Collected Stories. Carol Shields
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last fall, all those bulbs I put in?”
“Oh,” I said, remembering.
She looked at me squarely: “You don’t mind as much as I do, do you?”
“Of course I do. You know I do.”
“Tell me the truth.”
What could I say? I’ve always been impressed by the accuracy of Ivy’s observations. “The truth is—”
“The truth is—?” she helped me along.
“I guess I’m ready.”
“Ready for what?” Her eyes filled with tears. This was a difficult time for us. Christopher had died in January. He was a tough kid and lived a good five years longer than any of us ever thought he would. His death was not unexpected, but still, Ivy and I were feeling exceptionally fragile.
“Ready for what?” she asked again.
“For something,” I admitted. “For anything, I guess.”
The first house we look at seems perfect. The settled neighborhood is dense with trees and shrubbery and reminds us both of our part of Toronto. There are small repairs that need doing but nothing major. Best of all, from the dining room there can be seen a startling lop of blue water meeting blue sky.
I point this out to Ivy; a view was one of the things we had put on our list. There is also a fireplace, another must, and a capacious kitchen with greenhouse windows overlooking a garden.
“And look at the bulbs,” I point out. “Tulips halfway up. Daffodils.”
“Lilies,” Ivy says.
“I think we’ve struck it lucky,” I tell the real-estate woman who’s showing us around, a Mrs. Marjorie Little. (“Call me Marge,” she’d said to us with west-coast breeziness.)
Afterward, in the car, Ivy is so quiet I have to prompt her. “Well?”
Marge Little, sitting at the wheel, peers at me, then at Ivy.
“It’s just,” Ivy begins, “it’s just so depressing.”
Depressing? I can’t believe she’s saying this. A view, central location, a fireplace. Plus bulbs.
“Well,” Ivy says slowly, “it’s a divorce house. You must have noticed?”
I hadn’t. “A divorce house? How do you know?”
“I looked in the closets. Her clothes were there but his weren’t.”
“Oh.”
“And half the pictures had been taken off the wall. Surely you noticed that.”
I shake my head.
“I know it sounds silly, but wouldn’t you rather move into a house with some good”—she pauses—“some good vibrations?”
“Vibrations?”
“Did you notice the broken light in the bathroom? I’ll bet someone threw something at it. In a rage.”
“We could always fix the light. And the other things. And with our own furniture—”
Ivy is an accountant. Once I heard a young man in her firm describe her as a crack accountant. For a number of years now she’s been a senior partner. When this same young man heard she was leaving because of my transfer, he couldn’t help ragging her a little, saying he thought women didn’t move around at the whim of their husbands anymore, and that, out of principle, she ought to refuse to go to Vancouver or else arrange some kind of compromise life—separate apartments, for instance, with weekend rendezvous in Winnipeg.
Ivy had howled at this. She’s a positive, good-natured woman and, as it turned out, she had no trouble finding an opening in a good Vancouver firm at senior level. As I say, she’s positive. Which is why her apprehension over good or bad vibrations is puzzling. Can it be she sees bad times ahead for the two of us? Or is it only that she wants solid footing after these long years with Christopher? Neither of us is quite glued back together again. Not that we ever will be.
“I can’t help it,” Ivy is saying. “It just doesn’t feel like a lucky house. There’s something about—”
Marge Little interrupts with a broad smile. “I’ve got all kinds of interesting houses to show you. Maybe you’ll like the next one better.”
“Does it have good vibes?” Ivy asks, laughing a little to show she’s only half-serious.
“I don’t know,” Marge Little says. “They don’t put that kind of info on the fact sheet.”
The next house is perched on the side of the canyon. No, that’s not quite true. It is, in fact, falling into the canyon. I notice, but don’t mention, the fact that the outside foundation walls are cracked and patched. Inside, the house is alarmingly empty; the cool settled air seems proof that it’s been vacant for some time.
Marge consults her fact sheet. Yes, the house has been on the market about six months. The price has been reduced twice. But—she glances at us—perhaps we noticed the foundation …
“Yes,” I say. “Hopeless.”
“Damn,” Ivy says.
We look at two more houses; both have spectacular views and architectural distinction. But one is a bankruptcy sale and the other is a divorce house. By now I’m starting to pick up the scent: it’s a compound of petty carelessness and strenuous neglect, as though the owners had decamped in a hurry, angry at the rooms themselves.
To cheer ourselves up, the three of us have lunch in a sunny Broadway restaurant. It seems extraordinary that we can sit here and see mountains that are miles away; the thought that we will soon be able to live within sight of these mountains fills us with optimism. We order a little wine and linger in the sunlight. Vancouver is going to be an adventure. We’re going to be happy here. Marge Little, feeling expansive, tells us about her three children and about the problem she has keeping her weight down. “Marge Large they’ll be calling me soon,” she says. It’s an old joke, we sense, and the telling of it makes us feel we’re old friends. She got into the business, she says, because she loves houses. And she has an instinct for matching houses with people. “So don’t be discouraged,” she tells us. “We’ll find the perfect place this afternoon.”
We drive through narrow city streets to a house where a famous movie idol grew up. His mother still lives in the house, a spry, slightly senile lady in her eighties. The tiny house—we quickly see it is far too small for us—is crowded with photographs of the famous son. He beams at us from the hallway, from the dining room, from the bedroom bureau.
“Oh, he’s a good boy. Comes home every two or three years,” his mother tells us, her large teeth shining in a diminished face. “And once I went down there, all the way down to Hollywood, on an airplane. He paid my way, sent me a ticket. I saw his swimming pool. They all have swimming pools. He has a cook, a man who does all the meals, so I didn’t have to lift a finger for a whole week. What an experience, like a queen. I have some pictures someplace I could show you—”
“That would be wonderful,” Marge Little says, “but”—she glances at her watch—“I’m afraid we have another appointment.”
“—I saw those pictures just the other day. Now where—? I think they’re in this drawer somewhere. Here, I knew it. Take a look at this. Isn’t that something? That’s his swimming pool. Kidney-shaped. He’s got another one now, even bigger.”
“Beautiful,” Ivy says.
“And here he is when he was little. See this? He’d be about nine there. We took a trip east. That’s him and his dad standing by Niagara Falls. Here’s another—”
“We really have to—”
“A good boy. I’ll say that for him. Didn’t