Sirens and Spies

by Janet Taylor Lisle

  Elsie’s head shot up.

  “If I’m not going, it doesn’t matter what I did with my violin, does it?” she returned, cold as ice.

  Elsie handed the note back to her mother. Then, pirouetting on her heel like an outraged fairy-tale queen, she swept back into her room and rudely shut the door behind her.

  Mary clenched her fists.

  “Do you know that Elsie has never, in two years, invited anyone into that royal palace of hers?” Mary asked her mother. Not even Heidi and Roo, her own little sisters. Not even Father. She makes him stand at the door to talk. Do you know that?”

  But Mrs. Potter was plainly thinking of something else.

  “Mary?” she said, as they walked together down the long hall, toward the stairs. “Mary? Why don’t you go after all? Miss Fitch needs cheering up by somebody. I’ll go too, if you like.”

  “But, we couldn’t,” gasped Mary, thunderstruck. “Don’t you see? She asked Elsie specially. We couldn’t possibly go. What would Miss Fitch think when she saw me and my violin instead?”

  Mrs. Potter sighed. “Well, then,” she said, folding up the note, “come downstairs and help me get Granny’s tea together. I know it’s Elsie’s day, but …” She cast a helpless look at the closed door behind them.

  3

  BUT IT WAS NOT ELSIE’S day. Inside her room, Elsie, after hearing her mother through the wall, veered to check the private calendar she kept posted on the back of her closet door. There she saw that Mrs. Potter had gotten it wrong, as usual. It was Heidi’s day.

  The girls took turns doing duty for Granny Colie, who lived housebound on the third floor. Although this schedule was meant to “help Mother get things done,” it rarely worked. Like other attempts at organization in the Potter house, it floundered along from week to week in a sort of fog of disorder and forgetfulness.

  “It’s enough to drive a person crazy,” Elsie told Mary. “As crazy as Granny Colie herself!”

  “But Granny Colie isn’t crazy,” Mary had answered. “She’s old, that’s all. She’s tired.” The sisters could disagree on almost any subject that came up. They disagreed, for instance, about the Potter house itself.

  “It’s a lovely house,” Mary would say. “I like living all close together. That’s what families are for, living close together.”

  “The rooms are too small,” Elsie contended. “The walls are too thin.”

  “I like small rooms!” Mary would answer. But even she had to admit that the walls were thin, the level of noise sometimes distracting. Upstairs, the long hall carried voices back and forth like a stereo system. The Potter parents made rules in an attempt at privacy: no screaming (heaven forbid!), no loud talking (if humanly possible), and finally, no radio music after 8:30 P.M. Conveniently, the family record player had been broken for over a year.

  “No radio music?” cried Mary and Elsie together.

  “The little ones must have their sleep,” Mrs. Potter explained apologetically. “That disco music gets them all stirred up.”

  “And I must have my sanity!” roared Mr. Potter, a sympathetic father usually, who only roared as a last resort.

  “Mary plays that kind of music, not me,” Elsie had said primly. “I play classical.”

  But Mr. Potter worked hard at his job. He was an exhausted man by the end of a day. Such men cannot always distinguish between kinds of music.

  “Just a little peace?” he pleaded. “Not much to ask, is it? A little peace for an aging salesman?”

  “And how about order?” demanded Elsie, who was cross about the radio curfew. “Order!” bellowed Elsie. It was her constant battle cry.

  “This place looks like a flophouse!” she shouted. “A junk heap, a bargain basement, a nursery school for baboons!”

  Well, perhaps it did, a little. (The little ones were insulted and went off to sulk. Baboons indeed!) Mrs. Potter ran a breezy ship, even on the best days. She was an easygoing woman who could let a layer of dust accumulate, could allow an appointment to slip past unnoticed, could forget to buy milk for two days in a row without coming unstrung.

  “Mother does her best,” Mary said. “There are a lot of us. And now with Granny so old and tired …”

  “Schedules!” cried Elsie. “What we need are schedules around here.”

  “We have schedules,” Mary said.

  “But nobody writes them down!” cried Elsie. “Except me,” she added. “I’m the only one who pays attention to order.”

  Even the little ones could see that there was some truth in this. Heidi was only just eight. Roo was six. They knew about Elsie’s “order.” Her strange habits stood out sharp and clear from the swarm, the hopeless clutter of their own world. Fascinated, they watched as Elsie performed the odd rite of ironing, straight out of the dryer, every article of her clean wash.

  “Even her socks!” whispered Roo.

  From around corners, they saw her polish her shoes, using a special polishing kit she kept under the sink in the bathroom. They watched her polish her wallet. They saw her wash her hands afterward and scrub her nails with a special scrub brush she stored with the kit.

  “Can I do that?” asked Roo.

  “No,” Elsie said. She dried the brush on a towel and put it in her pocket.

  The little ones wanted to watch Elsie inside her room too. But Elsie’s door was always closed.

  “Can’t we come in?” they chorused, knocking timidly.

  “No.”

  “Please. Please. Just for a minute?” begged Heidi.

  “No.”

  “What are you doing in there?”

  “My homework.”

  “Roo’s here. She wants to ask you something.”

  “Keep her away.”

  “But Elsie! You don’t have to lock the door!”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s my room and I don’t want it contaminated.”

  Contaminated? The little ones looked at each other and shrugged.

  “I think it means messed up, sort of,” said Heidi.

  Inside Elsie’s stronghold of a room was another stronghold, equally mysterious, which the little ones had only glimpsed as Elsie passed in and out of her door. (The little ones dared not enter Elsie’s room in her absence. “What if we are caught?” whispered Roo, fearfully.) The other stronghold was Elsie’s desk, a plain, brown wooden thing that she had pushed into a corner, away from the windows.

  Turning from the calendar, Elsie went across to it now, and sat down. The desk was scrupulously tidy, so well-organized that Elsie felt pleased just to look at it. Here nothing could ever be lost, or forgotten, or mistaken.

  Elsie opened a drawer and pulled from it a blue spiral notebook, clean enough to have been bought yesterday. It hadn’t been. The notebook was Elsie’s private journal. She had been writing in it for a little over a year, and now it was almost filled. Elsie already had money put aside for another, and she knew what color it would be. Red. Her new notebook would be red and she would keep it in the drawer of her desk exactly on top of the blue one.

  Elsie placed the notebook squarely on the desk. Then, sitting back to admire the effect, she respectfully reviewed, one by one, a number of other objects before her. These were the blotter upon which the notebook lay, its perfectly white surface secured at either end by two broad, gleaming bands of bronze; a gigantic, oblong pencil tray of the same shining bronze; a round box for stamps, bronze; a thick pen shot straight as an arrow into a heavy bronze base.

  Traced into the metal of each object was an ornate design of leaves whose stems curled out in thin, elegant tendrils. The design swirled up the blotters bands. It marched across the bottom of the pencil tray and lay atop the stamp box like a wreath. It cascaded down the sides of the pen holder.

  The design was called Savannah Jungle. The desk set itself was barely a month old and amounted, in Elsie’s eyes, to nothing short of perfection.

  It was not, as Mr. Potter had pointed out, th
e sort of thing one would expect to see sitting on the desk of a young girl.

  “Strange,” he teased, when he examined the heavy pen. “Strange. I thought the Declaration of Independence had already been signed.”

  Elsie had scowled at him. The pen set was what she had wanted, what she had bought by herself, asking no one, with her violin money. In that way, the set was a declaration of independence all by itself.

  “You sold your violin?” exclaimed Mrs. Potter, when Elsie had finally seen fit to tell her.

  “Well, it was mine, wasn’t it?”

  “I guess so. Who bought it?”

  “A lady. I advertised in the paper.”

  “You advertised in the newspaper?’

  “Yes. It wasn’t a very good violin, you know. I got a hundred and fifty dollars for it.”

  “Good heavens!” cried Mrs. Potter.

  “And I bought this,” said Elsie, taking the desk set, piece by piece, out of its box.

  “What is it?”

  “Savannah Jungle,” Elsie had said proudly.

  Mrs. Potter was horrified. She consulted her husband. (“She’s an unusual child,” he said, firmly, when he came back from looking at the set.)

  She consulted Mary. (“How could I have known?” shrieked Mary. “Elsie never tells me anything!”)

  She had told even her own mother, Granny Colie, in desperation, over tea. That was no help. Granny Colie, who had given both girls their violins in the first place, two years ago, didn’t like to be bothered with problems anymore.

  “Which one is Elsie?” she asked innocently, stopping Mrs. Potter dead in her tracks.

  “Oh, Mother. Don’t be rude. You know perfectly well what I’m saying.’”

  Mrs. Potter had gone back to Elsie in the end.

  “Are you sure?” she asked. “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “Yes,” Elsie had answered, without hesitation. She knew what was behind the question. Mrs. Potter was not disturbed by the desk set, or the money, or even the way the violin had been sold. What upset her was the act of selling, for it meant that Elsie was serious, that she had given up for good on violin lessons.

  “And no wonder,” thought Elsie now, sitting at her desk. She took the magnificent pen from its holder and flourished the point toward her journal.

  “No wonder. The old fraud. A person like that isn’t fit to teach anything. The witch. She got just what she deserved!”

  4

  THE STRANGE THING WAS that the Potters had seen Jimmy Dee not a month before Miss Fitch’s “accident,” as people on the street were nervously calling it.

  They had seen him, but how were they to know about his visits to Miss Fitch? He looked to them all, all four girls at least, like another one of their mother’s cases, which was bad enough to be sure.

  For Mrs. Potter was a one-woman social-service organization. Everybody on Grove Street knew it. Everybody said it was fine, just fine, if she wanted to do things like that. Different strokes for different folks, they said, as long as she didn’t turn her house into some kind of halfway center; as long as she kept it private.

  “She brings them back from the bus station,” said Mrs. Cornelle, who lived down at the end of the block.

  “She gets them at the zoo when she takes the kids,” said Mrs. Mott. She lived across the street and two houses up with a clear view of the disheveled Potter home. She’d been inside, too, once, courtesy of the United Way Fund Drive. A coat of paint was the least of what that house needed, Mrs. Mott could now report. Dust caked on tables, crayons grinding underfoot, wallpaper mercilessly peeled, a front stairway supporting ascending piles of mittens, notebooks, newspapers, stuffed animals, teacups, shoes.

  “And there was Mrs. Potter in the middle of it all, actually smiling!” exclaimed Mrs. Mott. “And the children scrambling about, half-clothed, unwashed.”

  “Disgraceful,” breathed Mrs. Cornelle.

  “Pitiful,” sighed Mrs. Cruikshank.

  “The trouble with charity,” declared Mrs. Landsbury, “is that it almost never begins at home.”

  The ladies met Thursdays for bridge and luncheon at Mrs. Mott’s house, where their view of the Potters’ home made it a frequent subject of conversation.

  “I have heard,” Mrs. Mott confided, lowering her cards with her voice, “I have heard that Mrs. Potter boards a derelict on the third floor. Perhaps more than one!”

  “A derelict!” cried Mrs. Cornelle. “I heard it was a drug addict recently released.”

  “Whatever it is, it should be reported,” Mrs. Cruikshank pointed out. “This is a nice neighborhood. It’s up to us to keep the riffraff out, down the hill where they belong.”

  All the ladies nodded their heads. Yes, best to face reality. Millport was not the thriving center of southern Connecticut industry and trade it had been, fifty years ago. Over the years, factories had closed, businesses had moved, sidewalks had cracked and bars and questionable movie theaters had leapt like weeds into the breach.

  Down the hill, fast food restaurants and discount stores vied for customers. Alleys collected glass and rubbish. Parks decayed, street lights broke, and clusters of seedy-looking men—of the type particularly alarming to women such as Mrs. Mott—could be seen lurking on corners near the railroad station.

  Up the hill, on the other hand, Millport appeared in relative good order. The streets were largely residential and, while the homes were not fancy or very big, there was an air of respectability about them.

  “Better than living in New York City,” Mrs. Cruikshank liked to say. She’d come up on the New York train ten years ago to visit her sister, and she hadn’t gone back.

  “We’ve got real trees here in Millport and a downtown that keeps to itself, if you let it,” she told the ladies. “Down there in New York you’ve got to hide your purse under your coat just to go to the market.”

  Mrs. Potter had come from New York City, too, years before Mrs. Cruikshank’s husband died and set her up free and clear to live where she pleased. Long-term residence didn’t get Mrs. Potter off the hook, though.

  “I heard she was a welfare worker in the Bronx,” murmured Mrs. Mott.

  “I heard she counseled criminals on Staten Island,” said Mrs. Landsbury.

  “That accounts for it,” Mrs. Cruikshank announced. “That accounts for everything!”

  It was Mrs. Potter, of course, who had seen Jimmy Dee first. She was standing at her kitchen window looking out at all the snow and ice and more predicted. The afternoon was a dark one, late in January. She wiped her hands on a paper towel and he slouched into view, a big man, stumbling, going down the very middle of the street, not even watching for cars. Watching his feet.

  He was cold in his thin coat, probably didn’t know how cold he was or how he shook all over so that he couldn’t walk in a straight line but chattered along with small lurches and weavings.

  Mrs. Potter was out the door in a second to get him, with only her sweater on.

  “Lady,” he said. “Don’t bother me. I’m going somewheres.” But when he felt the heat from the kitchen, staggered into it off the back porch (“Don’t push!” he growled at her), when he got inside, he collapsed down in a chair in a grateful way. Or his body did. He wasn’t grateful. He was dirty and cold, shaking like a house dog left out on a winter night. He didn’t want anything, not anyone to help. But he took a bowl of soup. And would she please quit looking at him and get those children away?

  By this time, all four girls had arrived, having heard the rumpus at the back door. They stood like a small church choir in the kitchen entry, Mary blushing for her mother while Elsie said fiercely, “What is this?” The little ones were backed up against her.

  Mrs. Potter said, “Elsie, will you run and get that bottle of whiskey in the cabinet?”

  “I will not,” answered Elsie, tossing her head. But Mary went and brought it back. Mrs. Potter poured a dose straight into his soup, and poured more soup in on top.

  “You’ll feel b
etter in a minute,” she said.

  Next Heidi yelled: “Here comes Granny Colie!” and in she shuffled on the scrappy remains of her bedroom slippers. She was all the way down from upstairs for her tea, and breathing hard. The girls stood aside with blank faces, as if to let her see what Mother had done now.

  “Who’s there?” barked Granny, stopping short. She still had a sense for atmospheres.

  Elsie answered coldly, “A man.”

  “A man? What man?”

  Mary cut in to stop that. “I’ll help you get your tea, Granny,” she said, and edged her past the chair he was sitting in.

  If he knew he was blocking traffic, he didn’t look up, didn’t try to make room for a half-blind old woman. He never once looked thankful that he was there. Elsie expected something, at least. She stood by in a fury while he slurped his soup. His mouth was so cold he couldn’t drink it nicely. It spilled out all over his chin, catching up on the bristles.

  Mrs. Potter leaned over him, would have touched him if he hadn’t sent a warning through his eyes. She asked him to stay a bit and warm himself up. She said he could take a rest upstairs if he wanted.

  “On whose bed?” snorted Elsie to Mary, who was attending to Granny Colie as if her life depended on it.

  “Here’s your tea, Granny. Shall I help you carry it up?

  Now Granny looked as if she didn’t want it. She was feeling for lint on her sweater and picking it off with little flicks. Mary stepped in front of her in case he was watching. Granny Colie could pick lint for hours.

  He finished his soup at that moment with a bang on the bowl that made everyone jump. Then he lifted his big, skinny body from the chair. His greasy coat swung down to his knees. He made for the door, head down. Mary backed Granny Colie out of the way.

  “Do stay!” cried Mrs. Potter, going after him. “It’s not any trouble. Just to warm yourself”

  He said: “Are you kidding, lady? I didn’t want to come in here in the first place,” and slammed the door in her face going out.

  Mrs. Potter went and got his empty bowl. She brought it to the sink, where she could watch him through the window. Then, perhaps because they were, Granny and all, still standing there staring at her, she felt called upon to speak for him.