Editor's Note: The following are selections from Shailah McEllivay Jones's Letters to Jody, a collection of letters Jones wrote to her sister while traveling with her husband, novelist Madison Jones.

 

 

Paradise Motel

Bonita Springs, Florida

September 4, 1954

 

Dearest Jody,

     This is an unsavory room. It brings to mind sturm und drang and rot and mold. The predominant color motif is slime green, but the faded orange spread on the bed that M— and I sleep on and Carroll’s spreadless cot and Percy’s sleep/play pen lend a haphazard, wholesome note to a room that looks like it’s been the scene of many joyless assignations. There isn’t even a speck of phony rococo to lend a gay note.

     M— is off on errands now. He took Carroll with him and Percy is snoozing here beside me in the motel. When the Sewanee Review fellowship first materialized for sure, M— and I talked wildly about taking Carroll and Percy and sailing to Europe. Maybe to Paris. I enjoyed private thoughts about a cheap flat on the Left Bank. When I found that another baby was on the way, we prudently trimmed our sails and decided to live somewhere along the gulf coast of Florida. I like babies. I think one of woman’s most important roles is the nurturing one… but I don’t think about it much. Last week M— drive ahead to scout for a place to live and took Carroll with him.

     You asked for a blow by blow account of my bus trip after I left your place, so…. Everyone at the Tampa station looked very irritated or very experienced or both. It did no good to remind my self that I was well brought up and very, very WELL EDUCATED and that I have impeccable manners and had completed all the work toward a master’s degree in literature (so what). All my feelings of timidity and unworthiness reared their ugly heads. I squared my shoulders, stiffened my spine, mumbled Lord, give me strength, and stuck my nose in the air. I got a stranglehold on Percy, hoisted him over my shoulders, and looped the handles of my baby gear and my hand bag over my arm. This left my hand free for grabbing, grasping, or clutching.

     Jody, I know you shudder when I sound like a troop leader. All those aphorisms Dad fired at us in our young years must have had a lasting effect. Often I mutter to myself, “self-pity is self destruction.” Last week I caught myself chiding myself with “a quitter never wins and a winner never quits.”

     Jody, you remember I was concerned about fresh Percy food along the way. I spotted some black bananas in a blighted fruit arrangement on the lunch counter in the bus station. The waitress, when I asked to buy ‘em, chased away circling fruit flies and said, “Honey, you can have ‘em. Ain’t nobody gonna buy them rotting thangs.” Peeled and mashed they’d be a real feast for Percy who loves them that way. Remember that he’s six months old. My expressions of delight and gratitude brought forth a glass of water, three napkins, a knife, a fork, and two spoons. Lady Bountiful moved down the counter and sang back, “Call me if you need more water.”

     I dropped gear on the floor, gripped Percy, climbed on a stool, and prepared the feast that I spooned into Percy. He gobbled with enthusiasm. I climbed down nonchalantly, retrieved my gear, and discovered that my handbag, containing ticket and money, was nowhere about me. I felt like sitting down on the floor and bursting into tears. even considered it. A passing owl-faced man hooted at me, “What’s in your mind little mother?” I looked in my mind and saw rows of diapers and bottles. He went on. “Your purse slipped under your stool and I picked it up. Here you are.” Boy, was I glad. Felt like hugging him. Stinky cigar, pot belly, beak nose, and all. He went on, “Good thing for you I’m honest. Another fellow might have kept your valuables.” I grinned gratefully and idiotically and excused myself explaining that I had a bus to catch.

     Through the glass panes of the front double doors I could see that dusk was gathering around the awesome row of buses parked outside. I panicked. Anyhow, I made myself sashay outside and climb aboard the proper bus. Squeezed Percy, me, and our gear into an empty seat next to a weather-beaten man who looked agreeable. Two plump black ladies across the aisle stopped gossiping long enough to click at Percy and nod at me. One of them had a sleeping, bird-legged boy of two or so nestled on her generous lap. So far, so good.

     A classy looking young man wearing a backpack climbed on and I reflected that he would have lent tone to our bus if he hadn’t looked like he smelled something bad. I reflected further that there would be gatherings in his future where he would relate snotty anecdotes about the horror of riding with a bus full of hillbillies and rednecks.

     Seated in the bus, I kept fighting sleep. Percy wriggled. I was asleep when the fox-faced driver woke me and demanded a ticket. Half-awake and pretty confused, I managed to produce mine. Looking over Percy, who looked back (ad hominem), the driver observed regretfully that he wasn’t old enough to be ticketed. Finally, the bus took off and I started to doze. Percy, seeking amusement, began yanking my tired nose. The agreeable man next to me said, “Girlie, if you want I’ll hold the kid so you can get some shut-eye.” He had broken, dirty fingernails (probably harboring germs), but the charitable offer made up for the small sin of dirty fingernails. I hugged Percy and handed him over. Clacking tongues assured me Percy would be guarded while I slept.

     Foxface shook me awake around three the next morning. “They ain’t no proper bus station in this rinky-dink town, lady. If you want you can set with the baby on the banch beside th ehighway and wait fer yore husbin to show up” (doubt lurked in his eyes). Two prune-faced ladies, sporting flowered hats, hissed something to him and he made a grudging offer to escort me and carry Percy and my bag to the town motel. I retrieved sleeping Percy and thanked the agreeable man who smiled and showed teeth that matched his fingernails. I smiled farewell most particularly at the prune-faced ladies, who beamed back, and followed the driver carrying sleeping Percy and my bag. We crossed the highway to a dismal collection of low buildings in back of a promising neon sign… Paradise Motel. The aroused proprietor led us to a unit and pounded on the door.

     After a while, sleepy-looking, fully dressed M— cracked the door and peered out. From behind the bus driver and Percy, I growled, “It’s me.” I did not think to reprove M— for not meeting my bus, as arranged. He said, “I forgot to set my alarm.” We hugged and kissed. Old foxface put Percy down on Carroll’s cot and she woke up and began to protest loudly. The pajama-clad motel keeper left quietly. My guess is that he went back to bed. The water blue eyes of the bus driver brimmed over when we thanked him. He went out the door to his Greyhound whistling “Dixie.”

     Jody, this letter has gone on long enough. I’ll write and give you my new address after we’re settled. I’ll expect to hear from you, too.

 

    Much Love,

    S—

 

 

 

 

General Delivery
Bonita Springs, Florida
November 6, 1954 

 

Dearest Jody,

     The days are still beautiful and green and gold. It doesn’t seem as if November is the months of the dead — All Souls’ Day, All Saints’ Day. Though lately I’ve been so “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought” that I’m not fit company for man or beast. Damn! I try to be peaceful and patient … often am long-suffering and act a lie as do many good Christians. (Nasty thought.)

     Jody, am honestly delighted that you sold another poem. Now sell another. Did I tell you that lonely puffs of clouds and tiny hermit crabs are often on the periphery of my dreams … unpleasantly. A couple of days ago, in desperation, I went fishing with M—. I carried Percy to the borrowed skiff. M— carried Carroll and his fishing rod. After finally getting us arranged, M— rowed us all the way down our river to the ocean. Cypress knees, broken stumps, and live oaks draped with Spanish moss made the world, well the swamp, surreal. (We probably looked surreal ourselves.) Together M— and I looked with awe at two blue herons, a wonderously dull gold bed of water lilies, a clump of weeping willows, and the fine pale sand bar where our black river emptied into the gulf. M— rowed us on into the ocean. I got a grip on Percy. Carroll seemed content to sit quietly in the bottom of the skiff and look up at the clouds.

     After ten motionless minutes on the hard seat of the little boat, my bottom was numb. The thumb trapped under Percy’s leg started me thinking about thumb screws. When the arm, hand, and shoulder supporting the sleeping Percy lost all feeling, I tried to remember about racks, torture wheels, and iron maidens. Percy wet, and a cold off-shore wind attacked me and set my teeth chattering. M—’s rapt expression, Carroll’s soft singing, and Percy’s soft snores persuaded me that I could tough it out another twenty minutes. I did. Eventually M— turned the boat and we got back to our point of embarkation.

     Sometimes I sit in the sand and weeds at the back corner of our abode and lean against the concrete block side. It’s a pleasant spot. The sky is always blue. (I never sit there in the rain.) There’s a fine stand of turpentine pines to my left and a brown-tipped palmetto struggling in the sand beneath the pines. Sometimes I bring it a drink of water. I remind myself that Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. I wonder why I’m such a pill … to myself anyway. Probably I’m spoiled.

     Nearly once a month on Saturday night M— and I drive to Naples to The Cove Restaurant. We have lobster and martinis and real napkins. It’s fairly posh and we dine by candlelight. It’s oodles of fun and we never get tired of it. Old Mrs. Yon, from Bonita Springs, comes to baby-sit and spread common sense and a proper perspective. Of her husband of fifty-two years, she says, “Mr. Yon has an ulcer and a bum ticker and he drinks a quart of whiskey a day and he ain’t getting’ any younger. But Ah reckon that’s the way he wants to go and Ah leave him be.” One evening we returned home very early to find a fierce Carroll and a joyous Percy throwing great handfuls of the peas Mrs. Yon was shelling. I remonstrated loudly. Mrs. Yon said, flatly, “Leave ‘em be. It pleasures me to see younguns enjoyin’ theyselves.” Sometimes I feel like hugging her shapeless old body.

     Jody, I’ll tell you about the redneck I noticed in the “Superette” because his denims seemed bell-bottomed and he mumbled to himself. Then I’ll stop talking about people. He recounts his days to me. “My wife is dead so I gets up and makes breakfast for my younguns. All three are good younguns. We have a piddlin’ grapefruit orchard. It ain’t really much. Enough to support me an’ them. They walk to school after breakfast and I fool around doin’ whatever needs to be done. Cleanin’ smudge pots, sprayin’, weedin’, and the like. Pickin’ what needs to be picked in the right season. All the kids hep with the pickin’ and we got good buyers fer our grapefruit because it’s always good an’ juicy an’ we got a good name. My oldest will probably make a real go of that piddlin’ orchard some day. He can do some prunin’, sprayin’, and the like already. I work around till school is out. Then I pick ‘em up in my pickup.” (Jody, I’m reasonably sure that he intended no pun.) Anyhow, the thought keeps creeping my way that the kids will make tracks away from the piddlin’ orchard just as soon as they get their walking papers. I hope not. I think about him getting old and sad and bitter and I can’t stand it.

     Boy! Is examining life ever the pits. Sometimes I wish I was back in graduate school and once again could enjoy idle speculation and that graduate school spirit of interesting uselessness.

     Oops! I can hear Percy. M— took Carroll to town with him but Percy was asleep and it seemed a shame to wake him. Alas! He’s stirring, I have to go.

     Write again soon … and think about visiting us. We’ve accumulated three odd dogs that you might enjoy. I do.

 

Love,

S—

 

 

 

Montego Bay, Jamaica
June 8, 1968

 

Dear Jody,

 

    Imagine a girl in a Panama straw hat sitting in quiet rapture in a Pan-Am clipper ship high over the Caribbean. Her nose is pressed against the Plexiglas window beside her, and she is squinting at sun sparks bouncing from the sea far below. Pleased with life, she is feeling one with Christopher Columbus or Vasco de Gama.

    Some twenty-five years later see a matron sitting in a Pan-Am jet high over the Caribbean. Her nose is pressed to the Plexiglas window beside her, and she is watching sparks of sun bounce from the sea far below. With her are a cane, five spirited children, and a husband bent on finishing a novel (a husband made irritable by three tall glasses of spilled chocolate milk, two expensive unfinished plates of food, and a long wait in the Miami airport). Perhaps you guessed that the girl is me; the matron is what I grew up to be.

    M—’s six-month Rockefeller grant and some of our savings are making this trip possible. When the plane circled to land, everyone was very excited (even me). Carroll was not so excited that she didn't think to say, "Cool it, Mama. It's no big deal. People fly to Jamaica everyday." I thought to myself that it would be a glorious deal. M— would finish a great novel, my beloved family would swim in crystal water, climb lavender-blue mountains, see mind- boggling waterfalls, and run on long stretches of pale gold sand.

    After we landed, the ancient black driver sent to meet us by the hotel/bungalow owner I'd been corresponding with, greeted M—, me, and our family unenthusiastically and herded us to his mini-bus. I had time to notice that oppressive heat was everywhere, that the main airport building I remembered was a storage shed, and that the sad or happy black and white people scurrying or drifting by spoke clipped British English or a native patois. After we were settled in the grey mini-bus (with a maximum of confusion), Michael piped up and asked the driver about the fishing.

    In clipped British English the old driver said truthfully, "It would do no harm for you children to carry fishing rods to the sea in the very early morning or the late afternoon. You are all fair complected and the sun will neither burn nor blister you at that time. Not many tourists visit us during the hot days of summer." M— and I found this announcement sobering. We had thought the children would be out and about during the day. Not at all underfoot.

    The grouchy old man stopped his mini-bus in front of a tired-looking grey stucco bungalow on the grounds of the British Colonial hotel I remembered. A few dispirited petunias bordered the cracked cement walk leading to the front door. The driver unlocked the front door. With my cane I went in first and thought that I smelled mold and then thought that the sparse, shabby furnishings were perfect. I’d never have to worry about sticky glasses leaving rings on table tops. Andrew announced that the TV didn't work. The driver counter-announced, "Jamaican television functions in this location only after five in the afternoon."

    After the driver bowed out, the children mocked him and laughed and bounced on the beds I'd assigned to them and then followed M— out to look around. I unpacked a little and then sat on the faded chintz daybed in the living room and remembered running hand in hand with faceless Canadian boys long ago through sugar cane fields silver in the moonlight. Then I reached for my cane, stood up, and went to find my family.

    Hours later, dinner in the old, British Colonial hotel next door was not a barrel of fun. Carefully set tables, gleaming white tablecloths, and serious black waiters gliding to and fro as to the tunes of doleful pipers silenced us all. The old hotel owner sat quietly in a corner facing his lady. Their privacy was guarded by potted palms. Two white haired ladies sat up straight as ram-rods, facing each other at a little table in the middle of the room, their shapes guarded by folds of chiffon. I could imagine cologne scented handkerchiefs tucked away somewhere in the folds. The ladies both looked as if they'd been born to sit up straight in dining rooms decorated with potted palms.

    Michael got the attention of the dining room then. He banged a clogged salt cellar on the table. Shocked, disapproving waiters surrounded Michael immediately. One old man wrapped a napkin neatly around his hand and another old waiter turned the offending shaker upside down and rapped it sharply on the napkin. Another waiter handed Michael a fresh salt shaker. When no salt came from any shaker, the children chuckled. So did two watching, white coated bus boys. I looked into hostile black and white faces and smiled apologetically. (I had reared these rude monsters.)

    After dinner we crossed the road and walked along the sea. The children pointed out the stars and their reflections in the water. I was happy. I had imagined my family walking along dusky tropic beaches and pointing out stars. M— suggested that we send everyone back to the cottage, put Carroll in charge, and go look for a rum drink. I wanted to go back with the children the first night, so M— and Carroll, who did want to go exploring farther, went looking. The rest of the gang reluctantly followed me back to our dwelling, brushed teeth, washed faces, mumbled night prayers, and wrestled till they fell asleep.

    Right now I'm scribbling this note amidst the pools of hot air that keep pursuing me around the room. I know they'll follow me to bed. I promised M— an idyllic place to work. Besides this ghastly, sticky, energy-draining heat, planes fly directly overhead and there is a busy road between our house and the sea. I promised the children underwater gardens and wondrous striped and spotted blue and purple and yellow fish. A hurricane washed away the coral reefs and the fish went with them. I asked at the hotel.

    I think of the skinny, sensible little girl who memorized Latin conjugations and declensions so conscientiously and then, nearly half a century later, led the family who was in the habit of trusting her, far afield to Jamaica. I wonder and am silent.

    Do write when I send you an address. I don't know it yet.

    Much love
    S—

 

 

 

 

The Lucky Boy Motel
Hollywood, Florida
June (still), 1968

 

Dear Jody,

 

    This is a pretty little town with lots of lovely, impressive palm trees, clean wide streets, and lots of suspicious merchants. Right now M— and Percy are walking the streets of this town trying to get a personal check cashed. We have no credit cards. Con artists must have had a field day here once. The merchants are very wary now. We cashed personal checks in Jamaica, used up our travelers checks driving up and down the Florida Keys, and now we're flat broke.

    Our last little bit of cash went for a room in The Lucky Boy Motel. It's so lowly that we don't even have air conditioning on this hot June afternoon in Florida. We do have a big window fan and a TV though. There is also a dank bathroom, a small sink, refrigerator, a double bed, two cots, and permission to make pallet beds. I've seen no signs of roaches or spiders.

    I'm working on developing a healthy phlegmatic personality … a personality not easily perturbed by life's exigencies. Carroll makes many observations (e.g., "It's like prehistoric times. The mother and the little kids are huddled around the fire/t.v. while the father and the oldest son are out scavenging for food/trying to cash a check.").

    M— and Percy went to the police station twice (Percy told me later that he kept saying, "Papa, they don't cash checks here.") Anyway, the boys at the station chipped in and loaned M— five dollars. Maybe because we're from Alabama (George Wallace country).

    M— came back to The Lucky Boy with bread, baloney, milk, and a tiny jar of mayonnaise, and we all ate till there was nothing left. M— called Ward in Auburn and asked him to wire money for us to a local bank. Ward did. The next morning M— and I took small Andrew and went to the bank. After identifying ourselves, giving proof of our identification, etc., the bank reluctantly handed over our money to us. After this grilling, M—, Andrew, and I returned home to The Lucky Boy to find the rest of the children and the luggage on the sidewalk by the motel. At ten o'clock the lady who managed The Lucky Boy said, "You keeds pay for another day, or you keeds go." The lady had probably seen more than her share of dead-beats. Having no money, the children matter-of-factly, got. I know about the comedy of THE HUMAN CONDITION. I surely don't like me and mine being actors in the comedy, though.

    We then went to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce (an odd, sensible thing for us to do). There, a snappy young lady, with beautiful gold hair and spooky long red fingernails, deigned to give us a list of motels that would give us a six-week price. We looked at this motel, The Mirador, and decided to stay. They leased us a suite … that is, two bedrooms with an ugly pink-tiled bathroom off a tiny hall that separates the bedrooms. There are two double beds in each bedroom, a cot, and one bedroom (extra-big) has a louvred door that opens up to reveal a tiny sink or basin, and a tiny stove atop a tiny refrigerator. There is a table between the "kitchen” part and the bedroom part. I sit there often dispensing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or processed cheese sandwiches, or (oh joy) hot dogs. There is a swimming pool outside our door, swings, ping-pong tables, and the like. Everyone seems to have found friends.

    Percy, too spirited for motel living, went to stay with M—’s parents, and they sent him to summer camp. Everybody seems to find lots to do, and I can neither weep nor wail because I brought it all on everybody.

    It scares strangers (mostly tough-skinned ladies who bring to mind alligators basking in the sun) if I lurch around the pool. So yesterday I took my cane and went walking down the street by the ocean. A big wind storm came up and a lady from Georgia ran up to me and said, "Honey, Ah saw you from my hotel window. Ah thought Ah'd better get to you before the wind blew you over. Let me walk you back where you belong." I reckon I have no choice about accepting the human condition and the kindnesses of strangers. In fact, I should be damn glad of the latter.

    M— took the rented station wagon back to Avis and took a bus to Auburn to get our car from the Strouds, and I did something (in reparation for my bubbleheadedness) that I'm proud of. I felt one of those awful bladder infections coming on and did not weep or wail or cry for a doctor. After I got the children to bed I went into the dreary pink-tiled bathroom with a pitcher that I filled with water and drank through the night. By or near morning, I went to bed fortified with aspirin feeling much better. Very sensibly I reasoned that it was a superior tactic than to try to get someone to stay with the children while I found a doctor.

    I am patting myself on the back … though I still don't think I'm on a par with Elizabeth Bennett or some other admirable women in fiction. None of them would ever have led their families to Jamaica.

    Write.

 

    Love,
    S—

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Inn of the Four Courts
Dublin, Ireland
September 4,1973

 

Dear Jody,

 

    You told me to write often from Ireland to keep you posted re our life … but postage adds up. I'll write a long letter/memoir. Every so often I'll mail it to you.

    Now back to the train ride from Galway to Dublin. Some ancient Celtic mystique seemed to have the children in thrall. They all had the look of beached fish gasping for water. Andrew said, "Look, a bunch of silver clouds." Michael said, "That pile of stones looks lots like the castle on the cover of our old fairy tale book." Staring fixedly at the mist and the gray shapes that blurred the horizon and made earth and sky one, I was silent. So was M—.

    The dim Dublin train station suggested dirt, gloom, and loneliness. M—, with the spirited aid of a lone baggage handler, summoned two taxis, both manned by grouchy drivers. The taxis deposited us and the luggage at an old hotel, The Inn of the Four Courts, by the River Liffey. The owner of the house we were headed toward had recommended the hotel and assured M— that it was inexpensive. M— did not think so (noisily). Two big beds and two cots in two rooms served us for two nights. "If I was a woman given to weeping, I sure as hell would weep," I reflected.

    I am accustomed to drifting off to sleep to the chirping of tree frogs, the singing of nightingales, or the pleasantly eerie cry of a screech owl. Blaring horns, screeching tires, speeding lorries kept me tossing all night. I worried that no one else would be able to sleep either. My bed sheets got pitifully tangled and twisted. Early the next morning, M— and the children stated that they had slept all night long, and all seemed joyful, too.

    From the hotel window, the dark dirty water of the River Liffey looked foreign and vaguely exciting in the morning sunshine. Dublin seemed a sedate, charming, old city. Massive gray buildings, statues, and green squares were everywhere. The black water of the Liffey made sea gulls swooping and sailing in the sunshine look shiny and white. Andrew and Michael stood by the window with me and watched them.

…

    Having done my homework and read about the Book of Kells and the Book of Durrow ("illuminated manuscripts made centuries ago in Irish monasteries"), the Ardagh Chalice ("an exquisitely wrought example of early Irish art"), and the Tara Brooch ("a rich example of early Celtic jewelry"), I wanted to see them. Too, I had read about some "exciting" Irish modern art.

    But I had to send flying all thoughts about the Municipal Gallery of Modern Arts, the National Gallery, and Trinity College Library. The plan was to leave Dublin for the town of Greystones the next morning. Everything seemed so out of hand that I simply promised myself and my cane a return trip to Dublin to see the sights when everyone was settled. I contented myself with walking along O'Connell Street with my family, crossing the bridge over the Liffey, and going to see the St. Patrick's Cathedral that Jonathan Swift made famous. The church, where the great dean once preached, had lofty spires and was made of granite. A little green park soberly filled with grave stones was on one side of the church building. About the whole was a picket-type, iron fence. I reverenced Jonathan Swift in my salad days. Now, I stood with my family and paid silent tribute from the street.

    Late that afternoon, over the hotel telephone, I talked with the owner of the house that we were traveling towards. He advised against trying to put the children in school. I smelled a rat. Isolation? Inaccessibility? No schools? In the telephone book, I located a convent school in Greystones. (Right now one telephone book serves the whole Republic of Ireland.) I phoned the Mother Superior to ask if she would admit Ellen. She would. Early the next morning, Ellen, M—, and Andrew (to get him out of my hair) departed by bus for Greystones to enroll Ellen at St. David's Convent School.

    Michael, Percy, and I followed later by train with the luggage. Chatting with the cab driver, I told him our final destination.

    "Beggin' your pardon, mum. But why ever are ye goin' to Greystones this time of year?" he asked politely.

    Sobered, I groped for a reply.

    "Maybe it's the name yer likin'," he said helpfully.

    "Yes, that's it." I subsided into silence.

    The day seemed grayer and grimmer as it progressed. In silence, in a dreary drizzle of rain, the two boys and I waited for the train. The ugly outskirts of Dublin did nothing to lift spirits. Finally, the train dragged into the Greystones station. The town seemed aptly named. People, buildings, streets, sea, and sky were various shades of gray. M—, in good spirits, met me and the boys at the station and took us to a charming old hotel facing the sea. There were bowls of big, fat roses all about. A coal fire crackled on the hearth. We all had tea and egg-salad sandwiches in the lobby. I was grateful and pleased. Creature comforts lifted sagging spirits. The boys and M— went out to look around. Ellen and I sat and sipped tea and exchanged nods with our fellow travelers—three pleasant, prune-faced, old ladies.

    Late that afternoon the owner of the house we were traveling toward came striding briskly and irreverently into the quiet hotel. Wearing thick spectacles and a benign expression, he introduced himself as "Alf” to the whole family. The children, big and little, snickered like young bumpkins. (They have been "brought up" to address older strangers only as Mr. or Mrs. or Miss. Never by first names.) Alf asked M— to drive with him to the old house to become acquainted with its many idiosyncrasies. He added, "You can stay for dinner, too." Through the double hung windows in the hotel sitting room, I watched the two climb into an old gray Volvo and drive, down the gray street.

    Later, with the children, I took my cane and walked along a rocky beach and skipped flat, black, stones into the Irish sea. Cold, hungry, and bored, the children complained. Silently, we ate tasteless fish in a dark grubby restaurant in town. I did not want to charge meals blindly at the warm, bright hotel by the sea. We trudged up a little hill back to the hotel. The boys went on to a bed and breakfast lodging, as arranged by M— that morning, and watched television. Ellen and I went to the room in the hotel assigned to M— and me and to lovely mismatched poster beds. M— came in then and said, "It's a really beautiful old house named the 'Hermitage.' You'll love living there. It's all by itself in a gold, that is, a blue-green valley—wonderfully isolated and completely surrounded by rolling hills. You're going to love it. The children will, too."

    I got into my four-poster, pulled the eiderdown up to my chin, and kissed Ellen goodnight. I watched her close the door as she left for her own room. I shut my eyes, muttered, "Good Lord," and turned on my stomach.

    Alf came to fetch us late the next morning. He was pleasant but business-like. The children all liked and approved of him in spite of his solitary first name. He and M— had hauled luggage the day before, so we all squeezed into the old Volvo. Alf announced that the house was only six miles out of Greystones. It seemed farther, probably because the six miles was a crosshatch of narrow country lanes. I kept gritting my teeth and praying that a car wouldn't come flying in the opposite direction, ending our trip forever.

    Finally, Alf turned into the drive beside a Georgian manor-type stone farm house. Built just beside the hawthorn-edged road that leads into the valley, the house is as charming as it is isolated. It is protected from the lane by a vine-covered stone wall. Fat, fragrant roses bloom beside the doorway. Three gnarled trees, bowed down with red apples, stood beside the house. Green-gold hills, gentle and sweet and rolling, are all about. I was charmed, as Alf and his wife had been when they bought the "Hermitage." "Cheap," he told us, "from an old lady who just couldn't keep it. Had to go live in a Consul Cottage."

    We trooped into the house to meet Alf s wife, Sally. She told us that the house was only partially restored and that it had been built over two hundred years before. Some of the rooms were wired for electricity, some weren't. Some of the chimneys drew. Some were stopped up by nests of generations of rooks and magpies. Andrew observed reverently that we would be living in a house built before the American Constitution. Michael noticed the remains of the pulley by the winding stairway, the pulley once used to lower the great hall chandelier. The disrepair and the partial restoration somehow added to the spell we felt. "We'll be happy here," I reasoned.

…

    I loved to lie beside M— in Sally's and Ales big four-poster and watch the moon ride high over the hills, or lie in the dark and listen to the wireless carry on in strange tongues.

    Life seemed to assume a delightful pattern. Ellen got a ride to school with a neighbor who appeared from some nearby lane, and with the neighbor's daughter, Ellen studied French, trigonometry, history, and literature at St. David's Convent School. The boys walked a mile and a half to the bus stop and rode to the Presentation Brother's School in Bray, a nearby town on the Irish Sea. Percy wandered down lanes, finding cabbages and bacon rashers at country stores. M—’s work seemed to be ripping along smoothly. Some days I pick apples and make bowls of applesauce. Sometimes I cut roses and make arrangements in bowls and vases for every room or hallway in the house. I found Alf’s collection of books and spend hours reading Joyce and Liam O’Flaherty or Sean O’Casey and laughing over Frank O'Conor. I like "passing time" chatting with the courteous, soft-voiced country neighbors who came miles to use the telephone at the "Hermitage," and to see "the Americans." Always they leave five pence by the telephone.

    Yesterday Andrew came running in from school. With an uncharacteristic lilt in his voice he said, "Mama, some colored kids came to school today. They're probably from home. I was so glad to see them I nearly went up and introduced myself." I hugged him and told him they were probably from Africa, but he could still introduce himself.

    Jody, all of a sudden life fell apart. The "Hermitage" got colder and damper. Bone-chilling wind found its way into the house. Ellen seemed always to have come in out of a rain storm. Points visited erratically by buses lost their charm. Michael began to sniffle. Andrew became loudly and insistently homesick. Percy became grimly restless. I remembered a quotation of Abraham Lincoln's that I had contested long ago. "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me." Humbly, I agreed. One night from the big four-poster I watched the moon make the Wicklow Mountains silver. After a long time I went to sleep and dreamed I was a shepherd in a golden field. An ugly Zeitgeist lured my lovely Merinos away, so I went too. Wide awake, I knew that the family had to leave the "Hermitage."

    M—, following my instructions, found a little flat in Bray. Over a chemist shop and a grocery store, the flat was near several major bus lines, and it was across the street from the boys' school. M— and I felt obliged to take it and did. We moved again.

    Every morning at dawn, it seems to me, buses, lorries, and screeching sea gulls wake our household. The cries of the jovial Irish grocer take over then and keep everyone awake. He greets all delivery lads and early morning customers in a loud, clear voice. When not greeting passers-by, he and Mrs. Grocer carry on spirited discussions. Closet-size bedrooms, chipped, cracked dishes, and the winds that whistle through the flat all challenge me. I hope that I will be able to keep convincing myself that it is great for character and world-awareness to live in a cold flat over a grubby little neighborhood grocery in Ireland.

…

    Jody, I wanted to see more of Ireland. In early December a day dawned fine and sunny. The children, finished tea and oatmeal and, in school uniforms, left for their respective schools. Alf and Sally drove by according to plan to take us into the countryside. The drive over desolate moors was a perfect introduction to the valley of Glendalough. (Remember, we read about it long ago at home in our old Encyclopedia Brittanica.) The stark beauty of the heathland was interrupted by scattered rocks and flashing little waterfalls. The sun even seemed to shine coldly angrly. I remembered the tale of the young Irish patriot who escaped from Montjoy prison in Dublin generations ago, only to flee to these same moors one night to freeze to death. Just for a minute I felt like weeping for him.

    We left the Volvo in a little niche by the road and walked up a slope past glistening evergreens. I remembered reading that Glendalough was once one of the most famous places of learning in Ireland and that it is a typical example of an early Irish monastic settlement. I had an impression of cold granite blocks and shiny, dark green leaves, chilly sunshine, and wet earth. Over a thousand years old, the single round granite tower Was about 110 feet tall, Sally told us, and that the monks would flee into the tower and pull up the ladder after them when they were attacked by Vikings. Alf said, too, that it was probably built in the ninth century when the attacks were first expected. I listened and wished that I hadn't left my coat in the car. I chided myself for being a showoff and shivered in silence.

    We walked about the ruins of the main church and the other churches. Some were fairly intact; some were only piles of gray stone blocks. Tiny ferns grew in crevices in the remains of the stone wall that had once enclosed the  monastery grounds. There were graves all through the glen. I touched one weathered old tombstone and groped for 'a feeling of kinship. Fanciful of me, I admit, Jody. 

    In silence we retraced our steps to me Car, and 1 blew on ,  my numb fingers. We climbed into the old Volvo and Alf drove back over the heath to the "Hermitage." Chill pillars of sunshine seemed all around. At the "Hermitage" Alf built a fire in the little room behind the kitchen, and we listened to Irish bagpipes on records arid warmed ourselves With Irish whiskey. Alf declared that Irish whiskey has a flavor of its own, far better than bourbon, Scotch, or rye. Sally, deftly and silently, made fine omelets. M— said he had t go home to work.

    Later, climbing the stairs to the cold flat, I comforted myself with the thought of the chartered holiday flight to Majorca with room-and-board-for-a-week-included-in-the-price-of-the-ticket.

…

    Love,
    S—

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22 Calle de Victoria Luzuriga
San Agostin, Majorca
February 4, 1974

 

Dear Jody,

 

    I'm so pleased that you sold another poem. Doesn't that make you feel fine and confident that you're a good poet? You are.

    Now let me tell you about our night club outing. I knew that there were night club tours here and talked M— into going on one with me and my cane. As it happened, we were booked to go with a Dutch group. I've always been partial to Dutchmen. There were those fabulous Dutch masters, Erasmus and his In Praise of Folly (great outside reading for a college junior), Ann Frank and the Dutchmen who helped Ann Frank, her family and other Jews in Holland elude Hitler and his beasts, the Dutch woman in Ireland who used to come by to take me sightseeing, tea-drinking, and walking when the children were in school. On the tour we were with lots of super-pleasant Dutchmen. Three of them spoke English impressively. M— did not look happy, in fact, looked sad and grumpy and the Dutchman sitting next to me in the night club said, "Perhaps your husband would like to dance with my wife." Having seen my cane and my gait, he knew my dancing days are over and did not like to see M— unhappy and deprived. It was imaginative and generous of him, but I never did discover how his wife would have reacted. I refused politely to ask lest the proposal startle M— badly. Besides that, two Dutchmen walked out with us and waited till we were tucked in a taxi.

    The day before yesterday, M—, Ellen, and I took a bus to Palma to buy bargain shoes, good and relatively cheap in Majorca. I got pretty tired and asked to be left sitting at a sidewalk cafe. Sitting at a single empty table, I began a large Coca-Cola. A man my age indicated he would like to sit with me. Seeing no other empty chairs I swallowed my churlish impulse to growl "no." The man sat down and began a spirited interrogation. He asked hopefully, "Allemande?" I muttered "Nein." He lilted, "Espanol," I muttered "No." When he asked, "English?" I volunteered churlishly, "We came from Ireland." He began to sing softly, "It's a long, long way to Tipperary." Embarrassed, I tried to hush him by volunteering that I am an American. He stated that he was Austrian, had flown in the Luftwaffe, and that Vienna is the most beautiful city in the world. I guess he had seen lots of late night television, because he said, "American cities have much shooting, much crime." I hissed something about Alabama and he began to serenade me. None of the folks at nearby tables seemed to note his serenade. This time it was "Stars Fell on Alabama." I remembered the empty little German prison camp used during World War II at home and figured he'd learned it there. I've never been very good at small talk, but I'm especially not good at small talk with aging Nazis. Groping for conversation, I told him about Ellen and M—’s shoe buying venture and he stretched out his legs, pulled up his pants a bit revealing pale, skinny, hairy calves and showed me his new shoes. I was very glad when M— and Ellen came into sight.

    The three of us trudged to the bus stop by the beautiful, magnificent cathedral and went home by bus, in silence, to learn that Andrew had located a copy of Mad magazine at a souvenir shop and that it cost one hundred pesatas. That's over a dollar. Andrew pleaded that it is in English. We slept over it and the next day after school Andrew bought the Mad. We rationalized the foolish expenditure with the lame words parents usually resort to—the purchase will make him realize we value him, indulgences are often good for people. etc., etc.

    I'll tell you about one more outing then I'll sign off. One morning after restless Michael had gone home to stay with the Lyles in Auburn for the rest of our time here in Majorca and after Ellen and Andrew went to the International Balearic School to do their respective things, M— and I took a bus to Palma. There we caught a bus for Alcucdia on the far side of the island to see the Roman ruins there. The children made me promise not to take my camera. They've seen lots of tourists in action with cameras and have developed nasty prejudices. I'm so sorry that I didn't take the camera. Riding through almond groves and make-believe villages, our bus came to Alcudia. M— and I, with my cane, walked along a beautiful deserted beach. It's the wrong season for tourists here. We did find a cafe open and without customers. We were spotted immediately as Americans. One astute young waiter put "Deep Purple" on an ancient juke box. The song "Deep Purple" always takes me back to dancing school days. The lady who thumped the piano at Vathés School of Dance was pounding it out slowly and sadly when water seeped into the ballroom. The boys had turned on all the water taps in the boys' cloakroom/ bathroom. Remember? Too, there was a bad mariachi band in Guantanimo, Mexico, that played "Deep Purple" on the town square for American tourists one hot August night. Me and my cane and M— were among them. Back to Alcudia and "Deep Purple" and the restaurant.

    I inquired timidly about the whereabouts of the ladies room. Two stalwart young waiters approached and each one took an arm and escorted me to the ladies' (very disquieting). After a so-so lunch of some unidentifiable fish, asking directions and following haphazard handpainted signs, we bumbled our way to a little Roman amphitheatre. M— climbed down into the theatre and I sat at the top of the amphitheatre hill in a little sea of yellow wild flowers (I know that's a cliche, but I really did) and looked around. By the ocean I could see a new white tourist hotel going up and gleaming softly in the afternoon sunshine. Far away to my left on a plain there was the kind of church you seen in cowboy movies (mission-type with a little bell tower). Then I looked down at M--- stalking around in the Roman amphitheatre below. Life seemed suddenly in awesome perspective. I felt sobered and wondered idly if many generations of women had sat waiting in the ancestors of these yellow flowers. Enough of idle speculation. I did feel humbled though.

    This morning at the bus ticket window office I heard a loud American yankee voice say distinctly, "I don't suppose that any of you people speak English," and had a sudden irrational urge to hit him. I know that you understand. I really hate to be ashamed of my countrymen. Now write.

    Love,
    S—