â What weather we're having. My back garden's so dry I have to water it three times a day or it'll likely blow away.
     â You know, I never have liked boughten salads.
     After a while, when it appeared Elizabeth was not looking for trouble, talk
turned to more âserious' things, though everyone kept an eye on the young women. Until finally, upset by
Elizabeth's presence, Jane Richardson said
     â Liz, are you here to talk to me?
     â Not while you're getting your hair done, said Elizabeth.
     â I don't have much time afterwards.
     â I don't have much to say.
     Elizabeth returned to the book review. Jane, unable to move her head freely as
Mrs. Atkinson cut her hair, stared at the mirror facing her, wondering if she'd made a mistake with the style she'd chosen. Was it too odd? But then, whenever she had her hair cut, she
inevitably had doubts. Once the scissors got going, she would feel an almost
irresistible urge to get up from the chair. On this day, however, Liz Denny
distracted her somewhat from her doubts.
     The other women in the salon were now more alert than ever. Elizabeth had said âI don't have much to say.' What could that mean? Would she demand Jane leave her fiancé alone? And what if Jane said no? Would things turn, God forbid, physical? These
questions, which would be voiced when the young women had gone, were not simple
prurience or love of gossip. Most of the women in the salon knew Jane and
Elizabeth. A few had known them since they were little girls, so it was strange
to see them like this, rivals for a young man they had also known for years.
Others, if they did not know them quite so well, knew their relatives or their
teachers or their friends. For all intents and purposes, the women in the salon
were related to both girls, if not by blood then by whatever the bond is that a
place forges among people.
     Most of them were on Elizabeth's side. The one who'd been wronged would have had their sympathy anyway. But Jane, with her American
hairstyles, was the kind of person who would do better in some big city, while
Elizabeth was one of them. In the struggle between the two women, a communal
drama was being played out. It wasn't like a sporting event or a boxing match; it was a test of right and wrong, of
morality. For all save Mrs. Atkinson â who favoured Jane â a âvictory' for Jane would represent a terrible wrong. It would deepen their (somewhat
hidden) mistrust of Jane's âSarnia ways' and turn them even more squarely against her.
     In some ways, the best outcome would have been a real set-to, a shouting match
such as the one there'd been between Rose Cornwell and Nelly Carr when Nelly, the âolder woman,' had seduced Rose's son: a legendary confrontation that everyone still talked about, though it had
taken place ten years previously and Nelly, poor woman, had since died of
leukemia. It was good to have these things out in the open, good to argue about
right and wrong every so often, but it looked as if Elizabeth and Jane were not
going to make their dispute public. Jane sat still as her hair was cut, then
she sat beneath the pink beehive that was Mrs. Atkinson's best dryer. Elizabeth waited patiently. Then, as Jane paid and thanked Mrs.
Atkinson, Elizabeth rose, said goodbye to everyone and waited for Jane outside
the salon.
     When both women had gone, someone said
     â Finally! Nice to get rid of the smell of home wrecker.
     â Don't you say anything bad about Jane, said Mrs. Atkinson. I've known that girl since she was a baby. Never hurt a fly.
     Elizabeth and Jane walked for a block or so, awkward in each other's presence, before Elizabeth said
     â It's no use being subtle about all this. We both know what's going on. I want to know why you're sleeping with my fiancé.
     â I'm not sleeping with your fiancé. He's sleeping with me.
     They passed Barrow Park. The statue of Richmond Barrow was pointing to the sky:
a light, washed-out blue, the clouds elongated wisps, the wind a persistent
breeze that brought a whiff of gasoline, of freshly cut grass and of the dirt
that lightly flayed the streets and buildings. Though waves of hatred hit her,
Elizabeth kept her temper. Jane lit a cigarette.
     â Whether you're sleeping with him or he's sleeping with you, it's the same thing, said Elizabeth. You knew we were engaged.
     â I
thought
 you were engaged, but engaged men don't usually sleep with anyone except their fiancées, do they? So how was I to know what was going on between you two?
     The sound of Jane's voice made her so upset, Elizabeth stopped walking. To cover her emotion, she
asked for a cigarette, though she did not smoke, and she was further annoyed
when Jane gave her one and then put a hand on hers â to keep it from shaking â as she lit it. Elizabeth drew in the smoke without inhaling. As for Jane: this
was now an interesting game, sophisticated even. Here she was talking calmly to
Robbie's fiancée. She allowed herself to wonder what Robbie saw in Elizabeth and then wondered,
fleetingly, what it would be like to sleep with Elizabeth, what it would be
like for
her
 to sleep with Elizabeth.
     â I don't want to keep walking away from work, said Jane. If you have something to say
to me, say it now.
     â You know what I want. I want you to leave Robbie alone.
     â Why? Why should I stop seeing him? He loves me as much as he loves you.
     â No, said Elizabeth, he doesn't.
     â It's no use arguing. He would've left me if he didn't.
     After considering this, Elizabeth said
     â Fine. Then you should help me make him choose.
     â What, choose me or you? I don't see why. I don't mind if he marries you. I think things are going well the way they are. What's the problem, except everybody in this stupid town expects it to be one man,
one woman?
     â I don't want it to go on like this, said Elizabeth. I want my husband to be with me,
not some woman he's addicted to. I'd leave him but I don't believe he loves you as much as he loves me. You're just a phase. But he should make a choice now. That's why I'm talking to you at all. I think if you can get Robbie to do something he wouldn't do for me, it'll prove he loves you more. And that'll be enough for me.
     How interesting, thought Jane. Their conversation had gone from something
unpleasant and vaguely threatening to something that intrigued her: a wager of
some sort. Whatever she felt for Robbie, she was certain of his loyalty and she
was even more certain she could convince him to do anything short of poisoning
his father's cows. Of course, the prize, if you could call a man a prize, was Robbie, and
she was not certain she wanted Robbie for herself. Perhaps, and the thought
crossed her mind as she looked at Elizabeth, she would not find Robbie
attractive without Elizabeth there to be his wife. Really, what was there in
him, when you thought about all this objectively? What was there that one would
want to have exclusively? And yet, the proposition was appealing. Jane said
     â And I get to choose what to make him do?
     â No, answered Elizabeth. I get to choose the thing. It wouldn't be fair otherwise.
     â All right. Have you decided what it is?
     â Yes. I want him to walk naked into Atkinson's Beauty Parlour and ask Agnes for a haircut.
     Elizabeth had thought this through. She knew how shy Robbie was, how much he
disliked people seeing his feet, which, she had to admit, were not his best
feature. Also, he had a red birthmark beneath his left nipple, like a paint-wet
hand had slapped him, then dragged itself around to his back. He did not even
like
her
 to touch it. So, it was difficult to believe anyone could get him to walk about
naked. On the other hand, if Jane did convince him to go into Atkinson's without his clothes, the moment would be a lasting humiliation for Robbie, a
humiliation very like the humiliation he had put her through. So, either way,
she could not really lose.
     â Is that all? asked Jane. I wonder if you know Robbie as well as you think you
do. I feel like this is too easy. Is there something
really
 difficult you'd like me to get him to do?
     Jane Richardson's confidence â or was it insolence? â was unexpected. If she knew Robbie as deeply as she claimed, she should have
understood how difficult it was going to be to convince Robbie to go around
naked. Elizabeth could not begin to imagine Robbie unclothed in Atkinson's.
     â I don't have anything else in mind, she said.
     But then, slightly unnerved, she added
     â He can't do Atkinson's on Barrow Day, you know. That wouldn't be fair.    Â
     â No, getting him to go naked on Barrow Day wouldn't be hard. But, anyway, Atkinson's is closed on Barrow Day. So â¦
     Jane looked at her watch.
     â  I've got to go, she said. But it's a deal.
     They had got as far as St. Mary's church. The afternoon sunlight touched the windows devoted to Zenobius and
Zeno. Jane turned away and walked off. Elizabeth stood by herself awhile,
looking up at the illuminated blue lake beside which St. Zeno stood. She
reminded herself that she had thought things through. She did know Robbie, knew
him better than Jane did. (She wondered if Robbie and Jane did the same things
she did with Robbie or was Jane âbetter at it' than she was? The picture of Jane and Robbie in bed together â an image she could not ward off â almost made her sick, it was so upsetting.) Yes, anyone betting on who should
know Robbie best would, almost certainly, put their money on her, on Elizabeth.
And yet, Jane's confidence was disconcerting. So much so that Elizabeth began to regret what
she'd set in motion.
     As she returned to the bakery, Elizabeth considered how far from herself she
had been dragged. Though she'd always been thoughtful, she had never been manipulative or underhanded. Jane
Richardson had called manipulation and connivance out of her. In fact, Jane, a
different kind of woman, was perhaps more gifted at deceiving, more used to
deception. In which case, Jane could get Robbie to do whatever she wanted him
to do. But then again, no, she had thought things through. Even if it were
possible to convince Robbie to expose himself to the women in Atkinson's, the exposure would humiliate him and, humiliated, he would hold the incident
against Jane. All of this seemed to her to be true and irrefutable. Life was
unpredictable, yes, but Robbie was not, and she knew him well. She would not
have agreed to marry him otherwise, would she?
     The afternoon was bright. She heard birdsong. The town of Barrow, which she
knew as well as she knew her lover's body, was vivid in the sunlight, like a bauble of itself.
Though they had arranged to see Petersen's gravel pit together, somewhere near the last minute Lowther apologized for
having forgotten a prior engagement â that is, a lunch with Heath he'd neglected to write in his calendar. He'd left Father Pennant to explore Petersen's on his own, dropping him off some way from the pit so he could enjoy the
afternoon sunlight. That is why, at around the time Barrow was vivid for
Elizabeth Denny, Lowther and Heath were at Heath's kitchen table talking about the distant past. In particular, they were talking
of Lowther's father, a man who'd left his son little save fleeting memories and a defaced book of prayers.
     The prayer book was leather-bound. Its endpapers were red and marbled. But the
most obvious feature of the book, now, was that all of its two hundred prayers
had been blacked out, save one. Old Mr. Williams â that is, Lowther's father â had been eccentric, and the prayer book, which Heath held in his hand, reminded
Heath of the old man himself. Though fervently religious, Mr. Williams had
reduced the majority of the prayer book's pages to black lines, beneath which one could still read the occasional âAmen' or âLord.' The only prayer left untouched was the final one, a prayer to be said by those
whose suffering was unendurable:
         Â
Lord grant me death and let me know
          At last the last of Earth.
          Time has done its work, now let it rest.
          Come darkness and night,
          Set this poor shadow free.
     Heath said
     â He was a strange man, your father.
     â I know, said Lowther, but I've begun to understand him lately.