The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy

Author:Gabrielle Roy [Roy, Gabrielle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: French-Canadian fiction
Publisher: Toronto : McClelland and Stewart
Published: 1982-03-28T04:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

In the house on Beaudoin Street there was not a sound to be heard but the rattle of the kettle lid in the kitchen and from time to time the tapping of Florentine's high heels on the linoleum.

A vague melancholy and heavy silence hung in the dining room.

For Jean's visit the girl had scrubbed and waxed and dusted, whisking out of sight all the bits of clothing and the ill-used toys that testified to the cramped life of the family in these rooms. She had arranged the chairs around the table according to her own fancy, exposing certain light-coloured areas on the wallpaper which revealed its fatigue and age. She hid away the knick-knacks that had littered the buffet; in their place she laid an embroidered, heavily starched runner, and on it, right under the holy picture, a clay vase with a few forlorn paper flowers. The picture showed the Christ-child half draped in scarlet cloth, grasping with his chubby arms a Madonna dressed in dark-blue robes. It was at this picture that Jean was staring just now in a state of morose embarrassment.

Florentine was fussing about in her housewife role. She had thought it an excellent idea to show herself in this light. She hadn't dared for a minute to doubt that he would come, though she had gone to the window from time to time, peeking out and crumpling the curtain in her hand, then slowly letting it fall.

Now that she had him there, she harnessed all her energy to defy the young man's will rather than to please him; and she played her role with caution. Brightly coloured jewellery rattled at her neck and on her wrists, the nervous voices of her willpower. Over her black silk dress a little oilcloth apron slid and rustled with every movement.

One minute she would be there with Jean, asking if he wasn't bored. Lively and attentive, she would bring him a cushion, a magazine or some snapshots of herself in an album. Leaning on his shoulder she would give him the needed explanations. Then, a second later she'd be in the kitchen, singing as she busied herself at the stove.

Jean was exasperated by these attentions. She was treating him with the consideration and confidence due a fiance, as if there had been a tacit agreement between them. She left him alone to make some fudge, and went on chatting from the kitchen in a friendly way, slightly detached but polite. Her attitude bespoke a wakeful, prudent reserve. She avoided touching his hand, and when he asked her to sit down she chose a chair that was not next to his. And she put on a serious, preoccupied air, playing with her bracelets, not looking when she felt his eyes upon her.

Florentine's ruses forced a smile from Jean. You're smart, he thought. If I didn't know better I'd think you hadn't a single trick up your sleeve. But her comings and goings were driving him crazy. She slipped through his fingers with great skill.

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