Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules

by David Sedaris

  “And just think of what the band would sound like to that poor woman,” said Laura.

  “Oh, Laura!” Jose began to be seriously annoyed. “If you’re going to stop a band playing every time someone has an accident, you’ll lead a very strenuous life. I’m every bit as sorry about it as you. I feel just as sympathetic.” Her eyes hardened. She looked at her sister just as she used to when they were little and fighting together. “You won’t bring a drunken workman back to life by being sentimental,” she said softly.

  “Drunk! Who said he was drunk?” Laura turned furiously on Jose. She said just as they had used to say on those occasions, “I’m going straight up to tell Mother.”

  “Do, dear,” cooed Jose.

  “Mother, can I come into your room?” Laura turned the big glass doorknob.

  “Of course, child. Why, what’s the matter? What’s given you such a color?” And Mrs. Sheridan turned round from her dressing-table. She was trying on a new hat.

  “Mother, a man’s been killed,” began Laura.

  “Not in the garden?” interrupted her mother.

  “No, no!”

  “Oh, what a fright you gave me!” Mrs. Sheridan sighed with relief, and took off the big hat and held it on her knees.

  “But listen, Mother,” said Laura. Breathless, half-choking, she told the dreadful story. “Of course, we can’t have our party, can we?” she pleaded. “The band and everybody arriving. They’d hear us, Mother; they’re nearly neighbors!”

  To Laura’s astonishment her mother behaved just like Jose; it was harder to bear because she seemed amused. She refused to take Laura seriously.

  “But, my dear child, use your common sense. It’s only by accident we’ve heard of it. If someone had died there normally—and I can’t understand how they keep alive in those poky little holes—we should still be having our party, shouldn’t we?”

  Laura had to say yes to that, but she felt it was all wrong. She sat down on her mother’s sofa and pinched the cushion frill.

  “Mother, isn’t it really terribly heartless of us?” she asked.

  “Darling!” Mrs. Sheridan got up and came over to her, carrying the hat. Before Laura could stop her, she had popped it on. “My child!” said her mother, “the hat is yours. It’s made for you. It’s much too young for me. I have never seen you look such a picture. Look at yourself!” And she held up her hand-mirror.

  “But, mother,” Laura began again. She couldn’t look at herself; she turned aside.

  This time Mrs. Sheridan lost patience just as Jose had done.

  “You are being very absurd, Laura,” she said coldly. “People like that don’t expect sacrifices from us. And it’s not very sympathetic to spoil everybody’s enjoyment as you’re doing now.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Laura, and she walked quickly out of the room into her own bedroom. There, quite by chance, the first thing she saw was this charming girl in the mirror, in her black hat trimmed with gold daisies, and a long black velvet ribbon. Never had she imagined she could look like that. Is Mother right? she thought. And now she hoped her mother was right. Am I being extravagant? Perhaps it was extravagant. Just for a moment she had another glimpse of that poor woman and those little children, and the body being carried into the house. But it all seemed blurred, unreal, like a picture in the newspaper. I’ll remember it again after the party’s over, she decided. And somehow that seemed quite the best plan…

  Lunch was over by half-past one. By half-past two they were all ready for the fray. The green-coated band had arrived and was established in a corner of the tennis-court.

  “My dear!” trilled Kitty Maitland, “aren’t they too like frogs for words? You ought to have arranged them round the pond with the conductor in the middle on a leaf.”

  Laurie arrived and hailed them on his way to dress. At the sight of him Laura remembered the accident again. She wanted to tell him. If Laurie agreed with the others, then it was bound to be all right. And she followed him into the hall.

  “Laurie!”

  “Hallo!” He was half-way upstairs, but when he turned round and saw Laura he suddenly puffed out his cheeks and goggled his eyes at her. “My word, Laura! You do look stunning,” said Laurie. “What an absolutely topping hat!”

  Laura said faintly, “Is it?” and smiled up at Laurie, and didn’t tell him after all.

  Soon after that people began coming in streams. The band struck up; the hired waiters ran from the house to the marquee. Wherever you looked there were couples strolling, bending to the flowers, greeting, moving on over the lawn. They were like bright birds that had alighted in the Sheridans’ garden for this one afternoon, on their way to—where? Ah, what happiness it is to be with people who all are happy, to press hands, press cheeks, smile into eyes.

  “Darling Laura, how well you look!”

  “What a becoming hat, child!”

  “Laura, you look quite Spanish. I’ve never seen you look so striking.”

  And Laura, glowing, answered softly, “Have you had tea? Won’t you have an ice? The passion-fruit ices really are rather special.” She ran to her father and begged him. “Daddy darling, can’t the band have something to drink?”

  And the perfect afternoon slowly ripened, slowly faded, slowly its petals closed.

  “Never a more delightful garden party…” “The greatest success…” “Quite the most…”

  Laura helped her mother with the goodbyes. They stood side by side in the porch till it was all over.

  “All over, all over, thank heaven,” said Mrs. Sheridan. “Round up the others, Laura. Let’s go and have some fresh coffee. I’m exhausted. Yes, it’s been very successful. But oh, these parties, these parties! Why will you children insist on giving parties!” And they all of them sat down in the deserted marquee.

  “Have a sandwich, Daddy dear. I wrote the flag.”

  “Thanks.” Mr. Sheridan took a bite and the sandwich was gone. He took another. “I suppose you didn’t hear of a beastly accident that happened today?” he said.

  “My dear,” said Mrs. Sheridan, holding up her hand, “we did. It nearly ruined the party. Laura insisted we should put it off.”

  “Oh, Mother!” Laura didn’t want to be teased about it.

  “It was a horrible affair all the same,” said Mr. Sheridan. “The chap was married too. Lived just below in the lane, and leaves a wife and half a dozen kiddies, so they say.”

  An awkward little silence fell. Mrs. Sheridan fidgeted with her cup. Really, it was very tactless of Father…

  Suddenly she looked up. There on the table were all those sandwiches, cakes, puffs, all uneaten, all going to be wasted. She had one of her brilliant ideas.

  “I know,” she said. “Let’s make up a basket. Let’s send that poor creature some of this perfectly good food. At any rate, it will be the greatest treat for the children. Don’t you agree? And she’s sure to have neighbors calling in and so on. What a point to have it all ready prepared. Laura!” She jumped up. “Get me the big basket out of the stairs cupboard.”

  “But, Mother, do you really think it’s a good idea?” said Laura.

  Again, how curious, she seemed to be different from them all. To take scraps from their party. Would the poor woman really like that?

  “Of course! What’s the matter with you today? An hour or two ago you were insisting on us being sympathetic, and now—”

  Oh well! Laura ran for the basket. It was filled, it was heaped by her mother.

  “Take it yourself, darling,” said she. “Run down just as you are. No, wait, take the arum lilies too. People of that class are so impressed by arum lilies.”

  “The stems will ruin her lace frock,” said practical Jose.

  So they would. Just in time. “Only the basket, then. And, Laura!”—her mother followed her out of the marquee—“don’t on any account—”

  “What, Mother?”

  No, better not put such ideas into the child’s head! “Nothing! Run along.
”

  It was just growing dusky as Laura shut their garden gates. A big dog ran by like a shadow. The road gleamed white, and down below in the hollow the little cottages were in deep shade. How quiet it seemed after the afternoon. Here she was going down the hill to somewhere where a man lay dead, and she couldn’t realize it. Why couldn’t she? She stopped a minute. And it seemed to her that kisses, voices, tinkling spoons, laughter, the smell of crushed grass were somehow inside her. She had no room for anything else. How strange! She looked up at the pale sky, and all she thought was, Yes, it was the most successful party.

  Now the broad road was crossed. The lane began, smoky and dark. Women in shawls and men’s tweed caps hurried by. Men hung over the palings; the children played in the doorways. A low hum came from the mean little cottages. In some of them there was a flicker of light, and a shadow, crab-like, moved across the window. Laura bent her head and hurried on. She wished now she had put on a coat. How her frock shone! And the big hat with the velvet streamer—if only it was another hat! Were the people looking at her? They must be. It was a mistake to have come; she knew all along it was a mistake. Should she go back even now?

  No, too late. This was the house. It must be. A dark knot of people stood outside. Beside the gate an old, old woman with a crutch sat in a chair, watching. She had her feet on a newspaper. The voices stopped as Laura drew near. The group patted. It was as though she was expected, as though they had known she was coming here.

  Laura was terribly nervous. Tossing the velvet ribbon over her shoulder, she said to a woman standing by, “Is this Mrs. Scott’s house?” and the woman, smiling queerly, said, “It is, my lass.”

  Oh, to be away from this! She actually said, “Help me, God,” as she walked up the tiny path and knocked. To be away from those staring eyes, or to be covered up in anything, one of those women’s shawls even. I’ll just leave the basket and go, she decided. I shan’t even wait for it to be emptied.

  Then the door opened. A little woman in black showed in the gloom.

  Laura said, “Are you Mrs. Scott?” But to her horror the woman answered, “Walk in please, miss,” and she was shut in the passage.

  “No,” said Laura, “I don’t want to come in. I only want to leave this basket. Mother sent—”

  The little woman in the gloomy passage seemed not to have heard her. “Step this way, please, miss,” she said in an oily voice, and Laura followed her.

  She found herself in a wretched little low kitchen, lighted by a smoky lamp. There was a woman sitting before the fire.

  “Em,” said the little creature who had let her in. “Em! It’s a young lady.” She turned to Laura. She said meaningly, “I’m ’er sister, miss. You’ll excuse ’er, won’t you?”

  “Oh, but of course!” said Laura. “Please, please don’t disturb her. I—I only want to leave—”

  But at that moment the woman at the fire turned round. Her face, puffed up, red, with swollen eyes and swollen lips, looked terrible. She seemed as though she couldn’t understand why Laura was there. What did it mean? Why was this stranger standing in the kitchen with a basket? What was it all about? And the poor face puckered up again.

  “All right, my dear,” said the other. “I’ll thenk the young lady.”

  And again she began, “You’ll excuse her, miss, I’m sure,” and her face, swollen too, tried an oily smile.

  Laura only wanted to get out, to get away. She was back in the passage. The door opened. She walked straight through into the bedroom, where the dead man was lying.

  “You’d like a look at ’im, wouldn’t you?” said Em’s sister, and she brushed past Laura over to the bed. “Don’t be afraid, my lass”—and now her voice sounded fond and sly, and fondly she drew down the sheet—“’e looks a picture. There’s nothing to show. Come along, my dear.”

  Laura came.

  There lay a young man, fast asleep—sleeping so soundly, so deeply, that he was far, far away from them both. Oh, so remote, so peaceful. He was dreaming. Never wake him up again. His head was sunk in the pillow, his eyes were closed; they were blind under the closed eyelids. He was given up to his dream. What did garden parties and baskets and lace frocks matter to him? He was far from all those things. He was wonderful, beautiful. While they were laughing and while the band was playing, this marvel had come to the lane. Happy…happy…All is well, said that sleeping face. This is just as it should be. I am content.

  But all the same you had to cry, and she couldn’t go out of the room without saying something to him. Laura gave a loud childish sob.

  “Forgive my hat,” she said.

  And this time she didn’t wait for Em’s sister. She found her way out of the door, down the path, past all those dark people. At the corner of the lane she met Laurie.

  He stepped out of the shadow. “Is that you, Laura?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mother was getting anxious. Was it all right?”

  “Yes, quite. Oh, Laurie!” She took his arm, she pressed up against him.

  “I say, you’re not crying, are you?” asked her brother.

  Laura shook her head. She was.

  Laurie put his arm round her shoulder. “Don’t cry,” he said in his warm, loving voice. “Was it awful?”

  “No,” sobbed Laura. “It was simply marvelous. But, Laurie—” She stopped, she looked at her brother. “Isn’t life,” she stammered, “isn’t life—” But what life was she couldn’t explain. No matter. He quite understood.

  “Isn’t it, darling?” said Laurie.

  Half a Grapefruit

  Alice Munro

  Rose wrote the Entrance, she went across the bridge, she went to high school.

  There were four large clean windows along the wall. There were new fluorescent lights. The class was Health and Guidance, a new idea. Boys and girls mixed until after Christmas, when they got on to Family Life. The teacher was young and optimistic. She wore a dashing red suit that flared out over the hips. She went up and down, up and down the rows, making everybody say what they had for breakfast, to see if they were keeping Canada’s Food Rules.

  Differences soon became evident, between town and country.

  “Fried potatoes.”

  “Bread and corn syrup.”

  “Tea and porridge.”

  “Tea and bread.”

  “Tea and fried eggs and cottage roll.”

  “Raisin pie.”

  There was some laughing, the teacher making ineffectual scolding faces. She was getting to the town side of the room. A rough sort of segregation was maintained, voluntarily, in the classroom. Over here people claimed to have eaten toast and marmalade, bacon and eggs, Corn Flakes, even waffles and syrup. Orange juice, said a few.

  Rose had stuck herself on to the back of a town row. West Hanratty was not represented, except by her. She was wanting badly to align herself with towners, against her place of origin, to attach herself to those waffle-eating coffee-drinking aloof and knowledgeable possessors of breakfast nooks.

  “Half a grapefruit,” she said boldly. Nobody else had thought of it.

  As a matter of fact Flo would have thought eating grapefruit for breakfast as bad as drinking champagne. They didn’t even sell grapefruit in the store. They didn’t go in much for fresh fruit. A few spotty bananas, small unpromising oranges. Flo believed, as many country people did, that anything not well cooked was bad for the stomach. For breakfast they too had tea and porridge. Puffed Rice in the summertime. The first morning the Puffed Rice, light as pollen, came spilling into the bowl, was as festive, as encouraging a time as the first day walking on the hard road without rubbers or the first day the door could be left open in the lovely, brief time between frost and flies.

  Rose was pleased with herself for thinking of the grapefruit and with the way she had said it, in so bold, yet so natural, a voice. Her voice could go dry altogether in school, her heart could roll itself up into a thumping ball and lodge in her throat, sweat could plaster her blouse to he
r arms, in spite of Mum. Her nerves were calamitous.

  She was walking home across the bridge a few days later, and she heard someone calling. Not her name but she knew it was meant for her, so she softened her steps on the boards, and listened. The voices were underneath her, it seemed, though she could look down through the cracks and see nothing but fast-running water. Somebody must be hidden down by the pilings. The voices were wistful, so delicately disguised she could not tell if they were boys’ or girls’.

  “Half-a-grapefruit!”

  She would hear that called, now and again, for years, called out from an alley or a dark window. She would never let on she heard, but would soon have to touch her face, wipe the moisture away from her upper lip. We sweat for our pretensions.

  It could have been worse. Disgrace was the easiest thing to come by. High school life was hazardous, in that harsh clean light, and nothing was ever forgotten. Rose could have been the girl who lost the Kotex. That was probably a country girl, carrying the Kotex in her pocket or in the back of her notebook, for use later in the day. Anybody who lived at a distance might have done that. Rose herself had done it. There was a Kotex dispenser in the girls’ washroom but it was always empty, would swallow your dimes but disgorge nothing in return. There was the famous pact made by two country girls to seek out the janitor at lunchtime, ask him to fill it. No use.