Now it was here, in regard to Monty, that Olivia’s whimsy surpassed oddness and achieved eccentricity. I made this discovery the first time she invited me to tea. I’d wondered why Olivia’s manner was so unnaturally subdued until she said, tiptoeing about the room: “Monty’s busy in the study. He always reads the financial journals at this time of day.”
As I knew Monty Crackenthorpe had flown the coop some twenty years earlier, this news left me somewhat agog. Olivia brought in the tea things: badly tarnished silver and chinaware far from spotless.
A mahogany library table overflowed with a clutter of maps, steamship and airline schedules, guidebooks and colorful brochures.
“I’m planning a little jaunt to the south of France,” she revealed in her twittery, jingle-bell voice. “I wanted your advice, my dear. I haven’t been there in donkey’s years and I’d like to know what to expect. Changes the guidebooks fail to mention.”
I was obliged to disappoint her by disclosing I’d never been to the south of France, nor for that matter to any part of that country. She found this astonishing. That I hadn’t traveled extensively appeared from her expression to cast doubt on my credentials as a writer.
“Oh, what a pity,” she exclaimed. “I say, what a lark if we could go together. Traveling companions, you know.”
We sipped the tepid tea and nibbled the stale cake while Olivia debated the modes of travel. Steamship was romantic but slow, yet did I think airplanes were quite safe? And then presently, with a glance toward the study door, she said: “I do so want Monty to meet you, my dear. I’ll just pop in quiet as a mouse and ask him to join us.”
I could hear her murmuring beyond the door and then she was back, shaking her head in exasperation. “Poor Monty’s in one of his ungregarious moods, I fear. The market, you know. It’s got him frightfully worried. Oh, well, another time.”
Although madly curious, I was required to wait until that weekend for the pleasure of meeting Monty. I was in the garden when I happened to look up and see the figure of a man sitting in a wheelchair in the shade of a catalpa tree on Olivia’s lawn. At length Olivia herself appeared wearing black toreador pants and a beaded pink blouse. She signaled me to come over.
As I opened the gate and advanced up the garden path, I was amazed to discover that the wheelchair’s occupant was in fact a dummy. It was dressed in a tweed suit, a white shirt, and a broad-striped tie with a fake diamond stickpin. A straw hat was jammed low on its cloth head. It had a rudimentary nose, lips embroidered in red silk thread, and shiny black buttons for eyes.
“Yoo hoo, dear boy,” Olivia greeted me. “Come say hello to Monty.”
Imagination failed me when I sought for an appropriate reply, so all I said was, “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Crackenthorpe.”
Olivia winked at me. “He’s been sulking all morning. Something about the Dow Jones. Don’t be offended, dear. It’s time for our walk but I’m expecting a call from the State Department. I don’t suppose you’d care to take him.”
“Well...”
“No, of course you wouldn’t. No point in the neighborhood thinking we’re both dotty.”
From this remark and those that followed, I soon discovered Olivia’s attitude toward this bizarre doll to be a quite unfathomable mixture of fantasy and common sense. “I know I don’t have to worry about your opinion, dear. After all, make-believe is your business, true?”
With a childlike, touching air of trustfulness she imparted the whole story:
“For years after he went away I didn’t do a thing about Monty’s clothes and personal effects. I suppose I kept hoping he might come back, although I knew he’d mistreated me shamefully. I sometimes think any company is better than none. Well, one day when I got to sorting through all Monty’s stuff the idea came to me to make a Monty doll. My dear, it was such fun. Stuffing the body and sewing it all up. And so pleasant afterward, having him sitting there with me while I planned my trips, or across the table at mealtimes, and looking after him after he’d had his accident. Tumbled all the way downstairs one night three years ago. Perdita’s fault. She scooted between his legs when I was taking him up to bed. Luckily, I still had Mama’s wheelchair in the attic. My dear, it’s the strangest thing. My Monty is ever so much more agreeable than the real man. My Monty never talks back, never complains, never calls me a silly child. He’s just there, don’t you know. Someone to talk to. We go for rides in the car and I push him around the block every afternoon, rain or shine. You would have seen us if that wasn’t your writing time.”
Her glance fell upon Perdita, glaring down at us from the porch rail. “I’ll tell you a secret,” Olivia whispered. “I’ve already started making the sweetest little sawdust kitty that’ll look just like Perdita. I’m using parts from an old bearskin rug. If only Perdita would die. It’ll be ever so lovely, her sitting there just like a proper puss, not scratching and clawing at me every chance she gets.”
One would never accuse a child of being insane for liking to dress up in outlandish costumes and play make-believe with her favorite doll. And wasn’t Olivia simply a child who in many ways had never made the transition to adulthood? I found it all infinitely sad, yet poignant and touching. Perhaps for the very reason she had adduced: make-believe was my business.
The summer wore on. I began making progress on my novel. Tea with Olivia became a daily event. While Perdita gazed menacingly upon us or honed her already lethal claws on the furniture, Olivia would pore over her maps and guidebooks, Monty’s benevolent button eyes regarding us with a mute but placid indifference. I was no longer startled when Olivia might suddenly break off and turn to address some remark to Monty, as if aware he was being excluded from the conversation. “What do you think, Monty? Do you think the tour might prove too exhausting for me?”
And then, like the intrusion of the ogre, the monster, or the wicked witch into that fairy-tale summer, the real, the living Monty Crackenthorpe reappeared on the scene, a resurrection devoutly to be regretted by all concerned.
I looked across into Olivia’s garden one morning to see a stranger standing on the back porch. I may have imagined a menacing aspect in that narrow crabbed jaw jutting wedgelike beneath a swollen red nose, but I felt an instant alarm. The seedy look of the stranger aroused fears of burglars and break-ins. I decided to investigate.
I introduced myself and asked for Olivia. The man shrugged, eyed me with an insolent frown, then turned back into the house, squalling Olivia’s name. “Livy! You got company. Get down here.”
At length she appeared, looking like some wasted flower that hadn’t been watered in a week. She darted a quick look over her shoulder and came down the steps to join me.
“He’s back!” she whispered. “Monty’s come home.” Drawing me further from the house, she plucked at my sleeve and looked up at me imploringly. “He simply breezed in last night, pleased as punch with himself, as if he’d only gone down to the corner for a pack of cigarettes. He looked frightful. So shabby. He says he’s home to stay. My dear, whatever shall I do?”