by Sasha Troyan
The moon looks just like a popped boiled egg. Al and I stare at it from our window. I think I can see the earth reflected. The river is loud today. It’s like a person. Sometimes, it talks a lot and on other days not at all. “Let’s walk through the garden,” Al says. She climbs out the window first. We could go down the back stairs but it’s more fun this way. We swing down from the ledge, rest our feet on top of one of the green shutters of the bathroom downstairs, then lower ourselves onto the bathroom ledge. We jump onto the small bridge that’s just outside the window.
Mist rises from the grass, hiding most of the trees. Now and again a white flower stands out. We don’t notice Luis’s car in the middle of the gravel until we’re only a few feet away. Then we stop.
The car looks almost gray in this light. Juliet and Luis are smoking so that it seems as if the mist has slipped inside their car. There’s something funny about them. It’s because Luis is sitting in the back seat with Juliet. Juliet looks straight over at me. I expect her to say something, but she doesn’t. It’s as if I’m invisible. Perhaps she does not see me, I think, because she isn’t wearing her glasses. Al and I slip back into the house, using the stairs this time. We lie in bed next to one another, waiting to hear Juliet come into her room.
Ten
Voices, a muffled laugh, followed by a bark drift up to my room.
“I don’t know if that’s a compliment,” I hear the doctor say.
“I mean it as a compliment,” Mummy says.
I pull the sheets and blanket over my head.
“It’s time we wrote Mummy’s date in the calendar,” Al says, pulling at the sheet.
“I don’t feel like it,” I say.
I hear her footsteps as she goes into Juliet’s room and takes down the calendar that is hanging over her bed. Al always gets the calendar because she won’t get into as much trouble if Juliet wakes. She presents the calendar and a pen to me and I circle the date and write in as small as I can the number five. Mummy has been on five dates with the doctor. We fight over whether this morning should count as a new date since Mum didn’t come back last night. We decide to wait and see if they spend the whole day together.
We tiptoe back to Juliet’s room. Al’s about to hang the calendar up, when Juliet sits up in her bed and says, “What do you think you’re doing?” Al says she wanted to see the calendar.
“You don’t need to take it down to do that. Here, pass it to me. I’ll put it back up. My goodness! How time flies. We’ve been here almost a month.”
“I think it’s been going very slowly,” I say.
“That’s because you’re so young. Wait until you’re my age. A year seems like a day.”
“But you were the one who was ticking off the days,” I say; then I remember how Mum said that the days go by so fast when you’re in love.
“Juliet’s in love,” I say.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says.
“Juliet’s in love,” Al says and jumps up on Juliet’s bed.
Juliet tells her to get off immediately.
“Juliet’s in love,” Al and I shout together.
“I’m not the one in love,” she says, tearing off pages from her calendar.
I wonder if she is thinking of Mummy.
“We missed the portrait of Queen Elizabeth the Second,” Juliet says.
She shows it to us. I’m always disappointed with portraits of the queen because she never looks the way I picture a queen. She reminds me of Juliet.
“Juliet, I think you look like Queen Elizabeth.”
“Me,” she says, pointing to her chest. “Me. What a funny idea—”
“You do.”
“Then you should treat me with a little more respect,” she says.
I lean out her window and stare at the river. I’m too high up to see fish.
“It’s so boring here,” I say. “What are we going to do today?”
“You can help me with my puzzle. You can work on your tree-houses. Clean up your rooms.”
“Oh no, Juliet.” I walk out of her room and down the stairs. I try to tiptoe through the living room without Mummy and the doctor seeing me.
“Gabriel,” Mummy says. “You’re up early. Come and say hello to Xavier.” Mummy is sitting on the couch in the cream dress she wore on her first date. She is pulling one of the pearl buttons on her shirt. It makes me think of Daddy who used to place his hand over Mummy’s hands when she fidgeted at table.
The doctor sits with his legs together, hands resting on his knees.
I try to walk on the bright side of the rug, but to reach the doctor I have to step in the part that has been faded by the sun. Even when I shake hands with him, I do not look up. I stare at the tips of his shoes. They’re an ugly red-brown color and they’ve got mud on the edges.
“Good morning,” I say.
“Good morning,” he says.
I turn to go.
“Don’t go away,” Mummy says. “Come and talk to us.”
I sit next to my mother on the couch and stare at the painting of the sailboat hanging above the chest of drawers. Juliet dusted the painting yesterday, and now it’s lopsided, tilting slightly to the left, and just above one sail she left a patch of dust that hovers like a cloud above the ship.
“What are you going to do today?” Mummy asks.
“I don’t know. It’s so boring here.”
“I’ve never heard you say that before,” Mummy says.
The doctor leans forward and his hair catches the light. His eyes are blue.
“I think I saw you the other day. A red canoe.”
“No, ours is orange,” I say.
“It might have been orange,” he says.
“Xavier loves to sail. He’s originally from Brittany. You know where that is?”
“Yes,” I say.
“You should be careful not to go further than the green bridge,” he says. “After that there are dams.”
“Do you have to cut up lots of dead people every day?” I ask.
“No, just now and then.” He laughs.
Mummy says, “Really, Gabriel, the questions you ask.”
“Can I go now?”
“Of course, darling.”
“I’ve got lots of work to do on my treehouse.”
“We’ll come by in a little while and you can show us,” Mummy says.
All morning we work on our trees, and the sun gets hotter and hotter and the grass smells as if it’s about to burn and the sky is so blue it hurts your eyes to look at it. I keep glancing over my shoulder at the house, expecting to see the doctor and Mummy step out of the front door or walk along the bank, but all I see is Max sniffing and a moor hen, flapping its wings trying to get away from him.
It gets so hot that Al and I sit on the edge of the bank with our legs dangling in the river. We watch blue dragonflies glide across the river and sometimes we see a white or yellow butterfly.
“Did you see Daddy again?” Al asks.
“No,” I say. “But I found out something about the doctor.”
“What?”
“I can’t tell you because you always give my secrets away.”
“I promise I won’t this time,” she says.
“Cross your heart and hope to die.”
She slowly crosses her heart.
“The doctor kidnaps babies.”
“Where does he hide them?” she asks.
“Behind a thick velour curtain,” I say.
“How do you know?” she asks.
“I heard them when Mummy and I went over to his house the other day.” I imitate their cries. “Hu. Haa.”
“You think he’ll kidnap us?” Al asks.
“Oh no, we’re too old.”
“Even me?”
“Yes,” I say. “Come on. Let’s go for a swim.”
We pull off our clothes and climb up a tree. We swing down from a slim branch and drop into the river. We shout and scream, but no one comes. Holding hands, we let ourselves d
rift down the river on our backs. Sometimes we feel weeds brush against our legs and we screech.
We stand outside on the wooden bridge, peering through the water lily curtains at Mummy and the doctor sitting on Granny’s couch. Mummy is laughing. Her laughter goes higher and higher until it seems like it can’t go any higher, and then her laugh trails off and we hear his laugh, a deep laugh. We continue to stare at the back of their heads and perhaps I stare too hard because the doctor turns round. He smiles but we run away. We tiptoe upstairs to Juliet’s room. She’s gone into town with Granny and Aunt Ethel. We take turns sitting on her red poof. We pull at the green wallpaper and stare at her puzzle, adding a few pieces. Al and I were both wrong. The puzzle isn’t of boats or flowers. It’s of a pale green teapot with a pink flower drawn on one side. I tell Al about the red box with the cards and photographs. We peer under her bed but there are just bottles and we line them up on the window sill. She has several of the same kind. A man with a red jacket and white pants. He looks just like the soldiers who stand in front of the Queen of England’s Palace.
I pull on Juliet’s red high-heeled shoes. They’re hard to walk in. It feels like I’m on stilts. I try on her black satin dress. I don’t have any boobs so I stuff into the bodice a pair of her panties instead. We get the giggles. Al pulls on Juliet’s dress with the airplanes. The hem touches the floor. She wears Juliet’s black high heels. Slowly, holding hands, we glide-hobble across the floor pretending we’re going to be presented to the queen. We go through all Juliet’s clothes except for her wig. Through the floor boards I can hear opera. Al says she can feel the vibrations through her feet.
We make up a pretend restaurant. I get to be Juliet. Al has to be the waiter. She comes by and pours some wine. I pick up my glass with my pinky sticking out and I say, “A bit dry but it will do,” and we get the giggles again. Then we switch and I’m the waiter and get to drop the cheese soufflé down Juliet’s dress and Al screams. She screams so loudly that Mummy comes running upstairs. We run out onto the landing so that she doesn’t come inside Juliet’s room. She doesn’t notice how we’re dressed.
“What’s the matter?” she says.
“Nothing,” I say. “We’re just playing.”
“We’re going to have lunch in a minute,” she says. “Granny and Aunt Ethel must be running late.”
We’re waiting in the dining room. The doctor is sitting at the head of the table in Daddy’s place. He’s staring at his glass, running one finger along the rim. The whistle becomes louder and louder. Al wets her finger and runs it along the rim of her glass. She says she can feel the sound squeak through her finger and then I do too and soon there are three whistles competing to be the loudest and drown out the other two.
We stop only when we hear the sound of a car driving across the gravel. I imagine that it’s my father’s car even though it doesn’t sound like his. I picture my father swinging open the door to his green Porsche, striding across the gravel, his head going from side to side. “Get out,” he tells Xavier.
But it isn’t my father. It’s Granny and Aunt Ethel and Juliet.
We watch them through the glass door of the entrance.
“I’m so sorry we’re late, darling,” Granny says. “But would you believe it? I bought all these beads and wool and forgot them at the doctor’s so we had to drive all the way back.”
“But the doctor’s here,” I say.
“Oh no,” Granny says. “This was a specialist. A friend of our doctor’s. Very nice.”
“Is everything all right?” Mummy asks.
“I think so,” Granny says.
“Oh good,” Mummy says. “Well, everything’s ready. We’re just having pâté and bread and some salad. There’s a little foie gras and of course cheese. The doctor is here. Girls, why don’t you run in and keep him company while I bring it in?”
The doctor now stands staring out the window which looks onto the garden. He doesn’t turn when we come in so Al and I pull out our chairs and sit down. Then he starts sneezing. He sneezes and sneezes. “Merde,” he says. If Juliet heard me say that she’d hit my head.
“Xavier suffers from hay fever just like your mother,” Mummy says, as she enters the dining room. “Maybe that’s why you don’t like flowers.”
“No,” he says. “It’s because I associate flowers with funerals. When I was a boy I was forced to go to a funeral. I don’t believe children should have to go to them.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Mummy says. “They are very upsetting.”
“I’ve never been to a funeral,” I say.
“I haven’t either,” Al says.
“Let’s hope you don’t for a long time,” Mummy says.
Granny and Ethel come into the dining room. They’ve put on fresh lipstick and combed their hair.
“How is your foot today?” the doctor asks Granny.
“Completely better. Almost ready to do a Scottish jig.”
“A jig?” the doctor asks.
“A dance,” Mummy says.
“Please, please, please, will you do one, Granny?” Al asks.
“I was just joking,” Granny answers.
“Juliet can do a Scottish jig,” Al says, as Juliet comes into the dining room. She’s changed into her favorite dress with the airplanes. She’s also put on lipstick except hers is brown. I expect her to say something about her room; we didn’t have time to clean it up. But all she says is, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do,” Al says.
I kick Al under the table but she doesn’t understand. I’m afraid to lipsing.
“I’m ravenous,” Mummy says. “Do sit down, everyone.”
At first, everyone concentrates on eating. The doctor holds his knife funny like he’s going to stab someone. Juliet won’t approve. I mouth to Al that he holds his knife funny. She laughs and Juliet glances over at me. I know what that look means.
“Have you lived here long?” Aunt Ethel asks.
“About ten years. Before that we lived in Etampes.”
“Your wife—”
“We’re divorced.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ethel says.
“It was for the best.”
“My husband died a year after we married,” Ethel says. “We lived on a farm miles and miles from anywhere. I continued to live there several years afterwards but then it got too hard—”
I remember visiting Ethel’s farm. There were cloth frogs filled with beans all over her house. Hundreds and hundreds of them. She gave me one and I made a hole and let all the beans out. Now it’s flat. She also had amethyst stones everywhere. I stole a dark purple one from her mantelpiece. I had to climb on a chair to get it.
Ethel talks a lot to the doctor. She tells him how her husband was a doctor, only a real doctor. The doctor and Mummy smile when she says that. Granny laughs. Juliet tells him about how she used to be a nurse during the Second World War and how hard the doctors had to work in those days. She explains to the doctor that she likes being a nanny better because that way you get to travel.
My Daddy gets to travel a lot. Once he went to India where vultures swoop down and take your food while you eat.
Granny asks the doctor about his family. He says that he has a twin. I try to imagine someone just like him, but then he says that his twin is not identical. She’s a girl and she looks completely different. Granny says she had a twin and everyone looks surprised, even Aunt Ethel.
“Really, mother?” Mummy says. “You never told me that.”
“He died when I was still a baby,” Granny says. “I have no memory of him.”
After the doctor leaves, the grownups sit around the living room having their coffee, saying how nice he is. Mummy says that everyone confides in him because he is a psychiatrist and used to listening to other people. I expect Juliet to give us a talking-to but she doesn’t. I mouth to Al: “Boring. Boring. Boring”. We march around the house pretending to be soldiers. We shout the French anthem at
the top of our lungs. Alons enfants de la patrie. Le jour de gloire est arrivé. Juliet gets really mad. She hates it when we sing, particularly the French anthem. But it’s much better than the English, I say, and that gets her even madder. Still she doesn’t say anything about her room. She makes us lie down on our beds but I can’t sleep. Al does almost immediately. I know because she breathes louder.
I wait until everything is quiet and then I wander from room to room, brushing the palm of one hand along the cool walls. Granny’s sleeping with Tiger on top of her head. Mummy’s not in her bedroom. I wonder if she’s gone to see the doctor. Max sleeps on her bed, his head hanging sadly over the side. I lie down beside him and stroke his soft ears. Poor Max, I say, you’ve been punished. If you hadn’t been naughty they wouldn’t have left you behind. Did you steal more chickens? He does not answer and I stop talking to him and listen to the wind making the curtain hangers rattle.
I walk over to the closet and finger Mummy’s dresses. I wonder what happened to the suitcase with Daddy’s clothes. I remember how Mummy would always have us check Daddy’s suit pockets when she ran out of money. I look under her bed but there’s nothing. Just a ball of dust and a blue marble.
I think I can hear someone singing and then I realize it’s coming from the other side of the house. It’s Juliet. By the time I reach her room, though, she’s stopped. I can’t believe it. Juliet’s tidied up her room completely. Her books are all in the shelves, the top of her chest of drawers gleams. She’s even got fresh roses in a vase. Her bed is made with the corners tucked in like hospital corners. Sitting in her green armchair, she is wearing a new dress with white circles that look like buoys. She does not notice me staring at her. She’s concentrating on a new Agatha Christie and she’s done her nails a different color: pale pink.
Eleven
“Juliet,” I say, shaking her by her shoulders as hard as I can. “Juliet, she’s gone.”
“Stop,” Juliet says, rolling onto her back, staring at me from tiny swollen red eyes, her pink nylon nightdress twisted around her waist, showing her white panties. “You’re bruising me. What is the matter? You are always waking me at some ungodly hour. Who’s gone?”
