A Jest of God - Margaret Laurence [76]
I am not going to lose it. It is mine. I have a right to it. That is the only thing I know with any certainty.
But where will I go? What will I do? The same questions, over and over, and never any answers. If only I could talk to somebody.
Nick – listen –
No. Don’t do that, Rachel. Everything only hurts more than before, when you leave off talking to him and acknowledge that he hasn’t heard. I have to speak aloud to someone. I have to. But I don’t know anyone.
Yes, I do. Only one person. And I’ve avoided her, gone to see her only rarely and only out of conscience, all of which she knows. Since school began again, I’ve hardly spoken to her. She doesn’t drop into my classroom any more, bringing potted plants or the other quirky gifts she used to place on my desk – once it was a tin tea-canister with scenes of New York, that she’d got free with detergent and thought I might like. Now she knows I don’t want them, so she stays away. Yet she’s the only one I can think of.
“Are you going out, Rachel?” Mother says.
“Yes. But only for an hour. To Calla’s.”
“You won’t be gone long, will you, dear?”
“No. Not long. I promise.”
“That’s all right, then, dear.”
She sighs a little, as though relieved. She believes me because she must, I guess. If I came back late a thousand nights, I now see, and then told her I’d only be away an hour, she’d still believe me. As I leave, she looks at me trustingly, like a child.
Calla has painted the outside door of her apartment. I marvel that they allowed her to, whoever they might be. I’d never try, anticipating someone’s refusal. The door is quite a mild lilac, but in this warren of cream and beige doors, it makes its presence known. She’d do it and ask afterwards. I wish I were like that.
“Rachel – well, hello. Come on in.”
I don’t know what to say to her. She takes my coat, fusses me to a chair, slaps on the kettle for coffee. She is still in her teacher clothes – navy blue skirt which makes her hips and rump look like oxen’s, and a green long-sleeved smock that bears dashes and smears of poster paints.
“I haven’t even changed yet,” she says. “I’ve just been – Rachel, what’s the matter?”
“Why should you think there’s anything the matter?”
“Only that you look like death warmed over, that’s all. Honey, what is it?”
“I – wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you – but now I don’t believe I can.”
“Rachel, listen –” Calla is standing beside me, and her voice compels me to look at her. Her face looks as though she were trying very hard to get something across, to explain in words of genuine simplicity to someone who might find everything difficult to comprehend. “I don’t know what it is, and if you don’t want to say, then okay. But if you want to say, then I’ll listen, whatever it is. And whatever it is, if you need to get away sometimes, you can always come here. I won’t ask any questions.”
“How can you say that? Wouldn’t you make any conditions?”
“You mean, what would I ask from you? I don’t know. I hope I wouldn’t ask anything. But I can’t guarantee. I’d try – that’s all.”
“Whatever it was, with me, even if it was something you hated? I could still come here?”
“I guess I can’t promise. You have to gamble on where the limits are. I don’t know where they are.”
“Calla –”
“Honey, it’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right. Okay – so go ahead and cry. It’s fine. It doesn’t matter. Here – have a Kleenex.”
Then, finally, I’m sufficiently restored to myself. She hands me a lighted cigarette and brings coffee.
“What if I was pregnant, Calla?”
She doesn’t reply for a moment, as though she were considering carefully what to say.
“Staying in Manawaka wouldn’t be a very good thing, but you might have to, until after, when you could get organized,” she says. “If your mother couldn’t take it, the only thing to do, probably, would be to find a housekeeper for her so she could stay where she is. You could move in here, if you wanted. Or if you