The Ruby Slippers (9 page)

Michael picks his way forward, noticing among the jungle of detritus old grocery bags, packets and, sometimes, bare remains of what once was food. Faded names and phrases on rotting scraps identify the products: Frozen Vegetarian Micro-Meal; Sea Spray Salmon Mousse; Moist Meaty Chunks for Man’s Best Friend. It dawns on Michael that the whole thing is practically organic with decay, and he imagines it seething and alive, which indeed it is in parts yet to be chanced upon. He lets down his hand and braves the stench, allowing himself to be pulled in further by the dog, snuffling now at the wardrobe door. Michael studies the handle – yes, he could open this; it can’t possibly be so bad on the inside – but then his eye is taken by things in the layers – old shoeboxes and document cases – and it occurs to him that there are family things here, under this pall of filth; things that bind him to Rosa. Something of his own history might be under all this. He pulls out an old framed monochrome photograph, still in good shape, of Rosa about fifty years back. He turns to look at Grace. Hunched at the door, hand at her face, she is beaten by the sheer magnitude of it. ‘This scares me,’ he confesses, childlike, holding the picture up for her to see. ‘This was a life, Grace. To think that Rosa was once young and beautiful.’ Grace peers at it, blinking to see a young and truly lovely woman. Michael becomes sad and philosophical; this hideous landscape says something not just about a crazy old lady, but about the two of them and everyone born to this earth, the whole damn shebang: ‘Look at us, Grace,’ he says. ‘We were young; we had dreams – we were stuffed full of them.’ But from Grace there is no more than a frightened rounding of the eyes.

Inside the wardrobe Harrison can hear the dog slobbering; he can even see the dark shape of its head against the pale crack of light defining the door. He can hear the grocer man wheezing and stuttering, and in his mind’s eye he can see the fat little hand reaching for the handle. He raises his bladed hand to the door, so that when it swings open, one straight hard jab would take care of things.

‘Oh my goodness!’ Something has shaken Grace from her cocoon of disgust. ‘Oh my goodness!’ she says again. Barrell whines, but Michael pays no heed. His gaze is fixed on Grace, who steps away from her place of safety, spellbound, ‘Look,’ she says, pointing to the far end of the room.

Harrison is so rapt in the moment that he loses his grip on the catch and the wardrobe door swings open! He contorts himself, desperate to stay behind the side panel. Then he sees that the grocer man has let go of the leash and moved away. But Barrell is still there and still interested; he flops his old head into the opening, sees Harrison, gives a feeble yelp and pulls back. Harrison, close to panic, holds out a trembling hand: will the dog befriend or bite? Barrell contemplates a second and licks the salty hand, and Harrison, seeing the grocer’s back turned away from him still, pees his pants, literally, in relief.

From their separate locations in the room, Michael and Grace converge towards the window, where the drapes hang from the ends of runners, letting in pale spindly fingers of light. ‘Look . . .’ she says again, and points at a great heavy bookcase standing adjacent to the window, where light seems to gather and glow. Michael and Grace inch towards the foot of the bookcase, like two children looking up at a fairytale castle. At the very top, centred and conspicuous, sits a hexagonal gold hatbox. A look exchanged decides it. Grace pulls a rickety chair over and Michael clambers onto it. Reaching up at full stretch, he eventually manages to nudge the box and catch it as it see-saws on the edge. Clinging to a shelf with his free hand, he bustles it down for Grace to receive safely into her arms.

Harrison is mesmerized. Having gone so far as to stick his head right out of the wardrobe to have a ringside view, he is on tenterhooks to see Michael at last lower himself to the ground and Grace carefully place the box on the chair. The hatbox looks such an elegant and luxurious thing. Michael shoots a glance at Grace, seeking her approval to open it, then prises the lid off, bringing into view a creamy silk lining that is fresh and new and so improbable in the surrounding filth. At once, the squalor of the room recedes as the box seems to draw the dusky light into itself and reflect it back into their gaping faces. With a gasp she lifts out the contents, knowing, as does Michael, exactly what these things are: a pair of lovingly made, red raised-heel shoes, shapely and covered exquisitely with sequins and topped off across the bridge with a neat, gleaming bow. The ruby slippers, whole and pristine, and seeing the light of day for the first time in a lifetime.

T
HEY
have moved on from the Park, both of them suddenly hungry. And where better than Pizza Heaven to brighten up a life? Conveniently for James it offers neutral territory again. Here, she cannot chance upon intimate things in the apartment that say so much about him and Paolo – the subtle messages encoded in things designed for the senses: books and music in the living room, soaps and candles in the bathroom, knickknacks and pictures in the bedroom.

Siobhan has eaten well, the colour has returned to her cheeks and she is keen to get back to the really tricky questions that made her journey so urgent. Like how come he suddenly turned gay in the first place, after having been straight all those years, and being her dad and everything? But, hey, she’s grown up enough to know about right times and places. She knows, too, that her mother will be totally uptight by now, and close to calling the cops – if she hasn’t already done so. Seeing her glancing at the clock, James decides to break it to her: ‘Listen, Siobhan. I called her, I called her already. It would’ve been wrong not to. She’s on her way.’ Gently, he tells Siobhan that she cannot stay the night, but that if she is willing and her mother is cool about it, they will see more of each other. She takes it on the chin, but it’s far from mission accomplished and she
will
have her say: ‘OK, fine. But just tell me one thing: why, in all this time, did you not get in touch with me, even once?’

He sits there, guilty as charged.

‘You didn’t even pick up the phone. I had no number for you, no address. Nothing. I had to trick Mommy to get your address. Seven years! You shouldn’ve done that.’

He sits there, a little boy caught stealing candy – Pizza Heaven suddenly isn’t so celestial a place to be. He leans in to her quietly, shamefaced, but her hard stare denies him any recourse to self-pity. So he pulls out the explanations: of how he was rejected, thrown out, branded vile and disgusting and a corrupting presence, and told never to show his face again. And when Siobhan continues to protest her simple need of him, he wades in, wounded, with how they took away his rights – the courts and the lawyers – left him with nothing and banished him. She just glares darkly and counts the seconds, making him shiver and squirm before saying her piece: ‘I didn’t banish you. I was seven years old; my father went away; that’s all I knew, all I was told – apart from the fact that my daddy didn’t want to be with us any more.’

‘But that’s nonsense!’

‘Maybe, but it was nonsense I’ve believed all of seven years. Do you know, it was only a year ago that Mom ever got round to telling me any of the so-called facts.’

‘That’s unforgivable!’ he finds it in his heart to say.

‘You
were unforgivable!’ she outbids him. They sit there, silent in the gloom they have drawn around themselves, until at last she breaks out of it, taking up the menu again and declaring, ‘The dessert better be damn good after this.’ He cannot help but smile – at least she’s inherited his sense of humour rather than her mother’s.

■ ♦ ■

They are moving at snail’s pace, the two of them shuffling along behind the dog – three lonely figures, shadowed by a fourth.

As soon as the grocer and his wife had shut the door on the disgusting place, Harrison climbed out from the wardrobe like a zombie from the grave, and leaned against it to think – a process not helped by the smell rising up from his pants, piss-pasted to his legs. One simple fact, though, stood out big and bold in his mind: these two useless old people had just walked out of the place carrying a box that wasn’t rightfully theirs. And in that box was a pair of shoes that, if his hunch was right, were worth a whole shit-load of money. This was a pleasing thought, and it occurred to Harrison that he had just as much right to the pickings as they did. Stiff-legged, he clunked to the door, his mind made up to stick to these two people if it killed him. And that is what he told himself out loud to do: ‘Man, you stay right there on their backs till you get what’s yours by right.’

So now he follows them at a distance, halting as they halt at intersections, hugging the shadows whenever the dog stops to go sniffing.
I am stalking these people
, he thinks,
just like in the movies
. He feels alive and connected and excited about what has passed. He no longer gives a damn about his pants, wet, night-cold and smelling. No, he is too busy contemplating the possibility that he has stumbled onto something rich and strange. How weird that the ruby slippers should be kept in a place like that. The crazy old lady musta been some crazy young lady! But the money they must be worth, that isn’t crazy, that is seriously serious, and, if he’s got it right, these two people waddling along in front of him like a pair of fat old ducks are in possession of a fortune. Look at the old grocer, his arm round the hatbox, going along like he’s out for a stroll. What makes them walk so slow? He can hardly stop himself shouting down the street for them to get a move on.

As they finally approach the darkened stretch leading to the Sunrise Deli, Harrison even thinks of running up behind them and snatching the box from their hands. It would be so easy: it’s dark, he would be away in a flash, and who’s gonna come after him? But then he sees people way down the end of the street and decides to bide his time; these shoes could be worth millions, and any cut of that kinda money is worth waiting for.

■ ♦ ■

It has not been easy. In the headstrong way of the young, Siobhan has tried to lead the conversation into trickier territory, but he has deftly steered her away from the embarrassing and the hysterical, by way of small subtle tricks, such as pushing the menu under her nose and asking her about friends and school, and by glancing now and again at the other diners, as if to say: Here we keep things light, here we are all smiles. After an hour of this, he flags, lacking the energy to sustain his pose. She sees him grow tense again, the sparkle gone out of him. It’s really quite weird. Maybe he’s thinking of his sick partner in the hospital, or maybe he regrets being so evasive. She even begins to feel guilty about bringing him nothing but trouble. But then it dawns on her: her father is afraid of her mother. Corinne is only minutes away, and when she arrives she will not be won over by his easy charm. If there is a scene to be made, she will play it to the hilt.

So now it’s Siobhan’s turn to ask harmless questions and smile as wide as her lips can be made to stretch. But all the time she’s watching him watch the door, and the instant she sees his eyes shift sideways, she knows her mother has arrived. She turns to see the old station wagon pull up outside, its shabbiness an accusation, something else to make him squirm. He pretends not to notice as Corinne leaps out and sails across the sidewalk, red hair flying. And he keeps up his pretence even as she hurries through the door, weaving between the tables full of shiny happy people. Still ignoring the fact, he smiles at Siobhan and asks, ‘Can I get you another drink?’

And then Corinne is there at the side of the table, looming over them both in her long coat, with a face like thunder. There are to be no niceties, no standing on ceremony: ‘OK, Siobhan, time to go!’ she barks. ‘We have to go. The car is on the red zone.’

‘But I’m not ready . . .!’ protests Siobhan.

‘I’m wai–ting!’ Her voice cyanide-sweet, the sliding intonation threatening eruptions.

‘I think maybe you should go, honey,’ interposes James, all gallant and rising to his feet.

‘I have to go to the bathroom,’ announces Siobhan, and jumps up and away. The second time she has gone, he thinks: necessity, the mother of invention. He sits down again, but Corinne remains hovering. A full minute skulks by. ‘Would you like to sit down?’ he enquires mildly.

‘I don’t have time,’ she snaps. He fixes onto her flashing eye, stealing the initiative: ‘Because the way things are, maybe we should, um, be discussing some matters . . .’

‘Maybe not.’

‘As a matter of fact, Siobhan would really quite like to—’

‘Listen, you, keep away from her. Keep right away from the both of us, or I will have the whole damn —’

‘Corinne, please, the girl is fourteen. It has nothing to do with what you or I—’

‘And by the way, you don’t even know her. A thousand things you don’t know. Just coming here she ran a risk, did you know that? They have nuts here, nuts in the salads!’

‘Nuts . . .?’

‘See how much you don’t know? She has an allergy. By eating just one nut she could go into anaphylactic shock, and that can kill a person!’ Over her shoulder he sees Siobhan heading back towards them. It would be so easy to give in and say nothing, but he cannot resist a final dig: ‘This is absurd! If there was any danger, she’s old enough and smart enough to know what not to eat. She has her own mind now, which is precisely why you should —’

‘What am I doing talking to this man?!’ snorts Corinne and makes for the door.

He stands and walks over to Siobhan, who has kept back from them both. ‘Well, honey, looks like the moment has come.’ He shrugs and walks her to the door, bringing out his cell phone again. ‘Listen, you have my number now and I have yours. Why don’t we —?’ The phone chooses this very moment to ring: a bright little Mozartian flourish. He looks at the screen, then holds it out to her as if it’s a puzzle for her to solve. The word ‘Hospital’ is stark on the screen. The same four bars of music sing out insistently, while he stands frozen in a ludicrous pose, his mouth gaping and his finger pointing, looking like an old-fashioned tailor’s dummy. She looks past him towards Corinne, who leans, broodingly, against the car, next to the wide-open passenger door, silently commanding Siobhan to go over and get in.