A Handful of Time (16 page)

Aunt Ginnie babbled on while Patricia sat in a stunned silence, unable to say a word.

16

“I
s your mother a movie star?” asked Maggie. Trevor caught a plate she was about to drop. “Dummie! She's on TV, not the movies. We keep telling you that, Maggie. But she's famous, isn't she, Patricia?”

They were doing the lunch dishes and listening for the car containing Uncle Doug and Patricia's mother to arrive. Patricia had backed out of going to the airport.

“I understand,” Aunt Ginnie reassured her. “Airports are so impersonal … you'd rather meet her here.” She seemed to think Patricia was as easygoing with her mother as Kelly was with her.

Guiltily, Patricia tried to suppress the resentment she felt about her mother's visit. It was spoiling everything. Her coming meant the end of the short period when she had almost been content. It also meant the end of the summer.

She wondered how her mother had managed to find time off from her busy schedule. What was she going to discuss? Her parents had probably reached some decisions now about some of the unpleasant things, like visiting rights, that Kelly's friends had to cope with. It would be so embarrassing, talking about it.

They heard Peggy's joyful bark, the one that meant, “My car's here!”

“Leave the dishes,” smiled Aunt Ginnie, hurrying through the kitchen with Rosemary. “They've arrived!”

Patricia lagged behind. She watched a tall, elegant figure, impeccably dressed in a beige linen suit, step out of the car and kiss Aunt Ginnie on the cheek.

“Here are your nieces and your nephew!” cried Aunt Ginnie. Her voice was unnaturally high and nervous. “And here's Patricia!”

They all stepped aside to let Patricia through. “Hi, Mum,” she said in a low voice. She waited to be kissed.

“Hello, darling.” Her mother leaned forward and pecked her daughter. Then she examined her for a moment, and Patricia had to steady herself with the shock. She was looking into the younger Ruth's grey eyes. These eyes, though, were skilfully made up and self-assured, filled with controlled impatience.

The other Ruth's vulnerable, restless personality, continually squashed by her family, had evoked Patricia's deepest sympathies. Nobody squashed this Ruth. Her manicured confidence cancelled out her younger self. In the instant of confronting her mother, the past crumbled away. It was as if Patricia had never known the younger Ruth; the grown-up one, with whom she had lived all her life, was so much more powerful.

Now she felt cheated and angry. And to make things worse, she heard with dismay that Aunt Ginnie was moving her into La Petite “so the two of you can have some privacy.” She sat on the edge of one of the beds with Kelly and Maggie and watched her mother unpack. With a smirk of superiority, Patricia wondered if all she had brought were linen suits.

But her mother always knew how to dress. She changed into cotton walking shorts and a short-sleeved flowered blouse. Her clothes still looked much too well-pressed and clean for the lake. There was a big difference between her appearance and theirs.

“Look at you three!” she said crisply. “You're little savages. What on earth are you wearing, Patricia? Where are all the new shorts I bought for you? And you need a haircut badly.”

Patricia glanced down at the pair of Kelly's cut-offs she was wearing. She flicked her bangs off her forehead sullenly Kelly was in a holey bathing suit and all Maggie had on were Trevor's shorts, back to front.

“It's all right, Aunt Ruth,” said Kelly cheerfully. “We never bother about clothes in the summer.”

“You won't be able to go on TV when you're here,” Maggie told her earnestly, “because we haven't got one.”

Patricia's mother laughed. “I guess I won't, Maggie. Well, I need a holiday.”

“Do you make a lot of money?” the little girl asked her.

“Can you pick the people you interview?” Kelly wanted to know.

Their aunt chatted easily with them. Patricia wasn't surprised; her mother was always charming. The day she had come and spoken to Patricia's school, everyone had raved about her. Patricia knew they wondered why her daughter was so different.

She supposed her mother was charming to her, too, the way she always called her “darling.” Nan had used the term too. Patricia realized that she had always hated that word. Whatever she was, she wasn't darling. Saying it all the time meant her mother couldn't see what she was really like underneath.

“Your mum's nice,” whispered Kelly as they all walked up the driveway. “Kind of proper, but she's okay.”

Patricia watched her mother closely as she peered around the cottage. She wondered how much she remembered, especially since the place had not altered much.

Kelly pointed out her bedroom.

“This was my room!” said Patricia's mother. “What a long time has passed…. I think I last slept in here when I was seventeen.”

“What happened then?” asked Kelly.

“I left home to go East to university.”

“But didn't you come back for the holidays?”

Patricia was surprised to see her mother flush. “It was too expensive, so I worked in Toronto every summer.”

After the tour of the cottage, Uncle Doug and his children went for a ride in Mr. Donaldson's motorboat. Aunt Ginnie took her sister for a walk, Patricia pushing the baby in her carriage.

“I can paddle a canoe,” she said casually, as they watched a red one on the water below them. “And I caught two fish.”

Her mother looked surprised. “Really, darling? I didn't think you liked that sort of thing.”

“Oh, we've turned Patricia into a real little tomboy,” chuckled Aunt Ginnie. “Kelly's influence, I'm afraid, but it's been good for her.”

Patricia stomped her hard, bare feet along the path haughtily. In two months she'd accomplished as much as Rosemary, who could now turn over both ways and almost sit up.

“I used to be able to paddle a canoe,” mused Patricia's mother. “I'm sure I've forgotten now.”

“Later you and Patricia can take out the
Loon
,” suggested Aunt Ginnie.

“The
Loon
?” Patricia's mother looked puzzled until her sister explained.

How could she forget? Patricia thought angrily. She used to love the canoe; now she was speaking about her summers here as if they had happened to another person.

They had set out for the Main Beach, but Patricia's mother wanted to go back for her hat. “The sun's so bad for your skin,” she explained, “and I don't like the look of that peeling nose, Patricia. You need some sunscreen on it.”

Aunt Ginnie looked guilty. “Oh dear, it
is
burnt. I have such a hard time keeping them all protected.”

They changed direction. “You haven't lost any weight, darling,” Patricia's mother remarked.

“She takes after her aunt,” laughed Aunt Ginnie. “We both appreciate good food, don't we? I'll miss having a gourmet cook to teach me.”

After they had fetched the hat and some sunscreen from the cottage, they decided to walk the other way, to Uncle Rod's. “He's very eager to see you again,” said Aunt Ginnie.

“I wonder why,” said her sister dryly. “Rodney and I were never that close, you know.”

Uncle Rod was as overbearing as usual, but today it didn't work. “Ruth! My long-lost sister!” He kissed her with a smack, but she stepped back and appraised him calmly.

“How are you, Rodney? You've lost a lot of hair, haven't you? And this must be Karen … and the children.”

Aunt Karen seemed awed by her Eastern glamour. “Don't sit on that chair,” she warned, “it's not very clean. Christie, go inside and get your Aunt Ruth a cushion.”

Uncle Rod's family came back for dinner and Patricia's mother entertained everyone with witty stories about CBC personalities. She never mentioned Patricia's father and no one asked about him.

“Time for bed,” said Aunt Ginnie at ten. “Will you be all right in La Petite by yourself, Patricia?”

“I'll be out soon, darling,” promised her mother. All the adults seemed to want to discuss something private.

Patricia tried to fall asleep before her mother came. She knew they had to talk about her father sometime, but she wanted to delay it as long as possible. She tossed in the narrow cot and missed Kelly. She decided to go out to her cousin's window.

Slipping a sweater over her nightgown, Patricia crept up the dark driveway. “Kelly!” she hissed outside the bedroom. There was no answer. Kelly must have fallen asleep and Patricia didn't want to call any louder.

Standing outside the cottage made her feel as much of an outsider as she had at the beginning of the summer. She wandered around to the front, where the voices came in a low murmur from the verandah. Maybe she would go in and say she couldn't sleep. Then she heard her name and couldn't resist crouching under the steps to listen.

“But she's only twelve!” That was Aunt Ginnie. “She's much too young to make that kind of decision!”

“We've always believed in letting Patricia think for herself,” said her mother's cool voice. “You won't remember, but
I
was never allowed to. I'll go out and ask her now.”

Patricia dashed back to La Petite and jumped into bed. When her mother came into the cabin she pretended to be sound asleep. She held the blanket over her head as a shield against whatever she was going to be asked to decide.

S
HE FOUND OUT
the next afternoon. “Let's have a talk, darling,” said her mother after lunch. As Patricia followed her to La Petite she remembered Nan and
her
awful talk. Nan had been eager, however; her mother seemed as reluctant as she was.

Patricia sat on one bed and curled her arms around her knees. Her mother sat on the other and the space between them seemed appropriately wide.

“Everything has been settled, darling,” she began. In a rush she explained that Patricia could see her father whenever she wanted to. “You realize that, even though it's only a separation at this stage, eventually we'll get a divorce. Johanna wants to marry him. I'm telling you this so you don't get your hopes up. It's final.”

“I know,” said Patricia flatly. “I always have. They love each other.”

Her mother looked at her curiously as if surprised she had thought about things so much. Then she became very serious. “There's a change now, darling, and I came West so I could tell you in person. I'm taking a leave of absence, beginning in October. Another job has come up, with the BBC in London. It's for a year—possibly more—and it's a wonderful opportunity I also think it would be a good idea for me to be away until the gossip has died down.”

She stood up and began walking around the room. “Now, the question is, darling, whether you want to come with me. You can, of course. We'll find you a good school and I already have a flat lined up. But your father and Johanna have offered to take you for a year. You could stay at the same school then and still be in Toronto. That would be more stable for you—we want to disrupt you as little as possible.” She stopped pacing and looked at her daughter directly. “We're leaving it up to you, whether you want to live with me or your father.”

Patricia clutched the bed as if she were going to float off. She had never felt so insubstantial.

“You don't have to decide right this minute, darling. Don't look so desolate! I'll stay here until the end of the month and we can discuss it as often as you want. But then you'll have to make up your mind so we can begin all the arrangements. Do you have any questions?”

“If I—if I did live with Daddy and Johanna, what would happen at the end of the year?”

“We'll see how you feel then. You could stay with them or come back to me—whatever you wished. We both … love you, but we're rational people, Patricia, and we're going to be sensible about this. You're old enough to make up your own mind.”

Patricia recalled her mother saying that when she was eight and was asked to choose between staying in her old school or switching to The Learning Place. She hadn't felt old enough then and she didn't now. They had always left important questions up to her, while the trivial ones— what to wear and what activities to participate in—were controlled by her mother. It would be so much easier the other way around.

When she had changed schools she had decided what she guessed her mother wanted. Now it was hard to tell. She yearned for her mother to say that of course she should stay with her. But if she wouldn't say it, she must not want it.

“Here's a letter from your father,” her mother continued. “Read what he has to say and that may help you decide. I'll leave you alone for a while, darling. I suppose this must be a bit of a shock.” Patting Patricia's shoulder awkwardly she left the cabin.

“Dear Patricia,” her father had typed on his word processor. “Naturally Johanna and I would like to have you live with us this year. It's up to you to make the choice, however, and we don't want to pressure you in any way …” The letter continued in the same apologetic way.

Patricia sighed. Neither of her parents was going to come right out and say they wanted her.

She tried to think it out as reasonably as they suggested. In many ways she would be happier with her father, since she had always felt closer to him. But there was Johanna. Wouldn't she be in the way, just when the two of them were finally able to be together? And she had never particularly cared for her life in Toronto. A new one in a new country though, would be scary.

She knew she couldn't truly decide. As usual, she didn't know what she wanted. She would just have to pretend to make a choice. It was a question of whom she would bother the least—probably Daddy. Her mother would feel much less encumbered in her new job without a daughter to worry about.