The Window

A Short Story

1

Gloria looked out onto the glistening wet grass; the washing dancing and saluting her from the clothesline; the tussling of leaves; and the children scrapping merrily as they chased each other from tree to tree. And for a moment she too was a child again, giggling with her own brother in the cobbled, puddled lane outside her home.

“Magda, Oscar, come inside for lunch,” she yelled from the kitchen.

The children swirled into the house. “Boots off!” she yelled, as she thrust them back into the porch, where they traded their wet boots for slippers.

She hoisted them into their chairs and jostled a big pan of soup onto the table. She ladled two huge spoons into Magda’s bowl as Oscar looked on in horror.

“I don’t want any carrots!”

“What a surprise,” said Gloria, as she dodged the ladle past floating vegetable clumps to fill Oscar’s bowl with steaming chicken broth.

“Now, tuck in, I have to phone your school, and tell….”

“Why has Magda got my spoon?” exclaimed Oscar loudly.

Gloria sighed.

“Is it so important for you? Magda, would you mind?

Magda had already started eating with Oscar’s little spoon with its dog motif engraved in the handle. Gloria gave Magda a fresh spoon, taking Oscar’s for a quick rinse under the tap. She closed her eyes, savouring the feel of the cold jet of water on her fingers as it cascaded into the sink. She felt a little hand grab the neck of the spoon, and she opened her eyes to see Oscar carrying it off like a sceptre before shovelling it noisily into his soup, chicken broth slopping onto the tablecloth.

“Both of you happy now? I’m going to phone the school to find out…”

“Finished! Can we go outside again?”

2

A moment of peace, the children left to their own devices. It was when left to herself that she felt most tired, scrubbing the dishes mechanically, shutting down all thoughts of fatigue.

But she wasn’t alone – Edward was there again. Looking up from the lawn under the kitchen window, dressed in his finest clothes, a smile pinned to his face.

How was she supposed to respond to his smile? The sanctity of the kitchen, its idle cosiness, it all felt threatened. There was poison there which stood to ruin everything Gloria held dear.

A pull at her trousers saved her from having to respond to Edward’s glance. Waldo was hungry again. “Haven’t I given you enough today? I can’t just feed you whenever you fancy. You should know that by now.”

The St Bernard tilted its head dolefully and let out a pining whimper.

“Fine, but this is the last time today. Why you think you’re more deserving than any other dog, heaven knows.” Gloria filled a bowl with meat cuts she had intended for a gravy for dinner and placed it carefully on the floor next to the table, the dog bounding upon it with gleeful abandon.

She looked back outside onto the lawn, but Edward was gone.

3

A memory swept over her. She was clutching the hands of her brother and mother, sandwiched between them, joy in her heart. They were snaking through towering mummies and daddies and children strolling along the pier in a whirl of colours that she could barely have imagined from the small stack of picture books in her bedroom back home. She turned to her mother, who returned her smile with a beaming grin, her head caught in a halo of light against the fluffy clouds.

“Go on then, but this is a treat.”

Her mother had assented to the children’s request for candy floss, which they took from a beachball of a vendor, who smiled indulgently at the unmitigated joy of the children as they scampered towards the carousel, sticky treat in hand, finding their place in line behind an undulating snake of similarly excited children. 

“Stop it. STOP IT. STOP THAT NOW. I TOLD….”

The tranquil scene was ruptured. A man had taken his boy out of the carousel queue by the scruff of the neck, slapped him hard on the ear, and was dragging him away from the festivities, to the screaming protests of his wife who called after them. “Come back here! Don’t hurt him!” The woman scooped up a sobbing younger son into her arms and hurried off down the pier in pursuit of her husband and elder son.

“Gloria! It’s okay…”

Gloria’s mother had taken her shaking hand. Her brother put an arm round her and held her to his chest.

“Why did that man hit the boy like that?”

Her mother didn’t answer, but opened her mouth, searching for words.

“That boy must have done something really naughty,” her brother suggested

“Nothing that boy might have said makes what his father did okay” said their mother, shaking with fury. “I’m sorry you had to see this, children.”

“Mum, look, we can move forward” said her brother, tugging his mother’s sleeve, as they nudged forward towards the carousel.

4

Oscar and Magda had their own little carousel in the garden. Their own sandpit. Their own Punch and Judy stall. And Gloria was now the one to protect them from danger as best she could, from the violence that waited silently in the wings.

“Thank you, children,” she said smiling down on the two of them. They had brought Gloria a cup of tea. It may have been tepid, and the teabag’s sojourn in the water had evidently been brief, but the gesture was touching. She had never taken it upon herself to make tea at home as a child, no matter how much she had loved her mother.

“Thank you. You’re growing up so fast. So grown-up and helpful already!”

She had barely put the cup to her lips when the children started to yank her from her chair. “Now come and look at what we’ve made for Daddy’s birthday.”

They skipped down the spiral staircase into the dining room, bathed in a low autumn light. They had drawn a card showing a woman on a bright summer’s day sandwiched between two children clutching her hands. “This is lovely. These two are you, of course.  But who’s this?” she asked, pointing to the woman in a majestic coat and towering hat.

“It’s you, of course! Do you like it? Will Daddy like it?”

Gloria stared at the picture. She didn’t know what their father would think.

5

A bath. Just to think that only a year ago, the children might have asked to join her in the suds – Oscar bringing in his toy ship, Magda wanting her hair plaited. Gloria had allowed this once, after swearing the children to secrecy, one glorious day when they had had the house fully to themselves. But now, one year on, there was no chance of them all fitting into the small tub together. Gloria alone was cramped for space, and had her feet stretched up over the bath, her toes playing with the brass faucets as she hummed along with the water murmur of the taps. 

This bath was a morsel of peace and quiet from the mayhem of the household. A little peace and quiet before they celebrated “Daddy’s birthday.” There had already been a celebratory breakfast with just the adults before the children were out of bed.. But this evening there would be a full family affair, everyone dressed up in their best clothes.

She remained in the bathtub until the water turned cold. Everything was in flux. The children, blooming in front of her eyes. Edward, implacable, lurking again and again outside the kitchen window.  Julia. Julia, scarcely seen by anyone anymore.  And Gloria sensed that she was being moved, and that the bathroom was an antechamber to some kind of ending. Her days here were numbered.

6

She was out with the magnolias and peonies and citrus trees, her hair loosened from its bun, giving the front garden a trim before the evening festivities. She felt a familiar hand on her shoulder and arched her back as she turned, sighing.

“Yes, Mr Turner?”

Her interrupter looked surprised.

“You never call Me Mr Turner,” he said. Then he tried smiling, displaying his teeth. “Can we talk?”

She placed the secateurs in her apron and turned away from her pursuer. He gripped her arm with soft insistence. “I’ve seen the way you look at me from the window. No – don’t deny it. And you know what I feel for you. We can – why don’t we just leave? The children! They can come with us!”

This muscular figure, his shirt sleeves pulled back to expose his sinewy arms; his neck bulging from his shirt. A fleeting image of being caught in those arms, unbuttoning his shirt, having his stentorian voice whisper in her ear. Arm in arm on a pier with him. Magda and Oscar, a postcard of family bliss.

Repulsive. She hated herself for allowing the scene to flash before her eyes. “No,” she said, flatly. But he’d seen the ripple of uncertainty crossing her face. He smiled triumphantly and reached for her shoulder.

“No!” she said, freeing herself from his touch. “How can you….this is NOT what I want. This is not what anyone wants! This is not…”

A taxi had snarled into the drive and she hurried back into the house, tears streaming down her face.

7

She ran to her bed. She wanted to escape from it all. How could she just go downstairs and carry on as normal? Champagne and dead-eyed conversation. And she’d have to be quiet and composed. She was shattered. But she would go ahead with the charade, if only for Magda and Oscar. First, though, she needed to compose herself. She lay on her bed and scrunched her eyes shut.

There was a loud knock on the bedroom door. Too annoyed to be Magda. Too powerful to be from Oscar. She opened and saw Julia, a Lempicka painting of smooth skin, angel curls, swaddled in her tan jacket, soaked from the rain. The face, seen less and less in the house over the last months, contorted in fury.

“Julia!” said Gloria.

Julia stared at her with contempt.

“Is Edward down there too, Julia?” Everything is ready – the champagne is ready downstairs. The children made a surprise….”

“That’s Mrs Turner, thank you, Miss Cooper” said Julia, her arms folded.

Gloria stared. She had not referred to Julia as Mrs Turner since the day she’d been taken in as an au pair. “Oh, do call me Julia. I’m not your teacher!” she’d said, back then, with a warm smile. The same woman stood in the doorway now, eyes filled with hate.

“Two years we have had you in our lives, Miss Cooper. Two years!” She shook her head from side to side, as if marvelling at the length of time.

“I let you into my home. I trusted you to look after my children. You have never been short of comforts. And how do you repay me? You think you can take my husband away from me!”

Gloria’s face froze. She gasped. Out came a strangled, incredulous laugh. Julia’s eyes thinned into slits and her mouth curled. “So, that’s your answer? Laughing at me? Trying to make a fool of me? Trying to take my husband away from me on my own drive.. I saw it all! And I want you out of here in fifteen minutes. Pack your bags.”

“Julia! Mrs Turner – it’s not true” gasped Gloria, horror-struck. But Julia had marched into the children’s room.

“Mummy!” they chorused with glee. “Mummy! Is Daddy here yet? We made a card but it’s a surprise. Can we come downstairs, too?”

“Children,” whispered Julia, her voice shaking. “I have some bad news. I’m afraid Gloria can’t stay with us any longer. She has to leave today.”

Gloria heard cries of protest from the children. She was too shocked to move, sat on her bed with her arms on her lap.

“No, Magda, don’t go in there, let Gloria finish packing her things. She has to leave soon. COME BACK!”

But Magda had escaped her mother’s hand and thrust Gloria’s door open.

“Mummy says you’re leaving us. Why?” Her cheeks were stained with tears.

Thoughts jostled for attention in Gloria’s rattled mind. She looked this angelic, pure, unblemished face of innocence, those big eyes bursting with emotion. She wanted to tell her that she would be okay. She wanted to kiss her forehead and tell her to enjoy the last years of her childhood. She thought of her own childhood, looking into the windows of happy families, seeing the laughter, the warmth, the promise of lives loved in harmony.. She thought of telling Magda how delicate families were. She wanted to say that Magda’s own parents couldn’t love Oscar and her as much as she, Gloria, did. She wanted to say that her parents were squandering this precious, miraculous fleeting time they had with their children. She wanted to say that their father had made her position here untenable, because she had committed the crime of refusing his advances. And she wanted to say that their mother, Julia, was blinded by jealousy. Worse, Julia had been out so often to all these societies and functions trying so hard to be everything to everyone that she had been in a shadow in the lives of her own children. For the last two years Gloria had devoted herself wholeheartedly to bringing up Julia’s children, and Julia could not forgive Gloria for being loved by the children in return.

“One day, when you are a little older, you might understand.” said Gloria. “But Maggie, I will never forget you.”

“Tell me now” Implored Magda. “I AM old enough. Don’t you love us?”

The tears ran down Gloria’s face, the dam bursting. “Of course, I love you. And your brother. And clumsy Waldo.”

She looked at the face, a crushed grape of sorrow.

“And your Mummy and Daddy. I love them too.”

The door filled yet again with Julia who was cradling a crying Oscar in her hands.

“Magda, you will have to let Gloria get ready. She has to catch a train.”

She thrust an envelope into Gloria’s shaking hands. “This month’s wages. And something extra so you can take the train to…wherever it is you need to go.” Julia shook her head, grabbed Magda’s wrist, and half-dragged her out the room.

Gloria turned around and saw that it was raining outside. The rain fell with unseeing, infinite potentiality. It fell from all corners of the sky in a continued, fluid motion. It covered the jaundiced, poisoned, desolate place she had once called her home and beckoned. She packed her few possessions away, carefully wrapped her green duffel coat, adjusted her hat in the mirror and went down the stairs.

The house was deathly silent. The crying from the children had ceased. Had Julia taken them to the furthest corner of the house, where their anguish would be stifled? At the bottom of the stairs Edward was rocking on his feet, his arms behind his back, trying his best to avoid Gloria’s eyes.

“It’s for the best, Gloria. I’m sorry it’s like this. I think there was a misunderstanding,,” he stammered.

Gloria looked at this cowering, pathetic form, so much like Oscar when he knew he was in the wrong.

“You’re young. You’re…you’ll be okay,“ he bleated.

“Goodbye, Mr. Turner,” said Gloria slowly, trying to keep her voice as steady as possible.

“Do you…er…do you need a lift to the station? It’s not so far from here, or maybe you would prefer to walk? Yes, maybe you should be alone.”

Gloria turned to the gabled window of the hall, the shimmering rain winking. She turned back to Edward.

“Your children made you a birthday card. It’s in the dresser on your study. I prepared dinner for you and Mrs Turner – it just needs putting in the oven. Bates called again about the chimney. There were a bunch of cards for you which I bundled together and put in the tray on the left of your desk. I think that’s all.“

She paused.

“Happy birthday, Edward.”

Edward’s face teemed with embarrassment as he gurgled a barely audible “Thank you.”

8

The taxi ambled down the treelined country road. Gloria sat in the middle of the back seat, arms folded and knees together.

“Here we are: Clammington House,” said the driver as he guided the vehicle through the iron gates and up the drive, past the gardener, who was resting an elbow on a rake, pipe in mouth. The taxi scraped lazily along the gravel approach and stopped beside a beautiful parterre.

A girl and boy in matching sailor costumes had been eagerly awaiting the newcomer, and once the taxi pulled up, the small boy ran excitedly inside the house, returning a few seconds later with his beaming mother. 

“Miss Cooper? So glad you could come.”

Gloria stepped out of the taxi and surveyed her new home. Her eyes caught those of a man with arms folded through a bay window. She felt a hand inserting itself in her own and looked down to see the pigtailed girl looking up at her curiously, as if she had been given an exotic bird in a gilded cage. Gloria smiled down, and the girl, after the briefest pause, smiled back.