Moral Disorder - Margaret Atwood [54]
The boys were taller now – taller than Nell. One of them was almost as tall as Tig. They had tans, and biceps; they ate huge meals, and when Tig didn’t have them working at something else they were under the tractor, unscrewing parts of it and screwing them on again. They got covered with grease and oil and dirt and sometimes blood from various tool-inflicted wounds, which seemed to make them quite happy. Nell washed a lot of towels.
When the weather was right – hot and sunny – and the hay had been cut and raked into rows, Tig and the boys laboured at the baling, wearing thick gloves and bandanas twisted around their foreheads to keep the sweat from running into their eyes. The baler got dragged around the fields by the tractor, spewing out bales and chunks of dried mud and pieces of twine. The process was hot and dusty, and very noisy. Straw made its way into their clothes, fragments of it went up their noses. Getting the bales into the barn was the worst part. Nell helped sometimes, wearing a bandana and a big-brimmed hat. In the evenings they were all so tired they could barely eat; they fell into bed before sunset.
At the end of August, Tig received a typed letter from Oona, accusing him and Nell of exploiting the boys as child labour in order to make a profit from them.
Tig and Oona were supposed to be drawing up a separation agreement so they could get a divorce, but Oona kept changing lawyers. She thought that because Tig and Nell owned a farm, Tig must be lying to her about his income. She wanted more money. But Tig didn’t have any more.
Nell sensed that she was growing a hard shell, all around herself. It kept her from feeling as sorry for Tig as she ought to. Tig’s view was that he couldn’t get into any sort of open conflict with Oona. He could not, for instance, initiate a divorce. Oona must be allowed to believe that she was the one in control. If Tig did anything sudden – if he made the first move – Oona would use it against him with the children. After all, they lived with her, officially; not with him.
“They spend more time with us,” Nell said. “If you count waking hours. And she’ll use it against you anyway. She already is.”
“She isn’t well,” Tig said. “There’s something wrong with her health.” He said that nothing must be done to disturb Oona unduly.
I disturb her unduly anyway, thought Nell. I can’t help it.
There was more to this conversation, but it wasn’t voiced.
I’m almost thirty-four, thought Nell. When will things be untangled?
But Tig was in no hurry.
The wild plums in the hedgerows ripened and fell. They were blue, ovoid, fragrant. Nell gathered them up by the basketful and carried them home in a swirl of tiny fruit flies, and made them into compotes and rich purple jam. Tig licked her purple fingers, kissed her purple lips; they made love slowly in the warm, hazy evenings. Replete, thought Nell. That’s the word. Why would I want anything to change, ever?
In September, Nell picked the less wormy and scabby apples from the apple trees and made them into apple jelly. The ground under the trees was littered with fallen and fermenting apples: butterflies lit on them and drank, then staggered around unevenly; wasps did the same. One morning Tig and Nell woke up to find a herd of drunken pigs lying under the trees, grunting and snoring in contentment. Evidently they’d been on a binge.
Tig chased them off, then followed them to see where they’d come from. They were from the pig farm up the hill, in back: they did this every year, said the pig farmer. They’d break out of their pen, just as if they’d been planning it for months, and dig their way under the fence. They always picked the right time. It cheered them up to have this one orgy to look forward to, was his view. Never mind that the apple trees weren’t his.
Nell knew they couldn’t say anything.