The Progress of Love

thought about it. I guess I don’t quite believe in it enough to spend the money. I look at those things in the newspapers sometimes.”
    “You read the newspapers?”
    “I read parts. I get one delivered. I don’t read it all.”
    “And you eat meat? You ate pork for dinner.”
    Catherine doesn’t seem to mind being interrogated, or even to notice that this is an interrogation.
    “Well, I can live on salads, particularly at this time of year. But I do eat meat from time to time. I’m a sort of very lackadaisical vegetarian. It was fantastic, that roast. Did you put garlic on it?”
    “Garlic and sage and rosemary.”
    “It was delicious.”
    “I’m glad.”
    Catherine sits down suddenly, and spreads out her long legs in a tomboyish way, letting her dress droop between them. Hercules, who has slept all through dinner on the fourth chair, at the other side of the table, takes a determined leap and lands on what there is of her lap.
    Catherine laughs. “Crazy cat.”
    “If he bothers you, just bat him off.”
    Freed now of the need to watch Catherine, Stella gets busy scraping and stacking the plates, rinsing glasses, cleaning off the table, shaking the cloth, wiping the counters. She feels well satisfied and full of energy. She takes a sip of the mead. Lines of a song are going through her head, and she doesn’t realize until a few words of this song reach the surface that it’s the same one David was singing, earlier in the day. “What’s to come is still unsure!”
    Catherine gives a light snore, and jerks her head up. Hercules doesn’t take fright, but tries to settle himself more permanently, getting his claws into her dress.
    “Was that me?” says Catherine.
    “You need some coffee,” Stella says. “Hang on. You probably shouldn’t go to sleep right now.”
    “I’m tired,” says Catherine stubbornly.
    “I know. But you shouldn’t go to sleep right now. Hang on, and we’ll get some coffee into you.”
    Stella takes a hand towel from the drawer, soaks it in cold water, holds it to Catherine’s face.
    “There, now,” says Stella. “You hold it, I’ll start the coffee. We’re not going to have you passing out here, are we? David would carry on about it. He’d say it was my mead or my cooking or my company, or something. Hang on, Catherine.”
    David, in the phone booth, begins to dial Dina’s number. Then he remembers that it’s long distance. He must dial the operator. He dials the operator, asks how much the call will cost, empties his pockets of change. He picks out a dollar and thirty-five cents in quarters and dimes, stacks it ready on the shelf. He starts dialling again. His fingers are shaky, his palms sweaty. His legs, gut, and chest are filled with a rising commotion. The first ring of the phone, in Dina’s cramped apartment, sets his innards bubbling. This is craziness. He starts to feed in quarters.
    “I will tell you when to deposit your money,” says the operator. “Sir? I will tell you when to deposit it.” His quarters clank down into the change return and he has trouble scooping them out. Thephone rings again, on Dina’s dresser, in the jumble of makeup, panty hose, beads and chains, long feathered earrings, a silly cigarette holder, an assortment of windup toys. He can see them: the green frog, the yellow duck, the brown bear—all the same size. Frogs and bears are equal. Also some space monsters, based on characters in a movie. When set going, these toys will lurch and clatter across Dina’s floor or table, spitting sparks out of their mouths. She likes to set up races, or put a couple of them on a collision course. Then she squeals, and even screams with excitement, as they go their unpredictable ways.
    “There doesn’t seem to be any answer, sir.”
    “Let it ring a few more times.”
    Dina’s bathroom is across the hall. She shares it with another girl. If she is in the bathroom, even in the bathtub, how long will it take her to decide whether to answer it at all? He decides to count ten rings more, starting now.
    “Still no answer, sir.”
    Ten more.
    “Sir, would you like to try again later?”
    He hangs up, having thought of something. Immediately, energetically, he dials information.
    “For what place, sir?”
    “Toronto.”
    “Go ahead, sir.”
    He asks for the phone number of a Michael Read. No, he does not have a street address. All he has is the name—the name of her last, and perhaps not quite finished with, boyfriend.
    “I have