Vintage Munro

by Alice Munro

  “No you can’t.”

  “I knew he wasn’t to be trusted the first time I met him. That’s the extraordinary thing. I knew it and I let him rook me all the same. There are people like that. You take pity on them just for being the crooks they are. I got him his insurance job out there, I had some connections. Of course he mucked it up. A bad egg. Some just are.”

  “You’re right about that.”

  Mrs. Shultz was not in the store that day. Usually she was the one at the counter, taking in the shoes and showing them to her husband and reporting back what he said, making out the slips, and taking the payment when the restored shoes were handed back. Mr. McCauley remembered that she had had some kind of operation during the summer.

  “Your wife isn’t in today? Is she well?”

  “She thought she’d better take it easy today. I’ve got my girl in.”

  Herman Shultz nodded toward the shelves to the right of the counter, where the finished shoes were displayed. Mr. McCauley turned his head and saw Edith, the daughter, whom he hadn’t noticed when he came in. A childishly thin girl with straight black hair, who kept her back to him, rearranging the shoes. That was just the way she had seemed to slide in and out of sight when she came to his house as Sabitha’s friend. You never got a good look at her face.

  “You’re going to help you father out now?” Mr. McCauley said. “You’re through with school?”

  “It’s Saturday,” said Edith, half turning, faintly smiling.

  “So it is. Well, it’s a good thing to help your father, anyway. You must take care of your parents. They’ve worked hard and they’re good people.” With a slight air of apology, as if he knew he was being sententious, Mr. McCauley said, “Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the—”

  Edith said something not for him to hear. She said, “Shoe Repair shop.”

  “I’m taking up your time, I’m imposing on you,” said Mr. McCauley sadly. “You have work to do.”

  “There’s no need for you to be sarcastic,” said Edith’s father when the old man had gone.

  He told Edith’s mother all about Mr. McCauley at supper.

  “He’s not himself,” he said. “Something’s come over him.”

  “Maybe a little stroke,” she said. Since her own operation—for gallstones—she spoke knowledgeably and with a placid satisfaction about the afflictions of other people.

  Now that Sabitha had gone, vanished into another sort of life that had, it seemed, always been waiting for her, Edith had reverted to being the person she had been before Sabitha came here. “Old for her age,” diligent, critical. After three weeks at high school she knew she was going to be very good at all the new subjects—Latin, Algebra, English Literature. She believed that her cleverness was going to be recognized and acclaimed and an important future would open out for her. The past year’s silliness with Sabitha was slipping out of sight.

  Yet when she thought about Johanna’s going off out west she felt a chill from her past, an invasive alarm. She tried to bang a lid down on that, but it wouldn’t stay.

  As soon as she had finished washing the dishes she went off to her room with the book they had been assigned for literature class. David Copperfield.

  She was a child who had never received more than tepid reproofs from her parents—old parents to have a child of her age, which was said to account for her being the way she was—but she felt in perfect accord with David in his unhappy situation. She felt that she was one like him, one who might as well have been an orphan, because she would probably have to run away, go into hiding, fend for herself, when the truth became known and her past shut off her future.

  It had all begun with Sabitha saying, on the way to school, “We have to go by the Post Office. I have to send a letter to my dad.”

  They walked to and from school together every day. Sometimes they walked with their eyes closed, or backwards. Sometimes when they met people they gabbled away softly in a nonsense language, to cause confusion. Most of their good ideas were Edith’s. The only idea Sabitha introduced was the writing down of a boy’s name and your own, and the stroking out of all letters that were duplicated and the counting of the remainder. Then you ticked off the counted number on your fingers, saying, Hateship, friendship, courtship, loveship, marriage, till you got the verdict on what could happen between you and that boy.

  “That’s a fat letter,” said Edith. She noticed everything, and she remembered everything, quickly memorizing whole pages of the textbooks in a way the other children found sinister. “Did you have a lot of things to write to your dad?” she said, surprised, because she could not credit this—or at least could not credit that Sabitha would get them on paper.

  “I only wrote on one page,” Sabitha said, feeling the letter.

  “A-ha,” said Edith. “Ah. Ha.”

  “Aha what?”

  “I bet she put something else in. Johanna did.”

  The upshot of this was that they did not take the letter directly to the Post Office, but saved it and steamed it open at Edith’s house after school. They could do such things at Edith’s house because her mother worked all day at the Shoe Repair shop.

  Dear Mr. Ken Boudreau,

  I just thought I would write and send my thanks to you for the nice things you said about me in your letter to your daughter. You do not need to worry about me leaving. You say that I am a person you can trust. That is the meaning I take and as far as I know it is true. I am grateful to you for saying that, since some people feel that a person like me that they do not know the background of is Beyond the Pale. So I thought I would tell you something about myself. I was born in Glasgow, but my mother had to give me up when she got married. I was taken to the Home at the age of five. I looked for her to come back, but she didn’t and I got used to it there and they weren’t Bad. At the age of eleven I was brought to Canada on a Plan and lived with the Dixons, working on their Market Gardens. School was in the Plan, but I didn’t see much of it. In winter I worked in the house for the Mrs. but circumstances made me think of leaving, and being big and strong for my age got taken on at a Nursing Home looking after the old people. I did not mind the work, but for better money went and worked in a Broom Factory. Mr. Willets that owned it had an old mother that came in to see how things were going, and she and I took to each other some way. The atmosphere was giving me breathing troubles so she said I should come and work for her and I did. I lived with her 12 yrs. on a lake called Mourning Dove Lake up north. There was only the two of us, but I could take care of everything outside and in, even running the motorboat and driving the car. I learned to read properly because her eyes were going bad and she liked me to read to her. She died at the age of 96. You might say what a life for a young person, but I was happy. We ate together every meal and I slept in her room the last year and a half. But after she died the family gave me one wk. to pack up. She had left me some money and I guess they did not like that. She wanted me to use it for Education but I would have to go in with kids. So when I saw the ad Mr. McCauley put in the Globe and Mail I came to see about it. I needed work to get over missing Mrs. Willets. So I guess I have bored you long enough with my History and you’ll be relieved I have got up to the Present. Thank you for your good opinion and for taking me along to the Fair. I am not one for the rides or for eating the stuff but it was still certainly a pleasure to be included.

  Your friend, Johanna Parry.

  Edith read Johanna’s words aloud, in an imploring voice and with a woebegone expression.

  “I was born in Glasgow, but my mother had to give me up when she took one look at me—”

  “Stop,” said Sabitha. “I’m laughing so hard I’ll be sick.”

  “How did she get her letter in with yours without you knowing?”

  “She just takes it from me and puts it in an envelope and writes on the outside because she doesn’t think my writing is good enough.”

  Edith had to put Scotch tape on the flap of the en
velope to make it stick, since there wasn’t enough sticky stuff left. “She’s in love with him,” she said.

  “Oh, puke-puke,” said Sabitha, holding her stomach. “She can’t be. Old Johanna.”

  “What did he say about her, anyway?”

  “Just about how I was supposed to respect her and it would be too bad if she left because we were lucky to have her and he didn’t have a home for me and Grandpa couldn’t raise a girl by himself and blah-blah. He said she was a lady. He said he could tell.”

  “So then she falls in lo-ove.”

  The letter remained with Edith overnight, lest Johanna discover that it hadn’t been posted and was sealed with Scotch tape. They took it to the Post Office the next morning.

  “Now we’ll see what he writes back. Watch out,” said Edith.

  No letter came for a long time. And when it did, it was a disappointment. They steamed it open at Edith’s house, but found nothing inside for Johanna.

  Dear Sabitha,

  Christmas finds me a bit short this year, sorry I don’t have more than a two-dollar bill to send you. But I hope you are in good health and have a Merry Christmas and keep up your schoolwork. I have not been feeling so well myself, having got Bronchitis, which I seem to do every winter, but this is the first time it landed me in bed before Christmas. As you see by the address I am in a new place. The apartment was in a very noisy location and too many people dropping in hoping for a party. This is a boardinghouse, which suits me fine as I was never good at the shopping and the cooking.

  Merry Christmas and love, Dad.

  “Poor Johanna,” said Edith. “Her heart will be bwoken.”

  Sabitha said, “Who cares?”

  “Unless we do it,” Edith said.

  “What?”

  “Answer her.”

  They would have to type their letter, because Johanna would notice that it was not in Sabitha’s father’s handwriting. But the typing was not difficult. There was a typewriter in Edith’s house, on a card table in the front room. Her mother had worked in an office before she was married and she sometimes earned a little money still by writing the sort of letters that people wanted to look official. She had taught Edith the basics of typing, in the hope that Edith too might get an office job someday.

  “Dear Johanna,” said Sabitha, “I am sorry I cannot be in love with you because you have got those ugly spots all over your face.”

  “I’m going to be serious,” said Edith. “So shut up.”

  She typed, “I was so glad to get the letter—” speaking the words of her composition aloud, pausing while she thought up more, her voice becoming increasingly solemn and tender. Sabitha sprawled on the couch, giggling. At one point she turned on the television, but Edith said, “Pul-eeze. How can I concentrate on my e-motions with all that shit going on?”

  Edith and Sabitha used the words “shit” and “bitch” and “Jesus Christ” when they were alone together.

  Dear Johanna,

  I was so glad to get the letter you put in with Sabitha’s and to find out about your life. It must often have been a sad and lonely one though Mrs. Willets sounds like a lucky person for you to find. You have remained industrious and uncomplaining and I must say that I admire you very much. My own life has been a checkered one and I have never exactly settled down. I do not know why I have this inner restlessness and loneliness, it just seems to be my fate. I am always meeting people and talking to people but sometimes I ask myself, Who is my friend? Then comes your letter and you write at the end of it, Your friend. So I think, Does she really mean that? And what a very nice Christmas present it would be for me if Johanna would tell me that she is my friend. Maybe you just thought it was a nice way to end a letter and you don’t really know me well enough. Merry Christmas anyway.

  Your friend, Ken Boudreau.

  The letter went home to Johanna. The one to Sabitha had ended up being typed as well because why would one be typed and not the other? They had been sparing with the steam this time and opened the envelope very carefully so there would be no telltale Scotch tape.

  “Why couldn’t we type a new envelope? Wouldn’t he do that if he typed the letter?” said Sabitha, thinking she was being clever.

  “Because a new envelope wouldn’t have a postmark on it. Dumb-dumb.”

  “What if she answers it?”

  “We’ll read it.”

  “Yah, what if she answers it and sends it direct to him?”

  Edith didn’t like to show she had not thought of that.

  “She won’t. She’s sly. Anyway, you write him back right away to give her the idea she can slip it in with yours.”

  “I hate writing stupid letters.”

  “Go on. It won’t kill you. Don’t you want to see what she says?”

  Dear Friend,

  You ask me do I know you well enough to be your friend and my answer is that I think I do. I have only had one Friend in my life, Mrs. Willets who I loved and she was so good to me but she is dead. She was a lot older than me and the trouble with Older Friends is they die and leave you. She was so old she would call me sometimes by another person’s name. I did not mind it though.

  I will tell you a strange thing. That picture that you got the photographer at the Fair to take, of you and Sabitha and her friend Edith and me, I had it enlarged and framed and set it in the living room. It is not a very good picture and he certainly charged you enough for what it is, but it is better than nothing. So the day before yesterday I was dusting around it and I imagined I could hear you say Hello to me. Hello, you said, and I looked at your face as well as you can see it in the picture and I thought, Well, I must be losing my mind. Or else it is a sign of a letter coming. I am just fooling, I don’t really believe in anything like that. But yesterday there was a letter. So you see it is not asking too much of me to be your friend. I can always find a way to keep busy but a true Friend is something else again.

  Your Friend, Johanna Parry.

  Of course, that could not be replaced in the envelope. Sabitha’s father would spot something fishy in the references to a letter he had never written. Johanna’s words had to be torn into tiny pieces and flushed down the toilet at Edith’s house.

  When the letter came telling about the hotel it was months and months later. It was summer. And it was just by luck that Sabitha had picked that letter up, since she had been away for three weeks, staying at the cottage on Lake Simcoe that belonged to her Aunt Roxanne and her Uncle Clark.

  Almost the first thing Sabitha said, coming into Edith’s house, was, “Ugga-ugga. This place stinks.”

  “Ugga-ugga” was an expression she had picked up from her cousins.

  Edith sniffed the air. “I don’t smell anything.”

  “It’s like your dad’s shop, only not so bad. They must bring it home on their clothes and stuff.”

  Edith attended to the steaming and opening. On her way from the Post Office, Sabitha had bought two chocolate eclairs at the bakeshop. She was lying on the couch eating hers.

  “Just one letter. For you,” said Edith. “Pore old Johanna. Of course he never actually got hers.”

  “Read it to me,” said Sabitha resignedly. “I’ve got sticky guck all over my hands.”

  Edith read it with businesslike speed, hardly pausing for the periods.

  Well, Sabitha, my fortunes have taken a different turn, as you can see I am not in Brandon anymore but in a place called Gdynia. And not in the employ of my former bosses. I have had an exceptionally hard winter with my chest troubles and they, that is my bosses, thought I should be out on the road even if I was in danger of developing pneumonia so this developed into quite an argument so we all decided to say farewell. But luck is a strange thing and just about that time I came into possession of a Hotel. It is too complicated to explain the ins and outs but if your grandfather wants to know about it just tell him a man who owed me money which he could not pay let me have this hotel instead. So here I am moved from one room in a boardinghouse to
a twelve-bedroom building and from not even owning the bed I slept in to owning several. It’s a wonderful thing to wake up in the morning and know you are your own boss. I have some fixing up to do, actually plenty, and will get to it as soon as the weather warms up. I will need to hire somebody to help and later on I will hire a good cook to have a restaurant as well as the beverage room. That ought to go like hotcakes as there is none in this town. Hope you are well and doing your schoolwork and developing good habits.

  Love, Your Dad.

  Sabitha said, “Have you got some coffee?”

  “Instant,” said Edith. “Why?”

  Sabitha said that iced coffee was what everybody had been drinking at the cottage and they were all crazy about it. She was crazy about it too. She got up and messed around in the kitchen, boiling the water and stirring up the coffee with milk and ice cubes. “What we really ought to have is vanilla ice cream,” she said. “Oh, my Gad, is it ever wonderful. Don’t you want your eclair?”

  Oh, my Gad.

  “Yes. All of it,” said Edith meanly.

  All these changes in Sabitha in just three weeks—during the time Edith had been working in the shop and her mother recovering at home from her operation. Sabitha’s skin was an appetizing golden-brown color, and her hair was cut shorter and fluffed out around her face. Her cousins had cut it and given her a permanent. She wore a sort of playsuit, with shorts cut like a skirt and buttons down the front and frills over the shoulders in a becoming blue color. She had got plumper, and when she leaned over to pick up her glass of iced coffee, which was on the floor, she displayed a smooth, glowing cleavage.