Falling Through Space (28 page)

If the books we were reading were particularly mesmerizing our reading might go on until bedtime. If one of us was completely immersed in a book, the other one understood. When I was young, I would be reading the Campfire Girls or Tarzan books or anything about camping. Later I would be reading Thomas Costain or Lloyd C. Douglas or Kathleen Winsor. She would be reading Irving Stone or anything about Scotland. When we were reading, we liked each other. She never fixed elaborate meals and expected me to eat them when I was in the middle of a chapter. I never asked her to do anything for me. I liked to make my own sandwiches or eat bread and butter and that was fine with her. When we were reading, we were in perfect accord. I wonder if she knew how lucky she was to have a granddaughter who shared her love of books. Alas, I don't think she did. She liked boys better than she liked girls and I knew it and this was a shadow that lay between us. Also, she had said on many occasions that I was impossible. I was impossible and intended to stay that way. She was impossible too, which was her charm for me. No matter how hard I tried I could not get that woman to act like she loved or approved of me.

There we were, reading books about English and Scottish queens, about heroines who rode like men and were more stubborn than any of the men they loved. There we were, as alike as we could be and all that either of us saw was each other's stubbornness. It was a battle neither of us would ever win.

The summer I was eight years old was the first time I stayed with her alone for any length of time. I was already a dedicated reader by then, so I was looking forward to being in her house full of books. Still, I was accustomed to having my way, to running roughshod over my sweet, southern mother, and this Grannie was a different adversary. She didn't like craziness or give in to threats or act like she was afraid I was going to fall out of trees. She didn't react. Like a great lawyer she could watch and wait and keep her counsel until time to strike.

The summer I was eight the main argument between us was over my clothes. What I would wear when I got up in the morning and began my daily business of climbing every tree in Courtland, Alabama and making nests in them. I had a main lookout in the old mimosa that leaned into the porch and a second post in a hundred year old magnolia in the side yard. Old magnolia trees are covered with a black residue which coats anything it touches. I was up there a lot, looking like a chimney sweep when I came down. I also climbed any other tree I saw. If a tree had branches I could reach I climbed it.

I had brought with me to Courtland a large, leather suitcase filled with beautiful dresses my maternal grandmother had made for me. My mother's side of the family loved girls and adored dressing them up and looking at them. These clothes had to be ironed and my grandmother in Courtland didn't have anyone around to iron clothes all day. After a few days of my coming down out of trees in ruined clothes she called a dressmaker. That afternoon the woman appeared. She was a sad, middle-aged woman who came into the house carrying bolts of blue and white and brown and white striped seersucker. She spread the material out across the sofa. “That's ugly,” I said. “I won't wear that.”

“Don't be rude,” my grandmother answered. “Apologize to Mrs. Marks.”

“Well, I won't wear anything made out of that. It looks terrible. It looks all wrinkled.”

“Just let me make you one and see if you like it,” Mrs. Marks put in. “It will be pretty when it's made up. I'll put rick-rack on it.” She had struck a chord. I loved rick-rack. As a practiced child mannequin in my mother's world, I knew all about fabrics and trim and buttons and patterns.

“All right,” I agreed. I took off my ruined white dress and dropped it on the floor. I had been in the mimosa playing Tarzan when Grannie called me in to meet Mrs. Marks.

I stood as still as I could while Mrs. Marks pinned a paper pattern on me. I was beginning to like her. She was patient and gentle and didn't stick me with a pin.

Two days later the playsuits appeared. She had made one from each bolt of cloth. A blue and white one and a brown and white one. They had straps which buttoned onto a sleeveless bodice. The bottoms were large, loose shorts. “I won't wear that,” I declared. “I'd look like some kind of dwarf. I'd look like a freak at the fair.”

“The pants are a bit baggy,” Mrs. Marks agreed. “I can take them in.”

“It won't do any good,” I said. “I'm still going to hate them. I won't put them on.”

Mrs. Marks pulled the cloth of the pants into a ball at the back. She pulled and pinned and knit her brow. All I did was shake my head. My Grannie sat on the sofa with her mouth set in a line.

Mrs. Marks removed the offending playsuit from my body. She packed up her seersucker and left. Grannie followed her out onto the porch and put her hand on her shoulder. They were deep in conversarion. They were plotting against me, but I was not worried. No one had ever made me wear anything I didn't want to wear. There had been epic battles over starched dresses and seams that itched and sleeves that touched me. I had never lost a battle, and I wasn't going to lose one now.

My grandmother returned to the living room. “Let's have some tea and toasted biscuits,” she suggested. “Then we can read for a while.” She went into the kitchen to boil the water and I wandered to a wall and began to read the titles of the books. Every title was a wonder in itself. The physical reality of the books was part of my love for them. The frayed dust jackets, the red and blue and green bindings. The wonderful ideas of the titles. Every title an invitation to a world. I would take books down and read a page or two until something hooked me. Sometimes I started reading in the middle and finished the book before I read the beginning. I still do this occasionally. Great writing allows you to begin anywhere.

My grandmother in Courtland had gone to college in Kentucky before she married my grandfather. There was a photograph of her on her dresser in her cap and gown when she graduated. I had heard about women who were bluestockings. I was pretty sure I was going to be one, but it didn't scare me. I would look at that photograph of my grandmother and wonder if she was a bluestocking too.

“Ellen,” she called out from the kitchen. “Come and have your tea.” She was waiting, presiding over her simple painted kitchen table. It was set with silver and handmade placemats. There were linen napkins. We were having tea and toasted biscuits and butter and milk and honey.

“The reason I want you to wear the playsuits is three-fold,” she began, pouring my tea. “First it is because when you are in trees people can see your underpanrs. You are too big to let people see your underpants. If you want to be up in a tree it is fine with me, but you must be dressed like an adventurer, not an actress.”

“Yes, ma'm,” I said, and put some butter on a biscuit.

“The second reason is the war effort,” she continued. “Every one in town is working at the air force base. There is no one left over to iron your dresses. Seersucker is a very patriotic fabric. It's easily washed, dries quickly, and does not have to be ironed. Also, since it is striped, it will serve as camouflage. If you are playing army in the trees, as I saw you doing the other day with Sykes Martin, it would be very good to have on a playsuit that is striped and hard to see in the leaves.”

“Okay,” I said. I was weakening. “I might wear the blue ones. But not the brown ones.”

“There is one more thing.” She put her teacup down into her saucer and fixed me with her brown eyes. “Mrs. Marks lost a son in the war. What's more she is a widow. She is very proud and working as hard as she can to support herself and forget her grief. It would be a bright spot in her life if she saw you going up a mimosa in her creation. On the other hand, if you are rude when she returns with them, she will feel she has failed me and as we are friends that will cause her pain.”

I was silent. The burden of this conversation was too much to bear. So much depended on me. It was like the time the headhunters had Nyoka tied to the tree. It was like the little boy who had to keep his finger in the dyke.

“I will wear the blue ones,” I said. “Maybe I will wear the brown ones. Maybe not.”

“All right. Thank you.” She leaned across the table and put honey on my biscuit. She did not gloat. She did not keep talking about it.

“I will wear them,” I added. “If you'll pretend to think the little people are in the radio when we go to bed tonight.”

“Then we'll have to go to bed on time. Otherwise I'll fall asleep while I'm talking.”

It was my favorite thing any grown person had ever done but it was usually impossible to get her to do it unless she was in the mood. She would occasionally go into marvelous inventive moods in which she would pretend outlandish things, but you could never get her to repeat a performance on command.

Later that night, when we were in bed with the lights out and the radio on she did it. “Let them out of there,” she began in a falsetto voice. “Please let those little people out of that box. They've been in there for days. Open the door. Please let them out. They need to go home and go to bed.”

“They have to stay until they finish the program,” I said, then I dissolved in laughter. For some reason this was the funniest thing on earth to me. She kept on pretending to be this very dumb country woman who didn't know how the radio worked and in between convulsing with laughter, I explained to her as best I could what a radio was and why it was plugged in and where the voices were coming from.

As a poem she taught me when I was older says, “Where is she now, for whom I carry in my heart, this love, this praise.”

Dearest Mother,

I want to thank you for the beautiful blue and white cups you sent me on my sixtieth birthday. For the blue linen napkins and the white placemats. I want to thank you for introducing me to blue. The cobalt blue of your beautiful English eyes. It must have been the first thing I ever saw. Smiling down at me as they have been for all my sixty years. Thank you for not dying. Here I am, sixty years old and I have never had to grieve for deep or tragic loss. That's what your death would be to me. Imagine not being able to call 601 956 2348 and tell you my troubles. I tell you my troubles to take your mind off your own. I never told you that, did I? It's a secret I've been keeping for about twenty years. You are twenty-seven years older than I am and your troubles are harder than mine are, so I always call and tell you about my allergies and my back and neck and insect bites. Everyone knows there is nothing wrong with me. I pretend to be a hypochondriac in order to deliver messages to you. The message is, our bodies heal themselves. Thank you for the powerful healrhy genes. Tomorrow the sun will be shining and we will be like new. I know you. Every morning you think the world is beginning all over and all will be well in the world. I think so too. Where do you think I got an idea like that?

But mostly the thing I keep forgetting to tell you is how much I love the aesthetic that you gave me. I travel a lot. I run into my distant cousins, in California and New York City and Colorado. There they are, with those blue eyes and that darling nose, wearing Chanel Nineteen and dressed in simple, elegant, tasteful clothes. “Your necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin.” I used to think it was funny that I can't talk myself into being tacky. I used to try. I would go out and buy outlandish clothes or shoes or think of painting something red but I could never carry it off. I like blue and navy blue and black and white and yellow. The way you dressed me when I was a child.

I want rooms simple and clean and quiet, with a bowl of fresh roses or lilies on a table. Not two bowls of flowers. One bowl of flowers. I don't want to outdo anyone. I want to make things that people think are beautiful and let them look at the things I make. When I write I want to solace and amuse my readers. Sometimes I want to shock them into being solaced. I didn't learn that from you. I know I have a hit on my hands when you call me up after I have written a book and tell me, Ellen, this is filthy. If you knew how much I love it when you say that, you would never do it.

Do you know where cobalt blue comes from? Our favorite color. It was brought to China from Turkey by the Chinese traders on the Silk Road. They discovered the cobalt tiles in the temples of Turkey and brought it back just in time for the Ming dynasty. I love those cups you gave me for my sixtieth birthday. I drink coffee out of them each morning. I put one in each bathroom in my house. I put those beautiful white placemats on the table and those blue linen napkins and eat dinner in the heart of the civilization you passed on to me.

I am sorry you are growing old and have to have your knee operated on and put up with the long recovery. I'm sorry that it takes so long for cuts to heal. But I never say this to you. I call you up the minute you get back from the hospital and start telling you my problems. A girl with a mother like you should have better manners than that. A girl with a mother like you should know how to exhibit sympathy. Instead, I do it the way I have always done it when you were sick or injured. I call 601-956-2348, and, as soon as you answer, I say, “Hello, my mother. This is me.”