Alligator (10 page)

Tough love, her mother said.

The cops on the other side of the room burst into laughter. One of them removed his cap and hit the female cop on the shoulder with it. She pretended to topple off her chair. They were just people, these cops.

Beverly asked, Have you ever given me a thought?

I wanted to change things, Colleen said. When she said this phrase she saw the planet earth from a great distance. It was so far away it appeared to be dislodged from the present, a part of some distant future. They had all lived past this moment: the police, Mr. John Harvey, her mother. The world was still the world but they weren’t in it any more. They had long since died and been replaced with new, better people.

Once, her mother said, I left you in a basket on the kitchen table and went upstairs to get something. And when I came back downstairs fifteen minutes later the kitchen was full of smoke. I’d put potatoes on to boil and burned the bottom out of the pot. I’d almost asphyxiated you. Why am I feeling so sentimental?

I’m sorry this happened, Colleen blurted. She wanted to be rewarded with her mother’s forgiveness, and then the sun would fire all the prisms in their empty kitchen, the cruise ship would pass, and the arms of the sun would reach beyond its massive, gliding bulk.

Colleen was willing to accept the consequences of her actions — in imagining them she had seen a beer-bellied developer stomping his foot with impotent rage — but she hadn’t imagined getting caught.

David had always said, Goodness prevails. He was like a mason laying bricks. There was a right and honest way; things must stack up.

So few things are worth doing, he’d once said. It was after the construction business failed and he’d spent a week in bed. He said he had contracted some virus, more than likely contagious. He’d come out of the bedroom only to smoke in front of
Canada AM
, wearing pyjamas — the buttons done up wrong — and a terry-cloth housecoat of maroon and grey stripes with the belt dragging on the carpet behind him.

David had once organized a benefit to raise money for teenage rugby players. He’d spent weeks selling tickets for a gala dinner and dance so that children from lower income families could go to Sweden with the St. John’s rugby team. Colleen had heard him on the radio — he’d spoken with emotion in his voice, seemingly overcome with conviction — Every kid on this team gets to play ball.

How different is that from pouring sugar into bulldozers? David had e-mailed photographs of himself and the team. In one picture David stood in front of a butcher’s window with several goats’ heads hanging upside down behind him, white against the blackness of the shop’s interior; there was a reflection in the window of an oncoming bus; it seemed to be tearing through David’s back.

When Colleen thought of the consequences of her actions she had allowed herself a secret, forbidden, helium-filled self-regard — powerful enough to make her cry. Tears were spilling over her cheeks. If she was given the chance, she would do it again. She thought of Joan of Arc. The black-and-white version, the actress dewy-eyed, bathed in celestial light. The planet, animals, trees — these were the things that needed to be saved.

Mr. John Harvey rose from his seat and came toward their table. They caught a whiff of the velvet-thick, rancid stench with maybe traces of shit that rose from the neck of his zippered coat.

Colleen remembered seeing him last winter in a sleet storm. He’d sat on a park bench across from City Hall, and a tree, completely encased in ice, was snapping over him in the wind.

The whole city had been shutting down because of the storm. Telephone poles had cracked in half. Slanting ropes of sleet cut through the soft, concentric aureoles of pink and white haze around the street lights. Colleen had wanted to bring him home, give him her bed, anything to get him out of the cold.

Mr. John Harvey stopped at their table and offered Colleen a tissue. The fingernails on his outstretched hand were brown and bitten.

It breaks my heart to see a young girl crying, he said. One of the police officers stood. Then the other three stood with him. They were alert and ready.

I’m having déjà vu, Mr. John Harvey said. Sometimes these fluorescent lights affect me. He waved a hand at the ceiling. I have moments of clairvoyance since Vietnam, but they don’t amount to much. What they did to us there. Mr. John Harvey shakes his head.

Beverly also stood, and her purse fell over and her lipstick and a bunch of coins spilled out. Some of them ran on their rims off the table and onto the floor where they rolled to the four corners of the food court. Mr. John Harvey was transfixed by Beverly.

You must be the mother, he said. The policeman shook out one leg of his uniform. Then he sauntered over toward them.

I was just explaining how lost a mother feels, Beverly said to the officer.

Of course you do, said Mr. John Harvey.

I’m all alone these days, Beverly said.

We’re always alone when you boil it down, he said. Officer, shouldn’t this man have a pair of socks? Beverly asked.

They choke my feet, ma’am. The policeman touched Mr. John Harvey on the arm.

You’ve had your coffee, haven’t you, Mr. Harvey?

Yes, I’ve had my coffee, said Mr. John Harvey. He patted his coat. I’ve had my coffee, he said again. He turned and searched the policeman’s face.

You’ve had your coffee, the policeman said.

Officer, something has upset this young lady, Mr. John Harvey said. He put a hand on Colleen’s shoulder as he spoke.

This young lady has an appointment upstairs, said Beverly lightly.

It’s okay, Mom, Colleen said.

There’s a man, Mr. John Harvey whispered to Beverly. He took his hand off Colleen’s shoulder just as if he had been burned.

Okay, Mr. Harvey, calm down there, said the officer. Beverly gathered a handful of coins from the table and she took Mr. John Harvey’s wrist and, turning his hand palm up, poured the money into it.

What sort of man? she asked. He reached into his pocket and took out a salt shaker and put it on the table between them with a little clicking noise.

You see that salt shaker? Mr. John Harvey asked. They all looked at the salt shaker. It was ordinary, with a stainless-steel screw-on perforated lid and a fluted glass bottom. The salt looked very white.

Do you see the salt shaker? Mr. John Harvey asked again. In Vietnam the
CIA
gave us that much heroin every day just to keep quiet about what we’d seen.

What did you see? asked Beverly.

I’ve seen the beast, Mr. John Harvey said. The cop shifted uncomfortably and he picked up the shaker and sprinkled a little into the palm of his hand and touched it gingerly with his tongue.

Don’t encourage him, the cop said, putting the salt shaker back on the table. He’s had his coffee and now he has to have a nice stroll in the sunshine.

Let me walk you to the door, Mr. Harvey, the policeman said. There’s a cruise ship in the harbour.

FRANK

F
RANK HAD BEEN
saving to send his mother to the Mayo Clinic, but she died before he’d got the money together. He had read in the
Telegram
about a local millionaire who had been taken by helicopter to the Mayo Clinic and had recovered. Frank wanted his mother to go in a helicopter. Sometimes he sat by her bed with his head resting on the metal bar and waited until an overwhelming impatience built in him that forced him out of the room.

No part of him wanted her to die faster, even though allowing that much suffering to continue was indefensible.

He was afraid to be without her. He wasn’t ready. But he wanted to be free of dread. Dread dogged his every move. His mother had resigned herself to her death. Sometimes she was agitated, but this had more to do with wanting it over than wanting to recover.

Once, after a dose of morphine, she had gripped his hand with remarkable strength. She hadn’t spoken for three days and he wanted her to say something. He longed for advice or for her to share a memory, or even an unvivid comment about a nurse. He watched her eyelids quiver and finally open. Her eyes were foggy but she made the effort to focus and he saw her battle whatever hallucinations were threatening to cloud the room. She recognized him; he saw it at once. Her voice was hoarse. She said, E.T. phone home.

As soon as she had spoken her eyes rolled up in her head and then closed. He saw her settle into the pillow. The grip on his hand loosened. But he saw her smile and realized it was a joke. Ba-da-boom.

Frank left the hospital and walked down LeMarchant Road marvelling at his mother’s joke. They had watched the video together when he was a kid. Her eyelids must weigh as much as transport trucks.

The way you see the elm spanworms is you are almost on top of them and what you see is a blur that registers in some primitive part of the brain as danger, you focus involuntarily on the worm before your face. It comes into focus, the way it inches up the clear thread, and the other worms hanging beside it become visible. They look like twigs. You can mistake them for inanimate objects, except they move. They waver slightly as if they are uncertain of what to touch next. They look like they think. They inch forward. They are sticky and have a feathery touch.

Simultaneously, the street and cars and houses behind the worm become out of focus. There was a screech of tires followed by an anti-climactic crunch because Frank had stepped off the sidewalk into the lane of traffic to avoid the worm that hung an inch from his right eye.

A minivan swerved into a station wagon. After a moment the drivers got out and looked at their bumpers in silence. Then the older man extended his hand and the two drivers began to speak. One bent to touch the other’s fender. Frank ducked into the Shoppers Drug Mart and went through the air-conditioned store out the back door into the heat. There was a worm on his forearm and he swore softly at it.

Frank made sure there were fresh flowers in his mother’s room every week. He kept the curtain around her bed drawn so the other patients wouldn’t disturb her.

The day before she died Frank’s mother opened her eyes again and said, Frank, I want you to get a university degree.

She started to choke. She had Frank by the arm so he couldn’t reach the buzzer to call the nurse. He could see the buzzer on her side table but he could not reach it.

His mother’s grip was very strong, the tendons inside her wrist stood out from her thin arm. He didn’t want her to choke to death. He needed it to be a graceful death. He would not withstand it otherwise.

He did not want to be present. He could not see her off. Her body was rigid and her face was dark red. She kept choking, the colour of her skin went a deeper red, and deeper, the shades changing, her eyes watering. This was it. His mother would choke to death holding his arm, as if to drag him with her. If she died like this he would go with her.

He couldn’t reach the buzzer but the woman in the bed near the window had already buzzed for the nurse. The woman, who had come to Newfoundland from Britain long ago, and who was bald and had no visitors, raised her fist in the air and called, Steady on, young man.

Then the coughing subsided. His mother let go of his arm and her fingers had left white marks. He felt a line of sweat trickle down his temple.

Frank picked up the glass of water on the meal tray and bent the straw with the accordion pleats toward her mouth and she drew the water halfway up the straw, but didn’t have the strength to get the water to her mouth. She had hurt his arm, actually hurt his arm. But now she could not drink from a straw. The choking had ravaged her.

She tried again and still couldn’t get the water all the way up the straw. Frank saw himself looking on, saw his frantic attention to the straw, how earnestly he watched the rise and fall of liquid in the straw, never quite reaching his mother’s pursing and slackening lips.

Frank giggled. It started as a quiver and spread a chill over his skin as he tried to suppress it, but he was giggling. Then he erupted with laughter. His mother was startled, but it was as though she had the same vision he did, how intent they were on the straw and some sort of palsy took over her face, the muscles stretching weirdly, her shoulders heaving, and then, because of a familiar look around her eyes he knew she was laughing.

He felt tremendous relief and shock. His nearly dead mother was laughing with him.

They were both soundlessly racked with laughter.

He could not breathe, nor could she, they were laughing so hard. He watched tears come to her eyes and move quickly down her cheeks and this made him cry too. His stomach was clenched. She waved her hand, the weakest kind of move, begging him to stop, but he wouldn’t, and this struck them both as even more funny. He couldn’t get enough breath and she put her finger to her lips to tell him to be quiet.

He leaned forward and whispered in her ear, Steady on. It made them laugh even more.

Just as abruptly she stopped laughing and he gave her the straw again and this time they were focused. She got the water to her mouth, three fast strawfuls of water. He got a face cloth and ran the water in the bathroom until it was as cold as it got and wet the cloth and folded it.

He thought about their apartment and how he would get rid of it, but not before she died.

They both knew he couldn’t afford it, but they had never discussed it. He put the cloth on her forehead and told her to rest. She closed her eyes, and she said, That’s nice. What a nice boy.

She was silent for a half-hour. He was watching the clock because he wanted to get out into the sunshine now. He wanted a sandwich before he went to work. He took the face cloth off her forehead slowly so as not to wake her.

Then she said, No one in my family has ever had a degree, and I want you to have one, Frank. I want you to go to university.

MADELEINE

W
HAT SHE REALLY
wants right now is to spend an afternoon with Marty. Some hotel restaurant somewhere with a threadbare Persian rug and waiters in pressed jackets and the tea comes in a stainless-steel pot with a leaky spout and they have all the time in the world to discuss her film, that’s what she wants.