The Memento

by Christy Ann Conlin

  “Time is disappearing,” Pomeline said. “There are two weeks until the party. A month until my exams.”

  The sun went behind a cloud and the room grew dark for a moment, and Marigold and her bright floral dress seemed to disappear into the chair. Then the cloud passed and the room brightened as Pomeline stopped playing and rubbed her hands and did exercises, her fingers long and moving gracefully, each one a creature risen up out of the sea. She told me to sit, that there was no need to stand, that I must be boiling in my funny maid’s uniform. I settled in one of the straight-backed chairs along the wall.

  The vase of flowers in the centre of the round table was dizzying with colour. The air was oversweet. Down the hall there were footsteps on the hardwood and then murmuring voices. Pomeline rested her fingers on the keys and then delicate melody serenaded them as they filed into the room—Art and Jenny, Margaret, and Loretta coming in with a tray. Behind her, Harry with a box, and Sakura with a sketch pad in her arms. She dropped the pad and I knelt down to pick it up. It slipped far back under a small settee and I stayed on the floor trying to reach it.

  Sakura lifted some glistening glass bells from out of the box. Harry said, “Sakura made you some glass wind bells. She didn’t actually blow the glass, but her father did. That’s what he does. It’s an art form passed down in their family. She’s painted these blue and yellow flowers on the inside. It’s ever so intricate. If you look you’ll see they are cornflowers, arnica and coreopsis. Pomeline and Jenny, there’s one for each of you.” He beamed with pride.

  Sakura fanned herself. “Tie them on tree branches or on the eaves, or in a bush, and when the wind blows you’ll hear them and see them moving. Traditionally they were hung at the corners of temples to ward off evil spirits.” She rocked the glass bells side to side and a melodious tinkling filled the room.

  Marigold opened her eyes and saw me still crouched on the floor. She put her hand to her thin lips. “Oh goodness, John Lee, what are you doing in here?” she gasped. “Are you looking for your mother? Go to the kitchen. I tell her to keep an eye on her child but she doesn’t listen. The nerve. Look at your dirty feet.”

  I didn’t say a word. No one did.

  Harry turned to her. “Whoever could John Lee be?”

  Marigold looked afraid, still staring at me. “What are you doing here, you bad little boy?” she said. “You can’t come in here. It isn’t allowed. Where’s Charlie? Is he with you? I hope you haven’t got him into any trouble. You and your mother are not even fit to be in the kitchen. Don’t you look at me like that, you impudent young bastard.”

  Sakura set the glass wind bells on the table.

  Pomeline stopped playing but the piano music echoed as Jenny skipped over to her grandmother like nothing had happened. “Granny, we’re going to sing now. For the garden party.”

  Marigold was still looking at me like I was my dead brother.

  “It’s just Fancy Mosher, Mrs. Parker. It’s just me,” I said, standing up. “See, I’m no six-year-old.”

  Loretta, who had been standing there like a short, portly statue, put the tray down with a crash. “It’s stifling in here.” She walked to the windows and opened them. Brisk air flooded into the room.

  Marigold relaxed, and she wiped her cheeks. “My goodness, Fancy,” she said, picking up a fan on the table by the vase. “You looked just like your brother for a moment. The same eyes and hair. The same bare feet. You Moshers.”

  Harry and Sakura glanced at me, and at Marigold, and finally at Pomeline, who looked away. Even Loretta was looking at the floor.

  No one said anything, so I did. “He’s dead.”

  “Oh how dreadful, how simply dreadful. What a tragedy,” Harry muttered.

  “It was a long time ago,” Loretta added.

  “Yes, it was,” Marigold said. “He was only six years old. I used to let him play with my Charlie in the gardens but he was dreadfully rough and tumble. He wasn’t afraid of a thing, that brother of yours. Your mother was very young when she had him. What a pity.”

  The thing is, there was no pity for John Lee in her voice.

  Jenny didn’t know whether to blame me or not. Either way, it was a side of her grandmother she wanted private. She wagged her finger at me like an old lady. “You shouldn’t go scaring Granny, Fancy,” she rumbled.

  Pomeline looked like she was going to throw up. “Jenny, Fancy didn’t do anything. Granny, you fell asleep. You must have had a dream.”

  Loretta poured a glass of water and handed it to Margaret, who passed it to Marigold. She took a sip and laughed. “Yes, I must have had a dream. I have such rich sleeps here.” Jenny took the fan but Marigold waved her away. “Agatha, I’m fine. Please, dear.”

  Margaret snatched the fan out of Jenny’s hand. “Your grandmother doesn’t need a draft. You’re going to give her pneumonia. Don’t you know anything about elderly folks? Now give her some space, Agatha.” Margaret said her name all slow and sticky.

  Jenny went over to Pomeline and stood glaring at Margaret.

  Harry had been standing there awkwardly with his hands on his hips. Suddenly he lifted them and clapped, short and sharp. “Now, everyone, let’s just do a quick practice. It was a long day, perhaps a bit humid to be making rosewater. We’ll just do a bit of singing, shall we? I say we need some fun. Maybe a beach fire, later. But for now let’s hear your marvellous singing!”

  Loretta left to get supper ready. When she went out the door she was moving slow. I worried that the summer of the big return was making her old before her time.

  At last we were lined up in our singing order and we began. Jenny joined us the first time and we sang in three-part harmony, except Jenny, who couldn’t carry a tune and didn’t know the words. She hummed loudly and we tried to sing right over her. We carried on for a bit, Harry and Sakura smiling bravely, waiting for the next clash.

  Marigold held up her hand. “Agatha, dear, why don’t you turn the music for Pomeline as we discussed? I’m sure that would be a great help. Dear, we’ve been practising for several weeks now and it’s simply too late to join in.”

  Pomeline nodded. “Jenny, it’s not your voice. It’s that we’ve already been practising.”

  Jenny lunged close to Pomeline, who recoiled on the piano bench, but she stopped as sudden as she started. “That will be fine. I’ll turn the music.” She put her hand on Pomeline’s shoulder for a moment.

  Pomeline pointed to the sheet music and started to speak but Jenny interrupted her. “I’m twelve years old. I can read music. You don’t have to be able to sing to understand notation, Pomeline. You aren’t the only one who can do that. I’m not a baby.”

  “Could have fooled me,” Margaret said in her flat voice.

  “Sages, leave your contemplations,” Jenny snapped back.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Margaret’s nose wrinkled up.

  “Don’t mind her, Margaret. Just ignore her. Jenny, you’re being incorrigible. It was so quiet before you came. We need to get on with our rehearsal, Granny.” Pomeline played a chord. “There is much to do and we only have two weeks left. I do need to get back to my practising. I need to be playing for at least six hours a day.”

  “Angels from the realms of glory,” Jenny said. She hiccupped. “Sorry. I’ll try, I really will. I’m not good at turning papers. I’m clumsy, with my fragile bones.” She held out her arms.

  Margaret elbowed me and grabbed a tissue off the table, handing it to Jenny. “Are you going to cry?”

  I moved a few inches away from Margaret.

  “Sing, all ye citizens,” Jenny said, her hands clasped, glaring at Margaret. “I don’t cry. My tear ducts don’t work.” She bowed her head. “I am a vessel of unshed tears.”

  Marigold looked drained. “It’s true. Her tear ducts don’t work properly. She uses eye drops and we’ve trained her to blink. Agatha, if your health problems are interfering you’ll simply have to sit and enjoy through the act of observation. You mustn’t st
rain yourself.”

  “Shall we continue?” Pomeline asked gently.

  “Yes, please, I’d be honoured to hear.” Dr. Baker had come in so quiet we didn’t even notice. He swept in and sat down. “The drive today was long. Traffic in the city. I’ll be staying tonight. Jenny, that’s helpful how you are turning the music for Pomeline. I didn’t realize you were coming out yet. I thought Estelle wanted you to stay in the city with her.”

  Jenny grimaced but he made out like he didn’t notice, looking around the room, his arms folded together, as though she had answered him yes-sir-no-sir-three-bags-full-sir.

  “Oh, Dr. Baker, doesn’t it bring you back to when Charlie was alive, and the Colonel, when we had the Petal’s End Chorus, with all those quaint invalids? They sang with such gusto. They didn’t care what anyone thought. I suppose you wouldn’t remember the very early days. Your father was the doctor back then. He was so pleased you followed him into the medical profession.”

  Dr. Baker was listening intently, his chin resting in his hand, like Marigold was telling the most exciting story he’d heard in the last decade, but I saw him rubbing his fingers hard together in his pocket. He turned to us standing there in our choir formation. “Don’t they look delightful, Marigold? And you’re looking well yourself.”

  “I’m an old lady, Dr. Baker. I don’t need flattery. It is wasted on me, I assure you, as clever as you are with it. It’s better spent on Estelle.”

  Jenny turned to a song and showed it to Marigold. “I want this,” she said.

  Pomeline looked at the music book and shook her head. “No, I was telling Fancy that I don’t like that one. She doesn’t like it either, do you, Fancy?”

  I was saved having to reply for Jenny seemed about to launch into a tirade. She composed herself, trying to show how agreeable she could be when she wanted. “Well, how about this one? It’s one you used to sing just to me, Granny. I know all the words. Then I taught Pomeline so we could sing it in rounds. Remember, Pomeline? I don’t mean I have to sing it but can’t I pick even one?”

  Marigold started singing, Pomeline joining her on the piano. White coral bells, upon a slender stalk, lilies of the valley deck my garden walk.

  Jenny taught us the few words as though she was the choral director, line by line, everything made right by a song. She kept looking over to Marigold for approval. Oh, don’t you wish that you could hear them ring? Jenny wasn’t allowed to sing but she mouthed the words, trying to look as an opera singer would. That will happen only when the fairies sing.

  Marigold waved her hands like a conductor and she was grinning, but when her eyes reached mine she frowned.

  Jenny looked over at me, fixing a look that Jesus saves for the little lambs. The golden afternoon light left the room as the sun pulled over in the sky and there was nothing but tremulous voices singing in the shadows.

  14.

  Long Is the Memory of the Mute Swan

  ART AND I went down to the kitchen after choir practice and I asked Loretta why Marigold was acting batty around me. It seemed senility had roosted on her. Loretta was finishing supper, pan-fried haddock and lemon potatoes, and she didn’t look up as she cut parsley to toss over the fish, talking as she snipped, telling me that it was a sorrowful thing when John Lee drowned, that was all. Marigold felt badly that Ma’s child died and she had her Charlie. Loretta was not herself. She was short with me. It was better not to talk about any of it, she said.

  I’d already upset Loretta by going in the Annex earlier in the summer, on top of Grampie’s letter and the family memento. By this point it seemed like a story Ma and Grampie had made up—the lush Mosher imagination. Anything I was seeing or hearing was just that, put there by adults who didn’t know how to deal with grief. Adults who did not understand mourning and who infected little children with their melancholy. I reminded myself the music I kept hearing was in fact just a sentimental song I had heard in the halls and rooms and through the walls when I was small. A child’s imagination hears whispers when there is only wind. And moans and groans when it is nothing more than squeaky stairs and hinges.

  Later, when Art and I were cleaning up the supper dishes with Loretta, Jenny arrived in the kitchen, saying our names, walking slowly, almost a sashay if it hadn’t been so awkward and stiff. We could smell her perfume. She had her glass bells in a box. The Parkers had forever been coming down to the kitchen, for a snack, or to tell Loretta their problems like we all did, to sit with her while she listened, took your hand, put her arm around you, hummed as she went about the kitchen, the way she had that made you feel whatever was going wrong would right itself.

  “Let’s go out to Evermore.” Jenny stood there impatiently. “I want to hang up my wind bells. You two can help me.”

  “Good evening to you as well, Miss Jenny,” Loretta said as she handed me the last plate to dry.

  “Oh yes, hello.” Jenny clasped her hands. “It smells good. You are the best cook, Loretta.”

  Loretta wrung out the dishrag, dried her hands on a towel and gave Jenny’s cheek a gentle pinch. “Thank you, Jenny. I’m happy to see you eat. There’s barely anything to you.”

  Jenny gave a weird little coughing giggle. She turned to me. “I saw the picture you made of Granny. Why on earth did you make a picture of her sleeping like that? It’s not very becoming, although Granny doesn’t seem to mind. She says embroidery isn’t a realistic depiction but an interpretation.”

  I shrugged. To me, the face was much improved from my first attempt. I didn’t see what she found so disturbing about it.

  “Maybe you can teach me to embroider.”

  “That’s a nice idea,” Loretta said.

  “Granny says you do it like an expert. I wonder what my mother would think if I took up needlework. It’s something my father liked.” Jenny’s laugh boomeranged around the immense kitchen.

  Loretta smoothed out her apron. “Dear, sometimes parents don’t get along, like anybody. Sometimes we argue with our friends or our sisters. It’s just a part of learning to get along. Your father was a good man, Jenny. Oh, I’ll never forget what a dancer he was. He’d swoop through the kitchen and twirl me about, and then he’d be out the door and off to Evermore so quickly it was like he was a dream. We need enthusiasm like that around here if we are to be ready for the garden party your grandmother wants, God bless her. Now, off with you. Go hang those bells.”

  As we went through the hall Jenny glanced into the cloakroom we used, where Margaret had left her orange sweater hanging. A bottle of rosewater we had made earlier was on the top shelf, beside her purse. Jenny didn’t stop but her head turned slightly. Her expression was blank, like maybe she hadn’t even registered nothing but that orange sweater. Art was calling to us to hurry up and we were both through the door and into the evening.

  Outside we heard laughing from the carriage house and we went around. Hector and Margaret were talking in hushed tones, and they didn’t hear us coming. It was one of those moments where you should either back up quiet or clear your throat. But we did neither. We stood there at the corner of the carriage house, listening as Margaret spoke.

  “Yes, my darlings, Charlie was a fine dancer. How I love Petal’s End. Come along and we’ll make some rosewater, some lily oil. How horrible that we do not have fresh morning petals covered in dew. Whatever shall we do with steamy hot rose petals? I’ll make you a serum, a deadly serum to put myself out of my misery.” Margaret cackled. “She prattles on like that all day long making my ears bleed. And she’s obsessed with that little freak of a human. And she’s so rude to Pomeline. I’d slap her if she was my grandmother. What a hate she’s got on for the doctor. Can’t say I blame her. I can spot his type a mile away. He can’t fool me. No wonder Charlie did himself in. Can you imagine having to live with this lot, day in, day out? They must have drove Charlie to it.”

  Margaret grabbed Hector and started whirling him around. He wasn’t much of a dancer but he played along. A dirty jealousy came over me, bu
t it was nothing compared to Jenny’s response, wiggling her fingers fast like they was big spiders itching to coil around their necks and dig in.

  Margaret did a dip and Hector caught her and pulled her up close. Margaret reached up to pat her hair down. “Can’t you just see that shrivelled biddy dancing with her homo son, talking about roses?”

  They kept laughing. Hector lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall and Margaret sat down on the ground just as Jenny came stomping in, pointing her finger. “How dare you!”

  They stopped mid laugh and looked at her. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” Margaret said quickly.

  Hector took a drag of his cigarette and stubbed it out in his butt-can. “Margaret, I thought you was going on about your own grandmother. I’ve been telling Margaret she needs to show more respect.”

  Margaret’s grin shrivelled up. “That’s not true, Hector.”

  Art coughed. “We should go out to the garden.”

  “Well, I agree with Mr. Man there. I guess you shouldn’t be making fun, like I told you, Margaret.”

  Jenny went bright red and I thought she was having an attack, and she opened her mouth, but Margaret spoke before she could say anything, even one of her weird religious lines.

  “What are you going to do? Go and tell her? How do you think that would make an elderly lady feel? Let’s just forget about it. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. You should be proud of your grandmother.” Margaret winked. “Not everyone has time to flounce around in a garden and pluck flower petals and boil them up and make potions. Usually it’s kids doing that, but if it makes her happy there’s nothing wrong with it.”

  “To hear the angels sing.” Jenny said each word slow and long.

  Margaret hurried off to the house and didn’t look back. Hector let out a low whistle and rolled his eyes. “You all are just too much for this here fellow. I got work to do.”

  We watched him saunter away. Then Jenny turned and left, and we followed her to the walled garden. It was still bright as we skipped through Evermore. But Jenny wasn’t talking at all, just breathing funny. She stopped. I put my hand on her back and told her to breathe deep and slow. We’d grown up seeing her family do that, and the wheezing settled, bit by bit, the early-evening light falling down tender on us, making Art look so young, and Jenny so old. She worried that if she had an attack she’d have to go back to the city. We stayed there with her until her breathing was almost normal. She licked her lips and we carried on. Jenny wanted to go to the lily pond to see the swans.