Бетти Смит - Maggie-Now

Claude go, up at six and had supper with Maggie-Now and Denny. Pat got home for his supper just as they had finished theirs. (This gave him the idea that he was served leftovers.) MaggieNow left for work at seven and Claude didn't have to leave until nine. He spent the two hours talking with Pat; that is, listening [29~]

to Pat talk, and helping Denny with his homework.

Weekends were different on account of Pat or Denny being home, and Maggie-Now couldn't go to bed with her husband. Pat complained bitterly that all ought to eat one meal together at least once a week. Since the Sunday-noon dinner was the only time in the week when this could happen, contrary Pat chose to eat that meal at Mrs. O'Crawley's house.

There was no religious friction. Claude stayed up Sundays to go to eight o'clock Mass with Maggie-Now. He got up an hour earlier Saturday evenings to escort Maggie-Now to church for her weekly confession. He waited outside for her or else sat quietly in a back pew.

When Maggie-Now apologised for having fish each Friday instead of meat, he said he liked fish and that they ought to have it twice a week. Denny was to make his First Communion that spring and Claude helped him memorize his Catechism. Lottie's old mother died in February and Claude gave up an afternoon of sleep to go to the funeral with his wife. He told her how much he had been moved by the great and somber beauty of the Requiem Mass.

"I'm waiting the day," confided Pat to Mick Mack over a beer, "when he'll show up in his real colors. He's too good to be true, the bastid."

"Yeah, like me own son-in-laws," agreed the little man.

"Bastids Old sonsabitches, all of them!" (He didn't really believe that. He just wanted to be in sympathy with Pat.)

"That I can believe," said Pat coldly, "seeing the father-in-law what they got."

It was inevitable that changes came about. For one thing, Claude stopped going to Mass. "I'll wait until I'm accepted in the church as a convert," he told Maggie-Now.

"It's not right to go merely as an outsider; a spectator."

He asked her jokingly why she went to confession every week; how in the world could she accumulate so many sins in a week? She said she went weekly because she was used to it, she guessed. He smiled and said that was hardly an intelligent reason, was it? After that, she didn't wake him up to escort her to the church. She went to confession alone.

He no longer sat with Pat and Denny when she left for her [29~]

work. He went with her and either stood in the booth and talked to her or else went directly to the hotel where he worked. "I can sit in the lobby and read," he explained, "until it's time to go on duty."

She surmised that Claude no longer spent the evenings with Pat because her father asked too many questions. She recalled a shred of conversation between them she'd overheard.

"How'd t77OU come to get such a name like Claude?"

asked Pat.

When Claude answered, Maggie-Now noted he spoke in that academic way which meant he was coldly angry. He said: "Shall we say I had a romantic mother?" (Too romantic, he thought bitterly.) "And she got the name out of a Victorian novel?"

"I bet you know how tT7OU got your last name, though," persisted Pat. "I guess your father's name was Bassett."

"Your enunciation, old sir," said Claude icily, "is a little less than perfect. For your information there is no 't' or

'd' sound in the middle of the name Bassert."

"Yeah? And for your information," countered Pat, "there ain't all the time a 'old' in front of that word 'sir' neither.

Especially when a man is still in his forties."

It was a morning in late March. They were in bed together with the shades pulled down to shut out the daylight. He was holding her and caressing her and talking about nothing in the broken-sentence, murmuring way of one who is content. Gently, she put his hand away from her.

"Why?" he asked.

"I can't," she said. "It's My Time."

"What time?"

"You know."

Sure, he knew. But he liked to tease her. He knew she had a queer distaste for the medical words of the woman cycle, such as "menstruate,'' "pregnancy" and "menopause."

She substituted euphemisms for these terms: "My Time," "With Child," and "The Change." He liked to try to get her to say the medical words by pretending he didn't understand her words.

"I'm so disappointed," she said.

"You're disappointed! What about me?" he asked in pretended anger.

1 '93] Suddenly, she was weeping. Why can't I ever ren~e~nber, he thought, that she takes everything so literally?

"I didn't mean it, darling. I'm not mad. Of course, I

know you can't. It's all right. It's only for a few days. I

can wait." Then, hoping to change her tears to laughter, he said sternly: "Only the next time see that it happens on a weekend when I can't have you anyhow."

"It's not that," she sobbed.

He put his arms about her and said, "Then tell me what it is' love."

"It's. . it's. ." she sobbed, "that I'm not going to have a baby. This is the second time since we married that I'm not going to have a baby." He gave a spurt of laughter.

"Don't laugh," she said piteously.

"But you're so funny, my little Chinee. Most women cry their eyes out when they miss a period. You cry when you don't."

"Because I want a baby. Because I need a baby so bad."

She continued to weep as though she never would ~top.

He petted her as he would a child. "There, Margaret!

There, Maggie-Now, dear; my own dear, good girl. Don't cry. A baby takes time. I mean when a girl has been a good girl before her marriage, she doesn't get pregnant right away. Now: When you're all over this period, we'll try again. And this time, I'll put my mind on it."

This made her giggle through her sobs and soon she had stopped crying. After a while he said: "Since you can't sleep with me, would you brush-talk me to sleep, dear one?"

Often Men he couldn't sleep, he liked her to brush her hair and talk to him about her childhood. So now she took her hair down, got her brush and sat on the bed facing him. She started brushing her hair.

"All right. Now! What do you want me to talk about?"

she asked in her practical w ay. He howled with laughter.

"What did I say that struck you so funny?" she asked indignantly.

"Nothing. Only you're such a practical darling; such a dear little thing with your no sense of humor; your dear no sense of humor."

"Anyhow, what do you want to talk about?"

"Tell me about the mln and the hair and the bird's nest."

"Well. ." She started to brush her hair with slow, rhythmic [294 1

strokes. "When I was a little girl, Sister Veronica said:

'When you cut your hair, put the cuttings in the yard so the birds can use them in building their nests.' So I had bangs and Mama used to cut them every time she washed my hair. So I told Mama to wash my hair first before she cut my bangs. You see, I wanted the birds to have clean hair for their nests…."

Watching the up-and-down motion of the brush, listening to the rise and fall of her voice acted like a hypnotic. Soon his eyes were closed and he slept peacefully. She looked down on his face with love. With her forefinger poised an inch above his face, she traced the outlines. In this way, she conjured up the way he must have looked as a little boy.

He is so cold to the outside world, she thought. And so di jerent when he's alone with me. Oh, if only everyone knew him the way I know him. .