What were her true feelings as she lay day in and day out on the marshmallow bed? When the ambulance and fire trucks arrived it was all very thrilling until they took her away on a stretcher and Mrs. C. started mashing parsnips. When she let Milo stay up to watch TV, he knew something was wrong. Halfway through Hill Street Blues, Gus came home, turned off the TV and sat Milo down at the dining room table. ‘I’m very sorry, son,’ he said. ‘Your mother has passed.’
‘Passed where?’
‘She is no longer with us.’
‘Where did she go?’
‘She’s dead, son. She had a heart attack.’
Milo knew about heart attacks, had seen them on TV. Men clutched their chests and fell to their knees. Women didn’t have heart attacks. And anyway, his mother was sleeping.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
‘I’m sure.’
‘Because she could just be sleeping. She sleeps a lot. You don’t know because you’re at work.’ He wanted his father to say, ‘You’re right, son, she’s probably just sleeping.’ He wanted today to be like yesterday and the day before that.
‘She’s dead, son, and I need you to be a big boy about it.’ He patted Milo’s shoulder.
Vera wakes abruptly. ‘What’s all this then?’
‘Hi, Vera, I just wanted to make sure you’re all right.’
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Well, you’ve stayed in your room all day.’
‘Have I? Heavens.’
‘Why don’t you come downstairs and have a bite with us?’
‘Is Wally back from the office?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Awfully busy, that accounting business, isn’t it? Have you seen my cardy?’
‘You’re sitting on it.’
‘So I am.’ She pulls the cardigan from under her. Milo helps her put it on.
‘Would you like me to bring you up a tray?’ he asks. ‘Pablo and Gus are making tacos.’
‘You have to be patient with him, Milo. Alfie and Zikie would get into the blackest of moods. Lost in their own worlds, they were.’
‘Fortunately I don’t think Gus remembers anything about the war. He seems pretty happy, all things considered.’
‘He’s just not letting on, just like Zikie.’
He hands her her glasses. ‘Thank you for darning my socks.’
‘It’s no trouble, I enjoy it.’ She takes the wedding picture from the dresser. ‘Did you forget about this? You told me you didn’t have any photos.’
‘Yeah, well, I never come in here.’ He can’t admit he didn’t show it to her because having his mother judged, alive or dead, by strangers has always made him flinch and, occasionally, punch walls.
‘What a looker she was,’ Vera says. ‘And what a kind, intelligent face. Thoughtful. Do you miss her?’
‘I didn’t really know her. I was only six.’
‘She’d be very proud of you.’
‘Why?’
‘You’re an actor, acting in a movie. Very impressive.’
Vera picks up her mending and starts checking a pair of Wallace’s socks. ‘Have you ever hired a prostitute?’
‘No, but people do it all the time.’
‘Where’s your girlfriend that Pablo mentioned?’
‘I don’t know. She’s changed her number.’
‘You could find her, if you set your mind to it. Youngsters give up so easily these days. If we lot had quit at the first sign of trouble, where would you be?’
Milo picks up Annie’s burgundy and gold hand mirror. When she wasn’t sad she would hold it at the back of her head to check her hair in the dresser mirror. Milo loved lying on the marshmallow bed and watching her do her hair and makeup. If he stayed very still she would forget about him and not tell him to stop mooning and go play.
‘What do you think of my mother’s decor?’
‘A bit of a chocolate box, isn’t it?’ She’s fastened the cardigan’s buttons off-centre but he doesn’t have the heart to tell her.
‘Wouldn’t it be great,’ he says, ‘if someone was proud of us for who we are, not what we do?’
‘Actions speak louder than words, Milo. My nephew, Gilly, was always trying to impress his mum, talking about the poor Africans and how he wanted to dig them wells. He was always down the pub fundraising for his wells, and she always believed him because she loved him. The poor sod was living off the well money. Broke her heart when Ettie found out.’
Maybe now is the time to come clean about Wallace’s line of work. Maybe it’s none of the avoider’s business.
‘But Gilly wouldn’t have made up all that stuff about wells in Africa,’ Milo says, ‘if his mother had been proud of him for who he was.’
‘What’s to be proud of? A grown boy sitting around watching telly?’
‘He wasn’t always a grown boy watching telly. Once he was a little boy doing little-boy things. Did Ettie love him for who he was then?’
Vera fingers her cardy buttons. ‘He was an odd little boy, always wore his knickers under his pyjamas. Drove Ettie round the bend because then he’d forget to put clean ones on in the morning.’
‘Why was he wearing his knickers under his pyjamas?’
‘He said if he was kidnapped, he wanted to have his knickers on.’
‘Why did he think he might be kidnapped?’
‘Haven’t the foggiest.’
Would it be hard to be proud of a son who wore his knickers under his pyjamas for fear of being kidnapped? Or who coloured outside the lines, or who pissed himself rather than brave the bathroom where he might find a bloodied fetus in the toilet bowl?
Maybe it’s better that Gus has forgotten about the boy who looks like a beaver.
•••
Pablo holds up an apple. ‘You know what this is, Milo? Yaboowco.’
Gus nods, smiling his doltish smile. ‘Jabłko.’
‘In English,’ Pablo says. ‘Come on, Gussy, say it in English.’
‘Ap-pehl.’
‘See, he’s totally learning English.’
‘Two words don’t equal totally.’ Milo shoves a taco in his mouth even though he isn’t hungry.
‘He’s trying though, Milo, that’s the important thing.’
‘Is it? I thought love was the important thing.’ Grated cheese falls from his taco onto the floor. Gus grabs the dishrag and wipes it up.
‘He really likes apples. He’s eaten, like, four. We’ve got to get some more.’
‘We?’
Gus starts doing dishes, a task he always left to Milo once Mrs. Cauldershot was no longer on the scene. During a garbage run, he found an old dishwasher that he insisted he would fix but never did.
‘You should see what Gussy did to the deck, you wouldn’t believe it. It’s like he’s a carpenter or something.’
Milo taps Gus’s shoulder, startling him. ‘You don’t need to do those. Pablo can do them.’
‘No prah-blum,’ Gus says.
‘See, I taught him that too. Way to go, Gussy, no problem.’
Milo takes the dishrag from Gus and hands it to Pablo.
‘Why do I have to do them?’
‘Because you’re the martyr.’
‘But he likes doing them.’
‘How do you know, do you speak Polish?’
Gus, backing away from Milo, fills the kettle and puts it on the stove. ‘Nie przejmuj się,napij się kawy.’
‘Would you quit that?’ Milo says, more loudly than he’d intended. ‘Nobody speaks Polski around here.’
‘He’s just trying to communicate, Milo.’
‘Oh, so he can’t figure out that none of us know what the fuck he’s talking about? How stupid are you, old man?’
‘Nie rozumiem.’
‘Here we go again. Fucking mind games. Shut up, all right, just shut up.’
Gus cowers by the stove. Milo has never seen him cower. Terrorizing his father sparks electricity in Milo’s fibres. Pablo pushes him into the living room.
‘Are you crazy, man? What do you think you’re doing? You’re scaring him. He don’t know what you’re saying.’
‘How do you know? How do you know he isn’t stringing us along so he doesn’t have to take responsibility for his shit-can life? Why do you think he took off in the first place?’
‘He didn’t take off, Milo. He got hit on the head or had a stroke or something.’
‘So he says.’
‘He don’t say nothing. He don’t speak English.’
Admittedly there is the so-called proof in the CT scan, but scientists are the first to admit that we know very little about the brain and understand a fraction of its capacity. So what if his hippocampus and medial temporal lobe look a bit funny?
‘You don’t know my father. This is bullshit, total bullshit.’ Milo storms out as his father used to do, leaving Milo alone in the creaking house. Gus wouldn’t return for hours and Milo, fearing that something had happened to him, would become increasingly agitated and convinced that his father had been hit by a truck and that he, consequently, would have to go into foster care. He knew a boy called Ernie Batty in foster care who loathed his foster mother but would stop at nothing to please her, so fearful was he of being sent to yet another foster home. Ernie massaged Mrs. Vanelli’s fat shoulders and scaly feet and acted happy when she gave him a used train set for his birthday.
When Gus returned, Milo would act suitably repentant, although he’d have forgotten what he was supposed to be repentant for. Father and son would go to bed wordlessly and in the morning Milo would rush off to school, practising avoidance. In the evening he would try even harder to be helpful and respectful.
‘Fuck that noise,’ Milo says to the night air. He hears footsteps behind him and whirls around expecting to see Pablo, but it’s Tawny.
‘You told me to drop by if I came to the Big Smoke.’
‘Did I?’
‘Did you find your father?’
‘I did, and he’s still an asshole.’ He walks fast, forcing Tawny to trot beside him. He stops and faces her. ‘What can I do you for?’
‘Why are you angry at me?’
‘Am I?’
‘You shouldn’t answer questions with questions.’
‘Why not?’
‘It means you’re hollow, like a dead tree.’
‘Maybe I am,’ Milo says. ‘What’s that got to do with the price of cheese?’ He shouldn’t be venting at this poor child.
‘Elvis says you spend too much time being angry.’
‘He does, does he?’
‘A lot of white-asses are like that.’
‘Has he shown you his model airplane collection yet?’
She starts to walk away.
‘Sorry, Tawny, I’m sorry. It’s been a bad day.’
‘That’s what my father always said. It makes no sense. I didn’t make his day bad so why did he hit me?’
‘Because you were there. And because you would take it.’
‘That’s no reason to hit somebody.’
‘I agree.’
‘I think it was because he was really sad underneath.’
‘Lots of people are really sad underneath and don’t go around hitting people.’ Or roughing up little boys.
‘Yeah, but he was put in a res school and all that. All kinds of weird shit happened there, like they buried babies in tunnels. He hardly ever talked about it. Sometimes at dinner, to make us appreciate our food, he’d tell us about how the teachers got good meals while the students ate crap. His brother talked about it more, like when he was drunk, but my dad didn’t want us to know what went on there. He was trying to shield us from it. One time he went back to look for a girl’s grave, some girl he knew there who died.’
‘Did he find it?’
‘I don’t know. He was drunk when he got home and then it was like he forgot he even went. Anyway, maybe your father is trying to shield you from shit that happened and that’s why he acts like an asshole.’
By forgetting Milo’s entire existence?
‘If my father was still alive,’ Tawny says, ‘I’d make him tell me about it.’
Why bother when you’re hollow, like a dead tree?
He gives Tawny his room and takes the couch, knowing he won’t sleep because he hasn’t slept properly since he killed the boy.
‘She’s cute,’ Pablo says from the La-Z-Boy. ‘I never seen a real Pocahontas up close. Nice hair.’
‘She’s a child, lay off her.’
‘Take it easy, Milo. You act like I’m a sex addict or something.’ He unwraps a stick of gum and pops it in his mouth. ‘Tanis was looking for you.’
‘When?’
‘When you were out.’
‘Does she want me to go over?’
‘It’s a little late. Call her in the morning.’
‘How did she look?’
‘Tired. She don’t sleep even with the pills. She paid me so I gave some cash to Gussy. We’re going shopping tomorrow to get some more yaboowcos and some kleb rah-zoh-vyh. He likes dark bread. And he wants some mas-woh.’
‘Which is?’
‘Butter.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘You people who only speak one language don’t get it. You figure it out, you keep trying and pretty soon you’re talking. You don’t talk, period, Milo. If you talked more, you’d figure stuff out.’
‘Would you shut up for one minute? Where’s the remote?’
Pablo points to the armrest beside Milo’s head. He grabs it and presses the power button. The earthquake victims are old news. An oil spill steals the headlines. Pelicans, coated in crude sludge, struggle to fly.
Why does Tanis want to talk to him? Did she call Christopher? Is she furious with Milo for keeping the accident a secret? Will she forbid him from seeing Robertson, who has become the only light in Milo’s darkening sky, in fact, all the stars in his firmament?
She bangs on the back door with her crutch. ‘You told me you wouldn’t do anything without my consent.’ She leans on her crutches, looking, in the half-light, like some strange three-legged creature.
‘What am I doing without your consent?’ He honestly can’t remember, so entangled is he in the lives of others.
‘Taking Robertson to see him.’
‘Oh.’ Milo still hasn’t made up his mind about this. He has Christopher’s authorization and cab fare in his pocket, but as far as he can remember, he made no promises. ‘Why wouldn’t you give me your consent?’
‘Because it will destroy him.’
‘Who?’
‘Robertson.’
‘Interesting you should say that because Christopher thought learning about the accident would destroy you and here you are, swinging crutches around. When did you talk to him? Did you call him?’
‘It’s over, Milo. I’m not going to be forced back into a destructive marriage because my husband got hit by a cab. I’m sorry it happened and I’m glad he’s receiving medical care but that’s it, I’m done. I have a son who requires my full attention.’
‘Does he? Couldn’t you hire a guard so you, personally, wouldn’t have to keep him locked up 24/7? How ’bout paying Pablo on an hourly basis to check the bolts? Although physical activity could be a problem. You might want to get an indoor mini tramp so the kid’s muscles don’t atrophy. And, of course, make sure he takes lots of vitamin D, you don’t want his bones going soft, or do you? An invalid would be a lot easier to control, heck, just don’t build ramps. He’d be trapped on the ground floor at all times so you could really give him your full attention.’ Reading her expression in the poor light is impossible. He waits for a tirade, or a blow from a crutch.
‘There was a mother there,’ she says, sounding only weary, ‘whose son punches her, kicks her, knocks her down and pulls out her hair. She’s so desperate she contacted her MP to protest funding cuts for the autistic. You know what he said? He said her son would get better treatment in jail. Her Member of Parliament said she
should charge her son with assault so a judge could order treatment, or sign custody over to Children’s Aid. So you tell me, Milo, you tell me who will take care of my son when he is the size of a man.’ She’s getting loud again. ‘The reality is no one gives a fuck. Her son has been on a waiting list for a group home for nine months. Nine months. He’s on antipsychotics that make him clumsy. He slams into things. He’s stopped speaking. She’s terrified all the time. No one gives a fuck!’
He has never heard her say fuck. It scares him.
‘If I told Christopher about this boy, you know what he’d say? He’d say, “It’s only a matter of time.” He’s given up. He can rot in the hospital, for all I care. It’s over.’ She starts to hobble to her deck.
‘Did you bring Robertson home?’
‘That’s no concern of yours. And don’t say you love him. You don’t even know him.’
He climbs his stairs and knocks on the wall, pressing his ear against it, listening for the shuffle of big slippers. He knocks again, harder, and waits. Until his father screams.
ablo pushes the La-Z-Boy into reclining mode. ‘It’s getting hard to sleep around here.’
‘I thought you were getting a place with Fennel.’
‘We’re looking. She don’t want no dark place. The light has to be right. And she’s so busy right now with her new teacher, Vitorio. He’s always making them paint. Vitorio says a true painter either paints or dies. Fenny don’t want to die.’
Gus took the blue pill from Milo without hesitation or recognition. The old man has come to expect the pill when he wakens from his private hell. Maybe Milo shouldn’t give it to him and just let the old man scream his guts out. What will remain? Will the Polish farmer scram, chased out of consciousness by Gus’s demons, his true inner ugly self?
‘Vera don’t look too good,’ Pablo says.
‘She wants grandkiddies and Wallace is not delivering.’
Milosz Page 22