Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

“Penny...”

“Make her stop, Mother.”

“Penny, if you’d just—”

“I’m leaving. I’m going to town. I can’t sit here and listen to her scream all day long.”

“Penny, I’ll pick her up,” Amanda said gently, and she rose from where she was sitting, and again Priscilla said sharply, “Stay where you are, Amanda!”

Amanda sat and looked up toward the second-story window. Penny rose swiftly and slapped her own thigh, a curious gesture that seemed to start as a simple flattening of her skirt, but which became exaggerated in the execution, ending as a vicious slap that sounded flat and hard on the summer air. In the church, Amanda’s father began playing the organ, and Amanda became aware of the clicking of her mother’s knitting needles, like a meticulous metronome beating out a steady rhythm for the organ notes that floated fat and round across the lawn and the high shrill cries of the baby upstairs.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” Penny said, and she bounded down the steps, and Amanda watched her walk purposefully across the lawn and into the garage. She heard the old Chevy starting and then saw Penny back the car out of the garage and down the driveway, her long blond hair streaming over her shoulders. The car pulled away from the house. The sound of its engine faded, leaving only the sounds of Kate, and the organ, and the knitting needles clicking. And then the baby fell silent, whimpering herself into stillness. The organ notes rolled from the church. The knitting needles continued their steady subdued clatter. Priscilla Soames rocked herself back and forth in the rocker, and Amanda sat on the porch steps, her hands clasped around one knee.

Priscilla did not look at the needles or the brown sweater she was knitting for the Red Cross. She looked out over the lawn instead, and at the blue jays that darted in the branches of the old maple. When Amanda recalled the scene later, she would remember that her mother’s face had remained expressionless throughout the entire discussion, and then she tried to remember when she had ever seen any expression on her mother’s face, and she could not remember a single time. The face was always placid, always in strong repose. She wondered once — many years later when she was already married — whether her mother’s face remained calm and expressionless even in orgasm, and then of course she wondered whether her mother had ever experienced orgasm, and then she realized this was all part of the unconscious resentment she had nurtured that day on the porch in Otter Falls, the knitting needles clicking, the organ notes trembling over the grass.

Her mother’s hair was blond, touched with strands of white. Her face was long and thin, her eyes blue. They followed the darting motion of the jays unflickeringly, emotionlessly.

“You’ll be going back to school soon, Amanda,” she said. Her voice was flat, as flat as the Midwest plains that had bred her.

“Yes,” Amanda answered. She heard her father’s fingers falter on a difficult passage, and she smiled and thought, No, Dad, that’s a B-flat, and she tilted her face to the sun, happy that Kate had stopped crying, wondering where Penny had gone and how soon she would return.

“This is your junior year, isn’t it, Amanda?”

“Yes,” Amanda said.

“What do you expect to do, daughter?”

“What?”

“What do you expect to do?”

“I don’t understand.”

“With your life.”

“Oh, I...” Amanda paused. She had never once thought of what she expected to do with her life. She had always considered it a foregone conclusion that she would write music. Somewhat inspired by Gillian’s enthusiasm, she rather imagined she would eventually end up writing musical comedy for Broadway. But she had never given it any definite thought, had never sat down to ask herself what she would do when she was graduated from Talmadge. In her mind’s eye, she imagined things would simply happen to her without any conscious direction or will. She would leave Talmadge eventually, and things would simply happen. She turned to look at her mother, but Priscilla’s eyes were still on the frolicking jays.

“I guess I’ll write music,” she said.

“I see,” Priscilla answered.

“I thought you knew that.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Well...” Again Amanda paused. “That’s what I’m studying, you know. Composition.”

“Oh, yes, I know that,” Priscilla said.

“Well...” Amanda frowned. “Well, that’s why I’m studying it. So I can write music.” She hesitated because she didn’t wish to seem solicitous, and yet she suddenly felt that perhaps she’d overestimated her mother’s intelligence. Perhaps her mother truly did not understand what she meant; perhaps it needed translation. “Composition is writing music, you know,” she said hesitantly.

“Yes, I know,” Priscilla said. She dropped a stitch, and her eyes moved momentarily from the jays as her hands recovered the stitch, and then shifted back to the maple again.

“Well,” Amanda said, and she shrugged, but the frown remained on her forehead. She listened to the annoying click of the knitting needles, and she suddenly wished that Gillian were there with her to explain to her mother, to tell her about seeing things and doing things, the way she had done that night several months ago. And yet she knew Gillian could not help her now, Gillian was out of her life, they had said their goodbyes at the end of June, she probably would never see Gillian again as long as she lived. She sat in silence and she thought, Well, what did you think I was going to do with my life? I’m going to write music, what did you think? Why do you suppose I’m going to school?

“What kind of music did you plan to write?” Priscilla asked, as if she had read her mind.

“You know.” Amanda shrugged.

“Serious music? Like Bach? Or Beethoven? Like that?”

“Well, nothing that ambitious, I guess,” Amanda said and she shrugged again.

“Then what sort, Amanda?”

“I thought... maybe musical comedy.”

“I see. For the stage, do you mean?”

“Yes. That’s right. For the stage.”

“I see.”

Again the knitting needles clicked, filling the silence of summer.

“Amanda,” her mother said simply, “what makes you think you have any talent?”

She wasn’t quite sure she had heard her mother correctly; it sounded as if her mother had said...

“What?” she asked.

“What makes you think you have any talent?” her mother repeated.

“I... I don’t know.” She paused. “I got into Talmadge, didn’t I? And I...”

“Yes, of course you did, darling. You play piano beautifully.”

“Well, then...”

“Do you have the talent, Amanda?”

“Mother, I don’t think I understand you,” Amanda said, hearing the infuriating words reverberating inside her head, and wondering why they infuriated her so, but sitting tightly controlled on the front porch as her mother’s chair rocked back and forth and the jays chattered in the maple and the knitting needles clacked like subdued machine-gun fire.

“You play piano beautifully,” Priscilla said, “and it’s wonderful for a young girl to get an education at a fine school like Talmadge, but if you don’t mind my saying so, Amanda, I’m being perfectly frank with you, dear, the way only a mother can be frank with her daughter, I really don’t think you’re a genius or anything, do you?”

“Well, no, I... I guess I don’t. But...”

“And it does seem a little presumptuous to me... not impossible, mind you, but a little presumptuous for a young girl to consider... I just wonder, Amanda, if you have the talent necessary for something like that, that’s all, dear. I simply wonder about it. And naturally, I’m concerned, because I wouldn’t want to see you wasting your life in pursuit of something elusive. Or, more than elusive, impossible. Though I’m not saying it is impossible. I’m just concerned, that’s all, Amanda. I was hoping you’d meet a nice boy and—”