A Jest of God - Margaret Laurence [87]
“Are you sure,” Hector enquires, “that you’re talking about your father?”
“No, I guess not. Or not only.”
“You were kind of upset that night, Rachel, and I couldn’t help wondering, although it was none of my business. But then the bad luck you had, having to have an operation and that. Well, I mean to say, I only wanted to say –”
He draws himself up like an unweaponed flagbearer entering battle, summoning courage.
“I only wanted to say, Rachel, that whatever any blabbermouth in this town may or may not be dreaming up, I never uttered so much as one syllable about you, and what’s more, speaking personally, I do not give one damn what kind of operation it may or may not have been.”
At first I don’t get his meaning. Then it comes across. So that is what is being said. “You can imagine why she went into the city – that’s why she has to leave, now, afraid it’ll get to be known – No, it wasn’t that way at all – she didn’t go into the city for that – I heard she went into hospital there because she’d tried to do it herself and it went wrong. Who could he have been, though? Who can say, but I’ve never thought Willard Siddley seemed very happy with his wife, have you?”
I do not know whether to laugh or storm, but find I can do neither. The ironies go on.
“Thank you, Hector. It is very handsome of you to say that. I appreciate it.”
“It’s meant,” he says earnestly, tapping his stomach, “from the bottom of my heart.”
“I know. Thank you.”
For an instant I’m tempted to deny the rumours, to explain, to say to Hector, so he can pass on the message, let them ask Doctor Raven if they don’t believe me. But no. I like it better this way. It’s more fitting.
“Hell’s bells, I nearly forgot to show you!” Hector cries. “My new sign. Can you spare another second before you go? It’s right in here. I’m going to have it put up next week. I thought it would be easier to wait until you and your mother have moved out. You wouldn’t want a lot of ladders crashing around your windows. Look – not bad, eh?”
The new neon sign is vast, with tall sleek lettering. Japonica Chapel.
“Everybody knows perfectly well it’s a funeral establishment,” Hector explains, “so why say so? Lots of people aren’t keen on that word. It’s going to be in crimson, the light. I thought it would show up better than the blue. What do you think?”
“I think it’s – well, I hardly know what to say. It’s impressive.”
“Yeh, but what about the change in wording? You think that’s okay, Rachel?”
“It’s a change, Hector. It’s – evolution.”
I do not know how many bones need be broken before I can walk. And I do not know, either, how many need not have been broken at all.
Make me to hear –
How does it go? What are the words? I can’t have forgotten all the words, surely, the words of the songs, the psalms.
Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which Thou hast broken may rejoice.
We watched until the lights of the town could not be seen any longer. Now only the farm kitchens and the stars are out there to signpost the night. The bus flies along, smooth and confident as a great owl through the darkness, and all the passengers are quiet, some of them sleeping. Beside me sleeps my elderly child.
Where I’m going, anything may happen. Nothing may happen. Maybe I will marry a middle-aged widower, or a longshoreman, or a cattle-hoof-trimmer, or a barrister or a thief. And have my children in time. Or maybe not. Most of the chances are against it. But not, I think, quite all. What will happen? What will happen. It may be that my children will always be temporary, never to be held. But so are everyone’s.
I may become, in time, slightly more eccentric all the time. I may begin to wear outlandish hats, feathered and sequinned and rosetted, and dangling necklaces made from coy and tiny seashells which I’ve gathered myself along the beach and painted coral-pink with nailpolish. And all the kids will laugh, and I’ll laugh, too, in time. I will be light and straight as any feather. The wind will bear me, and I will drift and settle, and drift and settle. Anything may