CHAPTER 9 BERMUDA JOURNAL - LONG POST
Steve & Deborah Thompson
THURSDAY, MARCH 16.....DAY 9 A FUZZY HOUSE-GUEST APPEARS!
Today Nathalie and I have decided to lounge around and be lazy.
Part of me wants to sleep late and enjoy the lazy part of the holidy, but
the outdoors are too alluring, especially now that I have taken over the
large, master bedroom that my sister and her husband vacated a few days ago.
The sun shines brightly, gloriously through the bright bay windows which are
set into a little alcove with a table and chairs - so you can sit and look
out over the front lawn and the poinciana tree. Unfortunately it is rather
skeletal in appearance right now, but it still exudes an exotic beauty to
me. It must be spectacular in full bloom.
To the right of my beautiful room's bay window is a side door which
leads directly to the verandah. This is a marvellously designed home. This
would be called the in-law suite. I also now have my own private bathroom,
and another bedroom which branches off my own private hallway. This extra
bedroom is jam-packed with the original owner's late wife - a painter. The
-artist's canvasses and portraitures, pastels and charcoals lay in wait to
be discovered by an appreciative eye. For now they collect dust, all rolled
up and tied with a string. Mom and I explored the room yesterday afternoon.
For some reason, last year I never explored at all. I guess the house is a
little bit intimidating for someone like me - with such an imagination as I.
The room is haunted in a real sense - so much of her (her name was Gabriele)
is inside this one, small room. A few old hats, scarves, some old photos
in a cardboard box. Odd earrings and stockings, calendars, sports
equipment, fans - a slice of her life. But most of all there are the
canvasses. They are rolled five and six to a roll, and the rolls are
everywhere - on shelves, behind shelves, under shelves. There must be at
the very least one hundred or so. They are all wrapped carefully, tissue
paper lining each one to protect it. There are all sizes - each one
beautiful in its own way.
Gabriele's forte was obviously portraiture. There are many of local
Bermudians which are utterly captivating, and I find myself feeling sick,
thinking of how these beautiful works of art are rotting away in the back
room of an old house. It is so sad. They had no children, and now no-one
cares how talented she was; there is no one to take these and frame them and
place them proudly on a wall. I would if I could. Her work makes you feel
like you would know the person in the picture if you met them on the street.
Her Bermudian landscapes are also very pretty, but do not possess the same
quality as the portraits. Mom and I carefully put them back where we found
them, wondering what will become of them when the house sells. We dearly
hope they will be recognized by some museum, and not be thrown in the garbage.
From my bathroom window I can see past the steeply sloping edge of
our back lawn to the grounds of Spicelands, the ranch where we will
hopefully be going horse-back riding. Past Spicelands is a myriad of
pastel-coloured houses, and blazing blossoms merging into verdant foliage.
It's amazing that even going into the bathroom in Bermuda is a stress-reliever.
Nathalie and I have a little fight today over who will get the deck
chair. (She has no respect for my age!) and she wins again, of course. We
also have a rather major disagreement over he homework today. If you look
up the word hard-headed in the dictionary, you will find the name of my dear
niece, Nathalie, written next to it. No matter how much I have been nagging
her, she will not get down to serious homework. She will consent to do a
tiny portion of spelling and then insit that she will not do any more. I
finally get very angry with her, and tell her that she will only be allowed
to go horse-back riding on the beach after she has finished every bit of
homework, and not until then. If she does't finish the homework, she
doesn't go. Period. I knew she was angry when she packed up her clothes,
etc., and decided to move back into the old room we had previously shared
together, even though she is scared of it and believes it is haunted.
That's pretty mad! I feel sorry about the whole thing, but secretly
relieved that the Great White Shark will be sleeping in her own bed!
I decide to sit and do some writing on the verandah, listen to the
birds sing and the waves pound in the distance. My pencil poises over the
large, blank page that is screaming at me to be filled. Suddenly, there is
an eardrum-shattering screech - definitely a Nathalie scream. Pad and
pencils fly into the air. Heart pounding, I race into the house, a legion
of possibilities catapulting through my mind......A masked, psychopathic
intruder could be holding her at gun-point. No WAIT....A dead body must
have falled out of one of the old closets, its ancient, sightless eyes open
and staring, it's mouldering skin hanging from the bones....NO, NO.....More
likely she's cut her finger off with a butcher knife while making herself a
sandwich and her finger is on the floor somewhere.......or perhaps it's the
ghost of Gabrielle, unhappy because we disturbed her paintings....
I stop dead in my tracks when I see her. She has wrapped herself,
literally, around my mom, almost obscuring the poor lady from view in a
tangle of arms, legs and hair. She is almost sobbing, but laughing at the
same time, and is pointing into the library at one of the shelves. Ahah! I
knew the library was haunted. I wait for the ghost to appear....
Suddenly I hear a tiny scuttle, and a furry brown form breaks for
the bedroom where my Mom and Aunt Dot are staying. Renewed hysterics break
out. I can't believe this. A little mouse causing all this fuss and upset!
Aunt Dot has hauled off one of her stiff slippers, and after disentangling
herself from her grandchild, my Mom fetches a broom. After all, she warns,
there is no way a mouse is going to share her bed. I, of course, would
never allow anyone to harm the poor little mouse. I am the defender of all
animals, great and small!! I fully intend to chase the little creature out
of the house with the broom - which, you will remember back in Chapter 3 or
4, my sister told me we would only need to use to sweep the house and
stimulate the impotent light in the kitchen. Nary a word did she say about
chasing mice.
No matter how hard we look (even in dresser drawers - my mother, you
see, once surprised a mouse (or rather it surprised her) in a dresser
drawer , and she closed it so quick that she practically beheaded the poor
mouse.) True story. Obviously this experience has stayed with her over the
years, as she grimly checks and slams every drawer of that dresser. We
pound and shake, but all to no avail. The mouse has disappeared. Everyone
else is extremely nervous, but I think it's rather funny. Nathalie, who has
been scared out of her angry, sulking teenager mode, has plopped herself on
the chaise on the verandah, where she vows she will stay until the furry
intruder is caught. I tell her she will get fairly cold tonight, and may
end up with a few lizards under her blankets for company when she camps out
here. She says nothing, still preferring not to speak to her mean old aunt,
but I know I have her thinking.
Evening arrives and we finally convince Nathalie to come back in the
house. We tell her the mouse is bound to be gone by now (she foolishly
believes us.) It is a cool-ish evening, and we decide to watch one of the
two channels we get on T.V. Mom and Nathalie are on chairs on one side of
the room, near the piano, while I am stretched out on the couch against the
other side of the room. As we watch the T.V. (the Wizard of Oz is
captivating our attention), a tiny movement catches my eye. As I turn my
head, the little mouse creeps out and poses, nochalantly, directly behind
Nathalie. I try not to betray his presence by any action - I know if he
runs in between them both my Mother and Nathalie will explode like atomic
bombs, and that the large, black piano in the corner may become embedded
permanently in my body.
I make a tiny, flicking motion with my hand, hoping he will opt for
the open French doors and out toward the front verandah, but such is not the
case. Of course. He scuttles over beside Mom and Nathalie, and under the
large black piano. In a flash, accompanied by the obligatory deafening
teenager screams, Nathalie is standing on her chair - yes, just like the old
nursery rhyme. My mom is just about halfway up on hers - trying to weigh
the evils of being attacked by a tiny mouse or breaking an arm or leg after
falling off a chair is keeping her semi-grounded. Dot, meanwhile, is
observing them with an incredulous look on her face. They all look so
comical, the three of them, that I can only hunch over and laugh
hysterically, until my stomach cannot take any more. Out comes that poor
broom, and once again we proceed to pound and shake. Nathalie is convinced
that the mouse has gone into her bedroom, so we spend the next few hours
thudding, banging and slamming around in her room to make sure he is gone
before she will go to bed. We do not bother to do my room, as it is at the
far end of the house, and why would a little mouse bother to run all the way
over there?
Yawning sleepily, the screaming over for the moment, I decide to
call it a night. Crawling in between my comfy sheets, without the Great
White Shark for once, I start to drift,
dreamily......Sccrcht......Scccrrrrrrcht....Tick, Tick Tick (little feet
scurrying.) Little prickles of hair go up on my body as I envision a little
brown body climbing up the skirting on my bed and getting in with me under
the covers. I mean, he is a cute little mouse, but I don't want to share my
bed with him. I'm lonely, I'll admit, but this is going too far!
Hesitantly I reach out and turn on the lamp. Thereis a quick scuttling
again, but I cannot see him. I lay there, not moving a muscle, waiting,
waiting. I cannot sleep knowing he may find part of my body as useful for a
nesting site!
Suddenly I get a brainstorm. I run to the kitchen and get some
cheese and run back to the bedroom, leaving the verandah door open as I make
a cheese trail. Of course a wandering lizard could meander in while the
mouse is deliberating his good luck, but I'm willing to take my chances.
After a few minutes of lying still, my trick works. Down the trail he goes,
delightedly nibbling his way out of my bedroom. As soon as he is on the
verandah, my door is slammed shut. With great relief, and crawl back into
my sweet dreams.
Elaine Trivett
Sometime in the near future I plan to visit Bermuda for a holiday. What
is the best hotel on the island? As we are keen golfers I wondered
whether you noticed any golf courses worth playing. When is the best
time of year to go?
Thanks,
Elaine Trivett,
Coventry, UK
<Robin Berman>
What a clever way you improvised to get rid of that mouse!! Cute!
Although a mouse wouldn't have bothered me...?
-Robin in Philly