The Undertaking by Magee Audrey

Author:Magee, Audrey [Magee, Audrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atlantic Books Ltd
Published: 2014-02-05T22:00:00+00:00

27

She read his letter at the breakfast table, over and over, each time struggling to contain her disappointment.

‘He’s not coming.’

‘Of course he’s not,’ said her mother.

‘He’s been refused leave.’

‘So he says.’

‘He’s very upset about it. And apologetic.’

‘They always are. In the beginning, anyway.’

Mr Spinell spread butter on his bread.

‘Don’t worry, Katharina,’ he said. ‘Your husband will be home soon.’

‘Unlike your brother,’ said Mrs Spinell.

He hurried his chewing.

‘I’ll be back tonight.’

‘Off with the boys again, are you?’

He slammed the door as he left. Katharina stood up to gather the dishes.

‘Leave them,’ said Mrs Spinell. ‘I’ll do them.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I feel better today. I’ll manage them.’

‘That’s good, Mother. I’ll get the baby ready.’

Johannes was awake in his cot by her bed, the trace of a first smile on his face. She scooped him up, rubbing her lips across the downy softness of his head. She sat on the chair that had been in her brother’s room and laid the infant across her thighs, humming and smiling at the squareness of his small chin, at the curl of hair hanging over his forehead. He yawned, then cried and snuffled. She pushed aside her nightdress, and lifted him to her nipple, her back taut, waiting for the shot of pain as he sucked. She slapped her feet against the floor and sang until the pain passed, until the nerves coursing up and down her spine settled into the rhythm of his feeding.

‘I got a letter from your daddy, sweetheart. You’re going to have to wait a little longer before you meet him.’

She returned to the living room, the baby on her shoulder, the dishes still on the table, her mother motionless, staring at nothing.

‘I told you that you should have married the doctor’s son,’ she said. ‘He liked the comforts of home. You could see that in him.’

‘Stop it, Mother.’

‘He’d be here now. With you and your child. Not off with the boys.’

‘There’s a war on, Mother.’

‘You’ll end up like me, Katharina. You chose a husband as useless as your father.’

Katharina paced the room, rubbing small circles into her son’s back to release the tension in his tightly curled legs.

‘That’s just what Johannes used to do,’ said Mrs Spinell. ‘He looks so like him.’

‘He looks nothing like him, Mother. Johannes was round and chubby.’

‘But he has his eyes.’

‘They’re Peter’s eyes. Please, Mother, not again.’

The baby burped and his legs relaxed. Katharina slid him off her shoulder to cradle him in the crook of her left arm.

‘Will you hold him while I tidy up?’

‘No.’

She laid Johannes on a blanket, a towel beneath his bottom, and took off his nappy. She gathered the dishes and filled the sink with hot, soapy water, deliberately using more than her mother would have permitted, and scrubbed furiously at the light stains on the crockery, at her mother’s words, at her husband’s letter, harder and harder, certain that nothing would ever be clean again, never back to the way it had been. To the way it should be.

‘Damn you, Peter Faber.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.