Lydia Davis - The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis

Remember that thou art but dust.

I shall try to bear it in mind.

“Meet the sourpuss,” says the Grouch to their friends.

“Oh, shut up,” says Old Mother.

The Grouch and Old Mother are playing Scrabble. The Grouch makes a play.

“Ten points,” he says. He is disgusted.

He is angry because Old Mother is winning early in the game and because she has drawn all the s’s and blanks. He says it is easy to win if you get all the s’s and blanks. “I think you marked the backs,” he says. She says a blank tile doesn’t have a back.

Now he is angry because she has made the word qua. He says qua is not English. He says they should both make good, familiar words like the words he has made — bonnet, realm, and weave — but instead she sits in her nasty corner making aw, eh, fa, ess, and ax. She says these are words, too. He says even if they are, there is something mean and petty about using them.

Now the Grouch is angry because Old Mother keeps freezing all the food he likes. He brings home a nice smoked ham and wants a couple of slices for lunch but it is too late — she has already frozen it.

“It’s hard as a rock,” he says. “And you don’t have to freeze it anyway. It’s already smoked.”

Then, since everything else he wants to eat is also frozen, he thinks he will at least have some of the chocolate ice cream he bought for her the day before. But it’s gone. She has eaten it all.

“Is that what you did last night?” he asks. “You stayed up late eating ice cream?”

He is close to the truth, but not entirely correct.

Old Mother cooks dinner for friends of theirs. After the friends have gone home, she tells the Grouch the meal was a failure: the salad dressing had too much salt in it, the chicken was overdone and tasteless, the cherries hard, etc.

She expects him to contradict her, but instead he listens carefully and adds that the noodles, also, were “somehow wrong.”

She says, “I’m not a very good cook.”

She expects him to assure her that she is, but instead he says. “You should be. Anybody can be a good cook.”

Old Mother sits dejected on a stool in the kitchen.

“I just want to teach you something about the rice pot,” says the Grouch, by way of introduction, as he stands at the sink with his back to her.

But she does not like this. She does not wish to be his student.

One night Old Mother cooks him a dish of polenta. He remarks that it has spread on the plate like a cow patty. He tastes it and says that it tastes better than it looks. On another night she makes him a brown rice casserole. The Grouch says this does not look very good either. He covers it in salt and pepper, then eats some of it and says it also tastes better than it looks. Not much better, though.

“Since I met you,” says the Grouch, “I have eaten more beans than I ever ate in my life. Potatoes and beans. Every night there is nothing but beans, potatoes, and rice.”

Old Mother knows this is not strictly true.

“What did you eat before you knew me?” she asks.

“Nothing,” says the Grouch. “I ate nothing.”

Old Mother likes all chicken parts, including the liver and heart, and the Grouch likes the breasts only. Old Mother likes the skin on and the Grouch likes it off. Old Mother prefers vegetables and bland food. The Grouch prefers meat and strong spices. Old Mother prefers to eat her food slowly and brings it hot to the table. The Grouch prefers to eat quickly and burns his mouth.

“You don’t cook the foods I like,” the Grouch tells her sometimes.

“You ought to like the foods I cook,” she answers.

“Spoil me. Give me what I want, not what you think I should have,” he tells her.

That’s an idea, thinks Old Mother.

Old Mother wants direct answers from the Grouch. But when she asks, “Are you hungry?” he answers, “It’s seven o’clock.” And when she asks, “Are you tired?” he answers, “It’s ten o’clock.” And when she insists, and asks again, “But are you tired?” he says, “I’ve had a long day.”

Old Mother likes two blankets at night, on a cold night, and the Grouch is more comfortable with three. Old Mother thinks the Grouch should be comfortable with two. The Grouch, on the other hand, says, “I think you like to be cold.”

Old Mother does not mind running out of supplies and often forgets to shop. The Grouch likes to have more than they need of everything, especially toilet paper and coffee.

On a stormy night the Grouch worries about his cat, shut outdoors by Old Mother.

“Worry about me,” says Old Mother.

Old Mother will not have the Grouch’s cat in the house at night because it wakes her up scratching at the bedroom door or yowling outside it. If they let it into the bedroom, it rakes up the carpet. If she complains about the cat, he takes offense: he feels she is really complaining about him.

Friends say they will come to visit, and then they do not come. Out of disappointment, the Grouch and Old Mother lose their tempers and quarrel.

On another day, friends say they will come to visit, and this time the Grouch tells Old Mother he will not be home when they come: they are not friends of his.

A phone call comes from a friend of hers he does not like.

“It’s for you, angel,” he says, leaving the receiver on the kitchen counter.

Old Mother and the Grouch have quarreled over friends, the West Coast, the telephone, dinner, what time to go to bed, what time to get up, travel plans, her parents, his work, her work, and his cat, among other subjects. They have not quarreled, so far, over special sale items, acquisitions for the house, natural landscapes, wild animals, the town governing board, and the local library.

A woman dressed all in red is jumping up and down in a tantrum. It is Old Mother, who cannot handle frustration.

If Old Mother talks to a friend out of his earshot, the Grouch thinks she must be saying unkind things about him. He is sometimes right, though by the time he appears glowering in the doorway, she has gone on to other topics.

One day in June, the Grouch and Old Mother take all their potted plants out onto the deck for the summer. The next week, the Grouch brings them all back in and sets them on the living-room floor. Old Mother does not understand what he is doing and is prepared to object, but they have quarreled and are not speaking to each other, so she can only watch him in silence.

The Grouch is more interested in money than Old Mother and more careful about how he spends it. He reads sale ads and will not buy anything unless it is marked down. “You’re not very good with money,” he says. She would like to deny it but she can’t. She buys a book, secondhand, called How to Live Within Your Income.

They spend a good deal of time one day drawing up a list of what each of them will do in their household. For instance, she will make their dinner but he will make his own lunch. By the time they are finished, it is time for lunch and Old Mother is hungry. The Grouch has taken some care over a tuna fish salad for himself. Old Mother says it looks good and asks him if she can share it. Annoyed, he points out that now, contrary to the agreement, he has made their lunch.

Old Mother could only have wanted a man of the highest ideals but now she finds she can’t live up to them; the Grouch could only have wanted the best sort of woman, but she is not the best sort of woman.

Old Mother thinks her temper may improve if she drinks more water. When her temper remains bad, she begins taking a daily walk and eating more fresh fruit.

Old Mother reads an article that says: If one of you is in a bad mood the other should stay out of her way and be as kind as possible until the bad mood passes.