Remembering the Bones

by Frances Itani

  And now I hear the bell again. I might not be able to stand, I might not be mistress of my own fate, but there’s nothing wrong with my hearing.

  Never send to know for whom the bell tolls…

  There is absolutely no point in bellyaching. Didn’t I teach that to Case?

  Maybe I won’t mind so much, if the bell does toll for me. There’s a bar that is crossed—about minding—though I’m not exactly sure where it is.

  For God’s sake, Georgie. Think of what you just said.

  Well maybe I won’t. I didn’t get to choose the place, but I might get to choose the time.

  I’m turning into a raving woman.

  Maybe she’s been inside you for a long time.

  Maybe she has. Maybe I’m already dead. I’m weary. My skin is numb. There’s a feeling of heaviness inside my chest. I can’t feel my feet. I remember now, falling in and out of a dream in which I saw my own heart, my own mitral valve. It lay above a mess of carrot tops in a garden gone wild. When I woke, I had a moment’s disappointment at finding myself sealed inside my own skin.

  Who dreams of seeing their own mitral valve?

  Someone who grew up reading Gray’s, that’s who.

  The crow comes and goes as it pleases now; my presence doesn’t bother it one bit. It flew low over my head and stared into my squinted face with its beautiful dark eye.

  A crackling sound again, and this one’s nearby.

  Come closer. Please. Is someone there?

  Don’t then.

  If you don’t want to show yourself, then bugger off!

  My God, what’s come over me? Would Lilibet tell a living creature to bugger off? Not someone who owns all those corgis and dorgis, with their pert little fox heads. But she’s had her problems. Her annus horribilis was more than a decade ago. Think of the ups and downs with Diana. And I felt sorry for her when I saw her priceless paintings as they were carried out of Windsor Castle, rescued from the fire. She was sturdy in her boots as she tromped around the grounds in the midst of bedlam, looking as if she’d come from good country stock.

  Still, somehow I can’t see her breaking into a fierce yell. Does she swear? Does she shout at Philip, or at Charles and Camilla? Before the car accident, did she yell at Lady Di?

  My own annus horribilis happened long before that. It’s been with me all of my adult life. Any bad thing that happened rattled against it like new memory whipping up old.

  Whatever was moving has vanished, but I wish it would come back. There’s only so much a person can take. I don’t mean the crow; the crow flaps overhead, alone again.

  One morning I looked up a word while I was doing my crossword, and opened the Oxford dictionary to a page where two words in bold print leapt off the upper corner: bugger off. I was so surprised, I checked the entry, which also defined bugger all. Gordo, Harry’s lost-and-found brother, used to say, as he stood at the window looking out at the chokecherry, “Sweet bugger all.”

  Well Gordo’s alive and I’m alone and Harry’s dead, and that’s all there is to it.

  Sweet bugger all.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Look where I am. I should be encouraged, but all I can manage is a desperate fatigue. Still, I’m in the open. I see the railing up there, the edge of layered rock—black-tipped like the wings of the snow geese. I see snapped trees hanging upside down, old vines that droop and swing. If anyone looks over the railing, I’ll be seen. Maybe Pete and his yellow dog will come down the path after all.

  Alleluia!

  If someone is listening, please take away this chill wind that has begun to roll along the ground. Take it away before I lose my train of thought. The wind enters my left ear and shrills inside my head. That bothers me more than the pain in my arm and leg.

  Do your ears hang low?

  Do they wobble to and fro?

  Uncle Fred sang to his sons, and to Ally and me. He sang to Aunt Fred. He laughed at himself, never took himself too seriously.

  Something distracting hovers at the outer edge of memory. Something I can’t quite place. My thoughts are slurring. I must relate the things I know. I must think of Case. If only I had the chance to tell her what I know.

  She’s creating her own stories. She has her own life.

  Still, I know the bones. I have longevity in my own. Grand Dan lived to ninety-five, and everyone who knew her still mourns her passing. Aunt Fred lived to ninety-one—even after all the handwashing. You’d think she’d have washed herself away. Phil will be a hundred and four in October. Does she manage to look forward more than she looks back?

  I’ll celebrate with her at the Haven on her birthday this year, or anywhere she and Tall Ronnie would like to be. Maybe Case and I can bring her to the house to watch a string of old Mario Lanza movies, or to the theatre, or a fancy restaurant. We’ll take her wherever she wants to go. We’ll borrow a wheelchair from the Haven and I’ll help her into it and push her in any direction she points. The leaves will be blazing because it will be fall. Red will slip down over the giant maples like a sheath. We’ll look at the glorious sight and sigh a collective sigh and give thanks for the unasked-for beauty.

  I must hire someone to clean out the eaves in the fall. They haven’t been done since Harry died. He climbed down the ladder every October and announced, “The runnels are clean.” His cheeks were rough and reddened. He wore gardening gloves with wide flat fingers, the ones I bought at Home Hardware, so he wouldn’t cut his hands on rusting metal.

  Eaves and sheaves, same season.

  We shall come rejoicing

  Bringing in the sheaves

  How difficult to sing when only a pale rasp comes out. Or maybe I was singing in my head.

  Verna and Arman danced to that, too. They did an improvised foxtrot. And here’s a leaf now, its rounded contours wafting down. Last year’s dried leaf ousted by a new one, unfurled.

  Verna told me that since “Ourman” stopped being a travelling salesman, he sits across from her in the evening and says, as if he’s still behind the wheel, driving through the landscape of their living room, “I’m entering your head, Verna. I’m coming into your thoughts. Make room for me.”

  She laughs like a schoolgirl and so do I when she phones. I miss her largeness, her ample body spilling over the edges of my kitchen chair, her generous spirit, her adopted Russian voice—they’re all a comfort. When I get out of this ravine I’ll phone and invite her and Arman to come and stay with me a while. I haven’t seen them for months.

  And Ally makes me laugh. She wants me to come to Boca Raton. My beloved sister, she’ll never stop asking—and it’s good to be wanted. Maybe I’ll go after all. Take up my duties at the villa, at last. Shake out the linen and set the table with Grand Dan’s fine old silver.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Have I slept? I feel as if a ‘weight has been implanted in my side.

  I ‘wonder if my body has left tracks ‘where I’ve dragged myself, like the wake of a ship, earth parting.

  You’ve had plenty of chance to lay down tracks.

  I don’t want followers. I don’t mean that. I’ve tried not to be trapped in repetitive furrows of my own.

  Who are you to escape life’s patterns?

  My limbs are swollen, so tender, it’s hard to think of a reply. Admittedly, I dare not add up the hours and days I sat at my kitchen table and stared into space after Matt, and then, years later, after Harry died. Grief does that. It can’t be warded off. It strikes like a steel arrow embedded in the bowels. One that can never be removed.

  I did stare into space, yes, but that didn’t add up to my whole life. After Harry died, I kept thinking about how I’d never become anything. The thought is still lodged in my head, a bone stuck crosswise in a shallow pit. Harry was a jeweller, a good one; everyone said so. Case owns a theatre; she has taken charge of her life and I am so proud of her. Rice is a musician; he makes my daughter happy and I love him for that. Ally is a painter and has a gallery called Snow. Trick looks after the villa. P
hil was a seamstress. Grand Dan a midwife. Lilibet got to be Queen. The Pope has a job—he hasn’t been in it that long. Verna and Arman will run the craft shop until they drop. Only Gordo stands at the window, staring out. But even he was a draftsman, before he retired.

  And what contribution have I made? What is a life worth? I might as well ask. Have I learned anything?

  Reciter of bones, lover of poems—memory has always been my long suit. Shelver of books. I once drew better-than-average lungs and a superior vena cava. A drawing that wasn’t mailed. I created checkerboard sandwiches for family gatherings. I was daughter to Phil and Mr. Holmes, granddaughter to Grand Dan and my unmet grandfather, wife of Harry, mother of Case, my child, and for a short time, little Matt.

  That is a good and worthy occupation. Raising a child.

  And losing one? Did I wrap him too tightly? Did the blanket cover his face? Oh, I’ll never get over it. Every detail of his little body lies cold behind my eyes.

  What’s done cannot be undone.

  I threw the glass-leafed tree. I flung it against the wall and was glad it flew from my palm.

  But you raised Case; look at the bright and compassionate woman she has become; you raised her well.

  Then why is that period—the one when I was caring for her—why are those years so blurred when I try to recall? Events clump together; I can’t single them out.

  Maybe that’s when you were busiest. Did you think of that?

  I did not. But I loved those years. I feel a heavy weight of joy and sadness when I think of them. Joy because I lived them. Sadness because they’re gone.

  I have the right to stay alive, don’t I? Don’t I qualify? I tried not to throw my time away. What was I supposed to do with it?

  I made good scalloped potatoes.

  Don’t depress yourself, Georgie. Think of the people who were nourished by those potatoes.

  Maybe I didn’t have enough determination. It’s possible I attended to the wrong things. Think of Lilibet. After the abdication, after her father’s death, her work was cut out for her. She was thrown into the arena, whether she wanted the job or not. But the job was already there; she didn’t have to decide.

  You could have been a doctor, like your Grandfather Danforth.

  Don’t taunt me. There was no money for medical school. I met Harry and became a wife. And being Harry’s wife was, in its own way—it was at the time—a job. Until Case and Matt were born. And then the job became bigger, somehow. More important. But what was the job about? I need to tell myself.

  I taught Case to love language; I chanted nursery rhymes; I sang, explained words, encouraged her to walk, try, run. And there were diapers strung on the line, rompers to smock, Harry’s cuffs and collars to starch, tea towels to fold, Sunday roasts to cook, cheese biscuits to bake, layer cakes to cool on racks, school concerts to attend. Someone had to do those things.

  Oh, stop. I amount to my own story. I am what I am.

  I have to stretch my body. I must have dozed. I’m dim-witted. I dreamed I reached out a hand and touched something soft. I’m losing my marbles. Mistress of sequential disarray. An unnamed beast came into my dream and began to ravage the room I was in. Shelves were knocked over. The tree fell; its glass leaves, its silk limbs lay on the floor. The beast could not be stopped.

  I looked into the dark eye of the crow.

  Death, you invade me. If I had any energy left at all, I’d tell you to put up your dukes.

  Does the body give up all at once? Does it happen quickly? Maybe I really won’t mind. I’ve never felt old inside, but the joints get stiffer, the bones do age. What is this I’m touching? Orange paper that isn’t very orange any more, collapsed into dampness like something rotting. But something I can pull towards me. I’ve reached the lump, the package that rolled from the car when the door was sprung. Case’s gift. She placed it on the passenger seat when she came up the hill to say goodbye. With my one good hand I can pull the paper away and see what’s inside.

  A shawl. A new one to replace Grand Dan’s, which I’ve worn to a thread. I wasn’t to open the gift until I was on the plane. It’s indigo, thick and soft, will match the pale blue of my dress to perfection. Case, you wanted me to wear this to the palace. And here’s your note on cardboard, buried in the folds of cloth, nothing fancy, done in a hurry—you’re always in a hurry. You’ll have to learn to slow down. I don’t need my glasses to read this; it’s bold, printed in black felt-tip: DEAREST MOM—YOU CAN PULL THIS OVER YOUR HEAD WHILE YOU’RE HOLDING THE PLANE UP OVER THE OCEAN. GIVE MY LOVE TO THE QUEEN. XXX CASE

  Oh, my darling daughter. I can’t keep from crying. I’ve got the dry heaves. It’s the best gift I’ve ever received. I can pull it over my head, keep the wind from shrilling in my ear. Structure determines function, Grandfather. You’d appreciate that.

  Start strumming, Django, something about the day is done. I’ll hear you, even with my ears covered. Can you feel the rhythm of my heartbeat, Matt? Oh, my loves, Case and Matt and Harry and Ally and Grand Dan and Phil. How we’ve cared for one another—in life and in death. And Rice and Trick and Mr. Holmes. Aunt and Uncle Fred. Verna and Ourman. Gordo and Tall Ronnie. The Carrot Man, Miss Grinfeld, Anonymous-she. It’s easy to love everyone when you’re on the way out.

  What if Harry isn’t there? What if Anonymous-she has arrived before me? I tried not to bear a grudge. I tried to make use of my chances, though I’ve squandered some. I did my best not to lie to myself, not to be ignorant in matters great and small.

  I’ve missed my chance to meet Lilibet in person, though she did wave from the back seat of her limo. I hear my rescuers now. Haven’t they been there all along—stick figures up above? Mouths moving as if they’re shouting, arms waving over the railing. Figuring out the best way to get a stretcher down the path.

  I can go, now. I know my skeleton won’t rot in the ravine. Are you listening, God? I can’t alter my compass. There’s no use bluffing. I’m still not sure. I’ve had my life and it’s been a privilege. It’s a miracle anyone gets through.

  Move over, Harry.

  Case, my darling, don’t be sad. Care for the people you love. Take back the shawl, pull it over your head when you…

  P.S.

  Ideas, interviews & features

  About the author

  Author Biography

  FRANCES ITANI, Canadian novelist, poet and essayist, was born in Belleville, Ontario, and from age four grew up in a village in Quebec. A member of the Order of Canada, she has a B.A. in psychology and English from the University of Alberta and an M.A. in English literature from the University of New Brunswick. She studied with the late W. O. Mitchell and with Rudy Wiebe. Before becoming a writer, she pursued nursing at Montreal General Hospital, with graduate courses at Duke University and a year of graduate studies at McGill University. She practised and taught nursing for eight years.

  Itani has written eleven books, including the novel Deafening, which won the 2004 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book (Canada and Caribbean region) and was shortlisted for the 2005 IMPAC Dublin International Literary Award and the 2005 William Saroyan International Prize. Deafening also won the 2003 Drummer General’s Award and the 2007 Kingston Reads Award, and was named 2004–05 College Book of the Year by Grant MacEwan College (Edmonton). It was chosen for CBC’s “2006 Canada Reads” as well as for Radio-Canada’s “2006 Combat des Livres.” In 2004, it was shortlisted by the Canadian Booksellers Association for Book of the Year, and Itani was shortlisted for Author of the Year. Translated and sold in seventeen countries, Deafening has been optioned for film by the producer of The Shawshank Redemption. Remembering the Bones was shortlisted for the 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book (Canada and Caribbean region). It has been published in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, and is forthcoming in Germany.

  Itani’s collection of stories Poached Egg on Toast won the 2005 Ottawa Book Award for fiction and the CAA Jubilee Award for Best Book of Short Stories. A
novel in ten stories, Leaning, Leaning Over Water was published in Canada and the United Kingdom—where it was chosen for The Times Book Group—and is forthcoming in Germany. Other story collections by Itani include Man Without Face, which won the 1995 Ottawa–Carleton Fiction Award, Truth or Lies and Pack Ice. Itani has published three books of poetry, illustrated by Molly Bobak and Shizuye Takashima, and a children’s book, Linger by the Sea, also illustrated by Bobak.

  She is a three-time winner of the CBC Literary Award and was awarded the Annual Contributor’s Prize for Best Short Story in Canadian Fiction Magazine. She has written for journals and newspapers across North America. Itani is a member of PEN International, The Writers’ Union of Canada and Access Copyright Canada. Her literary papers are held by the Literary Manuscripts Division of Library and Archives Canada.

  Frances Itani lives in Ottawa and reviews for The Washington Post. She is currently at work on her next novel.

  About the book

  An Interview with Frances Itani

  Twelve years prior to writing Remembering the Bones, you began collecting newspaper clippings about car accidents in which people had been injured and had fallen into ravines. What was it about this scenario that intrigued you?

  “I was interested in a person’s will to survive…”

  At first I thought I would create a short story about a woman who loses control of her car and drives over the edge of a cliff. After that, I had thoughts about writing a play. Finally, I began to see that this could be a novel. I was interested in a person’s will to survive, the measures one might take and the highs and lows one might experience while desperately trying to stay alive. I wanted to create a person’s mind and memory under such conditions, and I became interested in the challenges of writing an entire novel while staying in the head of one character, in this instance, seventy-nine-year-old Georgie.