Magnetism Read online

  There are knick-knacks on every surface in her room. She gets the craziest stuff, buys cheap trash everywhere. Whenever I’ve asked why she’s wasting good money on garbage, she says it makes her smile, that I shouldn’t begrudge her this pleasure now that she can buy things she might want. Gift shops, souvenir shops, entrances to historic churches and museums – she’s always picking things up, and keeping them. A little doll, a pottery bell, a dusty lace handkerchief … bits of trash piled up on top of each other. Objects that meant something for the entirety of the two seconds that she held them before dropping them into a bag to bring home. Everything is thrown in a tumble. The rest of the house isn’t so bad. She knows it’s abnormal to live like this, so it’s confined to here. Her bedroom is where things accumulate. I assume some of this crap might be valuable because she’s told me that when she dies I must go through it and check everything before throwing things out.

  But perhaps she was just referring to the money. She got a bundle with the insurance after Dad died but, even before he died, whenever she could she would squirrel away wads of withdrawn cash in unworn shoes in her closets. Stacks of hundreds are wrapped in foil in the garage freezer, disguised as meat (‘if someone breaks in they’re never going to check out the contents of the freezer’), and odd hundred-dollar bills are hidden in the pages of books and magazines elsewhere in the house.

  It all seems to be inept preparation for something. It’s as if she expects some sort of disaster, and instead of stockpiling food, water and maybe guns, as a normal person might, she stores cash.

  For a moment I wonder if Philip is already depleting her stores, but I doubt she’s told him about this habit. It is our secret. And, Mom has never been one to put all her eggs in one basket. I don’t think the weasel would realise that yet.

  When she comes back she’s got a dingy housecoat on. She climbs back into bed. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Out. I guess he had some errands to run or something.’

  She makes no comment. Without looking she picks up a pill pot, drops out a pill and downs it with the water.

  ‘Want the coffee now?’

  She doesn’t reply. She throws herself back against the three pillows and I think maybe I should have let her sleep instead of waking her just because I want some time on our own together. But, instead of saying this, I plough on.

  ‘Susie phoned. There was a message. She wants to come over.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Mom says. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘You like Susie. You can’t neglect all your friends.’

  ‘I don’t neglect people.’

  ‘You’re neglecting me.’

  Now she grins. ‘No, I’m not, honey,’ she says. ‘Look, he’s okay,’ she adds. ‘I want you to get used to him.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about the asshole.’ I get up and pick up the phone from the bedside cabinet. ‘I’m calling Susie back.’

  ‘I don’t know … ’

  I press the buttons and the phone begins ringing at the other end. Mom takes a noisy sip from the mug. Mom always liked her coffee black and strong.

  Chicago is ahead of us, so it’s nearly twelve o’clock there, but Susie is home. She has this reassuring Midwestern way of speaking – monotone and flat and always the same pace – but, even so, I can tell she’s pleased to hear from us. That’s how I pitch it after saying who I am and why I’m phoning, not Mom, who is looking at me warily. It’s ‘us’ she’ll be coming to see. ‘Hey,’ I say. ‘Mom would love to see you, and me too. Old times and everything.’ We fix it up for two o’clock, when she’ll be flying in. She’ll get to the hotel, take a cab out here and we’ll go from there.

  When we get off the phone I tell Mom that Susie sounded great. ‘It’s an upbeat thing to do. We need things to look forward to.’

  ‘I don’t know how Philip will feel about this.’

  I don’t say that I can guess. What I say is that, if he loves her, then he’ll be pleased for her, surely? Then I say, ‘You’re not thinking of marrying this guy, are you? That would be a big mistake.’

  She doesn’t answer.

  Susie looks great. I hear the cab pull up and open the door to greet her. Momentarily I think that she’s been wholly exempt from ageing, until I realise that I’m thinking about her mother Charleen and my childhood memory of her before she got sick. Even so, Susie has taken care of herself. She’s probably ten years older than me but from here she looks ten years younger. She’s still in uniform.

  She turns to wave at the cab driver, presumably to let him know that she’s at the right place – she’s always been a friendly person – and then she walks in and gives Mom a long hug.

  Now that stewardesses are called ‘cabin crew’ they don’t have to look as glamorous as they used to. With compulsory retirement rising more than thirty years I guess this is inevitable, but Susie now still looks glam and like a Susie, not a wear-worn, careworn ‘Susan’. There’s none of that dried-up-skin-and-sagging-muscles look that I regularly search out on my face in the mirror and, unlike me, she looks like a person up for life, going places, doing things.

  When she releases Mom, she sniffs the stale air before she turns her attention to me. Perhaps she can smell Philip. She must be noticing the shabby carpet, which could have done with more than my half-hearted vacuuming efforts three hours ago, and the film of fine dust everywhere.

  Susie’s perfume is sophisticated, and delicious. Her Barbie-doll physique feels firm and contained beneath her clothes. She could easily make me feel inadequate but the warmth in her forthcoming smile and how she says how great it is to meet up makes that fleeting sensation disappear. She is one of those people, I realise, who just always puts others at ease.

  ‘Come right on in,’ Mom says, ‘the den is this way.’

  Then Philip suddenly appears, to spoil everything. He is topless, of course. He strides across and shakes Susie’s hand. ‘Hi,’ he says, ‘Welcome to our humble abode.’ Like he belongs here. Like it’s his.

  ‘Mom’s friend,’ I explain, before Susie can think it’s anything more.

  ‘Do I know you?’ Susie says. Once he’s released it, she puts the hand over her brow to shield her eyes and squints at him. ‘You look very familiar.’

  And, strangely, wonderfully, he just says that he’ll leave us gals to catch up. He explains he’s got to get back to the garage. He’s got an engineering project. He’s rigging up some contraption to stretch spines or something. I’ll have to make it clear he’s not to use it on Mom, but the possibility of him coming to a bad end and hanging himself upside down strapped to the metal frame he’s constructing makes me hopeful.

  Susie sits down in the armchair facing the window. The light streams in on her face. She says that the last time she saw me was when I was really still a kid, a teenager maybe, but she knew me earlier, when she was a teenager herself. She says, ‘You were just in grade school when you told me about a boy, Jimmy Fontaine. I even remember the name because of the look on your face as you said it. He carried your books from the bus every day. Like a Prince Charming. Do you remember?’ She and Mom wait for a response.

  And, though I haven’t thought about Jimmy Fontaine for very many years, I feel myself blush at the thought of him. I remember being excited and amazed that he’d chosen me, had asked me if he could carry my books.

  ‘Gee,’ I say. I’m about to explain that until she’d said his name I’d forgotten all about Jimmy and can’t imagine why she’d remember. But Mom interrupts my thoughts.

  ‘You know, that was real weird: Philip is usually so sociable. I know he’s busy but he loves to talk to people.’

  ‘That’s because he’s a complete know-it-all.’

  At this I sense Susie scrutinising us. ‘Funny things, families,’ she says.

  Mom says, ‘So, tell us what you’ve been up to.’

  ‘Mostly thinking about my plans for retirement. Once I stop being here, there and everywhere, I’m going to get myself a dog. They’re good company
. I always regret having had to put Mom’s dog down when she went, but once I was back at work I couldn’t keep up with her. She was so old, too, and I just couldn’t take care of her.’

  ‘I remember your dog.’ I am sad at the idea of Susie having to put that lovely Labrador down because she couldn’t keep it.

  ‘It was the kindest thing to do,’ Mom says very quickly. ‘Sometimes you have to do these things. For everyone’s sake. Hey,’ she says, ‘Susie, you look terrific. Have you had any work done?’

  I offer to make us coffee and leave the room.

  When I get back we arrange to go out for a meal at Grimaldi’s. It’s a place that one of Susie’s colleagues has recommended. She will meet us there later. Now she’ll head back to the hotel to freshen up.

  Only when she’s left do I ask Mom if we should find out if they do Philip-food. I’m pleased to see that Mom doesn’t seem to care. ‘He can phone and we’ll take it from there,’ she says, but I make the call, and relay to them both when Philip comes in from the garage that they can cater for any particular diet.

  He says, however, that he doesn’t want to go out. He’s reached a crucial point with his project so he’d prefer to stay in and, remarkably, he says he doesn’t mind if we go without him. Mom makes what I know to be a poor effort at encouraging him to come, but his mind is made up and it’s decided that we will go without him. She says she’s going to get changed.

  The idea of the weasel being left in the house going through things, maybe discovering her secret money bundles, is not appealing. But neither is the idea of any unnecessary time spent in his company. I’m not sure what I should think about this, but the decision has been made anyway. I go to get showered and changed too, and as I strip off I’m relieved to discover that my period has started; it means that within a day my clothes will start to properly fit again.

  When I’m ready and walking into the kitchen I overhear Philip telling Mom that he doesn’t like Susie, that it would be impossible to like a woman who has gone and got herself ‘bolt-ons’. He says perhaps Mom should cut her, and the past, loose and get herself some new friends so as not to drag the past into their present. ‘It’s finally time for you,’ he says, ‘for us. For me, too.’

  I decide not to add anything to the conversation. The best thing I can do is stay out of the way. Surely this kind of statement will help her realise what he’s trying to do? So instead I walk in, compliment her on her outfit and announce that I’m very sorry he’s not coming with us, because Susie is such a good friend to the family, it would have been nice to have him there too.

  They both know that I am lying.

  The restaurant is downtown. Mom orders a glass of pinot noir on arrival, and when the waitress comes for the order she chooses a fillet steak. It takes Susie and me longer to choose.

  Susie is animated and talks about her work and makes both of us laugh, and then she talks about her mother. I watch the two of them engage in memories and I feel like an observer. I envy their ease together. This is silly because I know that if anyone should be jealous in this situation it’s Susie, because my mother is still alive and here, laughing and good fun. But then I see that their friendship isn’t like that; it’s not like that kind of mother-daughter relationship at all. It’s as if, after Charleen went, Susie just slid into the vacated place.

  She asks about Uncle Pete, which surprises me, because Mom never, ever talks about him, and the way Susie says to Mom, ‘How’s Pete?’ implies that Mom might know and that Susie is more informed about my uncle than I am.

  Mom says, ‘I heard he’s still working. I think he’s all right. Got a family. I imagine a weatherworn wife. Not the sort of life I’d have liked. Not really.’

  ‘Where does Uncle Pete live, Mom?’

  ‘Didn’t Richard chase him all the way to Oregon after you got married?’ Susie asks.

  ‘Something like that.’

  The whole situation here between them makes me feel even more left out and sad, so, rather than exploring the possibility of discovering something, I decide to change the subject and ask about Charleen. ‘How did you meet Susie’s mom, Mom?’

  But before she can answer, Susie jumps in gleefully. ‘I guess you might say that my mom sort of dated your dad before your mother turned up.’

  ‘Dad dated Charleen?’

  ‘For no more than a minute,’ Mom says. ‘Just long enough for her to figure out she wasn’t his type.’ Mom and Susie laugh loudly at this.

  ‘And you stayed friends with Charleen?’

  ‘No. They became friends,’ Susie says. ‘Comrades in the experience.’

  Mom says quietly, ‘It’s in the past.’

  Between the entrée and dessert, Mom says that she needs the ladies’ room. She leaves Susie and me waiting for the cheesecake we’ve all ordered. I watch Mom weave her way through the restaurant. Susie is hardly drinking; she and I are sharing a bottle of white, and I’ve had the lion’s share.

  ‘You know, it’s the funniest thing about your mom’s boyfriend,’ she says. ‘It’s suddenly come back to me where I thought I knew him from. There was this guy who used to hit on flight attendants. He’d done it for years. The airline I was working with at the time didn’t seem to worry about that, you know, they expect us to put up with idiots hitting on us all the time, but when he turned his attention to other women, to women passengers travelling alone … well, he got banned from flights with us and they circulated a picture of him. Ridiculous.’ She shakes her head. ‘I’m a hundred per cent sure it wasn’t him. But I’ve been thinking about why he looked so familiar all day. It was probably the beard. I’m pretty good with faces and, even though I’m getting older, I hate to not be able to figure that sort of thing out. I finally just remembered the picture. I didn’t want to say anything to your mom, though. It’s just silly. It can’t be him.’

  She confirms the airline for me. ‘A creep, huh?’ is all I say.

  My heart is thumping loudly as Mom returns from the restroom saying she’s not felt so full, or happy, for ages. The waitress serves the cheesecake and the portions are so large that none of us can clear our plates. We say goodbye in the lounge. I hope to see Susie again soon, is what I say. The two of them hug and I watch them, feeling detached.

  In the cab, I tell her. I leave out all Susie’s reservations about what she’d initially thought. I tell her Philip is preying on her and that it’s not the first time he’s done this sort of thing. That there will be incontrovertible proof, if we need it.

  ‘But I don’t travel with that airline. They’re cheap. No nuts. No cookies.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I say.

  ‘But why didn’t she tell me?’ Mom says.

  ‘Because she didn’t want to hurt you.’

  ‘And you?’ she says, and I cannot reply.

  Back at the house there is an almighty argument. Both Mom and Philip are loud. Mom is drunk enough not to hold back with the assumed revelations. I go to my room and leave them to it. I hear him deny everything, say that he will prove it’s not him, that he’ll sue ‘that artificial slut’ for slander. How could Mom believe such lies? That he’s sure it’s me who’s at the root of this. That we have an unhealthy relationship. That she’s stuck in the past. That she’s doomed to be lonely. That she is mentally ill and in denial. That it’s no wonder her husband jumped off a roof. That no one will ever really care for her the way he does and that she’ll know that one of these days. Then I hear him tell her she’s basically just a hypocritical fat lush who will die young from abuse of her body.

  There is a moment of silence and then, finally, she shouts that he’s got to get out. ‘Now!’ And, of course, no one could expect to make up after saying a woman is a fat lush.

  All this time I’ve been standing on the other side of my bedroom door ready to rush out and defend her should the fight get physical. It’s a relief that he’s pissed enough at her rejection to storm down the hall and call a cab when she tells him to go. He takes leave himself to wait fo
r it outside, abandoning his framed certificates and the boxes under the bed, and he doesn’t say goodbye.

  When he contacts us the next day I say, truthfully, that Mom does not want to speak to him. I explain that I’ll arrange storage for his things and send him an email about where he can collect them. I ask him for an email address and write it down. He says. ‘I thought your mother knew me,’ and I tell him that we’re changing the locks.

  1999

  The Mutt

  ‘Is it just me, or is everything really crap?’

  When I hear my lover Mikey’s voice, I realise that tough love appeals to me mainly because I’m just not tough enough for any other response lately. His depression is in a downward spiral. Compassion and empathy are only for the brave. ‘I’m hanging up if you say anything else depressing,’ I say. ‘I’ve got enough to think about. I’m at work.’

  There’s a long gap, then he says, ‘I guess maybe see you later, then?’

  Next to me Helen scrapes back her chair and leaves the room. We share an office and she’d be fetching us coffee around now anyway. She knows about Mikey’s depression but not much else. Then I screw it all up by telling him, on impulse, ‘I’ll wear that sexy outfit you bought me for my birthday.’

  I don’t know why I do it. My current bedtime reading, a gift from Mom, Women who Give, Give, Give Learning to Take, Take, Take, would not approve of such a statement.

  He sighs and says, ‘But honey, oh, God, I just feel like I’m drowning.’

  ‘Wrong answer,’ I say. I put down the phone.

  I have to unlock my computer to see what I was working on, because it’s set for a very quick timeout. This week my password is Thisjobis100%shit. No spaces – a very strong security rating. Security tensions generally run high this time of year. Tensions run high. Two weeks ago was the fourth anniversary. They began working on the memorial in January, and at the ceremony their relatives threw tributes over the glass wall. Even though the speech on the day was all about the planned memorial – about the future, not the past – really the area is just a construction site with a massive hole. A huge empty space.