The Ends of Our Tethers Read Online Free PDF Page A

employed there. Before washing machines, good housewives scrubbed and wrung clothes for body and bed by hand – ironed and mended them – knitted socks and other woollen items – cut, sewed, embroidered garments, curtains, cushions and chair covers. Before vacuum cleaners they drove dust out of carpets by hanging them outdoors and whacking them with canes. Shopping was more frequent before refrigerators and freezers because foods had to be eaten near the time of purchase. Good wives baked scones, biscuits, cakes, tarts, puddings, made jams, jellies, pickles and an exquisite sweet called tablet , for which everyone had a slightly different recipe. They regularly cleaned and polished linoleum, glass, metal and wooden surfaces. Their homes were continually restored works of art,exhibited once a week at a small afternoon tea party for friends and neighbours who were similar wives.
    Â   
    Number 1 had looked forward to that life, though we acquired every sensible labour-saving appliance available in 1972 having saved up for them through a three-year engagement when we lived with our parents. She gave up her teaching job just before the wedding after making sure all our well-wishers would give us useful presents. We had a short honeymoon in Rothesay then moved to a rented flat in Knightswood, the earliest and, in the year 2002, still poshest of Glasgow’s housing schemes. We were very happy at first. The washing machine, Hoover et cetera left her free to whitewash ceilings, re-paper walls and carry out many improvements I thought unnecessary, as previous tenants had left the flat in excellent condition. My job in a local housing department office let me walk home for lunch. On Friday nights we went to a film or theatre, at weekends had polite little dinner or bridge parties with other couples, and on most evenings found entertainment in television and a game of cribbage beforethe small snack we called supper. And so to bed.
    Â   
    I was pulling on a condom after undressing one evening when she suggested we should have a child. It had not occurred to me that her domestic activity was a form of nest-building. Perhaps because I was my parents’ only child I dislike children, so suggested we wait a bit before starting to multiply ourselves: we should first get a bigger house, a bungalow in King’s Park or Bearsden, which would be possible when I was promoted to head office and able to pay a large deposit for a mortgage. She said grimly, “If it’s a matter of payment I’ll go back to teaching and earn us more money that way. But you’ll have to take your share of housework. I can’t bring in a wage and do everything else.”
    I said I did not want her to go back to teaching; we were still young and had no need for impatience. She did not reply but refused to make love that night and (though my memory may be at fault – this was nearly thirty years ago) I think we never made love again. She returned to teaching, I started doing the shopping andwould have made meals too, but she refused them. When I suggested that I could make meals as good as those my mother made she said, “That’s why I’d find them inedible.”
    A month or two later I remarked that only a third of her weekly wage was being deposited in our joint bank account. She said, “That’s because I do at least two thirds of our housework. You may think you do half but you don’t.”
    I shrugged and said, “So be it.”
    She began going out once or twice a week with teacher friends. My promotion to head office came sooner than I expected. I began lunching in a snack bar with a colleague who also enjoyed cribbage and had a folding board we played upon. His system of marking was different from mine and more interesting. I explained it to my wife one evening while dealing the cards. She flung hers down saying, “If you’re going to change the rules of this bloody awful game