Mr. Bridge_ A Novel - Evan S. Connell [102]
While she wandered around the deck of the ship studying the ocean and chatting with other tourists, he observed her with a sense of amazement. She was forty-seven years old and this was the first time she had seen an ocean. Of course it was natural, because they lived so far from the ocean, yet he could not get over his amazement. Once he had taken her to Chicago; there she saw Lake Michigan and was greatly impressed. In forty-seven years she had seen Lake Michigan and had viewed the Rocky Mountains a few miles west of Denver, otherwise she knew of nothing larger than Lake Lotawana. Several times she had mentioned how much she would like to see the Grand Canyon.
He often thought about this; it saddened him and filled him with grave wonderment, and caused him to feel obscurely guilty. Perhaps they should not have waited so long to take this trip. They could have visited Europe sooner, seen and done many things. Now it was almost too late. She was passing through life with a neutral and pleasant expression, utterly failing to recognize the world in which she lived: a desperate, harsh, remorseless world where everybody knew there was a piece of paper inside a Chinese fortune cookie. This was more than merely odd. It was more than strange. It was a bit grotesque. Perhaps they should have gambled at Las Vegas and flown to India. There were sights and sounds and experiences far beyond the limits of Kansas City which perhaps they should have shared before this.
And yet there had been so much to do at home. She had been busy with the children. He had been occupied with his career. They had lived reasonably and logically, with fine practicality, and it had come to this. Over halfway through life, possibly much closer to the end than they knew, this was where they found themselves.
108 Foul Weather
Three days before they expected to reach England the ship began to roll as though some immense weight in the hull was sliding from side to side: water sloshed across the portholes, pencils rolled off tables, passengers grabbed for support when they tried to walk, closets creaked, the staterooms grew dark and then light again and dark, the sky was brindled gray, canvas chairs on the promenade deck flapped emptily, and not many people came to lunch. Mr. Bridge, though, had never felt better and was on his feet at the first note of the steward’s gong; and after a big meal he strode around the decks and climbed the ladders and stood with his nose pointing into the wind while he appreciatively sniffed the icy spray. The previous days at sea had been all right, he had enjoyed them too, but this was more to his liking.
The weather got worse. The ship plunged like a wild horse, foam spewed across the bow and crossed the decks with a rushing, spattering hiss, water trickled inside the portholes, bottles and vases fell over, and Mr. Bridge decided he was feeling thirty years younger. He thought it might be fun to play shuffleboard, so he descended to the cabin where he had left his wife with a copy of Reader’s Digest. Now she lay on her bunk. A washcloth was spread over her face and a bottle of medicine stood on the table. He regarded her with silent disapproval and climbed back up to the lounge—steering himself along the tilting corridor with an amused expression—lunged like a fencer at the door, managed to get inside without cracking his head, and looked about hopefully for a shuffleboard opponent. But in the lounge there were just five passengers, every one of them more dead than alive, staring at nothing as though they were made of wax.
And the weather got worse. Several members of the crew entered the lounge and strung ropes from pillar to pillar. The