FROM AND
MY NAME IS . . .
STORIES FROM THE QUILT
Stories by Margie Carmichael
Illustrations by Dale McNevin
Excerpt from the Story “Tansie”
Tansie was at the kitchen table reading the paper when the car drove
up the lane. Evelyn stormed in the kitchen door. “Just what
do you think you’re doing?”
“What are you talking about, dear?” Tansie asked innocently.
“What’s this about you taking in a boarder?”
“Actually, I’m renting to a tenant.”
“Aunt Tansie, how could you!”
“It was easy. I put an ad in the paper.”
“Why didn’t you return my calls? I had a line on a lovely
apartment, down the street from my office.” Evelyn was very
annoyed.
“Makes more sense for me to get rent than to fork money over
to someone in town.” Tansie was cool as a cucumber.
“I can’t believe you —”
“I know you mean well, Evelyn.” Tansie put the paper
down to wait for the inevitable tirade.
“You’re seventy-two years old! You live twenty miles
from town — a mile from your nearest neighbour.” She
was pacing by now. “Your lane is a quarter-mile long, the
power was out four days last winter — ”
“And all I got was a cold.”
“It could have been pnemonia! What if you fell or something?”
Tansie shook her head and sighed. Evelyn wasn’t going to stop.
“Or a seizure?”
“I haven’t had one in years.”
“What if you’d run out of medication?”
“I’d have to get more, wouldn’t I?”
“What if you couldn’t? It’s not like an aspirin,
Auntie — you have epilepsy. Did you tell your new tenant that?”
“Sit down, Evelyn, you’re making me dizzy,” Tansie
chuckled.
“Stop laughing! It’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing. I can’t help it if I have a
smiley face.”
Evelyn plunked herself down beside Tansie, took her hands, and looked
into the dancing eyes. “You drive me crazy...you really do.”
Evelyn got up to pour some tea. “So, tell me about this tenant.
Who is she? What does she do?”
“His name is Ubie, U-B-I-E. He’s a night watchman at
the meat packing plant in town.”
Evelyn dropped her teacup before it reached her lips.
**
“Evelyn’s not too pleased with you renting to a man,”
Alice declared over a fresh hot biscuit.
“She’ll get used to it.”
“She’ll be bothering you now more, you know. I don’t
think she’ll like him.”
“Doesn’t matter. I like him. More tea?”
“Just a half a cup. What’s he like?”
“Quiet, hardly says a word. Keeps to himself.”
“Does he have family?”
“Didn’t ask.”
“Friends?”
“Don’t know.”
“Then what do you know about him, Tansie?”
“He’s in his early fifties. He took all his things here
in one half-ton truck load. He’ll help with the wood and he
doesn’t want a phone.”
“Does he drive a black truck with plywood sides?” Tansie
nodded. “Is he a big, big man with hardly any hair?”
Tansie nodded again. “Well, I’ll be! That must have
been him at the gas station. He had a big roll of page wire in the
truck. Haven’t seen page wire in years.”
“He’s putting up a fence around his side so he can park
his truck there.”
“He has his work cut out for him then, if he tries to tame
your wild kingdom back there, Tansie. Must be a lot of work to look
after it.”
“Mother nature does the work. I just putter. And play.”
Tansie had mischief written all over her face.
“If I didn’t know you better, Tansie, I’d think
you were senile.”
Tansie raised her teacup and touched Alice’s. “If I
am, I have to admit that my second childhood’s a lot more
fun than my first.”
*
Ubie liked living in the country. It was quiet, and he had more
privacy than he’d had in a long time. Tansie was a very nice
landlady. She minded her own business and didn’t even ask
for references. He was a little leery of her at first, as he wasn’t
used to people who smiled so much. In Ubie’s experience, such
people were either highly medicated and/or drunk, or up to something.
At first he’d agonized over telling her about Riverside. She’d
find out sooner or later, he thought: the Island is a small place.
Better she refuse him right off the bat than evict him later. Tansie
didn’t even blink an eye, though she did ask him about medication.
“Well then,” she said. “I’ll remind you
to take yours if you remind me to take mine — I have epilepsy.
Deal?” They shook on it.
Tansie was the first person in years to invite him to dinner. Ubie
wasn’t much of a talker, but Tansie more than took up the
slack. She told him all about the house: how she let the back gardens
have their way. “Bob used to mow it all to within an inch
of its life.” Tansie chuckled. “When he was here last
summer he painted a sign: “Welcome to Mutual of Omaha’s
Wild Kingdom — no admission, but you may never find your way
out.” I’d have left it up — only he used watercolours!
He worked on it for hours out there with the blackflies —
and him bald as a baby’s arse. The rain wiped it out in two
minutes! God, we laughed!”
She told him all about Methusaleh and his accident. From his seat
beside Tansie, the cat hung on her every word — he had his
own place setting. As well-mannered as Methusaleh seemed to be,
Ubie still wasn’t sure about him — especially now that
Ubie had so many pets.
The first one he brought home was a blind budgie that had been returned
to the pet store. Next came a young crow with a broken wing. Ubie
found it limping along the highway. Tansie was so relieved he wasn’t
bringing home dogs, she gave him the go-ahead. It wasn’t long
before he had quite a collection, all of them birds, most of them
abandoned or broken in some way. For the first time in his life,
Ubie had a family to care for, a secure home, and a real friend.
Tansie and Ubie had had only one run-in so far, shortly after he
moved in. He was mowing his yard and she saw him cut down some wild
roses that wandered through the fence and onto his side. She was
very upset with him. “Turn that damn mower off!” He’d
never heard her swear. She was shaking and in tears. “I can
understand you chasing my cat, but no one has the right to condemn
a rose if it wants to grow! Push them back through the fence if
you don’t want them!”
He didn’t see her for three days, and he didn’t sleep
a wink. She knocked on his door one morning. Ubie opened it, expecting
an eviction notice. She quickly closed the door behind her, mindful
of the birds. There she was with her smile, and an eyeful of tears
trying not to fall on the plate of fresh-baked biscuits she handed
Ubie. The birds interrupted any apology she might have uttered.
Chirping, squawking, flying, they introduced themselves to Tansie,
who laughed and clapped her hands in delight. Ubie was shaking so
much, a biscuit fell off the plate, to be claimed by the crow. One
look at Ubie and Tansie mercifully left to “rescue her next
batch from the fires of hell.” Closing the door behind her,
he softly cried his eyes out and, with great relief, fell asleep
at last.
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excerpt
