property.
There were two things she might do to kill time today: prepare a meal for her husband tomorrow or attend to the garden and all its ugly weeds. She thought for a moment, one hand clutched to her lower abdomen, and eventually decided to venture outside. Something about her husband’s behavior that morning—the way he’d appeared to blame her for complicating his life—had lodged in the back of her mind, ruling out a willingness to cook for him. This was probably just residue of the paranoiac state of mind trauma had induced, but she was nonetheless unable to overrule it. Better to get busy with some physical act, her counselor had once advised. In any case, there’d be plenty of time to prepare food during the following few days of solitude.
If she spent a few hours in the garden now, she might reward herself with an afternoon walk around Sandsend. The work ethic was strong in her, and despite a long-held wish to be free of employment, she’d always taken her responsibilities seriously. If guilt underpinned this feeling of being driven, she could at least dignify it with an honorable purpose. Such an attitude stood in stark contrast with her husband’s more cynical view on paid work, as a means to an end, a way of making as much money as possible, whatever the methods involved…But there she went feeling negative about Harry again; she had to remember that without him supporting their move here, she’d have been stuck back in West Yorkshire, with all its depressing social problems.
Meg gathered a hoe from the garden shed and then advanced upon the borders, like a heroine doing battle with mythic adversaries. She pictured in her mind hideous creatures, all writhing flesh and buzzing sounds…but in the event spotted only a centipede, crawling across the piebald lawn, its multiple legs pumping. She stooped to admire this insect, marveling at how intricately nature built things. Its segmented body was miraculous, all chinking joints and mobile limbs. Its head twitched with an intuitive sense of direction, mandibles or antennae or whatever else it boasted upfront bobbing with haste. She watched it scurry away, amid blades of grass, wondering what its purpose could be. To simply exist, maybe; to just go on and on…Indeed, what was the point of living otherwise?
At that moment, Meg heard more children coming down the nearby country lane, screaming and shouting. Lord, she could live without such racket each morning, despite realizing this was the route most youngsters used to get from a cluster of residential properties farther inland to the school at the foot of the cliff. She’d heard them many times since moving in a few months earlier, but had always managed to shut out their riotous noise. What had altered since? Maybe the fact that, after weeks of staying inside, she’d taken a few tentative steps back into the world…It might be that. Or the change might have more of a psychological basis. And did that mean she was healing? She didn’t know, and was afraid to think about it. She must simply get on with attending to her new garden.
Nevertheless, the longer she rooted out weeds and cultivated fresh blooms, the more this felt like being a parent, modifying nature with nurture. Meg had a first-class degree in history and was aware of rival debates about human action. She’d have loved to craft a person, but her stillborn child had put an end to that aspiration. She and Harry, both in their early forties, were getting too old to try again, and certainly not without risk. Her pregnancy, a mistake engendered by failing contraception, had been thrust upon her, and her husband had also been concerned about becoming a parent. Harry had been (still was, in fact) a diehard careerist, bent on domination in his field, and had assumed she’d held similar ambitions. But she’d been living in bad faith, and had told him so; the prospect of becoming a mother had changed everything, the synthesis of a new Gestalt.
There were two things she might do to kill time today: prepare a meal for her husband tomorrow or attend to the garden and all its ugly weeds. She thought for a moment, one hand clutched to her lower abdomen, and eventually decided to venture outside. Something about her husband’s behavior that morning—the way he’d appeared to blame her for complicating his life—had lodged in the back of her mind, ruling out a willingness to cook for him. This was probably just residue of the paranoiac state of mind trauma had induced, but she was nonetheless unable to overrule it. Better to get busy with some physical act, her counselor had once advised. In any case, there’d be plenty of time to prepare food during the following few days of solitude.
If she spent a few hours in the garden now, she might reward herself with an afternoon walk around Sandsend. The work ethic was strong in her, and despite a long-held wish to be free of employment, she’d always taken her responsibilities seriously. If guilt underpinned this feeling of being driven, she could at least dignify it with an honorable purpose. Such an attitude stood in stark contrast with her husband’s more cynical view on paid work, as a means to an end, a way of making as much money as possible, whatever the methods involved…But there she went feeling negative about Harry again; she had to remember that without him supporting their move here, she’d have been stuck back in West Yorkshire, with all its depressing social problems.
Meg gathered a hoe from the garden shed and then advanced upon the borders, like a heroine doing battle with mythic adversaries. She pictured in her mind hideous creatures, all writhing flesh and buzzing sounds…but in the event spotted only a centipede, crawling across the piebald lawn, its multiple legs pumping. She stooped to admire this insect, marveling at how intricately nature built things. Its segmented body was miraculous, all chinking joints and mobile limbs. Its head twitched with an intuitive sense of direction, mandibles or antennae or whatever else it boasted upfront bobbing with haste. She watched it scurry away, amid blades of grass, wondering what its purpose could be. To simply exist, maybe; to just go on and on…Indeed, what was the point of living otherwise?
At that moment, Meg heard more children coming down the nearby country lane, screaming and shouting. Lord, she could live without such racket each morning, despite realizing this was the route most youngsters used to get from a cluster of residential properties farther inland to the school at the foot of the cliff. She’d heard them many times since moving in a few months earlier, but had always managed to shut out their riotous noise. What had altered since? Maybe the fact that, after weeks of staying inside, she’d taken a few tentative steps back into the world…It might be that. Or the change might have more of a psychological basis. And did that mean she was healing? She didn’t know, and was afraid to think about it. She must simply get on with attending to her new garden.
Nevertheless, the longer she rooted out weeds and cultivated fresh blooms, the more this felt like being a parent, modifying nature with nurture. Meg had a first-class degree in history and was aware of rival debates about human action. She’d have loved to craft a person, but her stillborn child had put an end to that aspiration. She and Harry, both in their early forties, were getting too old to try again, and certainly not without risk. Her pregnancy, a mistake engendered by failing contraception, had been thrust upon her, and her husband had also been concerned about becoming a parent. Harry had been (still was, in fact) a diehard careerist, bent on domination in his field, and had assumed she’d held similar ambitions. But she’d been living in bad faith, and had told him so; the prospect of becoming a mother had changed everything, the synthesis of a new Gestalt.
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