Too Much Happiness

So we had those names and those hats, and at the first roll call the counsellor-the jolly one we liked, Mavis, though we didn’t like her as well as the pretty one, Pauline-pointed at us and called out, “Hey. Twins,” and went on calling out other names before we had time to deny it.

Even before that we must have noticed the hats and approved of each other. Otherwise one or both of us would have pulled off those brand-new articles, and been ready to shove them under our cots, declaring that our mothers had made us wear them and we hated them, and so on.

I may have approved of Charlene, but I was not sure how to make friends with her. Girls nine or ten years old-that was the general range of this crop, though there were a few a bit older-do not pick friends or pair off as easily as girls do at six or seven. I simply followed some other girls from my town-none of them my particular friends-to one of the cabins where there were some unclaimed cots, and dumped my things on top of the brown blanket. Then I heard a voice behind me say, “Could I please be next to my twin sister?”

It was Charlene, speaking to somebody I didn’t know. The dormitory cabin held perhaps two dozen girls. The girl she had spoken to said, “Sure,” and moved along.

Charlene had used a special voice. Ingratiating, teasing, self-mocking, and with a seductive merriment in it, like a trill of bells. It was evident right away that she had more confidence than I did. And not simply confidence that the other girl would move, and not say sturdily, “I got here first.” (Or-if she was a roughly brought-up sort of girl-and some were, having their way paid by the Lions Club or the church and not by their parents-she might have said, “Go poop your pants, I’m not moving.”) No. Charlene had confidence that anybody would want to do as she asked, not just agree to do it. With me too she had taken a chance, for could I not have said, “I don’t want to be twins,” and turned back to sort my things. But of course I didn’t. I felt flattered, as she had expected, and I watched her dump out the contents of her suitcase with such an air of celebration that some things fell on the floor.

All I could think of to say was, “You got a tan already.”

“I always tan easy,” she said.

The first of our differences. We applied ourselves to learning them. She ta

And once we had the peculiarities and history of our bodies in place we went on to the stories-the dramas or near dramas or distinctions-of our families. She was the youngest and the only girl in her family and I was an only child. I had an aunt who had died of polio in high school and she-Charlene-had an older brother who was in the Navy. For it was wartime, and at the campfire sing-song we would choose “There’ll Always Be an England” and “Hearts of Oak,” and “Rule Brita

One of the camp counsellors had lost her fiancé in the war and wore his watch-we believed it was his watch-pi

The other backdrop of our lives, which was supposed to be emphasized at camp, was religion. But since the United Church of Canada was officially in charge there was not so much harping on that subject as there would have been with the Baptists or the Bible Christians, or so much formal acknowledgment as the Roman Catholics or even the Anglicans would have provided. Most of us had parents who belonged to the United Church (though some of the girls who were having their way paid for them might not have belonged to any church at all), and being used to its hearty secular style, we did not even realize that we were getting off easy with just evening prayers and grace sung at meals and the half-hour special talk-it was called a Chat-after breakfast. Even the Chat was relatively free of references to God or Jesus and was more about honesty and loving-kindness and clean thoughts in our daily lives, and promising never to drink or smoke when we grew up. Nobody had any objection to this sort of thing or tried to get out of attending, because it was what we were used to and because it was pleasant to sit on the beach in the warming sun and a little too cold yet for us to long to jump into the water.

Grown-up women do the same sort of thing that Charlene and I did. Not counting the moles on each other’s backs and comparing toe lengths, maybe. But when they meet and feel a particular sympathy with each other they also feel a need to set out the important information, the big events whether public or secret, and then go ahead to fill in all the blanks between. If they feel this warmth and eagerness it is quite impossible for them to bore each other. They will laugh at the very triviality and silliness of what they’re telling, or at the revelation of some appalling selfishness, deception, mea

There has to be great trust, of course, but that trust can be established at once, in an instant.

I’ve observed this. It’s supposed to have begun in those long periods of sitting around the campfire stirring the manioc porridge or whatever while the men were out in the bush deprived of conversation because it would warn off the wild animals. (I am an anthropologist by training though a rather slack one.) I’ve observed but never taken part in these female exchanges. Not truly. Sometimes I’ve pretended because it seemed to be required, but the woman I was supposed to be making friends with always got wind of my pretense and became confused and cautious.

As a rule, I’ve felt less wary with men. They don’t expect such transactions and are seldom really interested.

This intimacy I’m talking about-with women-is not erotic, or pre-erotic. I’ve experienced that as well, before puberty. Then too there would be confidences, probably lies, maybe leading to games. A certain hot temporary excitement, with or without genital teasing. Followed by ill feeling, denial, disgust.

Charlene did tell me about her brother, but with true repugnance. This was the brother now in the Navy. She went into his room looking for her cat and there he was doing it to his girlfriend. They never knew she saw them.

She said they slapped as he went up and down.

You mean they slapped on the bed, I said.

No, she said. It was his thing slapped when it was going in and out. It was gross. Sickening.