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“I don’t see why not. I’ve been thinking of writing and suggesting to her –”

“Mother, try to realize. I’ve been accepted for the job in Vancouver, the one I applied for. We’re moving at the end of the month.”

“The furniture – whatever could we possibly do about all this furniture? I refuse to sell it, Rachel. I won’t hear of it.”

“We’ll take as much as we can. We may have to sell some of it. Or give it to a rummage sale. There’s an awful lot of old junk here.”

“Rummage sale? My things? I won’t. I simply will not.”

“Yes. We’ll have to.”

“Oh Rachel – it’s mean of you. You’ve turned really nasty and mean, and I can’t see what I’ve ever done to merit it. It’s not fair. It’s not fair!”

“Hush, hush now. Sh, Sh. I know. It’s not fair. You’re quite right. Try not to cry. Here – here’s your handkerchief. Blow your nose. Then you’ll feel better. I’ll get your sleeping pill now. It’ll calm you.”

“I don’t want to move, Rachel. Please.”

“I know. But we have to.”

“But why? Why?”

“Because it’s time.”

“Time? That’s no answer.”

“I know. But it’s all the answer I’ve got.”

“Why do you keep on refusing to talk reasonably, Rachel? What have I done? Is it something I’ve said or done to offend you, dear?”

“No. It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

She sees that I am not going to reply. I cannot, but she does not see that. The crinkled skin of her face looks cruelly exposed, for her tears and her dabbing hands have taken away her facepowder. She looks bewildered, and is, and there is nothing I can do. Tea and a sleeping pill will be more use than any words I could ever find, no matter how I might delve and scrabble in my mind to find the ones that seemed appropriate to me. The fact that I know it’s no use makes it a little easier. She’s not trying wilfully not to see, as I once imagined. And for myself, I don’t really know what it will cost her to leave this place where she has over the years nursed two children, a dead man, some sprightliness of chosen draperies and china, and more dank memories than I dare to dwell upon.

She turns her face away, leans back in her chair, lifts one violet-veined wrist and lets it fall, driftingly slow. Oh Lord. The lady of the camellias, dying on silver screen, circa 1930. Yet I feel like hell, also, at her hurt, the unfeigned part that doesn’t, to her knowledge, ever show. And then, as well, some distant-early-warning system in my own territory tells me we’re not finished with the argument.

“I don’t want to be a nuisance, Rachel. Goodness knows I’ve never wanted to stand in your way. That’s the last thing in the world I’d ever wish to do, believe me. But dear – oh, I don’t know if I should even bring this up, but –”

“What is it?”

“Well, dear, of course I’m not blaming you for not having considered it. Why should you? I mean, you did have all sorts of other things, more interesting things, to consider. I quite see that. But it’s just that –”

“Mother, for heaven’s sake, what is it?”

“I very much doubt,” she says, “that my silly old heart would stand the move.”

The silence between us seems to spread like dusk. It is up to me to speak, and I have prepared some words for this, but now I am afraid to use them. Afraid of what? Not only of damaging her. Perhaps not chiefly that. Afraid, more, of the apparent callousness her ears will hear and mine can’t bear to listen to or admit. Do it, Rachel. Or else quit.

“I have considered that. I’ve considered it quite a lot. But – I think we will just have to take the risk.”

She turns to me. She turns on me.

“I see. That’s how you are, eh? That’s the kind of person you are.”

“Well, in the end – the end – it’s in other hands.”

I’ve spoken so oddly and ambiguously, not knowing I was going to deliver this nineteenth-century cliché until I heard it, compelled out of some semi-malicious hope that she would be bound to be flummoxed by the phrase, and that she might not decently be quite able to deny some sovereignty, even though she still attempts to believe in her physical immortality which must be