Montreal Stories by Mavis Gallant Read Free Book Online Page A

place, seeing to it that the boys did their homework and Uncle Victor got his meals on time. She wore her hair short (apparently the long hair had been taking all the strength) and had put on weight. Her manner had changed more than her appearance. She was twenty-six, unlikely to find a husband. A nagging, joyless religiosity had come over her. Nora had seen her only once since her return: Ninette had instructed Nora to pray for her, as though she were gradually growing used to giving spiritual orders. Nora had said to herself, She’s like a sergeant-major. The whole family had been praying for Ninette for well over a year, without being pushed. Perhaps she had chosen this new, bossy way of behaving over another possibility, which was to sit with her head in her hands, thinking, Unfair! Either way, she was not good company.
    Nora said to her mother, “You mean you want me to look after Dad the way Ninette takes care of Uncle Victor?”
    “Poor Ninette,” her mother said at once. “What else can she do now.” Who would marry Ninette, she was trying to say. Ninette kept herself to herself; it may have been that one kept away from her—not unkindly, not dismissing the devaluation of her life, but for fear of ill luck and its terrible way of spreading by contact.
    In the next room, Ray thumped on the wall and said, “Either we all get up and waltz or we pipe down and get some sleep.”
    Her last waking thoughts were about Gerry. When the time came to take over Ray’s old age—for she had assumedher mother’s wild requirement to be a prophecy—Gerry might decide to leave her convent and keep house for him. She could easily by then have had enough: Ray believed her vocation to be seriously undermined by a craving for peanut clusters and homemade fudge. In a letter she had run on about her mother’s celebrated Queen of Sheba chocolate cake, artfully hollowed and filled with chocolate mousse and whipped cream. Nora tried to see Gerry and Ray old and middle-aged, with Gerry trying to get him to drink some hot soup; her imagination went slack. Old persons were said to be demanding and difficult, but Gerry would show endless patience. Would she? Was she, any more than most people, enduring and calm? Nora could not remember. Only a year or so had gone by, but the span of separation had turned out to be longer and more effacing than ordinary time.
    The next morning, and in spite of the heat, Ray requested pancakes and sausages for breakfast. No two of the Abbotts ever ate the same thing; Nora’s mother stood on her feet until the family was satisfied. Then she cleared away plates, bowls, and coffee cups and made herself a pot of strong tea. Ray picked his teeth, and suddenly asked Nora if she wanted to do a favor for a couple he knew: It involved fetching this couple’s baby and keeping an eye on it just a few hours a day, until the end of the week. The infant’s mother had suffered a nervous breakdown at his birth, and the child had been placed in a home and cared for by nuns.
    “Why can’t they hire a nurse?” Nora said.
    “She’s on her way over from England. They’re just asking you to be around till she comes. It’s more than just a good turn,” her father said. “It’s a Christian act.”
    “A Christian act is one where you don’t get paid,” Nora said.
    “Well, you’ve got nothing better to do for the moment,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to take money for this. Ifyou take the money, you’re a nursemaid and have to eat in the kitchen.”
    “I eat in the kitchen at home.” She could not shake off the picture of Ray as old and being waited on by Gerry. “Do you know them?” she said to her mother, who was still standing, eating toast.
    “Your mother doesn’t know them,” said Ray.
    “I just saw the husband once,” said his wife. “It was around the time when Ninette had to stop giving lessons. Mrs. Fenton used to come once a week. She must have started being depressed before the baby came