The Seary Line (41 page)

Stella glanced up at the sky. Above the buildings, a clump of birds in flight wavered this way and that. Gusts of wind coming off the harbour, trying to force them apart, and they struggled to keep together. Keep their formation.

She took Nettie's hands in hers. “All right then. A cup of tea.”

“Yes,” Nettie replied. “That's just what I was thinking.”

“No harm in having another, maid. Have another drop, and talk about things long past.”

These days, Stella wondered if her friend could even hear her. If she understood the stories, the descriptions of life outside the home, the one-sided banter. Nettie Rose's only response, in the form of an occasional deep swallowing, came whenever Stella mentioned Bended Knee. And Stella liked to believe that Nettie was truly listening, that the swallowing was a sign of happy emotions welling up, nearly throttling her.

Two and a half years ago, Nettie moved out of Sunray Towers and became a permanent resident of Pine Ridge Retirement Home. At first, when Stella visited, they participated in the summer-camp-type crafts together, or sang happy songs during piano time. Gradually though, Nettie stopped interacting, and she and Stella would pass a visit by sitting and watching two episodes of
Three's Company
. Nettie squeezed Stella's hand, her eyes glowing, whenever Jack came flitting across the screen.

After nine months or so, Nettie no longer sat next to Stella during television time, and instead, she snuggled into a heavily wrinkled fellow resident, a man whose face and fingers were yellowed from cigarettes. While Stella looked
on, Nettie rubbed the man's bony knee, patted the ducktail of hair at the back of his scalp, and called him Amos. Occasionally, Stella tried to separate them, have a proper visit with Nettie, but she was met with irritated rejection. “Like two peas in a pod,” one nurse had commented. “Can't keep those two lovebirds apart. That happens. Amos was her husband, I take it?” Before responding, Stella had to clear the bitterness suddenly lodged in her throat. “Yes,” she'd said. “Yes, he was.” The lie grated at her. Such a silly effort to preserve Nettie's dignity. So that the staff at Pine Ridge wouldn't label her lifelong friend as an over-the-hill tart.

Though Stella had the good intentions of visiting frequently, her trips to Pine Ridge soon became sporadic. Nettie no longer seemed to recognize her, no longer seemed even to want her there. Weeks went by, and Stella tried to tell herself that her presence made no difference. The Nettie that she knew was already gone. The Nettie that now existed preferred to rest her head on the shoulder of a stranger who felt familiar only because the mass of wires housed within the thin bones of her skull were snarled beyond.

In recent weeks, Nettie was bedridden, sharing a rectangular room with another woman nearly every hour of the day and night. Other than the occupants, everything about the two women's living space was identical. Same sheets, same Hudson Bay striped wool blanket, same convenient rollaway table for the now uneaten meals, card games that never happened. Above their beds, each had a corkboard covered in thumb-tacked snapshots, fat-cheeked baby portraits, daughters and sons, black-and-white of the late husband. For some time Stella pondered the significance of that corkboard. Placed in such a position that even the
most youthful and agile of necks would be unable to twist and view the contents. Perhaps, Stella reasoned, the corkboard was not there for the sick. Instead, it served as a pictorial reminder to staff and visitors that these women were so much more than a wrinkle in the bed. They were part of a family. They were loved by all the smiling shiny faces captured there.

Pine Ridge was spotless. Not a hair in the corners, floors gleamed, and if Stella chose to, which she did not, she could have seen her reflection in the fingerprint-free windows that faced the parking lot. A good place for Nettie. She was being taken care of. That's what Stella told Nettie's children, scattered hither and yon, when one occasionally called long distance for an update. Voice cheerful, she would slightly over-exclaim, “Your mother couldn't be in better hands. Grace says the same, I'm sure.”

Though whenever Stella glanced about the sterility of the room, doubt crawled over her stomach, tickled her. The entire place made her nervous, made her aware of the slight flutter in her heart. She spent a good deal of her visit watching the door, making certain it remained open. Sometimes the door jam would slowly slip, or some unnatural breeze in the hallway, an ethereal whisper, would bid it to close. Halfway, and Stella was up, pushing it open, kicking the piece of rubber underneath the door with her neat black shoe. It was important for that door to stay open. For Stella to know that even though these four putty-coloured walls were the last things Nettie would ever see, Stella was capable of leaving. Capable of getting up and walking through that door, down the elevator to the entryway, and into a car filled with stale smoke, plush burgundy velvet seats scarred with cigarette burns, and a sign reading “ABC Taxi” strapped to the roof.

“Hello, Nettie,” Stella whispered. “Hello, my old friend.”

No response. Not that Stella expected one.

“How are you feeling today? Do you want me to draw the curtains? Are you warm enough?” She kept her voice light and chipper, unnaturally so.

Stella leaned in to kiss Nettie's cheek and shuddered at something she'd noticed only recently. A new smell clinging to Nettie. A smell very much like a completely read newspaper. It was a dry, slightly chemical odour, what Stella would define as the scent of something used up. Even though the workers in the home tried to disguise it with lilac soaps and powders, it lingered. And after breathing it in, Stella couldn't help holding her breath for a moment, considering that someone had already perused the entire life of Nettie Rose, and was just waiting for the bag to be full before dropping her down the garbage chute.

“Did I tell you Summer's been trying to have a baby?” Stella said as Nettie peered out through chalky eyes. Somehow, even beneath that sheer jaundice veil, Nettie's eyes appeared darker, harder. Stella found it difficult to hold Nettie's stern gaze. Sometimes Stella had the very secret thought that Nettie knew exactly what was going on, and that she despised Stella. Jealous that she was trapped, laid out on a mattress, while Stella was free. Stella could hear her own voice in her ears, crackling out of her mouth, an octave higher. “She's had a devil of a time of it. Her and Tim.”

Nettie made no movement, except for a pale tongue touching the corners of her mouth over and over again. One side, then the other. Assuming she was hungry, Stella lifted a spoonful of the tapioca snack towards Nettie's mouth, touched it off her dry lips. Mouth clamped shut. This was the second week like that – eating nothing. Even though no one acknowledged that Nettie was able to make a decision,
here she was, choosing not to eat.

Stella placed the snack back on the rolling tray. “Did I ever tell you how Tim and her met? I supposes I did. Apt to have done it more than once.”

“Make no mind, maid.” Clear voice from the opposite side of the room. “Go on with you. Never knowed you knew my grandson, Jim. Fancy that.”

That was Bed 216. Mrs. Jenkins. Soft upstairs, but the senility had done nothing to sedate her mouth. Mostly bald, Mrs. Jenkins had gradually plucked out the majority of her hair, until the staff, with permission of her family, shaved the remaining halo of white curls to an ungraspable stubble.

“Jim don't come see me no more. He's all tangled up. Tangled up.”

“Tangled up in what, Mrs. Jenkins?”

“Tangled up, maid. Biggest kind of snarl. Got police looking for him. Stole all my money. Robbed banks. He owes four dollars, he do. Four dollars and forty-two cents. Shocking.”

“Shocking, indeed, missus.”

“Gave him a crisp five-dollar bill, I did, told him to buy me a bar and a drink. Never saw hide nor hair of it. He, coming back now, face on him like a sunset. And I says to him, Where's my drink? Was that my orange pop?”

“Drank it down, did he?”

Mrs. Jenkins sat on the very edge of her bed, one hand on the black pressboard nightstand, one hand gripping the lowered metal railing of her bed. “Police came in here looking for him, they did.” She leaned forward, then sloped backwards with a sigh, as though she were letting herself know she could move if she wanted, but was choosing the comfort of staying put.

“The police?”

“Yes, now. Looking for Jim. Jimmy Jenkins, my grandson.”

“Over the bit of money?”

“I lied to the feller, looked he straight in the eyes, and told him I had no idea about none of it. And if he comes in here again, looking as dapper as that, he won't be getting back out.” Throaty laugh, and she shook her fist.

“Yes, missus. We're not over the hill yet,” Stella replied, patted Nettie's hand.

Even though Stella knew it was all nonsense, she found relief listening to Mrs. Jenkins. The back and forth. The normality of it. She also felt guilty, as though these visits with Nettie should be hard, should be uncomfortable, and that Stella should not be seeking out ways to relieve her own uneasiness by chatting with a total stranger. Nettie deserved more.

“Well, I suppose you don't mind hearing it again,” Stella said, pulling her chair closer to Nettie's bed. “'Tis a charming story, if you asks me. She just got back from some trip – spent a few months teaching some kids somewhere where the folks had less than nothing. Makes our living look like we's royalty. Awful poverty. Burn you almost. I seen the photos. Lucky to have a garbage bag for a raincoat. Anyways, there was some big barbecue at Elise's – I reckons she was relieved to have Summer back on our soil. As hard as the two of them goes at each other sometimes, Elise cares for that girl. In her way. I knows she does.

“Anyways, Summer left in her car and was driving down by The Boulevard and there was this string of ducklings crossing over, the mother up in front. Now, we all knows Summer, and what does she do? Puts herself right into the ditch trying to avoid the babies. Does a real number on her car. Knocks herself clear out on the steering wheel.

“First person she sees when she opens her eyes is this Tim feller. I told her, 'tis almost like he was sent right there for her. Helped her out. Waited for the ambulance with her. And they has been together ever since.

“I'm right glad of that, you know. She needed someone, and he's a wonderful fine young man. Teaches physics at some high school. And he's a writer, too. Had a verse published in a magazine. Summer rhymed it off to me a couple of times. Some poem about a tomato and its seeds. I'm sure it was right smart, but I got no mind for that sort of thing.

“How long ago was that, now, I wonder? Five years? Or maybe three. I idn't sure. I got no sense of time these days. Seems like practically every time I wakes up, 'tis Christmas.”

Stella looked down at her hands, neatly folded in her lap, fingers crossing over the permanent crease of her polyester pants.

“What's it doing out?” Mrs. Jenkins again.

“Blustery. Not nice at all.”

“I idn't one bit surprised. When I was your age, the weather was lovely. Not a blade of snow this time of year. I swears it's all gone right to the dogs since we went into Confederation. Weather hasn't been the same. I hears people say that all the time, and I tends to agree.”

“Well, now. I never gave it much mind.”

“You young folks don't care about that old muck. I knows all about what's going on.”

Stella smiled to herself. “No, we don't.”

“Do you know what's for supper? I wish they'd bring supper around. I don't know how they expects us to survive on air.”

“Lunch was only an hour or so ago, Mrs. Jenkins.” Then, to Nettie, “I decided I won't be going to visit Robert
and Jane no more. Getting too old for all that traveling. Can't take the heat in Toronto. Too hot to go outside. Jane took the lot of us strawberry picking one afternoon beginning of July, and I thought I'd just about die with the heat.

“They keeps their house all closed up – to keep it cool. But it's awful damp, I finds. And dark, with the curtains always drawn. And Robert's son, Michael, now he's got those two young boys. They's a real handful. And, I don't got the wherewithal for it nowadays. Don't know what to be doing to entertain the young ones. It's like they got too much of everything, and idn't able to settle down to nothing for any length of time. Spin tops, I says. All that sugar they eats.

“Do you remember those days, Nettie? When we had our own young ones? We both thought we'd never have a peaceful moment again.” Pausing, Stella listened to all the muted sounds of the elderly residents, the nurses, the shuffling feet. “And now we got more than enough quiet. More than enough.” Voice trailing off.

“Do Grace come around much? I haven't seen her in ages, though I did come across some of her handiwork down to NONIA. I was thinking about buying a sweater there with a big Newfoundland dog on the front for one of Michael's boys.” Chuckling now. “And there one was. I was some surprised to see Grace knitting any kind of dog onto anything.”

“Why is that now?” Mrs. Jenkins.

“Well, it puts me in mind of the day Grace was married in Bended Knee.” Stella heard Nettie's swallowing, and she squeezed Nettie's hand. “This is a story you can only smile about after years have gone by. Isn't that right, Nettie Rose?

“Grace was getting married. Some young man from Culver's Cove. Everyone was there – all the folks from
Bended Knee and a good-sized crowd from up along. Even a few folks in from St. John's. Everyone dollied up in their Sunday best. Do you remember, Nettie?

“Back then, there was always old dogs roaming around. They belonged to someone, no doubt, but no one heeded them much. Well, the service was about to start, and these two dogs come tearing into the church. Got into some dead seal washed up on the beach. Tore through the aisles, rubbing up against everything, and then right up to the pulpit, back down again, and barreled through the door where poor young Grace was waiting for the organ to start up. I swears they knew she was the one getting married, and they rubbed right up against her, like they was trying to scrape the stink off themselves. She, now, screaming something awful. I believes Ned Piercey got them out. In fact, I believes they was his dogs. The service went ahead. What are you going to do? But we all reeked to the high heavens. Bit of dead seal can go a long way.”