An Audience of Chairs Read online

  By now Duncan had decided it was time to move on. After two years working as a speech writer, he had a firm grasp of the PM’s approach to the major issues facing the country and knew how the government worked behind closed doors. Much of the material he wrote never saw print, at least not as he had written it—when Duncan first accepted the job, the deputy minister had made it clear that what was wanted from him was no more than a working draft because the prime minister preferred to write his own speeches. Although he respected the PM for his integrity, Duncan was frustrated by the fact that he was seldom given the opportunity to express his own views. He knew that the longer he worked as a speech writer, the farther away he was from establishing himself as a journalist. He was itching to move on but with another baby on the way, he waited another year before applying for a job in the Foreign Affairs Department of the CBC. It was a desk job, not what he wanted, but it gave him a toehold in the corporation. What Duncan wanted was the same thing he had wanted all along, which was to work as a foreign correspondent in a trouble spot somewhere in the world.

  In March of 1968, Duncan took on the CBC job and moved his family to Toronto. Their second daughter, Brianna, had just turned two, and Moranna’s postpartum depression was over, or so Duncan thought. He rented a first-floor apartment in a large brick house in the Annex, two blocks off Bloor, where they had six rooms and a fenced yard with a slide and swings for the children. That year’s spring was unrelentingly cold and damp, and bundling her daughters into the twin stroller the Frasers had provided, Moranna pushed them to the library and supermarket, the art gallery and museum. She took them everywhere and was never without them. It wasn’t long before their total dependence on her became a burden. There was a slump in her shoulders and she moved as if her wings had been clipped. She slogged through the days waiting until her husband came home to cook supper, which Moranna avoided making, having by then lost interest in preparing food. After tidying the kitchen, Duncan put the children to bed. The morning gloom that followed their daughters’ births reappeared, becoming so severe that some mornings Moranna found it impossible to get up and lay on the bed, weighed down by the leaden ballast inside her head. The paralysis made her immune to whatever and whoever was present, including her daughters calling to her from their bedroom across the hall—before leaving for work, Duncan would open the doors to both bedrooms. In a distant part of her mind, Moranna registered the fact that her children were hungry and that Brianna’s diaper needed changing but she didn’t go to them, postponing what for her had become daunting tasks. If she waited long enough, maybe Bonnie, who was used to getting snacks, would find something in the kitchen for them to eat and she could avoid the inevitable for another while.

  Duncan came home from work one morning to pick up a forgotten file and found Brianna soaked in urine and crying in her crib. The sound of her voice pierced his heart. Christ, it was nearly noon and Moranna was still in bed. He stood in the bedroom doorway in his coat, the silk Harrods scarf his mother had given him for Christmas around his neck. Controlling his fury, he asked his wife if she was ill.

  “No. I’m not ill.” She was lying curled on one side.

  “Well then, why aren’t you seeing to the kids? They’re starving and I can smell Brianna’s diaper from here.”

  Moranna lay inert, careful not to disturb the weight of her bones. “You see to them.”

  Striding to the bed, he yanked off the blankets. “I have to go back to work. I’m in the middle of a meeting. Now get up.”

  Immediately, Moranna pulled the blankets back over her head.

  “What’s got into you?”

  Brianna had stopped crying momentarily to listen and then she began wailing again.

  “I’m exhausted.” Moranna said, her voice muffled beneath the covers. “I need help with the children.”

  “Then we’ll hire someone,” Duncan said briskly. “We’ll talk about it tonight, but now you should get up.” Knowing that if he stayed home she would remain in bed, he plucked the file folder from the top of the hall radiator and left. Bonnie heard the click of the front door closing and now she too was wailing.

  Moranna dragged herself out of bed and went to the children, who stopped wailing the moment she appeared. Tears of relief spilled from Brianna’s eyes, which were as blue as her sister’s. “Mama,” she cried, lifting her arms. “It’s not easy being Mama,” Moranna said, while Bonnie, always the solemn older child, watched her mother remove her sister’s wet diaper. After the children were fed, Moranna ran a bath and her daughters played in the water, laughing and splashing each other. Moranna smiled. Her children were bright and lively and it made her feel good to see their delight in being together. Gradually the gloom inside her head dissipated, drifting away like scattering clouds.

  That evening after the children were asleep and Duncan was sitting at one end of the food-stained sofa, his wife at the other, he asked how much help she needed with the children. Leaning forward, Moranna began rubbing one of the white rings on the coffee table with the palm of her hand. The rings had been there when they bought the table from a second-hand store and would remain until sanded off but Moranna rubbed furiously as if sheer will alone would remove them. Duncan was mystified. Both her sweater and hair needed washing, clothing and toys were strewn across the floor yet it was the white ring that caught her attention. He repeated the question, but Moranna continued rubbing until her hand was red and sore.

  Finally, she sat back on the sofa and tried to speak but the words wouldn’t come at first and when they did, she spit them out like stones. “I need help every day with the children. I have no time for myself.”

  “What will you do when you have time for yourself?”

  “Paint.” The word popped into her head just as she remembered the painting of a Shirley Temple doll sitting in a wicker chair she’d seen weeks ago in the art gallery. She’d been particularly fascinated by the doll’s eyes. How could glass eyes be made to look so melancholy and all seeing, as if they understood everything they saw from the chair?

  Although Moranna’s interest in painting was new, Duncan registered no surprise, having by now accepted the fact that his wife was one of these people who threw herself into one project after another until boredom set in. He told her that following the noon meeting, he had asked around the office if anyone knew of someone who could come in to help. It turned out that the receptionist’s daughter, a university student, was interested in babysitting part-time and was available in the afternoons.

  “Would that suit you?”

  Moranna didn’t reply, having already pounced on another thought that had to be caught before it sank, like so many of her thoughts did. “I don’t want to be indispensable to anyone. It’s too much of a load to expect me to carry. I want to be free as a bird.” She made a flying motion with her arms and said, “We’re the ones who don’t fit in, remember?”

  Duncan didn’t remember, but to keep the peace he nodded assent.

  The university student was Sophie Bernard, a third-year psychology major who was two years younger than Moranna but because of her serious demeanour seemed years older. She had level brown eyes and brown hair worn straight. A wholesome girl, attractive without being pretty; good-natured and matter-of-fact, nothing Moranna’s daughters said or did upset her. Not that they were difficult children, far from it, although Brianna whined and Bonnie could be stubborn when she didn’t get her way.

  Duncan suggested Moranna attend a painting class but she said no, she didn’t want someone telling her how to paint when she could teach herself. Instead, she went to the art gallery and studied paintings she liked, afterwards making notes and sketches of what she’d seen. After a week’s enrolment in this self-taught course, she equipped herself with pencils, brushes and paints. While Sophie played with the children outside or took them to the park, Moranna undertook a painting on the back living-room wall. It was large, five feet square, and was intended to duplicate the measurements of the side window facing
the atrium of the brick house next door. She sketched in bamboo and banana trees, tropical flowers and a wicker chair. Unlike in Christiane Pflug’s painting, the Shirley Temple doll wasn’t sitting on the chair but was standing in the jungle of flowers and trees, looking through the leaves with watchful eyes. When Duncan came home, there was no supper but Moranna had finished the underpainting.

  He stood in the living room in his coat, staring at the wall. “My God, Moranna, since when do artists work on the wall? Why don’t you use canvas like everyone else?” He wanted to yell, Why didn’t you discuss it with me first? but he knew it was futile. Patience, so much patience was required.

  “I’m not everyone else and artists have been painting on walls for centuries. Think of Fra Angelico and Michelangelo.”

  Duncan had to laugh, not because Moranna had an answer for everything but because it was he, not she, who had visited churches and galleries in Italy when, as teenagers, Malcolm and he were taken on European trips with their parents. “Paint away then,” he said and went into the kitchen to make supper.

  Moranna was on a high and continued all night in a frenzy of painting, not even stopping to eat, and by dawn had finished the mural. Exhausted, she slept away the afternoons while Sophie tended the children. After two or three days, her energy was restored and she began sketching a mural in her daughters’ room. It began as a beach scene showing two little girls building a sandcastle, but soon grew into a landscape of cliffs and sea until it encompassed the four walls. She tried to work on the mural during the night—her children were sound sleepers—but Duncan turned off the bedroom light and refused to allow it. Instead she worked on it late in the mornings with her daughters, Brianna splattering on the paint and Bonnie, in her serious way, making a neat border of fish. In the afternoons Moranna painted alone while Sophie looked after the children.

  After she had been with them a few weeks, Sophie began putting Brianna on the wooden potty Duncan had bought to toilet train Bonnie. Moranna thought it entirely appropriate that Sophie should be the one to train Brianna. She was practical and efficient, the right kind of person for the task, and within a month Brianna was using the potty on her own.

  Before losing interest in painting murals, Moranna made an underwater seascape in the bathroom and a vegetable garden in the kitchen. She then moved on to the furniture and painted the coffee table and the four wooden chairs, using primary colours of enamel paint. When the paint was dry, she and her daughters added whatever designs suited their fancy. Although he complained about the smell of turpentine, Duncan was impressed with the results and, encouraged by his praise, Moranna raided junk shops for small articles of furniture, foot stools, end tables and lamps, which she bought and redesigned with paint.

  In May, Duncan came home with the news that he had been offered the opportunity to spend six weeks in Russia, starting in July. By now, Khrushchev had been replaced by Brezhnev and the Cold War had taken a new twist. Duncan’s assignment would be to cover the changes in the new regime. Moranna was excited by the prospect of living in Moscow and Duncan summoned every argument he could think of to discourage her from going: there were serious food shortages in Russia, the milk wasn’t safe and accommodation was scarce; living in a one-room apartment would be hard on the four of them. There was also the question of cost. Because it was a short assignment, only Duncan’s expenses were covered. It wasn’t worth going into debt in order to have a claustrophobic, inconvenient life when his family could enjoy a holiday in Cape Breton—Ian had offered the farmhouse for their use. Although it meant she would miss out on seeing Russia, Moranna was finally persuaded that she and the children would be better off spending the summer in Baddeck. Unwilling to take on the entire responsibility of looking after their daughters, she insisted Sophie come along as a nanny.

  Duncan said, “Why fly a nanny to Baddeck when you have your family nearby to help? It’s a waste of money.”

  “If you mean my sister-in-law, forget it. I don’t want Davina’s help.”

  “There must be any number of girls in the village who would like to babysit.”

  “I suppose.”

  “If worse comes to worst, my parents can keep the children in Chester for a couple of weeks to give you a break.”

  “No! I’ll find someone to help.”

  So it was decided.

  In late June, Moranna, Duncan and the children flew to Halifax and, after visiting in Chester for a few days, rented a car and drove to Baddeck. Soon after they arrived, Duncan had a telephone installed in the farmhouse. It was a party line but necessary in case of an emergency, and for the calls he intended to make from Moscow once a week.

  Still peeved at Moranna for not attending his wedding, Murdoch nevertheless drove to Baddeck with Davina and Ginger. Wanting his daughter to meet her cousins, he drove to Baddeck early Saturday afternoon in the delivery truck. Ian and Edwina would arrive later, after the store closed.

  It had been five years since Moranna had seen her brother, and she immediately noticed how avuncular he’d become with his thickened shoulders and waist. He towered over Davina, small and trim beside him, her crisp hair flipped up at the sides like a Dutch cap. Ginger didn’t look like either of them. Not yet five and large for her age with a barrel shape and thick, carroty hair, she was far from being the beauty Moranna’s daughters were. But she was kind and solicitous and approaching her cousins took each of them by hand and led them to the sandbox Ian had built and gave Bonnie a red plastic pail and shovel and Brianna the same in blue.

  “She picked them out herself,” Davina said while the four parents stood watching.

  Murdoch said, “She’s been waiting for this day all week. She’s so excited about having two cousins close to her age.” Ginger was the main reason he’d agreed to come.

  “Girl cousins she can boss around,” Davina said, smiling at her sister-in-law.

  Eager to convince himself that his wife and daughters would be fine living close to the MacKenzies, Duncan placed his mouth against Moranna’s ear and whispered encouragingly, “You see? We did the right thing bringing the children here.”

  Ginger was headstrong and bossy but in such a benevolent, kindly way that her cousins scarcely noticed. They were besotted with her and grateful she was willing to play with them. Hardly believing their luck at having a cousin who was older and all-knowing, they followed her everywhere and, after a blissful weekend spent basking in her attention, were tearful when late Sunday afternoon, about an hour after Ian and Edwina left, Ginger drove away with her parents after having extracted promises from them that they would return next weekend.

  The next day, Duncan and Moranna took their daughters to a fair that had been set up on a Sydney parking lot. The ragtag fair was little more than a miniature Ferris wheel, a merry-go-round, pony rides and food concessions, but it was more than enough to satisfy Bonnie and Brianna, who rode the merry-go-round and ponies and were bought kewpie dolls before the family went to the beach at Mira Gut for a swim and picnic supper.

  While he was building a sandcastle with his daughters, Duncan, sounding regretful and apologetic, reminded them he would be leaving for Russia that night. “That’s all right, Daddy,” Bonnie said. “You’ll be back.”

  Because he had never left them except to go to work, Duncan knew the children hadn’t grasped the fact that he would be gone for six weeks, but his mercurial wife certainly had, which was why he intended to slip away from Baddeck during the night, almost twenty-four hours before his plane departed. Although she seemed to have accepted the fact that he was going to Russia without her, Duncan knew she resented being denied what she regarded as an adventure and was careful to mute his own excitement. Instead, he expressed reluctance that, as he put it, “he was forced to go.” It was true he would miss his wife and children, but it was also true that he badly wanted to go to Russia and was apprehensive and guilty for feeling the way he did. By leaving Baddeck after Moranna fell asleep, he could avoid a confrontation. Also, making the f
ive-hour drive to Halifax at night not only had the advantage of avoiding heavy traffic, but allowed him time to visit his parents who were coming in from Chester especially to meet him. Tomorrow he would catch some sleep in the Armdale house he’d grown up in and enjoy a farewell dinner with his parents.

  Moranna didn’t make a scene. Pleased to be back in the place where she had spent her childhood summers, her mood was deceptively relaxed, even magnanimous. Having temporarily forgotten her anxiety about being left alone to look after her children, she was basking in the luxury of living in a house surrounded by six acres of property. There was a farm next door and a beach across the road. What more could she want? Having also forgotten how much she missed Duncan when he took an assignment in Germany and left her alone in Edinburgh, she accepted his leaving calmly and, after they made love, fell into a deep and satisfied sleep. When she wakened in the morning and ran a hand across his side of the bed, she smiled serenely because her daughters were there, snuggled in the place where a few hours earlier their father had been. My dear, darling children, she thought dreamily, and went back to sleep.

  NINE

  DURING THE NEXT FEW days Moranna continued to maintain a magnanimous and tolerant attitude toward her husband’s departure. She had by now adopted the view that both she and Duncan had embarked on adventures—he to Russia and she to Baddeck and even convinced herself that she had chosen to leave the cramped and crowded city of Toronto in order to embrace a simpler life in Cape Breton where she and her children were close to nature. She revelled in the fact that her daughters had the freedom to explore the woods and visit the farm next door. The only place the children were not allowed to go without her was across the road, but every afternoon after finishing her work, she took them to the beach and watched them play in the shallows. Moranna’s work was painting the farmhouse furniture. Fuelled by a surge of restless energy, she wrestled two rockers and four ladderback chairs, a bookcase and a large round table outside and after painting them forest green, sea blue and tomato red, encouraged her children to decorate them with random and slapdash bursts of colour. The first days without Duncan passed with so much ease and contentment that when he telephoned at noon on Sunday, Moranna was startled to realize that he had been gone a week.