Come, Thou Tortoise

by Jessica Grant

  Wow. Don’t look so sad, I said.

  Which was the straw that broke my dad’s back. Go to your room, he said.

  I don’t have a room, I said and sipped coffee filtered through five filters.

  Audrey, so help me.

  Toff got up and said he would move his stuff downstairs. And okay, maybe he did look a little bit sad as he stroked his beard and left the room.

  The Civil Manor was in the environs, I was told. And I was allowed to visit Uncle Thoby any time. Yes, okay, right now. I could even take the helium balloons to cheer him up.

  So he needs cheering up!

  I didn’t say that.

  Yes you did.

  Get the balloons and come on.

  What are environs and is Uncle Thoby happy to be in them. Jesus Christ. I want to bring Wedge in his ball.

  No.

  Please.

  Put your raincoat on.

  Apparently Wedge and the helium balloons qualified as a heavy car-go load because we took the car. The balloons bobbed in the back seat. No more smoke, they bobbed. No more smoke. Wedge looked groggy. He had been conducting his mammalian business all night and now we were waking him up for diurnal exercise. He pressed his hands against the plastic. What is going on.

  I pointed at some beard hairs caught in the seatbelt. Ugh, I said.

  You know what, Audrey. I don’t want to talk about Toff’s beard or Grandmother’s eyebrows.

  You noticed her eyebrows!

  No you did.

  No you did.

  My dad would not be playing the no-you-did game today.

  In any case, he said after a little while. Let’s try to be civil.

  Ha. I get it. I get your joke.

  The Civil Manor was around the corner on Blackbog Drive. Why had I never noticed it before. Probably because it was across the street from the Piety factory, and whenever we passed the Piety factory, I had eyes only for it.

  Actually the Civil Manor looked a lot like the Piety factory turned on its end. The factory was a rectangle lying down. The Civil Manor was a rectangle standing up. Both were white and rusty around the eyes.

  Of course there were some key differences:

  The Piety factory had five little chimneys puffing pie smell into the air. This smell was delicious, and if the wind was blowing the right way, you could smell it on Wednesday Place. The Civil Manor did not have any chimneys. The Piety factory had five pink letters on the roof that spelled PIETY. The Civil Manor had a small sign with a butler on it. The butler was holding a tray and on that tray was the word VACANCY.

  As I got out of the car, I had the feeling that the Piety factory and the Civil Manor were in love. But they had this busy road between them.

  My dad carried the balloons. I carried Wedge. There was no one at the front desk. The lobby was small and damp. Hi Doreen, my dad said. Who. I stood on tiptoes. Behind the desk, through a door, a woman was watching soaps. I knew it was soaps by the music. Go on up, she said. She looked pretty cosy in her wingback chair.

  Who the hell is Doreen.

  Ssh. She is.

  That made me nervous. How did my dad know someone I didn’t.

  Also behind the desk was a board with hooks. All the hooks had a key except one. Room 203. That was Uncle Thoby’s room. So he was the only guest at the Civil Manor. That was a bit heartbreaking. Although Doreen seemed to be holding up pretty well.

  My dad said he wouldn’t be staying. He was just going to show me to Uncle Thoby’s room and then go back to our guests, so they wouldn’t feel bereft. Bereft, I said. Lonely, he said. I don’t think they’ll feel lonely, I said.

  Why not.

  No comment. Which is what you say if you have a secret, which I didn’t, but no harm practising for when I did.

  We were walking down a hallway with orange carpet and a part in the middle. Follow the part. We arrived at 203. Go ahead and knock, my dad said.

  No, you. I clutched Wedge’s ball to my chest. My dad knocked. This was my first real hotel. It seemed impossible that Uncle Thoby, our Uncle Thoby, could be behind that door. Sure the Civil Manor was close to home, but it was another universe. I mean, Doreen. Who was she. Just someone in a wingback chair. And all of a sudden she mattered.

  No answer.

  I began to feel braver. I gave the door a kick.

  There you go, said my dad.

  And the door opened. And it really was Uncle Thoby. And I forgot to feel nervous because it was him and he was wearing his bright yellow sweater with red diamonds. He did a little jig of happiness at the sight of me and Wedge and the balloons. What is this, a party, he said.

  I half joined in the jig, but really I was looking around the room. Holy smallness, I said. Small in a good way, I added.

  Someone is distressed, I heard my dad say as I investigated.

  Room 203 had a table with two chairs under the window. We sat down. I put my feet on Uncle Thoby’s lap to make a bridge. Then I heard the car start. I jumped up and waved goodbye to my dad. Then I sat back down. Remade the bridge.

  Someone is hyper, Uncle Thoby said.

  Someone is distressed, I said.

  Uncle Thoby crossed his hands behind his head.

  I did the same.

  Okay, Miss Sarcastic.

  Wedge rolled by in his ball on his way to the bathroom. He likes it here, I said.

  Seems to.

  Do you.

  Sure.

  There was a loud pop. A balloon hit the floor. I looked up.

  The ceiling is sharp, I yelled.

  Stucco, said Uncle Thoby. Shit. He got up and tied the other balloons to the doorknob.

  So I was not very fond of the ceiling in room 203, but the rest of it was not bad. I liked how small and neat and portable it was. Well, not really portable. But it reminded me of the dream I’d had of a portable room. The portable room could be attached to a train or a truck. Everyone had a portable room they could attach. You could take your portable room anywhere. It had a bed, a bathroom, and blue carpet. That was all.

  When I’d told Uncle Thoby about my portable-room montage, he’d said, That’s called a camper, Oddly.

  No. It was not a camper. Jeeze. I know what a camper is. This was a portable room.

  We decided to murder one balloon, a white one. This was something we did, secretly. We punctured a balloon and sucked the helium. We’d been doing it since the day we rescued six balloons from a wedding party outside a church. All the guests were holding pink balloons and when the married couple appeared in the doorway, they let their balloons go. Uncle Thoby and I were walking by and we couldn’t believe our eyes. Free helium balloons! Uncle Thoby leapt like a ballerina in the air to catch as many as possible. The bride and groom looked puzzled, like, who invited the long-armed man.

  We brought the balloons home and Uncle Thoby showed me what helium will do to a voice. How it will turn a voice into Wedge. Or how I always imagined Wedge would sound.

  We didn’t tell my dad because he would not approve of using a scientific thing like helium to make a scientific animal like Wedge talk.

  Now, as Wedge came rolling out of the bathroom, Uncle Thoby squeaked, Bathtub needs regrouting.

  I giggled.

  Wedge looked so cute when he came rolling towards you with his hands in the air talking about regrouting. Come to think of it, his plastic ball was a portable room. I wished I had a plastic ball to roll around in. You could hit walls and not be hurt. The only thing that could hurt you were stairs.

  Uncle Thoby passed me the balloon, and I asked him, in Wedge’s voice, why he had come to stay at the Civil Manor.

  Somebody has to, he squeaked.

  Why, I squeaked back. There’s room at home.

  No. I mean, poor Doreen. Somebody has to.

  For some reason hearing Wedge say Poor Doreen killed me. I mean, who was Doreen. And now she was practically family.

  I have some more questions for you.

  Shoot.

  I took a breath
from the balloon. What’s Doreen like.

  I have no earthly idea.

  Okay, here is my real question. Are you ready. Is it because of me that you left number 3 Wednesday Place. Or is it because of Toff and Grandmother. Say Toff and Grandmother.

  Uncle Thoby got serious. It’s not because of anybody.

  I think it really is.

  No, sweetheart. His Wedge voice was petering out. Which was a very sad sound.

  More balloon, I offered.

  Thanks.

  Is it because Grandmother and Toff were très méchants to you.

  They weren’t mean to me.

  I nodded to myself.

  What does that nod mean.

  It means they were mean to you.

  Some rain hit the window. Splat. It felt sent by Toff and Grandmother.

  They’re worried, Uncle Thoby said after a moment.

  Worried about what.

  They think I’m living off your dad.

  Living off.

  Because I don’t have a job.

  So. Neither do I. Neither does Doreen.

  He smiled.

  Living off, I said. What crap. Why can’t Toff stay in the Civil Manor. The ceiling matches his beard.

  We both looked up. All the little mountains on the ceiling had brown peaks.

  Because Toff is a guest, he sighed.

  Guests stay in hotels. That’s what hotels are for.

  Oddly.

  He’s a goddamn pollutant.

  Uncle Thoby lifted his eyebrows even higher than usual.

  Okay. Moving right along. I know you’re in the environs. But environs. What does that really mean.

  It means nearby. Or thereabouts.

  I know what it means.

  Uncle Thoby’s voice was all grown-up again. He asked me if I remembered how, when he moved from the guest room into the basement, I’d complained that the basement was too far away. And what had he said. He had said to think about how all the heat vents in the house were connected like secret passages. How my room was connected to his room. And his room was connected to my dad’s room. And my dad’s room was connected to mine. Remember that idea, he said.

  I nodded. I loved that idea. It was one of the best ideas in my head.

  Okay then. Well, the secret passages still hold. Even when I’m in the basement. Even when I’m in the Civil Manor.

  He drew a triangle on the table with his finger. Between the room you’re in and the room I’m in and the room your dad’s in. Secret passages.

  Splat went the rain.

  They want you to go back to England with them, don’t they.

  He leaned back in his chair. They would probably not say no to my going back to England with them.

  Hatred welled up. Those bastards.

  I would say no, I told him. I am saying no.

  He walked me home in time for supper. He’d devised a little carrier for Wedge’s ball. You take a towel and put Wedge at the centre and then tie the four corners of the towel together. Ta-da. A breathable bag.

  It was still raining. Uncle Thoby was wearing his green raincoat that matched the lichens on the rocks. He called it his Chlorophyll Coat. Uncle Thoby loved green. He had painted the basement the colour of iceberg lettuce with a sunset behind it. One night he had been standing at the kitchen sink and he’d held up a piece of lettuce and said, That’s the colour I’m going to paint the walls.

  Now Toff was turning those walls brown.

  Come away from the edge, Oddly.

  We were on the Wednesday Pond path, approaching the house.

  The whole way home I had tried to rally him, to get him to say one mean thing about Toff and Grandmother. But he wouldn’t. All he would say was that they were worried. And that was not a mean thing to say. That was a nice thing.

  But I couldn’t picture Grandmother and Toff being worried any more than I could picture them being lonely. Worried people have accent-circonflexe eyebrows. No, they were scheming. They were plotting to take over the house and then kidnap Uncle Thoby, and who knows, maybe my dad too, back to England. And who would be left behind. Me. The Canadian.

  Mr. Green.

  Yes.

  Are you coming for dinner.

  No. But I will be in the environs.

  I went up the porch steps and waved goodbye. He had his hood up. I watched him go down the path. Wedge shifted inside his breathable bag. I leaned against the house and counted to sixty. Then I went back to the path.

  I followed him. He was not going back to the Civil Manor because he walked past Blackbog Drive. Instead he went down Manche Street. Oh. He was going to Bebe’s on Manche Street.

  I hid behind a parked car. Then I approached with much stealth and looked through the window. Bebe’s had a fireplace. The fire burned in the stomach of my reflection and reminded me of that antacid commercial. I looped Wedge’s bag over my elbow and made blinkers around my eyes and saw the pool table. Clint was bending under the cone of light, lining up a shot. Uncle Thoby came in and pushed back his hood. Clint straightened and said something. He was smiling, but then he saw Uncle Thoby’s face and he stopped smiling. He called out to someone and pointed at Uncle Thoby.

  I moved away from the window.

  There was a Clint’s cab parked on the street.

  Room 205 was like room 203, only with fresh vacuum tracks in the carpet. I opened the window. The rain had stopped. The bridal veil curtains billowed. Across the street, the E in PIETY was flickering.

  I turned on the TV and tried to find the channel Doreen had been watching downstairs, but there were only two channels and no dinosaurs on either. Doreen had more channels down there.

  It had been so easy. I’d walked in. I’d pushed off my hood. I’d said, Hi Doreen. Doreen had leaned forward in her wingback chair. Oh hi, hon. And then she’d leaned back again. I thought about how a wingback chair is like a little room with one wall missing. On the TV someone said: The dinosaurs learned to fly by falling slower and slower out of the trees.

  Which struck me, even in my heightened state of nervousness, as something remarkable and important. File that away. I did not dawdle. I went behind the desk, reached up on tiptoes, and grabbed the key to room 205. Simple as pie.

  It is really not hard to become a guest at the Civil Manor.

  Did I have a plan. Sort of. My plan was to wait for Uncle Thoby to return from Bebe’s, whereupon I would:

  a) spring out into the hallway as he was opening his door and say, Aha!, or

  b) wait until he was settled and then say his name into the heat vent, or

  c) just sleep next door to him and be on his side.

  In the meantime I was a guest and should behave like one. I hung up my coat and took off my sneakers. I let Wedge out of the bag. I bounced on the bed. I unwrapped the soap in the bathroom and tasted a bit. I went to the window and sniffed. The smell of pies was over for the day.

  Wedge rolled by.

  Wow, this room is familiar.

  That’s because it’s just like the one next door.

  Oh.

  I looked around. I had never been by myself before, really by myself, with no one knowing where I was. It was exciting. But also a bit scary. I reminded myself I was totipotent. Totipotent is what my dad called me when I got a bad grade in school. It means: Potentially anything within a repertoire.

  Repertoire.

  Well. For instance. You can’t be a mermaid. That is outside the repertoire.

  Apparently a guest at the Civil Manor was not outside the repertoire.

  For a while I stood at the window and waited. I thought he would arrive any moment. It was dark now, except for the PIETY sign. You have not seen pink until you’ve seen the PIETY sign. I think Piety invented that pink. And when the sky behind the sign is dark, and when there are three stars overhead, you will feel very hungry for something. Probably pie.

  Hungry, Wedge.

  Wedge was in full nocturnal business mode. He had rolled under the bed. I crouched down
and gave him a nudge. He rolled out. He had peed and pooped in his ball so I took him into the bathroom and let him run around the bathtub (needs regrouting) while I washed the ball.

  All clean.

  I bounced on the bed some more, something I was not allowed to do at home. I bounced but kept an eye on the window. I imagined Uncle Thoby coming up the drive and seeing my head bouncing up and down in the window. That was a fun picture to keep in my head.

  I held on to that picture when I started to feel afraid. The stucco ceiling was ugly. Uncle Thoby had said that stucco was for soundproofing. Sounds got stuck up there in the stucco mountains.

  Stucco mountains, I said out loud. Yucco mountains.

  And I remembered what the voice on Doreen’s TV had said about flying. How you flew by falling slower and slower, not by taking off.

  Was flying within my repertoire then.

  And so I stood on the end of the bed in room 205 and practised falling backwards slowly. I did this over and over, slower and slower, until one time I stayed fallen. I hadn’t had any coffee in twelve hours.

  We are meeting Toff for lunch at his hotel. Where’s he staying, I ask Uncle Thoby, lacing up my boots. Not the Civil Manor, I bet.

  The Fairfont.

  He would be.

  I check the mailbox and there’s a recall notice. Christmatech. This guy called, I tell Uncle Thoby. This guy fondly recalling his Christmas lights.

  He nods. I think he’s called before.

  It is 12:35 and there is no colour except Uncle Thoby’s gloves. His face is the colour of snow. He gets in the passenger side. Closes the door.

  Don’t worry about scraping, I yell.

  I grab the scraper from the trunk and clear the sleep from the LeBaron’s square eyes. Always clear the eyes first. Cars don’t have square eyes anymore, do they. No. They have wraparound eyes like embryos. And daytime running lights. But I don’t mind turning on your lights myself. I don’t mind one bit. I scrape its forehead.

  Sorry I didn’t scrape, Uncle Thoby says when I get in. I didn’t think. I’m not thinking.