he may be yours.’
(He’s not my cup of tea, either, papa. I guess I was just using him. But I’ve
promised him a return match… so I must.)
‘Father, suppose we hold off until next year?’
‘I think that is sound judgement, Maureen. In the meantime, don’t get pregnant and
try not to get caught. Oh, by the way – if you submit your name and a young man on
the list comes along, if you wish, you can try him out on the parlour sofa: He
smiled. `More convenient and safer than the judges’ stand.’
‘Mother would have heart failure!’
‘No, she would not. Because that is exactly the arrangement her mother provided for
her… and that is why Edward was officially a premature baby. Because it is stupid
to go the Howard route, then find out after you’re committed by marriage vows that
the mo of you are infertile with each other.’
I had no answer. Mother… my mother who thought ‘breast’ was a dirty word and that
‘belly’ was outright profanity… Mother with her bloomers off, bouncing her bawdy
buttocks on Grandma Pfeiffer’s sofa, making a baby, out of wedlock, while Grandma
and Grandpa pretended not to know what was going on. It was easier to believe in
virgin birth and transubstantiation and resurrection and Santa Claus and the Easter
Bunny. We are strangers, all of us, family most of all.
Shortly we pulled into the Jackson Igo place, eighty acres, mostly rocks and hills,
a shack and a sorry barn. Mr Igo cropped it a bit but it didn’t seem possible that
the place supported him and his thin, tired wife and his swarm of dirty children.
Mostly Jackson Igo cleaned cesspools and built privies.
Some of those children and half a dozen dogs gathered round our buggy; one boy ran
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shouting into the house. Presently Mr Igo came out.
Father called out, ‘Jackson!’
‘Yeah, Doc.’
‘Get these dogs away from my rig.’
‘They ain’t no harm.’
`Do it. I won’t have them jumping up on me.’
`Jest as you say, Doc. Cleveland! Jefferson! Get them hounds! Take ’em around back.’
The order was carried out; Father got down with a quiet word over his shoulder,
‘Stay in the buggy.’
Father was inside their shack only a short time, which suited me, as the oldest boy,
Caleb, my age or near it, was pestering me to get down and come see a new litter of
pigs. I knew him from school, where he had attended fifth grade for some years. He
was, in my opinion, a likely candidate for lynching if some father did not kill him
first. I had to tell him to get away from Daisy and quit bothering her; he was
causing her to toss her head and back away from him. I took the whip out of its
socket to point up my words.
I was glad to see Father reappear.
He climbed into the buggy without a word. I clucked to Daisy and we got out of
there. Father was frowning like a thunder cloud, so I kept quiet.
A quarter of a mile down the road he said, ‘Please pull over on to the grass,’ so I
did, and said to Daisy, ‘Whoa, girl,’ and waited.
‘Thank you, Maureen. Will you help me wash, please?’
‘Certainly, sir.’ This buggy, used for his country calls and specially built by the
carriage-wrights who built his racing sulkies, had a larger baggage space in the
back, with a rain cover. In it was carried a number of items that Father might need
on a call but which did not belong in his black bag. One was a coal-oil can with a
spout, filled with water, and a tin basin, and soap and towelling.
This time he wanted me to pour water over his hands. Then he soaped them; I rinsed
them by pouring. He shook them dry; then washed them all over again in the basin and
dried them after shaking, on clean towelling.
He sighed. ‘That’s better. I did not sit down in there, I did not touch anything I
could avoid touching. Maureen, remember that bathtub we used in Chicago?’