Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage

either.
    He said, “Of course.”
    So it was agreed that this was how it would be. They would start saying their goodbyes now and Pierre would leave for the ferry and Asher, as his name was—or Dr. Asher—would drive Meriel to Lynn Valley.
    What Meriel planned to do, after that, was to visit with Aunt Muriel—possibly even sitting through supper with her, then catch the bus from Lynn Valley to the downtown bus depot (buses to “town” were relatively frequent) and board the late-evening bus which would take her on to the ferry, and home.

    The nursing home was called Princess Manor. It was a one-story building with extended wings, covered in pinkish-brown stucco. The street was busy, and there were no grounds to speak of, no hedges or screen-fences to shut out noise or protect the scraps of lawn. On one side there was a Gospel Hall with a joke of a steeple, on the other a gas station.
    “The word ‘Manor’ doesn’t mean anything at all anymore, does it?” said Meriel. “It doesn’t even mean there’s an upstairs. It just means that you’re supposed to think that a place is something it doesn’t even pretend to be.”
    The doctor said nothing—perhaps what she had said didn’t make any sense to him. Or just wasn’t worth saying even if it was true. All the way from Dundarave she had listened to herself talking and she had been dismayed. It wasn’t so much that she was prattling—saying just anything that came into her head—rather that she was trying to express things which seemed to her interesting, or that might have been interesting if she could get them into shape. But these ideas probably sounded pretentious if not insane, rattled off in the way she was doing. She must seem like one of those women who were determined not to have an ordinary conversation but a real one. And even though she knew nothing was working, that her talk must seem to him an imposition, she was unable to stop herself.
    She didn’t know what had started this. Unease, simply because she so seldom talked to a stranger nowadays. The oddity of riding alone in a car with a man who wasn’t her husband.
    She had even asked, rashly, what he thought of Pierre’s notion that the motorcycle accident was suicide.
    “You could float that idea around about any number of violent accidents,” he had said.
    “Don’t bother pulling into the drive,” she said. “I can get out here.” So embarrassed, so eager she was to get away from him and his barely polite indifference, that she put her hand on the door handle as if to open it while they were still moving along the street.
    “I was planning to park,” he said, turning in anyway. “I wasn’t going to leave you stranded.”
    She said, “I might be quite a while.”
    “That’s all right. I can wait. Or I could come in and look around. If you wouldn’t mind that.”
    She was about to say that nursing homes can be dreary and unnerving. Then she remembered that he was a doctor and would see nothing here that he had not seen before. And something in the way he said “if you wouldn’t mind that”—some formality, but also an uncertainty in his voice—surprised her. It seemed that he was making an offering of his time and his presence that had little to do with courtesy, but rather something to do with herself. It was an offer made with a touch of frank humility, but it was not a plea. If she had said that she would really rather not take up any more of his time, he would not have tried any further persuasion, he would have said goodbye with an even courtesy and driven away.
    As it was, they got out of the car and walked side by side across the parking lot, towards the front entrance.
    Several old or disabled people were sitting out on a square of pavement that had a few furry-looking shrubs and pots of petunias around it, to suggest a garden patio. Aunt Muriel was not among them, but Meriel found herself bestowing glad greetings. Something had happened to her. She had a sudden mysterious sense of power and delight, as if with every step she took, a bright message was travelling from her heels to the top of her skull.
    When she asked him later, “Why did you come in there with me?” he said, “Because I didn’t want to lose sight of you.”
    Aunt Muriel was sitting by herself, in a wheelchair, in the dim corridor just outside her own bedroom door. She was swollen and glimmering—but that was because of being swathed in an asbestos apron so she could smoke a cigarette.