The Ruby Slippers (34 page)

■ ♦ ■

So now I come to the end of my story, but must go back to the beginning to reveal what before I did not say. To write this I feel myself free at last, and know that I am able to confront my shame, for that is what was hanging on me all this time, nothing but shame
.

Early in this story I relate that I went from the house in Riga of my mother, Jolanta, who was already widowed, but I did not give the whole reason. In 1936, at the age of only fifteen, I made a terrible mistake: I was going to where the river comes to the harbour and there was a café full of musicians and poets – I am drawn to these people who are so intelligent and artistic and full of life, and noticing especially how the poets are so much the better-looking. And I meet a Russian who is poet – you have to understand that they were not all bad and sometimes there were friendships and more. And this is what happened to me. Love and sex I did not understand at all, and so before I knew what it mean to conceive I become pregnant. Of course it was then a dreadful thing. My mother was not very religious, but we were respectable and in the church, and it was therefore looked upon with shame. Also I was young and did not understand what it means to be a mother; I did not realize I had rights of my own. Soon I start to grow bigger and did not know where to turn, for fear and shame was to come on the family. But then for good fortune, my sister Magda and Janis, who had tried for five years but were childless, come to me. They offer to take the baby, and the result was that I agree to hand the child to them, and they are to bring it up as their own. I was sworn by them to tell no one, to live silent with my secret and go away as far as possible. The child was born in Christmas 1936 and his name was Mihails Bendiks Petraidis. After this he became Marcinkus, the name of my sister and her husband
.

To those who ask how I could do this – to let a baby go, to go far away and live a different life – I say this. Live my life; go to the places I went; suffer what I suffered; endure the good things and the bad; then come back and tell me what I should have done. There was a time I dearly wished to tell Mihails all what is written here, but I came to believe, after my mind became unsafe, that I no longer could, because the mother he would find was not a good mother, not even a whole person. The shock of the discovery would be worse than the lie
.

This story will be found perhaps when I am dead. The truth can be perhaps a comfort after the reality is gone. What is there left to say? To Mihails I say, I love you, and I pray to God and Heaven that my story will bring something better to your life than it has brought to me
.

Rosa Petraidis

■ ♦ ■

He sits there, dreamy with the music. Four times he has read this part of the history, but still he feels devoid of any meaningful emotion. By any standards her story is tragically, shockingly sad – enough to make the angels weep. And yet
he
cannot. What is wrong with me? he wonders. I should be crying my eyes out but I can’t.

The sun is fully up by the time he gets out of the cab. He looks at the dusty window and sees the Sunrise sign, faded with age. For some reason it always brings a smile to his face, even now. He chose the name itself but never knew why. How many times has he stood here, outside the Sunrise at sunrise. His world: solid and knowable and comforting in its familiarity.

He peers through the window into the darkened store, looking for signs of life, wondering if Grace is up and about, wondering if she is there at all.

H
ARRISON
is there, outside the convenience store. Just when she is walking back home with her messages, he arrives out of nowhere and stands in her way, staring terrible at her, his face all bruised and swollen. Rain’s anger is hard and sharp this time. How in heaven’s name did he know to find her here? And how dreadful he looks. For all her annoyance, she forces herself to be polite: ‘What happened to you?’

‘Don’t ask.’

‘I don’t get it. What are you doing here? This is not funny; it’s awful!’ She is practically yelling at him now, such is her fury. ‘No, it’s not cute, it’s not nice. Stop looking at me like that! How in hell did you know to find me here?’

‘Are you gonna stop shouting?’

‘OK, so I’m quiet now – so tell me.’

‘Because I stood outside your house two days nearly and waited,’ he says calmly and really quite proud of himself.

‘You did
what
? Are you crazy? You stood outside my house and waited till I came out? That’s stalking!’ she screams.

‘You’re shouting again,’ he says, for once the quiet one.

‘Damn right I’m shouting!’

‘I did not stalk you. I waited to see you. And then I followed you because I care about you and have to tell you – I have to say what I have to say.’

‘If my father saw you he would whip you, I do believe it, he would stand here in the street and whip you!’

‘Well he ain’t here, thank God, but I am and so are you. The thing is, I wanna be with you, to listen to you and care for you – don’t ask me to say why – and do things right and be a better person.’

‘This is just nuts!’

‘No, it ain’t. Please, please, just hear me out.’ Now at last he tells her the really tricky stuff about himself: the whole story about the ruby slippers, from the smelly old woman to the frozen grocer, and the beating he took for daring to believe he could share in the stolen magic, and the pain and suffering he has endured because what is rightfully his was taken. It all comes down to one big, crazy, sorrowful story, and she starts to feel his sadness and to make sense of things about him that hadn’t added up before. If nothing else, he has been honest and told her difficult things about himself, and that at least makes him more of a man than she had first thought. He allows himself a smile, relieved at least that he has got this far unscathed, as if her hand had never exploded against his face and made him see stars. But she is far from sweetness and light. ‘Why are you telling me all this?’ she starts. ‘Don’t tell me, tell God. Go to the Tabernacle and tell Him. That’s the first thing you should do, and when that is done you should let go the money, lose the money and be happy.’

‘I don’t have the money, that’s the truth. Just a hundred fucking dollars. What, I should give that away too?’

‘That especially. And by the way, don’t curse around me. It was blood money. Lose it, get rid of it. Nobody should keep what gave them pain.’

‘I can’t do that. It’s like saying money is bad, period, but money is money – like you should never want it.’

‘Then we have nothing to say to each other. Please. There is no point in this conversation.’

■ ♦ ■

It is beyond a joke. James should be at work, but instead he’s sitting in this hideous corridor waiting for the God Almighty doctor to get back off his rounds and he’s three quarters of an hour late already! If it wasn’t urgent, if the old man hasn’t taken a turn for the worse, why did they insist he come? Ringing him at seven in the morning when he had had so little sleep. Didn’t they know he was here for hours last night when they could have spoken to him at any time? They’d better have a damn good reason for all this trouble! Glancing at his watch and growing all the more jittery, James tries Siobhan again – a long shot – and the phone rings on and on, and still no sign of the damn quack! Seriously rattled, he calls work and speaks to Marcia, who is ‘overjoyed’ to learn he is still in the land of the living and ‘ecstatic’ to hear from him again. Just as she is starting to really wallow in it all and tell him how ‘frantic with worry’ everyone has been, he spies the doctor walking towards him: Dr Benedetti. He looks like a Benedetti, tall and thin and sort of ascetic; it must be him. And so he pockets the gushing woman and stands to meet the impassive man, keen to display outrage at being messed around like this. But Benedetti has no time for petty nonsense; he steers James into a side room and poses the question that has been vexing him: ‘Mr McBride, certain irregularities have come to light concerning your father’s condition. The tests show that he has ingested, over a significant period of time, something like three times the recommended dosage of painkillers.’

James struggles to take this in. ‘Three times the dose? What does that mean?’

‘It means he is very, very sick. He has liver damage, kidney damage, severely reduced red cell —’

‘My God, how did it happen?’

‘I was rather hoping you might have an answer.’

‘Me? I don’t see him. Hardly ever.’

‘You are his son?’

‘Sure but . . . long story. You should speak to the nurse; she’s with him twenty-four hours a day.’

‘Ah.’

‘Just tell me again; this has nothing to do with his illness?’

‘Nothing.’

‘And he took three times the normal dose and now he has organ damage?’

‘Yes. It’s serious . . . Mr McBride.’

‘You mean he’s going to die?’

‘I’m very surprised he’s still alive.’

‘God . . . Does he know?’

‘That he’s dying? Possibly. I tried to find out from him how it happened, so he must have some idea. And of course he’s aware that he’s not feeling so good.’

‘Did he say anything?’

‘No. That’s why I want to know what happened here.’

‘You think he took them deliberately?’

‘It’s what we need to find out. Usually in cases like this, we would call the police. Except by then the person is usually dead.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘Jesus. Can I see him?’

‘Please go ahead. Maybe you can find something out we couldn’t.’

James stands at his father’s hospital bedside. Looking down he sees, in the carved, sallow face, everything that ever made his own life dark and solemn. It is hideous to be alone in a hospital room again with a dying man without a trace of tenderness to wrap himself in. McBride lies there, propped up, a mechanical man, wired to monitors, plugged with drips and in a shut-down state that’s far from sleep. There is the sound of breathing, but it comes from a machine releasing morphine in its own cycle of slow, sad exhalations. James looks into his father’s flickering eyes and for some reason remembers his long-dead mother. He struggles to find something to say – even with his father’s evil behaviour he should try and find some decent words. When McBride speaks first, it catches him off guard: ‘What . . . are you . . . doing here?’ The voice, slow and breathy but connected still to the same reptilian brain, the half-closed eyes still full of intent.

‘You . . . you’re not well.’

‘Ain’t . . . that . . . a fucking fact!’

‘You took painkillers.’

‘So . . . I am told.’ His head flops away to the side. James presses on still: ‘What does that mean? Listen to me. You have to tell me. Did you do that? Did you overdose on purpose? Because if you know something and are capable of saying it, you must say so now.’

The eyes close and James thinks he has gone away again, but suddenly Malachi McBride begins to laugh – as much as a dying man
can
laugh – a throaty cackle sawing at the air with his eyes closed and twitching. Whatever the joke is, it isn’t that funny, because now the eyes flash open again, as if alerted by a sixth sense. ‘Well . . . here comes the star . . . of the show!’ And she just walks into the room, arriving at the foot of the bed: the saintly figurine, hands clasped in front. James looks at her, staggered. She gives a little twitch. Her eyes are bright and hard, knowing the truth is out.

The dying man is not done yet: ‘Gotta . . . hand it to you . . . that was a damn . . . good murder.’ He gasps and falls away again. James, meanwhile, draws himself up to his full height and glares down at her. ‘Not here,’ she says, almost inaudible, before he can find his next words. ‘Not here.’

■ ♦ ■

The first thing to hit Michael is the clean, sharp and oh-so-familiar smell of disinfectant floor-wash. ‘Michael!’ she calls out from where she is mopping. ‘Go that way –
that way
– it’s dry there already.’ Grace: no-nonsense and practical to the last. He exhales in relief, and the first smile in a week rearranges his crumpled features into something softer and smoother. He goes to her and she comes to him, and they kiss and she strokes his cheek and tells him she is sorry, and he holds her to him and tells her not to beat herself up over it. ‘No, Michael, I won’t, but this was all my doing. Mine,’ she insists. ‘But now you sit down and have a good hot coffee, and when you’re feeling up to it, tell me everything.’

So Grace comes to know the appalling and enthralling truth about Michael’s birth. Two cups later, she knows, too, that they are safe from the reach of the law, him having satisfied them that Rosa was his mother and that there was no real charge to answer to. As for the original theft of the slippers, it was in another time and place and no one could ever come close to the truth of it. ‘Well, I guess that makes us lucky,’ she says, for once philosophical. ‘We had all this heartache, but at least we didn’t go to jail.’

‘And we still have the slippers.’

‘Well, yeah, but I ain’t so fussed about them right now,’ she adds. ‘Looking back, I kinda got it wrong. That goes without saying. But at least I didn’t take off and hotfoot it outta the building. Like certain others we don’t care to mention.’

‘I know. I saw them go. How did Jenny take to that?’ he asks.

‘I’d be surprised if she didn’t throw Karl outta the house. Anyways, what about you? You must be in sore need of some rest.’

‘Not really. Too much to do . . .’

‘Poor you,’ she coos when he tells her how he spent the night in a cell.

‘Not a bit of it. I slept, didn’t I? And I can’t remember the last time I did that in my own bed.’

‘Ah, come here,’ she says fondly and kisses him, only to spring away beetroot-red when a customer walks in.

‘Here we go, then,’ he says.

‘Here we go,’ she says.

Home again.

■ ♦ ■

In the hospital cafeteria – with children playing at one end, with people seated at tables wearing kind hospital faces, and with bright primitive paintings on the walls – Inez proceeds to explain to James how she set about ending the life of his father. They are, of all things, drinking coffee. Quietly and calmly, she tells the story that starts with the terrible old man mocking her beloved children and spitting out blasphemies, which then moves on to the 1001 private cruelties he has visited on her across the years, and that ends in the finale that James knows only too well: the public mocking and scourging of his own son. There are no tears, no rise and fall in her voice, just a plain account: the dates it started, the dosages she gave, the progress of symptoms. No defence is made; no justification attempted or apology offered. So calm is she that James starts to wonder whether she is mad, or evil, or actually a vessel of the Lord, who has been known, after all, to send his messengers to strike sinners down. He decides that she is not mad or bad. Her love for her absent children is heart-rending and she herself so sorrowful and self-effacing. He recalls the time he almost threw a man down the library stairs and was all the better for it, and more courageous, as she has had to be, in an upside-down kind of way. Yet he knows it is his duty to go to someone in authority and put the facts before them.