Serial Monogamy (13 page)

D
uring my treatment, I became intimately acquainted with the tile on the bathroom floor. It was a light grey with a darker grey fleck that I had always thought tastefully unobtrusive and a nice backdrop for the blue towels, but up close it began to look like static on an old black-and-white television and it made my head ache. Within weeks of starting chemo, I decided if I lived the first thing I would do was renovate the bathroom.

Many days the anti-nausea drugs worked and I was left feeling slightly queasy until I managed to get some breakfast down. Other days, they were not enough and I would wake at dawn in that awful will-she-or-won't-she state that left me sitting beside the toilet bowl just in case. If things settled a bit, I would try to choke down some toast to still my stomach but it would often come back up again. Things improved as the day wore on and I found, as I had when I was pregnant, that the queasiness could be kept at bay by the continual nibbling of dry crackers.

It was a new kind of morning sickness; the horrible irony of cancer was that it kept reminding me of child-bearing, the removal of the tumour and the treatment to ensure it never returned a grotesque reversal of the growing of life inside me. The surgery to remove my left breast was the first time I had spent the night in hospital since delivering the twins. Besides the pain kept at a dull throb by the drugs, the wound left me unable to lift my arm above my head so I had to hunt out all the big, floaty button-front blouses and pyjama tops I had worn when I was nursing.

Soon after the arrival of the twins, I had realized my long dirty-blond hair was simply a nuisance and got the hairdresser to cut it into a tidy bob that I had grown out again when the twins turned four and life seemed, for a time, to settle down. On the advice of the cancer clinic, I once again cut my hair in preparation for losing it all. Goli cried when I came home with it short, although the worst was yet to come. It came out in handfuls, leaving unattractive clumps of straw-coloured fuzz all over my head until it disappeared altogether, along with my eyebrows and lashes. We had warned the girls that I would lose my hair; we had told them I was sick and that Daddy had come home to help look after me and would stay until I was better. After that? “We'll see,” we said, not wanting to promise something we could not deliver. In my experience, children usually think “We'll see” means yes, perhaps because it often does. “Can we have ice
cream after school?” “We'll see.” “Am I getting a Barbie for Christmas?” “We'll see.” “Daddy will stay, though, won't he, when you get better?” “We'll see.” “You will get better soon, won't you, Mummy?”

Even the Internet is tactfully quiet on the prognosis for triple-negative—tamoxifen is of no use against it—and the oncologist certainly wouldn't speculate; she just said the cancer was “aggressive.” Thinking of our neighbour's defence of her obnoxious dog, I said, “Don't you mean assertive?” but she only responded to the joke with a tired, gentle smile. It wasn't encouraging.

Al and I simply put aside our differences to get through the days, and he set to it uncomplainingly, cooking meals, washing laundry and fetching and carrying when I felt too sick or simply too exhausted, doing more housework than he had ever done before. He actually seemed pleased to be able to help and I found that the sight of him spreading peanut butter on toast for Goli or finding Anahita's lost shoe comforted me deeply. They could manage. They would manage.

Well-meaning friends kept bringing over casseroles and containers of soup but I never knew, from one day to the next, what I would be able to stomach. During pregnancy, once the initial morning sickness passed, my body would announce to me what I needed to eat, the mythic cravings of the expectant mother. Green salad, a voice in
my head would trumpet. Or red meat. I found it both amusing and reassuring. At least my body knew what was required. Now it mainly told me what I mustn't eat. As the children and Al dug in, the parmesan crust on the noodle casserole started my stomach churning. The smell of chicken soup could send me running for the bathroom.

Al hovered, coaxing me to eat, plying me with delicacy after delicacy. “Pizza, you always love pizza. Let me order some.” “I can fry up a steak, tons of protein.” “Yogurt. It will settle your stomach.”

He hovered on the bad nights too, worried, uncertain as to what he could possibly do. Standing at the bathroom door in the half light of dawn wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, he was a benign and enduring presence more sensed than seen as my mind concentrated on every lurch or every lull in the battle ruling my innards and my focus narrowed to the grey-fleck tile. It was how he had been present in the delivery room too, mopping my brow and holding my hand and there, as the pain had so gloriously exploded into two new lives and finally subsided; it had seemed the most exquisitely intimate and loving way to be with someone else. But now, as I vomited up bile, water and what little remained of the previous night's dinner, I thought to myself this was not a smart way to welcome home an errant husband.

“Will your uncle be visiting again soon, madame?”

“Quite soon, I expect,” Nelly replied in her best French as she slipped the change and the stamps into the folds of her pardessus and turned to leave the post office.

She walked slowly home by way of the beach with Foxie, the fox terrier Mrs. Ternan had acquired on her return from Italy, running along beside her. It was March but there was no sign of spring yet and a cold wind was driving whitecaps onto the shore. As Nelly tightened her shawl around the bulging buttons of her pardessus, she considered the postmistress's question. Her French was really not good enough to assess the tone in which she made her inquiry. Was it an innocent passing of the time of day or a bit of malicious insinuation? Nelly could not tell, and if she could not discern another's tone, no more did she suppose she was able to affect the
polite snub she would have managed with a few well-chosen words in English.

Most people in Wimereux seemed ready to believe that she was the young and delicate wife of an Indian army officer, unable to tolerate the heat of the subcontinent and so quietly awaiting his return in a French fishing village with only her mother for company. Charles had made a joke of it, saying the French were so convinced of the superiority of their land, it would never occur to the citizens of Wimereux to question why Mme Lawless would not prefer the equally mild winter and equally pretty beach at Eastbourne. He visited from time to time, when he could get away from his magazine work in London and his family in Kent. The boat train from Charing Cross to Folkestone and so to Boulogne arrived in the space of a morning; the carriage ride from Boulogne to Wimereux was less than an hour. In case of an emergency, a telegram could summon Charles by the following day, as he had pointed out when he had picked the seaside village for a stay of some months. But there were no emergencies, only little questions, blandly evasive answers and Nelly's ever-loosening stays.

She found at first she had merely to loosen her corset and wear her pardessus over her skirt to mask the thickening at her waist. Then she had discovered that if she hitched her crinoline higher, she could hide her belly beneath it. Still, her condition was increasingly obvious and had to be laid at the door of the absent colonial officer. Of course,
Madame would not want to suffer her first confinement in a hot climate thousands of miles from home. That explained her presence all winter in the rented villa on the edge of town. Perhaps the citizens of Wimereux guessed that the English ladies' status was not as stated; perhaps they guessed at the role, if not the true identity, of the older gentleman who joined them from time to time; perhaps they gossiped with the villa's serving girl about how the ladies filled their days, but they seemed happy to accept what they might know to be a polite fiction. Charles insisted the French were much more humane in their judgment of a woman's reputation, but Nelly felt there was no point trying their hospitality by flaunting her condition. She stayed very close to home and, as she proceeded along the cold beach, decided that would be her last trip to the post office before she left for Paris.

They had agreed she would remove herself to the city when her confinement approached. Charles had rented an apartment there and found a good doctor; Nelly had already travelled into town twice to see him. He was blandly encouraging about the state of her pregnancy and told her to rest. She might have been happier in Paris all along, shopping, walking in the parks, going to the theatre, but neither she nor Charles felt they could risk placing her there for a long stay. The city was, after all, filled with English tourists who might ask questions of a compatriot or, worse yet, might recognize both her and her condition. Some had linked their names together at
the time of his separation and the sight of a pregnant Nelly was certain to create a scandal.

Despite his determination that no one who knew him should know of her condition, Charles kept promising that the baby would change everything—when he wasn't promising that the baby would change nothing. On the one hand, he declared he would now regularize their situation, and on the other, he swore his eternal, unchanging devotion. He promised they would find somewhere to live together as the family they would be, perhaps in France, perhaps in Mornington Crescent.

One day he would suggest they would defy convention; that any prude who dared to criticize had never loved; that his love for her was too large, too grand a thing to possibly be wrong. They would live in London and weather the storm.

Hearing him, Nelly would briefly imagine herself as a kind of Mrs. Dickens, a different Mrs. Dickens, a new one but still one who would preside over a big house with many children, the babies who were testament to his love.

But other days, more common days if not perhaps more sensible ones, he would suggest they move to some village like Wimereux permanently and live there quietly. He would write and she would raise their baby, who would grow up with superb dramatic talents that she—he was sure it was a she—would practise equally well in English or French. The father of only two much adored daughters but seven disappointing sons, Charles seemed
to want and expect a girl, although he did sometimes wonder out loud if it would not be quite the thing to finally have a son with sound parentage on both sides.

Nelly was also convinced things would change, and had been from the first evening when, sitting quietly by their French fireside with her mother a few days after they had arrived in Wimereux, she had felt the baby move. She was wearing the loose house dress she now favoured in the evenings, finding other garments too constricting by day's end, and was sitting in a deep chair that let her lean back comfortably and prop her book on one of its low arms.

“Oh,” she had gasped as she was startled from her reading by a sudden flutter deep inside her. Her mother looked up from her tatting and smiled.

“Did the baby move?”

Nelly nodded, amazed.

“Most remarkable feeling. Nothing else like it. You were quiet enough but Fanny and Maria used to dance the jig inside me every evening.”

She laughed at Nelly's expression. “You'll get used to it,” she said.

She did get used to it, and at first, she thought she liked it. Here was a life palpably growing inside her and that made her life palpable too. Until then, she had seen herself playing a role—“I am the beautiful young actress who has attracted the attention of the greatest living
author,” she would think as she admired the way a shawl draped around her slim shoulders or a gold locket sat at her neck—but she perceived the real Nelly faintly, as someone yet to be born. She was some future creature awaiting a handsome husband and darling babies; she would emerge, soon, after this particular bit of play-acting was at an end. The baby's movements excited her, as though that new stage of life were now approaching.

Still, she had always recognized, if only in a sleepless hour or lonely moment, that her play-acting had repercussions; that to be adored by Charles was satisfying but that it was also slowly, stealthily closing the door on any other life, that she could not be that other Mrs. Dickens and that, worse yet, there might never be another, different Nelly. And as the baby's movements grew stronger day by day, they finally dragged those thoughts into the light, forcing her to see the here and now for what it was: the handsome husband, whosever face he wore, was a fantasy and this darling would be born a bastard.

Charles had promised her day and night that he would take care of her. And he did take care of her. He had selected the apartment in Paris and was certain she would find it both comfortable and charming. He had discussed her treatment with the doctor, who came with the highest recommendations. She was promised chloroform. The next village, the second village, had been selected and several larger properties there duly inspected and considered. There she could live sedately as a married
English lady with a new baby…perhaps recently widowed…no, no, married to the gentleman who came to visit, well, the gentleman who lived there with her, when his business did not require him to cross the Channel. All that was required was a final decision and a letter to the house agent and this new life would be set in motion. Charles loved to plan things, she had learned, and all of his plans for her next few months were now in place.

And yet, that March morning, a full week before he was to come for her and Mrs. Ternan in a carriage that would take them to the train station in Boulogne, Nelly got home from her walk along the beach feeling decidedly odd. By night, she was experiencing repeated cramping in her belly: it seemed that the darling baby had not heard of her illustrious father's well-laid plans.

“K
oofteh, koofteh!” the girls cry with delight as we push open the front door on the way home from the park that Sunday. It's early April, cold but light again in the afternoons; I've dragged myself away from my computer and we've been out breaking the ice on mud puddles and trying to fly a kite while Al cooks our Easter dinner. On our return, the house feels wonderfully warm and is filled with the unmistakable scent of saffron. Apparently, he is making koofteh berenji, his mother's particularly aromatic version of Persian meatballs. It's a time-consuming dish full of fresh herbs and exotic spices that have to be bought at an Iranian grocer all the way up in North York, which now explains where Al had disappeared to the day before. “You'll have to do the kite thing tomorrow,” I tell Al on my way into the kitchen. “I can't run fast enough to get it launched.” I peek into the pot on the stove and take a whiff. “Mmm. How did you figure out the recipe?” He rarely cooks, although he did become
a master of the microwave in those hard months the previous year. More recently, I've returned to my role as the family chef, albeit with much-reduced ambitions. Al smiles slyly and raises his eyebrows before giving up the pretense of some secret culinary knowledge: “I called my mother.”

The dish proves as good as hers and then we eat panettone that I've bought at the supermarket and, after the meal, when the twins have run upstairs to play, we tidy the kitchen together.

“Thank you for making meatballs for the girls,” I say. “It was a treat.”

It's not long after our fight over my retelling of “The Second Dervish's Tale.” I am on my best behaviour, trying to remember to be grateful and polite. The division of labour this Easter has been carefully negotiated; Al said I couldn't spend all weekend at my computer. I said if I was going to be hiding chocolate eggs and going to the park, I couldn't cook dinner too, and he has outdone himself there.

“You don't need to thank me. They're my children too, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. It's just nice to see you doing things for them. It's reassuring.”

There was a pause.

“I'll always look after them,” he eventually replies. “If…whatever…whatever happens.” That's a promise he has made many times since his return. Whatever happens he will look after our girls.

“What if what happens is that I stay better.”

“That would be good.”

“But if the crisis is over…I mean, are you staying forever?” It is an issue we've dodged around; as I've emerged from chemo our old routines have reasserted themselves without much discussion, which I find either comforting or depressing, depending on whether that means sharing breakfast with Al or picking up his socks.

“I'm not planning on going anywhere,” he replies. Then he adds. “But I'm not interested in going backwards; I'm not interested in the marriage I left. I want something else.”

Dismay creeps over me. I wonder if I can ever satisfy him.

“Okay,” I say lightly. “What's that?”

“I just need more of you, that's all.”

“Sure.” What else can I say? I can hardly refuse. “More. You got it.”

Al nods. He seems content for the moment and simply offers: “And I'll try to cook more often. And tomorrow I'll fly the kite with the girls.”

He looks at me, waiting now for my side of the bargain.

“I'll try to work less,” I say without any enthusiasm.

“It's not the work that's the problem; it's that it makes you tired and distracted.”

“I kind of like that. I can use distraction at the moment.”

“You need to pay attention to the girls.”

“I do pay attention to the girls.” But what he is really asking is that I pay more attention to him; fair enough, I guess. It's been more than six months since I finished
treatment. “Al…” I take a breath and try to think straight about it, to find the words. “When you have been through what I have, it strips you bare. I'm empty. I can't love the girls properly and I can't love you again unless I can somehow be myself. Working is part of that. Writing gives me…well, I guess it gives me a sense of mastery. It makes me strong.”

“Yes,” he says slowly. “I can see that.”

It's true. One of the reasons I want Al to like the serial is because I like it so much. I like the way it demands a healthy capacity for work, giving the days shape and purpose. After mapping out a general structure and preparing the first few instalments before
The Telegram
started publishing, I quickly fell behind and I am now writing and filing each instalment the week of publication. I have ever-increasing respect for Dickens' power of invention; while in the midst of a novel, he must have been writing twenty thousand words a week. I calculate that his output, about twenty novels written between the ages of twenty-four and fifty-eight, averages out at two thousand words for every single day of his life. And that doesn't include the plays and the magazine articles. My measly two or three thousand a week is hard enough and serial composition certainly doesn't leave much room for rethinking the plot.

Nonetheless,
The Telegram
is increasingly pleased with the results. Stanek and Jonathan seem to have got over their squeamishness about sullying Dickens' reputation—Stanek actually sent me an email calling
The Thousand and One Nights
interlude intriguing—and the paper has
started promoting each instalment on the newspaper boxes. The Thursday after the holiday, on the way into the cleaner's with an armload of Al's shirts, I spot the box and see the card on the outside with big red letters blaring:
CHARLES DICKENS' SECRET LOVE CHILD!!
In smaller type, it promises “The Dickens Bicentenary Serial continues this Saturday. Only in
The Telegram
.”

I laugh out loud at the audacity of it, but seeing it on his way home at the newsstand in the subway, Al is unimpressed.

“Exploiting Dickens like he was some cheap Hollywood celebrity.”

“It wasn't my idea,” I protest, although Jonathan had sent me an email the night before, informing me that
The Telegram
's defiantly retrograde print-only idea appears finally to be working: newsstand sales were up seven thousand copies the previous weekend, online discussion got five thousand hits, which was considered remarkable for a holiday, and Stanek wants to pump up the marketing campaign. “Bring on the long-lost heirs!” writes Jonathan.

“The paper has decided to promote the serial in a good old-fashioned tabloid tradition,” I say to Al, stoutly defending it. “I think it's perfect.”

“I thought everyone at
The Telegram
was all huffy about the Ellen Ternan angle.”

“They were. But I gave them an illegitimate child and now they seem to love it. They may be hypocrites, but it feels like progress to me.”