The Rival – Caroline Harbord

I was born knowing exactly what I wanted, and luckily for me I had been given all the necessary weapons to achieve my goal.  I look at the old silver-framed photographs on my mother’s desk of myself as a baby, and I see my chubby pink cheeks, my large blue eyes and that thatch of silky blond hair – I was an amazingly beautiful baby.  It was no wonder that my mother fell in love with me.  I was born in the early spring, and, all through that long idle summer, she and I would sit together, curled up on the rickety old wooden swing-seat by the crab apple tree, where all the delicious scents of an English cottage garden would waft past my tiny upturned nose.  Wrapped in a white cashmere shawl, I would nestle into her warm body, and, when I became restless, she would unbutton her cotton blouse and place me against her soft white breast.  My lips would fasten greedily onto the rosy nipple already oozing milk, and my tiny little hands would clutch at the pale cushion of plump, yielding skin.  I was as close to heaven then as I suspect I will ever be.   

I was about eight months old when I realised that I had a rival for my mother’s affections.  The dark man, of whom I had been only half-aware, who had hovered on the periphery of my infant vision, suddenly swam into focus.  I recognised him at once.  He was the enemy.

‘Give him to me, Mary.  Go and get ready, we’re already half an hour late’.  His voice was rough, his arms stiff, and his navy-blue pullover was scratchy – no wonder I yelled.  I suppose, I must reluctantly admit, that he did try – then.  Later, he didn’t bother.  He thrust his face close to mine.  ‘Come on Philip, smile for Daddy.  Don’t cry, be a big boy.  It was hardly going to work, was it?  Not to one used to my mother’s gentle voice and loving arms.

Over the ensuing couple of years I developed all the stratagems of a veteran army commander facing his deadliest foe; with my mother I would be loving and obedient, but with him I would become truculent and whiny.  I would endeavour to ensure I was always still up when he returned from work.  That wasn’t difficult as my mother and I always had such fun together, and one of my first words was “more”.  So there would always be one more go on the slide, one more chase round the garden, one more game of “Snap”.  When he came home, tired and fractious after a hard day’s work, there was I, still unbathed, still in residence in the kitchen, and still in possession of my mother’s attention.

‘For God’s sake, Mary, put that child to bed.  It’s hours past his bedtime.’  So my mother and I would scamper up the stairs for half an hour of fun and laughter amidst the bubbles and warm water.  When I was towelled dry and dressed in my Mickey Mouse pyjamas, she would say, ‘Do you want Daddy to read you a story?’ but always looked pleased when I protested ‘No, you’.  We read all the old books – Peter Rabbit, The Three Little Pigs and my favourite of all, Ferdinand.  How I identified with that little bull sitting amongst the flowers, whose mother, “who was only a cow”, spent her time thinking about him.  

I refused to say “Daddy” even when my vocabulary was quite extensive.  Instead I called him Simon.  My mother thought it sweet; what he thought of it I don’t know.  I think by then he had sussed me out, as I noticed a gradual withdrawal.  He had clearly recognised that this was one battle he was not going to win.   That of course was his big mistake; he thought it was a battle, I knew it was all-out war, and I knew I was not going to lose.

When I was three my mother decided it was time I had some company and took me down to the local nursery school.  As we set off along our tree-lined road that pleasant spring morning, I had thought that this was just another outing like any other, where we would spend a short time doing something interesting together and then go home.  I was quite unprepared for being abandoned.  I was so shocked that I just sat there, thumb stuffed in my mouth, watching the other children playing.  When she at last returned, ‘He’s been very good, Mrs Bailey, settled in like a little lamb.’  From my position buried against my mother’s skirt, I threw a disbelieving look at the woman, ‘Lying toad’ I thought.  The next morning I was well prepared.  When my mother made to leave, I tried first the tears, then the clutching and finally the full-scale howl.  To my utter surprise, none of it worked.  I was detached from her blouse and cardigan, one finger at a time, and borne away by the horrible woman from the day before, to some inner part of the building where my mother couldn’t hear my shrieks of outrage.  She left without me!  Of course eventually, after a week or so, I settled down and began to enjoy the nursery, but from then on I regarded my mother with some caution.  She was clearly not quite so besotted with me as I had thought.

Over the next few years her relationship with my father went from bad to worse.  I listened with satisfaction as they rowed downstairs after I had gone to bed.  I couldn’t make out all the words but I could hear enough to know that often I was the cause of the friction.  My father’s favourite phrase was ‘You spoil that boy’.  Of course she did, that’s what mothers were supposed to do, and I loved being spoiled.   In the school holidays we would take trips together, just the two of us, to the zoo, or the country park, sometimes to the seaside - lovely long hot days where we would loll around on our picnic rug and talk about everything under the sun.  In the winter we would escape to the cinema or the local museum, or very daringly, take trips up to London to see Nelson’s Column and Madame Tussauds.  She was a very easy companion and always went out of her way to ensure I enjoyed the outings as much as she did.  Neither of us had many other friends; hers seemed to be mainly acquaintances, dull women she occasionally met for coffee while I was at school; and I don’t think there was a single boy I could put my finger on and truthfully say he was a friend.  I thought William Sheaver was a friend, but after what he said about my mother, I never talked to him again.  Most of the boys I met were completely disinterested in their mothers. I simply couldn’t understand it; my mother was my best friend, my confidante, my ally in all things.

After my father left, things became much more pleasant at home.  At ten years old, I felt quite ready to take over his putative position as head of the household.  My mother laughed and ruffled my hair.  ‘You are sweet, Philip, and I do love you darling.’  It was round about then that I started calling her Maria.  I had always though Mary a tad ordinary, a rather plain sort of name for an amazingly beautiful woman; and my father had never called her Maria.  She protested at first, but quickly became accustomed to it, in fact I think she secretly liked it.  Of course, by then, I had begun to realise the complexity of my own feelings for her

I had rather mistakenly, but understandably given my tender years, assumed that my father’s role in the household was restricted to being the provider of money.  It had never occurred to me that he could have had any other position in my mother’s life.  As I grew older and viewed what was going on around me, read more, watched more television and listened to the gutter talk at school, I began to wonder how my mother was coping without him.  I knew there were no other men, she could never have hidden such a fact from me, although I have to admit that when I first considered the matter I did spend some time snooping round her bedroom and reading her diary.  She never talked about my father and didn’t seem to be aware of any gap in her life.  I however, was becoming painfully aware of the gap in mine. 

Early adolescence is a universally difficult time for all boys.  I was blessed with the sort of good looks which just segued from child to teenager to young man without any embarrassing acne-fuelled years or periods of mediocrity, but even so I cannot say it was the most favourite time of my life.  I realised that my feelings for Maria presented me with my greatest challenge to date.  I knew she loved me, she demonstrated that on a daily basis, the lovingly prepared meals – always my favourites, the carefully washed and ironed clothes, the little treats and the ever-present willingness to talk about the things I cared about; but the question was how did she love me?  I began to lay my plans and I was prepared to be very patient, for I knew that the step she would have to take was a far greater one for her, than the one I had already taken, albeit only in my mind.  In the evenings, when there was nothing we wanted to watch on television, we would sit on the sofa together and read.  I made a point of always sitting close to her and would, at frequent intervals, touch her – her arm, her hand, her face, her hair.  Gradually I began to sit with my arm flung across the back of the sofa, then round the back of her shoulders.  There we would lie, half cuddled together, just as we had when I was a child.

When it was time for bed, instead of waiting for her to come to my room to say good-night, I began to pre-empt her visits and wander half undressed into her bedroom.

‘Goodness Philip’ she said one evening, ‘How you’ve grown; your muscles are positively manly darling.’  I sat down beside her on the rose-patterned duvet.  She was sitting up against the matching pillows clad in one of her skimpy little white nighties with the lace and pink ribbons round the neckline.  She looked delicious, and I was finding it very hard to control myself.

‘Feel them’ I said, proffering my right arm.

‘Mmmmm!  Lovely darling.  You are becoming very handsome, you know, just like . . . .’  She stopped, instinctively aware that what she had been about to say would have been completely inappropriate; it would have destroyed the magic of the moment. 

I moved my hand to stroke her hair, ‘almost as lovely as you’ I whispered, ‘almost but not quite.  Ria you are quite, quite beautiful’.  With the tips of my fingers I began to stroke her face, slowly, gently, and then her long slender neck. 

She sat as still as a mouse, looking at me with her huge dark eyes.  ‘Oh Philip!’ she breathed, nothing else.  I could have interpreted those two words in a hundred different ways but I chose to read encouragement not repulsion or disappointment.   My fingers moved to the ribbons which tied her nightdress.  I undid them, and the silky material fell away revealing my kingdom, those perfect, peach-like breasts.  I stared at them like a drowning man might stare at a life-raft.   My fingers tentatively stroked the soft whiteness of her skin, feeling the nipples harden as I touched them.  Just when I thought I could bear it no longer she reached for my head and pulled my face against her, burying my mouth against the warmth, the comfort and the release of her body.

After that first time there was no turning back.  I don’t think either of us ever contemplated that there could be any other way forward.  We went on as before during the day, I went to school, she stayed at home or went shopping, did the things that other women did.   But the nights, ah the nights!  How can I describe perfection?  We spent most of that first year in the bedroom.  I was young and healthy with a young man’s appetites, and she loved me, wanted me to be happy.  We never spoke of anything outside the perfection of our life in that room; we enjoyed each other in the way a man and a woman who love each other are meant to do.

‘I love you Ria’ I would say. 

 ‘I love you too Philip, my darling’

By the time I was eighteen we had been lovers for nearly four years.  It was at this point I suggested we moved house. 

‘It might be easier to be somewhere where people didn’t know us from before’ I said.  ‘If I apply for a University place somewhere other than here, we could sell this and buy another house.  What do you think?’  She looked at me dreamily, in a haze of contentment.  We had spent most of the afternoon making love and she would have given me anything I wanted, I recognised the signs.

‘Mmmmm!  Darling, I’ve got something to tell you.’ 

I was not prepared for what she said next.  Of all the things I might have expected this was something I had never, in a million years, ever considered.  I was like a battle commander who had suddenly come face to face with a new weapon of war, right in the middle of the battlefield.

‘I’m pregnant.’  There was an appalled silence.  At least on my part it was appalled, I think Maria was in a little dreamlike world of her own.

 ‘You can’t be.  You were on the pill.  You can’t be pregnant.’  But one look at her face told me that it was I who was mistaken. Although I was badly shaken, I quickly pulled myself together.  ‘You poor darling.  Don’t worry we’ll sort this out, it won’t be too difficult.  How. . . how er far are you?’

  ‘About three months possibly four, I’m not sure.’  I think this was the first time when it actually occurred to me that she had done this on purpose.  Surely she should have noticed earlier; come to that if I had been paying attention I should have realised as well.  Suddenly she looked up at me, her face more alert.  ‘I hope you’re not going to suggest an abortion, Philip, because I am going to have this baby.’  She had obviously prepared herself for my opposition.  ‘Darling, you’ll love it when it’s born.  Think Philip, a little you, all over again.’  I wondered for a traitorous moment just what planet she was on; what on earth made her think that I would want a baby, and with her.

  ‘Look Maria, be sensible, this is far too important for you to be all lovey-dovey about having a baby.  This is not right.  It is just not right for you and I to have a baby together.’

  ‘No’ she spat back at me, ‘and it’s not right for you and I to fuck each other senseless is it?’  We stared horrified into the abyss.  She had uttered the unthinkable words, the ones we had never spoken even though we had both thought them.

We battled over the unborn foetus for another month, until I finally admitted defeat.  This was not a position I was accustomed to be in; I was used to winning, but short of walking out there was little else I could do.  I could not physically force Maria to have an abortion.  I had tried being kind, I had tried being angry, I had tried being disappointed.  I had even tried withdrawing from sex, but in the end I found that more of a problem than she did.  So in the end I gave in and accepted that she was going to go through with it.  She was pathetically grateful, and that night indulged me in some of my favourite sexual preferences, ones I knew she didn’t particularly enjoy.   I loved her totally, but I was even more cautious than I had been all those years ago at nursery school, for now I knew I could be defeated.  I was determined not to be in that position ever again.

We enjoyed a wonderful holiday in Andalusia that year, just the two of us.  It was so hot that, in the privacy of our villa, Maria wandered around stark naked.  I loved looking at her, I didn’t even mind her thickening waist, for the upside was that her breasts became more luscious than ever.  They were streaked with pale-blue veins and increasing in size week by week.  ‘Mmmmm’ I said sucking at her nipples, ‘you become more scrumptious by the day, did you know that, Ria?’  She laughed and stroked my face.

            ‘I love you Philip.  I hope our baby looks just like you.’  Surprisingly, mention of the forthcoming arrival increased my ardour rather than diminished it.  I sometimes felt that I was in a race to prove my virility, my power over her.  She never protested when I wanted sex, in fact I think that being pregnant increased her appetite.  We spent hot, sticky days lying in each others arms and then in the nights when we couldn’t sleep we would stroke and fondle each other till every ounce of desire was spent.

The day the baby was born I was having an interview for my university place.  I rushed back to find Maria lying in the hospital bed, flushed and damp from her exertions, a flower at the height of its blooming.  ‘It’s a boy, Philip’ she whispered, ‘look, he’s just like you.’  I wasn’t interested in the baby, only her.  I sat and stroked her face, whispering little nothings in her ear.  She seemed surprisingly well, all things considered, and I was really rather glad I had missed all the noise and messiness.  She closed her eyes, her eyelashes brushing her pale-pink cheeks, and I tiptoed out of the room.  I hadn’t even looked at my son.

They came home the following day, Maria and a little bundle of white cashmere.  We settled back into our routine except that for the moment there was no sex, and no peace either.  The baby wailed and Maria would not part with him, constantly picking him up and putting him down again beside her on a cushion.

   ‘Look, Philip, he’s sweet isn’t he.  See, he’s opening his eyes.  Say hello to your Daddy sweetheart.’ I peered at the bundle.  The baby obediently opened his eyes and somewhere in that unfocused depth I could sense the recognition.  He would have known me anywhere.

All through those first five months he slept with us, and during the day, Maria carried him around in a sling.   When at last she decided he was old enough to have a room of his own, we moved him into the nursery, which I had decorated with baby motifs.  He lay in his white-painted cot under a pale-blue blanket, staring up at the mobile we had chosen together.

  ‘Do you think he can see it?’ she said.

   ‘Probably not.’ I replied unhelpfully.  She only wanted platitudes, not the truth.

  ‘Do you think I should give him that little white pillow, the one with the broderie-anglaise trimming?   He’d look really sweet with his head resting on it.’  I didn’t remind her that all the baby books said babies should sleep flat on their backs with no pillow.

Later, when Maria was at last fast asleep, I crept into the nursery.  He was sleeping soundly.  I picked up the pillow with the broderie-anglaise trimming and held it over his face.  When he had stopped breathing, which only took a minute or two, I picked up the floppy body and turned him over so that his face was now pressed into the pillow. 

‘Pre-emptive strike!’ I whispered.  ‘Sorry!’

Then I crept back to bed.