Ivan Doig - Work Song

Sandison watched the back of her until she shimmied out of sight, then turned to me with a frown. “Morgan, I don’t see you making eyes at young things like that even when they’re asking for it. What are you, some kind of buck nun?”

This turn of topic took me off guard. Good grief, did my social situation look that dusty to someone whose own idea of mating in life was the grandee and grandora sort? Trying not to show how much that smarted, I stiffly assured my white-bearded interrogator: “I enjoy female companionship when it presents itself, never fear.”

“THIS DAY GOT AWAY FROM ME.” Grace guiltily bustled past me, trying to tie her apron and control her braid at the same time, when I came in at the end of my own hectic day. “How do you feel about cold turkey for supper?”

“Rather tepid. Let me see what can be done.” Following her to the kitchen, I scrounged the cupboard, coming up with cheese that was mostly rind, some shelled walnuts, and macaroni. Yielding the culinary arena gracefully, so to speak, Grace stood aside while I whacked chunks of the turkey into smaller pieces and set those to simmering in cream and flour in a baking pan.

“Such talent.” She watched with folded arms as I did my imitation of Escoffier. “If all else fails, you can get on as a cook at the Purity,” she ventured.

Up until then, I had not offered any explanation of Rab mysteriously summoning me to the cafeteria, nor, for that matter, of Rab herself. “Yes, well, Miss Rellis you heard mentioned by our fleet young friend the other day,” I fussed with the meal makings some more while coming up with a judicious version of the past, “and to make a long story short,” by which time a pot of water was boiling merrily and I dumped in the macaroni for what was going to approximate turkey tetrazzini, “someone I knew when she was just a girl ends up as the fiancée of none other than Jared Evans. Isn’t it surprising how things turn out?”

Grace’s expression had gradually changed from puzzlement to a ghost of a smile. “You lead an interesting life, Morrie.”

As I combined the macaroni and turkey and added the walnuts, I took the opportunity to bring up the question that was in my mind and doubtless Hoop’s and Griff’s these past many suppers. “Now you tell me something-why is a holiday bird like this such a perpetual bargain at this time of year?”

Razor-sharp shopper that she was, Grace looked at me as if I did not understand basic commerce. “Don’t you know? The homesteaders’ crops dried up, so they tried raising turkeys. The whole dryland country is gobblers these days, and what that does to the price, you see, is-”

“I can guess, thank you.” I tried not to show it, but the news of hard times in the other Montana, the prairie part of the state where agriculture drank dust if rain did not come, hit into me all the way to the hilt. My hands took over to grate the cheese atop the other ingredients while the remembering part of myself was transported to Marias Coulee and the parting of the ways there, Rose’s and mine. So deep in thought was I that I barely heard Grace’s expression of relief as the turkey dish went into the oven looking fit for a feast. “You’ve turned the trick again, how do you do it?” She patted my shoulder as she passed. “I’ll call you and the Gold Dust Twins to the table when it’s done.”

My mood refused to lift during supper; the boardinghouse blues are not easily shaken once they get hold of you. The same exact faces that had seemed so companionable three times a day now surrounded me like random passengers in a dining car, right, left, and center. The four of us were at that table because nowhere in our solitary lives was there a setting for just two. I knew Hooper was a widower, and no one had ever been willing to put up with Griffith as a matrimonial mate. Grace still was beholden to her knightly Arthur, touchy as she was about any appearance of being “taken up with” by an unworthy successor. And I, I had to be classified as something like an obligatory bachelor, always mindful that for a woman to be married to me would be like strapping her to a lightning rod. A quartet of solitudes, sharing only a tasty meal.

Tired from brooding-tired of brooding-I excused myself from small talk after eating and went up to my room to lose myself in a book. The one I had brought home was a lovely blue-and-gold volume of letters titled Let Me Count the Ways. The illustrious surname incised twice on the cover caused me a rueful moment; Casper used to tease me whenever he caught sight of my Browning collection, asking if I was reading up on how to get a suntan.

I tucked into a pillow and the coverlet, hoping to be transported, and was. In the marriage of poets, I found from the very first page, each wrote with the point of a diamond. Dazzled and dazzling, Robert Browning was a suitor beyond any that Elizabeth of Wimpole Street could have dreamt of:

I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett… the fresh strange music, the affluent language, the exquisite pathos and true new brave thought; but in this addressing myself to you-your own self, and for the first time, my feeling rises altogether.

I do, as I say, love these books with all my heart-and I love you too.

The quality in that. The pages fell still in my hands as I thought of such a matching of souls. The ceiling became a fresco of Marias Coulee as I sank back on the pillow and imagined my version.

“Morrie! You’re back! Even though you promised not to be.”

“Rose, run away with me.”

“Oh, I can’t.”

“You did before.”

“I did, didn’t I. But that was to save our skins, remember?”

“You might be surprised how little the situation has changed.”

“Tsk, don’t spoof like that. I know you. That tongue of yours calls whatever tune it wants to.”

“If you won’t listen to reason, my dear, let me try passion. We have ten lost years to make up.”

“Where’s the clock that can do that?”

Rose always did know how to stump a good argument.

Wincing, I put away reverie and sat up. My mind took a resolute new posture as well. You don’t need to be an Ecclesiastes devotee to realize there is a time to equivocate and a time to do something.

Still in my slippers, I trotted down the stairs. In the living room, Grace whirled from the sideboard where she was putting away her mending, looking flustered at my hurried arrival. I halted at the foot of the stairs, she braced at her end of the room. Practically in chorus, we blurted:

“I was wondering if you might want to-”

“If you don’t have anything better to do-”

Both of us stumbled to a pause. She caught her breath and expelled it in saying, “You first.”

“I’d be impolite.”

“Morrie, out with it, whatever it is-we can’t beat around the bush all night.”

“I suppose not. I, ah, I wondered if you might like to go to Miners Day. With me, that is.”

Grace covered her mouth against a wild laugh. I felt ridiculous and, calling myself every kind of a fool, was ready to slink back upstairs when she put out a hand to stop me. “Great minds run in similar tracks. I was about to knock on your door and ask you.”

Never seen you quite so dolled up, Morrie. Mrs. Faraday will have to go some to keep up with you.”

I smoothed the fabric of my new checked vest and adjusted the silk necktie bought to match it. “Everyone tells me Miners Day is a holiday like no other. You are quite the fashion plate yourself, Griff.”

“Better be, on account of the parade. We’ve marched in every one of them, haven’t we, Hoop.”