…it is like a little word sized window is left open at night and stories hop in, one after the other, while we are sleeping. Before you know it there is a litter of stories giggling on the floor just waiting to trip you up when you get out of bed. I grabbed this short one before it went and hid under a chair with the others.
I was 18 years old, 3 months pregnant and wearing a stunning white hand me down wool dress, when I bit the arm of the man with the newspaper.
We were on a plane. I was being sent to Auckland to live with the nuns. Through an error of judgement, too much fun and too little sense, I was pregnant and unmarried. Being a teenager and just a wee bit wild, my parents had decided that I was better off living in a convent with a very large laundry that took in girls like me and helped us adopt out our babies. There is a fierce amount of sadness in that sentence. But actually the convent was not that bad. The time I spent living in the Home for Unmarried mothers is an extraordinary story all in itself. But not today.
Today we are in a small plane flying from the beach up the island to Auckland. The fog had delayed the flight for six hours. Our home was only five minutes from the airport so I had spent the six hours in the big chair at home watching the sea. I remember absolutely those hours sitting. I left myself in a way. To cope with what was to come, as I sat watching the tide move back out, I allowed My Self to lift into a bubble and float along above me like a helium filled balloon. I was totally detached except for the most transparent of strings. Dad got the call that the airport was open again and I was shuffled off. My mind bumbling along behind me. My hands clutching the incongruous macrame bag. My Mother’s friend’s older daughter’s beautiful white wool dress smoothed down over my small teenage body to my knees. Leaving home in disgrace meant a good dress, stockings and my good shoes. So I could be somebody else for my Mother.
In the plane, amidst the muted hum of silent passengers and smooth motors, I was seated beside a man who was given a newspaper by the beautiful tall air hostess. She did not offer me one, I guess I looked too young to read or something. God knows people make the most dreadful assumptions about the young. Anyway this man was in the aisle seat and I was sitting looking out the window. My Balloon Me still floating way above my body bumping gently on the luggage rack. My Balloon Me also had an eye so I was drifting up there watching myself and watching the man unfold his newspaper.
Now in those days the newspapers were about twice as wide as they are now. To open a newspaper fully you had to be a bit careful not to knock things over or hit people in the face. These newspapers were in fact best read at the table. Preferably after the butler had ironed each page for you. I had seen this in a movie and it had always amused me, I was thinking.
This man was all newspaper. Holding the news by its two edges, he reached both arms out to the full width of the paper, spreading his arms, then he would shake the paper a little so it flattened, bring his hands together to grab another page, spread them out again, shake again,, then he would turn it back out and down, fold it again into a manageable size and read the chosen section. Then he would open it up again, wide as he could go, shake it, close it, open it, turn it and then fold it back in. Then he would do it again. And again. Well you get the picture. Out in. Out in. In a tiny plane flying to a big city.
What he did not realise of course was that there was a bubble girl sitting next to him and every time he opened the newspaper right up and shook it, he shook his arm right in front of my face. Like a challenge. Again and again he did this, I could smell his skin and count the golden hairs on his arm. Every time he reached his arms out wide, I shifted my body as close to the window as I could, holding my own hand in front of my face to protect it, but as he got more space he stretched wider. He had no sense of personal space. No sense of the girl beside him with her Self doing a slow boil in a balloon above her head. Trying to be polite. Poor fellow.
His aisle arm began clipping passengers and hostesses as they swayed up the aisles. The hum of the planes engines changed as it settled and still he shook and rattled his paper, clonking passing people with grunted apologies, and smashing his arm through the air in front of me.
After a while, I put my hand back down, slowly took off my convent girl gloves and laid them in my lap on top of the sensible book my Mother had chosen. I crossed and recrossed those long gangly girl legs under the perfect white wool dress, my stockings slipping against each other, my sensible heels dangling. My tiny teenage mind reached up for my balloon self and she and I connected. I turned to look at the man behind the newspaper. He was oblivious. He unfolded his paper, stretched it out wide, joined the paper together to turn the page, his paper flapping in and out like huge wings, he shook it a little, and as his arm was presented to me once again, without even moving very much or thinking terribly much (as usual) I just gave him my teeth. A decent but tiny bite. Well a nip really, but a good sharp nip. A puppy warning. With my sharp white untried teeth. I bit ever so gently, just teeth, then pulled my head back and inspected with satisfaction the little teeth shaped dents in his arm as they puffed and subsided.
The man froze, the plane engines throttled back, the air hostess glided by. He did not even glance at me or say a thing. He was quite still. He looked straight ahead. Then he just inexorably shrunk into himself, his arm was carefully retracted, his elbows slowly clicking in beside his body. He moved his bottom ever so slowly in his seat until he was as far away as possible from me. By then the newpaper was folding itself into a small rectangle, while he still stared at the chair back in front of him. Making no sudden movements he settled his hand with his paper in his lap and carefully retrieved a pen from the little plastic sleeve in his shirt pocket. He stared at the crossword for the rest of the short flight. And at last it was safe.
I picked up then re-placed my gloves on top of my book, returned my eyes to the window and disengaged my balloon Self again. Then I went straight to sleep, like children can.
cecilia
Good morning. I hope you are all going to have a super day. The roosters are crowing and the sky has allowed that first glint of navy that heralds another dawn. It is time to start work. Oh dear I wonder if I should have told you that story. Ah well. I was young. I never bite people now.
This baby is the one flying in on Sunday to help around the farm for a week. Not such a baby anymore!!
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
110 responses to “You know what happens when I start telling the stories…”
I have been a closet reader of you for quite a while. Have been known to bust out loud in laughter and have my family just do an eye roll in my direction. However my hubby knows who the shush sisters are and that ton ton is a skunk magnet. Thought I would let you know that I love your stories, I love your pea-hens….especially as my name is Tui. As a follow onto your story, the reason butlers would iron the newspapers for their “masters” was to seal the ink. Nothing worse than getting ink on your fingers before trudging off to the office :o)
Have a great day
Cheers
Tui! good morning and welcome. Firstly I had to push your namesake off the top of the grape arbor this morning with a stick!.. and thank you for that info about the butler ironing the paper.. i did not know that! what an excellent piece of information.. thank you.. c
Such honesty and beauty in your writing, as always. And that newspaper reader deserved what he got.
poor fellow, i wonder what he told his wife that night! c
That is a funny story! And so glad your baby is coming to visit!
So am I Dee! c
Boy..another story from you that tugs at our heart strings. Have a great week with #1…maybe he will wander into the big city here and I can meet him.:)
What an excellent idea Post Mistress! I shall bring him in for sure.. c
Excellent – well writen, I mean bitten!!! I wonder how many of us would love to do something similar to an equally rude person but can’t summon the nerve. Oh to be teenage bubble girl! Wonderful story and you kept your baby too. Enjoy his company when he arrives.
Christine
I think he kept me!! Our babies may come and go but they always find their mums in the end.. have a lovely day! c
great story!!!! loved reading it
Thank you terry/.. c
Wonderful story. I love your stories. Reading them always makes me feel as if I’m sitting at your knee in front of a cozy fire.
It is chilly tonight and the thought of a fire sounds quite nice actually! morning sweetie.. c
You are the maestro and we are your orchestra, hanging on each move and gesture. Reading your stories is like that for me. I “watch” every move, feel every orchestration of your timing and see the images, no…the whole short movies…that you create with your fantastic storytelling. I can’t find the words myself to express how much I appreciate your talents, and the life you’ve lived and do live is certainly worth sharing…so richly wrought, fully lived and with such appreciation for the experiences that have made you who you are. You’re a very special gal, celi. Once again, thanks for sharing yourself and your stories with us. Someday if we meet, I’ll know to stay away from your teeth! 🙂
Betsy you write the kindest things, my teeth are still strong and sharp too! but I don’t bite anymore!!! much.. (laughter!).. c
You put it so perfectly…I remember being 18, pregnant, and unmarried. It wasn’t fun. Even the Balloon Girl, I can relate to.
Thanks for telling your story. Mine has to wait…my mother and I have patched things up in the years since, and revisiting that time in our lives would embarass her. (Let’s just say she’d have been the one to get bitten, if I’d been in that frame of mind…)
I am sure my father is reading this. And I hope it does not embarrass him. But my son has never been a secret. And as I have said many times-we cannot revisit a decision armed with hindsight. It will not help. At the time everyone did what they felt was right with the information they had. And life is a long long time for most of us, so we get the chance to retrieve and sort and even settle a little. I have been lucky that way. I hope you have been too. But these times in our lives certainly teach us don’t they!! c
I have. I kept my firstborn, and married her father. It lasted 14 years, so we did better than everyone predicted. All the nasty comments are in the far-distant past. They hurt to think about, and they would hurt her if I wrote about them. So I don’t…or think about them much, for that matter.
Still think I should have bitten her, though… 😉
probably should have! but we all move on, and that is good.. c
Thank you for sharing such a personal story, Celi!
Morning yummy! and thank you for reading c
The kind of story that makes you laugh and cry a little all at the same time:) but I’m glad that you have a great memory from that day, which couldn’t have been very easy. And 18 year old C already had all the gumption of today’s C 🙂
It is strange how you can remember a day or even a moment in a complete capture, like a photograph, i am sure we all do it. Revisiting these kids of days is pretty awesome. c
You are one of the most amazing women I know. And I am very proud to know you! Good for the ‘lesson’ to the man with the newspaper! Enjoy yourself this week. Having children come and help is a blessing. On our little part of the world it always seems it is the other way around, but either way it is wonderful!
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
Darling girl.. I hope now that the crops are in and the water is turned off you can get a wee break in amongst your autumnal chores.. c
Quite extraordinary! I wonder if you are familiar with a movie about young girls in Ireland sent to nuns who also took in laundry. Vicious. Title I think had the word Magdalen in it. Wish I could remember the exact title.
No I don’t know the movie, but i do know that place, that order was right through the commonwealth.. all gone now though.. c
It’s called The Magdelene Sisters. Horrifying.
I didn’t even have to get pregnant to be stuck in boarding school with insane Jesuit priests from the age of 7 – 18 years. It’s hard to believe that the craziness of sending single mothers to convents was still happening when you were 18. I’m so incensed that I’ve forgotten the story. I’ll bite myself so that I remember:)
God, seven is so young. You poor little chap. Yes give yourself a good bite there’s a good fellow.. Those jesuits.. pity you did not have Columbians they were much more fun! c
Glad you bit, and glad your convent wasn’t like one of Ireland’s infamous Magdalene Laundries. I think I bit someone at a concert once, but I’m not sure – my memory is not as great as yours!
Some of the stories i have read about the Magdalene’s are alarmingly close, but i was never allowed to work in the laundry, my job was floors and bathrooms.. I polished a lot of brass. My memories of the convent are vivid, and some of the stories are quite funny from there.. this really IS a book.. so many books to write.. I was not able to completely drop my wild streak.. c