The clouds were building up outside the
window, matching her mood as she lay in bed deciding whether to get up or not.
“You’re a beaut,” her dad had said to her.
“You’re going to have the world at your feet.”
She looked at her feet. They were pretty…but
unknown. No one worshipped the ground they walked on. Feet weren’t enough. She
was longing for……to be…..? She nearly had it then, but the clouds closed in
again and covered the thought. Just rain to look forward to today. She hated
the mornings. She preferred the end of the day when everyone was too tired to
bother. The day held too many terrors for her; too many people saying things to
her, expecting things of her.
“Maaaa!”
The rain began to clamour at the windows,
trees whooshing this way and that outside in the gathering gloom. A perfect day
for her.
“Clara, where’s my raincoat?” called her
husband.
She couldn’t really be bothered to answer
him. Not that she didn’t care. It just didn’t seem important enough to warrant
a response. His life seemed so…on track, so contained, that it ran by itself –
often right past her. She didn’t have to do much to keep up the charade of
being a wife – he did all that for her.
“Oh. Here it is. See you later. Bye.”
Once again no answer required. He seemed to
play all the parts himself.
“You’re a real beaut,” her father had said.
But what did he mean? It didn’t give her much to go by. She realised she knew
absolutely nothing about herself. She just lived. She just knew she had to put
herself on in the mornings, like an old familiar skin. She’d never gone without
her skin…not that she could remember…except recently with that guy on the bus. That
was a serious mistake because now he was there everyday - except on Tuesdays
when she had the car – waiting for her, watching her, sucking at her senses,
reminding her of what happens when a woman lets her guard down. In a moment of
fancy, she had made the mistake of staring too long into his eyes. A bold,
daring moment that she didn’t know was in her. It set her thinking. Was she
unhappy? Of course she was. Wasn’t everybody? But a kamikaze dive into some
stranger’s eyes was more than ‘unhappy’. The thought scared her, and stirred up
some long buried desires. Too hot. Too many.
“Maaaa!”
She opened her eyes wide and let the
drudgery of the day flow into her. This felt safe. Safe from herself and the
demons of her abyss.
She slid her feet into her slops and stood
up.
Stasis. She stood in her bedroom like her
engine had stalled, bereft of all motivation. Never mind. This too had happened
before. It didn’t necessarily mean anything. ‘Just put one foot forward…then
the next. That’s right. There you go.’ And with every step her world came back
to her until she was nearly completely herself…or completely not
herself, depending on how you looked at things.
Pulling her faded nightgown closed around
her ageing body she walked down the stairs and into the kitchen.
She could feel the kitchen under her
fingernails. The smell was permanently lodged in her olfactory receptor cells.
All she had to do was see it or even just think about it to activate the smell.
It smelt like wet dog; because that’s where he slept. The children insisted.
They thought it cruel to make him sleep outside. She had a dog in her kitchen;
one of the many dirty tricks life had played on her.
She made a beeline for the note on the
fridge before the children could register she was there and begin their
clamouring like a bunch of baby birds. She needed something to hold onto, and a
list of concrete chores was just the thing to keep her busy and on track. Her
life’s purpose in black and white and bluetacked to the fridge door - a
glorious tribute to her dry-as-a-bone existential non-existence.
“Maaaa!”
By evening time the storm had still not
abated. The windscreen wipers slapped away the rain while shafts of light
refracted off the wet windscreen. The rain thrummed on the roof of the car as
the two women sat and listened to the whine of the motor and the thwuck of the
wiper blades.
It was cold. Like many things in the car,
the heater didn’t work anymore. They stared solemnly at the sodden night.
“How was school?”
“Why do you want to know?” the other one
asked suspiciously.
“Just interested? Can’t I be interested in
my own daughter?”
“You can, but you know how it freaks you out
when I tell you things.”
“So lie to me. Tell me something nice.”
“Why?”
“I need to hear something nice. Preferably
about me.”
“What’s going on?” asked her daughter. She didn’t
really want to know, but she was trapped in here and sooner or later her mother
was going to tell her, so she might as well get it over with.
“I’ve just been feeling a bit separate
lately,” replied her mother. “Like I’m not really here,” she paused. “For God’s
sake. I’m forty years old. It feels like my life is nearly over and I’ve got
nothing to show for it.”
“Oh God.”
“What? Oh God what?”
“You’re not having a midlife crisis are you?
Jenine’s mother had one. You’re not having one are you? Not now!”
“Why? Why not now?”
“Well I got plans. Jenine’s life went down
the toilet when her mother was going through the menopause. She got completely
upstaged.”
“What plans?”
“Just plans – my life.”
“Anything I should worry about?”
“Oh lord.”
“Oh lord what? I should worry?”
“You shouldn’t, but you will.”
“What? What is it? I bet it’s a boy? It’s a
boy isn’t it? Oh God there it is. Fifteen years old and already it’s a boy, and
the long slippery slope into motherhood and the end of your life. Who is he?”
“Jesus. Just a boy.”
“There’s no such thing.”
“What’s wrong with motherhood?”
Clara realized she had put her foot in it.
“Do you regret having us?”
“No. No I don’t,” she said emphatically.
“It’s just...I didn’t think there was a choice. I did it because that’s what
people did – do. Still do. It’s just…it wasn’t what I thought it would be. I
thought it would be fulfilling. And stop sulking. This is my crisis.”
Steamy silence. The air around Beulah was
brittle with rebuke. She rubbed a hole in the misty window and peered out.
Clara was quite used to this and just continued talking.
“I thought I’d have more...feelings. More of
a connection with...Samuel...and you, and Joshua. I suppose that’s my fault
really, but..........You’ve got your own lives – and I can’t find mine
anymore.”
Suddenly the rain and wind burst in on them
as her husband opened the door and climbed into the car.
“Sorry I’m late. We had two escaped
prisoners,” he said, spreading wetness and discomfort throughout the car.
“Don’t worry. We got them.”
“I’m not worried,” said Clara.
“They never make it,” he said, settling
himself into the tiny car.
The words seemed to strike at her very core.
“There’s no point in trying to escape.”
Clara felt like he was making the point at
her.
“There’s nowhere to go. It’s all very well
getting out of prison, but they’ve been there for so long, it’s the only thing
they know. Most of them give themselves up after a few days. Can’t cope with
being free. They don’t know how to be free; having to fend for
themselves, take responsibility for themselves. They prefer being in jail.”
‘That’s what’s happening to me,’ she
thought. ‘I don’t know how to be free.’
In jail, a life sentence is only twenty
years. Twenty year’s hard labour. What a joke. What does a man know about
labour? A convict only works for eight hours a day, five days a week. She works
twenty-four-seven during her lifetime of penal servitude. Or should she say
penile servitude. And in jail a convict gets exercise, his meals cooked, his
clothes washed and ironed, and all the sex he can handle.
“Sounds like a fucking holiday if you ask
me.” She said out loud.
“Don’t swear,” he said, throwing her a
vicious left look. “There are children present.”
“Where?” said Beulah, looking around
innocently.
‘Bless her heart.’ Clara smiled to herself.
“Don’t you be clever with me young lady.
That’s a fight you cannot win.”
The two women sat quietly as he started the
car and drove off. After a short while his good humour returned.
“So, what did you do today?” he asked the
car at large. Clara remained quiet for as long as she dared before answering a
non-committal “Nothing much.”
“Uh,” he said, quite satisfied. He didn’t
really want to hear about her problems. “How’s school, Beulah?”
“Okay,” she replied.
“I’ll need a little more than ‘okay’,” he
said.
Beulah just shrugged and looked out the
window.
“I’m speaking to you young lady.”
‘He really is a bullying swine,’ thought
Clara. “Leave her alone,” she said. “She’s doing fine.”
“I’m speaking to your daughter. If I wanted
your opinion, I’d ask for it.”
There is always a line. And you never know
you’ve crossed it until you do. Samuel knew he had crossed that line when Clara
slapped him across the side of his face with all the force her little frame
could muster. He nearly lost control of the car and fought it to a sliding stop
at the side of the road.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” he
asked, looking like a surprised lion that had been hit on the nose by a rabbit.
“Don’t you ever talk to me like that again.
I’m not one of your fucking prisoners.”
Samuels’s mouth couldn’t believe his ears.
It just worked up and down, up and down...without a sound.
“And stop badgering Beulah. If you want to
know how she’s doing, then read her report card at the end of the year, like
you usually do. If you can’t have a civilized conversation with anyone, then
just shut up. I’m sick and tired of you bullying me. I’m sick and tired of you
bullying my children.”
Clara was starting to run out of steam and
began shaking with fright from the audacity of what she had done. She looked
straight ahead, desperately trying to control the quiver in her lip, clasping
her hands tightly in her lap.
Without a word Samuel started the car and
slammed it into gear. The speedy drive home, with everyone hanging on for dear
life, was a relief. By the time they arrived, things appeared strangely normal again.
