Pam knocked at the open door and walked into the kitchen, where Ella was carving fine slices from a piece of raw beef.
She looked up astonished and said, ‘Friday?’
‘It’s slow at the moment. Enid’s going to ring if she needs me.’
‘Time for coffee, then? I could do with a break.’
‘Thanks.’
Pam sat in her accustomed chair at the kitchen table while Ella set down the knife and filled the kettle.
‘I thought I’d better warn you. The news is out. Official. Ursula Rodd was in last night looking for a semi-formal for one of her charity dinners. Sometimes I wonder about charity. She asked after you and I thought it was time … six weeks, isn’t it? It must be.’
To Ella’s changed expression she answered, ‘Well, time flies, as they say.’
No, it doesn’t. Time’s a great heavy wheel that doesn’t move at all unless you turn it by hand, with effort.
Her change of expression had been caused by a different, ugly thought.
‘I told her there’d been a marriage breakup. “Oh, they’ve separated, you know,” I said, as if it was tired old news. I was crouching at the time, pinning up the hem of a midnight-blue crepe. She said, sharply, mind you, “I hope this doesn’t mean she’ll be giving up her charity work,” then on and on about the difficulty of finding reliable workers and the burden falling on the few. I was trying to play it down, but I needn’t have bothered. I felt like sticking a pin into her fat ankle.’
Six weeks. Six weeks and a couple of days. That was right.
Pam said angrily, ‘Not a thought for your feelings.’
‘I don’t want her to think about my feelings. I’d rather she didn’t know I had any.’
Anyone who went about for six weeks with a face – a hideous face like a great pink and purple orchid with two bulging eyes – blossoming and fading, blossoming and fading, like an advertising sign running in her head – such a person was mad.
‘Are you going to?’
‘Do what?’
‘Give up on the charity work?’
I should have made a wax image. Then I could have thrown it away. Like giving a baby a dummy. Mum saying, when David was a baby, ‘You can’t throw a thumb away, you know.’
‘It’s lady-of-the-manor stuff, love, and you’re not the lady of the manor any more.’
Ella set down a cup of coffee with unnecessary force, so that the liquid slopped into the saucer. ‘Sorry.’ She set down an ashtray with controlled gentleness.
Pam said, in a subdued tone, ‘You’ve never seen yourself as the lady of the manor. Not for a minute. Nobody could think it. You think too little of yourself, if anything. I only meant, you have yourself to think of now, can’t go devoting yourself to noble causes.’
She couldn’t tell Pam, to whom she could confide most things. You could say, ‘I have a bit of a headache,’ but you couldn’t say, ‘I have a touch of madness.’ Perhaps there were other people walking about with madness in their heads, just as much alone with it as she was.
She set down her coffee. Pam had lit a cigarette and was smoking in silence. She looked for refuge at the pile of sliced beef.
‘Kids coming tonight?’
‘Sophie and her boss. This is a regular thing now till they finish their film script. I’m minding Becky this afternoon, so I’m getting dinner ready early.’
‘Truly,’ said Pam, ‘I meant no offence. It was Ursula Rodd put the words into my head. There I was crouching at her feet like a labouring peasant while she talked about the burden of noblesse oblige. You aren’t in the least like her. I never thought so for a minute.’
Ella was suddenly aware of Pam’s distress.
‘Oh, that’s all right. I was thinking about something else, sorry. Maybe you’d better give up crouching.’
They both laughed, then Ella smiled at Pam’s cigarette.
‘I used to go about emptying the ashtray and squirting air-freshener and opening windows after you’d been here. I don’t have to do that any more.’
‘Pompous old killjoy. You’re well rid of him.’
In the hall, the phone chirped.
‘That’ll be for me. Enid yelling for help.’
Ella went to answer it and called backwards, ‘Yes, it’s Enid.’
She had tested Enid’s voice for any officious show of sympathy but heard only casual friendliness. That was a relief.
Pam called out ‘Goodbye’ and Ella came back to the empty kitchen, which looked all the emptier for its antiseptic air, being mainly white with touches of black, stainless steel and clear glass. Black and white tiles on the floor, white Venetians at the windows, no colour except in the covers of the cookery books ranged on a shelf above the white louvred door of the food cupboard and in the slices of beef which glowed like stage rubies on the cutting board.
They had modernised the kitchen in the hospital days and it looked like a hospital kitchen, but she had only herself to blame for the chill colour scheme, which now made her feel like a specimen under observation.
She rinsed the coffee cups and put them in the dishwasher.
I am never alone, she thought. I have my monster.
Now that was a mad thought. It seemed that, having admitted to madness, she was now prepared to indulge it.
Instead, she must fight it.
‘It isn’t always there,’ she told herself as she picked up the knife and began to slice the beef again, acting carefully because of the troublesome nature of her thoughts.
What were the good times?
Things went better when the children were here, but she couldn’t say they banished the madness. There were always bad moments, chance remarks which threatened sanity or caused pain – but pain didn’t matter, in this context. It was better than rage. Safer, at least.
Teaching Nina. The face never showed when she was teaching Nina, concentrating on a point of grammar or drilling a difficult sound. That brought a peace which outlasted the lesson, so that she came home serene, smiling over some advance in Nina’s English.
It’s because I’m in control, I’m running the show. Just as if I was driving the car. I’d be thinking about the traffic, not about … Oh, go away!
She put a slice of beef between two sheets of waxed paper and began to beat it flat with the heavy meat mallet, wishing she could reach the hideous face and beat it to pieces – not the real one, of course, but the advertising sign, so ugly and all her own work.
Her mother used to say, when Ella made a crab face, ‘The wind will change and you’ll stay like that.’ And so it had and so she had, though it was her mind that was afflicted, not her face. She was astonished indeed at her own face and its power of concealment, though glad of it.
She hadn’t had a car to drive since the event. He had driven off in it and that was that.
There must be other things.
This was a new kind of housekeeping – a dark cupboard without walls and cleaning equipment she had to find for herself.
The film.
The film was not a good thing. There it was. She enjoyed Friday evenings so much it was hard to admit it. Friday evenings were good, Friday nights racked with the fury of outraged innocence as she compared herself with that cold, selfish, manipulative mother, entirely to the other’s disadvantage. She would not, however, give up on the film, so there was no point in thinking about it.
Scenery?
If she had the car, she would drive to the shore and sit beside the sea. Even to evoke the rhythmic collapse of the waves and the salt breeze from the water promised healing.
Yes, she would try for the car.
At half-past 2, Caroline arrived with Becky. Seeing them together, Ella felt her usual pang at the contrast, Caroline the tall, perfectly formed classic beauty, exquisite in a short, white tennis dress, her fair hair smooth and shining, Becky dark, ruddy, rough-haired and short-legged. ‘Doesn’t take after her mother, does she?’ was a frequent comment. ‘Quite a different style of beauty,’ was Ella’s unvarying firm reply. But people must say that when Ella was not there, and would be saying it still when Becky was old enough to hear the unspoken ‘What a pity!’
When Caroline was Becky’s age, passers-by had stopped to say, ‘Hullo, angel!’ ‘Where are your wings, angel?’ And to Ella, ‘That’s a little angel you have there.’
It would have been better for Caroline, perhaps, if they had held their tongues. Indeed, her beauty had not brought Caroline much good. That did not prevent Ella from wishing the same gift for Becky.
Becky was so far quite delighted with herself.
‘I brought my Textas, Grandma. I’m going to make you an enormous picture.’
‘Now you be a good girl and don’t tire Grandma. Are you going to kiss Mummy goodbye?’
If she grows up to call you Mother, you won’t like it either.
That was an ungrateful thought, seeing that Caroline had undertaken a long drive to bring Becky, though she could have taken her to the tennis club, where other mothers brought their young children to play together.
‘We’ll come out to wave goodbye,’ Ella said remorsefully.
She and Becky stood hand-in-hand watching as Caroline bent forward to turn the key in the ignition and looked towards them, raising her hand in farewell. Her beauty stabbed at Ella. It might be a dangerous gift, but who would ever refuse it?
‘I’d better find you a very big piece of paper for your very big picture.’
‘As big as the table?’
‘As big as Sophie’s baby table. We’ll put it in the kitchen. I have to do some cooking.’
According to Max, it was a sign of artistic talent that Becky wanted to organise large spaces, though Ella wasn’t sure what she organised them into. To Max, the placing of round-headed stick figures and wobbling box-like houses was the beginning of composition.
Installed on Sophie’s nursery chair in front of the low table covered with butchers’ paper, she set earnestly to work, looking like an enchanting miniature of a serious artist. Ella looked away from her cookery book to watch her tenderly.
‘Grandma.’
‘Yes, love?’
‘What’s divorce?’
In a sickening moment, the face came to life. The eyes stared at Ella, the tongue which was protruding helplessly under the attentions of the noose expressed conscious insolence.
No, no. It wasn’t alive. Just a coincidence that it seemed like a comment, just an effect of the light.
She was saying, ‘Married people getting unmarried.’
‘What do they do that for?’
‘Perhaps they don’t like each other any more.’
Or one of them likes someone else.
The thought that there were further reaches of madness, that things might get worse and the repulsive monster she had created might come alive to torment her was terrifying.
And in front of Becky. In front of Becky.
‘You’re very fond of Grandpa, aren’t you, Grandma?’
‘Mmm. Would you like to make gingerbread men?’
‘Like in the story? Can you make them?’
‘You can eat them, too. That’s why the gingerbread man was running away.’
‘Suppose they run away and we catch them? We won’t eat them then, will we?’
‘They won’t run away. That’s only a story.’
Becky thought deeply, then opted for the real world.
‘I can finish my picture later.’
Introducing Becky to golden syrup and other ingredients of disorder was either a cure for madness or a test of sanity. By the time the cakes were cooling, Becky unpinned from a tabard of teatowels and washed, the benches and the floor cleaned of cake dough and Ella with the icing gun was adding a wide smile and a waistcoat to a gingerbread boy with currant eyes and an almond nose, she did not notice whether or not she had an advertising sign running in her head.
Becky had found her compromise between reality and imagination.
‘I shall take this one home and if he runs I’ll chase him but I won’t eat him.’
When she heard the car stop in the driveway Ella said, ‘Here’s Mummy coming,’ with relief, but it was Sophie who came in with Rob, Rob sniffing the air and saying ‘This house always smells delicious,’ while Sophie ran to pick Becky up and hug her.
‘I made a gingerbread man all by myself. I put on his eyes and his nose. Grandma just helped a little bit with his mouth.’
‘It’ll have to be your dessert. I was going to make pineapple upsidedown cake but we got involved.’
‘Is that our standin?’
‘I made a gingerbread man all by myself.’
Caroline came in before Rob got her answer. Becky struggled out of Sophie’s arms to run to her. ‘Mummy, I made a gingerbread man all by myself. Come and look.’
‘In a minute, Becky.’
‘Oh, this is my sister, Caroline Vorschak. Rob Tressider.’
Ella fetched the tray of beef olives and put it in the oven, thankful the oven was still hot.
‘Vorschak? Does your husband lecture in Physics at Sydney? I think we have a friend in common. Tom Harrison?’
‘Mummy!’
‘Yes, Tom is a friend of my husband. Are you an artist, too?’
‘Rob is my boss. She is making a film. Rob, don’t forget to ask about the video.’
‘Mummy, will you please come and see my gingerbread man?’
‘In a minute, Becky.’
‘In a minute. In a minute. In a minute. I mean now.’
Ella was muttering in the same tone, as she tried to plan vegetables for dinner, ‘This is a three-ring circus.’
Sophie came laughing to pull Becky away from Caroline’s skirt. ‘Show me the gingerbread man. I haven’t seen him yet. I haven’t heard about that three-ring circus in years, Mum.’
Ella opened the oven door unnecessarily, to hide her face. Some thoughts were so sharp that they pierced flesh and became visible. It hadn’t occurred to her till now that the three-ring circus had been happiness. Pain is good, pain is better than rage.
‘A very good gingerbread man.’
Rob had rallied to the cause of the cooks while Sophie explained the purpose of the video.
‘Grandma did the mouth. I’m going to take it home.’
‘Well worth the trouble,’ Rob smiled. Over her shoulder she said, ‘It’s not for display, you understand. I want to use it to pace a piece of dialogue.’
‘Max won’t mind at all.’
‘Not he. Any excuse to play with the camera.’
‘Good. I’ll leave the tape here then, shall I?’
‘Yes. I’ll be off, Mother. Put your pens back in their box, please, Becky and say goodbye.’
Sophie was packing the artist’s materials, with token help from Becky.
‘I’ll bring her out to the car.’
‘Tough work, running a three-ring circus,’ Rob said when they were alone.
She was tempted to unburden herself to Rob – unburden was a good word, unload her griefs, look for comfort, expose her misery. If unburden was a tempting word, expose was its corrective. Once she began confiding – and to Rob, whom after all she hardly knew, she might not be able to stop. She had to preserve that outer envelope which was her only defence.
‘A bit tiring,’ she agreed.
‘I feel guilty for my part in it.’
‘Please don’t.’ Ella spoke earnestly. ‘I’m sure you’re helping Sophie and I enjoy it, too.’
‘I hope you’re not being merely polite – though I don’t think you would be. Polite but not merely polite.’
When Sophie came in and sagged into a chair, Rob added, ‘I am about to make the unforgivable comment. You have a very beautiful sister.’
Unperturbed, Sophie answered, ‘Yes, Carrie’s not bad.’
‘You have a son, too, Ella?’
Sophie answered the unasked question. ‘That’s David. He’s the goodlooking one.’
‘That’s a relief. I thought on the law of averages he must be a misshapen gnome.’
Sophie accepted the implied compliment with calm.
It was Ella who felt uneasy, a feeling which reached Rob and silenced her.
‘Dinner’s late. I’m afraid.’
‘We’ll have time to do a bit before dinner, then. Come along, Rob.’
Alone in the kitchen, Ella poured herself a glass of sherry and sat down to face that frightening memory.
The face was blooming in her head still – fatigue made it tolerable, almost unnoticeable, but if there was worse to come … it hadn’t really come to life, it had been coincidence that the face seemed to mock at the word ‘divorce’ – there was no comfort in that. She had no control over the thing. It could come to life to torment her and she would be helpless.
These were mad thoughts.
I could try to paint it. If I painted it and looked at it in the open, that might be the cure.
She was taken by a wild giggle, thinking of telling the face to hold still and pose for its portrait.
The giggle was madness again and madness in the outer world. Suppose Sophie came in and caught her giggling for no reason?
The painting would be externally visible, too, and would look like madness. Odd how therapy did often look like madness.
She would have to buy a box of paints. She would have to work in secret.
The thought of facing that hideous object made her feel queasy.
But I would be in control of the painting, that’s the thing. If I can paint it and burn it, maybe …
The shrilling of the oven timer interrupted her thoughts, which left her with some hope of release.
Over dinner, disposing of beef olives and mashed potato with her usual speed and neatness, Rob said, ‘About the softdrink commercial aspect, Ella – this is delicious. It certainly leaves Chinese takeaway far behind – about the colours of illusion, you know – there’s the contrast, the final delirium is in the colours of reality, whatever they are. I suppose I’ll have to take to black and white, though it’s a bit of a cliché. What I want – replaying that beach scene, a grey man plodding beside a grey sea with tears on his face.’ She chewed with relish while she contemplated this picture of misery. Right now I’m looking for a visual symbol of obsession.’
Well, thought Ella, I could give you one. Obsession. That was it.
‘I’ve been thinking about white mice. They tie in with childishness and loneliness and the caged feeling. I’m fancying a white mouse on a treadmill. I see her sitting staring at a mouse on a wheel, running and running, getting nowhere.’
This, Ella understood, was the girl, not the mother. She had not identified with the girl before. She found the age gap embarrassing.
‘Could you train a mouse to push a treadmill?’ Sophie asked with the affectation of innocence which did not annoy Rob as much as one would expect.
‘You mean an exercise wheel. They’re still about. Thomas used to keep white mice and they had an exercise wheel.’
Obsession. She wasn’t astonished at the coincidence. It was like hearing about a rare illness – you were bound to hear about two more cases in the next fortnight.
‘The mice loved it. It wasn’t like a treadmill.’
She did not think of mentioning how much she had disliked the mice.
‘People have to love their obsessions, I suppose. Cherish them, at least.’
Much you all know about it, thought Ella, the expert.
‘Do you want me to find out about exercise wheels? The pet shops will be open tomorrow. Morning at least. I could ring around,’ said Sophie.
Except of course the telephone.
Rob had seen the shadow cross Ella’s face.
‘Keep a list of the calls then, so that I can pay you back.’
If only Sophie could meet a man like Rob, if such a man existed.
‘If I find one, do you want me to buy it?’
Rob reflected and adopted the white mice.
‘Yes. Okay. How’s the property money holding?’
‘It’s all right.’
Silently, Ella made a sacrifice to friendship. She would endure the mice, so long as they were kept out of her sight.
Since the day had been tiring, the mother was not on the agenda and she had private thoughts to entertain, Ella decided to withdraw to the living room and watch television. She found an old English comedy starring Alec Guinness which provided competition for the face.
Though fatigue was no cure, it made it easier to co-exist with it in peace. She felt better, too, for the word ‘obsession’, as if being able to name the thing gave her some hold on it.
The film took over. She was absorbed in it when Rob and Sophie came in. They sat down quietly and watched it to the end.
‘Not working late tonight?’
‘It’s turned into an absolute dog’s breakfast. We’re leaving it to settle. Sophie wants to ask you something. I’m not a party to it.’
‘It’s about William, Mum. You know, he’s writing a novel. It’s all but finished but he’s on a grant and the money’s run out. Can he come and stay here? He could have my room. Anyhow, I’ve been thinking of moving upstairs, to be closer to you.’
‘Why. Why, Sophie I don’t know. I’d have to think about it.’
Sophie said to Rob, ‘You’re the one who’s worrying about him. You know there isn’t anywhere else. It wouldn’t be for long, Mum. A month, maybe.’
‘You can’t be sure of that. He may get another brilliant idea and decide to rewrite the last five chapters. It’s a shame. It isn’t as if he’s been roistering, too much the other way, if anything. He’s been sticking too close to it.’ Rob rubbed fingers through her hair and sighed. ‘I’ve persuaded him to take a break. A friend of mine has lent him his beach house but he wants it for the school holidays and that’s the week after next. He promised to leave the book alone and walk on the beach. If he does that he might be able to let it go. I’m pretty sure it’s finished if he could just accept the fact.’
It was interesting to hear about the making of books, like going backstage at the theatre.
‘They won’t carry him at the place where he’s living. It’s hard, because he’d pay the back rent. He always pays his debts. Poor old William, he’s clean, quiet and harmless. You’d think they’d give him a break. But there it is.’
Ella asked respectfully, ‘Is he a close friend?’
‘No. He’s a poor sap but he might be an important writer. On the other hand, he might not. It’s always a chance.’
‘Mum, it would be good. I’ll move up to Caroline’s room and he can sleep downstairs and scare off burglars.’
Ella did not wish to think about intruders. It would be a score to the enemy if she allowed herself to be nervous. Nevertheless, the house, though it stood at the junction of two suburban streets, was screened by trees and isolated by the sloping terrain. The thought of having a man in the house was attractive.
Rob was laughing.
‘Him? He’d interview them.’ She took on an attentive expression and said, ‘Have you been long in this line of work? Does it become routine? Are you satisfied with the financial return?’ She added, thoughtfully, ‘Perhaps his size would put them off. Like owning a big, mild dog.’
‘I could go and spend a weekend with Laura. I don’t feel like leaving you alone.’
Since it was Ella who urged Sophie not to lose her school friends, she saw that she was being manipulated. She liked the whiff of parental power.
‘I suppose it will be all right.’
‘Ella.’ Rob endured an awkward pause. ‘I don’t want to intrude on your private affairs, but you are divorcing, aren’t you? There’s a property settlement in the offing?’
Ella nodded.
‘Are you sure this is a good thing? There won’t be any repercussions? Things can get very delicate, I know.’
‘It will be quite all right,’ said Ella, her mind now firmly made up.
‘Well, at least you can’t be expected to feed him. I’ll lend him eating money.’
The mention of food had set Ella’s mind to work.
‘You don’t want to be wasting money on fast food. Let me have sixty dollars and I’ll see how far I can make it go. I’ll clear a shelf in the freezer for him and cook some casseroles. Bulk chicken is the cheapest, but you can’t expect a man to live on chicken.’
The silence was so deep that the two young women might have stopped breathing.
Rob said carefully, ‘Could one specify male chickens?’
‘They’re still supposed to fight burglars,’ Ella said drily.
Rob uttered a shout of astonished laughter.
‘Touché! Touché!’
‘And mince. Chili con carne is a cheap dish, if you use the dried beans.’
This was like being poor in London, when Bernard was doing his surgery exams – The Pauper’s Cookbook, looking for bargains in the market. How happy she had been in the days when she had owned the future.
Sadness was all right – a salt wave washing the mind clean.
That was a strange thought, a strange image. It must be the company she was keeping.
‘Pasta sauce. Does he like pasta?’
‘He likes eating. I truly appreciate this, Ella. So will William. I can see that it makes sense, if you really don’t mind. I’ll send the money by Sophie.’
‘I’ll help. Mum. We can do a cookup at the weekend.’
‘I’ll be off. You look exhausted.’
‘It’s been a long day,’ she agreed.
Planning cookery was such a simple thing, one wouldn’t have thought of it as therapy, but it worked. If she could only find enough things that worked …
Revising recipes in her memory, she went peacefully to sleep.