The Stubborn Season

by Lauren B. Davis

“I propose a toast,” he said.

  “Fine, then, a toast.” She held her breath.

  “To you, my dear, lovely Irene, to you.”

  She wished he’d said “to us.”

  Harry drank his glass down to the bottom. He came behind her and slipped her coat from her shoulders. He hung it on the hook near the door and then took his own coat off and his jacket and tie and hung them next to hers. He sat on the edge of the bed and patted the space beside him.

  “Come here,” he said, and she came to him. He took the glass away from her and put it down on the bedside table.

  “Are you frightened?” he said.

  “Yes, a little,” she said, and she might have said more, but his lips were on hers then and his hands were on her breasts and she felt herself go stiff and still.

  “Are you sure about this, my dear?”

  “Yes, completely sure.”

  “I don’t want you saying later that I seduced you.”

  “I’ve never wanted anything more.” She looked at him directly, for she was a grown woman now, or soon would be. There was no reason to be shy or coy, not with Harry, because Harry knew everything there was to know. And he was the only man she would ever want, would ever love, and so what difference would it make, now, or in a few months when they were married, for surely he meant to marry her?

  He kissed her again, his juniper-sweet tongue rolling around inside her mouth. Then he pulled away, panting slightly.

  “Do you want to freshen up a bit?”

  She hesitated, and he said, “I have protection. You needn’t worry on that front.”

  “Oh. Good,” she said. “Yes, I’ll be right back.”

  She went into the small bathroom and closed the door behind her. She had no idea how to freshen up with no toothbrush, no toothpaste. There on the side of the sink was, just as she had expected, a small bar of soap, and on the rack a thin towel. Not knowing what else to do, she ran the bath, and while the water was running she used the toilet and flushed, embarrassed at the sound. She stripped off her clothes, folding them carefully, stepped into the bath, which was hot but not deep, and washed herself. Then she towelled off with the thin towel and, using her finger, scrubbed along the inside of her mouth with a bit of soap, gagging on the taste. She held her hand beneath the faucet and scooped water into her mouth, rinsing until she was sure the taste of soap was gone.

  She fluffed her hair and combed her fingers through it, avoiding her own glance in the mirror. She wished she had perfume.

  How long had she been in the bathroom? Was she supposed to come out naked? She had always imagined that she would be wearing a beautiful peignoir, something frothy and pink. She slipped her cream-coloured slip back on and hoped that she was pretty.

  It was true that a man, a gentleman like Harry, must marry a girl he deflowered. A gentleman would have no other recourse and would only embark on such a course of action knowing its inevitable outcome. Her mother’s voice: Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

  She opened the door. Harry was waiting for her, already under the covers. He had turned the lights out so that only the glow of his cigarette and the light from the street lit the room. His chest and shoulders were naked and the flesh shone with a pale silvery tinge. His arms looked thin.

  “Here, Irene, have another drink,” he said, pulling her by the arm down onto the bed and putting the glass in her hand. She noticed the bottle by the bedside was a third gone already. How long had she been in the bathroom?

  “Drink up,” he said. “You’re stiff as a board.”

  And so Irene did as she was told. He pulled the slip over her head. She drank up and lay back on the bed in Harry’s arms. The room spun slowly around her.

  “You’re beautiful, Irene,” he said, with his mouth on her nipple. “Good girl.”

  He explored her body. He turned her and twisted her this way and that, his fingers, his lips everywhere until Irene was nothing more than sensation, hot and filled with hollowness. She reached for him, ran her hands along his back, the long muscles there, across his shoulders, his arms. Under the influence of his touch she had lost all shyness, but every time her fingers sought out his penis he gently pushed her hand away.

  “Not yet, love, not yet,” he mumbled, and she took this to mean his passion for her was too great.

  They went on like this for a long time, or so it felt to Irene. She didn’t know how things were supposed to proceed, but she wanted to touch him the way that he was touching her, wanted to please him. She twisted her arm around beneath her and reached down his belly. She was surprised to find him limp as a soft sleeping mouse. Was she not desirable? Was she doing something wrong?

  “I said not yet.” He sounded annoyed.

  “I want to make you feel good,” she said.

  “Stroke it, then,” he said, “gently.”

  She moved her hand back and forth, trying to arouse him, wanting him to want her as much as she wanted him. He grew harder, lengthened as she raked her fingernails gently across his skin. He pushed her away and lay on his back with his hands under the covers. He was putting on the rubber, she guessed, and she looked away. It seemed so ungraceful a motion, and so intimate, she didn’t think she should be watching him. He turned and raised himself above her, parting her legs with his knees.

  “It might hurt a bit,” he said.

  “I don’t mind,” she said.

  Harry strained against her, trying to force his way in. He fumbled between their bodies, grunting and sweating above her. Irene felt her arousal dwindle away. His breath stank of gin and cigarettes. Their bodies were sweaty and sticky. He finally rolled away.

  “Seems the gin’s got the better of me,” he said, with his face turned away from her. He lit a cigarette. “We can try again in a little while.” He did not touch her.

  “Is it me?” she said in a whisper.

  “No. I told you. It’s just the bloody booze. I drank too much, that’s all.” He crushed out his cigarette. “I’m going to take a wee nap. We’ll try again.”

  “I think I want to go home.” Tears were dripping into her ears.

  “For crying out loud, Irene. You’re not going to start carrying on like a schoolgirl, are you?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, but could not stop crying.

  “God save me from virgins.”

  “Don’t you love me, Harry?”

  “Irene, what do you want me to say? That I love you? Will that make everything all right, then?” He was pouring himself another drink. “Oh, for the love of God, stop that snivelling!”

  Irene tried, but it just wasn’t possible. She got out of bed, scooped her slip up from its puddle on the floor and dashed into the bathroom, clutching it across her breasts.

  When she came out again, Harry was rolled over onto his side. His back was pale and cold in the false moonlight coming in from the streetlamp.

  “Harry?”

  There was no response. Irene stood looking down at the bed, where the imprint of her body could still be seen, a hollow next to Harry’s form. Without touching him, without actually making an effort to rouse him, there was no way of knowing whether he was really sleeping or just pretending. She did not want to touch him. She felt shame like a cramp down deep inside her.

  She opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. The lights were dim and the hallway looked far longer leaving than it had when she and Harry had arrived. As she waited for the elevator, she was afraid Harry would follow her. When the doors opened, she looked back, hoping to see him. The elevator operator took her down to the lobby without even a glance. All the way down she prayed the desk clerk would be asleep behind his desk, but there he sat, talking into the phone and smoking a cigarette. He smirked, telling Irene all she needed to know about what sort of woman he judged her to be.

  “I need a taxi. Would you get one for me, please?”

  “Not spending the night with your husband, miss?”

  “Are you capable of getti
ng me a taxi or not?” She was dangerously close to tears again.

  “I’ll call you back, Mabel,” he said into the phone and hung up. “Are you all right, miss?”

  “I’m fine. I just need a taxi. Please.”

  “’Course. May take a few minutes, this time of night and all, but we’ll get you one. Billy!” he called, and a young man in a bellman’s cap appeared. “Lady needs a cab. Get her one.”

  “This time of night? Might take a while.”

  “Yeah, yeah, just do it!” He turned back to Irene as the boy moped off through the lobby. “Why not take a seat.”

  “Thank you, but I think I’ll wait outside. I could use the fresh air.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said and picked up the phone again.

  22

  When Irene came home, she sat at the kitchen table and the tears poured down her face, making dark stains on her pretty yellow evening dress. Margaret made her daughter cocoa, with tiny marshmallows floating on the top, and sat beside her stroking her hair and encouraging her to talk. But Irene would only say that it was over, all over, and that she had been a cheap and stupid fool.

  “Irene, tell me you haven’t gone to bed with that boy!” Margaret said. “That’s all I need, an illegitimate grandchild.”

  Irene turned to her and said, “No fear of that, Mum, you needn’t worry,” with such bitterness that Margaret didn’t know what to think.

  “I should hope so. I can just imagine what the neighbours would say if that were to happen. Lord.”

  “For God’s sake, Mum!” Irene wailed, and worked herself up into such a state that Margaret had to put her to bed, tucking the sheets under her chin.

  “You’re Mother’s little kitten, you know.” She kissed Irene’s hot, dry forehead. “Yes, you are. Mother’s little kitten.”

  Irene did not come out of her room at all the next day, and wouldn’t talk, no matter how Margaret tried to draw her out. She wouldn’t eat. On Monday she didn’t even bother to go to the store. She called Mr. Badali and asked him to hang a sign on the door: Closed Due To Illness. Margaret tiptoed around all day, trying to give the girl some room.

  Oh, she felt sorry for her. She knew what that pain felt like and she could feel it radiating off her daughter in hot waves. The poor wee thing. And couldn’t Margaret just remember how awful it was, not wanting anyone near you, because even the air hurt. It was like all your skin had been peeled away and even the slightest breeze would set you to screaming again. She remembered. It brought the two of them closer, this shared pain. Peas in a pod they were, two peas in a pod.

  On Tuesday morning Irene ate some toast and tea and went to work, although she came home at the end of the day looking like she’d fought the battle of Culloden all over again and lost.

  Margaret discovered she was very good at taking care of her daughter. She made her milkshakes with a raw egg whipped up in them to give her strength. She brought her toast and honey, or cinnamon toast, or sometimes soup. Yes, nice thick soups with chunky vegetables and bits of beef.

  Which was what she was doing this Saturday evening, exactly two weeks since Irene had come home so distraught—preparing a nice thick soup for her daughter, who sat listlessly in the living room, wrapped in her old tartan housecoat. She listened to the evening’s broadcast from the CBC, and the words floated into the kitchen. “On Saturday night, the tenth anniversary of the passing of Harry Houdini, Mrs. Houdini staged a final séance on the roof of a Hollywood hotel in what she said was a last effort to communicate with him. ‘He has not come,’ she said. ‘I have abandoned hope.’ And so, the light that has burned for the past decade above a photograph of the great magician in his widow’s home was at last darkened.”

  Margaret chopped the onions, the carrots, the celery. She fried the flour-dredged hunks of flank steak in the skillet before adding them to the broth already in the pot. The store was doing so much better these days that they could afford flank steak. Salt and pepper, a pinch of rosemary. She stirred the deep cast-iron kettle and held her face over the fragrant steam, breathing deeply. There is nothing, she thought, more soothing than the smell of a pot of soup on the stove.

  “Is that about Mussolini?” Margaret called. Il Duce had declared that conflict between Great Britain and Italy would lead to a general European war. Apparently he was now offering to exchange pledges to respect each nation’s rights and proclaimed an “armed peace” rather than the “illusions” of disarmament and collective security.

  Margaret could see through the bully’s words. It was one of the compensations for living with the Other Margaret. She had swift, sudden flashes of insight that the Real Margaret never had. She knew what the Italian Fascist was up to, knew that he had his own form of madness, as did Hitler. Bug-house candidates, both of them. They were like kin, almost. It was odd, really, how crazies like that could manage not only to function in a way she could not, but to wangle themselves a place on the world stage. She could see from the newspaper photos that there was something in their eyes, something that no one should have to look upon. The reports she read said Hitler’s eyes were blue. She paid attention to the colour of eyes.

  Blue-eye, beauty, do your mammy’s duty,

  Black-eye, pick a pie, Run around and tell a lie;

  Grey-eye, greedy-gut, Eat all the blue world up.

  No matter what colour, their eyes glinted. She shuddered, knowing that when Mad Margaret was in residence a similar dark spark might be found in her own eyes.

  “Irene, did you hear me?”

  “Yes, Mum. It’s about him.”

  “Anything about King Edward?”

  “Not yet.”

  “He’s a fool, that man, trying to escape his duties. And all for a bit of skirt.”

  Irene looked out the window to the dark skeleton trees. Yes, a fool indeed. What was he thinking? What was anyone thinking when they tried to leave behind where they were? Your destiny always caught up with you, didn’t it? And this was, Irene now saw, her destiny. To be sitting in this house, night after night, with her mother, growing older, growing more eccentric, until they were just two crazy old ladies, maybe keeping cats, hundreds of cats, and collecting newspapers, until the house caved in around them and everyone said what a shame it was.

  “Hungry?” her mother called.

  “No.”

  “Oh, sure you are. You must be. I bet you haven’t eaten all day. You have to keep your strength up, you know.”

  What was there to say to this? Her strength must be kept up so that she could keep going. You breathe in, you breathe out; you do the work and keep up appearances and fulfill your obligations. When all the while the only thing you really want is to sit in a chair and not speak. It was what her life would be about, now.

  Now that Harry was gone.

  She had hoped Harry would call. Hoped he had seen the error of his ways, that he now knew what he was losing, that it was all a terrible mistake, that he would never hurt her again, that he was here to beg her forgiveness and ask her to marry him, to marry him right away … and get her out of this terrible padded-cell house.

  Yes, she had hoped that. Foolish and cheap girl.

  The announcer droned on about the King and country, duty and honour. Her mother was right. The King must be the King, and all the desire in the world wouldn’t make a bit of difference.

  “My goodness, Irene, can’t you at least turn a light on in here? You shouldn’t sit in the dark, dear. I can barely see to walk. It’ll ruin your eyes. And you don’t want to have to start wearing glasses, now, do you? Hide those pretty eyes?” Her mother carried a tray with a steaming bowl of soup and a cup of tea. Invalid food.

  She pulled out a small folding table from behind the chesterfield and set the tray down.

  “Fine, then, I’ll put on the light myself.” She reached under the pink floral shade of the floor lamp and the room became softly lit. Irene looked small huddled inside the big housecoat, her feet in thick socks. Margaret held a napkin out. “Th
at’s better. Now, sit up straight, dear, and try and eat something. I know it’s hard to eat when you feel so blue, but you must try. Just a few mouthfuls. That’s a good girl, just a sip. Now, isn’t that good?”

  Margaret dunked the bread into the soup bowl.

  “You know, dear, I know how you feel. Like you’re way down at the bottom of a great dark well, and you can see the light, way up there above you, but can’t imagine ever being able to make your way up to it again.”

  Yes, Irene thought, it feels just like that.

  “I know it feels like the world is ending just now, but try and look at it this way: you’ve learned a very important lesson early. You’ll be the better for it.” Irene was crying again. “Oh, dear. Oh, you poor thing.”

  Margaret went and put her arms around Irene’s shoulders, bending her head so that her mouth was close to Irene’s ear. “There, there,” she said over and over. “There, there. It’s going to be all right. It’s going to be fine.”

  She could feel her daughter’s bones under the heavy housecoat. She could see the pulse in the soft skin on her neck. Blood of my blood, bones of my bones. We are made of the same flesh. For the first time in a very long time, Margaret felt as though they were practically the same person. It was so reassuring to have someone in the world with whom you were bonded in this way. And hadn’t she been good over the past while? Hadn’t she said all the right things and none of the bad things that had swirled around inside her head? She had almost called Harry Madison a cocksucker, but she hadn’t. She hadn’t laughed, which was sometimes a difficult thing to control. As long as the pain was in Irene, it wasn’t so much in her. They were sharing things. Making each other better.

  “I’m here, dear, Mum’s here. Don’t you worry. I’ll never leave you.”

  She hugged her daughter tightly, but the poor thing just kept on crying and crying and crying. She’d probably spend the whole day in bed tomorrow, and Margaret knew just what she’d make for her. Scones with homemade strawberry jam. Just the thing to tempt a finicky palate. Just the very thing.