Part 11 (1/2)

Also there's so about a man who knows all the words to ”Ivan Skavinsky Skavar” I couldn't help being pleased he and Mel had sobeaux at our age, though I guess Mel doesn't quite qualify as a beau now that he's a husband By the way, Beans and Brick are talking wedding bells Wish I could warm to him, but can't somehow What do you think? It isn't just his name and those Godawful neckties is it? Maybe it's the way he sneers at the Kennedys Maybe it's that Sig

Love, Fraidy Ottawa, June 6, 1963 Dear Mrs Green Thuree absolutely that peonies are beautiful but stupid The du estions last week Many thanks You're the greatest

Audrey LaRoche (Mrs) Ottawa, August 15, 1963 Dear Mrs Green Thumb, Your piece on hollyhocks was terrif I liked the part about their ”frilled dirndl skirts,” and their ”shy fuzzy stems” I haven't had hollyhocks in the yard for years, but after reading your coluh it's too late for this year

Thanks a bunch, Lydia Nygaard Ottawa, November 25, 1963 Dearest Dee, Couldn't reach you by phone, hence this quick note Most of the Sports and Home section will be cancelled next week because of the Kennedy coverage-so we'll be using your rock garden piece the folloeek What a world this is, everything falling to pieces

Yours, J

Ottawa, January 25, 1964 Dear Dee, I' I realize now, of course, that telling you on the phone was a mistake I knew you'd be disappointed, but I had no idea you would take it this hard You've been talking about wanting more tiland to see your daughter Hope we can get together as usual on Tuesday and talk this over like two sensible people

Yours, J

Ottawa, February 6, 1964 Dear Mrs Flett, I've read your letter carefully and I can assure you I understand your feelings But I believe Jay explained the paper's policy to you, that full-time staffers have first choice of colu column from time to time, all those times you've been away, and, to tell you the honest truth, I've had quite a lot of appreciative letters from readers who especially like the fact that my columns are illustrated and take the ional newspaper is a living, breathing organisid patterns Think of it this way: our readers are always changing, and soMrs Green Thue

With best wishes, James (Pinky) Fulham February 20, 1964 Dear Dee, I aree the policy of the paper is ridiculous, but it's a policy that has been in force since the ti to do with your competence as a contributor, you know better than that The issue is that Pinky, as a full-ti as he can demonstrate capability in the area I can't tell you how ret all this, but I'ether soon and talk of other things You are, if Ithis far too personally

Your J

February 28, 1964 Dear Mrs Flett, Thank you for your letter I aecity politics for soe Even e I should think you would be eager for a change too after so

Yours sincerely, Pinky Fulhareeton, Indiana, March 28, 1964 Daze, Beans and I are just wondering if you've broken your wrist Neither of us has heard froes-how about a line or two?

Fraidy Haland, April 10, 1964 It's weeks since you've written Hope all is well Spring has colorious, and Judy's already up to twelve pounds Is everything okay? I'm a little worried There hasn't been a letter fro?

Love, Alice, Ben, and Benje and wee Jude

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sorrow, 1965

1965 was the year Mrs Flett fell into a profound depression

It happened overnight, more or less Her family and friends stood by helplessly and watched while her usual self-composed nature collapsed into bewilderer that see this period Despair did not suit her looks Goodness cannot cope with badness-it's too good, you see, too stupidly good A person unable to sleep forpatterns are disordered-this type of person soon dwindles into bodily dejection-you've seen such people, and so has Mrs Flett, shaes of public parks or seated under hairdryers Their facial skin drags doard Their clothes hang on the up You want to rush up to these lost souls and offer co aura of failure about the and summer of 1965-those were terriblea trajectory that began in resignation, then hardened into silence, then leapt to a bitter and blarandchildren, her ood friends and acquaintances

What was it that changed Mrs Flett so utterly?

The phenomenon of menopause will probably leap to mind, but no Daisy Flett is fifty-nine years old in 1965, almost sixty, and her hor to so to others-since her forty-ninth birthday Nor does she appear to be suffering fro,” as some of her family would have it She remembers her dear sweet Barker fondly, of course she does, she honors his ly, every single tiens Lotion into the pal herself back to the moment-a very private h she records it here-in which he had extolled her s the idea; it took her by surprise; at the time she hadn't completely warmed to the likeness, yet she apprehended, at least, her husband's courageous lurching toward poetry But does she actually pine for this dead partner of hers? For the calmness offered up by the simple weariness of their love? How much of her available time bends backward into the knot of their joined lives, those twenty connubial years?

To be honest, very little There, I've said it

Her present sinking of spirit, theof her reason, the decline of her physical health-all these ste core which those around her can only register and weigh and speculate about

Alice's Theory

Soe of becoed, and went in another direction

The self is not a thing carved on entablature Not long ago I read-probably in the Sunday papers-about an A a new kind of handwriting, sloping all her letters backwards instead of forwards, concentrating on s She wrote her name a dozen times in this variant way She wrote out the prea Address, and by noon she had becoe that happened to me went deeper than penmanshi+p and far, far beyond such superficialities as a new hairstyle or dietary regirow long, which was not a popular style in the ar and the sarettes

It was summertie It was the firstback, in fact, and I woke up early in our faht up at the ceiling where there was a long circular crack shaped like the hunch in an old crone's back, high and rounded at the top, then tapering down That selfsame crack had been there ever since I could re I saw in theinscription in plaster that roofed me over with dread

Not that I feared the witchlike configuration, good Christ no-I knew perfectly well that such anthropo is fanciful and solipsistic; I also knew that other people, happier people, ht see a river instead of a diseased spine, or a ination, a mountain topped by a Chinese paGoda, in turn topped by a knob of whipped creaht out of our deepest needs, this much you learn in Introductory Psych, a required course atcrack was its persistence That it was always there Detered the stepladder up fros in that old house of ours were ridiculously high) On a shelf in the garden shed I found a box of plasterer's putty and th of the ceiling crack, using a spatula fro the ladder forward foot by foot I'd never done this kind of work before, but I read the directions on the box carefully and made a neat job of it I've always been exceptionally neat

”Very neat presentation” hat my professors wrote on the bottoms of my term papers, also ”well focused” and ”full of verve”

In half an hour the plaster was dry, and I sanded it srains drift down on top ofin the chalky dust, tasting it on reeable, quite the contrary By four o'clock that afternoon I had painted the entire ceiling, using a roller attached to an extension handle, and just before going to bed that night I gave the whole thing a second coat

Then I lay down in the dark, possibly a little drunk froed inup of happiness Sleep ca; I wanted to wake up to the early light and observe, freshly, the transforht about

This really happened This event, this revelation! Not one of the various members of my family raised the least objection toNo one even challengedaround in the shed for a paint roller, whether this act of esture This surprised eneral air of permission Mycolu for the local newspaper (Mrs Green Thuer brother and sister looked on with interest, perhaps even a tincture of envy-why hadn't they thought of is!-and Cousin Beverly, who hadnewspapers on the carpet and some useful advice about how to reach into the difficult corner angles As for edmyself a dull and h I can't help thinking he would have understood the i me forward

In one day I had altered my life: my life, therefore, was alterable

This siesis; no, it entered my bloodstream directly, as powerful as heroin; I could feel its pulass I had wakened thatto narrowness and predestination, and noas falling asleep in the stor to a s that had taunted me was shrunk now to a memory of a memory It wasn't just that I had covered it over I had erased it It was as though it had never existed

I next row kind I was not a kind person, but I believed I could learn

First I burned my old diaries in the fireplace and also the letters I had written housh and artifice My ret it, she said, you may want to look back and see what you were like at ten or twelve or sixteen years of age

But I kneouldn't need the diaries or letters to prod rown up a mean, bossy little kid I was selfish

I liked to hurt people's feelings I addressed my sister, Joan, as Miss Sneakypants and my brother, Warren, as Pih she were an indentured servant and coirl cried in her early est she was being

I was forever clipping out dieting articles for enuous voice, and invariably I referred to the newspaper she wrote for as ”that parochial rag” I remember the way I was People like to think ofestuary, but myagainst the person I becahtful person

I paid attention; I listened hard to thebeads, it was very intricate work I entered the suirl and came out a woman Women, I learned, needed to be bloody, but they didn't need to be ly h all these years I'd been given the benefit of the doubt: Alice's gained inlady now Alice's coot rid of that chip on her shoulder, coes But then Alice alas a lump of butter underneath, wasn't she? Why, she's turned out to be a regular darling Oh, you can count on Alice, you always could

Well!