And with that I walked, rigid as a tin soldier, from the room.
As I left Abigail’s, I could hear Ben on the phone snarling about a case of goblets which had failed to get delivered. To hear him talk, he would be reduced to serving drinks in jam jars. For some, life went on. I made it back to Merlin’s Court, without coming undone, by means of adding up all the ways I had violated chapter six of
As I chewed, my clothes spoke in rustling whispers. She’ll have to let out my waist. My sleeves will be too tight again. Back to a quadruple-D cup.
When the plate was empty, I buried my face in my arms and cried. My clothes weren’t the only ones that knew the truth about me. I knew: I had a fat mind.
Magdalene commented on my red eyes when I went downstairs, but I explained that I had recently had a cold and was given to the occasional relapse. To change the subject, I brought up her marital situation. She was adamant in refusing to contact Poppa or allowing me to do so.
Under normal circumstances, I would have taken the law into my own hands, but I was swept along on a tide of inertia. Besides, I had Freddy on my hands. He arrived at the house midafternoon, murmuring in a weakened voice that his meals would be cold if I had to carry them to the cottage. Once in the door, he slumped in the kitchen rocking chair, and there he remained all that day, defying doctor’s orders that he return to work. Amazingly, Magdalene had taken a fancy to Freddy. Not to bother, she told me, she would get his meals. And she would not listen when I told her she had already elected to do too much. By that evening, the china cabinets had been given a good going through; everything was rearranged so I would never find my egg cups again. The hanging plants were pruned down to stubble. The window ledge was lined with statues. And every flat surface, bar the floor, was covered with doilies. I became convinced that her black holdall contained a false bottom.
When Ben returned from Abigail’s that evening, we were frigidly polite to each other. He made only a token protest when I said his mother was cooking dinner. Later I was to wonder if perhaps one of us might have tried to bridge the row, had the timing not been all wrong. But his mother, Freddy, my binge, and Abigail’s premiere crowded in on us. Immediately after the Welsh rarebit, which he hardly touched, Ben took himself off to the study. When I peeked through the crack in the doorway later, he was asleep in the leather chair.
That night we lay in bed with an imaginary bolster running from pillow to post. Sometimes a foot would brush mine and I would roll away, clinging to the edge of the bed. Sometimes my foot would stray and he wouldn’t move a muscle, compelling me to roll off the bed again to ensure he thought I thought he was the one doing the straying.
Wednesday morning at three o’clock I awoke from the worst nightmare I had experienced since the homicidal hamburgers. This time there had been no visual effects, only a vast blank screen and an offside voice whispering, “Someone’s going to die. Guess who? Guess who?”
Struggling up from the pillow, I found the room thick with shadow and Ben sitting on the edge of the bed rocking a baby-no, his arm. I spoke to him, but he didn’t answer.
Moonlight spilled over his arm. Hand pressed against my mouth, I slid off the bed. Mustn’t cry out and panic Magdalene. I would get to the phone and… The door pounced open and there she was in pink flannel, a scapular around her neck and a rosary in her hands.
“Is something wrong, Giselle? I heard noises.”
Another time I might have asked my mother-in-law if she knew the meaning of the word knock, but who could think over the low moaning sounds Ben was making? Like a tree trying to prop itself against a daisy, I clung to his mother.
She pushed me away quite gently and bent over Ben. Her hand hovered over his head as she murmured, “My boy, my only child. He’s so dreadfully flushed.”
“Are you sure? This is that sort of room-maroon tends to give a warm look…”
“Shouldn’t you be phoning the doctor, Giselle?” Magdalene’s face looked like mine felt. “Don’t think I’m taking over, but at a time like this, a child, however old, wants his mother. Better phone Eli, too.”
Dr. Melrose answered at the second ring; there was no answer from the flat in Tottenham.
The verdict was blood poisoning. And the blame which I saw in Dr. Melrose’s eyes was only a reflection of what I was feeling. As he stashed away his medical equipment, he said, “I realise, Ellie, that Ben may have put up resistance to seeing me, but you could have employed the tactics he used when getting me out to see you. If that finger had been lanced promptly and antibiotics administered, he would be on the mend now. As it is, you must understand his condition is quite serious.”
“Oh, I do.”
“The cottage hospital is full to overflowing, otherwise I would have him admitted tonight. However”-his lips tightened-“you should manage, Ellie, if you and Mrs. Haskell divide the nursing.”
“And Ben will… live?”
“Certainly, bar complications.” Dr. Melrose clapped on his hat, thumped me on the shoulder, and trod briskly down the stairs, black bag swinging at his side. I kept close behind him. I didn’t want him to leave. Magdalene’s voice drifted down from the upper bannister rail.
“Don’t worry, doctor. I shall be with my boy, reading to him, singing to him.”
For the first time I saw a softening of Dr. Melrose’s eyes as he paused in the hall. “Don’t either of you ladies go overdoing things. Get out for a walk round the garden two or three times a day.”
“Not me, doctor.” Magdalene’s voice quivered above our heads. “Fresh air doesn’t agree with me.”
It was as well Ben was too ill to realise that his mother had closed not only the bedroom window, but also the curtains. With only one small lamp lit, the character of the room changed. The furniture acquired a hulking look. The pheasants on the wallpaper seemed to fly into each other. Magdalene kept saying the air wasn’t stuffy-we had plenty of ventilation from the chimney.
During most of what was left of that awful night, Ben remained sunk in restless sleep, kicking off the blankets and twisting his reddened face upon the pillows; but every half hour or so, he would jerk upright, calling for the painters or ranting at the underchef. We had to keep assuring him that Abigail’s premiere would go on as planned.
Each time his eyes opened and he looked at me, the knives of misery and guilt twisted deeper. Every so often I would creep behind Magdalene and open a pane, so Ben wouldn’t feel claustrophobic in his sleep. I didn’t fight her for pride of place at his pillow. I was consumed with remorse over the row. It helped me emotionally when she would send me downstairs for lemon barley water for Ben or tea for us. What did bother me was that each time I got back she had locked the bedroom door. For fear of Tobias coming in, she’d explain. I was tempted to tell her that closing it was sufficient-Tobias isn’t good with handles. And waiting-sometimes for five minutes-for her to hear my knock was becoming a strain. But the rest of that night and the next day were long enough for both of us without our bickering.
By early Wednesday evening, Ben’s temperature was close to normal. The antibiotics had taken hold. Dr. Melrose, making his third visit of the day, patted everyone, including himself, on the back. And Magdalene announced it was now clearly a blessing that we hadn’t been able to reach Eli. Not wishing to bring her share of the good mood crashing down, I decided not to mention that I had spoken to him that morning to invite him to visit his lost wife and ailing son. He would have come at once but I asked him to wait until the following afternoon so as not to panic Ben that this was a deathbed visit.
Thursday morning saw Ben propped up on his pillows. So far he hadn’t said a word to me about our troubles and it was Chinese torture for me not knowing if this was because a) they now seemed trivial in the vaster scope of things; b) he wasn’t up to discussing his feelings on divorce; c) his mother was always between us, straightening the bedclothes or tenderly inserting a straw between his lips so he could drink his lemon barley water without lifting his head.
And of course Ben was desperately worried about Abigail’s opening night-only thirty-six hours away.
“I know you won’t listen to me, son.” Magdalene bent the straw for easier swallowing. “But I maintain food doesn’t have to be fussy to be good, especially when it’s free. Leave it to Mum. I’ll make plenty of fishpaste
