Tales from way back when…
Two single beds proved better than a double one

LINTON and Lucille are old-fashioned, married many years ago, and the parents of nine children. Linton and Lucille slept on a double bed.

This new-fangled idea of single beds for husband and wife was never in fashion in their day.

But Linton and Lucille have lived to realise the wisdom of the modern idea of husband and wife sleeping in separate beds.

For one thing, that rules out any row as to who is sleeping on whose side of the bed.

In short, it was that which caused the row between husband and wife — the row which had its sequel before Magistrate Dan Debidin Friday morning.

It was Linton before the Court, and the charge was that he had assaulted wife, Lucille so as to cause her actual bodily harm.

“Are you guilty or not?” Mr. Debidin asked the middle-aged Linton.

“Guilty,” the chap answered in quite a confident tone. “But I would like to explain,” he stated.

However, before Linton could have explained, procedure deemed that the Prosecutor should first state the facts against him.

And the Officer rose to do so while Linton, quite calm, waited his chance.

“He assaulted his wife, Sir,” the prosecutor announced.

“He went home one night, met her asleep,” the officer went on, “and he pulled the pillow beneath her head.”

“She became annoyed,” the prosecutor told Mr. Debidin, “and when she rebuked him for waking her, he gave her several cuffs.”

“Is it a double bed?” was the first question Mr. Debidin put to Linton.

“Yes Sir!” Linton answered. “Two persons sleep in the same bed,” he explained more lucidly.

“And one half is reserved for you?” asked Mr. Debidin, with an amazing insight of what was to come.

“That is so, Sir,” Linton replied.

“And you found her occupying your side of the bed?” Mr. Debidin followed through.

“Yes, Sir,” Linton said, proving Mr. Debidin right again.

“Well, why divide so strictly?” asked Mr. Debidin, smiling. “Couldn’t you have taken her half?”

“Can I explain, Sir,” Linton again begged.

“Yes! Go ahead,” Mr. Debidin told Linton.

“Well, Sir, I went home and found her on my side,” he explained. “And I ordered her to go over to her side.”

“She said she was not going,” Linton told an amused Mr. Debidin.

“Man!” exclaimed Mr. Debidin. “When a wife sleeps on your half of the bed, what do you think she means?” he asked Linton.

“I don’t know,” was Linton’s naïve reply.

“You don’t know?” demanded Mr. Debidin. “And you’re married all these years?”

“It’s not like that,” Linton defended.

“Man, that’s an invitation!” Mr. Debidin told Linton.

“She wouldn’t accept it that way,” said Linton, getting a little peeved.

“You’re the one who wouldn’t accept it that way,” Mr. Debidin tossed back at Linton.

“I know her temperament,” Linton stated. “I live with her.”

“Man, you don’t know what a wife means when she sleeps on your side of the bed?” asked Mr. Debidin, still finding it incredulous that Linton could be all that simple.

“Man, you must be dumb,” he was forced to declare.

“That’s what you think,” Linton snapped, getting a bit angry. “I live in the house.”

“Let me explain what happened,” Linton cooled down a bit after the Orderly had pulled him up for his disrespectful answer, for which, of course, Mr. Debidin had readily forgiven him.

“More explanations?” asked Mr. Debidin.

“Yes Sir,” Linton answered.

“Very well, then. You have reached the stage where you pulled the pillow from beneath her head.”

“This night, I cross over her to go and look after one of the children.” Linton explained, delving back into the history of the whole thing.

“And when I cross over her, she told me that if I jam her, it would be so and so tonight. So when I was going back on the bed and crossing over her on the side where I should have been, I touch her just for the fun of it,” Linton confessed.

“But she didn’t take it for fun,” Linton complained.

“That night, she gave me some marks,” Linton disclosed.

“So the next night, I decided to sleep in the gallery,” Linton went on, with Mr. Debidin quite an interested and amused listener.

“I take two cushions from the Morris chairs and sleep with a blanket. The next night she hid the cushions and the blanket, and I had to sleep on the chairs only.”

“Yes,” Mr. Debidin encouraged him, obviously keen to know what happened next.

“And the next night, I get vex and wet her bed,” Linton admitted.

This time, Mr. Debidin could not contain laughter, and of course, the Lawyers, too, were enjoying themselves.

“So, the following night,” Linton went on with his serial, I took the carpet and sleep on it with a blanket. But the next night, she hide the carpet, too,” he complained, with the air of one who had passed through quite a torture. “And so the thing went on,” he announced.

“So this night,” Linton came to the night of the assault, “she had the blanket covering two children. And I go and stretch over her to get the blanket. And as soon as I stretch, she jump up and say, ‘every night you doing this damn thing.’”

“What damn thing?” Mr. Debidin asked eagerly.

“Pulling the blanket… she meant,” Linton answered. “And when she said so, she lash me with a stick. Well, Sir, we caught on and we scrambled, and we go on the bed.”

“Yes. And then?” encouraged Mr. Debidin.

“And I take the same stick and hit her,” Linton admitted.

“What a story of domestic segregation!” declared Mr. Debidin. “Where is the wife?”

And of course, Lucille was in Court all the time, listening to what Linton was telling Mr. Debidin.

She stepped gingerly forward at the mention of her name.

“But she’s a small woman compared to you,” was Mr. Debidin’s first observation on seeing Lucille.

Linton did not comment on that.

“Sir, I don’t want to sleep near to him,” Lucille spoke up in a determined voice.

“But that’s not right,” Mr Debidin told her.

“Sir, he threatened to kill me,” Lucille complained.

“To kill you… in bed?” Mr. Debidin wanted to know.

“Sir, I do know that a wife does go to bed with her husband, and the husband does blow she brains out while she sleeping.”

“But he used to sleep with you in the same bed,” Mr Debidin said.

And that, of course, Lucille could not deny.

“Both of you have abused the conjugal bed,” Mr. Debidin told Lucille.

“Are you back together?” he asked her.

“In the same house,” but not in the same bed, her tone of voice seemed to indicate.

“How many children…?”

“Nine,” Lucille replied.

“And after all these years, you’re going to start dividing the bed?” He asked Lucille.

“Sir, he’s too scandalous,” Lucille declared.

“Trying to make sure that a tenth child doesn’t come?” a Lawyer offered in explanation.

“Well, you know when you come apart, you will cause your children to be delinquent,”

Mr. Debidin addressed both Linton and Lucille in more serious tones.

“If you live like cat
and dog, what will become of your children?” he asked.

“You should be ashamed dividing your bed in the night,” Mr. Debidin told husband and wife.

“Can I say a few words?” Linton asked.

“And you” he addressed Lucille.

“You’ve said enough,” Mr. Debidin promptly shut him up.

“And you; you have been throwing out his cushions he sleeps on,” Mr. Debidin accused Lucille.

“Sir, after he wet my bed,” Lucille defended her actions.

“Well, I want to know whether you are going to live in peace now?” Mr. Debidin addressed Lucille.

“Sir, he too scandalous,” Lucille repeated her charge, but did not go into the facts.

“I want you to answer my question,” Mr. Debidin repeated. But Lucille remained silent, not committing herself to live peacefully with Linton.

“Well, it certainly seems that you are as much to blame as he,” Mr. Debidin told her. “Apparently, he had a great deal of justification for doing what he did. And that is why I am not going to fine him.”

“You will sign a bond in the sum of $50 to be of good behaviour for six months,” he told Linton.

And with that, Lucille departed, leaving her husband to sign the bond, and no doubt worrying whether he would find either cushions, blanket or carpet for the night ahead of him.
(Guiana Graphic: September 15, 1957)

(Clifford Stanley can be reached to discuss the foregoing article at cliffantony@gmail.com or by telephone: 657-2043)