Free The Sugar Mother by Elizabeth Jolley Page A

in the gnarled hands of an ancient nun, leaving them with endlessly empty freedom to do all the things they were supposed to like doing. Having children, they decided, wordlessly, really meant there was never a time without some kind of anxiety, and always there was the responsibility.
    With all the care in the world you could never know how your child would turn out. Euripides knew what he was talking about when he gave the words, They can never know whether all their toil / Is spent for worthy or worthless children to an old woman in the chorus. And Cardano (Renaissance lecture number 1), relentlessly honest, made it quite clear that most of his own misery was brought about by the stupidity of his sons.
    It was impossible to sleep with so many thoughts crowding one after the other. He was absolutely awake. He thought about lace. Leila liked a wedding dress which was decorated with it, a square of heavy lace on the bodice of the dress. She had drawn attention to it. He thought the thick lace made a sort of breastplate, an armor, but did not say so. Now he wondered did Leila know about lace? Mechlin, Honiton, Chantilly—there were so many elaborate designs and patterns. Leila and her mother liked clothes, it was clear, but they had no taste. Green and white. He thought he would like to dressLeila in the colors of the Elizabethan court, the area of his thesis years ago, and now rather in obscurity like so much of his work. Leila in these colors…he would make the suggestion at the right moment. He sat up.
    â€œPork takes five hours to digest.” He remembered reading this in a pamphlet on the human body, or was it, he pondered, in a recipe book? He often read recipe books. He had read too, in another book, about a man industriously eating an enormous meal one night and then waking up, a few hours later, completely crippled with arthritis. Carefully he tried to move his legs. They moved and he felt no pain. He switched on the light and studied his hands. They did not look gnarled, though the veins were enlarged as if sluggish. Perhaps, he thought, turning his hands over, he should note in writing the condition of his veins. He reached for two of his body books. He opened the one for the internal. He sat tense and upright in bed, wondering what his symptoms were.
    You’re my only occupation
    my only situation yair yair yair
    everything I hold so dear huh huh huh
    only because you are near yair yair yair
    He tried to scribble down the words of Leila’s record, what he thought he’d heard. He had the tune in his head. He sang what he heard in his head. It was not as it should be, but pleasing all the same to have something to sing.
    The words you say hula hula hup
    in your own way yuppy tuppy yair yair
    can fill my heart with sunshine huh huh huh hula hula hup huppy
    and then I know you’ll always be mine huh huh yair yair
    you’re my only occupation yair yair yair
    Leila’s record was played several times, and Leila’s mother had shown him a photograph album containing pictures ofLeila as a square-shaped little girl with a solemn face.
    â€œShe was always sturdy and very healthy,” Leila’s mother assured him, “the biggest little girl in her class.”
    Thinking about Leila, Edwin wished he could take her for a long walk somewhere, not too far away, secluded and pleasant, where he could talk to her and encourage her to talk to him. Her mother did all the talking when they were together. He wondered about the plantation. There they would be sure to meet Daphne. She took Prince for walks twice a day, sometimes three times. Other people walked in the pines too. Littering the sandy tufts of grass and the paths were squashed chocolate-milk cartons and the remnants of more intimate things discarded, the relics of human relationships, as Daphne had once described the rubbish. She chose times to walk when other people would be cooking and eating and safely at home watching