The Future Homemakers of America

by Laurie Graham

  I said, ‘No. I'd describe it as a modest chip.’

  Lo said, ‘She's nuts. He's cheap. He's English. Plus, he's old. Soon as the honeymoon's over she's gonna be bankrolling some good American prostate surgery. You heard it here.’

  Audrey showed me her paintings, after we had cleared away the soup. They were just sea and sky, mainly, but she had let the different paints mingle while they were still wet, and she seemed to have found a hundred different shades of green. I loved them.

  I said, ‘Arthur's crazy. I'd buy these.’

  ‘Well, Arthur has a very good eye,’ she said. ‘He knows good stuff when he sees it. But, if there's something you like, help yourself.’

  I picked out one for me and one for Kath, and we both have them still. Anybody asks me I'm always proud to say, ‘Yes, this artist is a personal friend of mine. According to some big expert, she didn't understand her medium.’

  We went for a walk. There was quite a spread of land around the property. I said, ‘What do the boys think? They met Arthur?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘And I don't see it happening. Arthur doesn't care for travelling, and the boys have their own lives.’

  It seemed their first act of rebellion, after Lance's demise, was to tear up their papers for the Military Academy. Then they both grew their hair real long. ‘Only time they've ever acted like twins,’ she said.

  So Mikey had stayed on in San Francisco, doing something called concept art, and Lance Jnr was in Providence, Rhode Island, selling clam chowder and sourdough bread.

  One side of the garden led on to a grass track. We followed it till we came to water. It was called The Estuary, and there was such a pretty view across to an oyster farm.

  I said, ‘It's a big step, Aud. Leaving your kids behind. A new country is hardr enough. New husband, too …’

  ‘I'll take my chance,’ she said. ‘It has to be better than being a lonely widow, starting over some place nobody knows me.’

  I said, ‘You only feel that way because it's early days. You're still getting over Lance. Another year or two and you'll turn the corner. That's what they reckon.’

  Hell, Audrey was always the strong one. Wherever you dropped her, she'd pick herself up. She'd brush her hair, unpack her good table linen. Next thing you knew, she'd be organising bridge fours at the OWC.

  ‘Twenty-five years, Peggy,’ she said. ‘I gave it everything I had. Lance got a promotion, I rose with him. He could have made General with me on his team. Now none of it counts for a damn thing.’

  One of the red dogs came outta the water, shook itself all over us.

  ‘Know the worst thing?’ she said. ‘The stupid way it ended. Choking on a stupid piece of beef, arguing … and choking … three stupid Rudman men … and what the hell for? For nothing. Lance is six foot under and the boys have got their, stupid no-hope jobs. I'm the one didn't get a fair deal …’

  Her face was hard and bitter. ‘… wasn't just Lance's life ended,’ she said. ‘I lost everything. And I can't even say it was a noble sacrifice. Not like Gayle, with Okey … and then with her Marine …’

  I said, ‘Aud, you had half a lifetime with Lance. And you have your boys. What do you suppose Gayle would have given for some of that? I don't believe she took much comfort knowing her husbands were killed on active service.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. She hurled a stick for the dogs. ‘But it sure sounds better.’

  We went inside. It was a cold house. There was a fireplace big enough to walk in and Audrey started up a fire, but move one inch from the hearth and a person could catch their death. We drank tea, like real English ladies, and listened to the ticking of Arthur's old clocks.

  I said, ‘What do you do all day? I guess you don't paint any more?’

  ‘Help at the gallery,’ she said. ‘Read. Keep this big house squared away. I'm happy enough.’

  I said, ‘Okay. Just don't rush into this Arthur thing. Take your time. Know what I'd do? If I could paint pictures like this, I'd go back Stateside, open a little boutique. I guarantee you, fast as you could paint them, they'd be sold.’

  ‘Neat idea,’ she said. ‘But I've already invested in Arthur's place.’

  81

  Arthur came home and we had more of the same soup, and then sausages. They weren't big eaters.

  I said, ‘You sell any pictures today, Arthur’.

  ‘There's more to running a gallery than selling pictures,’ he said.

  I said, ‘Well, Audrey did. I've picked out two of her seascapes and I'm wondering whether to ship a few more.’

  He smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They're pleasant enough.’

  I said, ‘I don't know what pleasant means. I'm getting them because they look great and she's the first friend I ever had, turned out to be a real live artist.’

  ‘Quite,’ he said.

  After the sausages they insisted on teaching me mah-jongg. Soon as Arthur realised he had a novice on his hands, he started rushing around, clearing a table by the fireside, setting up the pieces. He was like an excited kid.

  ‘First we twitter the sparrows,’ he said. Give you some idea what kinda fool game it was. Main feature of it seemed to be yelling out crazy words.

  ‘Pung!’ he'd shout. ‘And I have the wind of the round!’

  Scotch whisky's not my usual drink, but I took what was offered. I thought we might have a long night ahead of us.

  ‘Barbarian invasion!’ he'd cry. That happened couple of times and it seemed to be a big moment in the game for Arthur.

  Audrey had put me in the blue room. It was called that because of the wallpaper and the patchwork quilt, but it could just as well have been because it was so cold, that was the colour you ended up if you slept in there.

  ‘Peg, honey, you're frozen,’ she said. ‘It's these old English houses. But hang on. I'll fix you up.’

  She was gone a while. I think she may have had to fight one of the dogs for that extra blanket she brought me. It had that kinda animal smell. Still I was glad of it, and the rubber hot-water bottle and a pair of socks.

  ‘You get used to it,’ she said. ‘When I'm in the US now, I can't bear how hot they keep their houses. It's not healthy. And Kath keeps her place so warm too, did you notice? I think she's picked up bad American habits.’

  She perched on the edge of my bed.

  I said, ‘Me and Kath have really talked this time. Not having other people around, I guess.’

  Aud said, ‘She saved my life, Peg. I just turned up and I was probably half out of my mind. She just started frying eggs and finding hangers for my clothes. Didn't ask any questions. I think she realised I didn't have any answers.’

  I said, ‘They didn't … you know … her and John? She told me.’

  Audrey said, ‘You didn't ask her right out about that?’

  I said, ‘No. She just told me a few things. How their mom and dad used to sleep in that big old bed, and she was in the kitchen with them and John had that other room. The eel-trap store? Then when their mom died, John came in from the cold and slept with their dad. And when their dad died … well, you know the rest. It was just about using the furniture they had and staying warm. Kath reckons they weren't the only ones lived that way.’

  Aud said, ‘Yeah. I've heard stories along those lines.’

  I said, ‘She told me something else. About why she never married? She says there's a sickness in the family, in the blood, and she didn't want the risk of passing it on.’

  Audrey said, ‘What's it called?’

  I didn't know. I didn't believe Kath had ever told me.

  Audrey said, ‘John died of pneumonia.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  A door opened, along the landing. Arthur shouted, ‘Audrey? Are you going to be much longer?’

  I said, ‘Sex before marriage? I didn't think you were that kinda girl.’

  She smiled. ‘Find out what the disease is,’ she said. ‘I'd sure like to know what John Pharaoh might have spread around with his
wild oats.’

  I said, ‘Kath swears he knew to be careful.’

  ‘Yeah?’ she said. ‘Well of course Kath wouldn't believe a bad thing of anybody. But just do something for me. Put together these three words: John, careful and Lois. See what I mean?’

  I heard Arthur's door creak again. He shouted, ‘Audrey! I am turning out the light!’

  It was ten-thirty.

  I left next morning with as many of Audrey's paintings as I could carry, plus her solemn promise not to make any hasty decisions about Arthur. The sun struggled through as she was waving me off, and I must say she cut a fine figure standing by the rambling old house, throwing sticks for the dogs.

  82

  Kath closed the motoring school for five days and the two of us went off on a grand tour of historical England.

  We went to Stratford upon Avon, birthplace of William Shakespeare, and Oxford, home of Oxford University, and Cotswold, and Thomas Hardy country, Thomas Hardy being another of their great bards. We also visited the grave of Sir Winston Churchill, the man Kath seemed to believe had won World War II. I kept my opinion to myself.

  London was our last destination. We went to Buckingham Palace and there wasn't even a tour we could take. All they allow you to do is look through the perimeter fence. Same story at 10 Downing Street, the closest thing they have to a White House – which is to say, not very close at all. Number 10 doesn't even have a lawn out front.

  I noticed many changes for the better, though, since I left England in ‘52. The people weren't so drab-looking and you could get coffee and cold beer and all kinds of candy bars. But they still didn't seem to me to make the best of what they had. Westminster Abbey was a very good example. It was so cold and damp inside and they could easily have put in a modern furnace. Then we saw the actual throne where all their monarchs have been crowned. Just a shabby old wooden chair, didn't have any jewels on if or a lick of gold. I read somewhere Queen Elizabeth is one of the wealthiest women in the world, and yet she didn't even have a nice velvet pillow for her throne.

  Kath said, ‘It's her jubilee next year. Twenty-five years.’

  I said, ‘Well I hope she splashes out and buys herself a cushion. Is this an Episcopalian church?’

  I don't know about that,’ she said. ‘Gloomy, isn't it?’

  I said, ‘Gayle and Lemarr have their own church now. All glass.’

  ‘Is it Methodist?’ she said.

  I said, ‘No, it's the Passy Tabernacle.’

  ‘We're Methodists,’ she said. ‘Would be, if I ever went. We used to be Church of England. Grandad Pharaoh was a bell-ringer at All Saints in Brakey. We used to have to go every Sunday, necks scrubbed, boots polished. But he got riled about something, one night when they had ringing practice. Had a falling out with the captain and lost his temper. Pulled too hard on his rope and snapped the slider. The rope went up in the air with Grandad on the end of it, cracked his head on the chamber ceiling. After that we were Methodists. Can they do that, then? Gayle and her hubby? Just get up their own church?’

  I said, ‘Of course they can. They're in the land of the free.’

  My last night in England we stayed in a small hotel in Cromwell Road. Small was right. If one of us was getting dressed, the other had to stay on the bed out of the way. I must say for the money we were paying I'd have expected to have space enough to open the closet doors.

  We went out for Italian spaghetti.

  Kath said, ‘I wish you could have stopped longer. Next time, you want to stop longer. You could come to Benidorm with me and May.’

  I said, ‘Next time? I have to earn my living now. Don't know I'll ever manage a trip like this again.’

  She said, ‘In that case, I shall have to start saving up to come to you.’

  I said, ‘If I had known I'd have to fend for myself all these years, I'd have been a better student when I was in school. I'd have learned how to fix the Disposall and be a lawyer. I don't have a cent to my name.’

  ‘Me neither,’ she said. ‘As soon as I get it, I spend it. But then, that's what money's for, Peg. There's no pleasure to be had reading a bank-book. Counting out bags of brass. Unless you're some old miser, got a screw loose. Money's there for buying things.’

  I said, ‘Yeah, like a comfortable old age.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘we're both grafters. We shall just have to work till we drop. And I'd sooner do that than sit playing housey-housey down the Day Centre.’

  83

  Grice Terry worked me every bit as hard as I used to work him. December of ‘76 we never stopped, themed cocktail parties, mainly, and a big fundraiser for a new eye hospital and some cute holiday stuff like a Viennese evening for the Murray Mercks over in Fort Worth, with a string quartet in historical costume and a twelve-foot tree trimmed all in silver.

  I was worried about running into some of those fairweather folk who'd blackened the reputation of Peggy Dewey Weddings but, as Grice reminded me, I was an innocent woman., ‘Hold your head high, sister,’ he said. ‘I hear anybody taking your name in vain, there'll be no swell party for them.’

  His friend Tucker Hoose was the money behind the scenes. We had a first-floor office on Jefferson Drive but he never showed his face there, which made him the perfect employer. He preferred to stay home and do a little gardening. He was an older man but he kept himself in good shape. Had his mother living with him and, according to Grice, she wore the pants.

  Tucker had never married and there was no sign of Grice doing so either so it was nice they had each other's company, as I remarked to Crystal one time. She rolled her eyes. ‘Mom, where have you been all your life?’ she said. ‘Grice and Tucker are an item.’

  Since 1968 that was the kind of talk you got from the younger generation.

  I said, ‘I wasn't born yesterday, Crystal. Unnatural behaviour happens in New York, I know, and in California too, but those darling boys are Texans and we don't have anything like that going on round here.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I've noticed how Grice loves those real Texan things, like pink shirts. And guy sleepovers.’

  She was going up to Maine for the holidays, see Vern. She said, ‘Mom, there might be a job up there. There's a new Museum of American Mammals opening next fall.’

  She had sent them her résumé and hadn't even told me.

  I said, ‘Why didn't you tell me?’

  ‘I just did,’ she said, ‘and now you're all bent outta shape.’

  I was not. I never held Crystal back from doing anything. Not even running off to Bend, Oregon, learning to stuff bobcats.

  I said, ‘They offer it to you?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘But I think they will when they see my work.’ She was taking a mounted otter with her on the plane.

  I said, ‘Would you move in with dad and Martine?’

  ‘Like hell,’ she said. ‘Besides, they'll need all the room they've got once the new in-laws start turning up for those long vacations.’

  Martine's boy, Eugene, was finally getting married. Must have been nice for her, something to look forward to after all the surgery and ray treatment an’ all. She seemed to be doing okay. Got as clean a bill of health as you can get after cancer. And Eugene had found a Oriental girl, picked her out of some kind of pen-pal magazine and all he'd seen of her was two photos before he named the day.

  I said, ‘The risks a girl will take.’

  Crystal said, ‘Well, I'm not sure who's taking the biggest risk here. She's getting an airline ticket to the US, plus a worm farmer who doesn't clean under those fingernails too often. He's getting a little woman to do his bidding, plus about a hundred of her nearest friends and relations that are gonna be looking for a new life.’

  I said, ‘Your dad still liable to call an Oriental a slopehead?’

  ‘Yup,’ she said. ‘I guess Martine'll be hoping to train him out of that before the big day.’

  So Crystal flew off to the frozen north. We were booked to do a surprise fiftieth-birthda
y party between Christmas and New Year's, out at Lake Arlington, husband wanted everything Russian-style ‘cause his wife loved Doctor Zhivago so much. We were at December twentieth and I still hadn't located a dog-sled. Grice said maybe the surprise should be Hank Biddle's trotting cart and Hank Biddle dressed in furs.

  He blew in about ten a.m. ‘Behold,’ he said, ‘I bring you tidings of joy. I have the number of a huskie breeder in Knox County. Also, you are summoned to Tucker's for Christmas dinner. Cocktails at eight. Dress, definitely up.’

  84

  Tucker lived just south of Corinth, in a house called Hickory. It was the loveliest home I ever was in, except as hired help. Grice drove me out there.

  I said, ‘Nine o'clock is nearly bedtime for me. How come these folks eat so late?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Miss Lady doesn't rise till afternoon. Then by the time she's had her hair done and hauled herself into a fresh bed-jacket, time's getting on.’

  Lady Hoose was Tucker's mother, ninety-four and going strong, except she reckoned having Jimmy Carter as president'd probably kill her.

  I said, ‘Am I dressed okay? I don't feel dressed right.’ I was wearing my cranberry two-piece from Bloomies, velvet with a jet-bead detail.

  He looked me over. ‘Take the necklace off,’ he said.

  I said, ‘Take it off? I already feel under-dressed.’

  ‘You'll do fine,’ he said. ‘Just leave off the fake pearls.’

  I dropped them in my pocketbook before we went in.

  ‘By the by,’ he said ‘You're a widow. You're my second cousin, recently returned from England. And we don't talk about Swell Parties.’

  There was an evergreen garland on the door and a good wood fire burning in the lounge room, and there was help called Etta, serving a Rotel dip and pig eggs and gin-fizz cocktails.

  Etta's Pig Eggs

  Hard-boil a dozen fresh eggs, cool them in cold running water and peel off their shells.