Village Squire, 1976-03, Page 20THE
FIELDS
OF
GOLD
Celia was just
the way Cliff
wanted her...
jolly,
uncomplaining,
and fat
BY SANDRA ORR
18, VILLAGE SQUIRE/MARCH 1976
Celia was a big woman. With a name like
Celia you'd have thought she was slim and
chic, straight from her youth, but faded
maybe, like last night's corsage. Celia was
neither chic nor slim. She was so fat her nylon
stockings rustled together as she walked.
Celia's mother was a big woman and she
must have known that Celia would also be
big, stuffing herself with sweets. But she
didn't seem to know and called her daughter
Celia after her spinster aunt who was thin.
When Celia was young she was slim and
pretty, the pale kind of pretty, until she got
married and moved out to the farm with Cliff.
She then fulfilled her predisposition for
sweets eating, the fatty effects of it settling
everywhere it was possible to settle. Even her
toes (which were neat and square) were fat.
In another society, perhaps, where everyone
was skinny and in danger of starving to death
due tb a famine or if a shipment of birth
control pills instead of food arrived, her
rotund body would have been admired. She
would have been a fertility godess, the
picture of health and desirability; statues
would have been made of her.
Indeed, that's how she often thought of
herself, a fertility godess, abundant,
happy-go-lucky. That was how she got fat,
she told herself. She ate for pleasure, because
she was happy, because it made her feel good
(she never got heartburn no matter how many
doughnuts she ate). That she ate because she
was depressed never entered her head.
Because really she'd never looked at what she
was doing, or why she was doing it, or what
she could be doing but just went on eating
and puttering about from day to day.
Out on the farm they hadn't put in a
furnace yet although they had indoor
plumbing (put in five years ago, the last on
the concession) with the pipes still in full
view. They relied on an oil space heater and a
wood cook stove to keep the place warm.
Keeping the stove going was one of Celia's
chores. There was nothing pleasanter, Cliff
said, than to come in on a cold winter's day,
the house smelling of heavy wood smoke, the
heavy smell of it permeating you as you
approached the door, the heat emanating
from the stove, warming your hands over it,
and over all that the smell of home made
bread, and bacon frying (it had the rind still
on it, the best bacon you can get, Cliff would
boast), a half dozen eggs bubbling, fresh
from this morning's efforts in the hen house
(the best restaurant in the world couldn't
provide eggs like these, Cliff said) all under
the well -practiced hands of the wife and you
couldn't ask for a better meal, he said.
But the fact was that while Cliff ate two
eggs fried sunny side up, two pieces of
toasted homemade bread (held over the fire
with tongs) and four slices of crisp bacon, it
was Celia who ate the rest of the half pound of
bacon, the loaf of bread, the half dozen
eggs...
Eat up there, ma, Cliff would tease,
gleaming at her corpulent figure.
And Celia would eat up because that was
how he loved her. Big and cuddly to keep him
warm at night. Have Celia in bed, Cliff would
say, and you could save on the heat upstairs.
They put boards under the springs to hold up
the mattress and on the coldest nights Cliff
would need an electric blanket. They had
electricity put in ten years ago, also the last
on their concession; whenever matters like
improvements that cost money came up, it
was always discussed in the households who
would have it the first and who came after in
order and who was last.
Just open up the hall door at night, Cliff
would say, and the heat'll just go all upstairs.
Celia left their bedroom until spring to
clean which was when she swept up all the
straw, grain, and dead flies that had been -
buzzing at the windows every sunny day all
winter long and falling down dead on a cold
night.
Cliff was nbt a rich man but he was very
good to Celia; he took her to town twice a
week. He used to tell all his buddies that
you'd just have to load Celia in the trunk and
you'd never get stuck in the winter, not with
all that weight for traction He paid for all the
groceries and took her home again. She didn't
drive herself; she saw no need to with a good
man like Cliff around.
There were a lot of things he did for Celia.
He let her wash the cows down before milking
because she figured he didn't do it.right. Did
he get angry at this implied criticism? No, he
did not. He handed the job right over to Celia
and stood there teasing her while she showed
him how to clean the cow's udder properly.
You've got to wash them down, Cliff, she said
when she suspected him of not, washing them
at all.
Celia was not a person to daydream or wish
but she did like to read and go to the movies
and watch TV. She took each day as it came
and did not wish for anything different. If you
asked her what she might be doing ten years
from now she would probably be completely
stymied. Eating, would be Cliff's estimate.
Celia had one dream, though, that she
dreamt when the fertility goddess idea did not
appeal to her. With all the heat generated
upstairs for 30 years Celia had not produced a
child. She used to wish for one but after a
while she forgot .about it and looked after
calves, baby pigs and kittens.
And the dream was that a Prince Charming
(looking very similar to Omar Sharif),would
come galloping over fields of daffodils to save
her from washing cows' udders and sweeping
up flies for the rest of her life. Usually she did
these tasks because they had to be done but
sometimes she grew a little impatient and she
wondered what her life might have been like
if she'd married Elwin who'd liked her a little
bit before she was married. She remembered
that he wanted to be a garage mechanic. and
that she liked him enough to say yes if he'd
asked her. But what she forgot was he never
asked her because he ran off and married the
floozie in Grade Ten. The floozie in Grade Ten
was considered a nice girl before she quit and
had to get married and then everybody talked
about her for a while and then forgot about
her.
And then she thought if she'd married
Elwin then she wouldn't be unhappy and