I took tea and grapes with Reverend De Witt Talmadge this morning, and the Reverend – a strong, fat little man with a corkscrew moustache and a tendency towards religiosity in his dressing – was most interested to hear of my life instruction book. ‘Tell me,’ he said in his wonderful Bostonian drawl – he is a real wild west preacher! – ‘Mrs Lax,’ he lay one leg over the other, as he held his teacup American style in the crook of his arm, sucking pensively through a crystal straw, ‘will your book,’ here he nibbled at a Emprote biscuit from a batch I had recently made (…Cook make for me), ‘instruct young people in how to die?’
‘Another grape, Reverend?’ I asked, then the full impact of his words hit on me. ‘How to die, Reverend De Witt Talmadge?’ I gasped. ‘Truly you are an extraordinary thinker. Why, no-one can be told how to die! Another grape? Do have one.’ I then returned to the main theme. ‘Indeed, that is possibly – dare I say it – blasphemous talk, and as Young Rogers might say, I call bullshit on it!’
‘Thank you, I will have another grape, Mrs. Lax. And au contraire, mon cher woman, au contraire,’ he Frenched. ‘A virtuous life deserves a virtuous death, the kind of death which will inspire all who witness it. Take for instance, the death of a wife.’
‘Please have another grape,’ I said. ‘I would prefer not to take that as a ‘for-instance’. I would prefer not indeed, being one myself.’
‘If I may quote from my own Marriage and Home,’ he suggested, leaning back on the sofa with the air of a fish thrown into a corner, ‘if I may, Mrs. Lax…’ I sat back, purse-lipped but increasingly wide-eyed as he lapsed into italics:
There is a time when the plainest wife is a queen of beauty to her husband. She has done the work of life. She has reared her children for God and heaven, and though some of them may be a little wild, they will yet come back, for God has promised. She is dying, and her husband stands by.
I should mention that the Rev. De Witt Talmadge has the most wonderful way of acting out his sermons creatively, spontaneously feeling the word-‘shapes’ rather than their meaning and responding with what he calls ‘phonetic soulhood’. ‘God speaks English’, says the Reverend, ‘and I am his vessel.’ For the above words, I surmised that he initially toyed with the idea of acting out the dying woman, prone on the couch eating grapes (for that is what he, the Reverend, continued to do as he spoke) and the anguished husband watching on, eating grapes. But instead he threw the most remarkable series of shapes, and for a short time (the ‘for God has promised’ section) he was elevated with his feet on the picture rail and both hands on the edge of a cupboard.
They think over all the years of their companionship, the weddings and the burials, the ups and downs, the successes and the failures. They talk over the goodness of God and His faithfulness to children’s children. She has no fear about going. The Lord has sustained her so many years, she would not dare to distrust Him now.
‘Another grape?’
‘Thank you, I will.’ This from the mantelpiece, where he had already dislodged a mahogany clock.
‘Another?’
‘Please, and if you don’t object I will continue.’
The lips of both of them tremble as they say good-bye, and encourage each other about an early meeting in a better world. The breath is feebler and feebler, and stops. Are you sure of it? Just hold that mirror at the mouth, and see if there is any vapour gathering on the surface.
‘What is she dying of?’ I asked, totally involved in this story of a pious and glorious demise. ‘And would you like another grape?’
‘Thank you. She is not dying “of” anything. You might as well ask what did she “live of”.’
‘Another grape?’
‘Thank you.’
‘Another one?’
‘You’re very kind.’
Gone! As one of the neighbours takes the old man by the arm gently, and says: ‘Come, you had better go into the next room and rest,’ he says: ‘Wait a moment; I must take one more look at that face and at those hands!’ Beautiful! Beautiful!
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment