A story from Short and Sweet by Robert J. Fernandes

LOUISA Row itself gave the impression that it was quite proud that it led to the Le Repentir burial ground. In fact, it seemed annoyed at being interrupted by lesser streets such as Bent Street that were going nowhere in particular. Mrs. Walcott had lived here for ‘umpteen years’, in a small, almost transparent cottage. She often referred to it as a wood-ants barracks. It was the kind of house that, in case of flooding, had warped pieces of board laid out in the yard, leading the way to both front and back steps. She was popular with most of the residents of Wortmanville, to whom she was known simply as Old Lady Wally.

When she was much younger, Old Lady Wally was married, and had produced two children in quick succession. When they were born, she had told her husband, “The girl is yours and the boy is mine. Now don’t bodder me ’bout making any more children.” Sadly, her husband had died soon after, leaving her nothing but the two small children to be raised.

Old Lady Wally was already accustomed to sewing her own clothes, but was then forced to become a full-time seamstress. Most nights she worked into the early hours of the morning, sewing dresses for sale to Department Stores or private clients. As the sole provider for her family, she had thrown herself into her dressmaking with a vengeance. She had to be independent somehow, not only as a matter of pride, but to show her well-to-do relatives who had disowned her for marrying a poor man.

The Old Lady had eventually come to love dressmaking. Although it kept her very busy, and she couldn’t get around much, all the latest gossip came to her through the kind courtesy of her customers. It was very amusing that sometimes the very rumours that she herself had started would come back to her after making the rounds, so “hemmed and gathered” that she had trouble recognising them. But dressmaking also had its stressful side. Everyone wanted their clothes done immediately, especially at the Christmas season.

The miserly women, who only bought cloth when it was on sale, really annoyed her. They would expect her to make shimmering evening gowns out of the cheap “counter cloth” which had been in the store too long and massaged by hundreds of hands. Worst of all were the really fat women shaped like box kites. They always chose the most sleek, hip-hugging styles from her fashion books, and expected Old Lady Wally to make them fit. When she was not in a good mood, she would suggest that they go to church on Sundays and pray for a change of shape. After all, she reasoned, it was God that had made their shapes in the first place, and she was only trying to disguise them.

The Old Lady’s two children grew up and started to work. Although this was a big help to her, times were still hard in the country as a whole, and, like many other young people, her children dreamed of migrating to North America for a better life. The Old Lady refused to even consider an existence without them until one day her son came home and excitedly told his mother that he had managed to get an American visitor’s visa, and would be leaving shortly for California. He planned to stay there illegally, and quelled the Old Lady’s protests by promising to send for both her and his sister as soon as he got organised.

A year later he sent an airline ticket for his sister, and she, in turn, promised to send for her mother as soon as she became organised. After a few years of waiting, Old Lady Wally had come to the conclusion that America was not a very organised place. She was now like a ship without a rudder. The two stars by which she had steered her life were gone, and she drifted aimlessly from day to day without a reason for living.

As she got older, she could barely do enough dressmaking to support herself. The children had promised to send US money for her, but maybe they hadn’t gotten organised as yet. Old age was just like a dress, she thought; as you grew older, life seemed to fit you tighter. In her case, things were as tight as they could possibly get.

What Old Lady Wally needed most from her children was to be a part of their new life in America. After all, ever since her husband had died, their three lives had become fused by the relentless struggle for self-preservation. Like so many other parents who had been torn from their families by the plague of migration that gripped the country, she felt undeservedly cheated.

The Old Lady lived for the days when she would receive letters from her children, but these became less and less frequent. Instead of letters, she received birthday cards, Christmas cards, Mother’s Day cards, Valentine’s cards, Halloween cards and, occasionally, get-well cards. All the cards were signed in the same touching way: “To the Greatest Mother in the World from your loving children.” She had become a “Card Receiver”.

Like any devoted mother, she always worried about her children, and wondered if they were taking proper care of themselves. She wondered if their neighbourhood was safe from all the violence that seemed to be an everyday occurrence in America. They could never imagine how necessary this information was for the preservation of her sanity. When a mother cares for children so well for so long, it becomes her right to know everything about their lives.

Whenever she received a card from her children, the Old Lady would open it, shake it out and, with a smile that temporarily smoothed the wrinkles of her brow, would say, “Those dogs at the Post Office thief the US that my children send me again. I hope the next card they send is a credit card.”

When she hadn’t heard from them for a long time, she would try to disguise her hurt with cynical remarks to her friends. “Instead of making them two children, I shoulda make two dice and throw them, I mighta win something. Or better yet, if I had make two sheep, you know how much sheep I woulda got by now?”

Old Lady Wally now spent so many hours with her eyes glued to the jalousie louvre windows at the front of the house that the neighbours used to say her face was sunburnt in stripes. From this observation post, she liked to watch the parade of life and death that passed along Louisa Row every day on its way to the burial ground. From her discreet vantage point, very few happenings in the neighbourhood escaped her notice, and she gave a running commentary on whoever she saw.

However, it was funerals that especially interested the Old Lady. Having paid special attention to the death announcements on the radio the night before, she liked to play a game of trying to guess who the occupant of the hearse was as the funeral passed her house.

One day she recognised the funeral of someone she knew and commented, “Look who passing all dress up and only two cars following the hearse. Imagine, he used to play big shot on me. I sure if I was to dead now I would get more than two cars.”

One Christmas, Old Lady Wally got a large package from her daughter. She opened it with great excitement, but it was only another large Christmas card. It was the kind that smelt of perfume and played a wordless melody when it was opened.

On Christmas Eve day, the Old Lady was summoned to a neighbour’s house to receive a telephone call from her daughter. She answered eagerly, only to hear her daughter in tears declaring how much she loved and missed her mother. Eventually, her daughter asked how she was making out for the season.

“Well,” the Old Lady answered, “is a good thing you send that big card the other day, because I going make soup with it for Christmas.”

Her daughter became hysterical over the phone, and it took her mother quite a while to calm her down and get a chance to speak.

“Look, I think you should stop crying, put down the phone, and send the money that you wasting on this call. I love you, too, darling.”

The phone call ended.

Not long after this incident, Old Lady Wally received a letter from her daughter. She felt the thickness of the envelope and thought it might contain photographs of her children. She tore it open excitedly, and, to her surprise, several small pieces of crushed yellow stationery fluttered out onto the table.

The envelope also contained a short note written on white paper which said:

“Dear Mom,
Sorry about this, but when I had finished your letter, my pet dog Gemini got hold of it and chewed it up. He is a naughty dog sometimes. Luckily I managed to collect all the pieces, so you shouldn’t have any trouble putting them together again.
Your loving daughter.”

The Old Lady could not believe her eyes. She stared at the frayed pieces of paper that lay on the table mocking her, and somewhere deep inside, her fragile spirit crumbled. Her tears blotched the handwriting, making it even more difficult to reconstruct the mosaic of her daughter’s disrespect.

The letter finally gave up its coded message. Her airline ticket was on its way.

This should have been a day of rejoicing for the Old Lady, but for the first time she questioned whether this family reunion in America was really a good idea. She had lost her enthusiasm for the trip to the place where pet dogs seemed to have more rights than ageing mothers.

She reluctantly began to sell her household possessions. She remembered a friend who had sold all her furniture while waiting for a ticket from her children, and was left sitting on a drinks box in the middle of her house. She didn’t want this to happen to her, so she would have to be careful.

At last, the ticket came, and the only things she had left to get rid of were her dining table and chairs. She had kept them for last because, other than the children, they were the only things her husband had ever made. Old Lady Wally couldn’t bring herself to part with them, so, in the end, she gave them to her friends from the Obeah house next door.

Although she didn’t believe in Obeah herself, she had always felt a little safer having these people as friends, and was tempted to consult them about her future in America. Over the years she had known many well-known people who paid a lot of money for these same Obeah practitioners to “See Far” on their behalf. What if she didn’t like what they saw in her future? She might not want to go to America after all. She decided against it.

The long-awaited day finally came for her to travel to California. The hired car arrived to take her to the airport, and most of the residents of Louisa Row turned out to see her off. As the car drove slowly past them on the side of the road, Old Lady Wally waved, just as she had seen Princess Margaret do during her royal visit.

The Old Lady chuckled to herself, “Well look at story. I get a powerful turnout. This even better than a funeral, because I get to know who is them two-faced people who ain’t show they face.”