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It
shames her how little the man eats, diddling his spoon around
in his dish, perhaps raising his eyes once or twice to send her
one of his shy, appreciative glances across the table, but never
taking a second helping, just leaving it all for her to finish
up -- pulling his hand through the air with that dreamy gesture
of his that urges her on. And smiling all the while, his daft
tender-faced look. What did food mean to a working man like himself?
A bother, a distraction, perhaps even a kind of price that had
to be paid in order to remain upright and breathing.
Well, it was a different story for her, for my mother. Eating
was as close to heaven as my mother ever came. (In our day we
have a name for a passion as disordered as hers.)
And almost as heavenly as eating was the making -- how she gloried
in it! Every last body on this earth has a particular notion of
paradise, and this was hers, standing in the murderously hot back
kitchen of her own house, concocting and contriving, leaning forward
and squinting at the fine print of the cookery book, a clean wooden
spoon in hand.
It's something to see, the way she concentrates, her hot, busy
face, the way she thrills to see the dish take form as she pours
the stewed fruit into the fancy mold, pressing the thickly cut
bread down over the oozing juices, feeling it soften and absorb
bit by bit a raspberry redness. Malvern pudding; she loves the
words too, and feels them dissolve on her tongue like a sugary
wafer, her tongue itself grown waferlike and sweet. Like an artist
-- years later this form of artistry is perfectly clear to me
-- she stirs and arranges and draws in her brooding lower lip.
Such a dish this will be. A warm sponge soaking up color. (Mrs.
Flett next door let her have some currants off her bush; the raspberries
she's found herself along the roadside south of the village, even
though it half kills her, a woman of her size walking out in the
heat of the day.)
She sprinkles on extra sugar, one spoonful, then another, then
takes the spoon to her mouth, the rough crystals that keep her
alert. It is three o'clock -- a hot July afternoon in the middle
of Manitoba, in the middle of the Dominion of Canada. The parlor
clock (adamantine finish, gilded feet, a wedding present from
her husband's family, the Goodwills of Stonewall Township) has
just struck the hour. Cuyler will be home from the quarry at five
sharp; he will have himself a good cheerful wash at the kitchen
basin, and by half-past five the two of them will sit down at
the table - this very table, only spread with a clean cloth, every
second day a clean cloth -- and eat their supper. Which for the
most part will be a silent meal, both my parents being shy by
nature, and each brought up in the belief that conversing and
eating are different functions, occupying separate trenches of
time. Tonight they will partake of cold corned beef with a spoonful
of homemade relish, some dressed potatoes at the side, cups of
sweet tea, and then this fine pudding. His eyes will widen; my
father, Cuyler Goodwill, aged twenty-eight, two years married,
will never in his life have tasted Malvern pudding. (That's what
she's preparing for -- his stunned and mild look of confusion,
that tender, grateful male mouth dropping open in surprise. It's
the least she can do, surprise him like this.) She sets a flower-patterned
plate carefully on top of the pudding and weights it down with
a stone.
Excerpted
from The
Stone Diaries by Carol Shields Copyright 1994 by Carol
Shields. Excerpted by permission of Random House Vintage Canada,
a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part
of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission
in writing from the publisher.
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