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Nearly everyone I know likes to allude to an obnoxious adolescence. It's a form of conceit, particularly with people who've failed to make much of an impression on life. I've lost count of the half jocular sessions of self-recrimination I've had to sit through in which everyone present insists his teenage depredations were fouler than anyone else's. It's really just an underhand form of bragging. Everyone likes to have achieved prominence in some realm of their existence, even if the accomplishment was for making other people wish they were somewhere else. Anyone whose influence has been genuinely pernicious is less likely to draw attention to the evidence. Someone I met recently mentioned, apropos of nothing, that he was sufficiently moved by the “Toby has cancer” story-line in Whatever Happened to Yesterday to volunteer bone marrow. It wasn't a huge surprise to discover days later that he'd broken his girlfriend's jaw in the course of an argument about how best to resolve social inequity. Someone who tells you he dedicated his teenage years to voluntary work should be treated with more caution than the self-satisfied goon mock ruefully confessing to driving his history teacher to a nervous breakdown.
I don't suppose anyone can retrospectively apply an adult perspective to the years of hormonal maladjustment. Yesterday I read about a fifteen-year old who raised thousands of pounds to buy his deaf cousin a specially adapted computer. Months later he was charged with the same cousin's murder, having lured him to a deserted shack and beaten him to death with a brick. That kid will have a field day if he ever gets out and involved in one of these “I used to spy on my sister in the shower” type sessions. I wonder if he's as appalling as the story suggests. Did he really raise the money as a ruse, knowing that his next significant role in the life of his cousin would be to end it? It doesn't seem likely. Right now he's probably sitting in a white tiled cell wondering what the hell happened. In certain moods I have tendency to look back and berate myself. I guess I should be thankful I'm not in his position. I'll think about him the next time my mother mentions the time “grandma ruined Patsy's vacation” which is now the family euphemism for my grandmother's death.
My Uncle Harrison telephoned just as I was finishing off my packing for a week in Stacy McKenna's parents' cabin. A phone call from Harrison was rare occurrence. He and my mother didn't get along. The last time he had telephoned my mother's voice, over the course of a twenty minute conversation, rose from the tone of forced affability you might use to coax someone off a window ledge, to the screech of anger with which you'd tell them to go ahead and jump. “Why don't you go and fuck yourself, Harrison,” she shouted before replacing the receiver with such force that the next day we had to buy a new phone. Obviously, I'd heard her swear before, but never with such feeling.
This time, as mom, six months into her marriage to the second and stupider of my stepfathers, was drinking with friends, I was forced to talk to him for five minutes, holding the receiver away from my ear to avoid the full impact of his nasal bray. I still remember most of our conversation, a monologue, really, my own input comprising exaggerated yawns and hand gestures (made for nobody's entertainment but my own) while Harrison expounded on the fact that young people no longer carry tissues or cover their mouths when they cough. “Nobody thinks to tell them. You can't tell anyone anything without being sworn at.” According to Harrison, this lack of awareness would inevitably lead to the pandemic that would wipe out the human race. I got the impression that, as a representative of the hygienically negligent young, I was being blamed for the imminent apocalypse of snot. Not once in the course of this contemplation of extinction did my uncle allude to his mother, far less the fact that she'd died less than two hours earlier. Even after I'd passed him on to mom, he repeated the points he'd just made to me before getting round to mentioning that Grandma had collapsed in the frozen food aisle of Price Rite. From what I could overhear of the conversation, my mother initially seemed less shocked by Grandma's death than the fact that she secretly shopped in Grenville's cheesiest discount store. “But they can't even spell their own name,” she said at one stage, “Are you sure?”
When Cheryl Shaw's grandmother died, she wore black eyeliner for a month and, over a year later, was so upset by the sight of an old lady zombie in a horror movie that she broke down, wailing, “My grandmother!” until everyone in the room wanted to slap her. On discovering that my grandmother had died, I spent the rest of the evening attempting to extricate myself from the obligation of attending the funeral. Cheryl's grandmother, in fairness, had been a benign presence in her life. As far as I was concerned mine wasn't. Whenever we travelled the two hundred miles to Grenville (she and Grandpa never came to Willow Creek to visit us) she only seemed to acknowledge me in order to comment on my speech, posture, taste or appearance. Worst of all, she more than once told my mother that I was sly, a slur for which I never forgave her. Of course, some people who seem rude or overly judgmental labour under the delusion that their lack of tact is an asset. Someone generally considered an asshole, might think of himself as “candid” or “refreshingly honest”. I get the impression that my grandmother prided herself in “telling it like it is”. Even mom, who could never mention her without an involuntary grimace, conceded that she could be very generous toward people she didn't know. It was just unfortunate that, having met them, her response was one of disappointment.
My efforts to exclude myself from the funeral party were in vain. By seven a.m. the next morning, I was slumped in the rear passenger seat of my stepfather's Hyundai waiting for the resolution of an argument as to whether or not he should bring his guitar, the appearance of which inevitably presaged a darkening of the happiest of occasions. Guy, who years before meeting my mother had been involved in a car accident which I suspected must have destroyed some vital neural component, seemed genuinely baffled as to why an enforced sing song might be inappropriate to the occasion. Normally, I would have taken my mother's side and argued that the recently bereaved have suffered enough without being forced to endure renditions of the sort of interminable plantation ballads Guy enjoyed. I'd determined, however, to maintain a sulky silence for the duration of the trip and said nothing, even as he affectionately strapped the dreaded “Doreen” (his pet name for his guitar) into the seat next to mine, one eye still blinking violently from the intensity of his recent argument.
The return to Grenville, particularly in the two years since my grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, always caused mom to go from forced conviviality to outright panic via stages of escalating belligerence I'd learned to identify by the names of the towns we passed en route. I've always associated Peterson with tearfulness, for example, and Arbuckle with irrational rage. This time we drove in nearly silence, only interrupted by Guy's automatic chide of “ People matter, Patsy” whenever we passed roadkill. He persisted in this admonishment throughout his relationship with my mother, despite being constantly reminded that he was confusing me with his own drippy daughter, Becky, who could be reduced to tears by the mere contemplation of the history of an uncooked hamburger. It always bothered me that my mother attached herself to someone who bred so haphazardly that he confused other people's children with his own. On this occasion, neither she nor I bothered to correct him. Mom stared out of the window, the only indicator of her mounting anxiety being a gradual stiffening of the jaw.
In certain types of movie, homecomings are described by a soft, silly inner voice redolent of mental incapacity, the treacly tone of nostalgia. In my mother's movie, I expect, that voice would be replaced by one as harsh and metallic as a vengeful cyborg's. She and her younger brother Steven had left home at the earliest opportunity, mom to go to college, Steven, by his own account, to go on tour with a band, by everyone else's to work in a video store. Neither seemed eager to return. Only Harrison remained, surrounded by the accumulated junk of thirty-seven years and apparently oblivious to the expectation that he might ever leave.
I didn't particularly like either of my uncles. Neither fulfilled the role of older but still fun relative with any great enthusiasm. They never sent presents for my birthday or Christmas, though my grandmother would add Harrison's name to gift tags and greetings cards as an afterthought. Steven occasionally sent mom his c.d.'s which she dutifully racked without every playing. Stacy and I once listened to one. The only coherent song was a fantasy about the murder of a girlfriend called Your Alien Eyes. Without telling me, Stacy wrote to him, complimenting him on his great mind. For six months she maintained a correspondence before showing me the collection of letters in which my thirty something uncle encouraged her to leave school and move to Bismark where he'd find her a job in a diner. At least he had a role in life, even if its benefit to humanity was minimal. Harrison, to the best of my knowledge, simply lingered, the human equivalent of a stain.
When I was younger, it didn't occur to me that there was anything questionable about him simply existing, annoying people. I once saw him emerging from the shed at the bottom of my grandparents' garden dressed as a tramp, limping dramatically, his cheeks partially obscured by a prosthetic fuzz. Perhaps on account of this, I'd nurtured a vague impression that he begged. I knew he hadn't gone to school, a fact of which he was inordinately proud, and I assumed that there was something wrong with him, some vague incapacity, insufficiently dramatic for me to be expected to take an interest. He could dress himself, communicate and move around without assistance. When dad was still around, he referred sardonically to Harrison's investigations and more than once mom referred to him as “the detective” in the same way as she might refer to someone as “the shithead” or “the pain in the ass”. From their tone, I took it that Harrison was a detective in the sense that Aaron Ralston, who cycled aorund the cul de sac shouting into an imaginary c.b. handset was one of the Dukes of Hazzard.
*
My grandparents were never gregarious people. According to mom, visitors, on departure, were subjected to character analyses as rigorous as post mortems. The only non-family member I'd previously encountered in their house, with the exception of Val, the housekeeper, was a friend of Harrison's my mother referred to as Brian Mucous. On arriving on the day after my grandmother's death, however, we found an open door, beyond which it appeared that the world had dropped in. A subdued but distinctly cheerful throng milled in the hall, people sat on the stairs and children played as if a spell had been nullified. A profusion of candles flickered on every available surface and, although it was March, strands of red and forest-coloured tinsel had been unearthed from the Christmas decorations and draped around lamps and banisters. Percy and Desiree, the canaries normally captive in my grandparents' bedroom, flapped anxiously over head while Fu Manchu, Hamilton's toothless Siamese cat pranced below, frenzied by the sudden opportunity for slaughter for years denied him. Guy, already anticipating the need for musicians in this festival of bereavement, looked toward my mother and nodded excitedly. Mom didn't respond to his look. I don't think she even noticed. At the time, I had no personal experience of contemporary death rites. My mother's expression, initially tautened by incredulity, briefly threatening to collapse in despair before settling in the look of profound resignation of a brain unable to compute an appropriate response, was sufficient to inform me that this was not normal procedure.
“Harrison,” she said, in an apprehensive voice, as if worried that she might summon an entity from the bowels of creation. Nobody in the throng even noticed. Mom opened her mouth to repeat the request, thought better of it and closed her eyes, willing herself, I expect to disappear. At this moment, Val appeared at the top of the stairs, her eyes glazed and forehead beaded, she made a hurried descent, treading on hands and eliciting yelps of indignation in her haste.
“Cathy,” she said, “I'm so sorry….”
“Where's Harrison?” repeated mom, rebuffing Val's attempt to hug her like someone repelling the affectionate embrace of a drunk.
“I'm sorry,” said Val. “I just found out…. I just got here twenty minutes ago…. Harrison's taken control…..”
“But Harrison's not equipped to take control,” snapped mom. “You should have stopped him.”
“But I just got here,” repeated Val, palms spread in a gesture of helplessness. “The house was already full of people….He's been waiting for you so that he can make his announcement….”
“What announcement?”
“About your mother. He wants it to be a surprise.”
“What sort of surprise? Is she going to jump out of a cake? Where's dad?”
“Harrison's locked him in his room….”
As mom ran upstairs, followed by Guy, no doubt intent on serenading my grandfather with songs about union disputes, I wandered up the hall. Approaching the kitchen, I could hear Harrison's aggrieved bellow: “Not that coffee! That coffee's specially imported. I don't have enough to go round. We have granules!” Pushing the door open, I saw Brian Mucous, surrounded by sandwiches and cookies, a cafetiere hovering over a collection of empty mugs, his pale, damp eyes apparently mesmerised by the figure gesticulating in front of him. Even though he had his back to me, I knew exactly what Harrison was doing. Whenever he tried to register incomprehension caused by what he perceived to be someone else's stupidity, he'd rub his forehead with his knuckles. It was part of a repertoire of gestures he used to impersonate normal human behaviour. Most of these, the shudders, double takes and tap dances of irritation, had been appropriated from the silent comedies he enjoyed. At moments of agitation he communicated entirely in an antiquated sign language rendered obsolete by the invention of amplified sound. The forehead rubbing was his own contribution to the lexicon of pantomimed emotions. As he suddenly turned to face me, his forehead was crimson. He looked as if he'd been cudgeled.
Harrison peered at me uncertainly. For as long as I'd known him, he'd struggled to remember my name. Every time I visited he was flummoxed by some minute alteration in my appearance. I've never known anyone, for example, to be so disorientated by something as insignificant as a trim or a new earring. On this occasion, however, he probably had cause for confusion. My face had recently been so ravaged by acne that it resembled a crime scene. As he stared at me, a half smile of embarrassment playing about his lips, I felt my face burning, though any sign of embarrassment must have been concealed by the virulent crust of adolescence.
“It's Patsy,” I said finally, before he could comment. “Your niece….”
“Of course it is,” said Harrison without conviction, before adding with acerbity, “You were supposed to be here last night. I've been left to do everything myself.” He turned to Brian and shook his head. Brian, relieved by the appearance of a new scapegoat, returned the gesture, his chewed lips prissily compressed.
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked.
“No, not with the food,” said Harrison quickly. “Hygiene's a priority…..”
“Fine,” I snapped.
“It's not your fault. I thought your mother might have pitched in a bit more enthusiastically. Where is she, anyway?”
“She's with grandpa,” I said tersely.
“For goodness sake,” said Harrison, making for the door. “She can talk to dad all she wants later.”
“Do you want me to serve the coffee or not?” Brian shouted after him. There was no response other than the momentary draft of dismissal created by the door flapping in Harrison's wake. Brian looked at my plaintively, his soggy face radiating a silent plea for empathy which, for some reason, caused a visceral urge to kick him. Simultaneously excited and alarmed by the uninvited notion of committing an assault on the shin of a fragile young man, I returned his needy smile with a viciously improvised imitation, thrusting my fiery countenance toward him, twisting my features into what I hoped was an expression of deranged pity. If I couldn't inflict physical harm upon Brian, I wanted at least to wound his feelings. When I was much younger, my mother had referred to “hurting someone's feelings” as if it was on a par with breaking their limbs. Now I wanted nothing more than to hurt Brian's. As he recoiled, I was appalled to feel my eyes brimming. I wasn't normally prone to tearfulness, but was suddenly overwhelmed by the injustice of missing out on my weekend in order to mourn a grandmother who thought me sly with an idiot uncle who wouldn't let me touch his stupid buffet in case I was infectious.
“I'm sorry for your loss,” said Brian quickly, with the spontaneity of a speak your weight machine.
“I don't care,” I bubbled, turning and pushing open the kitchen door at precisely the moment the hem of Mrs Crabbe's skirt came into contact with one of Harrison's injudiciously placed candles.