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Authors: Margaret Laurence
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senseless.
“What?” What did she ask me? “Oh – yes. I don’t see why he’s making such an issue of James. Remember – I told you? You’d think the reputation of the whole school was at stake.”
“He likes playing games with people, that’s all. If you once said to him, ‘Now listen here, Willard, quit making a mountain out of a molehill –’”
“You could do it. But not me.”
“Why not?”
“I –” I have to search for an adequate reason. “I can’t bear scenes. They make me ill.”
But this is too serious, and I want to change to something undangerous.
“Did you see Sapphire Travis’s shoes, Calla?”
“Sure. You could see them a block away. She painted them herself.”
“Really?”
“Yeh,” Calla says. “Some gloop she bought, a do-it-yourself shoe-painting kit. But why that screeching pink, I ask myself.”
“It’s a little bright, I agree.”
“It’s explosive. All her kids were staring like mad. With admiration, she thought. Well, this is uncharitable and lousy-minded of me. What harm does it do, after all? Brighten the corner where you are, and so on. Maybe I’ll get around to doing my old brogues a pale lilac.”
“Polka-dotted with silver.”
“Sure. Just the job.” And she chuckles throatily. She would probably do it, too, and find it more amusing than anyone. I envy this quality, but it appals me as well. She is gathering up the tea cups, whistling
She’s Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage.
“Did I tell you I got a canary?” she says.
“No. Did you?”
“Yeh. Moronic little thing, actually. Not even a cheep out of it. I don’t think it’s scared of me. My guess is it is just simply anti-social and unmusical. I’ve tried singing all kinds of things. But no response. It’s not fond of hymns, and pop music makes it jittery, so what can I do?”
“What a shame. Maybe it’ll change, though.”
“The other possibility,” Calla says, “is that it isn’t a canary at all. It is a bleached sparrow which has been fobbed off on me.”
She’s trying so valiantly, as she has done whenever she thought I was depressed, and so I do laugh, not to disappoint her. Then it occurs to me that she never speaks of the Tabernacleany more. I want to ask her how it is there, these days, just to show I can speak of it. I want to ask her in a perfectly ordinary voice, if she’s yet received the gift of tongues. I ought at least to enquire politely.
But as soon as I think of that place at all, I’m back there in that indefensible moment, trapped in my own alien voice, and the eyes all around have swollen to giants’ eyes. How will I ever be able to forget?
“I must go now.”
Before I’ve even quite realized it, I’ve snatched my cardigan off the hook and I’m halfway down the wide grey cement stairs outside. Calla will think it’s peculiar, that I should rush off like this. But I can’t go back. The knowledge of having to go back tomorrow morning is difficult enough.
Grace Doherty is plump and neat. She wears a white straw hat with veiling, and a light-blue spring suit, new, and high-heeled shoes. Why has she found it necessary to get dressed up like this? An interview with the teacher? But the teacher is Rachel Cameron, whom she’s known all her life. Is it possible she doesn’t think of it like this, and is edgy herself, wondering what I will have to say about James? I can’t believe it. She was always self-assured, a girl who never bothered about schoolwork and managed to convey the impression that those who did were laughable or else had nothing better to do.
James is waiting for her in the hall. It seems a little cruel to keep him there, after all the others have gone, waiting and wondering what we’re saying in here. But I couldn’t talk to her in his presence.
I find I can’t call her Grace. But to say Mrs. Doherty would be silly. I won’t be able to address her directly at all.
“These absences of James –” my voice sounds distant, cold, a
“What?” What did she ask me? “Oh – yes. I don’t see why he’s making such an issue of James. Remember – I told you? You’d think the reputation of the whole school was at stake.”
“He likes playing games with people, that’s all. If you once said to him, ‘Now listen here, Willard, quit making a mountain out of a molehill –’”
“You could do it. But not me.”
“Why not?”
“I –” I have to search for an adequate reason. “I can’t bear scenes. They make me ill.”
But this is too serious, and I want to change to something undangerous.
“Did you see Sapphire Travis’s shoes, Calla?”
“Sure. You could see them a block away. She painted them herself.”
“Really?”
“Yeh,” Calla says. “Some gloop she bought, a do-it-yourself shoe-painting kit. But why that screeching pink, I ask myself.”
“It’s a little bright, I agree.”
“It’s explosive. All her kids were staring like mad. With admiration, she thought. Well, this is uncharitable and lousy-minded of me. What harm does it do, after all? Brighten the corner where you are, and so on. Maybe I’ll get around to doing my old brogues a pale lilac.”
“Polka-dotted with silver.”
“Sure. Just the job.” And she chuckles throatily. She would probably do it, too, and find it more amusing than anyone. I envy this quality, but it appals me as well. She is gathering up the tea cups, whistling
She’s Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage.
“Did I tell you I got a canary?” she says.
“No. Did you?”
“Yeh. Moronic little thing, actually. Not even a cheep out of it. I don’t think it’s scared of me. My guess is it is just simply anti-social and unmusical. I’ve tried singing all kinds of things. But no response. It’s not fond of hymns, and pop music makes it jittery, so what can I do?”
“What a shame. Maybe it’ll change, though.”
“The other possibility,” Calla says, “is that it isn’t a canary at all. It is a bleached sparrow which has been fobbed off on me.”
She’s trying so valiantly, as she has done whenever she thought I was depressed, and so I do laugh, not to disappoint her. Then it occurs to me that she never speaks of the Tabernacleany more. I want to ask her how it is there, these days, just to show I can speak of it. I want to ask her in a perfectly ordinary voice, if she’s yet received the gift of tongues. I ought at least to enquire politely.
But as soon as I think of that place at all, I’m back there in that indefensible moment, trapped in my own alien voice, and the eyes all around have swollen to giants’ eyes. How will I ever be able to forget?
“I must go now.”
Before I’ve even quite realized it, I’ve snatched my cardigan off the hook and I’m halfway down the wide grey cement stairs outside. Calla will think it’s peculiar, that I should rush off like this. But I can’t go back. The knowledge of having to go back tomorrow morning is difficult enough.
Grace Doherty is plump and neat. She wears a white straw hat with veiling, and a light-blue spring suit, new, and high-heeled shoes. Why has she found it necessary to get dressed up like this? An interview with the teacher? But the teacher is Rachel Cameron, whom she’s known all her life. Is it possible she doesn’t think of it like this, and is edgy herself, wondering what I will have to say about James? I can’t believe it. She was always self-assured, a girl who never bothered about schoolwork and managed to convey the impression that those who did were laughable or else had nothing better to do.
James is waiting for her in the hall. It seems a little cruel to keep him there, after all the others have gone, waiting and wondering what we’re saying in here. But I couldn’t talk to her in his presence.
I find I can’t call her Grace. But to say Mrs. Doherty would be silly. I won’t be able to address her directly at all.
“These absences of James –” my voice sounds distant, cold, a
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