The 10 P.M. Question (9 page)

“It’s because they
eat
so much,” said Gigs. “Their dinners are
massive
.
Feasts
. It’s like the Romans. Awesome.” Sydney said she was going the next time they visited. Definitely.

Sydney didn’t wait for invitations anywhere, Frankie noticed. She just invited herself. And why not take her to the Aunties? As Uncle George said often enough, they were more entertaining than two weeks at the circus. Might as well share it.

But since then, the book project had taken up most of their time after school and on the weekends. Sydney had been over five times now. Not that Frankie was counting. Gordana was counting, though — he could tell. Gordana was practically expiring with curiosity about it all, though miraculously she’d restrained herself so far and said nothing. Any day now she’d blow a valve — Frankie just knew it. She’d start in with some casual, smart,
throw
away
remark and Frankie would want to kill her with his cricket bat.

“Is it like having three grandmothers, then?” said Sydney. She stood still, not throwing the ball, squinting at him.

“S’pose,” said Frankie. “Sort of.” He pictured the Aunties briefly. “Nah, not really. My real grandmother wasn’t a bit like them.”

Uncle George’s mom had been small and white haired and gentle, a storybook grandma. She’d lived a very quiet life in a small brick house, just Gran and her old tomcat, Patrick. Frankie had never understood how someone like Gran had produced someone like Uncle George, who always seemed too big and hectic and loud for a tidy brick house with neat squares of lawn and orderly flower beds.

Gran was dead now. Her ashes were in a blue ginger jar on the table in Uncle George’s home office. Uncle George was supposed to be taking them down south to scatter them from a cliff, on behalf of his elderly sisters and brothers, but, of course, he never quite got around to it. Too busy down the salt mines, he said. (Louie said if he waited just a bit longer, he’d be able to take his brothers’ and sisters’ ashes, too. Louie didn’t like that side of the family. He firmly believed Uncle George was a foundling, left on the doorstep by a wayward woman.)

Occasionally, Frankie went into Uncle George’s office and stared at the blue ginger jar, trying to get his head around this version of Gran: a pile of sandy particles, waiting with characteristic patience it seemed,
stored
in the office, like manila folders and paper clips. Uncle George’s dad, who’d died before Frankie was born, was buried at the Northgate Cemetery, which was a little more regular. Granddad Parsons had a fake-marble headstone with a photo inset of him in Eighth Army battle dress. Frankie had stared at that photo a few times, too, trying — and failing — to feel
related
to it. It was all very puzzling.

He couldn’t imagine the Aunties dead — buried or cremated. It seemed impossible. They were too vivid, too decidedly solid and
in
the world, like decorated historic buildings or geological formations. They were like the Bridge of Remembrance hung with bunting, or the Southern Alps, snow-covered and brilliant on a sunny winter morning.

“I stayed with them a lot when I was young,” he told Sydney. “It was mad. Mad as
mad
.”

“Tell me,” demanded Sydney. She leaned her back against the side of the B&GG building and slid to a sitting position on the footpath. Frankie followed suit.

“Well,” he said, recalling it all with the usual mix of feelings — a prevailing hilarity and excitement shot through with worry, like an exhilarating speedboat ride, seasickness hovering.

“Mostly I went to school, but sometimes they said not to bother — it was when I was in primary school. They only half believe in school. They think you can learn math from card games, and gardening teaches you botany, and having pets and insects teaches you zoology, and going to church teaches you singing, and driving all over town teaches you geography, that sort of thing. They’re really not like other people.”

“Like my mother,” said Sydney. “She says she’s a living example of the unnecessity of school. But she can’t add.”

“Plus, I don’t think
unnecessity
’s a word,” said Frankie.

“See?” said Sydney. “What did you do when you didn’t go to school?”

“Just did what they did. They have
very
full days,” said Frankie. “I know their routines by heart. For instance, they never get up before nine a.m., except on Tuesday mornings, when they do tai chi at War Memorial Park with other old ladies.”

“Tai chi?”

“It’s good for arthritis,” said Frankie. He was sure he had an unnatural amount of knowledge about elderly peoples’ health issues.

“Did you go, too? Are they the fattest people at tai chi?”

“Of course,” said Frankie. “They’re the fattest people everywhere. But they’re surprisingly nimble.” This was a direct quote from Uncle George. “You’re obsessed with their fatness.”

“No, I’m not,” said Sydney. “I’m
intrigued
by it.”

“For breakfast,” Frankie continued, enjoying himself now, “they have porridge — organic oats — with cream and golden syrup, of course, and piles of toast and jam, and about seventy pots of tea while they do the cryptic crossword. Teen is the best at that, though Alma thinks
she
is. Except on Tuesdays, when they go to Number 17 after tai chi, and have pancakes and coffee —
a lot
of pancakes, with ice cream. They know the owner, Johnny Mac. He’s an old card-playing mate and he was the first person ever in the city to have a commercial espresso machine. I know
all
the stories about
all
their mates.”

He was sounding about a hundred and five, Frankie thought, and heavy with the weight of memory and experience.

“Keep going, keep going,” said Sydney. She had found an old nail and was scratching primitive figures into the footpath. Three dumpling figures standing on tiptoe.

“In the mornings Teen gardens. They’ve got a big garden, all ugly old-fashioned flowers, you know, gladioli and dahlias and chrysanthemums. She can actually bend over to weed, but Nellie and Alma are too fat, so they write letters to the editor and to friends everywhere. Uncle George says they’re single-handedly keeping stamps viable.”

Sydney was scratching flowers now. Frankie grabbed the nail and drew Teen lying on her back amid the blooms, cast like a stray sheep.

“Sometimes I helped Teen in the garden, and sometimes Alma made me write letters. She thinks writing letters teaches you how to tell a story and how to spell. Nellie bakes on Mondays and Fridays; they always have full tins of biscuits and cakes — that’s where Ma learned to bake —” Frankie stopped for a breath and immediately regretted it because it gave Sydney the opportunity to ask a question. He had a good idea what the question might be.

“Where’s
Gigs
?” he said, standing abruptly and scanning the hill road. There was no sign of Gigs. No
sound
of him, either. Gigs never just walked silently down the hill. “He must be dropping his trombone off. I’m hungry. You hungry? We could get some —”

“Imagine living with your sisters
all
your life,” said Sydney. She was standing now, tossing the ball again.

The prospect of living with Gordana all his life seemed to Frankie more remote than the prospect of growing an extra leg.

“Imagine living in the same
house
all your life.”

“I have,” said Frankie.

“I’ve lived in twenty-two,” said Sydney. “That’s not counting caravans or tents. And you haven’t. You’ve lived at your Aunties’, too.”

“Not
lived,
” said Frankie. “Just stayed.” He could feel that question approaching again. He could almost see the outline of the ghostly words solidifying in the air between them. He could
hear
them, faint whispers, gaining volume by the second. He began jumping on the spot, his hands in the air.

“C’mon, throw it,
throw
it. I may as well get the shine on the end of my knob.”

Was it possible he had just said such a thing? And to a girl? He could hardly believe himself. And he wasn’t even blushing. He was sweating and babbling instead, jumping around, catching the ball, throwing it again, and pouring out the rest of the Aunties’ week like some hard-wound talking toy.

“So, so, they play bridge three afternoons a week. In the summer they do aqua-aerobics. Every second Tuesday they come to us for dinner, of course. Every Thursday they shop and cook for Maurice and see a movie; they’re crazy about movies. Once a week Nellie goes and cooks for the priests; she’s crazy about priests. . . .” He dispatched balls, back and forth, with admirable force and accuracy, losing no letters, while Sydney, distracted by the gush of information, advanced to KNO.

Frankie began on the Aunties’ activities outside the house.

“They do all these classes and go to all these clubs. Nellie and Teen do china painting and mosaics on Mondays, and Alma goes to lectures at the university. She goes to whatever’s on; she doesn’t care what the subject is as long as it’s on a Monday. So far she’s done Linguistics, the History of Western Philosophy, China in the Twentieth Century —”

Frankie stopped jumping momentarily to think, wanting to get this right. He enjoyed Alma’s university education. It was as eccentric as she was. It meant she had bizarre but interesting pockets of knowledge. She said it was handy for crosswords and Trivial Pursuit.

“She’s done Crime and Torts and Math and Japanese. This year she’s doing Art History: The Portrait.

“And they all belong to the Richard the Third Society, some weird club. They go there once a month to hear lectures about him — he was a king — and every December they have a big feast on the day he died.”

He caught the ball and stopped.

“He died at the Battle of Bosworth,” said Frankie, as if he were saying amen. He flung himself down on the grass verge, his heart racing. He’d had it; he was swimming in sweat.

Sydney stood, hands on her hips, staring at him. She had been rendered momentarily speechless, it seemed, by this litany of activities.

“
Why
is there a society for Richard the Third?” she said. “Who was he, even?”

“A much maligned monarch,” said Frankie, quoting Alma. “A king. He did things. Or he did not do things. He did
not
kill his nephews. Or something.” He lay back and closed his eyes briefly. Where was Gigs? He needed a swim.

“Oh, and,” he said wearily, “Teen and Nellie go to church on Sundays; Teen plays the organ. Alma stays at home, because she’s an atheist. On Sunday afternoons, they go sightseeing in the Morris Oxford. Alma always drives and Teen always sits in the passenger seat and Nellie always sits in the back. It’s according to the order of their ages.

“Oh, and”— Frankie wondered if you could fall asleep while actually talking —“they belong to a choir — the Fat Ladies’ Choir. It’s got another name, but everyone in it seems to be fat, so Louie calls it the Fat Ladies. Uncle George banned him from their concerts because he just got the giggles. And that’s all I can think of right now.”

At that moment, the roar of the Gigs downhill special reached their ears. Frankie sat up groggily, and they watched him, running so fast he seemed almost to be flying. He arrived breathless, red-faced, and grinning, little streams of sweat running down his bare chest and belly. He was wearing his man-eating-shark trunks and carrying three ice blocks.

“Ran all the way,” he said. “Quick, they’re melting. Man, I need that swim.”

You and me both,
thought Frankie, very, very pleased to see him.

“He’s a KNOB and I’m a KNO,” said Sydney. She held the ice block against her forehead.

“Bonga Swetso!” said Gigs.

“Question,” said Sydney, as they turned the corner for Upham’s.

“What?” said Frankie, holding his breath.

“
When,
but
when
is the next Fat Ladies’ concert?”

Frankie lay on his bed. The Fat Controller lay on the bed, too, or more precisely on Frankie’s toes. She often settled herself there, so that it looked as if Frankie had a pair of extremely fluffy slippers on his feet.

He was tired again after the long swim, and stuffed full of Ma’s salade Niçoise. Sydney, it turned out, had once eaten salade Niçoise in actual Nice. She stayed with her father in Amsterdam every year, and quite often, she told them at dinner, they drove to other countries for the weekend.

Frankie found the idea of driving to another country quite incredible. He found the idea of merely
being
in another country difficult to comprehend. Louie and Gordana had been to Australia, and Gordana had been to Tahiti, and even now Louie was salting away money for a motorcycle trip in South America. Gigs had been to Australia
and
America
and
England. But Frankie hadn’t been anywhere, except to the North Island with Alma when he was nine and, according to Gordana, that certainly did not count.

Frankie and Alma had stayed with the Aunties’ second cousin Henry Ward, a very rich bachelor with a very big house, a very big swimming pool, and a minuscule private plane. Henry Ward had offered to take Frankie for a ride in the plane but Frankie had politely declined. The plane looked freakishly tiny to him. He found large planes difficult enough.

Frankie had spent many hours worrying about traveling on the plane to the North Island. Every night for weeks, he’d hovered by Ma’s side of the bed, shamefacedly blurting the catalog of disasters he felt certain awaited him.

“They’re very careful about plane parts,” Ma had said. “They have dozens of engineers. They check things every few hours.”

“But the pilots,” said Frankie. “What if they had a heart attack or food poisoning? What if they were drunk?”

They had constant health checks, Ma said. And anyway, it was really the computers that flew the plane. Frankie hadn’t found this at all reassuring. Everyone knew computers broke down.

He had lain in bed visualizing the wings of the plane softening inexplicably, drooping slowly like dampening paper, and falling off the plane in midair. He imagined little licks of flame, unnoticed in the cockpit, snaking down the aisle and engulfing them in a fireball. He imagined terrorists disguised as stewards, producing guns instead of sweets. He imagined unchecked bottles exploding in the baggage department. He imagined flailing around in the Pacific Ocean, dodging sharks, watching Alma float farther and farther away from him.