only said two wasn’t many, that’s all.”
“Okay, okay,” she whispers. “People are listening, Mother.”
People are always listening. I think it would be best if one paid no heed But I can’t blame Doris. I’ve said the very same thing to Bram.
Hush. Hush. Don’t you know everyone can hear?
The Reverend Dougall MacCulloch passed away quite suddenly with a heart attack, and the Manawaka Presbyterian Church had to get a new minister. The young man’s first sermon was long and involved, mainly directed at proving scripturally the ephemeral nature of earthly joys and the abiding nature of the heavenly variety, to be guaranteed by toil, prudence, fortitude, and temperance. Bram, beside me, restless and sweating, whispered in a gruff voice that must have carried at least as far as three pews ahead and three behind:
“Won’t the saintly bastard ever shut his trap?”
At the front of the church, above the choir loft and the organ, were painted letters in blue and gold.
The Lord Is In His Holy Temple—Let All Within Keep Silence Before Him
. I don’t know if the Lord was there that day or not, but my father certainly was, sitting alone in the family pew. He never turned, of course, but after Bram had blurted his impatience I saw my father’s shoulders lift in a massive shrug.
Nothing to do with me
, his shoulders apologized to the congregation. I never went tochurch after that. I preferred possible damnation in some comfortably distant future, to any ordeal then of peeking or pitying eyes.
But now, when time has folded in like a paper fan, I wonder if I shouldn’t have kept on going. What if it matters to Him after all, what happens to us? That question should concern me most of all. Yet the awful thing is that I can’t get out of my mind a more pressing question—could Doris have felt the same about me just now as I felt that day in church about Bram? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
I will be quiet, I swear, never open my mouth, nod obligingly, keep myself to myself for good and all. And yet, even as I swear it, I know it’s nonsense and impossible for me. I can’t keep my mouth shut. I never could.
Finally I’m called. Doris comes in as well, and speaks to Doctor Corby as though she’d left me at home.
“Her bowels haven’t improved one bit. She’s not had another gall-bladder attack, but the other evening she threw up. She’s fallen a lot—”
And so on and so on. Will she never stop? My meekness of a moment ago evaporates. She’s forfeited my sympathy now, meandering on like this. Why doesn’t she let me tell him? Whose symptoms are they, anyhow?
Doctor Corby is middle-aged, and the suggestion of gray in his hair is so delicately distinguished it looks as though he’s had a hairdresser do it for him on purpose. He has a sharp and worldly look behind his glasses, which have mannish frames of navy blue. Before we came, Doris maintained that on a warm day like this, I’d perspire and spoil my lilac silk, but I wore it despite her. I’m glad I did. At least it clothes me decently. I never havebelieved a woman should look more of a frump than nature decreed for her.
Doctor Corby turns to me, smiles falsely, as though he practiced diligently every morning before a mirror.
“Well, how are you, young lady?”
Oh. Now I wish I’d worn my oldest cotton housedress, the one that’s ripped under the arms, and not bothered to comb my hair at all. I wish I had the nerve to conjure up and hurl at him one of Bram’s epithets.
Instead, I fix him with a glance glassy and hard as cat’s-eye marbles, and say nothing. He has the grace to blush. I don’t relent. I glare like an old malevolent crow, perched silent on a fence, ready to caw and startle the children when they expect it least. Oh, how I am laughing inwardly, though.
Then, swiftly, the tables turn. He bids me disrobe, holds out a stiff white gown. Then he walks out of the room. Why bother granting this vestige of privacy, when all’s
“Okay, okay,” she whispers. “People are listening, Mother.”
People are always listening. I think it would be best if one paid no heed But I can’t blame Doris. I’ve said the very same thing to Bram.
Hush. Hush. Don’t you know everyone can hear?
The Reverend Dougall MacCulloch passed away quite suddenly with a heart attack, and the Manawaka Presbyterian Church had to get a new minister. The young man’s first sermon was long and involved, mainly directed at proving scripturally the ephemeral nature of earthly joys and the abiding nature of the heavenly variety, to be guaranteed by toil, prudence, fortitude, and temperance. Bram, beside me, restless and sweating, whispered in a gruff voice that must have carried at least as far as three pews ahead and three behind:
“Won’t the saintly bastard ever shut his trap?”
At the front of the church, above the choir loft and the organ, were painted letters in blue and gold.
The Lord Is In His Holy Temple—Let All Within Keep Silence Before Him
. I don’t know if the Lord was there that day or not, but my father certainly was, sitting alone in the family pew. He never turned, of course, but after Bram had blurted his impatience I saw my father’s shoulders lift in a massive shrug.
Nothing to do with me
, his shoulders apologized to the congregation. I never went tochurch after that. I preferred possible damnation in some comfortably distant future, to any ordeal then of peeking or pitying eyes.
But now, when time has folded in like a paper fan, I wonder if I shouldn’t have kept on going. What if it matters to Him after all, what happens to us? That question should concern me most of all. Yet the awful thing is that I can’t get out of my mind a more pressing question—could Doris have felt the same about me just now as I felt that day in church about Bram? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
I will be quiet, I swear, never open my mouth, nod obligingly, keep myself to myself for good and all. And yet, even as I swear it, I know it’s nonsense and impossible for me. I can’t keep my mouth shut. I never could.
Finally I’m called. Doris comes in as well, and speaks to Doctor Corby as though she’d left me at home.
“Her bowels haven’t improved one bit. She’s not had another gall-bladder attack, but the other evening she threw up. She’s fallen a lot—”
And so on and so on. Will she never stop? My meekness of a moment ago evaporates. She’s forfeited my sympathy now, meandering on like this. Why doesn’t she let me tell him? Whose symptoms are they, anyhow?
Doctor Corby is middle-aged, and the suggestion of gray in his hair is so delicately distinguished it looks as though he’s had a hairdresser do it for him on purpose. He has a sharp and worldly look behind his glasses, which have mannish frames of navy blue. Before we came, Doris maintained that on a warm day like this, I’d perspire and spoil my lilac silk, but I wore it despite her. I’m glad I did. At least it clothes me decently. I never havebelieved a woman should look more of a frump than nature decreed for her.
Doctor Corby turns to me, smiles falsely, as though he practiced diligently every morning before a mirror.
“Well, how are you, young lady?”
Oh. Now I wish I’d worn my oldest cotton housedress, the one that’s ripped under the arms, and not bothered to comb my hair at all. I wish I had the nerve to conjure up and hurl at him one of Bram’s epithets.
Instead, I fix him with a glance glassy and hard as cat’s-eye marbles, and say nothing. He has the grace to blush. I don’t relent. I glare like an old malevolent crow, perched silent on a fence, ready to caw and startle the children when they expect it least. Oh, how I am laughing inwardly, though.
Then, swiftly, the tables turn. He bids me disrobe, holds out a stiff white gown. Then he walks out of the room. Why bother granting this vestige of privacy, when all’s
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