Come, Thou Tortoise

  We had gone to England for my grandfather’s funeral. I remember almost nothing of the flight over. I remember very little of England, except that the house was a Clue board out in the country and there were giant bees in the garden wearing sunglasses like a private security force. There were men with beards who asked me about Newfoundland dogs. My dad was sad because his dad had died. I was homesick. The house felt like we might be murdered in it. That is what I remember.

  And before that. Can I go back in my brain to before my first birthday. I have one fuzzy memory of a towel. I remember getting out of the bath and putting a towel over my head and asking my dad if he could tell which way I was facing. You’re facing me, he said. How can you tell. I can see your feet, he said. Oh. I looked down at my bare feet. They were at the bottom of a long tunnel of towel. Of course. My dad could see my feet.

  So I spun around a few times (to confuse him) and then quickly arranged my feet in what ballerinas call the first position, an almost horizontal line, toes pointing out. Now which way am I facing. Come on, Audrey, my dad said. Come on where. At which point, dizzy from the spinning, I fell forward and whacked my chin hard on the edge of the bathtub. My dad swept me up and said, Oh Wobbly. Which is what he called me when I fell over. Wobbly Flowers.

  That is an early memory. But it is not of the same calibre as the plane memory. It is as if, in the first memory, I was protected from knowing I was crashing by the towel over my head. And in the second, someone had yanked the towel off and said, See yourself crashing. Know you are crashing. And oh, it will take awhile.

  My seat was 12A. My dad’s was 12B. We were in the first row, right behind the first-class curtain. I noticed that the stewardess fixed her hair before stepping through that curtain.

  We did not have flip-down tables like everyone else. We had tables that unfolded like robotic arms from our armrests. At first I could not find my robotic arm. I looked in my armrest and it was empty.

  I am without table!

  No, it’s over here, on the right, said my dad.

  So why does this armrest open if there’s nothing in it.

  Must be a mistake.

  I had a sinking feeling. A plane could have a mistake in it.

  Nevermind. After a while my hollow left armrest seemed intentional and designed especially for me. I liked how the top flipped up. I liked the rectangle of darkness inside. It was a secret compartment. I loved secret compartments. I took a picture of my dad with my Polaroid camera and put the photo in the armrest to develop.

  Okay, he said. Meaning, enough.

  Earlier I had gone to the bathroom and taken pictures of all the passengers en route, many of whom were sleeping. I couldn’t understand how people could sleep on a plane—I mean, we were flying!—with their arms all overlapping like that. I went to the bathroom and took pictures of the miniature sink.

  Want to see my plane pictures, I asked my dad.

  I’ve seen them.

  The stewardess brought us meal trays. I told her how nice her hair looked. She smiled and said, Aren’t you a cutie. Outside my window, a conveyor belt of clouds rolled steadily by.

  The meal trays had compartments. I love compartments, I told my dad.

  So you’ve said.

  In fact, I would not say no to keeping this meal tray.

  I would say no, he said. Adamantly.

  Who’s Adam Antly.

  No response.

  Fine. I also love tinfoil.

  When the stewardess came by, I said, Excuse me, can I keep this tray.

  Sure, honey.

  I beamed at my dad.

  I ate everything. My dad not too much. I asked him what he was reading.

  “Slow Mortality Rate Accelerations During Aging in Mus musculus Approaches That of Humans.”

  Is it a biography.

  No.

  Oh.

  I looked down into my armrest. I don’t like people who read, I said.

  My dad sighed.

  Without me, I amended and started making a ball out of tinfoil.

  Sleepy, my dad said hopefully.

  I wasn’t. But I must have slept because I woke up with a sore back and my right arm overlapping with my dad’s left. We were beginning our descent. The pilot over the intercom sounded jaunty. The weather in St. John’s is what you’d expect, he said.

  The plane’s engine changed pitch. I yawned. The pitch changed again. I hummed along. I looked out the window. We were stepping down wide invisible steps. When we broke through the clouds I saw Seagull Hill with its parking-lot top. And the harbour. I saw Quite-a-Bite-of Lake. Then I saw the ocean.

  Then I saw them all again. And again. Then I saw Wednesday Pond.

  Look, Dad!

  I could even see the two swans with their bums in the air. Can you see the bottom. No. Can you. No.

  The plane tipped so far to the left that my window became the floor. Then it tipped the other way and became a skylight. This was fun. At first.

  We’re making circles, I said.

  Figure eights actually, said my dad, peering across me and out the window.

  Why.

  Not sure.

  That’s when someone behind me said, Problem with the landing gear.

  What is landing gear! I yelled.

  Shh, Audrey. Sit back down.

  What is landing gear, I whispered.

  My dad was buckling my seatbelt. He tore off the first page of his article and said, Why don’t you draw a picture of Wednesday Pond from the air.

  I need my table for that, I said.

  We’d been told to put our tables away, but my dad extracted mine. He was breaking the rules. We’re crashing, I said. Aren’t we.

  No, sweetheart. He gave me a pen.

  I drew a map of Wednesday Pond on the back of the page. I put a house where our house was. I put a big arrow pointing at that house. Home, I wrote.

  The plane continued to tilt.

  I decided to add a secret message to my map. I would leave a secret message in the armrest. Then the plane would not crash. Because a plane carrying a message in its armrest could not crash. Rule Number One of Secret Messages in Armrests.

  How do you spell crash, I asked my dad.

  He spelled it for me. He was looking up at the ceiling.

  How do you spell landing gear.

  No response.

  How do you spell Wednesday—

  Which is when he leaned forward and threw up in the Aim Your Vomit Here Bag.

  I had never seen my dad throw up before. I took a quick picture.

  Audrey, what the—

  I waved the picture to develop it. Then I put it in the armrest. I could feel my own vomit coming. I could also feel my heart. Of course I’d felt my own heart before, when I’d pressed my palm against my chest. But now I could feel my heart without touching it. It was knocking.

  My dad wiped his mouth. Why did you take a picture.

  Because I’m scared.

  Someone behind us said, The wings are stuck.

  I looked out my window. Weren’t the wings supposed to be stuck. A plane’s wings were not supposed to flap, were they.

  Someone else said, We’ll soon run out of fuel.

  I finished my message and “mailed” it to my armrest. Please please please someone answer.

  We were still figure-eighting. The pilots were not speaking to us. They were not saying, Ladies and gentlemen, we are not crashing. Therefore we were.

  All the stewardesses had disappeared. Someone said they were distributing parachutes in first class.

  I undid my seatbelt.

  What are you doing.

  Getting my life vest.

  No Audrey. Get back in your seat.

  There was nothing under my seat but someone else’s briefcase.

  I am without life vest!

  It’s under your cushion. But you don’t need it.

  I do. I do. We’re crashing into the pond with no bottom.

  Bollocks. Sit up straight. Put this
on. Click went the seatbelt.

  There was no future. I was not feeling a future. There was no next. There was nothing, nothing, nothing.

  And then something.

  The plane remembered its dinosaur past. I must fall slowly, not quickly, out of the sky. Sorry about that. Sorry, sorry. I was just jogging my memory. Allow me to right myself. And the plane righted itself. Allow me to fall slowly. And fall slowly we did. Slower and slower. Home arrived in slow motion. We disembarked. We shook and wobbled on terra firma. My dad carried me to the car in long-term parking. Home was foggy but luminous. I squinted. I could smell ocean. I could smell rock. I could smell small trees overlapping.

  No bees with sunglasses. No murderers. I looked up at the sky. What had happened up there.

  When my dad put me down I rushed to kiss the car between the eyes.

  Come on, old goat. Get in.

  No long-term parking ever again, I whispered.

  A few weeks later we brought Wedge home from the lab. My dad could not say no to me wanting to keep Wedge alive forever.

  Uncle Thoby is on the porch with Toff. I can hear their lower case voices. Something has happened to Grandmother. She fell. A stroke of bad luck. Toff got a call and now he is talking to Uncle Thoby. I lean out the front door. I just called you a Clint.

  Sorry, Toff says.

  I just called you a cab. Get ready. They’re fast.

  Oddly, this is serious—

  You’ve got two minutes. Wrap it up.

  And I go back inside.

  Toff is the last to leave the post-part-him party. Why are they talking outside. Because they don’t want me to hear or because Toff can’t think without a cigarette. Both, probably. Should I be concerned about Grandmother. Maybe, but I’m not.

  Someone is distressed, Uncle Thoby is no doubt telling Toff.

  And Toff is no doubt telling Uncle Thoby that I am not as distressed as I should be, because he overheard me perpetrating a fraud on the Christmatech representative.

  Yes. Well.

  Toff is leaving tomorrow. Back to the land of Eng. He was supposed to stay two more days but Grandmother’s fall has prompted him to move up his departure date.

  I am dropping. When was the last time I actually lay down. I consider the stairs. Upstairs is a bed with my name on it. But also upstairs is my dad’s empty room. Am I ready to leave the ground floor. I’ve been circling—kitchen, living room, hall, bathroom—for days. Time to veer off. Or up.

  On the wall, halfway up the stairs, is an adorable picture of me with a five-dollar bill taped over my eyes. I think I’m being the Queen, but really I’m being Wilfred Laurier. Uncle Thoby took that picture one Christmas after we’d watched the Queen’s address, which always made my dad chuckle and me say Chawles and Flip and make a tiara out of tinfoil. That Christmas I got the idea of making a Queen Elizabeth mask out of money. My dad kept calling me Wilfred, and I didn’t get it until he pointed out that not all bills have the Queen on them. They don’t! No. But honest to God I couldn’t tell the difference between the Queen and Wilfred Laurier. They’re identical, I said.

  Not really, said Uncle Thoby.

  I get halfway up the stairs. I reach the picture and sit down on a step. After a while I feel the porch vibrating. Someone is walking away. It had better be the right person.

  I slide slowly back down the steps on my bum. Look sideways out the screen door. Uncle Thoby is on the porch. A car is pulling away. The headlights light him up. He lifts his hand. When the car is gone, he bends over the railing like he’s going to be sick. Is he going to be sick. He is without an Aim Your Vomit Here Bag.

  But no, he isn’t sick. He is supporting himself on the railing. His shoulders are shaking. I have a sinking feeling on fast-forward. Get up. Go out there.

  He seemed okay when we pushed Verlaine’s car. He seemed so okay. I jumped into his arms and he lifted me up.

  He is not okay.

  I know. And the moment I think the word crash, he starts to. His legs buckle and he sinks down.

  I jump up. I’ve got my hand on the door handle. He is folded up on the porch. Crying. And I’m paralyzed. I’m watching him behind his back. I’m not supposed to see this. Back away.

  In my room I don’t turn on the light. I climb into bed. My eyes won’t adjust. They have adjusted enough. There is no more adjusting. Just close us. So I close them. And see nothing. Just the thought of him crying makes my throat tighten. I turn on my side and corkscrew my arms. Now I see the syncopated red lights of the Christmatech van on my eyelids. I see a red rectangle moving through a maze of white streets. My dad is alive in that van. My dad is alive in that van. I feel myself running after it. Then it turns into the Lada. My arms are so strong. I can lift this car.

  It was my dad who saved Uncle Thoby. Who went back to England to rescue him. Who persuaded him to come here. Don’t ask yourself what you can do for your country. Ask yourself what you can do for Uncle Thoby. No. I mean, don’t ask yourself what you are going to do without your dad. Ask yourself what Uncle Thoby is going to do. Wake up and ask yourself.

  I will protect him.

  You are already in montage mode.

  That was so sweet of you, Judge Julian-Brown. To perform a house call to protect my dad from your faulty hardware.

  We just assume our customers are alive. We assume life.

  Thank you for assuming that.

  On the kitchen table is the maze my dad built for Wedge one Christmas. We plunked Wedge down at the centre, but he just sat there and washed his ears.

  He likes it, I told my dad. Really.

  Uncle Thoby put a hand on my dad’s shoulder. Is that Hampton Court.

  As a matter of fact, yes.

  You built Hampton Court, Uncle Thoby marvelled.

  Still no reaction from Wedge, despite the cheese at the exit.

  Where’s Hampton Court, I asked.

  London.

  Your dad and I got lost in Hampton Court maze once.

  Lost together or lost apart. Lost together.

  When you were little, I said.

  No.

  We sat around waiting for Wedge to smell the cheese. He didn’t. He just leaned against the wall and groomed himself. Finally Uncle Thoby got up and replaced the cheese with a Licorice Allsort. That’ll do the trick.

  And sure enough, Wedge stood up on tiptoes, hands atop the wall, and sniffed the air. He figured out the maze in six minutes.

  I can still do it in my head. I can do it in two minutes. I can do it in my sleep even faster. The thing about mazes is, there is always a solution. There is always a way out. Because who would build a maze without an exit.

  Assume life can go on indefinitely. Barring accidents. Barring plane crashes. Yes, well. My dad and I had been living indefinitely for almost a year since the plane crashing—I was still having plane crash dreams—when he said he had to go back to England for a while.

  We had just finished a chapter of Out on a Limb, a biography about Shirley MacLaine by Shirley MacLaine. Shirley was getting on a plane and going to London. And oh by the way, so was he. He stood up to clear the plates. What!

  He had to go out on a limb for his brother, Thoby, who was in crisis.

  What. Stop talking Shirley.

  Sorry, he said. I have to go to England to see Uncle Thoby, who’s in a spot of trouble.

  My dad used to talk about his brother every so often, but lately it was Uncle Thoby this, Uncle Thoby that. When I’d said I remembered Uncle Thoby from Grandfather’s funeral, my dad had said, No you don’t.

  Yes I do. Long beard.

  That was Toff.

  Oh.

  Uncle Thoby wasn’t at the funeral.

  Why.

  My dad said it was a long story. Uncle Thoby was the black sheep of the family.

  Interesting. I thought you were the black sheep of the family.

  If you’d seen Uncle Thoby, you’d remember him, my dad said.

  Okay, fine. But was a black sheep worth riskin
g your indefinite life for. I didn’t think so. And I noticed I was not invited on this trip. Why was that. Not that I was in a hurry to get on a plane again.

  This was not an Audrey kind of trip.

  Jesus Christ what was an Audrey kind of trip.

  Not this one.

  I have about a thousand questions, I said.

  Okay, he said. So we retired to the living room for a serious talk.

  The living room at number 3 Wednesday Place was for:

  1. Serious talks.

  2. My dad’s annoying papers (scientific articles scattered all over the sofa and stacked in columns on the floor).

  3. Wedge.

  My dad used to call the living room the drawing room, which is short for withdrawing room, but not short enough to be useful in my opinion. After we got Wedge, we agreed that we should start saying living room. Since that’s what Wedge would be doing in it.

  On my way into the living room I kicked over a column of articles and said, Oops, there goes a Lionel. I called all my dad’s annoying articles Lionels after Lionel de Tigrel, who had written most of them, and who was my dad’s arch-enemy.

  My dad said Lionel de Tigrel was not his arch-enemy. But I remember him getting so mad once that he threw an article in the pond with no bottom, and when I went out there to fish it in, the name on the first page—the biggest name anyway—was Lionel de Tigrel. I nodded to myself. It was Lionel de Tigrel who had successfully turned a frog back into a tadpole. Lionel de Tigrel was a big shot at Cambridge. Well, we would show him.

  My dad didn’t like it when I called all his articles Lionels. He said, Can we not exaggerate the man’s output.

  Now he cleared a space on the sofa. Have a seat, he said.

  I walked behind the sofa and sat in the window.

  Fine. He sat down and twisted around. He said Verlaine would be staying at number 3 Wednesday Place and taking care of me while he was away.

  Verlaine, the Swiss troll who eats mice!

  My dad glanced at the mantel where Wedge was just now waking up and arranging his hair.

  She’ll make a sandwich out of Wedge, I whispered.

  She will not.

  Well. I’ll be hiding him under my bed.

  Fine.

  I walked my feet up the window jamb. What am I going to do without a biography for years and years.