Tidings - William Wharton

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walking and I don’t have it. Some people can safely back up at full speed using only the rear-view mirror. I need to twist all the way around and look directly back to have even half a chance.

      Loretta’s up on her knees, rubbing the rear-view window clean, trying to give directions in a calm but clear tone of voice so she won’t spook me. Ben is scrunched down in the seat beside me, avoiding flying glass. I’m going fast as I can, twisting my bad back, rushing to get to that place before a car entering the correct direction gets there. We just beat out a Peugeot 505; the driver smiles grimly and waits while I make a messy four-swing park, then he zooms down the street past us. We sit a moment while I recoup my calm.

      Shopping in Nevers is always fun. The old streets are decorated, but nothing too gaudy. There are no loudspeakers playing Christmas carols. The main streets are blocked so there are no cars. The stores are old-fashioned, mostly with creaky, shined hardwood floors. The elevators are wire cages which jiggle, then bounce when they stop. They only take people up; you walk down.

      We go our separate ways, agreeing to meet by the car at three. That way we can hope to get home before dark. At this latitude, this time of year, with clouded skies, five is almost night. I find a good, practically prebuilt but put-it-together-yourself, rubber-band model of a Sopwith Camel World War I airplane. I buy a waffle iron for the family, and an electronic game of Battleship for Ben. We’ll leave the waffle iron at the mill where there’s always time for leisurely breakfasts. I find an easy-to-operate Polaroid camera for Lor and buy two packs of film. I buy some holders and candles for the Christmas tree.

      I’ve arranged with a painter friend in Paris to paint portraits of the girls. He’s good, they’re the right age to be painted and he could use the money; a triple-threat Christmas present.

      Ever since the girls reached thirteen, I’ve had no chance at all of buying them a present they like. Buying any clothing is catastrophic, witness the orange raincoat I bought Maggie for her fifteenth birthday, the knee-length boots for Nicole on her fourteenth Christmas. Apparently I’m the same problem for them. I’d hate to be buying anything for me, I can’t think of one thing I want; at least anything someone could buy. Nobody can buy time, or love, or understanding. They’re too perishable, difficult to transport.

      We congregate at the car. Even Ben’s bought a few things so we’re almost as packed as I was coming down from Paris. Loretta climbs in the back seat and we pile packages on her; Ben with his long legs can’t fit back there and Lor’s afraid of the suicide seat in a car.

      When we turn off the main Nevers road into the back country it’s past four o’clock, darkness is coming on and although the fields and trees around us are still covered with snow, the narrow roads are relatively clear. I switch up to my high beams, not because it’s that dark yet, but to compensate for my lack of horn going around curves. The local driver in this area still thinks he’s the only automobile within fifty kilometers and hogs the crown of the road. Death by deux chevaux is far more common than impalement by wild boar around here.

      We happily come down the icy Vauchot hill and pull up in front of our place. The mill is unique in that it’s built into the dam forming the pond; this road on which we’re arriving is about fifteen feet below dam level. The grange-cum-garage and the cellar open onto the road. The portion of the mill we’ve converted for living, where I’ve spent the past three days hustling, trying to get it into living order, opens onto the top of the dam. Our door up there is only ten feet from the pond itself, practically level with it.

      We start unloading. Ben helps me untie our mini-Christmas tree. I delay putting our car in the grange so I can be inside the mill when they first see all my refurbishments, drapes, rehung cabinets, general cleanup, holly, pine boughs, decorations.

      Loretta and Ben walk around to the damside door with some of the provisions. I dash through the cellar, up those steps through our hingeless trap door, into the main room. I turn on the lights, put a match to my preset fire and turn up the new butane heater before they arrive. I open the damside door from the inside and step back without comment.

      Ben moves to his guns which I’ve hung beside the fireplace.

      Lor is wonderfully appreciative; makes it all worthwhile, remarks on the drapes, the clean windows, ‘even in the dark they glisten’. She exclaims over the decorations, comments on the general order and cleanliness. I was lucky enough to marry a woman who has good nesting feelings. But I still have the uneasy feeling she’s only going through the motions, play-acting, pretending, trying to make me happy. I hope I can hold onto her somehow. I hate to think of life without her.

      The fire took on perfectly with one match and isn’t smoking. Lor even notices I cleared out those damned ashes.

      Ben and I haul the rest of our things from the car while Loretta puts them away. I make my mad, sliding run through the snow and slushy mud, maneuvering our car into the garage without hitting any motorcycles or motorcycle gas tanks, carburetors, extra wheels or rusting tools. I manage to match and close the interlocking device securing the big doors, wiggle through the small door and miss the greater part of the mud. On my way through the cellar, I gather an armful of dry tinder to start our fire next morning.

      It’s a strong, good feeling having the nucleus of our family together again. Stone walls, heavy wooden beams, even a glowing fire, a shimmering pond and a splashing waterfall, can never replace or compensate for feelings of love and loving. I know my sleep tonight will be different than it’s been these past three nights. When I sleep alone, I sleep deeply, dreamlessly; the night seems to just disappear. Sleeping with Lor, I dream, I wake for brief periods. I know I’m sleeping and I don’t feel alone.

      After dinner, we light the red candles in a silver candle holder I found and shined. They look beautiful on top of our new red remnant tablecloth. Lor and I sing Christmas carols; Ben listens. I’ve jammed the small Nevers tree into the center hole to one of the reserve millstones. This stone is flat on the floor just to the left of the door as you come in from the dam. Once there were two stones in that place, one on top of the other; but I moved the upper stone as a base for our fireplace.

      It took three automobile jacks, two levels, several inclined planes and half a heart attack moving that stone against the wall, then constructing our fireplace on it. The fireplace is heavy, more or less squared-off stone, rounded, projecting into the room, sort of a Dutch oven, with a throat resembling the entrance to a cave.

      The smell of the fire, our mini-tree, the pine boughs, burning candles fills everything. The second night of Christmas is upon us. And I still don’t know what to do. I’ve got to tell Lor, it isn’t fair to just let it go on like this.

      Later, when we’re tucked in bed listening to the roar of the waterfall from the pond, the crackling of our fire, the deep breathing of Ben sleeping on a cot in front of the fire, Lor does her usual just-before-going-to-sleep ‘sigh’ and says ‘I guess we’ll hear from the girls tomorrow; they should be in Paris today.’

      I think to myself that in less than an hour Ben will be fifteen. It won’t be long before we’ll be having all our Christmases alone, if we’re lucky enough to stay together. Right then, for the first time, I realize I’ve lived with Lor almost twice as long as I’ve lived with anybody else in my life. Since my parents are dead, and I’m an only child, I’ve known her longer than anybody else. She’s the closest thing to a ‘reality’ I know.

      The day after Christmas will be our thirtieth anniversary.

      Next morning, while we’re having breakfast, Madame Le Moine peers into the damside door and knocks. She’s come all the way around up onto the dam and down our narrow, slippery, stone steps. I’d made arrangements for her to get the number if anyone phoned and tie a dish towel on her door handle. I can see her door easily from our west window and I’ve been checking regularly for it the past few days.

      Madame Le Moine recently celebrated her eightieth birthday. Five months ago, she had a stroke which left her partially paralyzed and with failing memory. She’s almost completely recovered now, but definitely shouldn’t be running around delivering phone messages in this mud and snow.

      We’re

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