The Gallery of Lost Species (5 page)

She didn't teach us much or seem to care how we grew up. It wasn't deliberate neglect. Incapable of maternal nurturing, she fulfilled the minimum of motherly obligations.

In the domain of pageantry, however, she was a perfectionist. No expenses were spared on the prodigy of our family. Until Viv revolted, Constance put all her energy into these opulent charades as if her sanity depended on it.

After the blow-up, I worried Viv would send Con packing back to France. Instead, our mother started playing Édith Piaf more than ever.

It was like mean French fairies were gnawing away at her insides, whispering frustrations in her ear, namely that she'd wasted the prime years of her life on us.

One day she put the song “Non, je ne regrette rien” on repeat. The husky, heartbreaking voice poured forth from the stereo for hours on end.

“We get it, Mom,” I finally said. “You have no regrets.”

“Au contraire, ma fille. Je regrette tout.”

“Everything?”

“Mostly,
oui.
”

I tried not to take it personally.

“Personne ne m'aime,”
she added as she scrupulously folded her stylishly printed pashminas.

“That's not true. We all love you.”

It would have been easier if she'd pitched tantrums and got it all out of her system. But our unknowable mother conveyed her disappointments by a nearly undetectable shift in her gaze, which changed her entire countenance. Had she auditioned to sit for Leonardo's famous portrait, she'd have beaten out Mona Lisa.

SEVEN

T
HE MORE
V
IV RESISTED
Con, the more my mother distanced herself from us and the more my father hoarded. Constance signed up for night classes in pottery, quilting, and weaving, and Henry's reckless spending on artifacts increased, as though shining objects and complete sets could soothe his mind.

When it came to my mother, my father was chasing a fugitive pigment, trying to turn their love into a permanent state without the innate properties required to do so. Even while their relationship waned, he continued to adore her. By his mid-forties, Henry had been reduced. Like paper going through tonal changes, he was unrecognizable as the person in the albums I had flipped through as a girl.

“That's not
you,
” I'd insist. Gone was the youthful, chiselled man with wavy black hair and a challenging look in his eyes.

While Constance retained her beauty in an unearthly way, my father's handsomeness was like a flare producing a bright comet over my mother, signalling her then expiring.

*   *   *

O
NE NIGHT AFTER
Constance slipped out the door in a cocktail dress, lacing the room with her frangipani aroma as she left, Viv turned to Henry and said, “Why don't you bust her, it's obvious what she's doing.”

Our father gave my sister a blank stare. He opened his mouth but retracted whatever he was about to say. Instead, he walked over to the bay window and watched our mother drive away.

I can still see his profile there in his brown sweater vest, his back and shoulders curbing prematurely, his hair thinning. Worse than this image, it's the sound of his wheezing that stays with me—the coarse rasping that came with each breath.

Viv glowered from the couch then stomped outside to the painting shed. I trailed out after her.

“No one dresses like that to go to a quilting class. See if she ever comes home with anything from those slut outings. I
hate
her!”

Viv had a point. Con never returned with any of the products of her crafting classes. She was either naive or she didn't care. Though I found it inconceivable that she wasn't enrolled in any courses and was meeting a man on the side, as Viv's accusation implied. But maybe our mother was up to no good.

“I thought you wanted her off your case.”

“She can bite me.” My sister chewed her nails. The skin was torn and bleeding.

That night, Henry told me, “It's time we got you a job. Get you out of your room.” Summer holidays were starting. I anticipated having two months at home with Dickens.

“I like my room.”

“It's not good to isolate yourself, kiddo.”

“I don't want a job.”

“It'll be more like an apprenticeship.” He paused. “With Serena. Would you like that?”

A summer with Serena in her peculiar shop did not excite me.

“Give it a chance,” he said, adding, “Her son Omar helps sometimes.” As if my meeting the boy in the attic would be incentive enough.

I forced a smile. I wanted to make him just as proud as Viv did, though less so lately.

*   *   *

H
E LET ME
off in front of Ye Olde Coin Shoppe the next morning, waiting until I'd gone inside before pulling away.

Serena was hunched over like a watchmaker, with a magnifier sticking out of one eye. When she heard me come in, she placed the lens on the table, sliding it away from her like a chess piece. She stretched her arms in the air, swaying into a backward arch.

“Hello, Edith.”

She pulled a cigarillo from behind her ear and lit it. The blue smoke curled in on itself at her lips. I preferred this sweet odour to that of my mother's cigarettes.

Serena picked a piece of tobacco from her tongue. She had a feline quality to her, in her wild mane and in the way she languidly moved around the jam-packed space. She sauntered over to the window, parting the curtains to inspect the street.

“Your dad bring you?”

“He's gone.”

She let the curtains drop and scrutinized me. Fitting me with a heavy, rubbery apron, she led me to a wooden desk like the ones we used in class.

“So much for school being out,” I joked, sliding into the seat. But Serena didn't smile.

“That's Omar's. He doesn't use it anymore.”

Lifting a bucket onto the desk, she dunked her arm into the soapy water and pulled up a handful of black lumps that she plunked onto a cloth. Using a denture brush, she showed me how to scrub loose dirt off the coins. Once she was confident I'd mastered the scrubbing, she retreated upstairs and told me to call if any customers entered the store.

In the time it took her to return, calluses formed on my palms and my neck began cramping. When I heard her coming down the steps, I straightened up.

“Where's your son?” I asked as she surveyed my progress.

“Omarrrr!” Serena called. She rolled her
r
's like Con.

A gangly boy about my age appeared on the landing. He had inky hair and the same serious face as his mother. He wore coke-bottle glasses with a thick white band like a tennis player's around his head.

“Hi.” He shuffled over and peered into my bucket. “I see my mom has you doing her dirty work.”

“She's paying me,” I told him.

“So she says.”

He ran a finger along the glass tops of the cabinets. In among the coins and banknotes from foreign countries were other currencies—belts made from shells and beads, ivory statuettes, and shackles.

Serena was adding up a pile of receipts at the back of the room. “I'm going to take a nap,” Omar said, walking over to her.

She smoothed his curls down and kissed him on the forehead. “Don't forget, we have a doctor's appointment at four o'clock.”

“I won't,” he said, looking virtuous.

Serena came back to my workstation with a dental pick and a coin. “See green? Scrape.” When I scratched at the coin, she slapped my hand. “Gentle!”

She hoisted the bucket off my desk and dumped the murky water into the sink. Omar lingered at the counter. I continued with my scraping, not letting on as I saw him slip a coin into his pocket before he climbed the staircase. When he caught my glance, his eye twitched.

Later, I was startled by a loud, rhythmic thudding upstairs and then a howling. Serena flew up the narrow passageway and never came back down. I walked around the shop, intrigued by the sawed-off shotgun under the counter and the alarm system on the wall.

When my father picked me up, I asked, “What's wrong with Omar?”

“Hmmm?” He seemed preoccupied.

“Her kid. What's with him?”

My father lowered the volume on the radio. “Oh, Omar. He's epileptic.”

EIGHT

I
T WAS OUR MOTHER'S
unfailing belief in the impossible that was her undoing. Toward the end of Viv's pageant career, Con was like an actor with lines memorized for the wrong play, performing in a tragicomedy of her own making.

The night before the Fairytale Faces competition, which we all attended annually, it was evident something was off with my sister.

Viv wrestled with her pointe shoes. Con had bought them from a new supplier at a lesser cost. The pointes didn't shape to her arches and were a size too small.

“Constance, these don't fit.”

“Don't fret,
zouzou.
We're going to
make
them fit.”

She sat Viv on the bed, squeezing her delicate feet into the hard slippers. She took a spray bottle and applied water onto the satin to stretch it out.

Viv grimaced with each step as she practised her routine. She didn't finish her final run-through. When she pulled the shoes off, her toes looked as if they'd been spattered with red paint.

“
Merde,
Vivienne. How many times do I have to tell you to tape up? You will bleed right through the shoe!”

Viv said she wasn't feeling well and she didn't touch her supper. When she retreated to her room, I followed her. “Beauty is lame,” she mumbled with indifference, closing her eyes. I brushed and braided her hair until she slapped my hand away.

Viv recoiled from our family. Even though she shared an artistic talent with Henry, she remained uncommunicative with him, while her relationship with Con was a long and painful tournament of wills.

She wouldn't get close with my parents and by extension she wouldn't get close with me. Yet I didn't need her to shower me with affection to know that she loved me. Protecting me from bullies like Andy and Paul was proof of it, as were other similar and unpredictable gestures, though they were few and far between.

My theory was that my resplendent sister kept her distance so she wouldn't crack up. So I forgave her and let her be.

*   *   *

A
T FOUR IN
the morning, we packed into the wagon for the five-hour drive to Toronto. Viv slept the whole way there. By the time we reached the Hilton, where the contest was being held, her complexion was washed out and she was shivering.

Con dismissed it as nerves.

In the room we'd rented for the day, she wrapped my sister in a blanket and sat her down at the mirror. Humming “Au clair de la lune,” she pulled Viv's costumes from their garment bags and laid them out with care on the king-size bed.

When they started arguing, Henry and I left the room and installed ourselves in the back row of the large conference space. Soon the lights dimmed and the girls paraded out one by one:
Calista wants to be a chief executive. Her hobbies include shoe shopping and surfing. Madison dreams of being a physicist and Miss Universe. Her favourite foods are Astro Pops and
KFC
.

The first segment was character costumes. Snow Whites and Rapunzels dominated. When Viv's turn came, Constance participated in the skit, as parents sometimes did. My sister had been adamant about choosing her own attire. The music was also stopped at her request. In silence, she stepped onto the platform and lay on her back for what felt like forever in pageant time. People in the audience started fidgeting. Then Con emerged all dolled up in her strapless dress and mules. With a dancer's grace, she bent over and dragged Viv out by the ankles to centre stage.

My mother attached Velcro strings to Viv's head, wrists, and knees. She took a few steps back and raised a wooden control bar high in the air, prompting Viv to sit up and turn her head from side to side.

My sister had converted one of her princess cones into a Pinocchio hat. She'd stamped circles on her cheeks with a bingo blotter, and put the cardboard cylinder from a roll of toilet paper over her nose, fastening it around her head with twine.

For three minutes, Viv entertained the audience as our mother acted as the puppeteer. There was applause and gasping when Viv snuck behind Con to fake a kick or make the strangling motion around an invisible throat with her white-gloved hands. When her time was up, Viv stiffened. She dropped her upper body down and pinned her nose against her knees, returning to an inanimate object that Constance hauled offstage.

The judges and audience roared with laughter. We all did. Only when Viv flipped Con the double bird from the curtain wing, which everyone saw except my mother, did the room go quiet.

*   *   *

T
HERE WAS A
two-hour break before the final glitz-wear portion of the contest.

Back in our hotel suite, Con turned on the TV and plugged in the hair appliances. When the irons were hot, she began the lengthy activity of creating ringlets of varying sizes out of Viv's hair, over which she fastened a heavier artificial hairpiece, which stayed on with sharp-toothed metal combs that gave my sister severe headaches.

My father put his hand on Viv's forehead. Then he grabbed my mother by the upper arm and pulled her into the bathroom, closing the door. Viv turned the volume up on
Oprah,
but we could still hear them arguing about whether or not my sister was really sick. When they came out, he told me to put on my coat.

“Henri Walker, don't you
dare.
”

“Hang in there, sweetheart.” My father studied Viv, ignoring our mother.

My sister moved the curls away from her eyes. “I am a pageant
angel,
” she said, blowing kisses weakly in our direction.