The Marriage Bed Read online

  The young waitress Vera (as distinct from the old one with the varicose veins) came in to clear away the cups. Her hair was newly back-combed up into a great beehive that made her profile look vaguely African. Max reached over his cup to save her trouble, but she neither smiled nor thanked him, only flounced out with the tray as if offended. I knew, as only one teenager can know another, that she was annoyed because it was clear the beehive amused him.

  After a few minutes, Max dropped his folded newspaper on the table and stood up. The Captain’s daughters eyed him furtively. He looked irresolutely across at the bar, then strolled out to the entrance hall, where glass doors framed a moody view of grey water tumbling under a grey sky. He opened the door and stepped out into the soft English air.

  “Oh, please, sir, you forgot your watch,” I said, bursting out abruptly after him. It was not, perhaps, a very subtle approach, but the best I could think of at the time.

  “Ah. So I did. Thank you very much.”

  I handed over the watch, hoping it was not embarrassingly hot from my moist hand.

  “You’re from America, aren’t you?” I asked breathlessly.

  “No, Canada.”

  “Really? Are you on holiday? I’m afraid the weather hasn’t been very nice here this summer.”

  His dark eyes looked at me quizzically. “Think it’s going to rain again? Can I risk a walk?”

  “Oh, I’m sure you could. There’s a nice sea-front promenade just along here. I don’t suppose – I mean, would you like me to come along to – to point things out? It’s quite an interesting town, actually. Charles Dickens lived here off and on.”

  Once again he looked at me and the faint smile spread from his eyes to his lips. “I’d be delighted,” he said. “But you’ll have to get permission first from your parents. That was your mother with you at dinner, wasn’t it?”

  “Back in two seconds,” I promised, and shot upstairs. With frantic speed I tore off my ugly school shirt and tie and put on a too-small blue satin blouse I’d recently bought at a sale. I flung on my mac but left it unbuttoned, and hurried past the bar without troubling Billie with news of my immediate plans. Billie never worried anyhow where I went, or with whom, as long as I got home before dark. She was touchingly sure that nothing illegal or immoral could happen to a girl until after the pubs closed.

  He was lighting a cigar when I hurried out, the open coat flying around the blue blouse at which he glanced with those casual dark eyes that looked so sleepy, yet seemed to miss nothing.

  “Still at school, are you?” he asked.

  “Yes. I’m in the Fifth at Broadstairs Grammar.”

  “That’s about like our last year of high school, right? What are you going to do when you graduate?”

  This was marvellous, I thought. He was interested. It could turn into one of those whirlwind courtships. So I let it all come tumbling out, too fast, repetitive, confused, as we walked along the sea-smelling promenade.

  “I want to go to university, but unless there’s some kind of miracle I won’t be able to, because I’ll never get a scholarship. You don’t know what the competition’s like, and we’ve moved about so much, my mother and I … she gets restless. This is the first decent school I’ve ever been to, where they really make you work. Only Billie – that’s my mother – is getting bored with Broadstairs; we’ve been here nearly two years. She just doesn’t understand about good schools. Of course, to be fair, neither did I, until it was really too late.”

  “I see. How old are you, then?” Max asked, though he hardly needed to.

  “I’m nearly sixteen.” Like everything I’d told him so far, this was close to the truth.

  “You seem older than that,” he remarked. “More mature.” Then he added, with more truth than tact, “In some ways.”

  I kicked a small pebble several forceful yards ahead of us. After a brief pause he went on in his rather thick, slow voice, “Your name’s Anne, isn’t it? Well, if you did get a scholarship, Anne – I mean by some miracle – and go to university, where would it be, and what do you want to study?”

  “Oxford, and it’s botany I’m keen on. Billie just thinks it’s silly, fiddling about with mounting specimens and all that. So even if we had the money, which we don’t … Anyhow, she used to like it because it kept me busy; but reading botany as a subject is something else; all those Latin names annoy her. She’s a bit against education anyway. Puts ideas into girls’ heads and makes it hard for them to marry people. For instance, I wanted to go to boarding-school in the worst way when I was young; but Billie said I must be mad to think of playing hockey and getting thick legs. She’s an awfully opinionated woman.”

  He gave an abrupt snort of laughter and I paused, too, for a brief giggle. “Just the same, ever since I was twelve or so, I’ve been going up to London every Saturday from wherever we happen to be, on a day return, to make drawings of things at the Natural History Museum at Kensington. It’s a marvellous place, they have all sorts of lovely things. I’ll show you some of my work if you like.”

  “I’d like that very much. But where’s your father, and what does he think about botany for girls?”

  “Oh, he died when I was getting on for six. He was a Classics don at Exeter. I don’t remember him, except sort of dimly when I see my two old aunts. They’re poor and have rheumatism and dote on the Vicar … you know. They’d help me if they could, but … Anyhow, there it is. The minute the funeral was over, Billie and I got on the train, and we’ve been moving from one seaside place to the other ever since. I don’t know why she’s so restless.”

  “So your mother never remarried?”

  “Oh no. I think she’s afraid of being bored.” A belated loyalty kept me silent about the two or three surrogate husbands Billie had over the years lightly and briefly held. Though one was deplorable – a seedy ex-R.A.F. officer called Fred, who had disappeared with some of her money – none of the others, at least as far as I could tell at the time, had ever done her or me any harm. She had never neglected me any more or less for any of them; they had too little importance for that. It was only, she explained to me once, that she had to have a man to laugh with once in a while.

  “She doesn’t like being cooped up,” I said, in an effort to summarize the situation. “When we first unpacked our things in Brighton, she said to me, ‘We’re not a family any more, you see. Just a couple of people travelling together. Trying to be considerate to each other, and amusing company. That’s all.’ ”

  Max gave me a quick glance. Then he took a last draw on his cigar before tossing the butt into a tidal pool. “I think we’d better turn back now,” he said quietly. “It’s getting late.”

  There was no sting in the words. I knew I hadn’t bored him, even though the blue satin blouse had not had anything like the impact I’d hoped for. In fact, it was high time, I thought, for the whole conversation to get off its present level. Then, perhaps, he would begin to look at me the way so many Older Men did, that rather absent yet purposeful look that meant their penis was thinking.

  Somewhat desperately, because the flat, white face of the Sea View Hotel would soon come into view, I began, “Do you believe in affinities at all? Because I felt very … attracted to you, the minute I saw you at dinner-time.”

  “Thank you. That’s very complimentary.”

  There was a silence. Then I blurted out, “Are you married?” Too late I regretted the blunt directness of this question, even though the answer was vital to my plans.

  “I was married.”

  “Oh, you’re divorced, then.”

  “No. My wife died of cancer eight months ago.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said, trying not to sound cheerful. “Is that why you’re here, then? To recover from your grief?”

  The twilight almost hid his grave smile. “No. I’m here on business – a conference. But there was some mix-up about reservations at the Grand; instead of a single room they booked me in with a guy from Hamilton, and I could
tell with one look he was a snorer. So I came along to your hotel.”

  “Rotten luck,” I grinned, diverted. “And I should know. We live there.”

  “Jesus,” he said, “– if you’ll pardon the expression. Are all the meals as bad as tonight’s?”

  “They used to be much better. But there’s a new cook from Athens, and he isn’t concentrating.”

  Suddenly Max laughed out loud. “Anne, you make me wish I wasn’t flying back tomorrow.”

  “Oh, so do I!” There was so much fervour in my voice it embarrassed both of us, and I ground my nails into my palms in an agony of self-punishment.

  “Never mind,” he said cheerfully. “Maybe you’ll visit Canada some day, and when you do, be sure to look me up. Here’s my card.”

  It read “Maxwell Ehrlich, Import-Export Consultant, Toronto, Canada.” I put it into an inside pocket with care.

  “And now it’s time for me to return you to your mother and say goodnight. Thanks for a very enjoyable walk, Anne.”

  I offered my hand and his big, warm one swallowed it. There was nobody in the lounge. I moved a little closer to him, face lifted as if by accident to a convenient angle. He could kiss me if he liked. It might not be too awful, actually. But just then the bar door opened and out straggled the last customers, Billie among them. She had evidently been saying something absurd to one of the Americans, who was guffawing. In a shy mumble I introduced her to Max, and over their handshake she gave him her enchanting, crooked little smile. I saw his face change at once. A kind of delighted surprise lit up the experienced dark eyes as he looked at her. And there went, I realized with a pang of real regret as well as chagrin, all my hopes of a May-December marriage. For a few minutes I actively disliked my mother.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said. “Your daughter has shown me a bit of the town and made me forget I was lonely.”

  Billie gave me a somewhat sharp parental glance, under which I blushed angrily. As soon as possible I muttered goodnight and marched upstairs with such rigid dignity my knees would hardly bend enough to climb the steps.

  A few minutes later in our room Billie said lightly, “That was rather a smashing man you picked up, sweetie.”

  “I did not pick him up,” I said, indignant at her accuracy.

  “He told me after you went up that he thought you were a very valuable person.”

  “Did he.” I flounced sulkily over to my own side of the bed. Well, that was that. Valuable, indeed. And nobody else in sight remotely available to marry except ghastly Captain Blackburn.

  “Pity he’s off tomorrow,” yawned Billie.

  And Canada being, to my mind, a place as inaccessible as Mars, I thought that would be the end of it. A pity in more ways than one, too. There had been something powerfully appealing about Max. And for some reason the name Canada had a vague but stirring association for me: it meant discovery, a land of wonders; it formed a fleeting image of wild birds. But it was not a place I ever seriously expected to see. I was both too old and too young to have any real confidence in miracles.

  Abruptly the sun went in. I blinked, disoriented, at the piles of our dirty dishes. But in the cluttered kitchen, one of those rare domestic lulls lingered like a gift. Martha murmured, “Bugger you, Cindy,” to her doll, and Hugh, plumped down over the short V of his own legs, silently inspected a broken toy car. He turned it over delicately in his small hands, frowning with concentration and pushing out his lips. As usual when happy, he looked worried. Under the table the dog scratched herself voluptuously.

  “All right, you guys, we’ll do the dishes later, and take old Violet to the vet. Bring me the snowsuits, will you, Martha? Get up, Hugh; we’re going out. Where the hell are all the boots? And Violet’s leash?”

  And with a loud groan I began the long, heavy-breathing business of stuffing the kids into their winter armour, forcing their passive feet into boots, dragging on mittens, winding scarves. As I squatted there yanking at the stuck zipper on Hugh’s jacket, it suddenly occurred to me to wonder what the hell I could or would say to Mother Graham if by any chance she did know about Ross, and was only waiting to confront me in person this afternoon with all kinds of terrible questions like Why, and How Could, and What Now. The thought of it brought a sour return of breakfast coffee into my throat; because there were no answers to such questions, except grossly indecent ones. At this point I began to cry, as from time to unpredictable time I so often did now. Tears dripped down in a loose rain on my hands and Hugh’s fine, floppy hair.

  Once years ago in a museum I saw a painting of Saint Lawrence being grilled like a cheese sandwich. It was refreshing to think of it now and wonder what would be the appropriate treatment for My Boy, after leaving me the job of telling Edwina the tale of our failure. No, I thought grimly; come what may, I will tell her not one single word about it. Some of the things I could say to the lady would provide a positively criminal pleasure, and I didn’t deserve it. He, on the other hand, did.

  Though now fully dressed, Martha was pulling off her woollen hat. “Crybaby,” she said to me with scorn. Then added, “I need to go peepee.”

  In the vet’s waiting-room, Violet shivered and whined non-stop, her voice rising to an occasional yelp, presumably whenever she remembered her hysterectomy. Quite a crowd of dogs, cats, and hamsters waited for attention, all of them reacting to the reek of creosote and drugs with a variety of snarls, whimpers, barks, and caterwaulings. It was easier for me to empathize with these lower animals than with most of their owners, notably a fearfully dirty old man with a loose cough, two chattering girls with gum, a fat lady leashed to an equally fat cat, and a horsy, weatherbeaten woman with two huge borzois. My children sat quietly, watching the scene with simple spectator pleasure, though Hugh had the dubious look of one not absolutely sure of getting out of there without an injection.

  “… so I went Yeah, and she went That’s right, you don’t believe it? and I just freaked my mind, because there was this neat guy just in the next seat – man, was it ever funny.…”

  These girls seemed to have no pet with them. Perhaps they’d just dropped in for a place to sit and chat. Still, they did appear to be in charge of one of those folding canvas push-chairs that hump babies’ backs. They might have brought the fat baby in it here to have his nails cut. He had been so casually stuffed into his stroller that his hooded blue coat was shoved up around his ears; but he was sucking one of the buttons on it philosophically, with a vacant look of satisfaction.

  The old man shuffled his feet. His clothes released an eye-watering smell of tobacco and onions. To evade it, I got up to choose a magazine from the rack. The talking girl paused to eye my huge form in a long, incredulous stare. Obviously she saw not the faintest connection between her conversation and my condition, of both body and soul. She couldn’t have been more than three years my junior, but because I knew the connection and she didn’t, a whole generation yawned between us. This was not a thought that cheered me up at all. Soon she was plunging on again, faster than ever to make up for lost time – “like I mean funky, and then Arlene went –”

  Just then I suddenly noticed that the fat baby had turned a darkish shade of purple. Loose threads on his coat marked where the button had been before he began to choke on it. The girl was now leaning on her friend’s shoulder, eyes squeezed shut in an ecstasy of giggles. Reaching over, I plucked the child fast out of his canvas sling and up-ended him. A smack on the back failed to dislodge the button, so I reached a finger down his throat and hooked it out of his airway. Instantly he sucked in a deep breath and began to roar.

  “Well done,” said the horsy woman briskly.

  The girl, her eyes still swimming, looked at me with a dignified air of offence. She took the baby from me and doubled him up, still yelling, into his chair. I felt too intimidated to offer her the wet button, so I dropped it into an ashtray.

  “Now then, Mrs. Graham next,” said the vet, poking his grey head out of the examining-room. I dragg
ed the unwilling Violet after me, all her claws scrabbling on the polished floor.

  “Here, I’ll lift her up,” he said cheerfully. “Don’t want you delivering those twins in here, ha ha ha.”

  I forced a wan smile. Dr. Cook might not be much of a humorist, but he was a good vet. Without him we would have lost our cat to pneumonia the year before. It was a pity he’d never bothered to replace four missing top front teeth, because the gap provided a whole orchestra of piping, fluting noises whenever he spoke.

  “H’m. There’s a nice new outbreak, eh?” he whistled, knitting shaggy grey eyebrows over Violet.

  “It’s nothing in her diet, is it? She’s just a complete neurotic.”

  “Right. Keep her spread out like this and I’ll rub in some ointment. That’s it.” Violet rolled up her eyes and groaned with pleasure as the tarry stuff eased her itch. “Do this a couple of times a day, rub it in well, and she’ll settle down. I’ll give you a mild tranquillizer, too, for the nights.…”

  One of his vein-roped, freckled hands accidentally brushed against mine. And this produced in Mrs. Graham a sexual urge of exquisite, ludicrous urgency. In my present state of unwelcome celibacy, I sometimes had these spells, brief and irrelevant, but severe, and always at times and in places where no relief was remotely possible. There was no dignity in a fate like mine, I thought angrily. Could there be anything more ridiculous than feeling horny about a toothless old vet? It was either tragic or wildly funny. I had to bite the insides of my cheeks hard to hold in a lunatic grin.

  “Now stop that, you silly bitch,” he said to Violet, who was trying to lick off the ointment.

  “Yes; cut it out,” I added severely. But I was talking to a different bitch.

  We paused to peer wistfully through the frost on Jennifer’s Craft Shop window with its bright patchwork quilt and spinning-wheel, trying to find an excuse to go inside. None came to mind, but I steered the kids in anyway. Jennifer, otherwise known to us as the Loom Lady, had opened for business about a year before. She stocked wool, thread, buttons, and so on, but chiefly sold wall-hangings, cushions, and fabrics woven by herself on a loom in the back room. She appeared now in the doorway, a tall figure in a caftan, and at once ducked back inside.