Stone Diaries, The - Carol Shields [77]
Flett as less than satisfactory; as a matter of fact, she isn’t entirely sure what was meant.
She does believe, though, that "every night" would be a lot to put up with.
Nevertheless she always prepares herself, just in case—her diaphragm in position, though she is repelled by its yellow look of decay and the cold, sick-smelling jelly she smears around its edge.
It’s a bother, and nine times out of ten it isn’t needed, but it seems this is something that has to be put up with. "Try to make your husband believe that you are always ready for his entreaties, even though his actual lovemaking may be sporadic and unpredictable."
Unpredictable, yes, although there are two particular times when Mrs. Flett can be absolutely certain of an episode of ardor: before her husband goes out of town (as a sort of vaccination, she sometimes thinks) and on his return. And tonight, a Wednesday in mid-September, he will be returning on the late train after a few days spent in Winnipeg. The house is orderly, the children asleep, and she herself is bathed, powdered, diaphragmed, and softly nightgowned. "The wearing of pajamas has driven many a man to seek affection elsewhere."
She wonders what his mood will be.
Lately he has been depressed. Not that he’s said anything, but she can feel it. His sixty-fifth birthday is approaching; she knows retirement worries him, the empty width of time ahead and how he will cope with it. Worse than idleness, though, is the sense of being cut off in the world. Lately he has been speaking more frequently of his two brothers in western Canada, and always their names are mentioned with a ping of sorrow. Simon in Edmonton, a drunk, has been out of touch for years, and between Barker and his brother Andrew in Saskatchewan a coolness has fallen. In the old days Andrew wrote frequently, usually, to be sure, asking for hand-outs, but the last two years have brought only an occasional brisk note or a holiday greeting.
Mrs. Flett knows, too, that her husband thinks often about his father in the Orkneys. He wonders if he should write and make inquiries, but the months go by and he puts off writing, almost as though he can’t bear to know what has happened. She, too, thinks often about her father-in-law, Magnus Flett, whom she has never met but who stands in her mind as a tragic figure, abandoned by his wife, dismissed by his three sons, despised, attached to nothing. In a way she loves him more tenderly than she loves her husband, Barker. What exactly had Magnus Flett done to deserve such punishment? The question nudges at her sense of charity, never quite disappearing from view.
Yet now—too late—his son, Barker, pines for reunion.
Recently, another of Barker Flett’s family ties has been rekindled, the most important of life’s ties—that which exists between son and mother. These last few days Barker has been in Winnipeg not for his usual round of agricultural meetings, but to attend the dedication ceremonies of the Clarentine Flett Horticultural Conservatory, a great glass-domed structure set in the middle of Assiniboine Park. The benefactor is one Valdi Goodmansen, the well-known millionaire meatpacker and financier. (Clarentine Flett, who was Barker Flett’s mother, had been run down and killed by a speeding bicycle back in the year 1916, and the rider of the bicycle was Valdi Goodmansen himself, then a lad of seventeen.)
"The terrible guilt I felt at that time has never lifted," Mr. Goodmansen told Mr. Flett over dinner at the Manitoba Club.
"One moment of carelessness, and a human life was erased. If only I had dismounted while turning the corner. Or if I had been traveling at a more reasonable speed. The image will be with me all my life, tied to me in my dreams and in my waking hours, your mother’s poor helpless body thrown against the foundations of the Royal Bank Building, her head striking the edge of the corner stone. If only that stone had been rounded,