Help Me, Jacques Cousteau Read online

  “You know what it’s like?” my father says. “You go into your room and there are clothes on your bed from grade seven, laid out for you to put on. You’re supposed to get into them and walk around like a fool.” I frown at my father, waiting for him to explain what he means. He fiddles with his belt buckle.

  “That’s what it’s like to come here,” he says.

  The two of them go out in the early morning, Dad and Uncle Castor. They walk into the woods with rifles. While they are gone, animals rush out from the trees, a skunk, a deer, the brown rabbit. They stop on the gravel driveway and pant. After a while they make their slow way back into the dark woods. Later my uncle emerges with my father following. They say they didn’t find anything, that they just sat on a large rock and discussed my father’s future. By the way my father is standing, the wild look in his eyes, I guess this is true. But later a neighbour comes round and says his dog was grazed by a bullet. The neighbour is chased away by Castor, who follows him halfway down the lane. The rabbit hops slowly after them both, looking for attention.

  My mother figures in all of this too, being under constant pressure to cook. Aunt Netty (whose name Castor will not allow spoken) is gone, so some woman must cook. My mother flatly refuses to cook for my uncle, and so we three sit down to a meal while he rages around the house, cursing. Once he points his rifle at me and threatens to shoot me. I keep my head down, keep eating. My mother acts like she doesn’t even hear him, as if he doesn’t exist. Eventually he gives up and makes himself some soup and comes to sit with us, slurping loudly, as if nothing has happened.

  My mother pours me a bath. She says: “He just wants people to know he’s alive, that’s all.”

  “I know he’s alive.”

  “Everyone’s the same, Hazel. Everyone wants things to go their way.”

  She leaves me alone in the wide, cold bathroom, vines coming in the window, small black and white tiles on the floor, and steam coming up everywhere. I decide that I too want things to go my way, but I will never treat my children the way Castor treats my dad. I don’t know it yet, but I have a little brother on the way, and despite my good intentions, I will torment him in my own way.

  One night, the adults turn the stereo on and let all the lights in the house burn. My mother and my father dance out on the grass in their bathing suits and Castor sits on the stone steps and watches, flicking pebbles at them. I am upstairs in the hallway, looking out a window, and I see Castor disappear into the dark, followed by a dog. When he’s gone, my mother does a strange little dance, a belly dance, and my father leaps and twirls around. They are laughing, dancing to please each other. Then the huge shape of a white goose heaves past them, like a newspaper in the wind, followed by another and finally the dog and Castor. I stare down at the dancing flurry.

  My mother is physically fantastic. She’s long, tall, elastic. She can put her feet behind her neck. She can lie on her stomach, arch her back, and make a perfect U. Measured from fingertip to fingertip she must be six feet. Sometimes she would wrap her thighs about Dad and squeeze until he panicked and begged and struggled, like Faye Wray squished between the fingers of King Kong. When she cuddled him close to her and acted nice, he went almost crazy with desire. I suppose these are things a child shouldn’t know. But I have my own unusual abilities, and can hear a conversation through three walls. After years of listening, I have formed an odd portrait of my parents.

  Two evenings later, I have my nightmare. I have been given some crème de menthe, which looks and smells like candy but burns like fire. I had whined for a glass until my father, who was getting drunk, gave me one. It was a calm, happy night and my uncle was pulling books from the shelves, excited, trying to prove some point. My father was saying “God, no!” and rubbing his face, but he looked sleepy and content, and Castor kept exclaiming, “This is it, North, this is what I mean!”

  I sat and stared out the window at the lawn and drank my liquor. The grass outside looked like an empty stage. Castor was reading something out loud, intoning the Latin parts in a leisurely way, and my mother was twitching to get out of the room. In three sips, my drink was gone, and I went to bed pouty and uncomfortable.

  “Think about nice things,” my mother suggested. But I didn’t. I thought about where my Aunt Netty was, lost maybe, out in the night.

  In my dream the white horse gets loose from his stall and kicks at the barn door until it splinters and falls aside. He clops out onto the road and stands waiting, pale neck bowed. I hold my breath and watch helplessly as he lifts his head and sees me by the barn where I’m hiding. As he approaches, his eyes roll back and stare white at nothing. I wake with a jolt. And then I hear, in a far room, the sound of a man crying.

  My mother sits on the grass with her legs out in front of her and her elbows between them on the grass. She looks up from the paper.

  “Seventeen people fell off a ferry into the freezing water near Baffin Island, and they all lived.” My uncle notices the position she is in. He stares at her for a long time.

  “That is not natural!” he bursts out finally.

  My mother looks up. “Natural?” she says. “I’d call it good luck.”

  I wander behind the house and stand looking at the long, wilting flower beds in the garden, the brown leaves of the roses, the bald stems and heavy pink and yellow heads. The summer is getting on and I am trying not to think about school, which looms like a permanent seat at the dentist’s. A bumblebee hums through the roses, struggling from head to head, then rises up and drags itself to the next bush. I notice another bumblebee to the left, and then another and then more. The wind dies down and, all at once, I can hear hundreds of bees. For a second I see everything alive and moving at once. I can’t help liking moments like that. I had a teacher at school called Mrs. Vittie who liked to throw things when she got mad. She’d act patient for a while, then suddenly turn blood red, lose her cool, and throw something. One time she threw two chalk brushes, her shoes, books. Kids were shrieking and ducking. One moment the class was frozen, waiting for it to happen, and then everything started moving at once.

  Today is the day before we leave Castor’s and go home. My father has been in the basement rewiring the house. He tells me he can never relax in his brother’s house and so he has to find things to do. It pleases him to change things, so switches in one place are attached to light bulbs in another. The pool lights are now connected to the kitchen. The hall light’s in the one spare bedroom. As of last year, the bathroom light is somehow disconnected entirely, so we all have to go in the dark. I’ve never been scared in the dark because I can hear anything moving around, no matter how small it is. I know when I’m not alone. But my mother suffers. At night she will always take the dog. She calls it the outhouse, even though it’s indoors.

  My Uncle Castor is looking at us in a funny way. He has become sullen. I figure he is beginning to miss us, even though we haven’t gone yet, and if you asked him, he’d probably say we were freeloaders, good riddance. He stands out by the barn and feeds the horse, brushes it and digs stones from its hooves. He takes the dog to the lake and washes it with baby shampoo and throws sticks into the lake for it. The dog crashes into the water until all the soap is off. Castor seems to be taking stock of his animals. The horse, dogs, cats, rabbits. The geese and pigeons he doesn’t care about too much, but still he goes and looks at them, just looks. He bends over a goose, which stands on the lawn and goggles up at him. He shuffles his feet and the bird backs away. He stares at the spot where it has been.

  The morning we’re supposed to leave, I come down to the kitchen and look out the window that runs the length of the counter. It’s a wet morning and mist pours out of the trees onto the gravel driveway. My stomach growls. After a minute I see my Aunt Netty standing at the edge of the woods with her hands on her hips. It’s as if she’s just stepped out of the trees, but most likely, she’s walked up the long drive from the road. She looks at the house for a while, then walks briskly up the stone steps
and through the door. A little later I hear Castor howling to my father, pounding on his bedroom door as if it is Christmas Day.

  I search the fridge for something easy to eat, then I get excited about cooking something. Perhaps I can make breakfast for Netty and my parents. I have never seen anyone cook for Castor, and so the idea is alien to me. I take out the skillet and burn two eggs to black crusts before my mother comes rushing into the kitchen and takes the pan from me. Her long arms extend from the sleeves of her housecoat as if she has grown during the night.

  “She came home,” I say, and my mother laughs.

  “She certainly did.”

  “Would you ever leave Dad?” I ask, wondering if this could happen to me, my mother walking off into the woods, or rowing over the lake.

  “There are things that could make me; I won’t lie to you about it. There’s something about men and marriage that I don’t like.” She stood there for a second, thinking.

  “No,” she says and puts a plate of eggs down in front of me. “Your uncle and aunt are a whole different case. Don’t judge the world based on them.”

  I hadn’t expected all of that. I just want her to say “No.”

  A spot of light falls through the tree above me and drifts over the plate of cookies, the silver teapot, and I watch it, waiting till the rest of the table is set and we can begin. We’ve decided to stay until evening. After all, this is historic; the first tea on the lawn since Netty has been gone. In some ways it seems she never left. Already there is a pile of brambles and dead branches at one end of the lawn, with several broken aluminum chairs tossed on top. Both bathrooms have been boiled and scrubbed, and the fridge stands open, defrosting.

  Netty comes across the lawn with a plate, and Castor sits back, watching her come, and sighs. She’s dressed in a long blue sari with gold paint on it. She wears bracelets thick as pipes, and her hair is turning white, much whiter than Castor’s hair, as if she’s been shocked by what she’s seen of the world.

  “Some day,” she had whispered to me in the kitchen, “you may want to see the desert.” I looked into her grey eyes. She smelled nice and her voice was soft and mesmerizing.

  “In the Sahara,” she said, “there are sandstorms so strong you can’t breathe the air. And sometimes it rains so hard that many people drown.”

  “They drown in the desert?” I ask.

  “Oh Hazel, imagine this for a moment. Imagine that you’re sitting in a tea house, at dusk, and suddenly along come men on camels, dozens of them, beating the animals like this as they ride past you — whoosh!” She sweeps her hands past my face. “Terrifying.” She grins widely.

  I am in love with Netty. We all are, all of a sudden, in love with her.

  And today is the day we have to go home.

  Nothing can stroll quite like a horse. Its white sides show through the bushes and then it steps out onto the grass, strolling to the lake. It dips its muzzle in the water and I follow, keeping a long leg’s distance behind it, wondering how it has got loose. It drinks and shifts from hoof to hoof, stepping deeper into the water until it stands attached to its own reflection. I hear our car start up, then stall, then there is quiet again. The horse looks at me, a stream of water running off its chin, and I get a feeling I get sometimes. I wonder when we’re all of us going to disappear, go our separate ways, lose everything.

  Behind me comes a short laugh and footsteps. I turn to see my uncle come running, a wicked look on his face. The horse veers and dashes out of his way as Castor scoops me up into surprisingly strong arms and keeps on running, over the grass, me screaming, him laughing. And then the two of us shoot off the end of the dock and out over the water, our reflection like a spaceship falling to earth.

  WORSE THAN TAXI DRIVER

  ………… LIFE IS GOOD. I AM SITTING in a dim movie theatre with my father, drinking flat pop and eating licorice, and Bambi is about to come on. As soon as the movie starts, I know my father will fall asleep. The TV does the same thing to him; I think this is why he volunteers to take me to movies: so he can sleep.

  I ask him now, “Fold or rise?” and he says, “Fold.” My father and I make bets on everything, and today it’s whether the red velvety curtain will be raised fold by fold or will wheel itself into the ceiling. But I should know better. My father has brought me here before and he remembers. I give my father the thumbs up for winning as the curtain flops and thumps its dusty way up and the short cartoons begin.

  My exhausted mother is at home, lying across the double bed as if she has fallen from a plane, and my new little brother is asleep in the underwear drawer. My parents didn’t buy a crib or changing table or anything until the baby was safely born, because my mother is from a Scottish background and is extremely superstitious. In her family, no one will leave shoes on tables, or go out a different door than the one they came in, or say anything optimistic without trying to find a piece of wood to knock on. My father’s awkwardness and general optimism sometimes leave her stunned, considering the disasters she feels sure await them both.

  And who knows, maybe she’s right. Maybe the worst will happen, if you wait long enough.

  But today she is asleep, one hand extended to the underwear drawer inside which squirms and kicks a new Andrew. My parents have been pouring as much attention on me as possible, ever since the neighbour lady gave me a doll. I thanked her nicely and went upstairs with my gift. I was found later shutting the bathroom door repeatedly on its head. My mother was very pregnant at the time. She and my father just looked at me. I pulled the doll’s distorted head off and held it out to them.

  The shorts are over and my father is already passed out, his hands on autopilot holding his drink and popcorn on his knees. I take a big slurp of pop and beam up at the screen. Bambi! Excellent!

  But it’s not excellent. Right away, Bambi’s mother is shot dead by hunters. She murmurs a few survival tips to him, watches him play, and then whammo! She’s gone. And as if that’s not enough, the forest bursts into flame. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen. I stare in disbelief at the screen, my mouth hanging open, my grip on the soft drink getting tighter and tighter.

  My father told me later that he was dreaming about his brother Bishop. In this dream, Bishop stands on an ice field with the aurora borealis flicking on and off overhead like a bedroom light, and next to him is the mountainous flank of a killed whale. Bishop’s mouth opens and a strange wailing comes out. It is a horrible noise, torturing my father’s ears, and then it is joined by other voices, also wailing. In fact, most children in the theatre are in tears.

  “Christ,” my father says out loud, “why’d you bother killing it then?” At that moment, my grip causes my cup of 7-Up to cave in, and I geyser liquid over both of us. My father wakes up and staggers down the aisle with me weeping and hysterical, holding me out in front of him like a leaking bag of groceries.

  “Isn’t he a doll?” the woman shrieks. “Isn’t he an absolute doll?” She’s brought jams and baby clothes and she’s barely concealing her shock at finding the baby in the drawer. To cover up, she yells. Andrew has a towel under his head and he’s wearing plastic diaper pants and he’s looking up at the bristle brush of shapes leaning over him. I’m peering into the drawer as well, poking a finger at his feet. They look kind of comical to me, toes like corn niblets, and so does the way the baby seems to goggle at the world with his hair standing on end, as if he’s never seen the like. His wide-eyed expression, we will discover later, comes from the fact that he badly needs glasses and can’t see anything. He gawps at the shape of the lady and gives it a grin. She rings out like a doorbell about what an angel he is, and I have to leave the room.

  I whine constantly. It’s been months since I felt anything but frustration. I stand in the kitchen and complain to my mother as she is making sandwiches. She says, “If you must whine, Hazel, go and do it on the porch.”

  I’m caught in a logical bind; I can’t seem to stop whining, but she won’t let me do it around her, so
I give up and go out onto the porch. This display so impresses my mother’s friends that they go home and try it on their kids.

  Right now I’m as much fun as a rattlesnake. All my friends are away for the summer and I am alone on the street, with nothing to look forward to but the imminent arrival of my cousins. I have way too many cousins on my mother’s side, none on my father’s. This bunch all yell, their father never stops bellowing at them to shut up, and they travel in a station wagon.

  It is clear to me that my life is both a misery and a bore, and for this I blame Andrew. He’s one and a half years old now, and he’s no fun at all. At the moment, he’s only old enough to stagger around and pull things over onto himself; to shriek and then laugh at me when I jump; to throw things, with surprisingly good aim. Sometimes, I hand him a rock, then point him at other children, like a human slingshot.

  I go back inside and sit and glare at my sandwich and grumble violence and death under my breath. My brother stares at me from his high chair. His hair is standing straight up and he holds a spoon, which he has a fondness for clacking against his plastic tray. He points the spoon at me and says something pointed and garbled.

  “Holy mackinaw!” laughs my father. “He spoke French!” He looks at Mum. “We got a French baby by mistake.” My mother and I scowl, unimpressed, while the baby blows spit over the table.

  At this moment, the cousins arrive. The car door opens and the dog erupts from the car, then my cousins pour out like fish from a bucket. They thunder up the porch steps, one of my mother’s many sisters laughing her head off. Andrew squeaks at the huge black shape approaching us all. I slip around the table and try to escape out the back door but am crushed beneath the paws of the Newfoundland dog named Brigus.