Moons of Jupiter (25 page)

Mrs. Cross also gets presents from her children, but not books. Their thoughts run to ornaments, pictures, cushions. Mrs. Cross has a bouquet of artificial roses in which are set tubes of light, always shooting and bubbling up like a fountain. She has a Southern Belle whose satin skins are supposed to form an enormous pincushion. She has a picture of the Lord's supper, in which a light comes on to form a halo around Jesus's head. (Mrs. Kidd, after her first visit, wrote a letter to one of her children in which she described this picture and said she had tried to figure out what the Lord and his Disciples were eating and it appeared to be hamburgers. This is the sort of thing her children love to hear from her.) There is also, near the door, a life-size plaster statue of a collie dog which resembles a dog the Cross family had when the children were small: old Bonnie.

Mrs. Cross finds out from her children what these things cost and tells people. She says she is shocked.

Shortly after Mrs. Kidd's arrival, Mrs. Cross took her along on a visit to the Second Floor. Mrs. Cross has been going up there every couple of weeks to visit a cousin of hers, old Lily Barbour.

“Lily is not running on all cylinders,” she warned Mrs. Kidd, as they wheeled themselves into the elevator. “Another thing, it doesn't smell like Sweet Violets, in spite of them always spraying. They do the best they can.”

The first thing Mrs. Kidd saw as they got off the elevator was a little wrinkled-up woman with wild white hair, and a dress rucked up high on her bare legs (Mrs. Kidd snatched her eyes away from that) and a tongue she couldn't seem to stuff back inside her mouth. The smell was of heated urine—you would think they had had it on the stove—as well as of floral sprays. But here was a smooth-faced sensible-looking person with a topknot, wearing an apron over a clean pink dress.

“Well, did you get the papers?” this woman said in a familiar way to Mrs. Cross and Mrs. Kidd.

“Oh, they don't come in till about five o'clock,” said Mrs. Kidd politely, thinking she meant the newspaper.

“Never mind her,” said Mrs. Cross.

“I have to sign them today,” the woman said. “Otherwise it'll be a catastrophe. They can put me out. You see I never knew it was illegal.” She spoke so well, so plausibly and confidentially, that Mrs. Kidd was convinced she had to make sense, but Mrs. Cross was wheeling vigorously away. Mrs. Kidd went after her.

“Don't get tied up in that rigamarole,” said Mrs. Cross when Mrs. Kidd caught up to her. A woman with a terrible goitre, such as Mrs. Kidd had not seen for years, was smiling winningly at them. Up here nobody had teeth.

“I thought there was no such thing as a goitre any more,” Mrs. Kidd said. “With the iodine.”

They were going in the direction of a hollering voice.

“George!” the voice said. “George! Jessie! I'm here! Come and pull me up! George!”

Another voice was weaving cheerfully in and out of these yells. “Bad-bad-bad,” it said. “Bad. Bad-bad. Bad-bad-bad. Bad-
bad
.”

The owners of both these voices were sitting around a long table by a row of windows halfway down the hall. Nine or ten women were sitting there. Some were mumbling or singing softly to themselves. One was tearing apart a little embroidered cushion somebody had made. Another was eating a chocolate-covered ice-cream bar. Bits of chocolate had caught on her whiskers, dribbles of ice cream ran down her chin. None of them looked out the windows, or at each other. None of them paid any attention to George-and-Jessie, or to Bad-bad-bad, who were carrying on without a break.

Mrs. Kidd halted.

“Where is this Lily?”

“She's down at the end. They don't get her out of bed.”

“Well, you go on and see her,” said Mrs. Kidd. “I'm going back.” “There's nothing to get upset about,” said Mrs. Cross. “They're all off in their own little world. They're happy as clams.”

“They may be, but I'm not,” said Mrs. Kidd. “I'll see you in the Recreation Room.” She wheeled herself around and down the hall to the elevator where the pink lady was still inquiring urgently for her papers. She never came back.

M
RS. CROSS
and Mrs. Kidd used to play cards in the Recreation Room every afternoon. They put on earrings, stockings, afternoon dresses. They took turns treating for tea. On the whole, these afternoons were pleasant. They were well matched at cards.

Sometimes they played Scrabble, but Mrs. Cross did not take Scrabble seriously, as she did cards. She became frivolous and quarrelsome, defending words that were her own invention. So they went back to cards; they played rummy, most of the time. It was like school here. People paired off, they had best friends. The same people always sat together in the dining-room. Some people had nobody.

T
HE FIRST TIME
Mrs. Cross took notice of Jack, he was in the Recreation Room, when she and Mrs. Kidd were playing cards. He had just come in a week or so before. Mrs. Kidd knew about him.

“Do you see that red-haired fellow by the window?” said Mrs. Kidd. “He's in from a stroke. He's only fifty-nine years old. I heard it in the dining-room before you got down.”

“Poor chap. That young.”

“He's lucky to be alive at all. His parents are still alive, both of them, they're still on a farm. He was back visiting them and he took the stroke and was lying face down in the barnyard when they found him. He wasn't living around here, he's from out west.”

“Poor chap,” said Mrs. Cross. “What did he work at?”

“He worked on a newspaper.”

“Was he married?”

“That I didn't hear. He's supposed to have been an alcoholic, then he joined A.A. and got over it. You can't trust all you hear in this place.”

(That was true. There was usually a swirl of stories around any newcomer; stories about the money people had, or the places they had been, or the number of operations they have had and the plastic repairs or contrivances they carry around in or on their bodies. A few days later Mrs. Cross was saying that Jack had been the editor of a newspaper. First she heard it was in Sudbury, then she heard Winnipeg. She was saying he had had a nervous breakdown due to overwork; that was the truth, he had never been an alcoholic. She was saying he came from a good family. His name was Jack MacNeil.)

At present Mrs. Cross noticed how clean and tended he looked in his gray pants and light shirt. It was unnatural, at least for him; he looked like something that had gone soft from being too long in the water. He was a big man, but he could not hold himself straight, even in the wheelchair. The whole left side of his body was loose, emptied, powerless. His hair and moustache were not even gray yet, but fawn-colored. He was white as if just out of bandages.

A distraction occurred. The Gospel preacher who came every week to conduct a prayer service, with hymns (the more established preachers came, in turn, on Sundays), was walking through the Recreation Room with his wife close behind, the pair of them showering smiles and greetings wherever they could catch an eye. Mrs. Kidd looked up
when they had passed and said softly but distinctly, “Joy to the World.”

At this, Jack, who was wheeling himself across the room in a clumsy way—he tended to go in circles—smiled. The smile was intelligent, ironic, and did not go with his helpless look. Mrs. Cross waved him over and wheeled part of the way to meet him. She introduced herself, and introduced Mrs. Kidd. He opened his mouth and said, “Anh-anh-anh.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Cross encouragingly. “Yes?”

“Anh-anh-
anh,
” said Jack. He flapped his right hand. Tears came into his eyes.

“Are we playing cards?” said Mrs. Kidd.

“I have to get on with this game,” said Mrs. Cross. “You're welcome to sit and watch. Were you a card player?”

His right hand came out and grabbed her chair, and he bent his head weeping. He tried to get the left hand up to wipe his face. He could lift it a few inches, then it fell back in his lap.

“Oh, well,” said Mrs. Cross softly. Then she remembered what you do when children cry; how to josh them out of it. “How can I tell what you're saying if you're going to cry? You just be patient. I have known people that have had strokes and got their speech back. Yes I have. You mustn't cry, that won't accomplish anything. You just take it slow. Boo-hoo-hoo,” she said, bending towards him. “Boo-hoohoo. You'll have Mrs. Kidd and me crying next.”

That was the beginning of Mrs. Cross's takeover of Jack. She got him to sit and watch the card game and to dry up, more or less, and make a noise which was a substitute for conversation (an-anh) rather than a desperate attempt at it (anh-anh-
anh)
. Mrs. Cross felt something stretching in her. It was her old managing, watching power, her capacity for strategy, which if properly exercised could never be detected by those it was used on.

Mrs. Kidd could detect it, however.

“This isn't what I call a card game,” she said.

M
RS. CROSS
soon found out that Jack could not stay interested in cards and there was no use trying to get him to play; it was conversation he was after. But trying to talk brought on the weeping.

“Crying doesn't bother me,” she said to him. “I've seen tears and tears. But it doesn't do you any good with a lot of people, to get a reputation for being a cry-baby.”

She started to ask him questions to which he could give yes-and-no answers. That brightened him up and let her test out her information.

Yes, he had worked on a newspaper. No, he was not married. No, the newspaper was not in Sudbury. Mrs. Cross began to reel off the name of every city she could think of but was unable to hit on the right one. He became agitated, tried to speak, and this time the syllables got close to a word, but she couldn't catch it. She blamed herself, for not knowing enough places. Then, inspired, she ordered him to stay right where he was, not to move, she would be back, and she wheeled herself down the hall to the Library. There she looked for a book with maps in it. To her disgust there was not such a thing, there was nothing but love stories and religion. But she did not give up. She took off down the hall to Mrs. Kidd's room. Since their card games had lapsed (they still played some days, but not every day), Mrs. Kidd spent many afternoons in her room. She was there now, lying on top of her bed, wearing an elegant purple dressing-gown with a high embroidered neck. She had a headache.

“Have you got one of those, like a geography book?” Mrs. Cross said. “A book with maps in it.” She explained that she wanted it for Jack.

“An atlas, you mean,” said Mrs. Kidd. “I think there may be. I can't remember. You can look on the bottom shelf. I can't remember what's there.”

Mrs. Cross parked by the bookcase and began to lift the heavy books onto her lap one by one, reading the titles at close range. She was out of breath from the speed of her trip.

“You're wearing yourself out,” said Mrs. Kidd. “You'll get yourself upset and you'll get him upset, and what is the point of it?”

“I'm not upset. It just seems a crime to me.”

“What does?”

“Such an intelligent man, what's he doing in here? They should have put him in one of those places they teach you things, teach you how to talk again. What's the name of them? You know. Why did they just stick him in here? I want to help him and I don't know what to
do. Well, I just have to try. If it was one of my boys like that and in a place where nobody knew him, I just hope some woman would take the same interest in him.”

“Rehabilitation,” said Mrs. Kidd. “The reason they put him in here is more than likely that the stroke was too bad for them to do anything for him.”

“Everything under the sun but a map-book,” said Mrs. Cross, not choosing to answer this. “He'll think I'm not coming back.” She wheeled out of Mrs. Kidd's room without a thank-you or good-bye. She was afraid Jack would think she hadn't meant to come back, all she intended to do was to get rid of him. Sure enough, when she got to the Recreation Room he was gone. She did not know what to do. She was near tears herself. She didn't know where his room was. She thought she would go to the office and ask; then she saw that it was five past four and the office would be closed. Lazy, those girls were. Four o'clock, get their coats on and go home, nothing matters to them. She went wheeling slowly along the corridor, wondering what to do. Then in one of the dead-end side corridors she saw Jack.

“There you are, what a relief! I didn't know where to look for you. Did you think I wasn't ever coming back? I'll tell you what I went for. I was going to surprise you. I went to look for one of those books with maps in, what do you call them, so you could show me where you used to live. Atlases!”

He was sitting looking at the pink wall as if it was a window. Against the wall was a whatnot with a vase of plastic daffodils on it, and some figurines, dwarfs and dogs; on the wall were three paint-by-number pictures that had been done in the Craft Room.

“My friend Mrs. Kidd has more books than the Library. She has a book on nothing but bugs. Another nothing but the moon, when they went there, close up. But not such a simple thing as a map.”

Jack was pointing at one of the pictures.

“Which one are you pointing at?” said Mrs. Cross. “The one with the church with the cross? No? The one above that? The pine trees? Yes? What about it? The pine trees and the red deer?” He was smiling, waving his hand. She hoped he wouldn't get too excited and disappointed this time. “What about it? This is like one of those things on
television. Trees? Green? Pine trees? Is it the deer? Three deer? No? Yes. Three red deer?” He flapped his arm up and down and she said, “I don't know, really. Three—red—deer. Wait a minute. That's a place. I've heard it on the news. Red Deer. Red Deer! That's the place! That's the place you lived in! That's the place where you worked on the newspaper!
Red Deer
.”