Free Mystical Rose by Richard Scrimger Page B

remember talking about young Jimmy Carter, and everyone laughing at me.
    Who do you think is young, Harriet? I ask her. She stares at me. Doesn’t understand the question. Pierre Trudeau? I ask. That Russian with the eyebrows — not Nikita Khrushchev, the other one. Oh dear. First the hockey players look young, then the policemen, then the men in the newspapers. Then it’s time to pick another planet.
    Mother, Dr. Sylvester wasn’t telling you stories for entertainment. They were part of the memory test.
    I nod my head. Yes, sometimes my memory does seem to have holes in it. Like the bucket in the song. Do you —
    I remember the song, Mother.
    She looks away. I’ve probably mentioned the song before. We used to sing it all the time. There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza, there’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole. I can’t remember what comes next, but the song ends the way it begins, with the hole. Like everything else I know — me too, I guess. I feel like there’s a hole in my bucket, and dear Liza isn’t able to do anything about it.
    The bells keep ringing.
    Selfish. That’s what it is to be old. All you’re interested in is your feelings, your pain, your memories. And how lonely you are. And what a pain the other old people are. You’re sick of old people, sick of sick people, sick of sympathy. Unfortunately, you need every bitof help you can get. You can’t look after yourself. Not even getting to the toilet. You’re a baby again, a mewling puking whatever it is.
    What are You smiling at? It’s Shakespeare, isn’t it? You don’t have to patronize me. So I never matriculated, so what? You’re as bad as Harriet, with her oboe and her anthropology. But I was so proud of her. I cried when she walked across the stage to get her handshake. You remember that. I gave everyone who came into the shop that week a free camellia japonica —
surpassing excellence
.
    “Are you sure, madam?”
    “Yes, yes, quite sure.”
    Mama’s upset. Her hands are cold.
    “Steward, do you know — have you seen my husband?”
    “No, madam. I have not. Shall I look for him?”
    “Yes, please.”
    I fret in my mama’s cold hands.
    “There, there, sweetheart. Mama’s here.”
    I never felt complete, as a mother. Nothing to do with fulfilling myself or personal achievement, I never felt whole, walking up my street with my baby in my perambulator, on my way to pick up pork chops or clothespins. There was a part of me that wasn’t real, that searched and did not find. And while some of me, the outside of me, was concerned about prohibition and electric power and trade unions, and how long the Depression would last and whether Robbie would be able to keep his job in Accounts Receivable, the inside part of me wondered if I was real. What was a mother, anyway? What was a wife? A daughter? Sometimes it seemed to me that I wasn’t any of these things.

    I went back to Cobourg once. No, twice. How could I forget? Twice. The first time we stayed at Mama’s, Harriet and I. I remember her breath steaming through the scarf I wrapped around her little head. She’d have been less than a year old, born at home that spring, and she wriggled. A real handful, my stepfather called her. Bill met us at the train station in a big touring car with a big holly wreath hanging in the side window. That’s right, it would have been shortly after Christmas. Cold for southern Ontario.
    Mama and Bill lived in the old Daniel place on King Street, a big house with a circular carriage drive. The roof needed new slates, and the bricks needed pointing. I knew about these things because our house needed them too. It was a solid establishment, not beautiful but dignified. Mama stood on the front porch to greet us. Her breath steamed too. She had a fur wrap against the cold. She was a respectable lady now. Like me. We’d both married well.
    It was an awkward visit. Robbie was in Montreal, on business, leaving right after Christmas and