Duet. Carol Shields
never slept a wink that night. After a week she had still not made up her mind what to do, and by this time she had broken out in a rash. It attacked the thin pink meat of her thighs and I can recall her, while dressing in the closet one morning, raising the hem of her housedress and showing me the mass of red welts. But I don’t remember the teapot. She kept it for a year and used it to water her plants; then somehow it got broken.
Her other story, frequently told, concerned a friend of hers who greatly admired my mother’s decorating talents. The friend, a Mrs Christianson, had written to Canadian Homes suggesting they come to photograph our house for a future issue. For a year my mother waited to hear from the magazine, all the while keeping the house perfect, every chair leg free from dust, every corner cheerful with potted plants. No one ever called, and she came to the conclusion in the end that they were just too hoity-toity (a favourite expression of hers) to bother about Scarborough bungalows.
That was all we had: my father’s adventure in the stairwell, which never developed beyond the scientific rationale for fainting, my mother’s teapot and rash and her nearbrush with fame. And a sort of half-story about something sinister that had happened to Aunt Liddy in Jamaica.
My sister Charleen, who is a poet, believes that we two sisters turned to literature out of simple malnutrition. Our own lives just weren’t enough, she explains. We were underfed, undernourished; we were desperate. So we dug in. And here we are, all these years later, still digging.
On Tuesday Martin felt a cold coming on. He dosed himself with vitamin C and orange juice and went to bed early. He turned up the electric blanket full blast and shivered. His voice dried to a sandy rasp, but he never complained. It is one of the bargains we have.
Years ago, he claims, I put him under a curse by telling him that I loved him because he was so robust. Can I really have said such a thing? It seems impossible, but he swears it; he can even show me the particular park bench in Toronto where, in our courting days, I paid allegiance to his health. It has, he says, placed him under an obligation for the rest of his life. He is unable to enjoy poor health, he is permanently disbarred from hypochondria, he is obliged to be fit. So he went off to the university, his eyes set with fever and his pockets full of Kleenex.
I know the power of the casual curse. I have only to look at my children to see how they become the shapes we prepare for them. When Meredith was little, for instance, she, like any other child, collected stones, and for some reason we seized on it, calling her our little rock collector, our little geologist. Years later, nearly crowded out of her room by specimens, she confessed with convulsions of guilt that she wasn’t interested in rocks any more. In fact, she never really liked them all that much. I saw in an instant that she had been trapped into a box, and I was only too happy to let her out; together we buried the rocks in the back yard. And forgot them.
Another example: Furlong, reviewing my first book for a newspaper, described me, Judith Gill, as a wry observer of human nature. Thus, for him I am always and ever wry. My wryness overcomes even me. I can feel it peeling off my tongue like very thick slices of imported salami, very special, the acidity measured on a meter somewhere in the back of my brain. Furlong has never once suspected that it was he who implanted this wryness in me, a tiny’ seedling which flourished on inception and which I am able to conceal from almost everyone else. For Furlong, though, I can be deeply, religiously, fanatically wry.
Just as for me Martin is strong and ruddy, quintessentially robust. But by the end of the week he was ready to give in. ‘Go to bed,’ I said. ‘Surrender.’
Three days later he was still there, sipping tea, going from aspirin to aspirin.
I brought him the morning mail to cheer him up. ‘Just look at this,’ I said, handing him a milky-white square envelope.
I had already read it. It was an invitation to Furlong’s lunch party in celebration of his new book. A one-thirty luncheon and a reading at three; an eccentric social arrangement, at least in our part of the world.
I squinted at the date over Martin’s shoulder. ‘It’s a Sunday, I think.’
‘It is,’ Martin said. ‘And I think–’ his voice gathered in the raw bottom of his throat, ‘I think it’s Grey Cup Day.’
‘That’s impossible.’
‘I’m sure, Judith. Look at the calendar.’
I counted on my fingers. ‘You’re right.’
He muttered something inaudible from the tumble of sheets.
‘How could he do it?’ I said.
‘Well he did.’
‘He can’t have done it on purpose. Do you think he just forgot when Grey Cup is?’
‘Furlong’s not your average football fan, you know.’
‘Nevertheless,’ I said, breathless with disbelief, ‘to give a literary party on Grey Cup.’
‘For “one who embodies the national ethos,”’ Martin was quoting from a review of Graven Images, ‘he is fairly casual about the folkways of his country.’
‘What’ll we do?’ I said. ‘What can I tell him.’
‘Just that we’re terribly sorry, previous engagement, et cetera.’
‘But Martin, it’s not just us. No one will come. Absolutely no one. Even Roger, worshipper though he be, wouldn’t give up the game for Furlong. He’ll be left high and dry. And there’s his mother to consider.’
‘It’s what they deserve. My God, of all days.’
‘And he’s so vain he’ll probably expect us to come anyway.’
‘Fat chance.’
‘I’d better phone him right away.’
‘The sooner the better.’
‘Right.’
‘And Judith.’
‘What?’
‘Make it a firm no.’
‘Right,’ I said.
But I didn’t have to phone Furlong. He phoned me himself late in the afternoon.
‘Judith,’ he said, racing along. ‘I suppose you got our invitation today. From Mother and me.’
‘Yes, we did but –’
‘Say no more. I understand. It seems I’ve made a colossal bloop.’
‘Grey Cup Day.’
‘Mother says the phone’s been ringing all day. And I ran into Roger at the university. Poor lad, almost bent double with apology. Of course, the instant we realized, we decided on postponement.’
‘That really is the best thing,’ I said, relieved that I would not have to admit we put football before literature in this house.
‘We’ll make it December then, I think. Early December.’
‘Maybe you should check the bowl games,’ I suggested wanting to be helpful.
‘Of course. Mother and I will put our heads together and come up with another date. Now I mustn’t keep you from your work, Judith. How is it coming, by the way?’
‘Well. I think I can honestly say it’s going well.’
‘Good. Good. No more novel-writing aspirations?’ he asked, and for an instant I thought I heard a jealous edge to his voice.
‘No,’ I said. ‘You can consider me cured of that bug.’
‘That’s what it is, a wretched virus. I can’t tell you how I envy you your immunity.’
‘It was madness,’ I said. ‘Pure madness.’
‘That was Furlong on the phone,’