The Age of Hope (3 page)

Harold, Roy’s older brother, was present at the table. He had, during the war, going against the beliefs of most of the young Mennonite men in Eden who were conscientious objectors, been based in India for three years as a tail gunner, and then he had come home and begun to work in the parts department at the dealership. He never talked about himself and certainly didn’t mention the war years. He didn’t have the quiet confident salesmanship that Roy had. There was a sister as well, Berta. She was a year younger than Roy, but she seemed older. Dour and matronly, dressed in a dull grey dress that hid her femininity, she resembled her mother. They were two fierce women standing guard at the doorway to Roy’s heart.

Mr. Koop, helping himself to more turkey and
bubbat,
a raisin-filled heavy dressing, mentioned Hope’s mother. “Harold had her as a teacher. Didn’t you, Harold?”

Harold nodded.

Mr. Koop said, “Very sophisticated, your mother. Every time I talk to her, I imagine that we will suddenly be speaking the King’s English, or that I will be tested on Shakespeare. She wears hats, always a different shape and colour.”

Berta looked at her father, sharply, as if surprised by something.

“Do you think the same of me? That I will test you?” Hope realized that the question was quite forward, and that in asking it, she was setting herself apart from Berta and Mrs. Koop, but she didn’t care. She had caught on quickly that Roy was the favourite child, and that this gave her leverage, especially with Mr. Koop, who laughed and said, “Please don’t. I dropped out of school at the age of eleven.”

Berta said, “An education can puff people up. Like peacocks.”

“Berta. Get the bread.” This was Mrs. Koop, who was busy fetching food and replenishing the punch and generally huffing about, her dreary dress passing from here to there.

Hope wondered how often Mr. and Mrs. Koop were intimate. She pushed the thought away.

“Still, there’s nothing like college, is there?” Mr. Koop continued. “Roy went to Flint for two years.”

“That’s not the same,” Roy said.

“Yes it is,” Hope said. She touched his arm. She had been aware, throughout the meal, that he was beside her and yet quite far from her, and she wanted to claim him now. She left her hand on the sleeve of his shirt. “You studied physics and chemistry eleven hours a day. And accounting.”

“He got all A’s,” Berta said, back at the table, letting Hope know that her big brother was brainy.

“I know.” Hope smiled at Berta. “He’s a smart one.”

“Well, I’m happy that my boy’s marrying a nurse.” Roy’s father held a hand to his chest. “The Koop ticker is a weak one. Genetically unsound. We need you.”

She dipped her head and waited for Roy to clarify. But it was Mrs. Koop who said, “What are you going on about, Ernie? She’s just Roy’s
friend.
They have loads of time anyhow. Marriage tastes good, but it costs too.”

Later that night, when Roy dropped her off at home, she said, “Your mother doesn’t like chocolate.”

“Sure she does. She has a sweet tooth. So does Berta. They’re probably digging in right now.”

“They didn’t like me. They said almost nothing to me, and when they did, I was a peacock.”

“Oh, ignore Berta. She’s protective, like my mother.”

“And when we ‘re married, they’ll still want to protect you?” Having blurted this out, she could not take it back, though she wanted to immediately. This was so forward, so contrary to her careful behaviour, that she was mortified. “Oh my,” she said.

But Roy was neither surprised nor upset. “I like it when you talk like that.”

“It doesn’t frighten you?”

“Hah. Takes more than that.”

“It’s just not terribly romantic. I feel like everything is backwards. Like I’m the man.”

“Well. Would you?” he said. “Marry me?”

“Yes. I would. I will. Yes.”

And when we are married.
Such a simple statement that opened up all sorts of doors and shut others. She must have wanted to say those words, must have wanted to hear them, to feel them in her mouth. As she explained to her mother the following day, Roy was established and she knew that she wanted to have children, and what would be the use in completing school, never to work at a nursing job?

“Well,” her mother said, “he could die, or he could leave you for someone else, and then what? You’d be poor once again.”

“He won’t leave me. He’s too good a man.”

“He’s good now, so you think. And you may be right.” She wasn’t given to directing her daughter’s life. “If this is what you want.”

Hope told Roy that she wanted to finish out the year, as if this would prove something both to herself and to him. “It wouldn’t feel right to run away. We can marry in the summer.”

He agreed, though not happily. This meant that they wouldn’t have sex until summer, and he was so looking forward to sex with Hope. She was a great kisser. They had first kissed that night after the dinner at his parents’, and with each kiss he wanted to burrow deeper, to tear the wrapping from her. But he knew that sex was for marriage, and so they would wait.

She worked that summer, before the wedding, as an operator at the telephone office in Eden, taking care of the switchboard. She wore earphones and overheard conversations she should not have been privy to, was in fact expected to turn off the connection, but there were times when a certain inflection in the voice or the sultry response of a woman made her hang on to the conversation a little longer than required. She discovered that Mrs. Cornie Dueck was an incredible gossip. And that Ed Wiens, who owned a chain of grocery stores throughout southern Manitoba, was probably having an affair with his secretary, Leona. Ed would often call her long distance when he was out of town. Hope would patch him through and hear Leona’s voice answer, and once, before she could turn him off, Ed said, “Sweetheart.” It quickened her breath and made her queasy as well. She didn’t like the power of that knowledge. Roy liked to call her as well. He’d dial “0” and when she answered, “Hello, operator,” he’d say, “I just wanted to hear your voice.” And they’d talk, sometimes at length, though she would have to keep cutting him off and then come back to him, and so their conversations were elliptical and disjointed. One night he phoned her and said that he was driving up to Fort Frances the following morning, just for the day. He had to deliver some parts. Would she like to come along?

She said she might. She had the day off, and she ‘d never been to Fort Frances before.

“We’ll take the American route, though it’s not much different. But at least you can say you visited Minnesota.”

Later, after the trip, she would realize that she had taken quite a risk in going along with Roy. What turned out to be a romantic two days might just as easily have dissolved their relationship if Roy had been a different man. But he wasn’t a different man—he was Roy. It was a hot day, late July, and certain crops had already ripened and so farmers were swathing the fields. As they drove she pointed out the farmyards, horses grazing, and the white clouds high in the sky. “They look like sheep,” she said. Roy took pleasure in her curiosity and in the attention she paid to little things and in the attention she paid to him. She held his hand. Touched his cheek. Adjusted his hat, took it off and placed it on her own head in a jaunty manner. They stopped for a chicken sandwich and mushroom soup in Baudette, on the American side. When the waitress, a very pretty girl who looked like Marilyn Monroe, delivered their food, she laid it out before them and then stood back and said, “You two wouldn’t be newlyweds, would you? It’s just you
look
like it.”

“Oh, no,” Roy said, and he laughed.

After the waitress had gone, Hope said, “Are you embarrassed by me, Roy?”

“What do you mean? Of course I’m not.”

“She’s a very pretty girl, that waitress.”

“She is.”

“You didn’t want her to think we were married.”

“But we aren’t married.”

“We ‘re almost married. In a month. You could have at least told her we were engaged.”

“You could have told her that, Hope.”

“She was talking to you. She didn’t even look at me.”

“Are you jealous?” He was grinning.

“Should I be? If I hadn’t been here, sitting across from you, would you have had a longer conversation with Norma Jean?”

“Who?”

“The waitress. She looks just like Marilyn Monroe.”

“She does?”

“Oh, Roy, you’re impossible. You should be careful, playing innocent like that. Something really good-looking will come along one day and slap you on your backside and you won’t know what hit you. You have to be prepared for the world. Girls
like
you.”

“I’m not interested in girls. I have you.”

“Even so.”

Later, back on the road, Roy grew tired and asked if Hope wanted to drive. She said that she didn’t, he should pull over and have a nap. He stopped on the shoulder and turned off the engine. He fell asleep immediately and she watched him, his head angled towards her slightly. She had rolled her window down halfway. A fly entered the car and landed on Roy’s hat brim. She waved her hand. The fly took off and came back and landed on his cheek, crawling down to his slack mouth. She spent the next fifteen minutes shooing the fly, keeping it off Roy’s head as he snored lightly. When he woke, he did so with a start, as if embarrassed by his vulnerability. “Was I snoring?” he asked.

“Not a bit,” she said, and she folded her hands in her lap.

She had imagined that he would deliver the parts to the garage in Fort Frances and they would head back to Eden immediately. This was not to be. He said that he wanted to pay a visit to a doctor.

“What, are you sick, Roy?”

“Naww. You’ll see.”

He drove to the hospital and parked in the visitors’ lot and said he would be right back. She sat and waited, and then got out of the car and walked about. She was glad that she had worn a sleeveless dress, what with the heat, though she wished she could remove her nylons and let her legs feel the breeze. She sat on a bench in a nearby park and waited some more. The sour smell of the paper mill floated in the air. An hour passed and she wondered if Roy had abandoned her. She thought she might be feeling resentful, but she counselled herself to be patient. She wished that he were more thoughtful, that he wouldn’t just take her for granted. “Oh,” she said to herself, “if I go away, no matter how long, I’ll come back and Hope will still be here, prepared to shoo flies from my face.”

When he finally reappeared he was walking with a shorter man with a square face, older than Roy. They stood beside the car and they talked. They walked around the car. It was a Styleline Deluxe, a hardtop. Brand new, except for the few miles Roy had put on. The two men shook hands, and taking this as a sign, she rose and ambled over and stood off to the side. Finally, she was noticed. Not by Roy but by the other man, who stepped towards her and held out his hand and said, “Doctor Challis.”

“Hi, I’m Hope Koop. Roy’s wife.”

“Your husband here just sold me his car.”

“He did?” She looked at Roy, who was studying her, shaking his head.

“Yes, he did. He’s quite the salesman. In any case, you’re coming to our place for dinner tonight. You’ll have to spend the night as well, as Roy here has sold out your transportation from underneath you. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Koop. We’ll meet again at our house. You go on ahead. I’ll let Florence know.”

Driving over to the doctor’s house, Roy was silent. She didn’t care. Just before they arrived, she said, “If you’re going to treat me like a submissive wife, I might as well
be
your wife, Roy. You walk away and leave me for an hour. I wait, and I wait. And then it turns out that we don’t have a car to drive home. I work tomorrow. In the evening. Will we be home by then? And do I want to spend the night at some stranger’s house? You might have consulted me. I don’t like to be in the dark.”

“I was doing my job, Hope. He bought the car. I made three hundred dollars in one hour. Just like that. And now you’ve jeopardized the sale.”

“How? What have I done? Because I said we’re married?”

“What if he finds out? In any case, I don’t like to lie. I’m not a liar.”

“Oh, Roy. Goodness. He won’t care. And you didn’t lie. I did.”

“You’re so stubborn, Hope.” His voice was disappointed.

They had arrived. The house obviously belonged to a doctor. It was large and made of brick and a second car was parked in the driveway. Three children were playing in the front yard.

“What was his wife’s name?” she asked.

“Florence. Her name is Florence.”

They were given a bedroom together, because of course they were married. She had not anticipated that this would be the result of her little white lie, and she was amused by Roy’s mute acceptance of the fact that they would be sleeping together. Not in the same bed, but in the same room, lying in close proximity—him fully dressed, Hope wearing a nightgown that the doctor’s wife had given her. “Oh, Roy, we can sleep here, side by side,” Hope whispered, pointing at the bed. “I promise not to touch you.” He shook his head, and lay on the floor beside her bed, a small blanket covering him. She giggled, besotted by his rectitude. What a wonderful man. And this allowed her more leeway, more freedom.

She held his hand before they slept, talking to him, her arm falling down to touch his chest. “What a handful those children are. Especially that boy Adrian,” she said. “Florence must be exhausted.” They had eaten late, much later than was typical for them, and the meal, with three courses that included a leg of lamb, had gone on and on, with much conversation that eventually turned to politics and then religion, which had been quite interesting because it turned out that the doctor was an atheist. Hope was especially curious about his lack of belief.

“Not a lack of belief,” he had clarified. “I believe in humanity, in caring for one another, in the continuation of the species. I just don’t believe in God.”

“But how is that possible?” Hope asked. “Where did you come from? Where are you going?”

The doctor’s wife tried to temper the conversation, though she was quite occupied with the food and the children, but by then the talk had turned elsewhere, back to cars, perhaps, or to hunting and fishing, activities the doctor was especially fond of.