The Moons of Jupiter - Alice Munro [101]
“Where do you always hear that?” Douglas said.
“It’s standard. There’s the intelligent sort of love that makes an intelligent choice. That’s the kind you’re supposed to get married on. Then there’s the kind that’s anything but intelligent, that’s like a possession. And that’s the one, that’s the one, everybody really values. That’s the one nobody wants to have missed out on.”
“Standard,” said Douglas.
“You know what I mean. You know it’s true. All sorts of hackneyed notions are true.”
“Hackneyed,” he said. “That’s a word you don’t often hear.” “That’s a sad story,” Julie said.
“Yours were sad too,” I said.
“Mine were really sort of ridiculous. Did you ask him if he was in love with her?”
“Asking wouldn’t have got me anywhere,” I said. “He’d brought me there to counter her with. I was his sensible choice. I was the woman he liked. I couldn’t stand that. I couldn’t stand it. It was so humiliating. I got very touchy and depressed. I told him he didn’t really love me. That was enough. He wouldn’t stand for anybody telling him things about himself.”
WE STOPPED at a country church within sight of the highway.
“Something to soothe the spirit, after all these hard-luck stories, and before the Sunday traffic,” Douglas said.
We walked around the graveyard first, looking at the oldest tomb-stones, reading names and dates aloud.
I read out a verse I found.
“Afflictions sore long time she bore,
Physicians were in vain,
Till God did please to give her ease,
And waft her from her Pain.”
“Waft,” I said. “That sounds nice.”
Then I felt something go over me—a shadow, a chastening. I heard the silly sound of my own voice against the truth of the lives laid down here. Lives pressed down, like layers of rotting fabric, disintegrating dark leaves. The old pain and privation. How strange, indulged, and culpable they would find us—three middle-aged people still stirred up about love, or sex.
The church was unlocked. Julie said that was very trusting of them, even Anglican churches which were supposed to be open all the time were usually locked up nowadays, because of vandals. She said she was surprised the diocese let them keep it open.
“How do you know about dioceses?” said Douglas.
“My father was a parson. Couldn’t you guess?”
It was colder inside the church than outside. Julie went ahead, looking at the Roll of Honour, and memorial plaques on the walls. I looked over the back of the last pew at a row of footstools, where people could kneel to pray. Each stool was covered with needlework, in a different design.
Douglas put his hand on my shoulder blade, not around my shoulders. If Julie turned she wouldn’t notice. He brushed his hand down my back and settled at my waist, applying a slight pressure to the ribs before he passed behind me and walked up the outer aisle, ready to explain something to Julie. She was trying to read the Latin on a stained-glass window.
On one footstool was the Cross of St. George, on another the Cross of St. Andrew.
I hadn’t expected there would be any announcement from him, either while I was telling the story, or after it was over. I did not think that he would tell me that I was right, or that I was wrong. I heard him translating, Julie laughing, but I couldn’t attend. I felt that I had been overtaken—stumped by a truth about myself, or at least a fact, that I couldn’t do anything about. A pressure of the hand, with no promise about it, could admonish and comfort me. Something unresolved could become permanent. I could be always bent on knowing, and always in the dark, about what was important to him, and what was not.
On another footstool there was a dove on a blue ground, with the olive branch in its mouth; on another a lamp, with lines of straight golden stitching to show its munificent rays; on another a white lily. No—it was a trillium. When I made this discovery, I called out for Douglas and Julie to come and see it. I was pleased with this homely emblem, among the more