by Anne Simpson
I wasn’t worried, said Damian.
And your Uncle Roger –
You’ve told me all this.
Someone’s done a book about him, she said, getting out of the car and leaving the door open. A book about Roger. And they’re coming here to film him for television.
She was proud of him, thought Damian. She was proud of her brother, but she’d never brought her children here.
Why didn’t we ever come here to visit? he asked.
She was standing beside the open door and he could only see part of her. Well, she said, gesturing with the water bottle. I know I could have brought you – it had to do with Elvis’s mother.
But she’s been gone a long time, hasn’t she?
Yes, I guess she has. But things between Roger and me –
He couldn’t hear what she was saying. She drummed her fingers against the kayak on the roof rack.
Damian got out and yanked his knapsack from the backseat. It was the house where his mother had grown up, one that seemed to offer an expansive welcome, in the way of old mansions, with its ample front porch and ivy growing over the eaves and up the rounded wall of the turret. It might have stood there for a hundred years or more, like an oak tree growing on an unkempt lawn patched with crab-grass. Behind it was another, smaller house in the same style, half hidden by trees and a high box hedge that no one had clipped, so the leafy ends – thin, green arms – waved up to greet him.
His mother had already started taking the bags out of the trunk. She took out the heaviest one, her burgundy suitcase, before Damian could help her with it.
Someone was singing, and the voice, off-key, was accompanied by monotonous strumming. When Damian heaved his mother’s suitcase forward, though the wheels on it didn’t work, he was startled to see a young man blocking the path, wearing bell-bottoms and a shirt unbuttoned on a pale, freckled chest. He held a child’s red guitar; his song started and stopped and started again. Uhhh-huh – honey – uhhh-huh –
He stared at Damian.
Who’re you? He held up one hand with his fingers curiously clenched.
Oh, Elvis, you’re so much taller, said Ingrid, coming up behind Damian. In each hand she held one of the freshly baked pies they’d bought on the way. When did I last see you? It must have been at Mother’s funeral. That was five years ago. Elvis, this is Damian. Damian, Elvis.
She had been speaking very quickly; she stopped abruptly.
Who’re you? he asked Ingrid.
I’m Ingrid, your Aunt Ingrid – your father’s sister. Is he here?
Elvis slowly brought down his clenched hand and turned his back on her. He shifted from one foot to the other, and after a moment he started strumming the guitar again.
Elvis, we’re going to find your father, Ingrid said, holding the pies flat.
Damian followed her up the steps. He wanted to walk all around that grand porch to the front of the house, where he thought he’d be able to look over the Niagara River, across the gorge, to New York State. The windows were huge, with panels of flowering vines in the transoms. Yellow glass, red glass, blue glass.
I guess I’ll see if he’s inside, she said.
Damian put down the suitcase and went around the porch. He’d been right; when he got to the front of the house he could see across the gorge, though he couldn’t see the river below. He sat down on one of several old Adirondack chairs and shut his eyes. It was just as hot as it had been before, but there was a cool breeze, and it brought the scent of clover to him. Not far away was the sound of a lawn mower, droning back and forth, until it caught on something and there was a brief explosive sound. The leaves moved a little on the chestnut tree, concealing a robin that was making a sweet sound over and over. Phoebe, phoebe, it called. It lulled him.
Elvis came up the stairs and put down his red guitar loudly across one of the chairs. Damian jumped.
When’s your birthday? he asked.
May 31.
Your full name, date of birth, place of birth, said Elvis.
Why?
Name, date, place.
Damian Benjamin MacKenzie. 1987. Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Damian Benjamin MacKenzie, May 31, 1987, Halifax, Nova Scotia, repeated Elvis, dropping down into the chair next to Damian’s.
Elvis Aaron Presley was born at 12:20 p.m. on January 8, 1935, in East Tupelo, Mississippi, he said confidentially.
He’d be old now, mused Damian. If he were alive.
Elvis got up abruptly, so his chair nearly tipped over. He picked up his guitar and went down the porch steps.
Damian could hear his mother inside the house calling up the stairs to his uncle. Roger. There you are.
There was a pause. His uncle greeted her.
Oh, it’s good to see you, she said.
There was a sound of tapping.
I brought pies, his mother was saying. Apple and rhubarb, because I know you like rhubarb. We’ve got barbecued chicken. And I bought some potato salad on the way here, but it’s probably still in the car, in this heat, with the mayonnaise going bad. I’ll get Damian to bring it in.
There’s no need to –
Damian, she called. Anyway, the chicken’s already barbecued. All I have to do is pop it in the oven to warm it up. And I’ve got wine and –
Ingrid.
His voice was closer now, near the screened door that led onto the porch.
I’m so sorry about Lisa, he said. It’s been a hard time for you.
There was a pause.
Yes, it’s been hard, she said softly. Harder than anything.
In the silence that followed, Damian rose from the chair, kicking his foot against the uprights of the porch balustrade.
I’m sorry I didn’t get to her funeral, said his uncle.
Oh, well, you had Elvis and everything. Anyway – well, anyway. I’ll just get some food fired up here. You don’t need to help. Go see Damian.
Go see him, muttered his uncle.
But Damian went lightly down the porch steps and walked to the car, where he took out the shopping bags. When he came back, he saw his uncle on the flagstone path. A man with grey hair pulled back in a ponytail, a face darkened by sun. It didn’t seem that his uncle was old, nor did it seem that he was young, but his cane made him seem indecisive, nosing in front of him like an animal. His uncle, thin and shambling, went after it, as if he was counting the stones in the path. One, two, three, four, five. He left the flagstone path and meandered to the bed of peonies, past their prime and lying in heaps of blown pink. He poked at the stalks with his cane, lifting them and letting them drop. Then he got down on his knees, putting the cane to one side and picking up a flower, its pale petals dropping on the grass; he put what was left of the bloom up to his face and drew it along his cheek. His eyes were half closed. His expression was like a child’s, given over to pleasure. When he got up he made his way unsteadily to the chestnut tree, where he touched the rough bark of its trunk with his cane, mapping his way, and kept going toward the house.
Damian put the plastic bags down by the porch steps at the front of the house, and the smell of barbecued chicken wafted up from one of them. He was surprised his uncle wasn’t more outlandish, that he wasn’t wearing a tiger-skin loincloth like a circus performer, brandishing a whip in one massive hand and holding a stool in the other. He’d been a daredevil, after all. But his Uncle Roger turned out to be an ordinary man. No – he wasn’t just ordinary. He was vulnerable. It was as if the wind could knock him down.
Hi, said Damian, holding out his hand as his uncle approached the steps. I’m Damian.
Hello, Damian.
His uncle tapped the cane against the bottom step. Damian dropped his hand, feeling stupid about having held it out to a blind man, and watched his uncle work his way to the top step, where he turned, carefully, and sat down in one of the chairs.
You met Elvis?
Yes, said Damian, picking up the bags and following him up the steps. His mother was going to come to
the screened door soon, asking what he’d done with the chicken and the potato salad.
Roger swivelled the slender cane in front of him. Long drive?
Pretty long, said Damian.
Hot too, I guess. Sit down for a bit.
Damian set down the bags and sat on the broad wooden arm of a chair.
You’re the artist, said his uncle.
You could say that.
Roger folded up his cane. Damian watched, fascinated. There were four parts to the cane and they folded like a tent pole.
I was going to go down for the funeral, Roger went on.
Damian wiped the sweat from his forehead. He’d wanted his uncle to show up at the last minute, miraculously appearing from behind a curtain, except that there hadn’t been a curtain. He’d expected him to come, even though Lisa had never met him. His mother had expected him to come. And they’d been disappointed – sharply disappointed – when he hadn’t.
Well, Damian said slowly, a lot of people came. I didn’t realize how many people knew Lisa. My father came.
I know him. Your dad.
You do?
Well, I did. I knew him years ago.
They sat together without speaking. The chestnut tree had darkened in the muted evening light. The grass was furred with stripes where the shadows fell across it.
When your mother phoned, she said you wanted to scatter Lisa’s ashes here, said Roger. In the river –
Yes.
You’ll probably have to do it in the dead of night so they don’t slap you with a fine. That’s what they’re like. Very early in the morning – that’s the best time.
Inside the house they heard a clatter of pans.
She doesn’t know where I keep things, Roger mused. Can you hear her? She’s talking to herself. My mother did that – your grandmother – she was always talking to herself.
She used to do that when she visited, said Damian. Granny. And she clucked.
A grey cat slunk through the grass under the chestnut tree, paused, leapt at a moth. It fluttered out of reach, and the cat, thwarted, began licking the fur under its leg.
Elvis came up the steps. He’d unhooked the guitar strap, and now he held the guitar by its neck so it banged lightly against each of the steps.
Hello, Elvis, said Roger. You met Damian.
Yes. He put his hand up, fist clenched. I met Damian. He has a boat on top of the car.
Does he?
Yes. A yellow boat.
Elvis’s fist was still up in the air, and he turned it this way and that.
This is Damian, he went on. Damian Benjamin MacKenzie, May 31, 1987, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
THERE’S TOO MUCH, Ingrid sighed. She looked around Roger’s bedroom at the piles of clothes on the rug.
Let’s stop then. Roger was sitting on the bed, holding a bunch of silk ties. You’ve been here three days; you can’t do everything at once, you know.
But who’s going to go through this stuff? It’s not something you can do with Elvis.
I never open that closet.
But we’ve got to deal with it. Look at all these suits of Dad’s. I think they’ve been here for sixty years. And up here, his sweaters – let’s at least go through the sweaters.
All right, he said, putting the ties in a bundle on the bed beside him. Sweaters it is.
She took a stack of sweaters out of the cedar closet and put them on the dresser.
Three navy sweaters, all V-neck. Would you wear any of these?
She handed him one so he could feel it.
Nice, he said. Feels like cashmere. He pulled the sweater over his head. God, it’s hot for this kind of thing. Maybe I’ll sleep on the couch downstairs tonight.
It fits you.
No, too small. Remember how Dad seemed to shrink toward the end?
Cashmere. She scrutinized the label. You’re right – though you could hang on to these until you shrink.
Or give some of them to Damian, he said.
Damian wouldn’t wear any of this stuff. You know, he comes home after staying with his friend Adam for three or four days and he’s wearing Adam’s clothes. They’re baggy – they hang on him. He’s heedless, but if it came to his own grandfather’s clothing, he’d be picky. He wouldn’t wear a thing here.
How’s he doing, Ingrid? Roger asked.
She folded the sweaters and stacked them neatly again.
Oh, I don’t know. In the early spring he went up to Adam’s uncle’s cabin, off in the woods. He wanted to be by himself, he said, and that he’d only go for a couple of days, if that. But he was gone for five days, and the place didn’t have a phone –
And you worried.
He was very withdrawn when he came back. He wouldn’t say a word to me. I’d been frantic about him, but when I tried to talk to him about it he just brushed me off. Since then he seems to have got himself back on track, more or less.
But not the same.
No, not the same. He’s just so unpredictable.
He blames himself.
I’ve told him over and over that it was an accident. That it was no one’s fault.
But does he believe you?
I don’t know. I really don’t. I think that Damian –
What?
Oh, I worry about him. I’m worried he might do something.
Do something?
That he might do something to himself.
You worry too much.
But if he says anything – if he opens up to you – will you talk to him?
If there’s anything I can do, I’ll do it.
All of this – oh, Roger, it’s been so awful.
She put the sweaters back on the shelf in the cedar closet and went out of Roger’s bedroom. Before going down the stairs, she put a hand against the wall.
Uhhh, she groaned, thinking of Lisa. Had Lisa been in pain? Had she known she was dying?
She must have known.
Ingrid stopped near the bottom of the stairs and tried to breathe steadily. Here she was, in her parents’ house. Roger’s house. She’d been a child in this house, once, a long time ago. She reached up to touch the skeleton of a snake that someone had hung from the light fixture with fishing line. What was it doing there? She couldn’t reach it, but it quivered as if she had touched it after all.
Ingrid, said Roger at the top of the stairs.
Don’t fall, she said.
She was speaking in a dream, but she wanted to shake herself out of the dream, so she walked down the hall to the kitchen. If she stood by the screened door in the kitchen, she might not hear him coming, the cane making its hesitant sounds against the treads of the stairs as he came down.
Ingrid had been at home in Halifax. The kids had gone up to the cottage at Cribbon’s, but she hadn’t gone with them. If she’d gone with them –
She remembered picking up the phone and hearing Damian crying.
What? – Damian? What’s wrong?
She’d been staring out the window at a red van.
Damian, tell me what’s wrong.
It took so long for Damian to tell her. All the time she was watching the red van in the driveway next door. Her neighbour Yvonne got out, bent down, and picked up her terrier, taking it into the house.
He couldn’t stop crying. All Ingrid could make out was that there’d been an accident. Lisa. Accident. Lisa.
What happened to Lisa? she cried. What happened?
She was dead. Lisa was dead. Damian said this, finally, clearly, but Ingrid knew it was coming. She heard herself gasping. She found herself saying, in a voice she knew but didn’t know, that she’d be there as soon as she could.
And then she slumped to the floor with the phone in her hand.
One minute she’d been staring out at that summery street, with a purple Hula Hoop on someone’s lawn, purple on green. And then –
It was as though someone had thrown an axe, thrown it right into her chest, breaking the bones. She cried out. She had the feeling that the
horrible sound wasn’t coming from her mouth, and she wished it would stop.
Oh, God. Oh, God, oh, God.
She got up and staggered around the living room, bumping into chairs, crashing into things. Who was spinning her around and around? She threw down the phone, breaking something. She lurched around the room with her arms wrapped around herself. Was she up? Down? She didn’t know. At one point she was on her knees, the full weight of the axe deep in her chest. There was no pulling it out.
She tried to think clearly. She put one hand on the couch to steady herself.
It could not have happened. It simply could not have happened. Lisa could not have drowned.
She returned to herself, floating down into her body. Here she was at the threshold of the pantry in the house where she’d grown up. When Roger came into the kitchen, she was standing with her back to him, twisting her hands together.
I don’t know where Damian’s got to, she said.
You asked him to take the books to the second-hand store at the mall.
Oh yes, I did. Let’s go somewhere, she suggested. Let’s go for a walk.
What about sitting on the lawn chairs? said Roger reasonably. Under the tree. It’s hot – we could have a gin and tonic, if you like.
I’d like to go for a walk.
Well, we could. It’s about thirty degrees out there.
They went down the porch steps at the front, along the flagstone path, and crossed the road to the sidewalk that ran next to the Niagara Gorge. It was laboriously slow. He took her arm near the elbow, and when they walked, close together, he was half a step behind her.
I have my cane, he said. If you get tired of this.
No, she said, no.
Up until a few years ago I had some peripheral vision, he said, as if she’d asked a question. But I couldn’t see anything in the centre except a tight circle of sparkling colours. Now the circle has grown so much it fills the whole field of vision. They told me it would happen.
What if you fall?
I don’t know. If I fall, I fall.
Ingrid thought of her mother coming home to find their father. Their father, who’d fallen on the kitchen floor. He’d fallen headlong as he came in from gardening. Her mother had come home to find him there, his shoes sticking out the back door. She’d told Ingrid that she stood by the hedge that ran along the driveway, letting the bags drop from her arms when she saw those shoes. She didn’t remember getting from the driveway to the kitchen. And there was the cat stepping delicately over his arm: the cat, mewing for all it was worth. She forgot about the groceries, so things were all over the driveway when the ambulance came. The box of butterscotch ice cream had come open, and there was a little puddle of melted ice cream, cans of mandarin oranges and tuna had gone rolling under the car, and a crow was pecking at the roast. It was pecking at the roast, and she kept saying how much it upset her to see a crow pecking at a good three-pound sirloin tip roast. Just like a vulture.
