Angel

by Kate Mitchell

  ‘Come.’ She said delighted with my previous complimentary response. And when she stood, she tottered towards me on thin heels which seriously needed reinforcing. I found this frailty of stature unnerving because she looked as if at any moment, she would fall on top of me. Then she grabbed me by the hand. The touch and the texture of her hand were so soft, it was like holding marshmallows, and yet it felt creepy. ‘Come with me.’

  Hands linked fleetingly were dropped. I walked in the wake of her lavender too fuller dress; I was knee-deep in the frills. Her motive for the move was not obvious to me at first, she took me through into a much brighter, sunnier room that appeared to be set for an extremely late breakfast. Now, I understood one of her weaknesses.

  On the side, there was a profusion of silver dishes. There seemed to be food everywhere one looked. In pleasure, Angel clapped her hands, this evidently was what made her really and truly happy, eating. Surprised, I watched as she began heaping bacon, eggs, sausages, tomatoes and everything else which mattered on to her generous sized plate. On another silver salver, she took from it several slices of toast, which she balanced well, surprising me with her proficiency. I suppose we are all good at what we love best.

  ‘Oh, help yourself.’ She remembered her manners. Then, dumping herself down, she commenced eating in the order of a true professional.

  The clattering of the knife and fork on her plate sounded as if she were having a fencing match. I contained my astonishment and revulsion at the extent of her victorious appetite and poured myself a strong black coffee. Naturally, she was to sit at the head of the table, and since all the places were laid at that rather munificent table, I, in my reckoning chose to sit three chairs away. This gave me the opportunity to observe with deep fascination the relish with which she attacked her food. Isn’t it interesting to watch someone eating especially when one has put a preservation order on one’s mouth? So, there goes the first sausage and the first of the toast, and now she was on to the first egg. I licked my lips and swallowed silently.

  While she ate, she was totally oblivious to me, which made it all the more amusing, I somehow felt myself to be fortunate to be able to watch her so close at hand, for it was as fascinating as it was horrifying. Those thousands of calories, I kept on thinking almost counting each one she placed inside her mouth. And after concluding the delights on her plate, she went for a second helping filling her plate as high as her first. When she finished both, she daintily picked up her glass of orange juice and sipped it as though it were an aperitif while she smiled shyly at me.

  ‘You finished before me,’ she said this as though it were an accusation. She then proceeded to wipe the corner of her lips with her napkin. ‘Johnnikins was like you. He only had a little toast with marmalade. I hate marmalade.’ She cringed up her nose with disgust. ‘It has yucky, horrid peely things in it. Johnnikins got me to try it once. He laughed at me when I wanted to spit it out. I told Johnnikins that he had been cruel and that I would never ever forgive him if he tried a trick like that again on me. He bought me a roomful of flowers and a pretty ruby necklace, so, of course, I forgave him.’ Shrugging, she terminated this memory.

  I can only think that it was desperation which drove me to keep on her good side, by trying to think of things pleasant which would cause her to trust and need me. Yet, it rather galled me that my husband was spending our money, probably my money on this woman. And in spite of that, I persevered with the pretense, yet it gave a bitter taste in my mouth, for I was not used to being obsequious in fact, quite the reverse, people had always toadied to me.

  ‘You were very brave to try the marmalade.’ An absurd remark to make, but she looked at me as if she had taken it seriously.

  ‘Yes, I thought so too. I trusted Johnnikins, I did not think he would do something so wicked as that.’ It was obvious this frivolous object of endurance, had no sense of humor, certainly, she did not like tricks being played on her.

  ‘You can trust me.’ I bit the inside of my lip until it almost bled; gall and the temper were building up inside me. ‘I won’t play any tricks on you, no tricks at all.’ My fingers were crossed behind my back, not that I am superstitious. ‘I am not a man. We girls ought to stick together.’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, not too positively, ‘although I do like men. I like them very much.’

  Yes, I thought, and they appeared to like you too, at least John undoubtedly did.

  ‘Would you like to see the rest of my house?’ she suggested. Caught by a whim like a leaf chased by the wind, I responded in the affirmative. I was wondering how I could contain my envy, and then after the envy had settled down if that was possible, the boredom. We simply had nothing in common with each other.

  What a contrast John must have found between us, this alone would have been a source of amusement for him. Yet, if I were a man, I can honestly say that I would have chosen me. I am slim, attractive, intelligent, smart, witty, independent and ambitious, and, an interesting person. She was none of these things. She was cute, pretty, in a sickly way. These were her good points. But she was also silly, manipulative, spoilt, dull, uninteresting, self-centered and dependent. She, unlike me, would never stand by John, side-to-side, on equal footing. When the odds were down, with backs against the wall, she would crumble. She would never do or manage to do what I had done. Working harder and more successfully than a man to bring home the proverbial bacon…or, perhaps this was where I went wrong.

  I showed John I could handle his lower financial standing, which he had intentionally set up. I had shown him that I not only could do just as well as him, but I could also do better. However, concerning the state of affairs we were in, or rather, I thought we were in, I added a little contempt into the wage packet. But in doing so, I had effectually deprived him of his manhood, though it were only a hypothetically stolen manhood judging by what he had accomplished on this other side of his life.

  Nevertheless, I had shown John that I could make a better man than he could. A hypothetical question was now creeping in… if I had pretended to be weak, which was not my style, would we have still been together? No, perhaps not. Sometimes marriages are designed to last only a few years after that they go stale. Not because of anyone’s fault, but because people simply grow apart for one reason or another. And as a childless couple, our thoughts were for ourselves alone and not for each other. Whatever, for it hardly mattered or signified the reason for our marital decline anymore, John sought and found consolation in someone else. Yet, if I had to choose a woman for John, I certainly would not have chosen Angel.

  We walked through room after room, I lost count of the number of bedrooms she had. She yawned when she saw her bed. And I thought, that just sums her up, eat, be merry and sleep with someone else’s husband.

  With pride, she showed me her dressing room, which was next to her bedroom. Possessing clothes of unimaginable quantity and quality, but mainly in the color of lavender. When we walked into the large walk-in closet or rather a room, they burst into vision like a hoard of hungry people from some overpopulated disaster area. Grabbing the attention from one to another. Wear me, wear me; I want to go out.

  ‘So many clothes,’ was the inane comment I made, partly because I thought she expected me to say something and partly because I thought there was nothing else to say.

  ‘It’s such a problem to know what to wear.’ A pucker appeared between her brows; she was quite serious about this dilemma. ‘It takes me absolutely ages to choose what to wear. Of course, I never wear anything more than twice. But I can’t get rid of them as I always remember how pretty I looked when I wore them. Except, that is, for once.’

  Raising my head, I inclined it to one side, to show I was interested.

  ‘I used to have this maid who was supposed to help me dress and take care of all my clothes and things. But I caught her once in my bedroom, and guess what?’

  No, I definitely couldn’t guess, but she was working herself into the passion.

  �
�She was wearing one of my dresses, yes, one of my prettiest dresses. Walking up and down the room and laughing her ugly head off. Naturally, I fired her.’ The little temper having raged was sudden and surprising, she must have a model of the type of person she saw herself being because the plump, purple pumpkin quickly became quite calm. ‘She never said sorry, but she was sorry when I did not pay her wages,’ nodded Angel’s head approving of what she had done. ‘She told me she would get the police on to me, imagine that? Who would believe an ugly woman’s word against mine? Anyhow, I told my Johnnikins about her, and he said he would sort her out for me. I didn’t hear from her again. I expect they put her in prison. Aren’t some people wicked? I shall always hate her for the rest of my life.’

  Satisfied with her last statement, as if anyone would care one way or another what this silly, spoilt female said or thought, I mused to myself, but the irony was that she had done better than I ever had.

  ‘You did very well,’ I marched on, ever the loyal spaniel, pampering her unfathomable ego.

  ‘Yes, although I have to dress myself now, which takes me ages…but Johnnikins said I looked much better when I dressed myself.’

  Half smiling at her, I thought about John. John who dressed as though he did not care what he looked like, and who also showed no awareness of fashion, had been completely indifferent as to what I chose to wear. Yet there was a time when he…oh well, that was some time ago, another life it now seems. Had he told her not to worry (that dense little head of hers) when he was still living with me? Another treacherous act. I felt again like I had been stabbed in the back and was now beginning to remember with a morbid longing, a lost love who apparently, had not existed, and had perhaps never existed at all on his part.

  A curious cat like-meowing noise hit the air. We both responded to the cacophony, which penetrated with an almost physical presence.

  ‘Oh,’ she began as a way of explanation. ‘That’s my Toy-Soldier.’ Reluctantly she put a name to the sound. ‘Do you want to see him, or shall we put some music on?’

  The inclination to say music over the child was instinctive, but I nodded and said that I would love to see her child as though I was extremely excited at the prospect. Her buckled lips revealed her unwillingness to see her son, and then she smiled as she remembered her audience. ‘Come on then,’ taking a deep breath. She led me several rooms away to a bedroom which we had somehow managed to miss on the grand tour. She opened the door to the noise.

  He unquestionably had a good pair of lungs. And as we edged our way closer towards the cot, I noticed again her hesitancy as I was to peer in at the now awoken child. It howled even louder when he saw our faces.

  I wonder why God chooses to make babies look so ugly. The wriggling little thing in the cot was bald and bright pink with a huge wailing mouth. Who could love something that looks like that?

  ‘I think we have disturbed him,’ I said quickly between his gasps for breath.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, her baby-blue eyes were large with fear. ‘Perhaps we’d better leave him.’ And she was out of the door, several bounds before me and closing the door swiftly upon her wailing child. The door muted the child’s dissonant renderings, but not entirely, for children I have witnessed have no consideration when they want to have their own way. The soul of the child kept energetic company with us on our exit. ‘Mary, my other maid,’ she began as we hasten along the corridor, ‘has been taking care of him. I fainted one day when he was crying. The doctor said that it was only to be expected. I had suffered enough with Johnnikins leaving me so suddenly, he told Mary to look after my Toy-Soldier.’

  ‘It’s probably better that way,’ I said for his scream had unsettled my nerves. And yet, I began speculating, had I expected upon seeing John’s baby that it would give me some kind of maternal feelings. Feelings which would burst upon me from a long-forgotten buried tomb to immerge from me the unrequited loss and fulfillment? Instead, what had surfaced was relief. John had been right, I would never have made a good mother, and whatever else filled my womb, I had no regrets.

  ‘How old is your baby?’ I asked turning on impulse, more curious than tactful. It was not a trick of the light, she had been visibly shaken. Her face was squeezed of all bright colors, made her look truly ill. And not only that, from the cement of heavy makeup, the real face squeezed through that she was older than she made herself up to be.

  ‘I can’t remember?’ she answered in short little breaths.

  ‘I think you could do with a drink,’ I commanded for I desired a drink myself.

  ‘But I don’t drink.’

  ‘Well now is the time to start. You do have drinks, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Johnnikins always had a drink. He preferred brandy.’

  It was as if she was speaking of someone else. While John was with me had never touched a drop, well, not in the last few years of our marriage. For some reason, he changed from a social drinker into a puritanical drudge, but it had not always been like that. Once upon a time, John and I used to share many a bottle of wine together. We were happy then, talking about how we enjoyed or preferred this wine to that; it all seems like a dream now. Then, for no reason, he just stopped drinking. This had always infuriated me, his abstaining from drink. Now and again I had a drink or several, well one does, doesn’t one, occasions call to be social. Work in particular, especially if we had pulled off something big or won a new contract, then the champagne bottles would start popping. It was fun. It was sparkle, joie de vivre, it was not boring.

  And then I would go home to John who would look at me from the depths of his mournful and somber beautiful eyes and cast his gloomy disapproval. He spoilt any pleasure I had in drinking. What a hypocrite he was. Why had he lied to me? Why didn’t he...? Oh well. If he had lived, and I had got to know this John, whose personality was gradually unraveling to me, I probably would have liked him. Because this John was assuredly more fun than the John I had known. Yet, why had he kept this side secret from me? What had I ever done to make him change so distinctly towards me?

  John, why did you do this to me, why?

  The drinks were kept on a silver tray on top of an antique piece of furniture, I couldn’t tell if the cabinet was genuine or not, or from what period it hailed. I am not an expert in that type of thing.

  Since the hostess was in no fit state to perform her duties, I adopted her role and taking the crystal decanter poured us both out a healthy sized glass of brandy. She took her glass from me as if she were committing a crime. I showed her how to take a swig of brandy that was something I was good at. Giving her the approval sign to do likewise, she followed my example sipping her happy measure with a squeeze of her nose as though it were forbidden fruit. Nevertheless, she still managed to swallow it.

  I experienced the warm glow filling the cavities down to my stomach to make me feel human again. Then; touched and surprised to see that she too had emptied her crystal tumbler, downing it in one go, and she had accomplished this while my eyes had been elsewhere. With thoughts festering, bubbling and sorting through my mind about lives cantankerous twists, I tried to reason out the laws of retribution and judgment. I'm not a fatalist, but somehow my life seemed to have been fated.

  Now came another question; was she really such a novice to drink? Hence, I poured her out another; an empty glass against a full one is not a cheerful sight. The decision was made guided under prudence not to refill my glass again; it was important for me to keep my wits about me in order to think. For, I had some serious planning to do. I had not shown her yet, my true wrath, the vengeance that I had spoken of, I was only pretending to be her friend.

  Kidnapping the baby, I judged was out of the question not because she wouldn’t pay the ransom but that it would not hurt her, as I wanted her to be hurt. She, (I had witnessed firsthand), was not over-enamored with her baby. In fact, I might even be doing her a favor by taking away that squawking brat. There again, she might not even report that the baby was gone. Of course, t
his was all purely conjecture. But one thing I was sure of; she was no mother. Her maternal feelings were equal to mine, null and void. In fact, I believed she feared the child more than love it.

  ‘Your baby doesn’t look like your husband’ I observed as I sipped my drink.

  She giggled. ‘But how can you know? You never met my hubby.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ I bit my lip now realizing the slip I had made. ‘I believe I saw some photographs of him and you in one of the other rooms. I cannot remember which, I just assumed that was him.’ I lied; I had not seen any photographs of John.

  ‘Silly,’ she said. The color had now come flooding back to her cheeks and this time in a much deeper tone of pink. ‘That’s not my Johnnikins, that’s Jeffrey, my lover. Oops!’ she hiccupped. ‘I wasn’t supposed to tell you yet about him. I don’t really know you…’

  ‘Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone,’ I replied too quickly. And then curiosity hit me in the side again, beating down the doors of temptation and without any hint of conscience called me to ask. ‘Who’s Jeffrey?’

  She was sloshed, she took another toss of her brandy. ‘Can I trust you to keep a secret?’ she put a finger up to her lips but missed them. I nodded my head in answer to her question. ‘Jeffrey is my little Toy-Soldier’s real father.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, attempting to cancel out any shock which may be bubbling to the surface. ‘But what about your husband?’

  ‘It was all a big mistake.’ she wailed. ‘He was always going home to that horrid spiteful wife of his, and I got lonely and bored. And there were all these handsome men around me, but they were all broke. Johnnikins was a lot older than me but he had all the money. There was nothing else I could do except stay with my Johnnikins. I was going to tell him about the baby, it was meant to be a big surprise. I thought he would be so happy especially because he said there was no chance of us having any children. Oh, it’s all such a mess. And now he’s dead, and I’m left with the baby. It’s not fair.’