Too much happiness_ stories - Alice Munro [32]
Still reasonably covered by my slip, I reached back and unhooked the fastenings of my brassiere, then somehow hauled the whole thing free of my arms and around to the front, to be discarded in one movement. Next came my garter belt, then my panties—when they were off I balled them up and hid them under the brassiere. I put my feet back into my shoes.
“Bare feet,” said Mrs. Winner, sighing. It seemed the slip was too tiresome for her to mention, but after I had again taken my shoes off she said, “Bare. Do you know the meaning of the word? Bare.”
I pulled the slip over my head and she handed me a bottle of lotion and said, “Rub yourself with this.”
It smelled like Nina. I rubbed some on my arms and shoulders, the only parts of myself that I could touch with Mrs. Winner standing there watching, and then we went out into the hall, my eyes avoiding the mirrors, and she opened another door and I went into the next room alone.
It had never occurred to me that Mr. Purvis might be waiting in the same naked condition as myself, and he was not. He wore a dark blue blazer, a white shirt, an ascot scarf (I did not know it was called that), and gray slacks. He was hardly taller than I was, and he was thin and old, mostly bald, and with wrinkles in his forehead when he smiled.
It had not occurred to me either that the undressing might be a prelude to rape, or to any ceremony but supper. (And indeed it was not to be, to judge by the appetizing smells in the room and the silver-lidded dishes on the sideboard.) Why had I not thought of such a thing? Why was I not more apprehensive? It had something to do with my ideas about old men. I thought that they were not only incapable but too worn down, made too dignified—or depressed—by various trials and experiences and their own unsavory physical decline to have any interest left. I wasn’t stupid enough to think that my being undressed had nothing to do with the sexual uses of my body, but I took it more as a dare than as a preliminary to further trespass, and my going along with it had more to do with the folly of pride, as I have said, more to do with some shaky recklessness than with anything else.
Here I am, I might have wished to say, in the skin of my body which does not shame me any more than the bareness of my teeth. Of course that was not true and in fact I had broken out in a sweat, although not for fear of any violation.
Mr. Purvis shook hands with me, making no sign of awareness that I lacked clothing. He said it was a pleasure for him to meet Nina’s friend. Just as if I was somebody Nina had brought home from school.
Which in a way was true.
An inspiration to Nina, he said I was.
“She admires you very much. Now, you must be hungry. Shall we see what they’ve provided for us?”
He lifted the lids and set about serving me. Cornish hens, which I took to be pygmy chickens, saffron rice with raisins, various finely cut vegetables fanned out at an angle and preserving their color more faithfully than the vegetables that I regularly saw. A dish of muddy green pickles and a dish of dark red preserve.
“Not too much of these,” Mr. Purvis said of the pickles and the preserve. “A bit hot to start with.”
He ushered me back to the table, turned again to the sideboard and served himself sparingly, and sat down.
There was a pitcher of water on the table, and a bottle of wine. I got the water. Serving me wine in his house, he said, would probably be classed as a capital offense. I was a little disappointed as I had never had a chance to drink wine. When we went to the Old Chelsea, Ernie always expressed his satisfaction that no wine or liquor was served on Sundays. Not only did he refuse to drink, on Sundays or any other day, but he disliked seeing others do it.
“Now Nina tells me,” said Mr. Purvis, “Nina tells me that you are studying English philosophy, but I think it must be English and philosophy, am I right? Because surely there is not so great a supply of English philosophers?”
In spite of his warning, I had taken a dollop of green