Page 38 of Mad Mabel

“Why not?” I asked. “My father blames me.”

Neither Cess nor Ness spoke for several seconds.

“Your father was very upset after Kitty died,” Cess said, after a time.

“Mum told me,” I said. “He must have… really loved her.”

Cess exhaled. “Kitty was a sweet child, a pretty little thing. She toed the line, smiled on demand. Very like your mother. She reflected back the parts of himself that he wanted to see. So yes, I think he did love her, in his way.”

When my mother was alive, she used to accuse Cess of being too brusque, too direct.Just because something is true doesn’t mean you need to say it, Cecily, Mum would tell her. But I’d always admired Cess’s directness. It meant that when she said something, I knew it was true.

It made the sting of this comment—that my father loved Kitty—particularly painful.

“I loved her too, Mabel, of course I did, she was my niece. But to be perfectly honest… she was far less interesting than you.”

I looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“You came out, larger than life—full of questions and observations and thoughts. You were curious and intelligent and didn’t sufferfools. And maybe”—she paused, as if considering something—“maybe that was the problem?”

I wasn’t following. “What was the problem?”

“Your father has always had a preference for things that don’t challenge or intimidate him. It’s the same with most men, I’m afraid.” Cess looked me squarely in the eye. “You outshone your father from the moment you were born. There are very few men who can cope with something like that.”

Cess put a matter-of-fact hand on my knee and gave it a little squeeze before she stood up. Ness handed me a tissue.

As I finished eating breakfast, I felt something loosen in my chest, the tiniest breath of forgiveness—not for my father, but for myself.

Something softened between Cess and me after that day. We were still miserable. We hardly talked. But occasionally, as Ness buzzed around us, chatting and feeding us, we exchanged a look. It was hard to explain that look, because it contained so much. Exasperation at Ness. Adoration of her. Shared grief. Of course, as a narcissistic fourteen-year-old, I couldn’t quite fathom the sadness Cess appeared to be feeling. It was clear in my mind that I was the principal mourner. My mother had died. Yes, she’d lost her sister, but she had had a lifetime with her. Still, for someone who spent much of my life alone, it was nice to not be alone in my grief.

22

Though it wasn’t the norm, I accepted the fact that Cess and Ness were unmarried. It didn’t bother me—if anything, I would have been appalled if either of them had decided to change this status. And yet, the fact remained that people talked. I’d have had to be deaf not to hear the local chatter.

“It’s a dreadful shame,” I heard a man say outside Mass one day. “Good sorts like those two—they’d make someone a damn good wife.”

“Still could,” another one said, “but they’d have to get cracking, those good looks won’t last much longer.”

“Nah,” yet another man said. “Dykes, both of them. Wouldn’t touch a man with a barge pole.”

One day, as I scribbled in my diary while Cess and Ness ate breakfast, I decided to ask them about it.

“Why aren’t you two married?”

Cess looked up from her newspaper. She was wearing a lightcotton blouse tucked into her stovepipe trousers. A navy chiffon scarf was tied around her neck and knotted at the side. She was eating a bowl of cereal, and her lips opened enough that I could see the milk pooling in her mouth.

The kitchen was immaculate in the soft morning light. Mum had had it remodeled a few years ago and she’d agonized over every detail. The walls were painted a soft pastel green, with polished timber cabinetry, and the fridge was chrome and glass. Above the stove, a collection of high-end kitchen gadgets sat neatly in place. The clock on the wall ticked softly, its brass hands glinting.

“I can’t speak for Ness,” Cess said. “But for me, it’s because no man so wonderful exists that it would be worth my while.”

“Certainly not,” Ness agreed, sipping her instant coffee. Ness was wearing a floral tea dress that was cinched at the waist with a wide belt. Her dark, wavy hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail, with a few stray curls framing her face.

“How do you know no such man exists?” I asked.

“You’re a smart girl, Mabel.” Cess noticed ink on her fingers from the newspaper and wiped them on a tea towel. “I shouldn’t have to explain this to you.”

“Explain what?”

Cess sighed and sat back in her seat. But I sensed her frustration wasn’t with me. “That marriage is for men. They get a free housekeeper, a whore, someone to provide them with children and to rant to about their troubles of an evening. And women get… what? Room and board?”