KATIE CAMPBELL

The way we Jive now

The autumn that my mother fell ill I got into the habit of visiting her every weekend. Fridays I would skip lunch and leave work early to avoid the worst of the rush. Within an hour of leaving the city the traffic would ease, and by evening I was well on the way. Although my mother chastised me for letting my social life slide, I knew my visits were the high point of her week. In fact I came to quite enjoy those solitary Friday and Sunday night drives, alone in the dark, in the warm, speeding car with just the radio for company and the lights wavering past.

My mother was usually in bed by the time I arrived, but the next morning she’d bring up breakfast, then sit on the window seat while I crunched my way through the homemade bread, or coffee cake, or bran muffins which I imagine she spent whole days preparing in anticipation of my brief visits. I’d tell her about my week, padding out my schedule with imaginary dates to places I’d been years before, or recounting the plots of films which I’d overheard on the subway to work. I doubt if she really believed that I was out every night, but my embellishments enabled her to accept that her daughter was reasonabIy content if still single.

Saturday afternoons we’d sort through the attic; she was in a mood for tidying up, throwing away. Or if the weather was particularly fine we‘d go for a drive to look at the autumn leaves. And Saturday evenings while she was cooking some unnecessarily exotic supper I’d walk the dog - the only exercise it got all week.

Sundays were quieter; after church we’d visit friends or invite people in. If the sun was warm we‘d have tea in the garden; if it was chilly I’d lay a fire in the living room - a task which had always fallen to my father and which, since his death, my mother always tried to put on me.

Then the afternoon would wind down in chat and reminiscences until it was time for me to set out for the return to the city laden with left-over cakes and casseroles, jams and pickles, sacks of apples and potatoes which I would protestingly accept, and then duly divide between my neighbours each Sunday night.

That first weekend while my mother was preparing an elaborate paella which she remembered as my favourite meal - though, in fact, it had been my father’s - I took the dog down the lane and through the barley field. It had rained a11 afternoon and in the sudden let-up the evening sky com- bined with the rising mists to make the landscape seem quite mysterious.

The way we live now 43

The dog, thrilled to find himself off the chain, raced madly down the road and disappeared into the ditch. It wasn’t till I heard him barking that I regretted having let him off the lead. Years of living with two geriatrics had diminished most traces of canine mischief, he didn’t chase cars or harass livestock, so it was distressing to hear the frenzy in his tone.

Hurrying round the bend I saw him circling a parked car on the side of the road. It was an old blue Buick, rusting on the fenders and sides, but cleaner than many of the vehicles one encountered on these dusty lanes. A5 I approached I noticed a man sitting in the front seat, smoking a ciga- rette. He didn’t seem phazed by the dog; in fact he hardly seemed to notice. He simply sat there, smoking. His indifference was almost eerie. I called the dog, who came bounding back, bored already by the lack of response from his captured trophy. I debated apologising, but as the man hadn’t even acknowledged my presence, I decided instead to beat a hasty retreat.

By the time we returned to the waiting paella I had forgotten the en- counter. It wasn’t until the following Saturday as the dog and I ambled down the road that I suddenly remembered the man in the Buick. As we approached the curve the dog rushed on and there, ahead of us, parked in the very same place was the same man sitting, smoking, in the same old car. As I passed I noticed that on the back seat there was a large wicker basket, and the rear windows seemed to be hung with toys - a stuffed mouse, a red ball, a plastic fish all bounced in the breeze. I thought I saw some sort of creature as well - a flash of grey and silver fur; but I couldn’t be sure.

My curiosity got the better of me and, rather than make the usual circuit, I decided to turn back and get a second look. Approached from the front, the man seemed rather young - in his late twenties or thirties - and surprisingly well dressed. As I drew near, his car suddenly spluttered to life. The man nodded, perfunctorily, then drove slowly down the road as I made my way back through the barley field.

I didn’t mention the man to my mother, it had seemed insignificant the first time and now it began to seem rather bizarre. While I was convinced that he wasn’t dangerous, my mother lived alone and as the nearest neigh- bour was three fields away I didn’t want to alarm her.

By chance the next weekend my mother was tired so our Saturday activi- ties were confined to sorting out the linen chest. All the monogrammed napkins and table cloths and tea towels and tray covers, all the blanket covers and bed spreads and duvets and the multitude of pillow cases from the huge square continentals which my father had insisted on since a wartime stint in a French farmhouse, through the simple, embroidered

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rectangulars that my mother favoured, to the intricate lace and ribboned baby pillows which had been preserved from my own infancy in antici- pation of the new generation which had not yet - nor probably ever would - materialise.

The airing and sorting and bleaching and starching and ironing of the linen was an activity which my mother had undertaken for the first time just after my father died. Since then it had become an annual event. Each September after the garden had been harvested, the tubers set to their winter hibernation in the dark cocoon of the back of the cellar, the vegetables pickled and stored in their green and gold jars which lined the pantry shelves like some great stained-glass panel which had long ago lost the details of its narrative but preserved the magic of its light, the berries had been jellied or jammed, the fruits had been canned or frozen or preserved into exotic chutneys, after the garden had been delivered of its burdens and laid to rest under a protective blanket of straw to wait for another spring, my mother would turn her attentions to the linen. I suspect that she relished its pure, crisp, predictable planes, its uniform folds, its odour of stark cleanliness. She would drag out the plastic bags and inspect each item for moth holes or age stains or the simple, but unacceptable signs of sheer disintegration - giving up, conceding to the inevitable forces of time.

To someone who had lived for fifteen years with one change of perma- press sheets and a single towel these efforts seemed both eccentric and unnecessary. On the other hand I was beginning to realise that this exhausting ritual was important to my mother. Driving up the lane that Friday night I noticed the clothes-line sagging under a sheer wall of sheets which exuded a daunting whiteness even in the black country night. I real- ised that this was to be an even more thorough campaign than usual when, making my way up the unlit stairs, I found the landing littered with teeter- ing pyramids of linen.

The following morning my mother appeared as usual at half past nine, having released the dog to its morning perambulations and consumed her own meagre toast and tea several hours before. Although she was cheerful and full of purpose, I was disturbed to find her face quite grey and her eyes red with fatigue. I suggested that she leave the laundry for the cleaning woman, or let it go for another month till she’d recovered from the harvest, or indeed leave it all until next autumn when her efforts would be rewarded with a little more wear and tear for her attentions. But she would not hear of it, and I didn’t want to upset her by dwelling on her diminishing health or my anxiety.

It soon transpired that the barricade which had greeted my arrival was intended for me. My mother had spent the week assembling items for me

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The way we live now 45

to take back to the city. I tried to explain that I hadn’t the lifestyle to maintain the linen; even had I the inclination, I simply didn’t have the space for bath sheets and dinner napkins and shoe bags. And however happy I was to share my mother’s culinary efforts with my impoverished neighbours I was bourgeois enough to resist the prospect of dividing the family hope chest among the appreciative but undiscerning inhabitants of a walk-up tenement on the lower east side. This, of course, didn’t explain to my mother; the mere mention of my neighbours would have sent her into a slow depression. I simply maintained that the pleasure of returning each weekend to starched sheets and monogrammed pillows would be diminished if these luxuries were a part of my daily existence. I also intimated that some day, when I relinquished my delusory hopes of urban fame and fortune I would be happy to assume the responsibility of the family linen.

As we picked our way through these delicate negotiations, folding and stacking and packing as we went, my mind was on the prospect of my forthcoming encounter with the man in the Buick. Was he mad? A local eccentric? Perhaps he was a writer, waiting for inspiration. Or a bird- watcher stalking some rare specimen. Or a distressed new father evading the mewling and puking which had recently usurped his life. Or a cheated husband hoping to snare his beloved as she emerged from some woodland tryst. Or perhaps he was a rapist waiting to lure some unsuspecting ambler into the back seat of his car. This final possibility seemed the least likely. Two decades of city living had instilled in me a naive faith in rural life; somehow such gothic scenarios seemed inconceivable in a peaceful setting.

In any case, by mid-afternoon my mother was exhausted and decided to take a rest before starting the Singapore Duck which she had planned for supper. Unable to resist any longer, I called the dog and set off early for our weekly walk. Down the lane, over the fence, through the barley field turning already from gold to brown, over the ditch, a pause for a snuffle in the rabbit holes, then onto the dusty road. As we rounded the corner, however, the Buick wasn’t there.

Suddenly I felt devastated. What had I expected: a conversation at the most? So you see a man for several weekends running, so what? Perhaps the explanation would have been banal. Much better to preserve the mystery, I tried to console myself. At that moment the prospect of con- tinuing the walk seemed impossibly exhausting.

Still, what if we did go back to the house? With my mother still sleeping and the linen accusing from every corner? And what to do with the rest of the long afternoon until dinner? Then the long evening until it was time for bed? Then the long night until my mother’s falsely cheery morning appear-

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ance? Then the tedious routine of church: the interminable service, the droning Sunday visitors, the infernal cups of tea, the endless journey back to the city; then the infinite week stretching into another infinite weekend, and on and on through Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas and St Valentine’s and Easter and Mother’s Day and on forever to eternity? . . .

I don’t know how long I stood there. Finally the dog’s whines pen- etrated; I shook myself to throw off the mood. The sun was still hot and the gophers were playing chicken in the scrub beside us. The dog stared at them. I laughed and told him to go for it. He leapt the ditch, scattering the silly creatures, then bounded towards the woods beyond. With nothing else to do and no real reason to restrain him I followed behind.

It was a pine forest, planted by some local farmer on a government scheme to nourish the pulp and paper industry. The ground underfoot was soft with needles and, though the lower limbs were dense, sun came through above like the light from some cathedral window. The dog dis- appeared into the trees though I could hear him crashing and snuffling about. I sat down on a fallen trunk and waited.

Finally, when the cold began rising up from the ground, I called the dog and led him back to the open field. Evening had fallen and dark was fast descending. In the fading light the field seemed suddenly treacherous, full of hidden shrubs and thistles, so I failed to notice until we were almost at the fence that there, in its usual spot, sat the old Buick with the man inside. I guessed he had been watching me for some time.

As I climbed the fence he unrolled his window. The sound of a cello drifted out, a Bach concerto. The man himself was remarkably good- looking. He looked like the sort who had better things to do on a Saturday night than sit in a ditch as the sun went down. Then I noticed a cat, sitting quietly, purring contentedly in the man‘s lap. And on the floor of the passenger side was a litter box, newly cleaned and full of fresh sawdust.

’Nice evening for a walk,’ the man said. I nodded, not sure what to reply. ‘Days are getting shorter,‘ he added. I asked if he knew the time. It was half past seven. I should have been home an hour before. ’Are you from around here?’ I asked. ‘From town,’ he replied. I assumed he meant the village down the road where my mother did her grocery shopping and changed her library books.

He brought out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. He seemed quite friendly though untalkative so I leaned against the car and we smoked in silence. The moment the sun fell behind the trees the dog, who had settled comfortably at my feet, suddenly jumped up and began snuffling round. I was afraid he might disturb the cat, so I announced that I had to be on my way. ‘See you next week then,’ the man replied. His lack of curiosity was

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The way we live now 47

as compelling as his silence. As I rounded the corner I heard him start the engine and drive off in the opposite direction.

Back home my mother was worried that I was so late, so I confessed about the encounter. ’That will be Jim Cameron,’ she said. Apparently he was a farmer’s son who’d gone away to university and after his father’s death had returned to take over as principal of the local high school. He clearly had a penchant for cats as there were dozens of them skulking round the farm. Early in the spring this particular cat had been diagnosed as having leukaemia. The vet advised putting it down, but Jim, having lost his rural pragmatism, couldn’t bear the idea of killing an animal still so clearly enjoying life. He’d kitted out an old car and quarantined the infected animal where it could still observe and in a limited way take part in the surrounding scene. And apparently every Saturday night he set aside a few hours to spend with the isolated creature.

Over the next few months I’d pass Jim Cameron and his cat. Sometimes the cat would be prowling about in the back seat while Jim sat wrapped in cigarette smoke and Bach concertos. Increasingly I found it curled in Jim’s lap, but he seemed undistressed. Perhaps he didn‘t notice, perhaps I was simply projecting a deterioration onto the creature. I read in one of my mother’s books that well loved pets have been known to siirvive for years with leukaemia, much longer than some humans in fact.

Sometimes Jim would roll down his window and we‘d exchange com- ments on the weather, the crops, the colour of the sky. Other times he’d stare ahead, ignoring us or genuinely oblivious to the dog and me walking past. In all those autumn evenings, he never asked my name or my purpose, though once he mentioned my mother’s health, so I imagine he knew as much about me as I knew about him. He also never referred to his cat, or his reason for being in an old blue Buick on the side of the road on a Saturday night as the sun set behind the pine forest.

The snows came early that season and by December my mother was finding the weather severe; she was too old to shovel the driveway and too proud to ask the neighbours for help. Eventually she decided to close the house and go south for the winter, so my weekend visits ended just before Christmas. She died early the next spring while contemplating the move back home. I left the house for the agents to deal with; the linen, silver and china I told them to put into auction; the rest was to go to the Salvation Army, and the dog was given back to the farmer from which it had come years before. By June the place was empty and a buyer had been found. The lawyer thought I might want to pay a final visit before the deal was signed. At first I resisted; but my friends convinced me it might be a good idea to see it one last time.

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I drove up late on the Friday evening and booked into a local hotel. The next morning I visited the library, post office and grocery shop where my mother had spent her weekday mornings. In the early afternoon I drove out to the house. The floors were scratched by ancient accidents and the recent negligence of removal men, the walls were scarred and faded where shelves or pictures had once been. I don’t know what I was supposed to feel, but I felt mostly empty, numb. The place had always been my mother’s; without her presence it was meaningless.

There were still several hours till evening so I decided to go for some fresh air. I didn’t consciously follow the route of last autumn’s evening walks but somehow I found myself striding through the barley field, the crop still silvery, green, not yet ripened to gold. I hopped the fence and started down the dirt road, past the pine woods, the gopher field.

Although it was six months since I’d been there, I suppose somewhere I did expect to find the old blue Buick waiting in the ditch. It wasn’t. Perhaps Jim Cameron had changed his schedule and was taking the cat out on Fridays. Perhaps the cat had made a miraculous recovery. More likely it had died, of course. But you never know for sure.

0 Katie Campbell 1992