BY CATHERINE DOOK


framed, Fraser claims, but her own true reporting suggests that Mary was guilty as sin. If she didn’t murder Darnley, she should have. Darnley was not only unfaithful, but also syphillic. He was (pardon the pun) a drunk of staggering proportions, a bully and a coward who bloodily murdered her favourite, the dwarf musician and secretary, in front of her horrified eyes while she was heavily pregnant. Any woman with an ounce of spunk would have done him in, and Mary, who galloped to what she thought was safety in England and then spent 20 years embroidering in captivity, did not lack for spunk. Given the right provocation, doing away with one’s spouse is a logical and reasonable life event. If you ask him, my husband John will tell you his marital suffering rivals that of Mary,


Queen of Scots. “Pull off,” I yelled. “Yarn store!” John swung the wheel to the right. We were passing


through Twin Falls, on the Oregon coast. I’d been lured clean off Highway 101 by a large sign that read ‘yarn.’ “Tere’s no stopping you, is there?” John asked. He looked apprehensive. He was


Literature and Life’s


Fine


Truths in


OREGON


I had packed a lot of useful things in the Execuvan for our Oregon trip, but none were more welcome than the books I’d brought. It wasn’t just because it rained most of


the trip and there wasn’t much else we could do in the evenings, or that it was oſten cold and we enjoyed snuggling under the covers with a good read, or the DVD player acted up sometimes or that my playing ‘Hey Jude’ on the recorder drove John mad. It was because good literature reflects life’s truths. And life’s truths resonate well with everyone. Take Antonia Fraser’s biography of


Mary, Queen of Scots, for example. History has condemned the frivolous Mary for the cold-blooded killing of Darnley, her husband. Antonia Fraser swears Mary didn’t do it (though she concedes finding the strangled body of Darnley beside his blown-up house was suspicious). She was


20 RVT 149 • SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012 RVT 149 enlarged.indd 20 8/22/12 9:07:48 AM


wondering how much this detour was going to cost us in American dollars and used-up Execuvan space. “Tey sell honey too,” I said coaxingly. “No honey,” John said firmly. “And besides yarn and honey don’t go together.” We


were constantly astonished by the American propensity to sell disparate items under the same roof. “I bet honey is for the husbands,” I said. “Do you want to come in with me?” “No.” “Do you want to let me loose in a yarn store without supervision?” “I’m coming,” he said. We swung the door open and entered the building. Tere, sitting on comfortable


couches and chattering companionably, sat a group of middle-aged women with friendly faces, knitting and eating hors’douvres from plates on a low table in front of them. John sighed and sank into a chair. Without dropping a stitch, the women included him in their conversation while I prowled the store from one end to another. “We’ll distract him while you shop,” one of them told me. “It’s fighting against a force of nature to keep your wife out of here,” another explained


in the kindest possible way to John. “Resistance is futile.” “I know,” he said. At last I settled on my heart’s desire – two skeins of sockweight American-milled Merino


in pink and purple with a hint of silver sparkle. Twenty dollars apiece. “Don’t even tell me,” John moaned as we exited. “I don’t want to know.” “Darling,” I said, “I appreciate you doing without restaurant meals for the past week


so that I could go wild in this nice yarn store. I appreciate the dearth of eggs in your breakfasts and meat in your lunches and desserts in your suppers. I love you.” John was silent as we climbed back into the Execuvan. Tough he was too noble to


wish moths on me, I wondered if he was thinking about dynamite or strangulation. I had bought enough yarn to strange several wives. We drove onward, on towards Florence. A bit of sun lightened the sky. “Darling,” I said,


busily punching numbers into a calculator, “Now I’ve blown a day’s gas on sockyarn, we are exactly halfway through our cash. Aſter today we must turn back.” “And drive past that yarn store again?” “Well, yes,” I said. “What a nice town this looks like.” “Tat’s because it’s not raining,” John said. “Do we have enough money to check into


a motel?” “We do,” I said. “Hotel! Pull right!” John swung the van into the parking lot of the Economy Motel in Florence. “Indoor


swimming pool!” I exclaimed. “Tere’ll be clean sheets! A real bathroom!” I checked in, then walked over to the van waving a set of keys and signaled John to


follow me to our unit. I couldn’t yell through the window because the driver’s side window is stuck shut. John opens it only in emergencies or for border crossings. “Only $66 a night,” I told him. “Look how clean this room is.” Te room WAS clean.


We transferred our slightly wilted groceries into the bar fridge and then galloped for the pool in the building next door. Te water was cool and the pool deserted, but it was oh, so refreshing to swim a length or two. Te sun fell warmly through the tinted glass.


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