‘No.’
‘Well, thank you.’ Then he began kissing her with his eyes still closed, and his lips tasted good to her. She’d forgotten how good he could taste. Imagine if he should suddenly disappear. It was always like this, after a spell of hating him. Like they were new people, like she was in love all over again. But even so, she couldn’t shake the person who was waiting for the boy to arrive. This time, it was the lover. A girl who for months had not been able to concentrate on anything, because she loved this boy so much. She was all dressed up, but because it was very late now, her dress was a little wrinkled and her lipstick had worn off. He was never this late, where was he? She happened to be looking out the window again when a police car pulled up. Two policemen got out and walked up the porch steps. Billie tightened her arms around Jacko. She kept thinking about all the terrible things that could happen to a person.
TO BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING
THREE YEARS EARLIER
January 28th 1954
Smithton, Oregon 2:32am
Sam cried. He cried a lot. Also, his poops were green sometimes, and this made Billie worry that something was wrong. When she thought of something being wrong with Sam, her stomach hurt and she felt like crying. She tried to take him out for a walk every day, but it was the middle of winter. The good news was she could fit into most of her old clothes already. She got her haircut in a bob, chin length, and it curled up perfectly in front of her ears. It was still very blonde – she’d worried when they moved to the dark north. It was her belief the sun kept it fair.
Tonight Sam woke her at 2:30. He was almost one; this should be unusual, but sadly was not. His crib was in their bedroom, so she didn’t have far to go. She lifted his damp hot body, carried him to the bed and guided his mouth to her nipple. It was engorged – had been hardening since his cries had woken her. It was a second before he properly latched, and a relief when he did. They both entered a trance as he sucked.
‘You need to wean Sam,’ Jacko had said earlier. ‘He’s getting too old for that. Try that bottle we bought.’
‘I know, I will,’ she’d said. And she did plan to, as soon as she got the energy to not breastfeed. Bottle-fed babies must have more energetic mothers. She was bucking the trend, breastfeeding. When Sam cried to be fed and she was in a store or park or coffee shop, it was a problem. Mostly she ended up in a toilet cubicle, nursing him. She didn’t go out much these days.
She noticed the apartment was extra quiet, a muffled quiet, and looked to the window. The blinds had not been closed because they lived on the fifth floor and privacy was not a problem. It was snowing. Large fluffy flakes. Some of them sticking to the window, as if they were not frozen water but a gluey substance.
‘Jacko.’
‘Jacko!’
‘What.’
‘It’s snowing.’
‘Huh.’
Then he turned over and began snoring. This was their second winter in Oregon, but Billie was still not used to snow. It felt magical. She tried to put Sam down in his crib, but he woke again. She carried him to the living room and stood looking out at the snow, rocking him and singing very softly and slowly. I’ve been working on the railroad, all the live-long day. I’ve been working on the railroad, just to pass the time of day. Can’t you hear the whistle blowing? Dinah, won’t you blow, Dinah, won’t you blow, Dinah, won’t you blow your horn, horn, horn? Outside, the world turned white and rounded. Car became humps and trees branches bowed down. She stared and stared, and could not imagine ever getting used to it. But it was cold in the living room, and after a while she went back to bed and put the sleeping Sam in his crib. The bedroom felt cosy, especially now she knew the world outside was coated in snow. She fell asleep within seconds.
Jacko woke up. His wife was snoring gently, her hair across her face. She was on her side, with her face tilted up and one arm above her head as if she was reaching for something. He told himself he loved her very much; it caught at his throat. She seemed so young. The room smelled of Sam. Jacko tried for a minute to describe it. He smelled like a cotton sheet, just taken in from the line on a breezy warm day, with something else added – what was it? Something food-like. Toast? He gave up. He got out of bed, noting the snow and wondering if it would be possible to drive today. He was not sure how often the road was ploughed. It would be a nuisance if he couldn’t get out. Today was Saturday, and they usually went shopping on Saturdays. Especially, they needed coffee. He tiptoed around, careful not to wake Billie or Sam. It was great to have the place to himself for a bit. He was wearing a tartan robe over his boxers and T-shirt, with hiking socks to keep his feet warm. He put the kettle on the stove and lit a cigarette on the burner. Since Billie gave up smoking, he was always having to do this. She’d been the one to always keep the Zippo filled, and a book of matches on the table. That was marriage for you. You get used to one new way of doing things, then bam! You had to get unused to it.
The wind was picking up; the snow made thwacking sounds against the window. There was also a shrilling sound. Jacko looked outside and decided it must be the wind and the telephone wires. It was spooky, but in an exciting way. Suddenly, a gust hit the window and rattled the panes. A draft crept through, metallically cold. This made him very glad to be right here, inside his apartment with the door locked and bread and milk and cans of soup and a nice bottle of Pinot Noir in the cupboard. Not to mention his wife and his baby. The gust became a gale, and the whole wooden building seemed to shudder and even sway. He made his coffee, leaving enough for one more cup, and smoked his cigarette. They probably wouldn’t get out today. But his family was safe; they were all under the same roof and this struck him as wonderful. His family. The phrase was still a novelty.
To begin at the beginning. He remembered the radio program a few days ago, and Richard Burton in that strange and powerful play Under Milkweed. Or was it Over Milkwood? To begin at the beginning. Apparently poor Dylan Thomas died just recently. Pity. He made a mental note to buy the book, if such a thing existed. At first he’d just half listened while sanding the oak table, then found himself pausing before finally sitting down and giving his full attention to the Bakelite radio sitting on the counter. The little dark Welsh village slowly emerging, and all the quirky inhabitants populating his living room. He remembered the line that went something like: as we tumble into bed, little Willy Wee who is dead, dead, dead, because it was repeated a few times. A story and a poem and a song. I want to be a writer too, thought Jacko suddenly. That’s what I want to do in my life. He imagined this for a while, then decided he also wanted to be Welsh, or at least some kind of British. Well, it was something to aspire to anyway. Maybe he’d buy a tweed jacket. And next car – a Hillman. And an MG? No more Fords, anyway.
Eventually Sam woke again, and Billie stumbled through to the living room with him. ‘It’s like White Christmas,’ she said sleepily. ‘Say, wasn’t that a swell movie?’
‘I preferred It’s a Wonderful Life.’
‘Me too, actually.’
They took turns with Sam. Feeding him, bathing him, changing his diaper, dressing him, trying to give him a bottle, changing his diaper again. ‘You know what I was thinking earlier?’ He wanted to tell her he’d decided to be a great writer. It filled him up, this new yearning. But he couldn’t say it out loud. ‘I was thinking we might have another baby one day.’
‘Oh, sure, Jacko! I was thinking exactly the same thing. Someone to keep Sam company.’
Christmas was a month ago. A nutcracker ornament that somehow never made it back into the ornament box was hanging from the window above the sink. It was their second Christmas as a couple, and the nutcracker was new. Billie had made some ornaments. Clowns, constructed of cotton spools with yarn for hair and sequins for eyes. Small fairies made of felt and pipe cleaners, with small wooden balls for heads. She’d made these while Jacko was at work and Sam was napping. She had also baked gingerbread men.
‘I miss Christmas,’ she now said. ‘I loved it.’
‘Me too,’ said Jacko, though he clearly recalled inedible turkey and glutinous gravy. He’d given her a Timex watch and a bottle of Hypnotique perfume which she thought smelled like cheap candy, and she’d given him a subscription to National Geographic and a tie he thought made him look like a used car salesman. Neither admitted disappointment.
When Sam fell asleep again, Billie yawned and said she might go back to bed too. Jacko joined her, but didn’t fall asleep. While his son slept close by and the world outside became mysterious, he reached for his wife, gently pulled off her clothes and they made love silently and tenderly. As if they’d died and become ghosts, still in love with each other. Afterwards, when she had rolled away from him, he stroked her back. Softly; hardly touching her skin. He thought of the time she’d asked him about the war, and whether it had been scary for him. He’d wanted to say yes, because then it would make him seem brave. He couldn’t remember what he answered, but he remembered wanting to say he’d been in danger, and been scared shitless. She’d looked at him with such admiration.
‘Jacko?’ she said, turning back to him after a while. She smelled of coffee and breast milk and sex.
‘Sorry. Did you want to sleep?’
‘Not really. Or maybe yes. Do you mind? I’m so tired.’ They lay, spooned into each other. Just before Jacko drifted off, he whispered: ‘Shush now,’ though she hadn’t said anything at all.
HONEYMOON
TWO YEARS EARLIER
July 24th 1952
Highway One 2:43pm
My goodness, her waist had never been so tiny – look at it, in her honeymoon outfit, the belted grey dress swinging just below her knee. Jacko could almost put his fingers around her waist, and she often guided his hands to do just that. He was looking thin too, in his cream khakis and white T-shirt under an unbuttoned flannel shirt. Just right for the drive north, in his dark green Singer 8 with the top down. There they were now, taking the turn off to Highway One at Olema, swooping down towards Stinson on an absolute peach of a summer day. This dark-haired boy in dark glasses and this Marilyn Monroe wearing a red Liberty scarf. Not talking, not laughing. They’d been married for nearly thirty-two hours now, and hadn’t a lot left to say. Or maybe it was just too noisy with the wind. Behind was their wedding day, that chaotic whirlwind of kisses, hugs, flowers, dancing, feeding each other cake, laughing, posing for the photographer. Those vows finally spoken, no words forgotten. The wedding had been imagined so many times, the event itself had seemed déjà vu. But they’d carried it off. Planned, paid for, executed – all by themselves, no parental help. What a team! They even remembered the names of all those relatives. Jacko and Billie had a great time. Or not – it didn’t matter, did it? It was over.
Behind also, were those years of being other people, unaware of each other’s existence. Almost impossible to remember what it was like to not know each other now, but there you go. Those years had been lived, and they were part of the past now. No need even to look at them, if they didn’t want to. Goodness me, who would want to look at Redding or Sonoma, or anywhere at all in the whole damn valley?
Okay, it was a fact that Jacko had been fooled by Billie at first – thought by her clothes, her shoes, her attitude, she was a Marin girl, or at least a Bay Area girl. But by the time her lowly birth had been revealed, it was too late, he was a goner. Oh, the plunge his heart had taken, as they drove up her mother’s street the first time. She’d directed him through leafy downtown Redding, then an avenue lined with large houses and wraparound porches, then told him to turn left at Sugar Street. A mean street, with car carcasses in most yards, skinny stray dogs and barefoot kids kicking a can. There was no sidewalk. Her mother lived in a wooden one-story, with yellowing grass growing right up to the door. He’d not said anything, just closed down his face.
‘So,’ she’d said, snorting with giggles. ‘So, tell me. Did you think you were marrying…up?’ Then she’d giggled harder as if this was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. Which in a way, it was. She’d been fooled by him too, but not minded.
‘Who said we were getting married?’ he’d replied.
‘Why, you did, Jacko MacAlister! Last night, don’t you remember?’
