Persuasion

PersuasLQD Sheila Kohler He called M.'s house on the island the day before, in the hopes of finding her there, and got no reply. Now he is leaving the place. He puts down his heavy suitcase full of books which he has carried up the stairs onto the ferry, kisses his wife goodbye, and holds her slender body against his for a moment with regret. "Will you be all right?" he asks guiltily, knowing she cannot possibly be. She nods bravely and is gone fast in her gray, cotton dress. He finds an empty bench and settles himself in with his suitcase, computer, and the book he carries in his hand, when M. surpises and delights him by suddenly appearing, it seems to him out of nowhere. He is not sure where she has come from or what she is doing here on this ferry which is going to the mainland so early in the morning. She greets him and sits down opposite him with the almost cat-like, yet careless grace of the famous and the privileged. She carries no baggage, though she has a heavy, bound book in her hand. She apologizes for not returning his call, and he says rather rudely that it was probably better that way. He cannot really imagine her at his in-law's place. He thinks of their huge, white summer house on the hill with its vast and lonely view of sea and sky, the flowerless garden— "the bunnies eat everything," his mother-in-law has said, standing in her white, silk dressing gown on the terrace, a cup of black tea in her hand, gazing blankly into nothingness. In his mind's eye he sees the endless, elegant, anonymous rooms, with no knickknacks, no family photographs, no disorder of any kind, no flowers inside either, except for the one perfect orchid with its three large white blooms which has lasted four months, his mother-in-law has said, "almost as though it were not real." He sees the thick, white towels, all embroidered with the family initials in navy blue and the white deck chairs, with their thick, soft blue and white cushions, the narrow lap pool which is heated to such a degree, the steam rising from the water in the early mornings, 73 Ecotone: reimagining place that he has preferred to run along the narrow road in danger of being hit by a car, to find a rocky beach and the icy sea and to throw himself with relief into the seaweed and gray waves. He imagines his in-laws, who are early risers, already eating their sliced grapefruit and prunes at this hour on the shiny granite table, his mother-in-law, her dark hair impeccably pinned at the back of her head, stretching forth a fine, trembling, white hand, to protest when his father-in-law, in a moment of inattention, dares to put down the orange juice carton on the breakfast table, while he sits on the bench on this ferry watching this woman sprawled effortlessly and elegantlybefore him. He likes the way she looks at him directly, as he sits opposite her, as if she sees nothing else but him, her gray-blue eyes smiling, open wide, almost, it seems, without blinking. He hardly notices the ferry pulling away from the island, the pale blue summer sky, or the choppy, gray sea. He is looking at her, a youthful-looking woman, though she must be ten years older than he but with an air of innocence, he thinks, probably in her early fifties. She wears her hair almost shaved, which gives her a slightly surprised air, and her blue jeans with holes at the knees, though he knows she must be quite wealthy, perhaps even rich, surely, a successful film having been made from one of her books, he seems to remember, and probably many prizes won, and owning property on the exclusive island they have just left behind. He knows some of her work and admires it, and he once read something she wrote about prayer which surprised and moved him. He knows, too, that she has recently received harsh criticism for...