Authors: Alan Cumyn
Tags: #Fiction, #Literary, #General, #Humorous, #Psychological, #Erotica
Losing It
BOOKS BY ALAN CUMYN
FICTION
Waiting for Li Ming
(1993)
Between Families and the Sky
(1995)
Man of Bone
(1998)
Burridge Unbound
(2000)
Losing It
(2001)
NON-FICTION
What in the World Is Going On
? (1998)
ACCLAIM FOR
Losing It
“A brilliant tour de force that pushes past the boundaries of expectation and predictability.
Losing It
is a funny, fascinating novel.… An irrepressible book.…”
–
Globe and Mail
“Cumyn is a gifted writer who’s demonstrated command of a wide breadth of theme. He’s certainly deft at creating tautly entertaining and viscerally convincing portrayals of men and women twisted to the snapping point by their unwillingness to accept themselves as they are.”
–
National Post
“With considerable flair, Cumyn has created a dysfunctional Canadian family tiptoeing toward chaos on stiletto heels.”
–
Ottawa X Press
“[Cumyn] has an uncanny way of putting himself deep inside his characters’ heads.… He draws his characters beautifully.… A highly readable novel by a writer with dazzling ability.”
–
Vancouver Sun
“The reader experiences a kind of emotional variegation: a bold stripe of comedy yields to a paler, frailer shade of poignancy.”
–
Ottawa Citizen
“With its zany take on middle-class Ottawa and the academic community,
[Losing It]
could be a parable for our times.… Alan Cumyn exemplifies irony at its best.…”
–
Hamilton Spectator
Copyright © 2001 by Alan Cumyn
Cloth edition published 2001
First Emblem Editions publication 2002
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Cumyn, Alan, 1960-
Losing it / Alan Cumyn.
eISBN: 978-1-55199-466-6
I. Title.
PS
8555.
U
489
L
68 2002
C
813′.54
C
2002-901237-6
PR
9199.3.
C
775
L
67 2002
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.
This novel is a work of fiction. Except for references to public figures, the names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
SERIES EDITOR: ELLEN SELIGMAN
EMBLEM EDITIONS
McClelland & Stewart Ltd.
75 Sherbourne Street
Toronto, Ontario
M5A 2P9
www.mcclelland.com/emblem
v3.1
For Suzanne
1
“Y
ou aren’t going to throw that out,” Lenore said, standing straight to stop it once and for all, this dreadful boxing business. She plucked the thing out, turned it around in her hands.
“What is it?” Julia asked. Sharply. Just like a daughter to know exactly how to say things to make it difficult, Lenore thought. Julia had been doing this all her life. Lenore remembered clearly: she never cleaned up. Always gave a hard time over food, clothes, whatever. This Lenore remembered.
“What is it?”
Julia asked again. Lenore turned it around and around. It had a lever and holes in the side. Everybody knew what it was.
“It’s a whatsit,” Lenore said quickly. “You know what it is.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Julia said, too patient this time. That too was always a problem with Julia.
“You know what it is,” Lenore muttered, turning it around. “It’s for things.”
“For
things
, Mother?” That tone again. Words wouldn’t form properly. That’s why she was using it. She always wanted to take over, wear her shoes, her lipstick, her earrings. Now this.
“If we don’t know what it is, it’s going out,” Julia said. “You’ve had weeks to pack.” Just the way she said it. “We only have a few hours left. It’s time for hard decisions. There isn’t much room in the new place.”
“Ricer!” Lenore said suddenly, moving the lever up and down.
“A ricer?” Julia said. “For ricing potatoes?”
“Yes!” Lenore said in triumph.
“Well, you won’t need that at Fallowfields. Meals are provided. Honestly, Mom, I’ve never seen you rice potatoes, and I’ve been around since 1969.”
The ricer went in the Fallowfields box. A small victory. Everything else was going. Lenore knew which boxes to look for. Julia had written
“S.A.”
on them in green Magic Marker –
Salvation Army
. Lenore pulled out a faded dusty thing, green and white, read the side: it was a “cooky” press made of “micro-alumilite – electro-hardened aluminum.” She pulled out her cheesecake-recipe book and her whatsit plates, which Julia said she had never used but which Lenore could remember using. When was it? It wasn’t that long ago. Trevor was there and her brother and June and their kids. What were their names? Faces she was very clear on. In a way, anyway – she could remember some faces. But her brother’s kids? They were just little then. The little ones. Before the one of them got big and killed himself. That was a disaster. On a motorcycle.
“When did you use the oyster plates?” Julia asked. Lenore looked at her, startled.
Lenore asked, “Who was it who died on the motorcycle?”
Julia said, “
What?”
That tone of voice.
“On the motorcycle,” she repeated.
“That was Tommy,” Julia said, boxing like a tornado. The blue china teacups and saucers. The English cutlery. The lace
table flats. And all of her towels. Boxes and boxes of them. “Tommy died on the motorcycle,” Julia said. “It must have been twenty years ago. Did you use the oyster plates then?”
“What oyster plates?” Lenore asked.
She wandered into the living room. Everything down from the walls now. So dizzy. There were strange shadows around the spots. Julia had packed most of the pictures, but on the flat thing an old one was lying out. Lenore read the print near the bottom:
“On the way home – off the track – Capt. Buzbie would like very much to know where they are.”
Captain Buzbie with his fur hat, driving his sleigh. And what’s-her-name beside him. So pretty. Another beneath this one:
“Capt. Buzbie drives Miss Muffin
.” Lenore strained through her glasses to read the scratch on the back: “
During WWI I was convalescing at Dieppe – in the Hotel Bretagne I saw these 2 old Canadian prints. After prolonged bargaining with the hotel owner, who thought they were paintings, I obtained them. I showed them to an expert in London who told me they were of a set of 6 and very very well worthwhile.”
A shivering signature. Someone related to Trevor? Where did they get Capt. Buzbie?
On to the card drawer. Good thing Lenore was here. Just throw it out. That was Julia’s solution. What about the bridge pads?
We They We They
. Felt covers with old Chinamen. You never see those any more. And on the shelf, two of Daddy’s duck decoys, a red crystal pheasant, and a Chinese rooster. In the bottom of the drawer, almost hidden, was an old picture-paper. Lenore opened it to a peachy-cheek: “
Checked under-grads: a dream of a team for intra-mural and extra-curricular activities. Sweet and neat checks in all wool.”
“Mother!” Julia called from the other room and Lenore looked up, shocked. Julia marched in like a two-year-old. She was going to say something, going to announce it. But then just
like that the breath went out of her like a mudbath, and then the weird little noise. The
what am I going to do?
noise.
Trevor had a saying for this sort of thing, Lenore thought. But, of course, he was never there when you needed him.
“I don’t see why there’s all this rush all of a sudden,” Lenore said bitterly in the new place. It smelled like that, a new place, all … smelly and such. Total confusion. First everything was going into boxes then there was such a mess and the boxes were going here and there and nothing was left in her house. What was she supposed to do with nothing left?
