Six
I’ve got one photo of me and my mother together. In it, she’s wearing denim dungarees and a red and white striped T-shirt. Her hair is done in one of those spiral perms that claimed so many victims at the time. She’s wearing giant round spectacles, a fashion statement just for the camera, I suppose, because in my memories her eyes are always bare of everything, even make-up.
She’s holding me, in that photo. I must have been almost too big, but she’d held me anyway, hefting me up onto her hip so our faces were touching. I asked Dad once if the picture was taken the day we moved into the white clapboard house you can see behind us, dwarfed by the soaring blue mountains behind it, which in their turn look small against the vast, deeper blue expanse of sky. But Dad says it was taken later, when we’d been there a few months, right before winter fell and things started to go wrong.
I can’t blame Mom, really, looking back. When I was six, Dad’s job moved us from Calgary, a city I can barely remember, to Sparwood, a tiny town almost two hundred miles away. Mom had quit her job when I was born – I guess she’d had some vague idea of going back to work later on.
But there was no work for her in Sparwood; there wasn’t a whole lot of work for any women, unless they were nurses, waitresses or teachers. Oh – or mining engineers. Not that there were many women doing that job, back in the early nineties.
So there Mom was, in the house on Cherrywood Boulevard, alone every day while I was in school. She could have looked for work, I guess – found an admin job with the mining company or something. She could have joined the golf and country club, only she didn’t play golf. She could have gone to aerobics classes at the recreation centre, as so many of her contemporaries did, made friends and had coffee or lunch after.
But she did none of those things.
I do remember that, in those first few months at least, she tried to keep things settled, for Dad and me. I’d get home from school and find the house sparkling clean, music playing softly on the stereo, whatever she was making for dinner already filling the kitchen with smells that made me want to know when Dad would be home.
‘Not for hours yet, honey,’ she’d say. ‘Let me fix you a sandwich, if you’re hungry.’
And she’d make me something to eat, and maybe we’d do some kind of craft together, or walk round the neighbourhood, or watch a video. And then at around six, while I was having my bath, I’d hear from downstairs a sound I grew to anticipate with the same certainty I waited for the thunk of the car door closing and the key in the lock when Dad got back from work.
It was the rattle of ice cubes in a glass.
When I went back downstairs in my pyjamas, I’d find Mom on the chesterfield, watching whatever was on TV, almost horizontal, a drink in her hand. In the beginning, she’d still be herself at that stage – happy to help me with my homework, let me set the table ready for when Dad arrived.
But after that first winter, that changed.
I don’t know why. It snows in Calgary, too, after all. I think Mom’s sense of isolation was about far more than the deep drifts that surrounded the house, bleaching the landscape.
Maybe it was the time she skidded on ice driving to the supermarket and hit a tree, leaving her jittery behind the wheel even once the written-off car was replaced. Maybe it was that I was making friends, not coming home right after school to keep her company like I had before. Maybe it was Dad going back to the firm’s head office in Calgary for a few days a month, so she didn’t even have his arrival to look forward to.
But I do know that by the time I started second grade when I was seven, life had taken on a different rhythm. I never knew, when I walked up to the green-painted door after school, what I was going to find.
Sometimes, Mom was more or less herself. The cheese or turkey sandwich would be made, we’d snuggle together on the couch and it might be a while before she fell asleep, the glass of ice and clear liquid in her hand spilling onto the beige corduroy if I didn’t catch it in time.
Sometimes, I’d wait outside and knock and knock, and there would be no response. The first time that happened, I didn’t know what to do. I stood, shivering even in my windcheater and winter boots, knocking harder and harder, and calling for her, until Mrs Tremblay next door heard and came and let me into her house. She said Mom must have popped out and I could wait with her until Dad got home before I caught my death of cold, and why didn’t she fix some pancakes.
Sometimes – the worst times – Mom would open the door and she’d pull me close against her, the smell in the house of scorched food, vodka and fear. Then, she’d say, over and over, ‘What am I going to do, Sloane? What’s happening to me? I’m such a bad, bad person. No one will ever forgive me.’
And I’d try to cuddle her, ignoring my rumbling belly, until she fell asleep on the couch or on the rug in front of the fireplace – cold and unlit – and I’d sit there by her until I heard Dad’s car in the drive and jumped up, giddy with relief, knowing that he’d get Mom to bed and fix us some food from the freezer.
Dad knew things weren’t right. Of course he did. Later, when I was older, he apologised over and over for not doing something sooner, and not doing more later on. I guess he must have thought that it was just the winter, and that when spring came Mom’s mood would lift. And then when spring did come and she was just the same, either morose or manic or passed out, cracking open the vodka as soon as she was alone in the house, I guess he must have looked forward to summer, when I’d be home and able to keep her company.
They talked about what was going on, of course. On weekends and in the evenings when I was in bed, on the rare occasions when Mom was in a state to talk at all. I’d hear Dad starting out all calm and reasonable – even pleading – and Mom’s cold, one-word answers. And then it would escalate, until they were both shouting at each other, furious, frightened words that I buried my head underneath the pillow so as not to hear.
The summer holidays came eventually, and for a while Mom was better. She and I went for walks together. She talked about getting a bicycle so we could explore further afield, but that never happened. Dad took us camping and Mom cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast over the Primus stove and swam in the lake with us, and got a tan, and seemed happier.
But then the leaves started to turn colour, and Mom’s mood turned too. When I said goodbye to her in the mornings, I saw an unfamiliar expression on her face that I realise now must have been fear. Fear of the long day stretching ahead of her, fear of her own weakness that she’d fight and fight against, until she couldn’t any more.
And, I expect, fear of how it would all end.
Dad grew more desperate. He checked Mom into a hospital for a while, and for a month I went to Mrs Tremblay’s every afternoon after school until Dad collected me. I remember those weeks as being strangely happy and serene, and when Mom came home, she was better – for a while. The house was clean again; comforting smells of cooking greeted me when I walked in the door. I’d lie in the bathtub and wait and wait for the rattle of ice cubes, my fist squeezed around my washcloth so tight it hurt to release my fingers – but the sound didn’t come.
For a month or so, over Christmas and into the next year, everything seemed like it would be all right again.
And then it wasn’t. I don’t know what tipped Mom back over into that dark, lonely place. But one day, I arrived home and she opened the door in her bathrobe, a glass in her hand. I knew, somehow, that this wasn’t just a blip, and when Dad got home I could see from his face that he knew, too.
The row they had that night was the worst one ever. I lay under my quilt, shivering with horror, too afraid to cry, until eventually, in the early hours of the morning, I fell asleep.
And when I got in from school the next day, Mom wasn’t there. Her car was gone and so was she. She hadn’t packed any clothes apart from her winter coat, I heard Dad tell the police officers who came round much later. She’d only taken a few hundred dollars in cash – no passport, no driving
licence. Nothing that could have identified her but the registration plates on the car and the clothes she was wearing.
Seven
‘Would anyone like some more salad?’ Bianca asked, passing a wooden bowl around the table. ‘Or a little more of the tempeh bake?’
‘It was all delicious,’ I lied. ‘But I’m absolutely stuffed. I couldn’t eat another thing.’
‘I’ll make us all a pot of fresh mint tea, then,’ Bianca said. ‘So good for the digestion, after a heavy meal like that.’
I looked longingly at my empty wine glass, but clearly no more booze was going to be forthcoming – or indeed any dessert. Bianca had added a total ban on sugar to her new healthy-eating regimen. Dairy products had been first to face the axe, followed by wheat, red meat, all animal products – and now, not so much as an organic date or a spoonful of honey was allowed to sully the temple of purity that was her body.
I glanced across the table at Myles and wondered if he was thinking, as I was, that stopping off at the pub on the way home and necking a stiff drink and sharing a portion of fries was on the cards. Like Bianca’s diet, her home had also recently undergone a makeover. Just a few months back, her kitchen had been all countrified, with a scrubbed pine table, a quarry-tiled floor and even bunches of herbs and lavender hanging from the ceiling.
Now, she’d redone it in an urban, industrial style, with exposed brickwork on the walls, stainless-steel worktops and open steel shelves holding the chunky white plates and recycled glassware she’d purchased.
I sometimes wondered what her husband, Michael, who was presumably footing the bill for these constant transformations, made of it all, but I’d never asked. Michael, Bianca had told me, ran his own company ‘in logistics’. Myles had subsequently informed me that his business was actually Bettabogs, which supplied chemical toilets for large-scale events like festivals and which Bianca clearly considered beneath her.
Sometimes I caught myself wondering whether she considered Michael himself beneath her, too.
‘And how’s your work going, Sloane?’ Michael asked, as his wife poured fragrant hot water into retro glass cups with steel handles.
‘Not bad. I met a new client the other day. Well, new to me. Vivienne Sterling. I’d never heard of her, but I believe she was quite well known here a good few years back.’
‘Oh my God,’ Bianca breathed. ‘Vivienne Sterling! She was amazing. My parents took me to see her in Macbeth – ever such a long time ago now – and I totally idolised her for a while. But then she seemed to completely drop off the radar. There was some sort of scandal, I recall, but I can’t remember any of the details now. I had no idea she was even still alive. What’s she like?’
‘Very beautiful, still. But…’ I hesitated. It felt wrong to share the details of what Vivienne and her life had become. ‘I think she’s quite troubled. I guess she’s had a difficult life.’
‘Wasn’t she married to Max Sterling?’ Myles said. ‘The director? Didn’t he win an Oscar for something, back in the day?’
‘Dark Rhapsody,’ Michael replied. ‘It was a kind of noir art-house thing. I’ve got it on DVD somewhere, I think.’
‘I do keep saying, sweetheart, that you need to get rid of all those old CDs and DVDs of yours. It’s so pointless and such a waste of space, when we can stream everything online now. And it makes that study of yours look like such a man cave.’
Michael ignored his wife’s reproach – if he’d even heard it. I reckoned the ability to tune Bianca out would be an essential survival skill for him. ‘Want to come up with me, Sloane? I’ll see if I can dig it out.’
‘Sure! That would be great.’
I followed Michael upstairs. The new industrial décor had been extended to there, too, with a series of framed prints of photographs taken in disused factories lining the stairs, hung against a wall painted battleship grey. Bare filament light bulbs in tarnished copper holders that looked like they were made from upcycled pipes illuminated the landing.
‘In here.’ Michael opened a door and led me in. ‘This is my study. Or rather, as her indoors puts it, my man cave.’
To be fair, I could see where Bianca was coming from. The room was lined with shelves groaning with books, magazines, vinyl records and even plastic cases of VHS tapes. A huge TV was mounted on one wall. In a corner was a desk holding a computer and an Xbox, and a giant leather gaming chair filled almost all the remaining space.
‘Sometimes you just need to get away from it all, right?’ Michael said, sounding slightly defensive.
‘Of course you do. And that chair’s seriously cool.’
He brightened. ‘It’s designed for pro gamers. It’s got 4D-adjustable armrests and memory-foam cushioning, and it offers a full ninety-degree recline. It was my Father’s Day present to myself earlier in the year. Well, it was from Charis officially, of course. We took a special trip out together to buy it.’
It felt kind of sad, I thought, that Bianca’s disapproval of Michael’s man cave – and presumably his hobby – was so stringent that he had to use his daughter as an excuse to treat himself. But then, maybe Michael’s hobby meant that he holed himself up in that room for hours and hours, neglecting his duties as a husband and father, and Bianca’s resentment was entirely understandable.
I had no way of knowing; Bianca had never hinted to me that things in her marriage were anything other than rainbows and roses, all the way.
Michael cleared his throat and looked, slightly guiltily, towards the closed door.
‘Can I offer you a drop of something? Bourbon, maybe?’
‘You know what, I’d love a bourbon. Thank you.’
He nodded approvingly and moved a stack of magazines off a shelf. Concealed behind it was a tiny fridge, the kind hotels use for their minibars. He took out an ice tray and threw a couple of cubes into two glasses, then added whiskey. After a moment’s hesitation, he produced a box of Ferrero Rocher from the fridge, too, and offered them to me.
Accepting that chocolate and Jack Daniel’s felt seriously weird. Like I was being inducted into some kind of secret society. Or maybe like I was enabling a dangerous, destructive habit that his wife would be appalled by. But how was Michael having the odd treat in the privacy of his study really all that different from the wine and fries Myles and I would no doubt indulge in on our way home?
I knew Bianca’s ways: if she said their home would be an alcohol-free, sugar-free zone, there’d be no point Michael objecting. Well, he could, of course, but Bianca would end up getting her own way. The only question would be whether it happened before or after World War Three.
So I sat in the absurdly comfortable chair and watched while he rummaged through shelf after shelf, running his finger along the spines of his movie collection proudly and lovingly, occasionally taking one out to show me, saying, ‘Now this – this – is a great film.’
Soon, we found ourselves deep in conversation. I couldn’t persuade him that Scorsese was a much better director than Tarantino, but I learned that he shared my unashamed fandom of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Wars and Game of Thrones.
While we chatted, he splashed more whiskey into our glasses and we finished all the chocolates.
At last he said, ‘Aha, here it is! Dark Rhapsody, directed by Max Sterling and starring his wife, Vivienne. I saw it in the cinema when it came out and bought it on VHS, then when we got rid of the player I just had to own it on DVD too.’
He passed the plastic box over to me. The cover art was in shades of navy blue, silver grey and black, and it was dominated by a woman’s face – a face I instantly recognised as Vivienne’s. God, she was stunning. Cheekbones you could use to open an envelope, lashes so long they cast shadows, lips so full and pouting you’d think she’d been at the filler, although I wasn’t sure that was a thing back then.
‘We could start watching it now, if you like,’ Michael suggested. ‘The opening scene’s a cracker. I guarantee you’ll love it.’
I glanced at m
y watch, briefly tempted, then realised we’d been up there for almost an hour. Bianca would be furious – even though she had no reason to be; I was just socialising with her husband.
‘Myles and I should probably be heading home…’ I said.
‘Sure.’ Reluctantly, Michael stood up. He was a big bear of a man, well over six foot tall, with the build of a rugby player and a prominent nose that looked like it had been broken at some point in the past, and a pair of thick-framed spectacles. He was also a good ten years older than Bianca – pushing fifty, I reckoned, albeit in good shape for a man of his – or indeed any – age.
I wondered, not for the first time, what had attracted Bianca to him – she was so image-conscious, the kind of woman you’d expect to marry a banker or a lawyer who wore thousand-pound suits and visited his barber every other week for a trim and a wet shave. Michael’s money must be part of it, I guessed, but tonight he’d revealed another side of his character – he had a passion.
‘I’ll just pop to the gents,’ he said. ‘See you down there in a second.’
‘Cool,’ I replied. ‘And thanks for the movie. I’ll watch it over the weekend and let you know what I think.’
I padded downstairs. Bianca’s was a shoes-off house, and there was a basket of felt slippers by the front door which she suggested – or insisted – her guests slip on. I’d obeyed, trying not to think of the athlete’s foot their previous wearer might have had – although I’d reassured myself that it would take a seriously determined fungus to survive in Bianca’s spotless home.
The kitchen was empty, everything tidied away and the lights turned down low. I could hear the hum of the dishwasher, and saw the red digital display projected onto the floor saying it had two hours to go. From the front of the house, I could hear music playing – some sort of modern jazz, which I hated but Myles adored.
No, We Can't Be Friends: A totally perfect romantic comedy Page 6