by Janet Frame
READERS MAY CARE TO ATTEND THE MEMORIAL SERVICE THIS FRIDAY.
102. Dunedin September
Dear B, P, N,
Under the live-oak tree
with thee and thee and thee
stifling our merry utter*
with lashings of peanut butter.
[footnote: *an anatomical term of uncertain meaning]
Hello again, on a wet Friday, a day when cats keep to their counterpanes and people carry umbrellas and bow their heads before the rain and blackbirds who need rain to sing, sing, as one is doing now in the garden across the street. A furious wind came last night, a dark grey cloud shaped like a plate hung in the sky, and my house rocked and shook, and some miles inland roofs were blown away.
So much for the weather. Rereading the above paragraph I realise that ‘counterpane’ is a literary word which I never use in ‘real life’ but which always fascinated me since I first met it as a child. I look up my dictionary now and find that ‘counterpane’ was originally ‘counterpoint’. Cats, therefore keep to their counterpoints and I keep to mine, for I’ve been playing the records you sent, B, and replaying as I do when I feel dismal, the tapes of the poems, the Beethoven Bagatelles, the Hindemith, and that wonderful interview with Dame Mary Margaret who was your guest at that time, I believe. What a forthright body is Dame Mary Margaret. To mention the original Dame M.M. who used to broadcast to Egypt, I’m glad that I invented names for these people because now if I ever think of them, and that is seldom, I remember them by the names I gave them, not by their real names. Except that one day, unexpectedly, on a bus here I saw ‘Julie’ whose real name was ‘Dolly’. That was the day I went to Browns and tried out their funny old pianos.
How is Steinway? Ah, Steinway!
Lucas is growing up fast. He still finds it difficult to keep control of his foot when he is washing in the leg-in-the-air position, therefore he prefers to anchor himself in my lap at this time. He has made friends with kitty-next-door who used to come to see me and I almost heard him say, See you tomorrow, when he came in last night after playing wildly in the high wind. I think he’s finding me a very unsatisfactory cat and his puzzlement increases as he tries to place me where he thinks I belong. I’m mama, but a terribly against-the-grain mama as I don’t always wear fur and my head is an enormous distance from my feet and a ghastly sound like a lavatory being flushed comes out of my mouth, a sound I think is a laugh . . . As for smell . . . And how are the kittens? Lucas said to tell Ned that he may call him Luke, if he wishes. I don’t know what this is a prelude to. And that he’s having his photo taken on the first sunny day which he hopes is tomorrow because what can a cat do in the rain but sleep while the Big Cat with the Jay within potters around writing and listening to records.
Stars rising and setting on the horizons (do they) of the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
This is all of my letter. Don’t mind my silly letters. I have suffered from nostalgia since I was three years old, and stood alone looking at my first green-weeded swamp and grey uninhabited sky. Nostalgia is a possession one doesn’t really want to part with; or perhaps I am not calling it by the right name; I don’t know; I don’t think I am; it is not nostalgia, it is just a large helping of vivid imagery served with pleasure-pain. Very tasty.
Now I’m going to the Chief Post Office to post this, and afterwards walk through the wet (very) town; so here’s a helping of love
103. Dunedin September 14
Dear Ned and your two dear big cats,
How are you all?
Preparing for fall?
Hastily I must tell you that I have no intention of becoming a literary cat unless I break entirely new ground, as there are so many literary cats, as I learn from consulting my Dictionary of Cat Lovers. I learn also that there is a disconcerting tendency for these cats to refer to their ‘master’ when they take pen in paw. You and I, Ned, are more honest in our assessment of our relationships with our Big Cats. For instance, when I first came to live here I was given quite a cosy box to sleep in and something soft to sleep on. Temporarily only, you may be sure. I now occupy the rear apartment of the house—spare bedroom and sittingroom with my lavatory in the kitchen at night and on the balcony in the daytime. (I have discovered the Garden now.) Jay occupies the front apartment-bedroom and study-sittingroom. We both roam freely from room to room. A cat should occupy nothing less than an apartment don’t you think? At night I sleep on the spare bed, on a white woollen stole which makes my heart ache and my paws paw, I don’t know why, but I seize the tassels in my mouth and purr and purr and paw and paw, and feel sleepy and sweet and very sad and happy. Jay says that I must have been snatched untimely from my mama’s breast. And I think I was. Barely seven weeks is too young for a kitten to be taken all alone to a pet shop and put in a cage in the window. It seems so long ago now, that dreadful morning, when from among my brothers and sisters and my mama I was taken so suddenly. We were all snuggled (I was on top because I’m the toppest) and mama (bless her) had just bitten me gently on the leg because I was squashing silly little sister who was rather feeble, and one brother had just put his foot right in my eye and I was getting ready to retaliate when it happened: The huge man-Cat took me. I won’t dwell on this, only to say how thankful I am that it is all over.
I could not stop shaking for fear and when I walked my back legs wobbled and shook and I kept falling over. You may be sure it’s nothing like that now! I’m pretty smart, you know. Much smarter than Big Cat Jay who can’t even play hide and seek in the grass, as I can. Until I find another cat to play with (I have my eye on the lady next door) I’ll just have to be content with Cat Jay.
I follow her around everywhere and I know how to get to her heart. When she is busy and I am too boisterous and she goes to one of the rooms and shuts the door I do not meow outside, wanting to get in. I did this at first but I’ve become more sophisticated and subtle in my behaviour. Now I do not complain at all. I go quietly to my shawl-mama and cuddle her, and later when Jay is finished what she calls work, and comes to look at me, I put that heart-rending (Gaze No. 1.) gaze on my face and she says she is so sorry, oh so sorry . . . You of course will have had a long education in Gazes. Yesterday I learned the Inscrutable Gaze. I’m dying to use it again. I was delighted at its effect on Jay. It’s the kind of gaze, isn’t it, that these big cats interpret according to their mood. Jay put a ‘What-have-I-done-why-are-you-contemptuous-of-me look on her face. You know the game, Ned. How many I.Q. points does a cat score for bringing about that result with the Inscrutable Gaze. Before a kitten learns the Inscrutable Gaze it has to learn the You-Have-Betrayed-Me Gaze. Most of us learn that quite early, I should think. I put it on when Jay took me for the second visit to the Vet and he jabbed me and made me squeal. I almost put on the Things-Will-never-be-the-same-between-us Gaze but I reserve that for something more disastrous. I’m not sure what gaze I will put on next week, for Jay does not know I know, but she is taking me for a couple of days to live at the vet’s. Fancy. Me in a boarding-house! I don’t think I shall be very frightened. Yet, clearly, I can’t decide beforehand what gaze I am going to wear
a.when Jay leaves me there.
b.when Jay comes to fetch me.
Well Ned, there’s not much more news I can give you. A day of smells yesterday. I smelt a rat, I think, and chased it but it was only a handful of dust. I took a book from the bookshelf the other day—seizing it between my teeth, and carrying it to one of my chairs. You ought to have seen Jay’s face! She was thinking, What an extraordinary kitten! The name of the book was Blow Wind of Fruitfulness. Next I chose John Milton’s poems—not the volume with the tasty binding, but another volume she has. How delighted and amused she was, never dreaming that I was only trying to humour her, to cheer her up as she was feeling lonely for you and your two big cats. She’s very fond of the two big cats you keep. Where did you get them? At the petshop? Or were they strays? Jay got me at the pet-shop but I don’t know who got her. No doubt her back legs were as wo
bbly as mine.
I am studying Cat History. Here are the names of the cats owned by Chang T’Uan in 1100: Eastern Guard, White Phoenix, Purple Flower, Expelling Vexation, Brocade Belt, Picture of Clouds, A Myriad of Strings of 1,000 Each. What do you think of these as names for cats? I like the last one.
Now I will finish this letter. I have asked Jay if there is any news for you and she has answered that I’ve probably told you all the news she has. She sends very much love in a basket (my favourites are baskets) and she says you can chew it and chew it and chew the basket as well and share it with the two big cats and she says for you, Ned, to look after them, and see that they get their Petromalt and everything else they need, and for B to look after his surcingles as they are rare, and for P to see that no-one steals his pompom. There was some talk, recently, of your sailing here to visit us. I think it was a fantasy.
LATER:
Jay and I have just had the letter from Big Cat B. She and I struggled to see who would open it and though I’m an expert struggler, she won. By the way I still have the envelope of the letter you wrote me, Ned. I keep it in my toy-basket where I also have a clothes peg, a handkerchief, a chocolate wrapper, a cotton reel, a plastic spoon and cup, a glove, an egg carton. I guard this basket very carefully and whenever I see Jay approach it I rush to her and stand on guard. It is sacred to me. The only time I allow her to touch it is when I climb along the backs of the chairs (my chairs) and up to the high book shelf and along the bookshelf to the end. Then I meow to Jay to fetch me something to carry. Usually she fetches a glove, puts it on the shelf, whereupon I seize it and carry it on the perilous journey to the floor where I hide it. This also seems to amuse the poor big cat.
Just now she read the letter from Cat B and was so delighted and happy to get it and read it. She said she loved the story of the trip to Hawaii. She said she has seen this programme on American tv. She remembers the portrait in the blue bath robe and she wishes that she could be there with you, to see all your new paintings and have them as daily bread though I’d rather, myself, have cat food. When she told me about Fred’s kittens at the malted milk bar I felt very envious. I suppose the little dears haven’t learned any gazes yet, except the Hazy Gaze and the Wonderment Gaze (guaranteed to bring all big cats to their knees around continent mama and peninsula kitties).
Back to your visitors. They sounded wonderful fun, and no doubt you laughed too, Ned. Jay is crazy about mimics. The best she knows or knew was Philip Roth who was always mimicking. And hiking along a canyon stream! That sounds idyllic. Jay says, about Gardening as a profession, it attracts some interesting characters. Frank Sargeson used to work a. as a milkman, when he had tall tales of women coming to the door with their dressing gowns purposefully open in the early morning breeze;
b. as a gardener when he also had a fund of tales. Unfortunately J can’t remember any of the tales he told.
Jay says that someone has made a play from State of Siege and is reading it this evening and has invited her to hear it. She says, Hell No.
Apart from that she is leading a quiet life as befits her ginger station. She has had a letter from Charles Neider who is at MacDowell for a while. He says there is Nobody, but Nobody at MacDowell (except Louise Varese). Jay says of course if there is no W.T.B there is nobody at MacDowell or anywhere. Charles N says he is keeping physically fit, ready for the Antarctic—so we know what that means don’t we? In the swim at the Y.M. jogging etc. etc.
Jay is finally doing something about that tape she has half-done. She’s going to record my purr for you, Ned, and you can charge admission to the big cats if they want to hear it, and in that way you can earn enough to buy an airticket instead of coming to visit me and being dehydrated in the tropics.
Love to you and to Fred and her lot, and Jay of course is rushing to get another parcel of love to the two big cats. They must have been with her in the same pet shop, she’s so fond of them.
So goodbye. I think it might be familiar if you called me Luke. What is your opinion?
Goodbye again. And whoops—love—though you understand I reserve much of it for my shawl-mama but Jay said, quote, True love in this differs from gold or clay / that to divide is not to take away ha ha you’re telling me. Blow wind of fruitfulness ha ha.
ARTIST LUCASPORTRAITS PAINTED ANY DAY
The mail strike was settled—incredibly—by the interviewer in a TV programme. He confronted the Govt. rep plus the P.O. representative & brought about a reconciliation. Govt. now by TV, which I have not & am therefore ungoverned & ungovernable.
Love
104. Dunedin September
Dear B and P and N,
I had a letter from the State Department yesterday and I’m enclosing my reply to a certain J.J. Smith. Perhaps one of you could send it on for me? Very many thanks. I’m sending a photo of Lucas too, to influence him. This was Lucas’ idea.
It has been sour weather here—wind and rain and quite cold (temperature in fifties). Lucas has taken over nearly all the rooms of the house and to eat my meals I escape to my study but that is not sacred either and as I type this Lucas is locked asleep on my knee. If anyone comes to visit me I shall have to say, Wear shields on your legs and elsewhere or Lucas will get you. He’s quite a silent kitten. He has three meows, so far. One is very small and broken and hardly used. It is, Let me In. It’s hardly used because he’s always in. The next is, Play with me and Come Outside and Play with Me. The third is when he uses his pan inside, and means, with its note of perplexity, I thought I was going to pee but I’m shitting instead. Oh my!
The other evening, though I had resolved not to go to a reading of a play made out of State of Siege, I did go. It was held at the home of the proposed producer who’s also a tv producer. There were just he and his wife and Rosalie Carey who has adapted the book or part of it and who with her husband Patric runs the Globe Theatre here. I felt quite detached from the book as I haven’t read it for years, and I was interested in the new experience of seeing it, as it were, snatched from me. I didn’t realise the dismay I would feel but did not show at my work’s being ‘reduced’. I thought it was very well adapted though, and it was both moving and comic and revealed to me so many of the book’s faults. The producer was enthusiastic and declared he ‘must read the book’—for neither he nor his wife had read it. I was surprised to find that I joined in the discussion and criticism and (I thought) had a few pertinent things to say. I enjoyed it, and thought (such is my impressionability always) that I might do O.K. after all as a teacher in a small group. One might evaluate this fantasy in its proper setting if one knows that even when I read Kon-Tiki, I almost decided that I would build a raft and sail the seven seas. Seriously.
Oh how I miss my Live Oaks, when I am alone here and, sharply, in a different way, when I go among people who seem so much part-people. The younger generation here are less part-people, I feel, yet there’s a constriction in their being and living. At the home of these two young bright people the other evening I had the feeling their lives were growing in a kind of sunken garden and they’d never see what was beyond it—but if I’m to make the metaphor work for its living I might say their roots could find a way out, even without their knowing.
Well, I’m getting involved. (I’ll say less a sunken garden than a garden-in-a-barrel. Or a disused well.)
I had a nice letter from Jo—oh it’s impossible to keep typing this letter as Lucas is Loose on the desk. He’s quite crazy and he’s skating on all the papers. He’s discovered skating—putting his feet in my shoes and flying across the room. He really does snatch letters from my hand and runs away with them.
I suppose you’re back at School now Paul. I wonder how it is?
and Frederika and her brood, litter, lot or what?
More later but I’ll mail this now. Big Love to my live oaks.
To
J. J. Smith
Immigration Dept.
Wishington.
Dear J. J.,
Yours ins
t. ult. etc. to hand, in hand. Thank you for your epistle and for the test. I wish that you had sent me a duplicate test so that if I make mistakes with the first copy I may return an unblemished second one. Most embassies send three or four testes to be dealt with. Here in this small country where the Prime Minister boasts he has scarcely read a book we are not used to dealing with testes, therefore there may be some delay in my sending the completed form. Bare with me, please.
My guest at the moment, Mr. Lucas Burch, insists that the Queen pictured in your test is the cat next door and none of the listed people. He tells me that the post received by Madeline Shaw was a scratching post.
There’s a question of colour. I am Blue—it does not appear in the photograph I enclosed with my application. I believe, however, that the Blue disappears when one sets foot on U.S. soil.
I confess the test is very fiddicult, I mean difficult. One solution is influence in low places. My guest Mr. Lucas Burch has asked me to enclose his photograph and to say that he would like to meet you. He is ten weeks old, white, and very active. He has green eyes. He is looking for a penfriend in the State Department and he hopes that after you and he have corresponded for a while you will arrange this meeting. He is house-trained. Are you? (His question, not mine.)
Hoping to return the test unblemished and correct, I remain, my dear J.J. hoping this finds you as it leaves me, and believe me to be when very often I don’t believe it myself,
yours, with yours in hand,
105. Dunedin September
Hi you lovely cats and bees and plants, this is Lucas here, here’s my news written all in order,
a. House
