(no subject)
"You can't ever have looked at her properly if you don't realize that she's absolutely dazzling looking. Just too much fat."
"my mother was very attractive until she let go" said Paul in a mulish small-boy voice. "but she never went around in such garish colors calling the full attention of the world to herself."
"Did she go around much at all?" asked Helen with interest.
"No, se had respect for herself. She knew she didn't look well, so she hid herself away. She was very dignified."
"And probably very depressed, too," said Helen very sharply. "how have you the slightest idea whether your mother was dignified or was going nutty as a fruitcake having to stay in the great Canadian indoors just because her pretty little son and her handsome husband might be a teeny bit embarrassed if she ventured out. You don't know anything about anyone. stop looking wounded and betrayed. I only say this because you annoy me so much with all your unliberated attitudes. You think it's modern to be able to tell me about Garry... think it's just so much rubbish. You can't see that your own mother was a victim to your narrow-mindedness about physical appearance. you want a world of beautiful identical robots. You want a Nazi world, only the fittest and the finest shall be tolerated...you want to grow up, Paul."
Paul was still for a while.
then he said, "Helen,I don't want to upset you, perhaps you're riht, but why do you take it so badly? You're not fat, you can't have an ax to grind for Fat Rights. Tell me what it is that makes you feel so strongly."
"I might have told you once. I might have given in to this seductive shipboard thing of confiding. I thought you were a gentle kind boy with a new open soul. But not now, I'll never tell you. You'll have to guess, and you can spend months guessing, and you'll never know."
helen laughed at him, not unaffectionately.
"No, little Paul, you'll never know whether I had a fat lover who died from slimming, or whether I was once fat, or whether someone I cared for was hurt by cruel insensitive attitudes such as yours. But that doesn't matter very much. It's just one shipboard story fewer to hear. What does matter is that you realize you are the one out of step, not big Bonnie. She's modern and liberated, she's no prisoner because of her flesh. I don't have an ounce of sympathy for that girl, she's a happy soul, she's got an adoring husband, she's got good business sense. She's not gross, Paul--you could be. You and Garry could end up in some community whee people don't like gays....and I'd hate to think where your courage and inner resources might be then."
She gave him an awkward kind of matey hug as she left the room She didn't want to close every door to him.
with a numbness a bit like the way you feel after having a tooth filled, Paul walked to the upper deck and looked down below. It was sunset, and at sunset every evening, big Bonnie sat sipping a drink, flanked by the women in hats, and they wee all laughing contentedly in the pinky red light.
"my mother was very attractive until she let go" said Paul in a mulish small-boy voice. "but she never went around in such garish colors calling the full attention of the world to herself."
"Did she go around much at all?" asked Helen with interest.
"No, se had respect for herself. She knew she didn't look well, so she hid herself away. She was very dignified."
"And probably very depressed, too," said Helen very sharply. "how have you the slightest idea whether your mother was dignified or was going nutty as a fruitcake having to stay in the great Canadian indoors just because her pretty little son and her handsome husband might be a teeny bit embarrassed if she ventured out. You don't know anything about anyone. stop looking wounded and betrayed. I only say this because you annoy me so much with all your unliberated attitudes. You think it's modern to be able to tell me about Garry... think it's just so much rubbish. You can't see that your own mother was a victim to your narrow-mindedness about physical appearance. you want a world of beautiful identical robots. You want a Nazi world, only the fittest and the finest shall be tolerated...you want to grow up, Paul."
Paul was still for a while.
then he said, "Helen,I don't want to upset you, perhaps you're riht, but why do you take it so badly? You're not fat, you can't have an ax to grind for Fat Rights. Tell me what it is that makes you feel so strongly."
"I might have told you once. I might have given in to this seductive shipboard thing of confiding. I thought you were a gentle kind boy with a new open soul. But not now, I'll never tell you. You'll have to guess, and you can spend months guessing, and you'll never know."
helen laughed at him, not unaffectionately.
"No, little Paul, you'll never know whether I had a fat lover who died from slimming, or whether I was once fat, or whether someone I cared for was hurt by cruel insensitive attitudes such as yours. But that doesn't matter very much. It's just one shipboard story fewer to hear. What does matter is that you realize you are the one out of step, not big Bonnie. She's modern and liberated, she's no prisoner because of her flesh. I don't have an ounce of sympathy for that girl, she's a happy soul, she's got an adoring husband, she's got good business sense. She's not gross, Paul--you could be. You and Garry could end up in some community whee people don't like gays....and I'd hate to think where your courage and inner resources might be then."
She gave him an awkward kind of matey hug as she left the room She didn't want to close every door to him.
with a numbness a bit like the way you feel after having a tooth filled, Paul walked to the upper deck and looked down below. It was sunset, and at sunset every evening, big Bonnie sat sipping a drink, flanked by the women in hats, and they wee all laughing contentedly in the pinky red light.