Life Among the Savages (10 page)

Laurie came bounding heavily down the stairs, with Jannie's infuriated wail following him.

“Where's Phoebe?” he demanded.

“Not here yet,” I said briefly, because I could not trust myself to speak fully. “Dime if you set the table.”

Laurie began to sing loudly, and rattled the silverware vigorously. As his singing grew louder, a suspicion grew in me. “Did you brush your teeth?” I asked him.

He sang more sweetly still. “Did you brush your
teeth?”
I said.

The phone rang. Because I was on the wrong side of the table, and hampered by the chairs, Laurie beat me to it by a full five feet.

“Hello?” he said politely, as he has been taught. “This is Laurence.” His eyes circled meaningfully around to me and he looked sorrowful. “No,” he said sadly, “she's not up yet. She's still asleep.”

“Young man,” I said ominously, and he backed away so I could not reach the phone. “I'll tell her when she wakes up,” he said, and hung up hastily. “I knew you wouldn't want to talk to
her,”
he said. “She always talks so long, and you're so busy with breakfast and everything.”

“Who?” I asked.

“I'll write it down for you,” Laurie said. He took the telephone pad and pencil and began, with his laborious printing. The coffee boiled over, and I fled back into the kitchen. I turned off the coffee, gave Sally her bottle—she is learning to drink her milk from a cup, but insists also upon having her bottle, full, for no better apparent reason than as a weapon with which to brain anyone foolish enough to bring a head near her—and began to break eggs into a bowl. Jannie came downstairs with a clatter, her shoes, as I had known inevitably they would be, on the wrong feet.

“Where's Phoebe?” she said.

“She didn't come today,” Laurie said. “Mommy's
terrible
mad. Mommy's probably going to kill her.”

“Laurie,” I said, but they had already started, “Mommy's going to kill Phoebe, Mommy's going to kill Phoebe.”

My husband came downstairs without that spring in his step which is usually associated with daddies coming down to a good nourishing breakfast with their kiddies; he came into the kitchen and glanced around. “Where's Phoebe?” he said.

“Not here,” I said.

“Mommy's going to kill Phoebe,” the children chanted.

“You'll really
have
to fire that girl,” my husband observed. “Good morning, children.”

“Good
morning, Daddy,” Jannie said sweetly.

“Good
morning, Dad,” Laurie said manfully.

I turned around. Jannie was balancing the fruit juice glasses one on top of another. Laurie was making a train of knives and forks. Sally finished with her bottle abruptly and threw it on the floor.

“It's hot,” my husband remarked. He sat down at the table, rescued a knife and fork from Laurie and a glass of fruit juice from Jannie. “Why do you let the children play with things on the table?” he asked. “Don't they have enough toys of their own?”

I did not feel equal to answering. I put the eggs, the toast, and the coffee on the table and sat down; I could tell by looking that my coffee was going to be too hot and it was perfectly clear that the toast was burned.

“What's this junk?” Laurie said, regarding his plate.

“Once,” Jannie observed, through a mouthful of egg, “once there was a little boy and he had no mother or father and he ran out into the middle of the street.”

“What happened to him?” Laurie asked with interest.

“He was eaten by a truck,” Jannie said demurely.

“That's
no good,” Laurie said.

“It is too,” Jannie said.

“It is not,” Laurie said.

The phone rang. I was cornered behind Sally's highchair and Laurie beat me again. “This is Laurence,” we could hear him saying precisely. “Who is calling, please?”

He came into the kitchen and addressed his father. “It's Mr. Feeley,” he said. “He wants to know can you play poker tonight.”

My husband avoided looking at me. “Tell him I'll call him back,” he said.

“Once there was a little boy,” Jannie said, “and he had no mother or father.”

“What happened to him?” I asked dutifully, Laurie being still on the phone.

“He was eaten by a bear,” Jannie said. “Can I have some candy when I finish my breakfast?”

Each of the children had a toy filled with candy which sat on the table; they were little glass airplanes, and the candy inside was the sort usually used for cake decoration, tiny little colored balls of sugar. This candy enchanted Jannie, although Laurie was cynically aware that the whole amount contained in the airplane was hardly worth one chocolate-covered pepperment.

“If you eat every single bite of your breakfast,” I said, “you may have some of your candy.”

“Once there was a little boy,” Jannie said, shoving her egg around the plate with the handle of her fork, “and he had no mother or father.”

“What happened to him?” Laurie said, sliding into his chair. “He says call back before two,” he remarked confidentially to his father.

“He was eaten by a elephant,” Jannie said. “Look, no more breakfast.”

I lifted her plate and, with a spoon, gathered the egg off the table and put it back onto the plate. “Every bite,” I said firmly, “or no candy.”

“Once there was a little boy,” Jannie said mournfully, “and he had no mother or father.”

She waited for a minute, but no one spoke; Laurie was engaged with his toast, I was trying to get Sally's spoon out of her mouth, and my husband was counting the money in his wallet.

“‘Once there was a little boy,' ” Jannie said loudly, “‘and he had no mother or father,' I said.”

“What happened to him?” Laurie asked resignedly.

Jannie giggled. “He was eaten by a bicycle,” she said.

“Through,” Laurie announced suddenly. “See?” He turned his plate upside down, his milk cup upside down on top of that, and balanced his fruit juice glass on top of the whole thing.

“Laurence,” his father said absently, “your napkin is on the floor.”

Laurie snatched his airplane full of candy, and retired. I picked his napkin up off the floor, unloaded the milk cup and the fruit juice glass, caught Jannie's plate just as it was sliding off the edge of the table, rescued the spoon from Sally, and said “More coffee?” to my husband.

He looked deeply into his cup. “Yes, please,” he said.

Breakfast was nearly over.

Laurie had emptied his candies into a small bowl, and was stirring them around vigorously. “Look,” he said, coming around to Jannie's side of the table, “Look, whirlpools.”

“I want my candy,” Jannie said immediately.

“Look, whirlpools,” Laurie said to his father. “Whirlpools,” he said to me. An idea struck him suddenly and he took a handful of the candies and put them on the tray of Sally's high chair; they rolled back and forth and Sally regarded them dubiously.

“Eat, Sally,” Laurie said. “Eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat...”

“Laurence,” I said feverishly.

“Okay, okay,” Laurie said. “Look, Sally. Candy.”

He pointed to the small candies and Sally tried experimentally to pick one up. Her fingers were not well enough controlled to take hold of it, and she began to giggle, chasing the candies around the highchair tray.

“Listen,” Laurie shouted, “Phoebe's coming.”

“Phoebe's coming,” Jannie agreed loudly. She began to struggle, and Laurie at the same time tried to gather his airplane and candy together preparatory for a dash at the door. Jannie teetered backward in her chair, Laurie crashed into her, and they both went over, Jannie's plate, with egg, moving gracefully off the table after them.

“Can I have my candy now?” Jannie asked me, looking up hopefully from the floor.
“Laurie
did it.”

“Phoebe,” Laurie was shouting from the front door, “Mommy's going to
kill
you, and Daddy says—”

The phone rang. This time I made it first, and, breathing hard, I lifted the receiver and said “Hello?”

“Hello?” said a high thin voice. “May I please speak to Laurence?”

 

 

 

PHOEBE WAS THE last, for a long, long time, of my adjuvants. Not that I can't
use
help around the house, but I am, not to put too fine a point on it, the person to whom the almost unemployable slack-jawed mother's helper gravitates as to a natural home. I have never in my life made any pretence at being an efficient housekeeper; I can make a fair gingerbread and I know a thing or two about onion soup, but beyond the most rudimentary sweepings and dustings I am not capable. Not for me the turned sheet, the dated preserve, the fitted homemade slipcover or the wellironed shirt. Nor do I stack up particularly well in the hired girl department; in our town the employer (obviously a staunch New England type who because of a broken leg or some incurable malady has found it necessary to “get help”) is expected to “work along,” to check dirt, to remain, at all times, level-headed.

That is why I always end up with people like Phoebe. If she could make chowder or raised doughnuts she would, in our town, have a home of her own. If she had a natural gift for getting things clean, or an instinctive ability at getting three rebellious children into bed, she would be gainfully employed in our nearest big town. If she knew how to do anything right at all, she would not be working for me.

Take Hope, for instance. I always get hold of these people because they answer an ad I put in the paper, and someone apparently read it to Hope. I wanted to phrase the ad in some cute irresistible fashion such as “I am almost helpless around a house. I honestly don't know a
thing
about housework. Isn't there some kind girl who wants to help me, at a moderate salary?” Instead, at a dollar for ten words for three days, what I usually say is “Houseworker wanted. Good ref. Mod. sal. Children. Meals. Laundry. Cleaning.”

I always hire the first person who comes, usually without remembering to check on the good ref. This is not only because I am extremely gullible, but at least partially because I am openly terrified of anyone who looks me straight in the eye and speaks emphatically, and these women, looking for jobs at mod. sal. and with no serious intentions whatsoever about Meals. Laundry. Cleaning., alway use a voice of great clarity and strength when talking to me. I am usually not able to say anything at all, or else what I do say comes out entirely wrong, and modest disclaimers turn out to be flat denials—a statement to the effect that no one can cook for my husband except me because he has odd ideas about food turns out to say that I intend to do all the cooking myself, in spite of what my ad said, with the rider that I have a crazy husband who lives exclusively on bread and water.

The only person, by the way, whom I ever escaped in a situation like that was a gentlewoman of about two hundred years who came one day in answer to one of my usual ads; I tried to conduct the interview with gravity, and she answered all my timid questions with modesty and restraint until I mentioned, in the laughing voice that I reserve for controversial subjects, that dishes were a problem in a family the size of ours, particularly, I added, washing them.

“Dishes,” she said eagerly, “now, I
love
dishes.”

“I suppose you collect them?” I asked, for want of anything better to say.

“Washing dishes,” she said. “Now, washing dishes I can't stop. If I don't watch myself—” she cackled delightedly “—I just go on washing dishes over and over and over and over and over and over again, all day long. All day
long,
now,” and she cackled again.

I told her I would let her know about the job, and after she had left I telephoned the number she gave me and left a message that I had just had word that my mother was coming to live with me and so I wouldn't need anyone to help around the house.

I passed up that nice old lady, who was essentially agreeable and had at least one cleanly virtue, to hire Hope. Hope disliked washing dishes, but she did them. She wore neat house dresses, although she had a weakness for high-heeled, ankle-strap black sandals around the house. She did not quarrel with my cooking for my husband, although, as it turned out, it was unnecessary; Hope spent most of her time in the kitchen making biscuits which were light and pleasant, and cheese soufflés, and chocolate cakes, and fried chicken. I even checked her good ref. The old lady to whom I spoke was enthusiastic in her praise. “She's a
good
girl,” the old lady said insistently—perhaps I feel now,
too
insistently. “You don't need to worry about Hope any, she's a
good
girl. Don't you pay any attention to what you may
hear
—that Hope is a
good
girl.”

The only trouble with Hope was that she disappeared at the end of the first week, taking with her her salary, ten dollars she had borrowed from me, and my overshoes. Two days after Hope disappeared I answered a ring at the door, and found standing there a lady of unequivocal firmness and a most suspicious eye. “Is Hope here?” she asked me.

“She is not,” I said shortly, not overanxious to dwell lengthily upon the subject of Hope.

“I'm her parole officer,” the woman said. “If you know where she is it's your duty to tell me.”

“She's got my overshoes, wherever she is,” I said, and tried to close the front door, but the parole officer put her shoulder against the frame and said, “It's your civic duty as a citizen to report this matter.” After I had told her all about Hope and my overshoes I pointed out that the ten dollars was relatively unimportant but that with this constant wet weather it was hard going without anything on my feet, and asked nervously what chance there was of getting them back.