I saw my grandmother lose her mind in pieces like that; when she was so old that she could remember almost nothing—certainly not Owen Meany, and not even me—she would occasionally reprimand the whole room, and anyone present in it. “What has happened to tipping the hat?” she would howl. “Bring back the bow!” she would croon. “Bring back the curtsy!”
“Yes, Grandmother,” I would say.
“Oh, what do you know?” she would say. “Who are you, anyway?” she would ask.
“HE IS YOUR GRANDSON, JOHNNY,” I would say, in my best imitation of Owen Meany’s voice.
And my Grandmother would say, “My God, is he still here? Is that funny little guy still here? Did you lock him in the passageway, Johnny?”
Later, in that summer when we were ten, Owen told me that my mother had been to the quarry to visit his parents.
“What did they say about it?” I asked him.
They hadn’t mentioned the visit, Owen told me, but he knew she’d been there. “I COULD SMELL HER PERFUME,” Owen said. “SHE MUST HAVE BEEN THERE QUITE A WHILE BECAUSE THERE WAS ALMOST AS MUCH OF HER PERFUME AS THERE IS IN YOUR HOUSE. MY MOTHER DOESN’T WEAR PERFUME,” he added.
This was unnecessary to tell me. Not only did Mrs. Meany not go outdoors; she refused to look outdoors. When I saw her positioned in the various windows of Owen’s house, she was always in profile to the window, determined not to be observing the world—yet making an obscure point: by sitting in profile, possibly she meant to suggest that she had not entirely turned her back on the world, either. It occurred to me that the Catholics had done this to her—whatever it was, it surely qualified for the unmentioned UNSPEAKABLE OUTRAGE that Owen claimed his father and mother had suffered. There was something about Mrs. Meany’s obdurate self-imprisonment that smacked of religious persecution—if not eternal damnation.
“How did it go with the Meanys?” I asked my mother.
“They told Owen I was there?” she asked.
“No, they didn’t tell him. He recognized your perfume.”
“He would,” she said, and smiled. I think she knew Owen had a crush on her—all my friends had crushes on my mother. And if she had lived until they’d all been teenagers, their degrees of infatuation with her would doubtless have deepened, and worsened, and been wholly unbearable—both to them, and to me.
Although my mother resisted the temptation of my generation—that is to say, she restrained herself from picking up Owen Meany—she could not resist touching Owen. You simply had to put your hands on Owen. He was mortally cute; he had a furry animal attractiveness—except for the nakedness of his nearly transparent ea
rs, and the rodentlike way they protruded from his sharp face. My grandmother said that Owen resembled an embryonic fox. When touching Owen, one avoided his ears; they looked as if they would be cold to the touch. But not my mother; she even rubbed warmth into his rubbery ears. She hugged him, she kissed him, she touched noses with him. She did all these things as naturally as if she were doing them to me, but she did none of these things to my other friends—not even to my cousins. And Owen responded to her quite affectionately; he’d blush sometimes, but he’d always smile. His standard, nearly constant frown would disappear; an embarrassed beam would overcome his face.
I remember him best when he stood level to my mother’s girlish waist; the top of his head, if he stood on his toes, would brush against her breasts. When she was sitting down and he would go over to her, to receive his usual touches and hugs, his face would be dead-even with her breasts. My mother was a sweater girl; she had a lovely figure, and she knew it, and she wore those sweaters of the period that showed it.
A measure of Owen’s seriousness was that we could talk about the mothers of all our friends, and Owen could be extremely frank in his appraisal of my mother to me; he could get away with it, because I knew he wasn’t joking. Owen never joked.
“YOUR MOTHER HAS THE BEST BREASTS OF ALL THE MOTHERS.” No other friend could have said this to me without starting a fight.
“You really think so?” I asked him.
“ABSOLUTELY, THE BEST,” he said.
“What about Missus Wiggin?” I asked him.
“TOO BIG,” Owen said.
“Missus Webster?” I asked him.
“TOO LOW,” Owen said.
“Missus Merrill?” I asked.
“VERY FUNNY,” Owen said.
“Miss Judkins?” I said.
“I DON’T KNOW,” he said. “I CAN’T REMEMBER THEM. BUT SHE’S NOT A MOTHER.”
“Miss Farnum!” I said.
“YOU’RE JUST FOOLING AROUND,” Owen said peevishly.