Annabel - Kathleen Winter [43]
“That was my problem. I was so euphoric I couldn’t sit still. Now I’m much more balanced.”
Jacinta’s friendships in Croydon Harbour were coloured by the fact that she had come from St. John’s, though she had been here ten years. They were also coloured by her nature, which, like Treadway’s, was reclusive. It was unusual for her to come down the hill, as she had now done, knock on Eliza’s door, and tell her friend she was ready to leave her husband. She could not say the real reason was that Treadway refused to let Wayne act like a girl. Nobody understood except Thomasina, and Thomasina was in London. Her last postcard said she loved London and did not want to leave it. There was enough theatre that you could go to a different play every night of the year and not see the same thing twice. Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Agatha Christie, and young writers no one outside London knew yet. Thomasina loved all of it, and she was staying in a hostel so she could stay longer and see all the plays she wanted.
So Jacinta fled to Eliza Goudie. Of all Jacinta’s Labrador friends, Eliza was the one who confessed the most. She had told Jacinta everything about Edward, her own husband, and had explained her affair with Tony Ollerhead, the geography teacher, in vivid detail. Things Jacinta had not wanted to know, she now knew, such as the colour of Tony Ollerhead’s underpants — warm chocolate brown — and the fact that they fitted his body tightly, unlike Edward’s plaid boxers. Mr. Ollerhead wore Old Spice, and had a fine trail of silky hair leading from his navel to his pubic bone; hair that turned gold in candlelight. Jacinta had heard all about this while she was trying to seal two dozen jars of partridgeberry jam.
“If I remember correctly,” Jacinta said after she had left Treadway and the bag of onions, “you weren’t too fussy about honest husbands a month ago. You could have taken honest husbands to the edge of Shag Rock and pushed them off.”
At this point Eliza would have come to her senses, Jacinta thought, had she not been drugged. They would have laughed until tears came, and that was what friends were for. Jacinta had not indulged as much as her other friends had in talking about the folly of husbands, but she had done it at times when the pressure became great. She had not expected Eliza to defend Treadway. But then, she had not confessed her whole story.
“He doesn’t even try to understand beauty.”
“Since when did you expect him to?”
“I can create my own romance. But Wayne is only a child. How could Treadway stamp out such a sweet thing?” She had told Eliza the bridge was gone, but it didn’t seem such a big deal, somehow, when she told it. It did not seem like what it was to her: a kind of annihilation by Treadway of some part of his own child’s soul.
“Treadway is a woodsman and a trapper,” Eliza said. “He is a good provider. He has never let you down, and he never will. You could go off on your own for ten years and come home and Treadway Blake would take you back. No matter what, you can always rely on him.”
“I don’t think he’d take me back. I think he’d find another woman after three months. I think I’m completely replaceable.”
“You’re not. And I’ll tell you why. Treadway Blake is an intelligent man, and he knows a fantastic woman when he sees one, and he adores you.”
“If I adored someone I would tell them, in plain English.”
“Well he’s not going to, because that’s not his strength, and you should be used to that by now. Go to the doctor and get some Valium. It has changed my whole life. I love my husband. I’ve finally seen him from a proper perspective.”
“You mean you no longer feel like throwing up every time he walks in the house?”
“No. As a matter of fact, our sex life is phenomenal. I sent away for three garter belts for myself and two black jockstraps for Edward out of this catalogue I got from Montreal. You should go through it. I leap into bed with my husband. Leap, I’m telling you. I don’t know how he put up with me before. It’s all part of his basic goodness. And your husband is basically good too. I wish