“’K.” I only knew Josh a little longer than George. I trusted him the same way, though; even when we argued and I couldn’t stand him, I still wanted Josh around.
We crossed 33rd Avenue and someone whispered behind me. I looked back. No one was near. And then again—my name this time. I snapped my head around thinking maybe it was one of Josh’s friends. Nothing. No one was anywhere near us, just cars and buses. It’d never happened around Josh before, he was my safe place.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing!”
“Fine! Don’t have a hairy. Is it the math? Don’t you get the math still?”
“No! I get it!” Josh was a year ahead of me and he never had problems with math. Or anything. Kids liked him, he never got into fights, his mum didn’t have to threaten them if they didn’t leave him alone. And his art; anyone who saw his art-stuff slobbered all over it. He even won twenty bucks in a contest around when I met him. I never won any contests, but I had twenty-one dollars I was saving since Toronto in my drawer. I never bragged about that, though—only some came from my allowance, and five dollars from last time at the racetrack and the rest I stole from my mum’s wallet a little bit at a time. My plan was to buy her something beautiful one day, something she’d never get for herself. Or else, if we got broke again, like in Toronto, with no food in the house and nothing in her purse, I would spring it on her and say something like, “Look, it’s OK, I’ve got money for whatever you want.” I imagined how her eyes would be so happy she’d start to cry and she’d squeeze me and say, “What would I ever do without you?” I was thinking about starting that with her nerve pills too, so she wouldn’t get so upset when she ran out. But in the meantime I didn’t want anyone to know about it. I figured she’d thank me in the long run.
Josh and I turned onto Quebec Street, past Sadie and Eddy’s house. I sneezed and wondered how many sneezes it took to drop dead. Sadie’d told me on the weekend that every time you sneeze your heart stops. I didn’t want to run into her.
“Do you wanna get on, I can double you now.”
“No. I want to keep walking still.”
“You’re bitchy today” I didn’t answer him. I hated when he used that word on me. “Well, if nothing’s wrong then how come you got two big frown lines between your eyebrows—you’re gonna look like an old lady if you don’t knock it off. Don’t worry, though, my mum’s got tons of Oil of Olay so I can keep you young and beautiful—even when you’re twenty-five, everyone’ll think you’re eight still.”
“Shut up.”
“Jesus! What’s up your ass?”
And then the whispers echoed ass and bitchy. ass and bitchy. I yelled, “Shut up!” over top of them, and then told him, “Don’t say that! I hate when you say that. Ass and bitchy. Don’t say ass and bitchy.”
Josh laughed down at his handlebars and said, “Ay ay, captain.”
My head was quiet again. He coasted and I walked another block; we were getting close to the park. I was scared of having it start up again around those other boys. “Do you have to go right to Riley Park, can’t we keep walking a bit?”
“Uh huh,” and he leaned down, sort of folding his arms across his handlebars, staring into the front wheel while it turned and skipping his toes along the road, “if you quit biting my head off for a while.”
“I am not. Can you just—um. OK, I’m sorry! I have to, can you just—’K, don’t say anything, just, um. Do you ever hear stuff?”
He turned his head and looked at me. I looked back, then down at my feet stepping. He said, “Can I answer?” I rolled my eyes, so he said, “OK. I don’t get it, what stuff?”
“Stuff. Stuff, like voices. Like sometimes someone whispers your name and you turn around and they’re not there, nobody’s there or else there’s maybe someone there but you know they never said anything because it was a lady’s voice and it’s a man behind you.”
“Um. Sometimes I dream it, like once I woke up and saw my zaidy sitting in a rocking chair smiling at me and he was wearing a red baseball cap. He never even owned a baseball cap. And then we got a call from the hospital that he died during the night. Weird eh? My mum says I dreamed it, but it was pretty real. I think he came to see me before he left.—Like that, like a ghost?”
“I don’t know. No. I don’t think so. Or sometimes just voices and no one calling to you or anything, sort of like people arguing in your head so you can hardly hear the people in the room with you.”
Josh pushed himself up, put his hands back on his handlebar grips. Then he chewed on his bottom lip a second. “Uh-uh. Do you?”
“Kind of. Yeah. Promise you won’t tell, not even your mum … Um. Um. Mostly it happens in school when I’m trying to think, like during a test, times-tables tests and stuff.” My fingers twisted on each other. I was scared he’d think I was mental or something. He asked me what they said, what it sounded like. “It sounds like tinkling and clanging, like there’s lots of stuff, you know, like those fancy dinners Columbo goes to sometimes when he’s solving a murder mystery. And they’re all talking, they start talking over each other and they have rich people accents—English accents—and they start arguing. Especially this one lady, who’s older and she keeps saying, ‘Shutt Upp’ when people talk back to her and then they get louder and louder over each other until I can’t hear anything. And they all have English accents, did I say that already?”
“Wow. Did you tell your mum?”
“No. I don’t wanna tell her. I’m afraid she’ll make me go to a psycho guy or something. She was going to before because of when I clenched, when I’d clench my teeth and eyes shut. Sometimes I just like clenching, though. It feels like I can’t get still until I scrunch everything as tight as it’ll go and then I can be normal again. Sometimes it helps make it be quiet, though. Or sometimes I can’t get it quiet and I can’t do anything.”
“Man. Is that why you can’t get the math stuff sometimes?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It happened with your mum when she was showing me stuff and I started to get all mixed up—please don’t tell her, though, promise you won’t tell her or she’ll tell my mum and I don’t wanna to tell my mum yet.”
“’K. Maybe you should tell George?”
“No. I don’t wanna tell George. It’ll go away, I think I can make ’em stop.”
Josh squished a palm in his eye for a second, then he bit a nail off and looked at me. “Do you want me to double you?”
“’K. Do you wanna come with me and George to the racetrack on Saturday?”
“’K. Do you wanna skip Riley Park and just go back to my place and listen to records? My mum got me a Joni Mitchell record for my birthday. It’s all live from a concert she did.”
When we got back, Sheryl’d already left. Josh got pillows from his bedroom and threw them on the living-room floor. I laid on top of the whole pile while he took Joni Mitchell out. He held it like a wet painting, putting it on the turntable. The record was from a concert and there was lots of clapping and cheering before she sang. Josh flopped down beside me and we propped up on our elbows and bounced our heads in time.
“I like this song,” he told me, “it always cheers me up.” And he started singing this song called “You Turn Me On Like a Radio.” Next came “Big Yellow Taxi.” I didn’t like it; it didn’t sound like the one I was used to. “Yeah, it’s different, huh, here lemme play you this one, it’s my favourite.” Josh jumped up and snaggled the needle off.
I flipped on my back waiting for him to flip the record. “Do you have that song, “I gotta brand new pair of rollerskates, you gotta brand new key”? She sings that song, right?”
“Nope, that’s someone else. That’s kind of dumb, that song.”
“No it’s not, it’s my favourite.” I turned back over, lumps in my throat: one because he didn’t have the song, and one cuz he didn’t like it.
Josh looked in my eyes before he set the needle back down. “Oh, you mean that one that goes, um—” and h
e nahhed and hummed the tune for me. “Yeah, I like that one too.” It was like he just gave me something cat-fur soft and pink and it made my throat ache even more. Then Joni Mitchell’s sore-throat voice talked at us. She said everybody should sing along with her because this next song was made for out-of-tune voices, the more out of tune the better, and Josh nudged me. “See, it’s perfect for you.” I smacked him and Joni sang,
Yesterday a child came out to wonder,
caught a dragonfly inside a jar
fearful when the sky was full of thunder
and tearful at the falling of a star …
and then I recognized the song.
and the seasons they go round and round
and the painted ponies go up and down
we’re captive on the carousel of time
we can’t return we can only look behind from where we came
and go round and round and round in the circle game …
“I don’t wanna play this—” My words got stuffed-up at the back of my mouth and tears dripped my cheeks.
Josh told me, “It’s OK,” and hooked his baby finger under the cuff of my sleeve.
Eilleen Six
SEPTEMBER 1974
IT’S SO HARD to strike that delicate balance between a dumpy slum and Better Homes and Gardens: Better Slums and Dumps. But presentation is nine-tenths of the law.
A social worker’s on her way to look the joint over and you have just wiped off the kitchen counter for the third time. She’s a new one. Coming to see how you and Grace are maintaining since Charlie’s file was closed, to check your receipts, make note of any rent increase and, of course, sniff around for man-things. Then, if all is kosher, she’ll sign you up for another year. Go check the living room again. How come everything looks like hell? Maybe because every time you pick something up, a goddamn man drops something in its place. Not a man, your man. Everything’s covered in a layer of dust—can’t he think to dust the mantle or the end tables? Damp cloth, need a damp cloth, she’ll be here in fif—ten minutes! Shit. Oh, just give it a lick and a promise, she’s not going to be inspecting your lamp for lint anyway—and go check your face, see that your lipstick’s not smeared on your teeth.
Your teeth are fine, it’s the mirror that needs work: toothpaste goop everywhere—can’t those idiots keep it in their faces and do they have to load so much paste on to begin with? Goofy Grace wanders around the house trying to talk through a mouthful of foam, makes her look like a rabid dog, and George stands there in front of the mirror, teeth bared like the rabid dog’s screwed-up cousin; rhythmic scrubbing up and down and up and down, in circles in circles in circles. Christ—look at this stuff, it’s minty fresh cement—J Cloth, where’s a friggin J Cloth? Five minutes till five minutes before she’s due to arrive. They are always early. There. Good enough. Oh shit, take off the earrings, they look too nice. Mind you, this blouse looks crummy enough, they ain’t gonna mistake you for royalty exactly.
Just take a last look for man-stuff. You cleared most all of it out into the trunk of George’s car this morning along with instructions for him to pick Grace up after school and take her for a drive through Stanley Park or something. Had to keep this thing streamlined. Last thing you’d need is Grace forgetting the point of the whole exercise and trying to impress the social worker with a hilarious George-anecdote or, in lieu of that, an apartment tour that leads straight to a George-shoe hanging out of the closet, or a George-shirt. Whole thing is starting to feel like one big goof on your part anyway, having him move in here. Drives you out of your mind, him sitting around, underfoot, in your hair. Got no time to yourself any more. There used to be so much space in the day, all those hours to hog every room in the place, suck up all the air for yourself, watch whatever you wanted on the boob tube, read, talk on the phone. Now you have not one but two other space-suckers to contend with. Hardly had Charlie out the door when you moved George in—what are you thinking sometimes? You should get your head read is what. Least he pays half the rent, though, and that’s why his self can’t be here when the Welfare comes a-nosin’.
Buzzer. That’s her. You say hello, buzz her up, run to the mirror, put the earrings back on, need something to brighten up your face, look like a nice mother in a neat home with no men in it. Surely to god she’ll know a three-dollar pair of earrings when she sees them.
Thunking at the door.
Palm your hair back on the sides—oh shit, what did you do, you look stupid now, your palm was wet, now it looks—knock and clunk at the door—crap, where’s a—just calm down, here, have a Librium. Swallow. Jesus. Go-go-go, to the door.
Open it wi-ide … Hello … smi-i-le wide: a poor man’s Doris Day.
Hi, she says. Eilleen Hoffman? Nice to meet you, Patricia Hearst.
Her palm goes out to yours. You start to laugh. Sorry; really? Is that really your name? I mean I, you must have told me over the phone but I just didn’t—
Oh, I probably just said Pat. She steps into your hall and smiles, curly red-headed, sheepishly looking nothing like the gun-toting heiress currently obsessing the planet. I feel as if I’ve been going to great lengths to conceal my full name, I’ve even started using Trish instead of Patty—the woman has been the bane of my existence the last few months.
You walk her to the living room. I’ll bet! Poor you. Can’t turn on the TV without her face smeared all over the place. It’s really something, isn’t it? Now they’ve got her on hidden camera with a machine gun. Would you like some tea or coffee or something? Juice, milk? Fresca?
Tea would be lovely.
You mosey nonchalantly to the kitchen, leaving Patricia Hearst in the living room, saying, I think they’ve got her brainwashed. God knows what they’ve done with her, as you contemplate just how to nab your own Patty Hearst, make her carry a gun for you, renounce her bourgeois ways of living among the bureaucratic elite and join your one-woman show, The Symbionese Keep-my-welfare-cheque-and-boyfriend Army. My little girl is fascinated with the whole thing. I think she finds it all a little romantic, a rich pretty girl being kidnapped and all that.
Yeah, I s’pose half the country finds it a little romantic or they wouldn’t be leading every news hour with it. Is your daughter around this afternoon?
No, she called home asking if she could go over to one of her friends’ after school. Probably won’t see her again till dinnertime.
Oh yeah, kids! So how have the two of you been making out since coming to Vancouver?
Oh, really well. You walk to the entrance between the kitchen and living room, lean casually in the doorway It’s really more home to me than Toronto ever was; it’s such a relief to escape those horrific winters. And now the summer, I can’t imagine being back in that unsleepable heat wave—have you ever spent any time there?
Uh, Montreal, which is pretty close, probably worse, so I know the feeling.
You nod. Oh yes, I lived in Montreal years ago, it’s kind of an old stomping ground for me.
She unzips a worn brown briefcase. You just have one other daughter besides, mm, Grace, have I got that right?
Yes, Charlie.
And, let’s see, she lived with you briefly while she was pregnant, and now she’s on assistance and living on her own.
Yes. She has her baby now, Sam. They’re, she’s with, uh, him in a basement apartment not too far from here. You keep your mouth shut about Ian, don’t know if they know about him or not. She was by last week for a little while, I think maybe we’re all getting along a little better these days.
And are you currently in an AA program?
Yes, yeah, I’m part of a group down near Broadway and Cambie and I’m spending quite a bit of time at the Twelfth Step Club.
Oh, that sounds good, so you’ve got a bit of a social life together now. That always makes it easier.
The kettle whistles and you excuse yourself back behind the kitchen wall to dump hot water into a pot of two tea bags. Milk, shit, did you remember milk? Good girl—although not affor
ding milk may score big points, but you ask her anyway. Milk and sugar? She says yes. Here, throw some cookies on a plate. Ah the lovely hostess, you’re charming as hell. Wish there was a tray, no actually, make two trips, it will illustrate just exactly the daily struggle that is your life. And still you smile in the face of it all: Glow little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer.
So are you still single, Eilleen?
Are you still single? Now, although noneofyourfuckingbusiness seems to be the correct response, pause here, Yup, you tell her, a good man is hard to find. Laugh here.
Your ex-husband hasn’t been in touch with you at all? Ah, Jake Carrington? I guess he would be the girls’ father?
Jake Carrington. Always sounds so elite and swish when other people say it. Sounds like he should’ve been lover to Katharine Hepburn, like he uses a platinum shoehorn. Yes. I mean yes he’s Charlie’s father but no I haven’t heard from him. Not in years. He could be in prison again for all I know. In prison? she says, that’s not in her records. Yeah, he was in Kingston Penitentiary a few years ago for armed robbery. It’s not as exciting as it sounds, he was a drunk and a reprobate—thought he could rob a bank with a penknife when he was sloshed out of his skull. His father was a lawyer and then a politician in New Brunswick but he passed away shortly after Jake and I divorced, though, so Jake had to pretty much lie in his own bed after that. She looks vaguely intrigued, shakes her head ever so slightly. She asks about Grace’s father. You continue, Danny’s no help, he doesn’t even send her an allowance. Don’t look bitter, keep your smile and tinge it with a concerned frown, you trooper you.
You know, the government is cracking down on these deadbeat dads who don’t pay child support. If you can supply us with the information, we could attempt to force him to look after Grace.
Ahh. Well. I—you and your big mouth. That’s right, sick the Welfare on him. He’d fix you all right, have your legs broken and grab Grace so fast your head would spin and what bloody good would it do you in the long run; they’d take whatever he gave you off your cheque and you’d be no better off than you were to begin with. I couldn’t even give you a phone number. Now and then he phones from god knows where, says hello to Grace and disappears again. I can pick ’em, eh! And you shrug and shake your head mostly because it’s true. Even though you could track him down any time you wanted, but who’d want to. He can rot for all you care.
Going Down Swinging Page 14
