224. Grandma's Stand

224. Grandma’s Stand

“Arley, sweetheart, I have to speak with you in private. And I hope you are civilized enough to understand me, because hardly anyone is.”

“I sure will try to, Grandma,” I said.

I have a window seat in my bedroom, a comfortable long and wide one, and we sat there to talk.

“When I told you yesterday not to become involved in the Garden War, I didn’t say it would be a mistake because your grandfather and your uncles are a bunch of brutes. I was afraid that might only encourage you to join the fray. Most men would be tempted to prove they can be just as bad or worse. Look, dear, I really hope you are different. I’m going to tell you a story. I suppose you know about how Botolph poisoned the garden to spoil an Easter egg hunt.”

I nodded.

Grandma told me how she had been the one to organize that egg hunt. She had no idea Botolph hated her children so much.

“My boys and all the friends they brought over every day to play in the gardens, or the park, as I prefer to call it, had been having trouble with Botolph, who was then the new gardener. He didn’t want them to play there anymore. But I never imagined he would do more than shoo them off when he caught them wrecking the place. I never imagined he would poison the park to dissuade them from entering it. The Great Hare Eastra came at my bidding and spent the whole night hiding the loveliest eggs, including a solid gold one, all over the place. And when she left, Botolph fumigated it on purpose to foil the hunt.”

She shook her head and wrung her hands anxiously as she went on speaking.

“You know how the children that participated in the hunt got sick, and how there could have been a tragedy, but mercifully there was none. I fired Botolph, but the gnome said he wasn’t moving a toe from those gardens until the master of the house told him to go. And how your grandfather not only refused to fire him but told the children they had to do whatever Botolph commanded.”

Suddenly she looked very angry.

“My sisters and my cousins and my friends all came to ask me how I could allow the gnome to intoxícate their children as well as mine. It was most embarassing. All I could say was that my husband was as contrary as the gardener and wouldn’t let me fire him. I packed my things as well as the children’s stuff and we moved to the house of a great-aunt of mine and  it was full of china and porcelain and lace doilies and antique dolls and such stuff.  The boys said it was too femenine for them to feel comfortable in, for they couldn’t move without breaking something, and that the garden was a cemetery for dead ceramics and so full of rose bushes they couldn’t stretch an arm without being pierced by thorns. So we returned to the family home. We had been kicked out of the garden but we didn't have to kick ourselves out of our own comfortable house. I soon saw that what the boys really wanted wasn’t to live there. They wanted to twist AEternus’ arm. And I know my husband, and I knew he wasn’t going to let anyone tell him what he had to do.”

She smiled wistfully.

“So what I did was call the Earl of Pearl and Ludovica, the constructor and the architect. Back then they still weren’t building ideal houses. That started much later. They were just taking orders for whatever one wanted them to build. I got them to build the best professional football stadium ever so my kids could play there with their  friends. At first they seemed thrilled. The first match they played there was going very well. The teams were even heading towards a draw, that´s how nicely everything was going. There were cheerleaders and hotdogs and peanuts and crackerjack, and cotton candy  and supporters with flags and painted faces and a person with a huge drum, and all the works. We were all very happy. And then suddenly the players left the field and gathered in a corner to talk. Both teams. And then they came to me and said the stadium was great but there is no place like home. You see where I’m heading?”

“I think so,” I said.

“The stadium is now the official stadium of the Ye Fay Football Club in Apple Island. My kids never ever played in it again. They weren’t really interested in footall. Their thing was the war against their father. And all your grandfather said about the stadium was that our kids were a bunch of spoiled brats. And  he refused to admit he was one too when I called them chips off the old block. How far can the apple fall from the tree, Arley?”    

“Grandma,” I said, shaking my head, “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything yet. Just listen. They only played at home, when Botolph slept. Gen and Wildgale would detox the park and they would run all over it like wild men out of  the woods,  like savages out of jungles, like pirates or vikings just landed, wrecking  everything that got in their way. You know how your uncle left home very young, though he would return every day to help me and also some nights, to participate in these games. This was still going on when he had to disappear. While he was away, the rest of my sons moved to their own homes. Parties began to be held at Richearth’s and nobody came to the family home unless there was a pressing reason for it. I barely spoke to your grandfather and he became very isolated. But he didn’t seem to mind. The gnome didn’t just poison the gardens. He destroyed our family, Arley.”

I shook my head in sympathy.

“And Botolph was undisputed king of the park for centuries. Noody entered it, not even AEternus.  But now that Gen has returned, hostilities have resumed. Since his return, Gen only dropped by twice a day to rain or snow on the garden. But a few nights ago or so, I don’t know exactly what happened, but there was a horrible noise that made me almost die of a fright. And I went to the balcony of my bedroom, and there was this young man in the garden blowing a horn, and Gen was hovering in the air, and I couldn’t be heard over the noise, so I couldn’t ask what was happening.”

I nodded because I knew what had been happening.

“And then Botolph appeared shouting curses, I think, I couldn’t hear him well. And Gen began to storm.”

“I know all about this, Grandma. Well, no, not all. But what I don’t know I can guess.”

“Your grandfather told you about it the other night didn’t he?” she nodded. “Well, remember what he has told you is only his version. And now I will tell you…”

I thought she had already told me her version, but it looked like she had more to say about this. But no. I was mistaken. It was something else she told me, though it did have to do with the war.

“…that I’m going to do something I don’t want to do, but that pity obliges me to do.”

She drew a box out of her handbag. You guessed it, it was a box of earplugs.

“I couldn’t put up with the noise. Night after night. So I went to Henny Parry’s and I bought this. I lie. I didn’t buy them. He gave them to me for free. But he asked me not to give any to your grandfather or to his servants. And I had to promise. Now, Arley, if I give them to you, and if you then give them to your grandfather because you pity him, which I am convinced you do, I saw it in your eyes, that would be permissible, wouldn’t it?”

I wasn’t sure it would be, but I decided to think it would.

“Yes, Grandma. It would,” I said.

“We´re doing this out of pity, Arley. It doesn’t mean we lose our neutral status.”

“Our very neutral status,” I nodded.

“It’s only  compassion.”

“What the humans call humane,” I agreed.

“I’m giving you a big box because I know AEternus will want to share it with his employees. These people are sleeping inside vats in the wine cellar, Arley. To flee from the noise. If they weren’t fiercely loyal to him they would have resigned by now.”

“Of course he will share these with them,” I agreed.

“Your mother is very lucky, Arley,” Grandma went on. “When I think of Thymian, who opened the door for me just now, and how he can entertain himself with his bugs and mummies and not bother anyone, and Devin and his computers, and Cespuglio, who I can see through the window right now, sitting there peacefully in a bush guarding the garden like it should be guarded,  without fuss or bombast, I think how lucky your Mum is to have such civilized children.”

“I think my older brothers gave some trouble. There are stories about jousts and tournaments and duels and vinegar paper for broken crowns and needles to sew up flesh with and such.”

“That’s true. But Dev is centuries older than you are, and he was always civilized. A lovely boy.”

“Also true,” I said.

“How well one feels here! How nice it is to be here! There’s peace, but there is also life. By the way, you look tired. Is it that you haven’t slept well or that I have bored you with my monologues?”

“I haven’t slept at all,” I said. “But I will as soon as I get a couple of things done and the first is to give the earplugs to Grandpa.”

“You can do it tomorrow. You should rest first. I know I shouldn’t have overwhelmed you with words. Drowned you in seas of them. Most men only understand short orders.”

“No, I’m fine. I’m good. I don’t drown in seas of words. I like to swim in them. I just don’t want Grandpa to go without the plugs tonight.”

 “You are indeed different. I’m leaving now. I’ve taken up enough of your time.”

“No, Grandma, I like to be useful to you. Aren’t you staying for lunch with Mum?”

“No, not today. I want to be at home in case something even more awful happens. And I want to be there when you give your Grandpa the earplugs.”

“Then we can leave together, but you enter your house first, so he won’t see us together.”