Part 17 (2/2)
”Nasty?”
”No More like superior”
”Condescending?”
”Yes That's it Condescending”
”You're right, you know It is condescending It's reductive Insolent, as a matter of fact”
”Yes”
”We pretend to admire feistiness in others,” Alice muses, ”but we'd hate like hell to be feisty ourselves To have soot a bad smell”
”A bad what?”
”Overripe Like strawberries past their pri back, your father I think that's why he never learned to dance”
”Dancing's not for everyone”
”I'lad to be here”
”What did you say?”
”I said, I' Alice, if I don't believe you”
(Does Grandma Flett actually say this last aloud? She's not sure
She's lost track of what's real and what isn't, and so, at this age, have I) When we say a thing or an event is real, neveris ardless of how true and just it seee we live in The docuh facts We put on the television set and e hear is the life cycles of birds The replaying of wars Intervieithelse
A Canadian journalist nahi to dislodge a stuck quarter Years ago Pinky Fulharave injury, and so when she hears about his death she can't very well pretend to any great sorrow
”Good God,” her daughter, Alice, said, ”how did you hear about this?”
”Someone told me,” Grandma Flett said mysteriously ”Or maybe it was in the paper”
”Really? That's incredible”
”Actually eleven North Aabout it not long ago Yesterday, I think Or ”
”And Pinky Fulham was one of them”
”So it seems”
”Incredible”
”I suppose it is”
Since her heart attack everything takes her by surprise, but nothing h a new sense of her own hollowness has made her a volunteer for replacement Her body's dead planet with its ato all of a sudden with headlines, night cards, ht, footsteps in the corridor, the odors of her own breath and blood, sonizing
A parcel arrives for Grandland
Oh dear, dear!-you know you're sick when someone sends you a bedjacket instead of bath powder or a nice travel book A bedjacket is almost as antiquated as a bustle or a dress shi+eld A bedjacket speaks of desperation, and what it says is: toodle-oo
Nevertheless, old Mrs Flett understands that her granddaughter has gone to a good deal of trouble to find this bedjacket A bedjacket, these days, is a hard-to-find iteht stock a mere half-dozen or so, if at all, and the sales clerks, women in their forties or fifties, look up baffled when you lean over the counter and say, ”I'm afraid I can't seem to find where the bedjackets are located”
Where are bedjackets manufactured? New York? San Francisco? Maybe some little town in the middle of Iowa has cornered the market: the bedjacket capital of the nation Of the world But who designs this curious apparel? The lace borders, the little quilted sleeves, the grosgrain ribbons that tie under your chin?
Maybe no one designs them Maybe they simply erie factories Another thing-why and when should a person wear a bedjacket? Is a bedjacket a private or public gar? Does it come with an instructions manual?
”You see hoeet of Judy to remember me”
”She adores you, you know”
”I've never owned a bedjacket before”
”You look lovely in it Wait till Dr Riccia sees you He'll be floith compliments”
”That man”
”He's not so bad Come on, now Those eyelashes, don't tell me you haven't noticed his eyelashes? He's really a perfectly lovely man Admit it, now”
”Well”
”Well water! Personally, I find hi And, secretly, I think you do too”
”H; she knows the type
She greets him coldly, almost rudely when he turns up one day at Canary Pal him alone to chat with hertold, that Alice wants only to protect her frouilt-wrapped wares Alice, froe perspective, believes her h anyway-and is outraged to see the spectre of sin visited upon one so old and ill and vulnerable
However, the conversation between Mrs Flett and Reverend Rick today takes a sharp turn away froay, you see,” Reverend Rick tells Mrs Flett ”homosexual I didn't knohen I studied for the ministry but then, well, I discoveredtime I stayed, you know, in the closet Then one or two people knew, then, gradually, half a dozen, now almost everyone knows-except for my mother
That's , you're about the sae as my mom Well, actually my mom is only about sixty, but for some reason you re ot so I hate to go ho to ask s to close her eyes at this moment and drift into sleep And she knows perfectly well she could get aith it; her age gives her the privilege