Part 10 (1/2)

Amiably he winked. ”One-two!”

Now we could enjoy our meal, letting the phone ring. After dinner, Henry called her. Jake and she consulted about the stocks they prepared, the sourdough and brioche they baked.

But she'd call me later, too.

On book club nights, my head awhirl from Down Among the Women or Revolutionary Road, I was glad not to hear her voice. ”To discuss fiction, what for? Imaginary people do things and do things, then it's over. From biography, memoir, one can learn.”

At our last meeting we'd learned that Andrea, trying to conceive, during s.e.x with her husband felt like Atwood's handmaid. Myrna was reporting a former therapist to the college of psychologists. Lesley took water from her kid's school swimming pool to a lab for a.n.a.lysis.

”Lauren, the woman who brings my newspaper hurls it at my door. Cras.h.!.+ Then in her car she speeds away.”

My mother did not drive, conduire, so was ignorant of the machine's sweet solitude. Nor did she ever work outside the home. Nor, because of their war wounds, did she and my father fight. They met at a train station in Lyon where his unit wasn't supposed to be. The Liberation, some mix-up. He was short, dark, English. She was tallish and blonde.

”George was so well-spoken. In the war, people cursed very much. You can have no idea. Foul language. The English term is precise.”

Sitting on a fourteenth-century stone wall, these two talked in their limited French and English of their favourites, Bacall and her Bogart. Under the stylish cynicism, such tenderness. The dialogue, so telling. They agreed that their own countries were done for. In that soil-soaked in filth, caustics, human blood-no good life could grow. They crossed an ocean, a continent. At home in Vancouver, we spoke English.

In kindergarten, my son Henry said, ”Grand-mere, French is pretty.” My mother had not approved of our placing him in French immersion (”So North American, pretending to be someone you are not”), but thereafter she spoke only that language to him.

f.u.c.k you, that tape said.

Tape. Looking back, aging technophiles can feel like strangers. Were things so primitive in our own adulthood? Many patrons and a few library staff cried when we tossed the card catalogue. To avoid electronics, some librarians even retired. Not I. Laborious female typing, ribbons that oozed or faded-such waste.

Early answering-machine greetings a.s.sumed callers were deaf or slow-witted. After the second beep, you have thirty seconds to talk. Soon users got cute. Couples spoke in unison, cats mewed, toddlers whined. The CBC's contest for best greeting got hundreds of entries.

Henry thought the best excuse for not getting a message deserved a prize. The tape broke! The machine got unplugged when I was vacuuming! At this my book club laughed, confessed their lies. Rosalind's was The cat stepped on the Erase b.u.t.ton.

”Actually true,” she said later at our weekly lunch, eaten quickly as we were both work-addicted. ”Would I lie to you?” Her angled smile. At club we teasingly called her Fair Rosalind.

Now, back from a book-evening, I could let my brain cool.

Then, ”h.e.l.lo, mother. Can you talk for a bit now?”

”Why not? I'm alone, am I not?” Which took my mind off book club.

The club's discussion always started with the nuts and bolts.

Didn't he realize?

How could they keep up the pretense?

Where'd she think that would get her?

Too soon, my friends uncorked the wine and their own narratives. Same queries, more tears. Infidelity (Andrea's husband), ungrateful children, unprincipled colleagues, migraines (Robin), carpal tunnel and candida (Lesley), debt and renos (Myrna), Rosalind's fibroids, later her infertility, the stressful travel her job required in northern BC. I was the only one not in therapy. Nor did I refer to Jake as my partner, a new term then.

I'd have preferred to stay with the novels, whose codes drew me. Small things, details. Clothes. Metals. Weather paint birds food gestures light clocks stars floors water smells-such language told so much in The Color Purple, Man Descending, A Jest of G.o.d. At our satellite lunches, Rosalind and I often talked of imagery.

What story could I tell my friends?

Jake and I loved Henry like mad, all possible cliches. That love made two pillars that held the marriage firm, and between us our child swung happily. I loved my job, airports, deadlines, the intense management meetings till ten PM. My health was fine.

Jake's nickname was Mr. Suns.h.i.+ne, his temperament perfect for a set designer doing genuine work amid fat theatre egos. No, not love at first sight, he didn't read fiction, had an erratic income. Irrelevant. Over twelve years our interests hadn't converged, but almost daily we gladly found each other in the big bed. I couldn't believe how little s.e.x Myrna Lesley Robin Andrea had. Of such poor quality, too. Rosalind, single, did better.

Was I just boring? Shallow? Once Robin spoke of Hallmark families.

Was I in denial? Andrea felt she'd denied for years her need for o.r.g.a.s.m.

Certainly no one liked my remarking, ”Anais Nin is so self-centred.”

”But Lauren, we only have one life? We all just want to be happy?” Rosalind. Her rising tone to end a declarative sentence: another 80s symptom.

Again on the tape, Blur f.u.c.k blur you blur.

Replay. Erase.

The hang-ups also increased. Bang. Bang.

”Jake, what do you think we should do?”

”Ask Henry. He's on Madame's wavelength.”

Indeed he was. Our son had his own room at her house, and sometimes they apologized for not speaking English to us.

”Let's not drag Henry down with adult stuff.”

Jake shrugged. Again he was in between contracts. Maybe a Private Lives? Another theatre sought an angel for Equus. Waiting, he'd repaint our living room. Colour chips brightened the litter of sketched horses, wrought-iron balconies. Henry admired them all.

I did call my mother more often, but our talk jolted. In my ears still ran the music of my parents' conversation, fluent, inquiring.

Soon after Jake and I married, I applied for a new library job. The compet.i.tion, tough. Also male-this still carried weight. Evenings, I polished my resume and my vision (another 80s word). Then too, Jake was between theatre jobs. He'd helped to re-roof Myrna's house, been an extra in a local TV series (Rosalind got him that), tree-planted near Terrace. Now he sulked.

”Jake, I have to finish typing this.”

”Lauren, come to bed.” That language we spoke fluently.

I got the job. I got pregnant. To baby Henry I talked about everything. Caring for him, Jake and I learned another common tongue. He took that same tree-planting contract for years. We always thought maybe I'd fly up to Terrace, a little getaway. Thus patterns form.

This autumn went on.

Both Henry and Curtis were on the league team.

My book club convened. Home Truths. Myrna raged at her husband's money messes. Robin a.n.a.lyzed her daughter's teacher's personality disorder. For once I too had a tale. At an IT conference, a catalogue specialist from Moncton made a pa.s.s at me.

”At least did you get drinks and dinner?” (Myrna.) ”I can't believe you wouldn't take the opportunity!” (Rosalind.) ”Not good-looking?” (Andrea.) Once I went to soccer practice. Curtis's mum was lively, humorous, unlike tedious Lesley who was always on about loneliness. Melanie didn't read novels or use a computer, but we both disliked the coach and found Tom & Jerry's hot chocolate too sweet.

On a Tuesday, Henry noted ten hang-ups. Seventeen, Wednesday. That Friday the indicator said 30. Only a few hurt our ears. Genuine messages were interspersed.

”A nuisance caller. I'll notify the phone company.”

”Grand-mere,” Henry insisted. ”With some different bangs for disguise.”