Authors: Rosemary Friedman
Carol, her movements slow, her eyes red with weeping, opened the letter with its familiar writing, its New York stamp. At this nadir of her life, the tribulation with which for the past few weeks she had been living, she missed Kitty, needing someone to direct her, someone to tell her what she must do. Glad as she was to see the letter however, for which she had been waiting, if the truth were known it was Sydney for whom at this moment she most sorely pined. Kitty was loving, practical, sympathetic, but it was her father who had known about the rightness of things, who did not prevaricate, was not afraid to mete out justice when justice needed to be done. He would have known what to do about Alec, how to cope with a situation in which Carol, in her most extravagant dreams, had never imagined herself.
With Debbie and Lisa at the school which had accepted them on a temporary basis, Mathew at the zoo with Aunty Beatty – who liked to have something to take her mind off the tumour which had been discovered in her breast, about which she did not question the doctors too closely – and her babies, Poppy and Sara, out for their morning walk with their nanny, Carol allowed herself, as she did over and over, to relive the afternoon at Godalming when, a winged messenger, she had carried to their prospective father the news about his twins. Night and day, as at a scab, she picked at the memory – taking perverse delight in the pain, the release of fresh blood – knowing the wound would never heal. Sometimes the revisitation began with Morris Goldapple and his revelation of the
news of the two babies, sometimes with the beam of dusty sunlight through which she had walked in the hallway of the Queen Anne house. What a fool she had been. “Jessica thinks picture windows for the dining-room.” “Don’t trouble to look for fabric for the girls’ rooms, Jessica will sort something out.” And all the time Alec had been…
She could not bring herself to use, not even in her head, the expression which had become common usage. She didn’t know what she had been expecting. She’d know Jessica was in the house, had seen her car outside with its equine mascot, her hat on the stairs. The exchange was recorded in her head. She kept playing it over and over: “How does terracotta grab you for the blinds, darling?” “They can be sky-blue-pink for all I care…” “Alec! All those patterns were in order…” “God, I love you.”
He had loved her once, had reiterated his vows solemnly beneath the marriage canopy before he broke the traditional glass. She remembered the wedding. “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob”, the welcoming psalm which had filtered through to the Bride’s Room as she waited, with Kitty fussing round her, to go into the synagogue. “Blessed be you” as she leaned against Sydney so distinguished in his morning suit for the trembling journey up the aisle. The covenant of wedlock, delivered in Alec’s firm voice: “Behold, thou art consecrated unto me…according to the Law of Moses and of Israel.” Afterwards he had signed the declaration: “…I faithfully promise that I will be a true husband unto thee…” to which, in turn, she had plighted her troth, “in affection and with sincerity”.
A lot of words, empty and meaningless, which as far as Alec was concerned had ended with an interior decorator in Godalming. Neither of them had noticed her as she left the Queen Anne house. She had made no sound as she
retraced her steps down the dusty staircase, past Jessica’s hat, across the littered hallway and out into the midday winter sun.
She did not see the “Commissioners for Oaths”, the “Conservative Club”, the “Fine Art Galleries”, with the pastels of dogs with mouths full of game, the shoe repairers, the “Coal, Corn and Seed” merchants which in summer offered bar-b-q brickettes. She walked past Boots and the Health and Diet Centre and Woolworths and WH Smith and the Electricity Showroom and Shopper’s Paradise with its Ivyleaf butter on special offer. If there were custard tarts and iced buns and scones and imitation wedding cakes in the window of La Boulangerie she did not see them. She did not see the Midland Bank with its service till, nor Angel Court with its bookshop, nor the Salvation Army missive: “Jesus said I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” She did not stop until she came to the station, indeed had no recollection of how she reached it, and it was there, on the seat beneath the hanging baskets which in summer were ablaze with busy lizzies and ivy leaf geraniums, that she had her first contraction.
It was ironic really. She who, aided and abetted by Morris Goldapple, had planned her confinement so meticulously, orchestrated it in every detail to ensure her oblivion, minimise the pain, had given birth wide awake in the cottage hospital, in the ambulance almost, in a maelstrom of shouted instructions and running feet and whooshing trolleys and clanging doors and rushing waters and body-splitting agony and slithering satisfaction. Afterwards, when it was quiet, and she had expended every atom of energy of which she was capable, more even, she had for a moment understood what Rachel had been had been rabbiting on about in her vehement
defence of natural childbirth, known that without the travail there would not have been the glory, without the descent into Gehenna not the exaltation – as if she had been involved in the supreme act of love – then the memory of what had precipitated the birth had come flooding back and her triumph had become ashes and her achievement turned sour.
She had not wanted to see the babies on whom, indifferently, she had bestowed the first two names on her list, had turned her head away when they presented her with them, refused to give them her breast. When she finally agreed to acknowledge them they were strangers, duplicated reminders of what she felt to be her public disgrace.
Alec had been to see her. “Carol…”
“Don’t ‘Carol’ me.”
She would not let him touch her. Would not talk to him. It was Josh who had come to take her home with the dark Poppy and the red-headed Sara whom she handed over like two featherweight parcels to the nanny.
Alec followed her to London. She could not deny him access to his children. He addressed her frozen face, her turned back. He made no secret of his feelings. He spoke of marrying Jessica who was already married. He wanted a divorce. Sometimes Carol was glad that her father was not alive to witness her humiliation. In the absence of her mother the family rallied round, even her Aunt Leonora and Uncle Juda who rarely involved themselves, but no one could get through to her. She hugged her suffering to her, mourning her marriage so summarily demised. Sometimes, somewhere, a voice whispered, citing her inadequacies, her inability to communicate with her husband as she would have liked. She did not listen to it. She wrote a poem about hurt and perfidy, and a letter to her mother in which she poured out the heart,
waiting eagerly for a condemnation of Alec which would scorch the airmail paper, in reply.
D
ARLING
C
AROL
,
To say I was shocked at your news – Alec, I mean, not the two babies – is to put it mildly. I didn’t sleep for nights. You are a mother yourself and you must know how heartbreaking it is to see your children unhappy, you would rather be unhappy yourself. You must be feeling simply terrible (you always were a sensitive girl), especially just now after the birth when one often feels down in the dumps.
First about the babies. The bad can wait. You can’t imagine how happy I was (there have never been twins in our family) and how excited that this year I will have four instead of three new grandchildren. Poppy and Sara, what sweet names. One dark like you, and a red-head like Alec. I can’t wait to see the photographs. So glad the nanny has turned out well – you’ll have your hands full. Pleased too that Aunty Beatty is helping out, it will do her good, take her mind off herself.
About the other. I can’t say I’m not shocked. I’ve always loved Alec like a son as you know, thought very highly of him, as did your father who was a good judge of character. Carol, you’re not going to like this. I’m not going to tell you what a wicked, terrible man he is and that you must have nothing more to do with him. Alec – correct me if I’m wrong – has always been a good husband, a good companion, a good father, a good provider. Something has gone wrong (I don’t mean the interior decorator), I mean somewhere along the line and I don’t know how to say this, you know I’ve never interfered, but it’s usually in the bedroom. It must seem like the end of
the world for you and that your life is finished (you must have had a terrible shock, too) but believe me, darling, these things happen. Even in the best regulated families. You’d be surprised. I could tell you a thing or two about people whom you know. Life is not all ‘ups’ and roses round the door, and nobody’s perfect even if it seems that way and if it’s what your father led you to believe.
I’m not being disloyal to Sydney but you know that he had very high standards which were sometimes, given the frailty of human beings, unreal. I know how you must feel, believe me. I don’t think that Alec really wants to marry this Jessica either (how could he with such a lovely wife and family?). Apart from wrecking several lives (Alec’s not like that) I’m sure that she’s just a passing aberration which he has to get out of his system. It must have been lonely for him in Godalming with all of you in London and this Jessica around all the time. I’m not making excuses for him. What I’m trying to say is that although it can’t seem that way at the moment, given time, and goodwill on both sides, which I’m sure there is, things will sort themselves out, blow over, and you will forget that it’s all happened. Don’t tell too many people, later on you might be sorry. Another thing. They have these experts now who help with marriages when relationships go wrong. I don’t say
it’s going to work but, if you could persuade Alec, you could go together to a counsellor who might help you work things out. Don’t think, Carol, that I’m being unsympathetic – you must feel as if the bottom has dropped out of your world – just realistic.
I don’t want to bore you with my problems, you have more than enough of your own, but since I came back from Florida I’ve started getting these terrible headaches (they started the first night I was back) and Maurice has made an appointment at the hospital – he thinks it could be to do with the concussion. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. The worst thing is going out in the streets – I’m absolutely terrified (alone I mean) and think that everyone is going to attack me or snatch my handbag.
Maurice sends his love and agrees with me about Alec. Happiness is not given away with green stamps. Sometimes you have to fight for it. I’m glad that you have Rachel and Josh to talk to. There’s no need to be alone. Perhaps if the two of them have something else to think about they’ll forget this silly Israel business. I’m sure they’re really on the same side although they’re both too obstinate to see it. I’m not too happy about being here while at home this one’s not speaking to that, and that one’s fighting with the other. Life’s too short for all that quarrelling and as Maurice says you shouldn’t confuse the opinion with the man.
I hadn’t meant to go off on a side track. This letter’s really about you and Alec. I can only advise you to try to keep your commonsense (of which you’ve always had plenty) and above all your dignity. I am convinced that in years to come you
will look back at this painful time and put it into its proper perspective. I know you can’t do that now. Don’t try. Be angry. It’s natural. But don’t make any hasty decisions. Write as much as you like and I’ll write back. Maurice says I spend my life writing letters. It’s second best. We are busy arranging Maurice’s apartment for the two of us but you don’t want to hear about that now. I’m so sorry this should have happened to you, my thoughts are with you day and night, believe me.
M
OTHER
.
“What news from Carol?” Maurice said.
Kitty looked up from the stack of letters which had arrived from England. They had been back from Florida for two weeks and she had to look at the photographs of herself in her sunhat at Dunn’s River Falls or Maurice against the Mayan ruins to be convinced that they had been away at all. Maurice was at his easel, painting her portrait. While not exactly flattering, Kitty had to admit that Maurice had captured an essence of her, a distillation of her thoughts. If she looked at the likeness of herself, in bold strokes of apricot and grey, she could well imagine that she was about to say something to Rachel or to Carol, and she recognised the expression on Maurice’s conception of her face. She was a good model. Unless it was essential she no longer went out in the mornings by herself or with Bette Birnstingl, preferring to avoid the threatening streets, and stayed in the flat with Maurice, reading or writing her letters to Tschaikovsky’s Violin Concerto (which always made her think of home and her children) or the Haffner, or knitting for the twins.
She could no longer complain about the heat. She was not looking forward to a New York winter such as Bette
had described for her. She was not looking forward to anything. Since coming back from Florida she had had difficulty in summoning up any energy, seemed to have lost her joie de vivre. She was not ill. She still had the headaches, quite unbearable at times, which had started the first night they had been back, but Maurice had taken her to the hospital where they had investigated her ad nauseam but found nothing which could account for them.
“There may still be some remains of intracranial bruising which doesn’t show up,” the neurosurgeon had said. He advised her to take life quietly for a while and to come back to see him in a month if she was not better. Privately, she had not told Maurice, she was beginning to think that despite the investigations, the blow to her skull had been more traumatic than it had appeared. It wasn’t only the headaches; at times her hands shook, she had difficulty in writing (her last letter to Carol had looked quite peculiar, as if it had been written by an old woman), and when she walked she seemed to have trouble moving her legs. Bette had wanted her to see her own doctor, she had this marvellous man, but Kitty, not wanting to upset Maurice, did not want to start all the tests and everything with somebody else.