More in Anger (13 page)

Tom, I wish, I must say, that we'd been more far-sighted when this plan to have me live here with my parents was hatched. I wish someone had told me that it would not work, because it won't. I have other regrets as well, and since I am in a confessional frame of mind, I will add that I wish we had waited to get married until after this war. I don't like your not being with me. With us. But you wouldn't have waited, I know. Or rather, your mother wouldn't have waited. But what can be done about it now? Nothing, as far as I can see.

I fear sometimes that I am vanishing. That my identity as an individual is almost gone. It's being taken from me at every turn. Let me quote you something I was reading recently, from
The New Book of Etiquette
by Lillian Eichler. She says: “All women are addressed either as ‘Mrs.' or ‘Miss.' Mrs. Guy Scott is ‘Mrs. Guy Scott,' not ‘Mrs. Ellen Scott.' A widow remains ‘Mrs. Guy Scott' and is addressed as such—never as ‘Mrs. Ellen Scott.' A woman who has divorced her husband is still ‘Mrs. Guy Scott' unless she prefers to call herself ‘Mrs. Graf Scott,' her own name having been ‘Ellen Graf.'” So you see, beloved husband, I
lose my identity altogether by these rules no matter what the circumstances. Ask me not why.

To be frank, Tom, I am in hell here. This is how bad things have become in only two months: My wretched mother says that I am obstinate and that you will certainly have to be some kind of a spineless nonentity to ever get along with someone so self-willed and inconsiderate as I upon your return. And she says that she hopes (this is the black curse) that Ruby will deal with me as heartlessly as I now do with my mother, and that I will suffer cruelly, as she now does.

I hope, if I am ever half as bad as she, you will promptly give me an overdose of something
.

Love from your

Pearl

P.S. I am not an evil-minded person naturally.

Pearl placed her pen on the bedside table and slid down under the covers. She turned over her feather pillows and punched them, rolled over on her side and pulled the eiderdown quilt up around her ears. The pale green satin was cool against her cheek. After a few minutes she propped herself up on one elbow, reached for her mug and took a sip. The hot chocolate was cold. Irritation tightened her jaw. What
next
?!

One of Tom's sisters was getting married. Pearl and Ruby would go out to the wedding in Banff alone, on the train, while her
parents drove out ahead in her father's latest car. May couldn't go—she was at university in Edmonton. Pearl would wear her navy suit and her pearls and last year's hat, while Ruby would be dressed like a miniature queen. Gramma Opal had bought her a pink coat with flowers embroidered on the collar, and a matching bonnet with a big satin bow to tie under her chin. Tom's mother had paid for new white shoes and stockings. Ruby would also have the first opportunity to wear the rabbit fur muff she had received for Christmas, even though it was March and it would be a miracle if there was still snow in Banff. Pearl hoped Ruby would evince some intelligence about the muff's use and not get it dirty. White was a ridiculous colour to put on a child. Well, if her hands were stuck in her muff, she couldn't very well suck her thumb, now, could she. All she did these days was suck one thumb and then the other.

Tom's father was at the station to meet them, and transported them to the Mayfield house on Buffalo Street, by the river. Her own parents were not there. The place was buzzing with excitement and activity. Eleanor Mayfield was in her element, bustling and bossing from here to there, some opinion to offer on everything. But she was gracious. The phone kept ringing—the church, the florist, the caterer from Calgary. Ruby trotted around happily, showing everyone her muff and her new white shoes, of which she was overly fond. Fortunately, everyone found her less annoying than sweet. Pearl settled in with a cup of tea, and heard the telephone ring again. Tom's sister Marjorie beckoned to her.

Pearl crossed the room and took the receiver. The call was from her father, at the Mount Royal Hotel. He blew right up. “Where are you?” he demanded. He knew when the train got in,
he said, and he and her mother had expected her to show up with Ruby, and so they had waited. Why hadn't she gone straight to the hotel? Here he had made all the arrangements, he had paid for the room, and as a special treat he had engaged a suite for her and the child, and had she the common decency to show up? No, she had not. Had she the courtesy to telephone and say what had become of her? No, selfish wretch that she was, that she had always been, did she never think of anyone but herself? No, she did not, and now her mother was in a terrible state and that was Pearl's fault too, and since his own daughter was so utterly useless he would be left to deal with that as well, he supposed.

It was dreadful—standing there in the Mayfields' parlour, a smile pasted on her face, listening to him yelling on the telephone, trying to pretend there was nothing going on while he ripped her to shreds and no doubt everyone in the house could hear him. She tried to interrupt, tried to say that the telephone had been tied up, so she couldn't have called. But he was beyond reason. Finally, after he was finished with her, he hung up. She said, “Goodbye, Dad,” into the dead receiver and went quickly to the bathroom. She sat down on a pale blue chair and held her face in her hands. How unstrung her father's anger had made her surprised her; heaven knew she ought to be used to it by now. What was the matter with her? It was just that he had been so even-tempered and amicable lately that she had let her guard down. That would teach her. As she sat there, safe now if horribly embarrassed, memories of the way she had felt as a child when he had assaulted her like that made her whole body begin to shake. Then came tears.

The next day, she and Ruby travelled with her parents from the hotel to the United church on the corner. The wedding itself went without a hitch. Ruby was overall well behaved during the service, if rather too conversational. Also, she had been quite taken by Gramma Mayfield's corsage and hat, and kept reaching over the back of the pew for them. She wouldn't sit down and behave, and she squealed if Pearl tried to make her, so Pearl held her in aching arms for much of the service.

Towards the end of March, Opal and Pearl spent an entire day working together, clearing out, cleaning and tidying what had once been the maid's room, when maids still lived in. They were turning it into a playroom for Ruby. Amazingly, mother and daughter had managed to work amicably together, agreeing on most things except on whether the window should be open or closed and whether the mat should be next to the door or the daybed. It was encouraging to know, even temporarily, that they didn't have to constantly bicker, they didn't even have to constantly talk. Each could do her job. Perform her task.

When they finished, around four, they called for the maid to bring Ruby up so they could surprise her. When Opal opened the door and said, “Ta-da!” Ruby just stood on the threshold. Pearl pushed her a little, but then Ruby clung to her grandmother's leg. Pearl tried and failed to pry her little fingers off. Then she started to get angry. Just who was in charge here? She gave up prying and tried to distract Ruby, showing her how her toys were all in the cupboards and drawers, but Ruby remained
uncooperative. Talk about spoiled, thought Pearl, looking angrily at her mother and her daughter. The two of them together there, against her. There was little she could do about her mother, but Ruby—Ruby was hers, and as ungrateful a little wretch as you could imagine after all their work. “Like it or not, you are going to be in that room,” Pearl said fiercely, and wrenched her daughter from her mother's leg. She set her down inside the room. “This is your playroom, Ruby, and you are going to stay in here and
play
.” Ruby began to wail. Opal started towards her and Pearl shouted,
“No!”
and Opal stopped. Pearl closed the door quickly, leaving the child inside. “There!” she crowed, victorious. She turned the key in the lock. Ruby, crying, began trying to open the door. “Bye-bye, Ruby. Goodbye.” Ruby started screaming blue murder and banging on the door. Pearl walked past her mother.

“Mummy! Mummy!” cried Ruby.

“Don't you dare let her out,” Pearl hissed at Opal. At least, she thought as she descended the stairs and Ruby's cries grew muffled, they wouldn't have to hear her caterwauling when they were at dinner.

Pearl left the house and sat down on the front steps. The rain had stopped and the cold, damp air felt good. She was hot from all the fighting. Ye gods. What an ordeal. Damn her mother anyway. Did she
ever
do anything to support her daughter? No, she did not. Now Ruby would think that Gramma was wonderful and Mummy was not. That it was mean Mummy who locked her in the room, not wonderful Gramma. As though when Pearl was a child Opal herself hadn't locked her in her room, and
she
was the one wailing and crying. Opal never said, “Oh, the poor little thing” then, did she? The hypocrite.

Two weeks later, Ruby still refused to play. Thankfully, she had ceased yelling when she was locked in her playroom and instead just stood at the door sucking her thumb. Pearl could see her through the keyhole. Pearl had tried going in to encourage her to play with her toys, but Ruby yelled and pushed them away so pettishly that Pearl soon gave up on that. Let her stew.

Tom,

For Ruby's sake as well as my own, I
must
stay far away from the influences on which I blame most of my own unhappiness, and that is impossible while I am living here.
I swear to you on my life
that I shall
never again
consent to live anywhere near the wrangling of my mother and father. Everyone
wants
to love their parents. But from my mother I get nothing but castigation and criticism. Under her influence I am a nasty beast, and so is she. I feel no affection, only a searing sense of remorse that there is none. I have affection and respect for my father, but I cannot bear his unreasonableness and his rages.

If anyone had told me four years ago that this would be how my life was going to pan out, I would have said I couldn't take it. My life is a mess. I know now why people occasionally take too many sleeping tablets.

Tom
please
write to me something nice. Right now I desperately need the affection of someone. I am all alone here.

Tell me—do you expect to come back
soon
after Germany is attended to?

P

If she had to stay living here until Tom got back, she'd kill someone, maybe herself. Something had to change. She had to get out of here. She was going in the wrong direction, away from her life, away from the life she was meant to be leading. This morning she had practically flayed Ruby alive for leaving her hairbrush on the floor. Now she hated herself. She
knew
that all she needed was some time to herself, but would anyone help her? If she had some time every day to be truly alone, she might be able to stand it. But no. This morning her mother had refused again to mind Ruby while Pearl went downtown. Now she heard Ruby murmuring outside her bedroom door. Damn her, and damn her thumb-sucking too. Some days she thought about just walking out on Ruby. Just putting on her coat and walking out that front door and into her life, the life that had been misplaced. The life she was meant to be living. Which wasn't this one. Certainly not this one. She wished she'd never had her.

She heard a soft knock. She didn't move a muscle.

Ruby knocked again. “Mummy?”

“Go away,” said Pearl.

“Mummy? Gramma says—”

“Go away!”

Ruby started to cry. But at least she did what she was told, and the sound of her snivelling faded as she trotted down the hall.