had enough bullets and biscuits or whatever it was they took with them. He was the fucking quartermaster. And he wasn’t out there in the ocean getting his balls frozen, oh no, not Yaws. No, he was tucked up on shore in the Orkney Islands, billeted in a cosy farmhouse with a lonely farmer’s wife. I daresay there are a few middle-aged Orcadians walking around now with Yaws masks on. Amazing that such a slow-witted man should have had such a slick dick.
It’s the baby talk that made me remember all this, the baby talk I talk with Natty. I always talked too much baby talk with her, which must be why she’s turned out such a baby. I talked it with Charlotte as well, but I think that was to try and make her seem more like a baby and a little less like a scaled-down version of Yaws. One night in May of 1960, Yaws and I went to have dinner with his sister and brother-in–law. Bunny, that was his sister’s name. The whole family had corny nicknames, the world was their nursery. Anyway, Bunny had gone to the trouble of getting us quail. The little birds lay on our plates with their feet clawing at the rim and their heads bisected and laid alongside. This was so we could lick the brains out of them like the sweetmeats they were. I quailed over the quail. The idea of crunching into the eggshell heads revolted me, all the more so because the assembled company were doing just that, and noisily. I felt like I was in a Kafka story. When I tasted the flesh it seemed fishy to me, and when they weren’t noticing I tucked my brace up under a big, limp lettuce leaf.
‘Lily thinks we’ll have to kill Charlotte if they drop the bomb,’ Yaws said, and Bunny and Mr Bunny cackled obligingly. To me it sounded like ‘Lily tinks we’m gonna kill Charlie-warlie when bomb-urns goes off.’ Both baby and, curiously, black talk. When we got home that evening and Yaws turned on the television, the news was being broadcast in baby talk: ‘De Soviets dem do’ wanna negoshyate. Dem angwy. Dem no like West. Dem baddies.’ I told Yaws the newsreader a drunk whose shtick was being so – was talking baby talk, but he paid it no mind. The next day, after Mrs Dale’s Diary, I heard a radio announcement in baby talk, and when Yaws got back from the university he found me telling Charlotte, who was two, that she would have to die – in baby talk, naturally. Virginia Bridgewas round with her black Gladstone before you could say ‘barbiturate’. Or even ‘bar-bar-boo-boo-bituate’.
It was barbs in those days. Virginia called it the ‘yellow medicine’, but I knew damn well what it was. She kept me lounging on a yellow chemical bed for the next six months, and then I discovered I was pregnant with Natasha. I wonder if it helped usher her into the arms of Morpheus, that amniotic bath of yellow medicine? It helped usher me into even greater anxiety. After David was born, in 1948, I was claustrophobic; after Charlotte was born ten years later I was agoraphobic. But after Natasha was born in 1961 I couldn’t stay in or go outside. I would stand in the back doorway, the baby in my arms, wavering between the awful non-alternatives. I suppose that’s one good thing to be said about dying: it gathers together all those irrational fears and effortlessly trumps them with the Big One. All bets are off. Rien ne va plus.
‘I like the way they allow these cats to come on to the ward,’ I say to Natty, who’s packed the valise and is now helping me out of my nightie, into my clothes.
‘What?’ I daresay she’s thinking about other, more lively concerns – like where her next fix is coming from, now she hasn’t managed to hit on her sister for a loan.
‘The kitties – on the ward. They don’t seem to mind about them. There’s a tabby who sits over there on that old lady’s bed all day; and there’s a tortoiseshell who comes in this window from time to time and curls up right on my tummy. It’s so comforting – I wonder if it’s a new
It’s the baby talk that made me remember all this, the baby talk I talk with Natty. I always talked too much baby talk with her, which must be why she’s turned out such a baby. I talked it with Charlotte as well, but I think that was to try and make her seem more like a baby and a little less like a scaled-down version of Yaws. One night in May of 1960, Yaws and I went to have dinner with his sister and brother-in–law. Bunny, that was his sister’s name. The whole family had corny nicknames, the world was their nursery. Anyway, Bunny had gone to the trouble of getting us quail. The little birds lay on our plates with their feet clawing at the rim and their heads bisected and laid alongside. This was so we could lick the brains out of them like the sweetmeats they were. I quailed over the quail. The idea of crunching into the eggshell heads revolted me, all the more so because the assembled company were doing just that, and noisily. I felt like I was in a Kafka story. When I tasted the flesh it seemed fishy to me, and when they weren’t noticing I tucked my brace up under a big, limp lettuce leaf.
‘Lily thinks we’ll have to kill Charlotte if they drop the bomb,’ Yaws said, and Bunny and Mr Bunny cackled obligingly. To me it sounded like ‘Lily tinks we’m gonna kill Charlie-warlie when bomb-urns goes off.’ Both baby and, curiously, black talk. When we got home that evening and Yaws turned on the television, the news was being broadcast in baby talk: ‘De Soviets dem do’ wanna negoshyate. Dem angwy. Dem no like West. Dem baddies.’ I told Yaws the newsreader a drunk whose shtick was being so – was talking baby talk, but he paid it no mind. The next day, after Mrs Dale’s Diary, I heard a radio announcement in baby talk, and when Yaws got back from the university he found me telling Charlotte, who was two, that she would have to die – in baby talk, naturally. Virginia Bridgewas round with her black Gladstone before you could say ‘barbiturate’. Or even ‘bar-bar-boo-boo-bituate’.
It was barbs in those days. Virginia called it the ‘yellow medicine’, but I knew damn well what it was. She kept me lounging on a yellow chemical bed for the next six months, and then I discovered I was pregnant with Natasha. I wonder if it helped usher her into the arms of Morpheus, that amniotic bath of yellow medicine? It helped usher me into even greater anxiety. After David was born, in 1948, I was claustrophobic; after Charlotte was born ten years later I was agoraphobic. But after Natasha was born in 1961 I couldn’t stay in or go outside. I would stand in the back doorway, the baby in my arms, wavering between the awful non-alternatives. I suppose that’s one good thing to be said about dying: it gathers together all those irrational fears and effortlessly trumps them with the Big One. All bets are off. Rien ne va plus.
‘I like the way they allow these cats to come on to the ward,’ I say to Natty, who’s packed the valise and is now helping me out of my nightie, into my clothes.
‘What?’ I daresay she’s thinking about other, more lively concerns – like where her next fix is coming from, now she hasn’t managed to hit on her sister for a loan.
‘The kitties – on the ward. They don’t seem to mind about them. There’s a tabby who sits over there on that old lady’s bed all day; and there’s a tortoiseshell who comes in this window from time to time and curls up right on my tummy. It’s so comforting – I wonder if it’s a new
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