The Sweet Birds of Gorham by Ann Birstein

Author:Ann Birstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497697348
Publisher: Open Road Distribution

The next morning, encouraged by the beauty and the hoar frost, she mentioned the matter to George, who shrugged.

“Dylan was a lush.”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Although your metaphor about the TV isn’t too bad. Maybe you’ll be able to use it.”

“In what?”

“Never mind,” George sighed. “Look, if you think it will bolster up your courage, you can hold onto me the next time it happens. I give you permission.”

Impossible, since the problem wouldn’t come up unless she were alone, but the solution was so typical of George that she dropped the subject. Also, as a result of the fact that they were now on their way to the rink, he kept glancing at her suspiciously, as if by dying she could involve him forever.

She trudged along behind him, finding his back strangely unfamiliar because of the two heavy sweaters lumping up under his jacket and the noisily flapping galoshes. Why George had decided to go skating after all, she was not sure, only that as often happened, he had stuck his head through her doorway at daybreak and announced the decision as a result of a sleepless night for which she was somehow to blame. At the moment she wished heartily that George had slept better. She had forgotten that today would be Sunday, which was the day his mother had always been most anxious to get him away from his library books into the fresh air with the other children, the day which, especially if the weather were fine, George always spent glued to his desk, typing away feverishly until dusk came and released him from danger. The risk of being out in the open was telling on him acutely. They climbed up one small tangled hillock behind the deserted campus and down another, until George finally leaned against a tree trunk laboring for breath. “Oh, great,” George said, “now the stuff is creeping into my galoshes. I can feel my socks freezing to my feet. Which means another week with the vaporizer instead of my work.… Not that you care.”

“Oh, but I do care, I—”

“But why do I always let you talk me into these expeditions?” George said, smiting his forehead. “That’s what I don’t understand.” His skates clanged together against his shoulder and he quickly lowered his arm. “And why above all, do I let myself play December to your May when I know damn well it’s an impossible marriage?”

“Marriage?” Daisy said, as the word flew like an arrow into her heart and she plucked it out just as it began to secrete its sweet poisons. “—I mean, you don’t have to go, you know.”

“No,” George smiled grimly, “I don’t, do I?” and detached himself from the tree trunk to lead her still muttering down a steep treacherous path, so icy underfoot that they slipped and slid into each other. Straggling branches scratched at their clothing. The path ended abruptly. They started across the frozen churned-up mud of the softball field.

“And don’t argue,” George said, “until we get the fucking fun over with.

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