by Caro Soles
We meet Mother coming out of Mrs. Smyth’s door. She’s smiling her company smile, but that soon disappears once we’re in our own living room.
“I wish your father was here,” she says, beginning to pace. “I think everything will be all right, though. Mrs. Dunn seems to think Mrs. O. is all bluster. A bully. She gets her jollies this way. Mrs. Tyndall thinks so, too. She suspects Mrs. O. is jealous of Vanessa. She wanted her daughter to take lessons from Rona Layne, apparently, and she wouldn’t take her on, and yet she suggested taking on Vanessa here. I guess this got back to her somehow.” Mother smiles down at me and notices the bandage. “What happened to you?” She kneels down and begins to untie the dirty cloth, her hands sure and caring.
“I fell in the basement when One-Eyed Jack was … I mean…”
“Who?”
“I mean the janitor. I don’t know his real name.”
“What did he do?”
I see alarm in her eyes and feel panic. I look at Jonathan for help, but he just shrugs and walks away. “He was there when I went down to the basement,” I say.
“The basement? Alone?” Mother jumps up at once, forgetting my knee and begins to pace again. “That’s the last straw!” she says, throwing out her arms, as if to a big crowd of people. “You are not going back to that place again.”
“Mother, there’s only one more week of school left anyway,” Jonathan says.
But it’s too late. Mother has made up her mind. She takes me to our little washroom, cleans my knee, puts on a large Band-Aid, talking all the time, her gestures quick and jerky.
“Maybe the truant officer will come again,” I say when she pauses for breath.
“Let him,” Mother says, getting to her feet. “We’ll fight them to the highest court in the land!”
“We’ll fight them on the beaches,” I murmur.
“Exactly,” Mother says, and kisses my forehead. “That man should not be around children.” She goes right to the telephone and calls the school.
Now that I no longer have to go, I wonder if I will miss the sight-saving class: the lulling chant of multiplication tables, the sad spectacle of Eddie’s fits, the dangerous attentions of Cedric, the quiet times with Rosemary. I wonder who will say Wise Owl’s lines in the Closing Day Pageant, who will jump in to help Maisie when she forgets her cue. And I know that in a strange way I will miss it all.
On Saturday, I tell Mother I want to keep away from Patricia and she takes me over to Janet’s house for the morning. While we’re there, she talks to Mrs. Sullivan, tells her about the threat. Janet and I linger in the hall, listening.
“That woman!” exclaims Mrs. Sullivan. “She goes to our church, but she might as well be a heathen. No wonder that poor Patricia doesn’t know right from wrong. You know how she got to go home to Ireland last year, don’t you?” Mother must have shaken her head, so Mrs. S. goes on. “She flung herself in front of a truck, then sued the company for damages and used that money for her trip. She bragged about it to the ladies of the altar guild.”
“Really!” Mother says.
“I wouldn’t worry about her threats. What power does she have? She’s only the caretaker for the building—the janitor, that’s all.”
I wonder if Mother will tell Mrs. Sullivan how she thinks Rona Layne is lazy for having a housekeeper for their own apartment, or that she lets that housekeeper, whose name is Miss Jones, make all the important decisions that have nothing to do with music. I wonder if she’ll tell her Mrs. O’Malley and Miss Jones are friends, that I’ve often seen them chatting together in the hall, Mrs. O. leaning on her mop handle, the housekeeper leaning against the wall, arms crossed. I wonder if Mrs. Sullivan will have to go to confession because she was relaying gossip about someone else in her church. We have confession in our church too, but I don’t think we’re very serious about it. Nobody in our family ever goes. Perhaps I should.
“Come on,” Janet whispers, punching my arm lightly. She turns and runs up the stairs and along the hall to her room. I run after her. The room is like a narrow slice cut out of the second floor, with a long narrow window, but it’s hers and it has a bed, a dresser, and even a wardrobe which has been shoved into the tight space at the foot of the bed.
“She goes to my school, you know,” Janet says, closing the door.
“Patricia?” I wonder why this hasn’t come up before.
“She’s in my sister Magda’s class. Nobody likes her much.” Janet combs her hair with her fingers for a moment. “So tell me what Brian’s been doing lately,” she says, and then she smiles and licks her lips.
I’d been hoarding the story of the Corpus Christi rehearsal and him keeping me waiting, but now it seems flat. I have to make an effort to tell her.
“Maybe he wasn’t visiting Helen,” she says, sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning forward a little. She has her concentrated look—a slight frown between her eyes—and she’s fiddling with a ringlet.
I sit cross-legged at the foot of her bed, leaning against the footboard. “The only other person he knows in the choir is Geoffrey,” I say.
“As far as you know,” she says and tilts her head as she looks at me. “Maybe there’s a Mystery Woman.”
“I don’t care,” I say. “It was rude to keep me waiting so long.” But I suddenly remember the shadowy figures in the Secret Garden that night I couldn’t sleep and looked over the railing in the middle of the moonlit night.
“I wouldn’t mind how long he kept me waiting.” Janet hugs herself. “He’s so dreamy.”
Dreamy. I think of the tapestry in our long hall, the boy who looks so much like Brian, the way he gazes out at me every day as I pass by. The way his face changes, his hand beckons. The gleam of gold in his hair.
“That Patricia is full of lies, you know,” Janet says. She flops back down on the bed. Above her head, a large palm frond is stuck behind the picture of Jesus with his bloody heart open in his chest, shooting out rays. I look away.
“Mother will fix it,” I say. “She would never believe I could steal.” Except it’s not all lies. I can’t tell her that.
18. THROUGH THE GLASS DOOR
THE WORLD IS CRYING OUTSIDE our living room, trailing tears of rain on the windowpanes. Fog shifts and rolls, hiding the city outside, reminding me of mornings in our family’s small summer house on the Bay of Fundy, with the tide coming in hard against the pebbled beach, noisy and invisible in the swirling greyness. But there you can be pretty sure the fog will burn off soon and the sun will burst through, dancing on the waves and making the sea sparkle. Here, one never knows.
The dampness has set off the pains in my legs. This morning I woke up early to the familiar ache, as if someone were twisting the bones inside my leg, like wringing out a bed sheet, making the hurt throb and shimmer up and down, bringing tears to my eyes. I crawl out of bed, trying not to disturb Mother, and wrap my leg in the ghastly afghan Aunt Dottie sent us for Christmas. She uses whatever wool she has lying around, leftovers from various other projects, and sometimes the results are jarring. But it’s warm, which is the point after all, and the heat helps my pain almost as much as if Mother was rubbing it, as she used to do so often. But I am too old for that, I tell myself. She needs her sleep. I will do it myself.
By two o’clock in the afternoon, the fog still lingers but my pains are gone. Mother is visiting Daddy at Sunnybrook Hospital. She doesn’t want to worry him about Mrs. O., but she says she has to talk to someone. It seems to me she has already talked to just about everyone we know, even Dr. Hazel whom she called on the telephone, but I guess she means someone who really counts in our world. I’m supposed to stay put and memorize “Kubla Khan.” I know most of it already. I wonder if a pleasure dome would be anything like our living room, only with lots of colourful cushions and a rounded ceiling. And more stately, of course.
I am feeling all rainy inside, full of
dark clouds. Mother will be gone a long time. Jonathan is out with some people he met when he was tutoring. They are taking him to lunch. No one ever takes me to lunch. Well, to be honest, Mother and I go to the Honey Dew on Bloor Street sometimes for a special treat, and Jonathan sometimes takes me to Eaton’s Annex down in the basement and we get a chocolate malted ice cream cone—but that’s not lunch. Janet loves chocolate malted cones too, and we promise each other that someday we’ll go together, just the two of us, and buy one each, and I won’t have to share it with anyone.
I wander around the living room, study the tiles around the fireplace, dust a few books. I find the tin box with a Dickensian scene painted on the cover, which used to have English toffee in it once. Now it holds a collection of keys, some for locks we have, others for doors long forgotten. The keys fascinate me, and I make up stories as to what they might someday open—some wonderful door I might find and because we had this box of magic keys, I could get inside. And I remember the frosted glass door on the landing of the Music House, the door we pass almost every day. The door I have tried over and over, but it’s never open.
Holding the box, I walk down the long hall to the bathroom. There is no sound from Baggy Bones’s room today. Her door is tightly shut. This makes the hall feel different. I pause and look at the page boy in the tapestry. He seems to look older, his golden hair dimmed by dust. It must be raining everywhere.
There is no one in sight, no creak of footsteps on the stairs, no murmur of Mrs. Smyth talking to her dead husband on her mantel. I keep going, turn right at the steps, run down to the landing. I know the lock is not a Yale lock. A few days ago, I saw Mrs. O’Malley cleaning around the frosted glass door, and she used a long thin key to unlock it. She carried the key on a big ring in her apron pocket. Daddy calls this kind a skeleton key. There are four in our box. The third one works. My hand trembles as I open the glass door and slide into a world of fog.
Everything is grey; a warm cocoon-like grey that slips around me, hiding details. I close the door behind me and put the box down on the floor. The greyness stretches out in front of me; it’s dense on one side, but on the other it dissolves enough for me to see the pillars of the porch and the ghostly shapes of the overgrown bushes in the Secret Garden. Of course, I know the rest of it must be down there, but looming like this through the fog, the nebulous shapes make me shiver, even though the air is warm.
The porch floor is painted what Daddy calls battleship grey, another reason everything seems all of a piece here today. As I stand there, a breeze comes up and the mist twirls away in long wisps. It’s like the second act of Giselle, I think, when the Willis swoop out of the gloom and whisk about. I start to dance, hearing the music in my head. The long balcony runs the length of Rona Layne’s studio, and there’s lots of room to leap and twirl and run, pretending I’m en pointe. The tall white pillars between the railings make it like the space on stage, open on one side, where the adoring audience watches my every move. “Wonderful,” one says. “She’s like Pavlova come back to life,” another whispers.
At last I pause to catch my breath, give several ballerina curtsies to the invisible audience. And then I notice the floor. It’s obvious that it’s been a long time since anyone was actually out here, and the swoops and slides of my feet are clearly imprinted there for anyone to see. God the Father. I guess Mrs. O. only cleans the windows when she comes here. When I look more closely, I can see that there are scuff marks all along that section by the windowsills. I shrug. There’s nothing I can do about it now.
I lean on the wide balcony railing, not minding the dampness. I can see parts of the Secret Garden emerging from its shroud as the fog begins to lift. And then I hear a series of clicks, a creak of hinges, and voices floating into the garden air. Rona Layne and her housekeeper, opening the French doors of her studio, talking together.
“…And all I ever wanted was to be shut of the man.” That was Libby Jones, her housekeeper.
“Well, you’ve got your wish. Few people can say that. Would you open the other doors, it’s stuffy in here.”
More creaking. Mr. O’Malley really should oil those hinges, but he has a bad back. He tells everyone he meets about it. I lean over, trying to see them, but they still are too far inside. Then I see the top of Rona Layne’s head as she moves onto the red brick path. You can always tell it’s her because she has her hair done up a lot like Queen Victoria. Janet says it’s like cootie garages on both sides of her head. I pull back quickly in case she looks up.
“I always meant to hire a gardener and bring this place back to its former glory,” she says, gesturing vaguely with one hand.
“You’ve got enough on your plate.”
Rona Layne sighs. “These tenants are more trouble than I expected,” she says. “And now this child—what’s her name?”
“Vanessa.”
“Yes, Jonathan’s sister. I can’t really believe this nonsense. Stealing things in the basement? Surely not.”
“The O’Malley girl may not be the brightest, but her mother swears she doesn’t lie.”
“What mother wouldn’t swear that?” says Rona.
“Here, let me wipe that off for you.”
I hear the scrape of iron furniture against the brick. She must be pulling one of the chairs into position, sitting down, making herself more comfortable. There is the clink of china. Perhaps they are drinking tea? I know there’s a table out there; it’s iron, like the chairs.
“Vanessa seems very bright, but I sometimes wonder if she actually is, or if she simply knows how to use the little facility she has.”
“She’s just a parrot. And she’s sneaky,” Miss Jones says. “That’s what I think.”
There’s a pause. I hold my breath, afraid to breathe in case I start to cry.
Then Miss Jones says, “It’s not easy finding a couple with the skills to look after a big place like this.”
“Well, I don’t really care who is to blame, Libby. Just make it go away, will you?”
“I don’t know, Rona. This could get ugly. There’s a lot of stuff stored in that basement, including some of your things.”
Miss Layne sighs again. “Maybe we should bring our things upstairs and store them at the end of the studio. There’s lots of room.”
“That’s hardly the point. You don’t want tenants up in arms, and you don’t want to lose the O’Malleys.”
“I hardly think the old dears who live here are going to man the barricades and start tossing paving stones at us, Libby.” She laughs. “And I like Mrs. Dudley-Morris. I’d hate to have to throw her out.”
“I don’t know. O’Malley is really exercised about all this.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Libby, just take care of it! I’ve got this recital coming up next week and I need all my energy for my charges. Angelica has the flu and may not be able to perform, and Freddy Ascher is getting cold feet. He’s never too stable at the best of times, you know. Not to mention Brian Pierce, who seems strangely jumpy lately. He was the last one I was worried about. I’d swear he has more experience than he’s letting on, but I can’t prove it. Strange how he just appeared like that, with no real history. Not that it matters in the end, I suppose. He’s good, and they pay their bills.”
“They’ll all come through for you,” Miss Jones says. “They always do.”
“It’ll all come out in the wash, as my mother used to say,” says Miss Layne. Her voice is getting fainter, so I gather she’s moving back inside.
The sun is breaking through the last remnants of the fog now, sparkling on the damp foliage. I feel hollow inside. My leg is beginning to ache again. I shouldn’t have stayed out here so long. I wish I had never heard this conversation.
I creep back to the glass door, open it, and take care to lock it again behind me. Downstairs, I hear Miss Layne’s voice in the hall, and I begin to run. By the time I get back, with the
living room door safely closed, I am in tears. I wrap myself in the afghan and curl up in a ball on the floor in the corner behind the wing chair.
A knock on the door a few minutes later throws me into a panic. Did they find out I was up on the balcony? Do they think I was spying? I rub my eyes and crawl out of the afghan and walk to the door. Brian stands there, smiling, his golden hair damp and the smell of the outdoors on his clothes.
“Is Jonathan home?”
I shake my head. “He’s out.”
“He promised he’d lend me some sheet music. Would it be all right if I came in to look for it?”
“I suppose so.” I back away, letting him into the room, letting his presence soak up all the air.
He comes in and closes the door behind him.
I gasp, my mouth opening in a large O like a fish out of water.
“What’s the matter?” He looks at me searchingly.
“Nothing.” But the word comes out too explosive. No one would believe that.
“I thought we were friends,” he says, sitting down on the piano bench. “You help me; I help you.”
“My leg hurts,” I say, hoping that will be enough. I can’t confess what I just overheard. Even a parrot wouldn’t do that.
“Well, that’s easy to fix. Did you take any Aspirin?”
When I shake my head, he gets up and shoves his hand into his pants pocket. Bringing out a small metal box, he pinches it on one side and it pops open, revealing some pills. “I have lots of headaches,” he says. “I always carry these with me. Here. Take two.”
I take the pills and go across the hall for a glass of water. Sometimes Mother gives me pills, but mostly she just rubs my legs. When I get back, Brian is checking through the music in the piano bench.
He shows me a Bach concerto. “I’ll bring it back in a few days. Are you okay? You want me to stay for a while?”