Missing Joseph

“What in God’s name are you doing, Margaret?”

“Nothing,” she said. It seemed obvious enough. The vinegar. The oil. The plastic bottle with its detachable, elongated spout lying next to it. What else could she be doing but preparing to rid her body of all the internal traces of a man? And who else would that man be but Nick Ware?

Juliet Spence shut the door behind her with a snick of the lock. At the sound, Punkin appeared from the darkness of the sitting room and glided across the kitchen to rub against her legs. He mewled softly.

“The cat wants feeding.”

“I forgot,” Maggie said.

“How did you forget? What were you doing?”

Maggie didn’t reply. She poured the oil into the bottle, watching it bob and swirl in graceful amber orbs as it met the vinegar.

“Answer me, Margaret.”

Maggie heard her mother’s handbag drop onto one of the kitchen chairs. Her heavy pea jacket followed. Then came the sharp plit plot of her boots as she crossed the room.

Never had Maggie been more aware of the advantage her mother had in height than when Juliet Spence joined her at the work top. She seemed to tower above her like an angel of vengeance. One false move and the sword would fall.

“What exactly are you planning to do with that concoction?” Juliet asked. Her voice sounded careful, the way someone spoke just before he was sick.

“Use it.”

“For?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m glad of it.”

“Why?”

“Because if you’re developing a bent towards feminine hygiene, you’re going to have quite a mess on your hands if you douche with oil. And I take it that we are talking about hygiene, Margaret. There’s nothing else behind this, I’m sure. Aside, of course, from a curious and rather sudden compulsion to be certain your private parts are fresh and clean.”

Maggie studiously set the oil on the work top next to the vinegar. She stared at the undulating mixture she’d made.

“I saw Nick Ware pedalling his bicycle along the Clitheroe Road on my way home,” her mother went on. Her words were coming faster now, each one sounding as if her teeth clipped it off. “I don’t particularly want to think what that — combined with this fascinating experiment you’re apparently conducting in emulsification — might actually mean.”

Maggie touched her index finger to the plastic bottle. She observed her hand. Like the rest of her, it was small, dimpled, and plump. It couldn’t possibly be less like her mother’s. It was unsuited for housework and heavy toil, unused to digging and working with the earth.

“This oil-and-vinegar business isn’t connected with Nick Ware, is it? Tell me it was purely coincidence that I should have seen him heading back towards the village not ten minutes ago.”

Maggie jiggled the bottle and watched the oil slip and slide across the surface of the vinegar. Her mother’s hand clamped over her wrist. Maggie felt the immediate answering numbness in her fi ngers.

“That hurts.”

“Then talk to me, Margaret. Tell me Nick Ware hasn’t been here tonight. Tell me you haven’t had sex with him again. Because you reek of it. Are you aware of that? Do you realise you smell like a whore?”

“So what? You smell of it, too.”

Her mother’s fingers contracted convulsively, her short nails creating sharp pressure points of pain on the soft underside of Maggie’s wrist. Maggie cried out and tried to pull away but only succeeded in flinging their locked hands against the plastic bottle so that it slipped into the sink. The pungent mixture arced out to form an oleaginous pool. As it drained away, it left red and gold beads against the white porcelain.

“I suppose you think I deserve that remark,” Juliet said. “You’ve decided sex with Nick is the perfect way to get an eye for an eye. Which is what you want, isn’t it? Isn’t it what you’ve been wanting for months? Mummy’s taken a lover and you’ll fix her good if it’s the last thing you do.”

“It’s nothing to do with you. I don’t care what you do. I don’t care how you do it. I don’t even care when. I love Nick. He loves me.”

“I see. And when he makes you pregnant and you’re faced with having his baby, will he love you then? Will he leave school in order to support the two of you? And how will it feel, Margaret Jane Spence — motherhood before your fourteenth birthday?”

Juliet released her and went into the old-fashioned larder. Maggie rubbed her wrist and listened to the angry pop and snap of airtight containers being opened and closed on the chipped marble work top. Her mother returned, brought the kettle to the sink, set it to boil on the cooker. “Sit down,” she said.

Maggie hesitated, running her fingers through the oil and vinegar that remained in the sink. She knew what was to follow — it was exactly what had followed her fi rst encounter with Nick in the Hall in October — but unlike October, this time she understood what those two words presaged, and the understanding was a sickness to her that quickly ran ice down her back. How stupid she’d been just three months ago. What had she been thinking? Each morning Mummy had presented her with the cup of thick liquid she passed off as her special female tea, and Maggie had screwed up her face and drunk it obediently, believing it was the vitamin supplement Mummy claimed it to be, something every girl needed when she became a woman. But now, in conjunction with her mother’s words this evening, she remembered a hushed conversation that Mummy had had with Mrs. Rice in this very kitchen nearly two years ago, with Mrs. Rice begging for something to “kill it, stop it, I beg you, Juliet” and with Mummy saying, “I can’t do that, Marion. It’s a private oath, to be sure, but it’s an oath nonetheless, and I mean to keep it. You must go to a clinic if you want to be rid of it.” At which Mrs. Rice began to weep, saying, “Ted won’t hear of it. He’d kill me if he thought I did anything at all…” And then six months later her twins were born.

“I said sit down,” Juliet Spence repeated. She was pouring the water over the dried, crushed bark root. Its acrid odour wafted up with the steam. She added two tablespoons of honey to the drink, stirred it vigorously, and took it to the table. “Come here.”

Maggie felt the angry cramps without use of the stimulant, a phantom pain that grew from her memory. “I won’t drink that.”

“You will.”

“I won’t. You want to kill the baby, don’t you? My baby, Mummy. Mine and Nick’s. That’s what you were doing before, in October. You said it was vitamins, to make my bones strong and to give me more energy. You said women need more calcium than little girls and I wasn’t a little girl any longer so I needed to drink it. But you were lying, weren’t you? Weren’t you, Mummy? You wanted to make sure I didn’t have a baby.”

“You’re being hysterical.”

“You think it’s happened, don’t you? You think there’s a baby inside me, don’t you? Isn’t that why you want me to drink?”

“We’ll make it un-happen if it’s happened. That’s all.”

“To a baby? My baby? No!” The edge of the work top dug into her spine as Maggie backed away from her mother.

Juliet set the mug on the table, resting a hand on her hip. With the other hand, she rubbed her forehead. In the kitchen light, her face looked gaunt. The streaks of grey in her hair seemed at once duller and more pronounced. “Then what exactly is it that you were planning to do with the oil and vinegar if not try — no matter how ineffectively — to stop a baby’s conception?”

“That’s…” Maggie turned miserably back to the sink.

“Different? Why? Because it’s easy? Because it washes things away without any pain, stopping things before they start? How convenient for you, Maggie. Unfortunately, that’s not the way it’s going to be. Come here. Sit down.”

Maggie pulled the oil and vinegar towards her in a protective and largely meaningless gesture. Her mother