The Marriage Bed (25 page)

“I’ll bet you don’t,” I thought nastily. A few years ago at a New Year’s party (at that point I was between pregnancies and looking all right) Tim had made a pass at me in the hall of somebody’s apartment just outside the bathroom. Feeling generous on some rather ghastly mulled wine, I’d given him a light kiss, and out of sheer friendliness let him feel my buttocks. That few seconds would have been perfectly innocent, even good for both of us, except that just then his tall wife Jean came out of the bathroom.

She harpooned him on a look so punitive that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see his balls drop off right on the spot. Tim was a heavyset man, slow on his feet, but he instantly vanished into the crowd as if dematerialized. She picked her way past me as if I were some unusually nasty insect, and the party roared on. I remember enjoying it very much until we were gathered at the door to say goodnight, everybody kissing everybody. Then, under Jean’s frigid eye, Tim actually shook hands with me, and I had to turn away to hide a hysterical grin. Never did any husband in the history of marriage look so abysmally guilty. If we’d been caught naked in some exotic variation of the act in the middle of Yonge Street, he could not have looked more sheepish. He was the kind of man who deep down thought fornication was a worse crime than murder. At the same time, he thought of adultery as “scoring.” It was hard to think kindly about Tim, even when he wasn’t there.

Anyhow, ever since that party, Tim had disliked me in a subverted sort of way that masked itself under jovial friendliness, even
a kind of sly, sexual invitation. Not a pleasant combination at all.

“Well, Tim, I don’t know what I can do about it. Damn all, I’m afraid. As you know, he doesn’t live here any more. In fact, I haven’t even heard from him lately.”

“Yeah. Well, Randy and I are pretty worried.”

“I appreciate that. But –”

“If the bitch would only get out.”

What absurd combination of feelings made me jump to Larine’s defence I don’t know; but I found myself doing it.

“Look, Tim, is there any real need to get your knickers in a twist about it? This is the first straight job she’s ever had. She just can’t handle the other side of it, that’s all. Can’t you talk to her, I mean without getting nasty and scaring her? She’s been scared and threatened all her life, after all.”

“Come on, I’m not a social worker, you know, or a shrink either. But I
have
talked to her. Had her into my office, like a Dutch uncle. Result? Zilch. Her attitude’s been worse than ever. In fact, I wouldn’t put it past the bitch to tell Ross I made a play for her. Which would be a fucking lie, of course. But that’s maybe why he’s freezing me out.”

A vivid mental picture of Tim talking to Larine like a Dutch uncle formed in my mind. His hand was no doubt metaphorically on her buttocks the whole time. I smothered the laugh that was tickling me.

“No, they’re certainly not playing the game, either of them,” I said mildly. The innuendo luckily escaped him. Tim was suspicious of intelligent women and afraid of them when they had a sense of humour. Antagonizing him now would be silly, even dangerous, and I knew it.

“In fact,” Tim was saying heavily, “the whole situation’s got to the point where we’re all finding it hard to carry on. Randy’s tried, and so have I, but we can’t seem to get through to Ross at all. He’s
like a guy on some other planet. Christ, is it so great between him and Larine that he can’t tune in on anything else? When we started out together, the three of us, he used to be the keenest of us all. I just don’t get it.”

Reluctantly I had to concede that Tim had a point there. I shifted my weight wearily. “Tim, I wish I knew what to say. Or do.”

“Because,” he went on, “– well, I hate to say this, but – it could come to this, that Larine will have to get out, or Ross will.”

“Ah,” I thought. “Here’s your real message at last.” Gentle Randy would of course stand pretty well wherever Tim pushed him, so I understood with perfect clarity this was not just a hint; it was a threat.

“Have you put this ultimatum to Ross?” I asked.

“Well, no – not –”

“Why not, then? Are you asking me to do it?”

“No, no, of course not. I’m only suggesting that when you see him, you could …”

“Could what?”

“Well, like use your influence –”

“My what? Look, if I had any influence left with Ross, you wouldn’t be making this call, right?” (One of the worst things about talking to Tim was that you couldn’t help picking up his style.)

“Anne baby, you have all my sympathy. You know that.” An unctuous leer began to creep into his voice. “This whole thing makes me feel rotten mostly because it’s such a raw deal for you. And you’re such a sweet kid.”

When I made no reply, being preoccupied with another and sharper contraction, he assumed I was too moved for words. “Look, baby,” he went on, “what say we meet somewhere for a drink tomorrow and talk this over properly. The phone’s no good. A drink or two, a bite to eat, what do you say? We really need to get together. I mean, apart from everything, I haven’t seen you for ages.”

“Sure we could get together. You mean with Randy? Or maybe Jean?” Bitchy of me, but a backache of this intensity was enough to rot any woman’s better nature. There was a huffy silence at the other end. I added, by way of apology, “Because any conference like that will have to wait till I come out of hospital. My new baby’s due the end of next week.”

“Oh. Yeah, of course. I mean, I forgot about that. Well, Anne, great talking to you. Just, when you see Ross, you could like pass it along, eh, how things are … how Randy and I feel. He’ll listen to you.”

“I doubt that. However.”

Unable to think of any answer to that, he gave his bray of a laugh. “Ah-ha-ha-ha. Anyhow, baby, be hearing from you. Take care, now. Ciao. And all the best.”

“Sure. Whatever that is.”

He hung up with almost audible relief. I made a couple of hideous faces at the phone before putting it down, but they didn’t help much.

H
ardly any conversation in my life had been as disagreeable as this one, or in so many ways undermining. The more I thought about it, the worse I felt – the sort of reaction you get after stepping in dog crap. Not only is there always more of it than you thought at first, but you can’t get rid of the smell of it, or the suspicion that this kind of thing could never have happened if you were a better person.

I wandered aimlessly from kitchen to dining-room to hall, nibbling a soda cracker to quiet a queasy stomach, and occasionally giving the telephone a finger-up signal to relieve other feelings. When my legs got tired, as they soon did, I sank down again in the rocker. Thank God I was alone, at least, without other people to
preserve a face for. Hugh, for instance, if he caught me wearing certain expressions, was apt to burst into tears, while Martha would snap with military brusqueness: “Smile!”

The to-and-fro creak of the rocker gradually tranquillized me a little. Chairman Mao appeared from one of his lairs and leaped onto my shoulder. After a loud conversational squawk or two, he curled up against my neck. He had recently been eating fish, and the rhythmic flexing of his claws dug uncomfortably into my shoulder, but his companionship was comforting. It was easy to understand why people in solitary confinement made friends with cockroaches and rats and fellow-prisoners like that. Communication without demands, so unlike the kind the bloody telephone brought every day. Or didn’t bring. The silent phone on the counter smirked at me. Beside it, in a litter of Lego bits and crayons, were a pile of bills and the car keys.

Suddenly, without any conscious process at all, I knew what I had to do now. Like all important decisions, it was classically simple. I couldn’t think why I hadn’t done it weeks and weeks ago. Mao yowled in protest as I struggled out of the chair, displacing him. The Neilsons’ phone number came obligingly to mind, and I dialled it.

“Pat, is your mother there?” My watch said ten o’clock. It wasn’t too outrageously late to call, in the circumstances.

“Yes, she’s home – didn’t go to French Conversation tonight. Hold on, I’ll get her.”

“Wait – don’t bother her, Pat – it’s one of you girls, actually, that I need. Just for an hour, to sit. Would you see if your parents will let you come over?”

“Well, I’ll see.”

“I know it’s late-ish, but I have to go out – there’s something urgent I have to do. I’ll send a cab for you.”

“Just let me check – hold on, please.”

In a few seconds her voice came back. “Okay. Daddy will run me over. Be there in two minutes.”

I used them to struggle into my duffle coat, boots, and head scarf, in which outfit I had exactly the shape of those portly wooden dolls from Russia that contain other dolls in diminishing sizes. The bills and the car keys I stuffed into my purse before opening the door to Pat.

“Nice of you to come. I won’t be more than an hour. The kids are asleep – you shouldn’t have any trouble. Emergency numbers by the phone. Watch
TV
if you like, and eat anything you fancy in the fridge.”

She gave me a quick glance but was too well brought up to ask any questions about where a grossly pregnant woman could be going alone and on impulse at this hour. I, on the other hand, noticed that she had a slight limp, and, in the unfair manner of adults, didn’t bother to repress curiosity.

“Hurt yourself, Pat?”

She pulled up her denim trouser-leg to reveal a raw scrape that ran the length of her shinbone.

“I got it hitching? The roads are neat for it these days. Got nearly the whole way to yoga class on the bumper of a sports car today. Don’t mention it to Mum.”

I looked at her in some bafflement. The days when I too practised the cool anarchy of the teens were so far behind me as to seem prehistoric. It was sad, perhaps even tragic, to lose that instinctive resistance to authority, that urge to live recklessly, that fellowship with all rebels and crazies. But from the moment Martha was born, I’d become a true-blue conservative, a supporter of the law, regular bowel movements, safety belts, and correct grammar. It’s not a conversion I was really prepared for, then or now, and at moments like these it still gave me a vaguely
bewildered feeling of being alienated from my own tribe. Even Pat’s habit of making most statements into questions, as if it were stupid to be sure of anything, however trivial, reminded me how dogmatic motherhood had made me, how prematurely middle-aged. “When I have more time,” I thought, fumbling with the car keys, “I may just worry about this. It could be important.”

“See you, Pat,” I said before stepping out into the frosty air. With caution I negotiated the snow-clotted steps. The moon was large and bright, lolling to one side as if a trifle drunk. The city air smelled of cats, exhaust, woodsmoke, and the sugar snow that lay fresh everywhere an inch or so deep. It was wonderfully good to be out of the house – marvellous to be alone and moving somewhere with intention. I breathed up the cold air in deep drags and stamped my booted feet in brisk rhythm as I walked along.

Around the corner where we rented parking-space at a gas station, I found and opened our shabby Volks crouching patiently there in the snow. Ross rarely used it, and it was weeks since I’d driven anywhere. Some kind of lethargy – or perhaps it was self-punishment – had kept me tethered to the immediate neighbourhood, or clinging to the security of home. But when I tried to squeeze behind the wheel, I discovered I’d expanded so much since last time that I wouldn’t fit. Muttering, I stooped double and levered the seat back. Once more I tried to cram myself in behind the wheel – the Incredible Hulk in action. But struggle as I would, I simply couldn’t get in. The giggling this predicament brought on was a serious threat to bladder control, because of course I’d forgotten to attend to that before setting out. Finally I slammed the door shut and locked the car up, defeated. Luckily there was nobody around to watch this undignified retreat.

It was clear I would just have to walk it. Prince John Street wasn’t more than ten or fifteen minutes away. Off I went, my
breath preceding me in generous puffs; but the pavements were so slippery with ice under the fresh snow that several times I slipped, lurching like some derelict tanker in a heavy sea. A fall would be highly inconvenient, since once down I would probably be incapable of getting up again, so I slowed my gait to a sort of stately waddle. At that pace the distance seemed endless, but I dared go no faster.

At last, however, I drew in sight of the house. Downstairs through the sheer curtains of the front window I could see three or four heads watching the blue flicker of
TV
. Ross and Larine were not there. Upstairs one bedroom window made a bright square in the dark.

As I stood out there in the street, I felt a sudden burst of such basic fury that my blood literally seemed to boil. I would not knock at that door and stand waiting for someone to answer. Without stopping to think about it, I stooped awkwardly down, grasped as much sticky snow as I could pack into a ball, and hurled it at the lighted upstairs window. Hot and breathless, I barely waited for it to land on the pane with a loud and satisfying whack before launching another. And another. Both bull’s-eyes. Between grunts of satisfaction, I puffed obscenities into the night air. Pat’s face formed in my imagination grinning congratulations. I was briskly packing a fresh missile when the window-sash lifted with a scrape and Ross’s head poked out.

“What the
hell
are you doing, Anne!” Between the moon and a nearby street-light, he had no trouble identifying me. “For Christ’s sake,” he added indignantly, “cut that out and come into the house. You’ll have the whole neighbourhood –”

“Fuck the whole neighbourhood,” I returned, not at all quietly, and shot another hard-packed ball after its predecessors. His head jerked out of sight. There were faces clustered now at the downstairs
window, all alight with spectator interest – two girls, one of them Chinese, and a tall lad with a bush of fair hair – Jamie. Larine was nowhere to be seen, which was all right with me. It was not Larine I had anything to say to.