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    Inappropriate Behaviour
    Inappropriate Behaviour
    Inappropriate Behaviour
    Ebook130 pages1 hour

    Inappropriate Behaviour

    By Irene Mock

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    About this ebook

    Inappropriate Behaviour has a magnetism as alluring as the sirens, summoning readers to revel in the coy seduction that preludes desire, the truths women deny and the longing they supress, unleashed in startling moments of betrayal, loss, and reclamation. Mock widens the threshold–exposing a desire not only for touch, but for understanding, for family, for a love which satiates more than the physical appetite. With wry humour and tender intensity Mock unveils heroic acts of domestic courage which transform and confront modern marriages, divided loyalties and sexual politics as few contemporary writers have dared. Each of these 11 stories, whether haunting or heartbreaking, alights on the tongue ripe with the bittersweet perfection Eve enjoyed in sampling the forbidden fruit. Mock pushes the limits of emotional intimacy, tempting us to admit what we have guarded with precious secrecy–we want it all. In this collection, we may have found it.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDundurn
    Release dateApr 1, 1997
    ISBN9781554885541
    Inappropriate Behaviour
    Author

    Irene Mock

    Irene Mock's fiction has been published in many prestigious Canadian literary magzines. She is the co-editor, with Paulette Jiles and Luanne Armstrong, of Journey to the Interior: An Anthology of Kootenay Women Writers. She is a founding member of the Kootenay School of Writing in Nelson, B.C.

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      Book preview

      Inappropriate Behaviour - Irene Mock

      Inappropriate Behaviour

      Inappropriate Behaviour

      IRENE MOCK

      Porcépic Books an imprint of

      Copyright © 1997 Irene Mock

      First Edition 1997.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage, retrieval and transmission systems now known or to be invented, without the permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

      The publisher gratefully acknowledges financial assistance from the Canada Council and the BC Ministry of Small Business, Tourism and Culture. This is a Porcépic book.

      This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

      Edited by Joy Gugeler

      Text design by Carolyn Stewart

      Cover design and illustration by Doug Jones

      Printed and bound in Canada by Webcom Ltd.

      CANADIAN CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA

      Mock, Irene, 1949–

      Inappropriate behaviour

      A Porcépic Book.

      ISBN 0-88878-374-4

      1. Women-Fiction. I. Title. II. Series.

      PS8576.024152 1997 C813'.54 C96–901060–5

      PR9199.3.M58152 1997

      BEACH HOLME PUBLISHING

      #226-2040 WEST 12TH AVENUE

      VANCOUVER, BC V6J 2G2 CANADA

      For David, Anna and Paul

      Acknowledgements

      The following stories (some in earlier forms and with different titles) were previously published:

      What We Have and Satellite Worlds in Grain

      A Small Ceremony in Matrix

      Neapolitan in Queen's Quarterly

      Inappropriate Behaviour in The Capilano Review

      (nominated for the 1996 Journey Prize)

      To Be Young, To Be Beautiful in Island

      Rapture in The Fiddlehead

      Lovers and Other Strangers in Descant

      Fire in The Canadian Forum

      The author is grateful to her family for their unfailing support and to Joy Gugeler for her sharp editorial eye. She also wishes to thank those who commented on earlier versions of these stories, especially Verna Relkoff.

      If I tell you a story about terrible things happening, I can surround it with language, I can give it a body that is much more palatable than the events themselves were and you can carry it in your memory as a warning, or as a caution of some kind. And I who tell it can comprehend it that much more. I mean, telling is always, in all of its incarnations an act of optimism.

      — RICHARD FORD

      Contents

      Firstborn

      What We Have

      A Small Ceremony

      Red Beads

      Neapolitan

      Fire

      The Age of Analysis

      Inappropriate Behaviour

      To Be Young, To Be Beautiful

      Rapture

      Les Amants

      Lovers and Other Strangers

      Satellite Worlds

      Firstborn

      What We Have

      A Small Ceremony

      Red Beads

      What We Have

      Our beginnings are utterly mysterious—why are we born? Why when and as we are?

      ON NIGHTS WHEN SHE COULDN'T SLEEP Julie would go into the room meant for the baby. She would look at the bassinet, the tiny clothes, the stuffed animals. Then she would come back to bed.

      Michael? She touched his shoulder. Michael, I keep thinking about the baby.

      He struggled to wake up, put an arm around her. Jules—honey, you know these things happen.

      Yes, she thought, but there's got to be a reason. The two glasses of wine on Michael's birthday. Or maybe the week she was sick with flu in her first trimester? Or perhaps something larger. Some lack of faith?

      Michael, she said. Promise me you won't tell anyone what's wrong with the baby.

      She touched his hair but he frowned and pushed her hand away. You know, it's not easy for me either.

      She shuddered, drawing her hand over her swollen belly. Inside my body, my husband and I have created an abomination. In primitive times such a baby wouldn't be allowed to live. Probably the mother, she thought, wouldn't be allowed to live either. Maybe her mate would have killed her. Even twins—normal twins—were put to death because only animals had litters, so the mother must have mated with an animal. Did Michael know what they'd created? Did he have any idea?

      Michael, she said, will you promise me please?

      It hadn't moved for several days, maybe longer. But the baby had never moved much anyway. She didn't want to bother Michael so she distracted herself, painting the baby's room, going to all the fitness and pre-natal classes. Still, when her father had greeted her over the phone with his proud, Hello, Mother! she had to protest. Dad, please don't say that. I'm not a mother yet.

      Why didn't she tell Michael then that she felt something was wrong with the baby? She knew all the things that could go wrong. It had annoyed her when friends said how well it was growing. When some would pat her belly and laugh. And wasn't it just like the doctor, when he couldn't find the heartbeat—three days ago at her regular eighth month check-up—to jiggle her belly, to say jokingly to the baby, Wake up! Finally, though, he'd given up, sent her for an ultrasound . . . .

      The baby had been her idea. When they were talking about having it in their second year together, Michael was uncertain. Once she became pregnant, he began buying her vitamin supplements, talking about the trips the three of them would take, starting a special bank account for the baby. He built a little table and chair set for her thirty-fourth birthday.

      Put the baby things away, people told them. Put them away. There'll be another time.

      But whenever she went out Julie noticed how cautiously they approached, their trapped look as they avoided her big belly.

      You'll try again. Won't you? they'd say.

      SHE COLLECTED THE CLOTHES in a bag. Bending over, annoyed at her big belly, she helped Michael dismantle the crib. They put away the stroller, the Snugli, the bassinet. She felt him keep his distance, afraid, even accidentally, to touch.

      Just as they were finishing, Bob and Andrea stopped by. She and Andrea had gone through their pregnancies together discussing everything from her Cheerios and ice cream, Julie's pickled herring and cheese, to birth positions (On my side, Andrea joked, like a voluptuous Rubenesque painting.)

      Once she'd asked how Andrea felt about bringing a child into today's world and she said, Not hopeful. But even five or six years with a child would be better than nothing.

      Not long ago, at a party, she'd overheard a man say, You know when a war's going to break out because right before it happens everyone gets pregnant. Something to do with survival of the species. . . .

      She looked at Andrea's big belly now, then down at her own. Is there anything more you need for the baby? she asked. Please. Go upstairs and see.

      When Andrea came back, her hands hung empty at her side. We still need a bassinet, but … are you sure?

      The bassinet. It was one of those silly things—white, with pink and blue cats. Julie had found it at a garage sale. She and Michael had sung as they brought the bassinet into the living room, falling exhausted on the couch. Andrea had complimented them on their good fortune. "I've gone to all the garage sales and haven't come across one

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