Ladybird, ladybird,
Fly away home;
Your house is on fire,
Your children are gone.
So begins The Fire-Dwellers, with Stacey MacAindra, formerly of Manawaka, Manitoba, now a suburban Vancouver housewife and mother of four, nearly 40, torn between flying away and flying home; dwelling in the fires there until her children need her no more. I read this book for the first time when my eldest daughter was first born, and although I didn't feel trapped in suburban ennui, I could recognise the truth of Stacey's situation, so beautifully portrayed here with internal monologues, halting arguments with her husband, Mac, and fretful attempts to raise her children without "ruining" them in the ways predicted by magazine articles and quizzes. I am now older than Stacey, and happily still don't feel trapped in the ways she is, but the truths in this book are still eternal.
This is the scene that has stayed with me over the years and I'll put it all here so I can revisit it at will:
Tommy Dorsey Boogie. The clear beat announces itself. Stacey finishes her drink, fixes another one, drinks half of it quickly and sets the glass down on top of the TV. She looks at her gold sandals, her green-velvet tights. She puts her arms out, stretching them in front of her, her fingers moving slightly, feeling the music as though it were tangibly there to be touched in the air. Slowly, she begins to dance. Then faster and faster.
Stacey Cameron in her yellow dress with
pleats all around the full skirt. Knowing by
instinct how to move, loving the boy's close-
ness, whoever he was. Stacey twirling out
onto the floor, flung by the hand that would
catch her when she came jazzily flying back.
Tommy Dorsey Boogie. Stacey spinning like
light, whirling laughter across a polished floor.
Every muscle knowing what to do by itself.
Every bone knowing. Dance hope, girl, dance
hurt. Dance the fucking you've never yet done.
--Once it seemed almost violent, this music. Now it seems incredibly gentle. Sentimental, self-indulgent? Yeh, probably. But I love it. It's my beat. I can still do it. I can still move without knowing where, beforehand. Yes. Yes. Yes. Like this. Like this. I can. My hips may not be so hot but my ankles are pretty good, and my legs. Damn good in fact. My feet still know what to do without being told. I love to dance. I love it. It can't be over. I can still do it. I don't do it badly, see? Like this. Like this.
--I love it. The hell with what the kids say. In fifteen years their music will be just as corny. Naturally they don't know that. I love this music. It's mine. Buzz off, you little buggers, you don't understand. No-- I didn't mean that. I meant it. I was myself before any of you were born. (Don't listen in, God-- this is none of your business.)
The music crests, subsides, crests again, blue-green sound, saltwater with the incoming tide, the blues of the night freight trains across snow deserts, the green beckoning voices, the men still unheld and the children yet unborn, the voices cautioning no caution no caution only dance what happens to come along untilThe record player switches off.
--Was I hearing what was there, or what? How many times have I played it? God it's three thirty in the afternoon and I'm stoned. The kids will be home in one hour. Okay, pick up the pieces. Why did I do it? Yours not to reason why, Stacey baby, yours but to go and make nineteen cups of Nescafe before the kids get home. Quickly. Jen? Lord, she must've been awake for hours. Oh Stacey.
Interestingly, I had forgotten the following scene, which is just as important:
Katie has put on one of her own records. Something with a strong and simple beat, slow, almost languid, and yet with an excitement underneath, the lyrics deliberately ambiguous.
Katie is dancing. In a green dress Katie MacAindra simple and intricate as grass is dancing by herself. Her auburn hair, long and straight, touches her shoulders and sways a little when she moves. She wears no make-up. Her bones and flesh are thin, plain-moving, unfrenetic, knowing their idiom.Stacey MacAindra, thirty-nine, hips ass and
face heavier than once, shamrock velvet
pants, petunia-purple blouse, cheap gilt san-
dals high-heeled, prancing, squirming, jiggling
Stacey turns and goes very quietly up the basement steps and into the living room.
--You won't be dancing alone for long, Katie. It's all going for you. I'm glad. Don't you think I'm glad? Don't you think I know how beautiful you are? Oh Katie love. I'm glad. I swear it. Strike me dead, God, if I don't mean it.
I recently listened to The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, and in it the author asks a psychologist why mothers and their teenage daughters butt heads as they do. The doctor replies that it has to do with the passing of the reproductive torch-- the mother is reluctant to be put out to pasture and the daughter feels the weight of the responsibility, along with a surge of the power of her new position in the family. I raised an eyebrow at this Freudian slant-- I don't think it really applies to my relationships with my own teenage daughters (in my mind we're not even butting heads), or the relationship I had with my own mother for that matter, but it seems somewhat applicable to Stacey. What's interesting is how it plays out in the shadows: Stacey dances alone, wanting her children to know, without her telling them, I was myself before any of you were born; Stacey watches Katie dancing alone and wants her to know, without telling her, that she's glad for her daughter and the future ahead of her; Stacey even wonders if her mother ever danced, but knows it's a question she'll never ask.
The Fire-Dawellers really is from a different time. I am also a housewife, a stay-at-home-mom, and while I don't experience life the way that Stacey does (I don't know if anyone does, anymore), she is a real and breathing character, someone whose truth I can't help but identify with, at any age it seems. Another stellar book from the Manawaka Series.
