by Sasha Troyan
I stare at her shoes. They’re cream sandals with straps that tie around the ankle.
“Imagine, I haven’t been on a date since I was seventeen,” Mummy says. “I’m not sure I’ll know what to do. I’m not sure I should be going at all.”
“Of course, you should,” Ethel says from the hallway. She peers into Mummy’s room. “I was just coming to tell you that it’s almost seven—exquisite. Doesn’t she look exquisite?” Ethel repeats, looking over her shoulder.
What a silly word. Exquisite. An exquisite cup of tea. An exquisite dress. An exquisite idiot.
“Yes, you look very pretty tonight,” Granny says, appearing beside Ethel. “Go on. It will do you good to get out.”
“What if he calls?” Mummy says.
“We’ll tell him you’re on a date,” Granny answers.
“You wouldn’t,” Mummy laughs.
“Who’s your date?” I ask.
“The doctor, darling.”
“I thought he came to see Granny.”
“Well, he did,” Granny says. “But that was just a pretext to see your mother.”
“When did he ask you?” I say.
“Yesterday,” Mummy says.
“But he doesn’t know you.”
“It’s just a date,” Granny says.
“But he’s old.”
“Not that old,” Mummy laughs. “He’s like me. His hair went white prematurely.”
“I’d say he’s around forty,” Ethel says.
I think I see a darker part in the carpet where Max peed.
“You’re not going to pout, are you?” Mummy says.
I run from her room down the stairs through the living room, out the house, past the burnt remains of the old house, over a bridge and along the bank of willows where the grass has grown so long it reaches my knees.
I climb up my tree and stand on my bunk bed of logs. I narrow my eyes and stare at the field in the distance. I keep my eyes fixed on the tops of the dry stalks.
“Hey,” Al says. “Want to play soldiers?”
“Go away,” I say.
“Why?” she demands.
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“I don’t feel like seeing your face,” I say.
She plays with her hearing aids, wiggling one, then the other, and looking up at me.
“Stop,” I say.
“What?”
“That noise.”
“My ears are itching,” she says.
I watch her walk slowly along the bank of silver willows. She’s holding a stick and wacking any flowers she passes. I can hear her sing-song a funny song a friend of hers taught her. “Talia bata wana marie. Shili Shanta. Ona marie.” Her voice grows more and more faint until all I can hear is the wind and the water.
From beneath a log, I pull out a pair of binoculars and an atlas I found in the attic. I place my finger on Brussels, wondering if we could go by boat. I trace one river, then another. I picture a gray city with buildings enveloped in mist. Even the sound of church bells is muffled. Cats and dogs are quiet. Children don’t speak. I peer through the binoculars. They belonged to my father. They’re brown and one of the lenses is cracked but I can see through the one lens. I bring the line of stalks into focus. I stare and stare until the eye I’ve kept closed aches and I have to switch eyes. There’s no one. Just an ugly moor hen which swoops into sight, then drops out of my view. I train the binoculars on the house. The vines seem to have grown even more this summer. There’s almost no stone showing. The vines flutter in the wind and look like water from this distance. I think I see Mummy peering out her window.
I swing down from a branch and race along the bank of silver willows, but when I get to Mummy’s room she’s already gone. There’s just a trace of her perfume in the air.
I walk slowly to the stairs. The grownups look different from up here. I can see the tops of their heads.
I cross the living room over to Granny. The string of pearls she wears around her neck stands out even in the shade. She says that if you don’t wear pearls they become dull. I lean against the arm of her chair and watch her knit. I like the clicking sound her needles make. She goes very fast and she hardly looks down.
I stare up at the painting in dark browns and blues of the little girl whose head is too big for her body. In one hand, she holds a red string that’s tied around a cat’s neck. She doesn’t look like a little girl, more like a grownup with a short body. Her hair is parted in the middle and curled at the bottom.
“Gabriel,” Juliet says. “Why don’t you find Alex?”
“Oh no,” I say.
“Gabriel,” Juliet says.
“I saw my Daddy,” I say.
“Don’t lie,” Ethel says.
“I did. I saw him in the wild field. He was wearing a blue shirt with gold cufflinks.”
“Did he talk to you?” Ethel asks.
“He waved,” I say.
I look at Granny, but she doesn’t say anything. She continues her knitting.
I run out into the garden, yell “Al. Al.” She’s walking along the bank of dahlias with Luis. He’s cutting flowers and she’s placing them in a basket. I run up to them and ask who the flowers are for, but Al says it’s a secret.
When I peer into the living room, the grownups are drinking their gin and tonics. I tiptoe to my bedroom and lie down on my bunk bed.
“Dinner’s ready,” Juliet says. She wipes her wet hands on her apron.
“I don’t feel hungry,” I say.
“I don’t care what you feel. You’re to come down at once. Don’t you be difficult tonight, Gabriel. I’m warning you. I’m in no mood to put up with any of your nonsense.”
“Juliet,” I say. “I don’t feel well. I have a terrible stomachache.” She marches out. Suddenly, I really do have a terrible stomachache. It’s like the ones I sometimes get before going to school. Mummy took me to lots of doctors, but they couldn’t find anything wrong.
I wish Al were here. I’d ask her to jump on my stomach. It’s the only thing that makes the pain go away. The grownups voices drift upstairs from the dining room. Granny calls for me to come but I tell her I’m not hungry. I can hear the knives and forks across the plates. I imagine my father walking through the wild field. He pushes the stalks aside. He’s not scared of stepping on snakes. His head goes from side to side and he sings a Russian song.
Later I slip into Granny’s bed. She’s been going to bed earlier and earlier. It’s only eight o’clock. Her room is filled with a pink light. I curl up next to her and rest my head on her shoulder. My stomach still hurts me. She waits for me to suggest we read. Then she pulls out her book which has a bright cover with a picture of a man sitting on a horse. In front of the hero, sitting sideways, is the heroine wearing a navy blue cloak trimmed with ermine. The heroines are all like Granny. They come from very poor families and then they marry millionaires. They’re small and delicate and they have the tiniest hands and feet. At first the heroine and the hero don’t understand each other and the hero is mean to the heroine, but in the end the heroine makes the hero change and they live happily ever after. While Granny reads, I stare at the squares of pink on the white wall. Gradually, they get smaller and smaller until they disappear and it’s almost dark. But it doesn’t seem to bother Granny. She continues to read. She reads with a lot of expression. Sometimes, when there’s dialogue she takes on the man’s voice and the woman’s and it makes me laugh. Occasionally, we hear a creak as Juliet walks overhead.
I don’t remember Granny turning off the light. I must have fallen asleep listening to her voice because when I awaken it’s dark. The light coming through the windows looks blue. My tummy-ache’s gone. I don’t hear Granny snoring. I lean over her and the white of her eyes glows. “Granny, are you awake?”
“Yes, dear. I’ve been listening to you sleep.”
“You look strange,” I say. “The whites of your eyes glow.”
“Yours do too,” she says
, leaning over me. “Where’s that cat?”
“Under the sheets by my feet,” I say.
Then I hear a car drive across the gravel. I tell Granny and she switches on the light. The front door opens and we hear Mummy’s quick footsteps.
“Are you awake, mother?” Mummy asks.
“Yes,” Granny says.
“Me too,” I say.
“It’s awfully late,” Mummy says.
“Yes,” Granny says. “It’s almost two o’clock. I’m glad to see you back safe.”
Mummy hugs Granny and kisses me on the head.
“I’d better let you sleep. I’ve kept you up late as it is.” She tiptoes out of the room.
“She looked happy,” I say.
“Yes,” Granny says.
I stay awake for a long time, listening to Granny’s snores, staring at the blue light coming from the windows because we didn’t close the shutters.
Nine
We’re in the kitchen sitting around the white table that wobbles if anyone leans on it. We’re all in our nightdresses, except for Mummy. She’s wearing a navy blue skirt and a white shirt Daddy says makes her look like a schoolgirl. She went into Malsherbes early and bought croissants and brioches.
Juliet’s standing by the stove cooking bacon.
“I wonder if we should put on a light,” Ethel asks, as the kitchen falls back into the shade but then it’s light again and the copper pans and the yellow counters gleam. The sun can’t make up its mind. It keeps pushing through the clouds and then slipping back.
“I think we’re all right,” Granny says.
I hear a car drive across the gravel. I recognize the sound it makes. It’s Daddy. He’s come back. Al and I run out of the kitchen, through the entrance hall. We press our faces against the glass panes of the front door. The grownups hurry after us.
“I must say he knows how to dress,” Juliet says, peering over us. Daddy’s wearing a green jacket the same color as his car. A gold handkerchief sticks out the breast pocket.
“I wonder what he wants,” Ethel says.
“I’ll go and see,” Mummy says, glancing in the mirror. “Oh dear, I didn’t put on any lipstick.”
I move to follow Mummy, but Juliet places her hand on my shoulder.
We watch Mummy walk slowly over to Daddy. She shades her eyes with one hand to look up at him. Daddy says, “I need to talk to you.” I didn’t hear him say that, but I could see his lips. I’m not as good a lipreader as Al, but I can understand certain things. He says something very fast, switching to French. He glances over at us. Juliet says she mustn’t forget her bacon and Ethel follows her.
Mummy and Daddy turn so that their backs are to us. Their shadows are in front. They walk a little ways across the gravel yard and stand beside the blood-red roses which line the side of the river. They talk and talk but we can’t hear or see what they’re saying. We just watch them shake their heads or move their hands. Then Daddy leans over Mummy and places his hand on her shoulder and she moves back a step. He lets his arm drop, then brushes his hand through his hair and shrugs his shoulders. He points to his car. She shakes her head.
“Come and have your breakfast,” Juliet shouts from the kitchen.
Now Daddy is facing us. I ask Al to translate.
She says Dad asked Mum to go for a drive with him.
He says he’ll drive slowly. He’ll drive like Luis if she likes. He says that it’s hard to talk like this.
Suddenly, Mummy rushes towards the car and opens the passenger’s door and gets in.
Daddy walks over to the other side and the car starts up. They drive through the white gate and up the road, disappearing over the hill.
I wish they had taken us.
I stare at the gravel and at Mme Daudiet’s cottage. When it’s sunny, the glass windows reflect the blue sky and when it’s gray the windows are blank.
“I wonder if we should turn on a light,” Ethel says again, as I wander back into the kitchen.
Granny pulls out another piece from inside her brioche.
I sit down and separate my eggs into three piles.
“What did I say?” Ethel says. “Didn’t I warn you?”
“Yes, yes,” Granny says. “You’ve already pointed that out. But it doesn’t hurt to be optimistic.”
I pass some egg down to Max who is lying under the table. His tongue feels warm against my palm.
“I keep forgetting to eat those prunes,” Ethel says.
“Ethel is constipated,” I say.
“Really,” Ethel says. “You needn’t advertise it to the world.”
I watch Ethel eat her prunes. She puts one in her mouth and then she slowly moves it round just like she does with her mint, then she puts her hand in front of her mouth and spits her pit into her hand before hiding it in a paper napkin. She keeps pushing prunes across the kitchen table to Granny, but Granny keeps pushing them back.
After breakfast, Juliet says she’s going to open her packet. Every month Juliet’s friend Nancy sends her English magazines. Juliet says she likes to keep abreast of who is marrying who and who is having an affair with whom among English royalty. She likes to show us pictures of their houses and country estates. I follow Juliet and Al, counting the number of steps to her room. Twenty-three. I watch Al open the packet, very carefully, without tearing the paper because she knows that Juliet wants to keep it. Juliet always saves brown paper or wrapping paper.
I wander over to the card table with Juliet’s puzzle. She’s only done a few more pieces. Now what looked like the bottom of a pale green boat has a pink flower drawn across it.
I lie on my stomach over the red poof and pretend to read one of the magazines. I ask Juliet if it often happens that someone has an affair and then gets back together with their wife.
“All the time,” she says. “Particularly in France. Why, there’d hardly be any married people left if they didn’t. Ninety percent of French couples have been unfaithful to one another. Of course, in England it’s quite different.”
“I’m not going to have an affair when I get married,” I say.
“That’s good,” Juliet says, and laughs.
“I’m not going to get married,” Al says.
“Well, girls, now that you’ve decided all that how about helping me look for travel articles?”
Besides articles on English royalty, Juliet likes to collect articles on exotic places. She keeps them in a red folder with a white label that says Holidays. Today we find three articles: one on Corfu, another on Corsica, and another on the Lake District of England. Juliet says she’s not sure whether to include the Lake District because the weather is bound to be as it is everywhere else in England.
“Daddy says the food in England is terrible,” I say.
“There are some very good dishes.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like Yorkshire pudding,” she says.
I think I hear a car and I rush to the window but there’s no one.
“Speaking of food reminds me of my diet,” Juliet says. “I have drawn up a whole new chart with the number of calories I’m allowed each day. This is a carbohydrate diet. I can’t eat anything but carbohydrates.”
She pulls out the top drawer of her chest.
I notice the dahlias in a vase on top of her chest.
“I know your secret,” I lipsing to Al.
She smiles.
“Who gave you the flowers?” I ask Juliet.
“Never you mind.”
“I know,” I say.
She shows me a white piece of paper across which she has drawn lines, dividing it into boxes, with a date for each box and a blank for her to write the number of calories.
“Can I go on a diet?” I ask.
“Me too?” Al asks.
“Of course not. You’re both as thin as rails. I have been wondering if the scale out here in the country isn’t a little over, just by a pound or two.”
“When are they coming back?” I ask Jul
iet.
“I don’t know.”
“I wish they’d come soon,” I say.
“Maybe they’ll both run away,” Al says.
“That seems unlikely,” Juliet says.
It’s late afternoon now. The shadows are long. The grass almost blue. We’re playing un, deux, trois, soleil. It was Al’s idea so she’s the one standing with her back to us. All the grownups are playing, even Ethel and Juliet and Luis. Al says un, deux, trois, very slowly and then soleil very fast as she swings round.
“Gabriel,” she says. “I saw you.”
“It’s not fair,” I say. “She keeps cheating.” If she hadn’t cheated, I would have reached her a long time ago. Juliet looks very funny standing on one foot, trying to balance herself. Ethel is so cautious she’s only advanced a few steps. Granny has almost reached Al. She’s only a few feet away, but she seems to be taking an awfully long time to get up to Al.
When she does touch Al’s shoulder, she says she’s a little tired, would I like to take her place, but then Ethel says she’s had enough and Juliet says she should get ready for her evening out so I don’t get a turn.
Al and I lie on the grass by Granny and Ethel’s feet.
“It’s almost dinner time,” Ethel says.
“Not quite,” Granny says. “It’s not even six.”
“What shall we have for dinner?” Ethel says. “I don’t think there’s much. Some cold lamb perhaps.”
“Cold lamb will do fine,” Granny says.
Then we see Mummy. She stands in the doorway of the kitchen.
We all rush over. “Where’s Daddy?” I ask.
“He’s gone.”
“How come we didn’t get to see him?” Al asks.
“I’m sorry, girls. We had to talk and it took us much longer than we thought but you will get to see him soon. I promise. Another time.”
I can’t tell if Mummy had a good time or not with Daddy.
“Darlings,” Mummy says. “I have to get changed. I have another date with the doctor.”
“Tonight?” Ethel asks.
“He should be here any minute,” Mummy says.
“My goodness,” Ethel says. “What would we have done if you—”
“I know. I know. It would have been very awkward. That’s why I had him drop me off at Estouy. I walked from there.”
