Vintage Munro Read Free Page A

seriously that they print in those papers.”
    “What else do they?”
    “Rubbish—cancer cures, baldness cures, bellyaching about the younger generation and the welfare bums. Tripe about movie stars.”
    “Oh, yes. I know.”
    “In my situation you have to keep a watch,” he said, “or you’ll start playing tricks on yourself.” Then he said, “There’s a few practical details we ought to get straight on,” and he told me about his will, the house, the cemetery plot. Everything was simple.
    “Do you want me to phone Peggy?” I said. Peggy is my sister. She is married to an astronomer and lives in Victoria.
    He thought about it. “I guess we ought to tell them,” he said finally. “But tell them not to get alarmed.”
    “All right.”
    “No, wait a minute. Sam is supposed to be going to a conference the end of this week, and Peggy was planning to go along with him. I don’t want them wondering about changing their plans.”
    “Where is the conference?”
    “Amsterdam,” he said proudly. He did take pride in Sam, and kept track of his books and articles. He would pick one up and say, “Look at that, will you? And I can’t understand a word of it!” in a marvelling voice that managed nevertheless to have a trace of ridicule.
    “Professor Sam,” he would say. “And the three little Sams.” This is what he called his grandsons, who did resemble their father in braininess and in almost endearing pushiness—an innocent energetic showing-off. They went to a private school that favored old-fashioned discipline and started calculus in Grade 5. “And the dogs,” he might enumerate further, “who have been to obedience school. And Peggy …”
    But if I said, “Do you suppose she has been to obedience school, too?” he would play the game no further. I imagine that when he was with Sam and Peggy he spoke of me in the same way—hinted at my flightiness just as he hinted at their stodginess, made mild jokes at my expense, did not quite conceal his amazement (or pretended not to conceal his amazement) that people paid money for things I had written. He had to do this so that he might never seem to brag, but he would put up the gates when the joking got too rough. And of course I found later, in the house, things of mine he had kept—a few magazines, clippings, things I had never bothered about.
    Now his thoughts travelled from Peggy’s family to mine. “Have you heard from Judith?” he said.
    “Not yet.”
    “Well, it’s pretty soon. Were they going to sleep in the van?”
    “Yes.”
    “I guess it’s safe enough, if they stop in the right places.”
    I knew he would have to say something more and I knew it would come as a joke.
    “I guess they put a board down the middle, like the pioneers?”
    I smiled but did not answer.
    “I take it you have no objections?”
    “No,” I said.
    “Well, I always believed that, too. Keep out of your children’s business. I tried not to say anything. I never said anything when you left Richard.”
    “What do you mean, ‘said anything’? Criticize?”
    “It wasn’t any of my business.”
    “No.”
    “But that doesn’t mean I was pleased.”
    I was surprised—not just at what he said but at his feeling that he had any right, even now, to say it. I had to look out the window and down at the traffic to control myself.
    “I just wanted you to know,” he added.
    A long time ago, he said to me in his mild way, “It’s funny. Richard when I first saw him reminded me of what my father used to say. He’d say if that fellow was half as smart as he thinks he is, he’d be twice as smart as he really is.”
    I turned to remind him of this, but found myself looking at the line his heart was writing. Not that there seemed to be anything wrong, any difference in the beeps and points. But it was there.
    He saw where I was looking. “Unfair advantage,” he said.
    “It is,” I said. “I’m going to have to get hooked up, too.”
    We laughed, we kissed