Two and One Make Three

by Doris M Holden

"If ye've got one, you can run; 

If ye've got two, you may goo, 

But if ye've got three 

You must bide where you be." 

It was in an old book that Mark had picked up on a second-hand stall, and he read bits of it aloud between puffs of his pipe, pausing long to savour the ring of the quaint old saws -- charms for lovers and maidens on St. Agnes’ Eve, remedies for tooth-ache and fever, inter-mixed with wise sayings on life in general. 

May, who was sewing on the other side of the fireplace, looked up idly. 

"One what?" she enquired, casually, having been listening, as is the way of women, with only part of her mind. 

"One child," said Mark. 

May paused, biting her thimble. 

“But what does it mean?" she puzzled. 

Mark puffed his pipe in the deliberate way that maddened her, and replied with his usual caution and reluctance to commit himself: 

"It might mean many things." 

May tapped her foot impatiently. 

"Such as?" she snapped. 

"Suppose you were surrounded with enemies," he suggested, and the stem of his pipe slowly described a circle. As he spoke, May's quick brain conjured up the picture - a backwoods hut, creeping Indians. If you have one child, you run for it; he carries it till he is out of breath, then she snatches it; they run on. two children - they must take one each, go carefully, creep for it behind the trees. But three: “You must bide where you be!" As, in imagination, she handed Mark a loaded gun and tucked the children under the table, she realised that Mark was still speaking. 

"Or it might mean…" and there flashed another picture. 

"It might mean," she interrupted, that you can always run away from one baby; someone will look after it; or even from two. I could leave you with Tim and the Tinker and you would manage somehow. It is only when you have three that you are finally and hopelessly tied up." 

“It might," returned Mark, placidly, and continued puffing. 

May's workbasket crashed to the floor and with a swirl of skirts she was gone. “It might!" That was all he had to say. Apparently he felt so sure of her that the thought that she might go never entered his head. After all, wives did go sometimes and there were days ( and this was one), when the monotony of housework and the noise and muddle of two small children got on one's nerves till flight seemed the only thing possible. 

To be tied-up! That, to May, had always seemed the supreme horror. A competent hair-dresser, she had never stayed long with any firm but, as soon as she began to feel that dreadful “settled here for life" sensation, she had handed in her notice and gone elsewhere. 

It was the fear of being tied-up that had made her hesitate to accept Mark, and she had married him at last on the understanding that they would "never, never get stodgy and in a rut." For the first year of their marriage, life was one great adventure, Mark gallantly fell in with all May‘s suggestions and it was not uncommon for them to set off on a Saturday afternoon with May, a tent, and their combined luggage in the side-car and camp in the country or by the sea. 

For their first summer holiday they saved hard for a week in France, the first step, May dreamt, to world travel. And then Tim came and with one wave of his chubby hand put a stop to adventure. “Feed baby by the clock" said all the books that May studied and conscientiously, but none the less rebelliously, she fell into a routine. Then just as she was looking forward to a slight relaxing of the strict timetable, the Tinker turned up, a fat irresistible bundle who from his earliest days showed that no other name would suit him. May gritted her teeth and bowed once more to the clock, while the Tinker grew every day sturdier and sturdier and Tim noisier and more mischievous. She knew, when her sense of humour was not too tired to function, that she wanted to eat her cake and have it, but it did not make much difference to the feeling of rebellion. 

The fact was that she had reached a definite milestone. Next month would complete six years of marriage and never before had she stayed so long in a job. In spite of all her resolutions to keep freedom and adventure; she was caught and held by the pulling hands of Tim and the Tinker. And she wanted to get away. As never before, she wanted space and quiet to herself, time to read without interruption; above all, rest from the eternal cry of "Mummy." Through and through her seethed the rebellion till she felt it must be visible all over her, yet Mark, placidly smoking, was apparently unaware of it. 

She relieved her feelings by some vigorous, if quite unnecessary, cleaning in the kitchen. Mark, finding her there, scratched his head in a puzzled way and returned to his book. 

The cleaning helped May to regain her balance and by the time she went to bed she was able to laugh a little at herself; but something remained, and, as she lay listening to Mark's steady breathing, her mind revolved the whole problem. 

No, she decided, she did not want to run away from Mark and the little boys, she had no wish to be single again, but she did, desperately, want to get out of the rut. She wanted to be among people again; to see and hear other things than the grocer's chat, the children's incessant demands. And Mark's quotation beat in her brain:" If ye've got two, you may goo." 

"I could, too," she said, staring into the dark. "I could get a post again a good hairdresser can always get one, and out of my salary I could pay someone competent to run the house. Tim and Tinker could manage, now that Tim has just started school." 

With the morning the thought persisted, for it was one of those mornings when everything goes wrong. Tim, who could dress himself perfectly as a rule, turned perverse and wept over his buttons. The Tinker tactlessly enquired:"Why's Timmy crying?” and so made matters worse, and when May ran to separate and comfort the two, a smell of burning announced that she had forgotten to pull back the pan of bacon. 

At breakfast Tim wept again "I didn't want my porridge to have milk put on it," he sobbed. "I wanted to make an island and a sea." 

"Can't now," said the Tinker, cheerfully. "All spoilt" 

"Don't say that," shouted Tim, through his tears. "Don't say anyfing. I don't want you to talk at all." 

"Can't not talk," said Tinker, shovelling on brown sugar. "Tinker likes talking." 

“Boys: Boys!" cried May, desperately. 

Mark lifted the lid of the bacon dish, considered the contents a moment and then, calmly helping himself to toast and marmalade, continued to read his paper. 

"If only he would say something!" seethed May, on whom Mark's silence always had the worst effect. She quietened Tim and distracted Tinker‘s attention from him, then there was toast to be buttered and mugs to be filled while her own breakfast lay cooling, untouched. Mark finished his in calm unconcern and rose to his feet. 

"Time for us to go, Tim, old chap," he said, with a pet on Tim's shoulder as he passed and went to get ready. 

Tim, washed, brushed and in his cost and gloves, gave a sudden squeal of anguish. 

“We had to take a box to-day and I've forgot," he wailed. "Mummy! I want a box – a cardboard box to make a house with!" 

May went flying up the stairs. Was there a shoe box in her cupboard? 

"All right, Mark," she called back, “he won't be a minute. Be quiet, Tim, I'm finding one. Oh don't cry, it's all right!" 

Then they were off at last, Mark looking at his watch with a calculating expression, Would he never realise, thought May, how useless accurate timing was where Tim was concerned? 

She turned back to her unfinished breakfast and the Tinker, looking up with his most beaming smile, enquired hopefully: 

“And now what shall I do?” 

 "You must find something to play with," she said, firmly. "I have to be busy upstairs." 

He considered a moment 

“I could dror," he said, at length, and when May had supplied him with chalks and paper, he arranged himself flat on the floor and became engrossed. 

The boys' bedroom presented a spectacle of chaos,and May gave a sigh of exasperation as she disentangled sheets and blankets from the heap on the floor where they had been flung during the quarrel. Twice, as she straightened and tidied, she was called to the back-door by itinerant sellers of useless goods, and it was with her patience wearing very thin that she at last ran to see how Tinker's drawings had progressed, triumphantly he greeted her. "I drored a lovely picture,” said he and pointed to where a red house staggered across the wall-paper, the smoke from its chimneys coiling in billows around it. 

 "The paper was too small,” he explained carefully, “so I tored that in tiny bits and frew it away." 

He waved vaguely at the windows and May, looking out, saw white fragments dotting the lawn and flower-beds. 

She clenched her hands tight. No, it was not fair to be angry with the Tinker, he was so supremely unconscious  that he had done wrong, but it was the last straw. Someone else should have this job, this endless, wearing watching, clearing-up, running to and fro.. She would go that very afternoon to look up Madame Hortense and get back into business again. 

“If ye've two, you can go," said May to herself again “ and I will go. I'll get Mrs, Roberts next door to look after Tinker and meet Tim from school, and if I start directly after dinner I can get back before Mark comes home."

 The plan once made , it was quickly carried out, and when Tinker had been bestowed next door and Tim seen on his way to school, May hurried to the station and took a train to town.

It seemed strange to be entering the old place again and she saw many new faces, but the girl at the cash-desk gave her a cheerful greeting and Madame Hortense was pleasantly friendly. 

When she heard May's errand, she shook her head, smilingly: "So you want to return, is it? You with the so-handsome husband and the little sons? That is only a joke, is it not?" 

"No I really do want to come back," said May," if you can find ‘a place for me. I'm so tired of being tied up at home, of never getting out, never seeing anyone, Everything is always the same." 

“Everything is always the same here too," said Madame, spreading her fat hands. “They come with the straight hair, they go with the new coiffure - always the same." Then she became business-like, "You were good, Miss Simpson, ver' good. You had the hands, If I had room I would take you, but there is no room just now. Later there will be.

 Elise, she gets married in two, three months, then I let you know and you see me again,” 

"Thank you ever so much,” said May, eagerly. "I'll come directly.”

 Madame smiled a strange smile.

 "Maybe yes, maybe no” she said, "but I let you know, then you decide." 

May went home on air. It was not new, the hairdressing, it was not even exciting, but it was a change at least. She would be in a rut no longer, and she could give it up the moment she was tired of it, and then housework would come as change too. 

She hurried her steps as she turned into her own road; it was later than she had meant to be and the children would be wanting their tea. Her hand was already on her gate when suddenly there came a terrible squealing of brakes and, in a voice of horror, a man cried: “Look out!" 

May jerked round and, as she did so, a child was flung into her arms. She caught and held the little thing, gazing appalled at the tragedy which the man's shout had been too late to avert. A women and a pram lay crumpled beneath the wheels of a great lorry in the middle of the road. 

The man at May's side breathed heavily, and the driver, climbing down, stumbled to them, almost weeping. "I couldn't help it,” he gasped, “stopped clean in front of me she did to call the child. Get the ambulance, quick!" 

"Look after the child, will you?" said the man to May, “She's all right. I just pulled her back in time." 

A crowd had sprung up, people were bending over the heap in the road, and May, still holding the child, felt a hand on her shoulder and was drawn inside by kindly Mrs. Roberts. 

Tim and the Tinker greeted her with shouts of welcome, but she hushed them as she sat down and gently unloosed the clinging arms from her neck. She had scarcely looked at the child in the horror of the moment and now, as she set her on her knee, her face twisted in pity at the contrast between this wee morsel of humanity and the two sturdy boys staring at her so intently. A white, pinched face seemed too small for the big eyes still wide with fright and bewilderment; the hand that gripped May's sleeve was only half the size of the Tinker's chubby paw, and her weight was no more than that of a baby though May guessed her to be three or four years old. 

The mite continued to stare round her, her mouth trembling. ‘Where's my mummy?” she whispered, in a voice full of terror. May looked desperately at Mrs. Roberts, whose mouth opened, but both sought in vain for words. Then valiantly the Tinker stepped into the breach. 

"I gotta nengine," he said, cheerily, "all red and shiny. Shall I show you my nengine?" 

The Little girl rises no reply, but her eyes turned to his smiling face and her tense body relaxed slightly. 

"Here it is," said the Tinker, burrowing in a corner and emerging red-faced. He set it on her lap and leant his elbows confidentially on May's knee. 

"It's got a fummel and a noiser-thing what the noise comes out of," he explained, "Would you like to see it go?" 

Gently May slipped is the floor, the child still held on her Lep, while Tinker made the red engine shunt te and fro. Slowly the grip on her arm relaxed end the child stretched: out after the toy.

 "Shall we make a station?” asked Tim, shyly. "I've got bricks." 

He spread the box before her and the child nodded silently, and, as he built and chat 

 Mark's eyes glowed, but he said, hesitatingly: "It will be a big job for you, and you were just getting over the worst." 

A big job? Of a sudden May's thoughts flashed to her day's outing, to the job she had tried to take, and mentally she shrugged it away. That Job? Why, any slip of a girl or boy could dress a head of hair! To bring the glow of health and happiness to this thin, frightened face was a woman-size job. Over the head of the sleeping child, she smiled back at Mark.

“If ye've got three

 You must bide where you be," she quoted, softly.