Читать книгу Significant Things - Helen McLean - Страница 9

A year later Edward and his mother were sitting down to his favourite midday dinner — a tin of pink salmon creamed with condensed milk (the recipe was right on the tin, even he knew how to make it) and canned peas — before they went off to her job at Eaton’s College Street store. It was late October, cool, not cold enough for winter leggings, but when they headed out after lunch he was wearing his brown wool coat and thick knee socks and a pair of dark brown shoes the landlady had given him a few days earlier. The shoes were too big but the thick socks helped.

You’ll have to let me pay you for them, Mrs. Macklehenny.

Well, if you insist, Mrs. Cooper. You can give me fifty cents if you like. There’s still a lot of good in them. My Jimmy’s feet are growing twice as fast as he is.

After lunch the two of them walked down to Bloor Street, crossed the road and turned west so they could pass the chemist’s shop where there was a row of large bottles in the window, each containing a dead baby, starting with a little thing no bigger than a mouse and going right up to one as big as a doll, to show what they looked like before they were born. Dolly found that display a bit disgusting, but Edward never tired of looking at it. The two of them then proceeded to Bathurst Street where they boarded a streetcar. Edward put his own red ticket in the box and took his transfer from the motorman. He was an old hand at streetcars by then; he could have travelled around the city pretty well by himself if he’d had to. They changed to the southbound car at Yonge, got off at College, and went into the store.

Dolly had been playing the piano at Eaton’s two hours every afternoon for more than a year now. She was playing when Harvey Rak stepped out of the elevator that day, congratulating himself, so he told them later, on having renewed a business contract in the executive offices upstairs. When he appeared in the piano showroom Dolly was seated, by coincidence, at a Rak upright, and Edward was perched on the end of the bench, hunched over, feet dangling, quietly drawing pictures of squirrels and birds in the Big 5 scribbler he had open on his knees. His mother’s right arm moved in and out of his peripheral vision as she reached for the high notes on the keyboard.

Harvey Rak stopped in his tracks, his pendulous ears perking up when he heard the succession of effortless runs of a Fauré barcarole. When his eyes lit on the pretty blond pianist, their upper lids ascended into the tufts of eyebrow set like commas in his narrow squared-off forehead. He stood watching and listening, and when the lovely pianist had finished the selection, he made his sidling knob-kneed way across the floor, tacking this way and that between the pianos, and proceeded to compliment her on her musical ability, all the while eyeing the small waist and high bosom under the bodice of her dress of patterned artificial silk, noticing the way its skirt moved across her knees and slithered down between them when she moved her feet on the pedals, outlining her slim thighs.

“Very nice indeed,” he said. “Fauré, I think? Do you play any of the English composers?”

She looked up and gave the man an arch little smile. “Oh, certainly!” She turned back to the keyboard, raised both hands, and plunged into a spirited rendering of “Land of Hope and Glory.”When she’d brought the piece to its resounding conclusion Harvey Rak set down his attaché case and applauded.

“Beautiful, my dear, beautiful,” he said, slapping his long bony hands against one another. “You may be interested to know that my own company is the manufacturer of the very piano you’re playing.”

“Really? Well that is a coincid —”

“And I must say I’ve never heard one of my instruments produce a lovelier sound.”

Dolly put the tips of her fingers to her cheek.

“Oh, I’m no concert pianist, I’m afraid,” she said, laughing modestly. “I’m sure a better musician than I could do your piano more justice.”

Things went on in this vein for a few more minutes, and then this person straightened his shoulders and cleared his throat. He wondered, with a ducking of the head and lowering of the eyes meant to express diffidence, whether the lady — and the little fellow, of course — would care to join him upstairs for a cup of tea in the Round Room when she had finished her stint at the piano. He hoped she wouldn’t think him forward, but what a coincidence it was, after all, that at the very moment he arrived she had been persuading one of his own pianos to bring forth such beautiful sound. He had just been on his way up to the Round Room himself and would be delighted if she would consent to join him. A little refreshment wouldn’t be amiss, eh?

Dolly thought for a minute, and then she told the man she’d be through for the day in ten minutes and she would be happy to join him then. Why not? she asked herself. Tea in the Round Room would be a lovely treat for Edward — and for her, too, when it came to that — and the man seemed nice enough. Later, when they’d been seated in the elegant room with its high ceilings and graceful art deco ornamentation, and large tasseled menus had been set before them on the snowy tablecloth and consulted, Dolly told Mr. Rak she knew her little Edward would simply love the charlotte russe, and as a matter of fact she would like to have the same herself.

“Charlotte russe for a child of this age? Oh no. No no no,” Mr. Rak said. “Most unwise. Simple fare for the young, I always say. You don’t want to spoil the boy, Mrs. — ah —”

“Cooper,” she supplied. “Dolly Cooper.”

“Well, Mrs. Cooper — by the way, I do hope Mister Cooper won’t object to my having invited you to tea on this rather special occasion.”

Dolly blinked her eyes rapidly and then glanced toward her small son, her expression suddenly wistful. “Oh, no, you see Edward’s father is — that is — my little boy and I, we’re quite alone now —”

“Ah. I see. How sad,” Mr. Rak said, his face brightening. He turned to the dark-haired waitress in black dress and frilled white apron and cap who hovered at his shoulder with her order pad at the ready.

“A banana sliced in a dish with a little milk and sugar on it, I think, and some plain bread and butter for the young man. That will do you nicely, won’t it, little fellow,” he said, dipping his long face in Edward’s direction and giving him a whiff of stale breath. “The lady and I will both have the charlotte russe,” he said, addressing the waitress again, “as long as you’re sure the cream is perfectly fresh. Remove the maraschino cherries before you serve us our charlottes. They’re coloured with the bodies of dead insects, did you know that, my dear? It’s true. Insects from Mexico, of all the filthy places. In my opinion they are absolutely poisonous. I don’t know how people can bring themselves to eat such things.”

This last remark was addressed to Dolly, not the waitress. Edward knew his mother loved those cherries, and she looked as though she hadn’t believed a word of what the man said about the bugs from Mexico, but she smiled sweetly and agreed with him all the same. She turned to Edward and winked. Let’s go along with him, the wink said, I’ll make it up to you.

A small matter, or so it seemed at the time, but that charlotte russe, as it turned out, was as pivotal to the story of Edward’s life as Proust’s madeleine was to his — not a talisman unleashing a flood of memories, but the first destabilizing tremor that set in motion an avalanche of unhappiness, the first of Harvey Rak’s edicts against which his mother would never find the courage to argue. But for her acquiescence on the point of that cup of cream-filled sponge cake, her life and his would have evolved very differently. If she had been brave enough to face the man down, insisted that Edward be allowed to have what he wanted, obliged Rak to order a charlotte russe instead of fobbing him off with that filthy banana, Harvey Rak would have paid up the bill when they finished their tea, bowed to Dolly Cooper one final time, and gone on his way without a backward glance, having no further interest in a woman who would have the temerity to insist, ever, about anything.

“I don’t want a banana, thank you,” Edward said politely. Mr. Rak ignored him. A child’s wishes were beneath consideration. When the banana arrived Edward stirred it around in the dish and slopped a little of the milk onto the white tablecloth, but as no one took any notice he finally pushed the dish away and sat with his chin in his hands, staring at Mr. Rak.

Everything about Mr. Rak was long and narrow. His features were more vertical than horizontal, his mouth a downturned thin-lipped curve, his pear-shaped eyes set in pouches that look weighted, as though they might contain small ballasts of sand. He had narrow angular shoulders and a caved-in chest under his grey suit and waistcoat. His shirt collar didn’t begin to cover the length of his stringy neck, which reminded the boy of a tortoise he’d seen in the Riverdale zoo, stretching its neck out to an incredible length to reach its food. He watched with fascination as Mr. Rak ate his charlotte russe, his Adam’s apple rising like a stone under the skin and plummeting down again as though dropping of its own weight. Mr. Rak talked on and on, telling Dolly all about himself.

“I’m a manufacturer of upright pianos, Mrs. Cooper, as I believe I mentioned earlier.” He leaned back in his chair and addressed the slowly revolving black-bladed fan in the ceiling. “I do not boast but simply state the truth when I say the Rak piano is an excellent instrument, one suited for daily use in the home or classroom. There’s reliable quality in every Rak piano, through and through.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s true,” Dolly said. “It must make you very proud to produce those beautiful pianos.”

“Perhaps beautiful isn’t quite the right word, my dear. I don’t believe in putting the value into useless decoration. No no no. Plain cases. Solid, but plain. Every piano is made with a firm action, built to hold up well even with the heavy use it may receive in a school or from several generations of a large musical family.”

“I’m sure that’s very sensible,” Dolly replied.

“But make no mistake, Mrs. Cooper. The keys of a Rak pianoforte are always of genuine ivory. Top quality there,” said Rak, leaning down close toward her in a way that made Edward so angry he picked up his spoon and deliberately slopped more milk on the table. Mr. Rak did not deign to glance his way, and if his mother saw she pretended she hadn’t.

“A middle-range instrument at a reasonable price,” Rak went on. “I’m happy to say I produce something of real value to society. And what’s equally gratifying,” he said, smiling, or rather, scrunching his eyes so the pouches under them puckered up until they looked like little peach pits, “the financial rewards are in keeping with the quality of my merchandise.”

“And they ought to be, after all,” said Dolly, nodding vigorously.

“They are. They are. I own a substantial house in Richmond. Right on the river. Riverview, it’s called, my house. Do you know Richmond, Mrs. Cooper? It’s —”

“Well, I’ve never been —”

“— south of London. A short train ride. Reasonably close to the site of my manufactory in Kingston. I’ll confide something to you though, my dear,” he said, putting his face close to Dolly’s again, “and it’s this. I’ve been so busy building up my business through the years that I’m afraid I’ve neglected my personal life.”

“Oh, one shouldn’t do that, surely, Mr. Rak.”

“You’re a wise little lady. No, indeed, one shouldn’t. But here I am in my late forties — although you might not guess it — feeling as though something were missing, as though my life were —”

“But what could that possibly be, Mr. Rak? Surely with your business, and your wonderful house on the river —”

“— not quite complete. To share a secret with you, dear lady, I’ve begun to think it might be time for me to take a wife.”

Edward felt no wave of dread. The words “take a wife” meant nothing to him.

“You’re not married then, Mr. Rak?” Dolly asked.

“Not for want of hoping one day to be so, Mrs. Cooper. No indeed. But here now, tell me about yourself,” Mr. Rak said, straightening his narrow shoulders. “I’ve heard the evidence of your extraordinary musical talent with my own ears, and your — feminine charms —” he stretched out his horrible neck and inclined it obliquely toward her “— are evident for all to see. But you’re English, too, Mrs. Cooper. Home Counties, I should say, judging from your accent. How do you come to be on this side of the Atlantic, my dear?”

His mother must have invented her story on the spot, because Edward had certainly never heard it before. She told Mr. Rak a strange tale about the untimely death of a beloved husband soon after they’d immigrated to Canada, and how she’d been left almost entirely without resources and a newborn child to raise alone. She seemed to have forgotten about her great days as a pianist in the grand salon of the Queen Mary, a time of her life she never tired of telling Edward about. She caught her son looking at her in amazement and winked again. He was baffled. He didn’t know what was going on, but whatever it was he knew it made him uneasy, that he didn’t like it, and he knew he didn’t like Mr. Rak, either.

“I was stranded, truth to tell, Mr. Rak. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed England. I’ve never felt at home here.”

“But my dear, what a dreadful situation. However have you managed?”

“I have a tiny income from my father’s estate,” she said, “but it only covers the rent on a one-room apartment and the bare necessities for Edward and me.”

Mr. Rak assumed a wide-eyed expression of mild horror, shook his head slowly from side to side as though he could hardly imagine such a plight.

“My job in the piano showroom is rather badly paid,” she went on, “as you might imagine. I do my best,” she said, smiling up into Mr. Rak’s eyes, “but I do worry. Any time the department manager decides he wants a different pianist, I’ll be out of a job. Only the other day he said I should try to play jazz.”

Mr. Rak made a noise with his tongue. Tsk tsk tsk. “Dreadful,” he said. “Jazz!”

“I might be forced to go into domestic service,” Dolly said, looking very sad, “although even that work is hard to find when one has a child to look after.” She fell silent, looking down into the scalloped white cardboard circlet that had contained her charlotte russe. Mr. Rak said nothing, but simply gazed at her, while his narrow chest swelled to the full extent of its capability, that is to say, almost an inch. Even then he didn’t break the silence. He slowly lifted Dolly’s hand from the white table cloth where it lay, so delicate and long-fingered and pale, and raised it until it was almost touching his lips, all the while looking soulfully into her eyes.

At last Dolly said that she must go, and Mr. Rak leaped to his feet to help her on with her black wool coat. Minutes earlier he’d been jotting her address in his leather notebook, and his little gold mechanical pencil was still lying on the table, partly hidden by the napkin he tossed down when he rose to help her. While Mr. Rak’s back was turned, Edward reached across and gave the pencil a quick push so it rolled over the edge of the table and landed on the carpeted floor, and waited to see whether Mr. Rak would notice he’d forgotten it.

He didn’t. He took Dolly’s elbow and began steering her toward the elevator. “Come along, darling,” she called back over her shoulder to Edward. He swiftly picked up the pencil and put it in his pocket, holding it tightly it in his fingers on the way down on the elevator. He was beginning to feel afraid, of just what, he wasn’t sure, but all the same it made him feel strong to have that pencil in his pocket, as though Mr. Rak himself were trapped down there in the dark, under his control.

Edward already had a collection of beautiful things he kept in the wooden box that his mother had wheedled out of the man at the cigar store. There was a string of glass beads with a silver cross on the end that caught his eye where it lay sparkling in the grass in front of the convent school one day. Another of his treasures was a gold button with the raised outline of a king’s crown on it, which he found on the floor when his mother was buying a card of bobby pins in Kresge’s. He also had several marbles that he’d picked up in playgrounds, including a very large glass one full of wonderful swirling colours. He had pieces of silver paper that he’d pulled out of empty cigarette packages, smoothed out perfectly, and folded up small, but they weren’t as important as the other things. Now he would put Mr. Rak’s gold pencil in his box, and he’d be able to look at it any time he wanted, even draw or write with it if he felt like it, and smelly old Mr. Rak couldn’t get it back, ever in the world, no matter how much he loved it, or needed it when he wanted to write in his notebook. It belonged to Edward.

“Just think, darling,” his mother said a few weeks later, “we’ll soon be out of this horrid little apartment forever. Won’t it be wonderful when Harvey and I are married, and we’ll all be living in his beautiful house? You’ll be able to watch the swans and see all the boats going up and down the river.”

“I like this house. I want to stay here.”

“Oh Edward, this isn’t a house at all. It’s just a little piece of a house.”

“I don’t like Mr. Rak. I don’t want to live in his house. I don’t like swans, either.”

“You’ve never even seen a swan, Edward. And you don’t know Mr. Rak yet. He’s going to be very good to us. He’s going to be your daddy, you know.”

The concept of a “daddy” meant almost nothing to him. He knew only a few children and had never met their daddies. What would you do with a daddy, anyway? Where would he sleep? He certainly wouldn’t want the man in the same bedroom with him and Mummie.

“We don’t need a daddy,” he said. “I like us the way we are.”

“You’ll have a bedroom of your very own, Edward, and lots of toys and books to put in it.”

“To sleep in all alone?”

“Of course. Won’t that be wonderful?”

The boy gave a shriek and burst into tears. Next thing he knew his mother was crying, too, and they were hugging each other.

“Tell him we’re not coming to Iglid,” he snuffled.

“But Edward darling,” his mother said, wiping away her own tears with the hem of her apron and then applying it to his, “we are.”

“Don’t you love me anymore, Mummie?”

“Why Edward, of course I love you!”

“Then tell him we don’t want to come, tell him, tell him, tell him—”

He punctuated these small explosions with sharp angry tugs on the sleeve of his mother’s flower-patterned dress, one of the few nice ones she had. Later that evening when she was undressing she saw that the material had given way at the shoulder seam.

“Oh Edward,” she said sadly, looking over to where he already lay tucked up in bed, “look what’s happened to Mummie’s good frock.”

Dolly’s one interest apart from her son had been the keeping of her scrapbooks and photograph albums, which she had always carried along with her on board the ship, before he was born. Edward had spent hours and hours leafing through these books with her, looking at pictures of Dolly when she was young, of her as a baby with her own mother, who died when she was nine. There was a young Dolly dressed for her first piano recital, another with her music teacher, Miss Smythe, Dolly at twelve holding a bouquet of flowers for having won first prize in a competition. There she was as a teenaged girl standing with her father in the cobblestoned courtyard of a Tudor inn in the English village of Amersham. “That’s your grandfather, Edward. You’ll never meet him. He’s a harsh and cruel man.” Sometimes she had to wipe tears from her eyes when she looked at these family photographs.

There were many photos of Edward’s mother as a grown-up young woman, usually in the company of some good-looking young man, or a group of men and women, in parks or gardens where trees were in bloom, or in front of large buildings in a city that she said was London. Another album was full of photographs taken aboard the Queen Mary, mostly of famous or rich people, film actors and actresses, whose names meant nothing to Edward. Dolly had taken dozens of pictures of her son, too, with her little box camera, and put them into a special album, and she’d also kept a scrapbook especially reserved for nothing but pictures of the British Royal Family. Every Sunday while he was reading the funny papers, his mother went carefully through the sepia-tinted rotogravure section of the Weekend Star, looking for pictures of them to cut out and paste in her book, especially pictures of the handsome young Prince of Wales who was going to be king someday.

“There he is, Edward. Your hair is just the colour of his, did you know that? And his eyes are blue too. You have a stronger chin, though. That comes from my side of the family.”

Every year since his first birthday, Dolly had taken Edward to have his picture taken in a photographer’s studio over a store on Bathurst Street. She had two prints made, one for herself, to put into the album, and the other she sent along with a letter to London. Maybe the person she sent them to never even saw them. She never received a reply, but she went on sending them anyway.

Before they left the apartment on Brunswick Avenue for the last time, Dolly destroyed all the pictures taken on board the Queen Mary, all the pictures of herself with the young men and women in London, and the entire album of the British Royal Family. She wept while she did it, but it had to be done.