A History of Forgetting

by Adderson, Caroline

  Surprising how many could feed themselves. Midge worked the knife and fork with dainty gestures, keeping her elbows close to her sides. They gave Mrs. Mikaluk a spoon, which she could raise, but not always get in her mouth the first time. Even Mr. Stavros recalled the motions. Denis was among the worst, plunging his thumb and forefinger into the cold pudding and feeling around for a piece of meat. He popped it in his mouth, sucked noisily, then ejected it clean through puckered lips.

  Mrs. Ross, across from Denis, wasn’t eating. ‘I thought I was going home,’ she said, pushing the tray away.

  ‘Aren’t you staying for dinner?’ Nurse Hygiene asked her.

  ‘No. I’m going to make a call.’ The Indian aide followed as Mrs. Ross stood to her full height and wandered off.

  Tiny Mrs. Paxton turned to Malcolm, ‘And where are you from, dear?’

  ‘Vancouver.’

  ‘Vancouver! You must be homesick! Are you coming to see the boys off, too?’

  There must have been an army base close to where Mrs. Paxton had lived. ‘I’ll be there,’ he sighed. That damned war. He wished it had never happened.

  Mrs. Ross came back, led by the Indian carrying the phone book. She settled Mrs. Ross in her chair and set the phone book in her lap. ‘Why is that man looking at me like that?’ Mrs. Ross asked.

  She meant Denis, who was shooting daggers at her as he gingerly placed a sucked morsel of meat on the edge of his plate.

  ‘Never mind him, dear,’ Malcolm said, growing alarmed himself.

  She opened the phone book at random and, looking over the top of her glasses, used a finger to scan a column.

  ‘Who are you going to phone?’ asked Nurse Hygiene.

  ‘My mother. She’s going to come and pick me up.’

  ‘Tell me the truth,’ Denis piped up. ‘She’s a Jew.’

  ‘She’s not,’ said Malcolm curtly, hoping to cut him off. He pressed his eyes and would not look at Denis. ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘Ha! For all I know, you could be one, too.’

  He suspected everyone now. The man who owned the café on the corner—that is, their corner in Paris. Politicians. Their clients and neighbours, the man who sharpened their scissors—well, he was a Jew. All these people he still met daily and when Malcolm visited, Denis would at some point detail their common offence: they were Jewish and Malcolm knew what that meant. This from a man who, for the previous thirty years, had not uttered a word against anyone within Malcolm’s hearing.

  Malcolm said he had no problem whatsoever with Jews.

  ‘You are astonishingly naive.’

  ‘Naive!’ the delighted Malcolm would exclaim. ‘How refreshing!’

  ‘They’re everywhere,’ Denis declared now.

  Malcolm raised a finger, concurring. ‘Particularly in the synagogues and delicatessens.’

  ‘Why is he looking at me?’ shrilled Mrs. Ross. Her wattle swayed and the phone book slid out of her lap. As it thudded on the floor, everyone looked up with a start. Mrs. Ross stood up again.

  ‘What is he saying?’ Nurse Hygiene asked Malcolm.

  ‘He’s wishing you all a Merry Christmas.’

  Mrs. Ross began to scream. So much fear and confusion in her voice, the other patients panicked, too. Mr. Stavros swept his tray onto the floor, startling Midge who put both hands to her face and began to rock. ‘Oh, dear! Oh, dear! It’s a broken coop!’ When an aide got her to her feet in their sorry mismatched shoes, Malcolm saw she’d wet herself.

  Mr. Stavros bellowed. His arms swam as he roared. With all the orderlies trying to subdue him, Mrs. Ross was left standing in the middle of the room, Denis pointing his finger at her.

  ‘You’re one, too!’

  She stared in horror. She had no idea what he was saying, but anyone could understand his tone.

  Nurse Hygiene sat down at the piano and struck up ‘Hark, the Herald Angels’ just as reinforcements arrived via the elevator. Mr. Stavros was led away flailing. Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la! They took Denis, too, but Malcolm did not assist, or even look up to watch him go.

  Within five minutes only he and diminutive Mrs. Paxton were left, and Nurse Hygiene still hammering the piano keys. Mrs. Paxton daubed at the corners of her mouth with her bib. Calmly, she rose to her feet and turned to Malcolm. ‘I’d better do some packing myself, by the sounds of it.’

  10

  That Christmas, Alison and Billy had agreed not to exchange presents so that they could save their money and maybe take a real trip next year, not just to Vancouver Island, but to Mexico or the Caribbean. But on Christmas Eve, which they spent with Billy’s parents, he surprised her with a gift.

  ‘William,’ said his mother, leaning forward in her chair. ‘That looks like a ring box!’

  ‘Maybe you’d like to open it, Mom.’

  ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘Let Ali.’

  All Billy’s mother wanted was for them to get married, that or for them to stop living in sin. Alison thought she’d probably prefer the latter. Though she seemed to like Alison, and was certainly nice to her, she continually made reference to Billy’s having an MSc and how he would surely go on to get his Ph.D. Nothing so important as education! But if they were determined, at least they should marry and save themselves and Billy’s mother from disgrace, especially at parish functions.

  Alison tore off the paper; inside, a blue velvet box. The hinges creaked as she opened it.

  ‘Let me see!’ said his mother. ‘Let me see!’

  ‘Do you like it?’ Billy asked. ‘It’s zircon. I got it off the TV.’

  ‘You did not,’ said Alison. ‘It’s glass.’ A chunk of beach glass rendered opaque by sand and waves, it looked like rock salt mounted by crude steel claws on a steel ring. Billy got down on one knee and, slipping it on her finger, asked, ‘Will you continue to shack up with me?’

  ‘Only if you start vacuuming.’

  He held her hand out for his mother to see. ‘What do you think, Ma?’

  She fell back flustered in her chair. ‘Oh, you are a brat, Billy.’

  Christmas Day they celebrated with Alison’s family. Before she stuffed the turkey, Alison took off the ring, dropped it in an empty jar by the sink where it looked like some kind of geological specimen. ‘He wanted his mom to think we were engaged,’ she explained.

  Her mother asked, ‘Are you then?’

  ‘Engaged?’ Alison laughed. ‘No. But I like the ring. It’s cool. It’s made of completely recycled materials.’

  ‘I suppose my sweaters aren’t cool in a hair salon,’ her mother sighed. ‘I’ll try to think of something else next year.’

  Billy always said Alison didn’t have a closet problem, but a shoe problem. Not a drawer-space problem, but a sweater problem. Billy said that unravelled and tied end to end, her sweaters would stretch, a multicoloured acrylic lifeline, all the way to Hope. In her parents’ living room the electric fire crackled, and the Christmas tree in the corner was adangle with its mortifying ornaments of nostalgia—egg-carton angels and pipe-cleaner stars made by Alison and Jeffy as long ago as kindergarten. To walk anywhere near it was to porcupine your socks with dry dead needles. This year, like every other year, they all got matching sweaters.

  Alison looked at her mother and for the first time in ages didn’t think to nag her about her provisional-looking hair. For her part, her mother hadn’t mentioned nursing once, so despite all Alison’s fears Christmas seemed to be working out.

  ‘Oh, Mommy,’ she said, ‘I love your sweaters.’

  ‘Mommy? You haven’t called me Mommy for years.’ Smiling, she took another handful of stuffing from the bowl. ‘Do you remember what you used to call Santa?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Santa Because.’

  In the living room, her father and Billy were watching A Christmas Carol on TV. Alison joined them when sh
e and her mother had finished with the turkey.

  ‘Where’s Jeffy?’

  ‘In his room,’ said her father. ‘He’s not feeling too good.’

  That earlier dinner came to mind, the one in the fall when she’d walked in on Jeffy and that boy—what was his name? But she’d seen her brother since, several times. Christmas cards lined the mantel and the sideboard in the dining room. She went around reading them. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, Ruth.’ ‘Thanks tons, Ruthie.’

  ‘Come on in, sport,’ her father said, and Alison turned and saw Jeffy in the doorway.

  ‘What happened?’

  He dived onto the floor, their father hurling him a cushion which Jeffy slipped under his chest, propping himself up on his elbows too close to the TV. At the back of his head, a twist of hair stood up on the pivot point of his scalp, but it was his eye that had made her cry out, the stain of the bruise.

  ‘Jeffy?’ She was going to ask again, but Billy signalled to her and shook his head.

  Her mother appeared and said, ‘I’m ready.’

  Every year she took some contribution down to the Mission. This year it was dinner rolls. They drove off, Alison waiting for her mother to volunteer the story. She had to keep wiping a circle on the window to see the Christmas lights on the houses, their breath condensing on the cold glass. The closer they got to downtown, the fewer lights there were.

  ‘Why don’t they put lights up at the Mission?’

  ‘They used to,’ said her mother, ‘but the men wrapped themselves up in them while they were waiting to get in. You know, to keep warm.’

  She pictured a scene less forlorn than usual: tattered figures lit up like trees. ‘That would look nice.’

  ‘They wrapped them under their coats.’

  ‘Oh.’ They drove in silence. ‘So,’ Alison finally said, ‘what happened to Jeffy?’

  ‘He’s had some trouble at school.’

  ‘He’s been fighting?’ She was surprised. He was too small for that pursuit.

  ‘He says he didn’t start it. They were calling him names, he says.’

  ‘What names?’

  Her mother’s lips made a tight line. ‘He wouldn’t tell me. The principal told me.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  They stopped at a red light and her mother turned to her. ‘Don’t tell Billy.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Don’t tell your father either.’

  ‘What names?’

  The light changed and her mother sighed and drove on for a few more blocks. ‘I’ll put it this way. There might be more than one hairdresser in this family.’

  Alison stared, then Jeffy’s out-of-bounds room came to mind, the door and desk marred by stickers, the cast-off clothes. There was no scheme to his rock star posters or his mess. Also, his ears were always filthy and his nails gnawed down. His hair stuck up. She laughed.

  ‘That’s funny?’

  No way was Jeffy gay. Not unless there were messy gays as well as neat gays, just like there were neat and messy Virgos. ‘Do you think it’s true, or are they just being mean?’

  ‘I found eyeliner,’ said her mother tersely.

  ‘Eyeliner? Where?’

  ‘In his room.’

  ‘You went in his room? Anyway, eyeliner means nothing. Kurt Cobain wore eyeliner.’

  ‘Who’s Kurt Cobain?’

  ‘The guy in the poster above Jeffy’s dresser.’

  ‘That’s eyeliner?’

  ‘What did you think?’ asked Alison.

  ‘I thought it was dirt.’

  They found a parking spot not far from the Mission, then each took a Santa’s sack-sized bag of rolls. Along the edge of the syringe-strewn park, the gutter was awash with bilgy run-off and condoms like the shed skins of water snakes. They passed an alley where the sodden contents of the dumpster had been turned out, picked through and left to dissolve. A mattress unsprung, a sandwich bag filled with—she looked twice—blood? The reek was rot and urine.

  ‘Who was that kid over for dinner that time? When Billy and I were there.’

  ‘Kevin Milligan?’

  ‘It was him, wasn’t it? He started calling Jeffy names.’

  ‘I don’t know who it was,’ said her mother.

  Alison said, ‘It was him. You know what makes me mad? How people still say “faggot”. I mean, nobody would dare say “nigger” any more, or “chink.”’

  The worst thing about the Mission was that it smelled of what she and Jeffy used to call ‘Wet Bums’. How sincere did ‘Merry Christmas’ sound pronounced while breathing through the mouth? Alison pushed open the door, keeping her eyes off the garish beacon of the cross; into the dining hall they trooped. The ones who had volunteered to lay the tables in order to get in early were listlessly unfolding paper tablecloths. Because all the years blended as one memory, Alison couldn’t recall if last year they had looked so young. Probably in childhood her mind had taken as the template of the Wet Bum, Alistair Sim in fingerless gloves and a seedy muffler, then replicated and filled the hall with him; but now she saw it was not so. She saw a man of maybe thirty, with a Mohawk dyed neon green and army boots, conversing with himself in two distinct voices and what he was saying was the farthest thing from, ‘I wish you a Merry Christmas!—No, I wish you a Merry Christmas!’ No one said ‘Merry Christmas’ at all except the kitchen help who had been born again and didn’t have to sleep there.

  Her mother took the bags into the kitchen, reappearing a few minutes later empty-handed. ‘Mission accomplished.’ They went back out into the rain.

  ‘Pretty depressing,’ said Alison.

  ‘I know. I always have a little cry on Christmas night. Your father thinks I’m crazy.’

  ‘Why do you do it then?’ She and Jeffy had been raised agnostic. ‘Do you believe in God after all?’

  ‘No. I just add that extra letter,’ said her mother. ‘I believe in Good.’

  They got into the car and her mother found her keys, but before she turned on the ignition, Alison reached out and stopped her hand. ‘What about Jeffy?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Would you mind if he was?’

  ‘Gay?’ Instantly, she cheered up. ‘They’re very good to their mothers, I hear.’

  As soon as they got back, everyone sat down at the table and popped their crackers. Her father rose to his feet, but instead of bellowing his usual crass grace, paused with a big hand on his swell where the new cardigan did not come together between the buttons—a gesture that really betrayed him as most other men would have made a declaration from the heart. ‘Now in his youth a man finds a gal and falls head over heels, as they say. At least, with your mother, she was able to coax me, ha ha. Time goes by, as everybody knows. It was all very satisfying in hindsight. I remember when Alison was born in the middle of the night. Then Jeffrey. You think it’s going to be one way, but not at all. Not at all . . .

  ‘Now Ali seems to have pulled herself together, to her parents’ great relief. Jeffy, on the other hand, has become exactly what his parents always feared: a teen. We can all take some comfort in the fact that Ali survived those years.’

  Billy dropped his chin to his chest and began a mock snoring. Taking his cue, Alison clinked her knife against her glass. And her father, words tangling all around him, seemed relieved to get out of the snarl. ‘Who gives a damn? Everything works out in the end.’ He patted his stomach. ‘Thank God supper’s ready!’

  ‘Anybody make any sense of that?’ asked their mother, filling the wine glasses.

  Then Billy made a speech. ‘When I was a kid, I had three gerbils, Chico, Guy and Goober. One day Chico and Goober ganged up on Guy and chewed his tail off.’

  He began acting out with skittering hands across the tablecloth the part of Guy on the run, forcing air out of his chee
ks in a series of long shrill squeaks. Everyone laughed, even Jeffy. ‘I was deeply affected,’ he said. ‘Poor Guy, rathood reduced to a stub. There were parallels in my own life, see? I was the kid who got trounced every day at recess for being small and brainy.’

  Alison, who had never heard this story, wondered what names they had taunted Billy with.

  Billy nudged Jeffy. ‘But they don’t call me Stub any more. Ask your sister.’

  The next day Alison and Billy were on a ferry to Vancouver Island in a steady drizzle. Alison stood out on the deck in her raincoat, looking up. ‘Please stop raining. Please let the sun come out.’ The closest she ever came to praying was talking to the sky.

  The white of the beach astonished her, a recompense for snow. They looked behind at their footprints, then Alison fell flat on her back and ploughed an angel with her limbs through the wet sand. The second day it was no longer drizzling, though a flannel cloth of cloud was still draped over the island. Come afternoon, her skyward entreaty was accepted, twice.

  At her feet, it was bigger than a dinner plate and burning orange. ‘A sun star,’ said Billy.

  No spots on the ten long rays, sun stripes, greyish purple. She crouched, put a finger on its gritty centre; it was cold. The tide had left it stranded. ‘Shouldn’t we throw it back in?’ she asked, afraid to pick it up herself. Billy carried it out in the shifting water to the limit of his boot tops, then tossed it. Going down, it ought to have blazed a fiery emanation, but it didn’t, or even really splash. A wave tilted it and towed it under.

  Minutes later, in a fairytale causality, the real sun came out. Alison shielded her eyes from the surprise. Everything seemed so perfect.

  That night, making love, she opened her eyes to watch Billy. With so little light, just what streamed off the lamp above the motel office door outside, it took a minute for her eyes to adjust. As all white objects emerging from darkness seem to glow, his face was luminous, peaceful as in sleep, but also inspirited, though not in expression—underneath. Beautiful. He looked beautiful. Then she heard his accelerating breathing, saw how he grimaced nearing climax. Lips curling back, he showed his teeth.