by Caro Soles
“I have to go to the hospital now,” he says. “Be good. Do what you can to help your mother. She’s a brave woman.”
“I will, Daddy. Are you coming home soon?”
“As soon as I can, dear.” He kisses my forehead and cups the back of my head gently, the way he always does when he goes away.
I take his fingers carefully in mine and squeeze just a little, in case it might hurt. I go with him to the front door. As he walks down the path and out the curly iron gate, I am desolate. I think of the wood I gathered for him as a surprise, and I almost run after him to tell him about it, but he is already far away from me in his mind. I can tell by the way he is walking: carefully, steadily, his face set. Mother says he still walks like the soldier he once was, marching with a swagger stick tucked under one arm, many long years ago. “It was another world then,” Mother says.
I run back upstairs and into the living room. Everything is emptier with Daddy gone. I take off my glasses and burst into tears.
The rest of the day is subdued, as if the colours have faded from things around me. I go to bed early. Late that night, I wake up with a scream as a white horse crashes through the window, a man on his back with blond hair like Brian’s, only longer. I tell Mother about the horse (without mentioning Brian) in between sobs, and she rocks me back and forth, back and forth. It takes a long time to get back to sleep.
10. THE ICE MAN
JANET IS VISITING SOME COUSINS for the weekend, and I am all alone on Saturday afternoon. I’ve been looking forward to seeing her all week, and now I feel restless and upset and sort of angry all at once. I can’t find words to tell all this to anyone, so I stamp around the living room until Jonathan tells me to stop. He’s studying. Mother is trying to do accounts, and she doesn’t notice when I go outside, wanting to slam the door but afraid of what will happen if I do. I don’t want that kind of attention. I just want someone to play with.
Outside, the sun has disappeared and the sky is a dull heavy grey. Humidity hangs over everything like wet drapery. It’s not quite June yet, but we’re in the middle of an early heat wave, Mother says. I wish we could go down to visit Grandmother by the Bay of Fundy like we did last year, but we don’t have enough money for train fare now. And Mother doesn’t want to leave Daddy in the hospital all alone anyway.
I hang over the railing of the porch, staring at the grass below. It’s already beginning to brown at the edges, like a cake that’s been in the oven too long. Mr. O’Malley mowed it a few days ago, pushing the mower over the ground quickly, as though he was in a race with some unseen demon, missing bits here and there. Sloppy worker, Daddy says, and shakes his head. Daddy doesn’t like sloppy workmanship. For a moment, I wish Daddy was with me here. We wouldn’t even have to talk; we could just sit together, looking at the grass. I’d like that. But Daddy is in Sunnybrook with some other sick veterans. Mother is going to visit him tomorrow afternoon, but I’m too young. It seems I’m too young to do anything interesting.
Heavy footsteps are coming up the stairs. I straighten up and brush my hands off, push my glasses up, smooth my hair. It’s the ice man in his sweaty white T-shirt and dark-green pants. Balanced on a leather pad on one shoulder is a big block of ice that he holds in place with a sharp spiky pincer thing. Water drips from the ice, but it doesn’t bother him.
“Hi, kid,” he says, opening the wooden door of the top compartment of the icebox and heaving the block inside. “Hot enough for you?”
“It is quite warm,” I say.
He leans back, hands on his kidneys, and laughs. Then he pulls an ice pick out of the case on his tool belt, chips off a piece of the ice, and hands it to me. “Have a cool one,” he says, slinging the giant pincer things over his shoulder. He waves and lopes down the back stairs, his knees loose and easy.
I follow and watch him take another block of ice from his truck, heave it onto his shoulder, and make his way to the O’Malley’s back door. There’s a girl standing there, holding the door open for him. She’s taller than me and lumpy. Her face looks like unbaked dough, and her arms, what I can see of them under the long sleeves of her lacy cotton cardigan, are scarred, the skin tight and red. Her neck is scarred as well. But her hair is thick, black and shiny, curled carefully all around her face, and she’s wearing a crisp green dress. I feel like a tomboy in my Saturday shorts. I hesitate, wanting to go up and change, but knowing Mother wouldn’t let me wear my good dress. Besides, I might miss finding out who she is.
The ice man goes in twice. They must have a big icebox. He seems to know the girl and calls her Patricia. Then he waves to me as he gets back into the truck with Lake Simcoe Ice Company printed on the side in loopy lettering. He leaves behind a bit of wet sawdust on the driveway.
“You shouldn’t eat ice,” the lumpy girl says, watching me. “You’ll get germs.”
I shove the sliver into my mouth and watch her. “Who says?”
“My mom.” Patricia leans against the doorframe.
“I doubt that it will kill me,” I say, biting off the end.
“You talk funny,” she says.
Overhead, thunder rumbles and she jumps. I grin, feeling superior. “You want to play double ball?” I ask, dropping the remains of my ice. “I’ve got two good hard bouncers upstairs. We can do Okie and the Kaiser.”
“It’s going to rain,” she says. “I gotta go inside.” But she hesitates, no longer leaning against the door but holding it open with one hand.
“It’s nice and dry under the porch,” I say. Now that she’s backing away, I want her to stay. I don’t want to be alone. “I’m Vanessa.” I start to move towards her, holding out my hand, but she backs away.
“I know. I’m Patricia O’Malley,” she says. “You want to come inside?”
“Sure!” I’m ashamed of my eagerness, but I follow her. “Why haven’t I seen you before?”
She stops in the dim landing and looks at me. Her small dull eyes sharpen. “I’ve been away,” she snaps.
It’s clear she’s not open to more questions. It’s rude to pry, no matter how much I want to, so I look around. At the top of the steps to our left, there’s a huge bank of square golden oak doors with the same kind of yellow metal handles as our icebox. My mouth falls open. “Gee,” I say.
Satisfaction gleams from Patricia’s smile. “It’s real ritz, isn’t it?” she says. “Of course, we don’t use them all ’cause there’s just me and Mum and Dad. They were for the whole house in the old days.”
I try not to look at the puckered skin on her wrists and neck, but it’s all I can really think about so nothing else occurs to me to say. We stand there in silence for a moment. Now that we’re inside, she doesn’t seem to know what to do next.
“It’s hot in the kitchen,” she says. “Mum’s baking bread.”
Outside, the thunder is getting closer. Mrs. O’Malley calls Patricia, who looks annoyed. “Wait here,” she says, and turns and goes up past the great bank of empty iceboxes through the swinging door that must lead to the kitchen. There are shelves on the wall opposite the iceboxes, so I guess this used to be a sort of pantry. There are a few rows of pickles and relishes and some jams and jellies there now. I never thought of Mrs. O’Malley cooking, preserving, making bread. Having a family.
“I have to go in for supper soon,” she says, suddenly appearing on the stairs.
“But it’s just five o’clock,” I exclaim.
Patricia shrugs. “Then I have to have a rest and do homework.”
“What’s down there?” I ask, pointing to where stairs go down to a door in the dimness beyond where we’re standing.
“The cellar, of course.”
“Can we go look?”
“There’s nothin’ interesting down there,” she says, but she goes past me and leads the way down the stairs and through the door to the dim, cool cavern beyond. I follow close behind. She flips
on the light. “See? Coal chute’s over there and the furnace through there.”
“Look at the treasure chests!” I exclaim.
“What are you talking about? That’s just trunks, like for storing stuff the roomers don’t want.” She looks at me as if I’m mentally lacking.
I make a harrumphing noise but can’t think of anything to say in the face of her total lack of imagination. Janet would have picked up the idea, and we’d have had a great game. Patricia is a bore. But she does show me where the other stairs to the cellar come up—right in the hallway leading to Rona Layne’s studio.
“I’ll go home this way,” I say quickly, “so I don’t get wet.”
Patricia shrugs, not caring what I do. She’s ready for supper. She flips off the lights as she makes her way back to her kitchen. I watch, memorizing where the switches are, watching the shadows settle back into place behind her.
When the silence is thick, I’m sure she’s gone. I creep back down the stairs and find the light. I flip it on, and the long cavern of treasures comes into view. Boxes and trunks, old lamps, a few chairs covered with dust. A lamp shade with a dusty fringe balances on a pile of magazines. National Geographic, going back a long time. Life magazine. Two piles. I move past them and finger the crystals of a small chandelier, which is hanging low from the rafters. Even in this dim cavern, it catches the light and breaks it into dusty rainbows. One of the crystals comes off in my hand. I try to fit it back into place, but the wire loop is gone. I hold it up to the light, watching the little rainbows come and go. I had a prism like this once, but it got lost in one of our frequent moves. I slip the crystal into my shorts pocket and move on.
As I walk slowly down the wide corridor crammed with its treasures, on either side I see doors that I didn’t notice when Patricia was with me. I pause at the closest one. It’s almost closed, and it sticks when I push it, but I get it back far enough to slip through into the dusty gloom on the other side. The room inside is tiny, not much bigger than our kitchen, and there is no window. One wall is made of makeshift planks nailed together every which way, and there are shelves along two other walls. Daddy wouldn’t think highly of the workmanship. There isn’t much on the shelves: only some brass candlesticks that need polishing, a bulging laundry bag, some boxes, and two old clocks. I open one of the smallest boxes and see jewelry. A gold bracelet is on top with one gold charm—a swan with a tiny diamond eye. I slip it on my wrist, then quickly drop it back in the box, squeeze out again, and pull the door shut.
Nearby, a trunk is partly open. The top is rounded like a pirate’s chest, and it draws me to it as if I’m on an invisible cord. I open the top all the way and prop it back against the wall. Inside is a tray filled with small shoes and slippers, some wrapped in tissue paper, some tumbled untidily as if someone has been rummaging about. I pick a pair of rose slippers with curved satin-covered heels and a beaded design on the front. They fasten with a pearl button on the strap. “Rona Layne,” I whisper. I sit down, take off my new tennis shoes, and shove my foot in. They’re almost too small for me across the toes, but I can wear them. My feet look so different—dainty and old fashioned. I totter around the basement. Although the heels are not high, they still make walking difficult for me. I come back to the trunk and examine the rest. They’re all about the same but in different colours with different beadwork. Perhaps she had them made to match her gowns when she was playing for the Crowned Heads. I try on a few more, then shove them all back in, thrusting my feet into my canvas shoes again, returning to the present day with a thump.
Further along, there’s a clear space where several boxes are piled. Only a light film of dust covers them, as though they have arrived more recently, and I can see books poking through the top one. I reach in and pull one out. It’s a history of musical instruments. On the inside leaf is written the name Brian Alexanian, with an address in Vancouver. We have lots of books from second-hand shops, so this is familiar to me, though we usually cross the original name out and write ours underneath. I reach in and pull out another book. The same name is written inside this one, too. And the next. And the next. They are all on music, one on building harpsichords. I think of Brian Pierce upstairs, playing the spinet, his mother’s long hands moving under his shirt, restless, searching. These books belong to him. All the books in the carton belong to him. There is no other Brian in the house.
What does it mean?
The books aren’t any fun to read and the light is bad anyway, so I pack them all back in their carton and dust off the seat of my shorts. Suddenly I know I have been here too long. It’s as if the basement is accusing me of bad behaviour. I flick off the light and run up the stairs, only slowing down when I get behind the velvet curtain that covers the opening outside Rona Layne’s studio. But no one is around.
As I go through the front hall and up the main staircase, a crash of thunder rattles the milky glass of the windows on the landing. I begin to hurry, rushing past the tapestry. The light here is odd today, yellowish. I finger the prism in my pocket—my new good luck charm. The people on the wall stare straight at me, watchful, appraising. An odd noise hums in the air. I burst into our room too suddenly, startling Mother. Jonathan isn’t there.
“Did you get wet?” she asks. “You’re out of breath. Are you all right?” She puts a hand on my forehead and holds it there a moment.
I concentrate on slowing my breathing. “I met a girl called Patricia,” I say.
“There are so many girls called Patricia these days,” Mother says. “I wonder why? In my day it was Mary and Betty, and flower names like Violet and Rose.” She’s spread folded flannel sheets on the table to protect it and is ironing shirts. “Here, let me show you how to do this. Might as well learn now.” She smiles and I take her place at the makeshift ironing board. “Always start with the collar and then do the cuffs,” she tells me and shows me how to do it, dipping her fingers in a bowl of water and sprinkling it on the dry shirt.
What seems so simple takes all my concentration, not to iron any more wrinkles into the thing, being careful not to scorch the material. I’m relieved when she takes over again. “You’ll be doing this in no time,” she says. “A quick study, you are.”
I want to get back to Patricia. “That girl lives downstairs,” I say.
“Mrs. O’Malley’s daughter, I expect,” she says, hanging the shirt on a wire hanger from the door handle and taking another one from the pile of clean laundry on the chair. “Poor thing. She’s been through a lot.”
“What happened to her?” I stand very still, waiting to hear the story, but I can tell she’s running over in her mind how much to reveal. Her hesitation makes the details even more enticing.
At last she picks up the iron again and shakes her head. “Some people shouldn’t have children.”
“What happened?”
She begins to iron faster, her movements now short and jerky. “Mrs. O. says she left the child for only a second to reach for something and the baby rolled into a basin of boiling water. As if that makes sense! Imagine! Boiling water left near a baby! Scarred for life, the poor little thing.”
“She’s not very little,” I point out, but Mother scowls at me fiercely and I wish I hadn’t said anything.
“As if you can believe one word that woman says anyway,” she goes on, more to herself than me. “I hope you were nice to the poor thing.” She pauses and gives me another fierce look. “Don’t ever stare at the afflicted!”
I nod, then shake my head and feel guilty about my earlier thoughts about Patricia. “She isn’t much fun, though,” I say, almost in a whisper.
“You wouldn’t be much fun either if you’d been through what she’s been through.”
I wonder if this argument makes sense. In all the stories I’ve read, suffering makes you better, more interesting. On the other hand, I think back on all the pains I’ve had in my legs, coming suddenly and inexplicably, t
wisting me into tears and crying jags, lasting sometimes more than an hour unless Mother rubs them. I think about the long weeks spent in bed last year with rheumatic fever, about always being watched in case I get overtired. Has it made me better? Or just boring like Patricia? The idea worries me, but then I remember Janet and our long complicated games and feel better. She doesn’t think I’m boring.
Mother snaps the wrinkles out of a sugar-bag pillowcase and irons it. She’s still muttering about Mrs. O. “That woman has no moral compass,” she says and spits on the iron to make sure it’s hot enough for the pillowcase. “Would you like beans on toast for dinner?”
I nod. It’s Daddy’s favourite meal, and it makes me sad that he’s not here to share it.
Mother seems to think of him at the same time I do. I see her smile sadly as she unplugs the iron. “Dear Ned loves his beans and brown bread,” she says. “At his house, they served it every Friday, apparently, but not out of a can, of course.”
I prefer them out of a can, but I don’t say anything. I start to fold the flannel sheet while Mother puts away the laundry. I wonder as I often do about Daddy’s home when he was a little boy growing up in a time when everyone had horses and carriages and ladies wore long skirts. We never talk about his life back then: his mustachioed father, his elegant mother whose name I bear, his older brothers and sisters, his cousins who live up the Saint John River in the large grey house on a point of land that bears their name. They are all frozen in time in our photo album, but he rarely talks about himself at all. “Your mother talks enough for both of us,” he says one time when I ask, and he laughs his soft gentle laugh so I never know if he’s serious or just playing.
“Why don’t you set the table? Placemats will be fine tonight,” Mother says. “We’re having caramel pudding for dessert.”