A Population of One

by Constance Beresford-Howe

  “Rather a silly thing to do, isn’t it?”

  “Depends whether you think death’s silly, or life is. Right?” In one swift movement he is on his feet and slinging on his battered duffle jacket. His face is totally blank, closed, bland.

  “Wait, Mike — don’t forget your notes.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s going to be a good paper, you know. I’m keen to see the finished product.”

  He smiles gently. “What a pity you haven’t got more guts, Miz. We could have had fun at the dance.”

  “Sorry, Mike. I know I’m right.”

  He opens the door without farewells and has already stepped outside when suddenly he turns and comes in again, holding out a folded bit of paper pulled from his jacket pocket.

  “Here,” he says. “I wrote this for you last night.” The door closes behind him. I am left staring down at a foxed bit of lined paper. Written on it in his delicate, spidery hand is a small poem:

  She is like still water, shy and cool.

  I am aching, thirsty, dry —

  And her eyes are gentle as moonlight.

  I put it away quickly in a drawer. Reading it again would be unwise.

  Archie’s broad belly is draped in a linen dishtowel gaily printed with pink and blue mushrooms. Through his half-glasses he directs a menacing glare into the pan where I am sautéing chopped green onions in butter. Since my arrival for the weekly cooking lesson, he has been one great glower, an occasional grunt his only comment on my existence. Apparently I have in some way given offence, though I have no idea when or how. Or at least no intention of letting him know I have.

  “I made bread yesterday. Turned out well. I thought your sister might still be here today — I almost didn’t come, but I was keen to learn more.”

  “Went back Wednesday,” he grunts.

  “Oh.”

  “Turn that down. Peel the mushrooms. No, no; with your fingers. Now add ’em to the pan. Salt and pepper. Not too much, imbecile.”

  I have some ado to hide a smile, partly because I am irrationally happy in this crazy kitchen with blue-eyed Percy sitting on top of the door, and partly because, in spite of Archie’s histrionic scowl, I suspect he is also enjoying himself. The mixture sizzles in the pan, sending up a delicious smell. So does the browned steak and kidney waiting in a chipped blue bowl. A beautiful red winter sunset looks in at the snow-crusted window.

  “Do you often go to the Boule-de-Suif?” I ask.

  “Of course not,” he says crushingly.

  “I enjoyed it. All those people working at being picturesque.”

  I reach over to turn the heat up and am at once rapped smartly over the knuckles with a wooden spoon. “Wait,” he says fiercely. “Picturesque, indeed. Was that your idea, in that outrageous dress you wore? Or almost wore?”

  “Well … didn’t you like it?”

  “Like it! Why no civilized man could like such a preposterous rag, miss. Brazen. Shameless. Vulgar. Yes, in extremely bad taste, like everything Picturesque.”

  “Oh, do you really think so?” I rub my knuckles and try to look suitably crushed.

  “Might as well have flaunted yourself in your nightgown,” he adds indignantly. “Really, I was surprised at you. Thought you had more sense of — of —”

  “Propriety?” I suggest meekly.

  “Yes, propriety. Well, what are you standing about for like a weed in a thunderstorm? Add the meat here, and the stock, and let them simmer while you roll out the pastry.”

  “You know I’ll never be able to make pastry.”

  “And why not, pray?”

  “Too much of an idiot.”

  “Ah. I see you have the common delusion that the word ‘idiot’ means ‘fool.’ Hand me that dictionary. No, it’s right there, don’t ye see, beside the catbasket. Now here we are. From the Greek root idios meaning ‘own’ or ‘private.’ Hence an idiot is simply a private person, and in that sense of course you’re an idiot. Mind you, God knows you’re also sometimes a fool. Like most of humanity. Now cut this butter into the flour until your bits are about the size of peas. And furthermore, even a fool can make good pastry if she’s got me to teach her how.” He claps the big dictionary shut with an air of finality. I bend industriously over the pastry board. After a brief silence he adds, “Well, possibly vulgar was a rather strong word. The — the colour was not entirely unbecoming.”

  “Thanks,” I say, letting the smile bound off its leash. My cheek then receives a floury pinch. Evidently I am now forgiven — though savouring the nature of the crime makes me grin even more broadly than before.

  “Now when you’ve rolled that out and covered the dish — put in an eggcup first to hold the top up — you can stick the whole thing into the oven and come have a nice little glass of chilled rosé by the fire. I’ve got a new recording of Vivaldi we can listen to before we toss the salad.”

  A little later, while I blend oil and vinegar with a pinch of mustard at the bottom of a wooden bowl, I judge him in a sufficiently mellow mood to open a subject on the top of my mind.

  “Archie, do you find the generation gap a problem between you and your students?”

  “Of course I do. And a good thing, too, on the whole. Without the generation gap, what would protect us from each other?”

  “Yes, but just the same, the way they think and feel.… It’s so baffling, so different.… Whatever happened to the idealism of youth, anyhow? And the enthusiasm — the way we felt?”

  “It’s still there, you know. Only in a different shape. Perversely disguised as boredom, more often than not.”

  “Sometimes it almost scares me, I feel so out of touch with them — so old. Other times it scares me because I’m so involved. Can’t be objective. That’s not right, is it?”

  He darts me a quick blue glance over the top of his glasses.

  “Involved, eh? You mean emotionally?”

  “Well … up to a point.” (I judge it far more prudent not to reveal or even hint at what point.)

  “Hrumph. Of course it isn’t right. Otherwise we’d be seducing the young right and left.”

  “Or they’d be seducing us.”

  He gives a brief guffaw that convulses the pink and blue mushrooms. “ ‘If it were easy to be good / And cheap, and plain as evil how’ — yes, Auden knew all about it. Oh, I’ve had female students that kept the old Adam rampant, I can tell you; and they still do, sometimes — though I find those jeans rebarbative — little witches with their long hair … oh yes.” He pauses, looking reminiscently into space. “Molly was a student of mine, you know. Peculiar relationship, teacher and pupil. Nine parts parental discipline and pride, and the other one pure fire-and-brimstone torture. One of the aspects of pedagogy Charlotte Brontë understood all too well, eh?”

  This particular literary reference brings the blood up hot to my cheeks. Damn it, has the old walrus been reading me all along, while I fancied myself so enigmatic? It would be more than disconcerting if he ever broke my private Lucy-code, and began to see the analogies that so absurdly haunt me. However, I find myself unable to resist saying,

  “Yes, don’t you think — I always have — that the nun Lucy and Paul saw — or thought they saw — was the spectre of their own celibacy, that’s why it scared them witless, poor intelligent, scrupulous things.”

  “Quite right,” he says, giving me an approving professorial look. “And how marvellous, in the end, that the true identity of the nun should be an amorous suitor. And yet you find cretins who claim that Charlotte had no sense of humour.”

  “Well, in her line of business, she didn’t dare let herself have much. Sometimes I think the whole ridiculous business of sex is a bad joke on God’s part. Just think how serene and dignified our lives would be without all that.”

  “And how dull.”

  “All right, maybe. But there are times when I’d settle for that. Gladly.”

  “You are telling me either too much or not nearly enough,” he grumbles.
“Here — where’s your glass? — have more wine. That pie is beginning to smell grand. I wonder whether it will turn out to be eatable.” He sloshes his own glass generously full, bracing himself just in time to save it from Percy, who has chosen that moment to jump down from the door to his shoulder.

  “It’s just that the most wildly unsuitable people seem to be attracted to each other, generally. Hardly ever any suitable matches.” I think sadly of Louis-Philippe, and George MacKay, and wistfully of Mike with his little poem. I think too of Bill, who, when he came last weekend to the apartment for Sunday brunch, fell asleep with his mouth slightly open while I was washing up; and then went home, yawning drearily, because the antihistamine he was taking for an allergy made him so groggy. It is becoming painfully clear that this kind of thing will always be there to menace The Project. And where does that leave me? — not that I want an answer to that question.

  “Just possibly you are wrong about who is suitable,” Archie says carelessly. Percy is purring into his ear. The long, dark Siamese tail hangs down the back of his old grey sweater, twitching slightly at the tip, as if in private amusement.

  “A nice philosophical point of debate,” he adds. “But at the moment, it’s time to take the pie out.” Just then the front doorbell peals loudly. He moves off to answer it, complete with Percy, the mushroom apron, and his wineglass, declaiming floridly as he goes,

  “Will his name be Love,

  And all his talk be crazy?

  Or will his name be Death

  And his message easy?”

  A moment later Molly comes into the kitchen, followed by Harry, with Archie and the cat bringing up the rear. Molly’s cheeks are rosy under the white fur of a pretty winter hat, and her grey eyes are sharp as a bird’s.

  “Well, what in the ever-lovin’ world is going on here?” she cries.

  “Archie is giving me cooking lessons,” I explain, with a demonstrative gesture at the rolling pin and other clutter on the table. But I am aware this really explains nothing.

  “And is that what you call it, by all that’s wonderful!” she says, looking at him.

  “Yes, Lady Teazle, by all that’s damnable,” says Archie. “Stay and sample the product, why don’t you? Plenty for four.”

  “No, thanks, Archie; we’re on our way to Emma’s for a meal. And thin pickings it may turn out to be — have you heard she’s on the grapefruit diet? We just dropped by to borrow your copy of Pacey, if you don’t mind — I can’t seem to find mine anywhere at home — though it’s probably right there, buried under all those mountains of Harry’s mimeographs.”

  “All my fault, of course,” says Harry patiently. He holds out a mittened hand to Percy, who promptly stalks away from him in the insulting way cats have, with his tail straight up in the air.

  Archie bestows a glass of wine on both of them, and then with a casual air of mastery produces Pacey’s book from under a potted fern on the windowsill. I make a few ineffectual attempts to dust flour off my crumpled apron and out of my hair. Molly as usual looks immaculate as a new doll in her long, crisp green dress. An extravagantly long white muffler is wound around her neck and hangs down nearly to her heels, accentuating her littleness and her beautiful, narrow shape. Her face is smooth and fresh, but for some reason her gaiety seems to fade as she looks around the warm room and sips her wine.

  “You really ought to taste this pie,” Archie is urging, after he has broken off a bit of the crust and munched it critically. “This woman actually has the root of the matter in her, I do believe. The pastry is positively quite edible.”

  “ ‘The edible woman,’ ” says Molly. There is mockery in her voice and in the glance she throws me, and it stings like a light slap. I thought she liked me. I like her … admire her; but she … I turn away to hide my ridiculous face in a busy tidying-up.

  “Thanks, Archie, but we’ve got to run. Come on, Harry, we’re going to be late. Thanks for the Pacey — return it on Monday. So long Willydoyle.” She hands me her empty glass and, tossing back the trailing end of her muffler, makes an effective exit. I busy myself scraping up pastry-scraps and try to push off a cloud of motiveless depression; but Archie comes back from the door briskly, whistling, apparently in the highest heart.

  It snows again on Department-meeting day. White chalk flakes dropping thickly from a blackboard sky. The grey February snow piled below in the streets receives them with resignation. The light is wan in our chilly attic room, where the one radiator knocks and spits irritably but gives little heat. Yet when we’re assembled around the oak table, with all the student representatives there in force, we form quite a crowd. Mike is there with his heavy-faced girl, who looks bored. Emma arrives, enormous in a muskrat coat (the grapefruit diet has had no visible effect). Bill hurries in late, nodding apologetically to Archie at the head of the table, and takes a chair near the door.

  The first item of business concerns some complicated entanglement of the exam schedule. I find it hard even to follow the problem, much less contribute any helpful solution. My mind persists in wandering off to focus on irrelevancies like Archie’s new and florid neckscarf, or the silver bangles tinkling on Molly’s wrist as she slides a note across to Harry. Ruth Pinsky is falling asleep. Her dark eyelashes droop lower and lower; her head sinks, showing the curly whorl on the crown; she leans more and more perilously to the right, where Bill’s tweed shoulder looms. He is shading a series of profiled faces on an old envelope and notices nothing. Just as Ruthie is nearly on him, Emma prods her sharply with a pencil and she sits upright abruptly with a comic little snort. I have a brief coughing fit into my handkerchief.

  The hands of my watch crawl around. I mentally write another Jamwaddle story for Dougie, who now has mumps, to the keen exasperation of Lou — as if the poor child could easily have avoided mumps if he weren’t bent on being difficult. She has not mentioned my coming up to Toronto for the Easter break. Probably it would be a bad time for a visit: she seems to be having a very uncomfortable pregnancy, poor thing. I wonder whether I could afford to go south for a few days.… All this eternal snow does weigh down the spirit.

  The meeting, when I tune it in again, now seems to be about delegates to some conference or other in Winnipeg. Nobody wants to go there, including me. Ruth is dozing off again. It’s nearly four-thirty. My left foot is buzzing with pins and needles. Now we are discussing funds for a student literary magazine. Mike is very alert and vocal in the discussion, though I wish he would learn to address the chair properly, and avoid beginning sentences with the word “like.” Still, he is full of ideas about the student quarterly, some of them extremely practical and constructive, and he is listened to with respect. His square-built girl watches him worshippingly. I can’t remember her name — Sandra? — no. Victoria? Virginia would be lovely in April, and the Porsche is running well.… Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Bill … I wonder whether by any chance he might …

  Two or three of the students slip away. It’s after five o’clock, and these hard chairs begin to numb you after the second hour, in the most fundamental way. But Archie is pawing through papers, muttering to himself as he looks for something. Evidently the meeting isn’t over yet. Molly, who has slung on her shoulder-bag and half risen, now sinks back with a sigh. Harry is deep in a murmured conference with one of the students and does not look up when Archie at last produces the paper he’s been looking for, and addresses us.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I have received a directive of some interest from the Board of Governors, relating to Hiring and Tenure.”

  All the restless shuffling immediately stops. Harry turns his head quickly to face the head of the table.

  “It reads as follows. ‘All matters relating to Hiring and Tenure at Cartier College, in those departments where full-time staff exceed seven in number, will from this date be dealt with by a committee consisting of the Vice-Principal, two members of the Board of Governors, the Deans of both Faculties, and the Chairman of each department directly concerned,
plus one of his immediate colleagues, to be chosen by him.’ ”

  “What!” bursts out Molly incredulously.

  “Departments with more than seven — that’s only Maths, French, and us. Surprise, surprise.”

  “It’s a hatchet job —”

  “Archie, would you be good enough to read that again,” asks Harry, cutting off with authority the rising tide of voices.

  Archie reads it again, without expression. No longer at all tempted to wander, my attention is focussed sharply on Harry’s bearded face. It is hard to be sure, but I could swear I saw relief in his eyes when the directive was first read. There is now a brief silence. The radiator gives a light hiss, like the serpent in Eden.

  “Well, that’s that,” says Harry bitterly. “I presume there’s nothing to stop them legislating a monstrosity like that, to choke off student power.” His voice is calm, almost satisfied.

  “There is something to stop them,” says Mike fiercely. “Us.”

  Harry shakes his head. He looks heavy with shock; yet I can’t forget the look that flashed into his face a moment ago when he was off guard.

  Ruth Pinsky, with an apologetic glance at her watch, quietly leaves the room with one of her assistants. They have evening classes to meet soon.

  “Cunning of Archie to keep this little item to the last,” mutters Bill, leaning close to my ear. “He’s learning.”

  “Why can’t we just inform the Board we have our own Hiring and Tenure Committee, duly elected — the question is actually a legal one, isn’t it — does anybody know where we can get expert advice?”

  “Yes, the college must have a constitution or something.”

  “It’s the most shameless set of brass knuckles I ever —”

  “Somebody ought to get hold of the press.”

  In all this, Harry takes no part. He sits there in silence, his face quite impassive, only shaking his head from time to time like someone teased by flies.

  “I must admit I see no way we can refuse to recognize the authority of the Board,” says Archie, frowning and rubbing one hand through the mane of his grey hair.