by Heather Burt
She caught up to her mother at the trunk of the Oldsmobile.
“I think this old thing has had its last winter,” Isobel said. “Time for something new.”
Clare lifted her suitcase into the trunk. She’d never cared for the Oldsmobile, but as she climbed into the passenger seat, she felt a pang of regret that her father’s sturdy blue car would be replaced.
Her mother started the engine and pumped the gas pedal. She set the heat on high and the CBC on low. Then she extracted a pack of Virginia Slims and a plastic lighter from her purse, pinched a long cigarette between her copper lips, and closed her eyes as she lit up. Clare frowned and cracked her window.
“When did you start smoking again, Ma?”
Isobel examined the cigarette between her fingers as if baffled by how it had come to be there. “Oh. I hardly ever. I decided to treat myself on my fiftieth, and I guess my body just remembered how much it enjoys them.” She slid open the ashtray and squashed the cigarette into a mess of lipsticked butts, then she wrestled the gearshift into reverse.
The word body, coming from Isobel, sounded foreign and off-key.
Clare rubbed the car window with her fist, but in the waning afternoon light and the dirty snow of late winter, the world outside was hardly worth looking at. She stared at the dashboard. Inside her pockets, her hands clenched and her thumbs fretted her index fingers. The question, Emma’s question, made her absurdly tense. It was pathetic. Her mother wouldn’t care, and the answer would hardly change anything. There’d be the jolt of having her suspicion confirmed, of looking at a portrait she’d professed to know intimately and discovering in the corner something new and out of place. But aside from those small shocks, there’d be nothing remarkable. The answer to her question would be just another oblique reminder of something she already knew: in the social world, Clare Fraser was a failure. A bore. A mute, staring spinster from a different century.
Oh, for God’s sake, the Emma in her head blurted. Don’t be so negative.
I’m just being realistic.
She removed her headband and shook her hair down in front of her face. Emma had suggested she colour it. Highlight the blond, or darken it all. It might look good, she had to admit, though surely people would see through the disguise. Her mother had been colouring for years, but the red had once been natural. Clare had her father’s hair, his blue-grey eyes.
“So you had a good holiday?” Isobel said.
“Uh-huh.”
“And how’s our little Emma?”
Clare slid the headband back across her head. “Not so little. But she’s fine. She’s teaching voice this term.”
“Oh, lovely. Does she ever miss Montreal? How long has she been in Vancouver now?”
“I don’t think so. Almost six years.”
“That long! Are you sure?”
“She left right after I moved back with you.”
Isobel changed lanes without signalling. “Gordon Bennett! Does that mean it’s been almost six years since your father ...”
“I guess so.”
“Good lord.”
Ask her now, Emma’s voice urged. While she’s on the topic.
She’s remembering Dad’s heart attack. It wouldn’t be fair.
Fair-shmair. Your mother has dealt with his death just fine. You’re the one who still has issues.
“And are the flowers out yet in Vancouver?” Isobel said, switching on the headlights.
“Uh-huh.”
Clare closed her eyes and leaned back against the headrest. She could be lazy with her mother. Conversation for Isobel was a gliding over smooth surfaces, an avoidance of bumps and cracks. Her questions never challenged; they led directly into short, easy paths of response. Emma’s questions, on the other hand, opened onto vast and frightening terrain. Politics, ethics, relationships, sex. Apart from the ones about sex, she didn’t mind Emma’s questions. Talking to Emma wasn’t like talking to other people. It was the closest she came to the conversations in her own head. But on this last visit, Emma had been pushy on the sex thing. In her view, sex was a character-defining experience, a crucial element of one’s humanity, and, having made this argument, she’d forced a blind date with the recently divorced director of the jazz studies program at her college. Not, she pointed out, that it would necessarily lead to anything at all. Just to get Clare in the swing of things.
They’d gone for coffee on the east side of town. The Jazz Studies Director had carried their cappuccinos to a table in the middle of the café, and as he sat down he smiled and said, “Emma tells me you’re quite the pianist.”
“Not as good as Emma,” Clare had answered, her hands clenching under the table. A terrible answer—and not even true.
The Jazz Studies Director then raised his eyebrows. “So what was it that drew you to music?”
If he’d been a voice in her head, if he’d been Emma, she could have answered him, easily. But everything about him—his skin, his clothes, his raised eyebrows—was so real and physical, so other, that the space between them seemed gaping and uncrossable. He was terrifying in the way that all strangers, with their unpredictable words and boldness of existence, were terrifying.
“I’m not sure,” she’d said, and sipped her coffee. “It just happened, I guess.”
The date had ended with a handshake.
Emma had stifled her disappointment admirably. She suggested that Clare’s social difficulties were a result of being born prematurely. “I’m serious,” she said. “You came into the world before you were really ready, and now everything still overwhelms you.” To Clare, this explanation missed the obvious. But then Emma hadn’t known her father very well.
Her mother exited the highway onto St. Giles Boulevard. They passed the Provigo, the Chinese restaurant with the revolving red dragon, the shopping mall, and Emma’s family’s church, a building that looked more like a recreation centre than a place of worship. Just before Morgan Hill Road, Isobel swatted the turn signal, and Clare sensed the pattern of her life closing around her, tucking her inside of itself. It wasn’t a terrible feeling; her life suited her in many ways. But if pressed, she’d have confessed that this particular life wasn’t exactly what she’d imagined for herself.
The lights in the Fraser house, timer-controlled, were on, warm and welcoming. While Isobel put the car in the garage, Clare wandered to the end of the driveway to collect the empty garbage can. Across the street she saw shadows behind the Vantwests’ living room curtains and recalled Emma’s latest musings about Rudy.
“He always looked so exotic, don’t you think?” Emma had said, wide-eyed. “He sort of intimidated me when we were teenagers, but I’d love to meet him now. Do you ever see him? Don’t you think it would be amazing to have sex with someone like him?”
“What do you mean ‘like him’?” Clare had said. But her friend just smiled knowingly.
Remember the day his brother was born? the Emma in her head now coaxed, as Clare, eyes still on the Vantwests’ house, picked up the garbage bin.
Not as well as you.
It’s kind of creepy to think about, but, God, that afternoon was the highlight of the whole summer.
I hardly remember anything. Just the car.
And one other image: Rudy Vantwest standing with two suitcases at the edge of his lawn, looking across the street at her. She might have imagined the suitcases; most of her childhood fantasies had involved packing up and running away on an adventure. But she remembered the scrawny legs and the squinting smile clearly—one of those useless memories that hangs on for no apparent reason, even when more important things have drifted out of reach. She hadn’t seen Rudy in years, she’d told Emma. He’d moved away; she didn’t know where. And in any case, she’d felt like adding, if he were to appear on Morgan Hill Road one day, what would she possibly say to him?
She made her way back up the driveway, knees thudding against the plastic bin, which she left at the side of the house. Her mother was waiting at the front door w
ith the suitcase. Reaching for it, Clare glanced back across the street.
“How well did you know Mrs. Vantwest?” she said.
Isobel’s eyes followed. “Oh, not very well at all. She wasn’t even here a full year, poor woman. Why do you ask, pet?”
“No reason. I was just thinking about the day Adam was born.”
“Good lord, he must be finished high school by now.”
“He’s doing his M.A. at Concordia.”
She blurted the information awkwardly, as if she’d had no right to be in possession of it. Adam had told her about his studies one morning on the train platform, after spotting her and coming over. Catching her off guard. A minute or so into the conversation, she’d lied about needing to pick up some bus tickets then hid around the station wall until the train came.
“Master’s degree! I had no idea he was that sort,” Isobel said. She unlocked the front door and swung it open. “Well, it’s nice to know he’s managed so well in spite of everything.”
Inside the vestibule, the pattern of Clare’s existence closed in tighter, more familiar, a little more oppressive. She sat on the clothing bench, a small, hinged church pew her father had salvaged, and as she yanked off her shoes, the Vantwests and their troubles disappeared under the weight of Alastair Fraser’s presence. Inside the house, that presence was impossible to escape. Most of the furnishings came from the store Alastair had managed for twenty-odd years, and he was in those objects still, held there by an inertia that even death had been unable to challenge completely. In vain Clare kept her eyes on the vestibule floor, willing something to have changed in her absence. But when at last she peered into the living room, it was the old pattern, perfectly intact, that greeted her: blue floral print chesterfield, arms jacketed in plastic sleeves; polished oak coffee table, never touched by coffee cups; record player cabinet, weighted shut by a lead crystal bowl, gigantic and empty; grey recliner; dormant fireplace. And under it all, an unchanging sea of Wedgwood blue carpeting, the best Alastair Fraser’s store had to offer, stretching from wall to wall.
She lobbed her shoes across the vestibule, onto the rubber mat where her mother’s boots were already neatly stowed. Isobel was off checking the answering machine. When she returned, she placed her hand lightly on Clare’s shoulder.
“I meant to tell you, pet. I’m planning on doing some redecorating in there.”
Clare’s eyes shot up. It was like that long-ago summer day—Mr. Vantwest’s car roaring down Morgan Hill Road.
“You’re changing the living room?”
“Aye. I’m tired of the colour scheme. The carpet’s awful. It’s going next week. And the furniture’s really dated. There’s a lovely yellow set in the Ikea catalogue I’d like to have a look at tomorrow. You’re welcome to come along, if you like.”
“Oh. That’s okay,” Clare said distractedly. “Whatever you choose is fine.”
Once more she took in the living room, imagining naked floors and sofas the colour of bananas. Then she picked up her suitcase and started up the stairs with a vague, vexing sense that these renovations, like the goings-on of the family across the street, weren’t likely to make much difference in the long run.
“There was a message from Emma,” her mother called after her. “Two, actually. She wants you to ring.”
Clare left the suitcase on her bed and went straight through to her studio. The piano and the bookshelves were dusty; the March issue of National Geographic was still open on the loveseat, another relic from Alastair’s store. She sat at the piano, the same tired upright with spinning stool she’d been playing for years, and conjured a voice with which to escape. What she came up with was a fuzzy combination of the Jazz Studies Director and Rudy Vantwest, whose real voice she’d never actually heard.
I hear you’re quite the pianist, he said.
She rested her fingers lightly on the keys and held them there a moment, letting the urgency of the touch, the desire of the one for the other, build. Then, taking hold of the signatures like a crutch—four-four time, key of E flat; precise, mathematical—she played.
I’m flattered. She’s a great musician.
Have you ever done any performing?
Not really. I work at a music store. Waste of a degree, perhaps. I went into it thinking I’d be a music teacher, but that was a bad idea. Her notes meandered, like conversation over coffee. Sometimes Emma and I played duets at her church, if you could call that a performance.
Do you go to church?
No ... the duets just gave us an excuse to practise there whenever we wanted. Well, whenever Emma wanted. I liked it, though ... the church with no one in it.
She played the empty sanctuary, arranging details for this listener with Rudy Vantwest’s face and a borrowed voice to appreciate—a chirpy phrase for the blond wood of the pews, something richer, more harmonic, for the thick burgundy carpet that flowed down the centre aisle. She played the glorious emptiness, the echoes.
Sometimes we’d just fool around. Pretend we were stars. Emma would give me a key, and I’d play ... whatever I felt like. She’d sing along, following me. I guess that’s how I learned to improvise.
As in jazz? You don’t seem like a typical jazz person.
He would have to say this. Clare struck single notes, considering her response.
Not cool enough? Not passionate enough?
Well ...
I don’t love my music; I need it. We don’t have to call it jazz. Actually, I’d prefer we didn’t.
She changed key, embarking on a new progression, the notes agitated, uncertain.
The church was a completely different place on a Sunday morning, of course. I remember the first time Emma took me there. I was twelve or so. I didn’t want to go, but I didn’t know how to refuse. Everyone was so unbearably nice. They shook my hand and told me how happy they were to have me there, sharing the joy of life in Christ. Even Emma’s brothers were nice. I hated it.
Was it one of those born-again, tongue-speaking places?
No ... nothing that weird. The actual service wasn’t so bad; I didn’t mind it at all ... except for the part when the pastor asked us to share the Light of God.
What happened?
Everyone started milling around aimlessly, hugging and shaking hands. Emma hugged me, then she wandered off. I stared at the floor and prayed that I’d be magically transported back to my own bedroom. Then this young woman tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I’d accept the Light of God.
What’d you say?
Here the music became low, sheepish.
I said yes. I was mortified—and furious. Then I wondered if there was something wrong with me.
But if you don’t share their beliefs ...
She paused.
I’m not sure I don’t. I think there’s a God out there. Or something. Fate maybe. I’m like my father, I guess. He thought all our dealings with God should be conducted in private. Even the Presbyterians were too demonstrative for him.
So whatever inspired you to play at that church?
That was much later. Emma and I were sharing an apartment. When she asked me to do it, she promised we could sit up front the whole time and not have to hug or shake hands with anyone. She kept her—
There was a knock. Clare stopped playing.
“Sorry to disturb you, pet,” Isobel said, nudging the door open. “I was just wondering if you were hungry.”
“Not really. No. Thanks.”
The voice with Rudy Vantwest’s face was gone, and suddenly it was Emma back in her head.
Ask her now! Come on, you promised.
Clare clenched her fists between her knees. “Can I ask you something, Ma?”
“Of course, pet. What is it?”
“Was I really premature?”
“What do you mean?”
She couldn’t tell if her mother was flustered or angry or genuinely confused. “I mean was I really born early, or did you get pregnant before you and Dad were married?”
<
br /> Isobel approached the piano slowly, rubbing her arms. She breathed in and straightened her shoulders. “Things were different back then, pet.”
Clare nodded. She didn’t need to hear any more.
Her mother traced a finger across the dusty piano top. “I should have said something a long time ago.”
“It’s okay. I figured it out.”
She lowered the fallboard and stood up. She would go to her bedroom and unpack, maybe read a little or call Emma. It was still early in Vancouver. But her mother’s eyes were fixed on her, following her.
“I should have told you, Clare. Are you—”
“It’s fine. It’s no big deal.”
She picked up the National Geographic. At the doorway joining the studio and the bedroom, another question came to her—Did you love Dad? But at the sight of her mother absently running her sleeve across the piano top, she let it go. “I’m going to unpack,” she said.
In the bedroom she unzipped her suitcase and tossed clothes into the laundry hamper until her mother’s footsteps sounded on the creaky stairs. Then she went to the window and stared at the dark boughs of her father’s favourite tree—the pine he’d brought with him from Scotland. His final resting place.
It was good we did it on Christmas. You always loved Christmas, didn’t you ... the rituals anyway.
Oh, aye.
It’s been six years already?
So it has.
What have I been doing?
Och. Carrying on.
Not even. I feel like I’m still standing out there in the snow with your ashes.
DECEMBER 1990
It’s winter again. Christmas Day. Rudy has driven out from Toronto along with Susie and her family. Adam still lives at home. All in all, it’s an ordinary Christmas—messier now that Sue and Mark have baby Zoë. Mum’s absence no longer oppresses, as it did for so many years, though Dad still drinks too much arrack.
