“Nora can’t remember the war,” he said to the doctor, but really to her, trying the buddy business again. “She must have been in her cradle.”
“I know it’s over,” she said, thinking to close the subject.
“Oh, it’s that, all right.” He sounded sorry, about as sorry as he could feel about anything.
The doctor had replaced his panama hat, after three times at achieving the angle he wanted. He made a reassuring sort of presence in the front seat—solid, reliable. Nothing would knock him over. Nora’s father was thin and light as a blown leaf. The doctor said, “There’s another name I like. ‘Desmond.’ ”
“Des?” said Mr. Fenton. He struggled out of his jacket and vest and threw them on the backseat, next to Nora. His white carnation fell on the floor. The doctor remained fully dressed, every button fastened. “Des Butler?”
“He married an English girl,” said the doctor. “Remember?”
“Remember? I was best man. She cried the whole time. She was called Beryl—no, Brenda.”
“Well, she was in the family way,” said the doctor.
“She hightailed it right back to England,” said Mr. Fenton. “The Canadian taxpayers had to pay to bring her over. Nobody ever figured out where she got the money to go back. Even Des didn’t know.”
“Des never knew anything. He never knew what he should have known. All he noticed was she had gotten fat since the last time he saw her.”
“She arrived with a bun in the oven,” said Mr. Fenton. “Four, five months. Des had already been back in Canada for six. So …” He turned his attention to Nora. “Your dad get overseas, Nora?”
“He tried.”
“And?”
“He was already thirty-nine and he had the two children. They told him he was more useful sticking to his job.”
“We needed civilians, too,” said Mr. Fenton, showing generosity. “Two, did you say? Ray’s got two kids?”
“There’s my sister, Gerry—Geraldine. She’s a novice now, up in the Laurentians.”
“Where?” He twisted the rearview mirror, so he could see her.
“Near St. Jerome. She’s on the way to being a nun.”
That shut him up, for the time being. The doctor reached up and turned the mirror the other way. While they were speaking, the baby had started to gush up some awful curdled stuff, which she had to wipe on the skirt of his gown. He had no luggage—not even a spare diaper. The men had rolled down the front windows, but the crossbreeze was sluggish and smelled of warm metal, and did nothing to lighten the presence of Neil.
“Want to open up back there?” said Mr. Fenton.
No, she did not. One of her boy cousins had come down with an infected ear, the result of building a model airplane while sitting in a draft.
“At that stage, they’re only a digestive tube,” said the doctor, fanning himself with his hat.
“How about the brain?” said Mr. Fenton. “When does the brain start to work?” He drove without haste, as he did everything else. His elbow rested easily in the window frame. Ashes from his cigarette drifted into Nora’s domain.
“The brain is still primitive,” the doctor said, sounding sure. “It is still in the darkness of early time.” Nora wondered what “the darkness of time” was supposed to mean. Mr. Fenton must have been wondering too. He started to say something, but the doctor went on in his slow singsong way, “Only the soul is fully developed from birth. The brain …”
“Newborn, they’ve got these huge peckers,” said Mr. Fenton. “I mean, really developed.”
“The brain tries to catch up with the soul. For most people, it’s a lifelong struggle.”
“If you say so, Alex,” Mr. Fenton said.
The baby wasn’t primitive, surely. She examined his face. There wasn’t a hair on him except the blond fluff around his forehead. Primitive man, shaggy all over, dragged his steps through the recollection of a movie she had seen. Speak for yourself, she wanted to tell the doctor. Neil is not primitive. He just wants to understand where he’s going. Her duty was to hand over to its mother this bit of a child, an only son without a stitch to his name. Socks, gown, and diaper were fit to be burned, not worth a washtub of water. So her sister had gone through an open door and the door had swung to behind her. She had left to Nora everything she owned. So Marie Antoinette, younger than Nora, had been stripped to the skin when she reached the border of France, on the way to marry a future king. Total strangers had been granted the right to see her nude. The clothes she had been wearing were left on the ground and she was arrayed in garments so heavy with silver and embroidery she could hardly walk. Her own ladies-in-waiting, who spoke her native language, were turned back. (Nora could not remember where Marie Antoinette had started out.) “For we brought nothing …,” Nora’s Methodist Abbott grandmother liked to point out, convinced that Catholics never cracked a Bible and had to be kept informed. “Naked we came …” was along the same line. Nora knew how to dress and undress under a bathrobe, quick as a mouse. No earthquake, no burglar, no stranger suddenly pushing a door open would find Nora without at least one thing on, even if it was only a bra.
“… from Mac McIvor,” the doctor was telling Mr. Fenton. “He’s out in Vancouver now. It’s a big change from Montreal.”
“He’ll crawl back here one day, probably sooner than he thinks,” said Mr. Fenton. Something had made him cranky, perhaps the talk about souls. “I consider it a privilege to live in Montreal. I was born on Crescent and that’s where I intend to die. Unless there’s another war. Then it’s a toss-up.”
“Crescent’s a fine street,” said the doctor. “Nice houses, nice stores.” He paused and let the compliment sink in, a way of making peace. “He’s buying a place. Property’s cheap out there.”
“It’s a long way off,” said Mr. Fenton. “They can’t get people to go and live there. That’s why everything’s so cheap.”
“Not being married, he doesn’t need a lot of room,” the doctor said. “It’s just a bungalow, two rooms and a kitchen. He can eat in the kitchen. It’s a nice area. A lot of gardens.”
“Sure, there are stores on Crescent now, but they’re high-quality,” said Mr. Fenton. “I could sell the house for a hell of a lot more than my father ever paid. Louise wants me to. She can’t get used to having a dress shop next door. She wants a lawn and a yard and a lot of space between the houses.”
“Mac’s got a fair-size garden. That won’t break his neck. Out there, there’s no winter. You stick something in the ground, it grows.”
“My father hung on to the house all through the Depression,” said Mr. Fenton. “It’ll take a lot more than a couple of store windows to chase me away.” So saying, he made a sudden rough swerve into his street, having almost missed the corner.
It jolted the baby, who had just fallen asleep. Before he could start to cry or do anything else that could make him unpopular, she lifted him to the window. “See the houses?” she said. “One of them’s yours.” A few had fancy dress shops on the first floor. Others were turned into offices, with uncurtained front windows and neon lights, blazing away in broad daylight. The double row of houses ran straight down to St. Catherine Street without a break, except for some ashy lanes. Short of one of these, Mr. Fenton pulled up. He retrieved his vest and jacket, got out, and slammed the door. It was the doctor who turned back to help Nora struggle out of the car, held her arm firmly, even adjusted the strap of her white shoulder bag. He wasn’t trying anything, so she let him. Anyone could tell he was a family man.
Neil seemed more awkward to hold than before, perhaps because she was tired. Shielding his eyes from sunlight, she turned his face to a narrow house of pale gray stone. On her street, it would indicate three two-bedroom flats, not counting the area. She was about to ask, “Is the whole thing yours?” but it might make her sound as if she had never been anywhere, and the last thing she wanted was Mr. Fenton’s entire attention. In the shadow of steps leading up to the front door, at a window i
n the area, a hand lifted a net curtain and let it fall. So, someone knew that Neil was here. For his sake, she took precedence and climbed straight to the door. The men barely noticed. Mr. Fenton, in shirtsleeves, vest and jacket slung over a shoulder, spoke of heat and thirst. Halfway up, the doctor paused and said, “Boyd, isn’t that the alley where the girl was supposed to have been raped?”
“They never caught him,” said Mr. Fenton at once. “It was dark. She didn’t see his face. Some kids had shot out the alley light with an air gun. Her father tried to sue the city, because of the light. It didn’t get him anywhere. Ray Abbott knows the story. Light or no light, it wasn’t a city case.”
“What was she doing by herself in a dark lane?” said the doctor. “Did she work around here?”
“She lived over on Bishop,” said Mr. Fenton. “She was visiting some friend and took a shortcut home. Her father was a principal.” He named the school. Nora had never heard of it.
“English,” said Dr. Marchand, placing the story in context.
“They moved away. Some crazy stories went around, that she knew the guy, they had a date.”
“I knew a case,” said the doctor. “An old maid. She set the police on a married man. He never did anything worse than say hello.”
“It was hard on Louise, something like that going on just outside. Nobody heard a thing until she ran down to the area and started banging on the door and screaming.”
“Louise did that?”
“This girl. Missy let her in and gave her a big shot of brandy. Missy’s a good head. She said, ‘If you don’t quit yelling I’ll call the police.’ ”
“Her English must be pretty good now,” said the doctor.
“Missy’s smart. When my mother-in-law hired her, all she could say was, ‘I cook, I clean.’ Now she could argue a case in court. She told Louise, ‘Some guy grabs me in a lane, I twist him like a wet mop.’ Louise couldn’t get over it.” He became lighthearted suddenly, which suited him better. “We shouldn’t be scaring Nora with all this.” Nora found that rich, considering the things that had been said in the car. She was at the door, waiting. He had to look up.
He took the last steps slowly. Of course, he was closer to thirty than twenty and not in great shape. All that booze and his lazy way of moving were bound to tell. On the landing he had to catch his breath. He said, “Don’t worry, Nora. This end of Crescent is still good. It isn’t as residential as when I was a kid but it’s safe. Anyway, it’s safe for girls who don’t do dumb things.”
“I’m not one for worrying,” she said. “I don’t wander around on my own after dark and I don’t answer strangers. Anyways, I won’t ever be spending the night here. My father doesn’t like me to sleep away.”
A word she knew but had never thought of using—“morose”—came to mind at the slow change in his face. Sulky or deeply pensive (it was hard to tell), he began searching the pockets of his vest and jacket, probably looking for his latchkey. The doctor reached across and pressed the doorbell. They heard it jangle inside the house. Without Dr. Marchand they might have remained stranded, waiting for the earth to turn and the slant of the sun to alter and allow them shade. Just as she was thinking this, wondering how Mr. Fenton managed to get through his day-by-day life without having the doctor there every minute, Dr. Marchand addressed her directly: “On ne dit pas ‘anyways.’ C’est commun. Il faut toujours dire ‘anyway.’ ”
The heat of the day and the strain of events had pushed him off his rocker. There was no other explanation. Or maybe he believed he was some kind of bilingual marvel, a real work of art, standing there in his undertaker suit, wearing that dopey hat. Nora’s father knew more about anything than he did, any day. He had information about local politics and the private dealings of men who were honored and admired, had their pictures in the Gazette and the Star. He could shake hands with anybody you cared to mention; could tell, just by looking at another man, what that man was worth. When he went to Blue Bonnets, the racetrack, a fantastic private intuition told him where to put his money. He often came home singing, his hat on the back of his head. He had an office to himself at City Hall, no duties anybody could figure, but unlimited use of a phone. He never picked a quarrel and never took offense. “Never let anyone get under your skin,” he had told Gerry and Nora. “Consider the source.”
She considered the source: Dr. Marchand had spent a horrible morning, probably, trying to sidestep Mr. Fenton’s temporary moods and opinions. Still, the two of them were friends, like pals in a movie about the Great War, where actors pledged true loyalty in a trench before going over the top. Wars ran together, like the history of English kings, kept alive in tedious stories repeated by men. As a boring person he was easy to forgive. As a man he had a cold streak. His reproof stung. He had made her seem ignorant. Mr. Fenton didn’t know a word of French, but he must have caught the drift.
Just as Nora’s mother could predict a change in the weather from certain pains in her wrists, so the baby sensed a change in Nora. His face puckered. He let out some more of that clotted slobber, followed by a weak cough and a piercing, choking complaint. “Oh, stop,” she said, hearing a rush of footsteps. She gave him a gentle shake. “Where’s my little man? Where’s my soldier?” Her piqué dress, which had been fresh as an ironed handkerchief just a few hours before, was stained, soiled, crumpled, wetted, damaged by Neil. She kissed his head. All she could find to say, in a hurry, was “Be good.” The door swung open. Without being bidden Nora entered the house. The doctor removed his hat, this time with a bit of a flourish. Mr. Fenton, she noticed, was still looking for a key.
In rooms glimpsed from the entrance hall the shades were drawn against the burning street. A darker and clammier heat, like the air of an August night, condensed on her cheeks and forehead. She smiled at two women, dimly perceived. The younger had the figure of a stout child, wore her hair cut straight across her eyebrows, and had on what Nora took to be a white skirt. In the seconds it took for her pupils to widen, her eyes to focus anew, she saw that the white skirt was a white apron. In the meantime, she had approached the young woman, said, “Here’s your sweet baby, Mrs. Fenton,” and given him up.
“Well, Missy, you heard what Nora said,” said Mr. Fenton. He could enjoy that kind of joke, laugh noisily at a mistake, but Missy looked as if a tide had receded, leaving her stranded and unable to recognize anything along the shore. All she could say was “There’s a bottle ready,” in a heavy accent.
“Give it to him right away,” said the older woman, who could not be anyone but Mrs. Clopstock, the mother-in-law from Toronto. “That sounds to me like a hunger cry.” Having made the observation, she took no further notice of Neil, but spoke to the two men: “Louise is really knocked out by the heat. She doesn’t want any lunch. She said to say hello to you, Alex.”
The doctor said, “Once she sees him, she’ll take an interest. I had another case, just like that. I can tell you all about it.”
“Yes, tell us, Alex,” said Mrs. Clopstock. “Do tell us. You can tell us about it at lunch. We have to talk about something.”
It pleased Nora that Dr. Marchand, for the first time, had made a “th” mistake in English, saying “dat” for “that.” He wasn’t so smart, after all. Just the same, she had spoiled Neil’s entrance into his new life; as if she had crossed the wrong line. The two errors could not be matched. The doctor could always start over and get it right. For Nora and Neil, it had been once and for all.
II
Nora’s uncle, Victor Cochefert, was the only member of her family, on either side, with much of consequence to leave in a will. He had the place he lived in—four bedrooms and double garage and a weeping willow on the lawn—and some flats he rented to the poor and improvident, in the east end of the city. He was forever having tenants evicted, and had had beer bottles thrown at his car. The flats had come to him through his marriage to Rosalie, daughter of a notary. Her father had drawn up a tight, grim marriage contract, putting Rosalie in charge o
f her assets, but she had suffered an early stroke, dragged one foot, and left everything up to Victor. The other relatives were lifelong renters, like most of Montreal. None were in want but only Victor and Rosalie had been to Florida.
Her own father’s financial arrangements were seen by the Cocheferts as eccentric and somewhat obscure. He never opened his mouth about money but was suspected of being better off than he cared to let on; yet the Abbotts continued to live in a third-floor walk-up flat, with an outside staircase and linoleum-covered floors on which scatter rugs slipped and slid underfoot. His wife’s relations admired him for qualities they knew to exist behind his great wall of good humor; they had watched him saunter from the dark bureau where he had stood on the far side of a counter, wearing an eyeshade (against what light?), registering births and delivering certificates, to a private office in City Hall. He had moved along nonchalantly, whistling, hands in his pockets—sometimes in other people’s, Victor had hinted. At the same time, he held Ray in high regard, knowing that if you showed confidence, made him an accomplice, he could be trusted. He had even confided to Ray a copy of his will.
Victor’s will was locked up in a safe in Ray’s small office, where nothing was written on the door. “Nothing in the safe except my lunch,” Ray often remarked, but Nora once had seen it wide open and had been impressed by the great number of files and dossiers inside. When she asked what these were, her father had laughed and said, “Multiple-risk insurance policies,” and called her pie-face and sniffy-nose. She thought he must be proud to act as custodian to any part of Victor’s private affairs. Victor was associate in a firm of engineers, established since 1900 on St. James Street West. The name of the company was Macfarlane, Macfarlane & Macklehurst. It was understood that when Macfarlane Senior died or retired, “Cochefert” would figure on the letterhead—a bit lower and to the right, in smaller print. Three other people with French surnames were on staff: a switchboard operator, a file clerk, and a bilingual typist. During working hours they were expected to speak English, even to one another. The elder Macfarlane harbored the fear that anything said in an unknown language could be about him.
The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant Page 12