TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15 to MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4 1968
CHAPTER III
Prunella Balducci was in her late twenties, slim, fashionably dressed, and very pretty. Since she arrived at two in the afternoon, Carmine wasn’t there to take the edge off Desdemona’s awe: how could someone who looked like this earn a successful living managing emotionally crippled families?
A little tongue-tied, she took Prunella to see her quarters, the high square tower with its widow’s walk.
“Oh, this is wonderful!” cried Prunella. “Are you sure your daughter doesn’t mind not being able to come home until Christmas?”
“She’s a freshman pre-med at Paracelsus and doesn’t want it known that she’s a local,” Desdemona explained.
“And of course she’s busy making the adjustment from high school to college. Wise girl. Who’s her room- mate?”
“A black girl from Chicago, there on scholarship, poor as a church mouse. Another inhibition for Sophia, whose stepfather has dowered her with an enormous amount of money. Our girl is super-sensitive about appearing privileged, but she’s not allowed to give her money away. This is the first year that Paracelsus has taken women, and there are fifty of them-you must know that Chubb is finally admitting women?”
“Oh, sure. Go on, Mrs. Delmonico.”
“Desdemona, please. Half the freshman intake at Paracelsus has been women. I think Sophia’s glad she has Martina for a roomie. They like the same music-the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Elvis, a whole lot more I don’t know or remember. Music seems to be a great bond. They both want to be surgeons, and you must know how impossible a dream that is for women. I suspect we’ll get Martina for Christmas-air fares are a problem.”
Desdemona put the suitcase she was carrying in a corner and smiled at her new colleague. “Coffee before I wake my monsters? For once in his life, Julian felt like a nap today, but I warn you! The moment Julian wakes, peace vanishes.”
In Prunella, Desdemona soon saw, Julian had met his match. Smart enough to know the effect of his eyes and his smile, he turned them and the charm on as soon as he woke.
“Oh, great!” he exclaimed. “I don’t have to go rowing.”
“Rowing?”
“Yes,” said Desdemona, who had forgotten all about the rowing and now came down with a gasp, a look of desperation. “I must explain to you, Prunella, that Julian hoped to sleep his way out of rowing, and that in turn would have meant Julian awake tonight.” She glared at her elder son, who seemed as innocent as any cherub Raphael ever painted. “Last year,” she went on, “things happened that made me realize I’d lost my physical fitness, but getting it back through a pregnancy and another baby proved impossible until Carmine came home with a two- man kayak. I used to hike, but shepherding Julian is beyond me-I’m too tall for toddlers, they kill my back. Carmine thought rowing would be feasible, and he was right. I sit in the back space, and both kids sit in the front space in special harnesses. Julian swims like a fish anyway, and I make him use a paddle, it’s good for developing his arms and shoulders. Alex lies in a weeny cradle. The trouble is that I’ve not had the energy or the enthusiasm to do it regularly. I did tell Julian this morning that if he wasn’t a good boy, we were going for a paddle.”
“Does this mean, Julian, that you haven’t been good?” asked Prunella in bored tones.
“I’m never good,” he said solemnly.
“Then you go rowing, Desdemona. I know you don’t feel like it, but you need the fresh air and the exercise,” said Prunella.
“Yes, Mommy, go rowing,” Julian said, voice like honey. “I can stay here with Prunella and do things I like.”
“No, you’re rowing with Mommy. Alex gets to stay behind.”
The huge feet planted themselves firmly apart on the floor. “I don’t want to go, so I won’t go!”
“That’s not good enough,” said Prunella. She seized Julian by one hand and looked at Desdemona, who was on the verge of tears. “Lead on, Mommy, to the kayak. No one’s getting out of this.”
Digging his heels in didn’t work, nor did much roaring and yelling; relieved of the authority but hugely comforted by the fact that it had not passed to Julian, Desdemona led the way down the path to the boatshed and unearthed the kayak. At sight of it Julian decided to get physical, and kicked out at Prunella’s shins: the next thing he was sitting on the hard ground with a thump, and Prunella was
“Do get up, Julian,” she said cheerfully. “You look silly.”
“Mommy, she tripped me up!”
“You deserved it,” said Desdemona, and gulped. Somehow it was easier when she had another adult to back her, and that adult was an acknowledged expert on how to deal with recalcitrant children. Prunella had managed to wound Julian’s dignity, his rather inflated idea of himself, and that part of him would continue to smart long after his bottom ceased to pain him.
In record time Desdemona was launching her craft, with a very co-operative Julian doing his share instead of whining; he was not about to be laughed at again by a stranger.
Who, by the time she had supervised his bath and clad him in pajamas, had already given him to know that she’d stomach none of his tricks. Mommy, she informed him, was sick, and he wasn’t helping any, so until Christmas he’d have to make do with her, Prunella. The trouble was that he quite liked her; she had such merry eyes, eyes that made him want to get on the right side of her. Mommy’s eyes were always dreary and uninterested-why hadn’t he seen that she was sick? He wasn’t very old, but he could well remember an interested, jolly Mommy.
“It’s too early for bed,” he said after a six o’clock dinner.
“Why?”
“I’m not sleepy.”
“Oh, good! Then you can exercise your imagination after you go to bed. I’ll be there to listen.”
“Listen to my what?”
“Your imagination, silly! Everybody has one, so that’s your first task after you hit your bed-looking for it. When you’ve found it, I’ll help you exercise it.”
“Oh, not more exercise!”
“Exercise for your mind, Julian, not your body.”
His eyes should have been as dark as the rest of him; Julian Delmonico had taken after his father in bulk and coloring, and sported a mop of black curls as well as rather thin black brows and impossibly long black lashes. A remarkably handsome child, he had discovered that his looks could win him favors and treats-not to mention excuses for bad behavior. But it was the eyes that put the finishing touch on a striking appearance: the color of weak, milky tea, they were surrounded by a thin black ring that made them piercing, compelling. Well, thought Prunella Balducci, his mother and I have to inculcate some humility and sensitivity into this unpromising material, otherwise he’ll king it at St. Bernard’s Boys’ School and be ruined.
He’s had his first lesson: Mommy’s sick, and he didn’t see it. Now let’s see what imagination can do.
“What does an imagination look like?” he asked, curious.
“Anything you want. You’ll know it when you find it. Until you do, lying in bed is awful, isn’t it? Like a desert, dry and sandy. Once you find your imagination, you won’t mind going to bed, even if you’re not tired.”
“I still want to know what it looks like.”
“Imagination makes the desert vanish, become all kinds of places. Maybe it disappears and a depth-diving submarine appears-that’s imagination. During the day,” said Prunella, warming to her theme, “you and I will look at books full of pictures your imagination might like to hide in. Looking at books is like piling wood on a fire when the world’s all snow-the fire burns brighter and brighter. You’re going to love books, Julian.”
I don’t believe it, thought the listening Desdemona. She’s hooked him already, and she hasn’t even unpacked her bags.
When he walked in at six-thirty that evening, Carmine got a loving, intensely grateful kiss; his elder son was pestering Prunella to go to bed. Wasn’t it time yet?
For answer, she presented him to his father and mother for a goodnight kiss, then took his hand and led him away. “Phase two-a walk around East Circle to get the sleepy-bugs biting-and no, Julian. The more you badger me,
