Raw Silk (9781480463318) Read Online Free

impressive history of quarrels. Oliver said that we had to save Jill from the atmosphere of that school.
    “This afternoon had nothing to do with the school,” I said. “It’s Frankie’s home. The school is probably a relief to him.”
    “It’s not going to be a relief to Jill as long as Frankie’s in her class.”
    “I know, but that’s my fault …”
    “Don’t be dim. You’re never happy unless you’re guilty for something.”
    “I’ll bring him around. He likes Jill …”
    “Virginia, I don’t understand you. Your kid’s nose is nearly broken …”
    “Oliver, don’t you see that Frankie needs Jill in his school.”
    “So he can break her nose.”
    “I’d rather have it broken than have it shoved permanently in the air by some snob-Gothic goon academy.”
    And we were off. My position was that Oliver really wanted his daughter “finished” into an appropriate specimen of Young English Womanhood, and wanted at all costs to keep her out of the destructive atmosphere of pig farmers’ sons. Oliver’s position was that, whereas he was thinking about Jill, I was willing to sacrifice her to an image of myself as a benevolent liberal. There was plenty to be said for both arguments, and I truly think we said it all. Our fights have been developing their pattern through the years, and over Jill they achieved pure ritual. It used to be that we couldn’t stop without a physical blow or a fit of tears, followed by an aggressive-apologetic bout in bed. But there wasn’t the energy for that every day through a whole autumn. We got so either of us could call a truce with a particularly exhausted sigh, sleep on it and begin again refreshed at breakfast. Breakfasts were terrible, keeping the tone conversational for Jill’s sake, and ritualistically ripping the guts out of a poached egg. When Jill was gone—ironically, Frankie never threatened her again and she began to settle in at school—we had half an hour before Oliver had to leave for the office.
    “This is Jill I’m talking about, Jill our daughter, whom you profess to love.”
    “I understand that, Oliver. But I don’t see why it isn’t possible to think about Jill and a few other million kids at the same time.”
    “Oh, I do admire your scope. A few million!”
    “The fact is that education in this country is being …”
    “The fact is that a little girl in this house is being turned into an angry, aggressive, destructive little bitch because she’s in an angry, aggressive, destructive little school. Is that the fact or isn’t it?”
    “It is and it isn’t. It’s her age as well. According to Spock …”
    “Jesus Christ.”
    “Well, what does St. Margaret’s turn little girls into, can you tell me that? A place called St. Margaret’s, my dear. Who the hell was St. Margaret?”
    “As a matter of fact there’s a state school in Eastley Village called St. Timoetheus, and they’ve got nothing but factory hands in that district.”
    “Oh, well, thank God we don’t live there.”
    Sometimes Oliver’s arguments hit home. He said, for instance, that the reason I was so indifferent to our money was not from any real sympathy for people who had none. Quite the opposite. It was a way of proving myself superior to everybody, my parents included, who had to think about money all the time. It’s a subtle argument, but the subtlety isn’t all Oliver’s. It’s true that money pervaded the atmosphere of my childhood like smog, though I didn’t know it. It’s only at this distance that I can see how Henry Ford had a place in my bedtime stories beside Ali Baba and Robin Hood; how the symbol that dominated religion was a neon thermometer flashing the progress of the church building fund; how my parents, who seemed to have no passion but economy, had in fact no pleasure but to spend. And yet it’s only in England that I’ve discovered my father was a member of the working class. There’s no working class in America. We were Baptists; we