Pastoral

by André Alexis

  – I’m not going to marry you, said Liz.

  No one who knew their situation would have been surprised, but Robbie plaintively asked

  – Why?

  – Where do you want me to start? she said.

  A fair question to which there was only one important answer or one true counter-question: did this ending matter to him?

  – You know I love you, he said.

  – You went into the hairdresser’s for Jane. You wouldn’t have done that for me.

  – Who told you that? It’s not true! I didn’t do it for Jane! You didn’t ask me! I’ll do it now if you want.

  – No thank you, she answered.

  Elizabeth had meant to say all manner of things. She’d meant to remind him of the pain he’d put her through and of her unwavering fidelity. In her imagining of this last moment between them, there was some back and forth: a heartfelt (but too late) apology from him, the assurance that he would never put her through such misery again, the assurance that he would never see Jane Richardson again. In her imagination, this final moment had been something of a quiet triumph. But, in fact, it was all unbearably sad. She felt no more triumph than she would if she had been looking down at a precious vase shattered on a kitchen floor. She hadn’t the least interest in his last words. She was finished with him. And yet she still found it difficult to get up from the bed and leave. Leave him, leave the past they shared, leave the future they had planned.

  She waited in silence, as Robbie tried to find something appropriate to say.

  – But I do love you, he said at last.

  His one endless note, a note that now turned all her nostalgia and longing to spite.

  – I don’t love you, she said.

  And rose to leave.

  And then left, there being no words to make her stay.

  Robbie had not anticipated this moment. In fact, he had never really thought it possible. When Elizabeth had gone, it seemed to him as if he’d witnessed an accident. Was it his fault that he loved two women at once? Had he asked for such a thing? He had been honest (well, eventually honest), hadn’t he? He was a good man in unfortunate circumstances, nothing less. Seeing Liz get up and leave was like the moment immediately after you’ve bumped into something – a vase, say – and you put your hands out to catch it, only to see it fall (not quite inevitably) to the floor.

  Robbie did not think these things. He felt them, obscurely, as if through a fog of other feelings. He had an intuition of loss but ignored it, reassured that, after all, there was Jane, that he could build a life with Jane, that Jane was more exciting than Liz, more likely to bring him unpredictable joys. By the following day, he almost believed that losing Liz was the best thing that could have happened. Love or no love, did he really want the domesticity that went with marriage? No, maybe, never mind. Nevertheless, he’d almost certainly dodged a bullet by avoiding the wrong marriage. Hadn’t he?

  As soon as he could, Robbie told Jane the good news.

  It was, of course, news that Jane knew better than he did. She had been thinking about nothing else since she’d won her wager with Liz Denny. She had also been thinking about the unfortunate deal she’d made with herself. Robbie had done what she’d asked. She had won, so she could not flee to her mountain. She was, if she played by the rules she herself had set, doomed to live in Barrow.

  For weeks Jane tried to live honourably, accepting her agreement with herself as a given. She was to live with Robbie Myers? Fine. But she could surely find some way to influence him, to turn him into the kind of man she now knew she wanted. What kind of man was that? Someone who read books, not just magazines. Someone interested in more than cows and sheep. Someone curious about the world outside Lambton County; a man who knew the difference between Paris and La Paz. A man who could entertain her with his wit, not just his muscles and nethers. It wouldn’t hurt, either, if he knew a foreign language. French would do, even bad French if he showed ambition to learn. A man who smelled of something other than Ivory soap and Tide detergent. A man whose touch was subtle, one who didn’t go at your nipples like taking a bolt off a tractor.

  In a word, she was looking for someone other than the man who was now hers.

  No surprise: her resolve to remain in Barrow weakened quickly. Knowing the kind of man she wanted, now that she had one she did not want, she soon understood she would never be happy with Robbie. Nor would anyone have blamed her for leaving a man she no longer loved. She did cause ‘poor young Myers’ some distress before she left, though, in part because she wanted to see if she could change him for the better, in part because she needed to feel the true inanity of a life with Robert before she could find the strength to cut herself permanently off from her roots.

  Jane began her experiment with Robbie one rainy night in late summer. They were at her parents’ house while her parents were away. She and Robbie had made love, mostly because she’d felt it a duty to sleep with him. Predictably, it hadn’t gone well. She’d gotten almost no pleasure out of his exertions and felt only slight gratification when he did. It hadn’t been Robbie’s fault per se. He did as he always did. That is, he did more or less what she told him to and enjoyed it. But she’d felt empty. Taking up one of several books by the side of her bed, she said

  – Why don’t we read something together?

  – You know I don’t read much, he answered.

  – I’ll read. You listen. It’s something we should be doing together if we love each other.

  There was nothing you could say to that – her very tone was a warning – so Robbie lay in bed and tried to pay attention. By chance Jane had picked up Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She showed Robbie the cover.

  – Truman Kaput? he asked.

  – Ka-po-tee, she answered. Haven’t you heard of him?

  No, of course he hadn’t. Worse, she didn’t even get to the end of the first section before he fell asleep. The first section? He was snoring by the time she read the words You heard from Holly? which were on the second page! Robbie was tired after a day’s work, no doubt, but that made no difference to her feelings. She almost cried in frustration.

  – Robbie!

  – What? What is it?

  – You fell asleep before I got to page three!

  – I’m sorry. You can start again. I remember something about … Holly?

  Jane began again: I took a taxi in a downpour of October rain …

  This time he was asleep by the end of the next paragraph. She threw the book at his head, waking him.

  – It’s good! he cried out. It’s good! I’m liking it!

  It was not long after this that their relationship ended.

  (On seeing how important Breakfast at Tiffany’s was for Jane, Robbie did his best to read the novel, letting her know that he really did like it, really. He did not mention that he never got further than the first section, never further than It was one of these mailboxes that had first made me aware of Holly Golightly, though he went at the book more than once, starting over each time. Never had he read anything so unmemorable. Here was the best example of what made fiction useless. Who was this ‘I’ that was talking at him and why should he care what ‘I’ was saying? It was asking a man a lot, asking him to stick around while someone who had nothing to say said it in the fanciest way possible. He supposed that women liked this sort of thing because they were used to talking. That was the main problem with women, as far as he was concerned. They never could keep quiet. They talked all the time and their intentions were mysterious. Not mysterious in a good way either, like when Phil Bigland had once mentioned ‘the infinite’ [ a black moth in a black room on a starless, moonless night, he’d called it] and they had all been quiet out of respect for something deep. No, sir. Womanish mystery was the kind that filled you with dread, not reverence.)

  In a roundabout way, Elizabeth was responsible for their breakup. Jane had been trying to instill ‘culture’ in Robbie, which was like trying to get ten pounds of rice into a two-pound bag. T
hen, one afternoon, she happened to be passing Harrington’s – on the opposite side of the street, of course – and saw Elizabeth Denny shaking crumbs onto the street for the birds. Had Elizabeth seen her? Jane did not know, but she would have sworn there was an ironic look on the woman’s face, a look that said

  – You only think you won. I’m the one who gets to do what she wants. I’m free. You’re tied to that good-for-nothing dairy farmer who wouldn’t know his ass from his elbow. How stupid do you have to be not to see that this is what I wanted all along?

  Jane was incensed at the unfairness of it. She’d been duped. She was sure of it. Duped into abandoning her dreams and aspirations. The humiliation was hard to take. As she watched Elizabeth Denny blithely turn her back and enter the bakery, Jane’s futile efforts to change Robbie seemed to her – to Jane, that is – derisory and worthy of the kind of mockery the Denny bitch was obviously purveying.

  – That’s it, she thought. I’m finished with this place.

  The following evening, she was to go to Sarnia with Robbie. They had planned to see a production of Oklahoma!, the first play Robbie would see since a class trip to Stratford in Grade 12. Robbie was not keen, but she was looking forward to it and it suddenly occurred to her that she wanted to see the play with someone who could appreciate it. So, she went with William Marshall instead. William, who was not interested in women the way ‘normal’ men are interested in women, was the man you went out with when you couldn’t stand the company of men. This worked well for everyone. For the women, it was wonderful to be out with a man who had good taste. For the men, it was sheer relief to know there was at least one man in town (the sacrificial lamb) who would go to the theatre or the ballet or the opera with their wives or girlfriends but who was no threat to womankind.

  (How William himself felt about this, no one had the least interest. It was understood that Marshall was a man who loved men, but life was too short to think about such things unless you absolutely had to.)

  Robbie was annoyed. That is, he was relieved to have escaped the theatre, but Jane had not told him what she was up to. He’d called at her parents’ house at the appointed hour and had been told Jane had already left. That was it. He knew he had to be careful about what he said to her, but there had to be, if not respect between them, then at least consideration. He could, he thought, have been forgiven for wondering if she truly loved him.

  Two days later, while they were at Jane’s watching television, Robbie ventured a cautious

  – I think you should have told me you were going to the play with Marshall.

  Just the opening she had hoped for.

  – It was none of your business.

  – How was it none of my business when we were supposed to be going together and you didn’t tell me?

  – I don’t have to tell you everything I do.

  – Well, I can see you don’t want to talk about this.

  – You don’t know what I want to talk about, you stupid hick.

  – Why am I stupid?

  Thus ended the polite part of the conversation. From here, things turned feral. Anything Jane could use against him, she used against him: his lack of culture, his insensitivity to her needs, the clumsy way he touched her, the way he took her for granted. Worst of all, she dug into him for the way he had treated Elizabeth Denny. He had betrayed Elizabeth, she said. He was a conniving son of a bitch who didn’t care for anyone but himself. In fact, given the way he’d treated his fiancée, he was bound to betray her too, because he was selfish, stupid, mean, rotten, a prick and – for good measure – a jerk.

  Some of what she accused him of being was, to some extent, true. He had been selfish, mean and stupid lately. But at least at the beginning of her attack, Jane did not really believe Robbie was as bad as all that. Her words were said as if with a crooked smile. As the catalogue of his sins grew, however, so did her conviction that he was despicable. (For one thing, it was impressive how many insults did apply to him. It felt as if she could have called him anything short of murderer and meant it.) In the space of half an hour, she had worked herself into a real hatred for Robbie, which became entangled in her hatred for Barrow.

  However, Jane’s attack was so unexpected and brutal it overshot its mark. Robbie was not put off or offended. He imagined it was her ‘time of the month’ and, as usual, he didn’t know how to react. Should he laugh, show affection, comfort her, speak French? He opted to speak French and try to comfort her. This was the worst choice possible, in part because Jane was in no mood to be comforted, in even larger part because the only French he knew was ‘Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?,’ a phrase he inevitably mangled.

  During a break in what was becoming Jane’s screed, a break she took for breath and to think up some more effective line of attack, Robbie smiled timidly and said

  – Vous voulez coucher avec toi?

  He then put his hand on her thigh and moved as if to sidle up beside her and give her a hug. It was as if she had been bitten by a snake. She jumped up from the chesterfield on which they were sitting and cried out

  – Don’t touch me!

  Robbie stood up, palms out, and apologized, confused that his effort to give comfort had gone so far astray. But the very look of him was a provocation to her. She had (she was convinced) only ever felt anything for him because his body was all muscle and perfect. (The words ‘first love’ didn’t occur to her at this moment.) Now that the sight of him disgusted her, what was left but resentment of her own lust?

  Though she was an articulate woman, none of her thoughts made it into words. What came out was a cry of frustration, and she attacked him, hitting him with her small fists, kicking him where she could, though what she wanted was to crush his testicles flat. She might have succeeded too. It was difficult for Robbie to protect himself against the onslaught of both feet and fists. Luckily for him, though, the sound of Jane’s cries, of his repeated apologies, of flesh hitting flesh, brought Jane’s parents into the room.

  Seeing that the assault was one-sided, Mr. Richardson restrained his daughter as best he could, folding his arms around her from behind and lifting her up, then, with surprising calm, advising Robbie that it was perhaps time he left. He said

  – I don’t know how long I can hold her, son

  as if he were restraining a panther.

  Hobbling, Robbie escaped from the Richardsons’, falling into the evening rain and the safety of his truck. He had never been so grateful to leave a woman. What a mistake he’d made. What a terrible mistake. He should never have had anything to do with Jane Richardson when he’d had the true love of a woman like Liz. He’d been betrayed by his feelings. As he drove home, he imagined he had learned a valuable lesson. But what lesson was there? He had fallen in love with Jane. What could one do about that? Nevertheless, he repented as he fled, the lights of the truck bounding over the dirt road like white horses.

  The following day, Jane Richardson felt as if a door out of Barrow had finally opened. She’d wanted to leave for some time, of course, but had been held back by what now seemed like insignificant things: nostalgia, first love, fear of homesickness. None of that mattered anymore. As if all she owned had been lost in a fire, she was bereft but free, free to do what she wanted, free to rebuild from nothing. There was, maybe, a small twinge where Robbie was concerned, but this was something she could deal with.

  She knew she was leaving, knew for sure it was a matter of days, not months, there being so little to take with her. As if to test her freedom, she walked around Barrow trying to imagine what she would miss, defying the town to make her stay. A light rain was falling. The world was slick and gleamed by shrouded sunlight. The town smelled of damp earth and damp concrete and the flowers in the park, lightly battered by rainfall, gave up their various perfumes. Here and there, the bitter smell of weeds dominated. Cars and pickups passed, shushing as they went.

  This bucolic mirage inspired nothing in her but boredom. She wanted no part of the flowers or the di
stantly grumbling thunder or the familiar smells that issued from the shops along Main Street. Coming up to Harrington’s Bakery, no longer intimidated because she was no longer concerned with Barrow, she decided to go in. Elizabeth Denny was there, of course, and was not pleased to see her. Mr. Harrington and the customers in the shop acted as if everything were fine, though all knew something was up. After a moment, Elizabeth excused herself from work and accompanied Jane outside. They stood under the bakery’s awning, out of the rain.

  – What do you want? asked Elizabeth. You come to gloat?

  – No, said Jane. I came to apologize.

  – Why would that be?

  – Because I made a mistake I’m sorry about.

  – You mean sleeping with my fiancé?

  – I mean having anything to do with him. It was wrong. I don’t love him.

  – It’s a little late to tell me that.

  – I know and I’m sorry about that too. You don’t always know things when it counts. I’m sure you’ve realized things a little late.

  – No, said Elizabeth.

  – You’re a better person than me, then. Anyways, I wish things could be different between us, but I’m leaving Barrow. You won’t ever have to see my face again.

  – That’s what you came to say?

  – Yes.

  – Well, I don’t really care what you do or where you go. My relationship with Robbie’s over, thanks to you. So, I can’t wish you well. I think you’re a cow, to tell the truth, but I’m glad you’re going. Have a nice life.