A Population of One

by Constance Beresford-Howe

  “Come off it, now, Archie. You know there’s nobody in this place more respected than you are. By everybody.” The evening star has just tentatively emerged behind his head in a sky the colour of blue ink. I am hungry, and burrow into my purse for some toffees I keep there. After tossing over one that lands with a plop on his waistcoat, I put another into my mouth. He eyes his gift broodingly, then tears off the wrapper and eats the toffee, breathing noisily.

  “I am … rather worried about Molly,” he says after a pause.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s extremely difficult for her, all this. You know she was here among those sitting-in last Monday. But when the police ordered them all out, she went with those who left voluntarily, instead of choosing the martyr’s crown like some of the others. Now, poor girl, she’s come to me for help in raising bail for Harry.”

  “Has she!” I say with interest.

  “Just yesterday. No real difficulty there. My bank is willing to put up half of it on my surety, and she’s found the rest among friends.”

  “I see.” And why it should hurt that my offer of money has been passed over would be hard to explain. And it’s even harder to know the reason why.

  “She is still with him, you see,” he says sadly.

  “Yes.”

  “And you?” he suddenly raps out, staring at me with his keen blue eyes. “Whom are you with?”

  “You,” I say without hesitation. A smile of immense sweetness touches his pouched, lined, weary face. Clumsily brushing cigar ash off his waistcoat, he gets to his feet with a glance out at the one bright rivet of light in the sky. I button up my jacket for the slushy walk home. Rather to my surprise, I find the depression that has dragged at me all day has now vanished completely. Still faintly smiling, Archie stands at the door waiting for me to pass him. In his florid voice he rolls out,

  “In farm and field through all the shire

  The eye beholds the heart’s desire;

  Ah, let not only mine be vain.

  For lovers should be loved again.”

  I leave the office galvanically. My bottom has been pinched, by an expert.

  “It wasn’t shingles after all. Only dry skin.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Just the same, it’s no fun. You should see these big welts on me like hives. The skin man told me half his patients are in the teaching professions which doesn’t exactly cheer the heart, either.”

  We are side by side in my little galley of a kitchen, preparing a late supper after seeing an old Jeanne Moreau film at Bill’s favourite French movie house. He is poaching eggs while I stir a pot of hollandaise sauce. A heavy rain is sluicing down the windows. He leans over for a greedy sniff of the lemony tang rising from my wooden spoon.

  “You are clever. I always thought only great chefs could make hollandaise. Doesn’t it go queer on you — curdle or something?”

  “Oh yes. It’s doing that now. But all you do is just —” And I demonstrate by casually tossing a little cold water into the saucepan and stirring briskly. The rich sauce at once becomes smooth as yellow velvet. Trying not to grin with triumph I silently call down a blessing on Archie. How is it I never knew what fun cooking is until he showed me?

  “Are the buns toasted yet? Well, could you put the ham on them, and then the egg on top — good — then we pour on some sauce, and voilà.”

  Each with a smoking plate and cutlery hastily plucked from a drawer, we hurry to the table in the next room and begin to eat. Far below the city sparkles black and gold through heavy rain. It streams down, drumming arrogantly on the entrance canopy twelve floors below, but whispering too, in a hurried, heavy way, like a voice telling secrets.

  “Thank heaven spring is coming,” I say fervently.

  “Marvellous, this,” Bill says with his mouth full. “Yes, but by the time bloody spring actually gets to Montreal, we’re all too pooped to enjoy it. Completely run down with igloo fever. Did you know February had only eleven hours of sun? No wonder everybody has that corpse-like pallor.”

  “Good time of year to be somewhere else, all right.”

  “What are you doing over Easter, Willy?”

  My heart gives a startled little jump. “Oh, I don’t know. I did think it might be nice to get away.… Maybe drive south for a few days, to Washington or somewhere.…”

  “Yes, the trees will all be out down there.”

  “They say Virginia is lovely, too. All green and balmy. And Richmond doesn’t look all that much further on the map.”

  He sighs. “And when you think the snow will still be piled up in corners all over Halifax.…”

  I sigh too, and get up to make coffee. While I move to and fro clearing the table, he settles in a corner of the sofa to perform the complex ritual of pipe-lighting. He looks almost like a curly-headed boy in his open-necked blue shirt, but the flame of the match shows how deeply the lines are cut across his forehead. There is a comfortable domestic silence while I pour the coffee and pass over his cup; black with half a teaspoon of sugar.

  “How’s your mother these days, Bill?”

  “Oh, the phlebitis cleared up finally. But she just hasn’t got her strength back the way she should. I don’t think her doctor is really with it — one of those old-fashioned G.P.’s that wait around for nature to cure everything. I wish she’d go to a younger man. If she had some of these liver injections they’d lift years off her. But I can’t persuade her. And of course that clot Clive … last time I was there he wanted her to go curling with him, if you can imagine. And her barely on her feet again.”

  “Tch tch.”

  “Well, I suppose I worry too much. But you know how it is.…I mean your mother is … you can’t help being terrifically involved, can you?”

  “No, you can’t.”

  “Of course I tend to be a pretty heavy worrier about quite a few things. Anxiety. Actually, I’ve had two breakdowns, you know. The one ten years ago — I was in the Douglas for five months. The last one wasn’t so bad, only a few weeks. The shrink has helped a lot. You ever had therapy?”

  “No. Though I daresay a few sessions might do me no harm. I was very attached to my mother … well, even though she died over a year ago, I’m still — I haven’t come to terms with — with being alone.”

  I steal a cautious look at him, but he is puffing smoke abstractedly and gently scratching his calf. He seems barely aware I am there at all. Suddenly he says, “Willy, do you think I could have a little nightcap of that nice rye?”

  “Of course you can.” I jump up to get it.

  “Cheers,” he says, raising the glass. He downs half of the drink at one gulp and then slides down low against the cushions with his long legs stretched out. Yet he does not look really relaxed.

  “You’ve never been married, have you, Willy?”

  “No.”

  “Neither have I. Do people try to make you feel odd because of that? Weird? I know it’s true nearly everybody our age is married and breeding kids, or at the very least shacked up with somebody; but just the same —”

  “You think I don’t know? A woman completely on her own might as well be some kind of monster, the way some people …”

  “But it does make you wonder sometimes if you aren’t missing something. I mean, look at Emma. You know, she used to be thin. Very uptight, sad girl. Then she got married and instantly had four kids, and now she’s fat and obscenely happy.”

  “Is she?” I say, trying to sound suitably detached.

  “But surely it’s possible just not to be the marrying kind, isn’t it? I mean, what’s so peculiar about that? Anyway, I’ve never wanted to get all tied up in that particular knot. In fact I’ve never — well — it isn’t that women don’t attract me. No, they attract me like mad. You attract me. I even got engaged once. But I was just a kid … it didn’t work out.” He frowns into his empty glass.

  “Like another one?”

  “Please.”

  This time he takes only a discreet si
p while I settle back in my corner. The pipe lies abandoned on its side. His hands are jammed deep in his pockets. The air is charged with something he wants to say, but he can’t seem to get it out.

  “Willy —”

  “Hullo.”

  “Would you be — would you consider — I mean what would you say if … What I mean is, how about us going off to Washington together or wherever, for a few days at Easter. Share expenses and … and all that.”

  I look at him carefully.

  “I’d say yes.”

  “Would you really? Oh, that’s marvellous. You are a dear, Willy. It will be such fun.”

  He has flushed a little. In fact he seems so elated that I have to smile, even while I wonder why, now that at long last The Project seems (as it were) in the bag, I am not more elated myself. Perhaps it’s the note of gratitude in his voice that bothers me. Now when he swings around to arrange himself cosily with his head in my lap, all I feel is a mild surprise at how heavy it is. But I touch his greying curls gently and try to smooth away the deepest line in his forehead. He draws a long breath and closes his eyes in contentment.

  “You know, Willy, I may be an awful square, but I don’t suggest this kind of thing lightly. I mean, you’re not that kind of person either. We’re quite a lot alike, in fact. But you’re so nice. Kind is what you are. Generous. Mellow, somehow. You’re wise and experienced.”

  “Well, no, not really —” I begin. But he has already gone on without a pause, his eyes still closed. “Surprising as it may seem, you know, I have actually never — I mean it’s fairly unusual in a man my age, but — Oh, I’ve messed around and messed around … women attract me, they always have, but — Well, Molly for instance. I suppose I’d better admit it, we did go around a bit together, just after her marriage broke up. But not for long. She was too aggressive, or something … it put me off.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” I say soothingly. A muscle in my leg is twitching. His head is really amazingly heavy. I wonder in dismay why this is all I feel. Where is all the joy, the excitement, the pleasure? The other evening I felt more delight than this when Percy the cat pushed my nose with his whiskered, velvet face.

  “As a matter of fact,” I say resolutely “— I’d better tell you this — I’m not really experienced either. Not … well, after all what does it matter? But as you said before, we’re a lot alike.”

  “Really?” he says. Is it disappointment in his voice? Chagrin? Sympathy? Whatever it is, it makes me restless. The rain is still gushing down with such primitive force it frets my nerves. Bill reaches up to fondle my cheek gently.

  “Give me a kiss, Willy. As you say, what’s to worry about? What’s the difference? No problem. None in the world. So that’s agreed: we take to the road at Easter and have ourselves a wonderful time. Okay if we take your car? I can spell you a bit with the driving. It’s only cities that get my ulcer roused. A week together in the South … oh, won’t it be nice?”

  “It will be lovely.” And now for the first time I begin to feel a cautious little flutter of happiness. But the weight of his head is making both my legs prickle and twitch and I can’t help being relieved when he suddenly sits up.

  “Half past twelve — God, I must get home. Nine-o’clock class in the morning. See you around tomorrow, I expect, Willy dear.” And almost before I can get to my feet he drops a kiss on my hand and lets himself out.

  Alone with the coffee cups I think of a dozen things I would have liked to say, and to hear him say — a dozen questions to ask and answer. Still, there’s plenty of time for all that. And yet, for some obscure reason I’m not sorry to be alone now. It’s actually a relief to be by myself. What a baffling and contradictory creature I am, to be sure. I don’t understand me at all. Just when I should be listening, entranced, to the horns of Elfland faintly blowing, I am suddenly giggling instead at the memory of Archie yesterday switching off a broadcast of the Montreal Symphony, growling, “Dieu que le son du cor est triste.”

  And yet, after a night’s sleep I come up buoyant, warm, tingling — the way you’re supposed to feel after champagne, but generally don’t. I lie in bed savouring it. And the more I think about last evening, the better I feel. A week in the South.… You’re a dear.… Won’t it be lovely? Yes, it will. Perfectly lovely. Marvellous. The urge to talk to Bill is irresistible. I jump out of bed and ring his number, but there is no answer. Strange that it was so hard to talk to him last night, while this morning I’m brimming with things to tell him. But maybe love is like that?

  The window frames an excited day full of wind and blown cloud and gashes of bold blue sky. Great stretches of pavement have been hosed bare by the rain. A million tight little knots of bud swing on the trees. I eat a large breakfast (Emma, is this how it begins?) and after a little cursory housework cannot bear to stay indoors. It is Saturday; why not do a little shopping downtown?

  You see, I say to Bill as I swing energetically downhill, it all depends on what you mean by experience. Because in a way, a sort of way, I’ve had quite a lot. Even too much. With a jump I dodge a bright puddle flashing and puckering in the road. Nobody’s untouched, so to speak. There’s more than one form of virginity. Let’s cut across this little park, threading past all the birds, children, and dogs hopping in the sun. An old woman in a battered coat and running shoes is ambling along the path ahead of me. She stops abruptly, stoops with caution, and straightens again. In her hand is now a big blue glass alley. I grin at her cheerfully as I pass. Poor old thing.

  I’m heading for that old-fashioned department store I enjoy because, unlike its rivals, the staff is middle-aged and the stock attractive, instead of the other way around. Furthermore, on Saturdays a kilted piper walks through the main floor skirling his bagpipes, which always tickles that five-year-old Willy permanently in residence within your colleague Professor Doyle.

  Am I sentimental, do you think? A revolting thing to be, but I can’t resist this huge bean-bag caterpillar in Toys — it’s Wallace himself — and Dougie will love his winning embroidered smile and little black-bead eyes. No, I promise not to tell you or myself that my broken engagement (or almost) was a shattering emotional experience. Because it wasn’t. I can hardly remember now exactly what Dieter looked like, even though we walked together right up to the idea of marriage. He was in my Middle English class at graduate school, a brilliant German boy with a neat, small, straight body and soft brown eyes that always looked wistful, though in fact he had a character tough as old rope. We saw a lot of each other, making full use of institutions like parks, libraries, and museums, because he was on a scholarship and perpetually broke. For several months we walked the city and the campus hand in hand, more companions than lovers, perhaps because it was only being lonely that we had in common. But there was a streak of tenderness in him that touched me so much I thought at the time I loved him. Because he soon learned I preferred it that way, he never pressed me to accept more than kisses. Acute shortage of cash and opportunity simplified things, so that a constricted bit of necking at the movies was the extent of it for us. Perhaps he had his sentimental side too. On my birthday he gave me a single, perfect white camellia. Yes, I suppose I almost loved him — so far as that was possible, in my peculiar circumstances.

  “You see, I can never go out in the evenings,” I told him.

  “Why not?”

  “My mother needs me at home. I have to be there.… My father drinks.… He might — I can’t talk about it.”

  “Then we won’t talk about it,” he said. “You shall stay home in the evenings. But there are eight hours in the day, yes?”

  So there were, and as time went on we used them all. Eventually he took off a little signet ring he wore and put it on my hand. Mother tried to smile when she saw it. “If you really like this boy, dear,” she said, “bring him home to lunch one day.” Oh, my poor mother. Never confronting the actual problem directly, because he and I both must have known it was insoluble, we talked about teaching j
obs after graduation and even looked at ads for cheap apartments. He and Mother seemed to like each other. I liked his sister, the only survivor of his family. In the spring, that season of illusions, I almost persuaded myself that Mother would agree to come away and live with us.…

  Then one day Dieter told me he’d found an ideal apartment for rent — three big rooms near High Park. It would be vacant in the fall. The landlord would show us over it at eight that evening.

  “But Dieter, I can’t be away from home in the —”

  He looked at me squarely. “How long with this, Willy? You can be away. You must. We’ve got to face this some time.”

  “I don’t know.…”

  “You must know. Right now.”

  “I’ll phone her,” I said miserably. The landlord showed us the apartment. I can’t remember a single thing about the place now. When I got home soon after nine, I dosed the front door quietly (G. W. Doyle sometimes dangerously prowled the lower hall, glass in hand), and stood for a moment, listening. The house enclosed its usual silence. Or seemed to. Then I heard the faint sound from upstairs. I had not heard it, not from earliest childhood. My mother, sobbing.

  She never told me what had happened. It could have been almost anything. Or maybe nothing. I ran up the stairs to her, and it was hours before she stopped crying. All the rest of that night I seemed to hear it. I can hear it now. The next morning I met Dieter at the library and gave him back his little ring. As I say, he had a very strong character. Or a well-developed sense of reality. He never tried to get in touch with me again.

  On display in the Lingerie Department there is a set of baby-doll pyjamas in black lace — bikini pants of minute proportions and a sheer top cut like the surplice of a depraved choirboy. So I attract you, do I? Wait till you see this, man. After buying the pyjamas, I find a short rose-coloured nightgown with ruffles that I must also have; and minutes later I come upon a dark blue pantsuit too attractive to refuse. Luckily it’s on sale. And that leads to a mini-dress in pale blue, printed with clusters of little white flowers.…Do you know that silly old joke, Bill? — “and that’s why my trousseau tore so …”