Turn Us Again (30 page)

TWENTY-FOUR

T
he phone rang three days after Sam had left to go camping.

“Hello Madelyn? Steven Baker here. I was wondering if you could confirm the rumour that Sam has disappeared?”

“Disappeared? He's gone camping.”

“He didn't tell anybody, you know. People don't just take off like that — we thought he was going to teach summer courses.”

“I'm sorry. We're quite used to ‘taking off like that' during our holidays.” Madelyn was surprised at the irritation she felt.

“One usually informs one's place of work, and I'm sure I told Sam that we need him to teach summer school.”

“I'm afraid we thought a holiday was a time when we could do as we liked, without informing anybody. But if Sam didn't tell you, how do you know he's disappeared?”

“It's a small place. Everybody knows everything.”

‘More's the pity,' Madelyn thought.

“Anyway, there is a dearth of summer teachers, so if you know where Sam is, please let him know, will you?”

Madelyn was trembling with anger as she replaced the receiver. ‘Now I understand why Sam gets so tense after spending the day with these people,' she thought. ‘Their tones are critical whether you deserve it or not. They are … condescending.'

The next day she left Gabriel, who loathed long car drives, with a neighbour and drove out to the campsite to deliver Steve's message. She found Sam sitting motionless by a smouldering campfire. Behind him wilted a badly erected tent, sagging in the middle and weighted down at the edges with rocks. She smiled at this further proof of his general impracticality, but something in his expression wiped the smile from her face. Her heart started to beat louder.

“I haven't yet succeeded in relaxing and centering myself. Why have you come?”

“Steve Baker phoned and said they wanted you to teach summer school.”

“That doesn't start for another four weeks.”

“He didn't tell me when it started. He just said I should let you know.”

“Do you mean to say you wasted all that gas money in order to remind me of the onerous, unpleasant duties waiting for me when I get back? Do you think that will help me recoup my vigour and energies, or is this a deliberate sabotage?”

Madelyn spoke as if he were an unreasonable child. “I was not informed about your plans for the summer, so I did not know they included summer school. Steve Baker phoned me and told me I should let you know, so I kindly drove down here to tell you something I thought you were unaware of.”

“Thank you. Now very kindly drive back again and leave me alone.”

Madelyn turned on her heel to return to the car. She had expected at least a cup of tea — perhaps even lunch — and a little walk. The consistent pattern of Sam's unnecessary unpleasantness left her cold with anger. She wheeled back on him, “Why are you always so unpleasant and sarcastic? Do you think it's clever? I'm just the messenger in this case.”

“The messenger is often killed, didn't you know? I'm sick to death of them treating me like a child. I expected complete independence as a university teacher, and instead I have high-school students and second-rate colleagues who assume I'll kowtow to them. It abases me to bow to their authority.”

It was all so boring and repetitive. “Your job is better than most jobs. Just go back and teach if they want you to.”

“Another bloody person telling me what to do,” he shouted at her. “Why don't you visit every day and infuse me with positive feelings about what I should be doing and how I should be behaving.”

Madelyn's anger turned to sadness. She did not know how to communicate with this man. His reactions were loud, vulgar and violent. He had problems with authority and delusions about his own superiority. She was incapable of minimizing these qualities. Every time she opened her mouth the situation deteriorated.

I had a dream the other night. I don't remember how it started. Sam was determined to kill one of the boys next door, the one called Michael. He was sitting perfectly still in a chair, and Sam said he could kill him at one blow. He hit him on the head with a stick. The child looked at me and I said: “He is still alive.” Then I couldn't stand it any longer and ran out of the room. I can't remember what I was feeling. Sam hit Michael again and again and the boy never made a sound. I wanted to phone for the police. I also wanted desperately to contact a psychologist and have Sam ‘put away' before the police nabbed him. The usual agonized dream efforts to dial the right numbers. I got through but there was no reply. Then I noticed the father of the boy watching me. I began to weep; I wanted to weep to show them how upset I was. I said, “Your child has been hurt.”

Back at the house Sam had dressed himself in some odd clothes and began to creep away. I wanted him to escape!

I was no longer afraid of him.

When Sam returned from his camping trip his mood seemed calmer for a couple of weeks, until summer school started. He loathed summer school — it seemed to Madelyn he just loathed work in general — and began to drink in the evenings, coming back irritable and exhausted and locking his study door against the world. In the mornings he complained of pains in his stomach.

“It's because you drink too much. Drink and stress combined are causing you indigestion.”

“Stress is my lot for the rest of my life. I'll always have to work like a knock-knock for my living.”

“Spend the evenings relaxing instead of drinking, and you will cure the stress along with the stomach.”

Sam would nod, as though this was a good idea, but if she commented on his drinking in the evening he would explode in anger, accusing her of poisoning his few daily hours of rest with reproach and recriminations.

“It's nothing to do with reproach! I can see you are ruining your life, and I'm trying to help you. My father is an alcoholic, and you're well on the way to being one too.”

“I'm sure some covert tendency to ruin your own life made you marry me,” he sneered at her, shutting the study door in her face.

The study became a sacred place where she didn't dare intrude. When Sam began to grab his meal en route to his study as soon as he got home, it became difficult to communicate about daily matters. Like money.

Sam didn't like to talk about money, even though she knew he worried about it obsessively. His irrational fear that if he lost his job they would end up starving on the streets was alluded to several times a week. In order to save as much as possible, he became stingy. Usually, he gave Madelyn enough money to cover household expenses each week, but instead of giving it to her on the same day each week, he ‘forgot' and gave it to her a day or two later. Since Madelyn hated to ask him for money (his annoyance was palpable), an entire week's worth of money would be lost over the course of several months. Madelyn, who kept track of accounts better than he supposed, was aware of this. Since the amount of money for household expenses was never enough anyway, she found this tactic irritating. One evening she determined to attack the lion in its den.

The fear that accosted her as she approached the study door infuriated her. ‘How dare he make me so frightened of him!' She knocked peremptorily enough and spoke through the keyhole. “I need to go shopping, and I would like this week's expenses.”

“It's Friday, for Christ's sakes. You get the money tomorrow.”

“Actually, you owe me a week's worth of money. This isn't the money for next week, it's the money for last week.”

“I gave you money a couple of days ago.”

Madelyn felt ridiculous yelling through a door. “I know when you gave me money, I've got it all written down here if you'd care to open the door. I am short a week's worth.”

The door crashed open, and Sam snatched the little piece of paper from her hands and perused it. “What's this? I don't understand this.”

She went over to explain, as she knew she'd have to.

“Are you saying I
cheated
you out of a week's worth of groceries?”

The way he twisted things exhausted her. She couldn't figure out if his negative interpretations of any exchange were severe paranoia that needed treatment or attempts to evade reality. The same irritating tone entered her voice, as though speaking to a deaf child. “I don't think you are cheating me, but there is no food in the house and I need to go shopping. There will be no food again in a few days, and I would like next week's money in addition to what you are going to give me today.”

“I never get any peace in this house. It's like a fucking hotel,” he thundered.

Madelyn jumped and screamed at him in retreat, “I can't stand your shouting! I wasn't brought up to this.” She began to close the door behind her, but he yanked it open and threw some bills down on the floor. “When I come out of my study I want you to be in bed.”

Madelyn picked up the cash, smiling to herself because it was a little triumph and she had not expected it. She gave Gabriel a bath and read him some stories before kissing him good-night. Then she came downstairs and began to potter around the kitchen, tidying up and looking through their Jewish cookbook for a possible meal tomorrow. Perhaps she would make it a nice one to emphasize the advantages life could offer when there was enough money for good food.

She heard the study door opening and glanced at the clock in surprise. It was nine o'clock.

“I thought I'd told you to be in bed,” he said.

“You're a bully just like your mother.”

He ran across the kitchen and hit her twice in the face, sending her glasses skidding across the room. She rushed towards the phone to dial the police, and he wrested the phone from her grasp and yanked it out of the wall, stalking back to his study with the phone in his hand.

Madelyn went to bed.

“Your eye is black,” Gabriel informed her when she lifted him out of bed the next morning. She brought him back to the warmth of her own bed. Sam's side was empty.

“Yes, I fell down last night,” she explained. Later, she called up Ruth and asked if she could come and have a chat. She had never talked about her problems with anybody, but she wanted to know if an objective person would think this was as serious as it seemed to be, and Ruth was the only person in Canada whose advice she trusted. Ruth also had several children of her own and an entire playground in her backyard, complete with swings and slide. Gabriel wouldn't bother her for hours.

On the way they met several university people whom Madelyn knew.

“How did you get that shiner?” they asked jovially. It looked like they were almost shaking their heads in admiration at its size and hue. Madelyn was astounded. Surely when a woman sported a black eye, it was obvious where it came from?

“I fell down,” she said.

“Ouch,” they replied, wincing.

She smiled and passed on, wanting to scream at them, ‘I didn't fall down you idiot. Have you ever given yourself a black eye from falling? It's physically impossible.'

She tried her pathetic little excuse on Ruth, who reacted in just as clueless a fashion, bustling about getting tea and cookies, not looking at her eye. The reason for her disinterest soon became apparent, as she sat down clutching her tea in one hand and both a cookie and a cigarette in the other.

“I think Mark is cheating on me.”

Madelyn's heart sank.

“I've suspected for a while, but today I had a sudden urge to tell somebody, because of what happened last night. I found a little love note, stuck in the pocket of his suit. Carelessness denotes indifference, and I can't bear that.”

“That's terrible. I'm so sorry.”

“Do you know how lucky you are to have Sam? Everybody thinks you're such a wonderful couple — an example for marriages everywhere.”

A ridiculous sense of pleasure enveloped Madelyn. “Why would they think that? I mean, what looks so good to them?”

“I think it's the way you interact. You just kind of complement each other. He is an exceptional young guy, though obviously a bit of a handful. You handle him so well. He depends on you so much and adores you.”

“You get the impression he depends on me and adores me?”

“Honey, I know he does. He looks to you for guidance all the time, he watches you with love.” Ruth leaned closer, and tapped Madelyn on the arm. “Come on, a woman knows. Do you think Sam would ever look at another woman?”

Madelyn shook her head. She didn't even have to think about it, it was so obvious that Sam would never cheat on her.

“You're such a striking couple. Physically, I mean. He's tall and brilliant and you're so beautiful.”

Somehow, despite the outrageous evidence of her black eye, Ruth's words felt true. There was something special about their relationship, a realness that didn't exist in the fake, superficial relationships around them. Communication was so difficult, it was true, but at least their efforts to communicate were real, steeped in emotion which was anything but indifferent. Facing Ruth and her marriage to the depraved Mark, who was no more capable of loving somebody than an animal, she was suddenly seized with a conviction that her marriage was genuine, with all its problems.