The Fire-Dwellers (10 page)

Very far away, in a galaxy countless light-years from this planet, a scorpion-tailed flower faced film buff sits watching a nothing-shaped undulating screen. He decides he’s seen enough. He switches off the pictures which humans always believed were themselves, and the imaginary planet known as Earth vanishes
.

  — You’re losing your mind, Stacey girl. Well, I may be, but I’m sure as hell not losing these hips.

Stacey is the first to arrive at the Foglers’. Tess is wearing an oatmeal-colored dress, straight and unadorned, with an Italian leather belt, costly in appearance, draped around almost nonexistent hips.

  — How’s she got such good taste in clothes and such awful taste in furnishings? Those drapes – demented turquoise trees and crimson-jacketed hunting gents on puffing black horses, and the entire scene shot through with simulated gold threads at regular intervals. Cut it out, Stacey. I’m getting worse. I used to be nicer. If I live to be ninety, I’ll be positively venomous. My grandchildren will flee from me in terror.

Am I early, Tess? Gosh, I love your dress.

Not a bit. It’s only Bertha and you coming. Glad you like it – I just got it this week. I think it’s kind of fun, myself. Listen, I must show you what I got at Twiller’s sale today.

  — Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Ten cuckoo clocks, forty-seven TV tables with puce-and-orange ballerinas prinking on them, two hundred packets of bath salts done up to look like dinosaurs and labeled
Hers
and
His
, five thousand hankies embroidered with pink tuberous-rooted begonias, and a partridge in a plastic pear tree.

Yeh, I’d love to see.

Tess brings out two salt and pepper sets shaped like harlequins and colored lavishly. The salt or pepper comes out of the hats.

Oh, they’re sweet, Tess.

I thought they were kind of cute, myself. We don’t really need them, I guess, but I can put them away for Christmas or shower gifts. Jake isn’t crazy about them, but then, he’s kind of hard to suit, I guess, in a way.

Jake Fogler is a radio actor who is fond of talking about the breakdown of verbal communications and the problems of semantics in mass media. Stacey cannot imagine either of them needing any salt or pepper shakers whatsoever. Tess lives on pineapple and cottage cheese salads, and Jake, if Tess is to be believed, exists mainly on brandy and raw eggs. He has a
talented voice, but he does not stand a look-in with TV. Sometimes he retires to the spare bedroom and broods, and then Tess goes over to Stacey’s and says in her high light voice,
Jake’s ulcer is acting up
.

The doorbell chimes softly in four notes, and Tess opens the door to Bertha Garvey, whose voice rasps anxiously.

I’m not late, am I?

Why no. Only Stacey’s here. The Polyglam lady hasn’t even got here yet. I hope she hasn’t got the date wrong.

Bertha comes into the living room. Pressing sixty, corseted to the point of shallow breathing, grey hair with slightly too true-blue rinse and done in a profusion of springy curls, hands big and capable – telling what her life work has been – eyes always a little worried behind up-curled green-framed glasses.

I would’ve been here sooner, Tess, but you know what Julian’s like. Any time I’m going out – and goodness knows that’s not often – he thinks of all kinds of things to delay me. Tonight nothing would do but I should get his navy suit laid out ready for him to take to the dry cleaners in the morning. Mercy, I could do it with no trouble at all before breakfast, I told him. But that wouldn’t do. Oh no. Had to have it all ready in a shopping bag right that minute. I guess it’s not his fault, really. He’s getting on. And it’s hard for him to be retired – he’s never got used to it. You girls just wait. You’ll see. Although I’m not saying it’ll hit your hubbies that same way.

Julian Garvey is twelve years older than Bertha. He used to be an accountant. Now he putters around the house or does a little gardening, which he dislikes. He is small and dignified, meticulous-mannered with everyone else, but crabby with Bertha.

The doorbell croons, and Tess patters excitedly into the front hall.

Oh – she’s here, girls!

The plastic lady is petite and emaciated, high frothed-up hair metallic blonde, high thin teetery heels supporting bird-bone ankles, face gay-gay-gay with its haggardness fairly well masked by tan make-up and the scarlet gash of a lipstick smile. Her sleeveless silver dress shimmers like the scanty robe of some new oracle, and on the right breast it bears the iridescent ice-blue letters
Polyglam
.

Hello, Mrs. Fogler. Hello, girls. My, it’s a real pleasure to meet you. Now, if I can just find a table.

Quick as a slickly sleight-of-handing magician, she hauls boxes in from her car and sets up shop in the Foglers’ dining room. The company gathers. Stacey chain-smokes. Bertha knots her hands together, cat’s cradles of broad fingers, and smiles hopefully. Tess sits wide-eyed like a child about to behold marvels. The marvels are there, arranged in heaps and
rows on the table, plastic vessels gleaming softly, pearl-pink, mauve, green like the pale underthighs of a mermaid, blue as pastel as angel veins.

Picnic plates. Beakers. Sandwich cases. Pie containers. Cookie jars. Breadboxes. Buckets and dishpans. Dogs’ feeding bowls. Infants’ cereal bowls. Mixing bowls giant human and elfin. Ice-cube trays. Vats suitable for making wine or drowning enemies. Beach pails. Juice holders. Jugs all sizes from cream to martini. Tumblers and eggcups, plant pots and kid pots. To name only a few. The Polyglam lady takes her stance in front of the display.

Now, girls, just to get acquainted, we’re going to play a little game. I think you’ll all really enjoy it. All my clients say it’s the nicest fun thing ever. It’s a simple little word game – not
too
simple, mind you – that wouldn’t do for you bright girls, eh? I’m going to give you each this full-colored Polyglam booklet, and on the first page you’ll see the words
Polyglam Superware
. See? That’s it. Now, see those blank spaces? I’m going to give you each a pencil, and I want you to see how many words you can make using only the letters in
Polyglam Superware
. We’ve got ten minutes. Ready?
Go!

  — My mind has gone blank. There’s old Bertha scribbling away as though her entire future is at stake. Tess looks like Katie did once at about ten, when she had measles and wrote her exams at home – chewing her pencil, trying terribly hard.

Stacey after several minutes writes down
Mug
. She looks at the word for awhile, contemplating its inner truth. Then she writes
Pee
. She crosses this out and writes
Woe
instead. By this time the ten minutes are up.

Now let’s just count them up, shall we, girls? Ho ho Mrs. Uh MacAindra, you haven’t got very many, have you? Not to worry. It’s only a game, isn’t it? Mrs. Garvey, ten for you –
that’s fine. Mrs. Fogler, let’s see now –
Glam, Spam, Lam, Pew, Sew, Are
– oh this is very good. Very good. Mrs. Fogler’s got twelve words, girls! Isn’t that nice? Now, Mrs. Fogler, it gives me real pleasure to present you with a little prize – this set of six Polyglam Juicicles. Yes, you can make your very own juice popsicles any flavor you wish. The kiddies can’t get enough of them.

  — Pure tact. She might have found out whether Tess had kids or not. I still wonder if it’s by accident or design that she and Jake never have. Tess has never said.

Look – look at this, Bertha. Aren’t they the cutest?

Real nice, Tess. Real handy. Really handy, that is to say.

Now if you’ll just take your pencils again, girls, I’m going to let you in on a recipe which our Polyglam kitchens have just dreamed up – and is it ever a dream! It’s the yummiest dessert you’ve ever tasted. We call it Tropical Paradise. I made it only yesterday for my own youngsters, and every single one of them polished their plates and asked for more. I’m positive your toddlers and teens will all be saying –
Mm – this is sure a tummy treat, Mum
. Okay? Ready? One cup maraschino cherries, chopped very fine. One cup melted marshmallows. One cup diced pineapple. Two cups whipped cream. A teaspoon of

Stacey writes
Safe in the Arms of Jesus
. Then she writes
Lost in the Arms of Morpheus
, followed by
Yummy Yummy Says My Tummy
. After that, she has time for one quick game of X’s and O’s.

  — Without realizing it, that woman may actually be suffering severely from myopia. I’m only thinking of Bertha’s toddlers.

Everybody got it all down? You, Mrs. MacAindra?

Yes, thanks.

Good. Now, then, I’d just like to point out a few features of this lovely Polyglam Superware – features you may not have
noticed. For instance, would you ever guess just how durable Polyglam is? Oh sure, we all know it won’t break, but the average person may not realize just
how
strong this unique material is.

Three lake-water blue dishpans, upturned, become the Polyglam lady’s platform. She jumps up and down, tap dances, stomps with stiletto heels, leaps from one to another.

  — My God, what if she falls? I can see her skimming down, slamming her pointed chin on the grey Chinese carpet, unable to rise out of sheer mortification. Am I
willing
this to happen? Stop it, Stacey, for heaven’s sake – you may not realize your own tremendous mental powers. Yeh, a likely thought.

The Polyglam lady does not slip. She does a ballet-like zigzag in the air and comes down in a proficient landing on two dishpans, legs outspread but not vulgarly so.

Now, I don’t want any of you girls to feel you have to, but if you’d like to look at the various pieces of Polyglam

These sandwich cases are just perfectly

What adorable eggcups

It’s this cookie jar that I think is so

  — If I get out of here for less than ten bucks it will be a bloody miracle. Two weeks ago it was copper-bottomed stove-ware at Bertha’s, and I bought a Dutch oven, which I needed slightly less than I need a Dutch uncle. I’m weak-minded, that’s my trouble. Anything to look agreeable. Don’t rock the boat. Why can’t I? Why am I unable to? Help me. Who? How strange if Bertha and Tess were thinking the exact same thing. We could unite. This could start an underground movement. The Bluejay Crescent Irregulars. I can see it all now. We’re too damn complacent. No – we’re not complacent one bit. We’re just scared. Of what? Making a scene? Finding out we’re alone after all – better not to test it out? How do I know what Tess
and Bertha think? Am I going to risk offending Tess by asking? I have to live next door to her. She frequently minds Jen for me. Oh Katie, you’re dead right about me, baby. I’m corrupt. Or was it immoral you said? Jesus, if I’m going to be immoral, I should scout around for some slightly jazzier way of being it.

Two and a half decades back, to the Dragon Lady of Terry and the Pirates. Wearing Stacey’s face and a slinky black velvet ensemble that clings to her gifted breasts and friendly thighs. What was it you wanted to know, McNab? She is addressing the customs officer. Did you say smuggled opium? But McNab (about thirty, muscles like wire rope) can only stand and drool, overcome by his impossible desire. (Switch here from Saturday colored funnies page to elsewhere.) This way, McNab – nothing is impossible. Will it be the bed or the deck?

  — I am either suffering from delayed adolescence or premature menopausal symptoms, most likely both.

When the purchases have been made, Tess serves coffee, two kinds of sandwiches, shortbread and layer cake with three-inch mocha icing.

  — Shut up, God. I feel too lousy not to eat. Bananas tomorrow.

The Polyglam lady makes the first move to go.

It’s been such a pleasure meeting you ladies, and thanks a million, Mrs. Fogler, and now I really must

Thank
you
for coming. We certainly all had a wonderful

I must be getting along now, too, Tess. Thanks loads

Lovely evening thanks thanks

Thanks a million

Well, good night

G’night – watch the step, Bertha

Well, thanks again

A pleasure thanks for coming

Well, good night

G’night, then, see you real soon

Yeh sure thing well good night

Good night

On the doorstep, as Bertha and Stacey are finally sidling out, Jake Fogler appears. His enormous glasses and slightly worn face give him the look of an aging owl-like boy caught in some moment of nefariousness.

  — How long has he been standing here waiting for us to go?

Hello, Jake.

Evening, all. Tess has foisted all the gimcrackery on you, I see. Christ, Bertha, you can hardly stagger under the weight of all that crap.

Oh
Jake
– don’t talk like that to Bertha. Don’t be an old

Sorry, dear. Do I spoil all your fun? Coming back in for a drink, Stacey?

Thanks, no. Got to get home. ’Night, Tess.

Good night, Stacey.

Tess’s small puzzled voice is at complete variance with her impressively packaged exterior. She waves uncertainly, then follows Jake into the house.

Stacey, entering home, takes off her shoes in the hall, goes to the kitchen and pours a gargantuan gin and tonic. Mac is in bed and none of the upstairs lights are on. Stacey flicks on a small lamp in the living room and curls up on the chesterfield, the Polyglam booklet in one hand. Along with the Superware, families are shown on each page. Kids beam peacefully and undisturbedly. Mothers with young untired faces flow contentedly. Fathers with young untired faces smile proudly and successfully. Grandmothers with young untired faces gaze graciously and untroubledly.