The English American (9 page)

I
WAKE UP EARLY
and pad upstairs. No one seems to be around, so I open the wall-to-wall sliding glass doors that lead out of Billie’s sitting room and on to her wooden deck. The Hudson River is black and wide, the air above it humid and thick. Trees far taller than any I’ve seen in England line the banks.

I can hear Billie talking on the phone.

“It’s like falling in love!” she’s saying to whoever’s on the other end of the line. “And I feel so healed!”

As I look out over the river, tears crawl down my cheeks. I don’t have anything to wipe them away with apart from my sleeve.

Later on, I go into Billie’s office and dial Mum and Dad’s number. It’s one thirty in England. Mum and Dad will be sitting at the kitchen table, having a mini Kit Kat and a post-lunch cup of coffee before taking their afternoon nap.

“Hallo, Mum,” I say.

“Darling! Alasdair! Quick, it’s Pip!” I hear Dad run into the sitting room and pick up the other phone.

“This has got to be quick because it’s Billie’s bill—lots of
b
’s there.” I try to make my laugh sound natural. “I just wanted you to know I got here safely.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

There’s a pause.

“Our voices are overlapping I think.”

“Sorry, yes.” There’s a pause.

“Good flight?” Dad says.

“Yes.”

“Good film?”

I don’t want to tell them that I couldn’t possibly concentrate on a film, so I say,
“Mrs. Henderson Presents.”

“That is a good one,” Dad says.

“Judi Dench,” Mum says.

“Yes.”

There’s a crackle on the line. Mum’s voice now, faint and far away.

“I’d better go now,” I say, feeling tears welling up again. “Can’t hear you very well. Bye Mum, bye Dad.”

“So glad everything’s all right!”

“Yes Mum,” I say. “Everything’s fine.”

I put down the phone. Billie is standing at the door in a pair of shorts and a green T-shirt with little gold sequins on it.

“I hope you don’t mind,” I say. “I just wanted to let Mum and Dad know I’m here safely.”

“That’s fine, honey.” She’s distracted, looking for her purse.

“Here,” I say, taking ten dollars out of my pocket. “This is to cover the cost of the call.”

“Put it on the dashboard of the car, honey. We can use it to pay the tolls. Now, you go get the cat box, and I’ll call the cat.”

“Heathcliffe!” she calls from her front steps. “Heathcliffe!” The image of Emily Brontë’s Cathy on the Yorkshire moors passes through my mind, as it is no doubt supposed to. Billie’s laugh joins mine as the cat trots dutifully in.

“Is he coming with us?”

“Of course, honey!” she says. “He
lives
to be close to me.”

I marvel at the fact that Billie clearly thinks nothing of traveling the eight hundred plus miles between Adler and north Georgia on a regular basis. A twenty-mile drive is considered long-distance in England.

She picks the cat up and puts the black, green-eyed feline into the car.

“Does he sit in the cat box?”

“Oh no, honey,” Billie says. “Heathcliffe likes to be able to see out of the window when we’re on the road.”

I climb into Billie’s car, delighted by the eccentricity of it. We do what we want to do, regardless of whether or not it’s the norm—Billie, Heathcliffe, and me.

For someone used to driving around an overcrowded island in a Renault 5, there’s something very exciting about being on a big American road, in a big American car. I’m so high up, I can see everything.

So can Heathcliffe, who sits atop a bed of cushions, between Billie and me, next to the coffee holder. Back straight, he looks like a little sphinx.

“The key to not getting caught while speeding, my dear daughter? Get yourself a radar detector, drive behind the fastest car on the road, and never speed past clusters of trees, ’cause that’s where the cops hide.”

We pass the International House of Pancakes, which is an intriguing name, when you think about it, whatever nationality you are. And we pass the Wise Trading Company, outside of which I am appropriately horrified to see a sign offering cash for guns.

“You can’t just walk into a shop and buy a gun in England,” I tell Billie. “If the British want to kill someone, we have to put on uniforms, invade another country, and call it a war. Either that or go to a football game and beat the crap out of the French.”

Billie can’t reply because she’s holding the ticket for the tollbooth between her teeth and scrabbling about in the glove compartment for some change.

I’ve never used a tollbooth before, and Billie lets me throw the change into the basket. When I miss, I have to get out of the car, pick up the coins, and put them in by hand, but I don’t mind. I’ve never done this before and it’s fun.

I have chocolate around my mouth and have spilled some on my T-shirt. I look over at Billie. She has done the same.

As we drive, Billie tells me all about her love life, her sex life, her brilliant career, her recovery from alcoholism, and the reason she never travels anywhere without a vibrator. “Regular orgasms are essential for people of our nature,” she says. “It helps us relax.”

I sit next to her feeling conventional and dull in comparison, but hopeful too. Billie is my mother after all. She leads such an interesting life. Perhaps mine will turn out to be interesting too.

Once over the Virginia border, four hours into our journey, we stop at a roadside café. The diner has almost no one in it.

A woman with ink-black hair piled high on her head and long blue fingernails comes over to our table.

“My name’s Connie and I’ll be your waitress today,” she says.

“Pleased to meet you, Connie,” I say, holding out my hand.

“Well, listen to that accent!” she says. “I just love it! Where are you from?”

She’s so excited when I tell her I’m from England she knocks over the milk.

“It’s okay,” Billie and I say in unison. “We’re spillers too.”

We all roar with laughter.

Connie brings us our all-day breakfast within five minutes.

“Can you cook the eggs a little longer?” Billie says.

“Sure,” Connie says.

The British would rather risk salmonella poisoning than do something as embarrassing as sending a plate of food back to the kitchen. I’m astonished to note that Connie doesn’t mind at all.

“I just love England,” Connie says, putting the new plate in front of Billie. “The movies. The books. Mrs. Slocum. All those buildings being so old!”

“Indeed,” I say.

“How come your accents are so different if she’s your mother?”

“Well,” I say, unable to resist. I take a bite out of what the Americans call a biscuit and the British call a scone, look Connie directly in the eye, and pause for dramatic effect. Then I say, “She gave me up for adoption when I was a baby, but we were reunited yesterday.” Connie clasps her hands to her mouth and gasps.

“Praise the Lord!” Connie says. “Bernie! Carly! Come hear this!”

I glance at Billie, who is as pleased as I am to be creating such a commotion.

A huge man in a stained white shirt comes out, holding a plate of grits and eggs, sunny-side up, swimming in grease, followed by a tiny woman in a faded floral dress and apron. They stand by our table, staring at us, riveted by our tale.

“Was your adoptive mother jealous?” Connie asks, when we’re done.

I hesitate for a second. I’ve never thought of Mum as my “adoptive” mother before.

“Was she?” Connie is saying. “Your adoptive mother, was she jealous?”

“I don’t know,” I say, drawing my hands into my lap.

“Bet she was!”

“Course she was!” Bernie chimes in. “Had to be! Why, look at you two! You look so alike! Apart from the hair, of course. Does she get her hair from the father?” he says, turning to Billie. And then, to me, “You got your dad’s hair?”

Billie is enjoying herself immensely.

“I love that you think she looks like me too! The more I look at her, the more I see it. Oh, yes! She has her dad’s hair. It was just like hers. Only shorter, of course.”

Dad doesn’t have red hair. He has white hair.

“Hey, Betty Sue,” Connie calls to the other waitress, who is setting a table across the room. “Ain’t that what happened to Mary Lynn? Got knocked up by a married guy, had a kid. Didn’t her sister raise it?”

“Sure did,” Betty Sue calls back.

“No one in your family could take her, huh?”

Billie is busy mopping the gravy up with what’s left of her biscuit. I suspect she’s pretending not to hear the question. Poor Billie. Why should she be judged by these strangers in a highway diner?

“Oh, Billie did the right thing,” I step in quickly. “I’ve had a wonderful upbringing. A wonderful life.”

“And now you’re back home.” Connie has tears in her eyes. “Well, c’mere.” I’m made to stand up. Connie’s mighty arms pull me to her ample bosom and hold me there.

We eat for free on the road to Georgia.

B
ILLIE’S CABIN ON
B
UCK
M
OUNTAIN
,
Georgia, is twenty miles from the nearest shop. You get to the sitting room through the deck, from which you can look out over the mountains and a huge front lawn that has seen better days.

Billie tells me that my grandfather saw the land from the air one day, while flying one of his little planes, and fell in love with it. After building himself a log cabin, which he calls his “getaway place,” he built this house for Billie right next to it. Billie says it was his way of giving her some of his money before he died and “it all got into the hands of my greedy stepmother.”

It’s a wild but peaceful spot. I spend most of the evening sitting in a large bamboo chair on Billie’s deck, with Heathcliffe on my chest purring loudly. The air is cool, sweetened by the flowers growing wild in the uncut grass. The evening light fades to a soft orange and yellow, while Billie chats away about our genetic ancestors and the
fact
that creative talent is in the genes.

“Honey!!!” Billie’s voice wakes me suddenly at eight o’clock the next morning. “It’s time to meet your grandfather! Hurry! He’s here!”

I leap out of bed, throw on a dress and my Marks and Spencer cardigan, and run out to the deck. A silver Lincoln purrs up the narrow white drive and stops next to the creek. Out comes a tall old man wearing buckled boots, black pants, a black suede jacket with long tassels, and a big black cowboy hat that hides his face. He moves slowly toward the house. Halfway up the steps to the sitting room, he lifts the hat and looks up at me. His face is old and white and his eyes are startlingly blue, and full of laughter.

“Hallo, Granddaughter,” he says. “How’s the queen today?” He speaks slowly. His voice is resonant and southern and I feel like I’ve heard it before.

“Well,” I say, “last time I spoke to her she had a bunion.”

He stops walking.

“And where is this bunion?” he asks, poker-faced.

“On her left foot,” I say solemnly. “But it’s doing better now. I’ll tell the queen you asked after her.”

He walks up the last three steps. Then he holds out his arms and I walk into them. His jacket feels rough against my skin and smells of tobacco. I feel comfortable in his arms.

“How are you?” I say.

“Well, I’ve only got another three weeks or so to live, but apart from that, I’m fine.”

I start to laugh.

“Well, who’d have thought it. My long-lost-grandbaby’s got a million-dollar smile,” he says, laughing with me.

We walk into the sitting room, arm in arm, my grandfather, Earl Joe Stanford, and I, both of us direct descendents of Governor McKay of Georgia and proud of it. We sit down on the shiny tan leather sofa that stretches L-shaped across half the room, while Billie makes us all a cup of tea. The American way. Which means she sticks three coffee mugs half full of water in the microwave for thirty seconds. Then she dunks the same Lipton tea bag in all three mugs until a nasty brown swirl appears. Then she adds a squidge of lemon and tells us to “come and get it.”

If you are English, you will know how I feel about this. If you are not English, let me take this opportunity to tell you how to make a drinkable cup of tea.

First, you warm a teapot. Then you put in tea leaves—Earl Grey, Lapsang, or Darjeeling, ideally. One teaspoon for each person, and one for the pot. Then you pour in water that has been boiled. In a kettle. After waiting a few minutes for the tea to brew you pour a little milk into the bottom of a teacup. Then, using a tea strainer, you pour in the tea. Then, if you take sugar, you add sugar. Then you drink it.

If you are English and have the misfortune to find yourself drinking tea with an American who has made it incorrectly, you do not give any indication that the tea is anything other than delicious. Instead you say something like what I say to Billie, which is, “Thank you. How lovely. Do you by any chance have any milk?”

When your American watches you pour in the milk and declares that next time she’ll put the milk, the sugar, and the tea in the teapot all at the same time, because it’ll be so much quicker that way, you do not flinch. Instead you smile, politely, and pretend to drink the mug of tea in front of you. You can’t of course, because apart from everything else, the lemon has made the milk curdle. So you pour it down the sink when no one’s looking.

“She’s got Mother’s legs, don’t you think, Daddy? And she’s got my arms,” Billie says.

“And my father’s breasts?” I quip.

“Honey, your father had no breasts at all,” Billie says, taking me literally. “Mother was flat-chested too, which mean clothes hung on her just beautifully. Which reminds me!”

Billie disappears and comes back in a flash, carrying an electric-blue dress made out of something silky on a hanger.

“This is for you, dear daughter of mine. It was one of Mother’s favorites.”

She hands me a pair of high-heeled shoes and white silk stockings to go with it. “Try it on,” she commands.

I hate trying on clothes as much as I always do whenever Charlotte begs me to try on something of hers. But I go into the bathroom and, alas, it fits. I come out. “Ta da!” Billie says to her father.

“Don’t you look just as pretty as a picture! If I were thirty years younger…”

“Oh, Daddy,” Billie says, with tears in her eyes. “She looks
just
like Mother. Don’t you think?”

Earl’s voice is soft.

“I do,” he says.

“Oh, Daddy!” Billie says, suddenly laughing in delight. “What is Molly Alice going to say when she sees this?”