The White Bicycle Page 12

  "Good night," Martin Phoenix calls from his bedroom. "At last sweet peace."

  Friday, August 22

  When I visit her today, Adelaide is still wearing her butterfly nightgown. Francine is wearing a blue and white pantsuit that is the color of my clock. After we eat supper, Adelaide pushes her plate away and asks if I'd like to see the garden.

  "Mais, maman, tu es en chemise de nuit!" says Francine.

  This time I know what Francine is saying: But, Mother, you are wearing your nightgown! Adelaide does not answer. She just gets up from the table.

  "Okay," I say, and follow her.

  We walk into the garden. I have already seen it but I don't mind seeing it a second time.

  "When I was a girl my father made me an elephant out of potatoes," Adelaide says. She has told me this before. "He glued potatoes together and that was my Christmas present. And I treasured it. After it went rotten, we put it on top of the frozen garden and then I had the space back on my dresser."

  We walk over to the stone bench.

  "There are little fish in the pond," says Adelaide. "You will see them if we sit quietly for a minute." We settle on the stone bench and wait. Soon, bright orange shapes dart to the surface.

  "The heron eats the big ones," she says.

  "What?" I ask.

  "Every so often, the heron comes and eats the bigger fish. Only the small ones escape him, but when they get big enough, they too are eaten."

  "That's terrible," I say.

  "It is what it is," she answers.

  Rain begins to fall, making dimples on the surface of the water, and the orange shapes disappear.

  "Swim, swim while you can," says Adelaide, "for tomorrow you may die."

  "That's terrible," I say.

  "It is what it is," she answers. She looks down at the water. "I like to get up in the middle of the night and play 'God Save the King' on the piano. It drives Francine crazy."

  "God Save the King?" I ask.

  "King George," she says. "A fine figure of a man. I took my students to see them both—King George VI and Queen Elizabeth—when they came to Canada in 1939. We went on the train, all the way to Regina. We stood on the corner of Victoria and Broad to view them as they drove by. My parents met us there—my father was driving the Essex 1928 at that time. When we got home, I had the children write down their favorite part of the trip. Most of them wrote about the royal couple, what they were wearing and all of that. One

  little fellow wrote: My best part was when the train was going through the tunnel and even though it was daytime the air was black all over."

  We go inside to her studio and the picture of clouds is still on the easel. I look at it carefully and the clouds seem quite safe.

  "Try some more," she says, and I do. I take a long look out the window and then I use the charcoal to shade and soften, until the clouds seem to stick right out of the paper. Adelaide plays Liszt on the record player. She falls asleep on the couch on top of the patchwork quilt and I notice a large brown stain on the front of her nightgown. I think it might be gravy but I'm not sure.

  After twenty-two minutes, Adelaide wakes up and pulls the patchwork quilt onto herself.

  "I remember where each of these squares came from," she says.

  "Oh," I answer. "You remember where each of the squares came from."

  "You bet I do," she says. "Like this creamy silk. Annie Arbor brought this cloth, surprised us all because we thought she hadn't the means. Skinny as a rail, and all them kids. From England she was, answered an ad to marry Simon Howler. Lived in a tar paper shack they did, nothing much to eat in winter except molasses bread and what the neighbors brought. All the ladies sitting around, gossiping, sewing bits of their lives onto this quilt for my trousseau, and Annie Arbor steps in with that old burlap sack wrapped around her shoulders and carrying a stretch of creamy silk. Well, everyone was happy for her. It wasn't until later, after the quilt was done and colder weather hit, that we knew what happened."

  "What happened?" I ask, shading in another cloud on the paper.

  "It was her wedding dress," Adelaide said. "They found the rest of it all torn up. The day they found Annie hanging in the barn, dead as a doornail, poor dear soul."

  "She killed herself?"

  "Poor dear soul. It was her only way out."

  I think of Stanley locked up in his room. How awful it would be to have only one way out.

  "Do you remember all the women who made this quilt?" I ask.

  "Every one of them. Martha Henry, who married the son of the richest man in town after being their servant for only six months. She was a mite stout on her wedding day, but no one thought any less of her. These scraps were left over from the dress she made her little daughter—pink tulle. Looked sweet on the child, that's for sure."

  "And this blue one?" I go over to her and point to a dark floral print that repeats itself along the border.

  "Well, this was one of my mother's. She had waited and waited for a store-bought Christmas dress, and when it finally came from the Eaton's catalogue, it was four sizes too big. She had to shorten it and take it in at the sides, and so there was lots of leftover material."

  I think about my journal, and how each entry is like a piece of cloth that has been sewed into place on a quilt.

  Adelaide gets up to examine the drawing on the easel. "Very good. You have been looking carefully," she says.

  "Yes," I say. "I have been trying to see better."

  "Being an artist takes more exercise than people think," she says. "To begin to draw is the first step. People these days have had enough of this crazy nonsense called contemporary art. In my day, three years of Art School meant architecture, perspective drawing, interior design, publicity, art history, the history of civilization, ceramics … it took seventy different disciplines to make the diploma, and that shows in the work."

  "You spent three years at Art School," I say.

  "Did I meet you in Art School?" she asks.

  "No." There is a silence. Luke Phoenix would fill it with a quotation, but I don't want to do that. "We met at the beach," I tell her.

  "Oh," she says. After a minute she goes on. "There were thirty of us in the first year, twenty in the second, and only ten in the third. From these ten, only three got the diploma. I was one of those three."

  "Did you go to Art School in Canada?" I ask.

  "No," she says. "In Nice. I went to Art School there, at the Ecole Nationale d'Art Décoratif. My husband, the bastard, was trying to keep me happy after we moved to Europe, so he arranged for this. But then he left us."

  "My father left my mother and me," I say.

  "Was he a bastard, too?" she asks.

  "I don't think so," I say. "They just wanted to be with different partners. He wants a woman named Sadie Richards who is tall and looks like Julia Roberts. She wants a man named Alan Phoenix who didn't actually hire me for the babysitting job this summer—but now he has. I don't know if he and my mother will get married, but if they do I will have two brothers. These two brothers could replace the brother who died before I was born and whose name did not get put on a gerbil. I hope I don't get Martin Phoenix as a brother before this summer is over because then I can't put personal care assistant on my resumé. I also hope that Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett are not eating each other."

  "Did we meet in Art School?" asks Adelaide. She is breathing heavily and I think she is trying to cough, but she does not.

  "No," I tell her. "At the beach."

  "When I was a girl my father made me an elephant out of potatoes," wheezes Adelaide. It's like her brain is stuck on this. "He glued potatoes together and that was my Christmas present. And I treasured it. After it went rotten, we put it on top of the frozen garden and then I had the space back on my dresser."

  When I get back to the villa, Luke Phoenix and Julian are sitting at the dining room table with my mother and Alan Phoenix. Julian holds out a notebook.

  "This is about a rare type of b
ats 'ere," he says. "I translated some things from French to English for you because of all of my materials being in French."

  "Thank you," I say, taking the notebook. The title is Bechstein's Bat.

  "Is Martin Phoenix asleep?" I ask.

  My mother nods and that means yes.

  "Julian and Luke are going to a wedding tomorrow," she asks. "Can you babysit?"

  "No," I say. "But I am available as a personal care assistant if Alan Phoenix needs me."

  "Taylor, why do you have to be so difficult?" she asks, but this is not a rational question and so I do not answer.

  "Thank you," says Alan Phoenix. "Your mother has a class and I have to hang the paintings for the show. It opens on Sunday."

  "Who is getting married?" I ask.

  "Julian's ex-boyfriend," says Luke Phoenix.

  "Oh," I say. There is a silence for one minute. "What class are you taking, Mom?"

  She looks at me and doesn't answer for a moment.

  "It's a cooking class," she says.

  Friday, August 29

  "I think Julian looked hot last weekend," Luke Phoenix says to me as I get ready to leave for Cassis on Friday. This is the third Friday that I have gone to visit Adelaide.

  "He wasn't wearing jeans," I answer, and Luke Phoenix laughs.

  "You can look hot in a suit," he says. "And Julian did."

  "Well, maybe," I say. "But he's really not my type even though I like his deep voice. And he is spoiled."

  "What?" asks Luke Phoenix.

  "He told me he was an only child, and that means he is spoiled," I say. "I'm not sure how he is spoiled because it's probably not polite to ask."

  "Spoiled?" Luke Phoenix repeats. "Where did you get that idea?"

  "It's what happens when people have no siblings," I say. "My kindergarten teacher thought I was spoiled, but she didn't know about my dead brother. If she had known about Ashton she would not have told my mother that I was spoiled."

  "Being spoiled means thinking only of yourself," says Luke Phoenix. "It can happen to anyone. Just because Julian's an only child, doesn't mean he's spoiled."

  "Oh," I say. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes," says Luke Phoenix. "Why—do you think Julian acts as if he thinks only of himself?"

  I deliberate. "Well … no," I say. "He translated that French text for me about bats. In that case he was thinking of me."

  "Right," says Luke Phoenix. "There you go." I'm not sure what he means in that last part but I don't worry about it.

  "Do you want to come to Cassis and meet my friend Adelaide?" I ask.

  "No thanks, I'm babysitting," he answers. "But it's okay. Julian's going to hang out with us."

  "It's called personal care," says Martin Phoenix with his Tango.

  "Okay, yeah," says Luke Phoenix. "You're right, Martin."

  "Martin's always right," says Martin Phoenix.

  "Now that's going a little too far," says Luke Phoenix. "Let's thumb wrestle to see who's always right!"

  I watch them thumb wrestling, their heads of red hair tilted over their game, and I think of how much I would like them to be my brothers. But not this summer. This is a summer for working, not a summer for my mother and Alan Phoenix to be getting married and me to acquire brothers.

  "Julian's going to show you how to do some new experiments," says Luke Phoenix to Martin Phoenix. "He's going to be a scientist too, like you are, and he's got lots of ideas."

  "Julian's going to be a biologist," I correct him. "Did you know that the only mammals naturally capable of real flight are bats? Did you know that the rare Bechstein's Bat roosts in woodpecker holes and particularly likes old trees, which is why this species favors our orchard?"

  I watch Martin and Luke Phoenix thumb wrestle and then I listen to them talking and not once does Luke Phoenix quote from anything. It's like his brain was stuck on doing that, and now it's not. Now I think it's stuck on Julian—and I think that being stuck on Julian helps Luke Phoenix make more sense. Luke Phoenix likes and maybe loves Julian. If they fall all the way in love and get married, and Alan Phoenix and my mother get married, I will have three brothers: Luke Phoenix, Julian, and Martin Phoenix. If Martin Phoenix marries a girl, I could have a sister. I could end up in a big family after all and this would be okay with me. I actually like the idea of a big family. Just when I thought our small family was permanent, there are new opportunities on the horizon.

  That means there are new opportunities coming our way, not anything about the actual horizon.

  When I get to Adelaide's, her daughter opens the door. She is wearing a beige pantsuit with high heels and she is not wearing the blue and white dress or the blue and white pantsuit that reminded me of my clock. I can't remember her name but she stands in the doorway and doesn't say anything for a moment. Then she says, "Wait here." I wait for a long time. When she comes back, she has a large flat package that is wrapped in brown paper.

  "Ceci est pour vous," she says, and then more slowly, "This is for you."

  I take the package.

  "Where is Adelaide?" I ask.

  "I am sorry," says Adelaide's daughter. "Elle est morte il y a peu de temps. Je vais à l'hôpital en ce moment. A short while ago she is dead. Il fallait s'y attendre. It was to be expected. I am going now to the hospital." Her cheeks are wet. She starts to close the door and then she opens it wider and says, "Goodbye for now. I am—I am sorry." Then she closes the door.

  I stand on the front step, holding the package. Adelaide was very old. It is common for very old people to die. Her daughter said that it was to be expected. But I did not expect it.

  I walk around to the back yard and I sit on the stone bench, but the little orange fish do not dart to the surface. Maybe they got too big. Maybe the heron came. I see a few species of butterflies, all from the order Lepidoptera. This is the favorite food of the Bechstein's Bat. I look at my atomic watch. I sit for twenty-nine minutes. The little orange fish do not come. I go back to the bus stop and wait for the bus home.

  I am used to gerbils dying. Walnut died first, then June, then Charlotte, then Hammy. Before that, my brother Ashton died, but I can't remember that because I wasn't born yet. Last spring, my grandmother died. I hope Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett do not die but I am worried about them. When gerbils are stressed they can eat their own kind and there is a name for this, but I can't remember it right now.

  When my grandmother died, she left my mother all her money and that's why my mother could afford to buy a return airplane ticket to France. My grandmother left me a chess set but I gave it away because I don't like to play chess. I don't think Adelaide has left me money or a chess set. What she has left me is this package that I am holding in my arms and I do not know what is in it.

  I wonder if she is wearing the butterfly nightgown now that she is dead in the hospital.

  Cannibalism. That's what it's called when you eat your own kind.

  I saw an online video once showing deer eating birds' eggs that were laid in nests on the ground. I never knew deer would do that. But they showed it in the video. These deer would walk around a field finding nests and then eating the birds' eggs out of them with their wide sharp teeth. I didn't think that could happen but then it was right there on the screen.

  The Gift From Adelaide

  When I get back to the villa, I go upstairs and put the package on my bed. It is wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, and the string has knots in it. In order to open the package, I will have to either untie the knots or cut the string, and I'm guessing I will have to cut it because the knots look tight.

  Stanley would probably not untie the package and he probably wouldn't cut the string. He would stand in front of the package and stay afraid of it until his landlady carried it away.

  I go down to the kitchen to look for scissors, and when I find them I come back upstairs and take a deep breath. Then I cut the string. The paper does not fall away on its own. I have to unfold it from the corners and then pull it to t
he side, and while I am doing this it makes crackling noises that sound dangerous.

  Inside the package I find a large canvas frame and lying against it is the picture of clouds that Adelaide and I drew. I remove the drawing and see that there is something painted on the canvas itself. I look at the painting. It is a painting of me. It is a painting of me with a bicycle. A white bicycle. I think it is done in acrylic wash, just like the paintings on Adeleide's livingroom walls. The colours look as if they are closed around so much light that the image seems to move as I look at it. I am not riding the bicycle. But I am not carrying it either. It looks as if perhaps I am in between riding and carrying, undecided.

  I wonder what Adelaide meant about carrying her age. I wonder what she meant when she said that most people carry something. Did she know that I sometimes carry the white bicycle, like when I am in the woods and the trail makes riding too difficult? Did she guess that I carry other things as well, just as she carries her age—and that we all carry something?

  All the answers to these questions are inside Adelaide but Adelaide is not here any more and so I cannot ask her. Adelaide is gone, taking everything inside of her. Where did Adelaide go? I ask myself this question over and over. I know that she is dead. But where did she go? This question repeats itself over and over in my brain until all the consonants disappear.

  Missing Adelaide

  On Saturday I ride the white bicycle to the market in Lourmarin. It is busy in the town square and I walk the bicycle through the crowds. There are colored scarves and tablecloths hanging at eye level. There are strings of pouches containing lavender. I see vendors selling shirts and blouses. I see stalls with meat—hams and chickens, and at the end, a lump of meat with the paper label lapin stuck onto it. I see big bowls of many different kinds of olives, and tables of melons and other fruits and vegetables. On one table there is a yellow bowl of candied lemons. I turn my head and sneeze.