The Tin Can Tree (17 page)

“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 to 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 color 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 neighbors 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 parlor, 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 honor 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 a tray. Then she poured out the coffee, taking her
time because she was in no hurry to get back to the parlor. 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 parlor 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 then. 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 colors 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?”