I don’t really like starting off a tour in New York City. It has a surfeit of book signings, author-interviews and press parties. I much prefer smaller cities with small convenient airports, but New York is the Big Smoke. This year my publisher was cooperating with the B. Dalton chain: last year had been Walden’s turn. Both know how to organize signings, with attentive staff, a well-situated table, plenty of pens, a good window display and dumper boxes near the table. Signings, for someone like myself, very low league, occur at the lunch hour when the most possible number of impulse buyers and browsers can be tempted to purchase a copy of The book for the bonus of having a ‘signed’ copy. It is also very gratifying when loyal readers, hearing of your visit, come especially to get a new book signed or just to chat. A writer is a solitary person, despite the image generally projected about wining, dining and conniving with fellow authors. Consequently getting to meet the people who read your books provides very salutary feed-back.
That morning several unusual incidents alleviated the awkwardness of sitting, in wait, as Timmy puts it, for victims. I have to presume that I have a capable air about me, pen in hand, for two ladies in their middle years came up to me and inquired, rather starchily, what had happened to Stouffer’s. Before I remembered that the new Dalton Fifth Avenue store occupied the old Stouffer premises, the manager answered the question. There was a definite accusation of me in the expressions of the two disappointed lunchers. Then a smallish gentleman, in a raincoat with a rolled up newspaper under his arm and an umbrella in his other hand, approached the table, his expression anxious.
‘I can’t find my book,’ he told me plaintively but not accusatorily.
‘What are you looking for?’ the manager asked, taking over the burden.
He glanced at her as if not certain she had addressed him.
‘Oh, it’s medical.’
‘That would be downstairs.’
He trudged off.
A well dressed gentleman then appeared before us, looking confused. He demanded to know what I had done to Stouffer’s. Once again the manager intervened with the explanation that Stouffer’s had closed down.
‘But what am I to do?’ This time his soft southern accent was apparent. He kept looking over his shoulder, disturbed by the presence of so many books where he had expected tables and food.
‘Were you meeting someone?’
‘Of course not,’ he replied, somewhat irritable. ‘But Stouffer’s is the only food that agrees with me here.’ ‘Here’ came out ‘hyeah’ and his condemnation of New York restaurants was patent.
‘Schrafft’s . . .’
‘Schrafft’s?’ He gave her the most disgusted stare for her impudent suggestion and then, inclining his head to me as if exonerating my part in the disappearance of his favorite eatery, he swept away.
We were stifling our amusement when our medical book friend returned, his anxiety bordering total desolation.
‘I can’t find my book.’
I caught the emphasis before the others. ‘You mean, you’ve published a medical book?’
‘Yes, yes. And I was told it was on display here. Today is its publication day!’ He was woebegone.
I quite understood his dejection.
‘Now, then,’ said the manager soothingly, stepping around to him. ‘I’m sure we’ll find it on the new books rack. If you’ll just come with me, Mr. . . .’
I don’t recall his name but his expression had definitely lightened at the manager’s helpfulness and he trailed off after her with all the confidence of the found child.
My hour of autographing was nearly over when a woman came dashing in, and straight up to me at my table.
‘Oh, dear, have you seen Marjorie? She promised to meet me at Stouffer’s but you’ve moved it so I don’t know where she will . . .’ She glanced past me just then, ‘Marjorie! Do you mean to tell me you’ve been in here looking at books all the time I’ve been out there . . .’ She hauled her delinquent friend away.
‘I am not going to be lunching you at Stouffer’s,’ my editor informed me and we all broke up laughing.
I had a predictable, if competent interview at a radio station, signing a book for the producer’s thirteen year old son whose birthday was coming soon. When I got back to Suzie’s, she was out, so I had time to write up the incident in my ‘brains’. That’s what Timmy calls my diary and I must say it has proved invaluable to record such trivia on a tour. I did two school libraries the next day and a Literary Circle. Fortunately no one insisted that I look at their manuscript. Sam had finally got that across. And that was that for New York City.
The next day I took Amtrak down to Washington where the tour would start in earnest with a two day stint of library groups at morning coffees, lunchtime salads and afternoon teas. The first morning I had an early TV appearance and, as I had not yet caught up to American time, I wanted to get a good night’s rest. I shared a cab — a Washington habit — with a French speaking couple who were left off at Watergate Hotel. It’s silly of me to ascribe to a mere building the faults that occur within it but I was very glad to drive away from that infamous area.
As I was checking in, a very attractive woman in a green velvet pants suit was arguing with the other reservations clerk. She was certain that her agent had booked her a room which she needed only for the night. As I was handed my room key, she was told the price of the accommodation. ‘I want to sleep in it for one night, not purchase it outright!’ she exclaimed with justifiable exasperation.
I had great sympathy for her for she looked tired and strained. I had been in her situation when you long for the solitude of a room and a soothing bath. Her comment was good enough to be inscribed in my ‘brains’ which I did as I enjoyed a leisurely meal in my room in front of the TV, and then phoned Tim to bring him up to date. I never call him from Suzie’s as she expects me to tell her ‘all.’
I was more than a little amused, therefore, to find the lady at the TV station the next morning. She vaguely recognized me as people accustomed to being in public notice will do: I got a pleasant half smile and the raising of eyebrows acknowledging the fleeting memory. She looked considerably rested so she must have taken the room, whatever the cost. While waiting to be called, we exchanged pleasantries, avoiding names. I watched her segment of the Breakfast Program and she was promoting her autobiography of years spent in Hollywood. I heard her name and I should have jotted it down but I didn’t and it had escaped my overloaded ‘forgettery’ by the time I got back to my hotel room.
By the third lecture on the first day, I began to worry about repeating myself too glibly. You fall into a sort of pattern, answering questions, fending off others, and sometimes you neglect to make the one point you know you should have emphasized. At the end of the second day, however, I was back into the rhythm and as I relaxed on the train to Philadelphia, I could tote up the day’s events in my ‘brains’ and not feel any twinges of omissions. In Philadelphia I had another two days of library dates, luncheons, radio and a newspaper interview with the children’s editor of the Sunday paper. Then I was on the plane to Boston.
Boston’s a good town for me. I like what the City Fathers have done to refurbish a town which I remember from college days as scruffy and impossibly dowdy. Mind you, they’ve done little about the clapboard in grey or the wretched mud-brown which they insist on painting residences. I could be blindfolded and suddenly released in the outskirts of Boston and recognize it instantly. Still Boston has lobster dinners and two of my closest college friends so I could anticipate a good time: one working day before the Sunday off with Jean and Pota.
After Boston, there was the pleasure of seeing my most favorite children’s librarian, Alma Fairing, in Pittsburgh. Any engagements in that city are spiced with her scintillating wit, association with her marvelous family and gallant husband. If she hadn’t been Alma and my favorite librarian. . . .
Once I left Pittsburgh, the tour would descend into 50-minute evening plane trips to the next city,
village or hamlet in which I was to speak, dazzle, charm new readers and gratify old friends. By Detroit, I had to list in my ‘brains’ that my digestion was showing the effects of travel. And I kept arriving at each new hotel to find BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID being shown on TV. ‘Who is that guy?’ seemed to be the cue line for my entrance to my night’s hotel room. The coincidence was a joke which only I could enjoy. It would take too long to explain it all to each successive bellboy. I noted the ‘haunting’ in my ‘brains’.
Chicago was freezing cold with its icy wind about to cut the unwary in two. I’m used to wind in Ireland. I keep saying that I live in hurricane alley with Gale Force 8 and 9 winds a matter of daily occurrence. Chicago’s wind has its own ferocity and knife edge. I despise O’Hare airport. And on the way through the security arch, they stopped me for my knitting needles! Chicago was also marred by an odious man who had ogled me through my solitary dinner in the hotel and before I could avoid him, wanted me to join him in the bar ‘for drinks . . . and afters.’ His ‘afters’ were fully explained by his leer. I made a majestic retreat and then wrote a full description of him into my ‘brains’. The next time I needed a sleazy character I’d use him. He’d never recognize himself from an accurate description: that sort never do. When that was inscribed to my satisfaction, I flipped on the TV and got ‘Who is that guy?’ I flicked it off and phoned Tim. He was in one of his funny moods and no TV show could compare with my son in a high good humor.
Milwaukee, Minneapolis, St. Louis and Kansas City rolled past and I had to spend my 50-minute flights making entries in my diary before I forgot relevant and useful details which would make the next tour easier. That is, if there was a next tour. I was seriously doubting that when we took off from Kansas City for Denver.
I phoned Tim every night, to keep my reality, and in Kansas City, I had the oddest sensation that there was something he was dying to tell me, but was held back.
I turned to my knitting on the Denver flight, as much to soothe my travel-logged spirit as to ignore the ominous clouds through which the airplane passed. One thing about air travel, you’re apt to see the sun for a while, just so you know what it does look like in wintry March.
Our landing at Denver was not exactly perilous although the snow clung to the viewports. But if you have been flying as much as I had been, you can detect the subtle differences in a bumpy good landing and a skiddy dangerous one. The crew were all smiles as they disembarked us, advising us to wait in the lounge for flight information. As delayed flights are the inevitable consequence of nature’s lofty disdain for Progress, I settled myself down in a corner of the lounge with my knitting, to observe my fellow travellers held in durance vile by a blizzard. There was a long queue at the phones. I had no one to call and no urgencies to resolve.
3
‘DROPPED ANY GOOD stitches lately?’ a quiet male voice asked.
I was so startled that I dropped some, gasping, looking up and letting the knitting bag slide from my lap all at the same moment.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,’ the man said, swiftly bending to pick the bag up off the floor. He began to brush it off, because the floor was dampened by people dripping snow and mud as they prowled restlessly about the airport lounge.
‘Not to worry,’ I said, holding my hand out to retrieve my belongings. I smiled at him because his face was somewhat familiar although I couldn’t place where on God’s green earth we’d met. I was reminded of my encounter with the lady in the green velvet pants suit although the positions were reversed. And he was distinguished looking, with his silvered hair and an attractively unsilvered moustache. In my perusal of my fellow travellers, I had noticed him pacing the corridors, waiting impatiently for his turn at the phone, like everyone else stranded unexpectedly in snowbound Denver.
‘Is there much damage?’ he asked, settling into the seat beside me as he handed back the bag.
‘No,’ I assured him, laughing at his contrite expression and racking my brain to think where I’d seen him before as I quickly caught up the dropped stitches.
‘You do that deftly. I’ve been admiring your skill for some time now.’ He grinned with all the ease of long-established acquaintanceship.
‘Have you now?’ I demurred. I longed for a chance to pull out my ‘brains’ and see if I could joggle my faulty memory.
‘Yes. I can perceive that this is more than knit-one-purl-one. Ah,’ and he’d taken the rib edge of the sweater front and held it out. ‘Arran!’ He sounded surprised, and fingered the wool. ‘And báinan, too.’
‘You’re Irish?’ He’d neither the brogue nor the cultivated English of the well-educated Irish but few American males would know that the oiled wool was called báinan.
‘No, but I’ve travelled there frequently.’
‘Do I know you from Dublin then?’ I asked, determined to establish his identity.
‘Dublin?’ Half-way to a frown, his eyebrows paused and his expression cleared. His eyes began to twinkle. They were a kind of serge blue, I noticed in the all too-glaring light of the overhead fluorescents. ‘No, we haven’t met in Dublin.’
‘Please, I’ve met so many people in the past three weeks, I plead overload.’
‘Does it distress you that you can’t place our . . . ah . . . introduction?’
‘Well, yes, sort of. I mean, it’s good public relations to remember names and I’ve a good score so far this trip . . .’
‘I wouldn’t want to ruin that.’ His eyes twinkled more and a smile tugged at the corners of his well-shaped mouth which the moustache outlined rather than hid. He was enjoying my discomfiture.
‘To tell the truth and shame the devil, I can’t remember where we met.’
‘I’m the anonymous sort,’ he said, feigning petulance. I gave him a very severe look for he had a strong face, attractive rather than handsome, but eye-catching with his coloring.
‘Not with that hair, those brows and that coffee-strainer . . .’
He laughed at my acerbic tone, crossing his legs and settling himself more comfortably.
‘Maybe if you knit a few rows, it’ll all come back. When I first saw you, you were just starting it.’
‘You were on the plane from Dublin?’
‘No,’ and he looked abashed. ‘Not from Dublin. But this is surely the front . . .’ for I was obviously dividing to make the neckline.
I had to trace back the progress of this sweater. ‘I did start the front on the plane from Philadelphia. Were you on the Pittsburgh flight?’
He nodded, as pleased as I was with the recognition. He leaned forward then, extending his hand. ‘I’ll have to confess: we have never been formally introduced. We seem to have had the same itinerary.’
With relief I shook his hand, my memory now dredging up a tall, faintly familiar man going through the Milwaukee security check just ahead of me.
‘I don’t think you saw me out of Philadelphia. You were, as usual, knitting. I had the aisle seat in front of you. You were ahead of me going through the security arch in Chicago. Remember? They held you up for the knitting needles.’
‘Yes, but what they expected me to be smuggling along with my knitting, I can’t guess. Explosives don’t come . . .’ and I held up my hands a needle-length apart.
‘You don’t look the type to be knitting either,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘Sweetening up the husband with a hand-knit?’
‘No husband.’
‘Boyfriend?’
‘At my age? Unlikely!’
He gave me a mock-wicked smirk. ‘No lover?’
I laughed at his incorrigibility. ‘No, I do it for commercial reasons only. Knitting, I mean.’ At my hurried qualifier, for he had a devilish quick mind and a quicker gleam of humor, he laughed again. Someone trying to nap across the aisle from us grumbled and irritably shifted position.
‘No, I knit,’ I said in a firm no-nonsense tone, ‘because I enjoy working with my hands. I’ve a friend who runs a small boutique in Enni
skerry. She buys anything I’ll make for her. Knitting’s like a tranquillizer. The RAF pilots were encouraged to knit argyle socks during the War, you know, to relax.’
‘I didn’t know.’ He wasn’t teasing me. His attention was focused on my hands because I’d picked up all the dropped stitches and progressed further in the pattern. ‘How do you remember when to switch?’
I glanced down at the row. ‘The pattern has a simple progression in each stitch.’
‘Do you always work the same pattern?’
This was a rather absurd conversation for two intelligent people to be having, when one of them is a man, but it would pass the time in a snowbound airport lounge.
‘Rarely. That’s one of the joys of knitting Arran: the combinations are infinite.’
I was cabling just then, knitting into the back to twist which isn’t as difficult as it looks.
‘You must have eyes in your fingers,’ he said with exasperation. ‘What’s this pattern?’
‘Lobster claw. This is the Tree of Life: that zigzag is sort of the ups and downs of marriage . . .’ The subtle alteration of his mouth and the slight narrowing of his eyes suggested to me that his marriage was probably in stress just then. ‘The real Arran sweater tells a tale: in the west country each family had a distinctive pattern. One way to identify drowned fishermen was by the sweater pattern.’
‘Grisly!’ He affected a shudder.
I agreed. ‘Some patterns are for good luck, too.’
Stitch In Snow Page 2