Helen Dear

It's probably just as well that we don't always know what stirs a memory. I remember this one as clearly as I remember that bathroom – the water heater was there and the room was always toasty warm. There was a two level linen closet large enough to hold a couple of kids playing hide and seek and a single window, hung low and close to the floor. From it, you could see all of Peter's Island and the rise and curve of the Old Road. The walls were painted in a soft shade of cream with even softer yellow trim. It was a sunny, peaceful room. And there was a musical toilet paper holder.

“Alice,” my Aunt Helen said in a voice dripping with disapproval, “I must say that's the most appallingly tacky thing I've ever encountered. It's so unlike you and I must say I can't imagine what you were thinking of. I am, if I may say so, completely shocked and offended.”

“My dear wife,” Uncle Eddie remarked off handedly, almost managing to turn a laugh into a cough, “You just ended a sentence with a preposition. Whatever this appalling thing is, it must be practically a criminal offense.”

Aunt Helen glared at him, her mouth so grim and white I thought surely she would growl. She didn't but I was sure she wanted to. My gruff and usually down to earth uncle made a hasty exit but my grandmother just shrugged and tightened her grip on her knitting needles.

“Helen, dear,” she said cooly, as always making it sound as if it were one name, “You surely can't have led such a sheltered life to be undone by such a harmless and silly little thing.”

"You can hear it all through the house!” Helen protested righteously, “After all, one does expect a modicum of privacy in certain situations!”

It was then I realized they were talking about the musical toilet paper holder. Each time the roll was pulled on, it played a whimsically cheerful version of “Whistle While You Work”. Helen was right about one thing - Nana had very little sense of whimsy and it was very much unlike her.

My grandmother continued to knit ferociously, making a herculean effort to control her temper. I was gleefully preparing for fireworks, hoping as I always did, to see my prim, proper and detested aunt be brought down. Instead, she stiffened her well brought up spine and stubbornly stuck our her aristocratic chin.

“Really, Alice,” she resumed drearily, “It's quite intolerable that one's family should be exposed to such a lower class novelty.”

“Have another glass of sherry, Helen, dear,” my grandmother interrupted in the icy tone she reserved for truly the most impossible and egregious situations, “You're becoming overwrought over nothing.”

Aunt Helen fingered her perfect pearls, smoothed her cashmere sweater and matching skirt, adjusted her spectator pumps and then stood, checked that her stockinged seams were straight and her pearl earrings were securely in place. She was, I thought, every inch the blue blooded Boston headmistress of a girls finishing school - elegant, haughty, intolerant and insufferable. How could my blue collar, fair minded and cheerful uncle ever have married her?

“I have no wish to be disagreeable,” she was saying to my grandmother, who by then was white knuckled and barbed wire tense, “but I do think it's in everyone's best interest to remove........”

She never got to finish the sentence. Nana carefully put down her knitting needles, moved the yarn to its basket, closed the lid.

“Helen, dear,” she said venomously, “This is my house and you are a guest in it. If you are so disturbed by such foolishness, you are welcome to leave at any time. Or, if you value your privacy so much, you can always use the two holer in the garage. But you will no longer lecture me on everyone's best interests or tell me how to run my house.”

Shocked to her core and horrified speechless, my Aunt Helen turned deathly white, burst into tears and fled.

“Jesus wept,” I heard my grandmother say ruefully, “I've gone and done it this time. I don't expect I'll ever hear the end of this. Damn that woman and her society standards!”

It was my Uncle Eddie who saved the day. He coaxed Nana into an apology, soothed Aunt Helen and dried her tears and managed to restore a fragile peace. The two women made up and with effort and sustained mutual avoidance, got through the next two weeks. It was a narrow thing, the entire household knew, and it was hardly a real solution, but all out war had been averted for one more day.