Part 3 (1/2)
How does a woe is over? Because of the way her life suddenly shears off in just two directions: past and future Ask Clarentine Flett
We say a war is ended by a surrender, an armistice, a treaty But, really, it just wears itself out, is no longer its own reconoble, part of the vast discourtesy of the world
Things begin, things end Just e seem to arrive at a quiet place we are swept up, suddenly, between the body's s predictability and the need for disruption We do irrational things, outrageous things Or else soinable foe Abe Skutari, after years and years of peddling door-to-door in rural Manitoba, is drummed out of business by Eaton's Mail Order Who would have expected such a thing? So what does he do but borrow money from the Royal Bank-the first such loan ever made to a son of Israel-and open his own retail establish in arden supplies and bicycles A door closes, a door opens; Mr Skutari's oords
Professor Barker Flett in 1916 is at the end of his Winnipeg chapter His mother is dead His faith is exhausted His thirty-three-year-old body frightens hihtens hi hie now, and move forward, eastward, Ottawa to be precise, the capital of the Dominion
And my father, Cuyler Goodwill of Tyndall, Manitoba, has finished his tower How does he know it is finished? The proportions tell hiht, width, circurow unbalanced; he looks at it and his thoughts become easy, almost lazy And there have been so many visitors lately, and so many newspaper reporters (He suspects that visitors are carrying away pieces of his worked stone, and all he can do when he hears such gossip is shrug) These visitors have distracted hiotten the ierly, with those who come, but shi+es away from the root of his obsession Why exactly have you persevered with your tower, Mr Goodwill? Well, now, a person starts a piece of work and the work takes over God has receded, a rown over-he cannot recollect the look of her face or the outline of her body His brief e, his conversion-these seem noitself forward
A letter has co the breakdown of guardianshi+p arrangements and the problem of what is to be done for Daisy's future care
Another letter has come, only yesterday, froton, Indiana, in the United States Expert stone carvers are urgently needed An extravagant wage has been naar Hill (whatever that may be) is available for his occupancy Transportation will be arranged for himself, his family, and his household effects Does Mr Goodwill have a family? Iot bla Daisy Goodwill the measles
With her fever and sore throat, Bessie should have been ho at the Fletts' very doorstep, handing Daisy her overdue botany notes, apologizing in great girlish splutters, and sneezing into the child's susceptible eleven-year-old face
The disease afting through Daisy's respiratory passages, and soon she had all the symptoms Aunt Clarentine (for this is how Daisy has always addressed her) peered into the child's mouth and leapt back with horror-spots everywhere The poor little thing was put to bed in a darkened room The door was kept shut, with Aunt Clarentine her only visitor, and no one could say the woht the sick child cool, wet rags to soothe her fever, a solution of boracic lotion to douche her eyes e the itching, and trays of soft food to pick at-poached eggs, stewed fruit-after which Daisy was adjured to cleanse her et better, and, sirow bored And then, suddenly, she became much, , to supply with a name-announced bronchial pneumonia, and sketched, for Aunt Clarentine's edification, a drawing of the bronchial tree Nowadays a course of sulfonoirl's condition, but at that time bed rest, fluids, and heat constituted the only treatment This went on for some weeks, and since no one reht, the period of Daisy Goodwill's secondary illness was also spent in darkness In addition, the blocked s suffocation, the beginning of as to be a lifelong allergy
She ood deal-for how else could an active child have endured such a width of vacant time?-and whenever she woke it ith a stiff body and a head weakened by nameless anxiety This had to do with the vacuu was , and it took weeks in that die of that upside-down tree inside her chest to inform her of what it was
What she lacked was the kernel of authenticity, that precious interior ore that everyone around her see footsteps in the upstairs hall, bustling and cheerful and breaking out in laughter over nothing at all and talking away in a larky voice about how grateful she was that ”God who so loved the world” had chosen to let her go her oay And Uncle Barker, as Daisy called hie with his dia the pavehed out his reluctance Other people were held erect by their ability to register and reflect the world-but not, for some reason, Daisy Goodwill
She could only stare at this absence inside herself for a fewat the sun
Well, you ht say, it was doubtless the fever that disoriented e delusions in that dark place, and thatvisions
The long days of isolation, of silence, the tor Daisy Goodwill and einable, would be, if such a thing were ever to be written, an asse in her bed, she apprehended life going on around her-which only worsened her sense of hborhood, and bird song welling up, and the sound of thea whinnying sound at the corner and sta down his water and turds Doors opened and closed, letters arrived, people ca to a boil, the hall clock ticking on and on
In the solipsistic way of children, the girl was amazed that all this should continue without her Aberdeen School would not recess-no, it would not-because of her illness; the schoolyard would re on and on with the saarden by ons, even if, by chance, she wasn't there to pick off their heads and ers That hat she kept co back to as she lay in her hot, darkened rooe that here, this place, here she would continue to live all her life, where she had, in fact, always lived-blinded, throttled, erased from the record of her own existence
She understood that if she was going to hold on to her life at all, she would have to rescue it by a pri up the necessary connections, conjuring the pastoral or heroic or whatever, even drea the details wrong occasionally, exaggerating or lying outright, inventing letters or conversations of iht (When her beloved Aunt Clarentine died late in theone solid week in a coma, Daisy floated her to heaven on a bed of pansies, and, at the sa sexual stare, for that hat it was, into an attack of indigestion) She willed herself to be strong, and when at last she met her real father, Cuyler Goodwill-he arrived at the Si an ill-fitting suit, looking disappointingly short and dark-complexioned-she braced herself for his kiss It didn't co He never so much as took her hand His face had a poor, pinchy look to it, but the mouth was kind They sat downstairs in the parlor, he in the leather arlare of silence Daisy earing a yellow striped dress yptian cotton Her father cleared his throat politely This was enough to loosen his tongue He went on and on after that, explaining to her about the train journey they were about to take, and the place where they would be living when they arrived in Blooton, Indiana An apartly, as though to persuade her of its worth
The two of the lemonade from tall tumblers
Who made this lemonade? Soar and added chipped ice, but Daisy can't think who this person ers will always remember the feel of those tulass, but it is the sun she will chiefly reh the fine su up the whole of the rooht believe in: the print of sunlight on her bare ar down her throat The buttons on her father's shi+rt, glittering there like a trail of tears
Her knees forh the yellow cloth Her father's words came toward her like a blizzard of dots
On that day she liked the world
CHAPTER THREE
Marriage, 1927
MRS JOSEPH FRANZMAN entertained at luncheon yesterday in honor of Miss Daisy Goodwill of Blooton Covers were laid for ten
Mrs Otis Cline received at tea this afternoon in honor of Daisy Goodwill, a June bride-elect Miss Goodwill is a graduate of Tudor Hall and of Long College for Women
Mrs Alfred Wylie entertained at a kitchen shower Thursday afternoon in honor of Daisy Goodwill, a June bride-to-be The rooms were prettily decorated isteria, bells, and streamers Guests included Mrs Arthur Hoad, Mrs Stanton Merrill, Mrs A Caputo, Mrs B Grindle, Mrs Fred Anthony, Miss Labina Anthony, Miss Elfreda Hoyt, and the Misses Merry Anne and Susan Colchester
During the afternoon, Miss Grace Healy contributed several delightful vocal and piano selections
A ”white” dinner in honor of Bloorooht The menu included bay scallops, fillet of Dover sole, supreme of chicken served with an accompaniment of creamed onions, and a dessert of vanilla chantilly ice molded in the form of twin doves Guests were Mrs Arthur Hoad and sons Lons Hoad and Harold A Hoad, Mr and Mrs Horton Graff, Mr and Mrs Hector MacIlwraith, the Misses Labina Anthony and Elfreda Hoyt, Mr dick Greene, Mr and Mrs Stanton Merrill, and Mr and Mrs Otis Cline The artistic table, centered with a profusion of suhted by ivory tapers, was presided over by Mr Cuyler Goodwill, the host for the evening and the father of the bride-elect The silver-tongued Mr Goodwill, a partner in the fir's festivities with a few eloquent and thought provoking words on the benefice of time and coincidence
”Tienial after-dinner assembly who sit noith their chairs pulled back froht softening their features, ”tiive birth to a whole lot of miracles It was, after all”-and here Mr Goodwill lifts an expository finger-”it was the lucky presence of a waro, only think of it, my friends-that combination produced the remarkable Indiana limestone which has served all of us here so well” (At this there is appreciative applause all around) ”Now, if that water,” Mr Goodwill continues, ”had been just a little cooler, the billions and trillions of little sea creatures ot theot piled up down there on the seabed like they did And if the water in that peaceful old ocean had been less clear, there would sure as anything have been clay and other deposits to affect the sediood friends, if those ancient marine-waters had been an inch or two deeper, there wouldn't have been any wave action to break down the shell material to uniform size and spread it across the entleift from the earth, would never have existed It was a ree, all these various aforeether at the very sae”-he pauses dramatically-”of prosperity”-another pause-”and happiness”
The port is low in the glasses now; the lovely candles flicker-for ahas been opened to the breezes of the night Mr Goodwill pulls back his small compact shoulders and warood friends, it is exactly eleven years this ton I think often how providential was our ti, since this last decade, as we all know, has been one of unprecedented expansion for the limestone industry But it seehter and I should have been welcoest an embrace-”welcomed by friendshi+p and by opportunity And, of course, I was honored, soo, when Mr Graff and Mr
MacIlwraith, both of the wives, invited me to join with them in their new enterprise, and I believe all of you here will attest to the good fortune that smiled on our venture Not that we can claim credit for our success We have time itself to thank” Here he stops, looks slowly around the table,each set of eyes in turn ”Ti of destiny That wondrous branching of our fates”
The waiters hover in the shadows, anxious for the evening to conclude so they can go home to their beds, but Mr Goodwill has not yet finished
”And, looking at our young couple here this evening-Daisy, Harold-how can any of us believe that they are not also favored by ti in the extraordinary year of 1927 AD The un, and if any of us had harbored doubts about the future, we have been convinced otherwise one h Jr” (This ti, and Goodwill himself leads a round of enthusiastic applause, the ladies clapping spiritedly, their lovely white hands uplifted, and the gentle the table top) ”Further-home cadence beautifully calculated-”at this very point in history the re is about to rise in the Empire State of our nation-as noble a testienuity as any of us would have dreao forward”
Hear, hear!
”And now, may I ask you to rise, one and all, and drink to the happiness of our young couple Chance has brought the two of theether, and time has smiled warmly on them both”
How did ue?
At fifty, he is quick of o, all point and polish He wearswhite, professionally laundered, a fresh one every single day of the week His suits are o, and they fit his form-no ready-to-wear for him: he has shed such embarrass snakelike or sly about Goodwill's open, energetic businessed very little
He will always be a man who is short of shank and narrow of shoulder, but this rather abbreviated body is not what people register
People look into Cuyler Goodwill's sht like a clock, full of urgency and force, and think: here stands a y shoots from his very eyes-which have kept their youthful whiteness, their intensity of fixation He is an iure in the community, respected, admired But it is when he opens his mouth to speak that he becoue-hoas it acquired? The question-would anyone disagree?-holds a certain ie; it is only to be expected that some favored feill become more fluent than others, and that from this pool of fluency will arise the asseifted Call it a dispensation of nature-a genetic burst that places a lyre in the throat, a bezel on the tongue A dull childhood need not disqualify the innately articulate; it would be arrogance to think so; a dull childhood ence to the well of language and bid it drink deep
Cuyler Goodwill hih he does not bruit this about, or even confess it to hi his brief two-year e to Mercy Goodwill There in the sheeted width of their feather bed, his roughenedthe abundant soft flesh of his wife's body, enclosing it, entering it-that was the ed An explosion of self-forgetfulness set his tongue free, or rather a series of explosions ignited along the seasonal curve: autue of Tyndall, Manitoba, a crispness in the air Or a string of cold January nights And spring evenings, the breezesin through theacross the pale embroidered pillow covers and on to the curves of wifely flesh-his dear, dear, willing Mercy Words gathered in hisThey leapt froings-he whispered them into his sweetheart's ear, and she, so iement At least she had not been offended, not even surprised, nor did she appear to find him foolish or unnatural in his mode of expression
My own belief is that my father found his voice, found it truly and forever, in the rhetoricalthe years following his conversion by -he applied hiht Its narratives frankly puzzled his and prophets, their curious ravings Biblical warnings and iht over his commonsensical head But scriptural rhyth and suggestive tonality How else to explain his archaic formal locutions, his balance and play of phrase, his exotic inversions, his h him, and not-as is the usual case-the other way around
Another theory holds that the reat croho traveled northward to see the tower he built to his wife's memory, a tower constructed with his own hands A fair proportion of these visitors, after all, were journalists, journalists who stood by Cuyler Goodwill's side with a notebook and pencil in hand Just a few questions, Mr Goodwill, if you don't , clear-eyed, ready to be astonished, they came from all across the continent, and fro their journalists' sheaf of queries, their hohens, their whys Cuyler Goodwill had become a public person