Prerequisites for Sleep (10 page)

 

Occasionally, between the end of the grey drizzle and the start of blackfly season, there is one of those rare April days that brings everyone, long weary of being inside, out of their homes. Some people emerge in shorts because the weather gives the illusion of late May or even June, and they want to rush the season forward. Front doors are left open and windows are raised, enabling the outside to also journey in. It is as though each house has taken the sleeves of its winter coat and pulled them back through the armholes to expose the lining. Such a day doesn't happen every year, only when there is a slight pause between the grey and the black, like a breath before the collision.

Megan, looking older than her forty-seven years, is not the first person out this Saturday morning, although she is early. Strands of hair, both brown and grey, flip and curl out from under the ball cap she wears. She is tall and gaunt, almost witch-like in appearance. That's how many of the local children see her. Below her eyes sit shadows of blue-black, like someone who is ill or deprived of sleep. The knee is torn in her denim overalls; her shirt is faded and stained.

The people across the road are also out and stop raking their lawn in order to chat with the people who live in the house to their left. Megan doesn't bother getting to know the neighbours any more. There was a time when she knew them all, but that was years ago. Everyone from those days has moved on. The neighbourhood has always been considered affordable, good starter homes for couples with young families, or first-time investments for up-and-comers.

She and John had been so happy to find the
L
-shaped bungalow with water frontage that fell within their price range. During the two-month closing period, they drove by on several occasions, hardly able to contain their excitement. Then came moving day, their apartment belongings packed up and placed into the various rooms of their new home, which still looked empty after their meagre furnishings arrived. “Room to expand,” John had said, and she agreed.

Megan especially remembers the first person she and John had met when they arrived on the picturesque crescent. It was Evelyn Montgomery, appearing instantly upon the departure of the moving van, a bucket and sponge in one hand and a plate of sandwiches in the other, as if she had been watching from the side window of her own house and waiting for that very moment, which she admitted some time later that she had been. It was her way to get involved and help out. A couple of years later, it was Evelyn who showed Megan how to express the milk from her engorged breasts so Jamie could latch on when they came home from the hospital. She was a nurse, her husband Rob a contractor. Builders and fixers, Megan called them.

Together, Evelyn and Megan had organized charity drives and community events and garden tours and a book club, which started a small controversy because their first novel, The Wars, hit a nerve with Celeste Rogers, who stated that she could not read past that part, the one with Taffler and the Swede. “That's not the issue,” Evelyn had said. “The story is about finding ways to cope with a horrific event while feeling totally isolated. That part just helps to make the point.” But Celeste couldn't agree.

Megan tried to turn the conversation around by saying, “Look at it from a different perspective. It's about being at the mercy of strangers. Robert is always at the mercy of people he doesn't feel close to. His own mother is the biggest stranger in his life, the worst offender. It was she who drove him to enlist. You're aware of that from early on.” Then she chuckled. “It's always the mother's fault. Did you ever notice that?”

“Yes,” replied Evelyn, laughing, “the mother or the butler, depending on circumstances.” After that, it must have been the butler was their standing private joke, sending them spiralling into uncontrollable laughter while John and Rob looked on perplexed.

That was forever ago. Nowadays, Megan prefers to converse with Findley, a Heinz-57 mutt with one brown eye and one blue, who speaks very little in return, just the way Megan likes it. He follows her to the garage, where she picks up an expanding bucket and her gardening gloves. The garage has never held a car but assumes the role of shed and attic combined. In the corner closest to the door are tools and pots with dead houseplants. Off to one side sits a baby's crib, its corners and bars draped with spider webs. The accompanying mattress, once bright with printed lambs and rabbits, is now stained with mildew. Some boxes contain university textbooks, old and outdated. Others hold household items, some old, some just no longer used. Findley sniffs the floor where some mouse droppings lie, then follows the scent, only to lose it under a pile of discards that lean against one wall.

“Come on, Fin, let's go,” Megan says. Then she and the dog stroll around the side of the house towards the backyard.

To the people on the street, Megan is an oddity. Eccentric, some call her. Others say she is a free spirit. What they do agree on is that her yard is a mess. For the amount of time that she spends outside, it never appears to them that anything improves. The front lawn, mostly dandelions and wild strawberries, always has notable dead spots that they believe must be cinch bugs but are actually where Findley does his business, burning the weeds with his urine. The gardens are overgrown, with no divisions between plants that they can see. Thyme invades the phlox. Snow-in-summer intrudes on the coreopsis. Black-eyed Susans, allowed to go to seed, sprout up in the middle of everything. On this April day, the chaos is less apparent because these things have yet to wake up. The neighbours, too busy with their own yards and social niceties, have not yet cast a disapproving eye in Megan's direction. This will happen later, in summer, provoking whispers and nods and discussions on patios or at community events. “Thank heavens the house is brick and the windows are vinyl. Imagine what the place would look like if they weren't.”

The backyard slopes gracefully to the lake. It is more like a large pond, rather shallow and weedy, not really big enough for boats or summer recreation, a perfect habitat for birds and bugs. Gardens stretch in both directions towards the property line from a walk that winds its way down to the water. The faces of early pansies stare upwards from between the stones in a defiant manner. Pick us out, we dare you. Others would have, but Megan likes the violet flowers and lets them be. She is not one who thinks of them as weeds or who cares that they have decided to live in the cracks of her garden path.

She begins at the top of the hill, cleaning out the dead leaves from last fall, a job she prefers to do in the spring to avoid the chill of autumn once they fall from the trees. Findley sits on the walk, watching her while she gathers them, some dry and crackling, others wet and full of the movement of wood bugs. Each time she fills the bucket, Megan walks back up the slope and dumps it in a pile at the side of the yard where they will remain, eventually becoming overgrown with tall grass and bugleweed.

“Fin, where's your ball?” she says, and the dog begins searching the yard for the toy, wavering back and forth with his nose to the ground and his tail in the air.

Megan pulls out the stems of last year's day lilies. They are hollow and always make her think of Huck Finn hiding in the river and using a reed to breathe while under water. At least she thinks it was Huck Finn. Perhaps it was from an old movie she saw once, perhaps both. She puts all the stems into the bucket, then moves on to the hostas to do the same, slowly working her way from side to side, stopping to check individual perennials for new growth. One of her coral bells has died. Its brittle stock and root lifts out of the ground with a handful of leaves that Megan scoops up. A beetle scurries over the clumps of loose dirt and an earthworm pulls its body back into a dark tunnel.

Jamie died when he was three. If Megan allowed it, she could still see his lifeless body and his crushed tricycle under the rear wheel of the pickup. The black Ford pickup with a black cap that made her remember it like a hearse. Blue trike. Yellow hair. Red blood. Both she and John were standing at the fence talking to Evelyn. Jamie was riding his trike up and down the driveway. “Look, Mommy, look, Daddy, look at me,” he called over and over and they would look and clap and tell him how great he was doing. It was one of those rare April days. Rob jumped into his truck and shouted that he was going to get fertilizer for the lawn. Somewhere in a single breath of time, unseen by four sets of eyes, Jamie turned his tricycle onto the sidewalk and raced towards the Montgomerys' driveway. “Look, Mommy, look, Daddy, look at me.”

Jamie!

Megan inhales deeply through her nose and exhales through the circle of her mouth, as if in labour. Findley nudges her with his muzzle, holding the ball between his teeth. “Hey, Fin, you found it,” she says, rubbing the dog's ears. For a moment, she holds him around the neck and rests her cheek against his soft head, then stands up and grabs the bucket by the handle. “Let's go to the lake.”

Mayflies are hatching from the water. Their vertical wings carry them upwards and away from their nymph relatives. Such unusual creatures, with upright appendages and dual wire tails. They look like something from a cover of the fantasy novels John used to read, something that would have a warrior sitting on its back holding reins with one hand and waving a sword with the other. Jamie would have loved the mayflies. By the age of three, he had been immersed in a world of knights and castles. He would be sixteen now, spending too much time on the computer or playing video games and talking on the phone with his friends. Probably a reader like both parents, and possibly involved in sports or music.

At first, there had been the drug-induced numbness that carried them through the funeral and the weeks after, the sedatives making their mouths so dry that every swallow felt like they were forcing the entire world down. It would only go so far, then stick like a goitre in their throats. Afterwards, the distribution of blame, no names spoken, no eye contact made, only what-if scenarios that crowded their thoughts. When the Sold sign went up on Evelyn and Rob's front lawn, they were both relieved. There was the night that Megan sat with her back leaning against the locked bathroom door. The remaining sedatives dumped from the amber vial between her spread legs while she counted them. Seventeen. John pounding on the other side, the vibrations of his force rocking her shoulder blades, “Megan, are you okay?” then apologizing when the toilet flushed as she watched the pills circle the bowl. Grabbing the towels, she opened the door and walked past him to take them to the laundry room.

Megan takes the orange ball from the dog's mouth and pitches it into the lake. It bobs to the surface, surrounded by successive rings. Findley jumps in and begins to swim while she picks up more debris. When he returns to shore, his wet fur is weighted into points that hang dripping from his body. He shakes them out before bringing the ball to her. She tosses it again and he swims off to retrieve it. The next time she throws it, it lands further out in the water. Findley looks at it, turns back towards her and lets out a slow whine, his odd eyes searching her for direction.

“Don't give me that look. Go get it.” The dog whines again. “Oh, stop it and go get your ball,” she says, turning her back and breaking off the dead stalks of astilbes. Findley paces back and forth, little whimpers escaping from his throat. He raises his front paw and touches Megan on the thigh. “Findley, you're such a suck.” She picks up a rock and throws it out to where the ball floats in the lake. Findley goes after the rock and returns with the orange sphere in his mouth.

That's what John hated, her tough exterior, that and her silence. When he screamed and threw things, she walked away. When he cried in his sleep, she moved to the sofa. She saw him the other day at the mall. He had two children with him. A girl of six who must get all her looks from her mother, and a younger boy with Jamie's complexion and hair but someone else's smile. They made small talk while blinking away the echoes of their former lives, then parted with promises to get together they both knew would never be kept.

Findley occupies himself with the ball at the shoreline, batting it with his paw and pushing it through the mud with his nose. Megan kneels and lifts more brown leaves, holding them in two hands like a mouth of a crane before dropping them into the bucket. Under the pile, several green shoots reach out of the ground. She pauses for a moment to swat the air above her head where she can hear the first blackfly of yet another season.

 

Soft green numbers stared at him from the night table. 4:27, they said. The glow from a streetlight seeped through the slats of the blinds, leaving horizontal bands of darkness between. His eyes scanned the room, adjusting to the half-dark, half-light. Looking around, he saw familiar knickknacks nestled with objects he didn't recognize, furniture that he knew next to pieces that were foreign to him. A strand of silver light settled on the hair of the woman asleep on the next pillow, her breathing creating a nasal rhythm that punctuated the silence. Everything was out of sorts, like a hazy dream, or a foggy reality.

Thirsty, he lifted the bedclothes with caution and swung his legs to the floor. His left hip ached, a constant reminder of the beach at Dieppe, and he leaned on the night table for support. A pair of slippers partially under the bed were visible in the dim light. He nudged them out with his foot and slipped them on, then shuffled out the bedroom door and up the hall.

The kitchen glowed with assorted lights, gadgets, and more numbers, this time 4:42. He ran his hand through his hair, which was damp with his perspiration, and looked around, surveying the room with its boxy white appliances and yellow paint. Lace curtains hung on the window above the sink and herb pots sat on the ledge. It all seemed wrong, not the kitchen he remembered.

He began searching for a glass behind cupboard doors, finding one on the third try, and opened the refrigerator, hoping that it held a jug of ice-cold water like the one in the kitchen he was more familiar with. Thankfully it did. Filling the glass, he gulped it down and poured another, taking it with him to the table that stood next to the bay window overlooking the yard. He sat, leaned on his elbows and rested his forehead in the palms of his hands, closed his eyes and stayed still for a long time.

The morning light reached across the back garden and into the window, settling on the table and floor. He lifted his head and sipped on the remaining water while scanning the kitchen for something that would help him to orient himself. The confusion and panic stayed, no matter how much he willed them to be gone. His eyes rested on the figure of a jolly chef that hung next to the telephone. Grocery staples: milk, bread, butter, flour, sugar, and eggs were listed down the front of his apron. Little wooden pegs stood in holes at the bottom and could be placed adjacent to each item to mark those to be purchased on the next trip to the store. It was a novelty really, not something anyone used. It had once hung in his mother's kitchen. He and his brother used to drag a chair across the room to stand on so they could move the pegs into different positions when she wasn't looking. She always put them back across the bottom when she cleaned up after dinner. Seeing it, he couldn't help but smile.

 

Stepping outside, barely lifting his feet, he made his way down the driveway and up Raymoor Avenue while surveying the neighbourhood, noting any changes in house colours, or additions like sheds and gazebos. He had lived on this street since he was a boy and had never tired of it.

The big house had always been grey with white gingerbread and railings. As he followed the walkway leading to the front veranda, he noted that the petunias in the garden needed deadheading and the hardy geraniums could use a thinning out. He rang the bell, then waited a minute and rang again. Inside, the chime of a clock marked the half hour. A silhouette moved behind frosted sidelights and the deadbolt shifted to the unlocked position. Finally, he thought, releasing his breath just before looking into the face of the stranger standing beyond the security chain on the partiallyopened door. “Who are you?” he cried, his panic increasing tenfold. “Where's my mother? Where's Robina Winslow?”

“Phillip, is that you? What are you doing out this early in the morning?” The man was middle-aged, with thinning hair, but fit. He stood in bare feet, adjusting a navy robe tied loosely at his waist.

Turning, Phillip trudged back along the cement path that led to the street, avoiding the cracks between the grey slabs like children do when they play. Step on a crack, break your mother's back. He sat down on the curb, his bent knees rising upwards from the pavement like crests of hills, and tears flowed down his cheeks.

 

The sound of the ringing phone startled her, waking her with the feeling that only seconds had passed since she had closed her eyes. Picking up the receiver, she glanced in his direction. His pillow was empty, the bedclothes pulled back.

“Hello?”

“Emma, it's Geoff Chambers.”

“Yes, Geoff, what can I do for you?” She fingered the night table in search of her glasses, knocking a pencil to the floor before locating them on the other side of her crossword book, then fumbled with one hand to open them and set them in place so she could see the time. Just after six thirty.

“It's Phillip. He's sitting on the curb in front of our house. He came to the door looking for his mother.”

“Oh, dear, I'll be right there.”

“I'll keep an eye on him until you get here.”

“Thank you, and thank you for calling.”

She pulled on the pair of elastic-waist pants that she kept near the bed, slipping them up under her cotton nightdress before lifting it over her head. With equal efficiency, she put on her bra and hooked it from behind, then pulled on a shirt and donned a pair of ankle socks and walking shoes.

The street was empty and still cool from the night. She hurried past the post-war houses at the north end towards the older Victorians that stood stately on the south. These days she was slower and slightly stooped in her gait, unlike in her youth when she had perfect posture and a bounce in her step. Now she often felt old and tired, slow and stooped. Or was it stupid? Yes, there were days that she just felt stupid. On other days she was angry, either with Phillip or herself.

She saw him in front of the old house, sitting like a lost little boy with his head resting on his arms, which were folded across the tops of his knees. That's what he was some days, a little boy, sneaking off and hiding from her, or hiding things from her, afraid she was going to steal them. Just yesterday, he put the keys to the shed in the sugar bowl. It took her hours to find them, and when she did, it was too late to have their grandson mow the lawn.

“Phillip,” she said, approaching him gently and placing her hand on his shoulder. “It's time to come home.” He looked so helpless, staring at his slippers, at the wet spots where his tears had washed away the dust. She waved to Geoff, who nodded and closed his door.

“It's me, Phillip, Emma, your wife.” She placed one hand under his elbow and the other firmly around his upper arm. “Come on, up you go.” He was heavy and she could do nothing more than guide him.

“My wife?”

“Yes, Phillip, we've been married over fifty years. Now come on, let's go home and have a nice breakfast. I'll make your favourite, blueberry pancakes.”

“Fifty years,” he murmured, hesitating slightly before beginning to raise himself from the curb.

Keeping a firm grip on his arm, Emma chose not to respond. She was thinking of that grey January day when she had stood in a borrowed white dress and he'd had a sprig of heather pinned on his uniform; and of her arrival aboard The Queen Mary, pregnant with the twins, only they didn't know there were two babies at the time; and of his mother's comments on her advanced size when she stepped off the train and they met her at Union Station. Then there was the drive all the way from downtown Toronto to Markham, which was nothing more than a village; and the dust that flew into her eyes and mouth through the open windows of the old car; and the doubts that overwhelmed her the closer they came, and that didn't leave until that night when Phillip crawled under the covers of the bed in the small room they shared across the hall from his parents.

 

“Sit here and read while I make breakfast,” she said, installing him in his worn recliner and handing him a copy of The Economist that was over a week old.

He was submissive and took the paper from her hands. She knew his disorientation rendered him helpless, and that he wouldn't read, just hide behind the newspaper and pretend to be reading. She could tell that he didn't like the way she looked at him, that he was thinking he would never have married such a woman, one who was serious and stern and told him what to do. It was as if she could read his thoughts through his hollow eyes.

In the kitchen, the blueberries were washed and draining in the colander. The sun lit the yellow walls in what she had once described as a cheerful manner. “Imagine, another election so soon,” she said, talking as she scooped flour into a measuring cup and levelled the top with a butter knife. “I really don't think those politicians care one way or another what we think.” She added a second cup of flour to the stainless steel bowl along with a couple of teaspoons of baking powder, some sugar and salt. “It's supposed to be hot again today. Another one for the tomatoes.” She laughed, adding a little singsong quality to her words. “You know how they love the heat. I'll be putting up both chili and chow this year. I realized that yesterday when I checked on them. We're going to have tomatoes coming out our ears.

“The vegetable garden needs weeding. We could do it this morning before it gets too hot, if you like.” She continued chattering, bringing up additional tidbits gleaned from the news, or making references to the children and their families, all the while stirring the batter with a wooden spoon that was as old as her marriage. She glanced at the clock on the microwave. Only 7:20 and already she had checked it four times.

Gently she folded the berries into the batter, careful not to over-mix and break the fragile blue into the creamy white. Then she scooped four heaping spoonfuls into the electric frying pan. The recipe would make about a dozen pancakes, some for breakfast, some for the freezer. She put the coffee on, keeping her eye on the circles in the pan, waiting for the air bubbles pop.

“Breakfast is ready,” she called, setting the plates on the table. “I've given you three pancakes to start, but there are more if you want.” Two glasses of orange juice followed, carefully set to the right of each plate.

The comforting smells from the kitchen enticed Phillip and made him eager. Slamming the recliner into the upright position, he bounded to the table and began hoeing into breakfast as if he hadn't eaten in a week.

Forks and knives against china plates, sips from juice and the occasional clicking of false teeth, the sounds of a silent breakfast between strangers.

After they finished eating, Emma cleared the plates and poured the coffee. “So, do you feel like weeding the garden today?”

“No, I feel like visiting my mother.”

“Oh, Phillip.” She sighed, laying her hand over his. “Your mother has been gone for twenty-three years.”

“How would you know?” he yelled, shock and anger and hatred crossing his face. He jumped up from the table, knocking over a mug of coffee in the process. The scalding liquid poured over her wrist. “How dare you!” he said, storming down the hall and flinging open the front door, which banged against the stop as he left the house for the second time that morning in his pyjamas.

Emma turned on the kitchen tap to run cold water on her wrist, deciding she would give him a minute to calm down before going after him. Perhaps she could convince him to take a nap on the daybed in the spare room. If she put on some old music, he might sleep for two or three hours. Perhaps she should call the doctor and begin the arrangements. It takes time for these things, for checkups and waiting lists, for everyone to get used to the idea.

 

He was shuffling along the sidewalk, going away from his mother's old house instead of towards it. She watched and followed him, keeping a distance of several driveways. They passed lawns that were tired and burnt from the August drought, the same lawns their children had played on when everyone on the street knew each other.

When he turned into the park, she stopped at the entrance, absently rubbing her scalded wrist as she watched him walk past a bench, then turn back and sit down facing the swings. It was early and the playground was quiet. Shadows in shapes of extended triangles reached out towards his slippers. She observed him for a few minutes longer before approaching.

“Hello, Phillip,” she said, keeping her voice even.

“There you are.” He was smiling now and looking up at her. “You know, I've always liked it here. This place never changes.”

“Yes,” she said. It's nice here.” She sat next to him on the bench, careful not to say or do anything that could disrupt his calm state.

“I brought the twins here once,” he said, “when they were little. Peter wanted to be spun on the swings so I turned him around and around until the chains were tight, then let him go. He got dizzy and threw up. Afterwards he started to cry. I never told you that. Figured you'd say I was being irresponsible. I probably was. We sat here and I held him on my lap for a long time while Anne played. I think he liked that, being held.”

Emma tucked her arm through Phillip's and rested her head on his shoulder. He placed his hand on her thigh, stroking it in a reassuring manner. Morning traffic moved through the streets. Insects rose lazily from the grass. Two crows flew overhead. Somewhere a dog barked. “Would you like some breakfast?” she said. “I've made your favourite, blueberry pancakes.”