by Alice Munro
The tone of their conversation changed as they walked along between the rosebushes in the bright airless tunnel. They wiped sweat from their faces, and lost the energy to snipe at each other.
Ollie said, “I don’t understand it.”
Nancy said, “I don’t know if anybody does. It isn’t just things that people lose, either. She has located bodies.”
“Bodies?”
“There was a man who they thought walked out the railway track and was caught in a snowstorm and froze to death and they couldn’t find him, and she told them, look down by the lake at the bottom of the cliff. And sure enough. Not the railway track at all. And once a cow that had gone missing, she told them it was drowned.”
“So?” said Ollie. “If that’s true, why hasn’t anybody investigated? I mean, scientifically?”
“It’s perfectly true.”
“I don’t mean I don’t trust her. But I want to know how she does it. Didn’t you ever ask her?”
Nancy surprised him. “Wouldn’t that be rude?” she said.
Now she was the one who seemed to have had enough of the conversation.
“So,” he insisted, “was she seeing things when she was a kid at school?”
“No. I don’t know. Not that she ever let on.”
“Was she just like everybody else?”
“She wasn’t exactly like everybody else. But who is? I mean, I never thought I was. Or Ginny didn’t think she was. With Tessa it was just that she lived out where she did and she had to milk the cow before she came to school in the morning, which none of the rest of us did. I always tried to be friends with her.”
“I’m sure,” said Ollie mildly.
She went on as if she hadn’t heard.
“I think it started, though—I think it must have started when she was sick. Our second year in high school she got sick, she had seizures. She quit school and she never came back, and that’s when she sort of fell out of things.”
“Seizures,” said Ollie. “Epileptic fits?”
“I never heard that. Oh”—she turned away from him—“I’ve been really disgusting.”
Ollie stopped walking. He said, “Why?”
Nancy stopped too.
“I took you out there on purpose to show you we had something special here. Her. Tessa. I mean, to show you Tessa.”
“Yes. Well?”
“Because you don’t think we have anything here worth noticing. You think we’re only worth making fun of. All of us around here. So I was going to show her to you. Like a freak.”
“Freak is not a word I would use about her.”
“That was my intention, though. I should have my head kicked in.”
“Not quite.”
“I should go and beg her pardon.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“No.”
That evening Ollie helped Nancy set out a cold supper. Mrs. Box had left a cooked chicken and jellied salads in the fridge, and Nancy had made an angel food cake on Saturday, to be served with strawberries. They set everything out on the verandah that got the afternoon shade. Between the main course and the dessert Ollie carried the plates and salad dishes back to the kitchen.
Out of the blue he said, “I wonder if any of them think to bring her some treat or other? Like chicken or strawberries?”
Nancy was dipping the best-looking berries in fruit sugar. After a moment she said, “Sorry?”
“That girl. Tessa.”
“Oh,” said Nancy. “She’s got chickens, she could kill one if she wanted to. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s got a berry patch too. They mostly do, in the country.”
Her burst of contrition on the way back had done her good, and now it was over.
“It’s not just that she isn’t a freak,” said Ollie. “It’s that she doesn’t think of herself as a freak.”
“Well of course not.”
“She’s content to be whatever she is. She has remarkable eyes.”
Nancy called to Wilf to ask if he wanted to play the piano while she was fussing around getting the dessert out.
“I have to whip the cream, and in this weather it will take forever.”
Wilf said they could wait, he was tired.
He did play, though, later when the dishes were done and it was getting dark. Nancy’s father did not go to the evening church service—he thought it was too much to ask—but he did not allow any sort of card game or board game on Sunday. He looked through the Post again, while Wilf played. Nancy sat on the verandah steps, out of his sight, and smoked a cigarette which she hoped her father would not smell.
“When I’m married—,” she said to Ollie, who was leaning against the railing, “when I am married I’ll smoke whenever I like.”
Ollie, of course, was not smoking, because of his lungs.
He laughed. He said, “Now now. Is that a good enough reason?”
Wilf was playing, by ear, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.
“He’s good,” said Ollie. “He’s got good hands. But the girls used to say they were cold.”
He was not thinking, however, of Wilf or Nancy or their sort of marriage. He was thinking of Tessa, of her oddity and composure. Wondering what she was doing on this long hot evening at the end of her wild-rose lane. Did she still have callers, was she still busy solving the problems of people’s lives? Or did she go out and sit on the swing, and creak back and forth, with no company but the rising moon?
He was to discover, in a little while, that she spent the evenings carrying pails of water from the pump to her tomato plants, and hilling up the beans and potatoes, and that if he wanted to get any chance of talking to her, this would have to be his occupation as well.
During that time Nancy would get more and more wrapped up in the wedding preparations, without a thought to spare for Tessa, and hardly any for him, except to remark once or twice that he never seemed to be around now, when she needed him.
April 29. Dear Ollie,
I have been thinking we would hear from you ever since we got back from Quebec City, and was surprised that we didn’t (not even at Christmas!), but then I guess I could say I found out why—I have started several times to write but had to delay till I got my feelings in order. I could say I suppose that the article or story or whatever you call it in Saturday Night was well-written and it is a feather in your cap I am sure to get into a magazine. Father does not like the reference to a “little” lake port and would like to remind you that this is the best and busiest harbour on this side of Lake Huron and I am not sure I like the word “prosaic.” I don’t know if this is any more a prosaic place than anywhere else and what do you expect it to be—poetic?
The main problem however is Tessa and what this will do to her life. I don’t imagine you thought of that. I have not been able to get her on the phone and I cannot get behind the wheel of a car too comfortably (reasons I will leave to your imagination) to go out and see her. Anyway from what I hear she is swamped with people coming and it is the worst possible time for cars to get in where she lives and the wreckers have been hauling people out of the ditch (for which they don’t get any thanks, just a lecture on our backward conditions). The road is an awful mess, getting chewed up past repair. The wild roses will certainly be a thing of the past. Already the township council is in an uproar as to how much this will end up costing and a lot of people are very mad because they think Tessa was behind all the publicity and is raking in the money. They don’t believe she is doing it all for nothing and if anybody made money out of this it is you. I am quoting Father when I say that—I know you are not a mercenary-minded person. For you it is all the glory of getting into print. Forgive me if that strikes you as sarcastic. It is fine to be ambitious but what about other people?
Well maybe you were expecting a letter of congratulations but I hope you will excuse me, I just had to get this off my chest.
Just one additional thing though. I want to ask you, were you thinking
the whole time about writing that? Now I hear you were back and forth there to Tessa’s several times on your own. You never mentioned that to me or asked me to go with you. You never indicated that you were getting Material (I believe that is how you would refer to it), and as far as I can recall you tossed off the whole experience in quite a snippy way. And in your whole piece there is not one word about how I took you there or introduced you to Tessa. There is no recognition of that at all, any more than there has been any private recognition or thanks. And I wonder how honest you were to Tessa about your intentions or if you asked her permission to exercise—I am quoting you now—your Scientific Curiosity? Did you explain what you were doing to her? Or did you just come and go and make use of us Prosaic People here to embark on your Career as a Writer?
Well good luck Ollie, I don’t expect to hear from you again. (Not that we ever had the honour of hearing from you once.)
Your cousin-in-law, Nancy.
Dear Nancy,
Nancy I must say that I think you are getting your tail in a spin over nothing. Tessa was bound to be discovered and “written up” by somebody, and why should that somebody not be me? The idea of writing the piece took shape in my mind only gradually as I went to talk to her. And I was quite truly acting out of my Scientific Curiosity, which is one thing I would never apologize for in my nature. You seem to think that I should have asked your permission or kept you informed of all my plans and movements, at a time when you were running around in the most monumental flap about your wedding dress and your showers and how many silver platters you were receiving or God knows what.
As for Tessa, you are quite mistaken if you think that I have forgotten about her now that the article has appeared or have not considered what this will do to her life. And actually I have had a note from her which does not indicate that things are in such a turmoil as you have described. At any rate she will not have to put up with her life there for long. I am in touch with some people who read the article and are very interested. There is research of a legitimate nature being done into these matters, some here but mostly in the States. I think that there is more money available to spend on this sort of thing and more genuine interest over the border so I am investigating certain possibilities there—for Tessa as a research subject and for me as a scientific journalist along these lines—in Boston or in Baltimore or perhaps North Carolina.
I am sorry you should think so harshly of me. You don’t mention—except for one veiled (happy?) announcement—how married life is going for you. Not a word about Wilf, but I imagine you took him along to Quebec City with you and I hope you enjoyed yourselves. I hope he is flourishing as ever. Yours, Ollie.
Dear Tessa,
Apparently you have had your phone disconnected, which may have been necessary with all the celebrity you are enjoying. I don’t mean that to sound catty. Often things come out these days in a way I do not mean them to. I am expecting a baby—I don’t know if you have heard—and it seems to make me very touchy and jumpy.
I imagine you are having a very busy and confusing time, with all the people who are now coming to see you. It must be difficult to get on with your normal routine. If you get a chance it would be very nice to see you. So this is an invitation really to drop in and see me if you ever get to town (I heard in the store that you now get all your groceries delivered). You have never seen the inside of my new—I mean newly decorated and new to me—house. Or even my old house, now that I come to think of it—it was always me running out to see you. And not so often as I would have liked to, either. Life is always so full. Getting and spending we lay waste our powers. Why do we let ourselves be so busy and miss doing things we should have, or would have, liked to do? Remember us beating down the butter with the old wooden paddles? I enjoyed it. That was when I brought Ollie to see you and I hope you do not regret it.
Now Tessa I hope you don’t think I am meddling or sticking my nose in where I have no business, but Ollie has mentioned to me in a letter that he is in touch with some people who are doing research or something in the States. I suppose he has been in touch with you about this. I do not know what kind of research he means but I must say that when I read that part of his letter it made my blood run cold. I just feel in my heart it is not a good thing for you to leave here—if that is what you are thinking about—and go where nobody knows you or thinks of you as a friend or normal person. I just felt I had to tell you this.
Another thing I feel I have to tell you though I don’t know how to. It is this. Ollie is certainly not a bad person but he has an effect—and now I think of it, not just on women but on men too—and it is not that he does not know about this but that he does not exactly take responsibility for it. To put it frankly, I cannot think of any worse fate than falling in love with him. He seems to think of teaming up with you in some way to write about you or these experiments or whatever goes on and he will be very friendly and natural but you might mistake the way he acts for something more than it is. Please don’t be mad at me for saying this. Come to see me. xxx Nancy.
Dear Nancy,
Please do not worry about me. Ollie has kept in touch with me about everything. By the time you get this note we will be married and may already be in the States. I am sorry not to get to see the inside of your new house. Yours truly, Tessa.
A HOLE IN THE HEAD
The hills in central Michigan are covered with oak forests. Nancy’s one and only visit there took place in the fall of 1968, after the oak leaves had changed color, but while they still hung on the trees. She was used to hardwood bush lots, not forests, with a great many maples, whose autumn colors were red and gold. The darker colors, the rusts or wines, of the big oak leaves did not lift her spirits, even in the sunlight.
The hill where the private hospital was located was entirely bare of trees, and a distance away from any town or village or even any inhabited farm. It was the sort of building you used to see “made over” into a hospital in some small towns, after being the grand house of an important family who had all died off or couldn’t keep it up. Two sets of bay windows on either side of the front door, dormers all the way across on the third story. Old grimy brick, and a lack of any shrubs or hedges or apple orchard, just the shaved grass and a gravel parking lot.
No place for anybody to hide if they ever had a notion of running away.
Such a thought would not have occurred to her—or not so quickly—in the days before Wilf got sick.
She parked her car beside a few others, wondering if these belonged to the staff or visitors. How many visitors would come to such an isolated place?
You had to climb a number of steps to read the sign on the front door, which advised you to go around to the side door. Close up, she saw bars on some windows. Not on the bay windows—which were, however, without curtains—but on some windows above and some below, in what would be a partly aboveground cellar.
The door that she had been advised to go to opened on that low level. She rang the bell, then knocked, then tried the bell again. She thought she could hear it ringing, but she wasn’t sure because there was a great clatter inside. She tried the doorknob, and to her surprise—in view of the bars on the windows—it opened. There she was on the threshold of the kitchen, the big busy kitchen of an institution, where a lot of people were washing up and clearing away after lunch.
The kitchen windows were bare. The ceiling was high, amplifying the noise, and the walls and cupboards were all painted white. A number of lights were turned on, though the light of the clear fall day was at its height.
She was noticed at once, of course. But nobody seemed in a hurry to greet her and find out what she was doing there.
She recognized something else. Along with the hard pressure of the light and the noise, there was the same feeling she got now in her own house, and that other people coming into her house must be aware of even more strongly.
The feeling of something being out of kilter, in a way that could not be fixed or altered but only
resisted, as well as you could. Some people entering such places give up immediately, they do not know how to resist, they are outraged or frightened, they have to flee.
A man in a white apron came pushing a cart with a garbage can in it. She could not tell whether he had come to greet her or was just crossing her path, but he was smiling, he seemed amiable, so she told him who she was and who she had come to see. He listened, nodded several times, smiled more broadly, began to wag his head and pat his fingers against his mouth—to show her that he could not speak or was forbidden to do so, as in some game, and continued on his way, bumping the cart down a ramp to a lower cellar.
He would be an inmate, not an employee. It must be the sort of place where people were put to work, if they could work. The idea being that it would be good for them, and maybe it was.
Finally came a responsible-looking person, a woman of about Nancy’s own age in a dark suit—not wearing the white apron that enfolded most of the rest of them—and Nancy told everything again. That she had received a letter, her name having been given by an inmate—by a resident, as they wanted you to say—as the person to be contacted.
She had been right in thinking that the people in the kitchen were not hired help.
“But they seem to like working here,” the Matron said. “They take a pride.” Smiling a warning left and right, she led Nancy into her office, which was a room off the kitchen. It became clear as they were talking that she had to deal with all sorts of interruptions, making decisions about kitchen work and settling complaints whenever somebody bundled into a white apron came peering around the door. She must also have to handle the files, the bills or notices that were stuck in a rather unbusinesslike way on hooks around the walls. As well as dealing with visitors like Nancy.
“We went through what old records we had and got out the names that were given as relatives—”
“I am not a relative,” said Nancy.
“Or whatever, and we wrote letters like the one you received, just to get some guidelines on the way they might want these cases handled. I must say we haven’t had many responses. It was good of you to drive all this way.”