Marrying Off Mother (4 page)

Knowing from bitter experience that this can and does happen, I felt a certain alarm at the Literary Guild farming me out to Mrs Magnolia Dwite-Henderson. So I phoned her up in the hopes that I could somehow, as politely as possible, get out of staying with her and go to an hotel instead. A deep rich voice answered the telephone, the sort of voice a vintage port would have if it could speak.

‘Dis here is Miz Magnolia's residence,' it intoned. ‘Who is dat what ahm talking to?'

‘My name is Durrell and I would like to speak to Mrs Dwite-Henderson,' I said.

‘Yew jus' hold on to dat line,' said the voice, ‘en I'll go seek her out.'

There was a long pause and then a breathless tinkly voice, like a musical box, came on the line.

‘Mister Dewrell, is that yew?' it asked. ‘This is Magnolia Dwite-Henderson speaking to yew.'

‘I'm delighted to have this chance to talk to you, Mrs Dwite-Henderson,' I said.

‘Oh mercy me,' she shrilled, ‘your ac-cent, your AC-cent — it's the most perfect thing I've ever heard. It's just like talking to Sir Laurence Olivier. I do declare it sends shivers up mah spine.'

‘Thank you,' I said. ‘I have just heard from the Guild that they have more or less forced you to put me up. Now, I do think this is a great imposition and I would much rather stay in an hotel and not inconvenience you in this way.'

‘Inconvenience me?' she squeaked. ‘Why, honey lamb, it's an
honour
to have yew in the house. I wouldn't let yew stay in a hotel where they never sweep under the beds or empty the ashtrays. It would be going against the grain of true Southern hospitality. I wouldn't even let a Yankee stay in a hotel if he was coming to lecture — not that they have much to lecture about. They are all wind and water as my father used to say, only he used a stronger word.'

My heart sank. I could see that no way was I going to get out of staying with Mrs Dwite-Henderson without offending Southern hospitality.

‘You're very kind,' I said. ‘My plane gets in at half past four so I should be with you by five.'

‘Wonderful!' she said. ‘Yew'll be just in time for my
special
tea — every Thursday I have five of my dearest friends to tea and, of course, they are simply on tenterhooks to meet yew.'

With an effort I suppressed a groan.

‘Well, I'll see you at five then,' I said.

‘I cain't wait till yew get hayer,' she said.

I put down the phone and went to catch my plane with some misgivings. Two hours later I was in the deep South, the land of cotton, black-eyed peas, sweet potatoes and — unfortunately — Elvis Presley. I was propelled from the airport in a taxi driven by a very large man smoking a large cigar roughly the colour of his skin.

‘Yew from Boston?' he enquired, after we had travelled some way.

‘No,' I said, ‘why would you think that?'

‘Axe-cent,' he said succinctly, ‘your axe-cent.'

‘No,' I said, ‘I'm from England.'

‘Dat right?' he said. ‘England, eh?'

‘Yes,' I said.

‘How's de Queen doing?' he asked.

‘I think she's doing real fine,' I said, endeavouring to enter into the spirit of the deep South.

‘Yeah,' he said reflectively, ‘she's some woman, dat Queen — she's got a lot of balls ah reckon.'

I remained silent. As a commentary on the royal family, I felt his remark said it all.

The residence of Mrs Magnolia Dwite-Henderson was a sort of dwarfed old style colonial mansion set in two acres of carefully manicured garden, with white colonnades standing shoulder to shoulder with vast quantities of purple azaleas. The front door, which must have measured twelve feet by four, had an enormous brass knocker that was so polished it gleamed as if it were on fire. As the taxi drew up this handsome door was thrown open to frame a very large, very black gentleman with white hair in tail coat and striped trousers. He looked as though he might be the accredited Ambassador of practically any emerging nation. In the rich port-like tones that I remembered from the telephone he said, ‘Mr Dewrell, welcome to Miz Magnolia's residence,' and then added as an afterthought, ‘Ahyam Fred.'

‘Glad to know you, Fred,' I said. ‘Can you handle the luggage?'

‘Everything will be under control,' said Fred.

The taxi driver had deposited my two suitcases on the gravel and driven off. Fred surveyed them as if they were offensive litter.

‘Fred,' I said, interested, ‘do you normally wear that clothing?'

He glanced down his body with disdain.

‘No,' he said, ‘but Miz Magnolia say ah was to greet yew in traditional costume.'

‘You mean that this is traditional costume here in Memphis?' I asked.

‘No suh,' he said bitterly, ‘it's traditional costume where yew comes from.'

I sighed.

‘Fred,' I said, ‘do me a favour. Go and take off those garments. I am flattered that you put them on for me but I shall be even more flattered if you take them off for me and you will be more comfortable.'

A great smile appeared on his face. It was as though you had briefly lifted the lid on a grand piano.

‘Ah sure will do dat, Mr Dewrell,' he said thankfully.

I entered the cool hall which smelt of furniture polish, flowers and herbs and Miz Magnolia came pitter-pattering down the parquet to greet me, like a thread of smoke clad in chiffon and scent, tinkling with jewels, fragile as a will-o'-the-wisp, blue eyes big as saucers, the delicate skin of her throat hanging down like victory banners of her successful survival. Under her eyes hung pouches as big as swallows' nests, her face was a network of wrinkles as intricate as any spider's web and her hair was that extraordinary shade of electric blue that many American women obtain when they have reluctantly tiptoed from the forties into the fifties.

‘Mr Dewrell,' she said, clasping my hand in both of her fragile ones, which appeared to be made out of chicken bones and fine parchment. ‘Mr Dewrell, yew are so welcome, suh. It is an honour to have yew in the house.'

‘It's an honour to be here, mam,' I said.

Fred loomed up suddenly like a large and ominous black cloud on a sunny afternoon.

‘Miz Magnolia,' he announced. ‘Ah is goin' to take mah clothes off.'

‘Fred!' she said, shocked. ‘I do not think that is wise or decent.'

‘Mr Dewrell said ah could,' said Fred, thus implicating me.

‘Oh!' said Miz Magnolia, startled. ‘Well, I suppose that's different. But I am sure Mr Dewrell did not want you to take off your clothes this very instant. Not hayer, at any rate, where Great Aunt Dorinda might see.'

‘Ah is goin' to do it private in mah own room,' said Fred, and stalked off.

‘Now, why in the world would he want to disrobe?' asked Miz Magnolia. ‘Yew know, the longer yew live with people the more complicated they become.'

I began to have that
Alice in Wonderland
feeling that I always get when entering Greece. You have to toss logic overboard and let it float — but at a retrievable distance — for a short time. I find it does wonders for the brain cells.

‘Mr Dewrell, honey lamb,' she said, clasping my hand more firmly, ‘yew must be simply
perishing
for want of a drink.'

‘Well, that would be nice,' I said. ‘A tiny Scotch and . . .'

‘Shhhhh,' she said, ‘Fred might hayer. He's so against drinking since he married again and joined this new Second Revelation Church. You have no idea. He does nothing but go about saying that strong drink is raging and accusing everyone of fornication — even me. Now I am the first one to admit that in MAH time I was a bit of a flirt but I do assure yew that fornication never entered mah hayed. Mr Dwite-Henderson would never have allowed it. He was all for virginity.'

My ideas of a Bloody Mary faded. She led me into the living room and then hastened to the handsome drink cabinet.

‘A drink,' she said. ‘A drink for flagging spirits.'

She opened the cabinet and to my alarm it contained nothing but opened bottles of Coca-Cola.

‘What would yew like?' she asked me in a husky whisper. ‘Vodka, whisky, bourbon, gin?'

‘I'd like a Scotch,' I said, somewhat startled.

She ran her finger along the Coca-Cola bottles and finally chose one, smelt it and poured a heavy measure into a glass, added ice and a dash of Perrier and handed it to me.

‘The best sort of Coca-Cola,' she said smiling, ‘and it doesn't upset Fred.'

The Scotch was excellent.

I went upstairs, showered and changed and started down to face Miz Magnolia's tea party.

A door on the landing opened and a tall, cadaverous-looking man emerged, wearing a black velvet dressing gown with scarlet piping and a Panama hat.

‘Sir, is there any news?' he asked me.

‘About what?' I asked.

‘About the war, sir, the war. Mark my words, it will be a sad day for the South if they win,' he said, and turning he went back into his room and closed the door.

I continued, somewhat mystified, downstairs.

‘Oh, you darling man,' said Miz Magnolia, engulfing me in a frail embrace of sweetly smooth rustling garments and a scent that made the senses reel. ‘I am so happy to have you hayer. And I
know
that you are going to be so
happy
to meet mah dearest and loveliest friends.'

They came in as animals were supposed to come into the Ark, two by two. Miz Magnolia presented them rather in the way that a ringmaster of a circus would.

‘Now, this is Miz Florence Further Cause. The Further Causes are, of course, widely known.'

When five of them were clustered together it gave me the feeling of an animated flowerbed talking a language you don't know.

‘This,' said Miz Magnolia, ‘is Marigold Nasta . . .'

I bowed gravely.

‘And this is Miz Melancholy Delight.'

I took an instant liking to Miss Melancholy Delight. She looked like a bulldog who has — by mistake — been put through a washing machine. Nevertheless, I felt that any woman who had survived through life being called Melancholy Delight demanded my masculine support.

They were all magical. Fragile as anything an archaeologist can produce from the tombs of Egypt, twittering like birds, as conscious of themselves as girls at their first ball. But having got over the excitement and gravity of my intrusion they reverted to the smooth rolling way of life they were used to.

‘Did you hayer about Gray-ham?' one of them asked.

They all leant forward like vultures seeing a movement from a lion who might leave his kill.

‘What about Gray-ham?' they all asked with relish.

‘Well, Gray-ham has run away with Patsy Donahue.'

‘He hasn't!'

‘He has.'

‘He hasn't!'

‘He has, and left that adorable girl Hilda on her own with three children.'

‘Hilda was a Watson wasn't she, before she married?'

‘Yes, but the Watsons were a mixed-up bunch. Old grand-pappy Watson married that Ferguson girl.'

‘You mean the Fergusons who lived out near Mud Island?'

‘No, no, these are the Fergusons from East Memphis. Their grandmother was a Scott before she married Mr Ferguson and their aunt was related to the Tellymares.'

‘You don't mean old man Tellymare who committed suicide?'

‘No, that was his cousin, Arthur, the one with a limp. That was in 1914.'

It was like listening to an amalgam of the
Almanac de Gotha, Debrett,
and the
Social Register
being read aloud simultaneously. These old ladies could track everyone and their antecedents back to the fifth generation and beyond with the tenacity of bloodhounds. Gray-ham and his misdemeanour with Patsy were now lost in a genealogical confusion with all the complications of a plate of spaghetti.

‘It was Tellymare's cousin Albert who was married to that Nancy Henderson girl who divorced him because he set fire to himself,' said Miz Melancholy Delight.

The group took this extraordinary piece of information in their stride.

‘Wasn't she one of the Henderson twins, the ones with red hayer and all those unsightly freckles?'

‘Yes, and their cousin married the Breverton man and then shot him,' said Miz Marigold.

‘A most unsatisfactory family,' said Miz Magnolia. ‘I'll go and get the tea.'

She reappeared in a moment bearing a large silver tray on which reposed a gigantic silver teapot, delicate china cups and two silver dishes, one containing ice cubes and the other sliced lemon.

‘There's nothing like tea on a hot day like this,' said Miz Magnolia, putting lemon and ice cubes into a cup and handing it to me. I took it, wondering why all the ladies were watching me with an air of expectancy. I raised the cup to my lips, took a sip and choked. The cup contained straight bourbon.

‘Is it to your liking?' asked Miz Magnolia.

‘Excellent,' I said. ‘I take it that Fred didn't make it.'

‘Oh, no,' said Miz Magnolia, smiling, ‘I always make the tea mahself. It saves trouble, yew know.'

‘Mah pappy always say-ed to me that cold tea helped the flesh,' said Miz Marigold, somewhat mysteriously.

‘Little Miz Lillibut — you remember she was married to Hubert Crumb, one of those Crumbs from Mississippi, who were related by marriage to the Ostlers,' said Miz Melancholy, ‘well, she always washed her face in iced tea and she had a complexion like a peach, a veritable peach.'

‘Miz Ruby Mackintosh — she was one of the Scottish Mackintoshes that came over from Scotland and married into the Mackinnon family, and old man Mackinnon was such a bully he drove his wife into the grave — she was a Tenderson girl, whose mother was an Outgrabe from Minnesota — well Miz Ruby always say-ed that there was nothing like cream and pecan oil for the skin,' said Miz Marigold.