My Mother And I Go Shopping

My Mother And I Go Shopping
Lawrence Watt-Evans

My mother always knew all the best places to shop, all the tricks and bargains. You could send her out with ten dollars and she'd come home with stuff you swore would cost a hundred or more. When I was a kid, I was slow learning how money worked because it seemed as if my mother could stretch it as far as needed, no matter how little there was; as a result, I had trouble with concepts like "broke" and "unaffordable."

I never knew how she did it; I thought shopping was dull, and I seldom went along.

She did it, though. After I grew up and went off on my own, she kept on in the old home town, bringing home bargains and somehow living on my Dad's pension. I got married, and divorced, and married, and divorced, and she kept on at the old homestead.

I stopped in sometimes when I could, but she didn't seem to need me around, so I didn't make it a regular thing. It wasn't as if we'd been all that close, as these things go.

But Mother was getting on; she'd been on the far side of eighty for a couple of years, and she couldn't get around as well any more. Her eyesight wasn't good enough to drive, and she'd lost her license. Usually her friends took care of her, but the day inevitably came when no one else was around, and she needed to pick up a few items, and I was nearby, back in the area on business.

So my mother and I went out shopping-and I must admit, despite years of listening to her and even following her around as a kid, I'd never quite figured out how she found the bargains she did, so I didn't really mind a chance to see her in action again. I assumed it would mostly be boring beyond belief, but I thought I might learn something.

I did.

The first thing I learned was that my mother still wasn't taking any sass from her youngest, even if I was forty years old.

"Do you want to go to the mall, Mother?" I asked, as I helped her into the car. "It's a nice place…"

She snorted. "It's a den of thieves," she snapped. "You just go where I tell you."

"Yes'm," I said; I kept the sigh in until I'd closed the car door.

I got in the driver's seat and asked, "Where to, then?"

"You just drive," she said, making brushing gestures at me. "I'll tell you where to go."

So I drove.

We headed in toward town, and I thought we were headed for the big old department stores downtown, maybe for the bargain basements, but then Mother snapped, "Turn right at the corner."

I turned right, onto a street I vaguely remembered but couldn't name.

"Left," she said, and we turned into the potholed alley behind a row of shops, and then right onto old brick pavement, and right again, and we were on muddy gravel between two smoke-blackened brick walls, and I'd lost my bearings completely. I was pretty sure that wherever we were, I'd never been here before.

It didn't look like a very good neighborhood, either, and I was a bit worried-Mother had been coming here to shop? Where was there to shop here, anyway? Warehouses, maybe? All I could see was brick walls, boarded windows, and padlocked doors.

Maybe it was just a shortcut.

Then we turned another corner, and another, and there were shops, quaint little ones, a row of them on either side of the street-such as it was. The street here was just mud, without even a leavening of gravel, and it ended in a T intersection with an alleyway at the end of the block-if I went straight ahead I'd run smack into a sagging wooden structure that might have been an old garage or an old barn.

"Here we are!" Mother chirped cheerfully.

I hadn't heard her speak that way in years-decades, really. Startled, I turned to look at her, and she glared back. "Just park the car, Billy boy," she said.

I looked at the street, with its bare mud reaching from doorstep to doorstep across a width of maybe twenty feet, with no sign of sidewalks or curbstones, and decided that one place was as good as another; I stopped the car where it was.

It wasn't as if there were any other vehicles in sight. There weren't.

I thought I could feel the car sinking into the mud when I shut off the engine. Certainly, when I got out, I sank into the mud-right to the tops of my shoes.

I'd wondered why Mother was wearing boots when it wasn't raining or snowing; now I knew.

I looked around, and I suspect my jaw dropped.

I'm sure you've seen those little mock-colonial neighborhoods, with the mullioned bow windows and the gas streetlights and the brick sidewalks and a bunch of overpriced fake antiques inside, with stick candy in a jar by the cash register. They're big with the tourists; you'll find them all over New England and scattered through a few other places along the eastern seaboard as well.

I'd thought that was what this place was when I was driving in, but now that I had a good look-the roof on one shop was thatch. There weren't any streetlights; the lanterns over the doors had candles in them, candles that had actually been lit, going by the smoke-stained glass and the blackened wicks. There weren't any sidewalks, but some shops had planks out to help customers across the gutters. Paint was peeling, bricks were smoked and dirty, glass was cracked-if this was a tourist trap, it was the worst-maintained one I ever saw.

And the signboards, the stuff in the shop windows-it looked real.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Old Town," Mother said. "Come on." She stomped off at her best pace, which wasn't very good, and headed straight toward a shop whose faded signboard read APOTHECARY.

I slogged along behind her; at least I didn't have any trouble keeping up. That would have been embarrassing, given her age.

She scraped her boots on an iron gadget by the shop door; I tried to do the same, but I didn't quite have the hang of it and damn near pulled one of my loafers off. By the time I had my balance again, she was inside and headed straight for the counter, past cabinets full of bottles and displays of weird chemical apparatus.

I hurried after her, across a plank floor that was absolutely black with accumulated grime, and stepped up beside her just as a white-aproned fellow stepped out of the curtained-off back room, took one look at Mother, and said, " 'Tis Old Mag, is it? A good day t'ye!"

The phrasing was good old Irish, but the accent wasn't; it sounded almost southern.

"And to you, David Coleman," my mother answered, but she wasn't looking at him; she was rummaging in her purse.

"You've more of your remedies, then?" the man asked, leaning forward.

"More of the same, Mr. Coleman." She pulled a little plastic bottle out of her purse, a bottle of big white pills; the label had been peeled off, leaving just a patch of gummy white residue.

"Mother," I whispered, "what is that?"

"It's aspirin, Billy boy-now shut up," she whispered back.

"And is the price the same?" Coleman asked.

"Unless you'd pay more," Mother snapped back.

"Nay, Old Mag, none of that! I'll pay you a fair price for your witchery, but I'll not be cheated."

"And I won't cheat you. Same price."

Coleman nodded and reached below the counter. Mother set the bottle on the polished wood but didn't let go of it.

I didn't know what the hell was going on, so I just watched, and I hoped that stuff really was aspirin. I'd have hated to find out at this late date that my mother was a drug dealer.

Coleman brought up a handful of little round lumps of something and began counting them out onto the counter. At twelve he stopped.

"And there you have it," he said. "A dozen scruples of fine gold."

"Thanks," Mother said, as she carefully scooped up the gold doodads.

"Would you have aught else of me this fine day?" Coleman asked.

"Don't think so," Mother said. "Been a pleasure doing business with you."

I could just barely keep my mouth shut until we were out the door.

"Mother," I hissed, "why are you selling that man aspirin?"

"They don't have it here," she answered placidly.

"How much is a dozen scruples, anyway?"

"Half an ounce, ninny-didn't anyone ever teach you that in school?"

"No, they…"

I stopped in my tracks. "Mother," I said.

"What is it, Billy?"

"Half an ounce of gold is about a hundred and fifty dollars, isn't it?"

"About that," she agreed. "Except this is avoirdupois, and they figure gold in troy. Figure a hundred and twenty."

"For a bottle of aspirin?"

"They don't have it here, Billy. Now, come on."

Utterly confused, halfway certain I'd just seen my mother sell a hundred tablets of cocaine or something equally illegal, I followed her across the street to the car. I opened the door for her but then asked, "Where are we, that they don't have aspirin?"

She shrugged. "I told you, Billy," she said, "Old Town."

Before I could say anything else, a voice cried, "Old Mag!"

Mother turned, and so did I.

There was a woman standing in the street, hands on her hips, glaring at us. She was a handsome creature, rather gypsyish-dark-haired, medium height, medium build, hair pulled back in a long, thick braid, wearing a white blouse and brown ankle-length skirt. She could have been anywhere from twenty-five to fifty.

I stared, I admit it. She was worth staring at.

"Jenny McGill," Mother said."What do you want?"

"You know what I want, Old Mag," the woman answered. "I'd have seen the last of you, that's what I want!"

"Oh, come on," Mother said. "I'm eighty-three years old next month, I'll be dead soon. You can't let me do a little business here while I last?"

"Ha!" The McGill woman tossed her head theatrically. "Your kind can't be trusted to die a decent death, and I've had enough of waiting!"

"So don't wait. I come here what, once a week, and, sell Davey Coleman a few things?"

"Mother…" I began.

"Shut up, Billy," Mother muttered.

"Old Mag, I told you when last you came, there's no room for two witches in Old Town, and 'tis my place, not yours! We need no outsiders here."

"I've been coming here sixty years, since before your mother was born, and you call me an outsider?" Mother called back. "Jenny McGill, you mind your manners! Your mother never spoke to me like that, rest her dear soul." She climbed into the car.

I hesitated, looking at Mother, then at Jenny McGill.

"Close the door, Billy. Let's get going," Mother said.

I shut the door and started around to the driver's side, but before I got there, Jenny McGill came striding up.

I started to say something, to apologize for my mother, but before I got a word out, she put a hand on either side of my head and pulled me down and kissed me.

Wow.

I've been married twice and had a few flings, and I figured I knew the basics, but I had never been kissed like that. I mean, I popped right to attention, so to speak, thought I might tear my pants, I was sweating and trembling and half-blind, couldn't see anything but those dark eyes…

"Take your hands off him, Jenny," my mother called, leaning out the car window.

Jenny stopped kissing me, but she kept her hands right where they were. "Never before were you so foolish as to bring a man," she called back. "You know where my powers lie, yet your chosen companion this time's a man in his prime-you've grown old and foolish, Old Mag, and I've got you this time."

"Jenny McGill, you take your hands off my son," Mother called.

She had been bringing her lips up for another kiss, but at the word "son" she froze and stared up into my eyes.

I wasn't thinking any too clearly, but I had an armful of woman, and I did the natural thing-I started to lean down to meet her halfway with that kiss.

She screamed and tried to pull free, my hands slipped, and she plopped backward into the mud.

"Your son! she shrieked. "You… I… Old Mag, forgive me, I didn't…"

"Get in the car," Mother snapped.

I got in the car.

"Drive," she said.

"But she's still in front of us."

"Drive," Mother said, in a tone of voice I remembered from childhood-remembered with considerable dread.

I drove.

Jenny McGill rolled out of the way, and by the time I realized I was heading toward that T intersection at the end of the block, she was on her feet again, dripping mud, shouting after us and waving her fist.

"It's going to be tough turning around here," I said. "The street's pretty narrow…"

"Are you crazy?" Mother asked. "We're not turning around. She's still back there, and any minute now she's going to realize that even if you are my son, you don't have any more of the Talent than a cabbage. If you did, she'd have felt it when she kissed you."

"But then where…"

"Through there," Mother said, pointing.

The door of the garage, or barn or whatever it was, was opening.

I didn't know what else to do; I drove though.

The interior was dark; I could just barely make out a dusty interior, strange machinery like antique farm equipment along either side, and a ramp straight ahead that ran down out of sight, down into more complete darkness.

I headed down the ramp. I turned on the headlights and saw nothing but hard-packed brown earth, underneath us and to either side. Whatever was above us was invisible in the gloom.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Down," Mother said.

That wasn't much help, but I drove on in silence for a moment. The ramp kept going down, between those two walls, deeper into the darkness.

After awhile I'd had enough, though. "Mother," I said, slowing the car a little, "What the hell is going on?"

"I'm trying to get a little shopping done, that's all," Mother said defensively. "It's not my fault Jenny McGill's got too big for her britches, wanting to keep Old Town all for herself."

"She said you're a witch."

Mother shrugged.

"Mother," I said, "what is this Old Town place? I never heard of it, never saw it before. How can they have witches there? Nobody believes in witches any more. Why don't they have aspirin?"

"Never invented it, I guess," she said.

"And witches?"

She shrugged again. "I know a few things," she said. "They want to call it witchcraft, what do I care?"

"But what is Old Town?"

"It's a place, all right? You think every place there is gets on the maps, every place has TV and telephones?"

Well, in fact I thought exactly that, but I decided not to say so. "It seems kind of backward," I said.

"It's different, all right," she agreed-if it was agreement. "Good place for leather goods and ironmongery, and I can usually do someone a favor there for a little spending money."

It was getting stuffy in the car; I flicked on the air conditioning. I thought I saw a faint orange glow ahead, though it was hard to be sure with the headlights on.

"Listen," Mother said. "We're going to come out in a big cave in a few minutes, and when we do you want to take the second tunnel on the right-got that? Second on the right."

"Yes, Mother," I said.

She hadn't mentioned that the cave would be so sweltering hot that the air shimmered and the windows were hot to the touch. The car's air conditioner was struggling along as best it could, but I was sweating and the steering wheel was sticky.

She also didn't mention the bright orange glare that came from somewhere off to the left, down below the road, where I couldn't see whatever produced it. She didn't mention that we'd be on a narrow road along the top of a cliff, with no railing, just a sheer drop. And she didn't mention the things that were watching us from niches in the far wall, on the other side of the chasm.

If Mother hadn't said anything I'd have taken that first right, to get the hell out of that place, but I held on another hundred feet and took the second right, into the welcome darkness of another tunnel; this one, thank heavens, was heading upward, rather than further down…

Unfortunately, it wasn't as nice and straight as the one that led down from Old Town. It wiggled and wound its way upward, and twice I heard metal scraping on rock as I squeezed the car around those narrow turns.

"I don't usually come this way," Mother remarked.

"I can see why not," I said, as I negotiated another curve.

"Mary's Cadillac won't fit through here at all; I'm glad you've got a sensible car."

Mother's friend Mary has a '73 Eldorado. "I like to be able to park," I said.

Then the tunnel ended-the headlights illuminated a pair of heavy wooden doors instead of more rock. I barely stopped in time.

"The bar's on this side," Mother said. "You'll have to open them."

I squeezed out of the car, lifted the bar, and pushed the doors open; sunlight poured in. I blinked and looked around and saw forest. "Where are we?" I asked.

"Come on, get in the car," Mother called.

We got rolling again, down a dirt road that wound through woods, past some of the biggest trees I've ever seen in my life-not giant redwoods or anything, but oaks and chestnuts that would've considered a sixty-footer a hopeless runt.

"I wasn't planning to come this way," Mother said, "but as long as we're here, take a left at the fork."

I took a left, and then…

Then I don't remember what happened next, but I was driving through the woods again, the sun was lower in the sky by at least an hour, and there was a bolt of fabric on the back seat.

I looked at Mother, at the fabric-lovely stuff, patterned silk-and then at the road, and decided not to ask about it.

"Where now?" I asked.

"Right," she said, pointing, and a few minutes later we came out of the woods onto the shoulder of the interstate a mile outside town. I got on the highway.

"D'you know where Stilson Jewelers is?"

"I think so," I said.

"Well, go there-I'm going to sell Mr. Coleman's gold, and then you can take me to Aubrey's Foodliner and we'll get the groceries."

I waited in the car while she sold the gold, and while I waited I thought about it all. This had been, without a doubt, the weirdest day of my life-but it was fascinating, too. That forest was beautiful, and I had a feeling that whatever I didn't remember there had been pleasant, and driving the tunnels was exciting, and Old Town had a certain charm to it.

A large part of that charm was Jenny McGill, I had to admit. She was a fine-looking woman, no question about it.

Of course, she was apparently ready to kill my mother and me on sight, but still, remembering her had a certain thrill. Maybe it was witchcraft, or maybe I just hadn't been kissed by enough pretty women lately.

And of course, there was the mystery of where those places were. They didn't seem to connect. There weren't any woods like that along the interstate, I'd have sworn to it, and I never saw anything like Old Town before. Remembering the route, I thought we should have come out behind the old railroad station, not on a block of shops left from some other century.

But did I think every place there is gets on the maps, that every place has TV and telephones? I'd always loved stories of secret rooms and hidden passages when I was a kid-maybe I'd just found the grown-up equivalent.

"Mother," I asked, when she was back in the car, "how'd you find these places?"

She didn't pretend to misunderstand. "You've just gotta know how to look, Billy boy," she said. "And I've been at it a long, long time. Since before you were born."

"Why'd you never take me along?"

She sighed. "Two reasons-maybe more. First, a boy child's a little too valuable in some of them, a little too tempting. You wouldn't leave one of those boomboxes on the car seat down on East Main Street while you were shopping, would you?"

I had to admit that I wouldn't.

"Second, I didn't suppose you'd appreciate it. You were always such a sober little kid, no sign of the Talent at all. Why confuse you with a bunch of places you'd probably never see again?"

I could see that. I didn't think it was right, not really- but I was never the life of any party, never had much of a creative flair for anything. Whatever fantasy life I might have never showed much-I never let it. Hell, my first wife left me because I was boring. I've known for a long time that people didn't find me fascinating.

Even my own mother.

I thought about that while I pushed the cart through the supermarket for her.

I wasn't as boring as all that. I had an imagination. It just didn't show.

And this Talent that Mother talked about-what was it?

Did I have it after all, maybe? That kiss might have told more than Mother knew.

"That Jenny McGill…" I began.

"That bitch," Mother snapped. "See if I go back there again! Someone else can bring them their aspirin and penicillin from now on!"

I thought about that on the way back to Mother's house.

By the next week, I was back home and Mother's friends were driving her again.

But a month later I wangled a transfer to Boston. I said I wanted to be nearer Mother, in case her health went, and the home office didn't mind. I bought a condo a mile from Mother's house and commuted into the city five days a week.

On weekends I just drove around town. Alone, not with Mother.

It took me six weeks and a dozen tries before I found Old Town again. It took me an hour of fast talk and dodging before Jenny McGill would listen to what I had to say.

Finding the place got easier every time, though, and really, Jenny can be perfectly reasonable when she wants to.

She doesn't think I'm boring. I courted her for six months, and at last she gave in. We've posted the banns, and she and Mother have declared an armed truce. Mother still won't go back to Old Town, but I've brought Jenny to dinner a few times. Maybe I'm under a spell; if so, I don't care. Witch or not, she's a fine woman.

And I've found a few shortcuts. There are a lot of places that aren't on the maps.

Whatever happens now, it won't be boring.

Mother always did know the best places to shop.