Jam Drops

Jam Drops

by John Ellison Davies

"I wish I had someone to play with," Jessica complained.

"Me too, dear," said Cathy.

For one awed second her daughter stared.

"It takes time. In a new house. It takes time to get to know people."

"I know." Jessica imitated her mother's precise, nervous speech. "It takes time."

Cathy guided the iron carefully around a business collar. She concentrated on Jim's buttons. Her baby was a grub, a smart grub becoming a cruel butterfly. It was too much. Everything was too much. Pretending to look for something she hid her head in a cupboard and clumsily bumped two stainless steel saucepans together so hard the lids fell off. Their cold ringing was as sharp as the sting in her eyes.

.

"We've seen all the films she wants to see. We went to the zoo on Monday." Cathy kept her voice low. Jessica was eating by the television but you never knew what those ears heard. Jim chewed a piece of gristle, trying to decide if it could be dealt with, and watched his wife as if she too were a problem not to be hurried.

"You can't push yourself at people."

Steam rose slowly from the vegetables between them.

"We're not living here. We're camping. It's wrong. And dull."

"Am I dull?" he asked.

"Yes. Sometimes."

She could not fight him, never wanted to. She knew what it cost him to hold himself back, to take the safe way, to do his best for them. His caution had earned him the new job. Caution bought a bigger house in an expensive cul-de-sac, would send Jessica to a better school and on to university.

Later she held him close and felt his cautious heart press against hers.

.

After he left for work she opened the curtains but the house still seemed dark. Jessica was reading a book, sprawled on the lounge floor, squeezing an occasional glance at the cartoons on television. The dying child in her suppressed a giggle. The new creature she was becoming forced her eyes down to the page. Her lips moved shaping an unfamiliar word. She lifted the heavy dictionary off its shelf, her small body tilted at the waist to support the weight. When she understood the word she closed the dictionary with a satisfied slap.

Cathy felt stupid measured against her daughter's passion to know, to know more. She missed Jim. Without him she was always a little afraid. Not with the fear she saw in the newspapers, in those shocked front page faces, but some kind of fear that made her nervous and clumsy, and she was nervous and clumsy all the time. She was, she knew, better with Jim.

"I'm going to make some jam drops, darling. Would you like to help me?"

"I'd rather read."

"Is it an interesting book?"

Jessica pushed the book aside, enduring her mother's interest.

"The Trojan war! What do you think of Helen?"

"She was silly."

"She must have been very pretty."

"All she did was look nice for boys."

"You'll want to look nice for boys one day."

Jessica nodded, as if she had summed up the evidence of life and reached a sad verdict.

"But not for stupid boys like Trojans. The Greeks were clever."

"Why were they clever?"

"Because they knew the Trojans were silly and they built a wooden horse and pretended to go away and then the Trojans took it into the city but there were soldiers inside and when it was night time they came out."

Suddenly Cathy wanted to kiss her and smell her hair.

"You go on with your book, sweetheart. I'll be in the kitchen if you need me," she said, exhilarated, grateful to her own child for talking to her. This was love. Talk to me. I don't even care what you say only let me hear your voice, let me know there is still something I can do for you, at least listen, and if you are smarter than I am and I know you're bored with me you still need me, soon you'll ask questions I can't answer but please don't hate me, let me do something for you I'll help you get the answers somehow I will but please talk to me.

Cathy lit the oven, adjusted it to a moderate temperature and mixed sugar, eggs, butter and flour in a bowl with a whisk until the mixture thickened properly. Then she smeared butter thinly over the surface of a baking tray, scooped a portion of the mixture with a dessert spoon and let it drip onto the tray. When it stopped dripping that was enough and she took another scoop. She enjoyed this, the repeated motion, liked to watch the calm expanding circles. When the ray was full she pressed a hole at the centre of each pale lump and spooned a spot of jam into each hole.

As the drops with their gleaming eyes of jam hardened brown and golden in the oven she thought about Jessica and other, early times in the old house when Jim was still studying at night, invariably tired after a full day at work, and she remembered the many warm silences. She wondered why their nights were not quite like that any more. She also wondered why the wooden horse wasn't called the Greek horse, if they built it, and what would Jessica think of her if she came out with such a question.

She put the kettle on, burnt her fingers removing the baking tray from the oven with the glove that had worn through to its inner lining. She licked her fingers. Then she noticed Mrs. Simmonds putting out her washing in the adjoining back yard. This could be a chance. They might share a cup of tea, be friends. Cathy turned the gas low under the kettle and ran outside.

"Mrs. Simmonds?" she called over the fence. The other woman seemed lost in sheets, shirts, and underwear.

"Hallo?"

"Here I am," Cathy waved. "I'm sorry we haven't had time to introduce ourselves. The agent told us..."

Mrs. Simmonds extended a vague hand.

"I've just put the kettle on." Cathy faltered. A soft whistling began behind her. "Would you...?"

Mrs. Simmonds smiled. Cathy caught a faint sour aroma of wine in the air.

"Good of you. Things to do. 'Nother time."

The whistling continued, louder. Mrs. Simmonds swayed indoors, steering wide of wet, flapping towels.

When Cathy came inside the kettle was screaming.

.

"Good day?" asked Jim.

"I met Mrs. Simmonds."

"That's a start," he said approvingly.

Cathy almost shivered watching the deft, sharp movements of Jessica's elbows as she cut her food.

"Mummy burned her fingers."

Jim tilted an enquiring eyebrow at his wife.

"The oven glove is wearing out," she explained.

"Mummy says we can't afford to buy a new one."

"I didn't say that, sweetheart."

"You did."

"I said we should make do with the old until it absolutely has to be replaced. And that was about something else, if you remember."

Jim's reaction on this occasion was swift.

"Don't sulk, Jessie. Listen to your mother."

Later, coming to bed, he found Cathy standing wrapped in a sheet. Her eyes shone through a gap in the folds. Then she opened her arms and spread the sheet rippling over him, covering him.

.

Excited by her idea, Cathy waited until she heard the car engine start and the brief whimper of the horn, their signal for goodbye until tonight.

"Jessica. Jessie!"

"What is it?"

"I need your help in here."

A sluggish moan was the only answer.

"Come here, miss. Turn the T.V. off."

A thread of authority stretched and strained between them from one room to the other. Cathy heard a plastic click, a resentful thump. Her terrible daughter slouched into the kitchen.

"What do you want me to do?"

"We're making jam drops.”

"You made lots yesterday."

"We're making more."

"How many?"

"Take out all the baking trays." There were four trays. Contempt and curiosity melted together in her child's face. "And the mixing bowls."

Together they smeared butter over the trays. They mixed sugar, eggs, butter and flour in the bowls together until the mixture thickened properly.

"Light the oven."

With a spoon each they scooped a portion of the mixture and let it drip in expanding circles. When it stopped dripping that was enough and they took another scoop, and so on until the trays were full.

"I like this part," Jessica giggled uncertainly.

"Fingers ready?"

Together they pressed a small hole at the centre of each pale lump and spooned spots of apricot jam into each hole.

"Now you go and put on your blue dress."

"Why?"

"Because it looks nice. Go."

While Jessica changed Cathy sat by the oven watching the drops brown and harden like unexpected islands on a familiar map.

"Are we going somewhere?"

"I want the paper plates, sweetheart, eleven small ones." While Jessica laid out the plates she counted out the jam drops, five to a plate. "Now cover them." She remembered an old basket, fetched it, arranged the plates in it gently as eggs and guided Jessica firmly to the front door.

"Where are we going?"

Under a dull salt sky they marched to the mouth of the cul-de-sac. Jessica watched her mother ring the first doorbell, ring again, and write a note on a pad she used for kitchen reminders. She tore off the page and left it under a plate, like a tongue licking at the door.

At the second house there was no answer. Business-like, Cathy wrote another note and left another plate. On the tiled terrace at number three Jessica frowned at an ugly cement cupid and thought she saw a curtain move.

"They don't like us. They don't want to talk to us," she said.

"Why, sweetheart?"

"We're not good enough."

"Don't say that."

"They know we used to be poor."

Cathy pulled her along, dragged her scuffing through dead frangipani leaves to the next door. An agitated mynah bird ran ahead of them for several yards and reluctantly flapped its wings in escape.

"Press the bell," Cathy said.

"I don't want to!"

"Press it."

"They won't answer."

Together they waited. Jessica's tears dripped dismally as if through a broken window.

"What will we do?"

"We'll go on. Until they surrender," Cathy added, reckless. It was too much, everything was too much, but she knew she could not let it be too much, or enough. She pressed the bell, not letting go.

Jessica wiped her face.

-The End-