A Celibate Season. Carol Shields
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so pretty I could see why she might present a fetching target to that yahoo boss.
She reached over to take the baby (which had spit on me, do cleaners take Visa?), but for some reason I didn’t want to give it up, and when she took it and hugged it I felt something like envy! Do you think, Chas, that absence makes the head grow softer?
“Listen, I made a real nice dip,” Jean said. “Would you and Mrs.—Jock—like some?”
“Yer damn right. Pass it to Jock, she needs some meat on her bones.” Thanks a lot, Jessica. But I ploughed my chip into the dip anyway and waxed enthusiastic over the stirred-up onion soup and sour cream.
All the same, Chas, I can see what Jessica means—about poverty being a state of mind, I mean. If I were sexually harassed on a job I wouldn’t stand it for one minute. I’d state flatly that I was going to the Human Rights Commission if he didn’t leave me alone and I’d point out to him that no doubt the restaurant chain wouldn’t be too pleased to see its name dragged through the media. But Jean couldn’t possibly do that, she hasn’t got what it takes, the indignation, the sense of self-worth, the outrage.
I’ve surprised myself, since then, with sudden flashes of anger that attack without warning, like a minor mental blight. I can be listening attentively to a brief when a chance turn of phrase will trigger it, and I feel possessed, suddenly (as in possession, exorcist style), and I get a shaking in my limbs and a sort of blindness that blocks out my surroundings. Isn’t it odd? I mean, rationally I’ve—we’ve, you and I—long since come to terms with our masculine and feminine roles, and God knows you’re the epitome of fairness, or else why would you be back home coping with Greg and the Mothers? I don’t know—this rage must come from some primordial identification I’m not even aware of. Do you agree that this is odd?
Much love,
jock
P.S. Greg’s behaviour at Thanksgiving wasn’t too great either. What is eating him I wonder?
P.P.S. The hell with Mrs. Finstead.
29 Sweet Cedar Drive
North Vancouver, B.C.
15 October
Dear Jock,
Poverty as a state of mind, eh?
Hmmmm, yes. I can see what you mean. But have you and your snorting pal, Jessica, considered, as a poverty determinate, the effect of bodily health? One thing I’ve learned this week: a three-day bout of wrenching cramps and diarrhoea goes a long way toward diminishing your belief in your life choices or even in your viability as a human being.
Yes, dear Jock, we’ve all taken to our beds, Mia on Thursday, Greg on Friday, and I on Saturday morning. Now don’t panic, Jock, don’t reach for that phone, don’t grab a plane. We are, it seems, on the mend—at least I can now hold up a newspaper without being overcome by weakness.
The worst of it is, it seems to be my fault, and I’m being condemned on all sides as a careless parent, irresponsible citizen, etc. etc. Dr. Hopkins, who broke his physician’s oath by paying us a house call—on his way to the golf course—came out loudly and rapped me on the knuckles with: “I thought it was common knowledge that…” Not easy to take from a man with a good suntan, but easier than listening to your mother’s ringing remark that she was “taken aback” that I hadn’t known better.
Actually, it was the turkey’s fault. Foul Fowl. For several days following Thanksgiving we feasted on his glistening flesh, simply stripping away our protein needs as hunger prompted. For a brief while I thought I’d discovered a way to avoid the cooking and planning of meals—just keep a plump, roasted turkey in the fridge and grab a fistful of nourishment when necessary. Unfortunately, we also scraped away at the stuffing—delicious, if I do say so—which was rapidly building up vicious microbes and gathering strength for a full-scale salmonella attack.
But we are, as I say, recovering. Chastened and emptied out, we three shuffle around the house with our cups of steaming tea and vegetable broth. Greg has never been so civil, going so far as to inquire whether I slept well last night. Rest and liquids seem to be the standard treatment. We kept to our rooms at first, meeting only occasionally in the neighbourhood of the bathroom door, but now we’re beginning to assemble in the family room for a little passive TV viewing.
And it’s slightly surreal to be sitting snugly indoors, wrapped in dressing gowns and blankets and peering into the tube at the tumult of the universe. Well, not the universe exactly, but at what’s happening here in B.C. No doubt you’re keeping track of things from Ottawa, but I wonder if you can feel it as it really is. This strike seems to be inflaming passions from every side of the political spectrum, much more so than the myriads of strikes we’ve lived through in the past. It’s all crazy out here. Management comes on the air battering away in the chilly relentless voice that seems to go with corporate success, and then, the next minute, we get a close-up of a union leader shouting or weeping or going through a set of agit-prop calisthenics that makes you want to cringe and cry at the same time. And then the inevitable pictures of riot police wrestling some overweight, beer-guzzling, inarticulate working joe to the ground. Dogs straining on leashes for a quick snack. What the hell is happening? I mean, is this really a police state? It’s hard to believe when we sit here, insulated and safe and sipping our way back to health, that there’s a bunch of bad guys out there putting the hammer-lock on us. Down among the workers there’s a certain amount of tearful we-shall-overcome corniness, as you might guess, and some embarrassing rhetoric too, but the main “feel” of the crowd when the busloads of scabs go by seems to be numbed outrage and a sense of disbelief that this could be happening in our own beautiful rainforest.
I have a problem with the whole thing, but not Sue Landis, our Ms. Clean. She’s whole-heartedly on the side of the union. She phoned to say she wouldn’t be able to come to clean on Monday because she and her “sex squad” were rigging up a little dramatic protest, but when she heard we were all sick here she promised to drop over in the evening. Well, she whirled in about six, made us poached eggs on toast, changed the sheets, swabbed the bathroom and kitchen, and generally got us glued back together. (Your reference to “getting chummy with the household help” struck me as a little raw, lovey. This girl—whom you would like tremendously, I know—is bringing order and healing into our ailing household.)
In some ways it hasn’t been a bad few days. Relations among the three of us have grown almost weirdly congenial. Mia, the first to bounce back, mans the teapot and fluffs the pillows. Greg has thus far had the grace not to accuse me directly of poisoning him—in fact he is mainly a silent presence. I realize drat this is the first time in a couple of years that I haven’t been worried about where he was and what he was up to. A respite. All of us, despite the backdrop of Africa, international terrorism, union bashing, and the ozone layer, seem to have dropped into a sweet, peaceful pocket just outside of time. (Remember that snowfall back in ‘87, how we couldn’t move for two days and how quiet it was, just us? How we had the fire going all day long and listened to those old Dixieland records by the hour?)
Everyone’s been kind. The Finsteads sent a coffee cake, as yet untouched. My mother phones daily, inquires into our health, and then launches into the details of hers—a recital that takes us from the backs of her burning eyes to the bottoms of her stiffening ankles. Maybe you could drop her a line. She seems a little confused these days. Last night she said something about you being in Halifax. I told her it was Ottawa, and she said of course, of course—Ottawa.
Your mother’s dropped in several times—keeping a careful distance—with donations of soup as well as a tall bottle of brilliant green microbe-killer she’s invented. “It does wonders for me when I’m down,” she said. “A secret recipe.”
She always asks how you are and if you’ve phoned lately. I told her you and I had decided to write letters instead, and she seemed to think this wonderfully quaint. She wishes, she said, that she had time to write letters, and maybe after the Fall Fair…Implying that I have nothing but time—or am I being paranoid? I didn’t bother telling her we were trying to trim the