The Empty Room (15 page)
There was some pattern to this problem. She could almost see it, but it slipped away. Add the second column to the first, and then subtract? No. The first row by the second? No. She felt a mind-cramp coming on. Skip this one and come back to it later. She moved on, but the skip ruined her rhythm, shook her confidence. She went back and read it again. She stared at the numbers but nothing seemed logical.
It was hard to concentrate and her mouth felt dry as ash. It was altogether too hot in here. She thought of getting water but remembered there were no cups at the cooler, and besides, she was being timed. Her heart beat too quickly. Abandoning that problem, she moved on to the next—but couldn’t get the gist of that one either.
At the end of a banquet 10 people shake hands with each other. How many handshakes will there be in total?
a)100
b)20
c)45
d)50
e)90
Ten times ten, yes, so
(a).
The correct answer is
(a
). Or is it? Certainly. Don’t get stuck, forge ahead
. She could hear the timer ticking in her head. She glanced at her watch: 2:30.
The next question:
Select the number that best completes the following analogy—
10 : 6 : 3 :?
a)2
b)1
c)-l
d)12
e)4
What did those colons mean? Why should she have to know that? She could only guess. She circled (b).
She put her pen down. She was thirsty and hot. She picked up her purse and returned to the receptionist area. A woman Colleen recognized from the last time she was here, one of the placement
officers, stood talking to another woman, presumably another client, who wore a grey wool wrap dress and expensive-looking burgundy boots and whose hair was tousled in a professionally styled sort of way. Kev had disappeared.
The placement officer, her hair in a neat bob, wore a white jacket over a grey skirt, which made her look as though she ought to have a stethoscope around her neck. She turned to Colleen.
“Did you need something?”
“I wonder if you could pause the test. I need to use the facilities.”
“Oh, yes. It’s Ms. Kerrigan, isn’t it?”
“How nice you remembered. Yes, Colleen Kerrigan. But I’m sorry …”
“Nancy Fischer.” The woman held out her hand.
Colleen shook it. “Sorry.”
The woman leaned in and chuckled. “You don’t have the benefit of being handed a file. Excellent memory booster. Colleen, this is Diane Harding.”
“Nice to meet you.” Colleen was aware the clock was ticking. “So, would it be all right to pause the timer?”
Nancy Fischer turned to the other woman, who was not much older than the girl who’d been in to claim her cheque. “Hang on just a minute, Diane.” She picked up the timer from Kev’s desk. “Twenty-five minutes or so left. I’ll make a note and start when you come back. It’s down the hall to your left, first door round the corner.”
“Thanks.”
In the bathroom, Colleen ducked into one of the three stalls and sat down with her purse in her lap. She found the friendly bottle, unwrapped it from its plastic overcoat, opened it and tilted it to her lips. Just a little and she’d relax. She smiled. Colleen had never been a great test-taker. The vodka slipped down her throat and skipped along her nerve endings. She took three, four more drinks. Good Lord, was that half the bottle? But she hadn’t filled it, and there was the cranberry juice to consider.
The bathroom door opened. Someone came in and walked to the stall next to the one Colleen occupied. Colleen stood, replaced the cap on the bottle, and flushed the toilet, even though she hadn’t used it. She thought a breath mint might be in order. She tucked the bottle under her arm and poked around in her bag. Yes, there was a blue plastic container of mints in a side pocket. As she reached for it she moved her arm a little. It didn’t take much, just a small unthinking adjustment, and the salad dressing bottle slipped. She felt it go and snatched at it, but was too slow. She watched it fall to the tile floor and as it fell she thought, Maybe it won’t break. Maybe it will just fall and I’ll be able to nab it and stuff it back in my bag with no one the wiser. Maybe it will be all right.
The corner of the bottle hit the unforgiving tile and didn’t merely break, it exploded. Pink vodka flew everywhere. The woman in the other stall yipped, and for a moment Colleen feared a piece of glass might have struck her.
Then the room went still. Fumes rose to Colleen’s nostrils, acrid and unmistakably alcoholic.
“Is everything okay?” a woman’s voice said.
“Fine, thanks,” said Colleen. The woman, whoever she was, didn’t respond, and Colleen felt obliged to explain. “I dropped a bottle of salad dressing.”
A moment’s silence, and then “Bummer,” followed by a flush.
Colleen looked down at the mess at her feet. A hunk of the bottle, with some fluid still inside, rested near her foot. She could actually picture bending down and lifting that unholy vessel to her lips, draining the last drop. She wouldn’t do that—she considered the possibility of glass in her gut and the horrible death that would result. She even understood how simply thinking such a thing was evidence of a certain degree of madness, but this had been, and continued to be, such a very bad day. A little madness could be expected. In fact, a little madness was kind of attractive just at the moment.
I
t was mid-October, three weeks after Colleen’s fourteenth birthday, and it had been a bad week. The bank had called every day, asking questions about unpaid mortgage and car payments. Colleen’s father stayed away four nights, from Monday to Thursday, and every night her mother sat in the basement TV room, smoking cigarettes and telling Colleen stories about what a bastard her father was, how he spent every paycheque on booze and other women and how, given his job as an airline executive, they should have been living high off the hog, but because of him, that weakling, they’d probably lose the house and Colleen would be sent to a foster home because she certainly wouldn’t be able to take care of her. This last comment was meant as a threat.
Late Friday night of that week, Colleen was getting ready for bed in the upstairs bathroom, which always smelled of the bleach her mother applied to the surfaces each morning, vigorously trying to wipe out any trace of the pathogens she maintained lurked in every crevice. She heard her father’s key in the front door and the scramble of Pixie’s feet on the stairs followed by her yelps of greeting.
“Well,” said her father. “Somebody’s happy to see me.”
Colleen wondered if her mother would come up from the TV
room and confront her father, but she didn’t, so Colleen went to the top of the stairs and waited. It would not please her mother if she went to her father, but she would stand where he couldn’t fail but see her. Pixie, butt wiggling, stumpy tail a blur, sidled from the vestibule and looked up at Colleen, mouth open, tongue lolling, as if to reassure her everything would be all right now.
Peter Kerrigan stepped out after the dog, glanced around and caught sight of his daughter. He looked a little oily. His hat had flattened his dark, thinning hair and left a ridge on his forehead. His suit was rumpled.
“Hey, pet, how’s my girl?”
Colleen came down the stairs and hugged him. He smelled of whisky, cigarettes and the musty scent of commuter train and musk-laden perfume, which was so familiar. “Dad, where have you been?”
“Had to stay in the city. Big labour dispute with the baggage handlers. Ramp rats always wanting more than their fair share. You know how it is. Your dad’s the one who has to go in and mediate. Averted a big strike this time.”
Colleen raised her eyebrows and tilted her head. It didn’t sound convincing to her, so she doubted her mother would buy it. “Mum’s in pretty bad shape.” She chewed her upper lip and then said, “We’ve been getting lots of phone calls. You know, money calls.”
Her father’s smile, which up until that moment had been resolute, now faded. “Where is she?”
“Downstairs.”
“You should go on to bed, pet.” He kept his eyes on the shadowy stairs leading down to the TV room.
“What are you going to do?”
“Oh, I’ll just settle in for a few minutes and then I might just head on up to bed myself.”
“I don’t think you should have any more to drink, Dad.”
“You go on to bed, sweet pea.” He gave her a kiss on the top of her head. “Go on, now.”
She did as she was told, and it wasn’t long before her mother clomped up the stairs. Pixie scrambled along the hall to Colleen’s room and jumped on the bed. The dog turned around in circles a few times and then plunked down with her head on Colleen’s stomach. Colleen stroked Pixie’s soft fur. She put her transistor radio up against her ear, turned low, trying in vain to block out the voices.
You’ve never been any good. I don’t know why I married you
.
You’ve got what you wanted—got the house in the suburbs and the kid and the dog. You can’t say I don’t provide
.
You better not have asked my father for any more money
.
Don’t tell me what to do. I’m dying in this suburban hell
.
If you take another drink I’ll kill you myself, I swear I will
.
And so on.
In the morning, hunched over black coffee at the kitchen table, her father was pasty, sweaty, with trembling hands. His lips were purplish and his eyes red and watery with crusty yellow bits in the corners. He smiled weakly when he saw her. Pixie was under
the dining-room table on the other side of the kitchen, where, presumably, she could keep an eye on things while staying clear of everyone.
“I think your mother’s sewing,” said her father when she asked.
Her mother’s sewing room was just a cleared-out space in the unfinished basement next to the TV room. Surrounded by damp hanging laundry, she sewed with furious intensity on an old pedal machine that had been her mother’s. The fact she was already down there was not a good sign.
“What are you doing today?” asked her father.
Colleen got herself a glass of orange juice and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Your mother’s just a bit nervous. She gets her moods.”
“I know.” Colleen leaned up against the counter. “I think I’ll get dressed and take Pixie out into the woods.”
“Good idea.” Her father sipped his coffee, holding the cup with both hands.
The woods behind the house were a refuge for Colleen and she was grateful the day was dry and sunny. Crimson, garnet and amber leaves fluttered from the trees. Pixie bounded after squirrels and then ran back to Colleen. When they came to the stream with the big rocks, Colleen sat down and Pixie flopped beside her, resting her chin on Colleen’s leg.
“Heffalump,” said Colleen affectionately.
All around them water gurgled, birds sang and leaves rustled in
the breeze. Pixie heaved an enormous sigh. “Yeah,” said Colleen, rubbing the dog’s ear. “Me too.”
Colleen had brought cheese and crackers, a handful of chocolate chip cookies and an apple. She had also brought The Hobbit and so had something to occupy her between throwing sticks for Pixie and watching the dog chase rabbits. They stayed on the rocks by the stream for a long time, and then they walked through the woods to the horse farm. Colleen shared the apple with the big chestnut horse that ambled over to greet her. His nose was like velvet and even Pixie liked him. The horse hung his head over the fence and Pixie reached up and they had a nice long sniff. Colleen climbed the fence and sat astraddle the rail while the horse rubbed his long head against her shoulder. He almost knocked her off once, and she laughed.
The shadows were starting to lengthen by the time she said to Pixie, “I guess we better get back.”
Why did the walk back home feel so short? She always imagined she’d managed to get farther away than she had. The ground she’d gained in an entire morning and afternoon was lost in the brief hour it took to retrace her steps.
From the outside, the house seemed quiet. Maybe her father had gone out, but where would he go? If he didn’t go golfing—and it was too late in the season for that—he didn’t go much of anywhere on the weekends. The hardware store sometimes. He puttered in the garden, or watched sports on the television.
Colleen climbed up the steps, Pixie behind her. She waited a
moment before ringing the bell (she wasn’t allowed to have her own key), listening for raised voices. Nothing. That could be a good thing, but then again, it might be her mother had locked herself in the bathroom again, or barricaded herself in her bedroom. Her father slept in his own room, halfway down the hall between mother and daughter. Her mother’s room, the master bedroom, had big white and gold dressers, and blue carpets. It held twin beds, so nobody would know her father slept in the other room, the one like a motel, with the narrow bed, the plain bureau, the gooseneck lamp. Sometimes he took long naps on weekend afternoons in his little room, with the door ajar, because her mother couldn’t abide a closed door, not even if you were in the bathroom on the toilet.
She waited a minute longer, until Mrs. Baker drove along the street. She slowed down, and Colleen knew she was about to ask her if everything was okay, so she waved and smiled and rang the bell. Mrs. Baker drove by. It took a long time, but eventually her mother came to the door. She flipped the lock on the screen door but didn’t open it, so Colleen let herself in. The whole house smelled of cigarette smoke. That wasn’t good. Pixie scampered up the stairs to Colleen’s bedroom and disappeared.
“Where have you been all day?” Her mother puffed a cigarette, burned down almost to the filter, and blew the smoke at Colleen.
“No place, just out in the woods. I went to see the horses. The big one had burrs on him so I picked those out. He’s a good horse. He stood really still and didn’t even stomp when I pulled them
out of his mane, which I bet hurt, you know, like having knots combed out of your hair, and I gave him some apple.” It was important to keep talking, because as she talked, she could try to see where her father might be and figure out what her mother had been doing just before she came in. Apparently she had been in the kitchen, because that’s where she headed now. Colleen wiped her sneakers off on the mat and followed her without taking off her corduroy jacket.