Village of Sycamore

I’m trying to like my mother, but I’m failing miserably, thought Jackie as she dropped her bag onto the dusty floor. It fell heavily down, bending the old creaky floor boards. A dense cloud of dust rose up into the air and it made Jackie sneeze. She waved her hands in front of her, trying to clear the air. ‘I can just hear her voice right now,’ she thought anxiously. ‘Why would you go back to that tiny house which I left as a young girl for a better life in the city?’ Her mother’s sharp voice echoed in her mind as she coughed out the last stubborn particles of dust. ‘Well beats me,’ Jackie said to herself more cheerfully than she felt. She wiped off the gritty dust that covered her face and eyes while trying to shake off the guilty feeling and her mother’s words, which were clinging to her skin, like the dust – unwanted but never the less present. It took awhile for her eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room. She stood in the ray of light coming in from the wide open front door, listening to the chirping birds in the garden watching the specks of dust dance in the bright midday light. The shapes of the furniture slowly took form. It was an old house, an old room, filled with old furniture. The house smelled of must and forgotten ground coffee grains. Jackie could see a yellowing lace tablecloth on top of the three legged table with a vase of plastic flowers in the middle of it. The chairs still had the fabric arm covers on them and the sofa had a set of crocheted pillows placed neatly against the armrests. It all looked so familiar and brought back memories from long gone summers. The care free hot summers, when the most important thing on her mind had been to get to the table on time for lunch and then run out again as soon as it was possible, without coming across as being completely without manners. She could almost feel the sun, the soaking wet bathing suit and the itching mosquito bites on her legs. The memory made her scratch her calves. She hated the mosquitoes with a passion. Her friend Jill called them the last living remnants of the vampire empire. Jackie began walking toward the kitchen, fighting back the increasing sense of panic. She remembered her mother’s voice, sharp enough to penetrate the walls and yet, meant to be considered as normal conversation between her and the neighbour. It was as if Jackie was not in the room directly above with a heating vent by her school desk. ‘That girl has a mind of her own. What can I do?’ Her mother would say without waiting for the polite dismissive response from the puzzled neighbour. ‘When she has something on her mind, she’ll fight for it. She never thinks of anybody else except herself.’ Jackie shrugged her shoulders. The guilt left her for a moment and was soon replaced by a slight resentment. She opened the door to the kitchen. The hinges cried with a deep shriek and old orange rust flakes rubbed off onto the floor of the narrow hallway. Bright light flooded the kitchen from the big windows that looked onto the garden. The uneven floor broads groaned as Jackie walked into the middle of the room. The kitchen looked just like it had every summer of her life, when she had visited her grandmother during her holidays. Jackie felt grief take hold of her as her eyes wandered around the room, taking in all those familiar objects from her childhood: the tea kettle, pots and pans and the Formica table with a wobbly leg that had been balanced with a piece of cardboard stuck under it, waiting to be fixed someday, when there would be more time. She opened the cupboard and saw all the lovely teacups in a blue landscape pattern with sheep and girls in beautiful dresses. She had always loved the one with a girl swinging, the hems of her skirt flying high. She remembered trying to create the same romantic atmosphere by dressing up in her grandmother’s old underskirts and how the pub owner’s son had laughed when he had seen her patterned underwear peaking through the layers of elegant lace. The whole event had ended up in a big fight; a far cry from romantic. She started looking for that one particular cup when she heard the front door open. ‘Hello!’ a strong woman’s voice called. ‘Anybody home?’ The voice continued while its owner and her footsteps were approaching steadily towards the kitchen. Where else could a person be, if there was nobody in the garden and the car was parked in front of the house? A part of an old island philosophy of not knocking and walking straight in without an invitation. The footsteps seemed to follow a familiar pattern. ‘Over here in the kitchen’, Jackie answered tentatively, wondering about this visitor. She stood facing the door and waited for the owner of the voice to come closer. A big, robust and cheerful woman walked, or rather stomped into the kitchen. Her hugeness was not created by her being overweight but by the fact that she simply was a very, very big person. She had a lovely broad face and she had the presence of a large man. Her hands were big and adorned with many gold rings that seemed to be several sizes too small. Her voice was loud and warm and filled the air effortlessly. It was the kind of voice you hear in 1940’s films when there is a scene in a school room. The busty head mistress stomps into the class room wearing a dress with the buttons on the front stretched to their utmost limit and the happy voices of the children die down and yes, you could hear a pin drop. Right now it was so quiet that you could truly have heard a pin drop as Jackie stared curiously at her first visitor and waiting for her to say something. ‘Let me look at you’, the woman cried enthusiastically, surprising Jackie with her familiarity. ‘We had been wondering when you would be coming back, because as you know; once an islander, always an islander,’ she continued speaking with a loud voice and suddenly grabbing Jackie by her shoulders to have a better look at her. ‘Oh?’ Jackie was only able to mumble in the firm grip of those strong hands. ‘Yes, yes….nothing stays unknown here, darling.’ The woman moved a bit closer to Jackie. ‘And I mean nothing.’ She leaned back again and then added, ‘A good thing to keep in your mind’. She gave a knowing look, pursing her lips and raising her bushy eyebrows. Jackie stared at her, not knowing what to say. She was about to mumble something in the line of – oh thank you, when the woman exclaimed loudly. ‘So you have come back’. She clasped her hands together tightly and began walking around the kitchen. Her weight made the old floor boards creak sadly with each step she took. ‘You got tired of that bustling city life and wanted peace of mind and a more economical place to live.’ The woman stated and winked, looking over her gold rimmed glasses. ‘I guess’, Jackie said tentatively and stared at the strange woman in her kitchen. ‘Yes that’s what we all came here for.’ The woman continued. ‘All of a sudden the whole island filled up with people who wanted to stretch a penny a bit further.’ Jackie’s eyes were glued to this woman who was opening and closing her grandmother’s cupboard doors looking for something. ’Have we met?’ She finally had to ask, because as much as she tried she could not remember meeting this woman before. ‘No, not really, but I have heard a great deal about you and your mother’, answered the woman as she took two teacups from the cupboard while exclaiming cheerfully, ‘There you are!’ She walked to the sink and turned on the taps. The water gurgled in the pipes before shooting forcefully out of the faucet. The woman let the water run for awhile, till the colour of it was not so horrifyingly rusty. ‘Tea?’ She asked as she rolled up her sleeves and revealed two thick forearms. ‘Uh…tea…yes, why not’, Jackie mumbled absentmindedly, ‘My mother?’ She fixed her eyes on the woman. ‘You knew her then?’ A surprised disbelief showed in her voice.