Small Vegetables: Tangled Roots in a Village by the Sea

One

Salvador Dali would have felt at home in Blackburn Village, Nova Scotia, in the warmer months of the year. For the players, the last day of June signalled a long, familiar stroll through the looking glass. Illusion and distortion figured prominently in some of the elastic lives that were lived in a space as prescribed as a boxwood maze. It was a place where psychiatric diagnoses were inconsequential and organizing a chapter of AA would have been a terrible waste of time.

In this small colonial enclave, most of the summer people—the visitors—didn’t have the usual concerns about the difference between midnight and midday. Noon meant holding onto a tiller or a tennis racquet, and night was simply the time to hang on even harder to a cocktail glass and a lobster sandwich. Cocktail hour—that evocative phrase—was frequently used to describe the long and strong drinking hours which, if the truth were known, usually took up an alarmingly disproportionate part of any day.

Somewhere around seven o’clock in the evening, the fancy little paper napkins, that had been so carefully selected over the winter for their colours or their humorous little sayings, and then genteelly wrapped around the bases of crystal highball tumblers, were abandoned in soggy lumps alongside crumb-littered sandwich trays, where ragged, wilting sprigs of parsley lay heaped in the corners. All hands were getting sufficiently numb and no longer needed protection from the ice cubes. The mouths—some with lipstick slightly askew and others connected to jaws that were a little bit slacker—never stopped moving, voices rising and dipping in tandem with the bat ballet being performed in the dusky sky above them.

The summer people were secure in the knowledge that if something untidy was ever uttered outside the group, the shared experiences that knotted them together as far back as anyone could remember, and as far down the road as the eye could see, would preclude any sort of nastiness ever boomeranging back and catching them by surprise. Their ranks would close tighter than a grape stake fence. Rules were simply rules and no one had to be reminded of their importance. Ironically, gossip of any sort—positive or otherwise—was something to be salivated over and to be heavily and imaginatively embroidered, the notion being they were all on a stage and so there was a certain responsibility to entertain one another. At the same time, and curiously, originality of any sort was not thought to be something of value. In fact, it generated many of the same fears that anything messy did. These people lived lives of continuity and, collectively, they found anything new somewhat unnerving. But, exceptions were made.

In order to avoid the most egregious sort of mishaps, great care was always taken. However, this seemingly tight-knit group was not without its anomalies. Almost without exception these were people generally acknowledged, in all the far-flung circles they traveled in, to be well bred. Their lineage was long and, for the most part, made up of honourable people, as far as anyone could tell. They were well educated, had either inherited businesses or their proceeds, were very familiar with trust funds and to the peeled eye were all successful in life. Having a great deal of money was taken for granted. It was old, musty, rather rumpled money—seasoned money—by far the best kind. Money that spent its time being moved around by crackerjack brokers and reproducing itself as regularly as the little door opens on a cuckoo clock. Some of it spent time offshore. That was understood and never talked about. For, had it been, the collective sense of patriotism might have been called into question, and that would never do.

But if an upstart appeared out of nowhere, preferably with a big shiny boat, and the ability to either buy a large old house or to build one on some prime land, now at a premium, and had passable table manners, he was accepted into the group like a long-lost relative. All a summer person had to hear was, Hi, I’m so-and-so and I’ve just bought the big property out on such-and-such lane. Why don’t you stop in for cocktails this evening? Feel free to bring as many friends as you’d like. It was no doubt sheer curiosity that made members of the tribe appear and within hours Mr. Nobody had the firm beginning of a summer circle of playmates. These latecomers probably never took the time to scratch their heads and wonder why their passage into this old revered group was so smooth. Perhaps it was their inability to ruminate over risks—to simply plough ahead—that gave them what they needed to stickhandle their way around the Blackburn Village summer community. It was as if for a short period in the year they were allowed to meld with the other exotic spices that were sprinkled into what was otherwise a dish served only in places few ever saw. As if by magic they mingled with people for whom the age of entitlement had dawned many moons ago.

You could always tell the local people, the people who really should have felt some entitlement to the only place they called home. They would be strolling along, pretending not to be terribly interested in what was going on around them; but then they’d stop along the fence by the water and look down across the neat and tidy yacht club lawn, but more particularly, out to sea—feeling sad perhaps because they may have felt it was their water that was being used—being sliced through by expensive hulls—and maybe even their land that was being occupied by people from away. People whose money got them whatever they wanted. Perhaps they felt somewhat like the native Indians—the Mi’kmaq—maybe not that treaties had been broken but that somehow there was something unfair about the whole arrangement. Their lives forced them to feel they’d been steamrolled until they might as well have been flat stones embedded in the blacktop. Even a child could recognize the town people. They didn’t have cocktail glasses in their hands. They weren’t reading fat bestsellers under the thick leaves of an old tree and they weren’t sprawled on a beach. Instead they were pushing strollers, lugging groceries or dragging themselves and their work clothes home to be washed.

Ariel Stanton, wife of Theo, was a relentlessly cheerful woman with a sexy-husky voice that had been coddled along by belts of Jack Daniels at night, Silent Sam-laced Bloody Marys in the afternoon. Her days were generally spent shopping in Charleston, South Carolina’s most prestigious, upscale stores, lunching with pals at the country club all the while ensuring that her hair remained Marilyn Monroe blonde. William Burroughs, Jr. might have described her chosen locales as abscesses of terminal affluence. Few would disagree. Ariel smoked the equivalent of so many ocean liners full of Winston cigarettes that, had human physiology been different, smoke would have continually leaked out around her fuchsia painted toenails. She made certain she was always the first one out of the social blocks each season. For the party, the last Saturday in June, she stood in the doorway of Quail Hollow, a large weathered shingle house with a wrought iron widow’s walk directly above her. Dressed in gauzy white, she put her suntanned hands on either side of her mouth, emulating a megaphone, and shrieked to all within earshot, Isn’t this glorious? Isn’t this simply glorious? Her amber eyes, flecked with green and fringed with long lashes, danced as she shouted, We’re back together again and have months of fun ahead of us! The party that she and Theo gave began the Highland fling of every summer. While the troops made their way up the winding gravel driveway, they waved and shouted back—lovely to see you—agreeing with one another that they were indeed fortunate to be on these familiar, special white-gravelled paths again.

Everyone didn’t think it was particularly lovely to see everyone else. Their cores were enmeshed because they were cut from the same cloth as some would say. However, attitudes toward one another were apt to change from day to day. The reasons for gushing warmth or chilly haughtiness were seldom dealt with or even explained. People just swayed to and fro—both physically and emotionally—in an odd dance that was choreographed by a collision of events, but one that seemed to suit their collective sensibilities.

The men wore their uniforms of red trousers, navy blazers and significant silk ties—for the most part, all Brooks Brothers’ goods. The women, almost without exception, were wrapped in brightly coloured dresses, sported small earrings, gold wedding bands—some with a sprinkle of small but good diamonds—and a discreet string of inherited pearls. Summer was the time when the serious jewellery was left behind in safety deposit boxes.

When all were assembled in the Stantons’ spacious, perfectly proportioned living room, they were bathed in sunny yellow that was the backdrop of every room in the house. Because of its proximity to the ocean, the varying shades of blue, determined by the season, were the perfect foil for the daffodil exuberance. The walls close to a fireplace took on a more serious shade of umber when logs were carefully placed and lit on overcast days and end-of-August evenings. Theo and Ariel Stanton, and their only child, Seth, nineteen, were the fifth and sixth generation of folks from Charleston, South Carolina to migrate northward to Nova Scotia every June. The Stantons’ evenly weathered house, with its cedar shake roof and dark spruce green trim, stood on two acres of land overlooking Windsor Bay.

Over the years, things had remained virtually the same. More paint, in exactly the same colours, was added to surfaces that had been carefully prepared, pieces of furniture were painted, and once every decade or so bolts of chintz were shipped up from a shop in New York so that new slipcovers and curtains could be made, and a throw pillow or two freshened up—but the styles never changed. This house, like most of the others occupied by the summer people, was like a constant soothing cup of tea in the lives of the occupants. The memory-provoking odour of old wood; the smell of books that had survived winters thanks to careful wrapping, the perfume of trimmed evergreen hedges; and most of all, that unbeatable magical air that blew in from the enigmatic Atlantic. The twelve over twelve windows, with their original irregular panes of glass, shone—the last application of vinegar and water having dried within minutes of the family’s arrival.

Cecil and Myrna Hogg had worked for the Stanton family for over forty years and Cecil’s parents had preceded them. They were either in the house or on call every day and night of the summer, and the six weeks before and six weeks after were dedicated to getting ready for the arrival and the departure and all that entailed. For these reasons, as well as the not so easy other parts of their day-to-day lives, Cecil and Myrna looked older than their years. Cecil was perpetually in a peaked cap, a plaid shirt and either beige or dark green trousers, depending on the season. Myrna had neither time nor interest in fashion magazines. Her retail therapy came from rushing into the local second hand shops and buying anything she thought fit properly. If she had clean pants and a neutral shirt, it was a good day. A kitchen shelf contained bound books of procedures having to do with preparing the summer repertoire of recipes, maintaining the house and its contents, looking after the property, the boats, and the car that sat on blocks in the garage during the winter months.

Cecil, Myrna would say, Is there more work here every year or are we just gettin’ old? They both knew there was no point in even thinking about the answer. There was a lot to do. Their bank account would fatten up, and they could breathe a little easier.

During the off-season, which in reality was most of the year, Cecil and Myrna acted as daily caretakers—making certain the furnace was functioning properly, at a temperature that kept the pipes from freezing while at the same time keeping the oil bills at a modest rate. Every year the same preparations were made at exactly the same time, depending on the month. Ewen Sawler at the boat yard began to get telephone calls from one of the Hoggs as early as March. Had he gotten at the bright work yet? Had he gone over the list of what went back aboard the boat? Did he foresee any problems? Had his rates gone up? And on and on it went.

Harper Stella O’Connell was born in Blackburn Village, Nova Scotia. A tall, slim, striking young woman, her long dark hair and bright blue eyes were a clear indication of her Irish heritage. Harper’s earliest memories were of knowing she lived in one of the most achingly beautiful places in the world. They may not have had the latest of everything but nothing on earth could come close to what they were all free to look at every day of the week. Gazing out to sea from any point along the South Shore inspired farfetched dreams but Harper knew, even as a child, it was necessary to leave the centre of the village every now and again—even if it were only for an hour or two—to get a clear perspective on how things really were. She was always aware of a strange flow of energy that seemed to bubble up during the warm summer months. She could never quite make up her mind if this energy—the word seemed appropriate enough—hung above the place in an invisible ball or snaked around just below the surface of the gardens. Everything just seemed to speed up and, for some people, self-discipline simply went out the window. The only way she knew to describe it was to say, There are days when no matter what, you just can’t concentrate and you could easily be led astray and forget everything you ever learned about being a good person.

There was no doubt about it; Blackburn Village seemed to attract some unusual, fascinating and dynamic creatures. There was one particular hybrid breed, seldom seen or discussed, that had many of the same qualities that lumped them together. One commonality was they seemed to move about in a quiet, almost ghost-like way. There was nothing definite or direct about them. The occasional ponytail made some suggest they were back in the fog of the sixties. They slipped and slid in and out of places, mingling with people, locals and visitors alike, but they stood out because nature had somehow set them apart. They were just accepted as being different. These people were comfortable being with each other, no matter where they originated. They could simply pick up conversations from year to year and seemed to be able to talk easily together for hours at a time. They met on street corners, slouched on wharves, drifted around in small boats at sunset or in each other’s living rooms playing guitars and softly singing songs like The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. In fact they were a sociological study in ‘water seeking its own level,’ and that level had nothing to do with money.

Harper never pretended to have any kind of handle on the summer people. They mostly came in June and left around Labour Day. They reminded her of an exotic flock of birds. They are like blue-blooded ostriches, she once said. They are just different and one of the differences has always been—apparently for generations, according to the people around here—that they like to have people do things for them and they can afford to pay for whatever they want.

She had just turned eighteen the first summer she looked after the Carlisle children, and her last summer with the family began exactly three weeks after her twenty-first birthday. One of the things that fascinated Harper about the Carlisle family was that from day one she noticed what she called their ‘rituals’. They insisted on the same things being done exactly the same way—day after day, summer after summer. All these things were jotted down in her journal, for pondering and for reference. She noted, too, that even the youngest ones had a certain way of beckoning to her when they wanted something. It was this that could make her feel she was in another dimension—one where the elders waited on their children. Harper had never seen that before.

Before Daphne and Bartlett Carlisle, all the offspring and their dog, an oversized Irish wolfhound named Dylan, arrived for the summer, Harper began shopping for the perfect notebook in which to keep her journal. This year she got a hard-covered red one that was pretty thick but small enough to slide into the hunter green knapsack the Carlisles had sent down for Christmas and that went everywhere with her. She kept all the full scribblers in the little old trunk at the foot of her bed. The trunk had always been a dingy, rough brown but sometime in the spring Harper and her mother, Irma, saw a television program where a woman explained how to redo old things, including trunks, which she said were handy for storage or could be used as coffee tables. At the time Irma and Harper didn’t think she was telling them anything that came from the so-called advanced Upper Canadian thinking, but then Irma said, Harper, we have to realize the program is half an hour long and she has to fill in all the time somehow.

Harper jotted down the instructions, went out and bought a roll of masking tape at Erskine Lomax’s General Store and decided to use up the dregs of paint in cans piled in the shed. The trunk turned out all right. She painted it bright yellow, black, and red plaid and as her father Alfred said, Jeez, it really lights up the room. Maybe you’ll end up being one of those fancy decoratin’ people and you’ll be able to get the hell out of this burg for a while.

Alf had led the up-and-down life of a fisherman and when he wasn’t at sea, he was in the Legion. Irma said he was more at sea in there than he was out in his boat but he just didn’t have the sense to know it. A lot of the time she resented the money he poured down his throat but at the same time she realized that life was really and truly discouraging for him, and getting more so by the year. Sitting around with his friends was a kind of therapy. Jesus, he’d say. Who’s grabbin’ up all our fish? Irma knew she had to think something hopeful in order to come to terms with how they lived their lives or she would go absolutely loony whenever the bills started piling up, which they always did.

Cecily Hobbs-Laughton was Daphne Winthrop Carlisle’s father’s youngest sister. She had been coming to Blackburn Village all her life and she was known and admired by everyone. She was a woman of indeterminate age who had kept herself trim, wore her curly white-blonde hair in a myriad of styles that complimented her patrician face and unique wardrobe. She had always been drawn to gauzy flowing linen and the very best of other materials. She had designers in several cities who simply shipped whatever she drew for them. When she was a young woman, her stays were sometimes only a month or less, but she was proud to say she had never missed a year. She was a person who from a very early age was determined to cram as many varied experiences into her life as possible and that meant getting herself to some of the most inaccessible places imaginable. One year she spent four months in Tasmania working as an assistant set designer in a small theatre. Her father, Davey—John David Winthrop—used to address his cards and letters to my darling Tasmanian devil but that stopped when she joined up with a marine biologist who was the captain of a ship headed for Antarctica. It was there that Cecily became seriously interested in drawing and writing poetry. She did sketch after sketch of things she knew she would never see again and tried to pin down these places with words. Her plans didn’t always work out exactly as she hoped they would but that didn’t throw her off her stride. Part and parcel of living a full life, she’d wisely say.

Cecily loved to tell stories to younger people, particularly women, and the gist of so many of them was to spread your wings and always keep your eyes and ears wide open. There is so much to be learned and savoured, but make sure you keep your feet in the present.

She was a woman who made a determined effort never to look back. Sometimes she would drag a particularly outstanding memory up into her consciousness and twirl it around in her mind like a satiny truffle. She felt that was fair. But she knew that to cogitate over aborted plans and disappointments was to misspend energy. Through it all, she managed to keep her fine good looks in impeccable order. Her naturally very blonde hair, now streaked with white, was knotted in a twist at the nape of her neck and her carefully chosen clothes always made her look like a leading lady.

The first day Cecily and Harper had a real conversation, she startled Harper with the words, I feel entirely fulfilled: I’ve written a sonnet and I’ve loved a man.

Harper replied, I think that’s one of the most remarkable things I’ve ever heard. They both knew that a friendship was budding.

Cecily and her niece, Daphne, were sitting on the lawn having tea and lacy, rolled ginger cookies the afternoon of the first day Harper began working for the family. Cecily was impressed by the young woman’s easy grace and how in a soft, measured voice she could easily engage the children in a variety of activities—some as mundane as washing their hands before dinner. It was clear that Harper was a careful and thoughtful girl. She seemed to have a natural sophistication that no doubt came from quietly observing people and how they did things, and from her lifelong interest in books—as short as that life had been so far. She wanted to please, while at the same time taking pride in what she was doing, and she drew the children to her like an angular magnet. Harper loved to laugh and to see the children enjoying themselves. As time passed it became apparent that she would deal wisely with the disagreements that were part of family life, but if Bart Carlisle raised his voice while giving his particular brand of instruction, she withdrew like a wary turtle, her eyes looking desperately for an escape hatch.

Cecily observed Harper carefully and knew she liked and admired what she saw. In some ways she could see something of herself as a young girl. Cecily also knew from first-hand observation, over many years, some of the ongoing difficulties that Daphne’s passivity and Bart’s heavy handedness had caused within the family. To her continuing amazement, that pattern was allowed to stand. In her heart of hearts she made no judgment as to which character flaw ranked lowest but she knew that as a person and a parent, Bart was by far the more frightening to children. It baffled Cecily that Daphne was so weak. It was not a trait that she’d inherited from either side of her very strong, opinionated and definite family. Cecily had to bite her tongue when she saw her beautiful, talented niece almost go into a trance while Bart was handing down his ridiculously rigid edicts like some sort of specially chosen Papal representative.

Within the first week of the first summer of Harper’s employment, it occurred to Cecily that it might be highly beneficial, on a lot of levels, to get to know this girl better and that would have to be on her own turf. She never intended to overtly pry into what was happening in her niece’s house, behind the tallest fence in the village, but at the same time she was ready to protect some of the really defenceless children if she thought it necessary. Cecily never hesitated to roll her eyes or even to barge right in if Bart became downright cruel, which he often seemed to take delight in doing. She remembered very well his Machiavellian cackle when she tripped and fell between a boat and the wharf after a long race during which she was at the tiller for most of the time. As she wrestled to hang on to a piling, she caught her right foot and then fell backwards, twisting and breaking her ankle. It was on that day that she knew only a mean-spirited creature could howl with laughter at somebody else’s pain. She filed that little vignette in the back of her mind along with a rather chilling thought that had been there for a long time. Bartlett Carlisle was living his life and his children were watching. That he was one of their primary teachers was something that couldn’t be helped. They were learning how to live and the odds were that at least some of them would learn to be just like him.

For years Bart had reminded Cecily of a territorial animal intent on taking possession of the people and things around him. The day of the boating accident set the tone for what became Cecily’s very guarded relationship with Bart. There were times when, after dinner and many glasses of good wine, they’d get into what passed for pleasant conversation about how particular stocks might fare or how so-and-so might do as head of a newly-merged company. Cecily read widely and researched diverse things and so there wasn’t much she couldn’t talk about with at least a little authority. An old friend had once said to her, You have a garbage-can mind…sooner or later everything falls into it. Cecily had always thought this was a compliment. She was proud of the depth of her experience and her ongoing attempt to understand people. Bartlett Carlisle had always been a question mark in her mind, until the day she realized that what distinguished him from most people she knew was his complete lack of compassion. She couldn’t help but wonder if some day that dreadful quality wouldn’t trip him up.

Two

Cecily Hobbs-Laughton had the most extraordinarily eclectic musical tastes. One could drop in most mornings for a cup of perfectly made espresso and hear anything from Brahms to Amy Winehouse. When you least expected it, she’d be trilling along with Edith Piaf singing "Non, je ne regrette rien and dreamily twirling around the living room lost in a memory of Gitanes cigarettes and cognac. Many years before in a small German city she’d had the good fortune to see Sneezy Waters perform his Hank Williams: The Show He Never Gave, and from that night on she was hooked. She was convinced Sneezy was one of the most talented performers she had ever seen. She would ask perfect strangers if they’d seen that play. Long before she moved permanently to Blackburn Village, she would occasionally call the CBC in Toronto from her house in Brookline, Massachusetts, and ask why a Sneezy Waters recording was impossible to find. She’d give her standard lecture—You Canadians are very foolish people. You seem to deliberately make it difficult, if not impossible, for your artists to get ahead. Why on earth can’t we buy recordings of all the outstanding talented people from coast to coast before they become popular and pay taxes in my country? It’s just plain absurd." And with that she’d carefully return the receiver to its place.

One of the first conversations Cecily and Harper ever had was about music. Cecily felt this was a good jumping-off place in her bid to get to know this quite serious and self-contained young woman better. She knew they were both smitten by Halifax’s Sarah McLachlan and that she was a perfect example of a young woman who had probably led a fairly average life but had been blessed with a talent, studied hard, was single-minded and eventually was acknowledged for being great.

Harper didn’t feel the need to be in any kind of spotlight. She just wanted to be confident and comfortable and that was partly what drew her to Mrs Hobbs-Laughton. She was clearly a woman who felt happy with herself, adored life and all it had to offer, and for that reason genuinely welcomed new people of all ages to join her on the trek. Cecily made it clear to Harper that she was generally sitting quietly with her feet up at the end of every afternoon—usually on the flower-laden balcony off her bedroom, overlooking the bay—and that she would welcome her whenever she felt like stopping by.

Late one afternoon, while Harper was waiting for Cecily to pour some iced tea, she noticed a note stuck to the edge of a mirror. All it said was GALMI. Cecily swooped into the room carrying the silver tray and glasses in one hand—which in itself was a feat. She worked out daily with free weights and had done so for years.

She saw Harper eyeing the note and said, I’ll bet you can’t guess what that means. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you. I need someone to come in here to repair the plaster moulding in one of the guest bedrooms. Dear Harland Smidgely has been with me for years but he’s getting on and I don’t like to ask him to do anything that requires standing on a ladder. The letters stand for ‘get a little man in.’ My mother used it constantly. It seems such a sensible shorthand, don’t you think?

Harper’s tanned face turned a deep shade of pink as she instantly made the connection. In the summer scheme of things she was considered a little woman who did things no one else could be bothered with; however, that thought flew out of her head just as quickly as it had entered. She knew unequivocally that helping to look after the Carlisle children was a loving mission with a purpose, despite the fact that she was being paid to do it. Over the years it had become evident that they loved and needed her and that was all that really mattered.

Harper was honoured that Cecily—‘Mrs Laughton,’ to just about everyone else—let her use her first name. That happened at the very beginning of the first summer, when it became apparent that Cecily was as curious and concerned about what went on inside the Carlisle house as Harper instinctively felt any family member should be.

Cecily Hobbs-Laughton lived in a five-storey, narrow old house on the shore at the centre of town. Harper looked forward to her on-the-way-home visits and as often as not, Cecily would insist that she sit down and have a glass of cool white wine. It was during these times that their mutual love of poetry emerged. Cecily had felt quite starved in that one important area of her life. All her friends read, but most avoided poetry. Let me read you something I wrote when I first decided to stay here. It hasn’t a title. Maybe it doesn’t need one. I hope you’ll enjoy it, Harper. It’s really the essence of what I feel. Poems can be strange things in that it seems nigh unto impossible for pure dishonesty to reach the page. Anyway, here it is.

I watched the green shutters close that wound of summer madness.

I saw the mongrel birds fly around the pine tops

Waving goodbye to the stranger-people leaving.

I stayed there alone. I nestled into fall.

I watched the town get rich again.

Its heart restarted by a native transfusion of simplicity and humour.

Summer masks were abandoned in a common brook

That beautifully scarred some random gardens.

Weary shadow-souls danced on empty streets.

Bodies lay in slumbering heaps on mattresses of joy.

An autumn ritual of soundless celebration

Emancipated the important people who were gathered by the ocean.

I was there for wood stove potatoes and nutmegged squash pies,

Sausages on time-crazed plates and vats of amber tea.

I saw the blue eyes of dawn peering into sea-ripened lobster pots.

I saw shaking hands, deformed by work and weather and time.

And I saw the love-knit mittens that covered them, stiff on

Clotheslines that were long enough to be swallowed by the woods.

At meeting time the heads were bowed.

Their reverence auraed thanks.

Outside the rum bottles hid,

Their topsy-turvy contents momentarily disguised.

The earthy liquid matched the leaves

Raked by the people of the coast who shamelessly imbibed.

I felt the strength.

I felt the love.

I saw it all.

I saw myself.

Gucci really is crap.

A fifty-fathom gaze is so far away from loafers.

Harper was stunned. Not a word or a thought had to be explained to her. She loved the fact that poetry allowed one to say so much, often on one skimpy page. She compared the experience to savouring a small, dense, buttery piece of pound cake. Without giving it a thought, she got out of her chair and gave Cecily a close, warm hug. You will never know how much that poem means to me. Most of all it makes my heart sing to know you understand. Like it or not, you really are a Blackburn woman! Cecily read the poem a second time and then handed it to Harper.

Keep it, dear. I have several copies. Now I’d like you to bring me something you’ve written. Remember, darling, each new experience is like one more flower in the vase. With the whole summer ahead of us we should make this a regular get-together, don’t you think?

Cecily Hobbs-Laughton was a curious creature. Her life had been one of privilege although along the way she had made what could only be described as some vagabond decisions. None of these appeared to have particularly diminished her financial assets—she seemed able to go places and acquire things whenever the fancy struck her, which was frequently. She described herself laughingly as being a bit of a crow in that she had to have anything that glittered and caught her eye. Her choices in life may well have been precipitated by her great need for contrasts. She craved variety and that helped to explain what was, by most people’s standards, an unorthodox existence. Her present abode, which she’d named ‘Peacock Alley’, was like a miniature diorama of her life. The place, from the front door in, was outrageously fascinating. Cecily had a palpable loathing for combinations of colours that most people felt were compatible. Why shouldn’t a sofa be covered in copper lamé with aqua gingham pillows? she’d say. Or, White ceilings are tiresome. When we look up there should be something stimulating. Down here can be quite dull enough, thank you! And, fortunately for her, she had the confidence to do only what pleased her.

Harper thought Peacock Alley looked like a small castle. Three walls of the living room were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, filled to overflowing with what seemed like endless collections of things. The fourth wall was taken up entirely by an ornate white plaster fireplace covered with soaring cherubs and sumptuous ribbons. It resembled a wedding cake and what rather bizarrely added to the effect was a large, dried, blackened remnant of a bride’s bouquet—that Cecily had daubed with gold paint, to give the poor old thing back some life—anchored into the middle of yards of Belgian lace that had been her veil when she married Mowbray McMartin, a taxidermist from Austin, Texas.

The union horrified her parents but Cecily was convinced she had found the one and only man God had in mind for her. That was until he ran off with her fifteen-year-old niece.

In the summer of 1960 she met and married Tristan Foster who, much to her horror and long-lasting sadness, was killed about two years later in a polo accident in rural England. Cecily commissioned a fine English sculptor to produce a bronze bust of Tristan. If one looked carefully, one could see a pair of raised cufflinks fastening the cuffs of his shirt. They were of diamonds and emeralds and had belonged to her great-grandfather. On a whim she decided to give them to Tristan on a train traveling along the French Riviera shortly before it stopped in Portbou, in Northern Spain. They had been drinking champagne and rhapsodizing about how fortunate they were to have found one another—such perfect soul mates—and Cecily popped the cufflinks out of a little silk bag she had in her monogrammed linen purse.

The handsome piece of sculpture arrived at the postal outlet in Blackburn Village a year to the day after Tristan’s death. It looked very important in a gold coloured box lined in quilted red satin and tied with black silk ribbon. Erskine Lomax took it upon himself to deliver the package and he appeared, dressed in his church clothes, at the front door of Peacock Alley. With his interpretation of a flourish, he presented the impressive looking box to Mrs Hobbs-Laughton. From that moment on she told everyone who would listen that Tris was back where he belonged and could keep an eye on her from his vantage point, which was exactly in the middle of the living room mantle, flanked by two exquisite partridge wood tea caddies. Every night before she went to bed, Cecily would turn out the lamp that shone from above him, pat Tristan’s cool head and whisper, I’ll just say goodnight, my darling—I’ll never say goodbye.

Cecily Hobbs-Laughton didn’t live alone in Peacock Alley. She had a treasured housebound companion, Leonard, an African Grey parrot, who was a permanent sentinel on his gold-coloured perch in the corner of the living room. Cecily would often say, He’s an awfully social bird, you know. He’s just like a little man in a grey feather suit. He seemed to like singing better than talking and when he was young he somehow latched onto Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne before Cecily had a chance to christen him. The clever bird made selecting a name very easy. For years afterwards, as Cecily crossed the room to find out what was new in Genoa City, Leonard would warble the theme song from "The Young and the Restless."

Many of the townspeople remembered Leonard’s christening. It was an unusual event, even in Blackburn Village. Reverend Jeremy Hall, filling in for Dr Lindsay Powter during the summer, performed the service outside under an arbour of roses. Leonard behaved beautifully. He must have known that every eye in the garden was on him so instead of squawking he simply cocked his head as the minister patted a few drops of Holy Water on it. No one was exactly sure who had given the bird what to commemorate this special day. Cecily had moved a long mahogany table under a pear tree. On it was a crisp linen cloth covered by heaps of assorted presents for Leonard. There were lots of cards—one simply said, Buy the old bird a treat, and a hundred-dollar bill was clipped to the corner. The Carlisles gave him a sterling silver mug with a cameo of his head on it and his name beautifully engraved, in Snell Round Hand Script, below it. Dainty egg and watercress sandwiches were served along with petit fours, large pots of tea—especially good tea that Cecily bought at Fortnum and Mason every time she was in London—and lemonade for those who preferred something cool. At exactly five o’clock the cups, saucers and glasses were whisked away and several uniformed young women appeared with trays of champagne. Individual members of the party made impromptu toasts to a preening Leonard who looked rather rhapsodic as he sat by a speaker wafting "Famous Blue Raincoat" and comically sang the words into the flawless early evening air.

Occasionally, Cecily would talk in hushed tones about a novelist friend of hers by the name of Kinky Friedman, who lived in New York. Kinky spent the summer months on his ranch in Texas. Sometime in the early nineteen-eighties Cecily journeyed down to Austin to attend a cousin’s wedding. Kinky met her at the airport, and drove her over to Willie Nelson’s tour bus, the Honeysuckle Rose, which had fortuitously just arrived back after many months on the road. She said they stayed up all