Swann

by Carol Shields

  “Clothes probably,” Rose said this boldly. She was conscious of a noisy brimming of happiness. She had only once before in her life been taken to dinner by a man, and that had been Homer Hart, years ago, before he married Daisy.

  “Clothes?” His pencil moved busily.

  “Well, she probably didn’t have the right clothes. For church, you know.”

  “Do you think so? Really?”

  She could see he was disappointed. “Yes,” she said. “I think that must have been the reason.”

  “You don’t suppose,” Jimroy said, “that Swann felt her spirituality was, well, less explicit than it was for regular churchgoers in the area. That it was outside the bounds, as it were, of church doctrine?” He regarded Rose closely. “If you see what I mean.”

  “I see what you mean, Mr. Jimroy. Morton. But I really think, well, it was probably a question of not having the right kind of clothes.”

  “She told you this?”

  “Oh, heavens, no. It’s just a feeling I have.”

  “Oh?”

  “I know it sounds silly, but a few years ago it was different. You just didn’t set foot in church without a hat, not in Nadeau, not in the United Church. And gloves. Mrs. Swann didn’t have a hat or gloves. Well, just work gloves, and she wouldn’t have had a decent Sunday dress or stockings or anything like that.”

  He put his fingertips together. “I suppose I see her,” he paused, “as someone whose faith was exceedingly primitive and mystical. Is that how you saw her, Miss Hindmarch?”

  “Rose,” she reminded him.

  “Rose, of course. Is that how —?”

  “I, well, I think so, yes.” She gave a nod, implying tolerance and generosity.

  “As in this passage?” He opened the book again and read aloud. (Rose was glad there was no one else in the dining-room.)

  Blood pronounces my name

  Blisters the day with shame

  Spends what little I own,

  Robbing the hour, rubbing the bone.

  Rose waited, respectfully, her hand touching her brooch.

  “Well,” Jimroy said, speaking rather loudly. “This seems to be—now you may disagree—but to me it’s a pretty direct reference to the sacrament of holy communion. Orperhaps, and this is my point, perhaps to a more elemental sort of blood covenant, the eating of the Godhead, that sort of thing.”

  Rose said nothing, not wanting to disappoint him a second time. She was unable to utter the word menstruation. She would have died first. It was a word she had always been uneasy with. She nodded, first hesitantly, then vigorously. And chewed away on her meat. She had trimmed away the fat, feeling it would be indelicate to eat it—but it was a sacrifice, she loved it so!

  For dessert there was a choice of rice pudding or rhubarb pie. It seemed to Rose that Morton Jimroy shuddered slightly when presented with this choice, but after a moment’s indecision, he accepted the pudding, and when it arrived, a formless cloud stuck with currants, he sat pushing it from side to side on the plate with the back of his spoon, still pursuing the substance of Mary Swann’s blood poem. “A poet,” he told Rose, “is able to speak of those states of consciousness of which he or she has no personal knowledge.”

  “But how —?” She waved her arm, a little too gaily.

  Jimroy’s eyes shot upward to the pressed-tin ceiling as though its patterned squares contained the key to his theory. “This is something I’ve thought about a great deal,” he said. “What sets poets apart from the rest of us—and I’m talking about those rare poets who stand head and shoulders above the simpering ‘little mag’ people, the offset people—true poets carry a greater share of the racial memory than do we lesser beings.”

  Rose smiled, not displeased to be cast into the category of lesser being, where Mr. Jimroy, Morton, clearly placed himself.

  He went on. “Their actual experience, what happens to them in their lives, is really beside the point. It’s their genetic disposition, a mutation, of course, which urges them forward and allows them to be filters of a larger knowledge.”

  “I’m afraid you’re a little over my head,” Rose said. This was not strictly true. She was following what he said, yet sensed that humility was called for.

  Jimroy continued, his hands jabbing. “This is the central mystery of the poets, Miss Hindmarch. We examine the roots of our poets, their sources, the experiences they draw upon, and it never adds up. Never. There’s something that you”—he looked directly into Rose’s eyes at last —“that you and I can’t account for. Call it an extra dimension if you like. A third eye.”

  For some reason Rose felt unworthy of this insight. A gust of real humility struck her, and she wished Jimroy would remove his gaze. “I see,” she said foggily.

  “Take Swann’s profound sense of Angst,” Jimroy said.

  “Angst?” Rose looked down, then cut into her pie. She was conscious of Mrs. Ryan in her large apron standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Normally the hotel dining-room closed at 8:00 on week nights.

  “Perhaps despair is a better word,” Jimroy said kindly. “I don’t suppose our Swann read the existentialists, at least there is no concrete evidence that she did, but she was most assuredly affected by the trickle-down despair of our century.”

  “I think we all are,” Rose said. “All of us. I know I have my low moments —”

  Jimroy pushed aside his uneaten pudding. He leaned forward. “But you see, Swann had that rare gift of translating her despair. She wasn’t writing poems about housewife blues. She was speaking about the universal sense of loss and alienation, not about washing machines breaking down or about —”

  “Oh,” Rose said, “the Swanns didn’t have a washing machine.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “A washing machine. They didn’t have one.” She felt obliged to explain. “Of course there were people in the country who did have washing machines, even then, but the water supply out at the Swann place —”

  Jimroy looked tired. “I was using a washing machine as an example,” he said. “It was just a metaphor for, well, for all that’s nonspiritual in life if you like.” Nevertheless he pulled out his pencil and made a brief note. “What I meant was that great poets write from large universalized perceptions, and Mary Swann’s blood poem seems to me to be her central spiritual statement.” He paused, making sure Rose was following his argument. “The blood, you see, is a symbol. It stands for the continuum of belief, a metaphysical covenant with an inexplicable universe.”

  “Yes,” said Rose, and closed her mouth.

  Courage, courage, she said to herself, a word she has learned to unfurl in her head whenever her awful timidity rises up. Her voice immediately grew louder—she hoped not shrill—and her shoulders gathered force. “But you see,” she began, “Mrs. Swann was a woman and —”

  “Yes?”

  “It isn’t important.”

  “Everything’s important.”

  “I can’t remember what I was going to say.” She looked down at her rhubarb pie and pledged herself not to jeopardize what was left of the evening.

  “Our Father,” she says on Sunday morning to the carved leaves on the pulpit railing. “Take it away, take it away. When I come out of church today, make it be gone.”

  Mr. Jimroy wrote a lovely letter thanking her for all her help. She wrote back “But I’m the one who should be thanking you. It was such a pleasure —”

  Such a pleasure. Such an honour. Morton Jimroy—he was a famous author. She hadn’t realized how famous he was until later. He was in Who’s Who. She’d looked him up. He was a world authority. He knew everything there was to know about poetry, including what it all meant. Except for that poem of Mary Swann’s—he couldn’t seem to get the drift of that. Of course he was a man, an unmarried man at that, or at least separated—he’d mentioned something about a former wife—and perhaps men have a tendency to overlook what is perfectly obvious to women. Or perhaps he found it embarrassing or messy; she wouldn�
��t blame him a bit if he did. It had seemed so clear to Rose, but then she was no authority, and poetry could be so … so vague. Still, she was sure, a hundred per cent sure, of what Mary Swann had been talking about. Rose supposed she had made do with old rags as country women still did occasionally. Never two nickels to rub together, poor woman. And no clothes suitable for Sunday service, something else Mr. Jimroy hadn’t quite cottoned onto, though in the end maybe he had. At least he’d made a number of notes as she talked and talked.

  It was wonderful really, how he listened to her, to every little thing she had to say about Mary Swann, no matter how small or trivial. Sitting there, talking and talking, she realized she didn’t really like him. But she wanted him to like her. He was too anxious, too greedy somehow, but underneath the anxiousness and greed there was something else, a green shoot that matched her own unfolded greenness. Courage, she said to herself, and began another anecdote. “One day Mrs. Swann and I —”

  He wanted to hear it all. Tell me what she looked like, this famous author and scholar had begged Rose Hindmarch, local librarian. How did Mary Swann wear her hair? How did she walk? What was her voice like? Did you ever talk about poetry? What did you usually talk about? And what else?

  He was patient, waiting until she found the words and put her recollections in order. His eyes had burned. “Remarkable,” he said, and made a note. “Priceless.” Then, “Go on.”

  He filled one notebook and started another. “Now tell me, Miss Hindmarch, Rose, did you ever discuss …”

  He seemed altogether happy sitting there in the dining-room of the Elgin Hotel, leaning forward so eagerly, his rice pudding forgotten. And she? She felt a happy, porous sense of usefulness, as though joined for once to something that mattered. Slim-shouldered Rose Hindmarch, local expert on Mary Swann, a woman with an extraordinary memory and gift for detail, able to remember whole conversations word for word, able to put precise dates on … episodes that were years in the past … and …

  He shook her hand in farewell. She wanted him to linger, but his handshake was hurried, as though he could hardly wait to get back to his typewriter before the things she had said faded. A little let down, a little tearful in fact, she had wanted to hang on to his hand and blurt out something more. Anything. “I forgot to tell you about the time Mary and I …”

  Later, in church, after Morton Jimroy returned to Winnipeg, she begged forgiveness from the pine pulpit rail. She had never meant to be untruthful. She had not intended to exaggerate her friendship with Mary Swann. Friendship! The truth was that she had scarcely done more than pass the time of day with Mrs. Swann. Good morning, Mrs. Swann. Nice weather we’re having, Mrs. Swann. Won’t be long till the snow flies.

  The two of them had not gone for long walks together. They had not discussed—not even once—the books Mary Swann borrowed from the library. Mary Swann had not given Rose Hindmarch copies of her poems to read and comment upon. They had not—not ever—discussed their deeply shared feeling about literature or about families or about nature. None of this had taken place. It is a myth that people in rural communities are all acquainted with one another and know all about each other’s business. Mary Swann had been a virtual stranger to Rose Hindmarch, just as she was to everyone else in Nadeau, Ontario. A woman who kept to herself, that was Mary Swann.

  Forgive me, forgive me. Forgive me—the sin of untruthfulness.

  Our unlikeliest prayers are answered. Within weeks Rose felt herself to be absolved. Her guilt receded with surprising speed in the days following Jimroy’s visit, and before long she felt the balm of complete forgiveness. This came not in the usual way through a cycle of confession and mortification, penalty and pardon, but through the roughly weighted balance of mutual transgression. Human beings are not stainless; this is a fact. Rose is far from possessing moral perfection. So too is Morton Jimroy. Their imperfections, colliding in a blue sky somewhere between Ontario and Manitoba, merged and cancelled each other out.

  For Morton Jimroy took—stole, that is, no use to shilly-shally—the photograph of Mary Swann from the Nadeau Museum. There could be no doubt of this. He probably, Rose believes, slipped it under his jacket while she was looking the other way. Yes, she is sure this is what happened. There were two photographs: one rather blurred, showing Mary standing in the sunshine; the other, much clearer, showing the unsmiling matte face, eyes wide open, a mouth that was intensely secretive; it is this second photograph that vanished. There were no other visitors to the museum that day, not one.

  Her first thought was to write Jimroy a letter and accuse him directly. “Dear Mr. Jimroy, I am afraid I must ask you to return …”

  But the impulse died almost at once. Weeks passed. Months went by. Now, if she thinks of the photograph at all it’s with the sense that it is in the hands of its rightful owner. (Just as it is right that Mary Swann’s notebook is with Dr. Maloney, Sarah.) Knowing this, she experiences a quiet tide of relief. An act of restitution has taken place, an undefined wrong set right, and as for Jimroy, her fondness for him has increased steadily. His friendship, his confidence, is the anointing she has longed for, and the evening in the Elgin Hotel glows like one of those stained-glass birds people hang in their windows, the two of them together, chaste, joyful, the book of Mary Swann’s poems between them on the table. There was a moment when his hand, reaching for the bill, brushed hers. It shames her that she should savour this moment, since she knows it is the sort of accident others cast away as valueless. Nevertheless it is hers, and nothing will persuade her to give it up.

  Rose Hindmarch Is Visited by the November Blues

  The water tower at the edge of town wears a crown of snow, though it’s only mid-November. It has been snowing steadily for two days now. The lake is full of snow. The back roads are full of snow, and so are the small straight streets of Nadeau and the whitely blowing late-afternoon sky that hovers over the village. A water-colourist attempting to capture the scene would need only a minimal palette: blue, white, and a slash of violet. The violet, especially in the late afternoon, carries the power of melancholy.

  Coming through the snow is a human form that can barely be distinguished. Yes, it is female; yes, it is someone no longer young, a figure bundled against the snow and walking with an awkward and seemingly painful gait. It’s only Rose Hindmarch with a sack of groceries in her arms. Wouldn’t you think some kind person would offer her a lift?

  Now, around the corner, comes a blue Volkswagen van with its jumpy, nervous little windshield wipers going like fury. Homer Hart is behind the wheel, a kindly, fat-chested man squashed into an old-fashioned overcoat. He brings the little car to a sliding halt, rolls down the window and says in that quavering tenor of his, “Rose? Is that you? Climb in and I’ll run you home.”

  Before Homer’s breakdown he was principal of the Nadeau High School. Then the shock treatments wiped away his Latin and French and left behind only his sputtering, faltering high-pitched English. “This is no weather to be out in, Rose,” he natters. “This is no kind of day to be walking around out of doors.”

  “Thanks a million, Homer,” Rose says, getting in beside him. “I needed a few things from the store so I thought I’d —” Then she stops herself and says, “Any news from Daisy?”

  He takes the corner slowly. “Not a word for two weeks. You know Daisy when she gets down in the Florida sunshine.”

  “Didn’t she say when she’d be back? In her last letter, I mean?”

  “End of next week, she said, but you know Daisy.” He gives Rose a shrewd, unhopeful smile. “Gets a little longer every year.”

  “It won’t be long now,” Rose says. Then she adds, sighing, “Just look at all the snow she’s missed! Have you ever seen snow like this?”

  Homer offers to carry up the bag of groceries, but Rose says no, she can manage. “Thanks anyway, Homer.” Then “Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

  A lot of people say this to Homer. It’s a natural gesture, offering aid to
an older man who’s keeping house on his own for an interval and who’s lonely and disoriented. Of course Homer is chronically disoriented and, therefore, the recipient of many small kindnesses, which he has learned to accept meekly. This is especially the case when Daisy is off on her annual trip south.

  Rose is waiting for Daisy to come home from Florida and feed some life into her. Daisy with her leathery tan will bring her a new fund of stories: the people she’s met at her sister’s trailer park, the bridge hands she’s played, the new restaurants she and her sister have discovered in the Sarasota area. She’ll have bought herself two or three new outfits, and for Rose a rainbow-coloured scarf or a shell necklace from St. Armand’s Key. Rose is hoping to persuade Daisy to go into Kingston with her for a pre-Christmas shopping spree. Not that Daisy will need much persuading; she loves to go shopping with her friends, taking them by the arm and coaxing them into Eaton’s, offering advice and sharing precious threads of information. This’ll wear well, she’ll say, but this won’t. This flatters you, this brings out your complexion, covers your neck, hides your upper arms, conceals the bust. Daisy has an eye. Some say a wicked eye.

  Six months ago, just after Easter, Rose received a note in the mail. There was a local postmark on the envelope. A shower invitation, Rose thought happily; she hadn’t been to a shower for ages. Inside was an attractive little hasty note with a blue flower in one corner. The note was printed. “Dear Rose: I am a friend and can’t think of any way to tell you this, but there is a little hair growing on your chin. It’s been there for a while now, and I thought you might want to know.”

  Of course the note wasn’t signed. Of course Rose knew it could only have been sent by Daisy Hart.

  She felt sick. She would never be able to look Daisy in the face again. In the bathroom mirror she peered at herself, tipping her head back as far as she could. There it was, a little grey hair about an inch long, a small wiry hair, curly like a pig’s tail. She removed it with manicure scissors and immediately felt better, and also more kindly toward Daisy, and now, every night she looks to see if it has grown back in. She has replaced the bathroom lightbulb with one twice as bright and has also purchased a small magnifying mirror into which she can scarcely bring herself to look, so suddenly present are the colony of pores at the side of her nose and the webby flesh under her eyes. When Daisy comes home from Florida, Rose intends to consult her about buying a new makeup base. She wants to look her best for the Swann symposium, which is now only two months away. She would like to lose her tired, wan look and appear lively and knowledgeable, not exactly a fashion plate, that would be ridiculous, but someone who possesses the brisk freshness of the countryside. “You’re looking just the same, Rose,” cry Sarah Maloney, Morton Jimroy, Professor Lang, too.