The Generation Game (21 page)

‘Have a nice day, eh,’ says Ed. And then, as we are about to leave him alone with his TV, he adds: ‘Did you know Toronto is the Mohawk word for ‘meeting
place’?’

I didn’t know that. And I have no idea why Ed has decided to tell me this right now. But I am pleased to hear it nonetheless. After all, it’s about time I met my mother.

‘Here you go,’ says the driver. ‘This building right here. Real nice condos.’ He whistles to illustrate just how nice these ‘condos’
are.

And they are nice. A far cry from the Upstairs of Bernie’s Lot. Several notches up from our two-up-two-down. A different league altogether from the maisonette above the shop that
we’ve left back in Britain, further away than all the miles we’ve travelled to get here. Helena’s home is somewhere in there, somewhere inside the impressive building that looms
above us. Soon I’ll get out the taxi, enter the lobby, or whatever they call it in this country, and quite possibly be reunited with my mother. Any minute now.

‘Philippa?’ Bob says. ‘Are you coming?’

Bob has paid the driver and is holding out his gloved hand to help me because I am incapable of voluntary movement. He guides me towards the towering darkened glass doors and has to take my hand
to get me through them.

‘This is a bad idea,’ I tell him.

‘Have you got a better one?’ he asks.

I let him lead me towards the lift or elevator or whatever and watch his finger push the button that lights up a number 6 and then we’re inside, Bob and I, the smell of stale smoke and air
freshener, going up, up, nearer and nearer our destination, until we’re almost at the home that has never had quite enough room for me, that I was expecting to be small and poky and a bit of
a hovel but that I now suspect is going to be rather grander, bigger, than I’ve ever pictured on all those lonely nights, staring at my curtains, trying to conjure up my mother.

There is a jolt, a ting-a-ling, the quiet swoosh of the lift doors like in
Star Trek
, soft carpet underfoot down the long corridor, brass numbers on front doors, looking for the right
one, the one that’s waiting at the far end with the name TUPPER written in neat schoolgirl handwriting on the label below the bell. A bell that Bob presses with determination mustered from
somewhere or other. A door that will open to reveal…

… a boy?...

A school boy of maybe nine or ten.

‘Hi,’ he says. ‘Who are you?’

I feel like saying the same thing only I can’t speak. I can’t say anything, anything at all. Bob has to kick-start his own voice with a cough.

‘I’m Bob,’ he says. ‘I’m a friend of Helena’s.’ When the boy doesn’t respond, he adds: ‘Have we got the right address?’

‘Uh-huh,’ the boy says. But it is me he is looking at. Me, he is interested in.

‘This is Philippa,’ Bob says.

‘Philippa.’ The boy rolls my name around his mouth, tasting it, like a Revel, wondering what flavour it will turn out to be, if it is one he’ll like. Or one he’ll want to
spit out in disgust. (My metaphors are coming on no end since being in the sixth form, even with all that time off.)

The boy stands very still but there is a slight flicker in his eyes that suggests his brain is doing something, making connections.

‘You mean Aunt Philippa?’

His brain is quite clearly not working properly and Bob has to put him right because my brain isn’t working at all.

‘No,’ he laughs. ‘Philippa’s only sixteen. Philippa… Helena… well… ’

As Bob stutters, falters, can find no way of introducing me to this unknown boy staring up at us, he is saved by a man’s voice from deep within the condo.

‘Wes,’ it says. ‘Who is it, kid?’

If I were asthmatic this is when I’d reach for my inhaler but unfortunately I have no such crutch and have to ride it out, this wave of memory that is earnestly trying to drown me, to
squeeze the air into my lungs and not let it out again.

‘It’s Bob and Philippa, Dad,’ the boy calls out. ‘Shall I show them in?’

There is a gap, a black hole of silence.

‘Sure,’ the voice says eventually. ‘Bring them on in.’

‘Follow me,’ Wes says and I am compelled to do as this boy instructs, even though I’d far rather retrace my steps, get back in the lift, back in the taxi, back to the motel
where I can settle down in front of the adverts with Ed.

Wes ushers us into the hospital-warmth and shuts the door behind us. We are standing in a wide long hallway on a glossy wooden floor. There are black and white photographs all around us on the
walls. Landscapes. Mountains. Prairies. Lakes. Forests. That sort of Canada thing. A single-stemmed orchid blossoms in a glass pot, tall and slender, its roots on show, seeking out the light, its
scarlet red flower a shock against the white walls, the black and white photos. I can’t smell the flower… but I can pick out the lingering remains of Helena’s cigarette smoke and
perfume. I’d know that anywhere.

‘This way,’ Wes says when we’ve put our coats and winter-wear on the hallstand. We follow him down the hallway, past several doors, all closed, all possibly hiding Helena.

‘Through here.’ We reach the end and Wes disappears into a room which, when we step in behind him, turns out to be some sort of living room/office. There is a big red sofa beneath
the picture window which overlooks a tree-filled park, all white and dramatic. There are more photographs in here, row upon row of black and white framed portraits. Handsome chiselled men –
the sort that pose mysteriously and make women swoon. Over in the corner stands an ornate bureau above which hangs a cork notice board with messages and lists pinned to it, most of them written in
the loops and curls that I’ve never quite managed to forget. And then the centrepiece of the room: a vast table covered in papers and magazines and photos and general mess, behind which sits
Orville Tupper. All he needs is a fluffy white cat.

‘Bob,’ he says. ‘It’s been a while.’

I don’t hear Bob’s reply. I can only stare at Orville Tupper sitting there, making no effort to get up, showing no signs of pleasure at seeing us. Waiting for him to notice me, to
speak to me.

‘Hi Philippa,’ he says on cue. ‘You’ve grown up.’

This is the first time I’ve heard my mother’s husband say my name. Somehow I wish he’d stuck with ‘kid’ because my name is the one thing he cannot take away from
me. I want him to keep his hands off it. It is mine.

Bob answers for me.

‘Children have a tendency to do that,’ he says. And I could kiss him for those words, for sticking up for me.

Orville doesn’t notice this dig – or ignores it – and takes Bob at his word.

‘They sure do. Seems like only yesterday Wes was in diapers.’

‘Is he… your son?’ Bob blushes as he asks this question which, given the circumstances, is rather personal and obtrusive.

‘Sure,’ Orville says. And when there’s more silence than anyone can bear, he adds: ‘And Helena’s too, of course.’

Of course. I knew this the moment Wes opened the door. I knew he was Helena’s son, though strangely it was the one scenario I’ve never played out. I’ve never in a million years
imagined her having other children, not when she tried so hard to keep her first born at ocean’s length.

‘Wes, can you go get some pop for our guests. Or would you like coffee?’

‘Coffee,’ I manage to say, my first word. I don’t want Orville thinking I want pop. Like he said, I am grown up. I drink coffee.

‘Do you need a hand?’ I ask Wes.

‘No, I’m alright,’ he says. ‘I do it all the time.’

Orville waits for Wes to go and then he speaks in a quiet voice. ‘Wes is very helpful. He’s had to grow up fast and help out around the place. You know, since the
accident.’

‘Accident?’ Bob asks.

It is then that we are told. We realise why Orville didn’t get up. He isn’t being rude. He is stuck in that position. Always stuck in that position. In a wheelchair. Paralysed from
the waist down after a car crash five years before.

I hear Orville Tupper explaining all this. I hear it and I am pleased. Not because I’ve had my revenge already done for me. But because it goes some way to giving me a reason, a real
reason, why Helena hasn’t called for me. She must have had Wes unexpectedly and then, just as he was old enough and she thought she could send for me at last, there was the accident. Orville
in a wheelchair and no longer able to earn money as a model. That was what happened. She did love me. She does.

I slump onto a chair next to Bob who’s already taken up Orville on his offer of a seat. If I don’t sit down I could quite possibly faint with the excitement of it all. The shock. The
relief.

Orville is now on a level with me. Across the table I can see his hands that once might have appeared in adverts for Canada’s equivalent to Ratner’s. Now they have calluses and look
rough and raw from doing the work his legs used to.

‘I guess we never quite got round to you, Philippa,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry.’

And it is that word, sorry, that makes me cry.

Bob hands me his hanky and after a few minutes I am calm enough to notice the mug of coffee on the table in front of me. The boy next to me, offering me a donut.

‘Thanks, Wes.’ I am suddenly ravenous and sugar is what I need. A cake. A comfort.

‘You’re welcome,’ he says.

‘Why did you call me Aunt Philippa?’ I ask him, after a few mouthfuls, while Bob and Orville talk about unimportant things like the state of the Canadian health service and education
system. But Orville is still half-tuned into our conversation and cuts in.

‘It’s my sister’s name too,’ Orville says. ‘My kid sister, back home in Labrador. Wes has never met her but she’s around your age. Funny, eh? Two Philippas
Wes has never met.’

We make half-hearted smiles and murmurs. Then I ask the question no-one has asked.

‘Where is Helena?’

‘At work,’ Orville says with a note of longing. ‘In a book store down town. She’s not home till six.’ He checks his watch. ‘Wes, you need to get back to
school.’

‘Sure, Dad,’ he says, getting up, not needing to be asked twice, going round the table and then bending and kissing him on his still-lush fine head of hair. ‘It was nice
meeting you,’ he calls over his shoulder as he leaves, already putting on gloves and a toque of his own (which, it has to be said, isn’t any better on him than on Bob).

‘He’s a good kid,’ Orville says. ‘Comes home everyday for lunch just so’s I’m not on my own.’

We listen to this good kid retreat down the hall, close the front door and we all wish he was still here, a distraction. I concentrate on Helena’s ring on my finger, twiddling it round and
round in an attempt to loosen it.

‘I could call her if you want,’ Orville suggests after an awkward pause. ‘I’m sure she could make an excuse to come back. Her boss is real considerate.’

‘Helena always has considerate bosses,’ I say and Bob flushes the colour of prawns for sale on a hot summer’s day in Torquay harbour.

‘That would be good,’ Bob agrees. ‘I mean, we could come back another time. Or maybe we could go and see her.’

‘Sure, why don’t you do that? I can call you guys a cab if you want?’

Orville looks relieved to be able to hand over responsibility for us to his wife. He looks relieved at the prospect of our imminent departure from his home. But he doesn’t look like he
hates us, which is what I’ve always assumed. Instead he seems a little embarrassed, guilty perhaps, even sad. Maybe his accident has taught him that life is capable of changing in a second. A
lesson I learned a long time ago.

We are back inside another taxi, shuttling us for ten minutes or so from Helena’s home to Helena’s place of work. It drops us right outside Jabberwocky, a small
second-hand bookshop in a back street downtown, old-fashioned but respectable and, for all her longings to be modern and with-it, I can see this is the sort of place Helena would love to spend her
days. As I would. For unlike Bob, my mother and I love to be surrounded by books.

Bob hands over more Canadian dollars and then we are left standing in the cold, snow whistling around us, weighing down the branches of the trees that line this quaint avenue that is so far from
Bob’s News.

‘Come on,’ he says. ‘This is it.’

As if I need telling.

This time I take the lead. I stand for a few moments studying the shop window with its rather clever display of Agatha Christie’s before I push open the door. I keep my head down until Bob
is inside too, shutting the weather out, standing next to me, stamping his boots on the mat.

There are rows of books in here (obviously, being a book store) but they are packed so tight, so high, that you can’t see through them, beyond them. You have to walk around the stacks and
down the rows to get a feel for the layout, to find your way around, to make your way past the counter, the ancient till, the man writing in a ledger, looking up and smiling a welcome, saying,
‘Hello, can I help you?’

You have to strain yourself to hear Bob’s reply as his voice is now almost all cough. But you still can’t see anyone else, no other customers, no woman who can pass for your mother.
No woman in her prime with smart clothes and accessories. No lipstick. No high heels. But if you turn the corner at the back of the shop, you can at last see someone who might pass for her, but she
is obscured by the trolley of books beside her, so you can’t be certain. There is a copy of
Madame Bovary
in her hand, which she is about to push into its place on the shelf. There are
glasses perched on the end of her nose. Her fine dark hair, no hint of grey, is piled on top of her head. You will see her look up at the sound of footsteps. A double-take. Eyes opened wide in
wonder. A jaw dropped.
Madame Bovary
crashing to the floor, the pages rippling open.

‘Philippa? Is that you?’

Her voice is deeper than I remember. Years of countless cigarettes. I want to make my own voice loud and clear. I want it to ring out across the battlefields but all I can manage is a mouselike:
‘Yes, it’s me, Philippa.’

She pushes her glasses up onto her head, takes a step towards me, puncturing
Madame Bovary
with her heel. Then she stops and takes a deep breath before reaching out for me. I go to her. I
am in her arms and the smell of her – perfume and smoke – turns back the clock, wipes away the last decade, shrinks me back to a little girl again. A little fat girl with ribbons in my
hair.
A hundred brushes a day.