“I guess we should make an announcement then,” he said.
“I guess so.”
“What do you think your father will say?”
“Oh, he’ll be thrilled,” she replied, laughed then gulped. “And surprised…definitely surprised.”
“We should tell him first, before anyone else. What about tonight?”
“No, no, not tonight. I don’t want to spoil Grace’s homecoming.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, flinching from the neck upwards.
“Well, you know Grace. She does like to be the center of everyone’s attention, especially now. I’ll tell him tomorrow, after Christmas Day lunch. He’ll be in a good mood then…not that he needs to be…for the news, just…it’s always best.”
“OK,” he said with a shrug, clearly unconsoled.
“It is beautiful.” Helena raised her left hand moving its angle to refract shafts of the summer’s sun through the blue stone. “Really beautiful. It must have cost you a fortune.”
“It’s my mother’s.”
“What!” Helena dropped her arm from its perch hitting the timber tabletop. She shook her hand to release the pain.
“It’s OK,” he said. “She wants you to have it.”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “It doesn’t seem right.”
“She hasn’t worn it in a long time. Not for ten years or more.”
Helena held her ring to the light again, staring into it. “I’ll tell my parents tomorrow. Then I guess it will be official.”
Christmas Day lunch at the Wallin residence was remarkable in every dimension: a banquet for forty, not four, guaranteed the day would end with the painful afflictions of over-consumption, again. It was gratifying for Millie, and her favorite time of the year, so long as she did not remember the past.
A highlight every year was the after-lunch soiree held in the air-conditioned privilege of the front living room in armchairs that induced the cognac-fuelled respite, another Wallin tradition.
James raised a tulip-shaped crystal glass filled with the copper fluid. “A toast! To another extraordinary feast fit for the royal family, and three more inches for my waistline.” He patted his bulging torso—another Wallin tradition although the girth growth declared varied each year in an arbitrary manner. “To Millie, my love, thank you.”
“To Millie,” they saluted with staid performances due to the annual repetition.
“Helena, is there anything else we should be toasting?” James asked.
“What? How could you possibly know? It only happened yesterday.”
James tapped his temple to indicate omnipresence. “This regime of yours had to have some greater purpose, Lena. You wouldn’t be exerting yourself for the sake of exercise alone,” he said with a hearty laugh. “And you’ve lost a lot of weight…well, before lunch you had.” More laughter followed.
Helena reached inside her scalloped neckline and extracted the tissue-wrapped ring to place it on her third finger. “You’re right, Dad. The insanity has a reason. I…we are getting married.”
“You are getting married?” Grace gasped. “Who to?”
“To whom, dear,” said Millie.
“Fantastic news!” James interrupted rising to his feet. “To Helena and my future son-in-law. And about time too, Lena!”
“Who is it?” Grace repeated.
“Michael.”
“Michael? Michael who?” James asked. “I thought…it’s Greg Allerby, isn’t it?”
“Greg Allerby?” said Helena shaking her head.
“Who’s Greg Allerby?” Millie asked.
“The young man from the Lodge, the veterinarian…the one Helena has been dating,” James replied.
“Dad, I went out with him once, two years ago!”
“It’s not Michael Baden?” Grace asked.
“Yes, it’s Michael Baden. I can’t believe this!”
“No need to shout!” Grace yelled back.
“A wedding—how lovely!” said Millie. “Let’s toast Helena and this Michael fellow.”
James and Grace raised their glasses with visible begrudging, countering Millie’s exuberance.
“Let me see the ring, dear.” Millie leaned forward to clasp a reluctant hand. “Just lovely. Look, James, it’s an antique,” she said, redirecting Helena’s hand closer to a disinterested eye. “Gracie, see?” She pulled Helena’s hand toward Grace. “You know, in ancient times, they thought the vein in the third finger of the left hand ran directly into the heart, and that’s why we wear our commitment rings on that finger. Fascinating, don’t you think?”
“Fascinating,” said Grace in a monotone.
Oblivious to the sub-zero room temperature, Millie proceeded with a spirited monologue on the pending nuptials. Helena, Grace, and James reached for the Rémy Martin.
“Quicksand,” said Helena, thinking aloud.
Chapter Five
Christmas Day 1966
MICHAEL would have slept longer, but the familiar stench of potato cakes had exacerbated his alcohol-induced nausea. He loathed the colorless fritters for the destruction of his taste buds, the pervasiveness of their greasy coating, and for what they represented—a childhood subsistence on a determinate nutritional regime in which the edible tuber ruled supreme, and not just any potato, but the humbling Pontiac. At Christmas, his mother massacred the household budget for the sweet ones, hungered for because their orange glow brought life to an otherwise insipid plate. And no one yearned for the habitual emptying of the hessian sack as it promised new clothing for whoever was next in line.
John, an older brother, suffered many a queue ousting as punishment for the improper use of the family’s brown gold. The inaugural offence involved a galvanized nail and a hammered piece of copper wire inserted into a potato to generate electricity. While the experiment was a success, the clothing file skipped to the next in the queue, and John was served the electrocuted vegetable for dinner. His hide, indelibly imprinted with a thin metal cord, forced him to savor the shriveled remains in an upright position. Undeterred, he used more potatoes for spudzookas, which occurred whenever his name rose to the top of the hessian clothing queue.
The hour had been a respectable one when Michael returned from The Royal Hotel the night before, seven hours after his first drink to commemorate an unofficial engagement to Helena Wallin. The Royal was deserted by eight leaving Michael alone with Henry behind the bar. By nine, Henry had asked Michael to leave as it was Christmas Eve and he wanted to be home with his family. Michael empathized, notwithstanding he had no personal experience with such a wanting. He accepted the six-pack goodwill offering, and set off in the direction of Park Lane where his mother would be listening to Bing Crosby singing Christmas Carols.
Michael still slept on the front veranda of their house in Park Lane as he had done as a young boy—same bed, same position, and same threadbare sheets.
Two bedrooms formed the centrum of the house, each with two doorways: one opening left to the living room, and one opening right onto the sleepout. At the end of the sleepout, a small bathroom with a basin and a tub cleaned all eight children in one batch of lukewarm water. Next to the bathroom was a room of immaterial size that housed the icebox, potatoes, and everything else. When Michael was born in 1942, it became a bedroom for Alice, Michael’s sister, and the newborn. It comprised a bed, marriage chest, a discolored white wicker bassinet, and the icebox and potatoes, all cordoned off by a rose pink shower curtain over the entry.
The master’s chamber, the bedroom toward the front of the house, was out of bounds, and any child who dared to step on the chipped, geometric-patterned Linoleum lived long enough to learn that crying worsened the punishment. The three youngest boys shared the second door-less, internal bedroom. John Senior had removed the doors to ensure its occupants did not enjoy a sense of seclusion. One replaced the outhouse door that had fallen off its hinges with dry rot, and for some time had revealed a little too much of its constant visitors.
/> The two older boys slept on the sleepout in beds lined head to toe along the exterior fibro wall. Alice’s bed once headed the line-up, positioned outside the master bedroom to enable interminable fatherly vigilance. The area remained a void of exposed lino when Alice upgraded to the storeroom since neither George nor Harold desired the location, but the space remained vacant for a mere eight months. As soon as Michael could walk, the storeroom returned to its original purpose, and Alice returned to her paramount position at the summit of the bedding row. Michael began his impervious occupation of the new veranda.
The veranda covered the front façade of the Baden family home, encased on all three sides, floor to ceiling, by asbestos-laden fibro louvers. John Senior had removed the front stairs to construct the enclosure then left them where they lay in the yard. In no time, weeds burgeoned between each timber plank eradicating recollections of a once stair-filled frontage.
John Senior had intended that George and or Harold would move onto his veranda, making room on the sleepout behind Alice for Michael and a new baby due in a matter of weeks. George declined: his bed was closest to the back stairs and the outhouse, a necessity given his intestinal lack of fortitude. He also wretched with depression, clumsiness, aggressiveness, headaches, he had a stammer, and walked like a duck. His permanently swollen lips also looked very much like a duck’s bill.
Harold declined as well, and suffered an extensive beating for showing a lack of appreciation for everything done to make his life more comfortable. Two days post bruising, Harold was gone, and had not been seen or heard from since. Then George left then Alice, Thomas, Raymond, John, and Edward in quick succession until there was just Michael and the newborn baby, who died some weeks later of unknown causes.
George wrote to report that all of his childhood ailments including the duck’s bill had disappeared, the miracle having occurred shortly after he left Park Lane. He had attributed the improvement in his condition to his escape, until a medical practitioner informed him that his symptoms were all potato related. Within days of leaving Park Lane, his health had taken a turn for the better because he had not consumed the “god-forsaken vegetable” since, and by the way, he had married a nice girl.
Michael saw no point to moving into the vacated door-less bedroom: it was not a sign of changed fortune or acquired status, and it was more a part of the main house than his veranda. The room, with its bunk beds, and peeling walls painted before the government reclaimed all green pigment for the war, remained empty. No one ever returned, not when the old man passed, and not even at Christmas.
Lunch on the twenty-fifth day of December at Park Lane was exceptional only with regard to the amount of care and perspiration Dorothy discharged into the meal. She insisted on a roast and steamed plum pudding with custard and brandy sauce in spite of a scorching summer and a poorly ventilated kitchen that trapped heat to increase the room’s temperature by an additional ten degrees or more. The erroneous feast seemed to bestow a sense of penance for her so Michael did not complain or suggest a coleslaw.
Michael retired to the veranda after lunch with a new nylon shirt thrown over a bare shoulder with its market price tag still hanging from a button. Dorothy had also given him a carton of beer, which chilled in the freezer that was as cold as any fridge, and this gift brought him the most joy.
He lit a cigarette and blew rings into the air to measure the velocity of any breeze that may have lost its way on the east side of town, puffing westward before wafting lazily through the fibro louvers. The smoke loitered above his head, undisturbed.
Michael wondered how Helena had fared with the announcement. He thought of Grace, and cogitated about Alice wondering why she never answered his letters. He had learned of his breeding in an educational kind of way, as the recipient of a poem composed by other students when he was eight. The verse penetrated his heart and soul with its disclosure and delivery, and he remembered the words to this day: your mother is your sister and you’re a big blister. He was supposed to feel shame from the revelation. He did. He was supposed to feel rejection. He did. He was supposed to feel like an outcast. He did. Containing his bitterness over the years had been a titanic struggle, not won. He was not like Dorothy, his adoptive mother, grandmother, sole speaking relative—she had not capitulated, yet by every account of her life, she had earned the right to swallow the caustic pill. Somehow, she had formed a close relationship with forgiveness, and a peaceful life with what she did not have, but Michael could never accept their poverty.
Through the louvers, he had a clear view of Park Lane and the cricket match in progress. Anyone could join the Christmas Day Test by assuming an outfield catching position, but no one from number 26 ever did, and Michael was not inclined toward a changing of history for no purpose especially on a day that was hotter than Hell.
A cry of “watch out!” caused Helena to cower in a manner that would not have protected anything if the ball had actually struck. She kept a wary eye as she proceeded, keeping to the fence line and out of harm’s way, stopping again under the street sign to shake the dust from her shoes. “Park Lane,” Michael snickered. He had played enough monopoly to appreciate that the Maine town planner had a vile sense of humor. No one would hope to land on this Park Lane even though everyone could afford to. And while the Lane was deemed a prosaic existence by those on the other side of the railway tracks, it was not absent color: the bitumen was black, houses offered the unmistakable gray of fibro, the soil was brown, and although no grass grew, bindi-eyes added green and bur-like purple flowers. Michael returned his attention to the cricket as Helena continued her descent.
Some minutes later, he heard animated chatter in the living room that drowned out the familiar scratching of the Ink Spots. There was mention of dresses and bouquets, and other such matters of no interest to him. Helena would be some time before she made it to his veranda since Dorothy craved female companionship, and clung to it as if it were life itself.
Michael refocused on the cricket as someone fell to the ground screaming in pain clutching a red brick ball that had rocketed into his groin, but with his bottle of beer still held high with the other hand.
“Merry Christmas,” said Helena when she finally stepped through the doorway.
“Merry Christmas.”
She bent down to peck his lips before falling into a wooden chair that Michael had restored for his veranda.
“How did you go with the announcement?” he asked, twisting the ginger butt of a cigarette into the side of a soup can and drawing life into a new on.
“Good, good. Yes, good.”
Michael laughed. “Sure,” he said.
“What? You don’t believe me?” she asked wide-eyed.
“How’s Grace?”
“She’s good. And looking good too although a little tired from working so hard.”
He nodded and peered back through the louvers.
“What’s that smell?” Helena asked sniffing at the air with a frown.
“Potato cakes, from breakfast.” He paused. “She doesn’t have to cook them anymore. We can afford real food.”
“Maybe she likes the taste,” Helena suggested.
“Or maybe her taste buds died a long time ago.” He paused. “So I guess it’s official then?”
“I guess so. I suppose we should announce a date.”
Michael nodded, and smiled as Helena tried to draw cooler air onto her skin by pulling her blouse outward in a fanning motion. He knew it was a waste of time, and the wetness that seeped through her cream silk blouse would soon trickle down her sides.
“I’d better get back,” she said, standing to peer through the louvers as a red ball peeled the air landing close to the house siding. She flinched. “Enjoy the rest of your Christmas, Michael.”
“Just another day in paradise,” he said, not anticipating Helena’s kiss.
She cringed and swiped at the smoke. “I hate those things,” she said, and made her way to the living room to palaver once more
with Dorothy. Michael saw her ambling through the test match some time later. She paused again under the Park Lane sign to wave back at the louvers then continued on her journey to disappear from view.
Chapter Six
Boxing Day 1966
JAMES was up at 4:30AM as was commonplace. Mornings with Millie in the kitchen were the belfry of his every day, with the slide downward into the other hours endured because they drew him closer to the next morning. He baptized himself in the wholesome aromas that coursed a way through his flaring nostrils, bringing life to his body. His ears hummed from the drone of the radio, his mind filled with news from his paper, and the daylight’s resurrection made his spirit soar.
Millie poured his tea: an Irish blend steeped for five minutes exactly in an earthenware pot kept warm by a colorful homemade tea cosy. The water was not over-boiled and the pot was always taken to the source, never the other way around. James sipped, sighed, and reopened The Maine Times.
“Why don’t you like this fellow Helena wants to marry?” Millie asked from her cook’s station.
James closed the broadsheet to contemplate the question. “It’s not that I don’t like him. I feel sorry for him, and his mother—they’ve had a tough life, but I would prefer it if he married someone else’s daughter.” He sipped at his tea before adding, “And he’s not good enough.”
“Isn’t it good enough that Helena loves him and she’s happy?”
“Michael Baden will only bring her unhappiness. Believe me, I know. It’s in the genes.” James returned to his paper to signify the end of the conversation.
“Why? Because his father was an alcoholic?” Millie asked. “That doesn’t mean he will be.”
“I’m telling you, Millie—it’s hereditary, and his father was a violent alcoholic, beating his poor wife and children to within an inch of their lives. That’s the environment the boy grew up in. He doesn’t know anything else, and that’s what will happen to my daughter if this marriage goes ahead.”
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