by Alice Munro
Last spring she went out once and picked him a small bunch of dog’s-tooth violets, but he looked at them – as he sometimes looked at her – with mere exhaustion, disavowal.
She kept seeing Carla, Carla stepping onto the bus. Her thanks had been sincere but already almost casual, her wave jaunty. She had got used to her salvation.
Back in the house, at around six o’clock, Sylvia put in a call to Toronto, to Ruth, knowing that Carla would not have arrived yet. She got the answering machine.
“Ruth,” said Sylvia. “Sylvia. It’s about this girl I sent you. I hope she doesn’t turn out to be a bother to you. I hope it’ll be all right. You may find her a little full of herself. Maybe it’s just youth. Let me know. Okay?”
She phoned again before she went to bed but got the machine, so she said, “Sylvia again. Just checking,” and hung up. It was between nine and ten o’clock, not even really dark. Ruth must still be out and the girl would not want to pick up the phone in a strange house. She tried to think of the name of Ruth’s upstairs tenants. They surely wouldn’t have gone to bed yet. But she could not remember. And just as well. Phoning them would have meant making too much of a fuss, being too anxious, going too far.
She got into the bed but it was impossible to stay there, so she took a light quilt and went out to the living room and lay down on the sofa, where she had slept for the last three months of Leon’s life. She did not think it likely that she would get to sleep there either – there were no curtains on the bank of windows and she could tell by the look of the sky that the moon had risen, though she could not see it.
The next thing she knew she was on a bus somewhere – in Greece? – with a lot of people she did not know, and the engine of the bus was making an alarming knocking sound. She woke to find the knocking was at her front door.
Carla?
CARLA HAD KEPT her head down until the bus was clear of town. The windows were tinted, nobody could see in, but she had to guard herself against seeing out. Lest Clark appear. Coming out of a store or waiting to cross the street, all ignorant of her abandoning him, thinking this an ordinary afternoon. No, thinking it the afternoon when their scheme – his scheme – was put in motion, eager to know how far she had got with it.
Once they were out in the country she looked up, breathed deeply, took account of the fields, which were slightly violet-tinted through the glass. Mrs. Jamieson’s presence had surrounded her with some kind of remarkable safety and sanity and had made her escape seem the most rational thing you could imagine, in fact the only self-respecting thing that a person in Carla’s shoes could do. Carla had felt herself capable of an unaccustomed confidence, even of a mature sense of humor, revealing her life to Mrs. Jamieson in a way that seemed bound to gain sympathy and yet to be ironic and truthful. And adapted to live up to what, as far as she could see, were Mrs. Jamieson’s – Sylvia’s – expectations. She did have a feeling that it would be possible to disappoint Mrs. Jamieson, who struck her as a most sensitive and rigorous person, but she thought that she was in no danger of doing that.
If she didn’t have to be around her for too long.
The sun was shining, as it had been for some time. When they sat at lunch it had made the wineglasses sparkle. No rain had fallen since early morning. There was enough of a wind blowing to lift the roadside grass, the flowering weeds, out of their drenched clumps. Summer clouds, not rain clouds, were scudding across the sky. The whole countryside was changing, shaking itself loose, into the true brightness of a July day. And as they sped along she was able to see not much trace at all of the recent past – no big puddles in the fields, showing where the seed had washed out, no miserable spindly cornstalks or lodged grain.
It occurred to her that she must tell Clark about this – that perhaps they had chosen what was for some freakish reason a very wet and dreary corner of the country, and there were other places where they could have been successful.
Or could be yet?
Then it came to her of course that she would not be telling Clark anything. Never again. She would not be concerned about what happened to him, or to Grace or Mike or Juniper or Blackberry or Lizzie Borden. If by any chance Flora came back, she would not hear of it.
This was her second time to leave everything behind. The first time was just like the old Beatles song – her putting the note on the table and slipping out of the house at five o’clock in the morning, meeting Clark in the church parking lot down the street. She was actually humming that song as they rattled away. She’s leaving home, bye-bye. She recalled now how the sun was coming up behind them, how she looked at Clark’s hands on the wheel, the dark hairs on his competent forearms, and breathed in the smell of the inside of the truck, a smell of oil and metal, tools and horse barns. The cold air of the fall morning blew in through the truck’s rusted seams. It was the sort of vehicle that nobody in her family ever rode in, that scarcely ever appeared on the streets where they lived.
Clark’s preoccupation on that morning with the traffic (they had reached Highway 401), his concern about the truck’s behavior, his curt answers, his narrowed eyes, even his slight irritation at her giddy delight – all of that thrilled her. As did the disorder of his past life, his avowed loneliness, the tender way he could have with a horse, and with her. She saw him as the architect of the life ahead of them, herself as captive, her submission both proper and exquisite.
“You don’t know what you’re leaving behind,” her mother wrote to her, in that one letter that she received, and never answered. But in those shivering moments of early-morning flight she certainly did know what she was leaving behind, even if she had rather a hazy idea of what she was going to. She despised her parents, their house, their backyard, their photo albums, their vacations, their Cuisinart, their powder room, their walk-in closets, their underground lawn-sprinkling system. In the brief note she had written she had used the word authentic.
I have always felt the need of a more authentic kind of life. I know I cannot expect you to understand this.
The bus had stopped now at the first town on the way. The depot was a gas station. It was the very station she and Clark used to drive to, in their early days, to buy cheap gas. In those days their world had included several towns in the surrounding countryside and they had sometimes behaved like tourists, sampling the specialties in grimy hotel bars. Pigs’ feet, sauerkraut, potato pancakes, beer. And they would sing all the way home like crazy hillbillies.
But after a while all outings came to be seen as a waste of time and money. They were what people did before they understood the realities of their lives.
She was crying now, her eyes had filled up without her realizing it. She set herself to thinking about Toronto, the first steps ahead. The taxi, the house she had never seen, the strange bed she would sleep in alone. Looking in the phone book tomorrow for the addresses of riding stables, then getting to wherever they were, asking for a job.
She could not picture it. Herself riding on the subway or streetcar, caring for new horses, talking to new people, living among hordes of people every day who were not Clark.
A life, a place, chosen for that specific reason – that it would not contain Clark.
The strange and terrible thing coming clear to her about that world of the future, as she now pictured it, was that she would not exist there. She would only walk around, and open her mouth and speak, and do this and do that. She would not really be there. And what was strange about it was that she was doing all this, she was riding on this bus in the hope of recovering herself. As Mrs. Jamieson might say – and as she herself might with satisfaction have said – taking charge of her own life. With nobody glowering over her, nobody’s mood infecting her with misery.
But what would she care about? How would she know that she was alive?
While she was running away from him – now – Clark still kept his place in her life. But when she was finished running away, when she just went on, what would she put in his place? What else – wh
o else – could ever be so vivid a challenge?
She had managed to stop crying, but she had started to shake. She was in a bad way and would have to take hold, get a grip on herself. “Get a grip on yourself,” Clark had sometimes told her, passing through a room where she was scrunched up, trying not to weep, and that indeed was what she must do.
They had stopped in another town. This was the third town away from the one where she had got on the bus, which meant that they had passed through the second town without her even noticing. The bus must have stopped, the driver must have called out the name, and she had not heard or seen anything in her fog of fright. Soon enough they would reach the major highway, they would be tearing along towards Toronto.
And she would be lost.
She would be lost. What would be the point of getting into a taxi and giving the new address, of getting up in the morning and brushing her teeth and going into the world? Why should she get a job, put food in her mouth, be carried by public transportation from place to place?
Her feet seemed now to be at some enormous distance from her body. Her knees, in the unfamiliar crisp pants, were weighted with irons. She was sinking to the ground like a stricken horse who will never get up.
Already the bus had loaded on the few passengers and the parcels that had been waiting in this town. A woman and a baby in its stroller were waving somebody good-bye. The building behind them, the cafe that served as a bus stop, was also in motion. A liquefying wave passed through the bricks and windows as if they were about to dissolve. In peril of her life, Carla pulled her huge body, her iron limbs, forward. She stumbled, she cried out, “Let me off.”
The driver braked, he called out irritably, “I thought you were going to Toronto?” People gave her casually curious looks, nobody seemed to understand that she was in anguish.
“I have to get off here.”
“There’s a washroom in the back.”
“No. No. I have to get off.”
“I’m not waiting. You understand that? You got luggage underneath?”
“No. Yes. No.”
“No luggage?”
A voice in the bus said, “Claustrophobia. That’s what’s the matter with her.”
“You sick?” said the driver.
“No. No. I just want off.”
“Okay. Okay. Fine by me.”
“COME AND GET ME. Please. Come and get me.”
“I will.”
SYLVIA HAD FORGOTTEN to lock her door. She realized that she should be locking it now, not opening it, but it was too late, she had it open.
And nobody there.
Yet she was sure, sure, the knocking had been real.
She closed the door and this time she locked it.
There was a playful sound, a tinkling tapping sound, coming from the wall of windows. She switched the light on, but saw nothing there, and switched it off again. Some animal – maybe a squirrel? The French doors that opened between windows, leading to the patio, had not been locked either. Not even really closed, having been left open an inch or so from her airing of the house. She started to close them and somebody laughed, nearby, near enough to be in the room with her.
“It’s me,” a man said. “Did I scare you?”
He was pressed against the glass, he was right beside her.
“It’s Clark,” he said. “Clark from down the road.”
She was not going to ask him in, but she was afraid to shut the door in his face. He could grab it before she could manage that. She didn’t want to turn on the light, either. She slept in a long T-shirt. She should have pulled the quilt from the sofa and wrapped it around herself, but it was too late now.
“Did you want to get dressed?” he said. “What I got in here, it could be the very things you need.”
He had a shopping bag in his hand. He thrust it at her, but did not try to come with it.
“What?” she said in a choppy voice.
“Look and see. It’s not a bomb. There, take it.”
She felt inside the bag, not looking. Something soft. And then she recognized the buttons of the jacket, the silk of the shirt, the belt on the pants.
“Just thought you’d better have them back,” he said. “They’re yours, aren’t they?”
She tightened her jaws so that her teeth wouldn’t chatter. A fearful dryness had attacked her mouth and throat.
“I understood they were yours,” he said softly.
Her tongue moved like a wad of wool. She forced herself to say, “Where’s Carla?”
“You mean my wife Carla?”
Now she could see his face more clearly. She could see how he was enjoying himself.
“My wife Carla is home in bed. Asleep in bed. Where she belongs.”
He was both a handsome man and a silly-looking man. Tall, lean, well built, but with a slouch that seemed artificial. A contrived, self-conscious air of menace. A lock of dark hair falling over his forehead, a vain little moustache, eyes that appeared both hopeful and mocking, a boyish smile perpetually on the verge of a sulk.
She had always disliked the sight of him – she had mentioned her dislike to Leon, who said that the man was just unsure of himself, just a bit too friendly.
The fact that he was unsure of himself would not make her any safer now.
“Pretty worn out,” he said. “After her little adventure. You should’ve seen your face – you should’ve seen the look on you when you recognized those clothes. What did you think? Did you think I’d murdered her?”
“I was surprised,” said Sylvia.
“I bet you were. After you were such a big help to her running away.”
“I helped her –,” Sylvia said with considerable effort, “I helped her because she seemed to be in distress.”
“Distress,” he said, as if examining the word. “I guess she was. She was in very big distress when she jumped off that bus and got on the phone to me to come and get her. She was crying so hard I could hardly make out what it was she was saying.”
“She wanted to come back?”
“Oh yeah. You bet she wanted to come back. She was in real hysterics to come back. She is a girl who is very up and down in her emotions. But I guess you don’t know her as well as I do.”
“She seemed quite happy to be going.”
“Did she really? Well, I have to take your word for it. I didn’t come here to argue with you.”
Sylvia said nothing.
“I came here to tell you I don’t appreciate you interfering in my life with my wife.”
“She is a human being,” said Sylvia, though she knew it would be better if she could keep quiet. “Besides being your wife.”
“My goodness, is that so? My wife is a human being? Really? Thank you for the information. But don’t try getting smart with me. Sylvia.”
“I wasn’t trying to get smart.”
“Good. I’m glad you weren’t. I don’t want to get mad. I just have a couple of important things to say to you. One thing, that I don’t want you sticking your nose in anywhere, anytime, in my and my wife’s life. Another, that I’m not going to want her coming around here anymore. Not that she is going to particularly want to come, I’m pretty sure of that. She doesn’t have too good an opinion of you at the moment. And it’s time you learned how to clean your own house.
“Now,” he said. “Now. Has that sunk in?”
“Quite sufficiently.”
“Oh, I really hope it has. I hope so.”
Sylvia said, “Yes.”
“And you know what else I think?”
“What?”
“I think you owe me something.”
“What?”
“I think you owe me – maybe – you owe me an apology.”
Sylvia said, “All right. If you think so. I’m sorry.”
He shifted, perhaps just to put out his hand, and with the movement of his body she shrieked.
He laughed. He put his hand on the doorframe to make sure she didn’t close it.
/> “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” he said, as if she was trying out a trick and it would not work. But then he caught sight of something reflected in the window, and he snapped around to look.
Not far from the house was a wide shallow patch of land that often filled up with night fog at this time of year. The fog was there tonight, had been there all this while. But now at one point there was a change. The fog had thickened, taken on a separate shape, transformed itself into something spiky and radiant. First a live dandelion ball, tumbling forward, then condensing itself into an unearthly sort of animal, pure white, hellbent, something like a giant unicorn, rushing at them.
“Jesus Christ,” Clark said softly and devoutly. And grabbed hold of Sylvia’s shoulder. This touch did not alarm her at all – she accepted it with the knowledge that he did it either to protect her or to reassure himself.
Then the vision exploded. Out of the fog, and out of the magnifying light – now seen to be that of a car travelling along this back road, probably in search of a place to park – out of this appeared a white goat. A little dancing white goat, hardly bigger than a sheepdog.
Clark let go. He said, “Where the Christ did you come from?”
“It’s your goat,” said Sylvia. “Isn’t it your goat?”
“Flora,” he said. “Flora.”
The goat had stopped a yard or so away from them, had turned shy and hung her head.
“Flora,” Clark said. “Where the hell did you come from? You scared the shit out of us.”
Us.
Flora came closer but still did not look up. She butted against Clark’s legs.
“Goddamn stupid animal,” he said shakily. “Where’d you come from?”
“She was lost,” said Sylvia.
“Yeah. She was. Never thought we’d see her again, actually.”
Flora looked up. The moonlight caught a glitter in her eyes.
“Scared the shit out of us,” Clark said to her. “Were you off looking for a boyfriend? Scared the shit. Didn’t you? We thought you were a ghost.”
