The Gallery of Lost Species (9 page)

I left my father with
Hope I
and continued on, halting at a smaller picture—
Portrait of a Young Man
by George Frederic Watts,
circa
1870. With his pensive expression and deep-set eyes, he was the spitting image of Liam.

I stretched my arm to touch his cheek. When a security guard blew a whistle, Henry led me away, through room after room of paintings and sculptures.

He told me we wouldn't see the most glorious works of art because they were unheard of. The same went for the best poems and novels, which sat in drawers. He said these masterpieces existed someplace but it was doubtful we'd ever experience them, like those worlds inside the paperweights.

I knew he was referring to his own stuff. He'd offered up his paintings to the Gallery, on each occasion receiving a polite note of decline from the head curator. He'd also applied to be a custodian and security guard there and had been rejected.

He took me to the gift shop. I bought the postcard of the
Young Man
in his white blouse, wide open at the chest, still captivated by his uncanny resemblance to Liam.

Then we passed through courtyards hidden among the rooms of art. One of them enclosed a shallow square of rippling water. I saw my moon-faced reflection in the pool. I threw a nickel at it, wishing I looked more like my sister, but without the shaved head.

My father left me at the garden court and went to find Viv and Constance. In the plot of trees and tropical flowers, I wrote my postcard to Liam.
You have to come see this place,
I told him.
You're already here.

I took in the stillness and the sense of relief the gallery spaces gave me. I had a premonition I'd be back. I dreamt my sister's paintings would be on the walls, and I would be their caretaker.

FIFTEEN

V
IV GOT TOO SKINNY
. Her complexion faded and she coughed a lot.

One Saturday morning, she and Constance had a screaming match over a pack of cigarettes that dropped to the floor from Viv's biker jacket. Until then Constance hadn't noticed Viv was smoking because the smell was all around her anyhow.

I didn't want to listen to their fighting. I went into the painting shed, but the space heater had short-circuited. It was late November and there was snow on the ground. I decided to walk over to the Coin Shoppe where at least it was warm and I'd get tea. My shift didn't start until noon, but if it meant a few hours of free labour, Serena would let me in.

I took the alley entrance that connected to the downstairs kitchen, where Serena would hear my knocking. Peeking through the dusty window, I saw her drift by in a green bathrobe, her red hair piled loosely on top of her head like the Klimt woman from the Gallery.

She opened the kitchen cupboards in slow motion, as though she was still half asleep and dreaming. I didn't want to frighten her. I waited for her to turn my way.

Standing on the tips of her toes, she retrieved mugs from the top shelf. She went over to the coffee machine and poured herself a cup, leaning against the yellow counter before taking a sip. Then she poured another cup. An arm reached out for it and I recognized the frayed sleeve.

My father appeared with his back turned to me. He put his cup on the counter and moved in too close to Serena. He took her cup and put it down. She pressed her hands against the counter's edge and my father held her face and pulled it toward him.

My knees were buckling when Omar poked his head out of the annex window. “Don't tell me you didn't
know.
Why do you think you got the job?”

I stared up at his epileptic smirk. In that instant I despised Omar. I despised my father and my sister and my miserable mother. Most of all I despised Serena. I wanted to get away from them all.

“Of course I knew,” I told him. “And I changed my mind. I want in.” Constance had been making me put my earnings into an account I couldn't withdraw from. With Omar's scam, I'd have enough to leave them all behind me. Start fresh in another city, even.

“Cool.” He vanished a second then poked his head out again. “Don't move.”

I waited around the corner, puffing on my inhaler. The chemicals irritated my throat and made my heart race. Omar came back to the window and flicked a piece of metal at me that landed in the mud. I picked it up and wiped it off on my jacket. The coin was too light. The thin skin of yellow gold on the surface wasn't real. I rubbed its waxy sheen.

“Start with a Constantine coin. Cherrywood cabinet, back left. Code's 4321.” The window thumped shut.

I stood there not moving as the wet snow turned to ice rain.

*   *   *

N
EARING THE BOX
stores a few blocks away, I thought about telling Con what I'd seen.

Earlier in the week, after a heated argument with Henry, she stormed down to the basement where I was sprawled under a quilt, immersed in
Wuthering Heights.
She told me to shove over, sinking into the couch. She'd interrupted Heathcliff on the moors, chasing after Catherine's ghost.

Sometimes I'd catch her sorting through pictures of herself down in that dark space, where boxes of her old belongings were stored. Or I'd find her hiding out there, absorbed in films—on our second, outdated TV set that Henry and I had found Dumpster picking—as entire sunny days passed her by.

The period pieces were her favourite. The ones where a heroine tumbled off a horse and a hunt took place with foxes and hounds. There were bosoms and misconceptions, the most critical conversations taking place in snippets during quadrilles.

Constance adored dance scenes. Waltzes couldn't leave concrete regret behind, she once told me. It was just the moment and then it was gone.

When I watched her watch these movies, I could almost feel her chest tightening at any sign of affection between the actors, as if the main hero was whispering
kissss me
straight to her. Filled with ennui, my mother wanted to place herself inside those screen sets. And I wondered if this was hardening her against us.

My father called to her in a gentle voice from the top of the stairs. She stood, composing herself and smoothing her hair and skirt, but before leaving, she turned to me. “Édith, there are no acts more selfish than those of a lonely person.”

“You mean a person in
love,
” I corrected her, not looking up from my book.

“Non,”
she replied. “It's loneliness that makes us terrible and hurtful human beings.”

*   *   *

N
OW THAT MY
loveless mother had driven my father away and turned Viv into a delinquent by pushing her in those abhorrent pageants until she rebelled, I'd have to resolve Viv's mess myself. Then I could depart with a clear conscience, knowing I had done what I could to help my screwed-up sister get back on track.

Nick Angel was at the Cineplex arcade like I knew he would be. I approached him and said, “Leave my sister alone.” I was dripping wet from the rain.

He sniggered and didn't stop his game of Robo Redux. “Whaaa?”

“I'll pay you to break up with Viv.”

Nick studied me. His face was like Apollo's coin face and it was hard for me to be menacing.

“Don't talk to her again.”

“Your mom put you up to this?”

“She has a bright future and you're destroying it.” I focused on his throat.

“She did put you up to this.”

“My mom doesn't care.”

“So I hear.” He crossed his arms. “How much?”

“Three hundred.” I didn't know what Omar would get for the coin, but he'd spot me if I needed a loan.

“Deal.” Nick's muscular hand shook mine.

“Meet me here Saturday morning.”

“Okay,” he said, returning to his game and sliding a play card into the machine.

I went back to the Coin Shoppe for my shift. Serena reeked of patchouli. I couldn't make eye contact. She offered me tea and I refused it even though I was numb from the cold.

When she went upstairs, I circulated around the cabinets until I found the Constantine coin. I switched off the alarm, coughing each time I pressed the button that made a beeping sound. Grabbing the coin, I replaced it with the one Omar had thrown down to me.

When my shift was over, I climbed the fire escape to Omar's room.

“When do I get my money?”

“Chill. Meetings are Wednesdays.”

“How much?”

“Dunno. Maybe a thousand for that one. So four hundred for Grigg and three hundred each for you and me.”

“I need more.”

“You strike a deal with your sister's dopehead boyfriend?”

“None of your business.”

“Tell you what. Have my cut this once. For a taste of the
mahhhnaaaaaayyy
…”

“Don't be obnoxious.”

“Me? Then don't be such a snot. I'm trying to help.” He barely missed my fingers as he slammed his window down.

*   *   *

T
HE NEXT
S
ATURDAY
, I met Nick Angel at the arcade. I'd tied the roll of bills Omar had given me with one of Viv's hair ribbons.

“Here,” was all I said, surrendering the cash.

“Thanks,” Nick replied, clumsily grabbing the money and shoving it into his army pant pocket. “Later.”

That night, Viv went out. I pictured Nick breaking up with her in an unkind way, but when she got home she was unaffected. On Sunday night she came home late again. I knew she was high because of the skunk smell. She went straight to her room without so much as a hello to me.

I saw them together skipping classes that week, probably blowing all the money I'd forked out to Nick. When they came back to school, I ran through the tunnel into their building, watched and waited for them to part ways, then followed Nick to his locker and cornered him.

“What the hell?”

“Sorry,” he told me. “Your sister is persuasive.”

I pulled the other three hundred from my backpack and gave it to him. “Leave her alone. I mean it.” He didn't look so evil anymore.

Just as Omar predicted, within a month Nick Angel overdosed. Viv came home hysterical. She made the movements to tear at her hair, but there was no hair to pull at. She sobbed so hard we couldn't understand what she was saying.

Nick had ignored her that week. She didn't know why. She went over to his house. His combative father called her a Nazi and blamed her for his son's hospitalization.

“Who is this boy?” Con asked me.

“No one. A druggie,” I told her.

Later, I went into Viv's room to comfort her. “I did this to him,” she professed. “I made him sell exam answers out back. He somehow got some cash fast,” she said, wringing her hands. “He wanted to put it away for university. I got him to buy coke.”

Nick Angel's freckly face popped into my mind when I closed my eyes. I couldn't sleep. I'd been reading
Macbeth
and I was sure his ghost would haunt me if he died.

His parents wouldn't let Viv visit him in the hospital, so I snuck into his room on her behalf. When he saw me, he went berserk, hollering that he never wanted to see me or Viv again.

As soon as he got out, his father shipped him away to a military academy. Viv was inconsolable and her grades started slipping. I didn't mention Nick's last words or how awkward it was to see him cry.

Omar said he would have gone that route regardless. That he would have found a way to OD with my money or without it. But I wasn't convinced. What scared me was what I'd been capable of. And what Omar and I were capable of together.

*   *   *

W
HEN MY FATHER
asked me why I was quitting the Coin Shoppe, I said I was tired of watching Serena bring sleazy customers up to her room. Nothing was further from the truth. He was the only man I'd seen her with, but Henry's pained expression satisfied me.

Lying in bed at night, I wondered if I'd led my father to Serena, or if he knew her already and wasn't so much intent on my learning about coins as he was on seeing her. This possibility hurt the most.

My career as a thief consisted of stealing one gold coin. Since she was sleeping with my father, I owed Serena nothing. Omar didn't ask for his money back and I didn't offer. As far as I was concerned, he was partly responsible for what happened to Nick Angel anyway.

I still went to tell him goodbye once I announced to Serena that I was leaving. “My mom is such a witch,” he said as he leaned out the window, looking down on me as I crouched on the snow-covered fire escape.

“So is mine,” I told him. “I hope you get that medicine,” I added.

“I hope you get away from your family.”

“You too.”

“Yeah.”

I whistled “Somewhere over the rainbow” as a joke. Then we lapsed into silence. I got up and wiped the hard pieces of tar and ice from the back of my jeans. I put on my toque and mitts and extended an arm through the open window to shake Omar's swift, dark hand. Instead, he pulled my mitten down a bit and kissed the inside of my wrist.

“See you around, songbird.”

SIXTEEN

L
IAM CAME HOME FOR
Christmas. When he visited us, he brought Viv a bracelet made from seashells. His gift to me was more thoughtful—a fossil of sardine-like fish on plaster. He pointed out the scales, bones, and teeth. I stored the Lake O'Hara rock in my closet, substituting it with this new treasure under my pillow.

He called Viv “Baldie” even though her hair was growing out. “Try this, Edith!” he said, patting the top of my sister's head with one hand and rubbing her stomach with the other, then reversing the motions. I approached him and placed my hand on his hard abdomen. “No, use your own stomach,” he explained, pushing me away.

On Christmas Eve, while Constance and Henry were out shopping, the three of us spent the morning in the shed. From my father's stool I observed Liam and Viv fabricate a kite from kraft paper and dowelling rods. I helped paint the aircraft in bold hues and abstract forms, my throat tightening when Viv guided Liam's brush.