in her, a great, starving loneliness. She had always banished those around her, scorning their foolish games, seeking aloneness. Now he had violated that aloneness, pried apart the four corners of her world, inviting her to step outside, filling her with other needs and trading his meadow for them.
She winced, and not solely from the conveyer belt starting up again with a shrill whine, but from where her thoughts had taken her. For just as beauty of face goes no further than to bring attention to the person beneath, so was marriage a sham, bringing attention to silly things like rings and veils and nice kitchens, distracting the mind from fancy pressed suits getting exchanged for oilskins, and babies swelling out bellies, and the eternity of days to come, ravaged by the deadening detail of domestics.
A blast of cold air struck her, and she shivered, laying down her knife and buttoning the top button of the sweater she wore beneath her frock. A side door opened beyond the faulty conveyer belt, letting in a flash of light that vanished instantly the door shut, like a star sucked from its nebulae and extinguished in a dark hole. Which was exactly how she felt walking to work each morning: like a body forced through light, then sucked inside a dark hole. No wonder she needed to be sanctified. No wonder her thoughts kept turning to the desiring eyes of Sylvanus Now. She conjured again the sweetness of his meadow. Even those times he carried her across the brook to visit his mother were nice, no matter the old woman’s quietude—or aloofness, for she appeared that, Adelaide thought, aloof and a bit disapproving of her son’s bringing home a girl from up-along somewhere. But no matter. That was the very thing Adelaide liked about her: her keeping to herself, knitting in her rocker and watching out the window as the kettle’s humming filled the room around her.
Sure, once, when Sylvanus had gone to fetch something, and she, Adelaide, had been sitting back on the daybed, nodding hypnotically to the clicking of the old woman’s needles, her cheek fanned by the same breeze as was fanning through the window onto the old woman’s fissured cheek, she, Adelaide, had actually slept.
Another scream from the broken conveyor belt and Adelaide quailed, her knife falling from her hand. Picking it up, she wiped it clean against her apron and cursed this hellish hole that wouldn’t allow even for a waft of thought on this cold, drizzly morning.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE LAST SCHOONER SAILS
“E LECTRIC WASHER ,” pleaded Ivy that evening as Adelaide and her mother trudged wearily into the house, still wearing their frocks, and staring aghast at the sorted bundles of dirty clothes spread out over the floor, boots strewn about, and plastic balls and smatterings of pebbles spilling from an old sun-bleached plastic bucket. “Can we? can we please? ” “
“Name of gawd, can we what ?” cried Florry. “
“Get an electric washer when we gets electricity.”
“Praise the Lord, is that what you’re waiting for? How come you got nothing done?” wailed Florry, eyes anguishing past the dirtied clothes and onto the dirtied dishes covering the sink. “And where’s the youngsters—where’s all the youngsters?”
“I sent them out so’s I could get some washing done, but then the sink plugged—” “In this weather? You sent them out in this weather— praise the Lord, and what’re you doing, starting the washing on a Wednesday—and this late in the day?”
“Because I can’t do it tomorrow. I’m going to Carol Ann’s,” she ended pleadingly. “Her father’s showing the new western show and she said I can stay and watch. That old sink’s always plugging up. If we ever gets electricity—”
“Electricity!” scoffed Adelaide, picking her way across the kitchen, shrugging out of her frock. “What’s that going to do for a plugged sink? And who’ll be taking care of the house whilst you’re watching shows in the middle of
She winced, and not solely from the conveyer belt starting up again with a shrill whine, but from where her thoughts had taken her. For just as beauty of face goes no further than to bring attention to the person beneath, so was marriage a sham, bringing attention to silly things like rings and veils and nice kitchens, distracting the mind from fancy pressed suits getting exchanged for oilskins, and babies swelling out bellies, and the eternity of days to come, ravaged by the deadening detail of domestics.
A blast of cold air struck her, and she shivered, laying down her knife and buttoning the top button of the sweater she wore beneath her frock. A side door opened beyond the faulty conveyer belt, letting in a flash of light that vanished instantly the door shut, like a star sucked from its nebulae and extinguished in a dark hole. Which was exactly how she felt walking to work each morning: like a body forced through light, then sucked inside a dark hole. No wonder she needed to be sanctified. No wonder her thoughts kept turning to the desiring eyes of Sylvanus Now. She conjured again the sweetness of his meadow. Even those times he carried her across the brook to visit his mother were nice, no matter the old woman’s quietude—or aloofness, for she appeared that, Adelaide thought, aloof and a bit disapproving of her son’s bringing home a girl from up-along somewhere. But no matter. That was the very thing Adelaide liked about her: her keeping to herself, knitting in her rocker and watching out the window as the kettle’s humming filled the room around her.
Sure, once, when Sylvanus had gone to fetch something, and she, Adelaide, had been sitting back on the daybed, nodding hypnotically to the clicking of the old woman’s needles, her cheek fanned by the same breeze as was fanning through the window onto the old woman’s fissured cheek, she, Adelaide, had actually slept.
Another scream from the broken conveyor belt and Adelaide quailed, her knife falling from her hand. Picking it up, she wiped it clean against her apron and cursed this hellish hole that wouldn’t allow even for a waft of thought on this cold, drizzly morning.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE LAST SCHOONER SAILS
“E LECTRIC WASHER ,” pleaded Ivy that evening as Adelaide and her mother trudged wearily into the house, still wearing their frocks, and staring aghast at the sorted bundles of dirty clothes spread out over the floor, boots strewn about, and plastic balls and smatterings of pebbles spilling from an old sun-bleached plastic bucket. “Can we? can we please? ” “
“Name of gawd, can we what ?” cried Florry. “
“Get an electric washer when we gets electricity.”
“Praise the Lord, is that what you’re waiting for? How come you got nothing done?” wailed Florry, eyes anguishing past the dirtied clothes and onto the dirtied dishes covering the sink. “And where’s the youngsters—where’s all the youngsters?”
“I sent them out so’s I could get some washing done, but then the sink plugged—” “In this weather? You sent them out in this weather— praise the Lord, and what’re you doing, starting the washing on a Wednesday—and this late in the day?”
“Because I can’t do it tomorrow. I’m going to Carol Ann’s,” she ended pleadingly. “Her father’s showing the new western show and she said I can stay and watch. That old sink’s always plugging up. If we ever gets electricity—”
“Electricity!” scoffed Adelaide, picking her way across the kitchen, shrugging out of her frock. “What’s that going to do for a plugged sink? And who’ll be taking care of the house whilst you’re watching shows in the middle of
Similar Books
