Fair. We never talked about
our father’s violence—not with each other, not with our mother, not with anyone—not even after he’d died.
Just once I raised it with her. It was when I was pregnant with Molly, toward the end of the pregnancy, when I was on maternity
leave, too huge and tired to do anything. It was a hot summer, and I lay for hours in the garden, letting the dandelions seed
around me, stupid as a stone. But at night my dreams were extraordinarily vivid and active, as though to compensate for the
lethargy of my days, and all concerned obsessively with my childhood: not in a direct way, but I’d dream about those gardens
with their lupines and Michaelmas daisies, and airplanes would crash on them, or earnest officers from some war crimes commission
would dig up the lawn behind the buddleia and unearth mutilated human remains. It was as though some intricate working out
was going on deep inside me. Ursula came for coffee on the way to an exhibition; and, disinhibited and half-drunk, perhaps,
with all the pregnancy hormones, I talked about our childhood.
“D’you ever think about it? You know—Dad, and the things he did to her?”
We were sitting at the table in my kitchen; I was sitting sideways because I could only just fit between the wall and the
table, everything about me lumbering and clumsy.
She looked at me warily, sitting stiffly, something withdrawing in her. She didn’t say anything.
I’d have leaned toward her and grasped her wrist, but I was pinned down by my swollen stomach, unable to reach out.
“Don’t you remember?” I said. “You can’t just not remember.”
I felt a quiver of impatience, the feeling growing in me that there was something I had to face up to before my own child
came—and that only she could help me.
Her face was tight, like a closed door. She picked a loose thread from her sleeve.
“They just had the odd bad patch,” she said. “It happens. It happens in an awful lot of families.”
I remembered her fear, how she’d pressed the blankets to her eyes and ears. I could see it, quite vividly.
“Some bad patch,” I said.
She didn’t say anything.
I felt then how inviolate her reserve was—sleek and hard as varnish, everything running off it.
I tried again.
“D’you ever feel—I know it’s stupid, we were just kids—that we could have stopped it? I mean, I know we couldn’t. But d’you
ever feel guilty about it? D’you ever feel ashamed?”
She was glancing around my kitchen as though planning her escape.
“Ursula, please talk to me. Don’t you ever feel that?”
She cleared her throat.
“You live in your head too much, Ginnie,” she said. “I always think we were lucky to have such a happy childhood. I mean,
when you look at what some people go through.”
There were things I could have told her, that I wanted so much to tell her—the things I’d been thinking, lying amid the dandelions,
trying to understand. How I’d chosen Greg because he seemed so different from our father, but now I was starting to worry
that the peace he’d seemed to promise was really a kind of absence—that it wasn’t something you could build a marriage on.
How sometimes I wondered if half the things I’d done had been a struggle to prove that there’s some good in me. How even now
I felt such shame because I let Mum down.
But I couldn’t say these things to Ursula, who was frowning as she sat at my table, looking as though she wanted to be anywhere
but there.
“You mustn’t brood,” she said. “Really, Ginnie, you mustn’t. It’s bad for the baby.”
C HAPTER 14
I T’S A DULL DAY BY THE RIVER —soft, warm for November. We go to the place at the side of the path, the secret place where the branches hang low. More leaves
have fallen since last we came here; we have to go farther in to be hidden from view. We make love quickly, keeping on most
of our clothes.
“D’you have to go straight back
our father’s violence—not with each other, not with our mother, not with anyone—not even after he’d died.
Just once I raised it with her. It was when I was pregnant with Molly, toward the end of the pregnancy, when I was on maternity
leave, too huge and tired to do anything. It was a hot summer, and I lay for hours in the garden, letting the dandelions seed
around me, stupid as a stone. But at night my dreams were extraordinarily vivid and active, as though to compensate for the
lethargy of my days, and all concerned obsessively with my childhood: not in a direct way, but I’d dream about those gardens
with their lupines and Michaelmas daisies, and airplanes would crash on them, or earnest officers from some war crimes commission
would dig up the lawn behind the buddleia and unearth mutilated human remains. It was as though some intricate working out
was going on deep inside me. Ursula came for coffee on the way to an exhibition; and, disinhibited and half-drunk, perhaps,
with all the pregnancy hormones, I talked about our childhood.
“D’you ever think about it? You know—Dad, and the things he did to her?”
We were sitting at the table in my kitchen; I was sitting sideways because I could only just fit between the wall and the
table, everything about me lumbering and clumsy.
She looked at me warily, sitting stiffly, something withdrawing in her. She didn’t say anything.
I’d have leaned toward her and grasped her wrist, but I was pinned down by my swollen stomach, unable to reach out.
“Don’t you remember?” I said. “You can’t just not remember.”
I felt a quiver of impatience, the feeling growing in me that there was something I had to face up to before my own child
came—and that only she could help me.
Her face was tight, like a closed door. She picked a loose thread from her sleeve.
“They just had the odd bad patch,” she said. “It happens. It happens in an awful lot of families.”
I remembered her fear, how she’d pressed the blankets to her eyes and ears. I could see it, quite vividly.
“Some bad patch,” I said.
She didn’t say anything.
I felt then how inviolate her reserve was—sleek and hard as varnish, everything running off it.
I tried again.
“D’you ever feel—I know it’s stupid, we were just kids—that we could have stopped it? I mean, I know we couldn’t. But d’you
ever feel guilty about it? D’you ever feel ashamed?”
She was glancing around my kitchen as though planning her escape.
“Ursula, please talk to me. Don’t you ever feel that?”
She cleared her throat.
“You live in your head too much, Ginnie,” she said. “I always think we were lucky to have such a happy childhood. I mean,
when you look at what some people go through.”
There were things I could have told her, that I wanted so much to tell her—the things I’d been thinking, lying amid the dandelions,
trying to understand. How I’d chosen Greg because he seemed so different from our father, but now I was starting to worry
that the peace he’d seemed to promise was really a kind of absence—that it wasn’t something you could build a marriage on.
How sometimes I wondered if half the things I’d done had been a struggle to prove that there’s some good in me. How even now
I felt such shame because I let Mum down.
But I couldn’t say these things to Ursula, who was frowning as she sat at my table, looking as though she wanted to be anywhere
but there.
“You mustn’t brood,” she said. “Really, Ginnie, you mustn’t. It’s bad for the baby.”
C HAPTER 14
I T’S A DULL DAY BY THE RIVER —soft, warm for November. We go to the place at the side of the path, the secret place where the branches hang low. More leaves
have fallen since last we came here; we have to go farther in to be hidden from view. We make love quickly, keeping on most
of our clothes.
“D’you have to go straight back
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