Losing It

by Alan Cumyn

  “You just described half the clientele,” the sardonic girl said. She couldn’t help smiling at her own joke. She looked at Julia, then smartened up. “Maybe someone inside saw her. I’ll get Mr. Peters.”

  Mr. Peters was thin and nearly bald, a careful, dapper man whose flesh had sunk with age. His skin had an undertone of grey and the form of his bones showed in relief like some fossil emerging on an eroding cliff.

  “Mrs. Carmichael!” he said, as soon as he heard the name. “Lenore, yes, she was a regular customer for many, many years.”

  He hadn’t seen her, though he was very sorry to hear about her declining health. His hands trembled as he spoke.

  “She would come Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and often Fridays as well,” Mr. Peters said. “I would put aside some things for her which I knew she’d be interested in. She liked the Dutch biscuits, if I remember, and certainly any silk scarves that came in. And I could usually interest her in towels.”

  “If you see her,” Donny said, handing over his handyman card, “please give me a ring.” He seemed confident, in charge, like a detective on the scene.

  “I remember she used to bring you in when you were small!” Peters said to Julia. “Not as small as this young man, perhaps!” he said, meaning Matthew, who was hiding between Julia’s legs. “But a little lady.”

  “Yes,” said Julia. It felt better somehow just to be in Pullman’s, even without her mother. The lunch counter was still there, the sides of the stools gleaming with chrome, and she could smell toasted cheese and bacon. Ladies’ socks were on sale three pairs for $7.99, and the support-garments section had, if anything, grown over the years, now took up three aisles.

  “And Mr. Carmichael!” Peters said, animated now with the memory. “He was a man’s man. He hated it in here. I remember him lost in lingerie, wandering around helpless!”

  “Anyway, if you see her,” Donny said.

  “I said, ‘Can I help you? It’s Mr. Carmichael, isn’t it?’, and he said, ‘Where does a man get a drink around here?’ There was one time -”

  “Thank you,” Donny said, trying to turn them away.

  “– but perhaps that was someone else,” Peters said.

  They walked outside again. It was already starting to get dark. Julia scanned the area. The tiny parking lot was empty now because the store was closed. The other stores up and down the street, in this older part of town, were glum in this light. An old woman on a street corner was begging for change, her clothes tattered, hair matted. One leg had a grotesquely purple, oozing wound. She held out a sorry Blue Jays cap and kept her eyes on the ground.

  “That’s not her?” Donny asked.

  No. No. Julia had a sudden vision of her mother wandering on the Queensway, eight lanes of angry traffic screaming by, weaving to avoid her, honking their horns while she panicked. Doomed in another second and a half.

  “So you checked all around Fallowfields,” Donny said. He was wearing just a light shirt. Why wasn’t he cold? “Their staff are out looking. The police are out looking. You’ve scanned the obvious places …” Ticking all this off in his head methodically. Like it was some … kitchen job! “So, she might be found already. It might just be a case of going back home -”

  “She’s not,” Julia said, with conviction. “This is my mother. Nothing is straightforward with my mother.”

  There was one other place to try. Tellman’s Groceries was several blocks away. It had changed enormously over the years, was no longer a crowded little butcher-and-greens shop with a crate of vegetables in the front. It was now a sprawling, shiny vault of food that covered acres, having swallowed two restaurants, a bank, a gift shop, a photo store, and a pharmacy. Her mother had hated going there in recent years, often complained that she no longer knew where to buy her Dodds biscuits, her Valentine’s sandwich bread and Mr. Doodle’s cheese. The biscuits could be in aisle three one week and aisle eight the next. They were constantly changing the plastic wrap and the Boston cream pie. You just couldn’t count on anything. None of the old staff were there any more. Mrs. Stephens, whose son became the president of whatever it was and whose husband died in the garbage compactor at work, gone long ago. Now it was all teenage girls who couldn’t even give proper change without a computer telling them what to do. And they packed the bags all wrong, with eggs on the bottom every time, and mixed meat and vegetables together without a thought.

  Her mother’s voice drilled into Julia’s head even before they entered the store. For how long had she blamed everything that went wrong on changes at Tellman’s? For ages, it seemed. Before they knew what was happening. When she was just eccentric, a bit confused.

  Now Julia felt exactly the same way. It was an overpowering store, the lights jacked up to megawatt brightness, twenty-one check-out cashier’s booths stretching into the distance. A few desultory shoppers pushed huge gleaming carts, the food-shopping equivalent of minivans. Aisle upon aisle of products, relentlessly packaged, hyped in colour. The fruits and vegetables looked drugged up, on steroids, too vivid and robust to be believed.

  Everyone looked lost. Bent-over old ladies wandered aimlessly, their eyes glazed, limbs trembling. They weren’t her mother. Julia knew she wouldn’t be here but she had to look, for her own conscience. It was all her fault. If only she’d moved her mother earlier so she would have adjusted better, instead of waiting till she couldn’t cope with any change at all.

  She remembered her mother pulling her along by the wrist as they walked down the narrow, cramped aisles of the old Tellman’s, where the shopping carts were too tiny even for little girls to ride in. She professed to hate shopping, brooked no child-caused delays in getting it over with. And yet there was also this sense of her being queen in her own domain. Behind the meat counter, the butcher’s white apron was forever smudged with blood and grime, but no one cared. How he brightened when he saw them. Her mother was pretty then, trim, always well dressed, she wore scarves often and would fix her make-up in the car mirror, oblivious to the swarming traffic. “Mrs. Carmichael,” the butcher would say. “You’ve brought your beautiful daughter, but I can’t wait for her to grow up. Are you still married?” His drooping hound-dog expression and her business-like attitude, secretly pleased.

  “Is there any prime rib left, Oscar?”

  “For you, Mrs. Carmichael, I will go kill the cow right now!”

  Somebody was staring at her. Julia turned and saw Stephanie, Bob’s first wife, only a few feet away. Julia’s stomach knotted in alarm. Stephanie was stocky now and had done something awful with her hair – it looked as if she’d tried to dye it red but had ended up with near-purple. Her face was chalky white and she was wearing dark glasses in the middle of the store and thick, red, garish lipstick. Julia wouldn’t have known her except for the malevolence.

  Donny was in another aisle checking out old ladies. Matthew was holding Julia’s hand and reaching for a feminine product in a silvery package. Julia said, “Hello, Stephanie.” The other woman’s expression didn’t change. Again Julia said, “Hello.” Then she noticed that Stephanie wasn’t staring at her at all, she was staring at Matthew. She looked so miserable. Julia said, gently, “How are you?” and Stephanie hissed, “He didn’t want children with me!” Then she turned and rattled down the aisle, her heels going clack! clack! Every footfall driven into the floor. At the corner her sunglasses fell off her face and clattered in front her. She didn’t pause but kicked at them furiously, just the once. Half missed, and kept going.

  “Who was that?” Donny asked, coming up from behind.

  Julia picked up Matthew and hugged him ferociously. When she put him down again he tore away from her grip and went after the sunglasses. There was a near-collision with a store clerk pushing a convoy of the massive shopping carts too fast. He wouldn’t have been able to stop in time, but Matthew had surprisingly good timing and balance. He reached down for the glasses and spun out of the way in one athletic movement. Julia’s heart trampolined. “Matthew!” she said.
“Matthew!” as he turned to smile at her.

  One of the lenses had slipped out and was scratched, but Donny was able to fit it back in and Matthew looked like royalty with them on. People turned in the store to smile at him perched in Donny’s arms.

  “Oh, take me home,” Julia said, a bad headache that instant coming on.

  8

  They made you walk and walk even when your feet were wet and dirty. And it was so hot. Where was the camp? Miles away! She was sure they were lost. She and Capt. Buzbie. He was completely out of uniform and was making her carry all the bags. They should have stayed with the horses.

  “It’s not too much farther,” he said, but not the way he was before. One spot of trouble and he got discouraged. Bad-tempered. All walk-walk. It wasn’t her fault.

  She asked him, “Who’s going to look after the horses?”

  He replied, “It’s not too much farther. Do you like toast?”

  “I would have stayed with the horses,” she said. It was easier to look at the ground, hard and black. He was so high up.

  “Do you know any of these streets?” he asked.

  “All my life,” Lenore said. Jesper Street, she meant to say. All her life on Jesper Street, until that next one. When Daddy lost the business that one time. And William whatsit, the tall one, lost his finger. What was he doing? Snowing.

  “Where do you normally stay?” Capt. Buzbie asked. He’d shaved off his moustache, looked quite different.

  “You should know,” Lenore said.

  “Is it in this neighbourhood?” he asked.

  Hard, black ground. Lenore’s feet were so tired. “Where are the horses?” she asked. Her bags were so heavy, and it was hot. Why did she have to do all the work?

  “Were there horses here?” Capt. Buzbie asked. Such an idiot. “When you were young?”

  “We had horses,” Lenore said, stamping her foot, “just a few minutes ago! For God’s sake!”

  “Horses?” Buzbie asked, inanely.

  Walking and walking. One foot and then the other. At least there’d be a swim at the lake. Trevor would make the martinis. He was such a good-looking man. Nice hands. He’d say, “Where the hell have you been? Next you’re going to ask me to make my own dinner!” He’d say, “It’s Cleopatra, risen from her sleep!” Drunk with it.

  “This is it,” Capt. Buzbie said.

  At last! Lenore was shivery from the heat and bother of it all. She wanted a swim badly. Then a martini, then she’d get to dinner.

  “My mom’s not home, so we’re going to have to wait for her,” Capt. Buzbie said. “Careful on the steps. Do you want a hand?”

  Lenore didn’t need a hand with anything, thank you! Just show me to the lake, she thought.

  “I’ll get the door,” the captain said.

  “I really think I need a swimsuit,” Lenore said.

  “A what?”

  “Well, you don’t want me winter-dipping, do you?”

  “No,” said the captain uncertainly. The poor man was shocked! Well, what do they teach you in the army?

  They went in the cottage. It was substantial, lots of stairs. That’s too bad. Not really on the lake at all, Lenore realized. What a silly place to build.

  “Would you like some toast?” Buzbie asked.

  “You must have a hard time with the docks,” she said. It wasn’t the black ground any more. It was wood and carpet. Darker though, and it smelled of something. So hard to keep clean.

  “The what?”

  “Docks!” she said. It was the right word. She hadn’t made a mistake in a long time.

  “What docks?”

  “I would like a martini,” she said proudly. It was the proper thing to offer. “Before my swim.”

  The captain was nervous. He couldn’t seem to settle down. He’d probably never been with a woman before. Even though she was married. They were very secluded in the military. Made a lot of mistakes. His uniform was sloppy. The cuffs of his trousers dragged on the ground.

  “How about some juice?” he asked. “Or do you drink milk?”

  “I think I made myself perfectly clear!” Lenore said, snappishly then. Probably too much yelling in the military. Softened the brain. Or perhaps –

  “Were you overseas?” Lenore asked.

  “Overseas?”

  “That Jones boy was,” she said. “It was terrible! They found out from the little paper. The whatsit.”

  “The whatsit?”

  “Yes,” she said. His brains had been softened. That’s why he couldn’t make a martini. “Well,” she said, straightening up. “Enough of this! Say hello to everybody!” She walked off, glad to be on her way. Enough chitchat, when our boys were off. She walked to the door and opened it. But it didn’t lead outside at all, it led into a bunch of clothes.

  “Oh for heaven’s sake!” she said.

  “I think you should stay till my mom comes home,” the captain said. Nerves shot through.

  “I have never been so stupidly -” she said. She became flustered and the words wouldn’t come right. Her brain went hiccup.

  “My mom will be home pretty soon,” the captain said. “I hope. Sometimes she doesn’t get home till late, though. It depends on the buses and what’s happening at work.”

  Lenore backed out of the fake door and turned around uncertainly. She was alone with a captain in the barracks after hours. How did that happen? The dance had gone on and on but she didn’t remember getting here. Sometimes they slipped things in your drink. Betty Jane told her that. They slipped things and then you got pregnant and it wasn’t your fault but who would believe you? Alone in the barracks after hours.

  “I think I would like to go home,” she said. Men respected compost. If you lost it, they didn’t respect you at all. “Right away, please,” she said.

  “But where do you live?” he asked. Silver-tongued devil. Those were the ones to look out for. In sloppy uniforms, who lured you.

  “Home! Just take me home!” she said.

  “If you could tell me -”

  “I did tell you! For God’s sake, stop all this -”

  “Maybe your address is written in your purse,” he said. He reached for her and she backed up, nearly spat at him.

  “Don’t touch me!” she said, straightening her shoulders.

  “Okay, okay!” He backed off.

  “I believe,” Lenore said, pressing her advantage, “I asked for a martini!”

  “Well,” he said. Carefully. He’d never been alone with a woman. No wonder he was so crinkled. “I’ll see what I can do!”

  Indeed. Lenore watched him go into the other room. Then she walked quietly to the door, turned the handle, and slipped away, closing it behind her.

  Into darkness. Night already? But a thick darkness, smelly, hard to turn and see anything. No moon, no stars. Just thickness. If only she wasn’t so hot. She could put down the bags. She’d carried them all so long. And her coat. It really was too hot. Dinner could wait, Trevor was fine as long as he had his drink. Lenore took off her coat and her blouse, laid them neatly on the shore. It was hard to move, it was so dark and thick. She took off her skirt and shoes and nylons. It would be better to swim by moonlight. But sometimes there just wasn’t any. She wriggled out of her underwear. That felt better. The only way to swim, really. So free. Not … held up. Girdles especially. She kneeled to try to find her way but the rocks were lumpy and uncomfortable. She could hear the water but couldn’t find it.

  The lights went on then, it was so sudden she screamed. “Trevor!” she shrieked. He did that just to embarrass her, shone the big flashlight when he knew she was skinny-dipping. You could see clear across the lake with that light.

  “Jesus!” Trevor said. But it wasn’t Trevor, it was Capt. Buzbie. Then it went dark again. Lenore felt for her clothes but it was hopeless, nothing was where she’d left it.

  “What are you doing?” Capt. Buzbie asked. Terrified.

  “Don’t turn on the light!” Lenore commanded. The stupi
d man. Drugging her like this back to the barracks. “Bring back my clothes!” she said.

  “I don’t have your clothes!”

  Too excitable. You come back with crust in your head.

  “I will not stand for any more of this!” Lenore said. “Who is your commanding officer?”

  “My what?”

  “I am going to report you to the authorities!” Lenore said. “Now bring them back immediately!”

  It’s compost. Either you have it or you don’t. If you don’t then they ride clodhop. Take your clothes and get you pregnant. But if you do they bring your clothes back. Hand you your dress while they turn their heads away in the light. Like a gentleman.

  “It’s my mother’s,” Buzbie said. “She’ll be home soon. I promise!”

  It’s what they tell themselves when they don’t know anything. They’ve come back crust-in-the-head so you have to be kind.

  The dress fit badly. Lenore tugged it and tugged and it would have to do. Silly things. She was just trying for a skinny-dip. Before the stitches went all wrong.

  “It’s not my fault,” she said.

  9

  The phone didn’t ring. Bob flipped through the evening television news, a forgettable blur of murders, fires, earthquakes, and football scores, and one oddball story of a man so upset about cockroaches that he started throwing furniture out the window of his twelfth-floor apartment onto the street below. Bob turned it off as the camera was panning the crowd on the sidewalk chanting, “Jump! Jump! Jump!” He skimmed the conference binder. Tonight he was missing the ritual reading of “The Cask of Amontillado” and the Alfred J. Kiddleton memorial lecture entitled “Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King: The Confluxes and Divergences of Cultural Sub-Texts.” Tomorrow morning Yamada was speaking on “The Doomed Writer: Poe’s Shadow in the Twenty-first Century,” and later there would be a panel discussion on Poe’s controversial place as critic and promoter of early American letters.