by Heather Burt
“Down in the basement. Sorting through some bits and pieces in the storage room.” She crossed the living room and placed Alastair’s trophy on a shelf. “I thought I’d bring this up here.”
The trophy was a brass “1,” about six inches tall, with a golf-ball-sized hole in it, mounted on a dark wood base. It was ugly and tacky, and Isobel had apparently interrupted her strawberry hulling to retrieve it from the basement.
“It wasn’t in here before,” Clare said.
Isobel stepped back to examine the thing then shifted it slightly to the left. “No, I know. Your father didn’t want it out. He said it was fool’s luck he got it in the first place. But I think it should be displayed, at least for a little while.”
On the new pine shelf, the trophy looked especially ridiculous. The entire room was ridiculous. Clare stood up and shook out her skirt.
Her mother turned to her. “So what have you been up to, pet? Just relaxing?”
“Figuring out what I need to do,” she said vaguely.
“Gordon Bennett, I keep forgetting. You’re away next week. Did you see that message from Marielle? That would be lovely if you could stay at her house.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you think you’ll visit some other parts of France?”
Clare eyed her mother’s denim work slacks. “I suppose.”
“You’ll have to see Paris. Don’t you think? It would be a shame to go all that way and not see Paris.”
She rubbed her fingers across the rough metal shade of the new reading lamp then crossed her arms and clenched her hands. “What difference does it make?”
Isobel frowned only slightly. “I’m not sure what you mean, pet. I was only suggesting it would be a pity not to see Paris, especially with your interest in the arts.”
The clenching spread up Clare’s arms and across her shoulders. But it wasn’t awkwardness. She imagined crossing the room and pulling down the empty pine shelves, sending them sprawling. For an instant she imagined wielding the metal lamp like a sledgehammer and smashing the glass tabletops. To smithereens. She stared down at the plump yellow sofa with sudden vengeance. Then she turned to her mother.
“How did you carry on for all those years as if everything was fine?”
“Carry on? What are you trying to say, Clare?” There was a flash of anger in Isobel’s eyes, and for this Clare was grateful.
“Back in Stanwick. You had your whole life ahead of you. You could’ve done whatever you wanted.”
“I was nineteen. Everyone has their whole—”
“You were dating the apprentice blacksmith. Fucking him.” The word was explosive.
“Clare—”
“Then all of a sudden you were married to a guy who didn’t particularly interest you and playing Susie Homemaker in a dreary suburb! That wasn’t the life you’d imagined for yourself. How did you behave as if it was?”
Isobel marched toward the window, where the chesterfield used to be, then stopped. “Your assumptions aren’t all correct, Clare.” She shook her head. “My life with Alastair was—It was just fine.”
“But it wasn’t ...” Her voice faded. “It wasn’t what you would have chosen.”
Isobel rubbed the back of her left hand. She looked out the window, and for a moment it seemed she had nothing more to say. Then she turned back to Clare.
“It all worked out for the best,” she said.
Outside the window, across the street, a car pulled into the Vantwests’ driveway. Clare looked away.
“I want to find Patrick Locke,” she said.
The decision and the announcement came at the same time, and in the silence that followed, she kept her eyes nervously fixed on her mother.
“It occurred to me you might want to do that,” Isobel finally said. She sat down at one end of the sofa, and Clare knew, in the absence of any word or gesture, that she was being invited to sit as well. But she stayed where she was. “I have no idea where he is, pet,” her mother sighed. “I’d be surprised if he’s still in Stanwick. Like I was saying, he wanted to travel.”
Clearly, Isobel didn’t want her old lover to be tracked down. But her resistance was flimsy. Anything stronger, Clare suspected, would require a venturing into territory that had been deliberately and carefully avoided for so long. I don’t want you to go looking for him because he’s part of a past I’ll never have again. I’m afraid he’ll tell you things about me I’ve never told you myself. I told him I wouldn’t get pregnant; he’d feel betrayed. The kinds of things Clare and her mother never discussed.
Clare shrugged. “I might not find him, but I want to try. I’ll go to Stanwick and ask around.”
“Aunty Jean’s not in Stanwick anymore, you remember. She moved to Aberdeen.”
“I know. I wouldn’t have stayed with her anyway. I’ll find a hotel or something.”
Isobel nodded slowly, a signal that despite the necessary limitations of their conversation, they could at least share an acknowledgment that Aunty Jean was insufferable. “There’s a nice wee bed and breakfast you could try. Your father and I stayed there on our last visit.” Again she rubbed the back of her hand. Then she dropped it to her lap. “He might not be what you’re expecting, Clare. He doesn’t ...” Her voice trailed off.
“I’m not expecting anything. I just want to know who he is. I just ... want to know.”
“Well, pet, I’m not sure what to say. I guess it’s up to you to decide what’s best. You’re an adult now.”
Clare headed for the clothing bench, where she’d left her bag when she came in. At the foot of the stairs she felt her mother’s hand against her back, lightly, barely there.
“I wonder if you’d mind looking someone else up for me while you’re there,” Isobel said. “An old friend I haven’t seen in a long time.”
Clare hoisted her bag to her shoulder. She had no intention of contacting any long-lost friends, but she nodded and started up the stairs.
“That would be really wonderful,” Isobel called after her. “I’m sure you’ll like her. I’ll write and let her know you’re coming.”
At the top of the staircase, she thought about protesting. But as she turned and was confronted by the steep, gaping distance between herself and her mother, a prospect more troubling than that of afternoon tea with one of Isobel’s old school friends kept her silent. It was remarkable, really, that the idea hadn’t come to her earlier, the very moment Isobel revealed the truth of her past. What did she say? I realized I was expecting, and it was like the world had been pulled out from under my feet. Clare stared down at her mother, crouching to pluck some foreign thing from the new carpet.
“You never wanted to be anyone’s mother, did you?” she whispered, and in response Isobel straightened up and disappeared down the hall.
Clare went to her studio. There was so much to do, but she stood in the middle of the room, staring at the loveseat. It was nothing like the new yellow sofa. It was tweedy and beige, a little scruffy. A reject from her father’s store. She’d looked at it every day for as long as she could remember but had scarcely ever noticed it. The fat, upholstered buttons, the stiff skirting. This ugly, unobtrusive piece of furniture was a mystery.
From a tin can container on her bookshelf, she took a pair of scissors and crossed the room. She leaned over her loveseat, staring into its blank button-eyes, clenching the scissors like a dagger. Then she stabbed its dense, beige back, again and again. The glimpses of its insides spurred her on. She opened the scissors, gleamingly sharp, and slashed the length of it, just above the buttons. A ragged, thready wound opened up; dingy foam sprang out. But still she wanted to know more. She ripped and slashed, thrashing through the back of the loveseat until she reached wood and staples and stiff white fabric that looked like a cocoon. She yanked out handfuls of stuffing and flung them behind her, hurled the beige cushions against the studio door. She attacked the arms and the silky, quilted surface that covered the springs. She dug right through to the floor, wher
e she discovered a Red Rose Tea rabbit figurine. It was covered in dust and one ear was chipped. She dropped the scissors and squeezed the tiny rabbit in her hand. Then she slumped on her piano stool and spun, around and around, her breathing shallow and fierce.
JULY 1975
Aunty Jean’s flat is ugly and cold. The rooms have fake fireplaces, but Aunty Jean doesn’t like them to be on because they waste electricity, and because it’s summer. Her tiny bathroom is all pink—the sink, the toilet, the tub, the shaggy bath mat and seat cover, the mildewy tiles, the crocheted cap over the extra toilet roll, and the cracked bars of soap that smell like dead flowers.
When Clare used the toilet the morning after they arrived, the pink paper turned red. At first she was confused. Then she realized what it was. Emma’s warnings came back to her: “It probably won’t happen till you’re twelve, but you better make sure you’ve got your own supplies,” she’d said knowingly. “Your mom’s had an operation, so she doesn’t use that stuff anymore.” Frantically Clare searched Aunty Jean’s cramped bathroom closet and found a box of pads with long, inexplicable tails. They didn’t stay in place, however, and her mother noticed and asked her in an urgent whisper if she needed to take a trip to the chemist. Clare looked at the floor, confused again. On the walk to the drugstore, in the same urgent whisper, Mum asked if she had any pain. Clare said no, for her mother’s odd expression suggested she’d be disappointed, and even angry, if the answer were yes. The lie wasn’t a serious one, and in any case the queer pains she was feeling were easier to bear than the awkwardness of the conversation, which was nothing at all like the cheerful mother-daughter chat in the book Clare had read about periods and babies.
It’s four days later now. The bleeding has almost stopped, and the cramps. But her parents are having a disagreement. They’ve never fought, or even argued, and what they’re doing right now in the kitchen can’t really be called either of those things. Still, it’s uncomfortable. Clare sits in the dark, ugly lounge, rereading her old copy of The Jungle Books and wishing, to her own surprise, that she’d gone with Aunty Jean to the Safeway.
“I just don’t see what the purpose would be,” her mother says. There’s a long silence, then she adds, “We’ve lost touch.”
Another silence, then her father speaks. “What if we see her in the town?”
“We’re away to Paisley on Sunday. We won’t see her.”
“What about him?”
Clare has no idea who they’re talking about. It seems there are people her father wants to see, but her mother doesn’t want to see them. Which is strange. Usually it’s the other way around.
“No.” Mum’s voice is quiet but firm. “That wasn’t the purpose of this holiday. We’re here to see family.”
“Aye.”
“Alastair. He doesn’t even ... It wouldn’t be right.”
“Is it right the other way?”
“I don’t know,” Clare’s mother says, then she mutters something that Clare can’t make out. “And at any rate we’re not likely to find him in Stanwick.”
Despite her mother’s certainty that these strangers won’t be seen, it seems to Clare that they are already in Aunty Jean’s flat, invading the place and demanding that she pay attention to them. In an effort to shut them out, she focuses on her book—the part where Father Wolf discovers Mowgli, the man-cub, outside his cave. Directly in front of him, she reads, holding on by a low branch, stood a naked brown baby who could just walk—as soft and as dimpled a little atom as ever came to a wolf’s cave at night. He looked up into Father Wolf’s face, and laughed. Distractedly she reads the passage again. She still can’t quite believe that the author used the word naked to describe Mowgli, or that her own father would have said the word when he first read her the story. But what strikes her most now is the image of the little boy—the one in her mind, for the book has only crude sketches. Because he’s brown, and because he has no mother, he reminds her suddenly of the boy across the street, back home. As she ponders this, her picture of Mowgli transforms and sharpens. He is older now, and he’s wearing navy blue school uniform shorts and a light blue shirt—much easier to picture than nakedness. Instead of a tree branch, he’s holding a small suitcase. Clare puts herself in the picture, in the place of the wolves. She stares at the boy and stares, until it seems that she’s actually inside him, and that they’ve become the same person, all alone in the jungle.
The disagreement between her parents seems to be over. They’re talking about the trip to Paisley and the teenage cousins that Clare has to meet. Her mother is certain they’ll all get along, because the cousins are girls and like to read, but Clare knows it will be awkward and embarrassing. She crosses the lounge to Aunty Jean’s piano and perches on the stool. For four days, all she has done on the piano stool is spin. Now she faces the keys and studies their precise pattern of black and white. With her right hand she tries them out, first one at a time, then in pairs and threes. Some combinations sound like chandeliers or secret passageways; others are like a traffic jam. There’s a sheet of music in front of her, but the only part of it that makes any sense, though not much, is the title: “Minuet in G.” She scans the notes on the page and plays randomly with her right hand, imagining that she’s following the music.
Some time later, her father comes into the lounge and stands by the window. She doesn’t mind him being there. Unlike Mum, he hasn’t taken to looking at her suspiciously or asking her how she feels. Instead he stands with his hands in the pockets of his grey corduroys and looks out at the stone building across the street. Eventually he turns to the piano and quietly clears his throat.
“Would you fancy learning to play?” he says.
Clare presses her hands between her knees. “How?”
“There’s a lady at the store who teaches. Mrs. Aroutian. You’ve met her.”
Mrs. Aroutian works in the back office. She’s plump and friendly and has a collection of Red Rose Tea animals on her desk.
“I’d take piano lessons from her?”
“Aye. If you fancy it. If it doesn’t suit you, you can stop.”
“We don’t have a piano.”
“That could be arranged.”
Clare spins. She closes her eyes and imagines herself on a stage, in front of an enormous audience. But she can’t see any faces; they’re all in the dark, like at the school Christmas concert. She herself is hidden behind her piano, which is tall, like this one of Aunty Jean’s. The only sign people have that she’s there at all is her music. A kind of music they’ve never heard before. They sit in their rows, silent and invisible, and hope she’ll go on playing forever.
When the piano stool comes to a stop, she’s facing her father. He’s looking out the window, his hands in his pockets.
“Okay,” she says.
Her father winks. “There’s my girl.”
AUGUST 1976
It’s the lull after eleven o’clock Mass, that Sunday-slow time when, church clothes shed, sins forgiven, everything feels lighter. Rudy takes his new library book, Robinson Crusoe, to the living room, where Susie has stretched the hallway telephone cord so that she and her best friend can both listen to the Beach Boys album playing on the record player. Rudy can’t actually read with the music playing. The book is an excuse for him to sit near his sister, listening to the giggles and mysterious codes of her conversation. He sits sideways in the armchair, tapping his bare foot against the shoulder of Grandpa’s crocodile lamp, shipped over after Grandpa went into the old people’s home, and the crocodile teeters back and forth to the beat of “Help Me Rhonda.” In a mood of Sunday lenience, Dad hasn’t complained about the volume of the music. He’s in the trophy room, listening to a baseball game. Aunty Mary is wanting to make lunch, but Adam is in her way.
“Rudy!” she calls from the kitchen. “Come look after your brother.”
Guessing from his aunt’s tone that complaint would be useless, Rudy stifles a whine and goes to the kitchen, where he finds his brother
kneeling on the floor, directing a G.I. Joe action figure up the oven door.
“Come on, Adam,” he commands. “We’re going out.”
Leaving his doll on the floor, Adam bounds ahead of Rudy, through the laundry room to the back door, like a puppy anticipating a walk. A puppy, in Rudy’s opinion, would be better than a brother. At least he’d know what to do with a dog. Out in the backyard, however, the question of what to do with Adam leaves him baffled. Babysitting has always been Susie’s department. She’s good at it, but as Rudy goes through his sister’s repertoire in his mind, he scowls. School and Doctor are boring, and dress-up skits with Mum’s old dresses or Susie’s outgrown ballet costumes are out of the question. He scrutinizes his brother, a wide-eyed imp in yellow shorts and a Cookie Monster T-shirt, and gives up.
“Go play in your pool,” he says, then dashes back to the living room for his book, praying Adam won’t bawl.
He doesn’t. Back on the patio, Rudy installs himself in the long recliner and opens his book while his brother sets out an armada of plastic toys in the inflatable wading pool. Content to be a surveillance officer, he opens Robinson Crusoe to reread what he missed while listening to Susie’s phone conversation. The shipwrecked man has built a fantastic shelter all by himself, but now he’s just sitting around, thinking—boring things about God’s providence. The book is harder than Rudy anticipated when he signed it out. Put off by words like iniquity and repine, he looks up often to watch his brother and eventually abandons the reading altogether.
Out on the lawn, Adam has filled his plastic pail with water from the pool and is walking lopsidedly toward the flower bed, spilling and splashing along the way. “Use the watering can if you wanna water them!” Rudy calls, but Adam ignores him. He sits down next to the stone retaining wall that borders the flower bed and begins scooping dirt into his pail, stirring the sloppy mixture with one hand. He digs far down, eventually burying his entire arm to collect the last handfuls. As he digs and stirs, globs of mud stain his yellow shorts. Rudy imagines the fuss Aunty Mary will make, but as he watches, the temptation to feel the mud flow through his own fingers becomes overwhelming. He leaves his book on the chair and crosses the lawn, spikes of freshly mown grass pricking the soles of his feet.