Authors: Jacqueline Briskin
* * *
Malcolm arrived home on Thursday with a string of biting questions as to why she hadn’t yet planned a party to show the recently returned slides of their trip. She soon realized what had triggered his carping mood: the gathering line he was currently working on had come to an almost complete standstill because of the winds.
The weekend passed in unpleasantness, and she waved goodbye to her husband without
having had the right opportunity to tell him the news. After the roar of the trucks faded, the dark sky grew silvery, then pinkened, and Joscelyn knew she would assuredly go bananas if she didn’t share her news.
She composed a letter to Honora, concluding with a casual:
By the way, we’re having a baby.
Several times a week a World War II DC-3 bounced between the various Ivory sites to deliver cash for the payroll and slush fund as well as to pick up thick manila envelopes of reports for the main office in Los Angeles. Hitherto Joscelyn had relied on the Lalarheini postal system, which though far improved from a decade earlier still had its vagaries, but now she dispatched Yussuf to the Ivory storefront office on Daralam Square with a request that her letter be included in the pouch.
* * *
“Joss,” said the soft, familiar voice with faint English intonations.
It was three days later. Roused from her deep postprandial snooze, Joscelyn’s first thought was that some pleasant dream of home still engulfed her.
Opening her eyes, she saw her sister. She gasped, unable to believe that Honora was actually here. She seldom embraced anyone other than Malcolm, but now she jumped up to hug Honora. “Why did you materialize?”
“A silly question, after that letter.”
“You mean you just hopped on a plane?”
“And hopped and hopped—all those connections. Joss, tell me everything.”
“The baby’s due on or around November 15—it must’ve happened when we were in France.”
“How are you feeling? I mean, you’ve never sent anything in the pouch before.”
“I didn’t mean to shake you up. I’m healthy as a horse—or rather, a camel. Dr. Bryanston says so.”
Honora’s white teeth bit into her soft upper lip as she gave Joscelyn a caring once-over. “You’re sure?”
Joscelyn recollected the bloodily inept licenced quack her sister had gone to. She said reassuringly, “He comes from Dorset. An old dear, and highly qualified. An MD and FRCS not to mention the DPH.”
“Malcolm must be walking on air.”
Honora’s presence had infused Joscelyn with energetic confidence. The problems between her and Malcolm were like historical events, true yet not currently relevant. “He’s still in blissful ignorance.”
“I’ve always felt guilty, not telling Curt.”
“I only found out for sure last Wednesday. Over the weekend there wasn’t a moment—we were so busy. Which reminds me. The gang’ll crucify me if I don’t have some sort of do to introduce you. And then there’s Fuad. That means a separate but equal affair without booze. We’ll have him and some of the other Abdulrahman family. Maybe the wives’ll come.”
“Joss, I promised Curt to meet him in London next Monday. There’s so little time, and I thought we’d just relax together.”
At this wistful naïveté, Joscelyn’s surprisingly hearty laughter exploded. “You’re in a country where the parties never stop.”
* * *
On Friday night couples emerged from the row of prefabs like so many moths drawn to the lights blazing from the Pecks’ windows. The wind had died down and quite a few people had braved the road from Ras al Kyn on the Persian Gulf, where Ivory was overseeing the port facility, to pay homage to the Big Boss’s wife. Henley Larocha, Ivory’s chief Mideast liaison, flew in from Cairo.
A swarm of beggars huddled across the road—kept at their distance by police hired by Malcolm.
The “II’s” had come through. Specialties concocted from cans, boxes and foil packets crammed the dinette table while the Urquharts and the Duchamps, who employed “boys” less orthodox than Yussuf, had sent over their servants.
At the start of the evening Malcolm set up an informal reception line: Honora, who stood between him and Joscelyn, was introduced to each new arrival. Having years ago conquered her shyness in large gatherings, she came off as a lovely hybrid between Queen Elizabeth and Dinah Shore hosting the “Chevy Show,” calming the guests, many of whom in their nervousness at meeting Mrs. Curt Ivory in the living flesh made unfortunate stabs at levity.
“We’re mighty grateful you have a sister here in Lalarhein, ma’am,” said a sun-reddened,
beefy foreman from Ras al Kyn. “Otherwise how would we have the pleasure of seeing such a beautiful lady?”
“After all the veils,” Honora murmured, “all of us must look gorgeous as Sophia Loren.”
Everyone in hearing distance laughed.
By eight, guests jammed the prefab, and the air-conditioning units couldn’t keep up with the crush: women fanned themselves and dabbed at oozing cosmetics while overtanned men tugged at their wilted collars. Honora convinced Malcolm to take off his jacket, and as the male guests gratefully followed his example a ripe odor of deodorant and sweat rippled through the overheated, smoky rooms.
The last bottle of Johnnie Walker was gone, and then the Smirnoff’s. When Joscelyn passed on the bad news to Malcolm, he grinned unperturbed.
“The sign of the best parties, hon, running out.”
She kissed his chin, wiping away her lipstick.
As soon as they all leave, I’ll tell him.
With pregnancy her sweet tooth had turned acid, and she warned herself not to take the Pillsbury devil’s food cake lavished with frosting, but Letty Toohey, who had baked it, cut her a slab. She took a small mouthful and immediately a wad of sourness rose in her throat. She dashed to the bathroom. The door was locked. She pushed around jovial groups to the service porch, which led onto the side of the house. Outside, she heaved until her healed ribs ached.
The back door opened, and the bare bulb on the service porch shone on Malcolm’s boyishly rumpled black hair. “Joss? That you?”
“I just tossed my cookies.”
“Poor honey. Get you a towel.”
He returned with a dampened, clean dishcloth and a glass. Gratefully rinsing her mouth out with tepid club soda, she wiped her forehead and her eyes.
“Lucky for
you
there’s no more booze,” he said.
“‘It’s not overindulging, dear,’ said she coyly.”
He frowned, perplexed. “I don’t get you.”
“Malcolm, can’t you guess?”
One of the “boys” was setting an empty dish on the washing machine, and Malcolm watched, his expression coldly intent. He didn’t speak until the service porch was empty.
“Swell, just swell,” he said. “I should’ve figured it. Honora showing up one fine day for no apparent reason. Hell, why shouldn’t a future aunt be the first to know?”
“I wanted to tell you, I tried last weekend, but there never seemed a good moment.”
“Is that it?” he said. “Or did you figure if she knew you wouldn’t have to get rid of the damn thing.”
“Oh, Malcolm,” she whispered.
“If you’d told me first, I’d’ve explained that I have enough problems right now. I—do—not—need—a—brat.” His hands were clenching and unclenching.
Instinctively Joscelyn clasped her forearms
protectively over her stomach.
“Joss?” Honora stood at the door. “Joss, are you out there?”
“Getting a little air,” Joscelyn mumbled.
“Both of us,” Malcolm said.
“Is everything all right?” Honora asked.
“Our little mama was totally surprising me.”
Honora laughed happily. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
“She really knocked me for a loop.” He put his arm around Joscelyn’s waist. “It’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said, and his voice broke.
Turning to gauge whether he was making a play for Honora’s good opinion, Joscelyn was astonished to see the glint of tears in his eyes. Real tears. She had done the unthinkable. She had let it seem, however wrongly, that Honora—or anyone else—came before him.
“You’re sure?” she whispered.
“I’ve always wanted a kid,” he said.
She kissed his cheek. “You’ll be a wonderful papa.”
After Malcolm’s initial outburst, he displayed a poignant, semicomical entrancement with his approaching paternity. He called home on the crackling new telephone lines from the site—sometimes two or three times a day—to check on Joscelyn’s well-being. He was tender of her
during sex. When the fetal stirrings began he would spend long minutes with his hand curved on her stomach, waiting for a small jolt. Noting the whining, bed-wetting and other disturbances that beset the youngsters cooped up in the compound, he sent away for books on child care, underlining pertinent segments and reading them aloud to Joscelyn—engineer to engineer—as construction plans for a perfect human being.
His pleasure spilled over onto his work. He was no longer so dependent on his superiors’ good opinion; he solved the minor problems that came up with reasonable competence. After several Ivory people fell ill during the July inferno and returned home to the States, Heinrichman promoted Malcolm to project manager at Pump Station 5. His immediate pride and pleasure were soon weighed down with fresh attacks of self-doubt that stemmed from lack of knowledge. It was Joscelyn’s turn to send for literature. Curt dispatched her all the recent publications on pump stations. A pump station houses mechanically sophisticated means of moving various weights of crude through the pipeline. That long, agonizingly hot summer she passed her days studying, each weekend tutoring her husband with—for her—astonishing tact. Malcolm accepted the lessons willingly, and soon Pump Station 5 was ahead of schedule. He gave credit to her coaching and to the willing local workers who Khalid lined up for him.
By the end of October her husband no longer
needed her help. It was just as well: Joscelyn’s stomach was a large, localized mound, and her due date was not far off.
The small, single-story Ivory hospital in Daralam had no facilities for maternity cases, so the company paid the fares for wives returning home to have their babies. Honora, however, suggested that Joscelyn move to the Upper Brook Street flat. She could have her baby in London, six thousand miles nearer to Malcolm than if she went home to California.
Daddy’s there
, Honora wrote.
And of course I will come over to be with you.
* * *
On the fifth of November, when Joscelyn landed at Heathrow, she was met by both the Ivorys. Honora, looking like a bewitching, dark-eyed czarina in Curt’s latest gift of a creamy Russian lynx maxicoat and hat, carried a sable over her arm. “I’m lending you this,” she said. “England’s having the strangest weather. It’s snowing.”
“Snow?” Joscelyn said. “So
that’s
what they call the white stuff I saw floating around.”
“Pregnancy hasn’t turned you sugary, has it?” Curt said, grinning as he kissed her cheek and relieved her of the flight bag.
The unseasonably early snow flurry had ceased by the time they reached the flat. The weather remained foul, though, alternating between sleet and a fine, icy rain. Curt went each day to Ivory’s Cadogan Square office, but the sisters ventured out only twice to consult with Sir Harold Jenks, obstetrician to half of
the distaff side of Debrett’s Peerage. The rest of the days they lounged around the spacious flat. A stream of tiny, androgynously yellow, hand-stitched baby clothes arrived from The White House; Hamley’s delivered a soft-furred menagerie. (Honora insisted on buying both toys and layette as a baby gift.) Langley lunched and dined with them, with droll humor making them privy to the literary gossip. Curt’s expression remained polite, impervious. Though he sent outrageous monthly checks to his father-in-law, he had neither forgotten nor forgiven Langley’s long-ago conning Honora out of her account at the Hollywood Bank of America.
* * *
Though the baby was not due until November the fifteenth, Joscelyn felt thoroughly dragged out by the tenth. That rainy morning she got up late and had just settled her bulk in the deep-cushioned sofa when the Welsh maid brought in the eleven o’clock coffee tray with a Jaeger’s parcel addressed to Mrs M Peck. Joscelyn tore open the tissue to find a V-necked pink cashmere pullover.
Honora smiled. “It’s from Curt and me.”
“A mite warm for Lalarhein,” Joscelyn said, shoving the soft wool back in the box. After a few moments she took the sweater out again, stroking it. “And that is just one of my many lovable responses. By now, Honora, you should’ve learned to curb your generosity.”
“At this particular time it’s uncurbable,” Honora said, pouring the coffee, walking over to give Joscelyn hers before creaming her own.
She dipped in a tea biscuit, eating it pensively. “Joss, probably this is ridiculous, so call me an idiot. But ever since you gave up your job I’ve been a bit worried. Engineering meant so much to you.”
“That was premarital,” Joscelyn replied. “The pumping station’s tough, very, but after Malcolm’s paid his dues in Lalarhein, the sky’s the limit for him.”
“That goes without saying. I was asking about
you.
”
“It’s a wife’s side of the bargain to help her husband get ahead.”
God, I sound like those saccharine advice columns in the women’s slicks.
Carrying her cup and saucer to the window, Honora stared down at the bare, dripping branches of the garden that went with this block of luxury flats. “In the old days you would have been rolling in the aisles if you’d heard that speech.”
“Insecurity, that’s all. How could I’ve ever guessed I’d land a gorgeous guy like Malcolm?”
“But you’ve made an enormous sacrifice. Not only moving to Lalarhein, of all Godforsaken places, but giving up a wonderful career.”
“No big deal, Honora, it’s standard operating procedure when a gal gets married.”
“Curt’s always said you’re the best there is.”
“Shall we put it to music and dance? A wife’s obligation is to her husband.”
Honora moved from the window, sinking gracefully on the rug in front of the electric fire.
At a sudden twinge, Joscelyn grimaced. “Oh
shit, why don’t you just come right out and tell me I’ve turned into a subservient cow.”