Magnetism Page 14

Thursday the next week I prepare for the EEG that Dr Finegold set up. I’ve got the day off and my appointment is at ten. I re-read the instruction sheet in with the appointment letter. Seems the only thing I have to do is make sure my hair is clean; there must be no gel or hairspray residue. I decide that this means I should avoid conditioner on my hair because that can be pretty gloopy, and, even though I’ve finally found a product that prevents frizz in even the highest-humidity conditions, I mustn’t use my new straightening gel.

  I arrive five minutes early at the outpatient facility and report to reception. They are running an hour behind. The receptionist suggests I get a coffee or something and come back later. She does not mention my Ronald McDonald hair.

  Fifty minutes later I return to the waiting room and the technician who will be doing my test is irritated. I start to explain that I was told to go away and come back in an hour and therefore I’m right on time now, but she’s not listening. Her high heels clip clip clip away along the corridor in front of me and I follow.

  Ms Technician’s hair is short and spiky. She’s wearing big bright red earrings. I wonder for a moment if she’s a Christian. Do they allow hair and earrings like that?

  ‘You can get yourself ready there. There’s a locker for your purse.’

  ‘Do I get undressed?’

  ‘The electrodes go on your scalp.’

  ‘So, I don’t need to get undressed?’

  ‘Keep your clothes on. Go ahead and put your purse in the locker, and come and take a seat. She indicates what looks like a dentist’s or optician’s chair – high and mechanical, a hospital throne. She begins to pick through my hair and then takes a tray with some wires and begins to apply them to my head. They’re surface electrodes, she explains. This is a non-invasive procedure. All I need to do is let her do her job.

  I am transfixed by her earrings and wonder where she got them and how much they weigh. Her earlobes are stretched, but perhaps it’s not these cheap earrings that caused it. Maybe she’s worn heavy earrings since she was a kid.

  ‘I washed my hair like the sheet said. I’m glad to get this date so fast. I don’t think I have epilepsy or anything. The doctor is investigating migraine, but I’ve had that for years. I think he’s just, you know, being sensible.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ I feel her poky fingers separating out strands of my thick frizzy hair. The tray is emptying fast. ‘I wonder what it looks like,’ I say. ‘It must be an interesting job you do, meeting people all day, helping people, you know. Nice, I guess.’

  ‘It’ll be over before you know it.’

  Now she plugs the ends of the wires into a box thing and puts a strap across my middle. ‘I’m adjusting this to a reclining position,’ she says, and the chair buzzes into action and stretches out until my legs are raised and my head lowered to nearly horizontal. Once this is done, she retreats to the other end of the room. ‘I need you to just relax and be quiet. You can shut your eyes for a while just while I get set up. I will ask you to open them in a bit, and then shut them again. Then you need to open them again and look directly ahead – you’ll see some flashes of light from above you. This is nothing to worry about. It’s all part of the test. It’s very unlikely that you’ll have a seizure of any kind, but, if you do, don’t worry. Are you okay there?’ She says all this in the same flat tone, without any breaks.

  I note that this is the first time she’s actually inviting a response. I say I guess so.

  She dims the lights. I shut my eyes. I try to think happy thoughts, giving my brain the chance to demonstrate how relaxed it can be. I think about Nathan and what happened, and how sweet he was when Chip and I split. When things are happening it’s too easy to get caught up in events. That thing about time healing things is true, but the other thing about time is that it’s wholly dependent upon what’s going on. It seems to slow down and speed up.

  Then her voice interrupts my thoughts. I find myself back on this bed, in this room and an object again.

  ‘Open your eyes, please. Keep still.’

  The ceiling looks like it’s false. Tiles inserted in some scaffold construction. The real ceiling is beyond that, and in between there will be the air-conditioning ducts, insulation, all the wiring this kind of building needs. I wonder how many sockets there are in this room alone. Without moving my head or eyes I do that thing where you try to remember what’s around you even though you can’t see it. There’s the computer she’s looking at; there was a sink, no electrics there. There’s the machine that’s measuring my brain waves, watching me watching nothing and thinking about everything.

  ‘Okay,’ she says, ‘you can shut your eyes again now.’ Then she asks me to breathe deeply for a couple of minutes, which makes me feel dizzy.

  ‘Breathe normal now,’ she says. After another few silent minutes, she says I should open my eyes again and look straight ahead. There are a series of fast flashing lights like strobe lights.

  When she says, ‘Good,’ I wonder what she’s seen: something or nothing. Then the lights finish and I’m allowed to shut my eyes again. For a while the pow pow pow of the lights remain in my eyes, the negative on my eyeballs, the phantom picture of the light – and finally the image fades and she tells me it’s over and we’re done.

  I can go home. The doctor will get the results, she is not able to tell me anything, except that to the best of her knowledge the test was performed adequately.

  She waits while I collect my bag and she strides in front of me down to the main doors. She dismisses me by telling me to have a nice day without even bothering to look at me. I go home and take a bath. I wash my hair properly and use a whole bottle of conditioner and handfuls of gloop to get it right again.

  I must take some control in my life. I want to get myself back.

  I phone Mom. There’s no reply.

  I have to be true to myself and so I must make things plain with Nathan. I feel that if I don’t I’ll disappear. I love spending time with Nathan because I like him. Nathan makes me feel hopeful, less serious, happier, but it’s a ridiculous idea. We have no future. It’s inevitable that we’ll break up.

  I tell myself that I’m worried he’s become too attached. The longer we are together, the more heartbroken he will be in the end. But, truthfully, it’s me who is too attached. I’m scared. If it’s going to happen, I’d rather jettison the relationship now.

  Fifteen minutes later I’m dressed and driving to see him at his workplace. We met there; we can finish there. I don’t want any misunderstandings if I have to call into the drugstore for any reason in the future.

  He’s in his office and I shut the door behind me.

  ‘We can’t go on like this.’

  He looks genuinely puzzled.

  ‘It won’t work.’

  ‘What are you talking about. Are you okay? Have you got your period again?’

  ‘Wrong question, buster. Are you monitoring my cycle?’

  ‘No, come on, relax. Sit down.’

  ‘I’ve been for the EEG.’

  He tells me to wait for a minute. He goes out and comes back with two cans of 7 Up. ‘Are you okay?’

  The bubbles fizz in my mouth. He’s got the drink straight from the fridge and it is delicious. He always knows what will feel good. He is waiting for me to collect my thoughts but my mind wanders further. He’s so sensitive and considerate, I’ve never had a doubt that he’d be dynamite in bed if only he tried it out. ‘So, do you want to sleep with me?’ I say. ‘Or not?’

  He takes a large gulp from his can – too much. Some of it dribbles down out of his mouth.

  ‘Well, do you?’

  ‘Gee, you do like to pin things down, don’t you? Did they say something was wrong with your brain?’

  I go right over and kiss him. He tastes as delicious as I’ve suspected. Now his tongue is hot in my mouth and his hands are sure enough doing all the right things. He wriggles out from under me, locks the door and comes back. His desk chair has no arms and we do it right there i
n his office in the drugstore with the sound of ‘Clean up aisle seven … Could Joe help out on checkout C … ’All that beeping and bleeping and nothing stops us. Finally I hear nothing and I am exploding. My head is going blam blam blam and it’s actual beautiful fireworks. ‘This is great,’ I whisper, opening my eyes to see that he’s kind of not with me and looks like someone else. He’s nearly there too.

  Afterwards all that tension is gone and we clean up, dress, and try to finish our sodas as if nothing has happened.

  He finally says with a sigh. ‘I’m worried you’re not on the pill.’

  ‘I can’t get pregnant.’

  ‘Gee,’ he says. ‘Oh.’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘Was the test okay?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably. It’s just headaches.’

  ‘I did kind of want it.’

  ‘It was good. It was fine. I knew we’d be good together.’

  We both smile at this, and clink our nearly empty cans.

  He is a good guy, with way more principles than me. I can’t tell him that he’s at the age when things happen that really shouldn’t have consequences. And that I am at the point when things must have consequences, which is exactly why this is where any idea of ‘us’ must end. My marriage failed and I’ve been feeling bad, lonely, desperate and unwanted. It’s not a good time to make a choice involving someone else. ‘I love being with you but we won’t do that again. It’s not right,’ I say.

  He nods slowly. ‘We can be friends.’

  When I finally get hold of Mom to catch up with her I ask her where the hell has she been. ‘You’ve been gone two weeks. You are so inconsiderate.’

  ‘I went with the flow and stayed. All those lights, all the colour. Vegas is great. So, did you worry?’

  ‘No. And don’t tell me about lights. I had a test. The doctor thought I might have epilepsy.’

  ‘You went in with a migraine and got epilepsy?’

  Then I tell her that it turned out Nathan was a Christian. ‘We’re just going to be friends.’

  ‘How do you find them?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Mom, you belong to a church.’

  ‘I’m a Presbyterian. There’s no funny stuff going on. Nothing out of control. You can’t be friends, you know. There’s a natural law that says that men and women cannot be friends. In fact, some men can’t even be friends with other men. Your father — ’

  I interrupt. ‘Well, we did sleep together,’ is what I say next, and then explain that Nathan and I agreed we won’t ever have sex again. ‘We both wanted to end on a high.’

  ‘Maybe you’re terrible in bed. I’m sure there’s a book you can buy — ’

  ‘No, Mom, we can have sex with other people, just not with each other. Well, I can. I guess he can’t.’

  ‘You’ll always have the memories, I suppose.’ She sounds wistful as she says this, but not for long, because she goes on to tell me that I must watch out, that I’ll be wearing a headscarf by next week. ‘He’ll buy you one for a gift. Then a bible. Evangelism by seduction. I’m sure I read about it somewhere. Anyhow, I’ve got to go, I can’t sit around forever, I’ve got things to do.’ And she hangs up straight away, before I can point out that I’m a grown woman capable of making my own decisions.

  I’ve decided I’m going to apply for another job. If Chip is staying in this city, then I’m not. I’m going to move on.

  1988

  Fireflies

  There’s a pause in the conversation. Whenever this happens, that aching hole-in-my-middle feeling seeps back.

  ‘I know exactly how you feel,’ Mom says. ‘When Dad left — ’

  ‘Dad didn’t leave you,’ I interrupt, the sad feeling replaced with frustration. ‘He died. Because of what happened, he died. Died is not the same as left.’

  ‘I don’t think you can get more left than dead,’ she says. ‘He’s not coming back. Whereas you might find — ’

  ‘This is not helping.’

  ‘Do you want him to?’ Before I can even consider my answer, she says, ‘Let’s have another glass.’ Even though we are in Phoenix, and at her home, I am doing the pouring and this is the second bottle.

  She met me at the bus station this afternoon. I got off the bus grungy and stiff-legged from the overnight confinement and swearing that I’d never travel by bus again. She gave a wave and a sturdy, brave smile, and at this I felt relieved to see her – perhaps she could be on my side without being against everyone else as well, as I’d hoped – but before we were even in the car she clutched my hand and said, ‘I’m telling you, I never liked him. I don’t know what you were doing with a guy like that in the first place,’ and within ten minutes I was wondering if the idea of the visit was misguided.

  Now she says, ‘I know you think you won’t ever be okay again, but you will.’ She scoots her rear close to the edge of the sofa and swills the white wine around in the glass. ‘It’s just a matter of time. People get used to all kinds of things, if they have to. Life doesn’t turn out as you expect it sometimes, but you’re like me – someone who overcomes problems. It’s not where you start, it’s where you end up. This won’t get you down. So, do you want to watch the telethon?’

  ‘He didn’t say it was definitely over. He just wants some space. He’s got his new place.’

  ‘Space! One word that means it’s over,’ Mom says. ‘If you’d only admit it, you didn’t even like him, honey.’ She turns on the TV. Jerry Lewis is looking ropey and slightly confused. Dolly Parton is about to sing. Then she does. She sings a full-throttle depression-making song. I don’t want to hear about any babies, or their baby sighs.

  ‘Turn this off, Mom, please.’

  She mutes the sound on the TV.

  ‘Okay,’ I say, ‘perhaps that’s true, but I didn’t want him to leave. I wanted to be the one who left. I feel abandoned. I’ve been abandoned.’

  ‘Don’t be melodramatic. It doesn’t suit anyone, least of all you.’

  You can talk, I think.

  When I tell her that I’m tired and want to sleep, she takes me down the hall, and we take our drinks along. I have never lived in this house, but she’s made sure that I have a room here. Dad never lived here either, but I am pleased to discover as we pass her room that it is the same as I remembered from their earlier home. It’s a mess but she’s not gone all fluffy-pink-and-white furniture now that she’s a woman alone, which is what I half expected.

  ‘Do you still miss Dad?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she says.

  ‘I miss him.’

  ‘I expect you would. He always loved you. He really, really wanted you, you know.’

  ‘And you.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she says again, which riles me. She never appreciated him and he put up with a lot. Even his death was a matter of her selfishness. She’d gone off for two days, no note, nothing. He’d been frantic and phoned me several times to ask if I’d heard from her. Did I know where she was, why she’d gone?

  She said that when she came home and pulled up in the driveway he was on the roof; apparently he was fixing the aerial. She’d been complaining about the reception for months. She said that, when she got out of the car and called to him, he waved an excited greeting with his free arm. I think that in his glee at seeing her he lost his balance and couldn’t hang on. ‘He was so happy,’ was what she said at the time, that and, ‘I was so surprised to see him on the roof like a young man, like a red-blooded guy who could fix something. I never expected him to get up there himself.’

  It was a long fall and he crashed and bounced on the roof a bit before he rolled off and finally hit the ground. He sustained a fractured pelvis, numerous broken bones and a bad head injury. He ended up in a coma and on a ventilator. After a week, we turned him off. Well, not exactly. Mom and I stood there while someone else removed the ventilator and the two of us watched him make small noises over the course of two hours until he finally went quiet and still and when we called the nurse she said he’d gone
.

  Mom will relate to anyone now that we agreed to what the doctors advised, and implies that she was reluctant, but it’s not true. There was some concern over the insurance and she argued with Uncle Pete, Dad’s brother, on the phone. Pete wanted us to pay whatever, or at least wait until he got to the hospital, but when she got off the phone Mom announced that she had decided. She said, ‘We can’t play God. Even with Blue Shield, medicine can’t go on forever. We’ve got to turn him off and let him go.’

  I know there wasn’t really hope of reasonable recovery. If he’d have woken up he’d have been paralysed, and chances are very badly brain-damaged too. Yet the doctors were remarkably silent about what we should do. When Uncle Pete arrived – too late – he was beside himself upset, and kept clinging to Mom, and hugging me, even though we were virtual strangers.

  Uncle Jack offered to do the eulogy. Unlike Pete, Uncle Jack isn’t related to us at all. He popped up in our life periodically as he’d been Dad’s best friend since they were at college together, and he was also his lawyer. He was okay. He was always nice to me, but there was always something missing with Jack – maybe because he never married. Mom says marriage knocks the edges off of a person and Jack was like a kid in lots of ways: selfish and self-centred. When he was around he always demanded Dad’s complete attention. I think Mom was jealous of him, and Jack was jealous of her.

  Anyway, at the end of the visit Mom got Uncle Pete to tell Jack that he wasn’t to say anything. I overheard that conversation, but not the one Pete had with Jack. The fallout was loud and everyone who was still around heard it. Jack got angry and he shouted at Mom before he stormed out and back to Chicago. Pete stepped into the breach with the eulogy, which was brief and inadequate. Jack would have done a better job, because Dad and Pete never saw each other and Jack and Dad were close.

  It’s only a blurry memory now, but I remember feeling that it wasn’t fair, it was a disappointment, and that what Pete said didn’t seem to be about Dad.

  We’re at ‘my’ room now and Mom sits down on one of the twin beds. ‘Do you want me to sleep in here with you, honey?’