The Peacock Emporium(53)

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve done that. We’ve got loads of it at home.”

“Are you sure your fingers aren’t broken?” Arturro was still eyeing Jessie’s hand. “They look a bit swollen to me.”

“No, I can move them. Look.” She gave a gay wave of her fingers, then turned back toward the wall. “Who shall we put in the first display, then? I really wanted to do Alejandro, but I think that story about the baby who got given up would make everyone cry.”

“It was him, wasn’t it?” said Suzanna, much later, when they were alone.

“Who?” Jessie was working on her display after all: she had targeted Father Lenny, who had conceded with some amusement, but only if she would mention that currently he had almost two hundred battery-operated back massagers for sale. (“They don’t look much like back massagers to me,” Jessie had said, dubiously holding one up. “I’m a priest,” Father Lenny had exclaimed. “What else would they be?”)

“Your boyfriend. Hurt your hand.” She had felt it between them all afternoon—and she couldn’t ignore it, even if it meant Jessie would take it badly.

“I shut them in the car door,” said Jessie.

There was a short delay before Suzanna spoke: “You mean he did.”

Jessie had been in the window. She got up off her knees, and backed out of the space, careful not to dislodge any of the items on display. She lifted her hand and examined it, as if for the first time. “It’s really difficult to explain,” she said.

“Try me.”

“He liked it when I was just at home with Emma. This all started when I did my night school. He just loses his temper because he gets insecure.”

“Why don’t you leave?”

“Leave?” She looked genuinely surprised, even, perhaps, offended. “He’s not some wife-beater, Suzanna.”

Suzanna raised her eyebrows.

“Look, I know him, and this isn’t really him. He just feels threatened because I’m getting an education and he thinks that means I’m going to bugger off. And now there’s this place, and that’s something new as well. I probably don’t help matters—you know I’m a terrible one for talking to everybody. Sometimes I probably don’t consider how it looks to him . . .” She gazed meditatively at her half-finished window display. “Look, once he sees nothing’s going to change, he’ll go back to how he was. Don’t forget, Suzanna, I know him. We’ve been together ten years. This is not the Jason I know.”

“I just don’t see that there’s ever an excuse for it.”

“I’m not making excuses. I’m explaining. There’s a difference. Look, he knows he’s done wrong. I’m not some cowering little victim. We just fight, and when we fight sometimes we fight nasty. I give as good as I get, you know.”

In the long silence, the atmosphere in the shop seemed to contract. Suzanna said nothing, fearful of how it might sound, conscious that even her silence was suggesting some kind of judgment.

Jessie leaned back against one of the tables, and looked squarely at her. “Okay, what is it that really bothers you about this?”

Suzanna’s voice was small. “The effect it might have on Emma? What it’s teaching her?”

“You think I’d let anyone lay a hand on Emma? You think I’d stay in the house if I thought Jason might lay a hand on her?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“So what are you saying?”

“That . . . I don’t know . . . I’m just uncomfortable with any kind of violence,” said Suzanna.

“Violence? Or passion?”

“What?”

It was the first time Jessie’s face had darkened. “You don’t like passion, Suzanna. You like things neatly packaged. You like to keep things buttoned up. And that’s fine. That’s your choice. But me and Jason, we’re just honest about what we feel—when we love, we really love. But when we fight, we really fight. There aren’t any half-measures. And do you know what? I’m more comfortable with that—even with the odd busted hand”—she held up her wrist—“than the opposite, which is feeling so not bothered by someone that you lead this cool, polite, parallel life with each other. Have sex once a week. Hell, once a month. Fight quietly so you don’t wake the kids. What’s that teaching anyone about life?”

“The two things don’t necessarily . . .” Suzanna trailed off, midsentence. Intellectually, she knew she could have disputed the sense in what Jessie had said, however forcefully it had been put, but even though it had not been meant maliciously, there was something so profoundly discomfiting about it that Suzanna could hardly speak.



* * *



—

It had been almost a relief when Vivi appeared that afternoon. Suzanna and Jessie, while outwardly polite, had lost a certain spontaneity in their dealings with each other, as if the conversation had been too premature for their infant friendship to survive its honesty. Arturro had drunk his coffee unusually quickly and, with a nervous thank-you, had left. Two other customers had talked loudly in the corner, oblivious, temporarily masking the long silences. But now that they were gone it had become painfully apparent that Jessie’s normal chattiness had been deadened. Suzanna, making an uncharacteristic effort to talk to her customers as an attempt to bypass the strained atmosphere, found herself greeting her mother with an unusual warmth, which Vivi, flushed with pleasure at being hugged, had eagerly returned.