The War Between the Tates: A Novel (11 page)

“I don’t want strangers taking care of The Children,” Brian announced, his tone capitalizing the noun like a honorific or divine title—which it was. Though they considered themselves agnostics, during the course of their marriage the Tates had worshiped several gods, of whom the most prominent were The Children. Like most divinities, they were served only intermittently. At certain moments, to express disrespect for The Children would have been blasphemy. At other times they were treated as ordinary beings called Muffy and Jeffo—and sometimes even (under the names Mouse and Pooch) as household pets.

Mouse, Pooch, Muffy and Jeffo had long ago left the house on Jones Creek Road, to be replaced by two disagreeable adolescents; but The Children remained. Public observance of the faith continued, though they were worshiped less frequently and more formally—mainly at religious holidays such as birthdays and Christmas, and during visits to and from relatives. That Brian should call upon them now seemed to Erica unfair. Still, if he could summon the old gods, so could she.

“Darling, strangers take care of The Children all day,” she said in a clear soft reasonable .voice. “Their teachers at school are strangers, as far as you’re concerned,” she added, alluding to the fact that Brian had declined to go to any PTA evenings for the past year.

“If one of their teachers wants to resign and come to work for us, that’ll be fine,” Brian said. “But you know the kind of person you’d be able to get.”

“No.”

“Some woman who can’t find any other sort of a job. Illiterate, undependable—very possibly sick in some way.”

“Oh, I don’t think—There must be women who—” Erica gasped, stopped, rallied her forces. “If we were worried about that, she could have a checkup. Of course we don’t want Jeffrey or Matilda catching anything. She could go to Dr. Bunch.”

“I didn’t mean physically sick; though that’s possible too I suppose. I meant in the head. The sort of person you’re likely to find is going to, at the best, neglect The Children.” Brian’s voice was beginning to get tight, as if a heavy rubber band of the sort which propels toy fighter planes were being wound up in his throat. Erica knew that if the topic of conversation didn’t change soon, he would take off. But she could not bring herself to change it.

“I don’t see why—”

“I’ve explained to you why.” Another twist of the rubber band. “I don’t want you to take on an exhausting job, and I don’t want you to hire anybody. I wouldn’t be comfortable if I knew, we were both away from home, and there was someone here who might hurt Matilda or Jeffrey, or burn down the house.” Brian’s voice was dangerously tight now, knotted.

“No, of course not. Neither would I.” Erica beat off the implications of her husband’s remark. “I think you’re being a little ridiculous,” she added, laughing. “I imagine I could manage not to hire a psychotic housekeeper.

“I’d rather be ridiculous than have to worry about The Children,” Brian hissed. The plane had taken off; he was, in effect, whirring about the room now, his face pale and hard, his eyes glaring.

Erica cowered and flung up her arms. “Of course, if you feel that strongly about it,” she bleated.

“I feel extremely strongly about it.” The plane buzzed overhead, once more, then cut its engines and returned to base. “You know that.” Brian grinned at Erica—the conspiratorial, condescending grin of a moral victor.

“Yes.” She smiled weakly and falsely back.

All the rest of that evening, and ever since, Erica has felt guilty. She has been exposed as selfish, greedy and thoughtless of her family’s welfare: the sort of woman one cannot trust to do the right thing. Even though she has not taken a job, or hired a psychotic housekeeper, she has wanted to do so. Therefore she is, and will continue to be, in the wrong. Whatever she says or does, Brian’s attitude implies, she will remain there.

Light steps on the front porch; a harmonic screech as the screen door is pulled back.

“Celia?”

“Hi.” A wispily pretty little girl, with Danielle’s brown complexion and Leonard’s dark, sad, acute gaze, comes into the room. “Where’s Mommy?”

“She and Rod had to take Pogo to the doctor. They’ll be back soon.”

“Is Pogo sick?” Celia asks, curiously rather than anxiously.

“No, she was in a fight with another dog.”

“Oh. Can I have a chocolate milkshake?”

“I guess so.” Erica gets up, follows Celia into the kitchen, and opens the refrigerator.

“You don’t have to help me. I can do it myself,” Celia says coolly, moving the milk and ice cream away from Erica along the counter.

“All right.”

Erica had held Celia, then called Silly, on her lap when she had the mumps, feeding her orange sherbet by teaspoonfuls; she had taken her to her first county fair, her first puppet show. She had kissed and bandaged her cuts, scolded her for calling Roo a “fat hippotamiss,” read aloud to her, bathed her, and shampooed her stubborn, wiry hair, so unlike Muffy’s and Jeffo’s. But since Leonard left, Celia has declined to be held by anyone; she reads to herself and bathes herself.

While Erica looks on, Celia measures milk, ice cream and cocoa mix carefully into the blender. She stands on tiptoe to do this, on thin legs like Leonard’s, and lifts the heavy milk carton with thin brown arms. Celia lacks the animal solidity and strength of her mother and sister; Erica has worried sometimes that they would wear her out without noticing. In previous years she had been glad that Leonard, whose energy was also mostly nervous, was around to prevent this.

“Celia turns on the blender, counts aloud precisely to ten and turns it off as the contents foam up to the brim.

“You can have some too, if you want,” she remarks.

“Oh, no thank you.” Erica meets Celia’s gaze; it has a wide, strained quality. “Well all right—if you have enough.”

“I made extra.” With some difficulty, Celia pours the milkshake into two glasses,” and then back and forth between them until the level is exactly even. She sets the glasses on the kitchen table and climbs onto a stool opposite Erica.

“Is it good?” she asked presently.

“Very good,” Erica replies. Across the table, they look at each other awkwardly, like polite estranged lovers meeting after a long separation.

“Is Muffy coming over?”

“Not today,” Erica apologizes. In the years when Muffy and Roo were best friends they had made rather a pet of Celia. She always had the baby’s part when they played house, the favorite serving-maid’s part when they played kings and queens. But Matilda no longer “plays” with anyone, and Roo has other pets. “She’s at home listening to her records,” Erica adds. “That’s about all she does lately.” She laughs to suggest that they both understand how ridiculous this is.

Celia sucks out the last of her milkshake with a small noise and sets the glass down. “Lennie likes records,” she says in a high, childish version of Leonard’s voice. “When he comes home he always plays them.”

“I know.” During the final and most disagreeable months of the Zimmerns’ marriage, Leonard had taken to putting on one of his records at top volume almost as soon as he entered the house, drowning out whatever Danielle and the children might want to say to him. It was among those of his actions which Erica privately most disliked. Another was his recent request that Celia and Roo should call him “Lennie” instead of “Dad.”

Celia tilts her head and rests her cheek on her fist—one of Danielle’s gestures. “Lennie was here,” she remarks.

“I heard that,” Erica says, consciously refraining from adding that it was nice.

“He brought me a model of the Transparent Man, but I couldn’t put it together. It was too hard.”

“That’s a shame.” This time Erica speaks with feeling, recalling accusations Danielle has made against her former husband: that his mind is cold, analytic and destructively critical; that he is only interested in finding out how people work, not in knowing or loving them—that he wants to see everyone, in fact, as a Transparent Man. Also, that he was disappointed Silly hadn’t been a boy, and is trying to turn her into one; that he wants her to become as cold; analytic and critical as himself. “What happened to it?”

“Lennie came over, and he put it together.”

“That’s nice,” Erica lies. She looks at Celia—at her wide full mouth, so like Danielle’s, but contradicted by Leonard’s suspicious, heavy-lashed eyes—and thinks how unfair it is that people who have grown to thoroughly dislike each other, and have separated by mutual consent, nevertheless remain united in their innocent children, in whom the warring elements are fused forever.

“Do you want to see it?” Celia slides off the stool and moves nearer. “It’s up in my room.”

“No thank you. I don’t like models of the insides of things much.” I don’t like Leonard much, Erica hears herself say. (Delia hears it too, very likely; she takes a step away. I used to like him, Erica thinks as they look at each other. You remember that, and you want me to like him now because nobody else in this house does; but I can’t. I can’t like what he has done to you, and to Roo and Danielle. I can’t forget that he has deserted you.

Yes, Erica thinks; but that’s not all. Since Leonard left, Celia has also been deserted by Danielle, who now works full time. She has been deserted by Roo and Matilda, who no longer play with her or each other. And because they don’t play together, Danielle and I meet when they are in school. Therefore I, who once saw Silly nearly every day, have in effect also deserted her.

It hadn’t been conscious, deliberate—but meeting Silly’s eyes now, Erica feels terrible and guilty. She wants to apologize for the past year; to hug her, to cry even. But she is afraid to touch Celia; afraid to embarrass them both. Besides, what apology can she reasonably make?

“There’s Mommy and Roo.” Celia turns her head, then runs out of the room. Erica, more slowly, follows.

“Hello! How’s Pogo?” she asks the sturdy girl in torn jeans and an old T-shirt who has just come into the house. She is carrying in her arms a large brown and white dog of indeterminate breed somewhere between spaniel and beagle, with drooping ears and one leg heavily bandaged.

“She’s going to be all right.” Roo bends over the sofa and tenderly lowers Pogo onto it, adjusting pillows around her. “She was very, very brave.”

“Whew.” Danielle lets the screen bang shut behind her. “What an afternoon! Hi, Erica. It was great of you to come over ...Hello, ducky. How was the cartoon show? ...That’s good ... Roo, I don’t want Pogo on the sofa ...Come on, now; you know the rule.”

“But she’s wounded. This is an emergency.” Roo shifts from beside Pogo to a defensive position between the dog and her mother, spreading her arms protectively.

“The emergency is over.” Danielle moves toward the sofa.

“Pogo has a sprained leg and eight stitches, and you don’t even care,” Roo says, pushing her heavy red-brown braid back over her shoulder, and setting her jaw. “You hate Pogo. I bet even if she was dead you wouldn’t let her lie on your stupid sofa.”

“I wouldn’t let any dead dog lie on my sofa,” Danielle replies. “Come on, Roo. Why don’t you take Pogo up to your room? She probably wants to sleep now, after all that. She looks kind of groggy to me, and we’ll just keep her awake ...That’s right ...God. What I need now is some sherry. Erica?”

“We were lucky,” Danielle says presently, as she sits where Pogo has just lain, holding a glass of her favorite golden California sherry—which Leonard, a wine snob, had always refused to have in the house. “I was scared to drive Pogo out to the kennel, she was bleeding so much, so we rushed her up to the vet school. You can’t imagine what a mess she was. Not only the blood, but she was so dirty; and panting and whining, obviously in bad pain. As soon as they saw her they sent us into an examining room, and this really nice vet came in, a big bald red-faced man. Roo was howling too, she thought Pogo was going to bleed to death and she didn’t want to leave, so he let us both stay and help ...He joked with us, kidding Roo, and telling me about how he’d just fixed up a prize Pekinese who’d got into bad company. Her owner was frantic that she’d have unpedigreed pups. Apparently abortions are already legal for dogs, did you know that?”

“They get better medical care now than people do, Brian says.”

“Could be. That vet reminded me of what doctors were like when I was a kid; he had that same great calm, slow, patient manner. Now of course they’re all computers, ticking out a diagnosis as fast as possible and on to the next case.”

“Like Dr. Bunch.”

“Exactly like Bunch. But this guy, the minute he took hold of Pogo she stopped whining; she knew it was going to be all right. ‘You poor bitch,’ he said to her. ‘You got the worst of it in that fight, eh?’ He went on talking to her all the time he was cleaning her cuts and stitching them up, explaining what he was doing and what a brave girl she was. I thought, it’s really funny—he’s treating Pogo like a person, and when I go to Bunch he treats me like an animal.”

“Dr. Bunch never tells anyone anything. He doesn’t talk to you at all if he can help it.”

“That’s right. But what’s worse is that he never listens to you. I don’t know why everybody goes to him. I only wish we had a GP in town like that vet, whatever his name was.”

“Dr. Bernard M. Kotelchuk,” says Roo, who has just come downstairs.

Erica laughs. “Really?”

“That’s his name. I saw it on a sign in the office. He’s going to come next week and see my turtles.” Roo falls solidly into a chair.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” her mother suggests.

“Why not? I asked him, and he said he’d like to come. He’s very interested in turtles.” She sits forward belligerently. “Don’t you think Dr. Kotelchuk is a person of integrity?”

“I’m sure he’s a person of integrity. But he might be too busy to come.” Danielle sets down her glass and looks at her daughter. “Rod, your shirt! You look as if you’d been in a fight yourself. You’d better go and take everything off. Put the jeans and shirt in cold water in the bathroom sink, to soak out those bloodstains. How is Pogo?”

“She’s asleep on my bed.” Roo stands up.

“And you might as well take a bath too.”

“I don’t need one. I had a shower last night, and a bath the night before, and the night before that.”