Elisabeth fell backwards onto the hard paving and howled. Snot ran into her mouth. Billie scooped her up, wiped her face with a Kleenex while managing to protect her own blouse from snot and dust. She carried her back to the bench, searched for and found the bottle of milk she’d told herself just that morning to stop giving Elisabeth, she was way too old. Popped it into her mouth, till her lips closed round the teat and began to suck.
‘Sorry, Sam. It’s a wonderful road system you’re making.’
‘You always give her what she wants.’ He pouted for a second, but his pride was soothed. Billie could tell by the way his eyes lit up, and he tilted his head. He was such a quick forgiver. Vain, but big-hearted too. Oh, she may not continually feel love for her children, but, my goodness, she knew them inside out.
You always give her what she wants.
Last night’s fight finally came back, and her one good line. After he’d shouted, she’d gone quiet to collect her thoughts, then hissed:
‘The trouble with you, Jacko, is simple. You want everything your own way, but you don’t want to live alone. Do you? No, you do not. Sure, you hate me, but you wouldn’t know where to start without me.’
Oh! How good that had felt! Like hitting a target.
What could he say? What could he do? Except storm out and slam the door so hard, the Van Gogh chair picture toppled off the wall. Of course, he’d been back within the hour. Not many places to go in Piggleston, aside from Lacey’s Lounge, and that was the other side of town.
Usually she let Jacko decide when they made love. But last night, to try and make up, she’d slipped her hand under his T-shirt and gently run her fingers across his back and shoulder. Then around to the front, further down. But his breathing had slowed and eventually a snorting snore commenced. She’d blushed with shame in the dark. Sleep came eventually, but fitfully.
She rubbed her eyes now, remembering. Sam was making car noises, and Elisabeth was drifting off to sleep on her lap. She should really get them home, make some lunch, do some housework. Maybe if she got out the playdough, they’d let her watch As the World Turns. Getting a television had changed her life. Yes, she’d relax on the sofa, in front of the television. No point in fretting over Jacko. This morning, he’d seemed normal enough. He had accepted the brown bag lunch she’d packed for him: boloney sandwich, apple, potato chips. She’d slipped in a home-made Valentine, written in crayon. Billie & Jacko forever. He wouldn’t see it till he opened the sandwich bag.
They were on a budget, a very tight budget which was checked monthly, painstakingly, by Jacko. Last night had been budget night, hence the fight. In the beginning, when they had both been working and before the babies, they’d happily eked out their pennies, rewarding themselves with occasional bottles of bubbly and nights at the movies. Their frugality had made them a team, but these days it underlined their very different teams. She spent; Jacko earned. He interrogated and reprimanded her, if he felt that (for instance) artichoke hearts were an extravagance, or she had no real need for a new bra when the old ones were still in her top drawer. Buying him a present was doubly dangerous. Impossible to predict exactly what he’d like, and equally risky to gauge how much to spend, since he regarded the money as his. It was all a little humiliating. ‘Why haven’t you filled in all these cheque stubs? Must be half a dozen blank, I have no idea what you spent, or on what. How do you expect me to balance the budget?’ She’d meant to, she’d shoved the receipts in her bag meaning to do it later, but then she’d forgotten. She’d shouted back:
‘What difference does it make? The money is spent! Don’t you trust me to spend it wisely? Don’t you respect me? You should respect my judgement.’
The kids had been asleep. She’d shouted and he’d shouted, but a subdued, controlled shouting because waking the children was the number one sin.
Then his voice had become very quiet. He spoke as if speaking to a very young child.
‘You cannot spend it if we do not have it. That’s how it works, Billie. The bank charges me money every time you spend more than I have.’
Pause.
‘Billie?’
Pause.
She had no idea what he earned. It was not a wife’s business to know that.
‘I can’t live this way,’ she’d told him at last, quietly. ‘I will not live like we’re poor, counting every penny, always getting the cheapest things. It isn’t necessary. We are not poor. Anyway, it isn’t like you deprive yourself of the luxuries. Look at your shirt, Brooks Brothers isn’t the cheapest, is it? And your darn car. That MG.’
‘I thought you loved that car.’
‘I do, Jacko. For goodness’ sake, that’s not my point. Why do you get to be extravagant but never me?’
‘Why?’ For a second he’d smiled his silly, naughty smile. ‘Because I get up and go to a job I hate every day. Because I work hard, goddammit. What do you do? It isn’t fair. Look at this place! A pigsty. I work my butt off while you do nothing but watch daytime television.’
Then she’d had her inspiration, her moment of clarity, and shot him with the line about him always wanting everything his way but being unable to live alone. He had kicked Elisabeth’s building blocks and left the house, slamming the door, while all her outrage swelled up and had no place to go. It clogged her throat. Oh, it made her blood boil even now. If the roles were reversed, how would he feel if she shouted at him for…for buying a tie he liked? She decided the problem was he didn’t know her anymore. But she didn’t really know him anymore either. She felt this knowledge hover, recognising it as an older feeling. It had been coming, she’d just been too tired and busy to say hello to it.
So, as she bundled her children back to the warm house to make lunch, she accepted the new equation. What else could she do? Adrenalin coursed through her; it felt like an emergency. How could her marriage feel in such danger, when it was only five years old?
‘Mom! Slow down! Wait for me.’
She looked back guiltily at Sam, skinny legs running to catch up. She stopped the stroller and waited, though Elisabeth wakened and began to cry. She automatically checked to make sure she had her purse, the baby bottle, Sam’s green teddy that came everywhere. The check she did a dozen times a day. Yep, all accounted for. Both children also accounted for. Off they go!
By the time the hot dogs were on the table, she’d made up her mind. She would get to know this stranger. This moody critical husband of hers. She’d get to know him and she’d seduce him, darn him! Her marriage would be a success. She had an urge to…what was this feeling? It was so familiar, but felt unusual, like an item of once-loved clothing suddenly come across at the back of the closet. Oh yeah. She wanted to talk to her sister, Louise. Tell her about Jacko being so unreasonable. She began to dial, but then stopped. No, no, this would not do. Billie was not going to admit her failure to Louise, though she had a sudden lurch of homesickness. For California, for San Fransisco Bay, for the proximity of her family.
Only 1:20. Was this afternoon ever going to end?
Her mother arrived the following week. The children hid behind the sofa when she walked in.
‘Helluva place to live,’ she announced. ‘Ugliest town I ever saw. The streets ain’t got no signs! Been driving around for an hour.’
‘What a surprise!’ said Jacko. ‘If I’d known you were coming, I’d have met you downtown so you could follow me back.’
‘Would you like some iced tea, Mom?’ Billie asked, taking her suitcase.
‘Beer,’ she grunted. ‘No, make that bourbon. Jeez, I’m tuckered out.’
She plopped herself on the sofa, kicked off her shoes, and the hidden children sniggered.
‘I can see you two, so you may as well come out right now and give me a hug and kiss, seeing as how I’ve just spent an entire lifetime getting to you.’
Sam and Elisabeth froze, looked at each other, then raced around the sofa and jumped on her, kissing her wildly.
‘What brings you here?’ asked Jacko, slightly awkward.
The children never kissed him like that.
‘Eh?’
