Authors: Elaine Feinstein
*
–Well,
she
doesn’t sound very unhappy, Lena said to Michael. As he was the only person there. Noting at the same time that it was an indefensible remark to make to a child.
–Who was it? he asked curiously.
–Oh I don’t think you ever met her.
–Why did you want her to be unhappy?
–Did I say
want
?
She said incredulously. Michael, it’s time for a bath. You must have a bath.
White white of face pale gold hair to her shoulders: the courtesan of the Chinese lyric. Lisa paused at the door of her cottage. The ceiling and one half of the hall was painted a clear blue; some of the paint had dribbled down the fading brown of the earlier
wallpaper
.
–Two up, two down. Plenty for us, said Lisa.
And Lena followed her into the kitchen which was still untouched, the paper peeling moistly from walls of plaster and lath. On the wooden floor a black-eyed, tough looking, two-year old, dressed in patched and faded jeans, was assembling a row of bricks.
–Your boy, said Lena. Saw how he looked like Danny.
–Yes. White lips twitched and jerked. Thin hands swept on the mantelpiece for a box of cigarettes. Against the far wall, like strange creatures from another world stood a white fridge and a Bendix, the wires to the fridge Lena saw, were unconnected, and lay without a plug on the floor. But the Bendix was working noisily. The clothes whirred up to the top, and then plopped down hypnotically. Again and again. And the machine shook.
–Coffee?
–Thanks. I can’t stay long though.
–Of course, visiting hours.
–Yes, said Lena.
*
Thinking of ward six waiting room. Night time dinge. Green paint and floor stone and brown bench.
Heating close and sick, sweat on her top lip, and her hands wet and shaking. Why was it. Never quiet there, always. Doors opening and wheels on the move. And even outside the noise of sudden planes. Speeding across the sky, their strange screams,
accelerating
.
And through the window a white not quite full moon, fading at one edge. Round it, the empty sky. Empty. It seemed so. If she looked up into it, everything there was cold and silent. There were no. Bargains to make. And always as a child and beyond childhood she had made those shame-faced secret bargains with what God was up there, and kept her bit of the deal. But now. There was nothing she had left to deal in, it was all spent; her goodness and her sins; nothing left to exchange. And what could she anyway offer that blue silence?
She sat in the hum of a room like a piece of a ship. Or a lab at night. Where she’d always sulked to find herself. Surrounded by plasma, diseases, tubes and tubes, and the click of the fraction collector. Two o’clock. Maybe later, maybe quarter to three. And her mind crumbling towards sleep.
*
–This is an awful shack, said Lisa. But it’s cheap. And Danny. She managed to laugh. Finds two wives very expensive.
–I somehow thought you were rich said Lena.
Lisa shook her hair and smiled wanly: Things will be
better when there’s some kind of. Proper sorting out. Now Jamie, stop that!
–It’s all right, said Lena automatically. (The boy was undoing her shoe laces.)
–The only good thing about the place is the garden: look. Lisa threw open the kitchen door and a wild earth smell came in: Isn’t it lovely? All mud and weeds down to the river.
–Lovely, said Lena. Wondering what had brought the girl so far out on her own, to this lonely village. Felt the feebleness of that: I’m still a town girl then.
And yet the smell stirred some lost piece of her with a sense of adventure. There was something enviable. In the power to choose such a wilderness. And it reminded her, it took her back to the patch of wild land behind her parents’ house in her childhood, the huge neglected density of it, pitted and heaped, a vegetable jungle.
–You’d think we hadn’t
got
a garden, her father grumbled when she crawled through the fence to play there.
–I’m sure it’s full of diseases. Her mother said: And rats.
And how to explain the boredom of a well-kept lawn and shrubbery to them; the joy of brambles and bushes that hid you when you lay on your stomach, the dizzy sweetness of the wild lilac trees, the insects buzzing at them.
*
Now she put her head through the door, and caught the rain-washed smell of earth: Yes, it’s lovely, she agreed.
–Isolated. I like that.
–For the moment anyway, said Lena cynically.
–Oh I don’t want another
man
, thank you. One was enough, Lisa laughed. And for the first time her face looked easy, the muscles normally disposed. Maybe a
nice gentle
woman
just for company, she said. But I don’t think I’m very good at living with a man. Except.
She poked the little boy with a loving finger. When they’re this size.
There was something, yes: alarming about Lisa now. Under the short dress, her long legs in their faded purple stockings were so thin. Lena wondered if she had always been so thin, or if she was withering away like a leaf. As she drank the coffee.
–I think I get on with women even worse than men, Lena said reflectively.
And: Perhaps I don’t get on with anybody, she added. In case that sounded rude.
–Yes, I understand that. Said Lisa. I like being
alone.
Getting up when I want. You know, I can sleep all afternoon when Jamie does? And buy. All the foods I like. Mushrooms and salad, and never cook potatoes. Put lots of pepper on everything! She laughed. And truly the set of her head was incomparably gracious as she turned.
Lena thought; if I were alone. What would I do? I don’t suppose I’d even bother to make the bed.
*
A few nights ago Kari had taken the children for the night, so Lena returned about 8.30 to an empty house. So empty she could hear the huge echoing spaces of it. Wandered about, black-faced and haunted, hating it; and yet (there was shopping to do) incapable of leaving it. In case the phone rang. Or. It was too early to phone their own doctor. And what could he say? All the same she sat by the phone, watching the hands turn on her wrist. And then: still too early. She phoned.
–Good morning. It was the secretary’s bright voice. I’m
so
sorry, none of the doctors are in yet. Why not try the hospital?
–I’ve just come from there. Lena was impatient. Didn’t the woman understand? She wanted
information
. Real hard information. Someone to tell her what it meant to have a stroke, what it did to a man in middle age, what she could hope for.
–Hello? Now it was a male voice, not their own doctor, but the other. The smooth one.
–Yes I understand. Of course. Well it’s really hard to say. If I were you, he advised her, I’d take four aspirins and go upstairs to bed. Go to sleep. There won’t be any change today and you’ll only make yourself ill.
Much chance of sleeping, she thought. As she lay on the bed.
No
change
today
. What did that mean? But surprisingly she was asleep immediately. Down deeply into sleep through the whole morning, through lunchtime, into the afternoon. Except every so often she could feel consciousness returning; not precise
consciousness
but rather a recurring light. Which she dodged. She fought it off every time, like a pain, and went down again into sleep. Black dreamless sleep. Until the noise of a door and the scattered bang of a kit-bag and several pairs of shoes penetrated her
darkness
. Alan was back.
She came down, dazed, to him. Saw the sallow length of his face, the shadows at his eyes.
–You all right? she asked uncertainly.
He was hot and irritable and flung his outer clothes on the floor.
–Geography homework, he said disgustedly. Contours again.
–Oh I see. She managed to smile. What time did you get to bed then? Your eyes look like an old drunk.
–Ha, he chortled. Not until eleven-thirty. We were very quiet, so Kari didn’t hear us.
–Very clever.
She could see he was studying her face carefully, was watching as though wondering how to put some question to her, and failing to find the words.
–Dad’s O.K. She said quickly.
–Oh, he said gruffly. Then why do you look like that, Mum?
–Well I’ve been up all night too. Come on. Let’s get some tea, she said. Michael will be back soon. Did anyone remember to put some food out for the cat?
They’d only just got the cat. And not out of any affection. It was a stringy black and white tom. Probably only Michael loved it. She’d taken it on for the most corrupt, utilitarian motives; he was right to accuse her, as he sometimes did, of callousness towards the creature.
When Michael came home his first question was: Was the cat shut out all night?
–I’m sorry, she said. I forgot to tell Kari to leave a window open. But I don’t think cats
mind
being out. Anyway. He probably slept in the tool shed.
–I don’t suppose you left him any milk either. Michael went off immediately into the garden calling and calling for it. Came back indignantly.
–You’ve made it run away. It’s not anywhere.
–I expect it’s asleep. Lena put her hand across her eyes. Please don’t nag me, Michael. I’m sure it’s O.K. Cats are very tough.
–You don’t care what happens to it, he repeated.
–Please. Don’t go on at me. She could feel her nerves crackle.
–For God’s sake Michael, said Alan.
–Oh you always join in, said Michael. It’s true. Nobody cares about that cat but me.
–Have some tea now, said Lena.
And he sat down at the table: Can we see Daddy? he asked.
–Not yet darling.
–Is he very ill? What is it called?
–I don’t think you need. Lena began on a high note. And then put her head down on the table. Absurd. To be angry with him. When she only wanted not to have him unhappy; baying at him like that.
–Mum. Alan was frightened.
–Does it get better? asked Michael.
–Of course.
–But what is it
like
?
–He just lies there. Lena opened a cigarette packet, found it was empty. Searched desperately in her bag for another.
–Mum, said Alan. My teacher believes in God. Do you? Lena said, shakily. I’m not sure what it would mean. To say that.
–I do, said Michael.
–You do? She was astonished into attention.
–Well sort of. I do when I think it helps.
–That’s just complete nonsense, said Alan.
–You think everything I say is nonsense.
–Oh please don’t start a quarrel. Couldn’t you. Go off somewhere? Into another room for a bit. I’d like to just sit for a minute.
And she went off herself into the far room, the one that should have been the study. Because it was far away and yet had a phone in it, so she could hear the first ring of any news. And just sat in a chair with a completely white mind her eyes on that receiver. Listening. Her whole being in suspension. Hung on the note of the instrument. Once or twice she lifted the receiver to make sure it was working. Went back again to staring at the unmade floor, her mind following the
patterns in the polished and splintering wood noting where the fillers between the planks had gone, where the plumbers had damaged the joists.
And then she saw the mouse. It was astride a gap in the wood, she supposed she should do something about it. Probably the whole place was infested, she thought, without much emotion. It seemed unimportant. But suddenly the two boys burst in on her, shouting both of them with triumph, that they’d found the cat. He was in the coal shed. And then they saw the mouse too. It was the first they’d seen.
Michael was very interested. Shall I catch it in a cup? he suggested.
–Don’t be silly, she said. The mouse didn’t move, but she could see its sides beating, and the brown eyes blinked once. It was certainly alive.
–I could catch it in my hands, and put it outside, whispered Michael.
–It does seem to be stunned, she agreed, puzzled. But no. Don’t touch it. Get the cat, Alan. The cat will deal with it.
And now she fixed her eyes balefully on the creature. Willing it not to disappear again, out of her sight, to breed foulness somewhere in the floor boards.
–Suppose I can’t find the cat again, argued Alan. He appeared unwilling to move.
–It might be a field mouse, suggested Michael.
–Not up here. She could hear Alan’s voice, disappearing, calling the cat. And she and Michael watched, the mouse began to rock very strangely from side to side as though in some kind of dervish driven dance; she was bewildered. What disease could it be that was driving him to such strange behaviour.
–Poor bugger, said Michael suddenly. Look. It’s got its tail caught between the boards. It’s trying to get free.
But there was Alan, dutifully contending with the cat, bringing it into the room. As the mouse rolled in a desperate struggle, side to side.
–We should have put it in the garden, said Michael.
As the skinny black cat saw the mouse. The brown and twisting creature in its crack. And with a jump took it. Into his mouth. Leaving the tail in the slot of the wood. Ran off with the mouse in his mouth and Lena watching, feeling sick, yet. What should have been done?
–Rotten cat, the mouse was caught by its tail, said Michael crossly.
But all the same he was curious: Where has he taken it?
–Downstairs somewhere. Don’t follow, she said.
–Will he eat it?
–I’m not sure. Probably. She thought: Oh god he won’t like to see that.
–Michael. Come here! But no he was already away from her down the steps after it into was it the kitchen? And his voice called up to her indignantly
–He hasn’t even killed it.
–Come back up here, she ordered. And then followed after him.
It was quite true. The cat had the mouse in a corner, near the washroom. Had carried it there tenderly in his mouth and was now simply looking at it, freezing it with a green eye. From time to time he put out a gentle paw and turned the bleeding body. They could see quite clearly it was alive, because it was still trembling.
–Ugh, there’s blood everywhere, said Michael. I thought you said he wanted to eat it.