The Disinherited (5 page)

“That’s good,” Erik said. He wondered if by coming to see her he had somehow refused her the possibility of privacy.

“They could take turns pushing it,” she said, “but they didn’t know if they could leave it behind. They had to spend all their time taking care of the wheelchair and arguing about whether they were afraid.”

“What happened?”

“They got married,” she said. She had woven a shawl for herself and now she was enclosed in it, wearing it as an exotic cowl, as if winter had revealed her to be an exotic creature who could survive out of season. While Erik ate his sandwich, she picked at the cellophane of the cigarette package, tearing it off in strips and wadding it up into tiny balls which she flicked absently about the room, sometimes at Erik, sometimes in no direction at all. He felt she was trying to make some sort of web about him, that his fear of her was irrational, that there must somewhere be a long intricate answer for this long intricate puzzle. When she finally came round the table and touched him, he jumped, startled, as if she had moved straight through the protective layer of flesh and made direct contact with nerves and bones.

He was the only passenger to get off at Kingston. Pat Frank was waiting for him, leaning against the wall of the station. “I hardly knew you,” Pat said. “You look like a preacher.” He led Erik towards the car. “Your mother’s at home. You can go to the hospital in the morning. They say he just needs some rest.”

“I was out,” Erik said. “I didn’t get home until almost midnight. I just made the train.”

Pat nodded. He drove casually, in the middle of the road, as if anyone with any sense knew better than to squeeze himself over to one side. There was no traffic. “You want a drink?”

“No.” He had been to Edmonton only once, for the interview. He had almost no impression at all: a flat, neatly-made city with a river running through its centre. On the train he had known exactly what it would be like to introduce Valerie to his father. He would look her over point by point, pretending to inspect her as if she were a cow he was considering at a sale. Maybe he would pinch her to make sure that the flesh was firm, not just layered fat. Then he would slap Erik on the shoulder.

“Looks good,” he would say. “Better get her while she’s still young.”

The sky was showing signs of dawn. Erik adjusted himself in his seat, lit a cigarette. He couldn’t seem to focus on what was happening. He felt he should be back in Toronto, in bed with Valerie, building castles. He let himself doze but was woken when the cigarette started to burn into his fingers. His last real conversation with Richard had been eight years ago, the night he drove home from the school house in the snow. It was after midnight when he got home and he found Richard in his armchair, waiting for him and drinking the sherry that Erik had brought him for Christmas. Sitting down, Erik felt a curious unease, a resentment springing from the feeling that he was known and transparent to this man who happened to be his father. He was conscious that he was sitting very still, preserving the feeling of warmth against his skin, the details of her body that had stayed so close to him. This time too they had gone outside afterwards, stood away from the building and watched the snow falling slowly in its light. He rested the glass on his knee, twisting the stem back and forth so that the liquid rode up to the rim of the glass, bored and polite, watching the corners of the room float through the sherry.

“I spoke to a lawyer,” Richard said. “He told me it would be best if the land for your house was surveyed and put into a separate deed.”

“What house?” Erik had asked, stupidly, then realized what Richard had meant.

“You could live here if you wanted,” Richard said, “but I thought it would be better, if you get married, to have a place of your own.” Erik, even when he was with her, had known that what made it possible for them was the knowledge that he would leave. He felt like a fool, peering timidly over the sherry glass at his father. Nothing had ever been said about Erik returning to the farm and each knew exactly what the conflict was. “I have a map here,” Richard said. “You just have to mark on it whatever you want.”

“I don’t want anything,” Erik said. “You know that.”

“And what are you going to do?” Richard had asked. “Buy a
house in the city and keep a cow in your shed?” He looked towards the window that faced Brian’s trailer, as if he was afraid Brian might be outside, eavesdropping. It had been Christmas night; everyone else was asleep. “And what do you think I’ll do with the farm? Turn it into a fishing camp?”

“It’s your farm,” Erik had said. “And there’s Brian.”

“You’re my son. I made it for you.” When he said that, Richard’s face turned red, embarrassed that he had had to state the obvious.

“You made it for yourself.” Erik stood up, to go to bed. Richard stayed in his chair for a moment, fiddling with his glass. Then he too stood up, the glass in his hand. He looked down at it, turned it slowly in his palm, and then threw the glass into the wall. It broke with a sharp crack, showering fragments all over the room.

“Clean it up,” Richard had said. He turned off the light above his chair and stomped upstairs. Erik left early the next day. Miranda wrote and apologized for Richard, saying that he hadn’t been feeling well. Since then, Erik had come home once a year, at Christmas. He and Richard confined their discussions to the weather and local politics.

“Funny thing is that your father won’t say anything about what happened. Didn’t even want to go to the hospital.” The car lurched as Pat swerved to avoid a groundhog. “Brian said that when he met your father he looked real strange. Said he was too weak to lift the gate.”

“How is he?”

“They say he’ll be home in a couple of weeks. Just needs some rest.” Pat coughed and cleared his throat. “Guess you didn’t hear about the strange lady.”

“No.”

“Madame something. She lives in Kingston. Your mother’s been going every week for almost a year, ever since she got the car. The madame reads tea leaves. Your father almost had a fit when he found out. Came over and got drunk, just like he used to. And he said she charges two dollars a visit. Didn’t do him any good though, she still goes, every single week.”

E
rik took an orange from the windowsill. It was warm from the sun and he rolled it in his hands. Earlier, he had helped with the chores, picking his way through the barn and the yard, trying to keep his shoes clean. “It’s just cowshit,” Brian had said, pleased to see Erik uncomfortable. Now Brian was sitting at the kitchen table, with Nancy, eating his breakfast, slowly. He had always done that, Erik remembered, just like Richard Thomas, chewed each mouthful slowly and methodically until it was reduced to liquid. Brian’s arms were thick and tanned, the old scars barely visible, as if time and his flesh had found this collaboration easy enough, each year washing away the record of fire and death.

From the window he could see Brian and Nancy’s trailer. They had painted it metallic green and white and it was set on a foundation of concrete blocks. The clothesline, stretched from the trailer to the house, sagged like a broken toy telephone. They used to take turns punching each other on the shoulder until one of them gave in. As they got older, their strength had grown faster than their ability to absorb pain. He wondered how bad it was with his father, if they would have him connected up to bottles and machines. He had never liked to see people with too many tubes coming out of them; he had never even given blood. From the upstairs came the sounds of Miranda’s preparations: water being turned on and off, the opening and closing of bureau drawers, the high heels clicking paths from room to
room as she assembled her supplies. When she was ready, the noises stopped and she paused at the head of the stairs — her warning — and then came down into the kitchen.

She was still slim, and her black hair had very little grey. In a way that was particularly her own she always seemed slightly off-balanced and nervous, keyed to move in the least predictable direction. The lines on her face were carved deep and symmetrical. They ran from her nose to her mouth, bisected her cheeks, exploded away from her eyes. Her forehead was short and vertical, creased not with frown marks but from eyebrows perpetually raised. When Erik was younger, Miranda had told him that her face was like that because it had to express everything she was not allowed to put into words. “But you talk all the time,” he had said.

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied. “It’s just skimmed right off the top.” Now she was holding her handbag, stuffed with extra pyjamas and reading material for Richard, and looking about the kitchen, automatically checking what had been eaten, making sure each had fed enough to endure the day. When they got to the hospital and were waiting beside the nursing station, she stood exactly the same way, her head and shoulders moving about as she inspected and blinked — once for each detail.

It was nine o’clock. Breakfast was over and an orderly was wheeling a large aluminum cart from door to door, picking up the trays of dirty dishes. Some patients were out of bed already, walking the halls in their housecoats and slippers, stopping occasionally at a neighbour’s to visit. Those who were waiting for their operations moved briskly. They avoided the others, the ones who shuffled slowly up and down wearing, beneath their housecoats, the regulation blue hospital pyjamas because they were still unable, or unwilling, to change into their own. Two or three of these, Erik noticed, carried in their hands, pressed close to their bodies, transparent plastic bags. Beside the elevator, waiting to go downstairs for surgery, were two people lying on stretchers. Each was attended by a nurse and lay calm and sedated, staring quietly at the ceiling.

Opposite the nursing station, blocking an open doorway marked FIRE EXIT, sat an old woman in a wheelchair. She was
wearing a bright tartan robe. Her eyelids, her lips, her hair and even her fingernails had blended together with her skin to form a thick colourless grey surface. The resilience was gone and everywhere a bone or a ligament protruded, it was layered by creases and folds. Her head was lolled to one side but her hands moved ceaselessly, drumming the arms of her chair in one last urgent and incomprehensible message.

“Are you all right?” Erik asked. The sight of her made his own skin feel thick and separate from the rest of his body.

The woman kept moving her fingers. Almost convulsively, she jerked her head so that it lay nearer Erik. She opened her eyes and stared at him. The whites were completely bloodshot but the pupils seemed hazy and diffused. He wondered if she saw anything at all. She grunted something he couldn’t understand and then waited for him to reply.

“Do you want anything?” She nodded her head slowly up and down and made another noise. Then, apparently satisfied or resigned, she closed her eyes again. Her jaws worked but no words came out. She lifted her hands to her head and began running her fingers through her hair. It was still long and each time her hands emerged from it she clenched her fists. Finally she gave up. Her hands were lowered back to the chipped varnish of her wheelchair, and resumed their task.

When he looked up, Brian and Nancy were already going down the hall, towards Richard Thomas’s room. Miranda was waiting for him. As they walked, Erik looked in the open doors of the rooms. Most of them were the same size but the number of beds in each room ranged from one to four. Some of the rooms still had their curtains drawn and there were a couple with closed doors and NO ENTRY signs. “She was there yesterday too,” Miranda said. “The nurse says that she just likes to sit there, to watch the people coming and going.”

His father’s room had two beds, Miranda had paid the extra for semi-private, and one of them, though it looked slept in, was empty. Richard Thomas was half-sitting; the back of the bed was at an angle and there were pillows propping him up further. There were no visible tubes or wires extruding from his body. In the corner, beside his bed, was an oxygen tank. The face mask
and other apparatus were sloppily draped over top of it. Brian and Nancy had gotten up from their chairs and were in the process of settling down on the other bed.

“I thought you were supposed to be sick,” Erik said. He sat down in one of the chairs while Miranda arranged herself, kissed Richard, took out extra pyjamas for him and then his reading glasses and a thick file folder. His father looked better than he had expected, but the sight of Richard in bed jolted him, reminded him that his past would eventually be reduced to remembered deaths. Richard’s palm was cool and strong; he would survive for a while. The glasses had frames of black lacquered plastic, and with them on Richard Thomas looked like an aging square-faced businessman set to an unpleasant task.

“You needn’t worry about me,” Richard said. His voice surprised Erik. It was almost mellifluous and lacked the harmonics of illness. But his left arm was motionless, seemed to have been placed carefully into position and left there. He scanned the papers and then put a magazine under them and signed them, each one carefully, along the dotted line at the bottom. His face was slightly flushed, but he was washed and shaven and his hair was combed. “It says here,” Richard pointed at the papers, “I can have two hundred dollars a month for not working.” His voice was almost challenging. He looked at Erik, bland and direct. “If you can run the farm without me telling you what to do.”

“He can turn a switch,” Brian said, “but he doesn’t like to get his feet dirty.” Erik got up and went towards the window so he could light a cigarette. There were only a few cars parked in the courtyard, as if to say that no one got sick in the summer. The building across from him was a laboratory and he could see white-coated figures sitting bent over their microscopes.

Remembered deaths and unwanted gifts, Erik thought, observing the way his father was working around the subject of the farm, unsure what the terms were or who must be betrayed. The four of them were all talking at once, meaningless chatter about weather and cows. Miranda, sitting up straight in the chair beside Richard’s bed, directed traffic, keeping the noise flows muted and overlapping, washing over Richard a magical and gaudy quilt. The past would collapse into these deaths and
Erik wondered if Richard, lying in his bed and trying to force them to accept his will about the farm, had also turned his back on life at every moment, had denied Miranda and withheld himself from her the way he was now excising Valerie: long smooth death-strokes where the blood never showed. Through and across the overlay of the four voices he could hear shouting and slamming in the corridor and, as he went to the door to investigate, he could hear a drumming sound, a sound of flesh against hollow metal.