Swann by Carol Shields

neighbourhood would stay out of the roses. “I hope you like roses.” She smiled at Jimroy. Her middle-aged face was soft and puffed, rather like a rose itself.
    He knew nothing about roses. He knew none of the names for any of the flowers in the garden or even the name of the bent little tree that stood protected by its own low wallof pink brick. The yard in Winnipeg, his and Audrey’s, had contained nothing but a patch of grass, a pair of lilac bushes and what Audrey liked to call her veg patch, her rows of onions and radishes and runner beans. “I hope you like roses.” Mrs. Flanner turned her pink face in his direction.
    Reluctant to crush her open look of hopefulness, he exclaimed in his awful voice, “I adore roses,” and heard himself continue, “Roses, as a matter of fact, happen to be my favourite type of bloom.”
    Already he was imagining himself carrying his morning coffee into the Flanners’ garden, along with his books and papers. There were several garden chairs grouped on the flagged patio. And the little brick wall would serve nicely as a kind of desk. He felt certain that the sun—a whole year of sun—would do him good. As for the Flanners’ roses, he would put up a notice somewhere, perhaps run an advert in the local paper. There must be thousands of gardeners in this part of the world.
    Marjorie Flanner did
not
treat him as though he were a person of no consequence. She made him a gin and tonic, stirred it carefully, and decorated it with a frilled lemon slice, and they sat for an hour on the wrought-iron garden chairs discussing details about the house. The neighbours were “tremendous,” she said, all of them Stanford people; he would be besieged with dinner invitations. Hmmmmm, said Jimroy, who intended to ignore the neighbours. About the rent, she said, would he mind very much giving her postdated cheques. Not at all, Jimroy said, and immediately pulled out his chequebook, asking in a polite, faintly stagy voice, if she would like a bank reference.
    At this she almost, but not quite, giggled. “Heavens, no. I mean, in a way I
do
know you. That is,” she adjusted her pretty legs, “that is, my discussion group’s just done yourbook on Starman. Someone in the group suggested, way back last year I think it was, that we try one of Morton Jimroy’s books.”
    He fixed his eyes on the brick wall and tried not to look pleased.
    “So you’re hardly a stranger, Professor Jimroy. But I’m afraid I haven’t read your other book, the one on Pound.”
    “Don’t apologize please —” Jimroy began, conscious of a small pink wound opening in the vicinity of his heart, a phenomenon that occurred always when such blithe confessions were brought forth. Irrational. Paranoid.
    “But then —” Marjorie Flanner gave a small laugh—“I haven’t really read Ezra Pound either. I mean, not really.”
    “Pound can be difficult,” he said kindly. Even more kindly he added, “And he can be an awful old bore too.”
    Then they both laughed. He imagined their laughter and the blended tinkling of their ice cubes floating through the lathe fence and reaching the ears of the friendly neighbours, the ones who soon would be pressing dinner invitations on him. He dared another look at Marjorie Flanner’s warm brown legs and wondered if he should suggest dinner some place. No.
    She was back on the subject of roses. Five years ago she and Josh had brought in a load of special soil. Roses like a sandy loam with just the right balance of minerals. Whenever Josh came home from one of his trips he always brought back a new rose cutting. It was illegal, of course, bringing rose cuttings into the country, and so he had become adept at smuggling. There was this little loose piece of lining in his suitcase, and it was under this flap that he hid his contraband.
    Josh the Nobel Prize winner, a smuggler of rose cuttings. Jimroy found the fact discreditable but humanizing.(Later, after he moved in, he would wander