by Heather Burt
“Dad!” he shouts. “Get Zoë!”
Alec looks down, and as the baby’s arms stretch upward, her eyes fixed on the oven rack, he calls to her.
“Zoë! Don’t touch!”
Zoë’s hands grasp the rack, and the kitchen is shaken by her scream. She topples over and strikes her head on the linoleum. Rudy winces.
Susie cries, “Oh my God!” and shoves past Aunty Mary to get to her wailing daughter. She gathers Zoë in her arms and struggles to open the child’s clenched hands—calmly at first, but as Zoë’s screams become more and more desperate, she snaps. “Dada, what were you thinking? She can’t hear! She’s—Oh God, never mind. Mark! Do something, for God’s sake. Don’t just stand there!”
Mark flounders. Aunty says, “Butter” and goes to the fridge.
Rudy is staring at the far kitchen door, through which his father has just disappeared, silently, unnoticed by the others. Startled back by his aunt’s suggestion, he calls “No!” and heads for the sink. But his brother is way ahead of him. Throwing off the reindeer mitts, Adam crouches next to Susie with a bowl of water, into which he plunges the baby’s hands. Zoë’s screams taper off to sobs.
“Somebody get the bag of peas out of the freezer,” Adam says. “She’s getting a bump on her head.”
Mark gets the peas and drops to his daughter’s level, nudging Adam out of the way. Adam doesn’t seem to mind. He offers to search for some first aid spray in the bathroom.
“Thanks, Addy,” Susie calls after him. “And turn off the damn music, would you? It’s driving me crazy.”
Rudy steps aside to let his brother pass. Dad, he notices, hasn’t reappeared. He knows where he is, of course, and as the commotion in the kitchen dies down he goes there, ambivalently.
From the trophy room, a shaft of lamplight cuts across the dim hallway. The small room is the place that houses Alec Vantwest’s past—the cricket trophies and English literature classics from his days at Trinity College Kandy, the old black and white photos taken at Grandpa’s tea estate, even a wooden tea chest, once used to ship family belongings from Colombo to Montreal. A puzzling room, Rudy thinks, given his father’s aversion to the past, but on the other hand everything in the room is neatly shelved or framed, kept in its place, and it’s possible to imagine that this museum-like containment is a comfort. At the moment, Alec, curator of the trophy room’s artifacts, is sitting in the armchair next to the tea chest reading table, staring at the wall of photographs.
Rudy raises his hand to the half-open door then lowers it. He knows what will happen if he enters the trophy room with words of consolation. His father will rise from the chair and put a hand on his shoulder. He’ll say, “Thank you, son,” all the while looking not directly at Rudy but somewhere just off to the side, as if he were blind, or Rudy were invisible. Then he’ll pour himself a drink, maybe offer Rudy one as well, and go to the bookshelves, where he’ll examine the spines of his books with a show of great interest. And that will be that.
Seeing Aunty and Mark carrying dishes to the dining room, Rudy steps away from the door. He suspects it isn’t sympathy or understanding his father wants—not his, anyway—and with this in mind he returns sullenly to the kitchen to help with the food.
At Christmas lunch he sits next to Mark. Dad has appeared, thankfully, though he had to be called to the table three times. Zoë seems fine. Seated in her high chair, she clutches a wet cloth in her hands and sucks on it. The turkey has been carved, the curries uncovered. The dining room is so cramped and the food so plentiful that the windows of the china cabinet are steamed up. In the living room, Jim Reeves has been replaced by Andy Williams.
“We should have a toast,” says Aunty, last to take her place. “Who would like to do that? Adam?”
Adam nods and raises his glass of rosé. “I’d like to propose a toast to Aunty Mary, for carrying on the old traditions and for keeping our stomachs satisfied over the holidays. Merry Christmas!”
Rudy clinks his glass against Mark’s, while underneath the table his right heel taps and his left hand forms a tight, aimless fist.
“And God bless us all,” Aunty adds. “Now, eat, eat. The food will get cold.”
Rudy drinks down half his glass. As he piles his plate, conversations begin around the table and the useless tension in his arm gradually subsides. He glances at his father and clears his throat.
“So, Dad, I hear Australia’s set to wallop England in the test match.”
“What’s that? Oh, yes.”
“Are you gonna watch?”
“Mmm? No, no.”
“Do you think the English have had it in the cricketing world?”
“I suppose so.”
Rudy catches his aunt’s eye and shrugs. Aunty turns to her brother.
“Alec, you must tell me what you think of the beef. They didn’t have all the proper spices at the supermarket. No mustard seed, only the powder. And no green chilis.”
“I’m sure it’s fine, Mary.”
“Ah, but just fine isn’t good enough. Try it and tell me.”
“It’s delicious. Same as always.”
Suddenly, across the table from Rudy, Adam clinks his fork against his glass.
“I’d like to say something,” he announces, “so that we can all enjoy our lunch more.”
Turning to Dad, he continues. “About Zoë’s accident. Dada, it wasn’t your fault. I think you’re feeling badly about what happened, but no one is blaming you. You didn’t have time to grab her. It was an accident. Right, Susie?”
Susie nods. “Everything’s fine, Dada. Little ones fall and burn themselves all the time.”
Rudy watches his father uneasily. A public announcement isn’t what he’d have wanted. He would feel trapped. But Adam has never understood how to deal with Dad.
His expression unchanged, Alec swallows then sets his fork on his plate. “I appreciate your concern, Adam. But I think the root of the accident was that the child was left unsupervised. She should have been with Susie.”
At this, Susie’s eyes widen. “Dada, I can’t watch her every second! I was helping Aunty with dinner.”
“And besides,” Adam adds, “I was the one watching Zoë. Susie asked me to.”
Rudy stares into his plate, willing his brother to shut up.
“It’s just as I said,” Dad answers. “Zoë should have been with Susie.”
The reply—the particular emphasis on Susie—hangs over the table like the heavy clouds looming outside.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Adam says, his voice level.
Rudy shuts his eyes. If he had his brother’s nerve, he’d speak up. “You know exactly what it means,” he’d say. “You know precisely where this conversation is likely to end up, and you’re going there anyway.” Instead, he listens while Adam carries on.
“I don’t get it, Dad. Are you saying I’m not capable of looking after Zoë? It’s true I wasn’t right with her when the accident happened, but I was holding the turkey for Aunty. I don’t think it was any more my fault than it was yours.”
Here it comes, Rudy thinks. He looks at his father, whose face is now set in an expression of solemn concern.
“I take full responsibility for not intercepting the child sooner, and I apologize to Susie for that.” Dad nods in Susie’s direction. “But we are talking about a handicapped child who needs to be watched at all times, and I am simply suggesting that her mother—or her father—is a better person for that role than a boy who—”
“Alec!” Aunty Mary cuts him off. “Don’t spoil the lunch. You’re feeling upset about Zoë’s accident and you’re blaming everyone else. The thing is over now. Don’t think about it.”
“Who what?” Adam insists.
Rudy catches the faint sound of a skating needle. His father does-n’t answer. What could he say, really? That Zoë shouldn’t be left in the care of a young man who blows off a biology scholarship in order to take up history? That a young man who goes for long motorcy
cle rides with another young man shouldn’t be allowed to babysit? No. Observing the slight tremor in his father’s hands as he runs his fingers along the edge of the table, Rudy detects an uneasiness. Dad would rather call it quits, go back to small talk. But Adam doesn’t see this.
“What’s this really about, Dad? Is it about my babysitting abilities, or the rest of my life?” When Dad fails to answer, he presses stubbornly on. “I know you’re upset about my new plans, but I can’t change them. I know I made the right decision. Biology just wasn’t my thing. It’s not what I’m meant to do.” He pauses. “And if you’re talking about my sexual orientation, that’s not a choice. It’s like Zoë’s deafness.”
The word sexual sends Aunty Mary into a panic. “Adam! Such talk! You and your father are spoiling the lunch. Look—everyone has stopped eating.”
“What have your preferences to do with Zoë?” Dad finally says, frowning.
Adam turns to the high chair, where Zoë is sitting with one hand wrapped in the wet cloth, the other in her mouth. “Being deaf wasn’t a choice for her,” he says, shouts almost. “She was born that way. There’s nothing she or any doctor can do about it. And lots of people in the deaf community say it’s not even a real handicap anyway. It’s the same with me. Should I spend my life trying to change things I can’t change ... that I don’t even want to change?”
While Adam talks on, firing questions that Dad doesn’t answer, Rudy’s eyes dart to his sister. Her chin is puckered. Mark, plucking absently at his beard, doesn’t seem to notice. Certainly Adam doesn’t. If he did, he’d apologize, but he’s too wrapped up in his monologue. Under the table Rudy’s hand once again clenches against his thigh. Nothing has changed. Adam is still the bawling baby in the front seat. And just as it was on that car ride home from the cemetery, his voice is amplified by Dad’s brooding silence.
Finally, Aunty takes charge. “The food is getting cold,” she says. “Adam, you talk about these things later. It’s Christmas lunch and we’re here to enjoy our meal and be kind to each other, isn’t it.”
Adam looks around the table. At the sight of Susie wiping her eyes, he deflates. “Oh crap. I’m sorry. I got carried away. Sue, I didn’t mean to ...”
Susie smiles weakly. “It’s okay. Let’s just eat,” she says, and goes back to feeding Zoë.
Dutifully, Rudy takes a forkful of rice. At the head of the table, Dad reaches for a pappadam. He breaks off a piece and places it on his tongue like a Eucharistic host. “Excellent meal, Mary,” he says. “Just like the old days.” In his voice and posture there is a hint of resignation. The skin under his staring brown eyes is loose and tired.
LATE THAT NIGHT, Rudy finds his sister in the trophy room. The lights are out, and she’s sitting cross-legged in Dad’s chair.
“Are you okay?” he says from the doorway.
“Yeah. Fine. Just thinking.”
“About this afternoon?”
“Sort of.”
“Adam shouldn’t have gone on like that.”
Susie unfolds herself from her lotus position. “It’s okay. What he was saying made perfect sense.”
“Yeah, but ...”
“No, really, Rudy. I’m not upset about anything Adam said.” She comes into the hallway, where she lowers her voice. “He’s been having a rough time with Dada lately. Coming out and everything. He needs our support.”
Rudy nods. “It’s late. I’m gonna hit the couch. I’ll see you in the morning.”
When his sister has disappeared up the stairs, he goes into the trophy room with his diary and turns on the light. He examines the photographs on the wall. His favourite was taken long ago at the summit of Adam’s Peak. It’s a black and white portrait of two young men standing on either side of an ancient bell. One of the men is a tea taster from Grandpa’s estate. The other is Uncle Ernie. He leans in to get a better look at this uncle he has never met, the black sheep who left home and was rarely heard from again. He’s a handsome fellow, more European in appearance than Dad, though the family resemblance is evident. The square jaw has resurfaced in Adam, along with the cheeky smile.
“Maybe a few other things as well,” Rudy muses aloud. “Things that would have made you a real black sheep back then, eh, machan?”
Renée can’t understand that he could have an uncle living somewhere in the world—Sri Lanka probably, though not necessarily—and yet have no particular desire to meet the man. He isn’t entirely sure himself, but it seems to him just as logical to wonder why, apart from the indulgence of a mild curiosity, he would want to meet his uncle.
He sits in the armchair and opens his diary. Glancing out the trophy room window, he thinks of Clare Fraser. Though he can’t actually see the Fraser house from the trophy room, he imagines her at her window, watchful and quietly receptive, just as she was the first time he ever really noticed her, standing under a sprinkler on a deathly hot August day. The opportunity will never arise, he is certain, but if Clare—the solemn, watchful creature behind the glass—were to ask him about his family, he wouldn’t resent it. He would welcome her detached interest.
He dates the page and taps his pen. He writes “Hello, Clare” then pauses, considering the move he has just made. Strange ... silly even. But he carries on:
I’m sitting in my father’s trophy room, looking at the old photos. Uncle Ernie on Adam’s Peak, Susie’s first communion, Grandpa and his cook, the last family gathering on Grandpa’s tea estate before we left for Canada, etc. etc. It was on that visit that I first learned who Ernie was. And so much else, of course. I don’t remember most of the details, just the emotional extremes. How I started off bored and glum like everyone else and ended up ecstatically happy.
He stops writing. It seems he has opened a floodgate, or a vein. The release could fill an entire book, he suspects—all his frustration and guilt spilling onto pages previously devoted to straightforward records of dates and events. For the writing is suddenly different. He has a listener, an intercessor. A calm, detached presence to stand between him and all the confusion in his life. Pleased with the discovery but too tired to write any more, he closes his book, switches off the lamp, and gazes at the scattering of tiny snowflakes dancing outside the trophy room window.
3
BY THE TIME SHE WOKE UP on Good Friday, the morning was almost gone. Sunlight peered around the blind, and the clock, half-hidden behind a half-read copy of the unabridged Clarissa, read eleven-something. Clare stared at the beige expanse of her ceiling and listened to the distant clatter of the dishwasher being unloaded and her moth-er’s heels tapping back and forth across the kitchen floor. Her trip to Vancouver no longer existed. Not in the way these other things did—the beigeness of her room, the numbing familiarity of Isobel’s kitchen noise. The pattern ...
She got out of bed, untwisted her nightgown from around her hips, and raised the blind. It was a brilliant day—snow melting from branches and eaves in sparkling drips, the sky an unbroken blue. She leaned her forehead against the windowpane, and Morgan Hill Road rippled through the streams of water trickling down the glass. The street was empty.
Clare turned from the window and lifted her suitcase onto the bed to finish unpacking. She pulled out the gypsy skirt that she’d worn on her date with the Jazz Studies Director—too hippy-dippy, according to Emma—and the pink, low-cut sweater that Emma had convinced her to buy. Under the sweater, she discovered a slender parcel wrapped in yellow tissue paper. It was tied at either end with gold ribbon, and attached to one of the ribbons was a heart-shaped tag. Clare flipped it over and read: “To be used solo, or maybe with??? P.S. I got one for myself too!”
She yanked one of the ribbons. The thing inside tumbled out, alien and intrusive. Mortifying. It was translucent orange, phallic, attached by a cord to a dial switch. Clare turned it on, and it trembled in her hand. She adjusted the dial, and it writhed about like an exotic eel.
Emma—
What?
Did you actually think I’d use this t
hing?
She turned it off and stuffed it back in its paper. Then she wrapped the whole package in a T-shirt and looked around the room for a place to hide it. Riskier than throwing it out. If she were to be hit by a truck, someone—her mother, no doubt—would have to go through her belongings. But she’d noticed the price of these things in the shop Emma had dragged her to. As a compromise, she went to her closet and slipped the parcel under a pile of sweaters, away from the unaccommodating patterns of her life.
She knew what Emma would say: You’re sick of those patterns, Clare. They’re killing you. You need to change. And her diagnosis would be mostly correct. But not the cure.
Clare shut the closet door and snatched her bath towel from the back of a chair.
In the shower, though, Emma’s gift haunted her, and she found herself locked in her body, inescapably physical: curves and sharp angles; stretches of skin with their particular geography of moles and creases and dark blond fuzz; the necessary back and forth of air; the building up, somewhere inside her, of her next period (useless sacrifice) and of other unspeakable things. She closed her eyes and shampooed her hair, fingers clawing at her scalp, massaging her cerebral existence back to life. But the thoughts that came to her were of her mother’s revelation—Isobel and Alastair in some dark, secret place.
She lathered more vigorously. It wasn’t necessarily like that, she told herself. Then, to Emma, to the intruder back in her closet: I bet it was all planned. My mother probably set the whole thing up, so she could come to Canada. She was desperate to leave Scotland. She tilted her head back under the spray. It makes sense. My father was just like me.