Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood [183]
Roz could see how it must have been. Who can withstand gratitude? (Although gratitude is a complicated emotion, as she has had reason to learn.) Still, what woman can resist a man she’s rescued? There’s something erotic about bandages, and of course clothing would have had to have been removed: jacket, shirt, undershirt. Then what? Her mother would have swung into her washing mode. And where was this poor man going to spend the night? He was on his way to join the army, he said (although he did not in fact join it, not officially); he was far from home – where was home? Winnipeg – and his money was gone. The thugs had taken it.
For her mother, who’d spent her twenties taking care of her own ailing mother, who’d never seen a man without his shirt on, this must have been the most romantic thing that had ever happened to her. The only romantic thing. Whereas for her father it was just an episode. Or was it? Maybe he fell in love with her, this screaming, silent woman who had come to his aid. Maybe he fell in love with her house, a little. Maybe she meant shelter. In her father’s rendition, it was the screaming he always mentioned, with considerable admiration. Whereas her mother mentioned the blood.
Whatever it was, they did end up married, though it was not a Catholic wedding; which meant that in the eyes of the Church they were not married at all. For her father’s sake, her mother had placed herself in an unremitting state of sin. No wonder she felt he owed her something.
Ah, thinks Roz, sitting in the cellar in her orange bathrobe. God, you foxy old joker, you certainly do fool around. Changing the rules. Giving out contradictory instructions – save people, help people, love people; but don’t touch. God is a good listener. He doesn’t interrupt. Maybe this is why Roz likes talking to him.
Soon after the ejection of Mrs. Morley, Mr. Carruthers vanishes too, leaving his room in a mess, taking only a suitcase, owing a month’s rent. Uncle George moves into his room, and Uncle Joe into Mrs. Morley’s old room, and then Miss Hines gives notice because the house is no longer respectable. “Where is the money going to come from?” asks Roz’s mother.
“Don’t worry, Aggie,” says her father. And somehow money does appear, not very much money but enough, and out of nowhere, it seems, because her father doesn’t have a job and neither do Uncle George and Uncle Joe. Instead they go to the racetrack. Occasionally they take Roz with them, on Saturdays when she’s not at school, and put a dollar on a horse for her. Roz’s mother never goes, and neither – Roz concludes, looking around at the outfits – do any other mothers. The women there are babes.
In the evenings the uncles sit at the card table in Uncle George’s new room, and drink and smoke and play poker. If Roz’s mother isn’t home her father sometimes joins them. Roz hangs around, looking over their shoulders, and eventually they teach her how to play. “Don’t show what you’re thinking,” they tell her. “Play close to your chest. Know when to fold.”
After she’s learned the game they show her how to gamble. At first it’s just with poker chips; but one day Uncle George gives her five dollars. “That’s your stake,” he tells her. “Never bet more than your stake.” It’s not advice he follows, himself.
Roz gets good. She learns to wait: she counts the drinks they have, she watches the level in the bottle go down. Then she moves in.
“This little lady’s a killer,” says Uncle George admiringly. Roz beams.
It helps that she’s playing seriously, whereas the uncles and her father aren’t, not really. They play as if they’re expecting a phone call. They play as if they’re filling in the time.
All of a sudden