Life Among the Savages (9 page)

The fact that I hadn't
taken
my summer coat to the cleaners (oh, those first fall days, with the sad sharpness in the air and the leaves bright so that our road is a line of color, and the feeling of storing-in against the winter, and the pumpkins) does not materially affect my conviction that the kind of progress from one thing to another which makes up a list is deeply logical, if ineffectual. Say to my next-door neighbor that you admire her new kitchen linoleum, and she will tell you, “Do you like it, really? I wanted to get white instead of blue, but it gets dirty so quickly, and then of course John always did like blue best, but of course the cannister set and the kitchen table are lighter blue, and it would have meant replacing
them,
but then the curtains . . .” From here she may go off onto any of several tangents (I am assuming, of course, that she is not interrupted by my telling of my own experiences, or John's saying how about bringing out some crackers and cheese for everybody, or a child crying somewhere upstairs), such as the dirt detour; she may give you a list of things which
do
get dirty (“ . . . a black linoleum, and do you know it showed every single track . . .”) or things which do
not
get dirty (“. . . and even though it was really a pale yellow it just wiped off . . .”), or she may become interested in kitchen fixtures (“. . . and she had the
prettiest
curtains, but they were sort of odd, I thought, in a
kitchen;
they were . . .”) or bathroom fixtures (“. . . and they had the same tiles in the bathroom, only these were pink, and the curtains
there . . .”)
or even John's likes and dislikes (“. . . but of course he won't eat anything with garlic in it, so I have to take all the recipes I get and put in . . .”).

I think that may be why my summer coat never got to the cleaners. You can start from any given point on a list and go off in all directions at once, the world being as full as it is, and even though a list is a greatly satisfying thing to have, it is extraordinarily difficult to keep it focussed on the subject at hand. Right at this point, for instance, I was thinking about demitasse cups. I personally prefer a double-sized coffee cup, but with those tiny cups coffee is served so graciously (I see a list here, going on off into tiny spoons, and after-dinner liqueurs, and me in a long gown at the table, and everyone speaking wittily, and the children sweetly asleep in the nursery with an efficient Nanny on guard)—so easily (this list includes a maid and a butler to wash the cups and polish the tiny spoons) and so elegantly (years ago my mother promised me a silver coffee service, and then there's always the coffee table we inherited from Great-Aunt Martha, and if my husband would just get to work and sand it down and varnish it . . .) that, infected as I am by the constant desire to change everything, I may give in to the demitasse, after all. What persuaded me to think about demitasse cups at all was a statement made recently by one of my close friends, who said that she personally did not like our big cups for dinner coffee, but preferred a demitasse because she liked her coffee scalding hot. That, of course, sent me off onto several tangents on
her
housekeeping; she is a
very
good friend, and I would not for the world mention to her that the last time we visited there, there was no soap in the bathroom. I am terribly fond of her, but it
is
true that her guest room windows do not open. She is a grand girl, and if she likes her coffee in small cups at my house, she shall have it that way, in spite of the fact that the last time we dined there I found a spider in the salad.

Perhaps—following still another list—if we did have demitasse cups, our after-dinner hour, which is complicated by the presence of children coming out of bathtubs, and children with pressing problems in elementary reading, and dishes on the table waiting to be washed, and dogs and cats clamoring for their supper—perhaps our after-dinner hour would somehow become imperceptibly more gracious; perhaps the children, seeing us endlessly refilling our demitasse cups, would tiptoe thoughtfully away from the dining room door. Perhaps if we had demitasse cups a local couple, who have no children and have exhibited a vast distaste for our hospitality, would come to call. Perhaps, as a matter of fact, if we had demitasse cups, we could overlook the fact that the vast distaste of the local couple was provoked by our short-tempered reception of their resentment of our children. We
should
live more graciously, after all.

Then, naturally, there is the question of the cups themselves. I am immediately tempted to buy them just as cheaply as possible
(there's
a list for you, the prices of things) and have thought of the five and ten (“. . . and I got the
sweetest
little cups right there, can you imagine, and even though the cups and saucers came separately I didn't really pay much
more . . .”)
but dismissed the idea through pride (“. . . and everyone could
tell
because of course those
same
patterns . . .”). I shall have to go off and purchase them in some big store where I have a charge account (“. . . a charge account? Let me just tell you what happened to
me
when . . .”) and I suspect that I will end up after a day of shopping with four cheap flowered demitasse cups and a set of dishes (I have so been needing dishes) and a set of glassware which will be wonderful for the children to use when they have company for breakfast, and while I am in that department I think I ought to look at electric mixers because it is only four months to my birthday.

I tabulated recently a conversation, or double-listing, between two women, one of them me. The conversation began, civilly enough, with a compliment from me about my friend's new slipcover, which she had made herself. We then went rapidly through slipcovers (custom-made, prices of) the value of a sewing machine, the clothes children wore to school, and children's shoes (prices of). She then remarked that she hated to repeat cute things her children had said, but she just
had
to tell me what her daughter said the other day. I retaliated with a really clever story about Jannie. She said that prices were awful, weren't they; the conversation could have ended right there, with both of us crying, but fortunately one of our husbands stepped in with a remark about how we
had
really planned to play bridge, hadn't we? because if we
had,
here were the cards dealt and the chairs ready. We sat down, and she told me about how angry her husband had been the last time we played bridge, because she had reneged twice, and I told her a little sad story about how my husband had opened once with two hearts and I had said two spades and he said three diamonds and there I sat with the king, jack, seven of diamonds and . . . well,
she
told
me
about these people they used to know, and
I
told
her
about these people
we
used to know, and then she said, well, the way some people bring up their children, and I told her about the bad manners of the children of these friends of ours, and she said well, of course, progressive education, and my husband said were we going to play bridge or weren't we? So then she said that she loved my new blouse and I said I wished I could make things for myself, and she said the stores were awful, weren't they. I told her about how a salesclerk was so rude I walked out without buying anything, and she said that the butcher in our mutual grocery was really terribly mean today about the hamburger. I said that even hamburger was almost out of our range these days and she told me about how prices are up at least two cents a pound since practically yesterday. I told her that I understood that the main reason they had given up school lunches was the cost, and she said that it really cost less to make lunch at home and send it, the way things were these days. I said the only trouble was, Laurie preferred sandwiches made with cold meat, and she said had I tried this new spread made with olives. When I said no, she said that she had also tried a new cake mix and it was marvelous, but of course you really
needed
an electric mixer, and I said my birthday was only four months off. My husband bid three hearts in a loud voice. I bid three spades, and said that I envied her the cookies she made, that my children preferred to stop off for cookies at her house because our cookies were all store-bought. She said shyly that she had made a new kind of lemon meringue tart to serve after our bridge game and my husband said oh, were we playing bridge? Her husband then bid four hearts, she bid four no trump, and I said that I was planning to get a set of demitasse cups.

We played the hand in six spades, and made it easily, but it turns out that if I
am
going to get an electric mixer I shall have to shop around and get a really good one; she has a friend who used hers once and it fell apart. Of course she got a new one right away from the manufacturers, but my husband believed that if his partner had led anything except the ace of hearts . . . I took the recipe for the lemon meringue tarts, and when I got home I made a new list, which began “lemons, demitasse cups, summer coat to cleaners . . .”

That summer coat was a good one; I had worn it my last two years in college and every summer since. With three small children I perceived clearly what I had suspected when I had only one child, and half-believed when I had only two children—that parents must automatically resign themselves to wearing every article of their own clothing at least two years beyond its normal life expectancy. During the long summers—which are hotter, by the way, than they used to be when I was a child, just as the winters are colder—I can get along nicely on my summer coat and my few surviving cotton dresses, but the winter is another thing; unless I find someone who can fix the pockets of my old fur coat I shall not even be able to carry a handkerchief any more, unless I pin it to the front of me the way I do with Jannie. However, mending a fur coat is so ridiculous in the middle of summer that I have a little list, in my top dresser drawer, which has been there for—I think-two years. “Mend fr coat,” it says.

BY THE TIME I woke up on a summer morning-the alarm having missed fire again, for the third time in a week—it was already too hot to move. I lay in bed for a few minutes, wanting to get up but unable to exert the necessary energy. From the girls' room, small voices rose in song, and I listened happily, thinking how pleasant it was to hear a brother and two sisters playing affectionately together; then, suddenly, the words of the song penetrated into my hot mind, and I was out of bed in one leap and racing down the hall. “Baby ate a spider, Baby ate a spider,” was what they were singing.

Three innocent little faces were turned to me as I opened the door. Laurie, in his cowboy-print pajamas, was sitting on top of the dresser beating time with a coat hanger. Jannie, in pink pajama pants and her best organdy party dress, was sitting on her bed. Sally peered at me curiously through the bars of her crib and grinned, showing her four teeth.

“What did you eat?” I demanded. “What do you have in your mouth?”

Laurie shouted triumphantly. “A spider,” he said. “She ate a spider.”

I forced the baby's mouth open; it was empty. “Did she
swallow
it?”

“Why?” Jannie asked, wide-eyed. “Will it make her sick?”

“Jannie
gave it to her,” Laurie said.

“Laurie
found it,” Jannie said.

“But she ate it herself,” Laurie said hastily.

I went wearily back into my own room, resisted the strong temptation to get back into bed, and began to dress. The conversation from the children indicated that they, too, were what might be called dressing.

“Put it on Baby,” Laurie remarked.

“It's too little,” Jannie objected.

“That's all right,” Laurie said. “Put it on her anyway.”

“She can wear my bluuuuuuuue shirt,” Jannie said.

“That
shirt's no good,” Laurie said.

“It is so,” Jannie said.

“It is not,” Laurie said.

“It is so,” Jannie said.

“It is not,” Laurie said.

“Children,” I called, my voice a little louder than it usually is at only nine in the morning. “Please stop squabbling and get dressed.”

“Laurie
started it,” Jannie called back.

“Jannie
started it,” Laurie called.

Hastily I pushed the comb through my hair and hurried down the hall; hurrying made me hotter. I lifted Sally out of her crib and set her on Jannie's bed to dress her, and Laurie and Jannie immediately abandoned their dressing and came to sit on the bed and watch. I changed Sally with the casual speed that comes to mothers of three, decided against putting anything more than a diaper on her, and started downstairs with her under my arm. Behind me Jannie lifted her voice tearfully.

“I can't find my shooooooes,” she howled.

Laurie began to chuckle maliciously. I saw that he was putting Jannie's red sandals on his own feet, reflected briefly and bitterly on the theory that seven-year-olds have good days and bad days, and said briskly, “Just for that, you can put Jannie's shoes on
her
feet, and buckle them for her, too.”

I knew immediately what he was going to do, and, with speed, I made a strong tactical retreat downstairs before I could see him do it. In the kitchen it was hotter than ever, and I set Sally in her high chair and began opening windows and doors to get some air. The bright sunlight reassured me; by ten o‘clock breakfast would be done with, I would have had my coffee; I might even feel like taking the children swimming, or on a picnic. Acting with all the alertness and vivid grace which I usually bring to the breakfast hour, I filled the coffee pot and set it on the stove, filled Sally's bottle and put it on to heat, and then looked around for Phoebe. Phoebe was our household help, and, being a local girl, she possessed all the native Vermonter's independence of thought and action; she was supposed by me to arrive every morning by eight o'clock and frequently arrived, having clearly established her emancipated state, by nine. This morning there was no sign of her, not even in her favorite spot for mornings when I get up late, which is out on the side porch playing solitaire. I began to set the table irritably.