“Certainly I know it. You want to hear that? Now?” He sounds taken aback, as though it were completely unsuitable.
“Unless you’d rather not.”
“Oh no, it’s quite all right. It’s usually sung, that’s all.”
“Well, sing it, then.”
“What? Here?” He’s stunned. I have no patience with this young man.
“Why not?”
“All right, then.” He clasps and unclasps his hands. He flushes warmly, and peeks around to see if anyone might be listening, as though he’d pass out if they were. But I perceive now that there’s some fibre in him. He’ll do it, even if it kills him. Good for him. I can admire that.
Then he opens his mouth and sings, and I’m the one who’s taken aback now. He should sing always, and never speak. He should chant his sermons. The fumbling of his speech is gone. His voice is firm and sure.
“All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with joyful voice. Him serve with mirth, His praise forth tell;
Come ye before Him and rejoice.
I would have wished it. This knowing comes upon me so forcefully, so shatteringly, and with such a bitterness as I have never felt before. I must always, always, have wanted that—simply to rejoice. How is it I never could? I know, I know. How long have I known? Or have I always known, in some far crevice of my heart, some cave too deeply buried, too concealed? Every good joy I might have held, in my man or any child of mine or even the plain light of morning, of walking the earth, all were forced to a standstill by some brake of proper appearances—oh, proper to whom? When did I ever speak the heart’s truth?
Pride was my wilderness, and the demon that led me there was fear. I was alone, never anything else, and never free, for I carried my chains within me, and they spread out from me and shackled all I touched. Oh, my two, my dead. Dead by your own hands or by mine? Nothing can take away those years.
Mr. Troy has stopped singing.
“I’ve upset you,” he says uncertainly. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you haven’t.” My voice is muffled and I have my hands over my eyes so he won’t see. He must think I’ve taken leave of my senses. “I’ve not heard that for a long time, that’s all.”
I can face him now. I remove my hands and look at him. He’s puzzled and worried.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Quite sure. Thank you. That wasn’t easy—to sing aloud alone.”
“If it wasn’t,” he says morosely, “it’s my own fault.”
He thinks he’s failed, and I can’t muster words to reassure him, so he must go uncomforted.
Doris returns. She fusses over me, fixes my pillows, rearranges my flowers, does my hair. How I wish she wouldn’t fuss so. She jangles my nerves with her incessant fussing. Mr. Troy has left and is waiting outside in the hall.
“Did you have a nice chat?” she says wistfully.
If only she’d stop prodding at me about it.
“We didn’t have a single solitary thing to say to one another,” I reply.
She bites her lip and looks away. I’m ashamed. But I won’t take back the words. What business is it of hers, anyway?
Oh, I am unchangeable, unregenerate. I go on speaking in the same way, always, and the same touchiness rises within me at the slightest thing.
“Doris—I didn’t speak the truth. He sang for me, and it did me good.”
She gives me a sideways and suspicious glance. She doesn’t believe me.
“Well, no one could say I haven’t tried,” she remarks edgily.
“No, no one could say that.”
I sigh and turn away from her. Who will she have to wreak salvation upon when I’m gone? How she’ll miss me.
Later, when she and Mr. Troy have gone, I have another visitor. At first, I can’t place him, although he is so familiar in appearance. He grins and bends over me.
“Hi, Gran. Don’t you know me? Steven.”
I’m flustered, pleased to see him, mortified at not having recognized him immediately.
“Steven. Well, well. Of course. How are you? I haven’t seen you for quite some time. You’re looking very smart.”
“New suit. Glad you like it. Have to look successful, you know.”
“You don’t only look. You are. Aren’t you?”
“I can’t complain,” he says.
He’s an architect, a very clever boy. Goodness knows where he gets his brains from. Not from either parent, I’d say. But Marvin and Doris certainly saved and did without, to get that boy through university, I’ll give them that.
“Did your mother tell you to come and see me?”
“Of course not,” he says. “I just thought I’d drop in and see how you were.”
He sounds annoyed, so I know he’s lying. What does it matter? But it would have been nice if it had been his own idea.
“Tina’s getting married,” I say, conversationally.
I’m tired. I’m not feeling up to much. But I hope he’ll stay for a few minutes all the same. I like to look at him. He’s a fine-looking boy. Boy, indeed—he must be close to thirty.
“So I hear,” he says. “About time, too. Mom wants her to be married here, but Tina says she can’t spare the time and neither can August—that’s the guy she’s marrying. So Mom’s going to fly down East for the wedding, she thinks.”
I never realized until this moment how cut off I am. I’ve always been so fond of Tina. Doris might have told me. It’s the least she could have done.
“She didn’t tell me. She didn’t say a word.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have said—”
“It’s a good job somebody tells me these things. She never bothers, your mother. It never occurs to her.”
“Well, maybe she forgot. She’s been—”
“I’ll bet she forgot. I’ll just bet a cookie she did. When is she going, Steven?”
A long pause. My grandson reddens and gazes at my roses, his face averted from mine.
“I don’t think it’s quite settled yet,” he says finally.
Then all at once I understand, and know, too, why Doris never mentioned it. They have to wait and see what happens here. How inconvenient I am proving for them. Will it be soon? That’s what they’re asking themselves. I’m upsetting all their plans. That’s what it is to them—an inconvenience.
Steven leans toward me again. “Anything you want, Gran? Anything I could bring you?”
“No. Nothing. There’s nothing I want.”
“Sure?”
“You might just leave me your packet of cigarettes, Steven. Would you?”
“Oh sure, of course. Here—have one now.”
“Thank you.”
He lights it for me, and places an ash tray, rather nervously, close by my wrist, as though certain I’m a fire hazard. Then he looks at me and smiles, and I’m struck again with the resemblance.
“You’re very like your grandfather, Steven. Except that he wore a beard, you could almost be Brampton Shipley as a young man.”
“Oh?” He’s only mildly interested. He searches for a comment. “Should I be pleased?”
“He was a fine-looking man, your grandfather.”
“Mom always says I look like Uncle Ned.”
“What? Doris’s brother? Nonsense. You don’t take after him a scrap. You’re a Shipley through and through.”
He laughs. “You’re a great old girl, you know that?”
His tone has affection in it, and I would be pleased if it weren’t condescending as well, in the same way that gushing matrons will coo over a carriage—What a cute baby, how adorable.
“You needn’t be impertinent, Steven. You know I don’t care for it.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Never mind. You should be glad I appreciate you.”
“Do you?”
“Sure I do,” he says jovially. “I always have. Don’t you remember how you used to give me pennies to buy jaw-breakers, when I was a kid? Mom used
to be livid, thinking of the dentist’s bills.”
I’d forgotten. I have to smile, even as my mouth is filled once more with bile. That’s what I am to him—a grandmother who gave him money for candy. What does he know of me? Not a blessed thing. I’m choked with it now, the incommunicable years, everything that happened and was spoken or not spoken. I want to tell him. Someone should know. This is what I think. Someone really ought to know these things.
But where would I begin, and what does it matter to him, anyway? It might be worse. At least he recalls a pleasant thing.
“I remember,” I say. “You were a little monkey, always snooping in my purse.”
“I had an eye to the main chance,” he says, “even then.”
I look at him sharply, hearing in his voice some mocking echo of John’s.
“Steven—are you all right, really? Are you—content?”
He is taken by surprise. “Content? I don’t know. I’m as well off as the next guy, I suppose. What a question.”
And now I see that he is troubled by things I know nothing of, and don’t even care to know. I can’t take on anything new at this point. It’s too much. I have to let it go. Even if I presumed so far, and questioned him, he’d never say. Why should he? It’s his life, not mine.
“Thanks for the cigarettes,” I say, “and for coming to see me.”
“That’s okay,” he says.
We have nothing more to say to one another. He bends and places a quick and token kiss on my face, and then he goes. I would have liked to tell him he is dear to me, and would be so, no matter what he’s like or what he does with his life. But he’d only have been embarrassed and so would I.
My discomfort asserts itself, until the only thing that matters to me in this world is that I’m nauseated and I hurt. The sheets bind me like bandages. It’s such a warm evening, not a breath of air.
“Nurse—”
Again the needle, and I’m greedy for it now, and thrust out my arm before she’s even ready. Hurry, hurry, I can’t wait. It’s accomplished, and before it has had time to take effect, I’m relieved, knowing the stuff is inside me and at work.
The curtains are pulled aside from the girl’s bed, and she’s awake. She looks disheveled, puffy-eyed. She’s been crying. And now I notice that her mother, a short dark woman with short dark hair and an apologetic smile, is leaving, waving as she walks out, a hopeful helpless flickering of the hands. The woman steps out the door. The girl watches for a moment, then turns her head away.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“Awful,” she says. “I feel just perfectly awful. You said it wouldn’t be bad.”
She sounds reproachful. First I’m full of regrets, thinking I’ve deceived her. Then I feel only annoyance.
“If that’s the worst you ever have, my girl, you’ll be lucky, I can tell you that.”
“Oh—” she cries, outraged, and then subsides into a sulky silence. She won’t say a word, nor even look at me. The nurse arrives and the girl “whispers. I can hear.
“Do I have to stay here—with her?”
Furious and affronted, I turn over in my bed and reach for Steven’s cigarettes. Then I hear the nurse’s reply.
“Try to be patient. She’s—”
I can’t catch the last low murmur. Then the girl’s voice, clear and loud.
“Oh, gee, I didn’t know. But what if—? Oh, please move me, please.”
Am I a burden to her as well? What if anything happens in the night? That’s what she’s wondering.
“You rest now, Sandra,” the nurse says. “We’ll see what we can do.”
The room at night is deep and dark, like a coal scuttle, and I’m lying like a lump at the bottom of it. I’ve been wakened by the girl’s voice, and now I can’t get back to sleep again. How I hate the sound of a person crying. She moans, snuffles wetly, moans again. She won’t stop. She’ll go on all night like this, more than likely. It’s insufferable. I wish she’d make some effort to be quiet. She has no self-control, that creature, none. I could almost wish she’d die, or at least faint, so I wouldn’t have to lie here hour after hour and hear this caterwauling.
I can’t recall her name. Wong. That’s her last name. If I could think of her first name, I could call out to her. How else can I address her? “Miss Wong” sounds foolish, coming from someone my age. I can’t say “my dear”—too obviously false. Young lady? Girl? You? Hey, you—how rude. Sandra. Her name is Sandra.
“Sandra—”
“Yes?” Her voice is thin, fearful. “What is it?”
“What’s the matter?”
“I need to go to the bathroom,” she says. “I’ve called the nurse, but she doesn’t hear me.”
“Have you put your light on? The little light above your bed. That’s how you’re supposed to call the nurse.”
“I can’t reach it. I can’t move up by myself. It hurts.”
“I’ll put my light on, then.”
“Oh, would you? Gee, thanks a million.”
The faint glow appears, and we wait. No one comes.
“They must be busy tonight,” I say, to calm her. “Sometimes it takes a while.”
“What’ll I do if I can’t hold on?” She laughs, a strained and breathless laugh, and I sense her anguish and her terrible embarrassment. To her, it’s unthinkable.
“Never you mind,” I reply. “That’s their look-out.”
“Yeh, maybe so,” she says. “But I’d feel so awful—”
“Wretched nurse,” I said peevishly, feeling now only sympathy for the girl, none for the eternally frantic staff. “Why doesn’t she get here?”
The girl cries again. “I can’t stand it. And my side hurts so much—”
She’s never before been at the dubious mercy of her organs. Pain and humiliation have been only words to her. Suddenly I’m incensed at it, the unfairness. She shouldn’t have to find out these things at her age.
“I’m going to get you a bedpan.”
“No—” she says, alarmed. “I’m okay, really. You mustn’t, Mrs. Shipley.”
“I will so. I won’t stand for this sort of thing another minute. They keep them in the bathroom, right here. It’s only a step.”
“Do you think you oughta?”
“Certainly. You just wait. I’ll get it for you, you’ll see.”
Heaving, I pull myself up. As I slide my legs out of bed, one foot cramps and I’m helpless for a second. I grasp the bed, put my toes on the icy floor, work the cramp out, and then I’m standing, the weight of my flesh heavy and ponderous, my hair undone now and slithering lengthily around my bare and chilly shoulders, like snakes on a Gorgon’s head. My satin nightgown, rumpled and twisted, hampers and hobbles me. I seem to be rather shaky. The idiotic quivering of my flesh won’t stop. My separate muscles prance and jerk. I’m cold. It’s unusually cold tonight, it seems to me. I’ll wait a moment. There. I’m better now. It’s only a few steps, that I do know.
I shuffle slowly, thinking how peculiar it is to walk like this, not to be able to command my legs to pace and stride. One foot and then another. Only a little way now, Hagar. Come on.
There now. I’ve reached the bathroom and gained the shiny steel grail. That wasn’t so difficult after all. But the way back is longer. I miss my footing, lurch, almost topple. I snatch for something, and my hand finds a window sill. It steadies me. I go on.
“You okay, Mrs. Shipley?”
“Quite—okay.”
I have to smile at myself. I’ve never used that word before in my life. Okay—guy—such slangy words. I used to tell John. They mark a person.
All at once I have to stop and try to catch the breath that seems to have escaped me. My ribs are hot with pain. Then it ebbs, but I’m left reeling with weakness. I’ll reach my destination, though. Easy does it. Come along, now.
There. I’m there. I knew I could. And now I wonder if I’ve done it for her or for myself. No matter. I’m here, and carrying what she needs.
At that moment the ceiling light is switched peremptorily on, and a nurse is standing there in the doorway, a plump and middle-aged nurse, looking horrified.
“Mrs. Shipley! What on earth are you doing out of bed? Didn’t you have the restraint put on tonight?”
“They forgot it,” I say, “and a good job they did, too.”
“My heavens,” the nurse says. “What if you’d fallen?”
“What if I had?” I retort. “What if I had?”
She doesn’t reply. She leads me back to bed. When she has settled us both, she goes and we’re alone, the girl and I. Then I hear a sound in the dark room. The girl is laughing.
“Mrs. Shipley—”
“Yes?”
She stifles her laughter, but it breaks out again.
“Oh, I can’t laugh. I mustn’t. It pulls my stitches. But did you ever see anything like the look on her face?”
I have to snort, recalling it.
“She was stunned, all right, wasn’t she, seeing me standing there? I thought she’d pass out.”
My own spasm of laughter catches me like a blow. I can’t stave it off. Crazy. I must be crazy. I’ll do myself some injury.
“Oh—oh—” the girl gasps. “She looked at you as though you’d just done a crime.”
“Yes—that was exactly how she looked. Poor soul. Oh, the poor soul. We really worried her.”
“That’s for sure. We sure did.”
Convulsed with our paining laughter, we bellow and wheeze. And then we peacefully sleep.
It must be some days now, since the girl had her operation. She’s up and about, and can walk almost straight now, without bending double and clutching her side. She comes over to my bed often, and hands me my glass of water or pulls my curtains if I want to drowse. She’s a slender girl, green and slender, a sapling of a girl. Her face is boned so finely. She wears a blue brocade housecoat—from her father’s shop, she tells me. They gave it to her for her last birthday, when she was seventeen. I felt the material—she held a sleeve out, so I could see how it felt. Pure silk, it is. The embroidery on it is red and gold, chrysanthemums and intricate temples. Reminds me of the paper lanterns we used to hang on the porches. That would be a long time ago, I suppose.
The Stone Angel Page 26