Magnetism Read online

  The food is ready when I get back. When we sit down to eat, Mom explains that Philip is into something called ‘foraging’. He picked the mushrooms himself; he’s very experienced at finding food. I say, ‘I’m surprised you found so many, and in May. Here in Phoenix, in May. You must be very talented, or a magician.’

  The same headache from earlier presses forward on me again. I don’t know how to cope with it, nor with two other things: I am sitting opposite a half-naked old man for a meal in my mother’s house and he obviously thinks he is the host. His brown nipples look obscene. I feel simultaneously disgusted at the sight of his sagging skin on his skinny, hairy chest, and disappointed with myself for feeling that I mustn’t mention anything about it. I want to ask him to go and find some clothes.

  I just can’t believe my mother is putting up with this. I down a glass of wine.

  When he lifts the casserole lid and says, ‘Help yourself, there’s plenty,’ I see that he’s cooked a staggering amount for only three people. The smell makes me gag. Where would he have found the mushrooms? Are they poisonous? At the same time as recognising this is an irrational thought, I can’t stop thinking that it’s only me standing between him and my mother’s life, house, and money. Why wouldn’t he poison me?

  Beside me, Mom serves herself a large portion. I wonder, from the look of her, how much she’s been eating lately. A person would have to be starving to eat this. But until they’re married there’d be no point in poisoning her. She’s safe. Today it’s only me he intends to kill.

  Philip also piles his plate high and starts shovelling the food in, leaving his mouth open as he chomps and slurps loudly. I watch bits of food drip from his mouth on to his beard. ‘Go ahead and dig in,’ he says when he spots me watching him. ‘Don’t hold back.’

  ‘I thought mushrooms could be dangerous if they’re the wrong sort.’ Just to be polite, I ladle a small spoonful on to my plate and I refill my glass.

  ‘I know what I’m looking for,’ he says. He talks with his mouth full.

  ‘I trust the supermarket for my mushrooms.’

  ‘Yes. We’ve got Safeway — ’

  He interrupts Mom. ‘Unless labelled organic it can’t be trusted, and can you even trust what is supposed to be organic when there’s money to be made in it? I don’t think so. You know, I’m surprised at you. Your mother here said you were a smart woman. But with everything you’ve said so far, the jury is out on that one. Me, I’m not so sure.’ At the very end when he says he’s not sure, he looks up at me with those small feral eyes – a direct challenge.

  Mom says. ‘Oh, why don’t you two just lay off each other? I’m going to fetch dessert.’ As she clears the table she doesn’t comment on the fact that I haven’t even tasted his mushroom stroganoff. I ate the rice and the salad but his creation still sits on my plate, like a fat cowpat – from a thin cow with a severe gut disease. She piles up the dishes so that my plate with all the forks is on top.

  As soon as she leaves the room I say, ‘I’m a woman who likes to operate my free choice as an American to shop at my local supermarket.’

  ‘Are you aware of how hostile you are?’

  ‘I am hostile because of what you’ve done to my mom. My mother is not herself. She’s a shadow of herself. She’s weak, isolated and timid. Not herself at all. It’s obvious that all this is your doing. That’s why I’m here. I’m here to protect her, and I will protect her.’

  He laughs. ‘She’s improved. She needed to lose weight. Any dog or cat owner knows that you have to feed an animal properly in order to keep its weight under control to ensure it lives a long time. People are no different. Before we hooked up, your mother was drinking too much, eating junk, and wasting her time doing meaningless things. She told me that since your father died she was lonely and bored. She is now on a healthy diet and a regime of appropriate supplements … Believe me, she’s not bored, she’s a very satisfied woman, and her mind is active without being unregulated.’

  ‘Unregulated?’ I say. ‘My mother is not anyone’s pet.’

  ‘You are deliberately misconstruing my words. The fact is, people become what they focus on. We’ve been working on a mind exercise programme to visualise health and wealth. The goal is prosperity in every aspect of our lives.’

  ‘Sounds like a whole bunch of complete crapola.’

  ‘Well, it’s made a huge difference to her outlook, and you shouldn’t dismiss the idea. My initial and abiding impression is that you have the bloated look of a wheat addict. I’m sure that’s the root of all this unhealthy anger. You are unbalanced. Emotionally and mentally. And let’s not start with your issues with alcohol.’ He pauses. ‘It’s normal to fear change, but your attitude is infantile and fuelled by unnecessary chemical surges. I could help if you’d let me. If you stopped being so defensive.’

  ‘“Initial”. “Abiding”. Huh? For your information, I don’t fear change. I relish change. I love change. I adore change. I invite change to step in and change away. But not for the worse. Just tell me this: what’s happened to all her friends?’ I pour another glass. ‘Tell me that. It’s classic abuse. You’re isolating her. You don’t even want her talking to me. Her daughter.’

  He says that people move on, and that I’m not a kid. When I hear Mom returning from the kitchen all I can do is to quickly suggest that he should move right along too, right out of my mother’s life, the sooner the better.

  Mom puts three bowls of what looks like some sort of yellow oatmeal on to the table. She explains that Philip has made a grain pudding for dessert and I say I’ll have to pass, I couldn’t eat another mouthful, which is true.

  She takes a couple of spoonfuls. ‘It is rather bitter and gritty,’ she says.

  ‘The problem is you’ve still got a taste for refined sugars. Try to experience the true flavour within the food. You’ll appreciate the fibre tomorrow.’

  ‘Leave it, Mom. Have some Metamucil if you need fibre. You don’t have to eat pig swill like that.’

  He glares at me. She looks at me, then him and compromises by taking another half-spoonful before she says she’s full. Then she offers to get us some peppermint tea. I ask if they’ve done away with coffee as well.

  ‘No, no, honey. Of course you can have coffee. There’s some in the cabinet.’

  ‘If you can’t do without your fix,’ he says.

  Once she’s out of the room I ask him, ‘How long have you been here? Where did you come from? You don’t fool me. The question is, how on earth did you manage to fool her? Because my mother is no fool.’

  ‘You’re really having problems with this, aren’t you? You’ve clearly got unresolved attachment issues. You’re probably loveless as well as childless and I’d guess you’re just very, very jealous.’

  ‘You don’t know squat about me. But I’ve got your number. Let’s cut to the chase. How much do you want? To leave. How much? What would it take?’

  He fakes surprise and shakes his head. ‘I don’t know why you can’t be happy for us,’ he says as Mom comes back in with the drinks, and he turns to her. ‘Your daughter was just trying to bribe me or something, to get lost. To leave you.’

  I laugh as convincingly as possible and finish my glass of wine. ‘What a jokester. Ha ha. Very funny,’ I say. ‘Philip was just worried we’re not going to get along. I said any man my mom likes is fine by me. Actually, Mom, it’s great being here with you and I’m going to go ahead and extend my ticket. I’d love to get to know the area better again. What do you think?’

  ‘I think that would be just wonderful,’ she says.

  I ask her to tell me how they met. She tells me that it was on a flight from Vegas. ‘One of those skinny long planes, you know, the kind that you wonder if the back end might just crack off. And that was right where I was sitting. We hit a dust storm. Philip was next to me and he grabbed my hand; he was scared something awful.’

  ‘I was being nice. You looked frightened,’ he says.

  ‘No, it was de
finitely you. Well, the crew buckled themselves in. The whole back end of the plane was buffeted up and down, sideways, every which way. Philip kindly offered me some pills to take. I’d finished my drink and there was no way I’d get another, so I said I’d try them. Then we just got talking. It went from there.’

  ‘What pills did he give you?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, something mild,’ she says. ‘Innocuous. Nothing really.’

  ‘I’m a qualified herbal prescriber. I gave your mother a natural tranquilliser. Herbal. We’ve finally ironed out your mother’s moods.’

  ‘There was nothing wrong with my mom,’ I say.

  ‘Two of them makes me just terrific, honey.’

  ‘Philip is not a doctor, Mom.’

  ‘I’m state-certified.’

  ‘That’s a funny phrase. Like you’re crazy or something. Nuts, you know. Certified.’ I laugh loudly and am pleased when Mom joins in and that’s the point that I realise I am pretty smashed.

  Then she says, ‘You know, that was a hell of a trip. I’d won big. Real big. I was feeling on top of the world. I knew the plane would be okay. They make things to last. I wasn’t scared one bit. You know, I used to feel invincible.’ For a second she looks and sounds like Mom again, which makes me think maybe there is time for her to come to her senses, it’s not too late. But for some reason this thought makes me feel tearful rather than optimistic.

  ‘Yes. You were,’ I say.

  The bottle is now completely finished and we take our hot drinks through into the den. Just for the hell of it when she’s not looking I mouth, ‘Fuck you,’ to him, again, once, twice and three times, to make one hundred per cent fucking sure he gets the message.

  They go to their separate rooms at nine o’clock, telling me that Philip will be up early – he likes to watch the sunrise – but Mom is likely to sleep in.

  I’d hoped that Mom and I would finally be able to talk, but he says she’s always more on top of things when she gets adequate sleep. I don’t want her to stay up for my sake but I go to my room very disappointed that we can’t talk in private tonight.

  Philip has signed me in as a user on the PC. I check my emails. Then I check his; he hasn’t password-protected the password change screen. After that I take a look at his boring online activities history. He’s been looking at stuff about roadkill finds, some pseudo-psychology and science about nutrition, and ecology crap. The most boring thing I discover is that there’s a forum for mushroom-finders, and the most interesting thing I come across is about nudist sunbathing sites.

  As I get into bed, I notice that four or five boxes have been stored underneath it. I lock the door before I drag out the first box.

  Beneath carefully folded men’s clothing – mostly jeans and T-shirts – I find several photo albums. This, then, is the weasel’s past. There are dramatic landscapes, exotic places that I don’t recognise at all. There are few pictures of people but when I come across a run of pictures of him in the third album I realise he’s had that ugly beard for most of his adult life. There it is on a beach somewhere, next to a surfboard. Another in which he and his facial hair are hiking somewhere. He’s got proper footwear on in that picture, but he’s otherwise invariably topless, lean and tanned, wearing as few clothes as possible.

  In the third box, beneath plates and a thin box full of cheap cutlery, there are some legal papers. He’s divorced. This appears to be all the documentation from 1978 dissolving his 1964 Las Vegas marriage to a Marie Fortner. I’ve come across a number of pictures of women in his albums, from what might be that time period, but none to identify which of them might have been Marie. There’s no indication that they had any children, but likewise no indication that they didn’t. But, if they’d had children, surely he’d have some photographs of them.

  Then I am startled as I spot a spider scooting along in front of me, heading under the bed. It’s brown. It might be a brown recluse; they have that violin shape on the back. I stare into the under-bed gloom, wishing that I had a flashlight. It’s scurrying away so fast that it’s now completely disappeared. I quickly drag the bed away from the wall, trusting that this will stop it getting into bed with me and killing me in the night, before I can save my mother.

  Finally, I climb under the covers. Trying to calm down, I breathe slowly, and remind myself that I’ve had a lot to drink. All houses have spiders. Most of them are non-poisonous.

  I know I have to come up with a strategy more intelligent than my first plan just to stick it out. This has to be short and sharp. Maybe I could kidnap her?

  I hear a coyote yowling outside somewhere.

  I wish I’d discovered something horrible about Philip from his belongings. If he were a convicted serial killer I’m sure she’d get rid of him, but the worst thing I found out was that he’s had a bad beard for a long time, has been lots of places and was married for fourteen years and got divorced.

  Now I tell myself to try to see something good in this. No one is all bad, after all. For years Mom has wanted to lose weight. Finally, she has achieved her goal. Being thin is supposed to promote longevity; if he’s made her thin, why do I think it’s a bad thing?

  But this is wrong. No one has the right to cut my mother down to a smaller size, least of all a weasel like Philip. No one has, no one will. She’s always taken care of me and now it’s my turn to step up to the plate. I cannot let her down. I decide as I fall asleep that somehow I have to ensure she sees what’s happening with this guy, and rely upon her independence and strength of character to resolve the situation.

  I wake later than I’d planned and with a hangover. I feel desperate for coffee. In the hall I notice that, at some time since my last visit, my parents’ wedding photo has been replaced by a framed certificate of completion of a diploma in Nutrition Science from University of Nevada at Las Vegas University 1990.

  There’s no milk or creamer for my coffee, just some nut milk in the icebox. Even though it smells okay and I want my coffee, with this almond stuff in it, every sip reminds me of Philip. I find myself re-reading the same story in the newspaper, about what’s happening with the downtown area, when the patio doors open and he steps into the house, wearing only his skimpy grey undershorts. I maintain eye contact and ask if he wants me to fix some breakfast for him. I’d rather do the cooking than him.

  He tells me that he’s already had his morning energy smoothie. He offers to make me one if I want to try it. No, thanks, I say, I hate smoothies. Then I tell him that I’ve decided to run out and get some jelly doughnuts. He’s got to give me the car keys.

  On the drive to the market I consider that now I will have to actually return with doughnuts and probably actually eat one. I haven’t eaten a doughnut for years. The calorie count is astronomical. I think about when I was a kid and Dad, Mom and I used to go to the doughnut factory just out of town some Saturdays to watch them being made. The back wall of the shop was glass so that customers could see right into the factory. We’d watch the newly fried doughnuts get loaded on to the conveyor belt that took them to where they were injected with different fillings: some of them were going to become custard doughnuts, some jelly, some cream. Then the line would move into another area and they’d get their toppings. Icings, sprinkles, chocolate, some of them plain with holes. You could buy bags of doughnut holes there too.

  I wonder if Mom thinks about Dad at all any more. We avoid the topic of their marriage and we also rarely talk about him, or what happened to him at the end. I have wondered if she felt guilty, but have concluded that she’s rewritten it completely. Mom doesn’t like to think about anything that might be unpleasant. Well, no one does, but Mom really doesn’t.

  In the store I buy some croissants as well as one token doughnut. It’s a plain doughnut, a kind of compromise – it’s not going to be too bad for me – but the yeasty smell of it as the girl bags it at the checkout is very inviting. I ask for another one, to eat in the car on the drive back. I don’t go straight back to the house. I dri
ve beyond her neighbourhood. I park and the sun comes in through the windshield, warming the car nicely. The sky is huge and the earth beside the road is baked a beautiful orange. Scarred Oklahoma is a long way away. I eat the second doughnut slowly.

  The house is quiet on my return. Philip must have gone out, but I can see from the light that there’s a message on Mom’s answer machine. I wonder if he receives phone calls here now, too, and also if he’s dictated the current voicemail greeting. I play the message. It is from Susie, the daughter of Mom’s old friend Charleen. Charleen died ages ago, but I know Susie has always kept in touch – Mom is always telling me about Susie’s high-flying life. She’s a stewardess and now she’s saying she wants to visit on a stopover and she’s left her cell number.

  When I’ve taken the number down, I go and make Mom a strong cup of black coffee and take it upstairs and down the hall to her bedroom.

  ‘Hey, sleepyhead.’ I open the door. ‘Are you awake?’

  She hauls herself up the bed.

  ‘Want them open?’ I nod to the heavy drapes. ‘It’s dark in here.’

  ‘No. I can see you fine. Sit here.’ She pats the bed next to her and I sit down. I ask if she slept okay and she says she slept nearly enough.

  ‘I’ve got coffee.’ I manage to put the mug on the bedside table, squeezed between clutter, a couple of rings, a vial of pills, odd earrings, her watch, a small pile of books, two halfempty mugs of something, and a full glass of water.

  ‘I need a pee.’ She is naked, of course. Her breasts hang and, though thinner, her skinny backside still wobbles as she walks from the bed to her bathroom, past the unused running machine which now is the base for numerous piles of clothes. Some are freshly laundered and some still have labels on them; these will be eventually headed back to the store. Real shopping for Mom is like internet shopping for me. I fill up a basket from my wish list and then empty almost everything before checkout and completion, and Mom almost always buys and returns.