Watching Jimmy Read online

  Sorry. I’m sounding like Aunt Jean. The dress has nothing to do with what happens next. That is, I don’t think it does, except I do like the dress because it matches my eyes.

  Maybe the dress is important after all, because when I wear it, I feel strong.

  I am prideful.

  Aunt Jean likes to go to St. James Cathedral downtown. It’s some trouble to get to now with Jimmy. You have to walk a long ways and then take the King car into the city.

  Jimmy is fine once we get to the streetcar. I mean, he’s fine if we get a seat right up front. He likes the sound of the bell ringing and, to keep him quiet when we’re in the streetcar, the driver always rings the bell way more than he should. Sometimes the driver rings the bell continuously all the way to the cathedral.

  St. James Cathedral is where Aunt Jean’s son Bertie, the fighter pilot with the RCAF, was buried from. Well, that was where the service was, because they never found the body. I don’t think they looked too hard because the war was almost over when he was killed.

  The church has big high ceilings. And flags hanging down. Some of them go way back to the War of 1812, not just the Great World Wars. There are statues and plaques on the walls with names of very important English people. I recognize some from my history books.

  Once we get to St. James, the big doors are open and welcoming and the old bells are ringing. Jimmy likes the bells and we rush after him to find our seats.

  Aunt Jean likes to sit up front with the ladies from Rosedale. Never mind. She lost a son and she’s entitled to sit as close to God as she needs to be.

  St. James has the best choir in all of Canada. The men and boys choir sings most of the service. You really don’t have to do much but pop up and down like a toilet seat. That’s what the old Jimmy used to say.

  Jimmy is very calm listening to the boys sing. They sound like angels. Jimmy clasps his hands in his lap and twists and twists, listening closely. It’s always too soon when the altar boy carries the staff down the aisle collecting all the little lambs to go to Sunday school, but Jimmy goes off to the nursery without any trouble. He likes to follow the altar boy with the staff. I think he thinks he’s in a parade.

  Our Jimmy looks like such a big galoot in the nursery.

  Aunt Jean lets me stay with her in the church because I love the music so much. And I can scoot out of our pew to check on Jimmy and report back to her. Aunt Jean says this is the only break she gets all week long. She’d love Sunday to go on forever.

  I duck out after the offertory hymn and before the sermon. The ladies in the nursery are some glad to see me. Jimmy is in a bad way. He wants his pants off and his diapers off. I try to stop him. His hands flap me away.

  So without even thinking, completely automatically, I start to sing. It’s like when I open my mouth, God comes down on a beam of light, enters my brain and a sound like wind chimes comes out of my mouth.

  I sing and the whole room stops, frozen by my voice. This is the one thing that I’ve left to tell, and if I trace things backwards, it’s the thing that leads to everything else that happens. My singing voice.

  Did I mention that no one except Jimmy had ever heard my voice? When the two of us used to play in the ravine, I sang for him. Just sometimes, and only for him, because he’d never tell my secret.

  You probably need to know that my dad was a singer. My dad took off before I was born. Somewhere. Maybe to Vancouver. Maybe Paris, France with a floozie. We don’t know. My mom and dad were married about twenty minutes before I was born. “It seemed like twenty minutes,” my mom said. But those twenty minutes are an important twenty minutes, because I, Carolyn Jamieson, am not a bastard.

  Aunt Jean doesn’t like me to use the word bastard. When I say the word bastard, she puts her hand over her heart and gasps for air and all the time her eyelids flutter like mad. She calls it illegitimate but I know it means the same thing. Although, the usage is tricky. A bastard, an illegitimate child, is different from the bastard, a man who marries his wife and takes off after twenty minutes.

  You might like to know that Luanne Price and I were friends once, a long time ago, in Grade 2. She is never just Luanne Price. Now, I call her the horrid Luanne Price. To her face. Back in Grade 2, I went to her house to play, although she was never allowed to come to mine, because my mother worked, she said. Because we needed more supervision, she said.

  I didn’t care why I was invited to play Luanne Price is an only child and she had books that came all the way from England. I see now that her mother only wanted me to play with Luanne because I could read and she wanted her precious baby to catch the reading bug. I would read out loud to Luanne while she played with her dolls. Then Luanne would try and sound out the words. Sometimes we put on plays, acting out the stories. It was wonderful until one cloudy day, the horrid Luanne Price and I played house in her backyard. She wanted to know where my daddy was. Or if I even had a daddy, at all. She wanted to see a picture of him. Did I keep a picture of him in the locket I wore around my neck, because she’d heard her daddy say that I was a “poor little bastard.”

  Me, a bastard!

  I was so mad, I could have spit. Imagine. Me, a bastard! The worst name you could be called. A name that would be branded on your birth certificate to follow you around for the rest of your natural-born days.

  I put Luanne Price in a headlock. I did not, and do not, pull hair. Pulling hair is girl fighting. I fought like Jimmy taught me. I twisted her little chicken arm behind her back and dragged her up the stairs to the bathroom. The radio was blaring in the kitchen and Luanne’s mom was singing while making supper. She was singing along with Frank Sinatra who was Singing in the Rain. I remember that especially, because it was raining outside.

  Luanne’s mother uses Camay. The bar is pink and matches the pink and black tiles in the bathroom. I remember this particularly, because I wondered if pink soap tasted better than white soap.

  “You wouldn’t dare!” Luanne’s eyes bugged out of her head.

  “Mom! Mom!” But I’d kicked the door closed. I ran the water. I wet the pink bar of soap.

  “Bite it!”

  Luanne kicked and struggled. It was all I could do to keep her in a headlock.

  “Bite it. Open your mouth.” She knew I wouldn’t let her go. When she opened her mouth to scream, I shoved the bar into it.

  “Take, it back, Luanne. You take it back.” I was very calm. When she started to gag, I let her go.

  The bar of soap fell from Luanne’s mouth, onto the floor. In her hands she cupped water from the tap and took a gulp. With one hand, then the other hand, she wiped her face and spit in the sink. She looked like she was going to bring up.

  I never played with the horrid Luanne Price again. I have no use for Luanne Price, or her father or anybody else in that family, and when her mother phoned mine to complain about my behavior, I refused to apologize. I will never forget the look on my mother’s face when I told her what happened. She did not actually faint, but I thought she might. Well. She gave Mrs. Price a piece of her mind and hung up smartly.

  Never mind. They are all nosy parkers in that family. Now, Luanne vies with me for top marks in class. But she can’t hurt me, because I don’t care all that much about school. But music, that’s a different thing altogether.

  So, you can only imagine how badly Jimmy was behaving for me to sing like the bastard.

  The nursery lady comes up to me and takes my face between her hands.

  “Oh, Carolyn. You have a God-given gift. You must use it.”

  I pull away and start putting Jimmy’s socks back on.

  “No dear, I insist. You must sing in a choir. Pity you’re not a boy.”

  I toss my braids. She must be able to read my mind. I’ve been praying so hard to be transformed into a boy but it never, ever happens.

  “There’s a wonderful choir at St. Olave’s Right in your neighborhood. I’ll make enquiries although auditions were over long ago. I’m sure they will make an exception.
You are exceptional, dear.”

  “I don’t think so,” I say.

  She runs on without listening to me. “There’s only one practice, Thursday evening…”

  “Did you say Thursday?”

  “Of course, Thursday. Thursday is choir night in Canada.” She smiles at her own little joke.

  “I can’t go on Ted-day”

  “Pardon, dear?”

  “I’m busy on Thursdays. I have important responsibilities on Thursdays. I never go out on Thursdays.”

  The nursery lady purses her lips in a line. “We’ll see.”

  I turn back to Jimmy who’s sitting on the floor and tug on his arms. “We’ll see. We’ll saw. We’ll see. We’ll saw.”

  Jimmy starts to giggle and I join in. The notion of me going to choir on Thursday is just about the craziest thing I’ve heard, since the Thursday before Labor Day.

  Aunt Jean asked me to come home directly after school. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200. She has to run up to Bloor Street to the bank. She has an appointment with the bank manager.

  I don’t mind. Mom is working an extra shift and there’s no one out on the street to play with because the days are getting so short now.

  I’m supposed to watch Jimmy while Aunt Jean is gone. Sometimes that’s very hard to do, depending on whether he’s having a good day or a bad day. When I come in the front door, I can tell it’s been a so-so day. Aunt Jean has managed to do some things like the laundry and the dishes. The potatoes aren’t peeled. So, I help. I sit at the kitchen table with a pot of water filled with muddy potatoes from the garden. I select a paring knife that I test with my thumb. Aunt Jean keeps her knives very sharp, because you are more likely to cut yourself with a dull knife than a sharp one.

  Jimmy swipes at me, wanting the knife.

  “No, Jimmy.” I try to distract him with a rag doll.

  He lunges at me again. He’s bigger than me. Two times as big as me, but I’m quick and wiry.

  I put the potatoes and the knife on the counter, well back. Together, Jimmy and I cover the table with newspaper. I carve a star in one of the potatoes and dilute a bit of food coloring in water and pour it in a pie plate.

  Jimmy stamps the star all over the paper, letting me finally get at the potato peeling.

  “Stay on the paper, Jimmy. You’re making a mess.”

  I hum a tune and Jimmy stops to listen. This is New-Jimmy behavior. I mean, he liked my singing before, but it never captivated him like it does now. It really didn’t.

  I won’t tell my mom that I’m watching Jimmy for Aunt Jean. Aunt Jean is paid to watch me, not me to watch Jimmy. Since the troubles, I know my mom has paid Aunt Jean more wages. Half again what she used to pay. It’s expensive to take the streetcar downtown to see the doctors at Sick Children’s Hospital. The doctors who looked at Jimmy are all specialists. They think he has terrible headaches but because he can’t talk, they can’t tell for sure. They poked and prodded and X-rayed Jimmy’s poor little brain, but other than that, Aunt Jean says they don’t seem to know what to do.

  Except Dr. Phillips. He has a plan. He thinks there is pressure on Jimmy’s brain. Jimmy has a bruise on the brain and Dr. Phillips thinks he could relieve it by drilling a hole in Jimmy’s head and sucking out the blood like a vampire.

  I’ve noticed something about troubles. When Jimmy first “fell off the swing” and he was lying in a coma, his house was filled with ham and scalloped potatoes. There were Empire cookies and date squares. Cold roast beef and coleslaw. There was so much food that it spilled over into our side of the semi-detached house, because my mom has a refrigerator that my grandfather bought before he died. Aunt Jean is still using an old-fashioned icebox and it’s not that easy to get ice anymore. The food lasted for two weeks. I mean, the delivery of the food, and then it stopped. Just like that. It didn’t dwindle down to one canasta lady bringing one thing, and another coming forward a few days later. I mean, it just stalled out at the two-week mark, like two weeks was sufficient time for us to get used to the new Jimmy.

  Well, it wasn’t.

  I heard my mom and Aunt Jean talking over their teacups while I was supposed to be memorizing my spelling list. An operation for Jimmy will be very expensive. Aunt Jean will have to mortgage the house. She’s gone up to Bloor Street to sign the papers and the scent of Chanel No. 5 that she dabbed behind her ears to impress the bank manager remains in the house.

  I’m not stupid. If you mortgage a house, you get money from the Bank, but you have to pay it back. If you don’t pay it back, you can lose your home and be on the street with your suitcases. Aunt Jean is always reminding us what it was like in the Great Depression. The war didn’t hold a candle to the Great Depression, except that Bertie died. And Aunt Jean has had to sell so many of her grandmother’s things and her wedding gifts. You might think my mom and I are fairly well set in comparison, because my grandpa left us his house with all the stuff in it, including a piano. But we’re not. There are expenses, real expenses for heating oil and food. We stopped my piano lessons shortly after Grandpa died. Like Aunt Jean, we just get by now.

  Jimmy likes show tunes. And big band tunes. He’s partial to Glen Miller. I turn the radio up when he’s on, but even so, it’s not as calming for Jimmy as my voice singing Glen Miller. I hand Jimmy a wooden spoon. He beats the table and keeps pretty good time. I sing into a whisk. We make such a racket that we don’t hear Aunt Jean come in. She’s been standing watching us for some time, I think. Me singing and Jimmy beating on the drum.

  Aunt Jean’s face is pale. Bits of hair, gray and brown, straggle out of her bun. She’s twisting her hands like Jimmy does when he’s agitated.

  “Mercy, Aunt Jean, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Sit down.” I push a kitchen chair toward her. I run some tap water and hand her a glass.

  I’m afraid to ask the question, but I need to know. “Did the bank manager say no? Can’t you get a mortgage?”

  Aunt Jean takes a tiny sip and closes her eyes. The lids are fluttering. It’s going to be a long one.

  “Aunt Jean. Tell me.” I try to sound bossy. “Now.”

  “There’s already a mortgage.”

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  “Neither did I. Apparently, Ted holds a mortgage. The bank did a search at the Registry Office and there’s already a mortgage in Ted’s name. The bank won’t give me any money.”

  “But this is your house!”

  “Three years before my Jake died, he needed money and borrowed some from Ted. Ted registered a mortgage.”

  “And Jake never told you?”

  “Never. I haven’t paid back a red cent to Ted. He never asked me to.”

  I take the potatoes to the sink and dump them in. I wash all the garden dirt down the drain. I’m buying time.

  I turn around and face Aunt Jean. “It’s simple. Tell him to forget the loan. Tell him to make you a gift.”

  Aunt Jean straightens her shoulders. “I already did. Ted has another solution. He wants to move out of his apartment and into your room upstairs. I called him from the bank.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Ted says I can’t afford to pay him back so the house is as good as his.”

  Jimmy gives the wooden spoon a mighty swack. The handle splinters and breaks in his hand.

  Jimmy snorts and wails. I want to wail, too, but I’m far too grown up.

  Aunt Jean is very determined to get to St. James Cathedral early, well before the 11:00 service begins. She needs to pray. She needs to pray very badly.

  I let Jimmy run outside on the lawn. The church is magnificent with tall trees reaching up to heaven. Some of the shrubbery is red, like the burning bush in the Bible. There’s a carpet of yellow maple leaves for Jimmy to slide on. I chase him, he chases me. Jimmy’s cheeks are pink like crisp McIntosh apples.

  There are strangers hanging about. Men, grizzled and sleepy, smelling of drink. One of them is raving about the war. It’s like the fellow knew Bertie, but of c
ourse, that’s impossible. He’s talking about war heroes and all the medals they would have got if only they weren’t shot down in flames. Listening to him, you can almost imagine Bertie’s plane exploding and raining fire over the English Channel until he just sizzled right out.

  I stand between the man and Jimmy protecting him. If Aunt Jean were here, she’d yank Jimmy away. Aunt Jean is a Temperance Leaguer and can’t abide drink. Before Jimmy “fell off the swing,” she used to march to keep our neighborhood closed to taverns. It’s a source of great pride to her that our neighborhood is still dry.

  Did I mention Jake, Jimmy’s dad, died from drink? He wasn’t a mean drunk, but he couldn’t keep a job, not even during the war when able men dwindled down to nothing, which is why he needed to work for himself. Aunt Jean said it was God’s will that her oldest son, Bertie, got her husband’s feet instead of her own. Jimmy got his mother’s flat feet too, but never mind, if there was a war tomorrow, they’d never take Jimmy, feet or no feet. Jimmy is far too addle-brained.

  The soldier is telling Jimmy about how the church property is really a cemetery. Underneath the green sod are masses of bones from a cholera epidemic. Bones of children and old people, mothers and fathers, just shoveled into a mass grave like the Jews and the Poles and the gypsies were shoveled into pits in Europe.

  “Come on, Jimmy.” But Jimmy won’t leave. Finally the man takes Jimmy’s hand and walks him to the church steps. The church bells are ringing now, and Jimmy is anxious to get inside. He tugs the man up the steps.

  “Sorry, son,” he says. “I have renounced the Lord. I’ll not enter his house after everything I’ve seen.”

  Jimmy takes off on his own and runs into the church.

  “Do you live in the streets?” I ask. The man looks dirty and poor, but he talks sensibly, like a teacher.

  “I’m a citizen of the world. I live where I can.”

  I give him an apple I’d been saving for Jimmy. The man palms the apple like I’ve given him the keys to Uncle Ted’s car.