“We’re all instruments,” said Mr. Softee with a rabbinical hand to his chest. “But more kazoo than grand piano.”
A thump came on the side of the truck.
“Hey, is anybody there?”
Leonard leaned out the window. He saw a boy, a lad about six or seven years old with a buzz cut.
“I want a cone,” the boy said.
“Sure thing. What’ll it be?”
“One Blood of Our Savior please.”
Shell poured a stream of dark-red Ribena syrup over full-fat vanilla and handed it down to the boy.
“Good choice.”
“It’s not for me, it’s for my dad. He’s trying to make the barbecue go.”
“Nothing for you?”
“I already had a whole tube of Pringles. Dad said that was enough.”
Leonard put a curl of chocolate ice cream in a cup.
“Who’s to say what’s enough?” he said. “Take both.”
“Hey, thanks Mr. Softee.”
“That’s why we can’t afford snow tires for the truck,” Shell said, with an eye-roll to Rose. “He’s always giving it away.”
“You sell ice cream in the winter too?”
“No, but he likes to drive around different neighborhoods with the PA on, playing music. It’s how he works on new stuff.”
“I find it’s helpful to hear a song several thousand times or so—especially distorted through a bad system,” said Mr. Softee.
“You should drive by the nursing homes,” Rose said, thinking about her dead mother. “They could use some tunes.”
“Not great for sales, though,” Shell pointed out. “A lot of them can’t leave their facilities.”
“So, your mother’s memorial service,” Mr. Softee asked, wetting his index finger to pick up some sprinkles on the counter. “What are the plans?”
“Probably just me and a few of the staff at the nursing home. And the casket. For some reason my mother wanted her body in the room.”
“No other family?”
“No. All dead, or scattered around. My brother died three years ago, of colon cancer. My children are thousands of miles away. Their father lives in Philadelphia now.”
Shell and Mr. Softee were quiet.
“It’s good you’re close by then,” he said.
* * *
Oak Ridges Manor is a pink brick building, walled with windows and harsh with sunlight, on the suburban fringes north of Oakville where the roads still end in creeks. “So much natural light,” visitors remark when they tour the place, hoping to install their frail parents in a place that is not technically depressing. Rose’s mother lasted there for three years, most of that time in a wheelchair after surgery for a broken hip had failed. Her mother in her last years, well-medicated, became somewhat ribald and outspoken, bonding with one of the male nurses on the night staff named Edward.
“Edward’s gentler than some of the women,” she always said when Rose visited. She spoke in a low voice so as not to offend the other caregivers. “And we like to kid each other.”
On the day of her mother’s memorial, Rose arrived fifteen minutes early. The Bistro Room was empty, with folding chairs set up in four neat rows. Furtively she felt the petals of a flower arrangement on the piano. The lilies were real, from Rose’s aged cousin in Ottawa. “We’re thinking of you,” the card said in the shaky handwriting of Margaret, who was ninety-two and had MS. Rose promised herself she would drive to Ottawa to see Margaret. Whatever tattered family remained, she now wanted to embrace. There was something cheering about laying eyes on your kin, some baseline DNA recognition, regardless of how different or unknown their lives.
The receptionist doubled as the pianist for functions like these. She was already seated at the piano paging through the American Songbook. Then Edward came in and solemnly shook Rose’s hand. He was small, moist-eyed, and muscular.
“Your mother was a wonderful woman,” Edward said. “I’m going to miss her, for sure.”
“You took good care of her, Edward. She really enjoyed your company. And I appreciate you coming on your day off.”
“Olive told me her own mother used to play piano for weddings and funerals. So this would please her.” He tilted his head toward the receptionist.
The facility manager bustled in wearing a floaty print scarf.
“I think we can start then,” she said to Rose with an unwarm smile. “Unless you’re waiting for someone. Do you have family coming from out of town?”
“Not really,” Rose said. There was a smaller arrangement on the piano beside the lilies. “The flowers are lovely, by the way.”
“Yes, they’re from Fresh and Fast. We use them all the time.”
The manager pulled the curtains across glass patio doors that overlooked a space where the children at the daycare next door played in the afternoons, making happy noise. The staff believed that the proximity of the children was a good thing for their charges, but Rose had noticed that the residents were mostly indifferent to the patio with its view of the young and undiminished. The old were busy withdrawing to another place altogether.
The buzzer opening the front door sounded. In came Mr. Softee and Shell, carrying a large blue cooler and two ukuleles.
Leonard came over to Rose and took her hand.
“I’ve been playing the Gorecki since we left Mississauga,” he said. “Someone honked and gave us a thumbs-up.” Shell was carrying some yellow flowers in a funnel of paper.
“Freesia. Smell them,” she ordered. Rose put her nose into the cone. In fact, her mother had loved freesias. “I brought a vase too, just in case.”
Shell arranged the flowers on the piano and looked at the page of music the receptionist had turned to.
“‘Scarborough Fair’?” She snorted. “You must be kidding.”
“You have any better ideas?” the receptionist said, eyeing Shell. She was wearing flip-flops and a halter top that showed off her tattoos.
“What about ‘Hallelujah’?” said Shell, looking over at Mr. Softee.
He made a slicing gesture across his throat. “Overused.”
“Well,” Shell persisted, “I always think ‘Let It Be’ is a safe bet.”
Leonard went over to the manager and introduced himself.
“You have a lovely building,” he said. “So much light.”
“Did you know Mrs. McEwan well?”
“No, I’m afraid not. I’ve come to support Rose.” He flipped open the cooler. “Would you care for some ice cream?”
“Thank you, but I’ll be speaking in a minute—”
“I find a little lemon sorbet clears the throat beautifully,” said Mr. Softee. He turned to Rose. “What can I offer you?” She read the handwritten list on the lid of the cooler.
“I’ll have the Sword of Damascus, with chocolate-almond bark.”
“Good choice.”
Edward rolled in a casket. Where had he been keeping it? There was a piece of fabric draped over it, a hideous magenta shawl. Rose yanked it off and handed it to Edward.
“Was it heavy to push?”
“Not too,” he said. “She was pretty light towards the end.”
“Edward, what did you talk about with my mother—do you mind saying?”
“We talked about her family, and her father. How he was away during the week and only came home on the weekends, and how her mother always had to bake a lot of pies for him. I think he traveled a lot.”
“Yes, he sold farm equipment on the prairies.” Rose had an image of a Model T negotiating rutted roads, a flat horizon spreading out on either side. “I don’t think she was close to him.”
“But mostly we’d joke with each other, gossip about the other staff. She had her opinions, as you know.”
“Oh yes.” They laughed. She felt her mother drifting through the room just then, eager to disagree with them.
“I think we can start now,” said Rose, sitting down in the first row of chairs. Shell went over to the pian
o with her ukulele.
“Give me an A.”
“I’m not sure the ukulele is suitable for this,” the receptionist said with a protective hand on the sheet music. Rose stood up and held her cone aloft, like a torch.
“This is my mother’s memorial, who enjoyed ice cream, and loved music, all kinds of music,” said Rose. “Let’s have both ukuleles with the piano, and everyone singing. Also, I would like the patio doors open.” Mr. Softee slid the doors apart and the children could be heard, but in a welcome way.
The receptionist started in on “Let It Be,” not smoothly but with a determined bounce. Edward kept one hand on the casket. He winked at Rose. Shell and Leonard stood beside the piano, playing the ukuleles and singing. “When I find myself in times of trouble…” Leonard’s voice rumbled along an octave below the others.
Then the security buzzer rang again. The manager frowned and bustled out of the room. Shell and Mr. Softee stalled for time, repeating the first verse as the receptionist got friskier on the keyboard, adding arpeggios. Rose was watching the children on the playground as they swarmed up and down a red plastic slide, so she didn’t even see Ryan and Ceri enter the room. They came over to her and the three of them held on to one another.
“Did Dad call you?” Rose asked.
“No, it was someone else. A ‘Mr. Softee,’” Ryan said with a laugh. He was growing a beard, like every other male his age, but he looked quite handsome with it.
Leonard came up to Rose. “I took the liberty of contacting your children,” he said. “The Oak Ridges staff were helpful in that regard. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
Ceri’s hand rubbed her back. “What were you thinking, Mom? Are you nuts? This is Nana!”
“But it’s so far to come,” she said.
“Mr. Softee let me fly on his points.”
“I’ve accumulated quite a few,” said Leonard, shrugging.
He turned back to Shell and the receptionist and counted them in. “Let It Be,” now quite polished, began again. Ryan and Ceri sang along on either side of Rose. “There will be an answer/Let it be.”
Afterward, the director spoke about how Oak Ridges would miss this spirited and delightful member of their community. Her eyes flicked down to the paper she was holding to make sure she had the name right: Olive McEwan.
Then lemon sorbet was enjoyed.
Abra Cadaver
After my mother’s death I found myself in a calm, unanticipated place. I no longer hated Eric for leaving me—that energy had finally been sprung. Our kids were off living their own faraway lives and I had stopped counting the exclamation marks in their texts in order to gauge their happiness. In the past year, two, three defining roles had slipped off me like loose garments.
But I felt a certain melancholy glide setting into my days—a willingness to simply mark time. At my age, if I chose to watch cat videos every day until felled by an aneurism, no one would begrudge me (or, possibly, notice). At the same time, certain desires still stirred: to drive the Dempster Highway, to fight for a cause, to flirt with someone inappropriate. In the twenty or so years left to me (inshallah) I wanted to become more of myself, not less.
So when Leonard and his assistant, Shell, gently broached the idea of moving in with me, I said yes right away. When I was young I had shared a house with several postgrad philosophers who liked to make dessert soufflés. Why not now? And this way I wouldn’t end up lying stroke-ridden for days on the bathroom floor before someone discovered me. With the three of us sharing one bathroom, it would be more like a matter of hours.
I find it’s a tonic just being around Shell’s youth, the way she takes the stairs three at a time and talks to all the dogs in the laneway. Her relationship with Leonard is playful, tender, and (I think) platonic, although she chooses to sleep on a mat near his bed.
As for Leonard and me, our habits mesh nicely. We steer clear of each other in the mornings when we both prefer to work. I’ll do a little Flo-Q copy, or maybe push on with my new thriller, Abra Cadaver. Around four in the afternoon we might have a cup of matcha and commiserate about our lower-back pain. I like Advil, he swears by Aleve. He prefers to stack the dishwasher, and I would rather empty it.
On warm days Leonard does Qi-Gong in the backyard, which amuses the neighbors. I caught the musician who lives across the lane taking a picture once, but mostly no one bothers him. Leonard has never cultivated fame and as a result he rarely suffers from its consequences.
Still, some of my friends remain skeptical about this new living arrangement.
“I’ve got an extra ticket for that Turkish film if you’re interested,” Sarah emailed me last week. “Unless you and the Tower of Song have other plans;).”
“We’re just housemates,” I replied, “and anyway we’re both too old.”
“Right. How does that song of his go? ‘She’s a hundred but she’s wearing something tight.’”
Couriers will occasionally come to the door with packages. (My new boss at Flo-Q likes me to have what he calls a “hand-feel” of the new products.) If Leonard answers, often they recognize him, falling speechless or blurting out worshipful things. I can see how much gracefulness this requires, having to put strangers at ease. It makes me want to give Leonard a footbath, or some gesture that asks for nothing in return.
Whenever Leonard and I pass in the narrow corridors of my Victorian house, our bodies touch easily. We smile at the contact and move on. That’s the extent of it, although he is closer to me than a lot of men I’ve slept with in the past. No doubt many of his fans feel the same way. Still, they haven’t lived with him, or folded his laundry.
It’s an innocent merging of the three of us that reminds me, strangely, of breastfeeding (which has its erotic quotient too). I know that sounds weird. But since they moved in I wake up every morning happy—a feeling I thought I had outlived.
Shell enjoys it when I show her how to do certain old-fashioned things, like making a pie crust with lard. She is no longer in touch with her mother and seems to want nothing more than to be around me, to sit near me. One afternoon Leonard painted my toes a tropical aqua while Shell did my fingernails a different shade and a Nina Simone record played.
All this is sweet and new.
* * *
Lately Leonard and Shell have gotten into the habit of watching an episode or two of Call the Midwife. Most nights I join them. But about ten minutes in, the picture will often freeze, then we have to reload Netflix, and a message will come up saying there is a problem with Apple TV and to call them. At this point my tendency is to give up, but Leonard is more persistent. He punched in the number and explained the situation.
“It’s Leonard Cohen calling.”
He rarely plays the name game, but it does come in handy.
The next thing we knew, a technician was at our door. It was Taylor Swift, holding an aluminum toolbox, her little cupid mouth a bright red.
“Hi, guys,” she said. “I’m here to fix your connection.” She didn’t bat an eye when Leonard came into the hall.
“Thank you for your prompt attention,” he said, shaking her hand with a small bow. “We’re almost at the end of season four, so this is quite frustrating, as you can imagine.”
“I hear you,” said Taylor. “I had the same problem watching Rectify, until I had a little powwow with the Apple folks. Our relationship is pretty good—I’m, like, four percent of their iTunes revenue now, which is crazy. Anyway, they’ve promised to work on a whole new delivery system. Oh, nice high ceilings!” she said, stepping into my living room. She pulled out the mysterious black unit behind our screen and wiggled the cords.
“You’d be surprised how often it comes down to one box not being plugged into another.”
Shell was gazing at Taylor in silent awe.
“We can take pictures of Pluto, but everything still needs a cable, right?” said Taylor with a wink at Shell to relax her. “Looks like you’re okay here, though. It’s a problem at the other end.”
I took the tea towel off my shoulder and ducked back into the kitchen, where I had a rhubarb-strawberry crisp in the oven.
“Something in there smells really good,” said Taylor loudly.
She wore pinstriped overalls with platform sneakers and her hair was an interesting dark ashy blond. Not movie-star at all. She was on the skinny side, with the irresistible face of a small, alert animal.
“It’s a crisp,” I said, coming back into the living room. “You’re welcome to have some with us.”
“Really? Thank you!”
“The rhubarb’s from our garden,” Shell said. “Rose’s garden.”
“Oh, I love your faux tat,” Taylor said, touching the Arabic-looking gold braidings on Shell’s arm.
“It’s supposed to last for thirty days.” She twisted her arm around to show the underside. “I got my real ones removed. They were just initials anyway.”
“Wrong guy?”
“Yeah. So wrong.”
“Been there, shot the video.” Taylor laughed.
She opened her toolbox, took out something that looked like a waiter’s Visa machine, and held it against the Apple unit. Lights flashed along the edge. “Okay, good. Let’s fire it up.”
I handed her the tiny silver remote. “You have to hold it way up,” I said, showing her how, like some new hip-hop move. The unit was tucked away on a top shelf. She raised her arm, clicked it on to Netflix, loaded Call the Midwife, and played a few minutes. We watched a wavy-haired woman on a bicycle speed down a cobbled road.
“I could totally get into this,” said Taylor. “I love history.”
“Shall we turn it off?” suggested Leonard. “I’m not there yet.”
I put on my elbow-length oven mitts, which made me feel vaguely surgical, and slid the crisp out of the oven. Shell came into the kitchen with her hands crossed over her chest. “Can you believe this?” We could hear Taylor and Leonard chatting in the next room, until they came and found us.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” Taylor said, “but … why are you here? Are you guys all cousins or something?”
“No, we’re just visiting the city,” Leonard said, “and Rose has kindly opened her home to us.”
Don't I Know You? Page 19