at first she had been sick, like the last time but not so bad. nausea,
food welling up, dizzy, weak, embarrassed, annoyed, ashamed, no
cramps, like when she wasnt pregnant, thank God for that, 9 months
of freedom, it didnt seem mythic, she was fat and she would get fatter, well, that was ok. her blood, sharing it. some glob of mucous membrane eating it up. remember, egg and sperm, egg and sperm,
not a glob, egg and sperm, not like the last time, this wont be like the
last time.
she taught voice, how to use it and what it was, to young actors,
how to stand, how to breathe, how to pretend, how to convince, be an
ocean, she would say as she pressed in on the bellies of ripe young actors, be an ocean, she would say. presumably a person who could be an ocean could be anything.
she had become pregnant this last time on the Continent, his
name, she would not say it, who he was, she would not say it, why or
where or how, she would not say it, who he was, no, she would not
say it. short and sordid, she seemed to say. unimportant, she wanted
to believe, bitter, was the truth, contempt, abrupt and brutal, was
the truth, the one she loved had not been the father of that child.
her own father was dead, she had killed him herself, her only gift
to her mother, killed him and left her Scottish home, a small cold
house on the wet Scottish earth, taken the pills and put them in his
whiskey, at the behest of her mother who would never again look her
in the eye. at the behest of her mother who would spit out, look how
hes suffering, as she cleaned up his slop and excretion, this mother
of hers who was hard and shriveled, this mother of hers who was big
and fleshy, this mother of hers who had lost son after son in miscarriage and who had succeeded with her at last.
this mother of hers, what was her life, what had it been, laundry, it
had been laundry, rough clothes soaked in a tub, then rubbed and
rubbed by those driedout muscular hands, food it had been food,
always made in one large pot, everything thrown in together,
potatoes and greens, sometimes with a little lard or meat, cooked on
a small flame from morning until evening when he came home, wash
and scrub and clean, it had been that.
her life before she had married him, blank, she had been a
schoolgirl once, but not for long, had her mother ever played a game,
or laughed at a joke, she tried to remember, she remembered
nothing, only that bitter grimace, only that mouth full of criticism
and orders, do this do that be quiet fetch and carry and clean and
comb sit still, there must have been something else, was it possible
that a woman could be bom, only for this, she remembered only one
kindness, the penny for candy, for candy not meat, it must have been
more complicated of course, she must have done it for a reason, m arried him. there must have been some hope or promise of hope, there must have been some light or promise of light, but the poverty had
worn her mother down, year after year, until there was no outer sign
of inner life, by the time she was old enough to know or notice her
mother as someone separate from herself, there had been only that
bitter, quiet, hard woman who scrubbed and cleaned and cooked
and gave orders, leam to fetch and carry be quiet be good do whats
expected.
after her father died, her mother left that house, she went to the city
