, there were times when he genuinely wanted to walk away from her.

  Nobody else would have known, at least not his workmates, from the way he managed to maintain his comical banter outside the house.

  ‘By, I hate to say it but you really make it a pleasure to come to work, lad!’ old Arthur wheezed with hilarity and mopped his eyes, as did the rest of the group of barrow boys whom Marty kept entertained with impressions of the station hierarchy whilst they waited for another train to come in. ‘It’s like being at the bloomin’ music hall!’

  Inspired by their laughter, Marty had not finished yet. ‘Eh, look!’ Pouncing on a pair of yellow gloves which someone had left behind on a bench, he held one to either side of his head and waggled them at his audience. ‘Custard Lugs!’

  The barrow boys burst into renewed noisy laughter that ricocheted off the station walls, drawing disapproving eyes, including those of the impersonated one.

  ‘Jesus, I didn’t mean to cause a seizure.’ Grinning, Marty put a supportive arm round Arthur’s shoulders as, on the point of hysteria, the old man fought for breath, the others almost paralysed with amusement too.

  ‘Ooh-hoo!’ Arthur struggled to compose himself, puffing and wheezing, tears streaking his leathery cheeks. ‘You could even make my missus laugh and that’s saying something – eh, Marty, you don’t fancy coming home with me and keeping her happy while I sneak out for a pint?’

  ‘Now you all witnessed that!’ declared the entertainer to his audience. ‘There’s an invitation if ever I heard one!’

  ‘Nay, you wouldn’t say that if you saw her,’ chuckled Arthur, shoving away his handkerchief and making ready with his barrow as a train pulled in and the group broke apart. ‘Miserable bugger, only thing she’s good for is deterring burglars.’

  Marty issued a final laugh as the train came to a hissing standstill. ‘It’s cheaper than buying a dog licence.’

  Arthur agreed, then mellowed a little. ‘Oh, I’m being a bit mean, she looks after me well.’

  ‘That’s something to be grateful for.’ Rudely reminded of Etta’s shortcomings, Marty relapsed into a grim mood, wondering what would be in store for him when he went home tonight, but was soon to don his cheery mask again, for a grumpy mug did not attract the customers. If only he could have put up a similarly convincing show of happiness at home.

  Both he and Etta hoped to conceal this state of affairs from the rest of the family, putting on a brave smile whenever they were invited round. But unlike Marty’s workmates his parents knew him well enough to guess something was wrong.

  ‘Take the lad aside and talk to him,’ Aggie urged her husband as he passed her in the scullery during one of Marty’s visits. ‘There’s been some kind of argumentation. See if you can find out what’s amiss – as if I didn’t already know who’s to blame. You try to tell them but they won’t listen – this is what comes of marrying out of your kind.’

  Though anxious to help, Red pulled awkwardly at his earlobe. ‘Well now, talking’s more in your league.’

  ‘Not when it concerns her ladyship and it surely will. I always put my foot in it. You have a go.’ And she gave him a push.

  Though unnerved, Red fought his inclination to fall asleep by concentrating hard on the matter in hand as he re-entered the parlour to ask, ‘Will you be for looking at my new rabbits, Marty?’

  The latter, who had been immersed in brooding melancholy, now looked up sharply.

  ‘May we see them, Grandad?’ Edward leapt to his feet.

  ‘Sure, and you’ve seen them already,’ Red dissuaded the little boy in the sailor suit with a kind pat. ‘I’d just like your father’s opinion on them, then you can come out.’

  Faced with this odd request, Marty had the feeling that the rabbits were only an excuse to get him out there for private discussion. Casting a glance at Etta, who had been equally subdued, he reluctantly trailed after his father.

  But outside, though Red was desperate to raise his son’s spirits he did not know
how to begin. Hence, the talk hedged around the real subject and moved in desultory fashion from the price of rabbit feed to other such mundane things, before Red inevitably succumbed to his narcolepsy and, upon waking, forgot what he had come out there to do.

  Consequently, when the pair came back indoors Aggie was to be no wiser.

  Annoyed at her husband’s failure, she ran a hand over her mouth and decided, ‘’Tis left to me as usual to take the divil by the horns, dammit!’ And she shoved a bemused-looking Red back towards the parlour before steering Marty outside again.

  This time he knew he was for it.

  ‘What’s ailing ye, son?’ she wheedled. ‘Don’t bother with the codology, your father and me can tell you’re unhappy.’

  How could a man voice such things to his mother? He sighed. ‘Oh, it’s nothing…’

  ‘Sure, it must be something, there’s never a word passed between the pair o’ yese in the last hour and her with a face dripping icicles.’

  Marty heaved another sigh. ‘It’s just…me and Ett are having a few disagreements at the moment, that’s all, Ma. It’s best we don’t speak.’

  ‘You won’t leave her, will ye?’

  Though shocked by this forthright question, only a fool would not grab the opportunity to share his troubles. ‘I feel like it,’ he replied bluntly, shaking his head at the thought of Etta’s recent intransigence. ‘By God I do.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t?’ There was a note of panic in her voice. ‘This isn’t the same as pestering for a cooking apple then not eating it, this is a marriage.’

  ‘Well, I know that, Ma!’ He looked scathing.

  ‘Of course you do, of course,’ she soothed. ‘I’m just worried about you. Ah, God love ye, I know Etta can be difficult, but tell me ye won’t leave her, son?’ She had been dreading this all along, knew he would eventually tire of the wretched girl.

  Is that what you really think of me, an offended Marty wanted to ask as he stared at her.

  But at last, to his mother’s relief, he shook his head. ‘Of course I won’t.’ Then he sighed yet again, and struggled to explain how he felt, but could only grasp at metaphor and she would not understand. It was like when, as a child, he had left a glass of lemonade on the outside windowsill in January and come out next day to find the glass cracked open and the lemonade frozen into a block. At first it was such a novelty, such an obsessive treat to cup it in his hands, to lick and gnaw and suck the fruitiness imprisoned within the ice. But then he had found his mouth totally stuck to it, burning and hurting, and he’d tried to pull away but he could not free himself without tearing the skin from his lips. Well, that was how he felt about Etta.

  His lack of words was misinterpreted, Aggie shaking her head disapprovingly. ‘You’d think she’d be grateful to have a man who slaves as hard as you do.’

  ‘But that’s half the problem, Ma! She complains that I work too much, that I don’t spend enough time with her.’ He felt disloyal just saying it but he wanted someone to confirm he was right in feeling aggrieved.

  ‘But she can’t expect to live in a house like that without someone having to work for it, and it sure as hell won’t be her. Stuck with her head in a book half the time…’

  Marty scratched his head. His mother wasn’t getting this at all. When he said Etta wanted him to spend more time with her he meant intimate time. He ached for this too – oh God, how he longed for the old days, to let his passion run its course without hindrance – but that could spell only one thing. ‘I don’t know what to do, Ma. We can’t cope with any more children…’

  ‘Ah…’ Now the issue became much more delicate. ‘I’d offer to have a word with Etta but there’s nothing much I can do to help ye there, son.’ Only her decrepitude had prevented any more babies after Jimmy-Joe. She played with her lower lip, pinching it with slight embarrassment.

  Marty was embarrassed too. ‘No, no, that’s all right, I don’t expect you to. I was just getting things off me chest. Don’t say anything, will you?’ Etta would be furious to hear he had been discussing their marriage with his mother. ‘We’ll be fine.’

  ‘Sure ye will.’ His mother touched him. ‘These rough patches happen to us all.’

  But does it ever come right again, he wanted to ask? For if life were to continue like this for much longer, he would rather be dead.

  For twelve more miserable months, through lengthy, aching periods of abstention, he and Etta managed to stave off pregnancy. But a marriage born of physical attraction could never hope to stand the strain. If there were no happy medium to be had, both decided that they would rather take the risk than watch love die. Hence, as a new decade brought the sad announcement that the King had expired, Etta found yet another new life begat within.

  Poor William, the Christmas child, totally innocent to the strain his arrival put on his parents’ marriage. Would that this were true of Marty and Etta’s other issue, but for Celia, Edward and Alex, their parents’ encounters, however brief, had become synonymous with angry disruption.

  ‘You’ve forgotten to empty the pisspot again,’ accused Marty, sniffing the air the moment he came in on this wet and freezing night.

  Etta had been standing by to welcome him with a warm broth, but now felt her spirits descend. ‘What kind of a greeting is that?’

  ‘My sentiments exactly.’ Looking jaundiced, he shrugged his drenched coat into her hands and squelched towards the fire. ‘Not exactly the aroma a man fancies coming home to.’

  She stood up to him, giving the coat an angry shake. ‘Why should you expect me to empty it? You’re the one who uses it!’

  ‘Ma never complained, nor my sisters.’ He went to wash his hands.

  Hanging up the coat, Etta grabbed a ladle. ‘I’m not your mother – why should you automatically think it’s my job? You use it, you empty it!’ She served the broth.

  Livid, he retaliated. ‘If that’s the way it was meant to be, everyone cleaning up their own mess, then you’d be a damned sight busier than you are, milady! Christ, you don’t know you’re born. I’d like to hear what Da had to say if me mother sat on her arse all –’

  ‘Oh, and don’t we all know what a paragon of domesticity your mother is!’ chafed Etta. ‘You’re always ranting about how marvellous she is, or your sisters, or anyone else you care to mention except your wife!’

  ‘Maybe that’s because me wife never does a bloody thing for me!’

  ‘And what do you call this?’ Etta gestured at the steaming bowl on the table. Hours it had taken her, cutting up vegetables, slicing her fingers into the process when she would much rather have been sewing, but it had all been worthwhile for it tasted delicious – as good as anything Aggie had ever produced, and Etta had been dying for Marty to come in and praise her wonderful achievement.

  ‘Oh, well! Sorry, I’ll get down on my knees then, shall I? Oh yes, so bloody wonderful – it’s a bowl o’ frigging soup, for Christ’s sake! You’ve had all day to make it, ye hardly needed to call in Jason and the Argonauts – why, why in God’s name is it always me who’s doing the giving? What have you ever given, tell me that?’

  Etta was devastated, so devastated that for the moment she could hurl no response. How could he ask what she had given? She had given herself.

  About to take advantage of her stricken silence, Marty opened his mouth to press home his assault when the sound of a crying child interrupted the exchange. Instead he gave a snort and made towards the stairs. ‘Oh shite!’

  ‘Sit down,’ Etta found her voice. ‘I’ll go.’

  ‘No, I’ll go.’ He could be very anarchic when told what to do. ‘Christ, I hardly ever see them.’

  ‘And whose fault is that?’ Etta returned to form. ‘It isn’t I who insists you work all hours God sends.’

  ‘Hah!’ He paused. ‘No, but you like the money, don’t ye? How d’you think you’d be able to afford all these doodahs if I didn’t work me nuts off?’ He jabbed a finger at examples of her paintings and needlework that
dotted the room.

  ‘There’s no call to be vulgar!’ Her eyes bulged red with the threat of tears. ‘I only indulge in such pastimes because I’m on my own! I’d much rather my husband were here on an evening.’

  ‘Well, he’s not because he has to work to earn a living – and d’you know why else he works so late? Because his wife makes it so damned unpleasant to be at home!’ At this, Marty went upstairs to calm his distressed child.

  Too furious and upset to eat, Etta hurled her own broth into the sink along with the bowl, which smashed and sent the contents spattering up the wall. Then she flopped into a chair, listening to the sounds from upstairs, the murmurs of the father, the child’s sobs gradually fading.

  Even after Celia went back to sleep, Marty remained upstairs for a considerable time, seated on the edge of her bed, just watching her angelic features. This was wrong. He and Etta could not go on upsetting their children like this. He supposed a lot of it was his fault for rubbing her up the wrong way – and what was the point, for it was impossible to change the idle baggage. Every night upon coming home he told himself to stay calm, not to bother if there was a mess or whatever, but he just could not help it. He had worked so hard for this and yet she treated it with such disdain. Even thinking about it made him angry. Something must alter, for he was fast approaching breaking point.

  When he finally went downstairs, Etta had reheated his broth and now fetched the bowl back to the table. For the sake of his children he tried to be civil and thanked her, but instead of eating with him, she resorted to her usual tactic, encased herself in frost and turned to concentrate on some mending.

  ‘This is grand,’ he said truthfully of the broth.

  But his attempts to appease her met with monosyllabic response. Knowing how he hated to be ignored, Etta took revenge for his deeply wounding comments by paying more heed to her stitches.

  ‘You’ll hurt your eyes doing that,’ he told her between spoonfuls.