A Year Less a Day

by James Hawkins

But Ruth breaks down again. “Why, Trina? What’s the point?”

  “Look. If Jordan sees you’re upbeat and looking forward to the future it’ll give him more optimism. Believe me, Ruth, determination is everything. If he loses the will to carry on ...”

  Jordan’s birthday seems more of a stumbling block than the final milestone in his life, as he props himself up in bed and forces himself to open the few birthday cards. Sentiments such as, “Happy 40th and many more of them,” leave Ruth blubbering again, but Jordan takes her hand.

  “It’s all right, Ruth. I understand.”

  Ruth’s carefully chosen card accompanies a bottle of Jordan’s favourite whisky—the only gift she could find that didn’t have “Guaranteed for life,” stamped on it. She had sought something really special; something that he would cherish for the rest of his time, but as she cruised the stores in search of the perfect gift, she became more and more despondent. The thought of Jordan saying, “Thanks. It’ll come in handy after I’ve gone,” only heightened her melancholy. She’d finally given up and bought the whisky when she’d found herself reflecting on the irony of Jordan being outlived by a set of plastic handled screwdrivers made in China.

  The digital camera was another matter. Its purpose was so disturbingly evident that she had twice carted it back to the store. In their nine years together, Jordan has avoided being photographed with as much fervour as an aborigine worried about the theft of his soul. Even their wedding album has vanished. “I think mom’s got it,” Jordan had claimed vaguely when Ruth was turning the apartment inside out, but he had never asked for it back.

  Jordan’s final birthday may be Ruth’s only remaining chance to obtain a lasting impression, and she imagines herself peppering a wall with his images, much as she did with the man she idolized as her progenitor. Until her marriage to Jordan, the belief that George Harrison was her father was the only solid ground in her life and, as a teen, she’d lain on her bed for hours studying the features and creases of his sharply chiselled face with the fervour of an evangelist facing Christ, planning for the joyous day they would finally meet.

  In Ruth’s childhood reveries, George would dash out of one of the many posters on her wall, gather her into his arms, and lavish on her everything due to a newly discovered daughter—her own suite of furnished rooms in each of his mansions; a red Ferrari; a personal chef, perhaps; and, above all, a bodyguard.

  “You just wait,” she’d hiss to her tormentors at school recess, though she wisely never completed the sentence.

  Like all children, Ruth sometimes doubted her parentage, though never once imagined that she was adopted or fathered by the mailman. Her misgivings centred solely around whether George Harrison would be prepared to admit his culpability. But, at such moments, she would peer deeply into his eyes and convince herself that all she needed to do was to cross the Atlantic and present herself at his front door.

  Photographing Jordan turns out to be easier than Ruth could have imagined. In fact, once he’s toyed with the camera, he appears quite keen, even showing her how to paste pictures directly onto the computer monitor. Nevertheless, Ruth has qualms as she quickly clicks off a few shots, feeling that she is forcing him to acknowledge the inevitability of his demise when she should be giving him hope.

  “We should invite your mother over for tea, Jordan,” she suggests lightly, taking advantage of his tractable mood, and hoping to offload some of her burden.

  “I don’t think so.”

  But Ruth has been winding herself up for this moment, hoping to cheer Jordan with a little afternoon celebration in the café. “I really think you should to tell your mother,” she says determinedly, as she reaches for the phone.

  Jordan stays her hand. “Please ... Not yet,” he says. “You know what she’s like—she’ll worry.”

  “Why shouldn’t she worry ...” starts Ruth, but stops herself with the realization she is uncharitably thinking her mother-in-law will be more worried about losing her investment in the café than losing her son. “Oh, it’s up to you. She’s your bloody mother,” she says, letting Jordan take the phone. “I just wish I had a mother.”

  “Not if she was like mine,” spits Jordan, and Ruth steams.

  “You ought to be grateful that you’ve got a mother. You don’t realize how lucky you are. You even had a father ...” Ruth pauses and pulls herself together as she sees the hurt in Jordan’s eyes. “Sorry, Jordan,” she says, knowing how much his father had meant to him, but she’d lost her father too—a father she’d never even seen. George Harrison’s death had meant more than the end of her dream—it had forever slammed the lid on the possibility that she could prove her heritage.

  While growing up fatherless may have been difficult, she was barely fifteen when she had found herself entirely alone. “I’ve just lost my mother,” she’d tell concerned adults, and they had always jumped to the same conclusion. But Ruth’s words were not some carefully parsed euphemism. She really did lose her mother and, despite the fact that it has been more than twenty years since she vanished, her mother’s name has never been logged in police records as a missing person. In fact, if fifteen-year-old Ruth had been able to come up with the rent at the end of that month, no one else might have known that her mother simply went out one night and never returned.

  “Mom will come back eventually,” the teenager had convinced herself as she hid out in their dingy basement and tried to eat her way to happiness; after all, her mother had always returned before—to let the swellings subside and the bruises heal.

  “You’re a good girl, Ruthie,” her mother would tell the young girl as she bathed the battle scars. “You’re not gonna be like me. You’re gonna get an education like your dad.”

  But Ruth had already quit school. Handicapped by her size, she was never able to outrun the mob of girls streaming out of the school at the end of the day. With careful timing she might latch on to a departing teacher, but an ambush usually awaited somewhere on the route.

  “My dad’s bigger than your dad,” never helped Ruth either.

  “You ain’t got a dad.”

  “I have so.”

  “Yeah, he’s a fuckin’ insect.”

  “A Beatle ... He’s a Beatle.”

  “Well, this is what we do to beetles ...”

  By lunchtime, Ruth has abandoned any hope of persuading Jordan to call his mother, and she is in the kitchen when Trina struggles into the busy café with a wheelchair.

  “I brought Mr. Jenson ...” Trina calls to Cindy.

  “Johnson,” says a thin voice from under a battered panama.

  “He gets very befuddled,” whispers Trina, then she questions herself and takes a quick peep under the hat. “Oh, you’re right. It is Mr. Johnson. How did that happen?”

  “You said you were gonna buy me lunch,” complains the ancient man as Trina explains to Cindy, “He’s from the home. I’m always mixing them up. Is Ruth in the kitchen? I’ve got a book for her.”

  “Don’t give me nothing to chew,” comes the voice from under the hat. “I didn’t bring my teeth.”

  “He likes rice pudding,” says Trina as she dumps her charge and heads to the kitchen.

  “You can’t leave him there,” calls Cindy, but Trina is on a mission. The book, liberated from Marcie’s extensive library of unopened digests, is called “Fight Cancer with Food and Live Forever,” and Trina figures the sooner Jordan starts, the better.

  “It’s gotta be worth a try,” she is telling Ruth when Cindy breaks through on the intercom.

  “Trina. There’s a very funny smell out here.”

  “Oh shit! ... Colostomy bag,” exclaims Trina and takes off at a run.

  By the time Trina arrives the following morning, the café has turned upside down and, according to Cindy, Ruth has lost her mind. “Look at this,” she complains to Trina, stabbing angrily at the cooler filled with salads. “It looks like a cow has thrown up in there. Where’s all the cakes?”

  “Where’s Ruth?”
asks Trina, and Cindy nods toward the kitchen.

  “I’ve been up all night,” gushes Ruth as Trina dashes in. “Look,” she adds, sweeping her hand across the opened book and around the bare shelves.

  “Trans fats, saturated fats, and hydrogenated oils—all gone,” she says, ticking off her checklist as she points to a packed garbage bin, then she turns to the next bin and plucks at bottles, cans, and packages as she sings out: “White flour, refined sugar, nitrates, sodium, modified starch, unpronounceable something-or-other, more unpronounceable stuff, chemicals, chemicals ... more chemicals.”

  Ruth stops to jab at Marcie’s book and recites, “‘Golden rule number one,’ Trina: ‘Never eat anything you can’t pronounce.’”

  “You can’t throw all that away ...” starts Trina, but Ruth’s on a roll as she turns to the third bin. “Burgers, bacon, wieners ...”

  “But I could take it to the women’s shelter,” says Trina starting to haul out the still packaged food.

  “No you don’t,” says Ruth, ripping it from Trina’s hands and dropping it back in the bin. “Those poor devils have enough problems without you poisoning them.”

  “Poison?”

  “Yes. It’s a wonder no one ever sued us for making them fat.”

  “They couldn’t ...”

  “They can in the States,” says Ruth, flipping through the book. “And I haven’t even started yet. Here it says, ‘broccoli and garlic,’” Ruth pauses to look up, sensing a certain lack of enthusiasm from Trina. “Thanks, Trina. You’ve no idea what a difference this will make.”

  “Ruth. You’ve got to be sensible.”

  “I am. That’s exactly what I’m doing from now on.”

  “What I mean is, you’ve got to be realistic. There’s a lot we don’t know about cancer. How is Jordan doing anyway?”

  Ruth’s fervour wanes at the thought of her husband. “He doesn’t say much. He’s on the Internet quite a bit.”

  “That’s good. He might come across some coping strategies, maybe even some new therapeutic procedures.”

  Ruth doesn’t answer. If Jordan has found coping strategies online they are not medically related.

  The intercom buzzes to life. “Tom’s usual please, Ruth,” calls Cindy. “Two eggs, sunny-side up, bacon, and sausage.”

  Ruth gives a sly smile as she puts her finger on the button. “Check the new breakfast menu please, Cindy.”

  “Shit,” mutters the waitress after a few seconds and races to the kitchen.

  “What’s happening, Ruth? What about breakfast?”

  Ruth shrugs. “Nothing fried, Cindy—no bacon, burgers, or hash browns. I mean, look at those people out there. Look what they’re doing to themselves.”

  “But that’s the point, Ruth—they’re doing it, not you.”

  “Aiding and abetting, Cindy. We’re aiding and abetting, and we’re not going to do it anymore.”

  “But we’ll lose all our customers.”

  “Better than poisoning them.”

  “This is ridiculous, Ruth. That’s why they come here: to get a fat fix.”

  “OK. So what are you saying? If we sold guns and a guy comes in and says he wants to blow his brains out, we’d sell him one?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Right,” she says, walking away. “We’ve sold our last gun, and if they don’t like it they can try McBurgers’. I am not helping anyone else to kill themselves.”

  “Ruth,” yells Cindy, “they’re not stupid. They know they shouldn’t be eating this stuff—that’s why they do it. People eat properly at home, they come here for everything else. We can’t afford to lose them.”

  Cindy is right. They can’t afford to lose customers; in fact, if it hadn’t been for Tom, the padlocks would already have been on. Tom has been terrific; cheerfully keeping Ruth afloat for weeks after the phone guy and the frozen food guy had followed the coffee guy, then Jordan’s mother had turned up on schedule with her hand out. She’d arrived on one of Jordan’s treatment days and the temptation for Ruth to inform her of her son’s affliction was almost overwhelming. But the old woman’s mind was so focussed on her money that she hadn’t asked about her son until she was preparing to leave.

  “Getting his hair done,” replied Ruth curtly, then stopped and smiled thankfully at the realization that, despite several weeks of treatment, Jordan had lost relatively little hair.

  Ruth had never tallied her borrowings from Tom—if he didn’t worry, why should she? Jordan was the only importance in her life, and if Jordan needed money for medicines and extras, she could rely on Tom. Neither did she begrudge Jordan a bottle or two of liquor; indeed, according to some of her research, alcohol could actually be beneficial. It was certainly a view that Jordan held.

  The marijuana was a different matter and had initially been a source of serious discord. Jordan had the evidence on his side: numerous reports gleaned from the Net that exalted the modest weed to the level of a super-drug, a modern day penicillin or insulin.

  “It’s medicinal marijuana, Ruth,” he’d insisted the first evening she’d been hit by a toxic cloud as she walked into his room. “It’s government approved.”

  “I know what it is,” she’d spat, ready to fly at him. “My mom was a hippie, for chrissake.” Then she’d stopped and scuttled out of the apartment, driven by childhood ghosts.

  Ruth had walked the labyrinth of neighbourhood streets that night with her eyes on the sidewalk like a rat in a maze, blindly taking turn after turn without any hope of finding the way out—other than by luck. And as she walked, her young self walked by her side, reminding her of the times her mother had dragged her from street to street, with their possessions in a supermarket cart, and of the ignominy of being turned away by relatives and past friends despite the tears of her young daughter. “Cry harder next time,” her mother had shouted, slapping her around the head until her ears sang. She’d cried, but often to no avail, and they had frequently ended up sleeping in a car, or couch surfing in mildewed mobile homes; traipsing from the welfare office to shelters, falling lower and lower, yet never quite hitting the street. Sometimes there would be an “uncle” willing to take them in for awhile, until her mother started pawning the furniture for her dope, then they’d be back pounding the streets again. But, all the time, Ruth had clung to her roll of posters, together with the beaded purse her mother had stolen for her for Christmas 1977, and dreamt of the day her father would rescue her. In the purse was Ruth’s most prized possession—her birth certificate; incontrovertible proof of her heredity. It wasn’t the fictitious name on the document that gave her hope. “I just said John Kennedy for a lark,” her mother had told her, but the date of her birth could not be fudged so lightly: the twenty-second of May, 1965. Nine calendar months to the day after the Beatles’ sold-out concert at Vancouver’s Empire Stadium.

  With a degree of arm-twisting from the authorities, Ruth’s aunt and uncle had finally taken her in following her mother’s disappearance. Her mother’s elder sister had some compassion for the young girl who spent most of her time hiding in her room, morosely staring at a wall of Harrison posters with a mirror in her hand as she tried to spot a likeness. With George crooning “I Need You” and “Love You To” on a garage sale record player, Ruth had attempted to pull her flabby face into the hungry features of the man, but a terrible hollowness grew inside her as the probable truth slowly sank in. But if George Harrison wasn’t her father, who was?

  England holds the key to her heritage, and she planned the search for her father from the moment of her mother’s confession. She even wrote to Paul McCartney, before his knighthood, although, even then he had seemingly been too aloof to respond—just a standard thank you letter, inviting her to join his fan club—for a fee. She would have written to George himself, but the fear of rejection held her back and drove her to eat. But without parents to reassure and comfort her, everything drove her eat.

  Now, twenty years later, the prospect of ever reaching En
gland dwindles daily, but so does Ruth. Under the crushing weight of Jordan’s illness, the responsibility of running the café without him, and the mushrooming debts, a lesser woman might have shrivelled away entirely, but Ruth glosses over the cracks and stumbles on. However, Cindy sees beneath the surface and pauses at the door as she leaves one day.

  “Are you all right, Ruth? You’ve lost a ton of weight recently.”

  “You’re supposed to say congratulations.”

  “Oh. I didn’t mean ...”

  “It’s all right, Cindy. Thanks for noticing, but I’m fine.”

  “Only, Jordan’s been sick for weeks. I’m just worried you’re gonna catch the same bug.”

  It has been months, not weeks, but if Jordan’s bug has caused him to lose any weight it isn’t evident. If anything he’s a little bloated.

  “It’s the cancer growing inside me,” he explains sourly when Ruth rags him about his expanding gut one evening, and she throws herself at his feet in remorse.

  “I’m so sorry, Jordan. Forgive me please,” she begs, wondering how she could be so insensitive.

  “Anger,” suggested Trina in the café the following morning, “and it’s perfectly natural, Ruth. You’re angry that this is happening, and subconsciously you see him as being responsible.”

  “But it’s not his fault.”

  “I know what you need,” says Trina, already heading for the door, and she’s back twenty minutes later with a loaded sports bag.

  “Kick boxing?” questions Ruth, digging through the bag.

  Trina leaps around the café flinging out her legs at the studious crossword gang and punching air. “Yeah. You gotta work off the anger, Ruth.”

  “Oh, Trina!” yells Maureen. “We’re trying to concentrate ...”

  “Sorry,” she whoops, and flings herself back to Ruth. “Marcie and I started lessons together, but she quit,” she says as she continues limbering up.

  Marcie had ordered the custom designed lime-green Lycra ensemble, with matching boots and gloves, from a celebrity sportswear outfitter on the Internet, while Trina had picked up a second-hand kit for fifty bucks at Cash Converters.