by Nancy Hartry
I find Jimmy with Aunt Jean. The men and boys choir is just finishing up their rehearsal, singing a motet in old English. Their voices move like waves on a beach, up and down the scale, tone by tone. The final note of the organ is suspended in the air and I feel like I can reach right out and grab it.
The Rosedale ladies are filing in. Some in black, all in flouncy hats. I like sitting at the front of the church smelling the face powder and the different perfumes. It’s like sitting in Aunt Jean’s garden in the summer.
Usually we have lots of room in our pew — we usually have it to ourselves. If someone opens the door and sits in our box by mistake, once they get a whiff of Jimmy’s urine smell, they usually find a reason to move elsewhere — a friend they need to see across the aisle, a sidesman they need to chat with. The Rosedale ladies are polite or try to be. Aunt Jean says that they have good breeding. Like her hybrid tea roses, I guess.
There is only one person in the whole congregation who doesn’t care about Jimmy’s smell. The General. I don’t even know his last name. Aunt Jean and I just call him the General. Perhaps his nose has been blunted by nerve gases and gunpowder and he can no longer smell. The General sits right beside the door of our box so he can get out quickly to read the lesson. Since he retired from his post in Germany, the General reads the lesson every week. He’s a regular feature.
I like to look at the General’s face. He has young skin, smooth and pink. His eyes are bright like a baby’s, darting around looking at everyone. His most shocking feature is his white hair. It’s as white as the dean’s surplice, and sticks straight up like the bristles on a shoeshine brush. They say he was in Europe two weeks and after a day of fighting, he went to bed with black hair and when he woke up in the morning, his hair had turned completely white. As if the color was scared right out of it!
When the General gets up to read, people shift in their seats and lean forward. A murmur goes through the crowd. The General is a true hero. He has things to say, and he never sticks to his notes.
Aunt Jean pokes me in the ribs. It’s time to check on Jimmy. I pull my arm in tight and ignore her. I want so badly to stay and listen. Every week, the General wanders into war.
“Carolyn!” Aunt Jean’s annoyed.
I sigh loudly, dramatically, so they can hear me right up to the front of the church, but I go. I dawdle all the way to the nursery, punishing Aunt Jean. Punishing my mother for working all the time so that I have to come to church with Aunt Jean. Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, but my mother never rests. And yes, punishing the new Jimmy.
Did I mention my mother was out again last night? There must be a fella that she’s keeping from me. She probably doesn’t want me to frighten him away. The last time I actually met one, I pretended I was a dog with distemper, frothing at the mouth and baring my fangs in his face. He couldn’t get out the door fast enough. I don’t get to see much of my mother as it is. We don’t need outsiders.
I find the choir room. There are rows of benches facing each other with a piano in the middle. The sheet music is everywhere — on the floor, on the benches. Boys can be so careless. I pick the papers up off the floor and pile them neatly on the piano. Then I sit down on the piano bench. I finger the first line of a Gregorian chant without depressing the keys for fear that the congregation might hear me. I play to the end and start again, humming now. I go back to the beginning and sing softly. Then I change key and sing the chant that is running through my head.
There are always new tunes in my head and I have to, HAVE TO, let them fall on the page or they will drive me around the bend all day long. I keep one dictation book between the mattress and boxspring at home and a similar one at Aunt Jean’s, since the music flows best first thing in the morning, before I’m truly awake. There was no time for writing down my music this morning.
I open my eyes and the General is standing before me. He’s holding the hand of a towheaded toddler, peeking out at me from behind his Grandpa’s leg.
“This is Armstrong.”
“Hi ya, Armstrong.” I ask the General if he wants me to take the kid to the nursery.
“Please. Maybe he’ll mind you. I’m not having much luck.”
I take Armstrong’s other hand and we swing him up some stairs and down the hall. Armstrong wants to go by himself and he runs toward the brightly lit room.
“My daughter-in-law is supervising the nursery. He doesn’t like to share his mother with the other children so he makes a fuss.”
“He’ll learn,” I say. “There’s no point in making a fuss.”
Jimmy’s glad to see me. I reintroduce him to the General who has met us just once before. He shakes Jimmy’s hand and calls him “young man.”
“What happened?” the General asks and I know exactly what he means. I’ve told the story about the swing so many times, even I almost believe it happened that way. I tell it again.
There is a long pause while the General waits for me to add more. There is nothing left to say.
“I don’t like the sound of that, young lady. A big strapping boy falling off a swing. There’s something not quite right with that tale.” His bright blue eyes scour my face, looking for the truth. I turn away first.
The General’s daughter-in-law, the nursery lady, wants me to sing. I begin to protest and then figure singing might divert the General from asking further questions leading to Uncle Ted, Aunt Jean’s only living relative — such as he is.
I sing the “White Cliffs of Dover.” It’s a war song, not a church song. I can see by the look on the General’s face that he’s no longer in the nursery at St. James Cathedral in Toronto, but back in Europe, during war time.
I don’t end it, the song, I mean. I make a key change and switch into “Jesus Loves Me.”
One thing I know for sure. Jesus doesn’t love Jimmy or Aunt Jean. He must really be mad at them for something. As Aunt Jean says, things go from bad to worse. I would say to worser, which I know is not a word, but it says how I feel.
Things go from bad to worse to worser. Worser and worser.
There are many whispering conversations at Aunt Jean’s kitchen table that I’m excluded from. Little pitchers have big ears.
I squirm on my stomach and hide under the end table in the parlor, being careful not to move the lamp cord, but positioning myself close enough to hear. Mom and Aunt Jean are talking about money. Where was Aunt Jean going to get the money to pay back Uncle Ted? He was being so insistent about being paid off. My mom offers to put a mortgage on our house and give it to Aunt Jean.
“I can’t ask you to do that, dear. It’s not right. You have troubles of your own.”
That means me. My mom jokes that I’m “boilin’ trouble,” just like the nursery rhyme. I love the way her nose crinkles and her eyes smile when she says it.
The phone rings. It’s the General’s daughter-in-law from St. James Cathedral. She wants to speak to me.
Did I mention that I don’t like the telephone? When you use the telephone, you can’t see the expression in the other person’s eyes. You can’t match the words they’re saying out of their mouths with the truth they’re telling from the “windows of their soul” as the dean would put it. I have to listen very hard when I use the telephone. I try to use X-ray vision and imagine the person at the other end of the curly black wire.
“Tell her I’m not home,” I pipe up from my hiding place under the end table.
“Land sakes! Get out of there, girl,” says Aunt Jean.
“Carolyn, I taught you to have better manners than that. Answer the telephone,” Mom says.
The black snake is curled up on the telephone table. I hesitate before picking up the receiver. “Hello?”
The General’s daughter-in-law is calling on behalf of the General. The General has arranged for me to audition with St. Olave’s Choir. Never mind that time for auditioning is over. They are doing their Christmas repertoire now, and they need a good soloist.
“I’m too busy at sc
hool,” I say.
The General’s daughter-in-law is very persuasive. It’s a great honor to be invited.
“I don’t go out after school,” I say. I turn my back on my mother and Aunt Jean so they can’t hear me. “I look after Jimmy.”
“The General said to tell you it pays money.”
There’s a long silence. Money? I could get a job? Me, an eleven-almost twelve-year-old kid could get a job?
“I’m not interested,” I say.
“He says ten dollars a week.”
I’m breathing hard into the phone. My mother works one whole day in the factory for ten dollars.
“And if you do a solo, there’s more.”
“How much?” I whisper.
“Another ten dollars.”
I don’t say anything.
“Write this down.” It’s an order from the General’s daughter-in-law. I pick up a pencil and do what I’m told. St. Olave’s is within walking distance, on Windermere Avenue, close to Bloor Street. Maybe it’s meant to be.
“So, can I tell them you’ll be there?”
“When is it?”
“Tomorrow. Thursday.”
“Oh,” I say. “I never go out on Ted-day.” I hang up the phone gently without saying good-bye. I fold over the paper and shove it in the pocket of my sweater coat.
When I go back to the kitchen, Jimmy is sitting in Aunt Jean’s lap, facing her. He’s counting her eyes and her nose and her mouth. The kitchen is warm and light, and the smell of cinnamon-baked apples is coming from the oven. The two of them are laughing.
There will be no laughing if Uncle Ted moves in.
“What did the lady want?” my mother asks.
“She wants me to help her in the nursery.” The lie comes easily.
“That’s a nice thing to do. It’s good experience.”
“It’s God’s work,” says Aunt Jean.
Yes. Yes it is. But God is a cheapskate. Working in the nursery won’t pay down the mortgage. And I don’t need the Bible to tell me that there will be no smells of cinnamon coming from this kitchen if Aunt Jean and Jimmy’s bags are on the street. I don’t for a minute think that Aunt Jean will let Ted take over her house. She’d leave before that happened.
This I know.
I wake up with a sour feeling in my stomach. Today is Ted-day. And the day of the audition.
It’s quiet on our side of the house because my mom has already left for work — the day shift this time. I listen for noise on the other side of the wall. It’s like I have X-ray eyes. I can see Jimmy still sleeping, clutching his rag doll and Aunt Jean already in the kitchen, scuffing in her slippers between the kettle and the icebox, making tea and oatmeal porridge — something to stick to my ribs, because it’s getting cold outside. She’ll be taking down a jar of home-preserved applesauce to heat on the stove for me. Aunt Jean says that I’m getting so grown up that there’s not much she can do for me now except make me a hearty breakfast and send me on my way to school. At almost twelve, I’m getting that big.
I use the bathroom and brush my teeth, pondering what I’ll wear. It’s going to be a mixed day today. I need a little bit of courage.
I select my navy box-pleated skirt and matching kneesocks. The white blouse with the ruffle at the sleeve. And a red cardigan. Lambswool, soft as a baby’s bum, handed down from my second cousin in Montreal.
I brush my hair fifteen strokes. That will have to do.
I’m careful to check that the stove is off, that the refrigerator door is closed, that all the lights are out. I check the back door and lock the front.
I time it just perfectly. Aunt Jean is pouring me a cup of Kid’s Tea.
“Good morning, dear,” she says. “You look nice. Do you have to do your speech today?”
“Maybe.” I don’t want to deal with any suggestion that Jimmy might want to come and hear me.
“Well, you look lovely. Ready for anything the day might bring.”
I observe Aunt Jean closely. There are little gray hairs sprouting from her chin. Without rouge and face powder, her cheeks are sallow and there is a crust of sleeplessness in the corner of each eye. I don’t need to ask how she slept. It’s written all over her face.
Aunt Jean hugs her teacup with both hands. They’re beautiful hands — strong hands with well-buffed nails cut short. Her hands are in water so much that she plasters them with Nivea and wears cotton gloves to bed. She’s always remarking that it’s important to have lady-like hands when you get older. It’s your hands that are a true giveaway of your age.
Aunt Jean’s age is a mystery to me. Sometimes she seems so old, more like a grandmother to Jimmy than a mother. I mean, there was a big gap between Jimmy and Bertie. Jimmy was born after Bertie died so close to the end of the war. Jimmy never, ever met his big brother. Aunt Jean says that Jimmy-boy saved her life, or at least from a trip to the 999 Queen Street mental institution. One thing I can tell you, we never ride the Queen car — only the King car — so as to avoid passing by 999 Queen. There are many loonies still in there because of the war. The Queen car brings back bad memories for Aunt Jean because the doctors wanted to put her in there for a while, but she refused to go, and pulled out of it on her own. Mostly because of Jimmy.
Aunt Jean makes her porridge with milk. There’s a dollop of butter melting on the top. With a bit of cream, it’s a delicious breakfast and it’s gone in a second. The applesauce is tart. I swish it around in my mouth, cleaning my teeth.
“Ted called last night. He has to take the car in today for servicing so he won’t be over tonight.”
He could take the bus, I think to myself. I know how Aunt Jean counts on the money he brings, but for Jimmy’s sake, I’m glad. Jimmy will be better without the visit.
Did I say that Jimmy is always wilder when Uncle Ted is around? Last week, he flung his milk across the table and ruined Ted’s new pants. Jimmy does the things that I think about doing. Sometimes, I give him a brain message. Jimmy, pick up your chocolate milk and throw it at Ted. And Jimmy does it.
Scary.
Our Jimmy’s brain works on a different level now. A level most people know nothing about. He’s like an animal surviving on instinct.
“So, did you talk to your brother about the mortgage?” I make a point of not calling Ted by name.
“Not another word!” she says pounding her palm on the table. Then she softens her tone with me. “There’s no talking to Ted right now. He’s got a bee in his bonnet about moving into this house.”
“So, Aunt Jean, you’ll be home this evening, then. You won’t be going out?”
Aunt Jean gives me an exasperated look like Where else would I be going?
“Do you have something on after school, Carolyn?”
“I think I have a speech practice, but that’s after dinner.” I’m glad I’m not the one matching what is coming out of my mouth with the look in my eyes, for I’m lying again. I’m setting the stage in case I decide to go to the audition, after all. I didn’t say I wouldn’t, so maybe I will. We’ll see. It will depend on how the day goes.
I’ll look for signs that I should go to the audition.
The first positive sign is that the horrid Luanne Price isn’t in school today. Her teacher’s-pet seat, right up front, is empty and the teacher is using it to dispense the seat work. It’s a very good use of Luanne’s desk to my way of thinking.
You’re probably wondering what kind of student I am. These days, I’m a very inattentive student. I keep to myself mostly and I read books. I ignore the silly games that the boys play, like flicking spitballs. I pretend I don’t see the regular flow of silly girlie notes moving up and down the aisles all around me, avoiding me. Since Jimmy’s accident, I have cooties. Even the teachers treat me differently.
My revenge is that I never listen or never appear to listen, but I always know the answer to the teacher’s questions. The teacher calls me, trying to catch me up, but she never can. Since the beginning of the school year, it feels li
ke the teacher is always trying to trip me up. She makes a mission of trying to trip me up. By the third week, she leaves me alone. I wear her down.
All my marks are A+. I don’t bother about school, really. I used to love, love, love it, but since Jimmy’s accident … well … it doesn’t seem very important. Now, I put in time. I do the homework. And that’s it. They don’t own my brain. I couldn’t care less.
Right now, I’m reading Jane Eyre. I believe I’m reincarnated from Georgian times. Next, I’ll be reading Wuthering Heights. I’ll have to go to the adult section of the Runnymede Library and say that I’m taking it out for Aunt Jean. The Librarian thinks that Aunt Jean is quite a reader, but maybe not. She told me that Aunt Jean will have to come in herself if she intends to read Madame Bovary. She couldn’t entrust that one to the hands of an innocent minor like me.
The second sign is shocking, really. The record player in the office is broken and there’s no “God Save the Queen” today. Every morning, I work very hard at not belting out that song, because I love it so. I imagine how Jane Eyre must have sung it. So proud. So strong. With such a lovely English accent. I can’t remember a weekday without “God Save the Queen.”
I pass through lunch and recess and gym class thinking that that’s it. There’ll be no third sign and I won’t have to go to the audition, after all. I can go home and do my homework and have dinner as usual and maybe play some Scrabble with Aunt Jean before bed. I almost convince myself that a boring evening would make for a very good Ted-day for a change.
I watch the clock as it passes 3:30. There are twenty minutes left until I can pack up my books.
There’s a commotion at the door. The principal is smiling at me and curling his pointer finger beckoning me out of the class. Come here, my pretty! he seems to say, just like in the Wizard of OZ.
The principal has an envelope for me to take home to Aunt Jean. Expressing his congratulations. And to Jimmy, of course, who is technically still enrolled as a student, although he can’t attend.