She thumbs rapidly through the Yellow Pages, and phones five firms of repairmen, all of whom say they’ve got more jobs on their plates than they can handle in three months, lady, and very sorry.
It is February. The kitchen is growing icier by the minute.
The sixth attempt produces a repairman who puts in a new window pane. She pays him in cash and flushes the receipt down the toilet, having first ripped it into tiny shreds. All she needs is a blocked toilet right now.
That evening, she and Brooke have their sherry before dinner.
“Brooke?”
“Yes, love?”
“I don’t think I have enough to do. I really think we should try to have a child, Brooke. Don’t you see? I really want a child of yours.”
Brooke refills his sherry glass and sits on the arm of the chesterfield, putting a hand on Morag’s shoulder.
“I know, love, and I’m glad you do, believe me. But once you have a child, you’ll be awfully tied down with it, don’t forget. You’re still very young for that kind of limited life.”
“You, however,” Morag says, “are thirty-nine.”
Brooke laughs.
“Well, that’s not quite senility yet, my love. Look, I appreciate how you feel, Morag. It’s just that I don’t think you quite realize how tied down we’d be. Also, a flat is hardly the place for a child.”
“Why don’t we get a house, then? I hate this damn apartment.” Morag hears her voice speaking; she sounds like a spoiled child.
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Brooke says, withdrawing his hand. “I always thought you liked the place. At least, that’s what you said. I never realized it was such an ordeal for you to live here.”
“Oh Brooke, I’m sorry. Honestly. I didn’t mean it. It’s just that–”
“Well, you know, my darling, one doesn’t just step out and acquire a house. It requires a certain amount of money. We’ve saved a fair bit, but not enough for a down payment on a decent house.”
“We could wait forever, though, and the circumstances would never be entirely perfect for having a child.”
“Personally,” Brooke says mildly, “I like it here with just the two of us. There’s time enough to think of a child when we’re able to get the sort of house we want. For now, isn’t this all right? I feel awfully close to you, my love.”
“Oh Brooke–I do to you, too. You know that. And I’m sorry when I’m unreasonable. Really I am. Please don’t ever leave me, Brooke. I couldn’t bear it.”
He puts his arm around her.
“How could I ever leave you? You’re mine. My woman. I’ll be with you and protect you always.”
Does she really want to be protected, always? If not, this does not seem to be quite the moment to say so.
“Brooke, do you think it would be a good idea for me to get a job?”
“By all means, if you really want to. What sort of job?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A clerk in a store, maybe. A bookshop? Or a job in an office–I can type.”
“I wonder if you’d really care for that kind of routine job, Morag? Go ahead and try it, if you think you’d like to, by all means. But typing business letters or doing filing all day wouldn’t be my idea of fun.”
Nor would it be Morag’s as she now swiftly perceives.
“No, I guess I wouldn’t care much for it at that.”
“What about your writing? Have you given it up?”
“No. But everything I write seems bad.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that? Have you got any stories?”
“One or two.”
“Well, let’s see them, then.”
Morag reluctantly shows them to him.
“I think these are quite good,” Brooke says finally. “They certainly need a little polishing, and I’m not sure of the plausibility of either ending, to tell you the truth, but–yes, they’re definitely worth working on, I’d say.”
She is hungry for approval, but suddenly cannot take what he is saying.
“Brooke,” she says in a hard voice, “they aren’t any good. They’re trivial and superficial.”
He looks at her in surprise.
“Well, if you don’t like them, love, then of course that’s up to you.”
He glances at his watch.
“My God, Morag, we’d better hurry with dinner. My Third Year Honours English students are coming around tonight–had you forgotten?”
“Oh Lord. I’m sorry, Brooke. I had forgotten.”
The students, two girls and six boys, troop in about eight o’clock. They drape themselves around the room, some of them sitting on the floor. Brooke sits in the one armchair. He is warm with them, calm even when they make ridiculous statements, dependably friendly and yet never making the error of trying to be one of them. They are confident and yet a little shy with him, arguing tentatively but willing to be convinced when he points out (always carefully, never stabbing any of them to the heart) the flaws in their judgements. Tonight Gerard Manley Hopkins is the subject of talk. Morag sits on a low stool by the window, occasionally chipping in but mostly listening.
“I can’t help feeling,” one of the boys says, “that at least some of the obscurity is done for its own sake–you know, really just to baffle the reader. A kind of intellectual game, the purpose of which–subconscious, no doubt–was to prove that Hopkins’ intellect was superior to most.”
“Well, let’s face it, his intellect was superior to most,” Morag finds herself saying. “But you’re right about the spiritual pride, which is what I take it you mean. And also self-pity, in a poem like ‘Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord.’ The point is, he knew it. But you’re wrong about the obscurity–almost always, if you can get inside the lines, you find he’s saying what he means with absolute precision. ‘Sheer plod makes plough down sillion shine’–I’m not sure it really does, but it couldn’t be expressed more concisely and accurately. Or where he says ‘No worst, there is none.’ My God, think of that. There really is none–”
She stops. There is silence. Embarrassment.
Then Brooke smoothly leads the discussion into different channels.
When the young have finally departed, Morag turns to Brooke.
“I shouldn’t have butted in like that, Brooke. I am sorry.”
Brooke draws her close to him.
“Hush, child. It’s all right. It doesn’t matter a damn. Truly. Everybody makes exaggerated statements from time to time.”
Morag abruptly pulls away from him.
“Brooke–”
“What’s the matter? For heaven’s sake, Morag, you’re awfully touchy today.”
“Brooke, I am not your child. I am your wife.”
Brooke laughs, but partly in annoyance.
“Is that it? I’ve offended your pride? My God, Morag, can’t you see I only used the word as an expression of affection? Remember how you and Ella used to call each other kid? What’s the difference, except that I meant this a little more tenderly and in a different kind of relationship?”
Oh God. Quite true. And she has lashed out at him for it.
“Brooke, I’m sorry. I really must be unbalanced. I’m sorry. I love you, Brooke. I do love you.”
“I know, my love. I know.”
Memorybank Movie: Spear of Innocence
Morag begins writing the novel almost unexpectedly, although Lilac has been in her mind for some time. She has no idea where the character has come from. She has never in her life known anyone remotely like Lilac Stonehouse, the fluffily pretty girl from a lumber town who lights out for the city. An old story, but in this case (hopefully) somewhat different, because Lilac’s staggering naïveté is never presented as anything but harmful and in fact it damages not only herself but others. Innocence may well be the eighth deadly sin.
Morag has no idea how long it will take to complete the novel, nor how much rewriting will have to be done, but once started she writes quickly. She knows more about Lilac than Lilac knows about h
erself, but how to convey this? It is being written in the third person, but from Lilac’s viewpoint, and as this is a limited one, people have to be communicated to the reader solely through their words and acts, which Lilac often does not understand. The difficulties of having a main character who is virtually inchoate. When actually writing, Morag is certain she is getting it across. When not writing, she is certain she isn’t. A seesaw existence.
“What is it you’re writing?” Brooke asks.
“A novel, I think.”
“A novel? Well, may as well aim your sights high, I suppose.”
“Do you think–no, honestly, Brooke, tell me–do you think I’m trying to run before I can walk?”
“That remains to be seen, doesn’t it? The novel is a complex structure.”
“Don’t I know it,” Morag says glumly.
“Here–no long face, please. Come on, smile, love.”
Morag smiles.
“That’s better,” Brooke says. “How about a movie tonight?”
“Lovely. I’d love to. I’ll flash up the dishes and be ready in ten minutes.”
In fact, she would like to go back to Chapter Three. Lilac, going to work in the seedy nightclub, Crowe’s Cave, for the first time, hasn’t been presented properly. Lilac should be more hesitant–a combination of hesitancy and brashness. How to get that across?
Unfair to Brooke. Who is, after all, supporting her while she bashes away at the typewriter. And who loves her. And whom she loves.
Morag thinks of her smile. The eager agreement to go out. How many times has she lied to him before, or is this the first time? No, it is not the first time. She never thought of it that way before. It never seemed like lying. Now it does.
Brooke is depressed tonight, as he frequently is. The movie does not interest him, and they leave in the middle. At home, he pours them both a gin and tonic.
“Brooke–what is it?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The First Year class this year is singularly lacking in wits. It’s discouraging, I suppose. I sometimes think this is a hell of a way to spend one’s life. And if you do make contact, ever, more often than not you never know it.”
“That’s not quite so,” Morag points out. “Your Third Year class is full of good kids, and you know perfectly well you make contact with them.”
“Yes, I guess so. I sometimes wonder.”
“Brooke, there’s absolutely no doubt about it.”
“You may be somewhat prejudiced, my love.”
“Of course I’m prejudiced, damn it. But I’m not blind. I can see how they feel about you.”
How is it that she once imagined him to be totally certain of himself? No one is, of course. But with Brooke, you have to get within very close range before you can see it. His vulnerabilities are not on display. He learned his lesson almost too well as a child.
“What would you have preferred to do, then, Brooke, if not this?”
Brooke smiles ironically.
“I don’t know–run a tea plantation, perhaps. Somewhere in Assam, somewhere very remote, away from the varied awfulness of this world.”
“I know. I think I can understand that.”
“There is, however, no place, really, to go or to get away.”
“Brooke, why don’t you get a job teaching in India?”
He shakes his head.
“No, little one. I couldn’t go back. It’s all changed too much. I wouldn’t know it. I wouldn’t feel at home there any longer.”
Trapped in a garden of the mind, a place which no longer has a being in external reality. Is everyone? Not Morag. She wouldn’t go back to Manawaka for all the tea in China or Assam. And yet the town inhabits her, as once she inhabited it.
“Brooke–that’s terribly sad. I’m sorry. I wish there were something I could do.”
“It’s the human condition,” Brooke says abruptly. “There’s nothing anyone can do about it.”
“I can’t accept that, Brooke. I just cannot accept it.”
“Well, all right. There is something you can do, then. Keep on being happy and cheerful–it’s a kind of leaven. It’s what I need from you.”
I will never let him see the Black Celt in me. Morag, shortly before marriage. It seemed an easy thing to undertake, then.
“Brooke, I will. Be–the way you said. I will.”
Will is a strange word. Will she, then, by an act of will? And if this act of willing, however willingly undertaken, is false to her, can it be true to Brooke?
That night Brooke has the same (same? who can tell?) nightmare, the one which recurs every six months or so, and speaks the same name.
Minoo.
She cannot bear the weird monotone of his voice. She shakes his shoulder.
“Brooke–wake up.”
“Oh God. Not again? What a bore for you.”
“I don’t mind. Who was she, Brooke?”
He rubs his eyes and sits up in bed.
“Did I say–yes, I suppose I must’ve. Well, I may as well tell you, not that it’s all that important. She was a Hindu woman–really, at this point, I have no memory of whether she was young or old. She seemed old but she may only have been a girl. I was about five or six. She was my ayah.”
“Your what?”
“Ayah. She looked after me. She was very–oh, I don’t know–very affectionate and tender, I guess, and there was not much of that kind of feeling around our house. My mother spent nearly all her time lying in a hammock, suffering from migraine. Minoo used to play with me, and build little stone forts for me, and–”
“Go on.”
“Well,” Brooke says, reaching out for a cigarette and lighting it slowly, “actually, when I couldn’t get to sleep she would get into bed beside me, and hold me in her arms and stroke me. I mean, all over. I used to have an orgasm or whatever is the equivalent in a child, and then I’d go to sleep. It was quite a common practise there, as I later learned. Not, however, among Europeans.”
“It may be somewhat different from Dr. Spock’s recommendations,” Morag says, “but I can’t see anything so heinous about it.”
“No,” Brooke says. “There wasn’t. But one evening my father came into the bedroom.”
“Oh. I see.”
“That was, as a matter of fact, the reason why, next day, he beat me and tied me to the steamer trunk outside the gate, with the sign I Am Bad on me.”
“Brooke, that was terrible.”
“Not really,” Brooke says. “It’s a nuisance that it comes back to me, that’s all. But it certainly strengthened my resolve. I hated him forever after, and I suppose as a child I must’ve wondered if he was right about it, but at least it taught me at an early age that life is tough and one has to be pretty tough, as well, to stand up to it. I learned to run my life my way, to keep a firm control over things so that the external forces would batter at the gates as little as possible.”
“And yet, earlier tonight, when you were depressed, you said it was the human condition and nothing could be done about it.”
“Oh, that. Well, yes, I guess that’s more or less fate, that kind of depression. But one can make oneself less vulnerable to the external blows, at least.”
“Too much so, perhaps. Brooke–listen. We hardly know a thing about one another. I mean, not really. Even after nearly five years. It’s necessary that we find out. I don’t think either of us has ever admitted how we really feel about a lot of things. I’m not the way you think I am. And you’re not the way I thought you were, either. I just didn’t know. I like you better like this. Maybe I wouldn’t have, four years ago, but I do now. We’ve got to find out a lot more.”
“We may do,” Brooke says, putting out his cigarette and patting her gently on the rump, “but I also have an eight-thirty class in the morning. Let’s get some sleep.”
This cannot be said to be an unreasonable viewpoint in any sense. If you have to get up at seven you don’t lie awake all night yakking about your childhood and so on.
&nbs
p; How much of Lilac’s childhood remained with her? All. It always does.
Morag usually stops writing about four, so she will have time to get outside the novel before Brooke arrives home. She does not always manage. Sometimes she forgets that time, outside, is passing.
This afternoon she has forgotten, because Lilac has aborted herself in a way that Morag recalls from long ago. And yet it is not Eva for whom Morag experiences pain now–it is Lilac only, at this moment. Morag finishes the episode, moves away from the typewriter, walks around the apartment, smoking, trying to shed the tension instantly, which is impossible. It is five minutes to six.
The key in the door, and Brooke comes in.
“Hello, love.”
“The dinner isn’t ready,” Morag blurts. “It isn’t even begun.”
He stares at her.
“For God’s sake, Morag, are you ill? What’s the matter, love? You’re shaking.”
A moment ago she felt aggressively defensive. Now she is ashamed to say.
“It’s–no, I’m all right. It’s just that I’ve reached a kind of crucial point. I mean, with the novel.”
Brooke laughs, relieved.
“Is that it? Heavens, I thought you’d been suddenly stricken with something serious.”
I have. I have. But she does not say this. Odd–if you had a friend who had just aborted herself, causing chaos all round and not only to herself, no one would be surprised if you felt upset, anxious, shaken. It is no different with fiction–more so, maybe, because Morag has felt Lilac’s feelings. The blood is no less real for being invisible to the external eye. She wants to explain, but feels too tired.
“Well, never mind,” Brooke is saying. “It doesn’t happen often. We’ll go out to eat. You run along now and make yourself look presentable.”
She wants only to go to sleep for about fourteen unbroken hours. But goes and puts on a decent dress and does her hair. It is, after all, kind of him. It really is. He might have been angry and has not been.
She takes three aspirins and tries to make herself look especially nice.
SEVEN
Work over for the day, Morag walked. The road past the house was dirt only, supposed to be maintained by the municipality, but no voters worth mentioning lived along here, so the ruts were deep and old. Small red-branched dogwood bushes were now in white cluster-flower. The purple and white wild phlox were so rich and heavy with their July perfume that they seemed almost out of keeping here, amongst the plain coarse grass and the dust.