by Anne Doughty
‘Steady on, Neville. Watch where you’re putting your airlock. You can harm a young lad like that.’
By ten o’clock I felt desperate. I set off to go and tell Neville there was packing to do and plans to make for the weekend.
Colin hailed me halfway down the stairs. ‘Oh, Jenny, just in time. We’ve made some coffee. Are there any biscuits?’
The kitchen was exactly as I left it, only now there were sieves, bowls and large saucepans, full of the drying residue of boiled hops, stacked all over the floor, and the pedal bin was overflowing. I picked out the biscuits from the carrier where Colin had put them himself, declined coffee, and started to clear up.
It was nearly eleven by the time Neville went and Colin strode back into the kitchen, looking pleased with himself. ‘Oh, Jenny, you shouldn’t have washed up. I’d have helped.’
‘That’s what you said at eight o’clock,’ I replied sharply.
‘Well, it doesn’t matter, does it? I’ll do it now.’
‘Yes, it does matter. It’s nearly eleven and we haven’t had a moment to ourselves all evening and you still have your packing to do.’
He came and put his arms round me and nuzzled my ear. ‘Oh, come on, Jen. It’s not that late,’ he began persuasively. ‘I won’t be two ticks packing. You go on up and have a nice shower and I’ll be in bed with you in no time.’
At that moment the thought of a shower and of getting to bed without any further delay was utterly appealing. I nodded wearily but decided to finish drying up the saucepans while he packed. I heard him fetch his weekend case from the cloakroom and run upstairs whistling cheerfully. I bent over to empty the pedal bin.
The night air was cold as I replaced the lid on the dustbin, but looking up I saw the moon appear suddenly from behind a great mass of cloud. Light spilled all around me. A spray of yellow chrysanthemums gleamed in the big flowerbed at the end of the garden. Beyond the dark mass of the shrubs and the climbers I’d planted to hide the solid shape of the fence, the lough lay calm, a silver swathe laid across its dark surface. On the far shore, where the Antrim plateau plunged down to the coast, strings and chains of lights winked along the coastline like pale flowers edging a garden path. The still, frosty air was heavy with quiet.
‘Jen. Can you hear me? Where are you?’
Reluctantly, I went back into the house and found Colin peering down over the banisters. His good spirits had vanished and he wore a patient look that did nothing to hide his irritation.
‘What have you done with my white shirts, Jen? I can’t find them.’
‘Which white shirts?’
‘Any white shirts. They aren’t in the drawer,’ he went on quickly. ‘I’ve looked.’
‘They’re probably all in the wash,’ I replied steadily. ‘I’ve been handwashing your drip-dries since the machine packed up. There are two or three of those on the fitment in the bathroom.’
‘But they’re blue,’ he protested impatiently.
‘Since when has there been a rule about wearing white shirts at conferences?’ I asked crossly.
I went back into the kitchen, opened a drawer and pulled a pedal-bin liner off the roll. I heard him pound downstairs and turned and saw him glowering in at me.
‘Jenny, you know perfectly well I always wear the white ones for conferences,’ he said with a dangerous edge to his voice. ‘What the hell am I supposed to do? Wash my own?’
‘Colin, if you had let me ring someone two weeks ago about the machine neither of us would have to wash your shirts. But you wanted to fiddle with the damn thing. I told you I’d rather we paid to have it done so we’d have some time to do other things. But you said no. You’d order the part. You’d fit it yourself. Well, if you had, the drawer would be full of shirts. So don’t go blaming me.’
The wretched pedal-bin liner wouldn’t open. I stood there struggling with it as I watched him change gear. The glowering face disappeared and his tone was sweetness itself as he started to explain that he wasn’t blaming me. I just didn’t understand how difficult his position was. Didn’t I grasp what a big responsibility this new Antrim contract was? Couldn’t I see that he was run off his feet, he was so busy? And just how important it was for his future. He couldn’t really use office time to make domestic phone calls, now could he? Besides, he was out on site so much. Surely I didn’t expect him to be responsible for everything, even his own shirts.
Something about that rapid change of expression, perhaps, or something about that sweet-reasonable tone made me angrier and angrier. At one point, I nearly threw the roll of pedal-bin bags at him just to get him to stop. But I managed not to. Instead, I insisted he had plenty of other shirts. That he could have checked last night he had exactly the shirts he wanted. At the very least, he could have checked before he and Neville made both the kitchen and the bathroom unusable.
‘Why on earth did you have to invite Neville in on the evening before a conference anyway?’ I ended angrily.
‘Because I prefer not to spend all my time working, unlike some people,’ he threw back at me.
‘Unlike some people?’ I repeated furiously. ‘And what about these last three weekends? Who was working then?’
He went quite white, but I scarcely noticed as the pent-up resentment of the last weeks poured out of me.
‘Entertaining your wretched uncle from Australia because Maisie thinks he might just leave you something. And the bloke from British Steel, who might just wangle you a contract,’ I shouted. ‘Or maybe that doesn’t count as work because you could relax and wave your cigar around just like your father does while I lay on the meals. I suppose you think that’s what women are for. And I suppose you think I enjoy providing cut-price entertainment for McKinstry Brothers instead of having some time for us, like any working couple.’
Recalling the violence of my outburst, I shivered, although the room was now pleasantly warm. I looked at my watch. Ten fifty-five. The row had gone on for an hour or more. I ended up weeping from pure exhaustion. Colin apologised, insisted he loved me. Just wanted me to be happy. It would all be much better soon, he said. He thought he could promise me that. It might even be he would have some good news when he came back on Sunday night. Of course I was right about the shirts. They did look a bit creased but he’d manage with the blue ones. I was far more important than any old shirts.
So we’d made it up, and at half past midnight I got out the ironing board and did the bits of the blue shirts that showed. Going halfway, my father would call it. He always argued you have to go halfway to meet people, because we all make mistakes sometimes. No one’s perfect.
Eleven o’clock. Warm at last, I took off my coat and went and sat by the phone. Driving into Belfast this morning, Colin insisted he hadn’t told me about the early start because he didn’t want to upset me. He thought I mightn’t sleep as well if I knew we had to get up early. Hadn’t he done his best to help me, when he had so much on his mind? Didn’t I see how important this weekend was to our future?
I could see why it was so important for him. That was easy enough. After all, he’d talked about nothing else for weeks. He thought it would be the moment when his father offered him the directorship. And that was where our future came in, because it would mean more money, as he so frequently told me, besides the perks of his own office and a company car. Things would be easier for us. Of that he was sure. Why, I could even have my own little car, he said. Wouldn’t that be nice for me?
Outside school, he put his arms round me and kissed me. ‘I’ll phone you tonight between ten and eleven. I promise. Just as soon as I get away from the evening session.’ He drove off and I went slowly up the steps into the cold and empty building to put myself together for the day’s teaching, a full nine periods, most of them with examination classes.
The phone rang a long way off. Colin. At last. I set out to answer it, but I couldn’t find my way. I hurried, but didn’t seem to get any closer. Its peremptory ring got louder and louder. I struggled on. Trip
ped over things in the darkness. My basket. My briefcase. Then a pile of saucepans, which fell down and made a noise even louder than the phone. I woke up and found myself in bed, the room pitch black.
Colin’s alarm clock was still ringing its head off. And it was on his side of the bed. Desperate to stop the appalling racket, I fought my way through the tangled bedclothes, grabbed it one-handed and squashed its ‘Off’ knob against the crumpled pillow. I lay back exhausted, my heart pounding, the strident, metallic sound still vibrating in my ears.
I stared at the cold object in my hand, a wedding present from one of Colin’s friends. ‘Extra loud’, it had said on the box. A curtain of exclamation marks had been added. I was supposed to find it funny. Five forty-five, I read on its luminous dial. Yesterday’s early start. That wasn’t funny either. I just stopped myself flinging the wretched thing at the bedroom wall.
I switched on my bedside lamp, put my hands to my face and moaned, ‘Oh, couldn’t he have turned that bloody thing off instead of the central heating?’ Tears of anger and frustration sprang into my eyes. I’d so needed a good night’s sleep but the few hours I’d had were restless and dream-haunted.
Colin’s promised call hadn’t come till after twelve. The phone box he’d chosen was horribly noisy and the moment he spoke it was clear he only wanted to say he’d try again tomorrow, when he had more coins. I’d asked him to reverse the charges and quickly told him about the job and having to decide by Monday. But he couldn’t have heard properly. All he said was, ‘Well, if Monday suits you for doing it, that’s fine by me.’ Then I heard a voice call out. A woman’s voice. Very bright and sharp. ‘Do hurry up, darling, the taxi’s waiting.’ And he said, ‘Sorry, Jen, no more money. It’s all going fine, just fine. We’ll have a chat tomorrow,’ and hung up.
I sat up in bed and caught sight of my reflection in the glass-fronted wardrobes that lined the wall opposite me. I hardly recognised myself.
‘Stop it, Jenny,’ I said firmly. ‘That way madness lies. It’s dark and you’ve had a bad night. Don’t think. Act. Do something. Anything. Don’t dare think till you’re feeling more like yourself. Come on. Get going. You’re wide awake and you may as well make the best of it. Shower. Breakfast. One thing at a time.’
I turned my face up to the shower’s warm rain and felt my anger drain away. I let the water play on my aching shoulders and imagined my tension washing away down the plughole like so many slivers of metal. I shut my eyes and saw a sandy beach lapped by blue sea. A coral reef shut out the crashing breakers of the ocean beyond. In the sun-warmed waters of the lagoon, I could dive down and follow the flickers of tiny fish, jewel-bright against the pale silver sand, the fine residue of the reef beyond, swept in by the pounding waves.
Reluctantly, I emerged from my reverie and reached for a towel from the heated rail. The towel was cold, damp and smelly.
‘I don’t believe it,’ I said as I dripped across to the airing cupboard for a dry one. The statement was purely rhetorical. It was only too easy to believe the towel rail had finally packed up. It had been on the blink for months. I pulled open the cupboard door, put out my hand for a bath sheet and swore vigorously.
Pushed in among the piles of towels, the bed linen and the table linen was an enormous glass bottle full of seething, yellow-green liquid. The bath sheets were squashed up against the wall behind it. As I reached past the intruding object, the airlock made a loud, hiccupping noise and released a tiny puff of foul-smelling gas. Only a few seconds later, it did it again. Even I knew it was going too fast. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before it blew out the airlock and spewed its contents all over everything. Unless, of course, as Colin had done, I turned off the central heating to keep it happy.
I scrubbed myself dry, ran back into the bedroom and pulled on some clothes. Suddenly the penny dropped. All that racket on the stairs, on Thursday night, and the great jokes about straining your privates. Neville in his element and Colin egging him on. That’s what they’d been up to. And not a thought of ‘Do you mind?’ And now I was left to work out what in hell’s name I was going to do about it, given there was no way I could move the damn thing.
‘Damage limitation, Jenny. Damage limitation. That’s all’s for it,’ I muttered. I fished out the clean linen, carried it into the guest room and stacked it up on the twin beds. Amazing how much the cupboard held. Enough sheets to furnish a dormitory. Those McKinstrys who weren’t in construction were in textiles, which was handy for wedding presents. I ran my eye over the armfuls I had carried in and had a sudden appalling vision of having to wash the whole lot. Without a washing machine.
Another wave of fury swept over me. That was Colin all over. No matter what he did, it was always going to be fine. From the most trivial to the most important. Just fine. His only problem was, he said, that I didn’t seem to see things as he did. If only I’d relax and not upset myself everything would be just grand. I was always upsetting myself, he said. Well, perhaps he was right. He never got upset, and I couldn’t stop getting upset about the fact that he never got upset. I banged the guest-room door, ran downstairs and put the kettle on. I reached for the jar of coffee beans and nearly dropped it.
‘Stop it, Jenny. Stop it.’
I took a deep breath and concentrated hard on measuring the coffee beans into the grinder without spilling them. Then I searched through the carriers still parked on the garage floor and found some sliced bread. As I made myself some breakfast, the agitation slowly began to subside. I sat sipping my coffee and thinking about the day ahead. There was an awful lot to do, but it didn’t trouble me. I had time, a whole, precious day to myself. No one to see, no one coming for a meal and nowhere I had to go.
I took up a pad of paper and made a list. It was so long, I laughed out loud. Long lists only intimidate me when there is no time to reduce them. Today, I could choose what I was going to do and in what order I was going to do it. I sat for a little while longer sipping my coffee and leafing through the week’s accumulated mail, relishing the chance to be leisurely.
I put down my cup and got to my feet. ‘Let’s get this place straight,’ I said to the empty kitchen.
I cleared breakfast and washed up. Thursday’s shopping was put away, the fridge cleaned, the floor swept. I stepped out into the garage to refill the washing-up liquid and spotted the overflowing laundry basket beside the washing machine. I scooped it up, ran upstairs for the other two and shook their contents onto the kitchen table. It would have been easier to use the floor, but one look at it made me wonder when it had last seen soap and water.
I stared at the multicoloured pyramids which now decorated every freshly wiped surface in sight. ‘Surely there hasn’t always been this much to do.’
I thought back to January 1967 when we had first moved in. Yes, it had been a bit chaotic to begin with. Packing cases everywhere and that awful straw the movers used for all our china and glass. But that was only for a week or two. And before that there was Birmingham.
I remembered our furnished flat, the yellowed magnolia-patterned wallpaper on the stairwell, the draught under the living-room door, so fierce in winter it made the carpet flap, the tiny kitchen, so small we could barely get in together to do the washing-up. The first Saturday night we came back from shopping, the people downstairs were cooking bloaters. The smell was unbearable. We took one look at each other, ran all the way downstairs, had supper in a Wimpey bar and went to an early film.
That was typical of us, then. Problems had solutions in those days. Like the February week when the ancient heating-system packed up. We spent the evenings in bed, talking and reading and making love, our supper dishes left unwashed till morning, when we donned layers of woollens over our camping pyjamas until it was time to dress for work.
Perhaps distance lends enchantment, I thought, as I surveyed my pyramids. Perhaps Birmingham was different, almost an extension of student days. For fifteen months we had been a young couple in a flat. Nothing expected of us beyon
d our work, no appearances to be kept up, no ideal home to run or parents to visit, no contacts to be made, or useful acquaintances to be cultivated. There was just us. With new jobs and the challenge of new experiences. Encouraging each other. Sharing things, dreaming dreams and making plans. We’d talked endlessly about the future and all we wanted to do and see before we started a family.
‘How about Abu Dhabi, Jen?’ Colin had asked one Sunday morning as we lay in bed reading the papers.
‘I don’t even know where it is,’ I’d admitted, laughing. I’d hopped out of bed, fetched my old school atlas and we’d worked through all the contracting jobs we could find so I could see just what the possibilities were.
Only a week later, the call came. Colin’s uncle had died suddenly, leaving a space on the board. Colin could finish his traineeship within the firm and move into his uncle’s place when his father thought he was ready.
‘But what about all our plans, Colin?’
Of course he’d agreed it was a pity. And yes, of course it was too soon. But he could hardly turn down such an opportunity, could he? Not many men made the boardroom before they were thirty, did they? And yes, he agreed it was a pity about my school. But he was sure they’d understand and let me go.
I went on resisting. After all, it had been Colin’s father himself who had said how valuable it would be to go away and get experience with other companies. Now all that was forgotten. Colin was needed at home, so that was the end of that particular idea.
I wondered now what would have happened if Daddy had not had his heart attack just a few days later. When that news came, I had flown home alone and spent a very unhappy three days moving between my father’s bedside and Rathmore Drive. My mother had been appalling. Oscillating between self-pity and anger with my father for upsetting everyone, she had made it clear that if my father didn’t make a complete recovery she certainly wasn’t going to look after him. She had her own health to think of as well, she insisted.
