Red Jacket

by Mordecai, Pamela;

  Then just so, early one afternoon near the end of November in the looming harsh at the start of her second winter, Grace discover someone to consume all her attention. She meet him when she is in Toronto General Hospital to visit Steph, who, having suffered a serious concussion, fractured three ribs, and broken one hand and one foot while skiing on a gentle slope near Kitchener, has just come out of the operating theatre and, as Grace discover upon attempting to do so, may not yet be visited. Cold air stream through Grace’s teeth in a long steups when she first hear of Steph’s misadventure. Not supposed to happen! Steph is a excellent skier.

  Back downstairs in the lobby for a cup of tea, she find herself beside a nurse chatting to a child in a wheelchair. The child not making no answer. Two large eyes sunk in a high forehead, carved cheekbones, flared nose, and full mouth. It’s a intelligent face, but the eyes seem far away, unfocused, as if the child is hypnotized. His arms and legs are skin on bone. His belly is distended; his hair is red, thin, and brittle. His skin is red. On his battered sweater is a tag saying, “Colin Jones.” He is holding a thick-skinned silver balloon of a sort Grace hate. He hold it tight, but he not looking at it.

  They are all close to the rotating door, so he is likely on his way to Sick Kids Hospital across the road. She know what is wrong with this child. She know that never mind he look like he is eight, more likely he is ten, maybe older. She know it is kwashiorkor that draw down his body, suck the muscles, stiffen and red up the hair, and thin it out: kwashiorkor, a Ghanaian word for malnutrition. The child is starving.

  Grace feel guilty, but when she go back up, she is glad when the nurse in post-op say she can’t yet see Steph, who is still under the effect of the anaesthetic. She decide to go back downstairs and if necessary cross the street to The Hospital for Sick Children to find Colin Jones. In the lobby of Toronto General she check for him near the door, but she see no sign of him. She cross to Sick Kids and ask at the information desk. They are helpful and direct her to the floor where he is, at least for the time being.

  When she get to the floor and approach the nurses’ station, she don’t see anybody, but she spot the child with no trouble, sake of silver balloon. She setting off for his bed, but something make her glance back, and she see a nurse at the station, a dark-haired, young woman who look, maybe Asian, maybe Spanish. Probably Filipina, Grace decide. She go back to the nurses’ station and ask the nurse about Colin’s condition and if she can visit him. The nurse smile and say, “Of course.” Grace never expect the ready agreement, but by the time she reach Colin’s bed, she figure out that since she and Colin are both black — or, more correctly, red — the nurse take her for family.

  Halting at the balloon stoplight, she say, “Hi, Colin.”

  His eyes move, but he don’t answer her. She come closer to the side of the bed, avoiding the pole on which an IV bag is suspended, and she repeat her greeting. He take a long time, but eventually he focus his big eyes, and she see the slightest smile, so she sit down on the straight-back chair, side of his bed. She think she best talk about herself like she relating a story. She tell him her name, where she live, where she come from, what she studying. She describe Wentley Park and Pansy, Stewie, Edgar, Colin, Sammy, Princess, Gramps, Ma, and Pa. Now and then, she pause, leaving a space for him. But he is silent.

  After a few minutes, she feel eyes on her again, like a crawly insect on her neck-back. She glance at the staff station and see the Filipina nurse talking to another, older woman, stout, grey-hair, a pair of glasses at the end of a string riding on a bosom like the prow of a old-time sailing ship.

  “Excuse me.” The older nurse is beside her, pleasant but not smiling.

  “Yes?”

  “I wondered whether you were related to Colin. I don’t mean to be rude, but he has no family we know of.”

  “I’m not family,” Grace say. “I asked for him by name, but I’d just noticed his tag when he was waiting over at Toronto General. I was visiting someone there.”

  “In that case, it’s good of you to spend time with him.” The nurse turn up her mouth-corners and incline her head politely, then pad away to rejoin the younger one.

  Grace decide to read to Colin from one of the books on his bedside table. She read a short Winnie-the-Pooh story, which he seem to enjoy, so she read a longer tale, “The Whale and the Pilot Fish,” from the Just So Stories. When dark descend and streetlights come on, she realize Colin is fast asleep. She put down the book, take up her backpack, walk up to the nurse’s station, and ask about visiting hours.

  “For Colin?” The older nurse inquire. “At any time. Normally it would be at regular times, but having someone would be good for him. He’s not in immediate danger, but he’s pretty sick. Not,” she add hastily, “with anything infectious. He just hasn’t eaten good food for a long time.”

  “I know.” Grace is dry. “He’s starving. It’s called kwashiorkor.”

  Unmoved by her acerbity, the nurse continue. “He was glad you were there. He’s often almost comatose, but sometimes he’s quite aware.”

  Grace nod. “Can I ask how he came to be here?” She have no idea why she asking, nor why she just spend two hours by the child’s bedside.

  “We found him downstairs. He had a scrap of paper pinned on with his name. Neither Children’s Services nor the police have located any family, but it’s early days.”

  “So it will be alright if I come back?”

  “It would be good if you did.”

  Grace look back at Colin. She can feel the prick of the needle at the end of the IV catheter in his thin forearm. She figure the drip is most likely to rehydrate him. He is sleeping soundly, so she say good night to the nurses, and head for the lift.

  Back at the dorm, she is overjoyed to find a letter from Pa that seem to take a unusually long time to reach.

  8 November 1977

  Dear Gracie,

  I hope you are keeping well, for I know it is getting cold where you are. Please make sure you stay warm. Ma say Mrs. Sampson was telling her about some stores where you can buy secondhand clothes. She say that Salvation Army run some, and there are some named Goodwill. That is a nice name. She say you can get good clothes cheap, things like sweaters, coats, hats and scarfs. Also they sell bags and suitcases, glasses and mugs and cutlery, if you should need any of those, as well as books to read for entertainment and plenty other things. You should try to find one of those stores. Money saved is money earned as Gramps always say.

  Here we are going along. There was some ruction in Queenstown with the Chris People’s Party Union last week, and police intervene and shoot one person. Lucky it was not fatal. Their people come down to Wentley Park a while back, but since the Island People’s Union was also down here not long ago, they have to take a poll. I don’t trust them, neither one nor the other. Not to say that a union wouldn’t be a good thing, but we need one that will fight for a better deal for us, not any thiefing Anancy organization.

  This is a early Christmas letter for we want to make certain it arrive in good time. Enclosed is a card where all of us have a word for you. Your Ma made a Christmas pudding, and Mrs. Sampson promise that a friend of hers who is going up to New York for Christmas will mail it to you from there. We hope it will bring you some cheer. Please write or phone Ma at Mrs. Salmon and let us know the number where you are going to be over the Christmas season. We will phone from Mr. Wong. All of us send lots of love and plenty blessings.

  Your Pa

  The following day, after she visit with Steph, who is being her rowdy self, talking about cross country skiing, never mind she wrap up in casts, Grace go up to Colin’s ward with three proper balloons, red, yellow, and green, that she purchase from a Rasta fellow standing outside the hospital. She hurry in, pleased with her purchases, sure that Colin going to be brighter-eyed, more responsive. When she find his bed, closer now to the nurses’ station, he is dead to the world, his ruddy body curled up like a play-dead caterpillar. Today there is another bag on the
IV pole. Grace figure maybe they are feeding him or giving him extra nutrients.

  She tie the balloons to the bed-head, disappointed that he not awake to see them. The silver balloon is still there, but she note with satisfaction that it is creased all over, air steadily seeping out. She sit down. If and when Colin wake up, she going do same as yesterday: talk, read, and sometimes just be quiet. After about fifteen minutes, he stir, open his eyes, and when she say hello, he smile as if he know her.

  “So how you do today?”

  No answer.

  “Tired?” The slightest nod.

  “Want me to read?” Another nod, distinct this time. So, never mind she read it yesterday, she read “The Whale and the Pilot Fish,” her favourite, again. As she come near the end, she hear him say softly, at exactly the right place, “By means of a grating, I’ve cut off your ating.” She look up from the book. Except for a slight tremor, the sort of swift quiver babies and puppies make in their sleep, he is lost to the world.

  When she is home and in bed, Grace rootle around under the blanket till she find a good spot and then read a letter from Gramps that she been saving all day.

  22 November 1977

  Dear Gracie,

  This is a surprise letter, for I know your Pa sent you our card and greetings a while ago. I’ve just come back from choir practice for the Christmas service. They persuaded me to come on board, for the older men are few these days and the young men are lost to our ranks. They flock either to the evangelical churches or the rum bars. I daresay they could do worse! I enjoy it, never mind my voice wavers often, and it prompted me to wonder if you have found some folks to sing with. It is a satisfying way to bond with people, to be in company with them without having to be their friends, unless of course you wish to be. “Birds of a feather don’t need to flock together” your great-grandfather, the Moses after whom your Pa is named, used to say. In this case they are songbirds, so they need only gather to make music, which is reward enough.

  Though it is not your first Christmas in “foreign,” I am very concerned about you at this time when it is hard to be away from family. I want you to know it is not only on your side. Christmas is different because you are not here, not just sake of the touch you give to the sorrel and the pudding that you make so well, but because your wit and good cheer and your thoughtful reading of the Word are absent.

  You know I have been a faithful believer all my life, not necessarily in the ways that the parsons specify, but rather according as I discerned from the Word and figured out from my own fusses with the Lord. I started the struggle with God when as a young man, I found myself fighting a war with men who would spit on me when we all went on home leave, but who counted on me, as I had to count on them, when we were lying stinking in trenches, deaf from the noise of artillery, wrapped about one another so close that it came to the point where you could identify your fellow soldiers by the smell of their farts. We have wrestled, God and I, since that long ago time. There are a great many things I still rail at him for, but over the years it’s probably the fight itself that has convinced me He is there.

  I need to remind you that you will likely feel the need to quarrel with Him now, in your circumstances. Go ahead and quarrel. That is what fathers are for, and the better the father, the freer you can be about your true feelings. The cold and gray of winter are not good for the spirit, and when they are married to the unpleasantness of people, the absence of family, and of the warmth and beauty of this place, the birthday of Jesus might seem like a bad joke. So complain, but at the same time, do your part so Satan won’t have the satisfaction of thiefing the Baby’s birthday! One way to make sure that he doesn’t do that is to find those less fortunate and help them to have a good Christmas. No matter how small your contribution, those who receive it will be cheered and you will gain many times what you give.

  Sorry for the preachment, but old folks get that way as they prepare to meet their Maker. We all send much love and pray Christmas blessings on you.

  Gramps

  Gramps would be pleased to know about Colin. Not that she set out to do any act of charity, for she count herself more than comforted by the child. She will write Gramps about it in her Christmas letter, also Lindsay, who finally send a koala bear postcard saying he is settled in.

  So while Steph looking forward to her release from restraints and busy with plans to drive home to Warsaw, Grace visiting Colin every day, squeezing time from her studies, reading to him, taking him little gifts. He is not better. There are more tubes stuck in him now, and once, for a few days, she never see him at all for he was in the ICU, and since she not family, they wouldn’t let her in. Now she is praying hard, so frantic that she is making a novena, with Steph’s guidance. So much for Edris’s fundamentalist aunt! She don’t know why she feel this burden to make him well, or at any rate do what she can to help him.

  “We’d love you to spend Christmas with us,” Steph is asking Grace to Warsaw for her second Christmas in the cold. “Don’t know why you insist on being here alone when the world is sitting round the fire, partying with family and friends.”

  “Steph, I tell you already, till last year at your house, having never been a girl guide, a cowboy, or a cannibal, I never yet spend time sitting round a fire.”

  “Very funny! Okay. I can’t see why you’d rather stay alone here than be somewhere with people, having some fun.”

  “It’s generous of you to ask me, but I can’t. I have plenty studying to do.”

  “Blah, blah, blah. I know perfectly well why you’re not coming. You’re staying to visit Colin.”

  “I’m not staying to visit him. Not saying I won’t, but I have plenty to keep me busy here.”

  “You is a big woman, my dear.” Steph is learning Chrissie Creole. “Suit yourself. But if you decide you rather sit by the fireplace and watch drifting snow, just jump on the bus to Peterborough, and call me when you reach.”

  Two days before Christmas, a jolly Grace in a Santa cap arrive to visit Colin with a bundle of storybooks from the library and a bunch of red balloons with reindeer on them. She find a empty bed. The buxom old nurse tell her Colin died early that morning. She don’t reply to the nurse’s news, just stand for a minute, then say, “Thanks for letting me know. Bye now. Happy Christmas!”

  She take the elevator down, release the balloons as she step into the cold, pass by the library, slip the books into the return slot, walk over to the dorm, throw some stuff in a bag, and head for the subway.

  She have to steady her voice to talk to Steph, when she call her from the bus station in Toronto. What with Colin’s dying, never mind the novena, the visits, the muttered prayers, it is clear that the Almighty Father is again toying with her. No way is she busing it to Peterborough only to find that plans in the Scott household have changed and they are gone to Tenerife to spend the holiday season in the sun!

  “Hi Steph? It’s me, Grace. If it’s okay, I’m coming down today — in fact, now, on the twelve-thirty bus. Can you please pick me up?”

  Snow-white sheets obliterating every contour leave her wrapped up in her thoughts. What was it with her and this child? In truth he and she resemble, and in truth she long to have kin that favour her, so maybe it was that? Is not because she want a child, but maybe she was thinking it was time to have a man in her life, and as every woman know, the two things is one.

  But none of that is important. Colin was here, didn’t have enough to eat, and died. She not sure what else she could have done, but it hadn’t been enough.

  16

  Grace Joins a Battle

  Grace never figure out what make her write to the white people’s newspaper! Maybe it was Gramps advice to say her say. Maybe she never close the door on Colin tight enough. Maybe she was just blind vex. No matter what, it come like a bad joke that she get herself tied up in affairs right up Lindsay’s street when he was way to the devil on the other side of the world. Lucky she have Steph, or not a doubt that Ma and Pa would be flying t
o Toronto to rescue her from the psych ward.

  2 January 1978

  The Editor,

  The Globe and Mail

  Dear Sir,

  I write concerning an event that took place two days before Christmas: a ten-year-old boy died of kwashiorkor in Toronto General Hospital. Kwashiokor is a starvation disease. I am appalled that in a country so wealthy, a city so fine, a state-run health system that is celebrated as one of the best in the world, anyone, let alone a child, should die for lack of food. Or did he die because he was black? It would be interesting to see the statistics on malnutrition in this city and province, broken down by race.

  Yours sincerely,

  Grace Carpenter

  Next day the newspaper publish a response from a man name Mr. A. King — ha-ha! “Is this the voice of an ungrateful immigrant bleating about healthcare in a country with the best system for delivering it in the world?” Whereupon he proceed to complain about “delinquent immigrant parents” and say is on account of them that the child die.

  4 January 1978

  The Editor,

  The Globe and Mail

  Dear Sir,

  Your reader, Mr. A. King, is mistaken in thinking I am an immigrant. I am a student at the University of Toronto, and I have every intention of returning to my country once I have completed my studies.

  I was raised to live up to my responsibilities in any community of which I find myself a part, however briefly. At this moment, Toronto is that community. What I find enlightening, and frightening, is that there is not a word addressing the issue I raised — one of social welfare — in Mr. King’s response. The community of which I speak is after all, his. I will leave it in due course, while he perforce will stay.