almost jaunty. A knockabout tone of relief. He is trying to hold that in, not let relief out till I am gone.
I watch the streets. It’s something like being driven to the place of execution. Not yet. A little while yet. Not yet do I hear his voice for the last time. Not yet.
He doesn’t have to ask the way. I wonder out loud if he has put girls on the train before.
“Don’t be like that,” he says.
Every turn is like a shearing-off of what’s left of my life.
There is a train to Toronto at five o’clock. He has told me to wait in the car while he goes in to check. He comes out with the ticket in his hand and what I think is a lighter step. He must have realized this because as he approaches the car he becomes more sedate.
“It’s nice and warm in the station. There’s a special ladies’ waiting room.”
He has opened the car door for me.
“Or would you rather I waited and saw you off? Maybe there’s a place where we can get a decent piece of pie. That was a horrible dinner.”
This makes me stir myself. I get out and walk ahead of him into the station. He points out the ladies’ waiting room. He raises his eyebrow at me and tries to make a final joke.
“Maybe someday you’ll count this one of the luckiest days of your life.”
I choose a bench in the ladies’ waiting room that has a view of the station’s front doors. That is to be able to see him if he comes back. He will tell me that this is all a joke. Or a test, as in some medieval drama.
Or perhaps he has had a change of mind. Driving down the highway seeing the pale spring sunlight on the rocks that we so lately looked at together. Struck by a realization of his folly he turns in the middle of the road and comes speeding back.
It is an hour at least before the Toronto train comes into the station, but it seems hardly any time at all. And even now fantasies are running through my mind. I board the train as if there are chains on my ankles. I press my face to the window to look along the platform as the whistle blows for our departure. Even now it might not be too late for me to jump from the train. Jump free and run through the station to the street where he would just have parked the car and is running up the steps thinking not too late, pray not too late.
Myself running to meet him, not too late.
And what is the commotion, shouting, hollering, not one but a gaggle of latecomers pounding between the seats. High school girls in athletic outfits, hooting at the trouble they have caused. The conductor displeased and hurrying them along as they scramble for their seats.
One of them, and perhaps the loudest, is Mary.
I turn my head and do not look at them again.
But here she is, crying out my name and wanting to know where I have been.
To visit with a friend, I tell her.
She plunks herself down beside me and tells me that they have been playing basketball against Huntsville. It was a riot. They lost.
“We lost, didn’t we?” she calls out in apparent delight, and the others groan and giggle. She mentions the score which is indeed quite shameful.
“You’re all dressed up,” she says. But she doesn’t much care, she seems to take my explanation without real interest.
She barely notices when I say that I am going on to Toronto to visit my grandparents. Except to remark that they must be really old. Not a word about Alister. Not even a bad word.She would not have forgotten. Just tidied up the scene and put it away in a closet with her former selves. Or maybe she really is a person who can deal recklessly with humiliation.
I am grateful to her now, even if I was not able to feel such a thing at the time. Left all to myself, what might I have done when we got to Amundsen? What jumping up and leaving the train and running to his house and demanding to know why, why. What shame on me forever. As it was, the stop there gave the team barely time to get themselves collected and to rap on the windows alerting the people who had come to
I watch the streets. It’s something like being driven to the place of execution. Not yet. A little while yet. Not yet do I hear his voice for the last time. Not yet.
He doesn’t have to ask the way. I wonder out loud if he has put girls on the train before.
“Don’t be like that,” he says.
Every turn is like a shearing-off of what’s left of my life.
There is a train to Toronto at five o’clock. He has told me to wait in the car while he goes in to check. He comes out with the ticket in his hand and what I think is a lighter step. He must have realized this because as he approaches the car he becomes more sedate.
“It’s nice and warm in the station. There’s a special ladies’ waiting room.”
He has opened the car door for me.
“Or would you rather I waited and saw you off? Maybe there’s a place where we can get a decent piece of pie. That was a horrible dinner.”
This makes me stir myself. I get out and walk ahead of him into the station. He points out the ladies’ waiting room. He raises his eyebrow at me and tries to make a final joke.
“Maybe someday you’ll count this one of the luckiest days of your life.”
I choose a bench in the ladies’ waiting room that has a view of the station’s front doors. That is to be able to see him if he comes back. He will tell me that this is all a joke. Or a test, as in some medieval drama.
Or perhaps he has had a change of mind. Driving down the highway seeing the pale spring sunlight on the rocks that we so lately looked at together. Struck by a realization of his folly he turns in the middle of the road and comes speeding back.
It is an hour at least before the Toronto train comes into the station, but it seems hardly any time at all. And even now fantasies are running through my mind. I board the train as if there are chains on my ankles. I press my face to the window to look along the platform as the whistle blows for our departure. Even now it might not be too late for me to jump from the train. Jump free and run through the station to the street where he would just have parked the car and is running up the steps thinking not too late, pray not too late.
Myself running to meet him, not too late.
And what is the commotion, shouting, hollering, not one but a gaggle of latecomers pounding between the seats. High school girls in athletic outfits, hooting at the trouble they have caused. The conductor displeased and hurrying them along as they scramble for their seats.
One of them, and perhaps the loudest, is Mary.
I turn my head and do not look at them again.
But here she is, crying out my name and wanting to know where I have been.
To visit with a friend, I tell her.
She plunks herself down beside me and tells me that they have been playing basketball against Huntsville. It was a riot. They lost.
“We lost, didn’t we?” she calls out in apparent delight, and the others groan and giggle. She mentions the score which is indeed quite shameful.
“You’re all dressed up,” she says. But she doesn’t much care, she seems to take my explanation without real interest.
She barely notices when I say that I am going on to Toronto to visit my grandparents. Except to remark that they must be really old. Not a word about Alister. Not even a bad word.She would not have forgotten. Just tidied up the scene and put it away in a closet with her former selves. Or maybe she really is a person who can deal recklessly with humiliation.
I am grateful to her now, even if I was not able to feel such a thing at the time. Left all to myself, what might I have done when we got to Amundsen? What jumping up and leaving the train and running to his house and demanding to know why, why. What shame on me forever. As it was, the stop there gave the team barely time to get themselves collected and to rap on the windows alerting the people who had come to
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