unpremeditated remark I covered Catherine’s hand with mine and squeezed it, wondered how long we could fend off the inevitable nemesis.
“What a beautiful thing to say, baby. Good for you.”
Silence, more wine-flavored silence, and smiling into the hot blanket I saw distinctly our rigidly approaching nemesis (a small goat prancing out of a sacred wood) and knew that, despite the grip of my hand, Catherine was beginning to roll again under the weight of her fourteen years of motherhood.
“You didn’t have children. That’s all.”
Fiona’s turn, I thought, and wondered whether Catherine was actually aware of my tender grip or had in fact forgotten me, lost sight of me in the midst of thinking about Hugh’s little black pointed beard and her three deliveries. Though it was I, after all, who was once more touching flame to the idea of the family and lighting anew the possibilities of sex in the domestic landscape.
“Oh, but we decided against children long ago. And now it’s too late anyway. Thank God. But we love your children, Catherine. Don’t we, Cyril?”
I raised my head and nodded, then shifted my weight and lowered my head again so that my weathered cheek smothered beneath it Catherine’s fingers and now upturned palm. In nose and mouth and stomach I made the wordless contented sounds of an agreeable man settling down to sleep on a hot beach blanket, though in point of fact I had never been more crisp with attentiveness and lay listening to the epic inside Catherine’s lower abdomen. I was waiting for the parents to become lovers and the lovers parents.
“What’s the matter, Eveline? Come over here to your old dad.”
The little fists were in the eyes, the lips were turned down, the small fat body was naked except for the gray cotton panties riding well below the navel, the brown hairwas filled with burrs which only moments before had been clinging to the black fur of the dog. Without moving or opening my eyes I saw it all, the upright and sunburned child midway between our blanket and the sleeping dog and stumbling toward us silently, unerringly, while Catherine frowned and Fiona caressed herself. I dozed on, watching, waiting, enjoying behind my patina of sun the sight of Hugh’s pebbly tight smile and the eyes that were glancing now at Eveline, now at Catherine and me, now at Fiona. It amused me to know that little Eveline was to be the lever with which her father would pry Catherine’s warm pillowing hand from beneath my cheek. How like him, I thought, to begrudge me Catherine’s hand in the middle of the afternoon and abandon her body to me throughout the night.
“Maybe she just needs to urinate,” Hugh said. “Could that be it?”
And then the soft toneless maternal voice beginning to withdraw at last from motherhood: “Of course she does. But it’s your turn, Hugh. I’m sun-bathing.”
Once more I was proud of Catherine, who had managed to add another still note to our silence. Already Meredith was blushing at the edge of the sea. I waited for the prolonged and uneasy sound of Fiona’s giggling. And then the little invisible white goat landed among us and I rolled toward Catherine, who did not move, and propped myself on one elbow in time to see Hugh sit heavily and deliberately on Catherine’s haunch, as if on a convenient stone, and hold the baffled child between his knees and with his one hand pull down her panties swiftly, expertly. He was whistling and aiming his small fat daughter in the directionof the still sea where Meredith stood listening, blushing, shriveling.
“Get off me, Hugh.”
“Hang on there. She’s nearly done.”
Would she throw him off? With a single heave would she dislodge him from his all-too-comfortable seat on her upraised hip? In some way would she appeal to me for help? But even as I wondered how long Hugh would be able to sustain this admittedly ingenious stroke of trivial revenge, wobbling happily on his wife’s prostrate body, I saw that
“What a beautiful thing to say, baby. Good for you.”
Silence, more wine-flavored silence, and smiling into the hot blanket I saw distinctly our rigidly approaching nemesis (a small goat prancing out of a sacred wood) and knew that, despite the grip of my hand, Catherine was beginning to roll again under the weight of her fourteen years of motherhood.
“You didn’t have children. That’s all.”
Fiona’s turn, I thought, and wondered whether Catherine was actually aware of my tender grip or had in fact forgotten me, lost sight of me in the midst of thinking about Hugh’s little black pointed beard and her three deliveries. Though it was I, after all, who was once more touching flame to the idea of the family and lighting anew the possibilities of sex in the domestic landscape.
“Oh, but we decided against children long ago. And now it’s too late anyway. Thank God. But we love your children, Catherine. Don’t we, Cyril?”
I raised my head and nodded, then shifted my weight and lowered my head again so that my weathered cheek smothered beneath it Catherine’s fingers and now upturned palm. In nose and mouth and stomach I made the wordless contented sounds of an agreeable man settling down to sleep on a hot beach blanket, though in point of fact I had never been more crisp with attentiveness and lay listening to the epic inside Catherine’s lower abdomen. I was waiting for the parents to become lovers and the lovers parents.
“What’s the matter, Eveline? Come over here to your old dad.”
The little fists were in the eyes, the lips were turned down, the small fat body was naked except for the gray cotton panties riding well below the navel, the brown hairwas filled with burrs which only moments before had been clinging to the black fur of the dog. Without moving or opening my eyes I saw it all, the upright and sunburned child midway between our blanket and the sleeping dog and stumbling toward us silently, unerringly, while Catherine frowned and Fiona caressed herself. I dozed on, watching, waiting, enjoying behind my patina of sun the sight of Hugh’s pebbly tight smile and the eyes that were glancing now at Eveline, now at Catherine and me, now at Fiona. It amused me to know that little Eveline was to be the lever with which her father would pry Catherine’s warm pillowing hand from beneath my cheek. How like him, I thought, to begrudge me Catherine’s hand in the middle of the afternoon and abandon her body to me throughout the night.
“Maybe she just needs to urinate,” Hugh said. “Could that be it?”
And then the soft toneless maternal voice beginning to withdraw at last from motherhood: “Of course she does. But it’s your turn, Hugh. I’m sun-bathing.”
Once more I was proud of Catherine, who had managed to add another still note to our silence. Already Meredith was blushing at the edge of the sea. I waited for the prolonged and uneasy sound of Fiona’s giggling. And then the little invisible white goat landed among us and I rolled toward Catherine, who did not move, and propped myself on one elbow in time to see Hugh sit heavily and deliberately on Catherine’s haunch, as if on a convenient stone, and hold the baffled child between his knees and with his one hand pull down her panties swiftly, expertly. He was whistling and aiming his small fat daughter in the directionof the still sea where Meredith stood listening, blushing, shriveling.
“Get off me, Hugh.”
“Hang on there. She’s nearly done.”
Would she throw him off? With a single heave would she dislodge him from his all-too-comfortable seat on her upraised hip? In some way would she appeal to me for help? But even as I wondered how long Hugh would be able to sustain this admittedly ingenious stroke of trivial revenge, wobbling happily on his wife’s prostrate body, I saw that
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