Three Women at the Water's Edge (32 page)

Dale hugged herself and laughed out loud. “My God,” she spoke aloud into the empty classroom, “this is like some kind of religious conversion.” She felt slightly embarrassed, and even as she walked about the classroom she knew that this high would wear off, that there would be days and weeks and months when she would feel cynical and depressed or simply just tired, but that still something had come over her, or something had entered into her, and she was changed.

She went back to her desk and sorted tests and books and papers into their appropriate piles, then put on her hat and mittens—she was already wearing her parka—and gathered up her purse. As she flicked off the classroom lights she felt amused at the drama of her thoughts, but she would always remember this day, the tests, the cold, the boy and girl she had helped, and this empty classroom where she had learned how to experience a new and very rich sort of joy.

Mr. Jersey was waiting for her at the end of the hall with the hot toddy recipe written down on a yellow lined sheet of tablet paper. She thanked him, and stood talking to him for a while, complimenting him for his kindness toward Jeff and Sally. Then she drove home, full of thoughts, full of energetic new plans for French and biology lessons. She almost ran up the stairs, still reliving her revelation. And when the phone rang and it was Hank, she almost could not speak to him, she almost for a long moment could not speak, she was so filled with the wonder of the sudden knowledge that she had gone so long without needing him, without even having him in her thoughts. She stood by the phone, talking to him, loving him, smiling—and loving herself at the same time.

A cat appeared at Margaret’s door this morning; she was awakened by its mewing. She rose from bed and wrapped herself in a thick, warm, wine-colored robe and walked through her quiet house to the front door. When she opened the door she was first struck by the force of the weather: a chill wet wind assailed her and made her nearly slam the door in self-defense. Instead she looked down to see, sitting on the sill, a wet and most miserable-looking cat. The cat was of an indiscriminate gray, and was so wet that its fur was stuck dismally along its bones, giving it an unpleasant ratlike look. Vancouver doors and windows do not need screens because there are so few flying bugs in the area; Margaret was still amazed by this each time she opened the door. It seemed an incredibly arbitrary luxury to her after living so long in the buggy Midwest. So now the absence of the screen made it possible for the wet cat to huddle up against the wooden door where it was partially protected from the rain by the overhang. Still the wind blew and gusted and sprayed the poor cat with constant cold wet blasts, and the cat shivered and mewed. It was not a kitten, but it had the vulnerability of a kitten. When Margaret stared down at it, it stared her right in the eye and mewed at her so directly, so demandingly, that she knew she would have to take it in. What else could she do? Leave it to die there huddled in the rain on her doorstep?

She bent to pick the sopping cat up and although her first thought was to hold the cat away from her, her first instinct was to cuddle it against her to warm it. The front of her robe was immediately soaked. She carried the cat into the kitchen, becoming slightly alarmed as she felt the cat’s wild trembling. Poor cat; would it die? She grabbed up a terry-cloth hand towel and began to dry the cat. Then she set it on the floor, still wrapped in the towel, and heated up some milk just until it was warm to her little finger. She placed the warm milk in a saucer and dished out some of the moist canned cat food she kept for Pandora and set it on the floor for the cat. It ate and drank ravenously, and for a moment Margaret stayed to watch, pleased by the satisfaction of the cat. Then she went into the living room and built and lighted a large fire. Soon the room was glowing with warmth. The stray cat came in of its own accord and settled itself in front of the fire, very close to the hearth. It tucked its paws under it and looked up at Margaret with approval. Margaret went into the kitchen, made herself some tea, and returned. The cat had fallen asleep.

It was only seven-thirty. Margaret felt slightly annoyed. She had been out late the night before and had intended to sleep late into the morning. There was so little else to do on late-January mornings like this, when the rain and wind were constant. She sank down onto the sofa and sipped at her tea and looked out her large glass windows toward the ocean. But she could not see the ocean for the rain. All she could see were sheets of rain, and dark dense clouds, and the rain blowing up against the windows in such waves and patterns that she felt she could see the wind. But this did not keep her interest; she had seen all that often enough these days. So she looked down at the cat, which was still sleeping, and then at the coffee table, which was laden with the new hardbound books she had bought the day before. She thought she might take the books back to bed with her, to browse over until she fell asleep again. But she did not feel the ordinary surge of desire and anticipation that she usually felt when looking at new books, and instead she felt annoyed by them, because they had lost their charm, because they could not lure her. She knew it could not be the books’ fault; they had intrigued her enough yesterday when she had bought them in the downtown bookstore. And she had bought so many various types: a mystery, a romantic novel, a serious novel, a book full of photographs by a famous American photographer of a famous American woman painter. No, they were all good new books. But they did not lure her. They seemed dead and cold. They irritated her. Margaret felt, like the slight trickle of irritation that comes at the back of the throat just before a cold arrives, a tricky and unpleasant chill, a chill about her soul. She was frightened.

She said aloud—she had taken to talking to herself aloud, and why not, it was her house—”Oh, no. Not another morning like
this
.” For in the past few weeks she had come to experience black mornings, brown mornings, gray mornings, when she was filled with an irrational grief and remorse and, worse, with self-loathing. Usually she fought off the mood with action; but what could she do at seven-thirty in the morning? She gave the stray cat a bitter look, but the cat did not wake up.

She had been quite happy through the holiday season. She had had a party of friends in to her home just before Christmas to watch the carol ships make their gay bright tour of the harbor, all the masts and decks hung with lights, looking like floating, wandering Christmas trees. That had been lovely. There had been children on the ships singing carols, and their sweet young voices had been projected toward shore by loudspeakers. And there had been a man on one of the ships who had called out: “All you in West Vancouver who can hear us, who are watching, blink your lights! Switch your house lights on and off so we know you are there!” It had been wonderful, oh wonderful, the way the whole shore of lights flickered on and off, in answer to the carol ships. Lights in the darkness, candles in the night, stars, people answering people with flashing lights all up and down the mountain. Margaret had stood at her light switch, flicking it up and down, feeling quite satisfied with her life, thinking that this was just exactly the right amount of contact she wanted with the outside world. Just this: to respond when asked, but at a distance, and without consequences, without responsibi
lity. She had turned most happily back to her guests, to be their gay and temporary hostess.

Christmas Eve she had spent with Anthony, and Christmas Day they had gone to a dinner party at Miriam and Gordon’s. It had been just at the beginning of this year that Miriam, who had been Margaret’s friend for over thirty years, had invited Margaret to fly up from Liberty for a visit. Margaret had immediately fallen in love with Vancouver and had spent hours talking to Miriam about her life and her desires. Miriam had given Margaret excellent, unobtrusive, disinterested advice—and then a great hearty welcome when Margaret made the move. Margaret had even lived with Miriam and Gordon while she looked for and then negotiated the buying of her house. So it seemed fitting that she should spend the holidays with this, her oldest and somehow newest of friends, and with Gordon, Miriam’s husband. And the holidays had passed quickly, full of laughter and good food and wine, and with a sense of elegant, unimploring companionship.

But now it was late January, and the holidays were over, and certain things had happened in Margaret’s life that she wished had not happened. The world was beginning to encroach; demands were beginning to be made, and she did not like this. She did not want to dwell on this even now.

She sipped at her tea, and then picked up a cigarette from the silver case on the coffee table, and smoked awhile, gazing at the cat and feeling rather nasty. She was quite awake. She was slightly bored. She was annoyed. She had things to face.

It was seven-thirty in the morning—seven-forty now. Both the new stray cat and Pandora in on her bedroom chair were asleep and oblivious to her plight. It was completely quiet in the house except for the sound of the wind and rain against the windows. No one would call at this early hour. Margaret stared at the books on the coffee table, then at her bare foot, which she was swinging in abrupt little flips. She followed the line of her leg up from her foot to her robe-covered calf and then to her lap where her hands lay resting, one hand holding a cigarette from which she had just flicked the ashes. She sat on her sofa, and in an attempt to avoid other thoughts, she studied her hands.

They were the hands of a woman who was almost fifty years old: They were beginning to wrinkle, and the veins showed, but still they were quite attractive hands. In fact Margaret was vain of her hands. She wore three rings: a large diamond that had been her mother’s engagement ring; a thick silver band which Anthony had given her; and an elaborate jade and silver ring which Miriam had given her. Margaret kept her nails painted now; she had never painted her nails while in Iowa, but she found she enjoyed doing this now, enjoyed the process of brushing on the sleek oily polish, enjoyed seeing the slick bright sheen of color at her fingertips as she went about her daily tasks. She thought she enjoyed most of all that rather helpless period of time that had to pass while her nails dried; that time when she could do nothing but sit so that the polish would not be smeared or marred. Yes, it was a pleasure to be able to indulge oneself in something as frivolous and time-consuming as painting one’s nails; it was a pleasure to go about with painted nails. For of course when she had been at home, taking care of her family, doing dishes, cooking, baking brownies or chicken casseroles for some luncheon or charity or bake sale, she had not even dreamed of having painted nails, because the paint chipped off so easily. In her former life, painted nails would have been a bother, a source of constant worry. Now they were a source of constant pleasure. She felt like a Chinese emperor in pictures she had seen who grew his nails very long to indicate his life of luxury and ease; just so she painted her fingernails, to say to herself: It’s okay now, it’s yourself you have to please, you can indulge yourself. It was a trivial, frivolous indulgence, yet crucial all the same. And so Margaret stared at her hands, sliding the thick silver band up and down, enjoying the clean polished sight of her indolent hands. She thought she would like to live out the rest of her days in a life as sleek and cool as her hands were now. And then her hands trembled, and she put the cigarette in the ashtray and pressed her hands together in front of her, as if she were praying, and up against her lips. It was no good; her hands continued to tremble: she would have to face it, sooner or later. There were things she had to work through.

For one, there was Daisy. She could not keep up the pretense of not caring about Daisy. She worried about Daisy a great deal, in spite of herself. This fretting made her angry. She really resented this intrusion of worry and concern into her life. And yet what could she do? Daisy was her daughter. And besides, she loved Daisy, she liked Daisy, and could not help but sympathize with Daisy’s plight. She would have been terrified to be alone at twenty-nine with two or three small children, facing the world without security, without the protection of a man. It was all very well for Margaret now to feel smug about her new independence, but Daisy was not forty-eight, Daisy’s children were not grown, Daisy was young and in distress. There were periods in people’s lives when they needed help. And Daisy needed help now. Oh, but what could Margaret do? She did not know how to answer Daisy’s letter asking for a loan of ten thousand dollars. She knew that Daisy would never be able to repay that loan, and Margaret could see no way to just give Daisy the money and still live her own life. But more than money was involved here, Margaret knew, more was at stake. How did any parent ever draw the line and say: From now on you are totally on your own? How could Margaret say: I do love you, but I won’t help you? Daisy’s needs were so engulfing, and Margaret did not want to be engulfed. She wanted to be solitary and free. But Daisy was her child. Her first sweet child. She could not think what to do; and it angered her that so much of her time was given over to this worry.

And there was the problem with Anthony. When Margaret had met him eight months ago at Miriam and Gordon’s home, she had been first intrigued and then delighted by the man. He was so tall, so lean, so knowledgeable, and above all, so contained. He had held himself with such perfect reserve. He was so unlike the men Margaret had known in Iowa, all those men like Harry who had seemed somehow expansive in a manner that was at once vulnerable and domineering. They had imposed themselves on her and by their very buttery congeniality had somehow set more limitations on Margaret than Anthony and his almost disdainful aloofness could ever have. Or so she had thought.

At first she had been intrigued by him, and for a while really terrified at the consequences of his affection for her. This tall cool man liked her: Then what kind of woman was she? What kind of woman could she be? It was all so new to her: the city, her house, her new acquaintances, and this new and utterly composed man. For months she had been in a real state, awakening each day to the sight of cold blue water, then going through the day at the edge of that water. She would sit by the window reading her day’s mail, which at that time still consisted of long pleading emotional letters from Harry or one of their mutual Iowa friends, letters addressed to the old Margaret, the caretaker, the nurturer. Then the phone would ring, and it would be Anthony, suggesting that they attend an opera or a poetry reading or a lecture and cocktail party at UBC. She had for a while visualized herself as a woman made of layers, who left a thin transparent Margaret sitting by the window with a letter in her hands as another thin, transparent Margaret stood by the phone. Anthony had wanted to buy a new car, and had enticed Margaret into buying his slightly used Mercedes convertible, and that had added another layer to her image: that car. It would have been daft to have a convertible in Liberty, where it was always too cold or hot or windy to drive exposed, and Margaret would have felt pretentious and just plain silly driving to the ladies’ auxiliary meeting at someone’s farm in such a thing. Yet here in Vancouver the weather was so different, so clement, that she could drive with the top down for most of the months of the year. And it suited her, this low luxurious car; it pleased her enormously, and it was the sort of thing one could drive to the downtown shops or the universities or the sleek lovely houses set back on the mountain roads overlooking the city. Margaret had become more and more at ease with her new self. Each day, in fact, she had liked herself more. Each day she had smiled at herself in the rearview mirror of the Mercedes, saying: why,
look
, look how I can be! She had luxuriated in being herself, alone.