Part 9 (2/2)
What would it be like to be touched by cold bent ertips? What would it be like to feel the full weight of aher hard to the world? She will ponder this, relishi+ng the thin spiral of possibility, but then her thoughts will be cut short by an explosion of fluid, and after that a secondary explosion-of gratitude this tiratitude will be her husband's shudder of embarrassment for his elderly tallowcolored body and for the few blurted words of affection he is able to offer That men and women should be bound to each other in this way! How badly reality is organized
”Sleep tight, ive us”
Mrs Flett's House and Garden
The large square house at 583 The Driveway is overspread with a sort of muzziness The furniture, the curtains, the carpets, the kitchen floor-all have grown shabby during the war years And now, in the post-war upheaval, there is a ide shortage of linoleuh it is predicted the proble about a certain Arles) The glass curtains in her dining room have been washed once too often, but she (Mrs
Flett) is talking about ordering pull drapes (or draperies, as she's learned to say) in a floral fabric, soive it so glory wallpaper in the living roo colu on a solid color next tireen, maybe, hite enaets her down, the way it's worn along the seah, awful, like a person's scalp seen up close To tell the truth the whole rooh she can't help feeling just a little proud of the coffee table which she has recently altered by topping the walnut veneer with a sheet of glass, beneath which she's positioned photographs of her three children and a copy, slightly yellowed, of her e announcement:
Mr and Mrs Barker Flett Wish To Announce Their Recent Marriage in Ottawa, August 17, 1936
She got this coffee table idea fro the Essential You into Your Decor”
Every roo of ferns at the , maidenhair, bird's nest, holly fern, rabbit's foot (These indoor ferns, in the year 1947, have an old-fashi+oned look of fussiness, though they are destined to achieve a high degree of chic, and ubiquity, in the reen plants and coffee table aside, Mrs Flett is not much interested in her house Some insufficiency in herself is reflected, she feels, in its structural austerity Its eight highceilinged roo severely square in shape with overly large blank s The light that falls through these s is surprisingly harsh, and in winter the walls are cold and the corners of the downstairs rooms drafty
She lives for suarden, if the truth were known And what a garden!
The Fletts' large, rather ill-favored brick house is nested in a saucer of green: front, back, and sides, a triple lot, rare in this part of the city, and in spring the rounded snouts of crocuses poke through everywhere Healthy Boston ivy, P tricuspidata, gro over three-quarters of the brickwork (it has not prospered on the north face of the house, but what matter?); then there are the boxes, vibrant with color, and, in addition, Mrs Flett has cunningly obscured the house's ugly lis of japanese yew, juniper, ho pine, dwarf spruce, and the new Korean box And her lilacs! Soo out and buy any old lilac and just poke it in the ground, but Mrs
Flett has given thought to overall plant size and blosso the white ”Madame Lemoine” lilac with soft pink Persian lilac and slatey blue ”President Lincoln” These different varieties are ”grouped,” not ”plopped” At the side of the house a border of red silliaht yellow coreopsis, and this coeration, is a true artist's touch Clu heart are placed-placed, this has not just happened-near the pale blueness of caarden are sprayed each season against railroad wor their leaves throw kaleidoscopic patterns on the fine pale lawn Here the late sun fidgets a the poppies And the dahlias!-Mrs Flett's husband jokes about the size of her dahlias, claih the back door sideways A stone path edged with ageraturape arbor and then winds its way to the rock garden planted with dwarf perennials and special alpine plants ordered frorand, and intilish in its charm, French in its orderliness, japanese in its econo, too, in the sinuous path, the curved beds, the grinning garden dwarf carved froa vulgaris that is full of grave intelligence and even, you ht say, a kind of wit And the raspberries; mention must be made of the raspberries Does Mrs Barker Flett understand thein the city of Ottawa on the continent of North America in this difficult northern city in themiddle years of our century? Yes; for once she understands fully
What a ood friends say-but it seeood friends, as though she is so to deserve friendshi+p (Biography, even autobiography, is full of systeround streaenuine fondness for Mrs Flett, arreen thuood friends clai in its look of settledness and its caressingit is to leave the troubles of the world behind Visitors standing in this garden sometimes feel their hearts lock into place for an instant, and experience blurred primal visions of creation-Eden itself, paradise indeed
It is, you ht almost say, her child, her dearest child, thethe fullness of its spaces, its stubborn vegetable will She arden, but she wants even more to be part of its reen secrets, noof her, not her history, her na-which is why she is able to love it as purely as she does, why she has opened her ar it as it con
CHAPTER SIX
Work, 19551964
W W KLEINHARDT, SOLICITOR Ottawa, April 25, 1955
My dear Mrs Flett, I am happy to say your late husband's will is now filed, and all dispersals made Matters have been settled fairly rapidly since the document was, as I explained to you on the telephone, remarkably clear in its intention and without any troubleso in order
Please feel free to contactwith our final report is a sealed envelope which your late husband instructed , to pass on to you
Yours truly, Wally (Kleinhardt) Ottawa, April 6, 1955 My dear, Time is short Dr Shortcliffe says it will be a matter of days, doesn't he? This is not, of course, what he tells ht, whispering in the corridor, after I washas remained oddly acute
My mind, while less acute, is at ease about financial resources for you and for the children The house, of course, is secured-for I feel sure you would be reluctant to leave faarden-and there are sufficient funds as you know for the children's education
But you ant money for travel-why is it we have not traveled, you and I?-and for sht wish to offer for sale ood price I suggest you contact Dr
Leonard Lemay of Boston University whose address is in estion, since I knoell that Cypripediuinae and acaule You will remember hoe quarreled-our only quarrel, as far as I can recall-over the repugnance you felt for the lady's-slipper loomy (as you clairotesque I pointed out, not that I needed to, the lip's functional cunning, that an insect ht enter therein easily but escape only with difficulty Well, so our discussions have run over theseheavily on all that was light and fanciful I sigh,the waste of words that passed between us, and the thought of e ht-did you ever feel this, inal discourse and what it must have displaced?
The memory of our ”lady's-slippers” discussion has, of course, led e in a similar way, as a trap from which there was no easy exit Between us we have almost never mentioned the word love I have soes thatstiff and shy in our natures that forbade its utterance This I regret I would like to think that our children will use the word extravagantly, and moreover that they will be open to its forces (Alice does worry s) Do you remember that day last October when I experiencedone of those new and dreadful plastic aprons You put your arms around me at once and reached up to smoothof your apron against s which even then I felt It was like so tih the back door, out into the garden, down the street, over the line of the horizon Oh,Barker Ottawa, May 20, 1955 Dear Mrs Flett, I beg you to acceptyour sad loss In the course of these last few years I have had the honor of beco acquainted with your late husband, and very quickly I came to value his weekly contribution to the Recorder You may be sure that the ion-will sorely nified tone contributed a rare sense of scholarshi+p to these pages, and yet was never condescending
In acknowledgment of your husband's contribution, the staff here at the Recorder has assembled two specially bound copies of his articles, one to deposit with the National Archives, with your permission of course, and one which ould like to present to you and your fa the course of an infor to hold at our offices here on Metcalfe Street
Can you let reeable to you?
Yours in sympathy, Jay W Dudley, Editor PS Mr Flett's denant at this time of the year when the city is ablaze with tulips His articles on the annual Tulip Festival were a his most lyrical
Climax, Saskatchewan, May 24, 1955 Dear Auntie, We sure were upset to get your letter about Uncle Barker passing away Moirls send their deep felt sympathy and say to tell you they will remember all of you and hireat a shock for you, ith hi lately that it won't be easy for you with three kids only half grown and that big house to look after, a regular ht, but then I was only there the once It see back So in the next little while if you happen to find you need a hand in the house,East now that my husband and I have called it quits Drink was the eneral laziness Soht up the wall by another person just laying around I'd be willing to work for my room and board and forty dollars a month I'm a pretty fair housekeeper, if I do say socakes, pies, buns, what have you Also laundry, ironing, etc Also, I can type, as you can see, thirty-five words a h a correspondence course, otherwise I ot up to sixty
With love froards to this matter, so if you write back, send to Box 422, that way it doesn't go to their place
Blooton, Indiana, May 29, 1955 Dearest Daze, I wish to hell I could pour soood liquid cheer into this envelope I knon-and-out rotten youthese days Well, no, I don't exactly kno could I?-but I can iine what a misery it is to find yourself alone after all the tiether What has it been?-I o by, tie next fall! And all this so soon after your dad dying
Anyway I' you inbalet plenty of that frorows more pious and platitudinous each day When Ma died she sprayedup my sinuses for a ot lots of years left Personally, I' fifty isn't half as bad as it's cracked up to be-the old visagethat etting the curse either So don't climb into your eeds and wither away just yet, kiddo! What do you say we treat ourselves to a week in Chicago this winter We could see a fes, stay at the Palallery here is planning to close the last week of the ed” to clear off Lordy, reo, or was it four?-that hilarious waiter and his bouncing baby lobster!-I wonder, did you ever report all that to Barker, iteuess
So let's hit Chi-town and put a little life into our life, what say?
Surely there's someone who could keep an eye on Warren and Joanie for a few days Give it soht
Love, Fraidy Ottawa, May 29, 1955 Dear Mrs Flett, We are delighted you will be able to attend our little tribute to your late husband I should add that ould be very pleased to have your children in attendance as well
And I thank you very e of the Tulip Festival We would indeed be honored to have a feords from you; about five hundred words would be ideal I wish I had had the wit to suggest it ardener in your own right
With sincere good wishes, Jay W Dudley, Editor Blooton, Indiana, June 1, 1955 My dear old friend, Our hearts ache continually for you these days Your burden has been unutterably heavy, losing your father in April, bless his soul, and now your dearly beloved mate I feel sure that the ether will sustain you in the dark days ahead, as will the presence of your loved ones and the prayers of your dear friends Tih of course we never really forget those who have played such a large part in our lives dick joins me in these few rushed words of sympathy (After much pressure, he has accepted the transfer to the head office in Cleveland, and noeour dear old house up for sale-unfortunately theIt seely, ”Beans”
Ottawa, June 5, 1955