A Jest of God - Margaret Laurence [56]
“Rachel – good Christ, are you crying?”
“It’s nothing. I’m sorry. I’m – I’ve had a certain amount of trouble, this past while.”
Hector is patting my shoulder, and making clucking noises deep in his throat.
“There, there. Never mind. It’ll be all right.”
I don’t deserve such comfort. Tomorrow I’ll be ashamed. But not now.
“Listen,” he is saying. “I don’t know why I should say this, but you know what happens to me? At the crucial moment, my wife laughs. She says she can’t help it – I look funny. Well, shit, I know she can’t help it, but –”
I look into his face then, and for an instant see him living there behind his eyes.
“That’s –”
“Yeh, well there it is. Who would have thought it, you and me talking away like this? You better go on upstairs now, chickadee, or you’ll be a dead duck.”
“Yes.” I stand up, pull myself together, gather the fragments. “I’m – look, I’m sorry I came down, Hector. I don’t know why – I don’t know what I was thinking of –”
Go on, Rachel. Apologize. Go on apologizing for ever, go on until nothing of you is left. Is that what you want the most?
“No – listen, Hector – what I mean is, thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” he says. “The pleasure was all mine.”
The music is paling. The mechanism has almost run its course. The tune is wry in the cold chapel, gapped with silences.
There is a – far far away – where saints and –
bright, bright as –
The carpeted stairs have to be climbed one at a time, only one. If she wakens, all I have to say is hush. Hush, now, sh, it’s all right, go to sleep now, never fear, it’s nothing.
EIGHT
His parents have come back. They came back a week ago and now I haven’t seen him for a week. I saw him almost every night while they were away. No – that’s not quite true. Out of fourteen evenings, I was with him for eight. But anyway, that was more than half. And now I haven’t seen him for a week. What did I say? What did I do or not do, to put him off?
I must not let myself think this way. It’s not as though I ever expected anything to come of it. He was here, and there wasn’t anyone else around, much, and I was here, and that’s all. Of course I know that. There’s never been any doubt in my mind about that.
The last time, we were sitting in the kitchen afterwards, and Jago came in. I said “Oh heavens, look what time it is – I must be going”. I couldn’t sit still and talk for half an hour with Jago there. Oh no. I had to look startled, as though there had been anything to look startled about – I mean, it wasn’t Jago’s business, was it, and what did he care? Jago, grey-haired, solid, did not say a word. He only looked puzzled. I thought it must be my presence that made him look that way, but now I see it was my departure. How angry Nick must have been, to have me act so. No wonder he hasn’t seen me since. I could have handled the situation differently. It would have been easy. I see that now.
– They are sitting in the kitchen, the two of them, drinking coffee with rum. They don’t need to talk. They are quite happy, just like this. The boots outside the back door make a scuffling noise – someone wiping his feet before coming in the house. “Jago is home early tonight. He usually goes to the beer parlour after the movie’s over.” “Never mind,” she says, “it doesn’t matter now.” He is smiling – “No, not now.” Jago enters, makes remarks about the weather – “Due for a thunderstorm – not a breath of air anywhere tonight.” “Too hot for coffee?” – her voice is friendly, casual, unperturbed. Jago says he guesses not, if she’ll just add a slug of rum to his as well.
For a moment it really is soothing, and I can almost believe it happened that way. But the moment evaporates, and I am left with the cold knowledge of how I actually saw it happen, myself rearing up at the door sound, rising gawkily like a tame goose trying to fly. Jago saying nothing, and Nick shrugging. How could I? If only I could say to him, so he would know – look, I didn’t mean to