Stone Diaries, The - Carol Shields [65]
Both Daisy and Barker Flett felt cowardly about this announcement, and awaited a reply with some embarrassment.
The erotic realm is our nearest approach to the wild half of our nature. So thinks Barker Flett. There is a part of the human self that is unclassifiable. This is what he must learn to accept. And to be open to visitations of ardor without the thought of shame stealing in through every window. Why must everything be flattened by the iron of goodness and badness? Why?
He confesses to Daisy that he has in the past paid money for the attentions of women. She, in turn, resting her fingers lightly on his hair, confesses her true state: that she is untouched (her word), that something went wrong in her brief marriage to Harold A.
Hoad; she’s not sure what it was, but she may possibly have been at fault in the matter. He does not want to hear this; at this time in his life he needs all Daisy’s strong feelings for himself.
These kinds of confessions, these points of honor, are almost always comic when viewed up close—and equally comic when viewed from a distance. All that unnecessary humiliation and preening honesty. And afterward, regret. Was any of it really necessary? Of course not.
One thing puzzles Barker Flett: he cannot understand how Daisy’s nine years of widowhood were spent (in much the same way Daisy is unable to imagine how her father’s youth in Stonewall was passed—year after year after year). He can picture Daisy darting about Bloomington, well dressed, nicely shod, prettily gloved, a healthy, hearty American girl who swims, walks, dances, and plays golf. But what did she do?
"I suppose you must have pursued studies of some kind. Attending lectures."
She shakes her head.
"Reading?"
Another shake.
"Of course there was your father’s household to look after."
"Well"—she pauses—"we had Cora-Mae Milltown, you see. All those years. And then Maria."
"You must have done something with your time," he prods.
"Charities? The Red Cross?"
She looks blank, then brightens. "The garden," she says. "I looked after the garden."
"The garden?"
"Yes."
"Ah," he says, "ah." A week later he makes an offer of purchase for a large house on The Driveway near Dow’s Lake.
The house, solidly built of stone and brick, is situated on a triple lot and possesses a garden that has seen better days.
The Things People Had to Say About the Flett–Goodwill Liaison The Prime Minister of the Dominion, himself a bachelor, said, on hearing of the marriage between Barker Flett and Daisy Goodwill:
"Marriage is the highest calling, and after that is parenthood and after that the management of the nation."
The Minister of Agriculture exclaimed to his wife upon reading the marriage announcement in the newspaper: "Good God, Flett’s got himself married. And I always thought the bloke was queer as a bent kipper."
Mrs. Donaldson, Barker Flett’s housekeeper, said, bafflingly: "Out of the frying pan, into the fire."
Simon Flett in Edmonton sent a crumpled five dollar bill to his brother and the single word: "Bravo." Andrew Flett from Climax, Saskatchewan, wrote: "May the light of Jesus shine on you both."
Mrs. Dick Greene of Bloomington, Indiana, said, in a warm, congratulatory note to Daisy: "Here, in a phrase, is my recipe for a happy marriage: ‘Bear and forbear’."
Fraidy Hoyt said (to herself): "She’s lost her head, not her heart. I thought she had more sense. A young wife, an old husband—a prescription for disaster, if you believe in the wisdom of folktales."
Mrs. Arthur Hoad said: "Disgusting. Incestuous. Obscene. Without a doubt he has money."
The telegram from the Cuyler Goodwills said: "Congratulations and good wishes as you set out on the happy highway of life."
To himself, Cuyler Goodwill said, "He’s almost as old as I am. He’ll be away from home a good deal. He’ll dampen passion with a look or a word. My poor Daisy."
"Bambini, bambini," Maria shouted, making a rocking cradle of her arms, and for once everyone understood what she was saying.
Daisy Goodwill’s own thoughts on her marriage are not recorded, for