Well, I don't know what you'll make of it. Either the isolation has turned me completely bonkers, or you all have as much fun reading this as I had writing it. This one's for you, OzDiva - it's all your fault. Hopefully it makes you laugh at least as much as that last chapter made you cry.
To start, wrote Anne Blythe, who had never meant to write another short story, not this summer, certainly not of this ilk, you must find a suitable person. Tall, tanned and impish is recommended. She could practically feel Gilbert preening beside her. This was why, she thought, not for the first time, she had certainly not planned on reading this nonsense. It wasn't even a story, so much as a recipe. And she'd only written it at all because inspiration had descended in a burst of dazzling sunlight while she sat at her little desk with the inlaid initials and painted wildflowers. John Blythe had made it for her, oh, years ago now, as a wedding present, and it almost never failed to inspire.
This though, this ribald ramble through sentimentality, well, that owed more to the epistles of her own Living Epistles than it did to the desk, or even to the bold little nuthatch serenading her on the windowsill. It was just that people would keep asking.
'How do you do it?' had said a dreamy Rilla one afternoon as they pieced a quilt top there on the veranda. She had smiled at Anne with that dented lower lip, and looked expectant and caught Anne short.
Then again, there was young Jack Wright's wife as they holidayed in Avonlea, feasting on dear Diana's cherry pie. 'You make it look so easy, Mrs Blythe.'
And Anne had said, the taste of cherry tart on her tongue, 'Make what look easy, darling?' really baffled.
'Oh,' said the younger Mrs Wright, 'marriage, of course.'
'She's always done, you know,' said Diana in conspiratorial whisper. 'Took to it like a duck to water. As natural as breathing. Always.'
Gilbert had not been there, or Anne might have looked to him to confirm that she was not alone in her surprise.
But then Naomi Blake had kissed her the day she was to be married and said as she accepted Anne's offering of the veil ('for something old, darling') 'If we're half as happy as you and Uncle Gil, or as Dad with Mama, we'll have done well, I think.'
'Oh,' said Anne, returning the kiss, 'I have confidence you'll do very well indeed.' It had been well-placed faith, too. Just look how happy Jo's baby had made Fred Arnold.
And then, and this was really what had done it, the children's letters were full of it. Sometimes wistful - how do you do it, Mums? Doesn't it ever get Too Much - sometimes teasing - at least you never had to accomodate a Dachshund that smelled of well water! - sometimes succinct but heartfelt happy anniversary! All our love... And after the nth of these, Anne had been sitting down at her desk, meditating on an answer, how to distill the dance that was hers and Gilbert's, boil that history to it's essence, and a story had struck.
She really hadn't intended to read it. But Gilbert had found it, and laughed until he wept over what he said was the greatness of it, the best thing she had ever written, he said. Then he kissed her soundly for it, and kissed the story in turn, and insisted that the children hear it. And since they were all together, the children, and since that almost never happened, Anne had declared a writerly evening on the veranda and assembled them. Curly-haired Jem, still with his war-whoop, jauntily leaning his chair against the white of the house. That his chair was dangerously connected with a boxed floral arrangement and liable to disgorge the botanical contents onto the veranda at any moment stopped Faith not at all from sitting against his knees, nor Jem from carding through her golden hair. Shirley sprawled more self-possessedly, if this were not a contradiction in terms, under the kitchen window. Easier, Anne supposed, for Susan's baking to find him. Mara was at his elbow, golden and witching as ever, folded elegantly into the kind of impossibly straight-backed kneeling position Anne could never have maintained, even before falling off that ridgepole. Rilla and Ken Ford had their backs to the calceolarias, leaning as they were against the rail and effectively blocking the plants from Anne's view. She felt disloyal to Susan in her secret joy at this, but told herself this was as much because they looked so at ease together as it was over the absence of Susan's beloved flowers from the scene. Nan and Jerry sat like normal people on chairs that did not jaunt treacherously towards anything, which was incongruous only because Anne had visited their home the year their girls were born and new better of their normalcy. Carefully-poised chairs and impeccable order hadn't really been part of that. And, then too, twins did for impeccable order just by virtue of existing in a home. She smiled at Nan and shook her head to let her know as much. Di sat opposite Mara, likewise kneeling, her head on Alastair McNeilly's shoulder.
And Anne? Anne half-sat, half-leaned against Gilbert on the veranda swing. She looked out at all this contentedness and thought it was if not exactly a living epistle then perhaps a living poem. One she would try for later. But now it was witching hour, and her children were before her in their glory, and she owed them a story.
To start, she began, you must find a suitable person. Tall, tanned and impish is recommended. Gilbert dared to wink at her and the children squealed and squirmed, as squeamish as they had ever been at the sight of parental happiness. One would be forgiven, Anne felt, for presupposing they had never so much as married themselves – and forget having ever had children, the lot of them! She stifled a laugh in Gilbert's broad, sunwarmed shoulder and shook her head. Thought how pleasingly he smelled of himself and his work, and also of the milky newness of the littlest of the grandchildren. She made a mental note to inquire into this shared adventure. But she shelved it for the present and read on.
Of course, this is only a guideline. Substitution to accommodate taste is recommended.
'Oh, I don't know,' said Faith, 'I think what you've got there has its successes.' The skirt of her gown, which was a geranium red, rustled as she shifted position against Jem's knees. Probably the legs of the chair were prodding her uncomfortably. Jem guffawed heartily, and Anne was just thinking that Jem was more lobster than sunkissed if left out in the summer sun, more the colour of Faith's skirt even, when she caught Faith wink at Shirley's Mara, and understood the joke.
'I for one,' said Gilbert, 'want to hear this story, if no one else does. Darling?'
'It's not a story,' said Anne with tremendous dignity. It was the kind of dignity worthy of ruffled cats, Rachel Lynde and possibly of Queens and Goddesses. 'It's a recipe.'
'Of course it is.'
Now, having secured persons relevant, ensure that nothing – and this is important, you will note the underline for emphasis – absolutely nothing hinders your first evening alone together. Guests are strenuously discouraged, at least until you've got to know one another more intimately.
'Mum!' said several children at once. Someone said – was it Mara? – 'I heard tell you quite liked your Captain Jim.'
Well that's all right, Anne thought, with a shake of her head. The impishness goes both ways there. Gilbert was hastening to say they did, they had, really they had, but honestly, some things were not to be born.
'All we wanted – ' he began.
'Dad!' from the same vexed children as before.
Jem said, positively laconic, 'I make that perfectly sensible advise.'
'Do you so,' said Mara with an amused shake of her head. 'Because it strikes me that did you agree with it, what you'd not have done was turned up on the doorstep of eight-odd would-be actresses living economically in a too-small house after the wedding, and begging a place to sleep because you hadn't thought about boarding houses, much less telling the family what had happened. How you expected even minutes alone …' But she said it good-naturedly. One could tell as much from the flash of her eyes and the twitch of her mouth. Even the deliberate broadening of her teuchter was clearly deliberate, an old joke between them.
Gilbert bent his head enticingly close to Anne's own and whispered, 'A dollar says they've had that argument out more times than there are ways from Sunday.' His breath was warm and ticklish against Anne's skin and curled stray strands of hair. She swatted at him with her writing.
Faith said, 'We'd had enough of waiting.'
Little murmurs of sympathetic assent rippled through the various couples.
'So you said then, and so you've said since,' said Mara, still smiling. Anne reached into a pocket and found a dollar for Gilbert, handing it to him absently. She was thinking of her tower room of years ago, and just the right nib. What a blessing these things had been the greatest of her own worries – and how unknowingly lucky that they should be. She was sorry the children could not say the same.
'There's a list here,' she said, brandishing her recipe, 'on how to deter guests. Shall I read it, or skip ahead?'
'Please no,' said several children at once.
'Go to the next bit. Unless the next bit is what to do having deterred the guests, in which case, skip that, too.' That was Rilla. Ken squeezed her shoulders and nodded. 'Yes,' he said, 'don't let's find out what sort of use my parents' first home can be put to. I so like to think of it as a fairy-tale place. You know, where everything ends with a kiss.'
Not to be outdone, Gilbert had now got his arm around the dangerous territory of Anne's waist. It was a warm, suntanned arm, what with all those house of fishing with grandchildren and lounging on the veranda. He kissed Anne's ear now and said in a stage whisper, 'For doctor's children, do you not think our children exceptionally squeamish, Anne-girl?'
'Yes,' she said. She drew the word out, so that it became an improbable three syllables. 'I can't begin to think where we went wrong with them.'
'All that stork nonsense,' he said. 'I told you we'd pay for it later on, and here we are. Can't bear the thought of their parents' happiness.'
'Nah,' said Jem, still lackadaisical as ever. 'It's not that. It's how the happiness gets expressed they mind about. 'Sides, storks have nothing to do with it. It's cabbages that grow babies. Young Iain Blythe tells me so. You pull them up and there the babies are where the roots should be.'
Here Gilbert tilted his head Mara-ward and said, 'Your doing, I suppose?'
Mara held up both hands in protest and said, 'Not at all. We always had good, unadulterated sense by way of growing up at Anchorage.'
Opposite her, Alastair McNeilly nodded. Shirley said, 'I expect that gem owes to Mouse.'
There was really nothing else to say to this, so Anne resumed her would-be story.
You will then try to be strictly Normal. This is difficult, as its working definition is vague, and no one, not even sage neighbours will espouse a clear grasp of what it actually means. Here she perforce had to stop as bouts of bright, merry laughter overtook the company. There had been laughter in the background all the while of course; the grandchildren were having some adventure off in Rainbow Valley. But now the veranda rang with it. Bright, golden undiluted laughter to rival even the best carillon or touring orchestra. Anne relaxed against Gilbert's arm, pillowed her red head – well, what red was left anyway – against a broad shoulder and gloated in the sound of it. The night smelled of calceolarias, of June lilies and the sweet crumbs of leftover fudge – their witching hour treat. Only when the children subsided did she brandish her recipe-cum-story again, but half-heartedly. She was enjoying the echoes of their gaiety.
Normal is very difficult to achieve,she read. A smile tugged at her lips. For prefect happiness one must become elastic, so that the definition stretches to encompass such things as late-night deliveries of other people's children, imperious aunts who invite themselves to stay indefinitely, bargains with God…
'Once!' said Nan. She retrieved the cushion at her back and threw it lovingly at Anne. Anne caught it dutifully and arranged it for maximum comfort behind her back. Now that was more like the woman Nan had grown into. Anne ignored her daughter's detailed protestation about that time she had walked only upon the furniture and resumed reading aloud. Diamonds that are not purple, homesick dogs, and soup tureens with infants. Do not discount the possibility of extravagant green hats –
Rilla did not throw a cushion. She had entirely too much self-possession for that. Instead she folded her arms across her chest – awkward because Ken still had one of her hands in his – and tilted her heart-shaped chin heavenwards.
'Re-ally, Mother,' she said, but it was not her cold, pale tone. There was too much affection in it for that. And her eyes were crinkled like a teasing Gilbert's.
Anne read on, unapologetic, And little dogs that sit for years at the train station.
'I reckon you missed out the bit about murder mysteries,' said Jem, 'and solving them. With one's infant children.' The rest of the quartet that was what Gilbert had long-since dubbed the Kingsport Contingent nodded solemnly. Shirley said from where he sprawled under the kitchen window, 'And a healthy dose of theatre, mustn't forget that.'
'But only the kind,' said Faith in her turn, 'with really, truly, absolutely nonsensical musical numbers. Often delivered in rapid-fire patter.'
'Try vague and ponderous questions about the theology of cats, more nearly,' said Mara, and swatted Shirely's hand duly away from the territory of her ankles.
Gilbert had the temerity to remove his arm from about Anne's person at that. He clapped his hands and said, 'Oh! I know that one! Except I had to deal with matrimonial toads.'
Impossible not to feel a pang for Walter, Anne thought. She looked around at her massed children in their happiness and saw her two autumnal girls were feeling it, too. Di closed her eyes, smile dimming. Rilla did not so much snuggle as burrow against Ken Ford.
Do brace for catastrophe, Anne had written. The world will creep in. Stockpile joys .She did not read it. Her eyes glossed that bit as the children continued to rattle off their definitions of normal; bridge fours and theatre excursions, Dachshunds and Kensington Market eels. Banjos and the little fingers playing them, snowstorms with friends and crickets humming of a summer evening. Mandy and Miri whisking off for a dance at the town hall, hair streaming and legs flying, themselves crying indignantly of Mums! and her need for photographs to document their loveliness, their immeasurable, sunset-spackled happiness. Oil paintings got a mention, and plots that worked out all right. The sleeplessness of something called an Easter Vigil that sounded wildly romantic to Anne's ear. Gilbert saw her think it and hissed in her ear, 'John Meredith will never forgive you if you Go Over. It's worse than dying. And anyway, Susan would never speak to us again.' He nipped affectionately at her ear, a promise for later.
Ken Ford caught only the mention of Susan, so said, 'We mustn't forget Madrun! All that cooking!'
'Or having friends nearby,' said Rilla. 'It's lovely, having Gertrude on the doorstep.'
If Anne was not entirely sure she agreed about the personage of Gertrude, well she understood the sentiment. Hadn't she missed her own Diana often enough? And Phil? Letters were wonderful, but they weren't the same.
'Vampire hunting!' said Jem. Well, crowed might have been more accurate. Off they went laughing again, while Di and Rilla goggled at them, the Kingsport Contingent, but also Anne and Gilbert there on their swing, who did understand and were also laughing. Di looked to Rilla, who looked back, and then they as a unit looked to the others wearing twin looks. What on earth are you on about, the look said. Several people tried to explain. No one succeeded because no one was breathing easily enough to be coherent. Gilbert's eyes were glistered with mirthful tears.
'And pastoring the hens!' said Gilbert, which set them all off again, and this one everyone understood.
'It's all right for you,' said Mara with maternal pointedness to Gilbert. 'You didn't have to explain that one to the Sunday School Teacher.'
'Do a lot of that, do you?' said Di. She had Gilbert's grin on her face, the Blythe Smile, two parts mischief to one sheer insouciance. It was in her voice, too, all warm and teasing. There was years of friendship in that verbal smile. It warmed Anne to her soul to hear it.
Mara only looked, and it was the kind of look you'd expect of someone that lived by acting, but also of mothers everywhere. You don't know the half of it, it said. Anne, who had too often tried to explain her own children's misadventures to various put-upon teachers, understood the sentiment. Indeed, she could see they all did in their way. So she smiled at Mara, and only half-wished that someone gave her a reprieve on the theological quandaries of the impossibly young. But not really, because life would be much diminished without Iain's wonderful, inventive reinterpretation of the universe, and probably his mother knew it.
'What comes next, Mums?' said Jem, breaking into her reverie.
Anne thought, They will think me unapologetically soppy if I go direct to that bit about love and its importance. She probably wouldn't mind either, because she meant it. But she was enjoying their laughter. They had had so much shadow mixed in with the light that really…well, it couldn't be very wrong to want them to enjoy the light. Savour it. Wish them more of it. So she improvised.
'To finish,' said Anne, 'add water and stir for two minutes. Let stand.'
'Mums!' they cried again, but it was half-jubilant, the best kind of exasperated, triumphal yell. The best sound there was.
