View From a Kite Page 23

  Nelson, I am pleased to note as I follow Evvie down the aisle, looks suitably thunderstruck. I can just about see the roof of his mouth. Evvie, demure, sashays on her stilt-shoes as if she was born with them stuck to the soles of her feet. When she reaches the front she smiles at Bernard and—this has got to be spur of the moment, Evvie’s too shy to consider such a thing normally—she leans over and kisses him gently on the cheek. Everyone laughs and applauds and she, only slightly blushing, moves over to her designated spot. What the heck, I think, and I give him a kiss, too. I’m trusting Denise not to turn this into a burlesque and give him the tongue. She behaves for once, gives him a prim little peck, and joins us. Mrs. Driscoll gives him a matronly hug and we all bask in her smile of approval. Suddenly there’s the big ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay from the organ and Elaine takes over, takes over the aisle, the chapel, the ceremony, the planet. Everybody is still weeping, for God’s sake.

  Bernard, that lump of civility, hand-knitted cardigans, and shoe-polished hair, has been transformed along with the rest of us by Elaine’s firm hand. He’s rigged up in a charcoal-grey suit—cut so he’s got shoulders—over a silvery-grey vest, with a pink rose in his lapel. His hair is polished silver—no tacky shoe polish in this dream-come-true. For the first time since I met him he doesn’t smell like shoe-polish, he smells like fragrant old leather and a hint of citrus. Sort of a nice solid background for the cloud of scent that billows from Elaine every time she moves.

  The whole ceremony goes rather quickly; before we know it they’re signing their freedom away, and Christine, all soulful eyes cast towards heaven, is warbling “Whither Thou Goes, I Will Go” so we won’t fidget during the paperwork. Then, when the whole deal is down on paper and legal, we whoosh up the aisle, the audience flings rose petals and fires flashbulbs to blind us, and we all sail off to the dining room to have a party.

  The Royal Alexandra Hospital Ladies Auxiliary has provided the food for the reception, a lot of little nibbly stuff in spring colours: lilac, turquoise, tender green, pink, yellow, lavender. Astonishing stuff. The fumes from the food colouring compete with our perfume. Everything that can be cut or pressed into the shape of a heart, is.

  Everyone is in a merry frame of mind, merry, giddy, silly with a reckless edge. Not like birthdays, where after the guests leave, the cake has been shared around the ward, and the gifts (new bathrobe, flowered writing paper, fuzzy slippers) have been put away, sad and private weeping seeps under closed doors and stains the evening air. This is a party, a real party that isn’t an imitation of something that is really happening somewhere else. It is all ours.

  Elaine soars about the room, all coloured ribbons and flashing teeth and knockout clouds of perfume. This is my first sight of a human being perfectly centered in a dream-come-true and I suspect it is quite a rare event, so I study her carefully. Every ten minutes or so she attaches herself to Bernard’s arm, like a big butterfly perching on a rock to rest. A big, grey rock. He says, “Thank you for coming,” and “God bless,” and “So kind,” to everyone who stops to talk with him. His silver hair shines like a lighthouse beacon.

  Bernard is only five foot four, but today he seems to tower—partly this may be the lifts I suspect Elaine has put in his shoes. The goodwill of the crowd buoys him along and his spectacles gleam with happiness. Rose petals cling jauntily to his jacket. He delivers tea and plates full of pink-and-blue food bits to his ancient mama, who sits in her wheelchair looking befuddled and dribbling damp crumbs from a lower lip that has lost all its stretch.

  Elaine has rescued “Mother Schwartz” from whatever dim room she’s been inhabiting since Bernard first took ill, and has dressed her up in purple brocade for the wedding. Mother Schwartz is going home with Bernard and Elaine to live them when they get back from their honeymoon, and when her gaze falls on her new daughter-in-law an expression of awe, and something that looks like mild terror, descends upon her wrinkled, pleated face. Elaine periodically swoops down on the old lady to pat her hand and straighten her collar and ask her if she is comfortable. Mother Schwartz is too dumbfounded to respond, but Elaine doesn’t seem to mind.

  Sister Mary Clare has stayed to felicitate the happy couple and is persuaded to have a couple of cups of tea and a slice or three of cake. She claps her hands to the music and smiles a time or two. The room fills up with giggles, titters, roars, gales, waves, and crashes; the noise gets louder and louder and no one, no one says, “Hush.”

  No one says, PATIENTS MUST NOT…

  No one says, PATIENTS ARE REQUIRED TO…

  “Patrick’s been doctoring the punch, is what I say.” Denise nods her head, she is adamant. “Everybody’s too nice to each other, and much too silly.”

  In case her suspicions are true we drink copiously and I, for one, feel giddy enough. Maybe it’s just the occasion. It reminds us that there is a world and a life beyond the sanatorium grounds, that someday in the not-too-distant future it will be ours again. Most people don’t think much about their health until it starts to go. They don’t realize how good life is, and what freedom they have, as long as their body is kicking along. Then suddenly it’s not, and there they are, in pain and adrift.

  The staff, with one foot in each world, are regularly reminded of their good fortune. Every workday they have our example before them. Every day they herd us through our regimented, constrained lives and then leave when their shift is over. Today they turn their backs on all the rules. Seiglinde Grass does her bit by coming in for a short, formal well-wishing, and then considerately leaves town for the day. MacConnell—well, MacConnell swoops down on Bernard and two-steps him down the centre of the dining room, out into the hall, and back again. Then she does the same to Patrick. She leaves them breathless.

  I decide to let bygones be bygones with Mark, to put my humiliating demotion to one-of-a-string-of-idiots behind me, to forgive him for not living up to my expectations, and I dance with him. I assume he forgives me for using him as a lab animal in my exploration of human sexuality and romance. Actually, he probably never even noticed. He invites me out to the stairwell, but I decline, graciously.

  I can’t imagine loving Bernard, but Elaine does and not just out of last-ditch desperation to be married, either. They will be comfortable and kind together and even, I can see, passionate together. He loves her long skinny limbs and she is warmed by the hot solidity of his flesh. He thinks she is beautiful and she thinks he is wonderful and, with any luck, they will continue to believe that. It might even be true.

  I want that, what Elaine and Bernard have, and what George and Elizabeth have, too—the giggling in the pantry and the fussing over each other’s hats and gloves and doctor’s appointments—and I want someone to turn me into a drooling idiot the way I could turn Mark into mush in the stairwell if I had no conscience, and I want someone to keep me company in a room in Paris, to bring me croissants and coffee while I try to be a writer. I think it’s possible. I don’t see why I can’t have it, I just have to be patient and not get distracted by the bright wrappers. I really think it can happen.

  Just when it’s beginning to look like Elaine and Bernard are never, ever going to leave, she disappears to change into her going-away outfit and Bernard starts to wind his mama up in her outdoor clothes. Elaine reappears in a watermelon pantsuit, with a fox-fur coat and hat and chocolate-leather boots and gloves. After much kissing and hugging and flashbulb popping, she flings her flowers at us. I duck. Evvie, who would love to have the big bouquet to take home along with her smaller one but who has been warned off because she is already married, puts her hands behind her back. Christine and Denise make a dive for it and it pops up between the pair of them and lands in Sister’s lap, spilling her tea. Sister screams and flings it off like a hot potato. It flies through the air and lands on Patrick, who grabs it and refuses to let go, even though Denise and Christine first cajole and then threaten him. He tucks it firmly under his arm and makes cow eyes at Lance’s Annie.

  Bernard and Elaine and Mothe
r Schwartz thunder out the main doors and into Bernard’s car as we all throw rice and rose petals and streamers and kisses. Bernard, who is a little flustered, makes a wrong turn at the bottom of the driveway and has to back up and turn and go the other way. Half the shoes and tin cans tied to the bumper fall off and sit in a pile at the entrance to the parking lot. Bernard finally makes it out onto the main street; then they’re gone and the guests from outside begin to leave. Evvie, under considerable pressure from her Nelson, reluctantly gets her things and hugs us all good-bye. She refuses to dismantle herself, however, and puts winter boots and parka on over her wedding finery. She won’t even take her cartwheel off.

  “You’ll freeze,” I tell her. “That truck of Nelson’s has got no heater, remember.”

  “Nelson’ll keep me warm,” she says.

  Denise and Christine and I rescue the punch bowl from the clean-up crew in the dining room and take it off to the sunroom. Christine grabs a tray of lavender and pink food remnants in case we feel peckish. We turn on some music and dance while waiting for supper to be ready. Patrick and Mark and a dozen others join us and we all waltz about, feeling sweetly melancholic and philosophical. There is a bit of a scare when a rat is discovered in the punch bowl, but it turns out to be my fake chignon, which has finally come loose and escaped while I am dancing. Patrick borrows a strainer from the kitchen, pours the punch through it, and everything continues as before, as merry as a marriage bell.

  CHAPTER 61

  Within a few years of the development of streptomycin, other effective drugs were discovered and developed. The most powerful of all, isoniazid, arrived in the early 1950s. Its original version came with some interesting side effects. Patients who began taking it immediately felt better, much too much better. They developed huge appetites, gained weight, and took to laughing and goofing around. They danced and jived around their beds and down the halls. They got high as kites. It got yanked and replaced by a more benign version—quiet little tablets that aren’t quite as effective and nowhere near as much fun as their predecessor, but, combined with PAS and streptomycin, make the most effective drug combination to fight the disease.

  PAS, para aminosalicylic acid, are the clunky big white horse pills we have to choke down, twenty or so of them a day. PAS can cause vitamin B deficiency, magaloblastic anemia, kidney stone formation, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, fever, skin eruptions of various types, infections, mononucleosis-like symptoms, leukopenia, agranulocytosis, thrombocytopenia, hemolytic anemia, jaundice, hepatitis, encephalopathy, Loeffler’s syndrome, vasculitis, goiter with or without myxedema, hypokalemis, acidosis.

  Isoniazid can cause vitamin B6 deficiency, peripheral neuropathy, convulsions, toxic encephalopathy, optic neuritis and atrophy, toxic psychosis, nausea, vomiting, epigastric distress, elevated serum transaminases, bilirubinuria, hepatitis with or without jaundice, agranulocytosis, hemolytic, sideroblastic, or aplastic anemia, thrombocytopenia, vasculitis, pellagra, hyperglycemia, metabolic acidosis, gynecomastia, rheumatic syndrome, and systemic lupis erythematosus-like syndrome.

  Streptomycin’s possible side effects: malaise and muscle aches, violent febrile reactions, temporary deafness, disturbances of the auditory nerve, optic nerve, peripheral neuritis, arochnoiditis and encephalopathy, respiratory paralysis, nausea, vomiting, and vertigo. Hearing loss, when extensive, is usually permanent. It can cause an overgrowth of fungus, paresthesia of the face, rash, fever, urticaria, angioneurotic edema, eosinophilia, exfoliative dermatitis, anaphylaxis, azotemia, leukopenia, thrombocytopenia, pancytopenia, hemolytic anemia, and amblyopia.

  I admit I don’t know what most of this stuff is and can only pronounce about a quarter of it. I just don’t want you thinking it’s all crêpe paper hearts, cherry Jell-O, kissing in the stairwell, and dancing.

  CHAPTER 62

  Denise and I are picking streamers, balloons, tissue-paper hearts, and roses off the walls and stuffing them into garbage bags. A number of the patients have gone on leave, but I get out in two and a half weeks for good and they don’t want to spoil me by giving me too much freedom, so my request for the weekend home was denied. Denise isn’t due for leave for another two weeks.

  We’ve volunteered to clean up after the reception; it’s something to do, to pass the time. I’m not in the mood to study and Denise is bored, her usual state of mind. There seems to be quite a bit more of this stuff than we originally put up; it seems to have reproduced itself. At first I amuse myself by popping the balloons, but Denise makes me stop because her head is a little delicate. I went to bed after supper while she went off to the stairwell to plan strategy with Patrick, who is convinced that fate intends him to wed Annie if only Lance will co-operate by getting hit by a truck. Lance isn’t going to expire of consumption, that’s for sure. He’s gaining weight, and Grass is talking about letting him out of the hospital a month ahead of schedule. The thought of Lance getting out makes Patrick frantic. Personally, I’m pretty sure Annie and her best friend Ruth are a couple and neither Lance nor Patrick figure in their future plans, but I keep my opinions to myself.

  The windows are open as usual. We’re having some sort of February thaw and the air coming in over the draft barriers smells damp and vegetable and faintly muddy. The parking lot in front is slushy, and cheerful little rivers are running down the hill to the street below. Some snowdrops have unearthed themselves from under the wet rubble of leaves by the front door. Among their green leaves the small white buds hang down and sway in the breeze. It won’t last, this mildness, but it’s a promise of what’s to come—another month and there will be crocuses in Elizabeth’s front yard and I will be home to see them. Edith is already there and she’s doing better, they tell me. She’s begun to talk a bit, not the most logical or brilliant conversation, but she’s got some of her language back and she’s eating again. The breeze picks up and flaps the streamers. This is turning into kite-flying weather.

  In 1903 an American named Cody tied a small boat to a kite and used it to sail across the English Channel. A few years earlier he’d managed to send a man aloft, using a string of kites. The man had carried a camera and a telephone linking him to the ground. In 1906, kites with cameras were used to take pictures of the San Francisco earthquake. Kites evolved from a finger used to reach up and touch the sky to an eye able to see and communicate. The painted eyes on ancient kites were finally able to share their vision with those of us still shackled by gravity. The view from a kite can be terrible, or it can be wonderful. Sometimes, it’s both at once.

  My last night home before I had to go back to the Royal Alex, we had dinner at the kitchen table because Elizabeth had quilt pieces spread out all over the dining room. The big mahogany table with the three extra leaves was covered with half-assembled fans in blue and yellow prints and plains. She’d started a Grandmother’s Fan for me, for when I go to college. She’d been showing me fabric all day, getting me to pick and choose the colours and prints I liked best. She’s got bags and bags of cotton scraps, the attic is stuffed full of them—thirty years of scraps from everything she’s ever made and remnants she’s picked up because she likes the colours or the print. She can’t pass a remnant table.

  “It’s a disease,” grumbles George. “It’s an addiction. There must be a thousand bucks’ worth of remnants up there. One hell of a fire hazard.”

  “Oh hush, George,” she always says.

  I stopped eating, my fork dangling spaghetti halfway to my mouth.

  “Where’s my Homesick Angels quilt?”

  I hadn’t thought of it in such a long time. Where had it disappeared to, and why wasn’t it with me in the hospital? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen it. How could I have not thought of it? How could I not know where it was? Such a beautiful quilt, it was never off my bed except for the times it had to be washed and then I couldn’t sleep properly until it was dried and back to cover me again. Mama made it for me when I was eleven. She appliquéd kites on a blue-sky background,
with puffy little white clouds drifting in between. Every kite we’d made up until then she reproduced in bright cotton fabric: butterfly, box, caterpillar—all my homesick angels dancing on their strings, their rainbow tails waving in an imaginary breeze.

  George shifted his chair and put down his fork.

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak and George shook his head no at her.

  “What? Where is it?” I looked from one to the other. “You didn’t leave it behind for that lawyer, did you? You didn’t leave it in the house? Did you? I want it back. I don’t care if he is a lawyer, it’s mine, it belongs to me.”

  “It’s in the attic, Gwennie,” Elizabeth said, her voice trembling. George got up and left the room.

  “Where in the attic? I didn’t see it there. Show me.” I jumped up and headed for the stairs.

  “Gwennie, wait!”

  She reached for my arm, but I was too fast for her, I was halfway up the stairs before she was out of her seat.

  “Wait!” Her cry stopped me at the attic door. She caught up to me and her words spilled out and into the slant-ceilinged room beyond.

  “The RCMP gave it back to us—when they didn’t need it for evidence anymore. George told me to throw it out, but I just couldn’t do it. Your mother put so much work into it. I keep meaning to fix it, but every time I try, I can’t.”

  “Fix it? What did they do to it? What’s wrong with it?”

  “Oh, Gwennie, I’m so sorry.” Elizabeth was crying too hard to say more.

  But then I knew—and I went hot and then freezing cold.

  “There’s blood on it. Mama’s blood.” He took everything from me. He was the worst, the vilest kind of coward. He ran away and left her behind, in limbo. He couldn’t even shoot straight, he couldn’t even do that right. He left me behind to face everything; to lose everything.