‘I thought you were so tired,’ Vinson said, and Christine saw that Matt was grinning at the sight of Vinson trying to persuade his mother out of something she meant to do. ‘Wouldn’t you rather lie down and rest a while? Christine can get your bed fixed in a moment, and we won’t be away too long. If it were anything else we’d cut the party, but since it’s the Admiral we can’t very well…’
‘Of course I’m tired,’ said his mother. ‘Motoring always makes me feel just terrible. You know that. But don’t imagine that I haven’t trained myself to be sociable when I feel limp as a rag. Every evening,’ she told Christine, ‘I suffer from Five o’Clock Fatigue. My doctor says it’s only my spirit that keeps me going through all the entertaining we have back home. But of course I’ll come with you, Vinson. I know you’ll want to have all your Washington friends meet your mother.’
‘Well –’ Vinson glanced helplessly at Christine. She had never seen him so at a loss. His mother seemed to subdue him and sap his confidence. ‘You’d better go call Mrs Hamer and ask if we may bring my mother and brother to her party.’
‘Not me, Vin,’ Matthew said. ‘I’m going right on to Bob’s. You can have your admirals, but count me out.’
‘Just say it’s my mother then. And be sure to ask her very nicely, won’t you, darling?’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’ Christine was irritated by his nervousness. ‘I know how to talk to admirals’ wives. I ought to. I’ve had enough practice with the brutes.’
Matthew laughed and Honeychile barked at him. ‘Of course she does,’ said Mrs Gaegler, tapping the dog’s flimsy skull with her finger. ‘She’s a very lovely girl. I always know about people the minute I see them. Vinson, you mustn’t be so –’
‘Oh no,’ said Christine instantly on the defensive to stop Vinson’s mother trying to gang up with her against him. ‘I’m dreadful. I always say the wrong thing.’
As she went through to the living-room to telephone she heard Matthew say: ‘I say, though, Vin boy, I like your wife.’ Vinson murmured, and then she heard him say to his mother: ‘Let me take your bags up and show you your room. I’m sure you’ll want to freshen up.’ It was not like a son talking to his mother. It was like a host dealing courteously with an acquaintance. He was as unnaturally polite to her as he had been to his sister Edna. Politeness was all right – the Copes had never gone in for it enough – but this seemed to Christine to be an odd way to treat your relations.
Matthew treated Mrs Gaegler less politely and was more successful with her. He treated her like an inconvenient child, and merely laughed at her when she was difficult. He did not look as if he took anything seriously.
When Vinson and his mother had gone upstairs, Mrs Gaegler complaining above Honeychile’s yapping that the stairs were too steep and someone would break their neck there some day, Matthew came into the living-room, where Christine was being obsequious to Mrs Hamer, with a sycophantic smile on her face, as if the Admiral’s wife could see her. Matthew winked, made a face at Mrs Hamer’s voice clacking through the telephone, and gave Christine a casual salute. ‘’Bye, Chris,’ he said. ‘Be seeing you.’
Christine changed her sycophantic smile to a friendly one for him. She was glad he had come. She liked him. Perhaps he would become a real brother to her, as Roger had never quite been.
With Matt’s inconsequential influence removed, Mrs Gaegler became more difficult. Vinson could not laugh at her as his brother did. He just stood and looked worried while she said that the bed would have to be moved because she would get neuralgia if she faced the light, and might she have another lamp and a cushion for Honeychile – ‘She likes green ones best. She’s allergic to red’ – and she hoped that dog next door was not going to bark all the time and upset poor Honey, who had not fully recovered from her last confinement.
She kept the door of her room open and talked on while Christine and Vinson finished their interrupted changing. Vinson did not answer. He tied his tie and brushed his hair deliberately, plodding about the room with an expressionless face.
Christine felt that she had to say something. When there was a pause while Mrs Gaegler was putting her head into a dress, Christine told her that the room was going to be the baby’s, and that Vinson had decorated it himself.
‘It’s very charming,’ Mrs Gaegler emerged through the neck of the dress. ‘If you want my opinion, the frieze is a little too high, and of course they never use pink for nursery walls now. It’s always yellow. It has a definite psychological effect, you know.’
‘Well, we like it,’ said Christine stoutly. ‘Vinson painted it himself.’
‘I know, dear. You told me. And as I’ve said – it’s very charming.’
They had to wait for her quite a long time, and Vinson fussed about being late at the Admiral’s. When his mother emerged in a tight black dress with her bosom pushed well up and her smoky hair fluffed out, the question then arose of what was to be done with Honeychile.
She could not be left in the house alone. Mrs Gaegler said that was cruel, and she was funny, but she could never be unkind to dumb animals or children. In Kaloomis, Kansas, Mrs Gaegler said, she always got a dog-sitter when she had to go anywhere without Honey. ‘Though, of course, most people are delighted to have her along. Perhaps one of your neighbours would have her?’ she asked Christine. ‘I’m sure they’d be glad to look after her. She’s everyone’s pet. Why, back in Kaloomis everyone knows her. She’s quite a public figure. When she had her puppies I had it put in the Births column of the Herald. Let’s take her round to one of your neighbours, shall we, and then get going. I need a drink. I’m a little weak right now. My adrenal glands don’t produce enough natural stimulant, you know. It’s always the same at this time in the evening.’
‘I don’t think we could do that,’ Christine said. ‘Betty is always so busy, and they’ve got a dog, and I don’t think Mrs Meenehan …’
‘They wouldn’t help you out?’ Mrs Gaegler raised the arcs of her eyebrows. ‘That doesn’t sound very neighbourly. Haven’t you gotten around to making friends with your neighbours then? Of course I must remember. You’re English.’
Christine looked at her and clenched her fists. If Vinson’s mother were going to start on that line … She turned and went downstairs, reminding herself that she was going to like her mother-in-law.
They took Honeychile with them. There was nothing else to do. They left her in the car, yapping frenziedly and scrabbling at the window, and when they came out from the party they found that she had chewed a hole in the leather of the back seat. Vinson was furious. He prized his car next to the Navy, his wife and his house. He sulked while he drove, but his mother did not notice. A couple of drinks had compensated for her defective adrenal secretions and she had had a good time. She had gone round saying to everybody: ‘I’m Commander Gaegler’s mother. I’m sure you know my son.’
Christine, drinking Coca-Cola and standing unobtrusively in a corner because she thought from Mrs Hamer’s glance that her condition must be too obvious, heard her mother-in-law beard Captain Fleischman, who was the chief of Vinson’s division, and tell him how lucky he was to have her son working for him.
Vinson finally came back and rescued Christine to take her home. She never saw much of him at parties. He always went off and talked shop with other naval officers, and left her to domestic banalities among the wives. All the husbands did that. At any naval party you would find all the men at one end of the room and all the women at the other, the sexes divided like oil and water.
Knowing him well, she saw that he had had several drinks, but he appeared to be perfectly sober. No one who was looking for a promotion would ever be anything else at an admiral’s party. They collected Mrs Gaegler, who had Captain Fleischman hypnotized like a chicken against the wall, and then they said good-bye to the Admiral, who grunted at them, and gave the appropriate effusive thanks to Mrs Hamer, who was standing by the table which held the inevitable cold turkey and ham, so that no one dared to c
ome and eat it.
Christine and Vinson had planned to have supper at home, but there was not enough for three, so they went to a restaurant. Mrs Gaegler said she was not hungry, but she ate quite a large steak, although she complained that it was too rare and no one in the east knew how to broil a steak the way they did back home.
The stimulation of her drinks was wearing off, and evidently her adrenals were not yet functioning, for she began to feel poorly now, and while Christine and Vinson ate their dessert, at which she made a face, she was fidgeting to get back to her digestive mixture.
At home they urged her to go to bed, although she promised them she would not sleep. They shut the door on her and Honeychile at last, and went downstairs to have some coffee by themselves. Vinson looked tired. He seemed depressed. Christine made a little light conversation to him, as she sometimes had to do when she did not know what to say to please him, but she felt silly sitting there in her best cocktail dress that was now too tight, making conversation to her husband, so she gave it up.
‘What’s the matter, Vin?’ She moved closer to him on the sofa.
‘Nothing. I’m tired.’
‘More than that.’
‘Uh-huh.’ He shook his head. ‘Well,’ he began in a brighter tone, ‘how do you like my mother?’
‘Oh, she’s sweet, Vin. I’m sure we shall get on very well.’
‘Of course. She’s a grand person. It’s wonderful to have her here.’
He sounded as if he wanted to be convinced, but Christine could not find the words to back up his attempt.
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he said, suddenly relaxing. ‘I know what you’re thinking. But – look. Every time, I think it will be better, and we shall be like a friendly family. I do try. One must love one’s mother, but - I don’t know. She’s not like other people’s mothers. She’s so difficult. She always has been. When we were children she –’ He shook his shoulders a little. ‘Oh, to hell with that. But a mother – you know. It’s kind of a let-down when you can’t feel about her as you should.’
‘You mustn’t say that, darling,’ Christine said, but she was glad that he was confiding in her. ‘After all, your mother isn’t very well. She seems to have so many things wrong with her.’
‘She’s the healthiest woman on God’s earth,’ he said. ‘There isn’t a damn thing wrong with her. But she’s always been like that. My father was a pill, but I sometimes think he … Oh, Christine,’ he put his arms around her, ‘thank God I’ve got you. I’ve never had anyone – close, you know. Don’t ever leave me.’
‘Of course not, darling.’ She sat and cuddled him for a while. If he wanted her to be a mother to him, all right, she would be maternal.
Presently she said: ‘I like your brother, Vin. I think he’s terribly nice.’
She thought that he would be pleased, but if he was he did not show it. He sat up and smoothed his short black hair. ‘Matt?’ he said. ‘He’s O.K. Cocky, though. He always was. Come on, let’s go to bed.’
They went to their room and heard through the flimsy wall the snuffling snores of Mrs Gaegler, who informed Christine next morning when she tottered down for breakfast two hours after Vinson had left that she had not slept a wink all night and knew she never would in a house that faced north and south.
Mrs Gaegler was full of ills and strange disorders, some of which Christine had never heard of before. She seemed to suffer from a different complaint on every day of her visit. You never knew what it would be. She told Christine all about it when she came down in the morning, and by evening she had fallen a victim to something else, with which she would greet Vinson when he came home.
Her voice went on and on all day. The only thing that could drown it was Christine’s noisy vacuum cleaner, which Mrs Gaegler said had an unhygienic dust-bag and should be banned by federal law. When the vacuum cleaner was roaring round sucking up the rugs you could not hear an airplane directly overhead, but Mrs Gaegler went on talking, her lips nimble and her hands idle. She never offered to help Christine with the housework. She was allergic to dust, dishwater, silver polish and hot irons.
She was allergic to anything she did not like, and when she felt liverish from drinking too much rye whisky her quite plebeian symptoms were ennobled with the name of allergy too.
She was adept at aggrandizing minor complaints into full-scale ills. If she was a little tired it was nervous exhaustion, or prostration, or the defective adrenals again. If she had a headache it was a migraine coming on, or even in her wilder flights the threat of a cerebral tumour. If her skin itched she was sure she was in for hives or shingles. Indigestion from over-eating was called gastritis; a cough from over-smoking was a touch of bronchitis. She complained for days that she had sprained her thumb writing letters, and when she was persuaded out into the garden one day to help weed the lawn the slight backache she acquired convinced her that she had slipped a disc in her spine, and she made Christine drive her to the doctor.
She was always wanting to go to the doctor. The opportunity of plaguing a new one was too good to miss. Christine had to drive her there every other day to have injections – no one knew what for – but she had brought with her a selection of ampoules which she insisted on having pumped into herself at regular intervals. Christine hoped that the doctor threw away the ampoules and pumped in sterile water instead, as she had often done with hypochondriacs in the hospital.
One whole shelf in the bathroom had to be cleared for Mrs Gaegler’s drugs and medicaments. She took little nips at them all day long, and sometimes at night Christine would hear her patter into the bathroom in her gold kid mules to refresh herself with a dose of this or that. Her craving for penicillin was abnormal. If she pricked herself with a pin she wanted it, and once when she got a rose thorn in her finger she wanted to have an anti-tetanus shot as well.
The luckless Honeychile was also subjected to frequent dosings. She had vitamin pills every morning, cod-liver oil at midday and gland extract at night to compensate for the hormones Mrs Gaegler said she had lost when she had her puppies. Sometimes she spat the pills out, a half-dissolved mess on the carpet, and Mrs Gaegler would fear for her life and want to take her to the vet. The preparation of the dog’s food was the only labour she would undertake in the kitchen. Christine had halfheartedly offered to do it, but her mother-in-law insisted on mashing up the tinned chicken and strained baby foods herself, as if she thought – perhaps with reason – that anyone else might poison Honeychile.
Matthew merely laughed at his mother’s hypochondria. Vinson was resigned to it, and Christine soon learned not to take it seriously. She would sympathize politely, and would run up to the bathroom for a medicine bottle or drive Mrs Gaegler to the doctor when she wanted, but she was no longer disturbed by the announcements of a gastric ulcer or a perilous blood pressure.
However, if no one in her family would worry about her ills, Mrs Gaegler was compensated by the interest which Mrs Meenehan took in them. On the morning after Mrs Gaegler’s arrival she had appeared at the kitchen window ostensibly to borrow a ‘drain of salad oil’, but really in the hope of meeting the visitor, whose arrival she had watched round the corner of a curtain the day before. Mrs Gaegler was at the sink mixing herself a double bicarbonate of soda, and Mrs Meenehan, who loved other people’s insides as much as she loved gadgets, weighed cheerfully into a discussion of Mrs Gaegler’s morning symptoms. They took to each other at once. Mrs Meenehan had a floating kidney, which in itself was a passport to friendship.
After this she was always coming round with some patent medicine or unguent, or a newspaper article about cancer, and she and Vinson’s mother would stand talking on the porch for hours, with the nodding heads, sucked-in mouths and popping eyes peculiar to clinically minded women. Sometimes Mrs Gaegler would go across the garden to the Meenehans’ house and come back flushed with the discovery of a new kind of aspirin she had heard advertised on the television, and want to be driven to the drugstore immediately. Christine alway
s had to take Vinson to work now so that she could have the car, for Mrs Gaegler could not walk anywhere, even to the shopping centre at the end of the road. She had spastic insteps and threatened cartilage in her knee joint.
Christine was pleased that her mother-in-law had made friends with Mrs Meenehan. It took her off her hands and gave her some free moments to get on with her work undisturbed by conversation and the short figure following her about saying: ‘Why do you do it that way?’, but Vinson was not pleased. He liked having the Meenehans next door no better than he had liked having Mr and Mrs Pitman R. Preedy opposite, and for the same reason. He was more snobbish than any Englishman. If people were ‘not quite our kind’ he did not want to mix with them, and he did not think his mother should either.
When she was not talking about her own ailments Mrs Gaegler liked to discuss other people’s. She was always boring Vinson and Christine with long stories about people they did not know, who all seemed to have cancer or T.B. or poliomyelitis. It did not make for stimulating conversation. After supper Vinson would usually escape to his carpentry in the basement – he was making a play-pen now – and Christine would be left to hear about that perfectly darling Sally Thorne, who’s just riddled with bone cancer, the most shocking thing.
When she had temporarily exhausted her own and other people’s insides Mrs Gaegler would turn her attention to Christine’s. Never had an expectant mother been given so much advice and criticism as Christine had in those two weeks. It maddened her. Although she was always willing to discuss the baby with Vinson or Lianne or Nancy Lee or even the pessimistic Betty Kessler next door, she found herself reluctant to discuss it with her mother-in-law. Mrs Gaegler’s approach was somehow offensive. She was almost ghoulishly curious, and she was full of all the unappetizing old wives’ expressions like Quickening and Waters Breaking. She said that Christine was wearing the wrong clothes, doing the wrong exercises, eating the wrong food. Christine was following her doctor’s advice and her own instincts, but her mother-in-law, having produced three children – ‘and nearly died with each of them, for all the thanks they give me now’ – considered herself a sounder authority than any doctor, and certainly than any green wife with her first baby – and an English wife at that.
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