The Marriage Bed (12 page)

“No, we got back last night. How are you doing?”

“Well, as you see –”

“Nine more days, isn’t it?” It was typical of Margaret to know my delivery date as well as or better than I knew it myself.

“That’s right. You still willing to take over my menagerie daytimes while I’m in hospital?”

“Of course. It’s all organized.”

I knew with humility that it was. Margaret was the kind of woman who sewed on buttons before they fell off, and baked and froze Christmas cakes in July. As for perfect motherhood, she might have invented it. Her children were planned, and arrived accurately three years apart. She had even organized their begetting to the day and the hour, in order to ensure females. This impressed me enormously when I first heard her account of it, even though it was hard after that to look her husband in the eye. As they grew into their teens, she kept the girls so fully occupied
with swimming, music, karate, and yoga lessons that they had no spare time whatever left over for sex or drugs. This, at any rate, was the idea; but those kids had a demure look that sometimes made me wonder. It was impossible genuinely to like Margaret, of course; but you had to admire her.

Unlike me with my haphazard, small-hours reading, Margaret belonged to a Canadian-book-review group and a left-wing book club. She had season tickets for an experimental theatre. One night a week she took an “interest course” at one of the city colleges. One day a week she did volunteer work for a hospital. In all these worthwhile activities she had tried at various times – without success – to enlist me. Something about that word “worthwhile” put me off. But “You mustn’t
stagnate,
Anne,” she kept saying earnestly. To which the subversive in me longed to say, “Why not?” However, by this time, because she was basically kind, she had pretty well accepted the fact that I was beyond salvation, and as a consequence was kinder to me than ever.

Certainly I’d never done anything to deserve such a perfect neighbour. From the day I first ran to her for help, eighteen-month-old Martha having locked herself into the bathroom, Margaret had been the ideal friend, calm, cheerful, and efficient. And yet it was Margaret, ironically enough, who was responsible – indirectly of course – for the worst row Ross and I ever had. Like most marital battles it was about nothing, and yet about everything, and it left trivial wounds that would perhaps never heal.

“I suppose you wouldn’t by any chance like a Siamese kitten?” she asked me over coffee one morning soon after Hugh was born. “A friend of mine out in Mississauga breeds them. She’s keen to get rid of this last litter before they go away on sabbatical, and apparently this one’s the last. He’s going cheap, in other words. Ten weeks old, seal point, male. And he’s got a pedigree that makes me feel like a peasant.”

“Oh, I don’t really think …” I said cautiously. It had gradually been borne in on me that prudence wasn’t my strong point, and this created a vague sense of guilt. But, even as I spoke, I remembered that Ross had a birthday coming up in a few days and I hadn’t been able to find any present nice enough to buy for him. Just the same, I strongly suspected he would not approve of a kitten, so I added, “No, I don’t think we really need a cat, with all we’ve got to cope with around here. We didn’t really need a basset hound either, of course; but when you find a stray actually starving in the streets … anyhow, Ross was all set to turn her over to the city pound, but when we found out how they finish them off, he took her to the vet instead. A hundred dollars later she was spayed, vaccinated, tagged, and all ours. And I sometimes think he likes her more than he does the children. She doesn’t make half the noise or mess, that’s sure.”

“Well, a kitten’s no problem, as far as that goes,” said Margaret briskly. “This one’s house-trained, of course. You could let it out for exercise in your little garden here. They’re terrific company, you know – bright and very affectionate. I’d take it myself, but cats make Harvey sneeze. Tell you what, why don’t we drive out there this afternoon, just for fun, and have a look at it?”

“Sure, if you like. But I’m not going to buy any cats.”

Four hours later I was back home with a wicker basket containing a kitten with sapphire eyes and a loud, dictatorial voice. For an hour or more he sniffed over every inch of the premises, critically inspected the furniture, tasted one or two of the house plants, and terrorized Violet, who fled upstairs and hid under a bed. To offers of food or other blandishments he was totally deaf; he was clearly too busy. Finally he went to the litter-box I’d put down and used it with dignity, his blue eyes austerely fixed on the middle distance. After long and fastidious scrapings, he suddenly shot out of the box and climbed me like a tree. A couple of whisks round
after his tail; then he settled on my shoulder and began to purr.

Ross was very late getting home that evening, and we both fell asleep in the armchair waiting for him. The scrape of his key in the lock roused us, and the kitten sat upright on my knee, his dark ears pricked.

The stooped figure with the briefcase paused in the doorway. “Where the hell did that come from?” it inquired crossly.

“He’s from me to you. Happy birthday, love.”

Ross disappeared to drop his case and hang up his coat. He then went out to the kitchen and ran a glass of water. While out there, he evidently gave himself stern orders about self-control, because when he got back to us he had that disagreeable, swollen look that goes with keeping one’s temper.

“Now, I know you’ll probably raise objections,” I began with a disarming smile, “but this creature is really too special for that. So loving you wouldn’t believe. And he can retrieve a paper ball. I didn’t teach him – he just does it. And see how beautiful.”

But Ross, mouth set in a tight line, had settled in the armchair opposite and opened the
Star
with a crackle.

I began to feel affronted in a personal kind of way. The kitten jumped off my knee and went over to sniff at Ross’s shoes. He paid no attention to it, and my blood began to simmer. Nothing could be more insulting than the dignified coldness Ross had inherited from all those successful ancestors of his. “Well, is that all you have to say?” I demanded.

His glasses came around the edge of the newspaper. “Anne, there is nothing to say. Wherever that cat came from, it’s going back. I’ve got enough on my plate as it is. One more thing to be responsible for I do
not
need.”

“Are you implying I’m a dead weight? You know damn well Professor Stein’s promised to take me back at the lab as soon as Hugh’s weaned. I think you’re being unnecessarily bloody, anyhow,
about a birthday present – when it was the nicest thing I could find to give you.”

“I am not going to fight with you, Anne. Only that cat goes back.”

“What you mean is, you don’t give a shit what I think or how I feel, right?”

The hand gripping the paper shook; then he threw it to the carpet, startling the kitten into a sideways leap.

“What I mean is,” he shouted, “I’m fed up with you tanking over me as if I didn’t exist. When do I ever get to vote around here? About
anything
? The mood takes you to paint the kitchen purple or adopt a dog, and I’m supposed to tag along, Mr. Yes Dear. Well, I’m not going to do it any more. I warn you, I’m fed up. Dangerously fed up.”

The violence of this attack shook me, and to my own disgust I heard a querulous little voice say, “I thought you liked cats.”

“For Christ’s sake, what’s that got to do with it! You’re a woman supposed to have brains, but you can be so
dumb
 –”

“It’s not dumb to wonder why anybody would get into such a fizz just because his wife gives him a birthday present.”

He took a deep breath and tried to get hold of himself. “This present of yours – if you insist on bringing it down to cases – it’s going to do nothing for me but run up vet’s bills, eat the plants, and wreck the furniture your father’s probably still paying for. Now, I don’t know about you, but if Max and Billie came here for dinner and found the chairs in rags, I would personally be embarrassed. It’s bad enough to be under an obligation like that in the first place, or have you forgotten that another man’s had to furnish my house?”

“So that’s it. Why didn’t you say all this in the first place, then? I’d have been glad to live with Goodwill castoffs if I’d known you felt that way. But I thought you were big enough to be grateful to
Max, not sour and jealous. After all, you accept those cheques your mother keeps on leaving around the house cheerfully enough, don’t you?”

“Will you just leave my mother the hell out of this! Among the other things I’m fed up with is you making a face like sucking lemons every time she comes here, or is even mentioned. You seem to take it as a personal insult every time she does something nice for us.”

“Yes, because she does it for you, not me. She makes it so clear she’s sorry for you, handcuffed to me, you poor victim!”

“Well, maybe that’s not such a way-out view of it. For starters, it was
you
took
me
to bed, if you remember. I don’t recall having a whole lot of choice there, either.”

“What a total, rotten lie! You know damn well
I
was the one that had no bloody choice!”

“Don’t yell like that,” he said, assembling the newspaper fussily.

“I’ll yell all I like! You just don’t want to admit you’re married to your bloody mother, that’s all!”

“You can sit here and scream at the walls if you like. I’m going up – I’ll sleep in the study. And that animal goes back tomorrow, is that clear?”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday, they’ll be up at their ski place.”

“Monday, then.”

And he continued mounting the stairs, back very stiff, the newspaper grasped like a sword in his dexter talon. The kitten watched him go, head on one side, and then began to sharpen its claws on the sofa. Upstairs Hugh woke and began to squall for his ten o’clock feed. Angrily rubbing tears off my face, I went up to him.

It was bad luck that the next day was Saturday, because that meant we had no chance to get away from each other and pretend nothing had happened. It was the first time we’d ever needed that kind of space. Until now, our fights had been short and sharp but,
as it were, reversible. This time it was different. I woke up feeling sore all over, as if I’d been beaten. As for Ross, he spoke to me only when absolutely necessary, and with a cold politeness that was worse than abuse. He hung out the baby-wash, he amused Martha while I did another feed, all with a kind of glaze of reserve over him. He appeared not to notice the existence of the kitten, except once to pluck it off the kitchen counter where it was playing with an eggshell.

The day seemed to drag on forever. He went up to the study and worked for part of the morning, but lunchtime was another cold and silent encounter. In a tacit peace overture, I made creamed salmon on toast, a dish he liked, with chopped mushrooms, celery, and green onions in it, and cleared the kitchen table so we could sit down and eat, instead of leaning against the counter or wandering around the house with bowls. But Ross only threw a dismissive glance at the lunch and said briefly, “I’m not hungry.”

Many vivid answers to that sprang to mind, but I swallowed them all, because it was clear too much had been said already, on both sides. Instead I scrubbed the kitchen floor with particular ferocity, wondering as I did so how much housewifely cleanliness came from the same bitter source.

When he said, early in the afternoon, “I’ll take Martha over to the park with the dog,” I thought, “Good. Don’t hurry back.” It was a relief to have him out of the house, even though the unnatural silence of the place lingered after him like a bad smell. Somehow I couldn’t settle to anything. The book I was reading (it was
Pride and Prejudice
) seemed dull and silly; and I couldn’t relax enough for a nap. I wandered around beginning one small tidying-up or cleaning job after another, only to leave it half done for some other chore like watering the plants, or sewing buttons on a little coat for Martha. And the superb weather only made everything worse. It was a flawless, early-winter day, still and mild, with a sky of that
peculiarly radiant blue that suggests the world is a place infinitely too good for its masters.

At twilight, when Ross came back, he was still aloof and polite, and we ate dinner in total silence until I said, “Look, if you’ve got something more on your mind, for God’s sake say it. Don’t just sit there like a toad with the bellyache.”

Without a word he pushed away his plate and left the table. I heard his footsteps climb the stairs and the study door close. I then threw down my knife and fork with such violence that my plate cracked into two pieces.

Sunday was a duplicate of Saturday, and I began to feel a muffled sort of panic beating under my skin. How long could this kind of thing go on? Surely it could only mean that there was nothing left between us, unless you counted this bitter mutual resentment. The hours crawled past. I caught myself sitting down in snatches or leaning against things for support like someone very old. The perpetual demands of the two babies struck me for the first time as monstrous. Outrageous. Colossal. I mouthed these and other words from time to time. By way of response, no doubt, to the atmosphere generally, Martha was impossibly cranky and demanding. She pattered from room to room whining or pulling at things, until in desperation I dressed her for a walk. While I was getting on my own coat, the phone rang.

“Hi, Anne. Is Ross there?”

“Hullo, Randy. Yes, just hold on. Ross – for you.” My voice sounded as leaden as I felt, but when Ross lifted the upstairs extension and spoke, he sounded perfectly normal. As I shepherded Martha out, I heard him, chatty and cheerful, and I thought bitterly, “It’s only me he hates.”

Tediously the hours drained away. When I got back, Ross was downstairs reading, with a wailing, hungry Hugh in his arm. He handed the baby over silently and went on reading. I sat down and
began to feed him. Martha stumped out to the kitchen and began to open cupboard doors, her favourite game. One after another she opened them and clapped them shut. The silence of the house was stretched so tight that little normal sounds like a dripping tap or a creaking floorboard cracked like pistol shots. Just as we neared the end of Hugh’s feed, Martha trotted into the room carrying a saucepan and a wooden spoon.