A Home in the Country

by Sheelagh Mawe

  Agnes’ eyes narrowed and she started muttering to herself, ‘Maybe I should oughta go. Take the kid. I could now he’s out the house. That’d show ’em who’s doin’ what for the war victims. Me walkin’ in with a real live British refugee kid. And one that knows knittin’. I need to think on that….’

  SIX

  Just as Agnes wouldn’t put up with any of us walking when we could be running, neither would she put up with any ‘gabbin” from us, her word for talking.

  She needn’t have worried. Aside from her threats as to what she would do to us if she caught us gabbin’ (her favourite being rinsing out our mouths with gasoline), we were, for the most part, a silent bunch of kids, far too fear-ridden to have any clear thoughts in our heads other than the ones she put there and therefore we never had anything to talk about.

  Neither James nor I had any difficulty picturing ourselves as we would have appeared back then had there been anyone to see us: six grubby, barefoot little kids in ragged overalls running – always running – with hunched shoulders and anxious, frowning faces scampering about doing Agnes’ bidding. We were far too preoccupied, too frightened, to ever enjoy a leisurely moment of laughter or engage in the usual ‘kidding around’ typical of kids our age. Not that there was anything to laugh at or kid around about.

  Certainly James and I, our journey then behind us, had long since reverted to our customary lack of interest in one another, a habit Cathy and Danny seemed to share; while Andy and Sally could remain totally silent for days – sometimes weeks – at a time and often did. To the best of James’ and my joint recollection then, none of the six of us ever once discussed or described our lives or families prior to arriving at ‘this dump’, the term that, without discussion, was our unanimous take on the Slater household.

  It was quite natural, then, that the subject of Agnes’ participation in a Knitting Bee had been forgotten by all, until one evening a week or so after the subject originally came up, when Agnes, abandoning her rocker, stomped into the kitchen where we girls were doing the supper dishes, pointed at me, and said, ‘Put down that dishrag, girl, and go get cleaned up. You’re goin’ knittin’ tonight. ’Bout time you done somethin’ for the U. S. of A. seein’ what all I’m doin’ fo you.’

  I tried to swallow the piece of gristle I had taken from the side of the Old Man’s plate, choked instead, and fell off the little stool we stood on to reach the sink, all the while wondering what Agnes meant by, ‘Go get cleaned up.’

  Did she mean go out back and wash my face and hands? Or did she mean, go change my clothes? If so, into what? Clean overalls? A dress?

  I looked at Cathy and Sally for help or direction but both had become fascinated with the plates in their hands, holding them up close to their faces as though deciphering secret codes, which could only mean they were trying to swallow their Old Man’s leftovers before Agnes caught them.

  Exasperated by my failure to move, or even blink, Agnes grabbed me by one ear and dragged me towards the stairs. ‘I said, get cleaned up!’ she roared. ‘Put on a dress. Shoes. Socks. Get a brush through that hair….’

  I ran upstairs and stood in front of the hall closet still not sure what to wear. ‘A dress,’ she’d said. But … which dress? I knew no matter which one I chose, Agnes would hate it so I thought I might as well put on the one I liked best. One that an Aunty in England had passed on to me when her daughter outgrew it, but which Mummy had never liked, saying it was too fussy with all the lace and ribbons and bows.

  Next, I pulled on shoes and socks and couldn’t understand why my feet felt so peculiar until I remembered it was the first time I’d worn shoes since I’d arrived there. I also marvelled at how dirty – caked-mud-dirty – my feet and legs were until I also remembered I hadn’t had a bath since I got there either.

  As I’ve already mentioned, there was another room next to the bedroom we all shared in that house that no one was allowed to enter. Cathy peeked in once anyway and said it was very pretty.

  ‘Why – how come – aren’t we allowed to go in it?’ I remember asking.

  ‘Used to be when the Old Man and the boys slep’ in it, we did. Had to go in and make the beds anyways,’ Cathy answered. ‘But when they moved out to the cabin, Agnes fixed it up special for when her girl, Betty, comes home on leave. She figured on making it a big surprise.’

  ‘So … was she?’ I asked.

  ‘Was she what?’

  ‘Surprised?’

  Cathy put on her everybody’s-dumb-but-me face and said, ‘Now how could she be surprised if’n she ain’t never been out to see it?’

  How was I supposed to know that?

  Actually, I had seen parts of the room when Agnes occasionally left the door ajar and I hadn’t thought it was that pretty. But now here she came up the stairs, pushing past me at the closet and opening the door to the forbidden room wide. She motioned me to follow her.

  I saw there were curtains at the windows that matched the bedspread on the bed, and shiny brown linoleum covered the ancient, splintering floorboards. On top of the linoleum was one of those ugly round rugs of the kind people make out of rags. There were two pictures of angels on one of the walls and in a corner, a washstand with a frilly white skirt around it. I remember thinking if anybody fixed up a room like that as a surprise for me it would have been hard to pretend I liked it.

  While I was looking around, Agnes pulled off her ugly old print dress and pulled on one that was all one colour, pink, with a crocheted collar. It was ugly, too, but at least it didn’t have a hole under the arm.

  ‘Get over here, button the buttons down my back,’ she ordered, sitting on the edge of the bed, ‘then go bring me the hairbrush here.’

  Ugh! I cringed from touching that fat back of hers and it took me ages to button up her buttons because of trying to keep my fingers away from the sweat that beaded and trickled over its entire surface.

  On the washstand in the corner, all arranged at angles, stood an array of china jugs and bowls and jars. They all matched: white with trailing red roses on the sides and gold trim around the top.

  When I came back from our room with the hairbrush, Agnes was wringing out a wash cloth in the biggest bowl and wiping her face and neck with it. She grabbed me and scrubbed my face and neck and the parts of my arms and legs that showed. When she dropped the cloth back in the bowl the water turned a rich, dark brown, something she noted with obvious satisfaction.

  ‘My sailor boy, Jack, must’ve been right sayin’ you Limeys was a filthy bunch with rats big as dogs runnin’ around your ships,’ she sneered, ‘on account of take a look at that there water. There’s your proof.’

  I had learned by then not to answer when she said rude and nasty things about England or the English and handed her the hairbrush in silence. She dragged it through my dirty, tangled hair with a ferocity that made James’ shipboard efforts seem downright friendly by comparison. I couldn’t help but cry out and for every ‘Ouch!’ I earned a whack on the head from the back of the brush. By the time she was through, my eyes and nose were streaming and my skull was covered in lumps.

  With all my heart I wished I’d learned from Cathy and kept my mouth shut. Particularly about knitting. Thanks to my loud, bragging talk, I was not only getting beat up, but was going to have to be alone with Agnes for the first time since my arrival and my heart was racing at the thought. What would she do to me? What would I say to her? Unexpectedly, the hated kitchen with its chipped dishes and worn-out furniture and linoleum took on the aspect of dear, familiar friends from which I could scarcely bear to be parted. As for Cathy and Sally, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like for them to have some time without the ever-present fear of Agnes and her thumping fists to contend with. It didn’t seem right. In fact, I thought it horribly unfair.

  Outside, Agnes, gripping the back of my neck as though fearing I might make a run for it, silently steered me to a different path in the woods than the one we followed to the store. This path was the one the
Old Man disappeared into when he left to catch his bus in the mornings. Did that mean we were going to take a bus?

  No, it didn’t. When we came out of the woods we continued to walk along a paved road and stayed on it until we came to a nice, big friendly house with a white picket fence and a pretty garden.

  A smiling lady opened the door and introduced us to the seated knitters. ‘Girls,’ she trilled, ‘our wonderful neighbour, Agnes here, is providing a home and shelter for this poor little British refugee child and she’s brought her here tonight to help us knit.’

  The ladies gasped and clapped and escorted Agnes to the best chair in the room and it was then I noticed a change in Agnes’ behaviour towards me. Her grip – now on my arm – loosened and instead of hitting me on the head and calling me a Limey, her arm went around my shoulders in a gentle kind of way and she smiled down at me as if I was someone very dear to her. She even went so far as to call me honey and tell everyone what a perfect little lady I was.

  The ladies – there were about twelve of them – kept up their praise of Agnes, telling her she was an example to them all. A fine, upstanding American if ever there was one.

  Sitting beside her on a little stool the lady found for me and listening to them talk while carefully knitting, I suddenly knew with certainty that if my very own mother were to walk in just then and meet Agnes, she’d say the same as everyone else – that she was really quite a splendid woman. Remarkable, in fact. An example to them all.

  Across the room from where I sat stood a table laden with the most wonderful-looking food I had seen in America. It reminded me of birthday party tables in England before the war with its cakes, pies, cupcakes, custards and biscuits – cookies – of the very best kind.

  The lady who let us in came through from her kitchen cooing, ‘Coffee’s ready, girls! Come taste my goodies!’

  Agnes and the other ladies set aside their knitting and headed for the table. It took Agnes a moment to remember me but when she did, she smiled and held out her hand. I was only too happy to smile back and take it and go to the table with her.

  The kind lady said, ‘Help yourself, honey,’ and before I knew it I had put two of everything on my plate. Then I remembered Agnes and, gulping, hastened to put some back. Agnes’ hand on my shoulder stopped me.

  ‘It’s OK, honey,’ she smiled. ‘Eat up! We all know what you been through in England with the rationing: but the one egg a month; people lining up all day and all night for a couple potatoes…. Eat!’

  The ladies, aghast at Agnes’ comments, likewise urged me on. ‘Take more!’ they said. ‘Eat! Here, take a slice of this pie and try some of these cookies. They’re homemade, you know!’

  One particularly sweet lady reached out to pat my head. I pulled away, wincing, because her hand had landed on a couple of Agnes’ hairbrush lumps. The lady saw the lumps and gasped, ‘My land, child, what’s all this?’

  I knew better than to say Agnes did it with the hairbrush. What, and risk the lady getting mad at me like Bill had done? Hear her say I must be a very bad kid indeed to try the patience of an upstanding woman like Agnes to where she had to hit me! I tried to think where to say the lump came from but Agnes stepped in and lied for me.

  ‘Sarah can’t keep out the way of our screen doors,’ she said, laughing convulsively.

  The ladies didn’t laugh. They didn’t know what she was talking about. Neither did I.

  Agnes explained. ‘They don’t got ’em over there, see. Screen doors. That’s how come she walks into every last one. She don’t see they’re there. I keep telling her to mind but, you know kids, always in a hurry to get outside and play.’

  Ah! Now they understood. Chuckling with delight, they murmured, ‘Oh, Agnes! You’re so good!’

  Agnes relished being the centre of attention with everyone laughing at her sparkling wit and she lied some more. ‘That brother of hers is the same way! I swear there’s days the both of them look like they come through Germany!’

  The ladies howled at that.

  Agnes’ kind-hearted benevolence shut down the moment our hostess’s front door closed on our backs. I was berated all the way home through the dark woods for eating too much, talking too much, and because, under the lamplight, the parting in my hair had shown my scalp to be the same filthy brown my legs had been.

  ‘Shamed the living life out of me is what you done,’ Agnes spluttered. ‘Next time I tell you get cleaned up, you better do it right.’

  I worried for days about how I was going to get my scalp clean for the next meeting. I’d never washed my own hair before but I knew I would need shampoo. Where could I get some? Or would soap do? But there again, where could I get soap? Or could Cathy maybe just wash my parting with plain old water? Down at the well?

  Cathy said, ‘I ain’t gettin’ my head busted open on account of you. What you need to do next meetin’ is quick go sit in a dark corner where there ain’t no lamp. Like that no one’ll see the top of your head.’

  That was a good idea that Cathy had.

  Right after breakfast the morning after the Knitting Bee, Agnes sent me out to the side porch to knit. I was to finish a pair of socks before next week’s meeting, or else….

  The other kids hated the sight of me sitting knitting while they took on my share of the daily chores. Even James looked surly when he passed the porch with one of the cows or a wagon-load of cow pies to throw on the vegetables.

  ‘You wouldn’t think it was so wonderful if you had to do it just once,’ I told them when we were all washing our hands at the outside basin. ‘Right after breakfast when it’s still cool and I’m not too hungry,’ I continued, ‘it’s not so bad. But what about later, huh? What about when the sun comes to take away the shade and blinds my eyes and my tummy aches on account of it’s so empty?

  ‘And how about when I’m so hot and thirsty I think I’ll die. Or when I need to go to the shit house or I need to get up and walk around because – on account of – I’ve got pins and needles in my feet and Agnes says stay put till she says otherwise? Do you know,’ I always concluded, ‘how long “otherwise” takes to get here?’

  They didn’t want to know.

  ‘Still beats bein’ in the kitchen with her beatin’ up on you with whatever she’s got in her hand,’ Cathy glowered.

  ‘Unh-unh,’ I argued. ‘You’re wrong because in the kitchen you’re fixin’ food so even with her beating up on you, you get a chance to stick bits of bruised fruit or apple peels in your pocket when her back’s turned. But out on the porch there’s nothing. Just that hot, hot, sun and Agnes shouting – yelling – at me through the screen door.

  ‘You turned that heel yet, girl?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘No heel, no lunch.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  Every day I wondered why the silly old fool had to yell? Couldn’t she see that her yelling startled me and that’s what made me drop stitches? Not only did dropped stitches get me a beating but with the beating came the threat that she wouldn’t take me to the next meeting. An alarming threat indeed, for I had already come to think about the laden tables at those meetings the way I used to think about the candy case in Bill’s store.

  Something else the kids hated even more than seeing me knit was hearing me talk about all the wonderful, delicious food that was always served. The last time I started to describe it, Cathy told me to shut up.

  ‘I’m plain wore out listenin’ to you,’ she complained. ‘’Sides, me’n Sally gets candy knittin’ nights, too, and we don’t have to go no place with old Agnes to get it neither.’

  Right away I knew she was lying because I knew there wasn’t any candy in the house and that’s what I told her.

  Just as smug as can be, tossing her head like little Miss Priss, she replied, ‘I ain’t sayin’ no more. I ain’t s’posed to tell about it anyways but you better get that damn sock done. We’re countin’ on you keepin’ Agnes out the house so we can get our candy. And if you don’t f
inish, you’ll have more’n old Agnes beatin’ up on you. You’ll have me’n Sally right alongside her.’

  Puh! As if I cared about them.

  Far more worrying was the fact that every once in a while my mind would wander of its own accord and I would drop a stitch through my own carelessness. What was upsetting about that – frightening, even – was that when I did, Agnes somehow always knew about it and would come storming through the screen door to snatch the knitting away with one hand, slap my head with the other and point to the vegetable field.

  ‘Git!’ she’d holler. ‘Go pull weeds. The others done et your lunch anyways on account of they been doin’ your work and all you done is set drop stitches all mornin’ long.’

  To console myself on the way to the field, I would tell myself, So what! I don’t care. I won’t pull a single weed when I get there. Well … maybe just enough to kneel on so my knees won’t blister on that hot, hot dirt. But after that, I won’t. No, sir! I’ll just sit perfectly still and pretend I’m in Bill’s store picking out candy.

  One day when I had been sent to the field for dropping a stitch I heard the screen door slam and I started pulling weeds as if I could win a prize for it, thinking it was Agnes coming to check on me.

  But it turned out to be just Cathy and Sally and Sally was crying and rubbing her head so I knew Agnes had been at her with her fists. When they got closer, I saw the sides of Cathy’s face were flaming red, too, but she wasn’t crying. I realized then that I’d never ever seen Cathy cry. Not one single time.

  When they got close enough for me to hear, Cathy yelled, ‘How come you can’t never do nothin’ right, huh? Old Agnes has been beatin’ up on all of us on account of you droppin’ that damn stitch!’

  ‘I didn’t do it on purpose,’ I yelled back. ‘Agnes scares me coming out the door the way she does and anyway, I’d like to see you knitting. You’d be a lot worse at it than me.’

  Right away Cathy put on her slitty-eyed look. ‘Ain’t nothin’ you can do I can’t do better,’ she jeered. ‘And you better get that sock done so she takes you knittin’ next time else you know what you can expect from me.’