When I Was Young and In My Prime
Page 7
Lois King, UCW, on the tea-pouring incident
Once, before there was any kind of diagnosis, before even any kind of alarm—although who knows what she felt, she never said and, to be honest, it didn’t occur to me to ask her until it was too late and she couldn’t have said even if she’d wanted to, though I don’t suppose she’d have said much, she never was one to complain—well anyway, she was pouring tea, looking right at the cup and spout, her one hand on the lid and, well, she just kept pouring. It was a UCW meeting, I seem to remember. She was chairing of course, but I don’t believe she was talking. In fact, I don’t think anyone was talking at the time. Or, if they were, they stopped as soon as the cup began to overflow. In fact, I seem to remember it felt like a chain reaction of sorts. The cup filling and beginning to brim, and the hush in the room rising in the same way. I remember thinking it looked lovely, actually, a kind of amber fountain, spilling over the edges of the cup into the saucer, then over the saucer into the tray, steaming. I remember thinking, if only the cup handle weren’t there it would look so symmetrical. Now doesn’t that just take the cake? You see, the curious thing was that we all just sat there watching her pour and pour until someone, I think it was Eleanor Davies, snapped out of it and said her name. Mary. I remember how gently Eleanor said it. And I remember she looked up and stopped pouring, both at the same time, as if her chin and the spout were attached by a string, like a marionette. Only not from above if you see what I mean.
Well. I admit it was awkward then for a moment. As if a spell were broken or a dish or—oh something awkward, I don’t know. Eleanor got up, helped her put the teapot down and led her by the elbow through the kitchen into the front room. The rest of us still sitting there. Of course it didn’t take long for someone to break the silence, change the subject you know, and then we all gradually started to chat again. I remember we talked about that new bylaw, the one that says cats ought to be put on leashes of all things. None of us referred to the incident, except, when I slipped out to the kitchen with the tray to clean it up a bit, Margaret George followed. She touched me on my forearm with those everlasting cold hands of hers and asked me in a whisper what did I make of it. I didn’t have time to answer though, because just then Eleanor and Mary came back in and everything went on as usual. Mind you, I could tell everyone was a little shaken. When you get to be our age, it’s all a little too close to home.
Honest to goodness I never saw anything to beat it. That woman would push her plate out in front of her—just like this—and hunker down—look I’ll show you. Like this. On her elbows! Not a word of a lie! And then she’d shovel the food into her mouth, not lifting at all. Look. And she held the fork like this—for all the world like an oar! Just like this, not even lifting her arm one bit. Not a word of a lie. Well. I couldn’t eat at the same table with her. Had to take my meal afterward standing at the sideboard in the kitchen. Now let that be a lesson to you. Honest to goodness.
things that still have not left her
1 chewing
with her mouth closed
2 disdain
for the strength of my grandfather’s
coffee
3 the ability to sound out words
from whatever’s on the coffee table—articles on
bear attacks in Reader’s Digest,
sexual assaults in the local paper,
the sanctuary roof leaking in the church bulletin—
each word falling apart behind her the moment
she moves onto the next
4 the ability to return a compliment
for example: when Uncle Nick says,
What a nice dress you have on Mom
she says in return, And yours is nice too
5 sight-reading the melody line from sheet music
when put in front of a piano, she can still
play the right
hand
6 smiling
when kissed
The kiss James gave me on his way out to give a guitar lesson this morning was different somehow. A hint of a stranger. I wanted badly to know what gave it this flavour of newness. A certain restraint? A new tongue technique? Something in his bearing said, I could surprise you. His hand, on its way to my back, brushed my breast only glancingly, almost as if by accident, as if there were lines we hadn’t yet crossed together. His other hand holding his guitar case. Something in the way he kept a slight distance made me feel unexplored—curious and worthy of curiosity.
To hold back. Not say. Leave untouched. Camp out nearby. Admire from a distance. Go to the edge but not enter. Heidegger’s pilgrimage to the Greek island of Delos: when he finally got there he found he’d imagined the sacred site so clearly and so often and the sight of it from the boat so matched and even surpassed his imaginings, that he couldn’t bring himself to disembark.
To not get off the ferry. To not set foot on shore. To stay at sea.
We need more kisses like that one.
Lois King, on the chrysanthemums
I think for a long time none of us admitted even to ourselves what was happening. Then there came a point you couldn’t deny it anymore. It was in the spring when it dawned on me. Or the summer. When do mums bloom? She brought chrysanthemums that day. From their garden, of course. Peter always had such a lovely garden. I passed by there the other day, by their old place on Silver Street. Such a shame it’s all gone to seed now. Any-hoo, I remember it was a UCW meeting and I was hosting—it was my turn. Peter must have dropped her off, but she didn’t even knock. I just happened to open the door because I’d burnt the orange loaf and I wanted to let in a little fresh air. Lord knows how long she’d been standing there with that big bunch of yellow chrysanthemums in her arms, the ends all wrapped in damp paper towels. I could tell right away by the look on her face when I opened the door and saw her standing on the front stoop with an armful of mums, her forehead tight and her eyes on the doorbell, well, I could tell that she was having one of her bad days. That’s what we’d been calling it, she and I, her bad days. So before taking her inside I just stepped out onto the porch with her and took the flowers and gave her a little hug with one arm and whispered in her ear, Just try to keep a stiff upper lip, Mary—it’ll be fine, just fine. I don’t know how I knew what to say. Normally I’m plain useless in those kinds of situations. I clam right up. But somehow the words just came to me. She looked at me with a kind of—relief. A kind of devoted relief, and we went inside, arm in arm. I remember thinking it was the kind of look you get from a hurt child or a dog or a man who’s just fallen in love with you. That was when I knew she was never going to be the same. She sort of stuck nearby me that day and didn’t say much, but when she did it wasn’t anything out of order. I remember when Peter came to pick her up, I made a point of praising his chrysanthemums.
Peter Peter pumpkin
eater Mary Mary quite
contrary had a wife and
how
does your garden grow?
When Mary was still home, she’d soak her teeth in a water glass overnight. Had all her real teeth pulled years ago—dentist in Brantford said it’d be easier in the long run. On nights I couldn’t sleep, I used to look at her beside me sometimes. Sleeping away there. Toothless. Face sunken like a landslide. Whole landscape changed. Middle-of-the-night thoughts, you know.
Lost her teeth at the nursing home last week. Nurse on duty just shrugged her skinny shoulders and told me, You keep valuables here at your own risk. Bitches, all of ’em. Want to know how much I pay every month to the goddamn crooks who own the place? Orientals now. Well, let’s just say it put me in a state. Worst part of it was nobody willing to give me a bloody straight answer as to what I should do. Had me walking around all week debating this way and that whether or not to replace the things. Costs hundreds to replace a whole set of dentures. Hundreds. I called Ruth long distance and she wasn’t any help. Ran into Lois King in the grocery store on Thursday, and she wouldn’t say a thing either, not even when I asked stra
ight out, Do you think she even knows the goddamn difference? All of them just shrugging their shoulders. It’s up to you, Dad. Whatever you think is best, Peter. By the end of the week, I caught myself talking right out loud about it as I was digging up the glads. Christ, I said to myself, all the food in the place is mush anyhow—the bastards are afraid of being sued for choking—what does she need teeth for? But then I’d walk the block and a half to visit her and her face was a different face, not hers, not her own you know—more like a goddamn natural disaster than a face—and I’d end up going home early so I wouldn’t have to look at her anymore.
Then this morning I woke up even earlier than usual. Hours until the light. I was staring at the whatsisname. Group of Seven man. Lawren Harris. The Lawren Harris picture in the bedroom. The one of the iceberg or whatever the hell it is. The one I never liked. Always thought it was too cold, but she had a soft spot for it. All I can say is, staring at that painting, something came clear in me. Just like that. It was like I’d been looking at a small part of the thing, and now all of a sudden I saw the whole of it. I don’t know. All I can say is the hours I had to wait then until the dentist’s office opened at nine o’clock and the receptionist finally answered the phone, well, I’d be lying if I didn’t say they were some of the longest hours I’ve lived.
Peter read somewhere the other day that you’ve got to be careful about the sugar water in your hummingbird feeder
—it can ferment in the sun if you leave it too long, and then you’ve got a crew of drunken hummingbirds on your hands. Fancy that. I suppose you could even kill them. Now wouldn’t that be a crying shame? A crying shame. Peter was reading an article in his gardening magazine the other day, and do you know what? They say that if you leave the sugar water in your hummingbird feeder too long it will ferment. Into alcohol. Think of it. You’d have a crew of drunken hummingbirds on your hands. A crying shame.
When Mom told me on the phone about them losing Grandma’s teeth at the nursing home I remembered that someone once told me if you dream of your teeth falling out, it means you’re feeling out of control.
When I said that to Mom, she hung up on me. Actually hung up on me.
It was bizarre, but I have to admit, for some reason I felt sort of proud of her.
I phoned her one Sunday
She phoned me the next
I phoned her one Sunday
ThenI don’t know when
I just phoned every Sunday
For the life of me
I don’t know when
the song of the
red-breasted,
white-throated
auctioneer
HEYANDwho’llgimme50forthewashboardhere
who’llgimmeandgo50andgo50Ihave50doIhear52
dollarabiddollarabiddollarabidnow52Ihear52
doIhear55,55who’llgimme55Ihave55,60overhere
HEYwillyabiddollarabiddollarabid60doIhear65
who’llgimme65forthewashboardfolksnicewashboard
makemusicwithyourlaundryfolks65,65doIhear65,62
okay62Ihave62overinthecorner here once twice
65Ihave65hey’llyabiddollarabiddollarabidwhat’llya
bid65 once twice ma’am?no? once twice
SOLD
to the lady with her husband’s hand over her mouth
Dear Mr. Phipps,
Your letter was not addressed to me, it was addressed to my wife who I am sorry to say is afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease, which I am sure you probably have heard of. She’s gotten to be so far gone she is not able to manage our letters and affairs anymore, so that is why I opened your letter that was addressed to her and read it. I am sure you won’t mind.
My wife must have gotten her name on many a list over the last few years so that I am almost every day opening letters that are asking her for money, and I have just about reached my limit. I have taken to pitching most all of them now, although that can be a tricky business too because if you don’t open them you never know if maybe it was a bill or some such important thing like that. I am writing to tell you that I will not be sending any more money because as I said I have reached my limit and have moved my wife to the Home, and that costs a pretty penny and leaves not too much left over. However one idea occurred to me the other day as I was turning the compost heap, a heavy job. I have always been a strong man but my body is not what it used to be as I am now eighty-seven years of age and I am finding it hard to keep up with the work around the place this spring, especially the garden. I was thinking about all the letters and about why should I be giving money to help all these other folks when I was giving all my life, a regular churchgoer and always ready to lend a hand, and now here I am in need of a bit of help these days myself. Not that I want to go around feeling sorry for myself, but all the same. Then I was recalling one of the letters had something to say about orphans and right then and there I dropped the shovel and went inside and went rooting around in the wastebasket until I found that letter and sure enough it turned out to be from yourself at the Covenant House, a home for runaways and homeless youths, as it states in your letter.
I guess you can see what I’m about here. It seems to me Mr. Phipps to make good sense instead of sending money I can’t spare that I help by offering room and board to one of your young lads in exchange for some help around this place on his part. Even when my wife was able to cook I used to take a turn in the kitchen now and then, and being a male nurse after I sold the farm I have the nurse’s training which includes a course on nutrition and all the women nurses were amazed at how I could make muffins from scratch, so I am a good cook and I could offer a small weekly sum of money, which I don’t think he would find objectionable. It may not be precisely what a young man has in mind to live with an old man like myself and I am the first to admit I can be stubborn sometimes, but on the whole I don’t think it would be all bad and as I said I have plenty of work to be done around here and it’s always good for a man to work hard when he is young and in his prime, so I could probably teach him a thing or two and I expect we could get along tolerably well, two bachelors. Perhaps you should choose a quiet one, as I live a quiet life, especially now that my wife Mary Friesen is in the Home. When I owned the farm I used to get hired men every spring from the government employment office and they always were sending me the foreign ones as I speak German, Ukrainian, Russian and I can get by in Dutch as it is so similar to the Low German dialect of my Mennonite forefathers. So I am familiar with being a good boss, I was always fair, all the pickers always wanted to work the Friesen farm come harvest.
So if you will stop sending me your letters and send me instead one of your boys I would be much obliged. Please write soon as it would be nice to get the boy in time to help with the summer yard and garden work.
Thanking you, I am yours truly,
Peter Friesen
Grandpa fell up the stairs in July and down the stairs in August.
For several springs now he must have planted the sugar snap peas with the awareness that it could be the last time. He loves to get the timing right. Outwit the frosts. Get the buggers in there so they’re high as his hip by early June, high as his shoulder by late June and bearing six-quart baskets every other day by the first week in July. He used to give baskets of peas to the nurses at the hospital. Now he gives them to the staff at the nursing home. He still gives them to the ladies who come to swim three times a week even though Grandma isn’t there anymore. Eat ’em raw, he says, sure! Sugarsnaps. They’re sugarsnap peas not snow peas. Sugarsnap. Go ahead. Try one.
He orders the seeds early. I imagine he and Grandma used to sit down together with the seed catalogue on an afternoon in February, the sun coming in the back window, both of them with an utter and unconsidered faith in the coming of spring.
So for a while now he’s probably planted knowing it could be the last time. I imagine this brings the focus up sharp—each pea poked into its hole with his thick forefinger, the meticulous stringing of the trellis, the knots harder
to fashion each year.
This spring too. Each pea, each knot, sharp, noticed. But maybe this year there’s also a new feeling—a heaviness, a background worry. Let’s say by the second day of planting he’s conscious of it and is trying to put his finger on the feeling. By afternoon he has it: at the same time that he’s worried this will be the last time, he’s also worried it won’t be the last time.
He’s always pictured himself dying on his own two feet—keeling over in his garden, falling back into the raspberry bushes with a hat on his head and a hoe in his hand. He’s always assumed that’s how it would be. Ever since the heart attack ten years ago. He’s been almost proud of it, as if the heart attack was a pure expression of his personality. Now, suddenly, he’s afraid he won’t manage it. That he’ll end up in the Home like the others. Not for me, he’s always told himself. Now it strikes him for the first time that it’s not for him to decide.
He leaves the hoe and packet of radish seeds in the middle of the row and walks to the back door of the house, takes off his hat and steps inside to lie down. It is the first time in his life he’s laid down indoors in the middle of the afternoon for no good reason.
The next day he’s up early, making himself a big bowl
of cream of wheat. He dresses himself, whistling all the
while, in his thick coveralls and work gloves and the heavy canvas jacket from Massey Ferguson. He walks out into the garden, walks right by the seed packet and hoe all wet