After Alice Read Free Page B

looks around again: there is a basket of crackers — small brown crackers, innocuous, recognizably food. She picks one up, bites gingerly. Her mouth fills gratefully with saliva. Wheat, the comfort of wheat. She picks up a couple more crackers. Debbie hands her a little glass plate. “Pâté?” she asks. But no. Sidonie does not want the pâté, which seems to be liverwurst with pimentos. She only wants to eat the good brown crackers.
    They are both rescued by Stephen making his way purposefully toward them through the crowd, like a police boat in a shoal of drifting yawls.
    Stephen fetches her a glass, says, “So you’ve retired from psychiatry.”
    â€œI have never been a psychiatrist. I design experiments for psychological research.”
    Stephen’s face falls, as if he has suddenly been presented with a difficult task. But then Debbie is at his elbow, staying his flagging arm, Sidonie thinks.
    Debbie says, “But you’re retired from your profession now?”
    â€œOfficially,” she says. “But I hope to continue writing in my field for some time.” This is true. She is connected to her institution, still. She has the internet; she lives close to the airport. She intends to continue her work. She has only let go of the extraneous bits, the tediousness of administrative work. She feels, now, the surge of pleasure, of warmth, at the thought of the projects she has still going.
    The girl, who has been lurking behind her parents, says, “You design experiments? What does that mean? Like, with rabbits and monkeys?” Her brows are drawn together, her voice is accusing. A typical teenager, fired up with some idea she knows little about. Sidonie could take her on. But it’s a fool’s errand, arguing with the impassioned young. And she is a guest.
    She says, “Not really. Most of my design work is in meta-statistics. I work with computer-generated mathematical models.”
    Then she has the pleasure of seeing their faces — Stephen’s and Debbie’s — freeze over, go blank, like stone.
    She notices now that the Gothic lettering on Stephen’s shirt reads Styx . Styx, she seems to remember, was the name of an American rock band from the later 1970s, or perhaps the 1980s. That makes sense. A band of Stephen’s generation. As well as being, of course, the name of the river into which Achilles was dipped, imparting him invincibility. Near-invincibility, to be precise. And the river of the Underworld. Coincidentally, she has been listening, today, to her very good Deutsche Grammophon recording of Monteverdi’s L ’ Orfeo .
    Stephen excuses himself to take a phone call.
    â€œThat was from Kev,” he says, when he returns. “He couldn’t book off work this weekend.” He says it significantly, as if Kevin’s non-visit, his phone call, were greatly important.
    Cynthia says, “I know; he told me he was really disappointed that he couldn’t make it.”
    So Cynthia is in touch with her brother Kevin, too. Sidonie had not known that. But why should she? She stands outside this family group, for all that she half-raised Cynthia. And now, of course, Cynthia and Justin have a separate house, their own house, in the city. (She should perhaps have bought a place closer to them, downtown, rather than on the outskirts. It had been cheaper to buy, on the outskirts, and was closer to the airport. But it is not very close to Cynthia’s house. And she had not thought that it was so close to the village where she had grown up.)
    Stephen and Cynthia’s brother Kevin, she seems to remember, is working as a cook in a restaurant franchise in Vancouver. He has some sort of family; he had married a woman with children of her own. She has not kept in touch.
    There is no mention of Paul. Paul is lost, Paul, their other brother. He, of course, would not be expected to call or to arrive.
    She remembers, now, Stephen