Anger (21 page)

But this playing around, cat and mouse, did not appeal to Anna. “Your mother hopes to hear I am pregnant, Ned.”

“You see, she knows.” Pauline dove into her lemon meringue pie with enthusiasm. “Well?”

“Beulah is a genius,” Ned said, after a mouthful.

Anna waited for help, but when none was forthcoming and Ned did not glance her way, she decided to speak out for once, for once come out as her real self. “I'm afraid you will be disappointed, Mrs. Fraser. Perhaps you should know that we do not intend to have children. I am thirty-six.”

“That's not too late these days.”

“Let it be, Mama,” Ned was clearly upset, upset and angry.

“Well, it doesn't seem strange to hope—I don't have a grandson.”

“Oh, you are interested for purely selfish reasons.”

“Selfish? You seem to me rather selfish. You are well off and brilliant, I am told. Anna is talented. It seems to me that you have an obligation
not
to decide against life.”

“You sound like the Moral Majority, Mama.” Ned was ice cold, Pauline was flushed. Anna, between them felt excruciatingly uncomfortable.

“Not at all. I am all for abortions for the poor, for some poor girl who gets pregnant by mistake and has no means to support a child. The rich, on the other hand, have a certain responsibility, it seems to me. But I know I am old-fashioned,” she added in a gentler tone. “A dodo who still believes in family life.”

Anna was so afraid that Ned would attack his mother, who had not created anything like what is normally thought of as “family life” for Paul and him, that she plunged in recklessly, cutting him off as he said “Mama!” in a furious tone.

“It's my fault, Mrs. Fraser. I do not believe that I can serve my gift as it must be served and bring up a child.” It sounded so pompous that Anna cringed as she heard herself saying it. How could one say such a thing? How could it ring true? And to be compelled to make such a statement offended her deeply. Once again she was being forced out of what such people considered normal into some wild fantasy that seemed to them outlandish if not actually criminal.

“Well, in that case …”

“Mama,” Ned realized that Anna was in a difficult position. “Mama,” he said again to get her attention. “When I was a bachelor I was constantly under attack … you needled me, didn't you? You said almost the same things then, that with all my advantages, etc. I had an obligation to marry. Isn't it time that we all accepted that there is not only one way to the good life and that family life is not the be-all and end-all of human endeavor?” And astonishing himself, he reached across the table to clasp Anna's ice-cold hand for a moment.

“Most people would agree with your mother,” she said.

“It doesn't seem strange,” Mrs. Fraser said, “to wish to see the world populated with intelligent people! There are enough underprivileged arriving every day to add to our taxes and live lives of penury.” She said it with such complacency that it was followed by silence.

“Well, let's have our coffee on the porch,” she signalled Maria and they got up, but even settled in the sunny informal room, the mood was now not to be broken.

“You are evading the issue, Mama, with all that talk of populating the world with an elite, a frightfully snobbish point of view. I won't argue. That is not the issue.”

“But if the issue is not that, what is it?” Pauline Fraser asked with extreme politeness. It seemed to her quite unforgivable to have been attacked in this way.

“The issue,” Anna said coldly, “is art, Mrs. Fraser. Maybe it's easier for men … most male singers are married and their wives bring up families, but for a woman it's much harder. Can't you see? I am on the road much of the time, and when I am not, I work hard rehearsing.”

“But surely you are depriving yourself … and Ned.” Mrs. Fraser would not have admitted it, but she was enjoying what she thought of as a battle of wits. Two against one at that, but she was holding her own.

“Maybe I am. But Ned knew who I was when he married me.”

“I fell in love with a singer, Mama, not with a cow!” At this he laughed and exchanged a glance with Anna, but she could not respond to his laughter. She felt too vulnerable, too exposed.

“It's all beyond me, I'm afraid …” Pauline Fraser felt tired. After all, how could she win? “I always thought artists were first of all great human beings,” she murmured.

“And it is necessary for a woman to bear children to be a great human being?” Ned was relentless.

“It seems unnatural not to …”

“The fact is,” Anna's voice rose, “that one pays a high price for even a small talent—and that is what no one understands. Oh, if I could only make it clear …” Anna was close to tears now. After all, perhaps she
was
depriving Ned. “We do what we can Mrs. Fraser. I don't know whether I shall ever really make it to the top … But that's the risk, and if I say so myself, it is not ignoble to be willing to risk so much!” she said passionately, too passionately.

“You are a very powerful woman, Anna! You are so sure of yourself, of a destiny I suppose. It is hard for an ordinary old woman to understand you.” The false tone jarred.

“Sure of myself?” Anna was shaking now, with anger or pain it was hard to tell. “Don't you know I am a mass of self-doubt? That I have to face it and get over it every day?”

“Please don't shout. I'm not deaf.” Maria was standing in the doorway with the coffee tray and hesitated to come in. “Come in, Maria. Cream? Sugar?” Pauline asked Anna.

“Black, please.” The coffee was poured and passed by Maria and while she was in the room, the amenities were preserved. When she had left, Anna said coldly, “I'm sorry to be such a disappointment.” Why had she even tried to explain? Why had she let herself get angry?

Ned had refused coffee and taken refuge in the kitchen where he was congratulating Beulah on her dinner. Sitting at the kitchen table with Pedro and about to eat, she was not responsive. “I do the best I can, Master Ned, but my legs ache after standing at the stove so long. I can't go on forever.”

“No, I expect not. How long have you been with us?”

“Forty years. Believe it or not.” Then she smiled a slow smile. “I can remember you when you were in diapers.”

“Imagine that,” said Pedro, giving Ned a wink. “Come on, Maria, your chops are getting cold!”

“I must go back to the gloom and doom,” Ned said.

“She gets worse … but you should come more often, Master Ned. Perks her up. I could hear you arguing at the table. That's all right. She needs someone to tell her off once in a while.” Beulah frowned, “It's loneliness …”

“Yes. Well, we're all lonely when it comes to that!”

“It's a long haul, that's all.” And Beulah, anxious to eat in peace, dismissed him with that.

“Where have you been, Ned?” Mrs. Fraser asked plaintively. “Your coffee's getting cold.”

“Just talking to Beulah for a minute.”

“I hope she's over her cross mood. She's quite impossible these days.”

“Her legs ache, Mama.”

“They always have,” said Pauline Fraser.

Ned chuckled. “You two … it's like a crotchety marriage. I wonder why it's lasted forty years.”

“She's loyal, and so am I,” Pauline said, with a lift of her chin. “Besides, I couldn't do without her.”

“Well, if you've finished your coffee, Anna, we'd better get going. I'll see if I can find Fonzi …” and he walked down to the garden, whistling. Fonzi was fast asleep under a rose bush, but leapt up, delighted to be noticed at last.

Anna and Pauline Fraser stood in the doorway watching them play together, Fonzi chasing a stick, Ned throwing it again and again.

“He's just like his father. All that feeling about a dog!”

But Anna was not going to give at this point.

“Goodbye, Anna. I hope you have success in Dallas.”

At last, Anna felt as she ran down to join Ned and Fonzi, we are out of the cage.

They walked down the path, pausing at the gate to wave. Mrs. Fraser was still standing in the doorway and waved back without smiling. They have each other, she thought, and I have no one. But I'll never understand why Ned married her. She's so intense! So self-absorbed!

“Why do I do it, Ned?” Anna asked when they had got back and were packing up to go back to the city. They were standing in the kitchen, Anna unrolling plastic to wrap the remains of the roast in, Ned emptying the frigidaire of milk and orange juice.

“What do you do? Mother is simply an impossible woman!”

“No … why do I shout and scream, why do I have to be so on the defensive?”

“Well, thank God you didn't scream!” Ned teased.

“I'm so uncomfortable on a social occasion.… It's ridiculous, isn't it?”

For some reason, perhaps that he resented his mother so much, Anna was not on the defensive now with Ned. She felt that for once he was on her side. How strange, how out of the ordinary that was!

“Well, in this case we were both attacked. I was just as angry as you were.”

“Were you? Were you really?”

“It's none of her damned business whether we have children or not!”

“No …” Anna set the roast in the basket, took a couple of closed containers from Ned and set them in it. Then she burst into tears. Standing there at the counter, she began to weep uncontrollably.

“What's all this about?” Ned said, handing her a Kleenex. But she was unable to speak. Her tears had now turned to painful sobs. “I feel like a m-m-monster,” she sobbed. “It's true what your mother said … I'm selfish and …”

“Should be shot at dawn,” Ned used her own phrase to make her see how silly she was being. “Anna, you simply must not let mother do this to you!”

Anna blew her nose. “It's not your mother … I mean, maybe she is right … oh, Ned!” She turned to him and saw him through a blur of tears, and for a second leaned against him, her head on his shoulder. But Ned did not, could not hold her in his arms. Anna's tears froze him. “It's so lonely,” she said, “I feel like an orphan.”

“You're not an orphan, so why make up this fantasy that you are one? I simply cannot understand you, Anna.” He took the basket and went out to the garage with it. What a mess of a day it had turned into! It was always a mistake to go to his mother's and today had turned into a disaster. What did Anna mean about an “orphan”? Or was she in her crazy way feeling that a woman with no child was an orphan? A ludicrous concept at best. Women were such biological constructs … everything appeared to come from and go back to the womb. But he had imagined that Anna was powerful enough not to allow herself this sort of indulgence. She did not want a child. Why not have the guts to stand by that fact without an orgy of self-pity?

When he went back into the house Anna was upstairs closing the suitcases, as she called down to tell him. So he went up, and without a word took the cases out. Anna, he noted with relief, had stopped crying.

In the last few minutes she had reached a cold clarity at the center of confusion: I simply have to work now and forget everything else. Even Ned.

And in the car with Fonzi asleep between them she touched Ned's arm gently and said, “It was nice when you played for me last night, and I sang … darling, thank you.”

“It was very enjoyable,” Ned answered. “We should do it more often. I'm going to have the piano tuned while you're away.”

“Greater love hath no man,” she teased, and as spontaneously as she had wept a half an hour ago, she laughed her loud delightful laugh.

How could one believe she was not acting all the time if she could seem to be in despair one moment and the next burst into such carefree laughter?

“I can't see that I made a joke,” Ned said stiffly. “But I'm always happy to amuse you.”

“
You
are the joke,” Anna said, still smiling. “You are such an absurd man.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “But you are quite right. The piano does need tuning.”

Chapter XIII

Anna's moment of rage and acute grief on the weekend had released pent up powers. Even Protopova was for once pleased with her work on the
Kindertoten lieder
. The Fauré songs she had sung many times and they hardly needed work. And at Anna's suggestion they spent two mornings trying out some works she might consider for future concerts: three Beethoven songs, a setting by Duparc of Baudelaire, and finally Glück's
Orpheus
.

There were fittings for a new dress. The question of dress for the morning musicales did present a problem. Anna felt more at ease in a long dress, but this time she had found a cocktail dress, panné velvet of a rather subtle shade of lavenderish blue that she could feel at ease wearing at eleven in the morning … if only Dallas was not in the middle of a heat wave!

It was one of those weeks when Ned had several business or professional dinners, as well as a game of tennis with Johnny, so Anna invited Teresa over one evening for a homey meal at the apartment, fettucini and a salad. Getting it ready was rather fun. Fonzi, who had a neurotic fear of the slippery kitchen floor, lay at the doorsill with his nose just over the edge, hoping for a taste of something before she was through. And Anna talked to him while she worked.

“Aren't you glad we don't have to go to a boring dinner and talk about money, Fonzi? Poor Ned! But why do I say that, Fonzi? You and I know that he loves it. It's his life, after all. It's what he knows everything about and people come from all over the world just to find out what Ned thinks is going to happen. Will we have a recession? What is to be done about bonds? Imagine knowing the answers to all that, Fonzi!”

Fonzi looked rather anxious, not about the market, but as to whether the piece of cheese he knew was still on the counter would vanish before he had a taste.