Part 7 (1/2)

He chose a chair in front of the bookcase, facing me.

”Now-”

”On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble-”

Familiar words and rhythms calmed me down. They took me over. Gradually I began to feel more at peace.

The gale, it plies the saplings double, It blows so hard, 'twill soon be gone: To-day the Roman and his trouble Are ashes under Uricon.

Where is Uricon? Who knows?

It wasn't really that I forgot where I was or who I was with or in what condition I sat there. But I had come to feel somewhat remote and philosophical. The notion came to me that everybody in the world was naked, in a way. Mr. Purvis was naked, though he wore clothes. We were all sad, bare, forked creatures. Shame receded. I just kept turning the pages, reading one poem and then another, then another. Liking the sound of my voice. Until to my surprise and almost to my disappointment-there were still famous lines to come-Mr. Purvis interrupted me. He stood up, he sighed.

”Enough, enough,” he said. ”That was very nice. Thank you. Your country accent is quite suitable. Now it's my bedtime.”

I let the book go. He replaced it on the shelves and closed the gla.s.s doors. The country accent was news to me.

”And I'm afraid it's time to send you home.”

He opened another door, into the hall I had seen so long ago, at the beginning of the evening, and I pa.s.sed in front of him and the door was closed behind me. I may have said good night. It is even possible that I thanked him for dinner, and that he spoke to me in a few dry words (not at all, thank you for your company, it was very kind of you, thank you for reading Housman) in a suddenly tired, old, crumpled, and indifferent voice. He did not lay a hand on me.

The same dimly lit cloakroom. My same clothes. The turquoise dress, my stockings, my slip. Mrs. Winner appeared while I was fastening my stockings. She said only one thing to me, as I was ready to leave.

”You forgot your scarf.”

And there indeed was the scarf I had knit in Home Economics cla.s.s, the only thing I would ever knit in my life. I had come close to abandoning it, in this place.

As I got out of the car Mrs. Winner said, ”Mr. Purvis would like to speak to Nina before he goes to bed. If you would remind her.”

But there was no Nina waiting to receive this message. Her bed was made up. Her coat and boots were gone. A few of her other clothes were still hanging in the closet.

Beverly and Kay had both gone home for the weekend, so I ran downstairs to see if Beth had any information.

”I'm sorry,” said Beth, whom I never saw sorry about anything. ”I can't keep track of all your comings and goings.”

Then as I turned away, ”I've asked you several times not to thump so much on the stairs. I just got Sally-Lou to sleep.”

I had not made up my mind, when I got home, what I would say to Nina. Would I ask her if she was required to be naked, in that house, if she had known perfectly well what sort of an evening was waiting for me? Or would I say nothing much, waiting for her to ask me? And even then, I could say innocently that I'd eaten Cornish hen and yellow rice, and that it was very good. That I'd read from A Shrops.h.i.+re Lad A Shrops.h.i.+re Lad.

I could just let her wonder.

Now that she was gone, none of this mattered. The focus was s.h.i.+fted. Mrs. Winner phoned after ten o'clock-breaking another of Beth's rules-and when I told her that Nina was not there she said, ”Are you sure of that?”

The same when I told her that I had no idea where Nina had gone. ”Are you sure?”

I asked her not to phone again till morning, because of Beth's rules and the babies' sleep, and she said, ”Well. I don't know. This is serious.”

When I got up in the morning the car was parked across the street. Later, Mrs. Winner rang the bell and told Beth that she had been sent to check Nina's room. Even Beth was quelled by Mrs. Winner, who then came up the stairs without a reproach or a warning being uttered. After she looked all around our room she looked in the bathroom and the closet, even shaking out a couple of blankets that were folded on the closet floor.

I was still in my pajamas, writing an essay on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and drinking Nescafe.

Mrs. Winner said that she had had to phone the hospitals, to see if Nina had been taken ill, and that Mr. Purvis had gone out himself to check on several other places where she might be.

”If you know anything it would be better to tell us,” she said. ”Anything at all.”

Then as she started down the stairs she turned and said in a voice that was less menacing, ”Is there anybody at the college she was friendly with. Anybody you know?”

I said that I didn't think so.

I had seen Nina only a couple of times at the college. Once she was walking down the lower corridor of the Arts Building in the crush between cla.s.ses. Once she was in the cafeteria. Both times she was alone. It was not particularly unusual to be alone when you were hurrying from one cla.s.s to another, but it was a little strange to sit alone in the cafeteria with a cup of coffee at around a quarter to four in the afternoon when that s.p.a.ce was practically deserted. She sat with a smile on her face, as if to say how pleased, how privileged, she felt to be there, how alert and ready to respond to the demands of this life she was, once she understood what they were.

In the afternoon it began to snow. The car across the street had to depart to make way for the snowplow. When I went into the bathroom and caught the flutter of her kimono on its hook, I felt what I had been suppressing-a true fear for Nina. I had a picture of her, disoriented, weeping into her loose hair, wandering around in the snow in her white underwear instead of her camel's hair coat, though I knew perfectly well that she had taken the coat with her.

The phone rang just as I was about to leave for my first cla.s.s on Monday morning.

”It's me,” said Nina, in a rushed warning, but with something like triumph in her voice. ”Listen. Please. Could you please do me a favor?”

”Where are you? They're looking for you.”

”Who is?”

”Mr. Purvis. Mrs. Winner.”

”Well, you're not to tell them. Don't tell them anything. I'm here.”

”Where?”

”Ernest's.”

”Ernest's?” I said. ”Ernie's?” ”Ernie's?”

”Sshh. Did anybody there hear you?”

”No.”

”Listen, could you please, please get on a bus and bring me the rest of my stuff? I need my shampoo. I need my kimono. I'm going around in Ernest's bathrobe. You should see me, I look like an old woolly brown dog. Is the car still outside?”

I went and looked.

”Yes.”

”Okay then, you should get on the bus and ride up to the college just like you normally do. And then catch the bus downtown. You know where to get off. Campbell and Howe. Then walk over here. Carlisle Street. Three sixty-three. You know it, don't you?”

”Is Ernie there?”

”No, dum-dum. He's at work. He's got to support us, doesn't he?”

Us? Was Ernie to support Nina and me? Was Ernie to support Nina and me?