Dance of the Happy Shades (22 page)

While they were eating she ate her own lunch, sitting at the kitchen table, looking through an old copy of
Time
. There was no bell, of course, on the patio; Mrs. Gannett called, “All right, Alva!” or simply, “Alva!” in tones as discreet and penetrating as those of the bell. It was queer to hear her call this, in the middle of talking to someone, and then begin laughing again; it seemed as if she had a mechanical voice, even a button she pushed, for Alva.

At the end of the meal they all carried their own dessert plates and coffee cups back to the kitchen. Mrs. Vance said the potato salad was lovely; Mr. Vance, quite drunk, said lovely, lovely. He stood right behind Alva at the sink, so very close she felt his breath and sensed the position of his hands; he did not quite touch her. Mr. Vance was very big, curly-haired, high-coloured; his hair was grey, and Alva found him alarming, because he was the sort of man she was used to being respectful to. Mrs. Vance talked all the time,
and seemed, when talking to Alva, more unsure of herself, yet warmer, than any of the other women. There was some instability in the situation of the Vances; Alva was not sure what it was; it might have been just that they had not so much money as the others. At any rate they were always being very entertaining, very enthusiastic, and Mr. Vance was always getting too drunk.

“Going up north, Alva, up to Georgian Bay?” Mr. Vance said, and Mrs. Vance said, “Oh, you’ll love it, the Gannetts have a lovely place,” and Mr. Vance said, “Get some sun on you up there, eh?” and then they went away. Alva, able to move now, turned around to get some dirty plates and noticed that Mr. Gannett’s cousin, or whoever he was, was still there. He was thin and leathery-looking, like Mrs. Gannett, though dark. He said, “You don’t happen to have any more coffee here, do you?” Alva poured him what there was, half a cup. He stood and drank it, watching her stack the dishes. Then he said, “Lots of fun, eh?” and when she looked up, laughed, and went out.

Alva was free after she finished the dishes; dinner would be late. She could not actually leave the house; Mrs. Gannett might want her for something. And she could not go outside; they were out there. She went upstairs; then, remembering that Mrs. Gannett had said she could read any of the books in the den, she went down again to get one. In the hall she met Mr. Gannett, who looked at her very seriously, attentively, but seemed about to go past without saying anything; then he said, “See here, Alva—see here, are you getting enough to eat?”

It was not a joke, since Mr. Gannett did not make them. It was, in fact, something he had asked her two or three times before. It seemed that he felt a responsibility for her, when he saw her in his house; the important thing seemed to be, that she should be well fed. Alva reassured him, flushing with annoyance; was she a heifer? She said, “I
was going to the den to get a book. Mrs. Gannett said it would be all right—”

“Yes, yes, any book you like,” Mr. Gannett said, and he unexpectedly opened the door of the den for her and led her to the bookshelves, where he stood frowning. “What book would you like?” he said. He reached toward the shelf of brightly jacketed mysteries and historical novels, but Alva said, “I’ve never read
King Lear.
”

“
King Lear,
” said Mr. Gannett. “Oh.” He did not know where to look for it, so Alva got it down herself. “Nor
The Red and the Black,
” she said. That did not impress him so much, but it was something she might really read; she could not go back to her room with just
King Lear
. She went out of the room feeling well-pleased; she had shown him she did something besides eat. A man would be more impressed by
King Lear
than a woman. Nothing could make any difference to Mrs. Gannett; a maid was a maid.

But in her room, she did not want to read. Her room was over the garage, and very hot. Sitting on the bed rumpled her uniform, and she did not have another ironed. She could take it off and sit in her slip, but Mrs. Gannett might call her, and want her at once. She stood at the window, looking up and down the street. The street was a crescent, a wide slow curve, with no sidewalks; Alva had felt a little conspicuous, the once or twice she had walked along it; you never saw people walking. The houses were set far apart, far back from the street, behind brilliant lawns and rockeries and ornamental trees; in this area in front of the houses, no one ever spent time but the Chinese gardeners; the lawn furniture, the swings and garden tables were set out on the back lawns, which were surrounded by hedges, stone walls, pseudo-rustic fences. The street was lined with parked cars this afternoon; from behind the houses came sounds of conversation and a great deal of laughter. In spite of the heat,
there was no blur on the day, up here; everything—the stone and white stucco houses, the flowers, the flower-coloured cars—looked hard and glittering, exact and perfect. There was no haphazard thing in sight. The street, like an advertisement, had an almost aggressive look of bright summer spirits; Alva felt dazzled by this, by the laughter, by people whose lives were relevant to the street. She sat down on a hard chair in front of an old-fashioned child’s desk—all the furniture in this room had come out of other rooms that had been redecorated; it was the only place in the house where you could find things unmatched, unrelated to each other, and wooden things that were not large, low and pale. She began to write a letter to her family.

—and the houses, all the others too, are just tremendous, mostly quite modern. There isn’t a weed in the lawns, they have a gardener spend a whole day every week just cleaning out what looks to be perfect already. I think the men are rather sappy, the fuss they make over perfect lawns and things like that. They do go out and rough it every once in a while but that is all very complicated and everything has to be just so. It is like that with everything they do and everywhere they go.

Don’t worry about me being lonesome and downtrodden and all that maid sort of thing. I wouldn’t let anybody get away with anything like that. Besides I’m not a maid really, it’s just for the summer. I don’t feel lonesome, why should I? I just observe and am interested. Mother, of course I can’t eat with them. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not the same thing as a hired girl at all. Also I prefer to eat alone. If you wrote Mrs. Gannett a letter she wouldn’t know what you were talking about, and I don’t mind.
So don’t!

Also I think it would be better when Marion comes down if I took my afternoon off and met her downtown. I don’t want particularly to have her come here. I’m not sure how maids’ relatives come. Of course it’s all right if she wants to. I can’t always tell how Mrs. Gannett will react, that’s all, and I try to take it easy around her without letting her get away with anything. She is all right though.

In a week we will be leaving for Georgian Bay and of course I am looking forward to that. I will be able to go swimming every day, she (Mrs. Gannett) says and—

Her room was really too hot. She put the unfinished letter under the blotter on the desk. A radio was playing in Margaret’s room. She walked down the hall towards Margaret’s door, hoping it would be open. Margaret was not quite fourteen; the difference in age compensated for other differences, and it was not too bad to be with Margaret.

The door was open, and there spread out on the bed were Margaret’s crinolines and summer dresses. Alva had not known she had so many.

“I’m not really packing,” Margaret said. “I know it would be crazy. I’m just seeing what I’ve got. I hope my stuff is all right,” she said. “I hope it’s not too—”

Alva touched the clothes on the bed, feeling a great delight in these delicate colours, in the smooth little bodices, expensively tucked and shaped, the crinolines with their crisp and fanciful bursts of net; in these clothes there was a very pretty artificial innocence. Alva was not envious; no, this had nothing to do with her; this was part of Margaret’s world, that rigid pattern of private school (short tunics and long black stockings), hockey, choir, sailing in summer, parties, boys who wore blazers—

“Where are you going to wear them?” Alva said.

“To the Ojibway. The hotel. They have dances every weekend, everybody goes down in their boats. Friday night is for kids and Saturday night is for parents and other people—That is I
will
be going,” Margaret said rather grimly, “if I’m not a social flop. Both the Davis girls are.”

“Don’t worry,” Alva said a little patronizingly. “You’ll be fine.”

“I don’t really like dancing,” Margaret said. “Not the way I like sailing, for instance. But you have to do it.”

“You’ll get to like it,” Alva said. So there would be
dances, they would go down in the boats, she would see them going and hear them coming home. All these things, which she should have expected—

Margaret sitting cross-legged on the floor, looked up at her with a blunt, clean face, and said, “Do you think I ought to start to neck this summer?”

“Yes,” said Alva. “
I
would,” she added almost vindictively. Margaret looked puzzled; she said, “I heard that’s why Scotty didn’t ask me at Easter—”

There was no sound, but Margaret slipped to her feet. “Mother’s coming,” she said with her lips only, and almost at once Mrs. Gannett came into the room, smiled with a good deal of control, and said, “Oh, Alva. This is where you are.”

Margaret said, “I was telling her about the Island, Mummy.”

“Oh. There are an awful lot of glasses sitting around down there Alva, maybe you could whisk them through now and they’d be out of the way when you want to get dinner—And Alva, do you have a fresh apron?”

“The yellow is so too tight, Mummy, I tried it on—”

“Look, darling, it’s no use getting all that fripfrap out yet, there’s still a week before we go—”

Alva went downstairs, passed along the blue hall, heard people talking seriously, a little drunkenly, in the den, and saw the door of the sewing-room closed softly, from within, as she approached. She went into the kitchen. She was thinking of the Island now. A whole island that they owned; nothing in sight that was not theirs. The rocks, the sun, the pine trees, and the deep, cold water of the Bay. What would she do there, what did the maids do? She could go swimming, at odd hours, go for walks by herself, and sometimes—when they went for groceries, perhaps—she would go along in the boat. There would not be so much work to do as there was
here, Mrs. Gannett had said. She said the maids always enjoyed it. Alva thought of the other maids, those more talented, more accommodating girls; did they really enjoy it? What kind of freedom or content had they found, that she had not?

She filled the sink, got out the draining rack again and began to wash glasses. Nothing was the matter, but she felt heavy, heavy with the heat and tired and uncaring, hearing all around her an incomprehensible faint noise—of other people’s lives, of boats and cars and dances—and seeing this street, that promised island, in a harsh and continuous dazzle of sun. She could not make a sound here, not a dint.

She must remember, before dinner time, to go up and put on a clean apron.

She heard the door open; someone came in from the patio. It was Mrs. Gannett’s cousin.

“Here’s another glass for you,” he said. “Where’ll I put it?”

“Anywhere,” said Alva.

“Say thanks,” Mrs. Gannett’s cousin said, and Alva turned around wiping her hands on her apron, surprised, and then in a very short time not surprised. She waited, her back to the counter, and Mrs. Gannett’s cousin took hold of her lightly, as in a familiar game, and spent some time kissing her mouth.

“She asked me up to the Island some weekend in August,” he said.

Someone on the patio called him, and he went out, moving with the graceful, rather mocking stealth of some slight people. Alva stood still with her back to the counter.

This stranger’s touch had eased her; her body was simply grateful and expectant, and she felt a lightness and confidence she had not known in this house. So there were things she had not taken into account, about herself, about them, and ways of living with them that were not so unreal. She
would not mind thinking of the Island now, the bare sunny rocks and the black little pine trees. She saw it differently now; it was even possible that she wanted to go there. But things always came together; there was something she would not explore yet—a tender spot, a new and still mysterious humiliation.

The place called Black Horse is marked on the map but there is nothing there except a store and three houses and an old cemetery and a livery shed which belonged to a church that burned down. It is a hot place in summer, with no shade on the road and no creek nearby. The houses and the store are built of red brick of a faded, gingery colour, with a random decoration of grey or white bricks across the chimneys and around the windows. Behind them the fields are full of milkweed and goldenrod and big purple thistles. People who are passing through, on their way to the Lakes of Muskoka and the northern bush, may notice that around here the bountiful landscape thins and flattens, worn elbows of rock appear in the diminishing fields and the deep, harmonious woodlots of elm and maple give way to a denser, less hospitable scrub-forest of birch and poplar, spruce and pine—where in the heat of the afternoon the pointed trees at the end of the road turn blue, transparent, retreating into the distance like a company of ghosts.

May was lying in a big room full of boxes at the back of the store. That was where she slept in the summer, when it got too hot upstairs. Hazel slept in the front room on the chesterfield and played the radio half the night; her grandmother still slept upstairs, in a tight little room full of big
furniture and old photographs that smelled of hot oilcloth and old women’s woollen stockings. May could not tell what time it was because she hardly ever woke up this early. Most mornings when she woke up there was a patch of hot sun on the floor at her feet and the farmers’ milk trucks were rattling past on the highway and her grandmother was scuttling back and forth from the store to the kitchen, where she had put a pot of coffee and a pan of thick bacon on the stove. Passing the old porch couch where May slept (its cushions still smelled faintly of mould and pine) she would twitch automatically at the sheet, saying, “Get up now,
get
up, do you think you’re going to sleep till dinner-time? There’s a man wants gas.”