The Secret Life of Roberta Greaves

by Ann Birch

  “So when Janeen got knocked up, I had to do something. I didn’t want her to have a shotgun marriage. So what solution was there? There were still no abortions then. Nothing legal, that is. Just those back-alley monsters with coat hangers and plant poisons. But your dad came to the rescue. I loved him for his gentle way with me and the girl. So I guess — when I saw him looking at me with those eyes — I fell for him. I kept going to his office for problems I didn’t really have. It was just an excuse to get to know him better. And then, when some of the Eastern Star ladies were giving him grief over the condoms in Budge’s Pharmacy, I was the one who supported him. I know he appreciated that. We got close. I don’t know whether he loved me or not, but he...”

  “In a town like this, how did you get away with it?”

  “The knitting, that’s what.”

  For a moment, Roberta thinks Nora is still talking about back-alley abortionists. She heard Daddy talk once about the knitting needles they used to puncture the amniotic sac. “I’m not following you.”

  “Knitting, you know? Your mother wanted to learn to knit, and I used to come over to your house in the mornings when you were at school. People got used to seeing me head there with my bag of wool and needles. Sylvia was a quick learner, and she wanted me to show her all the tough patterns I could think of. So I did.” Nora signals the girl for a second Guinness.

  “Then?”

  “Well, some days Sylvia would be out of town on the train, maybe visiting you in Toronto or shopping or something. Your dad would cancel his morning appointments and stay at home and we’d...”

  “Okay, okay, I get it.” Roberta finishes her glass of wine. “I should be getting home. Why don’t you stay and finish your Guinness, Nora? I’ll settle the bill with the girl.”

  “Just one more thing, Roberta.” Nora fingers the silver-and-gold pin she’s wearing on her ample bosom. “See this? Given to me by the Masons after my son-of-a-bitch husband died. He was a Mason, like every other male in this town. The Widow’s Brooch, it’s called. ‘Conferred on all worthy Masonic widows’ is the wording, as I recall.” She gives a snort of laughter. “Know what? I wear it just to spite that so-and-so, may he rot in hell.”

  “I don’t blame you for what you did with my father,” Roberta says. “I understand now. Thank you.”

  “Your mother, that’s who I can’t understand. How could she take up with a nitwit like that Neville?”

  “Sorry, Nora, but I can’t stay around to hear you criticize Mother.” Roberta stands up. She pays for the drinks at the long bar and turns at the front door to look back at Nora. She is gazing into her second pint of Guinness as if turning over in her mind all the memories their conversation has evoked. There’s a strength about the woman that Roberta admires: Her determination not to let Janeen suffer; her repudiation of her husband’s physical abuse.

  From the pub, she turns left onto Osborne Road. It’s one of the early streets in the town, lined with churches and stone or brick houses with large lots. As on all her other visits to Summerton, she must pass the Wesley United Church with its silly flashing sign. Today it says, “TANK ON EMPTY? COME IN HERE AND FILL UP.”

  The young pastor — she’s forgotten his name — is just getting into his car in the parking lot. When he sees Roberta, he gets out and comes over to her, blocking the sidewalk so that there’s no escape. “Roberta,” he says, leaning in a little close for comfort. “I confess to having read your book. It’s terrible, I have to say. And I know you need help.” He points to the sign. “Your tank’s on empty, for sure. Please come into my office for a minute, and we’ll talk. I know a counsellor who may be able to help you.”

  “I’m not proud of the book,” Roberta says. “But I don’t need a counsellor, thank you.”

  “Oh, my friend, admission is the first step to recovery. Anyone who writes a book about a child seeking out incest needs help. Is there something in your early family background that needs—”

  “No, nothing in my background. You’re new to this town, so I can excuse you for silly presumptions. You didn’t know my father. You don’t know what a good man he was. I loved him, but incest? God, no. My novel is based on Ovid’s story.”

  “Ovid?” What’s-his-name’s high forehead is glistening with sweat. Has he not heard of Ovid? Or maybe he’s not made the connection between Mira and “Myrrha”? Roberta steps onto the grass bordering the sidewalk and moves past him.

  “Thanks for your concern,” she says. Then, she adds, over her shoulder, “But it’s misplaced.”

  She rushes on, up the block, then, on impulse, turns right at the corner and goes down a grassy path into the graveyard of St. George’s Anglican Church. She hurries towards the family plot, to the tombstones of her father and James. Someone has hoed neat little patches in front of each of them, and purple violets are in full bloom. It must have been Mother who did this. Roberta has not been able to come here before, has not even checked out the granite stone that she ordered after James’s death.

  It’s quiet in the churchyard. The only sound is the soaring notes of a pair of cardinals in the towering pine trees that shade the graves. She stands looking at the granite memorials, and the tears come. She cannot hold them back. Aloud she says, “I loved you two more than anyone else in my younger life, more than my mother, perhaps even more than my sons. Wherever you are, can you hear me? I forgive you your trespasses. And James, my darling James, can you forgive mine?” The stones are close together and she stands between them, one hand on the top of each. The clouds have dissipated. The sun strikes her face, warming her tears. She feels them drying on her cheeks.

  Back on Osborne Road, she checks her face quickly in the mirror of her powder compact. Not great, but good enough. She thinks, I can explain the red eyes easily enough: spring allergies, conjunctivitis, or eye fatigue. But Mother may not notice anything. She will probably be too keyed up about my reaction to the new living arrangements.

  This time, she bangs on the brass door knocker so there will be no surprises. Her mother appears instantly. She looks pretty in a loose orange linen shirt, tan pants, and stilettos. Neville hovers just behind, fully dressed this time, thank God.

  “You’re late, dear,” her mother says. “We’ve been holding lunch. But there’s still time for a drink on the back porch. I’ve got some crackers and some of that hummus you like.”

  “Great.” She’s not about to say that she’s already had a drink with Nora at the pub. But she does mention the visit to the churchyard. “It was nice of you to put in all those violets,” she says.

  “It was Neville who did it. He loves gardening. He’s planning to help me with the roses this summer.”

  “Mmm, I smell my favourite chicken casserole,” Roberta says as they move through the kitchen to the huge cedar deck at the back of the house. But as she says this, she inhales something less pleasant. Sure enough, Polonius is lying under the kitchen table. He struggles to his feet to greet her, his stump of a tail wagging. She scratches the top of his broad nose.

  “Let’s put him outside for a while, Sylvia,” Neville says. He throws the kitchen window open and gets out the dog’s leash.

  Well, Roberta thinks, he’s an old dog. He won’t last long. And Neville appears cognizant of his digestive problems, so that little bump in the road to cohabitation will undoubtedly smooth out.

  Neville uncorks the Sauvignon Blanc, fills glasses, and passes the hummus and crackers while Roberta’s mother sits back in a comfortable Muskoka chair. “Neville has been a big help these last weeks,” she says to Roberta. “That book of yours has caused such an uproar. I can’t go downtown without everyone asking me about it. And we’ve actually had reporters here. Neville answers the door and tells them to get lost.”

  “And Polonius backs me up,” Neville says. “When he hears that I’m angry, he growls and raises his hackles. They usually skedaddle down the front steps wi
thout much preamble.”

  “That damn book has lost me my job at Trinity, at least temporarily, my volunteer position with the street kids, and now you’re telling me that you’ve been harassed, too. Oh my God, it’s too much.”

  “It’s been mostly fairly minor stuff, dear, like our local paper and The Simcoe Star. The new publisher of the Summerton Economist actually asked about you and poor Mr. Philpotts. Annoying and stupid, but manageable.”

  “But just this week, we had that critic from The Gazette,” Neville adds. “Oh, what a muddy-mettled rascal he was! I recognized him at once. He used to sit in the front row at Stratford, and I’d be in the middle of a soliloquy, and I’d look down and see him making notes, his face all screwed up as if he were suffering agonies. Off-putting, to say the least. I could never bring myself to read that horrible man’s reviews the next day.”

  “John Schubert. I know him. Carl calls him El Creepo. What was he doing here, for God’s sake?”

  “He wanted an interview with Sylvia about your relationship to Sylvia’s ‘first husband’ — that’s how he put it. Oozed charm from every pore, at least for the first minute or two.”

  For a minute, Roberta gets sidetracked, noticing how Neville sinks into a sonorous baritone whenever he gives a quote. For her mother, that quirk must surely be off-putting, to say the least. But then she realizes what Neville has just said. “What did you do?”

  “I said, ‘No thank you,’ and he got nasty. He actually put up his hand to give a push at the front door to get in, but Polonius gave a most impressive snarl and dived for his leg, and he retreated just in time. Then he went down the front steps muttering something about my being the worst Claudius he’d ever seen on the stage anywhere.”

  “What a wretched thing for him to say.” Roberta is surprised to find herself feeling genuinely sorry for Neville. “I’ve caused you a lot of grief with that novel.”

  “Sylvia’s told me about you and your father,” he says. “And she knows there was nothing sick about your love for him. She also mentioned that you were strapped for money after your husband’s death and writing the book brought in some moolah. So that’s all I need to know.” He reaches for her mother’s hand and holds it. “But don’t you want to know what I thought about it?”

  “Go ahead, tell me the worst. After that generous drink you poured me, I can take it.”

  “Well, it’s not exactly what you’d call a bedtime story, but I thought it was a lot like the story of Little Red Riding Hood and the big, bad wolf. There are so many interpretations of that narrative. But I’ll just mention one. You know Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods? Especially the song ‘I Know Things Now’?” Roberta and her mother nod.

  “Red Riding Hood,” Neville says, changing again to the deep, polished tones of a professional actor, “is a girl hungry for sexual awakening and the wolf figure — or the father figure in your story, Roberta — is the only male around to help her find this fulfillment.”

  “Oh, darling, what a good analysis,” her mother says, smiling at Neville. “Put that way, it doesn’t seem so bad.”

  But it is bad, Roberta thinks. It’s Ovid’s sick fantasy that I stupidly adapted.

  Neville carries the drinks and food inside, and they sit down to lunch. Besides the chicken casserole, there’s a broccoli salad with tomatoes and feta cheese, and, yes, gooseberry roly-poly. “I had plenty of frozen berries,” her mother explains as Roberta takes a second helping, “and it seemed a good way of using them up.”

  When Roberta gets home in the late afternoon, the house is empty. For a minute, she remembers the days when she would rush home from work to pick up Charlie from daycare or take Ed to the library for his project on ancient civilizations or get the block of frozen food into the oven while James made a salad or poured out the glasses of red wine. Now, it seems there’s no one to care if she comes home at all. It’s liberating — or pathetic. She can’t decide which. Probably the latter. But thinking over the day in Summerton, she recognizes one fact: Her mother is happy, and that makes her happy too.

  But she needs to tell someone about the day’s events. She phones Carl.

  “How did it go with Neville?” he asks.

  “Better than I expected. This time, I didn’t have to see anything of their sex life, thank God. But I did see another side of him. He’s helpful. He did all the serving for lunch for one thing, and apparently, he thwarted the invasion of the media, including El Creepo, who came all the way to Summerton to dig up some dirt on me. And speaking of dirt, he’s going to do the hard work in that garden, which has got altogether too much for Mother to handle in recent years. I only hope the romance stays in bloom. She’s got a half-acre of lawn and two hundred and fifty roses that need pruning.”

  “Hmm, don’t know about romance, the sex side of it, anyway. How much will the old boy’s back be good for? None of my business, of course. What else did you notice about the guy?”

  “Well, he does love to show off, but Mother doesn’t seem to mind that. You know, at Christmas, Ed described him as a ‘pain in the butt,’ and it’s true in a way. But he’s a man with a good heart. I like the way he’s so protective of my mother.”

  “And that four-footed farter, what about it?”

  “I think I’m beginning to like Polonius, too.”

  “Robbie, perhaps you should get right into bed now. I’m afraid that you’ve either had too much to drink today or the fresh air of Summerton has addled your wits. Take an aspirin, and call me in the morning.”

  35.

  A FEW DAYS LATER, as Roberta finishes dressing, she hears thumps from the kitchen. Coming downstairs, she finds Charlie standing in front of the counter. It’s Monday, his day off from The Fig Leaf, and he’s got some brown things in a clear, heavy plastic bag that he’s put on the floor, and he’s stomping them into bits.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “What does it look like, Mom?”

  “Like you’ve lost your mind, that’s what.” Then Roberta sees a cellophane bag on the counter. There are one or two Oreo cookies left in it. “Ah, now I get it. You’re smushing the Oreos.”

  “Yeah, I’ve tried food processors and rolling pins in the past. But the booted foot is always available and always efficacious. See?” He gives another hop or two onto the bag and then holds it up. The Oreos have metamorphosed.

  “I’m impressed. Not only by your vocabulary, but also by your tiny, perfect crumbs.”

  “It’s Dad’s expression and Dad’s idea. He could never be bothered messing with the rolling pin — got crumbs all over the counter — and the food processor had to be washed. ‘The booted foot is always available and always efficacious.’ That’s what he used to tell me. And I use it — as long as there’s not a health inspector hovering on the horizon.”

  He pours the crumbs into a bowl, adds melted butter, mixes it all together, then presses the crumb mixture into the bottom and sides of a pie plate. Finally, with one swift motion, he flips open the fridge door and sets the pie plate on the shelf.

  “I miss Dad.”

  “In spite of everything … I miss him too. I went into the churchyard when I was up visiting your granny. I put my hand on his tombstone and asked him to forgive me. And you know, while I was standing there, the sun came out. Maybe he heard me.”

  Charlie comes to the kitchen door where Roberta stands. He puts his arms around her and presses his cheek against hers. She can feel his tears. “Sorry I was grumpy when you came downstairs, Mom. What am I doing? Making a peanut butter pie for Mrs. Schubert.”

  “Sounds ghastly.”

  “It’s actually good, as long as you don’t worry about your arteries. I made it when I was at George Brown. We did a course on regional dishes, and this one is a Kootenays special. And Mrs. Schubert likes rich, sweet things. I think this’ll be a winner. I saw her yesterday taking the garbage to the c
urb, and I thought, Christ, it’s time I did something nice for her. I remember the fun she and I used to have in High Park. I’ve still got that headband we made from Canada goose feathers.”

  In a minute, he’s got the hand beater out and he’s blending cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, and peanut butter with some whipped cream he must have prepared earlier. Roberta watches him from her chair in the breakfast room.

  “Big Chris has a message for you, Mom. All the Mission kids want you to come to their poetry slam next week. It’s at the Wing-On Funeral Chapel — in the basement. Mr. Fig Leaf, aka Mr. Wong, says they can have the room free of charge. It’s his brother’s chapel, and since Mr. Wong likes Big Chris, he set it all up.”

  “Never again will I laugh at the name of the place. I swear it.”

  “So you’ll go?”

  “Absolutely. As long as I don’t have to darken the doors of the Christian Mission and speak to that counsellor again. Did Big Chris tell you if she got a replacement for me?”

  “Yeah. A graduate student, female, who Big Chris says just wanted an opportunity to get something fresh on her resumé. The way he described her lesson — there was only one — it went something like this: ‘Close your eyes, let your astral body take flight, then move your hand across your page, and write down the good karma that blows into your fucking mind.’” Charlie gets out a lemon and squeezes some juice into his mixture. “Stop laughing, Mom. I haven’t finished. After they’d done this for ten minutes, they spent the rest of the lesson reading aloud the immortal words they’d just written. Apparently, Hester’s inspiration went like this: ‘Piss off piss off piss off piss off.’ Big Chris says she kept reading this phrase until the instructor lost it and screamed at her to stop. So that was ‘Amen’ to the classes.”