The Age of Hope

by David Bergen

  She sat on the bed and she waited.

  When the phone rang she answered and said, “Charity speaking.”

  “Is that you, Hope? Who’s Charity?”

  “Is this Roy? Please, Roy, come up to room 2130.” She hung up. She was a little breathless and dry-mouthed. Roy needed to work on his imagination. She’d always known that.

  She answered the door to his knock and she could see the relief on his face. “I thought that there was an actual woman named Charity, though I knew it was you. Everything’s very confusing, Hope. Where have you been?”

  She placed a finger on his mouth and shook her head. “Shh.” She pulled him towards the bed.

  At night, in a Winnipeg winter, the lights reflect off the snow and the effect is one of brilliance, as if a heavenly spotlight is lighting up the whole city. There is no darkness to speak of. This was the light that fell into the room where Hope and Roy lay, covered by a down quilt, their hands touching.

  Roy, who did not usually like surprises, said that this had been a fine surprise. “Where did this come from, Hope? Or should I call you Charity?”

  She made a small noise, which might have been a snicker or a moan. “Oh, I’ve been saving it,” she said. “I quit my job today. I was completely beaten up. I couldn’t do it anymore. And on my way home I thought that we have no time for pleasure anymore, and so I decided to change that. You’re not upset?”

  “No. I saw that. That you were exhausted. I’m glad for you.”

  “What will we do?”

  “It’ll be fine. I’ll make a few more sales, and it’ll be fine.”

  She didn’t believe him, but she turned to him and kissed his forehead and said, “You’re a good man, Roy Koop.”

  Did she have friends? This was a question that sometimes arrived in the middle of the night when insomnia set in, which happened more and more and, she supposed, was also the result of aging. She drove out to Eden once a week and saw friends with whom she had maintained a relationship after the bankruptcy. She visited Irene Wall, wife to one of the wealthier men in Eden, a woman who was now in a wheelchair and collected folding chairs. Her garage and attic and basement were replete with chairs, some simple metal “church basement” chairs and other finely crafted turn-of-the-century wooden chairs that cost hundreds of dollars. Tea times with Irene usually concluded with a tour of the chair museum.

  She also met Emily once a week for coffee at a small café in downtown Winnipeg, and it was here that Emily introduced her to several women her own age. The women were retired, or their husbands were retired and had settled into golf. All of them appeared to take winter vacations in Florida, something she and Roy could not afford. These women, with names like Vi and Arlene and Pat, were part of a book club, and at some point, with great generosity she would realize in hindsight, they asked her to participate. She had always read but had never truly talked to anyone about what she was reading. She had merely formed her own opinions and then forgotten them. For over a year she met with six other women, dutifully read the books—many of which she would not have chosen to read on her own—and offered the occasional opinion, which was usually out of sync with the opinions of the rest of the group. She suffered a sense of smallness. These women were so clear about what was true and intended and wrong about a novel that Hope was dumbfounded. Vi, especially, was a real talker who seemed to know exactly what the author was attempting, and who based her opinions of a book on whether she could identify with the main character.

  Hope attended the monthly meetings not because she enjoyed the discussions, but because she was lonely. There appeared to be a consensus among the women that men were completely different creatures from them, even (or especially) those men to whom they were married, or the men they had taken on as lovers and partners. Vi used the term “partner.” She was recently divorced and was dating a man her own age who was a birder. When Hope heard Vi speak of this man, this birder, she came away thinking that there was very little passion in Vi’s life. Everything appeared to be set out as a series of building blocks, with Vi as the builder. She was organized, if nothing else. One evening, after a brief discussion about the book they had all read, they moved on to other subjects. Pat laughingly told a story about a couple who were joined at the hip. They couldn’t let each other out of their sight. “In each other’s pocket,” she said.

  Hope was immediately worried that Pat might be referring to her and Roy.

  Arlene said, “Well, I believe that this group here, you lovely women, give me pretty much everything I need.”

  “What about sex?” Hope asked. She hadn’t meant to speak but she was offended for some reason, and her emotions overwhelmed her.

  “Hope, you’re talking like a man,” Vi said. “Women are different. We don’t need sex like men do.”

  “But what about romance?” she asked.

  Arlene laughed. “Men have a singular vision of romance as well.”

  Hope said that she knew a woman who, in order to put spice back into her marriage, had rented a hotel room and, using a different name, invited her husband to join her. She paused.

  “To please whom? Her husband or herself?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Hope said. “Both, I guess.” She had lost her bravado and was no longer sure what she believed or wanted. Perhaps she had never known what she wanted, had merely followed Roy’s whims and wishes and desires. These women might be right in thinking that more could be had from a relationship with women than one with a husband.

  What had Roy truly given her? Kindness and bravery and affection and, in the early years of marriage, a home and safety and stability. But then, after the loss of the business, she had had to find her way once more, standing by Roy’s side. What other choice was there? She was so inured to the dance of marriage that she could not imagine anything else but marriage. Just last month, when Roy was sick with a urinary tract infection, she had spent the nights lying on the floor beside the couch where he slept, holding his hand, waking to check his breathing, fetching him glasses of cool water, feeding him his pills. What else to do? Run away? Join a coven? Leave Roy high and dry? In any case, she had no means of supporting herself. Since she had quit working for Merry Maid, she swore she would not stoop to slavery ever again. And Roy had told her she did not have to. What he made as a real estate agent would carry them through.

  That night, in bed, she asked Roy if it was a terrible thing that they were in each other’s pocket.

  “What a curious thing to say.”

  “Shouldn’t we have other friends? Confidants? Is it possible that we are too close, that we depend on each other too much?”

  Roy was perplexed. “Where’d you get that idea? Are you wanting to find someone else? Do you have another man?”

  “No. Where would I find another man?”

  “Oh, they’re out there. Truckloads of them.”

  “Oh my.” She had a sudden image of all these wagging demanding penises. “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t like being in my pocket?”

  “Am I then? Look at Emily. She’s free, isn’t she?”

  “I would think she has her own set of troubles.”

  “Yes, but she chooses exactly what she wants. If she decides to go to New York to visit Angela, she buys a plane ticket and goes. If she wants to eat grapefruit for breakfast, she does so.”

  “You can have grapefruit for breakfast.”

  “I think I will. Tomorrow I will go to Safeway and buy some grapefruit. Even if you don’t like it.”

  “Good. Can we go to sleep now?” He turned and kissed her cheek in the dark. “Good night, stranger.”

  “Good night, Roy.”

  But she could not sleep. She was now worried about Rudi and Ilke, her two grandchildren. They were four and two and it was a month since she had last seen them. Charlotte kept them on such a busy schedule that when Hope called to say she was driving out to Eden and would like to drop off a gift for the children, inevitably both wer
e busy.

  “Really, Hope,” Charlotte said, “Conner will let you know when they have time to see you.”

  “Is he there?”

  “No, he isn’t. Goodbye, Hope.”

  That had been one of the more pleasant phone conversations. Usually, Charlotte didn’t talk to Hope, just avoided her. Let Rudi answer the phone, find out who it was, and pass on the message in his sweet voice that Charlotte was busy. Her children called her Charlotte rather than Mother or Mom, and Hope thought this was a symbol of some deep disorder on Charlotte’s part. She probably resented being a mother.

  And still Hope phoned, because then she got to speak to Rudi, and sometimes Rudi would lay the receiver on Ilke’s ear and Hope would babble and listen to Ilke babble back. Amazing children. She loved them. Perhaps more than she had loved her own. They were so precious and easy-going and sweet-smelling and their chubby limbs were perfectly smooth. Hot breath on her face. “Grandma Ope.” Her heart ached.

  Whenever she drove out to Eden in the ‘78 Caprice that Roy had purchased for her, she found herself driving past Charlotte and Conner’s house, imagining that Rudi and Ilke might be playing outside, or that she might catch a glimpse of them in a window. Neither Hope nor Roy was allowed to just “drop by.” It created too much chaos for the children. When Conner told Hope about this new rule, she looked at him and said, “This is what you want?”

  He looked defeated. He shook his head and said that he was sorry. “Charlotte says that you spoil Rudi and Ilke.”

  “That’s my job,” Hope cried. “I’m the grandma. Does she hate me?”

  “She doesn’t hate you, Mom.” His voice was so uncertain that Hope saw it might be true. She was disliked.

  “It makes me so sad, Conner. How did this happen? How about I stop spoiling them? I won’t bring any more gifts.”

  He shook his head.

  What a weakling, she thought. Was this her son? The child who used to scamper off wildly on his own, who explored the world at breakneck speed? He was broken. The last time they’d had this discussion, he’d looked at her and said, “Don’t force me to choose, Mom. Because I’ll choose my marriage over you and Dad.”

  “Well, it’s only right,” she said. “But why do you have to choose? Am I a leper?”

  And so, once a month, usually on a Saturday afternoon, Conner drove into the city with Rudi and Ilke and dropped by the apartment. What wonderful times they had. Hope pulled out a few toys she had saved from when her own children were young, and against Conner’s wishes, she usually had a small present for each child, often just a chocolate bar or perhaps a yo-yo, or one time a Barbie for Ilke, which turned out to be a disaster because Ilke loved the doll and insisted through tears and tantrums on taking it back home. And of course Charlotte discovered the Barbie and phoned Hope and told her that never again was she to buy a “slut” doll for Ilke. In fact, there would be no more gifts. She hadn’t approved of these visits, and the whole thing smelled of a conspiracy. “Do you love your son, Hope?” she asked. “Because if you do, you won’t pit him against me.” And she hung up.

  Slut? Well. To Hope’s way of thinking, the Barbie bore a strong resemblance to Charlotte.

  A few years earlier, at a Thanksgiving dinner held at Charlotte and Conner’s house (this was when their presence was still endured by her daughter-in-law), Hope had entered the kitchen to offer her help and had come upon Charlotte and her mother standing at the kitchen sink. Their backs were to Hope, and Charlotte was talking. “She deliberately sets the children on edge. Puts thoughts in their heads. And her clothes. She always wears the same old blue skirt and spills on it constantly when she eats. She’s fat. She’s sloppy.” Hope had believed for a moment that Charlotte was talking about someone else, until she realized, upon looking away and then looking down at herself, that she herself was wearing that same old blue skirt, and that Charlotte was talking about her. She stepped backwards from the kitchen and slipped away to the upstairs bathroom and stayed there a long while, studying herself in the mirror. Was she really that fat? She had put on some weight in the past few years, but she had never considered herself fat. Eventually, she composed herself and returned to the dining room, where the family was seated, already eating, and she took her place, marvelling that no one had come to find her, not even Roy. What had amazed her the rest of that evening was her self-control, her ability to pretend that she was simply Grandma Ope sitting down to eat a pleasant meal with her grandchildren.

  After Charlotte’s phone call the ties were quickly broken, and the visits with Rudi and Ilke became secretive. One Saturday, a month after the Barbie incident, while Rudi and Ilke were watching TV and Conner was sitting and having coffee with Roy, Charlotte phoned again.

  “Are they there?” she asked.

  Hope innocently asked, “Who?”

  “Rudi and Ilke. Has Conner brought them to you?”

  She lied. She said that she had not seen the children. But if they showed up, she would tell Conner that Charlotte was looking for them. When she hung up her hands were shaking and her shoulders as well, because she knew she had been deceitful. She had taken the call in the bedroom, and she walked out through the living room to the kitchen, and on her way she touched her grandchildren’s heads, and then she went and sat next to Roy and took his hand.

  When she looked lovingly at her grandchildren, Hope had always imagined that she saw parts of her or Roy in them. Certainly she saw Conner in their eyes, the shape of their feet, even the way they walked. She often noted that Rudi had Grandpa K’s hairline. And so when she learned to her horror that Rudi and Ilke were not Conner’s children, and therefore not Hope or Roy’s grandchildren, she did not know what to do with this information. She at first tried denial. Conner was on the phone, and he had broken the news to her in a quiet steady voice, though she sensed that he might be on the verge of crying, and she said, “That’s nonsense. Rudi’s the spitting image of you.”

  “It’s true, Mom. Charlotte wouldn’t say this if it weren’t true.”

  “How long has she known this?” And having asked this question, she saw how foolish it was. Charlotte had known from the exact moment of conception. Rudi was four, and so for five years she had known. And said nothing. “Who are the fathers?” she asked.

  “A man she met on a business trip. And one of the lawyers from her firm. That was Ilke.”

  She was quiet. Then she said, “Oh, Conner.”

  “Why didn’t she just leave me after Rudi was born?”

  It turned out that now she would be leaving Conner. She wanted a divorce. She would keep the children, who were hers, though she would allow him the occasional visit. She didn’t want the children to be too confused and upset. She planned, after the divorce, to marry Ilke’s father, the man who had had no contact with his daughter up till now, save for the infrequent weekend visit, during which he had been introduced to Rudi and Ilke as a friend. A friend.

  And what about the grandparents? Would this duplicitous man’s parents just jump in and become the new grandparents? Hope felt rage and bewilderment and jealousy and terrible grief. Over the next months, as the court system decided in its cold-hearted way the path her son must walk, she wondered if she was ultimately to blame, if she had spoiled Conner as a child, if he had gathered up her own propensity for failure (though she had never really attempted anything other than motherhood) and was now paying the price. Might there be some sin in her past, some flaw that had trickled down like a poison into Conner’s life? She should have stopped the marriage from the get-go. The girl had been haughty and puffed-up. And highly anxious. Her blue eyes had darted here and there fearfully, like those of a snared rabbit. And then she had taken up cycling, long treks down the California coast with a bevy of other cyclists, leaving Conner with the children for a week at a time. She had always been overly fond of her body, wearing short skirts in summer, prancing about on the dock of the cottage (when they still had the cottage) in her bikini, commanding Conner to fetch her a
nother drink. “Okay, sweetie?” The marriage had been doomed from the start, and Hope had done nothing, said nothing.

  One night, eating dinner with Roy, she declared Charlotte evil.

  Roy raised his eyebrows. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing,” he said. “Like Conner, she’s spoiled and selfish. When I look at the two of them I think they deserve each other.”

  “Oh, Roy. Don’t.”

  “The thing is, Hope, it takes two to tangle.”

  “She was the one doing the tangling,” Hope cried. She missed the little children. She had not felt such helplessness since the failure of Roy’s business, and she found herself for the first time criticizing her husband, who seemed to her now as powerless and ineffectual as their son.

  A good lawyer was needed, but it turned out that Charlotte, being a lawyer herself, had access to the best counsel, and Conner was stranded with a mousy family lawyer in ill-fitted suits who mumbled his way through the proceedings. In the end, the court, wise and detached, ruled that Conner had acted in good faith and was, in every definition save the biological, the father, and so would be allowed time with the children every other weekend. Hope despaired. It was a pittance.