Too Close to the Falls (8 page)

For me we always bought Stride-Rite shoes, saddle shoes for school and Mary Janes for parties, and my mother bought pumps and clutch bags to match her new outfits. Mr. McTeer carefully held her new tweed under the light and then found the perfect matching shoe. Mother said it was crucial to get shoes to fit because she never returned an item to a store. She said doing so was a “shifty practice.”

Mother had her hair done once a week with a “standing appointment” and then preserved the hairdo throughout the week with a stretchy band that expanded around her ears and tied with a grosgrain ribbon above her forehead, like the one Lucille Ball wore in I Love Lucy when she was cleaning the apartment. When she went out she protected her ‘do with a see-through plastic rain hat that folded into a comb-size case that went into a small compartment in her purse lining designed for just this purpose. When our robin's-egg-blue Chevy Impala convertible top was down she wore a matching blue net hood that tied under the chin. She refused to take part in other activities that could ruffle her hair. By the time her next appointment rolled around, Mother's hair would be flat on the sides and coming to a sprayed point on the top of her head. I never once saw Mother wash her own hair or attempt to manage it in any way. If she had an important meeting inconveniently placed between appointments, she called Mary, the hairdresser, for an emergency “comb-through.”

She wore seamed stockings, which she donned by sitting on the bed and kicking her leg in the air like a Rockette so she could
see in the mirror opposite whether her seam was straight. She never graced the outside world without being bound in a girdle and a “long-line bra” which reached from breast to waist and was held together by what seemed to be hundreds of hooks and eyes. For dances she had a strapless version of the same foundation, which I had to help her into through a three-part process of folding her skin, having her take a deep breath, and then hooking her in Scarlett O'Hara–style.

Her outfits were invariably accompanied by high-heeled shoes, and she even had high-heeled rubber boots to fit over them in bad weather. When my father suggested she wear flats at home because her spike heels were digging into the linoleum, she said she couldn't wear them. Her calves hurt when she wore flats; since she'd been wearing high heels from the age of thirteen, the tendons in her calves had shrunk over time. Each pair of shoes had a matching bag — alligator, spectators, patent leather, suede — and most of these had a matching pillbox hat. I always thought “pillbox” was a perfect hat for a pharmacist's wife. On Sundays she wore feathered hats to church in what she referred to as “fall transitional colours,” with black diamond meshed veils descending over her eyes, making her look as remote as the priest behind his grid in the confessional. In winter she wore white fur hats and carried a white fur muff with red satin lining.

She was ready an hour early for every occasion. While waiting to leave for church in the summer she sat with arms outstretched in a wing chair, with a Kleenex tucked into each armhole of her sleeveless dress and her feet stretched out, resting on top of a floor fan. Often we left so early for Sunday mass that the previous mass wouldn't have let out yet, and we'd have to circle the parking lot
for a half-hour. Strict punctuality and silence in church were her only rules. The first was easy for her to follow because she rarely went anywhere and when she did she never attempted to undertake more than one activity, such as going to the bank, in a single day. When anyone questioned her about why we had to be early for anything, she said, “Then no one could say we were late.”

I could whisper before mass began but I had to be silent the second the priest walked up to the altar.
Once
she spoke when we were filing out of mass. She put her hand on my shoulder, bent her veiled face close, and whispered for my ears only that she'd heard a rumour that Susan B. Anthony was going to be canonized. When I asked why it was a secret, she said I should keep a lid on it so she and I could start praying to her before everyone else got on to it.

She was a member of the garden club, Altar and Rosary Society, and a member of a bridge club where she excelled at the game and was designated “a master bridge player.” However, she dropped out of bridge saying it was full of “eggheads” and she was sick of taking it
so
seriously. She'd say, “Who needs it?” She was also a member of the historical society, which she took seriously, and she sometimes discovered new documents in people's basements or through previously unnoticed published material. I firmly believed that Lewiston was more important than ancient Rome in its store of hidden treasure.

She was in a study club with other women who met weekly to give papers or progress notes on their research. Each one of these reports was of momentous importance in our household. She read them aloud to my father and me every night for weeks before her presentations. We always clapped at the end and my father whispered to me beforehand that I should ask a question to show
I was following — which I wasn't. She was interested in Africa and the different tribes and their habits. I remember the tiny but fierce pygmies in her paper “Emerging African Nations.” She was also interested in ancient history and in the history of medicine. She used my father's old prescription drawers in the basement for keeping thousands of notes in case we ever needed to access the information quickly. Once when I came across the word
alchemy
in a Nancy Drew mystery story, she had the history of the word on one of her file cards. I was amazed and simultaneously comforted to have this information in my own home in the event we had an etymological emergency.

While she engaged in all these outside tasks, she committed herself to none of the everyday duties of the fifties housewife. In my entire childhood I never recall her making a meal. We ate all of our dinners in restaurants. My father worked most evenings, and Mother and I went to Schoonmaker's Restaurant almost every night for twelve years where we had a dinner of beef-on-wecks. Since we were regulars there I would often wander into the kitchen, perch on a high stool, and talk to Marge Vavershack, the waitress, as she sped around. I watched the world of the kitchen with fascination, wondering how they kept everything straight and how all the food came out cooked at the same time. I wondered where they got the food to start with and how they knew what people might want to order. I was amazed to see that hamburger didn't come in patties. I was at least six when I first saw a raw egg broken on the grill and I was astonished that it changed form. It never occurred to me that people accomplished these same feats in their homes. Our fridge contained only allergy serum, Coke, and maraschino cherries. Our oven was only turned
on to dry wet mittens on the door and the only cooking smell I remember from my youth was that of burning wool.

On the occasions when my father came home at dinnertime the tradition changed only slightly. He pulled into the driveway and beeped the horn and Mother and I ran out to the car and we all headed to the restaurant. It was always a Friday when my father was with us and we sat in the barroom of Schoonmaker's, which was overflowing with Catholics performing their weekly fast. (When my mother and I dined alone we had to eat in the dining room that adjoined the barroom because only women who “risked their reputations” would be seen in a barroom without a man.) The paper place mats described “the edible fish of the world” and showed a giant fisherman in thigh-high boots catching something that looked like a swordfish with a snout. We always had a halibut fish fry caught fresh from Lake Erie by Mr. Schoonmaker. It was many years later that I learned halibut didn't live in the Great Lakes.

Since everyone knew everyone else we often pushed the tables together and on the Fourth of July we sang “God Bless America.” On St. Patrick's Day we all sang “Danny Boy” and “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” Every St. Patrick's Day my father wore a green bow tie with shamrocks on it which had plastic tubing attached connected to a rubber ball. He hid the tubing inside his shirt and when he squeezed the ball, snakes jumped out from behind the tie and wiggled wildly to commemorate St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland with his blessed staff. This tie was one of the highlights of my year until I was about ten. My mother, however, never appeared to tire of the tie or any other part of my father's humorous repertoire.

On Sunday mornings we ate bacon and eggs in Schneider's Restaurant. I regularly ordered peameal Canadian bacon, thinking it quite sophisticated to order “foreign food.” We always took home a few hard rolls from brunch, put orange marmalade on them, and called it supper, dining on TV tables as we watched Ed Sullivan, featuring the infinitely unfunny Topo Gigio. When I told Mother I didn't find Topo at all funny, she said maybe people in the Midwest liked him because Ed wouldn't continue to have such an idiot on TV if everyone thought he as stupid as we did.

After the age of seven or so, I ate dinner at a friend's house once in a while. I was shocked that they ate at a table, together, at home, and that the mothers did the cooking. When I asked why the Canavans ate at home my mother said, “Because they have food at home.”

When I played with my friend Susan I could see that her mother seemed to be run ragged. She was always taking care of a baby or cooking or ironing. I asked why Mrs. Canavan did all that work and my mother said she had always wondered the same thing. As far as babies were concerned, Mother said it was a mystery to her why, after people had one baby, they went ahead and had another. She thought the odd part was that women considered themselves holy or virtuous when they announced they had houses bursting with six children. My mother reminded me that the Holy Family only had only one child, as our family did. I was a bit confused by this entire discussion because I assumed
God
decided how many children a woman had, but Mother was implying that she and other women played some role in the decision. I finally realized the link; the mother prays to God to give her a certain number of children. Depending on how pleased God is with her behaviour on earth, He
heeds her request. I began to pray fervently that I did not have a baby like Sara Welch did at the age of fifteen. Sara got pregnant from reading filthy magazines at the bus station and had to go to a home for unwed mothers in Lancaster.

Mother was convinced that it was important “never to learn to cook or type or you'd be requested to do both against your will forever.” When I told her that Mrs. Canavan had a big ironing machine on a giant roller and even ironed
bed
linen, she replied that Mrs. Canavan would someday be a saint. My mother said — and this conversation was “not to be taken outside of our home” — she thought I should throw out any irons I might receive someday as wedding gifts, because there might be too much of a temptation to use them. She said for every seam you iron there will be fifty you wish you hadn't bothered doing. She said her rule of thumb was, if it wasn't important enough to go to the cleaners it wasn't worth ironing.

I first realized my family life was not like everyone else's when the public health nurse was giving a lecture at our school. She carried a lot of clout because she was not a nun, not even Catholic, and therefore somewhat exotic. She wore a starched white uniform, was middle-aged, unmarried, and accepted being referred to as
Miss
Stayner on the street, but she insisted on
Head Nurse
Stayner when performing her public role as health educator. Mother Agnese, our principal, said we had to set a good example for Head Nurse Stayner so she could see how orderly Catholic children could be. She reminded us that it was not just the job of missionaries to convert the heathen, but our personal job every day to convert those in our midst to Catholicism through our holy example.

When Head Nurse Stayner lectured us on nutrition and advised against the heinous crime of eating between meals — clandestine munching would “spoil our dinners” — she called upon me to name three snack foods from my icebox (my mother told me to inform her
we
had a Frigidaire) which could ruin a meal. I looked blank, having no idea what a “snack food” was. She rephrased the question, asking me what food we had for snacks. I was totally relieved to finally understand the question. “Oh, we don't have any food, so we don't have anything between meals.” I sat down, relieved at having answered the question correctly. I heard sniggers from the back of the class and then everyone was laughing. I had no idea why our culinary habits should cause such mirth. Before I had a chance to understand what was going on around me, Head Nurse Stayner said something which seared my brain: “If you have a mother then you
sometimes
have dinner at home.” Knowing I did have a mother, but knowing I didn't eat at home, I was momentarily thrown into panic. However, I recovered my equilibrium, assuming she was mistaken as only Protestants can be, and I quickly rose to the occasion rather haughtily, assured that I had truth on my side, telling her I knew I'd never had dinner at home, nor had I ever had a snack other than a Coke at my father's store, and I assumed liquids didn't count. I then sat down, feeling I had outfoxed her.

Suddenly there was muffled giggling which turned into outright guffaws all around me. All the grade twos and threes who were older than me were laughing, and Head Nurse Stayner said, and I quote because I remember it verbatim, “Miss McClure, I don't know who you think you are. Obviously you fancy yourself a comedienne; however, I advise you to remember that people are
laughing
at
you and not
with
you.” I was devastated by that phrase, which was forever branded with a white-hot poker into my tender memory. Were people laughing
at
me? I pictured people hiding behind telephone poles or the altar at church, laughing
at
me. I pictured myself running through the forest like Snow White with the trees coming to life for the sole purpose of cackling
at
me. All these seven years I'd thought I was genuinely amusing, entertaining people at home and at school and the store, and now I find out that actually people were laughing
at
me? I was horrified — I never wanted to speak again. I decided when I grew up I'd join a Carmelite order like my cousin Sister Polly Rose, who had taken the vow of silence and was only allowed to talk to visitors once a year through a three-by-five-inch window covered with wrought-iron grating.