The Tin Can Tree

8

On Tuesday morning, Mr Pike was the second person awake. He arrived in the kitchen wearing his work clothes and carrying a nylon mesh cap, and when he sat down at the table he sat heavily, stamping his boots together in front of him and scraping the chair across the linoleum. 'I'm picking tobacco today,' he told Joan. Joan was at the stove, peering into the glass knob on top of the percolator to see what colour the coffee was. When her uncle made his announcement she said nothing, because she was thinking of other things, but then she turned and saw him looking at her expectantly.

‘I’m sorry?' she said.

'I'm going to pick tobacco,' he repeated.

'Oh. All right.'

But he still seemed to be waiting for something. He folded his big boney hands on the table and leaned toward her, watching, but Joan couldn't think what was expected of her. She picked the coffeepot off the stove and carried it over to the sink, in order to dump the grounds.

'We need the money,' her uncle said.

Joan shook the grounds into the garbage pail, holding the coffee-basket by the tips of her fingers so as not to get burned.

'Well, sometime I got to start work,' he said.

'Of course you do, Uncle Roy.'

'Things are getting worse and worse in this house. I thought they'd get better.'

'Pretty soon they will.'

'I wonder, now.

He watched as Joan set his cup of coffee before him. She handed him the sugar bowl but he just stared at it, as if he'd never seen one before.

'Sugar?' Joan prodded him.

He shook his head, and she set the bowl down at his elbow.

'It's no good sitting in a room all my life,' he said.

'Drink your coffee,' Joan told him. She poured a cup for herself and then sat down opposite him hitching up the knees of her blue jeans. Her eyes were still foggy from sleep and things came through to her blurred, in shining patterns – the blocks of sunlight across the worn linoleum, the graduated circles of Mrs Pike's saucepan set hanging on the wall, the dark slouched waiting figure of her uncle. When she stirred her coffee with a kitchen knife that was handy, the reflection of the sunshine on the blade flashed across the wall like a fish in a pool and her uncle shifted his eyes to that. He watched like a person hypnotized. She set the knife down and the reflection darted to a point high on the wall near the ceiling, and he stared upward at it.

'You going to want sandwiches?' she asked.

He didn't answer. She took a sip of her coffee, but it was tasteless and heavy and she set the cup down again. 'Putting my foot down,' her uncle mumbled. Joan drew lines on the tablecloth with her thumbnail. Outside a bird began singing, bringing back all the spots and patches of restless dreams she had had last night, in between long periods of lying awake and turning her pillow over and over to find a cool place. Ever since the rain stopped those birds had been singing. She rubbed her fingers across her eyelids and saw streaks of red and purple behind them.

'In regard to sandwiches,' her uncle said suddenly, 'I don't want them. I'll come home for lunch.'

'All right.'

'Least I can do.'

'All right.'

'What's the matter with you?' he asked, and reached finally for the sugar bowl. 'You mad I'm picking tobacco?'

'No. I think it's the best thing you could do. Don't forget to tell James he won't need to work today.'

'I thought you'd do that,' said Mr Pike.

'You can.'

'You're not working today; you can spare a minute.'

'No, I'd rather you do it.'

'Oh now,' Mr Pike said suddenly. 'You two have a fight?'

Joan took another sip of coffee. It still had no taste. A hummingbird swooped down to the window and just hung there, suspended like a child's bird-on-a-string, its small eyes staring curiously in and its little heart beating so close and fast they could see the pulsing underneath the feathers. Mr Pike gazed at it absently.

'I never did hold with long engagements,' he said.

'What?'

'Longer the engagement, the more time for fights. Shouldn't allow it, Joan.'

'I'm not engaged,' Joan said shortly. 'And anyway, it's none of my doing.' Her uncle looked away from the hummingbird and frowned at her.

'I don't know about that,' he said. 'And I'll tell you. Some men need a little shove.'

'I don't believe in shoving.'

'Only way, sometimes. I ever tell you how I came to marry your aunt?'

'I'm not in the mood for that,' said Joan.

'I was only going to mention.'

'No, I don't want to hear,' she said, and pictured suddenly her aunt, no longer young, lying so still upstairs. 'You go tell James,' she said.

'Aw, Joan.'

'Someone has to.'

'Aw, Joan, you know how it is. I'll go over and there will be Ansel, all talkative and cheerful. Cheerful in the morning – can you feature that?'

'Maybe he's still asleep,' Joan said.

'Ansel? No. I heard him come in long after midnight just singing away, and I reckon he sang all night and is singing still. Where's Simon?'

'In bed.'

'Been days since I seen that boy. Send him over.'

'He won't go either.'

'Look,' said Mr Pike. He stood up, jarring the table, and the hummingbird flew away without even preparing to go. 'I can't see Ansel today,' he said. 'I don't know why but he gets under my skin nowadays. Will you please go?'

'Oh, all right,' Joan said.

'All right, that's settled. Thank you very much.'

He sat down again, and Joan went back to looking at the patterns in the kitchen. Everything she saw made her homesick, but not for any home she'd ever had. The sunlight on the linoleum reminded her of something long ago and lost; yet she had never lived in a house with a linoleum kitchen, never in all her memory. She kept staring at the design of it, the speckled white floor with bars of red and blocks of blue splashed across it, and the sun lighting up the dents and scrapes made by kitchen chairs. Finally she looked away and into her uncle's frowning, leather-brown face, but her uncle only said, 'We need the money,' so she looked away again. Her coffee had cooled, and the surface of it was greasy-looking. She drank it anyway.

When her uncle was through with his coffee he pushed the cup toward the centre of the table and rose, clamping the mesh cap on the back of his head. 'You can take care of things here, I guess,' he said.

'Yes.'

'I'll be running along, then.'

He clomped off toward the front of the house, swinging his boots in that heavy way that Simon always tried to copy. His steps made the whole floor shake. She heard the screen door swing open with a twang of its spring and then slam shut again, rattling on its hinges. Then the clomping continued across the porch, and she waited for the extra-heavy sound of his boots descending the wooden steps to the yard but it didn't come. 'Joan?' he called.

'What.'

'Joan!'

She rose and went out front, wondering why men always had to shout from where they were instead of coming closer. Her uncle was standing on the edge of the porch with his back to the house and his cap off, scratching the back of his head. 'What is it?' she asked him, and he turned toward her.

'Well, I already informed your aunt,' he said, 'but I'm not certain she heard.'

'Informed her about what?'

'About my working. But I'm not certain she heard. Will you tell her again?'

'All right,' said Joan.

'Say we need the money, tell her. Say I'm sorry.'

'All right, Uncle Roy.'

'I can't sit looking at trees all my life.'

'No, I know,' said Joan, and reached out to give his shoulder one gentle push so that he would turn and leave. He did, still frowning. Then halfway across the yard he slapped his cap back on his head and thrust his hands in his pockets and began walking more briskly, getting ready to go out into the world again. Joan watched after him till he was out of the yard, and then she went down toward the Greens' end of the porch.

Ansel was in his window, chewing sunflower seeds. He looked very happy. He spit the hulls out on the porch floor and then leaned over, his hands on the windowsill and his elbows jutting behind him like bird wings, and tried to blow the hulls all the way across the porch and into the yard. Joan wished he would fall out. She stood over him with her hands on her hips and waited until he had straightened up again, and then she said, 'Ansel.'

'Morning, Joan.'

'Ansel, will you give James a message?'

'If I can remember it,' said Ansel. 'My health is poorly this morning. Seems to be growing worse and worse.'

'Doesn't look to me you could get much worse,' Joan said.

'At least you noticed. James just don't even care. He's in an ill mood today.'

Joan gave up on him and stepped over to the door and knocked. For a minute Ansel stared out his window at her, puzzling this over; then he shrugged and withdrew. He came to the door and opened it with a flourish.

'Morning, Joan,' he said.

'Where's James?'

'Ain't seen you in a long time. James? He's in the back yard, emptying out the garbage.'

'Will you tell him he doesn't have to work today? Make up your mind, now. If you're planning to forget I'll just do it myself.'

'Oh, I'll tell him,' Ansel said. 'Come in and set, why don't you. Old James'll be back any minute.'

'No, thank you,' said Joan.

'Well, suit yourself.' He yawned. 'Saw your uncle go off to work this morning,' he said. 'Seems kind of soon for him to be doing that, don't it?'

'No.'

'Well, I just thought I'd point it out.' He yawned again and fished another sunflower seed from the packet in his hand. The shirt he had on was James's, she saw. It was a dark red plaid and hung too loosely on him. She stared at it a minute and then, without a word, turned and went back up the porch. 'Hey!' Ansel called after her, but Joan was inside her own parlour by now, letting the door slam shut behind her.

Upstairs, Simon was sound asleep, with his pyjamaed legs sprawled and all his covers kicked loose from the foot of the bed. Joan went over and touched him gently, just on the outflung, curled-in palm of his hand. He stirred a little and then mumbled and turned away from her.

'Get up, Simon,' she said.

'I am up. I am.'

'Come on.'

‘I’m half dressed already. I got my -'

'Simon.'

He opened his eyes. 'Oh light,' he said, and Joan smiled and sat down on the bed beside him.

'I got something I want to talk over,' she told him.

'Okay.'

'You listening?'

'I just can't find any clean jeans,' he said, and closed his eyes and was asleep again. Joan picked up his hand and shook it, but it hung loose and limp.

'Simon, this is about your mother,' she said.

'I'm listening.'

'I think your mother should start working today.'

He turned over and squinted at her, through foggy brown eyes. 'What at?' he asked.

'At her sewing. I want you to stay around and help with the conversation, all right? Missouri says I'm no walking newspaper.'

'What?'

'Will you help me out?'

'Oh, why, sure,' Simon said, and would have been asleep again if Joan hadn't pulled him to a sitting position. He stayed there, slumped between her hands, with his head drooping to one side. 'I was in this boat,' he said.

'Come on, Simon.'

'Then we started sinking. They told me I was the one that had to swim for it. Do you believe that'll happen someday?'

'No,' said Joan, and pulled hard on him till he was standing beside the bed.

'They say everything you dream will happen,' Simon told her. 'It's true. Last year I dreamed Mama would find out about me smoking and sure enough, that night at supper there was my half-pack of Winstons lying beside my plate and Mama staring at me. It came true.'

He bent down to examine a stubbed toe and Joan stood up, preparing to go. 'You come down when you're dressed, 'she said.

'I don't have any clean jeans to wear.'

'That's just something you said in your sleep. You have lots of jeans.'

'No, really, I don't,' Simon said. 'No one's been doing the laundry.'

Joan crossed to his bureau and pulled open his bottom drawer. It was bare except for a pair of bermudas. 'Oh, Lord,' she said. 'I forgot all about the laundry.'

'I told you you did.'

'Well, wear bermudas till this afternoon, why don't you. By then I'll have you some jeans.'

'Have my knees show?' Simon asked.

'What's wrong with that?'

'Boys don't have their knees out any more. You ought to know that.'

'Well, la de da,' said Joan, and rumpled the top of his hair. 'Wear a pair of dirty jeans, then.'

‘They'd all call me sissy if my knees showed.'

'All right. Hurry up, now.'

She closed the door behind her and went downstairs. In the parlour she sat down on a faded plush footstool and reached for the telephone, which sat on a table beside her. She hooked the receiver over her shoulder and then opened the telephone book to the very back, where there was space for frequently used numbers. The page was filled to the bottom, and looked messy because of so many different handwritings. Mr Pike had listed the names of bowling pals in a careful, downward-slanting script, and Simon had scrawled the names of all his classmates even though he never talked to them by telephone, and Janie Rose had printed names in huge capitals that took two lines, after asking several times how to spell each one – the four little Marsh girls, each listed separately, and the milkman who had once brought her a yellow plastic ring from a chicken's leg, which she had worn every day until she lost it. Mrs Pike's handwriting was small and pretty, every letter slanting to the same degree, naming off her steady customers one by one with little memos to herself about colours and pattern numbers pencilled in lightly beside them. Joan went down the list alphabetically. Mrs Abbott, who never talked. Mrs Chrisawn, who was in such a black mood most of the time. Davis, Forsyth, Hammond… She stopped there. Connie Hammond was always good to have around during a tragedy. She brought chicken broth whether people wanted it or not, and she knew little things like how to make a bed with someone in it and what to say when no one else could think of anything. As far as Joan was concerned, having a person talk incessantly would be more harm than help; but her aunt felt differently. Her aunt had actually sat up and answered, the last time Connie Hammond came. So Joan smoothed the phone book out on her knees and dialled the Hammonds' number.

Mrs Hammond was talking to somebody else when she answered. She said, 'If that's not the worst thing -'and then, into the phone, 'Hello?'

'Mrs Hammond, this is Joan Pike,' said Joan.

'Why, Joan, honey, how are you?' Mrs Hammond said, and then softened her shrill voice to ask, 'How's your poor aunt?'

'Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about,' said Joan. She spoke at some distance from the receiver, in case Mrs Hammond should grow shrill again.

'What's that you say?'

'I said, I wanted to talk to you about that. Aunt Lou is just miserable.'

'Oh, my.' There was a rustling sound as Mrs Hammond cupped her hand over the receiver and turned away. 'Lou Pike is just miserable,' she told someone. Her hand un-cupped the receiver again and she returned, breathless, to Joan. 'Joan, honey, I told Mr Hammond, just last night. I said, I haven't ever seen someone take on so. Well, of course she has good reason to but the things she says, Joan. It wasn't her fault; it was that noaccount Ned Marsh who did it. How he manages to drive even a tractor recklessly is more than I can -'

'Um,' Joan said, and Mrs Hammond stopped speaking and snapped her mouth shut audibly, to show she had been interrupted. 'Um, she hasn't even gotten up today. She's still in bed. And Uncle Roy's at the tobacco barns -'

'The where?'

'Tobacco barns. Working tobacco.'

'Why, that man,' said Mrs Hammond.

'Well, he can't just sit staring at the trees all -'

'He could comfort his wife,' Mrs Hammond said.

'She won't listen. So I was thinking, as long as he's away today-'

'Men are like that,' Mrs Hammond said. 'Work is all they think about.'

'As long as he is at work,' Joan said firmly, 'I think maybe Aunt Lou should start working too.'

'Working?'

'Working at sewing. Missouri said -'

'Mrs who?'

'Mrs – never mind. Wait a minute.' Joan switched ears and leaned forward, as if Mrs Hammond could see her now from where she stood. 'Mrs Hammond,' she said, 'I know how good you are at helping other people.'

'Oh, why, I just-'

'I know you could help Aunt Lou right now, if anybody could. You could bring that dress she was working on, that -was it purple?'

'Lilac,' said Mrs Hammond. 'Princess style.'

That's the one.'

'Lou said it would add to my height a little, a princess style would.'

That's right,' Joan said. 'That's the one.'

'Especially since it has up-and-down pinstripes.'

'Yes. Well, I was thinking. If you could just bring it over and get her to work on it for you, just take her mind off all the-'

'You might be right,' said Mrs Hammond. 'Why didn't I think of that? Why, the day before the funeral, when I came -you remember -1 did feel she was doing wrong to sit so quiet. I said so. I have always believed that baking calms the nerves, so I said to her, "Lou," I said, "why don't you make some rolls?" But she looked at me as if I'd lost my senses. After all, I'd just brought two dozen, and a cake besides. Yet I felt she ought to be doing something; that's what I was trying to tell her. You just might be right, Joan.'

'Well, then,' said Joan, 'do you think you could come over sometime today?'

'I'll come over right this minute. I just wouldn't feel at rest until I had. You say your aunt's still in bed?'

'She was a minute ago,' Joan said.

'Well, you try and get her up, and I'll be there as fast as I can find the dress. I'll be there, don't you worry.'

'All right,' Joan said. 'It certainly is nice of you to come, Mrs Hammond.'

'Well. Goodbye, now.'

'Goodbye.'

Joan hung up and sat back to rub her ear, which felt squashed. Now that all that was settled, the next step was to get Simon downstairs. He would have to back her up in this.

Simon was standing in front of his mirror when Joan came in. He was wearing blue jeans but no shirt, and scratching his stomach absently. 'Hey,' Joan said, and he jumped and looked up at her. 'Find yourself a shirt,' she told him. 'Connie Hammond's coming.'

'Aw, gee, Joan. Mrs Hammond?'

'She'll be here any minute. Come on, now. It's a special favour to your mother.

'I bet she'll never notice,' Simon said, but he pulled a bureau drawer open. Joan closed the door and went on to her aunt's room.

Mrs Pike was sitting up against two pillows, fat and soft in a grey nylon nightgown. She had her hands folded across her stomach and was looking vaguely at the two points her feet made underneath the bedspread. 'Good morning,' Joan said, and Mrs Pike raised her eyes silently and peered at her as if she were trying to pierce her way through mist. But she never answered. After a minute her eyes passed on to something else, dismissing Joan like the wrong answer to a question she had asked. Joan came to stand at the foot of the bed.

'Aunt Lou,' she said, 'would you like to get up?'

Her aunt shook her head.

'Mrs Hammond's coming. Do you want her to find you in bed?'

'No,' said Mrs Pike, but she didn't do anything about it. She settled lower into the pillows, with her eyes worrying at the wallpaper now, and in so much dim clutter she appeared to be sinking, overcome by the objects around her. Under Joan's feet were cast-off clothes, everywhere, everything her aunt had been persuaded to put on in the last few days. She had stepped out of them and left them there, returning wearily to her grey nightgown. Mr Pike, on the other hand, had made some effort at neatness. He had laid his clothes awkwardly on the back of the platform rocker, where they rose in a layered mountain that seemed huge and overwhelming in the half-dark. On the bureau were hairbrushes and bobby pins and old coffee cups with dark rings inside them. The sight of it all made Joan feel caved in and despairing, and she went over to raise the window shade but the light only picked up more clutter. 'Aunt Lou,' she said, 'We just have to get organized here.'

'What?'

'We have to start cleaning things up.'

Her aunt nodded, without seeming to pay attention, but then she surprised Joan by moving over to the edge of the bed and standing up. She stood in that old woman's way she had just acquired – searching out the floor with anxious feet, rising slowly and heavily. For a minute she stood there, and then she shook her nightgown out and faltered toward the bureau. 'I'm going to clean up,' she told Joan.

That's it.'

But all Mrs Pike did, once she reached the bureau, was to stare into the mirror. She put both hands on the bureau top and leaned forward, frowning into her own eyes. The alarm clock in front of her ticked loudly, and she reached out without looking to set it farther away. 'Some people stop all the clocks when someone dies,' she said.

'What're you going to wear, Aunt Lou?'

'If Connie Hammond's coming, why, she'll have to turn around and go off again.'

'What dress are you going to wear?' Joan asked, and the sharpness of her voice made Mrs Pike sigh and stand up straight again.

'Any one will do,' she said. She pulled out a small plastic box from a half-open drawer and began putting bobby pins into it. One by one she scraped them off the top of the dresser, working like a blind woman with careful fingers while she kept her eyes on the mirror. Joan watched, not moving. Each bobby pin made a little clinking sound against the bottom of the plastic box, and each time the sound came Mrs Pike winced into the mirror. 'My grand-mother stopped all the clocks,' she said. 'She would also announce the death to each fruit tree, so that they wouldn't shrivel up. But we don't have no fruit trees.' Her fingers slid slowly across the bureau top, and when she found that all the bobby pins were picked up she closed the box and set it down again. Then she went back to bed. She tucked her feet down under the covers and drew the top sheet with great care over her chest.

'No, wait,' Joan said.

'I did what I could, Joan.'

Joan went over to the closet and pulled out the first thing she touched, a navy blue dress with white polka dots. 'Is this all right?' she asked.

'No.'

'This, then.' And she lifted a brown dress from its hanger and laid it on the bed without waiting for an answer. 'It's the prettiest one you've got,' she said.

Outside, a car screeched to a halt and sent up a spray of gravel that Joan could hear from where she stood. She looked out and saw Mrs Hammond's Pontiac swerving backwards into the yard with one sharp turn of the wheel, while Mrs Hammond herself remained rigidly facing forward. The car came to rest right beside James's pickup, within an inch of running over Simon's bicycle. Then Mrs Hammond shot out, clutching bits of cloth and tissue paper to her chest and leaving the car door open behind her. All she needed was an ambulance siren. Joan leaned out the window and called, 'Mrs Hammond?' and Mrs Hammond looked up, with her face startled and worried-looking.

'Just walk on in and come upstairs,' Joan told her. 'Aunt Lou's in bed still.'

'Oh. All right.'

She bent her head over her armload of cloth and started running again, and Joan could hear her quick sharp heels along the porch and then inside, across the parlour floor and up the stairs. 'Oh, law,' she was saying to no one. She sounded out of breath.

But Mrs Pike didn't say a word to all this. She just lay back against the pillows and folded her arms across her stomach again, her face expressionless. When Mrs Hammond burst into the room and said, 'Why, Lou!' as if Mrs Pike had somehow taken her by surprise, Mrs Pike only nodded gently and watched the wallpaper. 'Lou?' said Mrs Hammond.

'She was just now getting up,' Joan told her.

'Well, I'll help. That's what I came for.' She set her load down on the dresser and peered into the mirror a second, pushing back a wisp of hair, and then she came over to sit on the edge of the bed. Every move she made was definite; now that she was here, the room seemed to lose its swampiness. Her face was carefully made up to cover the little lines around her mouth, and she was packed into a nice summery sheath that Mrs Pike had made two years ago. The sight of so much neatness made Mrs Pike sit up straighter and pull her stomach in, even though her face stayed blank.

'I was talking about stopping all the clocks,' she told Mrs Hammond.

'Oh, no.'

'I've about decided to do it.'

'Oh, no. I don't think that's necessary.'

But Mrs Pike said, 'Yes. I don't know why I didn't think of it before.'

'It depends on the type,' Mrs Hammond said. 'Ormolu, for instance, or mahogany – that you would stop. But those are the only kind. Isn't that so, Joan?'

Joan hadn't heard that before, but she said, 'Well, yes,' and Mrs Hammond beamed at her and rocked gently on the bed.

'Only if it's ornamental,' she told Mrs Pike.

'Oh. I didn't know that.'

'You wouldn't stop a Baby Ben or anything.'

'No.'

'Do you want to get up?'

'Connie, I just can't,' Mrs Pike said. 'I just don't have it in me. You're going to have to go off again.'

'Oh, now.' Mrs Hammond shook her head and then began examining the room, as if anything Mrs Pike said was to be expected and she was just planning a wait till it was over. 'This place could use a bit of cleaning,' she said. 'Also, if I was you I'd add some patches of colour to it. You know? I put an orange candlestick in Mr Hammond's brown den and it just changed the whole atmosphere. He don't like it, but you'd be amazed at the difference it makes.'

'I don't care about any of that,' Mrs Pike said distinctly.

'Now, Lou.'

'I just want to sleep a while.'

'After you make up my lilac dress, I'll let you sleep all you like,' said Mrs Hammond. 'I need it for a party.'

She stood up and went over to the bureau, where she pulled open the top left drawer as if she knew by instinct where Mrs Pike kept her underwear. From a stack on the right she took a nylon slip and held it up to the mirror. 'Oh, my, how pretty!' she said, and tossed it in the direction of the bed. Mrs Pike caught it in her lap and stared at it.

From across the hall came the clattering sound of Simon's walk, closer and closer. He had his boots on now. When he reached his mother's door he walked on in without knocking and said, 'I'm ready.' Then he stood there at the foot of the bed, tilting back and forth in that awkward way he had and keeping his hands jammed tightly in his pockets.

'What're you ready for?' Mrs Hammond asked interestedly.

'To be sociable at the sewing,' Simon told her. 'Would you like to know what was the cause of that fight Andy Point's mama and daddy had?'

'In a minute I would,' said Mrs Hammond. 'Right now I'm trying to get your mother out of bed.'

For the first time, Simon looked at his mother. He looked from under bunched eyebrows, sliding his eyes over slowly and carefully. But she wasn't watching. He kicked at one leg of the brass bed, so that a little jingling sound rose among the springs. Then he said, 'Well, I'll be down getting me some breakfast,' and sauntered out again. Mrs Hammond looked after him and shook her head.

'Something is seriously wrong with that boy's hair,' she told Mrs Pike.

'No.'

'How long you going to keep on like this, Lou?'

Mrs Pike looked down at her hands and then shook her head, as if that were her secret. 'Are you sure not to stop the clocks?' she asked, but Mrs Hammond didn't answer. She had picked out the rest of Mrs Pike's underwear, and she tossed it on the bed and then reached out to pull her gently to a sitting position. 'That's it,' she said. To Joan she said, 'You go along and get that boy a decent breakfast. I'll have her down in a minute.'

It didn't look to Joan as if they'd ever be down, but she was glad to leave the room. She shut the door behind her and descended the stairs quickly, taking two steps at a time, trailing her fingers along the railing. When she reached the kitchen Simon had already taken out the makings for a peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich. He was running his thumbnail around the edge of the mayonnaise label, making little ripples in it. 'Would you like some milk coffee?' she asked him, but he only shook his head. He stopped playing with the label and opened the jar, and Joan handed him a knife.

'From now on, I'm going on no more boats,' he said. 'I take stock in dreams.'

‘That's kind of silly,' said Joan.

'I know when I been warned.'

He slapped mayonnaise on top of peanut butter and clamped the two slices of bread together. Then he began to eat, starting with the crust and working his way around until all he had was a small crustless square with scalloped edges. When that point was reached he looked relieved, because he hated crusts. He took a bite out of what was left and began talking with his mouth full.

'Instead of staying here,' he said, 'I just might go on over to Billy's house. His daddy gave him a chemistry set.' He looked up at Joan, but she didn't say anything. 'I might do that instead of staying around here talking,' he told her.

'Well, suit yourself,' said Joan.

'Mama'd never notice.'

'Sure, she would.'

'I bet not.'

Joan went over to the cupboard and took down a huge plate, a green glass one that looked like summer and river-water. She began laying out cookies and cakes on it, choosing from boxes that neighbours had brought, while Simon watched her and chewed earnestly through a mouthful of peanut butter. When Joan was finished she stepped back and looked at the cake plate with her eyes squinted a little.

'Aunt Lou does it better,' she said.

'Oh, I don't know.'

'She puts it in a design, sort of.'

'One thing,' said Simon, 'she don't ever lay out that much. Not with just one customer, she don't.'

'That's true.'

'She uses that little clear sparkly plate.'

'Well, it's too late now,' Joan said. She picked up the plate and carried it out to the parlour, where she set it on a lampstand by the couch. Then she swung her aunt's sewing machine out into the middle of the room. It was the old kind, run by a treadle, set into a long scarred table. From one of the drawers underneath it she took her aunt's wicker spool box, and while she was doing that she heard the slow careful steps of Mrs Pike beginning across the upstairs hall. 'That's it,' Mrs Hammond was saying. 'That's it.' The kitchen door swung open and Simon came out, chewing on the last of his sandwich, to stand at the foot of the stairs and gaze upward. 'Mama's coming down,' he told Joan.

'I see she is.'

'First time she's come before noon. How long have I got to stay here?'

'You don't have to stay at all.'

'Well, maybe I will for a minute,' said Simon. He swung away from the stairs and went to sit on the couch, and Mrs Pike's feet began searching their way down the steps. 'That's it,' Mrs Hammond kept saying. Joan pulled a chair up to the sewing machine and then stood waiting, with her face turned toward the sound of those heels.

When Mrs Pike appeared she was dressed more neatly than she had been in days. Her brown dress was freshened up with a flowered handkerchief in the pocket, and her hair was combed by someone who knew how. The only thing wrong was that she had lost some weight, and her belt, which had had its eyelets torn into long slashes from being strained across her stomach, now hung loose and stringy a good two inches below the waist of the dress. Mrs Hammond was following close behind her. to pull the belt up from in the back, so that at least it looked right in front, but it kept slipping down again. 'Doesn't she look nice?' Mrs Hammond asked, and both Joan and Simon nodded.

In Mrs Hammond's other hand was the bundle of cloth and tissue paper. She escorted Mrs Pike to the chair Joan had ready and then she set the bundle down on the sewing table beside her, saying, 'There you are,' and stepping back to see what Mrs Pike would do. Mrs Pike didn't do anything. She looked at the lilac cloth as if she'd never seen it before. 'Well, now,' said Mrs Hammond, and began opening out the bundle herself. 'If you'll remember, you cut this out back in May, before all that business about Laura's wedding came up, and I haven't tried it on since. Joan honey, do you want to bring your aunt some coffee and a roll?'

'I'm not hungry,' said Mrs Pike.

But Joan escaped to the kitchen anyway, while Mrs Hammond went on talking. 'I've been on a tomato diet for three weeks,' she was saying, 'all in honour of this princess-style dress. So now, Lou, I want you to pin it on me again. Don't make it an inch too big, because I want to lose five more pounds, Lord willing -'

Joan took two cups and saucers down and set them on the tray. Then she poured out the coffee, taking her time because she was in no hurry to get back to the parlour. When the last possible thing had been seen to, she picked up the tray and carried it out.

'The older you get,' Mrs Hammond was saying, 'the harder the fat clings.' She had patches of lilac pinned on over her regular dress now, but she was more or less doing it herself. Mrs Pike just kept smoothing down the already pinned-on patches, running her fingers along the cloth with vague fumbling motions. "There's only four pieces,' Mrs Hammond reminded her. 'Plus the pocket. Where's the pocket? You remember that's one reason we decided on this. You could whip it up in a morning, you said. Do you remember?'

In the silence that followed the question Joan set the coffee down by the cake plate and passed the two cups over. Her aunt's she put on the table, and Mrs Hammond's she placed on the chair arm, but neither woman noticed. Mrs Pike seemed fascinated by the little wheel on her sewing machine. Mrs Hammond was waiting endlessly, with her hands across her breasts to keep the lilac cloth in place. She seemed to be planning to keep silent forever, if she had to, just so that one question of hers could be answered. But Mrs Pike might not even have heard.

Then Simon said, 'Um, why Andy Point's parents won't speak to each other -'and Mrs Hammond looked up at him. 'Why they sit in their parlour in chairs faced back to back,' he said, 'all dates back to Sunday a week. Least that's what Andy says. But I couldn't hardly believe it, it was such a little thing that set them fighting.'

'It's nearly always little things,' said Mrs Hammond. Mrs Pike nodded and took a packet of pins out of her spool box.

'They were on their way to church, see,' Simon said. 'Andy was along. They made him come. When suddenly they passed this sign saying, "Craig Church two miles, visitors welcome," Mrs Point she said, "Why, I never have seen that before." Just being conversational. And Mr Point says, "Well, I don't know why not. It's been there a year or more," he says. "No it ain't," Mrs Point says. "Yes, it has," Mr Point says…'

'Well, now, isn't that typical,' said Mrs Hammond. She turned slightly, but Mrs Pike pulled her back again to pin two pieces of cloth together at the waist. Mrs Pike's mouth was full of pins, and her eyes were frowning at everything her fingers did.

'So anyway,' Simon said, 'that was what began it. Andy says he never saw such a thing. He says they've even had to order another.newspaper subscription, because they wouldn't share the one between them.'

'If that isn't the limit,' said Mrs Hammond. 'Ouch, Lou.'

'Oh, I'm sorry,' said Mrs Pike. Everyone looked toward her, but she only went on pinning and didn't say any more, so Mrs Hammond took up where she had left off.

'What doesn't make sense,' she told Simon, 'is Mary Point's nature. She's not the type to bear a grudge.'

'Oh, it won't her fault,' said Simon. 'Andy says she had forgot about it. She just went on into church and never thought a thing about it. But then at dinner, Mr Point wouldn't eat what she had cooked and made himself a sandwich right after. That's a sign he's mad. Mrs Point said, "Andy," she said, "I'll be. Is your daddy mad about something?" And Andy said, "Well, I reckon he's mad you said that sign wasn't there." So she said, "Oh, I had forgot all about that," but then it was too late. Now she's mad at him for being mad, and it don't look like it's ever going to end.'

'You haven't lost a pound,' Mrs Pike said. She had finished pinning the pieces together now, and she was shaking her head at how tightly they fit.

'I have too,' said Mrs Hammond. 'You allow a good inch for the dress I'm wearing underneath it, Lou.' She acted as if it were perfectly natural that Mrs Pike was speaking, but right on the tail of her words she shot Joan a meaningful glance. Joan nodded, although privately she didn't feel too sure of anything yet. But Simon kept on bravely, with his hands clutching the edge of the couch and his eyes on his mother, even though it was Mrs Hammond he was speaking to.

'I asked him,' he said, 'I asked, "Andy, how you think you're going to end it?” And Andy says, "Same way it started, I reckon. By accident."'

'Well, no,' said Mrs Pike, and once again everyone's attention was on her alone. She removed the pins from her mouth and laid them on the sewing table, and then she said, 'It's not that easy. Why sure, one of them might speak by accident. Mary might. Then Sid might answer, being glad she'd spoken first, but by then Mary would have caught herself. She'd feel silly to speak first, and only snap his head off again. It's not that easy.'

'No, you're right,' said Mrs Hammond, and Joan thought she would have agreed no matter what her aunt had said. 'You have to think about the -'

The telephone rang. Mrs Hammond stopped speaking, and Simon leaped over to pick up the receiver. 'Hello?' he said. 'What?' He was silent a minute. 'No, I knew about it. I knew, I just forgot. Well, thank you anyway. Bye.' He hung up.

'Who was that?' asked Mrs Hammond.

'Just that station.'

'What?'

'Just that radio station. They got this jackpot on. They call you up and if you don't say, "Hello," if you say instead, "I am listening to WKKJ, the all-day swinging station – "'

'I've heard about that,' Mrs Hammond said.

'If he'd just called before, boy. It's not me who was prepared for them to -'

Mrs Pike's spool box went clattering on the floor. All the colours of thread went every which-way, rolling out their tails behind them, and Mrs Hammond said. 'Why, Lou,' but Mrs Pike didn't answer. She had crumpled up against her sewing machine, leaning her forehead against the wheel of it and clenching both fists tightly against her stomach. 'Lou!' Mrs Hammond said sharply. She looked at Joan and Simon, and they stared back. 'Did something happen?'

'I said something,' Simon told her.

Mrs Hammond kept watching him, but he didn't explain any further. Finally she turned back to Mrs Pike and said, 'Sit up, Lou,' and pulled her by the shoulders, struggling against the dead weight of her. 'What's the matter?' she asked. She looked into Mrs Pike's face, at her dry wide eyes and the white mark that the sewing-machine wheel had made down the centre of her forehead. 'What's the matter?' she asked again. But Mrs Pike only rocked back and forth, and Simon and Joan stared at the floor.