by Sasha Troyan
“Mummy,” I say.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, sitting up and glancing at her clock, a little red one with a speckled face. “It’s later than I thought. She’s probably just gone for a walk or to buy some fresh eggs and milk.”
“No, no. She didn’t take Max and she’s not with the doctor. She took her car.”
“Well, I’m sure there’s some logical explanation we haven’t thought of,” she says.
She stretches and teases her hair with her fingers. I cross my arms over my chest because it’s always cold in Juliet’s room.
I follow her into the bathroom. She brushes her teeth, then her tongue. She says it’s very important in order to have good breath. She also sprays her mouth with mint.
“What a lot of laundry I have to do!” Juliet exclaims as she peers into the basket with our dirty clothes. She pulls out one of my dresses and examines it. “This looks perfectly clean. You’re very naughty, Gabriel. You just throw your clothes into the bin because it’s easier than hanging them up or folding them. I’m not going to put up with it.”
She sits down at her table and does a few puzzle pieces. It’s not just a picture of a teapot with shadows. There are also matching tea cups that look like they’re about to march off the table. I like the green felt that covers the table and pass my hand over it.
The telephone rings and I run downstairs. It’s Daddy.
“Hello?” he says.
“Hello,” I whisper.
“Hello? Is that you, Gabriel? I can’t hear you. Speak up.”
“It’s me,” I say, playing with the telephone cord. It’s very long and I wind it round and round my arm.
“How are you?”
“Fine.” I’m still whispering but I can’t help it. I can hear my voice trembling a bit. I’ve wound the telephone cord so tight it hurts.
“Is your mother there?”
“No.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No, but Juliet says she’s bound to be back soon.” I tug at the phone cord but I’m afraid I’ll unplug it.
“She was supposed to meet me over an hour ago.”
“Maybe she got lost.”
“Maybe—”
“Maybe she’s run into a lot of traffic.”
“Maybe,” he says.
“I saw you.”
“When? I’m sorry I didn’t get to talk to you when I came the other day.”
“No, I saw you before that in the wild field.”
“That wasn’t me.”
“It was,” I say.
“It wasn’t,” he says.
“It was,” I say.
“It wasn’t,” he says.
I can feel my cheeks getting hotter.
“Where’s your sense of humor?” Daddy says. “I promise it wasn’t me. Look, I have to go now, but I’ll see you soon. Remember, your daddy loves you. Bye.”
Slowly I unwind my arm from the cord. It’s easy now that I don’t have my ear pressed against the receiver. His voice sounded far away. But he can’t be in Brussels. Brussels is too far away for Mummy to meet him.
Through the glass door, I stare at the gravel yard. The stones glint. The roses along the river are a deep red. Granny and I have not gone to see the roses along the white fence for a long time. I tiptoe through the living room, past Granny’s room where I can see Ethel seated in a chair by Granny’s bed. Ethel does not read or knit. She just sits. Sometimes she folds back the corner of her bed jacket and irons it with one hand then she unfolds it. Granny has been sleeping later and later.
Upstairs Juliet is still working on her puzzle.
“Was that your mother on the phone?” She asks, one puzzle piece between her teeth.
“No,” I say. “It was Daddy.”
She places the puzzle piece and then Al appears in the doorway. “How come no one woke me up?”
Juliet fits another piece.
“Stop,” Al says. “It’s my turn.”
I walk over to Juliet’s window. I lean out and stare at the water. It’s gray when the clouds cover the sun. I catch sight of muskrats just as they disappear beneath the house.
The doctor is walking across the gravel. He’s wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. He knocks on the front door and looks up. I quickly pull in my head.
“What was that?” Juliet says.
“It’s the doctor,” I say.
“Come on,” she says.
Juliet marches downstairs. Al and I walk slowly down the steps, holding onto the red velour cord. Then we go up the stairs again and sit halfway. We rest our elbows on our knees, our chins in our hands, and we stare out the window which is smudged from our fingers.
“I daresay she’ll be back soon,” I hear Ethel say.
“Probably gone for a drive,” Juliet says.
“Do have a seat,” Ethel says.
“I’ll make coffee, or would you prefer tea?” Juliet asks.
“No, no, I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” Juliet says. “You sit over there.”
When Al and I wander into the living room, the doctor is sitting in the blue and white striped chair. “Hello,” he says, standing up and then sitting down.
Granny and Aunt Ethel are knitting. Juliet’s sitting in the big yellow armchair. They’ve all moved their chairs over to the doctor’s so that they can hear him because he talks so softly. The doctor tells them about a patient who bit a piece out of his cheek.
“Oh no,” Ethel says. I stare at his cheek, but I can’t see any mark.
Ethel complains that she could not get a wink of sleep because of the toilet running all night. Granny says she thought it was the sound of the river running. The doctor offers to fix it. “Oh no,” Ethel says. “No, no, no.” The doctor insists.
Everyone except for Granny follows him into the bathroom. It’s very crowded because the bathroom is not very big and because there are so many of us. The doctor rolls up his sleeves, lifts the top off the tank, and reaches inside. “Ooh,” Ethel says. “Don’t you want a pair of gloves?”
“No, no, I’ll just wash my hands afterwards,” he answers.
Al and I both want to peer inside the tank.
“Does anyone have an elastic?” He asks. “I’m going to have to do something temporary. We need to replace the—”
Juliet runs upstairs. She brings the doctor a pink elastic of mine.
“This ought to work,” he says, after fiddling inside the tank, replacing the top. We all watch him flush the toilet, then wait to see if there’s any noise afterwards. There’s only the sound of the river.
“Fancy that? A handyman as well as a doctor,” Ethel says. She smiles up at the doctor and she places one hand on his arm. Ethel’s husband was a very good handyman too. He built her a beautiful oak bed. She had to leave it behind on the farm because it was too big for the room at Granny’s.
I lipsing to Al that Ethel’s in love with the doctor. Ethel’s in love with the doctor. Al laughs and hugs herself, pretending to give kisses. Then she says why don’t we go play in our treehouses, but Juliet says we can’t go play outside because it’s about to storm, so we play with our dolls beneath the stairs of the living room. We pretend that the small dolls are aristocrats and about to be guillotined by the big dolls. We use the boy dolls for the executioners. We have each doll lie with their neck bare and then bang, we cut off their heads. I get to pretend to be Marie Antoinette who moans and groans because she has no pastries to eat.
The doctor talks and talks about how they need to reform hospitals for mental patients. It gets darker and darker until Juliet gets up and switches on a lamp. Lightening strikes and the lamp flickers out.
“I do hope she’s not out in this weather,” Ethel remarks.
“If she’s in the car, there’s nothing to worry about,” Juliet says.
“She’s always liked the ram,” Granny says. “Even as a little girl she would run out into the garden.”
&n
bsp; Suddenly, the front door slams shut. Mummy stands in the doorway with her clothes stuck to her body. Her hair has come undone. She looks upset.
We stare at her. I can’t tell if she’s seen Daddy. Everyone starts talking at once.
“Are you—” Granny says.
“Soaked through,” Ethel says.
“Take a hot bath,” Juliet says.
Al and I run over to Mummy and put our arms around her. She smells of the rain. She kisses us everywhere: on the top of our heads, on our cheeks, on our necks. She stops only when the doctor says, “We were so worried.” She looks up and says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry anyone.”
“Better get changed before you catch your death,” Ethel says.
“Yes,” Juliet says. “Nothing like a wet head.”
We watch Mummy run upstairs, then there’s the sound of water. She must be taking a hot bath. Ethel and Granny go back to their knitting, but Al and I don’t feel like playing dolls anymore. We just sit on the couch and lift our legs and let them drop, banging the side of the couch, until Juliet tells us to stop.
The doctor wanders over to the window and stares out. He opens his wallet. Al says he has a photograph of Mum he’s always looking at. I wonder if he knows that Mum went to see Dad.
When Mummy comes downstairs in her beige skirt and a white shirt, she sits between Al and me.
“Not a nice day,” Ethel says.
“No, it isn’t,” Granny says.
“Just dreadful,” Juliet says.
The doctor looks down at his trousers, then stands. “I suppose I should go.” Mummy stands up. He walks a few steps towards the entrance hall but Mummy stops him.
“I need to talk to you,” she says.
Granny says it’s way past her forty winks even though it’s the morning. Ethel says that she’s been meaning to write a postcard to her daughter Heather for weeks. Juliet says we must go for a walk.
“It’s not raining anymore,” she says. “It’s just sprinkling. A bit of fresh air will do you good. Hurry and don’t argue with me.” She charges out the living room, holding each of us by the hand.
We have to pass Mummy and the doctor in the entrance hall on our way to the bathroom where we keep our boots. They stand opposite each other and the rain from the glass door is reflected on their faces and clothes.
“I’m sorry,” we hear Mummy say. “I’m so sorry. I’m just so confused. The worse is that I’m beginning to sound like him. That’s what he would always say to me. I can’t help it if I’m in love with two people at the same time—”
“Marry me,” he says.
“Don’t be silly,” she says. “I barely know you. I’m not divorced.”
Juliet bangs the closet doors closed. She pulls on her squaretoed red gumboots and her yellow raincoat and matching hat. She walks very fast out of the house, across the gravel yard, through the gate and along the white fence with the roses. We have to run to keep up with her. She slows down only when we reach the first green bridge. “Ah,” she says. “I feel better already.”
The air is so moist it feels as if we’ve been dipped in water, and the countryside so still and silent our footsteps echo; and as we walk along the road the river appears and disappears beneath the mist. The sky darkens. At first it’s white, but then it turns gray, then charcoal. The smell of wet earth is very strong. Juliet tells us how when she was a girl she and her brothers moved from London and lived in the country in a house that was next to a bakery. They did not have to leave the house to reach the bakery. They could go down through the basement. Her brothers liked to hit mice that jumped out of bags of flour. Once her brothers gave her a fright by offering her a box with a dead mouse wrapped in cotton wool. I don’t listen to Juliet. I imagine my mother’s wedding instead. She’s dressed in white with a long veil that reaches the ground and she’s carrying muguet. The doctor walks with tiny quick steps up the aisle. He’s wearing a tight gray suit. I imagine the minister asking the congregation whether anyone knows of any reason whether these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony. My father steps forward. He’s wearing Mummy’s favorite shirt of his, the blue one, the same color as the swallows.
On the last stretch back along a muddy unpaved road, the sky is almost black and we keep tripping in our mud-caked boots. We would fall if we weren’t holding each other’s hands. When the house comes into sight, we don’t have the strength to run. We stare at the light spilling out of each window onto the ivy leaves. I search for a green Porsche in the shadows.
The light is on in Granny’s room. Tiger sits beneath the lamp. Every few minutes she jerks her head out because it gets too hot. Granny’s sitting on the water-lily couch reading her book. She’s almost finished it. “Do you want to hear the rest?” she asks, placing her bookmark inside her book and closing it.
“No,” I say. “They all finish the same.”
“I thought you liked that,” Granny says.
“I don’t,” I say.
“That’s because you’re getting so grown up. Soon you’ll be reading books like your mother’s.”
I walk over to her window and stare at the garden. It looks like nighttime even though it’s only three o’clock. All the trees are dripping water and the roses outside Granny’s bedroom window droop.
I don’t hear Granny get up from the couch. She has the softest footsteps. Often she gives Ethel a fright. Suddenly, she’s beside me.
“Look at the leaves of that tree,” she says.
She places her hand on my shoulder.
“Aren’t they beautiful? They’re all back to front and almost silver in this light. And look at the drops of water in that cobweb.”
“I don’t like spiders,” I say.
“They’re very useful, you know. They kill mosquitoes and flies and other nuisances,” she says.
“May I ask you a question, Granny?”
“Of course.”
“Do you think Mummy’ll marry the doctor?”
“I don’t know.”
“I thought you knew everything.”
“Of course not,” Granny says. “Whatever gave you that idea? I’m very ignorant about many, many things. But I wouldn’t worry about it. They’ve only known each other a few weeks. It’s a bit premature—”
She leans out the window and reaches for a yellow rose brushed with pink. It falls apart in her hand.
“Would you like to put on some music and do a little ballet?” Granny asks. “I’d love to see the new steps you’ve learned this year.”
“No,” I say. “I don’t feel like it.”
“Well,” Granny says. “How would you like to just sit next to me and tell me what you would like to do most?”
“I’d like to go with you on the QEII,” I say. “I wish we didn’t have to wait until I’m sixteen.”
“Maybe we don’t,” Granny says. “Maybe the two of us could go next year.”
“I wish I could go with you when you go back to South Africa,” I say. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”
“I wish I didn’t too,” Granny says. “But we still have almost three weeks.”
“Tell me all about the QEII,” I say. “I want to know every single thing.”
“Well, let me see. There are tables that are screwed to the floor so that they don’t drift across when the sea is rough—”
Twelve
It’s morning, but the sun has not yet reached the wood armoire in Granny’s room; the carved rose and the bird are still in the shadows. The house is still.
I walk upstairs to my room where Al is asleep with her monkey without its head resting in her arms. She holds her white blanket with the blue flowers pressed to her nose. I think of pressing her blanket to my nose, but I know it won’t make me feel better anymore.
Juliet’s sleeping in her pink see-through nightdress. Her room is still neat. She has even put out on the armchair the clothes she plans to wear: her pantyhose and her cream bra and underwear, a red and green dress. I li
ft her bra from the chair and wonder what it would be like to have breasts that big, but then Juliet twitches in her sleep and I run down the stairs as fast as I can. I sit on the couch and stare at the grandfather clock. I imagine that the boat is floating across its face. Daddy loves watches. He owns a watch that tells the position of the sun and moon.
Granny appears in her nightdress in the doorway of her room. “I was thinking we should see the roses today,” she says. “I’ll just pull on my dressing gown.”
“Okay,” I say.
I hold Granny’s arm while she bends over and pulls on her white slippers with the white powder puffs.
I pull on Juliet’s red gumboots.
As soon as we step out the front door, Granny breathes in deeply and says, “Smell that sweet air!” The grass is wet. It’s very green from all the rain and it’s grown so high it reaches my knees. The mist is even thicker than usual. We do not talk. I know that Granny is listening for larks. I drag my feet. Juliet’s boots are too big and chafe my heels. Now and then I kick the white fence, watching paint fall off in flakes. “Sh,” Granny says.
The hedges are still; not one branch quivers, only the mist shifts, but then the sun pierces through the mist streaking the lawn and we see a lark. It rises steeply above the mist, its tail outspread. It flies higher and higher; it’s motionless, as if suspended high above us and now it slowly glides down, wings extended. It glides down and down then suddenly closes its wings and plummets, opening its wings at the very last second before touching the ground.
Granny says, “Now, isn’t that wonderful?” and I say, “It’s okay.”
“Just think—if I hadn’t got out of bed we would have missed it,” she says. “And look at those roses!”
There are so many roses it looks as if the fence might collapse beneath their weight. I’ve never seen so many before. Granny cuts a few roses from each rosebush and places them in a special basket that’s made for flowers.
“What are you wearing those for?” Granny asks, pointing to my red gum boots.
“I don’t know. They’re Juliet’s.”
“But you usually go barefooted.”
“I don’t like it anymore,” I say.
