Come, Thou Tortoise

by Jessica Grant

  I don’t mind.

  To scrape is the job of the long-armed man, he half sings. Which is the first line of a song I made up when I was small and scraping meant climbing onto the hood.

  He looks tired and it’s my fault. Because last night I was testing one of the fire alarms at the table, and it went off for a rather prolonged period, prompting him to come bolting up from the basement while I frantically dislodged the battery.

  Just as I thought, I said, showing him the nine-volt. Faulty.

  What are you doing. It’s three in the morning.

  Sorry. But this fire alarm was blinking.

  It always blinks.

  It does.

  Yes. It’s when it chirps that you have to worry.

  Oh.

  Oddly. He sat down across from me. His pirate patch of hair was standing straight up.

  Can I borrow this, I asked.

  What. The fire alarm.

  I mean, there are three others on this floor.

  Why—

  I leaned over and patted down his hair. That’s better. I set the nine-volt upright on the table. The king of batteries. You know what I heard on the news, I said. I mean really on the news. Not a montage.

  What. He wiped his eyes.

  Quadruple-A batteries. They’re making quadruple-As now. Smaller than triples. They’re like this big. And I marked off a tiny space between my thumb and forefinger. Pretty cute.

  If you needed company, all you had to do was say my name into the heat vent.

  They last forever. Longer than lithium.

  Don’t you want to sleep in your old bed.

  I thought about my room with the horses on the bedspread, the bare tree on my wall, the Charlie Brown pillows. This table is my new headquarters, I said, giving it a pat.

  Yes, he said. But why.

  I shrugged. Because the rest of the house hurts.

  He nodded. Okay, he said. I know.

  Behind the wheel, I am brave. The roads are white tunnels. I sing “The Ballad of the Long-Armed Man.”

  To scrape is the job of the long-armed man,

  ’Cause he can reach farther than me.

  He puts the leaves on the highest branches

  When we do the Changing of the Tree!

  To change the battery in the fire alarm

  Is also the job of the long-armed bloke.

  He doesn’t need a chair or a ladder to get up there,

  He just needs his arm and a fresh nine-volt!

  One thing I love is how the fire hydrants have their own little alcoves carved out of the snow. They look so cute, sitting there waiting for something bad to happen. I love how good we are at thinking ahead and preventing bad happenings. I love that about us.

  What else. I love that NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH sign with the yellow duct tape over the word WATCH and the word TRUST written on top. This seems to me a wonderful thing.

  According to the Young Drivers manual: Sometimes you will see a wonderful thing by the side of the road, and you will find yourself drawn towards that wonderful thing, and you will inadvertently turn the wheel in its direction—

  Um, says Uncle Thoby.

  Sorry. I adjust the wheel. Ambient Vehicle Distraction.

  There’s really nothing ambient but snow, he says.

  Well, but the few things that aren’t snow are very distracting. Don’t worry. I’m in my element.

  The only other cars on the road are Clint’s cabs. Every time we pass one, I give a little staccato honk. None of the cabbies is the real Clint.

  Uncle Thoby’s legs are jiggling. Not shaking. A shake has a higher frequency than a jiggle and is harder to stop. So the jiggle is, I guess, an improvement over the last time we were in the car together. It occurs to me that he is dreading this meeting with Toff even more than I am. Or possibly he is just reacting to our near collision with the NEIGHBOURHOOD TRUST sign.

  Toff is not the enemy, he says after a while. Okay.

  I nod.

  He looks at me closely. What does that nod mean.

  It means Toff is the enemy.

  Oddly.

  Enemy Number One. Toff is.

  The left windshield wiper is stuck in a chunk of ice. I roll down my window to free it. The wiper feels thin as an insect’s leg.

  If Toff does anything or says anything, you just give me the word and I’ll take him out.

  Uncle Thoby looks alarmed. You’ll take him out where.

  To the curb.

  What does that mean.

  I don’t know. But picture it. It’s a good picture.

  The wonky wiper continues to need my help. We stop at a red light. I get out. Free the wiper. There you go. Get back in. I feel tender towards the wiper. I feel tender towards everything that is not Toff. That is how you feel when you have an enemy. It is a good feeling.

  Last night after supper I looked out the window and realized that no one on Wednesday Place had their Christmas lights up. Uncle Thoby said he’d noticed that too. I said, They had lights up before, didn’t they. He said, I don’t remember but I think so. Maybe they had all been recalled. By the Christmatech guy.

  But that wasn’t it. The reason there were no Christmas lights on Wednesday Place was because my dad was, sorry is, dead. And because of how he died. And I love our neighbours for that. I love them and I enlist them in my army against Toff, my dad’s executioner.

  Uncle Thoby likes to say fear is the mark of insufficient curiosity. Maybe. But fear is also the mark of insufficient people to protect.

  We come to a slippery slope. Don’t brake. Palpitate. At the bottom, the road is blocked by a sideways police car. A power line is down and the police car is protecting the fallen line, its lights flashing. That gives me a warm feeling. Let’s park here, I say. It’s not far.

  And so we park and trudge. As we pass the police car, I stop to ask the cops, do they have coffee in there, is there anything they need, because I’d be more than happy.

  Uncle Thoby looks at his watch.

  Thanks my darlin. We’re good.

  Yes you are.

  We carry on to the hotel. The roads are deep. I say, Did you see that screen on the dashboard. They were playing a video game.

  That was a map of St. John’s, says Uncle Thoby.

  It was not. Was it.

  The Fairfont Hotel greets you with signage so cursive you curse your inability to read it. There is a valet, or a waltz, on the premises. There is a hair salon called Hair to Stay or Heir to Shag. Everything is slanted and gold.

  Uncle Thoby and I sit in the lobby, sorry atrium. It is jungly. There are terraces. Water meanders through. Upstairs there’s a waterfall like hair in a shampoo commercial. Underwater lights. A grand piano on a lower terrace.

  Also there’s a twenty-foot Christmas tree with maroon decorations.

  I knock my boots together and shed a little snow. That tree cannot be real, I remark.

  It can if it’s imported.

  Would they do that.

  Uncle Thoby shrugs and blows his nose. He’s wearing a black suit and he’s unshaven. He looks like a chauffeur. Or like someone whose brother just died. His coat lies across the arm of his chair. Orange gloves stick like roosters’ combs out of the pockets.

  He retains the aura of outdoorsedness. What is this aura. Say you were faced with a lineup of people, and one had just come in from outside and the others had all been standing around in that room for an hour, could you pick out the one who’d just arrived. Yes. But how. Is it just rosiness. Moistness in the eyes. Blowy hair. Or is there some other quality. And how long before that quality vanishes. At what point will Uncle Thoby look acclimatized. I touch my own cheek, which is still cold. How long before we look like we belong in the Fairfont.

  Toff said one o’clock. It is three minutes to. I feel dread. Which is a form of fear. Which is a mark of insufficient curiosity or people to protect.

  Which direction will he come from. The tree. From behind the tasteful tree. There is a point where
tasteful (i.e., maroon) becomes distasteful. What is that point. The tree has passed it.

  I scan the jungle for someone to feel curious about. No one. No one. No one. I look up at the waterfall. Hey, did I just see a goldfish jump over the waterfall!

  I jump up. I have an important phone call to make.

  Oddly, don’t run away.

  Save my seat.

  One terrace up I find the pay phones. I rummage through my pockets. All I have is the toonie from short-term parking. Will that be enough. No. But hey, right here is the fountain. And look at all the coins. Thousands of them. Not just pennies either. Quarters. A loonie, even. People have expensive wishes at the Fairfont. I push up my sleeve and reach in. The water is warm. Probably from all the underwater lights. Winnie would love this fountain. Hang on, Win.

  I do not see any goldfish. Did I imagine the goldfish. I grab the loonie. Someone with a cursive Fairfont badge walks by and curses at me.

  This is an emergency, I say.

  Back at the phones I plug in all the money and dial Linda’s number. Two rings. Three rings.

  To my right is a bar called the Sans Serif and inside I can see two Air Canada pilots in full uniform. They are sitting at a low table and drinking from tall glasses.

  Four rings.

  They are laughing. One punches the other in the epaulette. Linda’s machine picks up.

  Hi Linda. Guess you’re at work. I just thought of something. Protein. Winnifred needs some fishy protein in her diet. Every so often. Kelp. Did I give you that mixture. I did, right. Just wanted to remind you.

  A computer voice cuts in and says, Please insert two dollars and seventy-five cents.

  What.

  You have ten seconds remaining.

  Ten seconds. A tortoise cannot live by lettuce alone! I blurt. But no tuna. Kelp—

  Dial tone.

  I stand there with the phone to my ear for a while. When one of the pilots looks in my direction, I wave, but he doesn’t see me.

  On the lower terrace wolfish Toff is in my chair. His beard is shorter and spade-shaped. And he’s wearing a purple scarf. Sorry, cravat. Some silk business tucked into his shirt. Uncle Thoby is nodding. There’s a briefcase beside my chair.

  My dad used to have an expression for a flamboyant dresser: Christmas on a stick. I’m sorry but a purple cravat is flamboyant. It is Christmas on a stick. Especially when your “best chum” has just died.

  I take a few steps down to their level.

  Toff unfolds himself. Oh, he says. My goodness. Hugs me. Steps on my foot. I’m so sorry.

  S’okay. Steel-toed boots.

  About your father. He continues to stare at me and says, You’ve grown up.

  Yes and no.

  Uncle Thoby pretends to have a crick in his neck that requires him to roll his head around so he doesn’t have to look at us. Really this moment is too awkward. Toff’s hands are still on my shoulders. Like he’s taking a mental photograph. So I put my own hands on his shoulders. Pat, pat. They are high and ridgy, Toff’s shoulders.

  His pale eyes blink in time with my patting. This is sort of fun. But then, it is disconcerting to see tears in the eyes of a wolf. Is he to be feared or pitied. I don’t know. Stop looking at him. Back away.

  The restaurant is not the kind you bring a briefcase to. It is champagne-coloured and crowded and festive. There’s a harpist. We proceed like a small chain gang to our table. The harpist is in the corner behind Toff. She doesn’t so much pluck the strings as blur them. It’s fascinating.

  How does Toff like having a harpy right behind him like that.

  You mean harpist.

  That’s what I said.

  The harpist plays “What Child Is This,” which at any other time of year would be called “Greensleeves.”

  Uncle Thoby asks Toff about his room—is it satisfactory—and Toff says, yes, it’s very nautical. It has a porthole and a balcony and a picture over the bed of some men in a boat capsizing.

  Lovely, says Uncle Thoby, studying the wine menu.

  I pick up my bread knife, the handle of which is a Victorian figurine wearing skates. She can be moved along the edge of the tablecloth, like so, so that she appears to be skating around a pond.

  The waitress arrives and smiles down at me. You’re not the first one to do that, she says.

  I put the knife down.

  What can I get you to drink.

  Uncle Thoby orders a bottle of the house wine. Toff looks briefly discomposed, touches his cravat, then says, Okay.

  Coffee for me please.

  I have missed the moment when Uncle Thoby’s face acclimatized to the Fairfont. It must have happened when I was on the phone. It probably happened the moment he saw Toff. His face went pale and lost its memory of outside. I put my hand to my cheek. Room temperature.

  What a pointy beard he’s got.

  Sitting down like this, cut off at the chest, Toff looks like the jack of spades. Especially when he turns his head in profile to better hear the harpy. Who is now playing “Away in a Manger,” the version I hate. I wish she would stop pretending this is heaven.

  Toff decides to take a walk down memory lane with me. And because our shared memory lane is short, more a parking space than a lane, he naturally alights on my legendary decampment, the night I ran away and checked into the Civil Manor. All by myself. Only yay high.

  Yes, just a wee two of clubs I was then. But now, Toff. Behold a queen. Well, if not a queen, at least a full-fledged joker.

  He becomes really quite grotesquely animated as he describes the torture I put them all through, the phone calls, the search party.

  I glance at Uncle Thoby whose eyes are getting pointy and sad with the memory. Right. I’ll be nipping this in the bud. Let’s not do the memory-lane thing now, Toff.

  Which pulls him up short. He glances at Uncle Thoby, then nods and studies his menu.

  I ask how Grandmother is. He says not good. She knows about the comma being over, then. Yes. He called her this morning.

  Should we have done that, I ask Uncle Thoby.

  Uncle Thoby’s neck seems to be bothering him again.

  She was prepared, Toff says.

  Was she. That’s interesting. You prepared her.

  She knew about your father’s condition, yes.

  It was hardly a condition. I mean, we all have a medulla oblongata that could be whacked.

  Awkward silence filled by the harpy. Okay, moving right along. So you are here on Grandmother’s behalf.

  I wouldn’t say that.

  But you’re her lawyer.

  I’m here as your father’s friend and executor.

  Interesting. So you knew when you left England that my dad would need executing.

  Oddly, says Uncle Thoby. What are you doing. I explained all this.

  Did you. I don’t remember. Let’s hear Toff’s version.

  Toff reaches for the briefcase and explains that several years ago my father asked him, or rather his firm, to draw up a will.

  Which makes me laugh. A small, all-by-myself laugh.

  What, he says.

  Come on. I nudge Uncle Thoby. My dad would never. Never.

  Apparently he did, Oddly.

  Toff’s soup arrives. And there is my dad’s supposed will on the table next to it—I think it’s a bisque. Meanwhile Toff is talking. I watch him turn pages with one spade-shaped hand and levy a spoon with the other. Stocks. Bonds. I’m barely listening. My dad would never. I look at Uncle Thoby. I try to make eye contact with him against Toff. This is what I need more than anything right now. Only common-enemy eye contact will empower us. Let’s acknowledge, together, that Toff is Satan and he is here brandishing a contract and therefore we should beware. But Uncle Thoby just sits there, listening politely.

  May I.

  I reach for the will. Toff drops his spoon.

  I hold the will out of reach and scan one paragraph:

  d) to transfer and deliver to my daughter, Audrey Flowers, if she
is living on the tenth day following my death—

  If she is living!

  That is a standard clause, says Toff.

  That’s just it, see. My dad would not have approved of that standard clause. His whole life was about not approving a clause such as that.

  Toff looks at Uncle Thoby. There are a few things we need to iron out, Toff says.

  Uncle Thoby shakes his head. Not now. Then he says, Give the will back, Oddly.

  I continue reading. My dad would never. Then I stop. The harpist is playing “O Tannenbaum.” Like the branches of a Christmas tree will ever delight me again.

  I push back my chair.

  Uh-oh, says Uncle Thoby.

  Chuck sometimes takes me to the window and says, Doesn’t the Willamette look inviting. I don’t know what that means. Maybe he is trying to rename me. Tenants do this. If not right away, eventually. They get to know me and decide my name is wrong. Outside the rain pours down. He is picking me up now.

  Do I look like a Willamette and not a Winnifred to him. Maybe. Up close his cheeks are painfully razor-burnt. He shaved this morning because last night Linda said he looked like a common thug. He made a joke about growing a bard, and she said, Well, don’t come near me with your half-grown bard. So this morning he shaved it off, and while he was shaving I heard him rehearse in the mirror something about the loss of a dukedom.

  We stand at the window together. He’s got me in one hand, Lowering the Bard in the other. He looks down at the book, then closes his eyes and says something about breaking his staff and drowning his book. I take it I am the staff in this scenario.

  He fumbles his words. His shoulders sag. I drop to hip level.

  Going out for a smoke, he says.

  He leaves me on the coffee table holding open the Bard. This is what I’ve been reduced to. A bookmark. Shakespeare’s bookmark.

  Chuck is not allowed to smoke in the apartment. Although last night, as he was grabbing his cigarettes, he paused to look at me with my head stuck out my castle window and asked Linda why he couldn’t just be like the bloody tortoise and stick his own head out the window to smoke.

  Since when do I smoke, I wondered.

  Linda said, Let’s not frighten the neighbours.

  Anyway, Chuck puts on his long coat over his boxer shorts and goes out for a smoke while I play bookmark. And then the phone rings.