The Wives of Bath

by Susan Swan

  In the middle of the night, I woke up and saw Paulie standing by our open window, smoking. She looked so much like Lewis right then that I pulled the covers over my head and did what I often did in my bedroom at Madoc’s Landing—i.e., masturbate.

  I’d like to set this straight, just for the record. As far as I was concerned, playing with myself had nothing to do with Paulie or boys. Or even sex. Because nothing I saw in the movies suggested a connection to what the curvaceous women did when they lay in men’s arms. Masturbating was a game, like pick-up sticks. You could play it by yourself over and over, as many times as you liked. In boarding school, all of us needed our solitary pleasures. And next to Oreos, this was mine. Sad to say, just as I was getting warmed up, somebody pulled off my covers.

  “Okay, Bradford. Get up.”

  “Why?” I whispered.

  “Because Kong says so.”

  20

  At the fifth-floor landing, Paulie made me stop so we could catch our breath. Below us, we could hear Phooey Phillips complaining to someone about the “troublemakers” who had just coated her toilet seat with Vaseline. Then, to my dismay, the talking below stopped, and echoing up the old tower stairs I made out a drumming that could mean only one thing: any second now, and the Virgin’s white head would rise like the moon out of the dark stairwell.

  “Quick,” Paulie hissed. “Up there.” Paulie dashed headlong up the stairs no student was permitted to use, and I limped after her, looking left and right to make sure nobody saw us. I hated myself for caring if I was expelled for breaking into matrons’ rooms; I wanted to be like Paulie, who put tacks on the Virgin’s pew at St. Paul’s when the Virgin stood up to sing. I didn’t want to be like the other simps who thought they had guts because they hiked up the skirts of their tunics and dared the Virgin’s army of matrons to give them a uniform mark. Trembling, I stood on guard while Paulie pulled something out of her pocket. “Ye olde master key,” she whispered. A moment later she pushed me in.

  It was cold in Mrs. Peddie’s small parlour. Her rooms were plainly furnished like ours, except for the large Heintzman piano, which she liked to play for us on Sunday evenings after the Virgin had given us a talk.

  Paulie bolted the front door from the inside and began to rummage through Mrs. Peddie’s desk. I didn’t know what she was looking for. I could hear the Virgin’s cough in the hall below. “Hurry, Sykes,” I said. I’d never dared to use her last name before, and Paulie grinned and held up another key. Then she rummaged around some more and produced a package of caramels and a diary stuffed with letters. Snickering, she emptied the rest of the drawer onto the floor and tossed the diary to me. “The old bag’s love letters,” she said. Then, with Mrs. Peddie’s key, she opened a tall door beside the piano and pushed me through.

  I followed her on my tiptoes down a creaking set of stairs wide enough for Sir Jonathon’s regiment. We went three flights, maybe four—and then we were standing in a little room with two doors. The first door said “Voltage,” and the other didn’t have a name. There was no sound except for the dull rumble of the heating plant.

  “Get ready,” Paulie whispered. “You’re about to see the land of the little toilets.”

  The unmarked door slid open to reveal a dim tunnel that looked as long as a city block. It wasn’t really dark but the ceiling was low, and the heating pipes undulated in the gloom like fat, dark worms. And then I saw a curious thing: row after row of miniature toilets lined up against one wall of the tunnel. The toilets were coated in dust and looked to be too small even for Sergeant.

  “They were left over from the time the junior school was renovated,” Paulie whispered. “The Virgin will never find us down here.”

  We began to creep slowly along in the darkness, careful not to touch the hot pipes. Their surface was covered with a coarse cheesecloth that had been glued onto corrugated cardboard. At the second bend in the tunnel, the pipes split into pairs—a return pipe and a flow pipe—heading off in different directions, to various wings of the school. The ceiling was higher here, and there was dust over everything—thick dust that I could feel in my nose.

  A banging noise started up, and Paulie and I jumped. The noise got louder and louder and passed over our heads in a rush of wind and metallic clatter, as if some creature were hitting the insides of the pipes, clamouring to get out and attack us.

  “I’m turning back,” I whispered.

  “It’s just the furnace,” Paulie said in a normal voice and grabbed my hand. I let her pull me slowly around the bend.

  A giant tricycle, like the one in the portrait of the English headmistress, stood against the wall beside a large trunk. It was hard to believe anybody could ride such an awkward-looking contraption (although I know people will say exactly the same things about our bicycles fifty years from now). The headmistress’s bike looked to be a very good model of its kind. It was outfitted with a handsome bell and a leather-covered headlight that hung off its bars like an old coach lamp.

  Paulie opened the trunk beside it, which turned out to be full of cycling gear. She pulled out a pair of old goggles and put them on me. She pointed to something that looked like a rectangular tombstone and told me to get on it. She said Sergeant had told her it was the old mounting block Sir Jonathon had used for his horses. I didn’t want to sit on the teetery old bike, whose kidney-shaped seat rose far above our heads. But, as Alice knows, obedience is my worst failing. Sal raised me to do what she said when she said it, although I can’t put all the blame on her. I am a slow thinker, and doing what somebody else says first often saves me the worry of figuring out what I really think until I have the time to puzzle it through properly.

  So I was starting to climb up onto the mounting block when Paulie motioned for me to stop. A little way down the tunnel a thick, deep voice was singing in a language I didn’t recognize. I backed into the bike, and one of its wheels began to spin round and round, clinkety-clink. About twenty yards down the tunnel a man’s body appeared. It was Willy, the other janitor. I don’t think he could see who we were in the murky light coming from the boiler room, but he saw something because he began to march toward us waving his arms and shouting incomprehensible words at us in a thick accent. I stood shaking beside Paulie, who threw something at him—I think it was a wrench she must have grabbed from the trunk.

  “Stay away from us, you dirty foreigner!”

  Willy stopped and stared at the place where the wrench had grazed his leg. Paulie pulled out a string of small firecrackers from her pocket—the bad kind that Sal says will put out babies’ eyes. The next thing I knew she had lit and thrown them at Willy’s head. They exploded in the air, and when he ducked, screeching, she lit and threw another batch into an old garbage can beside the boiler-room door. The second explosion sounded like a machine gun going off half-cocked. Willy put his hands over his ears, and Paulie took my arm and pulled me through a small passageway I hadn’t noticed before. I recognized the coal shed when I saw the old chairs with their split sides and the ugly curtains Paulie had put up to hide her altar to Kong. Paulie pushed open a hinged door, and we walked out into the night.

  It was raining heavily—too heavily to see much except the shape of the old box hedge and the tops of the trees in the ravine. But the sky to the south had partially cleared and shone softly orange from the lights of Toronto. The spire of Kings College was also visible. In the falling rain, it looked like a privileged kingdom far beyond our simple lives as boarders at Bath Ladies College. Then Paulie poked me, and we hurried away from the mass of the ravine and up a stone path to the front entrance, where a long figure in a bulky overcoat was sitting on the stone railing. I saw a frieze of white hair and a bobbing prick of orange light below a pair of glinting spectacles.

  “We’re in luck,” Paulie whispered. “We’ve caught old Cockshutt smoking. She won’t dare to report us now.”

  We walked up the front steps and, sure enough, the switchboard operator only frowned as we slipped past her into the vau
lted stone foyer and crept up Sir Jonathon’s grand staircase, still carrying the goggles and the diary Paulie had stolen. I expected to find the Virgin waiting for us. But the pillows arranged under the covers to look like our bodies were still in place. And our bedroom was empty except for Ismay, who was snoring next to the wide-open window. I knew, without Paulie saying so, that I’d passed another test. I, Mouse Bradford, of all people, was a troublemaker, a bad girl, a rule breaker—and I owed it all to Paulie, who had helped me outfox the Virgin in the game of us against the old biddies.

  21

  The next day, Paulie and I read the letters she had stolen from Mrs. Peddie’s apartment. They had been written by Miss Vaughan and Mrs. Peddie.

  November 16, 1953

  Greetings, dear one,

  Finally my arm is strong enough for me to write to you. Late yesterday afternoon the surgeon dropped in and told me I must stay two more weeks for bed rest and observation. Two more weeks, Lola! And I am to do water therapy for my sprained shoulder. The concussion is not serious, even though it kept me unconscious for a day. Dr. Tully says the body has its ways of healing, and as long as I do not overexert myself, my poor head will mend on its own. I am still having headaches, but the doubling of my vision seems to have gone. Dr. Tully says he hopes the person who did this to me will be locked up for years to come. For some reason, I cannot bring myself to tell him it was a police officer. I shall not tell father either. I am afraid what happened would break his heart. We are so close, and yet he cannot—would not, Lola-understand. Do you know, he doesn’t even believe that I can balance my own budget? As if I don’t know anything about figures! I, who excelled in mathematics at school! Lola, he used to ask my youngest brother to go over my bank account with me. It is puzzling, isn’t it?

  However, it is true I do not value money. In fact, I am guilty of excessive frugality. Perhaps that was what my father was getting at with Jason and my budget. I travelled through Europe for less than £40, staying at youth hostels. And now we are teaching at Bath Ladies College for the glorious sum of $2,000 a year. That is two-and-a-half thousand less than what an English teacher gets at a Toronto high school, Lola. I thought it was going to be $2,000 a term. I think I shall have to tell Miss Higgs at Christmas that I am finding it awfully hard to manage on this.

  Your Vera

  P.S. I’m afraid I am not ready to talk about what happened, Lola. If you were here, no doubt you would chide me with that graceful smile of yours, and press me to unburden myself. It also pleases me to think of all the things you would find to say about how one can pass one’s time productively in a hospital. I would pretend not to take any of your optimistic talk seriously and then off I’d go to my water therapy, secretly cheered up. Rest assured, I am doing my best to make myself strong so I can hold you in my arms again and kiss the corners of your dear mouth.

  November 21, 1953

  Dear Vera,

  Miss Higgs came into the staff room yesterday bringing your news. As I suspected, she said you are rushing things—ordering everyone about and refusing to listen to the nurses when they tell you to lie quietly. Now, Vera! You are very strong-minded, and you know you always overestimate your strength. Oh, I can cope, you like to tell me. Nonsense. You are as in need of tender care as anyone else. You simply must take things slowly. There, now I’ve scolded you properly. I am coming down with some bed socks and other assorted woollies. Just the thing for the Toronto General’s cheerless beds.

  With all due,

  Lola

  P.S. Of course, I wish I had stayed in the hotel lounge. He couldn’t have beaten two women that savagely. And I am terribly terribly angry about what happened, Vera. It is an outrage that a woman of your stature has been subjected to an attack and possibly disfigured because of prejudice. Unfortunately, the students seem to know something of this. Neither Miss Higgs nor I can put our finger on who is spreading the story, but there is gossip in the boarding school that you were the victim of a rape.

  November 30, 1953

  My darling Lola,

  I am sorry my little outburst of affection made you uncomfortable when you came to see me. It is just that I have been in here so long, Lola. And now the prospect of staying in over Christmas for more tests! I do, of course, realize the incident at the Continental has made you more cautious. And I curse the brute for making you feel that way. I know, I know, we ought to be more prudent now, but my stubborn heart does not want to give that constable or anyone like him the satisfaction of interfering with the love you and I feel for each other. I am so grateful I have you in my life. Do you remember the day we met at Cheltenham Ladies College, Lola? You thought I looked like a bluestocking because I’d walked onto the grounds at Cheltenham in my trousers and rucksack. I was used to hiking in Europe, you see. Meanwhile, there was Miss Higgs in one of her funny old dark dresses riding her ancient three-wheel bike round and round the botany pond. She was going at quite a fast clip, and she was being followed by you and Charles with a tea tray. You did not seem to be bothered in the least by the sight of an elderly woman in strange clothes traipsing about the lawn on what looked like an oversized child’s tricycle.

  When I mentioned this to you later, you pointed out to me that Miss Higgs was doing the sensible thing. She wore Edwardian dresses because they were roomier than our modern clothes, and she rode an old three-wheeler because she could keep her balance on it better. She is getting on, you said, but she needs her exercise like everybody else. And didn’t I realize three-wheelers used to be a serious sport round the turn of the century. In short, I was the iconoclast in my trousers. Ah, well! Who would have ever thought that day that you and I would come to mean so much to each other. And that we would follow Miss Higgs back to teach in Canada, the land of my birth.

  Your Vera

  P.S. I do appreciate your outrage, Lola. I myself do not feel angry. I refuse to take prejudice personally, you see. And I have always known of the dangers. I am referring to Zooey Armstrong’s dreadful experience at Cherry Beach. Punched and raped by our own police officers in front of Nan Tyler (who could do nothing to help her dear one). It is abominable, Lola, but at least you and I were spared that.

  January 9, 1954

  Dear Vera,

  Miss Higgs has caught the culprit who was spreading the stories about you. It started with an article in the Hush Free Press. Apparently, Jellie Godsoe’s father works on this smut rag and showed Jellie the clipping which described your beating at the hands of the police. The Hush office is near city hall, next door to the Continental, and one of their reporters witnessed the assault firsthand. Hush has no idea you were beaten because you love a woman. The paper is on a crusade against violence on the police force, and they see you as a middle-class victim who was wrongly attacked. (All true enough, as far as it goes.) I have given the clipping to Miss Higgs, who says she will send it to you later. It is too long for me to go into here. The headline reads, “Decent Citizen Dragged, Pushed, and Knocked Unconscious by Ruthless Cop.” The article says you were attacked because the police officer thought you resembled a Teresa McClusky, who was being sought on a charge of kidnapping a Mississauga baby. The officer thought he had found the missing girl and imagined arresting her would work to his credit when the merit badges and promotions were being handed out. The paper makes no mention of the fact that the officer saw you kissing me in the booth when he walked in to have a coffee. (Oh, Vera—and I had picked that booth because I thought no one could see us there.) There was a lengthy description of the constable twisting your arm and ripping your blouse and then banging your head over and over against the doorjamb. His lack of experience was pinpointed as the cause of the misunderstanding. Take heart, my love. We shall soldier on.

  Your own

  Lola

  We read these letters in silence, passing the pages to each other in wonder. It thrilled and frightened me to think we had stumbled on secret documents that proved the gossip about the two women was true. Paulie said it was like gett
ing your hands on the secret of the atom bomb. She said she intended to use the letters to get the Virgin to do whatever she wanted, and she hid them in a Kotex box she put in my drawer. She said nobody would suspect me of taking them. But when I went to check on them after breakfast, the letters were gone. Miss Phillips, I guessed, had discovered them during morning inspection and taken them to Miss Vaughan. We waited for me to be called on the carpet, but the weeks passed, and although nothing happened, Paulie and I continued to puzzle over the matter in private.

  22

  A week after Paulie stole Mrs. Peddie’s letters, I had the opportunity to see the two women’s love for myself. When it happened, I was in the leaves room—our way station between the school and the outside world. Alone there, I always felt a little closer to Morley, as if he and Sal and Lady were just over the next hill and not a hundred miles or so up the long, thin asphalt highway that connected Madoc’s Landing to the strange life I lived in the city. The room consisted of an oak desk, scales for weighing parcels, and a big, black telephone, which you could have all to yourself if you buttered up the switchboard operator, Miss Cockshutt. And, of course, there were the leaves books. Each boarder had to let the school know in advance what her plans were for the weekends and sign her guests in in one of the green leaves scribblers labelled “out” or “in.” The guests had to be one of the hosts approved by your parents, or you couldn’t go. There was no problem in my case, since my host was my uncle. He was my dead mother’s brother and a man of the cloth, as he liked to say, whose annual salary was the equivalent of his brother-in-law’s insurance payments. I had his letter in my pocket to prove it.

  Nov. 2, 1963

  Dear Mary Beatrice,

  Your stepmother has written to ask Margaret and me if we would take you out for the weekend when I am in Toronto for our diocese meeting. She is unable to have you home for the long weekend, as she is having an operation for a collapsed bladder.