Tidings

‘Peg, dear; remember it’s Peg. You know how upset she gets. Anyway I don’t think she’ll stay more than three or four days at most. She’s always hated the mill.’

Lor turns over the pancakes, puts syrup and butter on the table. I continue sweeping with mini-strokes trying to keep the dust down. I sweep off the front of the millstone in front of the fireplace, sweep up my first pile, throw it into the fire.

Ben comes down the steps from the toilet, his pajamas carefully folded. He goes over and tucks them under his sleeping bag.

‘Oh boy, pancakes. That’s one of the best things I like about the mill, we always have time for a real breakfast.’

He stops, pauses.

‘Thanks for putting away my bed, Dad. I would have done it though.’

He goes to the dish closet and pulls out dishes to set the table.

‘Ben, dear, I’ve got the dishes there warming on the heater. Be careful you don’t burn yourself.’

Lor pushes another batch of pancakes into the oven to stay hot. Ben fastidiously lifts the dishes off the heater, spreads them on the table each to our accustomed spot, me facing the fireplace, Loretta on the side with best access to the kitchen, Ben, his back to the fireplace. I wonder how it will work out when the other three arrive. I can take any place and Lor can move over a place to make room, but Ben will be immutable.

Generally he doesn’t even like to eat with other people; says it’s hard to concentrate on the taste of the food, and he doesn’t like the sounds of people chewing, swallowing, banging forks and spoons against their teeth.

Normally, on non-school days, Ben finishes two or three books a day. I say finishes because he’s often reading four to five books at a time, something like Nero Wolfe. He told me once he likes to be reading one funny book such as Mad or Mash, one violence book like an Executioner series or MacDonald, one science fiction and one serious book, a technical book on airplanes, or automobiles or geology, botany, anything. He’s also usually reading or rereading one of the perhaps five-hundred old National Geographic magazines we have stacked around the mill, or the apartment. Oh yes, I forgot, he’s also a dedicated reader of the wonderful French hardcover comic books, bandes dessinées, Tin Tin, Astérix and Obélix, Lucky Luke. He says that’s where he really learned French, not at school. I believe it. Ben’s one of those wonderful people who doesn’t need school. He’s a natural learner-thinker.

But he does generally accommodate and share meals at the same table with Lor and me. We accommodate, too. I’ve learned to eat the way I’ve learned to sweep; small, short, inconspicuous bites and swallows. Actually the food does taste better that way and I don’t eat so much. I can be a real gulper if I’m not careful, and it is amazing how many times a fork bangs against the teeth if one doesn’t make an effort.

Then, also, Loretta and I are great chatterers during a meal and Ben’s made us very self-conscious about speaking with food in our mouths. Tucking it over to the side, hamsterlike, is out. I must say, all the careful chewing, swallowing, mouth clearing, slows down conversation; but then, it’ll probably keep our digestive systems functioning properly a little while longer.

I look out the window at a car going past. It’s still incredibly beautiful, blue sky – white, icy trees drawn against the heavens. Except for the cold, the girls certainly can’t complain about the weather, not today anyhow. I notice Loretta looking out the window, too. We’re both nervous. Even if they started at eight in the morning, which is well within the range of the impossible, and drove the entire trip in only three hours, which is within the range of the possible, but not in that old Ford, not if it’s driven by anyone with two cents worth of common sense. But then, the friend might be driving, so who knows.

No, we’ll have time for our breakfast. I don’t think the girls are exactly breaking their necks to get down here in a hurry. After all, they’ve already missed Ben’s birthday. Maybe they’ll only come down for Christmas Day. Who knows? It could be better that way. Then they can have fun in the apartment up in Paris while Lor and I try to work things out. Ben will stay out of the way or not pay attention. War could be being declared right beside him and he most likely wouldn’t even notice.

3

Three French Hens

I’m just finishing my second pancake when I hear the unmistakable front left brake squeal of the Capri. I stand up, straddling my chair and it’s them all right.

‘Here they are, Lor, safe and sound.’

We both move to the west window, Ben leaning over behind us. Nicole’s out first from the passenger side. She’s wearing a padded eiderdown vest and a long, wraparound red wool scarf. I have unwelcome thoughts of Isadora Duncan, one of Nicole’s all-around favorite people. Nicole has a wool hat pulled down low over her forehead and ears, the jacket and scarf across her mouth. She’s waving her arms wildly, although she probably can’t see us through the curtained narrow window. The boyfriend climbs out the other side. He shocks me. He looks like an older, balding, bearded version of Mike. I never thought this was the kind of man Nicole would hook up with. Her other men have tended either toward the emaciated-kook-musician, dirty, smelly type or the unbelievably handsome aspiring moviestar variety; nothing in the middle.

‘Geez, Lor. That guy sure looks a lot like Mike.’

Loretta’s dashing past me pulling at the trap door.

‘Who else do you think it is, dummy? Of course it’s Mike. What a wonderful surprise; we’ll all have Christmas together after all.’

I can see now she’s right. It’s so wonderful to hear the excitement in her voice. Mike’s doing his after-a-long-drive stretch, very similar to my morning sunlight reach. Then he slightly cocks his left leg to let off a Jack-Kerouac-on-the-road fart. I wonder where Geneviève is. Maybe they got their signals crossed and she’s in California waiting to be picked up at LAX.

I hurry down the cellar steps behind Loretta. Madame Le Moine has opened her door and stands with hands clasped, radiating pure joy at our joy. Mike has Loretta in a big bear hug. I go over and hug Nicole. We exchange French style cheek-to-cheek kissing. She feels, looks heavy even discounting the padded jacket. But she looks healthy, bright-eyed, good color, better than I remember her two years ago.

‘Did we surprise you?’

‘You sure did. What happened? Where’s Geneviève?’

‘Mike will tell you. It’s his story. Let me get inside, I’m freezing.’

Now Maggie is working her way out from the back seat. She’s even more bundled up than Nicole and looks truly miserably cold. She’s been covered by all kinds of packages and luggage. I give her a hand to help her out over the lowered back of the front passenger seat. We share a good, hard hug. She’s exactly the same height as Loretta but thinner. She’s been working at keeping slim and looks wonderful. After Seth was born she took on weight, but now she looks like a girl again, younger than Nicole, although she’s five years older. She’s wearing the afghan alpaca-type coat she left with us in Paris.

‘Hi, Dad. Holy mackerel, your hair is practically pure white and are your eyebrows naturally that dark, or do you dye them?’

‘White in the head only, Maggie. Getting older’s just as bad as I thought it would be.’

She hugs herself, tucks her mouth under the neck of her sweater.

‘God, I’m freezing. Mike had to keep the window open so he could signal. The left turning signal wouldn’t work.’

‘I know.’

Mike shouts over the car.

‘Really, Dad, you ought to get a real car for a change; this thing’s a menace; it starts shimmying at eighty kilometers an hour so it almost shakes your teeth out. My arms are still vibrating.’

‘I know. The frame’s bent; was that way when I bought it, makes a good automatic governor, but it wears out tires. How are you, Mike, other than being tired?’

‘I’m pooped. I’d like to sleep for about three days.’

Maggie reaches in to get her stuff from the back. Lor is hugging Nicole. Mike comes around front of the car through the bumpy, frozen mud to me. His eyes look red-rimmed as if he’s been smoking pot for three days. Probably it’s all the sleep loss flying over, then driving down. Coming this direction is deadly. Mike’s shaking my hand, has his other hand on my shoulder.

‘Did we surprise you?’

‘Sure did. With your new beard, and not expecting you, I thought you were Nicole’s boyfriend. By the way, where is he?’

‘He decided not to come after all. We finally convinced Nickie the mill isn’t big enough for six people in the winter time, especially if one of them’s a complete stranger. Remember, I lived down here through one winter. Boy, am I ever strung out; driving that car wore me right down; you know the left front brake is grabbing.’

‘I know. Where’s Geneviève?’

Do I imagine it, or does he give me one of those quick looks; the look I’ve learned to live with, when quite by accident, I start mucking too much in my kids’ lives.

‘She decided she had to stay here, couldn’t come to the good old U.S. of A. after all. Her mom would be down for Christmas by herself most of the time. Her dad’s coming down too, for a few days, so they can divide things up. It’ll be tough for both of them and Geneviève felt she couldn’t leave now. Besides I didn’t want to pass up the chance for a Christmas with us all together at the mill, like old times.’

He stares at me closely again, almost as if he’s looking to see if I believe him. It’s uncomfortable and I can’t figure it. Mike’s one of those people who give off vibrations. I can usually feel them but I’ll be damned if I can interpret them. He leans close.

‘I had to spend my school tuition money on a plane ticket. Is that okay?’

‘Sure, no problem. I’ll write a new check and we’ll get it right off. The deadline is January fourth, isn’t it?’

‘Don’t worry about that, Dad. I’ll work it out.’

How’s he going to work it out? Does he have a job? Hidden resources, computer access? Maybe he’ll explain later.

I wish either I didn’t have antennae or I had better ones. Mine work just well enough to let me know when something is wrong, but not what’s wrong. I spend too much time in an emotional dusk. With Christmas mail and all; with the holidays, January fourth seems like cutting things close.

‘Is it okay if I borrow your one-twenty-five, Dad? Geneviève’s over there now and I want her to know I’m here. First we can unpack all this crap, then I’ll buzz over.’

‘Sure. Does she know you’re coming?’

‘No. It’ll be a surprise for her, too. To be honest, I didn’t know I was coming till just the day Peg and Nickie were leaving. It was only luck I had that blank signed check for the tuition. I packed my stuff in about half an hour.’

‘Well, whatever the reason, it’s great you’re here. This might be our last chance for a big Christmas get-together.’

I know I’m not with it somehow. But then I never am. I also know better than to ask why he just doesn’t drive over in the Capri. I’ll wait till Lor can do some investigation and translating.

Lor’s still on the other side of the car gabbing with Nicole and Maggie. Maggie’s definitely jumpy; I can feel it right over the car roof. She’s probably expecting me to talk about her leaving George and Seth. Not me; what good does it do? Besides, I have to live with my wife. There’s no use explaining those things; Kelly’s first law: when it comes to emotions, everybody’s wrong.

We start unloading. They all only have sleeping bags and banana bags. The girls say they left their big suitcases up in Paris at the apartment. Mike’s even more careless with clothes than I am. All his stuff is in the smallest of those banana bags, nothing in Paris. He’s the one who should be freezing. He’s only wearing that blue sweater Geneviève knitted him last Christmas. Unless he has some magic collapsible down coat in that little bag, no socks, no underwear, no change of shirts, shoes, he’s going to need clothes. I search through my mind for whatever extra warm clothes we might have stored in the upper grange. We’ll find something. Actually, I have the duffle coat I haven’t been using much. With my Bean catalogue long underwear I don’t get cold.

Finally Ben comes down and drifts around the groupings. He’s trying to see everybody, participate without being seen. I’m worried how he’ll react when the girls greet him. He’s only this year gotten up his nerve, his tolerance, enough so Madame Le Moine can kiss him on the cheeks when we arrive. Mike’s the first to see him.

‘Holy Jesus, Ben! You’ve grown another six inches since I last saw you. Now I’m your little brother. How tall are you anyway? And that’s some beard you’ve got there.’

He goes over and puts his hand out for Ben to shake. Ben, hands to match his feet, long thin fingers, strong hands, gives a good shake; but he can’t get himself to look into the eyes of any person with whom he’s shaking hands. It’s too personal, too intimate. He tends to look down, or at an oblique, about two feet beside and three feet behind the other person. Mike knows Ben enough to respect this.

‘He’s somewhere over six-two now, Mike. I had to stand on a chair to cut his mark on the post for the millstone boom. He passed both of us last summer.’

Nicole and Maggie see Ben. Nicole comes over, she swings the dangling end of her scarf across her neck, shakes her head to get her hair over her ears and behind her shoulders.

‘My God, Ben; you’re a giant. You can’t be my little brother. Holy cow, I’m the baby in this family again, for sure. What happened?’

She closes in on Ben with her arms out. She doesn’t even come up to Ben’s shoulder. He lets himself be hugged, hands limp at his sides and his head too high up for her to try a kiss. She steps back, staring at him from head to toe.

‘My God, I can’t believe it; he even has the beginnings of a straggly beard there. Maybe you’ll be the new Santa, you and your hairy brother can fight it out for first elf.’

Maggie’s standing behind Nicole. She puts down her banana bags on a snow spot, all the rest is mud.

‘Hi, Ben. You’re getting so handsome, I almost wouldn’t recognize you. I’ll bet the girls at school chase you all the time.’

She gives him a brief hug. She doesn’t try to kiss him although she’s tall enough. With a valiant effort, she might manage a shot at his beard. But from the way Ben leans out from her hug, she gets the message.

Ben takes the banana bags from Maggie and Nicole. They carry the sleeping bags. Mike has his stuff under his arms. There’s nothing left for Loretta and me to carry except some wrapped Christmas presents from in back of the car and a duffel bag full of something, maybe extra warm clothes, I hope. We pack them under our arms; I’m praying the Atari set is there and that the cassettes are the ones Ben wants, Combat and Space Invaders. He definitely doesn’t want any of the sport ones, soccer, Ping-Pong, tennis. I’m sure it’s okay.

We decide to go around onto the dam. With all this junk it’d be hard to get up the narrow stairs and through our trap door. Besides, I want them to see how beautiful the pond is; also, how I’ve cleaned the ivy from the roof, swept the leaves off the porch, tied the roses to the wall.

On the dam side, it almost looks like a real French country house, with French doors opening from the upper grange onto the dam and a stone terrace along its length. The other side, the road side, where the car is parked, looks square, hard, high and cold. Nicole and Maggie are still rattling away a mile a minute with Loretta. Just before they go down the stairs, Lor stops and turns.

‘Look at this, girls, have you ever seen anything more beautiful?’

The two of them hug their sleeping bags to their chests and look out over the pond. For some reason there are small crystalline outgrowths, growing in tiny clumps like butterflies all over the surface of the pond. There must have been some condensation that froze. Each crystal reflects like snow and refracts so it’s almost blinding with the direct white light, sprinkled with tiny spots of blue, red, purple, even yellow.

‘Good God. It’s like Disneyland or Fantasia or some kind of sci-fi flick. It’s practically psychedelic.’

That’s Nicole, I mean Nickie. Maggie stares entranced.

‘It’s so beautiful. We used to have it like this up in Idlewild, California; in the mornings sometimes. But let’s get inside, I’m freezing.’

Ben and Mike behind me stand as if hypnotized. Both of them have bare hands and both hands loaded. They don’t put down their loads, only stand there.

‘My God, Dad! I forgot how beautiful it is. It’s so easy to let things get out of your mind. I’ve been sort of afraid to come. What with Thierry having his accident and Henry Carron dying of cancer and then Madame Le Moine almost dying with a stroke. I was worried if I could handle all those changes, if it would ever be the same.

‘But look at this.’

‘Madame Le Moine’s fine now, Mike. She has her memory back and most of her strength. She’s been asking about you. She was just over to see us yesterday. She was even out there watching when you all came in, but didn’t want to interfere. She’s still the same wonderful woman.’

‘You mean she was there and we didn’t even say hello?’

He stares into my eyes, then starts as if going right over to make up for it. Ben steps forward.

‘It’s all right, Mike. She understands. You can go see her later.’

Ben walks past Mike.

‘Don’t worry. I looked up at her and made a sign with my hand to show I saw her and she pushed down with both her hands as if she were shushing me, didn’t want to interfere. Madame Le Moine understands things, Mike.’

Ben goes past me and down the steps. Mike comes close. ‘Jesus, Dad, he’s so serious. Is he always this way?’

‘Most of the time. He’s a very serious person, Mike. He’s so conscientious he makes me, the mad compulsive, feel like a blithe spirit.’

We step carefully down the cracked steps into the mill. I’m sorry I missed the girls’ first reaction when they went in, but I’m glad to’ve had a moment somewhat alone with Ben and Mike. For some reason I’m a better father for boys than for girls. At least it seems that way to me. It’s hard to know if this is true, but I get more complaints from the girls, or maybe girls complain more than boys.

Lor’s expert in the way she complains, no whines no bitches; just a constant niggling; reminding me about things that need to be done, keeping me in line, watching over; like automatic drive. She’s always saying ‘Let’s do this’, or ‘I think we ought to do that’, but mostly these are projects for me. Maybe that’s the way it is in all marriages, I don’t know, I probably don’t care. God, I wish I had a better grip on things. Mostly, I wish I had a better grip on my marriage.

When I come in the door, I can barely close it behind me. There’s a fairly narrow gap between the table built over the millstones still in place, and the millstone with the Christmas tree jammed in its center. Three sleeping bags and three banana bags have been straight dropped, plugging the gap. I don’t know whether they walked through and dropped the bags behind them or dropped, then stepped over. Actually it’s as good a place as any. They’ll need to take the bags upstairs sooner or later and the bottom of the stairs is right there.

I think for a minute before I say it, the idea seems so natural, so logical.

‘Okay if I put your bags and things upstairs?’

There’s a two-second beat of silence; they look at each other, then all, all three of them, begin laughing. Lor glances at me. Ben is confused as to what’s so funny; what’s wrong, what was said that he didn’t hear, didn’t understand. Nicole steps, trips over the bags, falling toward me.

I know why they’re laughing and it is funny. Nicole gives me a daughterly kiss on the nose, a child-love equivalent to ‘Good boy, Rover, well done.’

‘Dad, you wouldn’t believe it. We were talking about this on the way down in the car. It’s so weird having an old maid for a father. We were in hysterics about how you were always sweeping here at the mill or vacuuming up in Paris or even helping old Frau Berger scrub on Saturdays in Bavaria. Remember how you’d lock us out of our rooms if we didn’t make our beds or hang up our clothes?’

She’s having a hard time talking, between laughing and giggling. I have a strange feeling the laughing isn’t real, only some kind of cover-up for deep feeling. Maybe neatness isn’t something daughters want in fathers. The other kids are quiet; I sneak a quick look at them, they seem as uncomfortable as I feel. Lor is frozen. Here it is, just inside the door, Christmas Eve and we’re already on the edge of a scene.

‘I don’t know, Nickie, maybe I’m just a garden-variety anal compulsive. You know the story of how my mother trained me. Every time I dirtied my diapers she wouldn’t breast-feed me. Then, I was strapped onto a training potty before I could sit up straight; used to keep slipping through the hole. I was seven years old before I managed a turd that didn’t look like rabbit pellets.’

Maggie puts her fingers in her ears.

‘Come on, Dad. Don’t start grossing me out in the first five minutes. I thought you’d at least wait till we were eating. Between you and Mike; him with his burps, belches and farts, and you with your gross stories I’ll swear I almost starved to death as a kid.’

‘I’m sorry Maggie. I was only trying to explain. I’ll shut up.’

The interesting thing is I’m only neat, not clean, and I’m definitely not a classy dresser, distinctly sloppy. But I’m not comfortable in a disordered environment. I feel insecure and I’ve never been quite sure if my mother did it to me, or the U.S. Army, or it’s some deep personal fault. I tend to live my life as if there’s a Saturday inspection always just around the corner. It must be a drag for others to live with but I don’t think it is for me. Some of my most pleasant, joy-filled, anxiety-free hours are after I’ve cleaned the apartment, everybody’s off somewhere and I have it alone to myself, neat and quiet. It could be part of the ‘Vanishing Man’ thing again. Maybe I’m trying to make everything around me vanish into nothingness.

Mike breaks the spell.

‘You’re right, Dad. That’s a dumb place for us to drop the bags. We were just so glad to be here, to see it all clean and beautiful, so much like home should be, we didn’t think. Let me give you a hand with that stuff. You go halfway up and I’ll pass them to you.’

I go up four steps so I can push the bags onto the floor. Mike and Nicole hand them up to me. I’m glad my head’s out of sight. Lately, the smallest things can make me fill up. I guess if daughters don’t want an ‘old maid father’ they sure as hell don’t want a ‘crybaby’. Maybe it’s only the strain of waiting, wondering, preparing things, preparing myself. The strain of not knowing what’s going to happen.

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