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By Root 366 0

’d turned them into a herd of what she must have decided were dwarfish, woolly horses, and now bossed them around. They in turn had accepted her as a giant balding sheep, and followed her everywhere. She dealt with the cows and their lumbering attempts to monopolize the food supply by sneaking up on them and biting them; Nell had even witnessed a kick. These activities and the chance they gave her to express herself had improved her frame of mind immeasurably. She was now quite perky, like a housebound drudge recently widowed and in the process of discovering the pleasures of nail polish, hair salons, and bingo. Her diet was a thing of the past, Nell having been proven too feeble to enforce it.

“Isn’t this normal?” said Nell, meaning the ice cream, the cats, the dog, Gladys looking over the fence – the whole bucolic scene. What she meant was domestic.

“This air’s so great,” said Lizzie, breathing in. “You should stay here forever. You shouldn’t even bother going in to the city. When are you going to get rid of that rusty old machinery?”

“It’s lawn sculpture. That would suit them,” said Nell. “They’d never have to see me again.”

“They’ll get over it,” said Lizzie. “Anyway they live in the Middle Ages. Is it a harrow?”

“They might like Gladys,” said Nell hopefully.

“Gladys is beside the point,” said Lizzie.

Nell thought about that. “Not to herself,” she said. “I think it’s actually a disker. The other one’s a drag harrow.”

“They wouldn’t like Howl,” said Lizzie. “He’s too craven for them. What you need is a rusty old car.”

“We’ve got one, we’re driving it,” said Nell. “He’s mentally deficient. I can see their point though. Everything’s different now. They aren’t used to it.”

“That’s their problem,” said Lizzie, who despite her fragility could be tough when it came to other people, and especially other people who were doing wounding things to Nell.

When Lizzie and Nell spoke together, they often left out the middle terms of thought sequences because they knew the other one would fill them in. Them meant their parents, in whose books – outdated, prudish books, according to Lizzie – only cheap, trashy women did things like living with married men.

Lizzie was the messenger. She took it as her mission to assure their parents that Nell was not dying of any fatal disease, and to report to Nell that it was not yet time for the parents to meet Tig, of whom Lizzie approved, with reservations. First the parents would have to enter the twentieth century. Lizzie herself would be the judge of when that had happened.

It’s fun for her to be the judge, thought Nell. She’s been on the judged end enough times. She probably has discussions with them about me. Me and my bad behaviour. Now I’m the problem child, for a change.

“How’s Claude?” she said. Claude was Lizzie’s current man. He’d been away a lot, on trips, and had been offhand about his dates of return. He was away right now, and a week overdue.

“There’s something wrong with my digestive system,” said Lizzie. What she meant was, I am feeling very anxious, because of Claude. “I think I have irritable bowel syndrome. I have to see a doctor about it.”

“He just needs to grow up,” said Nell.

“I mean, he might be dead or something,” said Lizzie. “He doesn’t get that part.”

“What are you talking about?” said Tig, coming around the corner of the house. “Is the ice cream ready?”

“You,” said Nell.

Lizzie came up the next weekend. “What about your irritable bowel syndrome?” Nell asked her.

“The doctor couldn’t find anything,” Lizzie said. “He referred me to a shrink. He thinks it’s psychological.”

Nell didn’t think this was a totally bad idea. Maybe the shrink could do something about the anxiety, the crises, the troubles with men. Help Lizzie get some perspective.

“Are you going to go?” she asked. “To the shrink?”

“I’ve already been,” said Lizzie.

A few weeks later, Lizzie came up again. She didn’t say much and seemed preoccupied. It was hard to wake her in the mornings. She was tired at lot of the time.

“The shrink’s put me on a pill,” she said. “It’s supposed to help