The cocoa steamed seductively into Pamela’s
nostrils as she poured the near-boiling mixture into a large white mug. Sarah no longer did this for her, but then,
Sarah now only worked for her two days a week, as did Monica. Theresa alone remained full-time, but even
she no longer lived in the house.
Lawrence, in the last decade before his stroke, had become extremely parsimonious. Pamela had never understood why. They hadn’t lost money, they remained
fabulously wealthy. Still, he insisted
on cutting costs. In the twilight, she
sat in the breakfast room, reading the paper beneath the green Tiffany table
lamp. The epsom salt bath had done her a
world of good. She had been quite a mess
from crab walking through the underbrush down that steep hill. She looked at the three bright red scratches
on her left forearm. On the front page
of the newspaper was a huge picture of the Prince and Princess of Wales cutting
the ribbon for Expo. She was pretty, the
young princess, very pretty. But
gaunt. She would have liked to have met
her. Her husband she had already been
introduced to a number of times. Not
exactly charming she found him to be, but such was the case with those
Windsors. She had no interest in
attending Expo. She didn’t even want to
read about it. She was shocked by the
extreme to which she had already repudiated her husband. He had been on the planning committee. Before
his stroke he lived and breathed Expo.
He was eighty when he began participating in the planning sessions. It had rejuvenated him. He looked and felt twenty years younger. For the first time in—years?—he wanted sex
again, and Pamela couldn’t rise to the occasion. She suspected that he’d taken a
mistress. Suddenly, within six months,
he could not get out of bed. Then his
cancer was diagnosed, then a second stroke put him in a wheelchair, and Pamela
had faithfully stood by. She had offered
and participated in the best care possible.
She was free from him now.
Just
when she turned to Ann Landers, Martha came into the breakfast room. She hadn’t heard her come in. “How long have you been in?” she asked.
“I
just got here. You didn’t hear me?”
“This
is a big house.”
“When
are you getting an alarm installed.”
“One
day, I suppose.”
“You
never know who might come walking in.”
“It
could even be my daughter. Oh mercy!”
She
sat next to her mother. “Anyone home?”
“Not
as far as I know.”
“What
did you do to your arm.”
“I
was having an adventure this evening.”
She would be forty, already? Her
daughter still was beautiful. She had
inherited the best of her father’s good looks.
“And how was your adventure?”
“It
wasn’t really.”
“He
wasn’t quite what you expected?”
“He’s
a man. Are they ever?”
Pamela
knew better than to answer, and she and Martha both knew what her reply would
be. Still, she didn’t want to further
erode the fragile tranquility she had acquired since her bath.
“Well,
I think I’m going to have a nice hot bath.”
She was getting up. Just when she
was almost out of the room she paused and said, “By the way, did you read any
of it?”
“Ten
pages.”
“And.”
“Please,
Martha, might we leave it till the morning?”
“What
time?”
“Ten?”
“Meet
me in the solarium.”
She
didn’t realize she’d been sitting in the dark, neither for how long. Had she been dozing? She didn’t recall turning off the lamp. Perhaps the bulb had burnt-out while she was
asleep in the chair. Hadn’t a fresh bulb just been installed? She had no way of knowing. Pamela couldn’t
remember when last she’d changed a light bulb, having long had servants to do
this for her. She flicked the switch and
the lamp came on in its stain glass green and gold luminosity. This had been a wedding gift, by whom she had
long forgotten. She heard the sounds of
snacks being obtained in the kitchen nearby.
In walked Stephen, shoveling chocolate cake and ice cream into his
mouth. He sat down across from her.
“I’m
not disturbing you?” His words were muffled through a mouthful of food. He had become deferential of late, almost
well mannered.
“No. No, Stephen.
I’m just going up to bed in a minute.”
“You’re
not usually up this late.”
“What
time is it?”
“One.”
“Goodness. I have been sleeping.”
He
contemplatively continued shoveling cake and ice cream into his mouth. “If I knew you were here I’d’ve offered you
some.”
“Oh,
heavens, not this late at night, but thank you.
That is very kind of you. I say,
where are the other two?”
“Pierre
and Matthew? I dunno. They might be upstairs.”
“Did
you come in together?” She couldn’t suppress the alarm in her voice.”
“Yeah,
about an hour ago.”
“Where
were you.”
“Benjamin’s.”
“Where
is that?”
“Granville
and Davie.”
“You
took my grandson THERE.”
“Get
over it Mummy. It isn’t a bar.”
“What
kind of establishment?”
“Café. It’s open twenty-four hours. They just opened around Christmas.”
“What
kind of café?”
“A
funky café. I should take you there
sometime.”
“I
apologize for sounding suspicious.
Martha, you know.”
“She
doesn’t like having a fag for a brother, I see.”
“I’m
sure there’s more to it than that.”
“Well,
she wants us to go. Well, maybe we
should.”
“It
is up to you, Stephen. You know I’m not
forcing you to stay here.”
“Good
luck trying to force me to do anything.”
“But
as far as I’m concerned you are more than welcome to stay.”
“Well,
it isn’t that you need the rent, I’m sure.”
She
glared at him like a cobra ready to strike.
“I
know, it was Martha’s idea. What would
we do without your daughter to scapegoat?
You don’t have to dignify that with an answer, you know.”
“You
could both at least try.”
“I
try. All the time. I can’t make her like me.”
“All
right, all right.”
“She
thinks that Pierre and I are out to corrupt her precious son. Fact of the matter is, her darling Matthew
beat us to it a long time ago.”
“You
don’t mean—“
“From
me you needn’t worry, Pamela. Your
lovechild does not do incest. Now as for
Pierre, well, you might keep an eye on him.
“Couldn’t
you?”
“I’m
not going to watch over him twenty-four hours a day. And even if I could I still wouldn’t want to
try. Our relationship is based on trust,
and we are not the possessive types, Senor Valdez and I.”
“Well,
in any event, I’m sure that I wouldn’t want to know.”
“So
what did you do this evening?”
“I
got lost inside the holly maze.”
“You
actually went in there?”
“For
the first time, ever.”
“How
long have you had this house?”
“The
thing always repelled me. That and that,
that hideous monstrosity of a fountain.
Now that Lawrence is gone I’m going to see if I can have it removed.”
“I
like that fountain. It’s so old world.”
“Which
is precisely where it belongs.” She
yawned and feebly tried to cover her mouth.
Oh, dear, I must get up to bed.
Are they both in?”
“Yes
they are.”
“Upstairs?”
“Last
time I saw them.”
“What
have they gotten up to, I wonder.”
“I
promise not to tell you if I find out.”
“Good
night, Stephen”, she said getting up from the table.”
“Good
night Pamela. Hey, could you do me a
favour, please?
“Yes,
dear?”
“Wake
me before nine if Pierre hasn’t already.
I have a job interview tomorrow.”
She
lay in the dark, unable to sleep. Pamela
knew that she should have gone up to bed sooner, instead of dozing at the table
like that. She couldn’t help it. And this was happening too often, ever since
her husband’s death. Either she could
not sleep, or she was doing nothing but.
What had come to her as a surprise was the lack of emotion following her
husband’s death. She supposed this to be
only natural, given how prepared she had been during the length of his
illness. She was, perhaps, glad that he
was gone? She didn’t want to think of
this. But she knew that she was glad. Pamela had long resented the marriage, and
her lack of resolve to get out. She had
everything and more, more than enough of everything. Her life with Lawrence had been carefully
scripted, ever since their courtship in England, even after she’d first seen
him basking naked like a sea lion on the rocks at Cornwall. The war hadn’t yet begun. Hitler’s army’s had already overrun
Czechoslovakia, just after the appeasement from Anthony Eden. All of Europe was expecting war. A boy she liked who lived up the lane from
her family’s cottage had just been blown to bits by Franco’s Falangists in
Spain. Some people thought that the end
of the world would be just around the corner.
Pamela was fifteen, and somewhat precociously developed. She had the body, and the bearing of an
elegant young woman, though she was a greengrocer’s daughter. They had rented a cottage near the seaside,
by the cliffs, and Pamela and her sister had been in the habit of climbing down
to the rocky beach in the mornings. She lived now in Chiswick, Pamela’s sister,
long-divorced with hungry young artists eating out of her hand. They still wrote nearly every week, having
long survived the vicious competition of their teenage years. Nora was less than two years older. In Cornwall, they had been quarreling over
one of the local boys, whom Nora had gone off with by herself, leaving Pamela
alone for the morning. Assuming that the
boy was really quite nasty underneath, like so many of the locals, with nasty
breath and probably pimples all over his backside, she tried to forget them
both. She scrambled down the rough stone
path to the beach. As always it seemed
deserted, though for once she wasn’t really sure. There he lay, at the distance of less than
half a rugby field. She couldn’t tell at
first that he was naked. A handsome
thoroughly tanned and fair-haired man in this thirties, he raised his head
briefly to acknowledge Pamela, while neither lifting his leg, nor positioning
his hand, nor making any other effort to cover himself. She had never seen male genitalia
before. Stupidly she stood there
gawking, when she suddenly realized the inappropriateness, the sheer
ridiculousness of the situation. Pamela
turned and ran up the hill, where she fell down panting for breath in a tussock
of grass. Two days later, she saw in the
local pub her father sharing a pint with the same man, now fully clothed. Back at home he began paying courtesy calls,
in the pretense of subscribing her father’s grocery services for keeping his
larder provided. The Newtonbrook-Jones
account became quite the windfall for Pamela’s father, who soon was sending her
to one of the best girl’s schools in Switzerland. The war came, and Lawrence soon declared, not
to Pamela but to her father her hand in marriage. Everything happened most appropriately with every
nicety of circumspection and propriety being fully and faithfully observed. At St. Paul’s Cathedral, while the German
Luftwaffe rained the fuhrer’s wrath down upon London Pamela, barely nineteen
and still every bit a virgin was married off to one of the wealthiest men in
England. In 1944 they immigrated to
Canada.
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