I Have Always Enjoyed Working in an Office

Yes I have. I’m not jiving you. I like desks, and chairs that swivel, stacks of clean white paper, and yellow paper for copies (I’m going back a long way here), and neatly sharpened pencils. Erasers. Crisp black type on bright white paper. Three sizes of envelopes, three sizes of paper—foolscap, quarto, and octavo. Boxes of carbon paper. (Bills of Lading have eight copies, i.e., eight carbons. It took strong fingers. And you couldn’t erase on a Bill of Lading. Don’t think about it.) I love the smell of stationery—inky, papery, erasury. In America, of course, all three sizes of paper are different from the English. Nothing’s easy. And stencils. Remember stencils? No, of course you don’t. There was a key on the typewriter (the manual typewriter) that you used on special waxed paper, and ghostly letters were cut. Then a retired policeman ran the stencil on a special machine, and copies appeared like magic. Stencils were killed by Xerox. I don’t know what happened to the retired policemen. At school, discussing what we’d do when we left, everyone dismissed the idea of a ‘stuffy office.’ Everyone except me. I just said, well, you could always open the window. I hadn’t met air-conditioning then. Correcting mistakes on a typewriter was an art. Good secretaries corrected the carbon(s) as well as the original; bad secretaries did not. What a mess. I, of course, took pride in correcting both letterhead and carbon as neatly as possible! Maybe I’m a prig, but it was a question of artistic satisfaction: crisp black letters on bright
white/yellow paper.

Then came correcting typewriters. In my office they were issued according to seniority. The girl at Reception protested hotly. She was a new employee and she typed very badly, so she said she needed one more then I did. Ha! She didn’t get it. And then wordprocessors. First, the MagCards. Mag I was useless. You could only replace a word with a new word of much the same size. How often did that happen? My boss expected to rewrite the whole darn letter (his revisions were horrendous), so battles broke out. Magcard II did pretty well but there was still no screen. Then I learned the Qyx. Very clever but very complicated. That one reduced me to tears, but I was proud when I mastered it. And after that the Wang, a comfortable dependable word-processor; motherly, I’d call it. Finally came computers, with word-processing just one of the many things you could do. My firm had Word. I don’t know what learning five different word-processors has done to my brain; it must look something like an All-day Sucker, with half the colors sucked off.

I’m out of the Earn-Your-Own-Living rut now, but I have my own private office in a cabin in my garden. Small trees and bushes outside, and birds chirping (I feed them). A pair of jays turn their infant loose in my trees each year. I imagine them saying, “Well, Junior can’t come to much harm in here.” I glory in my own computer with Word and a Hewlett Laser-Jet printer. Boxes of floppy disks. E-mail. And my very own swivelly chair. I have staplers and staple removers. Two-and three-hole punches. Post-Its.

A Jane Austen cartoon on the wall, and a poster of Patrick Stewart holding The Complete Shakespeare. A file cabinet. Book shelves. A Thesaurus of English words and phrases—and the Compact Oxford English Dictionary complete with magnifying glass.

I’ve written three books, about a dozen essays, and over one hundred poems in my office.

My windows are open, of course.

WELCOME HOME, ODYSSEUS

And so he’s back, my husband,
and the limbo years are over.
Once more the king sits on the throne
of Ithaca. Now the riffraff
is gone from my house,
the floors swept clean of litter
and the pools of blood are mopped.
The stains remain. That is the way
of blood.

My old life closes over me. No time, now,
for needlework with the man of the house
in place. My days are full—servants
to scold, meals to plan, stores to order—
(Ye gods, how he eats. And drinks!)

I was pleased to see him, yes.
My heart skipped a beat—leapt, in fact,
like a dolphin tumbling in the wine-dark sea—
when he uncloaked himself.
But settled itself quite soon.
Twenty years is a long time.
(I’d forgotten how he snores.
And clears his throat each morning,
hawking and spitting like a galley slave.)

It was so long since I’d been used by a man
that his thrusts hurt me. This pleased
him as a tangible sign of my fidelity.

He’s an enthusiastic lover.
The thing is, he knows new tricks.
I have to wonder who’s had the teaching of him
—Circe, of course. A nymph or three?
Aphrodite I don’t believe—
and what else he might have picked up.

His friends are coming round in droves—
the house is as crowded
as it was with my so-called lovers,
and the wine bill’s even higher.
They acknowledge me as mistress of the house
and then ignore me, as they reminisce,
live it all again,
re-fight each battle, blow by blow
describe each mythic figure encountered
and the cunning tricks
by which my man defeated them.
Great belly laughs they give,
they slap his back, they spit.

Did I say mythic—a slip of the tongue.
Forgive me. I’m sure he doesn’t mean
to exaggerate. But the Hydra? Cyclops?
Sirens singing men to their doom? Men
run quickly enough when women call.
No special songs are needed.

At least while he was gone I had a name.
People came to see me. Let’s see how
Penelope is getting on with her web.
Now I am just his aging wife,
an appendage.


I wish that I could leave, as he did.
It’s my turn, by Hades, to drink life to the lees!
After twenty years confinement
I need my own adventures. My son is grown;
there’ll be no other children.
So why not leave him to his spit-roasted lamb,
stuffed vine leaves, endless skins of wine,
his belches and farts,
his back-slapping boyos?

Would he even notice I had gone?

ALICE

“She NOTICED me!” said the White Rabbit.
“Me! I’m just a messenger,” he went on,
“of no importance. Just a piece of furniture
to most people. But Alice! She NOTICED me!
And she followed me right down the rabbit hole.
I’ll never forget that day!” said the White Rabbit,
making a note on his cuff. “I shall always love her.”

“Oh, Alice, my Alice,” said the White Knight,
falling off his horse. “She was my first love,”
he said, climbing back in the saddle. “In fact,
she was my only love. It’s hard to meet
a nice girl,” he said sadly, “on horseback.”

“Alice? A real pussy cat!,” said the Cheshire
Cat, grinning and grooming his whiskers.
“The cat’s meow! That long straight hair,
that big blue bow—pretty as a Persian at a cat
show. And she just loves kittens! She can’t
disappear yet, and that’s a drawback,”
said the Cat, disappearing.

“Charming. Quite charming,” said the Mad
Hatter, fiddling with his top hat. “A very well
brought up young lady. But love?” He blushed.
“The affection of an older man for a very young
gel is a very delicate thing! One does one’s
best to keep it under wraps. However,
I must confess I find her pinafore . . . fetching.”

The March Hare smiled, a toothy smile. “Alice?
She had the Hatter all in a tizzy. He was her slave.
Well, me too,” he added bashfully “We all were.”
He scratched his ear with a hind foot. “Come
to think of it, there was some-thing of the tease
about Alice. One day it was the Hatter, next day
Rabbit, and then it was Cat who was the favorite.
Charming, though. But very short ears.”

The Caterpillar raised his head and took
the hookah out of his mouth. “Alice? ‘ow is she?
Nice little kiddie. A bit lumpy round the middle.
Well, she’s still a grub, ain’t she?” said
the Caterpillar indulgently, rising to his full slim
height. “Fancy ‘er? Grrmph. When she’s older,
and ‘as stretched out a bit . . . Yerss,” said
the Caterpillar, his voice gruff but all his toes
curling with excitement, “I’ll keep ‘er in mind.”

MRS. PIP

An Alternative Ending To
GREAT EXPECTATIONS


Estella. Since our first meeting, she had been my inspiration, my dearest dream. Through all those days of self-deception when I was sure Miss Haversham intended us for each other, and those later hopeless days after Magwitch’s dread revelations, I carried her in my heart. I dreamed and longed and hoped and feared. Estella’s marriage to Bentley Drummle devastated me but did not obliterate her from my thoughts. When I learned her parentage it seemed she came a little closer, became in some way more accessible, yet those were such dark days, with Magwitch’s fate hanging over us. After his death, and my illness, my longing for her receded a little and seemed part of a dreamlike, innocent past. My departure for Egypt, with that best of all friends, Herbert Pocket, took me as far from her in distance as she already was in life.

I worked overseas for Clarriker Camp Co., first as a clerk, later as a partner. We did well. We were not rich, but we earned a respectable living. Clara, sweet Clara, now married to Herbert, was a frugal little woman. She kept house for us all and made a place in Cairo (exotic, corrupt city), that was for ever England. Her china teapot, painted with rosebuds, symbolized for me all that was good and pure in marriage. Then, after eleven years, I came back to England for a holiday in a more temperate clime. I wished to see Joe and Biddy in their married happiness (forever denied to me, as I thought). They had named their son Pip after me and, when I first saw him, fenced into a corner by the fire by Joe’s leg, it was as if I looked through the wrong end of a telescope to find myself a child again.

It was on this visit that once more I met Estella. I knew she was widowed, freed from her brutal, hard-drinking husband when he was thrown by a horse he was mistreating, and killed. He had gambled away most of her fortune, abused her, and spent his time with other women. When I thought of her, it was with sadness. One late autumnal afternoon, I walked down to the garden that was all that remained of Satis House (it and the brewery long demolished), for a last look at this repository of memories. A cold silvery mist veiled the day and through it I beheld a solitary figure, its long cloak falling in folds to the ground in a manner oddly reminiscent of the robes worn in Egypt. I looked, and looked again. It was Estella.

Estella was changed, softened and made vulnerable, I thought, by those years of hardship. Her face was unutterably weary, but still lovely to my gaze. It seemed to me she reached out hungrily for some glimmer of human warmth, a friendly word, companionship. The silvery mist was touched with the first rays of moonlight, and the same rays touched the tears that shone in her eyes.

And so we met at last, and talked and walked together, and agreed to meet again. I took her hand in mine and led her back to the inn and the mists cleared and, in all the broad expanse of tranquil moonlight, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.

* * * * *

I was right. We did not part. Meeting followed meeting and, after some weeks of courtship, I persuaded Estella to become my wife, my Mrs. Pip. Oh, happy day! Oh, radiant day! Oh, day of all joy!

Estella returned with me to Cairo, that town of white-robed figures, beggars, cruelly-laden donkeys and mosques, where the cries of the muezzin were echoed in the mews of the brown kites flying overhead. We found a white, flat-roofed house, its courtyard shaded by date palms, not far from Herbert and Clara. Clara loved Estella from the start and how could Estella not love Clara, dear little thing that she was? Estella had lived a life of luxury, marred by her husband’s violence. From Clara she would learn housewifery and economy, the woman’s pleasant task of making a home for her husband. I looked forward to hearing her household keys jingling at her slender waist.

I should not wish to dwell on the most private side of marriage, yet something must be said. Estella was reserved, wary, and I was patient and gentle with her. She seemed to me like some beautiful highly-bred mare, spurred and beaten by a ruthless rider. I did not thrust myself on her. I had to teach her to trust. But it was hard to wait, to contain my passion. I loved her so much. I was sure that in time she would turn to me with a warm and open heart and make my life her own, submerging her desires in mine, as a true wife should. I longed for her touch, for a spontaneous burst of affection. Oh, how I longed! It seemed I had waited all my life for this. I thought of my mother, Georgiana, cold in her grave from my birth; her chill fingers had never caressed her infant son. I thought of my sister, Mrs. Joe, so hard and unloving. I thought of Biddy, that true country girl, wifely and tender, lost to me and bound to Joe. Estella, I knew, would one day be my wife in more than name. In her all womanhood would be united.

It was not to be. The months passed. Still Estella lay aloof, rigid, ignoring my presence beside her in the wide white bed beneath the mosquito net. Sometimes, despite the tropic heat, I seemed to see in the net’s shadowy folds the cold and silvery mist arising from the marshes, separating us once more. Estella took to walking through the town, escorted by a small brown boy with a scarlet fez. She showed an un-English, unwomanly, fascination for the dark humid rat-infested alleys of the native bazaars that both caused me anxiety and inflamed my blood. That there was passion in her, I never doubted. The curl of her exquisite mouth, the proud stare of her dark and liquid eyes, the curve of her deep womanly bosom ... At times I would steal from my work and try to follow her, as she picked her way through the camel dung and rubbish of the streets, wondering what she sought in this outlandish, fetid place that she could not find in the tranquil domestication of her home. I neglected my work, and Herbert watched me with anxious eyes, but said nothing.

She brought home silver bracelets for her wrists and ankles, and native robes, both opaque and filmy, garments that covered her from head to toe, with a yashmak veiling her nose and mouth. Above the veil her eyes were haunting in their beauty and despair. She bought a parrot in the bazaar, which she called Pip. She talked to it some evenings as she never talked to me. I asked her why she gave it my name; it seemed a disparaging thing for her to do.

“It is no name for a man,” she said. “Or a wife.”

Something ended for me that night. I called my bearer and had him make up a bed for me in my study.

Next day she was gone. Rumors in the native quarter established her as the mistress of a wealthy Sheik, a man known for his love of horseflesh. He was often to be seen riding the fringes of the desert, where the great pyramids dominated the horizon and the Sphinx stared at nothing. His beautiful spirited horses — usually mares — would be lathered with sweat and foam, their sides marked by his spurs. It was said, later, that she rode at his side.

I left Egypt and returned to England to work in our London office.

Oh, my dead mother, my lost love, my Goddess, my Sphinx. My Estella. My Mrs. Pip.

* * * * *

Numbed by events, caring little where I lived, with Wemmick’s help I found rooms in Bloomsbury in a boarding house for men only. My landlady, Mrs. Pennipinch, was a respectable widow, rigidly corseted, who wore, day after day, a sucession of black satin dresses with an icy sheen. She conversed with me in a small cold parlor, lined with upright, rigid chairs. With some pride, Mrs. Pennipinch showed me the dining-room, where the table was embellished with a lavish display of cut-glass condiment containers as shiny and waisted as she (I noticed a particular likeness in the vinegar bottle), and silver napkin rings. “Relics of former splendors,” said Mrs. Pennipinch, “in the long lost days of Pennipinch.” The plates were ringed with a band of gold, but the portions she served were meager. The whole house was embalmed in a genteel odor of lavender polish and boiled cod.

This spartan establishment suited my mood. I sent my new address to Herbert and Jo; there was no-one else with whom I wished to communicate. I lived a solitary duty-filled life, making my way each day to and from my office, and reading to myself late into the night till my eyes closed from weariness and I tumbled into my bed, hoping not to dream. But often I would wake in the small hours, a well-loved face hovering before my eyes and even my very dressing-gown, hanging shadow-like on my bedroom door, would take a well-remembered shape. Then I would roll over and clench my pillow over my head, burying my face.

I led this plodding, weary life for some weeks or months (I did not count the days). Sunday was the one day I did not set out for my office. When it rained, I sat in my room and read. When it was dry, I took long walks through the London streets. I liked to cross the Thames at one bridge and return on the next. The murky waters, in which so many miserable lives had ended, drew my eyes. I spoke to no-one on these walks.

And then one wet Sunday, as I sat at my window, listening to the church bells tolling for the dead and staring at a gray and rain-washed street where drops depended like tears from the roof and the only sign of life was a bedraggled cat huddled in a doorway, licking itself dry with a wet tongue, a small figure turned the corner and came toward me, half eclipsed by a large black umbrella. The skirts, splashed at the hem and held up with only partial success by a little gloved hand, donated a woman. Little laced boots twinkled in and out from under those skirts. I watched her approach with dull eyes; woman to me meant only one, tall, erect and beautiful. As she neared my abode, she tilted back that great black protector to inspect the street numbers and I saw her face, framed by a plain blue bonnet. It was rosy with rain and exercise. A few tendrils of fine brown hair, mischievously escaping confinement, caressed her forehead. Her chin was pointed, like a china doll, and her eyes were wide. Surely I knew that face, different in feature yet so like in expression to that of my dear friend Herbert? It must be—it was—Jane Pocket.

As the doorbell rang, I started up. Moments later, Mrs. Pennipinch rapped at my door. Her face pregnant with disapproval and curiosity, she announced the arrival of a young person. “I have placed her in the parlor, Mr. Pip,” she said. “Never let it be said that Pennipinch’s widow allowed a person of a certain sex to mount her stairs!”

Energy returned to my languid legs. I ran down those sacred stairs and entered the parlor. Jane stood by the window, a shy smile trembling on her lips. As I looked at her sweet face, so young, so pure and yet so womanly, I felt the weight of my years, my troubles, my disappointments, begin to lift. I remembered her as I first saw her, at the age of six, struggling so hard to play a mother’s role. Now she was grown, not so very high, perhaps, but with all the soft warm promise of womanhood.

“Herbert asked me to come, dear Mr. Pip,” she said. “He thought you might need me.”

I did.

THE END


©2000

What The Dickens!

WHAT THE DICKENS?

Dickens' women do distress me,
Aggravate me and depress me.
Masochistic, self-denying,
bosom-beating, fond of crying:

Dare I say it, Lady Dedlock
Bore a baby out of wedlock.
Through bitter cold, and sleet and slush
She's punished for her girlhood crush.
Blackmailed for this moral crime
(By lawyer Tulkinghorn—that slime!)
She's forced to leave her lord's estate
And ends up at the graveyard gate.
While gazing at her lover's tomb,
She dies. O tragic female womb!

Florence Dombey, gentle Flora—
Daddy dear did not adore her.
He loved his son, his Paul, soon dead—
That small chip off his male blockhead.
But Florence blames herself, alas,
And when at last it comes to pass
He strikes, rejects her, casts her out
She trickles back without a shout
And, kneeling at her father's feet,
Repents and turns the other cheek.

David's Dora, ditzy, sweet,
Could not cook, or mend, or sweep.
Seventeen and silly, silly
David finds that, willy-nilly,
What entranced him when he's single
Drives him nuts when their lives mingle.
(How did she cope with menstruation
Let alone her defloration?)
And soon she dies. It's just as well, we
Can't imagine her at forty.





Edith Dombey, proud and haughty,
Sells herself for money; naughty!.
Dombey is the man she'll wed
Martyr'd by the marriage bed.
He glares at her and says "You must!"
With flashing eye and heaving bust
She runs away—to someone worse.
And tells him so verse after verse.
Her problem is quite simply said.
She has no way to earn her bread.

Esther of the pockmarked face
Was told she was her Ma’s disgrace.
She loves a doctor but her duty
Makes her John Jarndyce’s booty.
Esther, with your bunch of keys,
Dame Durden, Little Woman, please,
Locked into your box of virtue
What is life to do but hurt you?
In the end she finds her lover -
Her name, her birthright, and her mother.

Miss Haversham, whom love rejects,
Desires revenge on all the sex.
She’s raised Estella with that aim,
Cold and heartless (what a shame).
Her beauty’s just a bargaining chip
(She flirts and taunts and teases Pip).
But Estella just compounds the crime.
She spurns the true and weds a swine.
He takes her money, body, mind—
What is there left for Pip to find?





Lizzie Hexham. Now, she's better.
A working girl who rows the river,
Helping Father, as she oughter,
Fish the corpses from the water.
Courted by a rake and also
A pedant with a well-grown torso,
She runs away to stop their fighting
(By George, her life is quite exciting).
The rake's half-murdered but, quiescent,
She weds him when he's convalescent.

Poor Nancy, friend of Olly Twist,
Knows well the feel of Bill Sykes' fist.
She's cheerful, spunky, kind to all—
Bill thinks she's just a punching ball.
To Fagin's boys she's like a mother
But she cannot leave her lover.
Oliver she helps escape, but
She's like Bullseye, Sikes' old mutt.
Bill needs her, so her duty's plain.
She stays. He kills her. Who's to blame?

DICKENS!!!

Dickens, Dickens, they're pathetic,
Sentimental and bathetic.
Masochistic, self-denying,
bosom-beating, fond of crying.



©1995

THE PROPOSAL

THE PROPOSAL


“In vain have I struggled,” he said. “It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. I offer you my hand, my heart, and a share of all my possessions.”

He gathered me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips. In my turn I struggled, like a wild frantic bird. My efforts soon set me at liberty.

“Mr. Darcy! Unhand me, Sir!” We were standing in the small parlour, and I moved behind one of the chairs before continuing. “In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, let alone their physical expression. It is natural that obligation should be felt, and if I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannot. I must make it clear that I have desired neither your good opinion nor your caresses.”

Mr. Darcy’s complexion became pale, and the disturbance of his mind was visible in every feature. At last, in a voice of forced calmness, he said,

“Elizabeth, dearest Elizabeth, if I may call you by that sweet name, I ask you to pass through life at my side—to be my second self, and best earthly companion!”

“I regret, Sir, I cannot comply with your request. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to anyone. It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be of short duration.”

“You, you rare, you most unusual woman, I love as my own flesh. I entreat you to accept me as your husband. I must have you for my own, entirely my own. Say, yes, quickly.”

His well-bred face was very much agitated and by now very much flushed, and there were strong workings in the features and strange gleams in the eyes.

“Mr. Darcy, pray calm yourself. You are too impetuous. It would be better if we parted now, and went our own ways.”

“Entreat me not to leave you, or to refrain from following after you. Whither you go, I will go, and where you live I will live. However, it does seem to me we should be happier at Pemberley than at Longbourne.”

Mr. Darcy’s fervent language could not but affect me. I wished to speak from my heart, as he did, but my words come from my intellect. I am cool and amused by nature. Was passion impossible for me? No, oh no. The vehemence of emotion was claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway, and asserting a right to predominate, to overcome, to live, rise and reign at last!

Outside, a wind had sprung up. I could hear the ivy lashing at the window and, beyond, the chestnut tree writhed and groaned. The sky was overcast.

“Sir, we both need time in which to cool our cheeks,” I said hastily, retreating as he advanced once more toward me. “and to think rationally.”

He bowed assent and held the door for me, and I passed through.


* * * * *

The wind had dropped. A splendid midsummer moon now shone above the horizon and the stars had entered into their shining life up in heaven yonder. I stole through the gardens, quiet as a moth, aware that Mr. Darcy too was abroad. The scent of his cigar made pungent the atmosphere, battling with rose and lavender and honeysuckle. This seemed to me a valid symbol of our relationship. I turned back toward the house, but at a junction in the paths we collided. He made no greeting but, taking my shoulders in his strong hands and looking deeply into my eyes, plunged at once into speech.

“You are too generous, Elizabeth, to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were this afternoon, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged.”

A soft breeze came sighing down the laurel-walk, and trembled through the boughs of the chestnut. A nightingale sang.

“Elizabeth, do you hear the nightingale singing in the trees? Listen.”

“Are you in earnest, Mr. Darcy? Do you truly love me? Do you sincerely wish me to be your wife?”

“Oh, Elizabeth, you torture me!” he exclaimed, all serenity gone. “With that searching, analytic, yet humorous look, you torture me!”

“How can I do that, Mr. Darcy? If you are true, and your offer real, my only feelings for you must be respect— and—and— perhaps liking— they cannot torture.”

“Respect! Liking!” he exclaimed; and added wildly -- “Elizabeth, accept me quickly. Say, Fitzwilliam—give me my name— Fitzwilliam, I will marry you.”

I forced myself to speak, and gave him to understand that my sentiments had undergone so material a change during our time apart, short though it was (barely two hours), as to make me receive with gratitude and pleasure—even with some exhilaration— his present assurances.

“Dearest, loveliest Elizabeth, the happiness which I now feel is such that I have never felt before!”

I glanced up at him through my lashes and found how well the expression of heart-felt delight became him.

He folded me in his arms. “Come to me, Elizabeth—come to me entirely now,” he said; and added in his deepest tone, speaking in my ear as his cheek was laid on mine, “Make my happiness—I will make yours.”

My heart leapt. My cheeks crimsoned. But he was going too fast. This was unseemly.

“Mr. Darcy!” I exclaimed, taking a step back (but retaining his hands firmly in mine). “Remember who you are!”

THE END

With apologies to Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, and my acknowledgment to the Book of Ruth.