Puttering About in a Small Land

  The park, visible to her, had in it a series of tennis courts. Yes, this was where they held the tennis matches. And the music festivals, too. Beyond the town, the Valley extended to the mountains, surfaces perpendicular to each other, meeting at right angles. As if, she thought, she were down at the bottom, standing where she could see up the sides. But the Valley was large; she did not feel cramped. Yet the mountains existed in every direction. No other route back, except over them. Only two roads—according to her map—and each as hazardous and steep as the other.

  “Isn’t it lovely?” she said to Gregg, who had wandered over beside her.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “We were in those mountains,” she said. “We drove through them. Wasn’t that exciting?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  Feeling restless, she began to roam around, out of the library and into the hall, past the desk and then back again. An office door was open, and books in stacks covered the floor, a single book repeated over and over again, a textbook. It reminded her of her own childhood, this peeping into unfamiliar schoolrooms for the first time, the smells of varnish and paper, the storerooms such as this.

  From a side doorway a woman appeared, noticed her, and said, “Can I help you?” This woman, middle-aged, with a strong beaked nose, wore slacks and a sailcloth shirt, her rimless glasses gave her a forceful look and she walked with that straight, practical authority that Virginia remembered so well: this woman had the unadorned vitality of the professional schoolmistress, a type that had kept order among the young since the days of the Roman country villas. Surely this was Mrs. Alt.

  “I’m Virginia Lindahl,” Virginia said.

  “Oh yes!” The woman put out her hand. “I’m Edna Alt.” Her hair was brushed back and tied with—heavens—a rubber band. And her cheeks, although firm, had a grayish cast, probably from hiking and from supervising leathercraft out under the sun. “I’ll take a chance and address you as Virginia,” Mrs. Alt said, smiling a smile that made Virginia think, This is how they smile at you when you join their active revolutionary party. “Is this Gregg?”

  “Yes,” she said. “You know, Mrs. Alt, I wish somebody had told me about the drive; those turns down the mountain…”

  “If the school bus can make it, a twenty-year-old bus, you can, too,” Mrs. Alt said, still smiling the underlying message which had to do with confidence and knowing to rely on your own ability. But it was a genial message, even optimistic; Virginia did not resent it. To Mrs. Alt, everyone had great potentialities, and it was a doctrine that Virginia applauded. The same tone had got into Mrs. Alts letters, and that was one of the reasons why Virginia had chosen the Los Padres School over the others.

  “I think I met your bus,” Virginia said.

  But Mrs. Alt had already transferred her attention to Gregg. “My,” Mrs. Alt said, without making it sound fatuous or quaint; it was more of her enthusiasm, a spontaneous expression. “This is the little boy who has trouble with his breathing. Is that your Adrenalin spray?” She held out her hand. “You know what I bet, Gregg? I bet you won’t need that up here.”

  Virginia thought, It’s fine to talk like that if you can pull it off. And, she thought, I hope to God you can, Mrs. Alt, because it’s going to cost me two-hundred-and-fifty dollars a month.

  “Would you like to see your room?” Mrs. Alt asked Gregg, who stared up at her mutely. “You may, if you want.” Taking his spray from him she held onto his hand and began to guide—lead, really—him toward the stairs. Gregg hung back. “Or you can go outside. I believe James is shoeing one of the horses. Have you ever watched a horse being shod?” In her voice appeared a hushed, mysterious tone, as if she were letting the boy in on some secret of worth. Virginia was reminded of the children’s programs on the radio; those ladies talked that way, too. Perhaps it had become an occupational dialect. But Gregg, by degrees, began to respond.

  Remaining where she was she watched Mrs. Alt pilot Gregg outdoors, onto the stone terrace, and then down a flight of steps. And now, Virginia thought, into the pot with you, young man. This is where we boil the new children.

  But, she thought, the woman’s good at it. She is no fool. My mother and Mrs. Alt; they would get along. What a pair.

  Mrs. Alt returned at a great rate, striding as if she had been hiking for miles. “We stopped for a minute to watch them put up tents,” she said to Virginia. “When it’s warm enough we sleep outdoors. The air is excellent up here.”

  “His asthma’s better,” Virginia said. She felt a little afraid of Mrs. Alt.

  “Yes, I thought he was breathing normally. How far back does his history of respiratory difficulty go? I’m thinking that it may be the result of an emotional situation in the home environment, rather than the smog. Could that be? Come into the office so I can get your letter from the file.” Mrs. Alt had already started along the hall.

  The office smelled of soap. As she arranged her coat over her lap, Virginia saw that the smell came from a washroom. A picture entered her mind: the faculty, all of them ladies with eyeglasses and encouraging smiles, washing their hands regularly, perhaps every hour. Perhaps at the ring of a bell. But the aura of the school seemed to be one of warmth, not harshness; the rule here was enthusiasm.

  Lighting a cigarette, Virginia said, “The two-fifty is going to cut deep, but we feel it’s worth it.”

  “Eh,” Mrs. Alt said, pausing and glancing at her sideways. “I see.”

  Silence, then. Mrs. Alt found the letter and read it over; she finished, pushed it aside, leaned back, and scrutinized Virginia.

  “Why do you want to put him in the school?”

  Taken aback, Virginia said, “Because—it would be good for him.”

  “Why?” With a gesture of dismissal, Mrs. Alt spun Virginia’s letter all the way around.

  “Well,” Virginia said, “the home situation is bad; tensions and—”

  “I ask that,” Mrs. Alt interrupted, “because I want to be sure you’re not simply trying to get out from under the responsibility of raising a child.”

  “Now look,” Virginia said.

  “Is Gregg happy at home?”

  “Well,” she said, drawling with mortification.

  “What does he think about living up here? He’s never lived away from home before, has he? He’s always been with you.”

  “I feel he’s breaking down under the tensions that he has to cope with in the home, which aren’t his fault.” She stared at a place on the floor. What had she got herself into here?

  “I see,” Mrs. Alt said.

  “Good Lord,” Virginia said, “I’m not completely ignorant of my own motivations.”

  Folding her hands together on her desk, Mrs. Alt said, “How does your husband feel?”

  “He’s—not overly sold on the idea. I’ll admit that.”

  “What’s his relationship with Gregg?”

  “Good. As far as it goes. That is, Roger is involved with his work.” She added, “As I mentioned in my letter, he owns a retail television store. It takes a good deal of time. Usually he doesn’t get home until after Gregg is in bed. The only time he sees him—you understand of course that the store is open all day Saturday—is on Sunday. And even then, Roger sometimes goes down to the store to get caught up.”

  Mrs. Alt said, “How are you and you husband getting along?”

  “Oh,” she said, “fine.” How humiliating it was.

  “What about these—tensions?”

  Virginia groaned.

  “Would you rather not discuss it with me?” Mrs. Alt asked.

  “No. I don’t care. It just seems a little gratuitous.” After an interval she resumed. “Anyhow, I think I explained in my letter that I have done and am doing now, to some degree, a dance therapy that gives me some opportunity to gain an insight into psychological workings, including my own, and my husband’s. And the home situation.”

  “You did mention that,” Mrs. Alt said noncommittally. She did not appear to be impresse
d.

  “It’s important to realize,” Virginia said, “that Roger and I have radically different histories.”

  “What on earth,” Mrs. Alt broke in, “can you possibly mean by that? I get so impatient—” Arising, she paced around the room, slapping her arms together around herself, and then sat down again. “How old are you, Virginia? You’re still in your twenties, aren’t you? Well, say thirty. And you talk like some decrepit psychiatrist from back in the—what would you call it?—lets say back in the Popular Front Days. I mean these—terms. Can’t you come out and say what you mean, do you have to play these word games?”

  Virginia said, “I guess a schoolmistress is used to treating everyone as a child to be corrected.” She was angry, but she also was amused, in a sour ironic fashion; after all, she had sized up Mrs. Alt in much the same terms.

  “Am I doing that?” Mrs. Alt considered. “No,” she said, rejecting Virginia’s account. “I’m just trying to get you to come down to earth. Look, let’s get out of here; let’s get outdoors in the sun and out of this stuffy office.”

  Starting off, she glanced back over her shoulder. Virginia put out her cigarette, collected her coat and purse, and followed her outdoors, into the hot, bright sunlight. Mrs. Alt led her from the building and down a long dirt roadway; the clumps of dried mud broke under their shoes, and once Virginia stumbled. Mrs. Alt, of course, had on low-heeled workshoes. The air burned Virginia’s throat and again she thought of coffee. But she was being taken away from the dining room and kitchens, toward a series of wooden shed-like outbuildings.

  “You can help us air out the canvas,” Mrs. Alt said.

  “Not in these clothes,” Virginia said.

  “Well,” Mrs. Alt said, smiling, “then you can supervise.” She slowed so that Virginia could catch up with her. “It won’t hurt you, Virginia. What would you say if I told you I thought rolling out canvas, outdoors in the sun, is a lot better for a person than dance therapy or any of the so-called creative psychological therapies?”

  “I don’t know what I’d say,” Virginia said, feeling low.

  “I won’t try you, then.”

  A gang of children, wearing nothing but khaki shorts, sat on a flat grassy plot, spreading out canvas tents. Most of them seemed older than Gregg. Gregg was not among them.

  “Fine,” Mrs. Alt said, supervising.

  “Mrs. Alt,” one of the boys said, “I found a toad in one of the tents; can I keep it?”

  “Is it alive?”

  “Well, it moves some. I think if I give it some grass to eat it’ll be okay.”

  Watching the activity, Virginia could not ignore the fact that the girls—three of them, eight or nine years old—had no tops on; like the boys, they wore only shorts. Of course, eight years old was young…she debated in her mind. Not that it mattered. But there were certainly two schools of thought on the topic. The skin of the children shone dark brown. They did look healthy. It would be hard to imagine asthma here, she thought. Colds and asthma, turn elsewhere. The children seemed happy, but subdued.

  “Take a careful look at your toad,” Mrs. Alt was saying, “and see if it has a precious jewel set in its head.”

  Virginia laughed with outrage.

  After no jewel had been discovered by any of the children, Mrs. Alt returned to Virginia, drew her to one side, and said to her, “Would you like a short little snap judgment of you, Virginia? An on-the-spot word picture? I’d say you’re intelligent, very well educated, basically kindly, but rather nasty out of what I’d call ignorance. Arrogant nastiness, at that. You know, the more I talk to you the more I agree that Gregg should be here with us. You’re convincing me.” She put her arm around Virginia and squeezed her, an action that horrified Virginia.

  As evenly as possible, Virginia said, “Well Mrs. Alt, I’ll think it over and let you know.”

  “Let me know?”

  “Yes,” she said. “We have a couple of days, don’t we, until the beginning of the semester… I’ll phone you or write.” As far as she was concerned it was all off. She had endured enough.

  Mrs. Alt said, “You’re capable of real anger, aren’t you? I thought you were. Virginia, you drove up here with the intention of putting Gregg in the school. Now, you’re old enough and bright enough not to change your mind because your feelings are a little bit hurt.”

  “Damn you if you do, damn you if you don’t,” she said in a state of despair. “What am I supposed to do?”

  Leading her by the arm, Mrs. Alt started back along the dirt road. “Just calm yourself. Tell me about your radically different histories.”

  Virginia said, “Is it possible that I can get a cup of coffee?”

  “We’ll have lunch. It’s at least twelve, isn’t it? The children have already had their lunch…there’re only a few of them here, so we don’t open the dining room; we let them eat in the kitchen. Will it bother you to eat with some of the teachers? I think they’re in there about now.”

  “I don’t care,” Virginia said.

  In the kitchen two women and a man sat at a yellow wooden table, eating and talking. The cook, an immense Mexican woman in her sixties, prepared lunch at the oil-burning range and a younger woman, sweet-faced, also Mexican, set out dishes. The kitchen was larger than Virginia had expected; it was like an auditorium. The range took up one whole side. The glasses and plates were stacked on shelves, as clean as could be. Mrs. Alt introduced her to the teachers, but the names passed over her; she had fallen into a dulled, somber mood, and all she could think of was sitting down and getting the coffee.

  “How long have you lived out here in California?” Mrs. Alt asked her, seated across from her beside the male teacher.

  “Since 1944,” she answered. The coffee steamed; she found it hot and fairly good. “Before that we lived in Washington, D.C. We met there.”

  Mrs. Alt said, “Gregg is a little undersize, isn’t he? Is he eight?”

  “Seven and a half.”

  “You know that we have a physical examination for each of the children during the first month they’re here. We expect to have the usual ailments—we keep a trained nurse always on the grounds—but after all, this is a school and not a hospital. If Gregg’s attacks become too acute we won’t be able to keep him. However, I don’t think they will be.”

  “The spray takes care of it,” Virginia said. “He knows how to use the spray. If it gets worse he has an inhaler. But you’d have to help him with that; it means setting it up over heat and mixing the herbs or whatever they are.” She was listless now. “He’s never needed that. I don’t even remember where I put it.” She finished, “And anyhow that’s the whole point. If he’s not better off up here we don’t want to leave him here. We really don’t like the idea of sending him away from home. But as I started to explain, we don’t agree on a lot of basic points—Roger and myself, I mean. He has his ideas and they’re not the same as mine.” She sipped her coffee.

  “Were you both born in Washington?”

  “I was born in Boston,” she, said. “Roger was born in the Middle West.”

  “Why don’t you want to tell me where?”

  She shrugged. “Arkansas, I think.” Whenever she said it she felt her flesh crawl. “He had a very poverty-stricken childhood. During the Depression they lived on relief and charity. I guess it was common enough. Potato peels from the family next door.” The topic filled her with torpor; she recited the information mechanically. “My family was better off, but of course we all felt it. Anyhow—” She drew herself up and rested her elbows on the table, holding her cup at chin-level. “Because of his own childhood—he really doesn’t talk much about it so I get it piecemeal—Roger worries about a lot of things that don’t bother me, financial matters for instance. Food, for another. They never got all they wanted to eat, although I don’t think they really went hungry. He’s always afraid something will go wrong…if you understand. He’s tense all the time. He spends most of his time down at the store, not doing anything;
sort of—” She gestured. “More or less just keeping his eye on it. To be sure it’s there.”

  “Won’t the two-fifty a month increase his anxiety?”

  “Well yes,” she admitted. “But then Gregg won’t be there. So presumably it won’t affect him.”

  The three teachers had their own conversation going, but they were also listening.

  Mrs. Alt said, “I can’t see any improvement in your situation if this bankrupts you.”

  “It won’t,” she said shortly.

  “We have an arrangement by which you could apply for a grant. Some of the children come in that way; the parents pay part of the tuition, interested groups pay the rest.”

  “We can manage it,” Virginia said. “If we decide to go ahead.” She drank more of her coffee. “And we don’t agree on basic matters such as religion. Roger doesn’t have any religious convictions; in fact he’s against religious training. I don’t want Gregg raised in that atmosphere. I don’t want him raised, either, where there’s a contempt for education and learning in general.”

  Mrs. Alt said, “What does your husband think of your dance-therapy?”

  “Oh,” she said, “he’s indifferent.”

  “Do you have any interests in common?”

  “Of course we have,” Virginia said, not caring at the moment.

  For several minutes Mrs. Alt discussed some trivial items with the teachers. Virginia ate the sandwich they had placed before her, finished her coffee, lit a cigarette. Nobody offered her a match; the male teacher—in sweater and slacks, with tie—was involved in conversation. She glanced at her wristwatch. The road, she thought. The godawful trip back. Her great dread now was that for one reason or another she would be delayed and have to drive back after dark.

  To Mrs. Alt she said, “I’d better go round up Gregg. We should start home soon.”

  “Bring him inside,” Mrs. Alt said, “so he can have his lunch, too. He hasn’t eaten, has he?”