After she gives up on love, Addie decides all she really wants is a baby. A baby! A tiny person to carry around and cook lovely cakes for, someone who�ll never look at her as if she�s nobody. She is hung over; exhausted and taut. Outside, the July rain is un-dramatic, self effacing, as if it knows its timing is bad. Her kitchen is humid and her head aches. A fragile day altogether, requiring great care and strength of will, and it is also the saddest time of the day � 3:00 in the afternoon. She considers her options carefully. She has nearly run out of men - Lochinellie has a certain number and no more. By the time she makes and drinks her cup of bitter black coffee, she has a short list of one. Down to the bottom of the barrel now, no mistake.
Joe Forbes, the fish man.
He is the only one with no prying family in the area, no wedding ring, and no obvious defects, if you didn�t count his probable virginity as a defect. Or his perennial stink of fish, his ugliness (though his shoulders are quite nice), and his complete lack of conversation. He is the most silent and ugly and alone man she has ever met. Though now she thinks of it, Joe is curiously un-lonely looking.
�So, Joe!� she says to him that night at the bar in the hotel (Addie never wastes time, and she knew she�d find him here. Single men in Lochinellie gravitate to the bar at dusk, like single men everywhere in the Highlands, like thirsty beasts to the watering hole.) �What you drinking, Joe?�
She buys them both a pint, then lets him buy her two more pints. They sit in silence for an hour, then she tells him she wants a baby off him.
�What do you think? You like me, right?� she asks, her voice hard as hailstones, hard as desperation. Her face all rosy and her eyes excited. She could be uncannily pretty this time of night, for about half an hour. Before time was called and the lights came on full again. As if her much younger untroubled self resurfaced in some alcohol-fuelled twilight, in order to seduce. A spirit siren on a mission.
�I�ve seen you looking, and it�s not like you�ve got a queue of women knocking on your door, Joe. Is it? I know you like me.�
�Of course I. Like you. What�s not? To like? You�re. Fun. But Addie, that�s hardly the point.�
This is the longest sentence she�s ever heard him say. He says the words in a halting staccato, as if English is his third language. There�s a sheen of sweat on his nose.
�Aw come on, of course it�s the point. If you didn�t like me, at least a little, then we�d never manage it at all. I�d say you liking me was the entire bloody point, for you. You�d get a bit of experience, I�d get my baby.�
Pause, while she searches unsuccessfully for eye contact.
�I�d not be wanting any money off you. Ever. You�d be well clear of it all, really. All the advantages, none of the hassle.�
Again, she waits for his response, but he just looks emptily at her as if his whole stock of words has gone. She stops waiting, satisfied that his muteness is entirely appropriate, given who he is and what she is asking. She leans forward and whispers: �I�m only wanting your sperm. And just for one night, when the time is right for me. For making a baby � there�s really only a few days a month it�ll work. And it�s only you I�m asking. I thought about it, and you�re the only one. The best one for the job. The best man.�
Joe takes a long pull of his beer and shifts in his seat. This feels like words to Addie.
�It�ll just take a few minutes, actually, Joe. No need for staying the night, even. Unless you want to, of course. You might fall asleep, and then I�d just let you sleep.�
�No!� It bursts out of him with such finality, she lurches forward, already grieving this sweet fish-smelling baby. She has trouble breathing naturally, and her voice acquires an unattractive whine.
�But why? What�re you afraid of? It�ll not hurt, I�ll be dead gentle.�
She puts her hand on his hand, which feels oily and rough, but she doesn�t remove her hand. She is surprised how easy it is to ignore the oily stickiness, but lord he stinks of fish. There�d be no getting rid of that smell.
�Please, Joe. Just consider it.�
�It�s. Wrong.�
�How can it be wrong? Everyone, but you that is, does it all the time! It�s the strongest instinct there is, to make babies. Love is all crap. It�s just a trick of nature to make sure the human race doesn�t die out.�
Joe shrugs, finishes his pint.
�Ach, you�ll be sorry. I�m great, so I am. Ask anyone.�
He looks round the pub. It�s true, almost all the men drinking could probably vouch for Addie�s skills. He sighs, and his sigh has longing and sadness in it. Then something happens to the room and everyone in it, and though things look the same, they are not. In fact, unseen by the customers, the bar maid has opened the back door and a surfeit of oxygenated sea air has entered the bar. Addie removes her hand from Joe�s hand, and he instantly misses it. He misses it like he�d miss his own hand. He buys another round, then they sit in silence for seven minutes and drink in rhythm, each raising their pint glass and drinking at the same time. They look at the bottles behind the bar, and there is a pleasant stillness to their silence, as if the new air has induced a truce.
Joe is a word miser, and in any case, she is a lousy listener. But her muscles have wisdom and memories and don�t require language. She puts her hand back in his hand, leaves it there until he wraps his fingers around it.
�Listen, I know it�s a lot to ask. I�m not daft.� She doesn�t look at him or the bottles now, but looks out the window. The sea is visible in the white lines of waves breaking. It is raining of course, that same thin seemingly English drizzle, with no real force. She has a sudden wish for the rain to really rain, to stop holding back. She wishes for a screaming hurricane of wind and rain, to make all choice irrelevant, to obliterate the hotel and everyone in it. She sighs and her sigh has tears of frustration in it.
�Shit, Joe. I just want a baby. It�s all I can think of. I�ve given up on the other stuff.�
Joe nods sympathetically, excuses himself to use the toilet, and when he returns, asks if she�s alright to see herself home. She says yes, and he leaves her sitting there, feeling strange, with her half empty glass of flat beer and the insipid rain.
One day, a few weeks later, Joe spots Addie, standing alone by the quay in the torrential rain without a jacket. She is so strange! Looking at the sea and sky, which the rain has joined seamlessly in a tableau of a depressing summer. It�s been a menopausal summer altogether; too hot then too cold, moody and intense. When she begins to turn in his direction, he quickly turns as well, and walks briskly away.
Three weeks later, early in the morning, the sun remembers its own point and sizzles. The light explodes over Lochinellie like a luminous blessing, and nothing looks dull or ordinary. Not even the rusty petrol pumps. Not even the Co-op sign with the missing letters. The whole place steams away, and Addie pulls on her favourite dress - red cotton with tiny white stars. She bounds down the road to Joe�s cottage, enjoying the air on her skin, and thinks what an extraordinarily fine thing it is, some days, to be above ground and not in it. Joe is walking to his lorry, all muffled up in a fleece, as if he hasn�t really noticed the day yet.
�Joe!�
He greets her by tilting his head and smiling closed-mouthed.
�Joe! What a fine day!�
He makes a noise of assent, then opens the door to his lorry and swings one leg up. She tells him this is the day they can make a baby.
�It�s the best day, Joe. What time are you back tonight?�
He freezes, half way in the cab. �I�ll be gone for three days.� He pulls himself the rest of the way in, and shuts his door. Starts up the engine. Sudden glimpse of Addie in her faded red and white dress, and anxious pale face, lips red as if she�s been nibbling them, with the sun giving her a halo. He salutes her goodbye, and while he checks his rear view mirror, she swings open the passenger door and heaves herself in. He stares at her, but she keeps her face forward, and is so still it is like she is willing herself into invisibility. He pauses for a moment, then pulls out into the road. She looks out the window at the boats in the harbour, notices the way they never rock the same way and the masts are always at odds. Then Joe shifts down to make the steep brae out of Lochinellie.
An hour later, after the sun slinks away in yet another huff, he offers her his jumper. She pulls it on. It�s rough against her skin, and way too big, but there is a sense of relief in the roughness and bigness. She feels safe. They are still not looking at each other, as if there is danger in acknowledgment.
�Thank you Joe,� she whispers, soft as Marilyn Monroe, soft as astonishment. �I was freezing.� After a minute she lays her hand on his knee, and she keeps it there all the way to Carlisle. Like a piece of luck, or unexpected sun on an overcast day.
RAYMOND CARVER
JOHN STEINBECK
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
GRACE PALEY
