Free A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence Page B

his face showing no feeling at all. “Yes, I expect they are, Rachel. It has a fine sound, the lies the pipes tell. You run away, now, there’s a good girl.” That’s all.
    “You’re late this evening, dear,” Mother says.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “What’s the matter, Rachel? Aren’t you feeling well?”
    “I’m all right. A bit of a headache, that’s all. How are you?”
    “Oh, just fine, really. I had that miserable pain again this afternoon, but I lay down on the chesterfield for an hour, and it’s almost gone now.”
    “You shouldn’t be up. You go and lie down again now. I’ll see to dinner.”
    “No, truly, I’m fine now, dear. A little tired, but that’s nothing serious. I’ll take it easy, though. I know I must, although it’s not easy for me, having always been so active. I just hope you’re not coming down with ’flu. I don’t like these headaches you’ve been getting. Have you got a temperature?”
    “No, I don’t think so.”
    “Let me feel your forehead. You’re a bit warm, I’d say.”
    “I’m all right, Mother, for goodness’ sake. You go and lie down now. Please.”
    “Well, I will then, dear, if you’re quite sure you’re all right. You haven’t got an upset stomach, have you?”
    “No, no. My stomach is perfectly all right. It’s just a bit of a headache. I’ll take a two-twenty-two.”
    “Yes, you be sure to do that, dear. You don’t take enough care of yourself, Rachel. It doesn’t do to take chances with your health. If you do, you’ll pay for it when you’re older.”
    When I’m older. She speaks as though I were about twelve. What a strangely pendulum life I have, fluctuating in age between extremes, hardly knowing myself whether I am too young or too old.
    At dinner she eats well. She seems all right. What is the matter with me? Do I doubt her pain? At times I do, and then again at other times it causes a panic in me, and I wonder what I’d do here, by myself.
    “You know the Stewart girl, Rachel?”
    “Cassie? The one who works at Barnes’ Hardware?”
    “That’s the one. I only heard today. You know she’s been away?”
    “I hadn’t noticed.”
    “Well, she has been. It’s dreadful for her mother, a nice woman, nothing to write home about, but quite a nice woman, Mrs. Stewart, I’ve always thought. The girl isn’t married and no one even in prospect, so I gather.”
    This circumlocution is necessary for Mother.
    “You mean she’s had a child?”
    Mother spoons the last drop of vanilla ice cream slowly into her mouth, letting it melt and dribble down her throat before she replies.
    “Twins,” she says sepulchrally. “What a heartbreak for her mother. Imagine.
Twins.”
    I have to resist some powerful undercurrent of laughter. Twins. Twice as reprehensible as one.
    “Is she going to keep them?”
    “That’s the awful thing,” Mother says. “Apparently she refuses to have them put up for adoption. I can’t fathom thethoughtlessness of some girls. She might consider her mother, and how it’ll be for her. It was Mrs. Barnes that told me. I said to her, I thank my lucky stars I never had a moment’s worry with either of my daughters.”
    Had. Past tense.
    Mother took her sleeping pill soon after dinner. By nine, she was sleeping like a baby. I’ve finished the dishes and done some laundry, and I’m ready for bed myself.
    Each day dies with sleep.
I wish it did. My headache has gone, but I’m restless. The slow whirling begins again, the night’s wheel that turns and turns, pointlessly. When I close my eyes, I see scratches of gold against the black, and they form into jagged lines, teeth, a knife’s edge, the sharp hard hackles of dinosaurs.
    I must sleep.
    The blood ran down from his nostrils to his mouth’s edge. He wiped it away as though it were only to be expected. What can I ever say that might make him forget?
    I have to get to sleep. I must. The one who grows out of shadows won’t venture near tonight. Even that solace