6. Opposite action
Paul Tippett hated hospital visiting. Clara Purdy, talking quickly to persuade him because she saw that it was against his will, had seen that—he must hide his will better. The corridors had been quiet around them in the relief of the evening. The blanket of the dark, or at least the dimmed fluorescent lights.
He pulled a notepad from the paper towers on his desk. Lorraine Gage. Well. Three children, according to Clara. Nothing he’d said had spurred her to the generous action she had taken. Except by opposite action, an effect he believed he often had on people. Not a flattering thought, but worth examining, while not examining Lorraine Gage. If he had said to Clara, “Open your house to these people, you must take Christian action in the world!”—what would she have done? Found a hundred reasons not to. But he had tried to comfort her, to say she was already doing enough…It was not enough. As a running continuo underneath conversation, louder when he was alone, Paul heard his wife’s voice saying things to him, short sentences which were hard to bear. Not enough. Not good enough. Hopeless.
He was having a bad few days, that was all. Poetry could sometimes keep it at bay.
Foolish and ineffectual. Hypocrite. Priest. An example of similar action, he thought. Lisanne told him he was foolish, and he told himself the same. He was, after all, professionally opposed to opposition. He moved the papers cluttering his desk to one side. It was simpler than that, of course. Not opposite, or similar—it was the truth. Clara was right: visiting the hospital sympathetically was not enough. Lisanne was right: he was a fool. Divine Spinoza, forgive me, I have become a fool… Divine Lisanne, forgive me.
He had a sudden flashing memory of their third anniversary party: his sister Binnie, twelve years old, with tears in her eyes, listening as Lisanne mocked him for some failure. “He’s not stupid, you know,” Binnie had called, too loud, from her chair far down the table. Daring to enter the lists for him.
The children, that’s where he’d come un-railed. He made a note at the top of the yellow pad. Three children. The proximity of death makes us remember our own insignificance, that no one will remember us, that we are animate atoms, at most; our lives don’t matter. But the children do. If there are any children. A chicken: an egg’s way of making more eggs.
He was tired, and confused. A woman lives, and then she no longer lives. Easy enough. The part before “and then” is the difficulty, those long days and nights where people stagger in twilight, dying at different lengths, hard or easy. It would not be easy in this case, as he understood from Clara and from his own knowledge. Dear Binnie. If only it was diabetes, or lupus, or something else. She lost the fight. Cancer not being a gentle decline, but a ravaging, an invasion. Phrases from the homily he had given at Binnie’s funeral, because his mother had asked him to, and it was his profession. He did not want to do another funeral homily as long as he lived, and he wanted none at his own funeral. No tea, no baked meats, either. Let them find their own supper, all people who on earth do eat.
He did not want to come to this poor woman carrying the baggage of death. We are not worthy to come to this Thy table, but Thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy. When Binnie shifted, uneasy beneath the sheet, he had seen her naked to the waist, had been unable not to see her. Pearly skin. Not disturbing, it was only death. (“There is no God, no God,” she raged.) Turn it aside. Hopeless. (And in her next breath, “Jesus, Mary, Joseph.”)
He would have to telephone Clara and find out what she knew, at least. Not to put it off any longer, Paul pulled the phone from under a stack of bulletins and found Clara’s number on the parish sheet pinned to the wall. Patchett, Prentice, Purdy.
He dialed and waited, unable to keep himself from hoping that she was not in.
“Hello?” It was a child.
“May I please speak to your—” He paused, at a loss.
“Gran?” A helpful guess from the high voice.
“No, no, I’m sorry. I’d like to speak to Clara Purdy, please.”
“Clary!” The phone clattered down. He could hear the boy bellowing off into the distance. “Clary! There’s a phone for you!”
A moment passed, and Paul heard footsteps towards the phone.
“Hello?”
“This is Paul Tippett. About the woman you asked me to visit?”
“Of course, Paul.” She was distracted, having left Pearce standing in the newly assembled playpen. Paul was silent so long that she wondered if she’d said the wrong thing, if with his over-sensitivity he’d heard her impatience.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was organizing what passes for my thoughts.” He meant her to laugh, so she obliged. “I thought I should get some information from you before I go up to the hospital. The chaplain is away, and I won’t have the usual form. But I thought I should have the children’s names. And any details of her ordinary life would help. Could her mother—?”
“Mrs. Pell is not—” Oh, too much to explain. “She’s not communicative,” Clara said.
“No, I understand, certainly.”
Did he? Clara was tired of talking. She wanted to lie down. She should never have taken this on, it was ridiculous. She had to find some way to get out of it. But that would mean finding Clayton, and that would probably mean charging him with car theft, and then he’d be in jail and the children would have nowhere to go. She was stuck. The clock clicked over to 5:00, bedtime was hours away.
“Will you be in your office for a little while?”
“I’ll be here,” he agreed. No urgency toward his home that she could hear. But maybe that was just professional patience.
Clara found Darlene washing her face in the bathroom, which she seemed to be doing too often. Perhaps it was a phobia, or some kind of obsessive-compulsive—Clara knew nothing. She must read up. In the mirror Darlene’s narrow face looked like a flower, emerging from the green towel, one of the Flower Fairies from childhood books. She must be too old for those.
“Come into my—your bedroom for a moment,” Clara said. But Trevor was lying on the bed on his stomach, colouring with washable markers. How washable were they, exactly?
Darlene led Clara instead to Clayton’s room, where Mrs. Pell glowered in the recliner, watching a soap opera with the earphones plugged in. They sat on the sofa, Darlene taking charge and patting for Clara to sit beside her.
“The priest needs to know a few things about your mother,” Clara said. “So he can talk to her in the hospital. Anything you can think of, really.”
“Okay,” Darlene said.
She seemed older this afternoon than this morning. Clara’s hand went out to smooth back her hair, but she stopped herself, and waited.
“She’s a good skater. She used to clean houses for people when we lived in Trimalo, when my dad was in the mine. It was, like, her own business.”
“That’s hard work,” Clara said.
“She used to take me and Trevor with her when we were babies, she’d take the playpen and sit us in there while she worked. And she would give us a glass of juice from their fridges.”
Clara remembered her own mother taking her along on a visit. She remembered sitting on polished wood in some strange English house, playing with broken toys. A tall girl taking a bite out of an orange, right through the bitter skin—the spray of orange oil misting up as her teeth bit down, and the bright smell breaking into the air. Ages ago.
“What does your mother like, that would make her feel happier?”
“She likes to draw. When we’re driving along she draws pictures of us, or of things we see. She draws us a story.”
“Do you have any of her drawings? Maybe in the things from the car?”
“I don’t have anything that’s hers.” Darlene began to cry, as easily as she might have laughed in another situation. Tears spouted from her eyes and ran down her face, and instead of wiping them she let them fall.
“I know,” Clara said, terribly sorry for her, not knowing what to say or do. “But
you have Trevor, and Pearce, and your granny, and…” She could hardly say Clayton. And she could not bring herself to say that Lorraine would be home soon, or be better soon.
Darlene nodded. No Kleenex nearby—Clara wiped the tears away with her bare fingers.
Mrs. Pell looked up and saw Darlene crying, and made as if to take out her earphones. But the program changed, the ad she liked came on. That cat. She pushed the clicker at it for more volume…more.
Unlike the other mountains around him, Paul’s reluctance toward the hospital seemed possible to conquer. He left the church, grimly glad to have somewhere to go other than home. There was a parking spot by the entrance generous enough for his old Pontiac. It was a sign, he told himself. He shook reluctance off as he got out of the car, literally shaking his shoulders in his concentration. He had to watch that. Lisanne was good for him, she caught him when the tip of his tongue was sticking out, or as he was about to walk into a parking meter, or when his physical actions betrayed his internal struggles. He was lucky to have an objective eye to catch his idiosyncrasies before he made a complete fool of himself.
He could hear the doggish submission in his thoughts, so he shook that off, too. He decided to go without Lisanne today, just for a holiday. The elevator came smartly to his touch, and soared up without stopping. God, he thought. Or bounden duty.
In the afternoon room the woman in the bed looked far away, like a boat drifted off its moorings.
“You’re the priest,” she said. “I thought only Catholics had priests.”
“In the Anglican tradition we are called priests too—we don’t depart as far from the Roman Catholics as some other denominations, although we do not require clergy to be celibate, and there are doctrinal…” Quiet. He needed a quick answer for that question, one that would serve over and over, but he never could think of one.
“Are you a Catholic?” he asked.
“Not me,” she said. “I’m nothing.”
She had a sharpness behind her staring eyes. An ironic understanding of her position, he thought.
“Are you—Nobody—too?”
“That’s in a poem.” Her pointed teeth slid over her bottom lip as her mouth dragged into something approaching a smile.
“Good ear. I’m sorry. I have a bad habit,” he said, bobbing his head like a turtle—he could feel himself doing it. He stopped, and rubbed his ear. “Verse. Too good a memory of that one kind. Not good enough of every other kind.”
“It’s the frog one. We had it in school.”
“Right, the admiring bog.” He advanced into the room. “I’m Paul Tippett, Mrs. Gage,” he said.
“Lorraine,” she said.
He sat in the blue chair at her bedside. “Clara Purdy wanted me to reassure you that your children will be safe with her.”
“And will they be?”
“Yes.”
“Okay then.”
They sat in silence for a minute.
Lorraine said, “Not that I have any choice, anyway.”
He did not think she was self-pitying. That was one of the consolations of hospital visits, the good behaviour of the sick. Weak, to need consoling. It’s proximity, proxy death that appalls. His sister’s face came into his mind so vividly that tears sprang up to the gate of his eyes. Two years after her death, now, he was able to hold them back.
“I don’t know her well,” Paul said, taking himself back to duty. “She is shy, I think. But I know her reputation in the community, and her family is respected.”
“She’s kind of frozen up,” Lorraine said, nodding. “It’s a big deal, her taking them, though. I’d be hooped without her.”
“Well, people seem to like her very much. She’s younger than the way she lives, ‘one foot in her mother’s grave,’ as my warden says. She’s kind, she has energy and intelligence.”
Lorraine lay still.
“Maybe you’ll help her,” Paul said, and felt Lorraine’s withdrawal from the conversation. To suggest her cancer had a mawkish, mysterious-purposes side to it—yammering fool. Priest: the most contemptuous thing his wife could say.
He was silent.
From side to side on the bed, Lorraine turned her head. Looking past the walls to find some answer. Like her head was all she could move.
“May I pray with you?” he asked.
Her eyes fixed on him, her head stalled towards him. “No.”
He waited.
“Yes,” she said. “Pray for my kids.”
He crossed himself. “Father, I commend your daughter Lorraine and her children to your care. Be with her. Give her courage and stamina and have her children in mind always, as she does. Keep them safe and well in the house of your servant Clara Purdy.”
Lorraine was unable to recognize this dream her life had become. She thought, if I am God’s daughter, are my kids God’s grandchildren? She could not stop thinking those words, stupid as they were.
“We ask it in Jesus’s name,” Paul said. “Amen.”
Lorraine’s breath was coming higher in her chest, right under her collarbone, and her whole body felt flooded with heat. Racing, desperate blood, or fury, or some effect of the drugs: she couldn’t tell.
“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll go to sleep, now.” Lying.
Paul touched her arm before he left. His hand was warm as toast.
7. Dolly
Grace and Moreland came in from Davina to inspect the children. Clara’s older cousin, her father’s sister’s daughter, Grace looked in on her from time to time, checking up on her. Davina was only an hour’s drive, close enough to come for errands, if they felt like it. They arrived first thing in the morning, while Clara was clearing up breakfast.
“What are you going to do with three of them?” Grace asked Clara. Unfriendly to this new wrinkle.
“I don’t know! The best I can, I guess. It’s only for—a while.”
“It’s not like volunteering for the Humane Society, taking in a few pups over the Christmas vacation,” Grace said. Moreland was dandling Pearce on his knee as if he had nothing else in the world to do. Which he hadn’t, truth be known, beyond a quick trip to Early’s for a bag of the larger dog chews.
“You must have lost your mind, if you don’t mind me saying so. Beyond the fact that you’ve never had anything to do with kids, you have no idea what these ones are like! Who knows how long you might be saddled with them. Don’t talk about causing the accident, we’re no-fault here, and that’s what insurance is for, anyway, you of all people know that—and where’s the father run away to? You can’t take this on.”
“I like Lorraine, and she’s alone. She needs help.”
Darlene ran through the living room between them. She gave Grace one of her sharp glares, and Grace gave her one right back.
“Are they safe, do you think?”
Clara watched Darlene going around the kitchen corner. Was Trevor still in the back yard? She got up and looked out the dining room window. Peeling bark off the birch.
“I think they’re okay, Grace. Safer here than wherever else they would be right now.”
“I meant safe for you,” Grace said.
“I know what you meant. I’m answering what you should have asked.”
They were silent for a minute. Then Grace laughed, her temper repaired. “You’ve been quiet long enough, maybe you can stand the racket. You were so good with your mom, we’ve been wondering how you’d keep yourself occupied.”
“Well, she’s gone.”
“I know. That’s hard to get used to.”
“Not for me, Grace. She was not herself any more. And really, she couldn’t have got out any easier.” Out through the door to death, that heavy door that sticks on its hinges and doesn’t want to push open. “I’ve got different concerns now,” Clara said.
Trevor raced through this time.
Grace’s look trailed after Trevor. “You sure do,” she said.
“I can see what’s happening to their mother, and I like her, and I’
d like to help her.”
“That’s all it is, then?”
“It’s true, that I’ve wished for—I’ve missed—having children.”
“You’re not old, I’m not saying that.”
“I’m only forty-three! They’re better off with me, and I’m better off with them.”
Grace looked at Moreland, but did not allow her eyes to roll. The baby crawled to Clara across the berber carpet, new eight years ago, still creamy and clean in this spinsterish house.
“What’s the little one’s name?”
“Pearce.”
“Pierce your heart,” said Moreland. “Sweet boy.”
While Grace and Moreland were still there, Clara ran over to the hospital to see Lorraine.
“Your priest came,” Lorraine said. “He had a lot to say about you.”
Clara was wary about that. “Did he?”
“That you’ve been lonely since your mom died.”
“Well, that was two years ago now. I’m not really lonely. I just haven’t wanted to go back to church, to be honest.” Clara sat beside the bed, taking the upright blue chair.
Lorraine was sitting upright herself. She looked very tired, her wide face stretched taut around her nose and eyes, with purplish shadows. Her eyes were staring, a look that Clara knew from other people who were ill, not open to easy comfort. Her legs moved restlessly beneath the yellow sheets.
“He said I should be glad to have you for the kids. So that’s my plan,” Lorraine said abruptly. It was too much. She could hardly bear to speak. Her body was aching, and her head felt like a large glass ball she had been trusted to carry, that she was bound to drop.
“I brought you some soup from my neighbour, Mrs. Zenko, the best cook I know. It’ll do you good,” Clara said. She went to find the microwave down the hall.
Lorraine lay back, not at all wanting soup. She didn’t seem to be able to cry, but she had sometimes found herself sobbing, noise without tears, and she didn’t want to do that in front of Clara. She was tired in her chest and deep in each arm, in a way she found very frightening. Knowing herself to be really sick, knowing it from inside.
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