THE TWO ICE CUBES snapped as Mealie dropped them into hot coffee.
Closing the freezer door with her elbow, she padded towards Flossy’s kitchen table.
“My favourite is Macbeth’s ‘rump-fed ronyon,’” Flossy said, looking up at her, “nobody insults better than Shakespeare.”
“Remember in Lear when the daughters are wheedling down his entourage?” Mealie offered, taking a quick hot sip of the coffee.
“Plucking the Old Lion’s whiskers,” Flossy put a knuckle against her nose.
“There’s a line in there,” Mealie rasped, grabbing the copy of Shakespeare’s King Lear that she was returning, as she dropped into a chair and flipped through the pages, “every woman must know,” she stuck her tongue out and licked her thumb, “especially in the face of opposition,” she looked up briefly to be sure someone was listening, “to the purchase of new … red … shoes.” Leaning towards Ruth, Flossy asked, “Have you read King Lear in high school yet?”
“No,” she answered, frowning and not looking up from the cereal bowl.
“Well, Old Lear has decided to divide his kingdom among his daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, according to how much they love him. The first two have never loved anyone more, nor will they ever love anyone more, than their father,” Flossy said. “The last daughter, Cordelia, refuses to flatter the old coot and says she loves him with the love due a father, no more, no less …”
“And she happens to be the only one of the three,” said Mealie, still thumbing through pages, “who genuinely loves the silly old bugger.”
“The condition of dividing up his kingdom is that he be able to keep a company of a hundred knights that will move with him between the two daughters’ castles month by month. Cordelia has been disinherited and dismissed.”
“Goneril in September, Regan in October, back to Goneril,” Mealie explained.
“But, like most soldiers with nothing to do, Lear’s boys havegot a bit rowdy, so the daughters complain and eventually colludeto get rid of them, which is, of course, the last remaining symbol of Lear’s power.” Flossy thought it wasn’t unlike the time Marjory had to wrest her father’s car from him, Frank Trotter was an atrocious driver, but Ruth wouldn’t be interested in similes this morning.
“Here it is,” Mealie announced. “Goneril has already demanded that he get rid of fifty of the knights. True to form, he picks uphis hundred lads and huffs off to the other daughter, Regan, but he gets no better reception there. She adds insult to injury by suggesting a further cut of twenty-five. By this time Goneril has arrived.” Mealie looked down and began to read, “She says, ‘Whatneed you five and twenty, ten, or five, to follow in a house where twice so many have a command to tend you?’ and Regan says, ‘What need one?’ To which, an exasperated Lear replies, ‘O, reason not the need.’” Mealie slapped her thigh and coughed out a starchy laugh that disappeared for a minute while she drew in air, to follow it with a second wave of defining cackle. “Keep that line, honey,” she leaned towards Ruth, who squinted up at her, “it’ll come in handy sometime.”
Marjory had left for Sackville yesterday, not before Flossy slipped her Richard’s telephone number on a Post-it with a last-warning look, and this morning Ruth was doing her best to ignore the others at the table, even as Flossy spilled the juice and burnt the toast.
She asked her which of Shakespeare’s plays Ruth had studied and got a muttered “Othello.” In her house, Ruth said, no one talked to her for a good hour after she got up.
“Maybe I’ll take Measure for Measure this time, Flo,” Mealie said, picking up the newspaper.
As Flossy stepped into the parlour to return King Lear and retrieve Measure for Measure, Ruth leaned over to Mealie and asked, “Doesn’t she have any, like, living friends to talk about?”
Flossy smiled to herself. Ruth made little effort to lower her voice. No doubt the youngster had been hearing more than she wanted to about Virginia Woolf, Will Shakespeare and the Bishop but, then again, this morning she seemed annoyed by the effrontery of other human life forms in her field of vision.
Flossy, replacing books on a shelf just inside the parlour door, peeked out and could see Mealie’s newspaper and the back of Ruth’s head from where she stood. Mealie was initially silent. Lifting one eyebrow up over the newspaper she was reading, like an alligator to the first plop of hoof in water, she replied, “A few.” The paper went back up and Flossy thought Mealie must have resumed reading, when she began to speak again.
“Which did you want to hear about most, Emmy Blaikie’s hip replacement, the arthritic knees keeping Truina Hill awake at night, or maybe Penny Corbett’s irritable bowel syndrome? That one’s particularly entertaining. You go ahead and ask her about her friends.” Mealie smacked her tongue on the roof of her mouth as if a daub of peanut butter were stuck there. Just when Flossy thought it was safe to go back into the room again, Mealie continued. “They’re just about as boring as dirt.” Flossy sat down in the parlour rocker. She was enjoying this.
After another few minutes, Mealie resumed talking in a morning voice that scraped out like metal on metal, “She’s not doing this for you, if that’s what’s on your mind,” she said, turning a page and tapping the seam flat. “It’s a bit of freelance income she gets testing a new form of torture for the Yanks. cia. You heard what happened at the Allan in Montreal in the fifties, with sleep deprivation and such?”
“Not really,” Ruth answered cautiously.
“Oh, no? It was bad, but this one’s much better. Yup, lsi — Literary Saturation Induction’s the technical term they use for it, I think. We all pretty much broke after a week.” Flossy caught Mealie’s eye peering out over the serrated edge of the newspaper. “You’re holding up pretty well, but everybody caves in sooner or later. Matter of time.” She tapped the centre crease of the paper. Ruth was silent.
“Just kidding, honey,” she said, giving the younger woman an exaggerated wink. “This is just Flo. She’s gone on like this all seventy of the years I’ve known her.” She leaned towards Ruth and dropped her voice confidentially: “If a tree falls in the forest and you’re not there? Flo’s still gonna be talking about Yeats,” she said, crinkling her nose. “Might just as well relax.”
Later that morning, after the kitchen door had closed behind Mealie, and Flossy was left alone with her Guest, Ruth asked, “Why doesn’t she get her own paper?”
“Beg your pardon?” Flossy leaned towards her.
Ruth raised her voice. It made her sound annoyed. “Why doesn’t she get her own paper?”
“Who?” Flossy asked.
“The Deputy-Warden,” she replied, heaving her voice at Flossy. “Her own paper?” Flossy looked puzzled, as if the thought had never crossed her mind.
“Yeah, newspaper. Buy her own?” Ruth was shouting and pointing to the Chronicle Herald left on the chair where Mealie had just been sitting, “Why doesn’t she buy her own?” Flossy was sure Mealie could hear them as she walked back to her place, two houses away. She glanced outside and noticed the studio door swinging closed.
“Well, she does, dear,” Flossy replied kindly. “She just has it delivered here.”