Fall on Your Knees (64 page)

… My first class after our “tryst” on her fire escape, I was afraid Rose would treat me like a stranger again. But she didn’t. She wasn’t exactly warm, but she called me Kathleen and said, “Let’s get to work,” and that’s what we did for days and days like riveters on a skyscraper.

I finally got her over for supper again — tore her away from her daughterly duties — and again Giles slept while Rose played and I sang the old-fashioned songs that Giles likes. Then I brought Rose to my room and tried to get her to take the ribbons out of her hair and do something less childish with it. But she wouldn’t let me touch it. I decided I’d like to meet her mother and have a talk with her. Why should she have a grown daughter who’s as tall as a man, and more beautiful than a woman, decked out like a kewpie doll?

I waited for Rose to spot the framed photograph of Daddy and Mumma on my dresser. She said, “Who’s that?” I said, “That’s my father.” She said, “Who’s that with him?” And I said, “That’s my mother.” And she just stared at the picture, then looked back at me and said, “Not your natural mother.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not your blood kin.”

“Yes.”

Then she looked back at the picture. “I can’t see it.”

“No one can.”

“What is she?”

“Canadian.”

Rose blushed. Hurray! But I put her out of her mystery; “She’s Lebanese.”

“She’s an Ayrab?”

“They don’t like to be called Arabs. Especially not ‘Ayrabs’.”

“What’s wrong with that, that’s how I’ve always said it.”

“Well. Anyhow, a lot of Lebanese come from the coast and they’re more Mediterranean, more European, you know. Not like Arabs.”

“She musta come from inland.” Then she looked at me and said, “Coulda fooled me.”

I said, “I’m not trying to ‘fool’ anyone.”

“You look pure white.”

“I am pure white. My mother is white.”

“Not quite.”

“Well she’s not coloured.”

She smiled — sneered is more like it — and said, “Don’t worry, honey, you plenty white for the both of you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Now you’re mad ’cause I called you white.” She was laughing at me.

“I like to be called by my name. Please.”

She stopped laughing and looked at me for a moment and said, “Kathleen.”

But I wanted her to get the point. “I’m not ashamed of my mother, but I take after my father. My mother is devoid of ambition and not terribly bright, although she is a devoted parent.”

“Goody for you.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say “To hell with you” or worse when she got serious all of a sudden and said, “I’m sorry but you’re not being honest with me. You are ashamed of your mother.” I got a hot sick feeling in my stomach. “And I think that’s a sorrowful thing,” she added.

The feeling was coming up through my skin. I was sure Rose could smell it.

“Kathleen?” She looked so sorry for me, and that’s what made me feel strange. In a sticky dream with my eyes on sideways and can’t stand up.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

I had to lean over.

“Are you okay?”

I thought, please God don’t let me throw up.

“Want me to get Giles?”

I must have caught a bug. The floorboards were shifting. She put her hand on the back of my neck. “Breathe,” she said. Her hand was cool.

“Good,” she said. “But the idea is, once you’ve breathed out, it helps to breathe in again in the near future…. That’s it.”

I breathed and she kept her hand there until my head stopped spinning and my stomach cooled down.

“I’m okay now.”

We lay on my bed and played Chinese checkers for an hour and Giles brought us cocoa and oatmeal cookies. I wanted Rose to stay overnight so we could tell ghost stories but she has to be home by nine or her mother worries.

The next day I told Rose she was in a state of social mortal sin because she had yet to invite me to her home. I have to come like a thief in the night and even then she doesn’t ask me in. I asked her point-blank why not. She said, “My mother is an invalid.”

She was lying, I could tell by the veil that came down over her eyes, but I went along with it.

“I wouldn’t make any noise. You could just show me your room.”

She said, “We’ll see.”

“Say yes.”

“… Okay.”

“When?”

“I’ll check.”

Days went by and she still couldn’t say when so I gave her the cold shoulder, but that didn’t work — she’s immune to her own methods. So last night I went over uninvited. At the decent hour of seven-thirty, when I knew supper would be through and it would be early enough to take the streetcar instead of a leering cab ride.

There were lots of kids playing in the street, and mothers everywhere, sitting on their porches in the cool of the evening. Men too, in white shirt-sleeves, some leaning against the buildings in twos and threes, others playing checkers, everyone chatting. It reminded me of New Waterford, except Harlem is really prosperous. Not to mention that here I’m the odd one out. Everyone stared at me as I slunk by till I felt like something out of P. T. Barnum, “See the white slave princess, raised by wolves in darkest Canada!” A couple of young fellas sang a little song at me as I passed — softly, not nasty or anything, but it made me blush anyhow, calling me “sugar” and “baby,” oh what I’d give to be invisible. Or to be taken for a man.

Before I got to her building I could hear Rose playing. It was coming from the church window, but church was not in session and this was definitely not church music, it was pure Rose. So this is where she practises. In exchange for playing on Sundays, I guess. I stayed under the window, sheltered by Rose’s music, but I was soon disturbed by three women seated on kitchen chairs on the front stoop of her building. They didn’t shoo me away, they gave me the low-down on Rose! They didn’t know whether to feel sorry for her or to think she was nuts. I know the feeling. “Poor little girl,” they were saying, “she bears her cross.” “We all bear a cross.” I wanted to say, “She’s not a little girl,” and I had to laugh because they went on, “And practising twenty-four hour a day, but never can learn a piece of music top to bottom no matter how hard she try.”

“That’s right, just wandering on the keyboard, lost to the world.”

“’Cept Sunday, she plays like the angels come Sunday.”

“That’s the Lord’s work.”

“Thank you, Jesus.”

Then one of them prayed that Rose would get some humility and they made jokes because they considered her too strange and — of all things — “homely” to get a husband, and what’s the good of pride in a homely woman? I excused myself but the women didn’t seem to notice, they just kept chatting as I picked my way past them up the steps and in through the front door for the first time.

The entrance has an echoey vaulted stone ceiling with turquoise and white tile mosaic. Maybe it was once a Turkish bath. I smelled a delicious stew. I followed a wide brass rail up marble steps worn to soft curves by a hundred years of footfalls, up to the second-floor landing, and was about to enter the church to surprise Rose when I had a flash. An evil one. I continued up to the third-floor landing and knocked at the door of what I knew must be her apartment. For a minute I thought there was no one home and I was halfway back down the stairs when a woman’s voice stopped me.

“What can I do ya for, honey?”

I turned to the woman and said, “Sorry, wrong apartment.”

“Who you lookin for?”

“Rose Lacroix.”

“Rosie’s downstairs practising.”

“Okay, I’ll just pop down and say hello.”

“She doesn’t like to be disturbed.”

“It’s all right, she knows me.”

The woman smiled in a sly kind of way and said, “You don’t know her too well though, do you? Come on in and wait, she’ll be up for dinner in a few minutes.”

“Oh. Thank you.” I was confused. “I don’t want to intrude on your dinner.”

“You won’t if you join us.”

I followed the woman into the parlour. It was fancy and shabby at the same time. Like a rich lady who’s slept in her clothes. Velvet everything. A plushy plum sofa with shiny patches. Dusty curtains drawn — burgundy with gold tassels. And a huge gilt mirror over the mantelpiece. The stew smell mixed with her perfume and made me feel a bit queer.

I said, “I’m Rose’s friend from singing class, Kathleen Piper.”

“Oh yeah? I didn’t know Rosie had a little friend.”

I felt she was being ironic, not to mention rude, but I couldn’t figure out why, no more could I figure out who she was. Although she clearly knew Rose.

“I’m sorry, honey, I’m Rosie’s mother, Jeanne. Do sit down.”

I guess my chin must’ve dropped a mile but I couldn’t help it, I was speechless. She lit a cigarette and laughed at me in a lazy way. She was wearing a full-length evening dress — dull red satin, slim and loose with skinny little straps and a deep V-neck, black sequin flowers. And obviously no underthings. I think that shocked me more than the fact that she was white, with straight yellow hair falling anyhow onto her shoulders, and thin blue eyes. Tiny lines, she must be close to forty, but it was so dim in there I couldn’t tell. You could see she used to be pretty. No face paint, oddly enough. She was enjoying my amazement. She offered me a cigarette.

“No thank you.”

“Good. Keep your voice clean. Drink?”

“Yes please.”

She smiled that rudely familiar smile again, as if my accepting a drink made us lowly conspirators, for there was something low about her and yet she acted like bored royalty. I don’t go in for drinking but I didn’t want this woman calling me “Rosie’s little friend” again. She gave me a whiskey and leaned back in the sofa across from me. Her left strap slipped down but she didn’t seem to notice.

I said, “Thank you.”

“I know you’re surprised, honey, everybody is at first, my God you’re pretty.”

I hate myself that I blush so easily. She was making me madder by the second, I thought, so this is what Rose lives with, I’d go around like a hornet too if she were my mother. But I said, “Thank you, ma’am.”

And she laughed at me again. The word “languid” is always used in books, but I finally found a use for it in real life. Mrs Lacroix was “languid”.

“Call me Jeanne, baby.”

I’m not your baby, I thought, but I said, “Jeanne.”

And she chuckled again and looked me up and down and said, “Oh yes. Yes indeedy.”

She made me most uncomfortable, the way she lounged there scrutinizing me like a bird of prey that’s too full with its recent meal to be bothered to eat what’s in front of it.

Rose came in. She paused when she saw me. I couldn’t read her face, she just said, “Hi.”

“Hi.”

Jeanne grinned and said, “Rose, darling, your friend is simply charming. I insist you stay for dinner, Miss Piper.”

“Please call me Kathleen, ma’am — Jeanne.”

She winked at me. I blushed again. I looked at Rose, expecting her to be scowling at me, but she just said, “Want to see my room?”

I got up, relieved, although it crossed my mind that maybe Rose would murder me silently with a pillow once I got in there. Her mother stopped us on our way. “Did you get my prescription, Rose?” she asked without turning around.

“Yes, Mother, I got it.”

“Good. We’ll wait till after dinner, I’m actually feeling quite spry today.”

“Good.”

“You girls have a little gossip, I’ll call you when dinner is laid.”

“Thank you, Mother.”

This was the strangest thing of all. To find out that Rose has not a “Mumma” but a “Mother”.

It’s raining on the Bay of Fundy. There’s no particular ferryman this time, there’s a crew. No one speaks to her as she boards, or asks her who her parents are, no one looks worried — although they do look a little askance. Twenty-eight days since New Waterford. What is Lily to do about the soles of her boots? She hugs the diary and looks over the rail. The Nova Scotia mainland is behind her, New Brunswick is in front.

Farewell to Nova Scotia, your sea bound coast,
let your mountains dark and dreary be.
For when I’m far away on the briney ocean toss’d,
will you ever heave a sigh and a wish for me?