There was an Old Woman Read Online Free PDF Page B

better!”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œHe reminds me of something you find on the underside of a restaurant table.”
    â€œI’d rather eat an unkosher chicken from a supermarket than talk to that man,” added my mother. I repeated my question subtly rephrased.
    â€œThurleigh Ramsden is the worst kind of Gentile,” Pa said.
    â€œJew or Gentile, he’s the worst!” Ma corrected. Pa looked at her to see if she had more to say. When she remained silent, he continued:
    â€œHe’s all gentility and manners wrapped up around a greedy cheapskate. Even the Mallet Club won’t let him in. He’s what they call lace curtain.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?” I asked. Pa shrugged.
    â€œAll I know is that’s what they call him on St. Andrew Street. He writes letters to the paper complaining that they don’t bring back capital punishment. For him they could bring back the lash too, but there I’m only guessing. He thinks we’ve gone over to the Chinese communists because we have utilities collecting our garbage and selling us electricity. What can I say? If he’s your friend,I don’t want to meet your enemies. When he ran for mayor, he wrapped himself up in the Union Jack, saying that he was going to send all the foreigners back where they came from. What he didn’t notice is that the ‘foreigners’—some of them here since before the last war— are the majority nowadays. So, what’s the percentage of an appeal like that, except to bring out all the loonies in town?”
    â€œIt’s too bad he lost that wife of his. That Dora. She was the nicest thing about him.”
    â€œShe left him?”
    â€œShe should have, what with him being the way he is—”
    â€œSilk pants and no underwear, that’s Ramsden, if you ask me,” Pa added. I pressed Ma about Mrs. Ramsden.
    â€œShe was killed in a highway accident a few years ago. Out of town. It was in the paper.”
    â€œI heard at the club that Ramsden bought a stereo in Buffalo and didn’t declare it at the border. He nearly lost his car over that.”
    â€œThis is not the sort of evidence that would stand up in court,” I said. “It would be called ‘highly prejudicial.’ And I would tend to agree, in spite of the fact that I love you both dearly.”
    â€œPrejudicial, shmedudicial,” Pa said. “As long as you’re healthy.” He gave an old-country shrug. “I’m not asking you to take my word for it. Take his standing in the last election for mayor. He came in after the Independent Marxist-Leninists. And they polled lower thanthe regular Marxist-Leninists. That proves there are a lot of people who think the way I do.”
    â€œHe moved his own mother out of her house and into a charity ward when she was eighty-seven. That’s the kind of man he is.”
    â€œDon’t give me any ideas,” I said.
    â€œYou?” Ma said. “You I wouldn’t trust with my affairs for a second. You who never remembers to shut a drawer or turn off a light! Would you remember to pay a bill? Would you remember to do the banking? Never in your whole life have I seen you clip a coupon from the paper. Your fate is spelled out in big letters, Benny. Just lucky your father and I have been spared to look after you. Another piece of roast beef, dear?”
    After tea was served in the traditional way—the teabag passed from cup to cup, followed by a squirt from the plastic lemon—we gathered around the television set to watch the local news.
    â€œI always like her,” Ma said, looking at the face of the evening news, Catherine Bracken. “She’s always such a lady the way she rations out the daily calamities. Like she doesn’t want us to blame her for them personally. That fellow on the Toronto news, I don’t think he gives a damn. But she cares, she really cares.”
    â€œI think she does a good