Mavis Gallant - The Cost of Living - Early and Uncollected Stories

AT TANGIER it was surprisingly cold, even for December. The sea was lead, the sky cloudy and low. Most of the passengers going ashore for the day came to breakfast wrapped in scarves and sweaters. They were, most of them, thin-skinned, elderly people, less concerned with the prospect of travel than with getting through another winter in relative comfort; on bad days, during the long crossing from the West Indies, they had lain in deck chairs, muffled as mummies, looking stricken and deceived. When Emma Ellenger came into the breakfast lounge barelegged, in sandals, wearing a light summer frock, there was a low flurry of protest. Really, Emma’s mother should take more care! The child would catch her death.

Feeling the disapproval almost as an emanation, like the salt one breathed in the air, Emma looked around for someone who liked her — Mr. Cowan, or the Munns. There were the Munns, sitting in a corner, frowning over their toast, coffee, and guidebooks. She waved, although they had not yet seen her, threaded her way between the closely spaced tables, and, without waiting to be asked, sat down.

Miss and Mrs. Munn looked up with a single movement. They were daughter and mother, but so identically frizzy, tweedy, and elderly that they might have been twins. Mrs. Munn, the kindly twin, gazed at Emma with benevolent, rather popping brown eyes, and said, “Child, you’ll freeze in that little dress. Do tell your mother — now, don’t forget to tell her — that the North African winter can be treacherous, very treacherous indeed.” She tapped one of the brown paper-covered guidebooks that lay beside her coffee tray. The Munns always went ashore provided with books, maps, and folders telling them what to expect at every port of call. They differed in every imaginable manner from Emma and her mother, who seldom fully understood where they were and who were often daunted and upset (particularly Mrs. Ellenger) if the people they encountered ashore were the wrong color or spoke an unfamiliar language.

“You should wear a thick scarf,” Mrs. Munn went on, “and warm stockings.” Thinking of the Ellengers’ usual wardrobe, she paused, discouraged. “The most important parts of the—” But she stopped again, unable to say “body” before a girl of twelve. “One should keep the throat and the ankles warm,” she said, lowering her gaze to her book.

“We can’t,” Emma said respectfully. “We didn’t bring anything for the cruise except summer dresses. My mother thought it would be warm all the time.”

“She should have inquired,” Miss Munn said. Miss Munn was crisper, taut; often the roles seemed reversed, and it appeared that she, of the two, should have been the mother.

“I guess she didn’t think,” Emma said, cast down by all the things her mother failed to do. Emma loved the Munns. It was distressing when, as now, they failed to approve of her. They were totally unlike the people she was accustomed to, with their tweeds, their pearls, their strings of fur that bore the claws and muzzles of some small, flattened beast. She had fallen in love with them the first night aboard, during the first dinner out. The Munns and the Ellengers had been seated together, the dining-room steward having thought it a good plan to group, at a table for four, two solitary women and their solitary daughters.

The Munns had been so kind, so interested, asking any number of friendly questions. They wondered how old Emma was, and where Mr. Ellenger might be (“In Heaven,” said Emma, casual), and where the Ellengers lived in New York.

“We live all over the place.” Emma spoke up proudly. It was evident to her that her mother wasn’t planning to say a word. Somebody had to be polite. “Most of the time we live in hotels. But last summer we didn’t. We lived in an apartment. A big apartment. It wasn’t our place. It belongs to this friend of my mother’s, Mr. Jimmy Salter, but he was going to be away, and the rent was paid anyway, and we were living there already, so he said — he said—” She saw her mother’s face and stopped, bewildered.

“That was nice,” said Mrs. Munn, coloring. Her daughter looked down, smiling mysteriously.

Emma’s mother said nothing. She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke over the table. She wore a ring, a wedding band, a Mexican necklace, and a number of clashing bracelets. Her hair, which was long and lighter even than Emma’s, had been carefully arranged, drawn into a tight chignon and circled with flowers. Clearly it was not for Miss or Mrs. Munn that she had taken such pains; she had expected a different table arrangement, one that included a man. Infinitely obliging, Mrs. Munn wished that one of them were a man. She bit her lip, trying to find a way out of this unexpected social thicket. Turning to Emma, she said, a little wildly, “Do you like school? I mean I see you are not in school. Have you been ill?”

Emma ill? The idea was so outrageous, so clearly a criticism of Mrs. Ellenger’s care, that she was forced, at last, to take notice of this pair of frumps. “There’s nothing the matter with my daughter’s health,” she said a little too loudly. “Emma’s never been sick a day. From the time she was born, she’s had the best of everything — the best food, the best clothes, the best that money can buy. Emma, isn’t that right?”

Emma said yes, hanging her head and wishing her mother would stop.

“Emma was born during the war,” Mrs. Ellenger said, dropping her voice. The Munns looked instantly sympathetic. They waited to hear the rest of the story, some romantic misadventure doomed by death or the fevered nature of the epoch itself. Mrs. Munn puckered her forehead, as if already she were prepared to cry. But evidently that part of the story had ceased to be of interest to Emma’s mother. “I had a nervous breakdown when she was born,” Mrs. Ellenger said. “I had plenty of troubles. My God, troubles !” Brooding, she suddenly dropped her cigarette into the dregs of her coffee cup. At the sound it made, the two ladies winced. Their glances crossed. Noticing, Emma wondered what her mother had done now. “I never took my troubles out on Emma,” Mrs. Ellenger said. “No, Emma had the best, always the best. I brought her up like a little lady. I kept her all in white — white shoes, white blankets, white bunny coats, white hand-knitted angora bonnets. When she started to walk, she had little white rubbers for the rain. I got her a white buggy with white rubber tires. During the war , this was. Emma, isn’t it true? Didn’t you see your pictures, all in white?”

Emma moved her lips.

“It was the very best butter,” Miss Munn murmured.

“She shows your care,” Mrs. Munn said gently. “She’s a lovely girl.”

Emma wanted to die. She looked imploringly at her mother, but Mrs. Ellenger rushed on. It was important, deeply important, that everyone understand what a good mother she had been. “Nobody has to worry about Emma’s school, either,” she said. “I teach her, so nobody has to worry at all. Emma loves to study. She reads all the time. Just before dinner tonight, she was reading. She was reading Shakespeare. Emma, weren’t you reading Shakespeare?”

“I had this book,” Emma said, so low that her answer was lost. The Munns began to speak about something else, and Emma’s mother relaxed, triumphant.

In truth, Emma had been reading Shakespeare. While they were still unpacking and settling in, she had discovered among their things a battered high school edition of The Merchant of Venice . Neither she nor her mother had ever seen it before. It was in the suitcase that contained Mrs. Ellenger’s silver evening slippers and Emma’s emergency supply of comic books. Emma opened the book and read, “You may do so; but let it be so hasted that supper be ready at the farthest by five of the clock.” She closed the book and dropped it. “It must have come from Uncle Jimmy Salter’s place,” she said. “The maid must have put it in when she helped us pack.” “I didn’t know he could read,” Mrs. Ellenger said. She and Mr. Salter had stopped being friends. “We’ll mail it back sometime. It’ll be a nice surprise.”