The Progress of Love

comes out with a towel wrapped around her, saying, “Where’s my drink?” The top corners of the towel are tucked together under one arm, the bottom corners are flapping dangerously free. She accepts a gin-and-tonic.
    “I’ll drink it while I dress. I have two new summer outfits. One is flamingo and one is turquoise. I can mix and match. Either way, I look stupendous.”
    Catherine comes from the living room to get her drink, and takes the first two gulps as if it were a glass of water.
    “I love this house,” she says with a soft vehemence. “I really do. It’s so primitive and unpretentious. It’s full of light. I’ve been trying to think what it reminds me of, and now I know. Did you ever’see that old Ingmar Bergman movie where there is a family living in a summer house on an island? A lovely shabby house. Thegirl was going crazy. I remember thinking at the time, That’s what summer houses should be like, and they never are.”
    “That was the one where God was a helicopter,” David says. “And the girl fooled around with her brother in the bottom of a boat.”
    “We never had anything quite so interesting going on around here, I’m afraid,” says Stella over the bedroom wall. “I can’t say I ever really appreciated Bergman movies. I always thought they were sort of bleak and neurotic.”
    “Conversations tend to be widespread around here,” says David to Catherine. “Notice how none of the partitions go up to the ceiling? Except the bathroom, thank God. It makes for a lot of family life.”
    “Whenever David and I wanted to say something private, we had to put our heads under the covers,” Stella says. She comes out of the bedroom wearing a pair of turquoise stretch pants and a sleeveless top. The top has turquoise flowers and fronds on a white background. At least, she seems to have put on a brassière. A light-colored strap is visible, biting the flesh of her shoulder.
    “Remember one night we were in bed,” she says, “and we were talking about getting a new car, saying we wondered what kind of mileage you got with a such-and-such, I forget what. Well, Daddy was always mad about cars, he knew everything, and all of a sudden we heard him say, ‘Twenty-eight miles to the gallon,’ or whatever, just as if he were right there on the other side of the bed. Of course, he wasn’t—he was lying in bed in his own room. David was quite blasé about it; he just said, ‘Oh, thank you, sir,’ as if we’d been including Daddy all along!”
    When David comes out of the liquor store, in the village, Stella has rolled down the car window and is talking to a couple she introduces as Ron and Mary. They are in their mid-sixties probably, but very tanned and trim. They wear matching plaid pants and white sweatshirts and plaid caps.
    “Glad to meet you,” says Ron. “So you’re up here seeing how the smart folks live!” He has the sort of jolly voice that suggestsboxing feints, playful punches. “When are you going to retire and come up here and join us?”
    That makes David wonder what Stella has been telling them about the separation.
    “It’s not my turn to retire yet.”
    “Retire early! That’s what a lot of us up here did! We got ourselves out of the whole routine. Toiling and moiling and earning and spending.”
    “Well, I’m not in that,” says David. “I’m just a civil servant. We take the taxpayers’ money and try not to do any work at all.”
    “That’s not true,” says Stella, scolding—wifely. “He works in the Department of Education and he works hard. He just will never admit it.”
    “A simple serpent!” says Mary, with a crow of pleasure. “I used to work in Ottawa—that was eons ago—and we used to call ourselves simple serpents! Civil serpents. Servants.”
    Mary is not in the least fat, but something has happened to her chin that usually happens to the chins of fat women. It has collapsed into a series of terraces flowing into her neck.
    “Kidding aside,” says Ron. “This is a wonderful life. You wouldn’t believe how much we find to do. The day is never long enough.”
    “You have a lot of interests?” says David. He is perfectly serious now, respectful and attentive.
    This a tone that warns Stella, and she tries to deflect Mary. “What are you going to do with the material you brought back from Morocco?”
    “I can’t decide. It would make a gorgeous dress but it’s hardly me. I might just end up putting it on a bed.”
    “There’s