The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1995, Page 31

SPRING /SUMMER 1995
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Ml
“She says you dye your hair to hide the
grey. Do you?”
“I’m more worried about the mouse
than the grey right now,” said her mother,
“so I use a little henna to help nature along.
I was white-haired when I was your age.”
“White?”
“Icelandic platinum blonde,” said Anna.
“The real thing. It fades fast, though, in
Canadian winters. If you’re lucky, maybe
you’ll have a child with platinum blonde
hair. I had hoped that yours would be, but
it darkened too soon; can you remember
how blond you were when you were a tiny
little girl? That’s why Daddy calls you his
Sunshine Girl.”
Anna had gone on talking smoothly,
comfortably, chatting cosily, patting Kate’s
hand and soothing her until the child’s
eyelids dropped and she fell asleep.
It wasn’t until a few months later that
Kate realized she still didn’t know how old
her mother was. It was her mother’s hair
that brought the question back to her
mind.
A whispered conversation stopped sud-
denly as Kate came into the coat room at
school to hang up her coat before class. A
knot of little girls opened enough for Kate
to see their smiling faces, not friendly smil-
ing but I-know-something-you-don’t-know
smiling, with a lick of malice and a taste
for blood. Catherine stops herself:
editorializing again.
Kate’s back stiffened. She knew they had
been talking about her.
“Some people’s mothers,” said Janey
Mowatt, with a knowing smile, and re-
peated herself for emphasis, “sow people’s
mothers dye their hair.”
The other girls giggled and waited for
Kate’s reaction. She understood immedi-
ately that they meant her mother, and she
was glad she had the knowledge to set them
straight.
“It’s not dye, it’s henna,” explained Kate.
“She just helps nature along.”
But Janey had more ammunition. “My
mother says nice ladies don’t dye their
hair.”
Kate had no answer to that. She didn’t
know how to reply to someone who wasn’t
there, especially when that someone was a
grown-up and as elegant as Janey Mowatt’s
mother, with her smooth silver hair drawn
back into a bun as neat and gleaming as
Kate’s grandmother Anna’s. Kate hung up
her coat and went into her classroom, si-
lent like Uncle Hans.
Later, Kate realized that Janey Mowatt’s
mother was not as kind as her grand-
mother. The resemblance stopped with the
hair. And later still, probing her pain, feel-
ing her mother had betrayed her somehow,
by helping nature along, Kate remembered
that she still didn’t know how old her
mother was. And never would. Not from
her.
Anna didn’t die. Not then, not yet.
Catherine listens to her mother singing off-
key in the kitchen as she prepares a meat
loaf for dinner. Kate’s fears had been un-
founded. Mark had died, but Anna was still
around, her hair now a soft silver like her
mother’s before her, unretouched and
untarnished. But Catherine still doesn’t
know how old she is. Officially.
Mark had told Catherine before he died,
told her the reason for his teasing all those
years, that he was a year younger than his
wife. But he had warned Catherine not to
tell Anna that she knew, so Catherine never
had. She supposes now that if she were to
ask a direct question, Anna might tell her
now, but she prefers to let them both keep
up a game they have played for so many
years now.
“I’m older now than my mother was
when Kate was afraid she was going to die,”
Catherine thinks. “And I’m not going to
die. Not for a long time. I have all the time
in the world.”
Dammit.