Stitch In Snow

by Anne McCaffrey

  ‘We did, but not about us.’

  ‘Aw, don’t get your knickers in a twist . . .’ Just then a customer came in the shop which got me off the hook.

  Discipline was still the operational word. I disciplined myself to the typewriter by nine-thirty each morning, even if I didn’t manage to write much. I caught up on all my correspondence, my filing, my bookkeeping which was a bit of a headache with all the translation of pounds into dollars and back. I could have wished for Tim’s calculator or did you call something that sophisticated a pocket computer?

  I wandered around the Spring Show, looking dutifully at all the exhibits and seeing most of the pony classes, because of the children. I get some interesting insights at such events, into the kids and the parents. And the ponies are so gorgeous, all dainty stepping and Thelwellian. Of course, DJ was a snow bunny, but I wondered if he’d be pony-crazy if he ever got to Ireland.

  Discipline your mind, Dana Jane. DJ!

  I caught sight of my face in the mirrors backing one exhibit. Objectively I’m not unpretty. My face bones are good, my complexion has improved with these years in a misty, moisty climate. But, face it, Dana Jane, I told myself cruelly, guys Dan’s age would look at gals Mairead’s age. Then I envisioned a confrontation between those two and decided they would probably fight like hell. Yet what did I have that would recommend me to someone like Daniel Jerome Lowell?

  What was that old New England saying? ‘The Cabots speak only to Lowells, and the Lowells speak only to God.’ No, I probably had the family names mixed up. But I’d always been amused by the scene evoked: tiered levels with fewer and fewer seats higher up, until the highest two levels where sat the primly clothed Cabots speaking in quiet Back Bay tones to the Lowells above them. And the loftily enthroned Lowells turning with well-bred, but not obsequious, courtesy to the misty-faced figure of the Almighty. Of course, you had no clue as to God’s opinion of this chain of command.

  My whimsy restored me and I applied conscious discipline to enjoy the rest of my outing that day. There’d been one lad in particular, on a black Welsh pony with bright inquisitive eyes and a curious nose. The lad had had a shock of blond hair and bright inquisitive eyes and the expressions on pony and rider had been so much alike that I marveled at the match. They’d won a fourth in the working hunter pony and well deserved I felt.

  10

  TIM GOT HOME! The house was full of noise. Mairead and I met him at Dublin Airport — so did his best friends. I’ll never know how the seven of them fit into the Mini. He was tired from the trip for he can never sleep on planes. He was jubilant at his reception. So was I!

  He’d lugged home twenty-five of his favorite records as much because he wanted to have his friends hear them as because he didn’t want his cousins (he stored his things between terms at my sister’s) to scratch his albums. He’d his guitar in the patiently and wildly tape-mended cardboard original case. I ought to buy him a proper one for his birthday this year. He’d only one suitcase and his portable typewriter.

  ‘I was overweight, Mom,’ he announced joyfully after hugging my ribs in and rubbing my face with whiskery cheeks. ‘Trish’s coming in ten days. Just ten days! Mom, and you know what, I got away with 15 kilos overweight for only $15. And,’ Tim chortled, ‘here . . .’

  He threw me his ski jacket and I nearly dropped it. It weighed a ton.

  ‘What on earth?’

  I felt the lining, crammed with objects that felt like an aerosol can, shoes, a huge wad of something soft that turned out to be a pair of trousers and two pairs of socks, the calculator in one pocket and two packs of playing cards in another . . .

  ‘You must have had twenty pounds in this alone!’

  ‘Right!’ and he turned with some urgent questions to Eamonn and Tich. Demanded a kiss from Sheevaun and Mary and Meg and Babs, and socked Pat on the chin. Then he made a big thing of catching Mairead and kissing her.

  ‘One! I told you one was all you’d get from me. You’ve got other girls here to salute. Bother them!’

  ‘Say, Mom, can I drive home? I got my license.’

  ‘Not yet. You’re in Ireland, remember?’

  ‘Thank God, thank God!’ And he salaamed.

  ‘And . . . you haven’t slept all night by the look of you . . . you drive later . . . when I’ve had a chance to change my insurance coverage.’

  ‘Now, Mom, I’m . . .’

  ‘I know you’re a good careful driver . . . but later.’

  We crammed four people in the back of the Peug, with Mairead beside me, supporting the guitar case. Tim had managed to get Sheevaun on his lap with Mary beside him and Eamonn grinning as third. The trip home was devoted to catching up on all the gossip, with plans for Trish’s entertainment (evidently Tim had informed all his friends of her imminent arrival), questions about mutual friends, generally catching up the threads of his life in Ireland.

  We dropped the girls off in Blackrock, and then Eamonn at Shankill. As we reached the Enniskerry turn-off, Tim sat up, eyes on the road, waiting for the second turn that would give him a sight of our home. Our home. We hadn’t been in Ireland but four years and yet this place seemed more homey than any town in the States: a fact that had impinged on my consciousness, too. I could experience Tim’s feelings keenly for I’d felt the same way on my return.

  I made a decent Irish breakfast for the three of us and we sat for several hours talking about everything until I saw Tim struggling to keep his eyes open.

  ‘Look, if your gang is coming back here for tea, you’d better catch up on your sleep or you’ll be no good to them,’ I told him and shooed him off to his room.

  He made a token struggle but went off. I followed in a few moments, to tuck him in, a ritual of his return even now he was nineteen.

  I was planting a kiss on his forehead, when he caught my hand.

  ‘You left Bethlehem too soon, Mom. You missed him.’

  ‘Missed him?’ My innards jolted about. So much for discipline.

  ‘Yeah, Daniel Jerome.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He got into Bethlehem Monday evening, Mom. He was extremely uptight that you’d already left.’ Tim’s eyes looked deeply into mine. ‘You know, I’d thought I’d punch him in the jaw if I ever met him for getting you in that mess . . .’

  ‘He wasn’t at fault . . .’

  ‘Ohho!’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Tim . . .’

  ‘But Mom, I couldn’t. I liked him. And you shouldn’t have left so fast.’

  ‘Oh? I had no reason to hang about. Whatever possessed him to come to Bethlehem like that?’

  Tim gave me one of his shrewd knowing looks. ‘Could be he felt he owed you something?’

  ‘For telling the truth?’

  Tim arched one eyebrow. ‘The time, place and circumstances do make a powerful difference.’

  ‘Perhaps. You get some sleep, now, Timothy Raymond Lovell.’

  ‘I think it was damned white of him to come in person.’

  ‘I agree. I certainly didn’t expect it.’

  ‘That’s obvious.’ Tim smashed his pillow into submission and flipping on his left side, emphasized his polite wish to follow my original advice and sleep.

  I really wanted to find out more details about Dan’s visit with Tim. I’d a hundred questions that needed answers, like how had Dan looked? What did he say? Where was he going? How was DJ? Did DJ get the books? (Did he like them?) Had Tim really liked Dan? Yes, Tim had said he did. And he hadn’t clobbered him. Not that I would have thought Tim capable of bashing anyone about. So I left Tim to sleep and, as I turned back into the living room, there was Mairead. From the grin on her face, I realized she had overheard the conversation. When she raised one eyebrow, I also realized that my expression gave away my feelings.

  ‘So he came buckety-buckety to see you and you, you bloody ijit, weren’t there. Tsck, tsck!’

  ‘Oh, shut up.’

  ‘Did Tim mention if he liked the sweater? No, so
rry, he wouldn’t have got it if you’d only mailed it that day. How far from Bethlehem is Denver?’

  ‘Half a country.’

  ‘Wow!’

  I was sick with the thought of having missed him and I didn’t need Mairead’s wise remarks. She caught that, too, and giving my arm a reassuring squeeze, she announced that she had to open the shop, the conquering hero/prodigal’s return notwithstanding. She’d be in later. Maybe we’d all go out for a jar.

  It was hard not to wake Tim with the assorted questions that sprang to mind to bother me. If Dan had seen Tim, and Tim had liked him, surely Dan could have got my Irish address and written me? More than likely, having made this expensive gesture, and found me departed, he’d salved his own conscience in the matter. I would not dwell on the possible motivation of Daniel Jerome. But it was also curious that Tim had not mentioned Dan’s visit in his letters. I’d had three from Tim before he left Lehigh and after Dan’s trip. That was odd, indeed. Such reflection robbed me of the passive content I had so narrowly achieved.

  I went to the garden and weeded the vegetable rows as penance.

  With Tim back, the house began to ring with a loudlyset stereo, the gruff tones of young males raised in friendly fierce debate, the mutted tones of Irish girls who surely have the loveliest speaking voices in the world. The blacktopped parking area was crammed with an assortment of motorbikes, respectable cars and chopper pushbikes. Now, however, when I ran out of coffee or milk or bread, there was a cheerful messenger service. And now, also, since most of the young people were employed. I didn’t always pay for what was fetched.

  Tim had had three very close friends during his years at NewPark Comprehensive: Eamonn and Tich had gone on to University and Pat had entered the family soft goods business. Beyond those three, Tim had a bevy of less intimate acquaintances who apparently were quite willing to make our house their rallying spot. (To give them their due, I’d been approached often during Tim’s absence by the boys, asking if they could do any jobs for me.)

  If the house was active until wee morning hours, it was also quiet until I had managed to drag Tim from his bed. He has relatively few faults, but rising belatedly out of his downy couch on what he considers his holiday is the prime one. Waking Tim takes roughly three hours, and four cups of coffee, generally consumed cold after much nagging. For particularly urgent matters, a cup of water must be poised in a threatening position above his innocently sleeping face. One douching is all that is needed per week.

  I had saved tasks for him, like coping with the weeds at the back of the garden, painting the windowsills, inside and out, where the unkind sun had baked cracks and blisters, recementing certain of the garden steps which frost had loosened, rehanging the garden gate which the winter gales had ripped off its hinges. I used to do such chores myself but with a strapping young man in the house, why should I?

  And I wanted them all done before Trish put in her much-discussed appearance or they’d never be accomplished. Tim had marked off the days until her arrival on his calendar, and as the time approached, there was great discussion as to the form her welcome should take. He had borrowed a bike from Eamonn’s sister. I had duly finished the tasks he’d given me, but there were other things to be done. Mapping an itinerary, youth hostel cards, awaiting the arrival of the surface-mailed camper foods. He’d had a bit of a job plugging them to his other hiking partners and then began to fret that the packages would not arrive in time. In the face of such anticipation, small wonder that my necessary chores were last on the list of his making.

  ‘June’s my holiday, Mom, so please, can’t I sleep?’

  ‘This is still May, pet. In June I’ll let you sleep.’

  ‘I’ll be camping in June.’

  ‘That’s your problem and your holiday. Now it is May.’

  He got everything done. He always does. And I always have to badger. I also always forget that I have to.

  Tim’s return had another benefit: I started writing again in earnest. As if the source of my inspiration, the touchstone of the ‘Timmy’ books, being in residence, sparked my inspiration.

  It was very therapeutic to get involved in the intricacies of a book again. It blotted out all other kinds of thinking. I was working at a fair clip, ten to fifteen pages a day, all about a tow-headed boy with a wide blue-eyed face and a black-haired pony with an equally ingenuous face. Then June arrived. And Trish.

  Before she moved into the house, I was prepared to resent her for interrupting my concentration with the necessities of hostessing. But Tim knew the way I worked and had evidently explained the process at length to Trish. She fitted into the household routine as if she’d always been there. In the five days Tim allowed her to get synchronized to Irish time before they took off on their bike hike, there was never a dirty cup, plate, spoon or pot in the kitchen. The laundry disappeared the moment it left the body and reappeared neatly ironed and hung, or folded carefully away. She was also not obtrusive in her efforts to help efficiently. I liked her very much, but I worried. She was obviously the sort who made marvelous wives for busy men, but she wanted a career in music. All right, so teaching a school or church group. Tim was just turned 20 and in no position to marry. Maybe they’d be happy to live together for a while? They certainly acted married to my prejudiced eye.

  One consolation occurred to me: youth wasn’t being wasted by Tim and Trish.

  She also got on extremely well with Tim’s friends. I presume that Tim had briefed her, or she had extraordinary recall, because she knew exactly who was who, and doing what from the first evening on.

  In those five days, my evenings were quiet — all too bloody quiet after three weeks of Tim and his friends. But they had to take Trish to every singing pub in the two counties. And that took some pub crawling.

  Trish had not brought her guitar since she allowed that Tim’s was a very good instrument. She had brought, in the lining of her anorak (I wonder who advised her on that?) nine skillion tape blanks. If the typewriter and computer were Tim’s favorite appendages, the tape recorder and mike were hers. I wondered if she slept with them. No, cancel that, Dana.

  The day before their scheduled departure was madsville: tents, the campers’ dehydrated and flash frozen, vacuum packed food arrived and were admired, haversacks, bike packs, boots, pans, all the paraphernalia occupied my living room. Everything was weighed so that no one carried more than was bearable. There was a huge argument between Trish and Tim because she wanted to carry as much weight as he: she was just as fit, wasn’t she, and not a scrawny wight. He was being a male chauvinist pig, that’s what, and she wouldn’t permit it. I think Sheevaun and Mary wished she’d be quiet about equality: they were quite willing for Eamonn and Pat to take the heavier loads.

  Tim solved the problem by saying Trish could carry their tent one day, and he the next.

  We had a huge feast and booze-up the night before, though it ended, on Tim’s orders, at midnight, to allow for a good sleep and an early start. They’d have to take it easy the first day, possibly the second, but an early start would mean they could have more rests the first day, to limber muscles unused during the winter. (After those hills in Lehigh, I wouldn’t have thought he needed any limbering so I think he meant Eamonn and the girls. I knew that Pat had biked to Belfield from Shankill every day.)

  Mairead and her new man came, on Tim’s invitation. Nick had done a good deal of cycling so he lit into the evening far better than Mairead, to judge by her bemused expression, had anticipated. Nick Hewlett was a sort of nondescript looking person until he smiled or until you had talked him up a bit. He tended to hold his own counsel, which must certainly recommend him to Mairead who resented gratuitous advice, but he knew a great many things about travelling in Ireland. Not surprising when I finally asked him what was his business and found he’d been chauffering for one of the big hire-car firms. He often took on assignments with film companies and he had a store of amusing tales to tell about driving this or that big name film star. H
e’d been assigned to the Rafferty’s Daughter crew so he had a good deal of pertinent information to give Trish, with names of people to look up for more than the average courtesies.

  ‘Where’d you find him?’ I asked Mairead on the side.

  ‘Let’s just say, we found each other.’

  ‘Did you know all that?’

  ‘No, but then,’ and she shot it back at me, ‘we didn’t talk about us.’

  That set both of us off laughing and neither of us could explain to the others.

  The evening was great fun and I tried not to think of tomorrow. As I’d dreaded, the house was all the more empty for their leaving. Tim’s a good organizer and despite my attempts to stuff everyone with pancakes enough to last the week, much less the first morning, they mounted their bikes, festooned with oddments of equipment at exactly seven o’clock. They looked mighty ungainly, bending over the handlebars, their backpacks bulging, as they pumped down the road, two by two, and out of my sight.

  Tim had promised to give me a shout now and then, so I’d know they hadn’t come to any grief. I’d that much to look forward to.

  I occupied that day with housecleaning: I couldn’t leave all the bits and pieces out or Mrs. Munday would hide them on Tuesday when she came and we’d never find anything. I also restocked the freezer which had been severely depleted.

  Mairead phoned me as I was sitting down to a lonely dinner of chicken wings, and she and Nick took me out for a few jars. Nick had enough stories to fill a book of ‘Timmy’s’ if such stories had been fit for young eyes. I’d never realized that film stars could be so . . . so . . . human?

  I crawled into bed that night, too well oiled to care about anything except closing my watering eyes. They could have a smokeless room in some of the bigger pubs, couldn’t they, for the people like me? They have smokeless sections of airplanes, don’t they?

  The next morning was worse. I marched myself back upstairs at nine-thirty and sat dutifully at the typewriter. The story absented itself as if Tim’s presence had been responsible for its progress and it was suspended until he returned in three weeks.