A Population of One

by Constance Beresford-Howe

  “I’m thinking of moving this spring, Bill. There’s so much noise in my building it’s getting me down. I don’t know which is worse, those sex-acrobats next door, or the old battlers on the other side. I thought of looking for a little flat, maybe; or a coachhouse, if I can find one. There’s all kinds of furniture in storage in Toronto I could use. The extra space would be nice. And the privacy. I keep on running into our janitor, and he’s —”

  “Do you mind a lot, Willy? I find it a bit hard to concentrate when you’re talking.”

  “I’ll shut up,” I promise quickly.

  “Not nervous, are you?” he asks as I close my eyes.

  “No, no — not at all.” But despite a recent visit to the Ladies, I now feel a keen urge to do so again. Yet asking him to stop at a service station now (our tank is nearly full) would be so tactless that I feel I can’t possibly do it. The next hour is highly uncomfortable for body and mind alike. Then, mercifully, he pulls up at a station and swings out of the car, saying cheerfully, “May I be excused?”

  It seems to grow brighter as the long afternoon tediously melts into evening. The water-coloured sky is dappled with high, pale cloud. The roads shine with recent rain. After tea in a noisy roadside snack bar, we go on with me at the wheel. The car radio dispenses bland non-music. Bill leans back, yawning.

  “Soon be near Washington,” I remark.

  “We might as well go on for a bit, don’t you think? It won’t be dark for ages yet. Lots of Vacancy signs.”

  “Of course,” I agree, almost before he has finished. My cheeks are blazing. He yawns again.

  When we stop at a small village restaurant for supper, a motherly waitress in bifocals, unabashed by the appalling leather eggs and cardboard pie she has served us, smiles warmly and says, “You-all come on back, now, you heah?”

  “Don’t hold your breath, you-all dear,” mutters Bill. “Why don’t you go back to the car, Willy; I’ve got a bit of shopping to do down the street. Won’t be a minute.” Soon he is back with a large paper bag, which he stows in the back seat. It clinks when I start the car. “Nightcaps,” he says with a wink.

  A little later, with darkness now total, we are moving along a four-lane highway out of Washington. It is nine o’clock.

  “Do you think —” I begin, clearing my throat.

  “What?”

  “— nothing. Only we’ve covered nearly five hundred miles.”

  “Are you tired? Well, I suppose we’d better start looking for a motel.”

  “Yes, I suppose we’d better.”

  “That one’s full.”

  “Look, that was a rather nice-looking one on the left. What do you think?”

  “Nope; too near the road. The traffic noise would drive us nuts.”

  “Look, there’s a list of recommended motels in the glove compartment — see it? Dozens of them listed. Can you find one near here?”

  “Probably not, but I’ll try.”

  “Wait, there was a place. It had a Vacancy sign.”

  “I don’t think it had, Willy.”

  “Oh. Well, we’ll just keep on.”

  “Here’s one listed that sounds marvy. ‘Colour TV in all air-conditioned units. Gourmet dining-room with view of lake.’ Oh. It doesn’t open till June.”

  “Well, we just passed a sign for the Shangri-La Motor Inn. Two miles west of here. Want to try it?”

  “Oh, all right.”

  By now it is nearly ten o’clock. I am stiff with fatigue after so many hours at the wheel, and he must be weary too, for he keeps on yawning. At last we find the Shangri-La — Kumfy, Klean, Kosy — and there a hot-pink neon sign blinks the beautiful word Rooms. I switch off the engine with a sigh.

  “You wait here, Willy. I’ll see the office people.”

  He is gone long enough for me to wonder with a last-minute qualm whether by any crazy chance I’ve misunderstood him all along, and he intends us to have separate rooms — or whether at the last second he’s lost interest and decided to arrange it that way.

  “Right,” he says, reappearing. “Number Seven.”

  And then, what seems too good to be true, we are setting down our luggage in a small room. Here not one but two double beds seem to loom in preternatural size. There is no TV, no view, and no air-conditioning — on the contrary, the stuffy air seems to have been there for years. But neither of us is in a mood to complain.

  “It’s all they had left,” he says apologetically. “But it could be worse, I suppose. At least we’re off the highway. Now you know what’s going to happen next?”

  “What?”

  “Your Uncle Bill is going to make us a pair of lovely dry martinis. See, I got ice from the Boss Man’s own fridge. Can you find us some glasses in the bathroom?”

  “No gin for me, Bill — just give me a bit of the vermouth with an ice-cube.”

  “If you say so.” He crushes ice in a handkerchief, pours with care from his bottles, stirs the mixture tenderly in one of the glasses. “You mustn’t bruise the gin,” he explains. Then he tastes. “Superb! Here, try yours, Will. Here’s to us.”

  We clink glasses. A little colour has begun to creep into his cheeks by the time he pours the second drink. Perhaps it is only the white strip-lighting over the mirror that makes us both look so prematurely old.

  “And next on the agenda, a gorgeous long, hot shower. Sound good? Would you like to — er — go first?”

  “Yes, fine.” I open my suitcase, then close it up again and manœuvre it with difficulty into the tiny bathroom with me. It’s just too much, somehow, to take out my baby-dolls right there in front of him. Not to mention other, even more personal items. Then, just as I step out of the shower, the only light in the room fizzes and dies.

  “Oy, Bill. The light’s gone in here.”

  “Damn. There’s only one bulb in this awful room. Want it?”

  “Oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

  But it does. The all-important Familiplan must now be put into operation. Instructions are enclosed in the packet. Impossible to read them in the dark. Equally impossible to open the door a crack and — Oh God. Impossible even to emerge from this room clutching the damn box. There is certainly nowhere in the baby-dolls to hide it, and the only dressing gown I brought along is transparent. All I can do is put it back in the suitcase, control a fit of hysterical giggles, and edge myself and luggage back into the bedroom.

  “Ah, there you are,” he says brightly. A fresh martini tinkles in his glass. He is stretched out on the bed in his shirtsleeves, reading a paperback thriller. “My turn now?”

  “Right. It’s all yours.”

  He picks up his toilet case and a pair of pale blue pyjamas and disappears, martini still in hand. The door locks behind him. Something in the set of his back suggests that he may have need of a little privacy of his own.

  Once I’m sure he isn’t likely to come back for a few minutes, I unfold the Familiplan instructions. The thin paper crackles like a forest fire. I read the fine print hastily, holding it near the light. Then I read the whole thing again. I still don’t understand exactly where … or how.…

  The shower-water stops. I freeze in panic. Then it starts again. Desperately I squat down between the beds and attempt to follow Familiplan’s orders. It seems incredibly difficult. Either they have enclosed the wrong instructions, or I am constructed in some entirely original way. After a great deal of fumbling and increasing agitation, I manage to insert a small amount of the jelly. It immediately begins to sting fiercely, leaving the whole area in a condition of surprise. But the shower has stopped running. Hastily I hide the box in my suitcase and jump into one of the beds.

  But it is a long time before he comes out. There is silence from the dark bathroom, except for a breathy sort of intermittent whistling from behind the door. It goes on and on, with occasional pauses. Once I think I hear him whisper “Shit.”

  I arrange myself as picturesquely as possible against the pillows. Soon my arms feel cold
and I pull up the blankets. Bill’s thriller lies open on the bed; I begin to read. Then my eyes begin to droop shut; sleep washes over me in wave after warm wave.

  The unlocking door makes me jump. In he comes on a cloud of warm, moist air smelling of soap and gin. His blue pyjamas are crisp and his curly hair immaculate. But he looks very odd — his face is red and tight with some kind of distress or embarrassment. Or perhaps it’s only the martinis.

  “All right to turn out the light?” he asks in a constricted voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Shall I — all right if I come in?”

  “Of course.”

  The darkness is something to be grateful for, though it does seem a pity to waste the baby-dolls I’ve been counting on so much. He gets in under the bedclothes and puts his arm around me. His breath is heavy with toothpaste and martinis.

  “Willy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Um — I suppose we should have talked about this before, but — are you on the Pill?”

  “No, I’m not. But —”

  “Oh. Well, in that case —”

  “It’s all right, though.” (I hope.) “There are other — I mean —” (No. I simply cannot go into details.) “But it’s all right, really. Not to worry.”

  “Because I — er — that is, I’d better use —”

  “Yes, that would be a good idea.”

  “Yes.” A brief pause. “But the perfectly maddening thing is that I — I couldn’t get it to stay on just now. Nerves, I guess.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  He gives an enormous yawn.

  “The fact is, Willy, we’re both terribly tired.… Why don’t we just have a sleep first, and then …”

  “What a good idea. Let’s do that.”

  “I’ll take the other bed, then, just for now. Good night, Willy dear.”

  “Good night, Bill.”

  One minute later he is snoring heavily. There is only time for me to think sleepily, “It’s all right, Mother. We didn’t even bruise the gin,” before I am deeply asleep.

  Virginia is blue and green, warm and beautiful. The dislike I gradually acquire for its name is probably irrelevant. In the long sunny days we enjoy the red-earth fields, and trees in rich leaf, and the heavy Southern food. We chat and laugh as we explore the handsome old districts of Richmond. We have long, leisurely meals. One wet afternoon we go to the movies and sit in the back row with our feet up like a couple of kids, eating popcorn.

  It’s only the nights that are awkward. As darkness falls we tend to become spasmodically talkative, and to avoid each other’s eyes. On the second day of the trip, Bill eats something that disagrees with him, and retires early to bed, groaning faintly. The night after that is his regular weekly night to call his mother, and by the time he gets back from phoning her, I am asleep. After that he strains his back changing a tire. We are both always pleased when day comes and we can take to the road and enjoy it without complications. We send a great many postcards back to Canada.

  Eventually, after one hot day’s drive, we find a cabin for the night by the side of a small lake. It is a bare and primitive little shack, smelling faintly of kerosene, and the one bed is an elderly brass affair with a hollow in its middle. We avoid making any comment on this to each other. There is a small black stove, on which I cook us a delicious steak with mushrooms, and we share a bottle of good wine. Afterwards we sit outside on a little wooden jetty that runs out into the blue water. The sky is still bright, and the weather-whitened boards under us still feel warm. Bill brings out his martinis in a jug and we sit companionably close to watch the dusk come, with our tired feet dangling in the water. It is too early in the season for insects. An elegant little moon rises white in the east.

  “This is nice, isn’t it?” he says with a happy sigh. “You’re such good company, Willy.”

  I lean against him. The muffled lub-dub of his heart is under my ear. Cautiously I relax. His arm and shoulder in a soft checked-flannel shirt feel warm and comfortable. As the martini jug empties and a few stars look out, he holds me closer. “Nice,” he murmurs. Eventually he undoes a few of my blouse buttons. “Feeling sleepy?” he asks into my ear.

  “Well, not exactly sleepy.”

  “Shall we go in?”

  “Let’s.”

  I whisk into my rose-coloured nightgown and hop into the bed, which receives me with a noisy jangle of aged springs. Soon he snaps out the light and joins me in the hollow. The moon looks in on us benignly.

  Some time later he moves away. The springs give a loud, grinding clash.

  “Sorry about that, Will.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Bit tired, I guess.”

  “That’s all.”

  “You warm enough?”

  “Yes, fine.”

  “Good night, then.”

  “Good night.”

  But now that I can define Bill’s problem, the situation is actually easier. From then on we occupy separate beds without any comment or evasion, and feel a lot more at ease with each other. I sleep badly, but he is sympathetic and provides me with a bottle of tranquillizers.

  And that is how we should have had the sense to leave it. But on the last night of the trip, after Bill has had one more martini than usual, my baby-doll pyjamas register a belated effect on him. Up to a point, that is. The same point. After which, with a parting kiss on the forehead, he returns to his own bed, and we say goodnight in small, polite voices.

  The next day we are back in Montreal. It is a grey, chilly afternoon. The buds on the trees are barely open. Traces of snow still lie in patches of shade on the yellow grass of muddy lawns.

  “It might be better if you just drop me off at a bus stop along Dorchester, Willy, and let me get home that way. You know what a bunch of gossips we’ve got at Cartier, and all our department lives so close to my place.”

  “Sure. This one do you?”

  “Fine. Well, it’s been really great, Willy. Terrific fun. Bless you.” His brown eyes beam into mine. He smooths my cheek so tenderly my eyes prick with silly tears.

  “See you around, pussycat,” he says, and goes.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THIS ISLAND’S MINE

  Well, so much for that,” I think as I pull away from the curb to merge the now-grimy Porsche with the flow of Sunday traffic. Last summer I grumbled because the truth wasn’t enough like fiction. It’s only fair now to admit that I don’t like it much better when life unmistakably indicates the end of a chapter. The surprising thing is that I can accept this particularly emphatic end with so much equanimity. Perhaps I suspected all along that the relationship with Bill could never really develop. Anyhow, oddly enough, now he’s gone, it hardly seems important, one way or another. The scent of the spicy lotion he uses on his hair lingers in the car and I wind down a window to let it out. Poor Bill. I wonder if, like me, he feels more light-hearted now our holiday is over than when it began. Does he wonder how that can be? Maybe he too is almost grateful to be left without expectations or hopes of any kind. For whatever reason, I am not — at the moment anyway — oppressed with any sense of failure. I don’t dread going into my silent apartment. I’m not afraid of the painful thoughts and ludicrous memories that are certainly waiting for me there. Maybe, I think gratefully, I am actually getting tougher. Growing up. If so, what a good thing. Only wet-eyed sentimentalists think it’s marvellous to be young.

  On Dorchester I pass Archie’s house sitting cubic, stubborn, and shabby in its desolate, empty lot. Two or three incorrigible crocuses have pushed up among the uncut bushes of his garden. My foot lifts off the gas pedal. I have a sudden, irrational urge to stop here. Why don’t I go up to his door and knock? I want to see him. But how ridiculous. I’m not speaking to Archie. Worse, he himself is being polite to me. Another end of a chapter. But why is this one so much harder to accept?

  I find myself driving around the block to pass the house again. No one, not even Percy, appears at any of the win
dows. No smoke drifts from the chimney. Perhaps he’s away. In Jamaica, perhaps? Or ill? Nonsense. He’s at Molly’s reading out of the dictionary, or watching Sesame Street with Emma’s children, or at the library writing a Johnsonian letter to the Principal.

  Once more I tour the block. Then I think, “No, the house is empty. But first thing tomorrow I’ll go and see him in his office.” Only then, as if released, can I pass the house and turn up the hill toward home. I stop along the way to pick up a newspaper and buy eggs, bacon, and cheese. I’ll make a quiche for supper. Cookery is good for more than just the stomach. And I’ll look at the Classified Ads, while I eat, for places to rent. One of these days I might even get myself a cat or a parrot. With a bit of company, there are worse places than an island.

  Awkwardly juggling mail from my box with parcels and suitcase, I let myself into the apartment. The overheated darkness of the place is stifling. Too fine and private by far. I hurry to the window and open the curtains to let in the clear evening sky, on which a few delicate trails of silver cloud are floating. The light is pure and clear as water. I toss aside some bills and tear open a letter from Lou.

  Dear Willy,

  I must say I think it’s selfish of you to rush off for no reason at all to the States instead of coming here to us. With all those long holidays teachers get, you surely could have gone there any time — but I’ve noticed that ever since you moved to Montreal your family doesn’t matter as much to you. I suppose that’s inevitable, really. Just the same, you might have thought of Dougie, if nobody else. He was terribly disappointed not to see you. I say nothing about myself, though it might also have occurred to you I could do with some companionship just now when I’m feeling so huge and rotten. And I could certainly use a hand with D., too — he’s going through a horrible, whining stage these days and is a real drag. Of course Greg is out now more evenings a week than ever. He never thinks of anything but that damned law firm of his.