It was very windy in his ear. He opened his eyes to find Sera blowing into it.
“Grams said not to wake you too suddenly or your stomach would get upset.”
“Oh great scott, did I fall asleep?”
“Yep. And where you’re supposed to be phoned to see where you were and Grams said you were on your way.”
He was already out of the seat and on his way into his cottage to brush his teeth and brush his hair. Sera had picked up his book and was saying a string of words as if she were reading. Maybe she was, she thought. She wandered back up to the main house to consult with her Gram about this. Sam had come with the mother cat and Sera was glad he had: feeding the kittens had not been the fun she expected, it was fiddly and they kept sneezing. And it made her think of her baby sister taking up all her mother’s time making snuffly noises on her breast. Sera didn’t like this but just made everyone laugh when she said Benita was being rude.
Harold grabbed a jar of fig jam from the frig, peace offering for being late. And he tucked the tiny garden clippers Sarah (another daughter and spelled correctly) had given him, into his pocket to attend to the thorny blackberry cane.
He took a deep breath and got the sigh fully up and out of him before he turned into the gate off the lane onto the Jenkins property. They had been there as long as Polly’s parents, perhaps longer, and Polly could remember going to their house for tea as a child. Their land corridor’ed right back onto the golf course and from their dining room window one of the greens was visible in the distance.
John Jenkins was seated in the glassed in front porch and when he saw Harold he stood up and stared out through the door. “It’s good to see you even if it is dark,” the man said in his normal, precise tone: this had been a problem factor in diagnosing the ailment.
“Good to see you too, John, “ Harold said and paused for a moment to smile. Mr. Jenkins was wearing his wife’s sweater over top of a three piece suit. Harold continued on around the side of the house to the patio where he knew Audrey Jenkins would be waiting. She was, seated at a lovely garden table with chairs that did not look comfortable but were. She spent much time out here in sun softened by honeysuckle on a pergola shade.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said proffering her the jam.
“Oh, you shouldn’t have, but thank you very much, I love Polly’s jams. Did you see John?”
“Yes, he’s in the front porch.”
She sighed and they settled onto the patio chairs, tea was poured, idle conversation engaged in. Then, finally, she looked across at him and said, “It’s Alzheimer’s, isn’t it, Doctor?” She needed this title, just then.
“Some of the same symptoms, but I think it’s actually something called Pick’s disease. That’s why he’s dressing weirdly and saying bizarre things. Usually people have trouble speaking clearly but John is as articulate as before.”
Audrey had looked at him gravely as he spoke and now she turned away and stared into the distance. “He isn’t going to get better though, is he?”
“No, he isn’t.” He reached across and put one of his large warm hands on her small cool one. She gripped it fiercely, thankfully.
" I do want you, though, to get him to a doctor, one who is in practice, can write prescriptions, and has hospital privileges. I know a good one who isn’t taking new patients but he would make an exception in John’s case. He needs to have a complete physical. I could well be wrong in my diagnosis – I don’t think so but you need to have a second opinion. And support for the future in a way I can’t give you.”
“You have been of great help over the years.”
He had. Into the silence while they both looked out across to the distant horizon over the golf course he thought of several instances. Perhaps most major, most potentially harmful, was her taking items of his children. Polly complained about things going missing for months, years, and thought one of the cats might be responsible for the missing bootie, soother, bib, even a dress. It was only when Penny was a toddler did they get a clue. She had been playing under the kitchen table when Mrs. Jenkins was present in what was then a frequent if a bit puzzling visit as she did not seem to like the increasing brood of children around her: she paid them no attention; Penny had busily and silently emptied Mrs. Jenkins purse of its contents. Polly discovered this. And helped Mrs. Jenkins replace the items, among them a wooden rattle and a baby bonnet. The toy might have been under the table already but Polly knew the bonnet had been in the pram by the door.
Neither had said a thing as the items were not returned to the purse. Polly had later told Harold. Childlessness. Change of life. Pampered lifestyle. They had passed the words back and forth in an understanding.
“She has not consulted me on this, Polly.” Harold had said. “I cannot – “
Polly had not pressured him and the visits to the household did not cease but a month or so later when Harold had been called to help John, already well into his fifties at that time, move a brute of a bureau from one spare room to another, Harold had noticed a baby shoe on the front step as Mrs. Jenkins walked him out of the house to the gate. Harold knew she had put it there. He knew she knew he would see it. He did and he picked it up and held it for a moment and then put it into his pocket. Then he had looked at her.
She had stared at him with some mute appeal and then dropped her eyes. “I have never taken a child,” she said. “I have never even considered it.”
“The consequences of that would be horrendous,” he agreed with her tone. The next day a bag of baby things was left just inside their back gate. “This has been going on for years,” Polly said in amazement as she looked through them. “These are Cass’s socks from when she was a baby. And some of these things I do not recognize at all.”
She bent her head over the pathetic pile and then wiped away tears with a tiny undershirt. “I am so lucky,” she said.
Harold came back to the present.
“I don’t think John’s ever been to a doctor’s office in his life.” Mrs. Jenkins was saying. “Remember the fuss we had getting him to go to hospital when he sliced his knee on the old icebox in the basement?”
“I’ll help you in this. You know I won’t just abandon you to someone.”
“I know that.” They sipped their tea and sat in wonder and dismay over what life had offered.
No children. No in-laws. No grandkids. Harold found the idea strangely perturbing but also rather peaceful. He’d have to think on this when he had time.
His eyes and thoughts came back from the distance and he watcher her raising the tea cup, her hand as translucent as the porcelain. She wasn’t all that old but she’d been loved and catered to by an adoring husband and such a lifestyle had fostered her frail appearance. Her husband was not as he had been. Confused, querulous, outlandish, he was a parody of his former self. Harold wondered at the depths of her resources. She might prove surprisingly strong, likely would. He found women incredible. All his daughters provided an endless panorama for his observation and wonderment.
“And what about me? What is the matter with me?” She asked it quietly and Harold wondered if there was perhaps some hope of an ailment that would save her from having to be strong for someone else.
He had done much thinking on her symptoms, the fatigue, the vivid dreams, the inability to concentrate. “I can’t even knit any more if it means following a pattern,” she had told him. She had seen her doctor and had a full physical but Isabel Benton could find nothing wrong with Audrey. She’d spoken with Harold about her, with Audrey’s permission. “Hoodoo out your intuition,” she’d told Harold with a rather sardonic grin. She didn't believe in anything metaphysical but Harold had had some rather astonishing results over the years with unconventional methods of diagnosis and treatment so she tried to give him the benefit of doubt. If he could help Audrey, well, then…
So he had done much thinking. After much talking. Listening was an art form to Harold. He’d gotten Audrey talking. “You know what is the matter with you,” he’d told her. “So just start talking and let’s hear what comes out.”
“Well, I don’t really, that’s why I’ve come to you. Or had you make a house call which is so kind,” she had said then.
“If you did know then what do you think you would say?”
And she had started to talk, hesitantly at first, then in a steady flow for more than an hour. She said she was surprised at all that came out, all the little things that came to her mind, things she would never have thought to mention, that would have any relevance. Harold felt that could do her nothing but good. And he had just listened. Asked questions. Got details.
Then he had spent much time thinking back on her ramblings. Now he was ready to put forth what he felt.
“I don’t think you have to fear that Dr. Isabel has missed something. And I don’t think you need be afraid that you need a psychiatrist. (Which Harold had the qualifications for should he decide to satisfy the various Boards and register himself. Which he did not.) I think we may be dealing with something simple and physical.
“Now you mentioned that this cool summer has you sleeping longer than usual but not feeling rested. I feel this is part of the problem. You’re oversleeping and disturbing the balance of awake and asleep and – “
“Nobody ever came to any harm from the multiplication table,” John’s voice suddenly carried to them from the porch.
They exchanged a look and Harold went on. “You also told me you haven’t changed to summer linens this year because of the weather and you even have your feather quilt still in use. I think you’re overheating as you sleep. And this is causing the vivid dreams. Which may be just too much activity when you should be resting.”
She looked at him in some disbelief. “Sounds too simple.”
“Life is simple. We make it complicated. Try it and see.” He had had a most interesting conversation with a local dream expert on the effects of raising one’s body temperature while sleeping. And another lengthy chat with someone who dealt with sleep disorders. And he’d done some experiments. Polly had treated these – his wearing socks and track pants and sweaters to bed: wearing a velour hat seemed to have the most effect – as she did all his non-conventional activities, with amused respect. He could not convince her to try as well.
“If I wear a hat to bed I’ll roast my hair,” she’d told him. “And, please, Budh, if there is a fire in the night take off that toque before you go out to greet the firefighters.”
“Since you suggest it I will try it,” Mrs. Jenkins was saying. “And, for John, I would appreciate your making an appointment with the doctor who you know. John refused absolutely to have anything to do with Dr. Isobel when he had that rash on his hands last year.”
“There are drugs that might help him. We’ll have to see. One thing at a time. Let your feathers take flight first,” he said and it took her a moment and then she got it and laughed.
“ Oh, my duvet! You are a good friend, Doctor,” she said, patting his arm, the skin crinkling around eyes that had gotten lovelier with age, softened.
She walked him back out to her front gate glancing into the porch as they passed but John was not in sight. “I hope he’s not turning out all my dresser drawers again,” she said, hopelessness and helplessness in her voice.
Harold gave her a hug. “Be brave in the interim, my friend,” he told her.
She drew back and looked up into his face, her expression puzzled, then something lit behind her eyes. “This too shall pass, that’s what you mean, don’t you?”
“Or variations on that theme, I suppose. I’ll call you with the number and information on an agency in town that provides respite care.”
“For him or me?” she inquired with something of her old spirit and humor.
“Both.”
“There’s something else…” she began and Harold stopped and leaned casually against the fence post. Over the years he had found that kernels often waited on a parting.
“Sometimes I dream I am knitting on whatever project I am working on and when I wake up I find the work has increased.”
“Wow,” he said.
“I mean actual knitting has taken place, as I slept,” she added in case he had misunderstood. “I don’t mean I sleepwalk and knit. I knit as I sleep.”
“I knew what you meant. What an accomplishment.”
She stared at him. “It is such a relief to be believed. I have not dared to tell anyone else. You are the most restful person I know.”
He reached out and they held hands for a moment.
Out in the lane Harold took the garden scissors and neatly clipped back the sprawling blackberry vines. “Now, don’t be nasty,” he said as a thorn pierced and drew blood. “Surely you prefer this nice neat surgery to being mangled and squashed by car tires. Point your new shoots the other way, not onto the roadway, and we’ll all be happy.”
As he was turning into his own gate he was hailed. “Hey, Dad!” Josephine. Sitting on a knoll of ground under a Garry oak across the lane. He went towards her as she obviously had been waiting for him but was not intending to rise and come to him.
Josephine. His middle daughter. Darker, quieter - shyer, perhaps, than her sisters. Very beautiful with her mother’s Irish black hair and blue eyes, a square-shouldered stance from his side of the family that gave an air of confidence. Harold wondered if this was a false indication. He didn’t know. Of all his daughters, and yes, even now his granddaughters, Josephine he knew least. Oh, she could talk when she wanted but mostly she seemed to fade into the background, let herself be shadowed or eclipsed by those around her. “Josephine, you startled me,” was an often heard phrase as someone or other suddenly realized she was present.
“How are you doing?” he had inquired over the years. Her lips would spread into a smile and she would look kindly and say, “Just fine, Dad, not to worry.” And nothing more.
He stood before her and was about to offer his hand to help her to get up but she patted the ground beside her. “I need to talk to you.”
Harold’s stomach stoned as he lowered himself to the ground and leaned back against a rock so he could look at her. He could handle anything his clients chose to challenge him with but whenever one of his family had a need he silently panicked. Maybe they perceived this. Usually they went to their mother and she took care of it.
Many things raked across his mind – she’s committed a crime (was this his worst fear?), she’s on drugs, she’s pregnant, she’s got cancer. That she was heartbroken over a relationship ending didn’t seem to be a possibility; she seemed to have a number of men friends. Maybe she was going to finally get married!
“Dad, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I’ve come to a decision.”
Harold’s mind scurried across the various males she knew wondering which one she had chosen. He liked the sound of the Portugese guy who somehow seemed the most persistent, who had a nice voice on the phone, who, he thought he had been told, played the flute. Harold had not actually met him, come to think about it. He’d heard Josephine teased by one sister or other about this so far invisible suitor but she just smiled and faded their interest.
“I want to be a clown.” She turned her amazing sky eyes on him and he stared back, totally flummoxed.
“What about marriage?” he asked, having telescoped into an acceptance of the flautist, whatever his name was.
“Marriage? Dad! Who’s talking about marriage?” She reached over and pulled on his right ear lobe, shaking her head with a smile and a frown.
“Sorry, Jo. That’s where my mind leapt, I guess. A clown. Let me jump into that ring, instead.” She made a grimace at his pun .
“What made you decide to become a clown?” he inquired after a moment of thoughtful silence while she continued to regard him with a steady gaze.
“I’ve been one over and over for years. In my dreams.”
Harold drew up his knees and circled them with his arms and his mouth relaxed in a small astonishment. He loved synchronicity. Mrs. Jenkins and dreams. Now Josephine.
“Explain.”
Now she did break the intense look and focus on an ant that was crawling up her leg. It made Harold tickle to see it so he looked away or he’d have to brush it off.
“Well, for years I’ve been having this dream where I’m a clown. That’s it. I’m a clown. I don’t do anything – well, I’m just a clown. In make-up and with a costume, these change in the dream. But the feeling is always the same. It feels - , “ she raised her elegant shoulders and scrunched up her nose, again looking at him, “ – right, is the only word I can think to describe it.”
Harold waited. He didn’t believe in guiding or hurrying details in life. But Josephine did not continue to talk. She merely looked at him. Or, through him, was more like it. He felt a prompt was needed. Josephine had put the ball into his court and was waiting for him to return it, he supposed.
“You don’t need my permission, you’re thirty – “ he paused because he couldn’t remember the exact number.
“Four,” she supplied.
“ – four, and I am not accustomed to you asking me for advice - “ He looked a question.
“Money. I am asking you for a loan.”
“Oh.” He paused and followed the dance of a swallowtail butterfly in an aerial ballroom. “I’ve never considered what it takes to become a clown. Is it expensive?” It must be if she needed a loan. She had a decent job.
“To be a serious clown it is, I mean, to take it seriously. I want to go to France. And the tuition is rather enormous. You know I'll pay it back and I’ll leave you my car as collateral when I’m away, in case I were to die or something.”
“Josie, I am not worried about your paying me back.” Her mention of dying made him nervous and protective and he reverted to her childhood name.
“Well, just so you know. “
“When will you go?”
“Not until January but I’ve got to give notice at my job and sublet the condo and find someone to take care of the cats and finish up a composition I’m arranging with Rico – so, lots of details.”
Rico, that was the Portugese’s name. And mention of cats – and he knew very well where they would be in residence while Josephine was away – made him ask, “Have you told your mother?”
“No, I wanted to talk to your first. I didn’t think you would refuse, but you can, you know – “ she looked at him waiting for him to acknowledge that she wasn’t presuming on his fathership, at least not much, and had been prepared for a possible refusal and he nodded to show her he understood, “ – and I wanted the financial side assured before I told her. She tends to worry, you know.”
“No?!” said Harold and Josephine laughed and now she did brush away the ant which was about to crawl up under her shorts.
“Thanks, Dad,” she said, springing neatly to her feet and offering her hand to help him rise. “I’ll come by later and talk to Mom, it’s a zoo in there now.”
She brushed off the seat of her shorts and stood, hesitant.
Harold waited.
“I’ve got a brochure. About the school. I want to show it to you. So you’ll see, I think, why it, well, appeals to me. It’s not just silly. Not just red noses and all that. Clowns can be – they are – “
He offered, “ – important.” And it was not a question.
She closed her eyes for a moment. “Yes,” she said simply and he was so glad he had understood.
Before she could shadow away, the sensation of marriage yet in his mind (and later he would give gaze to this unexpected yearning for tradition), he asked, “What about the man who plays the flute? Rico? I don’t mean to pry, I’m just curious. We’ve not met him, so of course –“
She suddenly hunkered down again and Harold felt if he could balance in a squat with such ease he would have no back problems. She said, “He’s twenty-two years old.”
“Oh.” He eased himself down again to a seated position.
There was a long silence as if some conversation was going on without words.
“So.” Harold said at last.
“Exactly.” Josephine agreed.
“You’ve known him for years, haven’t you?” Those phone calls went back a long way.
“Since he was eighteen.”
“And is the relationship so one-sided?”
She turned her head and looked at him. He could feel how hard it was for her to talk to him, to share thoughts, not to mention feelings.
“I’m not sure. I can’t get by the age difference.”
“From whose point of view?”
“Mine, mostly. Totally, really. He is fine with it. He has no problem with the fact that he is still in school, that when I agree to go out with him on a date I have to get by the fact that he is spending money on me that has likely come from a student loan as much as his part-time jobs – you know he plays the flute –“ Harold nodded – “and it all just gets too much for me at times and he says just wait on that aspect it will change.” She paused for breath. Yes, she could talk when she wanted to. “I find it so damned endearing and this bothers me. I don’t like feeling like his mother.”
She looked away but Harold could see that her cheeks had suddenly become pears with the blush of inner sun on them and he decided it was not a motherly feeling that was causing the problem.
“Well, he is right in that time will alter things, narrow the gap.” “Can I cope with the meantime, not damage it all with my upheaval feelings.” She was not asking a question of him but of herself.
“Maybe you’ll get some answers from becoming a clown. What does Rico think of it?”
He was more interested in if she had told Rico than in what he thought. She had. “He is wonderfully supportive.” Now the rose bloom spread all across her lovely face. “As soon as I told him he went on the Net and got all the info about the school. And he got an ice cream cake in the shape of a clown face and put French coins in it that he says I can use on the metro in Paris. He’s like that, Dad.” She had tears in her eyes and he answered with a smile. “I’d say you’re both lucky to have found each other.”
She leaped up, kissed the top of his head, and then she was gone, long strides, along the lane. He wondered where she had parked her car.
He got up much more slowly and with more twisting and turning than his daughter had and started back across the lane, paused at the gate. That he had picked up on the seriousness of both her endeavours gave him satisfaction but he whistled out the reason for the deeper feeling of contentment that was enveloping him. She had come to him for money, not gone to Polly. That was something – important, very, to him.
He’d allowed Polly to convince him all those many years ago that the incredible amount of money she had inherited from her mother (had her mother thus convinced her father once as well?) was a very nice provider and cushion to fall back upon but it was not going to interfere with real life. His income was worthwhile. The money she made from numerous projects was satisfying as well. And now for Josephine to come to him – well, that meant a lot. He hadn’t realized how much until now. Well, fancy that.
He opened the gate and walked through, then, before he started up the path to his cottage he extended his left arm, imagined a hand lightly placed on it, turned to his imaginary daughter and said, “My dear, what a wonderful honour to be the father of the – clown!”
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