by Alice Munro
“Here!” he said, and threw it at her.
Sophie didn’t catch it. It fell over her feet.
“Laurence, that’s the tablecloth!”
“Never mind,” said Laurence. “Just put it on!”
Sophie bent and picked up the tablecloth and looked at it as if examining the pattern. Then she draped it around herself, not very effectively and in no great hurry.
“Thank you, Laurence,” she said. She had managed to arrange the tablecloth so that it flapped open at just the worst place. Looking down, she said, “I hope this makes you happier.” She started again on her story.
No, thought Isabel, she cannot be that unaware. It has to be on purpose; it has to be a game. Crafty innocence. The stagy old show-off. Showing off her purity, her high-mindedness, her simplicity. Perverse old fraud.
“Denise, run and get another cloth,” Isabel said. “Are we going to let this food get cold?”
The idea was—Sophie’s idea always was—to make her own son look foolish. To make him look a fool in front of his wife and children. Which he did, standing above Sophie on the veranda, with the shamed blood rising hotly up his neck, staining his ears, his voice artificially lowered to sound a manly reproach, but trembling. That was what Sophie could do, would do, every time she got the chance.
“What arrogant brats,” said Isabel, responding to the story. “I thought they were all supposed to be lovely and blissful and looking for enlightenment and so on.”
“If only you had worn a bathing suit to go swimming, in the first place,” said Laurence.
THEN the trip to get the cake, the worry of getting it home intact, the need to nag at Denise so that she would keep it level. A further trip, alone, to the Hi-Way Market to get the ripe field tomatoes Laurence preferred to any that you could buy in the store. Isabel had to plan a top-of-the-stove menu. It had to be something that could be cooked or heated up fairly quickly when they all got home hungry from the trip to the airport. And it should be something that Laurence particularly liked, that Sophie wouldn’t find too fancy, and that Peter would eat. She decided on coq au vin, though with that she couldn’t be entirely sure of Sophie, or of Peter. After all, it was Laurence’s day. She spent the afternoon cooking, watching the time so that they would all be ready to leave for the airport early enough not to throw Denise into a fit of anxiety.
Even with her watching, they were a bit late. Laurence, called to from the top of the steps, answered yes, but did not appear. Isabel had to run down and tell him it was urgent, that there was a surprise connected with his birthday and everything might be ruined if he didn’t hurry—it was Denise’s particular surprise, furthermore, and she was getting into a state. Even after that, it seemed that Laurence deliberately took his time and was longer than usual washing and changing. He did not approve of so much effort going into preventing one of Denise’s states.
But they had got here, and now they were all, except Isabel, up in the plane. That had not been the plan. The plan was that they were all to drive to the airport, watch Laurence get his blindfold removed and be surprised, watch him take off on his birthday ride, and greet him when he came down.
Then the pilot, coming out of the little house that served as an office, and seeing them all there, had said, “How about taking the whole family up? We’ll take the five-seater—you get a nice ride.” He smiled at Denise. “I won’t charge you any more. It’s the end of the day.”
“That’s very nice of you,” said Denise promptly.
“So,” said the pilot, looking them over. “All but one.”
“That can be me,” said Isabel.
“I hope you’re not scared,” said the pilot, turning his look on her. “No need to be.”
He was a man in his forties—maybe he was fifty—with waves of very blond or white hair, probably blond hair going white, combed straight back from his forehead. He was not tall, not as tall as Laurence, but he had heavy shoulders, a thick chest and waist and a little hard swell of belly, not a sag, over his belt. A high, curved forehead, bright blue eyes with a habitual outdoor squint, a look of professional calm and good humor. That same quality in his voice—the good-humored, unhurried, slightly stupid-sounding country voice. She knew what Laurence would say of this man—that he was the salt of the earth. Not noticing something else—something vigilant underneath, and careless or even contemptuous of them, sharply self-possessed.
“You’re not scared, are you, ma’am?” said the pilot to Sophie.
“I’ve never flown in a small plane,” said Sophie. “But I don’t think I’m scared, no.”
“We’ve none of us ever flown in a small plane. It’ll be a great treat,” said Laurence. “Thank you.”
“I’ll just sit here by myself, then,” said Isabel, and Laurence laughed.
“Sitting by herself is my wife’s greatest pleasure.”
If that was so—and it really might be, because she wasn’t scared, or only vaguely scared, yet she so much relished the idea of being left behind—it surely wasn’t much to her credit. Here she sat and saw her day as hurdles got through. The coq au vin waiting on the back of the stove, the cake got home safely, the wine and tomatoes bought, the birthday brought this far without any real errors or clashes or disappointments. There remained the drive home, the dinner. Then tomorrow Laurence would go to Ottawa for the day, and come back in the evening. He was to be with them Wednesday to watch the moon shot.
Not much to her credit to go through her life thinking, Well, good, now that’s over, that’s over. What was she looking forward to, what bonus was she hoping to get, when this, and this, and this, was over?
Freedom—or not even freedom. Emptiness, a lapse of attention. It seemed all the time that she was having to provide a little more—in the way of attention, enthusiasm, watchfulness—than she was sure she had. She was straining, hoping not to be found out. Found to be as cold at heart as that Old Norse, Sophie.
Sometimes she thought that she had been brought home, in the first place, as a complicated kind of challenge to Sophie. Laurence was in love with her from the beginning, but his love had something to do with the challenge. Quite contradictory things about her were involved: her tarty looks and bad manners (how tarty, and how bad, she had no idea at the time); her high marks and her naive reliance on them as proof of intelligence; all that evidence she bore of being the brightest pupil from a working-class high school, the sport of an unambitious family.
“Not your typical Business Ad choice, is she, Mother?” said Laurence to Sophie in Isabel’s presence. He was enrolled in the one. school in the university that Sophie detested—Business Administration.
Sophie said nothing, but smiled directly at Isabel. The smile was not unkind, not scornful of Laurence—it seemed patient—but it said plainly, “Are you ready, are you taking this on?” And Isabel, who was concentrating then on being in love with Laurence’s good looks and wit and intelligence and hoped-for experience of life, understood what this meant. It meant that the Laurence she had set herself to love (for in spite of her looks and manner, she was a serious, inexperienced girl who believed in lifelong love and could not imagine connecting herself on any other terms), that Laurence had to be propped up, kept going, by constant and clever exertions on her part, by reassurance and good management; he depended on her to make him a man. She did not like Sophie for bringing this to her attention, and she didn’t let it touch her decision. This was what love was, or what life was, and she wanted to get started on it. She was lonely, though she thought of herself as solitary. She was the only child of her mother’s second marriage; her mother was dead, and her half brothers and half sister were much older, and married. She had a reputation in her family for thinking she was special. She still had it, and since her marriage to Laurence she hardly saw her own relatives.
She read a lot; she dieted and exercised seriously; she had become a good cook. At parties, she flirted with men who did not seriously pursue her. (She had noticed that Laurence was dis
appointed if she did not create a little stir.) Sometimes she imagined herself overpowered by these men, or others, a partner in most impulsive, ingenious, vigorous couplings. Sometimes she thought of her childhood with a longing that seemed almost as perverse, and had to be kept almost as secret. A sagging awning in front of a corner store might remind her, the smell of heavy dinners cooking at noon, the litter and bare earth around the roots of a big urban shade tree.
WHEN the plane landed, she got up and went to meet them, and she kissed Laurence as if he had returned from a journey. He seemed happy. She thought that she seldom concerned herself about Laurence’s being happy. She wanted him to be in a good mood, so that everything would go smoothly, but that was not the same thing.
“It was wonderful,” Laurence said. “You could see the changes in the landscape so clearly.” He began to tell her about a glint lake.
“It was most enjoyable,” said Sophie.
Denise said, “You could see way down into the water. You could see the rocks going down. You could even see sand.”
“You could see what kind of boats,” said Peter.
“I mean it, Mother. You could see the rocks going down, down, and then sand.”
“Could you see any fish?” said Isabel.
The pilot laughed, though he must have heard that often enough before.
“It’s really too bad you didn’t come up,” Laurence said.
“Oh, she will, one day,” said the pilot. “She could be out here tomorrow.”
They all laughed at his teasing. His bold eyes met Isabel’s, and seemed in spite of their boldness to be most innocent, genial, and kind. Respect was not wanting. He was a man who could surely mean no harm, no folly. So it could hardly be true that he was inviting her.
He said goodbye to them then, as a group, and was thanked once more. Isabel thought she knew what it was that had unhinged her. It was Sophie’s story. It was the idea of herself, not Sophie, walking naked out of the water toward those capering boys. (In her mind, she had already eliminated the girl.) That made her long for, and imagine, some leaping, radical invitation. She was kindled for it.
When they were walking toward the car, she had to make an effort not to turn around. She imagined that they turned at the same time, they looked at each other, just as in some romantic movie, operatic story, high-school fantasy. They turned at the same time, they looked at each other, they exchanged a promise that was no less real though they might never meet again. And the promise hit her like lightning, split her like lightning, though she moved on smoothly, intact.
Oh, certainly. All of that.
But, it isn’t like lightning, it isn’t a blow from outside. We only pretend that it is.
“If somebody else wouldn’t mind driving,” Sophie said. “I’m tired.”
THAT EVENING, Isabel was bountifully attentive to Laurence, to her children, to Sophie, who didn’t in the least require it. They all felt her happiness. They felt as if an invisible, customary barrier had been removed, as if a transparent curtain had been pulled away. Or perhaps they had only imagined it was there all the time? Laurence forgot to be sharp with Denise, or to treat her as his rival. He did not even bother to struggle with Sophie. Television was not mentioned.
“We saw the silica quarry from the air,” he said to Isabel, at dinner. “It was like a snowfield.”
“White marble,” said Sophie, quoting. “Pretentious stuff. They’ve put it on all the park paths in Aubreyville, spoiled the park. Glaring.”
Isabel said, “You know we used to have the White Dump? At the school I went to—it was behind a biscuit factory, the playground backed onto the factory property. Every now and then, they’d sweep up these quantities of vanilla icing and nuts and hardened marsh-mallow globs and they’d bring it in barrels and dump it back there and it would shine. It would shine like a pure white mountain. Over at the school, somebody would see it and yell, ‘White Dump!’ and after school we’d all climb over the fence or run around it. We’d all be over there, scrabbling away at that enormous pile of white candy.”
“Did they sweep it off the floor?” said Peter. He sounded rather exhilarated by the idea. “Did you eat it?”
“Of course they did,” said Denise. “That was all they had. They were poor children.”
“No, no, no,” said Isabel. “We were poor but we certainly had candy. We got a nickel now and then to go to the store. It wasn’t that. It was something about the White Dump—that there was so much and it was so white and shiny. It was like a kid’s dream—the most wonderful promising thing you could ever see.”
“Mother and the Socialists would take it all away in the dead of night,” said Laurence, “and give you oranges instead.”
“If I picture marzipan, I can understand,” said Sophie. “Though you’ll have to admit it doesn’t seem very healthy.”
“It must have been terrible,” said Isabel. “For our teeth, and everything. But we didn’t really get enough to be sick, because there were so many of us and we had to scrabble so hard. It just seemed like the most wonderful thing.”
“White Dump!” said Laurence—who, at another time, to such a story might have said something like “Simple pleasures of the poor!” “White Dump,” he said, with a mixture of pleasure and irony, a natural appreciation that seemed to be exactly what Isabel wanted.
She shouldn’t have been surprised. She knew about Laurence’s delicacy and kindness, as well as she knew his bullying and bluffing. She knew the turns of his mind, his changes of heart, the little shifts and noises of his body. They were intimate. They had found out so much about each other that everything had got cancelled out by something else. That was why the sex between them could seem so shamefaced, merely and drearily lustful, like sex between siblings. Love could survive that—had survived it. Look how she loved him at this moment. Isabel felt herself newly, and boundlessly, resourceful.
IF HIS PARTNER was there, if he and his partner were there together, she could say, “I think we left something yesterday. My mother-in-law thinks she dropped her glasses case. Not her glasses. Just the case. It doesn’t matter. I thought I’d check.”
If he was there alone but came toward her with a blank, pleasant look, inquiring, she might need to have a less trivial reason.
“I just wanted to find out about flying lessons. My husband asked me to find out.”
If he was there alone but his look was not so blank—yet it was still necessary that something should be said—she could say, “It was so kind of you to take everybody up yesterday and they did enjoy it. I just dropped by to thank you.”
She couldn’t believe this; she couldn’t believe it would happen. In spite of her reading, her fantasies, the confidences of certain friends, she couldn’t believe that people sent and got such messages every day, and acted on them, making their perilous plans, moving into illicit territory (which would turn out to be shockingly like, and unlike, home).
In the years ahead, she would learn to read the signs, both at the beginning and at the end of a love affair. She wouldn’t be so astonished at the way the skin of the moment can break open. But astonished enough that she would say one day to her grown-up daughter Denise, when they were drinking wine and talking about these things, “I think the best part is always right at the beginning. At the beginning. That’s the only pure part.” “Perhaps even before the beginning,” she said. “Perhaps just when it flashes on you what’s possible. That may be the best.”
“And the first love affair? I mean the first extra love affair?” (Denise suppressing all censure.) “Is that the best too?”
“With me, the most passionate. Also the most sordid.”
(Referring to the fact that the business was failing, that the pilot asked for, and received, some money from her; also to the grievous scenes of revelation that put an end to the affair and to her marriage, though not to his. Referring, as well, to scenes of such fusing, sundering pleasure that they left both parties flattened, and in a few cases, she
dding tears. And to the very first scene, which she could replay in her mind at any time, recalling surprisingly mixed feelings of alarm and tranquillity.
The airport at about nine o’clock in the morning, the silence, sunlight, the dusty distant trees. The small white house that had obviously been hauled here from somewhere else to be the office. No curtains or blinds on its windows. But a piece of picket fence, of all things, a gate. He came out and held the gate open for her. He wore the same clothes that he had worn yesterday, the same light-colored work pants and work shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She wore the same clothes that she had worn. Neither heard what the other said, or could answer in a way that made sense.
Too much ease on his part, or any sign of calculation—worse still, of triumph—would have sent her away. But he didn’t make that kind of mistake, probably wasn’t tempted to. Men who are successful with women—and he had been successful; she was to find out that he had been successful some times before, in very similar circumstances—men who are gifted in that way are not so light-minded about it as they are thought to be, and not unkind. He was resolute but seemed thoughtful, or even regretful, when he first touched her. A calming, appreciative touch, a slowly increasing declaration, over her bare neck and shoulders, bare arms and back, lightly covered breasts and hips. He spoke to her—some intimate, serious nonsense—while she swayed back and forth in a response that this touch made just bearable.
She felt rescued, lifted, beheld, and safe.)
AFTER DINNER, they played charades. Peter was Orion. He did the second syllable by drinking from an imaginary glass, then staggering around and falling down. He was not disqualified, though it was agreed that Orion was a proper name.
“Space is Peter’s world, after all,” said Denise. Laurence and Isabel laughed. This remark was one that would be quoted from time to time in the household.
SOPHIE, who never understood the rules of charades—or, at least, could never keep to them—soon gave up the game, and began to read. Her book was The Poetic Edda, which she read every summer, but had been neglecting because of the demands of television. When she went to bed, she left it on the arm of her chair.
