Remembering the Bones

  There should be something I can remember about survival, something from books. We had a pamphlet on survival in our home for a long time—it belonged to Harry. I leafed through it after he died, and packed it off to a book sale. Cover the head and neck, that’s all I remember, probably because the words were in bold print. Cover with what? Surely the advice was meant for someone stuck in a snowbank in winter.

  Grand Dan said one day when we were sitting in her kitchen—it was a Saturday in the fall and Aunt and Uncle Fred were visiting—“When I’m finished with life, take me out to the back forty and shoot me.” Which made the adults laugh, while Ally and I and our four cousins looked on and wondered. Grand Dan wasn’t exactly stern, but she didn’t laugh that often. When she did, the laugh came out quietly, as if it had been locked inside the soft part of her chin.

  That was the day I learned to tie my shoelaces. To everyone’s shame but my own, I had resisted learning. Grand Dan sat me on a kitchen chair outside the back door and told me I was to stay there. My cousins ran off to play in Mott’s field without me. My fingers fumbled, my thumbs got in the way. Grand Dan demonstrated twice and said, “You may get off that chair, Miss, when you can make a bow that won’t come undone. You’re a big girl now, and you have to learn and that’s all there is to it.”

  I struggled; I fought off tears of frustration. Ally came outside and sat on the step nearby, for support. The screen door opened and out came Uncle Fred, carrying another kitchen chair. He had huge ears but he laughed about them and told us that Herr Gott had provided him with big ears so that he could hear the voices of his four sons, no matter how far they wandered. Gott was our uncle’s name for God, and he pronounced it like a truncated version of goat. He added the Herr, he said, because it attracted God’s attention.

  Uncle Fred pretended not to be able to tell Ally and me apart, and maybe he really couldn’t. When he called out “Girl,” we both looked up. Maybe, being the father of four sons, he liked to say the word girl. It didn’t matter, because Ally and I forgave him the denial of our individuality. He did not, after all, hold our heads under the pump. And we loved his stories.

  After he’d set his chair beside mine, he put a cigarette between his lips and struck a match against the chair-bottom, whipping the flame out from under his seat. A breeze puffed out the flame. He lit another and that, too, went out. Each blown match increased his craving, but he finally gave up.

  “Do you see that, Girl? Herr Gott is sending me a message,” he said, and pointed to the sky. “He knows that I’m trying to give up smoking.” He tucked the unlit cigarette behind one big ear. “Keep tying your bow while I talk,” he said. “I’m going to tell you a story.”

  I propped my feet on the rung of the chair, I swung them back and forth, I leaned forward over my shoe and tied a bow, first try.

  I’ve never forgotten the pleasure, the sense of triumph. I did not shout, or run to the house to show Grand Dan, or get up off the chair, which I was now permitted to leave. Instead, I tucked my feet under me and waited.

  Uncle Fred grinned. “Aha! You see, Girl, you could do it all along.” He looked at Ally and me as if we were conspirators, and began.

  “When I was eight years old, not much older than you are now, I travelled on foot with my father to a town on the banks of the Salzach—a crisp, cold river in the old country. So beautiful, you could not imagine.” He swept his hands through the air, to show the beauty in his mind’s eye. “Salt was shipped down the river before the railway was built. My mother gave me bread and cheese and sausage—Wurst—to carry for our lunch. When we reached the town, it was night and rain was falling, and my father found a room at an inn. The place was gloomy, but there was one room left, a corner room, upstairs.

  “The bed was narrow, but we both fit in and pulled an eiderdown—a feather blanket—over us. I was tired, and fell asleep at once. My father told me later that he was still awake when he heard a loud thump behind the bed. The thump woke me, and my father whispered, ‘Stay quiet. Listen.’ So we lay on our backs under the eiderdown and the noise started again, one big thump and then another. There was nothing behind us, no window, no shutter, no place for anyone to hide. My father got up to look under the bed but it was built on a platform of solid wood and there was no space beneath. He got back into bed and we pulled the cover up to our ears and tried to go back to sleep. This was impossible because, right away, the foot of the bed started to move. The whole bed frame began to shake—so violently, I thought we would come flying out and land on the floor. My father said, ‘Don’t move, don’t do anything. We’ll see if it stops.’ After a few minutes it did stop, but then we heard a bang and the bed began to shake again. Not only that, but I felt a hand pushing on my shoulder. I was frightened, certain that somebody must be standing beside the bed. But there was no one. My father must have been frightened too, because he said we should leave the bed and sleep on the floor. If a spirit wanted the bed, we shouldn’t argue. He spread our coats on the floor beside the door in case we had to leave quickly, and lifted the blanket off the bed so we would be covered. We lay on the floor the rest of the night and after that, we were able to sleep.

  “In the morning, we were cramped and stiff. We went downstairs for breakfast and my father told the innkeeper—a big man with a big belly—what happened. The man frowned and said there were sometimes ghosts in that corner room. They were from a long time ago, two men who had once fought over the bed. One man was killed and the other died soon after, but they were still fighting. They didn’t like anyone else to sleep in the bed. They hadn’t been around for a couple of years, the innkeeper said, and he wasn’t happy about their return. We never went back to that place, and I was glad to leave the ghosts behind. But I tell you, Girl, while I was lying there, the b’Jeezus they did scare out of me.”

  Uncle Fred’s laugh came out in a big splurt. “Don’t worry,” he said, “there’s no ghost here. If a ghost dared to come to this house, your Grand Dan would knock its block off.”

  Grand Dan came outside at that moment to check the progress of my bow. She must have heard the end of the story, because she said, “I don’t want you scaring these girls, Fred.” But it was too late. For a long time, fearing that an ancestral spirit might scare the b’Jeezus out of us, Ally and I refused to go upstairs alone after dark, especially on nights when the adults were sitting around the radio downstairs, listening to the eerie sounds of the creaking door on Inner Sanctum.

  I hear a scratching from a tangle of bushes. My right shoulder is a board of knot; I dare not think about how mangled it must be. I’m so rattled, I can’t think what the shoulder bone is called. But I know other bones—I once knew them all. Shoulder girdle: left clavicle, right clavicle. Humerus.

  Did you read the survival pamphlet, Harry?

  I’ll be a no-show at the airport and Air Canada will give my seat to a standby. Case will be at the theatre and suspect nothing. I insisted on driving myself so that no one would have to go to the city to pick me up on my return. Is this my punishment for being independent?

  I’ll have to send an apology to Lilibet. I’ll be thought rude.

  My mind is moving in circles. Mistress of sequential disarray, that’s what Harry called me.

  Ally and I marched in circles when we were children, around and around the rug in the parlour, singing as we marched.

  Onward Christian soldiers

  Marching as to war

  With the Cross of Jesus

  Going on before

  If only I could rise now, and stomp up the side of the ravine.

  Singing makes me tired. My voice is hoarse. I can hardly speak, let alone shout the words. Scream. I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.

  Is Lilibet serving ice cream for dessert?

  Grand Dan did not scream when she drove the blade of the axe into her tibia. The women who came before me have set a high standard.

  Think, Georgie, think of your plight.

  My plight. The only
plan I have is a vague plan to pull, push, drag myself. If I could inch up the slope on my back, well and good. But I’m at the bottom; I’d use every bit of energy I have.

  I’d die along the way.

  Still, I’ve moved again—not much, granted. But even this small bit has given me a new perspective. The tree above me has had its day, but I see that one side hasn’t parted with its bark. It’s patterned in whorls like a painting by Emily Carr—all dusky browns and ashen greys, but never bland. I went to a Carr exhibit once, with Ally, before she moved south. We drove to the city and stood in the main room of the gallery, surrounded by fir trees and totems and heaven and light, and pressed our shoulders together and were silent.

  And now, I grit my teeth, bear the pain. My head has agreeably parted from the thin ridge of rock. But my leg feels as if it is swelling. I might never walk again. I’ll be nothing but a burden.

  Keep moving. Reach out as far as you can. Explore with your good hand.

  The oak. A tree I know, which makes me quietly weep. Harry and I admired it during our walks, an old friend. We gathered acorns in the fall and told each other it was the oldest tree in the ravine. Its scaly bark breathes; I can set my palm against it. “Builder oak, sole king of forest all.”

  Memory is holding. Miss Grinfeld would be proud. But Miss Grinfeld has been dead for years, and she and Harry never met. He only heard my stories.

  I’m close to the main path. I must be, if this is the same oak. Which might be considered a miracle. Especially if someone decides to descend. Even though it’s only April and early for spring hikes.

  Small or large, a miracle is what I need.

  MIRACLE WOMAN STAYS ALIVE, RESCUED FROM SPINNEY’S RAVINE.

  I don’t think a rescue is going to happen. A rescue will happen. You can be sure of it.

  I’ve peed my pants. What will I say to my rescuers?

  Don’t dwell on it.

  Herr Gott, do you mind sending someone down the path to find me?

  Please.

  I forgot to say please.

  I won’t ask for anything more.

  If I sound like a beat-up songstress, I’m sorry.

  THIRTEEN

  I’ve been in and out of sleep; a rustling in the bushes gave me hope. I thought someone was coming down the path but it’s a chipmunk scurrying past, headed in the direction I would like to go. It comes to a quick halt and stills. Its tail curves up and back and then straightens like a tiny bone. Why does its stillness look so meaningful, so intent? And now it darts into the underbrush, gone. I should have grabbed that erect little tail, hung on for dear life, let it drag me up the path to safety.

  I’m losing my mind.

  I was dreaming about my mother. She was sitting in her walker at the Haven, watching the doorway, waiting for me to come to collect her for a trip. Then, we were in the front seat of the car and I had my arms around her as we sailed over the cliff.

  Phil did not exactly like the Haven when she first moved there, but she made it clear that she wasn’t moving in with me. “I have no intention of being a burden,” she said. “Anyway, you’ll soon be joining me.” I was dismissed. And she did raise a valid question about my own future.

  It was the ad “Independent Living” that convinced her to choose the place. I saw that she’d had the plan in her head for months, possibly years. It was raining the morning she phoned, and I held the receiver while I stared out the window at cardinals swooping back and forth from feeder to ravine. I missed Harry and was feeling, yes, sorry for myself.

  “I’m moving to that flat-roofed seniors’ residence on the other side of town,” she said. “The one they call the Haven. A woman just phoned to say that someone died in the night. I was next on the waiting list and had to give an answer, so I said yes. I’ll have my own space, a two-room suite. I’ve been given three weeks to sort out my affairs and I’m going to need you to sell the house.”

  I’d been given my orders. Ally had moved away, and I was the one available. Phil expected me to do the work, conveniently forgetting my own age. When you have a centenarian mother, concessions will be made. I did not know that she had applied to the Haven or how long she’d been on the waiting list, but she’d always been secretive and I didn’t pry. I organized the move of furniture and the listing of the house. She had a chauffeur—me. She had someone to order around—also me. I managed to sell the house the same day the ad went in the paper.

  After that, it took Phil two and a half weeks to shed belongings our Danforth ancestors had accumulated over a century and a half. Except for the first six or seven years after her marriage to Mr. Holmes, she had lived in the same house the better part of a hundred years. And she was letting go. It had become too much for her, though she wouldn’t admit this. She had to turn her back, in order to move on.

  At the time the house was sold, it had already been absorbed by the town and was surrounded by rowhouses that had sprung up on the site of our old field—the one Grand Dan sold, strip by strip, to Mott, when we needed the money. I was saddened to see the past dismantled, but I knew I could not move back. To Phil’s credit, she lasted in the house long after everyone else died or moved away. Not that she was alone; the house remained at the centre of the community that sprang up around it. The main road and our own short lane were paved. The only barrier that kept her neighbours at bay was the low stone wall built by our ancestors who had bent to pick stones, one at a time, and thrown them onto a stoneboat as it sailed across the field behind a team of horses.

  There was a lightness to Phil, a new-found energy and purpose while she packed. She labelled her belongings: papers, documents, things she wanted to keep—oak table, dresser, bed, two chairs, cabinet, lamp. She emptied closets and drawers and told Case and Rice and me to take what we wanted. Ally wasn’t around to help herself, so I set aside Grand Dan’s silver, which she had asked for.

  After that, Phil began to set out what she called “bric-a-brac”—unmatched dishes, ornaments, linens, pots and pans—a few at a time on the uneven surface of the old stone wall. At four in the afternoon she laid out a teapot with two cups and saucers. By six they had disappeared. She lined up a coffee urn with matching mugs at bedtime, and those were gone by morning. She played cat and mouse with her neighbours and parted with objects she’d owned for a century. She refused calls from dealers. The neighbours gathered water carafes, pressed-glass toothpick holders, fruit nappies, costume jewellery, side tables, porcelain trivets, turkey platters, brass fixtures, a coal scuttle and a collection of small glass hats. Case kept some of the smaller furniture for her theatre. She and I had already removed the books. The medical texts that had belonged to my grandfather, including Gray’s Anatomy, came to me.

  But all the while, I had the worrying feeling that Phil was preparing her exit. Not of her house, but of her life. The morning I drove her to the Haven she began to have second thoughts, and so did I. She looked smaller than usual as she pushed her walker through the entrance. The first person we laid eyes on was an elderly woman who was asleep in a wheelchair near reception. Her mouth was open; her chin rested limply on her chest. A drawsheet was fastened beneath her armpits and tied at the back of the chair to keep her upright.

  Phil drew back. “The wheelbarrow cometh,” she muttered, looking to her future. Her voice betrayed a quiver of fear as she glanced around. “Everyone here looks ancient.”

  I put my hand on her shoulder and felt the curve of her back, the prominent hump. I wondered if I should sit her down on her walker and push her right back out to the car. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Of course I’m not,” she said. “Wait till you’re ninety-nine and see how you feel.”

  The moment for escape had passed; the receptionist came forward to greet us.

  I went back to visit every day for the first three weeks. Until Phil met her gentleman friend, Tall Ronnie, she nearly wore me out.

  “They serve skim milk in the dining room,” she said at the end of the firs
t day. “That’s what Mott fed to his pigs. I’m not drinking any skim milk. And the nurses shout at us as if we’re deaf. They spend their time with bed patients and rarely check the rest of us who live in the suites. We could die of inattention and no one would ever know.”

  “I check,” I told her. “I check every day.”

  But I was thinking, what if, someday, Case has to start checking on me? What if she forgets? What if she never checks?

  If only she would check now, phone the hotel, see if I’ve arrived in London. Which I might never see.

  Don’t allow bad thoughts, Georgie. Maybe she’s phoned already.

  She won’t phone. I told her not to. I don’t report to Case.

  Never mind that. Think of how long you’ve been here. Someone might have raised the alarm.

  Maybe I’ve been here only a few seconds. Maybe I’m in one of those time warps I’ve read about and never understood.

  Then pay attention.

  FOURTEEN

  My chin and one eyelid receive a cool breeze. I hope the temperature doesn’t drop, though there are worse ways to die than rotting in a ravine. Think of Isadora Duncan, strangling on her own scarf. Think of the scarf caught in a rear wheel of an open car, whipping her out and tightening around her neck until she had no more air.

  Not a pleasant thought, Georgie.

  It’s difficult not to think unpleasant thoughts. Think of Tolstoy, breathing his last bit of air in a station master’s shack beside the railway tracks. He ran away from his wife, gave away his possessions—but only after living his life as a wealthy man. He must have listened to the resolute chug of engines as he lay dying. Did he think of Karenina? His last words were said to be, “It’s all so simple.” Something like that. At least he finished War and Peace.