Alma (11 page)

Except one, she said to herself. She looked at the name written in black ink underneath her own, the letters wavering, scrawled by an arthritic hand.

Why did you stop writing?

A
lma remembered almost nothing of the farm where she was born, but sometimes images would flash in her mind like the sun on glass when she opened the window of her room. Lounging on her bed one hot, sticky morning, daydreaming with her eyes closed, she saw roads of red dirt rising and falling as they crossed a rolling green countryside of farms and woodlots. The Queen Anne’s lace, goldenrod, St. John’s wort and vetch trimmed the shoulders of the roads with white and yellow and purple. Fields stretched to the sky. The potatoes were well along, their flowers blown and faded; the barley was a shimmering green, the oats toasty-gold, plump ears nodding
in the breeze. Later, as she strolled down Little Wharf Road on her way to the Chenoweth house, she tried to recall what it had been like living on the farm, but she couldn’t.

The routine at the Chenoweth house was unchanged by summer. True, Miss Olivia and Miss Lily had exchanged their heavy dark dresses and shawls for cotton and gingham, the fireplace was swept and inactive, and there was a brand-new electric table fan in the parlour for the hottest days, but the letter writing continued. It had taken Alma two weeks to catch up on the correspondence that had awaited her in the bulging folder on the desk. Now she went “to work,” as her mother called it, whenever she wanted.

And, most times, if the weather was fine, she and Miss Lily went for a walk. Leaning on her walking stick, the author took each step stiffly and with care. At times they talked. At others, they walked silently and companionably along the sidewalks of Charlotte’s Bight. Miss Lily, Alma had learned, was a great believer in silence. “Do not speak,” she once commanded Alma, “unless you can improve upon tranquility.” Alma hadn’t been quite sure what the author meant, but she got the idea.

On this day, they had gone to the park by the harbour and taken a bench with a view of the river mouth, where the tide ran strong, carrying jellyfish and strings of kelp upriver. The bench stood under an oak tree. Miss Lily sat on the shady side.

“Are you looking forward to commencing school again?” she asked, breaking Alma’s reverie. “There are two weeks left of your summer.”

“Sort of,” Alma replied. “I’ve got Mr. Strachan this year. He’s strict. And he always has speckles of dandruff on the shoulders of his jacket. And he wears the same tie, every day. That’s what Robbie Thornton says.”

Alma saw a smile begin to form at the corners of Miss Lily’s lips. “Does this Mr. Strachan allow you to write stories?”

“I don’t know. I guess so. But he doesn’t have penmanship.”

“In any case, I hope you’ll continue to write stories on your own.”

“Oh, I will. I started a new one yesterday.”

Alma’s confidence in her writing had blossomed when Miss Lily had told her she thought “The Dream-ary” is wonderful. “I love it,” Miss Lily had said. Alma had glowed with pleasure.
Imagine, having your story praised by your favourite real live writer. Later she began to doubt herself. Maybe Miss Lily was just being polite. Then Alma reminded herself that Miss Lily was very blunt and honest and straightforward. No, Alma had concluded, if Miss Lily thought my story was no good she would have said so.

As they sat on the bench, listening to the cries of the gulls wheeling over the estuary, the laughter of little kids on the swings behind them, the faint notes from the old man playing the fiddle over by the ice cream stand, Alma screwed up her courage.

“Miss Lily, could I ask you something?”

“You just did,” the writer replied. “Remind me why it’s silly to ask someone if you can ask her something.”

“Because you can’t un-ask a question,” Alma recited.

“Fine. Now go ahead.”

“Why did you stop writing books?”

Miss Lily turned her head in the direction of the estuary, where a sailboat was passing through the swing bridge, its sails furled, its motor
chug-chug-chugging
as it headed toward the gap. She stared for a long time. Alma began
to fidget. She had upset Miss Lily. After all, it was none of her business why the writer had abandoned her vocation.

“It is difficult to explain,” Miss Lily replied, turning to Alma. “When I began the Centreworld books, I had no plans to continue once the trilogy was complete. By the time the third novel was published, I had conceived the idea for Alterworld, which was, as you know, an even larger project.”

“Four volumes,” Alma said.

“By the time I had finished my seventh book, fourteen—no, fifteen—years had passed. Fifteen years of extremely difficult, concentrated effort. I was tired.”

Alma kept silent.

“And,” Miss Lily continued after a minute, “as you know, I didn’t at all appreciate the public attention. In particular, those who felt that they could delve into my past or write articles pretending to know everything about my personal life and my work.”

Alma knew a little about Miss Lily’s past, but she said nothing, willing the author to continue, using her silence to encourage more talk.

“But the main thing, I think, was that I had simply lost my passion for telling stories. That’s
something you know about, Alma, the passion, because you have it.”

Alma thought she knew what Miss Lily meant, but she wasn’t sure. “Tell me what it’s like,” she said. “Please.”

“Perhaps,” Miss Lily began, “it is, above all things, lonely. So many hours by oneself, lost in research or imaginings. Then there is the lack of understanding. So many people seem to think that all one has to do is find an idea for a story and write it down. They talk of inspiration as if it replaced grinding toil, the wrestling with ideas and character and narrative structure, the revising, the arguments with editors. And worst of all, the corroding self-doubt that will not go away no matter how well received the books are.”

Miss Lily looked away again.

“All of which sounds like a complaint,” she went on, “but I don’t mean it that way. What gets us through is the thrill of making something out of nothing. It’s the passion to tell the story that means so much to us.”

Miss Lily seemed to run out of energy with her last sentence. She swallowed and looked again toward the estuary. A fresh breeze swept through the gap, cool and salty. A fishing boat
was crossing the harbour, leaving a creamy wake behind.

Alma thought of her own excitement when an idea for a story slipped into her head and began to make room for itself, like a tenant in an apartment where she plans to stay for a long time. The thrill that swelled as the narrative grew and took form. The sense of satisfaction when the tale appeared on the page in Alma’s cursive uncials.

“Don’t you miss it?” she asked.

Miss Lily shrugged her shoulders. But the look on her face, Alma thought, said
Yes
.

“Do you think you’ll ever get it back?” Alma persisted, but she saw that Miss Lily had finished. Her face, which had brightened moments earlier, seemed to close in again, stiff and wrinkled.

“There was a time, a long time, when I would have said no to that question. Now, I’m not so sure. At any rate, help me to my feet. You’ve worn me out with your prattling, Alma Neal.”

They made their way up Little Wharf Road, the afternoon sun on their shoulders. Alma was thinking. Miss Lily had hinted that she might regain the passion she had described. Did that mean things had changed? Would RR Hawkins write again?

“D
ear RR Hawkins,” Alma wrote in her awkward Hattie Scrivener hand. “I am writing to make a confession to you.”

Alma stopped to consider her words carefully. She had decided, after that day in the park with Miss Lily, that she ought to tell the truth about Hattie Scrivener.

“I am not who you think I am,” she put down. She stopped again. Maybe it isn’t such a good idea to be honest, she thought, placing her pen on the kitchen table. After all, honesty could hurt people sometimes, like when your best friend asked you if you liked her new blouse and you didn’t and you wanted to tell her she looked hideous but you knew that
would hurt her feelings but if you didn’t tell her the truth she’d wear the horrible blouse and people would laugh at her and it would be your fault and—

Alma shook her head and picked up her fountain pen again. Such thinking was too confusing. Since Miss Lily had been so open with her about the most—or one of the most—important things in her life, her writing, then Alma couldn’t go on deceiving her. Miss Lily had been dictating letters to a girl who didn’t exist, and no matter how Alma looked at it, that wasn’t fair.

“I am really someone you know,” Alma continued.

On Thursday afternoon after school, Alma took the letter to the Chenoweth house. She
tapped on the door and let herself in. At the end of July, Miss Olivia had told Alma she needn’t wait; she should rap loudly with the knocker and enter the house.

Alma didn’t see Miss Lily that day, and Miss Olivia appeared only for a moment, looking less cheerful than usual, and very busy. Miss Lily was feeling a little under the weather, she said. So Alma copied the letters that had been left for her in the file and, on her way out, laid her Hattie letter on the table in the hall.

Saturday morning was dreary and chilly, with low clouds and a damp breeze out of the northeast—a sign that bad weather lurked over the horizon. Alma had breakfast with her mother, who looked tired and drawn after a very late night at the Liffey.

“Take your raincoat and umbrella,” Clara said as Alma slipped into the “new” autumn jacket that her mother had found at the Salvation Army thrift store. “It looks like dirty weather. I’m going back to bed for a bit.”

The dry leaves rattled on the tossing branches as Alma made her way down Little Wharf Road, the wind on the side of her face.
She hurried up the path and banged the brass knocker and pushed open the door.

“Hello, Miss Lily. Hello, Miss Olivia,” she called out, hanging her jacket on the rack by the door, taking in the fragrance of warm biscuits and coffee and fried bacon.

Miss Olivia called back a greeting from the kitchen, where the rattle of dishes told Alma that the breakfast washing-up was in progress. Alma entered the sitting room. In the middle of “her” desk was an envelope. She recognized the spidery, unsteady handwriting immediately. “To Alma.”

Should she read it now? Or wait until her work was done? Alma opened the folder. There were three letters to copy. She put aside the envelope with her name on it and flipped open the inkwell lid. A half-hour later, she had completed her duties.

She sat back in her chair. Should she read her letter here? Or wait until she got home?

Alma decided to take it back to her room. She stuffed the envelope into the pocket of her jacket and went into the kitchen. Miss Olivia sat at the table, four or five small bottles of brown glass before her. She opened a bottle, shook pills into the palm of her hand, counted
them and replaced them in the bottle, then made a note on a small pad.

“I’m finished for today, Miss Olivia,” Alma said. She was trying hard to think of an excuse so that she wouldn’t have to talk to Miss Lily.

“All right, dear,” Olivia Chenoweth said. “I’m afraid Mother won’t be able to speak with you today. She doesn’t feel awfully well.”

“Oh,” Alma said, relieved, but pricked by a pang of guilt. “I hope she’s better soon.”

“I’m sure she will be.”

“Well, goodbye, then.”

“Dear Hattie Scrivener,” Alma read, curled up on the couch in her room as the wind blustered outside the window. “Thank you for your most recent letter. Looking back, I recall that we have been corresponding for some months, some five or six letters, and all that time, you now admit, you were someone else.”

Alma felt a little sick to her stomach, the way she always did when she knew she had been caught doing something wrong. She looked up from the page at the new leather-bound novels given to her by RR Hawkins. I’ve done it again,
she thought. I’ve ruined everything. Why did I have to confess? I should have written one last letter as Hattie Scrivener and let it go at that.

She didn’t want to finish the letter, to read the criticism she deserved, to hear disappointment shouting through the wavery handwriting. But she looked back to the page.

“I myself have a confession to make,” the letter went on.

“A
nd what’s this important thing, do you think?” Clara asked the next morning as she sprinkled water onto a pillowcase before ironing it.

“I don’t know, Mom. She said she wanted to talk to you and me.”

Alma hadn’t told her mother about the letter. She pretended the invitation had come when she was at the Chenoweth house the day before.