ammy, Birgit and the crew leave with assurances that they will be in touch. No mention is made of Milo’s remaining ten Gs. He doesn’t inquire about the balance owing because he hopes never to see Sammy and Birgit again. He puts Gus to bed and collapses on the couch. Pablo is already in position on the La-Z-Boy. ‘Your old man seems nice,’ he says. ‘Maybe you just didn’t know the whole person. It’s hard to know a whole person. Sarah says we must not fear mystery in our relationships.’
‘What happened with Robertson? You were sanding the deck when she took him in a taxi.’
Pablo tosses a sock on the floor. ‘She asked me not to tell anybody.’
‘Why?’
‘She don’t want people to know.’ He tosses his other sock.
‘You can tell me, I know about all the weirdness over there.’
‘This is weirder. She don’t want people to know.’
‘I’m not “people.”’
‘Sorry, but I’m a man of my word.’ Pablo tucks his blanket around him.
‘Can you at least tell me where she took him?’
‘To that centre where they take the kids when they freak out.’
‘Did she leave him there?’
‘She was planning to. They’ve got this room the kid can go crazy in.’
‘The quiet room.’
‘He can’t hurt nobody in there.’
‘Did he hurt her?’
‘I’m not telling you, Milo.’
‘Vera said he was saying terrible things to her.’
Pablo pretends to be sleeping. Milo throws a cushion at him. ‘What are Sarah Moon Dancer’s views on Autism Spectrum Disorders?’
‘I told you already, she says they have special gifts.’
‘Has she ever tried living with one?’
Pablo unwraps a stick of Trident and starts chewing. ‘Do you think they’ll let me be on your reality show?’
‘It’ll be hard to keep you out of it.’
‘I’ve never been on TV. I wish Maria could see it.’
‘I thought you were over Maria.’
‘I am, I am,’ Pablo says, a little too forcefully.
‘Where’s Fennel?’
‘She had a late class. She’s always going to class.’
‘Yeah, well, some people have ambition and actually want to do something with their lives.’
‘What do you want to do with your life, Milo?’
He had an answer for this once. He was going to be a star of stage and screen. He picks up the remote and sees earthquake victims scrambling in rubble. The door swings open and in ambles Wallace with a woman. ‘Hey, boys,’ he says. ‘Meet Lorraine.’
‘Hi, Lorraine,’ Pablo says.
‘Aren’t you cute,’ Lorraine says. Her lips seem overly large and overly red.
Wallace heads for the kitchen. ‘I bought more vodka coolers, did the Mexican drink them already?’
‘I didn’t drink no vodka coolers, Wallace.’
‘Fucking wetback.’
‘Is that nice?’ Lorraine says. Wallace returns with two vodka coolers and begins to fondle Lorraine, who seems not to notice. ‘Is this your house?’
‘It’s my house,’ Milo says.
‘Actually, it’s his dad’s house,’ Pablo clarifies. ‘Only his dad don’t know it because he got hit on the head or something and can’t remember nothing but Polish.’
‘How’d that go?’ Wallace asks.
‘He’s upstairs, don’t wake him, apparently he has nightmares.’
‘Who doesn’t?’ Lorraine says. ‘Last night I was stuck in an elevator shaft and any second the elevator was going to whoosh down and cut off my legs.’
Wallace sits in the armchair and pulls her onto his lap but seems uncertain of his next move. Lorraine puts her arm around him and he resumes groping her breasts, awkwardly, as though he feels he should. An earthquake survivor holds her dead child in her arms and wails. Milo turns off the TV and heads for the Muskoka chairs. The moon, although no longer completely full, provides enough light to reveal the outlines of things. He stares at the trampoline and tries to imagine Robertson on it, life as it was before Christopher left. It’s not who you are with other people that counts, Sarah Moon Dancer said, it’s who you are when you’re alone. What goes through your mind in those moments of aloneness.
What goes through Milo’s mind in his moments of aloneness are concerns about what’s going through other people’s minds: Tanis, Christopher, Robertson, Gus.
Alas.
Then he sees her, on her newly sanded deck, sitting very still with her back to him. No light shines from the kitchen or Robertson’s window. He approaches slowly, stopping several feet from her. ‘Did you leave him at the centre?’
‘Who told you he was at the centre?’
‘Pablo.’
‘What else did he tell you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Good.’ She drinks from a wine bottle that must have been intended for the couple to share. ‘There was this mother there,’ she says, her speech slightly slowed by the alcohol. ‘Her son is sixteen, low-functioning ASD, like really out of it, and he’s been bullied for years. It never stops, she says, no matter where she takes him he’s called a retard and tormented. Anyway, they pulled his pants down and got their cells out and broadcast his penis worldwide. He kept trying to pull up his underwear but they just yanked it down again. Apparently it went on for fifteen minutes before they heard a teacher coming and took off. All the teacher saw was the violated boy throwing chairs. She sent him to the office. He told the principal nothing. The mother only found out because the sociopaths sent the link to her son and she knows his password. So there she was crying and telling me all this while her boy was trying to destroy himself in the quiet room.’ She drinks more wine. ‘On my good days, I believe my son has a future.’
‘He does.’
‘No, he doesn’t.’
‘He does. The bullies are the problem. He’s not the problem.’
‘There is no life without bullies. Bullies rule.’
Milo would like to disagree but must admit that much of his life has consisted of submission to bullies in and out of uniform. ‘Isn’t there some way to avoid them, take him somewhere safe?’
‘Like where?’
‘He was so happy in the ravine.’
‘He can’t live in the ravine, Milo, get real, please.’
‘What did he do to you?’
She drinks more then swishes the wine around in the bottle.
‘Please tell me what he did to you.’
‘It’s not important.’
‘It is to me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I love him.’ He has never said this before, never thought it before. Is it real? He fears she will think him insincere, or say he has no right to love Robertson or that he has no idea what love is. All of which might be true.
‘He tried to strangle me.’ Her voice becomes so thin and shaky he has to step onto the deck to hear. ‘When he was a baby he’d push his forehead into my neck so hard it left bruises. It was like he was trying to push through me to something. It was like I was in the way. I’m in the way.’
‘No, you’re not.’
‘He never looked for me when I picked him up from daycare. Other kids, they’d look for their parents, and get excited when they saw them. I could’ve been anybody. I just wanted him to reach for me once. Just once.’
‘He doesn’t express himself that way.’
‘How does he express himself, Milo? Since you’re the expert.’ Her venom shocks him. She’s in pain and wants to kick the shit out of her female side.
‘You mean more to him than anybody,’ Milo says.
‘Only because I feed and shelter him and put up with his abuse. I could be anybody. Christopher’s right.’
‘No he isn’t, I’m sure he isn’t.’
‘What makes you so sure? You’re projecting your needs onto my son. You don’t know my son. Nobody knows my son. My son doesn’t e
ven know my son.’
‘I think he does. I think he knows himself better than most of us know ourselves. He sees what’s in front of him. The rest of us are running around trying to see something else, be something else. He just is.’
The screams from the house cause them both to freeze. ‘It’s my father,’ he says.
‘Your father’s dead.’
‘No, he’s not.’
Gus takes the blue pill supplied by the dwarf without hesitation. ‘Jezu Chryste,’ he mutters.
‘He doesn’t care,’ Milo says.
‘Przepraszam.’
‘Are you okay?’ Milo can see that Gus isn’t. Sweating and shaking, he can barely hold the glass steady.
‘Gówno,’ Gus says.
‘I think you had a nightmare.’
‘Of course he had a nightmare,’ Vera says. ‘My cousin Alfie had terrible nightmares after the Jap camp. Even after he went dotty he kept having nightmares about the Japs.’
‘If he was dotty,’ Milo says, ‘how could you know what his nightmares were about?’
‘Because he sounded like he was being tortured, just like Gus.’
‘Gus wasn’t in a camp, he was a boy.’
‘Boys were in camps.’
‘He wasn’t in a camp. We’re not Jewish.’
‘You think they only put Jews in camps? What do you think they did with the DPs?’
‘What’s a DP?’ Pablo asks.
‘A displaced person,’ Vera says. ‘Eastern Europe was crawling with them, refugees escaping the Russians.’
Pablo scratches his armpit. ‘So, were they, like, put in concentration camps?’
‘Converted army barracks,’ Milo interjects. ‘They had food from the Red Cross.’
‘Not enough. The soldiers kept them on restricted rations and imposed curfews. My sister Vicki married a Czech DP. The poor sods were already starved from being on the run, had lice and countless other illnesses, not to mention psychological problems. Zikmund was always terribly jumpy. Vicki had to be careful not to touch him when he was sleeping because he’d lash out at her. Once he gave her a black eye. That’s when he explained to her about the camp, what the older boys did to the littler ones.’
‘Gus never said anything about camps,’ Milo says.
‘Why would he? Not exactly something to be proud of.’
‘He would have told me.’
‘Alfie never talked about it. Neither did Zikie, except when he gave Vicki the black eye.’
‘Nie podniecaj się.’
‘We don’t understand you, love,’ Vera says. ‘Speak English.’
‘Nie mogę tego zrobić.’
‘It’s okay,’ Milo says, ‘don’t worry about it.’ He strokes Gus’s hair the way Birgit did. Touching his father has always felt prohibited. His hair feels surprisingly soft. The stroking seems to calm Gus. He lies back on the narrow bed. ‘Is the bed okay?’ Milo asks.
‘Okay,’ Gus replies.
‘He spoke English,’ Pablo squeals.
‘Okay?’ Milo says again.
‘Okay,’ Gus replies, closing his eyes.
In his room, Milo goes online to search DP camps and learns that Poles were sheltered in Wehrmacht barracks in northern Bavaria. After fleeing from the advancing Soviets in eastern Poland, they were stranded in Czechoslovakia. Conditions were harsh in the camps; DPs lacked necessities and bartered their remaining belongings for milk or meat. Those who tried to return were met with hostility, their houses, possessions and jobs taken over by the communists. Many remained in the camps. In 1947 the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration closed the camps to new refugees. They were told to survive as ‘free livers.’ Countries were unwilling to accept them unless close relatives sponsored them. DPs were screened and questioned, and forced to undergo medical and skill testing. Up until 1951, Canada accepted qualified labourers. Gus. He must have lied about his age.
Vera knocks on his door. ‘There’s a woman in the loo, Milo.’
‘Is there?’
‘A strange woman. It’s not Fennel.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about it.’
‘Do you think she’s Wally’s date?’
The bathroom door opens and out swaggers Lorraine, fully clothed, her large lips newly reddened. ‘Good evening, folks,’ she says.
‘Are you with Wallace?’ Vera asks, looking minute beside the woman in stilettos.
‘I was. But now I’m outta here.’
‘No rush. I don’t mind if you sleep over.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Wally’s mum.’
‘Oh.’ Lorraine looks at Milo over Vera’s shoulder. He holds his finger against his lips.
‘Why don’t you get back under the covers,’ Vera says. ‘We’ll all have a nice brekkie in the morning. I’m not in the least old-fashioned. You needn’t hide anything from me.’
‘That’s really nice of you, but I don’t want to be any trouble.’
‘No trouble. I love a crowd at breakfast. There were nine of us in my family and we made quite a stir in the mornings, I can tell you.’
‘I don’t eat breakfast,’ Lorraine says, squeezing around Vera. ‘I’ve got to watch my figure.’
‘Oh, you must never miss breakfast, it’s the most important meal of the day.’
Wallace opens his door. ‘Let her go, Mother.’
‘I’ve only just met her. I’m so happy you had a date, Wally. She’s lovely.’
‘It wasn’t a date, Mother.’
‘I’ve really got to go,’ Lorraine says.
‘At this time of night? Surely not, it can’t be safe for a girl on the streets.’
‘She’s not a girl, Mother, she’s a hooker, all right, she’s a whore. I paid her to fuck me.’
Vera, speechless for once, sways slightly. Milo quickly steadies her. ‘Men do that,’ he explains. ‘Hire prostitutes. It’s quite common.’
‘It’s a living,’ Lorraine says. ‘Nice meeting you folks.’ Her stilettos click on the stairs. They all listen to the front door close.
‘Go to bed, Mother.’ Wallace shuts his bedroom door. Vera, leaning on Milo, stares at it.
‘How ’bout a rum toddy?’ he asks.
‘I think I’ll just go to bed, thank you. I’m feeling a bit knackered.’
‘Okay, well, we’ll see you bright and early for brekkie.’ She continues to lean on him as he walks her to her room, Milo’s parents’ room with the marshmallow bed.
‘Do we have any bangers?’ Milo asks, even though the thought of ground pig stuffed in pigs’ guts makes him heave.
‘I’m not sure. You’ll have to check.’
‘Righteo, I’ll do that.’
‘Yes,’ she says as though she has no idea what he’s talking about. ‘You do that.’
Tanis is no longer on the deck and their lights are out. She must have taken one of Robertson’s tranks, otherwise how could she slumber with her boy locked in a padded room? Although maybe there is comfort to be found in a room in which you can scream your guts out and flail and kick. Milo could use such a room. More than anything he would like to kick in Tanis’s door, charge upstairs and grab her, let her scream her guts out and flail and kick until there is no fight left and she lies limp in his arms. Christopher used to do this with Robertson when he was smaller. It could take an hour for the boy to surrender. Christopher would rock the exhausted child gently in his arms, and kiss his forehead.
Padded rooms. Annie sometimes stayed in one at the hospital, which meant she couldn’t have visitors. When she was free to roam the floor, Gus took Milo for visits because he said it was important for mother and son to see each other. ‘If it’s important for us to see each other,’ Milo argued, ‘why can’t she stay home?’
‘She’s sick. She needs help.’
‘She’s not sick, she’s just tired. And she doesn’t need help. You said Mrs. C. would help and she doesn’t help at all. She scares Mummy.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You
couldn’t find a better woman than Mrs. Cauldershot. We’re lucky to have her.’
Milo wanted to say, ‘You love Mrs. Cauldershot more than Mummy.’ But he feared a swat on the head. Also, he was scared if he blew Mrs. C.’s and his father’s cover they would be even meaner to Annie. Already they teamed up whenever Annie had what Gus called crazy ideas, like sewing new curtains.
‘Why won’t you let Mummy sew?’ Milo asked over pork chops.
‘For what? Who needs new curtains around here, you? Besides, she never finishes anything.’
‘She does too,’ Milo argued. ‘When she isn’t sad.’
‘She started in on those cushion covers,’ Mrs. C. said, ‘and look what happened. All that silk wasted.’ She tenderly dolloped mashed turnips onto Gus’s plate. ‘She’s not a finisher, that one.’
Milo couldn’t believe his father was allowing Mrs. C. to speak so disrespectfully of Annie.
‘Just let her be, son. Let her rest.’
It seemed to Milo that resting was killing his mother. At the hospital she rested in an armchair by the ping-pong table, watching the balls pinging back and forth. Milo thought it was great that hospitals had ping-pong tables, although he didn’t understand why the table had no net or why none of the patients were bleeding or bandaged, on crutches or in wheelchairs. A teenager with a swollen nose and stiff hair kept praying. A bug-eyed girl beat her head against the wall. A hunched man paced and talked furiously to himself. The almost bald woman who shared Annie’s room lay under blankets and never moved. Annie didn’t look physically injured either, just numb and bloated. Milo would climb onto her lap and hope she’d stroke his hair while Gus ranted about the idiots he was working for and the idiots who worked for him. Annie rarely spoke but once she said, ‘You think everyone is an idiot.’
Gus immediately argued that he didn’t think everyone was an idiot.
‘Name one person you don’t think is an idiot,’ she said.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Gus said.
‘Name one.’
Gus looked around the recreation room as though hoping to spot a person who wasn’t an idiot, but Milo knew his father thought all the doctors and nurses were idiots. The only person he didn’t think was an idiot was Mrs. Cauldershot but Milo couldn’t say this because it would upset Annie.
Gus patted her hand. ‘You,’ he said finally. ‘You’re not an idiot.’
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