Friend of My Youth

until she’d sucked the sweetness out of the last shred.) A good-natured soul, chatty, humdrum, a waddly little grandmother—that was what she had thought would be left of Antoinette. And here was this pared-down, vigilant, stupid-shrewd woman, sprayed and painted and preserved to within an inch of her life. Tall, too. It wasn’t likely she’d been any kind of cozy bundle, even at sixteen.
    But how much would you find in Hazel of the girl Jack had taken home from the dance? How much of Hazel Joudry, a pale, squeaky-voiced girl who held her fair hair back with two bows of pink celluloid, in Hazel Curtis? Hazel was thin, too—wiry, not brittle like Antoinette. She had muscles that came from gardening and hiking and cross-country skiing. These activities had also dried and wrinkled and roughened her skin, and at some point she’d stopped bothering about it. She threw out all the colored pastes and pencils and magic unguents she had bought in moments of bravado or despair. She let her hair grow out whatever color it liked and pinned it up at the back of her head. She broke open the shell of her increasingly doubtful and expensive prettiness; she got out. Years before Jack died, even, she did that. It had something to do with how she took hold of her life. She hassaid and thought that there came a time when she had to take hold of her life, and she has urged the same course on others. She urges action, exercise, direction. She doesn’t mind letting people know that when she was in her thirties she had what used to be called a nervous breakdown. For nearly two months she was unable to leave the house. She stayed in bed much of the time. She crayoned the pictures in children’s coloring books. That was all she could do to control her fear and unfocussed grief. Then she took hold. She sent for college catalogues. What got her going again? She doesn’t know. She has to say she doesn’t know. Maybe she just got bored, she has to say. Maybe she just got bored, having her breakdown.
    She knew that when she had got out of bed (this is what she doesn’t say), she was leaving some part of herself behind. She suspected that this was a part that had to do with Jack. But she didn’t think then that any abandonment had to be permanent. Anyway, it couldn’t be helped.
    When he had finished his roast and vegetables, Dudley got up abruptly. He nodded to Hazel and said to Antoinette, “I’m off now, my lamb.” Did he really say that—“lamb”? Whatever it was, it had the satirical inflection that an endearment would need between him and Antoinette. Perhaps he said “lass.” People did say “lass” here. The driver on the bus from Edinburgh had said it to Hazel, that afternoon.
    Antoinette served Hazel a piece of apricot flan and started immediately to fill her in on Dudley. People were supposed to be so reserved in Britain—that was what Hazel had been led to believe, by her reading, if not by Jack—but it didn’t always seem to be the case.
    “Off to see his mother before she’s tucked up for the night,” Antoinette said. “Always off home early on a Sunday night.”
    “He doesn’t live here?” Hazel said. “I mean, in the hotel?”
    “He didn’t say that, did he?” said Antoinette. “I’m sure he didn’t say that. He has his own home. He has a lovely home. He shares it with his mother. She’s in bed all the time now—she’sone of those ones who have to have everything done for them. He’s got a day nurse for her and a night nurse, too. But he always looks in and has a chat Sunday nights, even if she doesn’t know him from Adam. He must have meant that he gets his meals here. He couldn’t expect the nurse to get his meals. She wouldn’t do it, anyway. They won’t do anything extra at all for you now. They want to know just what they’re supposed to do, and they won’t do a tick more. It’s just the same with what I get here. If I say to them, ‘Sweep the floor,’ and I don’t say, ‘Put up the broom when you’re finished,’ they’ll just leave the broom lying.”
    Now is the time, Hazel thought. She wouldn’t be able to say it if she put if off longer.
    “My husband used to come here,” she said. “He used to come here during the war.”
    “Well, that’s a long time ago, isn’t it? Would you like your coffee now?”
    “Please,” Hazel said. “He came here first on account of having a relative here. A Miss Dobie. Mr. Brown seemed to know who she would be.”
    “She’s