Alice Munros Best

was nothing she could say. Living with him was driving her crazy. Sometimes she thought she already was crazy. Sometimes she thought he was.
    “Has he hurt you, Carla?”
    No. He hadn’t hurt her physically. But he hated her. He despised her. He could not stand it when she cried and she could not help crying because he was so mad.
    She did not know what to do.
    “Perhaps you do know what to do,” said Sylvia.
    “Get away? I would if I could.” Carla began to wail again. “I’d give anything to get away. I can’t. I haven’t any money. I haven’t anywhere in this world to go.”
    “Well. Think. Is that altogether true?” said Sylvia in her best counselling manner. “Don’t you have parents? Didn’t you tell me you grew up in Kingston? Don’t you have a family there?”
    Her parents had moved to British Columbia. They hated Clark. They didn’t care if she lived or died.
    Brothers or sisters?
    One brother nine years older. He was married and in Toronto. He didn’t care either. He didn’t like Clark. His wife was a snob.
    “Have you ever thought of the Women’s Shelter?”
    “They don’t want you there unless you’ve been beaten up. And everybody would find out and it would be bad for our business.”
    Sylvia gently smiled.
    “Is this a time to think about that?”
    Then Carla actually laughed. “I know,” she said, “I’m insane.”
    “Listen,” said Sylvia. “Listen to me. If you had the money to go, would you go? Where would you go? What would you do?”
    “I would go to Toronto,” Carla said readily enough. “But I wouldn’t go near my brother. I’d stay in a motel or something and I’d get a job at a riding stable.”
    “You think you could do that?”
    “I was working at a riding stable the summer I met Clark. I’m more experienced now than I was then. A lot more.”
    “You sound as if you’ve figured this out,” said Sylvia thoughtfully.
    Carla said, “I have now.”
    “So when would you go, if you could go?”
    “Now. Today. This minute.”
    “All that’s stopping you is lack of money?”
    Carla took a deep breath. “All that’s stopping me,” she said.
    “All right,” said Sylvia. “Now listen to what I propose. I don’t think you should go to a motel. I think you should take the bus to Toronto and go to stay with a friend of mine. Her name is Ruth Stiles. She has a big house and she lives alone and she won’t mind having somebodyto stay. You can stay there till you find a job. I’ll help you with some money. There must be lots and lots of riding stables around Toronto.”
    “There are.”
    “So what do you think? Do you want me to phone and find out what time the bus goes?”
    Carla said yes. She was shivering. She ran her hands up and down her thighs and shook her head roughly from side to side.
    “I can’t believe it,” she said. “I’ll pay you back. I mean, thank you. I’ll pay you back. I don’t know what to say.”
    Sylvia was already at the phone, dialling the bus depot.
    “Shh, I’m getting the times,” she said. She listened, and hung up. “I know you will. You agree about Ruth’s? I’ll let her know. There’s one problem, though.” She looked critically at Carla’s shorts and T-shirt. “You can’t very well go in those clothes.”
    “I can’t go home to get anything,” said Carla in a panic. “I’ll be all right.”
    “The bus will be air-conditioned. You’ll freeze. There must be something of mine you could wear. Aren’t we about the same height?”
    “You’re ten times skinnier.”
    “I didn’t use to be.”
    In the end they decided on a brown linen jacket, hardly worn – Sylvia had considered it to be a mistake for herself, the style too brusque – and a pair of tailored tan pants and a cream-colored silk shirt. Carla’s sneakers would have to do with this outfit, because her feet were two sizes larger than Sylvia’s.
    Carla went to take a shower – something she had not bothered with in her state of mind that morning – and Sylvia phoned Ruth. Ruth was going to be out at a meeting that evening, but she would leave the key with her upstairs tenants and all Carla would have to do was ring their bell.
    “She’ll have to take a cab from the bus depot, though. I assume she’s okay to manage that?” Ruth said.
    Sylvia laughed. “She’s not a lame duck, don’t worry. She is just a person in a bad situation, the way it happens.”
    “Well good. I mean good she’s getting out.”
    “Not a lame duck at