The Wives of Bath

by Susan Swan

  “What’s wrong with that suck now?” Paulie had walked in without my noticing. She closed the window Ismay had opened so wide and lay down on Ismay’s bed, her hands behind her head. Her braid rested across one breast. She looked almost pretty, except she had on boys’ boxers and a short-sleeved undershirt, so I could see her arm muscles and her large hands.

  “She peroxided her armpits. She’s having a reaction.”

  Paulie began to laugh. “Was she telling you nasty things about me before it happened?”

  “Yeah. She said you stole her music scores.”

  “Would you be upset if I had?”

  “I guess so.”

  Paulie smiled. “Well, I haven’t. She’s just making stuff up to get my goat.”

  45

  I could see the top of my head in the rear-view mirror of the school bus, which Sergeant had loaned us for the evening. Paulie—I mean Lewis—was driving. Slowly, I raised my eyes to check myself out. Under my navy Sunday coat I was wearing a short strapless taffeta formal that had looked better on the store rack than it did on me. The nurse had gone with me to help pick it out and she’d persuaded me to buy it because the boxy taffeta jacket that went with it would hide Alice. I’d also sprinkled glitter in my dark hair, which had been pulled straight back from my forehead and tied in a bump at the top. At least the pompadour hairdo made me look older and aggressively stylish. What does Jack O’Malley think of girls wearing their hair up? I wondered.

  The bus screeched around the parking lot into the front drive of Kings College. And there he stood on the steps in front of the boarding school, a corsage box in his hand. He wore an old army duffle coat, which made him look even taller. When he saw us, he waved and strode over, stiffly swinging his shoulders as if a curtain rod ran from one side of his long body to the other, holding him up.

  Lewis opened the door, and Jack bent his head and stepped in. He hardly looked at Lewis, who had on an old top hat and one of Willy’s old suits. Jack sat down, and the motion of his bum hitting the seat made me bounce. Then he smiled anxiously and put his arm along the back of my seat, almost touching Alice. “You look nice,” he said, and I moved a little so his hand wouldn’t touch her by mistake. I knew he’d noticed Alice at the Visitor’s Luncheon, but he didn’t seem to hold her against me. But then neither did Tory or Paulie so why should he? Still, I didn’t want to press my luck so I just sat there, glad he’d come and afraid to say anything in case I did something to drive him away. To my surprise, he smelled wonderful. English Leather, maybe. Morley had used it on special occasions, too. Then Jack handed me the box. I knew I was expected to open it, but I was too shy. I let Lewis do the talking for me as we careened down a lane toward Tory’s house.

  “Is anything wrong?” Jack asked as Lewis gunned the old bus past the bushes of Canon Quinn’s hedges.

  “Bradford—uh, Mary—doesn’t talk much,” Lewis called over his shoulder. “You know how some girls are.”

  “I guess you high-school boys have lots of experience,” Jack said solemnly.

  I looked at him to see if he was joking, and he stared down at his shoes. He wore oxblood wing tips, like my father. Here’s somebody as backward as you are, Mouse, I thought. Who is not a snob.

  Lewis hadn’t heard Jack’s remark, but I doubt if it would have impressed him the way it had me. Anyway, he was too busy trying to drive the dilapidated old bus. We jiggled up and down over a rut in the lane and I sat looking straight ahead, my ankles crossed and my hands folded in my lap. Perfect deportment. The Virgin would be pleased.

  The bus jerked and stopped in front of Tory’s house. Lewis leapt out, and Jack and I found ourselves alone. He smiled at me again and let his long arm drop down on the back of my seat. I shifted uncomfortably. I knew I should smile up at him as if I were used to accepting a boy’s attentions—as if they were a homage I took for granted. Now his hand moved toward my good shoulder. It rested there for a moment, warm. Jack talked nervously to me about the condition of the roads that night. There was a storm warning, and the temperature was expected to drop.

  It was already snowing lightly, and the clock tower of Kings College said a quarter to eight. I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say about snow so I didn’t answer, and finally he sighed heavily and we both sat without talking, looking at Tory’s house. The Grecian portico overlooking the playing field was well lit by two tall coach lamps, so it was easy to see the front steps, where Canon Quinn and Mrs. Quinn stood with Tory and her brother, Rick, talking to Lewis. I didn’t recognize Tory in her mother’s full-length mink coat. As I watched, Tory turned and buried her face in her mother’s shoulder, and Canon Quinn placed his hand with the evil worm fingers on Tory’s head and stroked her hair, and Mrs. Quinn put her arm around Tory, and then the pair followed Canon Quinn inside. Through the falling snow I saw Rick give Lewis a little shove, as if he were pushing him off their property, and Lewis pushed him back.

  And then Lewis jumped back in the bus and slammed the door, but he was so angry, he couldn’t make it shut. He swore and slammed it again and then jammed the key as he tried to start it up.

  “Isn’t your date coming?” Jack asked.

  “What does it fucking look like, Mr. Kings College?” Lewis said. “Do you see her with me?”

  Jack stared at me from behind his new glasses. I think he’d bought them especially for the dance. They were black-rimmed like Buddy Holly’s. I shrugged. I didn’t know what had happened and I was afraid to guess.

  46

  Nobody talked on our way back to the dance. Lewis stared out the windshield like a zombie. Several times we skidded on the road, and Lewis cursed the slippery pavement. It was snowing harder now. When Lewis laid rubber by the Old Mill, Jack mumbled something about wanting to get out and walk. He kept staring at me, as if he were waiting for me to do something.

  As we pulled up to Bath Ladies College, I whispered that I wanted to speak to Lewis in private. Jack nodded, but at the door of the school he turned around to look at me suspiciously, and I was afraid he wished he hadn’t come. Maybe he wanted to ditch me on the spot, or maybe he thought I wanted to ditch him for Lewis, who sat beside me now smoking a fag and waving him on.

  “Yeah, keep going, you jerk. Get out of my sight, Mr. Fucking Kings College cocksucker. Nobody fucking asks your date to show his dick, do they, Mouse? It’s his own private business.”

  “What are you talking about?” I kept my eye on Jack as he disappeared into the school.

  Lewis spat and tossed his cigarette out the window. “But, oh, no. They ask me. Tory’s brother, that fuckface. What right does he have to ask me about my dick? I bet his is the size of a pencil.”

  “He wants you to show him your penis?”

  “No shit, Bradford. He wants to see my p-e-n-i-s.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What the fuck do you think I’m going to do? Maybe we should ask your finky boyfriend what to do. He’s a real man, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, God. I’m sorry.” And I was sorry too, and a little ashamed of myself for being so concerned with Jack.

  “Yeah, sure you are.” Lewis—I mean Paulie banged her head down on the steering wheel. Her back shook and she sobbed like a little girl, not like the Paulie I knew. You see, her game was up and Paulie knew it only she wouldn’t say so. I put my hand on her shoulder. I was always afraid to touch Paulie—in case she took it the wrong way. In case she interpreted it as me thinking she was soft. But I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to comfort her because I’d never seen her so sad and lost.

  It did seem unfair that Paulie needed a penis to be a man. John Wayne would still be John Wayne if he had a vagina, wouldn’t he? I didn’t say anything like this to Paulie, but I hated Canon Quinn and Tory’s brother, Rick, for not letting her see Tory. It wasn’t as if Paulie were doing anything wrong, exactly. If the world didn’t give boys so many advantages, Paulie wouldn’t want to be one. At least, that’s how I saw it then. Paulie saw it differe
ntly, because as far as she was concerned, she was a boy, period.

  I heard a rap on my window. The Virgin was standing at the curb, waving at us to move the bus so that other cars could pull up. She was wearing a baggy old purple dress that wasn’t even full-length and a muskrat coat and she’d smeared two idiotic clownlike dots of rouge on her cheeks. Why didn’t she learn to put on makeup right? “The Virgin,” I hissed, and Paulie sat up, her head turned so the Virgin couldn’t tell that Paulie had been crying. The Virgin peered angrily at us through my window, and Paulie started up the old vehicle and we lurched forward, creaking off toward the parking lot. I didn’t hear the Quinns’ version of what they said to Paulie until the trial. All I knew was what Paulie had told me that night.

  47

  HIS LORDSHIP: NOW, you took statements from both Richard Quinn and Victoria Quinn as to their relationships with Pauline Sykes over this period of time. Is that correct?

  INSPECTOR GEORGE: Yes, my lord. I also interviewed their father, Canon Bruno Quinn.

  HIS LORDSHIP: Would you read the statement you obtained from Canon Quinn?

  INSPECTOR GEORGE: Yes. This is the statement of Canon Bruno Quinn:

  “I am fifty-three years of age, married with two children, a boy of nineteen and a girl who will be eighteen this month. I am employed by Kings College, which recently acquired Bath Ladies College—”

  HIS LORDSHIP: You can spare us the details of the school history.

  INSPECTOR GEORGE: Yes, my lord.

  “About eight months ago, I learned that my daughter, Victoria, had a boyfriend. His name was Lewis. I first saw Lewis in the autumn of 1963. He came to visit my daughter one afternoon for tea. I subsequently saw him at the girls’ school, Bath Ladies College, where he was employed as a gardener.

  “As I told the other policeman, I was not entirely happy with their relationship. I felt she would have more in common with somebody from Kings College, but my daughter is very headstrong. She said those boys hadn’t the life experience of somebody like Lewis. I believe I understood what she meant and thought it best that she find her own way through this.

  “I sometimes chatted with Lewis when he went about his work on the grounds. He seemed devoted to my daughter and concerned that I should approve of their relationship.

  “I never had any reason to doubt that Lewis was anything other than a boy. He conducted himself in all ways like a young man. I must say, I have been teaching at a boys’ school for the past twenty years, and I was entirely deceived by the situation. I believe my daughter was deceived, too, but she will not talk to me. She is still very loyal to Lewis and has visited her several times in jail.

  “In any case, on the day of my daughter’s school dance, an officer from the Richmond Hill division visited me at my office and told me he had taken in the boy Lewis Sykes for questioning. Lewis and my son had had a fight over the Christmas holidays, but Richard had not told me about it because he knew I strongly disapprove of violent behaviour. I had, of course, known beforehand that he was not in favour of Victoria seeing Lewis. Richard believed Lewis was not good enough for his sister. I had always seen this as typical brotherly protectiveness.

  “The officer said he had deliberated for a few weeks before coming in to see me. Then the officer said he had something to tell me that would shock me. He said that they had searched the boy at the station and discovered that Lewis was not a boy but rather a girl. I couldn’t believe my ears—Lewis a female? It was—it was unthinkable. I asked my daughter about it, and she insisted Lewis was a boy. The problem caused quite an upset in our family, I can tell you. Victoria’s welfare is very precious to my wife and myself. Finally, we decided the safest course of action was to prevent Victoria from seeing Lewis until I had got to the bottom of this matter.”

  HIS LORDSHIP: And this, I presume, is when all the problems started.

  INSPECTOR GEORGE: I’m afraid so, my lord.

  48

  Jack was waiting for me in the stone foyer when I came in after talking to Paulie. I didn’t want to explain to him what was going on because he was a boy, and a boy, even if he was nice enough not to mention Alice, couldn’t understand. So I made up some dumb excuse about Lewis having a fight with his girlfriend, but I’m a lousy liar, and I could tell he didn’t believe me. He kept cracking jokes and talking about what a bust Godzilla was, and every so often he disappeared to the washroom and came back smelling of gin and nicotine. I recognized the booze on account of Sal. He no longer smelled wonderful, and his bad breath made me wonder if my breath smelt bad, too.

  “Do you like me?” Jack whispered as we sat together on one of Sir Jonathon’s old benches. He bent his big head down and said it to my corsage, so it took a moment to realize he was talking to me. I squinted down at my corsage as if it would give me the answer. It was an orchid. I leaned back and uncrossed my ankles.

  “A little,” I whispered.

  “Well, that’s a start,” he sighed, and then kissed me on the ear. I put my hand there, pleased but a little scared that the Virgin might have seen. She was coming our way with Mrs. Peddie, who was wearing a tight lace blouse and a black taffeta skirt you wouldn’t dress a dog in. The sight of the two of them walking together in what they thought were proper evening clothes was enough to make you die from shame. Even worse, the Virgin had placed one hand on Mrs. Peddie’s shoulder and I was afraid they were going to do something crazy like hold hands in front of us. I was sure Jack found their clothes embarrassing too and was looking down on them, and on me by association. Yes, I knew how Jack must see me and every other girl and woman at my school because we were all Wives of Bath—from the teachers who terrorized us with their bells and gatings to the overfed boarders and snobby day girls, to Paulie and me who tried to play by our own set of rules. But no matter how hard any of us struggled, we still looked dumb in the eyes of somebody like Jack because Bath Ladies College was only a fiefdom in the kingdom of men.

  I felt so disappointed it was all I could do to introduce the Virgin to Jack. She eyed him suspiciously. She doesn’t like boys, I reminded myself. He jumped to his feet and then sat back down so she couldn’t smell his breath, his lanky legs set wide apart. For a moment, I expected her to tell him to cross his ankles and put his hands in his lap. But nobody tells boys stuff like that.

  “Have you seen Sergeant?” the Virgin asked me. “He promised to give us a little demonstration of the sport of the three-wheeler.”

  “If he ever gets his surprise ready in time,” Mrs. Peddie said, smiling in that way she had.

  “Maybe it’s a good thing Sergeant isn’t here.” The Virgin pointed to the foyer crowded with girls and pimple-faced boys lining up to have their photographs taken by the door to the library. Most of the boys had on Kings College blazers. “He’d consider this an invasion by Kings, wouldn’t he, Mary?” The Virgin winked at me, and I blushed.

  I felt glad when Ismay and a Kings College boy rescued us from the Virgin, and we all escaped outside, where the snow was filling the crotches of the school elms with white powder. Ismay and her date got into the back of Sergeant’s bus to neck, and I held the tails of Jack’s jacket while he threw up in the snow. Then I forgot about Paulie, because I sipped some of Jack’s gin and we started fooling around for the longest time standing up. I don’t know what Jack thought of the whole business, but I found it a little exhausting. Basically, I had to make sure I stood with my good shoulder closest to him so he wouldn’t feel Alice, and he kept pressing his crotch against me, but he was so tall his pelvis brushed my waist, and 1 thought I would need an operation before the big poker I felt against my body could fit inside me. Does this mean we are engaged now? I thought as I stared up at his pale panda face. He had taken his glasses off to kiss me, and I realized he had a second, nicer face underneath that only a lucky few got to see. Fortunately, Jack seemed to like me too, i.e., he acted more grateful than Sal ever had when I did what she wanted, and that made me feel relieved. Here’s somebody who appreciates the hel
per that lives inside you, Mouse, I told myself.

  Goners the Moment You Breathe on Them

  I still have our photograph from the dance. We face the camera like exhausted soldiers under a huge school crest made of Bristol board. The name “Bath Ladies College” has been stencilled in between green laurel leaves that run up the side of the crest like the footprints of a rabbit. Asa is unrecognizable in an Empire-style black sheath with a pink satin sash, and the voluptuous Ismay is smirking at her date. All our faces are red and overheated from dancing, and Ismay’s stiff beehive and my pompadour have fallen in sticky strands around our heads. Jack and I stand like Mutt and Jeff, smiling at some point over the photographer’s head. A pair of identical diamond-shaped stars glow in our eyes—the afterimage of the camera flash—and Jack’s big hand is hanging off my waist. My corsage is wilted. It’s pinned to my shoulder strap, a rubbery-looking thing tied with a purple ribbon. I don’t know why men give women orchids: they die as soon as you breathe on them.

  49

  I walked into the tower bathroom, and there she was in her pyjamas, yanking down the other girls’ clothes from the washing lines. Piles of damp underthings lay on the floor: pale white undershirts, purple bloomers, black stockings, middies, and white cotton panties, all with nametapes—one of the school rules. The bathroom mirror was smashed, and I noticed sanitary napkins floating in the toilet bowl in the cubicle nearest me.

  Paulie spun around as if she were going to sock me, but when she saw who it was she put down her fists. She had hacked off her braid and cut three horrible zigzaggy slashes in the skin of her left cheek, and she had pasted over the slashes with tiny pieces of toilet paper, which were now soaked through with blood. Her other cheek was covered with foam, as if she hadn’t got around to it yet. And then I remembered seeing Lewis on my first day at school, when I’d surprised him in the washroom, and I knew she’d been shaving in the hope that her facial hair would grow in.