Duet. Carol Shields

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      Then it slipped away.

      

      Last night Martin and I went to a play. It was one of Shaw’s early ones, written before he turned drama into social propaganda. The slimmest of drawingroom debacles, it was a zany sandwich of socialism and pie-in-the-eye, daft but with brisk touches of irreverence. And the heroes were real heroes, the way they should be, and the heroines were even better. The whole evening was a confection, a joy.

      During the intermission we stood in the foyer chatting with Furlong Eberhardt and his mother, our delight in the play surfacing on our lips like crystals of sugar. Mrs Eberhardt, as broad-breasted as one of the Shavian heroines, encircled us with her peculiar clove-flavoured embrace. A big woman, she is mauve to the bone; even her skin is faintly lilac, her face a benign fretwork of lines framed with waves of palest violet.

      ‘Judith, you look a picture. How I wish I could wear those pant suits.’

      ‘You look lovely as you are, Mother,’ Furlong said, and she did; if ever a woman deserved a son with a mother fixation, it was Mrs Eberhardt.

      Martin disappeared to get us drinks, and Furlong, by a bit of clever steering, turned our discussion to his new book. Graven Images.

      ‘I know I can count on you, Judith, for a candid opinion. The critics, mind you, have been very helpful, and thus far, very kind.’ He paused.

      For a son of the Saskatchewan soil, Furlong is remarkably courtly, and like all the courtly people I know, he inspires in me alleys of unknown coarseness. I want to slap his back, pump his hand, tell him to screw off. But I never do, never, for basically I am too fond of him and even grateful, thankful for his most dazzling talent which is not writing at all, but the ability he has to make the people around him feel alive. There is an exhausted Byzantine quality about him which demands response, and even at that moment, standing in the theatre foyer in my too-tight pantsuit and my hair falling down around my rapidly ageing face, I was swept with vitality, almost drunk with the recognition that all things are possible. Beauty, fame, power; I have not been passed by after all.

      But about Graven Images, I had to confess ignorance. ‘I’ve been locked up with Susanna for months,’ I explained. It sounded weak. It was weak. But I thought to add kindly, ‘Meredith is reading it right now. She was about halfway through when we left the house tonight.’

      At this he beamed. ‘Then it is to your charming daughter I shall have to speak.’ Visibly wounded that I hadn’t got around to his book, he rallied quickly, drowning his private pain in a flood of diffusion. ‘Public reaction is really too general to be of any use, as you well know, Judith. It is one’s friends one must rely upon.’ He pronounced the word friends with such a silky sound that, for an instant, I wished he were a different make of man.

      ‘Meredith would love to discuss it with you, Furlong,’ I told him honestly. ‘Besides, she’s a more sensitive reader of fiction than I am. You, of all people, know fiction isn’t my thing.’

      ‘Ah yes, Judith,’ he said. ‘It’s your old Scarborough puritanism, as I’ve frequently told you. Judith Gill, my girl, basically you believe fiction is wicked and timewasting. The devil’s work. A web of lies.’

      ‘You just might be right, Furlong.’

      When Martin came back with our drinks, Furlong issued a general invitation to attend his publication party in November. He beamed at Martin, ‘You two must plan to come.’

      ‘Hmmm,’ Martin murmured noncommitally. He doesn’t really like Furlong; the relationship between them, although they teach in the same department, is one of tolerant scorn.

      The lights dipped, and we found our way back to our seats. Back to the lovely arched setting, lit in some magical way to suggest sunrise. Heroines moved across the broad stage like clipper ships, their throats swollen with purpose. The play wound down and so did they in their final speeches. Holy holy, the crash of applause that always brings tears stinging to my eyes.

      All night long memories of the play boiled through my dreams, a plummy jam stewed from those intelligent, cruising, early-century bosoms. Hour after hour I rode on a sea of breasts: the exhausted mounds of Susanna Moodie, touched with lamplight. The orchid hills and valleys of Mrs Eberhardt, bubbles of yeast. The tender curve of my daughter Meredith. The bratty twelve-year-old tits of Anita Spalding, rising, falling, melting, twisting in and out of the heavy folds of sleep.

      I woke to find Martin’s arm flung across my chest; the angle of his skin was perceived and recognized, a familiar coastline. The weight was a lever that cut off the electricity of dreams, pushing me down, down through the mattress, down through the floor, down, into the spongy cave of the blackest sleep. Oblivion.

       October

      The first frost this morning, a landmark. At breakfast Martin talks about snow tires and mentions a sale at Canadian Tire. After school these days Richard plays football with his friends in the shadowy yard, and when they thud to the grass, the ground rings with sound. Watching them, I am reassured.

      It is almost dark now when we sit down to dinner. Meredith has found some candles in the cupboard, bent out of shape with the summer heat but still useable, so that now our dinners are washed with candlelight. I make pot roast which they love and mashed potatoes which make me think of Susanna Moodie. In the evening the children have their homework. Martin goes over papers at his desk or reads a book, sitting in the yellow chair, his feet resting on the coffeetable, and he hums. Richard and Meredith bicker lazily. Husband, children, they are not so much witnessed as perceived, flat leaves which grow absently from a stalk in my head, each fitting into the next, all their curving edges perfect. So far, so far. It seems they require someone, me, to watch them; otherwise they would float apart and disintegrate.

      I watch them. They are as happy as can be expected. What is the matter with me, I wonder. Why am I always the one who watches?

      

      One day this week I checked into the Civic Hospital for a minor operation, a delicate, feminine, unspeakable, minimal nothing, the sort of irksome repair work which I suppose I must expect now that I am forty.

      A minor piece of surgery, but nevertheless requiring a general anaesthetic. Preparation, sleep, recovery, a whole day required, a day fully erased from my life. Martin drove me to the hospital at nine and came to take me home again in the evening. The snipping and sewing were entirely satisfactory, and except for an hour’s discomfort, there were no after effects. None. I am in service again. A lost day, but there was one cheering interlude.

      Shortly before the administering of the general anaesthetic, I was given a little white pill to make me drowsy. In a languorous trance I was then wheeled on a stretcher to a darkened room and lined up with about twelve other people, male and female, all in the same condition. White-faced nurses tiptoed between our parked rows, whispering. Far below us in another world, cars honked and squeaked.

      Lying there semidrugged, I sensed a new identity: I was exactly like a biscuit set out to bake, just waiting my turn in the oven. I moved my head lazily to one side and found myself face to face, not six inches away from a man, another biscuit. His eyes met mine, and I watched him fascinated, a slow-motion film, as СКАЧАТЬ