A Jest of God - Margaret Laurence [33]
“No, I didn’t think it was really necessary. It’s hard for me to judge, sometimes. But I thought if I lay down, it might be all right. I made myself some cocoa.”
“Did you take a sleeping pill?”
“Well, no. I thought –”
She never sleeps without one. She can’t. Unaided sleep hasn’t been possible for her within my living memory.
“I’ll bring you one now.”
“Maybe that would be best. Thank you, dear.”
Scarlet and blue capsule, and a glass of water. She is lying propped up on three pillows. She has washed off her powder and what little lipstick she uses, but she’s brushed her hair, I see, coaxed it into grey lace around her head, so that although wan she looks her best. Very touching. Oh – can I possibly be this mean? She might really have been ill when I was out, and might have died, and then I would have been forever in the wrong, not so much for going out but for feeling this way, for letting myself.
“Did you have a nice time, dear, really?”
“Quite nice, thank you. Sure you’re all right now?”
“Quite sure. Goodnight, dear.”
“Goodnight.”
Finally I’m in my own room and can be by myself at last. It is not at all likely that I will see him again. If I think this now, it will make it easier for me, later, when it happens that way.
FIVE
The phone. If only I can reach it before Mother does. In the hall mirror I can see this giraffe woman, this lank scamperer. Slow down, Rachel. Yet I know now the phone is within my easy grasp, and I could pounce for it if I had to. I can’t be thinking this way. It isn’t like me.
Mother is in the living room, dusting in small feathery strokes as though the duster were a chiffon handkerchief and she were waving it from some castle window. She is pretending not to be listening. I swear I’m going to get an extension cord put on this damn phone so I can take it into my bedroom. I won’t, though. How could I ever explain it in any way she could accept?
“Hello –”
“Hello. Rachel?”
“Oh. Calla. Hello.”
“Are you all right, Rachel?”
“Of course I’m all right. Why shouldn’t I be?”
“Oh, I don’t know. You sounded kind of – well, I guess it was just in my mind that you might not be well or something, as I haven’t seen you since holidays started.”
“No, I’ve been quite all right. Just – you know – busy.”
“Well, I’ve been wanting to phone you, but I sort of thought that you might be busy –”
She expects me to say something. I won’t. Why does she have to phone me? Why can’t she leave me alone? Maybe I shouldn’t be rude to her. But if she keeps on phoning me in this way, she’s asking for it, isn’t she?
“Well, I was busy. That’s what I said.”
I didn’t intend to sound quite so snappish. But it’s her lookout. She’s asking for trouble. What does she think I am, anyway? Suddenly I’m terribly angry at her, so angry that I can hardly keep from putting the phone down, slamming the receiver.
“I was just wondering,” Calla says, “if you’d like to go to a movie tonight. Or any time this week. Or next week.”
There is a hesitance in her voice, something that has been there ever since that night. She never used to sound this way, but now she has to. Now she feels compelled to beg my pardon over and over again. I hate this. I ought to feel – what? Pity? No. Liberal-minded people feel compassion – it’s nicer. But all I feel is nothing. Only the desire for her to go away, and for myself not to have to be bothered, not to have to deal with this. Strangely, the anger is gone.
“I’d like to go, Calla, but I don’t think I can for a while. I’m – I’m going to take an extension course in English, and I’ll be pretty well tied up with that for the rest of the month.”
“You shouldn’t work all the time, Rachel.”
“I want to get it done. That’s the only way I can work. I want to concentrate on it. I must.”
I can hear my voice rising as I speak, growing edgy and shrill, defending my right to work as though it were in her power to keep me from it. And for a non-existent course. I didn’t want to tell lies. She forced me.
“All right,” Calla says, with extreme quiet. “Okay. I get the point.”
Oh God. She does, too. She doesn