A History of Forgetting

by Adderson, Caroline

  Disregarding the presence of the doctor, he reached over and took Denis’ hand. Although he didn’t know it yet, it would be the last time he felt for him an unadulterated pity.

  Denis had always been an elegant dresser. He would spend half of what he made on wine and food, the other half on clothes; what was left they lived on—Malcolm’s share. But now he needed to be told what to do. Getting dressed an abstruse procedure, an enigma of arm and leg holes, of baffling fasteners; he needed Malcolm to pass him each article in the right order with clear instructions on how to get into it and a hand on his shoulder for support. Some mornings he would proudly send Malcolm away, then make his appearance in an ingenious permutation of dress.

  The morning when everything really began to come apart, Malcolm heard Denis moving up and down the hall, opening and closing all the doors. This went on for many minutes, so by the time Denis stumbled upon the kitchen, he was simmering with frustration. Instead of his usual lost, endearing look, he wore a glare—and his undershorts over the top of his trousers, his sweater backwards and inside out, seams showing, the label under his chin, as if he’d been sewn into it and tagged.

  Malcolm laughed. He couldn’t help it. It was his sense of humour, after all, that kept him sane. ‘You look dapper,’ he told Denis.

  ‘Qui-êtes vous?’ Denis replied.

  Malcolm started, though he’d known about this moment years before. You see the pin, you see the balloon and know there will be an explosion, and yet you jump. He opened his mouth to answer; if Denis didn’t recognize him, at least he would know his voice. But his mouth was suddenly too dry, his tongue a desiccated leather tongue out of an old shoe. No words issued forth. Numerous times he swallowed before he was able to whisper his own name.

  ‘Malcolm. The love of your life.’ His voice was quavering with dread.

  ‘Menteur,’ said Denis, backing away. ‘Malcolm!’ he shouted. ‘Malcolm!’

  ‘It’s me! I’m right here!’ But Denis did not believe him. ‘Smell me,’ said Malcolm, coming over.

  Denis retreated to the corner, looking wildly around for a place to run. Malcolm thought they would come to blows again, the way Denis was holding his hands out to protect himself, but Grace heard him and came to his call, yammering hysterically at his feet, distracting him, her sole purpose in their lives. Denis stared down at her a second, which allowed Malcolm to get his wrist under Denis’ nose.

  Denis pushed his hand away. So? said his eyes. ‘You use the same cologne. Malcolm isn’t old. Malcolm n’est pas vieux.’

  He got to the salon and, after hanging up Albert Parker’s camel-hair overcoat, went directly to the mirror. It had been years since he’d really seen himself. Certainly he had looked in the mirror—to shave, to dress; he’d even stood on this very spot and laughed at himself wearing Faye’s glasses, but he had been looking at the glasses. The years he’d been caring for Denis, he’d tried very hard to understand how Denis perceived things, to live the nightmare with him and make it less frightening for them both. But in doing so he’d forgotten about himself, and now it did seem as if a stranger was standing there on the silver side of the glass.

  It must have been going on for years. Half the brown hair had converted. And what the hell had happened to his face? With his fingertips, he propped up the loosened flesh, leaned close to the mirror, fogging it with his breath. On Sunday nights he had used to lie with his head in Denis’ lap, a steaming cloth over his face. Denis would bend and extract with a deft clean-fingered tenderness the dark plugs from Malcolm’s pores. Now Malcolm looked a wreck.

  He went to the back room and found Faye there sorting a heap of clothes into two cardboard boxes. ‘Oh. Hello, Malcolm,’ she said. ‘You’re early.’

  ‘I need you to do a favour for me, Faye.’

  ‘Certainly,’ she said, quietly, without hesitation. Malcolm scanned the cluttered shelves. He handed Faye a box.

  ‘What? You think brunette would suit me better?’ she asked.

  ‘Me. I’m suddenly feeling my age.’

  When she realized what he was asking, she shook her head. ‘I’m used to working on the ladies, but all right.’

  He got himself into a smock, sat at the sink, a plastic daisy field across his front. Faye looked down on him long and hard, elderly from that vantage. Faye, she was old.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ she asked.

  ‘I have no choice really.’

  ‘Malcolm,’ she tsked, ‘you say the strangest things.’

  She turned on the tap, touching his head at the same time as the warm water, so it seemed as if a tremendous warmth was emanating from her hands. He closed his eyes, feeling her stroking fingers wet down his scalp. How could they change her for him, he wondered of his clients. How could they accept a touch less good than this?

  The dye, squeezed out of a bottle, by contrast felt icy cold. ‘All right,’ she said, and he sat up. She blotted his temples with a tissue to stop the staining. That, too, felt comforting. ‘There you go.’ She passed him a hand mirror.

  ‘I can’t say I like it. It’s harsh.’

  ‘Yes,’ Malcolm agreed. ‘It is.’

  A quarter of an hour later, when Mrs. Parker came in for her weekly wash and set, he’d had time to dry his hair. ‘You seem different today,’ she said.

  All morning Faye stayed in the back room. Malcolm did wonder briefly what she was doing, but was too preoccupied worrying whether the dye would appease Denis’ doubts to take a minute to go and ask. He ducked back only to say goodbye before he left for the day.

  ‘Can you stay a minute?’ she asked. ‘I need to talk to you.’

  He sat.

  ‘Have I ever mentioned George to you?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ he said, all at once noticing how dispirited she seemed. She removed her glasses, folded the white arms with a click and set them in her lap. She waved a hand towards one of the boxes. ‘Those are his clothes, if you want them. No, it’s not what you think. All this time I’ve had his things. Just in case he came back for them. I didn’t want to seem a spoilsport.’

  ‘My God, Faye,’ said Malcolm. ‘He must have been mad.’

  ‘You’re sweet. Please take them.’

  Mrs. Parker had started some kind of trend. Faye was the third woman to offer him the clothes of a departed male. ‘What? You want to see me every day dressed up like the rogue?’

  She flushed and could not seem to look at him. ‘How are your finances, Malcolm?’

  The first thing he thought, ever the optimist, ever deluded, was that she was offering him a raise along with her absconded husband’s clothes, something he could certainly have used. He made a joke. ‘I find myself, as usual, teetering on the brink.’

  ‘So you couldn’t buy the place?’

  She lifted her hand out of his and showed him her crooked fingers getting worse. The neighbourhood was turning hip. A buyer, she said, had approached her.

  At that moment Malcolm realized just how happy he’d been there, as happy as was possible, considering the circumstances. He’d dedicated himself to his clients, gazed affectionately into their lined and wobbling faces. He owed so much to them; collectively, they had saved him by saving his pride. Just now, how Mrs. Parker had been thrilled to see him step into the mirror wearing that familiar ascot. He tried to picture them, grey, white and blue, climbing aboard a city bus for the first time in decades, heading out of Kerrisdale in search of the good, old-fashioned wash and set. Impossible. Mrs. Parker rode a scooter, Mrs. Szabo used a walker, a number required canes.

  ‘You can’t abandon them,’ he said, pressing his eyes, teary not only for himself.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said Faye. ‘I’ve put a clause in. You’ll get to rent a chair.’

  All the way home—a daze. He couldn’t quite take it in.

  He even forgot he’d dyed his hair until h
e walked into the apartment and caused Yvette to shriek, ‘Câlisse!’

  She thought someone was breaking in.

  But Denis knew him at once and threw him a radiant smile. ‘Oh, hello, Malcolm! It’s you! Are you angry?’

  Malcolm nearly broke down and wept.

  Perhaps everything would work out after all, for the time being at least. He might have lost Faye, but he had won back Denis. That germ, hope, was infecting him again. The leash was attached to the dog waiting to go out. She stood there with her tongue out. Even she was smiling.

  They would dine at the oddest hours, depending on when Denis was moved to cook—eleven o’clock at night, three o’clock in the morning—but when they sat down to dinner on that night, it was at a perfectly sensible hour, seven o’clock in the evening. Before both of them was a wide-lipped bowl, a slice of French bread fried in butter waiting in it. Denis ladled out the stew. The bread drank it up.

  ‘Bon appétit,’ he said, lifting his spoon to sip.

  Malcolm swirled his wine glass, staring down at the heady, alcoholic broth in the bowl. This had used to be his favourite dish, but lately it tasted more and more like bile. ‘Oh, I know!’ he said. ‘Would you like to hear a joke?’

  Denis leaned forward to listen.

  ‘This old Jewish lady is walking down the street when she sees, on the bench at the bus stop, a man she used to know—a Mr. Epstein. “Mr. Epstein!” she cries out in delight. “It’s me, Mabel Goldberg. I haven’t seen you in years!”’

  Denis frowned.

  ‘“Mabel,” he tells her. “It’s true. I haven’t been around.” “Where have you been?” “To prison,” says Mr. Epstein. “Prison!” cries Mabel. “What did you do?” “I strangled my wife.” “Strangled your wife? Why Mr. Epstein! I guess you’re single.”’

  Every time, Malcom changed the joke a little, just to amuse himself. But Denis wasn’t laughing. He was looking in his bowl, wearing a disgusted expression, as if he’d finally grown sick of everything: the joke, the matelote d’anguille.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Malcolm. ‘Don’t you think it’s funny any more?’

  ‘Non,’ Denis said. ‘I don’t like jokes about Jews.’

  Malcolm was taken aback. ‘A very nice man told me that joke. The son of a client and Jewish himself. He told it in a room probably full of Jews and everyone laughed. No one thought it was offensive in the least.’

  The way Denis pursed his lips, he looked surprisingly ugly for such a beautiful man.

  ‘What?’ asked Malcolm, defensively. ‘I don’t see anything wrong.’

  Denis said, ‘I don’t care for them. Jews.’

  HOW IT GOES

  IN RATLAND

  1

  The new owner—her name was Amanda—called him at home and invited him in a NutraSweet voice to have lunch with her. Malcolm had already met her before they’d closed up Faye’s. She’d brought with her three minions bearing tape measures and paint samples, and not once did she look at or speak to Malcolm. ‘We have a lot to talk about,’ she said now on the phone.

  She named the restaurant—right there on the avenue, conveniently—and the time. Malcolm came a little early, then had to wait twenty minutes for her. When she arrived, it was calmly, without a hint of hurry or apology. She was a tall woman, ageless in her too-taut skin.

  ‘Look,’ she told him as soon as she joined him, ‘there are other salons nearby. Five, actually. I took the trouble to count. At any of them you might fit in better.’

  Already Malcolm’s back was up and he had not even opened the menu. ‘Do you include in that number MagiCuts and Wanda’s House of Beauty?’

  ‘Okay. Four. Wanda’s is okay.’

  ‘As far as I can tell, her clientele is exclusively Cantonese-speaking.’

  ‘Okay, three. Those are only the ones within walking distance. There’s a whole city out there, you know.’

  He didn’t. He rarely sallied forth. The closest he came to adventurousness was to trace his finger along the crest of the North Shore Mountains, as he had used to do as a boy, though now it felt as if he were mimicking his own unstable vital signs on a screen.

  The waitress interrupted to take their order. Malcolm didn’t really care what he ate any more, so long as it wasn’t eel. Amanda ordered the wine. She had a system, he observed: the second most expensive. The only system Malcolm’s budget tolerated was that he choose water.

  He watched Amanda pose before the menu, exquisite nostrils flaring, her adolescent breasts resting pertly on the table. She was a phoney, Malcolm thought, and not only because of cosmetic surgery. As any hairdresser-philosopher knows, beauty has little to do with perfection. A truly beautiful woman acknowledges her flaws, even flaunts them, for they are what make her unique. They grace her character, which is the real seat of beauty. What was Amanda doing with a salon if she didn’t understand something so elementary?

  ‘What is your background?’ he asked, hoping to steer the conversation to personal matters, hoping she might say something that would persuade him to change his mind and like her.

  ‘I have an MBA. Have you gone to see it yet?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The salon. It’s almost finished.’

  ‘Yes, I walk the dog past it every day. You’ve given it quite a facelift.’ Wicked, but she didn’t even flinch. She wasn’t listening. She was only talking, and what she went on to say did change his opinion.

  ‘Your clients won’t like it. You won’t like it. Best if you take them elsewhere, don’t you think?’

  Now he thought she was a fool, as well as a phoney, if she believed for a second that he wanted to stay. He fully intended to look around for another position, once he had got Denis settled somewhere. It was taking longer than expected; every home had a ticker tape waiting list. In the meantime, he just wanted to work in peace.

  The food arrived. He wished she would shut up. On she harped, which only made him dig his heels in. ‘They’re old, my clients. They don’t like change,’ he said. ‘I can’t get them to change their hairstyle, let alone their salon.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn about your clients.’ She stabbed petulantly with her fork at the grilled vegetables on her plate. ‘I don’t want a bunch of old ladies tottering around spoiling the concept.’

  He stiffened in his chair. ‘You’ll be old yourself one day. Sooner than you’d like. Anyway, I believe there’s a clause in the contract.’ She waved it off, so Malcolm said, ‘I’ll have to contact my lawyer.’ It was a bluff. He’d sooner hire a call girl than a lawyer, but Amanda fell for it. She had no imagination. She thought everyone was like her. Amanda would call a lawyer in a snap.

  The bill came on a little William Morris tray. She snatched it up, read it, then tossed it his way. ‘We’ll split it, okay?’

  During the renovations he made house calls. Then, when he saw the place and heard the music that they played, he felt sure none of his clients would come anyway. But their diminished hearing proved to his advantage, as well as the daily confusion over which pair of glasses to wear. The one universal complaint was that they had to change. ‘We didn’t change when it was Faye’s,’ they griped. As for the decor, it offended Malcolm more than it offended them, the outcry over EuroDisney echoing daily in his head. ‘I have become a snob,’ he admitted to himself, no different from the snobs he had been decrying all those years.

  As for his rapport with the other stylists, something had gone grotesquely wrong from the start. Perhaps he had said something to offend them, or maybe they had simply sensed how he felt—that they were flowers of degeneration, that freakishness and mutilation had replaced beauty as a standard. Theirs was a torture-chamber aesthetic. If he hadn’t already ceased to give a damn about the world, he would have shuddered for it. None of this meant he didn’t like them, of course. It was their values he disapproved of, their grammar, and th
eir clothes. As individuals, however, he was actually fond of one or two. Thi, for example, the manager. She charmed everyone and, apart from the silver knuckles of rings on her every finger, didn’t look half so vicious. Even her tattoo he liked, a delicate Celtic interlace around her ankle, as if she had dipped her little foot in the Book of Kells. Jamie had a tattoo, too, and ponytail—a nosegay of bright red curls. He was less a favourite though. He liked to work out, he told Malcolm. ‘Work what out?’ Malcolm had asked, though he only had to look at Jamie’s Popeye forearms to know, his tattoos spiral bracelets of song lyrics. Malcolm, who read compulsively, picked out several alarming phrases about rape and hate. Also: I think I’m dumb . . .Well, he said it first.

  For the first eight months they had a languid, metallic-headed apprentice named Donna. ‘So you lived in Paris,’ she said, snapping gum through her brown lipstick and smirking as if she did not believe it. ‘Attitude’ was Donna’s affliction. It did not hold her back. They made a stylist out of her.

  A new girl came, Alison, who in one hour did what took Donna all day to do. When Alison was seen sitting down on the job, it was because she was on her break. She spent it in the corner, watching everyone work. Over and over that first day Malcolm heard her say, ‘I have so much to learn.’

  From across the street, they looked almost imposing—marble columns rising between the deli and the Shopper’s Drug Mart. Alison had no idea what the Latin meant, or that the stone wasn’t real; she simply marvelled that her placement had brought her to this temple.

  She crossed over then stood a moment looking in; the whole front of the salon between the columns was glass. A beautiful child looked up from behind the desk as Alison entered and asked in an adult voice if she had an appointment.

  ‘I’m the new apprentice,’ Alison told her.

  ‘I forgot it was today!’ She laid a chiding hand against her cheek, her thumb and every finger reinforced with a silver ring. ‘We’ve been unbelievably busy. Come in. Come in.’