A million? I said.
Yes, smile. I can smile with You now, but it wasn’t a nice thing to say. Geoff was a gentleman, he reddened and climbed to his feet. Please think about my offer, he told me, pressing my hand in his. His nails gleamed in the lamplight, diamonds stuck on a hedge of thick dark hair.
I’ll never forget your kindness before the war, I said. When you gave away food every day to the poor people who couldn’t find work.
Why didn’t I want to marry him? Why didn’t I say yes and swoon into his arms?
Was I envious of his success? Doesn’t seem right. I think — now this is funny; I feel funny right now — I think it was his wanting to be Harriet’s second father. I remember shivering when he said that, thinking to myself, She already has a second father.
But why? What’s scary about a second father? Gert had one. What am I missing? Was I thinking about You? Was that the point? Even thinking about it now I get a shiver.
Maybe it’s the cold. Isn’t it cold! And noisy. I can hear the rush of water. It’s a huge noise, a flood. I’m choking on it. Water in my lungs. Choking to death. Drowning from inside. Old man’s friend, they used to call pneumonia. With friends like that …
Oh, Mama. Why are you so cold? Don’t turn away. Don’t you know who this is? It’s me, Rose. It’s me. Your daughter. Don’t be cold. Don’t be cold. Oh, Mama! Help. Help me now. I’m cold. I want you. I want you. I’m cold. I want you! I want! I want!
“Poor thing.”
Is it You? A dazzling white uniform, a worried expression. A huge and powerful pair of hands.
I feel the last grains of life trickling away, salt through the egg timer. My three minutes are up. Harriet is a shadow. The nurse is a shadow. They are staring down at me. Harriet is holding my hand. Dr. Berman is a shadow. Is it his white uniform?
“Poor thing.”
No. It’s another white uniform. Brighter, and with gold braid. Is it Yours? Do You pick me up and button me inside Your uniform jacket? I’m still cold.
Noise all around. People screaming, running, sliding past. Water everywhere. Splashing over the floor. Furniture bumping around. Bodies floating.
Goodbye, doctor. Goodbye.
Goodbye, Harriet. I wonder why you never married. None of my business, I suppose, but a mother can’t help wondering.
I wonder how many Germans Mr. Davey killed before his tank blew up?
I wonder why Parky is so mean to me? She likes to look at me. I can tell.
I wonder why Gert is mad at me. I never even kissed Billy.
I wonder why the corn doesn’t grow. Daddy is disappointed, I think. Only he never says so. He never says anything. Victor, can you understand Daddy? Mama and I can’t.
Isn’t that a lovely sight: a carpet of flowers spreading over the field in front of me. Let’s see, I have daisies, hollyhocks, larkspur, dianthus and petunias.
Goodbye, Harriet. Goodbye. Your hands are so cold.
Look, Uncle Brian’s car has Diamond Impermeable tires. Guaranteed to withstand punctures.
I want Mama. Mama.
Old and young and drowning. Is this the future I never had, or the past catching up to me? I feel everything. I feel warm water inside me, cold water all around me. Sea water. I feel Mama’s arms, and Harriet’s, and Robbie’s, and Yours. Phrases drift back to me: a telescoping of time, says Dr. Sylvester, is one of the effects of the disease. Breaking down the barriers of time in the brain, so that she lives in the past as vividly as in the present.
So rich my life would have been, if not for that sea water. Filled with love and striving, fear and hope, and an occasional miracle. So full. And so real.
No one suggests prolonging my life, I see. Are You sure of that? Harriet — such a sensible, competent girl — isn’t going to cry, Save my mother at all costs! Another day, even another hour, is worth any kind of … You’re sure? Ah well. I can’t blame her.
I want to live.
I’m not cold any more. I’m not anything. I can feel a gentle rocking motion, back and forth, back and forth. The water’s cold but I’m not cold. I can hear voices from a distance, saying, Careful. Put her down gently. I can hear someone crying. Harriet cried at her daddy’s funeral. I never cried at my daddy’s. Poor Harriet. Poor Daddy.
I want to cry now, but the tears won’t come.
I can see You very clearly. You look like that housewife on TV, who never gets her man’s attention even though she’s cooked his favourite meal. I’m sorry. I love Your pot roast. I don’t mean to take You for granted.
Remember the times I prayed — would have prayed — when I was a little girl lying in my bed in the friendless darkness, watching the shadows on my ceiling and walls, cloud against moon, tree against snow, listening for Daddy to fall against things, and Mama to sigh? We had Give us this day in school every morning, but I didn’t say that. Look after me tomorrow, O Lord, I’d say. Remember? Tomorrow, not today. As if You couldn’t look after me at that moment. As if the night — the present — was beyond even Your power to control. And that by asking for future help I could put off the moment of trial and disillusionment when I realized that You couldn’t help me at all. That, maybe, You didn’t exist. Poor me.
Faith is hard. Even now I can’t help feeling that You’ll disappear the instant I look away, the instant I close my eyes; that You could disappear whether I close my eyes or not. How do I know You aren’t a figment of my own desire? I know how powerful that can be.
I want my life. Is that what You’re offering — now?
My life. Can You help me?
I want it. I want it so much. If I had shepherd’s purse I’d give it to You. Do I mean shepherd’s purse? White-flowered weed, grows in a cornfield — You know it. Yes, shepherd’s purse. I offer you my all.
You’re smiling, but not meanly, to make fun of me. You can’t be mean, can You? You’re smiling hard but there are tears in Your eyes. I can see them glinting on Your lashes when You blink. Ruby could be wicked: Some of the things she’d come out with were horrible, but so funny I couldn’t help laughing. Maybe it was the way she said things: It’s all in the timing, she’d tell me. I’m surprised You don’t joke more. For someone with Your sense of timing, comedy would be a natural fit.
It is a matter of faith, isn’t it? All right, here is my prayer right now. I’m still lying down, staring at blackness. And I’m praying. I, Rose, ninety years in the dying, ask You to look after me — not in the future, because I don’t have one; and not in the present, because it’s slipping away faster than a drunk’s inheritance. Look after me in the past.
That’s right. If Your grace is truly infinite, it knows not space, nor can it be confined in time. Look after my youth, will You? Look after me in my cradle. Let Your grace wash my childhood clean. Be most careful of my growth, my young womanhood, my own experience of love and trust. Let Your face be turned towards me as the years run back. Please. Heal my hurts, infuse me with hope, bring me to faith, to love. Bless the girl I was. Keep her in Your care. Watch over me all the days of the life I leave now. Amen.
The noise is deafening. Tugs and pleasure launches of all sizes crowd the water. Flags fly, whistles screech, people cheer. Passengers line the rails of the big liner for their first sight of land in four days. Liberty holds her torch aloft.
It is a beautiful spring morning, sunny and warm, with a fresh breeze that covers the water in little flecks of white, as if God, a mischievous wedding guest, has been throwing rice despite stern clerical injunctions against such unseemly expressions of goodwill.
A young couple, shivering and somewhat frowzy from lack of sleep, stare wide-eyed at the approaching skyline. “I do hope your brother is waiting for us,” says my mother.
A steward, heavily laden, jostles us from behind.
“Careful, there!” says my father.
“Sorry, sir.” The steward peers over the top of the cases he carries. “Oh, dear. Is he all right?” My mother carries a restless bundle in her arms.
She frowns
.
“Cute little fellow.” The steward straightens up and totters towards the port side companion way.
“It’s a girl,” my mother calls after him. “A baby girl.”
The wind is picking up. “Mares’ tails,” says my father, looking at the sky.
“Will it get rough, dear?” It has been the smoothest passage so far. Everyone has commented on it.
“Not in the harbour,” says my father.
I squirm in my mother’s arms. I want to get down. “There there,” she says. My father bends down to stroke my smooth small cheek with his finger.
“Mama,” I say. “Mama. Dada. Bud.”
Mother smiles. “Bud” is the way I say bird. The family keeps a pair of pet birds in a cage. They are in the cabin now, along with the rest of the luggage.
“Seagull,” says my father, pointing. “D’you see, Rosie? Seagull.”
“Bud.” I’m not looking at the seagull. I wave at a spot in midair, beyond the deck rail. I think it’s a bird.
The harbour mouth at last. The tugs — a whole fleet of them — are in position. The vibration of the great engines, for so many hours a constant in our lives, fades away. The noise from the harbour swells like an angry boil. It seems as if the whole city has turned out to watch the big ship come in.
“Papers,” calls a deck steward. “Today’s newspapers. Times, World, Globe, Post.”
“But where did you get today’s papers?” asks my mother.
“From the tugboats, ma’am.” The steward is a cockney with a pock-marked face and restless eyes. The braid and buttons on his white uniform sparkle in the sunlight. Mother smiles nervously and steps back.
Nearer and nearer. The gulls wheel majestically, spoiling the effect when they open their mouths. The harbour is choked with small boats. The tugboat crews are swearing themselves hoarse and thrusting the most importunate small craft out of the way with their own well-fendered bows.
The great ship blows three blasts on its whistle. As if they’d rehearsed it for weeks, all the other ships in the harbour blow three blasts in reply. The din is enormous. The silence after it is equally remarkable. And in that silence, moving silently as a great ghost herself, the liner glides into its waiting slip.
Acknowledgements
Even though some of my best ideas come to me during housework, books are not created in a vacuum. My agent, Dean Cooke, and editors, Maya Mavjee and Martha Kanya-Forstner, were encouraging, hard-working and attentive to detail. Joe Kertes’ unbridled enthusiasm for the project got me going on it. Kim Echlin liked an early draft of the first section so much she arranged for publication in the Ottawa Citizen. I would also like to express my appreciation to the Writers’ Development Trust, for timely assistance. Finally, I must thank my family — especially Bridget, for crying during the good bits.
About the author
Richard Scrimger’s first novel, Crosstown, was published in 1996 to widespread critical acclaim and was shortlisted for the 1997 City of Toronto Book Award. One of his children’s books, The Nose from Jupiter, won a Mr. Christie’s Book Award in 1999. His stories about life with his four children have appeared in newspapers and magazines across Canada, and were published in the collection Still Life with Children. Richard Scrimger and his family live in Cobourg, Ontario.
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