again. I don’t do much of that, not that I’m such a gentle personality, but because it hurts the shoulders to lift even a thin glass. But I want to make a toast of my own. To all husbands. To all wives. To all of us still extant, harmonious or not, and to all those gone on into the pattern ahead. To the libraries that sustain us, and the vegetables. To this kitchen, a hearth that will vanish. To the Prendergast, whose darkening cannot be stayed. To death even—that provenance which none will prove false.
And to you who will read.
‘To— this hospice,’ I said.
‘W E SEEM TO BE drowning in sentiment,’ I told Gemma. ‘Maybe that’s the way to go.’
Getting the prize has been like winning the race I’ve never before admitted I was in. Yet does it come too late for encouragement? For I also hear its verdict: Your work is done.
Still, the announcement won’t come out for some months. And Sherm, who had sworn not to tell but couldn’t be trusted there, had on the way home from our house suffered a slight—what do they call a stroke nowadays?—‘neural accident.’ ‘He can speak clearly enough,’ Kit said on the phone. ‘But somehow, you don’t believe what he says.’
I saw that happen to my father. Physical loss saps one’s authority. Especially with others who are still whole. According to Gemma, Kit is certainly not that. But her loss has been in another direction. That lemony disposition of hers has turned her mind sharp—even improved by the other loss?
‘Poor Sherm,’ I said to Kit. Late in life one begins to love even one’s enemies. Though he was never quite that.
Gemma was putting a large yellow tuber into the oven to bake. She’s looking sharper but talking less. I think the years make women feel less unique to themselves. She’s said as much. Once she was a woman she could recognize in any mirror. ‘I had a certain flashy reticence. Now I only see my type.’ And what was that? ‘A brown-dyed old lady, proud of wearing a blouse too young for her.’
What men suffer is a loss of arena. Even if we’ve never had much of a one. Or even if it’s not outwardly true. When the announcement does come I’ll have telephone calls, invitations to speak, travel if I want it, and more media exposure than I have ever had in my life—for a short while. But my real arena is my work. And the body crucial to it.
‘What’s that you’re baking?’
‘Mr Quinn put me on to it. Not exactly expressing a desire, but almost. Scrape the center with a fork when it’s done, and presto—pasta. Miracles of the loaves and fishes can’t compare with a spaghetti squash.’
‘How is he today?’
‘Better. Was nothing but flu, he says.’
He had never been sick before, he told us. A next pleurisy could carry him off. But to our relief—for where would this end for us otherwise, there in the same house with him?—a nephew had turned up.
The squash went in. Now she must find another work pretext. Dozens of them in the last few days. Curtains. Duties in the small garden behind the house. My not too dusty books. And oddest of these addenda: plotting our concert and play subscriptions for the coming year. Mr Quinn’s illness, an honest scare, had ended up a godsend. I’d seen it all before. Anxious women pull domesticity over their heads. Or women like Gemma.
‘Those big black ants that are coming in from the cellar,’ I said, ‘I just now drowned one in the toilet.’ I always feel guilty—and always tell her. I always wish I were a Hindu who out of religious consideration would not have done such a thing. Yet my hand always flashes out. By what is called instinct.
‘Oh, did you.’ She knows all that. She shut the oven door.
‘The ant—reminded me of you. Going down—in such a swirl. And of me. One day the hand above us will flash. Casually.’
‘You’re low, aren’t you.’
I nod. ‘And you?’
She nods.
‘So it better be sentiment, hmm?’ she says. ‘So let’s go that-way.
And to you who will read.
‘To— this hospice,’ I said.
‘W E SEEM TO BE drowning in sentiment,’ I told Gemma. ‘Maybe that’s the way to go.’
Getting the prize has been like winning the race I’ve never before admitted I was in. Yet does it come too late for encouragement? For I also hear its verdict: Your work is done.
Still, the announcement won’t come out for some months. And Sherm, who had sworn not to tell but couldn’t be trusted there, had on the way home from our house suffered a slight—what do they call a stroke nowadays?—‘neural accident.’ ‘He can speak clearly enough,’ Kit said on the phone. ‘But somehow, you don’t believe what he says.’
I saw that happen to my father. Physical loss saps one’s authority. Especially with others who are still whole. According to Gemma, Kit is certainly not that. But her loss has been in another direction. That lemony disposition of hers has turned her mind sharp—even improved by the other loss?
‘Poor Sherm,’ I said to Kit. Late in life one begins to love even one’s enemies. Though he was never quite that.
Gemma was putting a large yellow tuber into the oven to bake. She’s looking sharper but talking less. I think the years make women feel less unique to themselves. She’s said as much. Once she was a woman she could recognize in any mirror. ‘I had a certain flashy reticence. Now I only see my type.’ And what was that? ‘A brown-dyed old lady, proud of wearing a blouse too young for her.’
What men suffer is a loss of arena. Even if we’ve never had much of a one. Or even if it’s not outwardly true. When the announcement does come I’ll have telephone calls, invitations to speak, travel if I want it, and more media exposure than I have ever had in my life—for a short while. But my real arena is my work. And the body crucial to it.
‘What’s that you’re baking?’
‘Mr Quinn put me on to it. Not exactly expressing a desire, but almost. Scrape the center with a fork when it’s done, and presto—pasta. Miracles of the loaves and fishes can’t compare with a spaghetti squash.’
‘How is he today?’
‘Better. Was nothing but flu, he says.’
He had never been sick before, he told us. A next pleurisy could carry him off. But to our relief—for where would this end for us otherwise, there in the same house with him?—a nephew had turned up.
The squash went in. Now she must find another work pretext. Dozens of them in the last few days. Curtains. Duties in the small garden behind the house. My not too dusty books. And oddest of these addenda: plotting our concert and play subscriptions for the coming year. Mr Quinn’s illness, an honest scare, had ended up a godsend. I’d seen it all before. Anxious women pull domesticity over their heads. Or women like Gemma.
‘Those big black ants that are coming in from the cellar,’ I said, ‘I just now drowned one in the toilet.’ I always feel guilty—and always tell her. I always wish I were a Hindu who out of religious consideration would not have done such a thing. Yet my hand always flashes out. By what is called instinct.
‘Oh, did you.’ She knows all that. She shut the oven door.
‘The ant—reminded me of you. Going down—in such a swirl. And of me. One day the hand above us will flash. Casually.’
‘You’re low, aren’t you.’
I nod. ‘And you?’
She nods.
‘So it better be sentiment, hmm?’ she says. ‘So let’s go that-way.
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