Later on, after nothing had descended to ignite the crowd, a bunch of them trudged off to a real English pub. Next thing — after several pints of Guinness — Carol and Stuart had somehow become an item. Like she asked her less lucky girlfriends who by then had decided to continue to France: how incredible is that?
She assumed that now her modest dreams would be fulfilled.
And how she cherished being an item with a good-looking guy! One who had come all the way from down under, moustache, sun-bleached hair and all! Living with him in a city that was an exotic world in itself! She was pretty and slender in those days, aspiring to be bra-less and hip, succeeding only with the former.
For a brief time, Carol and Stuart led a life of their own making. It was an existence based on nothing more than the fact that they were a long way from home and could do pretty much what they wanted. To Carol this was spectacular, unique proof of what life, with a bit of effort, could be like. She took 504 — fourteen rolls of thirty-six — pictures in case nobody back home would believe her. Not that she planned to ever go back home.
Stuart had strong opinions about being caught on camera, so she was forced to snap everybody and everything else instead, but managed in the end to sneak him into seven shots. Five of the shots were from weird angles that did not do him full justice.
When they parted three months and four days after their first meeting — involuntarily on her part — Stuart sighed. It was a tired sigh that said, let’s face it, as their brief life together had never existed on a real level, why drag it out? They had to part at some point, didn’t they?
Why?
Because they came from opposite sides of the planet, or had she forgotten?
Yes. Well, no. Of course not.
Their temporary nest, a draughty one-room sanctuary smelling strongly of incense and baked beans, made inhabitable with the aid of cheap Indian blankets, a tatty beaded curtain rattling by the front door, was charming enough in candle light, but it could not possibly last, could it?
Why not?
Because the time had come to return home, get a job and face the rest of their lives. She knew that, didn’t she?
But why so soon?
Because, said Stuart, he was out of money.
It rained that night like it would never stop. Carol did not want it to stop, ever. If it kept raining, Stuart would not want to leave, would not want to part that beaded curtain and disappear to the other side of the world. He hated the dreariness of English rain.
Sitting cross-legged on the mattress that was their bed — the room was near Earl’s Court where half of Australia had settled — he became wistful and sighed. Playing with a strand of her hair in that languid way of his, he sighed again, more pronounced this time, in case she had missed it. “Oh, Carol, baby, I wish I had something for you to remember me by.”
The wish rang so false it did not manage to fool even Carol who was dying to be deluded. No, it was blatantly guilt that forced him to offer that line, so hollow it echoed, because he was the one who had decided it was time to return to Down Under as if she had meant absolutely bugger all to him. As if they had had their fun and now he wanted to go home and eat supper, loosen his belt, burp and have a nap.
Equally revealing was the fact that he did not ask her if she had anything for him to remember her by.
His rationale for wanting to return to Australia was reasonable enough. Real life unspooled elsewhere, Carol was as painfully aware of that as the next person, but that was what was so great about living the way they did, wasn’t it? Didn’t he understand that? It was like running away with the gypsies. Okay, so Earl’s Court wasn’t a meadow, their bed-sit not a caravan, and they didn’t keep horses, but even so. They were free! If they wanted to sing and dance all night, they could. Sometimes they almost did, didn’t they?
By then she had pierced her ears and wore long dangling earrings, ready to be as reckless and wild as required. The possibilities were endless, weren’t they? They were young! What did it matter if he had no money? She’d share hers.
Don’t be stupid, said Stuart.
At age nineteen Carol had never had a lasting relationship. Her friend Annie had said in grade twelve that it was because she was too clingy, too eager to please. It scared guys off. Stuart was the first guy Carol had managed to hold onto for more than a week, which seemed to indicate that he was The One. And then the bastard wanted to end it and go home. If he did, she would be so free she would not know what to do with herself.
At a loss, she decided that, oh no, he’s not getting away that easily!
Guilt, although heavy, rises to the top. It is not easily masked by second-rate melodrama. Knowing this, the following day when Stuart headed for the pub to meet his Aussie mates, she snooped around. Always trust your intuition. Stuart was a tough boy from a mining town in Queensland. Not the sniveling type.
She struck the mother lode in less than five minutes, coming across a letter with a Brisbane postmark. It had been folded and stuffed deeply into a side pocket of his backpack. The tingle in her fingertips as she pulled the pink sheet of paper out of the envelope told her she was about to learn something she would rather not know.
Not that it stopped her.
The letter was from a girl named Mandy. Mandy Neill. The writing was happy, celebratory, it boogied across the page. For Mandy was writing with giddy hand to share joyous tidings: she had recently given birth to a lovely baby boy! Having got Stu’s address from Gladys, Stu’s mum, Mandy thought she better write to inform him that he was now a proud daddy. Oh, it was an ever so gorgeous baby! She had named him William Stuart. Wills for short. Such a sweet baby was their Wills, the spitting image of dear old dad. Old Gladys was bloody beside herself with ecstasy, having such a gem of grandson. “Well, you know Gladys, always a bit excitable, eh?
“PS. Oh Stu baby, I can’t wait for you to come back and bounce your beautiful son on your lap. He’s got your colour eyes! Waiting for you, your very own Mandy who still loves you madly.”
Carol was nonplussed. Her adventure, so splendid with its rakish hero and exotic setting, had gone kaput, the hero revealed as a two-timing bastard. Stuart, not hers at all, but part of an already established tableau, The Blissful Quartet: excitable Gladys, delirious Mandy, gorgeous Wills and two-timing Stu. She imagined a family photo with the four of them grinning smug grins: Stuart in the centre with his arm around Mandy, his chest puffed out, all paternal and grown-up, ready to get a job and bring home the bacon. Have Mandy fetch his pipe and slippers after a hard day in the mine.
Suddenly there was a man-sized hole in Carol’s happiness. Fanning her flustered face with Mandy’s letter, she understood, if only briefly — as it was secondary to her own — her mother’s disappointment that day in the gypsy camp.
Having read Mandy’s irrepressible letter was why, in response to Stuart’s badly acted wish the night before, Carol voiced a request later that night.
“I’ve thought about what you said, Stu baby, and I realize there is something you can give me, something that would mean an awful lot to me, something to fill the void now I’m going to lose you forever. Though you might not agree once you find out what it is.”
“Name it and it’s yours.” His phony sincere look made her want to bash him in the face with a baseball bat. Good thing she didn’t have one. It was the angriest she had ever been, ever would be, but she had the wherewithal to shield it with her own phony sincerity.
“Your Saint Christopher medal,” she said, coolly gauging his reaction. “It’s an important part of you and I need so very much to keep part of you with me, otherwise I don’t think I’ll be able to go on living.”
He visibly flinched at that, just as she had hoped he would, but he did not dare protest. How could he? He had assured her that he was a man of his word, as indeed he was whenever convenient. He cried a bit as he fastened the chain around her neck, several genuine tears. They dripped down his cheeks and dampened his moustache. He was crying be
cause he was losing Saint Christopher who had cost him a fair chunk of Aussie dollars. He had told her when they first met, that since he was robbed in Naples, this medal and his leather boots (which were far too big for her) were the only things of value he had left.
Now he told her again, sounding hopeful.
The reminder did nothing to change her mind; her own hurt was of primary importance. She was being discarded. Granted, it was an unusual situation, but when you are young and in love, hurt is of the essence. The greater the pain, the more meaningful. You nurse it and make it last, you gild it and put it in a prominent place in your heart’s museum.
After Stuart had hoisted his backpack and left, London lost its allure and turned shabby and grey. Carol returned to Canada convinced that life was over, an image in her head of her disillusioned mother pedaling home from the gypsy camp, not wanting hakkebøf for supper. Carol, in a similar mood, never made it across the channel, never saw Paris. Not that time.
But she had lied, if unintentionally. After the first few weeks she learnt to cope without a great deal of effort. It surprised her. A few months later she took out the seven photos where she had secretly captured Stuart and sat down to reminisce.
The young man in the photos did not look much like the one who had stomped on her heart with his leather booted feet. For one thing, he looked much shorter than she remembered. And a bit squinty-eyed, now she carefully studied his face from one of the strange angles. One photo was taken from behind of him walking down the street, revealing that he was bowlegged. Carol threw out the photos and before long had forgotten all about Stuart Harrison from Queensland. Saint Christopher she threw in the Japanese box.
Well, in all honesty, she did not quite forget. Love lost, love never quite had, becomes mythical with the passage of time. It is the myth we cherish as we behold our gilded pain, no longer remembering clearly the squinty-eyed face of the person who gave rise to it in the first place.
It was not until she was packing for the trip to Paris that she recalled the medallion. Thinking, had not Saint Christopher been stripped of his sainthood? Made redundant when heaven downsized? Yes, he had. Served him right. That’s what he got for hanging around the neck of a two-timing Aussie bastard.
But as she did not believe in that kind of hooey, what did it matter? She got down the chipped lacquered box from the shelf in her closet and there was the ex-saint, still clinging to his chain in a sea of outdated custom jewelry. Freeing the chain from the tangle, she held it up, swinging the medallion like a pendulum. The light from the lamp beside the TV reflected in the golden circle.
Watching it, she remembered, fleetingly. If it was the myth or the reality that resurfaced is immaterial, but when she was through, she had fastened the chain around her neck once again. For protection. For a laugh. For sentimental reasons. Maybe the old saint would be pleased to have his old job back.
“You give me!” The little pest knows enough English to conduct his business. His hand is small and grubby, his fingernails chewed, his sudden smile so wide and fake he looks deranged.
Refusing to acknowledge him, Carol turns sideways towards the Eiffel Tower as if she has only this minute noticed it looming there. The boy is not fooled, he is not the slightest bit stupid. Nor does he like to be perceived as an insect easily squashed. He repeats his command, his eyes growing cruel beyond his years.
The other boy reappears. He stops beside the younger one and embarks upon what sounds like a lecture. Carol has no idea what he is on about. It is not French. She knows gypsies speak Roma, but has no idea what it sounds like. He could be jabbering in Swahili for all she knows. Whatever it is, it is a lecture, for now he is wagging a finger.
The younger boy could not care less. His mind is made up. He aims to own this woman’s medallion. It happens to be a very nice good-sized medallion on a sturdy chain. He is convinced that it is worth a bit of money. He turns to the older boy and hisses, turns towards Carol and cracks his fake smile, all within a split second, performing like a desperate mime artist trying to get a rise out of an indifferent audience.
Looking at the two boys, it dawns on Carol that they are brothers. They are both the gypsy woman’s sons.
The two youngsters continue to argue in front of Carol, ignoring her for the time being, while the fingers of the grubby little hand keep waving their impatient message. A couple of times both boys briefly turn around in the direction of the woman. Messages go back and forth. The woman does not officially acknowledge them, but communicates something with the pinkie finger of her left hand. Confirmation flickers in the boys’ eyes.
A few more minutes go by before the older boy shrugs and leaves his brother to pursue his ambition. Grubby fingers repeat their demand. The boy’s eyes are fixed on the medallion. He does not budge.
Finally Carol has had enough. Ignoring the boy, she gets up and sets off briskly down the path towards the tower, past the gypsy woman, head held high. She will wait for the others over by the elevators, safe in the crowd. It is the only way that little pest will get the message. She hopes he will have enough decency to feel ashamed.
The small boy — they call him Pépé — stares at the woman’s defiant back as she trots off. Her shoulders are round, her hips wide, her bum well padded. Fat rich cow, he thinks. He would love to kick that fat ass hard. He considers following her, taking on the whole herd waiting by the foot of the tower.
In the end he decides against it. He has had enough. He despises these ignorant people, always so fucking pleased with themselves, wanting humble gratitude for a lousy franc.
Dragging his feet he walks over and sits down next to the gypsy woman, halfheartedly keeping up the pretense of not knowing her. Sticks his fist in his pocket and pulls out what money he has managed to weasel out of the tourists. Clasping the coins he sneaks his hand into the open jaws of his mother’s bag, making a deposit, the whole time continuing to look the other way.
The woman still does not acknowledge the boy. It is blatantly evident to any onlooker that they are mother and son, but that does not hamper their routine. They sit close together, the woman as immobile as ever, continuing to stare past the Eiffel Tower.
Pépé is pleased with himself. He has been at it all morning and now he is exhausted. He deserves a break. He is hungry too. He has had nothing to eat since yesterday afternoon. After a few minutes his body begins to relax. It is a slow, visible process. One by one the tense angles of his small frame soften and he starts to slump. It looks as if he is slowly melting. The more he slumps, the younger he looks. Then he yawns a big yawn and, unaware of the motion, leans against the woman, his mother, pressing his cheek against her left arm, getting comfortable. His thick long eyelashes flutter. He closes his eyes.
Without moving her head, without changing her facial expression, still looking vaguely, vaguely amused, the woman moves her left arm back and outward at the elbow, forming a triangle, a featherless wing. With a swift flap it hits the boy in the back, batting him forward off the bench. Like a fledgling he falls to the ground, but quickly gets up, never once looking at the woman who does not so much as glance at him.
Once again his face grows hard. Once again his skinny little body turns into a set of sharp angles. He visibly grows older as he trudges off in search of another mark.
Carol is unaware of what just happened. She is too preoccupied staring in the opposite direction, wondering if the scrawny brat has had the decency to get lost yet. She refuses to turn around and check. She has her pride.
All the excitement has made her hungry. She hopes Rod and the others will descend from heaven soon so they can argue about whether to have a light lunch or go for one of those prix fixe three course lunches with wine and bread included.
THE SKY ABOVE HER HEAD
* * *
SHE WATCHES THE TINY ALIENS STAGGERING AROUND like drunks outside her basement kitchen window, moon-faced and self-absorbed little freaks that howl off and on for no discernible reason, shoving each other when
the spirit moves them. In between bouts of random violence they plunk down, docile in the Sunday sun, to quietly eat dirt. Sometimes, instead of eating the dirt, they shove it pensively up their noses.
Serena hates toddlers with a passion, deplores their blank intrusive eyes, their helplessness, their drooling inconsideration, their predictable tendency to explode into glass-shattering noise.
If you’re helpless, show humility. If you’re inconsiderate, exhibit a modicum of self-reliance. This is Serena’s philosophy.
Toddlers do neither. Sometimes they gravitate towards her window as if sensing the caged carnivore pacing on the other side. They bang on the glass with sticky paws, flatten their fat faces against it, leaving marks, until the carnivore in her cage drools for blood and a cigarette.
Every weekend when it’s sunny — it’s the hottest, sunniest summer on record — the mothers of the aliens congregate on the strip of weedy lawn outside Serena’s kitchen window. There they lie clad in bikinis small enough to fit a Barbie doll, bodies gleaming with suntan lotion, devotees of the sky above. Surrounding them are the usual stockpiles of baby bottles and boxes of crackers, fruit and pop cans, diapers and handy-wipes, squeaky toys and teddy bears, all the crap common on the Planet of Toddlers. Cozily at home, the mothers — they look barely out of diapers themselves, for chrissake — stretch out in the detritus, oblivious to their roaming barbarian offspring.
Why in goddamn hell don’t they go to the pool?
Or out to the park with the waterslides?
But oh no. They’re glued to the same spot during most of the week as well, these sloppy young mothers who can think of nothing more imaginative to do than breed, but at least while Serena is at work — in a sterile, air-conditioned hospital lab — she can pretend they don’t exist. When she arrives home at five-thirty they and their disregard are gone.
Leaving Berlin Page 16