“It’s funny, isn’t it, Frank,” she had said, “the types of things that stay with you over the years? I remember the silliest things.”
They were sitting at a picnic table in the yard of the old house on River Avenue where Denise was stationed for the next phase of her recovery, as they called it. This thing she was doing that Frank was afraid to hope for.
“And if I ever learned anything important,” she went on, “I sure don’t recall it now.”
“What silly thing are you thinking about?” Frank asked.
Denise lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, as if to force the nicotine along to every drug-starved nook and cranny in her body.
“Well, I had this aunt, Aunt Floss,” she said. “Her name was Florence, but no one called her that. She was all pink and fluffy and she moved about in clouds of powder and perfume. Her job was being a cosmetics clerk at The Bay.”
“I’ve never heard of Aunt Flossie before.” Frank reached across for Denise’s free hand.
“Just Floss.” She laughed.
Frank knew that one day when Denise laughed like that it would be for the last time. And he might not be there for it. And even if he was, he wouldn’t know it was the last time. This could be it, right now! This could be her last laugh.
“Anyway,” Denise said, “she was my dad’s oldest sister. She’s dead now. Died pretty young of a heart attack; she was forty-four I think. A good age to die.”
“Why on earth would you think forty-four is a good age to die?” Frank asked. “That’s younger than me. It’s awfully young, don’t you think?”
“No.” She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray where it joined an assortment of other butts.
The wind rose at that moment and all the ashes from the ashtray blew away, many of them into Denise’s face. Frank wished they had landed on him instead. It seemed a very nasty thing to have happened to his wife. But she didn’t seem to mind. He considered telling her about Garth’s wish to be cremated and then decided it wasn’t the right time. It was, after all, a rather dark anecdote.
“Floss gave me one of the most useless pieces of advice I’ve ever received from a person, but it’s one that stuck with me.”
“What was it?” Frank pushed the ashtray with its naked butts to the far end of the table.
“When she came to visit us,” Denise said, “she used to sleep in my room with me and I would stand and watch while she went through her beauty routine.”
“Did she sleep in your bed with you?” Frank asked.
“Yeah, she did.”
“That must have been weird.”
“I don’t remember that part of it being weird.” Denise lit another cigarette. “Are you going to let me tell my story?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead.”
“Okay. So Floss would set herself up at my desk with her makeup mirror and a whole bunch of little pots of goop. She’d undress from the waist up and I would stare at her swaying breasts and the soft rolls of fat that folded over the waistband of her half slip.
“Her advice was: ‘Always remember, Denise, that in the world of skin care, the face includes the neck, the chest and the breasts too.’ She’d place her hand flat under her breasts till it disappeared entirely, to show me where her face ended and the rest of her began. I would be bundled in my flannelette pajamas, housecoat and slippers, watching Floss in her flimsy slip, her breasts pointed towards the floor, bravely rubbing the perfumed lotions into her skin. Anyway, I retained that particular piece of advice.”
Frank was lost in the picture of Floss’ downward pointing breasts.
He digested the story and watched Denise smoke. She flicked her butt onto the grass, where it smoldered and died. Frank forced himself not to retrieve it and place it in the ashtray where it belonged.
“Emma has a boyfriend,” he said.
“Oh yeah?” Denise lit yet another cigarette.
“His name’s Donald Griffiths and he seems really nice.”
“Hmm.”
“He helped Em build a volcano for her science project.”
“Frank, let’s not talk about Emma’s boyfriend, okay? I don’t feel strong enough to deal with it right now.”
“Yes. All right. Sorry,” Frank said. What the hell was there to deal with? This was good news, wasn’t it? He wondered if Denise was jealous of Emma, of her starting out with her first boyfriend. It was possible. He’d heard of mothers being jealous of daughters. He’d just never thought of it happening in his own family. Well, he wasn’t going to try to get to the bottom of it today and ruin the reasonably upbeat mood.
Yes, Frank thought now, as he watched the sun work its magic on the filthy waters of the Red, it had been a pretty good visit. She hadn’t wanted to know about Donald and that was too bad, but she had talked up a storm otherwise.
Nothing hurt, Frank realized, as he walked briskly down the drive. Heel lifts in his shoes had solved his aching ankles problem — just like Gus had said they would.
He sang as he followed the river the rest of the way home, a song by a group called Fever Tree from a long time ago:
“Out there it’s summertime, milk and honey days,
Oh, San Francisco girls with San Francisco ways.”
Where did that come from? he wondered. He passed the Monkey Speedway, where in his youth he had performed daring feats on his bicycle. It was quiet. No boys rode there anymore.
CHAPTER 61
Emma set her volcano out on the front porch. It was Wednesday, Science Project Day, and she was late. Her papers had been slow to arrive at the drop-off spot and she hadn’t been able to make up the time. Frank and Sadie came to the door to see her off.
“Be careful now, Em. You’ve got lots of time,” Frank said. “It’s okay if you’re a few minutes late. You don’t wanna trip and hurt yourself.”
“Or your volcano,” Sadie said.
“I should probably have covered it with something.” Emma crouched in the front hall tying one runner, then the other. “I think it’s gonna rain.”
“Do you want an umbrella?” Sadie asked.
“No, silly. Then I would have only one hand to carry this thing that I need three hands to carry.”
“Let’s go with her, Sadie,” Frank said. “We can help.”
“Yay!” Sadie was still in her pajamas and bare feet but headed out the door and down the steps.
“Come back, you crazy nut,” Frank said. “We’re going to have to get you dressed first.”
“I gotta go,” Emma said. “Thanks, you guys, but I have no time.”
“I can give you a ride home after school if you like. I should have the car back by then.”
“It’s okay, Dad. I’ll be leaving the volcano at the school for a while. They’re gonna make a display of the best projects and mine’ll make it for sure.”
By the time Emma was halfway to school the rain was pouring down in earnest. She stopped in a carport to examine the damage. The volcano was getting soggy but could still be saved if it didn’t get any wetter. She would have to wait out the storm. I should have planned this better, she thought.
Donald had offered to come over and help her carry it, but she had turned down the offer. She didn’t want to seem needy. Now she realized how stupid that was. He had helped her every other step of the way.
Oh God, why didn’t I let him? Tears of frustration streamed down her face as she stared out from under the leaky carport connected to the garage of someone she didn’t know.
The top of the volcano collapsed in on itself and she set it down on the cement and busied herself with fixing it. A piece came off in her hand and then another.
A car drove up and a window rolled down.
“Can I offer you a lift, dear?”
Emma looked up to see a pretty woman with her hair pulled back in a pony tail. She was dry as chalk. Emma couldn’t recall ever having seen her before, with her jaunty head band and sporty car.
“Here, let me help you.” The woman got out of
the car and crouched down in her pink track suit next to Emma who held squashed pieces of papier mâché in her hands.
The woman smelled like cookies. “Oh dear. Let’s get this into the trunk and I’ll give you a ride to school. Is that where you’re headed?”
Emma nodded and watched her volcano being placed in the trunk next to the woman’s gym bag. She walked around to the passenger side of the car and got in. As soon as she had done this she knew she had made a mistake. Even before the smiling woman flipped the locks on the doors and windows into place.
The rain stopped as suddenly as it started and the sun came out.
“That makes things better doesn’t it, Emma, to see the sun, I mean?”
“How did you know my name?”
The tiny hairs on the back of Emma’s neck stood up. She watched the woman light a Matinee and wheel the car north in the opposite direction from the school.
“Where’re you going?” Emma’s voice was reedy and thin. “This isn’t the way.”
“I just want to show you something, dear. You’re already late. A little while longer won’t matter.”
Emma tried the door when they came to a stop sign. It wouldn’t open. She tried the window. It wouldn’t open either.
“Please let me out.” She couldn’t hear her own words and didn’t know if she had spoken them aloud. So she tried again. Same thing.
Ivy parked as close to the penalty box as she could get. When she opened her door, Emma scrambled to get by her, but Ivy placed her hand on the girl’s face and pushed her so hard that her head hit the window on the passenger side.
Ivy opened the trunk and took the handcuffs and duct tape out of her gym bag, then got back into the car with the girl, who had started to scream. It was easy to get the cuffs on. Ivy’s arms were strong. She knew how important strength was to her task. Tape the mouth. There. Quiet was much better.
Ivy locked the girl in the car while she carried her supplies to the penalty box. Then she dragged the struggling girl there too. She set to work, first removing the runners, jeans and underwear. Everything was so small. From her bag she took the heavy twine and Swiss army knife. She tied the ankles to two posts that were almost too far apart. It was as though this penalty box had been custom made for the two of them. There was a sound then, one that Ivy had heard before, something to do with Sunday dinner — chicken legs.
Emma saw the woman as though from a distance. Like when she looked through the wrong end of her dad’s binoculars at Blue Bomber games and the players and the crowd got small. She saw her ankles secured to posts at an impossible distance from her body.
The hurt in her legs, at their tops where they joined her hips was almost familiar to her but not from actual experience. It was how she had imagined pain when she pictured worse stuff happening to her than anything that possibly could. Pain like what she saw on the Discovery Channel, when the lions tore apart the antelopes and the foxes devoured the mice.
She had a bit of trouble recognizing it at first. It was separate from her and she tried to keep it aside, something to deal with later, when she felt up to it and could make sense of it. It only interfered now with the main event. Or maybe it was the main event. She didn’t know.
Is there something I could be doing to make this right? she wondered. Or is it too late? She groaned and the woman pinched her nose so that she couldn’t breathe at all.
“Be quiet please, Frank’s girl,” the woman said and let go of her nose. She was so far away through the backward binoculars that Emma was amazed she was able to connect with her at all. She shivered inside her sodden T-shirt and prayed for anything to happen that would save her.
Gus whistled his way through the rain-drenched streets in his old Buick with the windows rolled down. The sun shone and the morning sparkled. He was going to check on some new cement. The sidewalk between the two hockey rinks had been poured yesterday afternoon and Gus had sowed a layer of seed minutes after the workmen had finished. He hoped the birds had found it. It was a little out of the way, with few trees about, but the birds hadn’t let him down yet and he didn’t expect they would today.
He parked where the old pleasure rink used to be, beside a little red Triumph that he eyed suspiciously. He hadn’t expected to run into anyone this early on a school day. The last thing he wanted was an audience. Gus cursed his knees as he struggled out of the driver’s seat. He heard the low talking first and didn’t know where it was coming from. The sports car was the only sign that there was anyone else around. It was a female voice he heard and he didn’t like the sound of it. Gus stood still. The voice was quiet now, but he heard a soft clanking sound coming from one of the penalty boxes. Metal rattling against metal. Cold and hard.
Then he saw a woman’s head with black hair pulled back in a pony tail. She hadn’t seen him, so intent was she on something beneath her in the box. Gus’ first thought was that it was a young couple making out. Having no place to go was nothing new.
But the woman didn’t look like she was loving anybody and it was then that Gus recognized her as the no-gooder from the graveyard. The one with the car the same colour as Lake Winnipeg. She had a different car today.
He never had mentioned her to Frank. He should have.
Alarm rang in his ears as he limped toward the penalty box. His legs wouldn’t move fast enough. He began to shout before he got there to stop whatever this horrible woman was up to.
“Ray?” she asked, looking through Gus.
“Good God in heaven, what’s going on here?” Gus pushed Ivy aside and fell to his knees at Emma’s feet, untying her small ankles first to begin to undo the worst of it.
“Oh Ray, you’ve come to help us. I knew you would. Why did you go? Why didn’t you come sooner?”
Ivy bent to take Emma in her arms and Gus screamed at her to get away.
“Give me the key!” he hissed.
“What key?”
“The key for the handcuffs, you crazed hunk of insanity!”
“Squirk,” Ivy whispered.
Gus gently placed his cardigan over Emma’s bottom half. Her body didn’t look right and her eyes were closed. But she was breathing and her pulse was strong.
When he stood up he saw the dog named Easy in the baseball field past the community club. And the man Rupe, throwing a stick for the dog.
“Help!” Gus shouted at the top of his lungs. “Help please, Rupe, Easy!”
Ivy covered her ears and slid to a crouch in a corner of the penalty box.
Gus had been worried that she would make a break for it, but the creature cowering on the ground didn’t look as though she would be running anywhere anytime soon. She faced the wall and he could hear squeaky sounds coming from her throat. Mouse sounds. This person was insane.
And who the hell was Ray?
Easy and Rupe appeared at the gate to the penalty box.
“Holy hell,” Rupe said.
“Run somewhere and phone an ambulance, will ya?” Gus said. “I can’t leave either of these people.”
Rupe was already dialing the phone that he carried in his pocket and Gus added a fourth thing to the list of inventions he appreciated that had come after the second world war.
CHAPTER 62
Frank sat at the kitchen table reading the obituaries. The face that stared back at him was older than its previous incarnation, the one of the happy child in a baseball cap that Emma had pointed out to him a few weeks ago. On this face the eyelids drooped as if to protect the eyes from a vision seen once that they couldn’t bear to witness again in its entirety. The mouth was pinched shut. The smiling girl had been replaced.
Esme Jones, the long version:
Esme died suddenly, at home on May 3, 1995 at the age of fourteen.
She is survived by her father Edward; brother Ross; sister Jennifer; grandparents; aunts; uncles; and cousins. She was predeceased by her mother, Louise Jones, in 1991.
Esme’s hobbies were looking after her pets: Louie (dog), Mickey (cat), an
d Tweetie (bird); and geology. She was very interested in rock formations.
Esme will be long remembered for her sense of humour, her kindness, and her gentle ways.
Thanks to Dr. Jill Lazarenko for her valiant efforts in fighting for our Esme’s health.
A private service has been held and interment has taken place in Brookside Cemetery.
Donations may be made in Esme’s name to the Schizophrenia Society Inc. Manitoba.
We’ll never forget you, our sad, brave girl.
Frank would take it to Emma in the hospital. It wasn’t much of an offering but he knew she would want to see it.
“She’s perfect, Dad,” Emma said from her hospital bed when Frank snuck the new Labrador pup in to see her.
“She is, isn’t she, Em?” Frank kissed his daughter on the forehead. “She already has a name, I’m afraid: Doris. But I’m sure she’s young enough that she wouldn’t mind if you wanted to change it.” He placed the pup in Emma’s arms.
“Oh, Dad. Look at her.”
“Look at you.” Frank pulled his chair up as close as he could to Emma’s bed.
“Doris is fine as a name,” Emma said. “I kinda like it.”
The little dog licked Emma’s face and squirmed about excitedly for a bit and then settled in for a snooze in her arms. Frank had played vigorously with the puppy before bringing her to the hospital, in order to tire her out.
Emma had suffered a dislocated hip during her ordeal. That part of it was something that could be made right again. The rest of it, Frank was less sure about.
He ached at the sight of her slight frame cuddling the puppy. Emma was stronger than she looked. But how could a thirteen-year-old come out unscathed on the other side of a trip to hell? She couldn’t. It was the stuff of lives that turned out like Ivy Srutwa-Grace’s life.
Alison Preston - Norwood Flats 01 - The Rain Barrel Baby Page 17
