by Alice Munro
Wilfred took her side. He went in and spied on the visiting family, and reported that they were sitting staring at the poor old man like crows on a fence. He didn’t point out to Mildred what she already knew: that she should have seen the writing on the wall. She herself said it.
“I should’ve gotten out while I still had something going for me.” “You must’ve been fond of him,” said Wilfred reasonably.
“It was never love,” said Mildred sadly. Wilfred scowled with deep embarrassment. Mildred had the sense not to go on, and couldn’t have explained, anyway, how she had been transfixed by Mr. Toll in his more vigorous days, when his need for her was so desperate she thought he would turn himself inside out.
Mr. Toll died in the middle of the night. Wilfred phoned Mildred at seven in the morning.
“I didn’t want to wake you up,” he said. “But I wanted to make sure you knew before you heard it out in public.”
Then he asked her to have supper with him in a restaurant. Being used to Mr. Toll, she was surprised at Wilfred’s table manners. He was nervous, she decided. He got upset because the waitress hadn’t brought their glasses of water. Mildred told him she was going to quit her job, she wanted to get clear of McGaw, she might end up out west.
“Why not end up in Logan?” Wilfred said. “I’ve got a house there. It’s not so big a house, but it’ll take two.”
So it dawned on her. His nervousness, his bad temper with the waitress, his sloppiness, must all relate to her. She asked if he had ever been married before, and if not, why not?
He said he had always been on the go, and besides, it wasn’t often you met a good-hearted woman. She was about to make sure he had things straight, by pointing out that she expected nothing from Mr. Toll’s will (nothing was what she got), but she saw in the nick of time that Wilfred was the kind of man who would be insulted.
Instead, she said, “You know I’m secondhand goods?”
“None of that,” he said. “We won’t have any of that kind of talk around the house. Is it settled?”
Mildred said yes. She was glad to see an immediate improvement in his behavior to the waitress. In fact, he went overboard, apologizing for his impatience earlier, telling her he had worked in a restaurant himself. He told her where the restaurant was, up on the Alaska Highway. The girl had trouble getting away to serve coffee at the other tables.
No such improvement took place in Wilfred’s table manners. She guessed that this was one of his bachelor ways she would just have to learn to live with.
“You better tell me a bit about where you were born, and so on,” Mildred said.
He told her he had been born on a farm in Hullett Township, but left there when he was three days old.
“Itchy feet,” he said, and laughed. Then he sobered, and told her that his mother had died within a few hours of his birth, and his aunt had taken him. His aunt was married to a man who worked on the railway. They moved around, and when he was twelve his aunt died.
Then the man she was married to looked at Wilfred and said, “You’re a big boy. What size shoe do you wear?”
“Number nine,” said Wilfred.
“Then you’re big enough to earn your own living.”
“Him and my aunt had eight kids of their own,” said Wilfred. “So I don’t blame him.”
“Did you have any brothers and sisters in your real family?” Mildred thought cozily of her own life long ago: her mother fixing her curls in the morning, the kitten, named Pansy, that she used to dress up in doll’s clothes and wheel round the block in the doll buggy.
“I had two older sisters, married. Both dead now. And one brother. He went out to Saskatchewan. He has a job managing a grain elevator. I don’t know what he gets paid but I imagine it’s pretty good. He went to business college, like yourself. He’s a different person than me, way different.”
THE DAY that Albert had stayed in bed, he wanted the curtains shut. He didn’t want a doctor. Wilfred couldn’t get out of him what was wrong. Albert said he was just tired.
“Then maybe he is tired,” said Mildred. “Let him rest.”
But Wilfred was in and out of the spare room all day. He was talking, smoking, asking Albert how he felt. He told Albert he had cured himself of migraine headaches by eating fresh leeks from the bush in the spring. Albert said he didn’t have a migraine headache, even if he did want the curtains closed. He said he had never had a bad headache in his life. Wilfred explained that you could have migraine headaches without knowing it—that is, without having the actual ache—so that could be what Albert had. Albert said he didn’t see how that was possible.
Early that afternoon Mildred heard Wilfred crashing around in the clothes closet. He emerged calling her name.
“Mildred! Mildred! Where is the Texas mickey?”
“In the buffet,” said Mildred, and she got it out for him so he wouldn’t be rummaging around in there in her mother’s china. It was in a tall box, gold-embossed, with the Legion crest on it. Wilfred bore it into the bedroom and set it on the dresser for Albert to see.
“What do you think that is and how do you think I come by it?” It was a bottle of whiskey, a gallon bottle of whiskey, 140-proof, that Wilfred had won playing darts at the tournament in Owen Sound. The tournament had taken place in February three years before. Wilfred described the terrible drive from Logan to Owen Sound, himself driving, the other members of the dart team urging him to stop in every town they reached, and not to try to get farther. A blizzard blew off Lake Huron, they were enveloped in whiteouts, trucks and buses loomed up in front of their eyes out of the wall of snow, there was no room to maneuver because the road was walled with drifts ten feet high. Wilfred kept driving; driving blind, driving through skids and drifts across the road. At last, on Highway No. 6, a blue light appeared ahead of him, a twirling blue light, a beacon, a rescue-light. It was the snowplow, travelling ahead of them. The road was filling in almost as fast as the snowplow cleared it, but by keeping close behind the plow they were guided safe into Owen Sound. There they played in the tournament, and were victorious.
“Do you ever play darts yourself?” Mildred heard Wilfred ask his brother.
“As a rule they play darts in places that serve liquor,” Albert said. “As a rule I don’t go into those places.”
“Well, this here is liquor I would never consider drinking. I keep it for the honor of it.”
THEIR SITTING took on a regular pattern. In the afternoon Grace and Vera sat in the driveway crocheting their tablecloths. Mildred sat with them off and on. Albert and Wilfred sat at the back of the house, by the vegetables. After supper they all sat together, moving their chairs to the lawn in front of the flower beds, which was then in the shade. Grace and Vera went on crocheting as long as they could see.
Wilfred admired the crocheting.
“How much would you get for one of those things?” “Hundreds of dollars,” Albert said.
“It’s sold for the church,” said Grace.
“Blanche Black,” said Wilfred, “was the greatest crocheter, knitter, sewer, what-all, and cook of any girl I ever knew.”
“What a name,” said Mildred.
“She lived in the state of Michigan. It was when I got fed up with working on the boats and I had a job over there working on a farm. She could make quilts or anything. And bake bread, fancy cake, anything. But not very good-looking. In fact, she was about as good-looking as a turnip, and about the shape.”
Now came a story that Mildred had heard before. It was told when the subject of pretty girls and homely girls came up, or baking, or box socials, or pride. Wilfred told how he and a friend went to a box social, where at an intermission in the dancing you bid on a box, and the box contained a lunch, and you ate lunch with the girl whose box you had bought. Blanche Black brought a box lunch and so did a pretty girl, a Miss Buchanan, and Wilfred and his friends got into the back room and switched all the wrappings around on these two boxes. So when it came time to bid, a fellow na
med Jack Fleck, who had a very good opinion of himself and a case on Miss Buchanan, bid for the box he thought was hers, and Wilfred and his friend bid for the box that everybody thought was Blanche Black’s. The boxes were given out, and to his consternation Jack Fleck was compelled to sit down with Blanche Black. Wilfred and his friend were set up with Miss Buchanan. Then Wilfred looked in the box and saw there was nothing but sandwiches with a kind of pink paste on them.
“So over I go to Jack Fleck and I say, ‘Trade you the lunch and the girl.’ I didn’t do it entirely on account of the food but because I saw how he was going to treat that poor creature. He agreed like a shot and we sat down. We ate fried chicken. Home-cured ham and biscuits. Date pie. Never fed better in my life. And tucked down at the bottom of the box she had a mickey of whiskey. So I sat eating and drinking and looking at him over there with his paste sandwiches.”
Wilfred must have started that story as a tribute to ladies whose crocheting or baking or whatever put them away ahead of ladies who had better looks to offer, but Mildred didn’t think even Grace and Vera would be pleased to be put in the category of Blanche Black, who looked like a turnip. And mentioning the mickey of whiskey was a mistake. It was a mistake as far as she was concerned, too. She thought of how much she would like a drink at this moment. She thought of Old Fashioneds, Brown Cows, Pink Ladies, every fancy drink you could imagine.
“I better go and see if I can fix that air-conditioner,” Wilfred said. “We’ll roast tonight if I don’t.”
Mildred sat on. Over in the next block there was a blue light that sizzled loudly, catching bugs.
“I guess those things make a difference with the flies,” she said. “Fries them,” said Albert.
“I don’t like the noise, though.”
She thought he wasn’t going to answer but he finally said, “If it doesn’t make a noise it can’t destroy the bugs.”
When she went into the house to put on some coffee (a good thing Pentecostals had no ban on that), Mildred could hear the air-conditioner humming away. She looked into the bedroom and saw Wilfred stretched out asleep. Worn out.
“Wilfred?”
He jumped. “I wasn’t asleep.”
“They’re still sitting out front. I thought I’d make us some coffee.”
Then she couldn’t resist adding, “I’m glad it isn’t anything too serious the matter with the air-conditioner.”
ON THE NEXT-TO-LAST DAY of the visit, they decided to drive forty-five miles over to Hullett Township to see the place where Wilfred and Albert were born. This was Mildred’s idea. She had thought Albert might suggest it, and she was waiting for that, because she didn’t want to push Albert into doing anything he was too tired to do. But at last she mentioned it. She said she had been trying for a long time to get Wilfred to take her, but he said he wouldn’t know where to go, since he had never been back after being taken away as a baby. The buildings were all gone, the farms were gone; that whole part of the township had become a conservation area.
Grace and Vera brought along their tablecloths. Mildred wondered why they didn’t get sick, working with their heads down in a moving car. She sat between them in the back seat, feeling squashed, although she knew she was the one doing the squashing. Wilfred drove and Albert sat beside him.
Wilfred always got into an argumentative mood when driving. “Now what is so wrong with taking a bet?” he said. “I don’t mean gambling. I don’t mean you go down to Las Vegas and you throw all your money away on those games and machines. With betting you can sometimes be lucky. I had a free winter in the Soo on a bet.”
“Sault Ste. Marie,” Albert said.
“We always said The Soo. I was off the Kamloops, I was in for the winter. The old Kamloops, that was a terrible boat. One night in the bar they were listening to the hockey game on the radio. Before television. Playing Sudbury. Sudbury four, the Soo nothing.”
“We’re getting to where we turn off the highway,” Albert said. Mildred said, “Watch for the turn, Wilfred.”
“I am watching.”
Albert said, “Not this one but the next one.”
“I was helping them out in there, I was slinging beer for tips because I didn’t have a union card, and this grouchy fellow was cursing at the Soo. They might come out of it yet, I said, the Soo might beat them yet.”
“Right here,” said Albert.
Wilfred made a sharp turn. “Put your money where your mouth is! Put your money where your mouth is! That’s what he said to me. Ten to one. I didn’t have the money, but the fellow that owned the hotel was a good fellow, and I was helping him out, so he says, take the bet, Wilfred! He says, you go ahead and take the bet!”
“The Hullett Conservation Area,” Mildred read from a sign. They drove along the edge of a dark swamp.
“Heavens, it’s gloomy in there!” she said. “And water standing, at this time of the year.”
“The Hullett Swamp,” said Albert. “It goes for miles.”
They came out of the swamp and on either side was wasteland, churned-up black earth, ditches, uprooted trees. The road was very rough.
“I’ll back you, he says. So I went ahead and took the bet.” Mildred read the crossroad signs: “Dead end. No winter maintenance beyond this point.”
Albert said, “Now we’ll want to turn south.”
“South?” said Wilfred. “South. I took it and you know what happened? The Soo came through and beat Sudbury seven to four!”
There was a large pond and a lookout stand, and a sign saying “Wildfowl Observation Point.”
“Wildfowl,” said Mildred. “I wonder what there is to see?” Wilfred was not in the mood to stop. “You wouldn’t know a crow from a hawk, Mildred! The Soo beat Sudbury seven to four and I had my bet. That fellow sneaked out when I was busy but the manager knew where he lived and next day I had a hundred dollars. When I got called to go back on the Kamloops I had exactly to the penny the amount of money I had when I got off before Christmas. I had the winter free in the Soo.”
“This looks like it,” Albert said.
“Where?” asked Wilfred.
“Here.”
“Here? I had the winter free, all from one little bet.”
They turned off the road into a rough sort of lane, where there were wooden arrows on a post. “Hawthorn Trail. Sugar Bush Trail. Tamarack Trail. No motor vehicles beyond this point.” Wilfred stopped the car and he and Albert got out. Grace got out to let Mildred out and then got back in. The arrows were all pointing in the same direction. Mildred thought some children had probably tampered with them. She didn’t see any trails at all. They had climbed out of the low swampland and were among rough little hills.
“This where your farm was?” she asked Albert.
“The house was up there,” said Albert, pointing uphill. “The lane ran up there. The barn was behind.”
There was a brown wooden box on the post under the arrows. She opened it up and took out a handful of brightly colored pamphlets. She looked through them.
“These tell about the different trails.”
“Maybe they’d like something to read if they aren’t going to get out,” said Wilfred, nodding toward the women in the car. “Maybe you should go and ask them.”
“They’re busy,” Mildred said. She thought she should go and tell Grace and Vera to roll down the windows so they wouldn’t suffocate, but she decided to let them figure that out for themselves. Albert was setting off up the hill and she and Wilfred followed him, plowing through goldenrod, which, to her surprise, was easier than grass to walk in. It didn’t tangle you so, and felt silky. Goldenrod she knew, and wild carrot, but what were these little white flowers on a low bush, and this blue one with coarse petals, and this feathery purple? You always heard about the spring flowers, the buttercups and the trilliums and marsh marigolds, but here were just as many, names unknown, at the end of summer. There were also little frogs leaping from underfoot, and small white butterflies, and hundreds of bugs she coul
dn’t see that nibbled at and stung her bare arms.
Albert walked up and down in the grass. He made a turn, he stopped and looked around and started again. He was trying to get the outline of the house. Wilfred frowned at the grass, and said, “They don’t leave you much.”
“Who?” said Mildred faintly. She fanned herself with goldenrod. “Conservation people. They don’t leave one stone of the foundation, or the cellar hole, or one brick or beam. They dig it all out and fill it all in and haul it all away.”
“Well, they couldn’t leave a pile of rubble, I guess, for people to fall over.”
“You sure this is where it would have been?” Wilfred said. “Right about here,” said Albert, “facing south. Here would’ve been the front door.”
“You could be standing on the step, Albert,” said Mildred, with as much interest as she had energy for.
But Albert said, “We never had a step at the front door. We only opened it once that I can remember, and that for Mother’s coffin. We put some chunks of wood down then, to make a temporary step.”
“That’s a lilac,” said Mildred, noticing a bush near where he was standing. “Was that there then? It must have been there then.”
“I think it was.”
“Is it a white one or a purple?”
“I can’t say.”
That was the difference between him and Wilfred, she thought.
Wilfred would have said. Whether he remembered or not, he would have said, and then believed himself. Brothers and sisters were a mystery to her. There were Grace and Vera, speaking like two mouths out of the same head, and Wilfred and Albert without a thread of connection between them.
THEY ATE LUNCH in a café down the road. It wasn’t licensed, or Mildred would have ordered beer, never mind how she shocked Grace and Vera or how Wilfred glared at her. She was hot enough. Albert’s face was a bright pink and his eyes had a fierce, concentrating look. Wilfred looked cantankerous.
“It used to be a lot bigger swamp,” Albert said. “They’ve drained it.” “That’s so people can get in and walk and see different things,” said Mildred. She still had the red and green and yellow pamphlets in her hand, and she smoothed them out and looked at them.
