Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You by Alice Munro Read Free Book Online Page B

thinking about it. I could not stand the noise either. I haven’t had any sleep in a week.”
    â€œThe basement will flood.”
    â€œI’ll turn it on in the morning. A few hours’ peace is all I want.”
    â€œThat’ll be too late, it’s raining torrents.”
    â€œIt is not.”
    â€œYou go to the window.”
    â€œIt’s raining. It’s not raining torrents.”
    I turned out the light and lay down and said in a calm stern voice, “Listen to me, Hugo, you have to go and turn it on, Dotty will be flooded out.”
    â€œIn the morning.”
    â€œYou have to go and turn it on
now
.”
    â€œWell I’m not.”
    â€œIf you’re not, I am.”
    â€œNo, you’re not.”
    â€œI am.”
    But I didn’t move.
    â€œDon’t be such an alarmist.”
    â€œHugo.”
    â€œDon’t
cry
.”
    â€œHer stuff will be ruined.”
    â€œBest thing could happen to it. Anyway, it won’t.” He lay beside me stiff and wary, waiting, I suppose, for me to get out of bed, go down to the basement and figure out how to turn the pump on. Then what would he have done? He could not have hit me, I was too pregnant. He never did hit me, unless I hit him first. He could have gone and turned it off again, and I could have turned it on, and so on, how long could that last? He could have held me down, but if I struggled he would have been afraid of hurting me. He could have sworn at me and left thehouse, but we had no car, and it was raining too hard for him to stay out very long. He would probably just have raged and sulked, alternately, and I could have taken a blanket and gone to sleep on the living room couch for the rest of the night. I think that is what a woman of firm character would have done. I think that is what a woman who wanted that marriage to last would have done. But I did not do it. Instead, I said to myself that I did not know how the pump worked, I did not know where to turn it on. I said to myself that I was afraid of Hugo. I entertained the possibility that Hugo might be right, nothing would happen. But I wanted something to happen, I wanted Hugo to crash.
    When I woke up, Hugo was gone and the pump was thumping as usual. Dotty was pounding on the door at the top of the basement stairs.
    â€œYou won’t believe your eyes what’s down here. I’m up to my knees in water. I just put my feet out of bed and up to my knees in water. What happened? You hear the pump go off?”
    â€œNo,” I said.
    â€œI don’t know what could’ve gone wrong, I guess it could’ve got overworked. I had a couple of beers before I went to bed elst I would’ve known there was something wrong. I usually sleep light. But I was sleeping like the dead and I put my feet out of bed and Jesus, it’s a good thing I didn’t pull on the light switch at the same time, I would have been electrocuted. Everything’s floating.”
    Nothing was floating and the water would not have come to any grown person’s knees. It was about five inches deep in some places, only one or two in others, the floor being so uneven. It had soaked and stained the bottom of her chesterfield and chairs and got into the bottom drawers and cupboards and warped the bottom of her piano. The floor tiles were loosened, the rugs soggy, the edges of her bedspread dripping, her floor heater ruined.
    I got dressed and put on a pair of Hugo’s boots andtook a broom downstairs. I started sweeping the water towards the drain outside the door. Dotty made herself a cup of coffee in my kitchen and sat for a while on the top step watching me, going over the same monologue about having a couple of beers and sleeping more soundly than usual, not hearing the pump go off, not understanding why it should go off, if it had gone off, not knowing how she was going to explain to her mother who would certainly make it out to be her fault and charge her.