First Things First, page 9
It must be months now since we got together. We did exchange Christmas cards though, one last remnant of our friendship. But maybe that’s what Christmas cards are for anyway. I signed my card simply “Estelle.” She wrote “With much love from Doreen and Gerald and Jeanette and Darryl and Donny” and somehow it was all too careful and neat to be done out of anything but a sense of duty. Duty is neat; love is not. And I wonder if she stacks all the cards up in front of her on the kitchen table and signs each one exactly the same and then passes them over to Gerald who stuffs them into the envelopes and addresses them in alphabetical order from a long list. And maybe Gerald passes them on to Donny then (he’s the oldest child so I’m sure he must contribute to Christmas too by now) so he can lick the flaps and stamp each envelope. Yes, I’m sure it must have been Donny who did that because the stamp was on upside down.
Theirs was the only address I didn’t need to look up when Christmas card time came. You see how well my memory serves me.
Why can’t I convince Doreen of that? I’ve stopped trying now.
There were bald spots in that evening—long lapses in the conversation. But they weren’t gropings or awkward angry spaces. No, not at all. They were comradely silences, simply elongated moments between our words, commas in our conversation.
When Doreen brought around that tray heaped with hors d’oeuvres, for instance. There was no need to speak then, no need at all. Better simply to observe the orchestration of ovals, pentagons, squares, and circles. And on top of all those aesthetic crackers so many kinds of cheese and pâté and parchment pickles and (could it really be?) caviar.
Doreen laughed when I happened to mention the caviar once. “I’ve never served caviar, Estelle,” she said. “You really are imagining things, you know. Have you ever thought of seeing someone about these delusions of yours? You know what I mean. Going to see a. . . .” She never finished the sentence.
But no, I didn’t know what she meant. I know now though. I’ve figured out all her insinuations now— including this one. And I have to wonder what ever made me think she was my friend. How could a real friend make such a rash statement, such a complete misjudgement?
And Doreen says she didn’t serve crackers that night either. But potato chips and cheesies and the fattest pretzels she could find downtown. She says she remembers it well because she had to keep everything hidden from the kids all day so there’d still be some left by the time we arrived.
I cannot help but feel a little smug with knowing she’s quite wrong. Yes, of course she’s wrong. How else to explain the satisfaction of a cracker fitting right on my tongue, gradually releasing bits of flavour into my throat? The memory is too vivid—I couldn’t have made it up. I remember David commenting on them too. Something about how much trouble Doreen had gone to and she really shouldn’t have but he was damn glad she had. Such a witty man when he wanted to be, when the situation seemed to demand it. He was always so very sensitive to such things. He could always be depended on to fill in the blanks.
I remember Gerald discreetly refilling the tray and smiling proudly at how much we were enjoying ourselves in his home.
Doreen says he just glared at her when she turned off the TV in the middle of the show.
“Glared at me and grunted,” she said. “And grabbed another bunch of pretzels and tried to shove them in his mouth all at once until the salt was falling down his chin and sticking to his shirt.”
We didn’t talk much while we ate the hors d’oeuvres. But I remember David sinking down a little deeper into the sofa, pushing his legs out in front of him, sighing and easing himself into the evening as if he wished it would never end.
I wish it never had.
Doreen agrees with me about the sigh at least. But she says it came when she pulled the drapes shut and David could no longer see the street going by and the cars and the city changing shape in the dark. She says he must have been wishing he was somewhere out there instead. I don’t know where she gets these silly notions. David always liked the sunshine so much more than the night. She never knew that though. She didn’t know him like I did. He was not an easy man to get close to. I was patient though and I finally did. She never tried, I suppose. And why should she?
It was such an easy evening—all four of us knowing our lines and our places, leaving the room only at opportune moments. And who could ever say who conducted the evening so well? The air was ripe with ambience and there was never any need to scramble through our respective days in search of a new topic of conversation. One word flowed out of and into another. There are patches in the evening now where I can’t remember who said what, who nodded, who sighed in agreement. But it didn’t seem to matter much anyway. We were all in such accord that we could have spoken for each other. Perhaps we could have carried on the whole evening without words at all. Yes, we were that well-attuned. I tried to tell Doreen about that special kind of conversing that needs no words, that special kind of relationship based on questions that need never be asked and answers that need never be spoken. That perfect relationship where neither partner needs to speak—not because they have nothing to say to each other but because they have everything to say to each other and words are now just overcoats donned solely for the benefit of others.
Doreen shook her curlers at me and said, “There’s no such thing. How can you expect me to believe all that, Estelle? You’re just rationalizing away the fact that you and David had run out of things to say long before that night. Or maybe you’re just trying to romanticize that sad state everybody seems to get to. Gerald and I reached it a long time ago. That state when you know somebody so damn well that you can’t convince yourself anymore that anything about them will ever be new again. You don’t give a damn anymore and you’re just as happy if he keeps his damn mouth shut for once and lets you get on with the things that are needing to be done.”
I didn’t know how to respond. I pretended to understand but I didn’t and I still don’t. There just isn’t that much cynicism in me—no, not even now. So I humoured her. She seemed to need so much to be bitter, to suffer something just a little bit every day, just a little bit more every day so at least she could feel she was getting somewhere.
I listened to her and then I said, “It really was an easy evening though.”
She blurted out a laugh and started to bring up sample moments she remembered. I must have been out of the room to have missed so much. It doesn’t make sense. She said David was especially quarrelsome. She said he disagreed with me on almost everything and even suggested that I was talking too much for my own good, telling Doreen and Gerald personal things that were no one’s business but our own.
And Doreen said she could still hear him muttering, “I suppose all your friends know how often I change my socks and how short I cut my toenails. Honestly, don’t you have anything better to talk about? But then I suppose you don’t, do you?”
No, David would never speak to me like that. Not even when we were alone and certainly not when we were out with friends. But I could not make her believe that she must have misunderstood. Maybe he did say something like that but I’m sure he was only quoting something he’d heard. Maybe telling a story or making a joke.
But I know he would never speak like that to me.
Doreen says he was even arguing with Gerald. About hockey, religion, football, politics—all those things that they’d always agreed on before. I cannot imagine David and Gerald ever disagreeing. They’ve spent too many magic masculine hours rewriting the world and bouncing the bottoms of their brains off each other, making a whole new world out of what remains of this one.
Doreen says that the disagreement with Gerald started it all. She couldn’t remember what it was all about, which only proves that her memory isn’t nearly as reliable as she likes to think it is. But then Doreen always was one who could convince herself of anything if she really wanted to. She says David started talking about wanting to make a change in his life, that he was tired of hearing all the same old arguments for and against all the same old things. And he was getting so tired of doing all the same things all the time and going to all the same places, all the same bars and restaurants and theatres. Doreen says the despair in his voice then made her forgive all that had gone before.
And yes, I do remember him saying that. And he had said it all before. I knew how he felt. It came as no surprise to me. And as always he included me in his plans too. Naturally. Said I should get out more, take up some new hobbies, keep my mind active and stimulated. And the more he talked about it, the more enthused he got and, as always, the more enthused David gets, the more enthused I get. And then I was all fired up with his plans and making them my own already and believing that, yes, I’d been thinking that all along, that I was just needing to get it all out in the open.
And I remember thinking, “This is so damn much better (and so damn much cheaper too) than therapy—primal, transactional, gestalt or otherwise.” And then I was ready to change my life with him.
And then he said it. Oh yes, I remember.
“I’m leaving town,” he said. No, I wasn’t surprised. He’d talked of it before. We’d talked of it. “Got myself transferred clear across the country, to a place I’ve never seen.” My heart jumped. Not out of fear or surprise, but out of happiness because we were leaving and we would learn how to read a new place together and there would never be an end to the new things we could experience there. And already my mind was making moving pictures of what it would be like.
Doreen disagrees.
“No, Estelle, it wasn’t like that. He wasn’t enthused. He was grim and determined and he didn’t look at anyone when he said it and he certainly didn’t look at you. He wasn’t even trying to pretend that you were part of the plan. I remember thinking how cruel and dishonest he was being, doing such a thing to you in front of us, even if we are your best friends.”
Silently, I rewrite the “are” to “were.”
David and I didn’t discuss it on the way home. I suppose we were both too pleased with our news, too busy making dreams and plans. When David dropped me off at my apartment, the smile was on his face, not just on his lips, and I couldn’t sleep for wondering what to take and what I’d have to buy for the move.
He left in less than a week.
Two days later, I got a telegram saying that he’d already met the new boss and things were working out even better than he’d planned and he knew I’d understand because I always understood—that was one thing he had to give me credit for.
Doreen says I tore the telegram in shreds and threw it in the fireplace. She might be right there. I can’t seem to remember.
PROPHECIES
(1978)
I only want to say that I already know we won’t last. First night together: new man, first night, feast night. After we made love last night, at least you didn’t ask, “How was it for you?” I appreciated that, but your red beard will never match the pansies on my pillowcase. You clash with my constructed atmosphere. The colour red makes me jumpy, especially first thing in the morning. And I can’t ask you to shave it off. Not because I think you wouldn’t but only because I’ve never known how to ask for the things that I want. Oh, I know how to get them all right; I just don’t know how to ask for them. How do you ask for a piece of cheese, a ride downtown, a voice or a hand in the dark, a friend, a lover, silence? I was in Grade Six before I ever asked to leave the room. I can’t ask, I don’t know how. So I just keep on taking instead, and hope that all the questions have been understood.
I’m sure now that we won’t last. I couldn’t sleep last night with your body in my bed. Became hopelessly entangled in disjointed dreams of robust thighs and facial hair. I have no intention of becoming marooned in a mess of sleepless nights. Your absence will never cause them, but neither will your presence. I’ve always valued my sleep.
Which is not to say that last night won’t somehow find a way to survive. For every day, there’s always a last night. It may or may not be remembered though, may or may not separate itself out, like a piece of sludge in suspension, from all the other nights. I might not remember your words but I will remember mine. I might not remember where we went but chances are that I’ll remember why. But that’s not so strange—after all, we don’t make the places where we go, we just make their reasons for being there. I might not remember what day of the week it was (by this time next week, I’ll probably already be having trouble with that one) but I’ll remember that your mouth was already wet before the wine reached it. And I’ll remember how well you went with the weather. Burnished autumn early evening. Autumn has always been my favourite season. But maybe now that I’ve met someone who fits the season so well, I’ll change my mind. Thinking of it now, I find I much prefer the world in winter: black and white and needle-edged.
I only want to say that I seldom remember the things that other people actually do when I’m with them. Cannot afterwards recall how many people were there or how you got stuck in a traffic jam on the way and how mad I was because we were ten minutes late. Cannot remember the anger afterwards, cannot conjure how it changed the feel of the upholstery or the taste of my cigarette or the shape of the streetlights. I’m angry only when I really am, cannot be angry when I think about being angry. That’s just thinking, not anger. I seldom bear grudges.
I will remember things like an auburn eyelash or a sprout of sweat on your left temple as it grinds against my cheek or your eyeballs rolling up and back into your head when you laugh (not a pretty sight). Memories will dive back at me just when I mean to be making new ones instead. I will not remember your favourite song or the jokes you tell me or your birthday or the directors of the movies we may see together. I will remember where we sat and how that man beside me watched the movie (what movie? I won’t remember) while wheezing his way asthmatically through to intermission and then pawing through his tweed jacket for a wad of Kleenex and a plastic vaporizer.
I can remember a sentence caught once years ago through an open office door: Why haven’t you told your husband yet? But I won’t remember your sentences, will quickly and smoothly lose your voice in between theatre seats, night music, cigarette smoke and the shower curtain. I might remember your beard twitching with unshed tears over Lassie reruns, sad movies, and my indifference to hemorrhoids, low back pain, inertia and unemployment. But I will remember this only because it will make me wonder why you persist in pretending.
This is only a warning, not a threat. There is a difference. Simply a temperate warning—one of the rituals of romance, a step in the toe-dance we all do. So free with your attentions, hoping that someone, the right one, will intercept your advances. But the right one never does. The others notice though and think it’s all for them. They stake a claim on your cow-eyes and will not let themselves admit that they were accidentally misdirected, deflected in mid-dance. Somebody keeps running interference, taking more than they are given. You need so much to believe, not wanting to know the truth and my real name and what will or will not be remembered afterwards. You are not organized for afterwards. Do not get carried away and give all your old clothes to the Salvation Army.
You talked last night about the right one (your judgement, not hers), orbitting around you, spinning, always spinning away. But here you are again, with me this time, giving yourself up to become quite caught in the magnetic field. Unable to remove yourself, to pretend it isn’t true, unable to reverse the poles. I am not the right one (my judgement, not yours). You will make yourself believe that your hands are tied. Don’t think for a minute that I know a thing about knots. After a while you will not let yourself remember the dreams you had in California, the memories you should be keeping instead of laundering away, the plans you made and wish you hadn’t, the need to eat when you’re hungry, the faith of family and friends.
And I, according to my own pattern, will by that time want my freedom. Will want my freedom back. But how do I ask for that when I didn’t even know it was being taken away? I choose to make room for friends, but lovers just force their way in. I’m not sure how long it will take me this time to remember that I don’t have to ask for something that was mine to begin with. And I won’t have to say, Thank you very much, either. Not if I don’t want to. And I won’t.
You were transparent with your preprogrammed evening of candlelight and flowers. Who made them mean romance? Candles go out, burn down careless houses, make funerals holy. They don’t make love. And flowers die, breed bugs, make homes for bumblebees. They don’t make love either. Hearts and flowers aren’t much of an improvement. Hearts are pumps and red cinnamon candies on Valentine’s Day, are transplanted by nimble hands. So what have hearts to do with love? They have no sense of humour. If the choice of emblems had been mine, I might have picked typewriters and crayons, or white-tailed deer and transport trucks, or Christmas lights and roosters. I could make almost anything mean love if I really wanted to. I have my doubts about red beards though.
You already have no place in the words and the lines that come to mind. You’ve already told me that I don’t seem to make much sense at times—I’ll probably remember that. You will never be comfortable just walking through the woods with me. You’ll try, of course, but you won’t leave any footprints beside mine in the snow. I want to make nursery rhymes but you won’t understand—nursery rhymes to be preserved by little girls in white ankle socks skipping rope in the school grounds. You wouldn’t see the value of white ankle socks, I’m sure. And I never did learn how to skip double dutch, couldn’t practice at home because I was an only child and there was no one around who would turn the ropes for me. You won’t be able to show me the ropes.
You see, I’m looking for answers just like everybody else. But for me the looking is the important thing. The finding comes like a gift, like Christmas or birthdays or weddings. And the best gifts are always the ones you buy for yourself because only you know what you really want. Do not buy me an orange lampshade with a silk fringe all around, a granite ashtray, a plastic parakeet, or a moose paperweight.
