Duet for Three (9 page)

What had they talked about before, in the kitchen and on their walks? Poems, and what they saw. For the moment, she couldn't think of a single poem she had learned, and probably none of them would have been appropriate to the moment anyway. That only left what there was to be seen, which wasn't much and certainly nothing extraordinary. Still, she began to point things out: a farmer up on the roof of his barn, making repairs; horses that whinnied at theirs and approached the fence by the road; a cluster of cattle lying under the shade of the single maple tree in a field. “I always think,” she said, “that they'd surely be cooler under the sun than all jammed together like that.”

“You know,” she said a while later, getting concerned, “we really ought to stop and water the horse and let him rest.” Did he think an animal was a machine that could just keep going? Really, he didn't know much; about some things, anyway.

When they stopped, she jumped down. She was hot, but also bored. While he watered the horse, she stretched her arms and paced a few steps. That became a little hop and a skip, a bouncing up the road a little, just to get some feeling back.

“Aggie!” What a strange, sharp tone, and how red his face was when she turned, almost as flushed as the night he arrived on their doorstep in the storm — almost steaming. “What on earth do you think you're doing?”

She turned back, walking now. “Just getting some exercise. I'm not used to sitting.” Closer, he looked actually angry. Whatever could he be angry about?

“Get back in this buggy.” And heavens, didn't he sound like a teacher reprimanding an unruly pupil, though? “You're a married woman, not a child, you know. What do you think that looked like, a grown woman skipping up the road?”

“Who was looking?”

“I was, if that counts. But anyone could have, coming along.”

“What's the matter with you?” Really, she was getting annoyed. “What difference does it make?”

“It makes a great deal of difference if people see the wife of a teacher romping in the street.”

“Well, I'm hardly likely to romp in the street, am I?” Maybe it was because he was speaking to her as if she were a child that made her want to behave like one. She felt like sulking, or sticking out her tongue at him. And this was the first day of their marriage?

“I won't have you,” he continued, “making a display of yourself.”

Whatever happened to the timid young man who walked in her tracks because he was unsure of where the trapdoors were? Apparently they had moved from her territory to his.

“Why are you angry? I didn't do anything.”

“I'm not angry. I'm just telling you.”

Probably he expected her to say, “I'm sorry, you're right, I'd forgotten, I won't do it again.” Something like that. She'd never said such words in her life, and didn't much feel like it now. However, there didn't seem to be anything else to say, so she sat back rigid against the seat, arms crossed against her chest. And on they went, except that she no longer troubled to point things out.

“Things may be difficult sometimes, dear,” her mother had suggested. “Especially at the start, it may take a while to sort things out and get used to the way each other does things. It's hard work sometimes.” That had sounded at the time like a warning, but now seemed encouraging: as if this small unpleasantness was something simple and trivial, a mere sorting out of customs. That would be all right, then. Just now, though, she didn't feel like talking.

There were subtle changes in the countryside: fewer stone fences and more split rail ones, weaving toward the road and back, all interlaced and, to her eye, a little flimsy. Here, the big problems must have been bush instead of rock. Still the same hard work, though. Some of the farmhouses were made of wood instead of stone. They too seemed less solid, less safe and warm.

The men in the fields looked the same, though: burly and hot. Sometimes they waved, strange passersby catching their attention. She waved back, ignoring his frown.

“It must be about time for lunch,” he said, glancing upward, as if, she thought scornfully, he could tell time from the sun. “Where is it?”

“Where's what?”

“Lunch.”

“What are you talking about?” Did he think she carried sandwiches in her suitcase? She was sitting right here beside him, where did he think she would have come by food?

“Didn't you ask at the inn for them to fix us something? What did you think we were going to do for food all day?”

“I don't know. I guess I thought we'd stop somewhere.”

“But you knew we don't have time to spare; it'll be nearly dark by the time we get there anyway. Do I have to think of everything?”

“If you did think of it, you should have mentioned it. Or told them yourself. I didn't even know they'd make us a lunch.”

“But that's what they do. We ate there this morning, what did you think?”

Oh, this was ridiculous. Hot and snappish and stupid. Who was the child here now? Who was petulant and sour? “We'll just have to go hungry then,” he went on, and frowned.

What did he care? He never had much of an appetite.

There would be thousands of meals in the future, and she quite understood they would be her job. But not yet. “I guess we will, you're right,” she agreed. At home they would be sitting down right about now to eat. There would be slabs of meat, a heap of mashed potatoes, and carrots or peas in bowls. And one of her mother's pies, waiting to be cut.

She was the one who was hungry, so why was he the one who was angry? A teacher of many parts, it seemed, busy unveiling his various characters.

Poor Aggie, poor teacher, poor horse, she thought. This was no way for married life to start, whatever her mother had said. Certainly her own feelings were not those of a new bride, adoring her new husband. A real bride would want to reach out and maybe just touch his arm. She would be talking with excitement about their future, as they travelled to the new home in which they expected to spend the rest of their lives.

The sun was so hot, it might be boiling her brains. It did almost feel as if her hair beneath the hat was sizzling. Glancing at him, she saw his jaw working. When he stopped again to let the horse drink and graze and rest, he sighed. She didn't bother getting out this time, just closed her eyes. She understood from his sigh that she was supposed to make the next sound, which was supposed to be an apology. Well, it would be a cold day in hell before she said she was sorry for anything.

Where had she learned that expression? And was it swearing? She didn't care. She wasn't exactly angry; maybe what her mother would call “in a rage”. Whatever it was called for either strong words and violence, or silence and the best stillness she could manage.

The motion of the buggy as they started off again was gentle and, with her eyes closed, soothing. After a while she wasn't even very hungry any more. With her eyes closed, she wasn't really there at all.

She fell asleep with a little smile. It was an awful thing, she knew, but she was smiling because she knew that when he noticed, it would make him furious.

EIGHT

What a mean piece of mischief, that epitaph Aggie sprang on her at breakfast. What an insult, for one thing; for another, what a wound.

IN THE WRONG PLACE

AT THE WRONG TIME

WITH THE WRONG PEOPLE

“That should catch people's attention, don't you think?” Aggie laughed.

“If that's what you want, I'm sure it will.”

It's certainly clear enough, even as a joke, which of course it must be; even Aggie wouldn't really want that carved in granite. Just blatantly saying, “You're not the daughter I wanted, you're not what I had in mind at all.” Not that she hasn't always picked away at the various ways in which June fails to measure up: her standards, her body, her clothes, her views. Her very staying here caring for Aggie is, in her mother's eyes, a sign of failure. But to put it into words, as tersely as this joke epitaph, that's really cruel.

So today June will go to see the nursing home and seeing it, she will be able to picture Aggie here and there in it. It's Aggie's own fault, since she's the one who insisted June face the words. Now the words bring it closer. Of all people, Aggie ought to realize the power and authority of giving names to things.

God has tested her with Aggie, but it is not His fault. It wasn't her father's fault, either. Aggie can say all she wants, “For heaven's sake, June, you were just a child,” but a child knows. Those children at school, they sniff out things that are perfectly true. That's why you have to be so careful with them.

What June remembers of Aggie from when she was a child is her footsteps clicking swiftly around the house, often almost breaking into a run. Always busy, except when she sat down abruptly to read. Racing, racing, no time to spare, and what did she do that required such fine scheduling? Washing, ironing, mending, sewing, cooking, cleaning — unskilled work that anyone could do, not like real work, not like being a teacher. Wasting energy on things that would only be dirty and crumpled and torn and eaten by tomorrow.

And then later Aggie made a living making things to be consumed. For years, the lines in her hands were white with flour, and she smelled like perspiration and raisins. Everything she did contained its own destruction. Maybe that's why she has no faith in a permanent grace.

In the hall mirror June checks her hair, seams, and hem. It's not only a matter of dressing properly, but of self-respect. Standards. This is something she never managed to get through Frances's head: that keeping up appearances and standards is important. Never in all her life would June consider having breakfast in her housecoat, or checking the mailbox on the porch without combing her hair, or lounging in a chair with her feet up.

“For goodness' sake, Frances,” she has said, seeing her daughter, in jeans and an old T-shirt, slouching on the couch, an ankle resting on a knee, like a man. Or with her legs sprawled, arms waving, a cigarette like an extra finger.

“Jesus, Mother, who cares how your legs are crossed as long as you're comfortable? Leave me alone.”

Apart from self-respect, there is the matter of other people. Frances has been known to wear her bathing suit out in the front yard, and shorts downtown, shrugging, seeing nothing wrong with that. “I dress up when I work, Mother. Surely I don't have to bother here. Why can't I just be comfortable?”

What kind of person is comfortable looking like a tramp, June would like to ask, but never has. There are some things about Frances that it's better not to know. The word tramp is no longer in vogue; that Frances might be one is unthinkable, although sometimes June has wondered, watching her, what or who may have touched her. She does not give an impression of innocence. She says things like, “Never mind, Mother, I'd rather be a woman than a lady anyway.”

Aggie's fault. Aggie who taught Frances she could do anything, had her climbing trees when she was a child, and itching to leave home when she grew up. “Get out and do things,” Aggie advised, and never mind what June thought.

Did Aggie set out to achieve a granddaughter who thinks only of her own convenience, who refuses difficulties and makes frivolous choices? Probably. But some day Frances will crash, and what will her grandmother have to say to her then? Events even out. Or so June hopes.

Frances talks about freedom, but means only selfishness. Where would she have been if June had aimed for freedom? They would have starved, the two of them. They would have been homeless. It's all very well for Frances, with her education and her work, her tearing around the country wearing jeans, but she judges from that perspective. She does not understand what was impossible for June. She may be in her thirties now, but she is still harsh and young that way.

June wonders what another life might have been like. There are religions, heathen ones, that offer the possibility of returning after death in other forms. Then a person could come back and try it differently, take another run at it, see it from a different point of view. Have a different mother, take a different husband, maybe bear a different daughter. One might come back unaware of consequences and lacking a sense of goodness, which in many ways might be a relief. On the other hand, there would be the terrible tedium of repetition. Imagine going through all the years of a life, and then having to do it all again.

Also, as June understands it, there is no guarantee in those faiths of a return in human form. Wouldn't it be just her luck to come back as an insect, living in a crack, waiting to be stepped on; or as a stray kitten, wet and cold and feeding out of garbage in the middle of the night? She might return as a baby bird, the weakest one, nudged out by bigger brothers and sisters, falling to earth and lying there helpless until the hungry stray kitten she might also be came along and made a meal.

Striding along the sidewalk, June suddenly sees herself from God's perspective, far away and looking down. To Him her life must be only a moment. He may see the little sparrow fall, but all her tribulations are fleeting, part of His purpose and His pattern, but done quite soon. She may be only briefly filling in some space for Him that has needed filling for some reason. It's all very well for Him to be patient, but He is eternal and gets things His way. What about her? She only has a little time, and has never gotten what she might have wanted.

“Oh my God,” she prays. He might strike her down on the spot for her ingratitude. “I didn't mean it.”

What will the nursing home be like? An institution, at any rate, along the lines of a school or a hospital. Well, it might not do Aggie any harm to live in an alien environment. Let her give up a few things, live under someone else's rules; Aggie, who accuses June of taking pleasure from sacrifice. “Why can't you admit you're pleased to give things up?” she's asked. “I see it in your face, you know. If you looked at yourself, you'd see pride and satisfaction written all over you.”

One of them has to sacrifice in this situation, and surely it's Aggie's turn; Aggie, who has always managed to turn events to her own advantage. Surely God does not want June martyred to other people's selfishness. That isn't fair.

Oh God, she's done it again: accused Him of unfairness. “Help me,” she prays. “Help me to know Thy will.”

“Be careful what you pray for,” Aggie warned once, laughing. “You never know how you'll get what you ask for.”

On her lunch break, June phones the nursing home and speaks with the administrator; a man named Atkinson, with a low and careful voice. There are no beds at the moment, he says, and there is a waiting list, but he would be happy to show her around.

Then she calls Aggie. “I'll be late home. I'm going over to take a look at the nursing home. Unless you want to change your mind and come with me?”

“Oh no, thank you.”

“You know, Mother, what you imagine may be much worse than what is.”

“You may find that. What I generally find is the reverse.”

Everyone knows the nursing home from the outside. It's big and modern and low-slung, like an extended ranch-style house, and has little patches of concrete and bits of lawn where, in warm weather, some people sit outside. People were unsure of their views toward the place when it was built a few years ago, June remembers. Certainly it would be clean and efficient, and possibly even kind, they said; but not like home. Some of the private homes that had been taking in the old may have been darker and perhaps more cavalier in their care, and even in some cases unkind, but they were regular houses, not too swift and brisk. It seemed, too, an uneasy way to make money, this shiny new building that was part of a chain, processing the old instead of hamburgers, caring for those who did not have their own homes or people to look after them.

Aggie has her own home, and her own people. Or person, rather. She has a house and June. Nevertheless.

It's five blocks from school to the home. June wonders what it would feel like, making this journey instead of going straight home. One thing: there'd be no guilt here. She'd see Aggie regularly, taking her whatever treats she wanted, and magazines and books. She will pay for the best possible care, just the way that, when the time comes, she will provide the best funeral she can afford, none of this cheap casket and cremation nonsense, but a proper minister and a nice plot and a headstone with some dignity. She will not be caught stinting.

She supposes regular visits would impose a certain burden. She doubts there's any way to clear Aggie out of her mind, no matter what, so already there is a blemish on the purity of being left alone. But things are owed. They are not only owed, but are seen to be owed. She will not have people saying she has treated her mother shabbily.

In her eagerness, she is slightly early for the appointment.

The red-brick building is L-shaped, with the main entrance at the join of the L. A heavy set of glass doors leads to a second set; all the weight and effort involved must keep the old people pretty securely indoors, she supposes. She is blasted, stepping through the second doors, by heat. What on earth temperature do they keep the place at? What will Aggie, accustomed to drafts and windows on which frost forms on the inside in winter, think of this? But of course the body adjusts, to temperatures and other things.

Despite the heat, there are people sitting in a small lounge wearing sweaters, or blankets bundled around their knees. So thin they are; just bones, really. This is how June will look in ten, fifteen years: whatever spare flesh there may be hanging as loosely as an old dress or a baggy suit. She feels the kind of shiver up her spine that Aggie used to say was somebody walking over her grave.

Here are old people shrivelling. And for all that Aggie's bulk is awful, and for all that June has wished her to age appropriately, through shrinkage, when confronted with real examples she is a bit appalled. Imagine Aggie so frail, so chilly. Imagine her not laughing and patting herself and saying, “Never mind insulation, June, I carry my own.”

Aggie won't suit this place at all. She will be too big and boisterous, too demanding and noisy. Like putting hot mustard on porridge, moving Aggie in here. Oh, but really, she's getting just like Aggie, transforming everything into food.

“Mrs. Benson?”

She turns to see a man much younger than she would have thought, from his voice or his position. “I'm Jim Atkinson.” Another one in his thirties, ordinary — but can he be ordinary? A strange choice of career, surely, being in charge of old bodies. Hair neatly clipped and a brown suit, tan shirt, brown tie and shoes, and no doubt brown socks. “I believe you said you're here on behalf of your mother?”

“Yes, well, I wanted to take a look, so that we could discuss it properly. If you don't mind.”

“Not at all, it's a pleasure.” A pleasure? “I think I mentioned that there's a waiting list, although it's not terribly long and spaces, as you understand, can come up quite suddenly. Why don't you come into my office and tell me a little about your mother? Is this a decision you've made or something you're still considering?”

“I suppose we're still only thinking about it, but I expect it's pretty well inevitable.” She'd noticed, out in the lounge, that the furniture was plastic-covered, presumably so that accidents could easily be wiped away. But it's plastic in here, too, in his office, and why ever would that be? “I'm a teacher and out all day, and I worry about her home alone so much. And she's difficult for me to care for now.”

He frowns slightly at that, but aren't the people here supposed to be difficult to care for? Isn't that the point?

“What sort of problems does she have?”

“Mainly it's that she's quite heavy, and it makes it hard. I'm not that strong, you see, or young.” It is not yet the moment to mention accidents.

“Is she alert?”

“Oh, heavens, yes. Smart as a whip.”

This, she realizes, must be something like parents trying to get a badly behaved youngster into a private school: touching up sins to look like virtues. A destructive child who smashes things might be described as active. Wait till he finds out what she means by smart as a whip.

“This weight problem, how serious is it?”

“Well, it keeps her from doing some things by herself. I mean, I have to help her dress and get out of bed and have a bath, that sort of thing. It's not that she's immobilized, just too much for me to handle on my own.”