by Alice Munro
Isabel sat on the grass near the car, in the shade of some scrawny poplar trees, and thought that this day, a pleasant family day, had been full of hurdles, which she had so far got over. When she woke up this morning, Laurence was wanting to make love to her. She knew that the children would be awake; they would be busy in Denise’s room down the hall, preparing the first surprise of the day—a poster with a poem on it, a birthday poem and a collage for their father. If Laurence was interrupted by their trooping in with this—or their pounding on the door, supposing she got up to bolt it—he was going to be in a very bad mood. Denise would be disappointed—in fact, grief-stricken. They would be off to a bad start for the day. But it wouldn’t do to put Laurence off, explaining about the children. That would be seen as an instance of her making them more important, considering their feelings ahead of his. The best thing to do seemed to be to hurry him up, and she did that, encouraging him even when he was momentarily distracted by the sound of heavy-footed Sophie, prowling around downstairs, banging open some kitchen drawer.
“What the Christ is the matter with her?” he whispered into Isabel’s ear. But she just stroked him as if impatient for further and faster activity. That was effective. Soon everything was all right. He lay on his back holding her hand by the time the children could be heard coming along the hall making a noise like trumpets, a jumbled fanfare. They pushed open the door of their parents’ room and entered, holding in front of them the large poster on which the birthday poem was written, in elaborate, crayoned letters of many colors.
“Hail!” they said together, and bowed, lowering the poster. Denise was revealed in a sheet, carrying a tinfoil-covered stick with a silver paper star stuck on one end, and most of Isabel’s necklaces, chains, bracelets, and earrings strung around or somehow attached to her person. Peter was just in his pajamas.
They began to recite the poem. Denise’s voice was high and intensely dramatic, though self-mocking. Peter’s voice trailed a little behind hers, slow and dutiful and uncertainly sardonic.
“Hail upon your fortieth year
That marks your fortunate lifetime here!
And I, the Fairy Queen, appear
To wish you health and wealth and love and cheer!”
Peter, trailing, said, “And she, the Fairy Queen, appears,” and at the end of the verse Denise said, “Actually, I am the Fairy Godmother but that has too many syllables.” She and Peter continued to bow.
Laurence and Isabel laughed and clapped, and asked to see the birthday poster at closer range. All around the poem were pasted figures and scenes and words cut letter by letter out of magazines. This was all in illustration of the past year in the life of the Great L. P. (Long-Playing Laurence Peter) Vogelsang. A business trip to Australia was indicated by a kangaroo jumping over Ayers Rock, and a can of insect repellent.
In Between Exciting Trips, and the caption, the Great L. P. Found Time for His Special Interests (a Playboy Bunny displayed her perky tail, and offered a bottle of champagne as large as herself), and for relaxing with His Lovely Family (a cross-eyed girl stuck out her tongue, a housewife threateningly waved a mop, and a mud-covered urchin stood on his head). He Also Considered Taking Up a Second Career (a cement mixer was shown, with an old codger superimposed). “Happy Birthday, L. P. the Great,” said a number of farmyard animals wearing party hats and hoisting balloons, “From Your Many Loyal Fans.”
“That’s remarkable,” said Laurence. “I can see you put a lot of work into it. I particularly like the special interests.”
“And the loving family,” said Denise. “Don’t you love them, too?”
“And the loving family,” said Laurence.
“Now,” said Denise, “the Fairy Godmother is prepared to grant you three wishes.”
“You never really need more than one wish,” Peter said. “You just wish that all the other wishes you make will come true.”
“That wish is not allowed,” said Denise. “You get three wishes, but they have to be for three specific things. You can’t wish something like you’ll always be happy, and you can’t wish just that you get all your wishes.”
Laurence said, “That’s a rather dictatorial Fairy Godmother,” and said he wished for a sunny day.
“It already is,” said Peter disgustedly.
“Well, I wish for it to stay sunny,” said Laurence. Then he wished that he would complete six more steps and that there would be broiled tomatoes and sausages and scrambled eggs for breakfast.
“Lucky you wished for broiled,” said Isabel. “The top element is working. I suppose it would be too much to ask the Fairy Godmother to bring Sophie a new stove.”
The noise that they all made in the kitchen getting breakfast must have kept them from hearing Sophie’s voice raised, down at the lake. They were going to eat on the veranda. Denise had spread a cloth over the picnic table. They came out in procession, Denise carrying the coffee tray, Isabel the platter of hot food, the eggs and sausages and tomatoes, and Peter carrying his own breakfast, which was dry cereal with honey. Laurence was not supposed to have to carry anything, but he had picked up the rack of buttered toast, seeing that otherwise it would be left behind.
Just as they came out on the veranda, Sophie appeared at the top of the bank, naked. She walked directly toward them across the mown grass.
“I have had a very minor catastrophe,” she said. “Happy Birthday, Laurence!”
This was the first time Isabel had ever seen an old woman naked. Several things surprised her. The smoothness of the skin compared to the wrinkled condition of Sophie’s face, neck, arms, and hands. The smallness of the breasts. (Seeing Sophie clothed, she had always perceived the breasts as being on the same large scale as the rest of her.) They were slung down like little bundles, little hammock bundles, from the broad, freckled chest. The scantiness of the pubic hair, and the color of it, was also unexpected; it had not turned white, but remained a glistening golden brown, and was as light a covering as a very young girl’s.
All that white skin, slackly filled, made Isabel think of those French cattle, dingy white cattle, that you sometimes saw now out in the farmers’ fields. Charolais.
Sophie of course did not try to shield her breasts with an arm or place a modest hand over her private parts. She didn’t hurry past her family. She stood in the sunlight, one foot on the bottom step of the veranda—slightly increasing the intimate view they could all get of her—and said calmly, “Down there, I was dispossessed of my bathrobe. Also my cigarettes and my lighter. My lighter went to the bottom of the lake.”
“Christ, Mother!” said Laurence.
He had set the toast rack down in such a hurry that it fell over. He pushed aside the dishes to get hold of the tablecloth.
“Here!” he said, and threw it at her.
Sophie didn’t catch it. It fell over her feet.
“Laurence, that’s the tablecloth!”
“Never mind,” said Laurence. “Just put it on!”
Sophie bent and picked up the tablecloth and looked at it as if examining the pattern. Then she draped it around herself, not very effectively and in no great hurry.
“Thank you, Laurence,” she said. She had managed to arrange the tablecloth so that it flapped open at just the worst place. Looking down, she said, “I hope this makes you happier.” She started again on her story.
No, thought Isabel, she cannot be that unaware. It has to be on purpose; it has to be a game. Crafty innocence. The stagy old show-off. Showing off her purity, her high-mindedness, her simplicity. Perverse old fraud.
“Denise, run and get another cloth,” Isabel said. “Are we going to let this food get cold?”
The idea was—Sophie’s idea always was—to make her own son look foolish. To make him look a fool in front of his wife and children. Which he did, standing above Sophie on the veranda, with the shamed blood rising hotly up his neck, staining his ears, his voice artificially lowered to sound a manly reproach, but trembling. That was what Sophie could do, would do, eve
ry time she got the chance.
“What arrogant brats,” said Isabel, responding to the story. “I thought they were all supposed to be lovely and blissful and looking for enlightenment and so on.”
“If only you had worn a bathing suit to go swimming, in the first place,” said Laurence.
Then the trip to get the cake, the worry of getting it home intact, the need to nag at Denise so that she would keep it level. A further trip, alone, to the Hi-Way Market to get the ripe field tomatoes Laurence preferred to any that you could buy in the store. Isabel had to plan a top-of-the-stove menu. It had to be something that could be cooked or heated up fairly quickly when they all got home hungry from the trip to the airport. And it should be something that Laurence particularly liked, that Sophie wouldn’t find too fancy, and that Peter would eat. She decided on coq au vin, though with that she couldn’t be entirely sure of Sophie, or of Peter. After all, it was Laurence’s day. She spent the afternoon cooking, watching the time so that they would all be ready to leave for the airport early enough not to throw Denise into a fit of anxiety.
Even with her watching, they were a bit late. Laurence, called to from the top of the steps, answered yes, but did not appear. Isabel had to run down and tell him it was urgent, that there was a surprise connected with his birthday and everything might be ruined if he didn’t hurry—it was Denise’s particular surprise, furthermore, and she was getting into a state. Even after that, it seemed that Laurence deliberately took his time and was longer than usual washing and changing. He did not approve of so much effort going into preventing one of Denise’s states.
But they had got here, and now they were all, except Isabel, up in the plane. That had not been the plan. The plan was that they were all to drive to the airport, watch Laurence get his blindfold removed and be surprised, watch him take off on his birthday ride, and greet him when he came down.
Then the pilot, coming out of the little house that served as an office, and seeing them all there, had said, “How about taking the whole family up? We’ll take the five-seater—you get a nicer ride.” He smiled at Denise. “I won’t charge you any more. It’s the end of the day.”
“That’s very nice of you,” said Denise promptly.
“So,” said the pilot, looking them over. “All but one.”
“That can be me,” said Isabel.
“I hope you’re not scared,” said the pilot, turning his look on her. “No need to be.”
He was a man in his forties—maybe he was fifty—with waves of very blond or white hair, probably blond hair going white, combed straight back from his forehead. He was not tall, not as tall as Laurence, but he had heavy shoulders, a thick chest and waist and a little hard swell of belly, not a sag, over his belt. A high, curved forehead, bright blue eyes with a habitual outdoor squint, a look of professional calm and good humor. That same quality in his voice—the good-humored, unhurried, slightly stupid-sounding country voice. She knew what Laurence would say of this man—that he was the salt of the earth. Not noticing something else—something vigilant underneath, and careless or even contemptuous of them, sharply self-possessed.
“You’re not scared, are you, ma’am?” said the pilot to Sophie.
“I’ve never flown in a small plane,” said Sophie. “But I don’t think I’m scared, no.”
“We’ve none of us ever flown in a small plane. It’ll be a great treat,” said Laurence. “Thank you.”
“I’ll just sit here by myself, then.” said Isabel, and Laurence laughed.
“Sitting by herself is my wife’s greatest pleasure.”
If that was so—and it really might be, because she wasn’t scared, or only vaguely scared, yet she so much relished the idea of being left behind—it surely wasn’t much to her credit. Here she sat and saw her day as hurdles got through. The coq au vin waiting on the back of the stove, the cake got home safely, the wine and tomatoes bought, the birthday brought this far without any real errors or clashes or disappointments. There remained the drive home, the dinner. Then tomorrow Laurence would go to Ottawa for the day, and come back in the evening. He was to be with them Wednesday to watch the moon shot.
Not much to her credit to go through her life thinking, Well, good, now that’s over, that’s over. What was she looking forward to, what bonus was she hoping to get, when this, and this, and this, was over?
Freedom—or not even freedom. Emptiness, a lapse of attention. It seemed all the time that she was having to provide a little more—in the way of attention, enthusiasm, watchfulness—than she was sure she had. She was straining, hoping not to be found out. Found to be as cold at heart as that Old Norse, Sophie.
Sometimes she thought that she had been brought home, in the first place, as a complicated kind of challenge to Sophie. Laurence was in love with her from the beginning, but his love had something to do with the challenge. Quite contradictory things about her were involved: her tarty looks and bad manners (how tarty, and how bad, she had no idea at the time); her high marks and her naive reliance on them as proof of intelligence; all that evidence she bore of being the brightest pupil from a working-class high school, the sport of an unambitious family.
“Not your typical Business Ad choice, is she, Mother?” said Laurence to Sophie in Isabel’s presence. He was enrolled in the one school in the university that Sophie detested—Business Administration.
Sophie said nothing, but smiled directly at Isabel. The smile was not unkind, not scornful of Laurence—it seemed patient—but it said plainly, “Are you ready, are you taking this on?” And Isabel, who was concentrating then on being in love with Laurence’s good looks and wit and intelligence and hoped-for experience of life, understood what this meant. It meant that the Laurence she had set herself to love (for in spite of her looks and manner, she was a serious, inexperienced girl who believed in lifelong love and could not imagine connecting herself on any other terms), that Laurence had to be propped up, kept going, by constant and clever exertions on her part, by reassurance and good management; he depended on her to make him a man. She did not like Sophie for bringing this to her attention, and she didn’t let it touch her decision. This was what love was, or what life was, and she wanted to get started on it. She was lonely, though she thought of herself as solitary. She was the only child of her mother’s second marriage; her mother was dead, and her half brothers and half sister were much older, and married. She had a reputation in her family for thinking she was special. She still had it, and since her marriage to Laurence she hardly saw her own relatives.
She read a lot; she dieted and exercised seriously; she had become a good cook. At parties, she flirted with men who did not seriously pursue her. (She had noticed that Laurence was disappointed if she did not create a little stir.) Sometimes she imagined herself overpowered by these men, or others, a partner in most impulsive, ingenious, vigorous couplings. Sometimes she thought of her childhood with a longing that seemed almost as perverse, and had to be kept almost as secret. A sagging awning in front of a corner store might remind her, the smell of heavy dinners cooking at noon, the litter and bare earth around the roots of a big urban shade tree.
When the plane landed, she got up and went to meet them, and she kissed Laurence as if he had returned from a journey. He seemed happy. She thought that she seldom concerned herself about Laurence’s being happy. She wanted him to be in a good mood, so that everything would go smoothly, but that was not the same thing.
“It was wonderful,” Laurence said. “You could see the changes in the landscape so clearly.” He began to tell her about a glint lake.
“It was most enjoyable,” said Sophie.
Denise said, “You could see way down into the water. You could see the rocks going down. You could even see sand.”
“You could see what kind of boats,” said Peter.
“I mean it, Mother. You could see the rocks going down, down, and then sand.”
“Could you see any fish?” said Isabel.
The pilo
t laughed, though he must have heard that often enough before.
“It’s really too bad you didn’t come up,” Laurence said.
“Oh, she will, one day,” said the pilot. “She could be out here tomorrow.”
They all laughed at his teasing. His bold eyes met Isabel’s, and seemed in spite of their boldness to be most innocent, genial, and kind. Respect was not wanting. He was a man who could surely mean no harm, no folly. So it could hardly be true that he was inviting her.
He said goodbye to them then, as a group, and was thanked once more. Isabel thought she knew what it was that had unhinged her. It was Sophie’s story. It was the idea of herself, not Sophie, walking naked out of the water toward those capering boys. (In her mind, she had already eliminated the girl.) That made her long for, and imagine, some leaping, radical invitation. She was kindled for it.
When they were walking toward the car, she had to make an effort not to turn around. She imagined that they turned at the same time, they looked at each other, just as in some romantic movie, operatic story, high-school fantasy. They turned at the same time, they looked at each other, they exchanged a promise that was no less real though they might never meet again. And the promise hit her like lightning, split her like lightning, though she moved on smoothly, intact.
Oh, certainly. All of that.
But, it isn’t like lightning, it isn’t a blow from outside. We only pretend that it is.
“If somebody else wouldn’t mind driving,” Sophie said. “I’m tired.”
• • •
That evening, Isabel was bountifully attentive to Laurence, to her children, to Sophie, who didn’t in the least require it. They all felt her happiness. They felt as if an invisible, customary barrier had been removed, as if a transparent curtain had been pulled away. Or perhaps they had only imagined it was there all the time? Laurence forgot to be sharp with Denise, or to treat her as his rival. He did not even bother to struggle with Sophie. Television was not mentioned.
“We saw the silica quarry from the air,” he said to Isabel, at dinner. “It was like a snowfield.”