Even with Alec and Matt and Alicia in the house, Suzy, just before leaving for the airport, began to waver.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” She was looking down at Sacha nestling happily in Alicia’s arms.
“Yes, dear,” Alec assured her. “It’s a very good idea.”
“But Sacha is not used to being without me, do you really think it’s wise...”
“Yes, dear, it is wise.”
“But...?”
“Go!”
“Are you quite sure?”
“Go! Go, darling,” he repeated more gently. “We’ll all be here when you get back. Promise,” he added, when she’d again opened her mouth.
And so she went. She took a taxi. Matt offered to take her, but Alec refused to abuse his generosity. After all, he was paid to be his nurse. Period. Not a general factotum. The man was incorrigibly helpful.
“You did that rather well,” his mother commented. “Your father had exactly the same problem with me, when you were Sacha’s age. Funny how history repeats itself.”
There have been minutes, sometimes hours, when Alec felt life in his lower limbs. He would feel a prickle and a tingle, like blood returning to legs that had fallen asleep. The next moment, as he was ready to get up, he would fall over the side of the wheelchair. On one occasion Matt saved him from falling down the stairs. Stupidly, he’d decided he could make it.
At times, he was ready to give up. Not just physically but mentally as well. He wouldn’t tell Suzy but his reputation at Caltech had probably suffered permanent damage. Somehow the diagnosis that he was physically OK had leaked out. The sophomores began referring to him as Dr. Alexandra, the Histeron Prosteron. A sort of reversal of logic, and erroneously implying hysterical connotations. Not kind.
But he could cope with that. He too had been cruel to his lecturers in his sophomore days. What was harder to take was his relationship with Sacha. Whatever ‘inner’ abilities he’d once had were gone. What was the point of being able to play with Sacha ‘at a distance’, when he had absolutely no recollection of it? At least his paralysis seemed to affect only the lower part of his body. It didn’t affect his lungs or his heart. It was as though he was not allowed to walk. To move forward. As if he was forced to keep still.
Behind the stillness anger stirred, churned, and grew even as a volcano churns and boils before an eruption. He drew on his reserves of will power to contain the storm brewing inside him. For his own sake as well as his family.
Suzy returned from Canada a new woman. Had she been a soprano, she would’ve made Verdi proud with a joyful “Ritorno vincita!” Luckily, Suzy couldn’t, or at the very least wouldn’t, sing a note. A single week in Kingston had achieved a number of positive results. It cured her longing for Canada. How? On her arrival it took her three-and-a-half hours to get home from the airport in Ottawa. The snowplows just couldn’t cope with the exuberant white stuff.
“It hasn’t snowed at all this winter,” her father had said, on taking her in his arms. “It all came down just for you!”
She could have done without it. The snow, not the hug.
The next day it snowed again. In spite of it all, she went for a walk, but after an hour decided that California wasn’t such a bad place to spend winters in. Skiing was all right, as was skating, but not the slush. She’d spent the next few days being pampered by Joan and John, to within an inch of her life. She wasn’t allowed to do anything. No cooking, no washing up, no clearing the table.
“That’s not what you are here for,” her mother assured her. Joan was radiant at having her daughter back, even for just a few days. “When I was having your brothers, I dreamt of such a week. Even a few days. Now that you have them, I can enjoy them almost as much, vicariously.”
“Wasn’t I any trouble at all?” she asked, almost hurt.
“You were never any trouble,” Joan said. “At least, not while you were little...”
Suzy preferred not to ask what trouble she’d caused in her later years.
“But it all ended just right, didn’t it darling?”
“Better than you can imagine,” Suzy agreed. Suzy was certain that mother was referring to Alec who’d made an honest woman of her. And she smiled at her thoughts. And then, thinking of Sacha, she added: “did he ever...”
They’d arrived in LA on the 23rd of December, a little after four in the afternoon. The day was sunny, bright, and even the smog decided not to interfere with the family reunion. This time Matt drove the car, with Alicia holding on to Sacha. She didn’t believe in the new intricate car seats required by law. This was the first time Sacha experienced the expressways of California. They say that if you survive the expressways in LA, you’ll survive anything.
Upon Suzy’s return, Desmond McBride joined them most days. He would come for a meal, a drink, or just for a chat. Alec suspected that he ‘had the sweets’, as his dad would have said, for his mother. It felt funny, thinking about dad in this context. At any rate, the Professor ‘chatted up’ his mother, offering to show her the hot-spots of LA, praising her only son, claiming that he had already practically adopted him, and that thus they already had a great deal in common. Yet all this apparent wooing was done with a great deal of humour tempered by his considerable innate reserve. Desmond was also painfully aware of the difference in their ages. Alicia was a good twenty years his junior.
“But one can dream, can’t one?” his eyes seemed to be saying.
Alec decided to help his old friend.
“If it wasn’t for Dr. McBride, Mother, I’d still be an unemployed Phee’d in Montreal,” he said loud enough for all to hear.
“An unemployed what...?”
“That’s what Suzy calls Ph.D.,” he explained.
With his sparkling sense of humour in evidence, Desmond became even more a man of charm. Also, he was so different from Alicia’s late husband that it could never be a question that the Professor might fill the void left by Alec’s father. It was a completely different attraction. It was as though the Professor had performed a balancing act, completing an aspect in her that she was never aware of. He was his own man, knowing precisely what he wanted from life, living his life to the fullest; living it in the present. He didn’t really make plans, at least not for himself. He helped others make theirs, especially ‘the young ’uns’, but his own self-appointed function was to live and let live, and to hell with tomorrow. In this respect, he was probably younger than any one of them.
As for Alec, the Professor had not mentioned his condition even once. He treated Alec as though nothing had changed. When he first saw Alec in a wheelchair, he’d looked up from the papers on his desk and remarked: “Been skiing again, lad?” And that was that. He knew the truth of course. But he chose to keep quiet. At least until asked.
And then, came Christmas.
With Sacha as the centerpiece, particularly when he was awake, the atmosphere couldn’t have been more different than the last holidays they’d shared in Montreal. Although Sacha spent the majority of his time in the ‘jungle’, each one of them would, in turn, call for absolute hush, open the door to Sacha’s verdant domain, and tiptoe in to steal a peek at the sleeping boy. Sacha didn’t seem to mind all this adulation. He slept and ate, and smiled, and once or twice even burst into his famous concerto grosso without any instrumental accompaniment, or, for that matter, without sharing the limelight with any other soloists. The joy emanating from his throat had quite a different effect when limited to five or even ten minutes, than when conducted at length, in the middle of the night. But those nights, gratefully, were over.
Suzy, now fully recovered, slept like a log. She woke up each day looking bright, happy and relaxed. She even seemed to be getting used to seeing Alec in a wheelchair. And if not, she was doing a darn good job at pretending.
And it was mostly thanks to her, that in spite of Alec’s conditions, it was by far the best Christmas they recalled ever having. And they didn’t even miss the snow, though a few fl
akes wouldn’t have done any harm. The Christmas tree dominated the livingroom, the candles on it were real, with real wicks smelling awfully when extinguished. But this was part of Christmas—even as were children. And a single child among them made children of them all. They laughed without any apparent reason, all their memories seemed to be pleasant ones; they had no cares that would interfere with the joyful holiday.
It was two days after Boxing Day. Suzy took Alec to one side. She looked baffled.
“What is it, Sue?” There was also a look of concern on her face.
“I don’t quite know how to put it,” she started, and then seemed to change her mind. “Oh, it’s nothing, I’m sure.”
Alec was ready to drop it, but she held him back.
“No, it wasn’t. Only it doesn’t make sense.”
“Just tell me what it is?” Soon the Normans and Alicia would be around and their privacy would be lost.
She looked him straight in the eye. “I talked with Sacha,” she said, her eyes daring him to contradict her.
“Darling, I talk to him all the time,” he smiled his understanding. This wasn’t like Suzy. She didn’t normally make mountains out of molehills.
“I didn’t say to him,” she stressed. “I said with him.”
Alec got it. He remembered the universe hidden in Sacha’s eyes when he’d first been alone with him. This experience was never repeated. It had been a once in a lifetime event. Even then he had thought himself lucky.
“You talked with him,” he repeated slowly. What was there to say? Then he added: “Do you remember what... what he said?”
“Yes. He told me to be away from LA next week.”
During breakfast Desmond made a proposal none of them could refuse.
“I have this wee cottage by the sea,” he said, almost as if he was musing to himself. “She’s standing therre all by herrself, furrlon and lonely.”
No one said anything, wondering where the Professor was heading.
“Last week I drrove there, and told Marria to fix up the place, in case anyone wanted to inhale some salty airr. Therre arre thrree bedrrooms, and if Alec and Suzy agrree to take Sacha into theirrs, we could all fit in ratherr nicely,” he continued to muse aloud. He didn’t mention Matt.
“Why, Professor,” Alicia looked at Desmond, her eyebrows arching. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”
“It neverr crrossed my mind, Mrs. Baldwin. I’d sleep in the salon, of courrse!”
The Professor looked really shocked. But the twinkle in his eye said something else altogether. There was a slight problem with this logic. Dr. McBride’s plan would put Matt squarely in bed with Alicia. Assuming Matt was invited.
By Saturday they were all packed into two cars, and heading south. Alicia and the Normans rode with the Professor in his British-racing-green Jaguar, with Alec, Suzy and Sacha following in their bright-red Saturn, with Matt at the wheel. Alec was beginning to wonder how they’d managed at all without Matt even before his ‘skiing accident’. Matt had quickly become an integral member of the family—or, at the very least, a sort of butler factotum, only more so. The 605 took them to expressway 5, which in turn led them all the way to Solana Beach, some 20 miles north of San Diego. In a little over two hours they were all reclining on a broad terrace overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Maria was serving Sangria, her specialty for as long as the Professor could remember.
“You’ve never mentioned you had such a delightful place, Des.” Alec’s voice was semi-accusatory.
“Neverr had any need to beforre, lad,” and the old man who, during the last few days contrived to look about twenty years younger, stole a glance at Alicia. “Neverr had any need to, beforre,” he repeated, as if weighing his words.
Alec smiled, and got busy trying to determine what options were available to him. The house was on a single level, with only storage spaces down below. On the way to Solana Beach, he’d noticed a bicycle path, and occasional snippets of a well beaten-down footpath along the upper edge of the shore; and, of course, the highway. That would offer ample opportunities for suicide seekers. He doubted anyone would slow down for a wheelchair; Californian drivers seemed always in a hurry. The one thing he could not negotiate, not even with Matt’s assistance, was the horrendous flight of stairs leading down to the beach.
On the ocean side, there was an extensive covered terrace overlooking the beach. This’ll be my domain, he thought. And even as he looked at the sand down below, he expected his paralysis to release him from its grip at any moment. He formed a fist, and then tried to curl his toes inside his shoes. The next moment he slammed his fist on the armrest. Luckily no one seemed to notice. Except Matt. He laid his hand on Alec’s shoulder. That was all, but this simple act had an immediate calming effect. Alec’s breathing returned to normal.
Even now, after all the non-conclusive medical examinations, after visiting a dozen specialists of all sorts, Alec refused to accept that his present condition was permanent. And anyway, soon there were bigger problems he had to face. The following Monday the TV screen was filled with reports of the worst riots in the history of Los Angeles.
***
12
The Game’s afoot,
Mrs. Holmes
When Alec first heard about the riots, he didn’t put two and two together. Not immediately. Suzy had. Instantly. She’d looked at Alec and not finding confirmation in his eyes, left the room. She half-expected Sacha to look up and say ‘I told you so’. But Sacha didn’t say anything. He was much too busy sleeping the sleep of one aware of a job well done. Or maybe all babies looked like that when they sleep?
“Thank you, my pet,” she whispered. And just as quietly as she came in, she returned to join the others. By this time Alec was fidgeting, searching her with his eyes. “Did you see him?” he seemed to be saying, nodding in the direction of Sacha’s bedroom. She nodded and then smiled. With a smirk she went outside. Alec left the rest of the gathering glued to the TV and joined her on the terrace.
“Well?” he asked, not quite knowing what he expected to hear.
“He said: ‘I told you so’, and then he went back to sleep.”
“He what???”
And before he could recover, she began laughing. She doubled up and roared with tears flooding her eyes.
“Well... ha, ha... what did you expect him to say?”
“Very funny,” Alec admitted, but it took awhile before he laughed himself. Usually he managed to get the better of Suzy.
When they’d both quieted down, they sat, side by side, looking out onto the ocean. Very little was said, but their thoughts seemed to meet on some distant cloud over the horizon. In direct contrast to Los Angeles, the ocean, true to its name, was at peace, the blue sky clear except for some local thermal cumuli forming probably over San Clemente Island. It felt like a quiet before the storm. For Alec, though, the storm pointed to his inner world, not to the endangered serenity around them. Nor to the human storm they’d escaped thanks to Desmond. Or, had Sacha dipped his fingers into the currents of time?
“You know, Sue, things have a habit of changing, steering you in directions you don’t necessarily want to go.”
He talked softly, as though thinking aloud. Suzy was perched on the swing-chair, swaying to and fro. After the horror pictures of the LA riots, the atmosphere of peace was palpable.
“What got me into physics, and kept me going, I suppose, was a powerful, if subliminal, desire to escape from my childhood...” he was looking for the right word.
“Your childhood reality. It was just too rich, for an adult. Too willing to accept the unacceptable...?” she offered.
“I was too influenced, or might have been, but for some atavistic archetypes, perhaps implanted genetically, which I thought of as old wives’ tales; as unproven, imaginary, or just quasi-religious nonsense… Or, at best, psychiatric mumbo-jumbo. I have been attempting to explain reality in terms of theories, patterns, mathematical equations. And now, it seem
s, more and more, that an individual is the only reality. I think Jung said so. He also implied that the further we stray from the individual, the more likely we are to fall into error. Or something like that.”
After a moment’s reflection he added: “Do you think I’m wrong, Sue?” He was looking down at his flaccid legs.
Suzy smiled. She was half listening to him thinking aloud, half lost in the shimmering horizon, which seemed to be drawing her outwards with a persistent force. Alec hardly noticed the alluring beauty. He didn’t find it easy to admit that the road he had travelled these last six or seven years may have taken him on a tangent from his real destination. He tried to relax and hear the whispers of his unconscious.
He shook his head.
Slowly, deliberately, as if searching for confirmation of his own thoughts, he continued, “And now, that from which I tried so hard to escape seems to be, or to be becoming, the motivating force. Is it because I am a scientist that I cannot opt for ignorance, that I cannot ignore the facts which, no matter how improbable, no matter how ‘scientifically’ inconvenient, are staring me in the face?”
A large ketch moved slowly across his field of vision. It looked suspended, half way towards the unknown. Alec felt that aboard that vessel time had stopped, or, at the very least, carried a completely different meaning. He saw himself at the wheel, his feet astride for balance, his eyes scanning the rigging. For an instant he thought he saw the mainsail billowing under the steady breeze.
“We could have been there,” he muttered to himself.
And then, again, he shook the cobwebs out of his head. Not yet, something inside him was saying. Not quite yet. “Sandra…” he all but cried aloud.
“What, darling?” Suzy was looking into his eyes. “You are not going to peek-a-boo on me again, are you?”
Alexander: [Alexander Trilogy Book Two] Page 15