Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner [268]
I did not answer, glaring at her in defiance and despair. She shut off my ally, inconsequent motion and irrelevant noise. “Well, we can discuss it later.” (Later?) “Now that I’m here, won’t you show me the place?”
“I don’t know that you’d like it.”
“Not like it? It’s lovely, so quiet and old fashioned. I was noticing the roses as I came in.” She smiled; her teeth were pointed. “I’m sure it’s been very good for you. It’s only that once the weather gets bad, and with only that old woman, you can’t . . .”
“She’s about four years older than you,” I said. But it was a boy’s defeated bleat. She smiled with her filed teeth, ignoring my hostility.
“Come on, show me around. I want to see the yard and the house and all of it. Where you work, where you sleep.” The way she smiled and smiled made me frantic with apprehension. Coaxingly she said, “Can’t I be allowed a little curiosity about you?”
The monster.
I spun the chair and started for the screen door, either intending to escape or to hold it open while she passed through–who can say for sure?–but she was alert, she got there first and held it for me.
I saw that I had no choice but to take her around, and I resolved cunningly that the sooner she saw everything, the sooner she would leave. On the way up through the orchard I gave the chair full throttle, trying to outrun her, but my batteries were low and she easily kept up. The fruit was reddening among the leaves of Grandfather’s old apple trees, the wasps were busy in the windfalls, the air smelled of cider and incipient fall.
At the top I wheeled into the flat path along the fence, and stopped. “This is where I do my daily dozen,” I said. I lifted the crutches out of their cradle, laid them across the chair arms, and with my hands pushed myself up until I stood on my one leg.
“What are you going to do?” she said.
“Take my exercise. Do you mind waiting a few minutes?”
“Must you, now?”
“This is the time.”
I took pleasure in the anxiety on her face. Now let’s see who’s helpless, I said to her, or thought at her. Let’s see who needs looking after. I had the crutches in my armpits, my one foot was on the footboard, my hands felt the weight as it came on them. First one crutch on the ground, then the other. Now the part that called for concentration. Lean, hop. There. Smooth as glass. Furious, pumping like three-legged racers at a picnic, I swung off up the path, out from under the hand she put anxiously out to steady me. Steady yourself, I thought. A bit late, there. Always a bit late.
Turning and pumping back, I enjoyed the consternation in her face. I swung, I pegged, I flew, I turned with the precision of a guards-man in front of Buckingham Palace and went pounding up the path again. Let her stand there and get an eyeful of my independence and my manual skill and the endurance left in the old carcass she pretended to be so concerned about. Lost your boy friend, did you? I said as I dug and swung. Like to be asked in out of the cold? Well the hell with you. I don’t need you. I’ve got a life I’m content with. Every afternoon I run up and down this course–my version of jogging. One legged or not, I’m in shape. Jumping stump or not, pains and pills or not, it isn’t an utter has-been you’re dealing with. Get an eyeful.
I intended the full eight laps, or maybe more, but at the end of six I knew I had to stop it. My heart was bursting my chest, my stump was red hot, I had to swallow my breathing so that she wouldn’t hear it. All casually, ready to pop, I swung my foot up onto the footboard and started to turn, ready to let myself down. But the chair rolled a few inches, I was thrown off balance, I dropped the left crutch and grabbed for the arm. And she was right there, bracing me. I was half leaning on her. I could smell her.
Trembling, I eased myself down into the seat. She kept hold of my arm until I was down, and then stooped and retrieved the fallen crutch. She said nothing; her face wore an erased, concealing look.
“Thank you,” I said, and put the crutch in its cradle. Raging with humiliation, my stump making tired, convulsive jerks, I started back down toward the rose garden.