She put a record on the turntable.

The record player was still on the sidebo

Loyal studied the album cover; ve men in musicians chairs, a swirl of yell
to the top of the cover and red letters bursting, MUSIC TO SING ALONG
Ballads.
The record rotated, double-stop ddle harmonies of a sentimental country so
front of the oven, feet side by side, hands folded in a knot of ngers, held in
in wrinkled whipcords and a sweatshirt, but something of the old vulnerabl
knew it.
She counted silently, then sang He was just passing through, I was all alon
themselves up into her nose, she reached for the cheap sadness. Loyal coul
jerking out of his eyes. That song always got to him, but here he had to sit
even hunch over a beer. So he closed his eyes and wished Jack had lived.
The quiche was good, and they ate all of it. It was easier now, no talking, th
spearing and lifting. She put a paper napkin near his hand. Jacks chair was
perked. How many times had he sat here?

So, what do you think of my singing, Loyal? That was the kind of ques
I like it ne. Sour face. She poured coffee while his ngers pinched up cru

of Jacks things were scattered around as if hed just stepped out. Well, tha
The rope he knotted while they watched television on a peg by the door, a
disuse. Bills still on the Victorian spindle. The grey ranchers hat, the band
of the side board where he always slung it when he came in for dinner.
Think you might go back to Wisconsin, see your kids? Must be all growe
Them ties was cut too long ago. With blunt scissors. She said the milk w
said hed take his coffee without.
I know Im not going to sing at any rodeo*, Loyal. My voice is weak, Im
rodeos. But you know, I dont feel old. I feel like Ive got the liveliest part
on the ranch, Loyal, but not alone. A man is needed. She couldnt say it m
 The coffee. Its blackness in the familiar blue cups. He stirred in sugar. Her
Then all at once the awkwardness was gone. Stories of things he had seen b
from between his loosened and gapped teeth. He told her about Cucumber
driving with Bullet over dangerous passes where headlights failed, the mou
little, talked much, swelled to a glowing huckster selling stories of his life.
nodding off, wanting nothing but sleep and silence, he stopped. They were
for the relief of solitude. He said he would sleep on the daybed beside the s
cigarettes.
In the morning she gave him Jacks pearl gray cowboy hat.
E. Annie Proulx, Postcards (1992)

1. (b)
3 N04/1/A1ENG/HP1/ENG/TZ0/XX
Brainstorm

The house was shaken by a rising wind

5
That rattled window and door.
10
He sat alone In an upstairs room and heard these things
15
door slammed, a groan Came from some hidden joist, a
20
wind walked like A blind man through the house. Timb
25
from washer, baulk and spike. Bent to his book, continu
30
came down from their loud ight To walk along the roof
35 so near but out of sight, Scratched on the slate; when th
their wings beat till they came again, While the wind ro
And window panes began to blind with rain. The house
 thought, But to the crows; the crows were talking back
might be out: Houses are only trees stretched on the rac
nature would know. Fur, leaf and feather would invade
shingle warp with snow, Vine tear the wall, till any stra
roof and rooftree off and show Naked to nature what th
feel the crows walk on his head As if he were the house
through his hair, his scalp. He might be dead, It seemed,
but the cooling of the sinews, veins, Juices, and sodden
his ruins of wiring, his burst mains, The rainy wind had
green uprising and mob rule That ran the world had tak
and set him in the school Where any crutch can learn to

Inside his head he heard the stormy crows.

Howard Nemerov, New and Selected Poems (1960)