He stopped in front of the mirror. The damage was centred on his face. He would not have called it a crack. He would have said it was a web. Each of his features caught between the strands, fragmented and at the same time brought together, he looked positively Cubist.
One day years ago Malcolm found himself standing before this mirror after work, blinking and rubbing his eye, then lifting the lid to extract the irritant—a minute particle of hair. His eye stung and he had to purge it with more blinking. He’d never stood so close to that mirror, never noticed that where the glass met the oval frame there was a liquid-looking discoloration, flat and unreflective as molten lead. In the worst of these patches the paint had chipped away entirely, exposing the wood backing and the illusion. Across the whole surface, scattered blemishes like mildew.
The simplest thing would have been to replace the mirror, but Malcolm took it first to a man who restored old furniture, nearby on the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois. He unscrewed the door and carried it down the street, suspecting the whole way that resilvering mirrors might be a dead art, like illuminating manuscripts or painting frescoes. But no, the man laid the door on a bench and with a few tools unfastened the mirror. He stood the glass up between them, its reflecting side facing Malcolm, Malcolm looking at himself. He must have been in his early forties then, a few threads of grey just starting to show at his temples, the different-textured strands, less obedient than the darker, springing up as if feeling for the light.
Before his very eyes, he disappeared. In one stroke, his face was swept away.
Then the man laid the glass flat on the bench and began brushing his hands together. Stuck all over him were scales off the mirror, little scintillant flecks of Malcolm’s reflection.
In the kitchen, Denis was singing as he cooked, ‘Heureuse, comme tout . . . Heureuse, malgré tout . . .’ the heady perfume of garlic and onions wafting through. Blue shards of vase lay scattered at Malcolm’s feet. So the sky was falling, too, he thought.
3
In Paris, he used to work with Denis in the salon they owned and ran together. Now he worked in the morning for a woman named Faye whose salon, Faye’s of Kerrisdale, stood on the avenue between the delicatessen and the Shopper’s Drug Mart. Weeks before he actually walked in and asked for a job, he had noticed Faye’s, marvelled at it even, the plastic flowers and plastic smocks and the sun-faded sign that read WE ALSO STYLE WIGS. It had seemed to Malcolm that this was where he would have been all along had he trained in Canada in the fifties and stayed.
Faye, stationed behind the desk when he first entered, looked up at him through big rose-tinted lenses, listening and nodding as he explained himself and his credentials. After he had finished, she did a curious thing. She reached out both hands to him, as if imploring. She was showing him her rings, loose and sliding back and forth, trapped between her swollen knuckle joints.
‘This is my lucky day. Sometimes I can hardly get my fingers in the scissors. The standing kills me, too. How about working half the day?’
‘Perfect,’ Malcolm said.
She stood and gave him a hobbling tour. ‘Here are the smocks, as you can see. The dryers are there. With experience like yours—Paris of all places!—I guess you’ll want to charge more.’ They had come to the sinks. ‘You have to watch the nozzle on this one. It can shoot off to the side and soak you.’
‘I’ll charge what you charge,’ Malcolm said.
‘You are too good to be true.’
Malcolm had been thinking the same thing about her.
‘Of course, I don’t know if they’ll agree. They’re old, you know, my girls. All of them.’ Faye, Malcolm had guessed, must be nearing seventy herself. ‘They don’t like change. You can’t even get them to change their hairstyle, let alone their hairdresser.’
‘We can give it a try.’
‘We’ll have to push them. Of course, you’re so young, they just might thrill at the attention.’
‘Young?’ He laughed. ‘I’m fifty-six.’
‘Fifty-six! Younger than I thought! How long have you been grey?’
The next morning, Faye was there when he arrived, telling him, ‘Here he is. The answer to my prayers.’ She had come early to unlock and get the coffee things assembled—the right number of mugs on the tray with Taster’s Choice spooned in so Malcolm only had to add the boiling water. She didn’t believe him capable of the task. ‘I’m sure you’ve had a hundred pretty girls making you coffee all your life.’ She scheduled the appointments—everyone seemed to know to phone first thing in the morning—did the accounting from the previous day, then left him on his own until the afternoon.
The clients were old, some of them very. His first, Mrs. Parker, required motorized assistance to keep her out and about. Malcolm was laying his own tools across a folded towel when she arrived, hammering faintly on the glass door with her fist. As he hurried over to open up, she reversed the scooter, then drove it in, the tremendous whirring sound it made amplified indoors.
‘You are he?’ she asked in a voice both sceptical and barely there.
‘I am. And you must be—’
‘—the guinea pig.’
Malcolm, who had to lean down to hear what she said, laughed.
‘She’s made me go first, hasn’t she? I said I’d do it, so long as I wasn’t first. But all she did was schedule me a little later, thinking I wouldn’t notice.’
She pulled off her tam. If he had known her better, Malcolm would have shielded his eyes as a joke. Her hair, besides being flattened by the tam, was the exact shade of an apricot. ‘I have a bone to pick with Faye now,’ she muttered, whirring over to a station.
‘I’ll take you here,’ said Malcolm, referring to where he had his tools already laid out.
Mrs. Parker said, ‘Faye does me here.’
So he simply rolled everything up in the towel and carried it over to Mrs. Parker. ‘Can I give you a hand?’ She took his proffered arm, gripped it tightly. She was, he understood now, as much afraid as cranky.
He swung the chair around for her, but she turned towards the sinks. ‘Please, Mrs. Parker, have a seat.’
‘What?’ she said. ‘Aren’t you going to shampoo me?’
‘Of course, but I thought we’d have a little chat first.’ Still clinging to him, she shuffled round. ‘About what?’
‘Why you, of course.’
‘Me? There’s nothing to say!’
‘Now, now,’ he chided. ‘No modesty, please. We are in a house of vanity.’ He patted the chair back. She laughed then and, letting go of Malcolm to clutch the armrest, dropped herself into the chair.
With her permission, he removed her glasses, then very lightly began to comb out her hair. He was careful not to catch a knot, not to cause her any pain. ‘How long have you been coming here?’
‘Years and years,’ she said. ‘Faye took over as my bridge partner after Albert passed away.’
‘Albert was your husband?’
‘Yes. It was years ago he died.’
‘You miss him just the same, I’m sure.’
She looked at Malcolm in the mirror, but could probably not see him clearly. ‘Oh, I do,’ she said. ‘It never goes away.’
‘You have beautiful bones, Mrs. Parker.’
‘What?’
‘Your bones are your best feature, apart from, of course, your eyes. You were probably aristocratic-looking even as a child.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘As you’re wearing it now, your hair detracts from these assets. We can’t see your lovely jawline for all this . . . fluff. Might we shorten it?’
‘What will Faye say?’
‘She has given me carte blanche, I assure you.’
‘All right, then.’
Next he hinted at changing her colour. ‘Something more subtle, say?’ But he had gone too far. She dug her heels in.
‘I have been this colour for so long, if I changed it now, people would notice.’
He helped her up and over to the sinks, grandly covering her with the plastic smock. She leaned back; he was very nearly cradling her, bird-light, in his arms. When was the last time a man had held her like that? Shampooing, he saw the smile come and go, and come again, dreamily.
As he cut, he drew her out again by asking about Mr. Parker. Her eyes, which were deep brown, each iris haloed by a fine line of smoky blue, began to tear up as she talked. The loneliness would never go, she said, but at least she had Mitzi.
‘Your daughter?’
‘My dog! If my daughter were half as good to me as Mitzi, well, that would be another story.’
At the end of the hour, he felt he had won her over, or at least got back to where he’d been before mistakenly mentioning a change of colour. Mrs. Parker looked a different person. If it were not for the fruity colour, she would have looked chic. Chic!—at what? Eighty? Malcolm, pleased with himself, passed her the hand mirror so she could see herself from all angles as he slowly turned the chair.
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘This is not me at all! I don’t like it! Where’s my tam?’
The entire morning went like that. They told him in shrill, querulous voices as he worked, ‘This isn’t what Faye does!’ Though he managed to get each of them to budge a little, each one despaired of the results. It was not going to work out.
Faye’s greeting the next morning was the same. ‘Here he is, the answer to my prayers. The phone has been ringing off the hook.’
‘Ah,’ he said, crestfallen. ‘Complaints.’
‘They gushed all over Mrs. Parker at the seniors’ centre. She said she hasn’t received a compliment in years. She said to tell you that she feels every inch a member of the aristocracy.’
That was what brought them back: objective praise for what had seemed to them too radical and strange. And Malcolm’s chairside manner, of course, which was impeccable.
Within the month Malcolm was as worried about Faye’s feelings as she had been worried about his. They all wanted him now. ‘You don’t seem to understand,’ Faye reassured him. ‘I’m tired.’
He came to truly enjoy them, his doting ‘girls’ clucking their pains over a mug of Taster’s Choice. As their hairdresser, he couldn’t help but consider them ‘his’. Particularly now that friends were far away and things were so difficult at home, a passionate fondness for them filled him. He had his favourites, a few he cared about especially. Mrs. Parker, the first to be won over, was one of them, and Mrs. Soloff, dignity personified, her white hair floating in a nimbus around her head. Of course, he adored Faye.
He came in one day and, after hearing that he was the answer to Faye’s prayers, swept over on a whim and asked permission to do something he had wanted to do since he’d met her. He reached out and touched the white plastic frames of her glasses with their pink lenses, so outrageous.
‘May I?’
‘Try them on? Of course.’
Gently, he lifted them off her face and slipped them on his own. Turning to the mirror, he let out a cry of mock astonishment, though some of his astonishment was real. Everything did look better through rose-coloured glasses. Faye glowed youthfully. The vat of Barbicide blinded him with its blueness. In the mirror, he saw a pimp, but a healthy one, who might pimp another fifty years.
‘Faye, this explains a lot about you,’ he said, handing the glasses back. ‘I thought you were on Prozac.’
‘Oh, no! I look on the bright side, Malcolm.’
He put a finger on Monday in the appointment book. Mrs. Soloff’s name was at the top—crossed out. ‘Did Mrs. Soloff cancel?’
‘Yes. Her niece called.’
‘She’s not ill, is she?’
‘No. Mr. Soloff passed away.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Malcolm. ‘This is terrible.’
They agreed right then that Malcolm would go next door to the delicatessen, have a gift basket made up and take it over. When his next client came in, if Malcolm wasn’t back, she’d just have to make do with Faye like she used to.
The neighbourhood had a lot of trees. The streets were named after them and lined with them. Full and leafy when Malcolm and Denis had arrived, they were in their February nakedness now, their branches like a network of veins, the clots of once-hidden nests exposed.
Malcolm rang at Mrs. Soloff’s door. Intending only to leave the basket, he turned and was walking back down the steps when a plump woman of about forty answered.
‘Come in,’ she called, beckoning. Malcolm, coming back up the steps, said, ‘Really, I just wanted to leave this.’
‘Come in,’ she said again and, passing her in the doorway, Malcolm brushed against her and smelled the clashing scents of hairspray and perfume.
‘I’m Elaine, the niece. Who are you?’
‘Malcolm. The—’
‘Did I see you at the funeral?’
‘No. I didn’t hear the news until today.’
‘I didn’t think I saw you. I would have remembered.’
There was a slight pause while he looked curiously at her. She beamed back, then set the basket on the hall table and helped him with his coat.
‘It happened on Friday.’
‘The funeral?’
‘The stroke.’
Tiny Mrs. Soloff in the throes of tragedy yet still remembering to get her niece to call her hairdresser and cancel her appointment.
The coat stand was already full, so she laid his overcoat on a pile on an armchair. Malcolm noticed a large picture hanging above the armchair, hidden now under a dark cloth. He could see into both the kitchen and the living room where Mrs. Soloff was sitting by the window. He’d never seen her in black. It contrasted sharply with her hair and made her look very pale, almost powdery, as if an exhalation might blow her away. Other people gathered round, children, too, all of them talking in subdued tones. Louder voices came from the kitchen crowded with women preparing food. He felt like an intruder.
‘He had a good long life, but that doesn’t make it any less sad. You know what a lovely man he was. And what a sense of humour! What he used to say about meeting my aunt? “A skinny girl at the time.”’ Elaine laughed loudly. ‘You know how they met, right?’
‘No,’ said Malcolm.
‘In the camps.’
‘Christ!’ He turned away, pressing his eyes. He’d had no idea. She never talked about herself, only her grandchildren. He thought of all his ridiculous prattle and felt sick.
‘He was a bit of a patron of the arts, too. He had this friend Phil Epstein, his accountant or something, who was always telling my uncle that he was throwing good money away. So my uncle started using this guy’s name for “Philistine”. In our family we’d say, “He’s such a Phil Epstein.” You probably know all this, right?’
‘No,’ said Malcolm. ‘I didn’t know him. My connection is to your aunt.’
A woman came out of the kitchen and said, ‘There you are, Elaine.’ They were mother and daughter, Malcolm could tell. They shared a broad pleasant face and a shade of hair dye.
Elaine introduced him. ‘This is Malcolm.’
‘Hello, Malcolm.’ She took the basket off the hall table. ‘Did you bring this?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s very nice of you. Elaine? Maybe he wants to say something to Auntie Rachel. Maybe he wants a cup of coffee.’
‘I was just going to get you coffee!’ Elaine squealed.
‘Actually, I don’t have the time.’
‘Well, say something to my aunt at least.’ She hooked his arm and led him to the living room where everyone turned to look at him.
‘Malcolm,’ said Mrs. Soloff, lifting her head as far as it would go. ‘You got the message? I’m sorry I couldn’t make it.’
‘I was just telling h
im about Phil Epstein,’ said Elaine and laughter filled the room.
‘Phil sent flowers,’ said Mrs. Soloff.
‘Get out!’ a woman sitting on the carpet said. ‘He isn’t real, is he?’
From the couch, a man began, ‘While we’re on the subject, here’s the last joke Dad told me,’ and everyone turned to listen.
‘This little old lady is walking down the street when who does she meet but this little old man she once knew. “Mr. Epstein!” she cries—’ He paused until the laughter had subsided. ‘“Mr. Epstein! I haven’t seen you in years! Where have you been?” “To tell you the truth,” says Mr. Epstein, “I’ve been in prison.” “Prison!” she exclaims. “What did you do to get yourself in prison?” “To tell you the truth, I killed my wife with an axe.” “Oh, Mr. Epstein,” she says. “So you’re single?”’
The whole room cracked up. A box of tissues circulated. Malcolm took the opportunity to cross the room and take Mrs. Soloff’s small mottled hand. Bending, he whispered, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
‘Thank you, Malcolm. Thank you for coming.’
Elaine followed him back to the door. ‘Sure you don’t want to stay for coffee?’
‘I really can’t. I have to get back to work.’
She tilted her hair to one side and put on a face of unfeigned disappointment. ‘We might meet again?’ she suggested.
‘Yes,’ said Malcolm. ‘We might.’
She smiled, helped him on with his coat, then brushed at something on the arm.
‘What do you do?’
‘I’m a hairdresser.’
Instantly, her face fell. Her smile literally slid away. Flushing, she clapped both hands over her mouth—ten long brick-red nails—and made an alarming noise, half snuffle, half squeal, as she leaned into Malcolm’s chest. Horrified, glancing back to see if Mrs. Soloff saw her niece in his arms, he hissed, ‘What is it?’
‘I’m embarrassed!’
‘Whatever for?’
When she lifted her face, he saw she was trying not to laugh. ‘Oh, God.’ She took a step back and looked him up and down. ‘And I even phoned and left a message for you! That was you, wasn’t it?’
A History of Forgetting Page 3