Umbrella Lady
Her internal dialogue had a habit of leaking out. While it caused her to smile with self-approval, it often confused those nearby. Sometimes her face beamed beneath her small umbrella as words escaped from within, seemingly leaping into open air as though freed. Words that apparently held immense meaning to Umbrella Lady. Words which were sometimes audible yet incoherent. Or words which were often silent to passers-by.
Many of the local kids said she was a witch. No reason why… she was just different, so in the eyes of kids in a rural town, it confirmed she was a witch. Very few had ever spoken to her or been close enough to notice the absence of many teeth inside the gloom of her puckered-up tight mouth. Local legend held that, unlike a comic-book witch, she didn’t ride a broom. Like the middle child in ‘Peter Pan’, she allegedly travelled about with her umbrella held high, rising and descending on gusts of wind. Nobody had ever actually witnessed this, but Reggie Glasspool’s big brother, who knew everything or made stuff up when he didn’t, reckoned one of his friends had seen something late one night. He said it looked a little bit like Umbrella Lady hovering in the air above the river when he was perch fishing there once. If a mate of Reggie Glasspool’s big brother thinks he saw it, it must be true.
She lived near the town rubbish tip. Umbrella Lady had a tiny plywood caravan parked beneath a huge mulberry tree adjacent to the tip. Occasionally I would see her wandering around the dumping area beneath her umbrella when I was scavenging for bits and pieces to build billy carts. ‘The Tip’ was the go-to source for wheels and axles on discarded prams. I maintained a respectful distance between myself and the slightly stooped Umbrella Lady. Her umbrellas changed regularly; I guessed she found them in The Tip because they were usually damaged, spines protruding at odd angles. I’m not sure if they kept off sun or rain, but without fail, she was always armed with a raised umbrella.
Umbrella Lady’s caravan intrigued us kids. While the curved plywood roof had originally been a painted beige colour, its life under the mulberry tree had drastically altered its appearance. Large splotches of maroon stains adorned the roof. Years of fallen, overripe mulberries had rendered it a sea of multiple hues of purple which had eventually dribbled from the roof down the walls of the van. Through neglect and lack of direct sunlight, the exterior walls had also assumed the damp greenness of moss. To a curious kid, its overall appearance bordered on the sinister. Maybe that’s why I did what I did.
Late one Saturday afternoon I trailed her. It was close to sunset. We knew we needed to be home soon but we were free-range country kids in the early 1960s and our parents didn’t start worrying about us until dark. Reggie Glasspool and I had hacksawed two axles from a pram. There were no wheels, other kids had probably plundered The Tip before us that afternoon. It had jolted us when Umbrella Lady appeared suddenly and silently beside us but, without acknowledging us, she moved onwards to the other end of The Tip with her shuffling gait. Her inner dialogue was leaking out as barely audible mutters from beneath her damaged umbrella and she paid us no attention. I could tell that Reggie had almost wet his pants because he shot off homewards like a scalded cat, but I was intrigued. I tailed her at a distance, staying out of view. Reaching the caravan, she cast her umbrella onto a jumble of damaged umbrellas beneath the van and selected another. Primping her matted hair with a free hand she studied her reflection in the small mirror attached to the external wall of her van. In the dim light, she nodded approvingly at her gummy image, donned an oversized greatcoat and proceeded away from the van towards the river. I followed furtively, my heart rate elevating, skin crawling.
The sunset had left a residue of salmon colour in the mountainous horizon beyond the river. An ensemble of evening birds and insects had commenced tuning up. Umbrella Lady shuffled to the riverbank, flung her heavy coat to the ground, tilted her head upwards and made a rehearsed birdcall. There was a rustle from the midst of a clump of young she-oaks and she was quickly joined by a small, elderly man. His darting eyes were bright and in an arthritic fist he also bore an upright, broken umbrella. How long had he been waiting for her? They locked eyes, smiled knowingly at each other. Small coos of delight leaked from the pair as they nuzzled wrinkled necks delicately before they gently rose from the riverbank as one, their broken brollies held aloft. My jaw dropped discernibly in disbelief.
Ascending almost fifty metres above the river, they began hovering and swaying around each other in a rhythmic and intensively seductive aerial tango. On their tiny violins, hundreds of evening birds and cicadas launched into the haunting yet melancholic string section of ‘Por una Cabeza’ while thousands of crickets provided a driving staccato background on thousands of minuscule pianos. I watched and listened in awe, somewhat afraid. But I was unable to flee, entranced by this spontaneous outpouring of passion and personal intimacy. I was party to something too authentic, too fragile to interrupt. Their aerial tango concluded in little more than three minutes. It had been electric to witness the elderly couple’s synchronicity as they generated their own language in movement. And beneath a pair of hideously damaged umbrellas, the two elderly dancers embraced while still levitating fifty metres above the dark river. Gradually they began a slow floating descent towards the riverbank, clasping each other’s gnarly free hand. As unlikely as it might seem, Umbrella Lady and Umbrella Man had demonstrated an intimacy and connection that many will never know.
And me? I retreated silently from the seclusion of my hiding spot, my heart replaced by a bass drum inside my chest cavity. In the intervening six decades I’ve never confided to a soul. Would anyone have believed me anyway? I’m still somewhat conflicted about being an accidental voyeur of Umbrella Lady’s private outpouring of love.
And when I reflect upon what I’d witnessed above the riverbank that evening so long ago, a universal truth courses through my head. The young, and the beautiful, do not hold a mortgage on the magic of love despite implicit messages to the contrary. And the notion that love arrives in all shapes and situations leaves me feeling hopeful and warm and tingling.
