Helpless

by Barbara Gowdy

  It took two months before he finally played his first little ten-bar tune straight through. To celebrate, she asked if he would like to stay for tea, and somewhat to her surprise (he was always heading off to meetings with bankers and stockbrokers) he said, “I would like that very much indeed.” She used the good china and served lettuce-and-tomato sandwiches on white bread with the crusts sliced off. He gobbled them down. He seemed happy and relaxed as he told them about growing up in Oslo and Frankfurt, the only child of a pediatrician mother and financier father.

  “Our father lives in New York City,” Rachel said when he paused.

  “Your father does,” Celia corrected.

  “He’s black,” Rachel said.

  “Is he indeed?” John said. He smiled at Celia—a complicit, amused smile. A husbandly smile.

  The following Thursday he stayed right through supper and Rachel’s bath and then, at Rachel’s insistence, he read her her bedtime story.

  “Do you want some Kahlua?” Celia asked when he came back into the living room. She was on her third glass. “Or would you rather go straight to sex?”

  He fingered the knot of his tie. “I should like to have a quick cleanup first,” he said.

  A shower, he meant, and by himself. She found this completely endearing. She waited for him in bed, wondering if he would come to her naked or wrapped in a towel. Wrapped in a towel, she decided correctly. In fact, he didn’t discard it until he was under the covers.

  They kissed, or at least she kissed him. His body was unexpectedly soft and unmuscled, like foam tubing. Nothing she did succeeded in giving him an erection, and finally he rolled over onto his back and pulled the sheet over himself. “Forgive me,” he said. “With Rachel in the next room, I can’t feel right.”

  “She’s asleep.”

  “I find myself…feeling somehow responsible…”

  What was he getting at? Celia came up on her elbow. “Responsible for what?”

  “Of course, she’s your daughter…”

  “That’s right.”

  “I keep seeing her little face.”

  Celia lay back down. She got the picture: the attraction in this household was Rachel, not her. Come to think of it, maybe Rachel was the only reason he’d been showing up at all, week after week. “You’ll never play Bach, you know,” she said, delivering a hard truth of her own.

  “Yes, I’m a lost cause. I should—” He turned to face her, holding the sheet at his throat. “I should like to continue paying you, since you had every right to expect that—”

  “Don’t worry,” she cut him off. “We’ll be fine.”

  ON MONDAY afternoon, to distract Rachel from his absence, she took her to Riverdale farm in Cabbagetown. As he was leaving, John had asked if he might visit occasionally, but Celia told him she didn’t think that would be a very good idea. It was Rachel he wanted to visit, not her, although that wasn’t the reason. The fiasco in bed had begun to sink in. She was feeling ridiculous, and so entirely over her lust that his bony head and pole-thin wrists, his pale complexion, all the parts she had swooned over, were now striking her as unhealthy, maybe even catching.

  She told Rachel he had to go away.

  “Where?” Rachel asked.

  “I don’t know, honey. Far away.”

  “But he’s our student.”

  “He was,” Celia said, “but he’s finished now.”

  “But he loves us.”

  “Yes, he does,” Celia allowed.

  “So he has to come see us.”

  “He can’t anymore. He’s gone away.”

  Rachel thought a minute. “Hey!” she said. “He’s gone to New York City!”

  “You know what?” Celia said. “I’ll bet he has!”

  Rachel’s hands opened at the obviousness of her logic. Her face brightened. In her world so far, it was a plain and unwavering fact, something to be counted on, that the men who loved you ended up in New York City.

  They left for Riverdale farm after her nap. The sky was clear when they set out but it clouded over while they were on the bus and darkened a few minutes after they got off. The thunder and rain started before they were halfway down Carlton Street. Celia raced the stroller under a tree and tried to pull up the hood. It was stuck.

  A man materialized, asking if she needed help. He gave the hood a few tugs. “A screw fell out,” he said. “If you would not…not mind waiting, you could wait”—he gestured at the house behind him—“on the porch here while I…I can fix it.”

  He sounded like John Paulsen, that northern European accent and the hesitancy. He brought them towels to dry themselves off with, and after he had fixed the stroller he invited them to stay for lemonade. Celia accepted. The rain was torrential now; they were going to have to wait it out.

  She felt the oddness of the situation: a man with John’s accent and beautiful manners turning up at the same time that she would have been giving John his lesson. Physically he resembled John not at all. He was a little over medium height, fit and compact with a round, ruddy face and straight, white-blond hair. She had a feeling she’d met him before, but his name—Mika Ramstad—was new to her, and they seemed to have no friends or history in common. And yet…This porch, the rain, the white wicker furniture, and the two of them smoking cigarettes and talking about their lives while Rachel sat with his little dogs and squished her hands into their fur—there was a homey familiarity to it, a relief.

  By the time they left she had arranged to rent his upstairs apartment for one-third of what she was currently paying. He had been prepared to let her have it for nothing until she got herself a job, but she said that would be going too far. You would think that she would find his generosity to a complete stranger suspicious—Laura did—or that, in light of what had happened with John, she would mistrust her reading of the situation. At Laura’s urging she tried: she thought, God, maybe he’s a pervert, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe it. As for her getting romantically involved, that wasn’t going to happen; she was pretty sure he was gay.

  “Why shouldn’t he be what he seems?” she said to Laura. “There are genuinely sweet people out there. And anyway, I’m lucky. I get these huge strokes of luck.”

  “Like what?”

  “My mother’s money. Rachel.”

  “Just don’t let your guard down.”

  Six years later Celia remembers this: how Laura had looked at Rachel as though she were surrounded by a host of demons. She remembers John Paulsen and writes his name on her list of suspicious men.

  Chapter Sixteen

  THERE’S A CUSTOMER picking up his Black & Decker hedge trimmer when Nancy returns. She shoulders her way through the door, already talking. “It’s on the radio. They’ve got a—” Seeing the man, she stops. The box she’s holding begins to slip from her grasp.

  “Just put it over there,” Ron says to her. He nods at the cleared space to her left. “So that’ll be fourteen dollars and thirty-nine cents,” he says to the man, who already knows this. He has repeated it for Nancy’s sake, to impress upon her that the man isn’t from the police.

  Nancy sets the box down. Her face has broken out into red splotches. The man glances at her, then gives her another look. “Hey,” he says. “Frank’s Homestyle, right?”

  Nancy shakes her head.

  Ron says, “She used to work there but I lured her away.”

  “That’s too bad,” the man says. “For Frank, I mean. So it’s…Annie, right?”

  “Nancy,” Nancy murmurs.

  “Nancy. Sorry. Remember my daughter? She drew your picture on her placemat?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Nancy says. She does remember. She wipes her hands on her jeans.

  “She really liked you, she thought you were great.”

  “Huh.”

  He seems finally to register her agitation. He quickly signs the Visa receipt and grabs his trimmer. “Well,” he says, “good to see you again.”

  When he’s gone, she sits on a humidifier. Ron
goes to the door. Her car is parked at an angle, taking up two spaces. “You’ve got to pull yourself together,” he says.

  “I’m not used to this,” she says.

  “What happened?”

  “What happened?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “It’s on every radio station!”

  “I know.”

  “I was like this close to phoning the number they gave and turning you in. This close!” She indicates with her thumb and forefinger. Her red nail polish is chipped down to the cuticles.

  A calmness spreads through him, a calm thrill. What if she had turned him in? It would be all over with by now: the arrest, his confession. “What stopped you?” he asks.

  “What do you think? I love you! How could I send you to jail? They murder guys like you in jail.”

  “Guys like what?”

  “Child abductors!”

  “We haven’t abducted her, we’ve rescued her. All right? You’re doing a brave thing. The bravest thing you’ll ever do in your life.” He believes this. She looks up at him with her big, hopeless eyes, and he wonders if what he feels for her is love or pity or gratitude. “Let’s get those boxes in.”

  Walking to her car, he remembers Rachel’s underpants, and when he comes in again, while her back is turned, he slips them out of his pocket and tucks them under the laundered skirt.

  NANCY BOILS up a pot of oatmeal and stirs in butter and lots of brown sugar. If Rachel doesn’t like oatmeal there’s also a peanut-butter-and-jam sandwich and some gingersnap cookies. The important thing is to get her to eat. “Even a chocolate bar would be better than nothing,” she tells Ron.

  “I could run out and get one,” he says.

  “Let’s see how this goes.”

  With her leg still shaky she needs to hold on to the railing, so Ron carries the tray. Tasha is whining behind the basement door, and she thinks, alarmed, Now he’s locked up my dog. But instead of running out into the hall, Tasha runs over to the far side of the bed, where Rachel must be lying.

  “It’s just me, sweetie,” Nancy says. Behind her, Ron pulls the door shut and turns the key.

  Nancy waits. After a moment Rachel comes to her feet. She holds the towel around her waist.

  The sight of her, so dainty and afraid, gives Nancy a shock. In her mind she had made her bigger, calmed her down. She limps to the bed and sets the tray on it. “I brought your clothes and a bite of food,” she says.

  “Am I going home now?”

  “No. Not now.”

  “But the ambulances won’t be there.”

  Nancy pretends not to hear. “You’ll want to put these on,” she says, handing her the skirt and underpants. “I’m going out later to buy you some more stuff. You’ll have to tell me what you’d like. Shoes and socks, right?”

  “My mom…” Rachel says. She starts gasping. She presses the clothes to her stomach. “My mom…”

  “Okay,” Nancy says, “let me help you.” She tugs the clothes and the towel out of Rachel’s grip, then holds the underpants open for her to step into. When nothing happens she takes a leg and puts it in. She puts in the other and pulls the underpants up. Rachel continues to gasp but she steps into the skirt and pulls it up herself. “That a girl,” Nancy says. “Okay, now I’ve brought you oatmeal with brown sugar. Or there’s—”

  “You told me…you…”

  “Take deep breaths,” Nancy says. She presses her hand to Rachel’s quaking chest. The heartbeat flutters against her palm. “Deep breaths. That’s it. There you go.”

  “You told me…I…I…could go home today.”

  “Did I?” She can’t remember, but it’s possible, the way she was babbling on last night. “Jeez, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. Ron, he’s the nice man who brought you here, he thinks you won’t be safe at home. So this is where you’re going to be staying for a while.” She picks up the bowl and spoon. “Will you eat a bit?”

  “Why won’t I be safe?”

  Nancy briskly stirs the oatmeal. How much is she supposed to tell? She wishes she hadn’t got so stoned; she can’t think. “Your mother…” No, better not bring the mother into it. She starts again: “There’s a man, and he wants to…he might hurt you.”

  “What man?”

  “The man in your house. I guess he isn’t your father.”

  “My father lives in New York City.”

  “Okay.”

  “He doesn’t even know about me.”

  “Is that right?”

  “What man do you mean?”

  “Well, isn’t there a man who lives in your house?”

  “Mika?”

  “I guess that’s him.”

  “Mika wouldn’t hurt me. Are you crazy?”

  “Well, sweetie…”

  “You’re crazy!”

  Nancy puts down the bowl. “Sweetie, we’re only trying—”

  Rachel runs past her to the door. “Let me out!” she screams, shaking the handle. At her feet Tasha jumps around barking.

  Don’t come in, Nancy thinks to Ron. Her leg buckles and she falls to her knees in the same instant that Rachel falls to hers. She crawls over to the child and takes her in her arms. “I know,” she says. And she does. She knows this helpless fury.

  “I want to go home,” Rachel sobs. Tasha frantically licks her face and hands, whatever bare skin she can get at.

  “Quit that,” Nancy scolds, pushing at the dog, who goes still and then squats and pees.

  “Oh,” Rachel says.

  “Tasha hates rejection,” Nancy explains. “Well,” she says, “that’ll leave a stain.”

  Rachel sits up. She has stopped crying. “Here, Tasha,” she says, holding out her hand. The dog comes wagging over. “Poor Tasha,” she coos. “Poor little puppy.”

  It’s a tricky moment. If Nancy doesn’t play her cards right, she can see the whole uproar starting again. She goes over to the food and brings back the plate of cookies. “Watch this,” she says, breaking a piece of cookie off. “Tasha, sit.” The dog sits. Nancy places the cookie on Tasha’s nose. “Stay, stay, stay…Okay!” Tasha jerks her muzzle and catches the cookie in her mouth.

  “Good girl,” Rachel says. She pats Tasha’s head.

  “You try,” Nancy suggests.

  Rachel breaks off a piece and puts it on the dog’s nose. Tasha does her trick. Meanwhile Nancy nibbles at the cookie in her hand. “These are delicious,” she says. “You should try one.”

  Rachel looks at her. “If I eat, will you let me phone my mom?”

  “Oh, Rachel.” She feeds Tasha the rest of her cookie. She’s tired of telling half-truths: she’s no good at it, and this girl is too smart. “The police are looking for you, right? And they can trace phone calls and then Ron and me, we’ll be arrested.”

  “But you can block the number.”

  “They can trace it no matter what you do.”

  “If somebody doesn’t call her, she won’t know I’m alive.” Her eyes are filling again.

  Nancy is aware of Ron listening out in the hall. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she says. But she nods and holds a finger to her lips. “It’s too risky.”

  Rachel’s face has gone blank.

  “Do you want to brush your teeth?” Nancy says. “I think you should brush your teeth.”

  “Okay,” Rachel says quietly.

  When they’re both inside the bathroom, Nancy shuts the door.

  “So you’ll phone?” Rachel whispers.

  “Yeah, I will. From a phone booth, I guess.” She sits on the toilet seat. What’s the harm in letting the mother know her daughter isn’t dead? Not that she intends to take this up with Ron.

  “Promise?” Rachel whispers.

  “I promise.”

  “When?”

  “When I go out to buy the clothes. You’ll have to give me the number.”

  “Four-one-six—”

  “Not yet. Wait till I get a pen and paper from upstairs. But hold on—how will she know I’m
not, like, some crank? Anybody could call and say they’ve got you.”

  “No, they couldn’t,” Rachel says excitedly, “because we have this secret word that if a stranger ever had to pick me up from school? Like in an emergency? They would have to say the word or I wouldn’t go with them.”

  “What is it?”

  “Pablito.”

  “Pablito?”

  “It’s the name of a mouse puppet I had when I was little.”

  “Okay. Pablito. That’s good. And listen, sweetie.” She tugs free the elastic band that is about to fall out of Rachel’s hair. “Ron isn’t a bad man. He’s kind and gentle, he really is. There’s no way he would ever hurt you. It’s just, he has a plan for everybody’s own good, and we have to make like we’re following it.”

  “Did you have another girl before?”

  “Before when?”

  “Was there a girl down here? Was this her bedroom?”

  “Oh. No, no, there wasn’t anybody. We were thinking of adopting, and Ron did some renovating.” Her misgivings about the room and her puzzlement—why is it again that Ron didn’t renovate the spare bedroom?—come back, and she stands and turns off the tap. “We’d better get out there.”

  WITH THE tail of his shirt Ron wipes his forehead. He hates it that Rachel is still so distraught. He had hoped that the room and the dog would have had a soothing effect by now. Compared to what she’s used to—a cot on a concrete cellar floor, the threat of that Mika guy coming down—she’s in paradise. She just doesn’t know it yet. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was waiting for him to take up where Mika left off. Well, she’ll find out that not all men are molesters. The promise he has made to himself is that any physical contact will be instigated by her. He won’t invite her to climb onto his lap, but if she wants to, if she wants to kiss him good night, he isn’t going to deny her the expression of her natural feelings.